#Adult characters

[phantomphangphucker]

Phic Phight - I’m Not Above A Love To Cash In

@a-closet-emo @coyotecrackers @DizzlyPuzzled @vigilant-insomniac @Kawaiijohn @fangirlwriting-stories

Danny’s kind of out of touch with humanity, that was kinda the point in the end. He had a job to do, people and ghosts to protect, a dimension to rule, and crazy bigoted ghost hunters to keep in line; potential distractions and collateral weren’t useful for anyone. Though maybe those would have been good for Danny’s well being, not that he cared too much about that.

Danny sighed at the little envelope, how the heck any of them even tracked down where he was living he had no freaking clue. Oh well, it was here now, meaning he couldn’t feign ignorance. The A-listers, or whatever they called themselves these days, had set up a reunion and had invited even him ‘Freaky Fenton’. Course they also managed to get the ghost mailman to deliver one to Phantom as well, which was slightly insane because as far as they knew Phantom had literally never gone to school at all??? Wasn’t it kinda weird to invite someone that not only wasn’t in your grade but wasn’t even in the school, to a high school reunion? Eh whatever, who was he to dictate who they invited, Dash probably demanded it actually. Ugh. So that left him with what to do about it, it would be rude as fuck for either Danny to not show and it would hurt his image in both forms. Jack and Maddie would spin some story about how it was proof that Phantom didn’t care about people, and then would say the same about Danny Fenton except that Fenton had been ‘tainted’ by Phantom.

To say they weren’t getting along these days would be an understatement. It made him very happy he never told them about being Phantom as a teen though. That would have ended with him strapped down on a table, no doubt.

His whole secret identity was the entire problem here really, his forms looked effectively identical meaning the two sides of him never being seen right next to each other was kind of important. Even being in the same room was too big a risk, if someone simply glanced from one to the other it was obvious. In photos he was fine, since ghosts messed up photographs and videos so severely.

Absolutely no one would buy it that neither one of them noticed the similarities. And absolutely no one bought that ‘Phantom stole Fenton’s face’ thing his parents once tried to spin. So Danny trying to play the similarities off wasn’t going to work.

…

Well he could simply do the aggressively opposite thing. Have Fenton and Phantom near each other constantly and clearly aware of the similarities for some reason. Just what kind of reason should he come up with? Claiming twins would get disproven in a heart beat, especially because everyone would wonder why he waited fourteen fucking years to reveal that shit. He… could, maybe, spin some soul mates bullshit. Ghosts were weird and did weird things and worked in weird ways, people would buy them having legit soul mates and being weird as fuck about it.

He should work shop this a little.

Really sell it.

Fuck.

Danny’s totally going to pretend to be his own fucking boyfriend at a random ass reunion that he still doesn’t know how he wound up getting invited to.

…

Oh Ancients Jack and Maddie were going to lose their minds when they heard about this. That’s it. He’s sold. He’s dating himself for a night. Fuck it. They put him through hell, he’s gonna put them through a little hell too.

Now how to explain it… ghost soul mates copy the appearance of their mate? Why though… hmmm… he doesn’t have a good one for that. Maybe… to recognise them while they’re still alive? Technically that could stab him in the ass if Fenton him ever died but well… unless something killed him then he wouldn’t die, semi-immortality was kinda a bitch like that. Old age was gonna bite him in the ass no matter what. And if he did get his sorry ass killed, finally rested in deaths grasp, his appearance would change to his ghost king form fully meaning that his ass actually would be covered by this dumbass excuse. Okay he is mentally swearing way too much and should absolutely go to bed at this point, sleep deprivation was absolutely taking the piss outta him right now.

He’s definitely sticking with this dumb dating himself idea though, it was just too good and too stupid.

Had Danny’s fully rested opinion changed from his sleep deprived one? not a chance. Eleven years ago this would have been utterly impossible to do, but now? he’s got duplication down pat, all his powers he was pretty solid with now. Not having friends gave him a crap ton of free time. Again, positive sides to negative things.

Heck he doesn’t even know what Sam and Tuck- Tucker were up to these days, it’s better left that way too. He’d be too tempted to keep checking up on them if he looked into it, and he gave that up the day he died and decided to keep that to himself no matter what. That no matter what had become losing his friends, his family, his sleep schedule, his unmarred body, his childhood home, his dream job, his grades, everything he used to care about except the stars. The stars he could be closer to than every living being, so he made that enough for him, it had to be.

Because he couldn’t follow his former friends, he couldn’t follow his former parents, he couldn’t follow his sister, he couldn’t follow his former teachers, he couldn’t follow his dreams. He refused to take all of that down with him, because the only one or thing Danny Fenton followed was Danny Phantom, because all Danny Phantom followed was Danny Fenton. Guess ‘dating’ was just taking it to another step, an absurd one but absurd was his half-life already so it was okay.

… Better thing to wonder about was what the heck to wear? He could slap his Phantom self in some of his more humanly normal royal wear but Fenton him? He owned one suit and it was shit. Most of his clothes were shit, he never actually paid for them so most were either destroyed or cheap enough that he didn’t feel too bad about the act of theft. His morals were another thing he gave up following, at least following it to a tee anyways. Eh fuck it, he’ll ‘barrow’ some of ‘Phantom’s’ royal wear. He’s not wasting time, money, or further morals, on trying to get something decent in a human way.

When was this happening again?

…

Tomorrow. Of course. It was fucking tomorrow. Figures that it would take a while to mail shit to a ghost and figures that they’d be lazy about sending ‘freaky Fenton’ an invite. Ugh. Whatever, he doesn’t really have energy to waste on caring or being bothered. Screw them too. He’ll be late purely to repay the audacity. That way he’ll also have to deal with everyone less, all the ‘normal’ people. Which if Tucker or Sam showed would probably be for the best, he doubts they’d approach him but it’d be painful to see them regardless. Not being in school anymore made it easy to fall out of being used to ignoring and avoiding them.

Though to be fair, he’d been out of school longer than everyone else, since he dropped out as soon as he legally could. Turning seventeen had be such a massive turning point for him, he’d been building up to dropping out and the teachers all knew it. None of them expected anything from him, Lancer held out hope longer than most but not even that man could hold out hope for a lost cause for long. Jack and Maddie thought he was joking till the day he actually dropped out though, they kicked him out of course which he expected; he didn’t even bother taking anything since nothing that was still there held any value to him.

Over time they had destroyed, one way or another, every physical thing he did care about. So he stopped bringing new things he would care about, it was a waste and only stood to hurt him in the long run. Them taking apart his telescope he spent years saving for just to make some stupid new invention was the nail in that particular coffin. So he left them everything he’d ever had but some clothes, that were barely wearable but he couldn’t exactly walk around naked. He’d been tempted to purely to make a point that everything in that house was worthless to him, them included, even if that used to be a lie.

Now he had some decent stuff, his mattress had a bed frame with stars scratched into the wood. That was something. Yeah…

…Yeah

He does have some food in the fridge right? Shit he should totally raid the free food at the reunion thing, the local town hero needed it more than they all did really. He’s seriously hoping that they have those yummy cheese tart things, those were delicious.

Fenton stretches out, eyeing his Phantom duplicate, it was so much harder to make a human duplicate than a ghost one so the choice of which one to make ‘real’ was fairly obvious. Snickering as Phantom chucks some clothes right at Fenton’s face, this kind of crap always amused him, being a goofy jerk to himself by himself. Fenton shaking his head, “dumbass”.

“You know talking to yourself isn’t supposed to be healthy”.

“As if we’re remotely close to healthy anything”.

Either way Fenton pulls the dark green knit tank top on, it looked acceptable over the black poets blouse, and the puffy blouse sleeves worked with the baggy harem pants. The shiny dress shoes stuck out bit so he’s swapping that shit out to soft weathered leather boots. Phantom’s already dressed in something more form fitting, like he always wore in that form, straight cut pants he’s sure are from the early nineteen hundreds and a borderline military tight collared and fully buttoned up jacket. Phantom sticking with the white boots and black gloves, there really wasn’t a reason to change that and he wasn’t a fan of people seeing the scarring on his left hand/arm.

Both of the hims absolutely rock the evil eyeliner though, because of course.

Fenton straightening the random bullet necklace he threw on, “so, ready to go babe”; fuck this was gonna be hilarious.

Phantom finger gunning right back, “tots babe”.

Oh here’s hoping he can hold his laughter and mocking smirks inside his mind. Everyone even in this spooky town could be so dumb though that they might not even notice even if he didn’t manage to keep himselves together. Plus he was ‘the freak’ and ‘crazy’ so he probably would get written off anyways. Fenton gesturing out the door as he opens it and begins to walk out. Phantom chuckling, “naw, I’ll fly us”; and having Fenton pretend to be startled when he gets picked up by his ‘romantic partner’. Man he’s going to make himself laugh at this point.

It doesn’t take long to get to Elmerton, at least the ‘A-listers’ had the sense to not try and hold a reunion inside Amity Park, especially when a lot of the people who were likely invited had made a point to get the hell out of dodge once they could. Amity was kinda a nightmare so Danny couldn’t blame them, even if it felt a little insulting. He thought he was doing a damn good job of keeping everyone safe! Sure there was lots of damages but no one ever got seriously injured. Living in a so called normal town just sounded boring to him these days, what did all those people even do with their time? Sleep? Eat? Did people still go to the movies these days or was that outdated? Whatever. Not his life style not his problem.

Phantom zipping up to open the door, Fenton stuffing his hands in his pockets and following along. Fenton had the loner lazy weirdo image to maintain after all. And there’s Star immediately, honestly he kind of expected either Dash or Paulina or maybe they were just ‘too good’ to greet people at the doors.

Star opens her mouth and nothing comes out, her just staring at the two hims. Yup. She noticed the freakish similarities immediately. She swallows very awkwardly and her smile is pinched, “Phantom! Danny! Glad you could make it!”. That rang about as true as a fucking potato trying to pass as a turtle. What the fuck. Did they just not expect either of hims to show up? Why even invite him then!

Phantom tilting his head, “well I was invited, someone went through a kinda weird amount of effort to do that”. Fenton scoffing, “and I can absolutely just leave if I’m not actually welcome, don’t know why y’all went to the effort to track me down if you didn’t want me here though”.

She waves them both off, “no no no! You’re both fine!”, and fiddled with all the little name plates, “it’s…”, side-eyeing Phantom’s glowing self, “just been a while since I’ve been around a ghost and wearing a bullet to see a bunch of people you haven’t seen in over a decade seems a little concerning”.

Fenton blinks, is she trying to say it came off as a threat? “If I was going to threaten people I’d do it to their face and if I was going to shoot people I’d have walked in with a gun”.

“That’s… not comforting”, she looks Fenton up and down, “you’re not armed right”.

“No!”; oh my zone just how bad was everyone’s opinions of Fenton? Ugh. Phantom gestures at his face, “I’m kinda always armed? I can’t do anything about that”.

She actually chuckles at that, handing them their name plates, “still a joker I see”.

“Death can’t kill these puns”.

Fenton snickering, “hopefully it can still off me though”. Phantom laughing lightly back, “you’re not a walking sentient pun, otherwise I feel very misled”; and makes a point to ruffle Fenton’s hair and have Fenton grin a little fondly at the action.

It was actually kinda nice to feel his hair being ruffled up again though…

Star, finally, gets the vibes he’s putting out. Vibes squared that he’s putting out. Doubly putting out. Her eyes widening, “oh my god are you two dating? Since when and how even!”.

Danny’s a little miffed she didn’t even comment on how similar the two hims look though. Like come on! If this whole thing was pointless he’s going to be annoyed enough to try setting something on fire. Nothing like arson to really scratch that destructive itch.

Fenton quirks an eyebrow, “I mean, yeah?”, sharing a glance with Phantom before looking back to her, “and pretty much ever since I dropped out, folks kicked me to the curb and this idiot showed up”.

“I’m the smart one in this relationship”.

“I don’t know about that, you dipshit”,

“Hey!”.

Oh okay, so that’s why everyone liked calling him insulting names. It was legit hilarious and weirdly satisfying… hopefully he doesn’t come out of tonight with a weird degradation kink, that would be his luck and very concerning. Would confuse a lot of ghosts though.

Star shakes her head with a more genuine grin, “I think I’m glad then, feel free to head on in. There’s food and drinks to the left”. Sweet, free food. “No invisibly stealing most of it, Phantom”. Aw. Damn. He’s still going to just… with more subtlety.

Phantom smirking, “so steal all the food, gotcha”, and winks before they’re fully inside.

It’s loud, not club loud but noisy. A second duplicate absolutely raids the table, just taking only a few things and at random. Not the toasted sandwiches though, ew. Hard pass.

Lily spots them first, nearly running over, he can tell by scent alone that she’s got kids now. Weird. “Holy crap, Danny? Phantom? Did you guys just arrive by chance together or do you- holy what the?”, she stops a bit away from them and tilts her head, “did you two always look this similar?”, and shakes herself off before coming all the way over to the two hims. “So both of you still in Amity I guess? Phantom obviously but you seriously didn’t leave Danny? With how crap your parents were to you?”.

Wow. Way to be gentle about it, damn. Fenton quirks a judgmental eyebrow, “harsh much, but Amity’s big enough that we avoid each other pretty easily. They leave my precious Nasty Burger and coffee shops alone, I stay the hell away from FentonWorks. It works”. Phantom nodding readily, “plus I would be very sad if he went and left”, and makes a point to pout goofily.

Lily hums and nods, “oh yeah I guess since most of us left, you’d miss anymore leaving huh?”.

Dense much. Fucking Zone.

Fenton and Phantom exchanging looks before staring at her. Phantom giving her that smirk that meant he was about to say something stupid, Danny loved making that smirk, “no, I’d miss sucking his face off”.

Lily squawks, scandalised, “you don’t just say stuff like that! And you’re dating!”, tilting her head, “you guys have the same name and could pass as twins, that is so weird”.

“WHAT! Oh mi god!”.

Ah that sounded like Paulina. This ought to be fun.

Paulina almost knocks Lily over and physically flings her arms around Phantom’s neck. Danny can’t resist but have Phantom give Fenton an awkward apologetic look; just to make Lily uncomfortable. That absolutely works and she shuffles on her feet and taps Paulina’s should in an attempt to get her to stop.

“I can’t believe you actually came! Oh this is the best! And you’re still so muscley! And you smell like lime still!”.

He… forgot how creepy she could be, actually. Wow. He’s nipping this in the ass. Fenton putting a hand on his hip, “you done dangling off my ghost, Paulina”; he makes sure that comes off as chastising instead of actually questioning.

Paulina doesn’t get off of Phantom and instead just turns her head to look at Fenton, “and you are? What could you possibly mean by that?”.

Holy shit. By all the Ancients. She doesn’t even recognise Fenton him. What the fuck actually. For someone who was, and clearly still is, so obsessed with a version of him she clearly couldn’t be bothered to remember him. Phantom prying Paulina’s arms off him with an almost baffled raised eyebrow, “Danny Fenton? You know? The kid you guys used to call freaky all the time? My soulmate?”.

