#am I capable of talking about these two forever? until the sun engulfs the earth? possibly

[onelungmcclung]

Talk in-series McToye to me, babey

u spoil me 💛

I was originally just going to write a long list of bullet point headcanons in zero order, but since we established you were asking more about toye’s pov (vs mcclung’s pov) I will write the “whole essay” version.

précis: toye noticing/falling for mcclung, pre & during (& after?) bastogne.

first meetings: mcclung transfers from the replacement depot with a few other guys and they join easy company at fort bragg, north carolina and toye doesn’t expect to be impressed, doesn’t necessarily expect any of them to last long. he’s right about some of them; he’s wrong about mcclung.

the new guys have all done their jump training too, but most of the toccoa guys figure that anyone who didn’t train under sobel must have had it easy. so the new guys are treated a little like a separate group, and by default mcclung hangs out a little more with them, and toye still doesn’t know him that well.

but it becomes obvious mcclung is probably the most competent of them. he’s an excellent shot; the training regime doesn’t bother him; he’s fast; nothing makes him nervous. toye’s just glad of as many good soldiers as they can get, but he’s starting to think maybe he should get to know mcclung better. 

(toye notices some of the guys who are not good shots suddenly start to improve dramatically at target practice, and he pays close attention and realises mcclung and shifty are helping them. he has to wonder if this is a good idea or not, but it’s kind of them, especially that they never acknowledge it, and he enjoys watching the whole thing.)

between not being a toccoa guy and being much better than the other new guys, mcclung doesn’t have much in the way of close friends. he doesn’t seem fazed by that; he just gets on with his thing and gets on ok with everyone. he’s fairly easy-going on a personal level. he has a very dry, deadpan, slightly oblique sense of humour (occasionally passive aggressive, with regard to people he dislikes/is irritated by), which at first takes toye a little by surprise but he privately enjoys it; for the most part, it’s one they share. mcclung is a very specific type of argumentative: he doesn’t usually start arguments, but he rarely backs down from them. relatedly, he’s very stubborn. (for better or worse, those are traits they share too.)

he is not a good garrison soldier, because he doesn’t think it’s important. he may have a theoretical point, but it’s a real fucking headache for his comrades. the only reason they accept it is because he’s really good at everything else. (when they’re training/in combat they are grateful to have him. when they have a parade someone has to say “please for the love of g-d make sure mcclung looks presentable”. who knows how many weekend passes he would lose them otherwise. maybe his master plan is to cause sobel an aneurism, but as far as everyone else is concerned it’s a dangerous game.)

in combat, he is this slightly unknown quantity of often surprising + faintly terrifying. he can find his way around in the dark better than pretty much anyone else. he makes casual references to the germans’ position based on smell. he takes detours to kill them. sometimes he seems to vanish and reappear suddenly. he never disobeys orders, but nevertheless no one is ever quite sure what he’ll do next. 

mcclung is good friends with shifty, of course, who is one of the nicest people in the universe; he also gets on very well with ramirez, with whom he seems to share a sense of humour, and that’s a potentially terrifying combination. liebgott respects his... work ethic. within 2nd platoon, they’re all happy for him to take the initiative on killing a few more enemy soldiers, but they try to make sure he doesn’t disappear off on his own while there are officers around.

toye truly admires him as a soldier and is also faintly baffled by him. he learns to trust mcclung’s instincts/observations, even when there isn’t time for mcclung to explain how he came to his conclusions.

still, regardless of how competent he is, toye — as a responsible nco — tries to make sure mcclung’s ok. mcclung gets picked as a scout often, so toye always checks in on him after.

they work together very well when someone's hurt: fast and efficient and careful. they develop a rapport of sarcastic comments that other people aren’t sure how to interpret. toye likes his steadiness, his calmness, that he can always be trusted to know what he’s doing and get it done well. he feels comfortable around mcclung.

they end up sharing a foxhole in bastogne; no real reason for it. (in the same way it’s thought better not to have medics sharing a hole, officers/ncos of the same rank don’t usually share; for the time being at least, toye outranks mcclung.)

it’s not easy for toye to let himself rely completely on someone else, but he has to — at intervals — rely entirely on mcclung. when he sleeps, he depends on mcclung to keep them safe, and vice versa. mcclung is his eyes and ears, and vice versa. (like. early prototype of drift compatibility.) the sarcasm, developing into shared injokes, helps. 

