Whumpee years into recovery, has their life together.
They got a job, an apartment where they feel safe and people they trust.
Sometimes they think back to the past, maybe they shed some tears. But it is long over, no reason to be scared or wary. That is what they have been telling themself for a long time.
I am fine.
I am in control.
Lies they have been telling to the mirror, their therapist and their friends.
Lies they have believed for some time.
Until Whumpee woke up on an anniversary they have long moved past.
They checked in on their friends when a text message popped up on their phone. An unknown number.
Probably a scam, thought Whumpee but opened the weird message anyways to double check.
Only to be met with words that can only come from one.
Happy Six years.
It has been a while. I hope you have been enjoying your new life. I can't wait to be part of it.
~ W
Their heart stopped for a moment before it started racing.
A sense of doom settled in like a long forgotten friend.
Minutes passed in silence before they even noticed that they have started crying. With tears wetting their hands and the display of their phone.
Read part one // Masterpost // Continued from Here
For the first time in like... a month (sorry) HAPPY FRICKEN LUCA DAY!!!
*****
“I knew it would be you causing trouble,” a warm voice says behind Luca.
Jet.
Luca’s eyes widen as he turns his head to face the Second Lieutenant, barely hearing the retreating footsteps of Lance and his group of cowards. He wants to cry with relief at the sound of his voice. Even though it was only a few days since he last saw Jet, it felt so much longer.
He gets to his feet. “Gods, I’m so relieved to see you,” he beams, the pain suddenly forgotten as he grabs Jet’s shoulder and pulls him in. Jet returns the hug, squeezing Luca tight.
“You little shit,” Jet says fondly, breathing out a sigh of relief, like he couldn’t believe he was seeing Luca again either.
“I’m just glad you’re okay,” Jet says then laughs. “I mean, as okay as you can be.” He pulls away and puts his hands on Luca’s shoulders looking him over to make sure he was actually okay before nodding to himself.
Luca lets out a laugh. “Thanks for that,” he says, turning his head to where Lance and his friends were. “Jealous pricks don’t want me here.” He laughs, biting his cheek as he tries to hide his guilt. “I told Flint that I was friends with the other cadettes.”
Jet hooks his arm around Luca’s shoulders and steers him towards the Lieutenants’ mess hall.
“Oh Yeah, Mr Popular over here. All those friendship fights, and fun fists to the face and best friend beatings. They don’t know you got promoted to Flint’s team. Nobody does. Flint’s quite… secretive about things like that. I was told to keep it quiet, so don’t you go running your mouth about it while you’re here, or I’ll give you some friendship fists to the face, got it?”
“Gods, I feel like his mistress with all the secrets.” Jet laughs and swats Luca, rolling his eyes.
“Why is it so secretive though?” Luca asks, relief flooding him at being brought to the lieutenants’ mess hall for lunch instead of the cadets one. It didn’t matter now though. He wasn’t a cadet here anymore, at least, not in the normal sense.
They grab trays for food and get in line. “I don’t know,” Jet replies. “He’s not like other generals. He’s… different. I’ve only heard vague stories about him, but his achievements of him and his team are well known. He makes sure that news gets around.”
After they collect their lunch, they find a table alone towards the back of the room. Once they settle, Jet continues. “Flint is like a bold child – apparently – during meetings with high command. He demands things, like normal things, like better conditions and equipment for troops, and not just his team either, but he’s not afraid to speak his mind and I think that’s why a lot of people respect him. Then of course there’s the noble born generals that despise him because what he demands costs more of their family’s money,” Jet says, digging into the food.
Luca watches him, taking it in with a hum, “Well, shit. Yeah, he seems - interesting.” He glances around casually, making sure a certain lieutenant wasn’t around before looking back at Jet.
“Has he…” Jet begins but stops himself and tries again. “Has he been okay with you? He’s not like… mistreating you or anything?”
Luca smiles, “ah come on now, J, don’t be getting all soft on me now.” Jet laughs but Luca can sense the tension in him still. “He’s been good,” Luca adds, “we went on a fatherly run this morning.”
Jet kicks Luca under the table at the comment and smirks at him as he bites into his bread. “A fatherly run?” Jet repeats slowly, raising his brows. “He’s like a dad?” Jet blinks and sits back, confusion clear on his face. “What?”
“It was a joke dude, Gods, don’t tell me the lieutenants have made you lose your humour.”
“You just think you’re all high and mighty now that you got into Flint’s team,” Jet teases good naturedly. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do around here. It’s been so quiet without a dark-haired little shit running around.”
Luca laughs, trying to push down the stinging in his chest. He smirks as he stabs his food with a fork. “Yeah, and I don’t know what I’ll do without some jackass ruining all my fun.”
Jet chuckles lightly. It fades as he looks up at Luca, his features sobering up to something too big that Luca didn’t want to acknowledge. “I’ll always be here for you Luca,” he says, his voice soft yet firm. “You know that. You’re like an annoying little brother to me, and I love you like one. And y’know… we’ll still get to see each other on family day. Or my mother will kill me,” he says with a wry grin as his black eyes meet Luca’s. “Just… I’m happy for you. I hope your new position will be good for you. I know it will. But yeah… just so you know…” Jet looks away and coughs, drumming his fingers on the table nervously.
Luca wants to make fun of him, try and laugh and make some joke to lighten the mood but he doesn’t find the words. He stabs his food, moving around his tray as his dying hunger. He clears his throat. “Thank you… for everything. I-I’m sorry for you know,” he pauses and a slow smirk spread across his face, green eyes glimmering, “giving you grey hair with stress.”
Jet’s head snaps to Luca and he slams his hands on the table before pointing a finger at the cadet. “I don’t have grey hair you little shit!”
Luca bursts out laughing. “Alright, tell your roots that, dude, not me.”
Jet kicks him under the table again. “I should have left you with the wolves,” he growls. “Tell your roots that,” Jet mocks in a high-pitched voice before scoffing and folding his arms across his chest. “My roots are picture perfect. Beautiful. Stunning. Gorgeous, how dare you. You little fuck.”
Luca laughs. “Oi, knock it off, gonna get god damn shin splints because of you!”
“Well then stop being a splint in my shin!” Jet yells back. Then he pauses. Considers what he said. “Wait, hold on, I meant—” Luca’s already laughing and Jet groans. He kicks him again. “Stop being an annoying little shit, that’s what I meant. Oh, you are just the worst. Y’know what, I would get grey hair with you. You’re like a toddler.”
Luca shakes his head with a laugh as he takes a bite of his food. “You know who I won’t miss? Lance, the prick.”
“Lance, god.” Jet says with a groan, running his hand down his face. “He’s been throwing his dick around since you’ve left, saying you were holding them all back and now they can actually get things done. Idiot.”
Jet goes for his water and pauses as he looks over Luca’s shoulder. “Huh. Speaking of pricks. Wonder what that’s about.”
Luca follows Jet’s gaze until his eyes settle on First Lieutenant Riley walking with Captain Daniels.
“Fuuuuck.” Luca winces, his back hunching as he tries to make himself discreet.
“Hey, it’s fine, they’ve already passed us, they won’t see you,” Jet tells him. His voice is so plain and certain that Luca can’t help but trust him. “What is it?” Jet asks when Luca turns back to face him. “Do you know what that’s about?”
But he’s not fine. It could be anything. Flint was meeting with Daniels today. What if he was meeting with him to investigate all the behavioural reports on Luca? Get the facts from the source of the accusers rather than reading them? Fuck. Why would Flint even do that? To see what he was working with? Was Flint having second thoughts in taking Luca? He can’t drop him now, surely. He couldn’t put him back in the cadets now?!
“Hey, Fletcher!” Jet says, suddenly beside Luca, his hand a reassuring weight on his shoulder. Luca’s eyes snap to his. “Why don’t we do something? Go somewhere off base.”
Luca startles slightly at the sudden presence. “Y-yeah, that sounds good,” he smiles, wishing Jet could just take him, protect him from the firsts, the cadets, the captains. Protect him if Flint really did change his mind.
“A couple of people are going to the lake, so that’s out,” Jet says, taking Luca’s reputation into account. “But we could head into town? Get that hot chocolate you love? It can be like a y’know…” like a proper goodbye goes unsaid as Jet pinches the back of his neck.
Luca smiles brightly, a sour taste in his mouth, eyes glistening. “Sounds good. I’d really like that.”
“Good.” He starts messing up Luca’s hair until Luca slaps his hands away with a grin. “Alright,” he says, grabbing his tray to put away. “Come on.”
Luca grabs his tray and they both throw it in the pile of trays that built up by the food counter. As they step out, Luca’s eyes scan the perimeter, checking for Lance or one of the firsts. Jet walks beside Luca, seemingly oblivious to the threats that surround Luca here. “We can get one of the shuttles,” Jet says, slipping down one of the shortcuts towards the gates of camps.
“Oh, actually, I needed to stop by the bookstore too,” Jet says, “one of the captains recommended a book by—”
“Maybe you should do less reading and more working,” someone says, cutting Jet off mid-sentence. “Or maybe, less sucking up to the captains.”
The voice came from in front of Jet blocking the exit from the alley and he stops, his jaw ticking as he stares at the owner.
“Grant. Great. Nice to see ya pal, if you’ll excuse us.”
“Not so fast.” A hand clamps down on Luca’s shoulder, fingers digging into his collarbone. Luca glances behind him and sees another of Lieutenant Riley’s friends. He’s tall and broad, maybe the size of Luca and Jet standing side by side.
Luca’s eyes widen and he growls, instantly trying to pull the grip off of him, but he freezes as he sees the man. For fuck’s sake. “Leave us alone.” Luca growls, looking to Jet to see if he was okay.
“We just wanna ask some questions, Fletcher,” the brute says. Luca couldn’t remember his name. Thomas? Robert? Thombert? Something like that. He shoved Luca against the wall with his massive hand, almost knocking the breath from Luca’s lungs. Jet turns back and grabs the brute’s arm, trying to push him off but the brute didn’t move an inch. “Get off him! He’s just a fucking kid, what does he know?”
An arm snakes over Jet’s torso and Jet huffs out a snarl, pushing back against his attacker. “Calm down, Jetty-boo, we just wanna talk to the lad.”
“Fuck off! What do you wanna know anyways? You don’t have to hurt him to ask him a fucking question.”
“But he’s so pretty when he’s covered in cuts and bruises,” Grant coos.
Luca feels sick as he looks at Grant, trying to catch his breath. He tries to shove the brute off of him with a grunt, “Get off of me, prick!”
“You know what’s funny, Second Lieutenant?” Grant asks, holding Jet to his chest as he struggles. “Riley gets called to the Captain’s quarters the day this little waste of space appears in camp again. Ain’t that a coincidence, Albrecht?”
“Doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me,” the brute replies, flattening his hand on Luca’s chest and pushing against his ribs. Albrecht. That was his name. Luca knew it was something stupid.
“Look we have somewhere to be,” Jet growls. “So, if you’d just get to the fucking point so we can all move on, that’d be great.”
Luca wanted nothing more than to run to Jet, let him protect him and get him out of this. But at the same time, he wanted to be the hero, to knock Albrecht off of him and save Jet and himself the trouble. He wanted to be the strong one, for once.
He continues to fight against Albrecht, teeth bared.
“Let go! I swear to god I’ll kill you!”
