#NO i do not want to assume that lancer pulled because they didn’t know any better

[selkie-wizard]

let’s be kinder together

[ecto-american]

Humanity

Upon their arrest by the GIW together, Valerie learns something interesting about Phantom and herself that make her question just how human both herself and Phantom are.

note that this isn’t a phic phight thing, just something i wrote literally months ago for Lexx but forgot that i wrote

on FFN and AO3

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They didn't even have the decency to arrest her before Mr. Lancer's class. Being arrested for...well, the Guys in White were never really clear as to why they showed up to Casper High to arrest her. But whatever the reason, that would have been one hell of an excuse as to why she was not just missing, but why she couldn't turn in that book report that she not only didn't do, but hadn't even read a single page of yet. Valerie had an inkling she knew why, but she remained completely silent the entire march out the front doors of the school. She wasn't an idiot after all.

The agent to her left opened the door, and the agent to her right put his hand on her head to duck her into the white SUV. The door closed, and Valerie glanced to see just how tinted the windows were, as well as the police-style framing of the windows and the separation between the driver and passenger as well as the backseat dwellers.

"Oh, I was wondering why we stopped here."

That familiar voice made her jump, and she turned to see Phantom. He was in the exact same predicament. Hands behind his back, leaning against the seat, though she could immediately tell that his handcuffs were much clunkier and glowed. Obviously anti-ghost.

"You!" Valerie hissed. She immediately leaned into the window, lifting her leg up, and she began to kick him repeatedly. "What the hell are you doing here!?"

"Ow!" Phantom hissed as she got him in the shoulder, and then his rib. She didn't stop, and she didn't miss. "AH! Fuck, stop it! OW!"

"Knock it off!" one of the agents boomed. The sudden, strict tone made Valerie pause. She kicked him one more time, square in the face, before finally stopping.

Phantom made a weird wheezing noise, and she saw him shift to rub his nose on his upper arm and shoulder. He frowned.

"My nose is bleeding," he complained.

"I hope your nose is broken!" Valerie snapped back at him.

Phantom glared at her. He made a weird noise in his throat, and it took Valerie a moment to realize what he was doing. Preparing spit. And indeed, the ghost teen stuck his tongue out, drool instantly dripping, and he leaned in. Valerie instantly leaned away from him.

"Ew! Gross! Get away from me!" she complained.

"Nu-uh!" Phantom replied, his tongue still out as he continued to scoot. He got close enough to open his mouth, and some of his saliva dripped onto her knee.

"Gross, gross, gross!" she shrieked. Valerie kicked him in the side, and Phantom let out a pained wheeze.

"Knock. It. Off," the other agent snapped at them. They had gotten into the driver and passenger's seat, and both were glaring at them.

"She started it!" Phantom accused. The driver frowned at him, obviously not amused. Phantom scooted back to his side of the backseat. Valerie stayed pressed against the window and door. She could hear the drive mutter something about hating kids before turning the vehicle on, and they drove off.

--------------------------

They made the duo sit in the interrogation room for three hours, according to the clock. They had, thankfully, just connected the teenagers to the table via a long chain and handcuffs, so that they could at least be a bit more comfortable, even though Phantom, and for some reason her, were both given anti-ghost bracelets to wear. A box of tissues were also tossed onto the table, and Phantom had spent the first half hour tending to his bloodied nose. He stuffed all the used tissues, grossly, into his pocket, though she suspected why he did that. It had his DNA on it.

Phantom nor her attempted conversation. Neither were stupid. They essentially stared at each other and the walls, their only words were occasional out-loud wondering of when somebody was going to show up to question them already.

Obviously her more pressing question was why the hell they were still together. For some reason, Phantom was with her every step of the way of their weird little field trip. They got escorted in together, processed together, and now were sat at the exact same interrogation table. Why? She had absolutely no idea. Didn't they normally separate people they arrested?

At exactly 6:38 PM, somebody finally opened the door, and she and Phantom sat straight up.

The agent that sat before them was a large man, muscular and tall with big hands and sunglasses that fully blocked any chance of the teens from seeing what he was looking at.

"We know you're both half-ghost."

Valerie's mind instantly went to Vlad. That must have been what he was...she had been debating with herself for weeks now as to what he was. A ghost disguised as a human? A human who had ghost powers?

She pushed those aside to look at Phantom. To her surprise, he was pale. Nearly as white as his hair, with anxiety sweat drops beginning to form. Her interest peaked instantly. Silence hung in the air. The man said nothing, simply keeping his attention intensely on them. Valerie

"That's ridiculous," Valerie finally said something. She nearly added that the entire idea itself was ridiculous too. Well, it kind of was. It was so weird to grasp, but it wasn't really something that she wanted to think too hard about these days, and especially now. There was nothing more that she'd love to do than to throw that manipulative old bastard under the weird half-ghost freak bus. However, not only was it probably not a good idea to start beef with a literal superpowered-villain billionaire...but Dani was still out there.

"Don't lie to me." The man sounded agitated. "Both of your ectoplasmic readings are abnormal."

Ectoplasmic reading? Her? Valerie stared at him as if he had grown a second head.

"I shouldn't have any ectoplasmic reading," she pointed out. "I'm alive. Alive people don't have ectoplasmic readings."

The man opened up his folder, pulling out a few choice pieces of papers to slide her way. Phantom silently watched them, his eyes wide and his face looking utterly blank yet...so fearful. Valerie opted to ignore him for a while, accepting the papers to hold as she read through them.

She was familiar with how to read ectoplasmic readings, charts and monitors by now. Green eyes scanned the data, frowning in confusion as she checked the details, and she could see out of the corner of her eye Phantom leaning in to read too. She adjusted her position so that he couldn't.

This description was definitely her, and...she was giving off ectoplasmic readings. Not really in the same way as a normal ghost; there was something distinctively different about hers that any set of trained eyes could pick up on. But how?

"I don't understand," Valerie spoke slowly. "I'm alive." She put the documents back down on the table. "You can take a swap or slap some ghost goop stuff on me. Hell, prick my finger." Valerie held her palm out to the man. Her anti-ghost bracelet sparkled a bit in the light of the room. At least she now knew why they made her wear the bracelets too. "I'm not dead."

The interviewer stared intently at her hand. He gave a neutral hum of acknowledgement, swooping the papers back up.

"Testing and experiments will be reserved for a later time," he replied. Valerie got instant goosebumps. Testing and experiments? "Maybe a few hours in holding will help you realize why you should just come clean to us."

"Can I get some water first?" Valerie asked. The agent snorted in amusement as he stood up.

"Ghosts don't eat or drink."

She felt numb, and she had no idea how to respond to that. Two more agents came into the room, and they silently took the teenagers further into the building until they reached a door. The third agent opened it, and Phantom and Valerie were ushered inside.

The room almost immediately led into bars, and the first thing Valerie could think of was just how much it looked like jail. Two uncomfortable looking bunk beds on either side, a toilet in the middle, a small sink, and no windows. The light was dim, and the room was cold.

Phantom was pushed in first, and then Valerie, and the bars clunked as they closed. She turned to see the bars begin to glow as the bars were locked.

And there was no goodbyes. The agents were eerily silent as they filed out, and the door was shut behind them. She could hear the faint click as it also locked.

Valerie turned to see Phantom's reaction, and he still looked shaken and pale. She already suspected the answer, but she needed to hear it.

"So...are you?" Valerie asked.

"No!" Phantom's answer was way too quick. "What about you? Don't you hate ghosts?"

"I'm not half ghost!" she snapped back. "I have no clue why they'd think that."

Phantom studied her for a moment. His eyes lit up.

"Your suit!" he declared. "The one Technus gave you. It must make your reading wonky."

The second he reminded her, she felt a cold shiver. Suddenly her heartbeat felt off, and she assumed she was colder than usual because of...ya know. That couldn't be true. It had to be wonky readings. The suit was so nice...so much nicer than the suit that she had made herself. It was so much more powerful, so much nicer, just flat out cooler.

She put her heart over her chest. She still had a heartbeat, right?

"What's your excuse?" she asked. Phantom didn't say anything. He turned his attention to the wall, staring blankly at it.

"...Why would they let us stay trapped in here together?" Phantom changed the subject. Valerie narrowed her eyes at him, but she had to admit. It was a good point. "Especially knowing that we'd just plot our escape together."

"Pump the breaks, Phantom. I'm not escaping," Valerie scoffed. "They'll realize their mistake and just let me go."

"Well, they're not gonna let me go," Phantom frowned. "The Guys in White don't exactly play nice with ghosts. And I'm not leaving without you."

"Not my problem," Valerie replied. She raised an eyebrow at him. "Unless...of course there's a reason for it to be my problem."

"You can't just do it out of the kindness of your heart?" Phantom sounded sarcastic, despite staring at her desperately. Valerie crossed her arms. "Please?"

"Give me one good reason to escape with you."

And thus began a staring contest. Phantom shifted from foot to foot, and he glanced at the floor. A lightbulb made the realization click. The GIW knew her identity. They arrested her at school. But they didn't know Phantom's. Nobody probably did. This was likely a ploy to get them to reveal themselves to each other. How or why, Valerie wasn't sure. But now it was glaringly obvious to her.

Phantom was half-ghost. Just like Dani. Just like Vlad. The Guys in White don't play nice with ghosts, and she had a strong feeling that they didn't care much about playing nice with humans either. Especially if they suspected that there was ghost within them.

"Nevermind," Valerie sighed. Phantom stared at her, and he...looked scared. "I can destroy ghosts…" But I really can't take part in destroying a human.

Phantom grew a bit pale again, as they both knew the unspoken words. He took a deep, shaky breath. His reaction was all she needed to know, that this wasn't some weird lie or ploy.

"So. What's our game plan?" he asked.

Valerie studied their surroundings. She reached out to touch the bars of their shared cell, taking immediate note that she wasn't shocked.

"Well, obviously there's that big shield outside," Valerie lightly mused.

"I can get past that shield," Phantom spoke up. "Under the...right circumstances."

Valerie nodded. If Phantom was able to turn human away from the prying eyes of cameras and more, they could both obviously escape right out the front door. Hell, they could likely utilize both Phantom and his? Human? Side? Whatever he was called.

"This facility was designed for ghosts, not humans," Phantom continued. "If we worked together, we can probably make a quick exit." Valerie hummed in agreement.

"That's not just enough," Valerie replied. "I'll just get arrested again. They know who I am. Like, they know Valerie Gray is the huntress." Phantom frowned, and he thought for a moment.

"We could maybe delete their evidence files or something?" he suggested. Valerie paced their cell for a moment.

"There has to be some kind of computer security room somewhere," Valerie spoke aloud to herself. "If we can find it, we can probably wipe evidence and also fully take down the shield."

Phantom leaned against the back wall of the cell.

"I don't think that's enough," he replied. Valerie stopped pacing to stare at him. "We need to make sure the Guys in White don't do this again. Ever. Never even have the chance to get to this point again." Valerie scowled.

"They help hunt ghosts!" she protested.

"And they'd consider Danielle a ghost and rip her to shreds," Phantom countered. The reminder of that little girl hit her straight in the gut. She sighed.

"I don't know," she said slowly.

"They're a government organization, they'll rebuild," Phantom pushed. "We just need to stall them long enough to buy time for us to figure out how to keep you, Danielle and I safe."

She hated it, but...yeah. She wasn't really in the best position either. Valerie had no clue what was going on with her, but the Guys in White were incredibly persistent...and she knew her dad wouldn't be able to afford a lawyer for her anymore.

Valerie held her wrist up. Her suit's bracelet was basically hidden underneath the anti-ghost one, but she could still feel it there. Her suit wasn't gone. She could still access it, and that made her feel more confident in that she was still human. Which she had to be. Right?

Valerie activated her suit, and she held her wrist up to read the screen. She pressed a few buttons.

"I think I can figure out a map of this place," she said. "And from there we can see where's what."

Her forearm glowed brightly as it gathered data. It took a few moments of calculating, but soon, she had her results. Phantom was soon peering over her shoulder, both of them studying the map.

"How accurate is this?" Phantom questioned.

"It tends to be fairly decent. Sometimes it's hit or miss with collapsed buildings, but overall it's spot on," she replied. She adjusted the screen, zooming it out. "I can only get the floor we're on though."

"That looks like it could be some kind of utility room," Phantom pointed to a specific room. Valerie zoomed in on it, studying it.

"Yeah," she said slowly. "Yeah. Gotta be. It's got a lot of power coming to or from there. Has to be a source, or at the very least some kind of major technology area."

"Either way, we should destroy it," Phantom said. Valerie frowned.

"I don't know," she hesitated.

"I mean, you can't even summon your powers."

Phantom glanced down at his wrists, glancing curiously at them before setting his sights on Valerie's arms.

"Can you shoot them off?" he asked.

Valerie tried to summon one of her weapons. She waited. And she waited. Nothing came, and her gut became queasy. She couldn't get her ghost weapon. None of them would summon. This had to be a bad sign. Or was it just the GIW prepared against humans too? That was the most logical explanation. She couldn't be…But also she could be...after all the ectoplasmic readings...

"Um, actually, I think I can…" Phantom's voice caused her to truly look at him again. The ghost was fiddling with his wristbands, using his knees to lock it in place as he attempted to slip his wrist through the band with no success.

"Here, let me try," Valerie interrupted him. Phantom glanced up at her.

"Can you shoot them?" he asked. Valerie forced a weak smile, but she held up a screwdriver.

"Got something even better. My travel tool kit," she replied. After too many breakdowns in the field, she had replaced a small pouch that previously held smoke bombs, something she rarely used, with a few small tools. It was easily one of the best choices she made.

Phantom held his wrist out to her, and she turned the bracelet around. Eventually she managed to pry a piece of the metallic covering off, exposing screws and a few wires. Valerie didn't undo or cut anything right away, both her and Phantom silently trying to make sense of the connection and mechanics behind it. Would really suck to find out the hard way that disconnecting a certain wire would trigger an alarm, after all.

"I think you shouldn't touch the red wire," Phantom lightly mused. "Pretty sure that's a power, and if you turn it off it'll be bad news."

"Mmm, yeah," Valerie agreed. "I think I can just unscrew this though, and we should just be careful to not slip the wires off."

Phantom nodded, and he waited patiently as she did just so. After twenty minutes of careful disconnecting, Phantom had two hands free, and he flexed his hands with a happy sigh.

"God, that just feels so much better," he told her. He motioned for her to hand him the screwdriver. "Here, I'll do yours." Valerie shook her head.

"I can't leave. I won't say anything if you escape, but they know my identity."

Phantom frowned.

"I'm not leaving you here. Come on, you saw your map. We can destroy their power. We can destroy this entire building," he began, only for Valerie to cut him off.

"And do more destruction? Is that all you think about?" she snapped. "You're safe. They know my identity. You want me to get more charges or something? I can't risk it. I'll just stay here. They'll figure out soon enough that I'm fully human." A full human who apparently had mixed logic as to whether or not they could use their ghost hunting suit. If she was fully human, she could summon those weapons, right? Unless it was specifically preventing any ghost weapon, regardless of the user, use it.

"Red, I don't think you understand," Phantom told her. "They're not going to go easy on you. Even if you prove you're human, they're not going to believe you. You heard them. They already denied you contact to the outside world."

That reminder sent a chill down her spine.

"Then tell my dad," she told him. Phantom stared at her. He began to unzip his suit, and she instantly began to look away. "Dude, what the hell?"

"Valerie, look at me," he demanded.

"You're naked!" she protested.

"I'm not naked, just look."

She decided to humor him with the intention of taking a quick peek. But when she saw him, she felt a cold sweat hit her. Phantom had only zipped enough to expose his chest, and there was a distinctive Y-patterned scar on his chest that stood out against the other scars.

"This is what happened last time I was trapped here. I'm not going to leave you alone here," he stated. He suddenly looked away, and he quickly zipped his suit back up. "There's no way in hell I'm going to risk this happening to you. Red, you need to come with me."

That urgent gut feeling of needing to go finally crashed into her. The GIW would never believe her. Not just because of stubbornness, but...Valerie herself wasn't even sure anymore.

She swallowed dryly, and she nodded. Her right wrist was offered to him.

"Do you know what to do?" she asked. Phantom scowled.

"I just watched you do it," he reminded her. She rolled her eyes, but held her wrist up for him, and a half hour later, she too, was free.

She wasn't sure if she was more concerned or relieved to instantly feel that distinctive rush of power back. The second Phantom removed her bracelet, she knew that she could summon any of her ghost weapons now at her fingertips. But she could still summon her suit regardless, and activate her GPS abilities. Was this normal? Valerie had no clue what this meant anymore.

"So, next step, I think we can escape through here."

Valerie looked up to see Phantom was now floating by the vent at the top of their cell. He was already using her screwdriver to undo the vent cover. She pulled her map back up on her forearm, glancing at it and studying it.

"I'm pretty sure the vent will go straight to that electric room," she told him.

"Oh, now you're finally seeing the big picture?" Phantom lightly teased, glancing over his shoulder as he popped the vent cover off. She nodded at him, but didn't crack a smile.

"...You and Dani may look just alike, but I never want you two to have matching scars," she said. Phantom's smile dropped, and he nodded in agreement.

He placed the vent covering on the top bunk, handing Valerie back her screwdriver. She slipped it back in it's pouch.

"Here, I'll give you a boost up," Phantom offered, pressing his hands together. She nodded, stepping a foot onto his hand. With ease, Phantom pushed her up, and she grabbed onto the vent, pulling herself in. It was surprisingly fairly roomy yet not, and she managed to get comfortable on her stomach, pulling her map back up.

"Ready to commit several federal crimes?" Phantom's voice half joked. She looked behind her the best she could to see the ghost right behind her. She snorted in amusement.

"Ready as I'll ever be," she replied. "Just follow me. It's time to give these idiots hell."

And hell they did. Who knew that the Guys in Whites headquarters could cause such a colorful explosion.

[itty-bitty-playhouse]

hi hi hello i heard you needed prompts. i do not know if you still need prompts since it's been 2 hours but i am still coming with prompts. i hope they are useful in some way.

(all of them are deltarune related sorry)

-the fun gang but they're ALL flips and they'll regress and care for each other (especially ralsei being an amazing cg and kris just getting everyone mcdonalds and hoping they'll settle down)

-susie and noelle and susie finds out noelle regresses and immediately turns into the most protective cg ever

-rouxls kaard and/or queen caring for lancer and susie when they regress and boy do they get into some shenanigans

-blue addison caring for a regressed pink addison and blue addison's legal name is video and pink addison calls them vivi

-enough spamton regresses this and spamton regresses that what about SWATCH regresses and spamton CG this and spamton CG that :0 (and hear me out here part of spamton's cg activities is barking at anyone who misgenders swatch (they/them) and he's just really aggressive about it)

okay alright that's all i got for now but i hope you enjoy these. have a wonderful day. /gen

-tyler

Thank you so much Tyler! If you don’t mind I’m gonna do the swatch and spamton. Once again thank you for the request.

“You may go on your break, Swatch. But I do expect to see you in seven hours.” Queen walked away, continuing to give orders to swatchlings and critique what they did. Swatch walked away and out of Queen’s mansion. They hoped to be able to either regress or take a nap. They would most likely stray to a nap. Even though they appreciated their regression, because it made them happy, they were very ashamed.

“Oh. Good afternoon sir. How may I help you today?” Swatch was snapped away from his thoughts by the ‘sir’ comment. “I would like your best suite please.” The employer typed away at their computer, their eyebrows slowly. “I’m sorry. We don’t have any suites or rooms available. Would you mind sharing a room with someone?” Swatch didn’t really want to. They wanted to be alone. They wanted to think. They wanted to regress. “Oh. Of course. It’s fine.” Why were they like this? They paid and left a 2000 dd [[dark dollar]] tip. Floor 3, room 308. They opened the door with the spare key and looked around. “Who’s [Technology 0f THE FUTURE]!? I MEAN THERE!”

Swatch knew that voice from anywhere. “Question, I thought you said you couldn’t afford anything, Spamton?” Spamton pulled the covers from atop his head. “Someone bought something from me and [ALWAYS TIP THE WAITRESS] 800 dark dollars.” He said with a nervous smile. It made sense since. The room itself was only 100 dd. Swatch’s mind began to clear and become fuzzy as he started to slip. “Spamton.” The smaller man perked up tilting his head in confusion. “Is it wrong to regress? As an adult.” Spamton was baffled. They had this conversation when they were closer. “I’ve already told you. Your regression is COMPLETELY WARRANTED]]. There is nothing wrong with it.” Spam started to notice a difference in his friend's behavior. “Is there [SOMETHING WORTH BUYING] on your mind?” “Well, someone called me ‘sir’ today.” Swatch mumble as they tapped and rubbed their fingers[[I think??? not sure]] together.

Spamton was outraged. How could someone be so rude to not even ask. “That is it. We are going to [[I JUST WANNA TALK TO HIM MEG.]] [in peter griffin voice for visualization] Swatch had almost fully slipped. “Wha, wait pwease. I don’t tink day ment dat.” “Bubs. I’m gonna have a word with them. Very few words. “Otay but I’m warning you.” They took the elevator down to the lobby. Spamton scoured his vision to find the culprit. Swatch squatted down to his CG’s eye level to whisper, “That’s them. In da neon blue and white.” Spamton stomped his way over to them. “How can you help you sirs?” “Yeah, I just wanted to [KEEP YOU ENTERTAINED] because YOU need to stop [DID YOU JUST ASSUME MY GENDER] of my friend here.”

While Spamton was practically barking at the employers, Swatch just played with their fingers and traced his palms. Squatting back down to their friend they whispered “Spam Spam.” Spamton stopped to pay attention to the little. “Can we watch a movie when we go back?” He huffed his chest and fixed his collar. “Of course. I was just planning on leaving.” He said in a more calm and soothing tone. He watched as Swatch chirped in excitement and tapped his ((fingers? feathers??? which?)) to correspond with his emotion. When they got back in the room, Swatch rushed to their bag to get their favorite stuffie. “What movie do you wanna watch Bub?” “Can we watch da new hooman movie. Encanto.” He sounded out the title as Spamton smiled. “Sure bub.”

They watched the movie twice, singing all the songs, being over exaggerated with everything and ended up taking a three hour nap.

[pitch-pearl-void]

Hi! I love your work! Do you take requests? If so, would you mind doing something like maybe Skulker is looking for Phantom so in the middle of the day he comes to find Fenton to use him as bait while he's in the middle of class? And the class' reaction, because holy crap Fenton knows a ghost, and Phantom coming to save him? If not, that's totally fine, too!

I love the idea! I may have gotten a little carried away...whoops ^-^’ I focused more on Fenton and his classmates than on the romance, but I hope you’ll like it!

A paper football smacked directly into Fenton’s neck. Fenton cringed and gritted his teeth. In the desk behind him, he heard Dash snicker and the dull smack of two hands connecting as he high-fived Kwan. Mr. Lancer continued droning on about Shakespeare’s career, too passionate to notice Dash’s behavior—assuming he would care. He would probably just see it as another form of punishment for Fenton’s actions.

Not punishment for taking too many bathroom breaks or arriving late to class, though. No, Fenton’s days as a misbehaved student were supposed to be over, brought to an end by his and Phantom’s separation. He no longer needed to escape class to fight ghosts. He no longer needed to think about ghosts at all.

In theory…

Avoiding ghosts might have worked if Fenton could just stop thinking about his other half. 

For weeks after they had separated, they had barely spoken, but then Fenton had to go and open his big mouth, invite Phantom to play a round on his video game, driven by some instinct or by some longing he couldn’t put a name to. Phantom was just…he was his missing half. Being around him felt right. It wasn’t that crazy that Fenton had missed him, right? That they had stayed up nearly all night talking, playing, and joking? That Phantom visited almost every night, that they were rebuilding something new between them?

There was just so much to talk about, so many things to share, so many things to experience together in ways they never had as one. A month had passed with the two of them growing closer, and Fenton was losing his mind, he was sure of it.

What else but madness would have made him meet Phantom’s kiss with one of his own?

He had gotten caught texting Phantom. There was just so much they needed to figure out about what they were feeling… Lancer had confiscated his phone and moved Fenton to the front of the class where Lancer could “keep an eye on him.”

A fourth football landed without Lancer’s eye seeing a thing.

Fenton groaned and dropped his forehead onto the desk.

“Head up, Mr. Fenton,” Mr. Lancer ordered without looking.

Amazing, Fenton thought irritably as he lifted his head. He knows and sees everything except—

An invisible hand seized Fenton’s wrist, cold metal plates painfully squeezing his arm. He drew in a sharp breath. Before he could call out a warning, the ghost flew above his desk, lifting Fenton by his arm until they were at eye-level several feet from the ground.

Skulker, fully visible now, grinned viciously at Fenton’s stunned face.

“Crime and Punishment!” Mr. Lancer yelped.

The other students jumped from their seats, screaming. They ran for the door, but Skulker activated something by flicking the fingers of his free hand, and green electric bars sprang up in front of the door and the windows. The students cried out in fear and backed away from the bars. Fenton grabbed the arm holding his wrist and tried to pull himself up or at least relieve the strain on his shoulder and wrist. He grunted, kicked his feet, but he couldn’t manage a chin-up one-handed. He could barely do them with two.

“A bit overkill,” Skulker mused aloud, staring at Fenton’s classmates, “I have my bait, I don’t need hostages, but perhaps one of you lot can perform a service for me.”

“Skulker,” Fenton growled under his breath, trying to slip his voice underneath the fearful screams and yelling so he would only be heard by Skulker, “what the heck are you doing? You know I’m not half-ghost anymore, let me go.”

Skulker laughed, a cruel, creepy sound due to the robotic speakers and the natural echo in his voice. Fenton’s classmates shrank back from him. “You now serve a new purpose for me, whelp.” He swung Fenton by his wrist, Fenton’s legs swinging freely, and then, before Fenton could squeak a protest, he tossed him.

Fenton cried out and tried uselessly to activate powers that were no longer there. It took five seconds. Five seconds of falling before he landed on the cement floor. 

Air burst from his lungs. Pain and shock exploded from his back. He tried gasping in a breath, but his lungs didn’t seem to be working. He choked before managing a ragged inhale.

Skulker’s boot pressed down on his chest before he could roll over and curl into a ball. Fenton groaned, his back screaming, but he wrapped his fingers around the boot and tried to shove it off. He couldn’t. Without ghost powers, he was too weak. He was too disoriented. Had he hit his head? He thought his back took the full brunt of his fall, but his head might have bounced back.

Add super healing to the list of powers I wish I had right now, he thought woozily.

He had never hurt so much during a ghost fight, not even when he had been thrown through buildings. He had made craters in pavement and climbed out of the pit with only a sore shoulder. If this was the sort of dangers full humans faced during every ghost attack…

No wonder they always ran away.

Except Sam and Tucker… Fenton pried his eyes open and turned his head toward his classmates, desperately searching for the friends he knew wouldn’t be there. They shared a math class with Valerie during final period. Skulker must have waited until Fenton was isolated from any other ghost hunter who could help. But why?

“Where is your communications device?” Skulker asked him.

Fenton turned his head and blinked stupidly up at him. “What?”

“Your…” Skulker snapped his fingers together as he searched for the word he needed, “rectangular device. Phone. Phone! Yes, that was it. Where is your phone, whelp?”

Fenton tipped his head back and looked toward Lancer’s desk. It was probably there somewhere, but…he could see Mr. Lancer and a few of his classmates huddling behind the desk. He lowered his chin and looked incredulously up at Skulker again. “That’s why you’re attacking me? My phone? What the hell do you need my phone for?”

“Dude,” one of the jocks, Brad, hissed. “What the fuck are you doing, Fenton? Shut up and do what he says!”

Skulker snorted—or mimicked one, anyway. “Better do as the other whelps advise, child. You’re a great deal more delicate without your powers.”

Fenton hissed in a breath, but his classmates would hopefully miss the implication—if he spoke fast enough and gave them something else to think about. “Tell me what you want my phone for, first.”

Brad groaned.

“He’s a dead man,” Kwan whispered.

“To contact your ghost half, why else?” Skulker said disdainfully.

