An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Samurai Jack (Cartoon), Johnny Bravo (Cartoon)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Johnny Bravo/Samurai Jack
Characters: Johnny Bravo, Samurai Jack
Additional Tags: Fluff, domestic life, karen's ruining jack's life tbh, Domestic, Kissing, Cuddling, sick day, Playing Hooky, Calling in sick, this is pure indulgence, the present au, continuation of prior story, johnny is a simp for jack, jack would die for johnny, instructor!Jack, influencer!Johnny, yes jack is a virgin in this, canonically i believe he's a virgin too, anyway, that's only adjacently relevant, not understanding yourself, man i think im hungry whenever i write this ship, these two are just sweeties, Maybe OOC, but in character for the universe?, braiding hair, Braids, Massage, Morning Wood, Bad movies
Series: Part 2 of The Present Universe
Summary:
Jack gets a complaint at work and Johnny makes a suggestion to help him with it.
For the prompt list thing any chance you wanna do random, #5?
Random #5 - “I would call you an imbecile but that’d be cruel as you wouldn’t be able to spell it.”
It Could be Weird
Danny’s life is weird. Everybody knows it. Even if they don’t know about his part-timejob of being dead, they know about his eccentric ghost-hunting parents, and his uptight psychology obsessed sister, and his own eternal fascination with space.
They know the food in his lunchbox is sometimes alive. They know the lump in his backpack’s water bottle holder isn’t a water bottle but a compact ectogun. They know Danny sleeps above a portal to another dimension.
But they don’t know the weirdest thing about Danny’s life which, amazingly enough,is not the fact that he’s half-dead. It’s that for the past five nights Danny has come home from ghost patrol to find Dash Baxter sitting in his living room, wearing glasses.
Tonight, Danny sneaks in through his bedroom window, phasing through the class. He dumpsthe thermos on his bed—he’ll empty it out later—shakes out the dust and dried ectoplasm from his hair and transforms. Snatching a hoodie off his chair, he fires a harmless ectoblast at his radio on his way out the door, cutting off the music he put on to make it seem like he was home.
He hops down the stairs, tugging the sleeves of his hoodie over his split knuckles, and pauses on his way to the kitchen. Just like yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, Dash sits cross-legged in front of the coffee table. His homework is spread out before him, a textbook at his elbow, a pencil in his hand, and a frown on his face.
Jazz sits on the couch holding an identical textbook—Danny’s copy, he recognizes thebloodstain on the spine—and quietly talks Dash through a lesson on cellular development.
Despite coming home to a similar scene four days in a row, it’s still so bizarre thathe stares too long and Jazz catches him watching.
“Did you do your homework?” Jazz asks. The unspoken before ghost hunting lingers between them.
“No.”
“Liar.”
“Fine. I’m going to do it now,” he says.
“You’re still lying,” Jazz singsongs. She slips a page in Danny’s textbook and glances up at him. “You need to keep your grades up if you want to keep…”
She glances at Dash, who’s pencil has stopped moving and is sitting oddly still.
“… making friends. After school.”
“Making friends.” Danny raises an eyebrow at her. He wishes that’s what he was doing after school. It’d be a hell of a lot kinder on his bones.
Jazz flushes but refuses to be cowed. “Get your stuff, you’re working in here.”
Danny tips his head back, groaning, and heads back upstairs to get his backpack.
—
Danny hasn’t touched his homework in five minutes. He gnaws on the end of his pencil,the metal band squishing between his teeth, flicking the eraser with his tongue to make the pencil swing back and forth. Every few seconds, Jazz sends him an admonishing look over the top of Danny’s textbook.
“That’s not working,” she says.
“I’m contemplating the philosophic implications of my assignment,” Danny says.
Jazz doesn’t look impressed.
Danny doesn’t really blame her. His chin is resting on a math textbook.
“It’s important,” he says. “How can I figure out how many pounds of fudge Anabelle has leftover without first considering why she has it? Or where she got it from? Or what the hell a triangle has to do with it?”
Maybe she’s a distant relative of their father’s.
Jazz rolls her eyes and leans over Dash’s shoulder, scanning the questions he’s working on.
“This one’s wrong,” she says, pointing halfway down the page.
Dash huffs, scowling, and furiously erases his answer.
It fascinates Danny. He’s never seen Dash so focused on something that didn’t involve a football or beating Danny up. Not to mention the glasses. Since when does Dash have glasses? They’ve been in the same class since kindergarten and he’s never seen them before.
Not to mention, Dash hasn’t insulted Danny once since he sat down on the other side of the table. Maybe Dash got hit in the head by a stray ectoblast when Kitty showed up during gym class.
Danny spits his pencil out of his mouth, ignoring the disgusted look Jazz gives him,and says, “I thought you already proved you could tutor the ‘untutorable.’”
“I did,” Jazz says. Shaking her long sleeve out over her hand, she reaches out and swats Danny’s pencil back toward him. “I thought you were being philosophical about brownies.”
“Fudge,” Danny corrects her. “And I decided the Fenton appetite is beyond the comprehension of even the greatest philosophers.”
“Anabelle’s a Fenton now?”
“My favourite cousin.”
“Uh-huh.” Jazz closes her borrowed textbook and sets it down on the cushion beside her, folding her hands in her lap. “If you aren’t going to do your work you can just–”
“Jazz!” Their mother’s voice echoes up the basement stairs. “Can you come downhere for a moment?”
Jazz sighs but gets up without a fuss. She points at Danny before heading downstairsand says, “Be nice. Don’t distract my student.”
“Me? But he's– wait, your student?”
Jazz turns away, leaving Danny sputtering and alone with Dash.
It takes Danny a moment to compose himself. When he does, he shoves his homeworkaside, slams his hand on the table, and leans across it into Dash’s personal space.
“Okay, what the hell, why do you keeping coming here?” Danny asks. “Are you hitting on my sister again? Because she already said no, don’t be a creep. I sent the last guy who messed with her to the Ghost Zone.”
Rather than leaning away, Dash gets in Danny’s face and sneers. “Chill out, Fenturd, don’t be an ass.”
“If you're–”
“I said chill out.” Dash shoves Danny’s face away. “You’re sister’s pretty smart, okay? And I need help with science.”
“You really think I’m gonna believe that?” Danny sits back and crosses his arms. Like hell. He remembers how gross Dash was hitting on his sister in ninth grade. Two years was not long enough to recover from that emotional travesty.
“I’m failing the class, okay?” Dash snaps, cheeks red. “I gotta pull my grade up to a C or else I’m off the football team.”
“Oh.” The fight goes out of Danny pretty quickly. He scratches his head and looksaway. “Okay, whatever. My grades aren’t that great either.”
“Yeah, but you’re a loser.”
“Seriously?” Danny glares across the table. “You can’t be civil for two seconds? I wastrying to be nice or whatever, but if you’re just gonna be an ass about it, fine. Wonder how you’re friends’d react to that.”
Dash wrinkles his nose. “What? They already know.”
“And they didn’t kick you out of your little club?” Danny asks flippantly.
“You think we’re that shallow?”
Danny stares at Dash. He can’t be serious. He can’t be that oblivious. All the A-listers care about are looks, money, and popularity, and Danny knows that firsthand.
“I bet Valerie does.”
Dash at least has the mind to look ashamed, and Danny feels a little vindicated at the sight of his downturned eyes.
“You guys were pretty damn cruel to her after she lost all her money. Are you telling me that wasn’t shallow?” Danny asks smugly.
“Like you’re so great, Fenton.”
“A hell of a lot better than you.”
Dash laughs. It’s loud and mocking, and he throws his head back as he does it. “Oh my god. You know how many times I’ve seen you brush off those friends of yours? Didn’t you, like, ditch them to go to a party freshman year? And you replaced them with robots once.”
“Hey, there was more going on there!” Danny defends himself. He doesn’t even know how Dash heard about the robots, but there was more to it, a ghost that could make you greedy.
Danny took care of it pretty quickly once he realized what was up, although that didn’t stop him from feeling like a massive jerk afterwards. But at least he didn’t mean it, and he knew he was a bad friend at that time.
“I don’t think you realize how much I don’t give a shit,” Dash says. “Just leave me alone, Fenton. And if you tell anyone besides my friends about this, I’ll shove you in so many lockers.”
Danny scowls. “Fine. Don’t flirt with my sister though.”
“No problems there. I’m not into girls.”
It takes Danny a second to process that. “Huh.”
“You got a problem with that?”
“What? No. Like, pretty much everyone I’m friends with is in the queer community,myself included. I thought you liked Paulina. And, you know, you flirted with my sister? And pretty much every single cheerleader.” Danny thinks back, trying to remember if there were any hints. Dash used to flirt with girls a lot, but he can’t actually remember him hitting on anyone in the past year. “You know what that is? Growth.”
“Don’t quote gifs at me, loser.” There’s less bite in Dash’s insult and more resignation. The sound of a man who will put up with what he hates for something he needs.
Danny almost smiles. Almost. Dash is still a massive dick, but Danny hates him a little less than usual right now, if only because he isn’t trying to get with Jazz after all.
They fall silent, Dash returning to his work while Danny just sits there and thinks. He glances toward the stairs once, wondering what’s taking Jazz so long, but doesn’t totally mind it. Being alone with Dash isn’t as horrible as he thought it’d be.
He gets bored pretty damn quickly though.
“Okay, the glasses, you have to tell me,” Danny says.
Dash groans, closing his notebook. “They’re glasses. I wear them and stuff gets less blurry. Fascinating.”
“Yeah, but I mean!” Danny waves his arms in a meaningless gesture. “Since when do you have them?”
“Since I got them.”
“Oh my god, I hate you.”
“Feeling’s mutual.”
“I’d call you a sap, but I think you’d punch me for it,” Danny quips, unable to resist.
