#phic phight 24
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Phic Phight - Does The Blood And Viscera Define Him (It’s from Fights And Injuries, Guys, Not Messy Bloodsucking, Gosh!)
@going-dead
Maddie and Jack consider themselves very supportive parents, even if they were rather strange, and that includes towards they’re definitely not human, or entirely human, son. Besides! At least he wasn’t a ghost! Vampires were much better, Vlad made that pretty clear.
Maddie side-eyes Danny as subtly as she can, watching him open the fridge, quirk an eyebrow, and poke the little blood juice box in there. Sticking that in there wasn’t the most subtle of things she could have done, but it was easy enough to explain as a ‘easy transport’ blood transfusion that Jack wanted to design to make ‘look fun’; and it did have a tube and needle instead of a straw so it technically could be used that way. That wasn’t really why they made it though, not a chance.
No, the point was Danny. Trying to make sure he was healthy.
She’s not entirely sure how he was getting his needs met, she had a good guess of course. Sam was always pale, even if she always had been since she’d first meet the young girl. And Tucker would literally sell his soul for Danny. Plus there was also the fact that Sam was not only extremely wealthy, but her parents never really looked at any purchases she made; she could absolutely be buying him blood. She’d also spotted them bloodied or bandaged once or twice; Tucker on the neck even. This was all without even touching Danny’s odd ‘frienemies’ relationship with Vlad, sometimes he seemed to hate the man’s existence and other times it felt more like Danny trusted him more than her or Jack.
And well…
Vlad was a vampire so…
She could understand is what she’s saying.
She makes a point to focus back on trying to fix the toaster, for the fourth time this month, when it seems like Danny might turn around. She can tell the moment his eyes are on her, she always could, it always had this sort of predatory pressure to it; she’s thankful it never felt possessive or creepy like it did with Vlad. No, Danny’s gaze felt more… cautious, like an uneasy predator, and protective, as if he worried about them getting hurt. Hurt by him or from the ghosts or from their own recklessness, she’s not sure, but she could never bring herself to be worried about him hurting her. Heck she didn’t even worry Vlad would genuinely hurt her; if that man wanted to bite her he likely would have a long time ago and he was far too self controlled to do it accidentally. If Danny did bite her, she’d probably spend more time calming him down and reassuring him, than actually trying to get him to stop. It’s was a parents job to look after and support their kids, if that meant blood with her son then so be it. If that meant trying to clean up the state his room wound up in so often, then so be it. Even if that was fairly disgusting, he was clearly not the cleanest drinker considering all the organic messes he managed to get on the floor and his walls. He even got a bit of rotting blood inside his window wall somehow. She made the mistake when he was younger of just leaving him to clean up his own room, the carpet had to be ripped out and it literally was dripping with gooey unidentifiable gore. Danny’d been very awkward and wouldn’t met her eyes after she told him about ripping up his floor; she didn’t give him too much hassle about it but still. She went in there with an enzymatic cleaner at least once a week now.
She waits a few minutes after Danny leaves to look in the fridge, the blood box is gone and she feels… content. Like she’s done her job as a mother.
(Danny doesn’t know why the heck his folks would make blood transfusions in juice boxes of all things, but they made a mini bazooka shaped like a toothbrush, he should expect this shit by now. Either way he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, his ghostly physiology meant he didn’t really have to worry about blood type and he absolutely did not want that emergency blood fusion thing to happen again. He felt like a huge dick asking Tuck to do that just because of some stupid blood sucking unicorn ghost).
She makes sure to send Jack a photo of the fridge with a thumbs up emoji, letting her husband know the idea was a solid one. Some of both of their ideas had been hit or miss. Sam appreciated their backyard being more shady, even if Maddie’s sure Jack’s ‘we needed a new shed’ explanation wasn’t believed, but Danny didn’t seem like he even noticed. His refusal to use sun screen also bothered her, to the point where she’d started adding speciality spf drops to his body washes to make sure he got at least some protection. Rolling her eyes to herself a little, boys and their ‘I’m too tough for such and such thing’. At least he wore long sleeves these days, and thick pants sun couldn’t easily get through.
(Danny was hiding scars. Danny was tired of cheap thin clothing getting wrecked. Danny was developing muscle that he did not want noticed).
Her cooking black pudding and blood sausage did not go over well, everyone agreeing -including Danny- that it was gross and to never try that again. She did attempt it another time, just to see if she messed it up, but, well, that became sentient and everyone was very disgusted by the ‘blood spitting sentient sausage’, Danny had even seemed personally offended, likely he thought the ‘waste of blood’ was insulting.
(Danny got covered in his own blood and ecto, as well as others, enough that a freaking sausage doing it legit was insulting. He had been very offended).
Jack’s fang brush Danny did seemingly take but she’s pretty sure he’s using that on a stray dog he seemingly likes but has never brought home.
(Cujo loved its weird shape. Danny loved that Cujo loved it).
Maddie shakes her head, smiling a little down at the toaster as she gets the last little piece in place, she’s not sure why it had a habit of spitting toast at Danny but she is slightly annoyed that he keeps retaliating like a toaster can care about that. Even if vampires were more aggressive and vindictive by nature, it was still annoying to keep having to fix it; at least it gave Danny something to take those natural desires out on… besides his pranking feud with Vlad. She really would like Vlad to do almost anything else other than nailing dead badgers to Danny’s door or beneath his window, she gets that the man has completely normalised animal corpses to himself -since she’s sure that’s what he feeds off of- but it’s extremely disturbing and Danny complains heavily about the clean up effort. At least she got Danny to stop mailing Vlad fully made cereal, since the mailman threatened to stop taking their packages if he got one more moldy stink bomb box; she hadn’t had the heart to tell the mailman it was moldy food being mailed the long way specifically to get more moldy and not a stink bomb.
Jack pops up from the lab, arms full with more blood boxes and grinning. Maddie putting her hands on her hips, whispering, “Jack, that’s way too many. It’s suspicious”. Her husband has the good sense to look embarrassed and dash right back down to the lab. Being subtle, at least subtle enough, was important. Neither one of them wanted to give away what they already knew, they wanted Danny to tell them himself! Sure, Vlad never did, but after that lab accident she couldn’t blame him for not trusting them, especially when he refused to talk to or visit them for twenty years… She’s still convinced that Danny’s why that man got back in touch with them, that he somehow knew or found out about Danny. Vampires probably smelled different to vampires than humans did. Same with how ghosts clearly had a strong ectoplasmic scent, hence why Danny always seemed to know when one was nearby and would smartly run off.
Jack comes back with only three boxes, which might still be pushing it but she won’t tell him off this time. They go in the fridge.
At least Vlad didn’t really hide being a vampire either though, which Danny was very clearly trying very had to do. She’d absolutely caught glimpses of Vlad’s eyes flashing red, and his hair style did nothing to hide his pointy ears with the way he wore it. The fangs weren’t subtle either and sometimes she thinks he’s trying to make his dark undereyes actively more noticeable. While Danny’s hair always somewhat covered his ears these days, the fangs… either he’s filling them down or he can retract them.
Oh, right, she should update that message board that her son seemed to like the blood juice box idea. Originally her and Jack had joined the website as just lurkers, when they got suspicious about Vlad years ago, but they kinda forgot about it once Vlad made it really clear he wasn’t ‘interested’ in their ‘support’ or friendship. Then Danny hit his pre-teen and early teen years, they’re assuming he ‘awakened’ during the beginning of puberty but the message board made it clear that vampires could awaken at pretty much any age. Sure they only had access to the ‘human’ areas, and not the parts meant for vampires, but it was a fantastic resource. The area for parents of vampires was particularly useful, and a couple others were curious how the blood juice box thing would go over; Maddie and Jack weren’t subtle about being inventors. Maybe they should try selling them?
Her and Jack both heading down to the lab now. Him getting back to work on a shield to protect the Highschool, since it was such a hot spot. Her hopping on the computer.
MadScientist: the juice box method seemed well received. He was a bit cautious about taking it, but still took it. We’re calling it a winner. Hopefully more cropping up, and him taking them, will make him more comfortable with it.
LemiRemi: he might not take them too often, since I’m sure what he gets from his blackswans is arguably better. And they might get worried if he starts feeding off of them less.
Maddie did worry about that, especially since she knew Sam and Tucker wouldn’t bring such worries up with her or Jack, nutritionally he should be fine since they formulated it to be identical to the nutritional value and contents of human blood; it wouldn’t be ‘as fresh’ probably but still.
MadScientist: hopefully it won’t worry them too much, since we really are just trying to make sure he’s healthy and trying to get him comfortable enough to talk with us about it.
Gem45: some kids just never really get comfortable with their parents, but their health should definitely come first.
Zeemzeff: I wish my kid had the resources you do, him autofeeding always worries me
Maddie was still lost on how autofeeding, a vampire feeding off of themselves, was remotely viable, even if it sounded like it wasn’t really safe rather just survivable. If Danny started doing that, she’d out and tell him she knew immediately to get him to accept their help with getting his ‘food’.
MadScientist: I was thinking about trying to sell the blood boxes, but I doubt they could handle any really long trips. We already sell volatile and sensitive inventions so the transport itself would be fine. But blood is only good for so long.
Zeemzeff: oh how I wish we lived in America sometimes. The weather is a lot better here but man, do Americans have access to everything.
Emilyfreetree: I’m still lot letting my girl anywhere near one of those blood bars.
MadScientist: agreed
She’d be concerned if Danny even wanted to go to a place like that, Vlad no doubt did but she’s going to hold out hope that the man will not encourage Danny to when he’s of age. She wouldn’t… object to him buying blood wine though, even if it was expensive and apparently a bit on the salty side; only when he’s older of course. Heck, she’d try some if it made him more comfortable.
LemiRemi: I’d be interested in purchasing that, at least to see if my kid would like it. I definitely would discourage getting too dependent on just that though
MadScientist: we’ll see what we can do. Even if my son was fine with just the boxes I’d rather him have variety, that has to be healthier.
Her looking away from the computer to her husband, “at least one person’s interested in trying to buy the blood boxes, so we should definitely work on that”.
Jack beaming instantly, “awesome!”, rubbing his neck, “we just gotta make sure none of that gets accidentally contaminated”. Maddie nodding immediately, that wasn’t an issue for Danny, since he has that contamination of his, but it would be an issue for anyone else. Jack then snapping his fingers, “oh! We should totally send Vladdie some! Betcha he’d love some human mixed in with all that animal he gets!”. Maddie sighing, fairly certain Vlad won’t actually appreciate that.
(Danny later had to explain to an annoyed though impressed Vlad that no, he did not mail him fucking human blood regardless of that reading as a ‘your ghost ass looks like a vampire’ joke. Vlad did not believe him and sent back a bloody thank you card as a form of mocking).
Jack liked to think he was a pretty good dad, a little oblivious and a little silly, but still a good dad. Sure his family was a little weird, from the ghost hunting to his daughter’s baffling intellect to his son’s species. Sure Jazz and Danny got a little annoyed with the ghost hunting, but it helped keep the town and his family safe. Even with both of them avoiding the gear so much, sometimes it seemed like Danno was nervous around the stuff, like maybe he thought they’d start hunting vampires too or something! Never! But he’s certain vampire hunters exist too, even if he’s never met any. Fae probably exist too, same with fae hunters. But fae and vampires, probably or definitely for vampires, have brains and hearts; far better than the ectoplasmic nothingness ghost had. Ghosts weren’t beings. Sure Danny’s vitals were a little weird but they were still there, same as Vladdie’s!
Jack shaking his head as he tries to focus back in on the gun he’s putting back together, they needed something that would actually work on that Phantom ghost, at least to talk to the thing about what was driving It to behave as some kind of wannabe ‘ghost hunter’. That, and Phantom clearly knew about Vladdie, based on his public comments, so he’s got to wonder if the ghost knew about Danny too. Danny-boy was weirdly ghost-friendly, a monster comradery thing perhaps, so maybe Danny talked with the ‘friendly’ ghost about the less human things about himself. Jack would rather his kiddo come to him with that, but he could understand a bit. And Phantom was, like, hundreds of years old so no way the spook didn’t know about vampires; that online forum made it seem like there were quite a few out there! Which most people probably wouldn’t like knowing about, but he’d rather Danny-boy have lots like him than very few.
Oh! Jack pauses, maybe if he just seemed like he was trying to talk to Phantom on ‘friendly’ terms the spook would float down and have a chat? Sure it would be hard to resist shooting It but if he could find a thing or two about how to better care for his kid then it would totally be worth it.
Jumping up and sticking his head down the lab door, “I’m heading out! Gonna see if I can track some spooks down!”.
“Make sure not to bother Danny if he’s day sleeping in a tree again!”.
Jack rubbing his neck, “how was I supposed to know he’d be there?!?”.
“You need to practice more situational awareness!”.
“I’ll try! Hon!”.
His dear sweet Maddie only laughing in response as he heads out. He knew he wasn’t the best at paying attention to his surroundings, but Danny-boy sleeping so quietly didn’t help! He definitely wished Danny’d get more sleep though, daytime sleep since all the night time sleeping didn’t seem to be doing him much good; perhaps he couldn’t actually really sleep at night at all and that’s why he kept falling asleep in classes before they just started letting him spend Sundays sleeping instead of doing chores.
It’s really bright out today, Amity was usually pretty good for cloud coverage, even if the sudden random snow storms that cropped up sometimes were odd. The light glare off of the scanner was annoying but that didn’t stop it from picking up on spectral traces, he knows a fight happened down by the park this morning so that’s where he’s heading. It was deer season too so maybe he could snag one there for lunch, something more fresh even if Danny always seemed a little confused and weirded out when he brought something home for Mad’s to serve nearly raw. Kiddo probably just wasn’t a big fan of getting his food from something that was actually dead dead. It was too bad ghosts didn’t have blood in them, Jack would love trying to encourage Danny-boy to bite them.
…
He actually has more luck with the animals than the ghost samples, none of samples were anything they haven’t already gathered and examined multiple times over. Meanwhile, he’s got himself a good healthy little bunny, just startle It with a ray blast at the ground and then quickly grab and break its neck. Simple, quick, and painless; just like how his pa taught him. Honestly it was more of a struggle to not fully crush really small animals, one of the downsides of being a really big guy.
“What’d the bunny do to you?”.
Jack actually jumps, whirling around with his prize and blinking in surprise at Phantom’s judgmental raised eyebrow, “oh! Phantom! Ha! Didn’t see you there”, holding up the rabbit a little, “they're good for stew, and the rabbit population here is a little crazy since there’s no coyotes or anything”. When the ghost issue first popped up, the spooks chased pretty much all the wild life away but over time most just got used to the ghosts. And sure, stew wasn’t as great a blood meal for his Danny but it was still fresh meat; and the blood wouldn’t have to be thrown out since he’d figured out how to powderise it and mix it into Danny’s ground coffee. Danny had even commented on getting a better batch! So Jack called it a win!
(Much later, after finding this out, Danny would make a rather panicked call to Vlad about if ghosts liked the taste of blood. Vlad had been completely baffled, didn’t have a good answer, and agreed to try some of Danny’s apparently blood contaminated coffee. Vlad had some opinions on Danny’s disgustingly strong coffee as well as agreeing that yes, ghosts probably did actually like the taste. The FrightKnight later confirming that yes, ghosts did, and humans used to give ghosts live and blood sacrifices for that very reason. Danny had a crises… he didn’t stop drinking the blood coffee though. It was already too late anyways! And! It did taste better).
Phantom blinks, “okay, you’re not wrong, but it is still super weird to see a random citizen just… strangling a rabbit in the park”.
Jack cringes a little, okay yeah, he can see how that might be alarming and something to go check out. Laughing anyways, “fair enough! Vladdie hasn’t said it’s not allowed though!”.
Phantom grumbling, “considering what the dear old mayor does to animals that’s not really a good thing”.
Jack beams a little, oh he was totally right! Phantom definitely knew! Sweet! “Eh gotta get those needs and murderous desires met somehow, am I right?!”. Phantom’s concerned expression doesn’t change, if anything It seems slightly more concerned. “And he’s a good mayor for the town, even if he wasn’t my buddy I’d say that!”.
“I guess? He’s certainly different enough to fit in?”, Phantom shakes his head and holds up a finger, “question, why? aren’t you trying to shoot me?”.
Jack rubs his neck, “well knowing my Danny-boy, he’s probably tree sleeping again and the wife did just give me clear instructions not to wake him up, again. Night sleeping doesn’t seem to be working out for him, figures, so you know”.
Phantom blinks, “he… does sleep in trees a lot”, smirking, “I’ve startled him, and birds, a few times”.
“I’m surprised he’s never given himself a sunburn really, leaves aren’t super great shade”, Jack shaking his head, even if Danny-boy wasn’t a vampire, Jack would still worry since he’s such a pale kid. Honestly Jack would probably worry about the kid having an iron deficiency if he didn’t know about the vampire situation!
“I really don’t think you have to worry about that. He can handle the sun”.
Jack taps his chin, perhaps his contamination made him more resilient? “I suppose his contamination makes him a tougher cookie”.
Phantom tilting his head, “yeah… physically strong and all that”.
“Sometimes I wonder why he’s not stronger”, Jack chuckling, “that or he’s got a bit better strength control than I’ve got! Ha!”.
“I have seen you pick up that military vehicle of yours”.
Jack laughing a bit more, “exactly!”, Danny really should be stronger than him, Jack knew Vladdie had some serious strength but he was also on a basically animal only diet. Danny was getting human, from those friends of his, so he should be seriously strong! Danny-boy was probably just really self-conscious about his strength, and so was really careful about it! Not that he needed to be! Just the same as how he’d get all awkward when anyone commented on him getting places really quickly, he’s not sure if being able to turn into a bat was a real thing, it didn’t seem to be but who knows! If he could then Danny-boy would totally love flying! Oh! Maybe he can just ask Phantom here about that! “I also wonder why he doesn’t talk about flying, he’s always loved space, so you’d think he’d find ways to get up in the air more”.
Phantom’s response is slightly panicky for some reason, “I mean, I’ve gone flying with him before, you know how ghosts fights can be. It’s a much easier way to get out of a dangerous area”.
Ha! Jack knew it! That was so cool! Danny could be a bat! Like from Hotel Transylvania! He bets Danny makes for an adorable bat! Same with Vlad! Vlad’s probably a tall skinny bat! Like a flying fox bat or a Sulawesi fruit bat with their sharp faces! Imagine if Danny-boy was a cute little Honduran white bat or a teeny tiny bumblebee bat! Danny would be so embarrassed but so cute! Kid already fit in his hand, in one finger would be so adorable! Him blurting out, “he must use a really weird brush to deal with that wind swept hair! His normal hair’s already a handful! Ha!”.
Phantom looks so confused and is probably sticking around at this point because of Its confusion. Maybe the ghost found it weird Jack took this long to ask things? Phantom blinks harshly, “I know that Sam girl has tried to brush him with a toothbrush but I think that’s the closest to weird it’s ever been”.
A! Toothbrush! That was adorable! He hopes the goth has photos he can see whenever Danny gets comfortable enough to tell him. “A toothbrush! Ha! That’s great!”.
(Danny is very confused when his next birthday card has the image of a bat getting toothbrush head scrubbies on it, and also confused as to why Jack thought it was hilarious).
Phantom blinks, “yeah… did you… come down here just to strangle a rabbit?”.
Jack holds up the scanner, “nope! Was seeing if there’d be any good samples to take! The rabbit was just a bonus, a yummy one and nutritious”, nodding strongly to himself, “Danny boy definitely needs to put on a pound or two”.
“I think? he’s fine?”.
Oh perhaps vampires didn’t really need to worry about that? That’s good, “well a growing boy still needs to get that blood pumping, either way”, humming, “maybe I should take him hunting proper one day. Fishing went okay?”; oh he definitely should! What if Sam or Tucker get sick or injured and can’t feed him? He should be able to get an animal on his own. Yes! New bonding opportunity!
Phantom chuckling awkwardly, “I’m not going to encourage you taking your son out to kill things”.
Jack waving the ghost off, “oh you’re a ghost! That’s expected!”, putting his hands on his hips and nodding strongly, “I’m taking him hunting”, smacking a fist into a hand, “in fact, I’m going to go home and plan it right now, bye you spook!”. Phantom sighing tiredly while waving Jack off. Phantom was really good at that playing friendly act! Wow!
(Surprisingly, the whole hunting bonding trip went weirdly well. Even if Danny was kinda disturbed and weirded out when his dad actually had him freaking carve up a deer and then just… told him to take out the heart and take a bite out of it. Since APPARENTLY that was ‘first kill’ tradition. Danny was disturbed. Danny absolutely had a really weird dream about cutting out his own heart and taking a bite out of it. Danny didn’t like that it didn’t taste bad. Danny had a lot of feelings about this. Jack… also took a photo and sent it to Vlad. Vlad was actually disturbed and called Danny personally to ask if he was safe and sane and that this wasn’t what he meant by halfas being apex predators. Danny threatened to bite his heart too. And his dad, only hearing half the conversation, seemed weirdly proud).
…
Jack basically barging into the lab, “so I ran into Phantom!”, holding up his catch, “and we can have rabbit stew tonight! Right?”.
Maddie grinning at him, “of course dear, just get It drained first”.
“Of course! And! Phantom totally said Danny can fly! Didn’t really confirm the bat thing but apparently Sam’s brushed him with a toothbrush before so I say I’m sold!”, tilting his head and humming, “the spook also implied Danny’s contamination makes him tougher with that sun sensitivity issue, so we don’t actually have to worry too much about that”.
Maddie sighs happy, “that’s great, and I’m sure he makes an adorable bat, if it’s a bat thing at all, but try not to tease him too much Jack? We want him to feel comfortable, not more awkward”.
Jack just laughs, rubbing his neck with his free hand before going upstairs to work on the rabbit. Him getting Danny to help when the boy gets home, the kid might be slightly weird about handling blood and raw meat but he needs to be used to it and to not act weird around it.
And if Danny licks his fingers clean then who’s he to judge? Sure he didn’t actually see his boy do that but well, one second his fingers and hands were a bit messy and then next second Jack looked and they were completely cleaned off. Danny-boy absolutely licked his fingers clean and nothing could convince Jack otherwise.
End.
(the message board referenced in here does actually exist for psych and sanguinarian vampires, Maddie and Jack have just misinterpreted it to also mean actual real life fanged non-human movie vampires. Also yes, if you didn’t know blood bars are a real thing, they are. Also also, blood in wine is a thing but it’s been banned since the 1930’s; but if you want to make your own wine out of blood you absolutely can, go wild.)
Prompt: Jack and Maddie knew something supernatural was going on with their son, waiting for him to feel comfortable telling them they set out to help him in subtler ways. If only they had actually gotten the species right.
#danny phantom#phandom#phicphight24#phic phight 24#danny fenton#maddie fenton#jack fenton#phantomphangphucker#have a fic suck my dick#my writing#gothmoth#vampires#mistaken for a vampire#animal death#blood drinking#fan fic#phan phic
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Snow Way Home
After the portal accident, Danny is reincarnated as a baby yeti.
For the prompt: After the portal accident, Danny finds himself in the ghost zone (not that he knows that’s where he is). He has become a baby yeti and feels lost and alone. He eventually finds his way to the Far Frozen through instinct, where Frostbite finds him and takes him in. Fluff ensues! [from Neighbor]
Read also on AO3
[No applicable warnings]
Danny felt cold. A deep, penetrating cold that coursed through his veins and made a home in his very bones. But it didn't bother him. He was suspended in a bright green sky, so high above everything that he couldn't see the ground no matter which way he looked, almost like he was in space. He didn't know his up from down, his right from left.
And he was cold. A soft, comfortable cold, like the underside of a pillow, like a breeze on a hot day, like ice cream, or tiny raindrops drifting through a fog. Actually, he was a hundred times colder than any of those, but the cold felt the same.
The last thing he remembered, he was with his friends, poking around his parents' lab. Sam had been taking pictures, and she told him he should go in the portal and then—
Danny heard the sound of a baby crying, and it was close, but when he looked around, he didn't see anyone. Then, he realized the sound was coming from him. Slowly, the crying faded into tiny hiccups and then silence as Danny took stock of where, and more importantly what, he was.
His hands were tiny, and covered in white fur. His nails were thin, translucent claws. He kicked his legs up and saw that his feet were much the same—small, clawed, and covered in white fur. When he reached up to touch his face, he discovered that it, too, was fuzzy, with a damp nose at then end of a snout, no teeth, and floppy ears on the sides of his head. In fact, his whole body appeared to be fluffy and white like fresh snow. And except for the fur, he was naked.
He was a baby... something. A tiny little thing, lost in a vast and empty green sky, and he was alone. He started to cry again, but just as the ice-cold tears began to fall, he felt a weak tugging sensation in his chest. It didn't stop him crying, but he did let him pull him on an air current.
He followed the pull for what felt like days, until, in the distance he saw a floating island covered in ice, all sharp and jagged. In his head, he looked at those edges, and icicles, and spikes, and he thought that it looked like no place for a baby. But in his heart—or... whatever was pulsing in this chest now that felt both like a heart and very unlike a heart—he knew that was home, and he allowed himself to drift gently toward it until he was close enough for the island's gravity to pull him to the snowy ground.
It was a long several minutes before Danny managed to actually stand on his own two feet, but as soon as he took a step on the shifting snow, he fell. He tried several more times to get up and walk forward, but between the shifty, uneven ground and his underdeveloped baby legs, he never managed to stay upright for long. At least the fresh snow provided a nice, soft surface for him to fall on.
Eventually, Danny gave up and began to crawl forward on his hand and knees, calling out every so often. His mouth was uncooperative when it came to forming words, but it didn't stop him from making a decently loud "Eh!" sound every once in a while.
Then, after a few hours of crawling and yelling through the snow, he heard footsteps. Actually, he felt more than heard them, heavy, thumping footsteps that sent vibrations through the snow. Involuntarily, Danny began to cry again. Was this why babies cried all the time? They just couldn't stop themselves if they wanted to.
The footsteps grew closer and closer, and Danny couldn't run, so he just sat there, tugged on his floppy ears, and cried, hoping whatever monster appeared might take pity on him and at least kill him quickly—bite his head off in one big chomp, like he was a gummy bear, so he wouldn't have to suffer.
Finally, the monster rounded a massive jutting spike of ice, and Danny saw what it was. It looked like a yeti, with jagged, icy horns, huge teeth and claws, and glowing yellow eyes. Its left arm was made of ice, through which the bones were visible.
Danny cried louder, and the yeti knelt down, shushing him gently, and reached out with its soft, left arm.
"Shh," he said, in a deep, soothing voice. "Hush, little one. You did well in getting this far, and I'm so proud of you. I shall take you the rest of the way, little one."
Hesitantly, Danny let his tears lighten up, and allowed the yeti to scoop his tiny body into his huge arm and carry him off.
"I am Frostbite," the yeti introduces as he walked. "This is the Realm of the Far Frozen, home to all yeti, including you, little one. And I am its ruler."
As the yeti spoke, Danny looked up at him intently, hanging onto every word. So he was a baby yeti, then. Had he been reincarnated after—a stark fear and discomfort gripped him as he remembered again what had happened to him before winding up here. It must've killed him, he realized belatedly.
Frostbite gently hushed him again. "Shh, shh, little one," he said softly, stroking a frozen claw against the fluffy fur of Danny's face. "You have very intelligent eyes for one so young," the yeti observed. "It's almost as if you can even understand me. And I sense turmoil within you. Did something distressing happen on your journey? Or perhaps... before."
Danny tried to speak, but only succeeded in making a some infantile babbling noises and staring up at frostbite with huge eyes.
"You know, you have rather unusual eyes for a yeti. Most of us have yellow sclera and dark irises, but yours are green, with irises of pale blue," Frostbite mused.
Danny blinked owlishly at him. He hadn't seen his own eyes since showing up in this place of existence, wherever it was, so he hadn't known that. He wondered if it meant anything.
As if in answer, Frostbite said, "It would seem you are favored by the ectoplasm, the very energy of which everything in the Infinite Realms is constructed. That makes you rather special indeed.
"Once we get back to the village, I will take you to the soothsayer. She will divine your name, and determine your ideal parentage. Perhaps today will finally be the day I get to claim a child for my own."