Fenton wanted to scream. “I don’t have one!” he said, the words almost tripping over each other as they rushed from his mouth.

“What?” Skulker’s menacing tone softened into something almost civil. “A phone? You don’t have a phone? Perhaps I can make one for you. I understand these devices are important to human development. And it would serve my purposes to be able to reach one ghost child through the other.”

“Stop—Damn it, Skulker! I don’t have a ghost half!” Fenton tipped his chin up and raised his voice. “I am one hundred percent human!”

“Oh yes, now,” Skulker grumbled bitterly. “You two have cheated me of a unique specimen.”

“Wow, sorry,” Fenton deadpanned.

“What the fuck are they talking about?” Dash demanded. He tried to whisper it, but his high-pitched voice easily carried his words to Fenton and Skulker. “What the hell is a ghost half? Why is that robot ghost after Fenton?”

Fenton glared pointedly up at Skulker, trying to communicate a silent “look what you did” reprimand, but Skulker only moved his head in a way that made Fenton think the tiny ghost inside it was rolling his eyes. A blade shot out of the armor’s wrist. Skulker touched the flat side to Fenton’s cheek, and Fenton drew in a breath, the cold touch of the blade spreading throughout his body.

“Your phone, whelp,” Skulker said, once again sounding menacing. A few of Danny’s classmates wailed in terror.

Fenton snapped, “I don’t have it!”

Skulker twisted the blade, the edge pressing into Fenton’s cheek. “Last chance, whelp.”

“Wait!” Lancer stood from behind his desk. Paulina and a couple other students stood with him, looking petrified. “Stop, stop!” He lifted Fenton’s phone above his head. “I have it! You can have it if you release him.”

“No, I don’t think I will.” Skulker blade moved away from Fenton’s cheek, however, allowing Fenton to breathe a little easier. “Awaken it for me.” Skulker’s false lips spread into a wicked grin. “We shall be making a little phone call…”

Fenton narrowed his eyes.

“Uhh…” Lancer began, uncertainly. “It’s, uh, it’s asking for some sort of password?”

“His password is numerical!” Mikey called from within the crowd of students clustered around the door. “A pin! Seven-eight-nine-zero.”

“Hey!” Fenton cried. “How do you know that?”

“You have other things to worry about, Fenton!” Kwan reminded him pointedly.

Lancer typed in the pin number and then stared down at the phone like he was facing down a complex puzzle. “How, uh, do I make a phone call on this thing?”

“Oh here!” Paulina snatched the phone from Lancer’s hands. “You just press the little phone icon, see?” She glanced up at Skulker and seemed to shrink in on herself, her confidence faltering. Fenton couldn’t really blame her. He remembered being terrified of Skulker the first few times he had met him too. “Um, what’s the phone number?”

“Child?” Skulker nudged Fenton’s cheek with the flat of his blade again.

Fenton kept his head turned toward Paulina and glared at Skulker from the corner of his eyes. “What?”

“The phone number, human child.”

Fenton snorted. “You haven’t said what you want to call him for yet.”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Spell it out for me.”

“In my efforts to study my prey’s habits, I have noticed the two of you getting…” Skulker tilted his head, “closer, shall we say? You have been spending a great deal of time together, lately. I don’t know how far things have gotten, but the signs of a ghost in love are fairly obvious. That is a weakness I can use. You are a weakness. Once he knows I have you, my prey will come to me.”

“You should change your name to Stalker,” Fenton grumbled, blushing.

The blush worsened as his classmates made little “ohhh” sounds of dawning understanding.

“Fenton has a ghost boyfriend,” Mikey said, his laugh too strained to be natural. “That must be what they mean by ghost half!!”

“Idiot,” Kwan groaned. “If this ghost doesn’t kill him, his parents are going to.”

Dash cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted, “Hey, Fenton, maybe you should dump your kinky ghost boyfriend before you get the rest of us killed over it!”

“Oh, fuck you!” Fenton shouted back, turning into the blade in order to glare at his classmates. “We’re not dating! We just kind of—He just…it’s complicated!"

Skulker snapped, “Whelp!” and turned Fenton’s head with the blade until Fenton’s glare had resettled on the ghost. “His phone number. Now!”

“No!” Fenton snapped back. “Forget it! I’m not going to let you use me as bait so you can—”

He cut off with a shriek of pain as the point of Skulker’s blade sliced across his cheek. Hot blood gushed from the wound and spilled toward his ear. He writhed under Skulkers boot and reached up to cover the wound, but Skulker’s blade slapped his hands away. Fenton’s classmates were screaming again, the tentative calm Fenton’s behavior had inspired shattered by the sight of so much blood. Tears streamed from Fenton’s eyes. Skulker slapped his hands away again before he could touch his face.

“You!” the hunter pointed at Paulina who quailed and shrank into Lancer. He protectively wrapped his arms around her. “Those devices can capture photos, can they not? Take a picture of this and send it to my prey as well.”

Paulina, trembling, shrieked, “I don’t know the number!”

Skulker looked down pointedly at Fenton. “Shall I give you a matching gash on your other cheek or will you cooperate for once, whelp?”

Fenton glared up at him and gritted his teeth against the pain.

“Look through his contacts!” Mikey shouted.

“Stop—” Fenton gasped in pain as speaking stretched the wound in his cheek. “—Stop helping him!”

“We’re not helping him we’re helping you, you suicidal maniac!” Dash shouted back.

Paulina’s hands shook as she maneuvered through Fenton’s phone. “What would the contact be? What—what do—h-how will I know which one is…?”

“He was texting someone during class,” Lancer said quickly. “That may be your best bet.”

“Mr. Lancer!” Fenton protested.

“Alright!” Paulina nearly sobbed. “Alright, I got it!” She pressed the phone to her ear, and Fenton squirmed under Skulker’s boot.

“Paulina, don’t!” he pleaded. “He’s just going to spring Skulker’s trap!”

“Hello?” Paulina gasped into Fenton’s phone, apparently ignoring Fenton. “Are you Danny’s ghost boyfriend, er ghost half? Yes, my name is Paulina, you have to come quick, there’s a ghost here!” Fresh tears escaped her eyes. “I don’t know his name!”

Skulker grinned. “He’ll know me once you take our picture.” He nudged Fenton’s chin with his blade, forcing his head to turn toward Paulina so his right cheek rested on the floor and the wound on his left cheek was exposed to the air. “Behave, child. Let him see the injury.”

“Uh, hold on,” Paulina told Phantom, “he wants me to take a picture…I don’t know! I’m just doing what I’m told!”

Fenton glared at Skulker from the corner of his eyes as best he could. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

“I know.” Skulker grinned viciously down at him. “It’s part of the fun.”

Fenton heard the camera on his phone make an artificial shutter sound and clenched his jaw, the wound on his cheek shrieking.

“O-okay,” Paulina stuttered. “I’m sending it.” She pressed the phone to her ear again. “Did you get it yet? Danny’s bleeding really bad. If you can find Danny Phantom, tell him we need his help!”

Skulker tipped back his head and laughed. “Yes! Tell Phantom to come at once!”

“Oh!” Paulina exclaimed. “You got it? Yeah, it’s a lot of blood, but—” Her expression froze. Her eyebrows furrowed and she pulled the phone away from her ear so she could glare at it. “He hung up on me!”

Skulker chortled. “Excellent! He will rush over here at his fastest speed, don’t you think, human whelp?”

“Probably,” Fenton bit out through his clenched teeth.

Skulker removed his boot from Fenton’s chest, and Fenton didn’t waste any time rolling onto his stomach. He frantically pushed himself onto his hands and feet and scrambled toward his classmates huddled by the door. They backed away from him like he had some sort of disease. Skulker fired something at him—a net—and Fenton crashed to the ground again. He screamed his frustration and struggled against the ropes. Kicking. Pulling. Twisting.

“Damn it!” he howled.

Skulker laughed delightedly at his efforts. He stomped toward Fenton, his mechanical boots making hissing, clicking noises as he approached. “I see you are as fierce as ever, whelp.” He grabbed ahold of the net and lifted Fenton into the air. Fenton hissed as his weight caused the thin ropes to bite into his skin. “But woefully weak. I wonder…if I tied to you to your other half, would you slow him down?” His grin grew more vicious. “That would make for an interesting game.”

Fenton wiggled in the net, trying to get comfortable as he glared at Skulker. “You’ll have to catch him first.”

“It’s only a matter of time, now. His protective instincts and weakness for you shall be his downfall this day.”

Fenton growled through his teeth and kicked Skulker’s chest as best he could through the net.

Skulker snorted. “That tickled…”

“Are you guys sure this was a good idea?” Nathan asked anxiously. “I mean, inviting another ghost here? Isn’t that just going to result in this classroom turning into a battlefield?”

Fenton’s classmates murmured uneasily to each other.

“Not if Phantom gets here first,” Dash declared, his voice only trembling slightly. “He beat this ghost before! He can do it again, no problem!”

“Would you like to tell them, or shall I?” Skulker asked Fenton in an almost conversational tone.

Fenton scowled at him and slumped in his unwelcome hammock. All of his and Phantom’s efforts to keep whatever was building between them secret until they could figure things out for themselves had just been shattered by Skulker’s attack. “Fine,” he grumbled. “Go ahead. They’ll find out when he gets here, anyway…”

Skulker threw his arms outward, Fenton and his net swinging from his fist. Fenton hissed his name in complaint, but Skulker ignored him. “I am Skulker!” Skulker declared in a ringing voice they probably heard from several classrooms down. “The greatest hunter in all the realms! I have vowed to capture the ghost child known as Danny Phantom, and now thanks to all of you and Phantom’s other half…” Skulker raised the net and grinned victoriously at Fenton’s scowling face, “my prey is at this moment speeding toward my trap…”

The quiet that fell over Fenton’s classmates was deafening, tension adding an oppressive pressure to the air so that it felt like Fenton was suffocating.

It was broken by Paulina.

“No!” she screamed. Fenton flinched, assuming her reaction had to do with him and Phantom’s feelings for each other, but Paulina proved him wrong as she fumbled with Fenton’s phone. “No, no, no!” She pressed the phone to her ear. “Pick up, pick up, pick up! Don’t come here, Ghost Boy! Don’t come!”

Skulker laughed. “It’s far too late for that! I have studied my prey well. His temper is always at its most irrational when one he cares for has been harmed.”

Fenton pushed against the confines of his net again. “You bastard,” he growled.

“It’s just Fenton,” Dash said weakly. “Phantom wouldn’t risk everything just for Fenton, would he?”

“But Danny is his ‘other half,’” Mikey pointed out. “That’s what the robot called them. It might be a ghost thing? Danny could be special to him.”

“What, like soulmates?” Kwan asked, sounding almost intrigued.

“It’s Fenton!” Dash gestured at Fenton’s hunched form inside the net. “Just look at him! There’s no way he could be Phantom’s…other half. Soulmate. Thing. No!”

Others murmured their assent.

Fenton groaned. “I can’t decide if being called Phantom’s soulmate is better or worse than the alternative,” he whispered.

“Better,” Skulker whispered back. He lifted his other arm and stared at the screen on his wrist, only partially listening to the humans. “It’s far more amusing.”

“Yeah, for you.”

“Excuse me?” Amanda shoved Dash’s shoulder and pointed at Fenton. “Danny can’t be Phantom’s soulmate?’ Who here has been acting like a total badass? Who just bantered with a ghost while they were threatening him? Who got his cheek slashed because he was trying to be a hero? Like, uh, hello? Are you guys blind? They’re practically the same person!”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Fenton groaned.

Skulker chortled.

“Fenton is nothing like Phantom!” Dash objected, sounding offended.

Fenton struggled in his net and searched the classroom for signs of Skulker’s trap. The only thing Skulker had activated were the glowing bars in front of the door and windows, but that was just to keep the humans trapped in the room, wasn’t it? That was why they only blocked physical exits and not the walls or ceiling.

Fenton narrowed his eyes. None of his classmates had actually touched the bars, they had only backed away from them. Skulker might have used the bars for the fear factor, not as a true barrier, and if that were the case, it made sense for them to only block the door and windows. He only needed to stop the humans from getting or receiving help.

“Hey!” Fenton shouted. “Someone run through those bars and get Sam and Tucker!”

His classmates stared incredulously at him. None of them moved an inch.

“It’s far too late for that as well,” Skulker said gleefully. “My prize shall be here in five, four, three, two…” he paused dramatically, “one.”

Phantom flew through the ceiling, his hands already coated with green energy. His head jerked left and right as his eyes searched the room, coming to a stop on Fenton in his net. His eyes widened and his jaw clenched. Fenton swore. His classmates shouted, some cheering Phantom’s name, others screaming for him to run, but Phantom’s eyes narrowed and he looked too pissed to think about running.

“Skulker,” he growled, his glare moving toward Skulker, “let him go.”

“That would be counterproductive.” Skulker lifted Fenton in his net and gave it a little wiggle. Fenton grimaced as he swayed. Phantom’s gaze jerked back to him. Something dropped to the floor, but Phantom’s eyes had become fixated on Fenton again. “If you want him, Ghost Child, come and get him.”

Phantom bared his teeth.

“Don’t do it!” Dash shouted.

Phantom shot forward, one fist pulled back for a truly epic punch. Skulker floated back a few steps, and as soon as Phantom flew over the space where they had been standing, a beam of light shot up from a small cube on the floor. Phantom’s eyes widened. Fenton didn’t understand until a vortex began to pull Phantom down into the cube.

“The Fenton Thermos,” Fenton gasped.

“Inspired by it,” Skulker corrected. “I have endured the indignity often enough to replicate its effects.”

Phantom fought against the pull, struggling to fly out of its range, but the cube floated off the ground and followed his movements. The tip of his spectral tail touched the cube, and in moments it sucked him in completely.

“Phantom!” Fenton and his classmates shouted. He struggled against his net, pulling on the ropes and kicking his feet outward.

Skulker laughed his triumph as he walked toward the cube. Fenton stared in horror at the little black box, his chest aching. Phantom had been captured because of him. It wasn’t over, not by a long shot, but…it wasn’t looking good. Skulker bent down and picked up the cube. He looked between it and Fenton, a wide, vicious grin splitting his face.

Fenton glared at him. “What?”

“How long has it been, human child?” Skulker asked him. “Two years?”

“Just about,” Fenton mumbled.

“It has been a long hunt…”

It’s not over yet, Fenton thought. He tried fitting his fist through the gaps between ropes, but it was no good. The holes were too small. “You cheated!”

Skulker’s eyes narrowed. “Cheated?”

“Cheated!” Fenton repeated.

“I baited and set a trap!”

“You cheated!” Fenton looked at his classmates. They were muttering and staring at the black cube in Skulker’s hands like they had just witnessed something impossible. “Right, guys? He cheated!”

They stared back at Danny with haunted eyes until Dash surged forward, pointing angrily at Skulker, and shouted, “Cheater!”

Starr gasped and exclaimed. “Yes! Cheater!” Her voice took on a practiced tone, and she chanted, “Cheat-er, cheat-er!” until the rest of the class caught on and began to chant it with her.

“I did not cheat!” Skulker yelled, offended, but the class continued chanting. He growled viciously, growing increasingly infuriated by the witnesses to his victory calling foul. It was exactly the kind of pride snatching maneuver Fenton had hoped for, and he waited anxiously to see if Skulker would take the bait.

He did.

“FINE!” Skulker roared. He lifted his arm higher and glared at Fenton as the other students quieted and shrank back from him. “I shall give you and your other half one last chance, whelp.” Slowly, he spread his metal lips apart in an angry grin. “I believe you know how this game is played. Let’s see how well Phantom can keep you alive when he’s tethered to you.”

Fenton sucked in a breath. It wasn’t unexpected, given Skulker’s previous comments, but all the same it was frightening, being hunted. He looked at his classmates. They were his only chance to leave a message, and he shouted, frantic, “Tell Valerie!” before electricity arced through the net into his body. He screamed, arching his back, before everything went mercifully black.

 I would absolutely love to continue this as an actual short story. Like, you’ve all heard of “Danny’s classmates taking a field trip into the Ghost Zone,” now get ready for “Danny’s classmates leading a rescue attempt into the Ghost Zone to free Phantom and his other half/boyfriend Danny!” Ahh it would be so much fun. Valerie would place herself in charge (because she’s actually been through this before, and because she won’t say why they all assume its because she once dated Phantom too which pisses her off) and she and Sam would butt heads a bit on what to do. Tucker would 100% brag about how much he knows about the GZ to Dash and friends like “yeah, that’s right, I’m a badass” but they’re all still reeling over the idea Phantom is 1) gay 2) dating Fento-loser.

Phantom and Fenton, meanwhile, are doing their best to stay alive on Skulker’s island while also dealing with the romantic tension between them.

I would absolutely love it. I have no idea how I would pull it off. Action scenes are my weak point, and I’m not entirely sure how I would sneak all these kids past the Fenton parents, if Jack and Maddie should even be told, if Lancer should go with the kids, or even if they could all fit in the Specter Speeder. RIP my idea lol. I think I might put it up on Ao3 just as a potential story some day? I’m not sure. It needs work, but I made leavemyelevator-alone wait long enough for this prompt lol

[the-fandom-fool]

Danny’s Terrible, Haunting Visage, Mouth Unmoving

Hi, Danny Phantom phandom. I Made This For You. I stayed up until five a.m. writing it so I hope you’re happy. 

Happy Dannypocalypse :) @horrendoushag

Word count: 2190

-------

There was a Face glowing in the darkness. It was glowing because it was on a computer screen, but that didn’t make it any less terrible and haunting.

Sam Manson grinned maniacally as she stared into the Face’s blank eyes, then looked away because they were a bit too blank. That didn’t mean she was backing out on her plan, though. She was no coward.

The printer loudly chugged out sheet upon sheet of paper, but the size of Sam’s house meant her parents would never hear. They would never know how much work she put into this, how many bribes she had to make, the blood she had to spill—and that was fine, because she didn’t want them to.

In the dark of night and the light of the wicked Face on the computer monitor, Sam snapped her scissors and set to work.

~

Morning dawned bright and early. Too bright and too early, in the opinions of some.

This “some” included one Danny Fenton, who had spent more than half the night dead and fighting other dead people who didn’t appreciate his puns. He got to bed at four a.m. and was running on two hours of sleep at most, so you could pardon him if he didn’t at first notice something amiss when he got to school.

Another reason he didn’t notice anything amiss was that his head was stuck in his locker to avoid the too-bright fluorescent lights some maniac had installed in the ceiling, and he had his eyes closed.

“Hey,” a voice said on the other side of his locker door.

Danny grunted. The voice was familiar, but he was too tired to figure out who it was right now.

“You okay, Danny?” the voice asked. It was too loud in the same way the lights were too bright, and the same could be said for the rest of the hallway. That’s another reason Danny had his head in his locker; things were quieter there.

Danny grunted again.

“Yeah, I know, you were up all night fighting ghosts. But you need to get up, man, first period is starting soon.”

Danny almost considered climbing into his locker and going to sleep then and there, but then he remembered that Mr. Lancer was the teacher in first period, so instead he groaned and pulled his head out.

He turned and was greeted by a hallucination.

At least, that’s what he assumed it was. A combination of the lack of sleep, the brightness of the light, and a hard knock on the head he got from Skulker last night.

Because everyone in the hallway was wearing his face.

Beyond his locker door, where the voice he now recognized as Tucker’s had been coming from, his own blank eyes stared back at him—or rather, at his soul. Danny blinked a few times in the hopes that the face would resolve itself into Tucker’s, but no—it stayed the same. Tucker’s body, Tucker’s beret, wearing Danny’s own terrible, haunting visage.

“Finally!” Danny’s terrible, haunting visage said, mouth unmoving, using Tucker’s voice. “Come on, we need to get to Mr. Lancer’s class!” One of the figure’s hands, Tucker’s hand, reached out and grabbed Danny’s arm. Tucker’s body started dragging Danny in the direction of the classroom.

“Wait—wait,” Danny said, clumsily forcing them to a stop. “What’s going on? What—why is everyone wearing my face?”

Tucker—it was Tucker, right?—turned to Danny and cocked his head. “Your face? What do you mean?”

Danny stared at him, face a blank reflection of the other’s, as his half-dead and half-asleep brain tried to come up with an adequate way of articulating what was going on. He looked to the side, saw several of the same face conversing with one another, and looked back. “Just… this?”

“This?” Tucker repeated. “I don’t know what you’re talking about Danny, but we need to get to class. Come on, we’re meeting Sam there.”

This time, Danny allowed himself to be dragged to Mr. Lancer’s classroom. All around him, everyone had the same Face. His Face. They were acting perfectly normal otherwise—he even saw Dash yeeting a football at Kwan, though it took him a few moments to recognize them. The only one who seemed to realize there was anything strange about this was Danny.

They reached the classroom and took their seats inside. Danny looked hopefully to where Sam was sitting, but she, too, was wearing The Face.

“Hey Danny,” she said, and was it just the hallucination or did she sound incredibly pleased with herself? “Sleep well?”

“No,” Danny said. “Do you have any idea what’s going on around here?”

“What?” Okay, no, yeah, she sounded really smug. “What are you talking about?

“The Face.” Danny made sure the capital letters were audible. “Why is everyone wearing my face?”

“Um, that’s what everyone looks like, Danny.” The expressionless eyes where Sam’s should have been gave an impression of being rolled, despite not moving at all. “Remember? After that whole thing with the Reality Gauntlet, everyone got stuck like this. And since you kind of destroyed the Reality Gauntlet, well…” She shrugged. “No going back.”

And no, yeah, Danny was pretty sure he would remember if that happened. This was just… a prank. A really wild prank, because he couldn’t imagine why the A-listers would also be in on it, or in fact everyone he’d seen at school today. But it had to be a prank, nonetheless. He wouldn’t believe otherwise unless he saw Lancer with The Face.

And speak of the maybe literal devil, Mr. Lancer chose that exact moment to walk into the room.

“All right, everyone,” said Danny’s terrible, haunting visage, mouth unmoving, using Lancer’s voice. Which sounded exceptionally annoyed today. “Get out your books. And congratulations, Mr. Fenton”—it was said with such venom that Danny would be cringing if he weren’t in shock—“for being on time for once.”

Danny thought he heard a giggle somewhere, but he was too busy staring at Lancer’s—his Face on Lancer’s body.

Vlad, then. He wouldn’t believe this wasn’t a prank unless he saw Vlad wearing The Face.

~

Principal Ishiyama had called an assembly.

Danny dragged his feet among a crowd of other Danny-Faced people, careful to avoid looking anyone in his eye. They all chattered away curiously, mouths unmoving, wondering why their classes in third period had been cancelled. Many were rejoicing the new absence of math or English or whatever from their schedule today, but Danny couldn’t bring himself to care. In fact, he had a bad feeling about this assembly.

As soon as everyone had taken their seats, Principal Ishiyama, whose normal face had also somehow been replaced by The Face, spoke into her microphone.

“Hello, students!” said Danny’s terrible, haunting visage, mouth unmoving, using Principal Ishiyama’s voice. “Today we have a special guest, who’s volunteered to talk to you all about—”

There was a physically painful moment of interference in the speakers; everyone plugged their ears. Principal Ishiyama didn’t seem to notice, for some reason.

“—so let me introduce our city’s mayor, Vlad Masters!”

Everyone clapped politely, except Danny, but including Sam and Tucker, bizarrely enough. Danny could only stare in abject horror as Vlad Masters, wearing Danny’s terrible, haunting visage, walked calmly onto the stage.

“Yes, yes,” said Danny’s terrible, haunting visage, mouth unmoving, using Vlad’s annoying voice. “Thank you, Principal Ishiyama. And hello, Casper High students! It is such an honor to be here today, teaching you all about—”

The speakers had another physically painful moment of interference that caused everyone to plug their ears, but neither Vlad nor once again Principal Ishiyama seemed to notice.

“—such promising young men and women as yourselves. In light of recent political challenges, I have truly realized the importance of educating our country’s youth in order to build a better future—”

Danny had seen and heard enough. Mostly seen. With a look to his friends on either side of him, he quietly slipped to the ground, waved goodbye, and phased through the floorboards.

He emerged on the other side as the dead version of himself. No one was around to see, since this was the basement, but better safe than sorry.

He floated around for a few minutes, glanced at a few warped versions of his reflection he managed to find in various metal things, then pulled out his phone in an attempt to distract himself.

Then he remembered that Skulker broke his phone last night. He remembered because the screen was now a bunch of shattered glass, and if you looked closely the entire phone had been snapped in half.

So instead he stared listlessly at the ceiling; imagined the new phone he would get; imagined punching Skulker in the face (did it look like his now, underneath the suit?) for breaking his phone; imagined all the new comebacks he could make while punching Skulker in the face for breaking his phone; thought about the hundreds of students and teachers above him who were walking around with his Face.

It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t.

Right?

~

After what he deemed to be a safe amount of time, Danny reemerged from the basement as a real live boy. He joined the stream of students heading for the cafeteria, since it was lunchtime now, and once there looked around for his friends.

Which is when he noticed people peeling their Faces off.

He jumped a few feet in the air—literally; he hoped no one saw—blinked, shook his head, looked again.

One by one, people’s faces were emerging. Like a skin of paper, the Face came away from their heads and was discarded in the nearest trash bin, or crumpled up and stuffed in pockets, or left to languish on the floor by a foolish few. The faces underneath The Face had expressions—real expressions, he hadn’t realized how much he missed seeing them. A lot of them looked relieved, or they were laughing, or annoyed. Real faces.

Thinking about this made him want to see Sam and Tucker’s faces, so he looked around for them again and saw them, sitting at a table together, grinning. He himself was too confused to grin, so instead he made his way over to the table without doing that.

“Hey,” he said, and they pointed their grins at him. What wonderful grins they were. “What’s going on? It… was a prank, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Tucker, grin becoming pointier. “It’s the Dannypocalypse.”

“The what.” Danny’s voice was as flat as the expression on The Face, mainly because he just didn’t have the energy for this right now. He took a seat next to Tucker and reached over to steal one of Sam’s fries.

“The Dannypocalypse,” Sam repeated, grin also becoming pointier. “In honor of Danny Phantom, we all wore paper masks of his face. Something weird happened with the printer, so his eyes came out blue instead of green.”

“Oh.” Danny looked into Sam’s maniacal face and felt his alive half become slightly more dead. “You… this was you, wasn’t it.”

Sam’s grin reached full pointiness.

Danny stayed silent for a few seconds, before an almost hysterical giggle wormed its way out of his mouth. “You know April Fools was two days ago, right?”

“I underestimated how much time it would take to make the masks. That’s fine, though, no one expects pranks in the days after April Fools. That just made it better.”

Danny had so many questions. Too many questions. But the most pressing, of course—“How did you get everyone in on this? I know lots of people would be willing to wear Danny Phantom’s face, but Lancer?”

Sam shrugged. “Money.”

“And what about Vlad? He doesn’t need bribes.” Danny tried to steal another of Sam’s fries, but she slapped his hand away.

“Get your own. And I won’t go into details on this one, but let’s just say blood was spilled. And it wasn’t mine.”

“…Right.” Danny considered going in for another fry, but maybe it wasn’t worth it. “And you didn’t worry that, uh…” He checked around to make sure no one was listening and lowered his voice. “You didn’t worry that someone might notice I have the same face as Phantom?”

Sam shrugged again. “Oh, come on, Danny. Everyone knows Wes Weston is Danny Phantom.”

Danny stared at her, completely blank for a few seconds, before he gave in and burst out laughing. “This… okay. This is hilarious.”

“You bet it is.” Sam slapped a hand on the table, and with it, a paper mask displaying Danny’s terrible, haunting visage. “I’m going to hang this on my wall. What do you think? Should it have a fancy golden frame?”

“Absolutely.”

As more faces peeled off around them, Danny and his friends laughed. Somewhere, Vlad was planning his revenge; somewhere, Wes Weston was tearing his hair out and probably also planning revenge; but for now, all was well in the world.

(“By the way, how could anyone see? I didn’t see eyeholes on the masks?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions, Danny.”)