and toye’s boots get blown up, of course, and that’s just... embarrassing, frankly. he tries to get by as best he can, doesn’t want to bother the medics with it, figures they won’t be able to help with this one. mcclung thinks he’s being stoically stupid and lets him know it. but he does his best to help: tries to find ways to keep toye dry, tries to keep him warm. 

it’s the most anyone’s touched him in a while, and you can tell a certain amount about someone by the way they touch. mcclung is so careful and gentle and trying so hard to stop toye’s feet from getting any worse. toye thinks, maybe they’re going to die here, and maybe this is the last real closeness he’ll experience. mcclung never says anything sympathetic — more likely the opposite — but he gives toye his scarf. (headcanon arrived at via the fact neither of them seem to be wearing scarves in their scene together.)

he’s truly offended when mcclung lets roe know of toye’s missing boots, but he can’t exactly argue. mcclung knows he can’t. mcclung knowing is also annoying.

they settle back into their previous dynamic: toye feels a little less dependent on mcclung; mcclung no longer takes on quite so much responsibility in looking after toye’s feet. but toye feels even closer to him before, and feels indebted to him for trying so hard to help him.

toye’s evacuated to the aid station when he’s wounded in the arm, and comes back to the line as soon as he can. for the company, and especially 2nd platoon, but maybe also, a little, for mcclung. mcclung is a separate category from best friend and fellow soldier and toye isn’t thinking closely about what that category is. but he’s relieved to see him again, to be able to go back to sharing a foxhole with him. there’s a pattern, a rhythm, a synchronicity between them, and they can fall back into it.

he thinks mcclung is perhaps the best combat soldier he’s ever known, and a good person, and kind, and likely the best person he could be sharing a foxhole with, and maybe good-looking but he probably shouldn’t be thinking that and probably the cold & isolation are just getting to him. and he of course will say nothing of that to mcclung, because any of it would be embarrassingly sentimental and to say all of it would be uncomfortably revealing in ways he’d rather not think about.

and then he gets hit.

they’re not in the same place when the shelling starts, and later toye will be glad of that because it would have been worse to see someone else get hit and not be able to help them, or to see them die next to him.

he doesn’t know if he’ll survive the shelling, but he does. later he’ll ask himself if it’s his fault guarnere gets hit.

he sees mcclung afterwards, but there’s no time, really, to talk to him. he’s taken off the line, again, and he doesn’t know who among them he’ll see again.

he still thinks about mcclung a lot, and gradually he realises other vets don’t miss their foxhole buddies quite as much as he misses mcclung. he feels guilty about being taken off the line and leaving the rest of the company and not being able to help them, but, out of everyone he’s left behind, mcclung is the person he thinks about the most. even if they both survive, he doesn’t expect to see mcclung again. he wants to, but he’s not sure if he’ll have the courage to make it happen. he doesn’t think mcclung can miss him as much as he misses mcclung; he doesn’t think it would be worth admitting his feelings.

so: they’re falling for each other on more or less the same timeframe, and they’re both kind of slow on the uptake / burying their feelings for slightly different reasons.

[q-gorgeous]

Why Am I So Heavy?

fanfiction

Word count: 4318

Prompt for the Phic Phight by @voidetrap. Danny is a ghost who became half-human after stumbling through a portal to the human world.

guys this is the longest fic ive ever written i hope this keeps up i need to catch up to laz

Footsteps could be heard walking through a forest, the sounds of twigs snapping as two teenagers made their way through the trees.

“C’mon, Sam. The last time you dragged me out here to do some spooky ritual I was hiccuping out daisies for a week. Can’t you find someone else to drag out into the middle of nowhere, or go by yourself?”

“No can do, Tucker. Going on hikes by yourself is dangerous and everyone else was busy.”

Tucker grumbled. “I wish I was busy.”

“Here we are!” Sam shouted, running past Tucker into a clearing in the trees that led to a cliff overlooking the rest of the forest. 

Sam walked over to a large, dead tree and started rummaging around in it’s hollow base. She pulled out a large stick, a toolbox, and a crystal ball. 

“Today the earth and sun’s electromagnetic fields are supposed to form a portal, which usually just exchanges electrons. Though I think if I can get this pentagram set up with these quartz and crystals, I can make it work. Oh! And today’s also the solstice, that’ll help too.”

