realized that @dp-belongs-in-a-hoodie ’s wonderful invisobang fic Something’s wrong with danny fenton (https://archiveofourown.org/works/33428749) has an accompanying oneshot (https://archiveofourown.org/works/34666327) and it’s gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous.
“Hey man, we missed you this weekend,” Tucker called out as Danny raced up the steps of Casper High, trying to catch up with his friends. This was the 3rd movie night in a row he’d had to skip. Eventually Sam and Tucker were going to stop asking him to join.
“Sorry guys. I, uh, had to help my parents clean up the lab, you know, since I got all those detentions last week.” Danny shrugged. It was only half the truth. He had spent 2 hours Saturday evening cleaning up the lab - apparently if you get 3 or more detentions in one week, they call home - but he wasn’t grounded. When he finished, he was free to spend the rest of his Saturday night however he wanted. And he wanted to meet up with his friends to watch the latest Dead Teacher movie. He was even on his way to Tucker’s house when he’d been ambushed by Skulker yet again. After being chased all over town by the demented hunter, it was way too late to show up to movie night and he’d just gone home to get what little sleep he could.
“You could maybe try not having detentions,” Sam joked. “I’m usually all for sticking it to the man, but I think they got the message.” Danny forced a laugh.
“Are you feeling any better?” Tucker added. Danny’s go-to excuse when he had to run out during the day had become having to go to the bathroom. Now everyone thought he had a medical issue.
“Yeah, this week should be better than last.” And he meant it. He’d spent all of Sunday rounding up every ghost he could find so they wouldn’t be out to get him Monday. It was his new, proactive approach.
“Well, if you’re really feeling better, maybe we could hit the mall after school? I need a new sweater after that food fight last week.” Tucker frowned at the replacement sweatshirt he’d been wearing since his favorite sweater got destroyed.
Everyone at school thought it was just a regular food fight even though no one had taken credit for starting it. Unfortunately for Danny, it was anything but normal. The Lunch Lady had shown up again and started throwing food out of the kitchen right in the middle of lunch.
“Sure, the mall sounds fun.” He really hoped he wouldn’t have to cancel again.
It seemed like every time he tried to have a normal moment anymore, a ghost would show up to ruin everything. And if he didn’t get rid of it fast enough, his parents might show up and make everything even worse. He’d had detention multiple times a week from running out of class and breaking every fragile piece of lab equipment, and missed out on invites from his friends for two months now. Nothing like facing the consequences of his own actions. At least he did learn his lesson: no playing around in the lab by himself. Although what’s the worst that could happen anymore, it kills him again?
Summary: Danny has been acting weird. Tucker wants his friend back.
- - -
Tucker jogged to catch up with Danny, panting as he yelled out his childhood’s friend’s name. “Danny! C'mon, man, wait up!”
Shoulders hunched, hair a rat’s nest, and dark bags under his eyes, Danny half turned to look back at him over his shoulder.
“Hey, Tuck.” He offered with a weak smile that somehow did reach his icy blue eyes.
“Woah, you look like death warmed over.” Tucker cursed himself and barely stopped before facepalming when he saw his friend flinch and look down. Way to go, Tuck. “Sorry, man, but you look like you haven’t slept in weeks!”
No One Knows AU is so great for so many reasons but I have this one scenario bouncing around in my head and given today's DannyMay theme it seems like a good time to slosh it into the hellsite blender:
Phantom and Danny Fenton hate each other.
We're going with my favorite flavor: Sam and Tucker don't really know Danny Fenton and befriend Phantom separately/first. (Maybe the Fentons are new in town or something. Not important) Also @artistfingers's Undercover Phantom AU lives rent free in my head so if any of this looks familiar... yea
-Once Danny befriends Sam and Tucker as Phantom, he avoids them as much as he can when he's human. Less opportunity for them to make the connection, especially since knows he has the finesse of a baby giraffe in roller skates. Because Sam and Tucker are Good Guys I'd love to assert that "of course they'd see Danny sitting alone at lunch and invite him over!" or something. And I think they might! But it's not a given IMO.
