INVISOBANG - Ectoplasmic Educational Employment (Quirky Danny Fenton The Teacher? More Likely Than You Think!)
And the stellar artists that made art for this little fic o’ mine!:
lanaecomics: ART CHECK IT OUT
AND
Trash Shipper; ART CHECK IT OUT
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Danny isn’t exactly a fresh graduate with a lot of options after Highschool. College wasn’t happening and where the Hell was going to hire him? Mr. Lancer and CasperHigh apparently.
As what? As a teacher. A teacher on the subject of ghosts, because of course everything in Danny’s life will be ghost-related. But maybe ghosts, ghost society at large, and even the goddamn Observants will actually think this is, like, a good? thing. He also, apparently, doesn’t suck at it.
He’s still weird, eccentric, partly dead, and goddamn eighteen though
Prologue: Employing The Unemployable
Danny never really expected to graduate, honest to goodness he did not, yet his chronically-tardy-randomly-disappearing-handing-shit-in-late-or-never ass has managed to get that stupid slip of paper that was nearly basic necessity to get any halfway decent job; which was, frankly, a load of horse crap. Half the shit school taught was useless and most of it he wasn’t going to remember in three days none the less a year from now; or however long it took to find a job that actually required said useless knowledge. Though really? that wasn’t something he actually had to worry about, seeing as there was basically a zero percent chance of him having anything close to something even resembling a ‘normal’ job.
He could work for his folks? Financially lucrative and everything regarding the subject of ghosts has been effectively beaten into his brain by this point. Whether it was due to being around it so often or to save his own hide from his folks' inventions. He could also arguably get a shady as shit job, he was definitely skilled at lying, hiding, sneaking around, playing a role, even stealing and fighting. Plus a subordinate who can shoot energy beams and turn invisible would probably be a mob bosses, or whatever’s, wet dream. But, uh, that was probably not the best idea in the world; especially when Amity didn’t even have mobs and drugs and shit really. And why would they? They had freaking ghosts. Also having hallucinogenics would just be fucking overkill at this point. Plus Vlad already filled the quota for ‘dangerous men in dark suits that smoke cigars and drink whiskey while planning peoples demise or manipulating them like chess pieces".
Getting a job at the Nasty Burger would be easy enough but he’d get fired so fast. Ditto for working at the town’s only hotel or the gas stations or the grocery store or literally anywhere else minimum wage. Honestly, how the fuck do any of those fictional movie heroes have non-heroing related jobs? Excluding the super-rich ones with public identities anyways. Unrealistic. Completely unrealistic.
Sighing and flopping down on his bed, at least his friends didn’t have this issue. Manson’s don’t work and Tuck’s dumbass has hacked every single security and tech company in at least their entire state so they were basically all scrambling to hire his hacker ass. Val has the Nasty Burger -not that she’d be staying there once she graduated- and not to mention having Vlad’s very very deep pockets at her disposal. Speaking of Val though... Danny chuckles up at the ceiling, “honestly it’s funny as Hell that Val got held back but I didn’t. I mean really? How the fuck did that happen?”, shaking his head and laughing quietly a little more. The rest of the Defect Quartet got a good laugh out of that. Sam and Tuck were never at risk of not graduating, it was just Val and his ass that was a worry. Eh whatever. At least Dash’s dumbass got held back too; not seeing that jocks blonde mug at graduation was goddamn euphoric. It truly, truly was.
Well for now, all Danny can really do is wait, enjoy not having to wake up at the ass crack of dawn to go to school, and hope his folks don’t start go getting on his ass to get work that’s ‘normal’ so he has the experience. To be fair, him knowing what it’s like to work at a normal job would normally be a damn good idea, if he wasn’t a literal superhero who also just so happens to be kinda dead. Dead people shouldn’t have to work in his opinion, but life and deaths not fair so whatever. At least his poor abused bed was soft as shit though, that was something.
Danny nearly jumps out of his skin when his mom knocks on the door, jerking him out of his thoughts, “sweetie! It’s Mr. Lancer! He wants to talk to you!”. Oh Ancients fuck, why? Hopefully, graduation comes with a no tack backsies rule or something because that would be just his luck. Danny swings up his legs and gets up off his bed, mildly shouting, “coming!”. Popping open his door while his mom gives him a seriously judgemental ‘you better not have done something stupid’ raised eyebrow as she hands him the phone; him smiling sheepishly as he takes the phone and re-closes his bedroom door.
Eyeballing the phone with just a mild amount of apprehension before putting it to his ear, “yeah? What’s up, Lance?”.
“Hello Daniel, how’s life as a graduate treating you?”.
Danny chuckles, “that depends on whether or not you’re about to tell me I didn't actually graduate and some kind of wild and unlikely mistake popped up”.
Lancer actually laughs lightly at that, “no nothing like that, you graduated fairly, Daniel. Though considering your poor attendance I’m not surprised you’d be suspicious”. Danny grins to himself a little at that but fuck, not his fault man. Not his fault... Technically. “I was actually wondering how job searching is treating you. Working for your parents seems... less than safe even if that seems like the obvious choice for you”.
Danny nods to himself and chuckles, too true there. Smirking a little, “oh if anyone knows how dangerous FentonWorks is, it’s me”. Sometimes he’s honestly amazed no one’s ever called CPS on him or anything. FentonWorks was a death trap waiting to happen, literally; him being walking proof and all that. Shrugging to himself, “and you know I’m not exactly suited for a nine to five, Lance”, and he’s not even going to mention the fact that Vlad would hire him in a heartbeat because that is so not happening no matter how ‘good-ish’ the man was nowadays. Working for him would be a dangerous game no matter how Danny looked at it; for both of them.
“I don’t think I could even imagine you working an office job or as a cashier. But if not nine to five, then how about noon to three?”.
Danny blinks at that, huh? “um what?”, shaking his head a little and blinking again, “short shift there but you know me, how often did I ever stay in class for the full forty minutes, or whatever?”.
“Fifty-five, Daniel, And I’m sure you could stay for an hour given the right encouragement and approach”.
Danny sighs and tilts his head back, “I don’t need money that badly, man, geez”, shaking his head, “what are you even suggesting though?”. Is Lancer seriously offering him a job? Where even? Short as shit hours though, which technically worked well-ish for him. He never has a consistent time slot where no ghosts show up though.
“Well I’m sure your parents have heard about the ecto-ology class the school board decided to pass”, Lancer grumbling seemingly to himself, “long time coming if you ask me, too long”, speaking up a bit, “your class should have had it, not that you needed it”.
Danny snorts, fair point there, “yeah I could probably have taught it better than the damn teacher”, blinking, wait a fucking minute, “Lancer what the fuck. Are you asking me to teach it???”. What the actual shit. Sure, he could do it, technically, but still. The fuck, shaking his head, “don’t you, you know, need schooling to be a teacher? And come on, I am the exact opposite of teacher material, or whatever”. Seriously, the Hell. The Ancients are probably actively mocking him right now. That or Danny’s totally wrong and making a complete ass of himself.
“You’re irresponsible and... eccentric, yes, but you’re intelligent and excitable about your interests; and really, a teacher is someone who’s hyper interested and passionate about their field of education”, Danny can almost hear a smirk in Lancer’s voice, “don’t even try to tell me you’re not passionate about ecto-ology, I’ve overheard more than enough conversations between you and your friends to know otherwise. Though yes, the number of times I’ve heard you mention ghost jail was more than a little concerning. Especially when it sounded like it was personal on-the-inside experience”.
Danny blinks, “Lance, you frighten me. Now I’m seriously wondering even more why the school never called on my folks, or whatever”. This just in, apparently a vice principal was perfectly willing to just ignore a student going to jail in an alternate dimension. Repeatedly.
“As if that would actually help. Your parents are good, if crazy and negligent, people. And I have a feeling you’re perfectly capable of getting into trouble without their involvement. So what do you say? It’s completely within my power to hire you on the spot”.
Danny pulls the phone away from his cheek and makes wild hand gestures at it, again what the fuck. Though yeah, his folks aren’t half bad, excluding the whole ectophobia thing. Scrunching up his face at his phone before returning it to his cheek, “uh thanks? You know, for not getting my folks in shit”, shaking his head and smirking a little, “so you know a lot of the trouble is just me being me and you’re inviting me to once again spend five days a week at one of the local ghost hotspots? Do you like suffering, Lance?”.
That actually gets a laugh out of the vice-principal, “the ghosts certainly keep things interesting but no, hiring you instead of your parents would reduce the chaos. Your parents are far bigger trouble makers than you ever have been”.
“That feels like a challenge”. Danny absolutely smirks to himself over the sigh that comment gets him before continuing, “though yeah, my dad plus the school five days a week sounds like you’d be actively begging the universe to blow up the entire place while simultaneously covering it in green goo and maybe accidentally teleporting it to an alternate dimension. To be fair, dad’s only managed that twice on the house so far”. And his mom still won’t let the man live down either event, understandable. Sighing, his parents being walking collateral damage machines was useful in school since it kept nearly every teacher from calling them in, but now it was mildly biting him in the ass. Though now that he’s thinking about... who else could the school call in? Val was still in school and the school didn’t officially know about her ‘extracurricular activities’ -though Danny would bet an entire model rocket that most of the teachers knew or at least had a very very good guess- so she was out. Then there was the G.I.W. which... just no. Fuck no. Super bad idea. So that just left his ass, and fine, arguably it would be a decent enough job and Lancer wasn’t exactly wrong about Danny knowing his shit and being a bit excitable about ghosts. He couldn’t help it alright? He was raised on it and actually excelled at it. Plus, he was a ghost; knowing was survival. Plus plus, having someone who isn’t ectophobic teach the ghost class would probably be a good idea. Val was better but... she tried to use the Box Ghost’s face as a battering ram because her closet door got stuck last week, ‘nough said. Sighing again, “okay fine, I think you’re inviting disaster but all your other options would also do that”.
Lancer laughs lightly and sips something, probably tea knowing the man, “agreed. So you’ve got the summer to come up with a curriculum, nothing too serious for the first semester so I’m sure you can handle it”. Danny scowls audibly, though fine how much harder could making a teaching thingy be than overthrowing corrupt ghost government/royals? Fuck him entirely. “Don’t worry, I’ll send over some useful tips and tricks, a little guide; because you are right, typically teachers go to school to learn how to teach”.
Danny gives one very sarcastic and deadpanned, “you don’t say”, in response to that. Great, now he’s got homework over summer, just really weird homework that’ll technically include creating homework for other people. Weeee. Fun. Ugh. But hey, maybe this’ll actually not suck. Shaking his head and chuckling a little, “you know, I’m starting to think you might actually like me, Lance”.
Lancer simply laughs faintly at that. “How about we meet up sometime next week and I’ll see how far you’ve gotten and your ideas”.
Danny leans his head back, “ugh fine”, grumbling to himself, “oh Ancients I’m ‘hanging out’ with my old teacher, fuck me”, and hangs up though more than a little sure that Lancer probably heard that last bit.
Danny rubs his eyes in circles after a bit, sighing again, and picks up his cellphone.
thealiveone: guess who got a job offer first? Suck it tuck
PDAxpda : bullshit, where????
thealiveone: lets just say that lance decided I needed to see things from my poor teachers persepectives
PDAxpda: oh god XD poor casperhigh
Nightshade: So youre becoming part of the ststem? Really Danny?
Nightshade: but with fhosts
PDAxpda: ha! You’re becoming your parents!
thealiveone: HEY! AM NOT!
thealiveone: ...kinda
thealiveone: but hey, ghost teachin bout ghoss. Love the irony
Nightshade: 🙄
thealiveone: ancients be happy for a guy why dontcha geez
thealiveone: even if it’s stupid
thealiveone: and I’ll totally wind up having to ditch and be late and shit
PDAxpda: typical you
thealiveone: 😢
Nightshade: fine but at least be a quirky ‘teacher’ and not some lame rule follower ass
thealiveone: me? Not be quirky? Fuckin riiiiiiiight
PDAxpda: *snort*
thealiveone: anywhay
thealiveone: think I should do a bit on ghost hunger just to make lance regret his chocoes?
Nightshade: 🤦🏻♀️
PDAxpda: YES!!!
thealiveone: 😏
Danny had ideas now, and he was about to make them EVERYBODY'S PROBLEM. As he should.
Chapter 2: Cursed From Entry Level
Today was the day, yup it certainly was; Danny side-eyes his ghost-shaped alarm clock. The first Monday of a new school year; which normally shouldn’t mean shit to him since he graduated and all that but fuck his dumbass agreed to turn around and come right back as a goddamn teacher. Why did he do that? That was stupid. Well not really but now that it’s a little past eleven and he has to actually get up, get dressed, and go do the thing that he agreed to do. Fuck. Responsibilities suck. And if anyone’s allowed to say that it’s him, superhero responsibilities kinda outclass all others so suck it. Sighing and flopping an arm over his eyes, had he been smart and bought teacher clothes? No. Or prepared an introduction speech thingy? Also no. Or even bothered to tell literally anyone other than his friends and family that he now worked at CasperHigh? Definitely no, let the fuckers be surprised. He had, however, printed out copies of the syllabus; which fine, was largely because Lancer nagged him about it so much that he did it out of spite. Danny bets being manipulative was totally something taught in teacher school; not that Danny really particularly needed to be taught that… especially when he could just go to Vlad for that kind of ‘tutoring’, not that he actually would. Regardless, he now officially had to get up.
Sighing very loudly into his arm before moving to push himself up and walk over to his closet; did any of his shit qualify as ‘professional’? Haha fuck no. But oh well, screw it. Might as well lean into this ghost teacher thing and the ’Fenton’s are eccentric weirdos’ thing. Time for a ‘I Got A Boo Boo On My Funny Bone Isn’t That Very Humerus?’ sweater and some crust punk pants that are more patches than fabric. He is so not wearing a tie or bow tie though, bandana? Shrugging he nabs up a little alien one that had only a couple small ectoplasm stains, “if anyone asks, lab accident”, and smirks to himself while tying the thing around his neck, shrugging, then heading downstairs for breakfast.
His dad looks up and grins, waving a hand while the other’s still tinkering away on some gun, “morning Danno! Heading off to school?”, tilting his head and chuckling heartily, “or to teach, I should say!”.
Danny rolls his eyes but smiles and chuckles, moving to grab out the cereal, “yup, bet it’s gonna be interesting. My poor fellow teachers”, Danny absolutely smirks at that, because damn they’re gonna hate Lancer for a while once they realise they’re stuck with him for who knows how long. Sure he’ll only be actually there for, like, what an hour or two or so? Eh something like that. He honestly hopes Lancer didn’t tell all the teachers because he absolutely wants to see all of them look at him, do a double-take, and sigh in resigned defeat and pain. Danny can’t help snickering a bit to himself as he eats his food and his dad goes back to tinkering; though with a far bigger grin on his face.
Danny actually manages to get out the door just as his mom’s coming up from the lab, her waving at him erratically, “have a good day at work, sweetie!”, she sounds more than just a little excited to be saying ‘work’ in regards to him. Did make some sense, seeing as he didn’t exactly have any kind of real job opportunities. At least neither of them tried to insist on driving him there, letting him get in a good midday fly instead; one of these days they are seriously going to wonder how the heck he gets places so fast without driving.
-
Landing behind the school in his usual spot Danny takes a few steps back and just kinda stares up at the building for a hot minute, “I don’t know whether this feels nostalgic, daunting, or just surreal”, shaking his head, “well I guess I just better get to it, everyone should be in class right now... right?”, tilting his head as he turns invisible and intangible, stepping through the wall, “how the fuck have I already forgotten the schedule? Ancients”. Thankfully there is, in fact, not a single person and/or spirit in the hallway. He even effectively avoids everyone on his way to the teachers' lounge and successfully uses the key Lancer gave him to get in. Of course, it’s not empty inside though, expected honestly.
Danny pokes his head in and immediately spots Mr. CampBell and grins wickedly, “heeeey”; and the teacher damn near jumps out of his skin before snapping his head around to the door. Mr. CampBell visually recoils, “oh god why are you here?”.
Score! Lancer absolutely did not tell the staff. Danny snickering as he waltzes in, “oh don’t you know? Lancer hired me”. Mr. CampBell turns away and sighs very loudly, Danny absolutely hearing the whispered, “why? I thought William actually liked his coworkers”. Danny only snickers meanly as Lancer walks out from around one of the corners, “we needed an ecto-ology teacher, he’s a perfectly reasonable choice, Joseph”. Huh, so that’s CampBell’s first name. Lancer then turning to Danny and handing him off a coffee cup, gesturing to the corner he just walked out around, “there’s more in the kitchen, since I’m well aware you practically live on the stuff”.
Danny blinks, grins, and moans comically, “oh my Ancients, there’s free coffee in here”.
Lancer quirks an eyebrow faintly at that, “I did tell you”.
Danny shrugs, “eh I thought you were just trying to sweeten the deal for me, Lance”, then taking a sip, “pretty weak shit though”. Lancer quirks his eyebrow further, “it’s free, Daniel”. Danny rolls his eyes, “yeah well, I think I’ll bring in some Deathwish”.
Joseph gives him one very concerned look, “is that an official real coffee or something your crazy parents made?”, he sounds more than a little hesitant for the answer there. Good. Danny smirks, “oh it’s real, and lives up to the name, drinking the cold brew might actually kill you from botulism. The regular coffee is only the world’s strongest stuff though”, then finger-gunning at the man.
Lancer shakes his head as he sits down on the couch, “you concern me some days”, pursing his lips, “most days”, then sips at his coffee. Joseph shakes his head, “I’m just going to head to my classroom”, pointing at Lancer, “you keep that demon child’s classroom consistent, I do not want that ectoplasm stuff getting mixed with Charles’s science nerd stuff”, and throws Danny a scowl before leaving.
Lancer shakes his head before looking to Danny, “your classroom is going to be consistent though, considering I know exactly how often your homework had to be put in biohazard instead of the filing cabinets”. Danny rubs his neck a bit sheepishly at that while Lancer leans forwards, arms on his knees, “do you have everything ready? I could sit in on your first few classes if you’d like”.
Danny snorts, “somehow I think that would just get me mocked, Lance”, smirking, “but that depends on how much you want to leave me unsupervised with a bunch of teens and ectoplasmic substances”.
“You’re... not bringing out ectoplasm on the first day, are you?”.
Danny snickers, “maybe...”. Lancer sighs very loudly but Danny decides to take some amount of pity on the man, “mostly I brought ecto-proofing stuff since I don’t think you want to be replacing stuff a bajillion times. Anyway, can I paint the whiteboard ectophobic green? I mean the ectophobic bit laterally”. Lancer only sighs louder but does nod while putting his face in his hand. Smart man. Danny should probably just go ahead and do that immediately though, the walls and desks and stuff can happen later or fuck he can just make it an assignment because why the fuck not?!? Danny downing the rest of the coffee, clapping his legs, and getting up, “whelp I’mma go do that then”. Lancer speaking up just before he gets to the door, “I will be checking in on you, but feel free to call or ‘text away’ if you need anything”. Danny cringes a little but nods.
Are the hallways empty this time? Nope. Does Danny’s mere presence cause a bunch of whispering as he’s heading to his assigned classroom? Absolutely. Everyone knew who the Fenton’s were, he himself might have techically been a ‘loser weirdo’ but he was also simultaneously popular in the infamous kinda way, especially at school. Most of the comments -that his wonderful ghostly hearing let’s him pick up on easily- are along the lines of ‘guess he didn’t graduate, no surprise there’ or ‘why the fuck’s he here?’, some of the freshmen react with mock horror though so that’s amusing. When Danny gets to his designated room he absolutely spends his before class time painting the board and just throws the rest of his stuff on the provided desk. He is not a tidy person and that is so not gonna change.
He was, however, so not prepared for Val to walk through the door first though. Her and Danny making eye contact, Danny blinking, “‘kay why the fuck would you be here?”. She gives him a dumb look, “hey you yourself, Danny”, then scrunches up her face and sags, “oh my Zone, you are seriously the teacher? You were serious about that? We’re all gonna die”. Danny just smirks while she slumps down in a desk, him scribbling his name on the board quickly; Ancients if anyone calls him ‘Mr. Fenton’ he’ll gag. Speaking of gagging though, putting his class right after lunch was probably not the smartest move on the principal's part. Gives him the perfect excuse to do something weird and just eat ectoplasm or something.
Valerie bangs her head on the desk before looking back up to him, putting her chin in a palm, “though I guess I am kinda curious what the heck you’ll teach with this, you’re always so tightlipped about ghost stuff”.
Danny chuckles and shakes his head a little, glancing back to her before turning around to sit down in his provided chair, not nearly enough burn holes yet to actually feel like his though. He’ll have to fix that, “with you. We don’t exactly see eye to eye on things”. She scoffs at that and rolls her eyes, but other fellow teens are coming in so she doesn’t give him any kind of actual response.
Every single teen does at least a slight pause at seeing Danny in the teacher's chair before taking seats. some say nothing, some swear lightly, others groan, and then there’s goddamn Dash??? Why was that jock taking this class? Better yet, why did it have to be Danny’s luck that Dash would even want to.
“Well if it isn’t Fenturd”. At least half the class snickers or coughs to cover laughs.
Danny glares at the jock, “I can give detentions now, don’t be stupid”, smirking, “or I can just designate you as the ‘helping hand’ and you can handle all the ectoplasmic shit I am absolutely going to bring in”. Dash takes his seat real quick after that while Val’s busy snickering at his expense.
Danny leans back in his chair as the bell goes off, “whelp, guess this is happening now”. Valerie puts her head down and laughs a little, a couple other teens laughing a little themselves while Danny continues, “okay, so obviously I’m the teacher, which honestly? more than a few of you should have seen that one coming”, nodding to himself, “now in case you somehow do not know who I am and also somehow missed Dash being an ass and calling me ‘Fenturd’, I’m Danny Fenton the youngest Fenton, and yeah I’m your teacher because literally no one else is remotely qualified or safe enough to do this”.
More than a few people mutter ‘that's fair’ or something similar. His folks being walking talking time bombs wasn’t exactly a secret and the G.I.W. were honestly more dangerous than the ghosts.
Danny chuckles to himself, digs in his backpack and gets up, “and also, in case you didn’t even bother to look at the class you agreed to take or what was written on the class schedule thingy”, Danny cups the little semi-solid ball of ectoplasm and slaps it on the whiteboard, it spattering across neon green and glowing, “welcome to Ecto-ology! And that!-”, pointing at the green splattered board, “-that’s ectoplasm!”, then shaking a jar of SignalShines -little tiny firefly-like blob ghosts- on the little tray attached to the whiteboard typically used for the markers, “and that’s some ghosts! Some very tiny ghosts”.
Valerie snorts and laughs, muttering, “oh no”, into her hand. Since she obviously figured out that Danny wasn’t going to even attempt at being a ‘normal fucking teacher’. Most of the class snickers and starts laughing after a bit, that or eyeballing the ectoplasm splatter/ghost-filled jar. Danny waving the board and everything off limply, “I ecto-proofed the whiteboard already so don’t bother calling the ecto-hazard line”, then making a point to sound ominous and mildly threatening, “they won’t come”. Which absolutely gets him more laughs and a couple shivers, seeing as he could actually legit pull off scary if he felt like it. Perks of being a ghost and ridiculously highly combative and confrontational.
Danny absolutely hands the syllabus paper stack to Dash to hand out, largely as payback for the name-calling. “So since this year this class is only an optional elective, being a trial run and all that, lets do the whole introduce-yourselves-even-though-I-already-know-who-you-all-are thing with why you took this class and, for funsies, who’s your favourite ghost”. Dash does give him a dirty look, which Danny smirks over, but what follows is people saying their names and giving reasons and shit.
Danny decides to smear around the whiteboard ectoplasm to write down ghost names and tally up how many people say that ghost. Is it mostly Phantom? Yes; even Val votes for him but that’s understandable since she actually got along with Phantom, for the most part, these days. Somehow the Box Ghost earns the second most tallies, Ember’s in third not all that surprising, and two people actually threw a vote Johnny’s way. As for why people took the class?
Well Valerie claims she wants to know more about ghosts and leaves it at that, earning some eye-rolls from the class seeing as everyone knew how she felt about the spookies. Dash took it because a Fenton was teaching, which is information Danny doesn’t know what to do with; what the fuck does that mean? And everyone else? To learn about ghosts (sure), for self-defence (good reason actually. Practical), better than the other electives (fair and probably accurate), easy grade (or so they think... maybe), because it absolutely was going to be chaotic (hundred percent yes). Danny’s content and smirking just a little bit.
Danny sits on the corner of his desk -why not?- and waves a hand around limply, “alright, semi-proper introduction of myself. I’m sure pretty much all of you are damn well aware of FentonWorks and it being basically the only ecto-tech company -besides the ever overpriced Dalvco- and that it is responsible for all the shields and ecto-weapons and all that jazz in town. Surprise surprise, I’ve worked on or outright built a lot of that stuff”, sounding incredibly sarcastic, “truly shocking, I know”, earning him a couple snickers/laughs. “Now you might think that since my folks literally invented the stuff and are some of the only published scientists in the field of ecto-ology that they’re more qualified to do this teacher thing, ignoring the fact that they would probably blow the classroom up or accidentally get everyone teleported into the ghost Zone randomly”, pointing at the class, “not an exaggeration”, before continuing properly, “but guess what? They've never actually explored the Zone or sat down and actually talked to a ghost”, putting a hand to his chest, “I, however, have. So yeah, qualified”; and snaps his fingers a bit dramatically.
James mutters, “not sure that actually means qualified”; and he’s not the only one. Expected, seeing as Danny was not actually qualified to be a teacher obviously.
Danny sticks up a finger, “I have no teacher qualifications though, but Lance decided he just does not care”, getting up and walking to the board, moving around the ectoplasm, “and as for my fav ghostie, you’ve never heard of them”, and scrawls out ‘ClockWork’ on the list of favourite ghosts. Turning back to the class, “ClockWork’s existence is mildly forbidden knowledge, so have fun with-”, Haley shrieking interrupts and most of the class going wide-eyed gets him to turn around and see the very well done drawing of ClockWork looking right at Danny with a glare, there is an ‘I’m flattered, Daniel’ written under it though so... Danny can’t help but bend over wheezing a little, “oh I so saw that coming!”, shaking his head and chuckling, “or something similar at least”. Okay he expected to get smacked over the head with an invisible staff out of nowhere, not a passive-aggressive yet still somehow fond drawing. Straightening up and turning back to the class while whipping at his eye, “y’all signed up for this, remember that”.
Danny sits down and starts going over the syllabus, because that’s what he’s supposed to do, but Jesse interrupts him halfway through, “are we just ignoring everything that just happened with the magic drawing?”. Danny looking at him and smirking, “a good rule of thumb in life is when the literal god of time chastises you, you move on immediately. Just good life advice if you want to keep doing the whole living thing”. Expectedly that gets him a lot of staring. Danny rolls his wrist around, “that Vortex ghost is also a god by the by. Same with UnderGrowth. Pandora’s a minor god technically”, tilting his head, “then there’s the whole mess of Pariah who’s pretty much just a way worse version of Hades”, smirking, “Amity’s seen some big names in the ghost world”.
“What the fuck”.
Danny just snickers at that while Valerie puts her head in her hands and shakes it.
Surprisingly the rest of the class is seemingly going normally, Lancer did stick his head in and eyeball the whiteboard which Danny gave him a ‘what did you expect from me? Honestly’ smirk for, and surprisingly no one decided to ask Danny how the actual fuck he knew the time god if they even believed him on that anyway. But maybe five minutes before class is over, Danny’s ghost sense goes off, because of fucking course, but it just feels like Boxy. So Danny, smirking, checks his phone to use as some kind of excuse for how he knows the Box Ghost’s here, gets up and goes to the window, opening it up, sticking his head out, and shouting, “HEY BOXY!”. That, of course, gets the ghost's attention immediately, who does his scary fingers thing, “YOU DARE DRAW THE ATTENTION OF THE MOST FEARSOME GHOST IN EXISTENCE! THE BOX GHOST!”. Danny just rolls his eyes, points towards the whiteboard in the classroom and shouts back, “WE DID A POLL! YOU'RE THE SECOND MOST FAVOURITE GHOST!”. The Box Ghost stares at him for a bit, goes a little wide-eyed, floats towards the ground, and starts crying. Danny pulls his head back in while cackling, looking back to the class, “congrats, we’ve just made the Box Ghost cry”; which absolutely makes everyone start laughing as the bell goes off. Danny smirking more, “I feel very accomplished with myself”.
Surprisingly most of his freaking students actually wave him goodbye, which is weird as heck but also kinda cool, Dash just scowls at him though; get fucked dick-weed. Val stays behind a bit, expected, and sits on the corner of his desk, “so this is really happening, huh?”.
“Yup. Guess so”, leaning back in his chair a little, “you gonna turn this into a debate club or?”, chuckling, “though I doubt you’ll actually learn a whole lot”. She nods at that, “I could probably teach this myself”, grumbling, “if I wasn’t still stuck as a student”, sighing, “I’m not gonna argue in class though, I know you’re ghost friendly, Danny, that’s gonna show obviously”, shrugging and smirking a little, “I just might need a little bit more proof before I take your word on something”.
“Just for that I’m going to bring in Cujo next class”.
