Stringing Electricity
Danny died in one quick second, brutal, agonizing, fast. There was no time to panic, to fear, to scream. The portal formed. Danny Fenton died. The end.
His friends were standing just outside the rip across planes. They wore no protections, had no time to turn away from the powerful blast of energy and emotion that had just swallowed their friend whole. The whole lab was green and burning bright; a localized explosion of power.
Of course such close proximity would have consequences. The prototype of two decades past did, and it was barely a speck of dust compared to the strength of the newest dimensional portal. It would be a miracle, escaping change when standing in the nearest radius of harm.
Sam and Tucker didn’t think of it at the time. How could they? They were a bit busy screaming at the sight of Danny’s collapsed, smoking body, and then busy screaming at him getting back up. It was a trying night. It was the most trying, terrible night any of them had ever experienced.
So, that had to be why Sam felt sick, her hands shaking and her heart in her throat. That had to be why when Tucker breathed in the air felt ragged, burning, like gasping after choking, why his muscles twitched and jumped. That’s why his head hurt like something had been stabbed through his temple. They were scared. They were worried.
Their best friend had just died and stood back up. Now wasn’t the time for them to wallow in their own feelings.
Hauling his shaky body up the stairs two times was hard. Danny gasped and heaved and cried. He was cold, so cold, and shocking to the touch. His eyes gleamed in the low light of a quiet house. He clung to them like a lifeline, his fingers stiff and grip unyielding.
(“I’m going to call—” Tucker had started, hushed, eyes wet and bright.
“Please don’t,” whispered Danny, His voice was distant, echoing. “Please don’t, please, please, please—”
Tucker didn’t call the Fenton parents. He didn’t call 911. He didn’t call anyone.)
They dropped him on the bed, took pajamas from his closet, and told him to try to change out of the HAZMAT suit. Terrible fucking suit, Tucker thought, since it didn’t even protect him. There wasn’t a suit in the world that could have protected Danny, and he knew that. He couldn’t help the anger, sharp and crackling, that sat in his chest.
While Tucker stood at the door, angry, afraid, Sam went down to the kitchen. Her combat boots didn’t thud on the stairs like they should. She was too busy firmly not crying to notice. She was too busy being angry, so angry, too angry. With grasping reach, she tried to find a place to put the anger. Nothing felt right.
She took a cup from the cupboard. It nearly slipped and fell from her trembling fingers. Shock, Sam thought, and nearly let out a hysterical laugh at the thought of the lightning at the edges of the portal. The cup didn’t slip. She filled it with tap water and kept her grip the whole way back upstairs.
Sam didn’t scream when Tucker’s eyes flashed towards her in the dark. It was a trick of the light from the moon out the window. Sometimes people’s eyes looked different, in different lighting. Tucker’s eyes were fine. They were blue, not gold. Unbeknownst to her, Tucker thought the same things about purple eyes gleaming pink.
There was nothing wrong with either of them. There couldn’t be. They were too busy with Danny.
(If they had tried to turn on the lights at any point, they would have found nothing happened. Blackout. Power surges like a horrifyingly complex portal could create often resulted in such. It never occurred to them to try in the first place. The darkness was right, for this moment. This wasn’t a matter to grapple with in artificial daylight. Darkness was quiet, and cold, and held its secrets.)
Tucker cracked open the door and listened for a whispered assurance. It came, so he let Sam shuffle in and followed after, putting his hand in one of his cargo pants’ pockets. He pulled out a granola bar just as Sam sternly ordered Danny to drink the whole cup.
Danny said he wasn’t thirsty. He said he wasn’t hungry, after Tucker dropped the bar in his other hand. Tucker sympathized, but started Danny down with Sam all the same.
There was more they should be doing. Danny had been shocked bad enough to collapse, heartbeat weak and faltering in his chest. Heartbeat gone, for a few terror-filled seconds. Neither Tucker and Sam had any idea what else they could do. They were just fourteen.