Albrecht puts his free hand on Luca’s throat and picks him off the ground like he weighs nothing. Luca gasps and kicks his legs, trying to get the brute in the balls but he was standing too far away for Luca to reach. “For fuck’s sake just ask what you want!” Jet yells, throwing an elbow back at Grant and sweeping his legs from under him. Before he could reach Luca though another person slammed into Jet, tackling him at the hips and Jet went down. “He can’t—” Jet yelled between struggles of trying not to get his hands pinned. “—fucking answer if you’re- FUCK! Let him go!”
The other guy managed to pin Jet to the ground, putting his knees on Jet’s biceps and his hands on his wrists to keep him down. Grant steps over Jet and walks to Luca whose face is purple at this point and nods at Albrecht to let him down. Albrecht drops Luca but grabs him by the scruff of his shirt to keep him up, slamming him against the wall, knuckles digging into his collar bones.
“Why did Daniels want to talk to Riley all of a sudden, Fletcher?”
Luca splutters, coughing and wheezing as his words aimlessly flail. Oxygen floods into his lungs, making him dizzier and his hand wraps around the wrist of the hand holding him to steady himself. Breaths heavy and forced.
“Don’t… know…” he pants
“No?” Grant asks, grabbing Luca’s chin and tilting his head up to look Grant in the eyes, a pout on his lips. “You can’t think of any reason?”
Jet growls and struggles to get free. “Ugh! He said he doesn’t know and he doesn’t!”
Luca grits his teeth, breath still heavy. “I don’t f-ff’ckn’ know!” He growls, digging his nails into the skin of the man who held him. He doesn’t dare to look at Jet.
“Alright.” Grant says and lets go of Luca, strolling casually over to Jet.
“Fuck off Grant,” Jet growls, struggling to pulls his arms free of the other guy on him. Luca couldn’t see the other Lieutenant’s face from this angle.
“Hey…” Luca says, his voice cracking. “Hey. Lea-leave Jet alone. I don’t know! I don’t know why he’s talking to Riley I swear.”
Grant grins at Luca while he lifts the tip of his boot over Jet’s neck, hovering, the threat clear. “No? You can’t think of anything?”
Luca’s thrashing picks up. “I’m getting discharged!” He growls, hoping the lie sits so Jet won’t be hurt. “Okay?? Flint has to sign off on my discharge papers, that’s it! We just wanted to spend our last day together you prick!”
Grant pauses, and all eyes go to Luca. "What?"
Luca shoves against Albrecht's hand. "They're kicking me out, because of you lot, and fucking Riley's reports on me, so get the fuck off of me and let us go."
"It's the last time you'll ever see me, alright?!" he pants, his voice filling the alley. His eyes go to Jet’s for a moment, the look they share is quiet, but it says everything. Luca forces his eyes away, looking at grant, “let us go.”
Grant looks at Jet, before looking at Albrecht and nodding. Albrecht lets go of Luca and Luca jerks himself out of his grip. He gets to the guy on top of Jet and yanks him off with a huff. Grant puts his hand up to stop the other from attacking Luca.
"Let them go," he says as Luca helps Jet up. "You can happily wave him off. The last time we ever have to beat up the little shit."
Luca doesn’t move until Jet does and they walk away swiftly. Luca’s heartbeat thrummed in his ears as his footsteps matches Jet’s. Jet doesn't speak until they are clear of the gates and waiting at the stop for the shuttles into town.
"Luca, I'm sorry. I tried to get him off you," he says, his voice filled with guilt.
“Huh? Why are you apologizing?” He laughs lightly but he can still feel the grip around his neck. He thought he was going to die in the hands of that monster.
Before Jet can answer though, Luca pats him lightly on the back. “C’mon, let’s not let those bastards ruin our day.”
Jet tries for a smile, running a hand through his hair before he grins genuinely. "Yeah. You're right," he says with a sigh. "Fucking arseholes. You really saved my ass back there," he says, beaming at Luca. he messes up his hair again with a laugh. "For once."
Luca laughs with him but can't help leaning into the touch. “Yeah yeah, don’t say I never did anything for ya."
*****
To Be Continued
ROLL CALL MAGGOTS! (aka the tag-list): @imgoingtobiteyounow @whumplicity @creatureofstories @afternoonfairy @castell-da-near @funnymemedude @hiddencowboybarbarian @hueningplushie @fallenwaltz
HELLO HELLO!!! I AM SO SORRY FOR THE DELAY, IT WAS MY FAULT, I was not in the headspace for uploading stuff in February and then @whumpasaurus101 beat me within an inch of my life and I have been healing in hospital ever since (/j) but seriously, February was just crazy but I AM BACK NOW and this series will go back to its regularly scheduled Friday uploads. :)
Containing: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Attempts at Humor, everyone being somewhat mentally not fine, Pure Vanilla being actually angry for a while and the Deceit Trio as a dysfunctional found family
Chapter 5: Relearn & Reconsider
Summary: Shadow Milk comes to an absolutely world-ending realization. He will never recover from this. He will die. Slowly and in unending agony.
Read on AO3
The next morning found Shadow Milk in slightly better condition than the one before.
As he rubbed the sleep from his eyes (yes, he had slept again—shut up), he couldn't help his mind from wandering back to the evening before.
After being informed of their decision, Pure Vanilla had insisted on speaking with them again. And since Shadow Milk was still supposed to take it slow, the conversation had taken place in his bedroom once more.
Black Sapphire had made a snarky comment about last-minute changes to the deal, but the ancient had quickly reassured them—no changes, just a few reminders.
Shadow Milk had mostly let the explanations wash over him. Something about mealtimes, spending money and an upcoming festival. He had always let Black Sapphire handle that kind of stuff—too boring for his taste.
Although, this time, that might not have been the real only reason for his lack of attention.
Pure Vanilla might have seemed as calm and composed as always, but the jester had clearly heard the resentment buried under that gentle tone—had noticed the stiffness in his stance, the subtle tension in his movements. He had looked at his other half far too often, despite his increasingly desperate attempts to stare anywhere else. Out of boredom, of course.
I wonder if he can't stop thinking about our last encounter in this room, as well…
The phantom ache in his chest flared at the thought—radiating in bitter pulses, like cracks spiderwebbing through sugar glass. The shattering of his Soul Jam hadn’t just fractured his magic; it had left behind splinters—sharp, invisible, buried deep, not in his dough but in his very essence.
It had dulled overnight, faded into something almost neglectable. But now, just the memory of that look on Pure Vanilla’s face…
Shadow Milk shook the thought from his head immediately.
Ugh…
Nope! Nu-uh. No way.
He was not ruining his morning with that kind of thinking before it even began. It was far too early for this shit.
A glance at the clock on the wall had him groaning—in fact it was far too early for anything, really. Breakfast started at six, if he remembered correctly, so in about half an hour…
He groaned again—putting on a show for an audience of none. He definitely hadn’t planned on being the first in line. And especially not on going alone. He still refused to acknowledge that he needed food at all like it was the plague. He was good at that after all. Lying to himself.
He’d need to find a way to occupy himself while he waited for the other two to wake up. Unlike him, they hadn't been out for several days straight, so they would surely not wake for another few hours at least.
Welp, no time like the present!
With a dramatic flourish worthy of a stage curtain call, Shadow Milk flung the blanket aside and shuffled to the edge of the large bed. The movement earned him only a faint sting from his protesting body—progress! Encouraged, he swung his legs over the side with a bit too much enthusiasm.
For approximately one glorious second, he felt triumphant.
Then gravity had to remind him that it existed.
His legs, traitorous fools that they were, failed to support him in the slightest. His balance pitched forward. His arms flailed for purchase like the air could support him and with a startled yelp more befitting a squeak-toy than an ancient being of darkness, Shadow Milk faceplanted into the soft, plush carpet below.
He just lay there for a moment, sprawled out like a marionette with it's strings cut, limbs tangled, dignity in tatters.
His brain took a moment—or three—to catch up.
Thank anyone but the witches that no one else is awake yet. I might actually die of embarrassment if Candy or Sapphire had seen that.
Still facedown, he groaned quietly into the carpet. Then, with the grace of an uncoordinated newborn cream sheep, he awkwardly pushed himself up onto shaky elbows, before turning back towards the bed and grabbing onto it's frame like a lifeline.
What the hell just happened?
His body felt heavy.
But not in the same way as when he first woke up yesterday, weighted down by exhaustion. No—this was different. More… existential.
Instinctively Shadow Milk reached for his magic, intending to levitate himself back onto the bed like he had done a million times before in his lifetime. His magic sparked. He felt lighter. It flickered, then sputtered, then fizzled out completely. Weak. Drained. To little energy.
He blinked. Once. Twice.
Still stitting on the floor. Staring at his claws, almost tearing into the mattress, as the realization hit.
'I've never stood up,' hiseyes were wide, his throat tightened. 'I never walked. Never ran. I…'
The thought hit like a blow to the chest.
I haven’t walked in millennia.
Why would he have? Flying had become second nature—effortless, instinctive, as easy as breathing. He'd mastered it to perfection, the motions natural for his mind and body alike. It had never needed much energy. Not when his Soul Jam provided power like the roaring sea.
But that sea was gone now.
His magic pool, once vast and unending, had been reduced to a trembling puddle. A glass half-empty where there had once been an ocean.
Something squeezed around his chest, invisible and unrelenting. His breaths grew short, sharp, panicked.
I can’t fly.
Even if he had the magic, he wasn’t allowed to use it outside these walls. He wasn’t allowed to be what he used to be.
I can’t walk.
His heart pounded like it was trying to escape the prison of his ribs.
I forgot how.
He couldn’t move.
Couldn’t run.
Couldn’t escape.
His whole body trembled. Not with exhaustion, but with the gut-deep, all-consuming terror of someone cornered. Caged. Trapped in a body that no longer obeyed him.
He dragged in a breath—but it caught in his throat. Another. Still too shallow. His hands clawed at the sheets, desperate for something to ground him, to move him, to free him.
I can’t—I can’t—I can’t—
The room spun.
The walls were closing in. The ceiling pressed down on him. Even the air felt wrong—too thick, too quiet. Every heartbeat was a war drum. Every second, a scream.
You’re powerless. Trapped. Useless. A pathetic shell—
“No.” The word was more a whimper. Croaked. Pleading.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Removed his hands from the bed sheets before his claws would tear them apart and hugged himself instead. Trying to hold it together. Trying to remember how to breathe.
In. Out. In. Out. Count it. Focus. Just…
One breath.
It stuttered.
Another.
It wasn’t steady, but it was there.
He pressed his forehead into the softness of the bed, his pulse still racing, but not quite galloping off a cliff anymore. His breaths were still ragged and wet with barely unshed tears, but they reached deeper into his lungs. His body still shook—but it was slowing.
A little.
You’re fine, he lied to himself. You're used to this. Being fine. You're always fine.
He stayed there for a while, just focusing on his breathing. His heart still pounded, but it no longer screamed. The room was still too quiet, but the silence wasn’t suffocating anymore. His body still felt heavy… but it was his.
And for now, that would have to be enough.
You're gonna find a way. You're not unable to walk. You've done it before. Just because you forgot, doesn't mean you can't relearn.
His little pep talk hadn’t been nearly as convincing as he would’ve liked—but hey, what did they say?
Fake it till you make it!
It had been his motto for centuries. Surely it could get him through this, too. As long as no one found out, he’d be fine. No one had to know about this temporary weakness of his.
