#phan phic

[ablatheringblatherskite]

My Deaf!Raoul fic is finally DONE!!

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Summary:

Christine looked at Raoul’s small form again and concluded his loneliness, a sensitive nature, and a desire to be understood. While her father and the count continued to converse... Christine determined to learn this ‘language of the hands'.

THIS TOOK ME WAY TOO LONG TO FINISH BUT HEY, AT LEAST IT'S FINALLY DONE!! I hope y'all like it! I'm pretty happy with this one 🥹

I hope all those mysterious anons who kept asking about this fic actually like it 😭

Screenshot of Tumblr post from @major-knighton that inspired this fic under the cut! (EDIT: Found the original post!)

[phantomphangphucker]

Phic Phight - Ghosts And Cold Turkey Is A Bad Mix

@darthfrodophantom @datawyrms @kalifa100 @lovelyunknown @nat-space-obsessed @duchi-nesten

Jazz has a boyfriend. Jazz has a boyfriend who has NOT met her family. Jazz has a boyfriend who has not met her family and knows absolutely NOTHING about her families career path. Jazz has a boyfriend who was about to have A Bad Time. Danny, Elle, and Dan were going to make sure of that in every way remotely possible… short of world ending calamity.

Alright, so Jazz probably should have actually talked to Bassel about her family, preferably before he had decided that he absolutely had to finally met her family. It was spring break so she couldn’t exactly push it off till later, or long enough to explain anything really, so he was officially going in ‘cold turkey’. Had she mentioned that her family was weird? Of course, that was unavoidable. But she’s fairly certain he thought that ‘weird’ meant being really into fishing or made crochet baby dolls, not everything ghosts. And now that they’re on the road she’s fairly certain that telling the driver that ghosts are ‘the family business’ is a bad idea; it would not be good if he were to drive off of the road in shock.

Bassel chuckling, “so am I going to get regaled with stories about weird birds they’ve seen bird watching or the last obscure B list bird horror flic?”.

Jazz laughing awkwardly, “you have not idea. No idea at all…”.

Unfortunately Jazz was unaware of one simple fact, it wasn’t just her and her plus one who was coming to visit for the break….

Jack beams as a clawed hand crams itself through the seam in the Fenton Ghost Portal™, turning his head to the stairs, “Danny! Your kid’s are here!”.

“AWESOME! WE’RE MAKING COOKIES TO PACIFY THE GREMLIN! SEND ‘EM UP!”.

Sweet! Cookies! Yum. Jack turning back to the portal as the doors slam open loudly and threateningly, Jack chuckling to himself, that man was always such a drama queen. Watching the tall full ghost step through the now open portal, a little sister sitting perched on his shoulders. The little missy waving wildly at her grandpa, “hiyya gramps!”.

The flaming-haired full ghost scoffing, “Yeah yeah, whatever”.

Jack grinning and jumping up, moving to hug the two, the elder of the two stiffening and just ‘putting up with’ the hugging, “glad you kiddos could make it!”, ruffling the littler one’s hair, “there’s cookies”.

“Hell yeah!”, and she’s off like a rocket, flying up the stairs.

Jack eyes the full ghost, “beat any other ghosts down lately?”.

The man snorts, “obviously. Not that any of them were much of a fight”, grinning meanly, all fang, “the gorffens were deliciously squishie though”. Jack laughing as the two large men head upstairs.

Danny’s grinning his head off watching Elle devouring at least fifth-teen ghost-shaped cookies. Waving at Dan as he comes up behind Jack, “there’s pure ecto-cookies too, Mr. Can’t Eat Mortal Realm Food”. The full ghost scowls and flips him off but absolutely takes a couple of the overly green person-shaped cookies. Ha. The human cookies were ghost shaped and the ghost cookies were human shaped.

“Whatever, mom”.

Danny absolutely scowls at that, chucking a cookie at the ghost. While Maddie hums, eyeing them all, “Jazz will be coming by too”.

“Oh? When?”

“Any moment now, I believe”.

“I am in pj’s!”.

Dan snorts, “you look like a dumbass no matter what you’re wearing”. That gets him immediately blasted in the face with a small ecto-beam, the ghost only grinning viscously in response; Danny zipping up through the ceiling to get changed. Mom seriously couldn’t have told him sooner? Gosh! He had a new ugly ass sweater with a stupid ghost joke on it to show off!

The knots in Jazz’s stomach could kill her if they became ghosts right about now, as Bassel pulls them up into her drive way. He nearly rams into the house actually, having been staring at the ops centre on the roof, “uh, okay, spaceship on the roof is slightly more out there than I was expecting?”, looking to her, “and do they run their business from their house? Hence the sign?”.

Jazz laughs awkwardly, “they have permits for it… that they got after building it”.

He shrugs, “I can admire the guts”, and patting her on the shoulder, “and stop being so nervous, I’m a great guy! I’m sure they’ll love me. Plus you’ve said they’re pretty easy to please”.

“Oh I’m not worried about their reaction to you, rather your reaction to them. I have mentioned they’re weird right? And that my dad’s taller than ninety-one percent of the human population?”.

“… you did not mention the height, damn that’s impressive, he’s the one with the personality of a puppy, right?”.

She gives him a supportive back pat before they get out and head to the front door, “yes, and thank everything for that. His hugs are crushing though”.

“I bet”.

The door pops open without her having to knock, meaning Danny’s up, “sup Jazz and- oh shit, you brought company. Fuck. Two seconds”, and slams the door in her face.

Bassel quirking an eyebrow, “what? Is he still in pj’s or something? That was a really ugly sweater. Pink? and green? Together? Ew”, chuckling a little, “and did it say ‘boo’ onto others as you would have others ‘boo’ unto you? Why was there an image of a ghost aggressively holding out a loaf of garlic bread?”.

She snorts, even if she’s honestly confused, “oh no, he always makes sure to wear something really unpleasant to look at when he knows I’m visiting. I believe it’s born from a sick, though harmless, degree of sadism”, frowning, “though I’m not sure why he just rudely slammed the door in our faces”.

And then she hears the cackle, the loud deep malicious cackle, officially realising that she… might have fucked up. Just a little bit. Sighing and facepalming, “oh no”. The couple standing there as seemingly a shouting match goes on inside.

“GET CHANGED YOU DIPSHIT!”

“YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO! MOM!”.

“I WILL END YOU!”.

“GO AHEAD AND TRY!”.

“Are they gonna want these cookies or?”.

“DON’T YOU DARE! Yes, gumdrop, leave them some. HEY DROP THAT! DROP THAT NOW!”… “EW!”.

“HA!”.

“DAN!-”.

Then the door jerks open very aggressively, and Jazz and Bassel stare up at the giant of a man with too sharp eyes and a feral unkind grin, “so you bagged someone, eh? Need someone to beat him through the wringer?”, and moves to grab Bassel’s arm; who thankfully has the common sense to pull away while staring almost disturbed at the man.

Jazz grabbing Dan’s wrist and holding him, glaring at the semi-reformed mass murderer/genocidal, parricidal, infanticidal, amicicidal, omnicidal, deicidal, ecocidal, mundicidal, psychopath. “Don’t even think about, Dan”.

“Aw but Jazzy-”.

She points a finger in his face, “no. Bad. No trying to physically fight my boyfriend”.

Then Dan’s head gets yanked back, Danny grasping the man’s ponytail, “get back in here, you shit”. The door closing again.

Jazz turns and winces at Bassel’s freaked out expression, “alright so, I didn’t know Dan was going to be here. I would have absolutely said no, if I’d known that”.

“Should I be worried?”; he looked extremely worried.

Jazz grimacing, “he’s… on parole, for, well, for murder so, yes”, grabbing Bassel’s wrist, “well we’re here now, just, don’t go anywhere with him alone. He’s also a prankster”.

Bassel almost squawking, “Murder?!?!”, as she drags him through the threshold into the Fenton household.

They get smacked with the noise immediately, she still doesn’t get how her parents managed to make a semi-sound barrier for inside the house that worked even when doors or windows were open… even if it didn’t always work well with ghosts or half ghosts. Danny is ramming cookies into Dan’s face while standing on his shoulders and snarling, Dan attempting to yank him off. Elle is bouncing around on all fours playing with cujo, who’s vibrating with excitement literally. Dad is laughing, head on the table, and slamming a fist on it repeatedly; a chair falls over. And Mom’s set the stove on fire and is smacking it leisurely with that fire-proof ghost net; the Fenton Flamo-Containo she thinks.

Jazz rolling up her sleeves, sighing, and moving over to her mom, “what did you burn, mom?”; and starts properly smothering the flames… the flames have faces and eyeballs.

This was a mistake. This entire trip was a mistake. Her poor boyfriend.

Bassel blinks, gives himself a fortifying shake, and swallows, “hi? Um, I’m Bassel?”.

The smallest one is on him in a second, it’s freaky. Her chirping up at him, “why did you say that like a question? Are you a question? If I question you will you become a sentient question mark?”.

What? Her eyes are way too big and her skin is smooth. It’s… very strange. Then she’s being picked up by the smaller boy- the teenager, that he didn’t even hear approach. “Elle-”. That was strangely chastising to hear from a teen. “-no giving people existential crises”.

“Are question edible?”.

The teen quirks an eyebrow, “I mean probably? if you write them on a piece of paper?”.

“If I write them on apples and pelt doctors with them do you think they’ll anwser my questions without poking me?”

“Eh fuck it, give it a go. Tell me if it works”. Then the teen looks up to Bassel, “sup, I’m Danny, the little brother”.

Bassel nods awkwardly, this kid… was seriously off. His skin was too smooth too, eyes not right and dangerous, his hair seemed… darker than black. The hell is he looking at? “Uh. Bassel? I already said that though. Um, I’m guessing the girls the youngest sibling?”.

She pops out around Danny’s leg, “I’m the granddaughter actually”. Danny snorting, “grand-gremlin is more like it”. She bites the teen… does she have fangs???

Bassel blinks harshly, pointing at the… murderer, “his kid? I take it?”. And now that he’s looking, what the hell is up with how similar they all look???

Dan barks out a laugh, shaking his face off like a dog so hard pieces of green? cookie physically stab into the walls and cupboards, “that shit stain is moms kid, not mine! Holy shit!”.

Danny snapping his head to Dan and pointing aggressively at him, “you”, shrugging and changing tones so fast Bassel nearly gets whiplash, “would have absolute nightmare kids and I would cry if your dumbass is the one to make a grandpa of me. Fuck you”.

Bassel is… very confused.

Mrs. Fenton shouting, “and I don’t want to be a great-grandma! Thank you very much!”, and coming over, Jazz looking to be scowling down at the stove, “hello, I’m doctor Maddie Fenton, feel free to just call me Maddie though”, swatting him on the arm, “none of that Mrs. or Dr. stuff”.

Danny pouting at her, “hey, why does Val still have to call you Mrs then?”.

“Because you two are still teens mister”.

The teen only pouts more…. His eyes look far too glass-like, like he’s a doll. Bassel kind of wants to be no where near him. Eyeing Jazz’s mom, the… hazmat is extremely concerning, maybe he should have asked more about what her parents did for a living? or their hobbies? “You have a doctorate?”.

The woman grinning, “that’s right! Primarily in ecto-ology and clinical laboratory science. but also criminology and medical science. My husband, Jack has doctorates in ecto-ology and clinical laboratory science as well, public health, chemistry, and practical theology”, turning away to eye Jazz, “the Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”.

“For the millionth time, mom, I’m still not studying ecto-ology; spectral psychology is completely different and that isn’t even my primary field of study”.

Bassel blinks, okay he knew she said her parents were smart but damn. But… ecto-ology? Really? A pseudoscience? Taking that in conjunction with practical theology made some sense, many religions believed in sprits after all, but with medical degrees? With actual scientific degrees? He’d thought Jazz’s spectral psych was a bit odd, especially with the rumours she talked to ghosts which he brushed off, but at least it made sense since she wanted to be a therapist. Many people can use religion and the belief in spirits to help heal after all. “Ecto-ology huh? As your primary? Interesting choice”.

Then Jazz’s dad is on him in an instant, not inhumanely like Danny had been but to see someone so massive move so fast was jarring, “oh! Did Jazzypants not tell you!”, slapping a hand to his chest proudly, “the Fenton’s are a family of ghost hunters!”.

What.

Maddie eyes her daughter, “Jazz”. While Dan out right cackles evilly and Danny wheezes, hands on his knees, “Jazz you dumbass!”.

Bassel blinks harshly, “ghost… hunters?”, o-kay that was… a lot weirder than he expected. Her parents believed… in ghosts and claimed to ‘hunt’ them. No wonder his girlfriend wanted to study psychology, her parents were delusional.

Jazz can tell that her boyfriend absolutely thinks her parents are insane now. Danny eyeing the guy before wheezing more tells her he’s noticed too, walking over to her and patting her on the arm, “he doesn’t believe in ghosts, does he”.

She sighs, “I… don’t think so”.

“HA!”. Oh Dan was just eating this up.

Elle running over with cujo, holding the pup up at Bassel’s face, he looks like he barely resists recoiling, “pet the ghost pup and believe”.

“Why is he green?”.

“Because he’s dead! Dummy!”.

“What”. Then cujo is in his arms, his face is horrified, but he does cautiously pat cujo’s belly. Him stiffening and staring as the dog floats up and starts walking on the ceiling; Elle giggling.

Danny slinking over to the guy while Maddie tries to swat the dog off the ceiling, “yeah, welcome to Amity, famously the most haunted city in the world. And yes, your girlfriend’s parents are the leading ghost scientist of the entire world and sell ghost weapons to the government and general public”, doing jazz hands, “surprise!”.

Bassel hasn’t even made it past the entry way, Jazz feels like an ass for letting him go into this blind. Her shoving Danny away, “don’t be mean”, eyeing Bassel, who’s wide-eyed, “yeah sorry? I did tell you they were weird”.

Bassel eyes Dan standing on the table to pin a fucking green floating dog to the ceiling. Maddie’s holding a strange taser, that has green electricity, threatening the dog; Danny’s dangling off of her arm shrieking about leaving his pup alone and how if anyone’s going to get tased it should be him. Looking back to Jazz, “by weird you mean insane? I’d question the ghosts thing but there’s a floating green dog on the ceiling. Hell, I’m almost questioning my own sanity”.

Jack laughs, rubbing his neck, “oh yeah! We get that a lot! But hey! People stop calling you crazy once they get attacked by a talking five foot tall hornet or a town gets sucked into another dimension!”.

Jazz huffing, “you guys just will not let me live down that stupid hornet, will you”.

Danny shouting, “technically it was a shapeshifting old man! Not a hornet!”, as he runs out of the room with cujo in tow.

Maddie following with the taser, “Danny! he needs to be punished when he does that!”.

“No! Never! Kiss my dead ass!”.

Bassel blinking, “your… brother swears a lot, and wait did he claim to be Dan’s mom? What? I’m sitting down”.

Jazz wincing, “don’t sit on the orange chair, it screams sometimes”. He squeaks an ‘okay’ and sits on the purple couch rubbing his temples; Jazz plopping down beside him.

Dan shouting, “Is anyone gonna eat the ecto-wienies!?!”, from the kitchen.

Jazz scowling to herself before shouting back, “Dan don’t! I dont want Bassel passing out!”.

“That’s the point!”.

She throws her hands up dramatically in fur-station, at least her dad rushes off to stop Dan from consuming screaming hot dogs while their guest adjusts to his new reality.

Bassel groaning, “and why would I pass out?”.

… “They scream too. It’s… pretty freaky to see someone eating squirming screaming hotdogs if you’re not prepared for it”.

“And why do your parents have hotdogs that do that and how even?”.

Jazz shakes her head, “they might have studied clinical laboratory science but they absolutely do not practice good lab safety or sample safety. Things get contaminated accidentally a lot”.

“And that… makes hotdogs able to move and scream?”.

“That about sums it up, yeah”.

“What the actual fuck, babe”.

Then Dan pops over, arms crossed, “thanks Jazz, now gramps has confiscated all my food”.

Jazz pointing at him as he flops down on the same couch as them hard enough to make the couch bounce, “good and could you sit down any harder?”.

“I was aiming to knock you two love birds off”.

“Zone you are such a jerk”.

“I aim to displease”.

Bassel makes an aggressive motion with his hands, not looking at either of them, “okay what the fuck. First how did that not break the couch? Two how is a teen boy mom? And what is wrong with this town and house?”.

Dan snorts and Jazz knows she’s going to hate what comes out his mouth, him eyeing her, “should I tell him there’s a portal to the afterlife in the basement, or should you?”. She slaps him immediately, wincing from the definite sprained wrist she just gave herself; stupid full ghost jerk. He sticks his tongue out at her and she wants to slap him again; at least his tongue isn't forked at the moment.

Jack pops back in carrying Elle by the waist, her arms and legs dangling down as she giggles, “you good, Jazzy?”.

Dan chuckling, “no. She regrets not warning a certain someone”, putting a hand to his chest, “I fully support that fucking chaotic choice”.

Jazz scowling, “you just enjoy seeing people suffer”.

“Hey, if I’m not allowed to kill folks anymore I gotta get my kicks somewhere? Or would you rather I start skinning animals and leaving their flesh hanging from trees?”. Dan gets bashed off the couch by a baseball bat wielding Danny. “Ow! Seriously mom?”.

“Threaten to skin animals for the lols again and I’ll sic Sam on you”.

Dan puts his hands up, “I’ll pass, you kill joy”.

“Good”.

Bassel gags and makes a face at Jazz, gesturing his hands at Dan as Danny smacks him with the baseball bat again, “what”.

“He’s… got a twisted sense of humour?”.

“Not that!”, Bassel shaking his head, “well yes that, what is wrong with that man. But I mean the mom thing?”.

Jazz eyeballs the full ghost, “Dan’s a tough subject, let’s just say a lot of really nasty things happened to him and at least one psychotic break. And he calls Danny ‘mom’ mostly to annoy him”.

“Oh that’s a lot less weird-”.

“Danny kinda is his mom though”.

Basel groans.

Elle pops her head over the couch, somehow escaping Jack’s grasp, “Danny’s uncle is a mad scientist who has no issue dabbling in super evil human experimentation, Dan and me were tots made from Danny via fucked up science and suffering! Hooray for causing mass confusion!”.

Bassel glancing from the small girl to his girlfriend, “seriously?”.

Jazz sighing, “yeah, sorry. Technically that man’s mine and Danny’s god father, not uncle, but Danny likes to bug the man. Vlad… needs so much therapy”.

Danny shouting, “at least he’s got a cat now! Even if he did name her after mom”; while Dan snags the baseball bat and pops Danny on the head with it. Danny bites the baseball bat.

Bassel shakes his head, “so you weren’t kidding about being somewhat related to one of the richest men on the planet, and he’s basically a crazy super villain; great”.

Jack rubs his neck, “unfortunately yeah, I kinda blew up a proto-portal in his face and he didn’t take that well”.

Jazz puts her hands on her hips, leaning forwards a little, “dad, you guys didn’t visit him in hospital even once, for seven years. Of course he didn’t take that well”.

Danny popping out from behind Jack, “he still complains about that, by the by. I dumped get well soon cards on him last time he was whining about it. Asked him if that made up for it, he shouted no and shot me in the foot”.

Jazz shaking her head, “I still don’t get how you two ever get along”.

“Hey, arch enemies gotta have some bonding time sometimes. Plus, he’s got the good liquor and will absolutely try to bribe me with expensive gifts”.

“And I keep telling you that’s unhealthy and you’re only encouraging him”.

Dan chuckling, “let him, who knows, maybe I’ll get another gremlin sibling”.

Basically everyone, even Bassel, shouting, “NO!”.

Maddie getting back towards the kitchen, and bring out what remains of the ghost-shaped cookies, “cookie?”, offering them to Bassel.

… “are they going to start screaming?”.

Maddie blushing immediately, Jazz covering her mouth and laughing, “no. No. Only things that were once alive tend to do that. Baked goods are fine”, eyeing the cookies, “and they’re not green so they’re safe for human consumption”.

He takes a cookie and munches it very cautiously, “and the green ones?”.

Jazz grimacing, “definitely not safe for human consumption”.

Elle nodding, still behind the couch, “those are for us Phantom’s”. Meaning that now Jazz knows Bassel’s basically going to have to deal with finding out her brother and said brothers kids are all varying degrees of dead.

Bassel eyeing the small child, “do I even want to know?”.

Elle gives a cheery, “nope!”.

Oh okay, maybe her, and thusly Bassel, can dodge that whole situation. Jazz absolutely glares daggers at Dan to say nothing. The man grins evilly but remains silent, thank zone for that.

Bassel taking a breath and slapping his legs before standing up, “okay. Alright. You lot are stranger than I expected but I really like Jazz so I’ll deal”.

Maddie looks relieved but Jack booms, “awesome! You seem like a good guy!”, and smacks Bassel so hard on the back that he gets smacked into the floor and knocked out. Dan’s bending over wheeze laughing, Elle’s floated up into the air curled up and laughing, Danny’s run over to try and help the man while also laughing, and Jazz is shaking a finger at her dad angrily.

Maddie sighs, face in a hand, “Jack”; while Danny’s hoisting Bassel up and back onto the couch, smacking his cheeks to get him to come ‘round.

When Bassel comes to he nearly screams, that Danny boy’s face is inches from his own and he’s crouched on Bassel’s chest. How much did this kid weigh??? And damn were his eyes still extremely creepy. At least he’s clued in what was wrong with him, he was uncanny, like he wasn’t quite human but close enough that it was very wrong in that base instinctual way. The teen grins, it’s like his teeth don’t fit in his mouth and the smile is just a hair too wide. “Cool, you’re awake. Was starting to wonder. Dad smacked you into the floor by accident, if you don’t brace yourself when he goes in for back pats then you’ll wind up on the floor”, titling his head owlishly, “lesson learned?”.

Bassel nodding at the kid that hasn’t moved his face out of Bassel’s, “um, yeah?”, frowning, “your guy’s dad is freakishly strong, you know that?”. The boy just shrugs before hopping off Bassel’s chest, letting him sit up and rub his head a little. “Do your parents always wear the hazmats?”.

Danny chuckles, “yup, and they will still claim they are stylish”, rolling his wrist, “they try to get me and Jazz in ‘em all the time. But hey, I’ll stick to wearing that kinda bullshit when I’m dead”.

Jazz’s head pops out of the kitchen entryway, “oh good, you’re up. You up for pie? There’s eight for some reason”.

“Are… they all the same kind?”.

“Sadly, yes”.

Even he can admit that was sad, variety was nice. But Danny pouts at her, “hey, I’m not about to discourage my personal wannabe poacher just because he doesn’t have a single creative bone in his entire metal mecha suit”. What the hell was any of that supposed to mean? This kid was probably one of the most confusing people Bassel’s ever met, Elle being a close second.

“You could at least try to convince him to try lime cream instead of him shoving lemon cream at you three times a year”.

Bassel holds up a hand, “how old are these pies?”. His girlfriend blinks like that hadn’t even crossed her mind… she might be too used to this level of strange perhaps.

Danny waving him off, “oh I helped him find a solid anniversary gift for his girlfriend, which fine was extremely explosive but eh, so he went a little pie happy. They’re two days old”.

“Oh alright, I’ll have some then”; two days wasn’t even weird. That many pies was odd and how he got them was bizarre, but not as bad as a dog walking on the ceiling or Dan-the-psycho talking about skinning animals like it was funny. Him and Danny joining everyone in the kitchen proper finally. The stove is charred from top to bottom, fires were clearly common. The fridge… was glowing? The toaster looks like it’s definitely some kind of project and not safe to use at all. The table is clean at least, besides the cookie crumbs and excessive amount of pies.

Said pie is extremely good, like professional good. Bassel blinking at it, “damn that’s good”.

Danny chirping, like actually chirping, “I know right?”; how does a human mouth make that sound???

“Then why isn’t… Dan eating any?”; maybe evil or not…

Dan flips Bassel off, grabs a slice and proceeds to hurl it at him; Bassel barely ducking in time while Jazz, Maddie, and Danny all shout, ‘NO!’. Elle is giggling though and Bassel would bet money that’s encouraging the man. Danny smashes an entire pie right in Dan’s face in retaliation, Elle smashing a slice on Danny’s head; it just devolves into a full on pie food fight from there.

Jazz crouch walking to avoid splatter while Maddie shoos the three outside with a broom, Jack following while shouting about getting the hose. Jazz putting a hand on his arm, “you good”.

“What twenty something starts a food fight!”, shaking his head, “better than throwing a knife at me I guess”.

“He usually only throws knives at Danny”.

She said that like it was normal! And not at all disturbing or something to be worried about! “He actually throws knives at people!”.

She winces like she just now realised that wasn’t okay, “right. Don’t worry about it, he might make a lot of threats or do threatening stuff but he’s heavily against going back into solitary confinement”, her huffing, “which I still think was cruel, deprivation chambers are one hundred percent a form of torture and no one deserves that”.

“What kind of jail has a freaking deprivation chamber, oh my god”. No wonder that man seemed like he had the socialization skills of a very threatening murderous brick wall.

The two stand up and they can see the three ‘Phantom’s -he’s still confused on that one but too scared to ask- getting hosed off in the front yard by Maddie; Jack’s helping by physically holding Dan up in the air and laughing. What??? Bassel blinks, “no one should be able to lift that beast of a man up like that”.

And then there’s an explosion, Bassel jerking around and Jazz just turning causally to watch purple smoke leak out from what’s labeled as a lab door. Her grabbing him with a quick, “nope”, and dragging him outside.

“What was that?”.

“Don’t know, but I’m not taking the chance that whatever their latest project is is noxious”, then shouting at her mom, “mom! Something blew up in the lab and it’s leaking purple gas!”.

Bassel very strictly remembers her not long ago mentioning that her parents weren’t big on lab safety, noxious though? These people were completely nuts. His nice, level headed, kind, smart, cautious Jazz came from this??? Yes she could be a little neurotic, especially about food and sharps saftey which he absolutely understood now, and she was a little… spooky sometimes. But still! He still didn’t believe her hair was really that orange without her dying it, even if he’d never seen proof of her doing so. And she always had on some black tourmaline or turquoise that she claimed was ‘protection’, he just thought she was being a little spiritual, now it seemed more like this ghost thing.

Danny shakes his wet hair off like a feral dog, “that’s probably my lunch!”.

Jazz throwing her hands up, “why is it leaking purple gas!”. Bassel muttering, “I think it exploding is more concerning than that”. Jazz shaking her head at him, “Danny’s favourite local restaurant has highly explosive trade marked sauce”.

“What!?!”. How was that even legal?

Danny pointing a finger at Jazz’s face as he moves to head inside to… ‘rescue’ his food, “hey, you haven’t had real food till you’ve had a Mighty Meaty Mega Nasty Melt and Phantomized Fries”, shrugging, “and I was trying to make blackened ecto-wine infused bread, for sandwiches”.

Jazz makes a face at the boys retreating back, “ew”.

Bassel blinking, “did, did this restaurant really name a menu item ‘Nasty Melt’?”. He’s revising his previous opinion, this entire town was nuts; not just these people.

Elle, very wet, bounds over, “yup! It’s called the Nasty Burger, used to be Tasty burger but someone vandalized it and there was a vote to just keep the N”, grinning, “I think it’s funny, the sauce is to die for”.

Jazz cringing, “oh no not the death jokes, at least spare my boyfriend those, ugh”. The little girl sticks her tongue out and pouts a little before running back inside at the pies. Jazz going wide-eyed and following with a shout, “oh no you better not! Mom just got you cleaned up! You put that pie down missy!”.

Bassel cautiously sticking his head in, cautious of both fumes and pie, to stare at his girlfriend holding a literal child at gun point while the child menacingly holds a pie over her own head. “um, why are you threatening a child with a gun”.

She brushes him off like this isn’t messed up, “it’s fine, there’s no normal guns in this household”. What does that even mean? Ghost guns? Is that what this is? Is that why it’s slightly glowing green!

Then Dan scares the crap out of him, speaking up from directly behind him, “I wouldn’t worry about it, she’s a terrible shot anyway. She could put a gun directly against someone’s temple and still hit a cars side mirror instead”.

“I’ve gotten better!”.

“No you have not, you managed to shoot a fire hydrant and set it on fire last time; I was impressed”.

“Shut up, Dan”.

“No I don’t think I will”.

At least Danny, who somehow got behind Elle, takes the pie from the girl and wags a finger at her, “repeat chaos isn’t chaos, it’s a pattern”.

“What if I cut off one of my hands, put it in the pie, then smack her with it? Then it would be a pie high five, not a food fight”.

Danny blinks, “I’m stealing that idea for the next time the Lunch Lady throws flaming stoves at me”.

Bassel… Bassel is not questioning that. “Kid, your mind must be a very strange place”. Sure little kids always said odd stuff, things adults wouldn’t even dream of, but this was a special brand of odd.

Dan shoving his way past Bassel, nearly knocking the guy over and giving him some major hebejebes, to go pat Elle on the head in amusement. Maddie steadying him, “you okay? And at least she’s not as bad as Danny used to be”, crossing her arms and shaking her head, “he thought blackbird pie meant to actually find birds and bake a pie with them. It was incredibly disgusting, especially because he didn’t know how to use an oven yet so he maxed out its temp for three hours”.

Oh okay, so Danny was just like that too. What was that about apples and trees? “That… probably could have gone even worse”. The teen, then kid, could have burned the house down!

The woman grumbled, “at least he’s never sucked the house into the mirror dimension, unlike someone”, as she heads in to help Jazz, Danny, Dan, and Elle actually clean up the pie mess. Jack shouting, “I said I was sorry about that!”. Danny shouting back, “at least no one’s pulled a Technus and walked the house into the ocean!”; while Bassel is wondering how the heck the eldest Fenton heard his wife’s grumbling from the other side of the yard.

There was something seriously physically off with all these people. Including Jazz. He’s feeling very distinctly reminded of a lot of things he’s just sort of brushed off or thought nothing of about her before. He used to think a lot about how vibrant her eyes were, or that her teeth were a touch sharp; nothing like the ‘Phantom’s but still. She was amazing at lock picking and could handle ‘practice’ patients others couldn’t; even if she would also ‘force’ therapy on random people sometimes. And eyeing her parents, they’re the same. Intense eyes, oddly pale almost glassy skin, teeth that feel like they’re sharp but aren’t; it’s not uncanny the way those three ‘Phantom’s were, but it’s still odd.

Dan was the worst though, easily, when the man brushed past him it felt like being cornered by massive wolf or mountain lion. If Bassel had ran into that man randomly on the street there’s no way he’d think he was anything close to human. Danny and Elle at least seemed humanish, almost human; Dan just seemed like he was playing pretend.

Bassel shakes himself off before stepping back into the chaotic Fenton household, “am I going to get pie thrown at me again?”.

Danny looks at him, “nope”, then glares at Elle, “or someone’s losing her Switch privileges”; the girl gasps in horror.

See that? That was normal. Normal punishment, normal reaction to a punishment. Perfectly normal. … Then the girl threatens to ‘liquify herself in protest’; goodbye normal, it was nice while it lasted. Either way he moves to help clean up pie a little, speaking back up, “so your bread fine?”.

“It ate itself and imploded, so no”. What. The boy grins cheerily, right too many teeth, “which means it must have tasted good, meaning I’m on to something”.

“I? Guess?”. He’s honestly just trying not to stare at the teens teeth.

…

They somehow do actually make it to the living room to watch a movie. It actually is a weird B list bird horror flic, which feels too normal now and that frankly concerns him. He’s not sure he wants the get used to this level of insanity. He loves Jazz but he is fully intending to potentially never step foot in this building again after this. How was he going to survive here for a week??? Blinking, oh right, elbowing Jazz and whispering, “hey, all the luggage is still in the car right?”. Then Dan scares the crap outta him again, “don’t bother whispering, I can still hear you”. Jazz grabs a random round thing from the floor to smack the man with for that.

Jazz leaning against Bassel again, “the longer we leave it in the car the longer it’ll take to get contaminated or destroyed, I told you not to bring your expensive computer ‘just in case you had time’ for a reason”.

Considering the amount of mess and literal exploding/imploding -again, what???- bread, he could understand that sentiment; oh and the actual guns apparently just lying around. He is very glad he listened to her, that laptop was never setting an inch of its metal casing in this building. He winces, “yeah, thanks for that”. She pats him fondly.

Danny straightens out so fast that it aggressively startles Bassel. “Oh! Think I should invite Val?”, eyeing Jazz smugly, “since someone brought their little lover”.

Jazz scowls at him, “Danny, I think Basel having to put up with my very weird family including the two weirdest members, is more than enough without adding in your trigger happy girlfriend with serious anger management issues. Especially because I know for a fact she won’t agree to leave all her weapons at home”.

Danny looks offended, putting a hand to his chest and paying no mind to the bird-related massacre happening on screen, “I’ll have you know she doesn’t even sleep unarmed, she hasn’t been unarmed since she was fourteen”.

“Exactly”.

You know what? Bassel thinks that actually makes sense. Danny was too strange to date someone remotely normal. “I’m not even surprised, you’re a little too freaky to date someone who’s just, you know, an average person. So sure, date an aspiring cop or whatever”.

Danny snaps and finger guns at him, “think more like nanobot powered teenage ghost hunter with a jet sled”.

What. Bassel blinking, “so somehow you’re the more normal one in the relationship. This girl’s in therapy right”. Jazz actually laughs at that.

Danny screws up his face, “Ancients you sound like Jazz”, looking at her, “he sounds like you”, looking back to Bassel, “and eh, my personality has more sparkles and explosions”, tilting his head, “besides, how am I freaky, besides the gremlin energy and general chaos anyways”.