Tucker watched as Sam walked around the clearing, drawing a large pentagram into the ground with a stick. “Electromagnetic hoohaa? How do you even know what that means?”

Looking up at him, pausing in her task, she blew hair out of her eyes. “Don’t you ever go listen to the Fenton’s when they give presentations at the library? They’re kind of weird, but the concepts they propose are actually pretty rad.”

Tucker shook his head vigorously. “Nuh uh. No way. The last time you took me with it was only the two of us and he spent three hours talking about his childhood. Three hours! I didn’t wanna know about how he cried every night at dinner because he had to eat horse meat.”

Looking back down to her drawing in the dirt, Sam shrugged. “Your loss then. Lately they’ve started bringing their inventions in to show people and they go over their blueprints and everything. Mrs. Fenton is also thinking about doing defense classes. Did you know she’s a fourth degree black belt?”

“Nope, and I don’t really care to learn more.” He squinted his eyes and looked up into the trees, smiling mischievously. “Though… I would like to learn more about Jazz Fenton.”

Sam rolled her eyes. “Dream on, Tuck. Now come here and put down these candles and quartz at each point while I lug the crystal ball over here.”

Tucker walked over and bent down to open the toolbox, scooping everything out of it. “Dream on? Next time I see Jazz Fenton I’ll walk right up to her and use one of my signature pick up lines. It’s foolproof!” He placed a candle and quartz on the ground at his feet.

“Okay, Tucker.” Sam grunted as she lifted the crystal ball into her arms. “I’ll hold you to that.”

She placed the crystal ball in the center of the pentagram and walked over to her backpack as Tucker lit each of the candles. She pulled out a book and flipped to her latest entry. Stepping over a log and kneeling behind it, she beckoned Tucker over.

“Okay, come behind here. I’m not sure what’ll happen but the Fenton’s said when they tried opening a ghost portal in college it blew up in their friend’s face.”

“Wait, what?!”

Before Tucker could continue, Sam interrupted him, chanting. 

“Vocare nos spirituum ligno!”

QQQQQQQQQQQQQ

Danny floated on his back through the ghost zone, bored out of his mind. Everyone was busy today. 

Ember and Skulker were on a date. Johnny and Kitty were fighting. Even the Box Ghost had something to do! What was a dead guy supposed to do for entertainment around here?

He rolled onto his stomach and let out a large sigh. The ghost zone needed a new attraction or something. Like a theme park. Yeah, maybe he should talk to-

Something a ways ahead of him caught his eye. It looked like a little flicker of green light. Looking closely again, he could see a small swirl of green mist. 

Today just got a lot more interesting. 

He flew over to it but soon it disappeared again, without a trace. He scratched the top of his head. What was that? He floated around the space in a circle, his eyes never leaving the spot. 

After a few seconds, he shrugged. Maybe it was a ghost trying to form that wasn’t very successful. He wondered where it went. Purgatory? Maybe.

Just as Danny was turning away, he could see the swirl again out of the corner of his eye but it increased in size and suddenly Danny was screaming in pain. 

Pain, why was he in so much pain? Were ghosts even supposed to feel this much pain? What was happening?

And suddenly, suddenly he was falling. Falling and falling through this bright, swirling thing that engulfed him. 

The last thought that went through his mind was that he had forgotten what gravity felt like, and with a smack, everything went dark. 

QQQQQQQQQQQQQ

“Si vocare te spirituum.” Tucker said as he looked over Sam’s shoulder at her book. “Clearly you don’t know latin.”

Sam was fuming and pushed his face away from her. “Why’d you tell me to use google translate if you KNOW LATIN?!”

Tucker raised his hands in surrender as he backed away from her. “I couldn’t have you knowing I knew latin! I’d be forever dragged into your schemes!”

“Yeah, well-” Sam was cut off as she heard a groan come from the clearing on the other side of the log. Looking over, covering Tucker’s mouth to shush him, she could see a pale skinned boy with black hair laying on top of her now crushed crystal ball. 

A swirling green portal that she hadn’t noticed during her bickering with Tucker was hovering above him, flickering out of existence. Gaze traveling back down to the boy, she scrunched her eyebrows. 

This didn’t look like a ghost. He looked like a normal kid. Why did a normal kid just fall out of her ghost portal?

Sam stood up slowly and stepped over the log and out of Tucker’s grasp as he tried to hold her back. She walked over to the boy and knelt down and was just about to check his pulse when he groaned again, sending her toppling down onto her butt. 

