phicphight

[phicphight]

The Westons out West

The Weston Family had lived in the town of Amity for some time when the Fentons moved there. And even for strangers, those Fentons sure were strange.

For the prompt Old/Wild West AU [from @jackdraw-spwrite]

Read also on AO3

[Warning for mentions of guns]

Wes Weston worked at the general store. His father was a salesman, but that alone didn't keep food on the table, so he and his brothers all had to pitch in their dues. His eldest brother Easton did some bookkeeping for the local businesses, and his older twin Kyle was a stable-hand. And even between the four of them their mother still had to play piano in the saloon for tips from time-to-time.

Still, as lean as times were in the West, it had been worse back home.

When they'd first moved out here, looking for opportunity and a little sunshine after the dreary days behind them, they couldn't tell the difference between a cowhand and a homesteader, but that time was past. This little western town of Amity was home now. Barely scrape by, though they did.

A lot of folks came through the general store, locals and and strangers alike. Some came in weekly to resupply their cupboards, and others stopped by on their way through town to somewhere else to pick up a bag of horse feed, a bottle of whiskey, and some chewing tobacco before moving on. Working there, Wes had come to recognize a lot of familiar faces, and seen twice as many strangers, but none were so strange as the kid.

Wes eyed the kid from the moment he walked through the door, hair as black as night and ice-blue eyes that shone with secrets. Truth be told, he and Wes couldn't have been too far apart in age, but if Wes was a kid, then so was he. He smiled at Wes, the kid did, with teeth too white and far too sharp, and asked if they happened to sell any kind of chocolate.

"Sometimes merchants come up from Mexico with some to sell to us, but we haven't got any in stock right now," Wes told him.

The kid clicked his tongue. "Shame. Ma was planning on making some fudge to greet the new neighbors."

"You just moved to Amity?" Wes asked.

"Yep," the kid confirmed. "Name's Danny Fenton. My family just moved out here for a little more open space."

"A little more open space?" Wes repeated, unconvinced.

Danny smiled again, that too bright, too clean smile. "I never got your name," he said.

"Wes," he replied. "My family's lived around here for some time. I'm sure you'll recognize them out and about. Every redhead in town is a Weston."

Danny barked a laugh. "Not anymore," he said, and then he left, without even looking around, let alone buying anything.

Everyone became aware of the Fenton Newcomers almost overnight, but none was more aware than Wesley Weston.

He knew he was a curious boy—some said he was too curious for his own good—but he was a clever boy, too, and he knew when something was going amiss in his town, and right under his nose. He'd kept one eye on them, and especially Danny since they'd first moved into town, spotting right away that something was off about them.

On the surface, they looked alright. Jack Fenton was a mountain of a man, with an affinity for orange and holster on his hip that housed a pistol like no gun Wes had ever seen. His wife, Maddie, wore her skirt hiked up well above the ankles in a scandalous style that gave a lot of men around town the wrong idea about her. She set them straight right quick, though. The two of them claimed to be scientists, and spent all their time holed up in their house, rarely showing their faces to the rest of the town.

Their daughter, Jazz, was a proper, well-read young lady. She tied her hair back in a long braid, and wore her skirt at a much more appropriate length than her mother. She could usually be seen carrying a book, and the mayor had quickly offered her a position as a school teacher, as the town had been wanting for one since the last was taken by fever. She accepted, though she claimed it was only to keep her out of the house most of the day. Both her and her mother had bright red hair, which explained Danny's rather cryptic response to Wes when they first met.

Danny, their son, well he was the queerest of them all. He carried no gun, which was odd, but not unheard of given his age of only fourteen, though Wes had carried one since he was thirteen to scare off rowdy customers at the store. Danny had a strange quality about him, and strange behaviors, and the more Wes watched him, the more certain he became that Danny Fenton was no ordinary boy.

It was about a month after the Fentons first came to town that the first specter followed. A shadowy figure in a white get-up and a black hat, who carried himself like a lawman, and looked like bad news. Wes knew right away that he was a ghost. He knew by the faint glow of his pale skin, the shine of his eyes, and the hiss in his voice, like he'd swallowed a live rattlesnake, and it was still rattling around.

When asked, he said his name was Walker, and he was looking for an outlaw who called himself Phantom.

No one in town had ever heard of someone called Phantom, and the description of a boy with white hair and dark clothes didn't match anyone they knew.

Then at high noon a boy came down from the sky. His clothes were black. Cloud-white hair poked out from under his stetson, and a black bandana was pulled up over the bottom half of his face. Everyone was so shocked at seeing him come out of the sky like an angel from heaven that Wes was the only one that noticed he carried no gun.

Neither he, nor Walker said a single word as they stared each other down.

Walker's knuckles cracked as he positioned his hand over his holster, and Phantom's eyes shone a bright and glowing green like no one in Amity Park had even seen before.

Walker drew, but Phantom was quicker. A green beam shot out of Phantom's finger and hit Walker's shooting hand, knocking his gun to to floor. Then, Phantom hurled something metal at the other ghost that crackled like lightning, and when the light faded, Walker was gone.

The only sound was the rustle of wind and the clink of Phantom's spurs as he walked to where Walker had once stood to pick up the tin canteen. He bent over, gathered up the canteen and Walker's dropped gun, and when he drew himself back up to his full height, which couldn't have been more than five foot two, he disappeared. Vanishing in broad daylight, in full view of a dozen people.

Wes couldn't be sure of anything, but a theory formed in his head after that day. A theory about the strange ghost boy that flew into town before mysteriously vanishing... and the strange human boy that had moved into town not long before.

When they were younger, driving their wagon out west, Wes and Kyle would around the fire while their older brother Easton told them scary stories. They didn't know where Easton had learned them all, but he knew a lot. He told stories about death coming round in a carriage collecting lost souls, about vampires that lured people in to drink their blood, about monsters that skulked across the prairie. But Wes' favorite stories were the ones about ghosts.

Easton, it had always seemed, knew everything there was to know about ghosts. Whatever questions Wes asked him, he was always quick to answer.

That had been years ago now, but Wes had one more question for him.

"Easton," he asked one evening after dinner when they were all fixing to sleep. "You remember all those ghost stories you used to tell us, way back when?"

"'Course, Wes," Easton said. "What about 'em?"

"Do you think there could ever be a person who was a ghost, even though they were still alive?"

Easton paused at that, his face a mask of concentration as he considered the question.

Kyle scoffed. "There can't be anyone like that because ghosts plain don't exist. Those were just stories Easton told us, nothin' more." he said, but his brothers ignored him.

"I reckon I don't know," Easton said finally. "Could be, but I've never heard of something like that before."

Wes nodded mutely and went to bed.

After a few months of continued watching, a few more ghosts riding into town to challenge the unknown Phantom to a duel and quickly lose, though Phantom carried no gun, a few sleepless nights to skulk around and search for proof, Wes was sure of it.

Danny Fenton and the Phantom were one and the same.

#phic phight 24 #fill

[phicphight]

Despair of Your Discovery

Phic phight fill for @carelisswriting. I am so sorry.

(Relevant warnings are tagged below)

**********

“Oh my god,” Danny says, horrified. “That’s…oh my god.”

The plant looks very innocent amongst the rows and rows of lush green pots in Sam’s greenhouse.

It isn’t.

“You cannot tell anyone,” Sam hisses, and shoves the wicker harvest basket back over the bush, as if there was anyone safe to tell! “Not a word. Not a whisper.”

“This is bad. This is really, really bad.”

“I know!” Sam snaps, looking two steps away from a screaming freakout. “But what can I even do with it?!”

The answer seems obvious. “Get rid of it?!” Danny exclaims, throwing his arms out for additional emphasis. “Making sure there isn’t any evidence left??”

“By what, burning it?!”

Danny opens his mouth to affirm the obvious— only to realize there is another, equally as obvious problem with the usual method of extermination.

“...Put it in the trash?” Danny tries again, grimacing. He crosses his arms, taps his toes. “I mean. It’ll go out eventually.”

“And if someone sees it in the trash?!” Sam volleys back, eyes wide with furious distress.

Okay. There's a clear problem here. All they need is a solution.

Tucker wanders into the greenhouse; he probably found out that they weren’t in Sam’s room and figured out their second location pretty quickly. “Hey, Sam; hey Danny. I thought we were doing Doomed today?”

“We’re not,” Sam and Danny chorus.

Tucker frowns. His eyes go back and forth between them. “...Is everything good?”

“No,” Sam says, cutting off Danny’s: “Sam stole another plant from the school garden again.”

“Oh. Is that all?”

Sam throws herself over the wicker basket and grooooooooans.

“Apparently someone was experimenting,” Danny offers flatly. “It’s bad.”

“How can a plant be bad?”

Sam straightens herself up, makes dead-on eye contact, and lifts the basket.

“Is that WEED?!” Tucker yelps. Danny immediately darts over to slap a hand over Tucker’s mouth, and the basket gets slammed back on top of the plant.

“Don’t shout!”

“Shouting is merited!! Sam grew drugs!!”

“On accident!!” Sam shouts back, very, very pale. “They just left the sprouts in the garden shed without any light or water!! I had to do something!!”

“Saaaaaamm,” Tucker groans, which is pretty unmerited, considering that Sam is probably the person suffering the most here. “Sam, we have to do something!"

“I know, I know!!”

“We know you hate pesticides, but isn’t there…some kind of natural weed killer? Or something?” Danny tries, struggling to think it through. “You can’t hand-pull all your weeds in this greenhouse. It’s massive.”

Sam bites her lip. She doesn’t answer.

“Sam…”

“It’s a waste of plant life to kill it,” Sam whispers. Her two best friends groan out loud, angled in two different directions.

“Sam. It’s illegal. You’ve got to get rid of it.” Tucker’s logic is cold, and brazen.

“...Fine.”

The procedure for killing off a plant the organic way is apparently pretty simple; vinegar, salt, and sunlight. The plant is looking dead and crispy under the glow lights in Sam’s greenhouse in less than an hour; by tomorrow, it’ll be long gone.

“We can never tell anyone this happened,” Danny decides, for obvious reasons. Tucker nods solemnly.

Sam sniffles a little, mascara running. Danny gently rubs her back.

#phic phight 24 #fill

[phicphight]

The Fenton-Feel Giver

fanfiction

ao3

word count: 1579

This time, instead of making a weapon to hurt ghosts, the Fentons make a weapon that allows them to “get their feelings back”. Problem is, they already have them, so what happens when you take an already emotional ghost teen and amplify it by 10? @Amabsis

rararararararararara

Danny sat at the kitchen table, tiredly eating cereal while Jazz read a book next to him as she ate her eggs. He held his head in his left hand and he was about to nod off when his parents erupted from the door to the lab. 

“Hey, kids! Come look at what we just finished!” His dad bellowed. Danny jumped at the loud sound of his voice. 

“It’s too early for this.” He groaned as he and Jazz forcefully followed their parents downstairs into the lab.” 

“It’s our newest ghost hunting weapon!” Maddie smiled excitedly. 

Danny flinched as his dad brandished his new gun.

“This bad boy will give all these apathetic ectoplasmic post human copies all of their feelings back! They’ll never know what hit them!” 

“Dad, how do you really know that ghosts don’t have feelings?” Jazz asked him, looking between Danny and their dad. “You’ve never had a conversation with a ghost. How can you say you know how their minds work?” 

“How can any ghost have feelings when they’re terrorizing the city all the time? Surely if they had feelings they would think about their actions and how it might be affecting the people around them.” Maddie said.

“Now you’re just putting your prejudice on them!” Jazz planted her hands on her hips. “Not all ghosts go around terrorizing the city all the time!”

“Also the ghosts just think it’s fun. They don’t care how we feel, even with feelings.”

The three of them looked over at Danny. His eyes widened when he realized they heard his comment. 

“See who terrorizes a city for fun?”

“That still doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings!” 

Danny rolled his eyes and stood up. This was ridiculous. He didn’t need to sit here and listen to his family argue about something that he knew was false. 

“Danny-boy! Where are you going? I haven’t even demonstrated it yet!”

He turned around to face his dad. “I gotta go. I have to-”

He gasped out a breath of cold air. And he inwardly groaned.

“Have to, to- go to the library and check out a book I forgot I needed! It’s about a project on Patrocolos!”

“You’re still learning about that guy?” Jack frowned. 

“Long unit.” Danny said as he backed up. “Very important to a lot of different cultures. What a guy.”

“Be back before curfew!” His mom called to him and he turned and dashed his way up the stairs. 

When he hit the top he transformed and flew through the roof and scanned the streets around him. Where was the ghost? 

“I am the Box Ghost!” 

Danny closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, groaning.

“Tremble before me and my boxes of doOoom!” 

Danny flew in the direction that the Box Ghost’s voice was coming from. He came into view and he had a swarm of boxes flying around him.

“Hey, Boxy!” 

The Box Ghost turned around to face him. “Ah, Phantom! I see you’ve heard my war call! You will face my wrath and get boxed!” 

Danny scoffed. “As if. Your wrath is about a centimeter long.” 

“You will regret your words, young halfling! My boxes will leave deep cardboard cuts all over your skin! I will-” 

Danny sucked the Box Ghost into the thermos as he was talking. He yelled as he got sucked in and the sound was cut off when the beam disappeared. Danny capped the thermos as all the boxes fell into the street. 

He heard the screeching of tires below him and looked down. His parent’s van plowed to a stop and they were jumping out. 

“There he is, Jack!” His mom pointed at where he floated up in the sky. 

“This is the perfect time to test our new weapon, Maddie!” 

Danny’s eyes widened. Considering ghosts really did actually have feelings, Danny didn’t know what it would do to him. He didn’t think he wanted to find out either. 

They started shooting at him. His dad had the new weapon they showed off at breakfast this morning. His mom had what looked like a regular ectogun. 

He dodged as many blasts as he could, but they just kept coming. One flew past him and sent him spinning. He went back right side up but it was too late.

“Haha! Taste the Fenton Feel-giver!” 

Danny didn’t have enough time to jump and dodge the blast that his dad shot at him. He put his hands up to block his face when the blast made contact. It sent him hurtling towards the ground. The blast itself didn’t hurt nearly as much as he was expecting but his collision with the ground did and he peeked out from behind his arms to see his dad barely containing his excitement. 

Then his mom walked towards him, brandishing her Fenton bazooka and Danny’s heart started racing.

He covered his head and cowered away from her. 

“Don’t hurt me, Mom!” He shouted. 

“Mom?” Maddie exclaimed. 

“I promise I’m not a monster! Don’t hurt me!” 

Danny scurried backwards away from her. What was happening to him? His heart was racing and he was starting to hyperventilate. 

Maddie lowered her weapon, but she looked unsure about it. 

“Jack?” She turned to face him. 

“He looks just like a child.” Jack whispered. 

“Is he just a child?” Maddie asked him.

Danny looked up at his parents. He could tell by their faces that they weren’t expecting the consequences of actually seeing a ghost’s feelings. That they weren’t expecting him to be so human.

Maddie knelt down to be at eye level with him. She reached a hand forward and Danny fell back trying to get away from it.

“Don’t touch me!”

She pulled her hand back and looked at Jack. 

“Phantom, do you remember your human mother?”

He looked at her. How ironic was this. This was some cosmic irony here.

He wasn’t sure what he should do. So he just nodded. 

“Did she ever hurt you?”

Ectoblast burns. Bazooka blasts. Kicks to the stomach.

“Not on purpose. But she did.” 

Maddie’s felt settled into a sad expression. A tear ran down Danny’s cheek as they stared at each other. She reached towards him to wipe it off but he pulled back and jumped into the air.

“Don’t- don't touch me.”

“Phantom, would you like to come back to our lab with us? We could-” 

His heart rate continued to race and his chest rose and fell too quickly with each breath. Scalpels and dissection tables. Samples and tests and inventions and so many other terrifying things were down in that lab. He couldn’t- No. No no no. 

He felt his transformation rings appearing. He knew that if he was ever too hurt that he transformed back. If he passed out he’d transform back. He didn’t ever think he’d be too emotionally distressed that it would force him to transform back. He couldn’t. Not here. 

He pushed the rings back and they were gone for a moment but they just reappeared a second later.

“Jack, what are those rings? Have you ever seen anything like that before?” 

“No I haven’t. What kind of power could that be?”

He couldn’t keep the transformation rings back anymore. They traveled over his body and he watched as his parents confused expressions morphed into ones of horror. The ring passed over his head and he started falling towards the ground. 

“Danny?” His mom called in shock.

His dad ran forward and caught Danny in the air before he hit the ground. Danny scrambled to get out of his father’s arms and fell, hitting the ground. 

“Don’t touch me!” 

“Danny, how is this possible? How did this-”

“You can’t hurt me! Please!” 

Maddie faltered and took a step away from him. “We would never hurt you.”

Danny shook his head. “You wanted to. You always talk about how you want to hurt me so badly. About all the nasty horrible things you want to do to me.”

“But we never- if we’d known it was you, we would never have said those things.”

Danny looked her in the eyes. “Even if it wasn’t me, I’m still just a kid. It doesn’t matter if it’s me or not.”

Maddie and Jack looked at each other.

“We’ll make this right.” Jack said. “We’ll get you fixed up and-”

“No! You can’t take it! I don’t need to be fixed!”

“Take what?” Maddie asked.

“My core!” 

Maddie’s eyes opened wide. “You have a core?”

“You can’t have it.” 

Maddie shook her head. She looked like she wanted to reach out to him and touch him but she kept her hands firmly at her side where she knelt down. “We don’t want your core.”

“We need to reverse the effects that the Fenton Feel-giver had on you.”

“No experiments?” Danny asked. He looked back and forth between his parents. 

“No experiments.” Jack said.

Danny was still looking between the two of them. His heart rate was starting to slow. 

“You still love me?”

Danny could see the moment his mom’s heart broke. “Of course we do, sweetie.”

Tears welled up in Danny’s eyes and he held out a hand to his mom. She grabbed it and stood up, pulling him with her. 

“It’ll be okay. We’ll get you fixed up and then you can tell us how this all happened.” 

Danny nodded. He took a deep breath. “You still love me.” 

“More than life itself.”

#phic phight 24 #fill

[phicphight]

timer

@echoghost1 @everfascinated

.

It hovered over the surface of the portal, clearly separate from it.  A large, flat, disk shape, with a pale, luminous face.  More vivid numbers circled the edge, painted neatly.  A single, delicate, metal hand pointed towards the number seven, on the left side of the clock.  It had been pointing there for the past hour or so, ever since it had been noticed.  

Maddie drummed her fingers on the workbench she stood next to.  The timer - because what else could it be? - was, thus far, a mystery to her.  Usually, Maddie liked mysteries.  Exploring the mysteries of the Ghost Zone had been the reason they had built the portal in the first place.  This mystery was fascinating, and Maddie was excited about it, but it was also incredibly troubling.  

Obviously, the timer - hovering, green, immovable - was ghostly in origin.  What else could it be?  But how did a ghost place get in here to place it?  For what purpose?  How much time was left?  What was it counting down to?  It couldn’t be anything good.  Ghosts had no love for her family or their works.  

As soon as she’d noticed it, she and Jack had started taking readings, but nothing they did gave them anything conclusive, or any way to get rid of the thing.  

It was frustrating and troubling.  Frustrating and troubling.  

“Uh, Mom?  Dad?  It’s six and we were wondering if you wanted us to order dinner or anything…”

Maddie looked up to see Danny coming down the stairs.  

“Oh, sure!” said Jack.  “Pizza sounds great, son!”

“Yeah.  What are you even– What’s that?”  

Danny stared wide-eyed at the timer for a long moment, and Maddie moved to reassure him.  Danny was always so timid around ghosts, so afraid.  This timer was doubtlessly malevolent, but she and Jack wouldn’t let it do anything to Danny.  

Briefly, Danny’s eyes gleamed green.  Then, slowly, but inevitably, he collapsed.

Maddie leaped forward, keeping Danny from hitting his head on the bottom step by the narrowest of margins.  “Jack!”  

“What happened?” he asked, hurrying over.  “Danny?  Danny?  Talk to me, son!  Can you hear me?”

Danny’s eyes fluttered open briefly, overly reflective, then shut again.

“I’m setting up the quarantine booth,” said Maddie.  “Will you carry him?”

Jack nodded, grimly.  

They’d gotten the quarantine booth set up after Vlad’s unfortunate recurrence of ecto-acne and the revelation that ecto-acne could be contagious under certain circumstances.  It was sealed, filtered, protected, shielded.  Every precaution they could think of had gone into it. 

… and, yes, they should use those precautions more often, but Maddie and Jack loved getting up close and personal with the subjects of study.  

“We need to get that thing shielded,” said Jack as he set Danny on the bed.  He rushed out towards the timer and started setting up shield projectors around the portal.  

Maddie, meanwhile, pulled the medical scanner free from the ceiling.  Well, ‘medical scanner’ was a very sci-fi way of putting it, when really it was quite prosaic, if you knew how it worked.

She positioned it over Danny’s body and set it to taking data. 

Temperature, low, heart rate, low, bones, intact, nervous system… that part of the scanner didn’t work all that well, ignore that reading…  

Ectoplasm levels were off the charts.  

Maddie inhaled deeply.  Stay calm, stay calm.  They would fix this.  They’d cured Vlad and Danny’s friends, they could cure this, whatever it was.  They would get rid of that timer and they’d save Danny.  

“Mom?” said Danny, weakly.  

“Hey, sweetie,” said Maddie.  “How are you feeling?”  

“Bad,” said Danny.  He tried to sit up, but Maddie pushed him back down.  “What’s happening?”

“You collapsed suddenly,” said Maddie.  “We’re trying to figure out why.”

Danny raised one hand to his face.  Green light reflected off his hand.  Understanding flicked over his features.  

“Okay, but I think I’m feeling better, now,” he said.  He tried to sit up again.  

“We need to figure out what happened before you go running around,” said Maddie, pushing him down again.  She looked over at Jack, through the thick, transparent sides of the quarantine booth.  Jack was now trying to throw a towel over the timer and–

Wait a moment.  

“Stay down,” she told Danny.  “Let the scanner do its job.”  She walked out of the quarantine booth.  “Wait, Jack, wait.”

“But we have to keep it from affecting Danny.  We don’t know if its effect is visual or what.”

“I know, I know,” said Maddie.  “But look at it.  Look at the hand.”

The hand, which had been pointing at the number seven, was now pointing at the number six.  

Jack scowled at the timer and tried to throw the towel over it again.  The towel passed through it.  “Are we sure this is a timer, Mads?  Maybe the numbers are counting down charges or something like that.”

“I don’t know, it still looks more like a timer to me.”

“But why did it affect Danny like that?” 

“I don’t know.  We need to start decontamination procedures right away, though.  His ectoplasm levels are off the charts.  The sudden spike is probably what made him collapse, but I don’t know how this could have increased his ectoplasm levels so much so quickly.”

I don’t know either,” said Jack.  He picked up the latest version of the Fenton Finder (which incidentally, still detected Danny more often than not) and shook it.  “None of the detectors we have pointed at it picked up anything.  Nothing going towards Danny, nothing ambient, nothing anywhere else.”

Maddie had hoped that their detectors had picked something up, but with the continued failures of the Fenton Finder, maybe she shouldn’t be so surprised.  

“We’ll keep looking,” said Maddie.  She was forgetting something.  What was she forgetting?  “Jazz.  We need to tell Jazz, so she doesn’t come down here.  What if it only affects minors?”

“Righto,” said Jack, shoving the Finder at Maddie.  “I’ll do that, you start the decontam procedures!”

Maddie nodded tightly and turned back to Danny.  She could see his eyes gleaming from here.But they could fix this. 

#phic phight 24 #fill

[phicphight]

Sew Me Up and Keep Me Whole

fanfiction

ao3

word count: 7603

Thanks to seeing how various injuries are treated as a member of the football team, Dash actually has a decent background in first aid and anatomy. He gets adopted into Team Phantom when circumstances keep leading him to be the one patching up Phantom after fights.

ohohohhoho

Dash was walking home after a football game. He was exhausted and was looking forward to going to bed tonight. Plus there was a ghost attack at the end of the game so it ran extra long while they waited for it to be over. 

He turned into the park. It was dark in the park, but it made his trip home from the school faster. His dad would be even madder if he woke him up this late. He wanted to get back as soon as possible. 

He got to the wooded part of the trees when he heard something. It sounded like voices. 

“Tucker, you’re not doing it right.” Somebody whispered angrily. It sounded like Manson. 

“Do you want to try doing this?” He hissed back. “I’m the only one who’s taken a sewing class. You didn’t think you should be reduced to something so ‘stereotypically feminine.’”

“-’s not ev’n a fem’n’n thing.” Was that Fenton? “Sewing is a b-basic life skill…” 

“That’s not the point!” She hissed back at them. “My mom-” 

Dash stepped through the bushes and past the tree separating them and fell short. That wasn’t who he was expecting to be there.

Phantom sat in between Foley and Manson, not Fenton. As he stepped through the bushes their heads snapped up to look at him. Phantom’s head groggily lulled to the side as he looked at Dash.

“Ha. Jus’...what we need.”

Dash frowned. “What?” 

Phantom chuckled and closed his eyes.

“No! Don’t close your eyes!” Manson lightly slapped him. When he just groaned and leaned his head back against the tree behind him she slapped him harder.

“...Sam!” He pried his eyes open and glared at her. “Don’ hit m’..”

“You can’t fall asleep until Tucker is done with your stitches. If only he could just hurry it up.” Manson ground out.

“I’m going as fast as I can!” Tucker breathed out, his hand shakily pulling another stitch through Phantom’s injury. “I don’t want to leave an ugly scar or make it worse by not doing it well.”

Dash stepped closer to where they were sat behind the bushes. Manson shot another look at him. He could finally see Phantom’s wound and it was pretty gnarly. Foley’s stitches were holding it closed but they definitely weren’t pretty. 

“Do you need help?” Dash asked apprehensively. “I’ve seen a lot of injuries during football practice. And I’m not squeamish like you, Foley.”

“Yeah? You know how to sew up wounds?” Manson spit out. “How is watching people get treated for wounds during practice the same as sewing up an injury?” 

Dash held up his hands. “It seems like Foley doesn’t know what he’s doing either. I know how to sew already. Isn’t that like halfway there?”

Foley looked at Manson. “If he can get it done faster than me, why not let him? We’re gonna run out of time.”

“How can we trust him?” Manson glanced at Dash, worrying her lip. 

“He is literally Phantom’s biggest fan except for maybe Paulina. Do you really think he’s gonna try to kill him?” 

A blush rose to Dash’s cheeks at Foley’s comment while Manson kept studying him. 

A few more moments went by before she looked back at Phantom. He smiled at her groggily.

She sighed. “Fine. Dash, get over here.”

His eyes widened, stunned that they actually accepted his help. He strode forward and knelt on the ground between Foley and Manson. Phantom looked up at him, the goofy smile still on his face. 

“Funny that y’ur the one h’lping me.” He chuckled.

“Why’s that?” Dash asked. Phantom just shook his head and chuckled again.

“Here.” Foley handed him a pair of gloves. “We don’t know if his ectoplasm can irritate or damage skin. We haven't felt risky enough to try it out yet.”

“How often do you guys do this?” Dash snapped his gloves on and took the needle from Foley. Phantom smiled wistfully.

“I get hurt a lot.” 

Dash hummed as he made his first stitch. “Well that’s not good.”

“Yeahh.. ghosts suck. And also bullies. They can hurt pretty bad sometimes too.”

Shame wriggled into Dash’s stomach as he made another stitch. What would Phantom think of him if he knew he was a bully himself?

Phantom hummed a wistful sigh as he watched Dash sew his wound closed. 

“Y’know, ‘ur pretty cute.”

Dash’s brain stopped for a moment and spent a second processing what Phantom said. He felt like he was short circuiting.

“What?” Dash asked. 

Tucker burst out laughing. “Man, you’re not gonna live this one down.” Sam shushed him. 

Dash continued sewing Phantom’s wound closed as he tried to get his bearings. He never would’ve thought his hero would think of him like that. 

“So.” He said, pulling the thread tight. “Are you guys friends?”

“We’r’ bes frie-” Sam covered his mouth.

“We help him with ghost fights. We don’t know him that well.” 

“Oh. It just seemed like you guys are pretty close. He must trust you two a lot.” 

Dash finished up his last stitch. “There we go. You’re all closed up.” 

Phantom smiled at him again as Dash pulled off his gloves and put them in a bag Tucker held up to him. “Tha’ was s’much faster than Tucker.” 

“Much cleaner stitches, too.” Sam said, leaning down to look at them. 

“‘Thank you for trying, Tucker. We’re so grateful for you, Tucker.’” He mumbled out as he put all their supplies back in his bag. 

“C’mon, Tuck!” Phantom lulled his head in Tucker’s direction. “You’ve stitched up so… so many stitches before now. I’d’d have bled out so many times over with-without you.”

“Thank you, D- Phantom.” 

Dash pushed himself up off the ground and stretched. “Do you guys need help getting him back… Wherever he needs to go?”

“We can take him back to my house.” Sam stood up. “My parents are those people who go to bed at eight o’clock and get up at some ungodly hour for their office jobs.”

“Can you stand, Phantom?” Tucker asked him.

Phantom shakily tried to stand up. He only made it up part way before he fell back to his knees. 

“Here.” 

Dash bent down and picked Phantom up bridal style. He adjusted his hold on him until he was holding him comfortably. 

“Okay.” Dash turned to look at Sam. “Lead the way.”

He followed behind Sam and Tucker as they walked through the trees. Phantom was much heavier than what Dash would expect from a ghost. He figured ghosts would be light as a feather since they could fly, but Phantom felt so much like a human it was uncanny. 

Phantom leaned his head back into the crook of Dash’s neck. He took a sharp breath in as he felt Phantom’s breath ghost against his neck. 

Dash looked down at Phantom and his eyes were closed, but after a few moments of Dash staring Phantom peeked an eye open. 

He jumped and looked back up at Sam and Tucker. They were whispering between themselves, shooting glances back at Dash. Phantom chuckled.

“Thank you for helping us.”

Dash looked back down at him. Phantom already seemed to be more coherent than when Dash first stumbled upon them. 

“Of course. You should probably thank your friends for letting me help you. They were pretty skeptical at first.” 

Phantom shrugged. “They’re just looking out for me. They’re protective.” 

“So you are friends?” Dash asked. Phantom looked at Sam and Tucker. 

“Yeah. They’re the best friends I could’ve asked for.” 

“Are you friends with the Fenton kid too?” Dash asked.

Phantom turned to look at Dash sharply. “The Fenton kid?”

“Yeah.” Dash nodded. “Danny. Hangs around with those two. Kind of a freak.”

Phantom frowned at him and turned away from him. “Oh. The ghost hunter’s son? No. Why would I be friends with him? His parents would tear me apart.” 

“Oh. Yeah that’s true. Those three just never go anywhere without each other so I thought maybe he was in on this too. He’s a dork anyways.” 

“We’re here.” Sam called behind them. 

Dash looked up to see Sam and Tucker stopped in front of a set of stairs leading to Sam’s front door. Phantom suddenly jumped out of Dash’s arms and winced once his feet hit the ground. It set Dash off balance and it took a moment for him to regain it. 

Phantom walked over to where Sam and Tucker were waiting. 

“Will you be okay?” Dash called to him.

“Yeah.” Phantom said without looking back at him. “I’ll be fine.” 

He walked away from Dash without looking back at him. The three of them walked inside the door and shut it behind them. 

He stood there and stared at the closed door. A pit formed in his stomach but he’s not sure what happened. 

He turned around and started the short trek home. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dash was walking in the hallways of Casper High. He was heading to his next class. He just wanted this day to be over with.

Up ahead of him he saw Fenton and his friends. He smirked and started walking faster to catch up with them. 

“Hey, Fentoadally lame! Where do you think you’re going!” 

He saw Fenton’s shoulders rise and fall as he sighed. He looked over his shoulder at Dash, an angry grimace on his face. 

“Anywhere away from you.” 

The hallways were starting to clear out as it got closer to the bell. He caught up to them and grabbed Danny by the shoulder, turning him around and slamming him into the lockers to their left. He glared up at Dash.

“What do you want, Dash?”

Dash sneered down at him. “I want to get my afternoon wailing in before I lose my chance and you disappear for the rest of the day like you did yesterday.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “And why does your wailing have to be on me?”

“Because you’re my favorite nerd to wail on.” Dash said as he pulled his arm back, ready to hit Danny. 

“Excuse me!” 

Something hit Dash in the back of the head. He hissed and when he turned around he saw Sam holding her boot in her hand, glaring at him. 

“What the hell, Manson?” He rubbed the spot she had hit. “What’s that boot made of?” 

“Steel toe.” Tucker said from where he stood, far away from the action. 

“How’s it feel, Dash? Huh? Do you like getting hit? Do you want to know what it’s like to get beat up for no reason every single day?” Sam spat at him.

He took a step away from her. He already knew what that was like. He didn’t need to know what it would be like, just from a different person. 

“Sam-” Danny tried stepping out from behind Dash to get to her but there wasn’t enough room for him to move. 

“Why should we let you keep helping us with Phantom if we can’t trust you to leave our friend alone?”

“What?” Dash asked, incredulous. “How are either of these things related?” 

Sam walked up to him and poked him in the chest. Distantly Dash could hear the late bell ringing. “Because how do we know you wouldn’t turn on Phantom? That if we relied on you, that you would actually be there to help him?”

“But Phantom is-”

“A person, just like Danny.” Sam said. “Just because Danny isn’t your ‘hero’ doesn’t mean he deserves to be a punching bag.”

Dash rolled his eyes. “Fenton just asks for it.”

Sam closed her eyes and shook her head.

“No, you know what? We won’t need your help anymore, Dash. We were doing just fine without you. We’ll manage.” 

“I didn’t want to have to associate with you nerds anymore than I have to anyways.” Dash tried to ignore the pang in his chest at the idea of not being able to help Phantom anymore.

“You know, I’ve heard that Phantom doesn’t like bullies.” Fenton said from behind him.

Dash turned and frowned at him. “What do you know?” He shoved Fenton into the lockers one more time and walked away from them. He could hear Sam furiously whispering with Danny about something but Dash tried to tune it out.

Where did Manson get off threatening to beat him? That’d just make her a hypocrite, wouldn’t it? Doing the very thing she hates? 

Whatever. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t make it so Phantom couldn’t talk to him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey, I’ll see you later, Kwan!” Dash said as he walked out of the Nasty Burger. Kwan turned around where he was walking the opposite way down the sidewalk.

“Yeah! See you tomorrow, buddy!” Kwan shouted back at him. 

Dash smiled as he started his walk home. Kwan was always pretty good at cheering him up. He’d had a pretty bad week. Every time he’d gone to Phantom to try to talk to him he’d up and disappear or fly away before Dash could even get a word in. Sam and Tucker must’ve said something to him about what happened with Fenton. 

He sighed. He’d probably never get to talk to Phantom again at this rate. 

He heard some rustling coming from the alley he was coming up on. He paused just before it. Nothing good ever came from inside alleyways. 

“Tucker, where are you- Danny, he-” 

He could hear Manson’s panicked voice coming from inside the alley. He crept forward. 

Dash looked into the alley to see Sam desperately talking on the phone. Phantom sat on the ground in front of her. She was holding a rag to his stomach. 

“No, no I already have the supplies. I can’t-”

A tear streamed down her face. “Tucker, I need you. I can’t do this without you.” 

Phantom’s eyes slowly opened. He tilted his head towards the end of the alley that Dash was standing in. He locked eyes with him, taking a deep breath.

“Sam..”

She looked up at him. When she saw where he was looking, she followed his gaze until her eyes landed on Dash. Her eyes widened. After a few moments of staring, she put her phone back up to her ear. 

“No, Dash- Dash is here. He just walked up. He- He could probably help us again. Just one more time.” 

Dash jumped. How serious was it this time that she couldn’t wait for Tucker?

“Dash, get over here!” 

He jumped again at her call, but ran to them inside the alley.

“Can you stitch him up again?” She pleaded. “I know what I said, but I-”

“It’s fine.” Dash said. “I’m not that petty that I’ll refuse to save his life just because you don’t like me.” 

She pulled a first aid kit out of her backpack and handed it to him. “You’re mean to me and my friends. I don’t want to be around you if you’re going to bully us.” 

“Tch.” Dash scoffed. He pulled on a pair of gloves. “As if you aren’t just as mean to us. You go around antagonizing Paulina and forcing things that you want to do on other people.”

She rolled her eyes. “You literally beat people up and stuff them into their lockers. That is not the same thing.”

“Yeah, well-”

“As much as I love watching Sam tell it to you, can you guys hurry it up?”

Dash and Sam looked at Phantom. He had one eye squinted open and he was looking between them. 

“Sorry.” Dash said. He threaded the needle and got started stitching up Phantom’s wound.

They were silent while Dash worked. His stitches were quick and soon Dash was done. He sighed.

“I actually used to be friends with them when we were younger. Before they met you.” 

“What?” Sam turned to stare at him. “Why are you so mean to them then?” 

“My parents didn’t like Fenton’s parents. Or all the nonsense they were spouting about ghosts. I’d come home and tell them all about it and they thought the Fenton’s were ‘corrupting my mind’ or something like that.”

Phantom turned his head to look at Dash. 

“My parents told me I couldn’t be his friend anymore. And I told Danny that, but he didn’t get it. And he and Tucker were a package deal at that point. They were more inseparable than me and Danny had ever been. So I just… told them that I didn’t want to be their friend anymore. That they weren’t cool enough. I think I hit one of them. They didn’t go out of their way to talk to me after that.” 

They sat in silence for a moment after that. 

“Parents, amiright?” Sam said quietly, as she looked at Phantom. “My parents are like that. They try to get me to stop being friends with Danny all the time but I argue too much with them for it to ever stick. Or I don’t tell them when I’m hanging out with Danny.”

“At least you have that luxury.” Dash looked at the ground. “If I don’t listen to my parents… Well, they like to use their fists more than their words.” 

Sam covered her mouth.

Dash let out a short laugh.

“And now ghosts are real and they keep asking me all sorts of questions like they expect me to remember the things they told me were bad and wanted me to forget.”

Dash was startled when he felt a hand on his arm. He looked up and saw that Phantom was still staring at him. 

“It’s not your fault.”

Dash shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. He shifted so that instead of kneeling on his knees, he was sitting on the ground. He ran his hands through his hair roughly. 

“It is my fault!” Dash ground out. “I didn’t have to treat them the way I did! I could’ve broken the cycle but now I’m just like my parents.” 

“You don’t have to be.” Sam said. “There’s always time to change. Hell, admitting to how shitty you’ve been is a pretty good start.”

Dash sighed. Phantom looked like he was about to say something but he was interrupted by Tucker sprinting into the alley, out of breath.

“I’m here! I’m here. Did you guys get it figured out?”

Sam nodded and gestured at Dash. “He helped us out again. He really came in clutch there.”

Dash nodded and stood up. “I guess I should get going now. I don’t want to-”

“Wait!” Sam held her hands up in a stop motion. She stood up to look at him. “Do you want to join team Phantom?”

“What?” Tucker looked at her, shocked. “Why are you asking Dash to join the team? I thought you-”

“Clearly having another person around will be beneficial.” Sam interrupted Tucker without looking at him. “You’ve already helped us twice. You could even teach us to sew and stitch up wounds better.” 

Dash looked between the three of them. He wasn’t a part of whatever they had going. Would they really be okay with him joining their team? Did they really want him to be a part of it? Or was it just a pity offer? 

“Why would you want me to join your team?” Dash said quietly. 

“You care more than I thought you did.” Sam said.

Dash laughed. That didn’t seem like a very concrete reason.

“Break the cycle.”

Dash looked back up at where Phantom still sat on the ground. He was staring at Dash. 

“Break the cycle.” He said again. “Prove that you can be better. If not for us, just do it for yourself.”

Dash looked away. He nodded. That sounded like a good reason. Work to break the cycle his parents put him in. He nodded again.

“Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll join Team Phantom.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dash stood outside Tucker’s door awkwardly. Tucker said now would be a good time to come over so they could practice sewing. He hasn’t knocked yet though. He hadn’t been back here since they were all still friends. 

He lifted his hand up and paused for a moment. Finally, he brought his fist down on the door and knocked twice. 

“I’ve got it!” Tucker shouted from inside the house. He heard some shuffling and then a muffled, “Mom!” 

Then the door opened, but instead of Tucker it was his mom. His eyes widened as her mouth dropped open. She looked behind her where Tucker was standing and then looked back at Dash. Tucker shrugged behind her. 

“Why, Dash, I haven’t seen you in such a long time. How have you been?” She asked him. 

He nodded. “Good, good. Things have been fine. How have you been?” 

“Things have been good here.” She looked between Tucker and Dash again. “What brings you over after so long?”

“I, uh..” Dash stammered. They didn’t come up with an excuse. He really couldn’t tell her they were practicing sewing so they could sew up wounds. 

“Class project!” Sam’s voice came from down the steps behind him. He turned to see  her hurrying up the stairs. “We’re going to be working on our sewing today for class. Dash is going to practice with us.”

“Ohh.” Tucker’s mom nodded. “Well that sounds fun. Do you guys have any projects in the making?”

“We’re not quite there yet, mom.” Tucker said as he stepped forward. “We’re still learning so we’ll probably just be sewing squares of fabric together.” 

She nodded again. “Let me know if you kids have any questions. I know a thing or two about sewing myself.” She smiled at them.

“Thanks, mom. We will.” Tucker waved them into the house and then closed the door behind them once they were both inside. “Come on, let’s go upstairs.”

He followed behind both Tucker and Sam as they made their way up the stairs. He hadn’t been here in a very long time but little had changed over the years. Except for maybe new photos that had been hung up on the wall. 

They reached the top of the stairs and then Tucker pulled down the attic door and unfolded the ladder. They climbed up there and Dash had the fleeting thought that if they wanted to make him disappear, an attic would be a pretty good place to make that happen.

“Boo.”

Dash jumped as a voice spoke close into his ear and then laughter erupted from an invisible mouth.

“Oh that was good. I haven’t been able to get Sam or Tucker that good in a long time.”

Phantom dropped his invisibility and appeared in front of Dash. Dash chuckled nervously. 

“Phantom, don’t be too mean to him. We’re trying to make amends, remember?” Sam called to them while she and Tucker dug through some box.

“Yeah, yeah.” Phantom waved her comment off. He looked back at Dash. “I gotta have fun with this whole ghost thing somehow though, right?”

Dash nodded. “I can’t say I would be so chivalrous if I had your powers. I’d probably be sneaking into the girl’s locker room or something.”

“Eh. It was exciting the first couple times but now the novelty has worn off.”

Dash’s eyes widened. Phantom went to spy in the girl’s locker room? 

“Anyways.” Phantom drawled out. “What will I be doing today?”

Dash stared at him. “You’ll also be learning to sew.”

Phantom frowned. “Why?”

“If Sam or Tucker, or even me, ever get hurt during one of your ghost fights it might be useful for you to know. Or if you ever have an occasion where you’re alone and need to do it yourself, if you’re able to of course.” 

“Are you gonna be like, our teacher?” Sam asked Dash. 

Dash shrugged. “I can explain the basics but this is mostly just practice time.”

They got to work practicing their sewing. Sam and Tucker were working together on the other side of the attic while Dash worked with Phantom. They had cut up squares of fabric that they were sewing together. Phantom looked up at Dash as he pulled a thread through his two pieces he had in his hands. 

“Why’d you learn to sew?” Danny asked. “It’s not something most guys pick up.” 

Dash shrugged. “My parents liked to wreck a lot of my things growing up. They destroyed a lot of stuffed animals, but when they ripped apart the last teddy bear I got from my grandma before she passed away I decided I was going to take it into my own hands and fix it.”

“Oh.” Phantom’s shoulders dropped and he looked at Dash sadly. “I’m sorry they did that.” 

“They’re not good people.” Dash made a couple more stitches on his own squares in his hands. “It hurt when I realized that.” 

Phantom nodded. “Sometimes I worry that my parents are bad people. They want to hurt me but I know they’re not actually bad.”

“How are they not bad? You just said they want to hurt you.” Dash frowned at him. 

“It’s more complicated because of the whole ghost thing.” Phantom shook his head. “They don’t know who I am.”

Dash’s eyes widened. “What? How can they not know?”

Phantom’s sad expression turned into a smirk. “I’ve got to keep some of my secrets.” 

Dash rolled his eyes. “Okay, Inviso-bill.” 

“Hey!” Phantom pushed his shoulder. 

His skin tingled where Phantom had touched him through his jacket. They smiled at each other and Dash looked back down at the fabric in his hands. They worked for another couple moments before Phantom spoke again.

“What if we sewed them all together?”

“What?” Dash looked back up at him. 

“The squares.” Phantom held up his small pile he had gathered while they were working. “We could sew all the squares we make together and turn them into a blanket.”

“Ohh. That’d be cool.” He turned around in his seat. “Yo, Manson. Foley!” 

They turned around to face him. “What?”

“Phantom wants to turn our squares into blankets.”

“I like that idea.” Tucker said. 

“Does your mom have a sewing machine? It might be easier to sew all the rows together with the sewing machine once we get that far.”

Tucker nodded. “Let me go ask her for it.” 

He headed downstairs. Sam stood up and walked over to them. 

“How’s your practice going?” She asked. 

“Good.” Phantom held up his work so far. The stitches were getting neater and tighter as he showed Sam his progress. 

As Dash was showing Sam his own squares, Tucker made his way back up the ladder to the attic. He hefted the sewing machine up onto the floor and climbed up with some extra fabric and some kind of stuffing. He let out a breath. 

“My mom gave us some fabric and some quilt batting so we can finish turning it into a blanket.”

“How do we decide who gets to keep the blanket?” Dash asked.

Phantom looked at him. “I think you should get it. We can always make more if we’re going to keep practicing sewing. You should get the first one.”

“Yeah.” Sam said. “It can be a thank you for taking the time to teach us and practice with us.” 

“Let’s get this bad boy finished.” 

They spent the next couple hours practicing sewing the squares by hand and once they were all sewed together Dash took them to the sewing machine. They got all the rows assembled and the blanket put together with the stuffing inside. Dash stood up and held it up for everyone to look at.

Tucker clapped. “Great work everyone. Just, wow.” 

Sam rolled her eyes. 

Dash lowered it and smiled at them.

“Here.” 

Phantom floated forward and grabbed the other end of the blanket and helped Dash fold it. Their fingers met as they folded it together. Phantom passed his end to Dash and their fingers grazed as he pulled away. 

“Thanks.” They stared at each other for a few moments. Dash cleared his throat. “Well. I should get going. It’s getting kind of late.”

“Yeah. Me too.” Sam checked the time on her phone. My parents are gonna start calling me if I don’t get home soon.”

“Thanks for helping us out Dash.” Phantom called as Dash started making his way down the ladder. Dash smiled at him. 

“Thanks for giving me the chance.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~

Dash stepped out of the school. It was empty in the schoolyard. Dash had had to stay late to finish up a test with one of his teachers. 

“Hey.”

Dash jumped at the voice beside him. Phantom flickered into visibility. 

“Why do you keep doing that?” Dash pouted. 

Phantom shrugged and held his head in his hand as he floated next to Dash. “It’s funny. Like I said, I can’t get Sam and Tucker like that anymore.” 

“Where are they anyways?” Dash crossed the street in front of the school and started the walk home. 

“They’re busy.” Phantom groaned and flipped onto his back midair. “They had some very important stuff to do and they said I couldn’t come with them.”

“So tragic.” Dash smiled and shook his head at Phantom’s antics. 

Phantom laughed as he floated backwards on his back beside Dash, his arms crossed behind his head. Dash smiled as he watched him, a warm feeling growing in his chest. Phantom’s smile felt like the sun. 

“I think they’re trying to surprise me for my birthday. It’s coming up soon.”

Dash’s eyes widened. “You still celebrate your birthday?”

Phantom shot a look back at him. “Yeah? Don’t you still celebrate yours?” 

“Yeah, but you’re a ghost. Wouldn’t you celebrate your death day instead?”

Phantom scrunched up his nose and stared at a point from where they had come. “I try as hard as I can to not think about my death day. It was painful.”

“What was it like? Dying?”

Phantom turned to face Dash. He studied his face for a moment before he spoke. 

“I-”

A roar sounded from ahead of them on the street they were walking down. A ghost turned around the corner of a building and stared down at them. 

“Stay back.” Phantom said to him and flew away. He flew circles around the ghost's head and soon it was facing back the other way. It roared when Phantom shot an ectoblast between its eyes. 

It swung at him again and again, its slow paws trying and trying to hit Phantom. 

“You sure are slow!” Phantom smirked at the ghost and spun onto his back. “You fight like my sister.” 

The ghost roared again and Phantom flew back to avoid the swipe but he didn’t move fast enough.

The ghost scratched Phantom across the chest as he flew back. Dash could hear him hiss from where he stood on the ground. 

“That’s all you got, ghost?” Phantom held his fists back up.

As if taking that as a challenge, the ghost shrieked. It reared up for another hit. Phantom dodged the first one but wasn’t so lucky the second time. 

When the ghost’s claws connected with Phantom, Dash could hear the sound of his suit ripping. The ghost spun and sent him flying backwards down the street. 

“Phantom!” Dash shouted as he turned to look where Phantom had been thrown behind him. 

He laid there on the ground. He was hardly moving. The ghost started closing in, not paying any mind to Dash. 

“Hey!” Dash swung his arms in the air, trying to get the ghost’s attention. It finally looked down at him and paused. 

“Yeah! Leave him alone!” Dash shouted. He stuck a hand into his backpack and pulled out that lipstick laser that Tucker gave him. He aimed it at the ghost and took a shaky shot. 

It hit the ghost in the chest and it roared, charging at him. Dash took a step back but he yanked his backpack off, desperately digging out the thermos. He shakily pulled it out of his backpack just as the ghost was getting to him and he pressed the button. 

The ghost loomed over him before it got sucked into the thermos. Once it was gone, Dash closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. Then his eyes snapped back open and he turned around.

Phantom. 

He ran down the street to where Phantom lay. Phantom’s eyes opened as Dash got closer. Thank god. 

“Hey. How bad is it?” Dash asked as he dropped down to his knees on the pavement. 

Phantom hissed as he sat up. “Not the worst I’ve ever had. I’m not sure any of these need stitches.”

“Are you sure?” Dash studied his suit where it was torn. “I could literally hear your suit get shredded from where I was standing.” 

“Yeah.” Phantom nodded. “I think a good chunk of things I need to have stitched up are because I kept fighting and tore them and made them worse.” He looked up at Dash. “Thanks, by the way. For helping me with that ghost.” 

“Whaat? It was nothing.” Dash smiled at him.

Phantom laughed. “I could see you shaking in your boots from here.” 

Dash crossed his arms and turned his nose up away from Phantom. “Fighting ghosts is a lot scarier without fancy ghost powers.” 

“Yeah, but really, thanks.”

Dash looked back at Phantom. He couldn’t help it. It was the first thing he could think to do. He wasn’t going to just let a ghost get him when he couldn’t fight. 

Dash was lost in thought for a moment before his mind wandered back to Phantom’s injury. 

“Do you at least want that bandaged even if you don’t need stitches?”

Phantom nodded. “Yeah. It’ll help stop the bleeding.”

Dash dug through his backpack where it sat next to him when he dropped it. He pulled out his first aid kit. 

“Gauze or giant band aid?” Dash asked. 

Phantom looked down at his chest where the scratches were. He thought for a moment. 

“Probably gauze. I think these are too long for a giant bandaid.”

Dash nodded. He pulled the gauze out and turned back to Phantom. He blushed.

“What?” Phantom asked. 

The thought of Dash asking Phantom to undress was frazzling Dash’s brain. He only had to unzip the top part of his jumpsuit but he’d never seen Phantom in anything besides that before. What would he look like underneath? 

“I need, uh, you to unzip the top part of your jumpsuit so I can wrap the gauze around your chest.”

Phantom looked back down at his chest. “Oh.” He unzipped the front of his jumpsuit and pulled his arms out. He looked back up at Dash.

Dash’s blush went all the way up to his ears and he tried not to stare but he couldn’t help it. Phantom’s skin was so different from other ghosts. He was so much more human-like than them. 

Phantom held his hand out for Dash and he looked back up to his face. 

“I can do this if it’s too weird for you.”

“It’s not weird!” Dash blurted out. “I just, uh- I don’t-”

Phantom grabbed the gauze out of Dash’s hand and started wrapping it around his chest. “That’s okay. Sam was kind of awkward the first time she had to do this too.”

Dash nodded, but he was disappointed. This could’ve been an opportunity to get close to Phantom. To maybe graze a hand against his skin. Feel what a ghosts skin would-

“Dash?”

He jumped. “Yeah?”

“I’m all done. Here.” Phantom tossed the roll of gauze back to Dash. He fumbled to catch it and when he did he stowed it back in his first aid kit. 

Dash put everything back in his backpack and threw it back on his shoulder. He stood up and waited for Phantom to shove his arms back into his sleeves before he offered his hands to help Phantom up. 

Phantom looked at them for a moment before he reached up and grabbed onto Dash’s hands. Dash pulled Phantom to his feet and then they just stared at each other. Dash’s grip on Phantom’s hands tightened. He took a step closer to Phantom but then someone shouted at them. 

“Look! It’s Phantom!” 

Dash looked up around him and was shocked to see how many people had gathered around them. Where had they all come from? Were they all watching the ghost fight from their homes?

“Phantom, who is this boy? Why is he helping you?”

“Is that your boyfriend?”

“Who would be crazy enough to date a dead person?”

The voices clamored around them and Dash felt like they were pressing in on him. Phantom glanced at him and let go of his hands and instead wrapped an arm around his side.

“Gotta go!” 

“Wait, wha-!” 

Dash yelped as he was pulled into the air with Phantom as he took off in flight. He’d never flown before. Not even in a plane. He squeezed his eyes shut and wrapped his arm around Phantom’s shoulder. The flight was quick and soon they were touching down on the ground. 

Dash peeked an eye open and saw that they were standing in front of his house. 

“That was fast.” Dash said, out of breath. 

“Yeah.” Phantom smiled at him. “My top speed we’ve clocked so far is a hundred and twelve miles per hour. I can get anywhere in town pretty darn fast.” 

“Dang. That’s cool. Kinda scary.”

Phantom smiled. “You get used to it after a while.”

They looked at each other for a moment before Phantom seemed to remember he was still holding onto Dash. He coughed and pulled his hand away and it drifted across Dash’s back, leaving a trail of butterfly inducing tingles.

“Well, I gotta go. I have things to do.”

Dash let out a nervous laugh. “How busy can a ghost possibly be?”

“Like I’ve said, I’ve got to keep some of my secrets.”

Phantom started floating up into the air.

“Aw, come on. We’re not close enough for that yet?” Dash shouted up at him.

He smiled down at Dash. “Not quite. Maybe one day.”

Phantom waved down at Dash and then he flew away. Dash’s heart fluttered and he waved back belatedly. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dash was laying in bed. He was ready to go to sleep after such a long day. He could almost fall asleep right now.

He started drifting off but was interrupted a moment later. 

Phantom flew through Dash’s bedroom wall and crashed onto his bed. Dash jumped up and stared at the boy that was suddenly next to him. 

“Phantom?” Dash exclaimed. 

He was curled up on his side next to Dash, holding his stomach. 

“I didn’t… I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Tucker is out of town and the far frozen was too far away for this one- ah!” He clenched his stomach again. 

“No, no. That’s what I’m here for. That’s why you guys agreed to let me join your team. So that there was someone else there to patch you up.”

Phantom shook his head. “This one’s worse. There’s a chance I’ll-”

A white ring appeared around his waist. Phantom tensed up and groaned before it disappeared again.

“What was that?” Dashed asked, staring.

Phantom shook his head. “You need to start stitching the wound up now. If we wait it’ll start bleeding faster. We can’t-” He tensed up again. Sparks flew around his middle. “We have to hurry.” 

At Phantom’s plea, he hurriedly got up and grabbed his first aid kit from under his bed. He kneeled down and Phantom turned to his side to face him.

“Can you uncurl for me? I need to take a look.” 

Phantom nodded and slowly pulled his arms away from his stomach. They were covered in ectoplasm. Dash gulped and studied the wound. It was deep. Ectoplasm was steadily oozing out of it. He pulled a pair of gloves on. 

“This is pretty deep, what if I can’t-”

“Sewing it shut will help.” Phantom grimaced. “Once the wound is shut my healing abilities will have an easier time mending it.” 

Dash nodded. “Okay.” 

He took a deep breath and got started. Phantom flinched with every touch of the needle. Dash was halfway done when the ring appeared around his waist again. Phantom struggled to push it away, but it disappeared after a few seconds. 

“Phantom.” Dash kept stitching the wound closed. “What’s happening?” 

“I can’t keep it back anymore.” Phantom ground out. “When I transform, I’m going to start bleeding much faster. You have to keep stitching me up, no matter what.”

“What? When you transform? What does that-”

The rings appeared around Phantom’s waist a final time. Dash tried to keep his focus on stitching Phantom’s wound, but then the rings split. They revealed a very familiar shirt underneath them. 

“I’m sorry.”

The rings finished traveling over the rest of Phantom’s body. Dash’s hands shook as the ectoplasm that was steadily coming out of the wound turned into blood. The pace increased and Dash got a glimpse at Phantom’s face as the rings went over his head and Danny Fenton was left in his place. 

Danny met his gaze for a moment and then his eyes fluttered closed.

“Danny?” Dash whispered.

He didn’t move and Dash went back to stitching up the wound. He was almost done and he was hoping this would be enough. That Danny wouldn’t…

He shook his head. He couldn’t think like that. He had already seen the impossible. Danny wouldn’t die. He couldn’t. 

He made his last stitch and cut the thread. He grabbed a bag and disposed of everything inside it. He was about to put the first aid kit away when he thought about putting a bandage on top of Danny’s stitches. 

He pulled a bandage and some gauze out of the first aid kit and when he turned back around Danny’s eyes were already open, staring at Dash. 

“You’re awake already?” Dash whispered. “I wasn’t sure- I was afraid that-”

Danny shook his head. “My healing powers are already working. It just needed help getting started. It can’t heal if it’s still bleeding so much like that.” 

Dash let out a deep breath. “I’m glad to hear.” 

A pause stretched between them and Dash looked down at his hands and saw the gauze and bandage he was holding. He held them up.

“Do you want these on there too? Would it help?”

Danny nodded. “They’ll help make sure I don’t bleed into my clothes.” 

Dash nodded back at him. “Your shirt looks pretty bad too. Do you want one of mine?”

Danny shrugged. “Sure.”

He set the bandage and gauze down on the bed and headed to his dresser. He pulled out a shirt and turned back around to see Danny pulling his shirt off. 

Heat rose to Dash’s face and the comments Phantom made that first time Dash helped him came to mind. Tucker’s laugh echoed inside his head. 

Man, you’re not gonna live this one down. 

Sam and Tucker must know. That’s why they were being so weird that night. 

He sat down at the edge of his bed and looked at Danny. He peeled the back of the bandage off and put it over Danny’s stitches. He spread his hand out over it, pressing the edges down, making sure they were sticking to Danny’s skin properly. 

“Can you sit up?” Dash asked. Danny nodded and pushed himself up, wincing. 

Dash leaned closer to Danny and started winding the gauze around his torso. Once he was done, he looked up to see Danny’s face only a few inches from his own. 

They stared at each other for a few moments before they both spoke at once.

“I’m sorry.” 

Both of their eyes widened. Dash sat up.

“Why are you sorry? I was literally the one wailing on you for so long.”

Danny shook his head. “I lied to you. I never told you who I was. I could see the way you looked at me, but I didn’t think you’d look at me like that if you knew I was also Danny.” 

Dash flushed. “You could tell.” He breathed out. 

“Yeah I could.” Then he rolled his eyes. “And if I couldn’t, Tucker would’ve made sure I knew anyway.” 

“Tucker knows too?” Dash whispered. He didn’t think anyone could see his developing feelings for Phantom. He thought they just would have assumed it was because he was Phantom’s biggest fan. 

“Yeah. No offense, but it was pretty obvious. Especially if even I could tell.” 

Dash groaned and covered his face with his hands as he leaned back onto his bed. He felt Danny lean over to look down at him. Dash opened his eyes.

Danny met his eyes. His eyes traveled down his face to his lips. He slowly bent down and pressed his lips against Dash’s. Dash closed his eyes again and after a few seconds Danny pulled away.

“It helped that I was looking for it, though.”

Dash smiled up at him. “You did call me cute that one time.”

Now it was Danny’s turn to groan. “I don’t even know what I was thinking. I hardly even remember that.” 

Dash placed a hand on the back of Danny’s head and pulled him back down and kissed him again. 

“Did Tucker ever let you live it down?”

Danny laughed. “No. Of course not.”

“I bet it’ll be even worse now.” Dash said against Danny’s lips.

“Oh, you bet it will.”

Dash kissed Danny one more time and gently pulled him down to lay beside him.

#phic phight 24 #fill

[phicphight]

Cracked Clay Cup Chapter 12

@greatbigolhampuckjustforme

Pandora’s spear flew from her hand, and she stepped back, her hands spread as wide as her smile.  “Very good,” she said.

“You were going easy on me,” said Phantom, also stepping back.  “I wouldn’t have won in a real fight.”

“But that is what training is,” said Pandora.  “If I were to fight you at my full strength every time, how would you learn anything?”

“Slowly,” said Phantom.  “And painfully, probably.”

“So, there you are,” said Pandora.  “You’ve made a lot of progress.”

“Thanks,” said Phantom, blushing.  His ears twitched, too, their cant showing the same emotion, which was simply precious.

Pandora knelt in front of Phantom.  “And I believe that with more time, you could make even more.  But,” Pandora continued, gently, “I think you are becoming restless.”

“Uh,” said Phantom, his ears tilted ever so slightly back.  “I have had a good time here.”

“I know,” said Pandora.  

“It’s nice.  It’s a little weird, being able to look out through the pillars but not being able to walk out that way, but it’s nice.  It’s been nice.”

“I am not telling you to go, or that you should go,” said Pandora, “only that I understand.  For those like us, there is always an urge to move forward, to do more, to do better.”

“Right,” said Phantom, listing slightly to one side.  “But, um.”

“I do, of course, want you to stay, but I want you to stay while you are happy here, and soon you won’t be.  Can you really tell me that you haven’t been anxious these past couple of days?  That you haven’t been thinking about the time when you will be done with this trial and free?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about that for a while, not just here.”

Pandora tilted her head towards him, letting his own thoughts fill in the next parts of her argument.  

“You do have more to teach me, though, don’t you?”

“An afterlife’s worth, as do all those who hope to call themselves your parents by law.”  She took his hands in one of hers.  “I do hope you choose me, so we can have the time that requires.  Although I know Frostbite won’t begrudge me borrowing you from time to time.”

“Yeah,” said Phantom, fidgeting with his spear.  “Probably not.”  He sighed.  “I don’t know.  I do–  There are only two groups after you.  I… kind of do want this over with.  I want to remember who I am, and who all of you are, and everything.”

“I know.”

“Okay,” said Phantom.  “You’re really okay with me going?”

“Yes.  I want you to be happy, little warrior.”

Phantom nodded.  “Okay.  Okay.  Just…  One more day.  We can relax together or something.  Eat some grapes.  Maybe drink some wine…”  He raised his eyebrows entreatingly.  

“I am trying to follow modern drinking restrictions.”

Phantom shrugged.  “It was worth a try.”

#phic phight 24 #fill

[phicphight]

The Divergence Point

Wes finally succeeds in revealing Danny Phantom's true identity, and everything immediately goes downhill so fast some old ghost named Clockwork steps in.

For the prompt: Wes has done it. He has exposed Phantom to the world. So why can't he get rid of that annoying tick-tock from his head? And why is everything burning? [from @kalifa100]

Read also on AO3

[Warning for mentions of violence]

He... he'd done it.

Wes could hardly believe it himself, but he'd done it!

He'd tricked Danny into transforming in front of everyone, and now no one could deny that Wes had been right all along. They'd all seen the truth with their own eyes, and he'd done it!

He'd exposed Phantom to the world.

But he never expected it to turn out like this.

Why couldn't he get rid of this annoying tick-tocking sound in his head? And why was everything burning? How could achieving his greatest goal be a bad thing?

People were rioting as an unconscious Danny got carried away by the Guys in White. Fights broke out. A fire started. The mayor was trying to get everyone to calm down to absolutely no effect whatsoever. Everyone was freaking out, and no one was even paying any actual attention to the truth Wes had just exposed which started all this in the first place.

He'd just wanted to show them the truth; he never wanted anyone to get hurt.

No. No way. He could fix this.

The ticking had been growing steadily louder in his head, louder and louder until he couldn't focus, couldn't even think, and he was clutching his head in pain, his eyes squeezed shut.

Then, all at once, it quieted to a soft tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock in the background, and the air grew cold.

Wes opened his eyes. He was no longer standing in the second floor window of City Hall. Instead, he looked to be in some kind of clock tower. But the colors were all wrong, eerie and unnatural like they were glowing and absorbing light at the same time.

"Wesley Weston," said a voice.

Wes jumped at the sound and whipped his head toward it. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"I am Clockwork, the Master of Time," the ghost replied, because there was no doubt in Wes' mind that it was a ghost. "And you seem to have gotten yourself in quite a bit of trouble."

Most Amity Parkers would be scared out of their wits if they found themselves face-to-face with an obviously powerful ghost, in what was obviously his home turf, being told that they were in trouble. Wes Weston was not most Amity Parkers, and he wasn't afraid of any ghost, no matter who they were.

Wes narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

Clockwork rapidly aged before Wes, then waved his hand through the air, causing a line to appear. At a single point, the line split into dozens of lines.

"This, is your timeline, and that point," Clockwork said, sticking a gnarled finger at the spot where the lines diverged, "Is today."

Wes wanted to speak, ask a question maybe, or say something in his defense if he did indeed need to defend himself. But the words didn't come to him, so he just listened, waiting for Clockwork to finish his explanation, which would hopefully include why the hell Wes was here.

"Each of these lines that branch off from today, is a direction in which your timeline might go," the old ghost continued. "But you may have noticed that only one of them goes straight forward."

He indicated the line that continued straight amongst all the wild and diverging paths.

"So?"

"So this is the line that you have forced because of your actions," Clockwork pointed to a wiggling, looping line going way off in another direction.

"Again, so?"

"So... this is how that line ends."

Clockwork gestured broadly to a screen where Wes could see a world on fire, ravaged by war. His eyes widened in shock.

"Wait, you're telling me I'm responsible for that?"

"There are billions of people on your world, making trillions of decisions every day, but at any given point in time, there is only one decision that matters, and the person making it changes all the time."

Clockwork jabbed his finger once again at the point where the lines diverged.

"At this distinct point, there is only one person on Earth whose decisions determine the future of the world as you know it," Clockwork said. "And at this distinct point, that person is you. Ordinarily, there are a few potential vital decisions that will result in the safe continuation of the timeline, and one of the right ones is made."

Clockwork waved his hand again, and showed another timeline, side by side with the first. This one, too, branched off after a certain point, although it only had about ten possible outcomes, and three of them kept the timeline going more or less straight ahead, with only slight deviations, where the others spread wider.

Evidently, that was the standard situation, and the divergence point where Wes' decision mattered was atypical to say the least. His had lines that turned around and went backwards, lines that formed loops and waves, and only one that went forward.

Clockwork pointed once more at the divergence point where Wes' decision was the only one that mattered.

"At this divergence point, there is only one right answer," he said. "Only one way to avoid catastrophic consequences. You must not reveal Daniel's secret to the world."

"What?" Wes shouted. "No way! I worked hard to do that! There has to be some way I can keep the timeline from devolving into chaos and still expose Fenton's secret. I worked too hard for too long to just give up!"

"If that's so, then you will repeat the day over until you find it, or realize the futility of trying," Clockwork told him. "Failure will not be tolerated."

The next thing Wes knew, he was gasping awake in bed.

It was eight in the morning on Saturday, and Phantom's public appearance hadn't happened yet, meaning Wes hadn't even gotten the chance to enact his latest plan, and it hadn't caused absolute chaos.

Weird dream.

#phic phight 24 #fill

[phicphight]

Love and War

Sam is struggling with a lot of things. She's half-ghost, she's in love with her two best friends, she's desperately trying to keep both those things a secret, and to top it all off, one of those two best friends is missing, and she's doing everything she can to find him.

For the prompts: Sam has two secrets. One: She's in love with her two best friends. Two: She's a ghost. [from @carelisswriting] Danny has been missing for 2 weeks. Sam and Tucker find him floating, unconscious, in the Ghost Zone, but something's different when he wakes up. [from @hippykattrs], and Reverse trio au but through a series of shenanigans Danny still ends up being the ghost king [from Yellow]

Read also on AO3

[Warning for canon-typical violence and kidnapping]

Sam Manson had only two real, genuine, secrets. The kind of secrets a person held close to their chest and kept as if their life depended on it. The kind of secrets a person lied and tricked people in order to keep, no matter how guilty it made them feel. First, that she was a ghost; and second, that she was in love with her two best friends.

The first of those secrets, only her two best friends knew. They were the two people she trusted most in the world, and the only two people she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt wouldn't ever share that secret, even under threat of death.

The other secret, she hadn't told even them. And she probably never would.

It wasn't that she didn't trust them with it, of course she did. It was just that she didn't want to make things awkward between them. Her being a ghost only changed their entire world-view and understanding of human mortality. But her other secret, her secret crush—that getting out could ruin everything.

Her feelings weren't knew to her. Back in eighth grade, she'd started to develop a crush on both of them at the same time, and she'd thought she was a bad person for not being able to pick just one person to like. She'd since gotten over that, because she'd decided it was stupid, and then a little bit after that, she'd also learned what polyamory was, which cemented her decision that her guilt had been stupid.

As time passed, her feelings grew beyond just a couple of simple crushes, and into genuine, actual love, so strong that it hurt a little. She always scoffed and rolled her eyes when the subject of romance came up, pretending she wasn't interested, and that she thought anyone who would waste their time with something so ridiculous, especially in high school, was an idiot.

It helped to keep her true feelings hidden, even though every time she listened to Tucker all but waxing poetic about the most recent tech he'd found at the scrapyard and was gutting, either to repurpose into recycled tech or new techno-goth accessories—or heard Danny bragging about getting the high score on the NASA shuttle flight simulator, or ranting about stars, she was sure they were written all over her face.

She was down bad, and she knew it—but she would rather die than admit it and risk changing their group's whole dynamic, or even worse, losing her friends completely because she'd made it weird between them.

Danny and Tucker had been friends practically since they were born, but Sam had only become their friend in the sixth grade, and even though that was still a solid three years at this point, she still felt that three years wasn't enough to cement her position if she did something too crazy, like confessing her undying love out of nowhere—not that she would do it like that, because even if she was brave enough to confess at all, that would be coming on way too strong.

The other secret was... more recent. Freshman year had barely started, and the three of them were all hanging out at Danny's house. His parents had made a portal, claiming that it would lead to a place called the Ghost Zone. Unfortunately, it didn't work. It was still cool enough—in theory, at least—that Danny took Sam and Tucker down into his parents' lab to show it to them.

Sam took a couple of pictures. It did look really cool, for a hole in the wall. very futuristic and techie.

"You should go inside and let me take a picture of you," Sam suggested to Danny.

"Are you kidding?" Danny scoffed. "This is untested technology, what if I get electrocuted or something?"

"Fine, I'll do it, and you can take the picture," Sam replied with a roll of her eyes. "It doesn't work, anyway." She handed her camera off to Danny.

"At least put a protective jumpsuit on?" Danny requested. "I don't wanna see you get hurt."

"That's sweet," Sam said. Her tone was sarcastic, but her feelings were genuine. Danny always was sweet—and was only sometimes a bit of a jackass. "Make sure to get the whole portal in the picture. Don't just focus on me and ignore the background."

She borrowed one of Danny's jumpsuits and put it on over her clothes. It was a bit loose on her, and Sam always somehow managed to destroy or stain white clothes, but her main complaint was the big Jack Fenton decal on the chest, which she promptly tore off and threw away.

"I'm not walking around with your dad's face on my chest," she said, then went to stand just inside the portal. "Alright, take the picture."

Danny did, and once the flash faded, Sam turned around to get a look at the big, steel tunnel she was standing in. It was cold and dark, and gave her a strange almost menacing sort of energy that made her body feel like it was buzzing, and she kind of dug it, to be honest. It was weird, but cool.

"This this is actually really cool," she remarked, taking a few steps further in.

"Be careful, Sam!" Danny shouted after her.

The deeper she got in, the stranger it became. In the darkness, the seams in the metal interior seemed to faintly glow and pulse with green, like something was trying to squeeze its way through the cracks, even though the portal didn't work.

Before Sam knew it, she was all the way at the back of the tunnel, and there was some kind of iris shaped mechanism. It, too, appeared to glow, ever so faintly in the dark. Too curious for her own good, Sam put her gloved hand on the mechanism. That turned out to be a mistake.

It happened in an instant, too fast for her to even scream. And when she gasped it felt as if her throat was being filled with silly putty and she choked. Her body was flooded with energy. Simultaneously, red hot pain tore through her every molecule, and an icy chill engulfed her like she'd just fallen through the ice into a frozen lake. The force of the energy from that mysterious mechanism sent her flying backwards as a bright, toxic green filled her vision, pressing in on her from all sides.

The next thing she knew, she was flat on her back in the Fentons' lab, with Danny and Tucker both leaning over her, repeating her name in panicked tones.

"Hm?" she groaned out. "What... what happened?"

Danny and Tucker looked at each other, both of them seemingly at a loss. Danny still had her Polaroid camera, and he held it up and snapped a picture of her, for some reason. She flinched at the flash.

The photo printed, and Danny pulled it off the camera and started to shake it. "Now... don't freak out when you see it but..." he looked at the picture with a pained expression. "Here."

When he turned it around to show her, she couldn't believe what she was seeing. If she hadn't watched him take the picture, she wouldn't have believed it was even her in it. Her hair had turned shock white, and her violet eyes a glowing green. In the back of her mind, almost hysterically, she noted that the jumpsuit was black now, meaning she had once again managed to ruin another piece of white clothing—although it definitely wasn't just a nasty-sauce stain this time.

"What... happened to me?" she asked, her voice a raspy croak.

"I think... you're a ghost," Danny said.

"But hey," Tucker added, obviously trying to bring up the mood. "At least you look cool!"

She did, admittedly, look very cool. Although the dark and spooky aesthetic was more in line with Tucker's than her own.

As it turned out, Sam was only half ghost, or at the very least, if she was a ghost, she could transform to look basically human. If she looked very closely in the mirror, she could see the differences from the way she looked before. The way her hair was lighter, and seemed to almost float whenever she turned her head. The ways her eyes reflected when she moved, or when light shined directly on them.

It was fine.

She was fine.

That had been a few months ago, now, and with the help of all the ghost hunting technology Danny managed to 'borrow' from his parent's lab (though he usually had to modify it with his own engineering skills to make it actually work), Sam had become something of a hero around Amity Park—the Specter. Once Sam had gotten the portal working, other ghosts started to cause come through it into Amity Park, and unlike Sam they all seemed to want to stir up trouble. Although Danny liked to argue that Sam stirred up plenty of trouble herself too.

He used to argue anyway.

But the problem Sam was facing right now wasn't secrets, or crushes, or ghosts. The problem she was most worried about at the moment, was the fact that Danny had been missing for two weeks. According to his parents, he'd been carried off by a ghost, one who hadn't stopped long enough for a chat.

She and Tucker were pretty sure he was somewhere in the Ghost Zone, but that hardly narrowed it down. The Ghost Zone was endless, infinite, impossibly vast. They could search for decades and never find Danny. That didn't deter them in the slightest though. They couldn't get away with just abandoning their lives to search for their friend, but every day after school, and all through the weekends, Sam and Tucker had borrowed the Fenton's Specter Speeder and gone into the Ghost Zone to search for him.

In two weeks, they hadn't seen hide nor hair of Danny. They had, however, seen the Ghost Zone looking more dismal and chaotic than they'd ever seen it before. Fights breaking out left and right, skeletal ghosts swarming places. As much as Sam wanted to help, they couldn't afford to stop. They had a lot of ground to cover, and they had no idea if Danny was even still alive.

By three am, they had found nothing, and decided to call it before they made themselves late for school in a few hours. They'd be back again the next day at 3:30 to search some more.

And they did.

But when they came back at 3:30, everything was different. Peaceful.

Somehow, all the aggressive skeletal soldiers had magically vanished, and the chaos that had defined the Ghost Zone since they started the search for their friend had died down in just a few hours. There were no fights, no new destruction.

The ghosts they saw paid them no attention, focused on rebuilding and cleaning up the various carnage and detritus of the previous battles. None of them seemed the slightest bit concerned about being attacked again.

Just in case, Sam and Tucker kept the ghost shield around the specter speeder active, but it was the strangest thing. For the last two weeks, it had been like the Ghost Zone was a war zone, and now the war had somehow ended. Curious as it was, it didn't matter to their search for their missing friend. They could try to figure out what had happened later, once Danny was safely back with them.

After a few hours, as they started to steer into another area they hadn't searched yet, they saw rows of ghosts, floating silently in the green.

"What are they doing?" Tucker whispered, as if he was worried they might hear him and get angry if he spoke too loud.

"I don't know," Sam whispered back. "I'm gonna take us up a little higher so we can see what's going on."

She pulled back on the steering and took them up over the rows of ghosts. From above, they could see the ghosts lined up almost as if on the banks of an invisible river. In the distance, the ghosts standing what would be upriver, started to float away in a wave.

"What are they doing?" Sam echoed Tucker's question. "I'm gonna fly us closer."

Tucker nodded and she brought them in. As they got closer to where the ghosts were leaving their positions, they could see something floating down the invisible river. When the object—the figure, they realized as they approached—drifted past them, they would fall out of line and float away, as if they'd been standing vigil until it passed for some reason.

"Wait a minute, is that...?" Tucker stated to say, squinting at the drifting figure.

"Danny!"

Sam immediately put on the speed, bringing them right over the drifting figure.

"Deactivate the ghost shield," she said. "I'm going ghost."

Tucker hit the button and Sam, in the ghost form, dropped out through the lower hatch to grab Danny. After two weeks of searching, he was just floating there, unconscious. And all these ghosts seemed happy to stand around and watch without bothering to help him.

When Sam wrapped her arms around her unconscious friends, the ghosts around them hissed and jeered.

"You dare lay a hand on him?" one demanded.

"Back off! He's my friend," she all but snarled at them.

"The Specter..." a different ghost observed. "She must be."

"He is safe, then," said another.

Word started to spread down the line, and steadily, all the ghosts dispersed. For a moment, Sam just watched, then she shook her head and flew herself and Danny back into the Specter Speeder.

"We're in! Reactivate the ghost shield," she called out.

Tucker did so, and as soon as he hit the button, he hurried over to them.

Gently, Sam laid Danny out on the floor and started checking him over for injuries. He still had a pulse, so that, at least, was a good sign. Less good was the fact that he was covered in scrapes and burns, although none of them seemed too severe.

"We should take him to a hospital when we get back, but he should be okay," Sam said.

"You should take him to a hospital," Tucker corrected, holding his hands up. "I don't do hospitals... should we try to wake him up?"

Sam gently tapped Danny's cheeks. Her heart was pounding and she didn't think she'd ever been so worried for anyone in her life. Or so relieved.

Danny groaned slightly.

"Danny," she said softly. "Danny, wake up."

He groaned some more and blinked his eyes open, squinting up at them. His irises had a strange, iridescent quality that Sam recognized vaguely from her own. But they also weren't like her own in a way she couldn't quite describe. Whatever it was, by reaching out with her ghost sense, she could at least tell for absolutely sure, that Danny was still human, and a not a ghost, or half-ghost like her.