“I’d call you a loser, but it’s redundant.”
“I can’t believe you know what redundant means.”
Dash glares at Danny. Normally that look makes Danny nervous, because it’s usually followed by a punch to the got or some other, equally painful retribution, but right now Danny’s actually enjoying himself and Dash doesn’t look like he’s about to snap.
“Quick, write the word down before you forget it,” Danny says, tapping Dash’s notebook.
“Shut up, you moron.” Dash swats Danny’s hand with his pencil.
“Oh no, you’re backsliding. Write it fast.”
“Shut up!”
“Want some help? Here, r-e-t-”
“You are such a fucking idiot.”
Danny beams. “I’d call you an imbecile, but I think that’d be cruel since you probably can’t spell it.”
“I swear to god, Fenton.”
“Hey, don’t be mean to my brother!”
Danny ducks his head to hide the shit-eating grin on his face as Jazz returns. She’s glaring at Dash, who sputters as he tries to defend himself, and Danny silently vows to join them for tomorrow’s study session, too, if this is what it’s going to be like.
i saw that post and thought of this yesterday but my brain was unreasonably shy but here it is now usdygbhjn: “It’s three in the morning.” danny @ dash
Milky Way
Sometimes Danny hates living in the city. Actually, most of the time he hates it. Not because of the noise, or all the people, or even the ghosts, but the stars. Or the lack of them, at least.
Danny was ten years old when he realized the sky he saw every night was a lie. He had seen plenty of pictures of the night sky taken from different parts of the world. At that age, he just assumed that’s how the sky worked. Some places had less stars than others, he was unfortunately born in a place with very few stars overhead.
Until his sister got him a big astronomy textbook for his tenth birthday and he learned the city was to blame. All the city lights polluted the sky and kept him from seeing the sky for what it truly was. For weeks, he tried to convince his parents to move, to pack up all their things in the RV and drive out far away into the middle of nowhere, where there was no people and no light pollution, and he could see the stars in all their glory every night.
He never got that wish, but nowadays Danny doesn’t mind it so much. Now, if he wants to see the night sky as it should be seen, all he has to do is fly up, up, up beyond the clouds, just past the edge of the mesosphere.
There, he floats along the Kármán line, the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space, and he can see everything. It’s beautiful. He can’t help but think of every childhood drawing he made of the stars and how wrong he was.
The sky isn’t an endless expanse of black peppered with bright white spots. It’s a gorgeous mix of blues and purples, and even some pink in the Milky Way itself. Every inch of the sky is covered in stars. There are so many he has trouble picking out the constellations he knows better than his hometown, but he manages.
The familiar cup of Ursa Minor, Draco’s lithe body winding past, Hercules’ crooked form by the dragon’s head.
Danny traces the familiar lines with his softly glowing eyes and feels as empty as the space between the stars. Even though that distance looks so small from here, he knows how vast it really is.
Tipping back his head, he stares back down toward Earth. Cities make their own constellations across the dark surface. The sixty-two miles between him and the ground right now is not enough. He wants to fly higher, way out into space, and get lost in its cold comfort. But he can’t, because he has a city to protect, friends who depend on him, and a family who loves him.
At least he thinks they love him.
Danny reaches for his phone and goes to check the time, but the screen doesn’t turn on. He frowns, tapping the screen, and even shakes the device a few times. And then he remembers how cold it’s supposed to be up here, something he can’t really feel anymore, and it probably killed the battery.
He’s just lucky it isn’t iced over. At this height, it should be, but he probably has the radiation from his ectoplasm to thank for that.
Grudgingly, Danny tells himself he should probably head home. He flips over, head to the ground, and starts flying.
He takes his time, it’s still barely more than hour before he’s back in Amity. Just before diving through Fenton Work’s roof, he looks back up at the sky. It’s empty and sad.
The first thing Danny does when he’s back in his room is plug in his phone. He considers transforming; it’s dangerous to stay in ghost form while his parents are home. But after staring at his blank phone for a few long seconds he decides against it. He doesn’t really want to be human right now.
Curled up on his bed, head against his pillow, knees pulled up to his chest, he waits for his phone to charge enough to turn on. Those five minutes feel infinitely longer than his flight back from space.
“Screw you, Clockwork,” Danny mutters. It’s not really Clockwork’s fault, but it feels good to have someone to blame, and the ghost of time is a ripe target.
The moment his screen lights up, Danny reaches out and snags it off his bedside table. He notes the time, quarter to three, then goes through his notifications. Some spam emails, a couple game notifications, but no texts or calls. Which makes sense, it’s the middle of the night, who the hell would be up right now besides him?
As soon as Danny thinks that, his phone buzzes and a message appears at the top of his screen.
From Dash: [image]
Another quickly follows.
From Dash: was that u?
Eyes heavy, Danny stares at the texts for a long moment before clicking them. The messaging app is bright and glaring compared to his dark home screen and he squints when it lights up his room. He clicks the image Dash send, feeling instant relief when his screen gets significantly darker.
It’s a shot of the sky from Dash’s bedroom window, the corner of the next building over cutting through the image. Just above that is a bright white speck. If Danny didn’t know better, he might have mistaken it for a star or a planet.
Closing out the image, Danny types back: yeah, it’s me.
He hits send, turns onto his back, and sets his phone down on his chest. He’s not expecting a reply, although he has no reason not to, so it startles him when his phone buzzes not even a second later.
From Dash: thought so. What were…
From Dash: Patrol?
Danny pulls himself up, opening his phone once again, and reads the full messages.
Dash: thought so. What were you doing so high up?
Dash: Patrol?
Hunched over his phone, Danny doesn’t so much stare at the screen as he does zone out in its general direction. He knows what he wants to type in response, but he can’t seem to get his fingers to move.
The phone sits cradled in his hand, his thumbs thick silhouettes against the white screen. The longer he looks, the more he thinks they aren’t his thumbs but just thumbs. Anyone’s thumbs. They didn’t belong to him. He was a hundred miles away, out in space.
Before he can decide if this is a good or bad idea, he hits the call button.
It gets through half a ring before Dash picks up.
“Hey, Danny.”
Dash’s is voice is rough and dry, but it isn’t thick with sleep, reassuring Danny he hasn’t dragged Dash out of partial slumber.
“Danny?”
The call time says it’s been going for over a minute.
Danny swallows. “Hey.”
“You okay?”
“Dash…” Danny trails off. He rolls his neck. It pops in a way that probably isn’t healthy, but is also so familiar he doesn’t think twice about it anymore. He licks his lips. “Why are we friends?”
That isn’t what he meant to say. He doesn’t know what he really wanted to say, but he knows that wasn’t it.
The call is at five minutes.
“Because Paulina and Sam are dating.” Dash chuckles.
Danny thinks he should be chuckling too, but the sound doesn’t come. It’s a joke they’ve made a hundred times, as familiar as the crick in Danny’s neck, but it’s not the answer he wants right now.
“I’m friends with Tucker because… because we’ve always been friends. I can’t imagine not being friends with him,” Danny says. He takes one the hands—his hands, he has to remind himself—away from the phone and turns it over. Is it really him doing that?
“Sam kind of made herself friends with us. But we always thought she was cool anyway, so, we wanted her.” Danny rubs his hand on his thigh, stopping to grip his knee. He can feel the pressure, but he can’t really feel it. “We hate each other.”
Ten minutes.
“We used to, I guess. I don’t know. I don’t think I ever really hated you. Just, stupid high school stuff.”
“Stupid high school stuff,” Danny repeats. He glances at the time at the top of his screen. “It’s three in the morning.”
“Yeah.”
“Why are you up at three in the morning?”
“Why are you?”
Danny sucks in a sharp breath. “Just. Couldn’t sleep. Yeah.”
“Yeah? Same.”
This time, Danny chuckles. He can’t figure out why it’s funny, but it is. Dash? Having trouble sleeping? People like him aren’t supposed to have Danny’s problems. They’re supposed to date the head cheerleader, and have tons of friends, and get some big football scholarship that carries them through college, and be famous. Or something.
But the head cheerleader is dating Sam. Dash only has a handful of people he talks to regularly. He told Danny last month that he doesn’t want to play football in college. He wants to be a social worker, like his mom, and not be famous.
Danny laughs again.
“What’s so funny?”
“S-Sam,” Danny says between giggles. “Sam stole your girlfriend.”
“She really didn’t.” Dash sounds amused, a humorous lilt in his voice.
Danny can’t figure out what he finds so funny. It’s Dash’s life that isn’t going how it’s supposed to. Sucks to be him, thrust into a set role the moment he became quarterback in freshman year, stuck with a path he doesn’t want, that he doesn’t quite seem to fit. What kind of high school king is he?
The next time Danny laughs, it sounds closer to a sob. He sniffs and rubs his nose on his sleeve, the thick, rubbery material of his jumpsuit irritating his nose. The suit smells vaguely of burnt flesh and sulfur. No matter what Danny does, he can’t seem to wash it out.
Twenty minutes.
“Danny, I think you should go to sleep now.”
“’M fine,” Danny insists.
“You’re really not.”
“That’s kind of rude.” Danny drags his hand through his hair. It never feels like normal hair in his ghost form. Too wispy and light, like a silk veil.
“I can call you in the morning if you want. Or I can get Paulina to text Sam, or Tucker. I think I still have Jazz’s number somewhere.”
“Don’t hang up,” Danny says softly. He fells forward, curling onto his side around the phone, sticking his feet under his pillow.
They’ve been on the phone for well over half an hour now. Danny’s pretty sure they haven’t talked enough to fill out all that time. He wonders how much of it Dash has spent just sitting there, waiting for Danny to answer. It makes him feel like a bit of a prick.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
Danny can tell Dash doesn’t know what the apology’s for, but he appreciates the acceptance nonetheless.
