Apr 18
I CANT TAKE IT ANYMORE I’VE BEEN GATEKEEPING THIS DRAWING FOR LONG ENOUGH
seen from China
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seen from Netherlands
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from Canada
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from China
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seen from T1
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seen from China
I CANT TAKE IT ANYMORE I’VE BEEN GATEKEEPING THIS DRAWING FOR LONG ENOUGH
i drew some small critters 😊
They want out
ɪ ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ᴡᴀɴɴᴀ ʟɪᴠᴇ. ɪꜱ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ꜱᴏ ᴡʀᴏɴɢ? ᴡʜʏ ᴅᴏᴇꜱɴ'ᴛ ᴀɴʏᴏɴᴇ ᴇʟꜱᴇ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛʜᴀᴛ..?
that one game
Look at where baby Mack is now, with dat C 🙌🙌
Call in Dead.
Chapter 3.1 - At the Place Where my demons Lurk 1/2
possible mild ideas of body dysmorphia and mild mentions of harm/self harm, sensitive readers are warned
Danny woke up tired in the way only the dead could manage.
Not sleepy. Not groggy. Not the familiar drag of too little rest and too many late nights. This was deeper than that—something marrow-thick and bone-heavy, a fatigue that had settled somewhere behind his ribs and spread outward until even breathing felt like work.
He lay there for a long moment, face half-buried in his pillow, staring blankly at the wall and trying very hard to justify never moving again.
It was tempting.
The blankets were warm. His room was quiet. His body ached in that dull, all-encompassing way that came after a long night of patrol—muscles sore, core low, mind scraped hollow by too much adrenaline and not enough rest. Every part of him felt overused. Even his eyelids were heavy enough to sting.
He could still feel phantom bruises under his skin.
A lingering ache in his shoulder from where a ghost had slammed him through the side of a billboard at two in the morning. The faint burn in his palms from overusing ectoblasts. The sharp, familiar throb at the base of his spine that always showed up after too much flying and too many hard landings.
He didn’t want to move.
Didn’t want to think.
Didn’t want to do anything except sink back into the mattress and stay there long enough for the world to forget he existed.
Sleep forever.
The thought came and went with all the weightless ease of habit.
Not in a dramatic way. Not even in a particularly upsetting one. Just quiet. Casual. The kind of thought that had stopped sounding alarming in his own head a long time ago.
Sleep forever. No alarms. No portals. No screaming ghosts clawing at his window at three in the morning. No homework. No school. No fighting. No expectations. No constant, grinding need to keep moving.
Just rest.
A real one.
The knock on his door came before the thought could settle.
Three short taps. Familiar. Measured.
“Danny?”
Jazz.
He shut his eyes harder for half a second, as if that might somehow rewind time enough to spare him from consciousness.
“Food’s almost ready.”
There was a pause.
Then, gentler, “You need to get up.”
Danny exhaled slowly into the pillow and considered pretending to be dead.
Technically speaking, it wasn’t even a lie.
Instead, he peeled one eye open and stared at the clock.
7:02 AM.
Cruel. Unnatural. Morally offensive.
“Danny.”
“I’m awake,” he croaked, voice rough enough to sound like he’d been chewing gravel in his sleep.
A beat of silence.
“Your voice sounds terrible.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Get up.”
Her footsteps retreated down the hall.
Danny lay there for another ten seconds in silent protest before dragging himself upright with all the grace and enthusiasm of a reanimated corpse.
Everything hurt.
Not enough to matter. Not enough to stop him. Just enough to make existing feel inconvenient.
He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, elbows on his knees, waiting for the room to stop tilting. His core gave a slow, unhappy pulse low in his chest—cold and sluggish and distinctly unimpressed with the concept of being awake.
“Same,” Danny muttered to it.
Getting ready for school was muscle memory more than conscious thought.
He moved through it on autopilot—uniform motions repeated often enough to stop requiring active thought. Bathroom. Sink. Toothbrush. Water too cold against his face. Hoodie. Jeans. Backpack.
He stared at himself in the mirror for half a second too long while brushing his teeth.
Pale.
More than usual.
There were faint shadows under his eyes, dark enough to stand out against skin that already ran too cool and too light. He looked tired. Hollowed out around the edges. Too sharp in places that should’ve looked softer at sixteen.
Dead on his feet.