"Sam?" he asked. "Tucker? What are you doing here?"

"Us?" Tucker scoffed, "What are you doing here? You've been gone for, like, two weeks. What happened to you?"

Danny chuckled weakly. "That's... kind of a long story," he replied.

The two of them helped him up off the hard floor of a speeder and into a chair, then Sam went to program the autopilot to take them back to the Fenton Portal.

"We've got time," Tucker told him, crossing his arms.

Sam had always thought it would be kind of uncomfortable to cross one's arms with fishnet sleeves, but Tucker never seemed to mind it.

Now that he was sitting up and moving and stuff, Sam noticed that Danny looked a little thin. He probably hadn't been getting enough to eat or drink in the Ghost Zone the past two weeks. Luckily, they kept a very well-stocked snack drawer in the specter speeder, and a case of bottled water, too.

Once he had some food in him, Danny was much more willing to talk, and he started to tell them the story of his time in the Zone, starting with his kidnapping.

"While I was helping my parents in their lab," he began, "you know, tweaking their designs, thinking about what might be useful to the three of us ghost hunting as usual. And the portal was open, because we figured if anything came through, there were three of us in the lab, surrounded by ghost hunting equipment, so it would be fine.

"But the ghost that came through didn't want to fight, or escape. He just flew in, grabbed me, and flew back through the portal. It was a matter of seconds. I'm sure my parents tried to chase after us, but in the time it would have taken them to get to the specter speeder, the ghost had taken me far away."

"Why you?" Sam asked. "What did you do to tick off this ghost?"

"Nothing," Danny told her. "He actually thought I was you."

She stiffened. Honestly, she shouldn't have been all that surprised. Ever since she started kicking their asses and sending them home with their tails between their legs, ghosts had been coming after Sam left and right, but they always wanted to pick fights, not kidnap her. Well... arguably Skulker wanted to kidnap her, but he knew the difference between her and Danny.

"Why?" she asked again.

"Apparently there's this Ghost King, seriously bad dude, and a long time ago, he was imprisoned in this thing called the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep. But a little while, somehow, he was released or broke out or something. Not really sure which. So basically, they wanted you because you're a halfa, and the way they told it, halfas are way more powerful than regular ghosts for some reason.

"Except they messed up," Danny said. "They knew the halfa was a teenager, and that you'd been turned by the Fenton Portal, but they didn't know who you were, so when Rustle came through the portal and immediately saw a teenager working near it, he assumed that I was the halfa."

"But then you explained the situation to them right?" Tucker guessed. They both knew damn well how much Danny loved to explain things—it was one of his most adorable and sometimes annoying—so it was a reasonable conclusion to draw. "Why didn't they bring you back?"

"I didn't get the chance to explain it to them until Rustle had taken me all the way back to the lair the resistance was using as a base of operations and they told me why they kidnapped me in the first place," Danny said. "By that point, the king's spies had told them about the resistance's plan and he sent a crap ton of his soldiers to block off access to the Fenton Portal. Once it was guarded, it was way too dangerous to send me back or try again to get the right person, so they had to make do with me.

"They told me I wasn't going home until the Ghost King was defeated."

Danny paused in his story to drink some more water and open another back of corn chips.

"Seriously Danny?" Tucker asked. "You're leaving us hanging for corn chips?"

Danny didn't bother to swallow before saying, "Dude, I haven't had human food in two weeks, okay? These corn chips taste like fuckin' heaven right now. You guys can wait."

"Come on, what happened next?" Sam asked.

Danny chewed faster and swallowed before finally continuing his story.

"Well, luckily, I'd been working on some prototype Fenton Tech when Rustle grabbed me, and I managed to hang onto it all the way to the base of operations. Plus, I always have some scraps on me, and Technus and Skulker were part of the resistance, and they have some pretty good tech, too.

"So I spent two weeks, with Technus as my incredibly annoying lab assistant that I had regularly threaten with violence to keep from stabbing me in the back, heavily supervised by the ghosts of the resistance, jury-rigging a super anti-ghost ray gun like some kind of megalomaniacal comic book supervillain. I barely had the time to eat or drink anything, and when I did, it was all ghost food, which was not doing great things for my productivity or energy levels, let me tell you.

"Eventually, though, I finished the weapon. I designed it to absorb energy from the plentiful ectoplasm in the Ghost Zone and harness it into a single, supercharged beam that would be powerful enough to bring any ghost to their knees, and it worked amazingly, if I do say so myself," Danny said. Then he went back to his chips like that was the end of the story.

"What happened after that?"

"Oh, I sniped the ghost king through a window of his keep, knocked him right back into the sarcophagus and blew the crown right off his head."

Tucker laughed.

"What's so funny?" Sam asked.

"Nothing," Tucker replied, shaking his head over his chuckles. "I just still can't get over the fact that engineering geek over here has the best aim of the three of us. Like, it I get why, because his freak parents have been teaching him marksmanship since he could pull a trigger, but it's still funny."

"Yeah, laugh it up," Danny said, smirking. "Which one of us defeated the ghost king, again?"

"I yield," Tucker told him. "What happened after that? You were unconscious when we found you?"

"Oh, well, the ray gun worked, but it kind of overloaded and blew up immediately after that," Danny said. "That's the last thing I remember, but judging by the lack of skeleton soldiers, one of the other resistance guys must've locked the sarcophagus when I was done with him. Not sure who it could have been, though, 'cause I didn't think they even had the key."

Upon hearing what Danny had been put through in his absence, Sam was overcome with emotion.

He'd been kidnapped, blackmailed, starved, forced to work with a ghost that had a very personal vendetta against him, to build a super-weapon that would have gone way against Danny's usual morals, and then defeat an incredibly powerful ghost, the literal king of all ghosts, with an unstable ray-gun that blew up immediately after use, knocked him out, and sent him careening, unconscious, through the Ghost Zone.

And Danny was trying to play it off. He was crunching on corn chips and casually waving off all the traumatic shit he'd just been through like it was no big deal, the same way he always waved off traumatic shit, and Sam... Sam couldn't take it anymore.

"Oh, Danny..." she said, her voice trembling with emotion and eyes wet with oncoming tears.

Her horror at what he'd been through combined with her relief that he didn't have to go through it anymore, and mixed with the feelings she'd been hiding for so long, and she didn't know if it was a case of her wires getting crossed or just momentary insanity, but she reached out and pulled him into a hug and kissed him right on the lips.

His lips tasted like salt and canola oil, and the second she realized what she was doing, Sam pulled back, her face turning an alarming shade of red.

For an unbearable moment, the awkwardness strangled out all sound. Then Tucker let out a forced chuckle.

"What, no kiss for me?" he joked. "You're makin' me feel left out."

Sam, halfway to panicked and not sure what else to do thought 'fuck it', and grabbed his cheeks to plant a kiss right on the lips and instantly smudge his black lipstick all the way up to his nose, unable to stay steady with how incredibly anxious she now was.

Whatever shade of red she'd turned before was so much darker now she felt lightheaded, and Tucker looked dazed as he brought two black-nailed fingers up to his lips in shock.

And just when Sam thought she might die of embarrassment, Danny reached over, grabbed Tucker by his black leather vest, and—whether to ease Sam's embarrassment, or for some other reason Sam couldn't possible comprehend, especially in her current state—he pulled the other boy close and kissed him, too.

They spent the rest of the, thankfully short, ride back to the Fenton Portal steeped in awkward silence. Once they were back in the human world, Tucker sealed the portal while Sam helped Danny upstairs to his parents so they could take him to the hospital.

They didn't say a word about the... kissing incident, even when they started talking again. At least, until about 1 am that night when Tucker sent them an IM on their private group chat.

TooFine: So... we ever gonna talk about that kissing junk? Cus its literally keeping me up at night

Sam was already awake when the message came in. To be honest, it was keeping her up too. She didn't want to say anything, didn't want to explain, but... actually, it felt like it might be easier to tell him, both of them, when there was a screen between them, as if it was a layer of protection. Even if Danny might not see it until later, since the hospital had decided to keep him overnight for observation—although his parents might have brought him his laptop to pass the time.

So Sam took a deep breath and started typing.

Samanson: actually... there's something i need to tell you guys.

Samanson: i've kind of had a crush on you - both of you - since middle school.

Samanson: a huge crush. probably more than a crush, honestly.

Samanson: i didn't want to say anything because i was worried about ruining our friendship, but i guess the cats out of the bag now.

Once she started, she had to forcibly stop herself from sending more messages and pouring out all her feelings in the group chat. She forced herself to sit still, wring her hands, and wait with bated breath for a response, even if she had to wait all night, because god knew she wasn't going to get any sleep after this.

After a long moment, a message came through.

SpaceDanny: Yeah....... me too, actually.

Sam very nearly cried with relief. Danny might tease her sometimes, like they all teased each other, but he knew when to take her seriously, too. She wasn't sure exactly how much he meant by that little 'me too', but at the very least it meant he didn't hate her.

TooFine: Wait ACTUALLY actually???

SpaceDanny: Yeah

Samanson: also yeah.

SpaceDanny: I had a whole sexuality crisis over it, but it was about the same you came out and I didn't wanna steal your thunder, so I decided to keep it to myself for a while.

SpaceDanny: And then I worked it up into such a big deal in my head somehow that I just never did '-_-

Samanson: sooo.......

Tucker hadn't actually said anything about it yet.

Which, on the one hand meant he hadn't shot them down, but the other hand followed that fact with a pretty damn big 'yet'.

Tucker continued to not say anything for several minutes, and Sam started to worry that he was just going to ghost them from now on, which, while ironic, would majorly suck. Even if he didn't want to date them, he was still their best friend and they didn't want to lose him. But they couldn't force him to stay, either.

Finally, another IM came through.

TooFine: You know what? Awesome

Sam let out a sigh of relief and fought back the waterworks again.

TooFine: Ill be real, Ive never really though about it before, but Im definitely not NOT into it. Im getting a girlfriend AND a boyfriend out of this and thats sick as hell.

TooFine: You guys wanna have a movie date saturday?

SpaceDanny: YES

TooFine: Yk, once weve all caught up on some sleep lol

Samanson: definitely. that sounds nice

SpaceDanny: So much yes do I want that

Sam did cry then, but she would never ever tell the two of them that. After the emotional roller coaster that day had been, she was just too happy to hold it in.

Things started to get... weird after that. Not because they all started dating, though. That part was really nice, and went amazingly well right off the bat with the three of them holding hands and cuddling up during school whenever they got the chance—to the point where Ms. Tetslaff called them out at lunch for excessive PDA. No, it was weird for other reasons.

None of them had sufficiently caught up on sleep by the time Saturday rolled around, and Danny still sported bandages from his hospital stay, but it didn't matter. They met up at the movie theater for a matinee and planned to go to dinner at Nasty Burger afterwards. They'd done the same exact thing on plenty of other Saturdays, but it was different this time.

They hit a tiny bump when they got to their seats and decided to to rock-paper-scissors for who got to sit in the middle, Sam won. It hardly mattered though. They pushed up the dividers between the seats, and all fell asleep halfway on top of each other before the halfway point of the movie. The usher had to wake them up and send them out so he could clean the theater before the next showing.

They had a good laugh about that as they all walked to the Nasty Burger.

Up until that point, it was going really well, and the three of them were all happy and having fun. Then a ghost showed up.

And that was when things started to get weird.

The ghost showing up wasn't weird in-and-of itself. Tucker and Danny knew the drill. They blocked Sam from view so she could go ghost and prepare for a fight. Ghosts came to fight Sam all the time, so this was nothing new. Except that this ghost wasn't there for Sam.

This ghost ignored her completely to fire off a ghost ray at Danny and demand that he fight them.

And that was weird.

Still, it wasn't exactly a problem. Danny activated his wrist ray, and although Sam co-opted the bulk of the battle, he provided some solid support. Within a few minutes, the two of them got the ghost into a position where Tucker could capture it in the Fenton thermos. Sam ducked behind them to change back, and they could be back on their way.

"Did you recognize that ghost, Danny?" Sam asked curiously. "One of your resistance friends?"

Danny shrugged and shook his head.

"Weird," Tucker noted.

"Yeah, that's so random," Sam agreed. "Why would a ghost go after Danny? Especially after he literally saved their whole dimension from an evil warmongering king. Way to show him your gratitude."

"I don't know, and I don't care," Danny said coolly. "I just want to go to Nasty Burger, and have dinner with my awesome boyfriend and girlfriend and not have to think about ghosts for a while."

He held out his hands for each of his partners to take, and they walked the rest of the way to Nasty Burger side by side by side, awkwardly and laughingly navigating past street lamps and telephone poles that made the sidewalks too narrow for the three of them shoulder to shoulder, never releasing each other's hands.

Danny got his wish to forget about ghosts for the rest of their date. But that night, he was woken up by a ghost coming into his room to try and attack him in his sleep. It didn't work, because Danny was a light sleeper, and went to bed wearing a wrist ray with an ecto-gun and a Fenton Thermos on his nightstand.

Sam and Tucker were both equally concerned and baffled when Danny told them about it when they came over to hang out the next day. Once could be written off as a fluke, and maybe twice could be a coincidence.

But it kept happening. Every day or two, a ghost would show up to challenge Danny for some reason.

It got to the point where Sam forced Danny to wear a specter deflector at all times for his safety, even though he constantly pouted about not being able to hold her hand or kiss her.

Tucker had rolled his eyes, promised to give him twice as many kisses to make up for it, and then called him a big baby.

Danny immediately started working on a way to make the specter deflector ignore Sam's unique ecto-signature, of course, because he was a sweetheart like that, but he kept getting interrupted by random ghosts showing up and demanding to fight him. Even when they couldn't touch him—either directly, or with ghost powers—they still tried.

It was after school when the three of them were all heading to Sam's house for bowling, that they got any semblance of an explanation.

Another ghost none of them recognized stopped them on the street, but this one was chattier than the others. She had long, flowing blue hair, and shimmering blue skin, and pointed an unnaturally long finger right at Danny.

"I, Mistress Mona, spectral siren, have come to challenge you for the throne of the Infinite Realms," she declared. "Prepare to meet your match, ghost king."

"What?" Danny breathed out, looking more confused than Sam had ever seen him.

The ghost didn't wait for them to ask questions though, she attacked them with a ghostly green wave that appeared out of nowhere, and started to sing.

The trio didn't give her song time to take effect. Danny shot her directly in the throat, silencing her with his perfect marksmanship, and then Sam kicked Mona's butt all the way back to the Ghost Zone. Or into the Fenton Thermos Tucker was holding, anyway.

"Why the hell did she call me the ghost king?" Danny asked. "I'm not the ghost king. The ghost king is Pariah Dark, and he's locked up in the Sarcophagus of Forever sleep."

"I think we're gonna have to take a rain check on bowling, boys," Sam said, turning around to walk back the way they came down the sidewalk. "We're going to the Ghost Zone, and we're gonna get to the bottom of this."

"What?" Tucker complained. "But I wanted to go bowling!"

"Me too, but there's no arguing with her when she gets like this," Danny said with a sigh, and the two of them followed Sam back toward Fenton Works.

Danny's parents were working up in the ops center today, so the lab was empty when the three of them arrived and Tucker went to warm up the specter speeder.

"You alright, Danny?" Sam asked, noticing that he looked a bit jittery.

"Hm? Yeah, I'm fine," he assured her.

He wasn't, but he always pretended none of this affected him. She wasn't sure if it was toxic masculinity making him think he had to be strong all the time and never tell her when he was stressed, or if he just didn't want to process everything he'd been through for some reason, or if his brain genuinely didn't register how much it was affecting him, but whatever the case, she knew she wasn't going to get anything out of him until or unless he wanted to tell her, so she didn't bother to push it.

"You don't have to go, if you don't want to," she told him instead. "I know the last time you were in the Ghost Zone wasn't exactly the best. If you don't want to go, Tucker and I can handle it."

"What? No," Danny said, frowning. "I'm the core of this problem, somehow, I'm not just gonna leave it to you guys to deal with on your own. I want to help."

"Alright," Sam conceded. He did make a good point. "If that's what you want, I won't stop you."

At that moment, Tucker hovered in with the specter speeder and Danny climbed in next to him.

Sam opted to go ghost and follow alongside this time, to more easily talk to people, since it seemed like they were probably going to have to ask around to get the information they were looking for from ghosts that passed.

Danny, however, had to stay in the speeder with the ghost shield active, because there was a good chance that as soon as they got into the Ghost Zone, he'd be swarmed by more foolhardy ghosts trying to fight him for some reason, and unlike Sam, he didn't have ghost powers to protect himself, just his wits and a specter deflector. And to be fair, he'd been doing pretty well on just those so far, but up until now he'd only ever had to fight one ghost at a time.

They stayed in communication via their Fenton-phones.

As expected, once they got into the Ghost Zone, they were approached by ghosts goading Danny to turn of the ghost shield and fight them head on, but they either gave up when they realized he wasn't dumb enough to do that, or Sam chased them off.

It wasn't long however, before Sam found a ghost that wasn't openly belligerent, and approached him. Although his clothes were very old fashioned, he was still recognizable as some kind of farmer.

"Excuse me," she said. "I'm Specter, and I was wondering if I could ask you some questions."

"Oh, of course," said the ghost. "Anything for the new king's general. Unlike those ruffians, I am forever grateful for his majesty saving us from his predecessor's rule."

"Uh... okaayyy, lot to unpack there," Sam said, turning up the receiver on her Fenton-phones so Danny and Tucker would be able to hear what the ghost Farmer said from inside the speeder, "but let's start with: how can Danny be the Ghost King? He's not even a ghost?"

"Doesn't matter mum," the farmer ghost said. "The title of ghost king is won in single combat."

"How does me sniping him from fifty yards away count as single combat?" Danny demanded in her Fenton-phones. "He never even saw my face! He never had the chance to fight back."

Sam relayed the question, as well as Danny's arguments to the farmer, who simply laughed.

"I don't make the rules, mum," he said. "Your friend made the machine that defeated the king, and he alone fired it. That makes him the new king, no ifs, ands, or buts about it."

"But... but..." Danny tried to complain, but he was drowned out by Tucker laughing at him.

Sam bit back a smile.

"What about what you said before about me being the new king's general?" Sam asked. "How does that work?"

"You're the ghost the king trusts to protect him personally, and whose advice on all tactical matters he heeds," the farmer replied. "That makes you his general."

Sam wanted to argue, but she supposed that all of that was technically true. She fought a lot of Danny's ghosts for him—with his help, of course. And when she'd told him to wear a specter deflector, he did, even though he didn't want to.

Ghost king's general, huh? That sounded kind of badass, actually.

"Thank you for your help, sir," she told the ghost.

"Think nothin' of it," he replied.

"This is ridiculous!" Danny grouched. "I can't be the ghost king! I'm not even a ghost!"

"Shoulda thought of that before you sniped Pariah Dark, I guess," Sam teased.

Tucker hadn't stopped laughing at him, and now that she wasn't mid-conversation and trying to keep her cool, Sam laughed too.

#phic phight 24 #fill

[phicphight]

Phic Phight - Acatalepsy

@atropos_aeneas @lwh-writing

Jazz had always been very firm on her opinions on her parent’s beliefs and behaviour, but she was far more firm on her love and care for her little brother.

Chap. 1:

Peremptory

Jazz has had it about up to here, with these so called ghosts, with her parents dangerous obsession and neglect that bordered on abuse, with the town even vaguely entertaining all this foolishness, with a skin tight costume wearing wannabe vigilante. She couldn’t do much of anything about the seeming mass hallucinations. She couldn’t do anything about her parents, she’s spent years trying after all. She couldn’t do anything about the town as a whole, even if she’s still trying to figure out why everyone’s decided that now is the time to go along with her parents insanity. However she can at least try to do something about the vigilante, she can talk to him and try to get it through his head that feeding into this was bad and if someone real took him seriously he could get really hurt.

It wasn’t like it would be all that difficult to chase the boy down, he got spotted multiple times a day so all she had to do was wait for a ‘ghost sighting’ and track him down. She, once again, was proven to be firmly correct. She’s easily able to spot him at the next ‘ghost’ sighting; she’d really like to figure out what was causing so many people to either have hallucinations or to just be going along with certain people’s delusions.

The thing that gets her though… is he is actually glowing from head to toe. How? Some sort of spray perhaps? That seemed like a lot of effort just to play into all this foolishness. Was this a teen who genuinely desperately wished to be ‘a superhero’ and thus took the first chance he could get? That was incredibly unhealthy and spoke of a very unbalanced and unkind childhood. Neglect perhaps? Or parentification maybe? Trying to make up for childhood feelings of helplessness?

Now how to best get his attention? pretending to be injured or under attack posed the risk of attracting her parents or genuinely worrying the teen. She couldn’t simply wait around to talk to him, as he was known to not stick around after catching ‘the ghost’. Perhaps she can flex her big sister muscles and point aggressively at the ground in his direction? he looked young enough that that very well might work.

Well that’s the best she’s got so that’s what she does. Waving in the air at the teen and then pointing at the ground very firmly with a ‘you better come here, mister’ eyebrow. The teen looking cautious and unsure as he lowers himself to the ground, her absently wondering how he’s managing this floating ability; cords? a wire system? magnets?

The teen giving an awkward, “yes, random citizen?”. Oh he’s trying to pretend he doesn’t know exactly who she is, with her parents it’s no surprise that a so called ‘ghost’ would know them and thusly her. Her parents have talked about shooting at him, she’s been on the receiving end of their inventions enough to know how unpleasant that could be.

Jazz crossing her arms at the ghost, “I think it’s about time we talked”. The teen seems more fidgety at that, and she doesn’t want him running off. Gesturing at a bench and making a point to smile softly, comfortingly, “how about we sit down? It’s nothing bad, I promise. I just want to understand why you’re doing this?”.

Somehow she gets the feeling that actually annoys him but he sighs, ‘lands’ on the ground, and walks with her to a more out of eye sight picknick table than the bench she’d pointed out. Was he paranoid of being seen in general? Or of being seen talking to her specifically? The later she could understand due to her parents reputation, but the former? If it’s the former then she’s even more confused and concerned over why he’s doing this… unless he’s suffering from genuine delusions himself and truly believes his ‘heroics’ are necessary.

What she gets from him is snark, defensive snark. He’s absolutely paranoid and nervous. “So what does the daughter of the ghost hunters constantly shouting about shooting me and how I’m evil, want with me?”, him gesturing at her body, “you aren’t armed so doubt they sent you to try and shoot me”.

Even though he’s being defensive, he’s not wrong either. Her parents did shoot at him and did tell everyone they could that all ‘ghosts’ including ‘the ghost boy’ were evil ‘ectoplasmic’ manifestations of ‘post human consciousness’. If ghosts were somehow real, which they were not, it would make sense to behave defensively regarding her parents and anyone closely associated with them. She puts her hands up in a surrendering motion for a few seconds, “no ‘weapons’ or ‘inventions’ I promise. I meant what I said, all I want is to know why you’re doing everything. I’d simply like to ask you some questions and hope to get honest answers in return”.

He seems… more annoyed but less fidgety, less paranoid. He believes her but finds what she’s doing annoying. Perhaps he’s been taken to therapists before? And has had less than positive interactions with them for one reason or another? She’s fully aware that the wrong therapist to patient relationship can do more harm than good, and that there are bad actors out there and those who are simply looking for the paycheck. Unfortunate, but true. “I’m going to be annoyed if this winds up on the news but alright”, making ‘go ahead’ gestures at her, “ask your questions”.

Jazz’s response is near automatic, “I believe in absolute confidentiality, it will not”. He eyes her with those green eyes, expensive contacts she imagines, and seems to take her word for it. So she asked her first question, “throughout your childhood, have you always had an inclination towards vigilantism? A desire to monitor your environment for signs of deviance or punish those who do wrong onto others, perhaps?”.

The teen scoffs, actually scoffs, at her, “my home is and was always ‘deviant’, looking for that would be dumb. And I don’t like bullies sure, but no, I’ve never wanted to ‘punish’ people’”, he shakes his head softly, like he’s trying to be gentle with her, “I’m not a vigilante, I’m not fighting crime or evil doers or whatever. I’m not Batman or robin and I’m not trying to be. I’m just protecting people and ghosts, and a little bit of socialising”.

She’s not one hundred percent sure if he’s simply really good at going along with the ‘ghost’ bit or if he actually believes in them. “So you would describe what you’re doing as ‘protecting the masses from harm’ then, yes? Would you say that’s for people’s general physical safety or for protecting societal integrity and status quo?”. There was a very big difference between the two after all. “And why would you seek to go about protecting in this manner? Rather than working towards a career in a protective field, such as a police officer or fireman?”.

Now this, he actually looks like he’s genuinely considering her question before responding, “physical safety, of everyone including myself. Your parents are menaces.-”. She can’t argue that last statement. “-I never wanted those kinds of jobs, I didn’t really even want this one at first”, shrugging, “no one else was or could, no offence but also full offence, deal with all the ghosts causing problems”.

… He might actually genuinely believe this ghost thing. She can acquiesce that if ghosts were somehow real that her parents would not actually be all that great at dealing with them. Her dad was far too forgetful and easy going, while her mom would be held back by her dad. The fact that everyone justly thought them insane wouldn’t help either. “Physical safety, of others and ourselves is important, however aren’t you putting yourself in danger by doing this? From ‘ghost hunters’, yes like my parents, and the ‘ghosts’?”; it’s incredibly hard to keep the disbelief out of her voice but she needs to tackle the ‘superhero’ identity first. Maybe getting him to see how illogical and backwards it ultimately was would help break the delusion.

“Obviously I’m putting myself in danger, but I am either way-”. That makes her furrow her eyebrows at him. “-nearly every fight I get into I did not start, they’re picking fights with me. Some super directly by literally hunting me down to try and beat me up for one reason or another. Others are more invading my territory I guess, and harming those people and objects inside it”; it looks like that genuinely really bothers him on a deep level.

Now if he is actually just being attacked by these mass hallucinations or projections perhaps then self defence did make sense. But if these were mass hallucinations why would they be specifically targeting one person like this? That wouldn’t make sense. Now if they’re projections that someone, who is definitely insane, is creating then why are they going after this one teen so much? “Do you believe you know why you’re being targeted so much? Outside of my parents being crazy”. As for him being apparently territorial… “and why do you view Amity as your territory?”. Yes people did often claim their city or town as part of them and then part of it, but to be explicitly territorial and possessive was abnormal.

He actually chuckles a little, “outside of your parents being crazy, it varies. They usually tell me why, though Boxy seems to just be looking to get beat up? Or he is insanely nuts about how strong and scary he is. The Lunchlady threw stoves at me because her food got messed with. Skulker wants to skin me, which is very gross and something I want nothing to do with. Plasmius is angry I won’t ’let him adopt me’, and wants to constantly try to prove he’s better and stronger than me in every way. I could go on”, sighing, “as for the town? It’s just is my town? That’s really all there is to it. It’s mine and other ghosts aren’t welcome to harm anything inside it”. He says that like it’s a given, like it’s obvious and simple, like it’s not supremely abnormal and unhealthy.

If someone is indeed creating and controlling projections then they are a very cruel person, as it seems that this teen genuinely believes these reasonings; meaning it is unlikely this is some sort of game or set up that the teen is in the know on. “What if the ‘other ghosts’ aren’t doing any harm? Would they be welcome then?”.

He blinks, looking a bit confused and surprised by that question, before humming to himself, it vibrates oddly. “I suppose so. If Cujo was less accidentally destructive I’d be fine with him running around, he’s pretty much just a dog after all. A green dog but still just a dog. And Piondexter I would leave alone since I know he doesn’t actually mean harm, he just really hates bullies and unties their shoes and shit”.

Right, that Valerie girl claimed a ‘large green dog’ had gotten her dad fired and destroyed practically all of their belongs and that said dog belonged to ‘the ghost boy’. This ‘Poindexter’ though, “I’ve heard the ‘stories’ about the ‘green dog’, but I can’t say I’m familiar with Piondexter”.

The teen shrugs, “he lives in a mirror in that ‘haunted locker’ in Casperhigh, he can kinda use it like a personal portal”.

Oh not that stupid rumour. Of course who or what ever is causing all of this included that into everything. “Is there any others that seem tied to local myth and legend?”.

The teen shakes his head immediately actually, “no. Piondexter seems more like a coincidence than the trend.-”. Why would only one local legend be utlisied and not all of them? Strange. “-Just like how most of the ghosts want to fight and cause some chaos, so him being mostly chill isn’t the trend either”.

Honestly, that sounded a bit like her parent’s view of ghosts, just far less inhumane and illogical. This teen believed the ‘ghosts’ wanted to fight and cause chaos out of fun, it seems. Whereas her parents just thought they were inherently evil, living hating, monsters. She can admit this teens view point is far more logical. “So you believe these ‘ghosts’ are doing this out of enjoyment? Rather than being villains, or evil for that matter”.

“Some are just assholes, like people who pickpocket people in wheelchairs. Fighting is just, kinda part of how ghosts socialise, most aren’t actually trying to seriously hurt me or the citizens, they just forget how fragile the living can be; and that I’m not a freaking mind reader. Also more than a few of the ghosts who’ve shown up here have been to jail multiple times”.

So there’s some sort of judiciary system in his mind? Or is this something conjured up by the projection controller? A way to make it seem more believable perhaps? But in that case wouldn’t it make more sense to simply go along with what her parents say fully and have them be simply evil monsters? She will give this some credit on being a bit more complex than she had initially thought though. “Do you know how this jailing system works?”.

He blushes… green? How? At that, “not really, no. I do know that each prison is basically ran like a freaking dictatorship by the warden though, and that the prison that’s super close to your parents portal, you know on the ghost side, is ran by a hardass with a serious sadistic streak”.

She blinks, he says that like he’s been ‘on the other side’ of her parents contraption -because she is not calling it a freaking portal, that’s absurd- and like there actually is something on the other side of it. “You’ve been to this ghost side?”; that question is pure curiosity, no diagnosis involved.

He quirks an eyebrow at her, “of course? Every ghost has? That’s kinda where we’ve all come from?”, running a hand through his impossibly pure white hair, that she honestly thought was a wig but up close she can tell that’s not the case. “Honestly? The ghost problem is that portals fault”, gesturing with his hands, “your parents made a permanent, frequently opening, pass into the living world. Of course ghosts were going to take advantage of that, they know exactly where and when they’ll come out and they have a guaranteed ticket home. Which fine, I do speed along, since I just send every ghost I catch back, but that’s not the cause for them being here in the first place”. He eyes her for a beat before sighing and giving her an amused smirk, “you don’t believe in ghosts, do you? You think this is all a big conspiracy, or mass hallucinations, or projections, or just a bunch cock and bull people are making up for some reason. Am I right?”.

The way he says that tells her that she was right that he wasn’t ready to have to face that reality yet. Sighing at him and trying to be gentle about shaking her head, “no. No I do not. The idea of souls alone is unproven and highly unlikely. The idea of those souls creating their own forms out of energy and existing in a connected realm seems too far fetched. This isn’t a belief in the afterlife as a form of coping with death, which would be perfectly healthy and often religiously significant”.

“So if you don’t believe in ghosts, why are you even talking to me?”. He obviously thinks she believes that he’s one of these ‘ghosts’.

She shakes her head at him, “you’re not fantastical like all the images and reported sightings of ghosts are. You’re physical, you always read as more solid and human. A teen who’s dressed up and seen a chance to be the hero they’ve always wanted to be perhaps. Your behaviours vary according to situation, you have clear fight or flight. Your behaviour shows far more than simple: show up, cause chaos, and leave”. She’s not going to tell him that she hasn’t quite decided if he’s simply experiencing the same hallucinations or projections as everyone else, or is actually suffering delusional issues.

For whatever reason that makes him more nervous. He makes an aborted attempt to rub his neck before seemingly releasing that wasn’t very ‘professional hero’ of him, clearing his throat, “you pay way too much attention, geez”, shaking his head and frowning at her in a way that feels like pity, “spend any amount of time around any ghost and you’ll find the same stuff. Skulker makes awesome lemon creme pies and has a girlfriend. Technus keeps changing up his style to seem ‘cool’. Half the time Johnny and Kitty show up it’s because they’re having a lovers spat again. They’re people. Your parents aren’t crazy ‘cause they believe in ghosts, they’re crazy because they think ghosts are emotionless evil monsters.-”. So he’s delusional, not good… but outright dismissing him would do no good. He puts a hand to his chest, “-I’m not dressed up in some costume, or wearing contacts, or using some glow spray. I died in this, and no you don’t get to ask about the how of that”, he stares a bit before continuing, “I don’t breath, Jazz Fenton, does that sound alive to you? I certainly pretend to around humans, because they get freaked out otherwise. If you hook me up to an ekg you’ll get a whole lotta nothin’. If you were as cold as I am you would be severely hypothermic and dying”, and for the first time a so called ‘ghost’ touches her.

He’s solid yet feels like static, and he’s right, his skin feels ice cold. How? He’s solid, clearly a person. A bit unintentionally she watches his chest, it doesn’t move. No rise and fall. Nothing. Her furrowing her brows at him, still holding his arm, “this doesn’t make sense”.

The teen shrugs at her, “since when does everything ever make sense? I’m dead, that’s really all there is to it. Ghosts are cool with being dead so it doesn’t bother us, but at least I’m aware that the living aren’t super cool with death. You believe I’m real and all the others aren’t because I act more like what you know, aka, living humans”.

She frowns, could that really be the case? Her parents be both right and wrong? and her be wrong entirely? But that never happened, she was always in the right when she set her mind on something. When she was wrong it was over simple things she had no real opinion on. Matters of taste or what the weather would be like, perhaps what in all was going to be on a test. When it came to matters of the mind, behaviours, human nature, states of being; she was always right. Always. There was no real proof for souls, and thusly ghosts, none. Even studies claiming to be able to determine the weight of a soul were ludicrously biased and far too open for interpretation.

And yet…

Here was someone who was clearly not a hallucination nor a projection. He was solid, there was thought behind those green eyes, he could hold a conversation. Yet he did not seem to breathe, and cold radiated off of him like his insides were packed with dry ice.

He was a person, a being, and yet wasn’t behaving as one, a living one. She eyes him as he pulls his arm away, “so you don’t ‘float’ by a string system or magnets perhaps?”.

He attempts to cover up a laugh, she doesn’t even feel insulted because this is just all too strange, her being wrong. He shakes his head, “no, I don’t”, gesturing at the glow over his suit, “my energy, my ectoplasm, simply grabs onto the air particles and pulls me along as I want to”.

Ectoplasm shouldn’t be real. It shouldn’t be possible. “Ectoplasm doesn’t exist”.

“I am quite literally made of it so yeah it definitely does”, him then humming and tilting his head, then he… spits into his hand. Ew. Boys. EuGH. She absolutely recoils when he ‘offers’ said hand to her, but… all that’s in his hand is a glowing green goo-like substance. He… sticks his finger in it and pushes it around before pulling his finger up, the green substance sticking to his finger and stretching in strands of goo. It looks to be getting slowly absorbed into him until it’s all gone.

That should be impossible, shouldn’t it? She just witnessed an impossibility. But if she’s witnessing it then it isn’t impossible, improbable perhaps but not impossible. And it was impossible for any living mammal to survive without oxygen, meaning that no matter how improbable, what he’s saying must be true. What came out of his mouth he absorbed through his finger… as if it was a part of any area of his body rather than specialised by area as it would be for a living mammal. She stares at his hands, which are now simply resting on the table while he waits for her to think. “So, you’re a ghost and ghosts are real?”.

“Yup”.

“And the afterlife is real”.

“Bit more complicated than that but yup”, he snorts, “Zone I barely understand a quarter of it”.

Was that unusual? She doesn’t know. She feels like everything’s out of balance now. Like she doesn’t really know anything anymore. Like she’s fallen into the god complex trap. Where she’s convinced herself she’s infallible and perfect. Perfectly logical. Perfectly rational. Perfectly understanding. Perfectly right. “And the towns plagued by the dead”.

“Eh, it’s more like a hot spot, a vacation with fist-a-cuffs being the main dish on the menu”.

“And… it’s my crazy parent’s fault”.

“I accidentally made the connection actually work, so only partly”.

“You… did?”.

“Yup”.

Was… that part of why he was doing this? A sense of responsibility perhaps? “So you feel responsible? Like if you don’t, someone getting hurt will be, in a way, your own fault?”.

He shrugs, “I have the ability to help, so I help, and Amity is mine”.

This still didn’t make sense though, why… this ‘ghost’? Why was he acting as a protector and claiming this town to be his? “Why you?”.

The smile he gives her is a bit rueful, “I was here first. This town was my home long before these other ghosts made some kind of game out of stirring shit in it”.

“So you haunt this town? Why?”.

“Because it’s mine, there really ain’t anything more to it”.

That still seems illogical to her, “wouldn’t it be easier to go ‘haunt’ somewhere else?”.

“Easier, but wrong”, he shrugs, “no ghost in their right mind would abandon what’s theirs just because some other ghost is being an asshole”.

So then were these ‘ghosts’ territorial to a fault by nature? Intentionally putting themselves in harms way for ‘their possessions’? That seems so foolish, to risk throwing away one’s life over objects and places… but then again, this boy… wasn’t alive, was he? She, logically, can’t ascribe living values on someone non-living. A strange thought in and of itself. “So you have no issue being involved in fights and risking injury, while also taking great issue with loss or harm to what you claim as yours?”.

He chuckles, genuinely, “oh I also just enjoy a good fight, you know? Stretching my ectoplasmic hide and whatnot. Like you guys and stretching those muscle things”, pursing his lips, “but if I get my arm lopt off I can just slap that shit right back on or reform a new one. Yeah I get hurt, yeah it’s painful, but it ain’t that serious. I mean I’m probably totally gonna pick a fight I can’t win someday and that’ll be that. The way the cookie crumbles and all that”.

“So you don’t care that you might die- stop existing?”.

“I care about my own end, simply less than you care about yours. I’d rather risk being ended than not protect”. The way he says that had such a firm definiteness to it that it sounded like an unmovable unalterable fact. No different from the colour of the sky or the name of their planet. Unchangeable and absolute.

So for him, this was need. It was a drilled in fact of who and apparently what he was. Something every person in Amity could bend steel around. That was sort of… a comfort actually. With this new reality that ghosts are real, that her parents are right, that this town is truly plagued by death, that it even needed a ‘protector’ at all. It made sense to feel comforted, after all weaker prey animals always felt safer with a larger more dangerous animal protecting them. The sheep relied on the dogs, and the dogs fought the wolves even if it died doing so. “Wouldn’t it be better to get rid of the portal?”.

He’s response is immediate and almost aggressive, “no”; his eyes even have a brightness to them they normally did not. His eyes could change brightness… that was bizarre to witness. Perhaps, in his apparent accidental aid in its connection, that he hasn’t expanded upon, he became aggressively fond of the device. He shakes his head and the light dims, “anymore questions about my whole existence thing? Or attempts to ‘analyze’ me?”.

She shakes her head slowly, she needed to digest all of this, think on it all. “No. I suppose, if you truly are not human, there’s no rationalising you to me, and no rationalise myself to you”.

“You say that as if I don’t remember being human. You’ve never been a ghost, I’ve been human”.

Jazz smiles a little at that, “so something else my parents are wrong about”; it was comforting to know they were still wrong about a lot of things, just not everything.

He waves her off, “eh, I’m kinda a weirdo. Don’t think too much about it or you’ll hurt yourself, you over analyzer”. He sounds honest and she didn’t realize then how glad she’d be for that.

Chap. 2:

Reticency

These days Jazz had a lot of opinions about ghosts, some were complicated some were simple. Ghosts were real was simple. Ghosts were her towns pride and joy even if they also hated them was simple. Ghosts were mostly annoying was simple. Ghosts were possible to call friends was complicated. Ghosts were complex intelligent sentient beings was complicated. Ghost hunting was a real profession was complicated.

The Box Ghost being weak and not the least bit frightening was simple.