“You won’t hang up?” Danny asks.
“I won’t hang up.”
Danny nods, even though Dash can’t see it. He wishes he could. He wants someone here right now, but not Sam, or Tucker, or his sister, or his parents who maybe hate him, but he can never be too sure because they don’t know they hate him and he’s too afraid to tell them. Without all those other options, he supposes Dash will do.
He falls asleep, eventually, and wakes up human and cold, his phone still on beside him.
Danny ran his tongue over his teeth. Probing his gums, he felt the little slit above his canines. He leaned toward the mirror, stuck his bottom jaw out, and peeled down his lip. He could barely see the small gap, down where his gums and lip met.
Pushing himself up on the counter, he pressed so close to the mirror his nose brushed the glass. For a second, Danny just stared. Then, he stretched his mouth wide and snarled, baring his fangs.
A ghostly growl exploded from his throat. He gnashed his teeth and flashed his toxic green eyes, making the fiercest expression he could think of.
The bathroom door slammed open.
Danny whipped around to face the intruder, or he tried to. The heel of his palm slipped off the edge of the counter and he tumbled, smacking his chin on rim of the sink on his way down.
"Jazz," Danny whined, cupping his mouth and glaring up at his sister. "What the hell was that for? I could have been going to the bathroom!"
"You're here," Jazz said. Her hand slipped down the doorframe and she hugged herself. "Why are you here?"
"Look, look, it's so cool!" Danny clambered to his feet and leaned up into Jazz's face. He bared his teeth again and pointed to his canines.
"Watch!" he said. He flexed a muscle in his jaw, one that hadn't existed a few weeks ago, and sharp, crooked fangs slipped over his canines. It pinched a little but didn't really hurt. Wiggling his eyebrows, he flexed the new muscle again and the fangs retracted. He kept doing it.
Fangs, no fangs. Fangs, no fangs. In and out. Just the top. Now the bottom. Now both.
"I have fangs." Danny beamed, showing off his new shiny teeth. He couldn't really close his mouth all the way, because of how the bottom fangs knocked against his top teeth. Hopefully his body would just fix that on its own as they finished growing in.
"You're... bleeding," Jazz said.
Danny blinked. That wasn't the response he expected. It took him a moment to process it, his smile dropping, and he asked, "What?"
"Your lip is bleeding," Jazz clarified. Poking Danny's cheek, she turned his head toward the mirror.
His lip was, indeed, bleeding. A neat slice beneath one of his upper fangs. He must have accidentally bit it when he hit the sink.
"Oh," Danny said. He wiped the ectoplasm trickling down his chin on the back of his hand and poked the cut. He didn't feel it when it happened, but now it stung a little. "Whoops. Didn't even notice."
In the mirror, he caught Jazz's grimace.
"Just be careful, okay?" she said.
"Why?" he asked. He was plenty careful about a lot of things: his powers, his identity, potential injuries. The risk of getting captured and dissected by his own parents. The list went on, and Jazz already knew that.
"Just..." Her frown deepened until she got that little crease between her eyebrows, the one that made her whole face look pinched.
Danny looked away from her reflection, back toward his fangs. Sticking out his jaw again, he clenched his teeth and giggled. It looked a bit silly, like he had tusks instead of fangs, but it was more comfortable to close his mouth this way. His teeth gave a satisfying click as he snapped his jaw shut, over and over.
"Just don't become too ghostly, okay?" Jazz said. She touched Danny's shoulder.
"Well, that's stupid." Danny rolled his eyes. "I'm already a halfa. But sure, whatever you say."
He didn't look at her as she walked away.
She glanced over her shoulder the whole way until she was out of sight.
...
Danny dragged Tucker and Sam into the boys' locker room as soon as he got to school, just before first period.
He thought they, or at least Sam, would protest more about their choice location—it was the first place he could think of. Instead they kept exchanging glances. Tucker's hand hovered over his pocket and Sam fiddled with a silver tube of lipstick.
Weird. Danny thought all her lipstick came in the same black and grey tubes. Maybe this was a new colour.
"Watch this," Danny said. He turned around, covered his mouth, and let out his fangs. Then spun around and threw his arms out. "Ta-da!"
Danny was practically vibrating, his gaze jumping back and forth between his two best friends, and bounced on his toes. Jazz's reaction had been a little disappointing, but Sam and Tucker would totally get it. He had fangs, how cool was that?
Apparently not cool at all.
"Dude!" Tucker lurched forward and slapped a hand over Danny's mouth, covering his fangs, while Sam pulled Danny's arms down. They shoved him into a shower stall, piled in after him, and slammed the door. Sam slid the lock shut and waved the boys back until all three of them were pressed against the wall.
Danny scowled at them and quirked an eyebrow. He opened his mouth, his fangs brushing the skin of Tucker's palm. Tucker flinched, earning a smack from Sam, and hissed, "Shush!" at Danny.
A second later, Danny heard the voices.
"Do you think... do you think he'll be back again today?" That sounded like Kwan. There must have been an early morning football practice.
“I don’t know, man.” Dash, definitely Dash. His voice wavered, though. Danny couldn’t remember ever hearing him like that. The only time Dash’s voice shook was with anger, right before pummelling Danny into the ground. Right now he sounded afraid.
“So what if he is?” That was Dale. Danny didn’t like Dale. He really didn’t like Dale. That guy cornered Danny in the parking lot more times than Dash ever did, and at least Dash stopped beating Danny up once they became seniors.
But Dale didn’t.
Danny stood up on his toes, straining to see over the shower door. He could, but only enough to see the tops of the jocks’ heads. His bare feet lifted off the tiles as he rose up. Sam grabbed his shoulders and yanked him back down. Danny turned a sharp glare on her.
He just wanted to see, what was wrong with that? They spied on the A-listers all the time. Usually to laugh at them, but still.
Sam shook her head. Not at Danny, but at Tucker, who was pulling something out of his pocket.
Danny’s focused jumped to Tucker’s hand. He saw a flash of something blue before Tucker shoved it back in his pocket. Danny lifted his gaze to Tucker’s face.
Tucker shrugged and gave him a shaky smile.
Whatever.
Danny walked right through Sam and Tucker, ignoring the way they shivered violently, their whole bodies jerking and their eyes going wide. He stuck his head through the door, about to ask the football team what the hell they were talking about, but was met with an empty room.
Their equipment bags sat on the far bench. No practice, then. They were just dropping off their stuff for later.
Staring at the bags, Danny kind of wanted to mess with them. Sure, Dash hadn’t bullied him since junior year, but Danny was still pretty peeved about all the years of gut punches and locker time before that. He deserved a little revenge.
The rest of his body passed through the door and he approached Dale’s bag first. How could he prank it without opening it? He knew how badly those bags reeked. Dale and Dash stuffed him in one before the homecoming game last year. He could do without smelling the inside of a football bag ever again.
The shower stall door slammed open and Sam and Tucker darted out.
“Danny, you need to go,” Sam said.
“Yeah, I know, the bell’s about to ring. But come on, when are we going to have such a golden opportunity again?” Danny asked. Sam didn’t budge, so he looked to Tucker. “You’ve got to agree with me, right, Tuck?”
“Um, Tetslaff gets pretty pisssed if anyone messes with the football players, I don’t know,” Tucker said.
Danny groaned. Tucker was right, why did he have to be right? Valerie was the last person to mess with the team. She dosed Dash’s water with a mild ghost tranquilizer, which has a very euphoric effect on humans. When Tetslaff found out, she made the entire class run suicide drills all class, back and forth across the gym floor.
Danny did okay, thanks to his extra stamina, but Tucker nearly collapsed halfway through the class, and even Sam was ready to quit.
“Fine,” he relented with a dejected sigh
“Good, now let’s get you o—” The sound of footsteps cut Sam off. She tried to usher Danny back toward the showers, but it was too late.
Dash rounded the corner and froze when his eyes settled on Danny.
“Uh, F-fenturd, you’re here.” Dash paled and swallowed thickly. “Forget I said anything, okay? Sorry.”
He turned around and bolted out of the locker room.
“Geez, you’d think he’d seen a ghost or something.” Danny cracked a grin, looking to Sam for her customary groan, and Tucker for his stifled chuckles.
They stayed silent.
…
Danny stood in his doorway and frowned. Someone had been in his room, although he couldn’t explain how he knew. It was just a feeling. The kind of feeling you get when you haven’t been home for a while, and you know someone was there while you were gone but can’t see the evidence.
He leaned back and shouted down the hall, “Hey, Jazz! Were you in my room?”
No answer.
“Jazz!”
Still nothing.
“Rude,” Danny muttered. He trudged forward and flopped onto his bed, frowning when it made a crinkling noise. Shimmying over to the edge, he lifted the comforter. The mattress was wrapped in plastic.
Tucker’s little sister had a plastic wrapped mattress, because of her allergies. Danny picked at the plastic, stabbing it with his nail and scratching it.
His mom got him tested for allergies a few weeks ago, after he got a bad rash while cleaning out the shed. He knew it was from some old anti-ghost serum he spilled on his shirt, but there’s no way he’d tell his mom that. As far as he knew, they hadn’t gotten the results yet. She was probably just being cautious.
He rolled onto his back, sat up, and looked around. There was something else giving him the weird feeling. He scanned the shelf above his desk, which was full of astronomy textbooks and a few NASA manuals—some of which he printed off and stapled together himself.
Something was missing. Between a book on Einstein's theoretical physics and an anthology of essays, there was a gap. A model of the Opportunity Rover was supposed to be there.
Danny leapt off his bed and floated up to the shelf. Sometimes his parents moved his stuff around when they dusted and forgot to put things back exactly where they were supposed to go. But the shelf was coated in dust, with a clean, sharply defined circle where the model used to sit.