-Anyway as Sam and Tucker bond with Phantom, it becomes more evident that there's some kind of connection between Phantom and Danny. Maybe something makes them suspicious of Danny. For example the Fentons come up in conversation and
Phantom: I'd steer clear of that family if I were you
Sam & Tucker: ok yeah if we were you we'd avoid the parents too, but the kids seem harmless? their son is actually in our grade and we can't tell if he's lonely or just tired
Phantom (because I love Danny but can be stoopid): No! Especially avoid their son!
Danny was trying to cover his own ass and they interpret it as Phantom being afraid of Danny and assume there's unsavory history.
-Sam and Tucker happen to ask their good buddy Phantom why he and the rest of the ghosts suddenly showed up in Amity Park one day when Danny happens to be in a terrible mood. Just had one of those days. His life is falling to shit because he's living two lives and even his two new friends can't support all of him, you know?
In canon he has a strong sense of duty to protect AP but IIRC they never make the connection to him triggering the ghost influx and any consequential guilt/blame. I think not having Sam and Tucker as a support system from the start would push this over the edge.
-So he's feeling down on himself. Inadequate. But he can't say exactly why he's requesting an 'F' in the chat for respeccs because it's all very human drama and he's not a great liar, so he just rants about his human self in the third person.
It's cathartic. Too cathartic. He gets a liiiiiiiiiittle carried away. He gets to admit to (perceived) responsibility without the pitying looks and cold comfort. Most people's automatic response to "I messed up" is "no you didn't!!", and sometimes that's not what you want/need to hear, you know?
-...remember how I said he gets "a little carried away"? By that I mean he reveals (as Phantom) that Danny Fenton turned on the ghost portal and let all the ghosts loose in Amity Park, and now he (Phantom) has been cleaning up his mess all by himself while Danny has done nothing.
-Of course the subtext here is that Danny feels like he's only useful as Phantom. He never felt particularly remarkable before the accident. Since then he's been struggling with grades more than ever, his family is worried because he's been distant, etc. And of course he finally makes friends but they don't like the real him.
We all know Phantom is also the real him, but to Danny the "him" that goes to school, lives with his family, has actual connections to society did not make these friends. And as you recall in this scenario Danny was actively avoiding Sam and Tucker once they became friends with Phantom. But. Y'know. Brains aren't always logical
-Back to the scene: Phantom barely lets Sam and Tucker get a word in through his rant, and then a ghost attacks and he has to fly off. That was... confusing, to say the least, and that's the last they see/hear of Phantom that day.
-So the next day at school Sam and Tucker sit at Danny's usual lunch table and Sam pokes him awake from his daily nap. They try to broach the subject with a smidgen of tact but of course Danny has a lot more context than they know.
-Danny's not sure how to deal with the situation he created for himself besides digging in his heels + it felt so good ranting the day before that he hardly hesitates before he (as Fenton) launches into a rant about Phantom.
-Even though he's technically dissing their buddy, Sam and Tucker actually walk away with some sympathy for the kid. They come to three conclusions: 1. Turning on the portal was an accident and 2. Danny's beef with Phantom is personal. He doesn't have his parents' animosity towards all ghosts and 3. He's... weirdly easy to talk to? It's like they already know him wow crazy ha ha ha hA hAH AHAH aha. (haha)
-Unfortunately this outburst happened in the cafeteria of a high school and people overheard this extremely juicy development wherein the local loner child of two mad scientists has a personal feud with the controversial town hero/menace. Word does not take long to spread because students and faculty agree that even in a town overrun with ghosts this is the most insane thing they've heard. And everyone has a theory. People spot Phantom patrolling the night sky and shout to him, asking if he'd like to comment on the latest rumor from/about Danny Fenton. Danny routinely forgets he can ignore them, fly away, turn invisible, anything other than dig himself deeper. But hey, it helps him keep his cover at least?