Dan snorting, “and the fact that you think dumpster chic is a good thing”.

“As if you don’t wear the same”.

“Excuse you, I lift all my clothing off of the finest of corpses”.

Bassel, and Danny for that matter, gag; Danny’s seems more mock dramatic gag though. Bassel shaking his head, “add in the fact that if someone told me you were actually a doll pretending to be human, I’d believe them”.

That gets him multiple odd looks, including from Jazz. No one bothers to pause the movie even though everyone’s attention is now on him as she quirks an eyebrow at him, “what do you mean by that? Sure my little brother can move too quietly or too quickly, and his still too skinny and pale, but I wouldn’t call him possibly inhuman looking”.

Danny points at his face, “I’m pretty sure if I looked legit freaky Dash would mock me relentlessly for it”.

Bassel is baffled, are these people just… used to him so much they don’t notice? And Dan’s just looking to the side snickering meanly, Bassel almost gets the feeling the man knows what he’s talking about. Bassel looking at each of them, “you’re telling me you guys don’t notice his skin looks like weirdly glassy play dough? Or his eyes are too big? That his teeth don’t fit in his face? He’s weighs less than a bag of potatoes!”. They all look very confused and turn to stare at Danny, who shrinks down a little awkwardly; Dan’s laughing is full on guffaws now, head tilted over the back of the chair that apparently sometimes screams. When Elle points at her own face and grins too wide, Bassel nods, “yes, you too. Less than, your uh, dad but still”, gesturing at everyone, “honestly all of you have hair that’s too strongly coloured, overly vibrant eyes, and no skin texture”, scratching his head, “I thought my girl just had a spot on skin care routine and impressive hair colouring technique that she refused to share”. Jazz fiddles with her orange hair a little, making him feel a little guilty. Bassel coughing, “not that I dislike that”. Dan barks out another loud laugh.

Jazz eventually hurling another random Bassel doesn’t know what at the man, “stop laughing! Us looking weird to normal people isn’t funny! You jerk!”.

Oh okay. So they don’t know. That was weird? Does no one in town comment on it? Does no one even notice it? Was everyone in this town that strange??? Or was everyone in town strange looking themselves?

Dan huffing another laugh, “oh it very much is! Especially because I already knew and did in fact tell you morons”, waving a hand around leisurely, “not my fault you shits thought I was just being an ass”. Bassel guesses it makes sense that the strangest and most startling looking -and feeling, frankly- one would be the one to notice.

Danny looks offended, “and how do you know this? The fuck Dan”.

The man scowls meanly, it’s very mocking, “oh I don’t know, maybe because I spent ten years travelling the globe randomly killing people? Maybe that’s it? I’m the only fucker here who’s done enough travelling to tell people find this face”, gesturing at his face and smirking, “alarming, and not just because I was usually either threatening to kill or trying to kill them”.

“What? you walked around with that face?”.

“Eh I got bored of the other one sometimes”.

Bassel is choosing to ignore part of this conversation, otherwise he’s not going to get over his girlfriend being related to what’s sounds like more ‘mass murderer’ than ‘single murderer’. Not to mention that he doesn’t want to know what is meant by the murderer having different ‘faces’. He doesn’t want to know if this man’s a real life leather face.

Elle pouts, “I travel a lot, no one tells me I look weird?”.

“Sis, you’re a kid, all little brats look fucking weird”.

The little girl giggles, earning a fond but very quick look from the large man. At least it seemed like he actually liked his family maybe.

Danny gestures at nothing and scowls at Dan, “Dan, you’re a six foot eleven wall of muscle with a face that’s default setting is evil smirk, of course people think you look scary!”.

“Oh people found me disturbing when I was wearing your skin too, mom”.

“Fuck you”.

Bassel forces himself not to ask how that’s even possible. ‘Wearing the skin’ of someone who still has their skin is impossible and not to mention the size difference, it wouldn’t fit; why is he even thinking about the logistics of this?!? Ew!

Jack scratches his head, “while I can’t say I see, I doubt you’re making stuff up”, looking at Maddie, “all the ecto you think?”.

The mother nods to herself, tapping her chin, “there’s not much else it could be, especially if our oddness is merely tamer versions of Danny’s and the grandkids”.

Bassel is lost, looking to Jazz and quirking an eyebrow. She cringes, “Danny has a very intense version of ecto-contamination”. She says that like it’s not extremely weird and concerning.

Danny chuckling, “if by that you mean I’m fucking half dead then yeah”.

Jazz swats him, “Danny! For zones sake!”.

“Hey!”, Danny sticks his arms out nearly smacking multiple people, “if I’m that freaky looking then there really isn’t a point, Jazz!”.

“I hate that you’re right!”, Jazz huffing while Bassel is officially realising that everyone just shouts at each other in this house, regardless of if they’re happy or mad or excited. Her turning to him, “my brother’s a bit dead”.

Bassel absolutely squawks at that, “what”. And then suddenly the kid’s glowing and his eyes are green, the actual hell? Elle leaning forward, sticking her tongue out and pointing at her face, also with green eyes and glowing. Bassel cautiously and slowly eyeing Dan, his eyes flash blood red and yup, glowing.

Okay. Alright. He’s in a room full of glowing people, what is he supposed to do with this? He officially thinks that anyone who has ever found out someone else wasn’t quite human in a movie was way too damn calm about it!

Jazz winces a little, she can tell her boyfriend has absolutely no idea how to react to his girlfriend's glowing family members, so she pats his shoulder, “is it weird? Yes. Am I glad my brother is only partially dead? Absolutely. Don’t worry about it?”.

He blinks owlishly at her, clearly freaked out, “it’s kinda hard not to worry about my sister having dead family members kicking around and her whole family including her being contaminated by ghost stuff enough to alter their appearances”.

Then Danny goes and opens his stupid mouth, holding up a still glowing finger, “technically, Dan’s the only one that’s totally dead. Me and Elle are still alive-ish”.

Bassel blinks again and asks something that Jazz really wishes he didn’t, “and why’s he the dead one?”, in a squeaky voice; the movie is absolutely long forgotten at this point.

Dan’s smirk is flat out evil and before anyone can stop him he responds, “oh only because I got my human shit torn out and disemboweled it. Ate half my uncle and flew off into the sunset”.

Bassel leans so far away he nearly falls off the couch, “what. The. Fuck”. While everyone else, even Elle, chastisingly shouts, “DAN FENTON!”, at the smirking full ghost. The tact on that jerk! The only tact he had was evil tact, that sought chaos and destruction!

“OoOooOOoOO, full name, I’m So HuRt. I’m So UtTeRlY aPoLoGeTiC. Truly”. The ass doesn’t mean a damn word of that and he wants them to know it. He smirks, “if we want to play that game I can just show him what I really look like”.

Danny standing up and pointing at Dan, “do that and I’m souping you”. Dan puts an offended hand to his chest and scowls deeply.

Bassel sputters, “I am never asking you people questions again, oh my god”.

Jazz can’t even blame him, even if she knows he eventually will ask more questions about, well, their everything. It was hard not to after all. She rubs his arm, “you really shouldn’t think about it too hard or worry, yes we’re used to it and know the admittedly weird science behind it”, cringing, “even if apparently only one of us was aware none of us looked normal”.

He blinks harshly, swallowing, “uh huh. You guys have a bathroom, right. Because I definitely need to decompress by staring into the mirror for a concerning length of time”.

Not good. Jazz wincing and getting up, “I’ll show you”, then pausing and eyeing Danny, “is the bathroom actually clean”.

Danny tilts his head and grimaces, also not good, “maybe don’t open the lower left cupboard”.

“Right”. Damn it, Danny. Pulling Bassel along as they head upstairs, “okay so listen to him and don’t get curious. He might have spilled something and not cleaned it so it’s gotten moldy. Or he shoved goddamn bandaging under there. Or there’s a ghost trapped in the cabinet”.

“I… kind of hate that I’m hoping it’s the first one”.

“Well considering it’s Danny, it’s probably the second. He gets injured a lot and has a non-existent biohazard safety mindset”, gesturing at the open bathroom, “anyway, here”.

… “is Danny why the shower floor looks bloodstained, wait never mind I don’t want to know”.

She gives him a supportive shoulder pat as he goes in and close the door almost hard. This… this has not gone well. At least he hasn’t ran out screaming? Yet anyways.

She heads back down stairs, pointing at Dan, “I’m blaming you, because it is your fault”, pointing at Danny, “and yours, because you somewhat made him”.

“Hey! He made himself!”.

“And he is you so my point still stands”.

“Jazz!”.

Jazz doesn’t really care that being reminded of that fact bothers her little brother, him and his off shoots have basically been terrorising her boyfriend. He should be bothered! “I am gonna be so mad at you if he decides this is too much”. At least everyone winces apologetically, except Dan who just glances away which was the closest he usually came to a ‘sorry’.

Jack rubs his neck, “sorry, Jazzy-pants. Want us to bring your guy’s stuff in?”.

She scowls, she’s not going to effectively trap her boyfriend here by doing that, “considering I don’t even know if he wants to stay here now, no dad”. Her dad winces further, good.

She sighs, flopping back down on the couch, “let’s just rewind and finish the movie. Like normal people”. Dan snorts at her and she glares bloody murder at him.

Okay. So. His girlfriend’s family are not ‘weird’, rather they are actually insane and physically impossible. Which is extremely not okay. But he likes Jazz, a whole lot actually. A ton even. She was odd but not insane or too physically impossible; and she didn’t live here, he wouldn’t have to see these people -especially Dan- often. A handful of times a year at best right now. Hell she might be annoyed enough to ban that Dan guy from being within ten feet of him; Bassel would not complain about that. Her parents at least seemed harmless, over enthusiastic and strange but acceptable. However he knew for a fact that him liking or not liking her parents didn’t mean much, she’s made it clear that she doesn’t think too highly about their opinions. Her brother though, he knows she loved that kid, sometimes she made it sound like she was more his parent than their parents were. Said brother was half freaking dead. Because apparently ghosts are a real thing and can just walk around the living like it’s nothing… and also apparently being half alive was a remotely possible thing. Also Danny, a teen, has kids. Two kids. One who’s clearly older than him and committed a likely extremely disturbing amount of murder.

Well…

They’re not Jazz’s kids. So he, maybe? won’t have to deal with them much. Jazz seemed surprised they were even here after all. Alright. Okay. He can deal with this.

That’s frankly a lie.

But he can at least manage and pretend he’s cool. Then, when they go back to uni he can have a mild freak out in his dorm room and their relationship can go back to sort of normal. He is absolutely going to ask about her ‘ecto-contamination’? later though, and if those stories about her ‘communing with ghosts’ were actually true and was she just talking to her brother or was she also talking to other ghosts.

Pushing himself off of the sink he’s been leaning on and slapping his cheeks, “you got this, man”. His reflection does not copy him.

What the actual hell is wrong with this place? Besides the apparent portal to the afterlife in the goddamn lab. How did these people break a mirrors ability to mirror? Shaking his head and pulling out his phone, okay he’s looking these people up, like he goddamn should have already.

…

Okay yeah they just are fully public with the ghost hunting thing huh? That must have been fun to grow up with. Jazz did say she tried to separate herself as much as possible from them as a teen, this is absolutely why. And apparently her brother saved an entire species of gorillas? By… climbing in one’s cage… so he’s just always been crazy and reckless, got it; but hey, at least the gorillas aren’t extinct now.

Bassel’s not surprised that looking up Elle gets him nothing, she’s a young child after all, but Dan? For a supposed murderer there isn’t even a single result about him. No wiki article, no victim impact statements, no mugshot, no public court files, no morally questionable serial killer podcasts, nothing. Weird. But he’s absolutely not asking the man about that, because he doesn’t know what kind of nightmarish response he’s going to get. Considering his age -aka, being literally older than his freaking parent- it might be some sort of time travel thing, which he mildly hates the entire notion of, especially since he’s not going to claim he knows what’s possible or not now.

After all, his reflection is still just ‘standing’ there staring at him while he’s been pacing back and forth staring at his phone. He’s not googling his girlfriend of course, that would be creepy, but what about the ‘Phantom’ thing? That… that gets a lot of results. Freaky ones.

…

So…

Apparently…

This town has a goddamn dead superhero? That’s a freaking colour inversion of Danny with green eyes and also named Danny? Which there is no way that’s ’just a coincidence’. So Jazz’s brother is kind of dead, has an ‘arch enemy’, and is almost definitely some kind of dead superhero. Cool. That’s… that’s not completely insane at all. He officially feels like he’s in a knock off marvel movie with a secret identity reveal and everything.

And oh hey! Girl in red on a jet sled, Danny’s girlfriend, also definitely a superhero. Cool. This is Hell.

… Based on all the photos and videos of full blown super powered fights this town might actually be part of hell or an afterlife full of apparently violent dead people. No wonder Jazz was leery of him so much as visiting her home town, nonetheless her parents. A google of the stats shows that these ‘ghost attacks’ happen multiple times a day and it looks like they sometimes did a concerning amount of damage. Also the mayor is that Vlad guy? The evil uncle god father arch enemy guy. Why? How even? … It was probably mind control. Oh he kind of hates this.

Also though, how the heck was this town and this whole ghosts and a death dimension situation, not known about world wide?!? If it’s some kind of government suppression of information he’s going to scream; not actually scream just… internally scream. You’d think this would be something that’s in national news, an actual real life superhero and villains, another dimension, the afterlife… Okay perhaps being super public about an after life could cause some issues among religious groups.

Then his reflection growls at him.

Nope.

He’s not dealing with that.

He’s out of the bathroom in two seconds flat, practically rushing down the stairs, wheezing. Everyone, but Dan, is on the couch again apparently finishing the bird movie; Dan is just outright nowhere to be seen which he is a-okay with. “My reflection growled at me”. Jazz buries her head in her hands, this was obviously not how she wanted this first meeting to go; it wasn’t how he wanted it to go either, but he didn’t know it going this absurdly was even possible. Meanwhile Maddie and Danny shout, “JACK!”, clearly thinking the mirror is his fault. Wasn’t something about him going to the mirror dimension mentioned earlier? or is he just starting to come up with his own crazy possibilities.

The large man runs his neck, laughing, “whoops! Must have grabbed the wrong mirror!”.

“Wrong? Mirror?”. Damn right, he said he was done asking these people to explain literally anything.

Bassel eyeballing Jazz’s dad as he gets up and begins to move upstairs, “ah yeah, Danny-boy head-butted the old one so it had to be replaced, musta got the new mirror and the dimensional mirror mixed up!”.

Why is this kid head-butting mirrors and why does this family just have a ‘dimensional mirror’? Ugh, Bassel’s poor head. Jazz apparently has these same questions, or one of them at least, as well as the willingness to ask it. “Little brother? Why were head-butting the mirror? Young Blood isn’t trying to give you another nervous breakdown, is he?”; Bassel can practically feel the worry in her voice.

Danny scowls dramatically, “I’m fine, Jazz. No need to psycho babble me, Ancients. Skulker just decided that tooth brushing time was good head shooting time, I confiscated his right arm for that and he didn’t get it back for three days”, the kid looks proud of himself, “he hasn’t attacked me in the bathroom since”.

Bassel blinks, slightly horrified, Danny what? stole some… ghosts arm? as punishment? “Uh, I’m pretty sure a supposed superhero teen is not supposed to go around stealing people’s limbs”. Jazz groans very loudly and very tiredly.

Danny laughs, “oh! You looked me up huh? Don’t worry, I only took his mecha bodysuits arm, not his actual real arm”.

That’s… stranger but better. Then Elle pipes up, “even if he had it wouldn’t matter! See-”.

“NO!”.

Bassel is not going to ask why Danny just grabbed both of her wrists and glared at her. He has absolutely learned that if someone, or everyone, shouts ‘NO’ at someone else then he absolutely did not want to know why. Instead he watches his girlfriend get up and smile very awkwardly at him, he’s unpleasantly aware of the fact that her teeth were probably whiter than they should be, “you okay? Are we good?”.

“Absolutely not, but yes, yes we’re alright. I am absolutely not visiting here frequently though. And if Dan ever shows up anywhere near my dorm I’m hitting him with a frying pan immediately”.

She actually chuckles at that, “that’s fair, I tried to shoot him when we first met and tried to hit him with the creep stick the second time”. He’s not going to ask what a creep stick is, but he’s glad she had the sense to hit someone who’s clearly dangerous. “But call if he does do something that stupid, which he shouldn’t if he knows what’s good for him. He will only laugh if you hit him with a frying pan”.

Maddie shaking her head and getting up, “I’ve done that a time or two, he has a habit of trying to sneak food or add poisons just to see if he can get away with it”. Bassel doesn’t have words to express how concerning that is. “And I’m sorry this hasn’t been the best impression, it’s also unfortunately not the worst either though”. Oh. This could be worse? How? Blowing up the house? Hospitalising him? Probably!

Elle sticks a star sticker on him, “congratulations! For passing the weirdness tolerance test!”, looking back at Danny, “am I allowed to try and bite him now?”.

“No, you little shit”, Danny grumbling, “teething preteens are the worst”.

Wasn’t teething supposed to be something babies did? He wants to ask but nope, he’s not going there.

Then Jack’s voice startles him a good bit, “Your reflection must have been staring at you for a while there, buckeroo! Had to really shake it to get him to go away”.

Man was Jack ever a loud guy. Bassel chuckling awkwardly, “yeah I was a little preoccupied and choosing to ignore the insane broken mirror”.

Dan has apparently come back, “ha! You’re lucky your reflection didn’t try to reach through the mirror and strangle you”.

Bassel is not asking. Bassel is not asking. Bassel is not asking. But note to self, do not ignore sentient reflections that move of their own accord. Jazz even shakes her head, “okay that wasn’t the smartest decision you could have made, but I get it”, and she gestures at the couch, “want to finish the movie? Then we can get our stuff in?”.

He sighs, tired, “yeah, yeah, that’s… that’s good”. Just let everything else be normal, or as normal as it can be with the literal walking dead being in the room. Elle grabs him and Jazz before dragging them to the couch, the child is way too strong.

Jazz can practically feel the relief in her bones when they make it through the rest of the movie without anymore incidents, everyone getting up and Jack grabbing a scowling disgruntled Dan to help bring stuff inside. Dan grumbling, “I feel the need to point out that Danny is just as strong as me even if he looks like a damn beanpole”.

Danny shouting, “you mean I’m stronger than you! And hey! I’m lean!”, after them.

Bassel quirking an eyebrow at Jazz, her shaking her head with a small smile, “ectoplasmic energy counts for more than physical appearances with ghosts, my little brother might still be a child and thusly hasn’t hit his growth spurt yet, but he can absolutely take his kid down a peg or two”. And he absolutely loved to pester Dan about that fact, while Dan loved to pester Danny about still being ‘puny’.

Dan growls from the garage doorway, “You lot would be dead otherwise and you know it”.

Jazz rolls her eyes, “maybe at one point but we’ve grown on you, don’t lie mister”. The full ghost only grumbles incoherently in response.

Of course her dad tries to open the trunk before Bassel can unlock it, resulting in him picking the car up, Dan having to catch the car when the trunk opens taking dad’s grip with it. Dan chuckling, “normally I’m the one who’s into picking up vehicles”.

Dad chuckling himself, “yeah and you usually throw them when you pick them up!”.

Bassel shakes his head as the full ghost sets his car on the ground fully, “do not throw my car, do all of you just have super strength”.

Jazz facepalms when her dad tilts his head like a puppy, “little cars like these aren’t that heavy though? I could have lifted this back in my college years even”. Bassel looks baffled when she glances at him.

Jazz sighing at her dad, “Dad, your parents were ghost hunters too, you’ve probably been contaminated your whole life, like me and Danny”.

“Oh right! Ha! I forgot about that! Silly me!”.

Bassel shakes his head in disbelief but takes a few of his things instead of letting the two much larger men carry everything. Jazz makes zero attempt to help Dan with any of it, her sticking her tongue out him instead. He snickers at her, “really taking the higher road here, aunty”.

“Like you’re one to talk”.

“The high road and I are incapable of coexistence”.

“Exactly”.

At least it seems like Bassel is fondly amused with their bantering, instead of disturbed, as they move from the garage and up to her old room/the spare room. Her eyeing her mom while the three men set things down in the room, “so where are Elle and Dan staying?”.

Dan scoffing from inside the room, “you say that like I sleep at all”. She studiously ignores him.

Her mom humming, “why don’t you ask Elle? Because I’m not sure”. And Elle pops out from behind Maddie, “we’re not. Grandma Pandora’s supposed to give me some sword fighting lessons!”, pouting, “and I gotta practice if I ever want to beat pops someday”.

Danny can be heard shouting, “like that’ll ever happen!”, from somewhere; and the little missy is off like a rocket after her dad probably to tackle him.

Dan growling, “if you try to make me organize your guys shit I’m going to intentionally remove every screw, battery, and third paper from everything I can get my claws on”, before Jack laughs and pushes the ghost out of the room. Dan eyeing Jazz, “and if you’ll remember, I’m not ‘allowed’ to be out past sunset”.

Ah right, she did actually forget about that. “Serves you right”. As he heads down and back to the living room he sticks his tongue out at her, it absolute is forked this time.

Bassel popping his head out of the room, “you want your studies and research notes left on the night stand? And remind me why we’re staying inside this strange house instead of a hotel, there’s… mold with eyes I think, in the corner”. Her wincing, “because the hotel has mandatory waivers and doesn’t allow Fenton’s”, then nodding up at him, “yeah my stuff’s fine there, don’t put anything in the drawers, sometimes stuff just vanishes inside for an unknown reason”. Based on him ducking back in immediately, he had in fact put some stuff inside a drawer and the sigh of relief and her dads light hearted laughter tells her that whatever it was was still there. At least some things were going right.

And then it promptly goes horribly wrong as soon as Bassel comes out to go back downstairs with her. A massive black star speckled ghost phasing their way down through the goddamn ceiling, Bassel going stalk stiff while Jazz dashes up the steps with him in her grasp and ducks both of them into the bathroom. Bassel sticking his head out of the bathroom while crouching just like her and whispering, “was that thing a freaking ghost? What the hell, babe”.

Her basically hissing at him, “yes, and a very powerful one”. Bassel grumbling, “I think today hates us”. She whole heartedly agrees.

Meanwhile the ghost is shouting, “PHANTOM! I request your aid!”, and from her and Bassel’s bathroom vantage point it looks like the ghost just got punched in their masked face -based on them being pushed back out of the kitchen entry way with a hand to their face- by Dan, who stomps out snarling, all fang but thankfully still human-looking, “wrong one, you sleepy ass”.

Starry sleep ghost… starry sleep ghost… ah right! Their name was Nocturne right? Her little brother did try to get her to remember the names of the more important ghosts after all. “Nocturne?”.

Oh she shouldn’t have said anything. The ghost looks to her and ‘brightens up’ in that cruel looking way many ghosts do, them promptly stretching and looming their body up and head over her and Bassel, “ah, young Phantom’s brethren. Do you know as to where I can find the one that will not attempt to eat beings of ancient malevolence?”. Bassel is shaking and she’s worried he’s going to pass out.

Dan rams a clawed hand into the ghosts body, “I’m true malevolence, mother fucker. Get back here”.

Thankfully Danny -in his ghost form unfortunately- pops in before Dan can do something stupid, “Dan! Leave the freaking god of sleep alone! Oh my Ancients!”. Him pointing at Nocturne’s face as the ghost moves down to him completely ignoring Jazz and Bassel now, “what the zone, Nocturne? You can’t just bust into my lair core whenever you feel like it just because I don’t get enough damn sleep”.

The ghost holds up a finger, “ah but that is hardly the reason for my arrival, I have seemed to ‘fucked up’, as you would say, to an unfortunate degree”.

Danny sighs and sags his entire body, floating in the air, “ugh, what did you do?”.

“I acquired-”.

Danny interrupting immediately, “You mean stole”.

“I acquired some eternal gardenia from FungalLung, they have now beset my domain with pink dew and blood blossom seeds”.

“Why the actual crap would you steal from that split personality psycho? There’s a reason no one goes near that kids garden”.

“I had a need for such things, as someone-”.

“Oh no, no blame game bullshit outta you, shit ass”.

“Our king needs to be-”.

“Needs to be allowed to have a bit of goddamn fun and some breaks, that’s what he needs. Now play guide, you reckless starry blanket”, Danny eyeing Dan, “Dan. Let. Go”.

Dan flinching and doing as he’s more or less commanded to. Scoffing, crossing his arms, and moving back into the kitchen with a tense, “whatever”.

Bassel wheezes when the ghost and her brother disappear through the floor, Jazz standing up fully and pulling him along with, “great. Just great. Love it. What next? An invasion?”.

Elle hums, “I mean, I could ask mythic grandma if she’s up for one”.

Jazz and Maddie both pointing at her aggressively with matching, “absolutely not”’s. Making the girl giggle. Jazz looking back to Bassel, “I promise you’re okay and not about to get attacked. Are you feeling okay?”.

“I am ten seconds away from wanting to lay on the carpet and scream cry into it, and I am positive I need a shock blanket”.

At least she doesn’t even have to ask her mom to get one for her to rush off and do so, Jazz and Maddie herding him into the spare room wrapped up in a Fenton ghost proof shock blanket in record time. Jazz nodding softly at her moms apologetic look and gesturing for her to leave them be, dad following his wife out with an exaggerated wince.

She shuffles up next to him and rubs his arm from over the blanket, effectively side hugging him, “okay so you’ve properly seen your first ghost, and they were unfortunately one of the non-human ones; but, Nocturne is quite safe actually, more a neutral being than malicious”.

He nods a little.

“They do tend to harass my brother a lot since they care a lot about sleep and he doesn’t get nearly enough of it”, shaking her head and laughing lightly a little, “and yes, what Danny said is true, they are for all accounts and purposes the god of sleep”, sighing, “nearly every god worshiped through out history is real and, yes, a ghost”.

He swallows, pulling the blanket around himself more, “that’s… kind of insane and a lot”.

Jazz nods more so to herself, she had a hard time swallowing that herself as a teen, “I know. I still find it a bit baffling myself and it is extremely strange actually meeting any of them”.

“At… at least you actually seem weirded out. Everything… else doesn’t seem to be, uh, strange, to you”.

“I’m used to it, more than I’d really like to be. I definitely wi- would prefer if my family was more normal, even marginally. And I’d rather my brother not be wrapped up in all this the way he is. Even Dan and Elle often feel that way, even if they wouldn’t exist if he wasn’t involved so heavily in everything”.

“That’s, concerning, actually”.

Jazz pats his arm some, “they haven’t had the best existences”.

Dan then startles her, voice coming through the door, “and there’s the simple fact that everyone would be better off if I never existed”.

Jazz sighing to herself and looking to the door, “Dan that’s not true”.

“And that’s crap and you know it, don’t bullshit me Jazz”; it sounds like he’s stomped off. She’s… going to have to talk to him later.

Bassel shivers, “he’s got a lot of… issues, huh”.

Jazz sighing and nodding, closing her eyes, “if people tell you you’re a monster enough that becomes all that you are and healing becomes nearly impossible”, shaking her head and looking at him, he’s watching her intently, “Elle and Danny are good for him but his emotions don’t work like they’re supposed to because of what happened to him. He’s also partly being pissy because Danny genuinely scolded him. Anyone exerting their power over him tends to rile him up, whether he wants it to or not”.

“Part of him being a, uh, ghost?”.

She nods, “yup. Though I doubt talking about Dan is great for you right now”.

Bassel looks away and stares forwards, “no, probably not”, shaking his head and readjusting into the blanket, “… that, ghost, called your brother a king, didn’t they”.

Jazz shrugs, “he tires not to let it get to his head”.

He shakes himself a little, shaking his head slowly side to side, “yeah no, I’m not pushing. Though is that why he feels like death, the pressure of death at least, when he looks all black and white”.

“I… if he feels like that I’ve never noticed, sorry. But I was living with him when that change happened so it very well might have happened slowly, over time”.

“I guess that makes sense, it almost felt hard to breathe when his voice got… thick? at Dan”.

Jazz blinks, nodding immediately, “ah that’s actually a specific power he has. He mostly just uses it to get across that he’s not playing around, that he’s being serious”.

“Effective”.

Jazz nods slowly, letting him just breathe for a bit. She guesses she can understand how her brother can be a bit much, and it was definitely for the best that Bassel found out before a ghost crashed the party that her brother was a ghost himself. Then he speaks up again, “you’re entirely alive, right? I know you have a lot of spooky rumours that follow you and, like I said, you do look off. So, you’re not a ghost, right?”.

Jazz is tempted to laugh, instead she just shakes her head, “no, not even a little bit”.

“Good. That’s good”.

She just hums, nodding to herself. Waiting for him to work through his own head. Hearing about ghosts and seeing one were very different things, and an Ancient was hard to run into no matter what Danny said. She swears it’s like he forgets that he is in the same sort of classification as them. But at least it seems like Bassel’s handling it better than many do, better than most non-Amity Parkers at least. And then her dad goes and bangs the door open, nearly making Bassel fling himself off of the bed, “I made hot chocolate!”.

“Dad! He’s trying to wind down! Not get the zone scared out of him!”.

Her dad wincing, “ah sorry, Jazzy”, holding up the two cups, “hot chocolate?”, and tilts his head to the side.

Jazz sighs, side eyeing Bassel to make sure he isn’t going to freak out further before getting up and grabbing the cups, “I know you mean well, dad, but you’re still a very loud, very large, presence”.

He rubs his neck and laughs awkwardly, tilting sideways enough to look at Bassel. Giving her boyfriend a thumbs up, “you kids get settled, no funny business”.

“Oh my zone!”, she shoves him out with a foot, barely managing not to spill, and kicks her door shut. At least she manages to give Bassel the hot chocolate gently, “that man, I swear”.

Bassel genuinely laughs though, staring at the hot chocolate in his hands, “that was so utterly normal dad behaviour though, it’s grounding actually”.

Huh. Guess he actually did a good job. “Then I owe him an apology”. She makes her sip on the hot chocolate -that’s already been adequately cooled, thanks dad genuinely- loud, purely to encourage Bassel to drink his.

He notices the cooled temp too, “he waited till it was cool but not too cool, huh?”.

“Yeah. He’s a bit of a fool and reckless but he cares a lot and has a good heart that’s as big as he is”.

Bassel humming and they sit in silence for a bit until, “is your brother going to be okay? I know I called him a superhero and google seems to say he is but…”.

“Oh superhero is very accurate by human standards, but by ghosts he’s basically normal. Behaviour wise at least. Most of the time”, shaking her head, “he’ll be fine, even if it sounds like he might wind up with a case of Blood Blossom poisoning again”.

“Let me guess, ghost poison?”.

“Yup”.

“That’s absurd”, and he sips at his hot chocolate some, “he’s not going to vomit on the floor is he?”.

Okay she can’t help but laugh at that, shaking her head, “no, no, more coughing fits, aches and pains, and muscle spasms. That’s only because he’s alive enough to not be fully affected”.

“Hence why this powerful ghost came for his help?”.

Jazz nodding, “hence why a powerful ghost came for his help”, tilting her head, “though if I remember right pink dew is a psychedelic, so he also might be high when he gets back”.

“Oh god, I don’t think that kid should ever do drugs. Being near your entire family is like being on drugs”, sticking his arms out of the blanket and gesturing the mug around, “if I woke up in the morning and was told this was all one big fever dream, I’d believe it”.

“That’s understandable. Which is why the rest of the world considers this town a hoax”.

“Yeah I was wondering about that”, he downs a considerable amount of his drink, “you’d think the whole world would know about this. But I guess that would cause an uproar”.

Jazz sighing, almost annoyed, “yeah, the government does try to keep a lid on everything”.

“God damn it. Seriously? Ugh. I hate that I called ‘government cover up’ as the why”.

“There’s more to it but the rest is a lot weirder to the point where even I don’t want to think about it. It’s actually in the category of too weird”. Her little brother mind wiping an entire planet after fighting a reality controlling clown that turned roads into rollercoasters and made him fight a fire breathing clown and a lava pit full of rubber ducks, was so many steps past extremely strange.

Bassel full body cringing, “then I definitely don’t want to know. I do want to know if the stories about you communing with ghosts in your dorm are true though, and if your dorms is ‘contaminated’”, looking down at the cup, “and we should thank your dad for this. It was pretty good”.

Jazz blushes a little, “they’re true, even ghosts need therapy and I don’t need my license to give it to them. Sometimes it is just Danny though, and I’m good about keeping on top of decontamination, so don’t worry about that”, then eyeing him, he still seemed a little out of it and shocky but he was definitely better and really there was no normalising or rationalizing her family, “we’ll go down and thank him if you’re alright”.

He nods down at the cup and to himself, then looking at her with a nod and shaking smile, “I’m going to be digesting all of this for days at least, but I’m okay, babe. I absolutely hope today was the weirdest day of this week visit though”.

Jazz hums, standing up and offering him her mug-free hand, “well Dan will avoid Danny for at least a full day and Pandora will keep Elle busy for at least three; so there won’t be their chaos for a little while. As for literal gods showing up, that happens so seldom that I genuinely believe that Johnny’s Shadow might’ve snagged us some bad luck on the way into town”.

“Johnny’s Shadow?”.

Oh maybe she shouldn’t have brought that guy up. Wincing, “um, Shadow is basically Johnny’s pet or familiar? And Johnny is a ghost I may have dated? Once? He wasn’t genuine about it, and I was a dumb teenager who feel for his stupid motorbike and bad boy vibes”.

He actually snickers at her, before laughing fully and having to put the mug to the side to avoid spilling it, “I! Can not believe how stereotypical! That is!”, shaking his head and wheezing, eyeing her, “straight laced, honor role daughter falls for a motorcycle riding bad boy who’s all charm and bad intentions”.