Spinning his head around, he scrutinized the bookcase beside his bed. His model solar system was gone.
Now that he knew what to look for, he could see a bunch of his models were missing. The Challenger rocket, the Curiosity rover, and the Apollo lunar module. All gone.
Danny tore through his room looking for them. He flung his dresser drawers open, digging through his clothes and throwing them across the floor. Under his bed, he yanked out the plastic bins, ripped their lids off, and dumped their contents out.
Lego sets, old Gameboys, and childhood toys scattered everywhere. He couldn't find the models.
"Where are they? Where are they!" Danny crawled frantically across the floor, shoving everything aside, and wrenched his closet door off its hinges. It crashed to the ground behind him.
There, at the back of the closet, hidden behind his shirts and sweaters, was a stack of boxes labelled Danny — space models — storage.
Prying the box open, he found all the models. He stared at them, confused. Someone had put them away. Someone had taken his models, moved them, and hidden them away. The edges of the box crumpled in his grip. They weren't supposed to be away, they belonged exactly where Danny had put them, they weren't supposed to be away.
His vision went black and the temperature dropped.
When it cleared, the box was nothing but ashes; the models were untouched. He wiped his hands on his pants, picked up the models, and carefully put each one back where it belonged. It took him a good ten minutes to make sure they were exactly where they were supposed to be. The lines in the dust helped.
Danny had just finished setting the Opportunity rover in place when he heard the front door open. He grinned. Finally, they were home.
He bolted from his room and leaned over the balcony railing. Jack came in first, in a jumpsuit as always, but it was all black instead of orange. Maddie, walking in after him, wore a modest black dress. Coming in last, Jazz wore black slacks and a dress shirt.
Their eyes were red and their mood somber.
Pressing his cheek to the bannister, Danny scowled in disappointment. They had gone out without him and didn't even tell him they were leaving. That wasn't very nice. He sighed, loudly.
Jazz's head jerked up. She looked started.
Danny waved, giggled, and darted back into his room. He sat down behind his door, bending his knees to his chest and hugging his shins. He heard Jazz whisper something to their parents, and her soft footsteps as she started up the stairs. She always wore flats in the house, a decision she made after stepping in puddles of ectoplasm one too many times.
Danny wiggled his bare toes, tapping his feet on the hardwood floor and leaving muddy prints. His parents wouldn't like that. Oh, well.
"Danny?" Jazz softly called.
It was like playing hide and seek. His spot wasn't very good, but maybe the mess all around his room would distract Jazz. She wasn't a fan of big messes.
"Danny, please." Jazz's voice cracked.
Danny giggled, clapping his hands over his mouth. The door creaked as Jazz slowly pulled it back. Danny stared up at her, eyes glowing with mirth.
"You found me," he said in a sing-song voice.
"Danny, you can't be here," Jazz said.
"Why not? Why can't I?" Danny uncurled. He grabbed the doorknob, laying his hand over Jazz's. She flinched when his ragged nails dug into her skin. "It's my room, Jazz."
"I... I know it's your room," Jazz said. She grabbed her wrist and yanked her hand away, stumbling back. She tripped on one of the plastic bins and fell hard, landing on a pile of Legos. Biting down a gasp of pain, she propped herself up on her eblow and focused on Danny.
"Why can't I be here?" Danny asked. He pulled himself up and stomped forward. This was his room. This was his house. He was allowed to be here, he was supposed to be here.
"Mom and Dad—" Jazz started.
"Were you in my room?"
"Danny, please, don't shout, they'll—"
"Get out of my room."
"Please—"
"Get out of my room! Get out of my room, get out of my room, get out of my room!" Danny roared. He grabbed Jazz's arm and threw her out the door. She crashed into the railing, the posts cracking under the impact.
"Danny," Jazz pleaded, crawling forward.
The door slammed shut in her face, hard enough to crack the frame. Danny ignored Jazz's yelp of pain. He needed to get out of here, clear his head, take a flight. Turning toward the window, he took off into the sky.
...
Danny's room was bare when he returned. The shelves were empty, his bed was stripped, and there was nothing in his dresser. Carefully packed boxes filled the closet.
This was all wrong. He felt violated.
"Who did this?" Danny howled, his voice echoing through the house. It filled the air like static, crackling down the halls.
Ectoplasm arced up and down his arms. It swirled in his eyes, sparked around his head, dripped down his body and splattered against the floor.
He let out a wordless scream.
A piercing alarm shrieked, loud enough to echo down the street, and snapped Danny out of his rage. That was the Fenton Proximity Alarm. It only went off when an ecto-entity level five or higher released a power surge within a three-block radius.
The volume of the alarm signalled the power of the ghost.
Right now, it was deafening. Danny couldn't even hear his own lingering shout of fury. The only time he heard it this loud was when Pariah Dark invaded.
He didn't want to leave. He wanted to stay and find out who had done this to him, who had desecrated his place, assaulted his vary being with such vandalism, but he couldn't let a ghost that powerful run free.
He was gone before Maddie and Jack burst into his bedroom, ecto-blasters in hand.
...
It was nearly four in the morning. Danny didn't find the ghost. It nagged at him. His whole job was to find the ghost, fend it off, and save the day. How could he keep Amity safe if he couldn't even find the ghost? It could be anywhere, wreaking havoc. The worst part was that his ghost sense didn't even react. He couldn't think of any ghost capable of hiding from his ghost sense.
Not even Pariah Dark.
Danny sat in the kitchen, at the dining table. He picked at the dirt on his feet. They always seemed to be dirty lately, and no matter how much he washed them, it wouldn't come off. It was getting annoying.
He rubbed his eyes and pushed his hair back. With how damp it was, it kept sticking to his forehead and tickling his eyelashes. He thumped his head on the table, again, and again, and again.
Overhead, something creaked.
Danny froze with his head against the table. Slowly, he rose and turned his face toward the noise. It came from his parent's room. The creaking moved toward the stairs. He knew, without seeing, that it was his dad.
Jack's immense, musclebound girth meant he weighed a considerable amount. Over the years, he'd worn various paths around the house. From the door, to the couch, to the kitchen, down to the lab, and up to the master bedroom. The floorboards were weakest there and creaked for everyone, but it was always loudest when Jack tromped over them. Even when he was trying to be quiet.
A glow in the corner of Danny's eye caught his attention. He whipped around to face it, ready to attack, ectoplasm already swirling in his palm.
It was just his reflection in the toaster. Bruised eyes, bloody nose, split lip. Nothing unusual.
He wiped the blood off on his knuckles. Its soft green glow contrasted Danny's own silvery aura. Mesmerized, he stared at the smear of ectoplasm. His fangs slid out—whether it was a conscious act or not, he couldn't say—and he stuck out his tongue.
The forked end darted over the ectoplasm. He licked it up and smacked his lips.
A pained gasp sounded to his left.
Danny's gaze snapped over to the source.
His dad stood in the doorway, clutching a Jack-o-nine-tails in one hand, and a bazooka in the other.
"I'm giving you one chance to get out," he said, thrusting the nine-tails forward.
Danny pulled his tongue back in. "What?"
"Get out. You—you putrid ball of consciousness. You ectoplasmic fiend, you don't belong here!" Jack started forward.
Danny scrambled back, hurrying to get away from his dad and the furious despair in his eyes. He slipped out of his chair, crashed to the floor and scrambled away. His dad had never looked at him like that before. At least, not Danny Danny. Phantom, maybe, but not Fenton.
Danny looked at his reflection in the aluminum garbage can.
Bruised eyes. Bloody nose. Split lip.
Fenton.
"Dad, what are you—"
"I'm not your father, you're not my son! Get out! I won’t say it again!" Jack tossed the nine-tails aside and levered and bazooka at Danny. He pulled back the bolt, auto-loading a cartridge, and shoved the gun in Danny's face.
"Dad." Danny sobbed. The tears burned, leaving rivulets through the dirt and grime smeared across his cheeks.
"Don't," his dad said.
It was such a loaded word. Pleading and hateful. Desperate and loathing. Danny didn't realize there could be so much emotion in a single word until now.
"Okay," came his quiet reply, just as heavy as Jack's.
He slipped through the wall, tumbling out of the house and onto the front lawn. He didn't know how, or when, but somehow his dad must have learned the truth. Danny Fenton was Danny Phantom, and Jack hated him for it.
Danny supposed he should at least be thankful his dad gave him a chance to leave. He could have strapped Danny down and dissected him right there on the kitchen table.
Hugging himself, Danny drifted down the sidewalk, streetlights popping as he passed.
...
In his hopeful heart of hearts, Danny thought maybe he could just give his parents time. They would see. He was still Danny, he was always Danny. Being Phantom didn’t change that. Even if it did, maybe they didn't need him, but Danny needed his home.
He didn't go far, lingering on the rooftop across the street. Every minute he was away it got harder and harder to think straight. All day he stood there, watching.
Sometimes he would see someone in window. It was mostly Jazz. She had a bandage across her nose. They never noticed him. He wasn’t sure if he wanted them to.
He just wanted to go home. And he tried. He really did. If not to stay, then at least to take a little piece of home with him.
Once everyone was gone for the day, Jazz to school, Maddie and Jack to chase after the Box Ghost, he tried to sneak back inside. He made it to the end of the front path before he felt it. Like a dozen static shocks all at once, sparking up and down his body.
He ignored it.
The shocks grew to a tingling buzz halfway up the path.
Danny pushed through. He needed this. He needed to go home.
He reached the front step and fell to the ground screaming in pain. Electricity coursed through his body, attacking his core. He convulsed on the front step, thrashing and crying as the anti-ecto energy tore through his body.