“You wouldn’t”.
Danny smirks, “try me. He’ll really liven up the lesson on classifications of ghost types. Truly he is one of the best examples of an animal ghost”. She sounds downright offended, “then bring in a freaking ectopuss! Not the life-ruining dog!”.
“But everyone loves dogs, Val”, Danny smirks, “besides, ectopusses aren’t proper animal ghosts, they’re a type of blob ghost”. She grumbles a bit incoherently before muttering, “dick”, and leaving for her next class; leaving Danny chuckling.
(And Valerie absolutely spent the next day’s class glaring bloody murder at a tiny green puppy, inspiring slight fear and concern in her classmates; Danny just looked progressively more smug which only made his students more concerned).
-
Before Danny actually managed to leave the school, since he didn’t actually have to be there outside of his one class though something tells him that if the ecto-ology trial run works out then he’ll be stuck ‘teaching’ it two or three times a day. Ugh but also so much potential chaos. Anyway, Lancer catches up to him, sounding just slightly out of breath, “your first teaching experience go well, Daniel?”.
Danny smirks, “brought a ghost to tears, only made one mild ecto-hazard, and possibly annoyed a few thousand ghost cops; so good day actually”. Lancer stares at him a little, “should I be concerned”. Reasonable question.
“Maybe”, Danny chuckles, “to be fair, me teaching people about ghosts was absolutely going to piss off the eyeballs, said eyeballs are some ghost cops, it’s complicated”, chuckling a little though sounding/being a bit serious, “technically I really am the best choice for this, I know more than my folks or the G.I.W. do by miles”, smiling softly and a bit pitying a little, “and I know somethings that the living aren’t exactly supposed to”.
Lancer eyes him and shakes his head slightly, “I know, Daniel. I know”. Danny absolutely quirks an eyebrow at that because what the Hell does Lancer mean by that? So he just gives a simple, “oh?”, for a response; weak as shit but it’ll have to do. Lancer nods, “I’m not as oblivious as I let the students think, so yes I know. Though try to keep your, ghost activities let’s say, outside of the classroom? Don’t bring students into your spat with ghost cops”.
Danny actually coughs, again what the fuck. Shaking his head a little bug-eyed, “again, you scare me, Lance”, shaking his head again, “though no, their problem with me is the fact that I exist, so”, and shrugs; Danny is still a little goddamn thrown here. Lancer sighs, “I guess I should have expected that. And I’ll admit to having some questions about that, but-”, putting a hand on Danny’s shoulder, “-I don’t truly need an answer there”. Danny, for a lack of knowing what else to do, finger guns; Lancer looks less than impressed.
Chapter 3: Ghosts In The Know
It takes a total of three days for a ghost to actually show up during Danny’s designated class time -the Box Ghost and ClockWork’s sudden appearances don’t count- and while Danny’s fairly certain Lancer at least has some kind of guess about the whole Phantom thing Danny’s not going to just go ghost in goddamn class; that would have been dumb when he was a student and it would only be dumber to do as a freaking teacher. At least as a student he didn’t have a class worth of people somewhat staring at him. But hey at least he had just been facing the whiteboard when his breath decided to be all icy fog, that was something; him watching it frost up the board for a couple of seconds and attempting to verbally steamroll right over the random sudden pause in his speaking. He also absolutely can hear Val’s scanner do its little proximity warning beep.
“-but we’re not talking about Cores today even if that’s unique to proper ghosts, so not getting into that right now”. Turning around and putting down the marker, seeing as he can’t exactly just let Skulker go running around. “Now I’ll be right back”, he almost says ‘bathroom’ but as a teacher he doesn’t need to do that shit anymore, he doesn’t have to justify himself to fucking nobody. But just before he gets to the door he points at Val, who’s mouth is slightly open and is definitely absolutely about to ask if she can go, so he smirks, “and no. You can’t”. She looks so confused and a bit freaked out that he can’t help laughing. He does catch James mutter, “did he just pull his bathroom thing? Seriously?”; which just makes Danny laugh to himself even more as he ducks off around a corner to transform.
He doesn’t have to go very far seeing as Skulker was practically directly outside of the area where his classroom was, looking supremely confused and quirking a robotic eyebrow with his arms crossed at Danny, “really, whelp?”. Danny flips him off and shoots him one in the face pretty well immediately, which starts off their standard combat. Skulker shooting off a rocket with a snide and definitely meant to be insulting comment of, “never would have pegged you for teaching or for telling humans our secrets”.
Danny near shouting back with a snort, “secrets my ass! Shove a floppy disk in it!”. That very predictably gets him a more well-aimed rocket to the face.
-
Meanwhile, in the classroom, Jesse glances around, “should we even be surprised?”.
“No but since he’s, you know, the teacher, I’m pretty sure he shouldn’t be playing hooky or whatever”.
Valerie snorts, “oh as if Lancer didn’t know what he was getting into here. Besides Danny was never going to be a normal anything”. Dash smirks and laughs meanly, “no shit, damn freak”. Valerie absolutely throws an eraser at him for that.
“I’m more curious how he predicted Valerie pulling her own bathroom thing”.
“Obvious answer there, he does it so he knows it”.
“Damn, got a point”.
Valerie grumbles and crosses her arms, “and here I thought he’d be totally cool with that”. Emilie laughing, “yeah you’d think, especially if he was going to keep doing it”. Todd pushes himself to stand up with a smirk, “Well I vote we go through his desk, this is Danny after all”; more than a few people look curious, some look cautious though.
Valerie blinking, before smirking and laughing to herself, “yes, go right ahead, do that, see what happens”. That earns even more cautious looks. Valerie knew Danny, had been in his house and room, she knew exactly what kind of state those two places were in. His desk drawers were absolutely boobytrapped. Todd, however, doesn’t give a shit, and just shrugs while moving up to said desk.
Valerie isn’t even slightly surprised when a bunch of snakes-in-a-can pop out of the very first drawer Todd opens, they’re all green because of course they are. Todd mutters a slightly startled, “fuck”, and kicks one of the snakes.
“HA! Suck it, Todd”.
James shakes his head, eyeing the green fake snakes, “I have a feeling that everything in this class is going to be ghost-themed”. Valerie rolls her eyes, “obviously, have you somehow missed the ghost-themed clothing? Or the fact that Danny is, and has always been, a damn pun machine?”. Over half the class groans or chuckles. Valerie rolling her hand and leaning back, “pretty sure he was wearing a pair of Sam’s platforms today, the ones with little plastic green ghosts shaking around inside”. Dash mutters almost absently, “huh, so that’s why he seems taller today”.
“Dash... why are you noticing his freaking height”.
“Shut up, Jesse. I can’t physically shove him in lockers anymore but I sure as shit can imagine it”.
Valerie sighs very loudly at that, but at least Dash wasn’t quite stupid enough to try bullying a teacher. Even if that teacher was Danny and the same age as him. Which, talk about wild. She honestly did not believe Danny for a second when he said he would be teaching at CasperHigh and yet here he was. Teaching. It was definitely weird, but at least nothing had blown up yet. Hopefully Phantom went and dealt with Skulker though, she’d think Danny would be one who let people leave whenever, guess not. Her scowling a little over that. Todd opening up another drawer and a black and white ghost popping their head out jerks her right out of her head though. Todd falling on his ass and scrambling back, “holy shit! What the fuck!”.
James blinks and wheezes, standing up like basically everyone else, “Danny had a whole ass ghost in his desk, what?!?”. Said ghost floats up, looks around, and waves; while the entire class just stands there, many with ecto-pistols drawn at this point.
“I’m picking up a lot of hostility here, busters”.
Todd grumbles, “you have got to be shitting me”. The ghost tilts their head, “I don’t think Phantom would like that very much. Totally not tubular”. Valerie facepalms and lowers her small blaster, “you’re that old ghost that haunts one of Danny’s old lockers, aren’t you”. The ghost gives her a thumbs up, “that’s the dealio!”.
“... and why were you just in his desk drawer?”.
The ghost crosses their skinny arms and huffs, “when I picked up on the Ha-Danny being here again I had to make sure that buster wasn’t up to his bully ways again”. Dash actually burst out laughing and drops back into his seat at that, “Fenton?!? A bully?!? Man what are you smoking?!?”; which the ghost gives him a very strange look for.
“Poindexter, by the Ancients, how many times do I have to tell you that I wasn’t being a bully, I was getting back at one. Geez”. The entire class goes still and snaps their heads around to Danny, who’s just casually walking in. Dash muttering, “I knew that twerp was the one screwing with me”.
Poindexter rolls his eyes, “like I believe that, buster. Someone would have to be a real dummy to do that to you”. Danny very obviously glares at the ghost, “I said that Dash is a bully, not that he’s smart”. Dash scowls very audibly, “I’ll make you eat those words, Fentit”. Danny instantly holds up a pink detention slip and smirks, while Dash very obviously holds back shouting expletives at him. The ghost just looks confused. Danny turning to the ghost, having to look up a little as he takes his seat, “like I said, not smart”. Dash just scowls while Danny continues speaking but while looking at the class instead of the ghost, “so where were we?”.
Amber blinks, “are we just ignoring the ghost that popped out of your desk?”; while everyone starts sitting back down slowly.
Danny quirking an eyebrow at the ghost, “why, man?”. While Amber tosses up her hands and sits back down too.
“I was looking for anything suspicious. Never know with you”.
Emilie chuckles to herself, “I like how ghosts apparently find him as suspicious as people do”. Earning her a few nods.
Dash rolls his eyes, “oh like what, ghost-themed pencils? A change of underwear in case his own class scares him?”. Danny starting to hold up another pink slip shuts the jock up real quick. Poindexter looks genuinely surprised and turns to Danny, “hold the phone, you sayin’ that rumour that everyone thinks you’re afraid of ghosts is actually the real deal???”. Danny just sighs, “it was a very good and effective way out of my folks trying to make a hunter of me”. While practically half the class shouts, “THAT WAS FAKE!”, including one stunned Dash who had thought he was being so smart and cruel by taking full advantage of Danny’s ‘fear’.
Danny chuckles and looks around, “yup. Sorry not sorry”. Lancer picks that very moment to stick his head in, looking at the ghost then Danny, “Daniel...”.
Danny sighs and waves him off, “I know, it’s just Poindexter though. He’s here somewhere in the school almost every day and has been for, like, decades. Longer than I’ve been alive at least. He’s just seldom visible. Here’s his haunt”. Lancer sighs, “very well”, and just leaves; clearly not wanting to deal with all of that.
James blinks, “so, uh, is he going to stay or? And how the heck did you, but not the school, know about him?”. Poindexter huffs, crosses his arms, and seemingly vanishes; Danny, however, watches the transparent teen ghost just sort of float to the back of the class while making ‘I’ve got my eyes on you’ finger motions at Danny. Danny rolling his eyes while responding, “maybe, maybe not. And you know that locker that’s rumoured to be haunted that I was randomly assigned to for a while? Yeah that’s totally true. We’ll talk about lair cores later. There was also a mild body-swapping incident”.
“Excuse me?”.
Danny points at James, “I have been through some shit, man. Body swapping with a ghost was less weird and more annoying though”. The entire class just stares at him which he takes as a chance to get back to the lesson plan. “So as I was saying...”.
-
Valerie winds up approaching him after the bell, “you know one of these days I’m going to figure out what the Zone that nickname that ghosts have for you is”. Danny quirks an eyebrow, because of course Poindexter probably nearly called him ‘the halfa’ since that’s what Poindexter literally always called him. Smirking at her, “I don’t doubt that, Val. Just like someday you’ll be fully honest about your, ahem, extracurricular activities”, and chuckles while she rolls her eyes. Her muttering, “oh whatever. Anyway, wanna go to a movie after school or are you too busy with teacher duties”.
Danny huffs, “as if. I only do one class you know, so sure why not”. Lancer picks that moment to stick his head in again, “actually you need to finalise that first assignment, also you do realise that as a teacher you are supposed to watch your language?”.
Danny gives an awkward, “uuuuhhhhh”, before scrunching up his face in a pout, leaning back in his chair dramatically, and whining loudly while Val laughs at him, “do I haaaaavvvvveeee toooooo?”. Lancer’s sigh is a pained one.
(Danny absolutely starts out the next class with, “so one of you s̴͜͝h̴i̶t̡̨͡s snitched on me so prepare for some slight language changes, b͘͘itc͜͝he͢͝ş̛”. Which earned a mixture of confused looks, laughs, and a couple glares at Todd, Dash, and Brittney; who were the most likely suspects. And really no one was actually surprised in the slightest that Danny seemingly knew GhostSpeak, it just tracked honestly).
---
Was Danny looking forward to this first assignment thingy? Haha fuck no. He’s just going to assume marking is Hell but he already established that he wasn’t the kind of sick freak that makes the very first assignment the one required oral presentation or some shitty quiz; and fine he already put down ‘research assignment on an unusual ghost theory you have’ in the syllabus but what the actual crap was he supposed to do for the guild lines of this to avoid getting the kind of ridiculous shit that he himself would write. Because as funny as getting twenty-odd papers about Plasmius’s clear attempts at making up for his fragile masculinity or about Phantom’s fashion choices would be, Danny’d rather not. Well he could just be like: y’all can either do all your papers on Phantom or none, vote now. At least then he would either be prepared to read a bunch of wild shit about himself or go in knowing he won’t have to read any about himself.
Rolling over in bed and sighing, “well I guess I could just limited the second option to known frequently seen ghosts?”, blinking, “oh and none can be on Boxy because I see too much of that problem man as it is”. Speaking of problems, he also has to figure out how he’s going to spend an hour getting stared at by most of his students (fuck that was still super weird) sans an entire hand; because sure the rest of his arm will have reformed by noon, but the hand will still an issue. Too bad he didn’t manage to find the chopped-off limb before it dissipated into free-floating ectoplasm. While he does appreciate that no one’s going to just stumble across his severed limb, getting it back would have been way better. Eh fuck it, super long sleeves day it is, Jazz did attempt at dark humour once and gifted him a straightjacket so what the heck time to look like a crazy person the legit way.
Of course it’s currently three am so he is not getting dressed right now, not a chance.
-
Does he get to fall back asleep and actually stay asleep till eleven or so? No, when does he ever? Fuck ghosts and their lack of caring about his shitty sleep schedule. It’s now five am, his ghost sense has got him mostly shivering awake, and his blankets don’t even qualify as actually still on his bed. Him letting himself slump onto the floor while transforming and starting to float up in the air before only slightly lazily flying out his window. If anyone asks about his eye-bags, he bought them off the black market. Does that make sense? Not really no. Does he care? Also no.
Him floating up on Ember smashing up a street sign with her guitar, pinching his nose while otherwise hanging limply in the air, “Ember, why?”. He’s too tired for this shit, Ancients.
“Anarchy”. She hits the sign again.
Danny sighs, “well could you go be ‘anarchy’ when said anarchy doesn’t result in my sleep becoming anarchy too? I really don’t feel like having the R.E.M. sleep government centres of my brain overthrown today”. That actually gets her to pause and look up at him, smirking and snickering after a bit, “you do look like shit”, then very pointedly looking to his half reformed arm; hey at least he had a proper elbow again! Shove a dick in it, goddamn. He absolutely flips her off before shooting her guitar, “go home, Ember. I have class”.
She gives him a pitying look like an absolute ass, “oh did they not let you graduate from that indoctrinating soul-crushing suffering?”, then grinning almost manically, “let’s burn it down!”.
“Jesus Ancients no, I work there”.
“Oh so you’ve become a cog in the machine for the man”.
Danny sighs very loudly, “okay what capitalist crawled up your ass and died, fuck. And if anything my mere presence is causing chaos”, chuckling hollowly, “one of the other teachers drank my coffee accidentally and was absolutely losing their beans half the day. And only one person’s gotten a mild case of ecto-poisoning”, sighing, “Ancients, Todd’s a dumbass. I mean-”, gesturing vaguely with his intact hand, “-I knew that, but next time he wants to ‘prove he can bend steel’ with a bar of ectoplasm I’m just going to let him break his arm and get full-blown contamination”.
Ember shakes her head, “I say let him. And so you are teaching humans ghost stuff”. Danny just shrugs kinda noncommittally at that. She smirks, “teaching death is more punk rock I guess, babypop”, while attempting to give him a boot kick to the face since she apparently couldn’t leave without causing him some level of bodily harm. He, of course, grabs her ankle and just flips her over him. Hand-to-hand combat was not her strong suit. She does successfully get him one with a laser drumstick though. Which hooray for a burnt hip. Fun. At least he knows she’ll just head back to her lair now, no real need for the capture and release thing; most ghosts pretty firmly decided they’d rather just go home after a Phantom ass beat down than getting sucked into the thermos, so they left immediately. Others were fine to just leave to their business. Some were true bad time problems. And then there was the Box Ghost... fucking moron. Ancients he is going the fuck back to bed.
-
Annnnnndddd now he’s late. Fuck. It’s a little past noon. FUCK. He sighs very loudly while practically scrambling out of bed, getting tangled in the sheets, phasing through the sheets when he remembers he can do shit like that, grabbing random ass shit from his closet and phasing that on. Quick mirror check... and yup, he looks like a dumbass and his sweaters backwards. At least he actually grabbed a sweater, he, however, did not grab pants. But fuck it, shorts it is. Shorts that are shorter on one side than the other because they got burnt and said burn marks are super noticeable on the neon green fabric.
He’s hopping out his window when he tries to grab the frame and just face-plants instead because, fuck, right, no goddamn hand dumbass. Quickly scrambling back and phasing off his sweater while also tripping backwards over the first aid kit he left haphazardly on the floor like a complete lazy idiot. Landing on his floor with an oof and sighing very loudly, just laying there half-naked for a couple of seconds, “why me?”. When he does get up he successfully grabs that straightjacket and makes it out the window, flying off to school while pulling it on.
Danny doesn’t even bother with walking into school, just smacks into the side of the building below the window to his classroom -honestly him having his own classroom still feels slightly surreal but he’s kinda used to it at this point. At least a little anyways- and a quick glance around plus transforming back human and visible and he knows he’s good, his singular hand holding onto the windowsill. Is he cheating by still defying gravity a little? Yes. But one Danny Fenton absolutely does not feel like falling to the ground and making an ass of himself yet again today. Huffing he lifts himself up, head-butts open the window -which can only open both ways because it’s an added safety feature in case a student got phased outside and was trying to get back inside through a closed window. His folks really did think of everything. Well almost everything- and scrambles in while his class freaks out a little. A couple fellow teens even scream/shriek and Ashley -who sits near the windows- actually fell out of her desk. Danny doesn’t even need to look up to hear Val’s extremely audible sigh though.
“What the fuck, Fenton?”.
“Danny!?!”.
“What the Hell?!?”.
“FUCK! Oh Zone thank everything, I thought he was a ghost for a second”.
“You’re late”.
“We’re on the second story, how the Hell did you get up here? And wait, did you head butt a window?? WHY ARE YOU WEARING A STRAIGHTJACKET??
“What????”.
“It’s a look though...”.
“Okay Danny being late isn’t all that weird, but you’d think... Like this is exactly why this class is after noon”.
“Is there a reason your top half and bottom half look like they came from two totally different fashion lines?”.
“Why couldn’t you have been five minutes later? We could have left then”.
“Are you okay?”.
“Danny.... what did you do?”.
“Wait, were you the thump on the wall just now?”.
Danny shuffles to stand up straight and brushes himself off with the long floppy arm-sleeves of the straightjacket, waltzing to the front of the classroom. Fuck he forgot his backpack. Damn. Guess he’ll just have to talk about the assignment instead of handing out the sheet things. Oh well. Turning to the class and gesturing them to shut up by waving his hand around which really just makes the sleeve flap around ridiculously.
Pretty much the entire class bursts out laughing at him after a couple seconds of silence.
Danny sighing, “okay okay, yes I’m late, but class or whatever begins now. Also y’all need to vote on whether your research c̷͝r͟a͘p҉͜ will all be on Phantom or none will be on Phantom. It’s all or nothing, you mǫ͡t̨͘h̴̛e͠r̷͞f̸u̴c̕k̨e͠r͢s̴”. That earns both groans and slight laughs, eh Danny’s cool with that.
Val doesn’t even give him a chance to ask for hand voting when she blinks down at his feet, “Danny... how did you even manage that???”. Danny quirking an eyebrow, “huh?”, then looking down... looking down at his laced-up socks. Fucking damnit. He thought he had phased on shoes, even laced them up; guess he just phased random shoelaces tying around threw his goddamn socks and laced up the socks. Danny sighs and slumps a little, “well okay then, guess today’s a no shoes kinda day”, and sighs again before looking up and shrugging at Val, who huffs disbelievingly at him. Fair.
Todd jerks up his hand, “can we go shoeless too then? Otherwise, unfair”. Danny sighs and waves him off, “go nuts, f̵̧͢uc̴̨ķ̴̕ if I care today”. That earns him a round of blinking and snickering; some people do actually take him up on his apathy and take off their shoes. Dash snapping, “not that I care, but what the Hell happened to you?”. Danny smirks at him, “I decide your grade so you kinda have to care”, and sticks his tongue out him like a petulant brat purely because he can. “I got hit in the head by an ectoplasmicly infused guitar at five am and didn’t regain consciousness till-”, glancing at the clock, “-however many minutes ago”.
Jesse blinks, “I can’t tell if that’s a creative lie... or not”. Danny finger guns before turning to the board and scribbling on it, “alright, voting hand time. Left for no Phantom, right for all Phantom...”.
Annnnnnnd, glancing around at the hands, looks like he’s receiving twenty-odd papers on himself. Wonderful. Whelp hopefully this’ll at least be interesting and mildly creative. Danny nodding with his hand and stump wrist on his hips at the board then turning around to face everyone with a huff, “alright then, now if anyone sends their research to the G.I.W. you automatically fail. I don’t want them getting any more funny ideas and having Phantom around is at least marginally a good thing. Honestly”. Earning him some snickers.
“Just marginally? He’s better than your parents”.
Danny glares at Todd, “hush, y͜ou͟҉ ̵s͞a̸l̴ţ͠y͘̕ ̢w̡͞et̷͡ ̡͠n͟͟ơ̢͝o͏d̡҉le”. Putting his intact hand back on his hips, “my folks aside, assignments. It’s on the syllabus and really you already know what to do so yeah. I’ll give you guys the papers for it tomorrow because, like my shoes apparently, I forgot them”. More than one teen gives him a really weird look and James mutters, “honestly? I think I prefer this, uh, ‘teaching’ style? He’s just so done”.
“More like one of us”.
“He is literally my age, he is one of us”.
“Oh yeah”.
Danny glances up at the ceiling, sighs, and talks slightly louder than necessary, “as for actual lesson plans, more ghost history slash lore, yay-”.
“At least he didn’t forget where he left off”.
Danny points at Todd, because come on man, seriously, “I will steal all your number two pencils, Todd”. James blinking, “why does that work as a legit threat?”. Danny points at him, “because then the scantrons will f̵̨̢u̵c̨͜͡k̶̵ up so he can’t take tests and he’ll have to ask the teacher for one embarrassing himself because no fellow teen would give him theirs because h͘e ̸s̨͢u̸̧̡c̷̡ks̕͠”.
“The fact that that is even slightly thought out and remotely realistic is actually worse”.
Dash actually looks legit slightly concerned and weirded out. Maybe he finally realised Danny’s kinda a whole ass nightmare when he feels like it. That’s without adding in the whole half-ghost clusterfuck he’s got going on.
-
Danny gets about halfway through his class when Charles just straight up opens the door. Danny should booby trap that sometime. “Okay I can’t believe I’m asking you this but tell me you have a spare stapler... what am I looking at here?”.
Danny had been gesturing a bit exaggeratedly at the whiteboard that had a doodle of a couple of Ancients on it, him dropping his arms and turning to the science teacher, “what, in any world, would make you think I have a spare of anything other than coffee, guns, thermoses, and maybe food; though the last one may or may not be inedible. Also, today was a crazy person day so yes this is, in fact, a straightjacket”. The fellow teacher smirks, “get that from the asylum you stayed at?”. Danny rolls his eyes, “oh har har, dickweed”, and chuckles; Charles was one of the teachers he got on better with even if the guy had zero sense of boundaries and sticks his nose in just about anything he found interesting, and Danny was basically a walking ball of interesting. Danny snaps his fingers and turns to the class, “oh I have actually been to an asylum before though”.
Ashley coughs, “Danny, you could make a living off of surprising people with random life bits. Get a tv show”.
Danny’s ghost sense goes off at the exact moment that an echoing voice says, “oh I quite agree”, from the direction of the window.
Charles goes wide-eyed and blurts out, “wellsinceyouclearlydon’thaveastaplerI’mgoingtogofindonebye”, and promptly shuts the door with a slam. Danny, meanwhile, snaps his head to the window and watches the Ghost Writer cross his legs while floating a bit above the windowsill. Danny blinks, “what and why”, and sounding stern enough to make a couple students jump/jerk in their seats. Valerie, Emilie, and a few others have weapons drawn already; expected and good really. The Ghost Writer rolls his eyes faintly and tosses his scarf over one shoulder dramatically while Danny slowly scoots over to his desk, not that the Ghost Writer seems to care, pursing his lips at Danny, “curious. Here I thought you had a hatred for literature and education”.
Danny rolls his eyes harshly, “no. Just Christmas”, pooping open one of the drawers. The class just watching tensely in the background.
“Christmas books”.
Danny rolls his eyes again, “Ancients fuck, man”, smirking a little, “here have some-”, jerking up an orange -that he, yes, had in his desk purely to spite this very specific ghost even though the Ghost Writer basically never came to the Mortal Realm- and stabbing it with his nails to make its juices leak down his hand/arm and makes the room smell noticeably citrusy, “-vitamin C for cannonball so you can shoot on outta here”. Valerie side-eyes Danny with a slightly dumbfounded look before dropping her arms, and her gun, down and turning to him, “seriously?”. Danny just shrugs loosely and bites a chunk out of the orange earning a lot of disgusted looks. Fair, he hadn’t exactly peeled off the skin or anything. But hey, the Ghost Writer looks thoroughly and deeply offended; so that’s a point for Danny.
The Ghost Writer audibly sighs, pushes up his glasses, and closes his eyes for a second before speaking up, “as I’m sure you know, The GhostWriters Manor has a fairly high and active patronage”, glaring a little, “regardless of men of a certain sort being unwelcome“.
Brittney leans over to Ashley, who’s shaking and a little stiff, “oooo I wonder what the heck Danny did. Boy’s banned from a library”. Dash scoffs weakly and a little wide-eyed, “o-oh please, getting banned from a library is, ah, is weak sauce”. Todd smirking at the jock, “smooooth”; and gets flipped off for the comment.
Danny shrugs and bites the orange with emphasis, speaking through a mouthful, “‘ell maye searaint ‘en ould ave ettr tases”, and swallows harshly. The Ghost Writer scowls. Danny quirking an eyebrow after a bit, “soooo?”. Making the ghost shake his head and mutter, “I truly can’t believe this”, then looking to Danny, “as a man of the written word there is a level of... respect, even begrudging respect, for those that teach it”, digging into his satchel and pulling out a card, “you may have a card again”; the Ghost Writer sounds almost physically pained to be saying that. Which of course means Danny absolutely has to bug the guy and the windows being phase-proof gives Danny ample time to do so.
Danny smirks, “and here I thought I was never even granted one in the first place”, and dramatically puts a hand to his chest, sounding overly sarcastic, “iMaGiNe HoW bLeSsEd I mUsT fEeL tO bE rEcEiViNg SuCh A tRuLy SpLeNdId GiFt SuCh As ThIs”, sauntering over in the most fruity and dramatic way he possibly can, popping open the window seductively, and snatching away the card, “ThAnKs BaBe”, and winks like an absolute ass.
Emilie collapses to the floor and starts wheeze laughing.
The Ghost Writer jerks away from him, scowls, and adjusts his glasses while trying to compose himself. Huffing a little, “consider the libraries resources yours, do be at least slightly decent and use them educationally”, the vanishing from sight; Danny following the flying off transparent ghost with his eyes before pulling his front half back into his classroom fully. Huh. Will he actually take up the ghosts offer? Might actually be a good idea also, fuck the gov he now has even more access to information they could only ever salivate over in dreamland.
Turning back to the class, “whelp, that happened”, humming and tilting his head, “too bad I definitely can’t get approval for an impromptu field trip to a ghost library”.
Valerie throws up her hands, slumps back into her desk, shoves her gun back into her bag, and glares at Danny. Todd bursts out laughing while Jesse blinks, “did that just happen?”. Dash screws up his face a little, “the Hell you little wimp?”. Danny’s just going to assume the guy never realised that Danny kinda had a pair of brass balls.
Danny smirks at the class, smacking the whiteboard, “I’m tougher than you, deal with it or eat a pink slip. Now class is basically over so I’m not even going to bother continuing with this, but in case any of y’all are wondering The Ghost Writer gains power from the influence, importance, and popularity of any form of writing that was written by a ghostwriter or anonymously. Totally in charge of basically the biggest library in the Zone, which yes I was banned from apparently due to blowing up a book”. Todd scoffs at that and rolls his eyes, clearly trying to seem unimpressed.