Fitting.
A flash of what should be there according to his true form. Then back to his ‘Human’ face. The uneven proportions of his face. The odd tilt of his shoulders hunching inwards to hide their too wide proportions. The point of his teeth. The bloodshot sceleras. The dark freckles on his nose and cheeks making it look like dirt…
He hated it.
He spat, rinsed, and looked away.
By the time he made it downstairs, the house smelled like breakfast.
Or, more accurately, like Jazz’s attempt to force normalcy into a deeply abnormal household.
The kitchen was already warm. Jazz stood at the stove in herusual outfit labled as school clothes, one hand still on the pan while the other adjusted the heat with the casual efficiency of someone who’d done this too many times to think about it. She had one of her textbooks open on the counter beside her, a highlighter tucked into the spine, and was somehow reading while cooking with the kind of multitasking precision that made Danny tired just looking at her.
A plate was set down in front of him the moment he sat.
Eggs. Bacon. Sausage.
Simple. Fast. Manageable.
“Eat,” Jazz said, already turning back toward the stove.
Danny stared at the plate for a second, then at her.
“You’re a tyrant.”
“Yes,” she said easily. “And yet I’m still feeding you.”
That was the thing about mornings in the Fenton house.
Jazz cooked.
Not because she particularly wanted to, and definitely not because either of their parents had ever asked her to, but because if she didn’t, nobody would eat anything remotely safe before noon.
Their parents were many things. Brilliant, obsessive, deeply concerning, arguably criminal in at least six categories—
Domestic was not one of them.
The kitchen was less a functional family space and more a war zone with cupboards.
Anything in the fridge was a gamble.
Jazz did her best, but there was only so much she could do when their parents kept putting contaminated samples next to actual groceries like that was a normal thing people did. Ecto-sludge in unmarked jars. Half-finished thermoses of glowing green residue. Spectral compounds in Tupperware containers that should, by all rights, have been holding leftovers.
The milk had been haunted twice.
The orange juice had once hissed when opened.
Danny still didn’t know what had happened to the butter, and he had no desire to find out.
Jazz had adapted accordingly.
Everything was checked. Everything was cleaned. Everything was cooked with the kind of ruthless caution usually reserved for bomb disposal.
She was good at it, too. Annoyingly so.
Not that she had much room for creativity when she was limited by time, contamination risk, and whatever ingredients hadn’t been rendered mildly radioactive by proximity.
Still.
She made it work.
Danny picked up his fork.
Paused.
Something on his plate twitched.
He stared at the sausages.
One of them gave a small, deeply offensive wriggle.
Danny did not react with surprise.
He reacted with speed.
His hand moved automatically, years of reflex overriding conscious thought as he dropped the fork, grabbed the knife, and stabbed both sausages clean through before they could make a second attempt at sentience.
One bite later, he was halfway through one of them, still impaled on the knife.
Jazz glanced over just in time to watch him do it.
There was a pause.
Then, flatly, “Was that necessary?”
Danny swallowed. “It moved.”
“That does not answer my question.”
“It was thinking about escaping.”
Jazz looked at the sausage. Looked at him. Then sighed the long-suffering sigh of someone too tired to unpack any part of what she’d just witnessed.
“Fair.”
Danny took another bite, still holding the knife.
Across the room, the toaster rattled ominously.
Neither of them looked at it.
After a moment, Jazz slid into the chair across from him with her own plate and a mug of coffee that smelled strong enough to wake the dead.
Which, admittedly, in this house, was less metaphor than usual.
For a little while, they ate in relative silence.
It wasn’t awkward.
It never really was.
Just quiet in the way mornings tended to be—Jazz reviewing mental lists and half her coursework before eight in the morning, Danny trying to become human enough to survive public education.
The house creaked around them.
Somewhere in the basement, something exploded.
Neither of them reacted.
A beat later came their father’s muffled shout, followed by their mother yelling something that sounded vaguely like “hand me the ecto-filter.”
Jazz took a sip of coffee.
Danny ate another bite of murdered sausage.
Normal.
God, he was tired.
Danny didn’t register that Jazz was talking at first.
Not because he was ignoring her. Not intentionally.
His brain was just moving slower than the rest of him this morning, dulled down to something blunt and heavy, every thought delayed behind a thick layer of exhaustion that made processing feel less like thinking and more like wading through sludge.
