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cordria · 3 years

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Twin Cores - DP

Saw this headcanon on Tumblr… awhile ago? It stuck with me, and I ended up writing this, and now I can’t find it to give the person proper credit. Lemme know if anyone recognizes this idea and knows who came up with it. (heart)

Was gonna do this idea for the Big Bang thing, but I forgot all about signing up. ;) Wonders. So I’ll just post it and come up with new ideas.

~2,700 words.

Danny floated high above the clouds, up where the air was thin and cold and the stars sparkled brightly overhead. It was terribly late, and Danny knew he’d be paying for this at school tomorrow, but this was always the best part of his week. He couldn’t come up here all the time, but when he cound, he always found himself relaxing. Hands behind his head, he floated on his back, studying the stars.

He let out a breath through his lips and brought a hand forwards to massage his chest, closing his eyes. Yesterday had not been good day. An accident with some of his parents’ technology had completely ruined his day. For reasons Danny didn’t understand, his chest had felt overly full since. Almost like he needed to cough up something - which couldn’t be, because his ghost form didn’t have any real lungs to cough with.

With a groan, Danny stretched and rolled his body through a bunch of sharp loop-the-loops and twists, hoping maybe he could work out the kink. Nothing. Hopefully it wouldn’t prevent him from getting a good night’s rest. He was exhausted.

He floated for a few minutes longer, watching the sky and hoping for a meteor or two, slowly turning the overfull feeling over in his mind. He pushed and prodded at the odd sensation, trying to come up with what in the world it could be.

It had to relate to his parents’ invention. Unfortunately, the day was a fuzzy blur in Danny’s memory and if something in particular had happened to him, he wouldn’t be able to remember it on his own. All he could do on his own was a vague understanding of what had happened.

Getting zapped with one of the newer devices yesterday had resulted in Danny getting split - again. His ghost half had fallen captive to the hero-like obsession of his core, and had gone on a hero-spree. A memory of rescuing a cat from a tree in a very overblown, comic-like way surfaced and Danny buried his face in his hands, embarrassed for himself. “Ugh, I hope nobody videoed that. Or anything else,” he muttered.

His human half had wandered aimlessly through the day, not knowing what to do with no driving force behind everything he did. Vague memories of eating pizza and not noticing the ghost haunting the place next door until Sam pointed it out filtered through the shadows.

From what he remembered, it hadn’t been a horrible sort of day for either half of him. His ghost half had been allowed to play with his obsession all day and his human half had gotten to just be… human. But he’d been split for much longer than ever before; Tucker and Sam were unable to work through how the strange invention worked.

Danny didn’t remember being much help with the endeavour. In fact, he sort of remembered his human half stealing the device, passing it to his ghost half, and the thing getting placed on top of the school for the afternoon. Jazz finally got it using some of the newer modifications to the Fenton’s vehicle that allowed it to fly.

By the time the three of them figured out how to reverse the effects, it was late in the evening on the second day - more than 36 hours since being split. Phantom had started to turn more and more ghost, losing more of his humanity each hour, delving deeper and deeper into this hero obsession. His eyes had turned more ghostly, teeth sharpening, fingers turning into claws. Even a cape had started to mist into view.

Danny slowly ran his tongue over his teeth - they were still a bit too sharp - and pulled his hands far enough away from his face to glance at his fingers. They weren’t claws, not like many ghosts had, but… his fingers no longer really looked human. The changes that had happened to his ghost form the last two days appeared to be permanent, even now that they were rejoined back together.

Danny… didn’t want to think about that. Not yet.

And his human half had started to go through changes as well. Danny vaguely remembered - towards the end of the escapade, when he’d convinced himself that he didn’t want to be rejoined with Phantom - trying to avoid everyone and ending up in a tree, floating in a very inhuman way. His totally human form regaining some of its ghost powers.

Danny mentally poked at the odd, full sensation in his chest again. Perhaps it was that his ghost powers had grown while he was separated. Phantom hadn’t been exactly a half-a-ghost when they’d been slammed back together. And Danny had been just a bit of ghost too. Perhaps now he was somehow 60% ghost and 50% human… and his body was trying to adjust to being too much ghost.

His mind poked at the sensation in his chest just a bit too hard. Danny slammed his eyes shut tight as he felt the sensation of transformation travel through him - lightning sharp and aching into his phantom bones. Panic set in a second later. He couldn’t transform up here - there wasn’t enough oxygen for his human form to breathe. He’d pass out and fall to his death.

He gasped and threw his arms out, instinctively trying to grab something even though he was on the edge of the atmosphere, as the transformation arced through his arms and legs. He kept his eyes closed as he fumbled for his ghost side. He needed to transform back fast. His human side would already be aching to breathe, desperate for oxygen after the last hour of being in ghost form.

But his ghost side… was…

Danny opened his eyes as he realized he wasn’t falling. As he realized his ghost form wasn’t something to grab for, because he was still a ghost.

“But…” he whispered, startled and confused. He’d felt himself transform. There was no mistaking the sensation that had swept through him. He looked around, almost as if the answer would be written in the air next to him.

Then the stars caught his gaze. He froze, mouth falling open, as he stared up at the sky. There were more stars than before, the whole sky alight with points of light. And he knew them - with each star he focused his eyes on, he knew what that star was. How far away it was, what it’s name was, what kind of star it was…

Delight sparkled inside him as he let his gaze drift across the heavens. Stars he didn’t even know existed seemed to soak into his skin, whispering all their secrets in his ears. “How…?” he breathed, twisting around and around and looking everywhere he could. “Why?”

His gaze snagged on the moon, crescent-shaped and gleaming. He almost felt like he was drowning in it’s glow, feeling everything about it. The ice hiding in its craters. The human-built machinery peppering its surface. The soft warmth still coiling in its dying core. He could just… go there. He could be there in about three seconds. He could just…

He threw up a hand, blocking the moon’s glow, blinking hard and pushing the thoughts out of his mind. “Holy shit,” he whispered, breathing hard, focusing on Earth, on human thoughts, on normalcy. “What is this?”

Then he saw his hand, thin fingers topped with sharp claws, glove missing. His forehead furrowed as he realized both his gloves were gone, as was the logo on his chest, and the white belt around his waist. A black shirt and black pants. His boots looked like his normal shoes, just moon-lit white. Actually, minus the claws and some color changes, he looked… like he had yesterday. “Uh… What is going on with me?”

He could feel the pull of the stars overhead. He knew he could just lean back, put his arms behind his head, and float there, watching the sky forever. Just revel in space for all time. Instead, he kept his gaze down towards the tops of the clouds.

At least the first step of what he should do now was clear. Whenever he was dealing with anything out of the ordinary, Sam and Tucker knew what to say. They’d help. He’d go home, grab his phone, and call them.

Danny flew towards Amity Park-

-and suddenly drew to a stop. He twisted around, eyes wide, realizing that he’d somehow overshot his home by a dozen miles or more. “What the fuck?” he said. He’d only been flying for a moment - how was he all the way over here? “I…”

He licked his lips and tried again. He set his gaze on Amity Park and flew-

-right past Amity Park again. It was an eyeblink of time between one side of the city and the other. Danny hung in the air, confused and slightly annoyed. “What is going on?” he said. A new power, obviously - but one that had unfortunate timing. His fingers curled, the claws digging uncomfortably into his palms. “This is what I get for leaving my phone behind,” he groused. The phone wouldn’t have done well in the thin, cold atmosphere. Even if he’d have brought it with, there was no guarantee it would have still been working.

“Are all my powers wonky?” Danny asked, raising his hand and pushing energy into his hand. Instead of a steady, gas-like glow, the energy sparkled and hissed, like he was holding onto an exploding firework. “Odd.”

His powers were working differently, so it was time to try using them differently. Time to change tactics. Instead of focusing on a direction, Danny focused his mind on a destination. He closed his eyes, picturing where exactly he wanted to end up. Opening his eyes and taking a deep breath, he tried to fly as slowly as possible.

The world seemed to blur and twist, glowing uncomfortably bright for the fraction of a second Danny allowed himself to be in motion. When the world settled back into place, Danny found himself hovering about ten feet off the ground, within the city of Amiry Park, only about a half-mile from his house. “That worked a lot better,” he said, rather pleased with himself.

Instead of chancing another attempt at flying, Danny figured he’d turn himself human. A ten foot drop wouldn’t be too bad, and he could walk home. It would be the least-tricky way to get home. He took a moment to worry that this new power would prevent him from turning human as easily as normal, but then slammed that idea shut and closed his eyes.

Danny pushed his ghost form away, pulling at that warm and heavy feeling in his mind. There was a sparkling sensation in his mind, then the sharp pain that came with turning himself human again. He dropped, landing lightly on his toes, breathing a heavy sigh of relief that at least this was still normal. He bounced a few times, testing out a few basic powers - invisibility seemed to work like normal, as did phasing through things. He didn’t try floating, for fear of accidentally ending up two towns over and two hundred feet above the ground in human form.

He walked home, rubbing his chest at that strange, too-full sensation, and snuck in the back door. Despite the fact that all the lights were out, he kept himself invisible to avoid his parents. It was so far past curfew that Danny didn’t even want to think about the trouble he’d be in if they realized he was still out.

His bedroom door was still locked. Danny phased through it, flipped on the lights, and dumped himself into his bed. “Ugh,” he groaned, feeling the drain of the last two days on his body. He glanced over at the clock. Just before two in the morning. Part of him wanted to just curl up in his bed and fall asleep, try to get a few hours of sleep before tackling school tomorrow. But too much of him had a tight ball of anxious curiosity.

He groaned as he rolled out of bed and stepped in front of his mirror. He looked awful. Dark rings under his eyes and a horrible, pale tone to his skin. He looked half dead. “On the positive side, nobody will question it if I want to stay home sick tomorrow,” he muttered. He shuddered and shifted his weight, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then triggered the transformation.

His ghost form spread like lightning across his skin, slammed through his head, and settled into his chest like a cold ball of fire. He squeaked one eye open just a touch, not sure of what he was going to see.

Phantom was peering back at him. Danny relaxed, letting his eyes open, and studied himself. From more than a few feet away, he looked absolutely normal. But up close, there were minor changes from the last few days. Teeth that were too pointy. Fingers that were a little more claw-like than normal. Hair that was more… smokey. Just a little. His mouth twisted, unsure of how he felt about the changes. “At least there’s no cape,” he murmured. “I’d look too much like Vlad with a cape.”

He squared his shoulders, set his teeth, and tried flying. He floated up and moved around his bedroom like normal. “So normal.” He caught sight of his claws and shivered. “Mostly.”

“Now…” He took a deep breath and jabbed hard at the over-full feeling in his chest. He was half-hoping nothing would happen. But light sparkled along his body, that tingling almost-painful sensation changing him in very subtle ways. His clothes changed from a jumpsuit to shirt and pants, his shoes looked like they would squeak on the floor as he walked. He was still glowing and transparent. “I’m… a different ghost?” He spread out his arms, feet firmly on the floor afraid to hover. “And I have like… superspeed.”

He took a very careful step forwards, peering closely at himself in the mirror. His eyes looked the same, with the normal green glow. His teeth were sharper, canines almost like little fangs. And… he leaned in, studying his freckles. They glowed, star-like, forming constellations across his skin.

His mind veered off tangent, remembering the stars overhead, the glittering facts that swirled through his mind, the odd bubbling joy that came with even thinking about space. The freckles on his cheeks rearranged themselves into the constellation Draco, and sparks and speckles swirled into life across his clothes. A supernova that resolved itself into the stars overhead. Danny could trace the stars in his clothes, knew everything about each star. He was caught by the strongest urge to fly there. To zip through space to Alrakis, a binary star system eighty-eight light years away. It would only take him 221 years, 5 months, and 3 days…

Danny jerked himself out of his thoughts. He couldn’t fly for over two hundred years. He shuddered and blinked, settling back on his heels. The glowing freckles on his face settled down, his clothes faded back to black. The familiar sort of pitch-black of space. The sort of black Danny imagined the universe looked like before stars existed. “I have space powers now,” Danny realized, his voice slow and excited. “I have space powers! I’m a space ghost!”

Curious, Danny poked at that over-full feeling in his chest again. The world tingled and flashed, and he was back to his old self. Phantom, with the logo and the better posture and the weight of the world resting on his shoulders. “I’m two ghosts, somehow? Two ghosts… and a human...” Danny stared at himself in the mirror. “Or...” he rested his hand on his chest, feeling that strange overly-full feeling. “Or something…?”

Danny shook his head, not sure where to even begin processing that one. Then he turned himself human again, watching the world get dark as the ghost energy faded away. He scratched at his scalp, trundled over to his bed, and dropped into its softness.

There wasn’t much he knew right then. The first was that space powers were the coolest power he could have gotten. And the second was that all this would be easier to process after a few hours of sleep and a large cup of caffeine.

#danny phantom #twin cores #space core AU #this was fun to write #thanks for the idea :)

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yetanothergreyjedi · 3 years

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What We Might've Been: Part 3

Part 1 Part 1.5 Part 2

Part 4

Inspired by @liminalhollow 's spork AU

For @dargeon-lissa @dp-marvel94 @aethtalon

Also if you like this story, you might like Warped Mirror by @ectoentity

(Comments and questions are appreciated)

...

The next conversation was painful. Not literally, but that was only because they hadn't let Mr. Uses-the-word-'ghost'-as-an-insult get his hands on anything that could cause pain. (Tucker was trying to think of a time when Danny would've said something like that. It would've had to have been pretty early after he got his powers, but there really wasn't a big window between 'Oh, ghosts are real' and "I'm a ghost?' so Tucker didn't think there was any point when he would've. It wasn't even that creative.) Actually, that wasn't the only thing that didn't quite line up about this guy. Like the hazmat suit, it was like his before the accident only... armored? Slightly? It was different and something Tucker would've absolutely remembered. Then there was fact that he hadn't seen him use any ghost powers... Yeah, they were going to bring all this up when they got to Clockwork.

Anyway, the conversation when about as well as could be expected when the person with most of the information didn't want to talk, thought one of you was a ghost that had stolen his life, and became more mistrustful when they tried to defend him. Honestly, whatever ghosthunter had decided to publish the 'Ghosts are highly manipulative' line, Tucker hoped they became a ghost when they died.

But, yeah, words had gotten them nowhere, didn't seem to be getting any closer to anywhere, so Sam knocked the guy out. They'd dragged him into the Specter Speeder, and were now on the way to Long Now. Hopefully he wouldn't wake up until they got there.

Right.

Maybe he should just give up the word 'hopefully' because 'hopefully I can relax this weekend' had turned into time travel shenanigans and now the guy was already shifting back there. (shifting as in movement, not shifting as in dying/going ghost, Tucker smiled at his little joke. He'd have to figure out how to use that later.)

"Guys, I don't want to freak him out again." Danny whispered as he faded out of visibility, like that was going to do anything? Well, maybe jumpsuit guy would just assume they had the air conditioning up to high and the other off-putting vibes were just the ghost zone... yeah, guy was gonna freak out no matter what. At least Tucker was driving, then if he got violent Sam could knock him out again.

Jumpsuit guy... No. Dan. Time-traveled other Danny's get called Dan, for efficiency. Dan made some waking up sounds and after a minute asked "Where am I?"

Great, he's still freaked out... that's fair, they did kidnap him, but like its just so inconvenient.

"In the specter speeder." Sam answered.

"The what?"

"The specter speeder, did your parents not build that yet?"

"Uh... no? What is it...?"

"A... Vehicle"

"Sam, don't bother dancing around the point, all he has to do is look out the window."

"Tucker! I was trying to break that slowly!"

Tucker could tell that Dan had looked out the window by the frantic founds of seatbelt unbuckling. Yeah, that probably wasn't his brightest move. "Sorry..."

"What is wrong with you guys?! Don't you know how dangerous-"

"We're in here at least once a month will you calm down!"

I'm-to-flustered-to-make-words-work sounds, (that sounded a little like ghost speak which was oddly comforting if Tucker was being honest...) "That's not- Safe!"

(Oh! It was similar to Danny's acting-on-my-obsession noises, just without the static and overlaid creepy. Right! Past-Danny...) Tucker cut off whatever Sam was saying, "We did lots of tests before we came in here originally and we know how to be safe in here."

"But the Ghosts!"

"Typically mind their own business unless you do something."

"but in Amity-"

"Amity is like a magnet for the ones who want to cause trouble. And I don't think we should be explaining everything because of the timeline." There was a pause, good, he was using his brain.

"Wait, you guys actually think this is time travel?"

"Yeah, what do you think it is?"

"The clock ghost is helping the other one pretend to be me, for some reason... I don't know what they're planning, but-"

"Danny, stop." Sam's voice was clear and gentle reason. "Some of the things you have said today, I know you never would've said, even when this all started. Some of this still doesn't add up, but the idea that you went on some sort of time adventure makes some sort of sense with how you are now and the Danny I remember. Just trust us, okay? Even if you don't trust your other self?"

"Ok..."

"I'm gonna turn visible now,"

"He's been here the whole time!?!?!"

#What We Might've Been #part 3 #spork au #danny phantom #my writing #grey writes #this will eventually go on AO3 #eventually #Not yet #im sorry #I have horrible time management

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redrobin-detective · 3 years

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Side Effects of ghost powers

Hey all! I’m writing a DP fic called Side Effects exploring the physical and later mental/emotional impact of Danny initially getting his ghost powers. As an ICU stepdown nurse for 3 years, I wanted to view Danny’s accident through a slightly more realistic, medical lens.

Note: I had to fudge a good amount because Danny really should have fucking died and there’s no getting around that.

I do recommend you read the fic first before reading this as there’s some spoilers. Or if you don’t care you can read on. So! The two factors we are looking at regarding the accident are: ecto-contamination secondary to electrocution.

Electrocution

I was forced to downplay a lot of the severe symptoms of electrocution because, again, a bad enough shock will kill someone. My hand-wavey explanation is simply that the portal didn’t activate at a deadly voltage so he got a good shock but not enough to be fatal. I guess.

Muscle weakness/spasms: intermittent muscle spasms are common from shocks, muscles being activated by electricity and reacting to the lingering impulses. Danny’s is transient but quite annoying for a time. But his muscles are gonna be weak and achy af for days if not weeks after from the massive contractions caused by the shock and the after effects. Sensory issues: lots of things can cause nerve damage, including electrocution so Danny is experiencing some pretty severe neuropathy primarily manifesting with numbness and tingling throughout his body. His entire skin and peripheral nervous system got fried so while its mostly numb it’s also super sensitive for a bit of time causing massive pain and discomfort from your body tingling like a thousand bee stings. It’s worst in the hours after the accident but is something that never quite really goes back to normal both from the electrocution and his ghost half taking over and generally dulling his sense of touch.

Hearing/Vision loss: Like skin/nerves, your sensory organs in your eyes and ears would be affected by such a severe and allover electric shock. Danny has some blurred and occasionally double vision from his eyes not properly receiving/understanding input. Hearing loss is common following electricity given how delicate the inner ear is but I just give Danny some nasty tinnitus (ear ringing) for a bit. This inner ear problem also massively throws off his balance when he’s trying to move post accident. These factors are exacerbated by the ecto-contamination and mostly fade in the days following the accident before going away as his superhuman healing kicks in.

Heart Arrhythmia: an irregular heartbeat caused by the electrical impulses that control basal heartrate not coordinating they they should for a variety of reasons, in this case, massive electric shock. Danny would be somewhat aware of it, its not exactly painful exactly but you can just feel that your heart isn’t beating right. Secondary side effects are dizziness, chest pain, fatigue and shortness of breath. This resolves almost entirely when Danny stabilizes

Cognitive issues: Danny got his brains a little scrambled in addition to his molecules being rearranged. The first third of the story Danny is very clearly NOT thinking straight and Tucker/Sam should not have left him alone. Shocks can cause things like irrational emotional behaviors from hormone release along with memory loss and depression. He constantly waxes and wanes in mood and opinions on what to do in the story and never comes to a true decision that, damn lucky for him, worked out on its own.