All he had to do was deflect any attempts at dragging him outside until he figured out how to walk again.
How hard could that be?
As it turned out: Pretty hard.
The hours after his breakdown passed in a quiet, uneasy blur. The panic had drained him more thoroughly than he cared to admit, and once he'd clambered back into bed, his body had simply refused to move again. Not quite asleep, not quite awake, he'd drifted in and out of a restless half-consciousness—too tired to think but too tense to rest.
A very unpleasant experience.
But by the time he heard movement in the next room, he’d at least somewhat managed to sit up again—doing his very best to appear like he had not just spent the last three hours crashing out from a little panic attack.
“Morning!” came Candy Apple’s far too-loud, far too-cheerful voice, as she dashed into the room as soon as she saw him awake, closely followed by Black Sapphire at a more measured pace. “You’re awake! How are you feeling?”
Shadow Milk barely suppressed a flinch.
Act natural. You did not just have a full-on existential crisis because you forgot how legs work.
“Of course I’m awake,” he answered easily, gesturing vaguely and doing his best to lounge against the headboard like he hadn’t recently been face-down on the carpet. “Unlike certain others, I don’t need no beauty sleep to maintain my looks.”
Candy gave him a look that was equal parts fond and exasperated. “Uh-huh.”
“Should we all go to the dinning hall for breakfast,” Sapphire asked casually, “or would you rather we bring something here?”
Shadow Milk’s smile froze just a bit too long. Not the food again. He could not go out there. Not yet. But he couldn't like say that either!
“Oh no, no, no, I wouldn’t dream of subjecting the public to my radiance so early in the morning,” he declared with dramatic flair. “Besides, I’ve been giving it some thought, and I believe I should begin today by practicing the art of reflection. Yes. I need to think about some… stuff.”
There was a pause.
Candy tilted her head. “So... that’s a no?”
“Absolutely. Go, eat, nourish your mortal forms, or whatever it is you do.” He made a shooing gesture. “Your glorious leader will be right here. Meditating. Very deeply.”
Sapphire’s brow twitched, but he said nothing. Candy was already turning toward the door, a barely-suppressed grin tugging at her lips.
“Alright,” she chirped, “we’ll eat breakfast here. I hate sitting between all those boring, ordinary cookies anyway.”
“We’ll bring you something from everything,” Black Sapphire added, already halfway out the door. “So you can sample and decide what you like best. They serve pretty much the same things at the breakfast buffet every day.”
He smiled far too sweetly at Shadow Milk’s disbelieving expression—and had the audacity to close the door behind him before the jester could even begin to protest.
Shadow Milk slumped back with a theatrical groan, softly thunking his head against the headboard and dragging both hands down his face.
“Oh, yes, wonderful. Let’s experiment with breakfast while I sit here like a tragic room decoration.”
He muttered into his hands.
“They’re going to kill me. Not with violence. Not with poison. With… domesticity. Or whatever the hell this is.”
Care, whispered a voice at the back of his mind—one that sounded far too much like Pure Vanilla for his liking. They care.
Shadow Milk barely stopped himself from groaning once again, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles as if he could scrub away the feelings clawing at his chest.
Confusion. Frustration. Fear.
But hey, at least he’d bought himself a little more time.
Now he just had to figure out how to walk before lunch.
Easy. Right?
…Right?
When Black Sapphire stepped into the hallway for the second time that day, it was to collect lunch from the dining hall.
The soft whirr of the Wafflebots activated the moment the door clicked shut behind him and Candy Apple, two of the three drones floating politely into position—one behind each of them. Silent, unarmed, and yet somehow deeply unsettling.
He did his best to ignore them. They weren’t menacing or invasive, exactly—but that didn’t mean he liked being followed around by weirdly polite, floating surveillance waffles.
It was mostly a matter of privacy, really. Pure Vanilla had been insistent that the recordings would only be accessed if there was an incident requiring review—and even then, only by council order. But still… Black Sapphire was a suspicious cookie by nature. And he knew better than most that rules had a habit of bending when someone important enough thought it “necessary.”
Candy Apple, naturally, had no such concerns. She twirled once on her heel, walking backwards down the corridor with a grin. “Well,” she said brightly, “That was definitely a new flavor of weird.”
Sapphire gave a thoughtful hum, eyes narrowing. “Even for him. Something’s definitely wrong.”
Their master’s refusal to leave the room, his excuse about “preserving the mystique of his presence” or whatever he’d called it this time… it was off. Wrong, even. Shadow Milk lied all the time—masterfully, theatrically—but not like that. Not nervously. Not with something almost like an edge of desperation in his voice.
And that, more than anything, put Sapphire on edge.
“We need to do something,” Candy said firmly, but far to easily for the monumental task that that would probably turn out be.
Black Sapphire sighed heavily, pinching his eyebrows. “If only it were that easy,” he muttered. “Sometimes I really wish we could just ask for answers and get them. But nooo... That would be far too easy, of course.”
He was tired. He hadn’t slept well in days. First because Shadow Milk hadn’t stirred for over two days, and now because there was a devastating threat looming over their master’s head, the scope and consequences of which remained completely unforeseeable.
“Oh, heads up, Sapphy!” Candy chirped in her usual singsong. “Master will get back on track, sooner or later. He always does!”
Sapphire didn’t dignify that with a response. Candy adored Shadow Milk far too much to see the cracks for what they truly were. But contradicting her would only lead to a heated but pointless argument he didn’t have the energy to deal with right now.
“We should keep him entertained,” Candy continued, undeterred. “At least until he’s ready to leave the room again. We both know how...”
She hesitated, clearly searching for a word that wasn’t as insultingly honest as her first thought.
“...gloomy he gets when he’s bored.”
That was—actually a very good point. Whatever was bothering Shadow Milk, letting him stew in his own thoughts would only make it worse. He needed constant engagement—not that he would ever call it that, of course. But especially after the Silver Tree… their Master didn’t handle stillness well.
Sapphire gave a small hum of agreement. “We know he enjoys crafting—fabrics, puppets, dolls—whatever catches his attention. But if we want to help with that, we’ll need to buy supplies. And you know what that means.”
“Ughghh,” Candy groaned theatrically. “We need to work again...”
It wasn’t particularly hard to earn some spending money in the Vanilla Republic. Volunteering at the production facilities was practically a cornerstone of daily life. Cookies often helped out friends or neighbors for a few hours just for the fun of it—and even occasional helpers were always paid fairly for their time. As Pure Vanilla had reminded them yesterday, they were still welcome to lend a hand—so long as they followed the rules.
Black Sapphire gave a slow, pointed nod. “Exactly. And this time—no shenanigans. No chaos. No incidents whatsoever.” He shot her a meaningful look. “We’re walking on very thin ice right now, and every mistake we make will fall back on Master too.”
He stressed that point as much as he could, hoping to get the seriousness of the situation across, since Candy had never cared one bit about getting herself (or him for that matter) into trouble at all.
He paused, considering all that. “Actually... maybe it would be better if you stayed with Master, while I–.”
“What!?” Candy shrieked, stopping dead in her tracks. “Are you implying I can’t do it?! I handled this boring shit just fine last time—and I’ll do it even better now! You don’t get to just dump me in our rooms like I’m—like I’m a babyor whatever!”
Sapphire raised an eyebrow and carefully adjusted his tone to avoid setting her off further. They were still far from the more populated areas of the castle, but Candy's shrieking often had the unfortunate side effect of attracting unwanted (or sometimes wanted) attention.
“Of course not. I simply assumed you’d prefer spending time with Master instead of doing ‘boring shit’ as you put it.”
That made her pause. Then she shocked him.
“Well, yeah, that’d be more fun,” she admitted, “but we both know it wouldn’t help. Master likes his space, and you alone won’t earn enough money anyway—not if we want to buy materials and have anything left for us.”
Sapphire blinked at her. Huh. Maybe she had matured a bit over the past few years. He was almost proud.
“…Fair enough,” he conceded, turning back toward the hallway.
They agreed to seek out Sugar Glass Cookie, still the volunteer coordinator, as Pure Vanilla had explained yesterday. There wasn’t much use arguing about where they’d work—not yet, at least. They didn’t even know which facilities currently needed help. Luckily Sugar Glass Cookie already knew them, so Sapphire was fairly certain that she would at least have the good sense not to put Candy Apple on one of the numerous sheep or alpaca ranches. She had zero patience after all—neither for animals nor for cookies.
They continued towards the dining hall to return their breakfast trays and collect lunch, heading back with a bit more food—and surprisingly a bit more of a plan—than they’d left with.
Over the next few days, Shadow Milk made exactly zero progress.
He’d tried. Truly. Heroically, even.
The floor of his bedroom had seen more ungraceful flopping than a pancake griddle during breakfast rush. (Unfairly delicious stuff, by the way. It made his stubborn resolution to hate food so much harder than it should have been.) He also never thought he'd be thankful for something as mundane as carpets. But here he was.
Turns out, having no memory of how legs worked was a bit of a hindrance. His muscles remembered nothing. His dignity remembered everything.
And while he did have just enough magic left to float the short distance between his bed and the bathroom—or dramatically collapse into his desk chair like a fainting starlet—that was about it. More than a few times, he’d hovered halfway to his destination only to sag back to the ground like a popped balloon, hissing and cursing and crawling his way there instead.
It was humiliating.
Even if he were allowed to use magic freely, there just wasn’t enough of it. Not anymore.
Candy Apple and Black Sapphire had been doing their best to keep him entertained—bringing back crafting supplies and fabrics whenever they returned from work, or simply sharing stories about what they’d seen, heard, and done throughout the day.
He’d come close to thanking them more than once by now… But had resolved to show his appreciation in whatever way he could without actually saying those two words, instead. They deserved so much better than this—than him.
…
By day three, the walls were starting to close in.
He just couldn't take it anymore. He’d always been the master of mystery, the king of control, the jester who danced through shadows without ever missing a beat. But now?
Now he was on day three of being stuck in the same disgustingly yellow room while his doting minions looked more and more suspicious every day.
As much as he hated it—he would have to admit defeat.
He needed out. Or rather—he needed help. It was pathetically disgusting. But if he was going to learn how to walk again without faceplanting into the marble floor of the castle corridor, he’d need reinforcements.
Unfortunately, that meant telling Candy Apple and Black Sapphire the truth.
…Still better than the floor, though.
“I want to talk to you about something,” Shadow Milk announced after breakfast the next morning. He had barely managed to force down a few bites—despite the fact that stage fright was normally not something he struggled with. Candy Apple and Black Sapphire had been looking at him with that disgusting worry again.
“You’re not dying again, are you?” Candy asked, pointing her fork at him suspiciously from where she sat at the table in his room—where they’d held all their meals together the past few days.
“No, no, nothing that dramatic,” Shadow said with a dismissive wave. “Well, not physically, anyway. Emotionally? Spiritually? Existentially? Whole different story.”
Black Sapphire raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “What is it?”
The jester leaned back against the headboard of his bed, putting on his best mysterious air. “I simply… wished to share with you the latest development in my tragic hero’s journey. A shocking revelation. A scandal of epic proportions.”
Candy stood and pounced toward the bed eagerly—ever the enthusiastic audience.
Black Sapphire just sighed, but followed suit. “He forgot something stupid again.”
That hit far too close to the truth. He was not ready for that yet.