Danny dug his fingers into the cracks in the concrete and dragged himself back toward the street, whimpering and holding back sobs. It was like the portal all over again. His limbs twitched. He felt singed, jittery, and exhausted.
Curling up on the sidewalk, Danny hugged his knees and cried into his jeans. They had adjusted the shields. Changed them to affect halfas. He couldn't go home. He could never go home.
...
With nowhere else to go, Danny went to Sam's house. Fenton Works was closer to the richer part of Amity Park than the more suburban areas. He didn't make eye contact with anyone, not that it mattered. Everyone he passed skirted far around him, sometimes even skittering into the street to avoid him.
Danny stomped up Sam's front steps and knocked weakly.
The chances of anyone besides Sam answering the door were usually slim. Ida, stuck in her scooter, wasn't as mobile as she used to be. Jeremy spent long hours at work, or brought work home and stayed tucked away in his office for the night. Pamela was usually occupied with her latest social cause.
Sometimes the similarities between Sam and her mom astounded Danny.
But one thing he failed to consider was that today was a school day. He didn't think about stuff like that anymore, so it was easy to forget.
Pamela opened the door. She took one look at Danny and slammed the door shut.
"Please, Mrs. Manson!" Danny called.
"Go away," she said. Her voice trembled.
"I know you don't like me, but please, I have nowhere to go. I got kicked out." He banged his fist on the door.
"If you don't leave right now, I'm going to call the G.I.W."
Dread shot through Danny like lightning. The G.I.W. Pamela knew his secret, too. Did his parents tell Sam's? Who else did they tell?
He turned around and pressed his back to the door. No one would look at him. Actually, some people glanced in his direction, then quickly looked away and hurried down the street. They knew. Everybody knew.
Sliding down to the ground, he slapped the Manson's front door. "Mrs. Manson, please. I just want to talk to Sam."
Pamela yanked the door open.
Danny fell back and stared up at her.
"Stay away from my daughter," Pamela hissed. "If you go anywhere near her today, or any other day, you won't exist tomorrow."
She threw the door closed. Danny phased right through it. Pamela reached for her phone. Sam once told him Pamela had the G.I.W. on speed dial, thanks to company connections.
Danny's vision went black.
...
At the Foley's apartment, Tucker answered the front door.
"Hi, Tuck!" Danny smiled.
"No," Tucker said.
Danny, still smiling, cocked his head. "No?"
"I-I mean..." Tucker back away from the door, his hand going to his pocket. "Why are you here?"
"I don't... know," Danny said. He looked around the front hall. The Foley's decorated modestly. A couple family photos, a coat rack, a simple bench. It was cozy. He liked being at the Foley's. It was homey. His gaze returned to Tucker and he smiled again. "Hi, Tuck!"
Tucker worried his lip.
"It's kind of cold out here, can you let me in?" Danny asked.
Tucker peered over Danny's shoulder and eyed the sunny blue skies. "Um... I don't think I can do that, dude."
Danny frowned and stepped forward, his toes stopping just before the threshold. "Why not? Aren't we friends?"
"Yeah, we were—are, we are." Tucker fumbled over his words, rushing to correct himself.
Danny's eyes narrowed. He stepped forward.
"You can't come in," Tucker said, leaning away from Danny. His shoulder's tensed, arms shaking as he backed away. "You can't come in, you can't come in, you can't come in!"
Danny strained. It felt like something was pushing him back, trying to keep him from entering the house. He wouldn't let it. Tucker was his best friend. Tucker was his brother. He was family.
He was home.
Danny wanted to go home.
"Let me in," he said.
Tucker shook his head sharply. "No."
"Let me in."
"No!"
"Let me in!" Danny pounded his fists against the invisible wall. "Tucker! Tucker! Let me in, Tucker! Let. Me. In!"
A blast of ectoplasm punctuated each word, scorching the walls and floor. Tucker cowered away, jumping at each blast. He wrapped his arms around his head, crouched down to the floor and screamed.
"God damn it, Danny, No! No, no, no! Go away!"
"TUCKER!"
Tucker shot forward, pulling something from his pocket, and tackled Danny. They tumbled into the street and something cold and metal snapped around Danny's wrist. He bellowed and clawed at his skin, trying to pry the bracelet off.
It burned, searing his flesh. He tried to stand but the pain was too great. He crumpled to the asphalt, clutching his wrist and shrieking until his throat felt raw. He bit down on the bracelet, trying to tear it apart with his fangs, but all that did was burn his mouth. He started gnawing at his wrist instead.
He wanted this thing off, now. How could Tucker do this to him? How could he ever hurt him like this? They were brothers!
"I'm sorry, Danny," Tucker sobbed, kneeled on the edge of the sidewalk. "I didn't want to, I'm sorry."
Danny bared his fangs at Tucker, hissing and spitting. Ectoplasm spewed across the road. He inched forward, nails scraping on the pavement, dragging himself toward Tucker.
Tucker just cried, hiding his face in his arms and begging Danny to go away.
Danny creeped closer and grabbed Tucker by the ankle.
...
Danny was caught in a haze. Everything hurt. His right arm was completely numb, his skin streaked black around the bracelet. In spite of his efforts, he couldn't get it off. He clawed, scratched, and bit at both the bracelet and his own wrist. All that did was make him bleed, ectoplasm slipping down his hand and dripping from his fingers.
His arms hung limp by his sides. A trail of bright green dots marked his path to the outskirts of the city, where the richest of the rich lived. In his other hand, he clutched a pair of broken glasses.
Danny stared at the glasses, then opened his fist and let them fall to the ground. He stomped on them, shattering the lenses. He didn't need them.
Dragging his feet, he turned into a cul de sac and paused. Vlad Master's house lay at the very end.
Vlad would understand. Danny knew he would. In spite of all their rivalry, their petty battles and personal wars, they were the only two people in the world who could understand each other. He would know what to do. He had to.
Danny flickered out of sight, reappearing in the middle of Vlad's foyer. Maybe Vlad wouldn't notice all the ectoplasm Danny was dripping on the carpet. It matched the Packer's paraphernalia, for the most part.
"Vlaaad," Danny moaned, the name slurred on his tongue. He dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead into the carpet. It felt nice and soft.
He wasn't sure how long waited. A few minutes, an hour, maybe more. But eventually he heard Vlad's voice called from the stairs. "Little Badger."
Danny lay on his side. Titling his head back, he looked up at Vlad.
He looked terrible. There were bags under his eyes, stray hairs slipped out of his ponytail. His tie hung loose, and his collar was crinkled.
"You look like shit." Danny laughed.
"I'm sorry."
"I said you look like shit."
"No, Daniel." Vlad walked down the stairs and stopped at the bottom. He folded his hands in front of him and nervously twiddled his thumbs. "I'm sorry. This never should have happened to you."
"You can help me," Danny said.
"You know I can't, I'm sorry. All this time, I never thought..." Vlad trailed off, shaking his head.
"What are you doing?" Danny asked. He pushed himself up, cradling his weak arm against his chest.
Vlad sat down on the last step and buried his head in his hands. "I'm sorry."
"Stop saying that."
"I should have seen."
"Stop it!" Danny lurched to his feet and stumbled toward Vlad.
"You should have fought back."
Danny froze. "What?"
Vlad peeked over his hands. His weary eyes refused to settle on Danny. "You could have stopped it."
"What did you do?" Danny asked. It suddenly dawned on him why all this was happening—even if he could barely remember what this was. It was Vlad. It was always Vlad; but, somehow, he hadn't thought of it until now. Vlad broke their pact. Vlad told his parents about Danny being a halfa. Vlad told everyone.
Vlad ruined his life.
"I can't go home because of you!"
"Daniel, no, you don't under—"
Danny threw himself at Vlad. Grabbing him around the neck, he throttled the man, shaking him back and forth with burning hands, and screaming in his face.
Vlad shoved him off but didn't transform.
With a feral snarl, Danny attacked again. He pushed Vlad into the stairs, kneeled on top of him, and leaned down on his throat.
"You! Ruined! My! Liiiiiiiii—" He broke off into a wail.
Vlad pressed his hands against Danny’s face, forcing his head to turn. The ghostly moan destroyed the adjacent wall and shook the very foundations of the house. All around them, the building started falling apart as Danny pushed all his pain and anguish into his voice.
Things were never supposed to end up this way. But now, it was too late.
…
A fork of lightning split the sky. Thunder cracked, its deafening boom rolling over Amity Park. With it came Danny. He soared through the storm, his tears lost to the rain. The wind howled with him. He was lost and alone and had nowhere to go. So he went to the place where all ghosts without a home end up.
Huddled against the rain, Danny touched down just outside the Amity Park cemetery. He hadn’t been here for a while. Sometimes, he visited the new spirits and helped them on their way to the Ghost Zone. But lately just the thought of the cemetery sent a shiver down his spine. A foreboding chill that made him turn around and head back the way he came.
But not tonight.
Danny passed through the gate, the chain and padlock jingling as he walked through them, and stalked up the walkway. His bare feet slipped on the pebbles. He was still dirty.
Even with all the rain, he could feel the grime coating his skin. His mouth tasted like mud, gritty and bitter. When he bites down, gravel grinds between his teeth. His fangs slid in and out and he jutted his bottom jaw forward so his teeth didn’t clash so much.
He didn’t know where he was going. On nights like this, even spirits liked to stay inside if they could. The moaning wind sounded lonely to dead ears.
Squinting into the rain, he saw someone. He thought it was a ghost at first, pale and white, but when he got closer he realized it was Dash, in a t-shirt and jeans, hunched over a freshly dug plot.
A few small patches of grass sprung up from the dirt, so it the grave wasn’t that new. That didn’t matter to Danny. The sight of any new graves made him said.
Danny stopped behind Dash’s shoulder.
“You’ll get sick out here,” he croaked.