Unsure what to say to that, and unable to say anything regardless, Danny kept staring at the yeti. This was his life, now, it would seem. Or perhaps his afterlife.
As he said, Frostbite carried Danny into a frozen, but cozy-looking village full of yetis. As soon as they saw Danny, several of them came over to coo and fawn over him, and Frostbite made his way to the soothsayer's hut very slowly as he had to keep stopping every few feet to let someone get a good look at Danny. It was overwhelming, and it wasn't long before Danny buried his face in Frostbite's fluffy chest to avoid their eyes.
Finally, the light changed, and Danny looked up to see that he'd been taken into a small, dimly lit hut draped in cloth and furs. In the center of the room was a low fire pit full of glowing coals and embers, circled by worn, blue cushions.
"Galacia," Frostbite called out gently. "Are you here?"
"I live here," croaked an old woman's voice.
Frostbite and Danny both jumped with a start, and looked over to see and elderly, hunched over female yeti. The white fur framing her face was longer and braided, and she war a twisted, golden circlet. One of her horns was broken, and one of her eyes was milky white, and a blue shawl with gold trim was draped over her shoulders.
"I see you've brought me a child," Galacia said. "Let's have a look at him."
She reached out with two skinny, bony arms, and Frostbite gently lowered Danny into them. Danny had been bracing himself for hard angles digging into him, but with the both of them being covered in fur, it wasn't any less comfortable than being held by Frostbite.
"What is his name, Galacia?" Frostbite asked.
"Well, let's just see, shall we?"
She stepped just outside, to where a crowd was gathered, and shifted Danny so he was being help in just one of her arms. Then she reached up with the other to grab one her her braids and ran her fingers down to the tassel at the end. She lifted the tassel to Danny's nose and tickled it.
Danny giggled for a moment, until he felt a sneeze coming on.
"Ah-choo!" He sniffed.
Galacia stared intently at the cloud of condensation that puffed and curled up into the air above him when he sneezed, humming thoughtfully, and when it dissipated she nodded. He waited for her to declare his name was Danny, but instead, she said something completely different.
"He shall be named Polaris, after the star of the north, which is steadfast, enduring, and a guiding light to its people, always there to point the way," the soothsayer announced.
Danny—no... Polaris felt an icy calmness settle into his chest, a rightness like he had never felt before. Though he hadn't been expecting it, it did logically follow that since he was now a yeti, he would be given a yeti name. He'd never met humans named Frostbite, or Galacia, a yeti couldn't be named something so mundane as Danny. Plus... it felt both fitting, and incredibly flattering to be named after a star.
"And... what shall be his parentage," Frostbite asked. He was standing behind Galacia now, in the doorway of the hut. Danny—Polaris could see him over the soothsayer's shoulder, looking hesitantly hopeful.
She put her cold hand on Polaris' soft chest, and closed her eyes, and hummed a low, rattling hum. Then, at once, she stopped cold and her eyes snapped open once more.
"He shall be the son of our leader, of course," Galacia declared. "He shall be raised by our great ruler, and trained to lead and protect the tribe. And when, a thousand years from now, he takes his father's place, we will know that we can trust him with our lives."
Frostbite absolutely beamed at that answer, his eyes glistening with hope, and pride, and joy.
Galacia grabbed Polaris with both hands and thrust him into the air like Simba in the lion king.
"I present to the tribe, Polaris, son of Frostbite, heir to the Realm of the Far Frozen."
The assembled yetis cheered as Frostbite took his new son into his arms with a thousand watt smile.
"I will take good care of you, my son," Frostbite promised.
The baby couldn't help smiling and giggling in the joyous atmosphere, but deep inside him was a heavy trepidation. He wondered if he would be able to hold onto his memories from his life before, as Danny, or if they would fade in time, replaced by his memories as Polaris. He wondered which he would prefer.
Would Sam, and Tucker, and his parents come to look for him? Was there even the slightest possibility of them recognizing him as he was now, if they were even able to find him? Would he be able to fit in with the other yetis if he'd once been human. Had any of the others been human like him, before becoming covered in white fur.
Frostbite held Polaris close against his fur and promised that everything would be fine, that he would always be safe and cared for, and Danny believed him. He believed that everything would be okay.
#danny phantom#dp#danny fenton#dp frostbite#yetis#lore#phic phight#phic phight 24#fic#things i wrote#fluff
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Salt Mirror
phic phight fill with two prompts; for @echoghost1 and @fuyuthefoxwriter
(Sister fics are Snow Day, Snowdrift Sanctuary, and Frozen Out)
********
The first thing Danny noticed was the teeth.
Or. Well. The first thing Frostbite noticed were the teeth. What Danny noticed was that suddenly he was being offered bigger and bigger bones with his meal, which were very much not typical human-appropriate food.
“You break them,” Frostbite showed him, pinning the bone between two sharp canines and biting down. The bone broke clean in two. Hot-dog style. “Then you are free to eat the marrow inside.”
Danny stared. “I don’t… I don't think my teeth do that.”
“Try it,” his guardian encouraged.
…Well. He hoped Far Frozen had as good a dentistry practice as they did medicine. Danny shoved the bone between his canine teeth, and clamped down—
—And the bone broke clean through.
Huh. That was…new.
Well. Marrow tasted good, anyway, and scooping the butter-soft marrow out with a spoon was easy. Danny might have clunked the wooden spoon against his teeth a couple times (man, was he clumsy today) but he was very happy with the results.
The next day Frostbite offered him an arm-length rib bone, Danny didn’t even hesitate to chomp down.
He ate through four ribs before he felt full. He was happy.
*
The second thing Danny noticed was how pale he got.
Like. As in ‘his arm matched the snow-white fur of his tundra-proof coat’ level pale. ‘White as a glacier and just as blue’ level pale. Like. There was no red left in his skin.
He pressed his thumb to his palm. It went yellow, and then flushed back to white as his blood went back in.
…Spooky. Uh. Danny blinked loudly. Maybe he was…sick…?
There wasn’t a mirror in their cave dwelling, and nothing was shiny enough to reflect in— everything that wasn’t medical was cast iron, or not quite mirror smooth, like Frostbite’s round cooking knives.
Danny needed a mirror.
He bundled up and walked through fresh snow drifts to the closest medical facility: an ice cave across from Ledyanoy and Avalanche’s home, carved into one of several dozen pillars of ice embedded into the floating island. Danny knew that there was a mirror there, since Frostbite went in for mirror therapy every time his ice-carved arm began to itch psychosomatically.
He darted inside. Pritla was the only one in there, so they ignored him in their quest for additional data. Great. All Danny needed was the mirror set up in the corner, ready and waiting to be rolled into place for Frostbite’s next session.
Danny peeked at his reflection. He looked…wow.
For one, Danny looked spooky as hell. The blue went all around his eyes, now— no whites to be seen, creating an uneasy, inhuman look. He was pale. He was very pale. He looked like the printer had run out of any colors that might have given him some sort of standing to wander reality with.
The insides of his lips were blue. The wet inner linings around his eyes were blue.
…What.
And. Speaking of…lips…his gums were a deep, sapphire blue, as was his tongue. None of that was as important as his huge freaking fangs, though!
Like! Huge! Not yeti huge, of course, but still!! Danny had no idea how they weren’t sticking straight out of his mouth when he closed it. Big, pearly fangs.
What the heck was happening to him?
*
“I think you’re turning into a Yeti,” Tundra decided primly, and flung himself at Arctic without any further thought. The teenage Yeti— still taller than Danny by two heads and a half— squawked, barely seeing the projectile cub in time to dodge appropriately.
“No,” said Danny. It was more outright denial than certainty. He wrapped his coat tighter around himself.
Avalanche, who was the closest to adulthood out of all of them, watched the two wrestle balefully. Tundra was barely out of cub age, and Arctic wasn’t much better than Sidney Poindexter when it came to having his crap together, so it was kind of like watching two frogs mud-wrestle in knee-high snow.
“I mean,” said Avalanche, mostly bored by the spectacle of Arctic getting his butt whipped by what amounted to a kid, “I’m pretty sure it’s normal for human-born ghosts to adapt to their Obsessions after they form. You have to change a little to match your environment. And we have a lot of snow.”
“So much!” Tundra howled from where he was perched on top of Arctic. His victory lasted as long as it took for Arctic to get his legs underneath himself, push himself to standing, and launch Tundra into a snow drift with a surprised squeal.
Arctic shook himself off. His fur fluffed up with the effort, which made him look larger in size than usual. “I think that if you were turning into a yeti, Frostbite would have noticed. Or said something. Or done something.”
Avalanche shook her head, gamely ignoring how Tundra had turned from a fallen-in-the-snow position to a crouching-and-ready-to-pounce position. Danny had seen this a million times now; either Arctic would notice (he wouldn’t) and dodge, or he’d once again fall victim to Tundra’s childish enthusiasm.
Danny and Avalanche largely had no comment on Tundra’s second leap of faith, nor for their mutual struggle for pubescent dominance that ensued.
There were other questions to ask.
*
“Am I turning into a yeti?” Phantom asked.
Frostbite looked down.
The half-ghost looked nervous— picking at his lip until green beaded under his teeth, his hands in the sleeves of his coat.
“No,” Frostbite confirmed. He didn’t smile, as it would have seemed condescending in the face of Phantom’s genuine worry. It was better to keep calm. “Why are you worried about turning into a yeti?”
Phantom stared up at him, eyes deep and luminous. Frostbite had seen similar coloration on deep-sea creatures, long-travelled things desperate for any sort of light. The sight was compelling, yes, but could not substitute for a verbal answer.
“...Because I’m changing colors and now I have sharp teeth and I think I’m growing claws,” Phantom pointed out. All of these things were true. They were very good, sturdy teeth, and very good, sturdy claws, which was a good sign; anything otherwise would have indicated a lack of support on Frostbite’s end.
“It is a very normal thing to want to explore other forms of expression at your age,” Frostbite pointed out. He threaded his paws through Phantom’s pale hair, and found, to his pride, little buds of ice horns. “And I am very flattered that you think so highly of us that you are interested in mimicking some of our more obvious traits; that being said, if it distresses you, you are always free to change back.”
Phantom’s face turned…lost. “Oh.”
Frostbite continued petting. More explanation would come, or it wouldn’t— but in the meantime, the human tinge returned to his charge’s cheeks, flush with red blood, and the bud horns collapsed where they grew. His charge’s hair turned dark once more, his teeth flat and human.
Phantom’s eyes were always blue. The human color was not as deep, but was just as nice. Now, there were tears in them.
“What is wrong, little one?” Frostbite rumbled, concerned. Phantom took his paw and pressed his face to it in search of tactile comfort.
“I didn’t know why I was changing,” Phantom admitted, sniffing. His voice was wet and raw. “I was scared I couldn’t go back. Humans don’t just…change like that, 'cause we're made of matter. I was scared…”
Frostbite rumbled wordlessly. His charge had adapted very well to a non-human environment, but there were knowledge gaps that would have come naturally to any Realms-Borne being; most intuitively was knowledge of the self, as well as the rigidity (and fluidity) of one’s own manner of expression.
Changing without realization would be distressing. Frostbite still remembered what it felt like to wake up some mornings and realize that his arm was gone.
“You are alright,” Frostbite reaffirmed. “It it healthy to change, and it is a good time to find out how you will want to present yourself. That being said, there is no rush.”
Frostbite paused.
“There is one rush. If you intend to partake in eating marrow with our dinner tonight, you may want to manifest your teeth again—”
Phantom laughed, little cub’s fangs poking out between his teeth. All would be well; but first, there was dinner to be had, and a good night’s sleep to be found.
#phic phight#phic phight 2024#phic phight 24#i cannot remember what tags I have been using and it's kind of distressing ngl#danny phantom#far frozen#Frostbite#Danny Fenton#Yeti!OCs#'what do yeti teenagers do' idk babysit n roam around n hit each other probably#Danny's having an identity crisis which is p fair for cross-species adoption after your parents rejected you for expressing inherent traits#faer fic
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Sorry for the wait but the sign-up form for 2024 Phic Phight is now open! You have until March 27th to sign up!
What is Phic Phight?
Phic Phight is a Danny Phantom fan-fiction writing competition, were writers are asked to provide prompts. Then they are split into two teams; team ghost and team human. The teams are given prompts from the opposite team and gain points for creating fics based on the prompts. The winner gains bragging rights for the year. This was created as a friendly competition to inspire new ideas and stories for the phandom.
Phic Phight begins April 1st and ends April 30th.
You will be required to join the new Phic Phight discord server to participate.
A full list of rules can be found HERE
No OC prompts are allowed. And no crossover prompts are allowed.
Please tag works as #phicphight24
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Gonna Make You a Star
@lavendarlily's prompt: Who knew Danny Fenton was so agile? Paulina makes it her personal mission to get him on the cheer squad.
Summary: Danny never thought that being light on his feet and knowing martial arts would help him anywhere but fighting ghosts. He was wrong. Now Paulina wants to make him a cheerleader for Casper High’s football team.
TW: N/A
Words: 3435; Chapter 1 (This was supposed to be a one-shot)
#danny phantom#danny fenton#paulina sanchez#cheer au#cheer squad au#dp au#no one knows au#phic phight 24#phic phight 2024#dp events#phandom#phandom events#oneshot
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Ashes rain upon your scalded palms pt 1
Part 1/3 | Next Part | or read on AO3
@phicphight submission for @ecto-mochi's Prompt
Maddie is unexpectedly sent to an ashen future. She doesn't even get the chance to meet the mysterious man who sent her to this apocalyptic world - she's only given a single command, ringing over and over in her head: "Find Danny. Save him.
Also Very Much inspired by @zillychu's fire core AU because it has me in a chokehold.
Contains: Danny & Maddie bonding (?), Post apocalyptic vibes. NOT the ultimate enemy. A bucket full of angst.
_____
Chapter One
"Find Danny. Save him."
Maddie awoke with a start and immediately fell into a vicious coughing fit. Her lungs ached. The air was thick and polluted. She had to squint through irritated eyes once she had her handkerchief pressed to mouth and nose.
She registered heat around her, sweltering, like standing in front of a furnace rather than lounging out in the sun during a hot summer's day.
With half opened eyes, she took stock of what was going on. Fear and foreboding had consumed her mind by now and were only proven to be warranted. She had been half buried under ash coated rubble.
Her first thought was a house fire. Or the aftermath of which. But there was no ruin of a house, just the rubble that covered the area around her, and above her a dusty sky. Through the smog she could make out shapes that were vaguely shaped like the structures of houses in the distance, so she was certain she was in a town, probably even Amity Park. Had there been an earthquake?
Her hands pressed into a layer of ash, heat slowly sinking through her thick gloves, as she pushed herself upright. No pain registered as she stood. A small miracle. Not even her jumpsuit seemed damaged, only stained into a colorless gray.
"Jack?" She yelled through the cloth that she kept over her mouth against the worst of the pollution. It still sent her into another coughing fit. There was no response she could hear, even after her lungs had calmed down.
She needed a better vantage point then, if her voice wasn't strong enough to yell.
So she climbed the next biggest pile of broken stone and looked around in hopes of spotting a flash of orange or any other hints or signs of her family. But there were only broken buildings surrounding her and everything else was unrecognizable in its state of ash-covered debris.
What had happened here? She could still remember the last things she had done before waking up. She had sat in the living room writing a report on her last experiment.
Jack had been next to her, busy with his handcrafts. Jazz had been off with her fiancé and Danny-
"Find Danny. Save him."
Maddie almost fell off the pile of broken bricks. "Who's there?!" She yelled hoarsely.
But the world had gone quiet again. She hadn't noticed it before, with the pounding of her heart and the clattering of rubble as she scrambled around, but, if she held her breath and stood still, the world turned utterly soundless.
Not a scurrying of a rat or the yelling of someone in distress. No howling of wind or rustling of leaves. Time itself seemed to be depraved of sound- of Life.
Her breathing became short and shallow.
"Find Danny. Save him."
She flinched when the voice sounded again. So close it seemed to come from inside her head.
Was this her own panic sparking her into action?
Danny. Her son. She had to find him. But, didn't she have to find Jazz and Jack as well?
Or was this not her own thought? Maddie sank to her knees and forced herself to take in hot air. She wiped over her brow with her sleeve. The heat was getting to her, that was probably an onset of a heatstroke.
She had to find shelter, food, water…, find out where she was, find out what had happened between her last thought and this wasteland.
She had to find her family.
With new determination she looked up again and scanned her surroundings more carefully this time.
It was hard to make things out through the smoky fog. Everything turned into a monotone shade of grey, no further than a well tossed stone's throw away.
So she almost missed it, a glint far in the distance. Skeletal shadows stood blurrily, too washed out to really look like much, but they at least looked different from the rest of the ruins around her.
Mind made up, Maddie clambered down from her perch and headed towards it.
Her walk was a somber one. The heat seemed to be getting less bearable with every step and mirages distorted the ground and air ahead which made it hard to keep her turned towards the right direction.
Her breath through her makeshift mask hitched slightly whenever she tripped over hidden rubble and her clothes were quickly soaked. Ash mixed uncomfortably with her sweat. It clung to her whenever her steps disrupted the inch thick layer with every step and made billowing clouds of burned dust rise up like smoke from a fire.
Maddie frowned at that. She paused for a moment to look behind herself, and sure enough, a path was left behind. From where she had woken up, straight to where she was now. It wasn’t surprising that she’d left a track, but judging by the lack of any other footsteps she could spot, she might be the first person to have come through here in a while. She also wasn’t sure how long she must have been unconscious. She hadn’t felt all that dehydrated when she first woke up, but she had to have been lying there for a while for so much ash to settle.
Gooseflesh ran up her arms and Maddie rubbed fiercely at them. This was all pointing towards a direction she did not appreciate. Had she been spirited away? Had she been sent into some kind of Hell? The involvement of the Supernatural seemed the most likely explanation so far. More so than a house fire or an earthquake.
Her whole life though, she had dedicated to the science of the unknown. And she was getting close to the completion of the Portal. Her and Jack had been relentless recently.
So, while she should be ecstatic to maybe gather definite proof of the very thing she had been studying, she felt bothered by it… Her encounter with the Supernatural had been supposed to be caused by her scientific prowess. Not whatever was going on here. Completely unprompted hexing. Like this was all just a coincidence. A fluke or some kind of cosmic joke. She kicked a pebble.
“Oh you small woman want to play scientist and spend your life enduring the ridicule of people disallowing women the capacity to use their brains? Well none of that, my dear, let’s just throw all that hard work away and have the unnatural come to you, without the need to use that head of yours.” Maddie mumbled in a mocking voice. She was going insane. But still that thought irked.
She didn’t like those things called Luck, Chance and Fate. They felt so antithetic to her exhaustingly hard work she had to put in. It made it feel less. Her mother never had seemed to understand her issue with that. Maddie hoped she never made Jazz, or Danny for that matter, feel like that. Like their Efforts were any less powerful than Fate.
She exhaled a long breath before turning back towards her destination. This time she kept on the lookout for any signs of disruption in the soft blanketing. Any signs that she wasn’t the only person around. She had to find Danny. She shook her head. “And Jazz. And Jack. All of them.” she spoke with emphasis.
What lay in the distance was hard to gauge, with how everything looked like just another shade of nothing. But she had been right. The structure she was getting close to was different from anything she had seen on her path. Even more so, it seemed to be the center of the whole area of sorts. The temperature had been climbing steadily and the landscape had become almost completely flattened. It reminded her of tales of bombs and explosions that the men would bring back from the front. Her father never had told her much, but on the rare nights when he had sat down with world weariness and a glint of injustice in his eyes, he would answer all her curious questions and tell her about the dark side of science. About things that were made to cause only destruction. The alcohol had surely helped in making his tongue loose, even if she had always found it decently ironic, that for someone who would be so insistent on rules, that he would so easily break them himself when it came to something like smuggling in whiskey.
But she could understand it, somewhat. If she was disturbed by the sight of her current hellscape, she didn’t want to imagine what it must be like to experience it littered with blood, guts and bodies. If she had to live through something like that, then a bottle would also seem appealing to her.
She could go for a drink now, if she was being frank with herself. Her legs shook both from exhaustion and heat, but when she finally got to the structure, it made her trip backwards with a start. Because it didn't take too much of a closer look to recognise it. And it startled her because It was familiar machinery. Intimately familiar. It was the Portal. Her Portal.
A skeletal frame was all that was left of it. Warped steel reached towards an uncaring sky. She could spot drops of molten copper that stuck to some of the carcass' innards.
Maddie didn’t even care to suppress the sob that built in her throat. Her eyes burned from more than the dusty air, and she only had half a mind to not rub them with her gritty gloves.
Her portal was dead. Imploded or exploded. It took everything with it in its final moments. She wondered if it had spared her, out of recognition. Her life's work might have.
The pain of seeing her own in such a state was overwhelming. And all the destruction.. the portal was meant to break a new frontier, not be the root of catastrophe.
Calming down was difficult, but she had to put her grief aside until she knew where the rest of her family was.
Her theory of being spirited away didn't fit her new evidence anymore.
She was …home. Except her home was devoid of her family and her greatest creation had destroyed everything in its wider vicinity. It might have even killed-
Anger flared up then. This wasn’t right. Her Portal hadn’t even been close enough to completion yet. It had been in its infancy at best. There had been no permanent connection to a generator either. Even the ones her and Jack used, wouldn’t have had enough voltage to do more than run a few basic connectivity checks.
There was not even the slightest chance that it would be able to level a city. Not yet. Their plans would involve more voltage, more fuel, more unstable elements eventually. It would have had the potential in the future. But not yet. Even if Jack and her had wanted it to be much further down their project timeline. Their issues had always started and ended with materials. It usually took them compromises for what parts they would need, or patience while they first had to develop what they'd need. A lot of their plans even hinged on hypothetical materials that might exist in another time. Finding substitutes for them...it did bear greater potential for accidents and malfunctions, but so far her and Jack had been very conservative with what they'd use.
So this mass destruction couldn't have been her Portal's fault…. Yet, it sat right there, at the center…
Though when she looked closer, even less things made sense. There were parts, melted and deformed as they were, built into place, even though they should still have been sitting on a workbench. Some parts, she had only just put the order in for.
So what was this? It definitely was the corpse of a portal. She’d even swear that it was her Portal specifically. She had walked around it once now, but there was only so much she could tell, so she did the thing she would always vehemently advise against when it came to unfamiliar or broken machinery. She stepped inside.
She half expected something to happen. But it was just more of the same mutilated metal.
Still she couldn’t help the gooseflesh that returned to her arms as she inspected the remains.
Her brows knitted together when she saw the texture of the surface of some of the support beams. There was corrosion.
She knelt down and dug around until she pulled out wires from under metal plating that was thick but loose enough for her to pry apart.
“Why do you look like this?” Maddie mumbled under her breath when she held partially intact wires in her hands. They looked wrong. Not just like they had been caught in an explosion, but as if they were plain old. Brittle insolation that had faded from their bright colors, to soft pastels. Oxidation that would not happen in even a month or two, now discolored the copper. Even the beams she had spotted were rusting and flaking. They looked off-
Maddie’s head snapped up at a sudden noise. After the silence she’d been in since waking up, the sound came unexpectedly.
Even more so, It was a hissing growl that cut through the quiet like a knife.
Maddie had grown up in the countryside, she would recognize almost any local wildlife by their noises, so she knew exactly that this was not one of them.
She crouched low and moved to a spot with a large enough gap between the metal to look through. The noise had come from a distance, yet its echo had betrayed its force. Maddie felt the gooseflesh again. A shiver that ran up and down her body and made her shudder even in this furnace of a place. Instincts. That’s what that must have been about all along.
Her breath caught in her throat when her eyes focused on what she could see through the makeshift viewport.
Ghost.
Ahead of her, far enough that it almost got swallowed by the smog, floated and growled a ghost. Its un-nature was given away by its glow to anyone who had eyes. Even through the curtain of impure air, the light it emitted was unmistakable. Its shape was harder to make out. It looked vaguely humanoid, but she would have to get closer to make out any kind of detail. But she wasn’t armed very well, she only had her standard tools in her coat pockets and she was in an unfamiliar environment and without Jack. She wasn't ready to fight, no matter how much her desire fought against her reason.
Luckily it didn’t seem to have spotted her yet anyways..
It looked to be facing away from her too and growling further into the void beyond the fog.
There must be another one, she concluded. This was bad though. Ghosts were theorized to be highly territorial. So if there were two, a fight was likely to break out, if the posturing and growling didn’t deter the challenger.
Maddie decided to follow her instincts and retreat. Getting caught up in this would not end well.
She was glad for the ashy blanket on the ground that muted her steps, even as she all but ran. She didn’t dare to look back and only stopped for breath, when the ruins became taller and more resembling buildings and the air became cooler. Her newer theory must have been correct. The Portal was the epicenter after all. She could also recognise landmarks now. It was hard to reconcile this disaster zone with her home, but those were undoubtedly the streets she's known for the last twenty years.
After catching her breath and reveling in the comparably low temperatures, she continued in the direction she’d been running towards.
She wanted answers. The further away she got from the epicenter, the more likely she was to find things that were left unmarred.
She walked until she found a building that was left whole. Its red bricks shone through in places, and the windows were intact in some of the floors.
“I’m sorry” she whispered as she broke into the home of a family she'd known in passing.
It was no matter, as there was no sign of anyone having been here in ages. This time dust coated the surfaces and furniture, opposed to the ash she had almost gotten used to.
This place was exactly what Maddie needed.
She walked carefully through the hall and towards the kitchen. She found the living room during her search and the bathroom. She ignored the living room for now, but tested out the faucet in the bathroom. Nothing. Well, she hadn’t expected it to work. The city’s water system wouldn’t have been able to take such an explosion anyways. The watertower would have been in the zone with medium destruction, but that would be enough to render the town without a drop.
She noted how the faucet had been stuck and took a fair amount of force to even budge.
She continued towards the kitchen.
There were signs that someone had rummaged around and then left in a hurry. Maddie hoped that meant that whoever had lived here, had gotten to evacuate.
Maddie opened all cupboards and shelves until she had a decent pile of conserves. There was no water, but some of the tins were filled with soup. The labels weren’t pristine like something freshly bought. But Maddie was not prepared for the smell that hit her when she opened the first can.
Almost all of them were spoiled. Some tins had rusted in places. It took her some courage to drink from the one broth that smelled the least nauseating.
Yet it was a relief to wash the taste of smoke off her tongue.
She didn’t waste time after that to explore the rest of the home. The homeowners must have been on the wealthy side, since they were equipped with all sorts of modern gadgets. They even had a vacuum cleaner. Not that she would consider that high tech by her own standards. She had tried to get her own version patented long before that stealing bastard snatched her idea and made his own “vision”. You could only suck up dust with his. How was that superior to her home defense version? But that would probably not be the last stolen patent that quack would sell as his own … at least she could turn his pile of junk into something she could use for her own situation in a bit.
The living room had also turned out to be useful for her. Books, letters, and most importantly, a newspaper were to be found.
That one made her pause the longest in her scavenger hunt.
The date on it was impossible. It was well of a year into the future. When she picked up the brittle and gilbed pages, it almost fell apart, so she carefully skimmed over the articles.
“I must be hallucinating.” she breathed out. There, on the third page of the Amity Times, her name stood out from the headline of a column.
The Fenton Portal, her portal, had been completed but a test run had been a failure. The article was mocking. But right now she barely noticed.
She put down the paper and let herself sink onto the couch, not caring about the dust that got stirred up.
She'd been running around and mentally cataloging her findings for a while now. There was probably enough now to come to some conclusions about this situation.
Examine the evidence. That's what she had to do next.
There was no mistaking it, she somehow ended in the future. The paper read it was August 22nd 1924. That was one year later than it should be, … but that was also only the date when the newspaper stopped.
The paper itself held some answers.
It looked like the old records she'd get from libraries for her research.
And she was a competent scientist, she could make an educated estimate on how old things were based on their state. And this newspaper? It looked old.
And not just the paper. The portal too. And the conserves. And even the furniture inside this house. It all consistently showed signs of aging.
She didn't want it to be true, but the evidence spoke for itself.
She was in the future. A far off one. Most of it pointed towards it being around a century or so from when she should be.