“Your what?”. Of course the last bit is the part she really cares about. She stares at Fenton, who glares, her looking back to Phantom, “I refuse to believe that”.

You know what? Fuck it. Time to absolutely horrify everyone and do something arguable really weird. Fenton grabs a fist full of Phantoms hair and kisses him like he fucking means it. Even though all he really means is that he desires to disturb Paulina and see if he can make her throw up on command.

She doesn’t throw up, sadly. She does start waving her hands around and backing away disgustedly though; an almost win. “Oh god ew! I don’t want to see that loser kissing anyone! Especially not Phantom”. Well too bad Paulina, you’re seeing it. Lily is busy clutching her pearls and shuffling away from them like they’re physically toxic to be around; which with him being literally a ghost in one of his forms that was actually an accurate statement.

Fenton does break off the kiss though, “oh so you do remember me?”. She scowls at Fenton him so he has Phantom whole ass bite Fenton’s neck with his fangs like a proper possessive asshole ghost would. Her scowl deepens and he feels very satisfied with himselves.

She backs up a bit, “unfortunately. Now at least. I would have preferred not to have the reminder”, looking to Phantom almost hopefully, “are you sure? Serious?”.

Phantom keeps a hand around Fenton’s waist, “course! It’s pretty obvious he’s supposed to be mine so”. Fenton sticks his tongue out meanly while Phantom shrugs like all of this is a given.

“No it’s really not”.

“Holy shit Phantom!”.

“Wait really!?”.

“Phantom!”.

“Wow you’ve changed! Awesome man!”.

“He came!”.

“I forgot how freaky ghosts looked”.

“HI!”.

Fenton gets pretty much shoved to the side as Phantom gets mobbed. Ahh yeah Danny did not miss all the fangirls and fanboys shit. He really didn’t. That was one thing about being a hero he could seriously do without. It was at the least uncomfortable and at the worst actively dangerous for everyone involved. Fenton huffing and shaking his arms out, going through the motions of running his bite mark and grumbling about people hogging ‘his boyfriend’. Fuck it, Fenton him is hitting up the food table and grabbing both hims a drink. The duplicate can deal with all the damn fans and freak outs.

Phantom chuckles awkwardly when Dash smacks him a few times in the arm, “solid and tough as always I see! Man it still sucks that ghosts couldn’t be on the team!”.

“And I’ll point out that would have still been unfair”; like really, Danny, especially as Phantom, could pick up the entire school building. He could kick a football into the goddamn stratosphere.

Dash smacks him again, “oh who cares”.

“I do? And did?”. Danny liked to pretend he still had good solid morals sometimes.

James starts aggressively shaking Phantom’s hand, “man it’s been too long, wow i thought I’d been misremembering that your skin, or suit I suppose, tingled!”. Phantom only laughing awkwardly in response.

“You still doing the whole super hero thing?”.

“it’s almost weird to see you all grown up?”.

“You know you practically were part of our class!”.

“Could you imagine if he still looked like a kid?”.

“Amity’s ghost issues as bad as ever!”.

“Think I could get a signature for the kids?”.

“The Fenton’s still trying to catch you?”.

Okay this was a bit much, like it always was. Most of Amity didn’t do this crap now, everyone used to him just kinda always being around. Everyone here though? Again most of them left Amity, meaning he was now a novelty to them. Phantom him was at least.

Danny’s putting a stop to this, “Hey spooky butt”, Fenton leans his face and one drink over Phantom’s shoulder in a way that could only be described as shit-eatingly sultry.

“Holy shit Danny!”.

“Looks like someone finally learned how to dress”.

“Why are you getting Phantom a drink?”.

Paulina crosses her arms and huffs, “apparently they’re dating”, waving a hand around dismissively, “soul mates or whatever”.

OoOooIooOoooOoOooh someone’s jealous. Ha! He loves to see it. Suck on that, little miss stalker.

Everyone just kind of goes silent, zone someone actually goes and shuts off the music even. Wow. His both touched and slightly horrified. Phantom takes the drink from Fenton and sips noisily at it while everyone stares; Fenton just smirking his ass off and Danny trying not to have either hims collapse to the floor in laughing fits.

Todd snapping, “what the hell does that mean”, then scowling, “wait, why do I even care?”, and stalks off to aggressively grab a rice crispy square. That starts the shouting though.

“What?!”.

“What does she mean dating!?!”.

“There’s NO WAY THAT’S SERIOUS!”.

“How!”.

“Woah woah woah huh?!?”.

“WHAT!”.

“The hell happened!”.

“How does this even make sense!”.

Paulina looks pleased with herself actually, smirking at Fenton like this somehow proved something? Danny’s completely lost on what she thinks she’s won. Like, Danny’s winning here, mass confusion was practically ninety percent of the goal. He wanted to piss off, freak out, and annoy these people. Most of them had treated him like shit, the others didn’t care, and well, two were… okay but he was best leaving them confused too. At least he doesn’t see either of them yet.

Dash near shrieking, “Fenton!”. Danny’s suddenly distinctly remembering that this guy used to slam him into walls and try to drown him. Fenton ducking down under Phantom's arm to be able to slip under it to move in front of his ghost self, “what do you want, Dash? Feel like revisiting shoving my head in toilets?”. He makes a point to have Phantom watch the interaction like a very obviously protective hawk; protective eyes for Fenton only. He is legit enjoying seeing Fenton him standing up against Dash though, especially since Fenton was taller than Dash now and more bulked up.

Someone fell off with all their working out. Ha! As if that would ever happen with Danny, he’s mere existence was a work out.

Dash glaring up at Fenton, sneering, “Fenton, still being weird I see”.

“Let me guess, I was invited to be the freak show you lot would point at and use as a way to make yourselves feel better about how your own lives turned out? What? Upset that you were right about peeking in Highschool?”.

Dash actually clenches a fist, Danny keeps Fenton glaring straight at his face, and makes Phantom’s eyes glow dangerously in warning. Dash wilts immediately, scoffing, “gotta have a ghost fight your battles for you, Fenton. Whatever”.

Fenton cackles meanly, wandering off to pick up one of the full coolers up over his head with ease and shout, “you wanna go bitch?!? You think I’m hooked up with a combative mother fucker without getting a few hits in myself!”. Yes, fear human him even slightly, please him.

Then Star stomps over, “Danny put that down”, pointing at Dash, “Dash, this isn’t Highschool anymore, grow up”, then looking at Phantom, “please discourage this?”.

Phantom blinks innocently, “why would I? It’s hot when throws shit at people, he threw Johnny’s bike two days ago, ten outta ten”.

That gets him a lot of ‘what’s’ and Paulina recoils, “you, called Fenton hot”.

Phantom shrugging like this is obvious, “well he is”. Note, Danny is fully aware that he is absolutely not hot or conventionally attractive in anyway. He just wants to see her grossed out. The disgusted look is so worth it, worth all this crap.

Kwan shakes his head, but when he smiles at both Danny’s his smile is genuine, “well good for you two then!”. Dash glances away awkwardly, Danny’s guessing those two had a falling out. Figures, Kwan was always a kinda decent dude that was just surrounded by assholes. Kwan coming over and smacking both of the Danny’s shoulders, “how’d this happen though?”.

Multiple people raise their hands, clearly wanting an expilnation for this shit too; zone the music is still off. Danny knows he’s a hot topic, as Phantom at least, but for fucks sake! Phantom and Fenton exchanging glances before Fenton crosses his arms at the group, “after I got the familial boot, this shit ass”, jabbing a thumb back at Phantom. Phantom muttering, “yes insult me harder, daddy”, purely because that was absolutely taking this a step too far. Making Fenton pause and look back at ghost him, “I can’t believe you actually said that”, then turning back to everyone, most of whom look varying degrees of freaked out, “so this shit ass, helped me get back on my feet and not be contentedly homeless and you know, when a hero type starts stealing things for you you start to question that shit. And well, romance bloomed”. There are some ‘aw’s’ and some gags and some eye rolls. Expected, many here had once had crushes on Phantom him and also viewed Fenton him as a loser; most wouldn’t be happy about this pairing not that he cares.

Phantom waving at everyone with a big smile specifically to get their attention, “we’re soul mates!”, humming, “which is a ghost thing so it’s probably really weird to the living”.

Fenton nodding, okay self… selves, time to sell this shit. Fenton pointing at his face then Phantom’s face, “it’s why we look alike”. Phantom nodding immediately, “looking like our loves makes them easier to find”.

Jesse blinks, he was dressed in an actually starched suit, “so ghosts just copy their partners appearance until they find them as ghosts? Until they die? That seems a bit insane and like it would mess with your sense of self”.

Paulina stares at the ground, “so I’ve been crushing on a Fenton look-alike, ew”. Oh Danny hadn’t even thought of that reaction! Ha! Suffer for his amusement. This was a great plan.

Fenton smirks to himself, “yup. Too bad you missed out on the real thing huh?”. She scowls deeply at him and stalks off, apparently done with his bullshit; the quick glance she gives Phantom is a little odd but maybe this will finally kill her odd obsession with half of him.

Phantom hums, shaking his head in that way that makes his hair flop around detached from gravity, “oh I can look how I’m supposed to look fully if I want to”, leaning over and pinching Fenton’s cheek, “looking like this silly little human, in general body shape, is just more tolerable around all you humans”; then running the same hand through his hair, changing it to white flames as he does so. Danny lets the fire hair ‘hang out’ on and around Phantom’s head for a bit before settling back to his standard hair.

Dash grumbling, “I’d rather look like some beast than a loser. Fire hair is cool anyways”.

Brittney sticking up a finger, “but with this, then wouldn’t you have known since you first met? When you first showed up in Amity? So why didn’t you date back in Highschool?”.

Phantom quirks an eyebrow at her like the answers obvious, because frankly it is, “He’s alive? I wasn’t about to mess his life up, then suddenly he wasn’t in school or at his home. He was alone with no real human responsibilities so I decided why not? And I could hardly do nothing when my mate could use some help”. Dating any ghost, especially himself, would have gone horrifically bad while he was still living with Maddie and Jack. The amount those two would have tried to use him and this fabricated soul mate bond thing would have been absolutely insane and very very painful eventually. Even if he had dated a blob ghost that would have ended in the ghostly ultimate destruction. Even now dating a ghost came with far too much risk to them, dating himself he could get away with since he was a very powerful ghost and also knew exactly what he was getting himself into more or less. Besides, if dating himself is what gets his ass finally truly hurt by those two he will laugh.

Star grins at the ghost, “that is very adorable”, then looking at the mass of people, “okay that’s enough mobbing them, this is to mingle with everyone not just ogle Phantom”. Oh hey, look at the old queen bee lackey being the voice of reason now, talk about moving up in the world.

A couple people grumble but things do go back to somewhat normal, the music comes back on too. Nice. Star nodding curtly to herself, then to Fenton, “now I didn’t ask this earlier but are the Fenton’s going to show up? They weren’t invited but they were never big on following rules”.

Both Danny’s chuckle at that, Fenton shaking his head, “so long as no one tells them a ghost’s here, then no”.

“Glad to hear it, now I’m going back to greet people, I imagine there will be a couple more late arrivals”. Fenton smirks meanly at that while Phantom tries to look slightly apologetic, ultimately Danny didn’t really care and they should be glad he bothered showing up to an event full of people that either ignored his existence or treated him like shit except when he was saving their hides or floating around as Phantom.

Phantom finally gets to sip his, unfortunately ectoplasm free, drink and take some food from Fenton. Danny’s tempted to have Fenton fucking hand feed Phantom just to mess with people. The tarts are sadly really bland, is this what ‘normal’ grown ups liked to eat? Hard pass. But people’s tastes seriously get this boring? How sad and a bit pathetic. Live a little! Enjoy some flavour!

Kwan elbowing Phantom, “so the ghost problem still going strong”, laughing almost awkwardly, “I haven’t exactly been keeping up, the tech industry is a hard core one!”.

Ah so he worked in tech now? He’d expected English, a teacher maybe, he seemed to like poetry if Danny’s remembering right? Phantom chuckles, “of course! I doubt that’ll ever change. Serious damage doesn’t happen too much now though, since I’m pretty solid on what kind of damage is serious damage in the living world now”. Fenton nodding, “and I get the fun of patching his dumbass up when he lets himself get hit for a pun”.

“As if you don’t do the same”.

Fenton snorts, making a point to seem amused by Phantom’s antics. Phantom smirking playfully before looking back to Kwan, “besides, no ghost these days would want to actually get on my bad side with my position, you know?”. Jack and Maddie might very loudly and very aggressively deny that ghosts could possibly have a political system but everyone else seemed to accept it at least. Besides, those two hunters being loud about anything didn’t somehow make it true, even if the town believing the whole ‘ghost king’ thing made some of them a lot more leery of Phantom. Like he’d execute them or try them for dissent or something if ‘his human people’ went against him. Some folks moved out purely because they didn’t want to be in a town under ‘some ghost royals rule’, even though Danny had firmly established his Phantom self as the good guy by now. Humans could be so annoying. None of the ghosts got pissy about being under his domain and they were more under it than any human in Amity.

Kwan looks… confused? “No I don’t think I know? Are you, like, an actual ghost cop now? Man that would be so cool”.

What. Hmm. Well. Maybe most of these people don’t know? Most of his old ‘citizens’ hadn’t been citizens for a while before Danny took the throne proper and him doing so got leaked, thank you very much Vlad. Asshole. Though having very public arguments with the Observants in the mild of the fucking sky probably didn’t help, or him actually having to go scary ghost king on that one Ancient that tried poisoning the water supply with corpses. If you’re gonna mass kill people be a proper ghost and do it with your own bare hands. Danny makes a point to have Phantom look to Fenton in confusion, Fenton facepalming, “right. Most of y’all have been gone a while”, moving his hand off his face and giving Kwan a mean smirk, “Phantom’s been the current ghost king ever since he became an adult ghost”, waving a hand around dismissively, “its been, what? eight years?”.

Phantom nodding, “and my town’s, Amity’s, known for five because Plasmius is a jerk and the Observants won’t stop hassling me”, grumbling, “one of these days I swear I’m gonna start shooting them with suction darts”.

Fenton barking a laugh as if he wasn’t fully aware of what his other self was going to say, “if that works I will mock them relentlessly”.

“Please do, anyone who doesn’t give up on political assassination attempts after the third failure deserves to be mocked”.

At this point it was like they felt obligated to try at least once per year, it was very annoying and a waste of his time. At least all the other ghosts who started beef with him provided some entertainment and stretched his muscles out, let him satisfy that pesky little protective obsession of his. The eyeballs were just jerks. At least he had fun setting the last wannabe assassin on fire. Ha.

Kwan blinks before smacking Phantom’s arm hard, “wow! Congrats then! I’m busy enough just being a desk boy usually! Being a king would be awful, no offence”, then smacking Fenton’s arm one, “and congrats on bagging royalty!”.

