#they need to be told bluntly by Sam Tucker AND Jazz

[xysidhequeen]

I know in your Red Knight AU, Jason when on the rampage in another realm, after finding out that Batman replace him with another Robin.

Did Danny manage to be there for him during that time?

He did! Danny was always there for Jason. He actually wanted to chase after Jason immediately, but luckily, the first thing he did was panic call Jazz, absolutely out of his mind. Jazz promptly told Danny to let Jason have some space for a little bit to process.

Which was for the best, really. Jason needed to not feel like he was trapped and that he could be angry. He never really got that before. But the most important thing is Danny came after him and brought him home. Jason needed to feel like he could be angry, but also, like his anger wouldn't mean he'd be punished or abandoned. It was a very delicate time for him, but Danny, Jazz, Sam, Tucker, and all our favorite ghosts made sure Jason knew he was very much wanted still. And that he was utterly irreplaceable.

Skulker handled this by breaking all of his weapons and suits overnight and saying he didn't know how to fix them. (Jason very much knew what he was doing, but the time spent on fixing things helped ground him)

Ember handled this by announcing that she couldn't possibly ever sing ever again unless her only other band member was there (Still very obvious, but music time with Ember usually devolved into very necessary crying time. A lot of ice cream was consumed)

Johnny and Kitty handled this by getting into a MASSIVE fight and refusing to speak to each other unless Jason mediated. (This actually was far less obvious, as the two tend to get into fights often. No one is actually certain if the fight was fake or not to this day, but they also haven't broken up once since and Jason is incredibly proud of that)

Fright Knight handled this by.... well, actually, he took the blunt approach and told Jason there was no one in any realm dead or alive he'd ever consider worthy to be his apprentice besides Jason. (This was highly effective as Frighty has always been bluntly honest with Jason. He didn't wholly believe it but it was a comfort. Frighty then beat his ass in a spar and he didn't think of much else)

Basically, everyone was there for Jason. Not just Danny. Jason was made to feel like his anger and hurt were valid, because they were. But he was also not just told, but shown how precious he was to every life he touched. He didn't get it, not at first and he struggled to really believe it.

It wasn't until later, after Danny opened up more about his own trauma and the effects it had on him that Jason actually began to somewhat understand more of what Jazz meant when she said Danny was getting better. He pieced more of the story together from the others to paint a better picture, and that's when it clicked for him. As much as he needed Danny, Danny had needed him just as much. (Clockwork may have had a hand in this as well, but whatever those two talked about, no one will ever know)

Also, as an aside, once everything calmed down, Danny was very pleased to learn the rebelling realm was now back under control and quite terrified of the Ghost King and his Knight. It saved him so much paperwork.

So yeah, this was a bit all over the place, but hopefully, it answers your question. Team Phantom and the ghosts are basically a very large family, and they might fight and bicker, but they seriously pull through and muster together if anyone is hurting. They're a bit clumsy sometimes with it, but the love they all feel is very obvious. I really, really wanted to give Jason a much more healthy origin story into becoming Red Hood than he got in canon. The poor boy went through enough. It was past time for him to get to heal.

Jason still has some hangups. His abandonment issues are still there, and his fear of rejection. But it's not as bad as it was, and because he'd been allowed to express his anger without being punished(or enabled, anger is a fine emotion to feel. But you should never let it consume you) for it, he figured out how to manage it.

He might still slip now, and then, he has trauma, and that won't go away. But Danny will never, ever let him fall. Neither will the rest of the weird little eclectic family they've built.

[writingpitcheswearingpearls]

Nothing Says Soulmates More Than Sharing a Soul: Chapter 13

Ao3 Link

Once out of Danny’s body, Phantom found himself hyperventilating and his vision fading to black around the edges. This was it; the moment of truth. He was about to find out what Danny thought of him now that he’d seen his true colours.

“W-What just happened?” The sound of Tuckers voice got Phantom to turn and face him, which the ghost immediately regretted. Standing in front of Phantom with clenched fists and a heaving chest was Danny. There was so much pain and anger in his eyes, Phantom couldn’t help but immediately burst into tears.

“Danny, I –”

“Get out! I don’t want to see you!” Danny cut in with a furious growl. Phantom’s eyes widened with fear. He tried to say something, anything, but all he could let out was a pathetic whimper before turning and flying away as fast as he could.

As he frantically flew over the town, he felt pure dread fill his entire being. His absolute worst fear had been founded. Danny hated him the second he knew the truth, and now he’s lost the most important person in his life. Not only that, but he’s lost everyone else that’s important to him too. After all, it wouldn’t make sense for anyone to pick him over Danny. They’d only ever been there for him because they were under the impression that he was the friend they knew and loved, not some stranger who didn’t even have a clue who he really was.

Not being able to think clearly, Phantom flew straight back to Danny’s room and collapsed onto Danny’s bed, curling in on himself as he sobbed into the pillow that so painfully smelled of Danny. He knew he shouldn’t be there, but he had no idea where he was meant to go and it was the only place he felt safe. He figured as long as he left before Danny got back, there wouldn’t be any trouble.

“Danny? Are you back?”

At the sound of Jazz’s voice, Phantom choked on a sob. He somehow needed her and couldn’t handle the idea of talking to her. Immediately, Jazz burst into the room and rushed to him, apparently hearing him through the wall. She sat next to him and began giving frantic, yet still soothing strokes up and down his back.

“Danny! Are you hurt? What happened?” She asked in a panicked tone. At the sound of the name she called him by, he let out a small moan of distress and curled further into himself.

We haven’t told her yet…She still thinks I’m him.

“I- I’m not…” He tried to say through his sobbing, but the pain and fear attached to what he was trying to say made it all that much harder to let out.

“It’s okay. You can tell me anything, little brother.” She encouraged in a gentle voice full of protective feelings and love that he didn’t deserve. Finally, he found the strength to push himself up and back away from her touch.

“That’s just it! I’m not your little brother!” He exclaimed, bringing his arms close to his body and digging his nails into his biceps. It was all he could do to stop the frost that was building around him from spreading any further and hurting Jazz. He wanted to look up to see her reaction, but he couldn’t bring himself to.

“Don’t say that –”

“But it’s true! I was never actually Danny! I’m just some pathetic ghost that latched itself onto him, leeching off his memories and his friendships! Now you know the truth, you’ll want me gone too!” He cried out, lifting his hands to his face to clench his hairline.

“Phantom…” She said softly, before her hands wrapped around his to pull them away from his face.

“Please look at me. I… I already knew that you weren’t Danny.” That made him look at her.

“What? But then why did you call me that earlier?” He questioned with eyes wide with shock.

“It was a reflex, sorry. Having thought of you as Danny for four years, it will be hard to get used to the truth, even though I’ve had a couple of days to wrap my head around it. The point is that I know you’re not Danny, but I also know that nothing else you said was true.” She explained with a serious, yet empathetic expression. He opened his mouth to protest but was cut off when she raised her hand to gesture that she wasn’t done.

“You talk about yourself like some sort of malicious parasite, but that isn’t true at all. You’re a hero and the last thing I’d call you was pathetic!” She reassured. Phantom shook his head and looked away.

“You can’t know that. I have no idea what type of person I was before Danny, so who’s to say that fusing with him wasn’t intentional?” Phantom argued. The room was silent, and Phantom was afraid that what he’d said had convinced her.

“When that alternate future version of you fused with Vlad’s ghost, did he immediately go evil?” She asked.

Fuck, she thinks I’m going to go evil!

“I- I think so. I’m not sure.” He answered, shaking from how fast his core was pulsing with panic. He risked a look at her, only to become shocked to find her smiling.

“Great. So it stands to reason that when somebody fuses with an evil ghost, they are influenced to take on those evil traits. When Danny fused with you, he didn’t become evil, he became a hero. What do you think that says about who you were?” She explained with a confident tone that she reserved for when she was pretty sure she just won an argument. To Phantom’s confusion, it may have been warranted. He couldn’t find a way to argue with what she said. The calm only lasted a moment before he remembered the last time he spoke to Danny.

“Well, just because I didn’t go in a shit person, doesn’t mean I’m not a shit person now. You don’t know what I’ve done since separating from Danny.” He redirected. Her brow quirked in confusion.

“It can’t be that bad.”

“The second Danny found out, he never wanted to see me again.” Jazz blanched at his statement, visibly taken aback by it.

“What? That can’t be right. He wouldn’t –”

“But he did! He was everything to me and now that he hates me I’ve got nothing!” Phantom cried out, frost flashing out of him and spreading around the room, causing Jazz to flinch and jump up from the bed in shock.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that!” He apologised quickly, nearly reaching for her before thinking better of it. Jazz looked around the room at the ice damage, breath slowing down.

