#but he and danny get a second chance in a new timeline where things are better

[luxaofhesperides]

Post-Apocalypse + Soulmate AU ; requested by @burr-burr!

When Danny was a kid, he used to imagine how the world would end. It was never a zombie apocalypse or the fallout of a nuclear war, but the death of the sun, the expansion of their star in death that would swallow their planet whole, leaving no survivors.

It would have been nicer than the post-apocalyptic world he stands in now, knowing that it’s his fault the world has ended. 

He’s still struggling to wrap his head around it. To understand that all of this is his fault because he cheated on one test, desperate to pass after being unable to study for it with how exhausting and time consuming fighting ghosts is. Everywhere he looks, there’s more destruction. His own home is rubble, with only the partially untouched Ops Center remaining to let him know that this is where he once lived.

The rest of Amity Park is in worse shape. Buildings are hollowed out, the skeletons of their foundations visible, if they still remain standing. Most homes have been burned to the ground, leaving blackened corners of walls and nothing else. The roads are cracked and difficult to walk through, as if an earthquake tore through the city. Cars are scattered along the road, overturned or left abandoned, doors still open.

Danny has yet to find any bodies. He doesn’t know if that’s a good sign or not. 

He’s only caught a few glimpses of his future self, the cause of all this, and can’t bring himself to chase after that monster. He feels sick to his stomach knowing what he’ll become. 

That monster has to be stopped. The world has already ended, but that doesn’t mean his future self can be allowed to go on like this. If there are any survivors, they need protection. They need to know they’ll be safe to try to start rebuilding, and that can only happen if his future self is dead.

Danny knows what he has to do; he has a responsibility to protect what little remains of Amity Park, and to do that, he needs to kill himself. 

But his head it spinning from the horror of the situation and his throat is tightening up the way it only does when he’s about to have a panic attack.

He needs to stop his future self, but he also can’t stay another second in the ruins of Amity Park without destroying himself.

The guilt sits heavy in his chest as he goes ghost and takes to the sky, flying blindly towards the setting sun. Danny doesn’t know where he’s going, and he doesn’t really care. He just needs to get away for a bit, until he can calm down and put together a plan of attack so he can take out his future self in one go.

He just…

He never thought he’d be a monster. But here they are.

Flying away from Amity Park reveals the truly harrowing extent to which this world has suffered under his future self’s hands. There are no intact cities or towns. Roads are broken beyond repair, highways littered with empty cars, most bridges crumbling into the rivers below them, and everything is covered in overgrowth. All signs of humanity’s careful cultivation of the world has been erased. The earth takes back what humans took from it, covering everything in green. 

There is no movement. No people. Barely any birds flying beneath him. 

What remains of the world is silence.

Danny is terrified that there’s no one left. That his future self has so thoroughly destroyed the earth that no human survivors remain. 

That gives his guidance, some idea of where to go: a big city. Any big city, really. 

He flies lower, searching for some sort of landmark, or a sign that will tell him where he’s going. A rusted over green sign farther down the road tells him that he’s 50 miles from Gotham.

Oh, Danny thinks, Maybe Batman can help me.

If anyone could survive the end of the world, it would be the superheroes, right? If anyone stands a chance at defeating his future self, it would be a superhero. Superman might have been a better choice, but Metropolis is the opposite direction and multiple states away; Danny’s not sure he can make it before his future self catches wind of him and hunts him down. 

Danny has no doubt about what would happen to him if he’s caught; there’s a reason he hasn’t seen any ghosts around, after all.

Gotham is a city of secrets and rumors. What little he’s heard of it is baffling and, frankly, insane. There’s no city in the country like it and Gothamites prefer it that way, stubbornly loving the home that will kill them. For all the manmade horrors they survive on the daily, they would be more prepared for the end of the world than anyone else. 

Gotham may be another casualty of his future self’s destruction, but it also offers him hope.

Danny follows the broken road towards Gotham, pushing himself to fly faster than he ever has before. What should have been a half hour flight is completed in fifteen minutes. 

As soon as the towering buildings of Gotham, dark and semi destroyed, come into view, Danny drops from the sky and returns to human form. The strain from pushing himself has exhausted him and he feels it like an ache in his chest, his heart twisting and trying to burst from how hard it’s beating. 

He collapses to his hands and knees and gasps for breath on the outskirts of Gotham. 

It takes a good few minutes to calm down and breathe normally, then another to gather his strength to stand up and begin walking. 

The world is eerily quiet as he enters the city, feeling the chill fall upon him as he is consumed by the shadows of tall buildings. It’s much more intact that Amity Park, but there’s no denying the destruction that still surrounds him. Buildings are empty and worn down, decaying and slowly being consumed by new growth. Burnt out husks of overturned cars fill the street, leaving Danny to carefully pick his way around them, unable to walk in a straight line. 

He feels like the only person in the world. He feels like he’s being watched by a hungry eyes. 

Danny shivers and walks faster. 

The deeper he goes into the city, the more he starts to hope that he’s not alone in this world. There’s small signs of life: the smell of smoke, recently burned, certain streets cleaned up, makeshift walls constructed from rubble to block access to certain areas of each block.

He swears he can see people move above his head, but anytime he looks up, the windows of every building are empty. 

“Batman,” he whispers to himself, “I just need to find Batman.”

He turns a corner and continues walking. Apartment buildings give way to stores and businesses, all with their windows broken and nothing on the shelves. Then the buildings end abruptly and he’s left staring at an overgrown park that resembles a jungle more than it does a part of the city.

The scent of something sweet lingers in the air. Fruit, perhaps, or flowers. 

If he was left in the aftermath of an apocalypse, he would go to where he could find growing food. If there’s anyone left in Gotham, he’s willing to bet they’re in here, surviving off of what food can be grown in the confines of the park. 

Danny crosses the road and takes three steps onto the grass before someone appears beside him and points an electrified baton at him.

“Who are you?” they demand, eyes hidden behind a cracked helmet, but the bottom half of their face is visible, revealing scars crossing on dark skin. 

Danny takes a step back, eyeing the electric baton warily, and lifts his hands to show he means no harm. “Danny. I came from out of town. I was hoping to find people here.”

“You don’t look like you’ve been traveling.”

His clothes are clean and intact and he has none of the world-weariness that weighs down this Gothamite. Danny winces, and says, “My situation is kinda complicated. But I did just get here. I’m looking for help, actually. Do you know where I could find Batman?”

There’s a long moment of tense silence, then he hears a quiet sigh and the helmet comes off. An exhausted looking man looks at him with one blind eye, turned a milky white, and his voice is low and stricken as he says, “Batman’s dead. But maybe I can help you.”

“Batman’s dead?!” Danny repeats, shocked.

“Yeah. Sacrificed himself in one of the last times Phantom attacked Gotham. Got me and Nightwing out of that encounter alive. We’re really the only heroes left in Gotham, not that there’s much need anymore with everyone trying to survive.”

Phantom killed Batman. His future self killed Batman. 

Danny feels sick to his stomach.

“Oh,” he manages to say. 

The man’s expression softens. “Don’t worry, we’ll help you as much as we can. Why don’t you come on in? Ivy can get you some food if you’re hungry.”

Danny nods numbly as he follows the man deeper into the park. He walks with ease, taking paths that only become visible when he walks them, leaving Danny to follow close behind. It takes some time before he realizes that the plants are moving out of their way just enough that they don’t trip, and when he looks back, the path is covered again, hidden from sight.

He’s taken to the heart of the forest, where the trees shift to the side to reveal a large encampment of survivors all living together. Beds are strung up as hammocks between trees and rope ladders dangle from branches to help people move up and down. The ground is full of small fire pits, a few in use to make make food, and sections in the back full of vegetable and herb patches, separated by berry bushes. 

The people here all look tired and worn down, but they still smile and speak in light voices, adjusted to a new life after surviving so much horror and destruction. He even spots a few people using powers, or just looking different, including one large man who looks like a crocodile. 

“Pick up another stray?” a raspy voice asks, humor lighting the tone. They both turn to see a woman with long red hair and a green tint to her skin be lowered to the ground by a vine. She’s also heavily scarred and her right arm is completely gone, replaced by a wooden limb covered in moss that moves as if it’s always been a part of her body.

“Hey Ivy,” the man greets, “I don’t think this one is staying. He came to Gotham looking for Batman.”

The words make Ivy’s gaze sharpen, and Danny feels a trickle of dread go down his spine. She’s dangerous and standing before her feels as if he’s in the mouth of a hungry beast.

“Is that so,” she says, voice flat. “How interesting. I’ll let you two talk somewhere more private.” Her gaze flicks to the side, and when Danny turns to look, he can see some of the people in the encampment observing them warily, bodies tense and poised to either flee or attack.

Ivy turns and the plants part for her. Danny waits for the man to begin walking before he follows, trying not to feel trapped as the plants close the path behind him. She takes them to a small pond full of water lilies, gives the man a careful look, then leaves, swallowed up by the plants.

“Is everything okay?” Danny asks hesitantly. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

“Nah, you’re good,” the man replies, “It’s just that people don’t trust me much.”

“Why? You’ve been really nice.”

The man shrugs. “My soulmate is Phantom. He’s the one responsible for doing all this and killing almost everyone we love. I didn’t know until the first time I fought him, but they hate anything to do with Phantom, including me.”

Danny’s heart stutters in his chest. This is his soulmate.

Most people don’t subscribe to the belief that they’re meant to be with their soulmate. Meeting your soulmate is rare enough that most people don’t try, and plenty of people have spoken of how important it is to have a variety of relationships, to not close yourself off for the slightest chance of meeting your soulmate. 

Danny never looked for his; he didn’t want to subject them to his parents, and then he became a halfa and gave up on all dreams of having a normal life or any relationship with someone who didn’t know he was Phantom.

And now he’s here, in a ruined future, standing before his soulmate who understandably hates him for destroying the world. 

“You’re Phantom’s soulmate,” Danny breathes. His hands are shaking. He wants to cry.

The man sighs. “Yeah. I am. Not that it’s stopped him from trying to kill me. Don’t worry, kid, I’m not working with him. I swear.”

“He’s your soulmate and he hurt you.”

“He hurt everyone,” he says, then gestures at his blind eye. “This is barely a thing compared to what he did to other heroes.”

Danny can’t find the words to expression his horror at seeing the damage he did to his own soulmate. His future self is heartless and cruel and bloodthirsty. He has to be stopped.

He doesn’t want to kill his soulmate. 

“I came here for Batman,” Danny says, “Because I thought he could help me stop Phantom.”

“That’s rough, kid. Batman couldn’t beat Phantom. I don’t think anyone can. We’ve tried, but most heroes are dead and we can’t just go out there and risk the lives of everyone here. We gotta focus on survival, not revenge.”

“I have to stop Phantom.”

“Sorry kid, but that’s a terrible idea. Don’t go out there trying to be a hero. You can stay here, alright? Ivy will get you set up and the others will help you settle in.”

Danny takes a step back and shakes his head. “No. I have to stop him. It has to be me.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I’m Phantom,” Danny whispers. 

The man immediately reaches for his electric batons again, taking a step back. “Not funny, kid,” he says with a tense voice. 

“I’m not joking. I am Phantom, just from the past. I’m not supposed to be here.”

“You’re Phantom?” the man repeats. “You. You’re just a kid, and you’re going to destroy the world one day?”

“I don’t want this to happen! That’s why I need to go back, so I can stop the event that will set me down this path. And to go back, I need to defeat the Phantom that exists here.”

“He’ll kill you, kid.”

“That still solves the problem, doesn’t it? If I die here, then he’ll never live long enough to destroy the world. He’ll die too.”

The man stares at him with cold eyes, then turns away, dropping his hands away from the batons. “Don’t turn this into a suicide mission, kid,” he says. “The Phantom who’s here isn’t you. You don’t have to pay for his crimes. Just… stay here and I’ll go fight Phantom.”

“He already hurt you,” Danny says. 

“What’s a little more hurt? I can handle it.”

“No,” Danny says firmly. He shoves away the fear and hurt in his heart and finds his strength in determination. No more running away. No more hiding. 

The timeline should not exist. He can’t hesitate at the thought of erasing this version of his soulmate from existence; he’s tired and injured and an outcast in the only community that still exists in Gotham. He deserves better. Everyone here does.

And to give them a better life, Danny needs to stop this one from ever happening.

“This is my future. It’s my responsibility. I’ll stop it and make sure this never happens. And… I’m sorry for everything I did.”

“It’s not your fault, Danny. You’re not this version of Phantom.”

That’s not at all true, since Danny’s actions lead to the end of the world, but he’s not going to argue when he’s preparing to fight a stronger, more ruthless version of himself. He takes a deep breath, then goes ghost and floats into the air. 

“Before I go,” he begins, hesitantly, “What’s your name? Since you’re apparently my soulmate.”

The man smiles sadly and answers, “Duke. If we ever meet in your time, tell that version of me to look for my mom’s favorite book.”

It’s an odd request, but if it’s important enough to be asked for, then Danny will do it. “Your mom’s favorite book,” he repeats, “Got it.”

“Take care, Danny. Good luck out there.”

Danny nods and takes one last look at his soulmate, older and worn down, stubbornly getting through each long day, and swears to make things better.

Then he flies off, ready to fight his future self and make things right again. 

. . .

He thinks of his soulmate for years after he’s back in the present. The timeline where his future self exists is gone and the world is safe, but he still remembers the pain he caused Duke. 

When the time comes to apply to universities, Danny sets his sights on Gotham. His parents take him on a trip during spring break to tour the campus, and it’s after the tour, as he wanders around on his own, that he bumps into a student walking out of a building.

“Sorry,” they both say at the same time, reaching for each other to help each other keep their balance. 

As soon as their hands meet, it’s as if lightning runs through him. From the look on the other guy’s face, he felt it to. 

This is his soulmate.

“Duke,” Danny says, amazed and disbelieving all at once. And the request crosses his mind, something he wondered about almost every night since he returned to his time. “Look for your mom’s favorite book.”

“How—?”

“I met you in the future. You asked me to take back a message for the you that’s here. So: look for your mom’s favorite book. What does that mean, by the way? I never asked.”

Duke blinks, then slowly retracts his hands from Danny’s. “My mom’s favorite book was a hand bound journal from my dad. They were soulmates and he wrote about their first year in a relationship together. It’s full of pictures, and she loved it more than anything. That message is to remind me to have faith in soulmates, to believe that something good can happen to me.”

“Oh! That’s… wow, sorry, I didn’t mean to pry into something so personal.”

Duke shrugs. “It’s fine. I needed the reminder. I would have already run away by now if you didn’t say that. You already know my name, but I think now’s a good time to introduce ourselves.”

“Right!” Danny says, flustered. He sticks his hand out, which Duke shakes with an amused smile. “I’m Danny. Fenton. I’m coming here next semester.”

“Duke Thomas. I’m a freshman here and I’d really love to get your number.”

He’s not hitting on Danny, not really, but it still makes him blush. The way Duke looks at him is full of light and laughter, so different from the exhausted and wary way he looked in the future now rewritten. 

This is what the future version of himself tried to kill. He doesn’t understand how anyone could ever hurt Duke when he’s so full of life. 

But he’s safe now. Everyone is; Danny changed the future and what lies ahead is wholly unknown to him.

The world is safe and full of promise. 

No matter what comes, Danny is sure he and Duke are going to be just fine.

[that-weird-thing-in-the-woods]

Heyyy it’s time for what you guys asked for! ~{ and for the people just getting here I suggest that you read this⚔️Danny al-ghul⚔️ before you read this so it makes sense}~

⚔️Al-ghul⚔️

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So today I will go a bit more into this like with Danny and Tim’s relationship,and what the Batfam did to make Tim leave and now let’s get into this!

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Tim’s and Danny’s relationship

So lets start with how they met and work our way through, Starting with how they met in the first place : While Tim was going through the timeline and stuff looking for Bruce he gets thrown from the timeline and yeeted into a place where he properly past TF out and stayed that way for at least a few hours ( Do you know how long this boy hasn’t have slept at least days at this point, and it’s clockworks fault Tim got yeeted he wanted a meet-cute )

As he wakes up [when did he fall asleep?] he sees that he’s… somewhere it looks healthy he guesses but as he looks around he sees where this place begins and the other side looks like all the life was sucked out of it and left for dead [ and isn’t that a good sign ] but Tim walks on looking for a way to get back to where he was, he walks for a few minutes or hours he doesn’t really know at this point, Tim finds that time is odd here you can’t tell if it’s night or day due to trees covering the sky

but as Tim is thinking about this he comes across a very large temple that looks to be made out of obsidian or something close in color and appearance but completely different in strength it looks and feels stronger but that’s not catches his attention it’s the lagoons and lakes of Lazarus Water that surrounds the Temple and that’s a bad sign if Tim’s ever see one but as much as he needs to leave if this gets into the wrong hands this could be very bad in the future so a little detour to see if anyone or anything is here to make sure this doesn’t become a problem

So Tim enters the Temple but as he does so he doesn’t notice the pair of little green and black eyes that follow him from one of the lagoons and disappears a second later, As Tim is walking around he noises a few more concerning things such as Long scratch marks all around the walls old and new ones side by side and cracks in the floor and walls that shows that fighting happened here

But that train of thought is thrown out the window as he hears the sound of feet walking and the dragging of fabric [ most likely from a dress or robe ] coming his way and before he can hide or pull out a weapon he comes face to face with a boy…a very pretty boy and if Tim’s face looks redder than a tomato no it doesn’t [ and he’s a bit grateful he didn’t pull out his weapon, con’t ruin his chance with the pretty boy ]

And for the pretty boy in question he’s kinda freaking out and it’s not really his fault, he hasn’t seen or talked to someone who wasn’t a obsession-less or clockwork in what years? ( time is weird here and he doesn’t age anymore so it’s hard to keep track of time ) much less a human! How did a human get here anyway clockwork said that no one other than him can come here

And when Danny sees that the boy in question has a weapon he does what anyone with his past does and books it back to the cave under the temple where most of the pit demons / Ferals are if not in the lagoons and lake or fighting for whatever reason

Suddenly the pretty boy starts to run away and on i instinct Tim follows a few minutes later they are under the temple and there and more lagoons [ he didn’t think there would ever be this much of the stuff in existence at the same time ] and as he is about to catch up to the pretty boy he hears a scream while more like a wail as he is pin down by….is that a god damn Pit Demon. And as Danny sees this he realizes that maybe he shouldn’t give is boy [ not to mention the boy is pretty handsome ] and gets the demon off him but he doesn’t fully trust the boy so he’s staying in the cave and they start talking…

And this goes on for a while [Clockwork wants his ship] and time isn’t really an issue and feeling and stuff ~{ I really don’t know how to write romance and stuff I know what ships but no how to write it in that way}~ and they get together and Tim is still very scared of the Other as he knows the second he hurts Danny their going to get his heart as a trophy to Danny and probably eat his corpse after so that’s a thing and Tim has to get back to trying to find Bruce and Danny makes him promise that they will stay in contact and that he cames back to visit often or he’ll ask the Other to come get him and as they say good for now they both know they will see the other soon…

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What the Batfam did to make Tim dip

Let’s start with what they did and than their view:

This isn’t just one incident where the Batfam have blamed or accused Tim of one thing or the other [ and the time Dick said that he would put Tim in Arkham their relationship with each other haven’t recovered not that Dick noticed when he was busy with other stuff more important than Tim ] but when they all stop talking to him for a week because of a miscalculation when an a mission that wasn’t even his fault

That’s when he had it if they thought that giving him the silent treatment and leaving him alone like his parents did after everything that’s happened to him and not even getting a family that doesn’t pull shit like this??!! He would not have this when he had a partner that loved him and where he could be safe and happy

So he got everything he needed and start getting things ready for his leave like making the contingency plans able to access in case of an emergency and setting up a AI to take care of his job and cases that the Batfam in his help in

And leaves not expecting anyone to care that much..