Todd scowling from a little bit away, “fuck, right, I forgot that asshole got that throne thing, ugh I hate this town”, and wanders off further away from Danny’s hims and their everything.

But someone’s turned off the music, again ugh, it’s Lindsey by the controls and she’s gapping at the hims, “what do you mean Phantom’s royalty!”.

Oh. This shit again.

Everyone starts yelling at the hims again.

“What!?”.

“Oh that’s awesome!”.

“For defeating that dude that abducted the town right?!?”.

“For how long!”.

“That’s absurd!”.

“I could have dated a king!”.

“We sorta went to school with royalty!”.

“Oh my god!”.

“WHAT!”.

“Why are there still ghosts then!”.

“Does that make Amity, like, a royal capital!”.

Phantom buries his face in his palms, groaning loudly. Man Danny remembers going through this back when Vlad leaked everything and the towns folk realised he wasn’t joking. So many questions, an entire press conference even. Fenton crossing his arms and scowling, “there’s an entire press release on it, google it your self, hell go track it down on TikTok I don’t care”.

Phantom sighing again and removing his hand from his face, looking at the people in his line of sight, “yes it’s the throne the guy who abducted the town had. It’s only been eight years and the towns know for five. No I’m not going to mass control the ghosts to stay out of Amity, freedom is a big deal to ghosts. Amity is technically a royal capital but it’s not in the Infinite Realm so that doesn’t actually mean much. And yes it is absurd”, gesturing a hand at his head and making the green flaming crown appear for a few seconds before sending it away again.

Fenton pretty much gets shoved away from Phantom again as everyone pretty much mobs the ghost, Kwan patting an annoyed Fenton’s shoulder, “so what have you been doing? Outside of apparently dealing with Phantom’s craziness all the time”.

(Phantom holds up his hands, “alright alright, just stop shoving my mate around. Geez”. Only a couple of people apologise)

Fenton huffs, at least the man sounded genuine, after all most people didn’t expect Danny Fenton to amount to much of anything. Homeless and jobless was the expectation. It was also almost accurate, if he wasn’t Phantom at least. The only reason he had an apartment at all was because he was better at making weapons than his parents were, even if he sold his more or less illegally. The G.I.W. would never approve someone who was ‘in league with the dead’ to deal ghost tech in any form, even if they did, Jack and Maddie would try to keep him out. At least Vlad pulled his weight by letting Danny sell the more important stuff under the Dalvco brand, like shields and ghost-plant killer that secretly doubled as a Blood Blossom spray. His general weapons were blackmarket only though, fuck the government. “If I told you I’d have to kill you”. Kwan rolls his eyes and Fenton snorts after a beat, “I sell weapons on the blackmarket”.

… It takes a bit but, Kwan blinks, “oh you’re serious”.

(Phantom chuckles awkwardly, “yes I’m a lot stronger now than I was back then, I don’t flaunt that though”.)

Fenton shrugging, “it’s ghost weapons, dude. More ghost friendly, Phantom friendly, and more effective than what FentonWorks or Dalvco produce. And not legislated to the zone and back like G.I.W. tech, plus fuck those guys, no Amity Parker current or past would buy shit from those assholes”.

“Yeah I absolutely remember them shooting live rockets at little kids that one time”, Kwan shakes his head, “I guess that makes sense, can’t do it legally because of being publicly pro-ghost?”.

(Danny internally sighs as most of the group shove pens and paper and whatnot at Phantom, ugh).

“Got it in one, got it in one. It doesn’t make good money but it does make some. Enough for a place to live and cheap food, I’m not moving into the gz regardless of someone’s insistence on how cozy it is”.

Kwan actually takes that comment in stride, good for him, “I mean, you’re gonna be there one day anyways? So why rush it? Even if Phantom would probably prefer you there sooner than later”, the guy scratches his head, “man that must be weird. Being a ghosts soul mate or whatever. Chelsea marrying that old guy was weird enough, a dead guy is on another level”.

Chelsea married a sugar daddy? Really? Okay… Get that bread he guesses. Fenton snorting, “if she’s making bank and living the rich life because of that then good for her”, shrugging, “and outside of him running of to throw fists and laying on the ceiling, it’s not much different from dating a human. Getting bitched at about royal shit is way more weird”, looking down at himself and sticking his arms away from his torso some, “the clothing’s nice though”.

“That’s ghost clothing?”.

Fenton smirks, “yup. This shirt is probably older than our parents. And I think the boots are made from Minotaur hide”. He doesn’t think, he knows they are. Ghost clothing was badass like that.

(Phantom rolls his eyes at Jasper, “no I’m not going to just make people my knights when they die”.)

James pops his head over, “that would freak me out to wear, damn aren’t you worried about ecto-contamination and shit? I’d prefer to stick to stuff made by human hands, cool though”.

Was it weird? He didn’t think so. “There’s so little ecto on it that it really doesn’t matter, besides if clothing was bad for my health Phantom would kill me via cuddles”. Kwan bursts out laughing, and nods repeatedly.

James nods a little, “oh yeah! I guess that would be right huh?”.

The Danny makes a point to have Fenton jerk a little from Phantom just kinda appearing right next to Fenton. Kwan putting a hand to his chest and James yelping a little. Fenton glancing at Phantom, “got bored of being mobbed or doing signatures?”. Ancients everyone wanted signatures and if Phantom wasn’t the duplicate Danny’s sure his hand would be sore for at least ten minutes. Ugh. signing shit for Craig’s goddamn six children was wild though, his poor wife. Phantom pouting, “yes”.

“I did warn you that would happen”.

“I wasn’t going to not show up, that would be rude!”.

At least the music turns back on, thank everything. Dale spotting and hearing where Phantom disappeared to and popping over, “everyone’s glad you came, even if being around a ghost again is a little off putting and weird”.

Phantom rubs his neck, “me being more powerful probably doesn’t help”. Fenton shoving him a little good naturedly.

Dale acts like Phantom didn’t even say anything, “and yeah Fenton was kinda invited in hopes you’d be more likely to show, since both of you were seen near each other a lot”.

Kwan gives the other man a disappointed look, “dude”. Making Dale blink, “oh right yeah that was mean”, and just stares off blankly a little.

Wow. Fucking figured but damn. Jerks. Though right, wasn’t Dale the guy that had some brain damage? Eh, Danny shouldn’t be too mean to the guy. Still making Fenton scowl though, “why am I not surprised, it’s not like I was ever close with any of you shitheads”. James wanders away very quickly at that, and at Phantom growling a little. Kwan scratching his head, “sorry about that, Dale’s not the best at brain to mouth censoring”. Dale blinking and still looking a little far off but nodding, “ah, yeah no I’m not. Eh? At least dogs don’t care about that”.

Phantom brightening up immediately, “oh yeah! Cujo can be a handful but he’s a good boy”.

Dale blinks again, “I don’t think I could handle a ghost dog, all dogs are great dogs though”.

See that? Danny could agree with. Cujo might cause a lot of damage and might drag him around by his ankles but he was still just the best. And getting to have interactions with someone or something that had no expectations of him and couldn’t be disappointed by him was nice. All the pup wanted was a playmate, belly rubs, and to guard his master; nothing more nothing less. Cujo didn’t care if Danny was a king or if he was on bad terms with his biological makers or if he was a little out of touch with other beings or if he technically was an entity that should be impossible to exist in the first place. Dogs were nice like that, unlike people. So both Danny’s nod.

Then, as if summoned by the dog that ‘ruined’ her life, Val shows up. The good ol’ Red Huntress. At least they got along somewhat these days, her and Phantom at least.

Her voice is harsh, “what the fuck”. Ah so she spotted Phantom. This was gonna be fun and possibly annoying or stupid or a lot of things. She stomps over, glaring bloody murder at Phantom who whistles and glances around like an innocent little angel. Man Danny loved to rile her up sometimes, and she couldn’t even shoot him this time! She grabs Fenton’s baggy sleeve roughly and physically drags him off. Leaving a blinking Phantom, “well at least this time it’s him being pestered and not the ghost with the most”. Kwan laughs.

Fenton blinks at Val, “sup, Val. Why are you dragging me around?”. As if he doesn’t know exactly why. Phantom was here and she wanted to know why, the Red Huntress did talk to Fenton him sometimes, since he made ghost shit and everything. Plus the ‘Fenton’ knowledge he had from Jack and Maddie. Danny’s ninety percent sure she suspects him of knowing exactly who was under the helmet, She drags him all the way over to the food tables before responding to him, “I’ve been here all of ten minutes and all I am hearing about, besides people telling me what their jobs are now and Ali trying to get me to join her pyramid scheme, is that you are apparently dating Phantom. What the actual fresh fuck, Danny”.

Fenton huffs, “let me have my love life, gosh”, smirking, “what? Do you have a problem with gay couples?”; that’s not the issue and he knows it and she knows that he knows it.

She swats him over the head immediately, “he’s a ghost you dumbass”, huffing, “I know you tend to side with ghosts but dating Phantom? Really?”, rubbing her temples, “like yes, if you’re going to have a thing for the dead then Phantom’s acceptable but what are you two doing?”.

Fenton smirks, “what we’re doing is being little shits and cuddle buddies”.

“You know what I mean, you shit”.

Fenton chuckles, “and I couldn’t make this anymore clear, I could described what Phantom’s mouth tastes like if you’d like?”; of course Danny could actually have Fenton do that since Danny knew what his own mouth tasted like.

Val glares, crosses her arms, and looks from Fenton to Phantom, from one Danny to the other… then she does it again. There it was, the recognition. “What the?”.

Lily walks over to grab some food, “oh yeah let me guess, noticed the similarities? Apparently they’re soul mates”, eyeing Fenton, “ghosts am I right?”. Danny can tell instantly that Val doesn’t buy that shit, like at all. Figures, she was a ghost hunter after all… and she knew about Vlad’s sorry half-dead ass. AND she’s seen Elle’s human half which was basically just a female version of Fenton him.

Fenton smirks at Lily, “they’re weird, but exactly my kind of weird”, and fucking winks at her. Lily shaking her head and heading back over to a bunch of the other ex-cheerleader girls.

Val looks to Fenton slowly, “Danny? Are you? Are you him?”.

Fenton finger guns, “with him you mean, ha!”, then dropping his hands and shrugging, “it shouldn’t have taken you this long, Red. Like my excuse? All the reactions have been to die for”. She smacks him over the head again, expected, she always did love to rough up his sorry ass. “You know Phantom’s not gonna like if you bruise me up too much”.

“I hate you”.

“No you don’t”.

“Fuck you”.

“You wish you could”.

She throws her hands up dramatically, “I can’t with you! Oh my Zone!”, dropping her hands and glaring at Fenton, “you could have just fucking told me, you know”.

Fenton shrugging, stealing up a little rainbow rice crispy square, “eh, it was better off I didn’t. I’m a lot to get involved in and it’s better that people just don’t”, pointing the square at her before taking a bite, “tough shit or not you still die if someone lops your head off”. Sometimes he did want to try and stop her from the whole huntress thing but who was he to tell someone to not do stupid dumb reckless shit? Plus all the ghosts actually liked her, and that shit counted for a lot.

She frowns at him, “that’s a bit depressing you know? Is that why you’re such a loner?”, shaking her head and glancing at a wall, “I guess I’m not really one to talk though, huh?”.

“No shit, Sherlock. We’re both pretty irredeemably fucked, I just have less of a choice about it”.

“You have a choice“.

“Look me in my half dead god king face and say that again”.

She flinches at that, fucking good, he didn’t have a whole lot of tolerance for people telling him he could just walk away. As if everything wouldn’t go to utter shit without his asses involvement. As if people wouldn’t die or wind up experimented on. As if his realm could function and maintain itself without its king. As if there was anything better for him to do other than rot in bed. As if this wasn’t all he was goddamn good for and all he knew how to do anymore. Everything else is gone and there ain’t no getting it back. He’s fucked. Absolutely, completely, and utterly, fucked. And saying otherwise was like pissing on all his fucking suffering and sacrifices. He was needed as Phantom, as a sovereign and protector. He was needed as Fenton, as the interspecies liaison and defender. And that was all he was needed as. Never anything more and never anything less. It wasn’t his choice to make anymore, even if it’s a choice he would make over and over again if it was up to him. Nothing was changing that till either every part of him collapsed or the universe did.

Fenton huffs, “come on, let’s mingle instead of wallowing in our mildly crappy existences”.

She stands firm, making him eye her, “you do like it though, right? I do”.

Even if he didn’t, even if he hated every second of it, he’d still say yes just so she wouldn’t pity him or try to carry more of the load on her very mortal shoulders. He did enjoy it though, so there’s that, meaning it’s not a lie when Fenton says, “duh. I’m a combative mother fucker, even if somehow no one noticed that trait in Fenton”. This time she lets him drag her off with him.

Phantom giving both of them smiles, “have fun catching up, babe?”. Fenton snickering, “of course babe”. Val glares murderously at both hims but doesn’t call him out on his bullshit.

Silver waving at Val, basically killing the conversation Silver’d been having with his duplicate about their greenhouses poppy flowers. It’s was weird someone being so interested in just… growing a bunch of poppy’s. Like fuck, way to show you have a real hunky-dory life. They actually teared up a little at successfully growing an orange one… Sliver speaking up, “you still stuck in Amity?”.

Val nodding easily, “yeah, what can I say, I like the stupid town. I doubt I’ll ever leave, it’s got me for life”.

Yeah… she was probably right about that. She was married to the game less than him but still was all the same. Her it was more that she didn’t want to stop and felt responsible, rather than genuinely not being able to stop.

Phantom putting his hands behind his head, “yeah, her and her dad run a pretty solid tech shop these days, I get my thermoses fixed there since the Fenton’s are still crazy”. Fenton snorting, “tell me about it”. Did Danny actually need to be doing that? Obviously not. But it was a chance to have Phantom talk with Red outside of combat, and to familiarise her with thermoses in case the worst happened.

After all, losing all his human connections is what made Dan and that’s exactly the way things were now. It was bound to happen if he ever lost his protective drive. Protection and combat are his only drives, one without the other is a problem for his mind. So he’d keep his one connection with Val, for as little as that might be worth in the end, and he’ll keep his protective streak going till it burns him to ash.

Val rolls her eyes at the two hims, “helping the town, even that little bit, is worth it”.

“I hear ya, I hear ya”.

“Hey Fenton! Does Jazz still live in Amity?!”.

Fenton blinks, leaning away from his little group going on and stares at Dash, “fucking no?! Why would she?! She literally left the day she turned eighteen how did you not notice that?!?”, scowling, “and no! I’m not calling her for you! We barely talk anymore anyways!”. Which kinda sucked but she got to live her normal human life that she very much enjoyed.

Dash blinks, “damn!”. Ugh.

Silver blinking at Fenton, “oh? It’s ’cause of the Fenton’s isn’t it?”.