“Ugh, why do I feel so heavy?”

His eyes slowly slid open, and his head shakily raised and his gaze met hers. They stared at each other until he started taking in his surroundings, panic growing on his face. 

“Where am I?! What did you do to me?!” Sam shook her head, eyes wide. “I don’t know! I was trying to open a portal to the ghost zone and then you fell out! What were you even doing in there?”

“What was I doing in there? What do you think I was doing in there? I’m a ghost!”

Tucker cleared his throat from where he still knelt behind the log. “Sorry to break it to you, dude, but you don’t look like any ghost I’ve ever seen.” “What do you-” The boy stopped as his hair fell into his eyes. “Black? My hair isn’t black! What’s going on?!”

Sam hurriedly pulled her phone out of her pocket and opened the camera, pointing it at his face so he could see himself. “What are you supposed to look like?”

The boy grabbed his hair, pulled on the skin under his blue eyes, pinched his arms. His breaths started coming faster and faster until he glared up at Sam, his eyes now flashing green. “What did you do to me?!” He yelled, the sound much louder than anything a human should be capable of, prompting Sam and Tucker to cover their ears.

“I don’t know!” Sam shouted, her heart beating wildly. “I was just trying to open a portal to see if the ghost zone was real! I didn’t know you’d be there!”

“I wanna go home!” He wailed, sending the candles and quartz flying away from the pentagram. 

A flash of white light appeared around the boy’s waist, traveling across his figure until a glowing ghost with white hair lay on the ground instead. Floating up, he flexed his fingers and pulled an ectoblast into his hand. 

“Sam!” Tucker shouted. “When you’re done talking to ghosts aren’t you supposed to say goodbye to them when they need to leave? Right”

She nodded and looked back up at the boy. “Yeah. Goodbye, spirit! Begone!”

He kept floating steadily towards her, an angry look in his eyes. 

Panic flared up inside her chest. 

“Goodbye! Au revoir! Auf wiedersehen!”

“Sam?!” Tucker shrieked. 

“It’s not working!”

The ghost boy pulled back an arm, readying to throw the ectoplasm in his hand when he shuddered and dropped to the ground, the bright flash appearing once again and leaving behind the same, human looking boy from before. 

“What is this?” He grumbled into the dirt. “I feel so heavy and tired. And warm. Gosh, way too warm.”

Sam listened to him wheeze in confusion, her brows furrowed. Ghosts didn’t need to breathe, did they? Why was this one out of breath on the ground?

She scooted towards him slowly and held out her hand to him.

“Can I see something?” She asked softly. 

He looked at her hand, puzzled, before placing his own on top of it. Sam cradled it with one hand and with the other she took two fingers and placed them on his wrist.

Her mouth dropped open. 

“You… You have a pulse.”

“What?” He pulled his hand away, glaring down at the offending appendage. “That can’t be possible.”

“Well it’s there.” She said, nodding towards him. “ Check for yourself.”

He squinted at her, brows drawn, but reached up two fingers and placed them on the side of his neck. His eyes shot open and he looked back at her in disbelief. 

“But… I died. I was a ghost. This can’t… This isn’t…”

The trio was silent for a few moments until Tucker plopped down next to Sam.

“What do we do now?” He asked. 

In response, the ghost boy’s stomach grumbled and with wide eyes he looked at it in shock. 

“Well.” Sam said. “I guess we need to get him some food. Let’s start cleaning up.”

Tucker and Sam began cleaning up, storing the candles and quartz back in the toolbox and erasing the pentagram while the ghost boy just stared at the ground.

“Uh, Sam?” Tucker started. “What are we going to do about the crystal ball?”

Sam looked at the ground where it was smashed to pieces and groaned. 

“We’ll have to lug a garbage bag back with us. Can you grab the shovel from the tree and I’ll get a bag from my backpack?”

“Can do, Stew.” Tucker saluted and walked over to the hollow in the trunk. 

Sam picked up the book she had dropped on the ground and stuck it in her backpack before grabbing a bag. Turning back around she saw the ghost boy standing shakily, one hand rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. 

“Sorry for breaking your...thing.”

Sam shrugged. “It’s okay, I can just get a new one. It’s not like it was really your fault anyways.”

As she held the bag open, Tucker began scooping up shards of the crystal ball and soon Sam tied it off, slinging it over her shoulder. After storing the shovel back in the tree Tucker joined the two.