Danny Phantom being her brother was complicated.

Her parents being so wrong on ghosts that they’re best ignored was simple.

Her finding out about her brother’s ‘alive’ status without him knowing and thus her having to ignore that she knows was complicated.

If she had it her way, Danny would have told her on his own, himself. She wouldn’t have just stumbled on it, on him. She wouldn’t have had to realise in a random back alley that her brother was dead. Had died. She never noticed. Their parents never noticed. Yet somehow he was happy like this, stronger as a person like this. She knew that for a fact, she knew that more strongly than she’d ever believed ghosts weren’t real.

Sometimes she’d worry that he was suffering, that he needed help and a diagnosis, then she’d always remember how stupidly honest and genuine he’d been about enjoying fighting and being alright dead. But still, it was impossible for her to like her brother being dead, which was a dilemma all of its own. Especially when his friends seemed to feel no different about him, seemed to see him no different; as his big sister she had to give him the same. She knows she’s right that it would hurt him if she wasn’t completely okay and supportive of him being as he is, and she’s sure she’ll get there she just didn’t have enough of the facts, enough of the knowledge, to feel comfortable and assured just yet. It was a work in progress.

So she didn’t tell him she knew. She gave lies and ignorance to his face just like he did to hers. Because she wanted to be as okay with it as he was. Because she wanted him to tell her himself, to confide in his big sister. Even if he was confiding about being dead. Because she wanted to understand ghosts before hand. At least now she knew what he had meant by weird, being able to still look human. And at least she knew why he didn’t want the portal destroyed so badly, it didn’t take a genius to realise his accident with it had been what resulted in his demise. In a lot of ways that made her hate the machine, but he cleaned that thing almost obsessively; it was the one part of the lab he was genuinely thorough with. It was as if it was sacred to him, near and dear. And really? It was. It was his grave after all, as disturbing to her as that was. Perhaps it was something of a coping mechanism to him, part of grieving that he could only complete in part because he hadn’t ever moved on. It was one of his possessions, like everything in his room, she used to worry about how oddly possessive her brother had become over his things.

Now she knew.

One thing she doesn’t know is what happened to his body, his living body that died, and she honestly doesn’t want to. That’s one unknown she’s fine leaving as an unknown.

But she’s very glad he was honest with her, when she sat him down as Phantom. Honest about how he felt about everything. Honest about being dead. Honest about remembering himself. Honest about trying and wanting to come off less inhuman. She’s proud of him for that honesty alone, even if she’s also proud of him for many many other reasons. From how he chose to be a wannabe vigilante that was more a genuine hero these days, to how he interacted with fellow ghosts.

He really was trying for coexistence, regardless of their parent’s bigotry.

And now a lot of the town agreed with him even, he was doing it, was achieving something full grown adults seldom could. He was being a protector both in the physical sense and in the societal sense. Honestly? He somewhat was like Batman. So yeah, she was incredibly proud of him. That pride didn’t stop their interactions from being a bit awkward for her though. Especially when he was Phantom.

Why?

Because she had to pretend she was just ‘another random citizen who also just so happened to be the towns primary ghost hunters and ghost experts daughter’ instead of being his big sister. Had to pretend she didn’t know exactly who he was and all that he was juggling. That Amity’s hero was also a struggling teen. Had to pretend like she was doing right now.

Zone, did she ever hate getting caught up in a ghost attack, even if actually physically seeing the reminder that her brother was having fun and could actually hold his own was a needed reassurance for her.

It was that science technology ghost that somehow managed to be incredibly outdated. TechMaster? CompWiz? She could never quite get all of their names right, especially since they were so different from human ones; something else she’d like to understand, even Danny had gone with an altered non-human name. The ghost has taken over the mall again, and right when she’d been in the bookstore looking for new published ghost-related studies to read and maybe figure things out better with. She was lacking clarity on how, exactly, ghosts fuelled themselves; she knew they needed ectoplasm, or energy in general, but that didn’t explain Danny being in Amity constantly. He’d always been fine going without food for extended periods of time and she doesn’t want him carrying on that trend with ectoplasm.

“TREMBLE BEFORE MY TECHNOLOGICAL WRATH! AND! MY RAZER BACKLIT MOUSEPADS!”

Like she’s said, ghosts being annoying was a simple fact. She’s fairly certain he doesn’t know what ‘backlit’ actually meant, not that she’s ever heard of a backlit mousepad herself though she imagines Tucker had one.

“Oh come on Technus!”.

Ah right that’s his name. Her poking her head out from around a coffee table for the little local coffee shop inside the bookstore, wincing to herself when Danny gets stabbed by a hard plastic square thing with a cord attached to it. He rips it out and whips it back like a frisbee as if the injury means nothing to him. Which she guesses is the case, he got hurt a lot which was hard to see on tv, but he was also more durable with improved healing; that didn’t make it much better, she knows he can feel the pain of it. And she’s painfully reminded of the statement he’d said like fact about one day picking a fight beyond his capabilities.

Danny kicking the other ghost into a wall, ecto-blasting him right off the bat after; he even blows off his finger with a goofy smirk making her roll her eyes and laugh a little to herself. He’d always been such a silly kid, it’s nice that death didn’t kill that.

Then ‘Techous’? phases through the wall and sends her table flying, leaving her stuck crouched on the ground behind a ghost hoping he doesn’t notice her. This one was oblivious enough to actually not notice, thankfully. Her brother notices her crouching stock still immediately though, of course he does, she’d have to bite her tongue to avoid chastising him about situation awareness otherwise.

His eyes don’t linger on her, his eyes don’t even widden, the only sign he saw her was how he wasn’t shooting at the ghost and instead crossing his arms judgmentally, “dude, did you really have to wreck a local coffee shops wall? This place actually lets me buy the good stuff and now it’s gonna take forever for them to reopen. You suck”. His caffeine addiction worries her sometimes, but from what she’s read and learned on her own terms he should be fine, being an energy based being had its perks after all.

“I! CARE NOT FOR YOUR ‘COFFEE’!”. The ghost actually uses air quotes. “I CARE ONLY FOR MY TRUE DOMINATION!”.

Danny smirks, “you know there’s some pretty advanced tech in those espresso machines”. At least she knows if he isn’t sure he could win with pure might, he’ll use his mouth and try to quip his way into victory.

The ghost looks completely delighted, “THERE IS!?!”, and turns away to look at said espresso machines, Danny smacking him over the head with his thermos immediately and ‘sucking’ him in it. How that thermos worked still confused her a little, it was far too small to fit all that it could and did inside it, rationally.

Danny looks down at her, still floating a few feet up in the air while she’s still crouching, protective desire practically bleeding out of him, “you good, random citizen?”. She also doesn’t understand why he still bothered with that ‘random citizen’ phrase.

She stands up and puts her hands on her hips, “it’s Jazz, you know this. No one actually believes you don’t know their names by now and a concerningly high amount of deeply personal information about them. Do you keep using that phrase as an attempt to lie to yourself about knowing the townsfolk overly well? And that was very manipulative of you with Electrus”. She’s positive she got the ghosts name wrong again.

He blinks disbelievingly at her, “his name’s Technus, he screams his name every time he shows up?”, shaking his head, “and so what if I do? Let me have my lies”.

“Said lies are hardly healthy, mister. If you’re going to continue with being this towns hero, you should aim for quality mental health”.

“I am a model of mental health!”.

Oh he did not just quote a Batman meme at her?!? Zone he was such an utter goof. “You most certainly are not”, shaking her head, Danny and his quips that riled pretty much anyone and everyone up. Yes it could be effective in a fight, and for distracting people from traumatic and dangerous situations, but she’s had a lower tolerance for that pretty much all her little brother’s life. “Now that you’re done ‘socialising’, is there anything I need to-”, sighing, “-‘report’ to my parents?”.

He shakes his head without hesitation, as if going from quips to business so immediately wasn’t remotely jarring; which to him she imagines it mustn’t be, his mind functioned in a more combat and chaos setting after all. “No, Technus didn’t cause too much of a mess beyond this and having them looking everything over would just get in the way”, smirking, “they definitely wont find any new samples from little ol’ me”.

At least he’d gotten better at that. At not leaving behind his ectoplasm beyond the burnt off air born particles he left everywhere he went, just like any other ghost. She’s not sure if he’s realised that she’s been destroying any samples of liquid ectoplasm of his their parents find… if he did, he never let on. He absolutely did know that she knew that he didn’t want them having samples of him, she’d caught him in the lab twice now wrecking either samples or inventions. He also ‘stole’ their inventions for his own use a lot, she truly doesn’t get how their parents haven’t realised that. All they ever really caught on to was him stealing a Fenton thermos and somehow getting it to work, they were always trying to see if they could get it back from him too, looking if he dropped it because ghosts ‘were too singled-minded to keep attention on both a fight and holding a thermos’. At this point her parents being wrong was becoming less ‘ha! I knew they were wrong’ and more genuinely frustrating in a ‘can’t you see the harm you’re doing’ way.

The biggest help she could be to her little brother had always been dealing with their parents. Before he died and after. They never cared enough for either of them and Danny had always been too much of a trouble magnet, to have survived that house a child without her. Now the house tried to shoot him if he let too much of his energy seep out of his skin; which was thankfully something he was good at avoiding most of the time. Nodding with a reassuring smile at him, “good. Now, you’re getting enough ectoplasm right?”.

He groans, with his entire body, “why did you have to go from denial to mothering, ugh”, nodding his head, “yes, mom. I can handle being outside of the Zone a lot”. He doesn’t know she knows he’s effectively never in ‘the Ghost Zone’, which is entirely why she’s worries. She understands that it’s part of him being ‘weird’, even if her understanding of just how ‘weird’ he was was far too limited for her liking, but regardless worrying is what she does. And remembering the first time he ever called her ‘mom’ as a kid and meant it was always a little depressing.

Her quirking an eyebrow at him, “caffeine probably is not the healthiest replacement, you know”.

“Energy’s energy”.

She sighs at that, she didn’t know exactly how true that was. If he was that different from most ghosts. Then he does something that really throws her off, unclipping his thermos and offering it to her? “Will you give it a rest if I let you empty this for me?”. He says that lightheartedly, like it’s a joke, but she knows instantly this is some kind of test in his mind.

He wants to know what she’ll do, what she’ll do with something so useful and important to him; a genuine possession. She knows he has a test to study for, so it will save him time in the long run. But will she come off as ‘like her parents’ if she agrees? How would she go about returning the thermos to him? She obviously can’t simply leave it in his bedroom, that would be announcing that she knew so loudly that she might as well just tell him now instead. Sure doing that would give him the knowledge that she knew about him, without effectively forcing him to talk to her about it, to confront her about it. She stands by that she’d rather him tell her on his own volition entirely, however. That he’d eventually no longer feel the need to protect her from him, or himself from her. “And you’ll get it back from me how? Breaking into my room isn’t very heroic of you, not to mention would hardly save you time”.

He shrugs like it’s nothing, it’s distinctly not nothing though, “I’m literally around Amity multiple times a day, I can catch up to you before school easy enough”.

“This still seems less like a matter of convince, Phantom”.

“It’s a matter of not dealing with the Fenton house hold”.

That’s a lie and she knows it, she simply can’t tell him that. A ghost wanting to avoid a ghost hunters house was logical after all, if it wasn’t for the fact that he slept in it. Shaking her head and holding out her hand for the thermos, the idea of getting caught by her parents with this was a bit nerve-wracking but if it would get him to trust her more then it’s worth it. Plus… perhaps getting to talk to this ghost instead of simply releasing it immediately would be a good idea. “Fine, but if you make me late to class I won’t be impressed”.

And then suddenly she’s got Phantom’s thermos in her hand, something so many wanted to get their hands on for one reason or another. It was a little startling, a little heavy in both the physical and emotional sense, she grips it like it’s as important as it actually was. She can feel the cold of him radiating off of it, the cold that gave away so explicitly what, exactly, he was and wasn’t. Danny eyeing her, caution in his eyes, did she do the right thing? Would he wonder over what she’ll do with it so much that he won’t actually be able to study? Will he send his friends to ‘keep an eye on her’? So many possibilities and uncertainties, she hated uncertainty but she’d tolerate them for her brother. She tolerantes a lot of them for him, even if it was frustrating knowing so little about how he worked now in every sense of the word. He nods strongly, even if it doesn’t reflect in his eyes, “I will”.

“Good”. She stands there watching him float away a little before flying off properly. He does that silly one fist forward flight style, the one he does when he knows people are watching and he’s not completely focused in on whatever he’s doing; another part of the ‘hero’ act he’d adopted to be more appealing and comforting to the town and to himself.

She stands there for a while before lifting up the thermos and staring at it. It was so unassuming, like always, yet it contained not only an entire sentient being but also, metaphorically, her brothers trust in humans. His trust to use something made by humans, his trust to believe humans will accept him protecting them, his trust that if he ever was caught his very human parents would still love him, his trust in her trustability. Shaking her head at the device, she had no true way to know if her brother was keeping an eye on her but… this presented too good an opportunity to ignore. While he was still learning to trust and confide in her, she couldn’t wait on him to learn about him, to protect and look after him. That was her job as his big sister, and like always she couldn’t rely on her parents help with that.

Instead she’d turn to a ghost, it would seem, not Danny himself because she knows he’ll underplay his needs and well being. He may not even understand himself and his own needs fully. Fishing in her pocket to keep the only two devices she actually carried on her out, a scanner to know whether or not Danny was around and a ‘souped up’ lipstick blaster. Passable as normal items that were perfectly reasonable for a teen girl in Amity to have, one was effective to ‘avoid’ ghosts (or to find a little brother who liked to sleep in trees) and the other one was strong enough to do some serious damage. Putting the scanner on a table and holding the blaster up at the thermos, trying to copy Danny and be intimidating without feeling silly, “I’m going to open this and you will stay put, or I’m going to blast you with this till you’re full of holes”.

She gets no response. She doesn’t truly know if the ghost inside can actually hear her. She can only hope. So with a glance at the scanner, Danny’s not here, she lets the ghost out.

“I! AM FREE! MWAHAHAHA!”. She shoots him one in his ghostly tail immediately. “HEY!”.

The ghost actually wilting when she points at him aggressively, “stay put you, I will reiterate, I will fill you full of holes if you don’t play nice”, putting her hand on her hip, “now sit. We’re having a chat about Phantom”. It always felt a bit strange to call her brother that, but it’s the name he’s chosen.

The tech ghost stares at her for a beat, searching for something in her expression it seems. It was almost as if the ghost was being leery of anyone wanting to know about Danny… like he was being protective. He either sees what he wanted to or what he never expected, the ghost going a little wide-eyed, or wide-sunglasses she supposes, “you know”.

So he wasn’t dressed like a scientist for nothing, good, he was out of touch but he was intelligent. She points threatening at him, “and don’t you be telling him that, or else”.

“Or else what? As if a puny human could threaten someone as great as I! Technus! Master of all the electronic devices in the world!”.

… He was also incredibly idiotic. Sometimes she wonders how her brother tolerates the personalities on most of these ghosts. Always having to remind herself that Danny was hard to tolerate sometimes too, he was ‘like them’ as it were. She puts her hands on her hips, “who would you rather be caught by? Danny, or our parents”. The ghost cringes noticeably so she nods firmly and continues, “now, sit. You’re going to tell me what you can about ghosts”. This ghost was an adult, and his tech interests were outdated enough to tell her he’s been dead for some time. Surely, as a scientist, he’d have an interest in learning about his own being?

The ghost seems completely flabbergasted by that question, he does float down to hover over a previously knocked over chair at least, “why?”. He’s not shouting, he’s not posturing and puffing out his chest, he’s taking her seriously.

“Because my parents are biased and I want to know how to look after my little brother like I have since the day he was born”. She hopes that response comes across as firmly as she wants it to.

The ghost, actually seems pleased about that. Taking her word almost immediately and gesturing wildly, “for starters! He’s a very weird ghost. Endangered even! So he’s actually way safer here than the rest of us! Annoying but it makes it so much more fun to fight him! Who would want to fight someone low on energy? Boring! I definitely don’t think his core’s developed at all yet though. Can’t wait to see how tough he’ll be then! Maybe he’ll have an electricity core even! Oh I would love that! It would be supreme to test that against mine! Ha! He probably hurt himself when that comes in though so watch out for that…”; he manages to monologue about ghosts for a very long time, it was almost as if he genuinely wanted someone caring for her brother, something about him being ‘a baby’. As well as wanting him to be strong and capable, genuinely looking forward to him growing as a ghost.

Ghosts must care about younger ones. Her parents couldn’t be more wrong and she, now, couldn’t be happier for that.

End.

Prompts: What if Jazz had a conversation with Phantom before learning he was Danny? What does their next conversation look like when Jazz knows but Danny doesn’t know she knows? If Jazz wanted to help her little brother, she had to learn more about ghosts. But she couldn't ask her parents, for obvious reasons, nor would she go to Danny with her ghost problems until he came to her about his. After searching everywhere online and in the library for any scrap of information, Jazz determined the only way to figure this out was to ask a ghost herself.

#phic phight 24 #fill

[phicphight]

Micro-Unmasking - Chapter 2

Well, I wasn't sure I was going to continue my one-shot from 2022, but I was inspired by a prompt to give it a go! So now you'll be getting a chapter 2 and a chapter 3!

Summary: Great timing prevented Danny’s secret from being revealed to Dash during their shared experience with the Fenton Crammer. But what would happen if his timing had been just a little off and Dash saw more than Danny wanted?

Phic Phight Prompts: Thanks to seeing how various injuries are treated as a member of the football team, Dash actually has a decent background in first aid and anatomy. He gets adopted into Team Phantom when circumstances keep leading him to be the one patching up Phantom after fights - for Ikiracake

Write one of YOUR ideas that you haven't written for whatever reason. Have you been too intimidated to write it? Are you afraid people won't like it? This Phic Phight season, none of that matters. Whatever it is, put your feelings aside and give it a try, even if it's just one scene! - for @astatia-ghast

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38159509/chapters/140482114#workskin

Chapter 1 on AO3, Chapter 1 on tumblr

Chapter 2: Vexing Texting

The insistent buzz of his phone woke him up before his alarm. Danny groggily reached for the phone and managed to actually grab it after a couple failed attempts. No one ever texted him before his alarm, so it had to be important. With bleary eyes he attempted to read the new message on his phone. 

“Do you have to sleep?”

Danny groaned and threw his phone onto the mattress. It bounced off the padding and onto the floor. Danny groaned again in misery as he threw his arm over his eyes. He would regret that action later when the alarm went off and he’d have to actually get up to find his phone, but in that moment the urge to throw it in frustration felt too satisfying to deny.

~

Thirty minutes later, Danny stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom brushing his teeth. The mad scramble for his phone that somehow bounced under his bed left him cranky and even more tired and he felt a wash of pity for the exhausted face that stared at him in the mirror. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he reached for it instinctively to check the alert. He expected to see some morning alert for a new daily post from social media, maybe the long-expected update from Doomed teasing their newest expansion. 

“Why the rings of light?”

Danny groaned so hard he sprayed flecks of toothpaste onto the mirror. He rolled his eyes and dropped his shoulders in defeat. He looked at the sleeve of his pajamas, shrugged, and leaned over to wipe up the toothpaste with his shirt sleeve. Better a dirty shirt sleeve than a lecture from his sister.

He spat out his toothpaste and typed a terse, quick response before angrily thrusting his phone into his pocket. He’d already suffered through two whole days of this; he didn’t know how much more he could handle.

~

Danny jerked awake as his phone rattled and vibrated aggressively on the laminate table. His face had been inches from his cereal bowl and he almost got a bowl full of cereal to the face. Jazz snickered into her coffee mug from her seat across the table.

“How long have you been sitting there?” He really couldn’t remember if she’d been sitting there when he came down or not.

“Long enough to watch you fall asleep at the table.”

“And you were just going to what? Keep watching as I face-planted into a bowl of cereal?” he asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“I figured you’d wake yourself up before it got to that point,” she chuckled as she stood up to place her empty coffee mug in the sink. “You have five minutes.”

Danny rolled his eyes and picked up the spoon that fell out of his hand when he jerked awake. He shoveled cereal in his face, which really was the only way he ate cereal anymore. He remembered his phone vibrated and he knew with a sinking moment what he would find even before he turned the phone over.

“Does music sound different as a ghost?”

He dropped his spoon into his bowl and slumped against the chair with a beleaguered sigh. Yes, the text had saved him from getting a milk facial. And this time it was actually an interesting question. But he still couldn’t believe he was still having to put up with this.

“You know you can just block him,” Jazz mentioned as she grabbed his cereal bowl and rinsed out the remaining milk in the sink.

“And you know why I can’t,” Danny retorted as he typed out a short but satisfying answer. He’d become quite the expert at answering the question in as few words as possible. Really it was a shame, because this question did actually make him think, but he refused to give him the reward of a lengthy answer.

~

Danny grabbed his books from the locker. He actually smiled in pride that he could actually keep his locker in some semblance of organization now that he didn’t have to constantly ensure there was room inside his locker for his entire body. Getting a third day in a row without being shoved into his locker really was a sweet benefit from this whole situation. Too bad it came with so much mental anguish.

The feeling of his phone vibrating in his pocket wiped that proud smile off his face. He took one look at the phone and threw himself back against the locker as he looked towards the ceiling in the hope that the cosmos above could answer his unspoken questions. Why? Why him? Hadn’t he suffered enough through this whole ordeal? Why couldn’t he just stop?

“Dude, did he text you again?” Tucker asked.

Danny simply held his phone up to show his best friends the new message from Dash. “Why do you wear that jumpsuit?” he read aloud in case his friends couldn’t quite make out the words on the screen.

Tucker just shook his head. “That kid is insane. Obsessed. Nutso.”

“This is the fourth one this morning,” Danny moaned. “That weirdo even texted me before my alarm went off! Who even gets up that early? Crazy people, that’s who.”

Tucker sighed as he patted his friend’s shoulder in sympathy. “Man, I’m sorry.”

Upon finding no salvation or answers on the ceiling, Danny turned his attention toward the phone and typed out a response. “There, I told him I died in it. Let’s see if that shocks him into silence for a bit.”

Tucker stifled a laugh into his sleeve. “Have you told him any half-dead jokes yet?”

“Not yet, so I don’t think he’ll be expecting it.” His sister didn’t understand them, and sometimes Sam didn’t either, but it’s how he and Tucker coped. Sometimes it just felt easier to deal with the trauma of it all with laughter. And if he couldn’t joke about his death-that-didn’t-take, then the seriousness of the event gained a lot more power in Danny’s mind and he couldn’t quite handle that. Maybe when he was older he could find the emotional and mental maturity to seriously reflect on the consequences and meaning behind almost dying in the portal, but even a year out it still felt too close and too soon to the event.

“Why are you still even answering his texts?” Sam finally spoke up, and the sharpness in her voice reminded Danny that she hadn’t talked since he brought up the texts. He could almost feel the irritation simmering around her and he really hoped he’d be able to avoid it. “Why don’t you just stop?”

Danny sighed. Everyone seemed to think it would just be that easy to tune him out, but Danny knew better. He knew Dash better than most people gave him credit for. “Because right now it’s new and it’s all he’s thinking about. Dash doesn’t stay focused on something for long, so if I wait it out then it’ll be old news and he’ll move on.” Danny waved a hand to emphasize his point. “But if I ignore his texts, he’s only gonna focus on this even more. And then he’ll want to talk to me. Trust me, texting him is better than having him come over to talk to me.”

“So now you’re going to be all buddy-buddy with the bully who made your life hell?” Sam challenged as she placed her hands defiantly on her hips.

“The single sentence texts I send back are far from being ‘buddy-buddy,’” Danny retorted.

“You text him more than you text us!” Sam barbed.

He had the decency to look properly ashamed at that call out and he slumped against the locker. “I know. I know, and I’m sorry. But what else am I supposed to do?”

Both Sam and Tucker fell silent as they also seemed at a loss for a better handle on the situation. “I don’t know man,” Tucker finally said. “I’d probably do the same thing you’re doing.”

“I just don’t like that you feel like you have to do something you don’t want to do,” Sam sighed.

“Yeah, well when have I had any say about what I want to do since the accident?” Danny pointed out. If he had his say, he wouldn’t have to hide from his parents all the time or get injured night after night or skip class or get bad grades. He could actually get a good night’s sleep, study to be an astronaut, and maybe consider leaving Amity for school or a job in the future. What he wanted to do no longer held any meaning in his life ever since that first ghost stepped out of the portal.

The group fell silent again as the weight of that statement crashed around them. It hung heavy in the air. Sam and Tucker tried to share his burden as much as they could, and he appreciated that, but sometimes they forgot or couldn’t really understand the full impact of what being a ghostly superhero meant for the rest of his life. Danny, unfortunately, was far too aware of the consequences of that decision.

“Well now we all get to do something we don’t want to do and go to class,” Tucker pointed out as he pasted on a cheery smile. “Do we ever get to do anything we want to do as teenagers?” He elbowed Danny gently in the side, and that jab pulled Danny out of his thoughts. Trust Tucker to find some way to pull them out of the seriousness of the moment by normalizing his struggles. That heavy fog seemed to fade away in the wake of Tucker’s infectious smile, and Danny couldn’t help but smile back. 

“My parents didn’t buy the cereal I want again,” Danny complained.

“See! This is exactly what I’m talking about! No control, no choices, just a bunch of adults constantly telling us we can’t have what we want. Where’s the justice in that?” Tucker complained.

“Don’t even get me started on the dress my mom’s making me wear now to the synagogue,” Sam added. Whether she’d actually dropped the subject in her mind or not, that remained to be seen. Sam had a tendency to hold on to serious topics and ruminate on them over time. Danny could almost see those thoughts behind her deep purple eyes, but she also knew when to let it go and join in on Tucker’s attempts to lighten the mood.

They all complained about the normal, mundane things they had no control over in their lives until they made it to their first class. Danny almost forgot how they got on this subject until he saw Dash in the classroom. Dash quickly avoided his gaze and looked almost…sheepish? Talking about his death really did stun him into silence, or at least made him realize how personal these questions could be. He’d remember that for later.

~*~

Danny stuffed his newest homework assignment into his locker. He’d love to say he’d have the time to complete that, but he knew better than to hope. 

“Hey Fenton!” Dash called in his usual, threatening tone. Danny barely had enough time to spin around before Dash loomed over him. He planted one hand on the locker beside Danny’s head while his large body dwarfed Danny. He peeked around Dash and noticed the rest of the A-listers gave them a fair bit of distance as they chuckled to each other.

“Dash, what are you doing?” Danny asked with a groan when he realized they were out of earshot.

“Just wanted to say hi,” Dash said. His friendly tone contrasted sharply with his threatening pose.

“You were saying about how the texts would stop him from talking to you?” Sam pointed out from the side as she crossed her arms over her chest. Danny did not miss her triumphant smirk at being proved right.

Danny shook his head. “Dash, we talked about this.”

“No see, it’s cool,” Dash explained. “See my threatening pose? People are gonna think I’m doing my usual Fenton bashing. You wanted me to keep up appearances.”

“No, I wanted you to tell everyone that you had a change of heart after being fitness buddies and then we’d just ignore each other,” Danny reminded him.

“Well yeah, I know,” Dash said quietly, almost like he was hurt that Danny wanted to ignore him. “But then they all pointed out that I got a lower grade on the fitness exam because of you.”

Danny gritted his teeth. “I already explained why I had to do that. And I got us a passing grade.” He knew Dash was dense, but he’d already walked through this with him! Did he seriously not remember it? Or had he spent too much brain power texting him inane questions than to actually remember the plan?

“No no, I don’t care about that,” he dismissed. “I remember the plan. But everyone asked me if I was mad about it and if I was gonna do something about it. I couldn’t really think of a good excuse. So if anyone asks, I’m yelling at you for the grade.”

Danny immediately felt a pang of guilt over his harsh thoughts. Dash had been paying attention. He had been working hard to keep the secret, like he promised. He didn’t really know what to expect from the jock after threatening him on the rooftop, but so far Dash had kept up his end of the deal. When he made the ultimatum, he didn’t really think how hard it would be for Dash to keep the secret while changing his ways at the same time. This was his attempt to divert suspicion, and Danny was giving him a hard time for it. He had to remember to be better and a little more gracious going forward. Dash didn’t have to do this; he could blab the secret and only good things would happen to him. He had to be more appreciative of his attempts to keep this under wraps.

“I’ll make sure I complain about that later, just to keep up the act,” Danny promised, committing to his part to contribute to the charade.

Dash nodded. “But look, while I’m here–” 

Danny withheld a groan because here it came: more questions. More requests to engage. More talking about himself and his ghost powers than he felt like discussing with his school bully.

“--I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

That caught him by surprise, and Danny regarded him with a quizzical eye. “You do? For what? You have to be more specific given our record.”

Dash grimaced. “Well yeah. I mean obviously I’m sorry for all of that. But no, I’m sorry about the jumpsuit question. I didn’t mean to make you talk about the fact that you…you know…” He hunched over slightly like he was discussing a secret and mouthed the word ‘died.’

Danny looked taken aback and tilted his head slightly. “You’re sorry that you made me think about my death?” he repeated. He had to have heard Dash’s question wrong.

Dash winced like the word ‘death’ caused him physical harm. Danny felt another flash of guilt. Okay, maybe it was too soon for half-dead jokes with Dash too. “Dash, it’s fine,” he sighed. “I’m reminded of how I died constantly. You bringing it up doesn’t change that.”

Dash’s face creased in sympathy, and Danny felt discomfort squirm in his gut that he could earn a look of sympathy from Dash of all people. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but the sound of his friends behind him caught his attention. “Oh, right. Uh, I should probably go. Right.”

Without much warning Dash slammed his hand into the locker next to Danny’s head. The entire bank of lockers vibrated from the force of his fist. Danny jumped as the action took him completely by surprise. The moment had been so strangely heavy that he forgot they were supposed to be putting on an act. 

Dash walked back towards his friends with a swagger. They laughed once he rejoined them, and Danny could vaguely hear him boast. “Well, he won’t be getting me a C on an assignment any time soon!”

The three members of Team Phantom stood in silence as they watched Dash and the others saunter down the hall while their laughter echoed after them.

“That…was a very weird conversation,” Sam finally said. She kept her gaze down the long corridor at the A-listers’ retreating backs even when they were long out of view.

“Yeah, it was almost…normal,” Tucker added. “We don’t have normal conversations with the popular crowd. And we definitely don’t have normal conversations with Dash.”

Danny shrugged. “That’s how he was on the roof. Like a completely different person.”

“He didn’t insult you once,” Sam pointed out, as if that explained why the conversation felt so strange and off to the group. And maybe that was part of it, but there was something else that seemed off that Danny couldn’t quite place his finger on. 

Every time he talked to him, he seemed to learn more about the boy who’d bullied him for as long as he could remember. Seeing Dash care about his mental wellbeing? He didn’t quite know how to deal with that. For years, he only seemed to care about how he could add to Danny’s mental turmoil, but now he seemed so protective of it. It felt weird, seeing this different side of him. He always wondered how Dash could have so many friends and how people could actually want to hang out with him. Did they maybe see this other, more caring side of him too? Why did he all of a sudden get to see this side?

An irrational anger flared up inside of him. Why hadn’t he been able to see this side of Dash from the beginning? The side that actually seemed to care about how people felt or how they were doing with emotionally taxing information? Why wasn’t he able to see the side of Dash where he came up after a hard day and asked how he was doing? Instead he only saw the side that pushed him further into the dirt and then laughed at his misery. What had he done to deserve that part of Dash’s behavior? And why did revealing himself to be Phantom suddenly make that all go away?

The obvious answer was that he wanted to share the limelight with Phantom. Dash never made his adoration of Phantom a secret, and if he could get Danny on his good side then maybe he could be Phantom’s best friend. Surely he knew that wasn’t going to happen, right? He had been very clear about that on the rooftop. So then what caused the change in his behavior? Why did he suddenly seem to care so much about how Danny felt? It left him feeling unsettled and it stuck with him as he gathered his books and headed for their next class.

~*~

Danny startled in his chair as a puff of cold air escaped his lips. He hadn’t been sleeping, but he had been lost in his own thoughts to the point where he had barely heard anything the teacher talked about. And now he definitely wouldn’t get the chance to catch up on the day’s material. He turned towards Tucker and Sam who recognized that look and they nodded towards him. 

Tucker surreptitiously held up four fingers. Danny made a face and shook his head no. What was he thinking suggesting plan four? That only worked in English! 

Tucker furrowed his brow, but moved on and held up six fingers instead. Danny thought about it for a moment and then eagerly nodded his head. Tucker turned slightly in his chair so Sam could see the six fingers. She rolled her eyes and shook her head but mouthed the word ‘fine.’

Sam situated herself in her chair and raised her hand. “Ms. Murphy, I’m not…” She trailed off as her eyes rolled back into her head and she fell out of her desk. The whole class stood up to see what happened, Tucker and Danny included. 

“Oh my gosh Ms. Manson!” their teacher squeaked as she ran over clearly in a panic. “Someone get the nurse!”

“We’ve got her,” Tucker offered as he and Danny lifted her up and supported her weight between the two of them. “We can take her to the nurse.”

“Well go then!” Ms. Murphy berated them. They quickly made their way out of the room with Sam. As soon as they cleared the door they rushed off down the hall into the janitor’s closet. 

“Plan six? Really?” Sam snapped. “We had to go with plan six?”

“We’d never used it on her!” Tucker defended. “And hey, it worked didn’t it!”

“And my hip is going to be feeling that fall for a week!” Sam complained as she rubbed her hip bone with a wince.

Danny triggered the transformation into his ghost form. “Next time we’ll do plan seven then,” he promised. Tucker winced, but really it was only fair to make him take the fall next. “Now are you guys coming or staying?”

“We’re definitely coming,” Sam spoke up. 

He figured as much when they sacrificed so much to get out of class too. They grabbed onto him as he turned them all intangible and flew them out of the school towards the source of the ghost attack. 

He didn’t have to fly far; his ghost sense led him towards the street just outside the school. The giant ghost of a bear loped down the street as it aggressively chased after cars.

“Well that’s a new one,” Danny remarked as he set them down on the sidewalk. 

“I didn’t know bears hated cars so much,” Tucker commented.

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Tucker, it probably got killed by a car.”

Tucker winced when he realized the sense in her macabre statement.

“Well, this just took a turn for the depressing,” Danny sighed. “Much as I’d like to let it get revenge on the thing that killed it, we can’t just have ghosts attacking cars. So here’s what we’re gonna do. Sam, you--”

“Wait!” a loud voice called from behind them.

Danny winced because he didn’t need to turn around to know who that voice belonged to. He’d heard that voice yell out to him from afar for years. Even now that tone still caused his heart to jump in response. He slowly turned around in the air to face Dash who positively beamed that he caught them before their attack. “Dash, what are you doing here?” he asked with an exasperated sigh.

“I came to find you,” Dash stated.

Well, that was a given. He’d been hoping for at least a little more guidance on his true motives.

“Wait Dash, how did you even get out of class?” Tucker asked as he studied the jock with a suspicious eye.

Dash shrugged. “I’m the football quarterback - I can leave class whenever I want.”

“There’s something very unfair about that,” Tucker griped under his breath.

“Why did you come to find me?” Danny asked as he tried to get them back on topic.

“Oh, I want to help,” Dash offered. “With the ghost. Let me help.”

“No,” Tucker vehemently denied. 

“Hell no,” Sam added with all the spite she could possess.

“No way.”

“Absolutely not.”

“It’s not happening.”

“Never ever.”

Danny raised a hand to stop their increasingly emphatic denials; they made their point and he could see how each one tore further into Dash. Maybe Dash didn’t care how his words hurt others, but that didn’t mean he had to stoop to the same level. “Dash, I know you’re a fan. I know you want to help, but we’ve got this.” 

“I know you do. You’ve always got it. Phantom always figures it out in the end. But I really think I can help,” Dash offered again undeterred.

Danny sighed. “We talked about this Dash,” he tried to say in as delicate a way as possible, but he was losing his patience with the jock. “You bullied me for years. You’ve embarrassed me, hurt me, got me in trouble, and destroyed my school projects for years. You don’t get to just all of a sudden be here like none of that happened just because you know the secret.”

Dash recoiled like he’d been physically assaulted. He ran a hand along his arm as he folded in on himself and actually looked small for once. It was unnerving to see him with such little confidence. “Yeah...yeah I know that. But that’s why I want to help. I want to make up for it because…” Dash paused for a long, uncomfortable moment “...because I feel bad about it, okay?”

“You feel bad about it now, because you think Danny’s cool now,” Sam pointed out, voice full of venom. As much as Danny would have liked to take Dash’s statement at face value, he had to agree with Sam that he couldn’t really trust the reasons behind this newfound revelation. Phantom and Dash just had this team up against a pretty powerful ghost, and he probably thought that since he was in the know that could become a consistent trend. But there was more to being a part of Team Phantom than just knowing the secret at the core of their group, and Dash hadn’t earned his place there yet.

Dash withdrew even further as his shoulders sank. He wrapped his other arm around his torso. He looked strangely vulnerable in a way that Danny had never seen. “That’s not—I know that’s how it looks. But it just made me think. See, I didn’t know you’d died and went through all this,” he tried to explain as he gestured towards Danny’s floating form. “And I kept bullying you. You had so much else going on, and I kept bullying you. And I shouldn’t have done that. Phantom or not. I think...I think I can see that now. I didn’t really care what you were dealing with, and maybe I should have.”

Dash bit his lip but he plunged on through his explanation of recent self-reflection. “I want to make it up to you. I can help.”

Danny shifted nervously in the air. He didn’t really know what to say after such a declaration. He really appreciated that Dash had given some thought to being a bully and came to the conclusion it was wrong. Granted he only took the time to think about it because now Danny seemed worthy enough to understand. If Dash had decided to think about his side of things at any time he probably would have come to this realization sooner, but it hadn’t seemed worthwhile until now. But did the injustice of the timing taint or negate his conclusions? He still realized that bullying had caused Danny additional undo stress, and he didn’t want to discourage him from thinking about that more. 

But at the same time, did that mean he had to now work with his former tormentor? He shouldn’t have to work with him to help him engage further in his journey of self-discovery, and yet that felt like the only option available to him. If he let Dash join Team Phantom, maybe he could help him be a better person. But did Dash really deserve that time and effort after everything he’d done? Couldn’t he use what he’d already realized and figure out the rest on his own? He didn’t quite know how to turn Dash down while still inspiring him to keep traveling down this road of self-discovery. He had to find some middle ground.

“Look Dash, I’m glad this is making you see the error of your ways, and I really hope you keep thinking more about bullying,” Danny said honestly, “but we have a system. We’ve got this handled.”

Dash looked crestfallen as his shoulders drooped. “I promise I won’t get in the way,” he bargained, and Danny just wished that he would just understand what no meant. He’d heard it multiple times in the past couple minutes, so why couldn’t he get the hint?

“Dash, if you want to help, right now the best thing you can do is to let us handle it. The longer we talk the more cars that bear goes after. You want to help? Let me go fight this ghost and then we can talk about it after.”

He didn’t really give Dash a chance to argue further as he charged after the bear ghost. Maybe he’d be able to think of something to say to Dash while he fought the ghost, but he doubted it. He didn’t really know how much more clear he could be. He rammed the ghost in the side and sent it flying down the road. It skidded across the pavement and Danny winced at the thought that maybe the bear had experienced that sensation before he died. He’d have to thank Sam later for implanting that thought into his head. The bear stood up and roared at him as its eyes blazed red.

“Looks like I got your attention,” he joked weakly. The bear barreled towards him and he shot as many ecto-blasts as he could at it before he dodged out of the way. He rolled on the ground and immediately popped back up to shoot another blast at the bear as he tried to turn around. He didn’t know if he was hurting it or angering it further, but his attacks seemed to be doing something.