Ecto-Contamination

Alright so Danny got massively shocked, sucks right but people live through that all the time. Ecto-contamination is more tricky (not only cause its made up and I had to think about what symptoms it would theoretically produce) but because the effects are more life threatening. It’s also irreversible, once he was contaminated it was only something that could be survived not cured.

So I theorized that Danny got shocked by the accident and was slowly dying of ecto-contamination and was pretty much clinically dead for a brief moment there, the death was enough for the large quantity of ectoplasm in him to immediately coalesce into a ghost (Phantom). So Danny was mostly dead but not quite, I’ve coded and brought back enough people to know it can be reversed somewhat. Danny becomes Phantom but the sudden stable formation of the ectoplasm into what its supposed to be, a ghost, caused his body to stop fighting the ectoplasm as a foreign invader and become part of the self. His core finished forming in his chest and his body started back up again, his ghost safely nestled in his once again living body as he slowly comes to grips with his actual death experience.

Nausea/Vomiting: I likened the idea of ecto-contamination to radiation poisoning, something that is essentially the antithesis to life. One of the first symptoms of radiation is n/v which is also why it’s one of the first overt symptoms Danny has. He was heavily electrocuted/irradiated and his body wants to expunge it all. As for the ectoplasm/blood he vomits, that’s the next section.

Gastrointestinal (GI) Bleed: So I was a little mean here. When one vomits up blood (or in this case ectoplasm/blood mix) it has to come from somewhere and a lot of the times it’s a GI Bleed. These are nasty, they need to be either cauterized or surgically repaired not to mention replenishing the blood lost. Fanon says that ectoplasm is at least mildly corrosive to humans so it is here, as it’s bonding to him, it’s literally eating him very slowly from the inside out which is causing a great deal of his internal pain. It’s not enough to be immediately life threatening but would kill him eventually. He developed some nasty bleeding ulcers in his stomach which let in blood and ectoplasm which were expunged. Danny’s core formed overnight and began healing the damage it had previously been causing but Dan is still gonna be vomiting excess blood/ectoplasm not to mention having black, tarry stools for at least a few days afterwards.

Hypothermia/Tremors: Hypothermia is when the body hits 95F/35C which Danny is just above at the start of the chapter. Danny initially starts shaking really bad (rigors) but as his body temperature cools further his shaking slows and eventually stops, a sure sign that the body is rapidly losing the fight to hypothermia and will likely die soon without immediate intervention. This is caused not only by the ectoplasm but his ice core shakily starting to form inside of him. Once he fully turns half ghost his hypothermia doesn’t change but it just no longer negatively affects him (I say Danny hovers naturally around 96-95F/35-33C getting much colder as Phantom at baseline. His body still can be damaged by going too cold but that’s a whole other post.)

Incoherency/Hallucinations: I mentioned in the electrocution section that Danny is more than a little addled and the contamination didn’t help in that regard. Not only is he not thinking clearly but he’s also getting a little delirious and seeing things. Common hallucinations I see are: someone in the room watching you, things crawling on the walls, creeping shadows, you’re in the wrong place. I think its a solid 50/50 as far as Danny straight up hallucinating but also becoming more aware of natural ectoplasm that hangs around in the atmosphere. (And before anyone asks, yes Clockwork did come and visit, Danny just doesn’t remember)

Pain: Being electrocuted, irradiated, being dissolved slowly on the inside is enough to cause massive amounts of pain. Danny is 14, he doesn’t understand true pain and probably underestimated how much it would hurt. Once it got bad, it was almost paralyzing so it got to the point where even when he wanted to call for help, he couldn’t move or think past the horrible pain of his every molecule slowly dying and rearranging itself.

Weakness/Fatigue: I don’t really have anything much to add for this section that hasn’t been said in the others. Just the combination of all of the above meant Danny is so incredibly weak and fatigued, this will be problematic in the days and weeks following the accident as his body heals from the stress put on it. Poor boy was probably just getting past the worst of his symptoms by the time of the Lunch lady attack one month in.

Ghost instinct: Going off the medical rant for a minute to go into another aspect of the contamination present in the story, the idea of ectoplasm adding inherent ghostiness to Danny. Its common fanon that all ghosts (through ectoplasm) have their own unique code and language that is just omnipresent and instinctive. Such a massive, body altering dose of ectoplasm saw those things start to leech into Danny even before he became half ghost. The biggest is his fear of being seen, majority of ghosts are completely invisible and don’t want to be seen by the living. As Danny’s suffering and literally dying, he can’t bring himself to confess to his loved ones for very understandable reasons but also this ghostly instinct in the back of his head telling him to hide and get away. Other instincts are a strong attraction to the portal/Ghost Zone, lowkey being able to sense living people around him and a bit of an emotional dampener when Phantom.

#danny phantom #danny phantom meta #danny not only got his skinny ass electrocuted #but also the ghost equivalent of radiation poisoning #kid is lucky af he survived #this fic took so long to write bc!!! I kept adding in more symptoms and details #and I just do not have enough words to convey how horrible Danny would have felt at the height of his contamination #poor baby #he's a little better next chapter

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five-rivers · 4 years

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imagine if at a christmas truce party the ghosts discover that danny has a second obsession of space

Wrote a fic~ *does a little dance*

"Here's your invitation to the truce party," said Skulker, dropping the letter by Danny's head, "and here's the duty list. Pick something." He shoved a piece of paper into Danny's face.

"You know," said Danny, testing the rope Skulker had tied him with, "you get a lot better at chasing me when you're doing it for non-murder purposes."

Skulker scowled, but Danny knew better than to take his apparent facial expression as a sign of his true emotions. After all, the face Danny could see wasn't really Skulker's. It was a mask. One the tiny green jellybean inside could manipulate as he pleased.

"What do you mean, 'duty list,' anyway?" Danny blew the paper off his nose.

"It's a list. Of duties. For people who want to attend the party. You can't possibly imagine that one ghost does it all on their own, do you?"

"I don't know. Some living people are really into the holidays. Wouldn't surprise me if there was someone over in the GZ Obsessing."

"There are," said Skulker flatly. "But going to those parties is risky."

"Oh. Yeah. I guess that makes sense. So, is this, like, a potluck deal, or white elephant, or do I have to come set up, or what?"

"Read the list, whelp!"

"I would," said Danny, "if you held it far enough away for me to see what was written on it. "My eyes don't focus that close."

Grumbling, Skulker adjusted his position.

A lot of the things on the list were already checked off. The rest looked dangerous (fighting the Krampus), time consuming (holly acquisition, with a stupidly high number of branches listed next to it), expensive (providing new holiday table settings), confusing (Danny didn't know what a 'consoda' was, or why he would fetch offerings from it), or simply extraordinarily unappealing (after party cleanup). Except for one.

One that caught Danny's eye because of a very specific word that was included.

"Why's the star all by itself?" asked Danny.

"Because the star is important," said Skulker. "Adding the star to the tree is what starts off the real celebration. A star needs to be impressive. Dramatic! Not one of those little dinky tinsel things you can find at human stores."

Part of Danny knew he shouldn't- But when had he ever listened to that part of himself?

Actually, that wasn't really fair. He listened, otherwise he'd be fully dead instead of just half.

Still.

(The idea of making a star made his skin feel sparkly and fuzzy, like his whole body was half an inch from the surface of freshly poured soda, but all over.)

"I'll take it," he said.

"Humf," said Skulker. "Don't screw up, or you'll be in for a beating as soon as the truce is over." He made a mark by the name and started to fly off.

"Hey! Aren't you going to untie me?"

"Nah."

"He's late," said Desiree, sharply, glaring at Skulker as if he had any control over what the whelp did or did not do.

She wasn't the only one.

"He's not late yet," defended Skulker.

"You shouldn't have given him the star as a choice," complained Technus, his voice squaking like a poorly connected computer speaker. "You should have just told him what he'd have to do. Something that wouldn't ruin the party. He's a teenager! Teenagers are easily distracted."

"I didn't know you were a teen, techie," drawled Spectra, who really shouldn't have been at the party at all, seeing as she wasn't, and never had been, invited. Skulker was hoping someone would find a way to throw her and her little minion out before midnight.

"It's TECHNUS, MASTER OF TECHNOLOGY, CONTROLLER OF ALL THINGS ELECTRONIC AND BEEPING."

"I am sure Sir Phantom is on his way," said Princess Dora, softly, ignoring Technus's continuing rant with the ease of long practice. She would not be here the whole evening. Her kingdom had its own, separate celebrations, but they wouldn't start for well over half a human day. "He is a very responsible person, and he was speaking to me about stars just earlier this month." She frowned, slightly, swirling the darkly luminous wine in her glass. "That is, I think he was talking about stars. The conversation was somewhat difficult for me to follow."

"Oh, no," said Desiree, putting one hand delicately over a smile.

"What?" growled Skulker.

"It always bothered me a little, you see, but I hadn't realized quite why until just now." She was barely even trying to hide her delight. "The second time I fought him, it was during a meteor shower."

"So?" asked Amorpho.

"He was rather cross with me during the fight. At the time, I thought it was because he was missing that girl's party, or because of the whole memory wiping thing, but in retrospect..."

"Just spit it out already," said Skulker.

"I do believe you gave the task of making the tree star to a ghost Obsessed with outer space."

Inside the suit, Skulker's true hands slip off his controls for just a moment. "Oh, Ancients," he groaned.

"We're not getting a star this year, are we?" asked Ember.

Phantom chose that moment to barrel through the door. "Sorry!" he exclaimed, looking and sounding more like a little kid than Skulker had ever witnessed. "Am I late? No, I'm not. Never mind. I'm not sorry. What do you think?"

He held out the... thing in his hands for the assembled ghosts to view. It was... It was definitely a star. A round blue star. Complete with solar flares and sunspots. Animated flares and sunspots.

"How the hell?" whispered Walker in the background, despite the fact that he and his pink prison really had no room to talk.

"Is it no good?" asked Phantom, managing to shift his weight even though he was floating. "I turned the brightness way down so that everyone could see the details, but I think I could turn it back up again without too much trouble." He blinked up at the other ghosts, and Skulker noticed with some unease that his pupils were currently shaped like crescent moons. "I mean, the other one exploded, but I think I've got it, now."

All of the ghosts slid back, just slightly. Not that they were afraid of explosions, but, well, being cautious didn't hurt.

"Er," said Dora, "what is it, exactly?"

"A star! A blue giant, specifically. Well, a model of one, anyway, but I think it's a good model. I mean, it's a blue giant right now. I've got it set up so that it'll go through the whole life cycle of a massive star. Or, not the whole life cycle, because that would include the nebula, but the life cycle from this point? It'll change color and expand as the night goes on and it uses up its 'hydrogen'- I've scaled the expansion, though, don't worry, it won't take over- and then the core will collapse and the outer layers will be ejected, and- BOOM!- supernova!"

"Ghost child," said Technus, in a more strangled than usual voice, "are you telling us that's a bomb?"

"No, it's a star," said Phantom, blankly. On closer inspection, the crescents in his eyes were not the only modification to Phantom's appearance. He had pale green and silver stars scattered liberally across his nose and cheeks, and similar shapes in the black of his costume.

In the background, Desiree was dying of laughter.

"Don't you think a supernova might be... dangerous?"

"Oh, a real one, sure. But I tested one before I brought this, and all it did to me was singe my eyebrows off, and I was standing really close."

"Whelp," said Skulker, searching for some reason to reject Phantom's 'contribution,' "how is that even supposed to stay on the tree? It's just a ball."

"Oh, it'll float wherever I tell it to, don't worry, I've tested it!"

It perhaps said something about ghostly parties that the sudden detonation of the tree topper several hours later, the subsequent glee of the supposed superhero in attendance when the room was filled with star-shaped glitter and confetti, and the attempted homicide on the part of several glitter-unfriendly ghosts was not the most exciting series of events to occur that night.

#danny phantom #ask #answer #fic

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datawyrms · 3 years

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snap

It is The Day I post my Invisobang fic! it was a wild ride to write everything and not post. This is actually the second fic I did, as the first fell into my pit of ‘i hate it now’ and will sit in limbo for the rest of eternity. I teamed up with Spirit ( @ghostportals ), who has done some accompanying art! That, and Red @redead-red saved my bacon by doing some betaing last moment, so tell em they’re great too. Hope you’re all enjoying the flood of finished fics and art this week! Only the first chapter is here, the rest is posted on my Ao3 and complete. hope you enjoy!

One careless fall changed Danny's life forever. He was kind of hoping one fall like that was enough for any lifetime. Clearly fate disagreed.

It's fine though! He's got this. He's fine. He can totally explain why he ran off with his own body to mom and dad.

The stairs had always been a little too steep, a titch too narrow, but he was used to them. Jazz worried too much- the whole Fenton family knew how to take them two steps at a time. He wasn’t going to admit she might have a point just because he’d slipped one time. He wished there was a railing to catch himself with- it would have spared him some of the pain of his head knocking on the stair.

It didn’t hurt that much. Plenty of ghosts hit harder, and far more frequently.

“Took a bit of a spill eh, Danno?”

Great, dad saw him slip like he was three again. He wanted to speak, wave his behemoth of a father off before he got tangled up in some long lecture about whatever they were working on down here. Just had to sit up.

He was a little stunned or something. All those late nights made his limbs rebel when he wanted them to hurry up. Come on, before he tries to help and accidentally shaves his hair off with some anti-ghost stepladder or something.

His arms stubbornly rejected his internal horror story. His attempt to say ‘I’m fine’ was more a gurgle than anything. Way to go, Fenton. Do everything to get dad to worry! Really using those genius genes. Jazz probably stole his anyway, or they got fried in the accident. Come on! A bit of self berating should have him sitting bolt upright by now. Maybe his arm twitched. He felt something move, anyway. More like a muscle spasm.

“Danny? You okay?” The large man came closer, his usual jog slowed.

Of course he’s fine. He could see dad, sort of. He totally moved his eyes to see him better, even. Stupid ghost powers were just acting up. It’s okay, just give me a second to stand up. You’re worrying over nothing.

Jack had already made it over, crouching to get a better look at his fallen son. Like he was trying to look smaller or something with how carefully he was moving. Where was all that slow, ginger movement when he was driving? Or trying to tell them about some new invention that might burn off your eyebrows?

I’m fine, dad. He couldn’t get the words to come out, but he was just fine. He really didn’t like the strange look on his father’s face. After all, ‘Jack Fenton doesn’t know the meaning of the word fear’ or whatever random thing he felt like shouting when chasing after entities from another dimension. Come on dad, stop looking like that. It was creeping him out. Moving should be easy, a snap, but part of him didn’t feel like doing it. Apparently an important part? He could visualize exactly what to do, but he wasn’t sitting up. He swore he could feel his muscles clenching but not finishing the movement. Maybe they were testing something down here that just made all the ectoplasm hiding inside him take a nap. His ectoplasm was so fired after this.

“Can you look at me kiddo?”

Coaxing him. This was weird. Why wasn’t he just hauling him off the floor and laughing about how clumsy he was at his age too? Looking at him was easy. Pretty hard to miss him, with all the bright orange.

“Maddie? Can you come over here?” His question was strangely stilted, not much of a bellow.

Dad was going to get the wrong idea because his body didn’t want to cooperate. Great. Fantastic. He could feel the warmth in his chest, the sign his heart was still going. He was just fine, just a bit inconvenienced at the moment. Why couldn’t dad just be dad and do something dumb like pick him up with one hand while sounding way too excited about some new tool that he built?

“What’s wrong?” His mom said, her footsteps doing the same thing dad’s had. Speed that suddenly cut down to almost nothing. “Danny, did you hit your head?”

“I think he might have, he’s not responding. I didn’t want to try to move him-“

“You did great Jack, it’s okay.”

Gross. He hoped they didn’t get caught up in one of their lovey dovey circles while he was stuck trying to get his stupid legs to remember how to do things. He was responding! He groaned, and he definitely twitched a bit. Weren’t they paying attention? He tried again, a bit more forcefully and ignoring the pang in his neck. More of a jolt from someone with too much static cling than actual pain, really.

“Should I call 911? He isn’t moving! He just stayed there- didn’t even act all tough for his old man!”

Jack was panicking. Dad was panicking. Over nothing! Why wasn’t mom distracting him with fudge or some random study? No one was being normal today. Danny shuddered, he knew he did, it went with the pulse under his skin.

“That’d be great sweetie, just stay close.”

“In case you need my big strong arms to help carry him, right?”

“Just in case.” She wasn’t wearing the hood of her jumpsuit, at least.

It didn’t make it more comfortable when she crouched down, biting her lip and staring at him. Like this was concerning. It was the opposite of that, he was a klutz, a gangly teenager, it was normal for him to be a bit banged up. This shouldn’t concern her, or anyone. The only reason it bugged him was the not being able to move right now nonsense.

“You aware in there sweetie?” she said, rather loudly and clapping near his ear.

Yes I am, but I can’t tell you. Maybe he could focus on taking a breath and it would kick off whatever turned off his mind to body connection. Had he done anything strange before coming down here? Not really. He could absolutely feel her digging her nails into his earlobe though, ow! More motivation to move, but something wasn’t getting across. Maybe he was getting a bit freaked out about it too. Only because of his parents being weird. He was fine, he had to be fine. It was nothing, less than nothing.

“I’m just going to make sure he’s still breathing Jack, do you have anyone on the line yet?”

A loud response, but not to her question. “No it’s not a ghost emergency! It’s a human emergency!”

Of course he was breathing. He couldn’t look that bad from such a small fall. Just breathe out the words ‘Hey mom, personal space’ and they’d laugh and it’d be nothing. All this fussing was making his skin crawl but of course he had to have ‘special ghost freezing up’. Was it his ice powers? Like he could get his powers being snarky like that, appreciated it in a twisted sort of way- but it would be better around people who wouldn’t assume the worst? Like anyone else. Even Dash.

“Tell the operator he isn’t breathing.” Maddie’s voice was cold and controlled, even as she went back to biting her lip right after.

He was totally breathing. He could feel the air that ran in and out of his lungs, the swell and fall that other ghosts knew as a weak point, a way to slow him down. He knew what being doubled over, air shoved right out of him from a harsh blow felt like, how it felt like the portal again. Throat twitching, body heaving and trying to regain what it lost. The darkness that bit at the edges of his vision as every nerve went screaming You’re Dying . Hated that feeling, shook the ghosts who did that hard once they were in a thermos. This was nothing like that.

“He isn’t breathing, you need to hurry! My wife knows CPR- just tell them to hurry this is my son , please”

Yelling to hide the quaver in his voice. Like a kicked puppy yelping. It sounded so wrong. This was going to be so awkward after. They’d just...pretend this never happened, right? That’d be for the best. No, he was going to get grounded forever for some ‘dumb prank’, since he was fine and worried them so much. Which didn’t seem too bad if it stopped all of...this.

He moved a little. A toe, he was pretty sure. More notably was his mother, carefully getting him off the uneven stair to be flat on his back. Trying to keep his head from moving, and she couldn’t see he was looking at her? When she was this close? Too busy trying to be calm. Who could be busy enough to think he wasn’t breathing or tracking with his eyes? Another twitch, another inward curse that he couldn’t get back in control.

“Just hold on, help is coming.” She said, but the half ghost couldn’t tell who she meant, exactly. Him, dad or herself? Either way the quiet remark did not prepare him for the sheer force slammed into his crest. Like she wanted to slam right through him! Was it so much to ask that his parents stop nearly killing him by trying to help? Just try moving again and everything will be fine.