-Fun fact: Jazz knows they're the same person but Danny doesn't know she knows and she's freaking the fuck out over all this apparent self hatred but even she doesn't know where to start to break it down
-All the while Sam and Tucker have been making more of an effort to hang out with Fenton. Danny is... confused by this, to say the least. Figures they're taking pity on the kid since they triggered the blowup that made him look like even more of a freak, and/or they're mining him for more Phantom secrets. A small part of him is also petrified he'll slip and they'll find out he's been lying to them. But he likes them and self restraint has never been his strong suit. Even if they can't really like Danny (Fenton) that much they're nice to him and he has fun with them, and even if he has to keep track of which memories/info he should have access to as his human or ghost self it's nice to always have friends.
-If you want some extra layers of irony: Sam and Tucker keep it a secret from Phantom that they've been hanging out with Fenton, and they hide their friendship with Phantom from Fenton. But Danny can't call them out on it without revealing that he's been lying to them about being Fenton and Phantom. It's the Mexican standoff from the Ghost Zone hell.
-I'll let you all decide just how far the miscommunications go. Maybe Tucker lets it slip to Phantom that he and Sam are friends with Fenton now and instead of taking this prime opportunity to come clean himself, Danny panics and reacts hurt or outraged (and really sells it, even if the real fuel behind his distress is guilt). Orrrrrrr Danny loses track of the half-truths and references something Sam told Phantom as Fenton. Etc.
-Don't worry guys I'm all about the wholesome endings: One day Phantom is going off about Danny Fenton, and Sam and Tucker do their best to validate Phantom's frustrations, but Danny is totally blown away when they finally stick up for Fenton. To his face. They say that's it, they've heard enough, those two obviously have a complicated history but some of the things Phantom says about Danny are just unfair. As the only two people to know Danny and Phantom both personally, Sam and Tucker have concluded that they have the authority to declare neither are menaces, or useless, or have "stupid hair", thanks. ("Both your senses of style, on the other hand..." "Hey!") Opening the portal was an accident. Fenton doesn't need to be useful, he's a kid. A kid in a tough situation doing his best just like themselves, like Phantom, like anyone else. Sam and Tucker don't have powers, are they useless? No. And Danny and Phantom might even get along if they can just cool down (LOL) and talk it out. But he has to stop. Danny Fenton is their friend.
-Phantom's standing there with his jaw on the floor. They said everything he needed to hear, having no way of knowing it's what he wanted to hear. Quite the opposite, actually. His feet touch down on the floor, his voice has lost most of its haunting echo when he says, "I'm your friend?"
This confuses Tucker and Sam: yeah?? but that's not the point?? We're saying DANNY is also— OH FUCK
Phantom didn’t know where he came from. He’d gathered, in small scraps of knowledge from others, that this was normal. You forgot things, when you died, when you became a ghost, when you gave up what you were in exchange for what you could do.
It followed that Phantom must have died.
That was what the others said, what they implied when they didn’t say anything, what the word ghost meant in the first place.
Phantom was a ghost.
A brand new ghost. So freshly dead and shiny new that Johnny sometimes joked about smelling grave soil on him, on the days Phantom could stand him.
Phantom couldn’t always stand him. They’d fought a few times, the most recent being over a girl with red hair who wasn’t Kitty and no they couldn’t have her.
This was normal, too. He was a feral little thing with a haunt too big for him. Territorial and untrusting. A child in every way that ghosts counted, reeling from the great change and fighting for control.
What wasn’t normal was a ghost who couldn’t reliably hold onto corporeal form and consciousness for more than an hour to keep that too-big haunt, to fight and win against ghosts who had been in death’s uncertain embrace hundreds of times longer than he had.
Phantom was okay with being weird.
He was okay with walking out of a flash of light and into a fight in a familiar-not alley, or classroom, or park with little, because that meant he was spending his time properly, not wasting energy he could be using to keep his place and people safe and protected.
It made him feel good. Made him feel more, if only for a moment, before tiredness faded in and he flared out into… into whatever he was between moments of awareness. Some kind of shade, maybe?
It probably didn’t matter. According to everyone who would talk to him, he’d stabilize before too long. He’d be able to do more than just fight.
He sighed, and smiled dreamily up at the stars. It wasn’t that he disliked fighting, it was important, but he knew that if he had the time, he could do so much more! He could help people with other things! He could fix problems before they got bad!
He could have more moments like this, too.
Moments when the ghosts were gone and the chaos stopped and the people safe and everything was good and right.