She smacks his arm, “don’t be mean”, she doesn’t mean it at all though, “and Danny actually dated his girlfriend, she was trying to make Johnny jealous”.

“So what I’m getting here is ghosts are seriously just goddamn people, some are just very extra”.

“That’s one way to put it, yeah. Or they’re more like animals”.

Bassel blinks as they shuffle out of the room, “oh thats right, the green dog, where’d he? go?”.

Jazz snorts, “Danny sent him back to, well, the other side as it were; since mom was trying to taser him”. He was always so protective of that dog, even if said dog caused so many issues.

“That did seem a bit excessive”.

“Oh absolutely not, that dog is an actual menace”.

“I’m just going to take your word for it”.

They pop into the kitchen, she’s not surprised both Dan and Elle are gone. “Thanks for the hot chocolate, dad”. Bassel nodding, “yeah, it was really good, thank you”.

Her dad gives a goofy thumbs up, “glad you liked it!”. And she thinks everything might just be okay.

Bassel’s not really sure what to do about all of this. What he does know is that he’s better off not thinking about it and not trying to actually figure out what to do about all of this. He knows Jack Fenton cares a lot, makes good hot chocolate, he’s loud and big, and sure he’s a little off and too strong but he actually is like a puppy. Maddie Fenton was a lot softer, a lot more aware that her family was odd, more socially adept, but she was also more threatening and quick to fight; strange and off as well but she came off as more normal than her husband. Danny was… a nightmare, full stop, he’s a little worried what kind of friends the teen had that could put up with him. He was borderline actually insane, but from what Bassel saw on his google trip he also was a genuinely good kid. Bassel’s fairly certain that even if the world turned against him he’d still fight to save it; that took a level of sheer determination and heart that Bassel probably didn’t have himself. Elle was just a weird kid with too lax and strange of a parent, she might stand a chance at being almost normal someday. Maybe. Dan was an utter psycho though, he honestly can not think of a redeeming quality for that one. Doesn’t even want to try. Because excusing a murderer was not a line he feels like toeing. Jazz says Dan wouldn’t hurt any of them and does love them, but he’s not sold on that; it seemed more likely that she just didn't want to admit that the man was simply an awful unkind corrupt person.

And Jazz?

Well, his opinion honestly hasn’t changed. She’s still awesome, beautiful, caring, neurotic, a worrier, and slightly strange. He wants to think she’d be the same, though maybe less strange, even if she had a perfectly normal and average family. He wasn’t about to let odd family break them up, even if it was the kind of odd normally reserved for tv shows and the weird comics you find at truck stops that are filled with plot holes and questionable narrative direction. Either way he’s sticking around, so long as he can actually physically survive a week in this place.

Him watching as Danny, covered in some kind of clear goo or slime, kicks open the lab door with blown out pupils and a gnarly rash on half his face. “I! Never want to see! Another! Fucking! Person with me damn mushroom eyes again! I feel! Disgusting! Bleh!”, sticks out his tongue and then faceplants onto the floor groaning; the slime stuff splatters around a bit.

Bassel blinks, “um, should someone drag him up to the bathroom or something?”. Then the kid sprouts another set of goddamn arms and hands out of his back and proceeds to dragging himself across the floor and up the stairs with them. “Never mind, what the hell. I never want to see that again”.

Jazz sighs, rinsing out their cups, “he’s definitely high, don’t touch the goo trail”, moving to get the biohazards mop and bucket, “Danny can be a bit of a jerk with the body horror stuff but he usually reserves it for people he knows can handle it”.

“That’s… good. Dear god”.

And then… Danny??? runs up the lab stairs, “did anyone see a body of mine”.

Jazz throws the mop at him and yelps, “what the Zone! Danny?”, making faces at him and pointing at the stairs that still has a slime trial on it, “I have some serious questions”.

He blinks at her, “rogue duplicate”, and runs towards the stairs.

Jazz throws up her hands, “why would you use a power you suck at to deal with drug flowers!”.

“Because I didn’t want to personally deal with blood blossoms!”, the kid slips on the slime and smashes his face into the stairs, “fuck!”, then scramble crawls up the steps.

Bassel grabs the mop back up, ignores that it’s a weirdly hot pink colour, and hands it off to his girlfriend, “so that was a thing that happened”.

Jack starts wheeze laughing, sitting down at the kitchen table, “I hope his duplicate at least had fun!”.

Maddie grinning at the man, “I’m sure it did, Jack hon”.

Everyone, including Bassel, ignores the strange thumping going on upstairs as well as the… arm that comes hurling down the steps and dissolves into green goo against a wall. Staying here was going to give him some extremely unique and unfortunate nightmares, wasn’t it? At least now he gets why his girlfriend had such an easy time writing behavioural papers, she had multiple subject studies. He might even be able to bang out a paper or two on human adaptability after this. He absolutely was not doing any papers on people growing arms out of their backs though, that would get him sent on a grippy sock vacation.

Danny pops back in looking disgusted, “it’s dealt with”.

Maddie eyeing him cautiously, “is the hall way intact?”.

The boy sags and gives a truly crushed, “no”.

At this point, Bassel thinks that’s frankly expected. He also thinks that this household is cursed. At least Jack bounds up the stairs to start fixing the hallway and Bassel legitimately doesn’t care to check out the damage. Truly. Instead he’s just going to sit down with his girlfriend and, like her, mildly regret him coming and going into this ‘cold turkey’. Next time she warns him about something, he’s going to demand an explanation instead of brushing her worries off.

End.

Promtps: Jazz brings a date home for the first time. She didn’t exactly brief them on her family’s whole ghost thing. Antics ensue. All the Fentons are a bit more ghostly than they know The Phantom Clan (Dan, Dani, and Danny) is awake and about to make it everyone's problem Jazz has a reputation at college for being spooky, it doesn't help that she communes with ghosts. Uncanny valley is strong with Danny, most Amity Parkers don't realize it, but any time anyone from out of town sees him, they're in for a spook. Nocturne fucked up BIG TIME and now needs help from the ghost kid.

[hailsatanacab]

@the-witchhunter - this is incredibly disturbing, i love it. fair warning, i took it more in the direction of that oglaf comic (nsfw) where Vlad fully doesn't realise that this is a love shrine, this is a completely normal thing that you do for your arch enemy!

———

“Daniel! I can explain!”

“Oh… my… God...”

“Daniel, really, it’s not what it looks like!”

“Really?” Danny breathes, shocked and honestly kind of fighting down the urge to vomit. The thermos slips from his fingers and clatters to the ground, the sound echoing far too loudly in the enclosed space. “Because it looks like you have a shrine dedicated to my dad in your closet.”

“No, that’s not—it’s more complicated than that, Daniel. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I don’t think I want to understand.”

“Your father is a ridiculous man, Daniel. I hate his stupid face so much. Look at him!”

Vlad turns back to the actual shrine, with actual candles and actual flowers and actual photos of his dad with… Holy crap, did Vlad cut out Mom in each of the photos? What the fuck? 

Wait… Look, Danny tries not to look too closely at the weird things Vlad has hidden around his mansion dedicated to his mom, but he’s fairly sure that the pictures of her he’s cut out (in heart shapes—yeah, Danny’s definitely going to barf) are the ones Vlad’s put in his other weirdo closet shrine that Danny also wishes he’d never seen.

“Why don’t you just have one shrine? Why have—no, you know what, I don’t want to know. I think I’m just gonna leave.”

Yeah, that sounds like the best option. Danny takes a cautious step back, very ready to get back home, bleach his eyeballs and maybe never look at his mom and dad ever again. Or, at least, not until he has successfully blocked this from his mind forever.

He only gets one foot out the door when Vlad lashes out and grabs him. The day just keeps getting better and better, really, doesn’t it? Even as he twists and turns, he can’t get out of Vlad’s ironclad grip and he’s pulled even farther into the closet. 

Panic rises in his throat as Vlad shuts the door—what the fuck is happening? He doesn’t want to be dragged into Vlad’s creepy shrine to his dad, what the fuck? What the fuck!

“I loathe your father, Daniel, I hate him with the very core of my being. Look at him!” 

There’s no goddamn way in hell Danny is looking at any of the pictures, no thank you. He squeezes his eyes shut and wishes he were somewhere, anywhere else, when Vlad jerks his arm forward so he comes nose-to-nose with the largest framed portrait of his dad in the very centre of the table, smiling with his doctorate and a very unfortunate 80s mullet. Dear God, no.

“I hate his smug face! I hate his stupid fashion sense, you have no idea how much I detest that orange jumpsuit of his, how much I want to claw it off him and tear it to shreds! If I have to listen to him say another boneheaded, idiotic, ridiculous thing, I will—I’ll rip his throat out with my teeth! You don't know how long I spend here looking at him, imaging all the ways I'll have him grovelling at my feet. One day, Daniel, I'll have him one day...”

———

The sun was going down when Danny finally managed to escape and find solace in Sam and Tucker. He's not going home. Not yet.

“Danny, are you okay? We were so worried, we couldn’t get hold of you for hours! Where were you?”

“Sam, Tuck… Vlad, he…”

“Holy shit, Danny, you’re shaking, are you alright? What happened, what did he do?”

“I think… I think he wants to fuck my dad.”

[whereonceiwasfire]

I saw @theshadowrealmitself's post the other day about what if a supervillain outed their secret identity becuase they infodumped to the cashier (who happens to be the hero) and you know I had to do a DP oneshot for it. It's a few different kinds of AU, so you just have to roll with me here.

Without further ado:

THE CUSTOMER'S ALWAYS RIGHT (EXCEPT WHEN THEY'RE AN EGOMANIACAL SUPERVILLAIN)

Automatic doors slide apart with a woosh as Danny bursts through the entrance of Hattie's Haunted Hardware Emporium, unzipped backpack barely caught in the crook of his elbow, one arm stuffed through the armhole of the gaudy yellow vest of his uniform. 

He's out of breath as he scrambles past the customer service desk, gives a frantic, “I'm here, I'm here!” to the startled employee behind the computer as hops the counter. He’s sprinting past stacked boxes of returns for the door with a STAFF ONLY sign slapped askew across the chipping green paint when a voice stops him in his tracks. 

“Danny Fenton.” The words drip cool disapproval, and Danny's shoulders immediately hunch toward his ears, his fingers uncurling from around the door handle. 

So close. 

“Y-yes?” He slowly turns around, his expression sheepish as he comes to face Hattie herself. 

She stands, hands on her hips, eyes narrowed, a MANAGER tag pinned to the chest of her tucked in shirt. The polo is the same hideous yellow as Danny's vest but has the Hattie's Hardware logo—a floating hammer surrounded by a ghostly glow—sewn onto the breast pocket. A funny gag, no doubt, when the place decided to open in the heart of haunted AF Amity Park. Less funny, probably, now that the store room is in disarray every other day because some low-level specter keeps casting stock haphazardly about and flinging empty boxes everywhere.

“You're late,” manager Hattie says, expression pinching. “Again.” 

“Aha. Yeah. About that.” Danny scrubs the back of his neck with a palm, teeth bared on something that's more a grimace than a smile. “The bus was behind schedule?” 

She doesn't look particularly like she believes him, which is entirely valid, since it's a bald-faced lie. But what is he supposed to say? That he got sidetracked by his new archnemesis, that freaking Plasmius ghost, because the guy somehow managed to compel an entire doggie daycare to do his bidding? What that crackpot needed a canine army for, Danny didn't even want to know, but he wasn't about to just let it go down. Stopping ghosts is kind of his whole shtick as town hero, after all. 

He’s just lucky the whole thing didn’t take that long—once Danny managed to snap his fluffy foes out of their trance, they kind of took care of Plasmius for him. Guess they weren't too happy about being mind controlled. Go figure.

But again, Danny can’t exactly just come out and tell his manager, well, any of this. As far as everyone knows, Danny Fenton is a very normal, very human kid—one who maybe isn’t great at the whole being punctual thing and has a penchant for running to the bathroom when ghosts show up—but otherwise exhibits no symptoms of being undead. He’s hoping to keep it that way.  

Manager Hattie’s eyes narrow, as if she can tell what he’s thinking, but she just gives a curt jerk of her chin in the direction of the staff room. 

“Don’t let it happen again,” she says, and he gives an overzealous nod of assent as he lets out the breath trapped in his chest. 

“You got it, boss!” he says, giving her a two-fingered salute and throwing himself into the back before she can change her mind. 

***

“That’ll be eight twenty-two. How will you be paying for that?” It comes out a bored drawl as Danny shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

“It’ll be cash—just—give me a sec. I know I had change in here somewhere.” 

“Sure, no problem.” 

Danny crosses his arms over the chest of his garish vest and tips his gaze toward the industrial ceiling, trying to find literally anywhere to look so he’s not the overly intense cashier staring at the woman across the counter as she rummages through her oversized, bubblegum purse for a couple of nickels.  

He hadn’t even wanted to get a job—staying on top of school, protecting the town from ghosts, and keeping his secret identity from everyone in his life was enough of a struggle, nevermind trying to fit his weekend sentences at Hattie’s Hardware into the mix. But turns out if you break your phone (in a ghost fight), lose a couple of backpacks (after dumping them in an alley so you can go stop a bank robbery), mysteriously misplace articles of clothing (AKA, throw them away because ectoplasm apparently doesn’t come out in the wash), or otherwise ask your parents to replace your crap enough times without a decent explanation, they’ll stop paying for it.

So, as much as he’d love to not be watching stacks of nickels, pennies, and dimes grow on his counter—the bottle-blonde slapping each coin down with a decisive clack before thrusting her arm back into the depths of her bag—he really can’t get fired. Not only does he desperately need a new pair of shoes after stepping in a suspicious puddle Cujo left behind (please just let it have been radioactive drool), but he has to prove to his parents that he’s responsible, even if he’s going through a bit of a “destructive phase” with his belongings.

“Eight twenty-two!” the woman declares proudly, hiking her purse up onto her shoulder and beaming down at the skyscraper diorama of coins piled up on his counter. “I told you I had change.” 

“Yes. You did,” Danny says with a defeated breath, scooping the first stack of nickels into his hand, and spreading them out across his palm. 

Five, ten, fifteen…

“It’s eight twenty-two. Trust me.” 

“Sorry, policy. I have to double check,” Danny says with his best apologetic grimace before turning his gaze back down to the coins in his hand. 

Five, ten, fifteen…

“Well, that’s kind of unfair, don’t you think? Isn’t the customer always right?” 

“Right, of course.” 

Twenty, twenty-five, thirty…     

“This is a bad look. It makes it feel like you don’t trust your clientele.” 

Danny gives a half-hearted shrug, not lifting his eyes from the coins. “Sorry. Not my policy.” 

Thirty-five, forty, forty-five…

“Well, I never.” 

Danny makes the mistake of looking up as the woman tsks, gripping the strap of her bag and giving him a scandalized glower.

“Sorry,” he says again, shoulders slumping as he lets out a sigh, his gaze falling back to the mess of nickels in his hand.

Five, ten, fifteen…

***

Danny’s fellow cashier heads up for their lunch during the mid-afternoon lull, leaving Danny up front alone, standing at his till, pretending to be busy in case Hattie wanders past. He types random SKU numbers into the computer to see if it’ll bring up anything, he flips through the binder of faded lumber codes, he sprays his counter down with a bottle of something that smells like death and wipes it away with paper towels that come away gray with grime, he sorts the air fresheners that hang on a display beside his counter. And after all that is done, he’s managed to kill about seven minutes. 

It’s almost a relief when a customer finally wanders up to his till. Almost. 

The man wordlessly plops a length of cord, a roll of duct tape, and a box of garbage bags down on the counter—doesn’t even bother to glance up at Danny, just rolls up the cuff of his dark suit jacket and checks his watch as though the point five seconds he’s been waiting is already too long. 

Danny manages to plaster on his best customer-service smile, hoping his eyes don’t give away the “not this asshole again”  that he’s thinking. 

Nearly once a week, buddy here shows up—way overdressed, with his smarmy ponytail and his suit—acts put out that he has to breathe the same air as the rest of Amity Park’s peons, then proceeds to purchase some of the sketchiest shit Hattie’s Hardware has to offer. Danny’s always left wondering if he should be calling the police instead of ringing up the serial killer’s checklist of supplies on his counter.

But, honestly, he does not get paid enough to keep tabs on Hannibal Lector over there, so he lets it slide. 

“Find everything you were looking for today?” Danny asks as he tips the garbage bags on their side and scans the code on the bottom with a beep.

The man gives the vaguest grunt of acknowledgement, and just before his sleeve falls back in place over the face of his Rolex, Danny notices the fresh scratches marking the man’s pale forearm. 

His brow furrows, but instead of prying, he just plucks up the duct tape and cracks a friendly joke as he twists the roll to find the barcode. “Already got the shovel and axe at home, hunh? Good for you.”

The beep is the only thing to split the silence, and when Danny glances up, it’s to find the man’s dark gaze pinned on him, lips pursed on a thin line. He is very much not laughing.

“Just ah—a joke.” Danny blanches as he gestures weakly at the items on the counter. “Because uhm. You know. If you had a shovel and axe, this would look kind of like you were, ah…”

“I get it,” the man answers frostily.

“Okay,” Danny answers, chastened as he drops his head and picks up the rope. 

Immediately, he can tell Sketchy McBillionaire completely ignored the sign in the hardware aisle asking customers to get an employee’s assistance with the custom lengths of cord—there’s absolutely no SKU or length written anywhere, but Danny makes a show of turning the rope in his hand anyway. 

“Shoot. It looks like your label must have fallen off?” he says, doing his very best not to sound too accusatory, just in case the guy really isn’t above murder. 

“I’m sorry?” the man asks pointedly, brow arching, and it is so very clearly not an apology. 

“Uhm. Well. Since you grabbed a custom length of rope instead of a pre-measured spool, there should be a tag on here somewhere. I need that to ring you up,” Danny tries, gesturing uselessly at the cord.

“Are you serious?” the man asks, teeth gritting. “This is just what I need right now.” 

“I can, uh, page someone from hardware to get us the number?” 

“No need. I’ll go get a pre-measure spool.” The words drip with derision, as if this is somehow Danny’s fault, as the man snaps up the rope and twists on his heel. 

“Actually—” Danny cuts in, withering under the man’s icy gaze as he snaps his head back around. Sheepishly, he continues, “Once the length has been cut, we can’t really keep it…” 

The man’s shoulders heave with a deep breath, his grip curling tight around the cord between his fingers.

“Fine,” he snaps, tossing the looped rope back onto the counter with a thud. “But make it quick. I’ve already been significantly delayed today.” 

Danny gives a curt nod, picking up the receiver beside his register and paging for a hardware employee, his crackly, amplified voice sounding weak as it reverberates through the store. Which is so stupid. He’s a literal superhero—can punch a ghost three ways into next Thursday—so why is he cowed by some guy strutting around the hardware store in a suit?

Maybe because he knows punching this dude isn't an option unless he wants to get fired.

Ugh, why do bad things always happen to him?

Danny tries to play nice—determining not to piss the guy off or lose his job—and schools his features into an affable smile. 

“It’ll just be a couple minutes,” he says.

The man gives a tight “hmmm,” crossing his arms over his chest, brows dropped low over cold blue eyes.

As the silence stretches between them, Danny awkwardly drumming his fingers against the metal till top, the urge to claw out of his skin grows unbearable. Against all better judgment, he finally blurts, “how’s your day going so far?”

“You want to know how my day is going?” The man’s tone drips vitriol, teeth bared as he steps in closer to the till. There’s something hysteric in the twist of the words as he repeats himself. “You want to know how my day is going?”

Danny tries to backpedal, jerkily shakes his head no, but it’s too late. The man gives a laugh somewhere just left of unhinged (why does it almost sound familiar?) and is off on a tangent before Danny can stop him.  

“My day started with a very unwelcome intrusion, weeks of hard work thrown out the window because of some insolent boy and his need to stick his nose in where it doesn’t belong. My day found me bitter and behind schedule, interrupted at a crucial moment because someone has decided to treat my work like some blasted video game. My day”—the man’s eyes dart to the nametag on Danny’s vest, heedless of the way he’s stiffened, heart beating hard in his throat—“Daniel, has left me thwarted, again, an extension of a dismal several months in this wretched town, a string of one disappointment after another. And now I’m delayed once more, stuck waiting here with you, for someone to perform a menial task on my behalf since you can’t identify a length of rope. So tell me, boy. How do you think my day has been going?”

It’s how he spits the word boy, the cadence of the diatribe, the implication behind the words.

Danny just stares at the man, wide-eyed, any kind of response at all sticking in his throat as his palms brace against the back of the till.

It's then the employee from hardware comes bounding over, her cheery, freckled face split on a smile, oblivious to the weighted silence. “How can I help y'all?” 

“I need a price on this.” The man practically snarls the words, snatching the cord and thrusting it at Poppy or Penny or…Genevieve?

Crap. Danny has got to get better at remembering his coworkers’ names.

“O-oh,” she stammers.

“The SKU actually,” Danny manages, and her expression softens with relief—that that’s all he needs, that she doesn't have to put up with this nightmare of a man before them.

She pulls free a small notebook from a pocket in her ugly vest. Thwipping through the pages, she drops a glance to the rope in her hands, flips a little further, then reads off some digits from her hand-scrawled notes. Danny taps them in obediently as Poppy/Penny/Genevieve turns the rope forward and back. 

“Probably about twelve feet,” she guesstimates. 

“Awesome, thank you,” Danny says, the price coming up on screen as he taps in a one-two and thumbs enter.

The man has barely moved, his expression all hard, sharp, unimpressed lines as he stands back and watches them with crossed arms. Poppy/Penny/Genevieve flickers a glance in his direction, then away. 

“Noproblemhereyougotalktoyoulater,” she says, the sentence coming out in one hurried breath as she drops the cord on Danny's counter and bolts. 

With her gone, it's just Danny, the silver-haired man, and the suffocating tension between them once again. 

Danny knows he should focus on getting the purchase rung through and getting the guy out of here, but can't help the beat too long he stares at the man.

He's about the right height, the same goatee, the graying stripe parting his long hair. 

“I don’t have all day.”

“Right!” Danny starts, shifting his attention back to his till’s screen, his pulse fluttering in his chest. Could it be? “Uhm. That comes to—” 

“Yes, yes, it’ll be on credit,” the man interrupts, thrusting a black card at him. 

Danny catches the card against his chest, holds it there as he mashes the man’s total into the debit machine. Before swiping the card, he turns a glance down to the plastic in his hand, his eyes roving past the long string of numbers and the expiration date to find the raised silver lettering beneath.

Vlad Masters. 

His gaze lifts, and he finds the man—Vlad—watching him impatiently. Danny jerks his eyes away as he swipes the card, hands it back, places the printed receipt on the counter to be signed. 

Vlad huffs—doesn't say a word as he fishes a pen from his inside pocket and scrawls a quick, jagged signature.

The arch of his brow, the condescending weight of his gaze, the impatient snap of his movements...

As the man gathers up his supplies, scowling, and pushes through the exit, Danny picks up the merchant copy of the receipt left on his counter. His gaze fixes on the V. Masters on the till paper, his lips twisted on a frown. 

He doesn't know how it's possible, but he thinks that man—Vlad Masters—is his archrival. 

Which means…Plasmius is a half-ghost?

[half-dead-half-wit]

Welcome to the Nasty Burger, home of the Nasty Burger. Can I take your order?

Mikey doesn't know how he wound up getting talked into working the closing shift at the Nasty Burger in the middle of finals week. He feels like it's some shade of illegal to have a student on the clock past 3 am, but it'll all be worth it, what with Valerie promising him Paulina's phone number for covering for her. Yeah Mikey, keep telling yourself that. It's not like she's already blocked you & changed numbers twice already. She's in love with him, she just doesn't know it yet. Totally. But anyway, that's not even his most pressing issue right now. Oh no, that would be Phantom - THE Phantom. Local town here Phantom. Probably saved the world at least twice and Mikey more times than he could count, Phantom. Yeah, he's been standing - er, floating? Mikey's not entirely sure which, in the drive-thru window for like 20 minutes. And he's been talking. The. Entire. Time. Not ordering food, no. He's just… talking the most batshit nonsense. Even worse, there's a line of cars slowly growing behind him. Mikey had to admit, it took him at least 5 minutes to notice him, initially. Opening the window and attempting to get Phantom's attention hasn't been particularly fruitful. It might help if Mikey said something instead of awkwardly waving & attempting to make eye contact. Yeah, he'll try that. "Uhm, sir?" Mikey tried meekly, to no avail. "So I said, I'm the king of the undead! How am I not exempt from jury duty-" "Excuse me, sir?" He tried, a little louder. No dice. Phantom steamrolled right on through Mikey's admittedly feeble attempts at interruption. "And then the Box Ghost, of all people, strolls in all high and mighty saying he's filing a grievance against me for quote " taking out misplaced aggression" on him! Apparently there's a union for ghosts who died from OSHA violations, of all things! So after the trial, I asked if I could join. Well, as it turns out, since I'm the king of the realm, I don't qualify for any of the protections! Yet I'd still have to pay union dues, can you believe that?!? They said I could take it up with HR, but guess who HR is! The flipping Ghost Writer!! And we all know what he thinks about me. He still hasn't forgiven me for the Christmas Truce fiasco 3 years ago, you know. Like, I'm still not a big fan of the holiday but a truce is a truce and we respect the truce."

"MR. PHANTOM, SIR YOU ARE BACKING UP MY DRIVE-THRU!!!" whether from embarrassment or exertion from the sheer force of his bellow, Mikey's face turned beet red. He's pretty sure that homeless man across the street wasn't staring murder at him earlier. He might've been asleep then, too. Oops. At least he finally got Phantom's attention. "Wh-huh? Mikey? When did you start working at Denny's? Where's Tali?" The ghosty hero seemed genuinely confused, and also like he wasn't entirely all there at the moment. Maybe he's pulled three all-nighters in a row this week too. That'd explain the spaceship boxers and pink fuzzy slippers he's sporting. "Uh, this is the Nasty Burger?" Mikey responded. Was it a statement or a question? Mikey totally didn't look down at his uniform to confirm he was, in fact, working at the Nasty Burger. "Ah." Phantom said. And upon making that eloquent response, Phantom promptly faded from view, kinda like that popular vine, leaving Mikey with more questions than answers and a line wrapped around the building of hangry, sleep deprived, classmates who stayed up way too late cramming last minute and midnight shift workers desperate for something hot and greasy to shove into their mouths. Great. He didn't even order anything.

[cae-ruleam]

time's a ticking

rated G - basically a character study of immortal Danny word count: 4405 AO3 link

Danny's seen many loved ones come and go, and he has almost been beaten down countless times. But life goes on, and through the years, Danny's learned to live with that by making new memories to remember, and rekindling old ones.

“Mr. Leverton, it’s already past seven! I’ll be heading out in a moment, you can close up shop soon,” Danny heard a young voice call from the second floor of an old mechanics shop. He took off his gloves and wiped his forehead before mumbling, “Is it really that late already?” to himself. But it seemed that his apprentice still heard him once he started strolling down the wooden stairs.

“Yes, really! Now, please don’t continue working on that and just go home to rest, will ya?” Sawyer chastised the older man with slight exasperation; knowing that if he did not hound Danny, the man may stay holed up here all night and not even realize it until Sawyer returned the next morning.

It’s happened before. Several times too many, in fact. Danny chuckled, “Who’s in charge of who here?” he joked with a roll of his eyes. But he still did as told and started to put all his tools in their right places.

“Har har, you know you’ll get too invested otherwise if you weren’t already, Mr. Leverton,” the young man reiterated once more. He then went and shrugged on his winter coat before saying goodbye and walking out of the shop with a skip. Danny waved at him as he did so, of course.

“Well, he’s not wrong,” Mr. ‘Leverton’ said as he pushed himself up from his stool and cracked his neck.

It’s been a long time since Danny’s gone by the last name ‘Fenton’; it’s been roughly 170 years, in fact. After all, he didn’t have any family when he was a kid, besides his parents, sister, and aunt Alicia, of course. But Jazz and her wife never had any kids of their own, despite fostering many others. Aunt Alicia never remarried after her divorce, plenty satisfied to live her life ‘till the end on her own.

That left Danny, but given the … circumstances of his existence, he quickly shot down any idea of having kids, biological or adopted.

So the Fenton Family’s lineage ended with Jazz and him, some 350 years ago when Jazz passed. He’d faked his death for the public long before then. You could only claim you’re an exceptionally young-looking 40-year-old for so long, after all.

That was until he decided to bring it back briefly, about 200 years ago, for another run and go. He didn’t like the idea of disconnecting himself from his first identity forever, entirely. Even if he had to use a different first name that time.

The second name he’d decided to use was Nightingale. In a hilarious turn of fate, during that 30-year period, there seemed to have been a resurgence in interest in witchcraft.

A lot has changed in the over 400-year period he’s wandered the Earth, yet, not so much has changed at all. And that was why Danny nowadays preferred to keep himself under the radar, and people at an arm’s length.

While he technically retired himself from the superhero business several centuries ago, what, with the amount of his rogues mellowing out and there being less need for Phantom to be able to show up at any moment; he would still help out whenever necessary. Such as, when there were catastrophes from space threatening the entire globe and its attached afterlife, something he’d done before but no one remembers nowadays. Or, when the wrong people got a hold of the rapidly developed technology and weapons of warfare, ones so strong and destructive the humans themselves do not even have any preventive measures for. But that was neither here nor there.

He preferred it this way. He was getting old – albeit not physically, he definitely was mentally – and he’d never been too fond of being part of the superhero business in general. He was merely thrust into it at a ripe fourteen years of age due to a stupid mistake stupid kids made. He was thankful he could mostly part ways with that life, nowadays. Jazz also said that it had made him happier.

“Speaking of…” it’s been a while since he’s visited his sister. The only one from his immediate circle that became a ghost. His parents likely would’ve rather been burned to death than become ghosts in the afterlife, and Sam and Tucker … Danny supposed they’d lived a fulfilling enough life to not return.

He was happy for them, for that fact; even if it had hurt at first when he realized. Even when it still hurt, over 300 years later to know they’d moved on from him. But perhaps love was never meant to be, for a being such as himself.

Jazz, on the other hand, said that she would never be able to leave her baby brother to fend for himself, especially if this baby brother was some immortal semi-godlike being who’s made more than a few bad decisions in his then-normal-lifespan. Danny had laughed at that proclamation at first. Until she really came back to haunt him forever in the afterlife that is.

Danny went ahead and locked up the door of his mechanics’ shop before heading up the stairs to the second floor, personal belongings in tow. He’d rather not open a portal and disappear through it, right in front of the large windows the first floor had.

The halfa took a gentle breath and dipped into a bit of concentration before tearing a hole through reality – its veil was rather thin, all things considered. After all these years and so much experience, creating portals was like child’s play to him – hell, even creating duplicates was.

He then let his familiar transformation wash over him before flying through the portal and closing it off again with a wave of his gloved hand once he was on the other side.

Danny found himself in a familiar area of the Ghost Zone – some small spectral village that was built roughly 700 years ago, if he remembered his history correctly. He shouldn’t let Clockwork know that he’s already forgotten the lessons he gave him; he’d be so disappointed.

Danny looked around in the air briefly before slowly floating down toward the paved roads, and just when he came to a halt, a few inches off the floor, a shrill voice caught his attention.

“Phantom!” it happily called out, loudly – and before Danny was able to turn around he was tackled into a hug by some familiar weight. Once his eyes landed on his assailant, everything made sense. “Hi there to you too, Brianne,” he greeted kindly. The ghost child giggled and kicked her feet before she looked up at him again. “Aunt Jazz has been worried sick!” she continued.

Danny’s eyes widened momentarily, and he quickly tried to hide his shock again. “And why would she be?” he asked as he patted the girl’s head, even though he had several guesses for why Jazz could be worried to the point others would know about it.

“She’s been muttering to herself about how it’s been too long since you visited…” Brianne answered with a scrunched expression, as if deep in thought and racking her brain to remember the details. “Also something about … afraid that frostbite would get to you? Or not get to you? I don’t know why she would be though! You have an ice core,” she continued on.

Danny chuckled and patted her head once more, “She’s probably worried that Mr. Frostbite, chief of the Far Frozen-” “Wouldn’t be able to find this reckless uncle of yours when he inevitably forgot his check-ups again,” Jazz added.

“Jazz!” Danny remarked surprised, but also excited, “Did you really have to put it like that?” he asked sheepishly.

“It wouldn’t be the first time, now would it? It’s a valid concern; you haven’t visited me in two years!” she chided her brother, her always younger baby brother – no matter how old or powerful he’s gotten.

Danny’s expression became slightly pained. He huffed and motioned his head to the side briefly as if to tell his sister, ‘Let’s continue this at your place,’ and it seemed that Jazz agreed. His sister looked down at the girl standing confused between the two of them and quietly told her something or another – Danny didn’t quite catch it – and she immediately went on her merry way.

Jazz started walking once Brianne had gone off, and Danny made it a point to close the distance he had with the ground and walk alongside her. Despite being able to fly, as the skill was part of any ghost’s basic repertoire, Jazz was one of the few ghostly inhabitants of the ‘Zone who had always preferred to feel her feet planted on the ground, even after death. He saw no need to mention it and was always happy to join her; gently grabbing her hand as he did so.

“I’m sorry that it’s been so long,” he started after a moment of not-so-uncomfortable quiet, “It’s just … After all these years-” “Time catches up to you, and you lose track of it instead,” Jazz finished his sentence for him once more. She exhaled, revealing no emotion with that action, not really. “I know, we’ve been through this plenty of times before, I got that by the time you turned 320 well enough,” she continued.