Ashley sticks up a hand and speaks anyway, “did you really not know you were banned?”. Danny waves her off with his handless arm, okay he’s got a palm again but stilll, “do you know just how many places have banned me or my entire family”, tilting his head, “or just my dad at least”, which earns him some chucking before the bell goes off and he starts shooing everyone out loosely. Emilie goes right up to his desk though, grinning almost meanly, “tell me you are going to bring ghost books”. Valerie goes wide-eyed a little and glares at the back of Emilie’s head, then at Danny when he smirks and shrugs, “oh I don’t see why not, heck let’s make that the reading requirement. Read a book written by ghosts”. Val makes a series of faces, likely torn between curiosity and being completely done with his general shit. Emile smirks and fist bumps before leaving.
Danny quirking an eyebrow at Valerie getting her to finally speak up, “you are unbelievable, Danny”, shaking her head and walking closer, “so about this assignment thing-”.
Danny groans dramatically, “oh Ancients, way to make me feel like a teacher”. She smacks him over the head for that, “better?”. Danny just smirks and nods curtly, giving a cheery, “yup”. Valerie rolls her eyes, “anyway, I know it’s been decided everyone’s doing Phantom-”, rolling her eyes a little, “-but could I maybe do mine on the other Phantom”, and stares at him.
Oh she is so totally trying to gauge if he knows shit, not that that was remotely subtle. Eyeing her a little, “if you don’t save that kind of subject to your computer then sure, I guess I didn’t specify Danny with a y Phantom. But-”, squinting just a little, “-if, say, the G.I.W. manage to hack things and find out some things that might be dangerous”. Valerie blinks before shaking her head in disbelief, “how the Zone”, sighing, “I’m pretty good with tech these days, but yeah okay”, and gives him a bit of a weird look before rushing off at the warning bell.
---
Does Danny decide to take up the Ghost Writers offer? Yes, yes he does. Barging in and walking around like he owns the place, the Ghost Writer blatantly massaging his temples while Danny walks up to the guys little counter thingy, “so got any twelve odd copies of the same fiction book? That a bunch of teens who may or may not wreck them can have? Also could totally use some lore and historical books, you know, for reasons”.
The Ghost Writer sighs, pours himself some tea, gets up and nods, “yes, do attempt to see them returned though”.
“I make no promises”.
That gets him another sigh but Danny follows the ghost around anyway. The Ghost Writer winds up getting a bit excited and gives him an honestly excessive amount of books at the end of the day. Danny also learns that apparently it was Ember who was a blabbermouth and told the writing ghost when she was checking out, or something, a musician's after-death memoir. Figures a singer couldn’t keep her mouth shut.
-
The Ghost Writer patting the stack almost affectionately, “a happy book is a read book and I have a lot here, so enjoy”, and gives Danny a ‘come back’ look that’s just slightly threatening which Danny’s just going to assume is because the guy had vaguely forgotten who he’s talking to, that or the Ghost Writer hated him a lot less than he thought. The ghost holding up a finger, “ah yes, since you were proactive and showed at least some genuine care for the craft, here”, and plops a little green writing quill down on the stack. Danny is oddly genuinely touched.
Danny blushing and rubbing his neck a bit, “uh, appreciated?”. This honestly said more than it seemed, sure they clearly were bickering and were not exactly fond of each other but it seemed that the Ghost Writer was yet another once-antagonistic ghost that was now at least somewhat on team Phantom’s side.
“Yes, now if you’re done loitering”, the Ghost Writer makes shooing motions at Danny, “be on your way”. Danny rolls his eyes but does, in fact, leave... with an unnecessary amount of books in tow.
Chapter 4: An Education In Fashion
So apparently someone went and threw a little complaint about Danny’s straightjacket stunt, him wearing a near-floor-length parka the next day with shorts probably didn’t help though, and now Danny’s at the mall for reasons other than having fun or fighting some ghost. How does Danny know someone complained? Well a little conversation with Lancer that went a little something like this: “Daniel, I know the school’s a little... lax, but we do actually have a dress code. Which again, you are supposed to actually be marginally following unless it’s for safety reasons”. Which he had of course responded to with, “technically a straightjacket is a restraining device sooooo...”, which got him glared at. In short, Danny now had to buy new clothing. New clothing meant for teaching, which was weird as fuck.
Was he doing this alone? Zone no! He had absolutely recruited Sam and Tuck to wander around with him. Which, speaking of...
“Sup, dude!”.
Danny grins to himself before turning to his friends, “hey, Tuck man”, looking to Sam and nodding, “look at you slumming it like a mall goth”. Sam rolls her eyes at him and flips him off aggressively. Tuck smacks his arm, “more like look at you actually buying clothing new instead of digging through used stores for cheap shit. What? Did Casperhigh finally develop standards?”, and smirks.
Sam scowls at the techno-geek, “it’s better that he doesn’t support corporate-run stores and name brand garbage. What with all the slave labour, animal abuse, and terrible worker treatment”. Danny looks down very pointedly at her plaid T.U.K creepers that are 100% not bought from a used store; Sam shoves him, making him stagger a little with a laugh.
Him looking to Tucker, “Lance asked kinda nice-ishly so I’m being nice to the poor man”, smirking, “and maybe this’ll make up for me sorta kinda being responsible for one of the water fountains spewing out black water for a bit there”. Both of them stare at him for a bit before laughing, Tucker patting his back after a bit with a smile, “they hired you, what did they expect”.
Danny sticks his arms out exaggeratedly while the trio start walking, “I keep telling them that!”. Sam shaking her head with a smile, “well trying to appease the man or not, don’t you dare say we’re suit shopping”. Danny screwing his face up at her before gesturing around, “do you see Vladdie around? Because I fucking guarantee you he’d have some kind of sensor or informant for if I so much as stepped into a suit store or tailor, and he’d immediately show up to at least stare at my choices judgingly or offer to pay by flashing around a fancy credit card”. Tucker snorting, “that shouldn’t feel as accurate as it does”; making everyone laugh as they head into one of the ‘teen’ oriented stores. Danny was buying new passable clothing, not high-class ‘adult’ clothing.
The first thing Danny sees is bandanas, MORE FUCKING BANDANAS! Yes, he’s so here for this. Well not this specifically but you know. He grabs a new alien one, one that looks like a white dragons mouth (Tuck muttered something about seeing one just like that at a furry con which really just encouraged Danny to take it but with a shit-eating grin), two ghost ones because of course and if one of them is pink and glittery and has sequins then that’s his business and no one else’s shut up, another that looks like bloody tie-dye, and one that reads ‘SATAN just do it’ with a Nike checkmark; the last one might just get him in trouble but he’s pretty sure just the existence of his class/him already pisses off Christianity so why not go for a home run.
Sam eyes the SATAN bandana as she walks back over from another store, her smirking, “nice. Anyway, shoes”, and shoves a bag at him. Danny quirking an eyebrow while digging inside and chuckling at the white doc martins, snorting, “I thought I was the only one here supposed to be making jokes about my suit while also blatantly hinting at my shit”.
Sam scowls and crosses her arms, “they’re not sneakers and they’re mildly ‘professional’, deal with it”. Danny just chuckles as he pays for his bandanas and the dress-shirt with frowning depressed bananas all over it that Tuck threw at him.
Walking out and looking around before all three share a Look, breaking out in matching grins and speaking in unison, “HotTopic”, and then march off with determination written across their faces; which yes, gets them actively avoided by everyone who knew who they were, which was basically all of Amity these days.
Danny’s got crushed velvet straight cut pants that marginally resemble dress pants -Lancer will so not let him get away with freezer burnt crust pants or grey sweat pants at an assembly or whatever- folded over an arm while he’s shoving around some of the angsty and anime-themed hoodies when Kitty finally decides to approach him. Did he know she was here? Yes, obviously. Be weird and concerning if he didn’t. But she was generally well behaved so he let her be. The biggest risk her and Johnny usually posed was traffic violations. So not his problem.
Anyway, Kitty pokes the pants, quirks an eyebrow and hums a little, “nice choice there, Danny”, humming a little more before grabbing up a hoodie with a plague doctor on it and the words ‘there is no cure only infection, and I’m patient zero’, and shoving it at him, “that’s more your style”.
Danny blinks, “I see you’re trying to cut me with edge now, geez. But technically-”, holding up a finger from his unoccupied hand, “-anything that sheds ectoplasm is ‘contagious’ sooooooo”, and rolls his wrist. She gives him a pouty look, “I don’t know what I expected”.
Sam walks up, eyes the punk ghost before looking to Danny, “you’re getting a dress tailcoat, it says ‘dead boy’ on it”; making Danny wheeze a little and nod with a stupid grin. Kitty smiles a little bit before waving the goth off and starts walking away, “looks like you’ve already got a lady friend clinging around so I’ll be going”. Sam chucks a necklace at her while Danny coughs.
Regardless he gets the sweater because now he kinda has to. The tailcoat too though, because of course.
-
Sam and Tuck already have their supersized order of fries and respective meat and veggie burgers while Danny’s ordering his go-to coffee from his go-to coffee shop, gotta get in that dose of judgemental and mildly fearful staring. But Charles -yes Charles, not Lancer. Why the fuck?- winds up calling and Danny picks up feeling just mildly confused and curious, “uh, why? Also, how?”.
“So Danny, you’re an adult, a perfectly responsible adult-”. That tone is ominous as fuck, damnit. “-a responsible adult who does absolutely know how to safely handle ectoplasm-”. Oh Ancients.
Danny cuts him off, “what did you do to my classroom?”.
“Wh-what? I- nothing. Better question is what and why did you, honestly really, have a bomb-rigged drawer? Also, how does someone... convince a chunk of ectoplasm to get out of your closet and stop eating your ties? I mean, I think it might have eyes but I might also be wrong and it keeps squirming away from the microscope, which why would it do that?”.
Danny gives a pained smile, looks to the barista who’s now holding his venti cup filled with around thirty espresso shots, Danny sighing, “if I give you a fifty, could I convince you to add five more to that?”.
“What?”. Danny absolutely ignores Charles.
The barista looks down at the cup like she’s debating if potential manslaughter due to willful negligence was worth fifty dollars. Apparently yes, yes it is. She adds five more shots and Danny’s down fifty more bucks.
He absolutely catches her squatting down staring vacantly at the fifty muttering, “but was it worth it”, though. He cringes just a little bit; then he gets back to the phone call. Sighing, “blob ghosts typically have eyes, Charles, and the little guy’s eating your ties because you constantly let the things dangle down into your samples and don’t fucking wash them in an ectophobic solution. Gosh”, and rolls his eyes as he sits back down with his friends; who just quirk their eyebrows at him while he keeps talking away, “and of course my desk is bobby-trapped, man. If the G.I.W. activates that they’d be so bothered by the cleanliness breach that they’d just go home”. Tuck chokes and smacks the table comically a couple of times, making loud thumping noises.
Charles actually laughs, “true! So what can you do about the blob, buddy?”.
Danny screws up his face, pulls the phone away from his ear and stares down at it. Glancing to his friends, “a teacher just called me ‘buddy’???”, Danny’s not quite sure how to react to that, them laughing at him doesn’t help. Shaking his head he returns the phone to his ear and gives a cheery, “nope! Enjoy your new pet!”, and hangs up on the guy.
“Wha-”.
Danny starts eating the fries.
Tucker points his second burger at him, “you know...”. Danny pointing right back at him with a fry, “hush you”. He knows he’s a teacher himself alright, geez.
(Charles seemingly took Danny up on that pet comment and actually called FentonWorks for a containment unit and to ask about ‘ghost pet care’, Danny’s mom gave him the phone with a truly dumbfounded expression).
---
Alright, today’s the day. What day? Why the day to get paper assignments for the first goddamn time ever and try not to lose, destroy, contaminate, or otherwise ruin them. He’s fucked. Solidly fucked. But hey, at least it’s also the day to show off his shit fashion choices as well, little ray of sunshine there. Some light in the darkness.
He should probably attempt to win some points with Lancer and wear the dress shirt, honestly. So that’s what he’s gonna do. Depressed banana dress shirt, sequin alien bandana, crushed velvet pants, and what the heck the ‘dead boy’ tailcoat too why not; this boy is getting DRESSED UP today! And fine, yes he looks good based on his mirror's reflection; but his mirror is definitely ecto-contaminated so it might not be entirely trustworthy.
His dad also whistling at him as he heads downstairs for breakfast isn’t trustworthy either, considering the man’s fashion style was less of a ‘style’ and more of a scientific protective mess of orange and the occasional tie. Danny rolls his eyes and waves his dad off, “oh whatever, needed ‘proper attire’”, shrugging loosly, “whatever that means”. Jack beams, “just wear a jumpsuit! That’s always proper!”. Maddie looks away from the microwave she’s nuking some noodles in to glare at him, “not at a reunion, dear”; making Danny chuckle to himself while Jack rubs his neck. She still waves cheerily at Danny as he leaves though so...
-
This is one of those days he actually leaves early enough for a few quick patrol laps around his town, two ectopusses, the Box Ghost (because of course), all followed by him literally tripping into one of Skulker’s traps; hence why he was now peeling a basic ass bear trap -be more creative, tinman- off his leg. At least he had the sense to wipe off the ectoplasm with one of his random shit handkerchiefs before walking to the classroom and loudly dropping said beartrap on his desk in what was probably a slightly terrifying alpha move.
Is he early now? Haha no. At least three people jumped from the sudden loud noise. But fuck, Danny was NOT waiting around for Skulker to show his ass for longer than three minutes. Danny had shit to do, man. And apparently the local poacher can’t bother to be punctual when his traps go off. Fuck.
James blinks, “what the fuck?”. While Valerie just sighs and rolls her eyes, leaning back against her chair, “you stumbled on one of Skulker’s traps, didn’t you?”. Danny waves a hand around limply, “yeah? Yer point?”; making her roll her eyes at him very hard.
Danny doesn’t even get a chance to pick up the whiteboard marker before he’s pausing as his throat ices up, him holding up a finger, and just turning to walk right back out the classroom door. Fucking Skulker, goddamnit. But hey, his tailcoat whipping/fluttering about in the air in a way that was actually kinda badass was probably cool looking. He doesn’t have attendance points but he does have style points today motherfuckers.
Dale blinking, “did he just walk in only to leave again?”, slapping the desk, “well I guess he did drop off a bear trap from a ghost so... samples count as teaching?”. Todd snorting and rolling his eyes, “that doesn’t count for shit”; Valerie just chucks a pencil at him.
“I’m more interested in his whole get up. Who pairs a fucking tailcoat with sequin anything?”.
“Oh shut it, Amber. At least he didn’t come in wit a tie or a freaking suit”.
Dash snorts and actually laughs a little, “oh imagine that little twink in a suit! Ha!”. Which just makes Valerie smirk and turn to the jock, “he looks better in one than you do, Dash”.
“Oh fuck you, reject”. That comment was the only excuse Valerie felt she needed for proceeding to kick him in the chin, which might have started up a minor brawl by the time Danny got back.
Danny’s mildly attempting to fix his hair when he hip-checks his way back into his classroom, pausing with his hand stuck halfway through his hair at Valerie just having Dash in a headlock on the floor. Danny blinking, “mmmmm’ ‘kay”. Which fine, the class starts laughing at him for. Danny talks right over said chuckling, “so once somebody’s done with their little vice grip, or whatever, on another person everyone can relinquish their vice grip on their assignment shit and gimme gimme”. Val flips him off but hey, at least she lets Dash start breathing again. It’s something. And everyone does, in fact, start getting up to give him their work. Valerie trying to quietly and subtly ask him if ‘he’s okay’ when she hands hers over though. Danny sighing and shrugging limply, “eh I’m good, Skulker’s gonna be hearing from my lawyers though”, and smirks; resulting in Val smacking him over the head with a scowl.
-
Lancer showing up just after the bell, looking Danny up and down, and nodding with a, “good”, is weirdly chastising and awkwardly awkward. Ashley giggling to herself, “oh I get it, boy got in trouble for his clothing ‘choices’”. Danny points at her aggressively, “hush you”. Lancer leaves without choosing to comment on that.
---
Does Danny basically use the next couple of school days to make the school/his class his own personal fashion runway? Yes, yes he does. Did he also decide to melt some glue on the end of his tailcoat and file it to be sharp and blade-like? Yup. Was that very thing why Millie was currently done with his shit and arguing with him? Also yes.
“He cut the case lock for the microscope and ruined an entire three hundred dollar machine! We’re allowed to be armed but not wear literal blades as clothing!”.
Lancer is very clearly restraining a sigh.
Charles shrugs from the couch, “hey buddy, it was my machine and you don’t see me complaining”, looking to Danny, “I’m more curious about the how honestly”. Which fucking tracks for the man. Millie gestures at Charles, garish bangle bracelets clinking around in the process, “it’s the schools”, turning to Lancer, “at least fine the child”.
Danny crosses his arms, “hey, I’m eighteen not a ‘child’”, he was still considered a child ghost but that was besides the point.
Lancer pinches his nose and holds up a hand, which Millie actually listens too thank fuck for that. Danny’s pretty sure Lancer is literally the only person that lady respects even slightly. “While I’m certain it was an accident-”, glancing at Danny which Danny rubs his neck sheepishly over before Lancer continues, “-and the school could certainly just add this onto the Fenton tab, I doubt that would pose much of a solution for the fact that you simply don’t like Daniel very much, Millie”.
Millie huffs and crosses her arms, “he’s a menace-”. Danny can’t even argue against that. “-is barely older than most of the students-”. Also true. “-and couldn’t we have literally anyone else, anyone who’s a competent decent respectable person, teach his elective”. Oh this woman just loved mocking and treating non-core classes as lesser.
Danny smirks, “be careful or Remi’s gonna put paint in your pencil drawer again”. She scowls at him for that, pointing at him aggressively, “I know you helped her with that”. Danny will neither confirm nor deny that, “oh but how could I possibly remember when your nasty yellow fake nails are being way too distracting”.
“Why I never-”.
Lancer interjects at this point, Danny’s surprised the man even let him finish his witty comeback/insult. “That’s enough, you two clearly need some bonding time so-”, looking to the math teacher, “-Millie, you’ll be sitting in on Daniel’s class, I know you don’t have any scheduled class during that time and that you’re all caught up on grading, so don’t give me that excuse”; she scowls at him. Lancer looking to Danny, “and Daniel, you’ll sit in on her second block grade twelves”, glaring, “and no bathroom breaks”. Danny sags and whines very dramatically and very petulantly; Charles just starts snickering while attempting -and failing- to cover up said snickering with his hand.
Danny is so not impressed. Neither is Millie but that’s not Danny’s problem now is it. But now that Danny thinks about it, this is the perfect excuse to talk about ghost hunger and force someone who didn’t sign up for this shit to listen to/deal with his shit. Danny might just give Millie a more than slightly malicious smirk as he shoves Charles out of the way enough to sit on the couch; the man just rolling with it while trying not to laugh at his expense any further.
Danny only came early today for the cookies Remi said she’d drop off in the lounge, look how hard that bit him in the ass. Doesn’t even have time to sit and enjoy more than one cup of coffee now. Fuck. Wearing his SATAN bandana was probably asking for it a bit though. Flipping out his phone while nibbling on a cookie and blatantly ignoring Millie storming out in a huff.
thealiveone: so guess who just jacked up the tab AND pissed off mille
PDAxpda: millies the math teach right?
Nightshade: nice
thealiveone: yup! she like always hates me nothing new there
thealiveone: she no happy about recent bought of destruction of property
PDAXpda: someone needs to chill that’s what you do
thealiveone: ouch but yes and now have excuse to force her to hear out ghost hunger
Nightshade: you cruel cruel man I apporv
Nightshade: that bitch gave me so much shit about my ‘satanic’ fashion
thealiveone: ahhh yes I remever that
thealiveone: from back when we were young
thealiveone: our youthful days
PDAXpda: *pfffft*
thealiveone: anyone any one want cookies?
Nightshade: 😆🙃 sure Danny
-
By the time it’s time for Danny to head to his shit he has consumed three cookies and stuffed around eight intangibly inside his body for safekeeping; not like Sam and Tuck gave a shit about eating/using stuff from inside him.
Is Millie waiting judgementally outside of his classroom? Yes. Does he care? No. The class absolutely eyes him and the math teacher as he waltz’s in though. Todd snickering, “ooooo someone needs a babysitter do they?”. Danny just smirks, “oh no Lance-y’s just punishing his problem children. Anyway today’s subject will be light cannibalism”, and smirks wickedly.
Millie glares while taking a seat off to the side, “I’m not the child here”.
“I’m not the one being petty”.
“You broke a three hundred dollar machine”.
“And? Your point?”.
At this point most of the class is snickering, Valerie shakes her head, “you never change, Danny”. Danny finger-gunning, “and never plan to”. Millie’s scowl deepens.
Danny rummages through his desk muttering, “where’d I put it, where’d I put it”, all the while. Because fine, maybe he was saving this subject for when he thought it would be the most impactful, so sue him. Grinning when he actually finds and starts digging out the little habitat with around five or six blob ghosts in it. Well technically they were blebs, a subspecies of blobs, but whatever. These would have probably been a lot easier to find if he hadn’t modified the bottom drawer to be connected to a slight pocket dimension… but then they wouldn’t have even fit in the drawer in the first place. You win some you lose some.
James blinking as Danny puts the container on his desk somewhat loudly, “huh, guess it’s ‘live’ specimens again. Neat”. Emilie grins, “awww they’re cute”, then glares/smirks at Valerie daring the girl to argue. Valerie just rolls her eyes. Danny also pulling out a blender makes everyone go awkwardly and cautiously silent though. Danny’s just busy cursing while he tries to plug the stupid thing in, “why the f̴̢uc̸̢k is it all bent up?”. No one elects to point out any obvious answers to that one.
Danny walking back over to his desk and popping open the bleb containment unit, “so anyone wanna taste test some basic b̴̡i҉̧t͟͟ch̕͠ ghost food?”, and proceeds to drop the bleb into the blender while simultaneously turning it on; does he get ecto splattered on his face because he forgot the blender lid? Oh absolutely and he’s cool with that. At least half the class jerks back and/or screws up their faces. Millie looks deeply offended; success! Danny licks a bit off of his cheek while staring at the class just to be extra. Dash and Val are the only ones who look completely unphased -though Todd’s trying to look unphased- seeing as both of them had seen him straight-up eat a ghost before.
Ashley squeaks, “um, no?”. Which Danny busts out laughing over and losses his composure, sitting on the edge of his desk, “I’m not serious, Ashley. And don’t worry about the little guy, as we’ve discussed, non-cored ghosts basically respawn”, holding up a finger, “plus! Bleb’s like being eaten”, at that he takes a swig straight from the blender and winks at Millie.
Jasper mutters, “oh Zone he’s doing this to fuck with Ms. Felmer”.
“Mood”.
“Understandable”.
Dale chuckles, “I knew Danny was a menace but damn”. Dash looks a little freaked out, “did I mess his taste buds up by making him eat my underwear?”. Danny absolutely has to address that, pointing at him with the blender slightly, “you are not nearly that influential on my life, Dash”.
“Whatever, Fentaco”.
Millie actually snaps, “Mr. Baxter”, over that jab; making the jock roll his eyes and huff. Her voice sounding a wee bit strained pleases Danny greatly though. Truly.
Danny taps the containment container, “now remember I have a really bloody weird ecto-contamination so do not try that at home. Anyway, ghost hunger involves the eating of ghosts. Surprise surprise, I know. And if none of you leave this class today without losing your lunch I will feel personally offended…”. Again, why did the principal think putting this class directly after lunch was a good idea? Oh well, the janitor's problem now.
-
Did anyone actually wind up throwing up? Yes actually. Not Millie though, much to Danny’s dismay. She did look close multiple times though. And fine, maybe, maybe, Danny went into far more detail than really necessary. Which absolutely explains Brittney sticking up a hand and asking, “how do you even know this this well”, while looking more than a little sick. A few other teens nodding their agreement and mutual curiosity.
Danny snickers, “I have walked in on Technus showering and brushing his teeth, do you really think I haven’t walked in repeatedly on a ghost eating another ghost. Especially when all our local blobs and whisps are totally smitten with Phantom’s stomach?”. That earns him a very loud round of gagging, and Val’s staring at her desk like she’s having a mild crisis. Ah today’s been a good day.
“Forget I asked. What the Hell”.
That just makes Danny smirk as the bell goes off. That makes Danny jolt out of his seat, summon his green quill out of his hair, and start wildly scribbling on the board, “oh! Oh! Before you go, grab your assignment şh͘͜i҉͞t̶͝ and to the person who wrote about the theory that Phantom’s a parasitic species and that’s why he can stay here so long -you know who you are- I hate you. Your little quizzes are in there too, I realise I was lazy about marking şh͘͜i҉͞t̶͝ don’t at me. Also also, this-”, tapping the board, “-is the room I’ll be in for the parent-teacher thingy ma jiggy not this room, for reasons”. Which gets him more than a little snickering and some pointed glances at the -now empty- blender, while everyone takes their graded shit. Danny’s just glad he managed to not lose or destroy anyone’s shit. Though Emilie’s quiz did have a mysterious new ectoplasm stain that he… attempted… to get out. He tried okay?
Millie glares at him as she gets up last to leave, “you, boy, are an affront to humanity”, then promptly leaves. Danny puts a hand to his chest and very loudly says, “why thank you”.
Unfortunately, he is now stuck staying here ‘till her shitty math class. Fuck. Sighing loudly at his ceiling before smirking and chuckling a little, “time to do some sketchy shit, do da, do da”. He could use some ghost summoning practice.
-
Needless to say half an hour later the schools been evacuated and there’s a pissed off dragon ghost -not from Dora’s kingdom which kinda shocked Danny- flying around. Most of the teachers are glaring at him, Lancer included. At least he’s got a duplicate of himself in Phantom form off throwing fist-a-cuffs; well… more like arguing aggressively about not meaning to summon the one goddamn dragon that wasn’t from the Draconic's kingdom.
Lancer sighs at grounded human form him, “you’re still sitting in on Millie’s math class”.
“Awwwww”. Danny smirks a little, “also, I need a new desk chair”. Lancer puts his head in his hands and shakes his head faintly.
Danny (as Phantom) and the goddamn dragon pause as Red flys up on her hoverboard. Danny waving goofily, “sup Red”, pointing at the dragon, “he’s just upsetti spaghetti, not a real problemo”. He can feel Red’s annoyance and disapproval. The dragon just growls and attempts to breathe fire at her; which she obviously dodges.
Danny gestures at the dragon while she basically unloads on them, “blame your teacher of ghost things!”, and then resumes attempting to capture the dragon. He can easily hear Red mutter, “Zone damn it, Danny”; which fine, he chuckles at.
Eventually, Danny does manage to get the dragon into his thermos. There’s probably one more ghost out there with a bone to pick with him though. Oops. He’s not even slightly surprised to get a chat message from Val a little later.
Robin: whhhhhhhyyyyyyyyy
thealiveone: 😏
thealiveone: are you not entertained
Robin: 😑🖕🏻
thealiveone: *snicker*
(Danny still does, in fact, have to sit through math, which was just as torturous as he remembers. Millie made it even more awful of course. Though unlike him she didn’t change her class plan just to fuck with his day, she did treat him like a student and called on him to answer questions constantly though… that got him so much subtle mocking).
---
The parent-teacher thing comes up way quicker than he would have liked. Lancer giving him a shoulder pat as Danny slumps down into this room's chair, “I’m sure this will go just fine”. Danny rolls his eyes, “I’m a literal teen, Lance. Adult-y folks aren’t known for respecting teens or whatever”.
Lancer deadpans, “somehow, Daniel, I doubt you actually care”. Making Danny snort, “true true. I do still have a point though”.
“Which is exactly why I’ll be staying here and supervising”.
Danny actively groans at that. But fine, understandable.
Of course the first parents, fuck this is weird Ancients, show up while Danny’s partway through spinning around in his chair. It’s Emilie and she is smirking, telling Danny that they absolutely don’t know this random teen is the teacher. Hell yeah time to fuck with them.
Emilie’s mom looks around, “oh is the teacher not here yet?”, looking to Lancer, “I doubt you’re also the ecto-ology teacher”. Lancer actually chuckles a little at that before shaking his head.
Danny snorts and stands up a bit dramatically, “sorry to say but… he died. Totally dead”. Emilie snickers into her hand. Val picks that exact moment to barge in herself with her dad, “Danny, stop telling people you’re dead. You walking problem”.
Mr. Gray quirks an eyebrow at Danny, “ah so my Valerie was telling the truth, somehow I’m both surprised and not”, then walks right up to Danny, claps him on the shoulder, and says, “good for you, lad”. Which Danny rubs his neck a bit sheepishly over. Both Val’s dad and Tuck’s folks worried about his ass, usually more than his own folks did; which, yes, was kinda a bit fucking wild.
Emilie’s mom blinks and looks to her husband then back to Danny, “you’re? the teacher?”. Lancer takes that moment to actually speak up, “indeed Daniel is. Arguably he’s the most qualified for the position, and excluding some… incidences… his performance is more than acceptable”.
Danny snorts, “complimenting and insulting me all in one go, nice”, and finger-guns at the man. Lancer just gives him a fond but exasperated look.