“It’s okay Phantom, you just surprised me. I’m not hurt. Has this been happening a lot?” She eventually said. Phantom groaned as he dragged his hands down his face.

“Yes. I can’t control my powers properly, especially my ice core. Danny has been helping me, but… without him I don’t think I’ll be safe around people anymore.” He admitted. The only place safe for him would probably be the Far Frozen. Frostbyte would surely take him in, even if he’s only half of “The Great One”. Jazz sighed, before sitting on the bed again.

“Phantom, I’m one hundred percent certain that if you just talk it out with Danny, you’ll find that he doesn’t hate you. That being said… spending some time away from him might be a good thing.” Phantom’s eyes snapped back to her, scared by what she’d said.

Is she telling me to leave?

Something about his expression must have told Jazz to realise what he was thinking, as her eyes widened and she suddenly raised her hands into a gesture that read “I mean no harm”.

“I’m not telling you to leave! I’m just saying that if you do leave, it may be good for you. It’s clear that you’re extremely dependant on Danny, so spending time away from him could help you develop as an individual and self-regulate.” She clarified. Phantom felt his shoulders drop, not realising that he had hunched them in the first place as he thought about what she said. Those sounded like things he wanted, but the idea of being separated from Danny for a long time gave him an uncomfortable tightness in his chest.

“In any case, you should wait until you talk to Danny before deciding anything. If you’re wrong about how he feels it will feel awful to leave with such a painful misunderstanding lingering between you. If you’re right, you’ll regret leaving without a proper chance to apologise and reconcile.” Jazz added on, bringing his attention back to her. The smile she gave him was warm and understanding, which he found deeply relieving.

“Thanks Jazz. For the advice… and for still caring about me even though I’m not your brother.” Phantom thanked sincerely, hoping his tone conveyed how deeply he meant those words. For a moment, Jazz’s eyes watered, before she suddenly lunged at him and pulled him into a hug.

“Listen closely Phantom, because if you don’t, I’m going to have to repeat it until it gets into that ectoplasmic skull of yours. Just because you aren’t Danny does not mean you aren’t my brother! You have been a part of my family for the past four years and that doesn’t end just because we aren’t blood related, you hear?!” She declared, voice shaking with emotion. Phantom couldn’t help but cry as he wrapped his arms around her back and clung desperately to his big sister.

~

“Dude, are you okay?” Tucker’s words cut through the tense silence. Danny turned to him and took in the concerned expressions of his two best friends. He groaned as he turned back away, too emotional to make eye contact with either of them.

“Not really.” He admitted lowly. So many emotions were bubbling inside him at that moment. Anger, betrayal, embarrassment, but mostly confusion. He wasn’t even sure confusion was an emotion, but he sure was feeling it.

“Did you want to talk about it?” Sam asked cautiously.

“Yeah, what the hell happened back there?” Tucker chimed in, voice raising in confusion. Normally, he would have loved to fill his friends in on what happened, but to do that he would have had to have processed what happened, and he did not want to do that any time soon.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Danny growled bluntly, hoping his anger would mask his fear.

“But –”

“Drop it, Tucker. He’ll talk about it when he’s ready.” Sam cut in. She offered Danny a supportive smile, which he tried to reflect back weakly.

“Fine, topic dropped. What do we want to do now, if we’re avoiding dealing with our problems?” Tucker relented. Danny was almost stunned for a moment. If he had told his fourteen-year-old self that Sam would be the one enabling him not to process his feelings and Tucker would be the vaguely more responsible one, he would have gotten a laugh and a “good one, Amorpho” from him, before immediately getting attacked. The thought made him chuckle lowly, before thinking of how to answer his friend’s question.

With everything he was feeling, he wanted nothing more but to distract himself from what had just transpired between him and Phantom. He was even willing to do something he had been avoiding doing ever since he became a hero.

“Is it too soon to go to Mikey’s party? I really just need to get drunk right now.” Danny asked, finally turning to face his friends. Tucker snorted out a short laugh.

“It won’t start for another couple of hours, and it won’t be cool to show up for another few.” He answered matter-o-factly. Danny groaned. He should have realised. Years of not being able to go to parties really made him a complete novice at them. Seeing his disappointment, Sam stepped closer to Danny with an encouraging smile.

“If you wanted something to do while we wait for the party, we could have drinks at my house and play video games.” She suggested.

“Pre-drinking before a house party? Wow, we are finally acting like real teenagers!” Tucker cheered enthusiastically. Danny put on a grin, hoping it conveyed his gratefulness to both his friends, while concealing the feelings he desperately wanted to ignore.

After sneaking into Sam’s parents’ liquor cabinet and several rounds of Ultimate Mecha Strike III that got progressively worse the more the trio drank, Tucker finally announced that it was fashionably late enough to show up at the party.

Sneaking more booze into their bags, the three of them took off on foot towards Mikey’s house, which was luckily only a short distance from Sam’s estate. Being in the same part of the neighbourhood, Danny really shouldn’t have been surprised by how nice Mikey’s house was. Not as intense as Sam’s “old money” mansion, but still quite fancy.

“Wow, drunk Danny sure is interested in architecture.” Tucker commented teasingly.

“Oh shit, was I talking out loud?” Danny asked, immediately being answered by two grinning nods.

Before they could knock on the front door, it swung open to reveal a red-faced Mikey with a wide, excited smile.

“Danny! You came!” He exclaimed far louder than necessary. Tucker cleared his throat.

“We’re here too, y’know.” He grumbled, making Danny and Sam giggle. Mikey took a big step back and gestured for them to enter.

“Come on in! If you brought drinks, you’re best to put them in the fridge now if they need it. We’re running out of room fast!” He advised, before wandering off at the sound of someone shouting his name from the other room.

Standing in the doorway, Danny felt his heart racing. Here he was, at a real-life high school party that he was invited to. He was drunk and without a care in the world, with no responsibilities or ghosts to worry about –

Suddenly, the thought of ghost brought a vision of beautiful green eyes to his mind. He shook the thought out of his head, before pacing further into the house to find something to distract him.

“Hey! It’s Fenton!” Turning to face the sound of the voice, he saw Kwan and a group of footballers gathering around a ping pong table. The rosy tint in Kwan’s cheeks and the delighted smile brought a warm feeling in Danny’s stomach. Before the jock could even gesture for him to come over, Danny found himself gravitating in his direction.

“You up for some beer pong? You can be on my team!” Kwan offered. Danny chuckled.

“Sure, but I’m warning you that I am already pretty drunk, so my aim is probably shit.” He warned, winning a light laugh from the group of jocks.

“All good, bro! That just means an even playing field!” A footballer he couldn’t remember the name of called out, words slurring together slightly.

Danny turned to ask Sam and Tucker if they wanted to play, to find that they had only just caught up to him.

“Do you guys want to play?” He asked. Sam rolled her eyes.

“Ugh, no thank you. I hate beer, and they probably don’t have a vegan friendly one, either.” She replied. Danny did a double take.

“Wait, beer can be not vegan? How?” He asked, very confused. Before she could answer, Danny felt himself being pushed toward the ping pong table by Tucker.

“Come on dude. You know she won’t stop once she gets started.” With a shrug, Danny returned his focus to the group of footballers.

“Alright, let’s do this! Now… how do you play?”

Danny wasn’t sure how, but he managed to be insanely good at beer pong, quickly annihilating Tucker and the other team and winning an uproar in cheers from his own team.

Learning how to aim while losing blood must have been good training for this very moment.

Busy chuckling at his own thoughts, Danny was caught off guard when he was suddenly swept into a bear hug by Kwan.

“That was legendary, bro! Seriously, is there nothing I can say to convince you to join the football team?” The boy gushed, ruffling a hand through Danny’s hair and messing it up even further.

“Yeah, especially considering sign ups are well and truly over and this is our final year?” Danny replied, not sure whether to return the hug or not. The contact certainly felt nice, but there was something this was just… off about it. Maybe it was the fact that Kwan seemed to be running hot too, so there was no cooling relief like when he was holding Phanto –

No. He wasn’t letting himself think about him. It hurt too much.

“Oh, right. My bad.” Kwan laughed, pulling away from Danny. He had to admit that the jock was quite handsome, and the glistening of his sweat was weirdly mesmerising.

“Wow, dude. You sure are hot.”

“WHAT?” Danny exclaimed, not sure if his line of thinking had made him hallucinate hearing that or if it had actually happened. Kwan laughed again.

“I meant your temperature, bro. Are you coming down with something?” At that question, Tucker jumped into the conversation, wrapping an arm around his best friend.

“Nah, he’s fine. He’s just running warm because of his growth spurt, that’s all.” Tucker explained, with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“That checks out. You did seem to fit four years of growing into like, three days. Why don’t you have one of my rum and cokes to cool down? They’re in the fridge door!” Kwan offered, before waving and wondering back to the footballers.