So he stabbed one of the sausages again instead.
The tines of the fork sat abandoned beside his plate, ignored in favour of the knife currently speared through the last twitching bit of breakfast. He took another bite without much thought, chewing mechanically as Jazz’s voice filled the kitchen in a soft, steady rhythm he only half heard.
It blurred together at first. Background noise. Familiar. Safe enough to let slide past him while his brain focused on simpler things.
Chew. Swallow. Breathe.
Don’t let the sausage move again.
By the time he’d finished the last bite and shifted to impaling a portion of eggs with the knife next, his mind had finally started catching up enough to separate sound into words.
“—so Wednesday I’ll be late getting home because I have lab, and Thursday I’ve got a guidance meeting after school, which means if you need a ride you’ll have to wait until four-thirty.”
Danny blinked down at his plate.
Right.
Jazz was talking.
He dragged the eggs through a smear of yolk and lifted them to his mouth while she set a glass of orange juice down beside his plate with quiet precision.
Distraction, some detached part of him noted.
She was doing it on purpose.
The orange juice. The schedule rundown. The calm, even tone.
Something to keep him grounded. Something easy to focus on.
Danny didn’t comment on it. Just took the glass and drank from it because she’d put it there and because the acidity helped cut through some of the lingering fog in his skull.
Jazz leaned against the counter, her own breakfast mostly ignored in favour of the coffee she’d been nursing between sentences.
“Friday’s probably the worst of it,” she continued. “You’ve got that English quiz first period, Sam said Tucker was trying to convince Lancer to push the history test to next week, and I have that college prep meeting after lunch.”
Danny made a vague noise around another bite of eggs to signal he was listening.
Mostly.
“Saturday I’m taking the car in because the brakes are making that noise again.”
That got slightly more of his attention.
He frowned. “The screaming one?”
Jazz grimaced. “The screaming one.”
“Cool.”
“Not cool.”
He shrugged, took another bite, and she sighed into her coffee.
It was normal.
This was normal.
Jazz talking. Danny half-listening. Breakfast in the kitchen while the house creaked around them and the morning dragged itself awake.
Normal enough that the silence, when it came, was immediate and wrong.
Jazz cut off mid-sentence.
Danny froze with his knife halfway to his mouth.
There was a beat of stillness.
Then—
The metallic groan of the basement door opening.
Every muscle in Danny’s body locked.
The sound rang through the kitchen like a trigger pulled.
Heavy metal scraping against concrete. Hinges protesting. The familiar echo of the lab door dragging open beneath the floor.
Then voices.
Too loud.
Too close.
Animated and bright and grating in the way only they could be this early in the morning.
“—I’m telling you, Maddie, if we increase the voltage output and reverse the polarity of the condenser—”
“Jack, the last time you reversed the polarity you blew out half the lab!”
“That was one time!”
“It was three!”
Their voices grew louder as they climbed the stairs, still talking over each other with the kind of thoughtless enthusiasm that made Danny’s spine go rigid.
He stared at his plate.
Didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
Across from him, Jazz had gone equally still.
Not visibly tense.
That would imply reaction.
No, she’d gone quiet in the way she always did around them—controlled and contained and carefully blank, all the warmth from a moment ago shuttered away behind practiced neutrality.
Danny hated how familiar that expression was.
Their parents entered the kitchen still mid-conversation, all movement and noise and oblivious energy.
Jack crossed straight to the fridge.
Maddie was already rummaging through a cabinet.
Neither of them looked at the table.
Neither acknowledged the two people sitting less than ten feet away.
Danny watched Jack pull the fridge open and start shoving a thermos of glowing green ectoplasm onto the shelf beside the orange juice.
His jaw tightened.
Maddie set down three unlabeled vials of something neon blue on the counter next to the toaster.
Jazz’s fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around her coffee mug. He slightly registered the lack of movement in her shoulders or her chest that would normally indicate breathing. Who could he fault (Himself) she was like him now, so she didn’t always need to breathe, just like him…
“—if we can stabilize the ecto-signature long enough to isolate the spectral residue—”
“Then we’ll finally have a reliable dissection model!”
Jack laughed, already digging through the pantry for something processed and shelf-stable enough to qualify as breakfast.
Danny stared at the plate in front of him and felt something cold settle behind his ribs.
