Summary: In the wake of tragedy, the boy felt such all consuming grief that it wrapped back around to numb. Then came the recklessness. He swears he is fine but can his new guardian save him from himself?
Prompt: “Just because you can’t feel the pain, doesn’t mean it’s okay to hurt yourself” (Quote from Madoka Magica, spoken by Madoka Kaname) (by @phantomphangphucker )
Ao3 link
Sporting new wounds he stopped noticing, he enters Vlad's mansion. Not his home.
Never his home.
Danny limps through the massive and tacky mansion he simply has no will to mock anymore as his injuries heal themselves faster than one could blink. Faster than he could blink, anyway. Either way there is no point in hiding it for all he cares.
It's been like this since the explosion, maybe not exactly to the day but those days all bled into each other for him.
Coming back to Vlad's place injured from fights he needed to handle alone now, no support and civilians getting in the way for one reason or another. Well, it's not like he will let them take a hit like that. Not when he can do something about it. Even if it's just to be their shield. It doesn't hurt him like it would them and their fragile human state in which a life can be lost so easily.
Losing his friends and family in one go, because he wasn't fast enough. Wasn't good enough. He may be dead for all he cares but that won't stop him from taking the hit for everyone else.
He can handle it.
It's not like he's also doing this to not think about how sad and worried they'd be if they saw him!
Tears threatened to form when he swallowed those feelings and forced them away before they became more than that. He doesn't deserve to be sad about this. That won't bring them back. That won't solve anything.
Why would that matter anyway!?
Danny almost punched a wall in a short burst of anger before the energy left and the numbness returned. His legs gave out on him as he just sat there, unmotivated to get up, and just stewed in silence and darkness.
His stewing was interrupted by a blinding light in his face that he outright hissed as he covered his eyes.
"Daniel!? What on Earth-?" Great, the cheese-head wants to pretend to care and play house. Danny quickly cut short with a dead eyed glare that seemed to have shut him up.
Good.
It was one thing to be scolded by his parents, it's another when it's Vlad.
"Shove off, Frootloop." Danny had to put effort into a voice he rarely used nowadays. Coming out a bit raspy from disuse and with enough energy his eyes might have flashed.
He wasn't sure.
It's been so long that it feels foreign to him, now.
"Daniel!" Oh great, the old man found his voice after all. "If you are so insistent on playing hero all the time at least try not to get hit! You've been dragging blood into the foyer constantly, even after that short scuffle with that darned nuisance, Box Ghost." The man pinched his brow as if he didn't get what he wanted.
He never cared about me getting hurt before. Why now? Has to be the mess I keep leaving for him.
"What does it matter to you? I came back, like I said. No one got hurt," he is a 'no-one' after all, not after what he allowed to happen, "Didn't even feel it."
He looked straight at Vlad with hollow eyes.
The dim light made his eye bags and blood stains from his recently healed wounds more ghastly, like a walking corpse.
Though, maybe he looked through Vlad instead. No ghost powers being used but it felt like they might as well have been.
Though, maybe he looked through Vlad instead. No ghost powers being used but it felt like they might as well have been.
A beat.
A sigh.
Danny shook his head and stood, continuing to trudge through the darkened halls to the room he now uses on uneven legs. Making no sound as if he was never there to begin with, a human in form only, as he was swallowed by the dark.
All Vlad could do was stare.
It goes on like this. Day after day, weeks blurring into each other.
No amount of attempt for talking or nudging would dissuade the boy from his self destructive path.
Especially from one he has seen as a foe almost as long as he has known him.
Vlad is at a loss for what to do.
If only he were able to ask for advice, but if he was then the advice most likely wouldn't be needed.
Their little game of cat and mouse and all his threats are thrown back in his face with the distrust Daniel has towards him. He 'won', but he never would have wanted it this way. With Maddie dead along with Jack and the boy practically running to his own demise, all he feels like he can do is watch. Any attempt he has made has been spurned so he has relegated himself to watching, waiting for any opening to slow young Daniel's self destruction.
He doesn't want to be alone again. That would be a bigger nightmare than what has happened and is still happening. However, he found in his motivations that it was more than that. He found that he really does want Daniel to stop hurting.
