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starry-bi-sky · 9 months ago

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mmmmm danny with sensory issues both in and out of his ghost forms, but on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Ghosts can't experience sensations the same way humans can when they're in the mortal realm. They're naturally intangible, and it takes energy to be physical. When they're physical, all touch feels the same barring the texture. They feel no heat, no chill. Sunlight passes through them, and so does wind and rain.

You know when your foot falls asleep/goes completely numb, and you go to touch it with your hand and it causes a strange jumble of sensations? You can feel the skin there, your palm is pressing against an object and there's resistance, pressure, but you can't feel the heat? It's kinda something like that. Like he's feeling everything through a set of gloves.

As a ghost, when it rains, he can feel the raindrops hitting him, and he can feel his hair getting wet, but he can't feel the chill of the water and he can't feel the wetness. His suit is soaked but there's no weight like there should be. During the winter snowflakes don't melt when they land on him, and he can't feel the chill of the snow when he gets buried under it.

Sunlight passes through him, a nice breeze ruffles his hair but there's no relief in the sensation. All pressure, no sensation. It's like a strange form of sensory deprivation. And of course, the internal things. It's even worse when he's intangible, when he's not putting energy into being physical. He doesn't feel real.

As human, things become too much. Especially when he's been a ghost for hours. He can feel the weight of his ribs pressing against his ribs, he becomes hyperaware of the expanding of his lungs when he breathes, the feeling of his heart pulsing in his chest.

He curls his fingers in and out slowly and becomes fascinated by the feeling of the joints moving. He turns and grabs Tucker's hand, and soaks in the warmth of his body heat -- he can't feel it as a ghost. He runs his fingers through his hair, and he can feel the individual strands.

There's a weight when he walks. A small drag when he bends his knee and lifts his leg and takes a step, and when he's been a ghost for too long he stumbles over himself, drags his feet along the floor and stomps when he doesn't mean to because he forgot to weigh his steps. Sometimes when it rains he goes out and sits on the front steps of the house just so he can come back in shivering and soaked through to the bone. Runs his fingers obsessively over the goosebumps up along his arms and legs because he can't get them as a ghost even if he's cold.

Because there are certain things, even when he's in the ghost zone, that are exclusive to the living. The little internal things you don't notice and take for granted. Things like breathing and goosebumps and exhaustion exclusive to running that makes your heart pound against your ribcage and your chest hurt with the need for air. Sore muscles from working out and sweating. Thirst and dry mouths, chapped lips and hands, blinking and dry eye, the feeling of the sun soaking into your skin on a nice summer's day.

As a ghost, Danny faces sensory issues in the form of not enough. When he can't feel the hair behind his ears or the weight in his limbs where there should be muscle, tissue, and bone. He can't feel the sun or the wind, everything is in a permeable state of 'just fine', and its maddening. He can breathe if he wants, but there's no point to it. He has no lungs, he can't feel them expand, and there's no relief behind it. He's going through the motions without any of the reward.

On those days, the idea of going ghost again makes him feel ill. Paranoid. He can't stand the thought. He needs to feel. He needs to feel the soft texture of the rug beneath his feet and the grooves in his knuckles, he needs to feel dirt crumble beneath his fingers and get stuck under his nails, he needs to feel the heat of his sister's hand and the feeling of body warmth passing from her to him. He lays on the carpet room and stretches out, and focuses on the feeling of his heart beating and the weight of his bones and muscles and tissue pinning him to the floor.

As a human, Danny faces sensory issues of too much. When all the things he's starving for suddenly make him sick. He feels trapped in his own skin. His ribs become a cage and breathing becomes a dumbbell that he can't put down. He can feel the hair along his arms and it rashes him. He's too cold, he's too hot. He feels like a ghost puppeteering its own corpse and he needs out.

On those days, Danny dips away when he can and goes ghost, and Sam and Tucker don't see him for the rest of the day. He's gone invisible, intangible, and he does nothing but exist.

