College au where instead of the trio falling apart they stick together as friends, hence ghostly shenanigans much like Danny and his friends
Which means jokes about the whole ghostly incident, bad t-shirts (hand made of course) absolutely insane tests because college students plus ghostly powers? Pure entertainment
And Vlad needing to page Maddie or Jack because he got stuck in a wall
Clockwork kept an ear out as Daniel’s core hummed, chittered, and purred, the tone rising and falling. When appropriate, he answered it with his own hums and even a few chirps.
After all, to learn a language you needed someone to speak it to you, to speak it with you. There were certain shortcuts possible with the languages generally known as ‘Ghost Speak’ when compared to living languages, but conversational partners were still a necessity.
As was, in the case of Daniel and other young ghosts, a period of child-like babble. Encouraging it helped them learn faster.
However, Daniel didn’t understand Ghost Speak very well, so Clockwork said his next words in English.
“Daniel.”
“Yeah?” said Daniel, looking up from his math homework. “What is it?”
“We have an errand to run,” said Clockwork.
Daniel’s eyebrows flew up. “You can leave? I mean, um. Sorry. That was rude.”
“I understand your surprise, but rest assured that the Observants do not control me that much.”
“What kind of errand is it?” asked Daniel, putting aside his book and hurrying to Clockwork’s side. “Bills? Groceries? Mail?”
“Closer to groceries than bills,” said Clockwork, “and closer still to mail. I have some things I need to pick up in person, and the journey might give you some additional insight into ghost culture.”
“Okay,” said Daniel, as they flew out. “That sounds cool. What kind of insights?”
“You’ll see.”
.
As they flew, Daniel took it upon himself to ask questions about everything that passed by. Some of those questions, Clockwork knew, were legitimate curiosity. Others were thinly veiled attempts to get Clockwork to give away something about what was happening in the future, however near it may be.
However, long before Daniel could wear through Clockwork’s patience - a quality strengthened over many interactions with the Observants - their destination came into sight. A small island, covered in mist.
“There we are,” said Clockwork. “Now, you should be aware of two things about this island.”
“Yes?” asked Daniel, eagerly.
“One is that time runs differently there. One week within is one hour without, so we may spend more time there than you usually would.”
“Cool,” said Daniel, “is that why you’re coming here?”
“It is one of the reasons. The other thing you should know is that human languages are not spoken there.”
Daniel, who had been learning about how the Ghost Zone worked, frowned. “Are not, as in no one speaks them, or as in no one can speak them, even if they learned.”
“The latter,” said Clockwork.
“Oh,” said Daniel, looking at the island with much less enthusiasm. “Okay.”
“Ghost languages aren’t too terribly difficult. I’m sure you’ll be able to talk to everyone there before we leave.”
“Sure as in you looked, or just sure?”
“I’m sure,” Clockwork said, without further elaboration. “Immersion is the best way to learn a language.”
“Do you even have an errand here?” asked Danny. “Or is this your way of making me learn ghost languages?”
Summary: A fight goes sideways and Danny gets caught.
Warnings: None!
Other AU: No One Knows
Beta by: @probably-dead
~~~~~~
Danny quickly dropped down, narrowly avoiding the blast the creature shot at him. Even through the hazmat suit he had on, he could feel the heat of the projectile as it flew mere centimeters above his head.
He looked down, taking stock of the number of humans still beneath him. The animal ghost had attacked a random building and people were still trying to evacuate.
It was times like this he was grateful for the helmet of his suit, the way it entirely blocked his face - a face even he hadn’t seen before. At least, not in his ghost form, since the accident a year ago. But, assuming it was still human-ish, he was sure they would be able to see the panic and fatigue beginning to overwhelm him. He was exhausted. He hissed as his distraction cost him, the next blast digging into his arm and he felt cold ectoplasm begin to drip from the tear in the suit, falling in small droplets to the ground six stories below. He needed to get this fight over with and he needed to get it over with now.
Danny growled lowly then blasted as fast as he could towards the ghost, managing to wrap his good arm around its midsection and sending them both careening to the ground at the edge of the evacuation zone.
Well, good to know he wasn’t the only ghost who forgot he could go intangible. Their fight quickly turned into a down-and-dirty fist fight (or, claws, in the creature’s case), that Danny was at a major disadvantage for, considering his left arm was steadily growing more and more numb. His entire focus on the ghost he was wrestling with, he didn’t hear the squeal of tires as his parents arrived.