He couldn’t keep the mental mantra up when he heard- when he felt his ribs crack from the pointless force. She was killing him, he didn’t need help breathing, he had to get it through to them no matter how much his body buzzed and resisted his need to move. He had to focus and push through it, ignoring how cold and wrong it felt, how it seemed like he was squirming free of something that didn’t want him to go.

Her bone crushing assault stopped once he got his arm up, not even needing to touch her before she froze. The fear was wrong, out of place so he redoubled his efforts, twisting and struggling against himself, the sticky mass that wasn’t letting him act or speak to calm them down.

The phone hit the floor. He heard it. So why didn’t dad say anything? Danny twisted, wanting to make sure he was okay. Still stuck. At least he had a hand free and most of an arm, the edges of his fingers tracing the tiles of the floor. He could brace himself that way, pushing down hard to try and jar his shoulder loose. He could hear air moving, like a harsh breath out. Good- breathing was good. Even when it sounded so harsh and low.

“Jack- are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Maddie moved back, giving him the space he wanted ever since she’d cracked his ribs. They still stung under his skin, hissing at him to keep his parents away before he managed to get even more injuries over something so silly.

“I’m not sure what we’re seeing.” The phone remained on the floor.

That didn’t seem right. He’d sat up, mostly. Half sat up, propped up with an arm. Still mostly stuck and uncomfortable, the snapping and crackling sensation still clinging to his free shoulder. Really, he felt worse than how he started. at least there wasn’t pain in ‘hah my body is playing freeze tag without me’ land. The pulling sensation made his head ache and vision swim to the point he wasn’t actually sure if he was still looking at the ceiling or not. He couldn’t go back to just being frozen though, that’d suck. So just convince the rest of himself to get up. No problem!

Were lies in his head always this unconvincing? It felt like yanking himself free of a too sticky slime, strands clinging and tugging back until they finally snapped, parts still stuck but free of the main mass. At least ectoplasm had the decency not to stretch when you got drenched in it most of the time. Come on, focus and keep it together. He let out a wheeze as the last stubborn strands snapped, ignoring how loud it sounded to properly reorient himself.

Sitting up, properly, good! Parents staring with weird, half horrified expressions: bad. Very, very bad.

“I’m okay, I just fell.” Danny spoke, he could speak properly again. So why? “Sorry for scaring you guys?” He tried again, trying to ignore the first thought across his mind.

They kept staring. Maddie seemed to be recovering, shoulders starting to relax, but she seemed to be reaching for her belt.

He didn’t sound right. No, that wasn’t quite right, he just sounded wrong for Danny Fenton. Who he should be right now, he hadn’t been able to talk, let alone go ghost. This probably looked really, really bad. How had he switched, anyway?

Mom was reaching for a gun, wasn’t she? Crud. Now he regretted talking at all, how was he going to explain why Danny Phantom was treating two ghost hunters like his parents? Or how he managed to look like their kid. Maybe he could change back and convince them they were seeing things?

Yeah no, that was way too dumb.

“Wait.” Jack rested a hand on his wife’s shoulder, causing her to stop pulling the weapon. He wasn’t looking at the ghost at all, just her. Maddie remained stiff, not able to ignore the glowing kid on her floor.

Okay...dad was usually the gung ho one. Maybe he could get away with this? Danny tried to get a better grip on the situation. Felt a new pain, sharp and cold in his throat. Deep green scars clashed against his white gloves and ran all across his jumpsuit, glow intensifying as the panic choked him into silence. Fresh and angry like back- back before he managed to stumble out of the portal when he died when the accident happened.

With his human arms just as scared below them, still against the tile. The damage looked old, half scabbed over with only a dull glow deep in the death marks wounds. His arms attached to the rest of his body- that he was half out of.

Why? How was his body still and silent while he was sitting and looking at it. He’s cold. His body is cold. It isn’t breathing there isn’t some other facet of his personality sitting behind the dull blue eyes. This isn’t how it works! If he splits, it’s just temporary, he can fix it but his other half- corpse is wrong.

The pulling and clinging at his legs doesn’t feel like slime anymore. Rotting flesh that wants to drag him back, smother him in a cloying warmth that will only remind him why it burned, how it hurt. He had to move, he couldn’t stay half like this, it would get better once it wasn’t like this.

It didn’t want to let go as he tried to pull away, ectoplasm getting snagged on every nerve and muscle fiber, each pause a reminder of the shock and pain of his end that day.

He knew he screamed when he pulled free and slammed into the wall, furious green scars still marring his jumpsuit where there should be none.

What would Mom and Dad think?

No no no no no. He spotted movement from them and acted. He couldn’t let his mom break his body more, or look at it too closely. Dad couldn’t see what happened! This was fine, he could fix this!

He grabbed his corpse and fled through the wall.

#Danny Phantom #invisobang #invisobang 2021 #jack fenton #Maddie Fenton #there are a lot of way better fics made for this #but hopefully you'll enjoy mine too

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13thdoodle · 3 years

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Hello! I really like your reverse evil trio AU! It's very interesting and I was wondering if you could explain more of the backstory of it. Like did Danny ever have his accident, or were they all born halfas or ghosts? Did the get "adopted" by ghosts are did they always know of their power? What made them "evil"?

First of, Thank you for liking the au im having so much fun with it

Second, it wasnt like mine mine like phantasy au, it was a bunch of us at invisobang server im just the one who went ham n draw a shitton of it lmao

and third, hmmm idk i lowkey avoid so far coz i tend to make it confuluted Im sure about any of them being halfa yet, but yeah they do get like ‘adopted’ by their respective ghosts. Danny by plant Nocturn, Sam by Undergrowth pharaoh, and Tucker by egyptian god of dream or sth

The idea is like.. the ghosts have their power switch around? so Nocturne got plant power, Undergrowth was a pharaoh, and.. whats-his-face from king Tuck ep has dream power. And they grant those to their respective patron..ee (what do u call ppl who the patron supports?) I was gonna say its like possession but its slightly more lowkey i guess? because they still have their conciousness and in control the whole time

Sam got her’s when she leading protest about stolen egyptian archeology items put on museum or sth and undergroth pharaoh took a liking on her. Danny got his when he found nocturn plant version dying or sth n nurture it to health n its not a ghost plant turns out. Tucker... i dont know yet? im only got vague ideas if u got better ones do tell :3c

The evil part is coz they... are? like the King Tuck, Urban Jungle and Frightmare ep they brought chaos to the whole town and it only resolved cause danny phantom was there to save the day, esp urban jungle ep. But in this au, danny phantom dont exist, as in, no one picked up the hero mantle to save the day, so no one is stopping any of these three over powered possessed kids to take control of the whole place

The Fenton’s would’ve stop them, except Danny put the whole family to sleep and made sure the Fentonworks are covered with forest of thorns basically so no one can get their hand on their ghost hunting equipments. Out of town ghost hunters might help but like how fast can they get there before the trio over run the town first :3c

and if u want like , none of them actually think what they did is evil. its bad n chaotic but they totally have good reason for it. Sam despise the injustice caused by unfair law and all and decide she should dismantle it and then rebuild it from scratch. ya know chaotic antag stuff. possibly influenced by being possessed by a pharaoh also adds to that. danny always cared for his friends and he take it to the extreme to protect sam and her goal so here we are. tucker here to vibe kajsndakd i havent got to him yet im sorry orz

but yeah thats what i got so far?? hopefully that answer that?

#dp ret au #dp reverse evil trio au #reverse evil trio #im sory tucker didnt get much backstory yet aksjdnajksdka #Anonymous

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everyothermouse · 3 years

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Hmhm I love you I love the au u made I need the p l o t but I don’t want to bother you uhhh was yea ok <:)

ok!!! Basically there are 2 plots that converge, a silly lil camp in the woods and a fae love story! Let’s go under the cut for this cus I’m gonna be explaining them for a hot minute lol

I’m gonna make a breakdown of all the individual characters in a minute but for now here’s a chart I just finished so u know whos where in all this

(Eros not on here but he’s a forest folk) So I’ll give u an expo on both of the plots (feel free to come ask questions as ur reading or after ur done, I would Love to talk abt this au as much as possible)

The fae side: Eliana here’s from two of her townsfolk (the twins) that there are fae in the woods. All her fellow townspeople say they’re just being pranksters again (the amount of times they’ve tried to convince the town there’s totally a werewolf just outside of town is too many for them to be a trustworthy source- and as aspiring nightwalker hunters of course they’re trying to spot fae in every leaf and under every rock), but Eliana, curious, decides to sneak off one night to investigate. After all if there’s a fae out there, it’s her responsibility to ward it off from her town! what she finds though is not a silly lie from the twins or a terrifying manipulative monster- in A flower patch she sees her, the most beautiful charming looking fairy she’s every seen, all alone weaving a flower crown in the woods. He spots her, and although she’s scared at first and wards them with her axe, she can’t bear to attack him. they hit it off really quickly, and Shirley shows her the beauty of the hidden parts of the forest, lit up by the magic of the moon, as opposed to the normal sunlit forest Eliana is used to. She returns home at dawn with promises to come back the next day. Meanwhile Shirley goes home to his ghost husband like ‘omg I just met the prettiest lady evr, she’s coming back tomorrow can we keep her’ and Thomas is like ‘bro we already have jr‘ and Shirley is like ‘no but I want to kiss her 🥺 and hold hands 🥺🥺🥺 and trap her in the fae lands forever with me 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺’ and Thomas is obviously slightly jealous but he’s like ‘yeah whatever’ bcus he knows if Shirley does try and make out with some daywalker he’s prolly gonna kill her by accident anyways jdgfufndkc. so Eliana starts going out every night with the excuse that she’s choppin down wood, (ninas suspicious of this excuse but Michael tells her eliana wouldn’t lie,) and Shirley keeps trying to get her to stay forever and eat all their food and introduces her to Thomas and jr and stuff, and it’s nice and all but shirleys making her stay for longer and longer, and he can’t handle letting her go for even a second. Eliana doesn’t mind tho, she’s totally blind with love, and eventually she’s tells the town abt Shirley but that he’s totally not like other fae and definitely cool and there’s mixed feelings, some ‘awwww Eliana finally found a girlfriend, so sweet 🥰’s and some ‘they’re not different ur just being manipulated, we should go kill him’s and even some ‘huh, wasn’t that the name of the guy Harley was crying abt not being able to remember, lol crazy coincidence, Emerson let’s go bully harley’s.

yeah but Shirley has fucking crazy attachment issues and horrible death magic, so eventually one morning he does get REALLY upset abt his girlfriend leaving, like the whole tree (Thomas and Shirley live in a treehouse) is dying around him and Thomas is holding jr begging him to calm down, and Elianas finally like ‘hmm. Maybe this was a bad idea’ and that’s about where we are rn with that whole thing.

CAMP TIME: so as shown from chart above, there’s some ppl living in a lil forest camp together :) emi and graci moved there because they wanna learn how to hunt nightwalkers >:) there was a reason for it a couple years ago but they kind of forgot what it was (cough Shirley disappearing cough) but they’re still dead set on it! And lucky dink, as they’re moving to camp big Harley comes home to visit his brothers and ends up joining the camp for a bit since all 3 of his brothers are there! Camp Side of the story doesn’t have a ton of plot, mostly Harley low key having a crisis abt how busy his life at his actual home is and how everything feels so horribly off here even though hypothetically things haven’t changed much since he left and the twins fucking around and causing trouble around camp. Hallow thinks it’s funny that the stupid kids wanna hunt night walkers cus he is one, so he gives them the tip that theres a vampire in camp and they become dead set on it being Jane. All the kids like playing with Ben like he’s a whole ass jungle gym, he thinks it’s cute. kibi gets dragged around by emi and graci while they try to find the werewoof at the edge of town (sadly they only find Andy, darn, but he plays them some songs so not a total waste. also yes Andy is obviously the werewolf the twins are just stupid GDSHDSJD.) charlotte sits around crying and the other kids and counselors like to play a game where they all take turns trying to make her laugh (the first time the twins came to camp Emerson made her giggle, belle and Ben were so happy they were just sitting there sobbing bcus their girl finally smiled again, so Charlie quietly suggested they make it a new daily game because he hadn’t seen Ben and belle that hopeful in years :,) ). jr and Maria go around biting peoples ankles and collecting sticks. After hearing emi and graci talk abt town, Jane decided she wants to go visit town, Danny‘s super hesitant but the other 3 camp counselors all agree that since she’s 16 now she’s definitely old enough to go where she wants. While shes there she goes to a festival and meets Andy (17) and it’s nice :) also hallow has ero Boyf who visits sometimes and Danny’s got husb Sébastien who he and Jane visit a lot.

ya that’s pretty much all the plot stuff for now! there’s some more backstory stuff abt thomas dying with Charlotte watching and Shirley going missing and what not but yea that’s pretty much it :D

#Not art #🌱#Uhh I don’t have a tag for the au yet but I’ll add it once I have a name #Sorry this took so long I was REALLY excited to infodump abt this au shdhdhs #Blinding light au

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phantomphangphucker · 4 years

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Legless On Maim Chap. 10: Epilogue: Aliens, Ghosts, And Humans! Oh My!

Vee’s a bastard, Danny’s a bastard, Eddie’s a bastard, ClockWork’s a bastard, Lewis’s a bastard; everyone’s a bastard. And multiple minor characters say why the fuck not and join the bastardly fray.

Danny sighs and turns his head back towards the kitchen, “Lewis! Come collect your monsterfucker boy toy!”. Eddie rolls his eyes like he’s heard this a fair few times.

Lewis walks over, “Eddie? Really? I mean one, kid’s not healed. Two-”, grinning, “-thanks for winning me a bet”, and side-eyeing Danny.

Danny points at him, “hey, doesn’t mean-”. Eddie doesn’t even let him finish that, smirking, “oh it does mean”. Danny sighs and hands Lewis what he thinks is a twenty though really? He’s kinda amused. Smirking at Eddie, “congrats, first dude to ever figure things out on their own”.

Sam shakes her head grabs everyone but Lewis and drags them out of the house. Lewis shakes his head, sips at his drink, and heads back over to his friends; Danny could handle Eddie.

Eddie blinks as they stop getting dragged by the goth, “are you serious kid? You look nearly identical with the glowy bullshit edited out”.

Sam smirks, “people are stupid and Danny’s a walking existential crisis”, looking to Tucker and Danny, “so much for Vampire Dad 2 I’m guessing?”.

Danny immediately points at them, “no you go, illegally record it or some shit”.

Tucker rolls his eyes, “you just don’t want us around Mr. Murders And Eats People without checking him out”.

Literally both Eddie and Danny respond with, “hey and I’m taken”.

Tucker blinks, “okay that was fucking weird”, while Danny and Eddie side-eye each other. Sam shakes her head and pulls Tucker off, knowing damn well Danny will just become a ball of overprotective.

Eddie shouts after them, “let it be known! We don’t eat kids!”. Which makes Danny wheeze when some dude at a stoplight shouts back at them, “good! I’m supposed to be getting my mom some blue hydrangeas from the goth! Doubt I can get then from a digested corpse!”.

Eddie mumbles, “everyone in this town is fucking weird”, looking to the side, “shut the fuck up bitch”. Which just makes Danny laugh more. Eddie looks to him, “anyway, you smell fucking weird and those are the most convincing fake leg crap ever”, sighing, “no, we’re not taste-testing”.

Danny snorts and kicks a rock as they start walking randomly, “actually totally do, I’m curious and, I’ve got legs for days”, and slides his hand down his leg with mock sexiness.

“Do you have a death wis-”, before going wide-eyed and suddenly getting bodily flung into Danny, “no! I don’t think he’s serious!”, regardless they end up in a bush with Danny muttering ‘ow’ and missing a bit of shoulder.

Danny stands himself up easily -a bush is by far not the worst thing he’s been bodily shoved into- and rolls his shoulder, Vee’s got some sharp teeth. Damn. Eddie untangles himself and staggers up, making some faces and muttering, “that’s it, no Lindor for you”. Danny lifts an eyebrow when a little black oily snake or something just sprouts out of the guys' shoulder, seemingly sneering all teeth, “HE OFFERED EDDIE”. Eddie grabs the head? and shoves them at his shoulder muttering, “back in, bitch”.

Danny starts wheezing as Eddie looks to him, “also you- oh”, turns back to the bush and promptly throws up. Making Danny fall on his ass laughing, so much for can eat anything! Snapping a probably not flattering pic of the guy bent over a bush, captioning it ‘guess who’s inedible’, and throws it in the Phantom chat.

Eddie hacks a bit, hands on his knees. Wiping his mouth, “ugh”, blinking down at the weird black/green bubbling sludge on the ground, that was slightly dissolving the bush leaves, “what the Hell are you made outta, kid?”.

Danny laughs loudly, “death!”. Laughing more at the little black snakehead popping out of the guys' neck and sticking out their tongue at him; he thinks they look either disgusted or slightly ill.

Eddie rights himself and quirks an eyebrow at Danny’s totally healed shoulder, “fuck you heal fast”.

Danny chuckles some more, standing up off the sidewalk and giving his shoulder a little pat, “Lewis lied, I’m completely healed. Family just don’t know. And to actually answer your question, ectoplasm and human stuff too”, pointing at the bush, “but that was probably the ecto”.

“Well I guess I ain’t eating fucking ghosts anytime soon”.

“JUST SPIT DON’T SWALLOW”. Danny wheezes more at the little head and Eddie looks to them, “the Internet was a mistake”.

“BUT WHERE WOULD YOU WATCH POR-”. Eddie smashes them against his skin, “no! He’s actually a minor. And we’re in public, asshole”. Looking to Danny, “how the fuck were you in Egypt though?”.

Danny shrugs, “eh, I’m tight with the god of time”. Eddie blinks and mutters to the side, “fuck me”. Danny chuckles, “no?”, which Eddie actually laughs at.

Eddie looks around, “alright, since someone made me lose my perfectly fine lunch, there a hotdog stand or some shit?”.

Danny snorts, “no clue if you’re referring to me or Vee”, tilting his head, “huh, that rhymes”, smirking, “cool”, looking back at Eddie, “if it’s food you’re after then the Nasty Burger’s the place”.

Eddie tilts his head and shrugs, “eh you made us eat at a place called fucking Flavours Of Negros ‘cause you thought they served people”. Danny decides against commenting on that one for so many reasons.

Danny walks and points in the direction of the place, “if it’s anything, it used to be the Tasty Burger before someone stole the T”.

Eddie quirks an eyebrow, “that explains nothing”.

Danny shrugs, “there was a public vote and adults hated how all the teens loved the place. One mayor even banned teens from there”.

“Oh the stinking rich one that’s definitely shady as fuck and is kinda like you but for some reason is rocking some vampire bullshit?”.

Danny pauses and blinks at the guy, what the fuck? “How the- okay I get how you figured me out, I literally challenged and baited you. But how the fuck did you put Vlad and Plasmius together?”.

Eddie gives a goofy grin, a very smug one, “I didn’t, but thanks for confirming”.

Danny grumbles, “sneaky bastard”, but is smirking the whole time, “how’d you narrow him down to Plasmius though?”.

Eddie shrugs, hands in his pockets, “ego the size of the moon and rich people are always into weird shit”, pausing and rolling his eyes, “babe, we’re an alien/human cluster fuck. We absolutely are one of them fucking rich people into weird shit”.

“There’s a lot of ways I could take that”, Danny tilts his head, “wait, you’re rich?”. What?

Eddie grins like an idiot, “Life Foundation paid me out big for infecting me with a venereal disease- I mean Symbiote”. Danny just watches as the guys' legs seemingly gain a mind of their own and walks him straight into a pole.