Emilie’s mom purses her lips before shrugging after a bit. Her and her husband both walking over and sitting down, Emilie lounging behind. “Well alright then, though you are certainly a little young to be in such a position of power-”. Danny has to seriously resist throwing his head back, cackling, and saying ‘you have no idea’ at that because fuck saying he had too much power was a goddamn fucking understatement. “-but how is she doing?”, looking over her shoulder to eyeball Emilie slightly, “not being too much of a distraction”.
Danny snorts, “ma’am, being a distraction is basically my job in class. I guess you could say I encourage active discussion and pretty much ignore the ‘put up your hand before speaking’ rule altogether”. Emilie snorts, “considering you blew up the classroom a few days ago…”.
Her dad sighs, “well I guess that’s still better than Jack”. Which fine, Danny snorts at.
Danny pointing at the man, “to be fair, I’ve taken plenty protective measures and do, in fact, know what I’m doing. The accidental wrong dragon summoning was just a miscalculation and wasn’t even during class time”.
Lancer glares at him a little, “yes, and now you’re banned from unapproved experimentation”. Danny just pouts at him before actually doing the class talking stuff he’s supposed to be doing. Val and her dad are just ‘waiting’ off to the side and chuckling at him faintly.
When it is Mr. Gray’s turn the man immediately asks, “she’s not letting outside interests interfere with your class, is she?”. Danny can practically feel the threat of grounding coming off of that question, holy shit. Lancer dutifully pretends to not be listening, Danny is goddamn postivite Lancer knows about Val since she’s way easier to figure out than him.
Danny chuckles, “naw, in fact I can say that my class is the only one she doesn’t ditch”, and gives a very cocky proud grin. Like a preening peacock. Val glares at him a little, “that’s because you boobytrapped the door. No one can leave unless you let them”. Danny just smirks more, “what can I say? I know how to hold a hostage or two”. Val clearly can’t help snorting/laughing at that. Mr. Gray actually looks a little pleased and impressed.
From there pretty much all the meetings are boring and pretty typical. Granted he did tell Todd’s folks that ‘Todd’s a real dick’, which Lancer apologised for on Danny’s behalf. Todd’s dad saying ‘oh we know’ threw Lancer through a bit of a loop though. And apparently Danny calling their son a dick made him more trustable in their eyes, who knew? Dash’s dad made a joke about how ‘hey aren't you that boy my son whipped into shape?!?’ and laughed heartily. Which lead to Lancer going off on a tangent about Mrs. Testlauf’s unhealthy teaching methods, which is how Danny learned that there is a serious beef between the two.
But then came Sophia with her parents, Sophia was one of the freshmen whose family moved here somewhat recently. Girl basically never talked and always seemed cautious. She did perk up a little whenever anything really dark or gory came up -can’t exactly talk about dead people without speaking of brutal horrid violent death- so Danny thinks she’s, like, a closet Goth or Emo or something. Sam would love to introduce her to the ookie spookie side.
Mrs. Holly comes in walking like she’s a judgmental holier-than-thou know it all with some serious entitlement issues, so Danny’s pretty sure this is just going to be so fun. Sophia looks a little more meek and sheepish than usual too. Mrs. Holly huffs, “I truly can’t believe they’d have such a garish class nonetheless let a child from such a proper family take it”, and huffs for a second time. Mr. Holly shaking his head, “truly unbelievable”. Ahhh Danny can see where this is going, even Lancer's frowning a little. Now Danny could either be ‘responsible’ and handle this ‘like an adult’ or he could just choose violence. He’s a combative motherfucker so one option is much more appetising.
Lancer speaks up first, “if you ask me, this class should be, and in the future will be, mandatory. A core subject. It’s a matter of safety after all”. Danny points at him, “and the general knowledge is way more useful than social or math”. Lancer gives him one unimpressed look at that. Danny shrugs and waves him off, “what? Everyone has calculators in their pockets, there isn’t an app for ghosts”.
The parents decide to speak up at that. Mr. Holly scoffing sarcastically, “ah yes, this ‘ghosts’ thing”. Which tells Danny exactly what kind of head-stuck-in-the-sand motherfuckers these guys are. Mrs. Holly nods and scowls at Danny, “yes, we didn’t expect this town to be a satanic cult stronghold”. Which makes Danny cough because that was not quite what he was expecting. Even Lancer coughs and goes a little bug-eyed.
Danny blinks, “excuse me? Do you not believe in ghosts and just think this town is under the delusions of a cult?”. This was actually a new one for Danny. What the fuck.
“We believe in Jesus. Sad to say you clearly don’t, doing the devil's work. ‘Ghosts’ ‘from the afterlife’. As if those are not other words for ‘demon’ and ‘Hell’. And I am not impressed that my little girl is being allowed to be indoctrinated like this. This is why we need more support for proper Christian homeschooling”, she nods to herself with a huff. Mr. Holly nodding readily as well.
This is actually the first time Danny’s ever been called a literal demon actually. He’s been called a demon child or little devil but not literally a demon. Like, a ‘from Hell’ type demon. Should he be flattered? Maybe? Oh whatever. But choosing violence would be the ‘demonic’ thing to do right? So Danny snorts, “I mean if you wanna raise your kid badly and mess them up for adult life, go right ahead. But when your kid doesn’t know what to do during a ghost attack when we get randomly assaulted by a sentient tornado or invaded by another dragon, don’t come complaining to me. Also don’t come complaining to me when your kid moves out at seventeen and refuses to talk to you for twenty-three years”. Lancer looks like he wants to stop him and make him shut up but also really doesn’t want to. Danny’s probably a bad influence on the man. “If you don’t want to believe in ghosts, something very explicitly real unlike your unproven book god, that’s your dealio. But come on and have some decency and let your kid make up their own mind, yeah?”.
Mr. Holly blinks at him, “how old are you?”. Making Danny laugh, “physically? eighteen. Mentally? A lot older than you, clearly”. Both adults look suitably offended by that and Sophia has a tiny smile though also seems more than a little nervous. Her folks are probably the ‘my house, my rules’ and ‘I brought you into this world I can bring you out’ and ‘this is the way this family does things, so you have to as well’ types.
Mrs. Holly scoffs, “this is unbelievable”, turning around to Sophia -who has a good Poker face, which is actually kind of concerning/depressing- and snapping, “to think you’d even select such a class”. Sophia muttering, “I find it interesting”, chewing her lip a little, “and he did bring proof of them day one”. Mrs. Holly rolls her eyes, “oh yeah? What proof?”, and actively looks like she just won this conversation; which Danny is so not having.
So Danny, being Danny and the undead gremlin child that he is, shouts, “this proof!”, and proceeds to grab an ecto-apple from inside his tailcoat, smashing it down on the desk hard enough to make it explode, and grins slightly manically while the green ectoplasm juice and chunks bubble, start moving, develop eyes and mouths, start sticking up like deadman’s finger fungus, and then start shrieking.
Lancer chokes. The parents jerk and jump back, having gotten splattered slightly. Sophia just blinks wide-eyed, taking a slight step back; she was, after all, slightly more used to Danny and his general wackiness.
Danny sticks his finger in the coagulated mass of screaming green horror and starts swirling it/his finger around, grinning manically still, “proof enough fer ya?”. He does pull out a thermos and suck the stuff up when the desk starts steaming though.
The parents say nothing for a bit before Mr. Holly stammers, “we-we will n-not be deceive-deceived by a w-witch”. Which Danny snorts at, “I’ve got a friend who’s a witch, but naw, not really my thing. I prefer to chill it with the dead rather than pagan gods”, tilting his head, “though I guess some pagan gods are also ghosts so eh”, and shrugs.
Mrs. Holly scowls, turns on her heels, and leaves. Snapping, “come on Sophia”. Her husband scampering after her. Danny waves in the most fruity way he can, speaking singsong,“🎵bbbyyyyeeeeee🎵“, looking to Sophia, “see you on Monday, yeah?”. She just nods at him with a slight smile.
Mr. Lancer blinks after a bit, “Daniel… I almost feel like I need to write you up for that entire stunt”, holding up a finger while pinching his nose and leaning back in his chair, “but. You probably did the right thing”. Danny can’t help chuckling at that, “I mean, I would say I did the right thing but my opinion on my own behaviour is absolutely super-duper biased”. Lancer glares at him while he continues, “and really? not believing in ghosts is a good way to wind up dead. Better to bite that bullshit in the ass than let them think throwing holy water at Johnny would be a good idea”.
Lancer blinks, “they would likely have bad luck for the rest of their lives”. Danny nods immediately, “understatement. Kitty would send that man to her alternate kiss dimension in a heartbeat”. Lancer just stares at him a little bit, “has… has that happened to you?”.
“Happened to all of Amity’s men slash boys once”.
Lancer chooses to not respond to that.
---
“Hmmmm. I see. He is rather handling it well. Fulfilling the proper and respective duties”.
“Ah yes indeed. As… begrudging as that is to admit”.
“We’ll have to have a… conversation”.
“But of course”.
“Most unfortunate”.
“Indeed”.
“But he will accept what he’s due”.
“As he should”.
“However, we can never be sure with… that one”.
“Truly unfortunate”.
“Time and her overseer favour that one far too much”.
“And yet they are right, which is also quite unfortunate”.
“Yes. Quite”.
“Well shall we get to it?”.
“Hmmmm no. Let four nine eight and four nine one deal with that one, they are unwise yet”.
“Very well. Watcher”.
Chapter 5: I Am The Guardian Of The Knowledge! The Knowledge Guardian!
Danny is having a morning alright? Sure he had a good-ish sleep, seeing as he apparently did decently well with the parent/teacher thingy excluding the fact that the school had now acquired a religious discrimination complaint (not that the school cared). And also sure, maybe he got out of genuinely fighting Technus by humble bragging since that ghost was ‘a man of science’ and thus was a sucker for any gossip involving someone taking the piss out of religious folks. Also also, he got waffles this morning. Big plus there.
So you’d think with all that he’d be about to have an awesome morning but nope. Instead, he is currently actively running away from his consequences. Well okay, mostly flying but he can’t exactly do that once he got to school.
Danny walks briskly into the classroom and shuts the door very firmly, even going so far as to lock it a bit dramatically before turning around and giving the class an awkward smile. Heading up to the board, “alright f͜ư͘ck҉͘ę͏r͡s̛-”.
He absolutely ignores the, “Open up”, from outside the door. Chuckling very awkwardly while the class glances at the door then back to him. Danny clearing his throat, “so now that the parent-teacher stuff is outta the way and y’all proved you’re not totally stupid with the quiz and mini lab thing. Why don’t we move on to lairs and contamination-”.
“Daniel James Janus Fenton”.
Danny sighs very audibly and stares up at the ceiling for a second, everyone else quirking eyebrows, snickering, or talking at each other.
“Uhhhh, I feel like he’s using us somehow”.
“Does he seriously have two middle names?”.
Valerie grumbles to herself a bit about how she didn’t even know Danny had a second middle name.
“Better yet one of them is ‘Janus’? The Hell?”.
“Ha, serves the freak right”.
Danny clears his throat a little, “anyway, the Eyes Of Ovi Colosseum is a perfect example of a really stupid specified lair for some mouthless d͏͜į͡ck҉̸͞s҉ nitpicking over laws who think they somehow have the right to control other peoples existences”, and throws a mild glare at the door. Bunch of floating cloaked dicks.
Emilie snorts and laughs into her hand, “oooh someone’s trying to throw a little shade”.
A couple of people chuckle at the, “we have responsibilities, Daniel. Now will you allow us an attendance with you”, that speaks up from the other side of the door.
James quirks an eyebrow, “that sounded more like a threat than a ‘please let me in, dickhead’”. Earning some nods and more chuckles.
“I’m more curious who Danny pissed off enough to stand angrily outside of the ghost-proofed door”.
Danny holds up a finger, “technically, they’re cops”. Earning him a round of shocked gasps and scandalised looks of horror. Rolling his wrist, “anyway, their lair is, like, the biggest standing prison. Vortex’s in it”, shrugging, “they might have tried assassinating me once…”, Danny continues without acknowledging or explaining on that one. And yes, he mentioned it purely to piss off the Observants and rub it in just a little bit more that they failed at ending his ass.
Once the class over bell rings though… he looks around awkwardly and with a level of fake pleading, “anyone suddenly feel like staying after class?”.
Val actually humours him (which he one hundred percent expected), ditto with Emilie actually. Todd just wants any excuse to skip class that doesn’t require him doing anything legitimately bad like leaving school property. Everyone else opting to get up and head to the door, though flashing him apologetic shrugs… or smirking meanly. You’d think they’d be nicer to a guy that can affect their grades. Fucking jerks. However it is Danny who gets to smirk meanly when there is -surprise surprise- two Observants floating outside his door that all of them have to skirt around very cautiously. The Observants, for their part, completely ignore all of his fellow teens/students; instead they just stare -if eyelidless giant eyes even can stare- at him intensely. Danny waves cheekily; they feel like they’re glaring. And pretty much all the other teens that see the Observants just kind of hide around corners and observe instead of heading to their next class. Nosy shits, Danny would do the exact same. He probably shouldn’t feel proud over their want for gossip outweighing the requirement to go to class or to practice self-preservation, but he totally does.
One of the Observants lifts up a boney green hand and points at him, “we need to speak with you”. Making Danny snort, cross his arms, and lean against his desk, “yeah I think I got that one after the multi-hour stalking session”. Valerie snorts at that though she is eyeballing the Hell out of the fucking ghosts.
“Alone”.
Danny puts a hand to his chest, “aawwwww, confessing your love for me in private? How scandalous”.
The Observant on the left looks to the one on the right, “I now understand why the elders didn’t want to deal with him”. Which fine, makes Danny feel exceptionally proud of himself. Emilie laughs, “oooo, I so want to know what Danny did to hurt these poor elders' feelings or whatever”. Danny side-eyes and smirks at her, “oh only colluded with a god to break the laws of temporal displacement”.
“I can’t even tell if you’re serious”.
Danny’s smirk grows malicious, “good”, then sighing and sagging, looking back to the two Observants, “fiiiiiiine. But no, I don’t know who jailbroke whatever prisoner out. Or where Plasmius has hidden whatever artifact of rare and overwhelming power. Or-”
The Observant on the right actually has the gall to interrupt him, “you are not to blame for anything”. The left one adding on, “currently”; making Danny snort. Him then gesturing at his three ‘students’, “but can’t you see that I am busy? I mean really. Some of us actually have work to do these days”; all three teens chuckling to themselves over that while also mildly pretending to be taking notes or some shit. But with another heftily sigh Danny moves to pack his shit… very slowly. Because technically legitimately snuffing the Observants was a recipe for disaster and Lancer probably wouldn’t appreciate the school getting beset by an army of eyeball assholes purely because Danny felt like being a bastard. That… and it might actually be something mildly important; which, arguably, he shouldn’t just ignore.
Today’s turned into real shit.
Valerie quirks an eyebrow at him when he throws his backpack over his shoulder, making the tailcoat flare out a little, “are you seriously going along with a pair of ghosts”, then glaring at Danny when he rolls his eyes at her.
“Val, it’s perfectly fine. Annoying, but arguably fine”, him shrugging, “it’s not like they can harm me”, looking to the Observants and smirking meanly, “seeing as they are incapable of doing harm”, snorting, “pfffft, fucking pacifists, am I right?”. A couple of people in the hallway are noticeably stifling snickers. The Observants, for their part, just ‘stare’ silently.
Joshep shouts from the hallway, “what are all you kids doing out here?!? Get to class!”. Danny’s pretty sure that he -and the Observants- is the only one who can hear Joshep muttering, “what the Hell did that Fenton kid do now? Why does my classes have to be so close to his? Just why?”.
Danny picks that moment to walk out of his classroom, look at Joshep, and laugh very loudly and sarcastically. Joshep grimaces deeply at him, eyes the two FUCKING GHOSTS, and grimaces deeper but also with slight fear. Val, Todd, and Emilie all slip out behind Danny; Val whispering at him, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Danny”. Making him smirk, “when do I ever”; earning him some major glaring. He’d bet money on her not actually going to class and instead trying to secretively follow him ‘for his safety’.
The hallway gets real empty real fast as soon as Danny walks off with the Observants following him a bit unnecessarily close; that really only encourages him to walk slower though so HA!
Just before exiting the building Danny quickly throws Lancer a text, you know, in case the man tries to go looking for him or some shit. Joshep will probably tattle on him for ‘having pet eyeball ghosts’. Though making a pet of an Observant would be one Hell of a power move, goddamn.
Danny : 🚓🚔🚓
Let his sorta boss think of that what he will, for now, Danny’s gotta go and deal with his problems. Apparently anyways. Kinda hard to skirt ‘the law’ when said ‘law’ were ‘all-seeing’. Fuck him.
-
By the time Danny and his two personal shadows get to the Colosseum he thinks the two Observants might just be starting to get close to overdosing on puns. Probably helps that Danny’s using the shittiest, corniest, dumbest ones he can possibly think of. And to think he only got halfway through his stockpiled eyeball-themed ones!
Him glancing around the Colosseum full of Observants, and apparently ClockWork? off to the side cleaning their staff lazily. Stupid Clocky, Danny so could have used a heads up; throwing them a quick pout -which they smirk slightly over- before looking up at Watcher, the head Observant. Putting his hands in his pockets, “soooooo? The fucks up, extra-large eyeball”.
Watcher leaves him hanging for a little bit before speaking up and Danny can practically hear the reluctance and regret in their voice, “Daniel James Janus Fenton Phantom, I’m certain it should come as no surprise to you that we are well aware of your recently acquired… position, as well as how your performance has tracked”.
Danny snorts, “so what? You fucks care about mortal realm teaching now? Isn’t that shit, you know, beneath you or whatever? Not that I actually care. Go ahead and get your knickers in knots about whatever the fuck you wanna. But this?-”, gesturing around lazily, “-seems a little excessive as retaliation for educating mortals. Dramatic as fuck, which mild props there I guess, but still-”.
Watcher cutting him off, “this is not a punishment, as you’ve already been made aware-”. Danny flips him off for that jab. “-rather your… position makes you qualified and befitted of another”.
What.
No seriously, what the fuck?
Danny blinks and tilts his head, “are you trying to also give me a job offer?”; the fuck is wrong with people and springing sudden surprise job offers for shit he is almost definitely largely not qualified for. Though fine, Danny as Phantom had a fuck tone of qualifications here in the Zone. Fuck, he even technically had right to claim the High Throne!
Watcher almost sighs and glances up for a split second, “the answer to your question is neither affirmative nor contradicting. You have taken actions no other has and doing so with more than just marginal success. As such you are the only being fulfilling the role of educating mortals and working through those means to ease the strained and threatening relationship between our realms-”.
Danny jumps in at that, throwing his hands out to the side, “you’re only now just noticing that?!? I’ve been pretty well doing that since the beginning!”. ClockWork holds up a finger, “but was that out of choice or necessity? And were any instances of you actually being educational simply accidents while you were doing what you do best?”, nodding to themselves almost smugly, “I think we both know the answer there, Daniel”; Danny rolls his eyes though blushes a little. Damn it, Clocky.
Watcher doesn’t actively acknowledge ClockWork -which he’s sure ClockWork’s gonna use as an excuse to fuck with them later. Fuck, they might be fucking with them right now- instead continuing to speak at Danny, “you are being granted a position of Ambassador and Sovereign Wisdom, Guardian of the passing of wisdom between the two realms”.
Danny blinks, oh my Ancients. Okay yes ClockWork was absolutely involved in this and the Observants are absolutely not happy about this. Guardians were BIG FUCKING DEALS. The High Sovereign was basically the only one above Guardians. Well and technically the Observants, but that was debatable. Danny snorts, “wow you guys must really hate yourselves. Here I thought you didn’t want me having more power?”. He can feel multiple glares.
Watcher themselves seemingly glares, “while that still stands, what is earned is earned and what is due is due. And while a Guardian of this variety is not necessary, it is beneficial to the realm and future. And, begrudgingly, you do it well”. Danny has to roll his eyes at that, the Observants and their ‘for the betterment of the future’, that got old before he even met them. He does actually put on his more serious face/posture when Watcher floats down to be more on level with him. “so will you accept?”.
“What, in any world, would make you think I’d say no? You don’t have to beg me, you bunch of eyeball crybabies?”. Like really? HE WAS ALREADY DOING THE ‘JOB’. The only reason he didn’t take the High Throne was the added boatloads of responsibilities; that, and he’d have to spend so much time here that he might as well just live in the Zone… not happening anytime soon.
“Very well”. Watcher raises a hand and waves it, a sceptre forming next to their hand floating in the air before it starts moving towards him slowly. Danny decides to leave Watcher hanging and mildly admire the black Arbutus wood with glowing blue carvings across it, legit looked pretty hecking cool. Clocky’s stiff pinstriped staff design wouldn’t exactly suit Danny’s quirkiness. The prehnite crystal on top was a definitively spooky pale opac green with green glowing falling feathers inside; at least the green in green didn’t look weird.
Danny shrugging after a bit and reach out to grab it, the three little silver bells secured by blue leather rope surrounding the crystal chiming slightly from the jostling. Danny furrowing his brows a little and sniffing at said bells; ignoring the twitching in his limbs from connecting to the artifact. Huh, well that smells a heck of a lot like sandalwood and frankincense; eh there was probably some inside. Danny is absolutely blaming the dangling red and green feathers on Ghost Writer giving him a fucking quill though.
Shrugging Danny leans the thing lazily on his shoulder and pointedly makes a point to not react even slightly to the weird pulsing come from in towards his core. Little uncomfortable but not nearly as uncomfortable as being impaled by a giant fishhook. Or mauled by a tiger. Or watching his dad disco dance in public. Little more uncomfortable than Lancer’s attempts to be ‘hip’ and ‘cool’ and ‘relatable’.
Danny thinks he’s being glared at again. ClockWork is absolutely smirking in the stands. Danny also not reacting to a cloak magically poofing into existence attached to his neck is probably annoying the Observants even more. Ha, suck on that. He is the unphaseable one! Phased by nothing! Who is also apparently king of knowledge! Lord of knowing! Yet stupid enough to show up with his clothes backwards more than once (how the fuck did he accidentally wear a jacket backwards and not notice it? Seriously self. Gosh). He does glance at the cloak though, lifting up one side judgingly. Chuckling, “black with blue stitching? What? No green to accent my eyes?”.
“We do not choose the appearance”.
Danny rolls his eyes, “yeah no fucking shit. Blue’s an educational, or whatever the fuck, colour”, tilting his head, “and Lancer’s why I even know that. Huh”. Poetry symbolism was useful for something he guesses. Oh and the clasp is a quill, goddamn that Ghost Writer. Fuck. He’s definitely ignoring whatever symbolism might be behind the slightly bondage harness-looking triple straps going across his chest, he doesn’t want to know honestly. The hood tip zig-zagging like a lightning bolt is supremely obvious though. Like, painfully obvious. patting it a little and looking back to the Observant, “so this all the shit? Don’t feel like fucking with my half-life any further?”.
Watcher almost audibly sighs, turns to borderline glare at ClockWork, “dress your child, ClockWork”. ClockWork grins and pretends not to hear them for a second before floating down.
Danny is perfectly content to let his ClockPops ruffle up his hair, both of them side-eyeing Watcher with mean smirks while ClockWork boops Danny on the cheek with their staff; Danny letting their energy mess with his appearance more than willingly. Suddenly his tailcoat is on him in ghost form, which yeah feels a little weird. An (ecto-ha) green frilled poet blouse underneath with little cufflinks that have ghost pipes (ha!) on them. Crushed black velvet trousers, straight cut and wide/baggy. Silver armoured boots and gloves, which fine, he’s a combative motherfucker. He can also feel some shit going on with his hair, a quick pat-down proving that apparently ClockWork decided he needed some flowers in his hair. Goddamn better be ghost pipes. Danny chuckling, “nice, Clocky”; they smirk lightly and fondly at him.
“But of course, Daniel”.
Watcher does their little hand-wavey glittery thingy taking an in-time ‘photo’ of him to send out through the realm, because bitch there be a new Guardian. Danny just chuckles, “can I go now?”.
“We’d prefer you did”.
Danny snorts, throws a peace sign and finger guns before just fucking off entirely. Him turning away to stalk off making the cloak swish in the air which reveals that the end is, like, curled up into something resembling a scroll. Fucking symbolism, Ancients.
-
Turning human when he gets back reveals the cloak changes to light blue with black stitching, well that’s convenient. Seeing as technically he’s supposed to wear the thing whenever he’s doing his ‘job’ so it changing with his forms is probably for the best. Phantom’s the Ambassador, Fenton’s the Sovereign Wisdom. Plus wearing a cloak to school is totally a weird quirky thing to do, which is perfectly up his alley. Sick as shit too. He’s gonna wear the hood down while human, up and tucked right behind his ears while Phantom; just for that little added difference. Danny had some sense of self-preservation. His clothing is still exactly what his ClockPops gave him… well okay the shoes look slightly more dress shoey than like straight-up knight's boots; eh that’s probably for the best too. Less noisy. And a head pat-down shows that the flowers have gone, good seeing as Sam would mock him relentlessly otherwise.
Whelp, he’s going home now. Because fuck doing anything else. Seriously. A quick check of his phone, however, reveals that Lancer actually got back to him.
Lance: for future reference, Daniel, please reframe from ‘getting ghost arrested’ during school hours.
Lance: I would appreciate a call, after hours of course.
Danny chuckles and shakes his head a little, eh might as well do that on his walk home. “Sup, Lance. I do not have another arrest on my record and I also did not destroy another jail”.
“I do hope that is not sarcastic, but I’m glad you’re alright from the sounds of it”.
Danny snorts, kicking a rock down the road, “nope. No sarcasm here. Perfectly fine. Just had to stand and talk in front of an entire colosseum of ghost cops slash judges and get my sentence”, snickering to himself, “now see that was sarcastic. Well, mostly. Really it was just me getting acknowledgement, or whatever, for basically teaching ‘the mortals’”.
That actually gets Lancer laughing a little, “well my job offer was never meant to get you in trouble or cause you hassle, though I doubt you mind much”.
Danny huffs and rolls his eyes, glaring at the stoplight to hurry the fuck up, “considering this let me annoy the absolute fuck out of the Observants? Zone no I don’t mind. Also I have a cloak now, that I am required to wear. So have fun with that school uniform upgrade”.
“Oh? I can’t wait to see, Daniel. I’m sure you’ll make the appearance work, so long as you don’t show up in a hazmat jumpsuit”.
Okay that one Danny has to laugh at, loudly, “yeah, no, that’ll never happen!”. He might love his suit but wearing anything remotely similar while human was just begging for trouble. Actively and explicitly.
“Good, good. Now I’m sure after all that excitement you’ve got work to do, so since I know you’re fine I’ll let you go”.
Danny smirks, “oh Ancients no, I’m going to bed and napping like the dead”.
“Bye, Daniel”.
Danny chuckles as the man hangs up, got ‘em with the death jokes.
---
Sam snickers and pokes Danny on the cheek, him flipping around in the air to avoid her prodding fingers, pouting at her, “meanie”. Now some may wonder why is she pestering him? well because an early morning flight revealed that the flower hair was still a thing and was likely to be a permanent thing at that. Fun. And he can’t even really be mad, because it’s basically a gift from Clocky. Ever rare and always cherished… by him at least.
Tucker goes and flicks one, “at least they’re ghostly”. Earning an eyeroll from Danny, “har har har, though fully agreed”, looking to Sam, “I am so looking forward to a confused and panicked call from Vlad. Because this-”, gesturing to his entire body, which while is back to his jumpsuit, he is still rocking the cloak and the staff’s stuck in a little solid prehnite ring, “-is not ‘standard halfa physical changes’ and we know how Vlad pays waaaaaaay too much attention to my physical appearance”.
Sam barks a laugh, “he pays more attention than you do”.
“In my defence, Vladdie’s got all the time in the world to be a weird nosey bastard. I, however, am a busy busy man”.
Tucker puts a hand to his chest, “if only you could work from home like me”; earning him a smack over the head from Sam. Danny just chuckles, transforming back human and planting his one good foot on the ground, “that’s only because they decided you’d be too much of a security and safety threat otherwise”.
“That changes nothing”.
Danny throwing his arms around their shoulders as they walk into the school. The administration just ignores them and doesn’t even try to force his two friends to get visitors badges, knew a lost cause when they saw one. Danny glances from one to another, “so you two just sitting in for funsies?”.
Sam rolls her eyes while Tucker chuckles, “Hell yeah why not”. Which Danny just laughs at while using their shoulders as support to lift himself off the ground, swing his legs up, and double kicks open his classroom door.
Ashley jumps, startled, and joins the rest of the class in staring at him before muttering, “Uh, how is it that we’re almost always here slightly before you”.
Danny scoffs, “because I’m chill like that”, while his friends carry him to and drop him into his seat before wandering to the back of the classroom. Danny holds up a finger, “also-”, throwing his one leg up onto the desk, gesturing at his armoured ‘dress shoes’ because yes, he’s still wearing Clocky’s gifts, “-I broke my leg in three separate places this morning. Fun, I know, no need to be jealous. Also got in a little light stabbing because I may have put a little too much effort into sassing someone”.
Valerie sighs very audibly and painfully, “Danny, why? Just why?”, she has long since learned to not care all that much about his injuries. His contamination whisked them away like magic anyway.