He pulled back his good hand, clenching it into a fist and was aiming for one of the ghost’s many eyes, confident he could get a good hit in and-
And then his world exploded into a swirling blue void and conscious thought felt like a heavy blanket. He could sense his body but he could not feel it, he could not think more than a couple of simple words before his train of thought evaporated into mist, leaving him in a state of perpetual confusion.
Memory returned to him as soon as the blue swirls began again, dissipating as quickly as they had formed. Was that what the ghosts felt like in the Fenton Thermos? Man, that was unpleasant. He was groggy, slow, heavy.
“Nyuh…” he groaned, sitting up and then tucking his head between his knees, the feeling of lightheadedness and nausea making the room spin.
“Oh, Phantom’s already coming to, dear,” a female voice said, slightly distorted as though far away. “Looks like the Thermos doesn’t keep ghosts sedated longer than about thirty seconds.”
“Huh?” Danny managed quietly, still with his head tucked and eyes closed.
“Smaller than I expected it to be,” a male said, his heavy footsteps almost as clear as his voice.
Some deep part of him knew something bad was happening and he needed to do something, but the fog continued to press into his brain. He managed to sit up some, eyes still firmly closed under his helmet. “Wha’s goin’ on?”
“It… sounds so young.” The woman said.
“Look at that hazmat. No way a kid dies in something like that. The template the ghost formed off of was probably just short.” The man said.
“I don’t know, Jack…”
The woman - Maddie - speaking Jack’s name pushed away the haze in his mind. His eyes flew open and he realized where he was. The harsh white light above him was dimmed slightly by the darkened visor covering his face but there was no denying this place - his parent’s lab, the green of the portal glowing and slowly swirling off to his side. He was in one of the clear ghost containment cubes, alone, and he was worried for the creature he’d been fighting. How long had he been in the Thermos? Was the other ghost okay?
Maddie and Jack both stood outside the ecto-proof glass encasing him on all sides, their hoods up, the goggles only adding to the demented scientist look. Danny felt his heart race in his chest, blood rushing in his ears as panic clawed into his heart. Words escaped him as fear consumed him, so he merely scrambled to his feet and began backing as far away from them as possible but when his back bumped into the glass behind him, electricity surged through him and he yelped, jumping away from the charged glass.
“Well, it’s really good at mimicking emotion. I almost believe it’s afraid.” Jack said, turning to a computer at his side.
Maddie, though, didn’t move, a small frown on her face as she studied him. He knew what she’d see - a black and white hazmat suit, entirely unremarkable if not for the glow it emitted, hanging a little too loosely from his frame, black helmet with darkened glass obscuring his face entirely. If she looked too closely, she may realize this was one of her full hazmats that he’d stolen when he went poking around in the lab.
“Releasing the gas.” Jack said, toggling a button on the computer he was at. With a hiss, the air pressure in the cube began to rise and Danny could feel the effects of whatever it was almost immediately.
“No!” He cried out, the tear in his suit from earlier rendering the hazmat’s protective abilities useless as it hadn’t time to patch itself up yet. “Stop, please!” Weakness in his limbs brought him to his knees as the gas seemed to absorb through his skin, his mouth, his nose, burning his lungs. It surrounded him and he responded the same way he had when he’d been learning how to swim and started to sink. “Mom!” He screamed, terrified tears beginning to streak down his hidden face.
“Jack, stop!” Maddie yelled, jerking open the door before the words were even out of her mouth.
“Mads, don’t! Shit!” Jack yelled back, quickly turning the gas off and hurrying in after her.
Maddie ignored Jack, pulling her hood off - some part of Danny hoped this gas was safe for humans - and dropping to her knees beside him and pulling him against her.
“Don’t hurt me!” He pleaded, initially thinking the worst until he realized his mother was gently rocking him and softly shushing him, quietly reassuring him that she wasn’t going to.
“Mads?” Jack asked, stopping a few steps back.
“He’s just a kid, Jack.” Maddie answered. “Did you hear him?”
“It’s a ploy, Maddie, it knows you’re a mother!” Jack insisted, though hesitation tinged his words. Regardless, at his words, Danny curled up tighter, burying himself closely against his mother’s chest and ducking his head under her chin, a position she’d comforted him before, after nightmares. Her arms tightened around him as he did so, but instead of being scary, it was an old comfort.
“Do you remember your mother, Phantom?” Maddie asked softly, rubbing circles against his back.
“Yeah.” He answered, his words slightly muffled between the helmet and the way he was hiding against his mother. This can’t have been comfortable for her, especially not with the helmet, but she didn’t try to push him away.