It surprised him how much the boy's pain has pained him in return. But it has to be a way that won't get rid of him. That is one of the reasons he refused the procedure he asked for, ripping out his emotions with his ghostly side has so many ways it can go wrong. Would it even get rid of the emotions or just the ones he wants to stop feeling? Would the side effects of such a separation even end well?
Daniel's spark had dulled to a small ember fighting to stay lit and it felt like it dimmed more every day.
The man had started sending duplicates after Daniel just to keep an eye on him. Always invisible, yet detected each time. When that failed, he made a show of coming in person with the boy pointedly ignoring him.
What he saw in those fights disturbed him.
No attempts to dodge any blow nor any strategy.
Just running headlong with no mercy, for himself or whatever fool decided this would be a good idea. He still used that thermos of his to end it, of course, but even that feels more and more like an afterthought.
This last time was different.
Different in more ways than one.
Daniel was getting knocked down and kept getting up, no matter how hurt he was. That was not new and something that used to be slightly admirable.
Slightly.
Always so determined to protect and see it through, no matter how badly either side of himself was treated.
Now, however, it has taken a different tone with how he fights.
A new ghost decided to show their face and the boy couldn't help himself jumping in right before the ghost takes a victim. At least the potential target had the awareness to run right after. That was when this encounter took a turn.
Over and over, he kept going. At this rate he was going to be swallowed by this ghosts tree like arms and thorns. Hacking his way through each time, each time taking more time and energy. Each attack pushes him back and leaves him more exhausted.
Until he didn't get back up.
Limp in the thickening branches.
Limp in a way Vlad never thought he'd see him.
It scared him.
Scared in a way he doesn't like to admit he can get.
Vlad couldn't sit by and let himself fully die here.
"Seems you need to sit this one out now. How about you let me reintroduce the basics here, my boy." Vlad was prepared to take his hand at this ghost just so Daniel would stop, but the second he set the boy down he just B-lined it to the ghost in question.
An uttered "Stay out of my way." before he rushed forward, when he managed to land a strike he took them out in one hit.
But he didn't stop.
He kept attacking the downed foe even as its defenses stabbed, grabbed, and did all it could with its abilities as Daniel started laughing hysterically.
The thermos was seemingly forgotten in the excessive onslaught, only to be remembered when the worst had passed. It would be Vlad who finds the discarded device and uses it on the pitiful remains of the invader long after the boy loses interest and leaves.
"Daniel, what are you-!"
He tried to question, to intervene, when what the boy said next chilled him to his core.
"It's true! If you want, you really don't have to feel pain anymore! If I just block it out, I can't feel anything at all!"
All Vlad could do was whisper a painted plea.
"Stop. Stop, Daniel... Please, just stop."
Danny felt like he unlocked the keys to the universe. A feral grin spread on his face as he blocked out everything and a manic laugh escaped his lips.
Nothing hurts anymore.
Not if he keeps going like this.
He has to.
Everything will be fine.
Everything is fine.
This is the most he deserves.
Time passed without him registering the world around him.
Danny belatedly remembered Vlad being there during his fight earlier, whenever that was, but quickly dismisses it. It felt too out of character for him.
To help without demanding something in return or gloating how much better he was and that he needed his help and blah blah blah.
As if.
Danny was aiming to collapse in the bed he was given, one of the few things he can be even a smidge grateful to Vlad for if asked, was intercepted by the Frootloop and prepared to brush him off yet again.
"Daniel," the man began with his usual pompous tone, "we need to talk."
Oh here we go.
"No, we don't. Are you trying to play family again, old man?" Danny taunted with venom in his voice, rebuffing this attempt at parenting. "Or are you seriously upset I've been saving people when I have been coming back to your place like promised?!"
His voice was raised a bit by the end of his sentence, showing a sharp toothed smile that fails to reach his eyes.
"Yes, we do." Vlad took a breath to steel himself for something Danny can't quite pin down.
Something is different this time.
"Alright, old man, what do you want?" Danny really doesn't want to bother with this but the Frootloop is not going to let it go this time.
"Daniel, I know things have been hard," a scoff, "but you need to stop. You have gone too far."
"And there it is. I don't see what the big deal is, I always come back just like I said I would. Do you hate that I'm saving people, then?!"
"Maybe just coming back is not enough anymore if this is how you treat yourself. I've stayed out of your way so you could 'play hero', as it were, because I know you do keep your word. But that should not come at the cost of yourself. You have become reckless. Do you really not care about living? In the ways we still can?"