“Danny, are you alright? You really are burning up…” Tucker commented, voice laced with concerned. Danny sighed before slinking out from under Tucker’s arm and stomping towards the kitchen.

“Look, I don’t want to talk about how I’m feeling, I just want to drink until I can’t feel my fingers, okay?” If he couldn’t feel his fingers, maybe he wouldn’t remember how Phantom felt underneath them. Maybe he wouldn’t want to run them through his ghostly hair and relish in how soft it was.

“Whoa, take it easy, okay buddy? I don’t want you getting hurt.” Tucker advised; voice laced with concern. While Danny appreciated that Tucker cared, he was in no mood to be lectured, so he ignored the warning and continued his path towards the fridge and grabbed one of Kwan’s cans. When he was halfway through downing it, revelling in the cooling sensation, he heard a sigh come from his friend.

“I’m going to go find Sam. I think I need her help with this.” He admitted reluctantly. Danny huffed with indignation.

“Fine, go get her. Neither of you will be able to stop me from having fun tonight.” He scoffed. Hearing a surprising chuckle from a new voice, Danny pivoted suddenly toward the source of the sound to see Spike leaning in the doorway.

“Damn, Danny. I am loving your new look on you. Have you ever thought about eye liner? I think it would look awesome on you.” Spike commented, eyes tracing up and down Danny. For a moment, the blue-eyed boy shivered under the gaze, before offering a non-committal shrug.

“Come with me, I’m going to put some on you now.” With that, the punk boy had grabbed Danny’s free arm and tugged him towards what looked like an entertainment room, before pushing Danny onto a fairly large couch and stepping out of view. Quickly he returned with a bag and was pulling out an eyeliner pencil. Any concerns about getting pink eye from sharing the pencil immediately evaporated the second Spike perched himself on Danny’s lap. The pressure gave him an instant flashback to the times Phantom was in his lap.

“Sorry, this is just the easiest way to do this.” Spike apologised, a blush rising in his cheeks.

“I bet you say that to all the boys.”  Danny was pleased with the laugh that quip won from the punk boy. Quickly, Spike stilled again and continued drawing along Danny’s lash line.

“With lines like that, it’s no wonder Punny Phantom chose you.” Danny couldn’t help but stiffen at the mention of Phantom. Spike leaned back to look at his work, only to frown as he noticed something.

“Uh oh, did something happen between the two of you?” At the punk’s concerned question, Danny groaned and realised that he must have been grimacing.

“Sort of? I don’t want to talk about it.” He mumbled, looking down and away from the boy in his lap. Suddenly, a hand pressed lightly into his cheek and turned his face back up to Spike.

“Hey…if you ever want to talk, or not talk… I’m here.” The punk boy offered, eyes lilting on the words “not talk”.

As Spike leaned closer in towards Danny’s face, it occurred to Danny that the guy might be into him. He was going slow, seeming to give Danny an opportunity to stop him. Feeling his heart rate increase, he wasn’t sure if he wanted him to stop or not. The guy was pretty cute and he seemed like a decent enough person having calmed down a lot from their freshman year, but there was something missing.

Before Danny had to make a decision, the door to the room slammed open, causing both boys to jolt in shock. Peering around Spike, Danny saw a very drunk Sam standing in the threshold, hand still on the door with an angry expression on her face.

“I have to go.” Spike said abruptly, scrambling off of Danny’s lap and pushing past Sam, revealing that she had Tucker and Starr behind her.

“What were you doing in here?” Sam asked with a scowl. Danny gulped nervously, not sure what he did wrong.

“Spike was putting eye liner on me. Do you like it?” He replied, hoping his nervous smile would be enough to smooth out her agitated mood. Sam narrowed her eyes, as she scrutinised his appearance, before a strong blush spread across her cheeks.

“Y-Yes.” She mumbled. For a few moments an awkward silence hung in the air, as Danny waited for anyone to say anything. Eventually, Starr groaned before pushing Sam toward Danny.

“For crying out loud, I thought you were going to confess, not stare awkwardly at him.” The blonde complained. Sam hissed lowly, her blush getting ten times worse as she staggered toward him. Danny was thrown off by what Starr had said.

“Confess? Do you mean like, to murder, or…?” He asked cautiously, trailing off when Sam stopped right in front of him. Either way, he was nervous for whatever she was going to say. She opened and shut her mouth a few times, before scrunching her face up and turning back towards Starr and Tucker.

“I can’t do this! It’s too hard!” She complained, earning an eye roll from them both. Seeing how distressed she was, Danny reached forward and took Sam’s hand gently, the touch getting her to whip back around to face him.

“You don’t have to be nervous, Sam. You’re one of my best friends; you can tell me anything and I’ll still want to be your friend.” He tried to reassure. Unfortunately it seemed to fail, as she let out a frustrated groan.

“That’s the problem! I’ve always just been a friend, but I don’t want to be!” She exclaimed almost angrily. Danny couldn’t helped but flinch, releasing her hand as he leaned away from her.

“Y-You don’t want to be friends with me anymore?” He asked, feeling tears begin to well in his eyes. The groan from every person in the room was Danny’s only warning, before Sam suddenly dropped herself onto his lap and pull herself in to his body until their lips met in an intense connection. It was at this point it clicked for Danny that Sam had romantic feelings for him.

As she gripped tightly into his shoulders with one hand and raked through his hair with the other, he took the moment to contemplate how the situation made him feel. He knew he should feel amazing; Sam was beautiful and someone he was very close with, not to mention the crush he’d had on her for the past four years. Theoretically, this was everything he should want and he should be satisfied.

The only problem? He couldn’t feel any of that. He tried kissing her back. He tried smoothing his hands over her waist. He even tried grinding into her. Nothing. Frustrated, he pulled away from her and groaned as he slapped himself in the face and leaned back into the couch.

“Ugh! What is wrong with me? Why can’t I just do this?” He mumbled, tears welling in his eyes. Why couldn’t his body react like it had with Phantom? Or even how he’d felt a minute ago with Spike in this same position. A scoff brought his attention back to the girl in front of him.

“I can’t be that bad at kissing.” Sam grumbled, crossing her arms defensively.

“Sam, I don’t think you did anything wrong. He’s just gay.” Starr interjected before Danny could open his mouth.

“What? No, I’m bi. I’ve had feelings for girls before, I swear! I even had a crush on Sam for like, four years! I don’t know why I’m ruining this!” Danny cried out. The irritated look in Sam’s eyes melted into one of sympathy as she slid off of Danny’s lap to sit next to him.

“It’s okay Danny. Sexual orientation can change, and crushes fade. I’m just sad I missed my chance.” She reassured, taking his hand comfortingly.

“But how did it change so fast? I swear a week ago Tucker caught me with a boner when you were picking up litter in a mini skirt.” Danny argued, before breaking eye contact with Sam to look at Tucker, pleading with his face for his friend to back him up. Seeing the thoughtful expression on his face made Danny’s stomach sink.

“Danny… I think those might have been Phantom’s feelings.” At the sound of Tucker mentioning the name, it all made sense. He’d always assumed he only started getting interested in girls after the accident because he’d only just reached that part of puberty, but what if it was because Phantom was the one who was attracted to girls? It would certainly explain why he hadn’t felt anything for any girls since they split. A weight lifted off of Danny, from both understanding himself better, and for the knowledge that Phantom was just as much in control when they were fused as he was. He let out a relieved laugh.

“So I wasn’t controlling him this whole time! He still had free will!” He exclaimed happily. He couldn’t wait to tell the ghost the good news.

“Uh… now that we can mention him without you losing it, can you please explain what the fuck happened back at the library?” Tucker enquired, making his way deeper into the room and sitting on a recliner. Danny found himself off guard, suddenly remembering that he was mad at Phantom.

“Ugh, don’t even get me started! He full on let me believe I was this perverted asshole that didn’t deserve a chance with him, but no! Turns out he was only acting weird because he did have feelings for me and was too much of a coward to tell me the truth! If he had just told me he was awake when I kissed him in my sleep then I wouldn’t have spent this entire time agonising over what a bad person I was!” Danny complained. As he spoke, it became very clear to him that the entire time he’d spent with Phantom as separate people, he’d been repressing his own feelings for the ghost to the point of almost being unaware of them. Seeing gears turn in Sam’s mind, he waited for her to speak.

“So, the problem was that he didn’t make it clear how he felt, which made you feel like he couldn’t love you?” Sam questioned, to which Danny nodded emphatically in response.

“Right… and how is that any different to what you are doing now?” She continued, stopping Danny dead in his tracks.

“W-Wait, what?”