Maddie rested her head on the back of the couch and stared at the ceiling.
So she had been spirited away. Not locally, but temporally. To a time that seemed like the aftermath of an apocalypse. Or post judgement day, as her mother would surely call it.
And her Portal was supposed to be the cause of it?
That part she still couldn't agree with.
Even in the newspaper, and she assumed it had been of the day everything had gone to hell, it said the portal had been tested and failed. But that must've been a safe affair, since the news of it existed. If it had gone up during the test, then there would be no one left to report on it.
She knew herself well enough to know that she wouldn't just turn it on carelessly after a failed run.
She couldn't even imagine Jack being so careless as to just turn it on or short circuit it.
An accident…. Maybe.
But they still had a procedure they followed when turning the Portal on even for its, in her actual time, half completed state. That included powering it back down and disconnecting it from its power.
But there were more factors at play here anyways.
There was a ghost. Lingering around here like it was its haunt.
And there was a reason she had been sent here.
The order to "find Danny. Save him." Had not left her head. It was like a song she'd hear on the radio once that would keep playing over and over in her head, even hours later.
Danny might've been sent here as well. Maybe she even set out herself to go after her son, and just had amnesia from whatever invention of hers brought her here.
It would be a relief at least. If she was here out of her own volition and with a mission.
Then that would mean she held strings in her own hand, and wasn't just being pulled along. It would also mean that the rest of her family wasn't here.
This would only hold up as a theory. But for now she would accept it and act upon it.
So the last piece:
The ghost.
Her instinct back there at the portal had screamed at her to run. And instinct, her intuition even, were rarely something she wanted to dismiss.
And her intuition was telling her the ghost was the key to it all. To figure out the apocalyptic event that flattened the city with her Portal at the center, and what happened to Danny. She would find him. And she would save him.
#completed#danny phantom fanfiction#ao3 fanfic#dp clockwork#dp fic#fire core au#Maddie Fenton#danny fenton#phandom#myDannyPhantom#myWriting#originalwork#danny phantom#phic phight 24#phic phight 2024#phic phight
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Out of the Loop ch.1
When his family moved to Amity, Wes promised to keep to himself and stay far away from conspiracies. But it doesn’t count if the strange happenings come to him, right?
What’s with everyone’s insistence that ghosts are real? What’s with all the white security cameras? And what does it all have to do with the quiet and nerdy boy in the back of the class?
For once, Wes feels like he’s the one out of the loop.
Wordcount: 2,293
Can be read on AO3!
I jumped at an excuse to finally write a fic about Wes! And I'm having a blast!
This is written for the prompts:
"Everyone knows the connection between Danny Fenton and Phantom. To keep their town's hero safe, everyone pretends to be oblivious.
Only this one kid doesn't seem to have gotten the memo." by @vigilant-insomniac
And
"Somehow it's revealed that Phantom is posing as a student at Casper High. The GIW begins taking measures to find him, the Fentons not that far behind." by @wastefulreverie
---
Wes looked out the back window of the car as they drove through the town that was to be their new home. The move to Amity Park was going to be a new start, an opportunity to put their past behind them and start anew in a place with surprisingly affordable houses. Suspiciously affordable.
The streets they drove through were lined with picturesque houses and small shops, parks and strolling people of all ages. It would have been idyllic if not for the big holes littering the street, the occasional toppled streetlamp and a couple of broken, smoking, cars lining the road.
Wes frowned as he took it all in. The town’s news-station hadn’t mentioned anything special happening lately and he had made sure to keep himself up-to-date on what was going on in their new home. “What happened here?”
“Maybe they have some trouble with gangs or something?” Kyle said from the passenger seat, feet on the dashboard and the DS in his hands blaring the same mind-numbing music as it had for the last 15 years.
“Gangs?” Wes questioned as they passed an overturned bus that was partially covered in some sort of green substance. “This looks more like a war zone.”
“It’s not that bad,” their dad tried from the front seat.
As if to prove him wrong they passed a small gathering of people and Wes sat up straighter and stared. “Is that… Is that woman carrying a bazooka?”
“Don’t stare,” his dad admonished him weakly, but Wes noticed him speeding up. “It’s rude.”
“Isn’t it more rude to carry weapons in public?”
“Well,” their dad said as he strummed his fingers on the wheel, ignoring Kyle, “I’m sure the real estate agent would have said something if it was truly bad. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.” The last part he added while glancing at Wes through the rear-view mirror
“Right,” Wes agreed as he leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. He would not get them in trouble again by diving head-first into supposed “unfounded” conspiracy theories.
He was still sure that his last homeroom teacher had been a werewolf and if they hadn’t confiscated the silver bullet he could have proved it! If only they had known all the trouble he had gone through to get it in the first place…
Kyle looked up from his game. “Oh, cool. Is there a LARP event in town?”
For the first time in his life, Wes desperately hoped Kyle was right.
——
His new school was… strange.
It had nothing to do with his new their homeroom teacher spouting book-titles instead of swears, or the fact that he had seen devices that looked a lot like guns poking out of several of his classmates’ bags, or even the white surveillance cameras he had spotted in almost every room and corridor— Okay. Those things were strange too, but what made Wes keep his head down, hands to himself and observe was the fact that even though this class had the typical cliques that you’d expect, there was none of the animosity.
Sure, there were harsh words exchanged, laughter and teasing and even a thrown paper-ball before class started, but there was no real anger and their homeroom teacher Mr. Lancer called people out on it with the same conviction as if he was ticking off boxes on a list.
Almost as if they were acting out a script.
Wes’ shoulders drew closer and closer to his ears as the day wore on, desperately trying not to look too closely. He was just stressed out because he was new in town, he was sure. He was just unused to this school. He had promised not to do this again.
He kept telling himself this until suddenly the math-class was interrupted by a loud alarm; the sudden sound blaring from speakers and swallowing him up in a rush of fear.
Wes ducked under his table with an aborted scream, his chair scraping loudly against the linoleum floors as he hunkered down before looking around wildly. But no one else even got up.
A couple of snickers floated through the air.
“Seriously? The ghost hasn’t even attacked yet!”
“Be nice to him, he’s new!”
Wes slowly peaked out from under the table and saw his new classmates laughing at him. Well, at least that was familiar. Wes decided to stay beneath his table. “What’s going on?!”
“It’s a ghost attack,” a girl to his right said—what was her name? Star?—as she stayed right in her seat and inspected her nails.
“A ghost attack?! What does that mean?!”
She looked at him with surprise clear on her face. “Don’t you know what ghosts are?”
Then a boy at the back of the class, who Wes was fairly certain had slept through the whole class up until this moment, sat up straight, raised his hand, and without waiting for Mr. Lancer to call on him he said, “Mr. Lancer? Can I go to the bathroom?”
“Really, Daniel?”
The whole class got really quiet.
For some reason, this kid asking to use the bathroom seemed to instill more fear in his new classmates than the blaring alarm did. Wes didn’t want to know. He didn’t.
The kid nodded. “Yes Mr. Lancer. We have a test in ten minutes, don’t we?”
As if that made any sense.
Mr. Lancer waved him off with a nod and Wes looked on in mounting horror as this scrawny boy got up and ran out of the room. Nobody stopped him.
The school was under some sort of attack and he just ran out of the classroom! Wes had a sinking feeling that he would never see him again.
He was momentarily brought out of his stupor by Mr. Lancer clearing his throat and announcing loudly, speaking over the still blaring sound of the alarm, “Now, now, students! You know the drill!”
Several sighs and groans erupted from the students, but they all got out of their seats and sat down on the floor; huddling under their desks with practiced motions as if they had done this innumerable times before.
“Looks like we’ll be joining you down here!” Star said as she ducked under her own table with a big smile, a gun suddenly in her hand.
Wes simply stared at her dumbly until another cardboard box hurled in their direction made him blink back to reality. Or what passed for reality here.
“What is going—?” Wes started, but stopped dead as a carbon box suddenly hurtled through the air from nowhere; hitting the wall opposite the whiteboard. Wes screamed and ducked down, deciding that whatever horrible thing was going on, he was better off out of harm’s way on the floor.
“Tremble before me!”
Wes felt his mouth open in shock as he stared at the glowing, floating, man suddenly passing right through the classroom wall and screaming with his hands raised high.
Wes expected panic. He expected chaos. What he did not expect was for the nerdy red-head two seats in front of him to shuck his notebook right at the floating man with an annoyed shout of, “Get out of here!”
A couple of the other students started taunting the floating man in mocking tones.
“Oh, look at me, I have a cardboard box, aren’t I great?
“My cat thinks the same thing!”
“Get your boxes from Amazon like the rest of us, you freeloader!”
“Just because you’re a ghost doesn’t mean you can start littering everywhere!”
Wait. Did someone just call that thing a ghost?
Wes looked back at the glowing, floating man and squinted his eyes. He didn’t look like any ghost he had ever heard about.
“I command all things square!” The flying and glowing man in the front of the classroom bellowed as several more boxes of cardboard floated through the room’s walls and stopped; suspended in mid-air and glowing.
And just like that, several students whipped out the gun-like devices from their bags and then proceeded to aim them at the apparent ghost. Like actual guns. Oh god, they were guns.
He had heard that small towns had a lot of guns, but children having them? In school?!
The first thought that struck him was an offended; he hadn’t even been allowed a bullet! The second; he wanted to go home.
This was quickly followed by the sickening realization that this was his home now.
The students all around him didn’t seem to have the same existential crisis as him as they screamed at the floating man.
“Get out of here Boxy.”
“Yeah, we have an exam coming up.”
“You all fear me more than you puny tests!”
“We really don't.”
And then several of the students opened fire.
The Box ghost, or whatever his name was, yelped and ducked behind several rickety cardboard boxes that disintegrated from the actual lasers shooting out of the guns.
Wes ducked further under his table and tried to get his breathing under control as the Box ghost screamed, “I command all the boxes in this school! And soon I will command you!”
Wes waved to get the attention of his neighbor, Star, who was the only one who had tried to explain anything about what was going on, and screamed, “Has someone called the police?!”
Star laughed, gun still smoking in her hand. “And what would they do? It’s cool, I’m sure that Phantom will arrive any—”
She was cut off by the sudden arrival of another flying and glowing figure. But this one wasn't met with sighs and mockery. No. This one was met with cheers. Wes felt his understanding of the situation slid that much further out of his grasp.
“Ghost boy!”
“Hey Phantom!”
“There’s a tough opponent for you today!”
Everyone laughed.
The newly arrived boy, apparently called Phantom of all things, squared up against the other glowing individual in the room and said, “Well, Boxy, let’s do this.”
“You can’t stop me and my boxe—”
He was tackled before he could finish his sentence, through the teacher’s desk. Mr. Lancer got up with a too calm expression on his face for someone who just had two glowing and fist-fighting individuals dumped into his lap.
Then the boy pulled a thermos from his belt and then sucked the man into it. And just like that there was only the boy left, clipping the thermos back on his belt and dusting off his hands. The alarm turned off and everyone cheered. Wes felt faintly sick.
Mr. Lancer cleared his throat and gave the white surveillance camera at the back of the room a pointed look. “Remember class, what do we say?”
“Stay away from us you horrible ghost!” The whole class echoed dutifully, without any real feeling behind it.
Phantom saluted and promptly left the room, leaving them in a silence that only lasted a moment before people started shuffling out from under their desks and an excited chatter started up. Wes caught snippets about the fight, the boy ghost, Phantom, and about homework of all things. No one seemed especially bothered by the interruption.
A goth girl and a nerd in the back picked up the cardboard boxes and—after a stern look from the girl—showed them into the cardboard recycling.
Wes turned back to Star, intent to get at least some explanation on what had just happened. “What was that?”
She looked at him as if he was the crazy one. “What was what?”
“What just happened?! Who was that floating man?! And the boy? What happened with that… that thermos?!” Wes gestured around them as if encompassing the whole room, but of course; there was nothing left in the room to indicate that anything strange had happened at all.
Star pursed her lips in though as she threw a short look towards the back of the room. “We don’t have time for this now. Tone it done, alright? You sound insane.”
“I sound insane?!”
“Yeah. We’ll talk after class.” She sent another look towards the back of the room. “They are watching.”
“Who?!” Wes exclaimed and went to turn around to see what she kept looking at but her hand whipped out and grabbed his shoulder, hard enough to almost hurt and definitely hard enough to keep him from turning.
She shook her head minutely and hissed out, “The guys in white.”
As if that wasn’t a completely insane thing to say. Was this what Wes had sounded like to his classmates? He hoped not.
Wes felt his shoulders slump in defeat as he sank down in his chair. “…Is this hazing? Are you all messing with me?”
Star smiled. “Oh, no. We don’t really have time for things like that here.” She let go of his shoulder and then patted it gently before putting her gun back in her backpack and sitting down in her own chair, back to studying her nails.
And that was that. Mr. Lancer straightened up and managed to get everyone to quiet down before starting the lecture again as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
The boy who had left for the bathroom came back a few minutes later, miraculously still alive, silently taking his seat in the back again, only interrupted by one of the jocks sticking out his foot and tripping him halfway. Wes didn’t know if he imagined the jock whispering an apology right afterwards or not.
Wes sat up straight with his eyes fixed on the bathroom-boy. Screw not caring. Screw his dad and his warnings to stay out of trouble. Screw the psychologists and their speeches about not getting too invested in things straight out of fantasies. Wes wanted to know everything.
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Friendship Blossoms (in the wake of shared trauma)
Summary: Nobody Knows AU. A week after the asteroid nearly destroyed the world, Sam is back at school trying to adjust to daily life after a traumatic worldwide event. That adjustment is hard enough, but the presence of her former best friend who was just revealed to be Danny Phantom complicates it even further. After not speaking for two years after he seemed to give up on their friendship, how is she supposed to act around him now? And why does she keep running into him around the school?
Phic Phight Prompt:
AU where no one knew Danny was Phantom until PP (or some alternate big reveal of the author's choice). Sam and Tucker are sure that a famous hero like Danny Phantom is too cool to be their friend again, especially since they haven't talked since before freshman year of high school. Danny just wants to be part of the trio again and has no idea how to ask - for Pax
AO3: Link
Going back to school after an asteroid nearly destroyed the entire planet felt so anticlimactic. It felt so banal and normal. In some way it felt good to go back to a routine. The planet kept turning, so civilization kept moving on. People went back to work, cars returned to the roadways, prices for items returned to normal, and now school was back in session. It felt comforting that society could bounce back after such a terrifying tragedy, but it also seemed like no one had really recognized the collective trauma felt by the entire world.
In a way, a week was not enough time to deal with the emotional ramifications that the entire world had almost died. That an unexpected asteroid had almost obliterated their entire planet and everything in it. That attempt after attempt to destroy or avoid the asteroid had failed. That their only saving grace had been a last ditch attempt by the Fentons of all people and the ghosts that had terrorized the city to turn the world intangible. It was a crazy idea. No one thought it would actually work, and yet the world threw so much effort into this insane plan because it had nothing else.
She could still remember clear as day (too clearly - probably some newly acquired PTSD that refused to let her forget any moment of it) sitting with her parents, her grandma, and the Foleys in the safe room (of course her insane parents had a safe room) watching the news feed of the crazy attempt to turn the world intangible. She sat and prayed with them and actually cuddled with her mother for support as they waited with bated breaths to see if Phantom’s crazy plan would work.
She forced herself out of her thoughts and back onto the cracked faux-leather of the bus seat in front of her. If she let herself, those memories of the day would consume her, and she knew that wasn’t healthy. Did she need a therapist? Probably. Could she get one now? Nope, because there weren’t enough of them to go around. Her parents agreed that going back to a routine would be good, that it was proof that the world kept spinning and kept moving and that life could get back to normal. She could see the logic there. Getting back on the bus felt familiar in a reassuring way, but it still felt too soon. It had only been a week, and she felt like she hardly had enough time to deal. Even the ghosts had been quiet and hadn’t attacked, so it was too soon even for them.
The bus slowed to a stop and Sam felt her stomach lurch with nerves. What could she possibly be nervous about? The school day would likely be pretty easy since it was everyone’s first day back.
“You think he’ll be here?” Tucker asked from beside her. They spent most of the trip sitting in the comfortable silence of two friends who spent far too much time together, but the finality of the bus making its final stop outside of the school seemed to pull his internal thoughts out.
She didn’t have to ask who he meant, because Sam had been thinking the same thing, and as her stomach churned again she realized the source of her nerves. “Does it matter if he is?” she replied plainly as she gathered her bag and got ready to file off the bus.
“Well…yeah. Shouldn’t it?” Tucker pressed.
Sam shrugged. “Even if he is, it’s not like he’s going to talk to us.” She stepped off the bus and gazed upon Casper High. A strange sense of security washed over her that the school still looked exactly the same despite everything. She had complicated feelings about public schools, especially her time spent in one, but it felt reassuring to know that it still stood strong. Darn, maybe her dad had been right about her needing a routine again. Well, she certainly wasn’t going to tell him he was right at least.
“Well, no,” Tucker said with a sad sigh. “But it feels like it would be good to know. Just so we could like, prepare.”
“Prepare for what?” Sam barbed as she turned to give him a hard look. She could see that hope blossoming in his eyes and she had to squash it before he was hurt again by their former friend’s behavior. “Prepare for him to ignore us? Prepare for him to avoid us? How would that be any different than any other day of school?”
“Yeah but–”
“No, there’s no ‘buts’ here Tucker,” Sam interrupted. “He’s ignored us for two years. Two years. And you think that now is the time he’d talk to us? Now, when he’s apparently a superhero of all things? No. He’s a celebrity now. He has even less reason to talk to us now than he did before.”
Maybe that’s why she’d been struggling so much. She wasn’t just working through her own trauma, but she had to somehow acknowledge and accept that one of her former friends was a superhero. The superhero. Her former friend Danny Fenton, who had been thick as thieves with them throughout middle school before he ditched them, was Phantom: the ghostly superhero who protected the town from other ghostly threats.
That realization had left her spinning, sometimes into dangerous and dark places. How did this happen? When did this happen? Had he always been like this or was it a recent thing? Was her friend dead? Sure she had been mad at him, but she never actually wished him dead! That thought chilled her to the bone. Had her friend died and none of them even realized it? Did he die and she just continued on with her life as normal? Is that why he pulled away? Did he pull away because he died and none of them even noticed? Was she more to blame for Danny ditching them than she ever let herself believe?
That was absolutely a road she refused to mentally traverse. He pulled away. He stopped talking to them. He kept running away every time she tried to talk to him. He avoided texting until she finally realized that a string of fifteen unanswered texts was a sign enough that she needed to stop. If he was going through something he should have said something. If he died he should have said something. She would have understood. She could have helped him. He did all of this, not her.
A group of students rushing past them pulled her out of her maddening thoughts. A moment later another group ran past. Excited chatter echoed down the hallway and seemed to reach a fever pitch as sunlight streamed down the hall from the outside doors opening. The excitement of the student body charged the hallway around them with an uncomfortable buzz. Sam instantly knew what happened: their local celebrity had arrived.
As if confirming her thoughts, excited murmurs of “he’s here!” or “it’s him!” fluttered around her as students pushed in closer to the doors. They flattened Sam and Tucker against their lockers as more and more students flooded the hallway. Tucker was so close she could feel his breathing grow shallow, and she reached over to squeeze his hand because she knew he got claustrophobic. She was fine - enjoying tight spaces was almost a requirement for being a goth - but being surrounded on all sides by hard metal and smelly teenagers wasn’t the kind of tight space she enjoyed.
A bubble of unoccupied space formed in the middle of the crowd of students. In the center of the bubble a familiar tuft of black hair caught her eye. Danny walked purposefully through the swarm of students with his hands tucked into his pockets and his head down. The students naturally parted around him as he moved through the hall, like water naturally parted around soap. Or how fish part around a shark. Everyone wanted to gawk at him, but no one wanted to risk getting near him. Sam felt a twinge of sorrow for her former friend because no one ever wanted to be avoided like that. Well…no one except Danny. He seemed to love avoiding people. Maybe this was actually what he wanted?
As soon as he broke even with them, he looked over in their direction. Their eyes locked for just a moment before Danny quickly averted his gaze. He sunk deeper into his hunched shoulders and walked faster down the hall. The students clamored to part around him faster to still keep that natural distance. He moved out of sight as the student body followed from their safe distance, taking the crowd with him.
Tucker breathed in a couple large gulps of air. “Was that really necessary?” he complained as he stretched out and tilted his head towards the ceiling to bask in the open space around him. “I mean, yeah it must suck for Danny, but did they really have to force us into the crowd too? Horrible.”
Sam didn’t even listen to half of his complaints as she silently fumed. Why did he look away so quickly? Was he worried that their mutual acknowledgement of the existence of the other would somehow obligate him to talk to them? He’d learned a long time ago how to avoid that. But then why did he even look over at them in the first place if he wanted to avoid their gaze? It didn’t make any sense.
“Come on, let’s go to class,” she decided. She wanted to take advantage of the clear hallway while she could.
“Are you sure?” Tucker hesitated as he looked down the hall that Danny and his new throng of terrified admirers disappeared down. “It feels weird to–”
“No,” she snapped, still sore from the reminder that her friend had been through some shit and hadn’t even bothered to reach out. “It feels exactly the same way it’s been feeling. He’s avoiding us again, like he always does. Come on.”
They packed up their things and trudged off to class. The routine felt deceptively normal, even though they knew nothing would be the same.
~
Just like the rest of the student body, Sam’s thoughts throughout class focused on Danny. Not intentionally, but they just kept drifting to him. He sat in class with them, towards the back like normal. She purposefully refused to look at him, but she could swear that sometimes she felt his gaze on the back of her head. At one point she entertained the thought that he might be trying to get her attention, but that was silly. He didn’t want their attention and nothing he’d done in the past two years had changed that, and it certainly wouldn’t change now.
As soon as the bell rang for class Danny practically shot up out of the room. She couldn’t really blame him. People in class knew him well enough that they tried to talk to him. Ask him questions. Pester him with comments. Paulina tried to flirt with him, and Sam didn’t know why that bothered her as much as it did. She rarely heard him talk, so either he answered in a quiet voice or he avoided their questions. Well, he was good at avoiding, so that made sense. And as soon as he got the chance, he avoided them all again by fleeing the classroom. She didn’t know what salvation he expected to find in the hallways because it didn’t seem any better outside of the classroom, but the strange bubble must have seemed preferable to the questions.
She met up with Tucker next to their locker to switch out their books when the mass of students flooded past them again. This time they knew what to expect and waited it out as Danny walked past them again. Sam found it odd to see him in this hallway again because she knew that his locker was much closer to their next class and he didn’t actually need to go this way. Maybe he just enjoyed the walk?
“I kinda wish he’d talk to us,” Tucker lamented as their local celebrity disappeared around the corner.
“I don’t,” Sam snapped, and she slammed her locker door for emphasis.
“Really? Do you really mean that? Or are you saying it as a way to act out?” Tucker pressed with a knowing look that Sam did not appreciate. She’d been friends with him for too long.
“Shut up. I mean it.”
“But don’t you have questions?”
“Of course I have questions,” she countered. What kind of question was that? “I have so many questions. But I’ve had questions for two years and he hasn’t bothered to answer any of them, so why would he start now?”
“Well, I was kinda hoping that this,” Tucker gestured to the hallway like it was all the explanation he needed, “was the reason for a lot of it. And with that out of the way, I dunno, maybe he’d be more willing to answer them?”
“That sounds like wishful thinking,” Sam dismissed.
“Well…yeah…maybe it is. But I can still hope,” he shrugged.
Sam didn’t quite have it in her heart to tear down his hope even further, even though she knew it would crush him later when he realized it was forlorn. She liked to think of herself as a realist, and everything Danny had done since high school showed her that nothing would really change. The news coverage of his transformation and maybe an expose news article in the future would be the only answers they’d get about what happened to their friend, and she knew better than to hope for something more.
Danny had shown them time and again he was unreliable: that when they needed him, he wasn’t there. When he promised to do something, he didn’t deliver. And he had no excuses or explanations ready, just a hollow apology that meant less and less every time he used it until he just stopped apologizing altogether. She could see now that some of that was probably because he was fighting ghosts, and she could be gracious enough to allow that as a good excuse, but he should have told them. He should have trusted them. He didn’t, and he let their friendship degrade to the point where even the shell of their former friendship crumbled into dust. She knew better than to expect anything to change or for some friendship to rise from the ashes, because those ashes had been swept away by the wind long ago. Hadn’t they?
She growled and walked off towards class without even announcing it to Tucker. He seemed to get the hint and rushed after her, but both of them remained quiet.
~
“Do you think he’s trying to talk to us?” Tucker asked as they scoped out an empty table for lunch.
“Again Tucker, that’s wishful thinking,” Sam sighed.
“But he seems to keep popping up around us,” he pointed out. “Usually we barely even see a glimpse of him.”
She had to admit that she’d had the same thought. She’d seen Danny’s face more today than she had the last full week of school. He kept walking by their lockers even if he didn’t need to and she kept feeling his eyes on her. He also sat closer to them during one of their classes, but she also had a feeling that was out of necessity to avoid the prying eyes and attentions of the class. Was he trying to see how they were reacting? Trying to gauge how they were handling the news by stalking them? Well if that was the case, then she was happy to see that her poker face of generalized displeasure seemed to be doing its job because it looked like he was still looking for an answer. A small part of her felt satisfied and preened at his uncertainty - about time for him to be left in the dark about something for a change.
“It’s coincidence,” she dismissed. “He’s trying to avoid everyone else, and since everyone else avoids us, it’s putting him into our path.”
Tucker shook his head. “No, I don’t think that’s it.”
Sam plopped her lunchbox onto their usual table and sat down. She actually felt excited about her lunch today; ever since the asteroid her parents made a concerted effort to embrace her as a person more and started buying more vegan-friendly food. She appreciated the gesture, even if it took literally the end of the world for them to finally see eye-to-eye.
Tucker sat down across from her absent-midedly, and she followed his distracted gaze to see Danny enter the cafeteria. Immediately all the other eyes of the room fell on him and a strange hush settled across the large room. That was a bold move, entering such a crowded space. Danny must have also realized the error of his ways because he stood awkwardly in the doorway, unsure of whether he should press on or run. She noticed a lunchbox in his hands, so the need to buy food clearly didn’t drive him to enter the cafeteria, so she had to wonder what insanity drew him in here.
She would have found some secluded spot and ate lunch there. She knew he preferred a spot on the edge of the campus under a large tree because she’d seen him eat there far away from them time after time. She and Tucker tried to approach him there once, early on in their crumbling friendship when she thought they still had a chance to patch things up. He practically ran away from them when they approached. He yelled at them to take a hint and to stop bothering him. She never tried to seek him out at lunch again. It really had been the beginning of the end.
His indecision on what to do seemed to be his downfall. After a morning of keeping a safe buffer around him, the student body grew more brazen. Emboldened by the fact that Danny really hadn’t done anything ghostly or aggressive the entire day, they risked getting closer. And closer still. They closed the gap around him slowly. The volume of chatter in the room grew into a crescendo of questions and calls and shouts aimed at the ghostly celebrity.
Danny must not have realized what was happening until it was too late. They lurched forward as one unit until they were on top of him. Surrounding him. Touching him. Pulling him towards their table or their conversation. He held his hands up in defense, pleading with them to let him go, but none of them listened. He wasn’t a person anymore. He was a celebrity - an object that existed at the beck and whim of the population to fulfill their needs and desires.
Sam watched as Danny’s individual rights as a person disappeared under the horde of students. Anger boiled under her skin. No one deserved to be treated that way, but Danny least of all. Sure they had their beef. Sure he treated them horribly. But he was a hero. He had saved them and the school and hell even the world and he deserved better than this.
She stood up and pushed her way aggressively through the crowd. She had no problems throwing the full weight of her combat boots onto the feet of people who refused to step out of her way. She fought through the masses as she screamed at them to leave him alone. She shoved people out of the way, kicked at their shins, and stomped on their feet until she reached the center. Surprisingly, Tucker followed after her. She couldn’t imagine how claustrophobic he must feel willingly plunging himself into this mob of students, but he pushed his way in nonetheless.