Not fear.
Not really.
Just that same old, familiar numbness.
The strange dissociative distance that always set in when Jack and Maddie entered a room and somehow made it feel smaller while never actually noticing the people in it.
His eyes tracked absently as Jack grabbed two packaged snack cakes and tore one open with all the force of a man trying to dismember it.
Maddie poured herself coffee from the pot on the counter.
Neither of them said good morning.
Neither of them asked about school.
Neither of them acknowledged Jazz standing three feet away.
They just kept talking.
Over each other. Around each other. Through the room like Danny and Jazz were furniture.
“…might need more vivisection pins.”
“Check the lower cabinet.”
“We’re out.”
“Then write it on the list.”
Danny took another bite of eggs because the alternative was letting himself think too hard about the fact that Jack had just put ectoplasm next to the orange juice again.
He chewed.
Swallowed.
Listened to them move around the kitchen like intruders in a space they technically owned.
He didn’t even consciously register the thought when it surfaced.
Jack and Maddie.
Not Mom and Dad.
Just names.
Detached. Clinical. Impersonal.
He didn’t notice the shift.
Didn’t notice how easy it had become.
A few more minutes passed like that.
Jack inhaled one of the snack cakes.
Maddie drained half her coffee.
They kept talking the whole time, rapid-fire theories and half-finished sentences and absent motions as they gathered whatever they needed for the next round of lab work.
Then, just as abruptly as they’d arrived, they were moving again.
Back toward the basement.
Still talking.
Still not looking.
The metal door opened.
Closed.
The sound echoed through the kitchen with a final heavy clang.
Silence dropped over the room.
Danny exhaled.
Sharp and quiet.
The same followed from where Jazz stood.
Short and harsh.
He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath.
Across from him, Jazz was still staring at her coffee.
Her expression hadn’t changed.
But something in her shoulders had gone tight.
Danny looked away first.
He finished the rest of his eggs in three quick bites and chased them with orange juice because it gave him something to do with his hands.
Jazz stayed quiet.
Too quiet.
He stood, took his plate to the dishwasher, and was halfway through sliding it into place when he heard her murmur something under her breath.
He only caught part of it.
“…pulled another all-nighter.”
Danny paused.
His gaze flicked to the counter.
To the coffee pot.
Half-empty.
Two extra mugs in the sink.
Still warm.
Right.
That explained the volume.
The manic energy.
The complete lack of awareness somehow made worse by sleep deprivation and caffeine.
His mouth flattened.
Of course they had.
Of course.
Danny turned away before he could think too hard about it and moved toward the front door, crouching to yank on his shoes with practiced speed.
Routine.
Bag by the stairs.
Shoes on.
Leave before the house could become unbearable again.
Behind him, Jazz set her mug down.
“I’ll be right back,” she said, voice carefully even. “I just need to grab something from my room.”
Danny glanced up just long enough to see her heading for the stairs.
The second she disappeared, his eyes cut back to the kitchen.
To the coffee pot.
Still half-full.
Still hot.
He stared at it for exactly one second.
Then moved.
Quick and silent, Danny crossed the kitchen, grabbed the pot, and drank straight from it.
The coffee was still hot enough to burn.
He barely noticed.
His core welcomed the burn.
Bitter. Acrid. Strong enough to make his teeth ache.
He swallowed anyway. Then again. Then kept going until the pot was nearly empty and his pulse felt just a little less sluggish beneath his skin.
By the time he set it back in place, only a shallow layer remained.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, stepped back to his original spot by the front door, and adjusted his expression into something neutral just as Jazz came back downstairs.
She paused.
Looked at the coffee pot.
Looked at him.
Danny stared back, face blank.
Jazz narrowed her eyes.
Sighed.
Didn’t comment.
Instead she twirled her keys once around her finger and grabbed her bag.
“Ready?”
Danny slung his backpack over one shoulder.
“Yep.”
Jazz opened the front door.
Cold morning air hit him like a reset button.
Sharp and clean and infinitely easier to breathe than the kitchen had been.
Danny stepped outside without hesitation.
Jazz locked the door behind them, the click of it sealing shut something in his chest he didn’t have words for.
He moved for the car immediately.
Passenger side. Same as always.
Bag dropped at his feet, body folding into the seat with the kind of practiced motion that came from years of repetition.