[echoghost1]

Where The Lines Overlap

Word Count: 4618

For: @lexiepiper

Summary: Maddie wants to know what her son has been keeping from her and today he finally decides to tell her.

This is a sequel to Parallels! But there's enough overlap that you don't have to read it first if you don't want to.

You can read it on AO3 or down below the cut!

Maddie sat on the bus seat gently stroking her son’s hair as he slept. He fell asleep on her shoulder about ten minutes ago and she finally let her thoughts wander back to what had happened earlier.

Their conversation in the stairwell had been the most honest and eye-opening one they’ve had in a long time. She couldn’t help but smile as he unconsciously hugged her arm. She had a feeling today didn’t go exactly as he had planned either.

She had been so happy when he had asked her to be a chaperon on this trip. Even if he had been hesitant. At first, she thought he was just mentioning it because his teacher told him to, but he was genuinely excited when she said yes.

They both were happy about the prospect of spending time together and it only made her happier.

And then the elevator incident happened.

Finding out that the activation of her life’s work was the source of all her problems was a double-edged sword of her own making.

When he had panicked on the elevator she knew she had to get to the bottom of it. She didn’t want her baby boy to look that scared again.

When she asked him what was wrong he was so evasive. He tried so hard not to answer her questions, to change the subject.

Then he described how stepping inside felt wrong, that it felt like something bad would happen. He had an unexplainable sense of foreboding and that’s when she realized he didn’t know what was going on either.

He wasn’t trying to lie to her, he was just as confused as she was. So she pushed forward. She knew he had an easier time working through his thoughts if he spoke out loud, so she made sure to keep him talking.

“All that metal and the buttons and I just-” he stopped mid-sentence and a slowly dawning look of revelation crossed his features.

Then he abruptly shifted gears and went straight to the stairs. “You know what, I figured it out and I was being dumb. Let’s go!”

She was glad he figured it out but was completely clueless to what his discovery actually meant.

The way he described the elevator. He must have been reminded of something. Something similar to an elevator scared him in the past. Something big enough for him to get inside. Something metal. Mechanical even, if it had buttons.

But what could it be?

Certainly, she would know of something in his life that was that important. That monumental.

Monumental?

Their work was metal. It had buttons.

The only thing big enough for him to fit inside was…

No.

It couldn't be.

Could it?

Her breath caught in her throat at the thought. She really hoped that wasn’t it. She followed after her son and caught him on the landing.

“Is this about your accident?” she asked and really hoped she was wrong.

He stopped dead. She wasn’t even sure he was breathing.

He just stood there, his foot suspended above the next step. One wrong move and he’d fall.

She couldn’t stand it. She had to speak again, “It is, isn’t it?”

After what felt like an eternity he finally placed his foot back onto the landing. His hand slid off the railing as he spoke, “It’s pretty dumb, isn’t it? They aren’t that similar but I guess it’s close enough.”

Her heart broke with the sound of his defeat and his admission. She had never wanted her work to hurt her son. She never wanted it to hurt anyone. She and Jack spent so long making sure their technology wouldn’t hurt humans. Spent so many hours on countless prototypes to make sure no one would be hurt.

Especially after they had hurt Vlad.

After a few moments Danny continued without being prompted, “They’re both big metal things you can stand inside. Both mechanical and,” he chuckled a little before continuing, “they both take you places.”

“And the button?”

“Yeah.” He turned to face her with an expression she couldn’t quite place. “Both have a button on the inside.”

Button? On the inside?

That couldn’t be right.

But he wasn’t lying.

She may not always know why he lies, or know what the full truth is when he does, but she always knows when he lies to her. He has a tell.

He’d be a terrible poker player.

“On the inside? You,” she hesitated as she tried to find the words, tried to find some other explanation. “You never said you went inside.”

“You never asked.”

She couldn’t hide the hurt at his accusation.

He noticed and immediately tried to fix it, “Not that you should have needed to! I should have told you sooner. I just,” he looked away, “I just didn’t know how to tell you. I tried, but things kept getting in the way. I kept getting interrupted. And then one day I just gave up. I thought it would be better if you didn’t know. And then I was worried that” he bit his lip, “I was worried you wouldn’t like me anymore if you knew.”

Why would he think that? “Why wouldn’t I like you?”

“Because I’m different.”

She walked over to him, closed the distance, and lifted his face to look at her. “I don’t know how you survived, but clearly you did.” she placed her other hand on his shoulder both for comfort and to regain his full attention, “I’m sorry for whatever I did that led to your distrust in me.”

“Mom,” he started but she shook her head.

“No, I can’t have you keep blaming yourself for this. This rift between us.” she pulled him into a hug and was so relieved when he relaxed into it.

With the way he was talking, she was afraid he would have stiffened or even straight-up rejected her.

She knew they had more to talk about but this wasn’t the place for such conversations, “Come on, let’s get back to the others before they send a search party.”

“More like before Lancer starts filling out my next detention slip,” he muttered to himself with a smirk.

She frowned but decided to let him think that she hadn’t heard him. Clearly, they had a lot to talk about.

==============================================

Once they had arrived home Maddie was determined to find out what really happened to Danny. To get to the bottom of what he meant by being different.

It turns out he had a similar plan, “Hey, I know we need to talk about what happened today,” he started as he fidgeted in place, “but could you do me a favor first?”

“Of course.”

“Could you put all the anti-ghost stuff in the basement?” his question was strained and desperate. Almost like asking was a bad thing.

Then she realized that maybe this was why he was so secretive and avoidant. It wasn’t like she didn’t know how their inventions tended to pick him up. How all the trackers refused to locate anything other than him.

She just didn’t think that the weapons worked on him too. It hadn’t even crossed her mind to worry about that.

How could she be so blind?

“Okay.”

She’d make sure to power down the security defense system too.

Danny gave her a nervous smile, “Cool. I’m gonna go get something from upstairs. Meet you in the living room?”

Once she agreed he took off up the stairs. She immediately did a very thorough sweep of the entire living room and collected any and all anti-ghost anything and took it downstairs.

“Hey-ya Madds! You two have fun on the field trip?” Jack asked as he looked up from his work, “Uh, what’s with all the-?” he stopped mid-sentence as something caught his eye. “Hey isn’t that the ecto-gun that I keep in the couch?”

“Yes,” she replied simply as she put everything onto the floor and started to take all her anti-ghost equipment from her person. It wasn’t much, but it was definitely more than nothing.

“Are you okay?” he asked sitting down his screwdriver as he watched her place the final piece onto the pile.

“Danny wants to tell us something. It involves his accident with the portal and he asked me to come unarmed.” she looked up from the equipment, “could you disable the security system?”

Jack was hesitant but complied all the same. They knew each other well enough that if she was asking him to do something like that it wasn’t without reason.

He paused for a second after he deactivated the system. “Should I just change? It’d be easier than taking everything out.”

“Yeah, there should be some clean clothes for you in the laundry room still if you haven’t taken them up yet.”

He chuckled nervously because that was something she had asked him to do while she was out today and of course he forgot all about it. That was probably why he was down here.

He must have come down to do the simple chore and had gotten distracted before he even made it to the laundry room.

She smiled, at least this was still the same.

==============================================

Maddie and Jack sat on the couch and waited. Danny stood in front of them looking very much like a kid who was nervous to give a class presentation.

Only they were his parents.

Jazz sat in the armchair nearest Danny and kept giving him encouraging looks.

Maddie wasn’t sure if that meant she knew what Danny was about to tell them or if that was just her being happy that Danny wasn’t going to be lying anymore. That he was opening up and trusting the people closest to him. Honestly, it could very well be both.

“So, um, I, uh,” Danny couldn’t keep eye contact with anyone in the room as he stammered his way through his unfinished sentence. He sighed with his eyes closed before turning to Jazz, “Why is this so hard?”

“Well you’ve been keeping this a secret for a while now,” Jazz started softly.

“Yeah, but I think she kinda knows?” he turned to Maddie, “Right?”

“I’m not sure I know everything dear.”

Danny sighed, “Well this is just great. Usually, I get caught and then they assume it was the portal, but now I’ve started backward.”

“What do you mean backward?” Jazz asked looking just as confused as Maddie felt.

“You saw me, and just knew what happened. Like you’ve never asked for the details, but you get it right?”

Jazz nodded hesitantly more likely to keep Danny on his train of thought than with any actual understanding as to what he was rambling about.

“Well, Mom knows about the accident but not what it did. You on the other hand are the opposite.”

“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Jazz suggested.

Danny nodded and took a breath to compose himself, “Okay so when you guys first built the portal and it didn’t work, I felt bad. I didn’t think it was fair that something you’ve been working on since forever just didn’t work. And when you guys left it, I don’t know, it was so much worse.”

Jack’s hand slipped into Maddie’s as he gave a reassuring squeeze. It helped distract from the pull on her heartstrings.

“Well, one day I thought I’d take a look. You know, just take a peek to see what it was like. I put on the suit you made me. The black and white one. It fit like a glove.” he smiled fondly at the thought.

Maddie had noticed after his accident the suit disappeared. She didn’t think to connect the two until now.

“It was really dark in there.” he started and his gaze shifted to stare at the wall, or maybe it was an invisible point just in front of it. “I put my hand against the wall for support.” he held his left hand out to his side pantomiming the event and his gaze became more unfocused as he continued, “Felt every bolt and seam as I walked further in.” Danny’s breathing started to come in quicker shallow bursts, “It was so dark. So cold. My boot hit something. I stumbled. I leaned into the wall for support. Something clicked.”

“The button.” Maddie breathed the words out so softly she hardly heard them herself.

Danny just nodded and she realized that Danny’s eyes weren’t vacant and unfocused, they were misty.

“And then you ran out of there?” Jack added, “Just in time? Like an action hero?”

Danny’s lips trembled and he shook his head.

No?

He didn’t make it out? But how?

She had so many questions but she just wanted to hold him in her arms. She wanted to tell him he was safe now, that it was all over.

He squeezed his eyes shut as he shook his head, “I’m sorry. I can’t do this.” He backed away so smoothly it was like he was gliding on ice.

Jazz was instantly at Danny’s side and either she didn’t notice Danny’s odd movements or didn’t care.

“Danny it’s okay. You’re okay. Just breathe.” Jazz reached out to touch his shoulder but she missed?

“No!” he stumbled backward, tripped, and landed in a sitting position, “Not again. Not again.” He clutched his hair and started rocking back and forth.

Jack gasped, “Shell Shock.”

That was right, Jack’s grandfather was a WWI veteran. He’d seen it first hand as a boy.

Jack knelt down in front of Danny but kept his distance. “Danny? Hey buddy can you hear me? Just nod if you can.”

Danny nodded quickly, still hyperventilating and rocking on his heels.

“You’re having a flashback. It’s okay. You’re safe.”

Danny just whimpered and squeezed his eyes even tighter.

Maddie could see the shine of his tears from her spot on the couch. She hated being so far away but she didn’t want to crowd him either. She walked over to Jazz instead and took her to the other side of the chair her daughter had previously occupied to give Danny and Jack more space.

“I know it’s scary buddy. You think you can try and breathe with me?”

“Maybe?”

“Okay let’s give it a try,” Jack said patiently. “Just repeat after me okay? Take one big breath in,” he started before loudly taking in a breath.

Danny did his best to mimic it. It shuddered and wasn’t nearly enough, but he was obviously trying.

Jack let his breath out, “That’s it. Let’s try it again.”

And they did. Over and over until Danny stopped rocking. Until he could take deep full breaths again. Until he opened his eyes.

The green of his eyes reflected off his tearstained face.

Maddie couldn’t stop her gasp in surprise and it caught Danny’s attention.

Those bright green eyes. So full of light and so eerily familiar.

Those weren’t Danny’s eyes.

Maddie took a half step back, but Jazz put a hand on her shoulder and whispered in her ear, “This is what he meant by being different, mom. Please don’t be afraid of him. He really needs your support right now.”

Maddie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Did this mean Jazz did know? Did she know and not tell them?

Why did both her children think this was something they should hide?

Danny blinked and his eyes went back to their normal blue. “Mom?”

Maybe he hadn’t noticed?

“Are you feeling better, Honey?” she asked trying to keep her voice steady.

He nodded and crossed his legs, “Sorry about that. I’ve never freaked out like that before.”

“You don’t have to apologize, bud.” Jack slid his hand across the carpet and hovered just above Danny’s knee, waiting for permission. When Danny didn’t jerk away Jack placed his hand down, “I’m just glad I knew how to help you.”

Danny thought for a moment before looking to Jack, “How did you know?”

“I’ve seen what Shell Shock does to folks. I learned how to help.”

“Dad, it’s not called Shell Shock anymore.” Jazz corrected immediately.

“Oh really? What’s it called now?” Jack asked always curious to learn new things. And always happy to indulge his daughter’s need to know everything.

“PTSD. It stands for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” Jazz then toed the carpet self-consciously, “and if I’m remembering what I read correctly, you did everything right, Dad.”

“Well of course I did! This Fenton is a Jack of All Trades!”

Danny chuckled, “Jack of all trades? You really are living up to your name, huh?”

It took about a second for that to click but once it did Jack’s hearty laughter filled the room.

Maddie walked over and held her hand out for Danny, he took it graciously. She held his gaze for a moment. Searching those ocean blue depths for that toxic green.

She must have stared too long because Danny started making a face, “Mom? What are you looking for?”

She sighed and figured they may as well get this over with. “You said the portal did something to you. What did you mean by that?”

Danny looked away, his eyes darting back in forth as he thought before he finally closed his eyes with a sigh. “I got ghost powers.”

“Ghost powers?” That didn’t make any sense. What did that even mean? Ghosts didn’t have powers, they just interacted with the physical world differently than humans or any living thing could.

Which to a teenager, that could seem like superpowers.

“Do you remember when everybody at school got bitten by those ghost mosquitoes and had to be quarantined?”

“Ghost mosquitoes?”

“Did you not-?” Danny stopped midquestion and shook his head, “Doesn’t matter. Anyway, everybody got one ghost power. Sam could float, but she could only go up. Paulina had a ghost sense, which is odd because I’ve never seen anyone else do it…” he seemed to get lost in thought so Jazz pipped up.

“I was just a head in a jar. My whole body just lost its hold on being corporeal. It was super weird.”

“Yeah! Well now just imagine all of that being things I can do! Minus the no body thing. I don’t know that one.”

That was so much to unpack and she had a feeling this was just the tip of the iceberg.

“Ghost sense?” Jack asked first, taking his seat back on the couch.

“Yeah, whenever there’s a ghost nearby I get this cold chill, and my breath fogs up. Kind of like when it’s really cold outside, but the temperature doesn't matter.”

“Is that why you’re always running away suddenly?” she had noticed a correlation between his sudden alertness and occasional shivering to his abrupt exits.

He rubbed the back of his neck, his trademark nervous habit, “Yeah.”

“You’ve got a built-in ghost tracker? Why didn’t you tell us sooner? That would have made catching the spooks so much easier!” Jack’s grin grew with each sentence and normally Maddie would find it contagious.

This time she kept her eyes on her son.

She watched as his shoulders hunched as he curled in on himself. How he coward away from Jack’s words. How he had pulled away from her too.

“Jack honey, hold on a minute. Why don’t we listen to the rest of what Danny has to say before we talk business.”

Jack deflated a little, but when he saw Danny’s worried look he caught on, “Oh, right. Sorry, son. Didn’t mean to steamroll you there.”

“It’s okay. I know what it’s like to get excited about stuff.”

Maddie smiled and couldn’t believe how grown up he was. Empathizing with others? She was so proud of him.

Danny sighed, “Maybe this would just be easier if I showed you.”

“Showed us?” Maddie asked and looked to Jack to see if he had any idea what that could mean.

Her husband didn’t appear to have any theories.

“You might want to sit down for this, mom.”

She wasn’t sure why, but she did what he suggested. Was what he was about to show them going to be that alarming? She certainly hoped it didn’t hurt him to do this. She’d hate for this reveal to lead to another traumatic event for him.

The first was one too many.

He took a breath to center himself. He firmly placed each foot hip-width apart. His fist pulled up with his elbows at a rough 45-degree angle. He looked like he was ready to start a fight.

She had never seen him pose like this. It seemed so foreign. Just like when his eyes were green.

Just how much did she not know about her own son?

He took another big breath. Held it. Then immediately deflated, arms dropped to his sides as he turned to his sister. “I can’t do this. Why did I think this was a good idea?” he made an x with his arms and repeatedly tapped his wrists together, “Reveal party canceled!” He dropped his arms and started pacing, “I’d say let’s all just go home but we’re already here!”

“Danny, Danny, hold on.” Jazz tried to mirror his pacing but gave up and just grabbed his arm, “You can do this.”

He sighed again and stopped moving, “I’m not so sure.”

“Are you still worried about how they’ll react?”

He nodded but couldn’t meet her eyes.

“Well, I think it’s going to be okay. You want to know why?”

He just looked up at her and Maddie couldn’t help to be just as curious.

“Because you asked mom to put the weapons away and she did. The whole living room is clear too.”

He turned to look at her, “really?” he asked both out of curiosity and also a hint of doubt.

“Yes. I’d dismantle everything we’ve ever built if it made you safer.” Maddie confessed, trying to bleed every inch of honesty and her fierce need to protect him.

“You mean it?” his eyes searching hers for any hint of dishonesty any sign that this was just hyperbole.

“I promise.” and she meant it. Even if it meant changing careers after an over twenty-year investment, she’d do it.

“Okay,” he said with the softest smile.

He gave Jazz one final look, to which she gave an encouraging nod, before taking another steadying breath.

“Going ghost.”

Before Maddie could begin to decipher what that could mean a bright ball of light appeared in Danny’s abdomen.

She felt her jaw slowly drop as the light grew then turned into twin rings that travel across his body. Everywhere the light passed Danny changed.

His loose-fitting hoodie and jeans were replaced with a tight formfitting jumpsuit. A very familiar jumpsuit.

The color of his eyes changed from blue to green and his hair lost its pigment completely, leaving it stark white.

In the place where Danny had just been standing, now stood, or actually floated, the ghost boy she’d spent the better part of a year trying to catch.

“Ta-da, I’m Danny Phantom,” he said with a nervous chuckle.

She couldn’t find the words. Her son, her sweet little boy was the same as the overpowered creature that flew about the city fighting the other monsters for fun?

But then maybe it wasn’t for fun. He always said he was trying to help.

He was trying to help just like he was with the portal.

God, how did she miss the similarities? He looked the same. “How did I not see it before?” she asked herself not realizing she had spoken out loud.

Danny shrugged, “It’s not like being half-ghost is super common.” He added, “And I try not to get too close to people who shot at me if I can help it.”

Maddie gasped and covered her mouth. She had been hunting her own son. And he said that so nonchalantly, as if it was okay?

She got up from the couch and pulled him into a hug, “I’m so sorry.”

“Mom, it’s okay. You didn’t know.”

“No. It’s not okay. I should have known. You’re my son. I see you every day! How did I not see you?” it was so jarring to hold him and have him be at eye level with her. It was even weirder to see that he was still breathing, despite being a ghost that was currently defying gravity. He gently bopped like a buoy in calm waters, his hair fluttered slightly in an ethereal breeze she couldn’t feel.

She pushed back his hair, so much softer in this form, and placed a kiss on his forehead. He was so cold and it only made her want to hug him tighter.

Jack came up beside her, wrapping one arm around her and the other around Danny, “I think Danny’s on the right track. We should let bygones be bygones.”

“But Jack,” Maddie started as she turned to her husband. She didn’t think it was possible to just let this drop. There was so much they needed to discuss. So much to understand about just how things affected Danny and what exactly being half-ghost even meant.

“Now, now, Maddie, it’s been a long day. I’m tired. You’re tired. Danny’s probably very tired. Why don’t I order some pizzas, the kids can pick out a movie or two and we can just sit in the living room and enjoy each other’s company.”

“But?” She still had so many questions.

“Maddie, Sweetheart, Darling, Light of my life, I love you, but this can wait.” When she opened her mouth to counter he pushed on, “It can wait. We have the whole rest of our lives to find the answers. We don’t need to do it all tonight.”

After a moment of contemplation, she finally relented. He was right after all. There was no need to do everything now. They both had a habit of putting the cart before the horse and they always made sure to help each other from doing so. “Pizza sounds good.”

Jack pulled them into a quick squeeze before releasing them and making a beeline to the phone, “Alright Fenton’s what are we getting tonight?”

“Hawaiian but with mushrooms and extra olives!” Danny cheered as he shifted back into his human appearance and dropped to the floor with a soft thump.

“Ew, Danny that’s disgusting. Can you order my usual? The small spinach and garlic.”

“Alright one large Hawaiian with mushrooms and extra olives, did you want black or green olive?”

“Black. Can we get garlic bread too? I’m really hungry.”

Maddie sighed, of course, he was hungry. He barely ate his lunch because it was after the whole elevator situation. He must have been so anxious about keeping his secret for so long. She hoped that wasn’t the reason he was so skinny.

“Don’t just fill up on bread!” Jazz scolded.

“But it’s so good!” Danny protested playfully as he looked through the family movie collection.

“How about we get a salad to share,” Maddie suggested, finding it easier to just go with the flow and set all her worry and doubts aside as Jack had suggested.

“Great plan Mads,” Jack said as he dialed the pizza place’s phone number.

Maddie walked into the kitchen to fetch paper plates and cups. For as unbelievable as the day turned out to be, she couldn’t be happier.

She walked back into the kitchen and caught Danny silently consider something before shrugging and floating upward so he could see the topmost shelf better.

She was glad he was being honest with them now, but that casual display of power, while he looked so human, was certainly going to take some getting used to.

[mischiefandspirits]

Doppelgänger (11/?)

Previously on Doppelgänger ~ Masterlist ~ Next time on Doppelgänger

Danny, Sam, and Tucker were just 14 when they took a look inside the portal Danny’s parents had built. From there, everything changed. They woke up with white hair, green skin, and powers they could learn to control. They were hybrids, halfas.

They were the hero Doppelgänger.

{Life Lessons, Part 3}

The two ghosts led Valerie through the Ghost Zone in a weaving path. They were going at a pace slower than she was used to when dealing with them, but still fast enough that Danny had to hold on to keep from falling off.

“You okay?” she asked when his grip tightened during a turn.

“Yeah, just not used to it.”

“Maybe I should take you flying with me some time,” she said, glancing back at him and was pleased to see his smile.

“Sounds fun.”

The trip was thankfully short and soon enough Valerie was following the ghosts through a swirling vortex, coming out in the Fentons’ lab.

“Last stop, home,” Danny joked as he hopped down.

“What was that?”

All four teens froze at the voice before the ghosts darted through the walls and Valerie retracted her suit. A moment later, Danny’s parents came running down the stairs.

“Danny!” his mom shrieked when she saw them and the two adults swooped in to hug him. “We’ve been so worried! Are you okay? Did that awful ghost hurt you?”

“I’m-Mom, I’m-I’m okay! I-Dad, I can’t breath!”

The two pulled away and his mom held him at arm’s length to look him over. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, mom. Really.”

She didn’t look convinced, but turned to the other teen. “Valerie Gray, right? Are you okay?”

“Uh, yes ma’am,” she said, blinking. “Um, how did you know…”

“Your boss saw you and Danny get attacked and called it in,” Mrs. Fenton explained. “We tried to track it, but we found out this morning that it managed to get back to the zone somehow without using our portal. We were just preparing the speeder so we could come find you.”

“But you managed to escape on your own,” Mr. Fenton said, slapping Danny on the back hard enough that he stumbled forward. “That’s our boy!”

“The ghost didn’t hurt you?” Mrs. Fenton asked, looking Valerie over as she’d done Danny.

“No. He was some sort of collector or something. He just stuck us in a cage, like zoo animals,” Danny said.

“Well, I suppose that’s better than the alternative. I still want to be sure, though. Jack, why don’t you call Damon and the police and tell them the kids are back.”

“Yes, dear.” Mr. Fenton ruffled Danny’s hair then ran upstairs.

Mrs. Fenton checked them both thoroughly for injuries then grabbed what she referred to as a first aid kit, but turned out to be a large toolbox full of medical equipment. She used it to check their eyes, lungs, and heart before measuring any ectoplasmic radiation they were giving off.

“A 0.3er,” she read off after scanning Valerie. When she saw the girl’s curious expression, she explained, “Lower than I would have thought, which is good. It’s a completely healthy reading. It also means the atmospheric ecto-rad level of the Ghost Zone might be lower than we were expecting.” She then turned to Danny and scanned him. “A 1.18er.”

“Is that bad?” Valerie asked, worried.

Danny shook his head. “I run hotter than most. My whole family does, really, but I got into an accident a few months back so I run even hotter. That’s not much higher than my usual.”

“We don’t start worrying until a person’s ecto-rad level reaches 1.5er,” Mrs. Fenton added. “That’s when ectoplasm starts to negatively affect a human’s body.”

“Mom, Mr. Gray is here,” Danny’s sister said, poking her head in. Her eyes widened. “Danny!”

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

Danny gave a pleased sigh as he cuddled up between his partners.

“Sorry it took us so long to find you,” Sam said, squeezing him.

He kissed her cheek. “It’s not your fault. Besides, it was kind of fun tormenting Skulker. I think he was actually tempted to send us back towards the end there.”

“Only you would think annoying the crud out of the homicidal ghost keeping you prisoner was a good idea,” Tucker chuckled, nuzzling into his neck.

“That’s why you love me!” Danny nuzzled him back. “How did you guys find us?”

“Someone found video footage of Skulker going through that random portal on their CCTV camera and turned it over to the police,” Sam explained. “Jazz told us when they were bringing in your parents to see the video so we were able to come along invisibly.”

“Weird as it is, Jazz is probably the hero this time,” Tucker said. “She also got you and Val an A on your baby assignment.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah, she came by that night and told us you were missing, then took both sacks with her. Said something about giving us time to process.”

“Which was good because we were up all night trying to find you.”

“Then the next morning after she gave us ours back she went to Tetslaff and explained what had happened. We don’t know what she said, but she turned in the sack and when Tetslaff handed out grades, she said you’d get As for trusting someone so responsible and mature to babysit for you.”

“Wow, score one for teacher’s pet Jazz. Maybe we should bring her in on the secret.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Sam snorted.

“She’s even more overprotective of you than you are of anyone. She’d never leave us alone,” Tucker huffed.

Danny’s nose scrunched up as he remembered how Jazz had hovered over him for two months after his parents had accidentally left him at the Christmas tree lot when he was six. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair. I’ll have to do something nice for Jazz, though. So how’d you guys do on the baby thing anyways?”

Sam smirked. “Well, I got an A.”

Tucker grumbled something and pressed further into Danny’s neck.

{The Million Dollar Ghost}

“Thanks for covering for me, Sam,” Danny said as he scrubbed ectoplasm off the lab’s floor. “There’s no way I’d have been able to get my chores done with all the extra work Lancer assigned me.”

“It’s fine. As long as we cover the next poetry night.”

“I will.”

“Did we charge the bazooka already?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Did we change the ecto-filtrator?”

Danny paused then went to do just that.

“We’d be lost without us,” Sam chuckled. “Did we talk to our dad about showing up at school?”

“Jazz and Mom were taking care of it when -”

“GUYS!”

“Tuck?”

“Volume!”

“Did you hear?” Tucker said, thankfully quieter.

“Hear what?”

“Turn on the tv! Amity news!”

“We’re on patrol,” Sam said as Danny went to the lab’s tv.

“Switching to FaceTime.”

“-etent, non-Jack Fenton ghost hunters in Amity Park has never been more obvious,” the news anchor was saying while footage of his dad’s attack on Lancer played. It switched back to the anchor and she continued. “Luckily a mysterious benefactor has offered a million-dollar bounty on the head of Amity Park’s most famous ghost and invited the world’s best-known ghost hunters to track her down.”

Danny’s jaw dropped as a picture of Tucker in ghost form appeared onscreen. “What?”

“Who on earth would place a bounty on us?”

“Besides Valerie, but we know she doesn’t have that kind of money,” Tucker added.