Just, him experiencing sensory issues as both ghost and human, but in opposite directions from each other. And the idea that ghosts experience the mortal realm differently, and that there are certain things that are just exclusive sensations for the living that Danny doesn't realize until he's a halfa.

#danny fenton is not the ghost king #danny fenton #danny phantom #dp ghost headcanons #dp headcanons #dpxdc #danny phantom headcanon #<- bc i originally thought of this for the blood blossom au except its generic enough of a headcanon that it also works as a standalone #but also i think dpxdc folks would get a kick out of this #but yeah danny realizing that there's SO much that the living have and experience that ghosts don't even in the infinite realms.#i imagine that when he overshadows someone he can re-experience a handful of those sensations like if he were living and suddenly #he understands really well why there are some ghosts who come thru the portal that almost exclusively overshadow people. Or try to.#The mock feeling of being alive again must be *addicting* to some of them. Because he knows it is for him when being a ghost is too much #not a lot of extra tags today folks i got everything i needed to say out into the post :]

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ellerial · 3 days ago

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So I had this nightmare, and now I'm cursing you all with it, too.

TW : vivisection and torture, some body horror, bad Madeline and Jack typical shenanigans, Danny done snaps

~(o o)~

He gazed blearily up at the ceiling. How long had he been down here? He knew it'd been a while since he gave up on Jazz, Tuck or Sam finding and saving him. Whether they were also captured somewhere or dead, or if something happened during one of his blackouts, he didn't know. All he knew was that he was alone in this and no one was going to save him.

He looked down at his chest. The Y cut was raw and jagged from the repeated reopening. The staples that had been keeping him closed were mostly burned away by his blood, so it was probably morning.

How many times had they cut him open now? He had honestly stopped properly counting after 50 when he realized his memory was starting to get spotty, and he had likely missed a few. It was double that, now, surely. Triple? Maybe 200? He thinks they sometimes get bored of him and just leave him down here for days or weeks on end before picking the scalpel back up. At… least they hadn't handed him off to the GIW?

Nah. That may have been kinder.

He let his head fall back and let out a giggle before taking his daily stock of himself. His body was its usual level of on fire. The muzzle on his face was as tight as ever. The wrist restraints were... oh, now that's interesting! That tingle was new.

He tried to check if the collar was on. They had taken it off for one of their experiments last night after letting him bleed out to make sure his energy was going more to healing and preserving his existence than trying to use his powers against them. Idiots. They hadn't fed him anything other than ambient ecto since they tied him up down here. He was always wasting energy towards preserving his life. Couldn't even turn it off. He knows. He tried.

He turned his head and looked at some of the tables around him. There! There's the collar! Oh, that's funny. That's so very funny. This was great! All these new things were happening. Even him! He felt better than he had in a long time. He knew part of that had to do with that cracking sound he heard last night. When his mom's Maddie's hands were elbow deep in his own viscera.

There was so much blood. Muddy blood. It was becoming more and more brown as time went on and they kept cutting him and killing him and the longer his ghost half was the only thing keeping his human half functioning the more they kept becoming closer together. His blood wasn't red with green flakes anymore. He figured the green ecto was just straight up bonding to his red blood cells.

So, she was there, elbows deep, trying to reach something or other. Some blood got on her face, and it looked like a little teardrop at the side of her eye. Then she stuck her tongue out in concentration, trying to grab whatever it was she was reaching for, and, well, something in Danny's mind cracked. It was just so funny! Look at this woman. This woman who was torturing him because she loved her baby boy. Her baby boy she ignored and neglected to the point it killed him. Her baby boy she loved so much she'd prefer to believe he was dead and gone so she could finally torture a ghost rather than believe he was still with them.

Thinking of, even with that crack, he was feeling a lot better than he ought when her hands had been that deep inside him. He lifted his head a little more and saw that the door to the portal was slightly ajar.

Oh. Oh oh oh OH! That was too funny! Clocky, you old cog, you! Danny thought he'd been forgotten by the old time piece, but looks like he just left him to cook until he cracked! He couldn't blame the old tick tocker for wanting a bit of entertainment. It's gotta be boring being stuck for all of eternity watching the livings do the same things over and over again. Ancients knew how bored he was doing the same song and dance for however long he'd been down here. He understood.