As soon as they reached Danny they formed a circle around him. She reached her arms back around to grab Tucker’s hands as they formed almost a protective cage around him. They couldn’t give him much of a buffer and she felt people press on her arms, but she tried.
“Get away!” she yelled as she lightly kicked someone who got a little too close for her comfort. “You can’t just mob people! He has a right to his own personal space!”
The crowd didn’t seem to have any care for her protests and only pushed in harder. The sound of their cheers and questions almost deafened her and it swallowed up her verbal protests. This really wasn’t getting them anywhere.
“Danny, just get out of here!” Sam ordered as she craned her neck to catch a glimpse of him behind her. “Do something ghostly and get out of here! We’ll hold them off!”
She stood firm as she waited for Danny to save himself, but she didn’t notice any change. What was taking him so long? Why was he hesitating? Everyone already knew so there was no point in continuing to hide it.
Finally she heard the students around her gasp and they stopped pushing against her. Danny must have finally used one of his powers to escape. About time. She didn’t know how much longer she could hold them off. But what the hell was he waiting fo–
A tingle followed by an unnatural chill raced through her body starting from her arm. Her stomach dropped as she fell, and she yelped until the ground swallowed the sound. She only saw soil around her, but she couldn’t really feel it. If she focused on it she maybe felt like a gust of wind passed through her when she fell, but it felt so faint and non-specific that she had to wonder if her brain just thought she felt the breath of wind because she knew she should feel something when passing through solid matter.
Something tugged on her arm as she traveled quickly through soil and rocks and tree roots. That tugging sensation pulled upwards and she emerged from the ground and into the air. She felt weightless hovering above the ground for just a moment before Danny’s hand let go of its tight grip on her arm and she dropped down onto the padded grass.
She clasped a hand to her chest and clenched onto the now solid material of her black shirt. Her wide eyes looked around and noticed the school in the distance - the building they had just been in before she traveled through the ground. She also noticed a large tree beside them - the same one that Danny always took refuge under. The same one where he told them to leave him alone. And yet this time he brought them here instead of chasing them away.
She finally noticed Tucker sitting in the grass next to her, so he must have brought him here too. She also caught his wide-eyed stare as he looked at his new surroundings with shock and maybe a little awe, but mostly shock. He clearly needed a moment to gain his bearings, and honestly she still did too, because they had just traveled through the ground. Not over it or above it, but through it. Something that should have been impossible for anyone except…well a ghost.
Danny must have picked up on their shocked expressions - in fact he seemed incredibly attuned to their reactions - and he immediately backed up a few steps and blushed. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry,” he quickly apologized. His wide, panicked eyes looked desperately between the two of them as he tried to gauge their reactions further. “I probably should have asked and not just assumed I could–” He ran a hand nervously through his hair and ducked his head. “I just didn’t want to leave you there.”
“It’s okay man,” Tucker finally said as he fisted his hands in the grass below them. “It was getting a little cramped in there, so it’s good to have an out.”
She should have felt grateful he thought about saving them because otherwise she and Tucker would have been left in the middle of a dissatisfied crowd with only them to blame for Danny’s disappearance. And she was, but his stupid antics put them in that situation in the first place!
She stood up to glare at him properly and he recoiled slightly. That recoil gave her pause for just a moment. He fought monstrous ghosts. She’d seen pictures of some of them and they were horrifying or incredibly powerful. Phantom always stood firm against those ghosts. So why did he back away from her of all entities? She pushed on and gave him a light shove. “What the hell were you thinking?” He shrunk further against her onslaught. “Going into the cafeteria? That was stupid!”
Danny blinked slowly. If he had been building himself up for a response, he clearly did not expect that one. “What?”
“You’re getting swarmed everywhere you go, so you decide to go to the most populated room in the entire school? What kind of idiot does that?!”
“Oh. Um…” He grabbed at his arm and ran his hand along the hem of his shirt. “Well I…I was looking for you guys,” he admitted quietly.
Sam dropped all her bluster as she regarded him with confusion. “You were looking for us?” He hadn’t actively sought them out since high school started, but now, today of all days, he finally decided he wanted to talk to them?
“Yeah I…I kept trying to talk to you. Don’t know if you noticed. It just never felt like the right time. Too many people or not enough time or you guys just looked mad. And you have every right to be mad!” he added quickly as if trying to preemptively stop an argument. “But then Jazz told me there would never be a right time and it was always gonna be awkward and boy was she right about that, so I just decided to go for it. Didn’t really think that one through though.”
“I don’t understand,” she admitted bluntly. “You wanted to talk to us? After everything now you want to talk to us? Did you want to make sure we saw the news? Because don’t worry, we definitely did.” That came out harsher than she intended, and even Tucker gave her a warning glare.
“No! Nothing like that! I just–” He let out a huge breath as his shoulders dropped in defeat. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. I’m sorry I pulled away. I didn’t really know what to do. All of a sudden all this…stuff started happening and I didn’t know what to do. I thought about telling you, all the time, but I didn’t know how to explain it. And then I worried maybe you’d freak out or think I was some kind of freak or something and I just got scared. And then it just kept snowballing and I felt you getting more and more annoyed with me so I just pulled away.”
“You should have said something,” Sam snapped as she crossed her arms over her chest. Yes it felt good to have an answer. Yes it felt good to have a reason, but she realized that none of that actually mattered when faced with the fact that her friend knowingly hurt them because he didn’t trust them.
Danny winced, but he took the blows without argument. “I know.”
“You lied to us! You abandoned us! And with zero reasons!” she yelled as she lashed out against him with two years worth of pain and suffering that she’d kept bottled up inside. “You were afraid of us abandoning you? Well you abandoned us! You told us to never bother you again! How do you think that felt, huh Danny? Because it sucked! It hurt! And we had no idea why!” Danny winced at her onslaught, but she didn’t intend to stop. “And I think it’s rich that you could do it to us because you were too scared that we would do it to you.”
“Sam, come on,” Tucker spoke up as he tried to play the role of the peaceful negotiator. “Some of that isn’t fair.”
“No, it’s okay,” Danny said as he looked sadly between his friends. “What she’s saying is fair. I deserve it.”
Something about being given permission to rage angered her even more. “Damn right you deserve it! Friends don’t keep secrets Danny! And they especially don’t keep big secrets like this! You should have trusted us!”
“I know,” he sighed.
“I mean do you think so little of us that we would have disowned you or treated you any different because of this?”
“No! Of course not! I just…I didn’t want to take the risk. I thought I’d lose you,” he admitted quietly as he looked down at the ground.
“Yeah, well you lost us anyways,” Sam snarled. He looked up at her and she could see the hurt etched across his face and the rejection glimmer in his eyes. She’d gone a little too far there, and she recognized that, but he had! He kept this secret from them so he wouldn’t lose their friendship, and then he sat by and let it happen anyways! The only difference was he got to control when that happened. He got to do the breaking up instead of the one being broken up with.
“Ouch Sam,” Tucker remarked from the side.
She rounded on Tucker this time. “Oh no, you don’t get to act like you’re the level-headed one. You’re just as mad at him as I am! I know you are!” How many times had they sat and ranted in her room? How many times had Tucker been the first one to curse Danny under his breath because he ditched them again? How many times had Tucker gone on text rants about losing his best friend and Sam could only listen and try to help him vent as much as he could? No, he didn’t get to act all angelic about this when she knew that fury and that hurt burned in him too.
Tucker didn’t back down against her ire and stood his ground. “Yeah, I am. What you did sucked bro,” he seconded as he turned to face his friend. Danny dropped his gaze back down to the ground. “But is this really the time? All day I was hoping maybe now we could talk. And hey look, we are. I don’t really want to spend all that time yelling at each other. That’s not gonna get us anywhere.”
Sam’s anger deflated because Tucker made a valid point. Did raging at Danny make her feel better? Absolutely. Did seeing that hurt on his face fuel some horrible vindication in herself? Unfortunately it did. But none of that would actually fix anything. None of that would give her or Tucker the answers they wanted and maybe even needed. And if Danny wasn’t going to argue and engage in a good knock-down argument where they both screamed at each other until neither of them had anything left, then she’d have to calm herself down to engage in a civil talk.
“No, it’s okay,” Danny allowed. “I deserve the insults and the yelling. I was a jerk. I abandoned you, I shut you out, I lied to you, and I didn’t trust you. That’s not what a friend does, and I know it. That’s why I stopped trying to be one.”
“We could have helped you, Danny,” Tucker said sadly. “With all of this. You had to be going through a lot. We could have helped.”
“...I know,” he sighed as his shoulders sagged. “I wanted to say something. I kept hoping maybe you’d just figure it out. Not like this obviously. This is literally the worst. But by the time I felt like maybe it could be okay, we already weren’t talking and it just felt like it was too late.”
“Is it?” Sam asked with a much calmer voice.
Danny looked up with a raised eyebrow. “Is it what?”
“Is it too late?”
Danny shrugged as he scuffed his heel along the grass. “I guess that’s up to the two of you. I just…I really miss my friends.”
His voice broke a little on the word friends, and despite how angry Sam felt at him for the past two years of treating them like gum under his shoe (a nuisance he couldn’t get rid of fast enough until it finally dried up enough to scrape off and discard), her heart broke a little for him. She truly thought about his situation for a moment. How scared he must have been to tell them. How physically different he had become and the fear that would impact the way he related to everyone else. How alienating and isolating it had to be now that he was somehow a ghost and a person at the same time. Her stomach twisted and she felt so sad for her friend in that moment and the emotional turmoil he had to be experiencing.
Yes he should have trusted them, but maybe she and Tucker didn’t do enough to show that he could trust them. Maybe they didn’t make the friendship seem safe enough that he could tell them anything? She hoped she did, but if she didn’t, then that was on her just as much as it was on Tucker. And despite offering to talk and promising to understand numerous times over text, if he didn’t actually trust that to be the case, then she could understand his hesitation. This was a big secret because it basically changed Danny into an entirely different person, and she had to accept that he wasn’t obligated to share it with them until he was ready.
Sam wrapped her arms around her torso and gave him a small smile. “We miss you too.” Her voice cracked a little too with emotion, but in this moment she didn’t actually care. This was a good emotion, and she didn’t have to hide it behind some tough exterior, not right now.
“Yeah man, it hasn’t been the same without you,” Tucker echoed.
Danny smiled weakly as he wrapped his arms around himself in a self-hug. He gestured to the shade under the nearby tree. “Look can we…I know I have a lot to make up for, but can we talk? Like really talk?”
“I think we’ve all been needing to talk for awhile,” Sam agreed. And she’d do her best to stay calm and not let her own emotions cloud what needed to be said. She’d try to remember that she may not be blameless for the deterioration of their friendship, and she needed to be okay with that. And at the end of it, she probably had to be ready to forgive. She didn’t know if she had been quite ready to forgive him when she started the day, but she had a feeling she’d be a little more open to it now.
“And then dude, I have so many questions.” Tucker’s excited voice broke the somber mood for just a moment. “Because this whole ghost superhero thing is awesome and I want to know everything!”
Danny chuckled a bit and ducked his head as a blush spread across his cheeks. “Really? It’s not like weird or freaky or anything?”
“No man, it’s so cool,” Tucker affirmed as he pulled him into a one-armed hug from the side. “And I’m dying to know more.” He paused for a moment with a wince. “Okay, poor choice of words there.”
“Or the best choice of words,” Danny offered with a laugh.
“Yeah yeah, not all of us are insane and love puns,” Sam sighed as she shook her head, but she also smiled because it just felt so easy. Sliding back into the puns and the light teasing and the fun. It felt so natural and right and even though she knew so much bitterness existed between them, it brought a lightness to her heart to have that again.
“Or are you just not used to them after I ghosted you for so long?” Danny asked with an exaggerated wink on the emphasized word.
Sam forced her lips into a scowl as she tried so hard not to laugh. She hated Danny’s puns, always had, but that one was legitimately clever. As Tucker cackled from the side, she couldn’t stop the corners of her lips from curling into a smile.
“Are we here to talk or make stupid puns?” she finally asked when she knew she could keep a straight face.
“I mean, I can be here for both,” Danny suggested with a smirk. There, right there she saw Phantom. That confident, fun smirk. She didn’t know how she didn’t see it before. Well, probably because she hadn’t seen that smirk from Danny in over two years. She pushed that bitter thought out of her mind because that didn’t help their new mutual goal of clearing the air. She gave Danny an exasperated look and didn’t even acknowledge his statement before she sat down pointedly under the tree. The other two joined her on the pleasantly cool grass.
“Oh man, we left our lunch on the table,” Tucker groaned, but his stomach groaned even louder.
Normally she’d give Tucker a hard time for always thinking with his stomach, but her own hungry belly thought back to her abandoned black bean hummus wrap with resigned disappointment. She had been looking forward to that, but she didn’t think any of them should go back into the cafeteria right now.
Danny shifted nervously in the grass, a marked contrast to his previous joking nature. “...I can go get them,” he said, barely louder than a mumble.
Sam raised an eyebrow. “Danny, you’re literally the last person who should go back into that school right now.”
He sighed. “No I mean…I can sneak in and get them.”
Right. Ghost powers. Somehow she kept forgetting. That realization had been on her mind so much since she saw the news report. It consumed her thoughts all morning and really, that realization was the only reason they could talk right now. How she hadn’t put the pieces together astonished her.
Tucker also finally realized what he meant and his eyes grew wide. “Oh my god yes! Oh this is so brilliant. Yes yes, go get it!” he encouraged as he practically vibrated with excitement.
Danny hesitated for a moment as he bit his lip. He looked so nervous, and Sam’s heart went out to him that he was so scared to show this part of himself to his friends. Finally he nodded and stood with some renewed internal resolution. He took a deep breath as two rings of light appeared around his waist.
She saw the opposite transformation on the news footage. She’d replayed it over in her head multiple times since she saw it because her mind struggled so hard to accept it. But seeing it on a screen and seeing it in person were two very different things. One moment her friend stood there, and then the next there was Phantom. But this time when she looked at the face of their ghostly protector, she could see Danny in there now. That strange glow that emanated from his skin hid those familiar features before, but she could see them now that she knew to look for them. A strange energy lingered in the air after the transformation, one she could swear she remembered feeling around Danny before. It left the hair on her arms standing for just a moment, but it wasn’t unpleasant. She could get used to it.
She was proud to say she only jumped slightly, but she made it a point to put on a reassuring smile as his glowing eyes searched their faces desperately for a reaction. Tucker looked about ready to vibrate out of his skin with excitement. “So cool,” he breathed out in awe, and Danny blushed.
She remained calm and just gave him a supportive nod. He smiled weakly back. “I’ll uh, be right back.” He disappeared from sight, causing Sam to jump again. A breeze blew past them, and she had a feeling that meant Danny had flown off.
“That was a test right?” Tucker asked after a moment when he was sure Danny was gone.
“Oh yeah, it was definitely a test,” Sam confirmed. He was making them prove they could handle this. Those fears of rejection still clearly gnawed at him, and before he threw himself completely into talking everything out and building a new foundation for friendship going forward, he needed to ensure this pillar was strong. Well she could do that. She didn’t care about him being a ghost or part ghost or whatever he was. She didn’t care about the powers or the ghost fighting. She only ever cared that he abandoned them. So if he needed proof that she was a solid pillar he could lean on, she could give him that.
“Do you think we passed?” he pondered with a slight frown.
“Yeah, I think we did,” she said as she tucked her knees to her chest. “But we’ll know for sure if he comes back.”
It didn’t take him long. Danny made it to the cafeteria and back with impressive haste. Maybe he wanted to get back before they had the chance to leave, or maybe he wanted to maximize the amount of time they had to talk before lunch ended. Maybe he was just hungry. Sam really couldn’t say why, but she was grateful they didn’t have to put the talk off for too much longer. She spent a good amount of time blowing up at him (she refused to say she wasted that time because she really felt like she needed that), but she also needed the time to really talk with him.
He appeared suddenly beside them, still floating in the air. Even though she knew he would be arriving at some point, his sudden appearance still caused her to jump. Tucker not only jumped but let out a slight yelp and placed a hand on his heart. “Danny! God you can’t–we are not making this a trend. My out-of-shape heart cannot take that. We need to figure out like a warning or something.”
Danny laughed as he sat cross-legged in the air. That flash of light transformed him back into himself - or rather the other form of himself - and he plopped down onto the grass beside them. He passed out their lunchboxes while a slight smile played across his lips. He seemed more comfortable with them, more like his older self. If he hadn’t just turned visible, floated in the air, and summoned a ring of light around his waist, Sam would have thought it was two years ago by how easy it felt to sit together as a trio again. They must have passed the test.
With a deep breath Danny looked at both of his friends. “Alright, let’s talk.”
It wouldn’t be perfect. It wouldn’t be easy. A lot of bad blood still existed between them, and one conversation wouldn’t wash away all of it. But it was a start. Maybe they could get back to where they were before, or maybe that friendship could blossom into something even better now that they had a shared understanding between each other - that remained to be seen. But knowing that they had a chance to talk, really talk, and air out their grievances and misunderstandings filled Sam with a warmth she hadn’t felt in years. Maybe she could finally have her friend back. And for the first time since the threat of that deadly asteroid shook the very foundation of the world, Sam actually had a feeling things would be okay. Life would move on, life would get better, and she would get better with her friend back at her side. Because sitting in the shade of the same tree in a circle with her two best friends made everything feel right in the world once again.
Note: Thanks for reading everyone! I had a lot of fun with this one. It's my first foray into a Nobody Knows AU and I really enjoyed it! Also there's no way you could dangle a prompt that's a post-reveal and allows me to show the student body's reaction to Danny post-reveal without me latching onto it.
#danny phantom#fanfiction#danny phantom fanfiction#sam manson POV#Nobody Knows AU#but now Everyone Knows AU#Phantom Planet Compliant#but not really#friendship#friendships are hard#but you can work through it with effort#post identity reveal#phic phight 2024#phic phight#phic phight 24#team ghost
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What do you mean, "this isn't safe"?
For @princessfanonanona
Prompt: PR180 - "What do you mean this isn't safe, I'm already dead"
ao3 | ffn
This year, for @phicphight 2024, I am doing poems! This has all but the rhyme scheme of a villanelle; but the structure is there! I hope you enjoy!
What do you mean, "this isn't safe"?
If I don't deal with this,
I'm already dead.
And you've done way worse!
And all to protect me!
What do you mean, "this isn't safe"?
It can't be worse than what I've done—
Worse than the day I died.
I'm already dead.
And you'd do the same.
After all, it's your plan.
What do you mean, "this isn't safe"?
This would kill you—but not me. Why?
Isn't it obvious?
I'm already dead.
So let me do this.
And no more tears for me.
What do you mean, "this isn't safe"?
I'm already dead.
#danny phantom#phic phight 24#phic phight#phic phight 2024#danny fenton#jazz fenton#villanelle#poetry#fanona#i hope you like this!#bee can attest i started working on this when I first saw the prompt!#bib writes#bib work#not a q
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Phic Phight Prompts:
By EctoplasmicSoda: Jazz finds herself trapped in a time loop.
By the_crownless_queen: Instead of Danny turning on the portal, it's Jazz.
Jazz finds out the hard way that the portal is deadly if you turn it on from the inside. When the day keeps repeating itself, can she bring herself to let her brother make the same mistake?
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Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Danny Phantom
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Sam Manson
Characters: Sam Manson, Danny Fenton, Tucker Foley
Additional Tags: Death, Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Ghost King Danny Fenton, Phic Phight: Team Ghost (Danny Phantom), Ghost King AU, Mild Blood, Mild Gore, Phic Phight (Danny Phantom)
Summary:
Driven insane by the power of the Crown, Danny crosses a line he can't come back from. Now it's up to Sam to put a stop to his reign of terror, but can she bring herself to destroy the man who was once her best friend? And if she can, is she strong enough to succeed? When life and death collide, who will come out on top?
For the prompts: “Danny may have been her friend once (maybe more than that) but that didn't matter. Today she had one job. Kill the Mad Ghost King Phantom and make sure he doesn't come back.” by @sailor-toni
And
"Skulker states that only Pariah was strong enough to control the entities contained in the Crown and Ring. Who are those entities and what happens to them after Reign Storm?" by @nephmoreau
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Phic Phight - Ghosts And Cold Turkey Is A Bad Mix
@darthfrodophantom @datawyrms @kalifa100 @lovelyunknown @nat-space-obsessed @duchi-nesten
Jazz has a boyfriend. Jazz has a boyfriend who has NOT met her family. Jazz has a boyfriend who has not met her family and knows absolutely NOTHING about her families career path. Jazz has a boyfriend who was about to have A Bad Time. Danny, Elle, and Dan were going to make sure of that in every way remotely possible… short of world ending calamity.
Alright, so Jazz probably should have actually talked to Bassel about her family, preferably before he had decided that he absolutely had to finally met her family. It was spring break so she couldn’t exactly push it off till later, or long enough to explain anything really, so he was officially going in ‘cold turkey’. Had she mentioned that her family was weird? Of course, that was unavoidable. But she’s fairly certain he thought that ‘weird’ meant being really into fishing or made crochet baby dolls, not everything ghosts. And now that they’re on the road she’s fairly certain that telling the driver that ghosts are ‘the family business’ is a bad idea; it would not be good if he were to drive off of the road in shock.
Bassel chuckling, “so am I going to get regaled with stories about weird birds they’ve seen bird watching or the last obscure B list bird horror flic?”.
Jazz laughing awkwardly, “you have not idea. No idea at all…”.
Unfortunately Jazz was unaware of one simple fact, it wasn’t just her and her plus one who was coming to visit for the break….
Jack beams as a clawed hand crams itself through the seam in the Fenton Ghost Portal™, turning his head to the stairs, “Danny! Your kid’s are here!”.
“AWESOME! WE’RE MAKING COOKIES TO PACIFY THE GREMLIN! SEND ‘EM UP!”.
Sweet! Cookies! Yum. Jack turning back to the portal as the doors slam open loudly and threateningly, Jack chuckling to himself, that man was always such a drama queen. Watching the tall full ghost step through the now open portal, a little sister sitting perched on his shoulders. The little missy waving wildly at her grandpa, “hiyya gramps!”.
The flaming-haired full ghost scoffing, “Yeah yeah, whatever”.
Jack grinning and jumping up, moving to hug the two, the elder of the two stiffening and just ‘putting up with’ the hugging, “glad you kiddos could make it!”, ruffling the littler one’s hair, “there’s cookies”.
“Hell yeah!”, and she’s off like a rocket, flying up the stairs.
Jack eyes the full ghost, “beat any other ghosts down lately?”.
The man snorts, “obviously. Not that any of them were much of a fight”, grinning meanly, all fang, “the gorffens were deliciously squishie though”. Jack laughing as the two large men head upstairs.
Danny’s grinning his head off watching Elle devouring at least fifth-teen ghost-shaped cookies. Waving at Dan as he comes up behind Jack, “there’s pure ecto-cookies too, Mr. Can’t Eat Mortal Realm Food”. The full ghost scowls and flips him off but absolutely takes a couple of the overly green person-shaped cookies. Ha. The human cookies were ghost shaped and the ghost cookies were human shaped.
“Whatever, mom”.
Danny absolutely scowls at that, chucking a cookie at the ghost. While Maddie hums, eyeing them all, “Jazz will be coming by too”.
“Oh? When?”
“Any moment now, I believe”.
“I am in pj’s!”.
Dan snorts, “you look like a dumbass no matter what you’re wearing”. That gets him immediately blasted in the face with a small ecto-beam, the ghost only grinning viscously in response; Danny zipping up through the ceiling to get changed. Mom seriously couldn’t have told him sooner? Gosh! He had a new ugly ass sweater with a stupid ghost joke on it to show off!
The knots in Jazz’s stomach could kill her if they became ghosts right about now, as Bassel pulls them up into her drive way. He nearly rams into the house actually, having been staring at the ops centre on the roof, “uh, okay, spaceship on the roof is slightly more out there than I was expecting?”, looking to her, “and do they run their business from their house? Hence the sign?”.
Jazz laughs awkwardly, “they have permits for it… that they got after building it”.
He shrugs, “I can admire the guts”, and patting her on the shoulder, “and stop being so nervous, I’m a great guy! I’m sure they’ll love me. Plus you’ve said they’re pretty easy to please”.
“Oh I’m not worried about their reaction to you, rather your reaction to them. I have mentioned they’re weird right? And that my dad’s taller than ninety-one percent of the human population?”.
“… you did not mention the height, damn that’s impressive, he’s the one with the personality of a puppy, right?”.
She gives him a supportive back pat before they get out and head to the front door, “yes, and thank everything for that. His hugs are crushing though”.
“I bet”.
The door pops open without her having to knock, meaning Danny’s up, “sup Jazz and- oh shit, you brought company. Fuck. Two seconds”, and slams the door in her face.
Bassel quirking an eyebrow, “what? Is he still in pj’s or something? That was a really ugly sweater. Pink? and green? Together? Ew”, chuckling a little, “and did it say ‘boo’ onto others as you would have others ‘boo’ unto you? Why was there an image of a ghost aggressively holding out a loaf of garlic bread?”.
She snorts, even if she’s honestly confused, “oh no, he always makes sure to wear something really unpleasant to look at when he knows I’m visiting. I believe it’s born from a sick, though harmless, degree of sadism”, frowning, “though I’m not sure why he just rudely slammed the door in our faces”.
And then she hears the cackle, the loud deep malicious cackle, officially realising that she… might have fucked up. Just a little bit. Sighing and facepalming, “oh no”. The couple standing there as seemingly a shouting match goes on inside.
“GET CHANGED YOU DIPSHIT!”
“YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO! MOM!”.
“I WILL END YOU!”.
“GO AHEAD AND TRY!”.
“Are they gonna want these cookies or?”.
“DON’T YOU DARE! Yes, gumdrop, leave them some. HEY DROP THAT! DROP THAT NOW!”… “EW!”.
“HA!”.
“DAN!-”.
Then the door jerks open very aggressively, and Jazz and Bassel stare up at the giant of a man with too sharp eyes and a feral unkind grin, “so you bagged someone, eh? Need someone to beat him through the wringer?”, and moves to grab Bassel’s arm; who thankfully has the common sense to pull away while staring almost disturbed at the man.
Jazz grabbing Dan’s wrist and holding him, glaring at the semi-reformed mass murderer/genocidal, parricidal, infanticidal, amicicidal, omnicidal, deicidal, ecocidal, mundicidal, psychopath. “Don’t even think about, Dan”.
“Aw but Jazzy-”.
She points a finger in his face, “no. Bad. No trying to physically fight my boyfriend”.
Then Dan’s head gets yanked back, Danny grasping the man’s ponytail, “get back in here, you shit”. The door closing again.
Jazz turns and winces at Bassel’s freaked out expression, “alright so, I didn’t know Dan was going to be here. I would have absolutely said no, if I’d known that”.
“Should I be worried?”; he looked extremely worried.
Jazz grimacing, “he’s… on parole, for, well, for murder so, yes”, grabbing Bassel’s wrist, “well we’re here now, just, don’t go anywhere with him alone. He’s also a prankster”.
Bassel almost squawking, “Murder?!?!”, as she drags him through the threshold into the Fenton household.
They get smacked with the noise immediately, she still doesn’t get how her parents managed to make a semi-sound barrier for inside the house that worked even when doors or windows were open… even if it didn’t always work well with ghosts or half ghosts. Danny is ramming cookies into Dan’s face while standing on his shoulders and snarling, Dan attempting to yank him off. Elle is bouncing around on all fours playing with cujo, who’s vibrating with excitement literally. Dad is laughing, head on the table, and slamming a fist on it repeatedly; a chair falls over. And Mom’s set the stove on fire and is smacking it leisurely with that fire-proof ghost net; the Fenton Flamo-Containo she thinks.
Jazz rolling up her sleeves, sighing, and moving over to her mom, “what did you burn, mom?”; and starts properly smothering the flames… the flames have faces and eyeballs.
This was a mistake. This entire trip was a mistake. Her poor boyfriend.
Bassel blinks, gives himself a fortifying shake, and swallows, “hi? Um, I’m Bassel?”.
The smallest one is on him in a second, it’s freaky. Her chirping up at him, “why did you say that like a question? Are you a question? If I question you will you become a sentient question mark?”.