Phantom sighs, rubbing his temples, “I took her away personally. The Fenton’s, aware that Danny wasn’t going to, and in their eyes shouldn’t, take over FentonWorks, burned her scholarships and tried to stop her from leaving. I got her out and a few towns over, saw her off and all that”.

Fenton nodding, “which I was very relieved over, that had been Hell a little bit-”. Silver cringes. “-she’s doing well for herself though, has her own therapist practice and all that. Doesn’t want anything to do with Maddie or Jack, same as me”, shrugging, “she also wants nothing to do with ghosts, so I’m kinda an at arms length sibling if you will”.

“Since you’re dating a ghosts and illegally selling ghost tech? Yeah I can get that”.

Fenton nodding, “ditto. And if she did show up back here I’d slap some sense into her and tell her to get lost before she regrets it”; ahh getting maybe a little bit too real there but oh well. Jazz was a Fenton, which meant that Amity was a place she had to stay the hell away from; Jack and Maddie she had to stay the hell away from. Hopefully she never forgets that.

Then Star pops back in, “alright that’s everyone who’s coming!”. Getting a bunch of raised glasses and food stuff in return. A dark-skinned man with dreads coming in behind her, or… rolling in behind her.

That was…

Tucker was in a wheelchair?!?! What happened! Half the damn point was those two not getting fucking hurt! Was there no point? Had it been a hopeless endeavour?

It takes a bit to avoid dissolving Phantom. As it is his ghost selves eyes flare up a little and his ecto-field wiggles concerningly. Val kicks Phantom in the boot, to stabilise him maybe? He doesn’t know and he doesn’t care. He needs to know what happened, how it happened, could he have done something different? Fenton absently muttering, “I’m going to go say hi”. Val giving him a bit of a supportive back pat that he barely notices, she physically blocks Phantom him from following with a whispered, “Tucker’s Danny Fenton’s old friend, not Phantom’s stay put you”.

Sliver nodding, “I guess it’s no surprise you’re an over protective boyfriend”.

Fenton blinking down at Tucker, “Tuck”. And the guy raises an eyebrow, “been a while since I’ve been called that”; making Fenton, and Phantom, wince. Star walks away quickly, easily picking up on the awkward and probably way to private atmosphere.

Fenton blinks again, “you’re in a wheelchair”.

“Yeah I noticed”, Tucker sighing when Danny doesn’t really have a response to that that wasn’t horrifically insensitive. Tucker putting his hands on his lap, “Danny, you kinda lost the right to ask a while ago, but since you’re concerned enough to talk to me properly for the first time in nearly fourteen years, it’s genetic. I have a type of muscular dystrophy. Now can I get past and grab some food or?”.

Again, both Danny’s wince, him realising that the Fenton one was practically blocking Tucker from getting his… wheelchair past. Fenton stepping to the side with a neck rub, “sorry about that”.

“Whatever, man”.

Danny just kind of stares as the man goes, it hurt a little. The dismissal. But he expected it and it was okay. At least… at least it was nothing he could have done anything about. If anything this means that Danny was right to push him away. Being involved with ghosts would have gotten him killed probably. But… getting diagnosed and eventually having to use mobility aids had probably been crushing to him… and Danny hadn’t been there to support him. Any ounce of support he tried to give now would just seem hollow and like pity. Former friend was the right label for them and he should just let the man go, shouldn’t follow after.

He does of course. Fenton him does. Because the wheelchair and subsequent mild protective freakout has thrown him off kilter. He can tell the man’s glaring at the food table, Fenton him can see it in the reflection of some of the glasses. “Danny I’m really not interested in ‘catching up’ with you”.

Fenton stares a little before Danny can remember himself and that humans find staring creepy. Shaking his head, “right yeah, that makes sense”. Maybe he’d have better luck and less hostility with Phantom him? “Can I ask what you do at least? Then I’ll get out of your hair. You don’t have to ask me shit, or you can, it’s whatever”.

Tucker actually smacks a fist on the table, “I know the only damn reason you’re even trying is because I’m disabled now, so fuck off”.

Shit. Okay. That wasn’t how he was trying to be interpreted. “Tuck-”.

“Don’t”.

Fenton snarls, properly snarling, startling his former friend, “just because we stopped being friends doesn’t mean I stopped giving a damn. But fine, fuck it, whatever”, and basically stomps off. He doesn’t turn around when Tucker mutters a possibly regretful, “shit”. If the man wants to be an ass then fine, let him be an ass by himself. It’s better Danny doesn’t care anyways, it’s better they end on bad terms. Fuck it and fuck him.

Val’s kicking Phantom him again, since Phantom had snarled too. Shit whatever. Fuck it if he’s freaking anyone out, they’re all assholes anyways. Val eyeing the ticked of Fenton, “your mood is rubbing off on someone”.

“I’m fully fucking aware, Val”.

She smacks him over the head, “well pull your shit together, you can’t expect him to want to be friendly with you after all this time”.

“Yeah well I didn’t expect to basically get told to go fuck myself either, jackass”.

Both Val and Silver frowning, Silver shaking their head, “okay yeah that’s a little rude, but he might be going through some stuff, you don’t know. You staring at the chair probably didn’t help”.

“My mind goes to worst case scenarios so excuse me if the thought of someone I used to be extremely close with getting into some kind of horrible accident was upsetting”.

Phantom huffing and crossing his arms, “being dead or surrounded by the dead tends to do that”. Now he wishes Tucker hadn’t shown up at all. He’s going to be pissed off about this for days, fucking asshole.

Val sighs, “okay you’re not wrong on that, I thought the same. At least I didn’t freaking ask though, Danny. I thought you were just going to say hi, not be an insensitive jerk”.

Fenton scowls at her, sticking his arms out, “I didn’t fucking ask, he just assumed I wanted to, which yeah was right”, and grumbles a little incoherently before taking some breaths to avoid snarling at anyone else especially not the only human connection he still had. Ugh.

Val shakes her head at him, “okay I guess you can get to be annoyed, not mad, annoyed. Star’s civil with me even though we had our falling out”, crossing her arms, “Paulina not so much”.

Fenton grumbling, “if Sam had shown up I’d expect her to slap me at this point. Fucking zone”.

Star hums, having apparently made her way over after overhearing her name, “yeah she replied in the discord chat that she wouldn’t deign to show up to rejoin a shitty town full of people that were morally horrific”.

“Ancients that’s messed up, what the Zone Sam”. Fenton blinks and shakes his head, what the hell happened with her? He doesn’t want to know. Was she always that egocentric and holier than thou? If so it was probably better for everyone she had no say in him and what he does. Did childhood him just suck at picking friends? “Wait. There’s a discord?”.

Star puts a hand on her hip and cocks an eyebrow, “yup. All anyone could find on you was an address so we couldn’t exactly give you a code in”.

Val shaking her head and forcing a little laugh, eyeing Fenton, “if I had known no one had your number I would have sent it. I figured you just had no interest in messaging anyone, like me”, she waves a hand dismissively, “I confirmed I was showing up and dipped”.

Fucking great. Love it.

Danny notices Tucker pushing himself over to talk to Jesse. Danny chooses to ignore that. If he sends Phantom over he might just accidentally start a brawl and that was a very bad idea.

Star shakes her head, “would it kill either of you to be a bit more sociable?”.

Fenton immediately responding with, “yes”. Phantom with, “already did”. And Val with, “probably”. Making Star sigh and Silver laugh; Silver walking off right after, Danny pretending not to notice them point aggressively at Tucker. Ugh.

“Phantom! Come meet my husband! He’s heard stories about you and got curious!”. Phantom glancing to the side at Ashely then to Fenton with a quirked eyebrow.

Fenton waving him off, “go, I’ll be fine, you stupid celebrity”. Danny makes a point to have Phantom give Fenton a quick peck on the cheek, making Fenton blush a little, before running off. Val’s barely restrained look of horror is so worth it and definitely improves his mood.

Star shakes her head, “well at least it looks like you’re in a better mood now, this is supposed to be fun”.

“Then why are all the drinks liquor free?”.

“Because Todd has a liquor problem and I know you know it”.

Okay yeah that wasn’t wrong. All the local bartenders knew him by first and last name, zone some knew the middle one too. Sure they also knew Danny by first and both lasts but that was for an entirely different reason… he did also drink though so like it was a toss up. Then she glances to the side, winces slightly, and jambs a thumb over her shoulder, “anyway’s I’m going to check on everyone else. See if more people are better off not being in the same room”. Ouch. True but she didn’t need to say it. Star pointing at Val, “you’re coming whether you like it or not, you can talk to Danny whenever you want”. Val grumbles but doesn’t put up a fight.

Fenton shaking his head and laughing a little to himself, now what should he do? He frankly didn’t feel like dealing with anyone now, especially not all these chuckle fucks. He’s half tempted to just wander into the bathroom and stare at the mirror for twenty minutes self actualising or whatever. Grimacing, yeah he’s gonna do that, plus all this ecto free food was grating on his stomachs nerves.

He could eat normal foods, it’s just the ecto made it taste better and easier on his system to digest. Didn’t help that he grew up eating contaminated shit, thanks Maddie and Jack, and basically only ate contaminated shit after the whole half dying thing; it was an easy thing to do in Amity after all since everything was contaminated. But this was Elmerton and the food was definitely from outside the city, probably to specifically ensure it was ecto free. Yuck.

So Fenton meanders his way over to the gym bathroom/locker room, stuffing a hand in his pocket as he goes. Him popping into the sink and mirror area, kicking the door closed-ish and pulling out an ectoplasm vial at the same time, tossing it back without much hesitation. He didn’t hear anyone else in here and plus he also didn’t super care, which fine was partly because his attention was split into two different places and almost no one would really genuinely question him outside of Val obviously.

Granted Val would know exactly what he was doing and why.

“Did you seriously think I’d been hurt bad?”.

“Fuck!”, Fenton jumps, tossing the vial in the air, (Phantom jerking in his conversation about welding of all things) at the frankly very unexpected sound of Tucker’s voice. It took some doing to actually startle him, but guesses he was in his own head enough that someone was able to pull it off. Didn’t help that he just came from a room full of people whose scents he doesn’t recognise anymore. It bothered him a little. Fenton turning away from the mirror and looking down at Tucker, “uh?”. And then the fucking ecto vial clinks on to the ground and rolls across it in that loud way glass tends to do. Well fuck him, this shit is entirely his fault right oh wow this is instantly awkward.

Tucker stares down at the vial on the ground before looking back up at Fenton, “new question, what was that”.

See that did not sound like a question. Okay, self, shit, what to say? If this was anyone else, other than Val, he’d just say it was a weird Amity energy drink and he was tired and to piss off. Zone he’s tempted to say that crap anyways, but Tucker had sounded… apologetic, even if he’d startled Danny. He can’t not lie though. Well… technically, if he mentally twisted things around enough, calling ecto an addiction for him wasn’t wrong per say. He legit couldn’t exist without ecto, his system was dependent on it, so like, he could go with that? And now Tucker’s glaring at him like he’s thinking about ramming into Danny. Fenton blinking before shrugging awkwardly, “addiction’s compulsory, or whatever. And yes?”. Crap this was a really stupid plan of action. Way more stupid than dating himself, Ancients.

Tucker blinks, “addiction?”, shaking his head, “I don’t even care about the first question now”, frowning, “well I do, you jerk, but less”.

That’s fair, Danny thinks. Fenton shrugs, “that accident fucked me up, okay? Kinda needed ectoplasm ever since. Which sure, wasn’t exactly something I wanted to share with anyone. And maybe I didn’t deal with that well, but I think I dealt with that right. And I guess that’s all that matters”. Okay cool, so this is how he’s going to explain ditching them as friends, great. Fuck Danny’s so goddamn stupid. ‘Addiction’ was not on his bingo card of how to explain how weird he was to people… he really should update that stupid card.

Tucker’s glaring again like Danny’s done something wrong, except Danny doesn’t know why Fenton him is getting glared at this time. “Are you lying to me?”.

Fenton glaring back before sticking out his tongue, which was coated in faintly glowing green of course. Pulling his tongue back in, “do you know anything else that looks like that besides ecto? ‘Cause I sure don’t”; that had a bit more bite than he meant it to but oh well, he’s still kinda ticked off with this man so…

“And it doesn’t get you high?”.

Okay see now Danny’s getting actually ticked again. Fucking damn it. “No. Now if you’re going to just ride my ass then let me out so I can go somewhere that isn’t here”.

Tucker doesn’t move, in fact he locks his damn wheels, “no. Because that last conversation made me feel like an asshole and I refuse to feel like an asshole over you deciding to isolate yourself”, gesturing at the vial that’s still on the ground, “especially if all of it was over some stupid ectoplasm issue, you jack ass”.

“So what I’m hearing is you’re just being selfish”.

“So what if I am, I think I’ve earned that from you”.

Danny makes Fenton him relax over that, because if anything letting people take their issues out on him was something he was good for. “Ugh I guess that’s okay then”.

Now Tucker’s glaring again, “what”.

For fucks sake. “Dude, you’ve known me for years, since when did I ever put myself first? If you want to use me as a punching bag to unload your issues on, go right ahead”, snorting, “cause yeah, I’m well fucking aware it’s been earned. If you were Dash I’d tell you to piss off again”.

Tucker sticks his arms out, basically smacking the door, “so you’ll tell me to ‘piss off’ over not wanting to talk to you but won’t over me wanting to berate you?! Seriously?!”.

“Yes”. Fuck that was weird wasn’t it? Do normal human people do that? Or was he coming off as a massive hypocrite? Or as a masochist maybe?

Tucker pinches the bridge of his nose, still doesn’t unlock his chair though, “damn it, you have a bunch of mental issues now, don’t you”.

“Rude”.

“Yeah well now I just feel like more of an asshole, so there”.

They stare at each other for a beat, Danny’s trying really hard to mostly ignore Phantom having to play nice with Dale and his loose tongue again, apparently the guy really liked bluey. Fuck when was the last time Danny got really genuinely into any tv show? Had he even watched one since he dropped out? Crap probably not. If he had down time he was usually laying on the floor staring at the ceiling with a music playlist running, or having a quick drink with Val, or trying to study ghost history, or replaying an old video game he’s beaten hundreds of times just to feel young and carefree again.

Wow that had to be unhealthy. Not that he really cared about that. Blinking at Tucker, “so… what do you do for work”.

“I’m not telling you”.

“Fuck you too then I guess”.

Tucker puts his face in a hand and sighs very deeply with a muttered, “I was right, I really should not have come”, before lifting his head up and glaring up at Danny with goddamn pity in his eyes, “look, okay, I am sorry about brushing you off if you were genuinely worried about me having been badly injured and I guess I’m sorry you have this addiction issue, but you brought it on yourself. Me and Sam could have helped, you ass”.