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and that’s about it I hope you guys like it! Sorry the second part is shorter I am very tired and didn’t really have any other ideas an “ Batfam gives Tim silent treatment and Tim books it and the Batfam be guilty “ and that’s really all for now see you all later byeeee

[picturejasper20]

One thing i want to talk about is how Danny Phantom A Glitch in Time is pretty similar on themes and character arcs to Steven Universe Future.

In general in DP A Glitch in Time there is this whole idea of searching for a new purpose-¨emotional drive¨ as it get called in the story- in a era where Danny managed to save the day and ¨earn his happy ending¨.

You get a lot of panels of Danny just feeling unhappy with his new status quo, not because he has tons of problems, in fact he has more than he could ever dream of. It's that he feels like he isn't needed as a hero anymore since there are other people that could fight for him. He isn't ¨useful¨, or well, in the way he used to be. He feels like people don't need him to be Amity's protector.

This itself shares a lot in common with the arc that Steven goes through in Steven Universe Future. He feels like people don't need him anymore and still tries doing the same thing he raised himself to be: a ¨helper¨, someone who is defined by his role to help others. This causes Steven to feel lost in his own sense of identity and purpose in an Era that is supposed to be ¨his happy ending¨.

You can see this applied in DP A Glitch in Time with Vlad Masters too. From the start of the story he sends off these vibes that he has been aimless since post-Phantom Planet events. When he returned to his home he found that ¨he had nothing to return to¨ as in the sense nobody missed him nor cared he was dead or alive. He also became enemy number 1 considering how he tried holding the world hostage, making him lose most of the power and position he had.

What it is interesting is how Vlad tried going back in time to ¨fix his mistakes¨ by asking Clockwork to give him that chance. From the beginning of the story he admits that he did something wrong, just not what. There is this idea that he isn't interested in being in role of the ¨villain¨ anymore. The worst he does in the story is probably looking forward to keep the origin of ghost powers for himself, aside from accidentally realizing Dan during his fight against Clockwork.

Much like Steven Universe Future, you have these characters struggling to see where they could fit in this new status quo. Their character arcs involve finding a new purpose and learning more about themselves in the process.

Lets talk about Dan Phantom's role in the story. He is the main antagonist from A Glitch in Time. He absorbs Clockwork, master of time, to become more powerful, thus causing terrible time glitches for the rest of the characters. A lot of Dan Phantom's arc in the graphic novel has to do with self-destruction. Him being obsessed with ¨winning¨ and continue fighting even when the fusion with Clockwork is very unstable, is hurting him and destroying the reality at the same time.

Dan's obsession with ¨winning¨ reminds me quite a lot of Jasper from Steven Universe as well as Steven's arc in SU Future. There is a lot of repeating what the same thing over and over even when it isn't working anymore. The character themselves struggle to be something beyond the the role them or others pushed them into and they don't know what to be outside of that.

In fact, there are some panels Dan reminded me a lot of Jasper, such as when he is getting time glitched/corrupted.

Another main theme in Danny Phantom A Glitch in Time is about the characters getting second chances- the characters in case being Vlad Masters and Dan Phantom. Both characters do the terrible things they do due to their circumstances. They have certain pretty bad things that happened to them that lead them to become evil and hurt people. In addition to this, there tons of mentions of how ghosts aren't evil and they have reasons to do what they do. During the fight against Dan, Danny tries persuading him into stepping down and stopping the fight, pointing out that the timeline is getting destroyed. At one point he asks to Dan ¨why are you so angry?¨.

I want to bring up that, yes, this theme is a continuation from the main theme of The Ultimate Enemy episode from the series. But, at the same time, when reading the graphic novel i couldn't help but think about how Steven Universe has these similar ideas of looking into what motivates an antagonist and them being given a second chance to do things right. What really made me think about this more is seeing Dan Phantom, the main antagonist from the novel getting a second chance. Because in any other show, a character like Dan would probably be destroyed but this is something that wouldn't happen in Steven Universe, since it isn't so much about if someone ¨deserves¨ it or not as it is if they choose to change.

I'm not saying that Danny Phantom A Glitch in Time ¨ripped off¨ things from Steven Universe. That would be an absurd conclusion to come to. What i'm discussing here is that it is possible that the graphic novel was influenced by Steven Universe, mainly Steven Universe Future to some extent, in terms of themes and character arcs.

[spidori]

Doctor Danny Fenton: On The Run

Danny knew he was on borrowed time.

Sure, he was harder for Clockwork to find than most- something about it being harder to look for an acausal nexus than a causal one, and the medallion fused into his core severing him from standard causal flow, Dan had explained it to him once, before he... no! Focus Danny! You don't know how long you have until he finds you!

Dragging himself out of his dissociation, Danny took stock. He still had the Infinimap in one hand; it was still green and dripping from something he couldn't afford to think about right now. Where and when had the Infinimap interpreted his shout of "a way to run away" as asking to travel to?

"Dann'O! You're just in time to see our newest upgrades to the speeder!"

"Uhhh... You made it look like a Volkswagen beetle?”

"Oh, Sweetie, no. See!" his mom said, opening up a control panel and poking around, then stepping away from what was now a cargo van.

"Your father and I finally figured out how to fuse ectoplasm with metals to make ecto-alloy! We rebuilt the speeder from it and added a camouflage circuit. Now it can change shape into whatever will blend into the surrounding environment for any ghost hunting scenario."

"And the best part is, it even gives off an ecto-signature! Those spooks won't know what hit 'em when you ambush 'em from this one Mads!"

A transforming vehicle with its own ecto-signature to hide inside? Yeah, that might work, even though Danny remembered the camouflage feature had been a short-lived modification because of how often it would get stuck and have to be put through a hard-reset to get it changing again. And judging by the way the Infinimap was subtly tugging towards the improved speeder that's exactly what it brought him here for.

"Mom, Dad, whatever happens next, I love you, and I'm sorry."

"Danny, sweetie, is something wrong?"

"More than I have time to explain, mom. Look, if you see Jazz... If this timeline... Just, tell Jazz I love her too, ok?"

"Dann'o, you're scaring us."

"I know. I'm sorry. Hopefully you'll have the chance to be able to forgive me for this. Going Ghost!"

Ok. He had made it into the speeder. The new metal wasn't phase-proof, there were pros and cons to that, ones he would consider later if he made it that far. At least the interior was pretty much unchanged, so he'd been able to get the speeder started before he'd heard the sound of a clock tolling and his parents' banging on the door had suddenly stopped.

He'd gunned it into the portal quickly enough to get into the relative safety of the zone before its stop sign frame and hazard pattern doors dissolved into obliterated nothingness along with everything else he had been able to see, or sense, of his home dimension...

Something else to be stuffed in the trauma box to be unpacked never if he was ever able to stop running 'later,' something to unpack 'later.'

The tugging in his hand was getting stronger, so at least he was probably heading in roughly the right direction.

He tried veering a little to the right to see if he could get a better sense for the direction the map was tugging, only for its pull to remain unchanged.

Confused, Danny glanced down to see it was actually tugging towards the dashboard.

Or rather, the ectoplasm- all that remained of Dani... 'LATER!'- which coated it was tugging towards the dashboard.

Desperately hoping this meant there might be something of his favorite halfa left to save, Danny pressed the coated map to the dashboard, and prayed.

Within seconds, the map was gone, absorbed into the speeder. Then things got even weirder.

Weirder than the group of ancients putting aside their many feuds to team up on him had been.

Stranger than those ancients somehow getting the Observants on their side.

More out of the blue than the Observants using their binding vow with Clockwork to force him to try to eliminate any timelines with Danny in them, as well as anyone who was even part Danny.

It had been a hell of a day.

And now the speeder had apparently grown absolutely gigantic after absorbing the Infinimap if the anachrofuturistic room Danny suddenly found himself in was anything to go by.

And according to the view screens it was generating a relativistic time, space, and dimensional tunnel?

Oh Lord. Danny was going to have quite the time explaining this one to his parents if he managed to undo enough of this to have a timeline to return to.

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

The tunnel let out in a universe with low-to-minimal ambient ectoplasm according to the external sensor arrays.

That phrasing! That was Exactly how Clockwork had phrased it the last time Danny had talked with him as 'Clockwork'; after the Observants took control of him with their vow he had called himself Chrona, which was the first thing which clued Danny in that something was wrong.

What was it Clockwork had told him?

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

"Local ambient ectoplasm levels are an important consideration for stronger ghosts, Danny. Your perception is skewed by the limits of your experiences, as well as your unique biology, but Amity park and the Infinite Realms as a whole are essentially the top of the scale for ambient ectoplasm levels.

Normally, ectoplasm is a renewable, but much more finite resource. A sufficiently powerful ghost can easily consume all that is available in an area with a normal level before they are able to accomplish anything worth the effort if they aren't extremely frugal with their use of power. Normally, it makes any plans which would involve other realms simply not worth the effort and energy expenditure involved, especially with the additional up-front cost of breaching the veil.

There are even locations with low-to-minimal ambient ectoplasm, which makes them practically immune to ghostly influence. Only the very weakest of shades, ones who require next to no ectoplasm to maintain their current state of existence, can naturally persist in such places. Well, them, and extremely rare exceptions such as Halfa's, whose unique state of existence allows them to generate nearly all of the ectoplasm required to sustain their ghostly half. Any other ghosts would have to gather all of the ectoplasm they would need before going to any such spot, like how the astronauts you love so much need to bring everything for survival with them into deep space.

Actually, the deep space metaphor is particularly apt, as there are whole dimensions with far lower levels of ectoplasm than the one you call home.

Should you ever find yourself able to indulge that space obsession of yours, that would be a good place to do it. Most ghosts would be unable to follow you there, and even those who technically could would have great difficulty sustaining themselves once they arived."

"Geez, Gramps, you're feeling talkative today. Usually I can't get anything nearly this direct out of you."

"It will be important for you to understand your options, my young halfa. Speaking of which, keep in mind that your specific nature is vital to your ability to so easily sustain yourself in such environments. Even other halfas will have much more difficulty surviving in the lowest ecto-level locations as a result of their less balanced compositions. I know your young mirror's obsession also involves exploration, but she would require near constant fulfillment of her obsessions to have a hope of generating enough to get by without supplementation for you or another living being with a similar drive to seek new experiences. Mr. Masters would be better off due to his greater degree of human biology, but would also be hindered by the less complete connection to his ghost side. He would likely find transformation essentially impossible outside of survival scenarios- though you yourself probably would as well- and even his human form would experience side-effects like pounding headaches, or the constant sound of his heart pounding in his ears like a drum as it was pushed to maintain his starving ghostly side."

"I'm sure Dani and I could manage. And if we couldn't, we could always call you to pick us up."

"Untrue, actually. Any location with low enough levels to cause young Danielle to suffer would also be extremely difficult for me to reach. Such low levels could require anywhere from days to centuries in order to push enough ectoplasm through the veil to form a link, possibly more if an entity- such as an injured halfa- or anomaly- such as a rift of any kind- on the other side is draining whatever bleeds through. Your own presence may act to shorten that time somewhat if you can generate enough ectoplasm on site, but even then I would have to find you first. My abilities as an ectoplasmic entity rely wholly on manipulation of ectoplasm, and that includes my near omniscience. Should you ever find yourself in a location with sufficiently low ectoplasm, I would have a great deal of difficulty locating you; the link between our cores would mean that I would always be able to locate you eventually, but you would need to stay in one place for quite a while, which would rather defeat the purpose of emergency rescue."

"So if I ever need to hide from you because I actually manage to pull a prank on you which you don't see coming, all I have to do is find and then literally flee to one of a very select subset of alternate dimensions?"

"Pretty much. Although if you're hiding from me you would want to actively muddy the waters as well."

"Setting aside that I don't think I'd ever want to hide from you, Gramps, muddy the waters?"

"I'm a conceptual entity, Danny. I anchor to that concept in every single reality in which it exists. If the concept of time is sufficiently redirected to something or someone else to any degree, whatever portion has been redirected is therefore unavailable for me to latch onto. The same idea applies to Nocturn not being able to enter the DC Dimension because of their Dream of the Endless. Meanwhile, Pandora could enter almost at a whim if not for her guard duties, because that universe associates hope with her almost directly. In my case, anything strongly associated with the flow and concept of time could hinder me, while spreading my own name would allow me a greater share of any ectoplasm generated by the dimension.

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

Ok.

Danny could work with this.

He would have to keep traveling so that Clockwork- no, it was Chrona now- couldn't lock onto him or Dani-fused-to-the-dimensionally-traveling-speeder (He would have to workshop that).

If possible, he would also have to find a way to make a myth associated with time in an abnormal manner; the question was how to do that?

And he would need to do all of this while expending as little of his ectoplasm as possible, and probably supplementing Dani's whenever he could if she was ever going to have any chance of reconstituting.

He could definitely work with this; he refused to accept otherwise.

Maybe his parents had left some things he could use in the speeder before they were- 'Later!'

Hmm... No tools lying around... There was the weapons locker, but he should probably use whatever was in those ecto-batteries immediately so they wouldn't act as some kind of concentrated-ecto-homing-beacon. Maybe they could help Dani heal?

As he brought the disconnected batteries to the console in the center of the room, he saw it. There, sticking out of one of the panels which would probably have originally been the cup-holder in the center console before everything was transformed, was his dad's favorite 'screwdriver.' Not that it was even remotely recognizable as a screwdriver anymore; his dad had modified it so many times that it looked more like a futuristic laser pointer now. It had become his favorite hobby project before he was- 'LATER!'

He recognized this one as the version which required next to no ectoplasm to work, but as a trade-off had been completely unable to interact with wood for some reason. Something about still partially living matter and destructive interference with foreign emotional resonance as a naturally evolving survival mechanism in- Ramble 'later', focus on surviving now.

And Danny was actually starting to feel like he could find a way to survive with what he had. It was like his dad had always said about the screwdriver.

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

"See how many things it can do now, Dann'O! If I had tried to turn it into this version from the start it never would have worked; I would have gotten frustrated and had to move onto some other project for the sake of my sanity, and our house's walls. But since I took it one small change at a time, look at what I've been able to turn it into.

Incremental change, son! It's how any real change happens. If you want to accomplish something big, you try to choose the things which you think will lead towards wherever you want to end up, especially when they won't get you all the way there, big easy changes like that almost never stick for one reason or another. Over time those small steps add up, and you end up somewhere a lot better than where you started. So, what do you think you can do to apply that to working on your grades?"

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

Yeah, Danny could start to do something with what he had. He was still half alive, and could keep himself that way as long as he never stopped running long enough for Chrona to find and catch up to him. He had a Time and Dimensional and Relativistic Space ship (still not quite right, but better) with Dani fused into it to help him do just that. And he had his dad's screwdriver and advice.

So where should he start?

Well, if he wanted to build a myth, and to fulfill his obsessions wherever possible, protecting people while exploring all of time and space was probably as good a way as any. A time-traveling madman with an ever-changing camouflaged space-ship and a 'screwdriver', just passing through, helping out, was sure to get some attention.

It just needed a name to really give people something to latch onto.

He had just gotten his doctorate in engineering before everything went to hell, but as much as he'd like to use Dr. Fenton, that was just laying down a trail and begging Chrona to follow. His real name would probably have to be a closely guarded secret; the title was good though, so instead, he would just call himself

The Doctor.

Now, where should he run to next?

[lazerswordweilder]

Bruce doesn’t understand why the League has a problem with his ‘fraid fighting crime, yes he knows they’re babies but why would that stop them from fulfilling their obsessions? What do you mean get injured, he wouldn’t let that happen, they’d come back to him if they’d found someone they couldn’t beat.

Alfreds not dead. Let’s get things straight first: he is still a father figure to the entire batfam, now he just coparents with Danny. Okay so explanation, Clockwork saw the timelines and makes a deal with Alfred, he’ll stop aging right before old age becomes a serious problem (hence being immortally an old man) in exchange he helps his ‘fraid, always a butler for them, always a father, Alfred takes the chance to be with his totally-not-sons for eternity without a second thought.