“Valerie wants to hunt us down herself, same for my parents,” Danny said. Then laughed. “Oh man, my dad is going to go crazy when he hears about this.”

“Dude, this is serious.”

“Aren't we worried? These are the best-known ghost hunters in the world!”

“Sam, they’re the best-known, they’re not the best,” he scoffed. “Trust me, I grew up around these people so I have a pretty good idea who’s going to show up. It will be great.”

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

“We’ll admit, they don’t look threatening,” the trio said, watching the gathering of ghost hunters from atop a nearby building. “It’s actually kind of sad.”

“Tell me about it.” The trio flinched and turned to Valerie as she landed next to them.

“Hey. Hi. You here for the bounty?”

“Lucky for you, no.” She sat down on the edge next to them. “I don’t trust this bounty thing. I’m here for the same reason as you, the show. Danny said his dad would be here to show up the out-of-towners.”

The four watched as the Fenton parents ran over a pair of ATVs.

“And that’s only half the show.”

“What do you mean?”

“SAVE DOPPELGÄNGER!”

The four turned to see a horde of teenagers marching into the Nasty Burger parking lot, all waving signs saying things like, “Protect the ghost boy!”, “Freedom for the ghost girl!”, and even just their name or picture. Paulina and Dash were at the head of the charge with fierce looks on their faces.

“I found out the popular kids at my school were organizing a protest against the bounty.”

“Well, don’t we feel special.”

“Apparently Paulina and Dash, the most popular sophomores, both have crushes on you.”

“Yikes. Wow. We don’t know if we should be flattered or creeped out.”

“You’re dead. It’s creepy.”

“Rude. Do they think we’re a guy or a girl?”

“Dash is adamant you’re a girl. Probably to soothe his poor straight heart. Paulina thought you were a guy, but I think my friend Star said something to her after I let it slip you might be non-binary because she’s been using they pronouns lately.”

“That’s… more forward-thinking than I assumed she could be. Given she’s the popular type.”

“She’s bi. As long as you weren’t femme, she would have been game.”

“Oh.”

“She’s still in the closet, so don’t say anything to anyone.”

“We won’t.”

Screams sounded over the arguing and the four looked back to the crowd to see a trio of bird ghosts dive-bombing the hunters.

“Those are Plasmius’s vultures. Should have known he was behind this whole thing.”

“Plasmius,” Valerie asked.

“A fruit loop of a ghost.”

“Let me guess, he hates you too?”

“Worse, he wants us as his kid. Tried to kill our dad and kidnapped our mom once.”

“Seriously?”

“Unfortunately. Do you mind taking care of this? The out-of-towners are idiots, but we’d rather not test the Fentons.”

She shrugged and climbed to her feet. They watched her drop down and start firing on the birds until a voice sounded behind them.

“Not going to lend your father a hand, Daniel?”

The trio turned to see Vlad floating behind them.

“Wow, you look even stupider than we sai-remember. You do realize the modern interpretation of vampires is a hot person, right?”

“I see you’ve been working on your duplication then,” he said with a scowl. “You do realize you don’t have to talk together, don’t you ?”

“You do realize there are better uses for your time than bothering a teenager, don’t you? Shouldn't you be getting home to the love of your life? Oh, that’s right! Our dad married the love of your life. We’re trying to watch the show, do you mind?”

Vlad scowled and fired on them.

“Should we really be teasing the older, stronger half-ghost? Well, we do outnumber him.”

Vlad split in three.

“Now we don’t.”

Sam raised a shield around her and Tucker while he grabbed onto the GAV’s controls and used it to fire on Vlad. Meanwhile, Danny put his speed to use diving around the three Vlad’s.

“You’ve gotten better,” one Vlad said as Danny curled around his blast, a bit of frustration leaking into his voice.

“And you’ve gotten worse,” they said.

Was it just Danny or were the Vlad’s slower and weaker than usual? Did duplication cut their power?

Interesting, and good to know for Sam.

A green blast flew by and Danny looked down to see they’d gotten the hunters’ attention.

Danny turned back to the Vlads and fired at the one closest to him. A pink blast joined his and the Vlad disappeared.

“Your stalker?” Valerie asked.

“Yup.”

“I believe that’s my cue to leave,” a Vlad said and they teleported away.

“And ours,” the trio said as a few more of the hunters’ blasts flew past them.

Valerie turned her blaster towards Danny, who raised his hands. “Thought you weren’t going for the bounty.”

“I’m not. This is for me.”

Sam and Tucker shot away as Danny flew down towards the crowd, distracting all the hunters and waving at their fans before he dove straight into the ground. He came up in an alley where his partners were waiting and all three transformed.

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

“I knew there was something sketchy about this mess,” Valerie said as she looked over her pistol. “I didn’t think a ghost would be the one placing the bounty though.”

“Ghost?” Danny said, coming back over with a now-empty thermos.

“Yeah, some enemy of the ghost kid. They said he wants them as his kid, but I don’t even know how that works for ghosts.”

“No clue. Maybe he’s just insane.”

“Probably.”

Valerie’s phone went off and she pulled it out. “There’s an attack downtown.”

He leaned in as she brought up a live feed.

A large, t-rex-looking ghost was stomping through the street. Sam and Tucker were already there, firing on its head. The hunters, Danny’s parents included, could be seen chasing them in the background.

“You going to join them?” Danny asked, pulling back and grabbing Valerie’s grenade launcher. His partners looked like they had it and they’d give him a call if they didn’t.

“And risk getting into another ghost discussion with those pathetic excuses for hunters? Pass.”

“You should see them at one of the conventions.”

The two worked in silence until Danny’s ghost sense went off and a device on the counter next to them started beeping.

“Ghost?” Danny grabbed it and checked it. “It shouldn’t be picking up the fight from here.”

Valerie loaded the cartridge back into her pistol while Danny grabbed the only other operational weapons on the table, the thermos and Fenton Ghost Gloves.

The vultures flew through the ceiling, then froze. “You should not be here.”

Valerie blasted all three in the face.

Danny grabbed one in one hand and sucked the second into the thermos with the other before they could recover. The third dodged around another blast from Valerie, only for the Jack o' Nine Tails to come shooting out of the stairs and wrap around it.

Jazz slammed it into the floor as she came into the lab. “You guys okay?”

“We’re fine,” Danny said, sucking the last two into the thermos. “You?”

“Fine. I was just heading into the kitchen to grab a snack and saw them flying by.” She watched as Danny went to empty the thermos, then turned to Valerie. “What are you guys doing down here?”

“Well now, isn’t this a surprise?”

The teens looked up to see Vlad hovering over the lab.

“Great, another uninvited guest,” Danny groaned.

The ghost turned to him in shock. “Daniel?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do I know you?”

Valerie shot Vlad before he could do anything else.

Jazz tried to grab him with the nine tails, but he caught it out of the air and yanked it away from her. Danny used the distraction to punch him in the back. He smirked down at the gauntlets when the older halfa was sent into the wall.

Valerie slid up to his side as Jazz grabbed the Fenton Foamer off a table and blasted Vlad. “Trade you.”

Knowing from personal -- bruising -- experience that Valerie was better at hand-to-hand, Danny passed her the gauntlets and took the pistol.

The kids didn’t give Vlad a chance to breathe, switching quickly between Valerie beating him into the ground and the Fentons shooting him out of the air. Soon enough, Danny was opening the portal so Valerie could toss him through.

“And don’t come back!” he yelled before shutting it. He turned and smiled at Valerie before meeting Jazz’s eyes. “Mom and Dad never hear of this?”

“Agreed.”

[five-rivers]

Obstacles

Based on a prompt by @kinglazrus! A Phic Phight Phic! (Yes, I know I already did this prompt.  I had two ideas.)

.

Before Danny even opened his eyes, he knew he was about to have a bad day. This was primarily because he wasn't in his nice, comfortable bed, which was where he last remembered being. No. Right now he was propped up against a cold, hard wall.

He was also gagged, with something extensive that went all the way into his nose and throat and rested uncomfortably against his vocal cords. Not that it was resting comfortably against any other part of his face or mouth. His jaw had been forced all the way open and everything aches.

This lead to a number of conclusions: One, he had, yet again, been kidnapped, and, two, his current kidnappers are probably aware of his ghost powers. Otherwise, they wouldn't see the need for such an elaborate gag.

Danny believed he was also tied up or chained, but, due to sensory fatigue and his general disinclination to open his eyes or otherwise move, he hadn't checked yet.

He really hated being kidnapped. He was also sleep deprived. His kidnappers could wait.

(Or were those the drugs talking? He had to assume he was drugged, to get him here.)

"Hey!" hissed a sharp, male voice. "Hey, kid!"

Apparently, his kidnappers didn't agree. Ugh. On top of everything, he had to get rude kidnappers. Couldn't he get polite kidnappers for once? The kind that would treat him like an honored guest, except for letting him leave? Or who at least would let him have a bed? He'd still hate it, of course, but he'd be more comfortable while plotting his escape.

"Kid!" said the voice, more urgently.

Jeez. Couldn't they wait? Danny wasn't going anywhere. That they knew about, anyway. Since, obviously, he wasn't going to stay here. For long. Hopefully.

Something jangled and the voice grunted. Internally, Danny rolled his eyes. What were they even doing? Worst kidnapping ever. Zero out of five stars. Would not repeat.

Must be a new kidnapper, then. Didn't know the ropes. He giggled internally. It was better when kidnappers didn't know the ropes. That meant they were easier to untie.

Actually, wait. That jangle... That sounded disturbingly like someone else in chains.

Great. So he had a kidnapping buddy. A kidnapee buddy? Whatever. A fellow victim. Yay. Joy. Someone Danny would have to rescue without revealing his secret. At least, the voice sounded human.

The guy had probably never been kidnapped before. Most humans hadn't been. Danny didn't know about ghosts. Ghosts got up to some weird stuff in ghost land.

Ghost land. Wow. These guys had really laid on the drugs, huh?

If he were alone, Danny would would have pretended to sleep until the drugs completely wore off and he could think clearly and move properly. But he wasn't alone. He needed to know what and who he was working with.

He forced his eyes open, despite how heavy and sticky they felt. What he could see, that is, nothing, didn't change. He blinked, several times, then shook his head. This revealed that, in addition to the gag, he had been blindfolded. Also, he had been right about being chained up. There was a collar around his neck. He reached up, but the chains shackled to his wrists weren't long enough for him to reach.

Well, Danny officially hated this.

"Hey, hey, kid, don't panic, don't panic. Breathe in, breathe out, okay?"

Danny rolled his eyes. He wasn't panicking.

"If you can understand me, uh, nod, or something."

Not the best way of communicating, but, whatever. He didn't have a lot of options. He nodded.

"Good, good. So, uh, you're probably wondering what's going on."

Danny nodded, and tried to point at his face.

"Well, they've got sort of a mask over your whole face, kind of like that one movie, you know, with the French king? Except yours has a hole where your mouth is, and I guess you can feel that, because it looks like it's going in to your mouth. Yeah. And no eye holes. And from my side of the room, it looks like it's locked on, from behind."

The man stopped. If Danny had use of his vocal cords, he would have groaned. While he had wanted to know what was on his face, that wasn't all he wanted to know, and, honestly, that should have been immediately obvious.

This guy wasn't very good at being kidnapped.

Danny rotated his hand in a gesture he hoped would be interpreted as 'continue.' His wrist chafed on the inside of the cuff.

"Anyway, the people who have us... They aren't people. Are you from Amity Park?"

Danny nodded. He already knew where this was going.

"Thank god. I was worried you'd think I was crazy. We've been kidnapped by ghosts. Don't worry, though! I'm a GIW agent! We're trained to fight ghosts!"

The guy, the actual Guy, the agent, kept going on about how he'd rescue them, or how the GIW would come and get them and fight off all the evil, kidnapping ghosts, but Danny was too busy trying to keep his heart rate under control to pay attention.

Danny could handle being kidnapped. He had done it before. But escaping with a GIW agent? Without blowing his secret? That was a different story, and he suspected it was one his kidnappers were fully aware of.

His jaw clenched painfully hard around the gag, but he couldn't relax his muscles. He was aware that he was shaking.

A single, presumably tied up, GIW could scare him this much when the prospect of being kidnapped by unknown ghosts hadn't fazed him at all. It was hilariously pathetic.

The GIW agent, judging by his continued reassurances as to the prowess of the GIW, hadn't noticed Danny's panic. Good. Great. Perfect. At least he was oblivious.

Danny felt the ghost coming, icy mist clouding his lungs, long before the agent saw anything. It was obvious when the agent did see something, because he stopped talking in the middle of a sentence about how 'the GIW are looking for us even now!'

Reassuring. Not.

Something creaked, high-pitched enough for him to hunch his shoulders around his sensitive ears. A door opening? A swirl of air seemed to confirm that.

He hated this so much. He didn't even have his go-to coping mechanism: sarcasm. Well, he had internal sarcasm, but that just wasn't the same.

It would also be a lot easier to figure out how to escape if he could see.

The ghost wasn't walking, didn't make any sound or move the air, but Danny could still track their silent presence moving around the room. Just a perk of being him. Well, that and his ghost sense.

The ghost began speaking, but not in English. "Do not be so afraid, little one," she said in a ghostly language that had always reminded Danny of spiders. Ghostly claws skimmed the soft skin beneath his chin, and he tilted his head up, reflexively, away from the touch. "I swear on my own grave and the Black River, we will do you no damage we cannot repair."

Reassuring. Not. Wow. This ghost and the GIW agent were much more similar than one might think on first... listen? Not sight. Well, probably sight, too, unless this ghost was a Walker lookalike, but Danny couldn't exactly confirm that right now.

"You may have deduced by now that the fool is here to prevent you from fighting your way free. We know you are clever." The claws poked him again, and he leaned away farther, pressing the top of his head into the wall.

"Hey!" said the agent. "Leave the kid alone! Pick on someone your own size!"

The ghost ignored him. "While we have no quarrel with you, we require your presence. At the end, we shall return you to your home, and, should you desire it, we shall return the fool as well." She was pushing against Danny's chin with the back of her claws, pushing his head as far back as it could go. The collar pushed sharply against the nape of his neck. He squirmed. "This, we promise."

Then she dumped something down his throat. At least, he really hoped it was something she 'dumped' as in, from a bottle, rather than, say, for example, drool, but Danny couldn't exactly tell, either way. All he knew was that something liquid had hit the back of his throat, and now he was choking and sputtering, trying not to inhale it. He didn't have much choice about swallowing it.

His throat and the back of his nose burned. He wheezed, gasping for breath that, strictly speaking, he didn't need, and tipped sideways. He caught on the collar's chain and nearly strangled himself, but the ghost had mercy and pulled him back upright.

"Cooperate," said the ghost, "this will all be over soon."

There was a tug on his collar from the other direction and a clank. Was there a chain on the front of the collar? He tried, weakly, to twitch away. The chain went taught.

This was not ideal.

"It's okay, it's okay, kid," said the agent. "The ghost- it's just chaining us together, that's all. I think."

Abruptly, the chains attaching Danny to the wall vanished. The chain on the front of the collar tugged him forward, and he almost toppled. Not 'just chaining them together,' then. Why did he have to be stuck with this guy? Why not someone actually useful? Like Mr. Lancer? Or Tucker's mom? Heck, he'd take Dash. At least Dash would have his back if he found out Danny was Phantom.

The chain tugged up, and Danny struggled to his feet which were, predictably, asleep. His knees felt weird. He was tugged forward, slowly, but insistently. It took a few seconds for Danny to register what was happening.

The ghost was using the chain as a leash, leading him, and presumably the agent, out of the room. His shoulder hit something warm and alive, and he almost fell, but a pair of human hands steadied him.

"Sorry, kid," muttered the agent. "I don't know what's going on. The ghost came in and talked in that gibberish before, but this is the first time I've been out since I woke up."

Danny focused on not falling, after that. He didn't want the agent to touch him again.

This was humiliating.

(Also, what had the ghost put down his throat? He'd been thinking 'drug,' but he didn't feel any different. Yet.)

The air grew warmer as they walked down hallways and navigated up stairs. Hisses and whispers of ghostly speech caught on Danny's ears, but the snippets he caught weren't enough to explain anything to him. The few he could interpret were about housekeeping and cleaning.

Then they passed through a doorway into a room where the air was hot, wet, and floral. A greenhouse? A solarium? A garden? A jungle? It didn't smell as earthy as Sam's greenhouse, the odor was... sharper, more chemical, but Danny knew Sam liked to keep her plants as natural as possible. It might not mean anything.

Beneath his feet, though, the floor was tile, smooth and glazed. That didn't strike him as something that would be used in a greenhouse, or even a garden. Definitely not a jungle. Although... ghosts were weird. They often blended natural and unnatural in ways humans wouldn't.

"You know what you must do," said the ghost.

"Yes, mistress," answered a chorus of ghostly voice, both male and female.

He was pulled forward one last time and suddenly there were hands on him. Many hands, tugging at his clothes.

"Hey!" said the agent. "What is this? What are you doing? I'm not going in there! I'm perfectly- I'm perfectly clean! No bath! Back off!"

There was a great tug on Danny's neck and he went sprawling. The ghosts hissed.

"Oh, hell, kid, I'm sorry, I- stop touching me!"

Danny reached up and grabbed a section of chain, giving himself a little slack. The ghosts converged on him again, and he froze, tensing for signs that he was about to get beaten up.

Instead, they started to cut away his clothes, which was bad in a completely different and terrifying way. The agent loudly protested similar treatment.

"For your bath," said one of the ghosts.

Oh, that made it so much better. Except it didn't. What the heck did these ghosts want him for that required a bath?

The bath was- Well, it was a bath. A bath where he couldn't see or close his mouth or nose. A bath where he had to let a bunch of people who had kidnapped him touch him. A bath where he was increasingly affected by whatever drug he had been given. He could feel parts of his mind going soft and docile, feel his ghost-child instinct to submit to adult ghosts unexpectedly kick into gear.

Worse, the bath attendants apparently thought he was funny, or cute, or something. They kept giggling. Danny wanted nothing to do with it.

Except... the drug apparently had yet to reach its full effect, and, gradually, Danny found that he did. He wanted them to be happy. He wanted them to like him.

At least, parts of him did. The rest was furious.

Eventually, he was toweled off and brought back to the GIW agent, whom he had all but forgotten.

"Damn, kid, whatever drug they gave you really did a number on you, huh?" he asked.

Danny couldn't exactly respond. They were led away, back inside the building, where it was dry, and they were dressed. At least, Danny was dressed, and in something that felt thin and gauzy. Then they were moved yet again.

At some point, Danny wasn't sure when, what with the gag and blindfold, the first ghost came back. Danny was starting to have trouble understanding words They all felt like they were underwater, and he was becoming very unsteady on his feet, even without being pulled along.

The ghost, the first ghost, was touching him, tracing over his bones, mumbling things. He tried to hold still. He really did.

Something new was dumped down his throat, and his legs abruptly decided that they weren't going to support his weight anymore. He dropped to the floor, taking the agent with him.

"Follow the lights," said the ghost. "Find the sun. There is a key in the crawlspace."

Then she left. She left him alone.

Alone with the agent. Which was bad bad bad bad bad.

The agent came closer, and Danny hissed, but he couldn't exactly fight back in his current state. Soon, the agent had him pinned, and he was doing something to the gag and blindfold, and it hurt every time the piece in his throat moved.

But then- it was gone. The agent had, somehow, managed to remove it. The blindfold followed shortly after. Danny spent several long seconds just breathing and blinking, adjusting to his newfound freedom and returned senses.

Being able to see grounded him in reality somewhat. He sat up, only vaguely listening to the agent. The room they were in was cavernous and dark, lit only by a dim chain of lights on the ground that incongruously reminded him of the floor lights at a movie theater. They lead into a tunnel at the far end of the room and out of sight.

Well, now he knew where he was. He groaned.

"Kid? Are you alright?"

"No," said Danny, hoarsely. He decided not to ask the agent's name, because then the agent would ask for his. He looked the agent up and down. "They gave you a knife?"

"Yeah," said the agent, frowning at the sleek metal thing.

The reflections made Danny's eyes hurt. This was a bad trip. He never wanted to take drugs, especially these drugs, ever again.

"You should get rid of it," said Danny, recalling some of the 'rules' this particular ghostly ritual had.

"It's our only weapon."

"Do you really trust something a ghost gave you?" Danny said, trying to inject disgust into his tone. It worked too well and almost gagged. "It's probably cursed. Why else would they give it to you?"

The agent, as expected, tossed the knife away like it had suddenly turned into a snake.

Danny swallowed hard, fighting back a wave of dizziness. He could feel his ghost half sparkling under his skin, and the impulse to do what the nice lady from before said beating with his heart. The darkness crawled with herringbone patterns, pointing on.

"Okay," said the agent. "Okay. So, we've got to get out of here, and I don't fancy taking the path they've lit up for us, so let's feel around, see if there's anything off to the sides." He stood up, dragging Danny with him.

"We've gotta follow the lights," said Danny. He swayed. "They're-" he coughed. "My parents research ghost legends, and I think I know what this is."

"Right, you're the Fenton kid, aren't you?"

Danny shrugged. Figures the guy would know.

"Well, what is it?"

"They want us to find the sun." Danny blinked hard as a memory of light blinded him. "A sun. Their sun. They want us, probably me, really, to find their sun. Because it's their new year. It goes to sleep. Beddy-bye." He yawned.

"Stay awake," said the agent.

Danny shook himself. "They want us to wake it up."

"And the bath is because...?"

"Ritual puri-purification," said Danny, stumbling over the word. "The drugs, too, I guess. We need to be clean, or we'll be burnt up and they'll send someone else." He rubbed his eyes. Speaking of ritual purity, would his status as a half ghost keep him from actually attaining that?

It didn't matter. The drugs in his system were driving him on. His bones were practically vibrating with them. He had to go. He had to follow the lights.

He stumbled forward and tugged on the chain. The agent obviously didn't want to come, but just as obviously there weren't all that many choices. He followed.

It was hard to follow the little lights. They hovered, intangible, just above the ground and made all of the shadows weird. Danny wished he could summon an ectolight, but his fingernails hurt and the agent was right behind him. Stalking him. Waiting for him to trip up.

They reached a wall studded with lights. "We have to go over," said Danny, craning back his head.

The agent grunted unhappily. "I'll boost you up, but don't go over the side or we'll both be strangled."

"Uhuh," said Danny. He didn't need to breathe.

It might have tempted him, at the top of the wall, to go over and get rid of the agent. He wasn't sure. It could have just been the drugs talking. It could have been the call of the void. He didn't know, and he felt so guilty that the weight of it bore him into a hunch and turned the agent's words into gibberish.

There were other obstacles, beyond the agent, beyond the wall. There was a glowing river full of skeletal fish. A field of mushrooms with purple-glowing gills. A monster that chased them until they passed through a door to small for it.

The lights led to a tiny hole, barely large enough for Danny to crawl through. A green-yellow light flickered in the depths.

The agent started to curse. "I can't fit in there," he finish, finally.

"I can," said Danny. "That's why they want children, I guess."

"This chain isn't long enough."

"There's a key in the tunnel," said Danny.

"How do you know?" the agent sounded suspicious.

"The ghost lady whispered it to me," said Danny. He didn't really want to see her again. He was fairly certain that the drug was still running strong in his system, and that he would be ludicrously pliant with whatever an adult ghost, any adult ghost, told him to do at the moment.

He didn't want to see their sun, either. They were probably a ghost in their own right. A powerful one.

But he did want that key.

"No," said the agent, shaking his head. "There has to be another way. This is a trap. Like the knife." He started backing away.

Danny dove for the tunnel.

He got about a quarter of the way down when the agent found the presence of mind to haul him back with the chain. Danny grabbed it with both hands and braced himself against the walls of the tunnel. He could see the glimmer of a key, less than an arm's reach away.

He pulled, reaching, trying to get it. Despite his best efforts, the collar dug painfully into his neck. The agent was shouting but he was under water again. Danny didn't care. He wanted that key.

He got it.

Finding the key hole was a whole other ordeal, but he got that, too, and then he was free. He shot down the tunnel, into-

Sunlight.

He froze. There was a giant, burning skeleton in the cave in front of him. Its bones were an incandescent white. It had curled into a ball. Sleeping.

This was the sun.

Danny could leave, now, though. He could phase through the floor, now that the collar was gone. He could go home and forget about the agent. Physically speaking.

Mentally? That was another story.

Besides, he was in the drugs grip again, and didn't he want to talk to the nice adult?

He shuffled closer to the sun skeleton. It felt hot, but not unbearably so. As he drew closer, he had to squeeze his eyes shut against the light. He reached out, and put his hand on one of the skeleton's bones.

The sun woke instantly.

.

The celebratory feast was one of the most bizarre events Danny had ever attended, and not just because he was high on ghost drugs. An unconscious GIW agent chained in the corner and a living 'sun' as the guest of honor had that effect, he supposed. Not to mention everyone's insistence on feeding him by hand.

At least he would be able to go home after this.

He hoped.

[ghostgothgeek]

Blush. Chapter 6

Trick or treat! ;) 

FFN || AO3

Warnings: actual sex ed talk and swearing

-----

She leaned her back against the sink and let out a breath that pushed her bangs out of her face for a moment. Danny had been so close to her. She closed her eyes and could picture his face being so close to hers, his body pressed against her. She sighed contentedly and decided to allow herself a moment of weakness. She imagined what it would be like if they were dating, if they actually were intimate with each other like everyone assumed. She pictured Danny caressing her face and leaving kisses down her neck and along her collarbone. She even tried to imagine Danny wanted her too. He’d have his hands all over her, along the bare part of her torso, no curve left undiscovered. His hands would move to her upper thigh, squeezing momentarily until they moved higher to…

She let out a minuscule moan which echoed slightly in the empty bathroom and startled her. She stood there shocked for a few seconds before groaning. “Stop it stop it stop it!” She turned around and looked at herself in the mirror. “Pull yourself together, you’re better than this.” 

She took a deep breath and psyched herself up once more. “You’re cool. Danny’s just your friend whether you like it or not. This is all fine. It’s just the other kids and Kitty who are working you up like this,” she muttered quietly to herself as she sauntered back over to the classroom.

She opened the door and instantly regretted it as every pair of eyes in the room looked towards her. “Miss Manson, is everything alright?” Mrs. Tetslaff looked up from her desk.

“Y-yeah everything is fine.” Sam felt the more she told herself this, the more it would become true. 

“Fantastic. No more interruptions like that.” The teacher went back to her crossword puzzle as if nothing had happened. Sam walked back to her seat and sat down, eyeing the banana with the condom on it suspiciously. Stupid high school. She pushed it to the corner of her desk where it wouldn’t be staring right in her face. 

“Now that we’ve covered things leading up to sex, like consent, condoms, and birth control, we will briefly go over what qualifies as sex. There are a few different types,” Mallory started up again. 

Paulina turned towards Sam and snickered, “Elliot caught you and Danny having a quickie in the hallway, how scandalous!” She held her phone up and waved it in the air.

“What?!” Sam squeaked. Mrs. Tetsflaff sent her a glare until she sunk in her seat again. “That’s not true, I just ran into him in the hallway!” She hastily whispered once the teacher’s attention was no longer on her. 

“You can’t deny it. Elliot sent me a picture.” 

“Ugh gross. What? But nothing happened! How did you get your phone back anyways? I saw you turn it in earlier.” Sam crossed her arms over her chest. Maybe she could bust Paulina. Not that an A-lister breaking the rules would ever garner attention, or rather detention. Sam groaned internally. That would never work. Plus, Paulina apparently had a compromising picture she could easily use as blackmail. 

“Please,” Paulina stuffed her phone back into her bra, “like I don’t keep one on me at all times. This is my burner phone where Elliott gives me all the gossip.” Sam narrowed her eyes. So that’s what Paulina was doing with her backpack earlier. Secretly texting the jerkface. Paulina and Elliot managed to sneak extra phones in? She wondered if Tucker would be pissed or impressed. Pissed, because he had to turn in all of his devices. Impressed, because Paulina had more than one phone and he would think she had tech-nerd potential. Sam snorted to herself. 