Emilie snorts, “I’m more interested in the fucking cloak”. Which Amber absolutely chimes in on, “talk about a fashion don't”. Danny points at her, “hey f̵̶uc̡k̶͝͞ you”; earning more than a couple laughs. Danny shrugging, “anyway, cloaky grants me special knowledge powers so I am officially ‘wise’”. That gets him an eraser to the head, which Danny ignores as he keeps talking, “the ghosties decided that teaching you ghost thingies is officially my job”.
Valerie stares at him, “… but that’s already your job”. Danny shrugs, “eh ghosts like to feel superior”.
Dash throws his hands out, completely derailing the conversation, “what? Are you not going to pink slip Jesse for the eraser?”. Danny smirks at his former bully, “nope. I do have one with your name on it if you’d like though”. Dash scowls at him and Tucker’s laughter is absolutely a bit loud. Which gets James’s attention, him turning to the two, “and what about you two? Why are you here?”. Sam smirks, “living crutches”. Which really should have been the obvious answer to everyone.
Danny beams, “yup! Waaaaay better than some s͟h̴̛it҉t̛y̵̧͜ wood. And yes I got hired by ghosts to do the thing that I already got hired by humans to do, am I changing the lesson plans because of that? Haha f͞u̴͜͟c͏͝k no. Now as for class, we’re gonna talk forbidden knowledge because I am feeling petty”. Which yes, people laugh at.
-
Barely halfway through Charles just kind of barges in, fuck Danny needs to redo his booby traps. Charles looking him up and down, smirking, “oh I so had to see this. Tell me you are starting a cult without telling me you’re starting a cult”. Danny blinks hard at that before bursting out laughing, pointing at him and deadpanning, “yes”.
Emilie beams and sits up straight, “oh we should absolutely all wear cloaks now, Hell yeah”. Amber glares at her, “I’d rather drop out”. Valerie just rolls her eyes at the preppy girl.
Danny looks to the girls, “a couple Christians have already made it their mission to report me daily for satanic indoctrination so that would have some interesting end results”. Charles chuckles, “oh this so is a cult, and if you were a spawn of satan I wouldn’t even be surprised”, then quickly closes the door.
Dale chuckles awkwardly, “I think one thing this class has taught me is that Mr. Trent is way weirder than I thought”. Danny snorts, “oh you have no idea, the things that man has asked me”. He also had a feeling the man tried to break into his house/bedroom once because he got over-excited about some curiosity of his. Shrugging, “back to illegal dealings with guardians and how our mayors a d̶̢i̶͠c̶̨͝k҉͏w͢e̷͟a͏şl̛͘e͘…”.
He doesn’t even get to speak for ten minutes before fucking Vlad bursts in. Danny really needs to re-booby trap that fucking door. Damn. Too bad Vladdie wasn’t in ghost form, then the anti-ghost coating on the door would have at least done something to keep out the rich nutter.
“Daniel, what the Gouda have you gotten yourself involved in now?”.
Danny looks to him slowly, gestures to his class dramatically, “excuse you, frootloop? I mean, timing. But Ancients, chill your tits. Could this not wait twenty f͜͟u̶̕c̸̢͝kin̸g̢̨ minutes? f͞u̴͜͟c͏͝k”. Vlad just glares at him.
Dash leans over to Dale, “the Zone is the mayor doing here?”. Dale just shrugs. Todd snickers meanly, “maybe Danny pissed him off too, because the mayor sure as shit isn’t here to see your shitty ass, Dash”.
“Fuck you”.
“Screw off, Todd”.
Todd just smirks smugly to himself instead of responding to either jock.
Emilie snickers, “maybe he felt Danny talking about him and was summoned”.
Sam smirks to herself, inspects her nails, and deadpans, “it’s cult powers”. Which lots of people actually make ‘ahhh’ and ‘hmmm’ and other understanding agreeing sounds at.
Vlad scowls at the goth, “oh nothing so drab or petty”, actually walking up to Danny and lifting up the cloak, “I am talking of this”. Looking to Danny, “butter biscuits, Daniel”.
Danny snorts, “no I will not butter your biscuits”. Vlad absolutely subtly shoots him with an ecto-beam in his good legs knee. Fucker. Danny rolling his eyes, “the Observants are occasionally tolerable… tolerable-ish. And are occasionally capable of being mildly decent… decent-ish”. Vlad stares at him for a bit before shaking his head, “your desire to be tortured out of existence truly amazes me”, smirking, “if you wanted to suffer you could just fill out a request and I’d be happy to appease you”.
Valerie coughs and actively spits out some water. Dale quirks an eyebrow, “did… did the mayor just threaten to torture Danny?”.
Emilie starts cackling, “yes, yes he did!”.
Danny waves everyone off, “oh please, this is tame and lame”, looking back to Vlad, “I would but only if I could get payment in the form of feeding your internal organs to your cat”. Vlad actually chuckles faintly at that and shakes his head almost fondly. Pulling on his suit jacket to straighten it, “well I guess you’re perfectly well, albeit stupid, but well. I’ll leave you to your… duties”.
“It’s only a duty if I make someone crap their pants”.
Vlad actually stops with his hand on the doorknob at that, looking back, “a poop joke, Daniel? Really?”. Danny just smirks and finger guns while Vlad leaves.
Danny glancing at the clock, “whelp, continuing this class is pointless”, shrugging and looking around at everyone, “I’m honestly amazed this hasn’t already come up yet but me and Vladdie have a very interesting family dynamic”.
Which results in multiple shouted, “FAMILY!?!?!?!?”, comments from everyone.
Valerie rolls her eyes and glances around, “he’s Danny’s godfather”. Danny beams and nods, “yup! And that I’m his chosen heir”.
Dash stares and mutters, “what the fuck”, at that; which, fair. Danny just chuckles meanly at him while the bell rings.
Amber walks up to him through, twirling her hair a little, “so are you, like, rich?”. Danny can absolutely tell people are taking their time to leave class just to hear his response. So Danny smirks, “whole fam is. FentonWorks makes a lot of money. Plus! the government pays us”.
Dale looks almost horrified and Dash is just muttering, “what the fuck”, to himself repeatedly. Amber shaking her head, “well you coulda said something”. Which Danny tolls his eyes at.
Sam doesn’t let him respond though, her snapping, “and what? Have all you people liking and ‘befriending’ him purely because of something so goddamn shallow? As if. Danny -Ancients we are better than that”. Amber, Dash, and Dale all make offended noises; Emilie and Todd can be heard laughing out in the hall. Fuck, Danny’s pretty sure he even hears Hanna loudly cackling out there and she’s not even in his class or even still in school still. Here to hang out with Emilie perhaps? Danny just keeps on smirking as everyone finally leaves and his door clicks shut.
Is he surprised when Vlad suddenly regains visibility next to his desk with crossed arms? Ancients no, fully fucking expected. Even Tuck and Sam are unphased, though they do chuckle to themselves a little while glaring mistrustfully at the man. Danny sighs and looks to the man, “Vlad, I’m fine”, gesturing around at the empty classroom, “all of this just apparently made me qualified to become a Guardian, a Guardian of knowledge”.
Vlad scowls at that.
“And also apparently I’m the ambassador of ghosts now?”.
Now that makes Vlad blink, “and you weren’t already?”.
“That’s what I said!”, waving a hand dismissively at Vlad, “it’s not like you were going to do that”.
Vlad shakes his head, “indeed”, frowning, “but ‘Guardian’? Really, Daniel”. Tucker coughs into his hand, “oooh someone's jealous”. Vlad barely dignifies that with a quick glare.
Danny shrugs, “eh it is what it is”, finger gunning, “but don’t you worry, Vladdie, I’ve still got that claim to the High Throne”.
“Unfortunate”.
Danny laughs, “to you maybe”, summoning out his staff from the ring and holding it lazily behind his neck to rest his head on it, “but for now I do the shitty duty of teaching”. Vlad glares at him for that repeat joke/joke reference. It was pretty crappy, ha ha.
Vlad purses his lips after a second, “well I could lend my expertise in that regard-”.
Danny snorts and cuts him off, “trying to ‘get in the good graces of a Guardian’ will not get you out of the very bad graces of the Observants”.
Vlad rolls his eyes though seems slightly disappointed, “as if my reasons would be so people-pleasing. You know I’m not the type”.
Sam audibly scowls, “oh we know”.
Danny, however, grins meanly, “now you can certainly be a guest speaker just to piss them off”, holding up a finger, “let’s make it about ghost portals and the effect they’ve had between realms”.
Vlad smirks at him, “you are playing with fire, dear boy”. Danny knows the man’s going to make his folks look bad, but honestly? hurting his parents' reputation was impossible and no one would be even slightly surprised. Also yes, he’s aware that basically having the two halfas discuss the very thing that made them halfas was actively asking for it. Sam and Tuck shake their heads in the background while halfa and halfa shake hands.
(Informing Lancer of this resulted in him genuinely questioning if Danny and Vlad were getting along these days, so guess Lancer also noticed his hostility towards the mayor, not that that was hard. Lancer was a bit confused by the fact that the town mayor was into the ecto-sciences though).
---
Apparently Charles, and maybe Danny’s entire class, took the ‘cult’ thing a little too seriously or maybe just had a little too much fun with the idea over the next week because now he’s been called into Lancer’s office to talk about starting a cult. Fuck.
Danny poking his head in and waving awkwardly, “heeeeeeey Lance-y”. Lancer just glares at him and sighs deeply, so Danny goes and takes a seat, “soooooo, I swear I didn’t actually start a cult this time”.
Lancer quirks an eyebrow, “‘this time’?”.
“Eh, it’s happened”. At Lancer’s pained expression Danny adds on, “hey, you knew full well what you were getting into. I keep reminding you of this”.
“And yet you keep one-upping yourself”. Danny finger guns and winks at that. Lancer shakes his head, “regardless, yes I’ve been getting a lot of concerned calls regarding cult behaviour. Though some are clearly just taking any excuse to complain about you specifically”.
“Yeah a lot of adult adults really hate my guts for some reason”.
“I couldn’t imagine why that would be, Daniel”. Lancer shakes his head again before digging in his desk and pulling out some papers, “so now you and I are going to be making up letters addressing this and sending them out to all the parents”.
Danny’s sags back in his chair and groans, “ah come on, man! This is Charles’s fault! Not mine!”.
“I’m sure you encouraged it”.
Danny gives a very petulant and pouty, “…maybe”, perking up a little, “but so did literally everyone else”.
“Students can get away with it, you, as a teacher, can not”.
Danny pouts at him again, “boo. Boo to you”. Which gets him glared at before Lancer hands him letters to work on. This is gonna suck ass. Fuck him.
-
Did writing up letters suck? YES. MAJORLY. But Danny was honestly cackling now seeing as Lancer let him read all the complaint letters. Some claiming he was certainly coding classes with hidden satanic messages of murder to increase the ghost population. Others claiming he was teaching them to torture people; which wasn’t entirely wrong, how to harm a ghost could be also used to torture them or a human technically. And a couple claiming he WAS a ghost, which was just straight-up true. There was two insisting that a priest needs to be present for his classes, which fuck no; he’s already had one too many run-ins with holy-water-rosary-clutching types.
Danny leaning back and chuckling, “people are crazy”.
“Coming from you?”.
Danny points at Lancer, “hey, crazy knows crazy”. Lancer puts his hands up in surrender.
---
Did Danny feel like having a guy who arguably could have actually become a cult leader if he wanted to guest speak the day after the letters went out was actively being spiteful? Yes. Though the fact that this happened on the day that Walker curb stomped his throat also felt spiteful. (Was Danny wearing crust punk pants again today? Absolutely, purely because of the multiple anti-cop patches on it). Danny clearing his throat painfully and using his quill to write on the board, ‘cheese head will be doing the talkie walkie today. Don’t play with portals kids’, and draws an arrow pointing at Vlad before sticking the thing back into his hair.
At least half the class quirks their eyebrows at him so he croaks out, “got throat curb-stomped by the po-po”. Vlad chuckles, “your timing is impeccable”. Danny flips him off while putting a little triangle of paper on the side of his desk reading ‘return books here ditto with the essay thingies on them’. Surprisingly almost all of them were undamaged. Val’s was a little singed and stained, Dash’s had a coffee ring on the cover, and Dale’s looked like it had been burned on a stove element; but Todd’s literally had the pages all torn out of the hardcover, it was obviously intentional.
Vlad eyes the stack for a second before actually addressing everyone, while the class tries not to be weird -or actively tries to murder him with her mind in Valerie’s case- over the mayor freaking Vlad Master, near richest man on the planet, teaching their freaking class. “For those of you that don’t know, which I imagine is all of you, I worked with Daniel’s parents in the ecto-field back in college”. That earns the man a round of coughs and disbelieving staring. Danny just nods to confirm the man’s statement.
Vlad speaks sounding truly pained, “Jack couldn’t make anything that didn’t go horribly wrong if his life depended on it, and that’s how he got me sent to the hospital for seven years with ecto-acne and didn’t even bother to visit”. Danny has to try really hard not to laugh at him. “I will find and force-fed you nails if you say anything, Daniel”. Which honestly just makes it harder not to mock the man relentlessly.
Todd speaks up for him though, “wow sounds like someone’s pissy, bet it was your fault actually”. Vlad glares at him, “coming from a child who’s going to get abducted by a man who wears glasses and a ratty scarf tonight”. Everyone gives Vlad some very confused looks and Danny has to put his head down and wheeze slightly painfully into his desk. This was a good idea. Also a horrible one, but whatever.
Vlad shakes his head, “Jack was the one who decided to power up a prototype ghost portal in my face, I will have you know”. Danny sticks up a finger and mutters, “diet pop in filtrator”. Earning a glance from Vlad, “that fudging imbecile”.
Emilie snickers, “I think the mayor hates Danny’s dad just a little bit”. More than a couple fellow teens nod.
Vlad then goes and erases Danny’s whiteboard writing and draws out an over detailed diagram of a man made protal and a natural one. Danny rolls his eyes at the overkill, but Vlad was nothing if not highly excessive. Who shows up to ‘teach’ in a fucking Armenian suit? Danny’s pretty sure the buttons are solid rubies, like, for Ancients sake.
“Natural or artificial some basic rules, that even the simple-minded can follow, are the same. Don’t create a portal in front of someone’s face. Don’t walk inside of one and then activate it-”. Danny doesn’t so much as move when Vlad smacks the side of his head, ever since Vlad found out that that was how Danny half-died the crazy nutter has given him shit for it at every opportunity. So he saw the head smack coming a mile away.
Dale chuckles, “looks like Danny’s a dumbass”. Dash snickering meanly, “what’s new”. Danny absolutely holds up a pink slip over that. “Oh come on!”, Dash sags in his desk grumpily; you’d think the guy would learn. Vlad’s just smirking faintly before continuing, “don’t walk through randomly. And don’t tie a string to it and another person in an attempt to make the portal follow them”, Vlad smacks Danny over the head again. Danny has a feeling Vlad’s annoyed with him today for some reason. It couldn't possibly be that Danny replaced the water in his water bed with wet cement just before he went to bed two days ago, could it? Never mind, Danny knows that is exactly why. Fuck that was funny.
“Hey, it worked”.
“It really should not have, Daniel”.
“Cloning also shouldn’t work yet here we are”.
Vlad glares at him but continues talking at everyone, “another basic rule is that if the portal is any colour other than green, leave it alone; the town and I will not cover whatever happens if you don’t…”.
Vlad actually manages to get to go on for a while without being actively petty towards Danny or starting a mild bickering match with him. Danny’s honestly a little impressed. Vlad also gets almost overexcited repeatedly, very much proving he’s a scientist at heart while also clearly forgetting he’s talking to teenagers; more than a few things clearly go over everyone’s head. Val still looks like she’s plotting murder though; Danny can admire the tenacity.
But when Danny straightens out a bit from his ghost sense going off Vlad sighs, picks him up by his cloak collar and just walks him to stick out the window, unceremoniously dropping him. Danny screaming, “WHAT THE FU̢C̶͞҉K͟! FU̢C̶͞҉K͟ YOU!”, as he falls and hits the bushes below with a thud. Vlad leaning his head out to reply, “you were going to leave anyways, thought I would simply hurry the whole process up. I do know how lazy and tardy you can be”.
“I WILL PISS IN YOUR FRIDGES FANCY ICE-MAKING COMPARTMENT!”.
Vlad doesn’t dignify that with a response, instead turning back to the class with a smirk, “so on how to topple the ghost government…”. The class stares at him in shock and amusement at the sudden subject change. Valerie just stares with even more hatred now knowing full well he set her up during the Pariah incident when he gave her that ring. She does throw an ‘are you okay’ text to Danny though, which he responded with ‘I smell like bush’ to.
What’s really sad is that Danny got dropped in a bush from the second story of a building because the Box Ghost was having a lovers quarrel with The Lunch Lady in the park. By the time Danny got there it had descended into a full-blown food fight involving boxed-only foods. More than a few townsfolk had even joined in, and honestly? Danny said fuck it -not out loud ‘cause fuck his throat still hurt- and just joined in the chaos.
Vlad could handle a class of teenagers and if the man tried anything then Val wouldn’t hesitate to outright commit attempted murder.
Did Boxy win the food fight? No, obviously not. The Lunch Lady wasn’t super powerful but she still outclassed The Box Ghost’s ass. Danny finger gunning at the box-themed man who’s currently covered in crackers, “I’d buy her something nice before she decides to fill all your boxes with enough meat to make them rounded”. The Box Ghost looks completely scandalised and insulted, “you don’t think she would”.
“Oh she would, Boxy. She absolutely would”. Considering that women caused a meat tsunami purely because Sam wouldn’t eat meat…
The Box Ghost flies off in a hurry and Danny gets to back to his class with literal armfuls of boxed goods. He also got to discover that Vlad could not handle a class of teens who were now discussing how to overthrow Vlad from the mayoral office to the mains dismay and insult. Vlad looking at him, “your students are demons. Suiting”. Danny just chucked a box of frootloops at him.
(Apparently and according to the Ghost Writer, the Observants went and gave Walker shit for interfering with his Guardian duties. Danny was absolutely tickled green by this news. The Ghost Writer, however, was not happy about Todd’s apparent intentional destruction of a book; Danny doesn’t envy Todd who did, in fact, get abducted that night).
Chapter 6: Feather Quills And ‘Tests’ To Fill
“Danny, you’re overthinking this”.
Danny sighs and leans back in his chair, groaning very loudly at his bedroom ceiling before looking to his sister, who was, as per usual, attempting to be helpful… helpful-ish. “But this is the final, it’s kinda a big fucking deal. And considering how fucking splendidly I usually did on those things, how the FUCK am I writing one up? Plus, like, how do I condense this shit? Do you know how many subjects I wound up covering? Too fucking many!”.
Jazz hums encouragingly at him so he just keeps on ranting, which was probably exactly what she wanted.
Danny gesturing a hand around wildly, “ecto-biology, ecto-linguistics, ecto-medicare, ecto-history slash ecto-culture, ecto-psychology slash ecto-behaviouralism, ecto-literature, ecto-mechanics… Too fucking many”, sighing and sagging, “also pretty sure I just made up, like, all those names”.
Jazz giggles a little, “ecto-Medicare is accurate, though I have a feeling you explained far more than just treating ecto-burns or regular ecto-contamination”. Danny snaps his fingers at her, “well obviously, might as well teach the fuckers how to treat a ghost and not just humans affected by ecto stuff”.
“A roundabout way to achieve self-preservation. Should any of them stumble across an injured Phantom”.
Danny pointing aggressively at her, “hey, none of that”. Jazz just could not chill it with the psychoanalysing. She just grins at him like she’s done nothing wrong. Him sighing again and just staring up at his ceiling, randomly mentally drawing out the constellations his glow-in-the-dark ceiling stars made.
Jazz getting up and ruffling his head jerks him out of his ceiling watching though, “hey!”, him flailing his hands around to shoo her off which, as per usual, just makes her giggle at him fondly; which he absolutely pouts at her over. Her speaking up after a bit, “you know, if you find a proper written test so annoying you could just simply do something more unconventional”, her beaming a bit smugly, “my advanced abnormal psychology prof didn’t even make a final at all”.
Danny rolls his eyes, “yeah but that’s university, they can do that. And as awesome as it is that you got to start break early, they should have kept you”, and smirks while she shoves him one.
“Now that was just mean, Danny”. Shaking her head and going back to sitting on his bed, “but I am serious. Do a final project, or just an essay”.
Danny glares slightly, “essays as finals are the goddamn worst, I would never”; she rolls her eyes at that.
“I prefer them actually”, nodding to herself, “far more room for exploring ideas and showing your prof your personality”.
Danny grumbling, “more like how to really rub it in when someone doesn’t know everything perfectly”. Sighing after a bit, because she did have a point. Tests were fucking bullshit and did a shitty ass job of doing literally anything other than telling how good someone’s short-term memory was. Becoming more opinionated about how schools do schooling is one side-effect of this teacher thing that he so did not see coming. Eh whatever, not like he isn’t right. But what the fuck else can he even do? What could even qualify as ‘finals’ worthy? He sure as shit isn’t doing oral presentations, those things were like a mild form of torture… unless you were a drama kid, which Danny was not. Sure he didn’t have to worry about whatever the fuck being an absolute clusterfuck because a regular-ass test would be a clusterfuck anyway since he basically covered the ghostly version of EVERYTHING, EVERY SUBJECT AVAILABLE IN SCHOOL… except math. Fuck math. What kind of nightmare test jumps from laws of an alternate death dimension to ghostly art? Ghost hunger followed right up by portal safety? Plus, does he even remember everything he taught? Ha ha FUCK NO! What, in any world, would make anyone think otherwise. A ‘project’ would totally help deal with that issue. Grumbling, “how would I even have a project that covers everything?”.
Jazz humming to herself and tapping her chin, “well you could have them go fishing for blob ghosts through a portal?”.
Danny blinks a bit harshly, what the fuck? Looking to her, “Jazz… what the Zone kind of Uni friends have you been making?”. Though he guesses that anything involving blob ghosts would cover a tone of shit. And it’s not like he hasn’t talked a literal fuck ton about blob ghosts. They were like a go-to example/comparison tool.
Jazz shrugs, “my dorm-mate likes to fish dangerous fish”. Danny just blinks, well that sorta? explained it. Sorta.
“What kinda fish”.
“She kept a displayed piranha”.
Danny whistles at that, damn, “guess Amity’s not the only land of crazies”. She laughs a little at that and nods with slightly crinkled eyes.
Danny uses his foot to push himself around in his chair, grumbling incoherently to himself. He did kinda like the idea of dragging blob ghosts into his problems, but taking people portal fishing -snort- was just ridiculous even by his standards. Not that Charles hadn’t ‘gone fishing’ in his desk to get his hands on one; yes Danny’s still a little miffed about that, but hey, at least the man kept his grubby hands out of his desk ever since.
Blinking, wait a fucking minute…
Grinning, Danny stops spinning and loudly slams his hands down on his desk repeatedly, “HA! Pet ghosts!”. Jazz shakes her head good-naturedly, “not sure the school will go for an adopt-a-ghost program as a final”.
Danny points at her and snaps his fingers repeatedly and a bit excitedly, “no no no no no no. Blob ghosts. Catch your own blob ghost. Keeping It ‘alive’ would cover almost everything, catching It would cover most else, and naming It, like, a ghost name in ghost speak could be the whipped cream on top!”.
“Danny, how are you going to get all the parents to even agree to that?”. Glaring at him when he smirks, “without abusing overshadowing”. Danny actively pouts at that. He does have an actual answer though, “oddly most of them take me seriously or respect me some. Weird, I know”, sighing slightly and tilting his head, “Sophia’s still hate my guts though”.
Jazz laughs at him, “so what you’re saying is that they are not going to approve”.
“When does everyone ever approve of the shit I do? Get the majority vote and everyone else can just suck it up”.
“See that is likely part of why they apparently hate you”.
Danny flips her off for that one.
Jazz shaking her head and getting up, “regardless, feel like treating your very proud big sister to dinner?”. Danny rolls his eyes fondly and sighs like this is just so much effort and such a massive hassle while getting up, “fine. But we’re going to the Soup And Ham Can because their coffee’s good”. That earns him an eye roll right back as they head out of his room.
---
Now see Danny wasn't stupid or mean, he damn well looked around town to make sure that a bunch of teens could feasibly capture some blob ghosts… without ghostly superpowers. And yeah he also did the responsible thing of actually doing the proper paperwork which made him feel super old and simultaneously like he was too young to do this kind of shit. He’s eighteen and ‘doing paperwork’? Fuck. It so didn’t help that he accidentally complained about paperwork around Vlad, which turned into the elder halfa complaining about his own paperwork; which both of them got just mildly weirded out by. Vlad still thought of him as a child after all, and Vlad was absolutely an old man in Danny’s eyes. It was fucking weird. Vlad did get a little smug about Danny ‘being like him because there’s no way that fool Jack did any paperwork’, which did cause the entire encounter to turn into a minor fistfight. Regardless of the man being right or not.
At least Danny was stronger than the man these days, and both of them were well aware of that. Which honestly? might be part of why Vlad chilled the fuck out.
Anyway, said paperwork that’s making him feel old is absolutely why he’s getting an early morning Lancer call. Has to be. Unless Danny absentmindedly destroyed something without knowing it… which was always a fair possibility.
“Daniel, I’ll admit this is probably the most interesting request I’ve ever received as a finals alternative and I can’t say I’m particularly surprised that you’d rather forgo a formal written final”.
Danny snickering and leaning against the park's water fountain, “hey you know me, I like to keep things lively in the deadly kinda way”.
“And so long as blob ghosts aren’t capable of being deadly then I don’t see a reason to deny this. But this can not interfere with other classes, as in, they can not bring ‘awesome pet ghosties’ to their other classes”.
Danny snorts at that, yeah no fucking shit, “well duh, Lance. That would be asking for trouble especially with Charles”.
Lancer audibly sighs, nearly groans actually, on the other end, “now I don’t doubt that. And because I don't want any possibly ecto-contaminated paper from FentonWorks making its way into the students' homes, I already sent out the permission slips”.
Danny blinks, well damn, appreciated he guesses? Blinking again, “huh, well ah, thanks, Lance, I guess. I’m taking it that you just mailed them out though and that I still have to actually tell my own class of fellow teens that they have mandatory pets now?”. That gets a chuckle out of the man.
“You requested this, Daniel, now you have to deal with it. Though somehow I think you’ll be getting ‘thank you’s rather than annoyed groaning and complaining”.
Danny chuckles, “hey if you want everyone to like you more you shouldn’t assign so much work”.
“I’d be doing you teens a disservice”.
Danny rolls his eyes at that one, the man was dedicated he’ll give him that much. “Not ‘fully grasping literary genius’ isn’t really gonna affect anyone negatively, Lance. I’d definitely rather sleep than brush up on your beloved Shakespeare”.
“It’s good for the mind”.
“So’s sleep”, snorting, “and I missed enough of that as it is”.
“Now that I can agree and attest to, considering your class habits. I’ll let you go”.
Danny blinks at his phone, well that was abrupt. Fucking rude. Eh, it’s not like Danny didn’t fuck off randomly all the time. Oh well. Sighing and pushing off of the fountain, “whelp, guess I know what I’m stuck doing tomorrow… or the day after tomorrow? Fuck, what day even is it?”.
Hint: it was Friday. And Danny, like a dumbass, forgot to even attempt to show up for class.
“Ah well. Fuck”.
It probably says a lot that Lancer didn’t even bother cussing him out for that. Should he feel ashamed? embarrassed? at least a little guilty? Probably. Does he? Honestly, no. He stopped feeling guilty about that kind of shit a long ass time ago. Being a little half-dead hero that has to tap out constantly and lie all the time kinda does that to you after a hot minute or two. Which probably wasn’t exactly healthy. But also, it’s not like ‘healthy’ was really a thing he was familiar with these days. Eh, whatever.
Anyway, time for a night fly/patrol.
---
So now it was Monday and Danny officially has to ‘face the music’ or whatever the fuck.
To bad Technus got fancy with the house's microwave and basically destroyed half of Danny’s bedroom. Meaning he couldn’t even look good… good-ish. He absolutely gets some smug pride from the fact that him going to his ‘professional job’ in tattered clothes would piss Vlad off something fierce though. Actually deciding to stick with wearing a pair of pants with one leg torn off so badly that his boxers were able to be seen probably wasn’t the world's smartest idea. At least his shitty Antichrist button-up t-shirt was intact! … More or less anyways. (It was missing a pocket and maybe the bottom wasn’t quite the same shape it once was but he’s not too sure about that bit). The cloaks perfectly fine of course, being ghostly clothing and all.
Pushing the classroom door open with his foot, “alright little ectoplasm knowledge nuggets, we actually have some housekeeping s̷͞h̷i͞ţ̧ to see to so…”.
Val doesn’t even let him actually get to the whiteboard, “so what was up with Friday?”.
Emilie leans back in her seat, “yeah, the only class that’s actually neat is also the one class with a tardy teach”.
Danny points at her, “hey, I resent that statement of truth”, finishing his walk to the board and smacking it, “honestly? I forgot”. Val just stares at him so he winks at her, earning him a scowl and a thrown pencil; which he lets just bounce off his head. Pulling out his quill and striking it all the way down the board, the words ‘FINAL ASSIGNMENT’ magically forming.