The stars twinkled at him as gravity began to pull on him more urgently, his feet making silent, but firm, contact with the ground.
“Until next time,” he said.
There was a flash of light.
.
Danny leaned his head against the wall of the nearest building, not caring that it was probably unsanitary. He moaned. It hurt, and he was shaking, exhausted.
Breathe, he reminded himself. He didn’t know where he was, and panicking would only make that worse.
This had happened before. This had happened before and he was fine. He should be getting used to this by now.
It was still hard not to cry.
Luckily, though, given this was the umpteenth time he’d sleepwalked out of the house or blacked out, he’d been prepared when he went to sleep. He wore slippers to bed, now, and kept his phone on a lanyard around his wrist.
He fumbled the clamshell open, his fingers clumsy from lack of sleep and the general disorientation that followed episodes like this. His eyes barely registered the blurred numbers proclaiming the time to be 2:57 AM. He didn’t need to look at the screen, anyway. The home phone was on speed-dial. His parents didn’t sleep with earplugs anymore.
The phone rang three times.
“Danny? Did it happen again?” asked Maddie, immediately upon picking up.
“That no good ghost!” shouted Jack in the background, barely audible. “When I get my hands on it–!”
Danny didn’t believe in ghosts. Yeah, more people talked about them now, but as far as he was concerned, it was all an elaborate joke on the kid with ghost hunter parents. A mean one, considering it all started up right after his accident with the portal. He’d never seen a ghost, besides, and Jazz backed him up, saying that he probably had some kind of sleep disorder.
“Yeah,” said Danny. “I, um, I don’t see any street signs, but I think I’m in the warehouse district.” He swallowed. “It’s really dark here.”
“It’s okay, honey,” said Maddie, soothingly. “We’ll just track your phone, and we’ll be down there in a jiffy.”
“Okay,” said Danny.
“Stay on the line, alright?”
“Okay,” said Danny. “I’m sorry…”
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” said Maddie, crisply. He heard a door slam shut on her side. “It’s those darn ghosts. You don’t deserve to be bullied by these malevolent pseudo consciousnesses!”
Danny felt his headache increase. “Mom, I have a sleep disorder. I’m not being haunted.”
“The sleep study didn’t find anything,” said Maddie, defensively. The familiar roar of the GAV started in the background, followed by a squeal.
Danny sighed. “Can we not do this right now? I’m… tired.”
“Do you have a headache?” asked Maddie. “You should really try those ectopurifying tablets again…”
“They made me sick last time,” said Danny, “and they aren’t approved for human consumption.”
“They’re perfectly safe,” said Maddie. “None of the compounds we used are toxic to humans. We tested them ourselves.”
“Please don’t feed me anything that isn’t FDA approved,” said Danny, echoing Jazz’s ultimatum from earlier that year. “Do you have tylenol with you?”
“Of course, honey, we always have tylenol.”
“Thanks,” said Danny. He inhaled shakily. “Why does this keep happening to me?”
“We’ll find out,” said Maddie, reassuringly.
“I hope so.” Danny looked up. He could see more stars here than he could elsewhere in the city. It was a single nice spot in what would probably shape up to be a really awful day.
The bright lights of the GAV swung around the corner, and Danny squinted at them even as the vehicle came to a shrieking halt. The back door popped open, and Danny climbed in.
“Hey, Danny!” greeted Jack, with rather forced joviality.
“Oh,” he said, “it’s warm in here.”
“Mhm,” said Maddie, looking back over the front passenger seat to look him over, and handed him the tylenol bottle. “You aren’t hurt?”
“No,” said Danny.
“Remember, if you’re hurt, you need to call nine-one-one first.”
“I remember,” said Danny, leaning back and digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Do you think I could skip school today?” He’d missed too much school already, but… it was worth a shot.
Maddie reached back to pat his knee. “How about you see how you feel when you wake up?”
literally what i love most about DP is that Danny just Sucks So Bad at having super powers. literally NEVER not entertaining. you're just waiting for him to screw up in ways you never thought impossible and how he's going to scrape by using his wits. 90% of his problems are self made
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