By the time Jazz slid into the driver’s seat, Danny already had his head tipped back against the window.
Eyes half-lidded.
The coffee was beginning to hit his bloodstream.
But not enough to wake him up.
Just enough to make the exhaustion sharper around the edges.
Jazz started the car.
The engine rumbled to life beneath them.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Jazz pulled out of the driveway and said, quieter this time, “You slept at all?”
Danny watched the neighborhood slide past through the glass.
“Like twenty minutes.”
Jazz winced.
“Danny.”
He shrugged one shoulder.
Didn’t look at her.
There wasn’t much to say to that.
Because what was the point?
Yes, he’d been out all night.
Yes, the ghost attacks had escalated again.
Yes, he was exhausted enough that his bones felt full of wet cement and his thoughts were lagging just enough to make everything feel unreal around the edges.
And yes, he was still expected to go sit through seven hours of school like a functioning person.
Normal.
Everything was normal.
Danny closed his eyes and let the motion of the car rock against his skull.
Beside him, Jazz tightened her grip on the wheel.
The silence that followed wasn’t comfortable.
But it was familiar.
And for now, that was close enough.
Till the silence was only a suggestion.
“I’ve been thinking…”
Jazz’s voice cut through the quiet just enough to drag Danny’s attention away from the blur of passing houses outside his window.
He turned his head slightly, blinking at her through the fog of lingering exhaustion.
That sentence alone was enough to make him wary.
Not because Jazz thinking was a bad thing.
Jazz thinking was usually a very good thing.
The problem was that when she used that specific tone—careful, measured, deliberate—it usually meant she’d already thought something through six different ways and had arrived at a conclusion she intended to see through no matter what anyone else thought about it.
Danny knew that tone.
He’d learned to fear it.
He made a low noise in the back of his throat. “That’s ominous.”
Jazz huffed a quiet laugh, eyes still on the road. “Probably.”
Danny let his head tip a little more toward her, waiting.
She was quiet for another second, fingers shifting slightly on the steering wheel.
Then—
“I’m changing.”
Danny frowned.
That got more of his attention.
His eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at her properly now, his sleep-blunted brain taking a second longer than usual to catch up.
Jazz noticed.
“I don’t mean emotionally,” she said dryly. “Though, arguably, yes. I mean biologically.”
Danny stilled.
The last traces of exhaustion dulled around the edges, not gone, but shoved aside by something sharper.
“Oh.”
Jazz glanced at him briefly, then back to the road.
“Yeah. Oh.”
He sat up a little straighter.
Not enough to look alarmed.
Enough to show he was listening now.
Jazz let out a slow breath through her nose.
“I know Frostbite already went over most of it. I know Pandora did too. And I know we’ve already established that whatever this is, it’s happening slower for me than it did for you.” Her mouth pulled faintly to one side. “Which I’m still considering a win, by the way.”
Danny snorted despite himself.
She continued.
“But it’s still happening.”
Her fingers tapped once against the wheel.
“I’m changing. Adapting. Learning. Whatever term we’re using for it this week.”
Danny watched her profile, silent.
Jazz’s voice stayed even. Casual enough to pass for conversation.
But he knew her too well not to hear what sat underneath it.
Thought. Planning. Careful intent.
“I’m not human in the same way I was six months ago,” she said. “And pretending otherwise would be stupid. M’Sure you can understand.”
Danny’s shoulders tightened almost imperceptibly.
He already knew where this was going.
He just didn’t want to hear her say it.
Jazz, unfortunately, noticed everything.
“So,” she said lightly, “I had an idea.”
Danny groaned immediately.
She ignored him.
“I can help you.”
He closed his eyes.
There it was.
Of course there it was.
Danny tipped his head back against the seat and exhaled through his nose. “Jazz—”
“No, hear me out.”
He opened one eye and gave her a flat look.
“You say that like that’s ever stopped you.”
Jazz smiled, brief and sharp. “Because it hasn’t.”
“Right.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Her grip shifted on the wheel again.
“I know.”
That, more than anything, made him go quiet.
Because she did know.
Jazz knew exactly what he was objecting to before he’d even said it.
Knew why he’d object.
Knew why that knot of cold dread had already started curling in his chest.
She kept talking anyway.
“I’m already training.”
Danny didn’t answer.