“I’ll have you know I remember many, many things!” Shadow protested, placing a hand over his heart like a wounded poet. “Just yesterday I remembered that I hate morning light and that waffles should never be square. Ever. A circle is a much friendlier shape.”
“Master,” Candy said slowly. “You said you wanted to tell us something?”
“Ah, right.” He coughed. “Yes. Of course.”
A pause. For dramatic effect, obviously.
“I’m in possession of a… temporary technical malfunction. Of the physical variety.”
Black Sapphire blinked. “What?”
“My glorious form is—momentarily—out of sync with this mortal realm,” Shadow continued. “In other words… I am experiencing a minor inconvenience. Of epic proportions.”
Candy and Sapphire looked at each other for a few seconds, then back at him.
“Master,” Black Sapphire said, slowly, carefully, “are you saying… something’s wrong with you?”
“Pft, wrong is such a loaded word,” the jester said, trying to smile through it. “Let’s say I’m currently operating at limited capacity. You know, like a waffle iron on low heat. Still functional, just… inefficient.”
Another pause.
“Spit it out,” Sapphire said flatly.
Shadow Milk groaned dramatically and buried his face in his hands. This wasn’t working. He just had to get it over with. Time to rip off the bandage.
“I forgot how to walk, okay!?”
Silence.
“...You what!?” Candy almost yelled.
“You forgot how to walk?” Black Sapphire echoed in sheer disbelief.
“It’s not like it comes with a manual!” Shadow shouted, gesturing wildly. Then, crossing his arms, he added defensively, “I haven’t used my legs in literal millennia! It’s not that I can’t walk, it’s that I… misplaced the instruction sheet, and now the whole operating system is being very dramatic about it.”
He braced for their laughter, but it still hit his ego like a sledgehammer when it came.
Candy burst into uncontrollable giggles, nearly toppeling over, while Black Sapphire at least had the decency to muffle his laughter behind one hand—though Shadow Milk thought he heard him mutter something that sounded suspiciously like, “I cannot believe this is my life.”
“Oh, knock it off! It isn’t that funny!” he growled, his tone dangerously sharp and cutting… only to immediately regretted it, when both of them stiffened like soldiers caught out of line.
Black Sapphire pulled the old mask of elegant obedience over his features with unnerving ease. Shadow Milk hadn’t seen that look since before the war ended. Lightly bowing at the hip, he offered a practiced apology—for himself and Candy—without a hint of sarcasm, as though it were his natural response to disapproval.
The sight punched Shadow Milk square in the gut.
It yanked him straight back to all those long, bitter days of war filled with frustration and failure. When the stress had been too much, and the pressure too high, and his temper had gotten the better of him. When he’d shouted, snapped, let his magic crack the walls and shake the floor—not at them, never at them—but close enough that the fear still stuck.
He remembered how they used to throw each other under the cart without hesitance, with clever excuses and even sweeter lies. But somewhere along the way—somewhere in those dark, cold days—Black Sapphire had started stepping in first. Stepping before his sister. Shoulders squared. Voice calm. Taking the weight before Candy even had a chance to flinch.
Because when it really came down to it, Shadow Milk knew Sapphire would protect Candy with everything he had—from anything and anyone.
Guilt crashed into him like a tidal wave.
He had always hated himself afterwards—tried to make it up to them, giving them more time-off, or gifts, or elaborate distractions. But he had never apologized. Never once admitted that he was in the wrong.
They deserve so much better.
“…I’m sorry.”
The words scraped up his throat, rough and unfamiliar. His voice didn’t even sound like his own.
Candy and Sapphire stared at him like he’d grown a second head. He didn’t blame them. He had never apologized before. Not out loud. Not to them. Not for this.
He hated how it made his chest ache.
He swallowed hard and changed the subject. He'd actually rather go back to the mortifying ordeal of discussing his inability to walk. Please—anything but this.
“Right. Uh. Back to the topic at hand—walking. My new personal nemesis. But I still kinda need to relearn how to do it.”
Sapphire, to his credit, only blinked a few times and smoothly followed his lead.
“Well, yes, of course. But while we might know how to walk,” he said carefully, “that doesn’t necessarily mean we can teach someone. Especially not someone who’s…” He tactfully didn’t finish that sentence. “It’s different when you’re already grown. Probably even more complicated when it’s about… relearning.”
He tilted his head, thoughtful. “Maybe the library could have something? There must be books about physical rehabilitation.”
Shadow Milk made a face like he’d bitten into something sour. “Ugh. Books.” He waved a dismissive hand. “You think some glorified stack of paper can teach me what millennia of muscle memory forgot? Please. If books were that useful, I wouldn’t be hiding in a castle full of pastel optimism after blowing up my life.” He paused. “Again.”
Sapphire hummed, and Shadow got a front-row seat to watching how spectacularly the radio host failed at keeping a smirk off his face.
He was not going to like whatever came out of that mouth next.
“Well… we could always just ask someone. You know, I’m sure cookies sometimes need to relearn how to walk after serious injuries. A healer would probably have some experience—”
“NO!” Shadow Milk screeched, nearly falling off the bed as he lunged for Black Sapphire, who just laughed and stepped easily out of reach, raising both hands like he was the picture of innocence. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare tell anyone about this—especially not him!”
If Shadow had ever thought his dignity couldn’t sink any lower, the idea of Pure Vanilla Cookie finding out he’d forgotten how to walk promptly proved him wrong. The sheer thought of it made his skin crawl.
He could feel his face burning—probably glowing a shade of blue darker than should legally be allowed.
“Then the library?” Sapphire asked with enough saccharine innocence to make a sugar cube mine envious.
“Yes! For witches’ sake, yes! Just go to the damn library! And take Candy with you while you're at it, you imbecile!” he snapped, in one last, futile attempt to preserve some shred of dignity.
Candy Apple, still wheezing with laughter, nearly tripped over herself on the way out. Black Sapphire—still wearing that insufferably smug smile—paused halfway out the door to give one final mocking salute.
“Of course, Master,” he said, voice dripping with false reverence. “Right away.”
They swept out together, still giggling as the door closed behind them.
Shadow Milk groaned and flopped back onto his pillows, covering his face with both hands.
He never thought he’d be grateful for them sassing him.
Description: Danny has been struggling for months. Balancing ghost hunting, school, and keeping his powers a secret has drained him both physically and mentally. And it all comes crumbling down when an identity is exposed—but not Danny's. Tucker Foley, his best, is a ghost hunter. And not just any ghost hunter, but the Tech Hunter. The same hunter who, just three days ago, pressed a cannon to Phantom's chest and fired without mercy.
This is fine, right? Everything is fine.
Check out the amazing art made for this fic by @popjeckdoom!
Cover | first scene | second scene
—
Danny can still feel Tucker's hands on him. Not in some aching, metaphysical way like when they bump shoulders, and the warmth of that contact lingers for hours afterwards. This isn’t warmth, but heat. Tucker’s fingertips had only brushed the hollow of Danny’s throat during that final grab, yet the spot burns now.
He stops in the middle of the sidewalk, turning toward a storefront window as he checks his reflection, pulling the collar of his hoodie down. Splotches the colour of old bruises litter his throat, tinged green around the edges and dotted with red. The rash and micro-cuts left by Tech’s nanobots are unmistakable. Had Tucker noticed how the nanobots coated his fingers as he reached for Danny, seen how they wounded him?
Of course, he didn’t. There is so much Tucker never notices.
The hoodie isn’t damaged, but that doesn’t surprise Danny. Tech’s touch has always hurt, and it was always designed to hurt ghosts.
It never destroys anything man-made.
Never harms anything human.
Danny clenches his fists to stop his hands from shaking. It’s getting harder and harder to lift his feet with each step. The wobble of his left knee, the stabbing in his chest every time he breathes, the itch of his throat. It all weighs him down. And atop that, something far heavier bears down upon him, a bone-deep dread that twists his stomach into knots. He has felt the press of that unseen force from the moment Tucker stepped into Lancer’s office.
Danny sways under a bout of dizziness, nearly stumbling into the street when he tries to catch his footing. Unable to breathe deeply, he compensates with quick, shallow breaths.
And the itch on his throat persists, like bugs creeping under his skin, gnawing on his insides. They skitter from his throat to his chest, spreading from his ribs to his heart, his lungs, burrowing deep.
Danny doesn’t notice his hand roaming under his hoodie until a nail slips between the bandages on his chest and pricks the open wound. A passing woman glares at him when he yelps, muttering something about delinquents under her breath. Danny ignores her.
At least he isn’t thinking about the itching now. He presses the heel of his palm into the bandages, grimacing through the lingering sting, waiting for it to dull into the ever-present throb. To be safe, he clasps his hands in his pocket, so he won’t scratch again as he continues down the street.
Despite how bright the sun shines, the air is cold. Or, it had been when he left for school that morning. He remembers looking out the window—seconds before realizing he was three hours late for class—seeing how crisp and clear everything looked, how the snow sparkled in the sunlight, and knowing it would be cold. But he's not cold now. He almost feels too hot, and the temptation to rip his hoodie off grows along with his weariness.
A red-hot coil burns in his chest, hissing as it brands the inside of his ribs. He exhales the steam in shallow puffs and wipes sweat from his forehead.
Something yellow glints at the edge of his vision, causing Danny's heart to leap into his throat. He throws himself to the side, slipping in the snow as he tries to get out of Tech's reach.
But Tech's not here. Tech is at school.
The taxi that caught Danny’s eye passes harmlessly by.
He leans against the nearest wall as he tries to catch his breath, which is hard when the bandages around his chest are so tight that his ribs creak. He reaches under his sweater again and probes the bandages, finding the loose loop his scratching had created. His fingers come away damp, but that could be blood or sweat. He doesn’t want to know which, wiping his hand on the inside of the hoodie.
It's too damn hot out here. His skin crawls. There's so much yellow everywhere, every flash cranking Danny’s nerves up. It all becomes too much, and he crashes to his knees as his stomach revolts.
No one pauses at the sight of a kid gagging on the sidewalk. Danny wonders what they think of him but decides he doesn't care as he retches again. Nothing but bile comes up. When was the last time he ate or drank anything besides ectoplasm? When did he even have that last? He has a foggy memory of opening the box he keeps his supply in and downing the last three vials at once, but he can't say when that was. As for actual food, that must have been on Friday, before the fight. That was three days ago, and he hasn’t had a bite to eat since.
Danny's head spins.
He should go home. Lancer told him to go home. Actually, no. He said he would send Danny home. With a parent, probably. Parents who already hadn't been answering the secretary's calls, which would have left Jazz as the remaining option. Danny won’t be surprised if she had put herself down as one of his emergency contacts the second she turned eighteen last month. But going home with her would either mean waiting at school all day for classes to end or pulling her out of class so that she could take him home.
Danny's stomach churns again. No. He wouldn't have let that happen. Even if he hadn’t stormed off, he still would have left.
He slumps against the wall behind him. During the fight on Friday, he landed poorly, and his left knee has been smarting ever since. It protests a bit more loudly now, especially after getting jostled around by Tucker. A few seconds to rest and stretch it out will do him some good.
Snow soaks into his jeans, but he doesn't care. Taking a handful of snow, he shoves it in his mouth, swishing it around until it melts, trying to get rid of the bile taste. He doesn't have anything else to wash it down with. He doesn’t even have his backpack, for that matter. Maybe it's still at home, sitting by the front door. Or he left it in the school office. He can't remember.