Danny drank the water and ate the granola bar. He wrapped his comforter around himself so tightly it was a wonder he could still breath. There were no complaints from him when Sam, still shaking, and Tucker, still twitching, thumped onto the bed alongside him. They were warm, much warmer than him.
He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to listen to them talk. So Danny shoved his face in his pillows, ignored how cold he was, how hot he felt, and tried to go to sleep.
Somehow, he managed, and his friends followed after him.
(When Sam wakes up with the dawn as she always does, her breath stutters in her chest, and she feels like there is something in her torso, something in her ribs, shifting and jolting. She feels all at once too light and heavy as lead. Her eyes burn, and burn, and burn, and when she opens them after pressing the heels of her palm against them, she expects more than the plain colors of the bedroom she sees. She does not remember her dreams, fracturing and slow and prophetic as they are.
When Tucker wakes up after her, due to her shifting frame, his headache is still there, dull and pulsing. He feels hot, but that heat feels right, like the familiar sun beating down on his head. Phantom grain and grit scrape against his skin, where underneath his body buzzes like a livewire. He does not remember his dreams—his memories—of sunbaked sand and glinting jewels, of work and order and divine purpose. He will never recall the rituals held after his first death, begging that their ruler hold inhuman power in the next world as he did in the old one. He might curse his once-followers if he did. Or he might not.
When Danny wakes up last, hours after Sam and Tucker had gone downstairs to lie to the distracted Drs Fenton, he wakes up slowly. He is cold, and breathless, and floating two inches off of his own bed. The only reason he doesn’t scream is that sudden intangibility robs the air from his lungs. He turns solid, drops on the bed, and resolves that it was a hallucination. The taught string between him and his best friends, his confidants, the only people who could understand— that should be a hallucination too. He lets himself believe it’s real, because he can’t imagine such a thing being wrong. He does not remember his nightmares.
The three of them were always going to make it through this night, through the following years, together. There was no other option. (There were thousands of options.) But the power running through them, the bond tying them together like beads on a cord, helped in many ways. They were stronger together, smarter together, unstoppable together. A weight distributed to many hands was a light weight to carry.
Sam and Tucker did not have the pleasure of instant death. It would take weeks. It would be painful. At the end, there would be three more of an extraordinary species in the world.
Good things always come in threes.
ao3: them and you and me (stringing electricity)
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i dont know if this has been asked before or if someone has had a similar idea, but what if all three of the main trio in dp where inside the portal when it turned on?
"tuck could you bring that light over here?"
*tuck distracted by new P.A. walks in with the wrong thing and knock over danny in the dark*
sam has to bring the flashlight inside and either she leans on the button, turning the machine on, or danny does as he gets up from the ground and puts his hand on the button
I've seen that idea around! Halfa trio AU maybe? Something like that. It's fun, anyway.
It's a nice way of instantly making them better friends because they're suddenly all struggling to figure this out together. Danny's not alone in this anymore. They understand and simultaneously don't understand what's going on completely, and they each try to come up with excuses their parents will believe. (Danny really has it the easiest on this front.)
Plus, it's harder for the little voice in their head to say that they're the ones to blame for what happened because it was a collective sort of mishap. They all should have paid more attention or been more careful or not egged each other on, and they're all sharing tips on how to get through this and figure it out--how to make sure the pen they're trying to hold stays in their hand for the entirety of their test, how to keep from accidentally scorching something with an ectoblast when they're angry, how to regain visibility after turning invisible in a fit of embarrassment or fear or some other strong emotion that triggered their powers without them consciously triggering them. (The ghost sense would be useless if they set each other off, though, but maybe only Danny has that, and the other two have different abilities. Not like we haven't seen plant- and technology-based powers, and since ice powers have absolutely nothing to do with the accident, it's easy enough to explain away individual powers unrelated to that.)
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I just had a thought of the Everlasting Trio and Jazz all being Halfa’s. I find it funny that Jack AND Maddie didn’t realize that their children and friends are half ghosts.