Danny shakes his head at the guy not even seeming phased by that. “Well, I got jack shit for dying”.

Eddie points at him, “so you legit straight-up fucking died? Not just falling in a vat of ghost acid like some fucking spooky Joker bullshit, but less ‘murder a bitch in a burning pile of cash’ more ‘I actually think spandex looks good like a damn fool’”.

“Hey, don’t diss the supersuit! That shit’s my skin man”, shrugging, “at least a layer of it. I fucking died in that shit. On that note, don’t walk into giant vortex tunnel portals to alternate dimensions fuelled by four billion volts of electricity built by explosion prone people who leave switches inside stuff and want to punch holes into the afterlife for funsies, science, and a little bit of mild torturing”.

“Huh. Well fuck your life too then kid. Literally”, rolling his eyes, “not that literally. We don’t kill kids and I don’t think we can make someone double dead”.

Danny sticks up a finger, “actually that happens. And I’m only half-dead, motherfucker. Check yer facts”, smirking, “I’m a real dead-ringer for life, and too bad doc gave away my scraps. ‘Cause if I tossed ‘em in the portal I could really have one foot in my grave”.

“I’m pretty sure he’s not supposed to do that- bitch that is exactly why our ass will never be a doctor”, almost looking genuinely offended, “hey, you leave my intellect out of this, you cunt”.

Danny wheezes a bit, does this guy really just talk like this? “How have you not been forcibly admitted to a mental asylum? And no he ain’t but can’t let torture happy gov dogs have my shit”.

Eddie grins wide at that. “You know so I give precisely zero fucks. And nice, fuck the government. I think we’ll get on fine”.

Danny snorts, “oh I have serious beef with the gov. Fuck them. I absolutely have blown up government bases before”.

Eddie nods approvingly and actually fist bumps Danny, “fucking same, and I have enough dirt on people I could ruin their lives if they came after me”.

Danny grins almost menacingly, “the government section that’s here is a literal government secret and completely ignore any and all laws. Wouldn’t put it past them to experiment on child corpses or assassinate the president if he seemed ghost friendly”, shrugging, “Tuck keeps tabs on them, dudes a damn good hacker”.

Eddie tilts his head and nods, “I could use one of those”.

Danny snapping, “not for murder you don’t”.

“You’re too moral”.

“You’re not moral enough”.

Both of them wind up laughing at that since neither actually sounded serious or genuine.

Eddie shakes his head, “anyway, what’d Dan do with your leggy bits?”, muttering to the side, “Dan doesn’t eat people, Vee, and you’re never going to convince him to try”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “gave it to a ghost, Skulker was probably tickled green to get even part of my pelt”, pointing at Eddie, “he’s a poacher. He would cry tears of joy over successfully skinning me”.

Eddie stares at him, Vee’s little head popping out and opening their mouth very wide, “WHAT THE FUCK”.

Danny smirks, he effectively freaked an alien; talk about life, or death, goals, “I have issues. Many of them. And they like to shoot at me”, glancing around at the finally clear street before full force grabbing Vee’s face, “I’ve held off but, oh my Ancients alien sofuckingcoolohmyancientsfuckingfuckyoufeelsofuckingcoolwhatsyourchemicalcompositionlike?canyoueatEddie’seyesandleakdownhischeakslikeblackmurderspacetears’causeIhadareallycooldreamaboutthatdoyouhaveanyspacerocks?ohmyAncientshowfarawayisyourspacerock?isitevenrock?orgas?floatylava!oh!oh!isitallblacklikeyou?orisblackrarecolouringforsymbiotes?redwouldberealcoolbutkindalikebloodwhichweirdrightgreenwouldbefunnycauseI’mallgreenydoyourcoloursevenmeananything?you’relikealittlevoidahungryvoidandohmyAncientsyoureyesaresocoolhowdotheywork?whatcoloursdoyousee?whatsyourfavourite?canyouseethroughEddie’seyeslikenormalhumaneyesoraretheyallenhanced?doesourplanetlookprettytoyou?andohyourteethwhataretheyyoudon‘thaveanybonewhataretheyconnectedto?wheredotheygocanyoumakeEddieallteethy?seemlikeyou’dbiteyourtongueallthetimewhichouchyourtonguelookssomuchmoredetailedhowmuchcanyoutaste?What’syourfavouritenotpeoplefoodLewissaidyou‘resuperoldsoyou’veprobablytastedsomuchshitfromallovertheuniversewhichjustlikeholyshitAncientsendmeZonecomethandgrantmesweetreliefwherehaveyoubeen?whatplanets?whataretheylike?madeoutof?thesmells!whataboutthesmells!?!yousmelllikebutterandcandiedeelandcigarettesmokewhichmustbeEddie’sfaulttellhimhe’sbadyoumustbesoconnectedthenthoughwhat’shisbodylikeversesotherspecies?whatotherspecieshaveyoubeenwith?what’stheirmusculaturlike?howdotheybreathandseeandhearandeverythinghowfarhaveyougone?whataboutallthestars?howdifferentaretheysetupelsewherearetherestarswecan‘tseehere?haveyoubeenonastar!oh!canyoueatastar?haveyou?waitwaitIforgotwhatdoyoutastelike?youbitmesotittatit’sfair”.

Eddie watches in slightly stunned disbelief as Vee desperately tries to get out of this kid’s grip but the kid's nails -claws actually?- are somehow clinging really well and he just leaves the ground and gets dragged with. Knocking everyone over again and licking? Vee. Then prodding their teeth, but that gives Vee the chance to get comfortably back inside him; feeling obviously super confused and startled.

Eddie has to practically kick the kid off him when he literally sticks his hand through Eddie’s collarbone where Vee disappeared through. “Ohthat’ssocooltheyslipthroughyourpoursandskinsuremyectoplasmdoesthattoobutit’snotanalienohmyAncients”.

Eddie stands, basically holding the kid at arm's length in the air, “Christ on a shit stick kid chill, holy shit”, muttering, “now I get why Dan said you like space with a little smirk”. It felt like the kid was literally vibrating under his skin and fuck, it just hit him how fucked up this is. He’s holding the hero of Amity Park up in the air by the waist. This kid’s got an entire year on his ass and doesn’t, like, y’ know, murder people. And the kid just went all fucking uncle tickles on Vee. “Everything you just said was unintelligible garbage”.

The kid stares at him with eyes almost painfully bright green, “you think your freaky long adult arms are gonna do shit?”, and proceeds to just make a whole ass nother half body out of his fucking shoulders. Eddie scrunches up his entire face, “I’ve never been on this end of the body horror, oh god”, as the kid's new pair of hands grab for his face.

Vee takes over going big ass Venom, because this is some bullshit, and holds Danny away with their claws by the kid’s shirt, like he’s an over-aggressive kitten. Danny just puts his hands to his face, the extra body sorta dissolving into green misty stuff, eyes sparkling, “so cool”. Which both Eddie and Vee think is a bullshit reaction.

“Howdoesthatwork?whatdoesthatfeellike?you’reinafuckingaliendudeohmyAncients”, grabs Venom’s wrist and makes some kind of weird staticky squealing noise, “ohitfeelsthesamebutmorestructuredandtheveiningislittledifferentandohyoumotherfuckeryouareablackandwhitelittlebitch”. Danny makes a few faces and talks like a normal breathing-required person, “you stole my colours bitch”.

Vee doesn’t say shit, just retreats into Eddie’s body and drops Danny; who doesn’t seem to give a damn about landing on his ass, standing back upright in seconds.

Eddie makes a bunch of faces at him, settling on just looking tired as fuck, “kid, what the fuck?”. Rubbing his face and grumbling, “I’m too sober for this shit”.

Danny chuckles, dimming his eyes some, “sorry not sorry, I like space. And Vee is an alien from space”, shrugging exaggeratedly, “sure I’ve been to space but totally not the fucking same”.

Eddie raises an eyebrow, “you’ve been to space?”.

“I can fly and don’t need to breathe, of course I’ve gone to space”, shrugging again, “sure so has my girlfriend but she has a hoverboard. And bitch yes I’m dating a ghost hunter who used to want to murder me real good. Occasionally still makes light stabs at my half-life”, smirking, “we both enjoy the little love taps”.

Eddie blinks and mutters, “well damn Dan, kid’s a mini-me... minus the murder, and probable alcoholism, and job, and probably the piss shit and vinegar childhood; heck he’s still a child-”.

Danny cuts in, “you really do just mutter to yourself in general huh? Not just to Vee”.

“You're weirder than Dan. He’s just chill chill ‘bout me having an alien up my ass, you’re enthusiastically chill. He just goes ‘huh, guess this is happening. Hi new friend, please don’t eat me’ and you’re over here like ‘let me touch theeeeeeeeem!’. Almost enough to make me regret coming mildly”.

Danny blinks, oh Hell no, “no, no taking the alien away from me. Also, Lewis is way weirder than me”.

Vee pops back out, Danny not even bothering to hide his grin, and looks at Eddie’s face, “ARE ALL HUMAN CHILDREN LIKE THIS?”.

“Hey, I’m almost seventeen I’ll have you know. That’s almost adult”.

Eddie looks at him and laughs a little, “no kid, no it’s not. I’d say twenty-four is the cutoff. And you feel like a kid too, and I don’t mean that in the human way”, scrunching his eyebrows, “and the fuck did Dan do? For you to think he’s weird. And why the fuck do you use his last name? You don’t scream pompous formal snob”.

Danny blinks, “oh! You can sense peoples ages? Or childness”, tilting his head, “sure adult ghosts can do that so you’re not special, but whatever”.

Eddie grumbles, “fuck you too buddy”. While Danny continues, “what hasn’t he done? Guy hid me in a thermos while having happy personal time with the bone saw when the government-sponsored anti-ghost militia came to abducted and probably torture me, and he hardly gave a shit. Guy doesn’t even react to ghostly supernovas. Super great dude though”.

Eddie grins, his opinion of this kid going up a few levels, “oh I know, he’s great”.

Danny nods immediately, “just the best. Totally stan”.

The conversation then becomes a solid ten minutes of just ‘Dan Lewis is just a really great dude’ and ‘I know right?’.

Danny chuckles, “and pompous snob is more my evil villain uncle’s thing. Lewis is a Lewis because Dan is an evil version of me that, like, low-key annihilated humanity once”, tilting his head, “who I’m oddly less traumatised by now. Eh, I blame Lewis”.

Eddie blinks, and Eddie thought his life was utterly fucked, “I usually blame him whenever anything goes right in my brain square”. Vee looks to him and practically screams, “STILL NOT A SQUARE EDDIE!”. Eddie aggressively shoving them back in when someone inside the building yells, “Jesus fuck!”, and sticks their head over their balcony, “oh, it’s the fucking Fenton boy. That explains it”, and disappears back into the building.

Eddie looks back to Danny, “I’m guessing you get away with a fucking lot”.

Danny shrugs, “me and my friends are the town weirdos. My parents, the town crazies”.

“Wow, you were screwed the day you were born”, shrugging as they continue walking in genuine yet again, “granted my dad liked to hit me with a shovel so fucking same”.

“Eh, mine used to be really into trying to dissect me. Liked shooting at me, but my dad’s a terrible shot. Though the little couple day torture session in the dungeon was not my idea of a good time”.

Eddie blinks, “I’m literal nightmare fuel and I’m telling you your life is a fucking nightmare. What the fuck”. Vee sticks their head out from Eddie’s jacket, “WOULD YOU LIKE THEM EATEN? WE ARE ALREADY GOING TO EAT EDDIE’S IF THEY EVER SHOW THEIR COWARD FACES”.

Danny immediately snaps, “no. Try that and I’ll impale you with a flaming shank”, and points a pointy chunk of ice that he got from somewhere at them. “My parents are great. Little bigoted, but we’re working on that. Oh and on that, they don’t know about your whole ‘alien up the ass’ situation. So maybe don’t go all chest-burster on them. Also don’t know I’m Phantom, neither does the girlfriend”.

Eddie shakes his head, “so you’ve been doing hero shit without any parents or any other fucking thing?”. Eddie thinks that’s some major bullshit.

Danny shrugs, “eh, I got some adult ghost friends and clockpops, even of I seldom see any of them”. Danny chooses to ignore Eddie aggressively whispering ‘Vee’ and ‘no’ repeatedly to the side. “Vladdie tries to be a father figure but he’s a fucking fruitloop and probably spends, like, half his time finding new fun ways to taser me or maybe he’ll try the whole ‘I’ll murder your friends and family’ schtick again”.

Vee forms half a head on Eddie’s head and basically shrieks, “THAT’S IT! WE’RE ADOPTING BABY GHOST HYBRID PREDATOR!”, and whacks Danny on the head with a tendril.

“What?!? No! ‘Ready got parents, human and ghost!”.

Eddie smirks and rolls his eyes, “too fucking bad. Not literally. They’re just saying you’re a small blob to be protected. Which like, the fuck kid, you're on par or worse than my fucked up life”.

Danny rolls his eyes, though ‘protected by an alien’ sounds fucking awesome. “I could beat the shit out of you”.

“Is that a challenge? That feels like a challenge. And Vee does get bored of smashing around squishy humans sometimes”.

Danny grumbles, “you are way too fucking cool with murder”, and shakes his head with a smirk, “Lewis told me your weaknesses. My strongest ability just so happens to be a supersonic wail. I could level a city, you ain’t winning shit. Also a pyrokinetic, so double fucked”, Danny finger guns at him and shots little blue flames out; Vee, in typical fashion, hisses.

Eddie groans and dramatically sags, though not putting any real effort into it. Trying to play off the discomfort Vee sends his way over fire being so close. “I’ll admit, the Internet is all over the fucking place on what you can do. Some seemed like some crackfic bullshit. Same goes with the theories about you. Found one group that think you’re literally bloody fucking Satan coming to deceive the youth and bring about the end of times or some bullshit. Even a shoot off that you’re determining the merit of our souls and indoctrinating humanity into peace with the dead”, waving his hand around, “and some other crap about you being death itself”, pointing at him, “the stories told around you are just as fucked and wild as us”.

Danny blinks and squints at the guy, “okay, now I’m curious because that’s disturbingly close to the truth”.

“What”.

Danny quirks an eyebrow and smirks, “what? Did Lewis not mention that? The whole prince and eventual king of the dead thing? My defeat of the previous king was kinda a big deal, especially since it got the town abducted into an alternate dimension for a bit and attacked by a skeleton army”, smirking more and shrugging, “and co-existence is defiantly a goal of mine. And kingy is considered the will of the Zone so that is pretty much being death itself. And soul judging comes with the job”, tilting his head, “more of a passive thing though”.

Eddie blinks, “yup. In over our head. My soul is probably pretty fucked”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “no clue man, I ain’t king yet and hopefully won’t be for a few hundred years”.

Eddie raises his eyebrows, “so you’re vaguely immortal? We really are too similar”.

“Oh?”, Danny’s face lights up, “oh! oh! Does Vee’s weird healing of you stop the effects of ageing? Any cells or shit that gets damaged or worn they can just rebuild, reform, or replicate?”.

Eddie gives an almost impressed nod, “yeah, how the fuck did you guess that?”.

“Dude, alien’s meat puppet? Before dying fucked my vitals and physiology I was on my way to being an astronaut. My entire family are scientists, I have my own scientific patents, and my sister’s a certified genius pioneering a new field of psychology. Ancients, Lewis is bartering to get me into med school because he wants me to work with him. And my archenemy is a hardcore mad scientist. If I was dumb and not creative, I’d be deader. Dead with a side of dead sauce”.

Eddie shrugs, “I’d say I’m a dumbass so that’s different, but while I’m a dumbass, I’m a smart dumbass”.

“Fucking same. Investigative reporter probably requires a good head and creativity”.

Eddie chuckles, “yeah, I would have died long before Vee dropped on my ass. The whole situation that led to Vee was me biting a fish bigger than I could chew”, Danny then watched him go all Sauron demon voice and have suddenly very sharp plentiful teeth, “NOW WE ARE THE BIG FISH”, and grinning all teeth,

Danny eyes the teeth and grins, “so cool”, shaking his head, “not the biggest though and no snatching my guppies”, and grins, all fangs.

Still using Eddie’s mouth, “LOOK EDDIE! IMPRESSIVE TEETH TOO! TOLD YOU, PREDATOR!”. Eddie seemingly takes back his mouth, teeth staying though, “I think I noticed, babe”, pointing at Danny, “big ass fangs you got, pretty sharp yourself”, and he has no clue why the kid is looking at him with awe and wonder; probably the alien/space thing again, which is probably going to be a running theme with this kid. Poor Vee.

Eddie gets his real answer when Danny mutters, or attempts to mutter anyway, “hoz? Wiz youvz so goovz at talkin’z? Iz canz barey fuckin’z zveekz”.

Eddie blinks, sputters, and promptly starts laughing. That explained that! The kid hadn't learned how to speak while being sixty-percent teeth yet! Hahahahhahaha. Bending over, hands on his knees and wheezing. Granted, his first time rockin’ shark teeth had been god awful and Vee had judged him so hard. Speaking of Vee, they pop out of Eddie’s jacket yet again and squint at Danny, “BABY. HASN’T EVEN LEARNED TO SPEAK PROPERLY YET”.

“Fuzz youv. Dizt”.

Eddie bursts out laughing more and has to sit down on the sidewalk, “hahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha”.

“Shovz tit. Thvez nez!”, and promptly stabs his lip, which Eddie laughs so hard at that he tears up, Danny just scowls, “adulvez fanz, chilz faze; dozen worz”.

Eddie lays on the grass, “hahaha I have no idea what you said kid! Hahaha! You’re really good at the whole unintelligible garbage schtick, aren’t you. Haha”.

Danny flips the guy off, switching to ghost speak which was perfectly easy to do with his fangs, since it was all scratchy echoing warble static. Made by vibrating ectoplasm, different teeth (since each tooth had different density or number of pores or solidity), clicking his jaw, and only a small amount of actually moving his mouth, “t̵he̶͞y͏̕’̵͜r̵ȩ̴͟ ̕n̡o͢t ͜m̵̷ad̡e̷̴͢ ̵̸fo҉̶r̶͏̨ ̵E̡̛ņ̛g̸͢l͠͞įs̸͠h̸̶͟, a̸s̛͡s̷̕h͟o̸͞l̢e̕.̶ ͏̷T̵͟h̴͏e͢y’̕re͜ no̧ţ͟͜ ҉̧͜e̛v̴͟en҉ ̨̛̕ma̸̕d̶̡e̡ f͢ơ͟r̷̡ ̢f͟͢͞l̡͘e͝s̶h ͠͠a͜͡n̡̛ḑ͘ ̨͞b͏͟o҉n̢̛͘e͠,͠ ̨͘e̶͡c̛͏t̛͠o̕’̕͏s̶ al͝wa͟y̨s͢ a̸̧ ̵l̸̨i̵͝t̢͢tl҉ę̵ mor̨͝e̢ ̵̕f͜o̵͡͡r͏g͢i̷̶͞v͏i̸̴n̸g̵̢.̧͡ D҉̕ic̴k̨͢͠”, then deciding to be a real asshole and put some serious power behind it after checking no one was around,

“y̰̠ͬ̄ͭͣ̈́̚ȍ̜̹̚ú̡̖̺̘͓́̔ ͍̖͈̫̗̺̫͆ͧ͒w̛͒̀̿ī͇͊͝l̹͖̝̖̻̹̳͛̅̍̾̓͒l̯̗̻̲ͣ̄ͭ̚̕ ̧̝̻͕̈̽d̵̹ͮ͊̃̏͒i̦͎̝͔̻̭ͤͫ̎̓͂ͮ̐͡ͅe̹̝̲̠̞ ̢̬̘̈̑͐͐ͮ̄o̩͇̰̻̎ͬͨͬ̂ͮ̽ṅ͔̘͙̮͍̋͊͋e̗̳͉̽͆̚ ̙͎͍͙̠̫͘ͅḋ̗̩̱ͪͧ́ͅä̡̺̰̩̺̺͖y͉͔̞̺̦̩̣͋̇͋͆ͤ̅ ͙̭̠̩̬ͪ̄͐̉ͬ͐ḁ͆̅n̫̤̤͈̭͌̽̋̅ͨ͛̚d̦̘̬̻̹ͭ ̧͓ͤͫ̋͂̐I̴͉͍̟̪͈͗ͭ̍̎͒̋͂ ͕̘̳͇̝̤̅ͭ͋͛̃w̸̱͙͖͇̫͕̯ͫ́͌ͯ͆̊̑i̛̒̒̆̓͊̚l̼͉̩͍ͦͪͨl̲̗͍͙̲͚̖̈̍̐̈̚ ̳͍̒̆b͓̹̅ĕ̮̖̣ͨ ̪̹͉̘̉̅ͨt̛͉̲͍̖̬̩͙͐h͈̹̥̥͓͗ͣe̬r̛͖̘̺̱̥͍̆ͮͪͮ̑ͦͬe̎̆̍”.