So many new things! Now, what was he going to do with them?

He paused before he could make up his mind. Another new feeling! A brush against his consciousness. Emotions. Two of them. He held the breath he didn't need and listened to the two beings who just came into the building above him. He laughed loudly once he recognized who they were and what he was hearing. Both of them startled, which only made him laugh louder.

Finally! Finally, finally, finallyfinallyfinally!

He felt them both come racing down the stairs and lifted up enough to see them. Ah. Jackson and Madeline Fenton. Ecto-scientists and psychopaths. They looked absolutely awful. Gaunt, tired with pallid skin. Their goggles were up, and their hoods were down so he could see how limp and grey their hair had gotten.

Ya know. This is probably the first time he's seen their eyes in months. They usually came to torture him with all their gear perfectly in place. Once upon a time, he used to think their eyes were beautiful. Now they looked like days old bruises and the milky white of a corpse.

"What's so funny, ghost scum?" Maddie asked as she stalked closer to his table. Jack stayed by the stairs, uncertainty marring his face. "Finally done pretending to be our poor boy?"

Danny could only laugh. Her usual refrain! How funny, when everything was different and new!

"Oh, Maddie. Maddie, Maddie, Maddie! Everything is funny!” He giggled as she faltered and took a step back. "Besides, haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?”

"How are you doing that?” She demanded. “You're still muzzled!”

"I've always been doing this, Maddie! You just finally became liminal enough to hear me!" She looked confused, and he cackled. "I was liminal enough at 3. Did you know that? Amazing what exposing your unborn fetus to ectoplasmic radiation will do!"

Rage marred her face as she came over and slapped him. Jokes on her! The muzzle blocked most of it, and her hits felt more like a moths wings to his half-ghostly biology. The scalpel was more effective.

"How dare you speak as if you know anything, you monster!"

"Monster? Me? Oh, Madeline. You're the one who wished for monsters so much that you became one."

"Shut up!" She hit his chest, and that did hurt. "How are you talking?! How do I make you shut up??" She turned away from him and frantically tore through her instruments. He chuckled as he watched the collar clatter and skitter across the floor. Jack stayed frozen at the bottom of the stairs.

"You can't, Maddie. You can't silence my soul. That's what you're hearing." He laughed. "And what's even better, I can't lie with my soul!!" He looked at them both and frowned behind the muzzle. "Aw. You don't believe me. So rude. We can finally have a heart to heart, but you don't even believe me."

Jack finally took a step forward. His eyes never left Danny's face. "What do you mean."

"Finally! Some scientific inquiry rather than just torture!" Jack flinched, and Maddie sneered while slowing her sorting of implements. "Feel the difference between these." He smiled wide beneath his muzzle.

"My name is Danny. I was born Danny Fenton. I became Danny Phantom." He raised his head to look at Jack. "Focus on how that felt. Nice, right? Soft and smooth." He looked at his mother.

"I love you. You never neglected me growing up. It wasn't one of your inventions that killed me." He looked back at his dad Jack. "Feel the difference? It's full of edges like broken glass, like pins and needles of a limb that fell asleep." Jack stood frozen at the foot of the table. His face was blank. Even Maddie wasn't moving. He frowned and snarled.

"What? No follow-ups? No, 'Which invention killed you, Danny?' No, 'Why didn't you tell us before, Danny?' Not even a, 'What does death feel like, Danny?' Really??" He let his head thump back. "How utterly boring." He pouted for a moment before quickly perking up.

"I could tell you that, ya know. What death feels like. I have a rolodex of experience! From ecto radiation, blood loss, having your heart removed, to starving to death." He turned and looked at Maddie. "How did you finish me off last night? I don't quite remember." She just looked at him. "No?” He shrugged as much as he could while restrained. “Eh, doesn’t really matter. What doesn't kill you simply makes you stranger!” He cackled to himself since neither of the pseudo-scientists joined. He was wasting good material on them. He sighed.