“I’m surprised you still have room in there,” Sam retorted.

“Ladies, please. There are a few more topics we need to cover before lunch.” Mallory interrupted the conversation before Paulina could scold Sam. “Now, as I was saying, there are different types of sex: oral, anal, and vaginal. Whichever option you choose, it is important to use protection and other tools such as lube to both protect you and your partner and to have the best experience. Remember that consent is important! Please open your informational packets to page six and we’ll get the worst part over with.” 

Sam rolled her eyes; as if the “worst part” hadn’t happened to her fifteen times over already. She jumped a bit when one of Paulina’s long and sharp nails jabbed her in the arm and sent the girl a death glare. She opened her mouth and was about to let the Latina girl have it, but Paulina held up her phone once more, showing Sam the picture on her phone. It certainly did not look like they had only literally ran into each other and fell down. Stupid Elliot. Stupid Paulina. Stupid day. Sam wanted nothing more than for this day to be over and for everyone to go back to their typical method of ignoring her existence. She scoffed and turned the page in her packet, bracing herself.

The instructor read through the packet’s section on the actual act of sex, several girls shifting uncomfortably in their seats, the rest tuning the whole thing out. “Sam clearly already knows so much about this. Maybe you and Danny should be teaching the class.” Sam rolled her eyes,  stretched her leg out, and kicked her cousin’s shin for that comment. 

“For the last time, Danny and I are just friends and are going to stay that way. Nothing is going on between us, we aren’t dating, he’s not my boyfriend. I don’t even have a boyfriend. I don’t know how else I can dumb it down enough for you guys to understand,” Sam said bitterly. 

“I don’t know why you’re denying it,” Paulina started, “it’s so obvious you love him.”

“Yeah, you really just need to admit that to yourself, Sam. It’ll make your life a lot easier,” Valerie chimed in. 

“Just admit it, you like him and totally want to see him naked. We all know you do.” Star twisted her hair around her finger boredly. 

“I do not!” Sam protested. 

“Maybe we’ll leave you alone if you do.” Sam didn’t trust her cousin for one second, but with all of the girls staring her down, she decided to take her chances in hopes that they would hold up their end of the bargain.

She sighed and played with her bracelet nervously. “Alright, fine...maybe I do like him. But it’s certainly not any of your business, and if any of you ever tell Danny or anyone else about any of the things said today, I will put your decapitated head on a spike and stick it in front of the school as a warning not to cross me and then use your remaining body parts as human compost. At least then you’d be contributing to society in some way.” Sam looked up and saw several of the girls staring at her; she smirked at the ones who looked absolutely repulsed at her threat. 

“Finally!” Valerie groaned. “You admitted it out loud. Now let’s all just get through these next fifteen minutes until we get a break for lunch. You guys are making this a lot longer and more painful to sit through. I have much better things to do than try to keep this civil.”

The girls all turned towards the instructor once more, with the exception of Star and Paulina, who had moved on to another piece of Casper High gossip. Sam breathed out a sigh of relief and looked to see what Mallory was up to now. She eyed the few items placed on the desk in the front of the room. What the heck was the Fenton Ecto Lipstick Laser doing here? She glanced up at the instructor again and decided that maybe now was a good time to pay attention. “...toys that can be used during sex or masturbation, like this one here.” Sam blushed as Mallory held up what Sam had assumed was a Fenton gadget, knowing she had thought very, very wrong. She would never be able to use that weapon ever again. Did the Fentons know that their gadgets looked so inappropriate?! Shit, and she had quite a few of them inside her locker too. As much as she loved seeing her mom burst all the little veins in her head, if her mom got any little ideas in her head, Sam would probably end up in some French boarding school with no way to contact the outside world. 

Sam shook her head and looked at Mallory pointing to a messy diagram on the board. “And this here is the clitoris, and it’s sole purpose is for you to feel pleasure. It actually has several thousands of nerve endings in it! Isn’t that fascinating?!” Mallory looked eagerly at the high school students, actually peaking some interest now. Sam looked over at Tetslaff, who had set her puzzle down and suddenly seemed interested. Damn. For Tetslaff to actually be paying attention, this part must be super important. 

Mallory went into a few more details. “So, stimulating it will give you more pleasure regardless of what else is going on. Any questions?” Several hands shot up in the air, including one from Tetslaff. Gross. “Excellent! You first.” Mallory beamed as she turned to Tetslaff. 

Oh no no. Sam was definitely tuning this part out. She started paging through the booklet again. It’s not that she wasn’t mature about the whole thing - she was actually learning some stuff - but she did NOT need to think about one of her teachers having sex. 

Were the guys learning this stuff too? Was Lancer being as active as Tetslaff? Sam shivered. Didn’t need to go there. 

She looked down at the booklet and pulled it closer to herself so no one would notice. She peeked at the diagram of the male anatomy before quickly looking away. She didn’t entirely see the appeal, but it was probably different when it was inside of you. She lightly blushed. She could do this. She’s mature. No one should know she’s fazed by this. Goth indifference. Maturity. She can handle this. 

Sam looked up when she felt someone’s eyes on her, spotting Valerie with a slight smirk on her face. 

“Taking notes, Manson?” Valerie laughed. 

Sam responded with her middle finger. “Not. A. Word.” Her response just made Valerie laugh even harder. Sam smiled; she liked being friends with Valerie. 

Speaking of friends, how were Tucker and Danny handling this? She figured Tucker would be the worst off, although Danny really never understood where babies came from until 8th grade. Sam laughed to herself at that. Boys. 

“My Phantom would wear briefs for sure!” Paulina bragged, grabbing Sam’s attention once more. 

“No, he’s definitely a boxers guy,” Star said sternly while brushing her fingers through her hair.

“I don’t know, I’m kinda with Pauli on this one,” Lauren spoke up, “his suit is so tight.” 

“Oh!” Paulina gasped and clapped her hands together, “Phantom goes commando!” A few other girls joined in her squealing. “Now I know that when the ghost boy comes to rescue me, I won’t have to work very hard so we can share our first time together!” Paulina’s eyes shined as she started daydreaming. She was subconsciously squeezing her breasts together. Ugh. “I can’t believe the ghost boy flies around naked just for me!” 

Sam slammed her hands on the desk, speaking to herself. “He wears boxer-briefs you ignorant twats!” 

Silence. She had said it with absolute certainty. 

Valerie raised her eyebrows at Sam and smirked. Paulina looked offended. “Ugh, why would the ghost boy tell you anything, freak?” 

Sam finally looked up after someone got her attention and she looked at all the other girls confused. Once realizing her internal thoughts had actually been an outburst that people heard, her face brightened to a deep scarlet. “Wh-what? I didn’t, I mean, why would I? It was just...I mean, pfft what are you guys talking about?” Sam tried to play it cool.

“Oooo she DEFINITELY knows something! Look at that blush!!” Star squealed. Paulina shot daggers at Sam. 

“No, I just...uhhhh…” Sam literally could not think of a single excuse as to why she would know what type of underwear Danny wears. She can’t exactly say she patches him up all the time or talk about all the mishaps with his pants when he was getting used to his new powers. Damn, why didn’t that still happen now? NOT THE POINT. “I….asked him?” 

Paulina let out a laugh, “Why would you ever need to talk to him anyways? He doesn’t talk to losers.” 

“We’re not losers!” Sam quickly caught her mistake, “I mean, I’m not a loser, I just talk to him sometimes.” 

“Still doesn’t explain why you know what he wears. Unless,” a small gasp from Star, “unless you fucked the ghost boy too?! Does Danny know?!” 

Sam’s head made an audible thump when she slammed it against her desk, her dark hair covering her face completely. “Valerie. Help,” Sam quietly muttered into her desk. 

Fortunately, Valerie had heard it. “Uh, Sam just was writing for the fan zine on Phantom and had to ask him. You know, for the readers. Journalism and stuff,” Valerie tried.

Sam let out a sigh of relief. 

“Oh, I can’t believe this! Sam is cheating on my Phantom with Danny!” Paulina growled, “I’m going to tell Phantom the truth and then he’ll be all mine,” Paulina sneered. 

“Oh my fucking god, oh my god, what is this fucking day?!” Sam picked her head up and groaned. “Paulina, I promise it’s not what you think it is.” 

“I’m not listening to a word you say, you two-timing slut!” 

“Woah, uncalled for!” Valerie sternly pointed at Paulina. “I don’t know how Sam knows Phantom, but I can guarantee you it’s none of your goddamn business. Back off!” 

Paulina glared at her former friend and pretended she wasn’t phased. “Whatever. Wait until Elliot tells her little boyfriend her secret though,” she smiled mischievously and slyly pulled her phone out from her bra and started frantically typing a message. “Even if she is a bitch, it’s still good gossip.” 

Valerie sighed and tried to calm the other girls down. Sam was trying to figure out if she was having a stroke or not. Was all of this actually happening? Did Nocturne take over again? Oh man, now she had to warn Danny that there were rumors flying around that she was having sex with both halves of him! Danny will never want to be seen with her again and...wait, both halves? ...at the same time? She knows he can duplicate, and that could be really -

The bell ringing broke her thought process, thank god. 

“Alright ladies, grab one of the bags on the way out, go have lunch, then we will meet back in the guys’ classroom to summarize the topics covered today. Feel free to bring your bananas to lunch, just please remove the condom before eating it. We’ve had too many incidents at other schools already. See you in thirty minutes!” Mallory clapped her hands and held a box with little bags in it, making sure every girl took one as they left the classroom. 

Valerie sent Sam a gentle pat on the back for support before leaving. Sam scoffed at everything that has happened already today and gathered her things, ripping the condom off her banana and slingshotting it until it got caught in Paulina’s hair without her noticing. She smiled triumphantly and made her way to the front of the room, grabbing a bag on her way out. She walked to her locker and couldn’t help but peek inside the “goodie” bag. A large handful of condoms, a small tube of lube, a tablet of Plan B, some stickers, and more informational packets. Whoopie, she couldn’t wait to go home and read through those. She shoved her things in her locker and smiled softly as she saw her friends approaching her. She knew they would put her in a better mood. She took a deep breath and composed herself.

[afterthelastreset]

Rules Of One’s Soul Ch20 Date P4

(Warning: Past abuse mentioned, Plus minor panic attack. Mak belongs to @wasted-church )

"And then so I put the ace in the trunk Seam had levitated and pulled, pulled him out without anyone knowing. It used to be one of Queen Heart's favorite, favorite tricks of mine, mine. I think I also saw you there a few times, times."

"I was, but I nay had any time for shows with thine king's giving me so many duties to perform."

The floating jester next to him hummed and smiled brightly next to the duke. The two had been chatting about Jevil's old shows he'd perform along with some of Rouxls's old jobs and encounters with the younger royals. Or more specifically Jevil was talking and the duke went ahead and listened to whatever he had to say of course. He didn't mind the constant chattering, he was used to the King of Clubs many heads doing the same thing or Lancer babbling his child mind out. But he was surprised he wasn't more tired.

Well, he guessed it was official now. Rouxls Kaard, Duke of Puzzles, advisor and caretaker of King Lancer- Had finally fallen off the deep end or at least given up and accepted his fate of being surrounded by mad people and the chaos they bring into his life. But he had to debate really quick in his tired mind. Either let Jevil take him out on whatever hopefully not so chaotic outing he wanted and get it over with, or argue for hours until his lungs were burnt out only to be dragged off against his will or fight all over again. He believed the latter was more obvious. Hopefully it wouldn't take too long. But knowing Jevil it would take anywhere from a few minutes to the whole day, hopefully this'll be enough to suffice him. At least for the time being. Right now be had a resting tired and bored face as he allowed himself to be guided along upon the path to who knows where.

But much to his credit, though he'd hate to admit it, Jevil was at least behaving himself. The little imp had offered the poor tired duke his arm, which Rouxls politely declined for personal reasons and opened the door for him. Very gentlemanly- Which raised the worm's suspicions by tenfold. It wasn't like Jevil to be so...calm for more than a few seconds. He knew he wouldn't be acting like this for a good reason, but what for he wouldn't know. Which begs the question. Shouldn't he be more suspicious right now? He's been feeling unusally calm as of late, different from the start of this week or....Well everyday he could remember before this week. It was weird. He still felt suspicious and if he were to be honest a little scared of the whole thing but...He couldn't help but find it strange, so he shrugged it off for now. It was just probably his mind subconsciously becoming more adapted to his new surroundings or maybe he really did need a break from it all.

'There. See? This isn't so bad. It's a nice day and Jevil's sure to make it worth your while. Look at the giant smile on his face-' 'Silence worm! I still has to keepeth mine guard on in case somethinge happens!' 'Still afraid over what happened with her? It was so long ago-'

"HE CLAWED MY FACE!!''

A surge of anger erupted from the deepest depths of his soul and whatever was going on around him halted in a second. His soul thumped from within his chest and he took a few breaths just staring at the ground to pay any real attention that Jevil had stopped talking about whatever he was going on about and staring dead at him. The floating jester blinked in shock at the heaving duke and froze at his reaction. He could feel the sudden spike of anger come from the glossy eyed worm at he stared dead at the ground, but as quickly as it came it seemed the duke remembered the other person there and slowly turned his glossy eyes towards him. Jevil couldn't make out what the duke was thinking just staring at him- No. Not staring at him. Staring through him. Almost like Rouxls was in some kind of stuper.

"...Rouxls, Rouxls?"

....The duke blinked, it seemed his brain had caught up with his brain and his blurry vision of three Jevils turned into one worried lookinh gremlin reaching his hand out to him. To which he instinctively took a few quick steps away.

"I-I amst fine!" His eyes quickly looked away as he still breathed deeply. "I-I...I just need a few moments."

Jevil didn't look the least bit convinced, but stayed silently staring at him. Rouxls knew the imp was staring at him but didn't let it show, instead straightening himself out and beginning to walk away on jello feeling legs. Jevil right beside him of course. The two walked in very uncomfortable silence for a moment before jevil looked back over to him and silently stared at the duke with a quizzical expression. ...This reaction of staring at nothing and freezing like a cornered rabbick was something he had seen before. Pretty small when he spooked him and he'd freeze and smile, but this was something a whole lot different. It was almost the same reaction he had from a few days ago, minus the sudden outburst just now- His yellow eyes grazed over the few scars across his face-

".....Rouxls?" The worm didn't look at him but made a small hum sound indicating he was listening. The fool nervously bit his bottem lip, maybe he shouldn't be asking so early into his date, heck. It could ruin the whole mood altogether. But-..."Are you feeling, feeling alright?"

".....I willst be fine."

"If you say so, so-"

"I do."

His tone told Jevil that was the end of that discussion, well for now at least. He now had a very concerned and curious idea about his reactions now, but to make the duke more comfortable and hopefully feel better he'd let it go for now. But he made a mental note to figure this out later. Putting on a smile he acted like what happened hadn't even happened, if there was one thing he was good at it was entertainment!

"I heard, heard you enjoyed knitting!" He smiled wider when then the duke's head slightly turned to him. At least that caught his interest. "Little Lancer had showed me, showed me your many scarves and sweaters you made him, him!" He pointed at him. "And you did, did buy wool, wool from Seam. I assumed you did it as a side hobby, hobby."

Rouxls gave off a chuckle and turned his head to him with a soft smile. "It tis. Overtime I just sold extra stock of mine skills to other's who clearly needed them."

Ah. There it was, the duke's pride starting to peek through. Something he loved to poke at and get his reactions out of, but for now he would build his pride up to make him feel better. Which is why he put on mock shock. "You're the one who made, made all those colorful comfy creations, creations? Very impressive.~"

The worm have a couple chuckles and gave him a smile. "Thoust really thinketh so? Tis just a simple hobby to earnest a few extra darke dollars to spoil myself with."

Jevil chuckled. "Well it certainly seems, seems you made a good profit from it."

Rouxls gave a slightly bigger smile and nodded. "Yes, but if I mayest be so bold to ask. Exactly where art thou taking mineself?"

Jevil's ears perked up and he let out another long stream of giggles Rouxls was so used to hearing by this point, he might as well just use giggling as his own language by this point. A lot of emotion was told through his giggles. Childish glees, amusement, happiness, excitement, and sometimes if he was stressed sadness and a few other feelings. It was really quite impressive to say the least. But he didn't answer the question, wherever they were headed must've at least been exciting to Jevil. Because the fool without so much as a second though wrapped a hand around his arm and began tugging him in a direction off the beaten path. He inctinctively froze at the first touch but the way Jevil pulled was strong enough to force the Duke to follow along whether his body told him otherwise or not, the jello feeling in his legs had mostly gone away but he still stumbled trying to match speed with the floating menace pulling him away from sight. A part of his brain should've been worried about this, but he guessed his curiousity had gotten the best of him. It took those blue eyes a moment to realize that the two were still going down a path, but it looked overgrown with dark grass and Dark candy trees all round them. Clearly no one had come down here in a long, long while. But that didn't seem to change the mood of the flying jester who never stopped tugging him forward. Trees passed and the path was slowly starting to open up ahead of them. The trees parted ways to make a small clearing in the middle of the forest, not too big of a clearing. It looked about the size of one of the Rudinn houses he's seen. And smack dab in the middle of this random clearing was a small tree. Compared to the other trees in the surrounding forests this one was considerably smaller and had a smaller trunk than the others. This one must've been a younger one. Couldn't be older than fifty years at most. He was easily pulled through the black as night grass and up to the small tree than stood proudly in the middle of the night grass. The air smelt heavily of grass and sweet, sweet marshmallow making his head swim slightly. His eyes mezmorized by the calmness of the area but blinked with curiousity back to Jevil.

"W-What is this place?"

They gradually came to a stop under the tree and Rouxls took in the sights of the brightly colored tree in front of them. Jevil giggled letting go of his hand and gesturing a hand to the spot they were standing.

"Lancer's friends, friends told me about this place, place. A vender once sold them an egg, egg once." He reached behind him and out of no where pulled out a flat round circle of some sorts. "Now-" Rouxls blinked and looked at him, making him smile. "How about a little magic, magic?"

Rouxls's curious head tilt was all the ok he needed to go ahead and punch his other hand into the blank circle. It went through and with a 'POP' sound the back popped out into what was reveled to be a top hat, with his hand still inside the hat he reached about elbow deep inside rummaging around a little before his hand quickly pulled back out. A pure white blanket rippled out and Rouxls rose a brow at him. What was Jevil going to do with that? Well, his question was answered when the hat was made to levitate in mid air and he lifted the blanket up and over neatly. It came down and.....completely stopped in mid air. Rouxls had to blinked a few times to actually register what he was seeing. The blanket had stopped in the EMPTY mid air and Jevil was currently soothing the wrinkles out like he was placing a tablecloth upon a table, before turning around casually back to the hat and reaching back in like he did this everyday- Meanwhile, the worm blinked and held his hand out to the floating cloth as if unsure what he should do, after a moment of reluctance he finally placed a firm hand on the blanket...and jumped when he felt a solid surface. He thumped his hand onto the table...Then again, and again. And then bent over lifting the cloth back...And his jaw opened in confused shock she he saw not only the underside of a table, but four neat table legs going all the way down to the ground below. The sound of imp giggles reached his ears and so he looked up only to stare in more shocked wonder at the table. Two plates, silverware, and of all the ckeeky things a golden candle holder. Jevil was in the middle of pulling long white candles out of his hat and placing them into the holders onto the table before he finished and looked at Rouxls with a wide mischevious grin. The worm still stared in dumbfounded wonder at the sudden appearance at the whole set up. "You might want to stand back, back." Before Rouxls could ask what he meant Jevil turned back to the candles, sucking in a breath between his fangs making it sound like a hiss sound. His cheeks slowly puffed out until each looked about as big as his fist. Rouxls rose a brow and opened his mouth to ask what he was doing, but Jevil had already opened his mouth...And a sudden bright light spilt from his mouth. A yelp was earned out of him from the sudden stream of warm blistering fire shot out and in the directions of the candles. Jevil could breath FIRE?! When has he been able to do that?! No sooner as it was said and done was there three simple little candles a blaze on the table completing Jevil's little scene. With a smile he turned back to the staring worm and giggled getting his attention back onto him. With a flick of his wrist the hat disappeared and he gave a small bow to his one man audience. "What do you think, think?"

He opened his mouth, but blinked and looked back the display before him. "Tis....a-a remarkable showmanship of magic. *Ahem* I applaud thou's efforts. V-Very well done."

Jevil looked relatively pleased with himself and gestered to one side of the table he had conjured up. "Please have a seat, seat."

"There are nay any-" He shut up the moment he looked over at where he was pointing and saw a chair that clearly wasn't there before. Jevil giggled and he made a small frown, but did hesitantly go over to the small chair and slowly sat down in it. He stared down on it with a weary expression for a few seconds before moving his eyes back towards the still floating Jester. Jevil currently had himself in a crisscrossed sitting position and giving him a weary smile.

"Do you like it, like it?"

"It is...not exactly what I was expecting so early in thine morning-" He gave a small smile to the loon. "But tis a b-better surprise then I thoughtest is wouldst be."

Jevil took that as a compliment and put an almost smug look on his face. "Of course, of course. I knew asking King, King Hearts was bound to be a game changing play, play.~"

This time the duke snickered and rose a brow playfully. Slightly leaning on the table. "Oh. Don't tellest me that THEE Amazing Jevil who couldst doth anything needed some advice on something as simple as breakfast with mineself?"

This time it was Jevil's turn to pause...before coughing and tapping one of his hands on his leg. "Well, well....Sometimes to play the game of hearts one must gather a few game plans, plans from other's who has experienced such things before. We all have different approaches, approaches to achieving the checkmate."

"Oh? And I don't supposeth this grand checkmate tis mine affections tis it?"

"Correct, correct."

Jevil wasn't even trying to be discreet about it. That could be a good thing. At least he wasn't hiding anything, being blunt and forward must've been how he usually do things. It would make sense with his big, loud personality. Seam was the one who seemed the more likely to use trickery as he had unknowingly agreed to go with him to the silly ball, but I digress. Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad- No sooner when he thought that a loud rumble came from below and the duke winced undignantly, putting a hand to his stomach. Well, he was certainly a fool for skipping breakfast now wasn't he. The rumble certainly got the attention of the imp because he gave a cheeky grin and his tail wagged behind him.

"Oh? Are we hungry, hungry?"

"M-Mayhaps a bit."

"Hehehe. More shine to dazzle, dazzle any audience!" He giggled before holding his arms out to where they were pressed together and in the middle of the table. Before slowly moving his arms wide like expecting a hug-...What the fucketh?! As he slowly moved his arms, a few portions of food appeared slowly as his arms passed upon the table. When Jevil's arms finally reached the ends of said table, he retreated them back to his sides and giggled at the wide eyed worm again. "You like, like it?~"

"..." With wide eyes he slowly looked back up to him with wonder. "How didst thou-"

He was silenced by Jevil holding up a finger. "Ah, ah, ah. A true magic maker never, never kiss and tells....Maybe a small reward, reward for this would be enough?~"

His purr made a shiver run down the duke's spine for some unknown reason and he destracted himself from Jevil's gaze by looking down at what he happened to summon up.....Wait a second. His eyes blinked down at the food upon Jevil's plate, the familiar star shaped black marshmallow scented candies were all he had on his plate and the duke gave him a questioning look, as if to say, "Are you seriously eating nothing but candy for breakfast?' Jevil chuckled at the duke's obviously disapproving face and casually pointed to his side of the table. Rouxls rolled his eyes and followed the direction of the pointing claw and blinks. The own plate in front of him was filled with the very, VERY unbelievable sight of steaming palace deluctables he hadn't laid eyes upon within the ten grueling days he had been he had been in this excile of the vacation on his existance. OH SWEET LIGHTNER!! The smell! It was heavenly like a river of honey that made his mouth water and he couldn't help but widen his eyes at the sight before him. Jevil raised a hand about to comment on how comical his expression was, but was silenced by the sight of the duke, in a not so very noble upper class way mind you, started digging into the food resented before him with vigor. Black and yellow eyes blinked in shock as he watched the un-Duke-ly sight before him....You'd think Rouxls was starving himself with the way he was contently eating the food placed before him with a pleased hum. ...Well wasn't this a familiar sight, his smile stretched back, he remembered a certain little round prince happily humming and shoveling down food whenever he was given a snack. Like father like son. His giggled must've caught the worm off guard because he froze and stared at him like a deer in headlights.

"Someone, someone likes my cooking, cooking?" He leaned his head in his hand staring at him sideways with a cheeky grin.

Rouxls cleared his throat and immediately straightened up into a proper pose, with a serious face. "W-Well when one has been eating nothing but fat inducing sweets and whatever mediocre substinance Seam selleths within his shoppe for days on end, one would greatly miss thine..." He stopped and stared at the grinning menace, then down to his food and back. "...THOU haseth cooked this??"

His shoulders shrugged without changing his position and with his other hand flicked his hand and a dark candy floated off the plate and up to his face. "I used to help, help my dear mother cook for Queen Heart many, many years ago.~ " He purred with a far away look as if remembering a memory, the candy tossed into his open jaws with a snap. "I may have picked up, up a few things from my times helping, helping. You like it?"

"Tis..d-delightful. Thank thee."

A silence peacefully fell between the two as they stared down to the set up in front of them. Well at least Rouxls did, he felt the beady eyes of the other man studying his every move but decided against engaging. The quicker this finished, the quicker he could be back and ready himself to go back first thing in the morning. Just the sight of his boy excitedly running up to him put a smile on his face. You bet that smile didn't slide past those watchful black and yellow eyes who smiled back at the prospect of pleasing his soulmate. It made his soul thumped with pride. Though this silent staring contest was something he started to find boring, if he could he would stare at the duke all day, but that's not what his interests were at that moment. But the silent pause did give him a good chance to look at Mr. Kaard in a calmer state. The candlelight make his already shiny white hair glimmer, and highlight the pure white lashes blinking downwards, his dark blue skin with the few white specks which he assumed were Rouxls's kind's aquivilant of freckles. Over all he was very pretty. It was easy to see why the sweet talking duke had so many admirers...The thought of anyone else taking him though made a jealous tight feeling come from his throbbing soul but was pushed aside for now. He was trying not to come off as crazy after all. ..But looking at his face, he could still see the few scars that lined his faces- This time his frown was imminate. The shout from earlier came back crossing his mind and he hummed.

The pointed blue ears caught that hum and despite him gut feelings he looked up and paused at the yellow eyes studying him up and down. He had a bad feeling about this. "...W-What?"

"...Nothing, nothing. Just admiring, admiring how delightfully different you look."

A confused brow rose, his mind contanplating whether he should take it as a compliment or not, but settled on an unsure smile. "W-Well of course!" Rouxls sat up proudly and placed a hand to his chest. "Not many are able to matcheth thine likes of mineself.~"

Making Jevil giggle a few time but he went back to a more slightly concerned looking face. The repeat of Kaard's yelling on loop throughout his mind and his other half calculating his enevitable approach to this. His conscious was already crawling up his back, and he had a sneaking suspicion there was something lingering behind that smile the duke always put up in times like this. And the sudden outbursts of yelling was a big give away for that. Well this would definitely throw a monkey wrench into his plans, but luckily he thought of a way to hopefully get to the bottom of everything- Why don't they play just a teeny tiny little numbers game?~

Jevil giggled, his face lighting up as a lightbulb went off in his head. And his head came down to rest ontop of his clasped hands. "You know, you know.~ We never got to finish that game, game you started in my old little freedom.~" The worm stopped halfway through bringing the fork to his mouth and raising a brow to Jevil. A giggle escaped his lips and he proceeded. "It's just a simple numbers, numbers game.~ Nothing too complicated."

The worm slowly put the fork back down onto his plate and gave him a suspicious look. "..And pretail what are thine rules of this 'game' thou speakest of?"

Well that wasn't a no.

His smile got wider and he chuckled yet again. Inspecting the claws on his hands and shrugging casually. "Ever played the game, game truth or dare?" The duke now looked even more suspicious but slowly nodded his head. He had played this ridiculous game with Lancer once or twice when he had (forced him into going) invited him to his sleepovers. The game was utterly ridiculous, but considering whatever Jevil was comparing it too- He grinned and looked at him. "It's like, like that but with no dares."