“So, man, did you ever say what your name was?”

“Oh, uh, Danny. Danny Phantom.”

“Nice to meet you, sort of.” Danny’s face fell at that and Tucker back tracked. “But it’s going good now! Right? First impressions aren’t everything!”

Sam rolled her eyes. “I’m Sam, and that’s Tucker, my reluctant right hand man.”

Tucker flared up the collar on his button up shirt. “That’s Tucker Foley, TF for Too Fine.”

Chuckling, Sam elbowed him. 

“Well, since you’ll need sustenance and shelter for an unforeseeable amount of time, you can sleep over at my house tonight!”

Sam’s face dropped. “Oh my god, Tucker.”

“What? It’s not weird to have sleepovers at our age. It just means we have extra friend time.”

“Not that! What are we supposed to do with him? He’s supposed to be dead! He doesn’t have a birth certificate or any kind of identification! And it’s not like he can stay with us forever. My parents would freak.”

“Hm.” Tucker tapped his chin. “I did not think of that.”

Danny groaned. “So I have to eat food now and find shelter without having anyway to do that? Being dead is so much easier.”

“We’ll make it work!” Sam rushed. “Let’s just go to the Nasty Burger and get something to eat first. Then we’ll figure something out.”

Both boys nodded simultaneously. 

“Okay.”

“Sounds good.”

QQQQQQQQQQQQQ

The three were in a booth at the Nasty Burger, Sam and Tucker long finished with their food while Danny was on his sixth round of a Mighty Meaty Burger meal. 

“Dude, even if you haven’t eaten since you died surely you aren’t that hungry? You’ve only felt hunger for like, an hour now.” Tucker said incredulously as he tapped something on his phone. 

“Try not eating anything for an entire year and see how much you miss the feeling of eating delicious food.” Danny quipped back, his mouth full. 

“You got me there.” Tucker said as he threw a finger gun towards Danny. 

“Okay, guys, I think we need to start talking about what we’re going to do instead of watching Danny eat.” She tapped her chin as she thought. “We could go talk to the Fentons!”

Tucker looked at her, a deadpan expression on his face. 

“You want to go talk to the Fentons, who are ghost hunters, about this ghost-human hybrid that we accidentally unleashed?”

“Wait ghost hunters?” Danny mumbled around a mouth full of food. 

“Who else are we gonna talk to? They’re the only people who study ghosts around here, and they know me. No one else would want to listen to a bunch of kids anyways.”

“Wait, Sam, can we go back to the ghost hunter part-” 

“Do you know how risky it would be to bring him there?” Tucker asked. “We don’t know what’d they’d do to him, especially because there’d be no trace of him, since he's, you know, dead.”

“Tucker-”

“They’re not gonna kidnap him, Tucker!”

“How do you-”

“GUYS!” Danny yelled.

Sam and Tucker paused in their bickering, looking at Danny’s glowing green eyes. 

“Can you explain the ghost hunters thing?”

“Oh. Right.” Sam says. “Well, they’ve been studying ectology since they were in college, they even tried to create a ghost portal but it was unsuccessful. Lately they’ve been working on a newer model and an arsenal of ghost hunting weapons, but they haven’t had the chance to really test them yet.” She pulls a flyer out of her backpack. 

“They do presentations at the library every week.”

Danny looks at the paper for a few moments before resting his face in his hands. 

“Why would you want to give them a chance to test their weapons? Wouldn’t they be gung ho at any opportunity?”

“Not necessarily!” Sam said rushedly. “They only just moved here a couple months ago but they’re very nice, though a little over the top. They have two daughters too. They should be able to realize that you’re just a kid that needs help.” 

Danny raised his head back up and leveled a stare at her. 

“When's the next meeting?” He asked. 

“Tomorrow at noon.”

He leaned back in his seat, head tilted against the back, and groaned. “Ugh. I guess we really have no other option.” Tucker swiped a fry from Danny’s tray. “Don’t worry man. If they try anything, they’ll probably be stopped by Jazz. She doesn’t believe in the whole ghost schtick.”

“Jazz?” Danny asked as he picked up his burger. 

“That’s the oldest Fenton daughter. They also have a daughter named Elle. She sort of looks like you, actually.” Sam said. 

“Yeah. She’s a feisty little gremlin. Always beating my high scores when we go to the arcade.” Tucker pouted. 