Oh hey, thanks for the ask! I love getting these. :D
Yeah, it is funny that Jack and Maddie don't realize that their children and their children's friends are half-ghosts! Why would they, as far as they know the trio and Jazz, are still alive and fully human.
In my Au's, Jack and Maddie aren't as shoot first and ask questions never as seen in the show. They see the four half-ghosts as children who died too young, and as parents themselves, they are going to do anything they can to help them move on and if they can't move on hey what's four more children. Yes, they totally would adapt the ghost children as their own.
The adult Fenton's don't want to capture and experiment on the four half-ghosts they want to help them move on into their next lives and the whole I'll rip you apart molecule by molecule was not directed at the four half-ghosts but at the ghosts who came through the portal causing destruction.
And when Danny Jazz Sam and Tucker finally come out and explain the accident and their half-ghost status to the adult Fenton's its revealed that the whole rip you apart molecule by molecule was a big misunderstanding and are touched that the adult Fenton's would've tried to help them move on into their next lives and if they couldn't move on that they would've adopted them if they were full ghosts.
I hope my ramblings make sense. Lol
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Master Posts Links
All the dabbles I have posted on my DC x DP account. Under a read more due to how long it is. Broken into three categories:
Multi-parts - Dabbles that have more than one part written.
One-shots- Dabbles with only one part written.
Requests- Dabbles written for the requests of readers. (Note: If a request is for a continuation of the other two categories, they will be filed in Milti-parts)
Master Post 1 Link
Master Post 2 Link
Please read the indexes to determine which master post each au is filed in.
As of 02/10/2024: The newest stuff is inside of Master Post 2. If there are many parts from Master Post 1, they will remain on that one.
MASTER POST 1 INDEX:
Multi-parts:
The Royal Consort,
The Bakery is a Front!...right?,
Child Support
Alfred's Boy
The Adoptive Son
Phantom's Number 1 fan
Passion for Fashion
Danny and The Fan Blog
Congratulations! It's Triplets!:
Ghost King Summon dare
The Dauntless Matchmaker
One-shots:
The Assistant
The Ghost Trio's Food Trip
Legal Compensation
Love Among Fans
Lex Luther's Youngest
Misplace Baby:
The Infinite Realms Hobby Store:
Obsession Runs in the Family
Farm Hand
Vague Threats
Game of Deadly Love
Retired-Rouge
The Real Blood Son
The Kid of Candles
Magic Older Brother
Keep The God Kid Busy!
Dog walker
Clockwork's Cookbook
Respawn and Relive
The Summoning Conditions of the Ghost King
Finders Keeper
What's the rule again?
The Contact, the Butler and the Sly Time Lord
Big Fish in Gotham Pond:
Immunity system:
Wrong Number:
Timeline Prevention Squad
Requests
The Masters are Aliens
Ghost Zone Read
Red Hood's Snow
Jason Sees Dead People
Ghost Dad
Wayne Manor Ghost
The Siren of Iceberg Lounge
Single Dad
The Orginal
The Ghost King's Fibs
Red ParentHood
Woo thy Butler, My Lord
Jason's Doll
Cass the Halfa
Double Vision
Dealeyed Soulmates
Rescue Mission
Danny's Online Persona
Practice makes perfect
Alley Boyfriends:
Demon and Angel Brat:
MASTER POST 2 INDEX:
Multi-Parts
Cave Boy
Cass the Halfa
Danny's Grill
Freelance Inventor
The Audit
One-Shots
Red Yummy
It's all Fun and Games Kids!
Professional Protector of Love
The Backroads
In 30 Minutes or less
One hell of a good bellhop
Mr. Flavor
Danny Fenton's Ex
Corporate Rivals
Requests
Why Ten?
Batman with a gun's lover
IRS's boogie man
Super Robin
Dear Elder Brother's mistakes
The Undead Florist
Pit's Merman
Dullahan is my roomate
Cluster of Cores
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