Dash flinched and turned. “You’re here.”
“That’s what you said before,” Danny muttered. It felt weird to talk to Dash like this. Neither of them were mad. Dash didn’t call him names or spit insults, and Danny didn’t feel the usually petty fury. He just felt lonely.
“Oh.” Danny didn’t notice. Actually, now that he thought about, he didn’t even know what day it was. It kept slipping his mind, like so many things. He plucked at the collar of his shirt. Guess it was finally getting that wash it needed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you want to know what happened to the last person who said that to me?” Danny asked.
“Mrs. Manson…”
Danny furrowed his brow. “What about her?”
“She’s in the hospital, isn’t she?”
“I don’t know.” Danny shrugged. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Sam’s mom. Although he wanted to talk to Sam. He should do that soon. School should be out right now, if Dash is here—and it’s probably nearly midnight.
“I’m still sorry,” Dash said. He curled his fingers in the grass and ducked his head. The rain plastered his hair to his forehead. “About Dale.”
Danny’s confusion mounted.
“We—Kwan and I—we always said he might go too far one day. He’s a rough guy, you know? I tried to get him to stop, but he doesn’t really listen to anyone.”
Suddenly, Danny wanted Dash to stop talking. He wanted Dash to shut up and go away and never come back.
“I don’t think, I mean, he didn’t mean to hit you that hard. He didn’t see the rock. It was an accident.” Dash ripped the grass from the ground. “But he shouldn’t have tried to hide you like that.”
Danny stared down at his dirty bare feet. He felt the stiffness in his jeans and saw the mud on his clothes. For a second, he wasn’t standing here with Dash. He was lying on his back, staring up at the stars through the trees as someone yanked him forward in fits and starts.
A bitter taste coated his tongue. Tears pricked the corner of his eyes. It felt like someone struck a match inside his lungs, burning brighter and stronger as he slowly ran out of air, scratching frantically at planks of wood, tearing his nails ragged, unable to escape.
“Did you know,” Danny said as his surroundings returned to him, “that Rowan wood has a lot of Apotropaic properties? Sam taught me that.”
He ran his thumb over his fingertips, feeling the splinters beneath his nails.
“It’s related to magic. It means it wards away evil influences, like ghosts. Ghosts can’t pass through Rowan wood. Ectoplasm doesn’t burn it. My parents have never been able to figure out the science behind it.” Danny’s arms went limp. “I don’t think there’s any science at all.”
“You could have fought back,” Dash whispered.
Danny stepped forward and read the gravestone. Danny Fenton. Son, Brother, Hero.
“I could have fought back,” he said.
...
Jazz stared outside at the first snowfall of the season. It had been a hard fall. Losing Danny, and then getting him back, only to lose him again. She wasn’t sure who took it worse. Maybe Pamela, since she was the one who ended up in critical care.
Tucker got off lucky, from what Jazz could tell.
She hadn’t seen Danny for a while, almost a full month. The last thing she heard of him was from Dash Baxter of all people. Following the last thunderstorm of the season, Dash came stumbling up to Fenton Work’s door and only said four words before hobbling away.
“I think he’s okay.”
Jazz hoped it was true.
Parked in front of the house, her parents were loading boxes onto the RV. They held all of Danny’s things. Some of it would be donated, like his clothes and books. Other, more personal things, such as old toys and his favourite models, would go away into storage. They couldn’t bear to part with those, even if they couldn’t keep them in the house.
Jazz had slipped the Opportunity model out of the box and placed it in her room. It was always Danny’s favourite.
It was her dad’s fault they were only taking care of this stuff now, despite having it packed away for months, not that anyone could blame him. It hurt them all to clear out Danny’s room. Packing it only took a few days, but actually taking the boxes out of the house?
That was permanent. That meant he was really gone.
It felt more appropriate now with him at rest.
She turned away from the window and headed upstairs. There was only one more box left, full of his old school stuff if she remembered right. She pushed open his door and paused for a solemn moment. She only let her grief overwhelm her for a few seconds. It was the only way she knew how to cope.
If she gave herself anymore time, she might just breakdown and cry, and she couldn’t afford that. She closed her eyes, took a deep, shaky breath, then went and grabbed the box.
Jazz was just about to close the door when she heard a thunk behind her.
Her grip on the doorknob tightened. Slowly, she turned her heard.
There, in the middle of the room, was Danny. He sat cross-legged, curling the toes of his bare feet. His hair was wispy, like fire, and streaked black and white. The blood and mud was gone, but there were still bruises around his eyes. His skin was pale blue.
Danny raised his right arm, then dropped it. The thick bracelet covering his wrist thunked against the floor. Up to his elbow, the skin was black and cracked. He raised his arm again. Dropped it. Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
He paused, holding his arm before him, and looked up. He stared at Jazz with pure green eyes and blue pupils the size of a pinprick. His arm started flaking, the black skinning falling away.
Before her eyes, the limb shifting, twisting grotesquely, the flesh peeling away from the bracelet, letting it sink through before joining back up with the skin of his wrist. The bracelet dropped to the floor. Thunk.
There are three rules when dealing with the GIW. Rule one, you don't interfere with GIW operations; rule two, you don't get the GIW's attention; rule three, you don’t find the GIW, the GIW find you.
World-renowned ectologists Maddie and Jack Fenton successfully opened a portal to the Ghost Zone when they were in college and changed the world forever. Over two decades later, ghostly encounters are a common occurrence around the world and a hazard for daily life. In America, the government ghost hunters, known to the public as the Guys In White, have dedicated themselves to protecting the populace from dangerous ectoplasmic entities. In Amity Park, the most haunted town in the world, the GIW have replaced the local government. With a dramatic increase in ghostly activity in recent years, recruitment methods for the GIW have become extreme, and now they’ve set their eyes on Danny Fenton.
@ghostgothgeek Here, have the worst crackfic ever:
Danny, in ghost form, slammed his hands down on the table, leaning forward to glare at the amorphous blob on the other side, and shouted, “Don’t make me ask you again!”
The only light in the room came from the two ghosts’ auras, Danny’s a pale white, the blob ghost’s a pretty lavender. Sam and Tucker stood behind Danny, in the shadows, Tucker’s glasses glinting ominously in the pale light, Sam’s head tilted down, her bangs shading her eyes.
The blob ghost quivered, its pinprick eyes watering.
“Don’t play those games with me,” Danny hissed. “I know you’re the Pumpernickel Ghost! You’ve been stealing all the pumpernickel in Amity Park! You know how much we love our pumpernickel?!”
Tucker nodded gravely.
The ghost squeaked in protest.
Danny shouted in rage, kicking the table. It soared over the blob ghost’s head and crashed into the far wall, knocking down a weapon’s rack and a mini-fridge holding Jack Fenton’s emergency pepperoni—for whenever he ran out of emergency ham.
Danny’s shoulders heaved as he breathed in and out, deep, rattling breathes. His fists clenched at his sides, faintly glowing green.
“Danny,” Sam said, the first word she’d spoken since the interrogation started. She reached out and grabbed Danny’s shoulder, stepping up beside him. “You don’t want to do this, not like this. Here.”
She held out a coconut, gesturing for him to take it when he didn’t immediately move. Hesitant, Danny uncurled his fists and cupped his hands under the nut-that-was-actually-a-seed. He looked up at Sam, eyebrow raised. She closed her eyes, her lips pressed into a thin, grim line, and nodded solemnly.
Danny held the coconut between his hands and squeezed. The coconut creaked, cracks darting along its surface, and burst open in his hands. Coconut water and bits of shell went flying everywhere, and remaining in Danny’s hands was a colourful parrot, its feathers orange, yellow, and green.
The parrot turned his head, eyeing the ghost. He squawked, loudly, and spread its wings. The blob ghost squealed and leapt from its seat, a small three-legged stool. The parrot took off after the ghost, screeching and flapping its wings.
The trio watched stoically from the sidelines.
“Huh,” Tucker said. “So that’s the bird you were talking about?”
“His name is Ribbon,” Danny said.
“And Sam brought him because?”
Danny clenched his fist, staring dramatically into the distance. “No one steals our pumpernickel!”
@coralyart I hope the wait was worth it, sorry again for the lateness! Here’s your Christmas Truce gift! I had a lot of fun writing it.
You Can Smile - Christmas Truce 2019
Danny's heart leapt into his throat as the floor gave way without warning. Tucker and Sam, on either side of him, shrieked in surprise. Danny didn't have the energy to cry out, at least until they hit the ground, and he landed hard on his right side, and a raging fire tore through his body so hot and fast he blacked out for a moment.
He came to on his back, Sam and Tucker hovering over him, concern filling their gazes. They were scraped and bruised, but otherwise fine. He, on the other hand, was so far from fine. His entire right side felt like it was on fire, hot embers scorching his insides.
"Walker... sucks." Danny wheezed, gently probing his side. He found the spot that hurt the most, just below his rib cage, and grimaced at the blood he felt.
"Pretty sure one of the goons got you, actually. Sorry, man," Tucker said.
"Nobody tells Skulker, I'll never live it down," Danny said.
Sam peeled up the torn edges of the jumpsuit, peering at Danny's wound. She frowned. "This is a bad one, Danny. How are you feeling?"
"A little damp, but that might just be the blood," Danny said. Sam and Tucker rolled their eyes. "Hey, wait. Actually, please tell Skulker. Maybe he'll think the ghost that wounded the great, rare halfa, would be more worth his time."
"I'll do that next time I see him," Sam said dryly. "Let me clean you up, you heal faster when I do."
Danny didn't protest. He had no idea what Walker's goon managed to hit him with, but dear god it hurt. He lay back, staring up at the ceiling as Tucker passed Sam a water bottle and a couple clean rags he kept in his pockets during their ghostly adventures.