“Come on dude, you had a look inside his mind and the first thing you did was tell him to fuck off, essentially. As if that didn’t tell him you aren’t interested. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if he thought you never wanted to see him again at all!” Tucker explained, rolling his eyes. Danny felt his own eyes widen with realisation and despair.

“Shit! I only meant I need space to cool down while I was mad at him! He probably thinks that I hate him! What if he runs away to the Ghost Zone? I have to go home and tell him the truth!” Danny exclaimed in a panic, before jolting to his feet and dashed out of the room.

“What the fuck was that all about?” was the last thing he heard from the room before he darted his way through the house and back onto the street.

Thanks to his increased speed and endurance, the sprint home was in record time, and luckily he had managed to sober up in that time. He wanted to talk to Phantom with as clear a mind as he could, so that he could tell Phantom how he felt without there being any more confusion between them. As silently as he could, he opened the front door. Luckily, he could hear his parents tinkering away frantically in the lab, so he didn’t have to worry about them slowing him down. Unable to slow his heart rate down as he climbed up the stairs, he focused on slowing his breathing and on what he was going to say.

“Don’t worry Phantom! I don’t think you’re a pervert! I’d probably watch you shower, if given the opportunity.” No, no, no… that doesn’t sound right. Just keep it simple and say you don’t hate him!

Figuring that was a good place to start, he took one last deep breath before opening the door to his bedroom.

To find it empty.

Disappointed, Danny walked into the room and looked around. The only sign that anyone had been in here since they’d left earlier today was that the computer was now on. He paced over to the screen to see a folder open with a single video file in it labelled “Goodbye Danny”. Nervously, he tapped on the file and the video began playing. On screen, Phantom was stepping away from the screen and steadying his breath before looking straight into the camera. It broke Danny's heart to be able to tell that he'd been crying.

“Hey Danny. By the time you’ll be watching this, I’ll have already gone into the Ghost Zone. I know Jazz said I should wait to talk to you before I go, but I think seeing you would hurt too much. When you told me to leave, I didn’t know who I would be without you. I… I need to be someone on my own, but I can’t do that if I stay with you. When I feel like I’m ready, I’ll come back to see you. But I’m not sure how long that will take, or if I’ll still feel the same way about you. I just want you to know that I’m sorry for what I did, and I’m sorry I let you down. I hope you find someone who deserves you. Goodbye Danny.”

With that, the video ended on Phantom leaning forward to stop recording, and Danny found himself as frozen as the frame on screen.

He was too late; Phantom had left him.

[ladylynse]

Part 7 of Passageway [FF | AO3]

The Fenton Ghost Portal in the basement lab is empty, broken. Instead, the portal is inside Danny–and even when he knows something’s coming, he can’t stop it. (Danny as the ghost portal AU)

(Beginning | Previous)

-|-

Crud.

This had been a bad idea.

He didn’t know what he was doing. This was definitely a bad idea. He shouldn’t have left until he had a plan. He knew his leaving would put the others in danger, and now he didn’t even have a good place to hide. What had he been thinking? He didn’t have the energy to run very far or very fast, and he needed to move. He’d been so stupid. When he got recaptured, things would just be that much worse—

Danny coughed.

A few steps later, he coughed again.

As realization dawned, cold fear wasn’t the only thing clawing at his throat.

No. This was bad. This was very bad. He couldn’t do this now. It left him exhausted at the best of times, and it’s not like he had his phone to call Sam or Tucker despite the danger it would put them in, and—

Danny choked and staggered up the street. He was too exposed. Couldn’t do this here. There might be cameras. Or the shifter. Couldn’t risk anyone seeing.

He was gasping, unable to draw air.

He stumbled through an empty parking lot, trying to make it to the dumpster on the far side.

Any cover was better than this.

The coughing continued and turned into choked heaves.

He couldn’t breathe.

Danny fell to his knees in the shadow of the dumpster, retching and heaving and just trying to get it out—

Darkness.

More darkness.

Danny couldn’t tell what it was anymore. Outside his head, inside his head, out of his mouth or always there or just from the spots swirling in front his eyes….

“Hey, kid.”

Danny groaned. He could breathe again. Was it really over? Had it stopped? His jaw hurt, and his throat was raw, but all of that could have been from before, so maybe—?

“Kid. Wake up.”

A boot toed his side. Gently, thankfully. Danny rolled onto his back—again, he couldn’t remember lying down—and opened his eyes, staring up at the night sky.

At the edge of his vision, he could see a blackness deeper than the rest of the night.

He blinked.

It didn’t go away.

“You gonna be okay?” the voice asked again, and Danny turned his head slightly. After a split second, the boy’s smudged face resolved into that of a rather sickly-looking teenager, someone closer to Jazz’s age than his.

“I dunno.” He still ached all over, he was still exhausted, and hungry and thirsty and whatever else, but he wasn’t…. He didn’t think he felt as bad as he should feel, given that he’d been kidnapped for— Was this really only the second night he’d been gone? Had it only been twenty-four hours? Maybe even less?

“You okay enough to help my girlfriend?”

Danny wasn’t sure he felt okay enough to sit up yet. “No?”

He heard a whistle and then something that was undoubtedly a command: “Shadow, help me with him.”

It was a sign of how much he’d been through by now that Danny didn’t scream when the darkness moved and curled around him. He leaned into it, letting it lift him off the ground and deposit him in a standing position. He staggered, and the shadow returned to steady him. He wasn’t sure if the face he thought he saw grinning up at him was imagined. Hallucinating at this point might be normal, right?

The nearest streetlight flickered out.

Yup, perfectly normal.

“You’re doing better now, right?” the teen pressed, despite vast evidence to the contrary. Danny hadn’t thought anyone could look anxious while lounging against a motorcycle, but this guy managed it. “I miss my girl.”

“I can’t….” He didn’t have time for this. He needed to hide. He moved his arms, his shoulders, in something that might be construed as a shrug by the generous. “I don’t have time to help you look for her. I’ve gotta…. I need to go.”

“No, no, you can’t go!”

One cold hand wrapped around Danny’s arm, and he suddenly realized what he hadn’t before.

“She’s stuck on the other side. If I can’t get back to her right now, I need her over here.”

Danny stared at him. Part of him wanted to cry, but he felt too worn out to do even that. Just…. Couldn’t he catch a break?

“I’m Johnny, Johnny 13, that’s Shadow, and Kitty…. She’s the best girl, my Kitty. You can’t separate us like this.”

“I can’t…. I can’t do this right now.” Danny tried to shove at the shadow and pull away, but it tightened around him again, still substantial in a way it shouldn’t be substantial.

“Look, I’ll help you,” Johnny said. “You said you need to go somewhere, right? I’ll take you there. And you can repay me for the ride by getting my girl to me.”

“I don’t….” Maybe flat out refusing to help a ghost when the ghost’s friend—or pet ghost or whatever Shadow was—had him in what could very easily become a stranglehold was a bad idea. “I can’t right away.” He wasn’t sure he could help later, wasn’t sure he’d want to help later, but later was better than now. “Someone’s hunting me down.” If he’d been thinking more clearly, he might not have put it that bluntly, but it was too late now. “I need to hide from them and figure out a way to help my friends and family.”

Danny saw Johnny’s eyes flick down to the cuffs still visible on his wrists—Shadow had avoided covering them—and nod. “I’ll help you. In exchange for being with my girl.”

“I….” Agreeing and not being able to deliver would just make his situation worse. “I can’t promise anything beyond trying.” That was safe enough, right? Not that he wanted to try, exactly, but….

“Climb on, kid.” Johnny moved aside, and Shadow pushed Danny forward. He stumbled, and the older teen—ghost—helped him onto his motorcycle.

Danny was rather glad he didn’t remember that coming through.

His perch on the motorcycle in front of Johnny wasn’t precarious, but Danny didn’t have a helmet, and he’d survived too many years of his dad’s driving to not really regret that. Also seat belts. And, frankly, being able to hold onto something properly.

He used to think he’d love to own his own motorcycle.

He was fairly sure he still would, but he was absolutely sure that he hated the fact that he wasn’t in control of this particular ride.

“Where are we headed?” Johnny yelled in his ear as they sped down the street. Danny had had him turn left, away from the docks, but now….

Now, it was very evident that he didn’t have a plan.

“I…I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I don’t know! I need to hide, but I don’t know where!”

Silence but for the roar of the motorcycle and the wind.

“Been a while since I’ve been through here,” Johnny said at last. “The public library. That still the same building?”

Danny had absolutely no idea. Jazz practically lived there, but the only library he went to was the school one, and he only went there when he had to. “Maybe?”

“We’ll risk it.”