“Objectively,” Jazz continued, “I am already learning how to use my core, how to regulate it, how to defend myself, and how not to accidentally set something on fire when I get irritated.”
“You say that like that’s reassuring.”
“It should be.”
“It’s not.”
Jazz ignored that too.
“I’m learning how to fight. I’m learning control. I’m learning how to exist in all of this without becoming a liability to myself or anyone around me.”
Danny’s jaw tightened.
There it was.
That word.
Liability.
Jazz continued before he could say anything.
“So the obvious practical application is helping you.”
Danny let out a tired, disbelieving laugh. “Jazz—”
“No.”
Her tone sharpened just enough to cut him off.
Danny went still.
Jazz kept her eyes on the road, expression calm.
“You don’t get to dismiss this before I finish.”
He stared at her.
She kept going.
“You patrol alone. You get hurt alone. You handle everything alone, and half the reason you’re this exhausted all the time is because you’ve decided the burden of keeping literally everyone safe is somehow yours by default.”
Danny looked away.
“That is not—”
“It is,” Jazz cut in. “And you know it is.”
His mouth flattened.
The car hummed quietly around them.
Outside, the town kept moving.
Inside, Danny could feel the shape of the conversation turning against him in real time.
Jazz’s voice softened, but only slightly.
“I can help you.”
Danny stared out the window.
“I know what I’m doing enough not to be dead weight.”
He flinched before he could stop himself.
Jazz noticed. Of course she did.
Her voice gentled further.
“I’m not saying I’d do it alone.”
Danny said nothing.
“I’m saying I can help you occasionally. Not every patrol. Not every fight. But enough.”
Still nothing.
Jazz sighed.
“Danny.”
He shut his eyes.
“Danny, you cannot stop me from helping if I decide to.”
His eyes opened again.
That got his attention.
Jazz’s expression stayed infuriatingly calm.
“I’m telling you this now as a courtesy.”
Danny stared at her in disbelief. “A courtesy.”
“Yes.”
“That is a threat.”
“It is an informed warning.”
“That is still a threat.”
Jazz smiled slightly. “Semantics.”
Danny made a strangled noise somewhere between offense and disbelief.
She continued, entirely unbothered.
“You can say no if you want.”
His shoulders drew tight.
“But if you do,” Jazz said, “the only thing that changes is whether I do it with your supervision or behind your back.”
Danny turned fully toward her now.
“Jazz.”
“No, think about it.”
“I am thinking about it.”
“Then think harder.”
Danny made a frustrated sound.
Jazz kept going.
“I am helping either way. The only variable here is whether you’re involved enough to make sure I know what I’m doing and stay safe doing it.”
Danny stared at her.
She had the audacity to sound reasonable.
That was the worst part.
Because she was.
Objectively.
Logically.
Painfully.
Reasonable.
And he hated that.
Hated how quickly his brain had already started trying to calculate the practicalities instead of dismissing it outright.
Hated that part of him had already known this was coming eventually.
Hated that the idea of her out there at all made something in him go cold with fear.
Hated, too, the quiet treacherous relief beneath that fear.
Help.
Backup.
Someone else there.
Someone he trusted.
Someone capable.
Danny looked away again, jaw clenched hard enough to ache.
He thought of Jazz in the Ghost Zone.
Of her adapting too fast.
Learning too fast.
Of the ease with which she’d taken to things that had broken him open and rebuilt him raw.
He thought of her flames.
Her control.
Her stubbornness.
He thought of trying to stop her.
And knew exactly how well that would go.
Poorly.
At best.
Danny exhaled slowly through his nose.
“I hate this idea.”
Jazz’s mouth twitched. “I know.”
“I hate that you’re making valid points.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
He shot her a look.
She smiled, quick and unapologetic.
Danny dragged a hand down his face.
He was so tired.
Too tired for this.
Too tired to keep pretending this was an argument he could win.
Too tired not to recognize that she’d already made her decision before opening her mouth.
This was not Jazz asking permission.
It was Jazz offering him terms.
He hated that too.
Danny sat in silence long enough that Jazz’s fingers tightened once against the steering wheel.
Then—
“…Occasionally.”
Jazz went very still.
Danny kept staring out the window.
“Occasionally,” he repeated, voice flat. “And only if I’m there.”
Jazz didn’t interrupt.
“Only if you listen.”
A pause.