Wow, it's like he cares or something. Or he's playing me.
Vlad always liked mind games after all.
"And what if I don't care anymore?" Vlad jolted at his casual response. "This is about you not wanting to be the only of a kind again, isn't it?"
"This has long since stopped being about me and my issues. You know what this is about and you know it. Stop being so willingly blind about what you are really doing here! Is it so hard to believe that I care about you? That you have inherent value, more than I could-" Vlad's composure is starting to slip before he takes a breath. "Is it so hard to imagine that you would be missed by anyone still around? Not even just me. Daniel, please, at least think about them. What would they think if they saw-"
"Oh, don't you dare use them against me! You don't get to guilt trip me using my dead family just because I won't listen to you!" The teenager snapped. The older half ghost is burning any goodwill Danny had mustered for him faster than Danny expected.
"So you admit it is something to feel guilt over? That throwing yourself away like this is something none of them would approve of?" Vlad is throwing his own barbs in, still trying to keep his composure like it's a lifeline or something.
He has no right.
"I don't see why you care all that much, beyond your weird old man loneliness. If I cease, doesn't that mean I can see them again?" Vlad looked like he had been struck. "If I don't, I can still protect others from the ghosts finding their way here still. After all, it's all I'm good for."
"Daniel-" Vlad tries to get a word in but now Danny cant stop the flow of self hate coming from his mouth.
"Besides," Danny starts to laugh and cry and is trying to hold it all back, "I found a way to block it all out! I don't have to feel it anymore! No matter how damaged my body gets!"
Danny was practically yelling with a manic grin that doesn't match how broken and dull his eyes are, looking like one moment or word away from breaking completely.
Every inch of him is one large wound.
A wound only held together with sticky tape.
The cheap kind.
Vlad then did something Danny didn't expect and had long since lost the willpower to resist.
He closed the gap between them and brought the boy into his arms.
“Just because you can’t feel the pain, doesn’t mean it’s okay to hurt yourself.”
For some reason, maybe a reason Danny knows but refuses to name, these words are what broke the dam.
The boy couldn't hold himself up anymore and only remained upright from the power of Vlad's out-of-character hug.
"You're not my dad! You'll never replace him! Or any of them!" Danny weakly tried to punch Vlad with each sentence.
And with each sentence, Vlad's only reply was a soft "I know."
"Why?! Why do you suddenly care? Why should I try? Why should I try when the only ones who ever cared or believed in me are gone?! My friends are gone! All my parents knew was that I'm a failure and a disgrace! Why try in school when the only teacher who never wrote me off as a lost cause is gone! Can't make any of them proud now! I'm such a failure at all of this that I tried to cheat and they all met there! I opened the portal! I let ghosts get in the way of my studies! I was the reason they all met at that cursed location! It was doomed and no one noticed and it's my fault! I was right there and I couldn't even save them!" His hits gained power and speed as it all came out. His voice, already horse from disuse and now raw from screaming. His face was soaked in tears, rinsing off his own blood. His guilt is on full display.
All his guilt, all his grief. A flood of raw emotion a regular human might not be able to withstand.
His powers, only kept from going haywire by his human form, still would crush anyone under the weight of his emotions as if it were turned to physical pressure. Like trying to move on the ocean floor without protective gear, his raw grief would bring people to their knees emotionally and physically.
Only one person was there to comfort him, to stop him.
Only one person could be.
That itself was the problem.
It's only Vlad left.
"This is all I can do! All I am good for! All I'll ever be good for! A! No! Good! Failure!" Each word punctuated with a weak, for them, punch into Vlad's chest, "Who couldn't even save the ones he cared about the most!"
All Vlad did in response was tighten his hold and card his fingers through the boy's shaggy, messed up hair that hasn't been properly cared for in a long time. At least, from what Danny can tell from his position, though he thought he felt rain on his head which is impossible with how well maintained Vlad keeps his mansion.
"I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" Danny yelled and yelled until his voice finally gave out.
Neither were really sure who it was directed at anymore.
Vlad continued his ministrations as Danny could only sob his heart out, clinging onto the man's suit jacket like a lifeline and hating himself for it.
Hating himself for being this weak. Hating himself for being too slow. Hating himself for being this dumb. Hating himself for needing Vlad. Hating himself for not being good enough, to save them or even himself. Nothing can be said that will make this better.