Okay now Steph, Steph absolutely HATES her Dad, this is canon, but let’s make it more! (I am so so sorry please forgive me I promise she ends up okay) she slowly dies, starvation, thirst, she puts them off while going fully into her Spoiler persona, she dies, her beating heart slowly replaced by a core, becoming a ghost, her obsession? Spoiling evil plans, mostly her dads, but everyone elses too. While she takes up the mantles of Robin and Batgirl, her focus never shifts, and her name continues to be spoiler (imagine how Greek gods had titles like Aphrodite and Aphrodite Areia who was a god of war as well, Steph is Spoiler and Batgirl, or Spolier and Robin). But how Batman finds her? He looks into whoever this is because he can sense the lingering hate and ectoplasm, and finds a ghostling driven by hate to the point where she forgot herself, at first Steph was completely serious putting her heart and soul into everything she does, while she still puts her heart and soul into everything she does Batman helps her realise that rage and revenge isn’t right for her, while they are still motives they are minor ones, she becomes light and care free instead of heavy and oppressive. Occasionally when someone pisses her off she becomes a ghost made of anger and driven by rage her core turns blood red and revenge is her goal.

The Justice League identity reveal and Batman freaks out so hard, it takes them days to calm him down. “YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE MILITARY BACKSTORIES?” “PLEASE TELL ME SOMEONE TAUGHT YOU HOW TO FIGHT AND YOU JUST NEVER MENTIONED IT!” “I THOUGHT YOU’D BE LIKE 60! YOU’RE ALL NEWBORNS! I’VE BEEN FIGHTING WITH NEWBORNS!!!” Batman is sobbing, at least he trained his ‘fraid and they have powerful allies to rely on if things go wrong. He promptly declares the Justice League under his protection, they aren’t his ‘fraid but they need some help, every new hero joint the League gets at least some basic training both in battle and medical stuff.

Vlad and Al Ghul (Talia or Ra’s you chose), they worked together, and clones Batman, Vlad says he puts in Talias dna but he puts in his own, he really should of learnt from Dani that making clones doesn’t mean they’ll love you and be the (grand)child you want, in fact this very scenario (Dan is half Danny and half Vlad) had happened only it wasn’t a clone it was the originals and that backfired on everyone. Anyways Damian is born/made, both Vlad and Talia try to manipulate him individually and together, one day a trial he gets put through is too hard and for the first time he unlocks his ghost side, crying out and Bruce happens to be in the area (courtesy of a quest from Clockwork) and hears it. Ghosts are empathetic and emotional so Damian warms up to his new ‘fraid much quicker even if he still finds it hard to show that love they can feel it.

Cass (contrary to what you might assume) does not have ghost empathy above average or the ability to read emotions in any ghost way, this is her training.

Dan is taking a break and Bruce is fulling in for him as a type of Psychopomp, the job is to find people who should be dead and for whatever reason managed not to be (this is mostly just a weird oddity rather than anything like Sisyphus) and then kill them. Bruce does this then he finds Cass, a girl who’s being pushed to her limits by her dad, beyond her limits actually, but she hangs on, unlike most she’s still active rather than on a death bed, Bruce finds her in the middle of the wilderness as a test of her survival and decides absolutely not this will not do, Bruce speaks to Dan (Ancient of Death and a Psychopomp in this because why not) and Clockwork, the best timeline and/or course of action is to kill Casses father and spare Cass, she becomes/was a death-touched.

Bruce 110% autistic, he was autistic from birth, autistic role modle (Danny is autistic and trans, fight me over this).

Time, Space, and Reality

Clockwork, Phantom, and Batman

Grandfather, father, and son

[kawaiikenna]

I’ve been sucked into the rare pair hell that is Dark Ages. So y’all get to suffer with me. -w-

Our lovely story starts at the height of the rebellion/revolution where Pariah Dark is finally put away into the Sarcophagus of Eternal Sleep. At this time Clockwork is nearing the end of their carrying term and is fearful for their and Pariah’s child. So there’s the betrayal of Clockwork being the one to strike the final blow as Pariah is locked up. Sometime later, after Danny is born, the Observants come to the Long Now and try to kill baby Danny because of the whole; he’s going to turn into a tyrant just like his Sire was if not worse. Clockwork beats the ever loving shit out of them and escapes into a timeline.

They’re now looking for an adoptive family to take Danny in. Even though it’s the living realm, Clockwork is able to find the Fentons. In this timeline Jack and Maddie are more scientifically centered and less biased towards ghosts. But imagine their surprise when their second prototype portal spits out a beaten down purple specter and a tiny glowing bundle of blankets. Conversations happen and the Fentons agree to take Danny in. Clockwork basically erases the family from any and all timelines. This way the Observants won’t be able to find Danny. But in doing this Clockwork will also not be able to find him. But hoping against all hope they do it with the slim chances of a reunion later in their child’s life.

So Danny grows up as a human in the living realm. He’s happy and healthy and a normal kid. Well, at least as much as he can be with two scatterbrained scientist parents. They are definitely more there for both Jazz and Danny but they get distracted by ghosties and science and research more often than not. So sometimes they’re not there all the time. Definitely more stable than canon though. They’ve finally settled in the tiny town of Amity Park and things continue to go along. Danny is now entering high school as his parents are putting the finishing touches on their final portal. The accident happens but instead of getting spit back out into the living world, the Infinite Realms takes him back.

So Danny’s just chilling in the GZ completely unconscious for an indeterminate amount of time before a clock tower appears in his path. Clockwork on the other hand felt a disturbance in the ectoplasm and had come to investigate before the Observants could themselves. What they were not expecting to find was a newly dead child floating in the vast expanse of the Realms. So they take him in and only then do they recognize their child. So when Danny wakes up he doesn’t feel as afraid as he thinks he should be. If anything he feels safe and secure in this familiarly unfamiliar environment. Conversations and bonding happen between Danny and Clockwork. But Danny has to go back to the living world because it is still not his time to be able to stay.

Back in the living world Danny’s human friends and family are waiting for him. In a fairly calm and collected manner. This is because Jack and Maddie knew something like this was going to happen at some point. They wished that it hadn’t been this specific way, but what happened, happened; and there’s nothing more they can do than forge forward and look to the future.

Fast forward, Clockwork is more of a parent and mentor for Danny and Vlad has been thrown into the picture. Vlad gets jelly and goes after the Crown and Ring (I have a vague remembrance of these events. I’m going to have to watch those specific episodes to brush up on what happened and how.) and ends up freeing Pariah Dark. He’s pretty out of it from the amount of crazy that the Crown and Ring have given him. But once Danny defeats him and takes the Crown and Ring, Pariah is much more clear headed. It is then that he realizes just who Danny is.

This also makes Danny the Heir Apparent to the throne. As he defeated the prior ruler in a trial by combat. With this new status the Observants can no longer bring harm to Danny. Otherwise they risk the wrath of the Infinite Realms themselves in retaliation.

More bonding and soft family moments. Danny is still wary about Pariah and this makes the previous king sad. A possible redemption arc happens and the two grow closer? Maybe? Idk, I just want all the cute soft family moments between the three. -w-

[thesoulspulse]

Danny Phantom Randomness (Desolation)

I just had an interesting thought. To give you a bit of context, in my fanfic “Nowhere To Run” I had Vlad and Danny confront a lot of their personal issues with one another, especially Vlad after he went too far with the cloning incident. Danny’s a tough kid but everyone has their limits as far as how much they’re willing to put up with.

So here’s my thought, what if after the events of TUE Danny becomes extra paranoid of losing his friends and family? For example, when Vlad tries to make Jazz and Danny fight he straight up refuses to instead of putting on an act. This obviously confuses Vlad who has never seen Danny like that and Jazz for once is at a loss for what to do since Vlad injected her with nanobots and legit threatened to “waste her” if she betrayed him, meaning she probably HAS to fight Danny.

Danny seriously loses his cool and goes straight to attacking Vlad so violently to make him turn off the nanobots and ghost shield that for the first time he’s getting a small taste of exactly what Danny’s capable of once he stops holding back. This makes Vlad stop to think about what could have possibly made Danny react like that. Was this just his usual teen angst and raging hormones, or the result of one too many ghost fights giving Danny some serious emotional trauma?

Skipping forward to when Vlad infects Sam and Tucker with ecto-acne, Danny loses it again and doesn’t even try to play nice in front of his parents. He grabs Vlad by the collar of his shirt and threatens Vlad, saying that if ANYTHING happens to them...he’ll kill him. Vlad of course just writes it off as Danny being dramatic since he knows he’ll save them all anyway. And this time, Danny doesn’t screw up the timeline to make sure Vlad doesn’t get his ghost powers since he’s already seen the damage something like that can do.

What finally makes Danny snap is when Vlad kidnaps and tortures him to get a mid-morph sample. He’s had enough. And so, one day Danny goes to confront Vlad and it goes something like this:

After Danny calls Vlad out on how evil he’s become, like a spoiled brat Vlad tries to excuse his actions with the whole “Jack Fenton ruined my life” bit to which Danny responds coldly. “No he didn’t Vlad. It was an accident but you CHOSE to use your powers for selfish reasons. You chose to be my enemy. We could have been friends at least, but no.

“The truth is, Vlad, you don’t know HOW to love anyone. If you did, you wouldn’t do things like this. You wouldn’t threaten the lives of my friends and family or reject someone who genuinely loved you! Dani LOVED you, and you threw that all away because of your stupid obsession with the perfect half-ghost son. Well news flash Vlad, I’ve SEEN how it ends once you get what you think you want...

“In a timeline where I actually lost everything and had to come live with you, you destroyed that too. You destroyed what was left of me and the entire world paid the price for your selfishness. You think my dad ruined your life but that’s where you’re wrong, you did that. You destroy everything you touch which means...the only way to make sure you never turn me into that monster is to become it on my own terms so that I’m the only one who has to live with the guilt. Because I’d rather die a hero...then live long enough to see myself become a worse villain than you.”

After that, Danny goes all out and stops pulling his punches. They duke it out in a seriously intense battle and after Danny comes out on top, but only just, Danny tells Vlad that if he EVER crosses the line again it’s over. No second chances. No mercy. Because Vlad was slowly turning into a real monster, not just some cartoon villain and Danny’s not willing to risk the fate of the world or the safety of his friends and family on sparing the life of a self-centered jerk who keeps saying all he wants is love but then ends up doing things to make Danny hate him more and more as time passes.

So, Vlad has a choice to make.

He can either keep going on like this, pushing Danny away completely.

Or, Vlad can stop and take a long hard look at his life and realize Danny’s right. This has to end before its too late and any chance they might have to become anything more than enemies is gone forever.

Even if Vlad can’t be Danny’s father...he can at least become a mentor which is better than nothing and means he won’t be alone anymore. Then the two of them can have at least one person around who understands them better than anyone else in their lives. Heck, even agreeing to a truce would be a huge improvement...

Anyways, just had to get this idea out of my system. Hope you liked it!

[dp-marvel94]

Fractured

For the Phic Phight 2021.

Prompt by @blueoatmeal. Fracture: At his creation, he was a fusion of two mismatched halves. Now, the Dark Phantom is split into two pieces again.

Word Count: 4828

Also on A03 and Fanfiction.net

Warnings for suicide mention, mention of blood, general TUE timeline awefullness

This took me so long to finish but I'm done. I've actually really wanted to write something like this for a while. It's also inspired this post, a conversation with @all-out-disney based on a prompt by @danphanwritingprompts.

When he had first been created, it was painful. The combination of two mismatched parts, two fractured pieces that never should have come together to form a whole. In the beginning, Phantom and Plasmius had fought against each other. Everything had been confusion and pain. So much information, so many memories and sensations clashing together. The two had nearly fallen apart at the start. But the thing holding them together? Anger.

Kill it! Kill the brat!

No! No! The new being’s hands held their head while it screamed.

Weak! It was his fault! In his head, one voice screamed. His fault they’re gone.

His fault? The other voice asked, the words echoing in their head.

An enraged hiss. His fault! His fault! 

They’re gone.

Gone! He threw us away! 

A fresh memory. Being ripped out of his body, his souls being pulled apart. Oozing, bleeding. A pain in his inmost being.

He threw us away...But...

In front of the lanky, blue skinned ghost, a blue-eyed boy trembled. Danny’s human half whimpered. “Please! Stay away!”

Quick! Do it now! In the air, the new ghost twitched, hunched over in pain.

But...I don’t want to-

He didn’t want us. Didn’t want us. Pain. Pain. His fault.

That licked at their anger. He didn’t want me. A growl. This was supposed to fix things, supposed to make the pain go away.

It’s his fault.

The human pressed up against the wall, his breath quickening. “No. This is wrong. This is wrong.”

“This is your fault.” The new being hissed, his voice a sick, twisted echo of the human’s.

Danny shook, eyes widening. “No. I didn’t...I didn’t want this.”

I didn’t want this. One voice echoed the human’s words.

Kill him! Before he destroys us!

Shakily, one hand lit with an ectoblast. Their eyes widened with terror even as a wicked grin stretched across their face.

No! I don’t-

The being shot the blast anyway. Danny screamed as the energy burned him. He scrambled to get away, his hands reaching for something to protect himself with. He grabbed a green and silver device and jabbed it at the ghost.

The flaming-haired figure growled in pain. It hurt. Everything hurt. It wasn’t supposed to hurt anymore.

Make the pain go away. Destroy the weakness.

Weakness. The part of them that was, that had been Phantom, remembered. Pain. Too weak, too slow, too stupid to save them. Curled on his bed, crying until he couldn’t breath. Wishing he could just die. There’ll be no pain if he’s dead.

Die then. The part that was Plasmuis, remembered. His phone dropped out of his numb gripp. He never got his revenge, never got Maddie as his bride. Listening to Daniel weep, the boy broken, withering away. Pathetic, weak.

Anger surged at the sight in front of them, worsened by the pain of the attack. The new ghost lunged, red hot rage coalescing the battling thoughts into a single line, a single drive.

Make the pain go away.

The human Danny never had a chance.

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

The new ghost settled, smoothing out into something like one being. He grew in power and ability. He didn’t worry about things like names. Everyone who really knew where he’d come from was dead. As was his past. His past didn’t matter. (But it did. It did. It still hurt so much. He still missed his parents. His dear Maddie, the oaf Jack. Sam and Tucker. Daniel’s little friends. His sister. Jasmine.)

No, that didn’t matter. None of it mattered. None. All there was, all that matter was his work. He had important work to do. He needed to amass more power so he could take what he wanted, do what he wanted. And what he wanted? For the pain to go away, at a global, no, a universal scale. No one would hurt if they all were dead.

He was never supposed to exist. Really all things considered, he shouldn’t. He was two fragments clinging to each other. (But...that gap, that hole it was still there. It was still there. He shouldn’t have killed Danny Fenton. He missed...he missed Danny. He missed being Danny). He was better without those weak human halves (Lie.) He was never supposed to exist  and yet...here he was. And he would do what he needed to.

Years passed. The new ghost, called The Dark Phantom or just Phantom by his enemies and victims, (The name sickened him.) raged. He killed and maimed and destroyed. Ghosts were warped by his hand. Blood was spilled. The world was ravaged. He tried to destroy humanity but they were resilient. (He should stop. He needed to stop. He didn’t want this.)

He started collecting objects of power. The crown of fire. The ring of rage. He destroyed the Ghost King. The Infinite Realms were under his thumb. 

And then...he discovered the Reality Gauntlet.

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

The Dark Phantom floated over the ravaged battlefield. Builds crumbled around him, the smell of smoke and fresh spilled blood filling his nose. He grinned wickedly, clutching his prize in his hands. The humans had fought to keep it from them, they really had. Those idiotic GIW had hid it deep underground years before, their only intelligent action before he’d overpowered them. They’d destroyed all physical and digital records of it.

But he’d found it. He’d found the Reality Gauntlet anyway, killing and destroying anyone and anything in his path. Even now, his greatest human enemy, Valerie Gray the Ghost Slayer, laid dead at his feet. Even she’d fallen in the futile attempt to keep ultimate power out of his hands.But she’d failed. They all had failed. And now he held the glove in his gasp.

The ghost laughed evilly. And now he could have anything, anything at all he wanted. He floated higher, looking towards something at the horizon at the green glow of a ghost shield. Within that barrier laid Amity Park, the last resistance, humanities’ last stronghold. And now he could destroy it. One thought and he could destroy everything.

The ghost flew closer, coming to stop at a hill overlooking the city. It was a rare bare area, free of the usual twisted metal and broken concrete of apocalyptic landscape. Instead, there was just knee length grass. He landed and slid the glove onto his right hand.

Now, how did he want to do this? How did he want to destroy this thorn in his side? Fire? Nuclear explosion? Maybe he should freeze it solid? Not that was stupid. Asteroid impact? Suck it into a black hole? Maybe he should just suck the whole planet into a black hole. The ghost tapped his chin. He had always wondered what that would be like. What did a black hole actually look like in person? What would it be like to fall into one? What would it feel like? Would you really sit at the event horizon and watch all of time for the rest of the universe pass in the eternal moment before you were ripped apart?

The Dark Phantom shivered. There was the space nerdiness again. It did love to rear its head at the strangest moments. He shook his head. He needed to focus on how he would destroy his hometown. The place where he’d grown up, where he’d learned to ride a bike and meet his friends. Where he’d watched the stars and gone to high school and where he’d died the first time. Where his friends and family had died. 

The images flashed in his mind and the ghost pinched his eyes closed. A fiery explosion, concrete and metal, his pounding heart as he stood intangible in the middle of the wreckage. (He should have died with them.) Numb, sitting with the paramedics. Shock, they said. It was weeks before he spoke again. Standing in the rain, the two half ghosts together. Danny hadn’t even had the energy to flinch away when Vlad had put his hand on his shoulder, smuggly smiling down at the boy. Staring at the grave. Graves that were on the other side of the shield.