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t still point it out. Who knows what would happen otherwise?” she added after a beat of silence. “What? You’re afraid I’ll forget to visit you for decades at a time, or something?” Danny asked with a chuckle, rhetorically, mostly.

Jazz halted in her steps, forcing Danny to a stop too, and making him turn to see her raising an unimpressed eyebrow at him. “Heh, maybe you’re right,” he said with a sigh.

“You’re the one who said you lose track of time, after all. And I don’t think it’ll ever really get better,” she said, her tone devoid of judgment.

When they continued walking, but Danny didn’t respond for a few moments too long, Jazz spoke again. “You know I don’t blame you, right? It’s not unnatural – it’s just – I don’t want to lose you also,” she said quietly.

“You don’t have to! Isn’t that why you became a ghost in the first place? So we’d never lose each other,” Danny responded.

Jazz sighed and nodded. “Yes, but when you don’t contact me for so long, it’s … hard to not get scared. And before you say anything about me joining you – you know very well that I can’t sustain myself outside the Ghost Zone for long like you can, now that you move around the globe instead of staying put in Amity. Not that you should ever feel compelled to do that, of course.”

Once they’d arrived at Jazz’s doorstep, she removed her hand from Danny’s to find her keys and unlock the door, before opening it and letting Danny through. Doors in the ‘Zone were very much Ghost-proof, after all. But not so much human proof. Danny quickly dropped himself on the sofa with a satisfied “Humph”, making Jazz shake her head at him as she locked the door again.

“Do you want something to drink?” she asked, already making her way to the kitchen.

“Some ecto-jasmine will do,” Danny responded.

“Do I even want to know if that’s a poor attempt at a joke, or not?”

“Why not both? And hey! It is not poor,” a beat went by, “Okay, maybe it is.”

Danny sighed as he watched his sister work, shaking his head, “But no, you’re … right. I should probably be putting more effort into this … relationships thing. At least for others, even if not myself.”

“Oh?” Jazz responded curiously from the kitchen across.

Danny noted long ago how her home in the Ghost Zone – her Keep manifested from herself – resembled the different houses she’s lived in in her human life. That’s nothing strange, not at all. Many ghosts’ Keeps reflected parts of themselves, or their mortal lives. What was notable however was just how akin to the Fenton house in Amity Park Jazz’s was. Despite everything, it meant that her memories tied to it were comfortable and strong enough to manifest like this.

Contrary, Danny’s Keep – besides the one previously belonging to Pariah – was a weird amalgamation of their childhood home from before they moved to Amity, his many houses since then, and hell – it even saw a bit of Sam’s home! And it still changed to this day, as every new house he inhabited for a longer period of time would shift it again, even if it had been happening less frequently or substantially than before. One thing stayed consistent, however, and that was that there was a distinct lack of their home in Amity Park.

Jazz had mentioned before that it likely meant Danny had separated himself entirely from that aspect of his life, and that that was okay. That it was a form of healing as well.

But Danny couldn’t help but feel like it meant he was running away from it. His life and experiences there were what made him into the man he is today, after all. But that was neither here nor there.

Danny nodded, even though he knew Jazz wouldn’t be able to see it, and responded, “Yeah … for you. For Brianne,” a child taken too soon. A young ghost Danny found wandering around, lost in the Ghost Zone, shortly after her death. Now in the care of the community here, “And I’ve … taken on a human apprentice.” Danny finally bit the bullet and admitted it.

Danny then heard some ceramic shatter.

He jumped up from the couch alarmed, “Is everything alright?” he asked hastily.

Jazz sucked in a breath of air through gritted teeth before responding, “Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

She then grabbed a new cup, poured the tea in it, and returned with two of them in hand to the living room. As she set them down, she continued talking, “I was just caught off guard. I mean, you? Of all people taking in a human apprentice? When your only answer to me goading you into establishing more relationships with people again was ‘Nah.’ for the longest time? Sue me for not believing it immediately,” she said sarcastically.

“Very funny, Jazz. But I really can’t blame ya,” Danny responded, accepting defeat.

Jazz’s expression turned softer as she pinned her brother down and sighed, “Of course you can’t. Anyway, care to elaborate?” she asked as she raised her cup of tea to her mouth, taking a gentle sip of the hot beverage.

Danny closed his eyes and shook his head as he picked up his tea as well, responding, “It’s not like you’ll let me out of here until I do so,” he said. “You know me well, little brother,” she teased.

“What caused this change in heart?” Or resurfacing perhaps, that’d be a more accurate description.

Danny pouted in thought for a moment. “I just met this kid, Sawyer’s his name, a few months ago. He has a talent for engineering, but I found out soon after that his family probably wouldn’t be able to send him to college for that. Even after so long, the world hasn’t really become more fair. If it hasn’t gotten worse, that is,” he explained.

Jazz sighed, disappointed but not surprised, “That doesn’t shock me in the slightest. Anyway, so you thought you’d teach him the ropes?” The halfa nodded, “Basically; and maybe he’ll be able to get a scholarship after that, if he wants to, anyway.”

“You saw a part of yourself in him, didn’t you?” Jazz said, seemingly out of nowhere.

Danny huffed, just barely amused, “What made you think that?” he asked with suspicion.

“A young boy with uncultivated talents, really, Danny?” his sister asked in return, unimpressed.

Danny quieted at that. He’s been a lot quieter in general, especially compared to his youth, Jazz noted.

It wasn’t a surprise to anyone, and not a secret for anyone, that Danny changed a lot when his loved ones started passing one by one, while he stayed young and living forever. Jazz wasn’t exempt from that either, as the only one who continued to stay by his side, even if that meant continuing without her wife and dear friends who happily moved on.

The two of them always knew it would come to this, and they’d both made peace with it now. But it didn’t take a genius to realize that Danny’s solution to not experiencing this heartbreak again, was to distance himself from humankind. He stayed close, residing more in the human realm than the ghostly one, but he detached himself from relationships just enough for them to not get too close. For him to not get hurt too bad once he’d inevitably see them for a last time.

Unfortunately, in doing so, Danny separated himself from both communities that he was a part of.

Now, Jazz felt that for the first time in over a century, she saw the care he once carried all around him, emerge once more. This Sawyer kid, no doubt has been a huge part of that.

She saw the need to point it out as such, “I think this change has been good for you, little brother.” At Danny’s puzzled face, she continued, “You seem more energetic, more comfortable in your own body,” she said with a smile.

She set her cup down on the lounge table and walked over to Danny who was on the opposite side, kneeling down and holding her hand on top of his knee. “It must’ve hurt, keeping a part of yourself buried for so long,” she whispered quietly, but without another sound nearby it was louder than clear.

It was this comment that broke Danny’s defenses down, an attack so gentle it wouldn’t even have left a scratch. First came one tear, and then another, before they were followed by many more soon enough until her little brother was sobbing uncontrollably. Jazz didn’t think twice before embracing him in a tight hug.

He hugged back just as tightly, if not tighter. If Jazz were still human, she would’ve had to beg for air soon enough. So it was a good thing she didn’t have to.

The siblings just sat there, crying into each other’s shoulders for Ancients know how long.

------------------------------------------------------

On a clear spring day, Sawyer was prepared to head into Daniel Leverton’s shop early in the morning as he’s done many times before, half expecting he may have to wake up his teacher again; an occurrence that had become quite familiar to him as of late.

Instead, he was met with a decked-out first floor, a cake at his workbench, and a very awake Mr. Leverton.

“Happy birthday, I hope you’ll like your gift!” the raven-haired man had exclaimed.

Sawyer barked a laugh at that. “I honestly didn’t expect you to have remembered,” he said. His tone wasn’t rude, not in the slightest. He was merely stating a fact.

“I didn’t either, but hey, seems like old-timers still run alright once in a while,” he said with a wink.

And that had always been a peculiarity to Sawyer. He knew that Mr. Leverton was older than he looked. Even if he didn’t always act it, he had way too much experience for that not to be the case. But other times he would sound like any of his slightly older friends. Yet on occasion, he sounded like so much more. Even his grandparents wouldn’t have compared when they’d been alive.

Sawyer pushed those silly musings out of his head before accepting his gift – some tools that he may or may not have been drooling over while he was out with Mr. Leverton gathering supplies a few weeks ago, as well as some chocolates he vaguely remembered noting he enjoyed once, offhandedly.

For someone so air-headed – or perhaps, appearing to be on another plane entirely, the elder was attentive like no other.

Daniel Leverton was a curious man, and he continued to surprise the young mechanic.

------------------------------------------------------

It was on a different spring morning, several springs after that birthday, that Sawyer received an important email.

It was an email of acceptance into college – one dictating that he’d be the recipient of a scholarship, no less.

Mr. Leverton was the first person he’d tell about this news. Instead of the immediate excitement that he’d expected of the man, he received a pondering expression.

“Y’know, I was about to ask if you were interested in taking over the shop,” he’d said after he left Sawyer to wander about in his own confusion for a while.

Before he could respond, however, Leverton continued, “I’m proud of you, you should definitely go for it, I know how much it means for you. Just know you’ll always have a place to return to.”

“What are you going to do then?” he responded.

Mr. Leverton hummed with his trademark smirk and grinned, “I was thinking of taking an early pension and traveling the world for a bit. I still have a lot of inheritance left from my too-rich godfather, too. And I’ll keep the building for now, but clients will have to find a new favorite mechanic. Oh, I just know how much it’ll pain them to not find me again though, truly tragic,” he explained dramatically.

“You know, Mr. Leverton, sometimes it really doesn’t feel like you’re the older one of the two of us anymore,” Sawyer teased.

“Oh, but I can assure you I am,” the other said with a wink, “But feel free to call me Danny. Seeing you call me Mr. Leverton to this day really does make me feel so old,” he continued, placing a hand on his heart with a pained expression.

“Heh, okay, Danny,” Sawyer tested the name on his tongue. “I’ll let you know about the shop when I get close to graduating, yeah?”

“We have a deal!” Danny responded as he theatrically shook his hand. “Those stuck-up academics won’t know what’ll hit them.”

------------------------------------------------------

Danny didn’t actually travel the world like he’d told Sawyer; he’d done that plenty of times before. Going on two world-round trips within a century sounded kinda overkill, even to him.

No, what he did in actuality was that he decided to reside in the Infinite Realms for a little longer again – while still returning to Earth on occasion to let the systems know that he had not, in fact, died yet. He didn’t plan on doing that for a few years yet.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Danny’s been planning on his new identity for a bit now. Or, well, old identity.

“Do you think the world is ready for the return of Danny Fenton?” he’d mused to Jazz on a seemingly random day.

“I don’t see why not,” she responded. “What brought you to this decision?”

“I just think it would be nice to revisit some old memories, friends, and places.”

Jazz smiled serenely at that. “I think that’s a great idea, Danny.”

------------------------------------------------------

“Heard anything from Sawyer recently?” Jazz asked him one day, a different random day. Danny shook his head.

“Nah, seems like he’s been living a good life. He hasn’t been updating me as frequently lately, but I like to see that as him broadening his circles,” he responded fondly. But then, his mortal phone rang – techniques to make them compatible with ghost-tech and the ‘Zone courtesy to Tucker, of course – and he laughed. “Speak of the devil.” He transformed into his human form before picking up the call.

“Hey there, Sawyer. How’s school been?”

“It’s … been very great, actually, Danny. I have met someone very great, in fact. But uhm – more on that later. Remember what you said about the shop?”

------------------------------------------------------

Danny returned to his cozy little shop for the first time in roughly four years, not so long after he’d attended Sawyer’s graduation ceremony. He picked up a few of his belongings he couldn’t miss, and threw them inside his pocket dimension for safekeeping.

It was as he did this, that Sawyer entered, and caught him in the act. He’d been planning for this to happen, really.

The young man looked a bit confused but didn’t see any need to press further. If anything, Danny figured this would answer some questions in the long run, once the other thought about it.

“Heh, that’s not something you see any day,” was the boy’s first comment.

“Really? I see it happen plenty of times,” Danny snarked back.

“Man, I’d so want to punt you if I didn’t know for sure I stood no chance.”

Danny hummed, “I think you’ll have to stand back in the line for that.”

Neither man said another thing for a while after that, until Danny’s eyes landed on a small ecto-ornament he’d put on his table when he left for the Ghost Zone those years ago. He picked it up and held it out to Sawyer.

“Here, keep this. If you’ll ever be gone for a while, put this out in the open and it’ll put the area into stasis. Nothing will age for the worse, and it’ll serve as a protective charm against burglaries,” Danny said in a light tone at the end, though he wasn’t joking. Attempted burglars will wake up more than a little dazed if they so much as dare touch upon the shop.

“I … Honestly, I’m not even gonna question that. I just saw you tear a hole in reality,” Sawyer responded.

“That’s probably for the best,” Danny said with a gentle nod of his head before putting the ornament into the young man’s hands.

“Anyway, I’ve got everything I need. You can keep the rest, or throw it out – whatever floats your boat. This place is yours now. I left my key and the spares on my workbench,” Danny explained with a tilt of his head.

“What are you going to do this time?”

“That’s a secret,” Danny replied. “But do come find me again, as a man named Daniel Fenton.”

------------------------------------------------------

Years pass by, with Sawyer finding no such man.

Until one day, into his later years, when his children had already taken over the shop, he heard a familiar voice he’d not heard in decades, but could never forget.

“Hey there, Sawyer,” Danny Fenton said, in the flesh; not looking a day older than their last meeting all those years ago.

…

“I’m proud of you.” And I of you.

[arlieash-blog]

Valerie has been ignoring changes. Changes in her, her suit, and her relationship with the local ghost boy. One day soon, she won't be able to ignore them any longer.

Danny has started to notice odd changes with Valerie but before he can figure out just what is changing, he accidentally triggers the biggest one of all.

[redead-red]

Mother Knows Best

Words: 5647 Fandom: Danny Phantom Characters: Pamela Manson, Sam Manson, Pamela Manson's Mother Warnings: Bullying, depiction of childbirth, Holocaust mention

Pamela Manson knows her role: she is Samantha's mother and that means that it is her duty to protect her daughter from harm. Especially as her own mother seemed to have missed that memo.

AO3 Link | Artist

Invisobang has finally come! So exciting. So much to read!! This year I did character study into Pamela Manson and it was incredibly cathartic for me. I hope you enjoy it too <3

[glow-and-vamp]

Behold, the fruits of our labor for @invisobang ! A novel-length feature, starring everyone's favorite cringefail Packers fan! The whole thing is done, but we'll be posting as we have the final go through each chapter to ensure there's no loose ends!

Vlad is far from the perfect man he likes to delude himself to be. But when he's forced to confront his issues head on, perhaps he's not irredeemable after all.

This the story of the Masters family, freshly broken after the betrayal against Dani, when Vlad finds an infant that was just like him- more so than even Danny: Dying from ectoplasmic radiation.

Vlad is the only one who understands the fatal diagnosis and steals the baby, to help them through what he himself experienced over twenty years ago. But from one selfless act grow many more, and with the fruits of his labor he hopes to savor what he's always wanted all along: Love and acceptance.

[nat-a-nat]

25. Forest

He thinks about the corpse in the woods sometimes. Hard to forget where you are buried

He thinks about the corpse in the woods sometimes. Hard to forget where you are buried.

It's October now. It's getting colder. The leaves are falling. They must be covering it by now.

They crunch under his steps as he walks. Something CRUSHES under his foot. His mind pictures bones. Ribs breaking in two.

It's just a branch.

He continues his walk.

The sky is bright, but the mood is gloom. The air is moist. 

It's been a while. It must have decomposed by now, with how much rain they get. Sometimes, he thinks he can feel the dirt on his bones.

He puts a finger on his pulse. Thump. A pause. A painfully long, long, pause. It shouldn't be this long. Thump. He is alive. But his skin is cold.

His hoodie is thick. It was always enough to keep him warm. Now, he is always cold.

The ice of his core. Slowly freezing him from the inside out. 

It's shallowly buried. His corpse. Barely a few centimetres underground. A lump in the dirt hastily covered with soil. Six feet, that's how it's supposed to be.

He strays from the path. Disappeares through the trees. Like a ghost.

There's a few hiker trails in the forests surrounding Amity, but he disregards them all.

He moves through the thick foliage. There are broken branches, broken saplings. He tries to not further disturb it all.

He crushes a flower about halfway through. The stem is mangled, his shoe sole imprinted in the bud.He picks it. He rolls it between his fingers the rest of the way.

He reaches a clearing. There's a big rock in the middle. 

His soul aches. A corpse with no grave, a ghost without rest. What a pity.

He goes up to the rock. The ground underneath it is uneven, disturbed from digging.

Is it still wrong to stand on a grave if it's yours?

He kneels on the forest floor and sets a candle down. Lights it. He lays the mangled flower beside it.

A single broken flower for a lonely corpse.

He feels sorry for it. It must be sad. All alone. In a dark, cold forest. With nobody to know you died, with nobody to mourn you.

Leaving his makeshift graveyard, he felt lighter. That single candle flame keeping him warmer than any blanket.

[vigilant-insomniac]

Ashes rain upon your scalded palms pt 2

Prev | Chapter 2/3 | next | or read on AO3

Word Count 3571

Complete Wordcount: 9655

Maddie builds a Thing and finally seeks out the Ghost to get some answers. She had to find Danny. She had to save her son. The Ghost was her best lead, and if she had to face it, armed with nothing more than her determination, she would.

Contains: Maddie & Danny, Post apocalyptic vibes, and the usual bucket full of angst! @phicphight submission

------

Chapter Two

Before she could save anyone, Maddie needed to be more prepared than she was. Fenton Works was very much out of the question, since the only part of it still standing was the leftovers of the Portal. Scavenging from it felt like a bad idea. 

But, there should be some workshops around that would carry the necessary equipment to build a very rudimentary shield or device. Jack's ancestors had a lot of know-how on how to contain evil spirits without high tech. Maddie had used their papers in a lot of her research and was pretty confident that she would be able to build something from what she would find lying around. 

Danny had been an apprentice at a copper smithy, and she was fairly certain she still knew the layout of the workshop from when he had shown her around. 

Mind made up, Maddie grabbed whatever she found promising in her current location. Which included the vacuum. That was some of the most advanced technology she would find in an average household, and if Jack’s ancestors got this far by just relying on analogue mechanics and plants, she could definitely do even better with some cutting edge tech. She also found a jar of salt that would help as a rudimentary protection against ghosts.

The radio she found was a bit too bulky to carry around, so she hoped that the workshop had one. 

Her walk through the outskirts of the ruined townscapes felt eerie, she didn’t quite feel the same gooseflesh inducing sensation as she had closer to the portal, but she felt on edge in a way that felt purely instinctual. 

The copper workshop was easy to break into since it decidedly lacked one of its walls. Maddie had hoped to escape the heat some more, but to get to the coppery, she had to get back into the zone of destruction, which meant that the buildings wouldn’t be intact anymore. 

Still she was lucky. The workshop was mostly in one piece. Ash still coated everything, but she could still see that only some parts of the main room had really caved in. 

So she started to rummage and explore. 

Fairly quickly she had gathered a generator and fuel, enough copper and tin to build almost anything, tools to cut and bend, and wires and components from the vacuum. She even did find a radio that was in just as bad a state as the rest of the technology she had found so far, but still, it was a welcome addition to her arsenal. 

The best thing was the soldering station though. In less time than she could have hoped for otherwise, she managed to build a construct that, in theory, should act like some kind of vacuum. 

She didn’t have a container for the spirit she was hoping to catch, so she would need to watch out to keep the generator up and running. 

As long as it did, the suction of the device would keep the ghost from going anywhere. It was a risk though. Even the generator itself was about to just fall apart, and her fuel supply was a joke at best. 

She still needed a weapon. That was the conclusion she arrived at when she looked at the somewhat misshapen pile of wires and plates that were soldered together sloppily. To think she was going to bet her life on a device that was maybe as big as a dinner plate, that was untested and unheard of….. 

A glance at the sky made her stomach sink. It was hard to tell with the diffused lighting, but slowly and steadily the sun had made its way across the sky. It was August, so days were fairly long, but she maybe had two more hours before dusk. Once it got dark, she’d be even more defenseless. Running would already be difficult enough with all the rubble, but in the dark? When ghosts were the most active too? 

Maddie turned around and tried to find something that would work as a weapon. 

There were the workbenches and the cupboards and the drawers with tools. She opened them haphazardly but nothing really stood out. She did manage to find a knife, and there was the salt she had pilfered from the house earlier, so she might be able to at least coat the blade and hope the theories were sound. 

While she looked for another, better, alternative, her eyes fell on something she had dismissed as another pile of broken equipment. 

She drew closer though, on her search, and noticed that the misshapen lump was a tarp over something. 

Her hands moved carefully and she held her breath when removing the tarp shook up a cloud of ash and dust. 

It took a moment to clear, but when it did, Maddie let out a shuddering exhale. Before her was a half finished telescope. It showed off craftsmanship and passion even in its half finished state. And it would never be finished. It would never be used to look at a night sky. 

This was Danny’s. 

There was paper under the parts. Plans and schematics, and more than a few drawings of constellations, that Danny would surely have gotten into trouble for, to be writing them on the margins of his work as just an apprentice. 

Maddie couldn’t help the anger that flashed unbidden. She would fix this. Danny would get to see the stars through his telescope. She was going to find him and then bring him back somehow. They would find a way, and then Danny would finish his telescope and she would finish the portal and make sure nothing like this future would ever happen. She would eradicate every ghost beyond existence before letting them use her portal as a bomb. 

“Focus on the tasks at hand, Maddie,” she told herself. She had her ghost trapping device, and she had a knife that she could coat in salt. 

Next would be finding said ghost, and getting answers. 

She nodded to herself and began pulling the tarp back over Danny’s unfinished telescope. It felt strangely mournful, but fitting in a way. She just didn’t like this association with her son. He had to be alright. 

Maddie couldn’t stay here any longer. Time was of essence. 

Quickly she found another tarp, folded up half heartedly on another shelf, and began gathering her makeshift machinery in it. She’d have to sling it over her shoulder so she would have her hands free to carry around the generator. She cursed internally that there was nothing like a battery that would both fuel an invention like that, and survive 100 years in an apocalyptic oven. 

It mattered none. She wanted to get out in the open. Ghosts would be at an advantage anyways, whether she was within four walls or an open field, but with their supposed ability to walk through walls, which she herself decidedly lacked, she didn’t want to encounter the energy where she could be cornered. 

The ghost had been around the portal and some part of her, the one that would shudder when she thought about going back to the epicenter of it all, knew that they were connected. She would bet that the ghost was the one to blow up her portal in her future. 

It still mainly counted as a guess, but it was the only lead she got, so there was that. 

She looped the tarp around her torso and made sure it would hold the delicate machine. Her handkerchief was back over her mouth and tied behind her head. The knife was in her belt and just one motion away. 

So with a grunt she hefted the generator on her shoulder and began to move back out into the open. 

Even just after a few meters, every step was already a struggle, and in no time she felt sweat run down her back. 

One foot in front of the other. 

Breathe in hot air, exhale hot air. 

Find Danny. Save him. 

Find Danny. Save him. 

Find Danny. Save Him. 

The mission became Maddie’s mantra throughout the trip and no matter how much her legs shook, she didn’t stop until she could make out her portal's shadowy silhouette again. 

Heat flared up and gooseflesh rose on her arm. Not yet to the same extent as it had back then, when she saw the ghost. But she knew it must be close. She could even feel its eyes on her. That, or her mind had decided to give in to the heat. 

But it proved her right. She hadn’t been certain before, but now she would dare say, the ghost wouldn’t come find her without an added incentive. She had made quite some noise back in the coppery, and had almost expected to be discovered. So if it didn’t seek her out itself, she had to come to him. 

The problem just now presented: setting up would take some time. 

The closer to the portal she got, the longer she’d had to endure the heat, which already felt more than she could handle for long, and the more likely it would be that the Ghost would actually engage her before she was done. 

She put down the generator with a resounding thud. Her legs almost gave out. Maybe she didn’t have that much room for choice anyways, it felt impossible to lift the generator back up again. 

At least she was at a relatively flat part of the whole mayhem. 

It would have to do. 

Maddie began setting up her invention in silence. It was unnerving. The heat and exhaustion were making her hands shake and more than once she almost broke something off. 

The sun was now definitely reaching towards the horizon too, so she felt compelled to hurry. To rush. 

The threat of being stranded here at night sat in the back of her mind- she felt uncomfortable to even take a moment to double check if everything was connected properly before turning on the generator. 

The disc shaped machine sat in place though. No wire disconnected and all parts undamaged from her trip ups during the walk. 

There wasn’t a lot of fuel, so she had to make it count. Meaning, she had to get the ghost to come to her, before turning it on. Otherwise it might run for minutes or hours that she couldn’t spare. 

She could still feel the ghost. The hair on the back of her neck, that refused to lie flat. It was somewhere around here. And just because she couldn’t see it, didn’t mean that it couldn’t be watching her this very moment. 

Her running hypothesis was that the ghost had, for some reason, destroyed her portal to use it as a bomb. So, assuming it didn’t know all that much about tech, she could bluff her way through this. 

Her mouth felt dry. Find Danny. Save him. She had to do this. For her son.

She kept her hand over the switch of the generator. For her son. 

Deep inhale and hope her voice would hold after a day of impure air. For her son. 

Showtime. 

“VILE SPECTER! YOU MAY HAVE CLAIMED THE FENTON PORTAL, BUT YOU SHALL NEVER HAVE MINE. I WILL TEAR THROUGH THE VEI-” 

Green. 

Her vision was filled with the sight of a pair of glowing green eyes inches away from her own. She flipped the switch and for a terrifying moment she couldn’t breathe. She was in a furnace and any inhale would surely burn her lungs. Instincts screamed at her to runrunrun get away! 

But her SON. Her SON needed her. She stood her ground even as teeth were bared and a growl made the very air oscillate. 

A maw filled with razors opened so close she could feel its hot breath on her throat. Black smoke coiled around her like bindings. 

Then the generator hummed and she could only sink to the floor with her entire being shaken, while the ghost thrashed and spat in fury at the sudden interruption of its meal.. 

The Disk was doing its job. It sucked the ghost towards it, like on a retractable leash. It had a bit of a radius it could struggle against, one that Maddie had to stay conscious of, but it couldn’t get away. It was confined, even if it hadn’t sunk in for the creature yet. 

It screeched furiously and Maddie wondered suddenly if it was even capable of human speech. It had to. If it didn’t, her whole plan was about to fall apart. 

For now, she could get back into her composed self. She was deeply shaken, the ghost had appeared out of nowhere. From one moment to the other it just had been there. Right in her face. It could have snapped her neck before she would have known what had happened. 

Now she would be relatively safe. As long as the generator held. 

The Scientist in her made her stop and observe for at least a moment. This still was quite groundbreaking, even under the circumstances, and who knew when the next time would be, that she could look at a ghost from such a short distance. 

Now that she looked, she was fairly certain the ghost would be able to understand human speech after all. It only hissed and snarled right now, but it was fairly humanoid. It was built like a lanky teenager. Long limbs ended in clawed and blackened hands. Its body looked like it was covered in a black fabric that stretched over bony ribs and shoulders. The face was distorted in its fury, but while the features were humanoid enough, they were also somewhat otherworldly. Its white hair that was as long as it was tall, hid some of it, but she could still make out the most important bits. The eyes were a shade of green shed never seen before. Glowing and bright. The sclera was black though, which added to the strangeness of the green. Its bone structure looked rather delicate for a being this terrifying. Now that she looked closer, not much muscle could be seen either. Yet she had no doubt it would be able to overpower her with one hand. 

Well, she would like some answers before that became the case. 

“Stop that.” she ordered with a hoarse voice. The ghost growled in response. 

“Let me guess, it’s your first time being caught? Then let me tell you the rules. I ask you questions, you answer them. If you do, you will be let go, and will not learn what sort of inventions I'm keeping in my lab coat.”

It still snarled at her, but it had its eyes locked onto her now. It definitely understood, it just didn’t seem to agree. Maddie fought to suppress a shiver at the intensity of its glare.

“Why did you destroy the Portal.” 

More posturing was what she expected, but it actually froze for but a moment. Not for long though. It found renewed energy to throw itself against its incorporeal restraints. 

“Hah!” she scoffed, “So I was right! You are the one responsible!” Maddie hissed herself. It didn’t take a verbal reply to get answers. Its behavior was clear enough. 

“So you just decided to do all this?” she gestured around the wasteland, acutely noting the rise in temperature. “You somehow blew up the portal, about a century ago, to do what? Was this your goal? To turn a whole city into a hellscape?” Her voice rose and for the first time the creature seemed to not just want to get out of its cage, but away from her specifically. 

"Answer me!” She yelled and the ghost all but flinched. 

"Why did you do all this?!” Maddie’s fists shook as she held them pressed to her side. She wanted to kick and bite and tear apart. But this thing. She wouldn’t stand a chance. It made her sick. 

The ghost didn’t reply. 

“No matter." Maddie took a steadying breath. It was getting hard to really think. The air was thick and heavy. The temperatures have been steadily rising and her makeshift mask was soaked and starting to make it even harder to catch her breath. 

“What I’m really here for is to find Danny. You have something to do with this, don’t you?!” She snarled not less viciously as the ghost had. “You’re the key to finding him, so I will not let you go, until you tell me where he is!” 

“No.” That was the first thing she’d heard from the ghost that wasn’t just a sound. Its tone was disbelieving. 

But then it said it again. And again. Anger rising and heat flaring. It’s body turned to smoke at the edges like it was getting singed. 

“you know something!” She yelled in the face of that admittance. The ghost lashed its tail like an angered cat. 

“Go away!” it screeched. 

“Not until i have found Danny.” She screamed back. It was flying in circles, looking for a way out of its enclosure. It was furious, Maddie could tell, but so was she. 

“What did you do to him? Whatever it is, he didn’t deserve it. He is kind. He is bright. And he deserved nothing you could do to him.” 

It turned to her and bared its fangs once more. “Oh, you didn’t like that, huh? Cant handle the truth that you are none of those things?” Maddie grit out.

“How would you even know?!” The ghost roared in fury and Maddie couldn’t take the heat anymore. She needed more air. She tore off her makeshift mask and gasped. 

“How couldn't I know,” she breathed into the unexpected silence " when I’m his mother.” 

The air that had been charged with tension until then, suddenly imploded. 

“No,” it began to mumble again, “No, this cannot be.” 

“I killed you.” it confessed, and Maddie had expected as much. What she wasn’t expecting was the shift in mood. Where before there had been anger, now there was despair. The sky darkened and flakes of ash started to fall like a sick mimicry of snow.

“So you did. And if you have any morsel of humanity left, you will give me back Danny.” Her voice was firm in the face of its dismay. 

“I killed you.” It repeated again. 

She was about to snap. 

“I killed everyone.” it whispered and the expression on its face distorted to one of pure anguish as it clutched its chest. 

Wind, something that had been absent since her arrival, picked up and whipped her hair around. Ash stung her eyes and exposed skin and she had to brace against the gusts of hot air. 

The ghost started to rock back and forth with wide unseeing eyes. 

“I killed them. I killed everyone. I-” Maddie reached for her knife nervously.

Its head snapped up and- 

crack. 

A noise that was akin to a clap of thunder suddenly originated from the ghost and everything stopped. 

The temperature too, cut like hot metal being plunged into water.

But Maddie barely even recognized it, when following the cracking sound, the ghost dropped the rest of the way to the ground like gravity had suddenly been turned back on and a ring of blinding light sprung forth from the center of its- his chest. 

It took barely a moment, but something had fractured and the ghost, like a broken illusion, got replaced with a human. 

He looked up and Maddie dropped her knife. Framed by black hair that pooled on the ground, her son's face, his eyes stared at her with an expression of utter grief and despair. 

“I know that Danny isn’t any of those things, because I am Danny.” There was none of the echo anymore. 

But this- surely this was a lie- 

“But I killed them. I killed everyone I ever cared about. Everyone is dead. They are all dead. It’s all my fault, If i hadn’t- I had to bury you. I killed you. I killed my own mother, my own family. I’m a monster. I-” in agony he doubled over and Maddie scrambled up to rush to her son. This was wrong. This had to be a mistake. She had to find Danny. (He’s here.) She had to save him! (he was already gone.)

Her hands hovered over his thin shoulders. 

“Danny-” The boy in front of her, didn’t even hear her. He curled up, and a scream built. The sheer desolation was palpable. Then the scream grew in intensity, it got hard to breathe again, she clasped her hands over her ears but it pierced right through, until it became a wail and Maddie knew nothing but her son's agony as if it was her own. 

The image of him kneeling on the ground next to her, his forehead pressed into the ash would probably be the last thing she would see. It made her heart break almost as audibly as whatever had broken in her son.

She knew whatever was happening would mean an End, and after a century, maybe that was what he needed. She embraced him then, even as her eardrums ruptured and her lungs burst. Maddie had found him. If only she could have saved him too. 

At least she would hold him, until this ashen world of gray, finally turned to black. 

“Time out.”

[phantomphangphucker]

Phic Phight - “Harder, Daddy”. “Son?!?” “🤨”

@bubblegumbeech @library-of-cronos @ghostboidanny @ecto-mochi @miss-nov @thegayonthemoon

Danny always knew that it wouldn’t always be as easy and stuff the Box Ghost into the thermos, but maybe facing his most dangerous threat would turn out to be the best kind of ‘threat’. After all, Danny never really looked like Jack and Maddie, and they were never great parents. It’s said that a parent will always recognise their child, no matter one; and they didn’t recognise him.