Eddie blinks from the ground, promptly sitting the fuck up as a shiver ripples down his spine and through Vee; who instinctively hides back in Eddie, which honestly weirds Eddie out a bit. The kid smirks down at him, meaning scaring was literally the goal here. Blinking at him, “the fuck. Alright your voice is officially more frightening than Vee’s. The fuck. That sets off every bloody alarm bell, damn. I’m supposed to be the one that scares the piss outta people”, pushing himself up and staggering only a little, “well, Vee technically. Guess we’re both scary little monsters”, smirking down at the kid, “emphasis on little in your case”.

Danny pointedly retracts his fangs before speaking, “fuck you, I’m gonna be, like, seven feet tall one day”. Eddie just rolls his eyes at that, not even considering the fact that Danny is absolutely correct.

Vee pops their little head back out and immediately moves to hiss, all teeth, in Danny’s face; who hisses right back. Eddie thinks it’s like some weird asserting dominance thing. Which seems exactly like what Vee would do, gotta try to save face after going all hiding whack-a-mole. Though with the temperature dropping and what’s up with the colour palette of this town?

Symbiote and halfa stop and grin toothy at each other.

“IMPRESSIVE”.

“So cool”.

Eddie shakes his head and points at the sign in the distance, “would you look at that, I think I see your favourite poorly named restaurant in the difference”, this kid is going to inflate Vee’s ego at this point.

Vee looks back to Eddie, “YOU’RE THE ONE UP YOUR OWN ASS ENOUGH TO THINK YOU CAN APPEAR ON TV WITH KETCHUP STAINS”.

Eddie rolls his eyes, “says the alien up my ass“.

“I’LL MAKE THAT LITERAL, BITCH”.

Danny’s cheeks go noticeably red, puts up his hands startlingly fast, turns on his heels, and half shouts, “nope! Hello Nasty Burger!”, and starts walking.

Eddie chuckles and shakes his head, least the snarl-fest is over. Though feeling like they just exited a surreal pocket dimension after a bit because suddenly there are people around again, it’s warmish, the colours are normal, and leaves are falling slowly. “Your town is some weird bullshit”.

Danny laughs and grins at the guy meanly, “it’s a ghosts lair, what do you expect?”.

“The whole town? Talk about overkill”.

Danny mutters, “fuck you. Ghosts are dramatic”, as he pushes open the doors.

Eddie gives the most sarcastic, “You don’t say”, he can muster. “Sure makes driving interesting”, tilting his head and chuckling a little, “okay, yes, and fun”.

Danny snickers, flicks his hip hard enough to make a metallic ping, “guess I’m not the only one that has a hard drive”.

Eddie doesn’t get a chance to respond to that as some kid shouts, “holy Zone it’s Eddie Brock!”.

Danny tries not to laugh as Dash of all people runs over, “dude the complication videos of you bashing people’s faces in and shit are fucking legendary”.

Eddie blinks, “I like that’s what I’m known for”. And some ginger kid mutters, “I prefer his exposé”, gets up and points at Danny, whisper sneering, “I hope he exposes your ass, Phantom”, and stalks out of the restaurant.

This gets Dash to actually notice Danny’s existence, “Fentit! The Zone’s a weak loser like you doing with someone famous?”, looking Fenton up and down before smirking, “you look not dead, soooooo”, and moves to snatch that weird basketball kid’s half-empty drink off the table. He doesn’t get a chance as Valerie -who’s honestly scary as fuck- shouts, “if you even think about it I will make you eat that cup and clean the floor yourself!”. Dash puts the cup down when the manager also shouts, “and I’ll let her!”.

Danny snickers meanly and points at a clearly confused Eddie, “Oh didn’t you know? We’re friends”.

Dash snaps, “bullshit”, and shoulders his way past Danny.

Danny shouts after him, “oh I dead ass am!”. While Valerie walks over, in uniform, and hugs Danny, “Zone I’m glad to see you up and about”, grabbing his shoulders and looking him up and down, “your parents scare me”.

Eddie does know how to take a queue, ten bucks says that’s the girlfriend, and just goes up to order. On that note, the fuck is a triple death meaty mighty? I mean, he’s totally ordering that, whatever it is. “-and I’ll have whatever qualifies as strong coffee”. He’s pretty sure Danny and the girl are making out, low key but still.

The cashier glances at Danny and back to the -holy fuck this dude’s famous- Eddie Brock, “you know the Fenton kid so I’m just gonna give you what he orders. One Deathspresso”.

Eddie smirks and laughs.

‘AS BAD AS YOU, EDDIE’

Eddie’s gonna take that compliment.

‘NOT A COMPLIMENT, IDIOT’

Eddie ignores that. Watching the kid just get his ‘usual’ whatever the fuck that is.

Eddie raises an eyebrow at the girl when she joins them at a table. Not even having to ask as she goes from zero to murder a bitch in a split second, smacking a hand on the table and pointing the other at his face, “eat anyone and I’ll blow your ass up with a missile launcher. Even try to eat Danny and you’ll find me standing over you with a cattle prod”.

“Been there, done that”, and gives an award-winning sultry smirk.

Danny chuckles, “this a bad time to mention they already tried a sample?”. Eddie nearly chokes on his coffee due to one, fuck this is impressively strong. And two, the girl actually pulls out a weirdly shaped cattle prod. Danny snatches the weapon away, “we’re cool Val. ‘Parently I’m inedible”.

The girl grumbles, “fine, but I'm watching you”, and sounds aggressively serious about that. Eddie watches as Danny straight up chugs half his Deathspresso; fuck this kid’s worse than him. Which is definitely not a compliment.

Valerie turns to Danny, “so obviously you’re running your cyber stuff well, but the spooky stuff? Did you, maybe, get a spooky visitor drop in?”.

“If by ‘drop-in’ you mean fell through the ceiling laughing and mildly scaring the piss outta me, then being tail bros? Then yeah”, shaking his head and taking a few bites, “seriously, what the fuck, Val?”. Obviously he has to cover his Phantom ass.

Eddie just sips his coffee, pretending this conversation makes any sense.

Danny points to the manager who’s giving Valerie some serious side-eye, “you might want to get back to work, but first”, Danny leans over with mock sexiness, “I’m glad we started dating during this time of year”.

Valerie asks cautiously, “why”.

Danny grins, “‘cause we’re autumn mated”, and points a thumb outside at the orange trees and leaves on the ground.

Valerie sighs, “fuck you”, and shoves him through the window -which had been broken not too long ago- and into a bush. Getting up and brushing herself off before giving Eddie another threatening finger point and walking off.

Eddie tosses out the trash and walks out to watch the kid pull himself out of the bush, “I’m really fucking confused that you let people push around. Pretty sure you woulda let that jock kid dump stuff on you”. Vee sneaks their head out, “EAT THEM”.

Danny brushes off his pants, “not gonna happen”, straightening up, “if Dash spends his time beating me around then he doesn’t have time to beat up the ones that can’t handle falling twenty-something feet from a flag pole or being force-fed rotten food”.

Eddie groans, “oh god, you’ve got a fucking hero complex”, as they start heading back to the kids -really fucking weird- house.

“Lewis says you do your thing for hero-y reasons. Dishing out justice, without the mercy”, squinting at the guy, “or do you just do it for the meal”.

Eddie can practically smell the judgmental disapproval coming off the kid, “kid, no offence Vee, do you really think I’d be munching on people without my little alien hitchhiker?”, shrugging and sticking his hands in his pockets, “sure we only hunt people down when we need the meal, but I’m a thorough motherfucker; they’re always bad guys. Both guys that I would have come after anyways, minus the gratuitous murder. And guys that I couldn’t go after before on account of them probably fucking murdering me”. Danny looks like he’s actively determining his worth and truthfulness.

Danny nods after a bit, “alright, you seem believable enough. You’re the moral compass of Venom, at least it seems you actually are moral”.

“I don’t know ‘bout moral kid. The filth of the world is our prey and happily so”.

“Woah, chill your tits there Jeffery Dahlmer”, anything else Danny was going to say getting cut off by a shiver travelling through his body and a little plume of icy mist, “hold that thought, Hannibal, I’ve got a job to do”, and slips off into an alleyway.

Eddie grumbles, “like I haven’t heard that one before”, and chooses to lean against a building and finish his drink.

Not two seconds later does Eddie hear that echoey voice shout, “well looks like I’ve gone from one foodie to another! Surely you’ll find me a more flavourful delicacy! But no! You aren’t allowed to divide my existence away into servings! Though I’m certain I’m a perfect recipe for heroic tendencies!”.

Eddie watches as the black and white kid, who looks waaaaaaay less blurry in person, seemingly gets blasted out of the alley by meat? Like a legit literal floating river of meat. Eddie thinks this is already some major bullshit.

Danny dodges a meat axe, having a hard time not laughing his ass off at catching Eddie’s major ‘what the fuck’ face. The Lunchlady predictably pausing after Danny blasts apart the meatsuit -he’s gonna have to figure out where all this meat came from in the first place- with a couple well-aimed blasts. She looks him up and down, and shakes her head with a scowl, “YOU'RE STILL TOO SKINNY! Cookie?”.

Danny sighs, putting his chin in one palm, “no”.

“THEN YOU WILL FRY!”, and slams him into the ground with an oversized frying pan.

Danny just shoots a beam at her from the small crater he’s in, “the only thing I need to sweeten myself up is coffee!”.

The Lunchlady stops again and deadpans, “that’s bitter dearie”.

“Do I look like I care what my taste buds think!?! I’m Death flavoured anyway!”, floating back up, “and I think these battle flavours need the added spice of my fist!”, and promptly socks her across the jaw. Talking a bit quietly at her, “you and Boxy aren’t having issues are you?”.

She waves him off, “oh hardly”, and throws him into a building via a meat fist.

Eddie eyeballs a bit of steak that smacked into the ground with an oddly satisfying thwap. Muttering as Vee uses his leg/foot to poke it, “babe, that’s gross. Don’t eat that”. He might not have standards, but he has standards. Though if the steak wasn’t cooked Vee would probably eat it anyway.

‘YES’

The Lunchlady flies in after Danny and presents a little serving tray, taking off the lid. Danny takes the little paper while giving her some serious confused cautious eyebrows. Laughing when he sees it’s actually a bloody baby shower invite! The Lunchlady nods curtly, “I’m well aware you rather your humans not know, dearie”.

Danny nods, “truth”, and floats up, smirking, “should I bring a boxed lunch”.

She shakes her head, “I'm not going to question how you knew her name”. Danny just snickers meanly before, “surprise thermos!”, and sucks her into his thermos.

Eddie grunts, “so you seriously use a thermos? And your enemies invite you to parties? Honestly?”. Bullshit. That is bullshit.

Danny turns and looks at Eddie who’s sticking his head in through a hole, “you know, most people run away”.

“What is ghost lady gonna do? Kill me?”.

Danny blinks and wheezes, changing back human and wiggling his tail about, “we’re weirdly similar”, shaking his head, “and she would have tried once. Ghosts know better than to genuinely try to kill my humans though”, floating over to snatch up the discarded CyberSteps and reattach them, “also, I’m more like frenemies with most of my enemies”.

“You’re stupid”. Detachable robo legs were a new one but Dan had not failed to mentioned getting stab and hack happy with the kids lower half or that the kid's parents were trying, and apparently succeeding, at playing pin the legs on the teenager.

Danny points at the guy, “hey, all ghosts fight each other. It’s a little something called socialising; not that you know much about that”.

“Cut deep why don’t you. You little fucker”.

“I’m only five-four!”.

“Exactly”.

“Jerk”.

“Dick”.

Vee takes over Eddie’s mouth, “BITCHES”, apparently feeling left out.

Danny tilts his head, hearing a very particular engine, and grabs Eddie’s jacket to physically yank him to the side; just as the mini GAV -which is honestly just a reinforced minivan instead of a suped-up mini-tank monster truck hybrid thing- barrels through the wall, his dad clearly being the driver. Eddie yelping, “god fuck! Holy shit!”.

Maddie sticks her head out of the door, bazooka in hand. Lowering the weapon and clearly raising her eyebrows as she spots Danny, lifting her goggles, “oh! Sweetie!”, looking down and likely checking her scanner, “darn, missed It... them, missed them”.

Danny mutters, “they’re trying at least”, before waving at her, “hey mom, don’t worry, I’m fine”.

Eddie grumbles as he stands up, “don’t mind me, I'm good too”, only to slip on a chunk of debris and land right back on his ass.

‘MAKING US LOOK BAD, EDDIE’

Eddie grumbling, “she’s in head to toe spandex, I don’t think she cares”. Danny rolls his eyes, “it’s useful spandex”, he’s over being embarrassed by his parents ‘fashion’.

Eddie just snickers at the kid as his mom walks up and starts checking him over, “you alright? The ghost didn’t hurt you or anything? Or were they one you’re... friendly with?”.

Danny bats away her hand, “mooooom, cut it out. I told you I’m fine”, Ancients he hated being babied, especially in front of others. Having to make a point to keep the snarl out of his voice, can’t help the teeth-baring though, “seriously”, huffing though glad when she gets the message and cuts it the Zone out, “and it was just the Lunchlady”, shrugging, “‘parently BoxedLunch was born”. She just blinks at him.

Eddie turns to the side and laughs, “well those are... names”, and laughs a little more. Danny points aggressively at him.

Maddie smiles a little stiffly, “ghosts names usually have a meaning of some kind”, gesturing to the mini-GAV, “how about I- or Jack I guess, drive everyone back to the house?”. Jack, as if summoned, sticks his head out and waves.

Eddie shrugs, following the adult and teen into the... ‘vehicle’ thing. While Danny nods, “yup, BoxedLunch will be able to telekinetically control boxed and canned food products”.

Eddie shakes his head, “that’s stupid”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “could be Obsession based too. Usually a mix”.

Jack nods and guns it, speaking while Eddie shrieks and chants ‘no’, “Phantom seems to be the exception. But! We’re pretty sure he’s a different kind of ghost! A needed one! A spirit!”, looking to Danny, “like ClockWork!”.

Eddie just side-eyes Danny while clinging to the door handle.

“I do believe I mentioned we are called NeverBorns”. Startling nearly everyone. Eddie muttering, “oh fuck me- no not you”.

Danny tilts his head up a little, child ClockWork appearing with their arms crossed on his head. Danny chuckling slightly awkwardly, “hey Clocky, uh, whatcha doing?”. Is ClockWork showing up randomly around his parents going to be a routine?

Maddie gives a stiff nod of greeting, “hello... ClockWork”. Jack waving erratically and giving a far more genuine, “hello! Again!”.

Eddie catches on damn quick, based on the stiffness the lady seems ridiculously similar to homophobes trying to tolerate or not be an utter ass around an out and proud queer. So she was what? a speciesist? Genuinely it seems. Well that’s fucking stupid and bullshit. The guy seemed more like the ignorant type that’s actually totally cool once they know better and actually believe it. And these guys were supposed to be the creme de la creme of ghost research? Wow, fuck that bullshit. “I’m not even gonna bother pretending to understand what the fuck is going on with the baby ghost, but aren’t you guys like the fucking ghost scientists of the world? I’m detecting some speciesism crap here. Studying the whatever the fuck that you’re bigoted against is stupid and is exactly how you do bad science”.

Danny holds up a finger, “uh, actually the government’s pretty well the same and did try to nuke the Ghost Zone; which would have pretty much destroyed the universe”.

Eddie points are him, clutching the door harder when the vehicle takes a hard turn, “that’s exactly what I mean. Studying while high on the bigotry train equals making stupid decisions”, gesturing wildly, “like blowing up an entire dimension. That’s stupid. I’d metaphorically punch someone in front of the camera for that. If I were a ghost I’d probably terrorise people trying to blow my home up or shoot me for the crime of existing too”.

Maddie opens and closes her mouth a few times, “well we didn’t believe them capable of emotions-”.

Eddie quirks an eyebrow, trying to not look pathetic while clinging to the door, “oh? Just like women aren’t capable of being rational, right?”.

Maddie makes a series of faces, “that’s not the same”.

“Isn’t it?”.

“Ghosts are a different species”.

“And? Women are a different sex”.

“They’re dead”.

“So?”.

“The have an absence of life, so logically it made sense they’d lack things of the living”.

“Women lack balls, which those old assholes clearly thought had something to do with being fucking rational. And do I even need to start on the whole genitalia related hysteria theory bullshit?”. Danny chokes a little and covers his eyes at that. Eddie smirks, “I know jack shit about ghosts, but I can taste bullshit when I smell it”.

ClockWork sticks up a small finger, “that is not how that phrase goes”.

Eddie only glances at them, “do I care? No”.

Jack parks and stands, “to be fair, every time anyone had encountered ghosts they had been violent”.

Eddie practically peels himself off the door, “I don’t know about you, but I’ve never ran into a friendly shark”, adding like he’s almost being forced at gunpoint to, “sharks are cool as shit though”.

Danny gets up too, ClockWork not moving from their spot on his head. Danny’s almost impressed they’ve stayed in child form for so long, means there’s probably a reason though. “Sharks are pretty cool. Awesome teeth”, and gives a meaningful smile; he’d throw in his fangs if his folks weren’t around.

Eddie gives a small smirk back, a bit of sharp teeth visible. Then turning back to the parents, “science and biased opinions don’t mix, like milk and lemon juice. Nothing is fact until proven otherwise and if someone says it’s fact, prove them wrong; your bloody well self included. Screw your heads on straight”.

Danny looks to him while his parents gape a little, “I think I get why you get punched and abducted so much. You’re, like, super confrontational”.

Eddie points at him while walking up to the door, “and you’re not?”. Which Danny will admit is a bit fair. Eddie continues, “though yes, I do tend to egg people into throwing down. There is little better than punching pompous money-grubbing jackass that fuck over the lower classes in the face”. Danny can’t ever disagree with that either. ‘Cause well... ‘cause Vlad. Though he absolutely hears Eddie mutter to the side, “okay fine, yes that’s better. Only reason I like it now is your oily ass-oh yeah you and me both-fuck off”.

Maddie bites her lip a little but nods, while Jack goes over and gives ClockWork a pretty awkward handshake; considering how small their hands were at the moment.

Lewis opens the door just as Eddie had muttered, “fuck off”. “Lovely to see you two too”.