He doesn't remember much of anything since Friday. Just the pain, and the blood, and the cracking of his heart as he glimpsed those familiar green eyes underneath the visor.
A few snowflakes fall onto Danny's lashes. His eyelids flutter.
Why is it so hot?
After checking that people still aren't paying attention to him—they aren't—he closes his eyes and tugs on his core. Cold floods his veins as his ice powers activate. It soothes the bruises that spread across his back and stomach. He focuses on the palm against his chest, concentrating on his worst injury.
The cold is a balm. It pushes back against the heat in his cheeks and helps him forget about the burn of Tucker's hand.
Danny doesn't know how much time has passed before he hears a vehicle pulling up. The cold bites at his nose and ears, but his cheeks are still far too warm. He still hasn’t caught his breath.
He hears tires rolling over broken concrete. This must have been where he fought Johnny a couple of weeks ago. The city is usually pretty good at cleaning up Danny's messes, but sometimes the smaller debris gets missed. Most people have learned to ignore it by now, but Danny always notices.
A window rolls down.
Danny squeezes his eyes tighter, hoping he hasn't been mistaken for a vagrant. A scrawny kid with no backpack, huddled on the street during school hours in winter, wearing nothing but a hoodie. He pulls his knees up to make himself smaller. Bending his left knee hurts a bit more than it should, more than it ever has with bad landings in the past, but he ignores it.
“Danny, do you need a ride?”
It takes Danny a second to recognize the voice and the truck. Mr. Foley leans over the passenger seat and peers at him through the open window.
It takes another second for Danny to remember his ice powers and cut them off. He misses the cold as soon as it's gone. He always feels better when the cold comes from within, numbing his body from the bones outward. But he can't have Mr. Foley noticing the glow in his eyes. Despite the delay, Mr. Foley doesn't react.
“Where's your jacket? I almost didn't recognize you and had to turn back around,” Mr. Foley says.
“I don't need a jacket.”
“Everyone needs a jacket. You're going to freeze.”
Danny brushes the snowflakes off his lashes and stares hard. “Where's Tucker?”
“At the school. We got him set up with that student tutor program, and he's working on that for the rest of the afternoon. He has to catch up on all the work he missed from ghost hunting.”
“Oh.” Isn't that nice?
Danny almost says no. He has known the Foleys his whole life, considers them family, and would go so far as to call them his honorary aunt and uncle. There had once been a time when, if he couldn't go to his parents for something, he would go to the Foleys. But he almost says no.
Mr. Foley must notice his hesitation because he rolls his eyes and says, “Just get in the damn truck.”
Danny gets in the damn truck. Hot air blasts into his face once he's inside.
Mr. Foley waits until Danny, who first closes the vents on his side of the truck, has buckled himself in before speaking again. “I'm disappointed in you.”
How diabolical of him to wait until Danny can't easily escape.
“There's a jacket in my locker,” Danny mutters.
“Not because of that. Although, yes. You're going to get sick if you aren't already. Do you remember when you boys were little? Whenever you and Tucker played in the snow, you always took your jacket off. We couldn't leave you alone outside, or you'd come in three hours later with the worst cold we'd ever seen.” Mr. Foley shakes his head with a smile, although it fades quickly.
“I don’t know what’s going on between you and Tucker, but it’s not like you to lash out,” he continues. “It’s obvious you’re going through something, and I’m here if you need to talk. But what you did in there wasn’t okay.
Danny watches the sidewalk as they pull into traffic, staring at the indent he left behind. He hadn’t noticed how much it was snowing when he was sitting, but a pile nearly three inches tall marks where he had been.
“I can’t say I’m not mad, but… I’m just disappointed.”
Danny wants to say he didn't mean to hurt Tucker, but he can't. Tucker is his best friend, but Tech? Thinking of Tucker's alter ego makes Danny's heart pound, and not in a good way. Not the way he's used to. Thinking of Tucker as Tech? He wants to throw up again.
Every bruise, every burn, every little cut Danny has gathered this past month throbs at the thought of that golden armour. He checks over his shoulder, but no one is there.
Tucker's at school. Tucker's at school. Tech is at school.
“You don't have anything to say?” Mr. Foley asks.
Danny shrugs.
“Tucker's okay, by the way. You didn't hurt him any more than he already was.” Mr. Foley pauses, giving Danny space to respond, but he doesn't. “This is an upsetting situation. Tucker is hurt and has been getting hurt for some time. Going out and hunting ghosts—” Mr. Foley shakes his head. “It's funny how much a mask can trick you. Tucker made me follow all the 'official' Tech Hunter accounts. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen everything there is to see of Tech online. It seems obvious now that I know. I always thought he was just a fan.”
Mr. Foley's grip on the steering wheel tightens. “But some of those videos…”
Danny doesn’t need to hear it. He has seen them, too. Clips of Tech zooming through the city, using gadgets and gizmos to take down ghosts with ease. They started fun. Even Danny enjoyed the videos at first. He felt a kinship with this new hunter, who didn't seem much older than him. But then the tech got bigger, the fights more brutal, the targets more… familiar. Danny stopped watching the videos a while ago, after he became the ghost in them.
“These last few weeks alone… I swear he was hunting down Phantom every day. I was starting to feel sorry for Phantom until—well. Until.”
Danny rubs his knee. Despite having time to rest, it still hurts. Touching it is like pressing on a fresh bruise.
“I'm sorry,” Mr. Foley says. “It's been a stressful few days, but it's not appropriate for me to dump this all on you. You need to worry about school, not ghosts. I just always thought Phantom was a good one. It doesn't seem right that all ghosts could be bad.”
“Well, you were wrong. Everyone knows ghosts are bad.”
“Danny, your parents—”
“Were right all along. We all should have listened to them. Ghosts aren't good.” Danny squeezes his knee. “They can't be good. They're monsters, right? Because only a monster would hurt Tucker like that. Wouldn't see the person behind the mask. It—Phantom—Tucker was there the whole time, and Phantom couldn't see that. He just kept hurting him. He should have known!”
The soft voice of the radio fills the cab. And then Mr. Foley turns it off, and there's only silence. Danny can't look. He lets go of his knee, flexing his fingers. They're numb from how tightly he clenched his hand.
He wants to make himself small, curl up and disappear into nothing. He doesn’t want to be seen or heard or perceived. If only a portal would open up beneath him and take him to an endless void—there must be one somewhere in the Infinite Realms—where he can stop existing for a while.
“Danny,” Mr. Foley says.
Stop it.
“Danny, I'm worried about you.”
Stop looking at me.
“Your parents are good people, but I don't like it when you start saying these things. And you've been different lately.”
No, no, no!
The heat of the cab bears down on him. His bandages are damp, and he is cold and hot and too many things all at once. Mr. Foley keeps talking, but his words don't reach Danny. The pounding of his heart drowns them out. The truck turns a corner, making Danny's view spin, but when the vehicle straightens out, the world does not.
“I—” a voice says. “Please. I need—”
“Are you okay?” Something hot touches Danny's forehead. “You're burning up.”
A hand reaches for the door. A monster's hand with pale, bony fingers and scabby knuckles. It pops the door open. The truck screeches as Mr. Foley slams on the brakes, but Danny is already out the door, part of him phasing through the metal when it can't open fast enough. He hits the ground running.
“Danny!” Mr. Foley shouts after him, but Danny is gone before the truck stops.
He doesn't know where he's going. Snow pelts his face, nearly blinding him. The wind has gone from nipping at his cheeks to slicing through him, whipping into a storm. In the distance, a haze of green and orange glows behind the snow. Danny veers away from it and pivots down the nearest street. As he turns, he skids on a patch of ice and loses his footing, careening into a mailbox. The corner drives into his chest, and his world goes white.
Danny comes to face down in the snow with ringing in his ears. He doesn’t know how long he was out, but it is long enough that the flood of adrenaline has ebbed. As the tide recedes, it uncovers all the aches he had ignored for the past few minutes.
Every breath drives a dagger through his chest. He doesn't know if he wants to cry, puke, or collapse. Or all three at once. Through the flurry of snow, he hears a shout.
“Danny!”
He has to keep going.
“Danny, where are you?!”
Leaning on the mailbox for support, he drags himself up, pivoting on his left leg.
He hears a pop. A crackling, like stepping on broken glass. Danny crumples with a scream as a searing pain tears through his knee. It’s here and gone in seconds, leaving his whole body trembling as he lays in the snow. He tries to rise, but his knee immediately gives out.
A hand touches his shoulder before he can try again.
“Daniel.”
He tries to clamber away from the hand, the voice, but his leg can’t bear the weight, even when sliding across the ground. His entire side spasms when he accidentally knocks his knee, and he lashes out at the hand reaching for him, stopping just sort of crushing those fingers in his grip.
He whimpers. “Leave me 'lone.”
“Don't be stupid. You're coming with me.”
Danny is scooped up before he can protest. He doesn't even have the energy to squirm. Anything that isn't snow is just a blur of colour. The face above him. The car ahead of them. As they approach, Danny’s shaking stops. Not because he adjusts to the pain, his body just stops. No breathing. No heartbeat. Nothing. All at once, everything has become very far away.
“Not so much fight in you today, little badger.”
He tenses as the car door opens, but inside is barely warmer than out in the snow. Danny lies in the backseat, cheek pressed to the chill leather. He tries to keep his eyes open, but staring at the seat ahead of him while the car moves turns his stomach. Again, nothing but bile comes up.
He closes his eyes, drifting into nothing as the darkness takes him.
—
A tether pulls Danny along. His body moves, and he moves with it, but he isn't moving it. “Danny” and “Danny's body” are not the same right now. His body feels the arms around his shoulders and under his knees. Danny does not. His body lifts its hand to stare at its scarred fingers. Danny does not.
Danny drifts behind, watching but not seeing, as the world moves around him. It is dull and flat and not quite real. It’s like possessing his Doomed avatar all over again.
That changes when he is set down on a cold table in front of a glowing expanse. The swirling green fog beckons him forward. He tries to rise, but those hands grab him again and sit him back down. This time, he feels the pressure on his shoulder as if through layers of thick cloth. One hand moves to his head, dragging through his hair. Danny doesn't try getting up again after that. He sits, content watching the ebb and flow, breathing in the sour air.
The one time Danny's friends had been in his parents' lab, they called the air acrid. Danny would have agreed with them before. Now, that smell comforts him. The same way people enjoy citrus, vanilla, or pine, Danny savours the scent—and taste—of ecto-rich air. The longer he sits there, the more “Danny” and “Danny's body” feel like one thing again. The table beneath him becomes solid, real. His breathing, although far from easy, evens out. The haze over his mind creeps away like fog in the sunlight.
The trembling starts immediately. Danny closes his eyes, taking as deep a breath as possible, ignoring how shaky it is. He wants to curl into a ball and wallow, but this isn’t the place for that. Not anymore. Instead, he gives himself ten seconds.
One.
Ten seconds to be miserable.
Two.
To wonder how badly he screwed up this time.
Three.
Four.
To wonder if he cracked a rib when he hit that mailbox.
Five.
Six.
Or what he might have torn in his knee.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
To pretend he’s just a normal kid having a shitty day.
Ten.
Danny sits up straight and turns. Now that his panic has retreated—not gone, but tucked into a corner of his mind like a wild animal—he realizes where he is. Who he's with.