"So, thou only askeths the truths?"

"Correct, correct." His smile promised nothing but mischief in the worm's eyes. "Ask, ask each other five questions, questions each we shall do. And with each question comes, comes the complete and full honest to lightner truth. ...How about it?~" Rouxls was looking at him as if he had just asked if his face was a mask and to pull it off. Him?! Playing a one sided game of truth and dare with Jevil?! Oh golly gee wizz! How could this go wrong? Jevil must've noticed because he held up a hand assuringly. "I promise, promise I will be as honest and truthful as long as you are, are. And they won't be too, too difficult to answer. Lightner's honor!"

Rouxls still stared blankly at him with a flush look, but after a moment he let out a shaky sigh. Was there anyway around this? Perhaps. He vaguely remembered that the loon promised to respect his boundaries and yet...The promise of getting any information out of this confusing little monkey was honestly very tempting. He could ask what he had planned for this petty soulmate game. He could find out why he insisted they were meant to be?....He could ask how he was taking care of Lancer. That last one perked his interest entirely. The wide eyed realization on his face making Jevil smile wider almost to his ears. But soon enough a professional 'Ahem' came from the Duke and he stared at him with a stern business meeting face.

"Jevil. I willst accept thine uh-...'game', but on thine condition. Thou willst not asketh me any question that art of no concern to thou. If thou knowest what I meaneth."

He giggled. "Agreed, agreed. Shall I go first?" The duke nodded professionally and gestured to him the go ahead. OH! This made his tail wag faster in undeniable fashion. OH! The possibilities of what he could ask! But he had to remember to keep composure. Wouldn't want to scare him after all. He already had one question he had on his mind for a while. "Why does the little, little King refer to you as his sire?"

The worm blinked, completely thrown off at the question. He was fully expecting something childish but- "What?"

"You can't deny my curiousity, curiousity. It's quite obvious you two are not blood, blood related," he said while motioning his hand to him as if to point out their clearly different features. "Yet he looks at and speaks of you like you were. Adoption, adoption like Mak and Seam you are?"

The duke's eyes fell back down to the plate and if Jevil wasn't mistaken, a hint of sadness fell upon those mitch-matched eyes of his. "I-....I madest a p-promise to someone I...c-c-cared about to looketh after him. A long...longeth time ago."

A small silence fell on the two, and it accured to Jevil that that was the most he was going to get out of that question as the duke picked away at the obviously suddenly interesting food. Ok. Maybe a bad question to start out with but he had to-...How did Lancer say it?- roll with the punches? Was that it? Strange expressions.

"I believe, believe one turn earns another."

"Hmm?......OH! R-Righteth. Um..." Blue fingers tapped on the table as the question of what he desperately wanted to know. "What of Lancer? Didst thou follow all thine rules I gaveth thee?" His eyes narrowed at the floating loon.

Jevil sighed and rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes. Make sure he ate healthy, read him a bedtime story every night, make sure, sure the pawns-...servants, servants cleaned his room." He examined his claws and glanced at the slight scowl Rouxls was giving him and sighed with another eye roll. "Baths. Totors, totors. Playtime. And of course, course no where near the dungeon." He gave him a smile. "But of course he's been handling, handling any king duties with help from the other Kings. Have more faith in me, me."

Rouxls hummed and still gave him a suspicious look but relaxed back just a tiny bit. "We shall see upon mine return tomorrow."

"Correct, correct." He smirked. "And that counted as two questions.~"

"WHAT?!" The worm's famous annoyance flared across his face but it did little to nothing to intimidate the floating loon who just giggled. "That nay counts!!"

"Ah, ah, ah.~" The same finger came up to wag at him. "Now, now. We agreed to five, five questions each, each. You never said you or me could ask more than one, one in a row. You only laid one rule and one rule I have followed indeed."

Rouxls growled and mumbled under his breath but let his shoulders slump defeated and said, "FINE!! But thou couldst best considerate and doth the same with thine next pair."

He giggled turning to lay on his side in mid air. "Fair enough. Fair enough. And after my two that will make us both, both just an equal two of hearts to go.~" He ended that sentence with a wink and Rouxls gave an embarrased mumble at that. But seriously back on the topic the gremlin hummed and tapped his fingers against each other. What infinate details of the duke would he want to know most in the world right now? He had quite a few, the scars being one. But he wanted to calm down that anoyance from earlier. So why not a realatively normal and safe one? Or two. Turning back to Rouxls, he asked, "What do you like, like about myself if anything at all? Or Seam for that matter?"

Another silence fell upon the two from that question. Rouxls stared and blinked at the ever patiently waiting Jevil, his brain trying to process the questions just asked to him. He wanted to hear what? Praise from him? Did he want to point out all the good details, the few he even saw, and tell them to him. His soul gave a giant leap at the idea and it seemed his mind flooded with the sudden thought of 'Hey! This is a good idea!' no matter how much his rational brain told him otherwise. Here we go again.

But no matter what happens he would stay professional. So he shrugged calmly. "What tis there to really say about? Thou art very troublesome there's that," He looked back to his food to avoid the small frown slowly appear on Jevil's face. "Thou art also very clingy, bothersome...but very determined." Jevil blinked as the duke's expression became thoughtful. And he...chuckled. "Thou art worse than Lancer. Once a thought appears thou nay stop til thine job is done. And making so many things appear-.." His fingers drummed against the surface of the table again as if not quite beleiving it was still there. "..Tis fascinatinge. I amst impressed with thine magical capabilities thou has demonstrated. And Seam haseth his own magically surprises. He tis very calmeth and can holdest a decent conversation, very good from thine castle staff." He chuckled a memory going back to that awkward small hug just a few days ago. "And I meant what I said. Thou art a funny little man."

He chuckled at the mischieve making Lancer would usually do around the castle and- OH! Oh, no. He certainly hoped Jevil's bad influence hadn't rubbed off on him too much, then he would have a real problem on his hands. Chuckling his eyes glazed back up to Jevil and blinked. The imp was almost limply sitting in the middle of the air, silently staring at him. His eyes wide, his ears drooping, and a light purple flush dusting across his cheeks. For a moment the worm thought he had upset the gremlin, and a small feeling of gult throbbed from somewhere within his body. Until a small sniff came from him and he went into full blown panic that he had made Jevil cry-

"T-That's..That's the most..*sniff* nicest t-thing you have ever, ever said about m-me." A shaky smile came over his features and if it weren't for the table between them he would've lunge at him in happiness now.

Rouxls held out a hand hesitantly. "A-Art thou ok?"

"Y-Yeah..Im fine, fine." With a flick of his wrist a tissue appeared and he blew his non-existant nose into it. "My, my world is just revolving with my heart."

Rouxls chuckled and smiled at the sweet sight before him. It was honestly kinda sweet. Oh! He was forgetting something. "Mayhaps I couldst casheth in another ask in our 'game'?"

"Go ahead, go ahead."

"Why is it thou speakest in double tongue?" Jevil blinked confused behind wiping his face. "Why doth thou repeat words?"

Jevil shrugged. "I know not. I have done it, done it for as long as I could remember, remember. A habit I shall keep I suppose."

Well that was probably the most straight forward answer he had gotten such far. He wondered how many more he would receive. A part of him wondered how many of the answers were actual truth and if he was actually being truthful at all, but for some reason he felt as if it was truth somehow.

"Why do YOU speak, speak the way you do?" Rouxls blinked at him. "It's only fair I ask about your own, own strange way of speaking."

Rouxls...looked back to his plate for a moment. "....Tis h-how mine family used to speakest. T-They wereth very...tradional of olde ways. I guesseth olde habits nay die hard." Jevil could sense a hint of sandess within his words but didn't have a chance to linger on the thought when Rouxls's eyes looked back to him with interest. At the mention of family it sparked some kind of curiousity, as he remembered he had never seen any other person like Jevil and beleive me. Being the royal advisor for over a hundred years attending royal meetings with other kingdoms, and meeting many, many different darkner people he had seen the oddest people on this plain of existance. But he had never seen someone like jevil. Literal spring neck, constant flow of powerful magic obviously considering how often he can just float in mid air, and other strange features were something he hasn't ever seen before. How was he even eating- Perhaps he hailed from a different dark of the Dark World? And before he stop himself the words tumbled out. "What art thou?"...Jevil tilted his head obviously confused at what he meant and Rouxls cleared his throat. "I-I mean. Thine species. I shan't remember ever seeing anyone like thou before."

Jevil paused, but smiled taking his exotic looks as another compliment and flattered the duke would take notice of such. And so a string of giggles came out and he leaned forward with a purr. "Very wise observation, observation, Dear Duke.~" He then shrugged. "To stay honest with our game, game I haven't the faintest close of most that make up my lineage, lineage. But I do remember my dear mother having the same spring, spring in her step as I and my sire, sire was of the Joker lines."

Rouxls stared at him for what seemed like an eternity, before blinking. "Art thou saying that thou tis a mix of other Darkners?"

"Yes, yes. Very spot on, spot on!"

Well...This certainly explained things. Darkners of mixed lines were certainly of no rarity but he never suspected Jevil to be one of them. With the power he had demonstrated he was sure he was at least of Tarot Kaard decent, but maybe he still was. He did say he was of Joker Kaard decent, well no matter. That cleared up a lot of his confusion and curiousity at least.

"But that was six questions, questions in total, total!" More excited giggles. "You're all out now. But I have one, one left to ask of you."

Rouxls sighed and shook his head. One more question and one more silly answer to give. But he could bare it. He made a gesture for Jevil to go ahead and finish this silly thing once and for all.....But silence stared it. Those Yellow and black eyes glazed over his face and the toothy smile upon his face slowly disappeared the more he stared. Kaard stared back blinking and his brow raising the longer Jevil stared. By now the only sound was the leaves of the leave above and around them as the wind gently pushed through them. It was quiet....Too quiet. Very unlike Jevil. The pit in his stomach from before started to creep back in now-

"Rouxls, rouxls." The sound of his voice made him jump, and the sheer tone of dead seriousness dripping from it was suprising. Jevil was staring at him with a calm, serious look before letting out a long sigh. "How did you receive those markings?"

He suddenly felt like he was falling. Oh no he hoped he didn't faint again. The only that might've kept him up was the sheer shock of the question asked or maybe the sheer serious no nonsesne face on the happy go lucky jester. His soul thumped hard against his chest and his eyes quickly fell back to the table to avoid eye contact from the stare from the other man. Jevil just stared silently, as if one had all eternity to wait for this silent haired man.

".....T-That tis n-no concern to thou." He finally forced out.

"Corection, correction! We agreed nothing that didn't concern, concern either of us. But I think this does, does." His head lowered turning sideways. "You already answered that question partically earlier, earlier though. Did you not?" Rouxls's ears drooping was all the answer he needed. "...Is that why you are so against this. this?" One of his hands gestured to the table and everything on it.

Rouxls still remained silent. Eyes still staring blankly on the table- "Tis was of mine own foolish young feelings." Jevil blinked when he finally stared up to him a frown on his face. "Tis...my own fault. I f-foolishly....Foolishly thought that it wouldst be-...That she wouldst...The...Q-Q-Queen..."

His teeth gritted together and his hands clenched up! A lot of things hit him at once, anger, regret, sorrow. He could write a whole sonata of things. His eyes once again stared blankly again and his visio blurred. His soul radiated sadness and he wasn't the only one who sensed it. He didn't see the wave of clawed hands, or notice the dim lighting from no more candles, or the fact that the smell of any foof beyond the candy on the trees were gone, or that everything on the table minus the cloth had suddenly disappeared. What he did notice, was the gripping of his hand, which he jumped at, his rapidly blinking eyes clearing up enough to catch the sight of slightly smaller hands grabbing his. And looking up into the silent face of the the small loon.

Tis funny how one's face could give off thoughts without saying anything at all. It read "I know now. I know exactly what happened." Which made him internally wince. But at the same time it read, "I know exactly how you feel."

"...Im sorry, sorry for your loss. I felt empty, empty too when I made, made the mistake of cheating life's game and thrown into my small freedom, freedom. ....I put Seam, Seam into a difficult situation of choosing moves and he made the right one...one." His voice was almost hollow with sadness despite the small smile he tried to put on for him. ".....I lost, lost my oldest friend."

"But...t-thou art still friends now, and all is forgiven. A-Arn't thou?"

He gave a small chuckle. "Heh. Yes, yes. But only because Seam is a forgiving, forgiving soul. Im very fortunately he decided to do so, so."

Another small pause, but Jevil blinked and looked down when he felt the blue hand squeezing him back, then looked up to Rouxls in surprise question. Rouxls gave him a ...small smile of his own.

"Mayhaps....we art more alike than I thought. Jevil, thou art a o-oddity I shan't ever understand fully...but t-thou art a kind and ...perhaps I darsay misunderstood man...And I thank thee f-fully for that."

He stared at the worm in front of him, this silly silly worm with the beautifully glowing hair and the cute small gap between his teeth in his small smile. And the cool water balloon like skin gripping his own at this very sweet moment. If he was watching this game as an outsider, he would've laughed at how they were literally arguing over this less than five days ago, but right now it didn't seem any of that or anything else mattered. Not Seam. Not adorable little Lancer. Not the game or the threat of Seam winning even in the slightest. Not even the topic they had been discussing just a few seconds ago. The wind blew some more rustling the leaves and driving the intoxicating sweet marshamllow scent around them more. And blowling some of that pretty hair into his face, which he immediately reached to pull away and Rouxls made no move to stop him from doing that. Or removing the hand that now cupped his cheek. Maybe it really was a mutual madness they both shared or some form of chaos in their lives, but right now....With them being so close...And so vulnerable. It was only natural of course-.. It's what soulmates do-.. Of course they would since-...

They kissed.

******************************************************************************************

The sheap was peaceful today. No customers had come in today and he was good and content to just relax in his favorite armchair in the back room and lazily watch the fire. Cup of warm catnip tea in his paws. Beside him the small child laid on their stomach drawing with some strange objects called crayons or the like, he once took a peek over to see what they were drawing and smiled upon seeing a funny looking purple man who may or may not have looked familiar to someone they both knew, surrounded by attacks of every suit and wearing what looked like a crown made of spoons. ...Or maybe that was just because his one eye vision wasn't the best. He chuckled and went back to watching the fire in front of them. It warm glow made his cotton fuzzy and he sunk back down into the chair more-

The clear sound of the sheap's flap opening and closing made him blink and sit back up. Oh? A customer perhaps? When he turned his head he caught sight of a floating imp he knew all too well and he smiled.

"Well, well. Back so soon?..Or I guess not. It has been almost seven hours by now Old friend."

The child excitedly bounced up catching sight of the jester dad and spilt the drawing tools in their hurry to bounce up to him and excitedly shove the picture into his face. "For you!"

The jester paused looking at the paper, before taking it with a smile and giving the child a couple patts on the head. Which they laughed at and ran off to a different corner of the room to do whatever they usually did, Jevil smiled watching them go before looking back to the picture with a smile....Then it slowly dripped to a frown. Seam caught wind of that and gave a hum. He wasn't looking so happy. Maybe the little plan didn't end in victory like he wanted? The imp looked into the prying eyes of the cat and floated towards him, still holding the paper.

"I take it the little outting was not a pleasant one?"

Jevil shook his head. "On the contrary, contrary. It was quite breathtaking."

"Then why the long my friend. Did the duke not return what you were hoping for?"

Jevil gave him a serious look which he hummed at. Must've been something really important to get that look in his eyes. "We need to discuss, discuss something of upmost importance this instant."

"Enlighten me, friend. Im all ears."

[atopearth]

Fate/hollow ataraxia Part 3 - Chibi is Justice (Phase 3)

Lmao, I love how Avenger thought the way Bazett died against Assassin was so hilarious. It seems she's pretty numb towards the repetitive resurrections now though. Avenger is right though, Bazett is so violent lmao, she solves everything so practically and violently, it's pretty hilarious, especially when she got impatient at Avenger taking too long to unlock the gate to a Master's (looks like Rin's) house so she just broke in loll. It's pretty cute how Avenger protected her from the milk trap lmao. I wonder if the world Bazett is in, and the world Shirou and them are in aren't connected yet? It seems kinda connected since Shirou and Saber supposedly saw stuff like the house where those randoms died, and they saw the place where Bazett resurrects, but considering the fact that even though they both patrol around at night, yet haven't seen each other, do we need to get through a bit more things for it all to escalate?

I'm not sure if Avenger is the same Avenger that was supposed to be born in Heaven's Feel and whether his story is the same since he just kinda tells Bazett that Angra Mainyu isn't his real name because a friend sacrificed his life to save him, so he kinda just took the friend's name and repaid the world with it, so his hero name is basically honouring his friend whilst he's lost his identity. Anyway, lmao at Bazett telling him her background as if she's sharing her practical work experience lol. Her story in a sense is similar to the Matou since she's from an elite family that retained their unique power but lost influence as an important family, so she kinda tries to prove herself within the Magic Association even though they don't care or like her because their traditions and families are so ingrained, there's no place for anything else to shake the balance. It's funny how Avenger justifies it that he's right that she's technically 30+ (she's 23 lol) because she never really had a childhood so she's been an adult most her life lol.

Ohh so the reason why Shirou could never really "progress" was because of his lack of training. He hasn't done any sort of magic and training in so long! Aww the little kid Saber was watching playing soccer looks like a mini Shirou haha! Lmao when she threw the ball into the goal and everyone was stunned hahaha. HAHAHA, Saber kicked the ball and it broke🤣 so cute how Shirou fixed the ball for them. Wow, they've really upped their game for this fandisk! The battle sequence between Shirou + Saber against Archer was so fluent and cool! I really loved how Shirou was able to think of a pretty good plan of getting Saber to Archer super fast using his last Command Spell, so that she can cut him down right after he shoots his arrow and won't have time to react against her attack. It all looked really good too! I'm also really glad that Shirou was able to use his skills again. It's really been a while! However, when Saber asked if this was really all right, I wasn't really sure. Like, obviously they had no choice since Archer was out to kill them, but at the same time, if Archer was so ready to kill them, there must be something big going on that they're not aware of.

Okay, I legit died laughing when the mini game to defeat Illya and her castle came up lmaooo. It was so hilarious!! The chibi characters are so cute and lmaoo at Saber saying food names when she fights. Legit died when I used Excalibur and she said chashu men/noodles hahahahah, I couldn't concentrate on fighting hahahah. I love how Caster uses Assassin to fight, and it was so funny when Rider rode her Griffon because it looked like some chibi horse hahahaha. I loved the mini game, it was absolutely great. I want to play it again now lmao. Illya losing and then pressing a red button to destroy everything was such a funny finale hahaha. I love seeing the Taiga Dojo Taiga lmao. The quizzes are pretty funny lolll! I love the night quiz where Taiga wants to be the main heroine of Fate so bad lmaooo. Oh, and Sella giving Shirou a storeroom to sleep in was hilarious, poor Shirou🤣 HAHAHA at Sakura getting petrified when Saber told her that Servants don't get fat from eating etc, especially since Sakura tries hard to maintain her weight and everything hahaha. I loved how Rider had to drag the Sakura who turned into a rock away lolll. It was so funny when Sakura called Rider a traitor since she never told her that her body won't change no matter how much they eat🤣🤣 Sakura is so cute, her and Shirou fighting over who should bath first was cute, but when he pushed her in and she started going crazy with her delusions thinking that they were going to bathe together in their swimsuits was just hilarious🤣 Saber being scared of sinking in the water was pretty cute, lmao when she was dashing through the water though hahaha. Never thought she would be able to walk on water because she had the blessing of lake fairies lol. Aww it was so cute how Saber sunk into the water when Shirou said her body shape was nice and everything hahaha. Also lmao at Archer and Lancer invading their little picnic at the poolside and stealing their food lolll. I never really thought about it, but hearing Archer complain/give tips on how Shirou can improve his cooking is kinda cute and funny at the same time since he would know best what he needs to improve on🤣 Anyway, I love it when Saber is such a sore loser that she forces Shirou into competing with her (in this case, swimming) until she wins and is satisfied with her wins hahaha. She's so proud of winning after it all too lmao.

Whoa, I didn't expect the H-scenes in Eclipse, I was so shocked lmao, I had to look behind my shoulder to make sure no one saw me because it was so sudden hahaha! Anyway, I've never been a fan of the Fate H-scenes so yeah, this wasn't any better imo. Lmao, I love how Himuro is so interested in Mitsuzuri's love life and wants to know who her boyfriend is, she's so weirdly obstinate, it's kinda funny🤣 I'll admit that I'm definitely warming up to the trio of Himuro, Makidera and Yukika now haha. It's so stupid yet hilarious how they're so insistent on finding out who Mitsuzuri's dating lol. They've got some crazy dedication haha, legit died when Taiga started thinking Shirou was becoming more and more of a player with all these girls lol. Honestly I know Minori (Mitsuzuri's younger brother) doesn't mean harm, but he really gets out of hand when it comes to his dislike for Shirou. Anyway, I'm glad Himuro dragged him away lol, and with that, I think I kinda like the idea of Minori and Himuro together hahahah. Lmao at the Mitsuzuri dating thing was actually because she was desperately looking for someone to be her boyfriend to win the bet with Rin, so she told her brother to disguise and pretend to be her boyfriend, that is pretty embarrassing hahaha.

LMAO at Archer and Lancer having a fishing battle or something, it's hilarious how petty Archer seems towards Lancer hahaha. Omggg Saegusa can see Kojirou and they're so cute and friendly together!? It's such a random match but I love them. They have such a peaceful atmosphere. LMAOOO when Shirou bluntly asked Illya if he could use her castle dining room for a dinner date and Illya thought it was her and there were like pigeons flying in the background, and then Shirou says for Sakura and she sulks in her chibi sketch form hahahahaha. I nearly died from laughter with that transition.

 Awwww! Sakura in the pink evening dress with ribbons on her hair (kinda like Rin) is so cutee! The dress in itself is kinda ugly tbh but Sakura is adorable. Awww Shirou in a tuxedo is pretty cute too! Anyway, I honestly think it's so sweet of Shirou to have granted Sakura's wish for a fancy dinner like this. Like sure, he really didn't do much besides have the guts to ask Illya for help, but the fact that he remembered her wish and did what he could to grant it was sweet enough. The way Shirou accepts everything about Sakura including all her flaws, and saying all that in his own clumsy way makes my heart so warm. Hearing Illya talk about some memories of Kiritsugu fondly makes me happy that there were at least a few memories they were able to cherish together. Seeing Illya so happy and excited to play and talk with Shirou always makes my heart so warm tbh. The CG of Shirou and Illya sharing a bed together is so heartwarming, I love it. She never got to see Kiritsugu ever again, but at least Illya now has Shirou who will always dote on her and do his best to protect her. Tbh, in the beginning, I really didn't like Illya and always thought there's no way I'll like this murderous little girl, but omg she's invaded my heart so much, I love her, and her relationship with Shirou. Sella and Liz interactions are so funny, I love how Liz is just outing her to Shirou about how Sella is afraid of ghosts lmao. HAHAHA, I loved how Shirou got so scared of whatever he saw in the wine cellar, he ran out and pulled Sella along with him, and described it to her when she told him not to hahaha. The funniest thing was that it was actually Liz with a halberd lmao, that is definitely scary😂 It's interesting to know that Liz is actually the Dress of Heaven to kinda complete Illya, I'm not sure if I forgot that or if it was never mentioned, but now it's kinda understandable why Liz is a guess a bit more different compared to Sella who is basically full maid. Lmao, the more Sella and Liz appear, the more I love them. It was so funny when Liz gave him that possibly 200 years old card that is most likely cursed and then laughed as she left hahahaha. Omgg, it's so funny but I never really thought that Sella, Liz and even Illya drive to and from the castle!! Lmao when Shirou asked Illya if she drove a Bersercar HAHAHA😂😂😂😂 To be fair, that's what I would have assumed😂

Archer saving the kitten stuck on top of a tree and then going on a long ass rant about heroes of justice was hilarious. But, I have to say, the things he said were pretty interesting and right to an extent, especially the idea of heroes stunting the growth of people like this kitten who will start to always think that someone like a hero will save them so they don't need to think about saving themselves. Anyway, now that Gilgamesh isn't in a "serious" game as he says, his silliness and ridiculousness is so much more funny. I love how careless he is to get caught up in crap but be too prideful to ask for help hahahah. And it was so funny when Rider dragged Saber away calling them losers for their masters' affections since Shirou and Sakura are going to the pool together and she doesn't want to interfere even though she probably wants to join lol. Aww Sakura in her swimsuit is cute. Okay, I change my mind, her side angle is hot hahahha. I can understand why Shirou was so stunned hahahah. HAHAHA, I nearly died of laughter when Sakura told Shirou she's not good at backstroke, and he said that would be awesome hahahahaha, he's a pervert🤣🤣 Omg that underwater kiss though! Shirou was being silly as usual, trying too hard to make Sakura happy and staying underwater past his limits, so she gave him "air" through the kiss haha, Shirou is lucky~ LMAO when Rider and Saber popped up at the pool hahahaha. Omg Rider's swimsuit is hot though, I love it. Sakura and Shirou holding hands back home is so adorableeee, I wish their date lasted longer~~ Aww Saber being fascinated by the penguin shaved ice machine is so cute! To be fair, I've always been interested in those too, they're so adorable! I would eat shaved ice just to play with it loll. Well, Bazett's "Noble Phantasm"-like thing is pretty much a cheat if you can negate Saber's Excalibur. But I wonder why everything keeps repeating itself? Oh, and I died when Shirou and Shinji had a "duel" at the harbour LOL, it was so random but hilarious hahahah.

Anyway, yayyy, I'm finally up to the next phase lol! Sure took me a while to finish this one up, I got distracted by so many things hahaha. But yeah, even though I take a long time to get through this game, I honestly really love it whenever I take the time out to read it. The slice of life shenanigans are the best way to brighten up my life lmao, they're all so funny!! I love how this phase really developed Liz and Sella, they're so much more likeable than I initially thought haha. All the swimming pool shenanigans were so funny and nice too. I'm definitely loving Sakura much more than before haha, and Saber has such a special place in my heart now, she's so silly lolll. I really hope to see Rin soon though!

[bibbumblebee]

Ectober19: In Which Sam Falls Apart at a Halloween Party

My first ever fic for anything before. Not perfect, but it was a lot of fun to write! Also it’s 22 minutes late shhh don’t tell anybody.

Prompt: Fangs/Shatter

Sam’s fangs were really starting to bother her.

They poked at the inside of her bottom lip, and if she wasn’t careful, she found herself sticking them into her tongue or the soft gums behind her bottom row of teeth. She wondered how on earth some of the ghosts Danny fought back to the Ghost Zone could stand having such deadly teeth. All the time. Her fake ones were about to drive her crazy.

Just a few more hours, Manson, she told herself. She took a drink of punch, wishing it was spiked, to soothe the sores forming along her lip and the bristly, nervous anger that had lodged itself in the back of her throat. Gothika, Vampire Queen, doesn’t take her fangs out. Not even for boring parties.

She had come with Tucker and Danny, had actually come at their insistence. Tucker begged her the moment he found an invitation to Paulina’s party in his locker. She’d declined and declined, in varying shades of no, until Danny asked her one day after class. He’d held his invitation in his hands like a secret the two of them could share and looked at her shyly.

“Be more fun with you there,” he said.

Those eyes. Bluer than springtime. That little half-smile that, had she not known him since grade school, she wouldn’t have noticed. Would have thought was sadness. The slight quiver in his voice, like he wasn’t sure he should be saying anything. Afraid he might mess it up. Afraid she might say no. But how could she say no to that? To him?

She realized now she probably should have.

***

Danny had decided to dress up as Phantom for Halloween, saying that it was the only time during the year he could be himself and no one would be suspicious of it. “People love Phantom,” he told her when he announced his plan. “Maybe I can use tonight to get people to like Fenton, too.”

“Dude,” Tucker said, scrolling on his PDA for lists of popular Halloween costume ideas, “Phantom’s public enemy number one. They don’t love you.”

“Yeah, well, they love the idea of me.”