What? Her eyes are way too big and her skin is smooth. It’s… very strange. Then she’s being picked up by the smaller boy- the teenager, that he didn’t even hear approach. “Elle-”. That was strangely chastising to hear from a teen. “-no giving people existential crises”.
“Are question edible?”.
The teen quirks an eyebrow, “I mean probably? if you write them on a piece of paper?”.
“If I write them on apples and pelt doctors with them do you think they’ll anwser my questions without poking me?”
“Eh fuck it, give it a go. Tell me if it works”. Then the teen looks up to Bassel, “sup, I’m Danny, the little brother”.
Bassel nods awkwardly, this kid… was seriously off. His skin was too smooth too, eyes not right and dangerous, his hair seemed… darker than black. The hell is he looking at? “Uh. Bassel? I already said that though. Um, I’m guessing the girls the youngest sibling?”.
She pops out around Danny’s leg, “I’m the granddaughter actually”. Danny snorting, “grand-gremlin is more like it”. She bites the teen… does she have fangs???
Bassel blinks harshly, pointing at the… murderer, “his kid? I take it?”. And now that he’s looking, what the hell is up with how similar they all look???
Dan barks out a laugh, shaking his face off like a dog so hard pieces of green? cookie physically stab into the walls and cupboards, “that shit stain is moms kid, not mine! Holy shit!”.
Danny snapping his head to Dan and pointing aggressively at him, “you”, shrugging and changing tones so fast Bassel nearly gets whiplash, “would have absolute nightmare kids and I would cry if your dumbass is the one to make a grandpa of me. Fuck you”.
Bassel is… very confused.
Mrs. Fenton shouting, “and I don’t want to be a great-grandma! Thank you very much!”, and coming over, Jazz looking to be scowling down at the stove, “hello, I’m doctor Maddie Fenton, feel free to just call me Maddie though”, swatting him on the arm, “none of that Mrs. or Dr. stuff”.
Danny pouting at her, “hey, why does Val still have to call you Mrs then?”.
“Because you two are still teens mister”.
The teen only pouts more…. His eyes look far too glass-like, like he’s a doll. Bassel kind of wants to be no where near him. Eyeing Jazz’s mom, the… hazmat is extremely concerning, maybe he should have asked more about what her parents did for a living? or their hobbies? “You have a doctorate?”.
The woman grinning, “that’s right! Primarily in ecto-ology and clinical laboratory science. but also criminology and medical science. My husband, Jack has doctorates in ecto-ology and clinical laboratory science as well, public health, chemistry, and practical theology”, turning away to eye Jazz, “the Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”.
“For the millionth time, mom, I’m still not studying ecto-ology; spectral psychology is completely different and that isn’t even my primary field of study”.
Bassel blinks, okay he knew she said her parents were smart but damn. But… ecto-ology? Really? A pseudoscience? Taking that in conjunction with practical theology made some sense, many religions believed in sprits after all, but with medical degrees? With actual scientific degrees? He’d thought Jazz’s spectral psych was a bit odd, especially with the rumours she talked to ghosts which he brushed off, but at least it made sense since she wanted to be a therapist. Many people can use religion and the belief in spirits to help heal after all. “Ecto-ology huh? As your primary? Interesting choice”.
Then Jazz’s dad is on him in an instant, not inhumanely like Danny had been but to see someone so massive move so fast was jarring, “oh! Did Jazzypants not tell you!”, slapping a hand to his chest proudly, “the Fenton’s are a family of ghost hunters!”.
What.
Maddie eyes her daughter, “Jazz”. While Dan out right cackles evilly and Danny wheezes, hands on his knees, “Jazz you dumbass!”.
Bassel blinks harshly, “ghost… hunters?”, o-kay that was… a lot weirder than he expected. Her parents believed… in ghosts and claimed to ‘hunt’ them. No wonder his girlfriend wanted to study psychology, her parents were delusional.
Jazz can tell that her boyfriend absolutely thinks her parents are insane now. Danny eyeing the guy before wheezing more tells her he’s noticed too, walking over to her and patting her on the arm, “he doesn’t believe in ghosts, does he”.
She sighs, “I… don’t think so”.
“HA!”. Oh Dan was just eating this up.
Elle running over with cujo, holding the pup up at Bassel’s face, he looks like he barely resists recoiling, “pet the ghost pup and believe”.
“Why is he green?”.
“Because he’s dead! Dummy!”.
“What”. Then cujo is in his arms, his face is horrified, but he does cautiously pat cujo’s belly. Him stiffening and staring as the dog floats up and starts walking on the ceiling; Elle giggling.
Danny slinking over to the guy while Maddie tries to swat the dog off the ceiling, “yeah, welcome to Amity, famously the most haunted city in the world. And yes, your girlfriend’s parents are the leading ghost scientist of the entire world and sell ghost weapons to the government and general public”, doing jazz hands, “surprise!”.
Bassel hasn’t even made it past the entry way, Jazz feels like an ass for letting him go into this blind. Her shoving Danny away, “don’t be mean”, eyeing Bassel, who’s wide-eyed, “yeah sorry? I did tell you they were weird”.
Bassel eyes Dan standing on the table to pin a fucking green floating dog to the ceiling. Maddie’s holding a strange taser, that has green electricity, threatening the dog; Danny’s dangling off of her arm shrieking about leaving his pup alone and how if anyone’s going to get tased it should be him. Looking back to Jazz, “by weird you mean insane? I’d question the ghosts thing but there’s a floating green dog on the ceiling. Hell, I’m almost questioning my own sanity”.
Jack laughs, rubbing his neck, “oh yeah! We get that a lot! But hey! People stop calling you crazy once they get attacked by a talking five foot tall hornet or a town gets sucked into another dimension!”.
Jazz huffing, “you guys just will not let me live down that stupid hornet, will you”.
Danny shouting, “technically it was a shapeshifting old man! Not a hornet!”, as he runs out of the room with cujo in tow.
Maddie following with the taser, “Danny! he needs to be punished when he does that!”.
“No! Never! Kiss my dead ass!”.
Bassel blinking, “your… brother swears a lot, and wait did he claim to be Dan’s mom? What? I’m sitting down”.
Jazz wincing, “don’t sit on the orange chair, it screams sometimes”. He squeaks an ‘okay’ and sits on the purple couch rubbing his temples; Jazz plopping down beside him.
Dan shouting, “Is anyone gonna eat the ecto-wienies!?!”, from the kitchen.
Jazz scowling to herself before shouting back, “Dan don’t! I dont want Bassel passing out!”.
“That’s the point!”.
She throws her hands up dramatically in fur-station, at least her dad rushes off to stop Dan from consuming screaming hot dogs while their guest adjusts to his new reality.
Bassel groaning, “and why would I pass out?”.
… “They scream too. It’s… pretty freaky to see someone eating squirming screaming hotdogs if you’re not prepared for it”.
“And why do your parents have hotdogs that do that and how even?”.
Jazz shakes her head, “they might have studied clinical laboratory science but they absolutely do not practice good lab safety or sample safety. Things get contaminated accidentally a lot”.
“And that… makes hotdogs able to move and scream?”.
“That about sums it up, yeah”.
“What the actual fuck, babe”.
Then Dan pops over, arms crossed, “thanks Jazz, now gramps has confiscated all my food”.
Jazz pointing at him as he flops down on the same couch as them hard enough to make the couch bounce, “good and could you sit down any harder?”.
“I was aiming to knock you two love birds off”.
“Zone you are such a jerk”.
“I aim to displease”.
Bassel makes an aggressive motion with his hands, not looking at either of them, “okay what the fuck. First how did that not break the couch? Two how is a teen boy mom? And what is wrong with this town and house?”.
Dan snorts and Jazz knows she’s going to hate what comes out his mouth, him eyeing her, “should I tell him there’s a portal to the afterlife in the basement, or should you?”. She slaps him immediately, wincing from the definite sprained wrist she just gave herself; stupid full ghost jerk. He sticks his tongue out at her and she wants to slap him again; at least his tongue isn't forked at the moment.
Jack pops back in carrying Elle by the waist, her arms and legs dangling down as she giggles, “you good, Jazzy?”.
Dan chuckling, “no. She regrets not warning a certain someone”, putting a hand to his chest, “I fully support that fucking chaotic choice”.
Jazz scowling, “you just enjoy seeing people suffer”.
“Hey, if I’m not allowed to kill folks anymore I gotta get my kicks somewhere? Or would you rather I start skinning animals and leaving their flesh hanging from trees?”. Dan gets bashed off the couch by a baseball bat wielding Danny. “Ow! Seriously mom?”.
“Threaten to skin animals for the lols again and I’ll sic Sam on you”.
Dan puts his hands up, “I’ll pass, you kill joy”.
“Good”.
Bassel gags and makes a face at Jazz, gesturing his hands at Dan as Danny smacks him with the baseball bat again, “what”.
“He’s… got a twisted sense of humour?”.
“Not that!”, Bassel shaking his head, “well yes that, what is wrong with that man. But I mean the mom thing?”.
Jazz eyeballs the full ghost, “Dan’s a tough subject, let’s just say a lot of really nasty things happened to him and at least one psychotic break. And he calls Danny ‘mom’ mostly to annoy him”.
“Oh that’s a lot less weird-”.
“Danny kinda is his mom though”.
Basel groans.
Elle pops her head over the couch, somehow escaping Jack’s grasp, “Danny’s uncle is a mad scientist who has no issue dabbling in super evil human experimentation, Dan and me were tots made from Danny via fucked up science and suffering! Hooray for causing mass confusion!”.
Bassel glancing from the small girl to his girlfriend, “seriously?”.
Jazz sighing, “yeah, sorry. Technically that man’s mine and Danny’s god father, not uncle, but Danny likes to bug the man. Vlad… needs so much therapy”.
Danny shouting, “at least he’s got a cat now! Even if he did name her after mom”; while Dan snags the baseball bat and pops Danny on the head with it. Danny bites the baseball bat.
Bassel shakes his head, “so you weren’t kidding about being somewhat related to one of the richest men on the planet, and he’s basically a crazy super villain; great”.
Jack rubs his neck, “unfortunately yeah, I kinda blew up a proto-portal in his face and he didn’t take that well”.
Jazz puts her hands on her hips, leaning forwards a little, “dad, you guys didn’t visit him in hospital even once, for seven years. Of course he didn’t take that well”.
Danny popping out from behind Jack, “he still complains about that, by the by. I dumped get well soon cards on him last time he was whining about it. Asked him if that made up for it, he shouted no and shot me in the foot”.
Jazz shaking her head, “I still don’t get how you two ever get along”.
“Hey, arch enemies gotta have some bonding time sometimes. Plus, he’s got the good liquor and will absolutely try to bribe me with expensive gifts”.
“And I keep telling you that’s unhealthy and you’re only encouraging him”.
Dan chuckling, “let him, who knows, maybe I’ll get another gremlin sibling”.
Basically everyone, even Bassel, shouting, “NO!”.
Maddie getting back towards the kitchen, and bring out what remains of the ghost-shaped cookies, “cookie?”, offering them to Bassel.
… “are they going to start screaming?”.
Maddie blushing immediately, Jazz covering her mouth and laughing, “no. No. Only things that were once alive tend to do that. Baked goods are fine”, eyeing the cookies, “and they’re not green so they’re safe for human consumption”.
He takes a cookie and munches it very cautiously, “and the green ones?”.
Jazz grimacing, “definitely not safe for human consumption”.
Elle nodding, still behind the couch, “those are for us Phantom’s”. Meaning that now Jazz knows Bassel’s basically going to have to deal with finding out her brother and said brothers kids are all varying degrees of dead.
Bassel eyeing the small child, “do I even want to know?”.
Elle gives a cheery, “nope!”.
Oh okay, maybe her, and thusly Bassel, can dodge that whole situation. Jazz absolutely glares daggers at Dan to say nothing. The man grins evilly but remains silent, thank zone for that.
Bassel taking a breath and slapping his legs before standing up, “okay. Alright. You lot are stranger than I expected but I really like Jazz so I’ll deal”.
Maddie looks relieved but Jack booms, “awesome! You seem like a good guy!”, and smacks Bassel so hard on the back that he gets smacked into the floor and knocked out. Dan’s bending over wheeze laughing, Elle’s floated up into the air curled up and laughing, Danny’s run over to try and help the man while also laughing, and Jazz is shaking a finger at her dad angrily.
Maddie sighs, face in a hand, “Jack”; while Danny’s hoisting Bassel up and back onto the couch, smacking his cheeks to get him to come ‘round.
When Bassel comes to he nearly screams, that Danny boy’s face is inches from his own and he’s crouched on Bassel’s chest. How much did this kid weigh??? And damn were his eyes still extremely creepy. At least he’s clued in what was wrong with him, he was uncanny, like he wasn’t quite human but close enough that it was very wrong in that base instinctual way. The teen grins, it’s like his teeth don’t fit in his mouth and the smile is just a hair too wide. “Cool, you’re awake. Was starting to wonder. Dad smacked you into the floor by accident, if you don’t brace yourself when he goes in for back pats then you’ll wind up on the floor”, titling his head owlishly, “lesson learned?”.
Bassel nodding at the kid that hasn’t moved his face out of Bassel’s, “um, yeah?”, frowning, “your guy’s dad is freakishly strong, you know that?”. The boy just shrugs before hopping off Bassel’s chest, letting him sit up and rub his head a little. “Do your parents always wear the hazmats?”.
Danny chuckles, “yup, and they will still claim they are stylish”, rolling his wrist, “they try to get me and Jazz in ‘em all the time. But hey, I’ll stick to wearing that kinda bullshit when I’m dead”.
Jazz’s head pops out of the kitchen entryway, “oh good, you’re up. You up for pie? There’s eight for some reason”.
“Are… they all the same kind?”.
“Sadly, yes”.
Even he can admit that was sad, variety was nice. But Danny pouts at her, “hey, I’m not about to discourage my personal wannabe poacher just because he doesn’t have a single creative bone in his entire metal mecha suit”. What the hell was any of that supposed to mean? This kid was probably one of the most confusing people Bassel’s ever met, Elle being a close second.
“You could at least try to convince him to try lime cream instead of him shoving lemon cream at you three times a year”.
Bassel holds up a hand, “how old are these pies?”. His girlfriend blinks like that hadn’t even crossed her mind… she might be too used to this level of strange perhaps.
Danny waving him off, “oh I helped him find a solid anniversary gift for his girlfriend, which fine was extremely explosive but eh, so he went a little pie happy. They’re two days old”.
“Oh alright, I’ll have some then”; two days wasn’t even weird. That many pies was odd and how he got them was bizarre, but not as bad as a dog walking on the ceiling or Dan-the-psycho talking about skinning animals like it was funny. Him and Danny joining everyone in the kitchen proper finally. The stove is charred from top to bottom, fires were clearly common. The fridge… was glowing? The toaster looks like it’s definitely some kind of project and not safe to use at all. The table is clean at least, besides the cookie crumbs and excessive amount of pies.
Said pie is extremely good, like professional good. Bassel blinking at it, “damn that’s good”.
Danny chirping, like actually chirping, “I know right?”; how does a human mouth make that sound???
“Then why isn’t… Dan eating any?”; maybe evil or not…
Dan flips Bassel off, grabs a slice and proceeds to hurl it at him; Bassel barely ducking in time while Jazz, Maddie, and Danny all shout, ‘NO!’. Elle is giggling though and Bassel would bet money that’s encouraging the man. Danny smashes an entire pie right in Dan’s face in retaliation, Elle smashing a slice on Danny’s head; it just devolves into a full on pie food fight from there.
Jazz crouch walking to avoid splatter while Maddie shoos the three outside with a broom, Jack following while shouting about getting the hose. Jazz putting a hand on his arm, “you good”.
“What twenty something starts a food fight!”, shaking his head, “better than throwing a knife at me I guess”.
“He usually only throws knives at Danny”.
She said that like it was normal! And not at all disturbing or something to be worried about! “He actually throws knives at people!”.
She winces like she just now realised that wasn’t okay, “right. Don’t worry about it, he might make a lot of threats or do threatening stuff but he’s heavily against going back into solitary confinement”, her huffing, “which I still think was cruel, deprivation chambers are one hundred percent a form of torture and no one deserves that”.
“What kind of jail has a freaking deprivation chamber, oh my god”. No wonder that man seemed like he had the socialization skills of a very threatening murderous brick wall.
The two stand up and they can see the three ‘Phantom’s -he’s still confused on that one but too scared to ask- getting hosed off in the front yard by Maddie; Jack’s helping by physically holding Dan up in the air and laughing. What??? Bassel blinks, “no one should be able to lift that beast of a man up like that”.
And then there’s an explosion, Bassel jerking around and Jazz just turning causally to watch purple smoke leak out from what’s labeled as a lab door. Her grabbing him with a quick, “nope”, and dragging him outside.
“What was that?”.
“Don’t know, but I’m not taking the chance that whatever their latest project is is noxious”, then shouting at her mom, “mom! Something blew up in the lab and it’s leaking purple gas!”.
Bassel very strictly remembers her not long ago mentioning that her parents weren’t big on lab safety, noxious though? These people were completely nuts. His nice, level headed, kind, smart, cautious Jazz came from this??? Yes she could be a little neurotic, especially about food and sharps saftey which he absolutely understood now, and she was a little… spooky sometimes. But still! He still didn’t believe her hair was really that orange without her dying it, even if he’d never seen proof of her doing so. And she always had on some black tourmaline or turquoise that she claimed was ‘protection’, he just thought she was being a little spiritual, now it seemed more like this ghost thing.
Danny shakes his wet hair off like a feral dog, “that’s probably my lunch!”.
Jazz throwing her hands up, “why is it leaking purple gas!”. Bassel muttering, “I think it exploding is more concerning than that”. Jazz shaking her head at him, “Danny’s favourite local restaurant has highly explosive trade marked sauce”.
“What!?!”. How was that even legal?
Danny pointing a finger at Jazz’s face as he moves to head inside to… ‘rescue’ his food, “hey, you haven’t had real food till you’ve had a Mighty Meaty Mega Nasty Melt and Phantomized Fries”, shrugging, “and I was trying to make blackened ecto-wine infused bread, for sandwiches”.
Jazz makes a face at the boys retreating back, “ew”.
Bassel blinking, “did, did this restaurant really name a menu item ‘Nasty Melt’?”. He’s revising his previous opinion, this entire town was nuts; not just these people.
Elle, very wet, bounds over, “yup! It’s called the Nasty Burger, used to be Tasty burger but someone vandalized it and there was a vote to just keep the N”, grinning, “I think it’s funny, the sauce is to die for”.
Jazz cringing, “oh no not the death jokes, at least spare my boyfriend those, ugh”. The little girl sticks her tongue out and pouts a little before running back inside at the pies. Jazz going wide-eyed and following with a shout, “oh no you better not! Mom just got you cleaned up! You put that pie down missy!”.
Bassel cautiously sticking his head in, cautious of both fumes and pie, to stare at his girlfriend holding a literal child at gun point while the child menacingly holds a pie over her own head. “um, why are you threatening a child with a gun”.
She brushes him off like this isn’t messed up, “it’s fine, there’s no normal guns in this household”. What does that even mean? Ghost guns? Is that what this is? Is that why it’s slightly glowing green!
Then Dan scares the crap out of him, speaking up from directly behind him, “I wouldn’t worry about it, she’s a terrible shot anyway. She could put a gun directly against someone’s temple and still hit a cars side mirror instead”.
“I’ve gotten better!”.
“No you have not, you managed to shoot a fire hydrant and set it on fire last time; I was impressed”.
“Shut up, Dan”.
“No I don’t think I will”.
At least Danny, who somehow got behind Elle, takes the pie from the girl and wags a finger at her, “repeat chaos isn’t chaos, it’s a pattern”.
“What if I cut off one of my hands, put it in the pie, then smack her with it? Then it would be a pie high five, not a food fight”.
Danny blinks, “I’m stealing that idea for the next time the Lunch Lady throws flaming stoves at me”.
Bassel… Bassel is not questioning that. “Kid, your mind must be a very strange place”. Sure little kids always said odd stuff, things adults wouldn’t even dream of, but this was a special brand of odd.
Dan shoving his way past Bassel, nearly knocking the guy over and giving him some major hebejebes, to go pat Elle on the head in amusement. Maddie steadying him, “you okay? And at least she’s not as bad as Danny used to be”, crossing her arms and shaking her head, “he thought blackbird pie meant to actually find birds and bake a pie with them. It was incredibly disgusting, especially because he didn’t know how to use an oven yet so he maxed out its temp for three hours”.
Oh okay, so Danny was just like that too. What was that about apples and trees? “That… probably could have gone even worse”. The teen, then kid, could have burned the house down!
The woman grumbled, “at least he’s never sucked the house into the mirror dimension, unlike someone”, as she heads in to help Jazz, Danny, Dan, and Elle actually clean up the pie mess. Jack shouting, “I said I was sorry about that!”. Danny shouting back, “at least no one’s pulled a Technus and walked the house into the ocean!”; while Bassel is wondering how the heck the eldest Fenton heard his wife’s grumbling from the other side of the yard.
There was something seriously physically off with all these people. Including Jazz. He’s feeling very distinctly reminded of a lot of things he’s just sort of brushed off or thought nothing of about her before. He used to think a lot about how vibrant her eyes were, or that her teeth were a touch sharp; nothing like the ‘Phantom’s but still. She was amazing at lock picking and could handle ‘practice’ patients others couldn’t; even if she would also ‘force’ therapy on random people sometimes. And eyeing her parents, they’re the same. Intense eyes, oddly pale almost glassy skin, teeth that feel like they’re sharp but aren’t; it’s not uncanny the way those three ‘Phantom’s were, but it’s still odd.
Dan was the worst though, easily, when the man brushed past him it felt like being cornered by massive wolf or mountain lion. If Bassel had ran into that man randomly on the street there’s no way he’d think he was anything close to human. Danny and Elle at least seemed humanish, almost human; Dan just seemed like he was playing pretend.
Bassel shakes himself off before stepping back into the chaotic Fenton household, “am I going to get pie thrown at me again?”.
Danny looks at him, “nope”, then glares at Elle, “or someone’s losing her Switch privileges”; the girl gasps in horror.
See that? That was normal. Normal punishment, normal reaction to a punishment. Perfectly normal. … Then the girl threatens to ‘liquify herself in protest’; goodbye normal, it was nice while it lasted. Either way he moves to help clean up pie a little, speaking back up, “so your bread fine?”.
“It ate itself and imploded, so no”. What. The boy grins cheerily, right too many teeth, “which means it must have tasted good, meaning I’m on to something”.
“I? Guess?”. He’s honestly just trying not to stare at the teens teeth.
…
They somehow do actually make it to the living room to watch a movie. It actually is a weird B list bird horror flic, which feels too normal now and that frankly concerns him. He’s not sure he wants the get used to this level of insanity. He loves Jazz but he is fully intending to potentially never step foot in this building again after this. How was he going to survive here for a week??? Blinking, oh right, elbowing Jazz and whispering, “hey, all the luggage is still in the car right?”. Then Dan scares the crap outta him again, “don’t bother whispering, I can still hear you”. Jazz grabs a random round thing from the floor to smack the man with for that.
Jazz leaning against Bassel again, “the longer we leave it in the car the longer it’ll take to get contaminated or destroyed, I told you not to bring your expensive computer ‘just in case you had time’ for a reason”.
Considering the amount of mess and literal exploding/imploding -again, what???- bread, he could understand that sentiment; oh and the actual guns apparently just lying around. He is very glad he listened to her, that laptop was never setting an inch of its metal casing in this building. He winces, “yeah, thanks for that”. She pats him fondly.
Danny straightens out so fast that it aggressively startles Bassel. “Oh! Think I should invite Val?”, eyeing Jazz smugly, “since someone brought their little lover”.
Jazz scowls at him, “Danny, I think Basel having to put up with my very weird family including the two weirdest members, is more than enough without adding in your trigger happy girlfriend with serious anger management issues. Especially because I know for a fact she won’t agree to leave all her weapons at home”.
Danny looks offended, putting a hand to his chest and paying no mind to the bird-related massacre happening on screen, “I’ll have you know she doesn’t even sleep unarmed, she hasn’t been unarmed since she was fourteen”.
“Exactly”.
You know what? Bassel thinks that actually makes sense. Danny was too strange to date someone remotely normal. “I’m not even surprised, you’re a little too freaky to date someone who’s just, you know, an average person. So sure, date an aspiring cop or whatever”.
Danny snaps and finger guns at him, “think more like nanobot powered teenage ghost hunter with a jet sled”.
What. Bassel blinking, “so somehow you’re the more normal one in the relationship. This girl’s in therapy right”. Jazz actually laughs at that.
Danny screws up his face, “Ancients you sound like Jazz”, looking at her, “he sounds like you”, looking back to Bassel, “and eh, my personality has more sparkles and explosions”, tilting his head, “besides, how am I freaky, besides the gremlin energy and general chaos anyways”.
Dan snorting, “and the fact that you think dumpster chic is a good thing”.
“As if you don’t wear the same”.
“Excuse you, I lift all my clothing off of the finest of corpses”.
Bassel, and Danny for that matter, gag; Danny’s seems more mock dramatic gag though. Bassel shaking his head, “add in the fact that if someone told me you were actually a doll pretending to be human, I’d believe them”.
That gets him multiple odd looks, including from Jazz. No one bothers to pause the movie even though everyone’s attention is now on him as she quirks an eyebrow at him, “what do you mean by that? Sure my little brother can move too quietly or too quickly, and his still too skinny and pale, but I wouldn’t call him possibly inhuman looking”.
Danny points at his face, “I’m pretty sure if I looked legit freaky Dash would mock me relentlessly for it”.
Bassel is baffled, are these people just… used to him so much they don’t notice? And Dan’s just looking to the side snickering meanly, Bassel almost gets the feeling the man knows what he’s talking about. Bassel looking at each of them, “you’re telling me you guys don’t notice his skin looks like weirdly glassy play dough? Or his eyes are too big? That his teeth don’t fit in his face? He’s weighs less than a bag of potatoes!”. They all look very confused and turn to stare at Danny, who shrinks down a little awkwardly; Dan’s laughing is full on guffaws now, head tilted over the back of the chair that apparently sometimes screams. When Elle points at her own face and grins too wide, Bassel nods, “yes, you too. Less than, your uh, dad but still”, gesturing at everyone, “honestly all of you have hair that’s too strongly coloured, overly vibrant eyes, and no skin texture”, scratching his head, “I thought my girl just had a spot on skin care routine and impressive hair colouring technique that she refused to share”. Jazz fiddles with her orange hair a little, making him feel a little guilty. Bassel coughing, “not that I dislike that”. Dan barks out another loud laugh.
Jazz eventually hurling another random Bassel doesn’t know what at the man, “stop laughing! Us looking weird to normal people isn’t funny! You jerk!”.
Oh okay. So they don’t know. That was weird? Does no one in town comment on it? Does no one even notice it? Was everyone in this town that strange??? Or was everyone in town strange looking themselves?
Dan huffing another laugh, “oh it very much is! Especially because I already knew and did in fact tell you morons”, waving a hand around leisurely, “not my fault you shits thought I was just being an ass”. Bassel guesses it makes sense that the strangest and most startling looking -and feeling, frankly- one would be the one to notice.
Danny looks offended, “and how do you know this? The fuck Dan”.
The man scowls meanly, it’s very mocking, “oh I don’t know, maybe because I spent ten years travelling the globe randomly killing people? Maybe that’s it? I’m the only fucker here who’s done enough travelling to tell people find this face”, gesturing at his face and smirking, “alarming, and not just because I was usually either threatening to kill or trying to kill them”.
“What? you walked around with that face?”.
“Eh I got bored of the other one sometimes”.
Bassel is choosing to ignore part of this conversation, otherwise he’s not going to get over his girlfriend being related to what’s sounds like more ‘mass murderer’ than ‘single murderer’. Not to mention that he doesn’t want to know what is meant by the murderer having different ‘faces’. He doesn’t want to know if this man’s a real life leather face.
Elle pouts, “I travel a lot, no one tells me I look weird?”.
“Sis, you’re a kid, all little brats look fucking weird”.
The little girl giggles, earning a fond but very quick look from the large man. At least it seemed like he actually liked his family maybe.