Danny so desperately wants them back, for them to hate him like he hates himself, for them to comfort him, for them to just be there. For this to have been nothing but a bad dream instead of a waking nightmare.
Danny hates himself for feeling like this. For feeling anything anymore.
Vlad remained stubborn against the procedure Danny begged him for.
And he hates Vlad for that, too.
He hates Vlad for a lot, actually. The man practically gave him many reasons from the day they met. For being the only other of his kind yet someone he had to be wary of for the people he loved. For not being someone he could go to before everyone else was taken from him. For it not being his fault that it happened. For still being here. For all his patience when he has shown he can be crueler than this. For the pity. For being the reason he's not alone when he wants to be and when he wishes it could be anyone else. On top of all that, for being the only one who can understand him the most.
The large, empty halls of Vlad's castle remained dark and quiet. All except for one room's light illuminating a broken boy's petering cries stuttering and shifting in volume. Still clinging to a man he's never been able to fully understand yet the only one who can understand him. All they have left is each other.
does anyone else understand how my heart starts beating with joy every time I pass a car repair shop? I just love Gordo's so much ahhh… I don't even have a car lol
Chapters: 1/?
Fandom: Danny Phantom
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Danny Fenton/Tucker Foley/Sam Manson
Characters: Danny Fenton, Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, Valerie Gray
Additional Tags: Trans Danny Fenton, Future Trans Sam Manson, Future Trans Tucker Foley, Phantom is physically Male, Gender Questioning Sam Manson, this is my first attempt at writing anything about transgenderism, So I apologize if I get anything wrong, Phic Phight (Danny Phantom), Phic Phight: Team Human (Danny Phantom), Phic Phight 2026 (Danny Phantom), Hurt/Comfort, Attempt at Humor, mention of Sam's Hebrew heritage (I did a bit of research; sorry if it's not accurate), Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Series: Part 3 of The Dragon joins Team Humans: Phight!
Summary:
Sam is feeling particularly uncomfortable lately: she isn't sure why she's getting this ugly feeling every time she thinks too hard about how Danny got his ideal body by dying because of her, but she knows that she'll get over it sooner or later.
...Little did she know, she would get her Wish granted in a way or another...
And who knew who else could benefit from that same "present"!
Or: A Gender questioning Sam gets his revelation along with Tucker (who didn't know she needed it in the first place) and Valerie gets her eye-opening.
Almost too late to publish (you can blame my writer block, depression and executive dysfunction for that), but here I am!
(๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧
Hopefully by tonight I'll be able to add the second chapter with prompts from other Phighters, so Wish (>;3) me good luck!
Excerpt from NPR interview of David Simon, Creator Of The Wire, On Al, Television and the WGA Strike - May 22, 2023
(Everything here is part of the transcript from the interview)
SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without AI, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems, or saying...
SIMON: You mentioned that.
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think AI can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from Scene 5 to Scene 6 and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an AI and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.
SHAPIRO: You would rather put a gun in your mouth.
SIMON: I mean, what you're saying to me effectively is there's no original way to do anything, and...
SHAPIRO: No.
SIMON: Yes, you are.
SHAPIRO: That seems like a kind of absolutist take.
SIMON: Not only, I think, is it a fundamental violation of the integrity of writers and also of copyright - you know, when I sold all the scripts I sold - you know, 150 to HBO and, you know, maybe another 50 to NBC - I didn't sell them so that they could be thrown into a computer with other people's and be used again by a corporation.
SHAPIRO: So would you ever agree to a contract that saw any role for AI at all?
SIMON: No, I would not. If that's where this industry is going, it's going to infantilize itself. We're all going to be watching stuff we've watched before, only worse.
SHAPIRO: Do you think that position is where this is likely to end up?
SIMON: I mean, if a writer wants to play around with AI as the writer and see if it helps him, I mean, I regard it as no different than him having a thesaurus or a dictionary on his desk or a book of quotable quotes. Play around with it. If it starts to lead the way in the sense that a studio exec comes to you and says, AI gave us this story that we want, that's not why I got into storytelling, and it's not where I'll stay if that's what storytelling is.
The Hollywood writers' strike has meant three weeks of late-night comedy and soap opera reruns for television fans. And for some fans, it mi