“Jesus fuck, God sorry Dan. Not you, you already know that though”, looking to the side again, “shut the fuck up, you cunt”. Lewis just chuckles and moves to let everyone in.

Lewis points to ClockWork, “why’s the ghost godparent slash Guardian here?”.

Eddie turns to Danny, eyeballs the tiny ghost, “who the fuck makes a child someone’s godparent?”. ClockWork immediately changes to their adult form, moving to float next to Danny. Eddie blinks, “or not a child”, then looking offended, “oh yeah mock me why don’t you”, probably being mentally laughed at.

Maddie looks to the ghost, “Dan is right though, is there a reason or do you just... hang out”.

Eddie looks to her, “let me guess, ghosts ‘don’t hang out’”. Lewis gives him a fond smile that absolutely conveys that this is pretty typical Eddie.

Maddie actually does look slightly embarrassed, which might have something to do with Eddie’s tone, “we didn’t use to think they did”. Which both Eddie and Danny huff at.

ClockWork sticks up a finger, “we do simply spend time in each others company here and there. I’ve gotten him quite good at chess and better read”. Eddie coughs, muttering, “he plays chess???”. ClockWork keeps going, “though I do have my reasons for my appearance now”.

Danny sighs, moving to sit in the kitchen, “let me guess, either has to do with Eddie showing up or-”, popping his ankles up on a chair and crossing them, “-the leggies”.

Eddie shuffles off to the living room, pulling out a shitty-looking beat-up journal; when the ghost points at the kid’s metal legs. Now that he’s confirmed a few hunches he might as well work on recent stuff he can actually get paid for.

Danny sighs, “the timer I’m guessing? Some ability or purpose you left out because it wasn’t the right time?”. Danny totally one-hundred percent saw this coming. ClockWork usually had, like, a bajillion reasons for things.

Jack laughs when ClockWork smirks and nods, “you sure know them well! Danny-boy!”. Maddie smiles genuinely at that.

ClockWork taps at the timer with their staff, “as was said, such things can alter time around the wearer. And I must say, the Observants are quite displeased over your now patchy and difficult to interpret future”, both ghost and halfa share a malicious-looking grin over that. Before ClockWork continues, “but much more importantly, you could certainly go on a nice little jog through time. A quaint little stroll down the time streams road. Hop from spot to spot on the timeline”.

Danny blinks and chuckles, putting his chin in his elbow and resting on the table, “so a free built-in pass through time? You out here making me a little optional time hopper huh?”.

Maddie leans forward, “are you saying you gave Danny time powers through his legs?”, how is she even supposed to react to that? Sure he technically had ‘powers’ already, the floating and the cold of his Core; a healing factor arguably too. Probably more, that he might or might not know about.

ClockWork pats Danny’s head, “in a way. Far less timely than me, and I will see anything he gets up to or tries. Quite suiting for a timely apprenticeship”.

Danny blinks, “if I start accidentally falling through time, I’m blaming you”. ClockWork knows how he is with new powers. Though fine, being the ‘child of time’ probably means he should have some kinda timely stuff. Jack can’t help but laugh at that, he could see just how much trouble Danny could get up to with that! Good thing this ClockWork fellow seemed responsible, which super strange to truly see from a spook! Maddie can’t help but see this as like them liking his tail, wanting him to be more like them; which she’s trying not to view negatively. Parents usually wanted their kid to be similar to them.

Lewis leans forward, “interesting choice of words, ‘apprentice’ implies job”.

Danny tilts his head, right they had told him they had a job for him. Sighing with a smile, “you’re really just making me crank my internal clock rapidly towards death”.

ClockWork gives him another little pat, looking to the parents, “traditionally child ghosts always take something like an apprenticeship under their guardian; through the passing on of power. My binds simply don’t allow for it”, smirking, “at least not through traditional means”. Danny grumbles incoherently at that. ClockWork looking to him and changing to their elderly form, “now the title proper would be ‘prince of time’ of course, being that I am the lord”.

Lewis shakes his head, Danny seriously couldn’t get away from the prince title now could he? Ghost Prince, Time Prince. Though he’s pretty sure the second is not even kinda a ruling title.

Jack blinks then looks a little excited, curiously excited, “‘prince’? Like royalty?!?”. Danny thumps his head on the table and leaves it there. ClockWork changing to a child and wrapping their tail around his neck, giving him a kinda weird neck/shoulder massage thing, “cloooooockyyyyyy”. Though relaxing and melting a little.

Lewis can’t help chuckling at that, giving him a very mocking, “awwww”, and getting a very mumbly, “fak yo”, in return.

Maddie shaking her head and a little surprised to find herself fighting back a smile, “I’m more interested in the binds thing. Your power level means you really should be a six, but you’re not”. ClockWork fiddles with Danny’s hair, leaving him to answer. Danny turns his head to the side, “they make sure the universe goes along the best and longest path. And that is all they are to do. Rules they physically have to follow. Restricts how much they can interfere”, sighing and shifting against the table a little, “can only do all this stuff with me ‘cause Guardian. Only Guardian ‘cause of circumstances and whatnot”. ClockWork nods with a hum, letting a content pleased smile be very obvious.

Jack and Maddie grin at that, both pretty damn certain now that this ghost genuinely liked and cared; no villainous motives. And if they were really thinking on that right now they'd probably cringe, obviously they’ve been wrong and probably about a lot. And Danny knew that. He was involved with ghosts, liked some, and very close with at least one. They had screwed up really, because they had hurt him in a way. He’d always been constant and firm in his opinions. His friends the same but seemingly more disappointed in them about it; probably out of protectiveness. Vlad said it like it was obvious fact but didn’t give a damn if they agreed or not. Dan was gentle and arguably objective, though he had probably talked with Danny at length. And this Eddie had pretty much come up and smacked them.

Lewis decides this probably qualifies as a ‘family moment’ so makes possibly awkward attempts to leave them alone, getting himself coffee and leaning against the entryway between the kitchen and living room. Smirking a bit to himself at spotting Eddie, who’s scribbling down his chicken scratch while rubbing little circles on noodle Vee’s head; Vee looks quite content with the situation.

Meanwhile, Maddie eyes the bit of the clock timer peaking out off Danny’s pants. Obviously the ‘prince of time’ thing wasn’t an actual royal title but more ‘family of someone important’, which was still strange. ClockWork calling it ‘apprentice’ definitely confirmed they were teaching him things beyond just chess; a bit mind-blowing ghosts played boardgames. She wonders though...

ClockWork speaks up, Danny looking a little zoned out all the while, “I prefer to allow him to teach himself. A guiding hand, rather than an authoritative voice. The latter weathers with time and often leads astray; the lessons less true and less useful. Request before you demand. Advise before you tell. And listen before you think”.

Jack grumbles, “I don’t think I quite get that”.

“To demand is to control their actions. To tell is to control their beliefs. To think without listening first is to control their voice. You have done plenty of this in the past. Demand fear and hatred of ghosts, scorn those that refuse to listen. Tell tales of your decided truth as if fact, and speaking louder if someone stuck their fingers in their ears. Thought of only others' nativity and how to reinforce yourselves when others spoke their grievances. Now you’ve tried the other path. And though it can be filled with hurt and discomfort, you’re already richer for it you'll find”, smirking faintly, “and yes, Daniel does do jobs for me; though not officially or with any real request from me. I merely pushed for timelines that aligned best and things worked themselves out as they so often do. Now I can request of him in genuine, and him of me”.

The two blinks at them, a little overwhelmed. Both pretty sure Danny might be the only one who doesn’t find them overwhelming. And Danny was probably the only one whose opinion ClockWork actually even cared about. Maddie leans back a little, “so you’re kind of like the... god who can’t truly interfere and simply must let people live their lives? Let fate play out?”.

“And, to use the phrases of mortals, I lose no sleep over that”, shifting to an adult and easily moving Danny to be practically curled up in their lap/against their chest, “I care not whether you live nor die. Whether you know happiness or suffer greatly. Beyond the effect of that upon Daniel and upon the continued existence of the time stream”.

Maddie could choose to take time that incredibly negatively, she could almost call this emotionless; but really? It was more someone whose priorities were far beyond individual beings. And besides, this meant that ClockWork would do what was best for Danny; everything and everyone else be damned. If anything, she could technically trust them with him more than anyone else. Maybe it was the bond Danny explained, or maybe it was simply them as a Being.

Jack’s more focused on how Danny absently grabbed ClockWork’s cloak and sorta snuggled up to it, very adorable and Danny would probably be so embarrassed if he wasn’t practically dead to the world. Danny seldom seemed really relaxed, so it was really nice to see! Then watching the ghosts blue hand pull out a necklace from under Danny’s collar, the one Danny always seemed to wear but never over clothing. Jack honestly has no clue what that necklace looks like and according to the paramedics it literally vanished as soon as they got his shirt off. Seeing the little silver CW charm dangling off the thin chain, he knew that thing had to be ghostly! Neither parent even has to ask.

“I gifted him this after becoming his Guardian proper. And now-”, taping the chain and suddenly a little gear charm appears on it, “-I find this to be another moment to commemorate”, letting go and the necklace simply phases through the shirt. Looking to the parents, “he prefers to keep it over his Core, which is typical for children. Symbolically saying that to truly hurt them you’d have to go through their Guardian first”, ClockWork puts in some emphasis to make the message very clear. The parents give a little nod and are actually genuinely happy to hear that.

Then they hear what they’re pretty sure is a string of swears and thud; turning their heads and seeing Dan choke on his drink a little. Danny -and ClockWork but that’s besides the point- is the only one to actually hear Eddie’s grumble about being bit. Which Danny smirks over and promptly bites ClockWork. Jack laughs while ClockWork chuckles, ahhh the joys of having a trickster who’s still growing into his fangs under their cloak. Danny does crawl off them right after though, moving to make his own coffee and obviously trying to play things off. Which gets Maddie to giggle.

Eddie stumbles in, grunts at Danny, “you like murder coffee, pour me some”, looking to the ghost, “fuck, you’re still here? Don’t you have things to do? Decrepit houses to haunt? Or children’s closets to hide ominously in?”.

ClockWork smirks, “I’m hardly the type. You should watch your local news, I believe”. Eddie rolls his eyes and shuffles back to the living room; reclaiming the couch. Danny sighs and looks to the ceiling, something going wrong in someone’s home when they leave was exactly his luck. Turning around and sipping his coffee while leaning against the counter; everyone (minus ClockWork)feeling just slightly awkward now.

So Jack jumps up, looking to Maddie, “after today I say we need to get right on rebuilding the GAV!”. Maddie looks from Jack to ClockWork to Danny, before smiling; it would probably mean a lot to Danny to just trust ClockWork alone-ish with him. Turning to Jack, “sounds like a plan, hon”.

Danny grins like an idiot to himself after they head down the lab stairs, they had changed so much! Looking to ClockWork, who grins, “one more thing, Daniel. Here”, and hands over folded fabric.

Danny looks at it, only having to fold out the hood to know it’s a freaking cloak or maybe mini cloak, “oh Ancients, ClockWork. Thanks”. ClockWork just laughs a little before throwing the cloak around his shoulders and disappearing. Leaving Danny grumbling fondly, “can’t even say goodbye”. Then looking to Lewis’s stupid smirk, “shut up”. Lewis chuckles and moves to sit in the living room. Danny electing to follow.

Danny leans over the back of the couch, looking at the absolute mess that is Eddie’s writing, “whatcha doin’?”.

“Adult stuff you’d never understand”.

“Fuck you”.

Eddie chuckles, “filling in details on the little interview I had with Cletus Kasady”.

Danny blinks, “ain’t that guy a serial killer?”, he’s not sure he even wants to know now.

Eddie quirks an eyebrow but doesn’t look away from his notebook, “surprised you know that, dudes whacky”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “nice, another frootloop”, leaning over even more purely to be obnoxious, “I should show you how to write with a proper quill, could make this look even more illegible. And writing with a fucking quill in public is a total power move”.

Eddie mutters, “that’s actually a decent argument”. While Danny squints at the words, sounding mildly unsure and tilting his head; attempting to read it, “‘there’s gonna be carnage’?”, snorting and moving to actually flop on the couch, “well someone took lessons from us spookies on being ominous”.

Eddie snorts and rolls his eyes, “more like typical bad guy trying to be intimidating”, smirking, “doesn’t really work on an actual predator though”.

Danny snickers, “tell me about it”.

Lewis sips his drink, watching the slight sharp toothy grins. Maybe those two were going to be like oil and fire, which might not be a good thing. Eyeing the short cloak that was honestly closer to a shawl, whatever, it was probably out of his hands now. Least the kid had some omnipresent god looking out for him. Positives Lewis, positives. Vee’s noodle head being suspiciously quiet is more than a little ominous though.

End.

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darks-ink · 5 years

Text

Play Your Part - 1

Chapter 1: Where The Strong Survive

[cover]

Here's my new multi-chapter, Play Your Part! Currently planned to be 6 chapters, and somewhere around 20.000 words, I'm guessing? Depends on how long the chapters will be, of course.

Anyway, this fic is based on @cordria‘s A World Tipped on its Head, and this first chapter especially draws pretty strongly from that one-shot. From what I've seen it seems normal that people just copy-paste the original as their first chapter but tbh I don't like that much because the styles are usually way different. Also I wanted to tweak some details so. I hope that that's not, like, rude or anything!

As always, weekly updates go up every Saturday! I might change it for the last 2 chapters or so because I want to start posting Weirdward on the 31st but I'll see how I solve that when we get there.

[first] [previous][next] [AO3] [FFnet]

Danny rushed down the street, his eyes cast downwards and his breath loud and raspy even to his own ears. The pavement sped by underneath his feet. It wasn’t fast enough.

“Stupid alarm clock,” he muttered under his breath. Pushed himself just that little quicker. He might not like school, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to be late.

“Need a lift?”

The unexpected voice made him flinch, although he did his best to hide it. Instead he glanced over his shoulder, watching Sam melt into view. She was in her ghost form, her hair white and flickering and her eyes a vivid cyan. Bright, glowing, and sparkling with dark humor.

“No,” he grunted, trying to ignore his tired legs to pick up the pace even further. Somewhere he was glad that it was Sam who found him and not Tucker. No matter how well meaning the boy was, the last thing Danny wanted was to be picked up and flown to school against his will.

She blinked at him for moment, and in the time it took for her to process this, he got a few dozen feet ahead. Then she nodded and drifted down to the ground.

Bright ectoplasmic energy whirled around her. White hair sunk down under the effect of gravity, dyed black once more. Cyan eyes darkened back to violet, and white clothes shifted back to black.

Sam ran a hand through her hair, straightened her clothes, and then sprinted to catch up with him again.

“You’re gonna be late,” Danny panted, suppressing a grin as she joined him.

“Are you kidding?” She laughed. “I can outrun you any day of the week.”

He rolled his eyes, fighting down the retort that came automatically. If she chose to run with him and be late as well, well… who was he to argue? Instead he sent her a lopsided grin, determined to at least keep up with her.

Skidding to a crashing halt in front of his locker, Danny started whirling the combination lock, rushing to get to class in time. The bell rung, however, signaling that he was officially late for his first class.

He jumped in surprise at the loud noise, losing track of how many turns he had taken to unlock his locker. Sam, who could simply use her intangibility to get her stuff, already had her books.

She drifted back across the hallway, her signature scowl back on her face. She then slumped against the lockers next to him.

“We’re late,” she said unnecessarily.

“I got that,” he answered her through gritted teeth. He tried to focus on unlocking his lock, frustrated that he had had to start over.

“Mr. Fenton! Miss Manson!”

This second unexpected voice had the same effect as the first; Danny started so badly that he almost levitated. He spun around, searching for the origin of the voice.

The hallway appeared empty, however. Completely vacated. Danny knew it wasn’t, though. Mr. Lancer, the half-ghost vice-principal, had to be floating invisibly somewhere in it.

He fixed his eyes on the spot he guessed Mr. Lancer would be in. He had no way of knowing, and he really didn’t care except that he had gotten caught by his least favorite teacher once again. It would certainly mean another detention.

The overweight teacher appeared mere moments later. Hands propped against his hips and his eyes blazing a bright red. “Late for school again!” he scoffed, pulling out a small notebook to write their names down. “I expected better from you, Miss Manson.”

“I felt like running,” Sam muttered back. Her arms were still crossed, her body slumped against the lockers.

“Such potential in you.” Lancer shook his head, clearly disappointed, as he finished jotting down their names. “It never fails to surprise me that a child from parents like yours doesn’t flourish in a modern school setting.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed, bright cyan sparking in the darker violet. She’d never been particularly fond of authority figures, and Mr. Lancer’s tendency to compare her to her parents had put him in her bad graces.

Danny, while he heartily agreed with her, remained quiet. He just watched as the teacher took his eyes off of the book, fixing Sam with a glare of his own. He had no intention to get involved, no matter how much it hurt him in his soul to let the others walk all over him.

He wasn’t half-ghost. He didn’t stand a chance against them. And so he had no intention to jump into a situation that could get him killed.

Because, while Sam was normally very considerate of the difference in power between them, she was too riled up now. She could kill him and not even realize until it was too late.

In the end, Mr. Lancer broke the staring contest first. His gaze wandered over to Danny. “And you, Mr. Fenton. Although I’m not sure what to expect out of a mere human,” he paused for a moment, making it clear how dirty of a word he found it, “I still expect you to be at school on time. Detention for you, and I hope you learn your place in our world someday. Miss Manson, get to class.”

The teacher faded back into invisibility, and Danny took a deep steadying breath. Noticed that his hands were clenched into fists, and wondered when that’d happened.

He hated that he got more detentions that anyone else in the school. It was, without a doubt in his mind, because he was the only human in the school. It might be against the law to discriminate based on age, race, gender… but species wasn’t on the list.

“Fantastic,” he muttered, loosening his fists again. Turned back to his locker, even though he needed a few moments more before attempting to unlock it again.

“Come on, Danny,” Sam said after a moment. Her voice was still tense, and cyan still danced in her eyes. “Let’s get to class before you get into trouble again.”

The emphasis on the ‘you’ didn’t go past him. And while her half-smile and elbow nudge suggested that she had meant it playfully, it just felt like a sour reminder to him.

“What’s on the list of torture for today?” he asked, trying to get his mind off of that topic again. There was no point, anyway. There was nothing he could do to change things. Instead he set about to make his third attempt at unlocking his locker.

“Twenty new reasons to stare at the sole human on the planet, either in distraught pity or in discriminatory frustrated anger.” Her smile was halfhearted but understanding. “Also known as another biased English lesson on the twenty greatest halfa authors of all time, making doubly sure to ignore and/or taunt the human greats such as Shakespeare, Melville, and Doyle.”

Danny sighed gustily as his locker finally opened. “Great.”

“You gonna skip again? I’m sure Tucker will record the whole lesson for you to watch later.”

“Nah.” He shook his head, grabbing the books from his locker. “Ever since Lancer figured out how to duplicate, you can’t hide from him. He can be teaching his lesson and hunting you down at the same time. Skulker’s got nothing on him. Skipping is just too much work now.”

“To class, then?”

He hesitated one last second. Then he slammed his locker shut and nodded. “To class.”

“… and that is the main reason why Arthur Prachet far surpassed his human counterpart during that era. Also a major player in the rise of Prachet’s work was the fact that Shakespeare’s answer to Prachet’s novel rhyme-scheme, the insufficiently thought-out and frankly annoying iambic pentameter, never seemed to catch on. The fact that only two of the human’s works survive to this day is surely a testament to how dreary and drawn-out the human culture had gotten by that point in history.”

Danny tuned out the teacher, only looking away briefly to add another tally to the top of his paper – the forty-eighth of that day. Having finished this task, he fixed his eyes back on the whiteboard behind the teacher. He wouldn’t get scolded for not paying attention, anyway; this particular teacher in fact seemed to prefer it if Danny did absolutely nothing.