:Chap. 1:

The Past’s Now With Us

Danny was expecting a lot of things when he went to pull the sword out of the ground, everything that happened after was not any of them. He didn’t expect Vlad to be shocked and horrified. He didn’t expect to suddenly have all of Amity in the ghost zone. He didn’t expect to be beset by skeletons. He didn’t expect the Frightknight’s sword to fly out of his hands; yet again, he should definitely expect that to happen by now. He didn’t expect the giant of a ghost to shout about surrender and then try and goddamn ghost tazer him and Vlad. He also didn’t expect for the giant ghost to apparently just drop him and Vlad then up and leave. The fuck kinda ghost just smacks you around to then leave you on the ground in a heap?

Even Vlad was weirded out and confused; enough so that he completely abandoned his apparent most recent psycho plan. Also, what was up with Vlad and stealing peoples shit? And why did he ever think stealing from the king of all ghosts and the literal personification of fear and Halloween was a GOOD IDEA??? He also lost the ring so, suck on that dumbass; he deserved to have the shittiest of days.

Either way Danny’s still got a fight to face, Vlad’s fucked off, Valerie’s hurt (because of him), and Sam and Tuck are worried about him doing stupid reckless shit. Not too weird but still, Pariah was still confusing him though.

“YOUNG ONE! HEAR MY DECREE!”.

Ah. Danny feels like he might be getting singled out here.

Tuck blinking, “dude, you didn’t even get to talk to him and he’s still targeting you?”.

Sam frowning, “I still don’t think you should do this”.

“FACE ME IF YOU DESIRE DEATH!”.

Danny glances at the red clouds then down to Sam, “I don’t think I have much of a choice, Sam. Plus, I’ll be fine. I can totally do this”.

Sam grumbles, “idiot. But fine, just… don’t be stupid”. Tuck adding, “stay safe, dude”.

“I think I’ve already fucked both those up”.

They glare but still stand by the shield to lower it.

“GO INVISOBILL!”.

Oh he hates that so much. “IT’S Phantom! DANNY! PHANTOM!”. By the zone, let them remember that!

The literal army is a bit much, there’s skeleton dragons! The suit is awesome though, he’s blasting and tossing around skeletons like this is a goofy game.

Then his friends drop all his enemies off, that have apparently decided to fight as his own personal army apparently.

“THE BUBBLEWRAP! OF DEATH!”.

Danny’s surprised the bubble wrap attack actually works. “Huh. That actually worked, go Boxy”. Johnny chuckling, “hey, I’m surprised too”.

Skulker nearly snarling but sounding too desperate to really have any threat to him, “now go! Defeat him! So I’ll be free to hunt you for another day!”. really? REALLY? That’s what the guy goes with?

Danny turning to Ember, “he’s your boyfriend”, she smirks at him, “I’m just saying, you do know what standards are, right?”. She smacks him over the battle suits head with her guitar for that; fair enough.

Either way he’s now got to face the king… the king of all ghosts… probably half-ghosts included. He knows he said he’ll be fine, but really? Probably not a chance. Nope. Hello full death for him. That’s not gonna stop him from trying though.

His entrance is dramatic.

Pariah greets him dramatically in kind, he has a fucking mace of all things, “little ragged ‘round the edges, eh my child”.

Does this guy just think that all ghosts belong to him or something? Talk about egotistical, at least Vlad pretended he didn’t think Danny was ‘already his son’. still Danny jumps forward and more or less asks to cut the witty banter bullshit and just fight. Partly because he’s already kinda tired and partly because he expects to get his ass kicked; he’d rather not beat around the bush on that one. He’d prefer for his second death to be far less painful than the first. He vaguely wonders if Skulker legit believes Danny stands a hairs breath of a chance.

“I think not, I reject your terms”.

What? Why? Is this some ‘I’m going to demand you kneel before me’ crap? Or like does this guy want an ‘official’ duel? “And why not?”, if Danny can talk his way out of this then hot damn, he might actually be fine, his mouth is his best weapon after all.

“You shall see soon”. And then the guy launches at him with the mace. Talk about mixed messages. Danny obviously deflects the mace, like duh, it’s… a massive drain on his energy though. To say he does not feel good is an understatement.

But instead of looking insulted, or angry, or just annoyed; the ghost looks… concerned? Danny’s also fairly sure the guy let Danny’s echo-beam hit him and push him back.

Danny gets thrown into a wall.

Danny gets blasted into the ground.

Danny blocks a thrown sword. Then ten thrown swords.

Danny tries to avoid fire.

Danny is tired.

Pariah is not.

Pariah gets thrown into a chair.

Pariah gets smashed by an orb.

Pariah doesn’t seem to be taking actual damage.

Pariah is not taking actual damage.

Danny is screwed.

“You can’t possibly win”.

Danny is pretty aware of that, but Danny is also a tricky bastard that doesn’t fight fair nearly as much as Vlad seems to think he does. Pariah plus coffin is all Danny actually needs.

Danny’s about to have a duplicate blast Pariah away when the ghost picks his real self up by one arm, when, “this suit is a burden on you, my child. It is pointless to test you with this, we are wasting our time”.

Great, now the guy’s playing games with him again. “You’re kidding yourself if you think I’m falling for that one”. Danny’s clone blasts him, but Pariah creates a shield and it bounces off easily.

“Enough of this”, with a finger snap all of Danny’s duplicates are just gone; crushed by pure ectoplasmic power. Okay yeah, beating up your own king with items of ‘unlimited power’ wasn’t really a winning fight. He had been planning to just… shoot off the guys crown, which would be kinda stupid if it actually worked, wouldn’t it? Then, like, kick him into the crazy guy coffin jail, which was also probably a pretty fucking dumb plan. Eh he’s worked with stupider. It was less stupid plan than ‘guess I’ll die’, which was the current trend. So Danny says one of the stupidest things he’s ever said on the possible brink of double death, of death two point oh, of the full big flop, “squeeze harder, daddy-o”, fuck if he’s gonna die or be ended, he was gonna do it on a really fucking dumb joke. Tuck would be proud, maybe his full ghost ass will get to tell him.

“My aim is not to break your arm, son”.

…

Is Danny being taken seriously? What does he do with this? How old is this guy??? Should… should he play along?

Pariah drops him unceremoniously, huffing, “leave behind that foolish contraption and follow”, and just stalks off. Guess Danny’s playing along? Or playing nice? He doesn’t know. Danny abandons the suit before the king decides to try beating him around again and follows behind very awkwardly, the two passing The FrightKnight, who gives Danny a confused look, Danny shrugs exaggeratedly back. He didn’t know either okay! This king guy was crazy crazy! Pariah’s voice rumbling in his knights general direction, “any who enter, end them”.

The FrightKnight bows immediately, “as you desire, my liege”, and goes to stand guard by the doors that Danny brutalised.

Another thing Danny didn’t expect? For him to be walking after a psycho king into a throne room with a strange age shifting ghost that just screamed powerful. Pariah’s voice booming out, “care to explain? To me? To him?”.

The cloaked ghost doesn’t so much as turn around, “It was for the best”.

Pariah roaring, “you let me believe him ended!”.

Danny has so many questions and not only are they not getting answered, they’re getting added to instead.

At least the cloaked ghost turns around this time, “and they would have ended him, there was no other future wherein he survived”.

“And you couldn’t tell me!”.

“No”.

Danny standing here awkwardly watching too clearly super old and super powerful ghosts bickering, wondering if he should try and take a cheap shot. See this? That train of thought? Is why he gets himself into so many messes. It’s also why so many jerks liked to pick fights with him.

Okay think, Danny, this place is huge right? There’s gotta be something he can use to, like, disable Pariah or at least annoy him enough to give up on his mass domination plan. These two are distracted by their bickering match.

“-I was going to take everything away from them!”.

“They wouldn’t have believed him gone otherwise”.

“I still shall take everything from them”.

“Do you believe I do not agree with that?”.

Danny has tried to ‘slink off’ as subtly as he can, considering he was still short and skinny -which was often annoying as fuck- that wasn’t too hard to do. This king’s got scrolls, a lot of random skulls, fur pelts, really old looking jewellery, a weird stack of chairs, baby clothing? Weird-

“If you did this all so I would seek to strip them of some power-”

“I can assure you it was not, Sæti”.

Danny side-eyeing the two, that was said with some, uh, very specific kinda fondness. Was this, like, a couples bickering match??? Why is Danny being dragged into this? Yes Johnny and Kitty considered him, unfortunately, to be their go to for ‘couples counselling’, but come on! And the size difference between these two ghosts must make things interesting. Tuck would have some choice words, Danny’s choosing not to think about that; considering it would probably be the same shit Tuck said about Danny’s own folks and their height difference. Oh hey! A really big hammer! Danny absolutely can’t pick it up. Damn. Because if the ‘knocking off his crown’ plan was going to work, doing it with a comically large hammer would have been totally awesome.

“We never even got to name him! You could not have had the sense to wait that long?!”.

“Kjært barn har mange navn, Pariah“. (A beloved child has many names, Pariah)

Great, now there’s an entirely new language getting involved, Danny will question why the hell he can understand it later. At this point he’s not even sure what they’re arguing about, their kid he’s guessing, but why is he involved in this shit? He ain’t no goddamn ghosts kid! Is ghosts -half ghosts included- trying to adopt him just going to be a theme in his half life? Why! Hey look, a podium with an ominous sword on it. Score! There’s little images of some other guy with the same green crown getting stabbed with the sword by the Pariah guy all over it. A king killer sword? That is exactly what he needs! Look mom! He’s actually got a plan now!

“What of him now? Has he been alone? Could you not have released me yourself if you knew? ClockWork!”.

Oh cool, Danny got a name for the guy with a goddamn clock in his chest. He totally should have figured it would be clock-related.

“He had the upbringing that was needed, that did not include us”. The Pariah ghost actually throws something at the ClockWork guy. Clocky avoiding it easily. “I do not regret what I did”.

Pariah’s, “you never do”, is weirdly gentle; way too much like when Danny’s dad was trying to down play being a giant of a man.

“And think, what does it mean if we’re seeing him again now?”.

“…”.

Danny manages to get himself up on the podium, why did it have to be so long?, crouching for balance since he was frankly still exhausted.

“I would recommend against touching that, Skatten” (treasure).

Danny stills and goes wide-eyed, side-eyeing the Clock ghost who was now staring at him looking amused. Danny is tempted to hiss like a cat and try to knock down the sword. Pariah following Clock’s line of sight, eyeing Danny, and sighing tiredly; did that mean Danny was succeeding in at least maybe annoying the guy out of world domination? Danny blinks, “and why not?”

Clock guy just looks more amused, “because you do not want to end Pariah”.

Danny looks at the sword then back to the ghosts, “I don’t?”. Danny did. That was kinda the point. Or at least make the guy go back to his forever sleep.

Clock shakes their head, Pariah glares at clock, “You have been watching him this whole time”.

“…”. The clock ghost doesn’t respond.

“I haven’t received such a privilege”, Pariah then looks to Danny, “no, you do not. There are many things we have to talk about”.

Danny is still confused, but he’s going the hedge his bets or whatever, “we do?”. Danny is still on the podium, he currently has no intention of moving; since he might be able to move fast enough to grab the sword and at least throw it at the king… so long as it’s not stuck in the podium anyways. “And are you gonna keep trying to beset my town with a whole ass army?”.

That question apparently pleases the king, “so you have already claimed some lands as your dominion”. Clock grinning and nodding, “his approval rating amping the citizens has gone up”.

Danny makes a face at the clock ghost, “how do you know that?”, thank fuck his approval has gone up though. You’d think after playing hero for this long everyone would already be on his side by now. But noooooo, he was a ghost and there was still all this bigotry bullshit.

Both ghosts seem amused now, Clock ghost tilting their staff a little dramatically, “I’m the ancient of time, I have seen everything you have ever done, could ever do, are currently doing, and will ever possibly do”.

Ah. Wow. Ha. Danny is so fucked. Well… they’re were playing nice, now at least anyways. Or well to be fair, the clock one never actually did anything, that he knows of. “Congrats on having the most excessive power set I’ve run into yet?”. What else is he supposed to say to that?

Clock eyes Pariah, “reminds you of someone, no?”. And Pariah actually laughs -how is this going well for Danny- back at that, “I believe I was far more aggressive when we first met”.

Danny shuffles, moving to just be sitting lazily on the podium, he’s still not getting down, “well Clocky here hasn’t tried to fist fight me yet, or lay siege to my town, or taser me for that matter”.

Clock smirks, “you and I both know that if you thought you could win, you’d try”.

“That’s not a lie”. Danny was a combative mother fucker alright? It didn’t help that basically every ghost he’s ever met has wanted to throw hands with him….

Pariah huffs, it’s almost a sigh, “I suppose it’s better you have more caution than I”.

Clocky’s, “it most certainly is, though it is by only a fraction”, is scolding.

Danny blinks, okay, um, he’s not sure what to do here so, “are you two like, a thing? Are y’all having just the most dramatic couple problems ever, or something? Is abducting towns a romantic gesture?”.

“Yes”.

“No”.

Danny makes a face, “ah so I’m not the only confused one here. Gotcha”. Is Danny fishing for answers? Obviously. Because he’d really like to have some.

ClockWork makes a ‘well go ahead’ gesture with their hand and floats back some. Pariah looking from Clocky to up at Danny on the podium, “did you or did you not recognize me as your father earlier? For you are undoubtedly my son”.

“I was making an, admittedly, really stupid joke! ‘Daddy’ has, other, meanings”. Oh zone, this guy thinks he’s actually, like legit, his actual father. What the hell? Danny’s used to Boxy’s delusions of power, but this was a whole different kind of delusion; and one Danny was far less interested in encouraging. “You, ah, got proof for this shit though? Cause last I checked I already have parents”.

Pariah looks back at Clocky, “explain”.

“I wasn’t about to allow him to be left unattended or grow up isolated”.

Danny sticks up a hand, “uh yeah, explain that a little more, what the fuck”. Is this clock guy claiming that he, what?, dropped Danny off with the Fenton’s and they either didn’t notice they magic-ed a son out of nowhere or just never told Danny????

…

Okay considering they hadn’t noticed he died that made more sense than it should. Or that Vlad hated dads -Jack’s?- guts. Or that ghosts definitely had actual emotions. Or a lot of things.

Danny pointing at Pariah, “and haven’t you been in a coffin for, like, whole ass centuries?”. Danny’s questions are only growing.

Clocky hums, “time is but a suggestion, one I have no difficulty twisting to my own desires should they be preferable”. Great. Is this guy claiming Danny’s a damn time travel baby??? What has his life come to. Danny did not sign up to be part of this soap opera!

Pariah floats up to be more on even eye level with Danny, “there is no doubt you are my son. None”.

“And I’m supposed to take your word on that?”. Like sure, Danny didn’t exactly look like his maybe parents, Jazz definitely looked like mom, but how the hell would two ghosts have a human child???? His ghost form doesn’t even look like theirs either! Okay fine Clocky has bits of white hair hidden in their cloak but that’s all Danny’s picking up on.

Pariah shakes his head, “that would be quite foolish of you. Can you not tell?”.

Pariah glances down at ClockWork, who moves to float up to them as well, “he is young still, Sæti. His core’s not matured fully”.

For whatever reason both the ghosts look happy over that. Danny just has yet another question, “and what’s a core? You guys suck at answering questions”.

“As is often the case with my ClockWork”. The clock ghost just nods acceptingly. Pariah continuing, “a core is our source of might, the whole of our existence. And as they have explained in their way to me”, eyeing Danny, “The Observants, pathetic creatures, attacked ClockWork and you when you were a mere lille venn (little darling)”.

ClockWork interjecting, “they meant to harm us both, to destroy a god-prince and god in their folly for power. The young are so much weaker after all”.

Danny is putting the ‘prince’ thing and the ‘god’ thing on a shelf for now. The nice neat little shelf where ‘dealing with being dead’ also sat, right next to ‘mom and dad kinda wanna dissect me’.

Pariah scowls but looks at ClockWork, “Where are the Observants? Surely they know of him by now?”.

“You truly believe that any child of mine would by watchable by their eyes? Restricted and weakened as they now are?”.

Danny sighs to himself, “and the Observants are?”. Have these guys answered even one of his questions? Like actually answered? Besides the core thing, which sounded kinda like a heart and brain.

ClockWork actually answers him this time, it’s a miracle, “all seers, watches of the universe. Fools who believe all they see is all there is to be seen”.

“Gods. Gotcha”. Fuck Danny so much. When did he go from just dealing with fame hungry pop idols to literal fucking gods?

“Almost”, Clocky holds up a toddler-looking finger, “but not quiet. And they’ve fallen in might since. I merely allow them to continue to believe they have any say over me”.

Pariah moves closer and looms over Danny some, Danny is taking a huge fucking gamble by staying put but Danny has definitely learned the art of ‘never let them see you sweat’ even if he actually still kinda sucked at it. But… they were being nice enough he supposed. So when Pariah holds out his massive hand -not unlike Jack’s/dad’s- and says, “a child still or not, you should still be able to tell with physical contact”, with ClockWork following suit. Danny doesn’t refuse.

It’s like being struck by lightning that was oddly fluffy, like fuzzy yarn winding around his insides and chest, like being swaddled by hands the size of his entire body, like being wrapped in feathers while being fed liquid gold. It’s a lot all at once and there’s a part of his brain that just dings with right and belong and home and mine. He wants to be touched by them, held, to slip into sweet dreams surrounded by them. It felt brutally safe in a way that Jack and Maddie never did. Felt a part of him. Danny believes them in an instant and almost wants to cry. A comfort and protection he’d never known rushing all over and around him.

He slips, falls really, off the podium immediately, floating and pulled closer by their hands that felt oh so right. He absolutely passes out from all the stress and exhaustion and being overwhelmed, passes out right in both of their arms. Pariah’s size allowing him to cradle both him and ClockWork.

--

“He’s been through a lot, hasn’t he. amoung the living no less”.

“Indeed. But he is better and stronger for it. And neither of us will be changing that”.

“I want my son home, ClockWork”, pariah sighs, “thought I suppose one shouldn’t abandon their subjects”.

“The Fenton’s have long assured he’ll come around often, worry not Sæti“.

Chap. 2: The Dopamine That Was Robbed Of Me

Danny wakes up in, of all places, the ghost kings lap; the Clock ghost looking to be polishing their staff while siting on Pariah’s shoulder, ghostly tail wrapped lazily around one of Danny’s hands. Should Danny be embarrassed or not? He felt like… well like a little kid.

The Clock ghost -what the Hell is Danny going to call either one of them?- grins faintly down at him and winks for some reason. Pariah noticing and looking away from the stone tablet he was apparently reading off of to look down at Danny as well, “I see you’re awake”.

Danny just nods slowly, he still felt like there was soft yarn winding through him and pillow stuffing in his mouth or like he’d had a ton of super sweet sugar. Cranning his head to look around, they're raised up on some platform, there’s carpeting leading from where they are to a door that isn’t beaten up, the FrightKnight is still there standing guard and is practically bleeding awe; they are totally sitting, or Pariah is sitting, on a throne, aren’t they? Glancing around a little more, the place looks way more spruced up than before, there’s tapestries on the walls, stained glass, a potted plant or two; weird. Looking back up at Pariah, who’s still watching him, “what happened?”.

Pariah hums, “as it stands I have no further reason to reign my fury and iron fist down on this realm’s, or another’s, denizens, as such there’s much I am in need of catching up on”.

Did Danny just stop a war? Apparently. By finding out HE WAS FUCKING ADOPTED AND THE CHILD OF GHOSTS! Yet he just… doesn’t really feel super freaked out about it. He’s almost comfy with it. Is this the way people normally feel with their parents? Comforted? Secure? Open? Supported? It’s… a bit strange for him, good but strange. His parents, or not parents he guesses, were the last people he ever felt that way around. Even before the whole ‘we want to dissect half of you’ bullshittery. so Danny blinks instead of freaks out, “what… kinda stuff?”. Clocky- ClockPops? looks pleased with that response.

Pariah glances back to the stone, that thing must weigh a ton, humming, “seems two harpy clans are at war over wine again”. Danny glances away, oops. “A prison warden for the barren lands wants to make ‘force feeding someone confetti on their wedding day’ illegal”. Danny makes a face, oops again. “There’s a rampaging dragon on the lose”. Okay that one might not be Danny’s fault, maybe. “Multiple complaints from Blackbeard about a child fake pirate stealing his ship”. That ship was Blackbeard’s ship? Crap Danny totally confiscated that. “And the denizens of the Far Frozen wish to have an audience ‘as the prophecy foretold’”. Okay Danny knows nothing about that last one.

Danny chuckles awkwardly, “uh. If it’s anything getting the harpies to compete to get me wine was supposed to be a joke, Walker hates my guts, I’ve only beaten up one dragon but he does also hate my guts, and I didn’t know that ship actually belonged to anyone. The yeti thing ain’t my fault though”.

ClockWork smirks meanly at him, leaning down and patting Danny’s head, “actually it is”.

Fuck. Danny’s making a terrible impression here.

Pariah raises an eyebrow, “you stole Blackbeard ship while dressed up as a pirate?”.

Danny sputters, oh that would be so embarrassing, “what no! This toddler did that! I just stole it from the toddler”.

ClockWork holds up a finger, “meaning instead of stealing from a strong adult, you stole from a weak child, how very noble of you”.

“Hey! He abducted all the adults in town, he had it coming!”. Danny swats at ClockWork’s hand without any harm meant behind it, doing that makes Danny notice that something’s… changed. His gloves are black! And clawed??? Holding his hand in front of his face, “huh?”. Pariah leaning back a bit father to allow for Danny to jerk up into a sitting position to look down/over himself.

His suits changed! Like completely! His gloves, now black, are actually gloves now, like, not just part of a jumpsuit anymore, the ends of them going up to his elbows and coming off in a point. His sleeves are white now but his shoulders and chest are still black but it looks more like armour, the white of the jumpsuit showing on the sides of his torso and looking to going underneath the black almost v-shaped armour; he’s gonna bet the black ‘armour’ goes down his back too. His belt and black pants look the same at least, his boots are still white too but like his gloves they aren’t actually attached to the suit anymore and come off and over his knees in points.

He has a cape!

A cape!

Oh Tuck is gonna mock him relentlessly. So is Vlad.

It’s simple at least, black on the inside and white on the outside, completely smooth at the bottom. It seems like it’s attached or part of? his white neck part.

His DP symbol’s still there. Nice. He actually likes that thing, regardless of it being a pain to get. His chest was definitely a bit wider, all of him seemed just a bit more… muscley. Like, no one’s going to be doing confused double takes, but it definitely looks like he’s actually been fighting ghosts in hand to hand combat for months.

Cool.

He’d been kinda wondering about the fact that he’d gained literally zero muscle. But still, what? Looking up at the two ghosts and quirking an eyebrow, there’s no way they don’t know what’s happened with him.

ClockWork seats themselves down on the thrones arm rest, Pariah putting down the stone tablet. ClockWork nodding, “you were meant to be hidden, your appearance couldn’t be exactly as it was supposed to be”, grinning, “at least not until you returned to us, stronger”. Danny points at his face, he couldn’t exactly look at that without pulling some body horror shit. Pariah grinning, “you already had my face, more slender I suppose, but it is more defined now. I suspect you’ll start seeing facial hair in a year or two-”.

Oh Danny is totally here for that! He kinda thought he have to give up on that since no one on… on well Jack’s or maddie’s side had good facial hair. But DarkDaddy had a solid goatee and Clockpops had a full beard sometimes!

“-you have ClockWork’s skin, paler, but the same blue-”.

Something else for Vlad to bug him about. Cool. At least ClockWork looks smug.

“-your fangs are less pronounced than my own but you are young still-”.

Man all those vampire jokes were really coming back to bite Danny in the ass; licking his tongue over his teeth, yup fangs.

“-your eyes remain the same green, though you have red pupils now. The pointed ears are all your own though, as is the fire hair”.

Danny moving a hand up to grab his ear tips, well at least they weren’t any longer, and yeah his hair definitely felt like it was moving on its own way more than normal. Okay, so his face changed, like, a lot; people were so going to comment on that. Ugh. The pr was gonna suck.

ClockWork leaning over, “make no mistake, this is how you were always meant to look, you will get used to it”.

Danny chuckles at that, “I mean I’m pretty good at being adaptable”, at least this voice sounds the same, which would obviously change as he got older… hopefully, it would suck to sound like a fourteen-year-old forever. Looking from ClockWork to Pariah and back, “but… since my uh, you guys, are ghosts I’m gonna guess I’m not actually human at all? Am I?”. Like, that would make zero fucking sense and Danny has zero clue how he feels about that. Another thing for the mental shelf!

Pariah damn near cackles, “I am the god of death, child, I am fully capable of defiling life all I please! If I desire a mortal flesh baring child, I’ll have it! My desires are just reality to be”. ClockWork nodding in kind, “reality is just a mass of threads to be toyed with or blown away. Impossibility doesn’t mean anything to me”.

“That really doesn’t answer my question”. Was it always going to be this way with them? It was kinda funny though, Danny loved confusing people himself.

ClockWork rests their chin in a palm, tilting sideways, tail swishing though still holding onto Danny, “does it truly matter?”, waving their other hand, “You’re closer to a full ghost who possesses the ability to change into a truly living human body. Fully alive and fully dead, far more impossible than merely half and half”, humming, “though your accident made the two sides of the coin intermingle more than was meant at the time”.

So he's even more not dead and even more not alive, cool. That’s going on the shelf, but he’ll absolutely laugh about that later. Zone Danny can’t help but laugh now, “fucking nice”. Earning himself two fond grins. He kinda wants to go find a mirror but he’s also frankly comfy and not interested in leaving either of his parents right now… there was probably some kinda reason for that knowing his luck.

Pariah raising an eyebrow at ClockWork, “accident?”. Making the smaller ghost sigh, “the Fenton’s like to play god with the connections between life and death”.

Wait this totally means the portal didn’t kill him! He was already fucking dead! He’s definitely going to be explaining that to Sam, since she blamed herself a lot about it. Groaning a little, “man, Sam’s gonna be so relieved when she finds out she didn’t accidentally half kill me. wow”. No wonder all the other ghosts always found it weird that he didn’t actually care about them going through the thing that ‘killed him’, because if it had killed him he should have been bothered.

Pariah curls in a little to have his face closer to Danny’s, “you intend to return to that mortal town?”.

Danny blinks at his… should he use dad or father? Pops is definitely going towards ClockWork, ‘cause Clockpops flowed too well. Father seemed… too formal for Danny to put up with, like that’s what Vlad would want Danny to call him. Ew. Dad it is for sure. “Well I mean yeah? My friends, my fraid, are there? And it’s my town, I’m not gonna stop protecting it just cause my parents are totally different people than I thought they were and from a different realm”. He absolutely will not just abandon Amity, humans, his friends and family, Val. Zone, even Dash and his jerk squad. Mr. Lancer and that one barista that didn’t give him shit over his unhealthy orders. Though… he’s not sure how he’s gonna be with Jack and Maddie. Like… they did raise him, sorta, sure Jazz did most of it but still.

Pariah shrugs, “that town can very well stay in this realm-”.

Danny points at him, “absolutely not. That screams stupid. Wait. How long has it been? How long was I out!”. Oh zone, everyone must be freaking out! Even the ghosts that came to aid him are probably freaking!

ClockWork ruffles his hair, “relax, I convinced your dad to send the town back to its own realm long before you awoke, and, though I know they’ll still worry, sent word you were fine to your fraid”.

“Oh thank fuck “, Danny flops backwards, head dangling down over DarkDaddy’s knees, that nickname was too funny not to use. Danny blinking at the FrightKnight, the guy is beaming but clearly trying to keep a straight face. Danny puffs out his cheeks, “oh you’re just loving this aren’t you, you old ass knight”. The FrightKnight tries to control his face more.

Danny can hear ClockWork leaning towards Pariah and explaining a little, “they’ve fought before. He’s taken his sword multiple times”.

Pariah laughing, addressing his head dread knight, “did he really?!?”.

The FrightKnight looks like he’s debating if it’s okay for him to approach, before just deciding to, “he’s young but capable”. Danny has a distinct feeling that Pariah became a bit of an ass, clearly, during his whole ‘tyrading because my son’s gone’ thing.

Pariah laughs again, grabbing Danny’s cape to yank him up into the air before setting him down to sit on Pariah’s knee, Danny eyeing the large ghost. “As a prince of the dead should be!”. ClockWork holding up a finger, “and a young god”; Pariah nodding.

The FrightKnight nods himself, “he could use further sword training of course, I’d be more than happy to-”.

Pariah cuts him off harshly, “do not overstep your place”. Making the knight wilt and bow, “my apologies, your highness”. But Danny pouts, tilting his head back to glare at Pariah, “hey be nice, if you do that to every ghost that pesters me or tries to teach me things you’re going to be doing that for years. Just look at Vlad? That guy has issues and eighty-two of them are me snubbing all his apprenticeship attempts”.

Pariah growls, “that one, the one who stole from me”, scowling, “at least I found you out of his foolishness”, eyeing the FrightKnight, “stand up, tell me, what is that one up to now?”.

Now Danny would actually like to know that as well honestly. Vlad always had a million plans and no way he’d take this shit well.

“After returning to Amity and the mortal realm alongside it, he agreed to ‘watch over’ Valerie Gray and… your son, while the Fenton’s helped with clean up. Your son’s fraid snuck in, weakened him with an invention of his own making, and hog tied him”.

Danny snorts, go them, “nice going guys, wreck his shit”. The FrightKnight actually nods respectfully at Danny, “Vladimir Masters Plasmius had planned to let you wear his majesty out enough for him to take the crown and make me his knight”, huffing, “as if such a thing was possible”.

Pariah laughs loudly, ClockWork simply shaking their head in amusement. That plan sounded exactly like the kind of underhanded, make someone else do the work for me, shit that Vlad would pull. But that meant that Vlad legit thought Danny could win? Just how powerful did Vlad think Danny was??? Or was he just underestimating Pariah that much? Well, it was probably the second option, since Vlad was awful for underestimating people.

Pariah looking down at Danny, “that one is one of yours, punish him how ever you like. As it seems your fraid has already done themselves”.

“So I should blow is house up again, is what you’re saying”. Danny has a feeling Sam and Tuck just earned some positive points with his dad. Nice.

ClockWork holding up a finger and leaning at Danny, “you may want to at least call Ms. Manson though”.

Danny groans, “oh Zone, is she trying to force fed him nightshade again”.

“Indeed”.

“Damn it, Sam”. Danny digging into his impossible pockets, that he thankfully still had, pulls out the little cell Tuck modified to shit so that it would actually work across dimensions… it usually worked anyways.

“DANNY!”.

Yeah okay he saw the shouting coming, still loud though. “Ghost ears guys, I am fine. But put down the fucking nightshade, Sam. I have, like, twenty boxes of fruit loops in the closet, just pelt him with those”.

Sam: “How do you even know! Fine”.

Tuck: “Danny dude are you okay? Not any deader?”.

Danny shrugs to himself, “one, because I know you, Sam. Two because god told me, that is not actually a joke. And yes, Tuck, I’m okay just..”, glancing up at Pariah’s face, ClockWork’s as well as they’ve settled back on the larger ghosts shoulder. “Just got some shit to figure out, turns out I have dead family? Yeah, I’ll explain later”.

Sam: “and what have you been doing while we’ve been worried?!? Yeah we got an ominous letter saying you were fine but like Zone we’d believe that”.

Tuck: “what she said. Does god hate your guts too?”.

Sam: “have you met him? Of course god does”.

“Sam, I’m hurt. I’m not that annoying, unless you ask Vlad but he deserves it. Especially because he is, yes, one hundred percent responsible for this shit, tell him he’s a dumbass, and the next time he thinks pissing off death god is a good idea he should drink himself unconscious first”.

Tuck: “ha!”

Danny nods to himself, “yeah so, no clue when I’ll be back, I’ll try to be quick-ish, promise, okay? And you better put that nightshade back, again, Sam”.

Sam: “damn”… “you sure you’re good? Danny?”.

Tuck: “I’ll eat everything you own if you’re not, man”.

Sam: “did you even win? How?”.

Oh man, what should Danny even say to that? Well he could just fuck with them? Yeah okay they’ll try to kick his ass later but it’ll be worth it. “Yeah didn’t even really fight actually, turns we’re related. Bye”. And promptly hangs up to the sound of shouting. ClockWork smacks him on the head with their staff, “that was mean, son”. Danny only pouts in response.

Pariah waving ClockWork off, “oh let him have his fun”; ClockWork whacks him one too. Leaving dad and son rubbing their heads.

…

The FrightKnight speaks back up against after a bit, “may I inquire about the young prince’s name? To inform the legion and the people?”.

And now Danny’s confused again, did Frighty really seriously forget his name? “Really, Frighty?”.

ClockWork laughs to themselves while Pariah quirks an eyebrow, a judgy one, at Danny. Making the boy squirm a little, “I like nicknaming people, usually to their annoyance”, rubbing his neck and asking, “what does he mean though? My name isn’t exactly unknown”. He literally shouted it as he thought he was flying to his death death for fucks sake!

ClockWork hums, “he means that the name you have is not one we, your parents, have given you”.

“Well I mean, no one decent actually calls me what they named me…”. He still hated being called Daniel, maybe that was because his actual parents didn’t name him that? Danny and Phantom were definitely his names though, even if Danny was technically more of a nickname.

Pariah tilts his head, “something similar perhaps, I refuse to not name my own son”. ClockWork nodding agreeingly, “Dane, Dean, Dayne, Dagny, Denny, Danhy…”.

Danny? gets positively bombarded by D names.