Danny gestures at nothing and scowls at Dan, “Dan, you’re a six foot eleven wall of muscle with a face that’s default setting is evil smirk, of course people think you look scary!”.
“Oh people found me disturbing when I was wearing your skin too, mom”.
“Fuck you”.
Bassel forces himself not to ask how that’s even possible. ‘Wearing the skin’ of someone who still has their skin is impossible and not to mention the size difference, it wouldn’t fit; why is he even thinking about the logistics of this?!? Ew!
Jack scratches his head, “while I can’t say I see, I doubt you’re making stuff up”, looking at Maddie, “all the ecto you think?”.
The mother nods to herself, tapping her chin, “there’s not much else it could be, especially if our oddness is merely tamer versions of Danny’s and the grandkids”.
Bassel is lost, looking to Jazz and quirking an eyebrow. She cringes, “Danny has a very intense version of ecto-contamination”. She says that like it’s not extremely weird and concerning.
Danny chuckling, “if by that you mean I’m fucking half dead then yeah”.
Jazz swats him, “Danny! For zones sake!”.
“Hey!”, Danny sticks his arms out nearly smacking multiple people, “if I’m that freaky looking then there really isn’t a point, Jazz!”.
“I hate that you’re right!”, Jazz huffing while Bassel is officially realising that everyone just shouts at each other in this house, regardless of if they’re happy or mad or excited. Her turning to him, “my brother’s a bit dead”.
Bassel absolutely squawks at that, “what”. And then suddenly the kid’s glowing and his eyes are green, the actual hell? Elle leaning forward, sticking her tongue out and pointing at her face, also with green eyes and glowing. Bassel cautiously and slowly eyeing Dan, his eyes flash blood red and yup, glowing.
Okay. Alright. He’s in a room full of glowing people, what is he supposed to do with this? He officially thinks that anyone who has ever found out someone else wasn’t quite human in a movie was way too damn calm about it!
Jazz winces a little, she can tell her boyfriend has absolutely no idea how to react to his girlfriend's glowing family members, so she pats his shoulder, “is it weird? Yes. Am I glad my brother is only partially dead? Absolutely. Don’t worry about it?”.
He blinks owlishly at her, clearly freaked out, “it’s kinda hard not to worry about my sister having dead family members kicking around and her whole family including her being contaminated by ghost stuff enough to alter their appearances”.
Then Danny goes and opens his stupid mouth, holding up a still glowing finger, “technically, Dan’s the only one that’s totally dead. Me and Elle are still alive-ish”.
Bassel blinks again and asks something that Jazz really wishes he didn’t, “and why’s he the dead one?”, in a squeaky voice; the movie is absolutely long forgotten at this point.
Dan’s smirk is flat out evil and before anyone can stop him he responds, “oh only because I got my human shit torn out and disemboweled it. Ate half my uncle and flew off into the sunset”.
Bassel leans so far away he nearly falls off the couch, “what. The. Fuck”. While everyone else, even Elle, chastisingly shouts, “DAN FENTON!”, at the smirking full ghost. The tact on that jerk! The only tact he had was evil tact, that sought chaos and destruction!
“OoOooOOoOO, full name, I’m So HuRt. I’m So UtTeRlY aPoLoGeTiC. Truly”. The ass doesn’t mean a damn word of that and he wants them to know it. He smirks, “if we want to play that game I can just show him what I really look like”.
Danny standing up and pointing at Dan, “do that and I’m souping you”. Dan puts an offended hand to his chest and scowls deeply.
Bassel sputters, “I am never asking you people questions again, oh my god”.
Jazz can’t even blame him, even if she knows he eventually will ask more questions about, well, their everything. It was hard not to after all. She rubs his arm, “you really shouldn’t think about it too hard or worry, yes we’re used to it and know the admittedly weird science behind it”, cringing, “even if apparently only one of us was aware none of us looked normal”.
He blinks harshly, swallowing, “uh huh. You guys have a bathroom, right. Because I definitely need to decompress by staring into the mirror for a concerning length of time”.
Not good. Jazz wincing and getting up, “I’ll show you”, then pausing and eyeing Danny, “is the bathroom actually clean”.
Danny tilts his head and grimaces, also not good, “maybe don’t open the lower left cupboard”.
“Right”. Damn it, Danny. Pulling Bassel along as they head upstairs, “okay so listen to him and don’t get curious. He might have spilled something and not cleaned it so it’s gotten moldy. Or he shoved goddamn bandaging under there. Or there’s a ghost trapped in the cabinet”.
“I… kind of hate that I’m hoping it’s the first one”.
“Well considering it’s Danny, it’s probably the second. He gets injured a lot and has a non-existent biohazard safety mindset”, gesturing at the open bathroom, “anyway, here”.
… “is Danny why the shower floor looks bloodstained, wait never mind I don’t want to know”.
She gives him a supportive shoulder pat as he goes in and close the door almost hard. This… this has not gone well. At least he hasn’t ran out screaming? Yet anyways.
She heads back down stairs, pointing at Dan, “I’m blaming you, because it is your fault”, pointing at Danny, “and yours, because you somewhat made him”.
“Hey! He made himself!”.
“And he is you so my point still stands”.
“Jazz!”.
Jazz doesn’t really care that being reminded of that fact bothers her little brother, him and his off shoots have basically been terrorising her boyfriend. He should be bothered! “I am gonna be so mad at you if he decides this is too much”. At least everyone winces apologetically, except Dan who just glances away which was the closest he usually came to a ‘sorry’.
Jack rubs his neck, “sorry, Jazzy-pants. Want us to bring your guy’s stuff in?”.
She scowls, she’s not going to effectively trap her boyfriend here by doing that, “considering I don’t even know if he wants to stay here now, no dad”. Her dad winces further, good.
She sighs, flopping back down on the couch, “let’s just rewind and finish the movie. Like normal people”. Dan snorts at her and she glares bloody murder at him.
Okay. So. His girlfriend’s family are not ‘weird’, rather they are actually insane and physically impossible. Which is extremely not okay. But he likes Jazz, a whole lot actually. A ton even. She was odd but not insane or too physically impossible; and she didn’t live here, he wouldn’t have to see these people -especially Dan- often. A handful of times a year at best right now. Hell she might be annoyed enough to ban that Dan guy from being within ten feet of him; Bassel would not complain about that. Her parents at least seemed harmless, over enthusiastic and strange but acceptable. However he knew for a fact that him liking or not liking her parents didn’t mean much, she’s made it clear that she doesn’t think too highly about their opinions. Her brother though, he knows she loved that kid, sometimes she made it sound like she was more his parent than their parents were. Said brother was half freaking dead. Because apparently ghosts are a real thing and can just walk around the living like it’s nothing… and also apparently being half alive was a remotely possible thing. Also Danny, a teen, has kids. Two kids. One who’s clearly older than him and committed a likely extremely disturbing amount of murder.
Well…
They’re not Jazz’s kids. So he, maybe? won’t have to deal with them much. Jazz seemed surprised they were even here after all. Alright. Okay. He can deal with this.
That’s frankly a lie.
But he can at least manage and pretend he’s cool. Then, when they go back to uni he can have a mild freak out in his dorm room and their relationship can go back to sort of normal. He is absolutely going to ask about her ‘ecto-contamination’? later though, and if those stories about her ‘communing with ghosts’ were actually true and was she just talking to her brother or was she also talking to other ghosts.
Pushing himself off of the sink he’s been leaning on and slapping his cheeks, “you got this, man”. His reflection does not copy him.
What the actual hell is wrong with this place? Besides the apparent portal to the afterlife in the goddamn lab. How did these people break a mirrors ability to mirror? Shaking his head and pulling out his phone, okay he’s looking these people up, like he goddamn should have already.
…
Okay yeah they just are fully public with the ghost hunting thing huh? That must have been fun to grow up with. Jazz did say she tried to separate herself as much as possible from them as a teen, this is absolutely why. And apparently her brother saved an entire species of gorillas? By… climbing in one’s cage… so he’s just always been crazy and reckless, got it; but hey, at least the gorillas aren’t extinct now.
Bassel’s not surprised that looking up Elle gets him nothing, she’s a young child after all, but Dan? For a supposed murderer there isn’t even a single result about him. No wiki article, no victim impact statements, no mugshot, no public court files, no morally questionable serial killer podcasts, nothing. Weird. But he’s absolutely not asking the man about that, because he doesn’t know what kind of nightmarish response he’s going to get. Considering his age -aka, being literally older than his freaking parent- it might be some sort of time travel thing, which he mildly hates the entire notion of, especially since he’s not going to claim he knows what’s possible or not now.
After all, his reflection is still just ‘standing’ there staring at him while he’s been pacing back and forth staring at his phone. He’s not googling his girlfriend of course, that would be creepy, but what about the ‘Phantom’ thing? That… that gets a lot of results. Freaky ones.
…
So…
Apparently…
This town has a goddamn dead superhero? That’s a freaking colour inversion of Danny with green eyes and also named Danny? Which there is no way that’s ’just a coincidence’. So Jazz’s brother is kind of dead, has an ‘arch enemy’, and is almost definitely some kind of dead superhero. Cool. That’s… that’s not completely insane at all. He officially feels like he’s in a knock off marvel movie with a secret identity reveal and everything.
And oh hey! Girl in red on a jet sled, Danny’s girlfriend, also definitely a superhero. Cool. This is Hell.
… Based on all the photos and videos of full blown super powered fights this town might actually be part of hell or an afterlife full of apparently violent dead people. No wonder Jazz was leery of him so much as visiting her home town, nonetheless her parents. A google of the stats shows that these ‘ghost attacks’ happen multiple times a day and it looks like they sometimes did a concerning amount of damage. Also the mayor is that Vlad guy? The evil uncle god father arch enemy guy. Why? How even? … It was probably mind control. Oh he kind of hates this.
Also though, how the heck was this town and this whole ghosts and a death dimension situation, not known about world wide?!? If it’s some kind of government suppression of information he’s going to scream; not actually scream just… internally scream. You’d think this would be something that’s in national news, an actual real life superhero and villains, another dimension, the afterlife… Okay perhaps being super public about an after life could cause some issues among religious groups.
Then his reflection growls at him.
Nope.
He’s not dealing with that.
He’s out of the bathroom in two seconds flat, practically rushing down the stairs, wheezing. Everyone, but Dan, is on the couch again apparently finishing the bird movie; Dan is just outright nowhere to be seen which he is a-okay with. “My reflection growled at me”. Jazz buries her head in her hands, this was obviously not how she wanted this first meeting to go; it wasn’t how he wanted it to go either, but he didn’t know it going this absurdly was even possible. Meanwhile Maddie and Danny shout, “JACK!”, clearly thinking the mirror is his fault. Wasn’t something about him going to the mirror dimension mentioned earlier? or is he just starting to come up with his own crazy possibilities.
The large man runs his neck, laughing, “whoops! Must have grabbed the wrong mirror!”.
“Wrong? Mirror?”. Damn right, he said he was done asking these people to explain literally anything.
Bassel eyeballing Jazz’s dad as he gets up and begins to move upstairs, “ah yeah, Danny-boy head-butted the old one so it had to be replaced, musta got the new mirror and the dimensional mirror mixed up!”.
Why is this kid head-butting mirrors and why does this family just have a ‘dimensional mirror’? Ugh, Bassel’s poor head. Jazz apparently has these same questions, or one of them at least, as well as the willingness to ask it. “Little brother? Why were head-butting the mirror? Young Blood isn’t trying to give you another nervous breakdown, is he?”; Bassel can practically feel the worry in her voice.
Danny scowls dramatically, “I’m fine, Jazz. No need to psycho babble me, Ancients. Skulker just decided that tooth brushing time was good head shooting time, I confiscated his right arm for that and he didn’t get it back for three days”, the kid looks proud of himself, “he hasn’t attacked me in the bathroom since”.
Bassel blinks, slightly horrified, Danny what? stole some… ghosts arm? as punishment? “Uh, I’m pretty sure a supposed superhero teen is not supposed to go around stealing people’s limbs”. Jazz groans very loudly and very tiredly.
Danny laughs, “oh! You looked me up huh? Don’t worry, I only took his mecha bodysuits arm, not his actual real arm”.
That’s… stranger but better. Then Elle pipes up, “even if he had it wouldn’t matter! See-”.
“NO!”.
Bassel is not going to ask why Danny just grabbed both of her wrists and glared at her. He has absolutely learned that if someone, or everyone, shouts ‘NO’ at someone else then he absolutely did not want to know why. Instead he watches his girlfriend get up and smile very awkwardly at him, he’s unpleasantly aware of the fact that her teeth were probably whiter than they should be, “you okay? Are we good?”.
“Absolutely not, but yes, yes we’re alright. I am absolutely not visiting here frequently though. And if Dan ever shows up anywhere near my dorm I’m hitting him with a frying pan immediately”.
She actually chuckles at that, “that’s fair, I tried to shoot him when we first met and tried to hit him with the creep stick the second time”. He’s not going to ask what a creep stick is, but he’s glad she had the sense to hit someone who’s clearly dangerous. “But call if he does do something that stupid, which he shouldn’t if he knows what’s good for him. He will only laugh if you hit him with a frying pan”.
Maddie shaking her head and getting up, “I’ve done that a time or two, he has a habit of trying to sneak food or add poisons just to see if he can get away with it”. Bassel doesn’t have words to express how concerning that is. “And I’m sorry this hasn’t been the best impression, it’s also unfortunately not the worst either though”. Oh. This could be worse? How? Blowing up the house? Hospitalising him? Probably!
Elle sticks a star sticker on him, “congratulations! For passing the weirdness tolerance test!”, looking back at Danny, “am I allowed to try and bite him now?”.
“No, you little shit”, Danny grumbling, “teething preteens are the worst”.
Wasn’t teething supposed to be something babies did? He wants to ask but nope, he’s not going there.
Then Jack’s voice startles him a good bit, “Your reflection must have been staring at you for a while there, buckeroo! Had to really shake it to get him to go away”.
Man was Jack ever a loud guy. Bassel chuckling awkwardly, “yeah I was a little preoccupied and choosing to ignore the insane broken mirror”.
Dan has apparently come back, “ha! You’re lucky your reflection didn’t try to reach through the mirror and strangle you”.
Bassel is not asking. Bassel is not asking. Bassel is not asking. But note to self, do not ignore sentient reflections that move of their own accord. Jazz even shakes her head, “okay that wasn’t the smartest decision you could have made, but I get it”, and she gestures at the couch, “want to finish the movie? Then we can get our stuff in?”.
He sighs, tired, “yeah, yeah, that’s… that’s good”. Just let everything else be normal, or as normal as it can be with the literal walking dead being in the room. Elle grabs him and Jazz before dragging them to the couch, the child is way too strong.
Jazz can practically feel the relief in her bones when they make it through the rest of the movie without anymore incidents, everyone getting up and Jack grabbing a scowling disgruntled Dan to help bring stuff inside. Dan grumbling, “I feel the need to point out that Danny is just as strong as me even if he looks like a damn beanpole”.
Danny shouting, “you mean I’m stronger than you! And hey! I’m lean!”, after them.
Bassel quirking an eyebrow at Jazz, her shaking her head with a small smile, “ectoplasmic energy counts for more than physical appearances with ghosts, my little brother might still be a child and thusly hasn’t hit his growth spurt yet, but he can absolutely take his kid down a peg or two”. And he absolutely loved to pester Dan about that fact, while Dan loved to pester Danny about still being ‘puny’.
Dan growls from the garage doorway, “You lot would be dead otherwise and you know it”.
Jazz rolls her eyes, “maybe at one point but we’ve grown on you, don’t lie mister”. The full ghost only grumbles incoherently in response.
Of course her dad tries to open the trunk before Bassel can unlock it, resulting in him picking the car up, Dan having to catch the car when the trunk opens taking dad’s grip with it. Dan chuckling, “normally I’m the one who’s into picking up vehicles”.
Dad chuckling himself, “yeah and you usually throw them when you pick them up!”.
Bassel shakes his head as the full ghost sets his car on the ground fully, “do not throw my car, do all of you just have super strength”.
Jazz facepalms when her dad tilts his head like a puppy, “little cars like these aren’t that heavy though? I could have lifted this back in my college years even”. Bassel looks baffled when she glances at him.
Jazz sighing at her dad, “Dad, your parents were ghost hunters too, you’ve probably been contaminated your whole life, like me and Danny”.
“Oh right! Ha! I forgot about that! Silly me!”.
Bassel shakes his head in disbelief but takes a few of his things instead of letting the two much larger men carry everything. Jazz makes zero attempt to help Dan with any of it, her sticking her tongue out him instead. He snickers at her, “really taking the higher road here, aunty”.
“Like you’re one to talk”.
“The high road and I are incapable of coexistence”.
“Exactly”.
At least it seems like Bassel is fondly amused with their bantering, instead of disturbed, as they move from the garage and up to her old room/the spare room. Her eyeing her mom while the three men set things down in the room, “so where are Elle and Dan staying?”.
Dan scoffing from inside the room, “you say that like I sleep at all”. She studiously ignores him.
Her mom humming, “why don’t you ask Elle? Because I’m not sure”. And Elle pops out from behind Maddie, “we’re not. Grandma Pandora’s supposed to give me some sword fighting lessons!”, pouting, “and I gotta practice if I ever want to beat pops someday”.
Danny can be heard shouting, “like that’ll ever happen!”, from somewhere; and the little missy is off like a rocket after her dad probably to tackle him.
Dan growling, “if you try to make me organize your guys shit I’m going to intentionally remove every screw, battery, and third paper from everything I can get my claws on”, before Jack laughs and pushes the ghost out of the room. Dan eyeing Jazz, “and if you’ll remember, I’m not ‘allowed’ to be out past sunset”.
Ah right, she did actually forget about that. “Serves you right”. As he heads down and back to the living room he sticks his tongue out at her, it absolute is forked this time.
Bassel popping his head out of the room, “you want your studies and research notes left on the night stand? And remind me why we’re staying inside this strange house instead of a hotel, there’s… mold with eyes I think, in the corner”. Her wincing, “because the hotel has mandatory waivers and doesn’t allow Fenton’s”, then nodding up at him, “yeah my stuff’s fine there, don’t put anything in the drawers, sometimes stuff just vanishes inside for an unknown reason”. Based on him ducking back in immediately, he had in fact put some stuff inside a drawer and the sigh of relief and her dads light hearted laughter tells her that whatever it was was still there. At least some things were going right.
And then it promptly goes horribly wrong as soon as Bassel comes out to go back downstairs with her. A massive black star speckled ghost phasing their way down through the goddamn ceiling, Bassel going stalk stiff while Jazz dashes up the steps with him in her grasp and ducks both of them into the bathroom. Bassel sticking his head out of the bathroom while crouching just like her and whispering, “was that thing a freaking ghost? What the hell, babe”.
Her basically hissing at him, “yes, and a very powerful one”. Bassel grumbling, “I think today hates us”. She whole heartedly agrees.
Meanwhile the ghost is shouting, “PHANTOM! I request your aid!”, and from her and Bassel’s bathroom vantage point it looks like the ghost just got punched in their masked face -based on them being pushed back out of the kitchen entry way with a hand to their face- by Dan, who stomps out snarling, all fang but thankfully still human-looking, “wrong one, you sleepy ass”.
Starry sleep ghost… starry sleep ghost… ah right! Their name was Nocturne right? Her little brother did try to get her to remember the names of the more important ghosts after all. “Nocturne?”.
Oh she shouldn’t have said anything. The ghost looks to her and ‘brightens up’ in that cruel looking way many ghosts do, them promptly stretching and looming their body up and head over her and Bassel, “ah, young Phantom’s brethren. Do you know as to where I can find the one that will not attempt to eat beings of ancient malevolence?”. Bassel is shaking and she’s worried he’s going to pass out.
Dan rams a clawed hand into the ghosts body, “I’m true malevolence, mother fucker. Get back here”.
Thankfully Danny -in his ghost form unfortunately- pops in before Dan can do something stupid, “Dan! Leave the freaking god of sleep alone! Oh my Ancients!”. Him pointing at Nocturne’s face as the ghost moves down to him completely ignoring Jazz and Bassel now, “what the zone, Nocturne? You can’t just bust into my lair core whenever you feel like it just because I don’t get enough damn sleep”.
The ghost holds up a finger, “ah but that is hardly the reason for my arrival, I have seemed to ‘fucked up’, as you would say, to an unfortunate degree”.
Danny sighs and sags his entire body, floating in the air, “ugh, what did you do?”.
“I acquired-”.
Danny interrupting immediately, “You mean stole”.
“I acquired some eternal gardenia from FungalLung, they have now beset my domain with pink dew and blood blossom seeds”.
“Why the actual crap would you steal from that split personality psycho? There’s a reason no one goes near that kids garden”.
“I had a need for such things, as someone-”.
“Oh no, no blame game bullshit outta you, shit ass”.
“Our king needs to be-”.
“Needs to be allowed to have a bit of goddamn fun and some breaks, that’s what he needs. Now play guide, you reckless starry blanket”, Danny eyeing Dan, “Dan. Let. Go”.
Dan flinching and doing as he’s more or less commanded to. Scoffing, crossing his arms, and moving back into the kitchen with a tense, “whatever”.
Bassel wheezes when the ghost and her brother disappear through the floor, Jazz standing up fully and pulling him along with, “great. Just great. Love it. What next? An invasion?”.
Elle hums, “I mean, I could ask mythic grandma if she’s up for one”.
Jazz and Maddie both pointing at her aggressively with matching, “absolutely not”’s. Making the girl giggle. Jazz looking back to Bassel, “I promise you’re okay and not about to get attacked. Are you feeling okay?”.
“I am ten seconds away from wanting to lay on the carpet and scream cry into it, and I am positive I need a shock blanket”.
At least she doesn’t even have to ask her mom to get one for her to rush off and do so, Jazz and Maddie herding him into the spare room wrapped up in a Fenton ghost proof shock blanket in record time. Jazz nodding softly at her moms apologetic look and gesturing for her to leave them be, dad following his wife out with an exaggerated wince.
She shuffles up next to him and rubs his arm from over the blanket, effectively side hugging him, “okay so you’ve properly seen your first ghost, and they were unfortunately one of the non-human ones; but, Nocturne is quite safe actually, more a neutral being than malicious”.
He nods a little.
“They do tend to harass my brother a lot since they care a lot about sleep and he doesn’t get nearly enough of it”, shaking her head and laughing lightly a little, “and yes, what Danny said is true, they are for all accounts and purposes the god of sleep”, sighing, “nearly every god worshiped through out history is real and, yes, a ghost”.
He swallows, pulling the blanket around himself more, “that’s… kind of insane and a lot”.
Jazz nods more so to herself, she had a hard time swallowing that herself as a teen, “I know. I still find it a bit baffling myself and it is extremely strange actually meeting any of them”.
“At… at least you actually seem weirded out. Everything… else doesn’t seem to be, uh, strange, to you”.
“I’m used to it, more than I’d really like to be. I definitely wi- would prefer if my family was more normal, even marginally. And I’d rather my brother not be wrapped up in all this the way he is. Even Dan and Elle often feel that way, even if they wouldn’t exist if he wasn’t involved so heavily in everything”.
“That’s, concerning, actually”.
Jazz pats his arm some, “they haven’t had the best existences”.
Dan then startles her, voice coming through the door, “and there’s the simple fact that everyone would be better off if I never existed”.
Jazz sighing to herself and looking to the door, “Dan that’s not true”.
“And that’s crap and you know it, don’t bullshit me Jazz”; it sounds like he’s stomped off. She’s… going to have to talk to him later.
Bassel shivers, “he’s got a lot of… issues, huh”.
Jazz sighing and nodding, closing her eyes, “if people tell you you’re a monster enough that becomes all that you are and healing becomes nearly impossible”, shaking her head and looking at him, he’s watching her intently, “Elle and Danny are good for him but his emotions don’t work like they’re supposed to because of what happened to him. He’s also partly being pissy because Danny genuinely scolded him. Anyone exerting their power over him tends to rile him up, whether he wants it to or not”.
“Part of him being a, uh, ghost?”.
She nods, “yup. Though I doubt talking about Dan is great for you right now”.
Bassel looks away and stares forwards, “no, probably not”, shaking his head and readjusting into the blanket, “… that, ghost, called your brother a king, didn’t they”.
Jazz shrugs, “he tires not to let it get to his head”.
He shakes himself a little, shaking his head slowly side to side, “yeah no, I’m not pushing. Though is that why he feels like death, the pressure of death at least, when he looks all black and white”.
“I… if he feels like that I’ve never noticed, sorry. But I was living with him when that change happened so it very well might have happened slowly, over time”.
“I guess that makes sense, it almost felt hard to breathe when his voice got… thick? at Dan”.
Jazz blinks, nodding immediately, “ah that’s actually a specific power he has. He mostly just uses it to get across that he’s not playing around, that he’s being serious”.
“Effective”.
Jazz nods slowly, letting him just breathe for a bit. She guesses she can understand how her brother can be a bit much, and it was definitely for the best that Bassel found out before a ghost crashed the party that her brother was a ghost himself. Then he speaks up again, “you’re entirely alive, right? I know you have a lot of spooky rumours that follow you and, like I said, you do look off. So, you’re not a ghost, right?”.
Jazz is tempted to laugh, instead she just shakes her head, “no, not even a little bit”.
“Good. That’s good”.
She just hums, nodding to herself. Waiting for him to work through his own head. Hearing about ghosts and seeing one were very different things, and an Ancient was hard to run into no matter what Danny said. She swears it’s like he forgets that he is in the same sort of classification as them. But at least it seems like Bassel’s handling it better than many do, better than most non-Amity Parkers at least. And then her dad goes and bangs the door open, nearly making Bassel fling himself off of the bed, “I made hot chocolate!”.
“Dad! He’s trying to wind down! Not get the zone scared out of him!”.
Her dad wincing, “ah sorry, Jazzy”, holding up the two cups, “hot chocolate?”, and tilts his head to the side.
Jazz sighs, side eyeing Bassel to make sure he isn’t going to freak out further before getting up and grabbing the cups, “I know you mean well, dad, but you’re still a very loud, very large, presence”.
He rubs his neck and laughs awkwardly, tilting sideways enough to look at Bassel. Giving her boyfriend a thumbs up, “you kids get settled, no funny business”.
“Oh my zone!”, she shoves him out with a foot, barely managing not to spill, and kicks her door shut. At least she manages to give Bassel the hot chocolate gently, “that man, I swear”.
Bassel genuinely laughs though, staring at the hot chocolate in his hands, “that was so utterly normal dad behaviour though, it’s grounding actually”.
Huh. Guess he actually did a good job. “Then I owe him an apology”. She makes her sip on the hot chocolate -that’s already been adequately cooled, thanks dad genuinely- loud, purely to encourage Bassel to drink his.
He notices the cooled temp too, “he waited till it was cool but not too cool, huh?”.
“Yeah. He’s a bit of a fool and reckless but he cares a lot and has a good heart that’s as big as he is”.
Bassel humming and they sit in silence for a bit until, “is your brother going to be okay? I know I called him a superhero and google seems to say he is but…”.
“Oh superhero is very accurate by human standards, but by ghosts he’s basically normal. Behaviour wise at least. Most of the time”, shaking her head, “he’ll be fine, even if it sounds like he might wind up with a case of Blood Blossom poisoning again”.
“Let me guess, ghost poison?”.
“Yup”.
“That’s absurd”, and he sips at his hot chocolate some, “he’s not going to vomit on the floor is he?”.
Okay she can’t help but laugh at that, shaking her head, “no, no, more coughing fits, aches and pains, and muscle spasms. That’s only because he’s alive enough to not be fully affected”.
“Hence why this powerful ghost came for his help?”.
Jazz nodding, “hence why a powerful ghost came for his help”, tilting her head, “though if I remember right pink dew is a psychedelic, so he also might be high when he gets back”.
“Oh god, I don’t think that kid should ever do drugs. Being near your entire family is like being on drugs”, sticking his arms out of the blanket and gesturing the mug around, “if I woke up in the morning and was told this was all one big fever dream, I’d believe it”.
“That’s understandable. Which is why the rest of the world considers this town a hoax”.