“Only if you do exactly what I tell you when I tell you to do it.”
Another pause.
Then, carefully—
“Danny—”
“No.” He turned to look at her properly now, exhaustion stripped back just enough to show the sharp edge beneath. “If you do this, you do not freelance, you do not improvise, and you do not play martyr because you think proving a point is worth getting hurt. I’ll listen to any ideas you have, because frankly, you get great ideas.”
Jazz’s expression shifted.
Something brighter. Softer.
Hopeful enough it almost hurt to look at.
Danny pressed on before he could think too hard about that.
“You stay where I can see you.”
Jazz nodded once immediately.
“You do not go out alone.”
Another nod.
“You do not do anything reckless.”
That earned him a look.
Danny deadpanned. “By your standards.”
She huffed a laugh. “That’s fair.”
“And if I tell you to leave, you leave.”
Jazz hesitated.
Danny’s stare sharpened.
She sighed. “Fine.”
“Immediately.”
“Yes, Danny.”
He held her gaze another second.
Then leaned back in his seat.
“Then fine.”
The effect was immediate.
Jazz lit up.
Not literally, thank God.
But the expression that crossed her face came dangerously close.
Relief. Delight. Vindication.
A kind of sharp, quiet triumph she tried and failed to hide.
Danny watched it happen and felt something in his chest twist in that unpleasant way emotions tended to when they refused to settle into one clean shape.
Because there was fear there.
A lot of it.
Protective, cold, immediate fear curling hard around his ribs at the thought of her in actual combat.
But beneath it—
Relief.
Thin and guilty and real.
He hated that too.
Jazz caught him looking and smiled, small and bright and entirely too pleased with herself.
“Thank you.”
Danny scowled automatically. “Don’t thank me like I did this willingly.”
“You agreed.”
“I was cornered.”
“You were presented with logic.”
“I was threatened.”
Jazz grinned. “And yet.”
Danny made a low, annoyed sound and turned back toward the window.
Beside him, Jazz’s smile lingered.
The conversation tapered off after that.
Not awkward.
Not quite comfortable.
Just… settled.
The kind of silence that came after something had shifted and both of them were still quietly adjusting to the new shape of it.
Danny let his head rest back against the seat again.
Outside, Amity Park passed in familiar stretches of quiet suburb and cracked pavement.
Inside, the car hummed steadily around them.
The coffee was finally starting to do its job.
Not much.
But enough.
The edges of the world felt marginally less muffled now. His thoughts a little less sluggish. The bone-deep exhaustion still sat heavy under his skin, but it had dulled from all-consuming to merely constant.
Beside him, Jazz drove with one hand loose on the wheel, the other resting near the gearshift.
Danny glanced at her once.
At the faint satisfaction she still hadn’t entirely managed to school out of her expression.
He sighed.
“You’re insufferable.”
Jazz’s smile sharpened. “And right.”
“That remains to be seen.”
She laughed quietly. “Who’s the older sibling here?”
Danny looked away before the sound could settle somewhere too warm in his chest.
The silence returned.
This time easier.
By the time the car began slowing, Danny had drifted just enough to nearly doze off sitting upright.
The subtle shift in motion pulled him back before sleep could properly take him.
He blinked, sat up, and looked out the windshield.
Casper High stood ahead of them in all its looming brick-and-concrete monotony.
Grey. Familiar. Uninspired.
The parking lot was already half full.
Danny stared at it for a long second.
School.
Right.
He’d almost forgotten.
The car rolled into a space and stopped.
The engine idled for half a beat before Jazz killed it.
Silence.
Then the click of seatbelts.
Danny unbuckled first, the motion automatic.
Beside him, Jazz did the same.
For one brief second neither of them moved.
Then Jazz glanced at him.
Danny glanced back.
Neither said anything.
Nothing really needed saying.
Jazz reached for her bag.
Danny grabbed his.
They stepped out into the cold morning air together.
Jazz and Danny split at the front steps with the kind of ease that came from years of routine.
No ceremony. No dramatic farewell. Just the quiet, practiced divergence of two people who had done this often enough that it barely needed acknowledging.
Jazz adjusted the strap of her bag, gave him one last look—the kind that said eat something at lunch and don’t fall asleep in class without actually saying it—and turned toward the upperclassman wing.
Danny watched her go for half a second.