Jesse shakes his head, “I still don’t understand that stupid quill”.
Brittney scoffing, “whatever, it’s not like he’ll give us one”. Danny snorts over his shoulder at that, “yeah, no s̷͞h̷i͞ţ̧”. Turning around dramatically enough to make the cloak fan out, “what’s also no s̷͞h̷i͞ţ̧ is that finals are a thing and that I also -like any sane teen- hate written exam s̷͞h̷i͞ţ̧, so we’re not doing that”.
To no ones surprise that announcement results in some smiles, some cheers, one or two fist pumps/high fives, and multiple relieved sighs.
Val chuckles and leans her chin on a palm, “yeah I was wondering how you were going to write some test that covered everything”. Danny absolutely chuckles and nods at that.
Plopping down onto the side of his desk, “so hear me out, since I’m obviously not writing some written thingamajig out and I’m not nearly enough of a sadist to make oral presentations a thing that’s happening”, clapping his hands together cheerily, “so instead y’all are gonna be ghost hunters for a bit”, shrugging, “or for however long it takes you to catch a blob ghost in our town”, tilting his head and tapping his chin, “which honestly shouldn’t take that long all things considered”.
The class just blinks at him for a bit before most burst out laughing.
Emilie wheezes a little, “you are one quirky fucker”. Valerie shaking her head, “here I thought you were about to ask us to catch a proper ghost”, smirking, “which I’m down for”.
Danny rolls his eyes, “as fun as it would be to torment Boxy by making fifteen odd teens repeatedly catch him, I doubt that would accomplish much”.
Todd puts his hands behind his head, “we can totally still do that”. Dale laughing, “HA! Yeah! That could be fun!”, and elbows Dash a couple of times which turns into a mild dude-bro shoving match. Todd snickers meanly at that before looking back at Danny, “and what’s up with the lame-ass underwear? Becoming a bad stripper or something”.
Danny rolls his eyes at the jab, “Technus got a little friendly with a microwave”.
“They’re green”. Apparently, Todd doesn’t give a flaming fuck about the ‘why’, just the colour. Figures.
Valerie rolls her eyes at the fake ass ‘bad boy’, “Danny’s a joke, of course they’re ecto-green”. Danny nodding and rolling his hand about in the air, “and besides, sleeping in phase-proof underwear is a pretty solid idea, all things considered”. That earns some understanding cringing from the class. Danny sticking up a finger, “just like having you lot bring me some captured but not destroyed-”, giving Val a meaningful look, “-spookies makes perfect sense for an ecto-ology final!”.
A couple of people shrug, Ashley muttering, “oh what the Hell”, toying with her fingers a little, “but does it have to be a big one?”.
Danny waves her off, “naw, so long as it’s in the blob family I don’t care”.
James sighs, leaning on a palm, “but why can’t we just do something normal? An essay?”.
Danny puts a hand to his chest in mock offence, “why I never! I just said I’m not a sadist”, waving a hand around, “and because, I am the true multimedia teacher of spooky academia, just handing out knowledge like a new kind of haemophilia. So I am creating g̵͡o͝d̶͡d͠҉am̛n͘҉ new educational finals criteria. Just don’t go getting into necrophilia on me”, and winks as everyone else groans.
Dustan muttering, “so much for not being a sadist”. Sophia sticks up a hand.
“Yes?”.
She plays with her fingers a little, “well, um, what about our parents?”.
James jumps in, “hey yeah, are we just supposed to keep a ghost in our rooms till finals week?”.
Dash scoffs, “aww is some scared of a little blob ghost”. James just rolls his eyes at that.
Danny shrugs, “eh Lance already sent out permission stuff so parent stuff’s already covered. And naw, catch one by…”, humming to himself, “… oh let’s say next Monday. Bring me proof”, holding up a finger, “but also don’t let the little bugger go. Because if you think all I’m asking is ghost capture then ho boy you’re wrong”. Let them make of that what they want. More than a few look slightly disturbed and he absolutely hears Ashley mutter something about dissection. Danny’s pretty sure Lancer wouldn’t let him get away with that. The blender stunt had been pushing it already, apparently there was a such thing as detention for teachers. Shudder.
Jesse glares at Danny then Valerie, “you better not be marking this on time because some of us have unfair advantages”.
Dash jumps in, “yeah! Little miss anti-ghost psycho probably fantasises about this!”.
Todd rolling his eyes, “as if you need to worry about that, you’d piss yourself before catching one anyway”.
“FUCK YOU!”.
Danny chuckles, his class was probably the only one where anyone could shout ‘FUCK YOU’ and not get in shit. Though Dash being ‘star football star McGee’ probably wouldn’t get in trouble for it in any class. Tch. “Now now, just g̵͡o͝d̶͡d͠҉am̛n͘҉ catch one”, shrugging, “don’t care how or when or colour or whatever the f̵̛u̕͞c̴̶̡k̶̨͠. Ancients, go climb a crane and fish one out of the bucket for all I care. But if you die, don’t haunt me”.
Val sighs, giving him an exasperated look, “great, now someone’s going to do exactly that”. Emilie laughing, “I call dibs!”. Making Val thump her head on her desk. Danny does at least give her an apologetic shrug, hey not his fault that people like to take him up on his bullshit to fuck around and find out.
(Did someone actually take him up on the crane idea? According to the news, yes, yes someone did. Danny’s personal bets are not on Emilie even if she did ‘dibs it’, it was probably one of the quiet kids honestly. At least they were smart enough to wear a disguise. So long as Lancer doesn’t find out…).
---
Danny groans face down in his bed, Lancer was in his bedroom. WHY?!?!?!? Well okay, he knew exactly why. Lancer specifically asked for Danny’s makeshift final to not interfere with other classes and what happened? Well apparently a blob ghost ate the cord to the old school projector that Joshep loved so much. BECAUSE OF COURSE THAT HAPPENED! Danny had some truly shit luck. Groaning again, “I didn’t ask them to randomly bring them to school!”, mumbling, “at least not until next week”. What dumbass caused his problem? Probably Todd honestly. Dash might want to shit kick him but the jock was not nearly petty/sneaky enough to ‘get Fenturd’ in this kind of roundabout way. Todd, however, was the definition of petty. Though Danny was a lot more petty; but he’s a ghost! He’s allowed to be!
Lancer sighs faintly, “you’re still the reason ultimately. Even if Joshep has little room to talk, considering how his class law experiment went”.
“You’re talking about the one that was a recreation of that prison psychology excitement thing? Because yeah, that was bad even by my standards and my experience with jailers involved a lot more tasers”.
“… Daniel, I explicitly remember you tasing people at that time even though you weren’t even in his class”. Danny can practically hear his technical boss shaking his head, “that doesn’t change that you owe Joshep a new projector, and I am not putting it on the FentonWorks tab”. Danny groans very loudly over that. Fuck.
Danny rolling over in his bed and just staring at the ceiling, “forcing me to spend the paycheck you give me on stuff for the school, smarmy shit”.
“That word doesn’t mean what I think you believe it does”.
Danny shrugs, “eh. And besides, Lance”, turning his head to actually look at the man, who quirks an eyebrow before Danny continues, “lords of knowledge, or whatever, should be allowed to ban finals because reasons”, putting a hand very egotistically to his own chest and trying to bleed ego, “a lord like me specifically”.
Lancer chuckles and shakes his head slowly, “I’m sure you would ban them if Id let you”.
“Oh yeah, no shit. In a frickin’ heartbeat-”.
Both of them pause and glance at the floor when a very loud explosion sounds and actually makes the floor shake a little. Not for the first time Danny’s glad he’s nailed/screwed down a large majority of the shit in his room. He even got those weird suction drinking cups that even he, with his ghostly strength, couldn’t slap over.
Barely seconds later his mom pushes open his door, smiling quickly at Lancer, “sweetie, Mr. Lancer, you may what to head outside”, rolling her eyes a bit fondly, “Jack, the dear, might have blown up the photon carbon ecto-endaton”.
Danny blinks, “you mean that new bomb thing? You guys actually blew up something that was supposed to blow up?”. His mom actually has the fucking balls to nod sheepishly. Lancer, however, is sweating unpleasantly.
They absolutely head outside.
Danny patting Lancer on the shoulder while they stand from the sidewalk watching smoke pour out the door/windows, “I’m guessing this’ll be the last time you make an unexpected house visit?”.
“… your home life worries still… this has not helped”.
“‘Life’! HA! Good one!… so will you not dying today count as payment enough?”.
“No, Daniel. Just no”.
“Damn. Was getting my hopes up for a second”.
Lancer glares at Danny a little before heading home; Danny cackles to himself a little. He may be paying for Joshep’s stupid projector love out of his own pocket, but at least he got to make someone -Lancer- regret their life choices in the process. His ghost sense going off tells him that he’s also going to get someone to regret their death choices. Nice. Two for one coupon.
---
Thankfully there were no other blob ghost-related incidences, that Danny heard about, before Monday.
“So did everyone catch a blob ghost?”. That question gets Danny a pretty solid round of ‘yes’s and people holding up blobs in jars or just waving around their phones to show pictures of their particular blob. Danny nodding to himself, “good good”, sounding ominous, “now your final can begin”.
Earning lots of concerned staring and worried glances at the present blob ghosts. Which makes sense, ominous-ness deserves at least some worry. Especially considering the things that usually followed Danny specifically being ominous.
Danny, content with his mild terrorising, actually explains himself while staring down his class like he’s some kind of government agency boss, “your assignment is thus, you will keep that blob ghost ‘alive’ until the twentieth. One full month. And you bet your knickers I’m gonna be tagging your suckers so I will know if you f̵̛u̕͞c̴̶̡k̶̨͠ it up and try to replace them”, glaring at the class comically, “you can keep it trucking however you see fit, use that knowledge! Bring It to hang around Cored ghost! Give It ecto food! Ecto-water! Use your imagination”, chuckling, “just don’t try creating a ghost portal to throw It in the Zone. That’s a real good way to die”.
Jasper grumbles, “yeah the freaking mayor was pretty clear about that”.
Amber purses her bubblegum pink lips, “and how do you plan to ‘tag them’? Half of us didn’t even bring ours!”, and huffs to herself. Danny smirks almost meanly and flops backwards in his chair to spin around more lazily in it, “I’m a teacher not a cop, meaning I don’t have any jobly standards against breaking and entering”.
Emilie snorts and starts snickering while Dash half shouts, “there’s no way a twerp like you has the guts!”. Dale shrugging, “well his freak folks do bust down walls all the time”.
“Still! Fenton’s a wimp!”, Dash grumbling to himself a little, “even if he’s manned up a little”, grumbling even quieter to himself, “… and some of the wimpiness was faked”.
Danny rolls his eyes, toying with yet another pink slip, “pinky pinky someone should keep their lips zippy zippy”. Earning death glares from Dash. Danny chuckling, “anyway, considering my lack of giving a s̛hi̸t̡ about school rules and whatnot you'd think me also lacking in the s̛hi̸t̡ giving department towards general laws would be some kind of a given”, shrugging, “eh whatever. I’ll tag your suckers and I’ll tag ‘em just right”, and smirks, turning back to face the whiteboard.
Valerie rolls her eyes and coughs a little, “well that wasn’t creepy at all, Danny”. Which really only makes Danny smirk more as he shoves himself out of his chair before going about writing up what in all this ‘final assignment’ even involved with his funky little quill. And while everyone goes about reading that shit he’ll walk around and ‘mark’ all the little blob ghosts, which sit all pretty and proper for him; being that he’s the strong ghosty here and being that they all ‘live’ in his wonderful little lair.
Brittney scowls at her blob, “why does It listen to you? Every time I touch It, It tries to bite me”, her attempting to pet It and getting almost bit in response feels like emphasis, and more than a few people nod at that. Danny just chuckles meanly, “because they fear me”, and moves on without explaining that at all.
Dash scowls and grumbles down at his desk, “as if anything fears him”. Which really just makes Danny smirk. Oh how wrong that was, in more ways than one. Which he wasn’t exactly always happy about. Danny did like certain fear, he was a ghost after all, and he definitely liked it if it was The Observants or Boxy’s fear. Just not genuine fear from the general population of humanity, Amity, the Zone, etcetera.
Danny popping back over to the board, “ookily dookily, now that that’s done and over with”, glancing at the class meanly, “I will get the rest of you later”, then back to the board, “now for actual class class s̛hi̸t̡. Which yeah sure fine, this has nothing to do with the final so technically you could just ignore my a̡̡s͢͞s̸ or f̢̡u͞c҉k͡ off entirely if you think you can sneak out for a half hour-ish without getting caught. But hey! My s̛hi̸t̡ might be useful s̛hi̸t̡”, shrugging, “or at least interesting. Unlike most stupid classes”. That gets him some snickers and laughs. Success. He’s also not surprised no one takes him up on the ‘fucking off and leaving’ option; most people took this class because they actually wanted to hear some nut job yammer on about ghosts… or at this point they just wanted to bear witness to whatever shit might happen to or be done by Danny. Perfectly understandable.
---
“You did what?”.
Danny shoves another mouthful of the noodle dish in his mouth before looking up to his mom, “uhhhh, it seemed like a better idea than some useless info dump regurgitation required test”. Okay so maybe it was stupid of him to think that his folks, oblivious as they often are, would just… not notice? people running around after blob ghosts.
She gives him a worried look, “but Danny, they’re still ghosts. Still dangerous”. Danny makes a point not to roll his eyes. Sure her genuine worry was ludicrously misplaced and steeped in ectophobia but it was still genuine… and while Danny is indeed a little shit, he’s not an utter dick.
He does still wave her off though, “i’s’ine”, swallowing his food, “it’s not like they haven’t spent an entire semester learning about this shit. Ghost shit”. She frowns at him, “still”.
His dad waves her off goofily, “oh I'm sure the kids have some idea what they’re doing, Mads!”, laughing loudly, “especially with Danno over here!”, and smacks Danny one on the back hard enough to make him cough. Danny appreciates the confidence but does he really have to get mildly assaulted at the same time? Not that he really minded but still.
Danny sticking up a finger, “and besides, Lance did approve it soooooooo…”, and waves his hand around limply. He’s honestly a little amazed by that fact still. Either Lancer trusted him a wee bit too much or didn’t want to see what else he might request if denied. It worked out mighty fine if you ask Danny. So far everyone seemed to be doing fine, sure Val had called and asked if she’d lose marks if she ‘used It as a pin cushion’; Danny said ‘yes’, of course… she was definitely disappointed. And both Dash and Dale were trying to teach theirs to fetch footballs. He might have to go give Todd a talking to about trying to turn his into some kind of feudal warlord over the other ‘wild’ blobs though.
She sighs and picks at her food a little, “it’s not that I don’t trust Danny”, actually looking at Danny, “but couldn’t you have just had them catch and release or even track Phantom down and hand them off to him?”. Danny sighs a little, “but that would have hardly covered anything. How’s that supposed to test their understanding of low-level behaviouralism or stuff like ghost hunger”. She actually blinks at him, sounding slightly confused, “ghost… hunger…”.
Ah
Shit
Right
Sometimes he forgets he actually knows -and teaches- shit his folks don’t actually know. Which is weird all alone. But hey, ectophobes don’t deserve to know. So Danny just shrugs and elects not to even attempt to explain himself. They’re -or at least his mom, based on his dad going back to chowing down food- are probably just slightly worried about what he’s teaching his fellow teens.
His mom, of course, presses the issue, “…Danny…”. Which Danny takes as the perfect time to get up and head towards the door, “whelp, guess I should go and stop someone from establishing tyrannical blobby rule”, waving his folks off as he actually heads out said door, “Todd’s kinda a dick… and moron”. He doesn’t miss his mom frowning or her muttering, “maybe this job wasn’t the best idea… and is he implying someone’s trying to teach leadership to a blob?”. His dad laughing a little, “yeah so weird! Those things can’t even be trained not to bite! HA!”.
Danny rolling his eyes as he looks up at the sky, “oh they’re easily trainable”, and chuckling to himself a little.
-
It’s a simple ten-minute flight before he’s got himself perched on his ankles on Todd’s bedroom windowsill. Apparently the guy keeps his bed right next to the window… which is street-facing. Fuck that’s stupid and reckless. How has he never gotten rudely awakened by Phantom him or some other ghost getting throw into/threw this wall. Fucking Ancients, mild death wish much. But hey, it gives Danny the opportunity to be a creepy little bastard gremlin. Aka, Danny absolutely leans ominously down over Todd before speaking, “looks like sleeping beauty’s been naughty”. Todd, like Danny wanted, gets jolted awake, yelps, shuffles backwards, smacks his head on his headboard, and just stares at Danny in shock. Danny snickers meanly, “trying to establish tyrannical rule, tsk tsk tsk, can’t have that now can we”.
Todd gulps and musters up some -clearly fake- bravado, “what the Hell man”.
“Not from Hell but I’m sure Satan would be touched that you think I’m his handy work. Real compliment right there”.
Danny hops off the windowsill, over Todd/his bed, and lands in the guy's room; cloak fluttering in the air faintly all the while, he was technically doing his job right now after all. “So as I was saying, trying to make a merciless authoritative ruler out of your blobby is not part of the final and is honestly quite objectionable”.
“You broke into my room”.
“And you sleep right next to a street-facing window, so clearly I’m not the one making stupid life decisions here, buddy”, turning around and smirking at his fellow teen, “you’re practically begging for a break and enter, be glad it’s just your quirky teacher taking you up on that offer”. Granted he was also basically the most powerful ghost around town, but hey right now he was just teacher. Shrugging, “granted breaking in here isn’t apparently all that entertaining, considering all you’ve done so far is wake up and stare at me from your bed like a brain-dead monkey”.
Todd jerks and glares at him, “aww am I boring you. Get out of my room”.
Danny shrugs again, “ah naw, I’m good right where I am”. Snapping his fingers and sending out a bit of his energy to call over the little blob ghost that Todd’s SUPPOSED TO JUST BE TAKING CARE OF BUT IS INSTEAD GROOMING INTO A WAR MONGER. The blob ghost of course listens and immediately zips over and rolls around under Danny’s raised palm. Danny turns his attention to the little guy, speaking like one does to a small child or kitten who’s being misled by a miscreant, “now you listen here little one, don’t let this jackass fill your head with silly little thoughts of blob world domination”, staring at It meaningfully, “Phantom’s the more peace-seeking type”. The blob actually shudders slightly over the prospect of being rejected by Phantom.
Todd screws up his face and mutters disbelievingly when the blob turns to him and hisses. Danny smirking at the teen, “have fun taking care of them now”, and throws a very cheeky peace sign before strutting smugly over to the window and dropping out it down to the sidewalk.
Danny’s not even slightly surprised to get a bunch of empty energy cans thrown out the window at him along with a very loud, “FUCK YOU”… and a slightly shrieked, “YOU BIT ME!”. Hahahahaha have fun with that Todd, serves him right.
---
Todd had glared at him angrily and was more of a nuisance than usual for multiple days, not that Danny gave a shit. He also ‘reported’ Danny as a ‘peeping Tom’ to Lancer which did result in a ‘conversation’ with the man but Danny’s counter of outing Todd as attempting to turn the general blob community in harbingers of war -which fine was a major exaggeration but whatever- resulted in Lancer sighing exhaustedly and basically throwing out the report. One of these days Danny’s going to run out of ways to make Lancer slightly regret ever offering him a job but that day has yet to come.
Danny smacks a hand on the whiteboard a couple of times, “alrighty alrighty alrighty, test results time!”, turning around and smirking at the class, “you get that s̛h͜i̕͟t͠ now since no one has to waste time grading a bunch of stupid paper scanner thingies and then rechecking them for fu̕͝c͟k̛͜ ̧u͝p̸̨s”, and smacks the board again. Though pausing at the cracking sound and snapping his head around to the board. There’s a decent-sized crack/dent in it, making Danny grin like an idiot, throw his hands up, and cheer, “YES! FINALLY!”. He has cracked the board! It has happened! Turning back to the class, actually tearing up a little and wiping his eyes, “I’m truly overjoyed. Blessed really”.
James blinking and muttering, “is he crying?”. Dash snorting, “ha loser”. Val actually turning around to the jock while Danny holds up a pink slip, “do you never learn?”.
“I’m collecting them at this point”.
Val blinks at that, “now you sound like Danny”. Dash looks genuinely offended and like he’s seconds away from starting a brawl right then and there, “you take that back!”.
“Make me!”.
Danny just laughs and waves a hand dismissively, “now now children, no fighting”. Earning him eye-rolls and scowls, Val laughs though so it’s a win in his books. Summoning out his staff and pointing it rather aggressively at the class, only Ashley jumps so clearly they’ve gotten too used to his shit by now, “now present to me your blob pets for grading!”.
Everyone dutifully pulls out their jarred blob ghosts and places them on their desks. Maple sticking up a hand, “do we have to release them or?”.
Danny chuckles, “you can keep ‘em if you wanna, wouldn’t exactly recommend it but hey Charles’s -that he so rudely stole from me- is doing cool so”, shrugging, making his staffs bell jingle. Danny pushing his energy into his staff making the feathers multiply and extend out to ‘assess’ the blobs. It was fucking weird that his staff could basically do anything so long as it had to do with his ‘role’ as Wisdom Guardian.
Jesse shakes his head at his blob attempting to nibble the feathers, “I’m just going to pretend this makes sense. This class is almost weirder than the ghosts are”. Danny simply smirks at that.
Danny nodding to himself after a bit, feathers retracting, gesturing the staff over the board making the results magically appear. Danny nodding smugly at his handy work/his students' results, fists on his hips, “Ancients the G.I.W. would hate me so much”.
“You say that as if you don’t already”.
Danny ignores that, turning around grinning and gesturing grandly at the board, “behold! Crack or no, your results!”. Walking to his desk and flopping down into his chair, “of course no one failed”, leaning back and feigning being utterly desolate, “oh how disgraceful that would be. To think my pupils would even consider bringing such shame upon me, after everything I have bestowed upon them”.
Val gets up and slams a cup of coffee on his desk, “will you stop being overdramatic now?”. Danny snagging it up eagerly, “oh why thank you”, gesturing dramatically, “my beloved emergency caffeine maid, how I thank yo-”, Val promptly cuts him off by punching his head into his desk.
“Call me ‘Maid’ again and I’ll make you a ghost”.
Danny just grumbles incoherently into his desk while the class goes about looking at the results.
“Oh Hell yeah! Guess who’s average is going up!”.
“Honestly I thought I did worse. Wow”.
“The bastard seriously docked me marks. Jerk”.
“You deserved it, Todd”.
“I’m honestly actually kinda proud of this. Doesn’t feel as meaningless as tests usually do”.
“High five bro!”.
“Heck yeah bro!”.
“That’s enough ‘bro’ing. Fuck”.
“Shove it, pipsqueak”.
“Is it sad that I care more about this result than my math results?”.
“Now if only uni gave a shit about this class…”.
Danny lifts his head up off his desk and rests his chin in a palm, “good for all of you”, sipping his coffee, “granted I’d got all happy go lucky if I ever got decent grades”. Val actually gives him a slightly sympathetic look at that, even if she says, “well maybe if you didn’t skip constantly”. Danny just takes another sip of his drink before standing up, “so who wants to do a blob release party in the field? Like releasing balloons into the sky”.
Maple practically skips back to her desk and actually hugs the jar her blobs in, “not mine”. Danny waves her off, “that’s perfectly fine”, standing up, swinging the staff behind his head to rest on his neck/shoulder. Wandering over to the window and just falling out of it, “see you out there!”.
James blinks, “we’re… not following him, are we”.
Valerie shrugs, “yup”, and basically jumps out of it.
“There’s a lot wrong with the two of them”.
“That’s nothing new”.
“I’m taking the stairs, this is ridiculous”.
“Well it is Danny for you”.
“I love this class”.
-
Danny just grins at everyone with their jars, nodding at them all before pointing his staff up at the sky for no real reason other than dramatics, more than a few classrooms have teens staring out at them while everyone -well almost everyone anyway, a small handful opting out- opening their jars and letting out the random blobs.
Some of the blobs just start zipping around or floating off, a couple nuzzle their particular caretakers, one or two just straight up stay and take naps on the grass. It was all kinda cute actually.
Amber crouching down on her ankles petting one of the grass sleeping blobs, “yeah I guess we kind of put you guys through the wringer, huh”. Danny chuckling, “oh yeah, for the most part, blobs do perfectly well living on their own in the wild-”.
Half the class basically speaks in unison and in time with him, “so long as there’s enough ectoplasm around”, followed by, “we know”.
Danny pouts at everyone, “well at least y’all remembered”. He has been successful at this teaching thing. Hurray. Good for him. Guess for now he’ll just enjoy the view of the healthy blob ghosts running around. Todd’s is apparently still somewhat ticked at him, taking the time to naw on his pants before fucking off. Hopefully, that one doesn’t cause problems in the future.
---
“So how was it? I saw that everyone passed”.
“Surprisingly enjoyable”.
“Really now”.
Sigh. “Fine I’ll admit it, you were right about this being a good option for me”.
“Good. So you’re up for doing this again next semester I take it”.
“At this point? No shit. Though I think my folks are going to interrogate me about my ‘usual’ and ‘forbidden’ and ‘impossible’ and ‘can’t possibly be true’ knowledge at this point, all things considered”.
Slight chuckle. “Good, it might do them some good. Their bigotry only seems to grow more concerning”.
“Heh, nice to hear it called bigotry honestly”.
“You’d be the one to say that”.
“Yeah, I guess so”.
“You know you’ve got one more thing to do now though”.
“Oh yeah? What?”.
“Get Christmas gifts from your students”.
“FUCK”.
“We also have a staff holiday party”.
“…oh I hate you so much”.
Chapter 7: Probably Utterly Unnecessary Overly Wordy Self-Imposed And Unintentional Obligatory Closing Chapter (But Christmas-Themed) Because I Knee-Jerk Hate Christmas And Will Take Any Given Opportunity To Take A Piss On The Season So In The Words Of Danny Fenton ‘Dude, I Am *Sick* Of Christmas!’… ‘I Know! (Puts Down Walker’s Arm And Grabs The Orange) How ‘Bout *This*!’
🎵All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth🎵
🎵My two front teeth🎵
🎵See my two front teeth🎵
🎵Gee, if I could only have my two front teeth🎵
🎵Then I could wish you, "Merry Christmas"🎵
…
….
…..
🎵What a bright time, it’s the right time🎵
🎵To rock the night away🎵
🎵Jingle bell time is a swell time🎵
🎵To go gliding in a one-horse sleigh 🎵
Danny’s grumbling almost aggressively and marching to class looking like he actively wanted to murder someone… slowly and violently. Repeatedly. Scowling up at the ceiling, nearly snarling at the speakers, “swell time my ass”, before basically kicking in his classroom door. Was he wearing an anti-Christmas sweater? Yes. Only because apparently teachers were ‘highly encouraged’ to show ‘holiday spirit’ with their clothing. Fuck Christmas. Fuck Christmas cheer. Goddamnit. His shirt said ‘sleigher’ -because Danny will pun regardless of how shitty or not his mood may be. And currently, it was quite shitty indeed- with a murdered reindeer. A graphically murdered reindeer. He’s pretty sure no teacher has tried to dress code him because of the fear of throat punching based off his facial expression.
Anyway…. door kicking. Ancients he wishes the stupid thing wasn’t built fucking solid o that his goddamn foot would have just smashed a nice little hole in the bottom. But hey, at least the door bangs against the wall hard enough to shake and bounce back enough that he has to kick it again to get it out of his way. And fine maybe he has to do that repeatedly. And sure maybe he just gets more violent about it. And okay he absolutely broke one of the hinges. Whatever. Fuck that door.
Valerie just sighs and shakes her head, well aware of Danny’s hatred for Christmas and well used to him turning into an angry chihuahua this time of year. Dash also rolls his eyes, even if he’s slightly intimidated. The rest of the class just looks on concerned as Danny walks over to the whiteboard, him smacking it hard enough to make the cracking spread, “alright so the next fucker who asks if I’m going to decorate this room will get stabbed and I will use your blood as the decoration to make this place look like Satan’s personal spa retreat, including something demonic-looking getting summoned into the corner to stare at you all menacingly”, glaring at a couple of people in particular, “and the next person to give me a bag of feathers as a present is spending the holidays with Boxy in a warehouse. Got it. Good. Anyways, since we don’t need no stinking stupid-ass review periods because we’re already done with that shit, what the fuck do ya wanna talk about and preferably loud enough to block out the crappy Christmas music”.
Todd blinks, “what crawled up your ass and died”. Danny snapping at him immediately, “my will to live in this god-forsaken time of year”.
🎵Who doesn’t love to sing We Wish You A Merry Christmas?🎵
Danny’s rye twitches, him half shouting towards the ajar door, “I fucking don’t!”.
🎵Good tidings we bring🎵
🎵To you and your kin🎵
🎵Good tidings for Christmas🎵
“Take those ‘tidings’ and shove them up your ass!”.
🎵And a happy New Year!🎵
Scowling and looking at the class, “y’all better start talking or I’m going to get in trouble for vandalism and destruction of school property”. Now that gets the class chuckling at him a little, making him roll his eyes somewhat fondly.