Danny didn't notice when Vlad pulled away. Part of him, much larger than he wants to admit, laments the loss of contact. Now, Vlad leans against the console of his lab. A large monitor rises behind him, with several smaller screens angled beside it. They can function as individual screens or act as one massive display. Danny has played Doomed on those screens many times in the past year. He can see the game's case just behind Vlad, alongside his NASA mug and a pair of headphones he has never seen before.
Vlad follows Danny’s gaze to the items on the desk. He smiles and picks up the headphones. “Do you like them? They just came in. I know your old headphones got damaged in a fight.”
“Yeah.” The ear pads on the headphones are planets, and stripes like the rings of Saturn decorate the headband. It will not be the first gift Vlad has given him. Danny swallows before adding, “With Tech.”
Vlad puts the headphones down and comes forward. “I'm sure you heard the news by now. It's all over Amity Park. I'm sorry your best friend turned out to be a ghost hunter.” He rests a hand on Danny's head in a paternal gesture, which Danny normally finds comforting. “It must be hard. Are you all right?”
Danny takes in the lab, which has grown more familiar to him than his own home. The day Vlad showed him this place and revealed himself, something in Danny changed.
You're like me, Danny had thought. You understand me.
Any ghost can stumble into Vlad's lab, but he and Danny are the only humans able to reach it. It became his haven. Here, he could be himself without worrying about anyone else seeing. And Vlad gave him that.
Tucker's words, which had never left Danny's mind, resurface.
Vlad told me to.
Danny jerks away from Vlad's hand, leaving it hanging between them. Something changes in Vlad's expression. It's so minute that someone else might not have caught it, but Danny has spent too much time with the man not to notice. Vlad's nostrils flare, and his mouth twitches downward. Danny blinks, and Vlad's smile is back at full brightness, but it's too late. Danny saw the mask crack.
Vlad clasps his hands behind his back and starts pacing. “I heard about your suspension. Your father added me to your list of emergency contacts after I came to Amity, and when you left without waiting for an adult, the school contacted me. You're lucky I found you. Have you even treated your injuries yet?”
“Vlad.” Danny's tone could make a ghost shiver.
Vlad pauses for a second. “Daniel. What did I do to lose my uncle privileges?”
“Whatever you did to Tucker.”
“Oh, dear. Is this about the press conference? I promise it won't be anything bad, but this is a big revelation for the city. I would be remiss not to address it.”
“No, I—press conference?” Danny shakes his head. “Stop it. Stop deflecting. Tucker told me.”
Vlad's jaw tenses. Another crack. “What do you mean? What did he tell you?”
“Everything!”
Vlad looks Danny up and down, then swivels, heading back for the console. He swipes the NASA mug up and swirls around the liquid inside. Some week-old energy drink, probably. He sniffs at it and makes a disgusted face, then dumps the contents over a nearby floor drain. Vlad takes his time going to the eyewash station, filling the mug with water and cleaning it.
Two minutes pass before Vlad returns to the console and leans against it, giving Danny a long stare. Unable to straighten with the gnawing in his chest, Danny curls in instead. Vlad smirks.
The expression makes Danny bristle. He knows that face. It's the smile Vlad gives him when they've both seen something stupid—a private joke passing between them. Danny doesn't smile back. He doesn't see any jokes around here except for himself.
“I don't know what you're talking about. Is your fever getting to you?” Vlad says.
“You knew who he was! Tucker said so!”
“Oh. I found out by mistake. I knew it would only hurt you, so I gave him some advice. I would have told you sooner if I thought it would end like this. But you know how unstable you—”
“LIAR!” Danny howls, the sound tearing from Danny’s throat, shaking the lab. It cracks the monitors and shatters the mug in Vlad’s hand. He scowls, shaking off glass and blood, while Danny cries out. “Why would you make me hurt him?!”
“I didn't make you do anything. You said you wanted to help, so I gave you a task. You did get the relic, didn't you?” Vlad pauses, but not long enough for Danny to answer. “How exactly you went about getting it was entirely up to you. I have plenty of resources you could have used to track it down before Tech got to it.”
“I wasn't going to use one of your ghosts!”
“Oh, that's delightful.” There is nothing friendly in Vlad's smile now.
The shift takes Danny aback. Despite the cracks he saw, he doesn’t want to believe the mask is there, to see it crumble. This isn’t supposed to happen. Vlad should be smiling at him—warmly—and offering some sage advice that sounds pompous but ultimately helps Danny figure this out. And, after taking care of Danny’s wounds, they will go upstairs and watch something in Vlad’s home theatre. An old Packers game if Vlad reaches the TV first, during which he’ll recite the same hundred facts Danny has heard a thousand times over. Some kind of monster flick if Danny gets there first, or a space documentary if he wants to annoy Vlad. But no matter what they watch, they’ll spend the hours crafting a perfect lie about his behaviour for Danny’s parents, and when Danny goes to sleep later, he can rest easy knowing that Vlad has his back. Even if no one else does.
Danny wants his Uncle Vlad.
He doesn’t want this.
“You really think you're a monster, don't you?”
Danny fights back tears, saying, “I'm not like them! I have a heartbeat. I still feel things. I don't just hurt people because I can!” He doesn't even convince himself.
“There's more than one way to be a monster.” Vlad presses a button on the console.
The screens, cracked but still functional, light up. All seven show the same thing: a clip from Friday's fight. It isn't in the video circling online, but Danny remembers this moment. It happened not long after the fight began.
Phantom grabs Tech by the chest piece, lifts him, and then slams him down on the ground. Hard enough that the pavement beneath Tech fractures and his suit glitches. The video closes in on the ghost's snarling face. Its bared fangs. The wild, inhuman eyes.
“Shut up!” Danny launches himself at Vlad. In the second it takes to cross the lab, he transforms from human to ghost. His claws tear into Vlad’s suit as they collide and crash into the main monitor. It shatters, glass raining down around them, but the video doesn’t stop.
The screens on either side show the clip on a loop. The same scene is happening here, in a different place, with a different friend, but the same feral look on Phantom's face.
“I didn't want to! You made me do it!” Danny slams Vlad down again and again and again. All the while, that recording taunts him from the edges of his vision. Danny's attention snaps to the screens on his right. Beams of ectoplasm explode from his eyes and carve through the screens, scorching the walls as he turns from right to left.
Vlad shoves his palm under Danny's chin and fires. Pink overtakes Danny’s vision as the ecto-blast goes off, throwing him across the lab. The smell of smoke and singed flesh overpowers the comforting tang of ectoplasm. Danny stares at the ceiling, panting, and swallows. It hurts.
“Little badger, look at yourself. You're not in the right state for this.”
Danny pushes himself up and finds Vlad, now transformed, floating closer. The front of his suit is torn, but the injuries beneath are little more than paper cuts to him. Danny flicks the blood off his claws and tries to stand. His knee gives out beneath him.
“You can't walk.”
Danny tries to respond but cuts off with a sharp gasp. He touches a hand to his throat. When he pulls away, he finds ectoplasm dripping from his claws.
“You can't speak.”
Danny snarls.
“I thought you said you weren't a monster?”
With a screech, Danny throws himself forward again. Vlad dodges to the side. They've been here before. How many times has Danny tested himself against Vlad, tried out new powers on him, and sparred in the lab?
How many times has Danny lost to Vlad in these friendly sessions?
That doesn’t stop Danny from throwing himself, again and again, at the man he trusts. The man he sees as a mentor, an uncle, and maybe even a father figure. He lashes out with claws, and teeth, and ectoplasm, but nothing hits. Vlad keeps slipping out of the way, unbothered, as if this means nothing to him. Danny's whole world is crashing down around him, and no one cares.
He tries to duplicate, desperate for any edge he can get over Vlad, and gets so far as having two right forearms sprouting from his elbow before something inside of him fizzles.
“No, no, no!” Danny croaks. A ring flickers around his chest. He forces it back, barely, and leaps at Vlad again, charging ecto-blasts in all three palms.
Vlad dodges the first blast and the second but slips right into the path of the third. Triumph fills Danny as the ecto-blast explodes, until a hand shoots out and grabs his wrist.
“Don’t forget who taught you all of your tricks.” The duplicate Vlad left behind to take the hit melts away as the real Vlad steps back, claws sinking into Danny’s flesh. He smiles before wrenching Danny’s arm upward.
Danny screams over the squelch of the limb tearing from his body. He crumples on the floor, groping at his elbow. Threads of muscle coated in blood and ectoplasm twitch beneath his fingers. Their tattered ends dangle from the arm in Vlad’s grip, a jagged bone poking out between the flesh.
Danny retches when he feels the muscles twitching. Darkness creeps into his vision, and he has to fight it back.
His arm. His arm. Vlad ripped off his arm.
A string of muscle slips out of the severed arm and hits the floor. Globs of ectoplasm follow, splattering against the tile. The flesh shrivels, sloughing off in chunks, followed by the remaining muscle, and the bones crumble in Vlad's grip as the arm corrodes from the inside out. Danny flinches at each wet smack, unable to tear his eyes away from the decaying limb. Every time a piece of it falls, his elbow spasms. He cups the wound, expecting his hand to close around a stump, but finds solid flesh instead. Slowly, his gaze lowers.
Ectoplasm oozes between his fingers. Pulling his hand away, he watches the last dangling thread of muscle fall, joining the mass on the floor. The ectoplasm on his elbow bubbles and smooths out into pale, unblemished skin.
Between the swimming in his head and the darkness creeping into his vision, it takes him a while to truly process what he sees. His right arm, from his shoulder all the way down to his fingertips, is still there.
The melting limb is fake—the duplicate.
It is the duplicate, right? Danny flexes his real—please, please be real—hand. The crumbling remains of his other fingers twitch, sending a jolt up his arm. Muscles that did not exist before—and exist no longer—strain to move a part of him that isn't there.
The limb is fake.
But it feels real.
Every second of agony as his flesh decays before his eyes.
When the rings come again, Danny doesn't have the energy to fight them off.
“Remember: it didn't have to be like this, little badger. If it weren't for your stubbornness, we could have kept going as we were. But I suppose you've ruined it.” Vlad waves his hand, creating a shield of ectoplasm. With a push, it shoots forward, pinning Danny to the ground, moulding around his body as it binds him.
The last chunks of his arm dissolve, and Danny’s eyes widen when the puddle inches toward him. He squirms, breath hitching as he tries to get away, but there’s nowhere to go. His bindings tighten, forcing his elbows into his ribs, cutting into his wrists until his fingers go numb.
The ectoplasm seeps into his hair. When he whips his head around, droplets splatter against his cheek. One lands on his lips.
The taste of lime. The smell. Burnt. Rotting.
Vlad rests a foot on Danny's chest, on his injury. It draws Danny’s attention, but one word lingers in the back of Danny’s mind.
Acrid.
“And I could have done so much for you,” Vlad says, then digs his heel in.
Danny is too busy howling at his cracking bones to see the foot come for his head next.
—
Danny was bleeding the first time they met. It was the standard for their first few run-ins, spread over the following weeks. Even now, it seems that Danny always bleeds in Vlad’s presence.
He had been late coming home from school, caught in a fight on his way. He pelted toward the stairs, clutching his backpack against his stomach—the fifth backpack he would lose after his accident. Before he started climbing, his dad beckoned him to the living room. Danny didn't have time for whatever his dad wanted. He could feel the wet spot on his side growing. If he didn't get behind a closed door soon, someone might notice the stain spreading on his shirt. He cared more about that than the grey tint slowly overcoming his vision.