“Why’d you call for her just now?” Jack asked, kneeling down beside him hesitantly.
“Scared.” He said simply.
“Phantom… how old were you?” Even as he asked it, guilt rose in his eyes.
“Fourteen.”
“You’re in a hazmat suit. What happened to you?”
“Accident,” Danny answered, beginning to unclench his muscles as his mother remained silent. Honestly, he was surprised. His parents didn’t even know it was him. They’d just heard a terrified child (he was a teen, though, thank you) and stopped.
Silence stretched between them, Danny’s heart still too loud in his ears. Was it really this easy?
“You’re hurt.” Maddie eventually said, gesturing to his arm, the injury somehow looking worse instead of better. “Does this suit come off? So we can take a look?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never tried.”
“Here,” Maddie said, pulling away from him for the first time since she’d ran in. “Let’s see, okay? It’ll be easier to see how bad the injury is. Want to start with the helmet?”
“I don’t know what I look like… what if it’s bad?” He admitted, the reason he’d never looked. He was afraid he would look like the charred corpse he should have become.
“Then ghosts can adjust their image if they want to, based on what we’ve seen. If it’s bad and you don’t want it, you can change it.”
“And we’ll help however we can,” Jack finally gave in, settling onto his knees. “C’mon, kiddo.”
Hesitation stayed Danny’s hand only momentarily. If it was bad… then he could change it?
Danny had been assuming the worst ever since his accident - with everything. With his friends, his family, his face. He’d lied and hid the truth from everyone he’d ever known. But his family had just proved him wrong, the worst outcome isn’t necessarily the only outcome. Danny reached for the helmet, disconnecting it from the suit quickly, before he had time to doubt his decision. Cool air touched this half of him’s face for the first time.
Maddie and Jack both gave him encouraging smiles, neither looking on in horror. Did he look okay? Oh crap, did he look like his human self?
“You look fine.” Maddie said, fishing a compact out of her pocket and opening it, aiming the mirror at him. A tanned, human face with no sign of scarring gazed back at him, bright green eyes and pure white hair glowing slightly. “I don’t think you need to change anything.”
Relief settled deep within Danny and he just reached back for his mother, curling up against her and resting his head under her chin again, much more comfortably this time. She only wrapped her arms back around him, stroking his hair gently.
Maybe… maybe he shouldn’t always assume the worst of the people he knew. Maybe he should give them a chance.
And maybe he should stop assuming the worst about himself, too.
Context: There was light awkwardness with the first meeting with Vlad but that got resolved because ya boy wants Uncle Vlad. ANyway, This would be recently after Danny unintentionally became Ghost King!
Enjoy!
"Hey ah.. Vlad? I think my core's being funny, it's all tingly like when you lick an electric socket." Danny winces touching his chest. It had been like this since the Pariah dark issue, so a good two weeks. The ghosts had been relentless at first before promptly backing off sense yesterday, Ember even wincing and telling him to go home.
"I'm sorry when you-" Heavy sigh from Vlad, which made him stifle a laugh "- We'll circle back to that issue later, what exactly is wrong with your core?"
He touches his chest again and transform, the sensation getting a little, actually not that was a LOT worse than Yesterday. "O-oh that um..ouch that's worse than yesterday." He wheezes doubling over in pain. "Daniel! What-"
Huh that was weird he had never heard Vlad panic sounding since..well ever really. He couldn't really focus either a static ringing noise blurring out whatever his uncle was saying. He flinches back when warm hands rest on his shoulders the feeling fading for a blissful second before the warmth left him and the feeling slamming back into him.
"Vlad? something..I think somethings wrong." He whispers, the cackling feeling like it was pulling at his very body. A lump forms in his throat as he tries not to scream out in pain. It felt like something was clawing at his chest, tearing at his body- and it smelled like..like a thunderstorm or something metal.
He can't open his eyes either, the pain was ripping into him. He didn't even realize he was stumbling back until he hit something, a wall?
"DANIEL!"
His eyes fly open when he finally hears his uncle, his vision clouded by..was that green electricity? The sizzling crackling noise got louder, tears welling in his eyes as the feeling started pulsing through him in waves almost like a heartbeat which quickened each second. "V-vlad? It-" He chokes out looking over his shoulder, freezing when he saw his uncles face.
"Help."
Everything went dead silent but the feelings didn't stop, they got worse, a scream tearing from his lips before everything went dark.
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