The ghost shivered, pushing the images away. No, stop that. Stop that. He would destroy them. He’d destroy the graves and the city. The plants that Sam loved so much, all the technology that Tucker tinkered with. Every single last book that his sister, Jasmine, studied. Every, single damn blasted ghost that his parents, his dear friends, were obsessed with. He’d destroy all of it, all of it damn it. He pressed the Gaunlet’s gems in sequence. He’d never have to look at their graves, remember any painful memory ever again.

The Dark Phantom pressed his will into the gems. With his eyes closed, his fractured soul poured its deepest desire into the glove. Power surged out of the Gauntlet, the smell of ozone burning the air. The ghost braced himself. It would happen any second now, the one thing he wanted. It would be his and all of this would be over. But...there was nothing. No heat, no cold, no explosion, no screaming, no crying. Nothing.

Instead, there were five soft thumps in front of him and one behind him. The ghost didn’t dare look yet. Then finally, after what felt like forever, there was a gasp. The ghost opened his eyes and his jaw dropped. There in front of him were five people. Each was sitting on the ground, rubbing their heads. None were looking at him yet. But his eyes flickered between the figures.

This couldn’t….this couldn’t be. It couldn’t...He knew...No...He didn’t….he didn’t. They couldn’t be...these weren’t….but….

Sam? Tucker? He wanted to ask, but the words choked him. He glanced between the two. Sam, who was staring angrily at the ruined environment. Tucker, who was taking his glasses on and off, as if that would change what he was seeing. 

But the image didn’t change, no matter how many times the ghost blinked. Here they were. They were really here, right in front of him. His (Daniel’s little) best friends. These two who’d been with him through it all. Through tests and projects and long days at the arcade and the waterpark. Through the accident. Through the power malfunctions and the late night ghost fighting. (No, he’s been alone. His friends had left him in that hospital to rot.)  Through injuries and secrets and- 

“Madds? Where are we?” Dad’s (Jack’s) cut through. 

The ghost’s eyes widened. It was his Dad. His Dad! The man who read him bedtime stories and chased away the ‘ghosts’ in the closet and hugged him close when he was scared. (That oaf always ate all the food he’d bought from himself! He made a mess of the dormroom.) 

The ghost whined, clenching his head. It ached with the contradictions. Happiness, relief, pure joy, the love of a child for their parents. Dad had taught him how to tie a tie and had driven him to the movies and took him stargazing. Anger, Hatred, The Longing for vengeance. (He stole the love of his life! He couldn’t obey the most basic laboratory safety!)

“I don’t know.” Mom’s (Maddie’s) voice cut through. She rapidly looked side to side, eyes widening with fear. “How did we get here?”

His Mom, his core sang. His mom. The woman who’d kissed his bo-bos and made him cookies and taught him self defense and took him out for milkshakes. (The most beautiful woman he’d ever laid his eyes on.)

Head throbbing, the ghost doubled over, feeling sick. No. NO! That was wrong. This was wrong. No.

“Ghost!” Dad (the oaf) suddenly yelled.

The sound of feet stomping towards him. “You! Do you bring us here, ghost?”

The ghost looked up, shakingly meeting the woman’s (beautiful) purple eyes. “Yes...no...I..I..” His insides churned, painfully as he shrunk back from her angry glare. This was his mom. She was supposed to be happy to see him. He’d brought her back. Now he could finally steal her from Jack. The ghost growled. “Shut up.”

“What did you say to me?!” Mom glared, pulling an ectogun from her holster.

“Mo-addie.” The ghost cried, his quickly fragmenting mind switching between the two names. He stumbled backwards as Sam and Tucker finally seemed to notice the adults. 

“Mrs. F!” Tucker exclaimed. 

“Mr. Fenton!” Sam shakily stood up, rushing to the man.

“Sam. Tuck.” The ghost whispered. He was shaking, his knees knocking together. It hurt. His insides hurt. This was...he was wrong. This wasn’t...he wasn’t...this didn’t….

Mom...Maddie...Mom continued pointing the gun at him. “Where are we?”

He groaned, falling to his knees. The flame of his hair flickered erratically.

In front of him, Jack...Dad...Jack...had run to the still unconscious Jazz. He shook her roughly and the girl groaned. Sam and Tucker found the pair, helping the older teen sit up. 

“Who are you?” Mom spat out.

Who? Who...he didn’t….

Jazz blinked, taking in her surroundings. She then turned to the side, her eyes falling on his. Her gaze flickered to the emblem on his chest. Her mouth feels open. “Danny?” She whispered.

His mind stopped. Danny? That was (not) his name. Or it had been. (No it wasn’t). It had been his name. No. He...he missed...he missed that name. (That brat, that fool, pathetic). The ghost whined, his insides revolting. His eyes flickered. Red. Green. Red. Green. The black and white on his suit swirled, shifted.

“Danny.” Jazz repeated, more certain.

The ghost nodded. Then he shook his head. Yes. No. Both. Neither. Both….Yes...No...

“What...what’s happening to him?” Tucker asked fearfully.

What was happening?! What was happening?! He wrapped his arms around his middle as if that could hold him together. Maybe….no…

“Never mind that!” Sam hissed. “What happened to us? How did we get here?”

“The last thing I remember is….” Jazz’s eyes widened with shock and pain. “We...we..all of us, we….”

“You all died.” A voice, a new voice behind him, whispered. 

The ghost tensed, stiffening. He shook torn between wanting desperately to look and being terrified (disgusted) with what he’d see because-

“You all...you all died.” The young male voice choked out again.

That voice, it was so familiar. It was...it was...Rapidly, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker looked between the ghost and the figure standing behind him.

Shakily, Jazz stood, her eyes focusing on the speaker behind the ghost. "Danny?" Her eyes flickered to Dark Phantom (?) again. "You're both…. How are you…?" She stuttered, unable to ask the vital question.

But the ghost knew what she was asking. He knew who was behind him but-

"Jazz." Feet shuffled towards him. "You're...you're alive. You're all alive." A whisper. "I'm...I'm alive."

The ghost felt a sensation, so similar, almost like a heart skipping a beat. Shakily, he started to turn. 

It made sense, in a strange way, for him to have brought back his friends and family (but why would he care about Daniel's little friends or that oaf?) A shake of the head. No, stop that. It did make sense. It did. But bringing HIM back?

Another foot step sounded behind, to his left. The ghost's eyes finally met the speaker's eyes, familiar blue eyes.

Danny, Danny Fenton, identical to the the day he died, stood in front of him. The boy stared at him with a complicated expression. Fear, shock, confusion, awe. It was all there. He blinked, lip twitching. "You….you brought me back." 

His core squeezed and pulsed, his form rippling as pain shot through him. Danny Fenton. He'd brought Danny Fenton (himself, his human half; the insolent brat) back to life. Back to life. Because he never should have killed him in the first place. (Why shouldn't he have?) No! He shouldn't have! That was a mistake! A mistake! The pain was supposed to go away when he destroyed his humanity but it did, it didn't! 

His whole body was smoking, cracks forming along his skin. The ache had just grown, gap yawning wider. Instead of being whole, complete, he...they...were two fragments clinging together for stability, for survival. He wasn't supposed to exist like this.

Questions, demands were buzzing around him but there was no registering the words. In front of him, Danny was rapidly backing away, eyes widening with fear.

Danny. Daniel. An arrogant hiss. He missed Danny, he missed being Danny. He missed being alive. No he didn't, that was ridiculous.

"No!" A roar, two voices screaming at once.

The being writhed, hastily made connection tearing. They weren't supposed to exist like this. So they didn't.

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

Phantom and Plasmius broke apart, flying in opposite directions. The younger ghost skidded across the grass before careening to a stop. He curled in on himself, shaking and whining. 

Around him, alarmed and confused questions rose in volume but he couldn't hear over the brief sound of someone cackling and the sound of his sobs.

Wait, sobs? When had he started crying? He sniffled, a tear falling down his face. Yep, crying. He was crying. He shook, great emotion overcoming him. Horror, sorrow, grief, guilt. He...he remembered everything, all the horrible things he'd done with Plasmius.

"Danny! Danny! Get away from the ghost!" Mom was yelling.

Sneakered feet approached, a lithe figure falling to his knees in front of Phantom. Warm, peach colored hands reached out, grabbing his arms and pulling him into a seated position. 

The emotions intensified, hitting the ghost like a brick wall. A double memory. Killing his human half. Being killed by his ghost half. The first murder of his reign of terror. His botched yet successful suicide. It was excruciating, tearing his soul from both sides.

"I..I…" Phantom gasped, finally meeting the blue eyes through the tears. 

"You and Plasmius...you killed me." Fenton said without accusation.

"I...I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Phantom begged. The words didn't cover it at all, the width and depth of his iniquity, of the travesties he'd committed in his insanity.

"I asked you to." Fenton whispered, looking down guiltily. "I wanted to die." He shifted, pulling Phantom towards him. "Oh god. I shouldn't have split us. I shouldn't have done that."

The ghost didn't resist as Fenton wrapped his arms around him. Instead, he clung to the human as if he would disappear. "I shouldn't...I shouldn't have joined Plasmius. I shouldn't have killed you." His core spasmed, again threatening to fracture under the strain. "I shouldn't...oh god I...I destroyed everything." 

He could barely comprehend what he and Plasmius had done, all he'd been through. And the guilt wared with other feelings at the edge of his perception. Part of him wanted to be hopeful, happy even if it was so abominably selfish. He'd missed being human, being alive. He missed being Danny Fenton. But…. Danny Fenton was in front of him, his still living soul and body pressed up against his chest. He'd brought himself back to life.

And his friends and family. They were behind him. Sam, Tucker, and Jazz were holding his parents back and offering them cursory explanations. For a brief moment, Phantom wondered; how did Jazz know his secret? 

But then the greater issue reared its head. His loved ones didn't know what was going on here. They didn't know the world he'd dragged them into. And now, they didn't need two broken, inconsolable pieces. They needed all of him. They needed Danny.

Phantom breathed, pulling this human self closer as he felt Fenton's agreement. He relaxed, feeling his body become tingling and numb. He let go of tangibly, becoming nothing more than a cloud. He was fog being burned away by the morning light. No, he was a cup of water poured back into the lake he'd come from. He was liquid, spreading out, diffusing into a larger body of water, the newly added molecules indistinguishable from the old. Phantom dissolved.

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

There was a flash of light. Danny Fenton-Phantom remained frozen on his knees. His arms wrapped around himself as he cried. 

This didn't feel like the last time, with the ghost catcher. Then, when he'd finally come back to himself, there had been relief, the feeling of coming home after a long, tiring day. But now, it still hurt. He was home but he didn't belong here, didn't deserve this. He looked up, heart throbbing with love for his family and friends. He didn't deserve them but they needed him.

Shakily, with great effort, Danny pushed himself to his feet. He met his sister's eyes and she ran to him. Finally the two hugged.

"Jazz." He sniffed.

"Little brother." The girl squeezed him.

"I love you so much." He vowed.

The rest approached, his eyes flickering among each person one at a time. "Sam. Tucker." A pause. Finally. "Mom. Dad."

"Danny." Mom's voice rang with a dozen emotions as she joined the hug. "My baby boy."

"I love you. I love you so much. " Danny repeated as his loved ones surrounded him in an embrace. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I love you. I love you guys. I'm sorry. "

The others muttered much the same, assurances of love and apologies. Danny never wanted it to end but it did as the group pulled apart.

His loved ones looked around, faces pale with worry. Finally Tucker asked. "Dude, what happened here?" 

"Was it the ghosts?" Dad asked, alarmed.

Danny flinched at the words. Guilty, he looked down.

Sam bit her lip. "Was it Plasmius?"

Somehow, the boy curled in on himself even more. "It was me." He muttered.

Danny paled, bracing himself. He expected horror and disgust. Accusation. Hateful sneers. And he would deserve it, all of it. But instead, the group stared at him in disbelief.

"Dude, there's no way." Tucker started.

"You couldn't have done this." Sam denied, perfectly confident.

"I did. It was me." Danny whined. "You all were gone and I was all alone. And I just...I was so angry." He gnawed on his lip. "And I just wanted to stop hurting but it didn't work and I thought…." He trailed off. 

Thinking back, the rationale didn't make sense. He couldn't grasp it, couldn't understand what his, his and Plasmius' motivation had been. The thoughts  seemed to slip through his fingers, refusing to stay in his brain. Danny wasn't sure whether or not that was a good thing.

"It couldn't have been just you." Jazz softly said, drawing him out of his thoughts. Her hand gently wrapped around his arm. "We saw what happened with that blue skinned ghost." She whispered, as if this was a tightly kept secret.

Nervously, Danny’s eyes flickered to his parents who looked confused and deeply troubled. It was actually surprising that they hadn’t pointed the ectogun at him again, not after they apparently saw his ghost and human halves fuse back together. Obviously, his sister or friends explained that to them and they somehow believed it, or were too overwhelmed to really process. But the bigger problem? Everyone saw the fusion of Phantom and Plasmius fall apart. Again, he shivered at the memory of being even a part of that monster.

“So you and Plasmius….” Sam trailed off, nose wrinkling in disgust.

That disgust was justified, the very idea repulsive. But he’d been angry and desperate after the split. He, the Phantom part, had wanted to be stronger. Because if he had been, then maybe everyone wouldn’t have died. He’d been so angry at the older half ghost, for all the shit Vlad had put him through. And he’d been in so much pain. Vlad was so cold, so unfeeling. If he could be like that, if he could just be numb and selfish for once-

Danny couldn’t bear to say any of that, instead changing the subject. “Plasmius, where did he go?” He looked around, seeing no trace of the other ghost. His brow wrinkled in sudden alarm. “And where’s the Gauntlet?”

“Gauntlet?” His mom blinked, brow furrowing at the question.

Jazz frowned. “That glove thing? Plasmius took it, when he flew off.”

Danny’s heart skipped a beat. He flew off. With the Gauntlet. And he hadn’t noticed until now. No one had said anything either. And….the other ghost could do anything with the reality altering item.

Shakily, the half ghost pulled away from his loved ones. “I need to go after him.” With a thought, he summoned the rings around his waist. His parents’ eyes both widened in alarm while the others looked concerned. He ignored the looks, transforming and floating off the ground.

Danny took an unneeded breath, looking around for any sign of Plasmius in the distance. Which direction would he have gone? The boy frowned, considering. But he didn’t know. He’d just have to set off in one direction and hope he could find him and get the Gauntlet back. He looked around, flinching at the destruction. He’d used it to bring his loved ones back but he still needed it to-

Something blue and white appeared on the horizon, rapidly approaching. The half ghost flinched, recognizing the figure. He shifted in the air, floating to stand between his friends and family and the approaching ghost. Taking a fighting stance, Danny balled his fists and lit them with ectoenergy.

Moments later, Plasmius materialized in front of him. “Daniel.” He looked down at the boy distastefully. “I see you’ve managed to pull yourself back together.”

The boy frowned. “Yes.” He warily eyed the Gauntlet clenched in the other ghost’s hands. “What are you gonna do with that?”

The vampiric ghost scowled. He silently floated for a moment, before his form seemed to glitch, flickering like a broken TV.  His face briefly scrunched up in pain, nose wrinkling. Then his expression smoothed out, turning into something forcefully neutral. He heavily dropped the glove at Danny’s feet. “Fix this.”

The boy stared down at the Gauntlet, blinking in confusion. He bent down and grabbed it, tightly holding the object in his hand.

Behind him, Tucker asked. “Why didn’t he just use it? Ow! Sam!” Obviously, the girl had elbowed him.

Plasmius said nothing, still scowling while Danny considered. Why didn’t the man use it himself? The other ghost’s image flickered again, causing him to let out a low hiss of pain.

“You can’t.” Danny finally said, realization hitting him. “You’re too unstable.” 

It was the other reason their dark version stayed together. Both halves would have faded away, destabilizing into ectoplasm within minutes. And there would have been no solution. Phantom had killed his other half. And Plasmius’ was somewhere in Wisconsin, too far away to be of any help now.

“Fix this.” The other ghost growled again, looking at something in the distance.

This time, there was a greater weight to the words. It wasn’t just a request to be stabilized. It was a demand for more. To clean up the rest of the mess they’d made together.

Danny slipped on the glove. Looking down, he pressed the gems in sequence. Fix this. He needed to fix this. He could fix the damage, heal the people he’d hurt, bring back those who were gone. But…. he remembered his loved ones’ haunted expressions. The horror with which they looked around the destitute environment. 

The halfa closed his eyes, knowing what he needed to do. He took a breath and pushed his desire into gems. The world went white.

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

Danny Fenton woke up in his bed, the remnants of a long nightmare in his mind. The boy groaned, burying his face in his pillow. 

“Danny!” His mom called through the door. “Get up.”

The boy didn’t respond, groaning again. 

At that, the woman opened the door. “Danny. You have to get up. You’re taking the CAT today.”

CAT? His brow furrowed at the information. He was taking the CAT. Slowly, the half ghost sat up. 

“Good.” His mother nodded. “Breakfast is ready downstairs. Go ahead and get dressed.”

After she closed the door, Danny stood. He started getting dressed as she said. His brow still furrowed with confusion. His dream. He’d been dreaming about? He couldn’t quite remember, except it had been horrible. A sense of dread overcame him. And...he needed to fix something. He had to fix something.

Danny pulled on his shirt. He then turned, grabbing his bookbag. It fell open, revealing a manila envelope. Guilt squeezed his heart. The CAT test answers. He picked up the sheet, stuffing it back inside his bag. 

Dread passed through him again, his stomach flopping. He still needed to fix something. But it couldn’t just be about his cheating, right? There was something else.

“Danny! Your father’s going to eat all the bacon if you don’t hurry up.” Mom called.

Danny frowned. Whatever it was, he would figure it out and everything would be okay. Right?

[chipsandcoffee]

Timeline anon! I just wanted to share my personal timeline if that’s okay

-> Deep Breath—MOTOE: Twelve and Clara try to “move on”

-> MOTOE: Clara realizes she still loves Twelve. (Twelve didn’t even try to move on lol)

-> Dark Water—Death in Heaven: They still love each other, but want the other to be happy

-> Last Christmas: A second chance to be together (Clara gets over Danny, no more obstacles)

-> Magician’s Apprentice—Witch’s Familiar: Just the Doctor and Clara Oswald in the TARDIS (the rush of being together again, first kiss??)