And, well. Danny was glad for a chance to not write down every detail of the lesson. As a result, his English notebook was full of blank pages, marred only by the tally marks at the top of every page.

When the teacher managed to slip in another slur against the human species, Danny shifted and added another tally to his page. Wondered, quietly, how many more the halfa could fit in a single lesson. So far the record had been fifty-three, but with almost 15 minutes left, it didn’t look too good for the record.

He let his eyes drift towards the windows, letting himself sink deeper into his thoughts. ‘Really’, he thought bitterly, ‘everyone in my family is half-ghost. Doesn’t that mean that I am one too, kind of? Even if I don’t have any powers, that doesn’t make me human, right?’

Even in his own mind, the word ‘human’ had sounded like a dirty insult. The word had been so deeply drenched by negative connotations that, even in the comfort of his own thoughts, it sounded vile.

With a huff, he picked up his stream of thoughts again. ‘I mean. If two dogs have a puppy that looks like a kitten, it’s still a dog, no matter what it looks like or can do. I just wish…’

A ball of paper hit him in the head, and Danny jerked up. Send a glare at the offending piece of paper, absentmindedly adding another tally to his paper – the teacher had surely gotten in another insult while Danny had been distracted, just because he was in the room.

He unwrinkled the paper, quickly reading the scrawled words – Betcha wish you coulda phased through that – and scowled. He raised his head to fix Dash – the obvious sender – with said scowl, pointless as it was. Without the glowing eyes a halfa would sport, he simply couldn’t hope to reach the same level of intimidation.

Still, like it wasn’t bad enough that he had to listen to teacher drone on and on about the brilliance of half-ghosts and their powers, his fellow students had to add to whole thing. Like he had chosen to be the only pure human on the whole damn planet!

Dash just grinned back, flashing his eyes a menacing red. He ripped another piece of paper out of his notebook, scribbled a message, and balled it up. Then he lobbed it through the air, forcing Danny to make the difficult choice of what to do with it.

On one hand, he could catch it and find out what Dash had threatened him with. On the other, he could bat it off into a corner and ignore it for forever.

In the end he didn’t have to pick. A ball of cyan light intercepted it before it reached him, disintegrating the paper into ashes and dust.

“Hey!” Dash called out. His eyes turned red fully as they darted around, looking for the creator of the ectoblast.

Both Dash and Danny found her simultaneously – not that it was hard. Sam lounged in the back of the class, her eyes still bright and sparks of matching cyan still writhing around her hand.

“You stupid--”

“No energy manipulation in this classroom!” the teacher shouted, interrupting the incoming fight. Then, unbelievably, he followed it up with, “Fenton, detention!”

Danny’s head whipped around. “What for?!”

“Stop instigating my class.” Lancer flared his eyes red, warning.

“But--”

Danny bit his tongue, cutting off the retort. It made no sense, but he couldn’t win this confrontation.

It wasn’t fast enough, though. Red energy sparkled around the furious half-ghost teacher, as bright as his eyes.

Having no desire to get into this fight, Danny slunk out of his seat and beat a quick retreat from the room before the situation got worse. Sure, the teacher probably wouldn’t actually attack him, but, well. Everyone knew that sometimes it was hard to control ghost powers, especially if you’re angry.

And the last thing Danny wanted was to get evaporated over something so stupid. So ordinary.

Still, he couldn’t help but feel a brief pang of disappointment. The record for number of human slurs spoken in a single class would remain unbroken.

“Danny, sweetie,” his mom said when he finally came home from yet another day in hell – sorry, school – as she pushed her goggles up on her forehead, “it’s not your fault. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

Danny groaned, dropping into a chair in his parents’ basement lab. “Tell that to the teachers and the other students.”

“You’ll get your powers eventually, honey.” She smiled at him. “Slow development runs in your father’s side of the family, you know. Jack didn’t get his powers until he was eleven…”

“I’m fifteen.” A scowl found its way to his face once more.

“Which isn’t unheard of,” she lied smoothly. “You’re a Fenton.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“You come from a long line of powerful half-ghosts. Before you know it, you’ll wake up and you’ll be just like your great-grandfather, the--”

“--great halfa explorer who helped conquer the new world from the human barbarians,” Danny finished dully. They had had this exact conversation dozens of times, and he had practically memorized it by now. “Has it ever occurred to you that I might never get ghost powers?”

She blinked at him. “Of course you’ll get your powers. You just need to think positively.”

“Yeah, sure.” He shrugged, figuring he might as well go along. His parents were both stubborn to no end; if they wanted to believe that he would still get ghost powers, there was nothing he could do to change their minds.

“In the meantime, look at this.” Her aura brightened slightly as she picked up her latest device. “It’s called the ‘Fenton Human Hearer’.”

It was placed in Danny’s hands, a grin on her face. “Jack and I know that there are pockets of humans left in this world. If we ever find one, this will turn their incomprehensible mutterings into something we can understand!”

Danny raised a skeptical eyebrow, eyes on her instead of the invention. “Don’t they speak English?”

A whir from the machine. Then, “Don’t they speak English? Fear me.”

Now he dropped his eyes to the gadget. From the corner of his eyes, he saw his mom do the same. Maddie shrugged, then plucked it out of his hands. “I’ve never met a true human. I wouldn’t know.”

“I don’t count?” he asked, not sure how he felt about the implication. Was it because he was better than a human, or just because she refused to concern the possibility?

“You’ll get your powers,” she said with conviction. “You’re a halfa – a Fenton.”

He nodded quietly, his unasked question thus answered. She still believed that he would get his powers, even if he was years and years past even the latest of late bloomers.

It didn’t make sense to him. Why keep denying it? Somehow, against all reason and expectations, he wasn’t a half-ghost. He hadn’t inherited any of his parents’ powers, not even a shred of their ectoplasmic sides.

Consumed by these thoughts, he silently watched his mom tidy her side of the lab. His parents were constantly working on all kinds of inventions, and thus new pieces of technology appeared and disappeared on a daily basis in the cramped basement. Most remained unpopular, however; his parents’ obsession with humans made their inventions largely useless to the rest of their half-ghost society.

Maddie paused in her work, picking up a small, strange-looking necklace. She studied it for a moment, a crease in her brow. “Where did…” She shook her head. “I wish Jack would tell me when he gets new things. Danny, can you put this on Jack’s workbench for me?”

Nodding, he slipped out the chair again. Took the necklace from her hands, turning to head towards the messier side of the lab.

But, just as her fingers slipped from the chain, a surge of energy flooded throughout the lab. It was powerful enough for even Danny to feel it, the hum of pure power in the air.

He saw his mom twist around, her eyes widening in surprise and fear, glowing vivid chartreuse. Similarly colored ectoplasm formed around her hands, as if to fight this unseen enemy.

It was the last thing Danny saw before blindingly white light wrapped around him. He screamed in terror, feeling the energy ripping at his body, and could do nothing but clutch the strange necklace to his chest.

Then, blissfully, he passed out.

#danny phantom #dp fanfic #phanfic #dp fanfiction #phanfiction #fanfiction #danny fenton #sam manson #maddie fenton #dark writes #play your part

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anchoredtether · 5 years

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Title: The Ghost in the Machine

Chapter: 1/13

Series: Another Way to Die

Author: AnchoredTether

Rating: M [graphic depictions of violence, dark themes, slight horror]

Pairings: Pidge | Katie Holt / Lance [Plance]

Tags: Danny Phantom AU, Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters (kinda), ghost!Lance, Pidge is slightly goth, Keith is also half-ghost, angst, heavy angst, hurt/comfort, slow burn, disturbing themes, slight horror elements, dark, claustrophobia, implied/referenced torture, double life, angst and humor, body horror, graphic description

Summary: “So this is how I die. In some Holt laboratory device when ALL I WANTED WAS STRING CHEESE!"

Artwork: The lovely @numbah34 made several arts for this work and they are fantastic! Check out her art here! She also has more concept art which I will link once it’s posted~

A/N: Here is my contribution for the @planceminibang! A special thank you to @amicuscordis for beta-ing! Vague summary is vague.

Read below the cut or over here at Ao3 >>

001 || THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE

---

“We should probably get back to studying,” Pidge announced after both their characters died on the retro gaming system and the eight-bit funeral dirge played. “Since, you know, you came over here to study.”

“Yeah yeah, I know…” Lance sighed. He currently had a D in his physics class and Pidge happened to be a genius at anything related to science, so they started study sessions at her place a few weeks ago. “I needed a break though! All this talk of kinetics and energy was putting my head for a spin.”

“Killbot has killed us seven times in a row so I think that’s as good a time as any to quit while we’re ahead.”

“Seven times the charm?” Lance put down the controller and pulled his textbook back onto his lap, stretching his legs out onto the coffee table. “Maaaan, who studies on a Friday night??”

“Smart people who want all day Saturday and Sunday to themselves.”

He snapped his book shut again and stood up. “You know what? I’m starving. I’ll be right back with some snacks.”

She sighed. “You have the attention span of a magpie, Lance.” After five good minutes of studying he’d go on some tangent and she had to redirect his attention, or he’d want to do a video game break or a snack break or a bathroom break and she swore that boy drank water like an alcoholic downs free shots because he was constantly needing to relieve himself. When she called him out on ‘faking’ bathroom breaks to get out of studying he simply lifted up his massive water bottle and told her he drank six of them a day. He progressed on a long spiel about how great water was and she couldn’t decide whether she was impressed by how much science he had to back up his arguments or annoyed by the fact that he couldn’t shut up about water.

She called out to him as he started down the hallway. “Can you bring me some peanut butter cookies? They’re on the top shelf of the fridge.” He held up a hand to indicate he heard and she pulled out homework from one of her advanced placement classes to work on while she waited for his return.

The Holt house was confusing. The whole family was geniuses - Sam was a revered engineer and Colleen a brilliant chemist and botanist. Half the rooms in the house were labs or conservatories (or a combination) and so many parts of the house were added on or obscure extensions that made it a strange maze of plants and machinery. Lance usually had to ask Pidge to remind him which way was to the bathroom or kitchen but he didn’t want to bother her this time. It shouldn’t have been too hard to figure out, right? He had an innate sense of direction.

The other issue was the fact that Sam upgraded all their normal appliances. Their washer and dryer did not look like the standard because he invented ones that worked better. Lance found a room that might possibly be a kitchen but just as easily a lab. There were a few black knives left on one of the counters and some strange looking vegetables. Knives and vegetables were found together in kitchens, right? Then again, half the rooms had vegetables, but he figured a kitchen utensil and an edible looking plant had to be a good indicator.

He walked up to what looked like could be a fridge and tried pulling the giant red lever that could have been the door handle. When nothing opened for him, Lance let out a dissatisfied hum and walked over to some double doors that might have been a pantry or fridge and pulled them open. They were heavy and made a hissing and whirring sound as they slowly opened. The area inside was well lit and the walls looked like they were lined with drawers, but when he walked up and tried pulling on one of the panels it wouldn’t budge.

“Pidge distinctly said ‘shelf.’ So obviously whatever this is, it’s not the refrigerator.” He took one last look before turning to leave, but the doors just barely finished closing on their own without a sound. He let out a short yelp before rushing over and pushing on the thick metal doors but there were no handles and they weren’t budging against his weight. Suddenly the lights in the room snapped into an electric green and he could hear an ominous whirring of something powering up gradually increase in volume.

He pounded on the door, yelling Pidge and her parents’ names in a vain attempt to grab someone’s attention. He started to panic, looking around frantically for some escape latch or emergency button within the walls of the room. When he exhausted all his options he backed up into a corner and braced himself for whatever was about to happen, his limbs plastered against the walls.

“So this is how I die.” He sucked in a sharp breath. “In some Holt laboratory device when ALL I WANTED WAS STRING CHEESE!”

The lights turned off and he screamed, but his scream slowly died out as he realized he wasn’t being evaporated. Nothing happened except for a sudden nausea that overcame him and then his senses quickly faded into blackness.

---

When Lance came to, he was lying on the ground of the fridge-not-fridge, the hospital-white lights were back on, and the double doors were left open. He looked over his body and patted himself in random spots and let out a sigh of relief. He seemed to be alright and figured he simply passed out from fear and adrenaline. He stood up and quickly left the room, finding his way back to Pidge.

“You can’t find the fridge, can you?” she asked in a dour tone.

She didn’t seem concerned that he was gone for a long time, so Lance figured he was only passed out for a minute or so. It would have been logical to tell her what had just happened but a part of him hesitated. Nothing happened and he didn’t want to get in trouble with her parents. He didn’t want her to get in trouble with her parents when he was being an idiot. He’d seen the way Colleen and Pidge interacted and Mrs. Holt was a scary woman when she wanted to be. He let out a nervous laugh before answering. “No, it appears I’m helpless at your house.”

Pidge stood up as she finished typing something on her phone, her green-painted nails clacking against the touch screen as she led the way without having to look up. “Follow me, goofball.”

They acquired the snacks from the strangely designed fridge - which he could have sworn it did not look like that two weeks ago - and returned to the living room (and he tried to make a mental note of the directions they took through the hallways to get there). They resumed their study of kinetic motion but the only motion Lance could focus on was the swaying of the room.

“I think I need to go home,” he said in the middle of Pidge’s explanation.

“Really, Lance? We haven’t studied five min-” She frowned a moment as she looked him over. “You’re… actually really pale. Are you alright?”

“Um… I think… yeah. I think so.” His voice was starting to slur ever so slightly and he had a feeling it would only get worse. “I just need to… to lie down, or something.”

“You can lie down on the couch or I’ll get you a bed! I don’t think you should be walking home in the state you’re in.”

“No really, I’ll… I should go home.” He stood up and swayed, but Pidge quickly stood up and placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

“At least let me walk you there,” she insisted.

His house was just a few blocks down from hers so the walk wasn’t long, but they still had to take a few rest stops for Lance to catch his breath and steady his nausea. Mrs. Villanueva kindly greeted them and took Lance in, thanking Pidge for her help (and referring to her as ‘Katie’). Pidge walked back home and wondered what could have overcome her friend. His constitution had gone from perfectly fine to on his deathbed within minutes. She made it a note to check in on him tomorrow if she didn’t hear from him.

---

Mama Villanueva put Lance immediately to bed, completely tucking the blankets around him and leaving him with bottles of water, a sleeve of saltines, and a throw-up bowl. He had a feeling that whatever was wrong with him wasn’t some kind of flu or virus, and a dread gained weight in his chest that he’d have to tell the Holts what happened to him in their lab if he ever wanted to get better.

What if he never got better?

What if he was dying?

After several runs of overthinking, Lance eventually passed out from mere exhaustion. Not even his worried, rambling brain could keep him from the fatigue that soon overtook his body. He had stressful dreams of things chasing him, as if the mysterious sickness was something he could not run from or escape. When he awoke in the middle of the night, he was fairly sure it was a false awakening and he was still in a dream.

Because he was floating above his bed.

It wasn’t the weirdest thing that had happened in his dreams but it started to get freaky when he saw his whole body was slightly translucent. And for whatever reason, instead of his sleepwear he was dressed in what he wore yesterday and his clothes were inverted in color. His jacket was now a pale frosted gray, the orange bands around his sleeves now a vibrant blue. His jeans became a light tan while his shirt and shoes darkened into a charcoal gray.

“Of course I’d dream myself as a ghost after worrying about dying,” he muttered to himself as he looked at his hands with a calm fascination. He also knew he was dreaming because the sickness that consumed his body before was magically gone. He knew if he had woken for real, he would have felt like death.

He tried moving to the ground and floated on down with ease, his feet touching the floor without a sound. He started to walk out of his room but then decided to try floating instead because if he was a ghost why bother using the energy to walk? He discovered he could do it without much thought, his feet hovering a few inches from the ground with knees relaxed as if he were making his way through zero gravity.

Lance was about to open his door but his hand phased through it, causing him to let out a startled yelp. He covered his mouth with his hand that wasn't halfway through the door and waited, listening to hear if he woke anyone up. He shook his head, realizing this was a dream and it didn't matter if he woke up his parents or siblings. Although for all he knew, in this dream world there might have been monsters or something equally as terrifying he did not want to awaken.

He returned his focus to his hand in the door. It didn't hurt but he could feel where the doorknob began through his wrist and where the door ended halfway through his fingers like a precise singeing upon his skin. It didn’t burn, exactly, but Lance didn’t want to linger through a solid object for too long.

"This is the weirdest thing…" He experimented by moving his hand in and out through the door through various parts, testing how it felt at different angles. He slowly made his way phasing his whole body through the door, pausing here and there with curiosity. It wasn't long after he passed through the door that a chilling sensation passed up his spine and caused him to let out a squeaky wheeze. Some strange feeling overcame him, urging him to go outside.

Now knowing he could phase through solid objects, he passed through the bathroom in the hall and straight to the outside of his house. He turned towards the street, completely silent and serene in the middle of the night, and saw a figure in the distance. Normally a stranger out in the street at three in the morning was a major red flag but Lance could afford to follow his dangerously unhealthy curiosity when it was only a dream. He might get chased and murdered by a serial killer with an axe, but he could phase through walls now so it might not be nearly as scary (at least that's how he justified it).

Upon hovering closer, he saw that the figure was semi-translucent as well, although the stranger had his feet planted on the ground like a normal person. Perhaps everyone in this particular alternate universe were ghostly. Lance must have spent way too long staring at the stranger because when he spoke it completely startled him.

"What are you doing out here?"

Lance struggled for a moment as his mouth worked but only sputtering came out. "B-bold of you to say that when you're out in the middle of the street in the middle of the night… in the middle of my dream," he added for emphasis, as if that mattered. "So what are you doing out here?"

"It's not safe out here, you should go back to your home," the stranger said in a kind but cautious tone. He was interesting looking and perhaps that's why Lance was staring so intensely before. The stranger had purple skin with darker stripes curving up his cheeks, his eyes an electric yellow with bright purple irises. Lance had to wonder if he looked just as strange but the color of his skin was its usual warm tone.

"My home is right there," he jabbed a thumb behind him. "So I might as well see what's going on."

"No, really." The stranger almost looked nervous. "You should go."

"Aww come on, do I really look that pathetic?" Lance scoffed, confident that he could handle whatever this dream verse would throw at him. He had played enough video games to improvise and figure out how to survive.

"Considering you no longer have legs, yes."

He stared at him in confusion for a moment, then dared to look down to see his legs were gone, a translucent ghostly tail curling down from his waist instead. "Oh! Wha… what does that mean?" This dream is turning out weirder by the minute.

"Either you're an emotional wreck or you have no control over your ghost powers. Or both," he answered flatly. "Don't you know you don't need your tail unless you're traveling at high speeds or maneuvering quickly through solid objects?"

Lance lowered his brows. "I- wh?- No. I have no idea how to be a ghost."

The stranger looked a hundred percent done. "You are a ghost."

"Yeah, just for right now in this weird dream. I always have weird dreams when I'm sick."

"This is real life. It's not a dream."

"See? That's exactly what someone in my dream would say!"

The stranger rolled his bright eyes. "Fine. Whatever. Die for all I care."

"Aren't we already dead? We're ghosts."

His eyes narrowed, his expression intense. "You… you aren't normally human, are you?"

"Of course I'm 'normally' human," he answered with air quotes. "What kind of a question is that?"

The stranger suddenly looked apprehensive. "You really need to go home. And stay there."

Lance placed his hands on his hips, his face turning into a frustrated pout. "You're not the boss of me."