Sam knew how much it hurt Danny that the world feared Phantom as much as they hated Fenton. She’d been so certain that using his ghostly half to save the city from other ghosts would work. Would make him a hero. Would make him realize people loved him. She never suspected Amity Park would turn on him. And judging by how Danny’s face fell every time he saw Phantom on the news, every time Tucker reminded him that Amity Park wanted him dead for real, every time his parents invented another doomsday device, Sam got the feeling that Danny never suspected the hate, either.

***

She sipped some more punch, eyeing her black lipstick stain on the cup. She’d have to reapply soon. Maybe go and find Tucker, trying to pick up girls with his sexy professor costume. Sam tried to tell him that sexy professor was not the costume he thought it was, but his heart was set. He’d come in tight pants that highlighted his (admittedly) nice calves and a shirt he only buttoned up halfway.

Just as Sam figured they would, most of the popular kids assumed he was trying to be a sexy Mr. Lancer. Sam would have felt bad if she didn’t think Tucker needed to learn his lesson.

Still. She could use a dance.

Sam set down her empty cup and adjusted her black gloves where they had slid down her arms. She was going to go and find Tucker when she saw a flash of green from across the courtyard.

Paulina’s Most Perfect Halloween Party was held at the country club, like all her other parties, and the outdoor garden and courtyard had been decorated in purple streamers and smiling Jack-o’lanterns. Candles with artificial flames had been rigged on wires, suspended above their heads. It cast everything into a warm haze, everyone’s costumes cloaked and flickering between shadow and light.

Everyone’s except Danny’s.

He lit up like a star, a star with its own gravity, pulling everyone at the party to him. It was that natural magnetism Sam noticed he had while he was Phantom. Smiling, making jokes, puffing his chest out boldly. Confident. In control. With that smile, and that mop of silvery white hair, it wasn’t difficult to see why people were drawn to him. Why they feared him.

“Oooh, Ghost Boy,” said Paulina. She grabbed his arm. “How do you make your eyes light up like that?”

“Ghost Boy?” Dash said. Sam noticed him lurking behind the two of them, his face painted green like Frakenstein’s monster. Big, hulking, mindless mistake, Sam thought. Fitting.

“If that’s really the Ghost Boy,” said Kwan, appearing next to Dash as if summoned, “then we gotta report him.”

“It- it’s not Ghost Boy,” Danny said, and Sam heard the panic in his voice. “It’s just me. Danny Fenton.”

“Yeah right,” Kwan said. “Don’t lie.”

“Why would Ghost Boy lie about being Fentwerp?” Dash’s voice carried across the courtyard as if he was standing next to Sam at the punch bowl, making conversation. “He wouldn’t stoop that low.”

“Yeah,” Paulina said. Sam noticed her back away from Danny. She tried not to notice Danny’s face as it fell. “Ghost Boy wouldn’t lie about being a loser. No offense.”

“Yeah…” Danny said. “I guess not.”

“But still…” Paulina said, “You do have a pretty sweet costume, Danny. How does it glow like that?”

“My parents’ ghost hunting tech,” Danny said. His voice, which had lost a significant portion of its confidence, strengthened a little.

He and Tucker had rehearsed answers on the walk from Sam’s house. She’d tried to pretend to be focused on gluing her fangs over her real canines, but really she was trying not to turn around and stick the fake teeth through Tucker’s cheek. Asking questions like If Paulina wants to dance with you, what do you say? and If she wants you to turn invisible, will you? and Yo, man, I never thought. Can you turn just clothes invisible?

Sam stopped listening after that.

***

She only came tonight because Danny wanted her to. “Be more fun with you there,” he’d told her. But he hadn’t been with her the entire evening. She’d stood, her back to the garden wall, following his spectral glow around the party, trying not to think about the way he smiled when someone said his name. The way he fidgeted with his hands, more than likely trying to fight the urge to show off too much.

“You can’t shoot ectoblasts, you know,” Tucker told him. “Unless you lie and say you rigged one of your parents’ guns into your suit.”

They were in Sam’s room, waiting on her to finish applying her makeup. She’d decided on a darker, more dramatic look than the one she usually wore, replacing her purple eyeshadow for gray, opting for fake eyelashes over her natural.

Danny hovered behind her, watching her glue her eyelashes on. She felt his t-shirt brush against her shoulder. Caught the smell of laundry detergent and winter air and electricity—something he’d had since the accident. A permanent, static chill where there should have been body heat. Even while alive, he carried the chill of the dead.

“Why are you covering up your lashes?” he asked, watching her in the mirror.

She turned and batted them at him, laughing at the expression on his face. “For dramatic effect.”

“I’d say it worked,” Tucker said, sitting on Sam’s bed to tie his sexy loafers. “Earth to Danny? You in there?”

A second too late, Danny turned away, and Sam noticed the flush along his pale cheeks.

***

“Remember,” Tucker said. “You’re not Danny Phantom tonight. You’re Danny Fenton dressed up as Danny Phantom.”

“I know.” Danny watched Tucker unbutton and rebutton his dress shirt, making what he probably thought were sexy faces in the mirror. “I want them to like me. They already like Phantom.”

“And possibly want to kill him.”

Danny blanched. “Yeah. That too.”

After Sam finished her makeup, she encouraged Danny to sit down so she could cover his face with some powder, too.

Danny was sporting a black eye, only just starting to fade, from his most recent run-in with Dash’s fists. He’d been in worse shape from other fights, but Sam didn’t want Danny to be embarrassed by the bruise. She knew, too, that he carried marks far worse than the black eye, but it was the least she could do for the party.

Though neither of them would say so, Sam had seen the scars. She hadn’t meant to. It had been an accident, walking into his room without knocking. He’d been quick, but she’d seen his side where Valerie shot him. The long burned scar along his ribs. She couldn’t imagine it didn’t hurt, even now nearly a month later. She’d seen the smaller scars along his back, random collections from his fights over the last year and a half. The wings of a purpling bruise along his shoulders—more than likely from his fight with Skulker that ended with Danny’s back buried in ten inches of brick.

And it was all her fault. Because she couldn’t say no. She couldn’t say No, don’t go into the portal. She couldn’t say No, it’s okay. You don’t have to prove anything to me. No, she’d taken one look at those big blue eyes, that mess of black hair, the suit he’d slipped on, highlighting his narrow waist and lean arms. The curve of his back. Of course she wouldn’t tell him no.

And he’d died because of it.

He died a little more every day because of it.

It had taken Sam a few moments of convincing, but she managed to seat Danny at her vanity and powder his face to cover the worst of the bruising.

He fluttered his eyes shut so she didn’t get any powder stuck in them, and she occupied herself with blending over the purple and black blossom around his eye. She tried not to think of his hair, tickling her cheek, or of his cold breath on her hand. Just a brush and powder and a fresh bruise that, if she pressed too quickly, caused him to wince with phantom pain.

***

She didn’t notice she’d been lingering next to the punch table, her cup empty in her hand, her eyes focused on a spot just next to the DJ’s table on the dance floor.

“Sam?”

She looked up to see Danny standing next to her, his eyes glowing like will-o-the-wisps waiting to lure her away. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she said.

His eyes searched her face. Sam wondered what he found there. Anger? Sadness? That oh-so carefully practiced apathy?

“Paulina and the others are actually talking to me. Me,” he said. “Not Phantom. Fenton.”

Sam tried to appear happy at the news, but she’d known that would be what happened. She chewed her bottom lip, no longer caring about the sharp fangs still glued in her mouth.

“I mean, all they want to talk about is my parents’ gear and my costume, but still.” When he stepped closer, a chill fell over Sam and she shivered. It was as if she had decided to step into a bucket of ice water. “They actually seem interested.”

The way his voice swooped up with hope. It was enough to make Sam regret coming, regret hearing that joy in Danny’s voice and know it wasn’t because of her. Sure, she was happy for him. Being accepted is all he ever wanted, Phantom and Fenton. He was obsessed with saving people, protecting people. Being loved.

She wondered if he knew.

“I know,” he said.

Sam froze. About how she felt? She wasn’t sure she knew how she felt. She just knew that guilt that followed her wherever she went, that feeling of walking on ice every time she felt Danny near her. The way the chill traveled up her spine and froze the bones under her skin. And when he touched her...a wayward brush, an intentional hold on her wrist, a thoughtless clasp of her hand...it shattered her. Broke her into a million pieces inside. Thin ice under a heavy weight—gone.

And yet, in amongst those pieces lay a stronger, scarier feeling. The feeling of the life she’d nearly destroyed, the life fighting through the death, the patient blue of his eyes. The slight pout lingering behind every smile. His spidery fingers. His birdlike bone structure.

She had been the death of him.

She wished he’d return the favor.

“I know they’re only going to like me for tonight.”

Oh.

Oh.

Right. Of course. The popular kids. The costumes. The party.

“Well you know you’ve always got me,” she said. After a moment, she added, “And Tuck.”

There it was. That sad, shy smile. “I know.”

“I know you do.”

“The fangs,” he said, glancing toward her mouth. “When did you put those in?”

“Put them in? I’ve always had them.” She tried to lift her voice, dangle it on a thread of humor. She failed.

“I mean,” Danny said, “I guess Gothika, Vampire Queen, wouldn’t be a very good vampire without fangs.”

“You remember Gothika?” She hadn’t talked about her in weeks, and she never believed Danny had really been listening to her.

“I remember,” he said. He looked up at the popular kids, who were clustered on the dance floor, not dancing, just talking. Taking selfies. Checking their friends’ profiles. Even Tucker was out there, Sam noticed, trying to talk to a very harassed-looking Valerie.

“I invited you tonight,” he said.

“Yeah?” Sam knew she was the only person at Casper High to not get an invite from Paulina. It stopped bothering her well over a year ago.

Danny turned and looked at her mouth again. “Stop chewing on your lips,” he said. “You’re going to put a hole through them.”

She tucked her fangs inside her mouth, licking her teeth along them, tasting the sour glue holding them in place. “Nervous habit.”

They shared a silence for a moment, Danny’s eyes flicking away from her face, looking up to the candles above their heads. Sam watched the light bounce around his features, casting his eyes and the hollows of his cheeks into shadow. Be more fun with you there.

She forced her eyes away before he caught her staring.

“I’d love to dance,” he said, answering her unasked question. He turned and gave her his sad half-smile.

“With me?”

“With you.”

He took her hand, and she shattered at the touch.

[magicjesuscup]

I know that when Servants are defeated in battle, they just disappear and are unusable until the next battle, but what if the S/O thought that their defeat meant their deaths? They suddenly are critically injured and disappear in gold dust? The S/O would be a sobbing mess until she returns to Chaldea and find that they're still alive and well. How might any of the Servants react to their kind and caring Master crying over their "deaths?"

I have free reign over the servants I use? >:D Imma use the ones I don’t normally get to write for (and also some favorites). *insert evil cackling here.*

I’m assuming here the servant “died” while fighting a demon pillar at the end of a singularity so you leave almost immediately after.

It’s SFW, no spoilers, but still under the thing because it’s kinda long. The servants I picked where Chiron, Karna, Robin Hood, Arthur/Saber Artoria/Lancer Artoria, and Astolfo.

Chiron

It takes some effort on his part to kneel next to the coffin; it’s not supper easy when you’re a horse from the waist down.

He’s very surprised and confused when you launch yourself at him in tears.

He remains calm as he asks what’s wrong. He also looks you over for injuries; he’s troubleshooting at this point.

When you tell him you thought he was dead he tries to soothe you by explaining what happens when a servant is defeated in battle in the hopes that if it happens again you won’t be upset.

He’s not really one for PDAs, but he threads his fingers through your hair near the base of your neck and presses his forehead against the top of your head.

Karna

Stationed right next to you, Karna puts a hand on your back to try to comfort you. He’ll ask what he can do for you.

If you answer, “I want a hug,” or any variation of that, Karna will pick you up out of the coffin, sit back down with you in his lap, and pull you against his chest. It’s not a super tight hug, but you feel very secure in his arms.

When Roman walks over because he needs to get your vitals and do a quick check up, he receives a cold glare from Karna and he quickly decides that you seem perfectly fine and all of that routine stuff can wait.

Karna says softly enough for only you to hear, “Ask anything of me, and it will be yours.”

Robin Hood

Robin has no idea why you’re crying, but he doesn’t want everyone awkwardly staring at you. So, he uses his noble phantasm to hide you and get you to your room. He tries putting you down on your bed (after carrying you bridal style), but you refuse to unwind your arms from his neck/shoulders. He’s opts instead to lie on your bed with you on top of him.

He lets you cry it out in his arms before asking why you’re upset. When you tell him, he offers you a smile. “Aw, come on, I’m not that easy to kill. Besides, you are the most valuable treasure I’ve ever stolen and the only one I’ve ever kept for myself; I could never leave you behind.”

Arthur/Saber Artoria/Lancer Artoria

When they offer you a hand to help you out of the coffin, you launch yourself at them, knocking them over. (note: because they were planning to help you up, they weren’t wearing their gauntlets)

They’re very careful when they sit up and push you back just far enough so they can see your face as they ask what’s wrong.

They cup your face in their hands and wipe your tears away with their thumbs as you answer.

“I’m perfectly fine, but please forgive me. I never meant to leave you unguarded. I swear that if we’re ever separated, I will find a way back to you.” (Lancer Artoria will take things a bit further by leaning forward, whispering, “my [insert your name here],” and punctuating her sentence with a kiss to your forehead.)

Astolfo

He’s on the verge of tears himself because he was scared something bad might have happened to you when he was defeated.

After making sure you’re ok he asks why you’re crying. When you tell him your reason, he shakes his head, “If I was going to die for real, I would’ve told you.” Don’t think too much about that statement; he didn’t put much thought into it himself.

He’s going to switch gears at that point to do whatever he can to make you smile again.

[ladylynse]

The Trouble with Ghosts: Part VIII [FF | AO3]

For @chocobijou -- as a thank you for their donation to my ko-fi. (@queenofhearts7378, I owe you a chapter, too, so you get the next one.)

<<  <  Part VIII

Lancer sat down abruptly on the bed. He hadn’t heard wrong. The Red Huntress worked for Vlad Masters.

True, their prestigious mayor had once put a one million dollar reward on Phantom’s head, but Lancer had assumed Mr. Masters had had a change of heart because the reward had been lifted.

Did Vlad believe, as the Fentons did, that all ghosts—Phantom included—were a menace? Despite Phantom’s continued protection of their town? The Red Huntress clearly had no compunctions about hunting down Phantom, and she was an ideal person to hide behind. Unlike Jack and Maddie, no one knew her true identity—except, of course, the mayor. And possibly Phantom and his friends, given how much else they seemed to know.

“It’s…. I guess it’s more of a surprise than I thought it might be. Given what you know, I mean.”

Given what he knew. That Vlad was an old college buddy of Jack and Maddie Fenton’s, no doubt. Lancer rubbed his temples. “I wouldn’t have thought the mayor would actively try to rid the town of one of its best ghost hunters,” he admitted.

“Well….”

Lancer looked up, but Phantom seemed to think better of whatever he’d been about to say. “Well what?”

“He’s, ah, not trying to get rid of me, exactly,” Phantom said slowly.

Moby-Dick, was Phantom saying that the mayor was ready to experiment on him? That he hadn’t left his ghost hunting days behind at all? That made sense, if he truly employed the Red Huntress. Her technology was similar to but still different from anything produced by FentonWorks, yet it was too effective to have been produced without intimate knowledge of ghosts and paranormal technology. Was Vlad collaborating with his old college friends? Did the three of them intend to tear Phantom apart, molecule by molecule?

“Yeah, it’s kinda messed up.” Phantom was offering him a smile. A smile. Humour in the face of a sickening situation.

“I think this goes beyond that,” Lancer said hoarsely.

Phantom’s response was a shrug and a wince. Then, “But that’s why I’m the focus, not my friends. And why you can’t tell anyone else.”

Lancer let out a slow breath. “Mr. Masters is already aware of your helpers.” Phantom had told him as much before, but he nodded again anyway. Lancer was mostly trying to get the facts straight. “Despite this, he hasn’t used them against you? Tried to bargain with them?”

Phantom groaned. “Okay, fine, he tried using Jazz against me once, even wanted us to fight each other, but it didn’t work like he’d planned. Obviously, we didn’t want to really fight each other, so we just kinda put on a show until…. It doesn’t matter. Point is, he hasn’t tried something like that again. I think he realized that’s never going to work. Like, ever.”

Lancer pursed his lips. “If he has ghosts in his employ, what’s stopping them from kidnapping someone and holding them hostage until you give yourself up?”

Phantom stared at him. “Because I’d win. I’d find them and beat them. They all know that. Even if I had to get help to do it, I’d win.”

“Always?”

Phantom frowned. He could hear the skepticism in Lancer’s voice. “Vlad’s tried a lot of different things. Nothing’s worked, and he’s not stupid enough to keep reusing the same tactics over and over. I mean, not for everything. He knows how important the others are to me, but he also knows how easily I can get allies when it really matters. I don’t just mean ghosts, either. The Red Huntress and I have called truces before. If I brought her in on this, he’d have to do some fancy footwork to keep his dirty work from her. She doesn’t know about all the ghosts that work for him or about anything to do with me. She wouldn’t still be working for him if she did.”

“You seen awfully confident in your assessment of her.”

“I know her better than she thinks I do, including what misunderstandings led to why she hates my guts. She’s a good person, just…really, really misguided.”

“And in the employ of the mayor.” He hesitated. “Is she aware of his true identity?”

Phantom didn’t answer right away. Then, “She knows he’s the mayor, if that’s what you mean.”

Lancer had no idea what else he could mean, but Phantom clearly had something in mind. Lancer filed that bit of information away for later; instead of pursuing that line right now, he could pick apart some other information Phantom had volunteered. “You said you had allies. Am I right to assume this includes ghosts you don’t fight with regularly?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And your friends have met them?”

Phantom nodded. “I mean, I don’t think Jazz knows everyone, but the others do.”

Perhaps that explained young Mr. Fenton’s whereabouts. He’d phoned their household this morning to request an update, but he hadn’t gotten an answer until Jack and Maddie had driven past his house with a loudspeaker, alternating between calling for Danny and threatening the ghosts that surely had him. (He rather thought that was what had woken Phantom, though he couldn’t be sure without asking.)

“And will the ghosts help them?” Lancer asked carefully.

Another nod. “Sam and Tucker have stolen the Spectre Speeder to go into the Ghost Zone more than once.”

Because Danny was preoccupied or because this wasn’t the first time he’d gotten hurt? The thought gave Lancer pause. Danny had been quite insistent about not going to the hospital. Perhaps this really wasn’t the first serious injury he’d attained in his exploits helping Phantom. Perhaps that had simply been his assumption and Phantom hadn’t corrected him. Why would he, when he was trying to argue so vehemently that he could protect them all?

Had Sam and Tucker come to take Danny to a rendezvous point where he could be collected by one of Phantom’s ghostly allies? Had Jazz managed what they could not? Was Danny in the Ghost Zone right now, being attended to by the spirits of doctors who retained enough relevant knowledge of human biology to put their skills to use? He couldn’t discount the idea, not when he’d met other ghosts who were clearly the spirits of those who had passed on from this world—Phantom included, as far as he could tell.

Lancer had no idea how much knowledge and technology from their world had made its way into the Ghost Zone, but Lancer hoped—if his suspicion was right, and especially if this wasn’t the first time—that those ghost doctors did more good than harm. He’d always understood that Jack and Maddie Fenton regularly wore HAZMAT suits to reduce the risk of contamination—however many times they had to change suits for that to be the case—so if Danny were immersed in the Ghost Zone itself….

“Um, before you jump to any conclusions, they don’t only go into the Ghost Zone whenever I need help. Sometimes we explore it together, and Sam’s good friends with Dora, so she’ll go there on her own, too.”

Dora. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but Lancer couldn’t place it, and he didn’t want to fall for Phantom’s bait and ask. Phantom would only too gladly latch onto a change of topic and lead the conversation away from more important points. “Is the Red Huntress aware of what your friends do for you? Of the risks they take?”

Phantom bit his lip. “I don’t think so,” he admitted. “I mean, she’s gotta know they know their way around an ectogun, and she definitely knows they support Phantom, but most kids in school do, so that’s not really surprising. And she’s seen us together before, but I don’t think she, um, knows how actively they help me. We’re trying not to give her too many clues about who I am.”

Too many clues about who Phantom is? Or was? Back when he was…alive?

Phantom let out a nervous laugh. “It gets, um, complicated. And she might shoot me anyway. Because I never told her. About a lot of stuff, not just this. I just…. You don’t need to worry about her. She won’t hurt my friends. Or you, if she figures out you’re involved. She only has a thing against ghosts, and you’re all human. If I told her everything, she’d probably back off me, too, but I…. I can’t do that right now, okay? I can’t.”

“I would hardly force you to spill your secrets to someone who actively hunts you down,” Lancer pointed out, but Phantom didn’t look remotely convinced.

“Yeah? Even when it’s not just her who should know?” Phantom pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged them. “You don’t need to keep dancing around the subject, Mr. Lancer. I know you think I need to tell my parents.”

His parents?

“But I’m not ready yet, and I need you to respect that. That’s why I don’t want you to tell anyone, especially them. They can’t learn something like this from someone else. If anyone tells them, it has to be me, and it has to be on my terms. It’s my secret.”

My secret. This wasn’t the first time Phantom had said referred to it as such, but it was the first time Lancer had realized there was more to Phantom’s secret than the help he was getting from Danny, Sam, Tucker, and Jazz.

And for Phantom to talk about his parents so casually, as if they were here, in Amity Park….

Lancer swallowed.

He’d known Phantom was young.

He just hadn’t realized what that meant.

“Your parents,” he said carefully, “truly have no idea who you are?” He could see how it might happen. For all that Phantom looked human enough, it was highly doubtful that he was the spitting image of who he’d been when alive. Coupled with the fact that his parents wouldn’t be expecting to recognize any of the ghosts, they’d never think to see their son in one of them. Of course, Lancer had no children of his own, only his students, but he’d like to think—

Phantom shook his head. “Jazz says they wouldn’t be hunting me if they did.”

Lancer blinked. His parents were hunting him? True, far more adults than children were disgruntled with Phantom (and all the damage from the ghost fights), and most households had a few FentonWorks weapons on hand, just as he did, but actively hunting down ghosts—Phantom in particular—was a different matter entirely.

“Would…would that not be preferable?”

Phantom pulled a face. “Not, well…. I mean, yeah, but it’s more complicated than that.” Lancer raised his eyebrows, and Phantom sighed. “Please, Mr. Lancer, you just need to trust me on this.”

“You are asking me to trust you about a rather large number of things.”

Phantom straightened up and crossed his legs. “Okay, look. I know the chances of them freaking out and trying to capture and dissect me are pretty small, especially with the others to back me up so they know it’s not some trick or whatever they might come up with. But I know where things stand as they are now, and it’s not like I don’t know how all the FentonWorks weapons work. And Dad’s aim is terrible anyway. They’ve only caught me once.”

Lancer couldn’t help but stare. “I beg your pardon?”

“I know how to avoid their stuff,” Phantom repeated. “And it’s just…. It’s been so long. And them knowing would change things. I mean, even if they do take it well, even if they accept who I am, what I am, that’s not…. That’s not going to just erase everything that’s happened.”

Avoid their stuff?

This wasn’t just a matter of Phantom being unsure of how his parents might accept the fact that he had become a ghost.

“They’re going to blame themselves,” continued Phantom. “For hunting me. For hurting me. For the accident, even though it was an accident, even though they weren’t around. I don’t want to do that to them. I’ve gotta…. I need to figure out how to tell them, if I can tell them, and I’m okay with them hunting me if it protects them from the truth. Does that make sense?”

It didn’t make a whit of sense, not with what Lancer had been thinking.

“It’s…easier, I guess. Safer than changing things.”

It’s not just people, Phantom had told him. It would be everything.

This was what he’d meant.

“So just…don’t tell them. Don’t tell anyone. Please.”

All things considered, Lancer didn’t know very much about ghosts.

He was quickly realizing he knew even less than he’d thought, particularly where Phantom was concerned.

“If you’re worried about how guilty they’d feel once they found out the truth,” Lancer heard himself say, “how can you say that prolonging telling them will improve things rather than make everything worse? You talk as if you never intend for them to know.”

Phantom looked away. “That wouldn’t be the worst thing,” he mumbled. “You know how my parents are. How do you think they’d take this?”

You know how my parents are. There it was, plain as day. Lancer knew Phantom’s parents.

Phantom’s ghost-hunting parents.

Who lived here in Amity Park.

It’s not like I don’t know how all the FentonWorks weapons work.

I know how to avoid their stuff.

“Yeah,” Phantom said softly when Lancer didn’t reply. “That’s what I thought, too.”

Lancer didn’t understand. He didn’t know enough to understand.

They’re going to blame themselves, Phantom had said. For hunting me. For hurting me. For the accident.

How could this just be an accident?

Phantom was…. He….

“Jack and Maddie Fenton,” Lancer said slowly, “are out searching for their son.”

Phantom didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “I don’t know exactly what Jazz told them. Maybe they thought she was wrong.”

No wonder at the sudden change in topic.

Because it wasn’t a sudden change in topic.

If he had asked Phantom if he knew young Mr. Fenton’s whereabouts, what would he have been told? Would Phantom have lied? Claimed ignorance? Pretended Danny was with his friends?

“They’re worried.”

“Yeah, well, knowing the truth wouldn’t change anything on that front, either.” Phantom slumped back against the pillows he’d set against the headboard. “They’re always concerned about their family, but they’re also always concerned about what ghosts might be planning. Sam and Tucker told them a ghost had stolen my face once, and they believed that, so….” He trailed off, shrugged, and let out a faint hiss of pain at the movement. “It doesn’t matter. Jazz can handle them. She knows I’m with you. This was her idea.”

Lancer didn’t know how he’d never noticed that Phantom always talked about Sam and Tucker or about Jazz but not about Danny.

“Wh….” It was hard to force his thoughts into coherent words. “Why me? Out of everyone—”

Phantom raised an eyebrow. “It’s not exactly out of everyone,” he cut in. “There isn’t an everyone. That’s the whole point. All the ghosts know, but I can count on one hand the number of humans who do. And it’s not like I’m going to go to Vlad for this when he’s the reason I’m in this mess.”

All the ghosts know. Yet none of them had ever used that knowledge against him, even though he clearly feared the fallout if they did and that fear gave them power over him. Leverage.

But while Jack and Maddie Fenton hunted down Phantom, Vlad Masters was…. He was doing more than that. Worse than that. He’s not trying to get rid of me. Maybe experimentation wasn’t far off, except—

Except Phantom talked like going to Vlad might be an option. For something. At some point. Under particular circumstances. Despite what he’s doing now.

The mayor may have discovered Phantom’s secret, may be hunting him down like this because of that, but there was something else, something more, something—

Phantom blew out a breath. “And I just…. You know. You know, but you don’t look at me differently. You still tried to help.”

You know.

But he hadn’t known.

You don’t look at me differently.

Would he now? He hoped not.

You still tried to help.

Because someone needed his help. Because that was the right thing to do. Not because—

“People of Amity Park, be on the lookout for Danny Fenton!” The announcement was loud enough to rattle the net gun on the bedside table and send ripples through the water glass; this time, Lancer surmised, the Fentons were driving down his street instead of somewhere beyond.

Phantom jerked, grimaced, and muttered, “I guess they’re still doing that. Please tell me they don’t have the giant billboard again.”

He couldn’t.

He’d glimpsed it in the distance this morning, and he doubted they’d retired it in the meantime.

Instead, they sat in silence, listening as Maddie Fenton’s repeated announcement became muddled by distance and finally faded away.

“I know they’re worried,” Phantom finally whispered, “but this?” He made a vague gesture to himself. “This isn’t even the worst of it. And if telling them everything was so easy and simple, Jazz would’ve been able to convince me to do it ages ago.”

“How is this not the worst?” Phantom was…. He was dead. That’s how one became a ghost. By dying. Whatever this was, however it had come to be, that fact wouldn’t change.