They had fallen into a cavern. Black stone surrounded them, oddly smooth, barely a blemish in sight. The walls curved up and in, possibly into a dome, but the stone was so dark Danny couldn't tell if the ceiling rose high out of sight, shrouded in shadows, or if it was only a dozen yards above him.
Crystals jutted out from the floor. They all carried the same hexagonal shape, with a pointed top, but they varied in size. Some stood alone, others in clusters. Some were taller than Danny's dad, others wouldn't even pass Danny's ankle if he stood. They emitted soft light for him to see by, blue, pink, and purple. The light felt nice on his skin, warm where he was cold, cool where he was hot.
One of the largest crystals loomed behind Danny's head. Unlike the others, this crystal was dark, almost as black as the floor.
He reached up, flinching when his side burned anew, hissing in pain.
Inside the crystal, a light pulsed.
"Don't move," Sam told him, drawing his attention. Her hands pressed against his side, putting pressure on the wound.
At this point, it was standard procedure. Whenever Danny got an injury they couldn’t just slap a band-aid over, Sam or Tucker would help him clean it up, stop the bleeding, then let his natural healing take over. One of the perks of being a halfa, his body could take a lot more damage, and heal a lot faster. Good thing, too, or else he'd have to deal with questions he wasn't prepared to answer.
"Hey," Tucker said, drawing Danny and Sam's attention. He tilted his head back, peering up at the ceiling. "Where's the hole?"
"We only fell for a few seconds," Sam said, following Tucker's gaze. "The ceiling shouldn't be that high."
"Is it?" Tucker squinted.
"It doesn't matter," Danny said. "Give me half an hour, I'll be good to go, and I can find a way out of here."
"As long as Walker doesn't find us first," Sam muttered.
Danny closed his eyes, sighing. They got lucky, stumbling across this place. After taking the hit from Walker's goon, Danny thought they were done for. The Speeder, totalled. His strength fading by the second. Walker closing in. They took a gamble, diving into the nearest door, a mad scramble from portal to portal, gateway to gateway, their only goal to get as far from Walker as possible. And then, suddenly, they were falling.
The longer he stared up at the ceiling, the surer Danny was the hole had closed behind them. The fall had been rather short. His hip throbbed from the rough landing, amongst his other aches and pains. But they were safe. Trapped, but safe.
He scanned the walls, looking for a doorway, a tunnel, any marking at all that showed there was more to this place. He found nothing. Just smooth stone and colourful crystals.
He was about to turn away when something shifted in the corner of his eye. His focus snapped to a cluster of crystals halfway between him and the wall. Squinting hard, he sought out the source of the movement. He couldn't see anything. The longer he stared, the more everything started to blur together.
Danny blinked and rubbed his eyes, clearing his vision. It didn't help much. He felt odd. Dazed. Confused. His side still burned, but his fingers and toes were numb. He felt light-headed.
Something about this place seemed familiar, but not the normal way. Not in the way that he’d been here before. More like he had heard someone talk for hours about a place like this, going on and on for so long and in such detail that it felt like an intimate, known place he was returning to after many years of absence, his second-hand memories of it hazy and half-formed, but still strong enough to niggle at his brain.
It takes him much longer than it should have to remember.
"Ghost graveyard," Danny said.
Tucker and Sam stilled, their eyes snapping down to him.
"What?" Tucker asked.
"It's a ghost graveyard," Danny repeated.
Tucker raised an eyebrow and looked around, the soft lights glinting off his glasses. "But ghosts are already dead."
"Tucker! Don't be insensitive!" Sam berated him, her words accompanied by a sharp glare. Until confusion flickered across her face and she frowned. "But you've got a point. How can ghosts have a graveyard?"
"Clockwork told me," Danny started, laying his head back. "Sometimes, ghosts fade. For a lot of reasons. Their dead ectoplasm... or, um, double dead? Just. Yeah, dead. Their dead ectoplasm can't be reabsorbed by the Ghost Zone, except in stuff like this."
Danny pointed to the crystal behind him. A small green light shone inside it, one that wasn’t there before.
"That's... cool. I guess," Tucker said, looking wary. "There can't be ghosts of ghosts, right?"
"Very cool," Danny murmured, entranced by the light. It was beautiful, and daunting. Like Sam at her most macabre, wearing her darkest clothes, her sharpest makeup, her soft shadow eating up all the harsh light in the world. Danny loved it when she looked like that.
Or like Tucker, any time he went on a techno rampage, hacking away at firewalls and online defenses with a devilish grin, the blue computer light washing over his face in a sulfuric glow.
Danny smiled, thinking of those moments, when his girlfriend and boyfriend looked ready to take on the world. Call him sappy, but he just loved something about someone who would burn the world for you. He'd do the same for them.
The pressure on his side alleviated. Sam's breath hitched. Danny lifted his head, looking up at her. Her hands were soaked in blood.
"It's not stopping," she said.
Tucker paled, his shadow falling over Danny as he leaned over to inspect the wound. He reached out, maybe to touch Danny's side, or peel back the bloody jumpsuit, or maybe grab Sam's hand and comfort her. Danny would never find out which one, because Tucker's hand stilled the moment Danny was seized by a harsh coughing fit.
Brutal, hacking coughs ripped through his body, a jagged knife driven deep into his wounds, twisted sharply. They tore at his dry throat, Danny's head thumping back against the ground. He raised a hand to cup his mouth, but aborted the movement halfway, instead clutching his side.
Shit. Everything hurt.
When the coughing stopped, Danny groaned, a hoarse wheeze. His lips felt wet. Licking them, he tasted blood. A few speckles stained Tucker's glasses, who had shuffled up to Danny's shoulder, his hand under Danny's head to keep it off the hard ground.
Huh. When did that happen?
"Oh," Danny said. It came out as a croak rather than the breathy sigh he meant it to be. It hurt. Breathing hurt. Thinking hurt. "Sam, I think my lungs are bleeding. Ow."
"No, they aren't," she said, her voice wavering. She tore off her backpack, tossing it to Tucker. She didn't even look up to see if he caught it, pressing her hands against Danny's side once more. "You've had worse than this. We'll just... we'll patch you up, and you'll be fine. Tucker–"
"I know," Tucker said, upending Sam's backpack and shaking it until a red canvas bag fell out. He snatched up the bag and tore it open, gauze pads, medical tape, and disinfectant spray bursting out, scattering across the floor.
"Okay," Danny said tonelessly. It wasn't that Danny didn't believe her. Somehow, he knew she was right. He would be fine. But a little itch in the back of his head told him they had two very different versions of fine.
He didn't watch Sam and Tucker work, a practiced routine of Tucker handing Sam what she needed, when she needed it, while Danny tried not to move too much. He went back to observing the cave. There were only so many times he could look it over—admittedly, once was more than enough—but he had nothing else to do. He was hurt. He was tired. He was so damn bored.
His head flopped to the side. Two little pink eyes stared at him from amidst the crystals. Danny froze. The eyes—ghost—blinked. He blinked back. Neither moved.
The impromptu staring contest broke when Sam dabbed a wad of gauze soaked in disinfectant against Danny's side. He hissed, jerking away from her hand, squeezing his eyes shut. When he opened them, it was to the sight of Tucker's cargo pants, inches from his nose.
Shuffling over, he pressed his cheek against Tucker's leg, his laboured breaths filling the cavern. A moment later, he felt Tucker's fingers running through his hair and leaned into the touch, closing his eyes again. Tucker's hand slipped under Danny's head and raised it up. The sound of scraping and shuffling echoed for a second, and then Tucker lowered Danny's head onto his lap.
If Danny were a little less hurt, a little more lucid, he might have been embarrassed about what he did next, snuggling against Tucker's legs.
"S-sorry about your glasses," Danny said, thinking of the flecks of blood that still dotted the lenses.
"Shut up, don't be stupid," Tucker said.
"I'm not stupid, you're stu—art."
Tucker snorted, his hands stilling. Danny whined and he resumed petting. "I'm Stuart?"
Danny groaned. "No. You're not stupid. You're smart. Stupid smart."
"He's something," Sam said. She tried to smile, but her voice was strained.
Tucker rolled his eyes. "As if you don't love me."
Sam stuck out her tongue.
Danny chuckled, but quickly broke off into another round of coughs. This time, he managed to cover his mouth, preventing more of his blood from splattering against Tucker.
"Sorry," he mumbled between coughs. Tucker didn't respond, but Danny felt his fingers tense, the petting pausing for a moment, before it resumed. Danny ducked his head, nuzzling Tucker's knee, and wiping his hand on the front of his jumpsuit once the coughing stopped.
All he wanted to do was curl up and go to sleep. Tucker's hand running through his hair definitely didn't help. The steady rhythm was so relaxing. He didn't even notice Sam stopped working until she touched his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.
"Sorry, Danny. Can you roll onto your side?" she asked.
He groaned, prompting another soft apology from Sam, and complied, holding his weight on his elbow and knees, raising his hips off the floor so she could loop the bandages around his waist. Once, twice, three times, holding the gauze pads in place.
Danny's toes curled and he clenched his fists, gritting his teeth as Sam yanked on the bandages, make sure they were tight. Something warm and fuzzy—not soft, but like TV static—brushed against his fingers. Danny gasped, his eyes flying open, and zeroed in on the small, glowing form wriggling its way between his fingers, forcing his fist open.
Small, round, no bigger than a baseball, a pale blue ghost with bright pink eyes flopped onto his palm.
"Hola!" the ghost chirped.
"Son of a–!" Tucker jerked at the sudden noise, nearly dislodging Danny as he twisted around, searching for the source.
The ghost tittered.
"Holy shit that scared me," he said.
"Really? I didn't notice," Sam drawled. She tapped Danny's shoulder, signalling she was done.