He dodged out of the way of another charge but misjudged the direction as his dodge threw him too close to the ghost. It quickly closed the distance and swiped a ghostly claw along his back. Danny choked out a cry of pain as blood and ectoplasm seeped out from his cuts, but he pushed through the pain like always. He took advantage of being so close and punched the bear in the muzzle before he threw all his strength into one large ecto-blast to the belly. It pushed the bear away and he took that opportunity to suck the ghost into the thermos. 

He breathed out a sigh of relief as he stood up from the ground. He looked over at his friends - not surprised to see Dash still there - and shook the thermos in their direction. “Well that was bearable. Get it? Bear-able?” His friends only groaned, but he did notice Dash crack a smile. “Oh come on, how come you never appreciate my–”

A large gray shape slammed into Danny. The force of the blow sent him flying through the air until he hit the pavement hard in the distance as the asphalt cracked beneath him. He rolled along the pavement until he skidded to a stop in the middle of the road. He didn’t move.

#phic phight 24 #fill

[phicphight]

Phic Phight Prompt: Clockwork Takes Danny Stargazing

Word Count: 1320

For @jackdaw-spwrite

Summary: When Danny agreed to put effort into his study habits in exchange for some out of this world stargazing, this isn't what he imagined. It's so much better.

"This way."

Danny meant to follow Clockwork and his directions, but when he followed him through one of the many doors in the older ghost's domain he felt himself stop short mid-flight.

Unexpected sights, sounds, and scents flooded in - tall trees with shiny bronze bark and almost clear leaves that rippled like water, thorny bushes that looked wild as they rustled only to fall into and out of almost recognizable shapes, little rivers and ponds splashing with something more orange than blue. The last might be due to the ceiling, or rather, the startling lack of one.

That might be the strangest thing of all because Danny could swear that they were walking further in to Clockwork's maze of a home.

A home that was firmly in the green and purple tinged Ghost Zone.

The ghost zone which didn't have red-orange sunsets like the one lighting the garden and the sky above it.

A quiet thunk of something hollow against a rock drew Danny out of his distraction with only a small, guilty startle. The garden wasn't large enough that he'd lost sight of Clockwork, thankfully, so it was a quick, short flight that brought him back to the cloaked ghost's side.

Growing older in a way that felt pointed, especially when paired with that knowing smile, Clockwork tapped the large round paver that sat below them. It bisected two curved spaces whose complete outline looked like an hourglass with each half filled with a different set of plants.

Danny thought he recognized maybe three of the flowers he saw growing in both and even that was a generous assumption. He wasn't even sure if that thing filling with water until it tipped over before setting back into place with a thunk was even made of bamboo like the one Jazz had in miniature in her room (she claimed it was for meditation, but how something slowly tapping away could help someone concentrate was beyond Danny) - it was electric blue with silvery edges.

"You know, when you promised to take me stargazing this isn't what I imagined." Danny pointed out looking back up at the cloudless and, more importantly, starless sky before raising his brows at Clockwork expectantly. He didn't do all that studying, listening to lectures and letting himself be quizzed on the different leaders of the Infinite Realms for nothing. Clockwork bribed him with some 'out of this world' stargazing and Danny was going to hold him to it.

Though, he had to admit, the garden was pretty cool. He would need to see if he could get some pictures or something for Sam so she didn't interrogate him later for more information.

Well, she'll probably do that either way, but with pictures she might feel generous enough to let him eat and sleep occasionally while grilling him for answers.

The not-bamboo thunked again and Clockwork gave the paver another tap.

"Be sure to stay within the circle."

Because Clockwork was sometimes (frequently) allergic to explaining, that was all the warning Danny received before the colorful garden vanished into inky darkness.

Danny held still, straining his eyes to try and make out the shape of the paver below them. If this was another test instead of a reward he may just scream. A quiet scream, but a scream none the less.

Thankfully, it didn't take long for his eyes to adjust - Clockwork's faint glow along with his own even more muted shine eventually assured him that he hadn't moved. If that was a test, hopefully he passed.

Putting that aside for now Danny looked up and felt his jaw drop because the garden wasn't just in shadow.

It was gone.

In its place was a vast array of stars, the pinpricks of light almost flickering through a bright fog - clearer than any view he's ever seen on Earth. He squinted as he tried to differentiate the brighter lights from the dark, trying to pick out planets and stars that he knew, his brow furrowing as he couldn't quite manage to place any of the clusters he was seeing.

"Where are we?" How far was Clockwork able to take them? What kind of power was this? Could Danny do something like this?

Oh, no, wait. Danny didn't want a power like this because he was sure it would leave him stranded light-years from home without anyone to help him get back. Well, except for Clockwork. The minor reassurance was enough even if the fear lingered a little longer than he'd like in the face of this cosmic beauty.

"Closer to home than you might think." The ghost in question assured him, flickering into his more childlike form before pointing behind Danny. "If you turn around you may find something a bit more familiar."

Spinning in place Danny squinted even harder at the distant stars as clouds of gas and dust shifted slowly between him and them.

Except the clouds weren't moving slowly anymore. As he watched they started moving faster and faster, going from indistinct fog to thicker streams and threads then swirling into knots until an indistinct shape started to appear. Around them distant stars winked, flickered, and died while others newly sparked into being.

Light grew at the center of the undulating clouds, particles moving inwards before bursting out again and again.

"No way." All the stars around them paled in comparison to what he now suspected was happening. Danny didn't even realize he was drifting forward until a light hand landed on his shoulder.

"We are currently in two times while also being in neither." Clockwork informed him, unoffended by the way Danny couldn't look away from the star - the earth's star - his star - the Sun - as it formed. "I do not want to test which one you would find yourself in if you left."

One hand moving to cover Clockwork's, Danny couldn't find the words to tell him that leaving was the last thing he wanted to do right now. How he was glad his eyeballs couldn't dry out so he didn't have to blink, that he didn't have to worry about oxygen or radiation, that this might be the first time he was truly happy he got in that lab accident because without it he would never get a chance to see this.

Because Danny loved the stars, the light they provided, the life they could support, the hope they could bring. He loved every one of them.

And no other star ever loved him back more than this one, Danny was sure of it.

His vision blurred and he blinked away the water gathering there as he tightened his grip on those increasingly knobby fingers.

"Thank you."

That ghostly hand was cold, but the gentle squeeze Clockwork gave him in response was warm and fond.

"Worth memorizing the whole lineage of Royal Roses?"

Danny barked out a laugh at the now distant frustration he'd felt while going through fourteen generations of people who were minor players in the Ghost Zone at best.

"Absolutely." Danny tried to devote at least the same amount of attention to memorizing the play of light on the gasses and rocks around them. "Though I'm not sure how you'll ever top this as far as bribes go."

Clockwork hummed.

"There are plenty more stars to gaze upon." Something thunked, not his staff but the not-bamboo thing, reminding Danny just how accessible the stars might be when they were visible like this from Clockwork's garden. Smugly, Clockwork continued, "And when you get bored of stars, there's always planets."

Danny's scoff at the thought of being 'bored of stars' cut off as he whipped around to see if Clockwork was joking. Judging by the tilt of his head he wasn't and, yeah, alright. Turning back to stare at his favorite star once again, Danny resigned himself to being Clockwork's best student.

He'd do a lot to see something like this again.

#phic phight 24 #fill

[phicphight]

Phic Phight Prompt: The Box Ghost, aka the most un-frightening pathetic nuisance ever, is actually incredibly powerful compared to the average ghost.

Word Count: 1910

For @phantomphangphucker

Summary: After dying in a warehouse collapse, one ghost sets out to make the ghost zone OSHA Compliant one box at a time.

Working with a couple different crews and shifts for a decade or two means getting used to going by a nickname or three. He's not one to linger on the past, but when he thinks back he's pretty sure that there was a stretch of time where he didn't hear his legal name for weeks, possibly months, so adapting to this new green dimension where no one can get his name right isn't difficult.

Or, the name thing isn't.

Asking everyone to call him the Box Ghost is easier than correcting their pronunciation of his actual name. Everyone around here seems to be going by one title after another - so Boxy (his favorite nickname that the others have given him here, but unfortunately too close to other's monikers to use as an introduction) keeps it simple for his own benefit. Explaining things can get frustrating and having to do so repeatedly is boring, so Box Ghost it is!

Making a habit of introducing himself every time he sees someone isn't a new habit, but it makes itself useful here even if he doesn't have nearly as much trouble remembering ghostly faces as he did human ones.

So introductions - easy!

Needing to sound threatening to get his point across? That's more difficult to get used to. Boxy doesn't exactly like fighting, not after losing the few fights he got into when he was alive. But, if a few threatening words is all it takes to make this place safer, he can put on the act.

Because this place - the Infinite Realms - they're sorely in need of his help.

Back when he was alive, Boxy  watched countless safety videos and participated in even more inspections over the course of his career. He rolled his eyes, slouching his way through the required checks, going over lists and participating in drills before getting on with his actual work. While he and the others were careful with the boxes they handled (as they'd be on the hook if they weren't), they usually just made jokes about the old cracked and slowly bowing walls. They weren't in charge and it wasn't hurting anyone, what was the harm?

He knew the harm now.

He might not have blood these days, but Boxy swears he can feel it boiling whenever he sees cracked, bending, and broken walls. Can feel the ache in his jaw from clenching his teeth when he looks at sagging, leaking, and collapsed roofs.

The numerous cliffs hanging out into the swirling, glowing abyss he can't do anything about, but the all the other places where these ghosts live - those he can fix.

Newly dead, he tried suggesting improvements he remembered from before. Tried providing examples he'd seen in practice. Tried offers to fix the old castles, the burnt homes, the cracked caverns only to be fought tooth and nail at every turn - often literally. Fighting back was instinct, one he fought more than the other ghosts whose homes he was clearly insulting.

He smothered the impulse right up until the first time he was thrown through a stone wall.

Boxy still doesn't quite remember what happened directly after that, only the result and the result was very good.

When he came to every wall in the area was square, the rooms complete, the roof secure, and the ghost who lived there? Well, they were a little worse for wear, but they brushed off his concerned look with something between a shrug and a shudder.

"Warn a guy." They had said or, rather, muttered before flying into their now safer home and slamming the door.

So Boxy took their words to heart.

"Beware!" He greeted others as he found more buildings in need of his help. "I am the Box Ghost!"

The practice of holding his hands up in a mild threat came later, after a lot more fights followed by a short run of successes - each of which ended with the other ghost cringing away from him.

Boxy still isn't fond of threatening people. He does this for their safety and the safety of others - so that no one ends up like he did, but if that's the only way to keep everyone safe he'll play his part.

Besides, maybe after this he'll move on to what is clearly his true calling - acting! His old coworkers always used to make fun of his attempts to act, but with just a few words and an exaggerated angry gesture or two he seems to be pulling of 'threat' really well!

Then again, maybe he'll stay off the stage. His ghostly powers don't lend themselves to it in the way he's seen with others. He can fly, but he can't teleport. He can stand up to other's blows, but he can't shapeshift or take on their faces.

His powers mostly lie in his interests, which doesn't seem uncommon in the Infinite Realms.

He can move himself - handy for getting around. He can move boxes - something he's so familiar with he could do it in his sleep even before his death, though not having to touch them is something he still delights in. And, most importantly, he can bring buildings up to code.

This last one is by far the trickiest to do. It's hard to explain what he does and how he does it in words. It's something similar to how he always knows which stack of boxes aren't stacked correctly even when they look secure. He can feel the fault lines, taste the breaking points, smell the way the not-gravity of this place pulls on a structure.

He chose 'The Box Ghost' not only because boxes are, obviously, amazing, but because boxes hold up to the pressures of this place better than other shapes. The right angles, the rigid sides, when put together just right they can stand up even under dragon fire or unexpected island collisions.

Of course, leaning into his name and specialties leads to strange consequences.

Something about this place, it twists things. It took a while for him to notice, but the strength of his boxy architecture is improving, but not without cost. He thought it was just experience, but then he tried to keep the shape of a tower as he improved it and something about the rounded walls made it fall apart.

The fight he had with the owner for causing the tower to crumble was less memorable than the testing that needed to be done after that (sure the guy could turn into a dragon, but his castle was more than big enough to trap him in). With his mastery of all things square and box like, Boxy specialized to the point of being unable to not make things square.

It isn't a huge problem, most purposefully non-square things were built with more thought than the broken down buildings he needs to fix, but it is annoying at times.

He doesn't give it much thought after that, other than making a note to tell ghosts of his cubic specialty when he introduces himself, so he continues his campaign, hoping that one day he can share the burden of this quest to ensure safety in the Infinite Realms. Looking back at all those videos and checklists he knows that this isn't a one-person job, he needs the government to get in on it for his work to be effective.

Unfortunately, any attempts he's made to speak to those in charge either leave him with new clients or with frustratingly few answers.

"The king is in forever sleep," is not the answer he's looking for, especially when he's trying to confirm what kind of building codes are currently in use in this place. As more people hear of him, Boxy finds both more and less resistance to his safety crusade. Some invite him in meekly, while others refuse to bend to his (clearly terrifying) threats, instead posing some honestly, quite reasonable questions about the safety of the buildings he's putting in place.

It's while he's trying to find this justification that he comes across the permanent portal for the first time.

"This doesn't belong here!" Surely they'd have some permits up and posted if such a thing was supposed to be built in the middle of a thoroughfare like this! It's not Boxy's first interaction with a portal, but it's certainly the first man-made one he's seen. He takes the time to inspect it from every angle - the only roughly octagonal shape, the poor welds on the metal, the lack of safety measures - it's horrible! And probably beyond his (non-existent) pay grade.

He turns to go report this to the scary knight who guards the king's castle only to nearly get run over by another ghost gunning for the portal.

When he straightens up, he finds himself in a nightmare of safety violations. Boxy stares in horror at the clearly DIY walls, the uneven floors, the stairs with steps that are clearly too tall.

Sure, there's a lot of sciency things scattered around the place in ways that look dangerous, but Boxy isn't familiar with that side of things. He disregards it in favor of what he knows how to fix.

So, of course, that's when the alarms go off. The portal slams shut behind him and lights start flashing. A recording blares too loud for Boxy to understand, but he's done enough drills that he knows what to do.

Quickly, quietly, Boxy exits the building and heads for a safer area.

He waits for a handful of minutes before realizing it wasn't a fire alarm after all and the fire department won't be coming to give an all-clear. Normally he'd head back, but the extra time outside has let him realize where he is.

The realm of the living!

There are side walks! Rows of homes, most of them safe and square! For a moment each of the box like suburban homes glows as he happily resonates with the cubic structures.

It cuts off as a delivery truck drives past.

Boxy's attention is captured especially when he realizes the boxes within are filled with books.

Books! Books in Boxes! Books are just what he was looking for - now he can get examples of building codes for the king whenever he wakes up!

He dives into the delivery truck and gets so lost in the ecstasy of so many good, old-fashioned, cardboard boxes, neatly and professionally stacked inside a box truck that he only comes back to himself after he's introduced himself to someone - warning, threatening gestures and all.

After so many successful fights it's a shock when the white haired teen bests him so easily. Then again, just as the boxes and that truck seemed to energize him, the cylindrical capture device the child pulls on him seems to sap the fight right out of him.

It seems like no time at all before he's back in the zone, staring at that misshapen portal once again. It may be a safety hazard, but that won't stop the Box Ghost. He'll brave the portal and fight as many times as he needs to in order to get the books necessary (and maybe a few more boxes, as a treat) to fix all the broken parts of this Realm.

When the Ghost King wakes up and starts managing this place again, the Box Ghost will be first in line to talk to him - together they'll make this place safe for all ghosts!

#phic phight 24 #fill

[phicphight]

Phic Phight Prompt: The Box Ghost, aka the most un-frightening pathetic nuisance ever, is actually incredibly powerful compared to the average ghost.

Word Count: 1425

For @phantomphangphucker

Summary: There are a lot of different kinds of power. Some are easy to see and others - others take a little more perspective to understand. Of course, realizing that the Box Ghost was both feared and respected within the Ghost Zone is still a bit baffling even after Danny gets to see it first hand.

"Wait, wait, wait." Danny held up a hand to stop Ember before reconsidering and putting it to his own forehead in an attempt to drive off the headache he could feel building there. "Can you repeat that?"

"What am I, a wind up doll?" Her look of disgust made way for an eye roll when Danny dragged his hand further down his face to glare at her over his fingertips. "The Box Ghost will have what we need."

Hand now over his mouth, Danny wondered if he needed to get his ears checked. When she clicked her tongue at him and went to keep moving, Danny quickly followed her gesturing wildly.

"The Box Ghost? Really? As in, the guy who comes to Amity just to grab cardboard boxes and crates? The one who won't stop introducing himself and screaming 'Beware!' - that guy?" Actually, a thought occurred to him and he narrowed his eyes trying to fly ahead of Ember to try and read the truth of it off her face. "Hang on, does he introduce himself because he's trying to use some other ghost's reputation? Is there another Box Ghost out there?"

Ember sped up shaking her head as she sped through the Zone.

"Of course not, anyone would be able to tell that the imposter was lying. Or, well," she winced a little, "no one would believe that guy when he lied. I mean, he's not the best actor. Not everyone's meant for the stage, obviously."

"Obviously." Danny repeated, voice and expression flat before he remembered that he was here to ask Ember for help. Pasting on a friendly smile when she sent him a warning look, he tried for a little more clarification hoping that she wouldn't change her mind. "But how did he become the ghost to see?"

"I'm the ghost everyone wants to see." She reminded him instantly, striking a pose like she was getting photographed before waving off his fumbled response to that. "I know what you meant. For this type of thing it's more that it just falls into his domain."

"Like, a kingdom?" The Box Ghost had a whole realm like Dorothea and Frostbite? Danny almost breathed a sigh of relief when Ember shook her head.

"No, more like a website."

Danny wasn't aware that he could stumble while flying, but he managed it anyway. "Excuse me?"

"No."

Ugh. Ember was sometimes all the parts of Jazz Danny couldn't stand - a big sister without any of the care that made Jazz one of Danny's favorite people. At his groan Ember came to an abrupt stop and reached for her guitar. Danny almost brought ecto to his hands before he realized she was holding it out instead of readying an attack.

"Look, everyone has what they're good at, right? Like I'm amazing at singing and playing my guitar so when I play I can do things through my performance."

"Right." Danny drew out the vowel a bit, following but not really sure where this was going.

"It also means that things pertaining to my domain of Rock Star Sensation are more likely to find their way to me even inside the Infinite Realms." Flicking her fingers, she rolled a guitar pick down her knuckles in a practiced move. "That's why my guitar is always in tune and I usually have all the things I need to play it. Strings, picks, if they fall into the realms there's a good chance I'll find them."

So ghosts frequently found things that related to their obsession. Danny wasn't sure how true that was - that things find their way to the ghosts that wanted them rather than most ghosts only paying attention to things they were personally obsessed with, but the Ghost Zone didn't exactly run on any logic he truly understood so he was going to roll with it for now.

"And the box ghost-"

"Finds boxes." Ember finished his sentence, swinging her guitar back over her shoulder and starting forward once more, more noticeably following the path of a few other ghosts Danny could see in the distance. "And other packages, though he doesn't like those quite so much."

"He finds boxes and keeps them no matter what's inside, got it." Which explained why she was leading him to the Box Ghost for those supplies Frostbite was looking for. "How often does he find more boxes?"

Just how likely was it that Danny would find the laundry list of things Frostbite was looking for?

"Oh," Ember didn't even knock before pushing a double wide set of swinging doors open so they could step inside what Danny now saw was their destination. "Almost constantly, I think."

Goggling at the ghostly equivalent of a big box warehouse complete with rows and rows of aisles that practically scrapped the almost cavernous ceiling, Danny didn't even care that Ember was absolutely snickering at his reaction. "Where do they even come from?"

"They're every package that gets lost in the mail, I think." Ember answered, grabbing his arm and pulling him further into the store. "And there are a lot of lost packages these days."

They passed huge piles of boxes, each stacked higher than the Fenton Works Ops Center, many of which baring familiar logos from various online retailers. Danny snorted before his eye caught on a ghost reaching through the cardboard to triumphantly pull something (hedge trimmers?) from a box only to very quickly place whatever was in his other hand into the box in its place. Looking around at other ghosts who were sifting through the madness or bargaining between themselves Danny noticed something.

"Does everyone bring their own stuff?"

"Money doesn't really mean much here, so like everywhere else in the Realms this place runs on trades." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a few CDs some of which Danny vaguely recognized as being popular a few years ago, all of which wouldn't have fit in her pocket if she weren't a ghost. "The Box Ghost doesn't care about what's in the boxes so long as something is inside the box."

Danny's next question was forgotten as the Box Ghost himself burst intangibly through the boxes on the next aisle over, hands raised with a loud, "I am the Box Ghost!"

After months of being warned by the same ghost with nothing resulting from it other than maybe a few hours of annoyance as he chased the Box Ghost around town before capturing him, Danny watched incredulous as the smaller ghost the owner of this 'store' was threatening cowered, literally tripping over themselves as they searched their pockets for something to put into the box they'd left empty a few minutes before.

Around them the other ghosts scattered as the Box Ghost yanked the offender up by their collar, eyes burning bright and an surprisingly impressive wave of energy rolling off him that even Danny could fee,l before a figurine (in mint condition) was held up in shaky hands as an offering.

There was a pause as the Box Ghost blinked away his rage to inspect it. Then he snatched it from their hands and put it ever so gently back into the temporarily empty box. Giving it a satisfied pat, he then threw out a practiced "Beware!" before vanishing back to wherever he came from.

Danny watched the ghost he dropped snatch up their prize and shoot out the double doors before giving a knowing Ember a wide eyed look.

"Never mess with a ghost over their obsession on their own turf, especially not a guy who gets all his power from the ecto people give off his his warehouse." She warned him.

"But - he's so-" Danny struggled to put it in words. "He never does anything like that in Amity?"

"Not his turf is it?" The pointed look met its mark even before she followed it with, "Besides, you've got his kryptonite."

Baffled, Danny pointed at himself. Ember helpfully pointed at him too. Following her finger, Danny unhooked the thermos from his belt.

"For a guy who is all about boxes and other things cubic, the only thing worse for him would be a sphere."

Aaand there was the Infinite Realm's 'logic' catching Danny off guard again.

"I guess it doesn't matter how powerful he is if I'm always fighting him with the perfect weapon."

"Yep, now get searching. I don't have all day and this place doesn't have any sort of organization."

With a groan, Danny snatched the CDs from her hand and got to work.

#phic phight 24 #fill

[phicphight]

Phic Phight - The Green Ribbon Is Staples

@astatia-ghast @q-gorgeous @mr-lancers-english-class @tourettesdog

Danny gets a lot of injuries but every so often he gets one he’s never gotten before, normally that’s just a pain since none of the trio usually know what exactly to do about it but they eventually manage; unfortunately this time it’s a little too revealing.

Chap. 1:

Decapitation Station

Okay. So. Danny’s got a problem. Or twenty. Twenty problems sounds more accurate. Why? Well um, lets rewind a little. 

See he was heading home, from detention due to missing homework, like usual, when his ghost sense did what his ghost sense does. So, you know, he had a fight to fight, ghostly ass to kick. It was good ol’ Boxy because of course it was, he should have figured honestly. But the surprising part? The real cut throat turn of events? Yeah apparently Boxy got his hands on multiple boxes -read: more than two- of barbed wire, ecto-barbed wire because apparently Jeb was trying to protect his chickens -he has chicken in his houses tiny back yard for some fucking inane reason, like seriously why? Ugh- from a ghost kitsune. 

So Boxy threw the boxes at Danny like he normally does. 

Danny let the boxes phase through him like he normally does, because come on? regular boxes are a shit weapon. 

But surprise! That turned out to be the dumbest decision he’s made in a long fucking time. Why? Well because the ecto-barbed wire inside the boxes, that he obviously could not see because the boxes were fucking closed, did not go through him like he expect. 

They did go through him though. Just... not the way he wanted them to. 

Meaning they went through him by cutting through him very literally. He’d realised his fuck up quick enough to minimise the damage but that was because the first box was aimed at his goddamn head. The Box Ghost got to be cut throat for the first time in his entire existence, at the cost of Danny’s head getting fucking whole ass flung into a grocery store wall. 

At least this is how Danny got to find out he could still move his body without its head. It’s also how he found out that decapitation is terrifying to ol’ Boxy. 

“I! AM SORRY! THAT IS NOT OKAY! I mean you are less circular now!”.

Danny takes the time to have his headless body kick The Box Ghost in the shin as his hearing cuts out before using his thermos, it’s hard as fuck to aim without being able to tell what he’s looking at. Since, apparently, he could use his body without a head but couldn’t use his head without it being still connected to his core, fucking great luck there. 

It’s still pathetically easy to catch Boxy, even effectively blind. Using the feel of ecto-energy and ghostly pressure, no matter how weak, to figure out his own location and Boxy’s, aim and fire and he gets the ghost on his third try. No quippy wit of course, since he was down a fucking head holy shit. 

At least he manages to find his head, it, unfortunately, does not auto reattach. 

... And he can’t see to stitch it on himself. Meaning he needs Sam or Tuck, preferably Sam. But she’s not a ghost, meaning he can’t just locate her ecto-signature. He also can’t just float around Amity cradling his head and hoping she fucking sees him. He also can’t call, because no mouth obviously. So that’s either three or four of his twenty some issues. The fifth is just the pure fact that Boxy of all ghosts is the one to put him in this situation in the first place, talk about embarrassing. Ugh. 

Danny settles for calling Tuck, who can absolutely trance the call with ease, and just scrapping the phone speaker on the floor and making thumping noises with his feet. He’d look up morse code if he could see. Zone if he didn’t have Tuck on speed dial he’d be fucked... on second thought he might not have even managed to call Tuck. 

Should he try again? 

Well it can’t make things worse. 

He calls about twenty times and maybe some go through maybe some don’t. He can’t hear if there’s a voicemail. Fuck how is he even gonna know if Tuck does show up? If he had at least one of his heads senses he’d be cool, Tuck always smelled like meat and metal, his voice was an obvious easy identifier or whatever, he did in fact know what the guy’s skin tasted like, and sight was easy. 

But touch was all he’s got right now and unless he’s touching a ghost, aka something with an ecto-field, he can barely tell the difference between people. Maybe whoever will clue in and write their name on his arm or something? He can only hope to be that lucky. 

…

He is not that lucky. 

In multiple ways.

Who ever he’s called is definitely not lean or skinny. Meaning they’re not any of the people he was cool with calling. It’s not Sam’s lean muscled arms with sharp pointed nails. It’s not Tuck’s skinny arms and calloused fingers. It’s not Jazz’s skinny arms and would have been shaking hands. Zone it’s not even Val’s lean toned arms and firm grip. 

Whoever it is has thick muscled arms and rough large hands. If the hands where bigger he’d think he really fucked up and called his dad, but they’re not. Plus, his dads hands would probably not be shaking. His dad wouldn’t be freaked out by an injured ghost. His dad would not be handling an injured ghost with gentle care. His dad would not be seemingly attempting to help. His dad would either ‘study’ him or hurt him or capture him. 

This person is doing none of those three things. This persons hands are shaking, they are freaked out, and they are helping. Meaning he should be okay enough at least. Problem is he doesn’t know if this person can do stitches well enough to align and reconnect stuff, or if this person is actually anyone he called and not some random person who just happened to be around. 

Danny’s got his head cradled in one arm and pressed against his stomach, the person is holding onto that arm, so Danny uses his free hand to point at his head then at his neck, making vague stitching motions and hoping the message is getting across. 

He can feel heavy breathes brush against his jumpsuit so he’s guessing that who ever took some restorative breaths, good? Hopefully otherwise he might be very fucked until someone else shows up. Either way Danny moves his head so that he can kinda feel the mangled detached end of it brushing against the mangled detached end of his neck, he thinks he got his head on the right angle but whoever hopefully can line up his spine for him. 

Wait shit, if this isn’t Sam, Tuck, or Jazz, which it obviously isn’t, then they won’t know he has a fucking spine since ghosts don’t normally have that shit. 

Quickly lifting his head up making the person definitely jerk, to flip it enough for whoever to see the spine end. Gesturing vaguely where he thinks the spine end is, then leaning his body/neck forward and physically grabbing his spine and tapping on it. Hopefully they get it, he gives whoever a thumbs up for moral support before going back to aligning his neck ends and holding his head steady with both hands. 

The person goes around his back, their knees pressing up against his lower back and ass, whoever was tall damn. Not his dad tall but definitely at least six foot. Even their knees are shaking though so that’s not great; hopefully they have a decent therapist. Great now he sounds like Jazz, ugh. 

The person does tentatively touch his spine bit and Danny’s pretty sure he can feel his heads bit of spine pressing into it. He keeps holding his head when the other person feels to get up.

... 

They didn’t just leave did they? The fuck??? Even if he is a ghost that’s still pretty fucked up to just leave him, especially when whoever poked at him and maybe tried to see if they could help. 

... Did they maybe go to grab some shit perhaps? Right yeah most people didn’t just walk around everywhere with medi kits and shit.

...

It is taking whoever a while if that’s what they’re- oh wait nevermind, based on the vibrations on the ground he’s going to guess the person is back and it seems like they’re running. Cool. Okay. Definitely had gone to get stuff. 

The person damn near knees him in the back when they get back down on the floor with him. Jerk. Danny would scoff or scowl if his head was freaking attached. 

They’re grabbing at his spine again so it’s definitely one hundred percent the same person. Good. Cool. He wasn’t totally abandoned headless by a random grocery store. 

Then he feels some seriously jarring vibrations travel down from the bit of spine attached to his skull, officially very confused. What the actually crap did whoever run off to get??? Then he feels cold metal on his bodies exposed section of spine, it feels kind of like a flat bar? Oh! OH! Okay he is absolutely getting a metal bracket drilled into his spine to hold it together, that was actually pretty fucked up. Effective hopefully but wow, oof. This was gonna suck so much later.

And now he can’t tell if the person is shaking because of being freaked out or because of the goddamn drill they’re taking to his spine. 

He thinks whoever drills on three brackets or metal rods, before the drilling fully and finally stops. He’s starting to get some feeling back in the rest of his spine and the bottom bit of his skull but his actual skin and hair and senses are still a lost cause. Whoever taps he’s shoulder very cautiously and draws a question mark over his jumpsuit, so Danny moves to hold his head up by the hair and takes the other hand off of his head to try and pinch the jagged detached edges of neck skin together, then making the stitching gestures again. He needs his skin at least somewhat securely connected for things to heal at a remotely functional degree, annoying but whatever. 

The person writes ‘ok’ on his skin, at least the person was calm enough to try communicating with him now. Neat but Danny’s not going to push shit, instead going back to using both hands to hold his head steady. Unfortunately he had expected this person to, you know, use a sewing needle or something and some fucking thread to stitch his skin up. What he hadn’t expected was the sudden feeling of being shot with two extremely shallow and thin bullets straight in the neck. Ancients fuck what the hell?!? He absolutely jerks from that. 

Okay so, this fucker is using a goddamn staple gun he thinks? Did whoever run off to a fucking hardware store? The next staple is a lot shakier and Danny makes a point not to jump, which gets him rewarded with the next staple being less shaky. Danny’s just going along with this because it should? maybe? actually work? Hard to say since he’s never reached for goddamn staples when he’s needed a bit of patching up. This person was probably hoping that securing his spine would be good enough. Well tough shit, his luck ain’t that fuckin’ good. 

...

.......

It takes a goddamn while, and he thinks the person is taking fortifying breathers every so often. Which is fair. Stapling a persons neck back on had to be super upsetting and freaky. But! He can actually hear -yes, hear!- the staple gun noises now. It’s alarming a little, way too much like the sound of some of his folks guns but he can take it. But eventually whoever does stop. 

“Holy shit this is, so fucked”. 

Wait... holy shit, Dash???? Why him of all people???? The fuck? Well... okay guess Danny can’t be complaining too much. The guy had a ton of hero worship going on, so he wasn’t going to dick his goddamn idol over. 

Danny tentatively lets go of his head and, when it doesn’t flop over or anything, he gives Dash a double thumbs up. 

“Oh, oh thank zone his heads not loling over. Holy shit”. 

Danny taps on his ears and gives another thumbs up. 

“Are... are you trying to say you can hear again? Fuck this is so screwed up”; it kinda sounded like he ran his hands through his hair roughly. 

Danny gives another, but far more eager, thumbs up. 

“That’s? That’s good right?”.

Another thumbs up from Danny.

“Okay good. Good. This is so not how I ever wanted to run into my hero. In to you. What the zone even happened?”.

Danny doesn’t know how Dash expects him to answer him. So he makes an ‘x’ with his fingers over his mouth or where it feels like his mouth is anyways. 

“Still can’t speak huh?”, he actually snorts even if it sounds shaky as Hell, “that must suck for you”.

Oh hundred percent yes. Danny’s a talkative bastard. Danny flips him off. Apparently that’s really funny because Dash just starts wheeze laughing, it sounds like he flopped down on the ground which is honestly probably really gross, fuck knows what’s on it. 

“Zone I just stapled Phantom’s neck together and he flipped me off, what the fuck is today oh ugh”.

Hey if anyone’s having a shit day here it’s him. Sure having to fix him would be pretty fucked but at last Dash wasn’t the one dealing with being fucking decapitated and oh hey his visions coming back some. Blurry as hell but he can, in fact, see. He glances around, there’s a lot of glowing green stuff, probably his ecto, he should probably clean that up; also, he now knows why he usually fixes himself up with thread and not staples, shit is tense and makes his skin pull. 

Eyeing Dash, who’s staring at him Danny thinks, Dash jerking and sitting up, “hey the blank stares gone, you got vision back?”.

Danny wiggles his hand back and forth in the air and makes a weird squeaking sound, shrugging. Dash shakes his head disbelievingly, “I can’t believe you can survive losing your freaking head. Man that’s cool. Super freaky and I’m going to have so many nightmares now”. 

“Air pee”. 

Dash looks at him deeply concerned, opening and closing his mouth a few times before shaking his head and getting up. “You good? I can leave? Wait shit, sign my arm!”. 

Danny rolls his eyes but does as he’s asked because he is not nearly enough of an asshole to refuse after the guy stapled and drilled his freaking head back on. Danny also gives him a pretty solid back pat, “you ‘ight”. 

“Thanks but no? I’m raiding my dads liquor cabinet immediately”.

Danny can’t even give him shit for that, even if even he knows that ain’t the best way to deal with fucked up shit. Shrugging and stretching out, a lot of things cracking and popping, nice he’s seeing actual proper details now and his spine feels more proper spine like. Shit was gonna take so long to heal though. “Jus’ don’ mae rum ceral an’ don’ wine up inna ‘rigerater”. 

Dash sounds horrifically disgusted, “ew and... I won’t?”, the jock somewhat cautiously walks away. Fair enough, Danny just put him through some whack ass shit and then basically admitted to having had rum cereal and crawling into a refrigerator.... 

Him and his stupid fucking mouth. 

...

Okay so what now, if he changes back right now he’s going to start bleeding red everywhere. Fuck right, he’s gotta clean up his ectoplasm. At least that’s a simple thing, floating back down towards the ground and setting it all on fire. Watching the blue flames for a bit and realising that he absolutely can not hide Dash’s patch job for shit.

Well.

Fuck him entirely.

And by ‘him’ he means himself, not Dash. Dash did the best he could and Danny could not expect anyone to do a stellar job of reattaching people’s heads. In fact, someone being remotely skilled at that should be deeply concerning. Even a ghost having that skill would be concerning.

Alright so first things first, find something reflective and check Dash’s work out. Hmmmm. Okay so a chunk of shiny metal will have to do. Him lifting the piece up and around his neck to check it out, flames still burning away, as Sam arrives.

“Danny why did I get a soundless thumping call and why is this entire area on fire?”.

So Dash did a pretty okay-ish job, like yes all the staples are almost all uneven and less than straight, some aren’t in properly and one looks like it got bent to fuck. But his skin is knitting itself back together.

Danny turning around to wave at Sam gets him an instant gasp of horror. “Oh fucking zone, what happened!”.

Danny holds up a finger, “so I can survive decapitation and Dash know’s how to use power tools”, and floats himself around her enough for her to look at his neck, even she’s being leery about touching it or moving his head around. At least his vocal cords have put themselves back together, even if it sounds like he’s eaten an entire box of nails.

“Damn your voice sounds like shit”, she winces, poking one of the staples which Danny absolutely twitches in a bit of discomfort from. Okay so this shit was gonna hurt like a bitch when he changes back, ugh. Her frowning and digging in her pocket, “okay sit down, I’m at least attempting to straighten this shit out. I’m not taking out the staples, it’s healed some so it’ll do less damage to just let your body dissolve the metal”.

“Yeah he also drilled fucking hardware brackets into my spine”.

“Why would let him use that!”.

“I couldn’t see or hear or speak! Sam! I couldn’t tell who it even was that was trying to give me a patch up!”.

Sam rubs her temples sighing, pointing at the ground which fine Danny floats back down towards. At least the flames are dying out, yay for not leaving a crime scene level of ectoplasmic mess that could be traced back to him! Her getting to work immediately, “geez he pulled your skin too tight in some spots and not tight enough in others. Some spots aren’t even lined up well!”.

“Sam give the guy a break, he was terrified! And remotely normal people do not know how to put skin back together unless they’re literally doctors”.

“Yeah well this is going to heal really nasty, it’s already healed nasty”, she points at his face with a slightly ectoplasm stained finger, “and you aren’t missing any jumpsuit meaning unless you feel like adding a choker to your costume you can’t cover this up”.

He was unfortunately aware of that. As Phantom it wasn’t… too big of a deal. It would just raise questions about ghosts being able to get scars and how he got it and if he had more. Zone his folks might even rework some of their research over this. But… it would make people worry and he didn’t want that. “Considering the choker wouldn’t even be part of my actual form, I’d just wind up wrecking it. But-”.

She huffs, unclipping her own choker and holding it in front of his face, “you better have been about to say ‘but I should at least cover it up while it’s healing’ Danny. I have a million of these things, go ahead and destroy a few”; she drops it on his lap and continues moving his floating ass around to stitch between the staples.

Danny sighs to himself, careful not to swallow or move his Adam’s apple too much, “fine, but I’m just going to wear turtlenecks as Fenton, a chokers a little too attention drawing when I don’t normally wear that shit”.

She just scoffs as she continues her work.

Would a turtle neck hide this shit? Not if anyone remotely looked at him with any degree of attention even slightly. Like a child wouldn’t notice purely by being a lot smaller than him but that’s it. Unfortunately a choker or handkerchief will just make people more likely to look at his neck, and bandages would be even worse. Aka he doesn’t really have any options here.

Sam nodding and leaning back, “okay, you’re good. This is a seriously messed up injury though, you caught the ghost who did this? It was a ghost right?”.

Danny blushes immediately, “it was a ghost yeah, and ugh, I’m never living this down”, sighing into a hand and trying to ignore the way the staples pull, “it was fucking Boxy”. She laughs scandalised at him. Danny groaning more, “yeah yeah laugh it up. He actually scared himself”. She laughs even more and fine he joins in a little too. Fuck today so much.

…

After a bit she pokes his floating ass, “you should change back, so you get over the pain before we get you home and in bed. Your parents are still doing late night hunts right?”.

Danny sighs, putting his feet on the ground and nodding, “unfortunately, yeah”, moving to rub his neck before remembering that would be a fucking dumb idea and scratching his hair instead, his head felt unpleasantly fresh, “sure it means I don’t have to deal with their questioning but ugh”. They would somehow manage to get themselves involved in one of his late night ghost fights and shoot at him, it was annoying and every time it happened whatever ghost he was fighting legit debated throwing hands with his parents for real. Some purely because the Fenton’s shot first, others because they were interrupting their chosen ‘Phantom fist-a-cuffs’ time, others because they knew Phantom wouldn’t do it himself.

Anyway.

Human time.

Ha. This was gonna suck. Sure not as much as that time Tuck had to haphazardly shove his organs back inside him and Danny had to change back before said organs could reorganise themselves, but still. He cringes his whole face up in anticipation as he lets the change flow over him. “ANCIENTS FUCK!”, bending over, one hand on a now shaking knee, and the other tenderly over the front of his neck.