Johnny took a sharp turn and then pulled back on the handlebars. Danny shrieked as the motorcycle lifted into the air and he was thrown back against Johnny. He scrambled for what handhold he could, but with his hands still cuffed—

The motorcycle hovered in the air. By this point, Danny didn’t know whether it could do that because of Shadow or because Johnny 13 was a ghost and he could just do that. Right now, Danny didn’t really care. He was much more preoccupied by the fact that this skyward detour made it more likely that the shifter would track him down sooner rather than later. A flying motorcycle wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.

“Why’d you do that?” Danny hissed, and Johnny jabbed a finger into his shoulder and then pointed. It took Danny a moment to get his bearings and realize that, yes, that was the flag that flew over the public library. “Yeah, that’s still the library, but wh—?”

He didn’t get a chance to finish before they were suddenly plummeting towards the earth again.

It was not like a roller coaster.

It would have been so much better if it had been like a roller coaster.

As it was, Danny probably would’ve flown clean off the motorcycle if Johnny hadn’t wrapped one arm around him just as the plunge started.

If Johnny hadn’t kept his arm around Danny’s middle, he might’ve tried to jump off anyway once it became painfully clear that they were headed for the library and Johnny wasn’t about to slow down.

The motorcycle was moving entirely too quickly toward the stone wall of the corner lot building, something that was solid brick at the base with windows higher up, and Danny hoped fervently that his assumptions about ghosts and their powers weren’t wrong.

And then he remembered what Sidney had told him.

“I can’t go through the wall!” he screamed, and some distant part of his mind was aware that that wouldn’t be enough. Of course Johnny would think that Danny thought he couldn’t go through a wall. He wasn’t a ghost, after all. He wouldn’t be used to that kind of thing. “These handcuffs are immune to a ghost’s ability to do that!” Would that make sense? He didn’t really have time to try again. “Let me off!”

Danny’s panic continued, and it got less intelligible, but Johnny swerved the motorcycle before they hit the wall anyway. Not that Danny saw him do that. He had his eyes closed by that point, busy babbling and praying to whoever would listen to let him keep the use of his hands after the handcuffs were ripped off of him.

When Danny did open his eyes, it was to tire tracks burnt onto brick. The imagined flip must not have been so imagined after all. His stomach turned just thinking of what had nearly happened, and he leaned to one side and heaved. Bile burned its way up his throat. Johnny yelped, and the bike’s shadow shifted out of the way as stomach acid dribbled from Danny’s mouth.

“I’m sorry,” he managed, coughing and trying to spit the last of it free. “I…. I just….” Another heave, this time dry. He sucked in a shuddering lungful of air. He was shaking. When had he started shaking?

“Easy there, kid.” Johnny patted him awkwardly on the back. “You’re fine.”

“You don’t need to keep calling me a kid, you know,” Danny said finally. He kept his gaze firmly on the ground, just in case his stomach decided it wasn’t done. “I’m only a couple of years younger than you are.”

“That’s what you think?”

“Pretty sure I’m not wrong.” He was starting to feel better now, so Danny tried to wipe his mouth on his shoulder—it was dirty already anyway—before twisting around to face Johnny. “Look, I appreciate the ride, and I get that you miss your girlfriend, but I’ve got some stuff I need to deal with before I can help you.”

“Starting with those, right?” Johnny asked, pointing at the cuffs. Danny hesitated and then nodded; his family and friends were more important, but he couldn’t really do anything if he couldn’t even use his hands. “Pull up a clean patch of grass. I’ll teach you how to get out of those.”

“Um….”

“Unless you want to keep them on. Just seems like it might be a necessary life skill for you, from what I’ve seen. But you can leave them on. I don’t have to show you the spot Kitty and I would sneak off to, even if it would be a nice place to cool your heels and hide out.”

Danny blinked. “Wait. You two—? In the library?” He glanced down at the handcuffs. “Oh, man, I did not need to know that. I think I would rather that you knew how to get out of these for criminal reasons.”

Johnny grinned at him and pulled a paperclip out of his pocket. “Never said I didn’t, kid. Now, if you’ve got a thin bit of metal on you, you can do it the easy way….”

It was…nice, taking the time to breathe. To stop and do this, even with everything he had hanging over his head. And, well, it was really nice to get the full use of his arms back once Johnny had freed him.

Danny was taking full advantage of being able to stretch again, knitting his fingers together and pushing them skyward and then pulling them apart and rolling his shoulders and thrusting his hands behind his back—

He had really taken this for granted before.

He was not going to forget how good this felt. He wasn’t going to let the shifter ghost get the better of him again, either. He’d bury the cuffs—couldn’t just pocket them if he was going to let Johnny pull him through the wall, and he wasn’t about to throw them out in case he needed them later—and then he could figure out how to get a message to his family and friends, something that only they’d understand in case the shifter intercepted it, and—

“Danny?”

That was Jazz’s voice.

“What are you doing here?”

He didn’t know if it really was Jazz.

“I thought…. We thought…. Oh, little brother, are you okay?”

It sounded like Jazz.

And the person who rushed towards him and wrapped him in a hug certainly looked and felt and smelled like her, too.

Danny tried to twist in her grip, to see if Johnny had vanished like Sidney had earlier. He caught sight of the ghost leaning against his motorcycle again, arms folded as he watched their reunion. Assuming it really was a reunion. There was no attempt to knock him out this time, but they weren’t alone, either, and—

Danny finally pushed Jazz away, ignoring the hurt expression on her face. “I need to go,” he said. “I’ll explain later.” He couldn’t afford to make a mistake and tell the shifter his plan. Not that he really had a plan. If this was the ghost who had kidnapped him, the cat was already out of the bag. But that didn’t mean he had to make it even easier for them.

“What’s going on?”

“I said I’ll explain later.”

“But….” She was shaking her head. “No, seriously, Danny. Look at you. You look awful. And you smell.”

Maybe it really was Jazz.

“Ghosts are real,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “Look, little brother—”

“What’s the name of your stuffed lion?”

She blinked. “Did you hit your head?”

He couldn’t tell if she was avoiding the question.

“I know this sounds weird, but if you answer me, I’ll explain now instead of later.”

“Danny, you’re scaring me.”

“Please, Jazz. Your stuffed lion?”

“I don’t have a stuffed lion. I have a stuffed bear. You know that. He’s called Bearbert Einstein for a reason. Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?”

Danny let out a sigh of relief and turned to Johnny. “She’s safe. I’m sure of it. Can we take her, too?”

Johnny smirked. “We can make room.”

“Wait, who’s—?”

But Danny had already tossed the Fenton Cuffs into the bushes, grabbed Jazz’s hand with his left, and reached for Johnny with his right. He tugged Jazz forward, trying to shush her even as she ignored him and tried to pull away. Instead of taking his hand, Johnny nodded towards his motorcycle, and Danny put a hand on it instead as Johnny climbed on and started it up.

“Danny,” Jazz hissed, still twisting her arm in an attempt to escape his grip, “what the heck is going on?”

“It’ll be easier to explain if you come with us,” he said, and she huffed but stopped fighting him.

At least, she stopped fighting him until it became all too clear that Johnny—for all that the motorcycle was moving forward slowly enough that Danny could keep pace with it while walking—was heading for the wall.

“What—?”

Danny shushed her again, adding a kick for good measure. Jazz paused long enough to kick him back, and then Danny felt that…that feeling wash over him. Not cold, exactly. Light, maybe. Detached. Distant.

Johnny’s motorcycle passed through stone.

Still walking, one hand still on the motorcycle and the other keeping a death grip on Jazz, Danny followed, dragging his sister with him.

(see more fics | next)

[ladylynse]

So, I wrote more in my Dystopian AU [FF | AO3].... Y’know, the competent Guys in White one.

He had to go in, but knowing that didn't make it any easier--or take away the risks.

“You have to go in,” Danny said. “Please. Jazz is smart, but she doesn’t know half this stuff. You do. We need you on the inside.”

Tucker bit his lip. “Dude, this isn’t cool. They know we’re friends. They’re gonna know I was working with you. They aren’t going to expect me to stop.”

“Then we give them a fight,” Sam suggested. “Something big. Showy. Convince them of your loyalties that way.”

Tucker pulled a face. “We can’t risk not convincing them, though. If they don’t think I’m legit, they’ll just wash me. Wipe away any pesky sympathies and whatever else.” He wasn’t sure what the Guys in White were doing to brainwash people, but he knew it was effective. They all did.

His words sobered the other two. It was only the three of them in this meeting, huddled in an old outpost of what had once been the lobby of Val’s apartment building in Elmerton. It wasn’t Amity Park, but the ghosts had never made much of a distinction between the two, and they knew its streets from fights long past. From Before.

It was familiar ground, but it wasn’t something the Guys in White expected them to know as well as they did. They weren’t safe here, exactly—the GiW even knew Danny was Phantom—but this was safer than other places. Besides, the Box Ghost had said he’d cause a distraction, and Pandora had let him borrow her box. It would buy them time, if only because the GiW wouldn’t—shouldn’t—be expecting a hydra to turn up.