“You might be wondering why you believe me. Why you aren’t telling me I’m lying and manipulating you.” He looked at them both. “It’s ‘cause your soul is hearing me, and it knows it’s hearing the truth. It knows I can’t lie. It knows when I say, 'the only reason there was ever a ghost problem was because you never shut the portal off,' that it’s the truth. Or, 'the reason most of your inventions worked is because I fixed them'. Your soul resonates, and it feels all comfy with the truth.” He looked at both of them, and they just stared. He rolled his eyes. “How about some more examples? See if you can feel the difference." He took a moment to focus.

"I wanted to be an astronaut. I always felt safe in my own home. My parents would rather cut me open than be thankful they had the opportunity to spend time with me after their inventions killed me." He looked at Jack, silent tears were going down his face. He looked at Maddie her mouth was twisted in a snarl, but there was worry in her eyes. He grinned.

"I'm still restrained." He watched the worry turn to terror before he moved.

What ice he could conjure tightened itself around Jack's hands, feet, and torso, squeezing tight before causing him to topple over. Danny had the bone saw bent and wrapped around Maddie's legs, and the rib clippers tightened around her hands before she could even drop to a fighting stance. He shoved her down and phased her partially into the floor before doing the same to Jack. It was over in seconds.

He stood up and stretched. Some of the corroded staples fell to the floor, and his wound oozed. He ignored it and was about to move away when he caught the look on their faces.

"What?" He looked at his hands. He laughed before lifting them up and turning them side to side. "They may be anti-ecto cuffs, but they're still made with mundane parts, and you don't exactly try to keep me clean. My blood is corrosive, ya know." He shook his head and walked over to the portal.

It looked different somehow... he shrugged and ripped the door off instead of thinking about it too hard. He stretched his arms out wide and basked in front of the open portal like a sunflower to the sun and breathed in deep.

"It's like standing at the edge of a lake and breathing in fresh clean air. If the lake was made of toxic Sprite mixed with the taste of electricity." He soaked in more of that good good before grabbing the metal chair that sat next to the portal. He dragged it over to sit in front of the Fenton's slowly, making sure the legs screeched across the floor the entire way.

He slumped in the chair and just lounged in it for a moment with one leg outstretched. Being anything other than horizontal was amazing. Add in the flavor of the Fentons' fear, anger, confusion, and shame permeating the air, and it was absolutely delightful!

He brushed both hands through his hair and tried to gauge how long it'd gotten. He couldn't remember if they had cut it at any point, but with how long it was...

"At least a year? I'm surprised you didn't get bored! Ancients know I was dying down here." He cackled at their faces. "C'mon, that was pretty good." He pulled the hair in front of his face and froze for a moment before laughing hard enough more staples popped. "I was... oh no, I was checking to see if it was black or white since I can't tell what form I'm in. I didn't expect it to be green." He laughed harder. "Really went above and beyond to wash the blood off me, didn'tchya?" He laughed while his bio-donors stared at him.

"What now, beast?"

"Now, now, Maddie. That's not any way to initiate a conversation!" He leaned forward, putting his weight on his elbows resting on his knees. "I have a few questions before we wrap things up."

"We're not telling you anything, you -" Danny moved faster than she could blink and gripped her jaw tightly.

"Now, you are going to be civil during this conversation if you don't want to be muzzled since that is what you think should be done to monsters. Do you understand?" He stared into her eyes with one eyebrow raised and without blinking for about 5 minutes, his grip tightening the entire time. Finally, she relented and nodded. "Good." He sat back in his chair.

"I don't think I have many questions for ya. First off, are Jazz, Tuck, and Sam alive?"

"Stay away from our daughter you -"

"Aaaand talking privileges revoked! Jack, please answer the question."

Jack swallowed around his tears. "They're all alive. They went underground a couple of weeks after we.. after you..."

"After you started torturing your own son, yes, we've been through this."