Ow.

Holy shit.

Fucking Hell he is never getting decapitated again. Oh Ancients.

He can taste metal inside his throat and he can’t tell if that’s blood or actual literal metal. The spine bolts are awful actually, he should not have let Dash do that. Oh he is regretting everything so much. “FUCK! OW! WHY DID I LET HIM DO THAT!”.

Sam pats his back as he drops his hand from his neck, touching would only make it worse, both hands on his knees and wheezing now. His neck was on fire and extremely cold all at once and it was fucking stupid and he hated it. He can feel his ecto attacking the metal, it burned more than he’d like. Swallowing, “oh that was such a bad idea”, he is not eating anything for a while. Pushing himself to stand up and blinking tears out of his eyes, “I, ow, am phasing all my food directly into my stomach for a while. Oh zone, this sucks”.

San pats his back again, “figured. Definitely no swallowing utensils for you for a bit”.

“Sam, if a fork prong got caught on or nicked the stupid bolts, which some are definitely partly inside my throat and bolted back to my spine, I will scream immediately”. Zone he would have screamed from changing back if he hadn’t been prepared for it to hurt like a son of a bitch.

She nods, “and I wouldn’t blame you”, scowling, “I still can’t believe you let Dash drill fucking Home Depot bolts into your neck. You know how dirty those things probably were? Ugh. Now stand still, you’re leaking”.

Danny has to clench his fists something fierce, fingernails digging into the palms of his hands, to keep from flinching as she wipes a cloth around his neck. Rolling his eyes at her whipping the side of his mouth too with a stupid smirk. “How bad does it look?”; he does not feel like going through the effort and pain of trying to use that bit of metal to look it over again.

“Bad. Danny. Gnarly and jagged. The staples stick out really harshly”, frowning and crossing her eyes as they cautiously and carefully make their way out from behind/around the grocery store which was thankfully closed. “When I stitch you up I always try to make it blend smoothly with your skin as much as possible, Dash was definitely not thinking about that, which fine I can’t blame him for, but still”, grimacing, “you better be really careful about what turtlenecks you wear, otherwise the staples are going to catch on the fabric”.

Danny full body winces, oh zone that would suck. He might maybe be able to resist screaming at that but he’ll definitely at least suck in a really ragged breath and curl in on himself. He was used to pain but still; he doesn’t even want to move his head or neck around. And of course his voice still sounded like hot garbage but considering the bolt attaching the inside of his throat to his spine that made sense. He really wishes Dash had positioned that one bracket and set of bolts differently. He can absolutely feel the metal bar being squished between his throat and spine. Ugh.

Shaking his head as they finally make their way back to FentonWorks. Sam giving him another pat, “you good to see yourself to bed or am I helping the injured baby”. 

Danny snorts, “oh shove it”, chuckling, “I can handle my self but I am absolutely taking the fuzzy blanket off of my bed because I do not want to get woken up by my bed ripping out a staple”. 

“Smart choice”.

She heads off with a simple wave and chuckle at Danny sticking out his tongue, at least he had motor control of said tongue again. Okay, now get lunch and go to bed before his parents possibly show up. 

He grabs out the left over chilli, that is thankfully not sentient or moldy, and phases it into his stomach. Was it going to take a bit to digest? Yes, obviously. But he was absolutely not chewing this shit and swallowing it. He’s had enough unintentional pain for one day that he absolutely does not feel up to adding in any intentional pain. 

The fluffy blanket that was super comfortable especially when his muscles were all achey, gets torn off and left on the floor in a heap. His floor isn’t exactly ‘clean’ but that doesn’t really matter to his sorry ass; he is going the fuck to sleep. 

“Nocturne bless this fucking bed”. 

Chap. 2:

The Un-hide-able Kind Of Damage

Did Danny sleep the whole night away? Obviously not. That never fucking happens. But no one serious showed up and every single one that showed up took one look at his neck and noped out. Apparently there was a bit of a code to not mess with Phantom if he was rocking some injury that was really fucked up. It’s didn’t help that it looked gnarly regardless of form... the choker barely helped and he forgot it almost every time. 

But he managed to make it to morning without further neck or throat damage. He also did not see any online photos or videos of the damage, so far so good. 

He absolutely meticulously inspects his turtleneck options for loose thread or snaggy material. He’s left with a total of three wearable sweaters, not great but not, you know, bad either. The one he goes with is a dark red, in case he bleeds a little, and has a burning Christmas’s tree on it, because anytime is the right time to say fuck you to Christmas. Dumbass holiday, that one. He phases the thing on because he is not dealing with trying to get his head and thusly neck through the long turtleneck part, shit’s painful enough as it is. Him fiddling with the collar in the mirror, the wound is still jagged enough that the fabric brushing against the edges sends twinges of pain up and down his neck. It’s not great. Not at all. Plus, it covers the wound about as well as he expected it to; if anyone one stares or specifically looks at his neck then he’s screwed. 

He’s seriously tempted to just... not go to school. Zone spending the day laying in the park would be better. But the lasts thing he needs is the school calling his parents and them wanting to have a talk with him. Or everything forbid he runs into them while he’s supposed to be in class. Even if he was still getting along with them, which he’s not going to be anytime soon, he wouldn’t want them around him to possibly notice he’s injured. 

Meaning school pretty much has to happen. Sighing to himself and moving down the stairs gingerly enough to not make his sweater move, heading out to go suffer through wildly unnecessary schooling. 

…

He waves at Sam and Tuck, they’re huddled by his locker, man does he ever love them. Tuck looks so worried at him, “show me immediately. What the hell, man”. 

Danny smirking and gingerly pulling out and down his sweater, wincing a little from the pressure against the back of his neck, “Sam told you?”.

Tuck’s entire face cringes up, “damn that’s hardcore, did you actually thank Dash for doing that to your poor neck”. 

Danny letting go of his sweater and bopping the techno geek on the head, “he literally reattached my head, of course I did”, shrugging, “sure the way he did it is a little shit and a pain in the ass but at least I have a head again”. 

Both of them roll their eyes at him but they’re smiling so it’s pretty clear it’s all in good fun and jest. Tuck poking him, “oh and we’ve already agreed that we’re taking your notes because you absolutely shouldn’t be lifting and lowering you head constantly for hours. You should be attempting to heal”.

“Pfft, since when do I go out of my way specifically for healing but I’m lazy and you guys know that, meaning you know I’m not gonna say no”. 

All three chuckling as him and Tuck head to their first class, Sam going her own way after a bit. 

Danny makes it though exactly twenty three minutes of class before his ghost sense goes off. At least the ice going up his throat felt faintly soothing, as he shoots his arm up, “bathroom”, and leaves without being given the go ahead. No one ever tried to stop him anymore, all he would get was annoyed glares or sad ones in Lancer’s case.

Pulling into the bathroom and changing, relishing the lack of pain for a bit before zipping up invisibly through the ceiling; he’s got a ghost to track down. 

He has absolutely no issue finding the ghost. Why? 

Because he immediately head butted a motorcycle the second his head exited the fucking roof top.

His poor neck. Zone. Why him? 

Danny floating backwards, rubbing his head and grumbling, “Johnny? What the hell, man?”. 

“Oh damn you really did get decapitated, huh?”. 

“The fuck you think? Duh”, sighing and crossing his arms at the ghost, “did you just show up to see for yourself?”. He’s going to be a little pissed if that’s the case. He can do without the ghosts doing ‘wellness checks’ on him anymore than certain ones already did. 

Johnny snorts, “surprised it didn’t wind up mounted on a wall”. 

To be fair, that’s kinda what Danny himself thought would be what happened if he ever did lose his damn head, but that was mostly because of Skulker being the only one that usually tried to ‘relive’ him of his head. Scoffing, “as if I’d ever let Skulker’s sorry ass take my freaking head. Now are you gonna leave peacefully or are you gonna start doing donuts on the rooftop?”. 

“That second one sounds pretty solid but I don’t feel like dealing with your head falling back off because that looks like a damn hack job”.

“Hey! You try fixing anything while blind, deaf, and unable to taste or smell!”.

“Damn”. 

Danny chuckling, “I know, right? Now you leaving or?”, and making shooing motions. 

Johnny smirks, revving his engine. Danny sighing mentally because he knows that translates to ‘let’s play tag, mother fucker’. Johnny shoots off with a, “depends if you can catch me, Phantom”. Typical.

“Damn it, Johnny!”. And now Danny’s off chasing Johnny and his stupid motorcycle. He rarely actually tries to shoot the guy because it feels like a dick move when all the guy generally does is street race and drive on roofs. Hell some of the twenty-something’s actually adored the biker and would race him; which fine Danny let slide because he thought it was a nice human/ghost bonding experience even if it was technically a crime. But hey, Danny’s existence was technically a crime too so why should he care anyways? 

Plus, if he’s being honest, chase racing him was kinda fun, felt a little more like being his actual age again. It’s was practically play for him, which was slightly sad, but they only make it a few streets down and destroy one streetlight before Danny’s got Johnny souped. Danny flipping the thermos in the air a little sillily.

“Oh zone! are you okay!”.

Danny jerks in the air and looks somewhat down at the person that looked to be having tea on their balcony. “Yes, worry not citizen”.

Fuck Danny’s luck, the guy points at his own neck, “uh, you sure about that?”.

Crap. What should he say? “Worry not, it’s not fresh and is healing perfectly fine”. Danny salutes and basically flees the conversation. Especially since he heard the guy whisper about how ‘holy shit ghosts can get actual long term injuries???’. Not good.

He basically speed walks to his home ec class with Sam. Poking her a little hard and trying to ignore the stupid pain in his throat and the fact that he’s pretty sure headbutting a motorcycle bent on of the brackets Dash drilled to goddamn his neck, “a civilian noticed”.

“Well shit. Not surprised but still”, Sam shrugs, “well Tucker’s got any mentions of you set up to ping him so we’ll see if this person keeps things to themselves or not”.

After all, there really wasn’t much else any of them could do.

…

Does he get a ping from Tuck? Absolutely. It takes all of eight minutes. Danny groaning to himself, he’d thump his head on the table but that would probably hurt something fierce.

Treft26fu: @ whoever DECAPITAED Phantom, you suck and he is weirdly okay with it

Treft26fu: or maybe whoever just wrapped a cord around his neck and TRIED to decapitate him

Treft26fu: anyway this just in ghosts can get proper people like injuries

The guy goes on a tangent for a while actually. Tuck’s managed to actually block the comments from being visible to anyone, thank fuck. Tuck throwing a proper text his way.

Geek: what do you want me to do if he notices no one’s responding to his comments?

Danny humming to himself, the vibrations down his throat aren’t great but aren’t bad either. Well most people would be annoyed if they found out Phantom was silencing them or someone else.

Ghost: pretend to be the G.I.W. silencing people from releasing ghosts are sentient feeling beings

Geek: *snort* nice. So that’s ’I’ll take anti-G.I.W. propaganda for $100’.

Ghost: I’ll take subtle beginning of an uprising for $200

Geek: creating deepfakes in 3… 2.. 1.

Danny just rolls his eyes at the guy not responding after that. Mrs. Canecher snapping, “eyes up here, Fenton”, startling him a little and making him jerk; more than a few people laugh at him. Jerks.

At least he makes it through the rest of his class, goddamn.

Of course that’s exactly when shit goes south. In the form of one Dash Baxter… again kinda. Dash bodily shouldering him into the wall as soon as Danny makes it out of the classroom. And of course Danny winces from that, because getting bashed into a wall is kind of jarring to the fucking bolts and staples in his fucking neck, thank you very much Dash.

Dash’s sneer is practically a growl, even if his eyes don’t really look to be in it, “aw look at little pathetic Fen-tiny flinching from a wall. How ‘bout I give you a real reason to flinch from me”.

Dash grabbing his sweater collar and yanking him up off the ground at the same time as both Danny and Sam snap, “don’t!”.

Dash of course scoffs at their attempt to stop him, sneering down at Danny and ramming him into the wall. Danny closing an eye, wincing, and hissing in pain and frustration. Why did Dash have to be such a fucking jerk all the time? And oh great it feels like that bent bit of metal bracket is being pressed into a fucking vein or something since a quarter of his neck is going numb and fuzzy. Fucking ow. He can feel some portions of nails getting pushed deeper into his skin and blood welling up around them. Wheezing, “put me, down, Dash”; wow his voice sounded extra shit. Like he’d gone and rubbed sand paper on all the nail cuts.

Then Sam, his boss ass him-damned friend, has her boot off and wielded in record time, fully prepared to beat Dash with it regardless of Danny making it very clear he doesn’t want his friends doing that shit to Dash or any other bullies for his sake. He’d rather himself be bullied than anyone weaker/more fragile. Hopefully the fact that she’s doing that when she normally doesn’t is enough to make Dash realise that she’s serious and he needs to fuck off.

Course Dash doesn’t even seem to notice, instead glaring down at a glaring Danny. Which at first makes Danny think this is some ‘dominance’ crap where Dash is just trying to get him ‘scared’ and get him to ‘back down’ and act meek. But a second or two going by and Dash’s glare looking progressively more horrified, gets Danny to actually slap Dash’s wrist off of him.

Shit.

Okay.

Flee?

Flee.

The second Danny’s feet are back on the ground he grabs Sam’s wrist and books it; Dash too stunned to do anything till Danny’s got them around a corner. Danny turning the two of them invisible immediately so he can tenderly put a few fingers up to his throat and wheezing in pain.

Sam whispering, “you good”. Danny shaking his head, blinking away a bit of tearing, and whispering back, “honestly no. He’s, he’s, probably, the worst, person to, notice, this”.

“Considering it’s his handy work?”.

Danny winces a little, nodding slightly and being mildly pissed at the way that pulls on the staples.

Both stilling and staring when Dash, still looking a little horrified, appears around the corner and looks around, him frowning in confusion, “what? Where?”. When he seems sold on currently being alone he stares at the ground, then at his slightly shaking hands, and mutters, “am I just hallucinating now?”, and actually curls in on himself a little as he walks off quickly.

Great. Now Danny feels bad. He’s not trying to make Dash question his own sanity! Ugh. And then Danny feels something hard and definitely metal drop in his throat, instantly sending him into a coughing fit, and practically collapsing to the floor in pain; he absolutely drops the invisibility without really paying any attention to having done so. Sam following him down to ground, worried.

Of course all this results in Dash basically rushing back to see Danny kneeling on the ground, one hand on his throat and another on the ground, while Sam is rubbing his back and glaring bloody murder at the returning jock.

Danny coughs up the end of one of the fucking bolts, it clinking on the ground is extremely loud and it fucking rolls away because of course it does, rolls away right into Dash’s shoe. The clink of it falling over feels like a thunderclap while Danny’s still wheezing and screwing his face up in pain.

At least no one’s in the hallway now, having moved quickly off to their classes the second Sam started actually threatening Dash with her boot; her wrath was well-feared, good. She’d be proud, if Danny wasn’t currently groaning into the floor.

Danny lifting up his head enough to eye Dash staring down at the bolt end touching his foot, Danny deciding fuck it and flopping onto his back on the ground with a wet cough and wince. Sam glancing down at him, “you going to just lay there?”, then going back to staring at Dash.

Danny groans again, absolutely crying a little, “I, am ’ever, lettin’, ‘one bolt, my fuckin’, ’eck, agin”.

Dash fucking squeaks of all things and shuffles over to stare down at Danny, cautiously avoiding the glaring goth. Danny glares at Dash without much feeling, “what? Go’, any ‘ore insuls, to ‘row, my ‘ay?”, coughing wetly and wiping at his mouth with a sleeve, careful not to jostle his head, “or ‘eel, like tossin’, e ‘round, ‘ore?”.

Dash blinks harshly and speaks again, “Phantom? You… coughed up a bolt end”, the guy is fiddling with the damn corroded off bolt end, the green burning on it is very stark. Why the fuck was the guy fiddling with that thing? Ugh.

Sam jerking out a hand, glaring at the jock, “give it and go away”.

“What? I- no! Screw off Manson!”. Ah Dash sounds slightly more normal now. Still freaked but not weirdly flat anymore.

Danny snickers, wincing from his throats bullshit, “I ‘ean, ur the one, eno ‘rewed my, ‘roat”.

Sam groans immediately at him, “goddamn it, Danny”.

Even Dash winces down at him, “Zone fuck, holy shit, you’re… Phantom?”, the guy drops the bolt and runs his hands through his hair, “oh zone I reattached Fenton’s head, zone”. Sam running after the rolling bolt, “damn you too, Dash”. Danny has faith she’ll get it before it causes any issues. Dash is busy pacing in circles currently so…

Yeah. Not helpful.

Fuck his neck felt kinda totally raw in spots and based on the wetness on the back of his neck and head he’s gonna guess he’s making a bit of a puddle of blood. Fun. Ow. Wheezing, “this, this is, ‘finitly the ‘econd, wors’ ‘jury, I’ve had”. He can feel one of the holes in his throat sliding back and forth across the length of the bolt when he talks or swallows. This is hell a little bit.

Dash stops and crouches down on his ankles near Danny’s head staring at him but only kinda seeing him, “second? Worst?”, sputtering, “decapitation? Is second place? What? And I’m? Staring down at Phantom?”, blinking harshly, “Fenton’s-your Phantom?”.

Sam comes back and smacks Dash over the head, “you better keep that to yourself, jackass, now help me move Danny to a bathroom or else”, and grabs one of Danny’s arm, Danny just smacking her with the other as a way to give it over. At least Dash jerks up harshly and does grab his ankles, because yeah Danny’s not standing up right now, not a chance. Dash muttering, “never met your heroes, you might have to put their head back on and find out they’ve been letting you beat them up”.

Danny, with his head resting on one arm so he doesn’t have to strain his -very injured and still stitching itself back together- neck muscles to hold his head up, “gla’ ta see yur handlin’ tis well”. As it is, all this being moved crap is making him feel like one of the staples has popped out partly and is just swinging around tugging on bits of still attached skin.

“Danny, shut up before you jack your throat up even more”. Danny huffing an extremely cold breath at her for that. Her glaring down at him, “jerk”, he can tell her hearts not really in the insult though which was absolutely because he was being an ass purely because his throat felt like it was trying to rekill him and AND now someone has basically figured his shit out. Ugh.

At least they make it into the bathroom, without anyone noticing. Of course the door swings back open the second it closes though, it’s Tuck thank everything; meanwhile Sam vaguely gently puts Danny’s arms, and thus head and neck and upper back, down. Sam and Tuck rounding on Dash who’s still holding Danny’s ankles up for some dumb reason, they point aggressively at the jock, growling, “you”.

Danny wheezing from his less than comfortable position only halfway laying on the floor, “‘ash, if ya ‘on’t, put me ‘own, Imma, ‘ick ya”. Dash doesn’t even react to Sam’s and Tuck’s fingers pointing in his face so Danny absolutely intangibly frees an ankle from the guys hand and kicks him one in the chin; Dash sputtering and dropping Danny’s other ankle immediately.

At least he’s now back entirely on the ground, the nice cold sweet ground. The faint metallic plink on the ground absolutely means he definitely lost a staple though, way too quiet to have been a whole ass bolt; plus he’s pretty sure there’d have to be a big gapping hole for one of those to actually fall through a hole in his skin then onto the floor. The plink also getting Tuck’s attention, him lifting Danny’s head up gingerly and pocketing the kinda eroded staple, Danny doesn’t even look at him, “today is ‘hit”.

Tuck ruffles his hair quickly, “and you sound like shit”, before standing back up and crossing his arms at Dash.

“Ya rye ahvin’ a suck in’ ‘roat wound”.

Sam sighs, explaining to Tuck for Danny, “he coughed up a bolt end and even though I told him to stop talking he won’t shut up”, glaring at Dash more aggressively, “so?”. While Tuck gives Danny a chastising, “dude”. Danny just shrugging his shoulders, wincing at the neck movement, and going back to staring emptily at the bathroom ceiling.

He really shouldn’t have come to school. Like at all. Absolutely terrible decision. Stupid him. Stupid stupid him. Ugh.

Dash’s swallow is loud and makes Danny internally cringe at how much swallowing that aggressively would hurt right now. “So the thing I gave myself a massive hangover over has come back to haunt me on Fenton’s neck, what the fuck”.

Danny blinks, wheezing instead of chuckling, “ah. Ya ‘ctually raid-ed, folk’ lior’ cabnet?”.

Sam and Tuck giving him judgemental looks, while Dash throws his hands out baffled, “I spent an hour shaking and stapling my heroes neck what of course I did-what-oh-my-zone-this-is-a-nightmare”, and starts pacing in circles again.

Tuck chuckles though, eyeing the jock, “are you saying that because Phantom’s Fenton or because of having to deal with a horrific injury”.

“Both!”, Dash stops and gestures aggressively at the geek, “both”, sticking both arms down at Danny, “how even? Zone fuck did your parents experiment on you or something?”, screwing up his face and seemingly speaking more so to himself, “can I get away with beating the Fenton’s up?”.

Danny snorts, wincing, “ow fuck. Naw, my ‘ad, will ‘reak you, ‘ike a ‘ooth-ick, ‘ash”.

“That doesn’t mean he will!”, shaking his arms at Danny, “you didn’t”,

Sam scowls down at Danny, “Danny, shut. Up”, then walking closer to Dash and pointing a finger right in Dash’s face, “one, Danny will be mad if you try to fight his dad. Two, he’ll stop you and fuck his throat up more anyways. Three, it was an accident that you have no damn right to know anything about you asshat. Four-”, signing and dropping her hand, “-my opinion of you just, unfortunately, went up a notch”.

Danny blinking and turning his head, ow, enough to look at her, “oily ‘hit”,

“Shut. Up”.

Danny huffs at her, pushing himself to sit upright with some effort, pointing at Dash then shrugging and dropping his hand.

Dash blinks, “how are you so calm if you’re not dead”.

Tuck groaning, “oh he is dead, just not entirely”.

“That makes zero sense, loser”.

Danny is having none of that, he lifts a hand up again and ecto-blasts the bathroom stall next to Dash’s head. Dash jumps, squeaks, and slowly looks to stare at Danny wide-eyed. Danny quirking an eyebrow, “bad”.

“I- um- okay?”, Dash still sounds squeaky, looking at Sam and Tuck, “holy shit you’re sidekicks”.

For once both Sam and Tuck facepalm for a reason other than Danny being a dumbass. Tuck laughing while Sam sighs, “yes, Dash, obviously”, gesturing at Danny who grins dumbly, “you really think we’d let this dumbass do shit on his own? He’d do something stupider than he usually does”, grimacing at Danny, “Danny, you’re leaking again”.

This time it’s Tuck sighing and grabbing some paper towel to clean Danny’s throat and mouth off. Danny’s almost tempted to wheeze really hard to maybe get blood splattered around but that would be really dumb and really painful for no good fucking reason. He just really hates today and his stupid body right now. Grinning instead, “‘ink ya can un’end a bracke’? Kinda ‘ill ’on’t have feelin’ in ‘art of mi ‘eck”.

Tuck glares at him, “what”, sighing disbelievingly, “you shoulda mentioned that immediately, man. Why do you do this shit to us and yourself”.

Dash flinching, “did I mess up?”, while Tuck moves around to where Danny’s tapping his neck. Danny shrugging, “I ‘ean, num’ ‘eans naw pain, sew”, and shrugs. And sure, part of his mouth was also numb which wasn’t great but hey at least the pain is mostly only radiating from other sections of his neck, giving him one little area of relief.

Sam gestures at Danny though still staring at Dash, “see what I mean. A Dumbass”.

Dash actually nods agreeingly, jerk, before backing up a step or two when Tuck pulls out his personal media kit and one of those sharp art knives from inside, tweezers too but that was probably less startling to the jock. “Going to have to rip a few out, man. And probably cut some stuff”. Him yanking out a staple actually takes so much effort Tuck falls on his back.

Danny cringing, ow, “my ‘ody sure ha’ attichme’ isdues, huh?”. Tuck pushing himself up and clamping down on another staple, “you suck. Sam you wanna help instead of glaring Dash out of existence?”.

The goth huffs, points aggressively at Dash, “you. Stay”, before moving over and grabbing the wannabe scalpel; Danny gripping his knees at the almost feeling of sharp metal on skin.

Oh great it kinda looks like Dash is shaking a bit again. Lovely. But the guy shakes himself off somewhat and actually comes over to help, sorta help at least, too. Grabbing Danny’s shoulders to, Danny guesses, keep him steady.

Danny absolutely feels the second Sam, or Tuck he’s not looking, gets the metal unbent. Him jerking forward, a hand to his neck and headbutting Dash’s chest, “ow! Fuck! Shit! Agh!”. Okay note to self, no pain for a while thanks to numbness equals sudden intense pain when numbness goes goodbye bye. Ow. Why is he so stupid? And Dash is so startled he doesn’t even move or do anything more than huff like he just got the wind knocked out of him which he probably did; Dash falling on his ass seconds later, “shit Fenton! Ow!”.

Sam moving quickly to stitch up the hole she had to cut in him to get good enough access to fix his shit, “stay still, your lucky you didn’t rebend the thing”, grumbling to herself, “at least that jerk bought solid brackets”.

Dash wheezing a little and rubbing his chest, “I wasn’t going to patch freaking Phantom up with cheap shit he’d break in a fight”.

Tuck getting up to clean things, and himself, off in the sink, “that’s actually smart, congrats”, eyeing Sam and Danny, “how’d it get bent anyways”.

Sam growling without looking away from the work she’s almost done, “Dash here slammed him into a wall”.

Danny, kinda staring at Dash as something to do and trying to ignore the pain and pulsing, “actulie I head’utted Jon’s ‘ike”,

“Why would you do that!”.

“Acci’en’! Gosh!”.

Sam huffing, “well the wall didn’t help”, then looking at Dash as she cleans her own hands, “like I said, he’s a dumbass”.

Dash nods slowly, “yeah”, looking down at Danny, who’s just sitting on the ground slightly curled in on himself, “is, are you gonna be good? And why did this hurt but not me drilling your spine?”.

Tuck actually gives Dash a supportive backhanded swat on the arm, grinning, “don’t worry about it, he heals like a beast. Also, he doesn’t feel pain as Phantom”.

Danny straightening out some and stretching, wincing at the throat hole moving over the exposed bolt again, “a ‘essing and curs’”, and promptly coughing again, spitting up metal bits, at least he caught all the shreds and corroded bits in his hand this time. Grimacing at the mess of spit, blood, and metal; getting up with a stagger to wash his hand off, “ew”.

Dash gestures aggressively at Danny as Danny turns around to eye him, “I wouldn’t call that ‘healing’ at all!”.

“Dude, ya re-atta-ed mi ‘ead! Imma ‘ay Imma doin’ a damn ‘ood job”. Oh hey, it’s slightly easier to talk now, cool. It feels like that one hole is closing up now, that musta been where the metal he was just coughing up came from.

Dash opens and closes his mouth, humming and shrugging after a beat, “yeah I guess that would kill most people, huh”. Danny wheeze laughing as Sam and Tuck shout, “YES!”, at that.

No one says anything for a bit until Danny clears his throat, which was dumb to do, and winces. At least one throat hole is gone now, he is so not going to class until he apparently coughs up the other bolt end. “Okay. So. We ‘ood?”.

Tuck grinning at Danny, “well you sound slightly better”.

Danny shrugging, “bye bye ‘aping throat wound”. Tuck gives him a thumbs up like a real friend. Then, of course, he feels the other bolt end inside his throat fall, fuck. That of course causes another coughing fit that sends him to the ground again, Tuck and Sam rushing over to pat his back hard till the damn bolt gets coughed up. Danny just groaning and rolling to lay on his back again, “mevar ‘ind”.

Dash wheezes, “I- um, we’re good. Yeah we’re good. But if I ever run up on an injured Phantom I’m calling your idiot friends since I clearly suck at it”,

Tuck waving Dash off, “Dash, none of us would have known what to do with a decapitation. That was a first for Danny-dude”.

“Yay ‘or mi”, Danny shaking away a few tears, man his body was an asshole. Sitting up enough to look at Dash more properly, “ya ‘id ‘ood”.

Sam snapping, “no he did not!”.

Danny pointing aggressively at her,“tis ’raight an’ ha-n’t fallen oof”.

“That doesn’t mean much”.

“Be ‘orse it I ‘ried to mi ‘elf!”.

“Your head would be backwards and upside down somehow if you did it yourself, moron”,

Danny flips her off. Dash actually chuckles though, “this is the weirdest conversation I’ve ever been in, wow”, then collapsing against a bathroom stall, which causes the doors to open, which results in Dash falling backward with a yelp and fucking knocking himself out with the toilet.

You.. you gotta be kidding? Seriously? Danny blinks, “‘eri-yous-lie?”. Sam actually bursts out laughing while Tuck runs over to help get Dash out of the stall, him snapping, “don’t you even try to think about helping, Danny”.

“Eh I ‘ink I ‘elped enou’ bi ‘ockin’ ‘im out”.

“No”.

“Yes”.

Sam and Tuck glare at each other before laughing, all three of them winding up on the floor laughing, or wheezing in Danny’s case. Dash groaning from the floor a few seconds later, “did I just get knocked out by a toilet?”.

Sam snorts, smirk showing in her voice, “yup”.

“That’s really hilarious actually”, Dash shakes his head, “if I wasn’t probably high on Advil my head would kill me”.

“Hey, at ‘east ‘vil actu-eel ‘orks on ya”.

Dash snorts, “that’s rough man”.

“Eel mi ‘out it”.

“I have no idea what you just said”.

“Piss oof”.

Danny and Tuck pushing themselves to sit up, meaning that now everyone’s basically just sitting in a sorta circle in a men’s bathroom. Cool. Man his throat is killing him though. The fresh stitches on the back left side of his neck stand out in the swath of pain pretty noticeably, why? Because they hurt less. A staple gun was never, ever, getting added to the medi kits; Ancients.

Tuck eyeing Dash, “so, are you actually going to keep your mouth shut about this? About finding out your idols secret identity?”.

Dash puts up his hands, “I’m not Wes, I’m not that stupid”, flushing a little, “but I definitely did tell Kwan about, uh”, gesturing awkwardly at Danny, “patching you? up? Yeah”.

Danny shrugs, trying not to move his neck with the motion, it kinda works, “eh, figs”.

Tuck chuckling and shaking his head, “he means ‘figures’, which yeah even Sam can’t blame you for venting to your best friend, that would be a dick move. Right Sam”.

Sam scowls, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms, before sighing, “fine. It really would be”. Danny giving her and the jock thumbs up, because yeah, talking was not helping his healing ass like at all.

Dash chuckles awkwardly, “yeah, Kwan’s the best”.

Sam sighing, “Kwan will also realise Danny’s Phantom if he sees”, rubbing her temples, “meaning we still have a jock to keep an eye out for”.

Absently, Danny knows it would be a massive dick move to force Dash to keep this from his best friend. Granted Sam and Tuck might also beat him if he gives the jock the go ahead to tell Kwan. But unfortunately Dash continues, “and he did tell Star, who told Paulina, who, uh, told all the cheerleaders, who probably told everyone”.

Sam glares murderously at Dash then Danny, “I’m going to kill him”.

Danny pouting, “‘am, it is ‘ery rude ta ‘reaten ta kill some-on in ‘ront of a ‘hos’”; and then spits up some metal and just rubs it on his pants, he’ll wash them later maybe. All three grimace at him. Whatever.

“Um, let me point out that they did tell everyone and I did not expect to witness hardcore medical drama and hear mind breaking info when I decided to take a smoke break inside for a change. Hi”.

All four jerk and slowly look at the guy peaking out from a slightly open bathroom stall door. Well. Damn it. Screw his existence entirely. Dash and Sam getting up instantly and both looking ready to beat this guy into silence for Danny’s sake. Aw, they’re bonding over murderous intent, how utterly evil and adorable. Meanwhile, Danny decided fuck it and grabs out his phone. Moving to the Amity Teens chat:

thealivedanny: those whose eyes see have mouths that don’t move

Haleykaley: that’s ominous hot shit

Bailnwail: has Fentons phone been possessed again?

Tuck’s phone pings, “Danny… why did my phone just ping the sound it does when you message a public chat?”.

“Eye do ya hav’ a ‘iose spec-fy for mi?”.

“I’ve had one ever since someone accidentally messaged the very public gaming chat a death threat meant for Vlad and a picture of your broken arm with exposed bone”, Tuck glancing at his phone, “ah you’re just terrorising the masses, I see”.

The guy comes out of the bathroom stall entirely, hands up at the goth and jock, “hey I ain’t my fault you guys didn’t do a sweep of the place before starting your soap opera medical drama”.

Danny holding up a finger, “echly it’s a super-atura drame”.

“Debatable”, the guy clears his throat, “look it doesn’t really look like there’s any point in silence here but I ain’t no fucking punk ass snitch”, dropping his hands and shrugging, “just ignore me stealing baby formula for my kid brother and we good”.

Danny pushing himself to stand up, his throat felt less hole filled now, “man, I’a eel tha’ shit fer ya”. Then glancing at his phone when it pings, it’s freaking Dash in the teen chat room.

Football king: those whose eyes see have mouths that don’t move

Danny looking at the jock with a quirked eyebrow, said jock gives him a slightly too wide-eyed thumbs up, “you, uh, seem to have this covered so I’m going to go drown myself-”.

“Didn’ ta toile do tha’ ger ya already?”.

“In Advil, Fen-taco or Danny, whatever”.

Danny snorts, wincing a little, “eh don’ ‘ange. An’ ‘on’t haveta craw to hospit”.

“Screw you, oh this is stupid”, Dash scowling, “and like the guy who crawled into a refrigerator should have any say”.

Tuck eyeing Danny, “oh you told him your stupid rum cereal story?”.

“He ‘ad plans ta get ‘runk, it wah apple-cable!”:

The dude wheeze laughs, “fucking ‘apple cable’, nice”. Danny absolutely flips him off, but the guy smiles, “nice to know our little hero is a dumbass”.

Sam eyes him and decides he passes whatever mental test she was giving him, “yeah. Yeah he is”.

Danny rolling his eyes and looking at his phone, at least nine more people have posted the same ‘those whose eyes see have mouths that don’t move’ message. Well shit. Okay. Well… at least Danny’s got a clue for how many people have seen and just fucking put two and two together to get four. Wes also threw in a ‘those whose eyes see have mouths that do move’, because he’s an ass. Fucking Wes, goddamn. No chill. At least a ton of people respond back either insulting or threatening Wes. Good. And Dash also leaving shaking his head is probably good too.

The guy eyes them before jabbing a thumb towards the bathroom stall he came out of, “am I cool to finish my cigarette? Since I put that shit out as soon as you guys hauled ass in here?”.

Sam sighing, her, Tuck, and Danny all exchanging shrugs before Sam gives the guy a go ahead, “sure fine, whatever. But yeah, that snitches get stitches and wind up in ditches thing can absolutely be very literal”.

“Tell that to the whole school then”.

“I will”. Sam basically grabs Tuck and Danny and drags them out of the bathroom. Her grumbling at Tuck as she continues dragging them, likely to their next class, “how bad is it”.

Tuck speaking while scrolling through his phone, “bad, there’s really no way to keep a cap on this”.

Danny hums, which doesn’t hurt nearly as much now that the bolts aren’t inside his throat. Pulling out his phone and dropping a link to one of the many videos of his folks ranting about ‘evil ghosts’ in the chat. Which gets the chat bombarded with ‘THOSE WHOSE EYES SEE HAVE MOUTHS THAT DON’T MOVE’ and he’s pretty pleased with himself over that.

Tuck snorting as Sam pulls them to their seats, “smooth dude, now everyone who didn’t already know, knows it had to do with ghosts, GrEaT iDeA”. Oh the sarcasm was thick there.

Sam pulling out her own phone and scrolling, smacking Danny on the arm, it would have been a head slap if his neck wasn’t still fucked, “idiot! But ugh, at least it seems like it’ll keep people quiet. At least from the Fenton’s and maybe adults in general”.

Tuck shaking his head, “yeah, I still don’t get why all the adults have such a hard time seeing that, at the very least, Phantom’s good”.

Sam growling right back, “because they’re stupid and think that just because they’re adults and we’re kids that there’s no way they could be wrong and us right. And that if kids all agree on or do something then it must be dumb, wrong, or immature”.

Lily turning to face them, “a lot of us also do stupid shit, case and point”, pointing at Danny, “you coming to school with a barely attached head that looks awful holy shit”.

Ah crap, Danny mildly panicky readjusts up his turtleneck, fuck him so much. Tuck and Sam just sigh tiredly at this point, and another ‘those whose eyes see have mouths that don’t move’ gets added to the chat. But the girl grins at him, “you could totally get an awesome tat to cover that though”, leaning over, “I know a guy”.

What?

Sam is interested immediately, “oh do tell, I’ve been dying to get some webs on my shoulders”, grinning evilly, “especially because my parents will stop trying to stick me in strapless dresses then”.

The two girls absolutely do exchange info while one of the cheer leaders, Brittney he thinks, be-lines to his desk. Shit shit shit. But all she does is slam down a thing of lozenges, “here, we use these after practices and games since all that cheering makes for a wicked sore throat”. Danny is confused, “thanks?”. She cringes, “wow you do need them”, smirking, “at least you sound like a gruff musician now”; and walks off to her seat.

Apparently everyone takes that as a sign to give Danny stuff, because goddamn everyone brings him something and by the time the teacher shows up Danny has a little mound of random trinkets and things on his desk. Sam and Tuck are wheeze laughing at him. The teacher quirks an eyebrow at him, “Mr. Fenton?”.

“I’m a ‘agon apparently and tis my horde”.

“Are you sick?”.

“No physicals but in da head prob”.

The teacher rolls her eyes at him before starting the lesson. He spends the entire class getting bombarded by direct messages.

‘Get lots of sleep’

‘There’s some stupid powerful muscle relaxers in my locker’

‘West side bathrooms water is green again so don’t use that to wash up’

‘Do you have enough food’

‘I’m giving Dash first aid lessons against his will for you’

‘You want some apple pie’

‘Whoever did that is going down in my notes as ‘head stealing asshole’ forever more’

‘I cleaned your blood up, no worries’

‘You want more losengezes’

‘I’m making everyone sign a get well soon card bye the bye, it’s glittery and cute’

‘There’s balloons in your locker now, open when most chaotic for maximum chaos’

‘I will cry on your shoulder to feed you emotions if that’s a real thing ghosts do’

‘I’ve got a great emotion support ferret if you want something to pet’

‘I shall supply you with an alarming amount of soothing teas’

And on and on it went, he had to put his phone on silent for fucks sake! It was kinda cute and nice though. Even if it seemed like the entire school had now decided to baby him. And as soon as class ends he gets jumped by one of the drama kids, who throws gauze around his neck.

Danny sputtering and taking a ‘no limbs are allowed to touch’ stance, the gauze hanging like a scarf, “why!?”.

“To wrap it so it doesn’t get infected, obviously”. The kid just walks away.

Tuck, looking at his phone, chuckles, “dude, you’ve been given the ‘is baby’ role”. Danny just pouts and pulls the gauze off from the back of his neck. This wasn’t useful for him, he’d dissolve it, but hey the sentiment was nice.

Jasper chuckling as he comes out of the classroom behind them, “yeah because you’re not taking care of yourself apparently”.

Someone actually gives him a whole ass pie in the hallway before the trio manages to get to their next class, he’s pretty sure they all actually missed lunch somewhere in the time they were dealing with Dash. So hey, free food! Definitely appreciated. Even if he hunches over it to make the fact that he’s just phasing pieces into his stomach not super obvious, and it’s not as good as Skulker’s but the teacher doesn’t give him shit for eating in class beyond glaring… which half the class glares right back at the teacher for.

Then, of course, his ghost sense goes off. Fuck him entirely. Hand shooting up, “bathroom”, and him fucking off. This time he’s careful about potential headbuttable objects when he phases his head through the school roof.