Sam looked at her watch, checking the time. “Well guys, I think we better get going. It’s getting pretty late. Don’t wanna miss the presentation tomorrow.” She jittered excitedly in her seat. “I can’t wait to tell them I opened a ghost portal!”

“Are you into all their ecto, ghost hunting stuff?” Danny asked wryly. 

“Not really. I’m more into witchcraft and goth stuff. Ghosts just happened to fall in between those somewhere.” Sam stood up and collected her trash. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow. I’ll meet you at Tucker’s house.”

She waved goodbye and left the restaurant. 

“So…” Tucker started. “Do you wanna go back to my place and play some video games?”

“Video games?” Danny asked. 

Tucker clutched his chest in mock horror. “You don’t remember video games?! Forget sleep, there’s much you need to see!”

And with that, Tucker jumped up and dragged Danny out the door by the wrist. 

QQQQQQQQQQQQQ

Danny walked out the front door of Tucker’s house, yawning. When he blinked open his eyes he could see Sam standing there, tapping her foot. 

“What? I haven’t weighed this much in a year. Walking around was tiring.” Danny told her.

“We also played video games until three in the morning.” Tucker yawned as he walked out behind him.

“Why would you tell her that?” Danny asked, turning around. 

“To make her mad?” Tucker shrugged. 

Sam sighed. “Whatever guys. Let’s just get going. They’re starting soon.”

They walked down the street in silence until Danny spoke. 

“How many people usually go to these things? Is there a lot?”

“No.” Sam said. “Usually it’s just me. And Tucker when I can get him to go.”

Tucker groans. “I just hope Mr. Fenton doesn’t get into telling His Life Story: Volume Two. It was so boring the last time.”

“What do we do if they won’t help us?” Danny asked.

Sam and Tucker looked at each other in silence. Sam took a deep breath and spoke. “I’m sure they’ll help us. They’re nice people.”

Soon they walked inside the library, the building quiet except for the few hushed voices reading children's books and the boisterous laughter that could be heard coming from Mr. Fenton across the building. When Danny heard it, he paused, hands clenched into fists. 

“What if they hate me? What if they won’t help us? I’ll just be stuck here, alive and homeless. What if they strap me down on some table, tearing me apart molecule by molecule?”

Sam turned to face Danny, walking towards him and resting her hands on his shoulders. “They probably won’t be able to tell anyways. It’ll be alright. We’ll go in and wait until the meeting is over and then go talk to them.”

Danny’s shoulders shook, and he took a deep breath and nodded. 

Together, the three of them walked to the presentation room. 

“Just remember, stay calm. It’ll be-”

A clatter resounded through the room as they crossed through the door.

“Danno?”

Mr. Fenton was standing in front of the projector screen, an ectogun laying on the floor at his feet. His eyes were wide and haunted, looking straight at Danny.

Looking behind him, Danny wore a confused expression on his face.

“Me?” He said, pointing at himself. 

The older man nodded. “But how are you… You… This can’t be possible.” He looked Danny over again and then his gaze traveled to Sam. “Ms. Manson, what..?”

“Do you know Danny, Mr. Fenton?” Sam asked softly, confused. 

“He’s my son.”

Sam’s mouth dropped open and she looked at Tucker who was leaning up against the door frame, staring blankly at the floor. Danny still looked confused, but a chirpy voice soon interrupted them. 

“Jack, sweetie, the staff room ran out of sugar again but I think your coffee should be fine with only four packets.” 

The three kids turned around to see Mrs. Fenton standing behind them, two coffee cups in her hands. She smiled at them until her gaze landed on Danny. Her expression soured and she dropped the coffees, pulling out an ectogun from her suit pointing it at Danny.

“What is this ectoplasmic scum doing here impersonating our boy?!”

“Wait!” Sam shouted, putting herself between the barrel of Mrs. Fenton’s gun and Danny. “He has a pulse!” “That’s impossible.” Mrs. Fenton scoffed. “Our son passed a year ago. That’s just a form of post human consciousness.”

“No, please!” Sam reached behind her, searching for Danny’s hand. Once she found it, he grabbed it in a death grip, she pulled it forward, opening up his wrist for the woman. “Please, trust me.”

Mrs. Fenton threw another sour look towards Sam, but obliged the girl. She placed her fingers over Danny’s wrist and waited. Once she felt the fast pulse underneath his skin, her eyes widened and shock flashed across her face. 