Jack choked back a sob. "We had a check-in a few days ago. They were still fine then."

Danny hummed. "And what did you tell them about me?"

"That... that you had run away. After we had gotten in a fight about your grades."

Danny laughed. "They didn't believe you, did they?" Jack shook his head. "No, no, they wouldn't. Couldn't, even, since just disappearing like that went against my very nature. Oh!" Danny clapped and laughed at Jack's confusion, "You really don't know anything, do you?! I was a protector spirit!" He saw the meaning dawn in Jack's widening eyes. "That's right! I literally can't just disappear from my home, friends, or family that I've chosen to protect. I have to be made to." He leaned back and chuckled, wiping away a false tear.

"And the GIW?"

"They," Jack's eyes shifted to his wife, who was yelling behind her ice gag. "they mostly left Amity after the ghosts stopped showing up. We haven't been in contact with them since." Maddie was screaming something at Danny with fire in her eyes. Danny just rolled his.

"Yes, yes. 'If they were we’d have given you to them to be torn apart molecule by molecule.'” He mocked. “Honestly, woman. Come up with new material." He got down in front of her and brushed her hair out of her face gently.

"I am your son." He said softly. "You gave birth to me. Your invention killed and resurrected me, turning me into a part ghost, part living child. Your neglect and Jazz's parenting turned me into a people pleasing hero. Your ignorance and cruelty have turned me into what I am now. I -"

"We didn't know."

Danny very slowly turned his head to look at Jack before tilting it to the side. "You do realize that's worse, right? You... you get that, right?" He looked back and forth between them incredulously. "My ghost persona is literally just a palette swap. I mean, I didn't even wear a mask! That is literally the same as if I got my hair dyed and wore contacts, and you couldn't recognize your own son!" He felt Jacks shame and Maddie's anger wash over him. He patted Maddie's cheek lightly.

"I understand. You're not forgiven, but I understand." Maddie looked at him like he was mad, which he obviously was, but he didn't appreciate the insinuation. "It's the obsession with being right!" Neither looked like they understood what he was talking about. "You know! You were so obsessed with being right about ghosts that you forgot about your 'best friend' in the hospital who, might I add, was there because of your own mistake during an experiment." He leaned over to Jack and put his hand up as if telling a secret. "A friend who repeatedly abused me, frequently kidnapped me, and constantly was trying to kill you to marry Maddie while trying to get me to renounce you as my father." Danny cackled as he realized. "Well, he got one of those granted!" He turned back to Maddie.

"Your obsession with being right caused you to neglect your children to the point that one of them died, and you didn't even notice. It caused you to ignore every piece of evidence that disproved your belief that ghosts were non-sentient and non-sapient. I mean, even your own hateful rhetoric denounces your findings! Can't think and can't feel but can plan to take over the world because they're ~e v i l~ ooooh." He wiggled his fingers in her face while adding spooky effects before laughing some more.

"Literally, everything you experienced with ghosts disproved your theories, but you couldn't be wrong, oh no, you have to be right! So, you make up little stories about how evil these non-thinking, non-feeling people are just so you can feel justified in torturing them." He patted her cheek. "Like I said, Maddie, you're the one who wished for monsters so much, you became one."

Danny slapped both hands on his knees before standing up. He looked over at Jack, who was sobbing now. He tutted and walked over to pat him on the head.

"Now, now, Jack. Everything will be alright. Well," he shrugged. "That's not true. But everything will come to an end. And, hey! When you become a ghost, because you will both become ghosts when you die with how ecto-contaminated you are, we can try to hash things out. Ya know, if you happen to survive the process and not tear yourself apart. Sound good? Gonna make it up to me with the rest of your eternity?" Jack looked up at him, and Danny barely shifted before Jack's neck was snapped. He let the corpse fall to the floor and the ice binding to dissipate before he turned back to a screaming Maddie.