By the time he finds the ghost, it’s Technus annoyingly, there’s not much for him to do. Why? Because at least twelve teens and goddman twenty little kids are kicking and throwing things at the ghost and shouting about leaving Phantom alone. Technus is actually curled up crying, “I CAME TO CHECK ON HIM! PLEASE STOP SMALL CHILDREN!”.

Danny is so fucking confused.

Him floating down slowly, “uh? Whatcha doin’?”.

One of the teens stops, huffing, “well you need to heal, dontcha? Literally no one’s actually seen you with an injury that lasts more than a few seconds”, shrugging, “so no fighting for you”.

Is… is this how he’s going to have to tell the town that he actually likes getting into fights? Oh man, awkward. “I enjoy it though”.

“You are injured. No fighting. In fact-”, the girl digs in her pocket and holds out some tickets to him, “-you shouldn’t even be in school. Go have fun at that little petting zoo in Elmerton”.

Danny takes them because it would be rude not to, right. Blinking at the whimpering ghost, “I’m… still gonna soup him”.

“That’s what you call it? That’s adorable”.

Danny blushes and quickly captures the beaten miserable ghost, immediately leaving. Making it back to class at the same time that Sam and Tuck get bodily pushed out of it. Danny blinking at them, “uh?”.

Sam shakes her head fondly, “apparently we’re supposed to go to a petting zoo?”. Tuck chuckling, “we’ve also been given firm instructions to swaddle you, but I am not caring you around in a teenager sized fabric baby swaddle”; he actually holds up a bunch of fabric.

Danny blinks harshly, “what”, shaking his head and holding up the tickets, “some kids were curb stomping Technus mosh pit style. I’m legit a little touched”. Sam gives an impressed whistle before snagging the tickets, shrugging, and dragging both boys off. Guess they are indeed going to a petting zoo.

“Hey good morning guys, welcome to the Elmerton petting zoo. We’ve got brushes and some treats to the side, or you can just give them pet downs and love with your hands and hearts; everyone here is super friendly, though Flapjacks the black goat is a headbutter”.

Sam snorts eyeing Danny, “you’re a goat, Danny”.

“Goated, you mean”.

She absolutely smacks him for that.

The lady continues, “most places won’t let you hand feed but we gave up on that because you Amity kids are a nightmare and never follow rules”.

Tuck snorting, “how’d you know we’re Amity Parkers”.

“You’re skipping school boldly and look dead inside, obvious tell”. Danny absolutely doubles over wheeze laughing at that, a rabbit sniffs him cautiously.

“And just like goats, you guys are always finding new and interesting ways to nearly kill yourselves. Muffintail got stuck upside down in a random bucket last night and screamed bloody murder till one of the dogs got him out”, pointing to some signs, “we have more neat info about goats over there besides their desire to die”.

Danny snickers, smirking at Sam and Tuck, “Muffintail huh? ‘It’s muffin time, who wants a muffin, please I just wanna die. Please somebody kill me, please it’s muffin time’”.

Tuck wheezes, “fuck that’s so old Danny, zone damn it”. The petting zoo lady laughs to herself too.

Sam wandering off to grab some carrots and poking the roasters with them, at least the roosters actually eat said carrots. A peacock jumps on her head though, Danny and Tuck both absolutely taking a photo of that shit. The zoo lady smiling at that before speaking up again, “before you start wandering around too much, Amity Parker’s aren’t allowed in the horse or deer area since all that ghost smell freaks them out. Please don’t scare our horses and deers. And since there’s blood on your sweater, please leave the wolves alone as they will bite you”.

Tuck laughs while Danny’s face heats up something fierce, he absolutely didn’t bring a spare sweater though so… Danny muttering, “I forgot about that”. Tuck patting his back before he does actually wonder off to bother the other rabbits.

Of course the second Danny’s left up to his own devices he immediately gets rammed in the back by a black goat, which proceeds to walk on his back when he falls over. The petting zone lady scolding it, “Flapjacks no”, when the goat physically jumps up and down on him. Sam absolutely got a video and sent it to the teen chat along with a ‘can’t go anywhere with this dumbass’. There’s mass responses of ‘bad goat!’ and one person commenting that ‘oh I know that one, he’s called flapjacks because he’s a jackass’. The lady does get Flapjacks off him long enough for him to get swarmed by curious bunnies, Tuck following after and laughing at the bunny pile that Danny’s become. That also goes into the chat and gets far more ‘cute’ responses.

The amount of time Danny gets followed around by bunnies is adorable and weird, Danny blinking at his bunny herd, “I think bunnies like me”. Tuck pouting, “I want the bunny love”; Danny gives the guy a bunny, it kicks him immediately. Poor Tuck, Danny snickers at him.

Sam walking over with an owl in her arms, the petting zoo lady looking confused in the distance. “You would think bunnies would hate you, since you’re basically a predator”.

“I don’t eat ghosts, Sam”.

Tuck snickering, “You should, get that ecto”.

“Ew! Tucker!”, Sam smacks the geek, “they are sentient beings!”.

“And sentient beings are delicious, my point stands”.

“Blood mouth”.

Danny laughing at the mild argument, laughing until one of the bunnies decides to bite him right in the fucking throat, “augh! ow what the fuck!”, the bunny runs of with a staple in its mouth. “No no no no no no no no, give that back!”. Danny winces and chases after the bunny even with bits of pain shooting up the side of his neck now; it was doing a pretty good job of healing. Was.

It takes ten minutes of him, Sam, and Tuck chasing the bunny for Sam to catch it and get the semi-dissolved severely ecto-contaminated staple out of the bunnies teeth. The bunny is very mad about loosing its prize and immediately starts biting Danny’s shoes. Danny huffing, holding a bit of fabric to his neck to stem the renewed bleeding, asking the petting zoo lady, “what’s that one’s name?”.

“I Eat My Cereal Dry”.

“Well I Eat My Cereal Dry is a dick”.

She laughs at that at least, while the trio continues wandering around the area.

Lindsey thinks that outside of the bitey rabbit and back-butting goat the whole trip turns out pretty good for the three kids. Sure after school let’s out the place basically gets swarmed by Casperhigh students to the point where the place hits max capacity. She’s frankly flabbergasted and vaguely overwhelmed, especially when most of the students are more interested in the kid with the extremely disturbing neck injury that keeps getting harassed by bunnies.

Like… they’re damn near hand feeding the kid more than the animals, giving him head pats and arm pats and back pats; Millie the goat gets jealous and starts trying to get them to stay away from the boy. Adorable but strange.

At least none of them go near the horses or deers.

Thankfully Danny’s able to go home without running into his parents or any ghosts, seemingly Techus or Johnny or Boxy told everyone to fuck off; Technus getting ganged up on was probably a pretty solid warning to most since everyone really only wanted to fight Phantom specifically or cause random chaos, not get assaulted by children with severely brutalised senses of danger.

Zone, he even makes it through the night uninterrupted for a change!

And checking his throat out in the mirror in the morning, moving it around and prodding at the stitching, and scars from all the staples that have since dissolved. It still ached a bit but there’s no actual pain. The steel brackets are definitely still there because Dash went and grabbed thick ass fuckers but all the bolts are gone for sure, so swallowing and physically eating still made a bunch of pressure on his throat; meaning he’s still sticking to phasing food into his stomach instead of chewing shit.

Jazz bangs on the door a little aggressively, Danny sighing as it just pops open, her staring at his neck, “seriously? Are you okay?”.

Danny sighing again for good measure and rolling his eyes at her, “I am now, yes I know the scarring is gnarly, that’s because of a not super great patch job and not because of how bad the injury was”.

Jazz sighs shaking her head, “I saw the chat by the way”, her leaning on the doorframe, “so, everyone knows now, huh?”.

Danny groans exaggeratedly, he’d tilt his head back dramatically if he wasn’t still slightly injured, “just the teens thankfully”, eyeing her, “they're a lot better about ghosts than the towns adults”.

“You mean the Fenton’s”.

“I mean all of the adults, Jazz. Mom and dad… are just the worst of them”.

She hums at him, which he ignores, “are you even bothering to cover it up now?”.

He knows exactly why she’s asking that, he’s in just his standard simple long sleeve that he always wears nowadays meaning that everyone and anyone will be able to see the scars and bits that are still healing. But he grabs up a handkerchief from the counter, “I’m still covering it, just not really caring about whether I draw attention to it or not”. After all, adults generally won’t ask, teenagers definitely would have… if they didn’t all already know what was up.

“I still don’t like it”.

Danny huffing, “it’s not really your scar to like or show off or not, Jazz”. Zone, with this there was almost no point in bothering to hide any of his scaring anymore, but going bare arms might be pushing it right now, considering how severe some of the scaring was. Eh maybe someday, but not today. “It’s not like mom and dad will really notice”. She cringes but he doesn’t really care if she doesn’t like the honesty.

Jazz nods a little, “well I’m off, try to stay in school?”.

Danny waving her off as he’s grabbing up the handkerchief, “yeah yeah yeah, the ghosts have backed off to let me heal a little so I might be able to actually do that”, chuckling, “apparently decapitation is freaky to them. Who knew”. That does get a laugh out of her at least, before she fully leaves.

Danny not too far behind.

…

Sam and Tuck eye the handkerchief and chuckle to themselves. Sam smirking, “nice neck piece, bored of sweaters already?”.

“Pfft, you know how I like to keep things interesting”.

Kwan shouting, “Fenton! How’s your headless doll situation!”.

What? Danny looks to the jock, confused, “what are you even talking about, Kwan?”.

“You know, like that thing where a ladies head is held by a ribbon? Except you’ve got bolts and staples and thread?”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “that green ribbon story? That has nothing to do with dolls man, but it does have to do with dead people and a decapitation, I guess”, and shrugs, pointing to the handkerchief, “ain’t perfect but my heads almost fully reattached, nothing is actively holding anything on anymore”. At Kwan pointing at his own neck and tilting his head, Danny just assumes he’s asking further about his fashion choices, “it’s still healing, man, it looks gnarly”.

Kwan waves that answer off, “pssh, who cares. Scars make men of boys!”.

Danny, vaguely insulted, grabs the bottom of his shirt and yanks it up aggressively, gesturing at his torso and the aggressive amount of scaring there. Including the nasty, repeatedly reopened, and rarely stitched back together right, Y incision. “You sure about that one?”.

Kwan gapes a little, “dude, you are ripped”.

Of course that’s what he cares about, Danny facepalms immediately. Dropping his shirt and sighing, “I’m still not walking around with a fucking barely healed decapitation scar, Kwan”. The guy has the audacity to pout at him.

Then someone yells, “nice neck! You goof!”.

Danny chuckles to himself, everyone in this goddamn town was so fucking weird and he loved them for it.

He really only keeps up with wearing the handkerchief while shits healing and when he knows his folks are gonna be around, every single teen just seemed to think it was cool. He got lots of lanyards with pins to ‘decorate’ the scar, some weird handkerchiefs, Emilie even knitted him an infinity scarf. The one that made him laugh the most, and realise that things definitely were going to be just fine, was him getting mobbed by the art kids sticking temporary tattoos all around and over the scarring; it looked so damn silly seeing one of his gnarliest scars just covered in unicorns and seagulls and stars and an angry goat. Somehow everyone having fun with it and him not being bothered by it kept the adults from ever even trying to ask about it.

End.

PRompts: Tooth-rotting fluff occurs at Casper High after Danny's secret identity is revealed. Identity reveal. Dash finds out Danny is Phantom. What happens? Could be swagger bishie or not, either or is okay. Danny, Sam, and Tucker go to a petting zoo. Danny receives an injury or scar that he can't easily hide in one form, let alone two.

#phic phight 24 #fill

[phicphight]

Cracked Clay Cup Chapter 11

@greatbigolhampuckjustforme

“So,” said Danny, leaning over the back of the couch.  After Frostbite, he somehow had more energy.  Maybe it was part of his core being active?

“So?” echoed Clockwork, an eyebrow raised.  

Danny blushed.  He’d derailed his own train of thought quite thoroughly.  “Frostbite taught me how to do some things.”

“As did Vladimir, presumably?” asked Clockwork.  “And Jasmine?”

“Well, sure,” said Danny.  “But, like.  More specifically, he showed me how to make things.  With ice.”

“If you are asking for permission to use your powers, you may.”

“Even though I’m inside?”

“You could hardly use them elsewhere,” said Clockwork.  “In any case, this place was created for your benefit.  I only ask that you keep the kitchen and the workshop in order.”

“And your room, right?” 

Clockwork shrugged, and slotted the book he’d been perusing back onto the shelf. “I am not particularly attached to it.”

“You do sleep, though, right?  I know you said that you only sleep once in a while, but staying awake all the time like that can’t be healthy.”

“I am a ghost, Daniel,” said Clockwork.  

“Frostbite slept,” argued Danny.  “He’s a ghost.”

Clockwork sighed.  “If it will give you peace of mind, I can take a nap.”

Danny squinted at Clockwork.  He felt as if this conversation had diverged wildly from his initial aim.  “I… think it would?”

“You sound uncertain.”

“It would,” said Danny, trying to sound more confident.  

Clockwork patted him on the head as he flew past, towards the short hallway that contained the way to both Clockwork’s room and the workshop.  “I will be awake in time to make you dinner.”

Danny wondered if he could, possibly, preempt Clockwork and cook dinner for them himself, but dismissed the idea.  Anything that relied on beating Clockwork in a matter of timing was doomed to fail.  He had other things he wanted to try out, anyway. 

He dropped himself onto the couch and gathered cold in his hands.  Frostbite had shown him how to make rough shapes out of ice.  Simple things like crystals, spheres, cubes.  

He was going to try something a little bit more complicated this time, though.  He had the time, since he was, once again, wracked with indecision about which of his potential guardians he should choose.  Now that he’d seen Frostbite, he had visited all the odd-numbered entries.  He should probably just decide on a method of choosing the next people, and then stick with that for the next three.  Then, he’d be able to move through them faster.  

If faster was what he wanted.  That was a big if.  

Maybe he should just go from the top.  He’d already run into the Observants, aka the only people he definitely wasn’t going to choose, and he’d gone very much out of order already, so that was unlikely to trigger any unpleasant traps.  Although, then, he’d be going from older candidates to younger ones…  Did that really matter, though?  Well, as long as they were all older than Jazz, and at least, like, adults…

He was so involved and occupied by his work and his thoughts that he didn’t realize that Clockwork had returned.  

“What would you like for dinner?” asked Clockwork.  

Danny startled, and the object he’d been shaping shot out of his hands and buried itself in the wall opposite the couch.  “Oops,” he said.  “Sorry.”

“Accidents happen,” said Clockwork, pulling the object out of the wall and turning it over in his hands.  “A gear?”

Danny shrugged.  “I wasn’t able to make it even, but I thought it would be good practice?  And it could be, like, a decoration or something.  A paperweight.  Since you, um, like gears.”

“Hm,” said Clockwork.  He flew over to the kitchen.  Danny bounced up off the couch and followed him.  

Once in the kitchen, Clockwork went to the fridge.  Danny watched with interest and confusion as Clockwork held the slightly malformed gear up against the fridge door and stuck it there.  They looked at it together, Danny trying to figure out exactly how Clockwork had done that.  

“Yes,” said Clockwork, “that’s very nice, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said Danny, still feeling confused.  There was something… off about this.  Not wrong, or bad, but… off.  He blinked and shook his head.  “For dinner… something hot, I think.  Warm and spicy.”

“Certainly,” said Clockwork.  “Burritos it is.”

.

“I think I know who I’ll see next,” said Danny, shaping a lump of ice between his hands as if it was clay.  He didn’t know what it’d be, but it was calming.  

Clockwork hummed, indicating he was listening even as he flipped the french toast he was preparing for breakfast over in the pan.  

“I think I’ll see Pandora.”

“Ah, and why have you chosen her?”

“Because she is a her,” said Danny.  “Like, I don’t think I’ve actually seen a girl since Jazz.  I…  Don’t think the Observants really have genders, do they?”

“Not precisely as you would understand it.  However, most of them go by either ‘it’ or ‘he,’ for future reference.”

“Right.  But Vlad and the Dairy King were both guys.  Frostbite was a guy.  It’s kind of hard to tell whether or not the other two groups have any girls in them, but I’m pretty sure someone named Pandora is going to be a girl.  Especially since her little profile mentions being a queen.”  He wrinkled his nose.  “Unless this is, like, a drag queen thing.  That’d still be something different, though.”

Clockwork slid some french toast onto Danny’s plate and Danny immediately slathered it in maple syrup and butter.  French toast was Danny’s favorite type of toast because you could make it smooth.  All other kinds of toast he knew of could burn.  Figuratively and literally.  

“Anyway, I’ve been kind of wondering…”

“Yes?” prompted Clockwork, when Danny didn’t continue.  

“I’ve been wondering, what’s going on that so many people, you know, want me?”  He made a face.  “I didn’t phrase that very well.  There’s just, like, um…  Okay.  So, the Observants are important, right?”

“Moderately so.”

“Right.  And Frostbite.  Frostbite has to be important.  He told me about a bunch of stuff his tribe takes care of and what else they do.  Then, there’s Vlad and the Dairy King.  Well, Vlad, mostly, I don’t know what the Dairy King’s status is in the Zone, but Vlad’s super rich, and his house was in the human world.  Add that in to this Pandora…  These people are important.  Why are so many of them fighting over me?”

“Didn’t Vladimir and Chief Frostbite both tell you about your exploits defeating Pariah Dark?”

“Yeah, sort of, but that seems like it was mostly down to some enchanted armor or tech.  And convincing other people to do stuff.  Which, I don’t know, that sounds like something anyone could have done.  In retrospect.”  In the moment, when he’d been hearing the story, he’d been very proud of himself, but, once he’d sat down and thought about it, he’d… rethought that.  

Clockwork gave him a look.  

“What?”

“And Vladimir shared the story of your defeat of Vortex?”

“Sure.”

“Frostbite mentioned your victory over Undergrowth.”

“I don’t get where you’re going with this.”

Clockwork sighed.  

“What?” asked Danny, aware he was whining.  

“Don’t you think that these accomplishments are significant?  Perhaps significant enough to draw the attention of, as you said, important people?”

“I guess,” said Danny.  “Hey, was Vlad lying about knowing my parents, then?  If he was interested in me for a different reason?”  

“I cannot tell you that, Daniel,” said Clockwork, obviously exasperated.  

“Not even a little?  Not even with, like, a nod or a wink?”

“No,” said Clockwork.  

Danny grumbled and turned his attention back to his breakfast.  

.

When the light of the portal cleared from his eyes, Danny was unsurprised to find himself among tall, Greek-style pillars.  The pillars weren’t the only tall things around, though.  He craned his head up to look at the face of the tall, blue-skinned, four-armed ghost waiting for him on a large throne.  She wore bronze and black armor over long robe-like clothing.  

“Phantom,” she said, warmly, gesturing broadly with one of her hands.  “Welcome to my home.”

“Thank you, um, Queen Pandora.”

She chuckled.  “I know I mentioned that on those silly little papers the Observants had me fill out, but there’s no need for formality between us.  Not when you have done me so much good.”

“Um.  Okay,” said Danny.  He looked around a bit more.  He knew that there was a specific name for those columns and the carvings on the walls, but he couldn’t, for the half-life of him, remember.  He returned his gaze to Pandora.  “What did I do?”

“You helped me regain my box when it was stolen from me.”

“Was it a special box?” asked Danny.  He decided to fly up to perch on one of the large statues, so he didn’t have to lean back so far.  “If it was that important to you.”

“It was,” said Pandora.  “I have set myself the task of cleansing the Infinite Realms of evil.  My box is my latest prison for evil creatures and forces.  The one who took it attempted to release those things upon both the Realms and the Earth.”

“Oh,” said Danny.  “That sounds hard.  Cleansing the Realms of evil.  How do you even tell if something is evil?”  He bit his lower lip.  “You don’t have any people in there, do you?”

Pandora laughed.  “No, I am well aware of those pitfalls.  I speak of mindless spirits born from negative energies.  They range from pests like snakes and ghost fires, to wyverns and unicorns, to even greater, darker things.”

“Unicorns?” asked Danny, skeptically.  

“There are good unicorns as well, but I don’t have much to do with those.”  

“And unicorns are dangerous?”

“They are large herbivores with a spear on their forehead.”

Danny guessed that did make sense.  “And I helped you catch them again?”

Pandora nodded.  “Some might say that you were only following your Obsession, but as I set myself my task in pursuit of my own Obsession, why should that prevent me from showing my gratitude?  Indeed, a ghost’s Obsession reveals much about their character.  Should a ghost not be rewarded for what they are and what they have chosen to be?”

Danny nodded and assayed a question.  “What’s an Obsession?”

Pandora, who had, until then, been lounging, sat up straight, her red eyes wide.  “Pardon?”

Danny cleared his throat.  “What’s an Obsession?”

.

“So,” said Danny, shifting slightly to get his body better aligned on the Greek-style couch he’d somehow wound up on, “an Obsession is, like, the purpose of your life– Um.  Afterlife.”

Pandora nodded.  “Mine is the battle against evil, the exaltation of the good.  We never spoke explicitly of yours, but I must assume it was something similar.  Did no one speak to you of this beforehand?”

“No.”  Danny felt the need to pout.  “Not even Clockwork.”

“What an incredible oversight,” said Pandora.  She shook her head.  “And no one has been giving you any outlet for your Obsession?  Any way to pursue your purpose?”

Danny shook his head again.  “I didn’t know I had a purpose.”

“Leaving it for so long… Well, it will not kill you, obviously, but it will leave you feeling awfully unfulfilled.”

“Yeah,” said Danny, thinking back over the last few weeks.  “Yeah, I guess I could feel that, maybe.”  He hadn’t felt that way the whole time, but looking back…  “I’m not sure how I can defeat evil or whatever while I’m doing this, though.  It’s kind of designed so that I don’t run into any evil, isn’t it?”“Perhaps so, but there is more than one way to follow one’s purpose, including by honing yourself for it,” said Pandora.  She stood up from her own couch, setting aside her wine cup and platter of food.  “Come, young warrior.  Allow me to show you how I battle evil.”

#phic phight 24 #fill

[phicphight]

Team Phantom's Official-Unofficial Medic

Thanks to seeing how football injuries are treated, as well as a general interest in first-aid, Dash finds himself incidentally helping out an injured Phantom. After a while, Phantom starts to seek Dash out when he needs first-aid. But eventually he comes to Dash with injuries way beyond the scope of Dash's first-aid knowledge, and all he can do is his best.

Based on the prompts: Thanks to seeing how various injuries are treated as a member of the football team, Dash actually has a decent background in first aid and anatomy. He gets adopted into Team Phantom when circumstances keep leading him to be the one patching up Phantom after fights. [from Cake], and Identity reveal. Dash finds out Danny is Phantom. What happens? Could be swagger bishie or not, either or is okay. [from @q-gorgeous]

As per the second prompt, this fic could be interpreted as swagger bishie, or as platonic. It just kinda happened that way lol.

Also, not gonna lie, Dash is a bit of a freak in this one.

Read also on AO3

[Warnings for blood, injuries, gore, suturing, medical procedures, mild romanticizing of the aforementioned, implied dissection, near-death experiences, and Dash's shitty father]

Dash... wasn't really sure how it happened, honestly. One day, he'd been one of a hundred people who supported the town hero, Phantom. Basically nothing more than a fanboy. And the next he'd seemingly become Team Phantom's go-to guy for first aid.

He guessed it started when he happened to pass by an alleyway biking home from football practice, and doubled back upon seeing something glowing green in the shadowy space between two buildings. He'd thought it was some ghost lying in wait to attack and wanted to be sure. It wasn't.

In the alleyway, Danny Phantom was sitting on an overturned crate with the top half of his jumpsuit pulled down, bleeding badly from a wound on his side. Manson and Foley, Fenton's loser friends, were next to him—though Fenton himself wasn't there. The two of them looked to be holding a couple rolls of bandages and some antiseptic, but they were arguing quietly about how to use them while Phantom kept cursing and asking them to please just do something to stop the bleeding already, because he couldn't keep losing ectoplasm like this.

Dash didn't exactly consider himself to be a good Samaritan, and he wasn't the most compassionate guy in general, but he did like to show off, and he wasn't going to leave his celebrity crush bleeding out in some dirty alleyway. Luckily, he kept a small first-aid kit in his back-pack because Manson and Foley did not have all the materials they needed to patch up a gash like that.

"Hey," Dash called out, first-aid kit already in hand. "You two losers obviously don't know what you're doing. Give me the bandages and get out of my way."

"And a meathead like you is gonna know any better than us?" Manson jeered, obviously skeptical.

"I'm a football player," Dash scoffed back. "I've seen injuries a lot worse than this get patched up, and I know how it's done. Just give me the bandages."

She raised an eyebrow, but handed over the roll of bandages she was holding. Dash started by quickly cleaning his hands with hand-sanitizer. It wasn't as good as a proper wash, but it would do. His own first aid kit had alcohol wipes to properly clean the wound, something Manson and Foley hadn't thought to get, apparently.

"This'll sting," Dash said. "I mean, if you feel pain. From what I've read, there still doesn't seem to be a professional consensus on whether ghosts feel pain, but you would know better than I would."

Phantom hissed through gritted teeth when Dash started to wipe away the excess ectoplasm and clean the wound. Dash wasn't sure if that meant he actually felt pain, or if he was just habitually mimicking pain, like those G.I.W. releases said that ghosts tended to do. Phantom didn't seem keen on clarifying, though, so Dash chose not to ask.

Once it was clean, the wound was still leaking ectoplasm, but not quickly. It would probably have been best to stitch it up, but Dash didn't have a needle and thread, so butterfly stitches would have to do. He snatched the disinfectant out of Foley's hand and sprayed the wound.

Then he put it down on the ground and used one hand to press together the two sides of the wound and applied the adhesive butterfly stitches with the other. It took fourteen of them, leaving Dash with only three left in his kit. Yeah, it definitely should have gotten actual stitches. Finally, Dash used hand-sanitizer to clean his hands again before carefully wrapping a roll of bandages around Phantom's torso.

"There, all done," he said. "The bandage isn't too tight, is it?"

Phantom shook his head. "No, it feels fine."

The whole time he had worked, Phantom and the two losers had watched him in rapt silence.

"You... actually do know how to do this stuff," Foley observed.

"I told you," Dash said. "Football players get injured a lot. I learned."

"No need to get snippy, jackass," Manson sneered.

"Jackass?" Dash repeated, genuinely offended. "I just stopped your buddy here from bleeding out. I think a little gratitude might be appropriate." Normally, he wouldn't care about insults from dorks like these, but given the circumstances it just felt uncalled-for.

Manson's nose scrunched up in anger and she opened her mouth like she was about to argue, but Phantom cut her off.

"You're right," he said. "Thank you. We were just... surprised. I guess we never really thought about what sort of skills football players might have outside of, well, playing football."

"And bullying nerds," Foley tacked on, though he snapped his mouth shut when Phantom elbowed him in the side.

The truth was, most of the football players Dash knew weren't as good at first aid as he was, but they all knew the basics. Dash just had a particular fascination with seeing injuries and especially watching them be methodically patched up. It was something he would never admit, because he knew how weird and low-key fucked up it sounded to say that he liked looking at people's injuries, but it was true.

Any time someone got injured enough to call the school nurse, but not enough to call the ambulance, Dash would come over to watch how she fixed them up. He'd even taken a few first aid classes. And his friends had even noticed enough to tease him for it when he paid more attention than usual during the human anatomy units in biology and Phys. Ed.—although, predictably, they seriously misinterpreted the reason for his interest.

"Can you move?" he asked Phantom. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Phantom stood up, stretched, winced, tested his movement. "No, Skulker only got me the once. Looks like I'm good."

"Good," Dash said.

He packed up his first-aid kit while Phantom pulled the top half of his suit back on. It was then that Dash realized he'd been so focused on patching up the ghost's injury, he'd completely missed out on his chance to ogle Phantom with his shirt off. Stupid!

"Well," he said, much more loudly than he'd meant to, as if he was trying to talk loud enough the other's wouldn't hear that last thought he'd had. "I should get home and take my dog out. Glad you're okay, Phantom. Later, dorks!"

And with that, Dash hurried out of the alley, got back on his bike, and pedaled home as fast as he could.

That hadn't been it, though. After that incident occurred, Dash had no reason to think it was anything but a one-time deal. He'd gotten to meet his hero, and even provide some actual, tangible assistance to him, and he would treasure that encounter for the rest of his life. The following day, he had still been so high up on cloud nine he hadn't even bullied any dweebs. But he never expected anything like that to happen again.

It did happen again, though.

Football practice had just ended, and Dash headed to the bike rack behind near the auto-shop. Normally, he parked his bike on the rack near the boys locker room because it was obviously way closer, but he'd been a little later than usual that morning because Pookie ate something that had gotten kicked under the kitchen counter god knew how long ago and Dash had to stop to clean up the vomit and get her in a kennel for his mom to take to the vet while he was at school.

He remembered still being worried about Pookie by the time football got out because his mom hadn't called him with an update, so he was in a bit of a rush and he ran out of the locker room toward where he'd locked up his bike. As he pulled out the key to his bike-lock, however, he saw something through the window of the auto-shop. He was going to ignore it, when he heard a familiar voice call out.

"Ew, that's so wrong!"

Curiosity got the better of him, and he pushed open the door of the school's auto-shop, which should have been empty, not just because school had ended two hours ago, but also because Casper High hadn't even offered auto-shop classes since the eighties or something after the teacher retired or died. Dash didn't really know or care the details, but he did not that no one went into the auto-shop, and the door should have been locked for so long it was rusted shut, but it opened easily.

Inside, Dash saw Danny Phantom, his right arm bent unnaturally at the elbow and shoulder, definitely dislocated if not broken. Manson and Foley were with him again. Foley had a roll of bandages in his hand, even though bandages had nothing to do with treating dislocated joints. All three of them turned to look at Dash when he opened the door, probably just because they'd instinctively turned to the sound of it swinging open, but it certainly felt like they were staring expectantly.

Dash sighed, and stepped through the door. "Put those bandages away, it's obviously dislocated, not sprained."

He knelt down at Phantom's feet to take off his backpack and dig out his first aid kit. There was a thin piece of cloth in it that he could make a sling out of, and an instant ice-pack. He put his kit down on a work bench and carefully positioned his hands on Phantom's shoulder. It would have been easier if he could actually see the joint, but he wasn't about to ask the ghost to take his shirt off for him. That would be too embarrassing.

"Do ghosts feel pain or no?" Dash asked, forcing the joint back into place with a hard shove and a loud pop.

"Agh!" Phantom cried out. "Yes. We do."

"Good to know," Dash said. He moved down to the elbow. Gently, he rotated it, trying to ignore the way Phantom winced when he moved it, then he carefully positioned his hands again and popped it back into place.

Phantom cried out even louder the second time.

"You're not allergic to Tylenol, are you?" Dash went to his kit and pulled out a bottle.

"No?"

"Good," Dash poured out three pills and handed them to Phantom. "Take these, they should kick in in half-an-hour." Phantom took them and swallowed them dry, which wasn't the best way to do it, but Dash didn't have anything for him to wash it down with, since his water bottle was empty after practice.

"Is that all?" Manson asked.

"No," Dash said. "I'm gonna make a sling to help you keep it still and supported, and I've got an ice-pack for you. The key to recovering from an injury like dislocation is the RICE method. Rest, ice, compression, and elevation. The RICE method helps to reduce this inflammation, and reducing inflammation reduces pain."

He took out the thin cloth from his kit as he explained this and folded it into a sling, tying it behind Phantom's neck when his arm was settled at about the right height.

"Is that the right height?" he asked.

"Maybe a little high," Phantom replied, and Dash adjusted it. "Better?"

"Yeah."

"How do you have an ice-pack in your first-aid kit?" Foley asked. "Wouldn't it melt?"

Dash took out the instant ice-pack. "Not this kind. It's kinda like a glow-stick. The pouch is full of chemicals. You crack it, and shake it, and that makes the chemicals mix, causing a reaction that makes the pouch cold. You're not supposed to hold it with your bare hands though. Sorry, but you'll have to use my spare gym socks. Don't worry, these ones are clean."

he unrolled his spare socks and shoved the ice-pack into one of them before handing it to Phantom.

"Try not to use it much until it heals," Dash said. "Rest is the most important part of the RICE treatment."

"Thanks, Dash," Phantom said, taking the ice-pack like he was amazed to see Dash acting like this. Admittedly, it was a lot different than he would normally act around nerds like Manson and Foley, but he was more preoccupied with the fact that his hero apparently knew his name than whether or not folding a sling and loaning someone an ice-pack was out-of-character for him.

"You know who I am?" Dash asked.

Phantom tensed, which obviously made him jostle his sore shoulder and wince. "Uh... yeah. Sam and Tucker told me after you help me out last time," he explained. "They said you were usually kind of a jerk, but I really do appreciate you helping me like this."

Oh, that made sense. Kind of stung that after bandaging his wounds, Phantom's impression of him was still that he was the guy who bullied his friends.

"A guy can have more than one side to him," Dash defended. "Besides, I'm pretty sure you've saved my life personally, like, four times, so even after this, I still owe you two more. Try not to cash 'em in too soon, yeah?"

"I'll do my best," Phantom said, with a smile that made Dash's heart race.

Then his phone rang, and it was his mother calling. "Sorry, I gotta take this!"

He left the auto-shop to answer it.

His mother was calling to ask him if he was home yet and let him know the vet had pumped Pookie's stomach but she was going to be perfectly okay. Dash sighed with relief. When the phone call ended, though, there was no less urgency in his pace when he rode home.

Again, Dash expected to never be that close to Phantom again, but a month later, there was a knock on his back door.

He was very confused about why the back door and not the front, but he answered anyway, and standing there was Manson and Foley, with Phantom floating between them, bleeding profusely from his right leg while he cradled his left arm, and smiling sheepishly at Dash.

"You said you owed me two more, right?" he said. "Don't suppose there's a two-for-one special going?"

"We tried to patch up his arm like you did to his torso before, but we're pretty sure we did it completely wrong," Foley said.

"Not that wrong," Manson argued, but she had her arms crossed and she was pouting, looking very defeated.

"Anyway, we remembered you lived kinda close because remember that one time you invited Danny to that party so you could get with his sister?" Foley went on, ignoring her. "Yeah, we figured we'd be better off coming to ask for your help."

"Fine, take him to the garden bench. If he bleeds ectoplasm all over the floor, my mom'll flip, but nobody'll notice it on the dirt," Dash directed. "I'm gonna get the first-aid kit and wash my hands. I'll be right back out."

The fist-aid kit under the sink in the upstairs bathroom was a lot more comprehensive than the one Dash carried around in his backpack—which was mostly just the basics and a couple of extra things, like an instant ice-pack, that ended up being needed during practice or games more often than not. Even the more comprehensive one didn't have a needle and thread, though. He wasn't 100% sure he'd need it, but he got them out of his mom's sewing kit anyway, and sterilized the needle with rubbing alcohol before he headed back down to the garden.

This time, he did ask Phantom to remove the top part of his jumpsuit. Unlike with a dislocated arm, he couldn't properly bandage a wound he couldn't directly access. Dash did his best to keep his expression as neutral as possible when he did so. He didn't want to think about what he'd have to ask when he go around to the leg. By all accounts, he knew he should treat the leg first, but he had to work up the courage to ask Phantom to take off his pants before he could do that. So arm it was.

This was clearly the wound Manson and Foley had tried to do themselves. Dash could see immediately that they hadn't done it right. It was wrapped so tight that the arm below the bandage had started to turn green from lack of circulation, and even though it was a self-adhering bandage, they'd knotted it for some reason.

"We did it way too loose at first and it wasn't staying on," Foley explained, "But then we went too far the other way, and we couldn't untie it."

"You're not supposed to tie this kind of bandage," Dash said. "Self-adhering bandage like this is for sprains and muscle injuries, for making sure your joints aren't moving too much. They're not absorbent, so it doesn't do any good to wrap 'em around bleeding wounds."

He cut the bandage away, and under it, he saw that Manson and Foley had applied butterfly stitches longways over the wound, instead of across it.

"Oh, it's gonna hurt when I take these off," he said apologetically.

"I knew that wasn't right," Manson muttered, even though she was the one who'd said she didn't think they'd done things that wrong.

Quickly, but methodically, Dash re-cleaned, disinfected, and bandaged the wound. Luckily, this one wasn't that deep, to the butterfly stitches were sufficient, and Dash didn't have to pull out the needle.

Once he was done, however, he coughed uncomfortably.

"Uh... I've gotta get to the gash on your leg now, so you're gonna need to uh..." He couldn't get himself to say it. He couldn't ask his celebrity crush to take his pants off. He just couldn't do it.

Phantom looked a little lightheaded, and cocked his head, not seeming to get the message. Thankfully Manson didn't have that problem, nor, apparently, did she have any sense of shame.

"He needs you to take your pants off so he can treat your leg," she said bluntly.

"Oh," Phantom said.

He started to squirm out of the bottom half of his jumpsuit, apparently unbothered by the fact that they were outdoors in broad daylight—even if they were surrounded by a six-foot fence. His wound did seem to be bothering him, though, as he grunted and hissed in pain as he pulled his jumpsuit down past it.

Yeah... Dash definitely should have taken care of the leg wound first.

The gash in his just above his knee was much longer and deeper than the one in his arm. Ectoplasm almost completely coated his entire calf and was still leaking from the wound. It was no wonder why Phantom was so lightheaded.

"Shit, I shoulda done this one first," Dash muttered with a grimace.

He started by wiping away the ectoplasm with a clean rag, thankful he'd thought to get some out of his gym gear rather than grabbing his mother's nice hand towels from the bathroom. He wrapped a rubber strip above the wound to stem the flow of ectoplasm some. Then he cleaned around the wound with alcohol wipes. The rest of the leg still had streaks of green, but the wound itself obviously took priority when it came to getting it clean and disinfected.

This time, Dash was gonna need the needle and thread. His hands were shaking minutely as he threaded the needle, but he got it after two tries.

"Now hold on, there's no way you learned suturing in football," Manson contested. "There's no way!"

"I also took a couple of first-aid classes," Dash admitted.

"They don't teach suturing in first-aid classes either," Manson insisted, putting her hands on her hip.

"You say that like you've ever been to a first-aid class," he scoffed. "How would you know."

She scowled, but didn't have anything to say to that.

She was right of course. Suturing was not something they taught in first-aid classes. But there was no way in hell that Dash was going to admit to watching videos about it on YouTube for fun. He knew how that sounded. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't completely stupid.

Ignoring her, he went to start the sutures. Even with the tourniquet, there was still a slow drip of ectoplasm. Phantom grunted in pain when Dash pushed the two sides of the wound together to start stitching. It was a hard line to balance, but Dash tried to be both quick and gentle, not wanting to irritated the wound, or prolong the discomfort of getting stitches.

If he mentally cropped out the peanut gallery, and pretended it was just him, Phantom, and an open wound, this was almost exactly like on of his fantasies. Yet another thing he would definitely never admit out loud.

Idly, he wondered how many hoops he'd have to jump through to add local anesthetic to the Baxter household first-aid kit. Probably a lot. The kind of injuries you needed local anesthetic to treat were also typically the kind of injuries people were supposed to go to an actual doctor for, and not a high-school freshman with a weird medical fixation.

Once the stitches were done, twenty-six in all, Dash used another alcohol wipe and a clean rag to more thoroughly clean the area around the wound before wrapping a gauze bandage around it.

This time, Dash did think to subtly ogle Phantom, just a little bit, before telling him he could put his jumpsuit back on. He was only human, after all. He wasn't gonna miss out on that kind of opportunity twice.

"Hey, how come Fen-toad's never with you?" Dash asked when Phantom was putting his suit back on. "I thought you three were like, joined at the hip or something."

"Oh uh..." Manson and Foley looked at each other before Foley answered, "Danny can't stand the sight of injuries. Makes him sick to even look at 'em, so... we let him dip when it gets this bad."

"That tracks," Dash replied. "Your friend always was a bit of a wuss."

"Haha... right," Foley agreed awkwardly.