…

It takes a while but they finally, finally, agree on ‘Danhy’ which sounds nearly identically to ‘Danny’ in his opinion, but whatever, at least they’re happy. Danny is just laying on his stomach, on the ground now, while the two ghosts had floated off arguing about the naming thing, were parents normally this heated about baby naming? Ugh. He’s decided that if he ever has a kid he’s called them either Elle or Dan, gender pending. Did that spell out danelle? Yup. Was that maybe a little egotistical? Also yes. Does he care? No. He’s fourteen for fucks sake! He’s not having kids now! (The future would prove that was a lie, fuck you Vlad). At least it was agreed that Phantom was absolutely his name, especially since chosen names were more important than given ones with ghosts, hence why so many ghosts called him Phantom exclusively.

At least the FrightKnight looks like he’s suffering too, Danny pushing himself up off the floor and dusting off his knees. The pointy boots were still surprising to see. The FrightKnight looking him over, huh Danny-Danhy thinks he might have grown a little too. “So it’ll be Phantom Danhy then, am I correct”. Him and Frighty looking to Pariah and ClockWork, both nodding.

Pariah crossing his arms and looking down at them, “so it will be, I’ll smite any who call you that other name”, and scowls. ClockWork actually rolls their eyes.

Danny holding up a finger, “Vlad gets a pass, because that’s a thing with us. I call him Vladdie or V man insultingly, he calls me Daniel insultingly. I call him a fruitloop, he calls me little badger. I call him vampire ass, he calls me hero wannabe. It’s a whole thing”, frowning, “and no smiting Lancer, he’s my favourite teacher”.

Pariah actually sighs, the FrightKnight seems spooked by this, “very well. They are your subjects, I suppose”. ClockWork smiles fondly at the large ghost.

ClockWork floats down and around Danhy, gesturing around, “you should at least familiarize yourself with your castle, no? For it is yours as much as your dad’s, unlike my Clocktower Citadel”. Pariah nods, “indeed, you are irreplaceable as the Guardian of Time”, looking very specifically at Danhy with meaning, “while I can be succeeded”.

Danhy is distinctly reminded of that sword stuck in that podium, rubbing his neck, “yeah okay, I’m not gonna try to stab you anymore”.

“Good”.

Danny, and ClockWork, float up to be more on level with Pariah as the ghost begins what’s effectively a tour.

…

To say there’s a lot of rooms would be an understatement, and it looked like some of the place was rebuilding itself to its former glory? Neat. Pariah seemed annoyed that that even needed to be happening at all, fair, it was his castle that got its ass destroyed. Danhy’d be petty annoyed if someone beat the shit out of his town to this degree too. There’s a tapestry room, treasury, maybe a meeting room, servant rooms, dressing rooms, ceremonial rooms, banquet hall, Pariah’s bed room, ClockWork’s bedroom, a… couples room (little weird to see that), and… his bedroom.

His bedroom.

As in a room, in this giant fuck off castle, that was for him.

It was still so weird, but also felt… really right. This place already seemed more like home that FentonWork’s, especially because it didn’t suddenly attack him at all. Sure sometimes the ceilings felt too tall or the rooms too big but that also meant more room to fly around in. ClockWork even told him a space observatory was already forming! How cool was that!?

His room though? It changed the second he stepped foot in it. Went from looking like it was definitely intended for a toddler to… well to his.

Glowing stars patterned the roof, walls painted in ecto green galaxies, a fluffy night sky dark carpet the kind that Jack and Maddie always said was too difficult to clean ectoplasm out of so why bother, the bed is HUGE and covered in soft thick comforter after comforter perfect for a cuddle pile, there’s random ass weapons and medikits and a Fenton Thermos with a DP on it of all things, the closets full of baggy clothes and nasa print and pun shirts, there’s an entire box of spare shoes since he destroyed his so often, a milkshake machine! Espresso too!, a little laptop that Tuck can definitely mess with to get it to work cross realm, there’s a little dog bed for Cujo even. It’s awesome really.

Danhy turning his head to tell them as such, “this is so freaking cool!”. That earns him some hair ruffles, Pariah looks a little judgy but whatever. It was probably because Danhy wasn’t, like, a tough bad boy, or whatever, like him. Besides, Danny can absolutely see a mini bomb or two, he got menace privileges some times okay? And bombs were really easy to make.

… maybe Danhy can spend at least one night here before heading back. And seeing the grins on Pariah and ClockWork when he tells them as much kinda makes it worth it all the more.

Yeah, this place was definitely a home of sorts. He was totally gonna have to drag Sam and Tuck over, and give very thorough introductions and convince them that no the giant scarred horned Viking ghost was not tricking him and would not kill them or try to.

Waking up in the morning is fucking blissful because his new bed is fucking heavenly on sore muscles and bruised bone. He calls Sam and Tuck immediately to let them know he’s up and awake before going about getting up. He’s human again, and has a mirror…

He looks…

Not that different actually. His jaw is a bit sharper, hair’s a bit more fluffy and scruffy, he has a tiny amount of stubble!, his eyes have a sharpness to them that wasn’t there before he thinks and they’ve got that black ‘evil eyeliner’ shit that so many ghosts had, his canines are a little longer but not outright fangs ditto for his finger nails, he is definitely more physically filled out, still really pale… Other than that he looked exactly the same, and with throwing on some of the clothing he looks even more the way he always has.

It’s kinda weird… not looking much different for how much has just inherently changed. But…

Looking back and shifting forms.

Oh yeah, different big time. PR nightmare for sure. The armour does one hundred percent go down his back and into his belt just like the front. Pale blue skin? Check. Pointed ears and fangs? Check. Lazily flaming white hair? Check. Red pupils in green eyes with that evil eyeliner? Check. Man he’s gotta stop calling it evil eyeliner now. Damn. Still got the little, now white, stubble though! Awesome!

Running a hand through the flames, which moves like it is actually hair, weird, “alright. Okay. I looks badass at least. I definitely can’t let Sam and Tuck see this form first though or they will have heart attacks thinking I’m fully dead or something”, cringing, “which, well, I am. But also am not”. Well they’ve been cool with his half dead shit, full dead and full alive was barely different.

Shaking his head and changing back human to pop out, nearly smashing into The FrightKnight, “Zone fuck! Dude what the Hell?”.

“I was instructed to wait here for you to wake, my prince”.

“Do you want me to stab you? I will stab you?”.

The FrightKnight shakes his head and leads Danhy to a feasting hall. ClockWork was off in a corner looking at mirror screen things that had seemed to form out of nowhere. Pariah was still looking through stone tablets, oh fuck that guy probably has centuries of shit to go through. Please say Danhy won’t have to help with that, please. ClockWork making him jump, “I wouldn’t fret, it’s a prince’s job to fool around and make a mess, until it’s their time to deal with all the fools and messes”.

Danhy putting a hand to his chest, “way to give me a heart attack, pops, damn”.

Pariah huffs from his chair, “you can not get heart attacks, Danhy, you are immune to such mortal weakness”, then eyeing ClockWork, “ancient one, lonely one, come rest your head, our son is up is he not”. ClockWork does send away the screen things at least.

Danhy tilting his head as ClockWork gives him some cereal, fucking booberries nice, “what are the screen things?”.

“Time and all that’s contained within it”.

“That explains nothing, thanks”. Zone damn it. Danhy’s decided he definitely likes this cheeky bastard. Then having to tilt his head back, spoon in his mouth, at Pariah just suddenly being behind him looming over him; Danhy blinks and smirks up cheekily.

“I believe I know where you got most of your personality”.

Danhy will take the compliment. Danhy then proceeds to swallow before spitting a spoon out at Pariah Dark god king of death, overlord and warlord of all of the Infinite Realm itself. ClockWork turns away barely containing laughter.

“Since it appears you’re rested, we will spar again”.

Oh it seems Danhy has made a mistake. A fatal error.

…

Danhy did, in fact, make a mistake. As he gets bodily tossed into a wall. He guesses it makes sense his dad, a ghost king, would want to see what his missing son is made of. Especially with Danhy having been living/existing surrounded by squishy humans and fighting more average strength ghosts. You know, instead of fucking gods and entire armies; which yes, he was somewhat expected to somewhat deal with now.

Also though, Danhy was stronger than he was before. He’s pretty sure ClockWork did more than just restrict his appearance. ‘Cause when he blasts his dad it actually pierces the shield Pariah makes; at least the ghost looks pleased.

Danhy still gets bashed with a mace though. He manages to kick him into a wall back at least, not that that seemed to do any actual damage.

Pops meanwhile was just reversing time around things to fix damages. Danhy pouting at them when he breaks another chair trying to avoid a sword, ClockWork only smirks at him; jerk. Danhy throws the sword back, also glaring at Pariah just mentally catching with telekinesis.

Danhy thinks he has telekinesis but ain’t about to count on that.

“You are still young”.

“I’ve noticed”. Danhy absolutely takes the very next cheap shot he can, smacking Pariah with a broken pillar before ClockWork gets to fixing it. he also successfully avoids multiple thrown weapons.

Pariah grinning at him, “you’re battle harden enough, not as far as you would have been under me but it will do”. Danhy’s not sure if that’s a compliment. “You don’t hesitate to use your environment to your advantage or your size in comparison to mine”.

Danhy’s up on the ceiling in a Spider-Man pose sticking out his tongue, at least now he knew this wasn’t ’fuck imma die’ kinda fight. “I fight a lot of different ghosts, of shape, size, and location. I might not do wars or gods or whatever but I still have a combat skill set”.

ClockWork sticking up a finger, fixing a chair, “and Maddie did teach you multiple mortal fighting techniques”. Making Danhy rub his neck, dodging an axe without having to look at it, “yeah, one of the few things she actually would praise me for”. The Fenton’s didn’t care about space or art so those skills didn’t matter to them; and he didn’t have good grades and didn’t agree with them about ghosts, so the fighting techniques was all he did good in their eyes. They… still did love him though, which was weird to think about now. Should he tell them? It would be kinda mean not to, but it was also kinda mean to want to dissect sentient beings.

Danhy flipping and twisting inhumanly around Pariah’s fist, smacking the guys wrist with his ghostly tail, Pariah shaking it off as he flies backwards, grinning impressed, “it takes a great deal of force and power to deal damage with one’s tail”.

“It does?”, danhy did it all the time!

Pariah nods, “I believe this is enough”, letting Danhy relax, “I believed you want to return to that town of yours, correct?”; he’s clearly still none too happy about that but Danhy nods anyways.

Danny rubbing his neck as he lowers himself enough to be on eye level with his dad, “though, like, obviously I’m coming back often, duh. But, like, I definitely want to finish human school and hang out in my town, you know? And being in Amity is kinda needed to protect it and shit”.

ClockWork smirking gets Danhy’s attention, “I think you’ll find that to not be the case now. You are my son after all, I hardly need to be somewhere to see or sense what is occurring there”. Danhy absolutely gasping, if Clocky was implying he could sense if a ghost was starting shit regardless of where Danhy was that would be awesome! Especially since FentonWorks wasn’t actually a super safe place to stay ever really. Pariah crossing his arms, “I could merely decree the citizens stay out-”.

Danhy butting in immediately, “hey no bad, I’m a big believer in personal freedom. Plus I’d be sad if Boxy ever got over his weird masochistic desire to fight me”. ClockWork smirking meanly, “I’ll make sure to remind you of that when you complain about him fighting you twenty plus times in a day”.

“Hey, be nice to me, I’m baby”, glancing around a little, “but since you’re the one that put me with the Fenton’s, do they know? Should I tell them?”.

Pariah apparently has opinions on that, “I have no interest in them believing nor claiming themselves my son’s makers”. Danhy can’t really blame the guy for that, he just found his kid again! Of course he wouldn’t want someone else calling his son theirs.

ClockWork looks unimpressed at Pariah, “he can hardly be open with his relation to us, as a human or ghost, with the humans”, then tilting their head and humming. Pariah just waits so Danhy’s going to take a wild guess and say they ‘saw’ something. ClockWork’s grin is nearly ear splitting, “or he could be, as a human at least”. Danhy knows that smile is absolutely meant to encourage him to go along with this, probably because it will cause chaos; Clocky seems to like chaos.

Pariah smiles back, “I care not if the truth torments anyone, if it’s well for him then he should”, and looks at danhy.

Okay so… then Danhy should? Obviously he’s telling Sam and Tuck, he basically already did. But this was free range to just tell fucking everyone. Just ‘oh yeah, freaky Fenton? Not actually a Fenton! Actually the child of a god and death king!’ which yeah, chaos. Something tells him Dash will still try to give him swirlies and shit. But… this would give him a good excuse for any power usage or other general weirdness. Like if he, say, looks more ghostly even while human in the future. Plus will Jack/kinda dad actually be able to keep this to himself if Danhy tells him? Danhy will tell Vlad for sure, that guy won’t tell anyone. Shrugging, “eh fuck it, why not”, plus he legit feels like Maddie or Jack calling him son now is going to actually bother him. More of a ‘rubs him the wrong way’ rather than making him wanna punch them like with Vlad.

He gets a pair of matching grins, one mischievous and one vaguely cruel; Danhy giving back a cruel mischievous smile.

ClockWork holds up a finger, “as for how you wound up with the Fenton’s, since this will be relevant, young Jasmine found you in a haunted forest. The Fenton’s believed you to be spirited away by ghosts and insisted on keeping you. ‘For your safety’”.

Danhy snorts, “well I guess I was spirited away in a sense”. Pariah glares at ClockWork over that, clearly still none too pleased.

Danhy eyes the FrightKnight, “why are you following me, Frighty?”.

Pariah crosses his arms, leaning down at Danhy, “you are his prince, you are to be protected at the least for your first return trip. It is the least of his duties”. What a nice way to say Frighty had to do this or else.

Danhy groaning and sagging dramatically, “but whyyyyyy?”. ClockWork scolding him, “let your dad pamper you some, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the out come”. That feels more like an ominous warning instead of comfort.

Danhy squinting, “suddenly I don’t trust you”. The FrightKnight actually picks him up and carries him over his shoulder to fly away from the castle, “you are going to be the end of me”.

“Awww, come on now, why would I end my new pet?”.

“I am hardly a pet”.

“I think I could convince dad to decree otherwise”.

“I humbly request that you do no such thing, your highness”.

“Beg me more, peasant”.

The FrightKnighr doesn’t dignify that with a response. But hey, Danhy is obviously not going to actually get Frighty’s title change to ‘pet’, Danhy wasn’t nearly that much of a dick.

…

Danhy shoves himself off of The FrightKnight’s shoulder when they get to the portal, Danhy floating and human dusting himself off, “you are not shoulder carrying me in, gosh”.

“That would be rather undignified, yes”.

“Fuck you”.

Danhy sticks his fingers in the door crack and just yanks the thing open, so long as it’s not locked that’ll work; especially with his newer strength. It is not locked, nice. Leaving Danhy nodding at the swirling portal, shouting, “BARREL ROLL!”, and summersaulting in; The FrightKnight sighing after him.

---

Pariah watching on one of ClockWork’s time screens, ClockWork sitting on his shoulder, “that boy is appropriately a menace. I almost pity my knight”.

“Oh it gets worse, one day he’ll terrorize Nocturne within their own domain within their domain. Best Votex with his own might. He’ll mount an Observant like taxidermy. A ViralHelm has even taken a liking to him”.

Pariah almost regrets having a child, he absolutely does not though. That boy was precious, precious and merciless. When he first fought the boy, the boy truly meant to do away with him; as unready as he was to do so.

ClockWork seeing something that’s not on the screen, “he could be the best or the worst thing this realm has ever seen, I’m afraid. He has suffered and he will suffer more; there is nothing for it but the worst out come is no longer possible”.

“… Thank you”.

“Of course, and may the Observants fall”.

“They will, no matter what, they will; for they are the ones who have done wrong, not I, and I have no interest in providing second chances”.

Chap.3: Life’s So Far Complicated

Jazz jumps up from the chair she’d practically slept in, blanket falling to the ground, “Danny!”.

Danhy blinks at her, he didn’t actually expect anyone to be here, fuck. Why does he do this to himself? He should have checked first! “Jazz?”, eyeing the blanket on the ground, “did you sleep in the lab?”. Even Danhy had never done that! The FrightKnight walks in through the portal, all tall armoured and threatening; making Jazz tense and try to move for a weapon. Danhy holding up his hands, “hey woah it’s fine, he’s cool now. So why were you sleeping down here?”.

She blinks at him, “mom and dad are out and Sam and Tuck are watching Vlad so I told them I’d wait for your return”.

Danhy blinks, “my… return?”. Okay now he’s confused. He’d expect that from Sam or Tuck but, like, Jazz shouldn’t know he was in the gz.

“I know Danny, okay”, she glances around awkwardly, smiling a little though, “I’ve known for a while, I told Sam and Tucker because they tried to go looking for you”.

Danhy makes aggressive disbelieving hand gestures at her, screwing his face up a bunch, “the fuck, how?”.

“You should check doorways better when you transform in alleyways, Danny”, her smile is soft at least, “I’m glad I know though, even if you keep worrying me. Which please stop”.

Danhy pouts, “okay fine I guess that’s on me”, well at least it was Jazz who saw, not like a G.I.W. agent or something.

The FrightKnight shakes his head, arms crossed, “you are far too relaxed and inattentive, your highness”. Danhy huffing and sticking his arms out to the side, “dude! You gotta let me explain shit before you start using royal titles holy shit!”. The ghost is absolutely not apologetic.

Jazz looks deeply concerned, “Danny… did you dethrone a king?”. Which fine, that’s exactly what he had technically gone to do.

Danhy facepalms, “okay I know why that would make sense and that would be less weird, but no”. Fucking FrightKnight and his stupid mouth. Dropping his hand from his face and rubbing his neck, “so, I now know I’m adopted and how?”. Jazz practically collapsing back into the chair, wheezing. Danhy walking after her, “and like, no hard feelings about not telling me or anything, ‘cause that woulda probably bothered me and been yet another thing on my mind all the time, so you’re good, and I also know that you pretty much brought me into the family? Also that theory about me being ‘spirited away by ghosts’ is actually correct, surprise?”.

Jazz bends over and wheezes, “oh I hate that, please don’t tell them that part”, her sitting back up, “if you’re going to bring this up to them at all, you don’t have to. But… how did you find out? Is that why you were gone so long? Are they… ghosts? Were they trying to protect you from the afterlife since they couldn’t stay with you?”.

“Fuck you for being freakishly close to the truth. You are too smart for your own good, Zone damn”.

She beams at him, “I’ll take the compliment, little brother”, pointing at him firmly, “you’re still my brother no matter what”.

Danhy putting up his hands, “yeah yeah, of course, Jazz. Being related doesn’t mean shit, I mean you basically raised me”. She smiles sadly at that while Danhy moves to sit on a desk, “the only part you’re missing or got wrong I guess, is, uh, apparently I was never really human. Born a ghost, just apparently my, you know, parents are extra and decided to defy reality and defile life and death, their words, and have me as also a fully living human. Or ghost able to be human”.

She buries her head in her hands, whining, “Danny”.

“Yeah I know, I’m a handful. You know the guy who just abducted the town? Yeah”.

She doesn’t move for a beat, looking up at him with almost disgust, “the giant horned Viking? That threatened to kill everyone? The one Vlad implied is the king of all ghosts? That one?”, scrunching her face up and glaring at the FrightKnight, “that’s why you called him ‘your highness’! God, Danny”.

“My other parent is, in fact, a god, yes”. She throws the blanket at his stupid smirk. Fair enough. Danhy shoving the blanket back to the floor, “to be fair, he was doing that because he lost his shit over his kid suddenly going missing as an infant”, rolling his wrist, “my other parent just didn’t tell him they took me to the living realm to protect me from some other god assholes”. Jazz looks like she wants to cry and hit him.

Danhy swings his legs a bit, “so”.

“Oh my Zone your life is a nightmare, Danny”

“I think ectoplasmic soap opera is more accurate”.

“Go see your friends before they kill Vlad, you jerk”.

“They haven’t already?”.

She throws the blanket at him again, he does move to head upstairs while finger gunning at her though; leaving behind a groaning sister. It was… kinda nice that she knew about him actually; and she’s clearly been able to sit with it for a while so he shouldn’t fret about it too much.

…

Danhy sticks his head into his room, Sam’s and Tuck’s backs are to him, Vlad’s unconscious, Val’s asleep. Cool. Okay. Danhy pulling his head back and pointing at the FrightKnight, “you. Stay put”. The ghost rolls his eyes and huffs, but does as he’s told. Danhy pushing his way in fully.

“DANNY!”.

Danhy can’t help but grin at the fond overly worried way the shout at him. Both tackling him in a hug… it’s a lot easier to stay standing than it used to be.

Tuck pulls back and squints at him, holding his shoulders, “you are Danny, right? You look off”. Sam also pulling back and squinting at him suspiciously.

Danhy puts up his hands as much as he can, “yea, Tuck, man. Like I said, got some weird ass shit to explain. It’s one part a power upgrades though”; that gets him a high five.

“Awesome dude! You better explain though, you look all kinds of off”.

Sam frowning at him, crossing her arms, “agreed, your eyes look more like Vlad’s”.

“I take great offence to that, ouch”, Danhy rubs his neck before pointing at his bed and moving to flop down on it, they join him is a sorta cuddle pile at least. “Okay, so when I said I’m related to Pariah, I meant that shit. See apparently these two ghost gods had a kid, some other ghost gods were assholes trying to basically kill me so the one god sent me to the living realm where Jazz found me and thus I got adopted by the Fentons”.

It takes a while to get a response, Tuck snorting, “so basically you’re not human at all and never were? How the heck, dude”.

Sam hums, poking Danny’s side, “I’m not so sure about that, he’s way too human to not be human-ish”.

Danhy chuckling, “I mean, I did grow up around humans, Sam. But yes, I am human. My two actual parents are crazy-”. 

“-wow, you find out your crazy parents aren’t actually your parents only for your actual parents to also be crazy, fuck you I guess”.

Danhy jabs Tuck one, lightly because he’s pretty positive his strength is outta whack, “I know right? Anyway they decided fuck it, let’s have a kid that is utterly impossible and both a hundred percent dead AND a hundred percent alive. So I’m not half alive, half dead any more; just all dead and all alive”. They both laugh mercilessly. “Oh and Sam? No one and nothing actually killed me, all the portal did was apparently weaken the seal or whatever my apparent pops put on me so I’d stay hidden with humans”. 

The sigh of relief is very audible, Danny’s frankly just glad that she’ll hopefully finally stop blaming herself for something that was never her fault now. He knows Sam’s biting her lip, “well the accident still could have gotten you found I guess”. 

“Sam no, it’s seriously fine. Also pops literally knew it was gonna happen, they can see the future and I’m thankful I did not inherit that, holy shit”. That would have been such a headache and he honestly would have a hard time not constantly trying to fix future problems. Clocky seemed amoral enough to stay neutral on most things. 

“... wow. What did you inherit then?”, Tuck chuckles, “I’ve always kinda wondered what the hell you even got from your parents- the Fenton’s, I mean”.

“That’s fair”. Even Danhy kinda noticed the lack of similarities. Sam only hums in agreeance. So Danhy continues, “what’s also fair is you laughing at me when I transform next, the changes are a lot more noticeable in ghost form. My skin is blue, guys. And now my hairs made of fire”. 

Sam grumbles, “that’s going to blow up online”. 

“I know! I’m not looking forward to that”, sighing, “and my suit is less biohazard jumpsuit, more armour with actual clothing and boots and gloves and, ugh I know Vlad’s gonna be a pain, because I also have a freaking cape now”. He, once again, gets laughed at mercilessly. 

Tuck, between laughs and snorts, “in short”, laugh, “you look”, snort, “like a proper”, laugh, “proper hero”, laugh, “now”, snort, “underwear on the”, laugh, “on the outside now?”. 

“Ew no! And I’d show y'all now but I don’t feel like playing chicken with Val’s sleeping habits”.

Sam jabs him, “look at you being smart for once, also, you have stubble”. Tuck shouting, “damn you!”, and punching Danhy in the arm. 

Danhy cackles, “sucks to suck, Tuck! But literally both of them have solid facial hair so it ain’t weird, though Clocky’s is only sometimes there? Cause they’ve got a weird constant age changing thing going on, also glad I didn’t inherit that”, and shudders to himself, “also glad I’m not, like, twenty damn feet tall like dad”. 

Tuck pushes himself up to stare down at Danhy, quirking an eyebrow, “you have adjusted weirdly quickly to calling them your, dad and pops? Two guys? Whatever. Ghost thing?”. Sam grumbling, “it’s not like the Fenton’s really deserve to be called parents to begin with”. 

Danhy wincing, they weren’t exactly wrong about that. Jack and Maddie had never really treated him or Jazz super well. Eyeing Tuck, “yeah, ghost thing. Apparently ghosts can just feel family, that’s partly why I know they’re telling the truth. Besides the sudden changes in my appearance and Pariah doing a sudden one eighty from murdery to ‘son?’”, humming, “it’s sorta a soft, safe, yarn feeling; kinda hard to put into words”. 

Tuck shrugs down at him before flopping back down partly on top of him, “eh that tracks for ghost shit, dude”, jerking back up, “wait Pariah’s the ghost king right?!?”.

Sam jerking up too, “oh yeah, you said you were related. Seriously though? One of your parents is the literal king of ghosts? Is that why he basically demanded you to come to him? Oh that jackass!”. 

“Sam the guy was locked in a coffin for centuries thinking his kid was fucking dead dead, I think he’s allowed to be a bit of a jackass”, shrugging up at them, “but yes, that Pariah. I basically said ‘harder daddy’ mid fight and dude went ‘I’m not trying to break your arm, son’, I was very confused”. Tuck wheezes and smacks the bed a few times, Sam just glares at him murderously; she’s calling him a moron in her head, he knows it. 

All three still at a soft groan, looking down to the corner where Val is stirring. Danhy pushing himself to be sitting upright with his friends, “well good morning sleepy head”. That gets Val awake immediately, her jumping up “Danny! Where have you been! And why does your hair look like you fluffed it to death with a towel?”. Danhy can’t help wheezing and bending over at that; Sam and Tuck joining in and even Val eventually, who flops back down onto the floor. 

Danhy wiping away a tear, “ho, I needed that, thanks Val”. She rolls her eyes, Danhy continuing, “and I’ve been finding out I’m fucking adopted, hows your day going?”. Sam and Tuck give him slightly worried looks so he leans over whispering, “it’s fine, I’ve pretty much been told I gotta be open about it as, you know, good ol’ human Danny not-a-Fenton”. They sigh at him, clearly thinking this is dumb but not fighting him on this. 

He can’t blame them, it is actively pretty fucking dumb. But the pros out weigh the cons, causing chaos for one and of course covering any ghostly shit he might do and covering Frighty maybe following him around and getting him out of ‘being a Fenton’ kinda and letting him go back home to the castle more. Lots of things really. 

Val blinks at him, “what? Since when? Like the Fenton’s aren’t your parents or someone literally just randomly adopted you and you had to go deal with it”.

“The first, Val. My life’s weird but the universe doesn’t quite hate me that much, zone fuck”.

Tuck snorting, “if anyone accidentally adopted Danny, it’d be Vlad”. 

“Do not temp that fate, Tuck”. Danhy ignores the huffed, “as if Pariah or ClockWork would allow such a thing”, from the other side of the door; at least the guy was quiet enough to avoid being heard by normal human ears. 

Val grimaces, “I hate that you sound like you have a point”. 

Danhy grimacing, “he’s tried. Buuuuuut, apparently my real parents hid me in a forest to stop gods from killing me, because the universe does actually hate me that much, the Fenton’s found me and now here I am? Tada?”, shrugging exaggeratedly, “also I may or may not owe the town a slight apology since my dad is the guy that just abducted the town into the gz”.

Val stares at him disbelievingly, “... the giant Viking ghost is your dad? What the fuck Danny”. 

“Yup, apparently him and a literal ghost god wanted a living kid, ninety percent out of spite towards life and death itself apparently. Some overseer asshole ghost gods did not like that apparently”. 

Val throws her hands up in the air, “it’s official, I give up on actually making any sense out of you”, pointing at him, “you are human though, right?”. 

“Yes, Val. Just a little weirder than should be possible. Technically my existence is an affront to nature and completely impossible”. 

“Can you use your parent rights to make all these ghosts fuck off?”.

“Fuck you. I stand for free will”.

Sam huffing and crossing her arms, “I second that free will. What, in any realm, would make you think Danny’s the type to strip that away from people? Dead people or not”.

Val sticks her arms out to the side, “they’re being a problem!”.

Danhy sticks his arms out right back, “maybe I like problems! Just be glad me not being totally fucking dead solved one problem. Since dad was only being murdery since he thought I’d been smitted out of existence by floating assholes!”. 

“You’re seriously calling a ghost dad?!?”.

“Yes! Fuck you! He’s dad!”, shrugging, “other’s pops even if they’re a they them”.

Val geistiges wildly, “they’re ghosts, Danny!”.

“I have decided I do not care, and it ain’t up to you if I care or not, so there”, and Danhy sticks out his tongue at her. 

Val groans loudly, let her be upset, this ain’t her choice. His actual parents were great! Val glaring, “you’re a dumbass”.

“That’s not new news”. 

Val stares at him. He stares back. Eventually she sags, “whelp, guess I’m sorta friends with a dumbass and a guy with ghost family, fuck my life”, blinking, “wait is this why you’re sorta ghostly?”.

That gets three, ‘what’s in response. So she shrugs, “your eyes flash green when you’re angry, you give off the sorta creepy danger vibe that ghosts do, you bare your teeth a lot”, and rolls her wrists.

“People actually notice I/he does that?!?”.

Danhy throwing his hands out, “why does no one bitch at me about that shit?!?”. 

Val looks amused, still clearly annoyed but also amused, “Everyone just thinks the Fenton’s messed you up”. 

Danhy flushes, “well to be fair they did feed me ectoplasm, so they probably would have”. Why they did that he still doesn’t quite get, scientists sure but if you’re gonna test shit like that then test it on yourself not on your supposed kids. 

Tuck snorting, “well I guess we know how the heck that didn’t kill you, or mess you up”. 

Val grimaces, “yeah that’s really messed up, I thought you were kidding all the times you mentioned them basically experimenting on you”, huffing, “I guess I can understand not wanting the Fenton’s as parents. Taking ghosts over them is still ridiculous. And I am absolutely not calling you, ‘your highness’”. 

The FrightKnight has apparently gotten bored, sticking his head in through the door, “you should, the Prince is above you”. 

Val damn near launches herself into the ceiling, and twitches; Danhy groans, “you were doing so good at staying, like a good little doggie”. The FrightKnight almost looks insulted as he just walks through the door entirely into the room, ugh. 

Val growling, “what the hell”. Danny would bet money that she’s seconds away from trying to throw hands with the FrightKnight... again. 

Danny jumping up and off of his bed, standing between a pissed and startled Val and Frighty, “don’t start throwing my stuff at the dude that’s technically my body guard now”. The FrightKnight is busy glaring down at the somehow still unconscious Vlad. Danhy continuing with trying to pacify the trigger happy huntress, “yes, Pariah basically stuck him to me ‘cause of, you know, people maybe wanting to kill me for my relations and shit”. That was some believable bullshit, right? Right.

She smacks him, which he fully expected, at least The FrightKnight doesn’t react; because Danhy’s friends and sorta friend are absolutely allowed to hit him. Thing is Val just kinda keeps hitting him, until she seems to tire herself out; Sam and Tuck are just laughing, since it was kinda obvious she wasn’t actually trying to hurt him here. Danhy, with arms covering his face for protection, “you done?”; he wasn’t even so much as bruised but still, he is definitely more durable now.

She hits him once more just to be able to say, “no”. Then flopping back down onto the ground, leaning backwards on her hands and glaring up at Danhy, “you suck, that thing was literally terrorising people and now it’s just following you around? Seriously?”. 

“He’s the fucking personification of fear, what the Zone do you expect? For him to not scare people?”.

Sam getting up and brushing off her pants, “as fun as it was to watch Valerie beat you, we should probably drop Vlad off before he wakes up to a knight ghost ominously staring down at him”. The FrightKnight sighs, picking the old man up and throwing him over his shoulder, definitely bruising the guys chin in the process, “I’m well aware of his residences”. 

Val glaring, “and whys that, ghost”. 

“He attempted to request for my assistance before”. 

Danhy puts a hand to his chest, “and what? You’re just gonna leave poor, weak, defenceless, me here alone. The audacity. How could you”. Sam smacks him over the head for that one. The FrightKnight just shaking his head before flying off out the window... at least Val doesn’t try to follow him or some shit, even if Danhy’s positive she wants to. 

Annnnnd then Jazz opens the door, sticking her head in, “okay so, I noticed the very unnecessary and noticeable, Danny, guard is gone. I feel the need to point out that you are absolutely going to have to explain this to mom and dad if that Knight ghost is just going to follow you around constantly”. 

Danhy rubbing his neck then looking around the room, “so who feels like helping explain that their adopted kid is the child of ghosts, ghost royalty and gods specifically, to the Fenton’s?”. 

Val puts her hands up, “nope. I’m out. I was out before you even asked. I’d offer a place to stay if me and dad had the room though. Also, you still suck”. Tuck adding on, “my place is always open to Danny-dude, don’t worry about it”. 

Sam laughing at him, “I’m pretty sure no one can actually help with that, Danny. You’re screwed”.

“Ha! Don’t I know it”, Danhy shrugging, “advice though?”; Danhy’s open to pretty much anything here. ‘Cause there was no way this was going to go remotely well for him at all, even kinda. 

“Don’t tell them at all?”.

“Hide all the weapons before they get here, remove the weapons vault doorknob, and stand very far away”.

“Don’t die”.

“Don’t outright reject them as parents, I get that you might not see that way now, but do they really need to know that?”.