James shakes his head, “so I take it you don’t exactly like Christmas”. Valerie turning to him, “understatement. Danny hates Christmas more than the Box Ghost hates circles”.
“Well damn, that’s actually impressive”.
Danny sighs and glares at the ceiling, “and I actually hate it less than I used to”. That gets him some disbelieving staring. Whatever. Yes his hatred might be excessive but he’s a ghost goddamnit, excess is the name of the game; fuck off.
Amber purses her lips, “soooo… you don’t want presents then. Or any more anyway”. Danny sighs, “it’s fine. But make them Christmas-themed at your own peril”. The class absolutely laughs at him, not that he gives a shit. So long as no one gives him Christmas socks they can laugh all they want.
(Does basically everyone eventually give him something? Yes. Was it mostly ghost-themed/related? Also yes. Did at least one person be a complete jackass and give him something Christmas-themed? Definitely; but no one else did after he dumped ectoplasm-infused eggnog on that particular teen's head)
“Ignoring Danny’s hate boner, I vote we talk about Phantom”.
Dash grinning, “well duh!”.
Danny chuckles and shakes his head a little, “I swear this town has a mass obsession or something”, shrugging, “eh what the heck why not”. Val rolls her eyes which makes him smirk, even if his mood’s still shit. He pretty much just lets everyone chat amongst themselves; him flopping down in his chair and pretty much zoning out.
By the time class is coming to an end Danny’s got his feet up on the whiteboard ledge, Danny glancing at the clock, “whelp this has been fun”, lifting his feet off and spinning his chair around to face everyone, “guess this whole teaching thing was, like, an actually good idea. Dealing with you people wasn't terribly horrible”. He’s amazed the whole Phantom thing never got caught.
“Yeah fuck you too, teach”.
Danny grins and finger guns. Emilie getting up and tilting the door to get it open graces his ears with more fucking Christmas music though.
🎵Let’s sing Merry Christmas and a happy holiday🎵
🎵This season may we never forget the love we have for *bell sounds*🎵
Danny snags his quill and flicks it at the speakers, shorting it out and making it smoke worryingly. Then blinking, “wait did they censor ‘jesus’? Haha nice”, smirking a little, that was probably Sam’s handiwork. Whelp anything that defaces a Christmas song is a plus in his book. Val shakes her head at him, “you going to wreck the other door hinge?”. Danny just gives her a thumbs up, gets up, and kicks the bottom hinge hard enough to bust it apart; the door falling with a thump to the ground. Danny nods, satisfied, to himself with crossed arms. Val rolls her eyes at him and gives him a friendly shove on the shoulder. Normally that would boost his mood entirely but his ghostly ears means he’s still able to hear the stupid fucking music from the other intact speakers.
Fuck this time of year.
(Though fine some of the presents he wound up getting were actually pretty neat. The ectoplasm lava lamp even impressed his folks, even if they were none too pleased about the ‘team ghost’ flag).
---
By the time the staff holiday party rolled around Danny had warned Lancer that if there was Christmas music playing the whole time or -Ancients help him- carollers, then he was going to invite Technus. Needless to say, said party did not have Christmas music.
Lancer shaking his head at Danny, “you can be quite intimidating when you want”. Danny just scowls at him, “you have never seen me legit piss off, Lance”. Even Danny knew angry Danny was a scary -and dangerous- Danny. The man simply chuckles, handing off a cup of punch to Danny. Who mutters down at it, “I could totally spike this with ectoplasm”.
“Don’t even think about it, Daniel. As it is we already had to put a cage over the noodles you brought for the pot luck”.
Danny snickers and side-eyes the writhing noddles with teeth gnawing on the bars. Unsurprisingly he was the only one willing to eat them. Frankly… they were delicious. “I like my food thank you very much”, and nods smugly. He can practically feel Millie glaring at him from across the room; she’s not exactly alone in said glaring. Not that Danny actually gives a shit.
Remi grins at him mischievously, practically slapping a reindeer headband on his head, “at least you made things more interesting, Mr. Grinch”. Danny scowls and subtly sets the antlers on fire. A couple teachers jerk away from him, but Charles laughs loudly, “you’re on fire!”. Danny smirks, “and? I happen to think it’s very friendly fire”. Remi giggles at him while Xander dumps some of the punch on Danny’s head. Rude. Understandable, but still rude.
“Whelp. Now my hair’s wet”.
“And that’s not better than being on fire?”.
Danny grins and nods smugly, “nope”.
Things go on for a while and there’s even a few shitty party games and a little dance thing which honestly just makes Danny think he’s going to die from mortification. What is it with full-blown adults and bad/embarrassing dancing? And pin the nose on the snowman? What the fuck, man. A certain purple cloaked figure distracts him from wincing over Mainers attempt at what appears to be some kind of shuffle? Eh whatever.
Danny grins at the blonde-haired man, honestly it still surprises him sometimes that his Guardian had a human form… well illusion would be more accurate. Not that that should really be surprising, considering their strength. “ClockWork”.
“Daniel”.
Lancer -who has apparently wandered back over for more punch- chokes a little, eyeballing the currently human-looking ghost. Right, he’s pretty sure he explained his Guardian to Lancer; possibly more than once actually. Lancer eyeballing Danny, “… Daniel”, with more than a little worry and warning in his voice.
Danny waves the man off, “it’s fine. ClockWork’s the last one you’d have to worry about”.
The ‘blonde’ nods, cloak moving slightly in a nonexistent wind, “indeed. Not that any would claim me harmless”.
“Nope, just legless”. ClockWork cuffs Danny one over the head for that. Danny pouting and rubbing his head, feigning injury. “Meanie”. ClockWork gives him an almost invisible fond smile.
Lancer blinks a bit harshly, “well… this is still for teachers”. Danny smirks, “and they ‘teach’ me. So there”.
ClockWork shakes their head, “I’m not here to partake, rather to remind someone that he has places to be”. Danny pouts at that, speaking incredibly sarcastically, “but I’m just hAvInG sO mUcH fUn. CaN’t YoU sEe?”, putting a hand to his chest dramatically, “BuT oH hOw NiCe Of My ClOaK bUdDy To CoMe FeTcH mE. oH hOw GrAtEfUl I aM”. ClockWork actually glares at him for that.
“Someone will come to fetch you”.
“Oh I know. But this party is just begging to be crashed”.
Lancer sighs, “for the love of Shakespeare, Daniel”. Putting on some obviously fake bravado and glaring at the ghost, “and where are you trying to take him”.
Danny sighs and sags a little, “Ancients fuck, Lance. Ghosts just so happen to have truce parties and maybe some of them get a little aggressive about me going to one”. More than a few of the other teachers are eyeballing Danny at this point.
Joshep glaring, “of course the ghosts actually like him”.
“Honestly isn’t he a little biased to be teaching about ghosts then?”.
Danny rolls his eyes, muttering, “having someone who dislikes ghosts would be what’s biased. Geez, been over this much”. Lancer claps Danny on the shoulder, avoiding ClockWork though, “for what it’s worth I agree with you, and my opinion just so happens to matter more”. Danny does smile over that, but eh, it’s probably a good idea that he skedaddles at this point.
Danny shrugs at Lancer before turning to ClockWork, “alright, cloak buddy, I’m sure Johnny’s already challenged someone to an unfair race and I’d rather a place get trashed after I’m there than before. But first…”, Danny turns around to grab up one of the Christmas oranges and lobs it through the ajar doorway. Resulting in the now more familiar than he’d like sound of Ghost Writers voice in the form of a shriek.
Lancer grimaces a little as Danny heads to the door, a few people watching awkwardly/cautiously, “I still don’t approve of you tormenting a poet with fruit”. That just makes Danny grin meanly at Lancer, then at the Ghost Writer who’s around the door and glaring at him.
Millie shouts after him, “you could at least dispose of the abomination that you call ‘food’!”. Danny shouting back, “naw! Why would I deny everyone the joy of such yummy friendly food!”, then snickering meanly to himself. Both ClockWork and Ghost Writer shake their heads at him, though ClockWork looks a lot more fond… and amused.
-
So what’s the first thing that greets Danny when he actually gets to Dora’s kingdom -which is apparently the place hosting, for his particular group anyway, this year- why it’s Skulker with a slice of pie in hand of course. Always was, probably always would be. Danny shaking his head fondly at the robotic ghost, “so what’s the flavour this year, my determined little poacher”.
“Berry and fish”.
Danny stares at him a little, “… okay yeah fuck you”, but takes the pie anyway. Like always it’s freaking delicious, but come on? Seriously? Berry and fish? Ghosts are weird, man. Not that he isn’t totally here for said weird.
It takes not even five minutes for Dora to practically skip up to him, putting a dainty hand on his shoulder lightly, “you look well, nest-mate mine”.
“You as well, Aurora”. Danny liked his nicknames, including for ghosties he actually liked. Danny smirking, putting a hand to his chest as she takes a step back, “in fact, I’m wonderfully well off. Got a group of teens to entertain most days, then there’s the Guardian thing I’ve got going for me, oh and all these fuckers-”, jabbing a thumb towards the random crowd of ghosts, “-actually somewhat respect my human job”.
Ember scowls and snarks, “messing with a Guardian’s duties is just asking for trouble”.
“And you don’t actively want trouble? Huh, guess I misread you”. Ember flips Danny off for that. Dora, however, giggles lightly, hand over her mouth, “trouble-seeking as she maybe, there is a difference”.
Danny rolls his eyes, waving her off, “yeah yeah yeah, I know. Still fun to poke fun at everyone though”, and sticks his tongue out in Ember’s general direction; she throws a guitar pick at him, though she does look a little amused at least.
That was the nice thing about ghosts, they liked picking fights and poking fun at each other… and they liked others doing that back to them. Unlike humans, who usually got pissed off if you snapped back at them regardless of if they snapped at you first *cough cough* Dash *cough cough*.
Dora hums and nods to herself, “well you enjoy the party and may the truce for you be bless-ed, nest-mate”.
“May it be bless-ed for you as well, nest-mate”.
Dora was a nice sorta sister to have, and considering the Queen/mother fucking DRAGON thing he didn’t really have to worry about anyone picking fights with his little -even though she’s legit older than him- sister.
YoungBlood zips over and whisper laughs into Danny’s ear, “you should totally go bug that nasty Aragon about your boring adult stuff”, snicker, “he so doesn’t know”.
Danny grins wickedly, “oh Hell yeah”.
The kid -that Danny’s pretty sure he can only still see because he was absolutely still immature and because of the right to the High Throne thing- laughs and gets overexcited, “can I come! Can I come! Can I come! I’ll bring grapes”.
“Does everyone just know that I throw grapes at that bastard”.
“Yup!”.
“Fuck you, yes you can come”, smirking at the child ghost, “but make sure they’re extra squishy”. YoungBlood giving him a goofy thumbs-up before getting distracted by the sweets table.
Kitty giggles from the side at him, “here I thought teachers weren’t supposed to swear around children”.
“I resent that”, putting a hand to his chest, “why I in fact taught them to”, sticking up a finger, “in ghost speak specifically”. They had totally been taking advantage of that to get away with swearing in their other classes. Which Danny one hundred percent supports wholeheartedly. Kitty laughs at that and Danny’s going to take a guess that Johnny’s off hitting on some other girls here. Kitty speaking up again, “you know…. The flowers are kind of cute”, and giggles, leaning over to fiddle with one of the ghost pipes. Well that feels like proof to him.
Unsurprisingly Johnny comes out of nowhere, scowling at him then smirking attractively at Kitty, “come on babe, whatcha doing with him”.
She just huffs at him; Danny taking the opportunity to subtly slink away from the pair while they go about having one of their typical lovers quarrels. Danny damn near crashes into Desiree in the process through.
She scowls at him a little before shaking her head, “and that is why I absolutely do not ‘want a man’”. Danny chuckling awkwardly, “ah come on now, some of us are at least fun to mess with”. That gets a smirk out of the genie ghost, “true. Still not worth the trouble”. Danny just chooses to shrug before wandering off to the little appetiser table, Desiree’s tolerance for him was minimal at best… especially because he was a guy.
-
Danny barely gets to spend ten minutes demolishing the appetiser table before Walker is there being a pick and shoving a present at his chest unnecessarily hard. Danny letting out a little oof followed by a not so eloquent, “jerk”, in the prison wardens general direction.
The skull-faced ghost scowls at him, “I hope you are teaching those delinquents the law”. Danny rolling his eyes so hard it almost hurt, “of course, Whitey. I might be lazy and have a complete disregard for law but when I have responsibilities I actually tend to do them”, shrugging, “with the occasional shortcut”, smirking meanly at the ghost, “besides, the best ways to break the law require knowing it”, and winks. If it wasn’t the truce Danny is a-hundred-percent positive Walker would assault him right now.
Walker sneering, “you’re lucky it’s the truce, punk”, and stalking off feels like proof in Danny’s books.
Walker taking the initiative with the present giving basically results in everyone else following suit. Which of course means Danny gets pelted by boxes, which the exception of the occasional one that’s actually handed to him. They were all combative motherfuckers alright? Danny laughing probably doesn’t discourage it though.
Like always most would prove to be useless or even slightly insulting. Not that the gifts he chucks back won’t be equally offensive/pointless. He’s pretty sure his gift for Boxy is literally just a shit ton of marbles with square shapes inside them to really bug the guy. ClockWorks was a little touching though, being a gear cog accessory for his staff, and fine maybe Danny also gave ClockWork staff accessories. Like minds think in kind. Too bad FrostBite and Pandora have their own kingdoms truce celebrations to see to. Eh, he’ll visit them at some point. Besides, they all took turns hosting his group's truce celebrations. Technically he could go to those parties too but Danny’s not putting himself through three to six ‘Christmas’/‘Yule’/truce parties every year. He’s not a fucking masochist, regardless of what anyone might say.
Eventually, everyone gets all well and done with their present-based assault of each other. Dora nodding to herself and raising her chalice, “to a blessed and successful-”, everyone glancing judgingly at the Ghost Writer, “-truce!”. Danny, and more than a few others, chuckling at the Ghost Writers expense before sipping their prospective drinks. Was Danny’s the most disgusting horrid-looking concoction he could come up with based on what ingredients he had at his disposal? Abso-fucking-lutely. He even stuck in an orange wedge for the fuck of it. The smell was truly atrocious and the mild glaring that causes only makes Danny feel all the more smug. Drinking what’s effectively consumable battery acid with a devilish smirk as the party begins to draw to an end.
-
And boom bada boom, another year's festivities over. Guess the class shit’s over for another year too, so a nice little two-for-one ending there. Nice. Now to do it all over again in, like, a month. Well okay, a year for the truce crap. Oh whatever. Class starts again in January…
Eh at least Lancer had the decency to put Danny’s ecto-ology class in the afternoon again. Hopefully, that will never change. Though the fact that Danny still managed to show up late would probably cement that afternoon time slot. Ancients Danny might not show up at all out of spite if the man scheduled it any sooner. Lancer probably knew that too, the man had proven he understood waaaaaaay more than Danny ever thought/knew.
At least no one was treating him different due to the Guardian/teacher thing. Much anyways. Goes to show that Danny could probably change into infinitely stranger things and people would probably still go ‘eh that’s just Danny for you’. No one, ghost nor human, should have expected he’d become a freaking teacher (except ClockWork anyway… and the stupid fucking Observants) and yet everything went more or less fine.
But still, fuck Christmas.
And fuck the Observants for good measure.
What the heck, fuck the educational system too.
Throw in a ‘fuck his half-life’ for bonus points and to complete the nonexistent list of things to flip off before he goes to bed.
End.
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the distance between us
pairing- draco malfoy x reader
word count- 9.7k
summary- the first time draco uses the muggle post system, it goes so terribly wrong, and a letter falls into the hands of a girl who was never supposed to see it, a muggle at that.
warnings- curse words, ptsd, anxiety/ panic attacks, depression mention of death, murder, blood and burns aswell as insomia, seperation anxiety (?) and my grammar.if these may trigger you, i suggested not reading.
a/n- this took me a while to get out, sry abt that. the reader was set to live in a canadian town called kelowna, british columbia. it takes place in readers grade 11/12 and dracos 6/7 year. i hope it’s not to self inserted, and you guys can enjoy and relate to it. big thank you to @dracodear for the help on this, love you! also thanks to everyone who left owl name suggestions, all were awesome and i ended up going with @winnsmills suggestion ‘noctua’ ! tumblrs been acting weird, so i hope it lets me post the whole thing. letters are in italics. also please note, this is off the movies timeline! i tried to fit in as many details as possible but some didn’t make it.
-
the town was widespread. wineries and mountains everywhere, the okanagan lake splitting it down the middle, reconnecting the cities halves by a bridge. little snow and tons of rain. jeep wranglers in every colour roaring around into unholy hours of the night, bustling with life yet all to lonely at times. but hey, that’s kelowna for you.
rain was running down the windows of y/ns most boring class, last period biology. she knew she should be paying attention. she had a high gpa to maintain, and couldn’t afford to fail another class besides french. the last five minutes of blabbering ended after what felt like a year.
‘you are dismissed, ill see you all monday, have a good weekend’ and with that everyone rose, heading to the parking lot as fast as possible in an attemp to dodge traffic. despite pouring rain, the air was hot, and on the ride home y/ns mind raced over every single assignment she had to complete over the next two days, while her hands tapped the steering wheel.
‘english essay, math review, history paper, business management graph’ she muttered under her breath. the town was busy, many students often blew off class to go shopping, or hit a movie, or smoke weed, the possibilities were endless. her house was cool compared to outside, and empty. no one was home, not that it was a surprise to the girl, people weren’t usually home, siblings gone to university, and parents working absurd amounts.
something caught her eye on the counter, an envelope, an ordinary seeming one, but absolutely covered in small pictured stamps with ‘england’ underneath each one. eighteen of them, all different. she knew shouldn’t open it, so she didn’t. at first. but it was irresistible. there was a return address written in the smallest writing she’d ever seen. wogshell, no, wiltshire? she took it to her room, and locked the door before ripping it open. she didn’t want the one time she had something intresting going on to be interrupted by whoever might show up.
her mouth fell open at every line of the same scroll. who was snape? why was this draco boy sending him a letter? he didn’t need his help to kill who? what the fuck was an unbreakable vow and why shouldn’t snape sign it? why was his mum going to see snape? who was the dark lord and why did he pick draco for a task? what kind of name is dumbledore?
what she already knew was confirmed- this letter was most definetly not for her. but newly- she opened a letter from a potential murderer or maybe it was a prank, a sick prank if it was one.
so instead she crafted up quite the response, whoever wrote this was either hysterical or in distress, and needed some sort of company- she thought, atleast.
-
it had been thirteen days, why wasn’t the letter back yet? the owl still couldn’t fly even about the house without damaging itself further. maybe using the muggle post system was a mistake. but better have it land into the hands of a muggle, who would likely throw it out, than a wizard who would know a death eater would soon be wondering around hogwarts.
as if on que, the door bell rang and echoed through the empty manor. on the porch sat an envelope, with only one stamp, his name in the middle and another he didn’t recognize in the corner. shit, this couldn’t be good. his eye caught the stamp. canada? fuck, this was supposed to go to cokeworth not bloody canada. no one was home so he opened it right there in the foyer.
hello, draco.
i am not snape- nor do i know who snape is. i am also very unfimilar with some of the vocabulary you used. dark lord? unbreakable vow? you seem to have quite the situation going on, if i read correctly. im not exactly stupid, but i do know that this letter was most definitely not supposed to be in my possession. i didn’t know who to send it to, id send it back to you, but you probably don’t want a copy of your own letter. i also know you likely have enough on your plate, but if you’d like someone to talk to im only half a world away, have no sort of schedule and am a good listener, well reader in this case. good luck with whatever task you’ve mentioned. p.s. you had about seventeen stamps to many, first time sending a letter? unfortunate fate, huh ? what kind of name is snape and what the heck is a dumbledore? i suppose it’s none of my business, knowing you likely won’t respond, but if you do i wrote my address on the front. have a good day/ night/ whatever time it is wherever you are.
y/n l/n
tears were welling in dracos eyes, he was floored, in a good and bad way. his task was already going downhill. the letter he sent snape had fallen into the hands of a muggle, who did not throw the letter away, but responded. and snape was likely going to bine himself into the task through the unbreakable vow, which draco was more than able to complete. he wouldn’t have been chosen if he wasn’t, right?
not only had she responded, she offered him help, well distant company, to a stranger who obviously had quite a few problems and she clearly had no regard for her own safety. he couldn’t tell her about the wizarding world. not that he could tell her about anything, she could be lying. he had a task to focus on, he couldn’t write her back.
and that was true- at the time. he had no intent of writing the girl back. and yet he found himself reading the 201 words over and over, running his hands across the paper, expecting them to fade away as he wiped. counting and recounting. he surely couldn’t talk to any of the twats at hogwarts, maybe a stranger could help numb the pain. and as long as he didn’t tell anyone- she couldn’t get hurt, she was to far.
draco was packed for hogwarts, the response at the bottom of the trunk, underneath his clothes. he’d just have to get to the damn school, then he could write all he wanted- without his parents knowledge or ridicule. his mind jumbled together what he was going to say while his friends rambled on. the train pulled up to the castle after dreadful hours and he could barely sit still during the opening feast. his thoughts did falter though, when dumbledore gave his speech, he felt guilty- the shame of his family weighing on his shoulders. he looked around, all his classmates staring in adoration at a man who would be dead ten months from now, and they were sitting in the same room as his killer.
the singular room was nice, he knew it wasn’t for lounge, but for plots of death.
before he began he started making promises to himself. if i get behind on the plan ill won’t write, if snape notices anything about it, ill stop. the list went on and on.
he couldn’t put his pen down, the words continued to fly out the end, was he oversharing?
dear y/n
my deepest apologies that my last letter found it’s way to you. im sure you didn’t expect whatever you may have perceived from it. honestly, i don’t know how it arrived all the way over there. im almost positive you have better things to do than listen to my problems, and i know you had no control over the fact it arrived, but i ask you to please not share this information with anyone. i am unsure if i will take up your offer of amity, if you were serious that is. im at school now, so if you’d like to respond, not that you have to- you can send letters back with my owl, it’ll be faster (and i won’t have to worry about stamps- thanks for the tip by the way)
draco malfoy 
and with that noctua was off into the night, and he could only hope that it would make it to her.
-
droll was running down y/ns chin and she was caught in a dream. suddenly a vigorous tapping on the window pulled her into consciousness, the sight of owl knocking her backwards in a scare. a crash sounded, if the tapping didn’t wake anyone up, that surely did. she almost considered just trying to ignore it, until she noticed a letter tied to its neck and reluctantly opened the window. she’d never seen an owl in real life before, but was aware from school that they weren’t exactly the kindest of creatures. this one just perched on the window while she removed the new enevelope, no stamps in sight. just a neatly printed address, and his in the corner.
from the new letter she learned even more- this wasn’t a prank, draco was a real person, was still in school, and whatever the first misplaced letter contained was true. he had some sort of task and didnt want help, but that was all. so with what she could, she wrote another response. it took an hour and she wasn’t exactly sure what she had written by mid morning.
draco
you’d be quite suprised actually, it gets lonely over here. i still haven’t exactly deciphered your original note, so if you would like to help me understand i think i’d be ready. and no worries about me, my lips are sealed. what is an unbreakable vow, im curious? you go to boarding school? and owls, really? what the hell is up with that? im pretty sure it’s illegal to own one here, but we are countries away, so perhaps it’s different all the way over there. send whatever you want. i do not- by the way- have anything better to do in the slightest.
y/n
-
he continued to write throughout the month of september, which bled into october before he knew it. he was avoiding questions about the task, just wanting someone to talk to. it wasn’t easy, she was curious, which draco couldn’t exactly be mad at her for that since he continued to write her, accepting the distant friendship that was forming.
he was learning a lot about her aswell. besides french, which he informed her he spoke fluently numerous times, she was a very good student. she was single, he didn’t remember how that came up but made a note in his mind- he couldn’t date her, nor did he know enough about her to be properly involved.
she read a lot of books, sappy romances mostly, couldn’t cook anything deemed edible by anyone, and her favourite colour was green, he smirked when reading that for the first time. she didn’t know what she wanted to do with her future, just not a doctor like her parents wanted.
-
y/n was sitting in english as her teacher reviewed about univeristy application requirements. only next year they would be getting accepted and denied from their dream schools. she’d spent years dreaming of it, university, and yet somehow a boy half way around the was racing through her mind. she felt horrible about it, the small crush. it was incredibly selfish, falling for a boy with so much going on, he certainly didn’t need her as anything more than a friend to talk to, but he was good with his words, and making her feel important too. her dismissal came and so did a classmate, approaching confident and cocky.
‘hey, l/n’ he said, a smirk on his face
‘oh, uh hey, will’
‘what are doing tonight?’ her mind went blank, any excuse, come on, say something
‘i have plans’ wow real specific, great job, y/n
‘like what’
‘fish funeral, real important stuff, my family is just devastated’ her voice was clearly sarcastic and that was all before she walked right out. no she didn’t exactly have plans, but waiting for dracos owl provided much more company than any date could have. the sight of dracos owl flying towards the pre-opened window was somewhat relieving, she didn’t know why, just the fact that he had not failed yet, and was still out there was nice. she hadn’t had this much company. since last year at least, when her supposed best friend started ghosting her because of some petty shit.
thankfully noctua ad gotten quite good at being discreet when delivering the letters. of all the things on y/ns junior year bucket list, explaining to her parents that she had befriended a british boy with an owl who flyed into her room while her neighbours had a clear view, wasn’t one. she also began keeping a bowl of water under her bed for the owl to drink when it arrived, knowing it couldn’t have been easy travelling back and forth.
y/n
im not fully sure you want to know the depth, yet you seem to want me to corrupt you with my villain with a task baggage. i suppose it couldn’t hurt if i told you about the unbreakable vow. it’s like a promise or a bond, but if you break it then you die. if you can stomach that i may be able to tell you more. how far away do you reckon we are?
draco
-
draco wasn’t falling behind too far, but his first attemp had failed, and panic attacks were taking up most his time. he never had any, at least not this bad until this year. at least once a day he would start sweating, no matter how cold he was, unable to control his breathing or tears, feeling like the walls were caving in upon him.
that is, besides writing y/n as much as he could. apparently she was being honest, she had no schedule of any sort besides going to school. he hated to say, but he was becoming attached, he didn’t exactly know how either, but everytime he recieved a letter a small weight was lifted from his shoulders, even just when he read it.
noctua was doing the weekly, almost daily round at breakfast with the other owls and draco watched with anticipation as a letter dropped on his lap and owl on his shoulder. he tried to conceal the letter into his robes but pansy had taken matters into her own hands. likely jealous that she’d spent collectively around six hours with him the whole year, and he never talked to her like he used to.
‘ou draco whats this’ twirling the envelope between her hands. the letter had no name, no stamp, only a small heart drawing in the corner.
‘hands off parkinson’ he said while taking the letter back. ‘a letter from my mother, if you must know’ he said knowing that neither his mother or father had written him anything, despite having all the time to do so.
he got up and left the second he was done, not wanting to draw snapes suspicion about who could possibly be more important than working on this task.
he rushed to his room, desperate for more of her words. he tried to picture her voice in his head, but had to remind himself she wasn’t british nor was she from southern america.
draco,
so you just die if you break the promise? intresting. it’s not as hard to stomach as you seem to think, very unique tradition i suppose. you are not a villain draco, you haven’t told me much about it but your to good of a person to have picked any of this for yourself. i calculated when we you were home, seven thousand three hundred something, i don’t know where your fancy boarding school where you have owls for pets is, so it may be further. im ready whenever you are.
y/n
her letter was relieving for him aswell, even in the slightest it helped, but she deserved some sort of answer for helping him take his mind off the task for a couple minutes. he could tell if she wasn’t scared off already, this would do it.
y/n
if you are sure, here it is. dumbledore is my headmaster, the dark lord is a very powerful wizard, and snape is my professor. if i don’t kill dumbledore before july, he will kill me and my family, if i can’t complete the task, snape will kill him under terms of an unbreakable vow. im not a very good villain that’s for sure, my first attemp failed, and my classmate is out cold. i understand if you dont want to write to me anymore, just don’t tell anyone about this, please.
dm.