“Then we convince them you’re a traitor to our side,” Sam said.

Tucker and Danny stared at her. “What?” they asked in unison.

“We can’t risk them washing you. We can’t lose you. But they won’t wash you if they think you have valuable information that might be lost in the process.”

“No, they’ll just torture me! Newsflash, Sam. That’s not better.” Anyone the GiW washed white was ‘freed’ from their past loyalties. The cleansing washed away all their dirty little secrets that helped them hold onto the promise of fixing this mess of a world, but it could also affect memories associated with those loyalties. He wasn’t too sure whether it destroyed them completely or just made them too unreliable to count on when it came to information extraction, but if he was labelled a sympathiser, a rebel, it wouldn’t matter. They had no qualms about torturing someone until they saw the error of their ways and then begged to be cleansed by them, washed and returned to society. It was sickening but effective. Most people didn’t realize their methods, and since they’d begun hammering areas where the information got out, those in the rebellion weren’t keen on spreading it around, either, unless they were already on the move.

It was hindering the whole recruiting process, exactly as the Guys in White wanted.

Sam punched him in the arm. “They won’t need to torture you if you give up the information willingly.”

“What?” he repeated. That sounded entirely too much like actually being a traitor, and the rebellion was too small to afford that. Sure, Danny had made a truce with most of the ghosts easily enough; most of them didn’t want to leave Earth, and of those that remained behind, few thought so much of themselves that they believed they could defeat the Guys in White alone. At least, few did after rumours got out about how the first ones had been torn apart, and almost none had tried it since the release of that footage. But the ghosts were more of a hindrance than a help in populated areas, where citizens had been issued basic ghost hunting tech that included the equivalent of Fenton Finders meant to ferret them all out, and it took flesh and blood humans to break through ghost shields and convince others to join their cause.

Just last week, he’d come across a pair of kids not much younger than he was, scavenging for food. He wasn’t sure how they’d ended up outside the cities, but he hadn’t been about to ask at the time. Instead, he’d told them that they didn’t have to live like this, that it didn’t have to be this way, that they could change things if they just fought back—

The older one had pegged him as a rebel right away. Threatened to report him and reap the reward. Made it clear he wasn’t afraid to fight if it would get him some proof that the report wasn’t a false one, that it was an actual lead on the location of the rebels, if not a captured rebel himself.

It was the younger brother who’d asked questions. Who’d given Tucker a chance to explain the truth. Who’d convinced his brother to join the rebel cause, for a place to belong if nothing else. Walker had vetted and approved both of them at the way station. They hadn’t been threats, just kids who’d needed help to survive, who’d been willing to do anything for it. He’d helped give them a purpose.

He…he didn’t want to throw all that away.

“Tell them something they don’t know,” Sam said slowly. “Something real. Just something small to start. Let them check it out and confirm it. And then give them something else. And then, when they demand something bigger, give them that, too. It’ll hurt us, but we’ll be stronger in the end. They won’t be surprised that your information is less reliable after the third attack—they have to know we’ll be adjusting our plans—but they won’t be willing to wash you, either. You might know something they don’t realize is valuable, that you don’t realize is valuable, and they won’t want to lose that.”

Tucker shook his head. “They’ll want names.”

“They have most of our names,” Danny pointed out. “Between the death registration and the last census—”

“Then they’ll want locations!”

“Yeah, they will, and you’ll have to give some of them up.” Sam crossed her arms. “I said this’ll hurt us. It’s not believable if it doesn’t hurt us. But you can’t chicken out, either. If you lie, it won’t work, and they’ll wash you white, and then this will have been for nothing. Your knowledge is your leverage, Tuck. Make sure they know what you’re bringing to the table, and they’ll be too greedy to let you go to waste.”

Tucker let out a slow breath. “Even if you’re right, even if they let me in without washing me, doesn’t mean I’ll be put in a position where I can help. Jazz won’t be able to help me. It would raise too many flags and blow her cover. And with the number of people watching me, I’d blow my own cover if I so much as hacked my own computer to disable to spyware.”

“That’s why you need to earn their trust,” Sam said bluntly.

Tucker groaned and looked at Danny. “Technus and I can keep hacking into their servers from here, man. We don’t need to risk this. Seriously.”

Danny glanced away. “I’m not sure that’s true,” he mumbled.

“What? They didn’t actually catch Technus, did they?”

Danny looked back at him and shook his head. “No, but he’s running into more blocks every day. Jazz can’t make him a back door. You can. And…and the more we can find out, the better. We need more than one person on the inside, and you could establish a reliable communication link for us. Please, Tuck.”

Tucker swallowed. “If it doesn’t work,” he croaked, “if they wash me, I’ll…. It wouldn’t just be an act anymore. I’d be ready to destroy you.”

Danny smirked. “I’m used to the feeling.”

It was a lie, or at least the nonchalance behind it was. Tucker knew that. Lying was what Danny did, even now.

“Just feed us what you can,” said Sam, ever the practical one. “We won’t act on everything, and we’ll double check what we can before we do act. We don’t want them thinking they’ve got a mole and feeding out false information to catch them.”

Tucker’s mouth twisted. “They wouldn’t bother with that. They’d just wash everyone for good measure. No skin off their noses. They’re too indoctrinated themselves to know the difference.”

“Information,” reminded Sam.

“That information’s gonna have an expiry date,” Tucker muttered. “It wouldn’t save me forever.”

“It doesn’t need to be forever. It just needs to be for long enough.”

“But what if it’s not?” Fine. He was scared. He could admit it. He was terrified. Danny and Sam wanted him to waltz into the lion’s den and play double agent. If he wasn’t washed, he could be tortured. Or just plain shot.

Or the Guys in White might realize what he was up to and use him to lead his friends into a trap. That was by far the worst option, but it was also the most likely, whether they washed him in the end or not. What if they extracted what information from him that they could, washed him, and fed him that information back? He’d happily use it against his friends then, and it’s not like he’d wind up in close enough contact with Jazz for her to tell.

And even if she could, there’s no guarantee she’d find a way to send a message. Her communications with them were spotty at best. His going in wouldn’t improve that, not when he had to keep his distance from her to maintain both their covers. Come to that, they wouldn’t even be able to assure her that he wasn’t a traitor, and he wouldn’t blame her for thinking he might be once his information proved to be good. And—

And he was thinking about this as if it were already a done deal, risks and all.

Sam reached over and squeezed his hand, which was a big deal, considering she wasn’t big on the showing her feelings like that after so many years of hiding what she felt for Danny. He would have taken more comfort in it if he didn’t know it was a futile attempt to balance out her not-so-comforting words. “We’ll do what we can and make the best of whatever happens.”

Danny didn’t say anything. He just waited for Tucker to make his choice known. Danny wouldn’t make him go in, not even with everything that was at stake. Sam would try, but Danny would let him make his own decision, even if ‘making his own decision’ included a few dozen guilt trips and pleas before it was actually decision time.

Like it was now.

To say going in was risky was a major understatement, but they couldn’t afford him not going in, either. Danny was right: they needed more than one person on the inside, and not just in case Jazz got compromised. They were short allies and needed more information. Anything he could do would help them…until they caught him.

Tucker sighed and looked at Sam. “Maybe you should take a harder swing at me, just to help sell the whole traitor thing.”

Sam grinned and cracked her knuckles. “I’ll just pretend you’re Agent W,” she said, and she was on her feet and a fist was flying towards his face before he could change his mind.

He woke up in the ruins of the Nasty Burger with some pickpocket wannabe rifling through his jacket. He could still feel the hard lump of the flash drive sewn into his collar, so he hissed a warning at her and let her get away with her appropriated beef jerky. It was the best he could do for her now. Besides, if they believed him, they’d feed him at HQ, and if they didn’t, a lack of food was going to be the least of his problems.

(next)

[ladylynse]

Part IV of that Danny Phantom fic with Lancer: The Trouble with Ghosts: Lancer hadn’t realized how closely young Mr. Fenton’s school troubles–and the secrets he surely wasn’t telling his parents–were tied to ghosts until after that encounter with Phantom. 

<<  <  Part IV  >

When Danny opened his eyes, he was staring into Jazz’s anxious face. He tried to smile but, judging by the increase in worry in Jazz’s expression, it came out more like a grimace. “Hey,” he managed.

“This is bad, Danny,” Jazz said bluntly. “You need help.”

“Thanks for sugar coating it, Jazz.” Another attempt at a smile. “Just what I needed.”

“I’m serious,” Jazz insisted. “You’re not healing properly. Not like you usually do. Do you know how long it took me to wake you up? Danny, I don’t even know how long you’ve been unconscious. I don’t know how bad this is!”