“Yeah I was wondering about that”, he downs a considerable amount of his drink, “you’d think the whole world would know about this. But I guess that would cause an uproar”.
Jazz sighing, almost annoyed, “yeah, the government does try to keep a lid on everything”.
“God damn it. Seriously? Ugh. I hate that I called ‘government cover up’ as the why”.
“There’s more to it but the rest is a lot weirder to the point where even I don’t want to think about it. It’s actually in the category of too weird”. Her little brother mind wiping an entire planet after fighting a reality controlling clown that turned roads into rollercoasters and made him fight a fire breathing clown and a lava pit full of rubber ducks, was so many steps past extremely strange.
Bassel full body cringing, “then I definitely don’t want to know. I do want to know if the stories about you communing with ghosts in your dorm are true though, and if your dorms is ‘contaminated’”, looking down at the cup, “and we should thank your dad for this. It was pretty good”.
Jazz blushes a little, “they’re true, even ghosts need therapy and I don’t need my license to give it to them. Sometimes it is just Danny though, and I’m good about keeping on top of decontamination, so don’t worry about that”, then eyeing him, he still seemed a little out of it and shocky but he was definitely better and really there was no normalising or rationalizing her family, “we’ll go down and thank him if you’re alright”.
He nods down at the cup and to himself, then looking at her with a nod and shaking smile, “I’m going to be digesting all of this for days at least, but I’m okay, babe. I absolutely hope today was the weirdest day of this week visit though”.
Jazz hums, standing up and offering him her mug-free hand, “well Dan will avoid Danny for at least a full day and Pandora will keep Elle busy for at least three; so there won’t be their chaos for a little while. As for literal gods showing up, that happens so seldom that I genuinely believe that Johnny’s Shadow might’ve snagged us some bad luck on the way into town”.
“Johnny’s Shadow?”.
Oh maybe she shouldn’t have brought that guy up. Wincing, “um, Shadow is basically Johnny’s pet or familiar? And Johnny is a ghost I may have dated? Once? He wasn’t genuine about it, and I was a dumb teenager who feel for his stupid motorbike and bad boy vibes”.
He actually snickers at her, before laughing fully and having to put the mug to the side to avoid spilling it, “I! Can not believe how stereotypical! That is!”, shaking his head and wheezing, eyeing her, “straight laced, honor role daughter falls for a motorcycle riding bad boy who’s all charm and bad intentions”.
She smacks his arm, “don’t be mean”, she doesn’t mean it at all though, “and Danny actually dated his girlfriend, she was trying to make Johnny jealous”.
“So what I’m getting here is ghosts are seriously just goddamn people, some are just very extra”.
“That’s one way to put it, yeah. Or they’re more like animals”.
Bassel blinks as they shuffle out of the room, “oh thats right, the green dog, where’d he? go?”.
Jazz snorts, “Danny sent him back to, well, the other side as it were; since mom was trying to taser him”. He was always so protective of that dog, even if said dog caused so many issues.
“That did seem a bit excessive”.
“Oh absolutely not, that dog is an actual menace”.
“I’m just going to take your word for it”.
They pop into the kitchen, she’s not surprised both Dan and Elle are gone. “Thanks for the hot chocolate, dad”. Bassel nodding, “yeah, it was really good, thank you”.
Her dad gives a goofy thumbs up, “glad you liked it!”. And she thinks everything might just be okay.
Bassel’s not really sure what to do about all of this. What he does know is that he’s better off not thinking about it and not trying to actually figure out what to do about all of this. He knows Jack Fenton cares a lot, makes good hot chocolate, he’s loud and big, and sure he’s a little off and too strong but he actually is like a puppy. Maddie Fenton was a lot softer, a lot more aware that her family was odd, more socially adept, but she was also more threatening and quick to fight; strange and off as well but she came off as more normal than her husband. Danny was… a nightmare, full stop, he’s a little worried what kind of friends the teen had that could put up with him. He was borderline actually insane, but from what Bassel saw on his google trip he also was a genuinely good kid. Bassel’s fairly certain that even if the world turned against him he’d still fight to save it; that took a level of sheer determination and heart that Bassel probably didn’t have himself. Elle was just a weird kid with too lax and strange of a parent, she might stand a chance at being almost normal someday. Maybe. Dan was an utter psycho though, he honestly can not think of a redeeming quality for that one. Doesn’t even want to try. Because excusing a murderer was not a line he feels like toeing. Jazz says Dan wouldn’t hurt any of them and does love them, but he’s not sold on that; it seemed more likely that she just didn't want to admit that the man was simply an awful unkind corrupt person.
And Jazz?
Well, his opinion honestly hasn’t changed. She’s still awesome, beautiful, caring, neurotic, a worrier, and slightly strange. He wants to think she’d be the same, though maybe less strange, even if she had a perfectly normal and average family. He wasn’t about to let odd family break them up, even if it was the kind of odd normally reserved for tv shows and the weird comics you find at truck stops that are filled with plot holes and questionable narrative direction. Either way he’s sticking around, so long as he can actually physically survive a week in this place.
Him watching as Danny, covered in some kind of clear goo or slime, kicks open the lab door with blown out pupils and a gnarly rash on half his face. “I! Never want to see! Another! Fucking! Person with me damn mushroom eyes again! I feel! Disgusting! Bleh!”, sticks out his tongue and then faceplants onto the floor groaning; the slime stuff splatters around a bit.
Bassel blinks, “um, should someone drag him up to the bathroom or something?”. Then the kid sprouts another set of goddamn arms and hands out of his back and proceeds to dragging himself across the floor and up the stairs with them. “Never mind, what the hell. I never want to see that again”.
Jazz sighs, rinsing out their cups, “he’s definitely high, don’t touch the goo trail”, moving to get the biohazards mop and bucket, “Danny can be a bit of a jerk with the body horror stuff but he usually reserves it for people he knows can handle it”.
“That’s… good. Dear god”.
And then… Danny??? runs up the lab stairs, “did anyone see a body of mine”.
Jazz throws the mop at him and yelps, “what the Zone! Danny?”, making faces at him and pointing at the stairs that still has a slime trial on it, “I have some serious questions”.
He blinks at her, “rogue duplicate”, and runs towards the stairs.
Jazz throws up her hands, “why would you use a power you suck at to deal with drug flowers!”.
“Because I didn’t want to personally deal with blood blossoms!”, the kid slips on the slime and smashes his face into the stairs, “fuck!”, then scramble crawls up the steps.
Bassel grabs the mop back up, ignores that it’s a weirdly hot pink colour, and hands it off to his girlfriend, “so that was a thing that happened”.
Jack starts wheeze laughing, sitting down at the kitchen table, “I hope his duplicate at least had fun!”.
Maddie grinning at the man, “I’m sure it did, Jack hon”.
Everyone, including Bassel, ignores the strange thumping going on upstairs as well as the… arm that comes hurling down the steps and dissolves into green goo against a wall. Staying here was going to give him some extremely unique and unfortunate nightmares, wasn’t it? At least now he gets why his girlfriend had such an easy time writing behavioural papers, she had multiple subject studies. He might even be able to bang out a paper or two on human adaptability after this. He absolutely was not doing any papers on people growing arms out of their backs though, that would get him sent on a grippy sock vacation.
Danny pops back in looking disgusted, “it’s dealt with”.
Maddie eyeing him cautiously, “is the hall way intact?”.
The boy sags and gives a truly crushed, “no”.
At this point, Bassel thinks that’s frankly expected. He also thinks that this household is cursed. At least Jack bounds up the stairs to start fixing the hallway and Bassel legitimately doesn’t care to check out the damage. Truly. Instead he’s just going to sit down with his girlfriend and, like her, mildly regret him coming and going into this ‘cold turkey’. Next time she warns him about something, he’s going to demand an explanation instead of brushing her worries off.
End.
Promtps: Jazz brings a date home for the first time. She didn’t exactly brief them on her family’s whole ghost thing. Antics ensue.
All the Fentons are a bit more ghostly than they know
The Phantom Clan (Dan, Dani, and Danny) is awake and about to make it everyone's problem
Jazz has a reputation at college for being spooky, it doesn't help that she communes with ghosts.
Uncanny valley is strong with Danny, most Amity Parkers don't realize it, but any time anyone from out of town sees him, they're in for a spook.
Nocturne fucked up BIG TIME and now needs help from the ghost kid.
#danny phantom#phandom#phic phight#phicphight24#phic phight 24#danny fenton#maddie fenton#jack fenton#jazz fenton#oc#dan#elle#dan's a little shit#danny's a little shit#elle's a little shit#outsider meets the fentons#chaos#oc's having a BAD TIME#my writing#have a fic suck my dick#phantomphangphucker#gothmoth#fan fic#phan phic
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The Only Way Out is Through (2)
Vlad overshadows Jack as part of a diabolical plan to get rid of him and win Maddie's heart. Unfortunately, the plan goes awry when Vlad finds he can neither take control over Jack, nor leave.
For the prompts: Vlad's murderous plan for vengeance goes awry when he finds himself unable to stop possessing Jack's body. Jack is very much still alive and complaining about the "insufferable spook inhabiting his form". He's forced to live Jack's life until he can come up with a solution. IF he can... [from Balshumet], Vlad wishes his friendships could go back to the way they were in college, little does he know that Jack and Maddie have similar sentiments. [from @half-deadmagicperson], and Jack wants to save Vlad, but he'll have to face the harm he caused twenty years ago in order to accomplish this. [from @kuzann]
Read also on AO3
Chapter 2: Forgive, but Never Forget (Chapter 1)
[Warning for past trauma, guilt and blame, and mentions of death]
Jack stared.
Before him, he saw the rotten specter who'd tried to possess him and gotten stuck... and he also saw his best friend, Vlad Masters. And he had no idea what to make of it.
"I... I don't understand," he said.
"Of course you wouldn't understand, you oaf," the Wisconsin Ghost sneered at him. "I can't stand to be near you for even another second."
Then, with a flourish of his cape, the ghost flew through the portal and was gone, leaving Jack alone with his friend and no less confused.
"Vlad, are you alright?" he asked. He reached out to his friend, only to have his hand slapped away.
"Don't touch me," Vlad said, though there was little bite to it.
He looked... sad. Sadder than Jack had ever seen him, and he was overcome with the desire to help, though he still hadn't the foggiest idea what he needed to help with.
"Vlad... what's going on?" he asked, trying and failing to put all the pieces together. It just didn't add up.
Had the Wisconsin Ghost possessed Vlad before coming to do the same to Jack? But... how would it have even done something like that? It was impossible. Still, Vlad would know better than Jack, he always did, so it probably would be best to ask.
"Did the Wisconsin Ghost overshadow you, too, Vlad?"
"I wasn't overshadowed by the Wisconsin Ghost," Vlad muttered darkly. "I am the Wisconsin Ghost. Or I was, anyway. Your device seems to have separated me from my ghost half, and now it has apparently abandoned me in its disgust. I hardly blame it for wanting to get away from you."
"I don't understand—"
"I told you, didn't I?" Vlad replied. "You killed me. I came to get revenge. It's as simple as that."
Jack shook his head, still as confused as when he'd first dispossessed himself of that ghost and seen Vlad standing there, if not more so. It certainly didn't seem like anything about this situation was at all simple. Actually, it seemed quite confusing. Most confusing of all, however, was that, even though Vlad's words should have sounded angry... he just sounded sad.
"Is... is something wrong, Vladdie?" Jack asked. "Are you alright?"
"Oh, I'm fine, why wouldn't I be? The man I once called friend betrayed me by stealing away the woman I love, sending me to an early grave in his incompetence, turning me into a half formed freak, neither truly human nor truly ghost, trapped me in his body for a week, and then split my two sides apart from each other, leaving me a broken man in every sense of the word."
Jack wasn't always the best at picking out sarcasm, but he didn't think Vlad was being genuine when he claimed he was fine. He actually sounded rather displeased and depressed about the whole thing. But Jack knew the cure for that.
"Come on, old chum," he said, grabbing Vlad by the arm despite his protests. "I'm taking you upstairs for some hot-chocolate and a warm blanket and we're going to talk this out."
Too bad Jack didn't know what to do about any of the rest of Vlad's problems. He didn't even know what Vlad was babbling about when he said half those things. Stealing away the woman he loved? Jack didn't know Vlad was dating anyone, or even crushing on anyone. And the only person Jack had dated since meeting Vlad was Maddie. By all accounts, it didn't make sense.
Once they got upstairs, Jack sat Vlad down on the sofa, grabbed a blanket from under the coffee table, and threw it over his friend's shoulders. It was a good blanket, thick, and warm, and soft. Jack knew because he'd knitted it himself, and he said as much. Then he told Vlad to stay put while he made some cocoa.
While Jack went through the familiar process of warming the milk, and mixing in the powder, and hunting down the marshmallows from wherever Maddie had hidden them this time, he tried to think over what Vlad had said before. There was something about a woman, and a half-formed... something, and a ghost? Or rather, not truly a ghost.
He felt like he was trying to put together a puzzle when he had only been given every other piece, and he'd gone and lost half the pieces he did have. It was, admittedly, rather frustrating, but Jack had done many puzzles with missing pieces—because he had a tendency to lose real puzzle pieces as much as metaphorical ones. He never gave up until he could see what the picture was, missing pieces or no.
When he returned to the living room with two cups of cocoa—he'd made one for himself while he was at it, just because—he saw Danny standing across from Vlad with an angry expression.
"I don't know what you're playing at, Vlad, but I want you out of here. Fly home. Now," he said in a low, growling tone.
"I would love to, Daniel, but alas... I don't have my powers." Vlad replied. "I won't be flying anywhere."
"What do you mean you don't have your powers?" Danny hissed. "You've been overshadowing my dad for like, a week, you're telling me you've lost your powers in the last ten minutes?"
"He used something called a 'ghost catcher' to separate us." Vlad shrugged.
Danny cringed hard. "Oh."
"Worked a bit too well, it seems. My ghost half flew off who knows where. I'm sure it'll come back for me when Jack's asleep."
"Fine, but I'm watching you, Vlad," Danny told him. "If you try anything funny, I'll dropkick you into the Ghost Zone and let you flail. Play nice with Dad, don't flirt with mom, and generally don't be such a fruit loop, or you're done here. Got it?"
"Loud and clear."
"Good."
With that, Danny turned around and left Vlad sighing behind him.
"What was that all about?" Jack asked as he entered the room, at last, two mugs of hot-cocoa in hand.
"You really have no listening comprehension, do you?" Vlad sighed, accepting a mug of cocoa, but not drinking it yet.
"Or maybe you haven't explained anything very well," Jack replied, starting to get a bit huffy.
Vlad couldn't put this all on him, when Vlad had just been saying things that didn't make any sense and expecting him to just know what they meant.
"Like that thing about me stealing the woman you love," Jack continued. "What's that all about? You never told me you were dating anyone. I didn't even know you liked anyone. And the only person I've dated since we met is Maddie, so how could I have stolen the woman you love?"
"Maddie is the woman I love, you utter buffoon," Vlad grumbled, then took a sip of his cocoa.
"Really?" Jack asked. "But... you never said anything. You never told me. How was I supposed to know?"
"I would have thought I was rather obvious about it."
"That's not fair," Jack replied. "With the number of times you've talked about how oblivious I am, it's not fair of you to assume I know things just because they're obvious. You know more than anyone how bad I am at noticing things. You're my best friend, if you liked Maddie, you should have told me."
"And what would you have done if I had? Hm?" Vlad asked. "Let me have her?"
"Well... no," Jack said obviously. "I couldn't do that. Maddie's a person, not something you can just have. If I knew you liked her too, we could have told her together and let her decide. At the very least I would have wanted us both to have a fair chance, instead of just making a move on my own. In fact, we can call her down now and ask her what decision she would have made."
"Really?" Vlad asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow. "And what happens if she says she would have chosen me?"
"Well... then maybe we can work something out," Jack said. "I'll always support Maddie a hundred percent, no matter what she chooses. And no hard feelings from either of us, whatever she says, right?"
"Very well."
Maddie was reading a book in bed when Jack went to get her, telling her Vlad was here and they had an important question to ask her. She grimaced.
"Something wrong?" Jack asked.
"No, nothing," she said, putting on a smile. "Oh, is that ghost still attached to you?"
"No, I used the ghost catcher to separate it, and it flew off into the Ghost Zone," Jack said. "Then Vlad showed up, which... still not sure how that happened, but I'm working on it."
"The ghost catcher!" Maddie put her palm to her forehead. "I can't believe I didn't think of that. I totally forgot we made a ghost catcher."
"Don't feel too bad. I forgot, too. Now come on, Vlad's waiting downstairs."
"Right...." Maddie got up and followed, but she was walking slower than usual.
When they got to the living room, she took a seat on the armchair and Jack sat next to Vlad and started to explain.
"Did you know V-man also had a crush on you in college?" Jack asked. He opened his mouth to continue his speech, but Maddie interrupted him.
"Yes, I knew," she said.
"You did?"
"It was obvious," she and Vlad said in unison.
As much as he loved them both, they sure knew how to make Jack feel stupid at times.
"You and Vlad were both ridiculously obvious about your crushes on me," she continued. "At the time, I wasn't sure if I liked either of you, or who I liked more, so I decided that whoever asked me out first, I would go with, and if it worked, it worked, and if it didn't, it didn't."
"So... what if we'd come to you at the same time to confess our feelings and asked you to choose?" Vlad asked. "What would you have done then? Who would you have chosen?"
Maddie's eyes widened in surprise. "I... I don't know."
"Humor us," Vlad insisted. "Imagine that that had been what happened."
"Well... I suppose there are two possibilities," Maddie said. "You were both very good friends, and I wouldn't want to alienate either one of you by favoring the other. Either, I would have turned you both down to avoid hurting one of you so much that I would have lost him. Or I would have proposed an experiment to go on one date with the both of you and see which one I liked better as a boyfriend and which I preferred as just a friend."
"You always were very scientifically minded," Vlad commented.
"If you'd done the experiment, who do you think you would have picked?" Jack asked. More curious about her thoughts than actually concerned about whether she loved him or Vlad more.
She sighed. "I don't know. I really don't. It would have depended entirely on how you both met the challenge. But I was young, and naïve in college. I'd never dated anyone before, and I didn't know what to look for to know if a relationship would last. What I would have done back then, with the knowledge and experience I had back then, it doesn't really matter now, in the present.
"Knowing what I know now, I know I chose the right guy back then, even if it was just coincidence, or luck... I'm sorry Vlad. You were a good friend then, and I wish our friendship hadn't fallen apart, but the way you are now... you're pushy, and controlling, and I couldn't be happy married to a man like that. I know you both love me, but Jack understands me, and supports me, and even though he's forgetful, he cares about me as a person, and doesn't just want me, like you seem to.
"I just... I just wish we could all be friends like we were before," she said. "Before the accident, before all the resentment, and the pain, and separation. Before you turned into such a creep," she tacked on. "I miss those days. But it's too bad we can't just ignore all the time that's passed, and everything that's happened."
"That would be nice, wouldn't it?" Vlad agreed miserably, then took another sip of his cocoa.
"Well why not?" Jack asked. "Why can't we just go back to the way things were between us in the old days?"
"Because you killed me!" Vlad snapped. "Because you were overeager, despite our warnings, and by your incompetence, made me spend two years in a hospital, suffering poor care and constant mistreatment in addition to extreme pain as the ecto-acne simultaneously killed and healed me.
"Did you know, That ectoplasm can do that? Kill someone and resurrect them at the same time? I found that out the hard way. Guess who else found that out the hard way, twenty years after I did?"
"Danny," Jack breathed out.
If the ghost really was somehow Vlad, like he'd claimed to be, then that thing he'd said about Jack killing his son and not even realizing it was starting to make sense.
"In the portal accident," he realized. Killed and resurrected at the same time.
"What?" Maddie asked.
Jack just shook his head. He couldn't explain now. He felt sick to his stomach. He couldn't even imagine how horrible something like that would be to experience. The way Vlad put it, it sounded like agony.
"Vlad... it was an accident," Jack said.
"That you caused."
"I never meant to—"
"But you did, didn't you," Vlad said. "You pressed that damned button and I didn't hear from you again for twenty years."
"We tried to visit you in the hospital, Vlad," Maddie said. "We tried so many times we were permanently banned from visitation there. They wouldn't let us see you because we weren't relatives. We didn't even know if you'd survived."
"And what about after?" Vlad asked. "After I left the hospital, I became a millionaire. I was all over the news. Why didn't you reach out then?"
"I tried!" Jack told him. "Your receptionist said she was told to screen all calls from me."
"You killed me," Vlad repeated. "Why the hell would I take your calls?!"
"He's only trying to say that we're not the only ones to blame for losing touch," Maddie intervened, leaning forward, though she didn't have the reach across the coffee table to put herself between them. "You shut us out because of your bitter resentment. How were we supposed to reach out to you when you put a wall between yourself and us?"
A wall. That was a perfect metaphor, Jack decided. Ever since they'd reconnected with Vlad, it had felt like there was a brick wall between them, as much as Jack tried to ignore it, and pretend it wasn't there, even he wasn't so oblivious that he didn't notice.
It felt like a Cask of Amontillado situation, except that Vlad was both the one who'd built the wall, and the one trapped behind it, isolated, stuck, and suffering. Jack had burst through many a wall, but he couldn't break down this one. He wanted to help his friend, to save him... he just didn't know how.
"I... I'm sorry, Vlad," Jack said.
It didn't feel like the right thing to say after everything, after what he'd done, intentionally or not. Especially now that he realized the true extent of the consequences of his poorly-thought-out actions. It wasn't strong enough to express his remorse, or tangible enough to fix the damage, but he'd realized, out of nowhere, that he'd never actually said it.
In all these years, he'd never actually apologized. Or, if he had, he didn't remember, which wasn't exactly unlikely. Still, it couldn't do any harm to say it again, if he had said it at all.
"I know I can be overzealous, and clumsy, and thoughtless," he continued. "I didn't choose to be like this, I don't do it on purpose, but I know I do it, and I'm sorry. I don't know what I can do to make it up to you, but say the word and I'll do it."
"You could give me Maddie—"
"No, he couldn't," Maddie cut in sharply. "I am not something that can be kept or given away. I thought I already made myself clear about all this."
"Worth a shot."
"Wasn't," she scowled.
"I can't do that," Jack said. "But I will try to do better. Jazz is always suggesting things I can do to help with my forgetfulness, and I never remember to try them, but I'll work with her to start doing that. I'll find ways to stop me being so impulsive. And I'll try to think more. You're always getting on my about how I don't think enough."
"That'll be a real challenge for you," Vlad replied.
"I know," Jack replied with a short laugh. "But I'm willing to do it. Whatever else you are, dead, alive, even a ghost—you're my best friend. And I hurt you, and I want to make amends. If you'll let me."
Vlad looked down his nose at Jack, and sipped his cocoa once more. Jack realized he hadn't even touched his own drink during all this. It was probably lukewarm by now.
"I'll consider it," he said finally. Then he put his drink back down on the table and added, tersely, "It's late, you should go to bed. I'm sure I'll be gone in the morning. I'd like to be left alone for a while... to think."
"Of course," Maddie said. "Come on, Jack, let's leave him be. I'm sure we've bothered him more than enough for one evening."
She stood, and took Jack by the hand to lead him upstairs to their room.
"So... what exactly happened?" she asked once they were alone in their bedroom and Jack was changing into his pajamas. "Why was Vlad doing here? And what happened to the ghost that tried to overshadow you and got stuck? And what did you mean about Danny and his accident with the portal?"
"Slow down, Maddie, I can only answer one question at a time," Jack replied. "I'll start with Vlad and the ghost. Vlad was the ghost."
"What?"
"When he said the ecto-acne killed him and brought him back at the same time..." Jack trailed off to swallow back the discomfort at that mental image. "I think it made him a ghost... but also not a ghost?"
"What, like... a half-ghost?" Maddie asked, he eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
Jack imagined he must look like that pretty often. Confused, that is. He knew he didn't look anything like his wife.
"I guess so," he agreed. "When I used the ghost catcher to get rid of the ghost possessing me, it separated me from him, but it also separated Vlad's human self from his ghost self. That's what he said, anyway. Then his ghost self said he couldn't stand to look at me and flew into the portal."
"Rude."
"What do you expect from a—uh..."
Jack had been about to say 'what do you expect from a ghost', but he reconsidered when he remembered who he was talking about. We half-ghosts completely different from regular ghosts? Or were he and Maddie completely wrong about ghosts altogether.
"He was just upset," he said instead. "I think he'd been poking around in my memories, and he saw some things that upset him. He confronted me about my brother."
"I didn't know you had a brother," his wife said.
"I don't anymore," he looked down at the floor and tried not to recall to much and upset himself. "His name was Johnny, but he died falling through ice when we were kids. I... I was supposed to be watching him at the time, but I got distracted."
"Oh, Jack..."
"It was a long time ago," Jack said before she could try to comfort him and only made him linger on the guilt he still felt. "We all made mistakes that day. I should have learned from mine, and not let anyone else get hurt because of my negligence, but I guess I didn't learn well enough."
"How old were you?" she asked gently.
"I was ten," he replied. "Johnny was seven."
"I'm sorry."
He shook his head. It wasn't something he liked remembering, let alone talking about.
"You had other questions," he said, redirecting the subject back to what they'd been talking about before. "I'm sorry, I can't remember what they were...."
"Oh, Danny," Maddie said. "You said something about Danny when Vlad was telling us about what happened to him. And his accident with the portal?"
"Right... I think Vlad was trying to tell me that Danny was like him. Half ghost, I mean," Jack explained. "He told me I'd killed Danny, before I knew it was him. And then he said that thing about ectoplasm and—"
"Someone else found out the hard way, twenty years after he did..." Maddie realized. "Oh, Danny."
"Should we say something to him?" he asked.
She shook her head, although he wasn't sure if she actually meant 'no', or if she was just thinking.
"Why wouldn't he tell us?" she asked.
"Maybe... for the same reason as Vlad?" Jack guessed. "Maybe he blames us for what happened."
"Do you think so? Or maybe... maybe he doesn't feel safe telling us?"
"What?"
"We're ghost hunters," Maddie reminded him. "What if he's worried that our feelings for him might change if we knew he was a ghost."
"Oh no... what should we do?"
"I think... we should let him come to us when he's ready," she said. "Can you imagine how scared he might be if we brought it up to him now? We should wait for him to feel comfortable telling us, and in the meantime we can have some fun reexamining all the research we've ever done on ghosts in order to draw new, differently biased conclusions so Danny doesn't think we think he's evil just because he's half ghost. If he's half-ghost."
"And if he's not, we can reexamine our research so Vlad doesn't think we think he's evil," Jack enthused. "Should we start tonight?"
If reexamining their research and studying ghosts even more carefully than before was the worst thing that came out of this whole situation, than they really were on easy street.
"No, let's start tomorrow," Maddie suggested. "I don't think we should bother Vlad any more for tonight, and no offense, sweetie, but I don't think you'll be able to sneak past him to the lab without being noticed."
"I am pretty hard to miss."
"So come to bed for now, Jack," she said, patting his side of the bed invitingly. "A good night's sleep is a good start."
"Right you are, Maddie!"
He climbed into bed, and the two of them fell asleep cuddled up in each other's arms.
—
That night, Vlad paced the lab, waiting for his ghost half to decide to come get him. Lousy, good-for-nothing spook, leaving him behind. He'd examined the ghost catcher, and discovered that, for whatever reason, one of the sides separated people from ghosts, and the other side merged the two. Why it would be designed that way, Vlad couldn't fathom, but it was certainly convenient.
While he waited, blanket still hung round his shoulders because it really was quite comfortable, he considered all the things he'd learned, both from Jack's memories, and from the conversation he'd had with his two old friends upstairs.
They missed the old days as much as he did. All three of them wanted their friendship to go back to how it had been. But they all knew now why it couldn't.
Perhaps... perhaps that didn't mean they could never be friends again, even if it could never be like back in college. Perhaps it wasn't too late to forgive and move on.
Finally, Vlad's ghost half returned, as expected. They weren't meant to be separate, after all.
"There you are," Vlad said. "Come now, we can use the device that separated us to merge us back together."
"Good," Plasmius replied. "I scared the butler half to death when he saw me."
Together, they went through the merge side of the ghost catcher.