-> Before the Flood—Under the Lake: Established couple; compare to Bennet/O’Donnell (doomed couple) and Kass/Lunn (new couple) (Also no one says “don’t kiss me, morning breath” if they HAVENT kissed before)

Zygon Invasion—Zygon Inversion: This is where I think they’ve slept together for the first time. Right at the end of the episode where Twelve says “I’ll be the judge of time” and walks away (to his room??). Clara follows and he just needs to know she’s warm and alive. One thing leads to another...

-> Sleep No More: Living Together: I mean all of the TOUCHINGGGG!! They’re so comfortable with each other. Clara is living in the TARDIS, no doubt. “When you’re not LOOKING” vs “When you’re not THERE” (Also, they were definitely on a date. Twelve wanted to take her somewhere nice, but the TARDIS always has other plans.)

-> Face the Raven: Married? (How else did Clara save Twelve from marrying the sentient plant??) OK, fine they’re still going steady

-> Heaven Sent: Twelve is widowed (they parallel the couple at the beginning)

-> Hell Bent: They finally admit their love for each other out loud. (Twelve has always said it “duty of care” but this time Clara says it back)

-> Twice Upon a Time: Happily Ever After (Twelve regains his memories of Clara and what she said to him in the cloisters. This gives him the motivation to finally regenerate. Twelve goes wherever past regenerations go and since Clara had to go to Gallifrey to die, I KNOW she forced the Time Lords let her go wherever they go after they die to be with Twelve forever)

I LOVE all of this, terrific ideas! It kind of felt like reading a terrifically fast-paced fanfic, which was awesome!

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Whumptober 30 + 31: Internal Injury and Left for Dead

CW: Blood, just like a whole lot of violence, organ removal, more than mild arson, whumper turned whumpee, character death, dissoci@tion, mild vampirism, some brief threatening pet whump and dehumanization + a noncon reference

TIMELINE: Begins immediately following Possession, end of the Bad Arc. One year after Danny is abducted for a second time.

Nate tastes blood on his tongue, thick in his mouth, but he’s tasted blood before. Bram’s skin is cold but it is always cold, and his panting breaths are heavy against Nate’s ear but he knows Bram’s breathing better than almost anything else, better than he knows anyone’s breathing but Danny’s.

Abraham Denner has been breathing in Nate’s ear, down his spine, inside his mind for seven very long years, and Nate is about to ensure he can never do it again.

Bram groans in pain, like so many other sounds he’s made against Nate’s ear before, whispering, I love you, you’re mine as Nate cried and fought and screamed and didn’t cry and moaned and gave in to him, to his eyes and his love, again and again and again-

Nate pulls back, his teeth and tongue black and red, blood smeared thick like oil around his lips and down his chin, and Bram’s eyes meet his, wide with rage. 

Nate isn’t scared of Bram any longer.

His wrists burn from tearing free of the ropes, the scent of new and old blood is thick in the air around them. His hands close around Bram’s neck, a collar of skin, and he closes his grip slippery-red, thumbs pressing down on the windpipe of a man who will not die from this, because he already died centuries ago.

Ryan is in his mind and in his hands, guiding their strength, Ryan is darkness and white teeth sharpened to points. Ryan is glowing yellow eyes that stare out from Nate’s own. He is not alone inside himself, and they are the same, and if Danny is dead then Nate will make sure Bram follows him-

He’s not dead, Ryan’s voice whispers inside of him, and Nate bears his thumbs down harder just to hear Bram’s gurgling, rasping chokes, to feel his hands press against Nate’s bare chest and then claw there, digging in but Ryan is between Nate and the pain, pressing up against his skin, a barrier between Nate and true sensation. He’s not dead. We can still save him.

Nathaniel Vandrum’s life has been narrowed, day by day, month by month, year by year. He spent years under Bram’s spell, eight months a hunted animal. He spent four years keeping Danny alive, he spent a year and a half helping him learn to be human again, spent a year watching Danny suffer from a place too far for him to follow.

He has spent a year watching Danny bleed, and scream, and cry, and slip away inside himself with only Ryan there to bring him back out.

He is tired of watching Danny suffer.

He is tired of this.

He is so fucking tired.

He feels no pain from his broken right hand - Ryan stands between him and the pain there, too. He can feel Ryan twisting inside him, pushing him to close his hands tighter around Bram’s neck, staring down into his eyes. The things that move there thrash with desperate desire to survive but Nate has no mercy left in him.

He should be horrified by someone else being inside his body with him but he can’t be, he can’t let it sink in that he is moving as two people working together inside one skin, or he’ll slip. It takes one mistake and Bram will have him again, and if Bram gets him again he’ll be done, he’ll die before he’ll hurt anyone, but Bram would make him hurt so many people.

“N-Nate-” Bram’s voice is husky, but the anger boils inside it, and he grabs Nate by the shoulders finally and throws him off. Nate slams to the ground on his side, groaning and moving to scramble to his feet just as Bram, blood still pouring in thick black waves from the wound Nate tore open, stands and kicks him hard.

Something snaps in Nate and Ryan isn’t fast enough to take the pain. There’s a burst of it, an ache that overrides him, and he’s still for too long. Only a second... but too long. 

Bram drags him to his knees by one arm and slaps him, his palm slamming into Nate’s cheek sending him back to the ground. Back up to slap him again, the other side. Kicked again and Nate coughs out air before he can find more to inhale.

Ryan is gone from inside him, collapsing onto the ground where he’d been standing before he stepped inside Nate’s skin, dark skin glowing faintly with the same yellow as his eyes.

Somewhere, Bram’s sister runs from her own mistakes, but Nate stares up as Bram walks towards him and thinks that Bram has never needed his sister to keep his puppies in line before, and he doesn’t need her now.

“You would… refuse the gift?” Bram’s voice is laced with his disbelief. He raises a hand to touch the uneven skin torn apart at one shoulder, looking at the blood there with something like wonder. “You’d try to kill me? After everything I did for you? After everything I gave you?”

“After-...” Nate coughs again, trying to get back on his feet, but as soon as he’s on all fours Bram kicks him again and sends him back down. His eyes move to Danny - limp on the ground, blood welling up around the blade buried in his back. Danny’s eyes are open, wide and so so blue.

So blue, and so empty.

Danny’s gone.

“No.” The voice is from Nate but it’s not his voice. It’s a whimper. A whine. Barely a protest.

Too late.

“I gave you the puppy,” Bram says, stepping between Nate and Danny, blocking him from the sight of the man he loves most in the world. The only thing left that he loves in the world. “Now I’ve taken the puppy away.”

Nate’s heart does not twist with fear. He doesn’t let himself grieve yet. Instead… he lets his head drop to the ground, into his arms, and he starts to weep. If the tears are anger, not sadness, Bram doesn’t notice. He chuckles, satisfied, and pulls Nate back onto his feet again. One hand gripped tightly around his arm, the other hand cups Nate’s cheek, gently pressing his jaw to tilt his head up, get him to look Bram in the eyes.

“I w-wanted to save him,” Nate whispers.

Too late, Vandrum. Always too late.

“I know,” Bram says with unnerving tenderness, and when he leans in to kiss Nate, the man doesn’t fight him. Bram’s lips are cold. 

He spent half a year, once, being the perfect lover. He can do it again, for just a few minutes. 

For long enough.

Bram licks his own blood off his lips when he pulls back, smiling now. There’s blackish red on his teeth, staining his pale pale skin. “You can’t save anyone, Nate,” Bram says, reaching up, running his fingers back through Nate’s hair. “You’re mine. Mine, forever. For the rest of fucking time, Nate, you’re mine. Mourn him if you want, but you were never meant for the puppy. You were meant for me.”

“Yes,” Nate says, and pitches his voice to be slightly faint and empty, the voice he used when Bram would wipe him away from himself. He looks into those colorless eyes and, like every day since Bram once forced a muzzle on Danny for months and nearly took him from Nate for good, he feels absolutely nothing.

“Bring Faerie Boy inside,” Bram commands with effortless certainty. “I know how to take care of his kind, too. Then we’ll decide what happens next.” Bram looks carelessly over at where Danny lays crumpled in the dirt. “Faerie Boy can bury the body.”

The body.

Nate has to steel himself with every ounce of willpower not to make a sound in response. He only nods and, making his expression blank, he limps over to Ryan, dragging Danny’s brother to his feet. Ryan’s skin feels like an open flame under his hand, far hotter than human skin ever should be, but the glow in his eyes is dulling. He’s too tired, too new at this. His strength is already waning, Nate thinks, he pushed himself too far.

“Danny’s n-not dead,” Ryan says in a croaking, cracking voice. “He’s, he’s not-”

“I know,” Nate responds, forcing him to move. He knows Danny is dead, though, and that this is just Ryan trying to convince him not to give up, give in, and let Bram rebuild his family - with his true love and his dog - with Ryan in Danny’s place. Bram is behind them, ensuring they go where into the house, and Nate half-drags Ryan up the steps. “T-trust me. I h-h-h… I’ve got a plan.”

Ryan laughs, dry and hopeless, but he allows himself to be moved. His neck is a ring of bright red agony, his wrists look the same. He’s skinny, after a year earning bites of food with obedience to torture, bony under Nate’s hands. His hair is dull and brittle, dried and tangled frizz instead of curls. “Sure… hope so.”

“When I m-m-move,” Nate whispers, barely loud enough for Ryan to possibly hear, just hoping he understands, “grab his l-l-legs to s-slow him down, and then c-c-come back… I’ll l-let you in.”

Nate deposits him on the floor next to the kitchen table without waiting for a response, letting him drop more roughly than necessary, pretending he is still in thrall as he pulls out a chair and sits. 

He’s going to have one chance at this.

Bram pulls out a chair and sits across from him, giving Nate a smile. Brilliant, and shining, and loving, even as the love of Nate’s life is bleeding to death in the front yard. Nate might not be able to save Danny, now - but he can save Ryan, he thinks.

He hopes it’s enough for wherever Danny will be after he’s gone.

He hopes it will somehow settle Danny’s soul, to know Nate gave everything to save his little brother, after watching Danny break himself again and again to hold Ryan together.

If we’re damned for loving each other like they told me, Nate thinks with an all-consuming grief and conviction, I’ll see you in hell soon enough.

“We’ll have to go somewhere new,” Bram says, gripping Ryan by the hair, jerking him backwards. Ryan bares his sharp, inhuman teeth, and Bram snorts, ramming his head directly into the edge of the table, making Ryan cry out and slump.

Nate doesn’t flinch.

“I’ll dedicate you. Make you one of us. I’ll finish the dedication and then you’ll understand.” Bram’s hand is still gripped in Ryan’s hair, tightening on the curls until he hisses in pain, but it’s a faint and faded sound. “We’ll take the puppy with us and go find my sister. You know I never like to leave a puppy, Nate.”

Those eyes are back on his, and Nate gives Bram a slight smile - as if pulled out of him unwillingly, as if he’s falling into the depths of his eyes all over again. As if, without Danny to fight for, he has no fight left.

Danny might be dead - Nate’s mind skips from that truth, runs from it as fast as it can, circles around it endlessly - but Ryan isn’t. Danny would want his brother saved, and Nate… 

He can do this.

He has to do this.

“Y-yes, Bram,” Nate says, soft and as empty as Danny’s open eyes. “I c-can help t-t-take care of Faerie B-Boy.”

At his feet, Ryan lets out a choked-off sob. Whether he’s only playing the part, or drifting into pure hopelessness, Nate isn’t sure. He can’t risk a look, can’t risk giving anything away for a second. Instead, he moves to lay his hand over Bram’s on top of Ryan’s head. Bram’s hand is cold under his.

Danny’s hands get cold, too, his long fingers feel like ice sometimes in the morning when he wakes Nate with a hug. He pulls his hands into the sleeves of his sweaters, tugs them constantly down to cover the scars on the backs of his hands. His eyes are warmer than his hands can be, as Nate holds one of his hands in both of his, rubbing at them to warm up those cold fingers while Danny smiles-

Danny’s dead. You can save his brother. Focus.

“I l-love you,” Nate says, softly. He knows how to twist his tone just right, to make his voice foggy like the power of Bram’s eyes has once again papered over Nate’s will, his very self, to remake him in Bram’s image.

If there is a heaven, it will be Danny that I beg for forgiveness, not God.

“I love you, too.” Bram smiles, letting go of Ryan to hold Nate’s hand. Cold dead fingers. Nate forces his smile to widen, softens his expression. “My black-haired prince. Red got in our way. But it’s just us all over again, isn’t it? Just you and I.” He smirks, pale lips smeared with drying blood. “And the puppy.”

Nate nods, and pulls Bram’s hand up, to press a kiss to the back of it. Smooth, scarless.

Not the hand he wants to kiss at all.

“That’s why you had to watch it all, you know.” Bram sighs, content in this moment. There’s still blood running from the wound in his shoulder but he doesn’t seem to notice it, and the wound is closing before Nate’s eyes, skin knitting itself together. He won’t die, even if Nate kills him he won’t die. There’s only one way to be sure. Only one way to keep him from coming back.

“Wh-what? Why?” Nate tilts his head, closes his eyes so Bram won’t see he’s disgusted by his touch, plays it off as shivering desire, maybe. Somehow, somewhere back there, he gained the ability to hide some of his unhappiness from Abraham Denner.

They lost with their first attempt.

There’s only one more chance.

“So you would get used to it again.” Bram pulls his hand back and away, lays it palm-down against the back of Ryan’s neck, and Nate tries not to watch Ryan shiver where he kneels on the floor. Bram scratches his fingernails through the red, irritated skin, reopening old wounds from the iron collar. Ryan whimpers, whines with the pain, and Nate fights the memory of Danny’s scream behind his muzzle, jaw straining as the wire mesh cut in deeper and deeper. 

Bram took the muzzle off - the new one remade, but it might as well have been exactly the fucking same - before Ryan and Ora came out. It’s still out there, isn’t it? Lying in the dirt, bloodied. 

Nate almost loses his iron grip on his own emotions at the thought of Danny’s body in the dirt so close to the tool of torture that hurt him the worst. Not from grief, no - he still has that locked up inside his head, he will mourn Danny when he has saved Ryan, when it’s over, when it’s done. But the fury that comes with the realization that Danny’s eyes, still open and unblinking, will be staring right at the muzzle.

He catches himself. Holds the anger down. Gives Bram a soft, sweet, loving smile. “Used t-to it?”

“Right. Used to it, and… maybe a little bit appreciative.” Bram laughs, his high-pitched hyena’s laughter, smacking the wound he reopened on Ryan’s neck just to hear him cry. His eyes glow such a brilliant, bright yellow they turn nearly white, like staring into the sun - and then falter again, fade and go dull. 

He needs to be strong enough to do one more thing, and Nate isn’t sure if he will be. But he’s going to try, anyway.

“I’ll l-learn,” Nate promises, and runs his own hand through Ryan’s dirty, greasy curls, catching in the tangles. He looks down, cold green eyes locking on Ryan’s dulled yellow, back to the color of old, cloudy honey, and uses his good left hand to tilt his chin up, rubbing his thumb over his lower lip. “You’ll b-b-be good for m-me, puppy, won’t you?”

Ryan’s eyes widen, just a little, flicker in the dim kitchen lit only by the light coming through the window over the sink, and through the open inside door. Outside the closed screen door, down the steps, fifteen feet away, Danny lies in the dirt. 

“Oh, that’s good,” Bram says, rubbing at Ryan’s back. “What do you say, Faerie Boy? Can you be as good between us as you’ve been for me so far?”

Ryan’s lip trembles under Nate’s thumb. Nate smiles at him, the same soft loving look he’s been giving Bram. He is the personification of what Bram can do. He is the perfect vision of Bram taking control and making him someone he’s not, as he did for years with power, manipulation, and threats. “Bram asked you a qu-... a question, p-puppy,” Nate whispers. “Wh-what’s the r-r-rule?”

Ryan’s eyes well with such human tears. “Al-... always answer Abraham’s questions, never hes… hesitate and neh-... never lie.”

“So wh-what’s your answer?”

Ryan looks up at him, pleading, but Nate keeps his eyes, his face perfectly steady. I’m sorry. Just a few more minutes...

“I...” Ryan’s voice catches. He’s exhausted, struggling to pull threads of himself together. Whatever it is Ryan is, whatever it is he can do, it takes too much out of him. “I c-can be good for you,” He whispers.

“B-B-Both of us?”

Ryan’s eyes close tightly. “Both of you.” He has to spit out the words.

“Good b-b-boy.” Another rub over his lower lip, his skin is rough and chapped against Nate’s thumb. “Do you w-w-want a d, a drink, Bram?” He raises his eyes, lets his hand drop, but not before he taps twice on the front of Ryan’s neck next to his Adam's apple, deliberately spaced apart to make it clear it’s a message. “I th-think I remember how you l-like it.”

Bram smiles, twists a curl around his finger, yanks on it until Ryan winces. “Sure. Whiskey sour. Red made sour mix, it’s in the fridge.” He sighs, mournfully. “I suppose Red won’t get to make me my drinks anymore. Pity, he was always better at it than Faerie Boy.”

Nate swallows. He won’t cry for Danny yet. 

Not yet.

He pushes himself to his feet, walking away and moving to the fridge. Slow footsteps, careful and solid. He feels strange, as though he’s far away from himself, watching his body go through these motions from a distance. Open the cupboards until he finds a glass, pull it down and add some ice cubes. Find the whiskey in a different cabinet, expensive small-batch distillery in Portland, he notes absently, pouring a shot, and then two, into the glass.

He pulls the sour mix, stored in a pitcher, out of the fridge and tries with every ounce of strength he has left not to think about how Danny’s fingers were the last to close around the handle, and now they never will again.

Not yet not yet not yet.