“So you’re worried because you don’t know everything?”

“Quit that,” Jazz snapped, losing her patience. “Stop pretending this isn’t something we need to deal with. You were plenty worried yourself when you called me.” Then, immediately, “Oh, I’m sorry, little brother, I just….”

“You’re worried. I get it.” Stupid throbbing head. Stupid aching everything. Jazz was right. He was better at pretending now than he had been on the phone. Probably because he had to look her in the eye, to see her reaction to every grimace and moan on his part. “So now what?”

“I don’t know,” Jazz admitted. “Maybe we should take you to Frostbite. You said he helped you before, right?”

“Yeah, but now’s different.” Danny shifted, trying to get into a more comfortable position. It didn’t work. Every movement he made just started the shooting pains running through his body again. “This isn’t a ghost thing.”

Jazz frowned. “What happened?”

“Valerie. Some new weapon. Shorted out my powers.”

“You can’t go ghost?”

“Haven’t tried,” Danny answered. “Maybe. I didn’t change back because of whatever I got hit with. I just…couldn’t do anything.”

“Then change,” Jazz said. “If this problem started when you were Danny Phantom, maybe it’s the only way to fix it.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Danny muttered, but at Jazz’s look, he relented and tried to change.

It worked immediately, without any resistance at all, and like before, he had a glorious, all-too-fleeting millisecond that was free of pain.

And then it was back.

“Any better?” Jazz asked.

Danny shook his head. Glancing around, he asked, “Where exactly are we?”

“Just around back. I didn’t think I could carry you very far.”

“Then we can’t stay here,” Danny said, gritting his teeth and preparing to push himself to his feet.

Jazz stopped him. “They’re going to be looking for Danny Fenton, remember?” Her eyes strayed to his head before she asked, “Who patched you up? That wasn’t a do-it-yourself job.”

“Mr. Lancer,” Danny said. “And then I tried to get away and ended up changing back to Fenton and he found me and, I guess, put two and two together.”

“Are you sure he knows?”

Danny raised an eyebrow. “He hasn’t come out and said ‘Danny Fenton is Danny Phantom!’ yet, but, yeah, I’d say he knows.” He paused, closed his eyes for a moment and tried to will the pain away, and then continued, “When he found me bleeding, he told me I’d gotten hurt in a ghost fight. And don’t say that’s just a coincidence, Jazz, because there was no damage in that room. And he did say that it wasn’t hard to figure it out when he realized that the pieces were right in front of him.”

Jazz bit her lip. “Then, maybe….” She trailed off. “I hate to suggest this, Danny, but maybe he could look after you for a bit.” This was almost immediately followed by, “Oh, don’t give me that look. It’s not that terrible of a suggestion.”

“You’re the suggester. You don’t get a vote.”

“Just think about it, little brother. Sam and Tucker can’t help you any more than I can, and—”

“Sam can get whatever she wants if she doesn’t go through her parents.”

Jazz pursed her lips. “There’s a reason she doesn’t flash her family wealth around, Danny, and it’s more than just keeping off the social radar at school. You know that.” A pause, where she waited to see if he was going to push it and keep arguing, and then, “And everyone else who doesn’t know your secret, including Mom and Dad, are going to take you straight back to the hospital.”

“So then I’ll be Phantom instead of Fenton. It doesn’t matter at this point, Jazz.”

“It matters with how everyone else sees it,” Jazz reminded him. “So unless you want to go to Vlad—”

“Not happening.”

“—then Mr. Lancer is your best choice. I hate to say it, but he’s an adult, and his hands won’t be tied like ours are. Besides,” Jazz added, “he lives alone, right?”

“As far as I know,” Danny agreed, albeit reluctantly. He wasn’t keen on Jazz’s idea. Sure, Mr. Lancer had helped him before. A make-up test here, an extra credit assignment there. He wasn’t failing English because of him.

But asking him to hide him from everyone, including his parents, which had to go against Lancer’s instincts as a teacher when he knew his parents just wanted the best for him? Especially when he was doing something Lancer had to consider dangerous? Should he really be asking him to help him out until he recovered? Maybe until whatever this was wore off and he got his powers back?

So Lancer had figured out his secret. Fine. Danny knew that was going to happen sooner or later with someone besides Jazz. But this went beyond that. Like Jazz had said, he was an adult. And adults had a different sense of what was necessary than kids did. Lancer had no idea how much Danny could handle. How much he’d had to deal with. Which was why he wasn’t sure Lancer would keep his secret now that he knew it. If Lancer decided that it was in Danny’s best interests to tell someone—namely his parents—what he’d been trying to keep from them….

It was a risk that Danny wasn’t sure he should take.

“You just need to keep off the radar for a while, little brother,” Jazz said quietly. “If anyone in their right mind finds Danny Fenton in the condition you’re in, you’re going to end up in the hospital. And if anyone finds Danny Phantom—”

“I’ll be blasted to bits, dragged home so the town’s ghost hunters, AKA Mom and Dad, can blast me to bits, or nearly smothered to death by a crazy fan.”

Jazz sighed. “You’re not crazy about the idea, Danny. I get it. But as good as Sam and Tucker are, they can’t necessarily keep you from their parents. This isn’t just for one night. You’re not going to be fine tomorrow.”

“You don’t know that,” Danny countered. “We don’t know when I’ll be back to normal.”

“Exactly. We don’t know. Which means we have to take precautions and expect the worst.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “Fine, Jazz. We’ll do it your way. But if this backfires, I’m holding you responsible.”

“Just look out for yourself,” Jazz said. “Sam, Tucker, and I will work on getting things sorted out. Between Vlad and Valerie, we’ll have a shot at figuring out what you got hit with and fixing it.”

“Chances are, I’ll be fine.”

Jazz frowned. “It’s good to be optimistic,” she said, “but you need to be realistic, too.”

Danny snorted. “Does my life sound realistic to you? Jazz, life wasn’t realistic for either of us long before the portal accident.”

That earned him a small smile. “It’s a good thing you never lose your sense of humour when things get tough. Just…hold on, all right? I’ll make up some story. I’ll cover for you. I’ll do everything I can to make sure everything will be okay.” Jazz gave him a careful hug before adding, “Just trust me.”

“Even though this has ‘bad idea’ written all over it?”

Jazz ignored him and climbed to her feet. “Find Mr. Lancer. I’ll take care of the rest.” A pause, then, “And promise me you’ll stay in ghost mode. If Mom and Dad so much as glimpse their son, you’ll be in the hospital before we can do anything about it.”

By all counts, he was lucky to have Jazz as a sister. But sometimes, like now, she got crazy ideas in her head. And half the time, times like now, he had no choice but to go along with it. He wasn’t in any state to argue. “Promise,” he said. He meant it, and Jazz knew it; he’d do everything he could to stay as Phantom.

Jazz slipped off, heading back inside, and Danny pushed himself to his feet. He’d stay as Phantom for a while; worst case scenario, his parents caught him. But Jazz had promised she’d keep them busy, presumably long enough for him to get to Lancer. She was his sister. She’d come through for him before, and she’d come through for him now. He just had to trust her.

“I hope you’re right, Jazz,” Danny muttered. But it was Jazz. She was a lot more likely to be right than he was.

But if she was wrong this time, he was really going to regret it.

For the life of him, Lancer wasn’t sure what had happened. Jazz Fenton had turned up soon enough, claiming that she’d gone to the washroom. That Danny had asked her to get him some moist paper towel, that she hadn’t expected him to bolt. But she readily admitted that he’d been wary, that he hadn’t been happy with the idea of going to the hospital. That, to be perfectly honest, she wasn’t entirely surprised to come back and find him gone.

Mr. and Mrs. Fenton believed her, of course. Though their son’s behaviour was inexplicable to them, they would have no reason to think that Jazz was lying—or, at the very least, stretching the truth. They accepted the fact that Danny had run away and resolved to find out why once they found him.

Lancer accepted the fact that Danny had run away easily enough. But after years of listening to the half-baked excuses of his students, young Mr. Fenton’s included, he was certain Jazz was not at all surprised that her brother was now missing. The fact that her lie was told unflinchingly and therefore so easily swallowed by her parents, however, told him that she knew much more than she was telling.

This couldn’t just be because Danny hunted ghosts.

As Lancer started back out to the parking lot, Miss Manson’s words floated through his mind once more: “If you know Danny’s secret, then you know why we can’t take him to the hospital.”

Danny himself had never put up an argument, exactly. After rather weakly denying the need for the hospital, he’d just run away. His friends had tried to spirit him away the first time, but his sister had succeeded the second time. Lancer had little doubt that Danny’s friends had phoned Jazz to warn her, and he wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they had somehow managed to get themselves here and pick Mr. Fenton up and take him away like they had originally intended.