"Oh, hush, you harpy. He was never on board with everything you were doing anyway." He lifted her out of the floor and dragged her to the table. "He was mostly just confused. He is," Danny barked out a laugh. "He WAS the dumbest genius I've ever heard of." He phased her arms, legs, and neck into the table in a mimicry of how they held him before walking over to the table of instruments. "But don't you worry, Maddie dearest. You and I are going to have a nice, long conversation. I'm going to do you the greatest honor I can possibly think of." He grinned at her and held up the chest spreader. "I'm going to become what you always wished I'd be."

Hours later, he finished tossing Jack and the pieces of Maddie into the portal for whatever was on the other side to snack on before he tore the portal apart. He was honestly really disappointed how long Maddie lasted before begging and how quickly she died. No gumption at all.

After using some ecto-fishing line as stitching thread, (he didn't do it earlier because of how funny it was as he bled on Maddie while cutting her open the same way she did him. He wanted her to know what it looked like while he did it.) and finally tearing off his muzzle, he spent the rest of the day combing every inch of the lab, destroying all inventions and blueprints before wiping their entire database. He didn't keep any copies. He remembered the useful ones and could jimmy-rig anything new he might need.

The most surprising thing was when he went upstairs. They really had moved him! He was in some shitty brownstone with crooked flooring and rotting wood around the windows. He wondered if the basement was soundproofed since he had let Maddie scream as much as she wanted, but no one had come crashing through the door to save her. He thought that was because #Amity, but apparently not??

Danny continued going through every inch of the house and destroying anything identifiable. He made sure to check all the walls and within all the furniture as well, utilizing his phasing to the best of his abilities.

He took a shower once he was done. He waited until the water ran clear and then ran himself a bubble bath. He took one of the phones he found and sat listening to some soothing music as he floated there. By the time he was done, his wounds were starting to scar, and his skin was clean, if not a startling white from his time away from the sun. His hair was also, unfortunately, still a toxic green.

He got dressed in a white shirt, purple jacket and some jeans. They were the only items that both fit and looked like they had never been worn. Fortunately, the Fenton's were paranoid of all institutions, so they had cash squirreled away throughout the house, giving him more than enough to last him for a little while.

He took all personal effects and destroyed them or burned them in the basement. All but a single polaroid of him, Jazz, Tuck, and Sam in front of the Nasty Burger some time in his sophomore year.

He looked at himself in the mirror one last time and cackled, his grin spreading too wide on his face. He tucked the picture in his coat pocket and leaned forward. Well. If Maddie became what she hated most, maybe it was time for him to do the same.

He took some of Maddie's red lipstick and drew a wide smile on his face. He looked at himself and laughed until he was doubled over. At one point, the ghosts had tried to make him the crown prince of the Infinite Realms. Now he was just the clown prince. Maybe he should become the clown prince of crime! Not like what he had found stashed away would last him forever and not like he had the capacity to be something as mundane as a barista after all this. Plus, it would entertain good, ol’ Clocky.

He did one last phase of the whole house, burying any evidence of his presence in the foundation. He could already feel his power waning as the leftover ambient ecto from the destroyed portal dispersed into the air. There were also curses here that were latching onto him like a weighted blanket, snuffing out his powers.

He shrugged. Even if he was less powerful, it's not like he could die. The most that would happen is a nap for a while before he came back to continue the fun! Maybe he’d add more deaths to his rolodex. Death by stabbing or crowbar might be fun! Ooh, or maybe an explosion! Something dramatic.

It was night when he finally stepped out onto the street. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of smog and pollution. He smiled wide. Time to see what this Gotham place was all about!

#danny phantom #dpxdc #dcxdp #dp x dc prompt #dp x dc crossover #sorry not sorry #if i have to have this in my head you do too #i wish i couldve put in some bat or bird but it didnt fit #why does it work so well #that cracking noise was actually his core #maddie done fucked him up #i see jack as becoming a ghost obsessed with making up for his mistakes #maddie destroys herself once she has enough consciousness to understand what she is #if ya wanna use this for anything please feel free tho i appreciate a tag or nod in my direction #clown prince of the infinite realms #joker!danny

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