“Danny? Are you coming?” his dad called again.
Danny made the mistake of looking back. His dad’s eyes were filled with so much hope. Danny knew his parents were eccentric and that put people off, but how could anyone ever say no to Jack Fenton when he radiated such joy?
Danny's earliest memory is the glint of his dad's smile. The warmth of his arms.
At that moment, Danny was bleeding into his backpack. His vision was growing dimmer by the second, and he wasn't sure if he could walk straight. But his dad smiled and waved him forward, and suddenly Danny was a toddler again, taking his first wobbling steps toward his favourite person in the world.
His dad’s beckoning hand pulled him toward the promise of that warmth, and he stumbled into the living room.
He didn't know the man sitting on the couch. Didn't hear anything his parents said, either. Danny rushed through an introduction (Hi, I'm Danny, nice to meet you—I'm going to my room now) and fled as soon as possible.
Once locked behind the bathroom door, he stuffed his bloody shirt into his bloodier backpack and started fixing himself up. He had to dig a pellet of ice from his abdomen and was surprised it hadn't melted yet. That ghost—what was his name… Klemper?—had been tossing snowballs left and right. Danny hadn’t expected it to hurt once he got hit with one, much less bury a chunk of ice in his stomach.
So much for making friends.
Once the shard was out, blood flowed freely from the wound. Danny nearly passed out at the sight of it. It was the first time he had bled so much from a ghost fight. He impressed himself by holding it together, until he tried to stitch himself up with a travel sewing kit. As the needle dug into his skin, his world went black.
An hour later, Danny was bandaged—but no stitches, never again—and the bathroom was clear. He had stuffed the toilet paper and towels he used to mop up the blood into his backpack, intent on tossing the whole thing in the dumpster once night fell. Satisfied with his cleanup job, he slunk into the hall, shirtless, once again hiding behind his backpack.
Danny had been so busy checking if Jazz's door was closed that he hadn’t noticed the body before him until he buried his nose in a cashmere jacket. He looked up into the stunned face of the man his dad had wanted him to meet. Some old friend of his parents’ from their college days. Danny had already forgotten his name.
He wouldn't find out for weeks how the man noticed the only drop of blood Danny had missed—a stain the size of a quarter on the hem of his jeans. In the moment, all he saw was the man's shocked expression melting into amusement, and something else, something Danny couldn't name but recognized on an instinctive level. Something that made him take a step back.
The man surprised Danny with a pat on the head. “Try dish soap. And cold water,” he said before gliding past into the bathroom.
Danny spent the rest of that evening hiding in his bedroom, afraid that at any second, his parents would come bursting in because their friend saw him bleeding. They never did.
To anyone else, that interaction would have been insignificant—a few harried seconds easily forgotten. But to Danny, who had already been through so much, it meant one thing:
There was an adult he could trust.
—
Danny wakes up to a fever and a ceiling covered in stars. Not the dollar-store, glow-in-the-dark stickers he grew up with, which his dad helped him put up when he was five, but a light projection from a lamp on the nightstand. With the curtains drawn, only the stars provide light for the room. Danny is thankful for that. He can barely keep his eyes open with how much his head pounds.
He reaches to peel off the blanket, but freezes. His right arm hovers in front of him, trembling. It comes back to him quickly: the sound, the smell, the taste. The slow decay of the phantom limb.
It was fake, he tells himself, squeezing his hand into a fist. That wasn’t real.
The rest of his body feels stiff, fresh bruises blooming across his back and shoulders, and he can’t catch his breath. It’s like there’s a knife in his back, held in place by Vlad’s heel, and even the smallest inhale pushes Danny’s chest back into the blade.
His throat is a footnote in comparison, barely worth his notice.
But his knee… This morning, Danny’s knee twinged. There was discomfort, but he could walk. Comparing his pain from then to now is like comparing a bruise to a bullet wound. He knows the disparity between those two injuries.
He pushes himself up, peeling away from the sweat-soaked sheets, and bites back a cry when his leg shifts. He has to stop twice and grit his teeth before he manages to sit upright.
The blanket falls into his lap just as he spots his reflection in the mirror across the room. His chest and throat have been bandaged with care. The edges of his injuries creep out from beneath the bandages, flares of red skin touching his collarbone and ribs. The bandages on his throat are also damp, but not from sweat. Danny recognizes the slightly tacky sensation of Vlad’s healing salve—a concoction made to soothe ectoplasmic injuries. It works best on surface wounds.
Beneath the blanket, he discovers unfamiliar pyjamas. Pulling up the left leg reveals a compression bandage around his knee. If it’s supposed to help, it’s not doing much.
There is little else in the room besides him, the bed, and the mirror. The projector and the nightstand, of course. A dresser beneath the mirror. A Dumpty Humpty poster on the door. This room is one of many that Danny had yet to explore in Vlad's manor. Despite this, he immediately knows what, or who, it's for.
This is Danny's room.
Only a day ago, that realization might have warmed him. Now, it fills him with disgust. He needs to leave as soon as possible, but he can't go out in a pair of flannel pyjama pants. Scanning the room again, he doesn't see his hoodie or sweatpants, but he notices a stack of clothes on the corner of the bed.
Designer jeans, a Vladco polo shirt, and a fur-lined leather jacket. No way Danny is putting those on.
He goes to transform, tugging on his core, but a jolt of electricity stops him. It rips through his body and leaves him breathless, clutching his chest. He doesn’t try again.
He should. If he wants to get out of here quickly, he only has one option. But just turning his hand intangible makes his insides itch. He doesn’t want to know how intense that would feel across his whole body. Doesn’t want to hurt any more than he already does.
Danny berates himself for his weakness.
He changes into the clothes and hates every second of it, but he doesn't have another option. It takes an embarrassingly long time since he has to manoeuvre his bad knee. Bending it hurts. Straightening it hurts. He can’t even let it lay limp without some discomfort. But he manages, grimacing when he catches his reflection, and starts the arduous process of limping through the manor.
He may not have explored every inch of Vlad’s home, but he knows the layout well enough to find his way to the front door. He keeps one hand on the wall to help his balance, but he still falls a few times.
By the time he reaches the stairs, the wall is the only thing holding him up. Every time he puts weight on his left leg, his knee slides beneath his skin. His right thigh aches from hopping across the manor on one leg. While ghost hunting keeps Danny in shape, the last few days have drained him so much that he feels like a weak freshman again, barely able to run a mile.
As he peers down the stairs from the third-floor landing, part of him whispers that he should go back and collapse into that soft bed. But he hasn’t sunk that low yet. As he debates the least painful way to make it down, a voice floats up to him.
“—wake him up. I don't want to take up more of your time,” Jazz says.
“It's not a problem, dear.” Danny's heart quickens at Vlad's voice. “Danny visits often enough. I don't mind him taking up one of my spare bedrooms for a few hours. I'm just glad I found him so quickly.”
Danny clings to the newel post as he lowers himself to the floor, starting the long process of scooting down the stairs one step at a time.
“Thanks again for calling the school back. Lancer said he didn't want to pull me out of class, but someone needed to be here for Danny.”
“He was fine with me.”
“Family, I mean.”
“Right. Of course. But you could have waited for school to end.”
Danny glances at the grandfather clock on the main floor, visible at the back of the hall now that he's worked his way down to the second landing. It's not even three yet. Jazz had to leave school early because of him. A bitter taste spreads across his tongue. He swallows a few times, but the taste lingers. He can't get rid of his guilt that easily.
“Yeah, that's not happening. Danny comes first.”
He wishes she would stop saying stupid things.
When Danny finally reaches the bottom floor, he stops to gather himself. A few quick breaths, so close to hyperventilating that he wonders if his panic has reared its head again, before he strides over to the doorway leading to Vlad's sitting room. He almost makes it all the way, but on the last step, his leg buckles, and he clings to the door frame to keep himself up. Jazz’s head jerks up at the sound of him hitting the doorway, and her face lights up when she spots him.
“Danny!” She is upon him instantly, leaping across the room to reach him, rubbing his hair, touching his forehead, and fussing with the jacket. “Oh. This is new?”
“His clothes were soaked, and he didn’t have a good coat. I couldn't in good conscience leave him like that.”
While Jazz frets, Danny stares past her. Vlad sits in a lavish armchair with his back to them but watches through the mirror above the mantle. He has a thing for mirrors.
Their eyes meet, and Vlad's flash red. Danny pales.
“Are you even listening to me?” Jazz asks.
Danny, unable to speak, nods. The way Jazz fusses, she keeps pushing him back, forcing more weight onto his injured knee. Tears spring to his eyes.
“Oh, Danny.” Jazz lifts a hand to wipe the tears away, but Danny flinches back.
“Careful.” Vlad rises from his chair. The movement yanks Danny's attention back to him as he approaches. “I think I might have bruised his ego when I had to carry him inside. He must be sulking.”
Danny can feel Jazz's eyes on him, but he can't look away from Vlad. Danny hasn't stopped shaking since they made eye contact. Vlad raises a hand to fix his sleeve, and Danny flinches again.
“Oh.” Jazz's hand finds Danny's wrist and squeezes it once. “Well, thank you again. I'm taking Danny home now if that's all right.”
Her tone says she doesn't care if it's all right; they're going home now.
“By all means,” Vlad says.
No one moves. Danny doesn’t want to look away from Vlad, afraid of what might happen the second he turns his back. Jazz must pick up on his wariness because she keeps looking between them as if she, too, is waiting for something to happen.
Vlad finally breaks the spell over them by gesturing to the door.
Jazz takes Danny’s hand and pulls him away. He stays behind her, so she can’t see him limping. Unfortunately, they’re nowhere near the wall, and he has no way to hold himself up when his leg gives out again. His hand rips from Jazz’s as he stumbles, barely catching himself from face-planting.
Jazz spins around, lips parting, but Danny snaps, “What?” before she can say anything.
Hurt flashes across her face. “Are you…?”
“I’m fine.” He drops to one knee, ducking his head to hide his grimace, and mutters, “Tripped on my shoelace.”
Jazz doesn’t say anything else, and he doesn’t lift his head to see what face she’s making. Danny fiddles with his perfectly tied laces until Jazz’s feet turn away from him and head for the door. He stays on the ground, breathing softly through his nose until he’s ready to stand, rising on one leg. His left knee spasms.
He massages it through his jeans, although it doesn’t help. The compression bandage doesn’t seem to be doing anything, either. It feels like someone sliced his knee open, chipped the bone to pieces, and filled the hole with oozing ectoplasm.
The front door opens and shuts.
Danny only has a second to process what that means before he jerks toward Vlad, just in time to see a syringe of orange fluid jabbed into his arm. Danny rips his arm away, but Vlad is faster. By the time Danny stumbles back, the syringe is empty.
“I've done a lot for you, little badger. I still will.” Vlad closes his fist around the syringe. There's a flash of pink, and then ash falls from his hand. “You'll be thanking me in a couple of hours when that kicks in. Remember, I only want what's best for you.” He turns but pauses halfway. “Oh… and keep that relic safe for me, won't you? I'll be needing it soon enough,” he says before drifting out of sight.
—
The car shakes as Danny drops into the passenger seat, and once more when he slams the door shut.
“Hey, not so hard,” Jazz says.
Danny ignores her, facing the window as he scrubs his face. He can still taste the salt on his lips, and the red around his eyes is prominent. He tries to rub it away, but there’s no helping it. After a few fruitless seconds, he gives up, pulling the bar under his seat to slide the chair back and give his legs some room. He cranks the lever on the side as well, putting the back down, and drapes a hand over his eyes.