Danhy scratching his head, “well not dying is kinda the main goal, Val, and I’m telling them, Sam”.

Sam huffs, “I don’t know why you think they deserve to know anything ever”. 

Danhy rolling eyes, “at the least they gave me family till I found my actual one”, pointing at Val, “ghosts or no”, then focusing back on Sam, “and not telling them when I fully intend to be more or less public with this sounds super stupid and hard to do”. 

“Why would you do that?”.

“Even I think that’s stupid to do, Danny”.

“I mean at least I’ll get some cred for being a prince’s friend? I also think this is a dumb idea though, man”.

Danhy leans away from them all, “hey, literally all three of you immediately noticed I’ve changed, for one. For two, I need some kind of explination for inevitable accidental ghost-like shit. For three, I honestly would rather sleep in Pariah’s Keep than here; I have a room that’s super comfy with a very cuddle pile worthy bed. For four, they, Pariah mostly, really want it public and as it stands I like them”.

Sam smirks at him, “aw look at you actually trying to make a parental figure proud for a change”. Danhy pouts at her, yes Pariah did… probably end A TON of ghosts and all the ghosts seemed to view him as a horrific threat but Danhy’s positive he’d take losing his own loved ones just as poorly if not worse. The guy was old fashion but he seemed nice enough! Sure he shot Danhy into a wall and a bunch of other things but that’s just ghosts for you. Plus! Danhy not being good at fighting would definitely be a problem, ‘cause he’s one hundred percent going to get into fights purely because of who he is now rather than just what or because he was protecting humans or because he was fun to fight. Now there were gonna be ghosts who wanted to test ‘their prince’ -still weird that that meant him- and ‘Pariah’s spawn’. Danhy’s got no clue how well known clockpops is so he can’t say for sure if anyone’s gonna fight him over being related to them or not.

Jazz sighing, walking over more and smiling at Danhy, “I guess they really must have made a good impression then”. Val scowling, “since when do ghosts ever leave good impressions”.

Danhy snickering, “oh I don’t know, Val. Phantom leaves pretty big ones in the road all the time”. She scowls at him but jumps from her phone going off, “shit dad”, and scurrying out of the room shouting about how she ‘has to head home’ and to ‘not be stupid Danny! They’re ghosts!’. Honestly, Danhy’s more cautious with ghosts than most since he actually knows what he’s actually dealing with, sure the bond thing is definitely making him lower his guard to a weird degree, but screw her, they were safe and home and his. Danhy shaking his head then looking back to his friends and sister, “I guess I should have said this already, but seeing as everyone just keeps saying my name-”.

“It’s a very easy way to scold you, Danny”.

“True”.

“It’s also kinda funny”.

“Hey at least we’re not like Dash”.

“Ugh, don’t remind me”, Danhy sags a little before straightening out, “anyways, they totally changed my name”.

“What!”.

“No! I object”.

“… your face tells me they changed it to actually be Danny”.

Sam and Tuck both blinking and relaxing at realising Jazz is probably right. Danhy grinning, “pretty much, it’s Danhy, with an h, now. It’s Nordic I think?”, and shrugs. All three just laugh at him, Tuck googling a little and yup it’s Nordic.

Sam patting Danhy’s back, “have fun telling Lancer and Vlad that, do you care if we just still with what we know?”.

“Naw, it’s basically the same. And Lancer gets a free pass, Vlad though I’m gonna have fun with. Though I think I convinced dad to not beat them up for calling me ‘Daniel’? he really doesn’t like that someone else named me”.

Jazz shaking her head but tapping her chin, “well, being your actual parents that makes sense, parents often put lots of care and thought into names. And even mom and dad-”, eyeing Danhy a little, “-don’t ever really call you that”.

That was probably really for the best, even if the nickname he gave himself was based off the name they gave him, which of course basically chose his new actual name for him. Pariah was probably never going to actually forgive pops for letting someone else name him. Shrugging, “which I’m very glad about, it not being a name my actual folks gave me is probably part of why I never liked it”, rubbing his neck, “and I’m still not sure on what to call… Jack and Maddie, Jazz. ‘Cause they’re definitely not mom and dad now”, and grimaces, “which is hundred percent partly a ghost thing”. Again, them being ‘mom’ or ‘dad’ felt very wrong now, it made his spine crawl almost as much as it did with Vlad. She doesn’t look happy so he sighs, “it’ll definitely depend how the talk goes”.

Sam huffing, crossing her arms, “if they kick you out or ask if you can give them your parents for experiments, then all they’ll get from me is called ‘the Fenton’s’ with fucking venom”. Danhy scowling, “Sam, if they do the second one I will throw hands”. She clearly agrees with that plan.

Tuck moving to sit back on his? bed, “figured out what you are gonna tell ‘em?”.

“Honesty? Minus any ‘I’m Phantom’ stuff”, rubbing his neck, “Zone I’ll probably explain things better to them than y’all just to get it all out on the table at once”. At least they all nod at that.

Jazz pointing at him though, “do you actually know everything about it though?”. Of course he didn’t? When did he ever know everything about whatever was going on with him? He just laughs meanly at her, making her roll her eyes, “you know if you can’t actually answer all their questions they’re not gonna believe you really”.

“Well then that’s on them”, shrugging, “sure pops could absolutely explain everything, they know literally everything about everything pretty much, but Maddie and Jack probably won’t believe a ghost and ClockWork will definitely mess with them. They gave me my goblin energy”.

“Oh Zone no”.

“There’s a god with your goblin energy? We’re all doomed”.

Jazz just smiles and laughs at him a little, at least she wasn’t freaking out on him. Especially since she knew about the whole ‘your brother is a dead ghost that fights ghosts in the streets all the time’ thing. He’s got some serious questions about how much she knew about his bullshit but that was a conversation for another day and time, especially considering he can hear the front door opening. “Oh shit, I think I just ran out of planning time”.

Jazz quirks an eyebrow but Sam crouches and scurries out of the room quietly and back in, nodding at him, “yeah it’s them. Want us to hide out in here in case shit goes south?”.

Danny crossing his arms and quirking an eyebrow, “will you actually stay up here if they do say something messed up?”, she pouts at him making him sigh, “just, only come down if I actually ask you guys to? Please?”, pointing at Jazz, “and we both know you’ll talk over me and try to explain things yourself”.

She doesn’t deny it, because it’s true and she knows it. “I’ll be in my room, but I’m going to talk to them first”, at Danhy’s face, “not to explain anything, just to prepare them. You being ‘surprise I know I’m adopted’ is not a great ice breaker, Danhy”.

“Well it’s all I got”.

“Exactly”, she huffs and walks out of the room. “Oh! Glad you guys are back!…”.

Danhy blinking at the closing door, did she always have to meddle so much? Like yes he loved her, very much, but ugh. Sisters. She also had a point which was so annoying. Sam and Tuck both pat his back supportingly. Sam pointing at him, “know that both of us will throw hands if they hurt you”. Tuck lifting up his pda, “ready and waiting to strike”.

Zone damn it, he loves these stupid assholes. Queue one quick-ish hugging session.

Jazz eyeing her folks, she seriously hoped this went well. Danny would be upset if it didn’t regardless of them ‘not being mom and dad’. And she doesn’t want to have to choose between her brother and her parents, even if she knows who she’ll pick without a doubt. She loved her parents but they… weren’t great parents or great people.

“How’s holding down the fort been, Jazzy-pants?”.

Mom smacking him lightly, “she didn’t call, so well”, eyeing Jazz, “or it better have been going well”.

Jazz putting on a smile, “it’s been fine, mom. But there is something that’s come up, you remember how Danny was outside the shield?”, hopefully Danny’s hearing is good enough to hear what she’s going with, since he can’t tell them about intentionally flying off to ‘fight Pariah’ as Phantom.

Both nod, mom immediately looking worried, “oh no, did he get sick? Exposed to too much ectoplasm or hurt?”. Dad making a fist, “if any ghost did then they’re meeting Jack Fenton! And his guns!”.

Even if there was a concerning amount of bigotry behind it the statement that he’d defend her brother still makes her feel warm inside. They weren’t great parents, but they weren’t terrible ones either; they had their moments. Smiling a real smile at them, “no he’s fine, mom, dad. Rather, you remember how you guys said I found Danny? Your theory was nearly completely right about what happened”. Sadly she doesn’t think there’s anyway to explain to them without them knowing Danny actually was in that forest because of ghosts. There was no other actually truthful way to explain that. And if Danny was going to be honest about what his real parents were, the only way that would go well is if her and Danny could convince them that at least his parents didn’t mean him harm. Would protect him.

Dad going wide-eyed, smacking a fist into his hand, “I knew it!”, then deflating, “wait, did the ghost or ghosts who spirited him away come back for him?!”. Mom frowning immediately, “how do you know this? Honey?”.

Jazz gestures at the table and gets them to sit down, her following, “I know because he’s been explaining what happened. The conversation with, yes dad, the ghost who did that. They were protecting him from another ghost or ghosts”.

Mom frowning, “are you sure about that? That doesn’t make sense with ghosts, Jazz”; dad just looks concerned and confused. Which is actually good.

Jazz nodding immediately, “Phantom and that vampire ghost make it really obvious ghosts do weird things to spite each other. It’s not that weird. Plus-”, frowning, because this is when she should frown, “-they were, or are, his parent. The ghost left him there with the intent of us finding him, raising him, protecting him. Because they couldn’t anymore”. Are they going to misinterpret that? Yes. But starting with Danny being born from two ghosts was not a good idea. Let them think Danny’s parent died for now.

Mom looks genuinely sad, knitting her fingers together over her mouth, “I suppose if there’s one thing a parent would remember, even as an impression, it is to protect their child. Especially an infant. Or remember enough to do some ounce of good with their existence”.

Dad nodding readily, “perhaps they were so focused on him that it affected their ghost impression? A parent’s love is one of the strongest things there is after all!”. Jazz isn’t sold on that one, especially with how they’ve treated her and Danny. Dad humming, thinking, “so he was spirited away by a ghost, just away from other ghosts!”.

Mom looks at him fondly before eyeing Jazz, “it sounds like this ghost… still remembers him? And he’s sure about that?”.

Now that’s definitely something Danny’s better off trying to explain himself. “You should ask him that, the ghost doesn’t sound like a normal ghost, mom”. Jazz kinda wishes that didn’t get them more interested in this. “I’m just giving you guys a heads up that he knows he’s effectively adopted and he wants to talk about it but it’s very weird”.

Dad and mom exchanging looks before nodding at her. So she gets up to go get her brother… she hopes they don’t notice he looks a little different. Because that? She can’t explain in any way they’ll take well; especially when her own understanding of how and why that happened is so limited.

---

Danhy quirking an eyebrow at the door as Jazz sticks her head back in, “I’d say you’re good to go, you heard all of that?”.

“Yeah, way to confuse them. Now I have to definitely explain that they were ghosts before I was even a damn idea. Heck, I’m pretty sure ClockWork was born a ghost and just kinda popped into existence”.

Sam rolls her eyes, “gods”, but moves to shove Danhy out of the door. Tuck giving him a thumbs up, “we’ll be here, dude”. Jazz nodding, “I’ll be in my room while you guys have your talk, just, remember they have been parents to you”.

Danhy wincing and nodding as she walks off to her room, leaving him hovering at the top of the stairs a bit, not literally hovering at least. Okay so… for now he thinks he should at least try to leave out that his dad is the king of all ghosts and that his pops is a literal god. That might be too much and they might not even believe him, and Pariah didn’t exactly make a great first impression on anyone. Shaking his head and heading down, this was gonna suck.

Chap.4: Don’t You Want To See A Bit More Of A Better Me?

Danhy tilts sideways to have just his head in the kitchen, eyeing… Jack and Maddie at the table. They smile at him and pat him over, a good sign? Nice. Okay, Jazz’s plan hadn’t been totally shit. Swallowing a little and walking in, shit Jazz didn’t explain that he looked different at all did she? Well they hadn’t noticed more noticeable bullshit. Danhy’s gonna pretend he doesn’t look any different at all. Rubbing his neck as he sits down, “so. You guys adopted me from a random forest, huh?”.

Maddie laughs a little, “I doubt the forest was your parent, sweetie”.

… well at least being called ‘sweetie’ didn’t bother him, cool. So Danhy laughs too, “that would be very confusing”.

…

Jack sticks his arms out, apparently done with the silence, “so you got ghost family! You sure about that one? How?!”. Maddie nodding, “I’d like to know that too. What proof this ghost had”.

Okay. Suspicious but not too suspicious, he can deal with that. Danhy had been more suspect himself, “oh trust me I didn’t believe them at all at first even slightly and was trying to sneak over to something I could use to defend myself”.

“Atta boy!”, Jack smacks him on the shoulder, it hurt a lot less than it used to. Jack was never gonna get better with his strength, Danhy had to not copy that. “A Fenton by brith or not, you were still raised one! Ha!”.

Danhy can’t even say no to that, they did try to ‘make a Fenton’ of him for sure.

Maddie grinning and nodding, “good”, frowning a little, “you’ve always been strangely ghost friendly, so you can understand us being worried right?”, smiling and leaning over to ruffle his hair, “and you’re still our son, if you want to be”.

Danhy making a point not to cringe, that would just be mean and they wouldn’t understand currently or ever maybe, who knows. He’s trying to have this conversation not go to shit and cringing over being called ‘son’ was not the way to get what he wanted. “I mean, I definitely would like to still be family, but they’re definitely my parents?”. Wow he sucks at this.

It’s not remotely surprising they look a little hurt, Maddie frowning, “are… both ghosts? You want… ghosts as parents?”; he can see she’s struggling to not get upset with him. Jack frowning too, “so… not son?”; he looks like he might cry.

Damn it.

Danhy refuses to make Jack? Not-dad? Cry? Fuck he needs something to call them that isn’t just their names. Oh shit Jack’s gonna cry if he hears Danhy call Pariah ‘dad’. It feels way too right not to though? “I mean, yes? No? I’m still thinking on things I guess”, and rubs his neck; at least Jack brightens up a bit. Danhy eyeing Maddie, “definitely yes to them being my parents though, um, it’s not just because I don’t really agree with you guys about ghosts though”.

She sighs, nodding to herself before going back to watching him, “could you explain that then?”. And Jack starts muttering about ‘if this makes the ghosts his family too’ and what to do about that which is baffling to hear? What the hell? Even Maddie looks a little thrown.

Danhy shrugs exaggeratedly, “where to start?”, crap he’s not used to being honest with them, “um so, the reason I was in that forest was because my one parent was protecting me from other ghosts right? Well, that’s ’cause the- I wasn’t, like, a baby who’s parent died”, rolling his wrist awkwardly, “they were ghosts before I was born”.

Jack sputters, “that’s impossible”; Maddie’s just opening and closing her mouth. So Danhy kinda rushes to continue, “that’s kinda what I said”, how the actual shit is he supposed to explain this actually? Well… he could just give the explanation that was given to him? Was that basically telling them he was a ghost? Yeah pretty much. Was doing that kinda dumb? Definitely. Was it all he can think of? Yup. Rubbing his neck, “but like ghosts are mostly an unknown so it’s not that weird to run into something new right? They pretty much called me a ‘living ghost’? Ghost with a living human body that’s entirely theirs and stuff”. Danhy mildly wants to crawl in a hole. “And I can definitely feel that I’m related to them”, now he’s rambling, cool, “it’s like a fluffy safe connection? Yarn in my chest? It’s really hard to explain”, not to mention kinda embarrassing, “and yes I know for sure they didn’t, like, actually put anything in me or whatever. It’s feelings and stuff”. Ugh this sucks. “And I mean I’ve always been kinda weird, I know that. And maybe I should have mentioned a while ago I can understand ghost speak and sense ghosts? And is not exactly new news that all the anti-ghost stuff hurts me-”, he is talking himself into that hole he wanted to crawl into.

Maddie thankfully interrupts him, maybe picking up that he is officially panicking, this was supposed to be a calm! controlled! conversation! It wasn’t! Maddie patting his head, “hey woah, it’s okay. It’s not, but it’s okay”. Jack also scooting his chair closer to Danhy without being looming about it, Maddie taking a breath, “so what you’re saying is you’re not… really human but are? An alive ghost should just be a normal living creature but that can’t be the case if what you’re saying is true”.

Danhy can’t help glaring a little, “I’m positive it’s true”. If they don’t believe him or doubt everything that comes out of his mouth then this conversation is totally pointless and stupid and he shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up at all.

Jack humming, tapping his chin before tilting his head at Danhy, “Where are you feeling all that confusing stuff?”.

“I was told in my core. Which, fine, I have basically no idea what that is”. Did ClockWork explain? Yes. Did that explanation make much sense? No.

They exchange a look, a look Danhy’s not sure if he likes or not. Maddie nodding and staring down at the table, “its something we’ve hypothesised ghosts having as the central part of their being”, her humming again and eyeing Danhy in that scientist way that he definitely doesn’t like; it takes a bit of effort to not shrink away.

Fuck it, Danhy’s calling them on it, he doesn’t want them thinking his okay with that, “don’t stare at me like I’m an experiment”, he cuts himself off from calling her ‘Maddie’ he’s not trying to hurt them. As it is she flinches, giving a quiet, “sorry, Danny”.

Jack looking between Danhy, who’s trying not to come off as angry, and Maddie, who’s glancing down at the table. Eyeing Danhy, “so you’re sure about this, kiddo?”.

Danhy winds up almost growling, okay so the more ghostly stuff about him is definitely more on the surface now or whatever, “yes”. It’s just questioning his parents, his real parents, about this just feels insulting. At least kiddo was fine with him though, it was less ‘your my child’ and more ‘you’re a child’.

Jack gestures a bit stiffly and not really looking at Danhy, “and it’s not from like, being influenced by being close to these ghosts?”. Maddie bitting her lip, “if ghosts were that influential, we’d have bigger problems. This is… still strange though”.

This is not going super great. He kinda doesn’t want to be here anymore. Now they’re talking like he’s not right here.

“It would make more sense for ghosts to steal a human and infect them over time to become ghostly”.

“A ghost fused into a human permanently maybe?”.

No. Danhy’s not dealing with this. Ugh.

“Cannibalism would make more sense than fusion, Jack”.

Nope. He’s out. He did not cannibalise anyone or thing, or fuse, or get corrupted, or whatever else. Pushing himself up.

“Danny?”.

“Danno?”.

Danny stuck his head up the stairs, “you guys can come down and deal with this shit! I’m going for a fucking walk!”. Why did he think this was going to be a good idea in the first fucking place? God damn. Stupid fucking ClockWork for encouraging this shit and his dumbass. He needs to get out.

Sam and Tuck pop their heads out before Jazz does. Tuck quirking an eyebrow at the annoyed to possibly pissed off sorta-halfa, “you good, man?”.

“I just need to not be here for a bit. I need out”.

The two get down lightning quick and basically block Maddie and Jack from trying to stop him. They’re still upset of course but whatever.

“Wait!! Danny why?!”.

Danhy rubbing his temples, “I’m not dealing with this, with you debating me commit freaking cannibalism like I’d ever do that even as a child, what the hell?! My days been weird enough”, and stalks out of the house, slamming the door.

Danhy can see through the window that Jazz has come down the stairs partly, her arms are crossed and she doesn’t look impressed. Him just able to hear Maddie, “it just don’t make any sense, Jazz!”.

…

Yeah okay that didn’t go well. At all. He kinda just wants to go home, the Keep home not FentonWorks. Or maybe he’ll stumble upon Boxy and kick his ass a little bit. Of course as soon as he thinks that, a ghost shows up, it’s just the FrightKnight though.

“I don’t know why you’re putting yourself through this”.

Danhy rolls his eyes at the ghost, not stopping his walking, hands in his pockets, “because I’m not an ass and they do actually deserve to know? Fuck you. They might be a little stupid and bigoted, but I didn’t see your sorry ass looking after baby me”. Granted he wouldn’t have know if the guy had been but Danhy seriously doubts it.

“Daniel”.

Danhy snapping his head to the side at Vlad, “not you too, fuck off. Also that’s not my name, you piss-ant”.

“I’m not the type to change, regardless of a name change”.

“Yeah I figured that, you moron. Wait how do you know that”.

Vlad looks unimpressed, “you know I’ve been bugging your house repeatedly, use your brain for once”.

Okay fine, Danhy should have seen that one coming, “jerk”.

“Know that you have finally succeeded in giving me the worst day of my life. You actually fouled my plan, sweet Maddie isn’t related to my preferred child, I can’t steal a kid from that psycho, you have that what was supposed to mine, and I’m absolutely going to take that out on you”.

Danhy grins, “wow, thanks for actually cheering me up, fruitloop”. Vlad shoots him with an ecto-beam immediately.

The FrightKnight just stands on the sidewalk watching the two sorta rivals beat the shit out of each other. Phantom lets himself get thrown into a wall, like he wants to feel pain which was actually the case a little. Plasmius gets punched in the face and looked a little worried about that.

The FrightKnight is just pleased that Phantom is clearly stronger. He’d been confused and maybe worried about his kings child being so weak, looks like that was for nothing. There’s a small explosion, Phantom doesn’t take any damage; good. Even if the child does get ganged up on by duplicates, he just starts grabbing their feet and smacking them at stuff. Phantom hasn’t even changed forms, almost impressive; not that The FrightKnight is so easily impressed.

“Why are you even trying in that form, boy?”.

“Because I’m not dealing with you mocking me for having a cape now, shut up”. The boy digs in the trash pulls out sauce packets and starts throwing them at Plasmius angrily.

They explode.

Sometimes the FrightKnight believes this town would make good horror material. An entire town happily eating highly explosive sauce was inspired and vaguely insane. At least his majesty would be pleased to hear that one of the first things his son did was torment the one whom was foolish enough to try and steal from the crown high king.

Plasmius does flea after that, in a very annoyed manner. Phantom still attempting to pelt him with things from the ground, the boy setting down a bench he’d debated on throwing; the FrightKnight approaching, “you done”.

“Piss off, oh my Zone”, the boy huffing and glancing around, “I’m surprised no one noticed that shit”, and rolls his shoulders out.

… has he really not noticed? Sigh. This child was going to be the end of him. “This place is your domain, your more direct lair, yours, you didn’t want to be noticed so you were not”.

“That’s worrying”.

The FrightKnight still does not understand this child in the slightest.

By the time Danhy decides to go back to FentonWorks he’s more or less worked through the fact that he apparently unknowingly has control or influence over the town, which Frighty thinks is a good thing, and has decided to just shove it up on that mental shelf he’s got going. That thing was going to give out eventually and it would not be pretty. Oh well. It’s not collapsing right now, is it. Later him’s issue.

Danhy pointing at the ghost, “stay put, seriously”, and grumbling at the ghost seemingly disappearing into Danhy’s shadow, before pushing his way back into the house. He probably looked like shit.

He did look like shit.

Tuck raises an eyebrow, “dude, what the hell kind of walk did you go on?”. Sam shaking her head, “really? Danny?”.

Jack’s looking at him awkwardly while Maddie worries her hands, “you okay, sweetie?”.

Danhy grumbles, “got attacked by a dog, it was a very stupid walk. I’m fine, but possibly more annoyed than before”, meaning: ghost picked a fight. Sam and Tuck sigh at him. Jack and Maddie wincing in unison.

The grown ups exchanging looks before both look back to him, oh Zone, what now? He only came back because he wound up walking into a pole and just gave up on the whole relaxing walk thing. Jack grinning in that nervous but trying to not seem nervous kind of way, “so we’ve decided it doesn’t really matter how you are they way you are, we know you and raised you, you’re you and you’re family”, the smile looking more real, “can I please still call you son?”.

“Oh my Zone, dad! What did I say about that?”, Jazz pops out from the kitchen.

Danhy has no clue what she’s talking about, “Jazz… what did you talk about?”. She looks smug, “just that mom and dad calling you ‘son’ would piss the possessive ghosts off and that would make you sad because you don’t want any fighting, nothing much”.

Danhy should have thought of that himself, damn. Because yeah that wasn’t even a lie, Pariah would fight them… ClockWork maybe not, they seem more the pranking type. Danhy rubbing his neck, “okay, yeah. That’s true”, rubbing his neck, “at least one of them would definitely throw hands, which I think I got them agree to not do just because someone calls me ‘Daniel’”.

Sam nodding at him, crossing her arms at his… uh he still doesn’t have a word and he’s frankly still too annoyed to come up with one. “They renamed him Danhy, with an H”. The goth relaxes at Maddie actually smiling at her over that, “yeah, guess Daniel never really fit”.

Danhy shrugs, “I don’t know if it’s because my, well actual, parents weren’t the ones who gave it to me or not”, and shrugs again, more apologetically this time.

Jack rubs his neck, which Danhy guess is something he picked up from him, “the connection yeah? Speaking of that, if you can sense ghosts, did you sense them and that’s why you went outside the shield? That was very dangerous!”, and laughs a little. Maddie nodding readily, frown at Danhy, “you worried us a lot with that stunt”.

Danny moved to the couch flopping down, Tuck giving him a thumbs up, “well if you’re done being dramatic, which I definitely know where you got that from now, me and Sam should probably check in with our own folks”. Danhy waves them off, “hey, I’ve got nothing on, uh, dad?”. Oh zone yeah Jack looks a little crushed, oof.

Danhy rubbing his neck very awkwardly at that as the door opens and shuts, “sorry? Um, the term really fits him okay and feels, like, super right? Sorry”.

The man pouts, “can I at least be uncle?”.

Damn it. Now Danhy feels like an asshole for something he kinda can’t help. Shit. “Of course! If that’s okay? Father’s kinda too stuffy for me to use for anyone”, tilting his head and looking up at the ceiling, “I guess faðir fits him the same but I think that’s dad in Viking or whatever”. Still weird he knew another language just randomly. Looking back to his.. uncle? Vlad was gonna be pissed. “And yeah they sense differently to me, not that I knew why at the time”. Danhy had thought it was just because both of them were stupidly powerful, far more than any other ghost he’d ever met before. But nope! They were surprise parents!

Jack grins, “it’s not as good as dad, but I’ll take it. And Viking language?”. Maddie nodding, “aunty is okay, I agree it’s not great but it’s better than you calling me ‘Maddie’, mister. Still not impressed you went to check out random ghosts on a whim without telling us, even if I know you’re a curious kid”; somehow that was both fond and scolding. Ugh.

Yeah even Danhy would feel like an ass just using their names to their faces, but the auntie and uncle thing was probably just going to be an ‘around them’ thing. He’s been calling them by their names for years with his friends and as Phantom. “to be fair everything was a little crazy and you guys had a lot on your hands”, eyeing Jack, “and yeah, one of them is a Viking and somehow actually taller than you; which explains why your height has never ever bothered me”.

Jack laughs at that, “true! Even Jazzy has moments being bothered by that! Never you though!”.

Maddie gives Jack a fond look, which Danhy can understand, he pretty much never met people taller than him or people who were used to people that were as tall as him; now he’s got a sorta nephew? who’s just naturally cool with huge ass people. Maddie looking back to Danhy, “I don’t care how ‘busy’ we were, you kids are important”. 

Jazz grumbling, “you don’t show it often”, before getting up and moving back towards the kitchen, “I’m going to get tea, considering this was supposed to be a more personal conversation”; Danhy rolls his eyes at her. 

Maddie and Jack nodding at her but Jack’s still focuses on Danhy, “though question, why were you unconscious when V-man found you? If you were just, meeting, ugh, ghosts that were basically, uh, family to you?”, and tilts his head. 

Shit okay... well Danhy could just be honest again. Because well, he did basically pass out on DarkDaddy’s lap right after the whole establishing a proper connection thing. “Oh, uh, pops kinda put this seal thingy on me to hide me and it broke when I met them again, passed out”, rolling his eyes, “it wasn’t anything bad”. Granted he’d also been exhausted from using that stupid suit and basically fighting an army and mock fighting -even if he didn’t know it was a mock fight at the time- his dad. So like, it definitely wasn’t just the bond, heck it might not have even been that at all. Danhy’s had a fucking day, multiple days. 

Maddie blinks, “wait, are both of them guys?”, and shakes her head to herself before talking to him again, “I suppose that’s not too bad then, so long as this bond and broken seal isn’t hurting you”. 

Danhy shaking his head immediately, “they are, ones more genderless though. And no, don’t worry about the seal or bind thing-”. Jazz butting in, like he knew she would if she was around for all of this conversation shit, ugh, “outside of the fact that the seal was tramping down on some more ghostly behaviours and appearance”, and gives Danhy a bit of a ‘tell them, idiot’ look. Which fair, again, the more he gets out now the less he’ll have to re-explain himself later. Her comment of course results in them squinting at him, looking for changes. 

Danhy isn’t sure if he should be happy or disappointed or annoyed or just amused when it takes them a while to actually comment on a difference. Man, they could be so oblivious. Maddie humming, “your eyes do look a little different��, which she doesn’t sound happy about, “other than that all I can tell is your hair’s messier”. Then Jack goes wide-eyed and is practically vibrating in joy, “you! Have stubble! You’re becoming a man! Yes!”; and does a silly jig. Danhy buries his head in his hands in embarrassment, yes he was happy too but the jig is just too much. Jack wiping a tear from his eye, “I can finally teach my boy how to shave”. 

Danhy doesn’t have the heart to even be mad about the ‘my boy’ thing. Besides, Vlad says that shit constantly, so it was a little less annoying somehow... heck Danhy’s pretty sure Lancer’s called him ‘‘my boy’ before? 

Jack rounding on him, “you will let me teach you, right?”, and gives Danhy a pouty puppy dog look. Maddie looks like she’s has no clue if that’s a good idea or not.

Does ClockWork know how to? Obviously. Pariah? Maybe? Do either of them ever shave? What no of course not! They’re ghosts. Honestly Danhy probably actually doesn’t need to either, it’ll grow to whatever length it’s supposed to be and then just stop. But, even if he’s still slightly annoyed he’s not going to say no to the man just because he might not need too. Though there’s also the chance that even if he does shave the hair/stubble will just insta grow back. Cool, since no one -Dash- can prank him then. Jazz’s glare also screams ‘say yes or else’. Danhy smiling at his kinda uncle, “I wouldn’t dream of saying no, uh, uncle”; man that was going to take some getting used to. It didn’t come naturally like with his dad and pops. Jack cheers and continues with the jig, Jack teaching him was gonna be so embarrassing, wasn’t it? What has Danhy singed himself up for?

Maddie shakes her head at the man, “I doubt some ghosts would know how”, then eyeing Danhy, “are you… going to stick with considering yourself a ghost?”.

Jazz slipping back further into the kitchen with a sigh, Danhy frowning some, “it’s more of a both thing. I’m still alive, human, obviously. But also, all ghost too”.

Jack glances around, “a new term would be better though right? Like, not ‘ghost’, something else”, trying to sound excited, “we could totally come up with something cool sounding!”.

Oh zone no, sure there was another term for what he was but he was still a ghost. Danhy crossing his arms, “no. I’m a weird ghost but I’m a ghost. I’m not a one hundred percent different freaking species than my parents”. In what world would it not be stupid and mean to reject his actual parents species??? One that he’s definitely part of??? Especially since he knows this shit was just Jack’s goddamn bigotry. Fuck, technically the ghost species had more claim to him than the human one since he was actually related to ghosts and not to humans; even if he did grow up basically human and surrounded by humans. “And I’m absolutely letting them teach me about ghosts, what they think of them”; the ‘and humans’ goes left unsaid but it’s pretty fucking heavily implied. Jack and Maddie look less than pleased, no surprise there; since that obviously meant Danhy was never going to ‘fall in line’ with their bigotry crap. Plus they probably also thought that his parents were going to try and fill his head with anti-living shit; since the two ghost hunters were so sure about ghosts hating and wishing harm on the living and shit.

Maddie frowning, “that’s not a good idea-”.

Danhy scowling, “I don’t care or agree”.

The three of them all just kinda stare at each other for a bit then Jazz shouts, “guys! The casserole is alive! Or dead and walking!”. Danhy wheezing into a hand and losing almost all his tension, as Jack and Maddie run off into the kitchen to wrangle the sentient food. 

Danhy getting up to stare at the thing snarling in the net, “remind me again why you guys keep leaving food next to samples?”. 

“Convenience! Danny-boy!”. Jack’s cheer is a little forced but it’s still there.

Maddie smiles a little before humming and eyeing Danhy, Jack taking the net away as she gives him an actual answer, “though there did used to be an actual reason”. Jazz looks shocked, “since when!?!”. Maddie waves her off kindly, “I used to experiment with cooking with it, dear”. 

“Why?!?”.

Even Danhy makes a face, “I second the why”, sure he can eat ecto, it even tasted pretty good and tingly to him, but still. He wasn’t interested in trying to eat something that could run away from or stab him; and he’s fairly sure you can’t cook with ecto without that happening. 

She frowns a little, a bit awkward, “because of you actually, which in retrospect should have been a little more concerning”. 

Great now they’re confusing him too, “oh?”. Why were they trying to cook him ecto food, like yes they fed him just plain ecto more than once but how was food cooked with ecto any better of an ‘experiment’. Jazz still looks baffled and annoyed. 

Maddie hums, “when we first brought you home you constantly kept getting into the samples and consuming them”. Jack popping back in, “oh yeah I remember that! You made a lot of messes, a very messy baby”. It is goddamn impossible not to blush at that, this is not what he wants to hear about. Jack continuing, “we just figured you got, like, super contaminated from being spirited away that you were addicted, like a crack baby or something”.