“Tuck-”, crap he’s back to calling him ‘Tuck’ goddamn it, “-my head was a fucking mess after that shit, I have literally no memory from the three months after that crap. Just a boat load of pain cutting straight to sitting up in bed violently vomiting up ectoplasm. Excuse me for making some jack ass choices but again, I stand by those choices”, running a hand through his hair and leaning his ass back against the sink, “I thought that shit was gonna end with me dead, sooner rather than later, and I didn’t want to take you guys down with me. So I had to choose between the life I had with you guys and the moral thing to do. Kinda an obvious choice there, to me”. Honestly? Why was he explaining this shit now? Was it because his life was somehow less chaotic now? Or because he was an adult ghost and fully grown into what and who he was? Loneliness perhaps? Or did he just not want Tucker to actually hate him?

Tucker stares at him before wheezing, “Christ I wish you had just told at least me that”, massaging his temples and using the chairs arms to rest his elbows on, “if I remember right, which I might not, you basically didn’t talk and just stared blankly, it was creepy but your parents assured everyone you wouldn’t have any ‘long term’ issues. That you were just recovering and in shock. Not that dumbass fourteen year olds knew shit about shock-”.

Seriously? Seriously! What the Hell! Fenton blurting out, “what the zone is wrong with them! in what world would getting electrocuted by literally billions of volts not have a lasting effect?!”.

“-me and Sam basically carried you everywhere and babied you and then you suddenly flipped on us and avoided us like the plagu- wait what”.

Tucker looks horrified, crap that was not Danny’s goal. Oh well, he’s in it now. Fenton blinking, “Jack and Maddie sucking is what”.

“Dude”.

Fenton swallowing and rubbing his neck, “you guys were taking care of me?”. Okay so maybe Danny had been more of a jerk to them than he realised but still. Tucker glares so Danny bites the bullet and has Fenton respond properly, Tucker was an adult now not some teen who’d do stupid shit like follow Danny Phantom’s sorry ass into combat, “it was something like four billion volts, it was a miracle I wasn’t instantly vaporised into ash. As it was apparently Jazz came home to them attempting to bury what they thought was my dead body in the back yard, apparently I woke up during the argument and crawled out and ran into trees for three days”.

“They told us you were missing because you were in another cities hospital! They tried to bury you?!?”. Somehow Jack and Maddie just keep getting worse. Tucker wheezes again, “well regardless of you becoming an asshole, I’m glad you didn’t die, holy shit”, staring at Danny, “is that why you were so weird about my wheelchair? You thought something like that had happened to me?”. He takes Fenton’s wince as a yes. “Ugh fine you’re forgiven for that then, I can’t hold what’s probably severe trauma and ptsd against someone”, pointing at Danny, “you were still a jerk then and now though. And you basically shoving me away was awful and basically wrecked me mentally for a long time”.

Yeah Danny knew neither Sam nor Tucker took him pushing them away well, but being upset or depressed or confused or worried was better than getting caught in an undead fist fight or losing a limb or getting contaminated by him which he had thought back then would have been extremely dangerous. “I thought it was for the best, okay? And I didn’t mean to hurt you when I was basically hurting myself”.

“How the hell was push me away from my best friend ‘for the best’?!?”.

“Because I was all fucked up and I didn’t want my shit fucking you up”. That was part of it, at first anyways. Then it quickly became more of him having to be the hero and get into fights and not wanting anyone getting caught in the crossfires and waiting them to keep the ability to live normal fucking lives unlike him.

Tucker stares at him like he actually somehow gets it, huh, Danny didn’t see that one coming. “So you thought you’d get us sick? Or something? Just by being around us? Okay I know you’ve always been a bit of a dumbass but goddamn it, Danny”.

“I don’t know what the hell is happening in there but I’m taking a piss in the ladies room! what in the!”.

Both Fenton and Tuck (and Phantom for that matter) jerk a little from whoever shouted from outside the bathroom/locker room. Fenton cringing his face up, “right, this is a public space”.

Tucker sighing, “maybe not the best place for this crap conversation”, unlocking his wheels and roll backwards out of the little sink and mirror area doorway, “I’m still mad at you though”.

“That’s fair. I’m not looking to rekindle friendship or whatever”. Danny uses the man’s distraction to have Fenton telekinetically move the vial back into his hand and pocket.

“Seriously. Jerk”.

Fenton shrugs as he moves out of the little doorway, “I only really hang out with ghosts now and I actually am unsafe to be around too much if whoever doesn’t have a tolerance or protective gear, the ecto-contamination and shit”.

“That’s… pretty shitty actually”.

Fenton giving back a snide, “gee thanks”.

“You still shouldn’t have pushed us away. But I guess you still want to do that, so you do you I guess. Its not like I actually know you, or you me, anymore”.

“Yup”. Tucker bashes him in the back of the legs with the chair for that, “hey!”. Danny making Fenton sigh at the glare… and at Dash attempting to drill Phantom about football like that mattered anymore. Phantom couldn’t be sighing at Dash after all, images to maintain and all. “Look, Tucker, you got pissy over me staring at your wheelchair, that tells me your life’s doing pretty alright actually. If I was in a wheelchair and someone was staring I’d assume they were trying figure out how to use it to kill me. I sell weapons illegally and am dating a death god king, I’m not really shit you wanna be involved in”.

“What about Valerie?”, Tucker making a bit of a face, “that soul mate ghost thing I’ve been hearing is real?”.

Danny is absolutely about to throw Val under the bus, servers her right for still hanging around his half dead ass. “She… is a coworker let’s say, a not legal one”, not technically a lie, the Red Huntress wasn’t legally allowed to do what she did, it was just that no one could actually stop her. Thank fuck for that. Fenton huffing, “and we mostly only talk over drinks or if we run into each other during ghost attacks”. Then smirking, “and oh yeah me and Phantom are fucking match made in hell”. His own personal hell of protective desire and pain.

“You know what, you’re right. You’re an asshole, a criminal, and a necrophiliac; I’m out. I almost want to try but you stopped being worth it years ago. Still glad you’re not dead though”.

On one hand Danny wants to smack the guy, on the other hand Danny’s getting exactly what he wanted; and ain’t that just a terrible thing?

“How’d you find out you needed ectoplasm?”.

Oh Ancients, well… nothing was weirder than the truth with that one and fuck it at this point. “First time I ran into a whisp ghost I, kinda, couldn’t, exactly, stop myself from eating it”.

“You… ate a ghost?”.

“It was a really bad day and I’d rather you keep that in confidence”. Man he legit wants to get out of this damn bathroom/locker room now. Ugh. He starts walking to the door.

Tucker makes a gagging sound, muttering, “no one would even believe me anyway. I’m starting to think he did actually do me a favour as kids and that kinda pisses me off a little. I’ve spent too long being mad at that shit ass for me to feel good about that shit”.

Danny making Fenton pause at the door, one hand on it, “dude, I have freaky good hearing, go see your therapist and I hope you have one. You’re not the lost cause in this bathroom”, and then pushes his way out, leaving his old friend and the friendship more firmly behind.

He absolutely has Phantom ‘rescue’ Fenton immediately, throwing an arm around Fenton’s neck and ruffling his hair with the other hand, “I have escaped Dash and him ‘regaling me’ with his glory days”.

Danny makes Fenton sigh to seem tired, “that’s…”, brightening up, “thats good. He really did peek in Highschool, just like he said he would”. A self fulfilling prophecy, Danny pretty much did the exact same. The biggest jock and the biggest loser both fucking themselves up in the end; how ironic.

Danny makes Fenton sigh to seem tired, “that’s…”, brightening up, “that’s good. He really did peek in Highschool, just like he said he would”. A self fulfilling prophecy, Danny pretty much did the exact same. The biggest jock and the biggest loser both fucking themselves up in the end.

Then Val goes and actually rescues his ass, stomping over, “let’s bounce. I don’t want to be here or around these people anymore, and I want to get shitfaced until I start putting holes in walls or pass out on your crappy apartment floor”.

Fenton quirks an eyebrow, “you have literally never been over? How do you know it’s shitty?”.

“Because it’s your apartment”.

“Fuck you”.

Phantom quirking an eyebrow at her and tilting his head, “and who pissed you off?”.

Val grimaces, “Paulina, I swear she needs to get stabbed a couple times”.

Phantom laughing while Fenton gestures at Val with both of his hands, “no. Bad. If you start stabbing little miss pretty puddle I’ll get stuck having to clean up the blood before the cops show up-”. He can feel Tucker’s concerned eyes on him as the man wheels out of the bathroom/locker room. “-and I really don’t feel like being on crime scene clean up duty”.

Phantom perking up, “eh I could just phase it through the ground”.

“Don’t encourage her murderous desire”.

Val grins, though clearly still thinking this is super weird, “no, let him speak, he makes good points”.

“His only point is letting you make a point with a knife point”. She scowls at Fenton’s joke immediately, nice, at least that makes him feel legitimately a bit better. Either way Danny is content to leave this place before shit goes anymore south, and he has frankly had enough of humans and their weirdly boring plain interests. Looking at the crowd, it actually looked like some others had left. Todd, no surprise there. Charlie that he doesn’t think he ever even talked to as Fenton, he’s not sure if they talked in high school either though. Two of the jocks also looked to have bounced, Dash was still her of course and Scott didn’t look like he actually wanted to be talking to him. Ha. Brittany doesn’t look to be around either, meaning Sarah’s probably gone too if she was ever even here.

And then.

Of fucking course.

His ghost sense goes off.

Val’s reaction is instant, her folding out a blaster, the second she notices both Danny’s straightening up, stiff, and glancing around. Danny making both hims relax with annoyed sighs when he realizes who it is or one of the whos whatever. Phantom waving Val off, “it’s an eyeball, don’t”. The woman throws her hands up a bit, clearly annoyed that it was one of the ghosts that Danny was pretty strict on her not fighting.

Danny making Fenton scowl deeply, “oh fucking goddamn it, not those assholes”. Phantom rolling his green eyes fondly before stepping forward some and cupping his hands around his mouth, Danny should at least warn these people, “hey! Non-hostile incoming! They’re probably just showing to annoy me!”.

The reactions is immediate. Guess spending multiple teenage years in a town constantly plagued by ghost attacks tends to stick with you. Everyone pulling away from the walls, and anything box-shaped, and sticking to groups while glancing around in mild panic. The Observant comes up through the floor, jerk, in all their eye-ball shaped ugly cloak wearing green-skinned annoyance. “Phantom-”. Oh Danny can tell they’re here to lecture him or chastise him or something equally annoying and pointless. Nope. He’s not putting up with this.

Fenton smacking Phantom, “make me a suction dart gun construct”. Danny having Phantom do that without hesitation, even if it was a bit harder to make ecto-energy constructs outside of Amity or the Ghost Zone. Phantom passing over the sorta weapon, it has a pump action shotgun reload for comedic effect. Fenton pumping it immediately and shooting the Observant in the head/eye, “not today, eyeball asshole”.

“Phantom-”.

Oh how chastising, Fenton shots him again, “no”. The suction cups are actually sticking, awesome. But he’s got no interest in actually letting the eyeball actually say anything, so Fenton stalks over, putting a finger in the ghosts face, “fuck off, ‘Phantom’ isn’t your goddamn servant”. The Observant doesn’t look remotely chastised which frankly Danny’s a little goddamn ticked off about. These guys were constantly riding his ass and they act like they had some sort of high ground on him which they did not. So Danny has Fenton kick the ghost in the chest and basically jump on their chest, pointing the ‘gun’ in its eyeball/face and shooting it enough to cover its whole iris; its point blank enough to actually injury the ghost. The Observants were always more powerful as a mass than alone.

“Are you done?!”.

Fenton smirking, “no”, and smacking the ghost on the top of their head with the butt of the ‘gun’. Lowing the ‘weapon’ some, sighing tiredly, “now if this isn’t something actually important, I’m going to rip off all of your limbs”. And Danny means that, he will, he’s had it up to here with these guys.

The Observant, seeming to get this, just fucking disappears with a, “you need to be bound”; like he wasn’t aware they hated how much power he had.

“Fuck you. You exist in my favour”, Fenton hurling the ‘gun’ construct at the ground, it bouncing up a bit before dissolving into goo. Stupid jackasses.

“Geez Fenton where was that in high school, what the hell!”.

Both Danny’s jerking, Fenton looking back to Steven, “do you know how many ghosts annoy me because of that asshole?”, gesturing a thumb at Phantom who glances around innocently. Fenton huffing, “and yeah maybe I enjoy annoying the ones that annoy him, sue me”.

What makes it so clear that basically all these people have nothing to do with Amity any more is how all of them look on edge, nervous, unsettled, scared. They don’t ‘bounce back’ instantly and more than a couple eye Phantom nervously like they had just now remembered how arguably dangerous he could be. That Phantom was a ghost and could very well kill everyone in this room without much effort. As if Danny ever would do such a thing, he was a protector and if they wanted to forget that then screw them. Amity always was the weird place where humans and ghosts could actually remotely get along, even that was a crap shoot, humans would always be unsettled by ghosts and trying for genuine coexistence was fucking pointless. These people simply being away from ghosts for a few years and yet acting put off by one that was less human simply showing up was almost insulting to all his effort. Whatever, what did he care if most of humanity was too damn weak to handle not being the top of the food chain. Making Fenton scoff at everyone’s stares, “guess I should get gone, huh?”, and nods his head at Phantom.

Phantom stretching out and floating up to sort of lay in the air on his back, finger gunning at Val, “coming?”, as he moves to hover around Fenton’s head, ruffling Fenton’s hair fondly.

Jason blinking, “you know, I almost felt like I missed Highschool, thanks for reminding me why I absolutely do not”, and wheezes. While Star waves the two Danny’s off, “yeah should have guessed a ghost that wasn’t invited might follow Phantom”.

Phantom chuckling, “what can I say, I’m very attractive”. Making Fenton snort and blush, “shut up, you stupid ghost”. And making Phantom snicker meanly at Fenton.

Kwan shouting, “you better have a cute wedding!”.

Val rolling her eyes at the pair, pocketing her gun, and walking towards them while waving a hand over her shoulder, “bye. This was nice though”, muttering to herself barely loud enough for even Danny to hear, “regardless of certain people”.

Fenton rolling his eyes and waving at everyone, “I’d say you can easily visit me but I made myself hard to find for a damn reason and I vaguely hate most of your guts, peace bitches”. Phantom facepalming, watching Val and Fenton walk towards the door for a beat before looking to the people, him still floating up in the air, “everyone’s free to give me a visit of course, even though the fact that no one had before makes it kinda clear no one will, no hard feelings about that by the by. Besides, when you die we’ll met again”.

Star sighs at him, “that’s needlessly ominous, Phantom”. Phantom shrugging before floating off, “I’m dead, I don’t know what you expect. I can tell that none of you are going to die soon, so there’s that”, and giving them a thumbs up, absolutely ignoring how that doesn’t seem to actually make anyone feel better. It’s not Danny’s problem if ‘normal’ people aren’t comforted with ominous messages about the not so untimely demise, he thinks it would be a good thing knowing you’re not gonna die soon. Like really. He personally would have loved a heads up that he was gonna half die when that shit happened, a little count down or something would have been nice. A little count down to obliterating everything he used to be and wanted to be.

You know.