“Hey.” Jazz prods him. “Upright, seatbelt on. That's not safe if we crash.”
“Do you plan on crashing?” The words drag at his throat, which quickly went hoarse during his minute of alone time. His voice comes out raspy and quiet. Danny doesn't know what Jazz sees, or what she makes of him right now.
After a few seconds of staring, she sighs and turns the engine on. “Just wear your seatbelt.”
Danny clicks it into place with the hand not draped over his eyes. If Jazz sees the redness, she’ll know that he was crying. Stupid. Fourteen years old and crying like a child. Danny's fingers dig into his scalp. His nails aren't quite claws when he's human, but they're sharper than normal and prick his skin. Every time he cuts them, they start growing back to a point. He always trims them before it gets too obvious.
They drive in silence. Danny grits his teeth, focusing on not hissing in pain every time they hit a pothole. Hold it together, he tells himself. Only a few more minutes to home, and then he can fall apart in private. Until then, he just has to be okay.
Everything is okay.
Everything is okay.
Jazz doesn’t try to talk again, which is better for Danny. He’s unsure if he can open his mouth without some strained sound escaping him. The inside of his lip is already ragged and bleeding from how hard he bites down.
When they turn onto their street, he thinks he’s in the clear. Jazz parks on the backstreet, in front of their garage, and Danny hears her shuffling around. At first, he thinks she’s getting out, and hopes he can wait her out and go inside a minute later. His hopes are dashed when something drops onto his chest.
Danny bites his tongue to keep from crying out.
“You left your backpack at school,” Jazz says. “After you got suspended. Do you want to talk about it?”
Danny clenches his jaw, breathing as deep as he can through his nose, and swallows the blood pooling in his mouth. Once he can speak without gasping, he says, “Yeah. I put it down, and then I forgot it was there, and then I left because I'm not allowed to be there anymore.”
“Only two weeks, and you still have to do schoolwork. I'll be bringing it home for you. Maybe you can use the rest of the time to get caught up on everything else you haven't done yet. And then you can tell me what the hell happened with Vlad back there.”
“Can we just… not do this right now.”
“Danny—”
“Jazz.” He doesn’t mean for it to come out angry, but there’s a bite to her name that he can’t take back. Being in this car, with her, is too much right now. He doesn’t need this. He needs things back to the way they were when he was oblivious and hurt, but not as hurt as he is now.
Jazz purses her lips. “Okay. I'll tell Mom and Dad about the suspension. You can talk to me—and them—when you're ready.”
“Yeah. Right.” Danny gets out before Jazz can say anything else. She follows, but he refuses to look back, fighting to hide his limp. He doesn't stop until he's inside, up the stairs, and in his bedroom. He doesn't even make it to the bed, crumpling against the door, curling over his knee as tears prick his eyes.
There are daggers under his skin, chipping away at bone and muscle, driven deeper with every step he forced himself to take. He thumps his head against the door, mouth open in a soundless scream as he lets the pain wash over him. It tears through his body, every bruise and burn throbbing in time with his heartbeat.
Outside his room, the house comes alive as his parents return, their voices filling all the empty spaces. Danny's room stays dead and quiet.
For hours, he leans against his door, staring up at the stickers on his ceiling. While his eyes trace the familiar constellations, his mind has receded deep within himself. Moving from his head to his toes, he focuses on all his aches and pains, giving himself a few moments to feel each one before shoving them out of mind.
Some pains are worse than others. The bruises, he files away without a second thought. The headache and the twist in his gut take a bit more effort. But his chest? His knee? Danny doesn’t have the words to describe how much they wreck him before he can push them away.
It’s just pain. He can handle pain.
At some point, someone comes by and knocks on his door. Danny doesn’t answer, barely conscious enough to hear it. His chin dips to his chest as he watches the shadow until it leaves, relaxing only a fraction when it does.
Eventually, the sounds outside dim. Jazz whispers goodnight. The floorboards in the hall creak, first under his mom’s light steps, and then they groan as his dad traipses across them. A door closes. Everything goes quiet. With the quiet comes an all-encompassing numbness.
The clock on Danny’s nightstand reads two a.m. by the time he drags himself from his stupor. In his backpack, abandoned at his side the second he sat down, something glows. Danny reaches inside and gropes around until he finds it, small and cold to the touch. He draws the item out.
“This is all your fault,” Danny mutters. Whether that is to himself or the relic in his hand, he doesn't know. Doesn't care. Both are true.
As Danny opens his palm, the Ring of Rage glows brighter.
Shigeo had been sitting on the sidewalk in front of the house for some time with the sleeping child in his lap as he waited for the ambulance to show up. Since they had left the house, the boy hadn't let go of the fabric of his knitted sweater for a moment. Shigeo brushed the bangs away from the boy's forehead. He couldn't help but smile when he saw him wrinkle his nose.
As soon as he woke up things would be different but at least for an instant, Shigeo was all that kid needed. Or maybe by then Mob would be awake. Shigeo had never quite been sure what it was that made them change but having to deal with everyone was exhausting. And it wasn't like anyone wanted him there. Shigeo was too used to being nothing more than an undesirable entity once things got back to normal.
The first thing he heard was the sound of the siren in the distance before the lights illuminated the street. The ambulance came to a double stop, the rear doors swinging open.
"Where's the emergency?" One of the ambulance drivers asked as soon as he stepped out of the vehicle, the briefcase with the first aid supplies in hand.
Shigeo stood up, with the child slung like a baby monkey against his chest, arms around his neck. The thought of releasing him made him shudder, but the best thing to do was to leave him in the care of the ambulance crew.
"Is that the one on the posters?" The driver got out as well, slamming the door shut.
Shigeo nodded, maybe he would have had to call Reigen-san but in his stupidity, that little detail had completely slipped his mind.
" His mother asked for my help." The nervousness was apparent in his voice. "She told me this was the last place he'd been seen. He only appears to be dehydrated but his mother said he'd been missing for three days."
"Okay, put him on the gurney." The man bent down and pulled out a clear bag that appeared to be nothing but water and hung it on the rack on the inside roof of the vehicle.
Shigeo barely had time to let go of the child, when Arataka's eyes shot open. He almost seemed to have seen a ghost. Or maybe that was what had happened. The memory of Mogami must still be fresh in his mind.
"No!" he cried out clutching at his neck, nails breaking even the skin, with more force than a boy his age should have. "No!" His whole body seemed to be trembling. His patched lips cracked, blood staining his mouth.
"Hey, champ," one of the ambulance men crouched down to his level, "nobody's going anywhere, okay?"
"Really?" Arataka loosened his grip a little, his reddened, tear-bare eyes seeming not to know whether to look at the ambulance man or Shigeo.
"Really." Shigeo gave a little bounce, putting all the weight of the kid on one arm and showed him the hand he had just managed to free. "See? All yours."
Arataka grabbed it as if it were a life buoy, almost cutting off Shigeo's circulation. The next few days were going to be fun when he finally called the police as well, but with any luck that would already be a problem for Mob.
***
The boy had barely complained when the needle had pierced his skin, except for a slight grunt, but at no time had he let go of his hand to the point that they almost seemed to be stapled together.
It was a strange sensation.
No one had ever needed him before. He was sure Mob would have been a better choice. Shigeo didn't even know what to say, but the kid seemed to have enough with his company.
"How did you do that?" the kid, slightly more animated after half a bottle of serum, looked at him as if he had never seen anything as mind-blowing as Shigeo in his entire life.
"How did I do what?" Shigeo stared at him blankly.
"Suddenly the sky turned red and started to split into pieces! And then I don't know what happened but I saw you in the middle of the black tornado!"
"You saw me?" Shigeo sighed resignedly. "You didn't imagine it, how could there be someone in the middle of a tornado?"
"I'm no idiot, I know it was you." The kid replied indignantly. "And besides, it was really cool! With all those lightning bolts and the eyes glowing and all the bad things have started running away."
"Cool?" No one had ever described him as cool. He didn't even understand how the kid could have seen any of that while Shigeo hadn't noticed his presence in Mogami's consciousness. "Are you insane?"
The boy fell silent suddenly, as if Shigeo's words had slapped him in the face.
"Arataka?" Shigeo asked nervously.
What had he done wrong this time? The kid had seemed excited just a second ago. But as usual, Shigeo had ended up screwing up. Maybe Mob was right and he wasn't cut out for dealing with other people.
"What an imagination he has."
Shigeo had almost forgotten that the driver and his partner were still there, listening to the conversation. Imagination... If only those men knew. But the boy had not imagined anything.
"I know what I saw" Taka mused, letting go of his hand and curling into a ball on the gurney. "I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy."
The kid seemed to have lost himself in the litany, as if his mind had gone far away. Shigeo almost preferred not to think about what the kid must have gone through the three days he had been missing.
"Taka, look at me." Shigeo pressed his hands against his cheeks. "You're all right. There's nothing wrong with you."
Shigeo felt his power vibrate beneath his skin, but there was no spirit or curse to attack. Only his anger, completely useless, ruffling the hair on the back of his neck and rattling the ambulance cab.
"Is it a panic attack?" The medical technician walked over to the boy, "Arataka. Your name was Arataka, wasn't it, can you hear me?"
Taka nodded his head without moving from where he was lying on the stretcher. Shigeo didn't need the ambulance man's words to recognize the symptoms. He had never experienced them firsthand, but he remembered them. Mob had often had them one of the times Ritsu had ended up in the hospital because of him.
"Take a deep breath with me, okay?" The man tried to get the kid's attention but Taka was getting more and more nervous. "His pulse is starting to race."
"Taka, you're fine, okay? It was all real, the wind, the lightning and that black shadow but you have to promise to keep it a secret." Shigeo wasn't sure it would do any good but maybe. "You promise?"
"And then he won't be able to come after me anymore?" the voice was barely a whisper when at last the kid looked him in the eyes again.
Shigeo didn't even know what it was that the kid was seeing as he looked at him when anxiety still gripped his chest, his power seething to get out.
"Mogami can't hurt you anymore." Shigeo tried to smile but he wasn't too sure he had succeeded.
That would have been a perfect moment for Mob to take the reins but his other self was still asleep in the depths of his subconscious.
"Promise?" The kid looked unsure, eyes still red-rimmed and breathing ragged.
Fandom: The Owl House
Rating: G
Characters: Hunter | The Golden Guard/Willow Park
Tags: Missing Scene, Episode: s02e21 King's Tide (The Owl House), Panic Attacks, Hunter | The Golden Guard Needs a Hug (The Owl House)
Summary: In the wake of Luz's illusory swap with Hunter, Willow finds a way to comfort the panicking boy.
(887 words)
Wolf Pack: Beacon Original by Beerwolves, fearfrost1211
Rating: Teen and Up
Word Count: 33186
When his father landed the Deputy Chief of police position in Beacon Hills, Stiles moved to his new town gladly, embracing the chance of a fresh start. What he didn’t expect was to find himself hopelessly drawn to the gruff Vice President of the local motorcycle gang, the Wolf Pack.
Derek Hale, resident bad boy of Beacon Hills, spent his time helping his sister lead the Wolf Pack and working on motorcycles at his family’s automotive garage. Then, one hot summer afternoon a bright-eyed boy walked into his life and turned his world upside down.