-
the only words to describe the feeling that overwhelmed her senses as she read were devastation and shock. tears pooled in her eyes as she tried to imagine herself with that much responsibility to wildhold until july. another detail that caught her eye, wizard? what did he mean by wizard? is that the word for dictator in england? certainly he wasn’t talking about the wizards she read about in storybooks as a child. her hand shook slightly and she debated mentioning it.
draco
you’re silly if you think i’d stop writing you. you need company now more than ever. please don’t hold things back from your letters, you deserve someone to talk to. that is quite the situation, im sorry if i pushed you, you do have enough on your shoulders and i want to help you as much as i can. i hate to ask, but you mentioned ‘wizards’ and i am a bit confused.
all my love
yn
-
initially, draco went into shock. he knew he was probably oversharing, but didn’t expect to slip up in that way. he begrudgingly admitted; knowing that if this went badly he would likely be banished from the wizarding world, which didn’t seem like such a horrible punishment to him anymore. and yet she was fascinated, by the coins he sent her, the subjects he learned- which she compared to her own much less exciting ones, and everything he told her about it. he could now talk to her about much more, since both his secrets were now out in the open to her. he told her about the about the houses, and they both agreed she would probably be in hufflepuff, well he thought so, her kind and accepting nature, and she didn’t know enough to disagree. and for the first time in the long time he was seeing things differently, completely diminishing the rude behaviour he often displayed towards the house.
she even sent him a picture, the first time he ever saw her face. a large smile spread across her beautiful features, she seemed to be laughing. eyes glistening in the sun even prettier than he could have imagined. he slept with it under his pillow, and could stare at the still image for hours. no it didn’t move around, but he couldnt care less. he only had one picture of himself in his possession and he was young, about four. she was facinated by the moving image, his blonde hair and attitude shining right through. he would owl his mother for a more recent one, but didn’t want to explain why.
the letters were helping him, but the task wasn’t advancing. his second attempt had failed, he was caught sneaking into slughorns party, and harry was onto him. they were also causing him doubt. say they did get the cabinet fixed, he couldn’t see himself killing dumbledore anymore, the more he talked to her he realized he couldn’t be a killer, as cold as he was to some people, but he had to, didnt he?
most importantly every letter she sent gave him a sense of hope. that the second this is over he could move. away from voldemort, and potter, his parents even, england in whole. perhaps not to canada, but it could be a change, half way across the world with the girl who was helping him stay alive through his letters. he just needed to stay alive long enough too see her.
the seasons changed around draco, but his room stayed the same. hot from mysterious potions, for himself and some for dumbledore, he had not had much hope after the wine, though. it was lonely, not that he’d like y/n here, he’d much rather be there, all the way across the world.
-
may came in a blur, and finals were creeping up. one week y/n sat at her desk, every night, waiting for a letter that didn’t come. on the fifth letterless day she cried. not exactly knowing why, it wasn’t her that had much of a reason to cry, but dracos company had filled her lonely life up with light of its own, leaving it darker than it was before she saw the first letter. she was silly to be so attached and silly to expect him to reciprocate the feelings she had proclaimed in the last one she sent, and should have expected him to stop eventually. so she continued on with school, finding it a bit easier to concentrate now that a draco sized whole was missing from her brain, and her heart aswell.
the next week, though, a letter came, very appreciated by y/n as the whole other universe, british boy forgetting thing wasn’t as easy as it seemed.
y/n
im sorry for not writing, the classmate i mentioned all those months ago woke from the curse, and the potter twat hexed me with a spell id never heard of before. i would have tried to contact with you but i couldn’t exactly trust what my brain was planning on writing, and the cuts are still a bit sore. the cabinets fixed, but even if everything works out okay i won’t be writing very much at all. i’ll be home in july, but the manor will be infested with death eaters and i can’t let you get hurt. thank you for everything l/n.
draco
it stung a little, knowing that the empty feeling the girl just experienced would be more frequent, he didn’t mention anything about what she had said, and that this could be the last time she ever heard from him if he didn’t kill dumbledore. in hindsight, practically telling her she loved him in a letter wasn’t what he needed, she knew that.
-
he left out the fact that he the spell put a him in a huge emotinal draught. he was exhausted constantly, crying even more than before. the cuts were sore, so he wasn’t holding everything back.
the last month of school came and went all to fast for dracos liking, and death eaters now roamed around the castle, causing havoc where ever they could. his trunk had been shurken so small it looked like a small muggle toy he put into his pocket easily. the dark mark that was stretched across his left arm was now hanging in the gray sky, and the headmaster was no where to be seen. he paced anxiously around a vacant corridor until he heard a pop in the astronomy tower. he didn’t think people could apparate into hogwarts, it would have made his job much easier.
‘harry, get snape, i need snape now’ he seemed exhausted, maybe this wouldn’t be as hard
‘sir im going to sit you down okay, and then ill go get madam pomf-‘
‘severus, harry, I need severus now, go get him and talk to no one else’ he said in a shallow yet somewhat urgent and angry tone.
draco waited for footsteps to disappear, before whipping the door open with his wand already ready.
‘oh hello, draco, nice to see you on this fine evening’ he said nonchalantly, leaning his weight against the wall.
‘EXPELLIARMUS’ draco boomed, successfully disarming the man without counter attempts before glancing around to see a second broom
‘who else is here?’ he said sounding confident but feeling the opposite
‘i could ask you the same question, acting alone are you? you don’t seem supported’
‘no, there are death eaters in your school tonight, and i got them here’ he snarked ‘they’ll be up, any minute now, their fighting down below. i’ve got a job to do’
‘well done boy, if you don’t mind me asking a few questions, before you get on with it, im very intrested’ was he kidding? he knew draco was about to kill him right? wanting to stall, and not fully wanting to kill him he nodded his head yes.
‘you seem scared to act until they join you
‘im not scared, you should be scared’ he snarled, unable to contain the fear in his voice any longer any longer
‘oh draco’ he sighed ‘while we wait for your friends arrive, care to explain how you smuggled them in here? i never imagined it possible, especially not by a student’
‘i had to mend the broken cabinet that no ones used for years, there’s another one in borgin and burkes. montague got stuck in told everyone stories about it, how he could sometimes hear what was going on in the shop and sometimes hear hogwarts like a passage, and i was the only one who discovered what it meant. not even borgin, not you either, i did it right under your nose, you didn’t realize anything’ he said
‘you are right, i didn’t know that. i do- on the other hand, know that you aren’t a killer’
he raised his wand a little higher, feeling wheezy and as though his legs would give in any second
‘how you know that, I’ve done despicable things, you wouldn’t even be able to fathom’
it was dumbledore’s time to pause, glancing up at the sky and looking around the room before continuing
‘draco i know you almost killed katie bell and ron weasley. you’ve been trying to kill me all year, forgive me for saying this, but they’ve been very feeble attempts. to be honest ive wondered wheather your heart has truly been in it’
‘it has, and if you knew why didnt you stop me’
‘snape has been watching over you on my orders’
‘ it’s not on your orders, he promised my mother-‘
‘ofcourse he would tell you that, but it happens to be that i trust professor snape’
‘your losing it then, he’s a double agent, he isn’t working for you- he’s been trying to get in on the action all year, helping me and all. doesn’t matter now- he probably doesn’t even know they are here yet, he will wake up tomorrow and no longer be the dark lords favourite, he will be nothing compare to me’ confidence was building within him
‘very gratifying, we all like being recognized for our hard work, but, draco?im standing here wandless and weak, unable to defend myself, and you have not made any move to kill me, dont blame me for believing you will not, but let’s discuss your options’
‘my options’ he laughed ‘im standing here with a wand, about to kill you’
‘oh dear boy, if you were going to kill me you would have when you disarmed me, not stayed for a little chat’
‘i haven’t got any options, don’t you understand, i have to kill you, or he will kill me’
‘okay, if you don’t want to join the order with your mother where we could protect you, i only have one more question’
‘better hurry, theyre on their way’ he almost laughed which was quickly replaced when Dumbledore said his next words.
‘who is y/n l/n’ at that a tear fell down dracos face, and he lowered his wand almost completely
‘i-i don’t know who that is, odd l-last words’ he stuttered
‘draco dont play dumb now, not after we discovered you are very intelligent. we left some of the security measures from last year that Umbridge enabled, and I couldn’t help but notice hundreds of letters flowing to and from her. i looked into student files, ilvermornies too, nothing, id never heard the name, a muggle i presumed. but of all the things, that had me the most confused. i couldn’t figure out why you would be contacting her, so i did some meddling’
‘WHAT DID YOU DO’
‘fiesty all the sudden, are you? i felt bad after opening this, it seemed very personal, and i probably should given it too you sooner, but i was a bit preoccupied double checking my drinks and all’ dumbledore said handing him the letter.
draco
how is the cabinet coming? it’s raining even more here than usual, all day and night. and don’t talk like that, saying you don’t have a future. you do draco, you deserve another chance and infinite amounts of them. you are just a kid, you shouldn’t be forced to be a hero. you are protecting so many people right now, but i don’t need any. you have given my life enough light in the last few months than i ever recall, and im so thankful that letter came to me. i wish you were here with me right now, but i know you can’t be, so just stay alive, okay?
y/n
more tears fell, he hated being so weak at the mention of her, crying before he completed the blessing his father and bellatrix considered the task to be.
‘she’s right, draco, you deserve another chance’
he was speechless, and could tell Dumbledore knew he found his weakness.
‘i always pictured you and pansy, never in a million years imagined you to be in a relationship with a muggle’
‘no matter who does it, your about to be killed, and im not here to discuss my love life am i?’
‘so you do love her?’ before draco could even think he heard a door open and raised his wand, hiding the letter faster than he had ever moved.
‘shut up, they will kill her’ he said quietly and desperately
in walked fenrir greyback, yaxley, and bellatrix. they made banter of their own, but her words replayed. he couldn’t do it.
‘go on draco’ his aunt whispered into his ear, making him shiver.
‘DO IT, DO IT BOY’ she yelled, in a high pitched and annoying voice
he felt a strong arm over his chest, pushing him aside, and he saw the whoosh of snapes robes and an already pleading dumbledore
‘severus, please’
‘AVADA KEDAVRA’ snape shouted, a green flash producing from the end of his wand, hitting the old man square in the chest. draco rushed over to the edge, watching him fall. it was a long way down.
-
the rain had sudsided, sunlight leaking into her room during the day. watching the sky at night, failing to find constellations he described many times to her. her wardrobe was mostly untouched, remaining in pyjamas most of the week. the odd time she did leave, she saw her old friends walking and laughing out her car window. eating and socializing felt like a chore, and she hadn’t communicated with the boy since may. he could be dead, she didn’t know. there was no death on the ‘muggle’ news, and draco wasn’t on the top wanted list, not that he likely would be on the television all the way over here. he could be fine, in wiltshire, going to dinner parties and holding balls. or maybe, he too, was sitting in his room staring at the ceiling for days on end. she had now hung the picture of a young draco by her desk, not needing to worry about anyone seeing. her siblings were once again home, but out living their lives so much that it still felt like they were gone. for the first time she noticed his scroll on the back.
‘i was four when this was taken i believe, my hair is very similar, i was quite sassy, im sure that shows without explanation.’ she blushed while reading, it was true. his hands were on his hips whipping his head around.
-
every day was a surprise around malfoy manor. not the kind of surprise draco liked. not the feeling of butterflies in his stomach when he read y/ns letters, those were replaced by a pit as they were summoned around the large table in the dining room. the first one he attended was horrible, watching his muggle studies teacher being hung above their heads, pleading for the help of severus as she died. he bit his tongue in an attempt to avoid raging about about every comment surrounding muggle culture. each one tore his heart, as he imagined the girl all those kilometres away, the girl he had no contact with, but he looked at her picture as much as possible, and hoped one day he could make her smile again like she did in the image.
-
senior year was here, and y/n schedule picked up once again. her timetable was full, maybe it was best, a distraction, after a whole summer of thinking alone in her room. draco was on her mind at night, no matter how hard she tried to forget. she’d made friends with her creative promotions partner, logan. he was certainly not intrested in her in anyway besides friends, but company after all this time was enjoyable, just in the hour of class
-
draco had little privacy, with death eaters in every hallway, conversing with eachother. wherever he went someone was there, until he finally got sick of it and began going to the garden bench. with a book, sometimes, giving some of the sappy love stories y/n mentioned a try or even the poetry books she sent with noctua awhile back, they were okay, but his heart hurt at the feeling of relation in every line. he could only read one or two poems at a time, without tears forming in his green orbs.
sometimes he went with a pen and a notebook. he wrote about everything. the smell of the plants around him, the feeling in his chest when the dark lord called for a meeting. most of the notebook, though, was filled with poems of his own. and letters he had no intention of sending for her own safety. she wasn’t in harms way, though, other followers were preoccupied with ruining weddings and other things they considered fun. he blabbered on for pages, about how he missed seeing noctua fluttering towards him at breakfast. how he rereads the letter that dumbledore gave him the night he died. how she listened to him rant on and on, giving her support no matter how evil he felt. how he found love where it wasn’t supposed to be.
snow was falling once again, he had to dress in layers, making it hard to write often, the plants started dying as cold settled over and his mother no longer babied him like she used to before the death eaters began inhabiting the mansion. he couldn’t keep himself company any longer and gave into the pressure he put on himself. as long as they were careful, she’d be in no destruction- he prayed as he wrote what seemed to be an appropriate response after all this time.
-
like it had been decades, she flinched at the noise of the owl on the window, carrying a much larger scroll that he’d ever sent before, some parts scratched out and written above. his writing was much less tidy than she remembered, like the letters on the page were anxious for her reaction.
love,
after all this time, im sorry you are just now hearing from me. you have ever single right to be annoyed with me, after you listened to me for months, helping me emotionally in ways i never be able to repay you for. you do not need to forgive me, or write me back. i just wanted to keep you safe. but i needed to tell you everything before it might actually be to late. you’ve probably moved on and forgotten about me, like you should, but i guess im saying that i am alive. i didn’t kill him either. snape did. i thought i was going to be able to, but he started talking about you. he gave me a letter from you that he had already opened, the words repeated in my head over and over. you talked about how i deserved another chance, and how you wish I’d was there with you. right before he died he asked me if i loved you. i knew the answer but didn’t have time to say it. ive read your poetry books, they aren’t as bad as i once thought, i can’t read to many at once. i try to forget what dumbledore said that night, and that night altogether. but one day i read ‘that’s how you know you love someone, i guess. when you cant experience anything without wishing the other person was there to see it too.’ when i sit in the garden i imagine you smelling the flowers, myself picking one and putting it behind your ear. when i go on walks i imagine your hand in mine. youre in my dreams. my never ending thought. i remember the way i felt when we started talking a lot, and how I felt when we didn’t get a chance. you listened to me when no one else offered. not even my parents. i hope your doing okay, and smiling and laughing. i don’t care if we talk about absolutely nothing, i just want to talk to you. i know that’s unfair to you after all ive weighed on you. but i guess that’s all, i love you. draco ♡
well this certainly didn’t get him off her mind. she didn’t need to either. ofcourse she was going to write him back, but she needed time to think about her response. she missed the next day of school, and his owl was comfortably standing on her desk, nibbling away at the water and crumbs. she took an hour long shower, multiple naps, raided her fridge, and had to email the school pretending to be her mum, excusing her for the day. before she even knew what she was going to write, she began on a new piece of paper. she’d have thought longer, but was sure draco would be convinced she stole noctua out of anger.
draco,
wow. i don’t really know what to say. i knew you weren’t a killer, and i meant what i said about you deserving more chances. i will admit i was angry, and a bit confused. i sent that letter with high hopes. i don’t know what i was hoping for at the time, i was being incredibly selfish. but couldn’t help myself feel pained when you didn’t mention it in the next letter when you said harry hexed you. i know we can’t be together, especially not right now, but i love you too. i wish more than anything you were here with me right now, and it was you i’d be graduating with half a year from now. i wish you were in the passenger seat of my car while i drive through the city. i wish you could point out the constellations in the sky. i usually can’t read to many poems either, they get me thinking to much. im ready to write again if you are.
y/n
-
draco hadn’t felt more joy in a long time. around seven months. she loved him, and that was enough happiness for a life time. he just needed to stay alive.
they continued to stay in touch, almost as if they never stopped talking, entertaining eachother as much as possible, masking their separate misery and the distance between them. he could get time away from the reality that was his life for a while, he thought, until snatchers brought the trio he spent so long bickering with to the manor.
a very distorted looking harry fell before him, his hair tightly gripped by bellatrix.
‘well, is it him’ he knew it was harry. and yet a part of him couldn’t bring himself to letting the boy get killed.
‘i can’t be sure’ he lied
‘draco, look closely son’ lucius said loudly, getting a grip on the back of dracos neck before leaning in and whispering.
‘if we are the ones that hand potter to the dark lord, all will be f-forgiven. a-all will go back to how it was’
his father and the and a snatcher quickly got into an arguement. lucius was yelling something about the manor before narcissa calmed him with a hiss.
‘don’t be shy, sweetie come here take a closer look’
draco was know level with him. the scar was still visible on his forehead, and swollen eyes staring back at him, hopeless.
‘what’s wrong with his face’ draco said
‘yes what is wrong with the boys face’ a shrill voice repeated
‘he was like that when we got him, something he picked up in the forest i reckon’
bellatrix walked away, laughing away at something. the blonde boys eyes were still on harry, before he felt a tap on his shoulder. bellatrix began acting out, yelling about a sword, putting ropes around snatchers neck from the end of her wand. sword now in her hand she walked over to ronald weasley, grabbing his collar and demanding that the boys be put in the cellar.
a different draco would have gladly watched a mudblood be tortured by his aunt. but he flinched at every scream of hermione, unable to watch he went to the next room, resisting tears as he thought of the girl he fell for enduring the same. she had moved onto the goblin- ridiculing it about who got into her vault- and hermiones screams were now gone.
‘youre lucky, goblin, the same won’t go for this one’ he heard footsteps
‘like hell it wont’ he heard ron yell, followed by the expelliarmus and what must have been harry stupefying his father. draco rushed in, now dueling a more normal looking harry, until their attention caught on bellatrix, a knife to grangers throat. they dropped there wands, and he did as instructed, picking them up. lucius was summoning the dark lord when they heard a tittering on the ceiling, and the chandlier crashing. it all moved so fast and harry was now wrestling draco for his wand back. he tried, but harry had already pried it out of his cold and shaky hands.
‘STUPID ELF. THAT COULD HAVE KILLED ME’
‘dobby never meant to kill. dobby only meant to maim or seriously injure’ the house elf squeaked, and draco had never resisted a chuckle so hard.
‘HOW DARE YOU TAKE A WITCHES WAND. HOW DARE YOU DEFY YOUR MASTERS’
‘dobby has no master, dobby is a free elf, and he has come to save Harry Potter and his friends.’ and with that they apparated out, not without bella throwing a knife into the mix.
-
meanwhile, y/n was receiving letters of her own. not from draco either. letters from the schools she applied to. so far everything was good, except for princeton, but she didn’t have the highest expectations. she was accepted to the university of british columbia, seattle university, even ucla. she only had one letter left, and the large stuffed yellow envelope sat in her hands. she wasn’t sure about it- would she even be able to go to the univeristy of london? it was far, but draco was there, well closer to there atleast. accepted- it read. it was an option, and she still had weeks to think about it.
-
draco was very hesitant to write after the incident at the manor, the screams of Hermione, and the terrifying looking potter still vivid in his brain and nightmares. he often woke from sleep in a sweat, yet freezing cold. whispers of the war around his house also haunted his mind and soul. he’d walk to the window and look up at the the stars, they were under the same sky, at least. eventually he had to write her, it had been half a month and he couldn’t leave her hanging alone again.
y/n
love, im sorry for being hesitant, but there is going to be a war. i hate to leave you contact-less, but i need you to be safe now more than ever. i couldn’t live with myself if you got hurt. potter and his friends were brought here to the manor, it didn’t last long- they escaped within the hour and a half. with that doped elf, and a goblin too. if you don’t hear from me again, remember i love you. and always will.
draco
of all the letters y/n had recieved, from draco in all, that was probably the most displeasing. a war? like with tanks and bombs? tears were shedding down her face as she wrote the shortest response yet. knowing he most definitely didn’t have time to listen to her talk about schools, and how she got accepted to london, but her parents deemed it to far, ubc would have to do, she’d find her way to him eventually, if they were meant to be.
draco
stay safe, i love you.
yn.
-
draco now stood at snapes new office, dozens of corpses on the floor, pooled in blood. the dark lord speaking parsel tounge to nagini. no one needed to speak it to know that the man was infuriated about something potter had done.
-
the information he left was lacking, was he serious? what did wizarding wars even look like? her graduation date was set, June 6th, but it all seemed irrelevant, suddenly picking out a dress didn’t seem as fun as she thought, same with getting portraits taken. should she have said more?
-
next thing he knew the protection spell was countered and he apparated in, grabbing zabani and goyle by the collar. rushing them into a corridor and waited for the door of the room of requirement to completely vanish before approaching himself. they successfully found harry, opening a box carefully before finally drawing attention to themselves.
‘well well, what brings you here, potter’ draco said, softly, much to his surprise as he meant it to sound snarky and rude
‘i could ask you the same’
‘i believe you have something of mine, and id like it back’ was he becoming… kind?
‘whats wrong with the one you have?’ harry replied
‘it’s my mothers, powerful but different, doesn’t fully understand me, im sure you know the feeling’
‘why didn’t you tell her. bellatrix? you knew it was me, and you didn’t tell her’ he wasn’t exactly sure what to say, nor did he know. harry really didn’t have anything to do with his feelings for y/n, maybe he should have just turned in him when he had the chance, it would all be over if he had.
‘don’t be a wuss draco, just do it now’ goyle whispered in his ear, making him chill the same way bellatrix did on the astronomy tower, almost a year ago.
‘expelliarmus’ hermione half shouted, causing narcissas want to fly out of dracos hands and run the other way.
‘avada kedavra’ goyle missed and weaslebee started chasing after them, yelling something about his girlfriend. turning back around after goyle unsuccessfully casted the fiendfyre curse.
fear was making his body almost rattle as he desperately climbed bookcases in an attemp to outrun the flames. he watched goyle fall, into the orange. yes, he was a complete and utter twat, but wasn’t a half bad friend during dracos bullying peek. his foot slipped, now just his hands were keeping him up, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold on. in the distance he saw the three, zooming off to safety in the distance, leaving them their to die. not that he blamed them, after anything he did to them, he would have probably left himself there aswell.
but potter was flying towards him, arm out-stretched, grabbing onto his own and hoisting himself on the broom. had he already died? must not have, because the heat had finally caughten up. feeling as though he was going to pass out, he gripped tighter onto harry, maintaining his position on the broom. so much for staying safe. the second they made it out, they crashed onto the ground. he wanted to thank harry, but found himself running off instead.
explosions and hexes were being sent everywhere. people dying left and right. giants and trolls and spiders helping, he found himself in the slytherin common room. partially because he wanted to say goodbye, as he never wished to return to the building again once he had the choice. and partially as he was now aware of a large burn on his arm, and he felt a need to put off fighting until absolutely necessary. he entered through the portrait, for the last time. it felt like an aquarium, looking out upon the lake filled windows, merpeople and the giant squid often zooming by. he sat down upon the sofa, where he spent countless hours avoiding homework, plotting against potter and swimming in lust of his pure-blood status that now felt like a curse. he went up to his dorm, where he did very similar things. he wondered as to what he would be doing if he was a muggle right now. picking out a suit for graduation, buying a corsage for his date, but he wasn’t, so he best get going. running his hands along the furniture before leaving, not looking back.
the noise in the entrance courtyard had completely been diminished and draco found his way into the crowd of students pooling in. death eaters swarmed towards them at a painfully slow place, his mother and father near the head of the group. he noticed hagrid, towering above them, carrying what could only have been harrys corpse.
he watched carefully as they approached, trying to wedge himself inbetween and behind other students.
‘harry potter is dead’ voldemort paused ‘from now on, you put your faith in me’ silence fell over the hundreds of people who were know gathered. he swished his robes and turned backwards facing his followers
‘HARRY POTTER IS DEAD’ obnoxious and deafening cackles erupted
‘and now is the time to declare yourselves. come to our side, or die’ even more silence fell.
‘draco’ his father hissed before repeating ‘draco’
he felt eyes fall all over him, gazing expectantly. tears ran down his face.
don’t talk like that, saying you don’t have a future. you do draco, you deserve another chance and infinite amounts of them. was this what she meant? he’d been looking for another chance, maybe this was it.
he shook his head no, and noticed his father had fallen a shade of pale he didn’t know existed.
‘Draco, DRACO’ he yelled, clearly enranged, but before he could continue - a movement shifted in hagrids arms, and harry fell out. in a heartbeat draco threw his wand to the scar faced boy. he caught it, looking grateful as he could while casting some sort of spell at nagini. death eaters were disappearing into the air- including lucius, narcissa being dragged with him.
draco didn’t know what to do with himself, he was wandless and he couldn’t fight, unless he wanted to engage in an actual physical duel, which he didn’t. he found himself in the great hall, asking professor sprout if she needed help patching those up, she pulled him into a hug, unexpectantly. he never recalled such contact or connection with a professor. he spent the rest of the battle helping healing wounds with dittany, and caring for those left in the wake. it was a nice distraction from the fact he would most definitely be disowned, left a family-less orphan at 17.
-
y/n couldn’t blame him for not writing, he clearly stated that it might be the last time. but every night she cried until she couldn’t cry anymore, or until she fell asleep. how could she like him so much? they’d never even met. she didnt really need to see him to know him, his letters told him enough about him. and she could only hope- that if he managed through his six year without killing his headmaster, he could make it through the war.
-
he delayed going back to the manor for as long as possible, until he decided to apparate directly into his room. he considered packing his things up, but realized no one was home. he was thankful, he don’t think he would ever be able to fully confront his parents again. he fell asleep in his bed, and slept for 48 hours straight. he slept through very vivid dreams, ones of y/n being tortured the same way as Hermione, ones of the dark lord coming alive once again and killing his mother because of his choices. he couldn’t bring himself to sleep again purposefully, no matter how exhausted he was. the days weren’t much better, his mind raced at unbelievable paces. he saw the dead bodies laying around the great hall, the unrecoverable ones. maybe he should have just fallen into the fire, surely that would have been easier. he was slowly becoming thinner, and always needed multiple blankets to even stay at a somewhat warm temperature, his heart beat faster than normal. he often felt pains in his neck, and his eyes were almost always puffy from crying. he spent so much time in bed he almost didn’t hear his owl flutter onto his nightstand mid afternoon, a small package tied loosely around his neck.
he opened it to see a letter, muggle candies and a worn book. suddenly he felt more awake, and be shot up a little to fast then he should have, sitting on the edge of his bed.
draco.
i don’t know where you are, or if youre alive, if youre reading this now. i hope this doesn’t arrive at a bad time. but your 18 now, so happy birthday. if you are seeing this, i still love you. i think about you all the time. i hope you are okay, and safe. in case you don’t end up writing me back, i just thought I’d give you some random information to keep you company and away from your mind. i graduate tomorrow. i look at your picture everyday. I remember what you once told me about following my dreams, so instead of medicine, im going to study literature and business next year. im staying in kelowna aswell for now, hoping maybe you’ll be able to visit someday. im sure you’d like it. my favourite colour is still green. i don’t know what else to say.
always here to listen if you’d like to talk. yn.
was it actually his birthday? had it already been a month since the war? it felt like a year but the visions played over and over like it was yesterday. it took him awhile before it clicked. the war was over, Voldemort was dead and there was no one to stop him from seeing her. he completely disregarded the lightheaded feeling he got when he stood up to fast- and rushed to his wardrobe. it took him a bit longer than he thought to pack up all his clothes, including the thousands of letters he kept hidden in a large drawer. the trunk was a bit heavier than he may have thought, and he ended up needing to take a car, in fear that he may not be able to apparate successfully to the airport without injuring himself. he quickly found out that muggle travelling was harder than he thought, and security and customs were also apparently a thing that all people needed to get through.
he wrapped himself in his cloak and didn’t get a drop of sleep the whole plane ride. it was nighttime when they flew over montreal, and then toronto. the sun rose as they crossed through winnipeg, regina, and calgary. he didn’t know this himself ofcourse, but he aggressively hit the map on the screen in front of him, desperate to know where he was. he only got an hour of half decent sleep before he felt rattling of the plane landing, and he gripped tightly onto the arm rests. he struggled for half an hour before he even got sight of his luggage on the moving thing that went round and round. compared to London, kelownas airport was very small and easy to navigate. the air outside was hot, making draco feel even more self concious about his clothing choices.
-
y/n put her hair back into a twist with a clip taking a suprising amount of effort to make sure it looked okay. her makeup was natural looking, nothing crazy but she looked gorgeous none the less. she slipped into her black romper, some canadians didn’t wear their fancy dresses to convocation, only something simple to go with the cap and gown. she arrived at the ceremony, seeing everyone, with excited smiles and laughs, conversing amongst themselves. and every memory came rushing back. they sat in rows on a stage, listening to the heartfelt and extremely cheesy speech the staff made every single year. she’d never noticed how many kids were in her age group until they were being called up one by one.
‘alex can’
‘ruth lee’
and the list went on and on until finally
‘y/n l/n’ the moment had come, and she shook everyone’s hand, receiving her diploma and flipping her caps tassel to the left. ‘y/n is staying around next year, and attending the university of british columbia okanogan, good luck l/n’ her principal said and claps continued like they had and the rest of the list finished sooner, or seemed to go by faster, she wasn’t sure. 
-
draco had never had to find a taxi by himself, but once he did he gave the driver the only place he knew, the address he saw on the top corner of her first response almost two years ago.
-
y/n pulled away from the school grounds, watching them disappear in her rear view mirror. it was hot with a breeze, but she smiled the whole way home. she’d done it, made it through every assignment and class, dealt with attention hungry bitches, and crappy teachers. the next door was truly opening. pulling up to her house, and closing her car door as she hopped out, she watched her feet carry her up to the house. turning the corner, she saw him, sitting there on her steps, a present wrapped horribly in his hands, looking very out of place in his black cloak. she stopped in her own steps and he hesitantly stood up, before she launched herself into his arms breathing in his cologne, finally together after all this time.
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