For the dramatics.

Danny absorbs his duplicate as soon as he’s outside of easy viewing range of the building, Val quirking an eyebrow at him, “I’m guessing you didn’t drive here?”.

“No? Why would I do that? And neither did you”.

She snorts at him, summoning out her board, “well hop on, I’m still down for drinks so”.

Danny eyes the board, “naw I probably should pass”. Bonding wasn’t really a good idea anyways.

She rolls her eyes, “come on, don’t be a stranger”.

“Being a stranger is kinda the point”. He has every intention of just going invisible and flying off, but she grabs his arm and yanks him onto the board before he can follow through on that thought, her muttering about him being a dumbass the whole time. Danny eyeing her, hands in his pockets and just sitting on the board, stupid stubborn ghost hunters.

Though… looking down, it was kinda nice to watch the city sights this leisurely. It’s filled with spots of damage and things being repaired even here in Elmerton still. It was impossible for everything to stay contained in one simple city after all, sometimes Danny debating expanding is human lair a bit more, just to keep more of an eye on more of it. Perhaps that was a speck of greed or just his overprotective nature.

Really it wouldn’t take much, honestly he had the power and ability to take over the entire planet if he so chose. And really, ghosts did crop up everywhere, and further ecto-contaminated cities and towns would just make more places possible to be common ground of sorts.

It wasn’t a bad idea…

Just not a good or human one either. He had to play human games to thrive and be accepted in the human world, even if those games were sometimes stupid and annoying and isolating. Hmmm… maybe he should get drinks with Val, she was at least slightly better with normal human things than him.

Looking down, there’s some patches of green growing in ash. Life from death, strength from destruction. Kinda like him.

She lands them on the ground, Danny standing easily as her board folds up becoming nanobots under and through her veins; an altered state of being similar and not to himself. Her making ‘come on’ gestures at him before heading in to one of the more beat down bars that don’t ask questions and assumes every patron is involved in something shady or another.

And Danny follows. Maybe he was a little too much of a loner.

End.

Prompts: Pretending to be someone's boyfriend for a night was not as high on Danny's list of crazy-ideas-he-should've-said-no-to as, say, agreeing to become the King of all ghosts, but it was definitely up there. Ten years since Danny graduated high school, and fourteen years since his accident. The former A-listers are organizing a high school reunion, and somehow both Danny AND Phantom got an invite… Seriously, how are these things still happening to him? Parents take apart Danny’s telescope for a new invention. Being dead somewhat drastically shuffles around your priorities. It's been a long time since Danny was able to remember what a human would feel to be important. Tucker Foley's terrible, awful, very bad day. No one knows au identity reveal

[birinboom]

Kirishima Beats No Nut November

Kirishima Eijirou x AFAB Reader

Word count: 2,852 words

Warnings/tags: Adult characters, AFAB reader (no pronouns used), swearing, established relationship, pet names (babe), vanilla smut

A/N: This is based on a series of asks on @willowser’s blog talking about who would (or more like who wouldn’t) make it through No Nut November.

Also, this is the first smut fic I’ve ever posted so don’t expect great things.

18+ FIC, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!

Smut specific tags and fic under the cut

Smut specific tags: PWP (porn with some miniscule semblance of a plot), biting/marking, oral sex (fem receiving), vaginal fingering, overstimulation, unprotected sex

“You guys want to do the ‘No Nut November’ challenge this year?”

The room fell silent. Eijirou was already excited at the word ‘challenge’. He turned his gaze to Hanta, as did everybody else. Hanta, however, kept his eyes on his phone, scrolling through an article. 

Shouto was the first who spoke. “We can’t eat nuts throughout all of November?”

Next to him, Izuku’s face was so red it almost seemed like he was steaming. “That’s not what it means, Shouto-kun,” he whispered.

His words went unheard as Hanta drowned him out, frowning at Shouto’s question. “Dude, no, it’s talking about not busting a nut.”

“So no cracking our own nuts? Are pre-cracked nuts allowed then?”

A collective sigh swept through the room. 

“You seriously never heard the term ‘busting a nut’ before?” Katsuki drawled. When Shouto shook his head, Katsuki scoffed, mumbling something about Shouto being a sheltered princess.

Denki, however, beamed at Shouto, ready with an explanation. “It’s a euphemism for ejaculation. Y’know, cumming.”

“Ah,” Shouto replied, falling silent once again.

Denki turned back to Hanta. “So no nutting for all of November. Does that mean no masturbation? No sex?”

Hanta shrugged. “I guess you can do both without nutting if you plan on edging yourself all month. But once you nut, you’re out of the challenge.”

“What about wet dreams? Do they count?”

Hanta stayed silent for a moment, looking through the article on his phone. Then he turned his attention back to Denki. “The rules say you get one, then you’re out.”

“Aw, only one?” Denki whined. “If I can’t nut through all November, I don’t think one will be enough.”

Hanta grinned widely at the blonde. “If you don’t make it through, then you can’t participate in ‘Destroy your Dick December’!”

Denki lit up. “What’s that??”

Eijirou stopped paying attention to the conversation, instead focusing on the challenge ahead. No orgasms for 30 days didn’t sound too hard. Surely he had the resolve to get through it. 

“I’m in!” he said, interrupting Hanta and Denki’s discussion about ‘Destroy your Dick December’. 

And once Eijirou was in, hyping everybody else up, the rest of the group decided to partake too.

“You seriously agreed to that?”

Eijirou’s smile started to waver. “C’mon, it’s just one month.”

You rolled your eyes. “Just one month? Ei, you barely make it three days unless you're sick or exhausted from work.”

“I know, babe, but I can do this!” Grabbing you by the waist, he pulled you closer, leaning in to rest his forehead against yours. “At least… as long as you don’t try to seduce me before December.”

You sighed, raising your hands to run your fingers through his hair. “You guys are so stupid. Fine. I won’t make it harder for you, but I’m not participating!”

Eijirou giggled. “I think it’s gonna be plenty hard without your help, babe. But it’ll make it all the more gratifying once I get to fuck you again.”

The first couple of days went by with little effort. Nothing really changed in Eijirou’s life, he spent his free evenings cuddling with you on the couch, he slept with you in his arms, he got ready in the mornings next to you. He could still kiss you without any issue. He was so sure that he had this challenge in the bag.

But as the month progressed, things got more and more difficult. He often found his mind straying from his goal when you were close by, his sanity slowly slipping. The outline of your breasts visible through your clothes, the curve of your ass when you bent forward to pick something off the floor, your shirt riding up and showing your stomach when you stretched. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from you. Showering with you became torture. He could barely stand being in the bathroom at the same time, the outline of your naked body taunting him. One particularly cold day had your nipples perking, clearly showing through your shirt. Eijirou’s gaze was only torn away when you rubbed your arms, blocking out his view. He needed a cold shower after that. But he was still too stubborn to give up.

Kissing you slowly became painful. Once he passed the middle of the month, he could barely peck you on the lips without feeling his resolve beginning to crack. He began pretending to fall asleep on the couch in the evenings just to have a valid reason to stay away from your shared bed; just to keep his hands away from your soft, sleep-warm skin. He was sure that if he went to sleep next to you, his iron will would crumble come morning when you’d inevitably roll over and throw your arms around him, pressing your body flush against his under the covers. The soft sighs you let out while waking up always turned him on. He yearned to hear them again. But he couldn’t give up. Not yet. 

He was so close; only 12 more days to go.

One night towards the end of November, he came home unexpectedly early. The soft whimpers that reached his ears made him pause. He knew those sounds. They had him throbbing with need already. And he wasn’t sure that he’d be strong enough to resist.

His feet began moving on their own, leading him towards the bedroom. And there you lay among the sheets, underwear discarded to one side, your pussy on full display as you played with your clit with a toy. The custom-made one, he realized with a jolt, a replica of his own cock. And judging from the sheen on it, you’d already been fucking yourself for a while. 

He stood rooted to the spot, unable to look away, hands clenched around either side of the door frame to keep them from moving as his cock throbbed, straining against his pants, begging to be touched. His nostrils flared, your tantalizing scent thick in the air. He swallowed dryly when your moans became louder and more insistent as you neared your climax.

“Fuck-- Ei!” you whimpered as you came, pussy clenching around nothing.

Crack

Eijirou was torn out of his need by the sudden noise. Turning his head, he saw five finger-shaped marks around the door frame where he’d been clenching it hard enough to break the wood.

“Ei!” he heard you say, surprise heavy in your voice. “What are you doing home so early?!”

He turned back to you, jaw clenching with dismay when he saw you drawing your legs up towards your chest, hiding your sex with your crossed ankles. You were grabbling for the sheets with both hands, trying to cover yourself underneath them.

He didn’t want you to feel like you had to hide your nakedness from him. Not now, not ever. But he knew well that his own idiotic stubbornness had been the cause of this.

“I’m sorry,” he forced out between gritted teeth, turning to move back to the living room.

“Ei, wait!” 

He heard you moving after him, stumbling as you pulled the sheets around you. Keeping his back to you, he turned every time you tried to move around him.

“Why are you mad at me, Ei? I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Mad? I’m not--” He let out an exasperated groan, a noise he felt like he’d been holding in for weeks. Sinking onto the couch, he scrubbed at his face. “I’m not mad at you, babe. I’m so fuckin’ frustrated with myself. I should never have agreed to this stupid-ass challenge! I’m so fucking miserable that I can’t touch you without feeling like I’m about to lose it. And then I come home to the best fuckin’ display I’ve ever seen and I CAN’T JOIN BECAUSE OF THIS STUPID CHALLENGE!!” 

Finally, he looked up at you, angry tears brimming at his waterline. “I miss you, babe. ‘S not even the sex as much as the intimacy. I miss kissing you, a-and touching you. I miss sleeping next to you. I miss feeling normal around you.”

You grinned at him. “So you don’t miss the sex? You’re fine with us not banging ever again?”

“Fucking NO I’m not!” Eijirou reached out, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you into his lap, molding himself around you as much as possible. “Please don’t joke about that,” he whispered against your neck. “I’ve had a stomach ache since, like, November 5th or something from constant blue balls. I want you so bad it feels like I’m about to combust, but I can’t.” 

Pressing a continuous string of kisses to your temple, he apologized, over and over again, for joining No Nut November, and for hurting both you and himself in the process. 

“Never again,” he promised. “I’m never doing such a stupid thing again! I love you so much, babe. I’ll make it up to you come December.”

On the last day of November, Eijirou spent most of the day watching the desk clock in his home office like a hawk. His brain was buzzing with counting down the seconds until midnight. With only half an hour left, he wandered aimlessly into your bedroom, desperate to find something to occupy his mind with. He thought he’d have more time before you finished your bath. But he’d miscalculated. And so he came upon you, fully nude as you searched through your dresser for something to wear for bed.

He broke.

Moving up behind you without fully realizing what he was doing, he let his hands caress your waist, your skin just as soft and warm and supple underneath his fingers as he’d imagined. His lips met your shoulder, and he slowly worked his way up, pausing for a moment to pay extra attention to the junction between your shoulder and neck to nip at your skin, letting his tongue slip over the marks his teeth left behind. One hand moved over your stomach, arm wrapping around you to pull you closer, his other hand moving up to cup your breast, thumb caressing your nipple. The groan you let out had him already teetering on the edge.

“Can’t wait any longer,” he whispered.

You turned in his grip, but as he leaned in to kiss you, you raised one hand, pressing your palm against his mouth to hold him back.

“Ei, wait! You’re so close, you can’t fail now!”

He grinned against your palm. “I don’t plan on failing. But just because I can’t cum until after midnight, doesn’t mean that I can’t make you cum either.”

Lifting one of his own hands, he placed it over yours, pressing it closer to kiss your palm. Then he gently pulled your hand away to kiss your wrist.

“Please, babe,” he mumbled, pressing another kiss to your skin, “I can’t wait to taste you again.”

You watched him silently for a moment, eyes half lidded and mouth open in a pant. Eijirou stuck his tongue out, letting the tip run over the sensitive skin on your wrist. A warm tingle crept up his spine when he felt you shiver.

“Fuck--” you sighed. “Fine, yes!!”

Releasing your wrist, Eijirou brought both hands up to cup your cheeks, kissing you desperately. Pressing his tongue into your mouth, he wound it around yours. Pulling away, he kissed an urgent trail over your jaw and down your neck, only to return to your lips again. 

His hands moved downwards, caressing your waist for a brief moment before they continued down. Breaking the kiss, he grabbed you by the thighs, lifting you enough to allow you to wrap your legs around his hips. He carried you to the bed, crawling over it on his knees until he reached the middle, then gently lowered you, his lips never once leaving your skin.

Frantically pulling his clothes off in as few movements as possible, he returned to you, kissing a trail down between your breasts, pausing for a moment to just inhale the scent of your skin. He couldn’t believe how much he’d missed the feeling of your skin against his own. His teeth caught the skin on the curve of one breast. Pressing his lips to the mark, he then sucked a bruise into your skin.

Moving up, he swirled his tongue around your nipple, relishing in the sight and sound of you writhing beneath him. He wanted to drown in the sounds of your moans, but… not yet.

Flicking the bud with his tongue, he then closed his mouth around it, sucking softly. 

He let his lips slide down your stomach until he hovered over your pussy, the heady scent making him dizzy with need.

“Fuck I missed this!” he groaned, finally lowering his head to swirl his tongue around your clit, slipping two fingers into you. Slowly, he built you up, feeling your fingers tug at his hair, your thighs shaking as you neared your climax. Pushing you over the edge, he relished in how tightly you clenched around his fingers when you came.

“Shit, Ei, that--”

“One more,” he interrupted, nipping at your inner thigh. “Gimme one more, babe!”

Eijirou had no idea how long he spent nestled between your thighs, switching between slowly lapping and sucking on your clit, occasionally dipping down to press his tongue into your pussy. He only resurfaced when you started pulling insistently on his hair. 

“Stop, Ei, please! No more!” you whimpered. 

He licked his lips, savoring the last of your taste before he sat up, shooting a quick glance to the clock on his nightstand. 01:23 December 1st. 

Merry fucking Christmas to me he thought as he lifted your legs onto his shoulders. Pressing a kiss to your ankle, he lined himself up, gently pressing the head of his cock against your opening.

“Ready, babe?”

When you nodded, he began pushing in, forcing himself to go slow. He’d almost forgotten how good you felt, how warm and soft you were, how tightly you gripped him. 

“Dunno how long I can -nnhg!- can hold on, babe,” he groaned, “it feels too good, you’re so good to me!”

He kept babbling praise as he thrust shallowly, already close to his climax. Pausing for a moment to shift his position to be closer to you, he began losing control, thrusting harder, deeper, lost in the sensation of your warm embrace.

“Fuck, babe, I-- I can’t-- Fuck!!”

Hips stuttering, he spilled inside of you, trying his best to not collapse at the relief. His head sank down on the pillow next to yours, pressing a kiss to your cheek.

“I love you, babe. I love you so much.”