He turned on him, his face only inches away as his voice tugged an urgency from Lance's chest. "Your kind are rare and there is a hunter out on the loose looking for ghosts like you. Believe me when I say you do not want to be caught. If you care at all about your own self-preservation you will run and hide. I can mislead him from your home but only if you promise to stay there."

Lance was silent a moment, his eyes wide as he tried to process the severity of his words, but something stuck out to him more than the imminent danger or the implication that he was no longer human. "Why would you want to help me?"

The other ghost hesitated but his answer felt sincere. "Because we're more similar than you think." His golden eyes moved to the house and back to Lance to indicate he should go back, and with that, he gave him one last look and flew away, out of the streetlight and into the darkness.

"… I guess that's one way for my dream to wake me up." He shrugged and hovered back towards his house, phased through the walls and went back to his room. As soon as he approached the bed, the same chill from earlier traveled up his spine except this time he felt it worse.

He had a feeling that whatever the stranger was running from had arrived.

And whatever it was, it felt like a horribly bad omen.

#plance #plance mini bang #plance au #plance fanfic #flirtyrobot #danny phantom au #plance danny phantom au #ghost au #fanfic #vld #voltron #voltron fanfic #voltron au #vld au #ghost!lance #vld lance #vld pidge #my fanfiction #anchoredtether

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dannyphantom-justiceleauge · 6 years

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Animorph/DP crossover

so i’m officially on an animorph binge, fueled by nostalgia and dawning horror as i rediscover how deeply messed up an violent this series is.

for those of you don’t remember or only vaguely remember the weird book covers, animorphs was a quintessential nineties book series (and brief bad tv show) that most of us read for free-reading points when we were eight. it is a series about 5 kids who witness an alien ship crash one day and have a dying alien give them the power to turn into any animal and alien they collect dna from (a bit like ben10′s omnitrix now that i think about it, only it came out first, isn’t a bracelet and is generally horrible). new space dad also gives them, a group of 13 year old’s, the mission to stop a different race of alien invaders, called yerks, who are essentially slugs that crawl in your ears and take over your body. they intend to take over earth. the animorphs can’t trust adults because they don’t know who’s being mind controlled and quite suddenly they find themselves in a full scale war, full of moral grays and trauma at every turn along with goofy nineties slang and sometimes (rarely) the kids having fun with their ability to turn into wild animals. arguably the first book has a higher kill count than the entire harry potter series. it doesn’t pull it’s punches and, while i’m sure i have nostalgia glasses on, it’s really good. give it a read sometimes.

so, of course, i have to dump my crossover head-cannons on you, because combining these two worlds, that have pretty impressive world building is too good to pass up. (keep in mind i’m only three books into this binge and my memory is mostly hazy). strap in;

okay first of lets set the condition that ectoplasm and ectoplasm based weapons kills yerks. therefore Danny and any ghost can actually kill yerks pretty easy. it also means Danny can’t become a controller even if they try. i want to set this stipulation because lets be honest the yerks are too powerful and the hero side is already outnumbered. i suppose you could think of it as to semi sentient slimes fighting for dominance, yerks are more living and sentient than ectoplasm itself, but that’s part of what makes them weak to ectoplasm, a materiel that is a byproduct of death and that has proven to be corrosive in general. ectoplasm is less thought based and more hunger and emotion based. so it’s easy for ectoplasm to consume a yerk because as a sentient being it has emotions and mass, whereas, a yerk looking for a brain in a ghost won’t have much to grab onto.

or you could not have that caveat and make everything even darker and worse by having ectoplasm being good for yerks, similar to those slime pools they bask in. in which case, discovering the ghost portal will be a crushing blow to the humans

Danny can clear out yerk infestations, just by possessing people, but it essentially means burning a yerk alive inside someones head, which is traumatizing for everyone involved. Danny doesn’t like doing this but will when necessary

yerks, due to this aversion to ectoplasm, are actually very superstitious about ghosts and avoid ‘haunted’ places as much as possible, leaving Amity fairly safe until the larger scale plans start taking effect.

at which point ‘let’s just wipe this haunted city off the map’ plans start circulating. (’but wouldn’t that just create more ghosts?’ ‘i won’t pretend to know’)

enter the animorphs and team phantom on different fronts. the animorphs are eager to know why the yerks are so adverse to this city that they’re willing to destroy it. is there a weapon there? is there something useful there? i don’t think even the andilites know about yerks weakness to ectoplasm (oh they would have used it) so they’re running blind, hoping to get the weapon and the information before the city is destroyed, and you know, hoping to prevent the city’s destruction

team phantom on the other hand are way blinder in general. their involvement started as Tucker hacking some government files and then accidentally following the backdoor breadcrumbs into the entire yerk system. he take’s the whole, ‘aliens are controlling our government’ thing, as more of a ‘I WAS RIGHT’ moment than a ‘oh no!’ Danny and Sam are reasonably skeptical because of this

until they find out that the city’s gonna get destroyed yet again. and then things are kinda sticky for them, because most of what they know about the alien invasion is from Tucker’s hacks and a lot of it is in an alien language that’s taking time to translate.

so of course the animorphs show up and find literal ghosts and assume aliens because they’re not far enough in the timeline for god and time travel to be an established thing yet. everyone is freaking out, because they’re being invaded by something else!? they’re already in one war, man. and the team debates are on because clearly these things are an enemy to the yerks if the yerks want to destroy them so much. we could use them (Rachel, Tobias), but we don’t know anything about this race or if they’re the lesser of evil between the races (Marco, Cassie). Ax’s only opinion is that ghosts freak him the hell out and are unnatural. i don’t think he’d be able to telepathically communicate with ghosts (except for Danny and Vlad) and that deeply scares him. Jake decides they need more information before they decide. the team quickly elects to catch a ghost and interrogate it.

which goes as well as one can expect. watching the animorphs try to fight the box ghost with all their animal forms is embarrassing, with how ineffective it is. team phantom walks in on this.

which leads to the ‘are we talking to hostile aliens’ stare down. team phantom saw enough of the fight to be like, no, and have already proven more or less that the animorphs aren’t ghosts, so alien is the other conclusion to draw.

the amount of sarcasm and banter that Danny and Marco create being in the same room together is legendary. establishing a bit of almost playful respect

Ax is being messed up by Danny’s psychic wavelength because he can hear it but there’s migraine inducing feedback

Sam and Rachel however are low key butting head in the background and that results in a fight the they break up and pretty much establish, yeah, we’re all good guys here, okay. (Sam and Rachel's sass levels are also dangerously high. in general the amount of sass in the room could fuel a teledrama)

everyone’s hesitant to share information, Danny keeps his secret initially and even though they get their rundown of the aliens and the rundown of the ghost, neither are willing to share the big secrets or trust. team phantom have this whole ‘what if they’re the aliens trying to blow up the town subplot while one of the animorphs (i wanna say Tobias but i don’t think he’s picked transformation back up yet so lets say Marco) grabs some of Danny's dna to see if they can turn into a ghost.

it goes as horribly wrong as it can go.

most ectobased life forms don’t have dna because they’re made purely of ectoplasm, that’s it. the only reason Danny has dna is because he’s a halfa and his Schrodinger's cat existence was very lucky and very unnatural. combining ectomutated dna with a power that is based purely around life is not good. marco almost dies, everyone’s really mad, even though it’s not Danny's fault. the animorphs demand that they fix him and Sam is bitter because the blame is on them for taking his dna without danny;s consent but whatever. they save him anyway because they’re the heroes.

welcome back Fenton dream-catcher, they remove the ectomutation spirit thing from Marco safely and either they have to fight the half-transformed goo monster or the thing collapses on it’s own because it’s completely unstable.

Marco, depending on how philosophical you want to get, tastes death, ectoplasm, ghost obsessions, and possibly some of Danny's memories? i guess the animorph power works a bit like copying another creatures spirit, which is one of the reason, copying something like Danny is so complicated because he is the perfect hybrid of spirit and life. they ironically can’t copy literal spirits though because they have no dna as a starting point. the whole near death experience is going to haunt Marco for a while.

oh well, life saving, monster fighting, out of the way, trust is finally established.between the teams and everyone get’s crash courses in ectobiology and animorph biology and figure out why the bad stuff happened.but they still don’t know that ectoplasm kills yerks

this got long. i shall do a part 2! - Hestia

#Danny Phantom #animorphs #dpjl #hestiawrites

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five-rivers · 3 years

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Darkness/Poison

This is part of the ‘Doorways’ series (aka Danny is an eldritch abomination and Jack and Maddie have no normal friends so they decide to go on a road trip to make sure none of their friends from college have become semi-satanic soul-eating holes in reality AU).

AO3 link to series.

The Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle did not have the smoothest ride in the world, but Danny was used to it. Also, he had driven the Specter Speeder through the Carnivorous Canyon and ridden in Johnny 13’s sidecar.

Point being, if his parents didn’t want him to fall asleep, they should have told him. Or, at least, not dragged him out of bed at four thirty in the morning (both to get an early start and to avoid the reporters and other undesirables who had taken to circling Fentonworks like vultures).

Look. Danny might have been an unspeakable eldritch horror, a superhero, and one of the richest human beings on the face of the Earth, but he was also a teenager. Not to mention sleep deprived.

Besides, Mom and Dad had said their next Paranormal Research Club friend was miles and miles away. They wouldn’t reach his town until much later in the day. Danny had plenty of time to sleep safely.

Which is why he was so disgruntled when Dad shook him awake with a cheery “We’re here!”

“Where’s here?” asked Danny, rubbing his eyes and noting sadly how far away his portal back in Amity Park was.

“Breakfast,” said Jazz, voice heavy with sleep. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one trying to take advantage.

“’Kay,” said Danny, briefly wrestling with the seatbelt. He caught Mom staring as he opened the door. “What?” he asked frowning.

“Nothing,” she said, unconvincingly.

Whatever. Danny could figure it out later, when he was more awake. He jumped to the ground.

“I think you guys will really like it here!” said Dad, waving at the building. “The food’s great! An old friend owns the place. Your mom and I used to come here all the time before you were born, when we were commuting between Amity and Chicago.”

Danny nodded along, staring up at the neon sign that read ‘Red Flower Dinner.’ Then his brain caught up, and he slowly turned his head to look at Dad.

“’Old friend,’” he said. “What do you mean old friend?”

Dad blinked at him, uncomprehending. Jazz came to his rescue.

“Dad, we’re doing this whole trip because all of your old friends are lunatics,” she explained.

“They’re not!” said Dad, defensively. “Besides, Marianne was never part of our club. She didn’t even go to U of M.”

“She was a waitress at our favorite hangout,” explained Mom. “She got enough saved to buy this restaurant around the time we graduated. She’s few years older than us.”

“Saved? I thought a relative died, and she got an inheritance?” asked Dad.

Danny groaned. “Do you not see how suspicious that is?”

“Come on, Danno! We can have normal friends.”

“No, you can’t. If a normal thing ever interacts with our family in any way, it immediately becomes abnormal simply because of how unlikely it is for anything like that to happen.” He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars.

“He’s got a point,” said Jazz. “Maybe we could go to a different dinner?”

“But,” said Dad, “she makes the best breakfast. And she really is normal. She wasn’t involved in any ghost stuff.”

“Are you really telling me you never talked to her about ghost stuff at all?” asked Danny, suspiciously.

“Well, we did,” said Dad. “But we talk to everyone about ghost stuff.”

“Dad…”

Dad inhaled and heaved a huge sigh, shoulders sagging. “Alright, Danno. I get what you’re saying. We can go somewhere else… Even if it won’t be as good.”

Okay. Now Danny felt bad.

Unfair.

“Well,” he said. “I guess we could check and make sure she’s not, you know, haunted or anything. That’s why we’re doing this, I guess.”

Dad brightened immediately, and Danny had to grab the back of his shirt to keep him from running in.

“But remember, if I say we have to go, we have to go. That’s the deal.”

Dad nodded. Danny let go. He sighed as Dad disappeared into the building.

“Is the food really that good?” asked Danny.

“Marianne grows a lot of her own herbs,” offered Mom with a shrug. “Everything she makes is at least decent. But, well,” she grimaced as she held the door open for her children. “The reason we liked her so much was that she always seemed interested in our research. We liked talking to someone who took us seriously.”

“Wonderful,” deadpanned Jazz.

The décor inside the dinner was bright red and floral. The seats and benches were upholstered in shiny, dyed leather. A long glass counter displayed pies and other desserts under bright lights. The air was warm and smelled faintly of cherries. A radio station played quietly in the background, blurring the chatter of the other guests.

Danny rubbed his eyes again. Ugh. He was tired. Sleeping in a moving vehicle was a special kind of unrestful. Heh. Unrestful dead. More like unrested dead. That was him.

(Someday, he was going to track down the first person to say, ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead,’ and give them a stern talking to.)

“Marianne!” boomed Dad, waving at someone in the kitchen behind the order window.

There was a gasp. “Jack Fenton! Is that you?” A woman with greying brown curls leaned out, then ducked away briefly before reappearing through a door. “I haven’t seen you in years!” She threw her arms out, hugging first Dad and then Mom.

Danny bristled at the perceived threat to his parents but managed to control himself. This was nothing. Everything was fine. Just because every one of his parents’ friends so far had something weird and potentially fatal going on so far, it didn’t give him the right to police their every interaction with other human beings.

“Are these your kids?” asked Marianne, excitedly. “Oh, my goodness, you must be Jazz, and you’re Danny? I’ve only seen you in pictures, but you’ve grown so much. You’ll be as tall as your dad in no time.”

“Hope so,” said Danny, knowing there was no chance of that happening whatsoever.

Not with his human body, anyway.

“I hope we’ll get a chance to talk,” she continued, “but I have things on the stove. Why don’t you go ahead and find a seat? We’ll get to you soon.”

“Looking forward to it, Marianne!” said Dad, waving again.

“Is she alright?” asked Mom quietly as they slid into a corner booth.

Danny wound up in between Mom and Jazz, which was good, because Dad tended to elbow whoever he was sitting by. In this case, Mom, who could take it.

“I think so?” He rubbed his eyes. “But I can’t just sense everything. Don’t forget that.”

“Stop rubbing your eyes,” said Mom.

“They’re itchy,” said Danny. “I think I got some sleep sand in them or something.”

Mom’s expression softened. Danny blinked at it and wondered when he’d gotten so used to seeing an edge of suspicion on her face.

“It could be allergies,” she said. “It’s that time of year. Or it could be that you keep rubbing them.” She tugged his hands away from his face. “Either way, it isn’t healthy to keep touching your eyes, sweetie.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t have a point, but Danny wasn’t entirely sure he could get sick. Not anymore. Maybe if he was far enough away from Amity Park, spread thin enough between his two major physical manifestations… If his body was human enough… Maybe figuring that out could be a fun family bonding experience. Not.

He yawned. He wanted to go back to sleep. Being in here, with the warm scented air and not-quite-white background noise, only made slumber more inviting.

Still. His family’s ability to protect themselves was lacking. Danny at least had to stay conscious in case Marianne decided to channel the spirit of Locusta or something. Ancients, wouldn’t that be typical?

A waiter came, introduced themself, and handed out menus. Danny failed to process most of the waiter’s prepared speech, and his eyes drifted down to the menu.

It seemed… normal, for lack of a better word. Slightly worn, a couple stains on the paper behind the plastic protector. The pages had a border of blotchy red flowers. The items were all typical breakfast foods. Nothing jumped out at him.

He wasn’t even hungry. Actually, if he thought about it, he was a little nauseated. Sometimes that happened when he didn’t eat for a while, though, so maybe he was hungry, after all?

Why did bodies have to be so complicated?

“What are you getting?” asked Jazz, who was morally unable to make a food order until she’d taken a poll.

“I don’t know,” said Danny, folding his arms on the table and letting his head rest on them. “I’ll probably just get whatever you’re getting.”

Jazz frowned at him and repeated the question to their parents.

The waiter came back after a few minutes.

“I’ll have the Variety Breakfast!” said Dad, excitedly.

“The number five, please,” said Maddie. “Sausage links, not bacon.”

“Um,” said Jazz. “How about the Red Flower Special?”

“Excellent choice,” said the waiter, smiling. “Marianne grows all the seasonings for that herself, and the presentation is lovely.”

“I mean, it’s pancakes, right?” asked Jazz, nervously.

“It is, it is. What would you like for your side?” It took just a few seconds for the waiter to get the rest of Jazz’s order, then they turned to Danny. “And what are you having today?”

“Same as her,” said Danny, waving in Jazz’s general direction.

“Good choice, good choice,” said the waiter. “We’ll be back soon!”

“Thanks!” said Dad. He reached over Mom to pat Danny on the shoulder. “See? This is just a completely normal restaurant.”

“Mhm,” said Danny, dubiously. He’d believe it when he got out of here with his questionably mortal coil and squishy, murderable human family intact.

Okay. Maybe he was being a bit overdramatic, now. Was it because he was too far from the Amity portal? He’d been sure it wouldn’t significantly affect him, though. It wasn’t as if physical distance meant much in this context. Sure, he wasn’t on his home turf, but still…

Of course, he was a teenager. Teenagers were supposed to be overdramatic. At least, that’s what he’d heard. Being a teenager didn’t come with a manual any more than being a half-ghost superhero did, quirky TV shows about middle school notwithstanding.

Yeah. That sounded reasonable. He was a teenager who’d been woken early, and it was still early, and that meant the world was terrible. Excellent math.

He sipped at the water the waiter had left him, pleased with himself.

Which is when his and Jazz’s orders arrived. Danny caught a glimpse of red on him plate, abruptly recognized the prickling feeling in his eyes, expelled the water he was drinking from his nose, and propelled himself sideways across Mom and Dad and out of the booth.

“Ah!” he said, pointing at the red-tinted pancakes and the pretty little flowers on top.

The plating really was nice. Just like the waiter said.

The whole dinner was staring at him.

“He’s got allergies,” explained Jazz, her voice just a little too high pitched. “Just—Really horrible allergies. To flowers like this.”

“Blood blossoms,” said Danny. He was reasonably certain the things wouldn’t kill him, he wasn’t sure that anything short of something like Gula could kill him, but every encounter he had with them had been painful beyond belief, and he doubted that their being cooked would help very much with that.

“Right. Blood blossoms. The name always slips by me… Haha.”

“Oh my gosh,” said Marianne, rushing out of the kitchen. “I am so sorry. I didn’t know anyone was allergic to them! It’s just, you guys always talked about how they were lucky, and they got rid of bad spirits, so I thought I’d incorporate them, and they’re red, which is also lucky, and they taste so good—”

“Marianne,” said Mom, poking at one of the flowers, “where did you even get these? I thought they were extinct.”

“Oh,” said Marianne, “my uncle, the one who died, well I guess they’re all dead, now, but… The one who left me enough to buy the dinner? He worked in seed conservation. I got his personal collection.” She sniffed, apparently on the edge of tears.

“Ah,” said Mom, glancing at Danny. “That’s interesting. Um.” She slid out of the booth. “I’m really sorry, Marianne, but,” she gestured in Danny’s direction. “Food allergies.”

“He’s had breakouts just from being around them, before,” added Jazz, helpfully.

“Oh, no, no, I understand. Um. One second, let me give you my number, I don’t want to fall out of contact again, oh, dear. Tracy! Give me your notepad!”

It took several more minutes for all the Fentons to make their way back outside, most of which Danny spent staring into the dinner through the large front windows, keeping an eye on his family. Maybe he didn’t have ‘allergies’ in the typical sense but being around blood blossoms was making his skin itch and prickle unpleasantly.

Eventually, however, after Dad had shoved most of his order down his throat in a single go, they all got back into the GAV.

“Oh. My. Gosh,” said Jazz. “You two have no normal friends.”

#danny phantom #ectober week #ectober #ectober 2020 #ectober week 2020

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