Cry when Ryan is safe. Until then, be for Ryan what Danny cannot be any longer. He owes Danny that much and more, he owes everything he could ever give. He pours in the sour mix, adds a cherry from a jar in the fridge. Picks a lemon up from a basket, staring down at it, and then his eyes move to the knife block, but he’s careful not to turn his head to make it obvious. 

One chance.

He picks up not the chef’s knife but the smaller, sharper paring knife, and he feels Bram’s eyes on his back as he cuts three identical lemon slices, struggling to do it gracefully with his broken hand throbbing again, fighting him with every step. He drops the lemon slices into the drink, gives the whole thing a quick stir. Closes his eyes and breathes.

I’m sorry, Danny.

He turns around and throws the drink in Bram’s face.

Ryan is moving before Nate has even finished his own motion and he grabs Bram around the legs as he starts to stand up, slamming the man into the ground as he’s knocked off balance, pale eyes widening in surprise as Nate falls on him with his teeth bared and the knife in his hand, bringing it down over Bram’s heart.

There’s resistance, and pain, and Nate doesn’t care about either anymore.

Ryan’s eyes flare, glowing brilliant with one last spark of energy, and the shadows press like velvet against Nate’s back, overtaking all the light but Ryan’s. The kitchen is pure and perfectly black as Nate feels Bram’s blood bubble up cold around the handle of the knife as he forces it down.

Cold hands grab onto his like a vice, and he opens his mouth to scream-

Let me in.

Ryan is in his skin in his heart in his head, pressing the knife down harder, dragging it back towards himself, cutting into Bram’s skin as he fights them but Ryan is stronger than Nate and the two men working in one body open the emptiness inside of Abraham Denner and Nate shoves his hand inside.

It’s cold, like everything about Bram is cold, and it has a little give under his fingers. He grips as tightly as his hand will allow and Ryan is gripping alongside him as they pull backwards. Bram screams, the first true scream Nate has ever heard from him, high-pitched. Windows crack around them as the scream carries on and on and on, Nate’s head is pounding but he can’t feel it. Ryan takes it for him, presses himself along the length of Nate’s body, underneath his skin, against his eardrums, layers himself over Nate’s mind.

He is protected.

He uses the blade of the paring knife to cut the veins and arteries. Cold black blood coats his hand as he pulls out Abraham’s Denner ancient heart.

The shadows recede - or Nate can see through them now, he doesn’t know, the whole world seems strange and disconnected from him - as he pushes himself to his feet.

Nate-

“It’s not d-d-done,” Nate says to the voice inside his head of his dead love’s little brother, and he turns, dragging one leg as he moves out into the sun outside.

Danny hasn’t moved, but Nate didn’t expect him to. 

Dead people usually don’t, unless they’re Bram or Ashley.

He is nothing but blood now, and the heart in his hands is still beating. Soft contractions of muscle with nothing to push through, no blood to rush through old veins. But still the heart beats. It’s not over.

There’s a burn pile over by a shed, covered with sticks and trash, and Nate walks to it with Ryan still inside him. The two of them look out of one set of eyes. 

Burn it?

“B-burn it,” Nate confirms in a fierce whisper.

There are no tears.

Not yet.

He lays the beating heart down in the burn pile and walks away from it, moving to a shed to open the door. He stares, blankly, at a skeleton that faces him against the back wall, rotted away by now. It’s been a year. Death is still in the air but neither of them can smell anything any longer but Bram’s blood. Nate ignores the skeleton and finds a can of gasoline - Bram is predictable, always predictable - and carries it back out to toss about a third of the can into the sticks, taking special care to ensure some of it splashes over the disembodied, beating heart.

Left here, Bram’s body would eventually reform and wake back up.

Like Ashley.

Nate will not lose anything else to them ever again.

“I’m not your b-b-black-haired p-prince,” He says to the heart, and lights a match.

The gasoline catches immediately, flames rising with the sharp pungent smell. Nate doesn’t wait - he picks the can up again, sloshes it around to see how much is left, and looks to the house. “Go s-s-say goodbye to your b-b-brother,” He says. “I’ll come, t-too, when this is o-over.”

Danny-

“Go s-say goodbye.”

Ryan is out of him in a flash, and Nate is oddly lonely inside his mind as he makes his methodical way back to the porch. Ryan kneels next to his brother, hands out but not quite touching, as Nate moves inside. He passes Abraham’s body without looking at it. He lets the gasoline trail - a little here and a little there, splashes on the curtains, splashes on the rug.

With his leg throbbing, he moves upstairs with gasoline trailing on the steps. He pours a little on the bed, staring at the bloodied ropes tied to the headboard a little too long. Outside, he starts to hear the crackle of the fire catching outside. Good. The heart will burn.

Just like his.

More gasoline for the curtains - he’s getting low, he needs to conserve. He has to be sur the whole house will burn.

Then he stops in front of a room with no door, a room he’s seen in Bram’s texted photos and videos, in a few of the livestreams he watched. He watched them all, desperate for clues. Danny and Ryan had managed to tear the paper that covered the window once and before Bram had cut the video, Nate had been able to pause - and see beyond the rolling fields to a water tower in the distance.

One of his first clues.

In this room there are manacles attached to the wall, a broken chain of iron on the floor, pools of drying blood. Nate pours a little gasoline into the pool, watching the change in texture as it thins and goes oddly shimmery.

In the closet, he finds half-drunk bottles of cheap high-proof alcohol. He lets the trail of gasoline lead to those too, and opens them all.

Done with his work, he drops the now-empty can and walks through the house, reeking of gasoline and blood, and goes downstairs and past Bram’s body one more time without looking down or looking back.

His heart beats steady and calm inside of him as he lights a match and lets it fall onto the porch, to find the first thin trail of liquid.

He stands long enough to watch the flames lick into the kitchen, over Bram’s body. He stares long enough to watch Bram’s long wavy pale hair begin to darken and curl. He watches the flames find their way from kitchen to living room. He watches the curtains burn.

Then he turns and walks down the steps.

His hands have started to shake.

Ryan, kneeling on the ground next to his brother with his wrist torn open and pouring blood, pressing it against Danny’s mouth, speaks to him but Nate doesn’t hear it, turning from Danny’s body - too late too late too late too late - and going back to the other fire, to see Bram’s heart burning, turning black. It will be ash soon, and nothing else.

Nate doesn’t cry, no.

Still, he doesn’t cry.

Not yet.

The wind blows warm over his face and Nate takes in a breath. The world is blood and smoke and his failure to save the most important person in his life. The world is the empty feeling underneath his skin. The world is the grief trying to claw it way back up his throat to make him scream-

“Nate!” Ryan’s voice is right next to his ear and he jumps as Ryan grabs at his arm, spinning him around. The yellow eyes are dull, shadowed, bereft of power - but they still dance. You can’t torture the beauty out of Ryan Michaelson.

You can’t kill the light inside him, or the things that live there.

He smells like green hills and a rainy season over waving grasslands. He carries the scent of a predator that hunts at dusk and at dark. Blood soaks the hills, pours down the river, threads into the homes of sleeping people at night.

He’s smiling.

“Nate, he’s not-... Nate, listen to me!”

Nate jerks back into himself, blinking rapidly as his strange disconnect ends. There is fire all around the two of them, and Nate realizes for the first time that the shed will burn, too. It’s already dangerously close to catching. The air is starting to heat around them. “What? Wh-what, Ryan, I-”

“Danny’s not dead! I-I can’t-... but he’s not dead! He’s still breathing! We still have time!”

In the distance, the first faint sound of sirens. Nate raises his head, staring. “Who c-c-called the c-cops?”

Ryan lets out a peal of wild, half-hysterical laughter, and the sound is beautiful. “Whoever saw that bigass cloud of fucking smoke, Nate! Someone’s-...” He swallows, suddenly, sways as his knees buckle, and Nate catches him, arms around him, keeping him upright. “Someone’s... coming for us. Someone’s coming to h-help, someone’s... someone’s coming...”

“Someone’s c-c-coming,” Nate agrees, softly.

Ryan turns to look at him, then slides his arms around Nate, hugging him, burying his head in the side of Nate’s neck.

“Someone fucking came,” He whispers. “And Danny’s not dead.”

Nate’s eyes move over to the tall, thin body sprawled out on the ground, and watches as empty blue eyes blink once, slowly move to meet his.

He’d seen emptiness and thought it was death, but it was someone else buying Danny - buying Nate - some time.

He gently pulls away from Ryan and moves to the muzzle, picking it up in one hand. Someone else is still watching him, blue eyes following his movements, and he holds it out. “Never ag-again,” He says, softly.

Someone else doesn’t move. Just keeps watching as Nate drags himself to the fire and throws the muzzle in.

But when he turn back again, tears are running down Danny’s face, his lips twisting with the agony, and he whimpers, “Nate, h-hurts-”

Nate and Ryan both run to him at once.

When the fire trucks arrive, they find the three of them together on the ground, Nate and Ryan each holding one of Danny’s hands.

---

@slytherynjolras, @whump-it, @bleeding-demon-teeth, @finder-of-rings, @burtlederp, @whumpywhumper, @18-toe-beans, @pumpkinthefangirl, @special-spicy-chicken, @swordkallya, @astrobly, @slaintetowhump, @moose-teeth, @untilthepainstarts, @whumpiary,  @lave-whump @raigash @cupcakes-and-pain

[darks-ink]

Rewind - Ectoberweek 2020

Acknowledging canon episodes? In my fanfic? It’s more likely than you think. Also I’m experimenting by adding the links onto this post so lemme know whether this shows up in the tag or not.

Rating: Gen Warnings: - Genre: Hurt/Comfort Words: 2,834 Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Masters of All Time, Families of choice/Found family

[AO3] [FFN]

---

“What do you mean, you can’t?” Danny darted around Clockwork, refusing to let him turn away. “Clockwork!”

The ghost sighed, heavily and wearily, and looked down at Danny. “I cannot. It is that simple.”

“But that’s— that’s nonsense,” Danny insisted, gesturing wildly. “You’re the ghost of time! How can you not rewind this and fix it?!”

“I warned you, Daniel, that this would be a permanent change.” Clockwork blinked slowly, as if trying to convey some sort of emotion with his empty red eyes. “You did not heed my warning, or considered yourself above it. Now, you must live with the consequences.”

“But you’re—”

“Not all-powerful, no matter what you might think,” Clockwork cut in, narrowing his eyes. “You have altered the past, despite my warning not to. To travel back again would risk the stability of the timeline entirely. Would you rather see all of reality destroyed?”

Clockwork hummed before Danny could answer. “I would not, therefore I will not allow it to be so. The past has been set in stone, but the future is still malleable. Make it into something you can live with.”

“But…” Danny bit back his automatic response. There was no point. He’d tried fighting Clockwork before, and gotten his ass handed to him as a result. He sighed instead. “Can you at least take me back to Mom and Dad, then? The Portal looked like it blew up after I flew through it, and I don’t know where to find another.”

At that, Clockwork smiled. Or, Danny though it was a smile, at least. A small twitch of the ghost’s lips. “That, I can do.”

“Thanks, Clockwork.” Danny watched as the ghost swung his staff, a portal opening in its wake. “And… sorry, I guess.”

“Apology accepted.” Clockwork floated aside, waving a hand towards the portal. “Goodbye, Daniel.”

Danny nodded back, before flying through the portal. Welp. Time to face the music.

The portal spat him out in Amity Park, near his house. For a moment, Danny paused, considering the possibility that it brought him here because he consider Amity to be his home, no matter what. But then he realized that there was a car parked in front of the garage, one far too fancy for the neighborhood. His parents must’ve come this way, taking one of Vlad’s cars.

Thus satisfied, he flew down, phasing through the front door. No need to be secretive—both Jack and Maddie knew his secret already.

Still, he was surprised to find them both in the living room, apparently trying to clean up the place. Maddie saw him first, her body stilling. And how strange was it, that he found it comforting to see her here, in her cyan jumpsuit, with red goggles over her eyes? (That was weird, right? Danny felt like it should be weird.)

“Danny,” she said, quiet with surprise. “What are you doing here?”

At her words, Jack also looked up from where he was standing. He, too, looked almost exactly like his counterpart from Danny’s own timeline. Except with ecto-acne, of course.

“I, uh.” Danny shrugged, unsure. He felt thrown off by seeing his parents like this. It was almost right, but just slightly off. “Clockwork couldn’t undo it. Apparently the timeline is too unstable, or something. So I have to… stay in this world, I guess.”

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.” She straightened up from her crouch, walking closer to him. “I— It probably won’t be easy, but you can stay with us for as long as you need to. Right, Jack?”

“Of course!” his dad immediately responded, nodding vigorously. “We’re… figuring stuff out, of course. But it’s thanks to you that we reunited in the first place. And you’re our kid!” He grinned, wide and loving, in that typical Jack Fenton way. “Even if the way you got here is a little weird, you’re still our family!”

“I…” He landed, noiselessly. Hesitated for a moment. Then closed the space between him and Maddie, wrapping his arms around her. “Thanks. Both of you. I’m sorry.”

The enormous warm arms of Jack Fenton came up around them. “Don’t be, kiddo. You have nothing to be sorry for,” he rumbled, underlined with an almost audible buzz of his core. It emitted a palpable feeling of family.

“No, but, I…” Danny sighed, crushing his head against Maddie’s shoulder. “It’s my fault. All of this is! I tried going back in time to change the past, to make it so Vlad wouldn’t get ecto-acne so he couldn’t infect my friends with it, but instead you became half-ghost.”

Danny drew a shaky breath, trying to fight past the emotions welling in his throat. They needed to understand. “It’s all my fault! Without my meddling, none of this would’ve happened!”

“Sounds to me,” his mom began, her thin fingers gently combing through his hair, “like you tried to help your friends, Danny.” She clicked her tongue. “Maybe not in the best way possible, but the intention was good.”

“I can’t imagine that Vlad would’ve dealt with being half-ghost much better than I,” Jack added, faint laughter in his voice. “Never mind the ecto-acne. But, of course! That’s how you recognized it!”

“Yeah, um.” Danny drew back from the hug a little. “I can… tell you guys, I guess? About my timeline. The differences, at least.”

“That’d be nice,” Maddie agreed, as Jack’s arms released them. She looked around, and Danny could read the reluctance in her body language, even despite the goggles. “We might have to clear some more stuff before we have the space to sit.”

“We could always sit on the floor?” Jack suggested, shrugging at her look. “Or Danny and I can float as ghosts.”

“Right.” Maddie shook her head, wandering over to the single chair not covered in debris and trash and reaching up to her hood. “If that works for you two, that might be the most convenient.” She paused, frowning at Danny, hood pulled off but still in hand. “But… if Vlad was the one who became half-ghost in your timeline, why are you half-ghost as well, Danny?”

“I, uh.” He shrugged, lifting his feet off of the ground to sit in mid-air. “Became half-ghost in an accident of my own.”

The frown he received from both parents very clearly asked for him to elaborate, so he did. “Okay, so. The point of divergence is the accident in college, obviously. In my timeline, Vlad got hit by the explosion, not Jack, so he becomes half-ghost and stuff. You two, Jack and Maddie, get together, especially since Vlad was cutting contact. You decide to become ghost researchers together and move to Amity Park.”

He paused to gesture to the house around them. “Specifically, you move here, to this specific house. You make it your place of business as well, called FentonWorks. Big neon sign on the front of the building, the basement downstairs becomes a lab, and at some point you two built the Ops Center at the top, which can also be used for inventing stuff. I’m… obviously not very informed of the details, since I was the second kid and you two talked very little about the past. Only,” here he made a face, “ghosts. Everything was always about ghosts.

“Anyway,” he continued, after a short pause to take a breath. “You two have Jazz first, and then me two years later. At some point after that, you start working on a new Portal, full scale, down in the lab. It takes forever to build, because you’re trying to be careful about it, I guess? But you finish it, eventually, when Jazz is sixteen and I fourteen.”

Maddie narrowed her eyes, darting them over his body. The question is clear as day: isn’t he basically fourteen?

“So,” Danny trumped on, ignoring the silent question, “After years of work, their Portal was finally finished! The ultimate proof that ghosts were real! And then it didn’t turn on.”

“It didn’t?” Jack gasped, clearly startled. Danny realized that, somehow, he’d missed the man shifting into his ghost form. “But—”

“It didn’t,” Danny interrupted, holding up a hand. “Because apparently, someone had built a secondary power switch inside the Portal, and they had forgotten to turn it on. So when they plugged in the power, the Portal didn’t turn on.”

There was clear calculation in the eyes of both of his parents, now. Danny continued his explanation before they could figure it out. Needed to tell his story to his parents, for once. He didn’t think he would ever get a chance to tell his actual parents, after all.

“Later that day, after Jazz convinced you two to take a break, my friends talked me into checking out the Portal. Just the three of us, since Tucker was interested in technology and Sam was interested in all things goth and occult.” He shrugged, almost fatalistically. “Sam suggested I take a closer look, and I did. Only, I didn’t realize that the power was still plugged in, so when I accidentally hit the power switch inside…”

“Oh!” Maddie gasped. “Oh, how terrible!”

“That must’ve hurt like hell,” Jack agreed, a painful grimace on his face. It looked strange, the genuine emotional expression with the blue skin, the pointed fangs poking out of his mouth. “Your parents must’ve felt awful, to know that they put their kid in such danger!”

“Well…” Danny made a face. “They kinda… didn’t know? They were both avid ghost hunters, both full of hate towards ghosts. I considered telling them, at first, but then they saw their first ghosts and…” Danny sighed. “I guess I was just scared that I’d be just a ghost to them. That they wouldn’t believe me.”

“That’s… That’s awful.” Jack floated over to nudge Danny. “Kiddo, if your dad was anything like me, I promise you, he would’ve cared.”

“I know.” Danny shook his head dismissively. “I know. That wasn’t why I was worried. I was afraid that they wouldn’t believe that I was me, that I was their son. That they would think that I had hurt or replaced their own kid.”