Then spotted Tucker’s hat and Sam’s black coat near the front doors and redirected automatically.
Tucker saw him first.
“Dude,” Tucker said, narrowing his eyes as Danny approached. “You look like roadkill.”
Danny kept walking. “Good morning to you too.”
Sam looked him over once, gaze sharp and unimpressed in the way only Sam could manage before nine in the morning.
“You look awful.”
Danny gave her a flat stare. “I’m noticing a theme.”
Tucker fell into step beside him as the three of them headed inside with the slow-moving tide of students filtering through the main entrance.
“To be fair,” Tucker said, “it’s not exactly a subtle look. You’ve got the whole haunted Victorian orphan thing going on, but like… worse.”
Danny deadpanned. “You say the sweetest things.”
Sam’s eyes flicked over him again, catching the slight drag in his steps, the faint tension in his shoulders, the way his expression kept threatening to flatten into blankness whenever he wasn’t actively forcing it into something more alert.
“You sleep at all?”
Danny shoved his hands into his pockets and kept walking.
“Some.”
Tucker made a face. “That is not a number.”
“It’s enough of one.”
“It’s really not.”
Danny shrugged one shoulder, already steering the conversation elsewhere before either of them could dig in.
“What’d I miss in first period.”
Tucker narrowed his eyes at the blatant deflection.
Then, because this was neither new nor worth derailing the morning over, he let it go with only minimal judgment.
“Lancer threatened Chad with detention before homeroom even started.”
Danny nodded solemnly. “A strong start.”
“He deserved it,” Sam said.
“He usually does.”
That earned the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth, and the conversation shifted into easier things after that—half-idle chatter, the kind that required very little of him beyond occasional responses and just enough presence to keep suspicion off him.
Danny let them carry most of it.
He was good at that.
Had gotten good at it.
Nodding in the right places. Timing responses well enough to seem engaged. Smiling just enough to sell awake.
He could do this.
He’d done worse on less sleep.
School passed the way it usually did—slowly, painfully, and with all the grace of a root canal.
Danny drifted through it on habit and caffeine.
First period was English, where Mr. Lancer gave a lecture Danny only half absorbed while he tried not to let his eyes drift shut every time the room went still for too long.
Second period was history, where Tucker passed him a note that simply read if you die in class can I have your phone and Danny had stared at it for a full ten seconds before writing only if Sam gets first pick and passing it back.
Third period Dash shoulder-checked him into a locker hard enough to bruise.
“Watch it, Fenton.”
Danny bit back the automatic response and forced himself not to react beyond a tired glare.
Dash grinned like he’d won something and kept moving.
Paulina laughed.
Danny kept walking.
By lunch, Wes had cornered him near the vending machines to whisper—loudly, and with all the subtlety of a brick—that he had proof Phantom and Fenton were linked by “suspiciously consistent disappearance patterns.”
Danny had stared at him for three full seconds and said, “Wes, I’m begging you to discover a hobby.”
Wes had narrowed his eyes like that was exactly what Phantom would say.
Danny left before the conversation could become more painful.
The day dragged.
Then dragged more.
By the final bell, Danny felt like something held together with string and bad decisions.
But he’d made it through.
Mostly conscious. Barely functional. Technically successful.
Which was about as much as he’d been aiming for.
He was halfway down the main hall with Sam and Tucker on the slow march toward freedom when his ghost sense hit.
It came fast and sharp—a cold rush down his spine, breath catching in his throat as ice crackled involuntarily somewhere behind his teeth.
Danny stopped short with a quiet, deeply tired sigh.
Tucker looked over immediately.
Sam didn’t even break stride before clocking the expression on his face and stopping too.
“Ghost?” she asked.
Danny swallowed the last of the frost and nodded once.
“Yep.”
Tucker was already shrugging off his backpack.
“Go.”
Danny blinked.
Tucker held the bag out like this was the most obvious thing in the world. “We’ll cover. You do the spooky public service thing.”
Sam was already scanning the hallway, checking who was paying attention and who wasn’t.
“Meet us later.”
Danny took the bag automatically, then hesitated.
Tucker rolled his eyes and took it back. “Dude. Go.”
Danny exhaled, something tight in his chest loosening just enough to matter.
“Right. Yeah. Thanks.”
(had to split chapter in half because of limits)
Other chapters here
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