It wasn't as seamless as Vlad would have hoped. It seemed his ghost half had taken much of his anger with him when they'd been separated, and having it back made him less willing to forgive.
But the reflection stayed with him to. The sting of Maddie telling him off for being possessive and controlling, of both her and Jack pointing out that he wasn't treating her like a person, but a prize. Was he really that awful? He'd never thought of her that way before he'd developed feelings for her.
Perhaps it would be better to just let those feelings go, after all. She'd made her decision, and she didn't regret it, or want anything other than she got. Maybe he should cut his losses and give up before it further ruined a good friendship on the verge of rekindling.
Perhaps he should forgive Jack, too.
He would never be able to forget what had gone down between them. For years he'd tried to erase those bad memories from his head, of his accident, and his long hospital stay, and his slow and painful death. He'd even gone so far as to get plastic surgery to remove the pitted scars all over his skin, but even though he couldn't see them, he couldn't forget them either.
Jack was giving him a second chance, even though he'd tried to kill him, and steal away his wife and children, and even though he was a ghost, the very thing Jack hated most in the world. Perhaps Vlad could extend the oaf the same courtesy... for old times' sake.
There was much to consider as he flew, whole again, through the Ghost Zone to his own portal, and his home.
#dp#danny fenton#danny phantom#jack Fenton#vlad masters#vlad plasmius#maddie fenton#angst#amends#college trio#dp college buddies#fic#things i wrote#phic phight#phic phight 24
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Ghosts of Those We Once Knew
a phic phight fill for @silverwing013
Warnings for: implied child abuse, accidental death, dead parents
**💚**
“Oh yeah?! And what are you going to do about it?!” Aunt Alicia snapped into the phone.
There was a sound on the other end of the line, but Danny couldn’t make it out all the way. There was another solution, but it was…risky; it would require going into his aunt’s bedroom— a well known, forbidden domain— to pick up the only other phone hooked up to the landline.
…There was no other time to find out what Aunt Alicia was putting off. It had to be worth the risk. Danny crept up the worn carpeting of the stairs, hoping that his sneakiness would hold up to Alicia’s discerning eyes and ears.
Her bedroom was dark. Carpeted. …Pink.
Whatever. Danny took a deep breath, lifted the phone off the hook, and tried not to breathe too loudly into the mouthpiece.
“You have no right to keep Daniel in your dismal, miserable, isolated hovel,” someone shouted on the other end. Danny had never heard this voice before. He sounded like someone around Dad’s age, maybe? Maybe a little…smoother, despite the blistering anger coming through the line. “You live with no human contact for nine months out of the year. You speak to no one. Do you— is Daniel even enrolled in a school? Did you get any sort of educational provisions for him whatsoever?”
“What, so he can get cocky and blow himself up in the garage like his parents?” Alicia snapped. Danny had to clap a hand to his mouth to hide his gasp of dismay.
“You know full well that punishing your sister’s son by restricting his access to an education and basic human companionship is not a solution to your grief for your sister. You are out of your mind.”
Aunt Alicia’s voice got low. Aunt Alicia’s voice got mean. She sounded like how she looked when Danny had fumbled the water pail from the well or stepped two steps too close to the rhubarb patch out back. “Vladmir Masters, you listen here,” Aunt Alicia muttered. “That boy is everything left of my sister in the whole damn world. He is not going anywhere. Do you understand? Not for you to fill his head with her stupid husband’s supernatural hoo-ha, and not for you to snatch up and teach himself how to kill other people the way those two killed each other. Danny stays here. If you ring me up one more time, I’m going to do more than just mail dog crap to the front step of your stupid castle in Wisconsin.”
The phone cut off. It would be an innocuous end to a phone call, except Danny can hear the clatter of plastic cracking on plastic in the downstairs kitchen.
There was a moment of silence.
“Daniel Jackson Fenton, you get your butt in here right now!”
Danny jolted, heart pounding. He—he went downstairs.
Aunt’s Alicia’s lips were pursed, her eyes tight. “What did I tell you about missing all the sticks in the yard? It looks like a wreck!”
Danny felt his breath stick in his throat.
“Well?”
“Yes, Aunt Alicia,” Danny mumbled. He looked down and away. He wasn’t caught out eavesdropping, but…was this any better?
“If those sticks aren’t piled up beside the woodshed for kindling in half an hour, you can kiss your dinner goodbye.”
Danny hadn’t had dinner in three nights. He was very lucky he didn’t need to eat as much as living kids. “…Yes, Aunt Alicia.”
“So?”
…Danny went outside to collect sticks. It took until nightfall to get all the refuse from yesterday’s storm off the ground.
Aunt Alicia ate canned corn and carrots and butchered rabbit with hot sauce for dinner. Danny ate nothing.
Danny went to bed thinking about somewhere else he could go. Mom and Dad were dead—smithereens in the blast that had killed him and brought him back to life simultaneously. Jazz was in the hospital. He had no grandparents. He had no other aunts or uncles other than Aunt Alicia.
…Who was Vladmir Masters?
*
It took two days for Danny to decide to run away.
Or. Well. Fly.
He’d figured that if he wanted to find out who Vladmir Masters was, he’d need an internet connection. His cell had been on the Fenton Fone Plan™ and had been disconnected from the Fenton Family Patented Ghost-free Satellite™ for almost three months now. But, you know…what was a public library for, if not getting information?
The two-day waiting period was mostly just Danny getting his stuff together, making sure he didn’t leave anything behind, finding anything worth stealing…
…There was a picture of Mom with her big hair at graduation, a black robe thrown over her Hazmat suit. Her hair had been so big. Lots of people were beside her, including Dad, and someone with a matching hair stripe. They looked happy.
It didn’t matter that it had been Aunt Alicia’s photo. The picture had gone into his backpack next to Bearbert Einstein and a filched pocket knife.
Mom was Aunt Alicia’s sister, but Madeline Fenton had been his mom.
…Was still his mom.
Would…would always be his mom.
Danny wouldn’t cry. He wasn’t going to cry. Still, the flying and everything was still new to him. It took almost ten minutes to get himself off the ground without floating off willy nilly.
It took another half an hour to remember how to go through walls.
By the time Danny fell (as in actually, literally, leaned up against the wall and then realized he’d not made contact the way he’d expected to) through the house wall, it was almost eight at night. Aunt Alicia was still listening to Prairie Home Companion downstairs on the radio.
Whatever. He was out of there. He was sure he looked crazy—his hair was white, which was almost impossible to hide—but all he had to do was get out of there fast enough that no one connected one teenage runaway with a backpack to Danny Fenton.
It was fine.
It was all going to be fine.
…And if there wasn’t someone who’d help him. Well. Being homeless didn’t sound…so bad…?
…Or maybe he’d just squat in the burnt out ruins of Fentonworks. That sounded fine too.
*
Morning broke. Danny ended up in a tiny town somewhere in Mississippi.
A nice guy at the coffee shop gave him a cup of water and told him where the local library was. A librarian plugged her login details for him on a public computer, and Danny was able to look up one “Vladmir Masters”…
…CEO and owner of DALVco, millionaire, and Green Bay Packers megafan.
Holy crap.
Like… There were hospital wings with his name on them. Charities operating out of his company. Every picture of the man was perfectly taken in perfect lighting with perfect suits and precise smirks and bright-white magazine article paper.
Danny went back up to the librarian. “Do you have any articles on…uh…Vlad Masters?”
The librarian smiled warmly. “Ah, school project?”
“Sure,” Danny lied, milk on his tongue.
Vlad Masters was a self-made millionaire. He lived in a castle in Wisconsin that used to be owned by a dairy empire kingpin. He went to—
Danny read the line again
—He went to the same college as Mom and Dad. The year looked right, too. They might have even graduated in the exact same year. If only Danny could still check Dad’s college ring in the bottom of their junk drawer.
Wisconsin. Vlad Masters lived in Wisconsin.
…Danny was really lucky he was never all that hungry anymore.
Danny got another cup of water at the coffee shop, washed his face in the bathroom, and got ready to fly another night.
He was no sextant, but he could probably figure out how to get to Wisconsin after a couple of hours of flying, and a little time to gauge the sky.
It would be easy.
…Danny’s white-topped, pale face stared back at him from the restroom mirror.
It had to be. It would have to be easy.
*
So, a cheese castle looked a lot like a regular castle.
Danny squinted up at the stonework. Nah, that looked like…a castle. That being said, it looked more specifically like the castle he was looking for—the one that had been featured in Vlad Masters’s house tour in Architecture Daily magazine two years ago.
Same…roof bits. Same big door. Danny swallowed. Same…tower? Were there better words for these? There were definitely better words for all the tricky stone bits in the castle.
Whatever. Danny was praying that the man was actually home today, as opposed to flying across the country on some kind of business trip. Rich people did business trips, right?
Danny floated up to the front door. There was no doorbell.
…Danny bit his lip. Okay. So there was no doorbell. There was a very large, brass door knocker. It looked kind of like a big monster face, with a ring held in its teeth.
The knocker was just high enough off the ground that Danny had to float to get there. Lifting it was a struggle.
When it knocked, the whole door buzzed with sound.
Danny waited.
…He waited.
And…Danny waited.
No one came.
Danny picked at the skin of his lip. What if he just…went in?
Like. It was a big house. Maybe Vlad Masters just hadn’t heard him at all? Maybe he was just…in the basement or something…?
Danny paced midair. On one hand. He’d come all this way. He had to follow through. He had to see if there was…something. Anything. Anything at all—anything that could possibly connect Masters to his family.
Any connection that wasn’t Aunt Alicia would be worth breaking and entering.
On the other hand. Home invasion was and would remain illegal.
Danny grimaced.
He…stuck his head through the door.
There was a hallway on the other side. A little end table. A guest book.
…Okay. Danny slipped through the door. He was breaking and entering now— or at least…entering.
Inside was dark. Gloomy. Comfortable, sure— lots of soft furnishings, curtains, couches, pillow, lounging things— but very…opaque in atmosphere.
He was glowing, he noticed. That probably was pretty bad on the “trying not to get caught” scale.
There was no one upstairs. Danny drifted through room after empty room and up into floor after empty floor. There was a kitchen, and the food therein were largely preserved items. There was nothing in the fridge.
Danny’s stomach cramped. There was no one here.
…Maybe he should look downstairs?
The castle got colder the further down he went. The windows that at least allowed the minimal light that escaped through the tree cover in the castle vanished. The only light left was Danny.
Danny floated down deeper.
There were doors made of metal in a long, stone hallway. Each had different numbers on them. Danny followed the rows of doors.
There were wires on the floor. They were organized by color and bound by little ties, until they weren’t, and Danny eventually ran out of tangled webs of red and blue plastic to follow.
They ended at a closed door.
Danny hesitated. He poked his head through.
On the other side was a ghost.
Danny jerked back. He’d— he clapped his hand over his mouth. That was—! And sure, Danny was something like that now, but he’d never seen—!
He should leave. Danny should leave.
Danny barely made it three doors down.
Going somewhere? something asked him. Danny shivered.
The ghost appeared on his left in ethereal white, black hair pulled behind him in some sort of half-halo. Unlike Danny, who was in something like half-hazmat, half-hoodie, the ghost wore a long, glowing labcoat, appropriate PPE beneath.
Danny’s breath fogged up in his mouth. He flinched. “Sorr—” he tried. “Sorry, I’m sorry. I’m not supposed to be here.”
The ghost looked at him with bright red eyes. Danny floated a few steps back. Spying, are you?
Danny shook his head. “No!! No, I just— I was looking for— I wasn’t spying! I’m sorry! I didn’t know you li— died here! I’ll leave!”
The ghost’s head tilted. For a second, Danny thought that he was going to throw a punch. And then—
You’re already here, the ghost pointed out, and opened a door. Beyond it was…something similar to a doctor’s office. An examination table with the paper on it. One of those blood pressure cuffs, attached to a printer for the readout. A sink. Sundry tongue depressors. You may as well consent to be helped.
“...Helped with what?” Danny asked nervously, fingers flexing. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
The ghost hummed— not in the way voices hummed, but in the way high voltage sang in distant powerlines. You are newly formed, aren’t you? Most can tell a ghost’s nature from its presence alone.
Danny looked away. “Um. You know. You might be the first ghost I’ve ever met.”
The ghost’s feet almost touched the ground. It stared down at him. It was taller than he was, and when it stared, it made Danny want to run away.
…Truly, the ghost asked(?), and it took Danny a second to realize it was a question.
“Maybe I died a little recently…” Danny tried, trailing off into a mumble. Was there a right answer to this?
…I see. That would make this check-up more urgent, then. Might I encourage you to come this way?
Danny followed him into the room.
It felt… It looked and felt exactly like any other doctor’s appointment, excepting that the doctor involved in the process had blue skin and fangs and a hairstyle that defied gravity. The ghost still wore gloves and didn’t poke him or prod him too hard, though, so that was a bonus.
Danny got his pulse taken. (None.) Danny got his lungs checked. (Not breathing.) Danny got his resonance? looked at? Whatever that was? It was a big scanny thing that looked like an X ray and took pictures of his chest.
The readings were real pretty, whatever they were; the whole film print was taken up with splotches of white and clear blue. It kind of shimmered when Danny tilted his head.
You’re quite powerful for a newly formed ghost, the ghost offered, overlooking papers Danny couldn’t quite see on his clipboard. It flipped through once. Twice. You’re clearly not attached to your place of death, so that’s not why… Are you aware of any compulsions to follow an Obsession yet…?
A ghostly obsession? Danny knew what that was— it was one of his parents’ theories on why ghosts persisted after death! Was it was true?
“Um,” Danny said, unsure. He hadn’t…had he? “Not that I know of?”
The ghost paused. It clicked its pen. It marked something down on Danny’s chart. Interesting.
Ominous.
May I quickly test something? the ghost asked, looking up at Danny. It would only take a moment. If it does not work, there will be no other side effects other than mild discomfort and an activated flight response.
Danny shifted. The paper crackled underneath him. “...Does it hurt?”
No.
The ghost added nothing more.
Danny’s…head jerked up and down. It was fine. It would be fine.
The ghost’s hand circled his wrist. Its touch burned like fire.
And then light, like how Danny burned away one form for another—
—Danny was left on the table, no longer weightless, no longer breathless. He was flesh. He was human again.
Vlad Masters stared back at him.
…Huh.
Mr. Masters— Vlad?— licked dry lips, staring at Danny, whose wrist he still held. Danny…didn’t know if he could move. Danny didn’t know if he knew how to move.
“...Daniel?” Mr. Masters’s voice cracked. His eyes moved up and down Danny’s body, from his raggedy hair to his dirt-stained clothes to his beat-up shoes. “Daniel Fenton?”
Danny winced. “It’s just Danny,” he offered hoarsely. His throat bobbed. “You…know me?”
Mr. Masters moved his grip to Danny’s hand, apparently moved to tears. Without the red in his eyes, he just looked…human enough. “Daniel— Danny, how did you— Are you dead? What happened?”
Danny felt the weight of everything push down on him again, as if it had ever let up on him since the portal incident. Mom and Dad’s funerals. Jazz in the emergency room. Being resuscitated by the EMTs. Getting shipped out to Aunt Alicia’s house without warning.
“House blew up.”
That was succinct enough, right?
The man’s face turned devastated. “I heard— I’m so, so sorry. I’m so sorry, Danny.”
…It was more concern than anyone had shown in a long time. His eyes were wet before he knew it. When he wiped his face with his sleeve, the dampness was enough to leave little streaks of mud on his face— and, ugh, he felt filthy.
“It’s okay,” Danny lied, because it wasn’t. He pressed his sleeve to his eyes. “It’s…you know my parents?”
Mr. Masters took a deep, surprised breath. “Yes. We…weren’t in contact after we graduated from school together, but Jack always… He asked me by email to be your godfather, right before you were born. I said yes, but I have no idea if he ever filed the paperwork.”
Oh.
…Oh.
There were clearly more secrets here. Mr. Masters was a ghost, and so was Danny. He lived in a giant castle that was clearly haunted, which was made obvious by the owner. He was Danny’s godfather, and Danny had never once met him.
And he wasn’t Aunt Alicia.
Danny sucked the spit off of his teeth with his tongue. “Can I stay here?”
Mr. Masters made a wounded, desperate expression. “I would rather you did.”
“Can you teach me how to be a ghost?”
The man persevered through what were clearly heavy feelings. “...If I must.”
“Can I have dinner?” was Danny’s final question. “Like. On the regular?”
There was a second where Mr. Masters’s eyes went red. The castle suddenly felt taut with anticipation. Fury crawled on Danny’s skin. He could feel the pressure digging in search of some way to burrow into his flesh.
And then it was gone.
“Of course you can. You are a growing boy.”
Danny smiled shyly, barely showing his teeth. When he smiled for real in the mirror, he had fangs. It was better not to. “Cool.”
Mr. Masters nodded. And when Danny looked down at the floor, he changed his grip so that Danny could hold his hand and hop down like normal.
“It will be alright,” Mr. Masters promised quietly. It seemed to be just as much for him as it was for Danny. “Or…I’ll take care of it. Whatever happens. You’re not alone, Danny.”
Danny had been alone for almost half a year. It had felt like forever. “Thanks.” He sniffed.
They walked upstairs from the basement laboratory together, in a way Mom and Dad never would again.
#phic phight 2024#danny phantom#vlad masters#I forget Alicia's last name ngl#dead fenton parents#Jazz is sir not appearing in this film#danny fenton#good!Vlad au#phic phight#RIP a prarie home companion you were a cool show but your host was [REDACTED] of course you were gonna get cancelled#my and my persistent love of landlines#faer fic#I do not LIKE vlad. However. This intrigued me.#dead ghost man who furthers the study of ghosts while knowing his college besties might take advantage of him for their own research. whack#anyway. the portal blew up#phic phight 24
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Last Call to sign up for Phic Phight!
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All We Wanted
@pennerjones's prompt: Clockwork tends Pariah Dark’s wounds after a hard battle.
Summary: Soft moments turn bittersweet when the future doesn’t seem bright. Sometimes, things aren’t meant to last but they can still enjoy the time they have together.
TW: wounds, needles, stitches, mild angst
Words: 2050
Read on Ao3!
The moon hangs low in the midnight-blue sky, casting a silvery glow over the somber landscape. Shadows dance in time with the gentle breeze as it gently runs its fingers through the crowns of ancient trees. Some of the trees creak in tune, matching the soft rustle of leaves and filling the all-to-quiet night with a soft but haunting melody.
It is the sound of silence— a beautiful but dangerous thing.
Amid the forest, stands a dark silhouette against the light of the heavens— a fortress. Its cracked bricks, usually what might be a marbled gray, appear black in the silver light as its spires reach toward the stars like skeletal fingers. There are no lamps, torches, or lit hearths and there is no furnishing other than what was left by the previous proprietor. The place reeks of spectral memories yet to take shape. It’s a lonely place. It’s a sad place. Even so, there is one window with a warm glow.
The chamber beyond the window is dimly lit and carries a tension palpable enough to taste. But it isn’t of bitterness or resentment, but rather a simmering blend of worry and anger. The emotions mix with the scent of herbs and magic, making the space feel homely and safe despite the circumstances of those within.
Clockwork’s usually fluid and graceful movements now carry a hint of urgency as their spectral form flickers with a muted frustration. In their frustration, their gloved hands work in a none-too-gentle way. Sticking and sewing torn flesh, cinching it shut, and moving on to the next quickly to keep their partner from bleeding any more than he already has. Every stick is punctuated by a sharp intake of breath.
Pariah, despite his injuries being minor, exudes an aura of calmness. But his hands clench and unclench at his sides, the knuckles white with tension each time. Despite the pain he feels, he watches Clockwork work with a mix of gratitude and guilt.
“You worry too much, Chime,” Pariah says, his voice low and steady, cutting through the tense atmosphere. “I’ve faced worse than a few cuts and bruises.”
Clockwork doesn’t look up from their task, their brow furrowed in concentration. “Perhaps, but that doesn’t make it any less concerning. You will eventually be the ruler of this realm. You can’t afford to be reckless.”
Pariah’s lips twitch in a wry smile, “Reckless? Me?”
Clockwork finally meets his eyes with a glare. It is meant to be heated, but their crimson eyes tell him of their worry and fear instead.
“I assure you, it was a calculated risk,” He replies, voice tinged with exhaustion. He raises a hand and pushes back their hood so he can cup their cheek without any hindrance. As he does, their messy silver-white hair spills over their shoulders, ending right at their clavicle, “I didn’t know we’d have to flee to the mortal realm.”
Clockwork leans into Pariah’s touch, “You shouldn’t have put yourself in harm’s way like that.” They exhale, closing their eyes briefly as they relish his touch. But just as soon as they are about to relax, they lift their head again and quickly pull the stitch they were working on closed.
As soon as they tie off the stitch, they move to the next continuing their work. Yet, while they work, their movements grow shaky with emotion as they are unable to keep it hidden any longer, “What if something had happened to you?”
Pariah’s gaze softens as he watches Clockwork’s hands tremble slightly. He reaches out with his other hand, gently clasping their wrist and stilling their movements, “Clockwork, you know as well as I do that protecting our realm sometimes requires sacrifices.”
Clockwork’s eyes flicker with frustration, “I understand your intentions, Pariah, but that doesn’t make it any easier to see, hear, or bear.”
Pariah’s grip tightens slightly, a flicker of pain crossing his features as he speaks, “Our duty sometimes demands more than we can give.”
Clockwork frowns and attempts to turn away, but Pariah’s hand keeps them still, “I just wish… I wish there were another way.”
Pariah’s thumb brushes over their cheek, wiping away a stray tear. “We’ll find a way, together. But for now, let’s focus on healing and regrouping. Our realm needs us more than ever.”
Clockwork nods, “I suppose you are right.”
As the conversation lulls, the tensions that once hung over them also seem to dissipate. The chamber settles into a tranquil silence, allowing the atmosphere to soften and quiet. Outside, the night seems to come to life as the song of many crickets and frogs fills the air.
Clockwork returns their attention to Pariah’s injuries, their movements methodical and precise. With each careful touch, the stress that had knotted their brow and shoulders begins to loosen. They immerse themselves in their task as the rhythm of their tending becomes a soothing cadence that fills the space between them.
Pariah, sensing the shift in their mood, lets out a slow breath and relaxes in their partner’s care. Then, after a moment, he says, “This is quite a nice castle, don’t you think?”
“It serves its purpose,” Clockwork replies, pulling another stitch closed.
Pariah winces slightly, then allows a smile to spread across his face, “We don’t have a place to call our own just yet.”
Clockwork glances up at him with a brow raised, “What are you suggesting?”
“What if we replicate this place in the Ghost Zone?” He asks, a fond glint shimmering in his eye.
“You mean a sanctuary where we can retreat when needed?”
“Exactly,” Pariah nods, “But I was thinking of calling something different.”
“A home?” Clockwork murmurs, their eyes distant as they imagine the idea in their mind’s eye. A place of comfort? Peace? Joy? Their expression changes to that of something doubtful. They haven’t had a home in a very long time. Will they like it? Will they enjoy it? Will it last?
“Yes, a home,” Pariah confirms, his voice carrying a hint of longing, “A sanctuary where we can find solace amidst the chaos of our duties.”
Clockwork’s expression melts as they envision themselves living in a place of comfort right by their lover’s side. It almost seems like too much to hope for. They try to look ahead, but nothing is revealed to them. They often forget that they can’t see much of their own future.
“It’s a wonderful thought,” They finally say, their tone betraying their uncertainty, “But I’m not… certain…”
Pariah offers a reassuring smile, “We’ll make it happen. Together, we can create our own haven, a place where we can find peace amidst the turmoil.”
Clockwork returns the smile, a flicker of hope igniting in their eyes. Perhaps it’s the exhaustion or the vulnerability of the moment, but for the first time in a while they allow themselves to believe in the possibility of a home they can call their own. How nice would that be? It warms their Core.
But then a thought strikes them rather abruptly and yanks back down into their fear, “Creating such a place would require a considerable amount of effort and magic.”
Pariah nods, “I’m willing to invest whatever it takes.”
“How so?”
Pariah takes one of Clockwork’s hands into his own. He slips the glove from their hand and lays it to the side. Then, he kisses it, gently, “I will devote everything I have to giving you a place to call home.”
Clockwork’s breath catches in their throat. How can he say something so confidently? How can he say something like that and genuinely mean it?
“You deserve it,” The warrior continues, “You have done so much for everyone else, the least you can have is a home. I will make it happen.”
Something in their core tightens, “I’ve done nothing.”
Pariah smiles, not wishing to argue about the subject, and places his hands on either side of Clockwork’s hips, “I will make it happen.”
How can he say such a thing? How can he promise something so grand? So nice? How can Pariah Dark give Clockwork so much hope? They don’t understand it.
“What of those who follow you?”
Pariah pauses for a moment, thinking, “They will have a place as well— a haven as well— a place where they can feel safe and protected.”
Clockwork gazes up at him with a mix of admiration and concern, “And what of you, Pariah? Will you find solace there as well?”
“I’ll find solace wherever you are, Chime,” He replies, meeting their gaze, “You are my home.”
A tender smile curves Clockwork’s lips as they return their attention to his wounds, their movements gentle and deliberate.
A beat passes before they respond softly, “Then we’ll make it happen, together.”
Pariah sighs, content with the resolve in Clockwork’s voice. A warmth spreads through his core as well. The two of them— they are in this together. Truly. This is his partner— the one he intends to keep company with forever. He vows to do whatever it takes to form a future that his lover can relax in and never worry about anything ever again. He never wants to see them this upset for a second time.
As Clockwork’s nimble fingers continue their delicate work, the collection of their shared desires seems to weave itself into the very fabric of the room and hang in the air like a tangible promise of things to come. Each stitch they make becomes a symbol of their commitment to one another, binding them closer together.
The thought of creating a sanctuary— a home where they can find solace and peace together— fills the chamber with a sense of anticipation. But it’s not just about constructing a physical structure; it’s about building a haven where they can nurture their love and protect each other. The dream for the future comes to life in his mind, Pariah’s determination and Clockwork’s insight make it a perfect balance. They’ll be ready for anything. They’ll be the most powerful ghosts in the Zone. They’ll be the perfect rulers. What more could they ask for?
The hours pass smoothly in the quiet chamber, giving Clockwork the time and focus that they needed to finish cleaning and sewing up Pariah’s wounds. Each injury is now neatly sewn together and most of the shallow ones are already healing into small, ashy-green slivers.
As Clockwork begins to put away their supplies, Pariah sits up straighter and tests his newly healed wounds with a cautious touch. A smile tugs at the corners of his lips as he feels the familiar strength returning to his body. He then stretches, carefully, feeling the soreness beginning to ebb away. His movements are fluid despite the lingering ache. It pleases him.
Once he finishes stretching, he rises from his seat and steps over to the window to gaze out at the moonlit landscape. It’s beautiful. It’s peaceful. It’s perfect. If he could, he would replicate every little detail he could in the Ghost Zone. He would very much like to give this place to Clockwork. It is perfect for them.
Pariah sighs just as Clockwork joins him. Carefully, Pariah winds an arm around their waist and pulls them closer. Then, they look out that night for a moment in each other’s embrace.
“Thank you, Chime,” He whispers, his voice filled with warmth and affection as he places a kiss on their temple, “I don’t know what I would do without you.”
Clockwork returns his smile, their own weariness momentarily forgotten in the glow of their accomplishment. “You would do just fine, my dear,” They reply, “But I’m glad I could help.”
With a warm smile, Pariah leans down again, his lips meeting Clockwork’s in a gentle kiss, sealing their shared ambition with a silent vow.
Nothing will separate them. Nothing can separate them. He will unite the Ghost Zone for them.
For as long as Pariah exists in his afterlife, nothing will come between them. He will give Clockwork the home they deserve. He will persevere. He will not let anything stand in his way. He will see to it. He swears to himself. And he’s a man of his word.
He has come this far, he will not lose anything he has worked hard to gain.
#danny phantom#clockwork#pariah dark#clockwork x pariah dark#pariah dark x clockwork#tw stitches#tw needles#tw wounds#tw angst#phic phight#phic phight 24#phic phight 2024#dp events#phandom#phandom events#oneshot#long post
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