Jazz face palms, “guys, ectoplasm crack baby is a completely insane thesis. Completely. Insane”. Danhy sticking up a finger, “Jazz, that’s probably legit though. Like it makes sense, I probably need the ecto”. He was literally a full ghost, although maybe the full human thing cancelled that shit out? Fuck if he knows and Clockpops would definitely not give him a straight answer purely to be confusing. Would also more explain sticking a sorta ghost with freaking ghost hunters. Blinking and looking at Maddie, “so making me eating and gargling ectoplasm and sh-stuff wasn’t just you guys being kinda immoral scientists?”. 

Jack rubs his neck, “I mean, we were definitely curious what would happen?”.

“That is stupid, full offence”, shaking his head a little, “no wonder that whole weird ecto-contamination thing was so easily accepted, geez”. 

Maddie ruffles his hair stiffly some, which he glares at her hand over, especially cause she almost seemed like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to touch him at all; he absolutely noticed her glancing between her gloves and his hair. Maddie nodding, “it wasn’t really surprising a massive dose of ectoplasm would make the way you were already, worse”, frowning and humming, “now I’m not so sure. And your hair is definitely different”. 

“It’s fine. I’m fine; that basically just weakened the seal some”, shrugging, “and like with that whole contamination thing, I’m basically just being open with this whole child of ghosts thing. You know, at school and stuff”. Danhy can’t be assed to try and keep yet another secret, especially when not keeping this one could help him keep the far more important one. That whole ‘weird ecto-contamination’ was only going to go so damn far. Being weird, creepy, eye fashes, and whatnot could apparently be shrugged off, but inhuman strength and like actually looking more ghost-like was pushing it. 

Maddie nodding, “if that’s what you want, Danny. Even if I don’t really like you… ‘owning’ this ghost idea”, shaking her head a little, “we’re going to get some strange calls then”.

She clearly still didn’t buy him seeing himself as a ghost, but there was legit no point fighting her on it. “So same ol’ same ol’?”.

Jack laughs loudly, smacking Danhy on the back, which he doesn’t nearly fall over from, “true!”... “so feel like trying to shave?”. 

Danhy snorts, figures, “sure, uncle, sure”; he ignores the slight hurt look with Jack basically pulling him up strairs. 

Is Danny surprised they never asked to ‘met’ his actual parents? Zone no. They were ghosts, of course they didn’t want to play friendly with them. That was probably for the best though, since both of his parents were a bit much and Jack and Maddie definitely will remember Pariah, considering what just happened. 

Maddie shakes her head, frowning a little as the two boys disappear into the bathroom. Jazz walking up next to her, “if you guys mess this up I’m going to be pissed”.

“I know. It’ll just be, a bit hard”. 

“Of course, but you can work through it. Let him be accepting of himself even if you don’t agree, or else. And if the ghosts mess up, we’ll beat the zone out of them, I’ll get the creep stick”. 

“Absolutely, honey”. Jazz nodding and moving to go check on the two boys. Maddie frowning after a bit, “those ghosts… they’re going to completely corrupt him, aren’t they?”, and sighs, “all I can do is try to minimise the damage”.

Danhy does stay the night at FentonWorks, he was pretty positive that if he didn’t it would completely destroy whatever relationship he had with Jack and Maddie; even if he absolutely was paranoid they’d do something in his sleep. Though with it feeling like Frighty definitely was still chilling in his shadow he wasn’t really worried, weird that the ghost could do that but that’s probably what made him acceptable as a guard or whatever.

Either way breakfast is awkward. Danhy’d bet money there’s ectoplasm in his morning cereal, which Maddie made for him for the first time in a while; he already knows his bet’s a winner since he can fucking taste it… it is a very good thing he actually likes ecto, damn. Jack’s reading the paper, Jazz has already run off to help some teacher set some whatever up, and Maddie’s staring at her coffee. Like he said, awkward. If he was at the Keep dad would probably be looming over him still adjusting to the fact that Danhy’s not dead dead, and pops would be pretending to answer Danhy’s question by giving non-answers; maybe they’d both be working, which is probably what they’re doing now. Is it wrong of him to rather be there than here? And not just because there physically felt like home in a ghostly way.

… Maybe Maddie’s waiting to see if he’ll comment on the ectoplasm? Or maybe trying to work up the balls to ask him if he preferred it with ecto or not? That was probably being a little hopeful of him, it was more likely that she just didn’t know what to say to the literal ghost in the room. Swallowing more cereal, “so”. Maddie jerks. “Any problems with me going to school today?”. If she wants him to stay home for ‘tests’ then he’s fucking done. He’s leaving and not coming back.

She breathes a little before shaking her head and giving him a sorta smile, “no. You seem fine and still don’t really look different”. Jack looking away from the paper to give Danhy a bit of a shove, “you’re not getting out of school that easy, Danno”. Danhy pouting, pretending that was why he asked that. Jack chuckles at him, while Danhy goes about finishing his cereal.

Danhy’s not really surprised when they basically push him out the front door with very firm ‘stay in school’s, which fine he’s earned but still. Ugh. Eyeing his bedroom window from the street… he doesn’t really trust them to just do their usual, to leave his room and whatnot alone. Humming to himself, glancing at his shadow, “can I totally have someone or something keep watch here in case they do something fucking dumb?”.

The rumbled, “of course, my prince”, isn’t even remotely surprising. The little purple fire bats disappearing into his bedroom window isn’t quite what Danhy was going for but guesses he couldn’t get rid of his little babysitter that easily. “They are fools if they dare do wrong by you. Mortal’s are horribly ill-informed”.

Danhy shrugging as he begins his walk, that becomes a fly as soon as he’s out of sight of FentonWorks, “I know. It’s a pain but whatever. And I guess I get the joy of being the ghost royal, still weird, with contact and influence and shit here”.

The FrightKnight takes a bit to respond, “I suppose there’s some added power in such a thing. Power you should prove, your subjects should kneel, use your fangs on those who don’t deserve your grace”.

Danhy stomps on his shadow as he lands by the school, even if that probably did nothing to the jerk ghost, “I’m not a killer, you dick. Dad might have gone all mass murder genocide shit but I’m not him”.

… “Ancient ClockWork has ended far more, entire timelines of existence”.

Okay Danhy’s not sure what to make of that one. “And I’m not them either, wow”. Congrats self! Your lineage is super fucking murdery! Yay! Another thing for the mental self! Those Observant guys were probably worried their kid would be like them or something, or just hated the idea of a prince, or the alive and dead thing, or were just assholes. Or option D: All of the above!

Is Danhy gonna have to watch himself for murdery desires? Cool. Great. Not loving that thought. Might be part of why he’s such a combative motherfucker though, he liked shit kicking and liked getting shit kicked to a degree.

A huntress frowns at Danhy’s bedroom door, walking in, “I need to at least know how strong these ghosts are, where they are, if we can deal with them”; and begins moving to shove little tracker beads in his shoes.

“I wouldn’t do that, if you want to keep any connection to him”.

She jumps, whirling towards Danhy’s bed, tensing, “how did you get here, ghost”, frowning, “what did you do to the security system”. Neither are questions.

“Ghost. God. Not so separate things. Security that works today once did not exist to function at all. The security right now is that of yesteryears. I can be anywhere, any-when, I desire to be”, a clock-themed ghost seems to clean their staff, barely paying any mind to the huntress.

The huntress balls her fist, “you’re one of the ones claiming to be related to him, aren’t you”.

“Hmmm. Reality and claims aren’t the same thing, I reside within the former alone. Whereas all you have in your grasp is claims”.

“Why did you leave him to us”.

“I desire not to see my child bleeding out in front of me. He is yet mortal, forgive me if I am well too aware how fragile mortals are sometimes. I am fine being the Prometheus to the Observants standing as a version of Zeus, but I have no tolerance for their punishments; I reject death, in the true sense, as his fate”.

“And his… other parent?”.

“The representation of death itself has no reason to allow a death that is unwelcome. Whether by his own choice, or another’s choice for him and in his place”.

A few small bats of purple flames squeaking from a corner of the room, blinking glowing red eyes at the huntress as she slowly turns her head to look to the sound.

“I’d take your creations with you when you leave, before smaller hands grab them up to show off your betrayal to younger minds”.

Danhy shoving the school doors open, waving at Sam and Tuck immediately.

Tuck grinning, “dude, I’m shocked they didn’t try to keep you home!”.

Danhy laughing, “same! Anyway wanna watch me freak Lance out? I figured I should be nice and give him a heads up”.

Sam rolling her eyes, “by ‘nice’, you mean terrorise him personally”. Danhy grins devilishly. “Really doing your parents proud, there”.

The FrughrKnoghr adding his two cents, “he should be feared”.

“Dude, if you talk my ear off all day I’m gonna lose my shit”.

Sam and Tuck snapping their heads down to Danhy’s feet. Tuck blinking, “bring your ghost to school day?”. Sam smirking, “we should make that an actual thing”.

“Sam that is a terrible idea, oh my zone”, Danhy shakes his head but starts walking off to Lancer’s little office. All three of them sticking their heads inside, Lancer spotting them and quirking an eyebrow.

Sam and Tuck gesturing ridiculously at Danhy, “we present to you the problem child, turns out he was born in another dimension, have fun”; they promptly ditch his ass, jerks.

Lancer looks very worried, Danhy facepalming, groaning, “guuuuuys, you dicks”.

“Language, Daniel, but yes, that was very confusing”.

Danhy’s shadow/the FrightKnight scoffs. At least he doesn’t try ‘to smite’ his teacher. Danhy holding up a finger, “okay first, my name is actually not Daniel and second, I’m adopted”.

Lancer sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “do you have proof, Daniel, because name changes are a legal issue and will need to be updated in the school files if you’re actually being serious”.

Oh shit, yeah. Wait, did Jack and Maddie even legally adopt him at all???? It really doesn’t sound like it. “I was apparently found in a random forest, I might not actually have been adopted legally, I didn’t think to ask”.

“You… didn’t think to ask?”; Lance looks very disappointed in him and reaches for the phone, “I’m calling home”.

Danhy shrugging and just moving to sit down in a chair, his first class was home ec anyways which he was banned from cooking in due to incidences with sentient food. “That’s fair. The other dimension thing was not a joke, by the by”.

Lance’s less than impressed, but doesn’t get to respond as Maddie’s picked up, “Danny told you?”.

Lancer’s sigh is tired, “so I’m not being pranked”, eyeing Danhy, “I know you and your ways”. Danhy whistles, playing at being a sweet innocent angel. Lancer returning his attention to the phone, “though he doesn’t seem to know if he has legal proof”.

Things being up to legal human standards wasn’t exactly where his focus was, okay? He had other shit to think about and deal with. At least his ghost ears made it easy to hear Maddie.

“We… don’t actually have legal papers for him”.

Lancer blinks, “what”.

Oh wow, Danhy should have figured this. When had they ever been fully law following? They drove a modified mini military vehicle for fucks sake; he’s pretty sure they didn’t get that legally either.

“He is telling the truth, though. Even if I don’t know what in all he has told you. We hadn’t intended to adopt some ghosts child but apparently we’ve missed a few things with our general research”.

She… totally doesn’t realise he can hear her, does she? At least she sounds more awkward and concerned than scientific or cold.

Lancer puts his head in his hand, sighing loudly, “alright, I’ll let you go then”.

“Oh no problem, Mr. Lancer. It’s better he explains things anyways”.

Lancer stares at the phone for a beat when she hangs up, looking at Danhy, “are things alright with them?”.

Danhy shrugs awkwardly, “it’s weird, I guess”.

Lancer frowns at that, “and this ‘different’ dimension is where all the ghosts are from? The ghost zone?”; him leaning forward on his elbows.

Danhy rubs his neck, “got it in one”, shrugging, “my, you know, actual parents showed up during that invasion thing. I am apparently a human ghost, do not question it, it’s weird and according to them an ‘affront to nature’ and ‘defiling life’, which was kinda the goal”.

… “your parents called you an affront to nature?”.

“I have really weird luck with parental figures”. Or attempted parental figures, in Vlad’s case.

Lancer sighs yet again, “alright. I’m to assume this, and not the ecto-contamination, is why you’re a bit different from your peers?”.

“It’s kinda impossible for a ghost to have ecto-contamination, Lance. So yeah. Pretty much. I’m still, like, alive though. Hence the defiling life thing”.

Lancer rubs his temples, whispering to himself, “my favourite student is a paradox, figures”, then looking up at Danhy, “and that won’t be a problem? For you, here or at home? What’s going on with your living situation? I’ll be very sad if you’re pulling out of schooling”.

Danhy holds up his hands, “no, no, I might not love school but I plan to see it through, no worries. So long as the government doesn’t try to, like, abduct me or something”. Oh Danhy hasn’t even remotely mentally addressed that shit. He probably maybe doesn’t have human rights in any shape, way, or form now. Especially if he was not even legally a citizen, what the Hell. Blinking, “you know, I’m probably an illegal Immigrant. Should probably do something about that”.

Lancer’s looking at him like he’s giving the guy an aneurism, “I’m sure I could help with that if need be”.

“Lance, I’m pretty sure there is no way for someone from another realm to get legal citizenship anywhere”. Either Jack and Maddie or him will have to go commit crimes; unless they did actually have citizenship for him… and maybe forged birth records. “They probably do have papers for me, just forged ones”.

Lancer nods acceptingly, tired, but accepting, “and how are they being at home?”.

Lance ain’t gonna drop that, is he? Eh, understandable. “Um, we kinda agreed they’re more aunt and uncle now, ‘cause my parents are definitely my parents. Weird ghost connection thing, don’t ask. And I have no clue with the ‘living situation’ thing”, and shrugs. Like he absolutely wasn’t leaving Amity but he also definitely was going to be at the Keep a lot of the time, he can’t just not stay at FentonWorks either though. Ugh.

“Well as much as I believe a child should live with their parents, I do not believe that would be in your best interests, at least not permanent residence there. Especially as I doubt the school could send your report cards to another realm, physically or online. I also don’t feel comfortable listing a ghost or ghosts as your emergency contacts”. Okay that would be a horrible nightmare, calling in a freaking warlord god king or literal time god because Danhy started another food fight, would not go over well with anyone. Lancer continuing, “now, are you going to need any accommodations? Whether because of home environment or species?”.

Okay, Lancer is baffling him a little with how okay he is with this shit. “You are weirdly good at taking things in stride, you know that right?”, Danhy shaking his head at the smile, “I don’t think so? I’ve always been weird so. Just maybe change my name on the records, my parents really don’t like anyone calling me by a name that they didn’t give me or I didn’t give myself or whatever. Nicknames and shit”.

Lancer nodding and writing that down, “what should it be changed to?”.

“What? Oh, uh, Danhy with an h; it’s Norse. Dad’s a Viking I think”.

“It’s good that’s similar, easier adjustment. One that will still take time of course”.

“Yeah I expected that, I did tell him not to smite you or whatever”.

“That’s… appreciated, Danie-Danhy. Are you remaining a Fenton, though?”.

Now that Danhy’s really not sure about. Obviously he has to have a last name ‘as a human’, but calling himself Danhy Fenton felt a little insulting towards his own actual parents. Sure he was still ‘a Fenton’ cause that was more a ‘part of the family’ thing; like Sam and Tuck were ‘honorary Fenton’s’. “I have no idea”.

Lancer nods, “no pressure, I doubt the system will let you not have a last name though. I’ll look into it, your parents aren’t going to assault anyone for using it?”.

“Maybe”. Danhy’s barely resisting snickering at that, was that a little mean? Yes. “My sorta body guard will probably glare at them though”.

“Body guard?”.

Danhy pointing down at his shadow, at least all Frighty does is makes his eyes visible. Lancer jerking a little, going wide-eyed, “is there a ghost in your shadow”; he looks very done with Danhy.

Danhy giving a cheery, “yup!”, then standing up and stretching, “some ghosts were trying to murder me as a baby, hence why I wound in a forest in this realm, or whatever. And pops might have not told dad I wasn’t dead dead, so a little over protective now”.

Lancer shakes his head disbelievingly, “I suppose I can understand that”, eyeing Danhy’s shadow, “is the ghost going to behave itself?”.

“Hopefully?”, Danhy looks down at his shadow/The FrightKnight, “be a good doggie”. He can absolutely feel the glare and scowl.

Lancer actually smiles a little at that before shooing Danhy off, “you have classes to go to, are you alright with me informing your other teachers of this?”.

Danhy gives him a thumbs up as he heads out the door, “that’s kinda the point, I can’t be arsed to keep this to myself”.

“Language”.

Has Danhy missed all of his home ec class? Of course, sure he could maybe hit up the last few minutes but naw; why bother. Instead he’s just gonna be lazy and wander off to math, even if that was a stupid subject. Basically no one was going to use that shit outside of class. In fact Danhy’s so lazy about it that he actually winds up late, because of course.

Ms. Emily sighing at him, pointing to his desk without even bothering to give him shit. Danhy shakes his head though, this class has, like half, of the A-listers so it was perfect for the gossip mill. “Naw, I have a speech to give”.

Todd snorting, “if it’s an apology on behalf of your parents, shove it”.

“Todd”.

Todd rolls his eyes at her.

Danhy waves a hand around, “kinda, different parents though”. Nice. Now he’s got everyone’s confused attention, pointing at Dash, “turns out I’m adopted, I’m not a Fenton, my parents are ghosts. I am still alive, don’t worry. I am also dead, so worry. That is all”, and Danhy sits his ass down, smirking the whole time; the teacher is glaring at him.

Dash spins around in his chair, glaring at Danhy, “well what’s your actual last name if you’re not a Fenton?”.

Danhy rolling his eyes, “of course that’s what you care about. Ghosts don’t have last names, Dash”. Sure Ember did but that was kinda all that he knew of… well Pariah did have the whole ‘dark’ thing, which might? be a last name? maybe?

“I need something to work with, Fen-“, Dash cutting himself off then gesturing wildly at Danhy. 

Then someone finally actually shouts at him, “what the hell! What do you even mean?!”. Which opens the floodgates apparently.

“Are you trying to say you’re a ghost?”.

“Of course the Fenton’s would steal a ghosts child! wait! Ghosts can have kids?!?!”.

“It sounded more like being that box cat thing?”.

“No wonder you’re a weirdo! Ha!”.

“What is YOUR LAST NAME!”.

“How the hell was that an apology from any parents?”.

“So just how wrong are the Fenton’s about ghosts?”.

“Is this why you have that dangerous aura around you!”.

“Are you leaving Amity for death land then?”.

“Is Jazz stolen from ghosts too then? Do the Fentons’s even have actual kids?!?”.

“Are your parents as pathetic as you?”.

“Everyone quiet down”, Ms. Emily standing up, “I have a class to teach, save this for after class”, sighing, “you know what you did, Danny, but for once I’ll let you off the hook”.

Danhy snorting, speaking very sarcastically, “gEe, ThAnKs. HoW vErY nIcE oF yOu”. Danhy standing up, “but I have the masses to appease”, looking at everyone before she can kick him out, “one, I mean what I mean. I’m ghost, hence the dead aura, and living person and my parents are ghosts and while my adoption has no legal standing or whatever at least one of my actual parents approved it”, shrugging, “sure the other never knew and may have gone into a murderous fit of rage thinking I’d been offed, but eh. And no, you’re not getting rid of me that easily”, holding up a finger, “Jazz is their, the Fenton’s, bio kid though”.

Dash is not done with him apparently, “does she still call your brother or can I finally get with that?”.

Danhy gapes at him, what the fuck dude. Ew! “You said the quiet part out loud, what the Hell Dash”.

“I said what I said, loser. She hot”.

“Oh my Zone! Ew!”, Danhy shakes his head, “no. I’m still her brother, keep your hands to yourself, I will hit you with a baseball bat too”.

“I’d like to see you try!”.

James muttering, “what does he mean ‘too’?”.

“Do not temp me, I also can and will sic a ghost on you”; if Danhy’s going to have Frighty harass anyone, it’s gonna be Dash. “And dude, I think ‘Dark’ might be a last name but don’t quote me, you idiot”.

“Whatever, Darkie. Ha! Guess I know why your friends with a goth weirdo now”.

Danhy stares at him, Casey hits Dash with a pencil for him though, “that is a slur!”. Danhy facepalms, “if you want to get kicked off of the football team, go right ahead, Dash”.

“I did not know that!”, Dash makes a few faces, “dank? Dunk? Daftpunk?”, he scowls, “Fenton is a better last name”.

“I’m not sticking to Fenton just because you find it easier to make up insulting names with!”.

“Whatever, Darkside”.

Danhy blinks, wasn’t Darkside, like, a tyrannical god king? That was trying to eliminate hope and free will? Sure at least his dad had, like, a legit reason, but still. “Dash, my dad kinda is a real life Darkside; that’s more accurate family descriptor than insult”.

Todd snorting, “so that’s what you meant by ‘went a little murdery’”.

Ah fuck it, whatever. Shrugging, “I mean, he did just abduct the entire town so, yeah”.

“Is that why we all just suddenly were back in our world?!? Because he found his damn kid!”.

“How do you cause so many problems!”.

“Your dad is giant?!?”.

“Didn’t he have a fucking skeleton army?”.

“How are both your dads massive men!”.

“Did the town get abducted because you’re here? Or was that just a really suspicious coincidence?”.

Ms. Emily snapping, “that’s enough!”, pointing at Danhy, “you! Out!”.

Danhy puts up his hands in surrender, “the people want what they, and they don’t want math, Ms. Emily. That’s hardly my fault”, moving towards the door as she points to it, him looking at everyone though, “he wasn’t here because of me but he did leave because of me!”; and slips outside.

Nice.

No math class for him.

Danhy chuckling to himself, “well that was fun”; he hadn’t really meant to reveal his dad was the guy that just abducted them but that ‘Darkside’ comment was just too good to resist. Should he just start popping into random classroom doing that? He’ll definitely get detention doing that shit. Doesn’t stop him from being tempted though.

Then Kwan pops out of a classroom, a teacher clearly yelling at him, “sit back down!”. Kwan looking right at Danhy, “is your dad a warlord ghost! Dude that is awesome! Why are you so small then!”.

Danhy blinks at the guy before laughing, smooth Dash, smooth. Danhy giving a thumbs up, “yup! And shut up, I just haven’t hit a grow spurt yet, you jerk”. Kwan laughs but gets knocked over by pretty much a whole class crowding the doorway.

“Did I hear that right?!?”.

“Way to get weirder! Holy shit!”.

“If your parents are ghosts how old are they!”.

“Isn’t time weird in the zone? Or something? How old are you?”.

“How the hell are you alive if you’re dead!”.

“How do ghosts have babies?”.

“Did ghosts intentionally have a freaking human child? Who does that!”.

“Is your dad gonna try and enslave us again?!?”.

“Wait if your dad’s a war lord then what the hell is your mom!”.

“How pissed are the Fenton’s!”.

“Are they gonna fight these ghosts!”.

“Why are you even still here if you’re a ghost!”.

Oh wow this is hilarious, all the shouting is basically melding into one mess of noise. Danhy kinda doesn’t want to deal with it actually; it was like getting fan girl mobbed as Phantom… putting up his hands, “heh”, chuckling, “I’m not a ghost, I’m alive. I’m not alive, I’m a ghost. I didn’t ask how they had a child! Ew! And one of them might be older than humanity, maybe”, smirking at Kyle, “and no mom, other be genderless, fuck the gender spectrum”.

Kyle cheers, “wooo! Hell yeah!”. While their teacher hurls an eraser out of the doorway at Danhy, “sit! Back! Down! And you! LEAVE! You menace!”.

some of the teens scurry back as they’re told, Danhy standing on his tippy toes to eye the pissed teacher, “you know that’s probably bigoted to say to me, considering what gets shouted at ghosts all the time”. Basically half the class turns on the teacher shouting, “yeah!”. But the teacher stomps over to the door, gets the remaining teens in and slams the door hard.

The FrightKnight hums from Danhy’s shadow, “seems you’re more a ghost than I may have previously believed”.

“Is that how you’re gonna try saying you thought I didn’t having an ounce of fearsomeness in my body?”.

“You summoned me to help your pathetic attempt at a haunted house…”.

Okay that was fair, “hey, I don’t do terror well but I do do confusion and chaos well. There’s a reason I’m banned from cooking, carrying fragile shit, having both lunch meat and batteries on me, bringing Nasty sauce to school, or putting my personal coffee in the teachers lounge; which to be fair to that last one, someone did almost die”.

The FrightKnight actually seems impressed, meaning Danhy as his Danhy self has impressed the ghost of fear itself somehow. Cool? Cool. Then one of the seniors on a spare walks over, sticks a sticker to his shoulder with a, “you are now the Casperhigh ghost mascot”, and walks away. Leaving Danhy blinking, looking at the sticker, it’s a toast cat, then wheeze laughing, “my point stands, oh wow!”.

Then the bell rings, apparently he was right outside Sam’s class now. Her looking at him with his hands on his knees wiping away a tear, “what did you do?”.

Danhy snickering, “got a sticker”, and pushes himself to stand up straight, “got kicked out of class, and a second class that I was never actually in”.

“So you told everyone, huh”.

“Yup”.

“Dumbass”.

Danhy shrugs as they head to his and her next class, “eh, it’ll cover any weird ghost shit about me. Especially if more of it crops up”.

“Like the eyes?”.

“Like the eyes”; he’d almost been tempted to steal some of Jazz's or Sam’s concealer but fuck that, he’s owning his actual parents genetics. At least Maddie noticing that meant it was the most noticeable thing… until he gets actual facial hair instead of just tiny now shaved off stubble. Or until hits a sudden and probably ridiculous growth spurt; he’s seriously hoping he doesn’t wind up super super tall. Even when he believed Jack was his dad he didn’t want that height, Pariah was worse. At least ClockWork was barely taller than Danhy now… depending on form.

Her nodding as they get in to their seats, “yeah, it’s more noticeable in the crap school lights than your room. Legit eyeliner”.

“Hey there’s a reason I nicknamed it evil eyeliner, which I still don’t have a new word for”.

She smacks him, “stick with it! Show your evil side! You dad is definitely evil”.

“What no, he was just, having issues, being a little funky guy”.

“Is that what you call mass murder these days?”.

Danhy pouts at her, she rolls her eyes; but everyone else is coming in now so…

1.

2..

3…

4….

“I thought you were dead!”.

And there it is… wait what? “I’m a ghost and alive! Who told you I was dead or dead dead!? Double dead? Dead squared? Death double down? The big flop part two?”.

“Why do you even look human? Do your parents look human?”.

“Are you going to bring your parents to school?”.

“Where are you even living?”.

“How do you survive without ectoplasm?”.

“If I die can you turn me into a ghost?”.

“How many wars makes a ghost a war lord?”.

“By war lord is he, like, royalty?”.

“What is wrong with your life?”.

“This should have been a school assembly!”.

“So that ecto-contamination thing was bullshit huh?”.

“If ghosts can make babies with ghosts can they make babies with humans?”.

“Are you a contamination?”.

Danhy is having mild regrets; Clockpops is probably laughing at him right now. Danhy shouting, “I can’t answer half that shit!”, throwing his hands up, “all of y’all just make a questionnaire, bitches loves questionnaires, bitches like me!”.

Jesse pouts, “your fault for being weird”, sticking up a finger and looking at the others, “but I thought everyone knew Danhy ate ectoplasm? Like the Fenton’s fed it to him?”.

“What!”.

“Oh that’s nasty!”.

“Oh right I forgot about that, too weird”.

“So he hasn’t been surviving without ectoplasm?”.

Danhy huffs crossing his arms, “considering they put some in my breakfast this morning, no I haven’t been. Apparently I used to raid their samples as a little kid, they thought I was an ecto crack baby instead of a ghost”.

“That is completely insane”.

“I thought the Fenton’s were supposed to be smart!”.

“It’s not really wrong though…”.

“So instead of ‘oh hey! Human looking ghost baby!’ They went ‘ECTO CRACK’?”.

Danhy shrugs, “to be fair, I am alive. That’s basically the opposite of being a ghost, not guessing ‘ghost baby’ is normal”.

“Aka you’re a fucking weirdo”.

Lancer comes in and sighs at everything, “Danhy, the next time you want to relay mind breaking news to the entire student body, we’re having an assembly”.

Danhy tilting his head with a smirk, “getting complaints?”.

“Many. But I am still holding class today, leave your questions for the boy till lunch”.

But Danhy’s smirk only grows, “is this when I should mention that my dad is definitely royalty? And my pops is a god?”. Even Sam smacks him as the room erupts into incoherent shouts. Lancer massages his temples with feeling. Danny’s tempted to shout ‘hail Satan’ just to make the chaos a little worse.

…

He absolutely does get multiple questionnaires at lunch. Zone, he’s pretty sure one was from the damn janitor… since the only question on it was if Danhy was the one leaving ecto-bio-hazard messes and if he was going to keep doing that. Okay so maybe Danhy wasn’t the best at not getting his red green blood on things. Oops. At least it was unsurprising that the most common question was ‘are you dead?’, which was also the most confusing one to give an answer too since the answer was BOTH… the jury’s out on that one… yes and no… you decide for yourself… debatable… a drawing of a box with an arrow pointing to it attached to the word ‘cat’.

Lancer actually set up a google survey for him to fill out and just mass send the responses out. Cool, less effort for Danhy.

Lancer shakes his head at his computer, scrolling through the pages of a very peculiar survey. “That boy, this is absurd”.

Did your dad abduct the town? Yes, but like he had reasons. Wouldn’t you be upset at the world if you thought some gods went and offed your kid??

Is your dad royalty? Tots.

Did you say you’re other dad’s a god? Yup. Time daddy. Chronos. They hit me for calling them that so you suck.

You have two dads? Eh? Ones more genderless.

Are you a contaminate like ghosts are? I am a ghost. Obviously

Are you human? Yes, no, maybe so

Are you a ghost? Yes, no, maybe so

Are you royalty? Yes, no, maybe so

Are you a god? Yes, no, maybe so

Do you eat ectoplasm? Not intentionally, meaning yes.

Are the Fenton’s still your parents? No. Aunty and uncle.

Are you moving to the ghost zone? No, I call visitation rights and frequent flyer points though.

How were you born? Ew.

Were you born in the ghost zone? obviously.

Did the Fenton’s steal you? Surprisingly no

Are you illegal? Yes, no, maybe so

Why don’t you look like a ghost? I do though, y’all just don’t notice. I’m also, like, young and shit

How do ghosts have babies? EW.

Are you sure Jazz is still your sister? YES DASH I KNOW THIS WAS YOU

Are you going to take over the town in your dad’s place now? NO! Besides, he already thinks I have apparently. I did not correct him.

Is this why you feel like a dangerous threat? Yes, no, maybe so

Are you the one leaving red green blood all over the place? Sorry

Why do you look human? Because I am?

And on and on it went. Lancer sighing, “some of this is far too invasive, at least mine got answered”.

Are you okay? As I ever am, so yeah.

“School is going to be incredibly interesting and painful for the next while”, shaking his head, “and I’ve gotten three reports of him breaking things, again”.

Chap. 5: Show Me To My Wonderland

Prompts: Pariah doesn't really believe in second chances so much as believe he's still on his first one if you twist the entire situation around enough Danny finds out he's adopted. It goes surprisingly well.: Danny is Clockwork's and Pariah Dark's son, but when Clockwork was attacked by the Observants, he sent a newborn Danny to a random time in the future to keep him safe. His disappearance triggered Pariah Dark's madness. Centuries later, Danny is found by the Fentons. When Danny fights Pariah Dark, he immediately recognizes his Son. Clockwork time-fight. That's the whole prompt, I just want to see clockwork being badass in a fight. It can be against someone else with time powers, or not! go nuts. Vlad is having the worst day ever. Ghosts have this aura around them, something that makes the human hindbrain say /danger/, gets a heartbeat racing, makes gooseflesh rise on the skin; But of course this is normal for dead things. So why does it happen to anyone around Danny Fenton?

[night-unfurls-its-splendour]

PotO Fic Writers!

[duncte123]

finally got around to reading "Memory", it hits different alright

[skirter01]

DP Phic Idea

Idea. So, I’ve been working on this DP phic idea that I thought up like two years ago and stumbled upon randomly the other day. I am now completely hyper-fixated on it and feel a deep need to share it with the phandom because...yes. 

Basically, it’s been a few years since Danny’s graduated High School, well, maybe more than a few, because holy crap he’s 24 now (who the fuck let him turn into an adult? Irresponsible). But ever since he left the nest it’s been a whirl-wind of what the fuck. Despite his once failing grades, a certain phone call between old friends led him straight into Washington State University. Turns out Astrophysics does suit Danny well, NASA sure seem to think so, based on the internship they offered him. Although, nothing that good comes without strings attached. Danny never thought he’d end up back in Amity Park, teaching science to unmotivated teenagers and fighting old enemies because his internship came with a teaching component. 

Meanwhile, Renley is damn near convinced Casper High’s newest science teacher, Mr F, is a ghost. Doesn’t matter how cool everyone seems to think he is, or how good looking, OR how well he teaches – theres something off about the guy and Ren is going to get to the bottom of it, no matter how far he has to dig. Oddly enough, his Uncle Wes seems keen to help. 

But amongst all the confusion, fun and explosions, there’s something stirring in the Zone and don’t get him wrong, normally, Vlad would take every advantage he could to one up Daniel, but this...this one might be a problem. At least, if the giant inter-dimensional tear just left of Walkers Prison is any indication 

Or...Danny, Sam and Tucker are too old for school now, doesn’t change the fact that they’re all still immature ghost fighting geeks, just with real adult responsibilities now. 

Thoughts? 

[intothemertensverse]

A disfigured man on the edges of society with a good heart, Erik has been Gustave Daae’s closest friend for years. When Gustave realizes his time is almost up after contracting an incurable disease, he leaves his two most prized possessions to his friend—his violin, and his daughter. — read it on ao3 https://archiveofourown.org/works/34677895/chapters/86339104