Danny proceeds to storm his parents lab, planning to head to the Zone and give Ghost Writer absolute HELL - when he sees the portal doors are open, but there’s no swirling green. A post-it note in his mom’s handwriting says dont want work ruining the holiday, so portals down for the night! Danny realizes with horror that with his portal closed and Vlad’s turned off while he’s schmoozing at an out-of-state holiday event, there’s no way for Danny to fight Ghost Writer and end the story early.
Meaning, Danny has no choice but to let the story end at its natural conclusion.
Fuck. That. He internally growls, and plans to ruin every trope that happens.
As he runs off, he gets the meet-cute intro where Eyebags from earlier spills what looks like highly concentrated tea (meant to make up for the caffeine shortage of No Coffee at the coffee shop) on his arm. Danny can’t brush it off quick enough to escape bc the heat actually hurt him, and is sucked into a dialogue.
“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry! That must have hurt, please let me pay - ”
“Absolutely do not give me any cash with your number on it, I’m fine.”
“My drink was scalding though! i know I don’t look it, but I actually have money to spare, and it’s the season of giving isn’t it? Let me at least pay for -”
“My godfathers a Billionare, I don’t need money, and I hate this season!”
Danny proceeds to run around a corner and turn himself invisible so the boy (who of COURSE was some young rich businessman) couldn’t chase him. He needed a place to hide where he wouldn’t be infected by anymore tropes, and he knew just the place.
Danny proceeds to run to Sam’s house, bc her family is Jewish and doesn’t celebrate Christmas. But, when he gets there, he’s met with the unfortunately familiar face of Ruperlando chatting with the elder Mansons in the parlor. Danny only gets snippets of the conversation -
“-been so long since you’ve attended one of our events in Amity! What brings you to our small town?”
“Well, the bustle of the city gets to you, especially in my line of work -”
“- being an everyday hero like you must be hard, one officer against the masses -”
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking of settling down, but I’d miss my family. Wherever I moved, I’d need to have some family with me -”
Is all Danny hears before he’s slamming the door and pulling Sam out of the house, not wanting the fucking cop who wants to settle down and start a family to even see him. He hurriedly explains the situation to her (she gracefully only laughs at him for four minutes) and Sam says he needs to stop running around wildly. She tells him to go somewhere where no tropes can activate, and hide there until tomorrow, when Christmas is over. Unfortunately, her house won’t work, as her parents always host a Nondenominational Winter Party to socialize on this day.
Which is when Ruperlando suddenly opens the door, causing Danny to flinch and slip on the ice coating the doorstep. Ruperlando, of course, catches him in a flawless dip. His hold is firm and his arms don’t even tremble and Danny is utterly mortified at being rescued by a government lackey. (He fucking hates the government.)
The pig gives a Hollywood smile. Danny hates him even more. “Hah, looks like I swept you off your feet.”
“2 out of 5 stars, awful line, bastard.”
“As someone who makes puns and quips on the daily, that was an absolute bottom tier pick up line. No pizzazz, no creativity.”
“Wait, you’re the guy from earlier-”
“Instead of telling me how much you want to start a new chapter of your life in a small town away from the big city, how about you try stomping on a cardboard box in a highly visible area?”
“Why did you phrase that like it’s a threat!?”
Danny didn’t give Ruperlando a chance to notice the mistletoe above the door step (who the fuck put that there, the Mansons were Jewish, damn it!) before he was running down the street and waving good bye to Sam. He dead sprints two blocks to give the guy no chance to catch up, and then slowed to a walk as he tried to figure out where in town was safe. Definetly not the mall, any bakery/cafe, nor any volunteer centers. No wooded areas/parks, no sidewalks…Realizing he was currently in one of the dreaded high-trope zones, Danny stepped into the first store he saw.
Fuck. Danny cringed back as he spots Gucci Eyebags. This is a toy store.
The scene goes something like this: Gucci Eyebags is choosing between an animal themed toy and a nerf gun. He, of course, looks up when the door bell rings, and notices Danny struggling with the door that won’t let him leave. Gucci Eyebags immediately strides forward and grabs the arm that has been burned earlier.
“Oh, it’s you! Are you okay? I didn’t get a name earlier, but I’m -”
“Don’t you dare tell me your rich boy name, just help me get this door unstuck!”
Curse you plot convenience!
“Sure, if you’d let me give you enough for burn cream, or even just buy you a gift. I’m actually here to pick one up for my little brother, but we’re kind of distant and -”
“No thanks, don’t care, would rather die again, hope to see you never!”
Not wanting to hear a moment more of backstory, Danny says fuck being discreet, punches the glass out, and opens the door from the outside. Gucci Eyebags gawks in utter bewilderment while Danny makes his escape, turning into Phantom once he’s out of sight and rocketing into the sky. Surely, if he’s not in Amity, he can’t be affected -
Danny hits a bird out of nowhere, and crashes to the ground.
He gets up from the ground and flies off, and then hits a tree. He tries again, and a kid’s football hits him. He tries again, he somehow hits a building. He’s gearing up for another one when he narrowly dodged a plane, and pauses. He’s not sure what will appear to stop him from flying out of town if he tries again. He has the sneaking suspicion it might be a missile. Not wanting anyone to get hurt, he floats back to the ground in defeat, but stays in ghost form.
Ghosts tend only to give advice in holiday stories, not fall in love. Not being alive should be an unbeatable deterrent, right?
So, as the sun sets, Danny wanders as far away from the Nondenominational Winter Party as possible (it would absolutely be the center of trouble) and heads to the most unromantic place in existence to wait.