They might have his backpack full of ghost hunting supplies, but that didn’t erase what Danny had been doing.

Although…. That was perhaps what bothered him about this entire situation. For all that Mr. Fenton was following in his parents’ footsteps, for all that he’d been trying to do so himself, it was curious that he hadn’t been carrying around a ghost hunting weapon with him. Lancer hadn’t, admittedly, checked Danny’s pockets, but the FentonWorks inventions weren’t particularly small, and the desks had no room for storage.

He could understand that Danny would not have had time to run for any weaponry and that he didn’t carry it with him lest he was caught, but was his belief in Phantom’s goodness enough to make him try to fight a ghost with nothing more than his bare hands?

Lancer stopped for a moment, knowing his initial assumptions had to be wrong. It would have been beyond foolish for Danny to take on a ghost with nothing up his sleeve. Frowning slightly, Lancer tried to recall the inventory list of the various FentonWorks weapons Jack and Maddie had provided the school in the hopes that some would be approved for emergency use. Standard ectoguns, they’d said, could be provided to the teachers. Strong enough to pack a punch without being as unwieldy as weapons like the Fenton Bazooka. At the very least, they’d argued, the Fenton Lipstick was small, easy to store, easy to use, fairly inconspicuous, and still very effective.

That had to be it. The one thing Danny could carry without being caught. For all Lancer knew, he kept a spare in his pencil case. The main one could easily fit in his pocket, and it would be simple enough to pass it off to one of his friends or to hide it behind something if it came to that. The Fentons didn’t skimp on safety when it came to their inventions; Danny could have been confident that it would not have gone off by mistake.

Of course, getting a better idea of what had happened should help him but wasn’t. He still had no idea exactly what had happened with Danny—nor where he might have gone, assuming Sam and Tucker weren’t responsible for his disappearance, or why he was so against the idea of seeing a proper doctor. Disinfectant and gauze and bandages could only get a person so far.

He’d promised to keep an eye out for Danny. Maddie had declined offers of anything more, saying their family could scour the ground for him themselves. Lancer, for his part, suspected that she was going to begin by checking in with Sam and Tucker. They were, after all, the ones with which Danny would logically seek sanctuary. While Danny might have been able to keep his other activities from them, his fierce friendship with Sam and Tucker was far from secret.

When had teaching gotten so complicated? He shouldn’t need to second guess the actions of his students. There were certain things he’d expected that he would eventually run across in his teaching career. Each of those scenarios needed to be treated differently, as did each case within those scenarios, and he’d always been as prepared as he could be when it came to dealing with such sensitive issues. But this…. This was different. A situation that had to be unique to Amity Park, but one which mirrored pieces of things he’d seen before.

“Mr. Lancer?”

Lancer stopped, car keys in hand as he reached for the driver’s door. As he stood there, Danny Phantom came into view, rising up from the other side of the car. How the boy had known which one was his was anyone’s guess. But if the slight quaver in Phantom’s voice wasn’t enough to assess his condition, the presence of the now haphazard bandage on his head was more than enough to let Lancer know that Phantom was still as powerless as he’d been at the school.

And, consequently, still as hurt.

“How did you get away?” Lancer asked. How he’d gotten here was simple enough; whatever ghost had captured him had clearly dropped him here. More likely than not, the ghost had caught wind of the Fentons being here for their son. In theory, it would be easy for them to destroy Phantom when he was powerless.

And if the Fentons got rid of Phantom, the rest of the ghosts would stand a better chance of getting a foothold in Amity Park.

“I had some help,” Phantom admitted. “As you probably guessed. Look, can I, uh, ask for a really big favour?”

“Of course.” The words were out of his mouth before he realized that Danny Phantom, the town’s hero, was asking him, a humble teacher, for help.

Phantom glanced over his shoulder. “Hide me. Preferably quickly.”

Ah. He should have guessed. Phantom had learned that the Fentons were here—or, at the very least, anticipated that they would be if he’d seen the condition his foe had left young Danny in—and did not wish to face the very real possibility of being wiped from existence.

“Door’s open,” Lancer said quietly. Phantom lost no time in scrambling inside the car and sinking down in the seat, out of view from the windows. Lancer got in and took a brief moment to study him. He looked weaker than before. More tired, perhaps. But as far as he could tell, Phantom’s last ghost encounter hadn’t left him with any more injuries.

Danny’s actions hadn’t been in vain, at least.

“I’ve no place to take you but home,” Lancer admitted slowly, “and I don’t know how much I can do for you. Perhaps if I asked Mr. and Mrs. Fenton—”

“They haven’t really invented anything to heal ghosts, and the closest thing to it won’t work in this case, anyway,” Phantom cut in swiftly. “I just…. I dunno what I need. Rest, I think. The others can handle the ghost attacks for a little while.”

He had to mean the other ghost hunters in town. The Fentons, the Red Huntress—humans, not ghosts. He wasn’t sure if he could remember ever seeing any other ghost besides Phantom fighting off invading ghosts. There must have been others the time the town had been sucked into the Ghost Zone—the sheer volume of fleeing ghosts meant many had not been on the side of the one Phantom had fought against—but he couldn’t remember any faces, let alone names. His priorities at the time hadn’t been such that he’d had ample opportunity to watch a ghost fight.

Lancer considered telling Phantom that the Fentons intended to look for their son but saw no point; if Phantom happened to know where Danny had disappeared to, Lancer doubted he would say, and he highly doubted the Fentons would let a ghost go free without at least attempting to shoot at it and discover whether it knew anything about Danny’s disappearance. Though preoccupied with the more pressing concern of their son’s safety, Jack and Maddie wouldn’t ignore the safety of the town.

On the drive home, Lancer warred with his conscience. He wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing. He’d done as much first aid on Phantom as he could, but with wounds like his, they wouldn’t be enough. The boy—ghost—probably needed stitches since he wasn’t healing as quickly as normal. And medicine was far from Lancer’s area of expertise, his knowledge of ghosts not much better. If Phantom wasn’t already a ghost, Lancer would worry that his ignorance would do more harm than good.

Ghosts were resilient. He knew that. But looking at Phantom now, and remembering how much spilt ectoplasm he’d seen earlier, he had to wonder again if resilience and determination alone would be enough.

“I’m not healing.”

Ghosts couldn’t die again, surely. But everyone in Amity Park had heard Jack Fenton threaten to tear apart ghosts molecule by molecule—Phantom included—and it was common knowledge that ghosts could be destroyed. So if they were injured beyond repair, did they just…vanish? Degenerate into pure ectoplasm? Burst apart or melt or evaporate or some such thing once the energy field, the last bit of whatever it was that gave them form, was too weak to hold them together?

He didn’t want to be indirectly responsible for the disappearance of Amity Park’s infamous ghost hero.

Lancer pulled up in front of his house and looked over at Phantom, intending to ask him what he needed besides a safe place to rest and recover his energy. But Phantom, to his surprise, was already asleep, his soft snore audible now that the car was off. He looked…vulnerable. More than that, he looked human. Lancer wasn’t sure whether it was the fact that Phantom was actually asleep or because he was breathing, but there was no denying that he was doing both.

Admittedly, he’d never really thought about it too much, but it didn’t seem intuitive.

He could think about that later. He’d just get Phantom inside, get him settled on the couch, and try to make things comfortable. Maybe show him the miniature train set he had, just to keep his mind off of his troubles. If Phantom was willing, Lancer may be able to learn a few lessons about ghosts from an instructor even more qualified than the Fentons.

Lancer reached over to gently shake Phantom awake. He’d be less disoriented if he walked into the house himself than if he woke in a strange room. “Phantom,” Lancer called softly, “we’re here.”

An unintelligible mumble was his response.

“We’re here,” Lancer repeated, giving the boy a slightly more vigorous shake. He still had no success, so he tried, “Danny?”

Phantom jerked and sat up. His first name clearly penetrated deeper into his consciousness than his last name. Lancer wondered if he should employ the tactic with his students more often. At the moment, he only had to resort to a first name basis with Mr. Fenton, who was prone to sleeping through anything else.

“Sorry, Mr. Lancer,” Phantom mumbled, like his students so often did when he caught them trying to snooze through Shakespeare. His eyes weren’t quite open when he added, “Can you repeat the question?”

For a split second, Lancer didn’t hear Danny Phantom’s voice ask that question. He heard Danny Fenton’s. It was the same thing Mr. Fenton muttered every time Lancer had to wake him up in class, usually because he would ask a question, notice that Danny was not paying attention, and call him out. Now that he thought about it, the similarity between the two Dannys was striking.

“If you know Danny’s secret, then you know why we can’t take him to the hospital.”

Brave New World, there was more to this than he’d thought.

Next