Phantom and Foley thanked him for his help. Manson did too, after a matching pair of pointed looks from her friends, although her thanks was sullen and reluctant.

"You're welcome," Dash said, packing up the supplies to return them back where they belonged. "But you guys are so lucky my parents weren't home when you showed up or they'd've flipped, so I suggest you start making tracks sooner, rather than later."

"Right," Phantom said. "Come on, guys, let's go." With that, they were gone, and Dash was left to put his supplies away and then scour the Fenton Works website in the hopes of finding tips for how to get ectoplasm stains out in the wash.

If he had to pinpoint it, Dash would say that third incident was when he became Team Phantom's official-unofficial medic.

After that, whether by coincidence, or the three of them intentionally seeking him out, Dash ended up patching one of Phantom's injuries just about every week. They often went to the school auto-shop for it, since it was private, usually close by, and always empty.

"I'm pretty sure you've fixed me up way more times than I've saved your life by now," Phantom joked while Dash finished treating an ectoplasm burn on his forearm. Manson and Foley weren't with him this time, but Dash didn't ask after them. He didn't mind it being just him and Phantom for once. "How many do I owe you at this point?"

Dash shook his head and capped the burn ointment. "You don't owe me anything," he said. "This one was for saving Kwan's life from Walker a few months ago. The scratches last week were for protecting the cheer squad from Ember, and the sprained ankle the week before was for saving Pookie from that ten foot tall ghost dog that wanted to play with her and nearly stepped on her instead.

"You've saved the lives of everyone I care about. This is the least I can do," he finished. Then, he decided the two of them had gotten close enough by this point that he was safe to crack a joke, and added, "Plus, sometimes I get to see you with your shirt off, so like, bonus."

Much to Dash's relief, Phantom laughed lightly at that. "Yeah, too bad it's always 'cause I'm bleeding out."

"Well, you can't win 'em all."

Phantom laughed again. It sounded... familiar somehow, although Dash couldn't place it.

"Hey, I've kinda wondered this ever since you started helping me out, but are you planning to become a doctor after graduation?" Phantom asked.

"I've thought about it, 'cause I do actually like doing this kinda thing—but it's not realistic for me," Dash said with a slightly disappointed shrug. "In the first place, medical school is stupid competitive, and I'm barely scraping the 2.5 GPA required to stay on the school sports teams. With my grades, the only way I'm getting into college is with a football scholarship, but if I do get in, I'm planning to major in sports medicine. If I don't get scouted, I might become a paramedic. It's not set in stone or anything, but you know."

"Well, speaking as a repeat patient, I think you'd make a great paramedic," Phantom said.

Dash smirked. "What're you saying? You think I can't get scouted?"

"No!" Phantom said quickly, then chuckled sheepishly. "More like I don't know what sports medicine is."

Dash laughed out loud.

"Your burns are all treated; now get outta here. I gotta get home."

"Yes, sir!" Phantom saluted him sarcastically and flew off through the ceiling.

Dash never imagined he'd become close enough with his personal hero to crack jokes like that. And to tease him? Never in a million years. But he was.

"Did something happen?" Kwan asked him as they were walking down the hall on the way to third period.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I dunno, you just seem like you've been in a good mood lately," Kwan clarified with a shrug. "You haven't even bullied Fenton in, like, a month, let alone anyone else. I was just wondering if something good might've happened to you."

"Oh uh... not really," Dash replied.

As much as he would love to brag all over the school about being friends with Phantom, he was sure Manson and Foley—and Fenton too, he supposed, even if the dweeb always wussed out when things got bloody—had their reasons for keeping the fact that they were Phantom's allies a secret. Of course, Dash had no idea what those reason's were.

For his part, Dash knew that if he told everyone he was close with Phantom, they ask him why. Then, he'd either be forced to tell them about his secret interest in emergency medical treatment, lie like a bitch, or say nothing and accept the embarrassment of everyone thinking he was making it up. None of those options were particularly appealing.

It was fine that his buddies knew he was the best at applying sports tape and wrapping up sprains, but they didn't need to know how deep it really went.

"I guess I've just been in a good mood, that's all," Dash said finally. "No real reason for it."

"Well, it's nice to see it," Kwan said cheerfully, clapping him on the back as if in congratulations. "Not being grouchy and stressed all the time is a good look on you."

"Thanks," Dash said, genuinely. Although, how nuts was it that being regularly put in the position of having to patch up severe injuries on someone he cared about was somehow a stress reducer.

Yeah... Dash was pretty sure at this point that there was probably something wrong with his brain. Although, he found that he didn't worry about it as much as he once might have. At least someone else was benefiting from the fact that he found watching wounds being sutured mesmerizing, and almost therapeutic.

Dash was in his room, working on homework, sure that he was gonna have to redo every single one of these math problems when he went to tutoring with Jazz tomorrow because he definitely wasn't doing them right. He sighed and pushed math aside to grab his history packet. Document based questions weren't so bad, because at least he had the answer right there in front of him, if he could just find it.

He heard a thunk on his window and looked up, but ultimately decided it was probably a bird or something and chose to ignore it. Then the sound came again and Pookie growled softly from where she was sitting on Dash's bed. She barked.

"Alright, Pookie, I'll look," he said.

With a sigh, he stood up from his desk chair and went over to his bedroom window, sliding it open.

Standing in the back garden was Manson and Foley, and they were carrying Phantom between them. Carrying him—because he was evidently in no condition to fly. He looked to be more open wounds than intact skin. His left leg was bent at an odd angle with something black sticking out of it that Dash was pretty sure was bone.

Phantom hadn't been seen in over a week, and this was the condition he was resurfacing in?

It was hard to believe he could still be conscious in that condition, but Phantom shouted up in a slurred voice, "Hey... buddy!"

Dash's eyes blew wide. "I'll be right down!"

His parents were home, so he made sure the path was clear as he ran downstairs. His dad was up in his office, and his mom was taking a bath, meaning the coast was clear. Ge grabbed a tarp out of the garden shed, a new one, still wrapped in plastic. It wasn't sterile, but neither was Dash's bedroom, and the tarp would be easier to clean than his carpet.

Phantom still dripped ectoplasm on the floor every few inches—which Dash would have to clean up later—as Manson and Foley carried him up the stairs while Dash lead the way to his room, hurriedly unwrapping the tarp. He shooed Pookie out of the room and laid the tarp on his bed, throwing the pillows onto the floor so he'd have a relatively flat surface.

"Put him on the bed while I get the first-aid kit," Dash directed, rushing out of the room as soon as the three of them were fully inside and the doorway was clear.

He brought the first-aid kit into the room, then ran out again to raid his mom's sewing kit, thoroughly wash his hands, and get a new bottle of rubbing alcohol upon remembering that the open one was almost empty. When he finally had everything he needed, he pushed his desk chair next to the bed, but Phantom's injuries were way more extensive than usual, and he didn't even know where to start.

"Come on Baxter," he muttered to himself, laying out the first-aid kit on his nightstand with trembling hands.

He took a deep breath, and tried to recall everything he'd learned about first-aid. But this... this didn't require first-aid. This probably required surgery. The leg definitely required surgery. But they didn't have a surgeon, they had him, and there wasn't really any question of whether a ghost could go to a regular hospital because pretty much everyone in Amity Park over the age of 18 still thought ghosts, and especially, were a menace that needed to be eliminated.

Fuck, okay. After his conversation with Phantom before, he'd found some first-responder training videos online. Those would probably be more helpful than his basic first-aid classes. Phantom wasn't gonna be able to remove the jumpsuit on his own this time, so Dash stripped off his gloves and boots and grabbed the scissors and started to cut away the thick fabric. The suit never retained any damaged from Phantom's wounds, so it would probably survive being cut up.

It was worse when Dash could see the full extent of the damage. This obviously hadn't happened to him in an even fight. His wrists and ankles were badly bruised, even though they'd been cushioned by his boots and gloves. The cuts weren't the kind he usually got in a fight, but clean, straight incisions on his limbs. And across his torso was a large, Y-shaped cut.

"What the fuck happened to him?" Dash breathed out, horrified.

"The guys in white got to him," Manson answered darkly. "We had to work with Plasmius to get him back, but there was no way in hell we were gonna let that bastard see him like this, so we brought him here."

"I don't know who Plasmius is, but maybe he would be able to help more than I can," Dash admitted, shaking his head. "I mean, I'll do everything I can, but this is way beyond me."

"Please, Dash," Manson said, and Dash was pretty sure it was the first time he'd ever heard her sound earnest while she was talking to him. "We can't take him to Plasmius."

Dash took another deep, shuttering breath, and tried to make his hands still. If he just focused on one wound at a time, he should be able to do this. Maybe. Hopefully.

"Alright," he agreed.

He went to his closet and pulled out every one of his sweat rags that were clean. He had quite a few because his mom insisted on him using a clean one every day, even though no athlete ever did that. But she was a clean freak, and he wasn't about to argue with his mom.

"The bathroom is directly left of my room," he told Manson. "Go and get two of these rags damp with warm water, and then come back. My mom's taking a bath in the master bathroom, so she won't be out for a few hours, but if my dad sees you, just tell him your my girlfriend and he'll leave you alone."

"Ew, I don't want to be your girlfriend," Manson said with a grimace. "Aren't you gay?"

"Yes, but you think I'm gonna tell my dad that?" he asked. "Avoid him if you can, but if he sees you, lie. Now go."

She left without another word.

Foley, meanwhile, stood near the head of the bed, pushing Phantom's hair out of his face and muttering promises Dash would have to keep. Things like 'everything's gonna be fine', and 'you'll be okay'.

Dash looked Danny over and tried to determine his priorities. The leg and the Y-incision were obviously the worst, but it was all bad. Which one should he do first? What could he put off until the end?

It probably took too long for him to finally decide that the Y-incison was a bigger deal, especially since he had to make sure there was no internal damage. He pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves, the rubber snapping against his wrists, and held his breath as he carefully peeled back the flaps of skin.

"Internal organs cant feel distinct physical sensations," Dash recited. "Sharp or strong pains coming from internal organs are typically somatic, or the result of pressure, rather than actual organ damage."

Phantom let out a muffled scream through gritted teeth. Not good.

"Foley, in the med kit is a bottle of strong painkillers leftover from when my mom had to have abdominal surgery," Dash said. "It's an orange bottle. I can't remember the full name, but at the bottom of the label it says 'generic for: Norco'. Make sure Phantom swallows it properly."

"Got it," Foley replied with a determined not, and left Phantom's side to dig through the various orange prescription bottles in the kit.

"Once you've done that, look in my dresser for a pair of clean socks or a leather belt for him to bite on so he doesn't break his teeth, because we can't wait for the painkillers to kick in, and we can't have my parents hear him screaming either."

"Got it," Foley repeated, and kept sifting through the bottles until he found what he was looking for. "You said a belt, right?"

"Or socks, anything that'll keep him from grinding his teeth together," Dash confirmed. "But give him the painkiller first."

While Foley did that, Dash carefully arranged everything where it belonged according to the anatomy chart he'd memorized. He wasn't exactly sure why a ghost had internal organs at all, but he was grateful that they were at least organs he recognized, even if they were green, and gray, and black, instead of red and pink like human organs mostly were.

There was also a faintly glowing, iridescent, blue-green crystal in there, but Dash had no idea what that was or where it went, so it was without a doubt, a ghost-exclusive thing. Dash tried to position it more-or-less centrally without cutting any of the other organs on its sharp edges.

He had to stitch together some things that looked like they'd been cut. Even though he didn't have the proper thread for internal sutures, the ectoplasm should still dissolve it in a few days, even if the thread wasn't made to dissolve. At least, if what it had done to all his towels over the past few months was any indication, it would.

He didn't notice when Manson came back in and stood across the bed, waiting for further instructions, until she cleared her throat and held up the damp towels. Then, he looked up, his hands frozen in place as he took in the scene around him. Foley had found a belt and had Phantom bite down on it, which presumably meant that the ghost had taken the painkiller, although Dash could only hope it actually worked.

"What do you need now?" Manson asked.

"I need you and Foley to use those towels to clean up all this extra ectoplasm," Dash said. Resigning himself to buying a bunch of new towels, because these ones were absolutely done for after this. He pointed into the first-aid kit. "Use those rubber straps and tie them around his limbs above his injuries to slow the flow of ectoplasm. If your run out, rip one of the dry towels into strips and use those. If the towels you're using to clean him up get too soaked with ectoplasm, you can rinse them with warm water and keep using them."

Manson handed Foley one of the towels and they immediately got to work.

"One of you should do the broken leg first, but be careful around the bone," Dash added.

"I'll do it," Foley volunteered.

Finally, Dash was done reconstructing Phantom's innards, and closed the skin folds so he could stitch them up. He had to take off his gloves because the needle kept slipping across the ectoplasm-covered gloves and out of his hands. It wasn't the right type of needle for sutures. It never had been, but he'd never wished so much that he had the right one.

As soon as he was done here, if Phantom didn't dissolve, or evaporate, or whatever ghosts did when they ceased to be, Dash was gonna go to as many craft stores and/or medical supply stores as he needed to to find a proper suturing needle. And some local anesthetic, no matter how many hoops he needed to jump through.

He lost count of how many stitches it took to close up the massive incision on Phantom's chest. A part of him was afraid he might run out of thread before this was over. But when he looked up at the alarm clock next to him, he could see that he'd been working on this for over an hour. The dorks had done a good job cleaning up and applying tourniquets, but there was still a long way to go.

Fuck, that leg couldn't wait a second longer. There was no time to wash his hands again, so he just used the last dry towel to wipe the ectoplasm off his hands and put on a fresh pair of gloves.

Now that he was examining it closely, it had been a clean break, the only problem was that his femur was sticking out of his thigh.

"I hope the Norco has kicked in, but even if it has, this is probably gonna hurt like a bitch," Dash said. "You ready?"

Dash could see Phantom squeeze his teeth even tighter on the leather belt in his mouth as he nodded.

Without waiting a second more, Dash pulled on the leg and pushed on the exposed bone, forcing it back into place with a sickening crunching sound.

Phantom screamed through the belt in his mouth, and Dash was seriously afraid his parents would come in. He didn't have a lock on his bedroom door to stop them if they tried.

Phantom's eyelids drooped like he was about to pass out, and Dash wasn't sure if that would be a good thing or not. On the one hand, at least he wouldn't have to be awake for all this, but on the other hand, in a ghost, falling unconscious probably meant they'd disappear soon, and Dash didn't want that. His uncertainty was answered when Foley noticed the same thing he did and urged Phantom to stay awake.

"Come on, Danny, don't pass out," Foley said to him. "You have to stay awake. If you pass out, it's all over."

"You call him by his first name?" Dash noticed, surprised. Somehow, he'd never actually heard the dweebs refer to Phantom by name. Usually, they spent their time addressing him, usually in the form of a plea, and thanks, or a passive-aggressive remark.

"Yeah, why wouldn't we?" Manson asked.

"I dunno," Dash replied.

He didn't look at them, focusing solely on making sure the femur was properly aligned. A real doctor would have used metal pins to affix it in place, but Dash didn't have anything like that, so he would just have to hold it steady until Phantom's healing factor fixed just enough to stop if from moving out of place immediately. He was surprised to find that looking at an exposed broken bone being fixed wasn't any less fascinating or more disturbing to him than watching a cut getting sutured. He wasn't sure if he liked what that said about him.

"I don't even call you guys by your first names."

"Yeah, but that's because you're a jerk," Manson pointed out.

Dash frowned. Maybe she had a point there.

"Hang in there, Danny," he said softly. "I'm doing everything I can."

It felt like too long before the cracks in the pitch-black bone started to stitch together and Dash could let go, push the muscle and tissue back into place, and attempt to stitch together the skin. And he still had several more to go.

"Manson, uh, Sam—position a pad of gauze over the wound itself, then wrap the whole thigh with a gauze bandage," Dash directed as soon as he cut the last stitch. "Nice and tight to keep the bone in place, but make sure you don't cut off his circulation."

"Right," Sam agreed, and grabbed the necessary materials out of the kit.

Looking at their supplies, Dash wasn't sure they had enough gauze for everything.

"Try to make the gauze last, because it's got a lot to cover here," Dash added, cringing.

After the broken femur, Dash moved to the other leg, and started to disinfect and then stitch up a straight incision that spanned from Phantom—Danny's lower thigh, over the knee-cap, and a few inches down into the calf. It was deep enough to see the dark bone and gray tendon underneath, which was probably the point, but Dash didn't let it get to him.

"No, no, Danny, stay awake!" Foley—Tucker said urgently. "You're in the final stretch, only the arms and hands left to go."

"And this dislocated ankle," Sam added.

"Ankle, shmankle, Danny can handle a dislocation in his sleep."

"Doesn't it get confusing, having two friends named Danny?" Dash asked, doing everything he could to keep his hands steady as he continued the sutures.

"Not really," Sam told him. "You'd be surprised."

"He may be surprised sooner rather than later if Danny can't stay awake," Tucker said.

Dash didn't find out what he meant right away. He finished up with the knee, and moved up to the long incision on Danny's right arm from elbow to wrist. If ghosts didn't typically produce ectoplasm faster than they could bleed out, this one would have killed him for sure. Clean. Disinfect. Start stitching.

He'd just gotten past the elbow when he hear Tucker's voice on the edge of panic.

"Danny?" he said. Then he raised his voice and repeated, "Danny!"

A ring of white light appeared and passed over Dash's vision, and the next thing Dash knew, he wasn't covered in ectoplasm, and stitching up pallid skin over glowing green muscle. He was covered in blood.

He knew he couldn't spare the time to look up and see what was going on, but that was about all he knew.

"Somebody describe to me what just happened so I don't have to stop stitching and see for myself," Dash demanded, his voice on the harsh side, and he knew it.

"Um..." Tucker started to say.

"He's Danny Fenton," Sam explained, her voice low and almost scared. "He has been the whole time. He's only half-ghost, and he can't maintain his ghost form when he's unconscious, which also means his healing slows down significantly after he passes out, so don't stop stitching."

Dash breathed in deeply. "Fuck!" he shouted. "You two better start bandaging, then. When he was still a ghost that could wait until I was done, but not the fuck anymore. Foley, tape pads of gauze over the wound on his torso. Manson, the right knee, just like you did the left thigh."

"On it," they both said in unison, and started getting the supplies out of the medical kit.

"Remember that's all the gauze we have, so make it last, I still have two more incisions to go after this one."

"At least they didn't get around to his back," Sam noted darkly.

"Why would you even say that?" Dash groaned, distressed by the very possibility. Spines were a lot more complicated than femurs.

When he was done with the arm, the last incision he needed to stitch up was the vertical cut on the side of the throat. If he had know Phantom was half-human, he would have done that one first, but since he was a ghost, and didn't seem to have any trouble breathing, or need to breath anyway, Dash had figured there was no more dangerous than the cuts on his knee or forearm, and he could just start at the bottom and work his way up.

They couldn't very well have put a tourniquet on that one, so Tucker was standing there with a thoroughly soaked towel sopping up the blood as it slowly trickled out so Danny didn't drown in it. Dash considered putting the arm on hold, to take care of that, but the cut on the forearm went through a major artery that Dash had just barely gotten to heal before Danny turned human, so he wasn't willing to take the risk.

Danny hadn't died the rest of the way yet, which was a good sign. The only good sign so far, but still. It was a challenge not to rush himself and get sloppy as he finished the however many remaining stitches on Danny's forearm before moving to his neck.

"Tucker, switch places with me and gauze up his forearm."

"You got it," Tucker said.

"Sam, get a wring out a towel in the bathroom sink and come back to dab up the blood while I take care of this."

"Yeah." Sam grabbed the least gross looking towel and ran to the bathroom next door.

Everything inside the incision looked to be intact, so Dash cleaned it with an alcohol wipe and sprayed it with disinfectant. By the time he was done with that, Sam was back with a drier towel and ready to take care of the blood while he did the sutures.

At the very least, this last incision was much shorter than the others, but it still took eleven stitches to close it properly. Dash told them to hold off on bandaging it while he went over to the next room to wash his hands. Sam and Tucker were both a lot better at wrapping bandages than they used to be, but he figured, given the placement of the wound, he was better off doing it himself rather than risking one of them wrapping it too tight and inadvertently suffocating their friend.

Once he was alone in the upstairs bathroom, he could finally take a breath without worrying about breathing germs directly into an open wound. When he went out and got a suturing needle and local anesthetic, he should also get a box of surgical masks. And more gauze. And sweat towels. He should make a list.

As he washed his hands thoroughly and methodically, he also saw himself in the mirror. He had blood and ectoplasm all over him. A thick streak of the stuff was smudged across his forehead from when he'd used his sleeve to wipe off sweat. That wasn't sanitary, but Danny wasn't an ordinary person, so he'd be fine... probably... hopefully.

Dash was tired. He'd looked at his alarm clock when he got up, and this all had taken a total of six and a half hours. It was nearly midnight by now.

He needed a shower.

But he wasn't done yet.

He returned to the room and had Tucker hold up Danny's head while he wrapped up the final wound. They were all disgusting. Covered in sweat and blood, and ectoplasm, and they were exhausted.

Dash didn't even have the energy to take a shower. And it didn't look like Sam and Tucker had the energy to go home, not to mention Danny probably shouldn't move.

"Let your parents know your staying over," Dash said. "We have to clean all this shit up before we go to sleep or Danny could get infected."

Sam and Tucker both groaned, but didn't argue. They cleaned Danny up with a sponge, and Dash laid out a couple of old bath towels under him in case he bled through his bandages.

He ended up just throwing the whole tarp away. If his parents needed it, he would just say he didn't think they had a brand new tarp, and maybe they were misremembering. Or, he could put it on his shopping list. If he could afford it after everything else he had to buy, he might as well.

Dash barely had the presence of mind to wedge a chair under his door so his parents couldn't come in unexpectedly before he, and Sam, and Tucker, all collapsed on the floor and fell asleep all piled on top of each other.

Dash woke up the next morning because Sam extricated herself from their human knot, stole one of his shirts, and went to take a shower. Which was honestly not cool, because Dash totally should've gotten dibs on the first shower after all that. Not that it mattered, because he almost immediately went back to sleep.

A little while later, Dash woke up on his own and detached himself from Tucker. He followed Sam's lead in grabbing some clothes and taking a shower. The clothes he was wearing were obviously gonna have to go straight in the trash, which was a shame, because he'd like these jeans.

A hot shower was just what he needed, though. The water soothed his sore back and hands, and he watched the gooey brown-ish slime of ectoplasm and blood slough off him and down the drain. It was the greatest relief of his life when he finally felt clean again.

When he looked in the bedroom, Danny and Tucker were both still asleep, Danny on the bed, recovering, and Tucker sprawled out and drooling on the carpet. So Dash headed down to the kitchen for breakfast. Sam was sitting at the kitchen table eating a bowl of Wheaties and wearing one of his concert T-shirts and seemingly nothing else—although given their height difference, the shirt went almost down to her knees, so it wasn't exactly indecent.

"Uh... are you wearing underwear?" he couldn't help but ask.

"Yes!" she replied, sounding insulted.

"Are you wearing... my—"

"No! God, I washed mine in the bathroom sink and used the hair dryer to dry them off," she said in a rush. "Is that what you wanna hear?"

"Yeah, actually, it's kind of a relief," he said, getting out a bowl and spoon. "Also, resourceful. I'm impressed."

"Thank you," Sam said, and ate another mouthful of Wheaties.

Dash opted for the Honey Crisps, and took a seat next to her.

"Your dad saw me," she said. "Apparently, he got called in for a work emergency, even though it's Sunday. I had to use the girl friend lie, and not only did he buy it, but he told me to tell you he said congratulations. Your dad's kind gross, you know that? He knows we're only fourteen, right?"

"I mean, you are wearing my shirt and no pants," Dash pointed out. "But yes, I am aware that my dad is kinda gross. He's for sure gonna be weird to me about this for a while. If he doesn't ask me about the next time my girlfriend's coming over at least twice a day for the next week, I'll be surprised."

"Yikes."

"Pretty much."

"There was no work emergency," Dash said. "His workplace is closed on Sundays. He's going to meet his girlfriend Crystal. I don't think that's her real name. Mom doesn't know about her."

"Yikes." Sam repeated, more emphatically this time.

"Yeah."

The two of them ate in silence for a few minutes before Sam spoke up again.

"About yesterday..." she started to say, then paused, her brows furrowing in thought. "You... you were fucking amazing. I mean that honestly, like, you were in way over your head, and stepped the fuck up, so... thank you."

"Oh, uh... you're welcome."

Of the three of them, Sam was definitely the one Dash felt like he got along with the least.

"Seriously, coming to you like we did, with Danny in that condition... it was pretty fucked up of us, even though we didn't exactly have a choice," she continued. "I know I've been kind of..." Dash waited as she fished for the right word, "standoffish with you, because you've kind of bullied the three of us, and especially Danny for years, but you've changed after you started to help us so..."

"I get it," Dash said. "I've been a dick. That's not exactly news to me, I did it on purpose. Actually, stopping was the accident. I barely even noticed that I'd been laying off the bullying until Kwan pointed it out."

"Wait, what?" Sam asked. "Why?"

Dash stared into his cereal and brought a spoonful to his mouth to stall. It was sweet. The crunch was starting to get mushy as the cereal got saturated with milk.

"I live my life by my parents' expectations, especially my dad's," Dash answered finally. "My dad has very specific ideas about what the ideal life is for a boy like me. Sports teams, popular friends, hot girlfriend, bullies nerds. In middle school the times my dad got a call from the school about my bad behavior picking on weaker kids—those were the only times I ever got his approval. He actually acted proud of me for it."

"You're dad's fucked up."

"No arguments here," Dash scoffed. "Kwan says the same thing to me on a regular basis, but it doesn't change the fact that while I live in his house, he's in charge. When I'm eighteen and legally independent, then I can start making my own decisions, but he's pretty much set on narrowing down my prospects as much as possible until then, to force me into the life he wants me to have. You know. The American dream, just like what he got."

"Do you want me to kill him for you?" Sam offered.

Dash laughed. "Believe it or not, Kwan's actually said that to me a few times, too."

"You know, I never thought Kwan and I would get along, especially after he got me banned from my favorite goth poetry slam, but maybe I should give him another shot." Sam put down her spoon and lifted her bowl to her lips to drink the rest of the milk. "You know," she added, taking her dishes to the sink. "I was really surprised that you had oat milk in your fridge."

"Yeah, my mom's always on some kind of diet, a lot of 'em are no-dairy," he replied.

Sam shrugged, said see-ya-later, and headed upstairs back to Dash's room.

Dash headed up too when he was done eating. Tucker was gone, but the sounds of the shower going in the next room explained that. Sam was sitting next to the bed, watching Danny's slow, but steady breathing.

"Tucker stole one of your shirts," Sam said without looking at him. "But his cargo pants actually made it out of yesterday's blood fest basically unscathed, unlike my skirt, so he's gonna re-wear them."

"Oh... good."

"You really did do an amazing job with him," Sam said. "He's not even having trouble breathing or anything. Even Danny is gonna take a week or two to recover from this, but your work on him is definitely gonna streamline the process."

"Thanks."

"No joke, you should become an ER doctor."

"If only I had the grades to get into medical school," Dash sighed, taking a seat on his desk chair. "Danny and I had pretty much this same conversation a few weeks ago."

"I'm sure a well placed bribe could get you at least admitted," Sam said, "although you'd still have to study."

"What bribe?" Dash scoffed. "My family's well off, but we don't have that kind of money. Like I told Danny, if I can get scouted for a football scholarship, I'll major in sports medicine, and if not, I'll try to become a paramedic. I think it's a pretty solid plan, don't you?"

"I guess," Sam relented. She looked back down at Danny with a slight frown. "Should we wake him up? Would we even be able to?"

Dash followed her gaze.

Danny's breathing was still steady, his gauze covered chest rising and falling without hesitation or stuttering. He hadn't bled through any of his bandages, although it was still a good idea to replace them later.

"I have no idea," Dash admitted. "I don't think trying to wake him up would do any harm, but I don't know if he's actually comatose, or just resting. He'll need a lot of rest to heal from this."

Sam nodded silently, but made no move to wake her friend. Come to think of it though, Dash had a question about the whole 'Danny being a ghost' thing. It explained a lot, honestly, but there was still something that didn't make any sense.

"Hey, Phantom has been missing for a while, but Danny's been going to school like always, so how can they be the same person?"

"After Danny went missing, Tucker tracked down a shapeshifting ghost called Amorpho who owed Danny a favor, and called it in," Sam explained. "They've been posing as Danny at school to throw off suspicions, but they'll be leaving town again once they learn Danny's back."

"Clever," Dash commented.

About a minute after that, they heard the shower turn off and another couple minutes later, Tucker returned. Dash's shirt was almost as big on him as it was on Sam. Before now, Dash had never been particularly self-conscious about his size, but either they were really small, or he was actually huge, and it was kinda awkward.

"If I wake up Danny, will something bad happen?" Tucker asked, looking right up at Dash expectantly.

"Oh, uh... I don't think so, but I'm not 100% sure. He might be in a coma."

"I'm gonna try to wake him up," Tucker declared.

He walked over to Danny and poked his chest injury hard.

Sam and Dash both immediately started to chide him for it, but Danny's eyes snapped open and he gasped sharply.

"What happened?" he croaked. His throat may have been bandaged, but obviously his voice was still sore.

"You got got, dude," Tucker answered. "Guys in White cut you open, Sam and I got Vlad's help rescuing you, and then brought you to Dash to get you stitched up. He knows who you are now, by the way. You kinda passed out while he was still stitching you up."

"Oh."

"Sam, can you go get him some water," Dash asked.

"Right," she agreed. Before she left, she turned to her friend and smiled. "Good to have you back, Danny." Then she was out the door.

"How to you feel, Danny?" Dash asked.

"Like I got run over by a truck with razor-blade wheels," Danny replied.

"Try to focus," Dash said, his tone gentle but urgent. "Tucker, help him sit up."

Tucker immediately complied, slipping a hand under Danny's back to get him upright.

"Can you move your fingers?" Dash asked.

Danny wiggled his fingers on both hands.

"Try to touch each of your fingertips to your thumb."

Danny did so, though he couldn't quite get his thumb to meet his pinkie on the side that had the forearm incision. That was to be expected this early in the healing process, and Dash assured him the that mobility should come back with time.

When Sam came back with the water, Dash handed him the bottle of leftover Norco and told him to take one. It might make him a little loopy, but it would help with the pain.

He moved on to having Danny bend his wrists, elbows, roll his shoulders and so on. They hit an embarrassing bump when Dash realized he never reset Danny's dislocated ankle, but that was a quick fix. He had Tucker grab some self-adhering bandages from the kit, which he hadn't taken back to the bathroom. Thankfully, the painkiller had kicked in before Dash reset the ankle, so Danny didn't even flinch.

"You're nice," Danny said as Dash finished checking him over and gave him the all clear.

Oh yeah, the meds had definitely kicked in. From the sound of Danny's voice alone, Dash could tell he was completely loopy.

"Thanks," Dash said, taking out a set of sweatpants and a zip-front hoodie from his closet. "It'll probably hurt to raise your arms for a while, so button up shirts and zip-front jackets until your chest heals."

"Okie dokie," Danny agreed, taking the clothes from Dash and floating off the bed to get dressed.

Dash pointedly looked away, ignoring the fact that his crush had been fully nude in his room for twelve hours and he'd never once taken the opportunity to ogle. Given the circumstance, it just felt like it would have been particularly wrong.

"You're a whole sweetie pie," Danny said, and floated over to give Dash a kiss on the cheek. "Not just a piece of a sweetie pie but the whole pie. You're a pie."

"Thanks," Dash said again, although this time his voice came out as a squeak, and he could feel his face turning bright red.

He could hear Sam and Tucker snickering at him. No. Manson and Foley. They were temporarily losing first-name privileges for this.

Dash didn't understand how finding out that Phantom was actually the kid he always bullied didn't make his crush go away, but actually made it worse overnight. He sure wished it hadn't though.

"If you're not dying anymore, then get out," Dash grumbled. "I still have to clean up the ectoplasm you dripped all over the house coming up here, and then I have to buy more gauze. If you get injured again in the next month, I'll kill you."

"Sweetie sweetie pie pie!" Danny singsonged, but didn't protest when Manson and Foley each grabbed him by one hand and dragged him, still floating, out of the bedroom and down the stairs.

Once they were gone, Dash's shoulder slumped and he sighed. He wasn't sure if it was exhausted, relieved, love-struck, but he sighed.

Being Team Phantom's official-unofficial medic was hard work.

He eyed the green drips on his bedroom carpet and sighed again.

But his work wasn't over yet.

#phic phight 24 #fill

[phicphight]

Salt Mirror

phic phight fill with two prompts; for @echoghost1 and @fuyuthefoxwriter

(Sister fics are Snow Day, Snowdrift Sanctuary, and Frozen Out)

********

The first thing Danny noticed was the teeth. 

Or. Well. The first thing Frostbite noticed were the teeth. What Danny noticed was that suddenly he was being offered bigger and bigger bones with his meal, which were very much not typical human-appropriate food. 

“You break them,” Frostbite showed him, pinning the bone between two sharp canines and biting down. The bone broke clean in two. Hot-dog style. “Then you are free to eat the marrow inside.”

Danny stared. “I don’t… I don't think my teeth do that.”

“Try it,” his guardian encouraged. 

…Well. He hoped Far Frozen had as good a dentistry practice as they did medicine. Danny shoved the bone between his canine teeth, and clamped down—

—And the bone broke clean through. 

Huh. That was…new. 

Well. Marrow tasted good, anyway, and scooping the butter-soft marrow out with a spoon was easy. Danny might have clunked the wooden spoon against his teeth a couple times (man, was he clumsy today) but he was very happy with the results. 

The next day Frostbite offered him an arm-length rib bone, Danny didn’t even hesitate to chomp down. 

He ate through four ribs before he felt full. He was happy. 

*

The second thing Danny noticed was how pale he got. 

Like. As in ‘his arm matched the snow-white fur of his tundra-proof coat’ level pale. ‘White as a glacier and just as blue’ level pale. Like. There was no red left in his skin. 

He pressed his thumb to his palm. It went yellow, and then flushed back to white as his blood went back in. 

…Spooky. Uh. Danny blinked loudly. Maybe he was…sick…?

There wasn’t a mirror in their cave dwelling, and nothing was shiny enough to reflect in— everything that wasn’t medical was cast iron, or not quite mirror smooth, like Frostbite’s round cooking knives. 

Danny needed a mirror. 

He bundled up and walked through fresh snow drifts to the closest medical facility: an ice cave across from Ledyanoy and Avalanche’s home, carved into one of several dozen pillars of ice embedded into the floating island. Danny knew that there was a mirror there, since Frostbite went in for mirror therapy every time his ice-carved arm began to itch psychosomatically. 

He darted inside. Pritla was the only one in there, so they ignored him in their quest for additional data. Great. All Danny needed was the mirror set up in the corner, ready and waiting to be rolled into place for Frostbite’s next session. 

Danny peeked at his reflection. He looked…wow. 

For one, Danny looked spooky as hell. The blue went all around his eyes, now— no whites to be seen, creating an uneasy, inhuman look. He was pale. He was very pale. He looked like the printer had run out of any colors that might have given him some sort of standing to wander reality with. 

The insides of his lips were blue. The wet inner linings around his eyes were blue. 

…What. 

And. Speaking of…lips…his gums were a deep, sapphire blue, as was his tongue. None of that was as important as his huge freaking fangs, though!

Like! Huge! Not yeti huge, of course, but still!! Danny had no idea how they weren’t sticking straight out of his mouth when he closed it. Big, pearly fangs. 

What the heck was happening to him? 

*

“I think you’re turning into a Yeti,” Tundra decided primly, and flung himself at Arctic without any further thought. The teenage Yeti— still taller than Danny by two heads and a half— squawked, barely seeing the projectile cub in time to dodge appropriately. 

“No,” said Danny. It was more outright denial than certainty. He wrapped his coat tighter around himself. 

Avalanche, who was the closest to adulthood out of all of them, watched the two wrestle balefully. Tundra was barely out of cub age, and Arctic wasn’t much better than Sidney Poindexter when it came to having his crap together, so it was kind of like watching two frogs mud-wrestle in knee-high snow. 

“I mean,” said Avalanche, mostly bored by the spectacle of Arctic getting his butt whipped by what amounted to a kid, “I’m pretty sure it’s normal for human-born ghosts to adapt to their Obsessions after they form. You have to change a little to match your environment. And we have a lot of snow.” 

“So much!” Tundra howled from where he was perched on top of Arctic. His victory lasted as long as it took for Arctic to get his legs underneath himself, push himself to standing, and launch Tundra into a snow drift with a surprised squeal. 

Arctic shook himself off. His fur fluffed up with the effort, which made him look larger in size than usual. “I think that if you were turning into a yeti, Frostbite would have noticed. Or said something. Or done something.”

Avalanche shook her head, gamely ignoring how Tundra had turned from a fallen-in-the-snow position to a crouching-and-ready-to-pounce position. Danny had seen this a million times now; either Arctic would notice (he wouldn’t) and dodge, or he’d once again fall victim to Tundra’s childish enthusiasm. 

Danny and Avalanche largely had no comment on Tundra’s second leap of faith, nor for their mutual struggle for pubescent dominance that ensued. 

There were other questions to ask. 

*

“Am I turning into a yeti?” Phantom asked. 

Frostbite looked down. 

The half-ghost looked nervous— picking at his lip until green beaded under his teeth, his hands in the sleeves of his coat. 

“No,” Frostbite confirmed. He didn’t smile, as it would have seemed condescending in the face of Phantom’s genuine worry. It was better to keep calm. “Why are you worried about turning into a yeti?” 

Phantom stared up at him, eyes deep and luminous. Frostbite had seen similar coloration on deep-sea creatures, long-travelled things desperate for any sort of light. The sight was compelling, yes, but could not substitute for a verbal answer. 

“...Because I’m changing colors and now I have sharp teeth and I think I’m growing claws,” Phantom pointed out. All of these things were true. They were very good, sturdy teeth, and very good, sturdy claws, which was a good sign; anything otherwise would have indicated a lack of support on Frostbite’s end. 

“It is a very normal thing to want to explore other forms of expression at your age,” Frostbite pointed out. He threaded his paws through Phantom’s pale hair, and found, to his pride, little buds of ice horns. “And I am very flattered that you think so highly of us that you are interested in mimicking some of our more obvious traits; that being said, if it distresses you, you are always free to change back.” 

Phantom’s face turned…lost. “Oh.” 

Frostbite continued petting. More explanation would come, or it wouldn’t— but in the meantime, the human tinge returned to his charge’s cheeks, flush with red blood, and the bud horns collapsed where they grew. His charge’s hair turned dark once more, his teeth flat and human. 

Phantom’s eyes were always blue. The human color was not as deep, but was just as nice. Now, there were tears in them. 

“What is wrong, little one?” Frostbite rumbled, concerned. Phantom took his paw and pressed his face to it in search of tactile comfort. 

“I didn’t know why I was changing,” Phantom admitted, sniffing. His voice was wet and raw. “I was scared I couldn’t go back. Humans don’t just…change like that, 'cause we're made of matter. I was scared…”

Frostbite rumbled wordlessly. His charge had adapted very well to a non-human environment, but there were knowledge gaps that would have come naturally to any Realms-Borne being; most intuitively was knowledge of the self, as well as the rigidity (and fluidity) of one’s own manner of expression. 

Changing without realization would be distressing. Frostbite still remembered what it felt like to wake up some mornings and realize that his arm was gone. 

“You are alright,” Frostbite reaffirmed. “It it healthy to change, and it is a good time to find out how you will want to present yourself. That being said, there is no rush.”

Frostbite paused. 

“There is one rush. If you intend to partake in eating marrow with our dinner tonight, you may want to manifest your teeth again—”

Phantom laughed, little cub’s fangs poking out between his teeth. All would be well; but first, there was dinner to be had, and a good night’s sleep to be found.

#phic phight 24 #fill