All the love interests are out-of-towners, which should mean there’s no chance a brooding man with dark hair will come visit his wife’s grave. And, since that’s the only Christmas trope cementary’s have, Danny should be safe. (He was missing the Truce party, but he wasn’t disappointed. He knows if he went, he wouldn’t be able to resist beating up Ghost Writer) Plus, Danny’s always liked cementaries. After dying, visiting them was always so…peaceful. The exact opposite of the arguing and yelling Christmas at the house would be like.
He liked coming by to clean up the old headstones, and add flowers to unattended graves, so that’s exactly what he does. Just floats around, creating ice flowers for empty graves and polishing stones. As the moon rises and it approaches midnight, Danny gleefully watches as the time ticks down. The leading men have definitely already found their love interests, and were happily dating someone who wasn’t him.
Then, at 11:52, Biker Hottie makes an inexplicable appearance.
He’s definitely too young to have a dead wife, but what other movie tropes do cementaries have? How is he here??
And, in his bewilderment and surprise at the (utterly built) Biker Hottie wandering among the gravestones, Danny forgets to go invisible before their eyes lock. Ah shit. Danny sighs as those blue-green eyes stare into him. He’s still hot. It was unfair that this guy had to take off his helmet and turn out to be a Love Interest. When they first met and bantered, he hadn’t pinged Danny’s trope radar at all. beyond making his heart catch in his throat when he saw his face. He still didn’t, to be honest. Holiday movie’s thought mechanics who wore leather jackets were the peak of bad boy, and didn’t go farther than allowing a max of one cigarette per film.
This guy had an old scar splitting his eyebrow, a suspiciously red-brown stain on his steel-toes boots, and hidden knives strapped under his jacket.
“And seriously, what Christmas Hunk has a white streak in his hair? That doesn’t seem Hallmark friendly to me.” Danny said outloud without thinking things through.
The guy let out a surprised bark of laughter, and grinned back at Danny.
“And what Christmas Spirit shows up as some glowing emo twink? I don’t remember Dickens writin’ you in, Jack Frost. Cut my fashion choices some slack.”
His heavily accented voice was nothing like the sanitized, broadly American movie accent used in holiday films, and it made Danny still. Biker Hottie was too clearly from the inner city - Gotham’s inner city, of all things, and he certainly wasn’t a Wayne Exec - with a sincere roughness to his deep voice. Hallmark men were either smooth-commercial-buisness, or wholesome-charming-twang. He had a twang, and he was from a big city, but he wasn’t some richie business or wholesome family man.
(And, if the lack of tropes hadn’t caught him off guard, the guy’s definitely not Ghost Writer approved dialogue would have.)
“I don’t know, I like your fashion choices.” Danny quipped back on autopilot, idly handing over a frost flower he hadn’t found a grave for. “So, why are you here? Got a dead relative who loved Christmas and decided to spend time with them?”
Biker Hottie twirled the flower with amusement, staring at it with a genuinely impressed gleam.
“Yeah, and a daughter named Holly who wants me to get her a new mom as her Christmas gift.” He quipped sarcastically, putting flower in his jacket pocket.
Wait. The words were sarcastic. He used sarcasm.
Danny startled out of his casual floating and whipped around to face the man. “Why aren’t you acting like you’re in a carbon copy Hallmark special!?”
“Why…would I be?” He seemed genuinely interested.
Danny laughed a bit hysterically, tugging at his hair as he gestured impassionedly.
“Cause I got cursed to live in a Christmas movie and it’s been hell! A charming man from out of town who wants to settle down and start a family, a buisness man from out of town who keeps accidentally bumping into me, and you from out of town who almost ran me over!”
Danny froze as he realized what he had just said, turning slowly back to the man who was staring at him in slow recognition. Briefly, Danny was surprised he wasn’t put off by his ghostly aura. Outsiders usually were.
“Ah, shit, sorry about that again?” He didn’t seem to know what a huge secret Danny had just dropped. “Cool outfit change, btw.”
“Please don’t tell anyone about this. Oh Clockwork, please don’t tell anyone -”
“Hey, just breathe, it’s fine! I ain’t a fucking snitch, and I live in Gotham anyways. With the dozen vigilantes we have running around, I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut.”
The man slowly reached out and pulled Danny’s hand out of his hair, his human warmth grounding amidst the peaceful cemetery. He didn’t flinch when Danny was as cold as ice.
“….say something you’d never hear in a Christmas movie.”
“The best gift I could get is the Joker’s dead corpse with his entrails choking him out. Also, I’m demisexual.”
Hallmark just barely realized gay people existed only this year, which could only mean one thing.
“Holy shit I’m free! Thank the fucking ancients I HATE CHRISTMAS.” Danny literally whooped with joy and did a circle in the air, grinning down at the confused but smiling man.
“Congrats on not getting Hallmark-ified, it sounds like an awful way to go. I’m Jason, by the way.” Danny thought it suited him. “Only fair you know my name now that I know you’ve got some kind of alter ego thing going on.”
Jason bumped shoulders with him softly, as if trying to reassure Danny that his secret was safe. Danny could almost imagine what telepathic emotions the guy would be sending if he was a ghost, as if a barely there core was whispering intrigue-confidant-curious-hesitant-content.
“I should’ve known you weren’t one of the pod people the moment you said you were a Gothamite.” Danny laughed to himself, shaking his head. “I’m pretty sure the entire state of New Jersey doesn’t even exist in the holiday universe -”
Danny cut himself off as he came to an abrupt realization.
He didn’t feel the forceful tugging of the Plot anymore.
…But he still felt the same way about Jason that he had before midnight.
Still wants to ask about his cool bike and is amazed at his physique and wants to touch that scar and ask how long he’s staying and so much more -