Winding your arms around his neck, you pulled him closer. “I love you too, Eijirou.”

He relaxed, pressing slow, gentle kisses to any patch of skin he could reach, enjoying the feel of your fingers gliding through his hair, scratching at his scalp.

Post-nut clarity finally lifting the fog in his mind, he realized that he’d undressed so quickly that he still had one sock half on his foot. The realization made him smile into your neck.

You wiggled in his hold, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “I didn’t think you’d be able to manage taking it this slow.”

He chucked weakly. “I wanted to savor it.”

Lifting himself off you, he pressed yet another kiss to your lips, muffling your groan as he slid out of you. Then he reached out to grab some tissues from the box on your nightstand and sat up, ready to wipe you down.

But seeing one month’s worth of cum leaking out between your swollen lips had him hard and throbbing again.

He grinned at you. “On your stomach, babe. Ass in the air.”

“Already?” you groaned before complying. 

Eijirou leaned in to kiss your ass cheek before sinking his teeth into it. “‘M not even close to done. I plan on going all night to make up for lost time.”

“None of you made it??”

Eijirou felt warm, hands balling into fists, his cheeks flushing with exasperation. The lack of sleep from the night before was finally starting to bother him. 

“No one, not a single one of you made it through the month??”

His words were met with shrugs, with eyerolls and crossed arms, with averted gazes. The mood was so tense he felt like he could slice through it with his quirk.

“It was too much,” Izuku finally whispered.

“It was stupid, ‘s what it was,” Katsuki added. “Never wanted to do the fuckin’ thing anyway.”

Denki grinned. “But that’s how you failed, Kacchan, you did the fucking-thing anyway.”

“Guys,” Eijirou said, ignoring the smoke rising from Katsuki’s fists, “we were meant to do this together. It was meant to be a challenge!” When no one replied, he added, “Couldn’t you at least have told me that you were out? Then I coulda bailed too instead of suffering from blue balls for thirty fucking days!” As a chorus of mumbled apologies rose into the air, Eijirou thought to himself that he was NEVER doing something like No Nut November again.

Thank you so much for reading! Likes, comments, reblogs, and asks (on and off anon) are always greatly appreciated! If you like, you can check out my other works here. Love, Em 💖

[insane-inthe-membrane9000]

@luciana-morningstar

Okay. You have snacks. You have your heating pad. You have tylenol. You have this lovely weighted comforter. You are in your comfy clothes. (I even braided your hair back for you because I am //that// husband) You have endless streaming services on the T.V.

Do you need anything else while your uterus assaults you? (I think you should sue, honestly.)

[luciana-morningstar]

The fact that I cannot burst into a swarm of bats to avoid certain situations is a constant irritation I have.

I love bats.

@insane-inthe-membrane9000 can I have a bat?

[untilyouremember]

Cinderella Closet

Available digitally

Available in print

[wolfstarshipping]

Rourke (27401 words) by sreka

Summary: Wolfstar Games 2020 - Team Sound / Prompt: typewriter

“Lupin didn’t seem pleased that I was filming last night,” Sirius said lightly. “Most people that come here…” Lily spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully, “Remus put it like this to me once: most people who choose to spend years of their life so far from civilization have a reason for leaving it behind. Remus wanted someone like us and he held out for so long because he expected he would get sent a bunch of finicky artsy types. I don’t think he expected you. And now that you’re here, I don’t think he quite knows what to do with you.”   When wildlife filmmaker Sirius Black arrives on a remote Antarctic island for a year-long assignment, he isn't phased by the freezing wind, the perpetual darkness, or the hostility he meets from some of the biologists at the research base. He is used to living an itinerant existence. He is comfortable with unforgiving conditions. He expects the world to treat him harshly. But he does not expect to fall in love.

Comment:

So this was just absolutely fucking beautiful, I highly recommend reading it!! I may be a little biased because the fic PERFECTLY combines my obsession with cold remote islands in the middle of nowhere close to antarctica with my love of wolfstar so when I found it it almost felt too good to be true and like it was written specifically for me, but then I read it and the writing is so lovely, it's such a good slow burn and you really get a feel for the atmosphere in their little house on the island and for the whole group, and I love all the characterisations and yeah just - highly recommend!!

Rating: Mature Additional Tags (by the author): Enemies to Friends to Lovers, kind of?, Not Beta Read, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, this was supposed to be a 2k mistaken identity fic, I apologize deeply for whatever it ended up as…, might add to this?, Unsure, Wolfstar Games 2020, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Walburga Black's A+ Parenting, Orion Black's A+ Parenting, Lyall Lupin's A+ Parenting, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Mentioned Regulus Black, Miscarriage, I think I tagged all the triggers? Please correct me if I'm wrong, Alternate Universe, Modern Marauders (Harry Potter)

[mariav0]

Imagine a fic where 5 times kiribaku future kid and Katsuki protect Eijiro and 1 time he protects them

(I just love when blond pomeranians appreciate their favorite ray of sunshine (and he adores them back))

P. S. Did you see rorokonaa's future versions of 1a students? I'm obsessed, it's my canon❤️

[amikotsu]

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Naruto Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Uchiha Sasuke, Hyuuga Hinata/Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura/Yamanaka Ino, Hatake Kakashi & Uchiha Sasuke, Hatake Kakashi & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi & Maito Gai | Might Guy Characters: Uchiha Sasuke, Hatake Kakashi, Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, Maito Gai | Might Guy, Yamanaka Ino, Other Naruto Character(s) Additional Tags: KakaSasu Week, Getting Together, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Jutsu Gone Wrong, Time Travel, Supernatural Elements, Uchiha Sasuke-centric, POV Uchiha Sasuke, One-Sided Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto Friendship, Uchiha Sasuke Has Issues, Hokage Hatake Kakashi, Protective Hatake Kakashi, Hatake Kakashi Is Trying, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Hand Jobs, Ghosts, Love Confessions, Jealousy, Boys Kissing, Age Difference, Alcohol, First Time, Hangover, Arguing, Pre-Relationship, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Trauma, Panic Attacks, Mentioned Gaara (Naruto), Erotica, Nudity, Team Bonding, Missions Gone Wrong, Illnesses, Pandemics Summary:

“Gai is single.”

“No.”

“Genma?”

“No.”

“You don’t like my suggestions, so what do you expect me to say? You should have been honest with her, then you wouldn’t be in this mess. It’s never too late to clear the air. She’ll only punch you hard enough to break your bones, not kill you,” Kakashi shrugged, leaning back in the rolling chair. Kakashi pushed back from the desk enough to throw both feet up onto the bare desk, crossing his legs at the ankles. Sasuke frowned at the thought of Sakura attempting to punch him. Though it was warranted, he didn’t want her to lose her temper. He wasn’t afraid of her, but he didn’t feel like fighting her. “You could try to push Lee onto her. He still has feelings for her,” Kakashi suggested, another wasted attempt at finding a solution.

“Why didn’t you suggest yourself then, since we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel?” Sasuke said it as a smart remark, as evidenced by the deep frown marring his face.

[phantomphangphucker]

Phic Phight - Young Guns With Guns

@ishouldgetatumbler @idiot-cheesehead-archenemy @faedemon @miss-nov @summerssixecho @torscrawls

Valerie’s actually managed to get college placement lined up, which means she’s got to get a Red Huntress replacement lined up too. Unfortunately every good choice is chaotic.

That single simple letter changed so much for her, could change so much. She’s spent the past year working her ass off to get her grades up, probably giving her a seriously long term case of sleep deprivation due to ghosts still being an issue, but she’s baffled it actually worked out. She had been fully expecting nothing but rejection, instead she got in at her first pick college and it’s nanotechnology and nanoscience bachelors program; meaning she didn’t even have to settle for her second choice bachelors of science.

She had honestly cried a little, danced, jumped, went ghost hunting just for the joy of it. Phantom probably didn’t appreciate her deciding to chase It around for the heck of it, or maybe It did since it was always hard to tell with that ghost and Its goddamn puns. Plus, she knew that It knew that she knew she couldn’t actually take It down in a fight. 

She might be the only half decent ghost hunter in Amity but Phantom was beyond human ability to deal with. Which yeah, meant there was someone to deal with other absurdly powerful ghosts, but It was still a damn ghost and she had no interest in leaving all of Amity’s ghost issues in Its dead hands. Amity needs to have a human protector too. She had debated not even trying to leave Amity genuinely, to go to college; but she promised her dad she’d at least ty, that she wouldn’t give up on a ‘normal’ future. Frankly even if she does get her degree there’s zero chance of her staying gone and being ‘normal’, she loved being the Red Huntress and couldn’t see her giving it up full. Zone, she basically picked her program to help her do a better job as a ghost hunter. Knowing better how to use the nanobots and machinery that flowed through her veins would be a dream, and technically self preservations since she currently couldn’t do too much if something went majorly wrong with them. She knew enough and had enough skill to use them and modify them but she wasn’t the expert she wanted to be. This, this acceptance letter would change that, let her study nanotechnology. Even if any studying or work she did with her own self would have to be private and not actually used for school; last thing she wanted was to give someone a very stupid idea. Same reason she wasn’t about to try to suit someone up exactly like she was, heck she’s pretty sure the nanobots are very much fused to her, putting someone else in that same situation just because she wanted to go to college would be incredibly mean and just a shitty thing to do. 

So...

She refuses to leave Amity without an actually decent and not insane (Maddie and Jack) ghost hunter and she also can’t refuse to go to her ideal college. She can’t give away her suit, and wouldn’t even if she could, and she’s not going to try and basically ‘infect’ someone like what that asshole dirty bastard half ghost Vlad did. She needed a stand in, a temporary worker if you will, for at least a few years. Preferable someone she wouldn’t have to actually train and who wouldn’t either be extremely bigoted to the point of being stupid -again, Jack and Maddie- or so pro-ghost they’d be leiniate on the spooks. Unfortunately that eliminated practically everyone who was actually physically capable of fighting ghosts at all. Pretty much every adult and teen involved in sports had this weird hero worship mascot thing for Phantom and ghosts in general, many having out right crushes *cough cough* Paulina and Dash *cough cough*. That one guy who runs the little martial arts place wouldn’t be half bad but he was... a little bit insane. She could see him causing a lot of damages. There was also the fact that whoever would have to deal with Vlad, meaning they needed to be distrustful of that jerk. Unfortunately, nearly the whole town actually supports that man as mayor now since he kept the government on a leash and got funding for all the damages. Powerful people with money could get away with being awful shit people. 

... Though... 

She can think of someone who not only wouldn’t be played by Vlad but also wouldn’t exactly need training. That someone being Danny of course. Danny probably managed to cause more suffering and annoyance to Vlad than Vlad had ever caused her, and he would just laugh in Vlad’s face if the guy tried manipulating him, like he usually did. Sometimes she wonders if Danny actually knows what Vlad is. Then Danny, and his friends really, did have Fenton training and all of them were in really good shape these days. The only problem with Danny and his friends, was that they were staunchly pro-ghost and had been so before anyone else really. But, and this is a big but, they were also pro-ghost hunting. They were pro-ghost in more of a ‘ghosts are just like people and demonising them universally is dumb. Some are assholes though’ kind of way. Which... was a lot more positive than her view of ghosts, them being mostly shit stirrers who wanted to mess with the living and their personhood was questionable. 

Sam she wouldn’t even consider, she’d heard that girl justify UnderGrowth’s takeover of the town on multiple occasions, apparently she even helped the ghost with that. Valerie never understood how that girl could be both incredibly holier than thou moral and incredibly ‘humans are weeds’ immoral. 

And Tucker? Tucker should not be allowed to ever have any amount of real power, authority, or control over people. Ever. Whenever she thinks of that guy having any kind of power she can taste sand in her mouth in a really revolting way, she’s got no clue why that happens but she ain’t gonna play stupid games. 

Danny... might be a little crazy, and weird, and creepy, and stupid, but she couldn’t really think of a reason why him being what’s practically a vigilant would be bad. Zone, with how he intentionally pissed off Dash so Dash would only target him, and how protective he could be; she’s kinda surprised he wasn’t already trying to be a masked hero or whatever. Her best guess is that he didn’t want to deal with his parents if they ever found out or he just didn’t want to be ‘like them’. Fair enough. But she’s kinda low on options here. 

Sure fine maybe there were other options but, screw her, she liked Danny and she’d rather hand shit off to him than someone she’s not already friendly with. Plus there was the fact that Danny said ‘Ancients no’ like it was the obvious answer whenever anyone asked if he was leaving Amity. For whatever reason he liked this town and it’s weird ass ghost problem more than most, the fact that anyone did at all was already kinda weird. Well it meant she didn’t really have to worry about him not sticking around here, same as she really didn’t have to worry about how to track Danny down. Since, like her, he wound up getting work at the Nasty Burger, in his words ‘it’s the only place that would hire even a corpse or a Fenton’ which yeah, lots of places wouldn’t hire any Fenton purely for being a Fenton.

And if she remembers properly he should be working closing shift tonight. Nice.

Getting up and stretching, “why do I feel like getting him to agree to wear a disguise is going to more difficult than actually getting him to say yes?”, he would absolutely be the type to just rip off a mask for the dramatics of it. Popping out of her room and grinning at her dad, “I’m going out, to talk to a Fenton, just not the crazy ones, about keeping an eye on those parents of his”.

Damon blinks, putting down his book, “are the Fenton’s planning to do something crazy again?”.

Valerie shakes her head, grinning now and holding up the little envelope, “no, but someone’s gotta keep an eye on them if I’m going”.

His eyes widening instantly, book getting abandoned as he jumps up to run over and hug, “congrats! You got in! I knew you could do it!”, pulling back and pointing at her face, “now I don’t want you worrying about costs, you do still have a college fund, and I don’t want you worrying about ghosts either, missy”.

Valerie flushing, “I know I know, that’s part of why I want to go see Danny”.

“Are you giving him your suit? I don’t really want that going with you”.

“Dad, you know I can’t physically do that”.

“I know, I know, that won’t stop me from asking if you’ve figured out a way to”.

She sighs at him, shaking her head. It did kind of bother her that he had it in his head that she should want her suit ripped out of her, that she was trying to figure out how to do that. The suit was part of her as a person too, why would she want to lose it and part of what makes Valerie Valerie?

He nods strongly to himself, “I’m getting a cake”.

“Dad no-”.

“It will be cake time”.

“Dad-”.

“It will be the most audacious one I can find”.

Valerie buries her head in her hands with a laugh, “ask Paulina to make a Phantom-themed one, that was the worst thing I’ve ever seen”. Even Damon cringes, because yeah that woman was still obsessed over a dead guy.

Damon shaking his head, “it will not be ghost themed. Tech perhaps?”, and hums to himself, tapping his chin before making shooing motions at her, “if trying to wrangle that boy, or man I should say, into spying on his parents makes you more willing to go then go on”.

“There’s no way this place should be without a non-crazy human ghost hunter”.

“Heck, I’ll take up your guns if that gets you to go”.