Maddie touched his shoulder, and Danny jerked, surprised. When had she stood up? Walked over? “Well… At least it is of no concern anymore, right? You’re here now, with us, and we believe you.”

It felt like something had crawled into his gut and died. “Yeah,” he said, with terribly faked enthusiasm. “Yeah, right.”

“It’s not much of a comfort, is it?” Maddie made a face. “I’m sorry. I guess I have very little parenting experience, compared to your actual mother.”

“Honestly?” He snorted. “It makes very little difference. Like I said, she and Dad spent most of the time in the lab, or otherwise occupied with ghost research.”

Maddie clicked her tongue, distaste clear on her face. “Well, isn’t that a waste. They have such a lovely son, and they don’t even enjoy his presence?”

“Well, y’know.” Danny shrugged, trying to ignore the pleased whirring of his core. “They try, now, but with all the ghosts we’re all kinda distracted. Them with trying to catch some for their research, and I with trying to protect the townspeople from the ghosts.”

Jack’s expression visibly brightened—as did the glow around his body. “You’re a ghost hunter! A ghost-fighting superhero! Just like I tried to be!”

“Uh.” Danny felt his brain skip over, then remembered. Somewhere in the blathering when he first arrived, Jack had mentioned that he’d tried using his powers for good. “Yeah, I guess so. But I had a little more success with it.” He grinned sheepishly.

“We should team up!” Jack exclaimed, wrapping an arm around Danny’s shoulders. “The two of us, and Maddie, if she wants to! We’d be a fantastic team!”

Danny laughed, a little uncertain. “Well, maybe. But we’ll need a Thermos to catch the ghosts, and a Portal to dump them back into the Ghost Zone, first. Those were kind of my major tools in managing. And Sam and Tucker, of course.”

“Oh?” Maddie asked, perking up. “Sam and Tucker? You mentioned them before, I think. Are those your friends?”

“Yeah, they… I guess they don’t know me, here.” He sighed, feeling himself drift down closer to the floor, away from his dad’s arm. “They… We were best friends, to the absolute end. Even after the stuff in the lab, the half-ghost stuff, the constant attacking ghosts and hunting them down, they stuck by my side.”

“I’m sorry, kiddo.” Jack landed as well, although unlike Danny, he landed on his feet. “But they’ll be around, right? It might not be the same, but they’re not gone.”

“Might as well be,” Danny huffed. He shook his head. “It won’t be the same. Without the years of shared experiences…”

Maddie and Jack shared a look—not quite as conversational as the ones his parents shared, but a good enough substitute—before apparently deciding to change the topic altogether.

“Why don’t we see if we can clear some rooms upstairs?” Maddie asked, clapping her hands together. “We’ll need at least two rooms clear enough for use, preferably three.”

“Three?” Danny echoed, frowning at them. “You’re not sharing?”

“We haven’t seen each other in years, Danny,” she pointed out, getting up from the chair. “We’re still reconnecting, never mind actually getting together.”

“Right,” he agreed, following her to the stairs. “But you are moving in?”

“Friends can share a house,” Jack pointed out, shifting back to his human form in a flash of white light, and reminding Danny to do the same. “And this way she won’t have to worry about getting kicked out of Vlad’s mansion while all the paperwork and stuff is happening.”

“And I never liked the mansion much,” Maddie admitted with a wry smile. “I liked the Vlad I knew, way back when, but over time it became clear that that wasn’t the real Vlad. I’d been thinking about divorcing him for longer, but… I don’t know. There was no one else I knew, nowhere I could go.”

“Not even to Aunt Alicia? I mean, she’s divorced as well, isn’t she?”

“I… didn’t realize she had married in the first place.” Maddie’s steps faltered for a moment before she continued up the stairs. “I guess I was afraid that she would judge me for marrying Vlad in the first place. I don’t know… It seems rather illogical, now, but I figured I could put up with Vlad well enough. And with his money I could afford my research, even if I had to do it behind his back.”

They stopped in the hallway upstairs, looking around. Danny resisted the urge to grimace. Somehow upstairs was even more of a mess than downstairs had been.

“Which room was yours, in your timeline?” Jack asked, sidling up to Danny.

“Uh.” He carefully stepped past the mess, stopping in front of his door. Or the door that belonged to the room that was his, in his own timeline. “This one. And Jazz had that one,” he pointed over to the room that his sister used. “The one next to mine was a guest room.”

Jack nodded. “Right, that makes sense! You can take that room if you want, Danny. Mads, you can take the other room if you want. The one next to here I used as a lab for a while, so cleaning…”

“Won’t be easy, got it.” She nodded as well. “I’ll take the other one. Let’s start with clearing out this one, shall we?”

“Let’s.” Danny pushed open the door, bracing himself mentally for the whiplash of seeing his room without it being his room.

As a result, he was almost toppled over by the cat that rushed past his legs.

“Jasmine!” Jack cheered, crouching down to pick up the fluffy white thing. “Is this where you’ve been hiding, honey?”

“Well,” Danny said, then stopped. He had no clue what to say. He didn’t even know what he thought of this.

“Well,” he tried again. “At least now I know who picked the name for Jazz, and who picked mine.”

Maddie snorted, gently pushing him into the room. “Personally, I think Danny is a great name, honey.”

“Thanks,” he retorted, eyes darting over the room. It was dark—the curtains were closed despite the time of day—but his night vision was pretty solid. “It’s short for Daniel.”

“And Jazz for Jasmine, then? That’s cute.” She ruffled his hair as she stepped past him, drawing open the curtains. “Hm. we certainly have our work cut out for us.”

“Yeah,” Danny agreed, looking at the piles of he-didn’t-know-what lying around. There was a bed buried in one of the piles, which suggested it might’ve been a guest room at some point. Or used by someone else, before Jack moved in. “And we still need to clear yours, too.”

“Better get working then,” Maddie decided, shaking her head as she crouched down. “Things won’t get better on their own, after all.”

[aion-rsa]

5 underrated Richard Donner movies you need to see

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Richard Donner will forever be remembered as the filmmaker who created the blueprint for the modern superhero blockbuster with 1978’s Superman starring Christopher Reeve.

Yet that doesn’t tell even half the story of the Bronx-born filmmaker’s brilliant filmography.

Donner was in his late 40s by the time Superman came along, having made a name for himself in Hollywood two years earlier, with 1976’s suitably terrifying The Omen.

Prior to that, he was a budding director making the transition from the small screen to the world of cinema. Donner worked on everything from Gilligan’s Island to The Twilight Zone. Even then, it was clear he was destined for bigger things though, as anyone who saw  “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”, the iconic episode of The Twilight Zone he directed, starring William Shatner, can attest.

While a disagreement with producers ultimately saw him walk away from Superman II, the 1980s saw Donner establish himself as an incredibly versatile big budget director capable of handling everything from the epic family adventure fun of The Goonies to the balancing act of action and comedy found within the buddy cop antics of Lethal Weapon.

It was a skillset that drew admiration from the very best in the movie industry, including Steven Spielberg who was among the first to pay tribute to Donner after learning he had passed away, aged 91.

“Dick had such a powerful command of his movies, and was so gifted across so many genres,” Spielberg, who worked with Donner on The Goonies, said.

“Being in his circle was akin to hanging out with your favourite coach, smartest professor, fiercest motivator, most endearing friend, staunchest ally, and – of course – the greatest Goonie of all.”

Donner may not have had the same impact in the 1990s and early 2000s but he still enjoyed major success with the Lethal Weapon franchise and as a producer with movies like Free Willy and X-Men.

More importantly, the other films he made during that period and in the years between some of his biggest hits remain well worth revisiting or seeking out for the first time – starting with these five.

Ladyhawke

Coming hot on the heels of The Goonies and two years prior to Lethal Weapon, Ladyhawke represented another major departure for Donner. A dark medieval fantasy, it centred on Rutger Hauer’s mysterious Captain Etienne Navarre and his female companion Lady Isabeau (Michelle Pfeiffer), a pair of star-crossed lovers on the run from a vengeful bishop who has placed a demonic curse on their heads. While Navarre transforms into a wolf by night, Isabeau exists as a Hawk by day. Teaming up with petty thief Philippe Gaston (Matthew Broderick) they embark on a quest to overthrow the evil bishop and break the spell.

Something of a passion project, Donner had attempted to get Ladyhawke off the ground several times before finally getting the green light from Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox in the mid ’80s. The film then suffered another setback when Kurt Russell, originally cast as Navarre, dropped out during rehearsals. 

That ultimately proved a blessing in disguise with Hauer going on to deliver arguably his best performance since Blade Runner. Not everything about Ladyhawke works – Broderick’s character feels a little too close to Ferris Bueller while the runtime could be trimmed down – but it remains a beautifully realised fantasy epic, full of memorable action set pieces, stunning cinematography and a spellbinding turn from Pfeiffer.

A box office bomb upon release, Ladyhawke has stood the test of time too, garnering a cult following as an authentic and fresh take on the sword and sorcery formula. 

Maverick

Maverick is the film Will Smith must have hoped Wild Wild West would be; a funny, clever action comedy based on a classic TV show. Coming in an era when most westerns were deadly serious, Donner’s film also felt like a breath of fresh air and benefited hugely from a masterful William Goldman script that was both witty and unpredictable.

The latest in a series of films featuring Donner’s muse-of-sorts, Mel Gibson, this time out Mel plays Bret Maverick, a brilliant card player and equally impressive con artist trying to collect enough money to earn a seat at a high-stakes poker game. Along the way he is forced to contend with a fellow scammer in the form of Jodie Foster’s Annabelle Bransford as well as lawman Marshal Zane Cooper, played by James Garner, who starred in the original TV series.

While the glut of cameos from country music stars and the likes of Danny Glover can be a little distracting, there’s something wonderfully charming about Maverick with Gibson, Foster and Garner all on top form and boasting an undeniable chemistry that helps keep things entertaining. 

The climactic poker game which sees Maverick face off against Alfred Molina’s psychopathic Angel is also expertly handled by Donner, who cranks up the tension as Maverick reveals his final, decisive, hand with a slow-motion toss of the final card towards the camera. A critical and financial success, Maverick has been largely lost in the shuffle since its release but should be sought out.

Conspiracy Theory

There’s something strangely prescient about Conspiracy Theory given the current predilection for such thinking on the internet at large. One of Donner’s most inventive and intelligent outings alongside Gibson, this time out Mel plays Jerry Fletcher, a New York City cab driver with a penchant for paranoid conspiracy theories.

Jerry’s life takes a turn for the strange when he finds himself being targeted by a set of shady government goons led by Patrick Stewart’s Dr Jonas. He quickly realises one of the conspiracies he has been promoting in his weekly newsletter (this was the ‘90s) is based more in reality than he thought. The question is: which one?

An engrossing thriller featuring Donner’s trademark dashes of witty humour, Conspiracy Theory is bolstered significantly by the presence of the ever-reliable Julia Roberts as a government lawyer with a soft spot for Jerry. Despite a lengthy run time, Donner also keeps the action moving along at an engaging pace while Gibson’s performance is just the right side of manic to keep you rooting for him.

A first foray into the kind of deep state conspiracy thrillers that were commonplace in Hollywood at the time, the film also boasts some genuinely striking moments, not least the sequence where Jerry undergoes “psychotic testing” at the hands of Dr Jonas, which wouldn’t have looked out of place in A Clockwork Orange.

Though it was a hit with audiences, Conspiracy Theory earned mixed reviews but appears increasingly worthy of reappraisal.

Timeline

Some movies are big, dumb but lots of fun. Timeline sits firmly in that category despite what many naysayers would have you believe. It’s a brash, simplistic sci-fi flick to rival the likes of The Core and Geostorm and thoroughly entertaining to boot.

The fact that it features Gerard Butler, as well as the late, great, Paul Walker only adds to that sentiment.

Walker plays Chris Johnston who, along with Butler’s Andre Marek and a team of fellow archaeologists travel back in time through a wormhole to 14th century France to rescue their professor, Dr Edward Johnston (Billy Connolly), who just happens to be Walker’s character’s dad too.

Based on a book by Michael Crichton, Donner had been in the running to direct Jurassic Park a decade earlier and jumped at the chance to adapt Timeline for the big screen. While filming went off without a hitch, Donner repeatedly clashed with Paramount Pictures in post-production and was forced to re-cut the film three times in a development that saw the release date pushed by nearly a year. The resulting edit did not sit well with Crichton either, who disliked it so intensely he stopped licensing his work for a few years after.

Whether Donner’s original cut would have earned better reviews or Crichton’s approval remains to be seen but what remains of Timeline is still a well shot, enjoyable sci-fi yarn with some neat medieval action flourishes. 

16 Blocks

Donner’s final film also ranks among his most unappreciated. On the surface, 16 Blocks sounds like the perfect fodder for a game of buddy cop movie bingo.

It stars Bruce Willis as Jack Mosley, a worn-out NYPD Detective with a drinking problem tasked with transporting Mos Def’s trial witness Eddie Bunker to court. Problems arise when some of Jack’s fellow officers arrive to kill Eddie and prevent him from testifying. Eager for redemption, Jack decides to take the would-be assassins on and get Eddie to court on time.

A formulaic enough premise, 16 Blocks is emboldened by the fact it plays out in real-time with Eddie required at the courthouse by no later than 10am. In this sense, Donner found himself in new territory with an action thriller that thrives on a unique sense of urgency. 

While the filmmaker is no stranger to the action formula, this setup sees him imbue events with a renewed sense of chaos, as Jack and Eddie fight their way through armed adversaries, busy crowds and bustling traffic, all against a cacophony of shouts, car horns and gun blasts.

Ostensibly a chase movie on foot rather than four wheels, the action traverses 16 blocks in 118 minutes and rarely lets up for a second with Donner proving a dab hand at balancing the action with the engaging back-and-forth between Willis and Def who are both understated yet effective throughout.

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Throw in the ever-watchable David Morse as the leader of the shady cops baying for Eddie’s blood and you have arguably one of the most underrated action thrillers of the early 2000s 

The post 5 underrated Richard Donner movies you need to see appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[softlass27]

Directors cut of One More Word and you Wont Survive 🙏

Gah, this fic is so long, but I shall try and break it down!

So the initial idea came from a brief conversation I had with @soft-husbands about how ridiculous it was that in 2018 the writers had Lachlan kidnap Rebecca (who literally no one cared about) instead of Robert, which would have been a much better storyline. Since I needed to write something for her in a gift exchange, I decided to do my own version of it!

These are the key points/main ideas that were the most important for me:

Aftermath

One thing I knew I definitely wanted to do – even before I’d really worked out the exact plot – was include a lot of the actual aftermath of the kidnapping, and really show how it mentally affected Robert (as well as Aaron). I didn’t want to write one of those fics where you just have the drama, and then maybe one scene at the end where everything’s suddenly okay again. Which, y’know, is what the Emmerdale writers tend to do. 🤷 

So that’s why the fic is literally divided into two halves – the action and the aftermath. And I loved writing the second half – looking at Robert’s mental state, showing other characters’ reactions, lots of communicating between him and Aaron etc.

I didn’t want Robert to just be fine straight away, I wanted him to take some time to settle back into things again, to go to counselling and to work towards recovering from what he’d been through. I kept it mostly quite upbeat and hopeful – I couldn’t bring myself to make it too angsty – but I did have Robert struggle to come to terms with what had happened to him.

On top of that, I wanted Aaron to be his rock. The writers never really gave Aaron a chance to be the strong one in the relationship, not for longer than a couple of episodes or so, and I wish we could’ve seen it. It would’ve been great to watch, but also a nice switch for Danny and Ryan (who would’ve both smashed it!).

And of course this was an excuse for me to write lots of soft fluffy husbands content, which as you all know, is my jam.

Lachlan

So in the show, I thought the writers did a good job of building up Lachlan’s psychotic tendencies. In late 2017, he did begin to seem quite scary, you could see they were building up to him properly snapping.

But then as soon as he actually did start killing people, he became kind of… meh. They’d done all this buildup to make him as deranged as possible, but from the Whites car crash onwards, his character lost all that great creepiness and just became a bit of a wet wipe. His killing of Gerry was completely lame, his kidnapping of Rebecca was rubbish and so was the aftermath. He spent most of his time flapping about what to do and obsessing over Belle, and honestly he became one of the most boring soap villains they’ve ever done. By the time he was arrested and went to prison, they’d lost so much momentum it was kind of a pitiful ending for him.

Maybe it’s because I watch a lot of crime stuff (both true and fictional), but I just wanted more. I wanted him to be terrifying, to be unhinged and scarily cold. And it made sense to me that he would really show this side of himself by kidnapping and torturing Robert. Robert’s been his number one enemy from the beginning – he hates him more than anyone and essentially blames him for every single thing that went wrong in his life. In terms of storytelling, it only seemed right that his final showdown would be with Robert and no one else. It’s what both characters deserved.

So that’s what I wrote. I did a big final “fight to the death” between the two, and I tried to make Lachlan this cold-blooded psychopath who got off on making Robert suffer as much as possible – for as long as possible. All those years of built-up resentment finally spilled out of him and it made him totally lose the plot. But at the same time, he was able to switch that off and act completely normal when he was with Belle. I tried to show this in a few scenes, like including a moment where he told Robert – his kidnapped victim – he had to go because Belle was expecting him to go for breakfast with her family.

I really enjoyed doing it, but at the same time I was terrified that the way I was writing him would seem ridiculous, like he’d come off as a bit of a silly pantomime villain. It seems to have paid off though, judging by peoples’ reactions, so I’m quite happy with how my Lachlan turned out :)

Chas/Paddy/Liv

I knew from the beginning that Chas, Paddy and Liv would all be on the “wrong” side of the story, so to speak. They’d be the sort of “lesser” villains, the ones causing conflict on Aaron’s end and in the second half of the story.

On the show, I never really believed that any of them actually accepted Robert as family after reunion 2.0, to me it seemed like Chaddy were just civil with him as long as he made Aaron happy. And I never bought into the whole “roblivion” concept during boyfriends era, so I was even less convinced of it in husbands era. I always found it shallow and fake on Liv’s end.