“It’s better if you don’t know the details.”

“Phantom.” Phantom still wouldn’t look at him, so Lancer continued, “You already think I’m in danger, and we’re taking precautions. Talking to me will hardly put me in more danger. We’ve been over this.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t just a one-time thing.” Phantom met his gaze now, his bright green eyes boring into Lancer’s. “And I’m still not convinced you get that. If Vlad realizes you know as much as you do, he’s going to wonder what else you know—or what else you can guess. It’s better if you just pretend I’m a normal ghost and don’t interfere after this. You don’t want to give Vlad a reason to look closer.”

“Because of all the ghosts he employs?”

Phantom shook his head. “Because he’s powerful. And he’s not afraid to use that power to get what he wants.”

Lancer let out a slow breath. “What hold does he have over you?”

“My secret,” Phantom admitted, though Lancer had already surmised that much, “but that’s fine. We’ve called a truce of sorts on that front. He won’t tell on me.”

Vlad Masters wouldn’t tell the world Phantom’s secret, and Phantom wouldn’t, what, tell everyone that the mayor was working with the ghosts he hunted? It must be more than that. It wouldn’t be terribly difficult for Vlad to lie or otherwise cover up his association with ghosts if it came to that, and his background as a ghost hunter would act in his favour.

But Lancer had seen Phantom fight, time and time again. His conviction that he could win a fight wasn’t entirely unwarranted. So why—?

“And you’re sure you don’t want to remove that power from him?”

“You mean tell my parents my secret so he can’t hold it over my head? It’s not really that simple. It’s not just this. It’s everything else, too.”

Everything else.

His revelation was only the tip of the iceberg, and Lancer already didn’t know what to do.

Phantom was young. Too young. And far more human than Lancer had ever realized. And he was—

“I should just go,” Phantom said. “Try to keep you out of danger. Jazz’ll understand, especially since I’m doing better. Since Mom and Dad are out, I could probably go through the portal and visit the Far Frozen if I have to.” He saw Lancer’s expression and added, “It’s okay. I’ve got friends there. They’ve helped me before, and they definitely wouldn’t give me up to Vlad, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Exactly how much did Amity Park’s mayor trust the ghosts he hired if he believed they would not only track Phantom down but fight his allies to get to him? Convincing the ghosts to cause trouble on his terms in this world was one thing, but in the Ghost Zone—? What could Vlad possibly be offering them in exchange for that?

It must go beyond a mutual desire to be rid of Phantom. That still wouldn’t give the ghosts free reign, not with the Red Huntress and the Fentons in town, and the ghosts could accomplish that on their own anyway. Why would they bow to the wishes of a mere human, especially when up against someone as powerful as Phantom? They might be able to overwhelm him if they ganged up on him, but Lancer had rarely seen any of the ghosts working together. If they didn’t like to work with each other, why would they work with a human?

Vlad wasn’t just any human, though. He had the same background as Jack and Maddie Fenton and a lot more wealth to throw around. To Lancer’s knowledge, the only way for the ghosts to get into this world was to cross through the Fenton’s portal—if ghosts had a way to create them, he hadn’t seen it—but the attacks were far too regular for them to have come through a single chokehold like that. Had the mayor built another portal, granting ghosts access to his city, in exchange for their help? In exchange for Phantom? Despite all the damage that resulted from the ghost attacks?

“What exactly does the mayor want with you?” It…. He had to be missing something. The risks were so great, and Lancer couldn’t see a guaranteed benefit that would be worth such potentially devastating consequences.

“It’s complicated.” He could recognize the closed tone in Phantom’s voice now. This wasn’t just reluctance to tell; it was flat refusal. “He likes to play his cards close to his chest. The Red Huntress doesn’t know, either, but she doesn’t care. As far as she’s concerned, I’m just a filthy piece of ectoplasmic scum, and Vlad’s too smart to let her know too much.”

Lancer had never noticed how skillfully Phantom could steer a conversation when he wanted to. Phantom had brought up the Red Huntress again to deflect from Vlad Masters, clearly thinking her the safer topic. And, earlier, Lancer would likely have happily pursued it—as a distraction for Phantom, if nothing else.

But now….

“How much danger are you in?”

Phantom crossed his arms, a look of defiance plastered across his face. “I can hold my own.”

“Because you’re confident you’ll always win?”

Phantom rolled his eyes. “C’mon, Mr. Lancer. You know that’s not just me bragging. You’ve seen me fight. I’m good. Sure, Vlad’s tricked me before, but he’s never won any battle that counts. He’s still losing the war.”

Lancer might question the exaggeration of the expression if he were more certain that it was a mere expression.

“But how much danger are you in?”

“Nothing—”

“How much?”

Phantom’s mask finally dropped away, and he wouldn’t meet Lancer’s eyes. “It doesn’t matter. You can’t do anything, anyway. Vlad would deny everything and then ruin you to make a point. And it’s not really any more danger than I face from my parents.”

“It is,” Lancer said quietly, “because your parents would stop the moment they discovered the truth.”

Phantom snorted. “They’d have to believe it first.”

Lancer closed his eyes and took a breath before saying, “They would test the possibility rather than reject it outright; they wouldn’t want to risk being wrong.”

He didn’t think he was wrong. He didn’t have to be a parent to have children in his life that he cared about. Knowing he’d missed something this big, this important, was bad enough, especially when he could see so many signs in hindsight that he’d misinterpreted. He sincerely doubted any truly loving relative would find reason to continue any sort of cruelty when there was any doubt to be had whatsoever.

“Fine. Doesn’t change the fact that I can handle whatever Vlad throws at me. So, yeah, I guess it’s dangerous, but not more so than usual.”

“You’re just a child—”

“I’m fifteen!” Phantom cried indignantly, and then he seemed to realize that didn’t help his case and huffed. “You don’t need to baby me. And you can’t protect me from this danger. You knowing about it doesn’t make me safer; it just puts you in more danger. Why can’t you just understand that?”

“Why can you not accept that I am willing to risk myself if I can help you? You came to me for help. You can’t deny that sometimes your enemies get the better of you, just as you can’t promise that your friends will always be safe, that anyone will always be safe, and believing you will always win is a fool’s mistake.”

Phantom made a face but didn’t say anything.

“I am not asking you to tell me why the mayor is so insistent on hunting you when he knows you are a child. I am not insisting you tell your parents everything before you’ve had a chance to think through how best to do that. I am asking you to stop endangering yourself and others so recklessly, and I am suggesting that one of the ways you do so is by confiding in me and accepting my help.”

Phantom said nothing.

In the distance, they could hear the garbled words of Jack Fenton this time, asking for the help of Amity Park’s citizens in finding his son, as the Fentons circled around to continue their search for their son.

“Phantom, it’s been too long. They need to know something.”

Phantom very deliberately picked up the glass of water from the bedside table and drained it.

“Phantom.”

He replaced it without a word.

“Pride and Prejudice,” snapped Lancer, not pausing to consider that his conclusion might still be wrong, “if you don’t tell me what you want me to say to your parents, Mr. Fenton, I’ll come up with something for you!”

-|-

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@cosmic-melodies 

[writer-and-artist27]

Friendship over Chivalry

Note: Because I finally watched the infamous Episode 16 of Fate/Zero, well, let’s just all agree Diarmuid deserves better. Rewatching some of his final moments is so hard and I had to remedy that. So, I’m writing again. Dunno if this’ll go into Small Sparkles yet, so I wanted to post on Tumblr first. Inspired by @raspberryusagi’s art once more, plus a story she wrote way back when. This is for you, Usagi-san. I hope you’ll like this. :) A sequel to my previous Diarmuid writings.

The theme for this small thing is actually the song featured in the first Fate AMV I watched, being The Beginning from Against The Current. The AMV in question featured scenes from almost everything in the various Fate continuities, and considering how the lyrics seem to speak to all the Servants I’ve seen… it fit. 

Go ahead and enjoy. Warnings for Servant angst and calls for much-needed therapy talks. Seriously, where are the therapists for these people…?

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“Tomoko?”

A soft call of my name was the start of the day. In any other situation, I would’ve responded with a normal greeting befitting of my occupation of cafe pianist, more so since I was still at work. Something like, “Yes, what can I do to help you?” would’ve been fitting. 

But this time? 

My nerves all tensed and my heart jumped.

There was something about this call that made things different. 

The name was already on my tongue when I turned around and made eye contact with yellow eyes. The mole underneath the right eye confirmed everything else. I couldn’t help but beam. The lances strapped to his back weren’t an issue in the slightest. Heck, even if I was at work, there was no way I couldn’t be happy at seeing a friend. “Dia!” 

“My lady,” he said softly, the smile honest and wide on his face as he bowed his head, one arm tucked towards his chest. “Apologies for the intrusion and the use of such of a title, but I had to come to see you. May I partake in a bit of your time?”

I blinked before holding back a fond sigh. This was definitely Diarmuid Ua Duibhne, first spear of the Knights of Fionna and Lancer Servant I came to call as a friend in dreams. He was still being that regal Knight, even when it had been so long since we solidified friendship to begin with. Considering the fact that he wasn’t wearing his armor and instead partaking in a suit a la a certain Saber I grew to love… Heh. Instead of sighing, I reached over and lightly poked the top of Diarmuid’s head. “Boop. Dia, you silly Knight, you should know my answer.”

He jolted, the two spears on his back clinking against one another with the motion. Then he raised his head, yellow eyes shining with uncertainty as he opened his mouth. “Should I take that as a ‘yes’?” he tried quietly.

“It’s definitely a ‘yes’, you silly Lancer.” I couldn’t help but giggle because the face he was wearing was so fish-like. He needed more nice things. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Something shined in Diarmuid’s yellow eyes as he opened his mouth again. “Perhaps if…” he shook his head. “No, it is nothing.” He put on another smile, and I decided not to mention how fake it looked in spite of the relief in his eyes, instead noting it in my head for later. “Thank you, Tomoko.”

I inclined my head and smiled back. Usako-san wasn’t with him, so considering he was alone… There was no denying all of the worry bells going off in my head. “I can get my break from Mama and Papa, so then we can talk at the piano? Or do you want to talk outside?”

Diarmuid bowed his head again, the smile on his face turning a bit more genuine with the gesture. “The piano is sufficient, Tomoko. As long as there is privacy—”

I couldn’t help the high-pitched glee filling my voice as my mouth moved for me. “Got it!” The privacy seal was already on my fingertips once I reached into my kimono sleeve for the thing. So, once it was in my hands to brandish like a trophy to my Lancer of a friend, Diarmuid blinked. “No need to worry!”

“Ah…” Diarmuid stared at me for another second or so before covering his mouth with one of his gauntlet-covered hands, his eyebrows furrowing on his head. His shoulders were shaking just like Saber’s when she laughed. Awww. “Pft, my word, milady,” he snickered quietly, “you have not changed in the time of my absence, have you?”

I could feel my smile turn a bit more solemn. “I try not to,” I confessed, my voice quieting with the emotion. “I hope it convinces you to keep coming back like this.”

The thought was kept to the back of my mind instead of being voiced aloud.  

I get lonely too, y’know. 

I couldn’t stop my ninja friends from taking missions. I never could. 

Even then, there was no way I could voice that, especially to Dia.

Still, those yellow eyes of Diarmuid’s focused on me again with a wide look before softening. “Of course, Tomoko. Serving you — no,” Diarmuid shook his head, his eyes a bit more sad looking before he tucked a hand towards his chest, “being your friend has been a surprisingly pleasant experience. Please do not assume I feel discontent towards you. This brutish warrior has…” I was not expecting him to blush. “I admit it is informal, but the platonic affection in this shrewd heart of mine is real when I think of you.”

The waning smile on my face was already growing back to be a beam I couldn’t hide thanks to those words from the Lancer. Diarmuid. No, Dia. Still a Knight even in a new life with a new lord. Or perhaps “savior” would be the better term. Usako-san, even from the few times Diarmuid mentioned her, did so many things that made him happier. To see him actually admit to something “informal” like that — all I could say to describe the feeling was that it was definitely a warmth I liked. 

“Thankie, Dia,” I allowed myself to say, trying not to grin like a goof. “Now, come on. There’s a chair near the piano for you.”

Diarmuid smiled back at me, and in that moment, the sunlight probably could’ve become twice as bright.

-----------------------------------------------

I probably shouldn’t have been so surprised considering Diarmuid did want to be alone and without the supervision of Saber, but still.

“You knew Arturia-san?” The question came off feeling foreign and wrong in my mouth, and once Diarmuid flinched, I tried to backtrack. “I mean, if you don’t want to say anymore, I understand, Dia! I won’t pry if you don’t want me to! So… I’m sorry for interrupting. You can get back to your story.” 

Yeeeep. Those gold eyes staring at me didn’t help much, so the last bit came out far too high-pitched for my liking. Sure, I could give myself a little slack because of how I wasn’t expecting that, but still. Even if Arturia-san shared personal things at her own discretion, which was rare, that did not warrant a surprised reaction towards Diarmuid sharing something himself. 

I forced myself to take a breath to calm myself. “S-Sorry, Dia. Really.”

“Milady — no, Tomoko — there is nothing to apologize for,” Diarmuid said immediately, and the apparent callused hand covering the top of both of my own made it obvious he was trying to comfort me in some way. “I should have explained more properly had I known you would be so shocked. So,” he squeezed my hands, “may I?”

I met his eyes and nodded. “Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do. I’ll try to stay calm.”

He smiled softly. “Thank you, Tomoko.” There was no missing the gratitude in his voice. It was then his turn to take a breath, and then Dia bowed his head, never retracting his grip on my hands. “I… I would like your advice on how to apologize to her.”

“Eh?” I blinked. The first question of “What did you do wrong” immediately graced my head, but I pushed it back so that it wouldn’t fall onto my tongue. There was no way I could ask that. His grip on my hands was desperate enough as is. Instead, I took another breath and said quietly, “Could I ask why you feel that way, Diarmuid?”

Dia raised his head just slightly to show the tops of his eyelids, but he still didn’t meet my eyes. “…Alright, Tomoko,” he allowed, before taking a breath.  “In the past, when I had a different Lord than Lady Usako, I met Saber — Arturia Pendragon — in combat over the Holy Grail.” The shrewd and fond smile on his face was such a tiny gesture, but spoke volumes of something I knew he was just barely covering the iceberg on. “She was a brilliant warrior, even back then, and I had always hoped to have one last battle with her before the end. With both of our honors as Knights on the line, to the death.”

I nodded, trying to give what was an understanding hum for him to continue. Even if a part of me wasn’t sure of what I was doing, even when another part of me was scared at just hearing the “to the death” part, I turned my right hand over so I could grip his left hand. 

Through the handhold, I could feel Diarmuid jolt just slightly before relaxing, and his thumb immediately rubbed the side of my pointer finger. “Thank you for the comfort, Milady,” he said quietly before loosening his grip, “but I do not believe I deserve such a thing. I… I cursed Saber in my last moments before meeting you.”

Oh god. 

Cold dread washed over me first, but I held it down with everything I had, keeping my voice plaintive and soft while never letting go of his limp fingers. “Why did you think you did that, Dia?” There was no way I could reject him. Even if I didn’t know Dia as long as I did Art-san, he was still a Servant I could call a friend. Family even, if I could go that far with the number of times we met in dreams. So for him to pull away like this, no. “There’s a difference between ‘deserve’ and ‘want,’ Dia. And I want to comfort you and hear you out.” 

Diarmuid raised his head to look at me, and the molten gold of his eyes had me stop for a moment. In that instant, it felt like the mole under his right eye was glowing, and I rubbed my eyes with my left hand. The rubbing helped since the glowing stopped once I pulled my hand back, but was it just me…? “Thank you, Milady,” he said again, but he shook his head. “But I am not sure. I said many horrible things I wish I could take back. So many vile words a Knight of my caliber should not have uttered. And fate was cruel to both of us then. I served a Master that did not deserve my spears. I bewitched my Master’s beloved with this curse of mine without meaning to.” 

It was hard to miss how he absently touched the mole under his eye with the statement. 

Yet another sign a friend of mine needed therapy and more help than I could possibly give. But I still stayed quiet to hear the rest. 

“And yet,” he paused, as if fighting a lump in his throat. “I… In the last moments of my previous life, of the War I fought before I met you and Lady Usako, when facing Saber that last time in combat, the only one I could honorably face as myself and not a Servant bound by Command Seals, I…” his smile dropped completely as he turned away, not meeting my eyes. “I cursed her. Bleeding at the mouth, dying. My previous Lord had commanded me to die, and it was all because of her Lord. So, I hoped she would meet a cruel end. I hoped, at the time, that her dreams would bear no fruit because of the actions her previous Master did that led to my end. The things he did, that fiend—” Dia turned his head away, and I tried not to flinch. Saber’s previous Master was a man? But I thought Saber fought in the Fourth and Fifth Holy Grail Wars… “I do not know if she had any part in what her Master planned. But it…” 

I gripped his hand as gently as I could. “It hurt?”

There was a pause. “Yes,” Dia said finally. His voice cracked slightly too. “It did. Thinking of her, the King of Knights, assisting in such cruelty.” Then, for some reason, a bit of wonder crept into his voice. Or was it contemplative quiet? I didn’t know, but waited anyways. “But when I look back, when I remember that time, the look on Saber’s face, Arturia’s face — it all spoke of shock. As if she did not know and did not wish such a thing to happen to begin with. And I cursed her without knowing any better. And when seeing her again here, happy with you, Tomoko, I…” he gently pushed my hand away. “I do not believe I have the right to try to apologize after that. To try finding out the truth. Even if I share a friendship with you.” Diarmuid hung his head, frowning bitterly. “I do not know why I even came to you about this, speaking of troubles that rest far beyond your lifetime. A brute such as myself should not have the right to be so selfish and imposing on you, Milady.”

Something in me snapped.

Maybe it was the name. Maybe it was Dia not making eye contact. But still. Something snapped.

Okay, just stop. Stop there, Dia. Stop right there.

I shook my head. “Dia.” I wanted to reach out to grip his hand again, but he had already clenched both of his hands into fists atop his knees, so I held back. “That last part might be because we’re friends, isn’t it?”

Diarmuid’s head was still bowed, but I could see him startle. “Pardon?”

Another snap in my blood. 

This had gone on for too long. 

I reached over to poke his forehead. “First, a boop for you, because this much self-deprecating talk means I owe you a concert now to get that out of your head.” The words were enough to get Diarmuid’s attention to finally look up, but before he could open his mouth in what I could assume was a protest, I cut him off with a miffed, “And secondly, it’s not about whether you ‘have’ the right or not, Dia. It’s whether you’re gonna give yourself that chance to apologize and make amends. Because to me,” I booped him again, harder on his head. He didn’t get pushed back as much as I would’ve liked, but the shock in his gold eyes were enough of a sign to show that he was listening. “You’ve already earned it back.”

“…Come again?” Diarmuid gaped.

I held back a sigh, booping him again, a bit softer this time with my pointer finger so he wouldn’t recoil from the force. “Dia, the simple fact that you came to me in spite of all your pain about it means you want to move forward, at least to me. You don’t want to have any more regrets, so by confiding in a friend, you hoped to find a solution.” I smiled and reached over to grab his left hand in my right once those gold eyes focused on me. “Or if I’m wrong, feel free to correct me.”

It took another long while, but Diarmuid gripped my hand back. “Go on, Tomoko,” he said dutifully. “It feels right.”

“What am I, a queen? No.” I laughed it off. “Dia.” Out of some kind of feeling, I leaned in to bump foreheads. “You’re doing fine. The fact that you asked me, I’m honored, okay? Don’t feel horrible for expressing anger or hurt when it’s natural to do so from us being human. Sure, you’re a Servant,” I gestured to the two lances still sitting strapped to his back, much to the visible chagrin of some servers passing by, “but you still have your memories. You still have your heart of a human. And it’s okay to feel the way you do.” 

“Milady…”

I bumped his head with mine, cupping his cheek with my left hand. “Tomoko, Dia. I’m Tomoko, remember? And I’m not your lady. Your lady now is Usagi-chan, right?”

A hand was gripping the one I was using to hold Lancer’s face. “…Yes,” he admitted. “You are correct, Tomoko. But… but I—”

“There are no ‘buts’ here, Dia.” I bumped his head again while closing my eyes, absently starting to wonder when the numbing feeling would come in to replace the slight bits of pain running through my nervous system. “It’s not about what you did in the past that decides things. It’s how you are in this very moment. So, how do you feel now?”

Diarmuid paused, his breath gently brushing my nose from the close contact we were sharing. “Unsure,” he said quietly. “But I want to be a better Knight. I want to reconcile.” 

“With Arturia-san?” I tried.

“…With Saber,” Dia agreed. I did not miss how he squeezed both my hands.  

“And that’s the first step, Dia,” I opened my eyes to stare into his gold eyes, smiling. “You know what you have to do. You got the chance a lot of others probably wish they could’ve had.” Like me with Ty, maybe. Instead of voicing that, I kept smiling. “What matters now is when and where you want to go. What you want to do to accomplish what you want.” I pulled back, never letting go of his hands, instead shrugging my shoulders towards the cafe entrance. “Saber gets her break in a few minutes, so if you want, Dia, I can call her over?”

“Eh?” Diarmuid looked positively baffled now, his gaze shifting between me and the cafe around us. “But, Tomoko, I believe Saber is still working until sundown—”

I let go of his cheek to point towards my own head with a grin. “You underestimate me, Dia. And besides.” I patted his hand. “I said it before. ‘Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do.’ It’s what friends do. So, Dia,” I toned down the grin to what was hopefully a warm smile as Diarmuid met my eyes again, “do you want me to call Arturia-san over?”

Yet again, those gold eyes flickered. Diarmuid glanced between his lap, me, and the piano in quick succession before going back to focus on me. Slowly but surely, a smile grew on his face too. A more Dia-like smile. “Then, if it is alright, Tomoko, please.” He hung his head. “Nothing would be more helpful than that.”

Keeping the happy juice to myself, I reached over to wrap my arms around his neck in a hug before thinking the words. Art-san? 

Yes, Milady? 

Hee hee. You’re attentive. Enough about that though. There’s someone here that would like to talk to you. I let go of Dia with a single pat to his shoulder with my free hand before getting up from my piano bench. They’re at the piano, so come back in to take your break, okay?

A pause. Should I be worried, Tomoko? You sound more excited than usual… 

No. The smile on my face was definitely real. I couldn’t help but hum. Not at all. I’ll take your shift out the door while you talk. I’m fine, Art-san. 

If you are sure… 

Once I walked off the stage, I could see my Knight walk back through the red cafe doors, much to the visible surprise of my Lancer friend. Once those emerald green eyes focused on me, I winked at her. Don’t worry, Saber. Leave the worrying to me. 

For once, I could walk out and be the host I always wanted to be. 

It wasn’t my place to listen in.

-----------------------------------------------

“Lancer? You… You were here?”

Diarmuid took a breath. “Hello, Arturia. It has been a while.” I have another chance to repent. “I… I meant to apologize.”

The former King of Knights took a seat next to him before smiling sadly. “I meant to say the same too. Our last bout, it did not end the way I wanted it to. You…” Arturia hung her head. “You deserved better. Kiritsugu was a fiend, and if I had known what he was planning, I would have stopped him. With all my might, all my power, if it meant making a difference.” The words were inadequate, but she bowed her head and said them. “I’m sorry.”

“Saber, I…” Diarmuid shook his head. “I’m sorry too. For all I said. For cursing you. May I… May I explain myself? If it is not a bother?”

Arturia shook her head too, catching a glimpse of a familiar paper square on the piano nearby. “It could never be a bother.” She paused. “I missed you.”

A hand cupped her chin to guide her gaze upwards, and Saber looked up to see Diarmuid’s gold eyes. “I missed you too.” 

Neither Servant could miss Tomoko smiling to herself outside the Cafe doors, but they decided not to comment on it, sharing a smile between themselves. 

-----------------------------------------------

“Hi, Usagi-chan!”

“Hello, Tomoko-san. I’m here for Diarmuid…? Got another mission to fight on.”

There was a pointing of a finger. “Inside of the cafe, near the piano, having a heart-to-heart, I think you’ll have to wait a while…?”

“Oh.” The saying was accentuated by the wag of a wolf tail and the twitch of wolf ears. “Is it working out?”

“I think so!”

“Hee hee.”

“So… want a cup of tea?”

“That’d be nice!”

The two girls shared a giggle. It was all good. 

[fuwafuwamedb]

A What If Dream (Connla and Gudako)

Bonding.

It was the single, most amazing thing that a master could do with their servant. It was the ultimate form of trust and the ultimate way to unlock a servant’s true potential.

It’d been hard, naturally.

Months of hardship, fighting; she’d started to have some sleepless nights here and there.

A great thing that she’d found out about Chaldea was that, when the ultimate bond had been forged, she could contain something from the servant.

A Mage Craft Essence, so to speak.

Some were trinkets. Hakuno enjoyed keeping some of hers propped up in her room.

Others were memories, contained within a card that reflected the image upon it.

Connla was no different.

Gudako could feel the cooing sound escape her lips as she looked at the young boy laughing with his fathers around. Each class of his father was gathered around him, praising him.

“Burn it,” Connla mumbled.

Gudako lifted that damn boy’s hand and kissed the ring on his finger, the one he refused to talk about.

“I’m gonna mount this on my wall!”

“MASTER!”

“I’m serious. Right smackdab center. I’m gonna frame it in the nicest frame I can find too.”

She’d have to talk to Gil or Ozymandias about a frame. Oh, or maybe Carmilla summer. She had one hell of a nice appearance. Her taste in frames would be lovely too.

Lancer Artoria?

Nah, she was odd.

“Master.”

“When was this?” Gudako held up the card, showing him the image.

“It never happened.” Connla wiped at his face a bit, giving the ol’ ‘I really wish we didn’t have to talk about this right now or ever’ impression that was all too familiar with the Cu Chulainn lot. “It’s just a dumb dream I had at one time.”

“Could we make this happen?”

Caster was all for the boy.

Lancer was reluctantly working with him too.

That just left the other two…

“No, master.”

“What?”

Connla shook his head. “It is enough that I have my father’s reluctant respect. Do not make him see me as a child. I do not need the affections of a father, I need my fellow warriors.”

He was right.

Naturally, he would want to have respect. He was a great warrior in Chaldea and he had earned the right to fight by the side of many of the servants. He was stronger now than he had been before, partially because of the grails she’d given him in the middle of the night, partially from training with Lancer.

She was patting his head as she nodded at his words.

Yep. He was a warrior, brutal and fierce. He was someone that would break down walls and take down enemies.

He was leaning into the head pats.

Vicious and unrelenting…

His face was red, his gaze averted.

“Master… That’s enough.”

“You’re very cute, Connla.”

Which was why she needed to do this.

The plan was simple.

She told each of the Cu Chulainns that Medb was looking for him. Tell them all to go to the same place. When they got there, she’d tell them all that it was Connla’s birthday.

The praise would have to come.

“Medb’s fine.”

Gudako stared at Cu Alter, her final mark, watching him wave a hand. Mini Cu did the same in his lap, both of them watching tv and drinking.

“Guys. She’s gonna want to… you know…”

Alter glanced at her, shrugging. “We did it about an hour ago.”

Damn.

“…What do you want, master?”

“It’s Connla’s birthday. I wanted him to get some praise.”

Mini Cu looked up at her, frowning. “…The boy was born in winter.”

Fuck.

Alter rolled his eyes, pulling Mini cu to his shoulder and standing up.

“This is about giving that little whelp praise then?”

“He dreamed about being praised by his fathers.”

Another eyeroll. The man was heading for the door.

“If I do not, you will simply use a command spell. Come on, master. Let us get this over with. I assume my other selves fell for your Medb trick?”

“They did.”

“I’m assuming you intend to tell them it’s the boy’s birthday?”

“I intended to.” They wouldn’t fall for it though.

Alter shook his head again before picking up his pace. “I’m missing my show. Let’s be done with this. I doubt the men have paid any attention to the boy’s age anyway.”

“Our other selves are idiots,” Mini Cu muttered.

The taller version nodded.