“Dad no, you have terrible balance, Danny’s is actually a bit terrifying”. Honestly she swears that gravity doesn’t affect Danny the way it should, which if that was actually true it would one hundred percent be because of that accident his parents basically caused. Either way she moves to the door waving at him, “please don’t spend too much on the cake? Please?”. He just rolls his eyes at her as she leaves. (He absolutely did wind up spending more than she’d like on the cake, it looked like it was made out of techno Lego blocks).

It takes her all of three minutes to get to the Nasty Burgers back parking lot, she thinks that’s a new record or almost a new record, man she loves seeing improvements…. Shit she’s totally going to have to take full advantage of the on-campus gym purely to make sure she stays in shape. Maybe she should ask Sam for pointers on that? She still has no clue how that girl is so ridiculously fit without do any extracurriculars during school. She out bench pressed Dash once, it was terrifying and impressive.

“Dude, I asked for goddamn Reddened Chicken Strips, not Fenton Froth! Those aren’t even in the same food group!”.

Valerie shakes her head sympathetically as she walks in through the doors. Man she would absolutely not miss having to deal with asshole customers.

“You know? Fuck this shit. Give me back my money, hell, give me all your damn money”.

What. She goes stock still, as the guy pulls an actual normal human gun and points it in Danny’s face. Shit. How should she deal with this? How could she even? She fights ghosts! With supernatural guns and a hoverboard! Not a cops badge and a freaking Glock or whatever! Quickly ducking under a table, she has no clue how her nano bots would handle her getting shot by a regular human bullet. Would it even recognise the injury since it wasn’t ectoplasmicly based? Could it even repair non-ectoplasmic injuries in the first place?! This is what she means by she needs to be more of an expert on the stuff!

Then Danny, typical fucking insane stupid Danny, says something horrifically stupid, “whatcha gonna do? Shoot me?”, scoffing like that’s ever remotely what you should do with a gun to your face, Danny might be a little too desensitised to weapons, “you can't kill me because then I'll just turn into ghost, and you'll have a Real problem on your hands because I will absolutely haunt your ass to the Zone and back. No, we need to work this out another way”.

“The only way this is working out is if you give me all the damn money! They don’t even pay you enough to put up a fight anyways”.

“I happen to actually like this place and what? Are you offering me a paycheck? No? Then get fucked and go get lost in the sauce or something, cause yeah I definitely ain’t paid to deal with your poorly packaged human shit”.

On one hand, this level of ‘I don’t care’ and reckless self endangerment was kinda necessary for her job but he doesn’t even have on a helmet and this isn’t a freaking ghost! Should she try throwing a chair at the robber? And where the hell was the manager? Other employees? Oh don’t tell her that Danny agreed to work alone like a dumbass, the manager was probably off fucking gambling again, jerk.

The robber squawks, “what?!? Dude this is a real gun!”.

“You say that like I care. You know what else is real? This bored unimpressed face, go try to show off how big your dick is somewhere else”.

Oh zone damn it, Danny. At this rate he’s going to get himself shot.

“This isn’t even a big gun!”.

“So what you’re saying is it’s the perfect size for you”.

And then the shot rings out, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck Fuck FUCK! Valerie popping up, ghost hunter gun in hand only to see Danny having apparently blocked the goddamn near point blank shot with a fucking tray. How???? Danny then smacks the guy, one-handed, with said tray, “bad, I’d like to keep my pretty face thank you very much, it’s my money maker”.

Valerie blurting out, “what the Zone!”.

The robber guy stumbles back, looking from the tray-wielding Danny to Valerie and her red and black gun, “ah fuck”, backing up a bit and looking for an exit that she wasn’t literally right beside it. Like hell she’s letting some jackass that tried to shoot Danny leave that easily.

Her snarling, “don’t even try it, asshole”, and keeps her gun on him. Danny apparently has a similar idea, grabbing a fist full of nasty sauce packets, “I will set these on fire and blow all of us up, all my fucks have flowneth off. I’m over my fuck budget and I’m now in fucking debt!”.

Both the robber and Valerie still, slowly staring at Danny. Valerie blinking harshly, “Danny, put those down”.

He pouts at her, “no. It’ll scratch my explosive itch”.

“Danny if you do that then he’ll haunt you and you’ll be the one with the problems”. She’s slightly rethinking trying to make a stand-in of him. He had the guts but come on!

Danny blinks like he hadn’t thought of that, “oh right, I mean… what’s another ghost wanting to put me on their shit list? Am I right?”, and holds the sauce packets up a little higher, and pulls a blow torch out from under the counter.

Why… was there a freaking blowtorch there??? It wasn’t there yesterday??? “Where did you get that”.

Danny shrugs, turning the blowtorch on, the flames are loud, “Brittney broke her lighter, brought this instead as a gag”.

The robber drops his gun and puts his hands, “nope nope nope, I’m not playing chicken with that. Make a citizens arrest or whatever”.

Danny smirks, “oh I don’t know, I kinda want to blow you up now and the blowtorch is already on”, and wiggles the blowtorch around, “eh? Eh? Eh? Come on, it’ll be fun. We could start a fireworks show out of building pieces?”.

Valerie glares before hurling her gun at his head, his neck cracking a little when his head tilts as the gun bounces off of his skull. “Stop it, you little shit”, and stomps over to the guy who smartly doesn't move. At least she does actually have handcuffs, they’re made for ghosts but whatever, the guy gets handcuffed aggressively, “don’t be a dumbass before you make Danny become more of a dumbass”.

Danny apparently takes offence to that like he has any right to, “hey!”. At least he’s put the blowtorch back.

…

What he didn’t do was turn the damn thing off, the counter is now on fire. “Danny the counter!”.

Danny looking down at the slight burning and flicker of flames, “okay that was stupid, note to self don’t handle flammables on forty two hours of sleep deprivation”.

“Well put it out!”.

The robber grumbles, “I made a mistake, lord forgive me and don’t let me get burned to death by an overworked underpaid fast food employee”.

Danny points at the guy, instead of dealing with the flames, “that’s what you get for trying to shot me! And! For trying to steal money from the bestest nastiest restaurant in town!”.

“Why are you throwing the damn slogan at him! Put out the fire Danny!”.

Danny slams his hand directly into the fire, “no!”, and then, “ow!”, and that finally makes him deal with it by smashing his hand, that is full of nasty sauce packets, into the flames. Smacking his hands on the fire a couple of times before realising what he’s done, going wide-eyed, “oh shit”. The robber is crying. Danny’s over the counter in a second grabbing the robber and her by the arm and fucking booking it. It takes her a bit to get her footing and to also run of her own volition; Danny is notably faster than her.

The explosion blows out a wall, all three of them getting mildly covered in rubble, Valerie sticking her head out… the blowtorch is still on, looking back at Danny, “you stay put while I turn off your fuck up. Maine is gonna be so pissed”.

“Hey, he should have known better than to let anyone work a closing shift alone, especially me”.

“You should know better than to agree to doing that!”, her huffing and running off to get the blowtorch, getting slightly covered in ash as she does so. Stupid Danny. By the time she’s gotten back Danny’s just shaking the handcuffed robber back and forth blaming him for damaging the best fast food joint in town. “Danny stop that, before you give him whiplash”.

“He deserves it!”. The robber just groans and then passes out. That at least gets Danny to stop, “shit, did I kill him?”, and then sighing in relief at the guy clearly still breathing, dropping the man in an uncomfortable looking heap on the ground. Then looking to Valerie, “so besides being my unwitting audience, why’d you come by? You don’t usually get your Nasty on when you don’t work?”.

She blinks, giving him a disgusted look, “never say that again, ew”, sighing, “well I was going to brag about my college acception but I’m seriously reconsidering that”.

He brightens up immediately, it’s almost blinding, “oh! Congrats! You hanging up the hoverboard then?”.

“More like take a vacation- hey wait what!”, scowling at him and sticking her arms out to the side, “since when have you known!?!”.

“You threw a red and black ecto-gun at my head, I’m dumb not stupid! And who the fuck else would have ghost handcuffs just on their person?! Even my folks don’t do that!”.

“Damn you!”, Valerie groans into her hands, “you are way too casual about this to have just found out”.

“Val, my uncles a psycho half ghost, there’s a portal to a death dimension under my bedroom, one of my friends is adopted by a genocidal plant god and the others a reincarnated pharaoh. You could reveal you’re literally god themselves and Lucifer somehow sharing the same body and I wouldn’t be phased”.

There was so much wrong with all of that. “That’s really messed up”,

“I know!”.

What is she supposed to do with this? With him? Also though… “you know about Vlad? And what the zone is wrong with Sam and Tucker?!?”.

Danny snorts, “too much”, shrugging, “and yeah, that guys abducted me to try and get me to be his happy son way too many times not to notice he was freaky. Also, his super illegal creepy underground lab doesn’t have doors, how would he get in there if he wasn’t spooky”.

“How do you know he even has a lab if there’s no doors?”.

“Eh play enough stupid games and get him to blast you through enough walls and you’ll find it”.

… It’s a miracle Danny hasn’t gotten himself killed. Making him her replacement might just improve his life’s survivability, that’s was so screwed up. Huffing and sticking a hand out down to him, “well if you’re going to annoy one sorta ghost, why not annoy all of them and be my replacement?”.

He blinks at her before laughing loudly, rocking back a little, “you fucking crazy hunter, or huntress whatever”, and grabs her hand to pull himself up, dragging the robber guy up with him in one hand, “eh fuck it, why not? Note, I have no clue how your suit works beyond breaking the law of physics and matter”.

She shakes her head at him, “I’m not giving you my suit, dummy”.

“So you’re trying to employ me as your replacement but making me fight naked, got it”.

“Ew!”, she whacks him over the head for that. Crossing her arms at him, “I’ll just make you something similar, and you can help with that, you jerk”, rolling her eyes, “you know ghost hunter tech so it’s whatever and it’s not like I started out with a freaking nanobot suit”.

“Can it be white and black, you know, the total opposite of Phantom’s? Since I’m the living Danny?”.

Why did she think this was a good idea? “You, are so stupid”, looking to the robber, “we should take him to the jailhouse”.

Danny looking down at the unconscious man, “I mean, probably? He’s so gonna think this was just a really weird fever dream”.

“And whose fault is that? You might cause more chaos than the ghosts do”.

“Sounds like that’s a you problem, and a town problem”.

Valerie sighs, “at least try to keep the other Fenton’s from causing chaos”, starting to walk off towards the jailhouse, Danny hoisting the guy up onto his shoulder in a fireman carry.

Him grumbling, “you say that like I can control them”, tilting his head, “wait does this mean Vlad’s gonna start paying me? Paying me in a way that isn’t clearly a bribe?”, snickering, “he’s gonna be so unimpressed you went with me of all people”.

Valerie smirking to herself, “that’s half the point. I couldn’t pick someone who’d actually trust that lying snake”.

“He’s more of a bat than a snake, you know, the whole knock off vampire thing he’s got going on”.

“Zone you’re a dumbass”.

The cheeky smirk is audible in his response, “I know”.

Was Vlad mad about her choice? Absolutely. Was she? Absolutely not. Regardless of being at college she tried to keep up to date with what’s going on in Amity, Danny was absolutely terrorising the wealthy half dead man. The random insults he was putting into practically every public interview or announcement was making the feud between the mayor and ‘Monochrome’ very public and everyone was debating why Vlad even employed this guy and where the Red Huntress found him.

Vlad kept calling her and offering to pay for things just to get her back sooner and apparently ‘Monochrome’ fighting Phantom really annoyed Vlad, which to be fair what she’s seen of those little ‘chases’ was usually really absurd. ‘Monochrome’ dumped melted cheese on the ghost once and then bailed, it did make Technus confused enough that Phantom caught the other ghost easily though.

She’s got no clue how Danny convinced everyone that Monochrome wasn’t an Amity native. That was just baffling but did help with the ‘secret identity’ thing. She’d definitely not realised just how much Danny looked exactly like Phantom though, so she officially actually agrees with Jack’s and Maddie’s insane theory that Phantom did actually copy their son’s appearance. She’d bet her pocket change that Phantom’s real face was some kind of eldritch horror abomination, and copying Danny was to seem more ‘human’; stupid manipulative ghosts.

At least it did seem Amity was in good, if chaotic, hands and Danny was actually keeping the damn suit on and the Fenton’s were actually respecting him. Danny’d called and bragged about that, she’d been happy for him.

Maybe…

Maybe he’d continue doing it, even when she got back, even if he seemed to view it as very firmly temporary in a way that almost seemed… sad.

End.

Prompts: Well, you can't kill me because then I'll turn into ghost, and you'll have a Real problem on your hands. No, we need to work this out another way. The only option left was surrender All Amity Parkers know to never work a closing shift alone. How could the wrong Nasty Burger order lead to this? Valerie got accepted at her desired college. Since she'll be leaving Amity Park, she needs to find a new replacement to keep the ghosts at bay while she's gone. Someone tries to rob the Nasty Burger but sadly for them the person working the register happens to be a newly employed Danny Fenton. Danny has an hour left of his shift and does not have enough energy left to play nice.

[insane-inthe-membrane9000]

**laying on floor outside bedroom door. Pushes chocolate bar under the door like some weird version of a mail slot**

Open the door and love me dammit. @luciana-morningstar

[luciana-morningstar]

"What it's like" Entry 2 :

Post Fall

**having a conversation and my orange cat brain just side tracks to something else entirely. But it's okay because the orange cat brain transferred to Donnie too**

Me : Oh yea and........

Donnie : First of all ..you cut me off...rude

...............What? Why are you silent? Lux?

Me : Oh .....fuck....it just flew out of my brain!

Donnie : Well fuck, I really wanted to hear it *sarcastic sassy leaning chin into hands with elbows on table*

Me : *laughing* Shut the fuck up you bitch!

Donnie : No no. Please. I'm invested now.

Me : I can't remember!

Donnie : You better figure it out then.

Me : Donnie noooooooo!

Donnie : ......*just staring, smirking*

Me : Noooooooooooo

Donnie : I'm still waiting, love.

Me : Good thing we are in Hell, maybe it'll freeze over soon.

Donnie : Hmmmm maybe. Unlikely though. I'm here.

Me : Did........are you saying Hell won't freeze over because....you are so hot?

Donnie : Indeed.

Me : I won't argue with that.

Donnie : You think I'm hot?

Me : I married you. Isn't that enough of an answer?

Donnie :...........................

Me : Yes, Donnie. *Facepalm*

Donnie : *happy grin and tippy tappy feet*

**His excited tippy tappy feet are adorable, fight me on it.**

[adhdxxsdiary]

[untilyouremember]

The Savior's Book Cafe Story in Another World

Available digitally

Available in print

[barblaz-arts]

Hell's most vanilla couple

[spitblaze]

I guess Chilchuck has brought us right back to 'adults who are short are child-coded and if you like them you're a pedophile' discourse huh

[magentasnail]

ok pause from bill art time for some mystery twins art !! specifically, 12yo selves meeting their current day selves!