Dropping his wrist, she stepped back, nearly collapsing until Tucker caught her. 

“What is this?” Maddie whispered. “What happened?”

Sam moved to sit down at one of the chairs in the room, still holding Danny’s hand and pulling him behind her. “Yesterday had the perfect atmosphere and phenomenon to create a natural ghost portal and after one of your presentations I wanted to try, because who knew when I’d get a better chance.

“When we finished the ritual a swirling green portal formed and he fell out like this but…”

“He has two forms.” Tucker continued. “And he can still do ghost stuff. But he can feel hunger and gravity and he produces heat. Has a pulse. But he doesn’t seem to remember anything.”

“We came to talk to you guys because we didn’t know what to do… Like, what are we gonna do with someone with no identification who’s supposed to be dead?” Sam asked. 

Mr. Fenton knelt down in front of Danny, touseling the boy's hair, and rested his hands on his shoulders. 

“Do you want to come back home with us? Do you trust us?”

Danny’s grip was still tight on Sam’s hand, and he looked from Mr. Fenton to Mrs. Fenton, who had tears in her eyes and her own tight grip on Tucker’s hand. He nodded.

Mr. Fenton’s own eyes filled with tears and he wrapped Danny up in a bear hug, squeezing the life right back out of him. Slowly, Danny lifted his own arms up around the man, feeling his own tears running down his face. 

QQQQQQQQQQQQQ

One Month Later

“Haha! Beat you again!” Elle laughed.

“Man, you really are a little gremlin, aren’t you?” Danny shot back at her, throwing a pillow in her face. 

“Excuse you, I’m adorable.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “Of course you are.”

He clicked on the New Round option in the game, going through the fighters and picking the same character as he did for the last fight.

A small frown formed on Elle’s face. “Are you sure you don’t remember anything?”

“Yeah, pretty sure. Why do you ask?” He shot her a look before the round started. 

“You keep picking the same character that had been your favorite before…”

Elle trailed off and when Danny turned to look at her there were tears in her eyes. 

“No, no don’t cry, Elle. It’s alright. I’m here now. That’s pretty cool, isn’t it?”

She sniffed and rubbed some tears off her face. “Yeah. It’s the only thing I could’ve asked for.” She paused. “Do you think you’ll ever remember?”

Danny looked down at his hands. “I’m not sure. But even if I don’t I’ll still be here for you whenever you need it, okay?”

Elle smiled. “Okay.”

Danny’s phone chirped and he pulled it out from his pocket. 

“Oh, that’s Sam. We’re supposed to go see that new movie with Tucker. Rematch when I get home?”

“Can it be called a rematch if I know you’re gonna lose again?”

“You wish!” He pulled her into a side hug. “See you when I get home?”

“Yeah. See you!” She waved him off.

Danny ran down the stairs and was about to bolt out the door to greet his friends when Jazz stopped him. 

“Where are you going, little brother?” She asked.

Danny rolled his eyes at the name. “Just to see a movie with Sam and Tucker. I’ll be back in a couple hours, okay?”

Jazz nodded and walked over to him. “Can I have a hug before you leave?”

Danny opened his arms and she pulled him into a tight hug. 

“Stay safe.” She whispered.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got the power of ghost muscles now.”

Jazz snorted and pushed Danny towards the door. “Okay. Off you go.” 

He opened the door to see Sam and Tucker standing outside it. When Sam looked up, she elbowed Tucker in the side and pointed past Danny at Jazz. 

“Pft, I’ve been practicing. This’ll be no biggie.”

Clearing his throat, Tucker caught Jazz’s attention. 

“Do you like dates? How do you feel about a raisin?” He shot a pair of finger guns at her. 

Jazz tsked and smiled at Tucker. “Dates are very tasty, and a raisin would be a delicious treat!”

Confusion crossed over Tucker’s face before horror broke across it. Sam broke out laughing beside him. 

“Better luck next time, Tucker.” Jazz said before walking back to the kitchen.

Tucker kneeled onto the ground, holding his face in his hands. “The shame. I’ve taken the honor from my family's name. I’ve embarrassed myself for the last time.”

“As if.” Sam snorted. 

“Hey!” Tucker shouted at her.

Danny chuckled and shook his head at his friend's antics. 

“Come on, guys. Let’s go see this movie.”