Danny, panting from that little effort, slumped. He probed the bandage, picking at the edges with his nails. When he pressed down, he could feel the dampness of the blood. Moving carefully, he draped his arm over the bandage, hoping Sam and Tucker wouldn't notice.
"So, uh. Who's this little guy?" Tucker asked.
"Me llamo Luz!"
"What?"
"Oh my god. Tucker, I know you failed Spanish, but how can't you know what that means?" Sam rolled her eyes, reaching over Danny to dig her knuckles into Tucker's shoulder.
"We don't have Spanish class! You don't know Spanish!"
"But I know what that means."
"So, what if–"
"Her name is Luz," Danny interrupted. He didn't feel like listening to Sam and Tucker argue, not right now. He was sleepy, and exhausted, and he just wanted this to be over with, one way or another. He closed his eyes with a sigh.
"Wait, no, dude, don't." Panic filled Tucker's voice. "Don't fall asleep, that's bad."
But it felt nice.
"Stay awake."
He didn't want to.
"Tell us more about the graveyard," Sam said. She squeezed Danny's shoulder again, jostling him a little. She didn't stop until Danny slowly, reluctantly, opened his eyes. Everything was blurry, Sam and her dark attire melting into the black stone around them, Tucker's bright colours blending with the crystals.
"Apparently, ghosts sort of just find their way here when they start to fade? At least that's what Clockwork told me," Danny said. He couldn't remember most of that conversation. Whether that was because he didn't pay attention, or he just didn't have the energy to recall, he wasn't sure. Maybe both. He didn't pay attention to a lot of stuff.
He was kind of regretting that now.
"Sometimes they don't even realize it. But I think there's supposed to be a guardian or something?" Danny's thumb strokes Luz's back, making her purr. "They keep intruders out. This place is kind of sacred, so..."
Tucker chuckled. "I guess they aren't doing that good a job since we're here."
"Guess not." Danny held Luz close, staring into those button eyes. They looked a little vast for something so small. It was freaking him out a little. But at the same time, Luz's eyes held nothing but warmth.
"Clockwork didn't happen to mention how someone who gets stuck here can get out, did he?" Sam asked. She crawled forward, sitting beside Tucker at Danny's head, and took over ruffling Danny's hair. "I don't really want to wait for some dying ghost to come here so the door can open back up."
"I'm sorry," Danny said, ducking his head.
"It's okay if you can't remember," Sam assured him.
That wasn't what he apologized for, but he didn't bother correcting her.
-
Tucker watched the crystal behind slowly grow brighter. He didn’t notice at first, more concerned with Danny and their situation, but worrying so much got exhausting and tedious after so long.
Although, he had no idea how much time had passed. It was impossible to tell, but it felt like hours. Tucker's PDA was long dead. The Ghost Zone always drained the battery faster, and the clock never worked right in here anyway. All the ectoplasm and the weird twistiness of time and space inside the ghostly realm.
All he knew was that, at some point, the crystal behind them changed from black to pale green, the glow spreading from deep within.
Tucker ran his thumb back and forth across Danny's knuckles, who still lay curled on his uninjured side. Danny had taken to softly muttering in Spanish, having a quiet conversation with Luz. Tucker wished he knew what they were saying, but, ultimately, it didn't matter. As long as Danny was talking, he was awake. As long as he was awake, he was alive.
Tucker tried not to look at Danny's injury. Every time he did, he couldn't help but feel dread, like poison, seep through him. His stupid, idiot, well-meaning but very much the self-sacrificing jerk of a boyfriend was trying to hide it under the crook of his elbow, but Tucker could see.
The bandages were tinged pink. Soon enough, they'd be red. After that... Tucker didn't want to think about it.
Danny's muttering was the only thing putting Tucker at ease. Whenever Danny stopped, waiting for Luz to respond, Tucker's breath caught in his throat. Danny had a bad habit of holding himself perfectly still when he wasn't doing anything, looking almost like a statue. Sometimes, it was unnerving. Right now?
Right now, it made Tucker think that each time Danny stopped talking, he'd never talk again. He hated it. He hated this place. He hated Walker, and his goons, and that stupid, lucky shot, and Danny's frustrating inability to dodge at crucial moments.
Tucker shook his head. He wasn't mad at Danny. He just wanted Danny to be okay.
Sam was curled up against Tucker's side, holding Danny's free hand, her head on Tucker's shoulder. He glanced at her every once in a while, checking to see if she had fallen asleep. She hadn't. Although her eyes were closed, tension furrowed her brow and pinched her lips, her breathing uneven.
He tucked a strand of hair, slowly falling down her cheek, back behind her ear.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Tucker thought this was nice. His girlfriend cuddled against him, his boyfriend's head in his lap. He laughed softly, careful not to disturb either of them. The day they started dating stood fresh in his mind.
Danny asked Tucker and Sam out separately, to the same date, without telling either one about the other. When Tucker got to the movie theatre and saw Sam there, his heart nearly broke. He thought, for a moment, that he had misunderstood Danny's intentions. That Danny didn't feel the same way Tucker did.
When he noticed them holding hands, he nearly shattered into pieces. But then Danny saw him, beamed as brightly as the stars he loved to rave about, and held out his other hand for Tucker to take.
"Jazz told me to be spontaneous. So, uh... I kind of love you both and would you like to go out with me? Us? The three of us I mean. Together. Dating," Danny had said, his face burning red, gaze nervously darting from Sam to Tucker and back again.
As it turned out, Danny wasn't quite the clueless dweeb everyone thought he was. He just couldn't decide which best friend he wanted to date. So, he decided to date both of them.
Tucker was nervous at first. Scared he might ruin things. He wasn't sure he could love Sam the same way he loved Danny. He had always liked her, but love?
Sam suddenly wrinkled her nose, snuggled further against Tucker's side, tucking her arms between them and sighing softly. Tucker smiled. Yeah, he loved her, and Danny. They were everything to him.
"What time is it?" Sam asked, cracking one eye open.
Tucker shook his head. "No idea. PDA's dead. But probably late enough our parents are wondering where we are."
"Are you kidding? My mom probably doesn't even know I'm gone. I bet Danny's parents think we're sleeping over at your place. And your parents..." Sam trailed off. "Yeah, okay. Your parents would notice."
She paused, taking a deep breath. "We'll be okay."
Tucker nodded. "We'll be okay."
"You'll be okay," Danny said.
Tucker paused, frowning. He opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. "What?"
"It's going to be okay," Danny said, turning slightly to look up at them.
Tucker didn't miss the careful wording, but decided not to comment on it. If he did... It was like thinking some great, big horror was lurking behind a closed door. And as long as Tucker didn't open the door, he could pretend there was nothing behind it at all.
He didn't want to open the door.
"Let me check if the bleeding's stopped," Sam said, pulling away from Tucker's. He immediately missed her warmth.
On her knees, one hand out to catch herself should she fall, fingertips brushing the hard stone, Sam leaned over Danny, brushing his arm aside. Her hair fell over her shoulder as she inched forward, blocking Tucker's view.
Apparently, he didn't need to see it. He could hear the wetness of the bandages as Sam peeled them back. The noise, not quite a squelch, but almost like a tearing sound, echoed throughout the cavern.
Tucker worriedly gnawed his lip. He shifted to the side, so he could see Danny's face better. His eyes looked glazed, his breathing short and ragged, sweat dotting his forehead. Blood speckled his lips. He looked faint, and gray, like all the colour was slowly seeping out of him.
His lips barely moved as he spoke, Luz sitting in his cupped hand, raised to his face. Tucker squinted. He could have sworn Luz was a lighter blue before, like ice. Now she was the colour of a cloudless sky.
"Sam?" Tucker looked up, desperate for some good news.
Sam shook her head.
"Hey, guys," Danny said. His voice was so weak, barely more than a whisper. Tucker wondered if it hurt too much to talk any louder. "Luz gave me some good news."
He laughed, weakly, breaking off into a groan and a grimace, one hand drifting to his wound.
Luz squeaked, a string of rapid, concerned words spilling from her mouth. Danny tapped Luz on the head and whispered something back. Tucker only recognized one word, "bien," which meant “okay.”
He didn't think this was okay.
"She told me something cool about this place," Danny continued, switching back to English. He jerked his head, motioning to the ceiling. "Apparently, ghosts are super private about fading, so the guardian closes the cavern to give them privacy. They're apparently super into keeping the ghost happy as they fade, go figure."
Nobody laughed.
"But the door's gonna open pretty soon, and Luz can fly out and get some help."
Relief washed over Tucker. They were getting out. Luz could find Frostbite, or Clockwork, or any semi-friendly ghost that didn't always want to capture, kill, or maim Danny, and they could get him some real help.
He'd need a hospital, probably. There would be questions, and maybe a threat to Danny's secret, but that didn't matter at the moment. The only thing that mattered was Danny would be fine.
Tucker turned to Sam, beaming. His smile froze when he saw her frightened expression. "Sam?"
Her gaze, hard, but tear-filled, didn't waver. She asked, "Why. Why will the door open?"
-
Of course, Sam asked the important questions, she always did. Fierce, headstrong, and smart. Danny expected nothing less of her. And Tucker. Tucker was the hopeful one, the optimist. He saw the bright side in everything and never gave up. Those were the reasons Danny fell in love with them in the first place.
Danny could have told them what Luz told him, about how not all ghosts faded alone. How sometimes, the guardian made exceptions, let others be there for them, so they wouldn't pass surrounded only by soft light and solitude.
He could have told them. Maybe he should have. He didn't.
Instead, Danny reached out, taking Tucker and Sam's hands, and gave them a reassuring squeeze. He didn't say anything, just smiled. He couldn't give them the reassurances they needed. Nor could he bring himself to tell the truth. But he could smile. He could at least do that.