This was pretty much proved right by Chas, Paddy and Liv’s behaviour during the aftermath of Robert’s exit – all three of them showed their true colours and their true feelings about him very quickly. 

Considering every time things got rough for Robron on the show, Chaddy and Liv either turned on Robert or just acted like he never existed/meant anything and actively tried to push Aaron to “grow up” and move on from him, it made perfect sense to me to have them suspect the worst of Robert in my story. To assume that him disappearing meant that he’d done something wrong, rather than he was in trouble.

(Fun fact: the scene where Robert has that big showdown with Chaddy in the pub was actually one of the first ones I wrote. Ah, priorities.)

I wanted Aaron to be strong, to never doubt that Robert was in trouble and to unapologetically stick by him in the aftermath. I wanted him to stand up to Chaddy and to put Robert before Liv for once (judging by quite a few comments that I got, lots of other people did too, so I’m glad I went for it!). I also wanted him to make it very clear that his main family unit – his priority – was Robert and Seb, not the Dingles’ feelings. Anyone who disagreed with him could fuck right off as far as he was concerned.

By the end of the story, Aaron has very much allied himself with the Sugden family, that’s why we saw lots of him with Diane and Vic. I really wanted to call back to the “Who Shot Robert” era, where they both stepped up and rallied around Robert 100%, only this time with the bonus of Aaron being on their side, too.

Rebecca/Ross/Seb

I mean… this is quite self-explanatory, but I knew from the beginning that Rebecca would die and Ross would end up going to Liverpool miserable and alone. No happy ending for either of them because they didn’t fucking deserve it.

And of course, this would mean that Seb would stay with his dads where he belongs. I will never get tired to coming up with new ways for this to happen (just you wait for Aaron week).

The ending

Since I was writing this fic for the engagement anniversary gift exchange, I thought it’d be fun to include an actual engagement at the end of it. I hadn’t necessarily planned to make it another lay-by proposal, but when I looked at my story timeline (yes, I did make an actual timeline lmao) and I realised that the 4th December wasn’t very far away, I knew I HAD to get them back to that spot. It was only right!

So I’m probably in the minority here, but I’m not actually a huge fan of proposal 2.0. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice and super cute, but the whole “trying to propose to each other at the same time” gimmick just wasn’t really for me. I thought it was a bit unrealistic that they’d both separately just randomly come up with the same idea at the same time (I know, I’m sorry). And since we’d already had Robert do it the first time, I kind of wanted the second one to be totally Aaron’s thing, let him have a proper turn.

So I took elements of proposal 2.0 that I liked – the location, some of the dialogue – and took out the bits that I didn’t – Robert trying to propose, Aaron’s funfair lie (I’m sorry but that was just dumb), the jinx thing, other people (Chaddy and Liv) being so involved. Thereby creating my own perfect version of proposal 2.0 (what can I say, I am a self-indulgent girl).

I think in this universe, after everything they’d been through, after Aaron’s terror of losing Robert for good, it seemed right that he would be the one to do the asking. And because we know he’s a sentimental sod, it made sense that he would wait until their lay-by anniversary to do it.

[ladylynse]

Once upon a time, I was going to write a Danny Phantom fic post-Connections and Confessions with Dani. This is the first chapter of that (there’s more if anyone’s interested), and it involved me essentially writing out Phantom Planet as canon, because why not.... (Brief bits of blood and torture ahead.)

Dani had never dealt with Clockwork before, but when he shows her the current path of the timeline, she has to change it--no matter the consequences.

Danielle bit her lip, hoping the pain would distract her from how tired she was getting as she strove to hold her intangibility. For all her travels, she’d never had to turn anything particularly big intangible. And this…. This was beyond big. Yes, it seemed like half the ghosts from the Ghost Zone were helping, but that didn’t make it any less complex. Every person. Every tree. Every building, every animal, every blade of grass. Ice and rock and water and burning magma. She had to force her intangibility outward, jumping through the very molecules in the air so that it spread to encompass the entire atmosphere to catch whatever wasn’t physically touching the ground at the moment, from birds to planes to insects— Everything.

But even though she felt like she was going to collapse, Dani continued to pour her strength and energy into creating and maintaining her intangibility.

And the asteroid got closer.

Danielle wondered, for a brief, panicking moment, what would happen if Danny was wrong. If ectoranium had anti-ghost elements, would intangibility even help, or did that make it phase-proof? Were they doing this for nothing? Had they just created a sense of false hope? Was she going to die in the next second anyway, despite everything?

Focus.

She knew how this played out, so why was she having doubts? They were going to succeed. The Earth was intangible, and the so-called Disasteriod would pass harmlessly through it.

Correction: was passing harmlessly through it. Dani grunted at the extra strain it took, and she started to shake despite herself, though she didn’t break her hold. Usually, when she passed through something intangible, or vice versa, it was as easy as going through air. As if nothing was there. No resistance whatsoever. At best, if she was really, really tired, and whatever she was going through was really, really thick, then it was a bit more like swimming.

This felt like slogging through waist-deep mud.

It was nigh on impossible to keep going, and it was a test of wills to get through it.

A shout finally rang out, and Dani was able to relax, releasing her intangibility and sinking back down to the ground. She still had to stay out of sight, but so long as she melted into the crowd of ghosts, she was fairly certain Danny wouldn’t spot her. And even if he did spot her, there was a chance that he wouldn’t realize…everything. It was possible that there were too many ghosts around for him to make the connection.

When the rest of the ghosts went back through the portal to the Ghost Zone, though, she summoned up the last of her strength to turn invisible.

And that was how she watched as Danny’s parents confronted him about his secret and as he chose to reveal it to everyone who was there.

For the sake of Danny’s future, she made sure all the news cameras had been turned off. His secret would be hard enough to keep from the world at large with everyone here knowing it, even if they reached some agreement to keep his identity a secret.

Though the scene Danielle watched was a happy one, she couldn’t help but frown.

Danny’s parents had accepted him. Valerie had accepted him—Danielle could see her smiling and clapping along with everyone else—and it looked like Danny might have more than a friend in Sam after all. And, best of all, Vlad was out of the picture.

So why had Clockwork told her it would be better if things played out another way?

Danielle heard a small sob and turned to see herself, in human form, watching the very same scene unfold. Crying, but smiling. Because she was happy for Danny, but still unhappy that she was here, separate. Alone.

Danny had lost track of her, then, for all that she’d been close by him when they’d turned the world intangible. Danielle, for her part, had stayed well away from Danny—and well away from her other self, until now—while here. She hadn’t wanted to arouse suspicion, so she’d taken up a post on the other side of the great tower, near its base, while the other Dani had positioned herself just behind Danny.

But before Danny could spot the Danielle of this world, of this timeline, where she now stood, off on her own behind the rest of the crowd, there was a flash of light and she transformed into Dani Phantom and took off.

Off where, even Dani couldn’t say. But she was so tired now, and she felt she’d seen enough, so she pulled Clockwork’s Time Medallion from her neck and dropped it into the snow, closing her eyes as the world dissolved around her.

When she opened them again, she was not in Antarctica but rather back in Clockwork’s tower.

With the sound of ticking clocks filling her ears, Danielle admitted, “I don’t get it. What’s wrong with that future?” It was the only future she had ever expected: that Danny would eventually be discovered and accepted by his parents, that he would be happy, and she would continue doing…whatever it was she was doing. Living a nomadic life, on her own, making her own discoveries in her own time, and living her life to its fullest.

Besides, Danny’s idea of turning the entire Earth intangible had worked. If it hadn’t, Dani could see why Clockwork thought this was not the best future to be had. But as it was….

“Even that which looks promising can be disastrous.”

Dani cocked an eyebrow. “Disastrous enough for you to interfere?” She might not know Clockwork well—heck, she hadn’t met him personally until he’d found her a couple hours ago—but his reputation preceded him.

Instead of answering, Clockwork waved his staff, and the portal in front of Danielle, which had been frozen on the frigid scene of Antarctica that Dani had just left, changed.

She saw statues of Danny Phantom holding up the world on one hand, signifying how he had saved it, but before a smile could spread across her face, the scene focused on the statue erected in Amity Park.

And how it was toppled amid a seething crowd, their cries muted to Dani as she watched with a terrible pit in her stomach.

She saw the Guys in White—unmistakable, as always—dragging an older but still very recognizable Danny off in phase proof chains. He must have put up quite a fight, judging by how beaten up he looked, but she suspected they’d caught him by surprise and overwhelmed him. And, judging by the bloody shoulder wound that she could see with remarkable clarity, they’d gotten in a lucky shot. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be slumped between two of them, head lolling forward and the rest of him looking no better than a rag doll.

She saw Sam screaming and crying, trying to break out of Tucker’s hold to go after him, and she saw Tucker’s grim expression as he held on, stronger there than she had ever seen him before.

She saw a weeping Jazz and clearly heart-broken Maddie held in Jack Fenton’s strong arms, the great mammoth of a man himself stilled only, no doubt, by the very real guns pointed at him and his family and the grim knowledge that they would be used without a second thought.

She saw a reckless Valerie springing to the defence of her friend, dodging the shots by the Guys in White as she dove and weaved to get closer to Danny—only to miscalculate, be hit, and crash to the ground, sled smoking and limbs splayed out at unnatural angles.

The scene finally changed, showing the inside of what must be one of the facilities of the Guys in White, and Danielle finally saw herself. Battered and bruised, body coated in a sick mixture of blood and ectoplasm, hanging limply by her wrists in a manner that more befitted a side of beef than a person. This Danielle looked haggard, lost and without purpose, weary beyond belief, all matted hair and tattered clothes. One eye was swollen shut, the other hidden behind straggly black locks. Her lip was split, and all visible skin, discoloured or not, was crisscrossed with angry welts, infected cuts, and telling scars.

This Danielle didn’t twitch as one of the Guys in White injected something into her neck, emptying the large syringe as neat as you please.

But she found her voice and opened her mouth in a scream, twisting and writhing in her chains, as her skin began to shift and melt, as her legs stretched out beneath her and the tips of her toes reached the base of the tub that they’d been high above before. It became blindingly bright, almost unbearable to watch, and as the light faded, Danielle saw that this Dani had been forced into ghost mode.

It was a defence mechanism, she realized. But though her ghost half could withstand more than her human body, the change did little more than speed the process as the other Danielle’s boots began to bubble and boil, sickly green ectoplasm bursting forth and trailing down what was left of her legs to be collected in the tub below.

Danielle thought she might be sick, and the scene changed again.

Danny, straining against the straps that held him to the table, as the Guys in White circled him. Danny, screaming as he was electrocuted. Danny, twitching uncontrollably as they injected something into him. Danny, still as Phantom and semi-conscious, as they cut away his suit and carved deeply into his flesh, reaching in with gloved hands to remove pieces of….

Gagging, Danielle tore her eyes away. When she thought she could speak, she said, in a hoarse whisper, “That can’t be what that leads to.”

“That is not all it leads to,” was all Clockwork said in reply, and Dani felt her stomach turn once more.

“I don’t want to know any more,” she said hollowly.

“What more you do need to know,” Clockwork said, his voice gentler than before, “is that this came about as a result of the Disasteroid incident and Plasmius’s ambition to turn the situation in his favour. The humans turned against their young hero when they realized he was not just a ghost but one which played at being a human as surely as the one they knew to be Vlad Plasmius had. They felt that they had been sorely tricked and that they were lucky to discover the ruse in time.”

“But Danny is human as much as Vlad and I,” Dani protested. “He wasn’t playing at being anything.”

“No,” agreed Clockwork, “but fear and hatred of the unknown, of what was not understood, allowed the events you saw to unfold. Had things been different, there would have been a different outcome.”

“But there still can be a different outcome, can’t there be? That hasn’t happened yet.”

Clockwork smiled at her. “Not in your relative timeline.”

“So I can stop it then, right? That’s why you wanted me here? That’s why you wanted to show me all of this?” She couldn’t let it happen. It was…. She couldn’t let it happen. “What do I have to do?”

Clockwork considered her for a moment, his ever-shifting form settling, at present, on that of an elderly man. “It may be possible to…nudge the future along a different path,” he conceded at length.

“What do I have to do?” Danielle repeated, her fatigue of earlier gone. “I have to be able to do something. You wouldn’t have shown me otherwise!”

There was a pause. “You are familiar with the various FentonWorks inventions, are you not?”

Dani shifted on her feet uncertainly. “Some of them,” she admitted, “but not most of them. I never stuck around Amity Park long enough to need to know them all.”

A slight smile. “But you are familiar with the Booo-merang.” It was not a question, but Dani nodded anyway, remembering how Sam and Tucker had used it to track Danny the first time she’d met him…and delivered him to Vlad.

Clockwork told her what must be done, though she wasn’t entirely convinced any of it would help. For a plan, it seemed entirely too dependent upon coincidences and assumptions to be feasible. But she knew enough of Clockwork to trust his judgement, if not to entirely trust his reasons. If he said this would lead to a different future, then she was willing to try it.

Anything to prevent…that from happening.

XXXXXX

It was late when she sneaked into the Fentons’ lab. Dani was grateful that, for all that their Fenton Ghost Portal was tightly sealed, they had taken no real precautions against ghostly invasion. No active alarms, no shields…nothing.

Unusual, perhaps, if she didn’t know how likely Danny was to set half the things off.

But she wasn’t looking for everything that reacted to Danny; she was only looking for three specific inventions. The first, the Ghost Gabber, she found crammed in the bottom of a box shoved on the bottom of a shelving unit and filled with various odds and ends from pieces of wire to stray nuts and bolts tossed together in an old peanut butter jar.

The second, the Fenton Finder, was retrieved from the top of this same shelving unit, from within a small box (labelled ‘instruction manual’) inside another container that held something that looked, to her unschooled eye, suspiciously like a blow torch.

The third, the Booo-merang, she unearthed from the back of a cupboard, where it had been hidden in a tiny box behind a crate of test tubes.

These three inventions found their way into another box, a simple cardboard one without label or lid, which she placed strategically in the lab so that it would be seen the moment the Fentons came down to the basement again.

From the disarray of the rest of the lab, she rather doubted the box would seem suspicious. After all, as far as Mr. or Mrs. Fenton knew, these inventions had something in common: they all reacted to Danny. It would make sense for them to be placed together, being affected by a similar ‘glitch’, and Danielle was willing to bet Jack and Maddie would assume the other had put them together for that very reason.

“Place them in plain sight,” Clockwork had told her, referring to these three inventions, “and let everything play out from there as it would.”

He’d neglected to tell her exactly how everything would play out, but despite her questioning, she hadn’t gotten any answers, and she’d eventually conceded defeat and agreed to complete the task he’d set her.

It wasn’t hard, after all. Sure, it had taken her a while to find everything, but she’d finished well before the dawn, and no one, not even Danny, had become aware of her presence. She just didn’t understand how this would help. How it would change…everything.

She had a slightly better idea of why Clockwork had chosen to interfere. From what she’d gathered, he looked after Danny. She wasn’t sure why or even how he’d come to do that, especially since she’d never heard of him interfering with the time stream without leave of the Observants, but she didn’t need to know. It wasn’t important, not really. But if this somehow saved Danny from that future, she was willing to do it.

Nothing could be worse than that, right?

Danielle stood in the lab from a moment, taking in all the differences and similarities to Vlad’s lab, with which she was unfortunately intimately familiar. She knew all his labs like the back of her hand—or she had, until they’d been destroyed to the point that he would’ve had to rebuild at least part of them, and she had no desire to go back.

Ever.

Vlad might have created her, but if there was one thing that she had learned, it was that he was not her father, and he was nothing like a father should be to her.

But because of who she was, she would never have a father. The best she had was a false ‘third cousin once removed’ relationship with Danny, and perhaps a tentative friendship with his friends, the Red Huntress included. She’d never stayed in one place long enough to make her own friends. She’d never wanted to form a bond with anyone when she knew it would have to be torn away when she had to move on, and she always had to move on, because she was no one and she belonged nowhere. If she was discovered, she had to disappear and start over.

She’d lost track of how many times she’d done so already.

True, she could spend more of her time in the Ghost Zone. She had no need to hide herself there. But she felt out of place there because she wasn’t truly a ghost and she didn’t truly belong. It felt easier to hide in the Real World and…pretend.

Even if she couldn’t pretend forever.

Dani’s eyes roamed over the lab once more, and she reached out to adjust the Booo-merang so one wing stuck prominently above the top of the box.

She didn’t know if this would help.

She didn’t know if she’d get in trouble with the Observants if it did.

But she had to try, no matter the consequences. For Danny. Because he’d trusted her, had faith in her, and had saved her, more than once. If this changed the future, then she could begin to repay him, even if he would never know about it.

Satisfied with her work, Danielle turned intangible and flew out of the lab, out of the Fenton household, and out of Amity Park. She’d return sometime to see how things were going, to make sure she couldn’t see any stepping stones to that horrible future being laid down, but she felt certain that Clockwork would call on her again if this didn’t work, for whatever reason.

She wasn’t sure why he’d called on her and not Danny in the first place, if Danny was the one he meant to protect, but she was happy to help nonetheless.

Part II

[ofravensandgenesis]

For the prompts, how about 5- "you're safe now"? The deputy and any characters of your choice 👀

A/N: Characters/Verse-Setting: Staci and Joshua. Set in the verse of A Cold And Broken Hallelujah about two years before the start of the events in that fic and the in-game timeline of Far Cry 5.Summary: Staci gets to know the new rookie on the force a bit better.Content includes: PTSD, non-graphic traumatic flashback, mention of non-consensual drug use, mention of medical child abuse, it’s okay though they have coffee and granola bars, Joshua justifying terrible granola bar choices but he makes up for it later, it’s still granola bars blasphemy, but friendship prevails, etcA lil backstory spoiler detail reveal for Joshua, but nothing super major that we won’t cover in ACABH sooner or later. xD This helped me flesh out a bit more details regarding how Staci and Joshua’s friendship came about, which I enjoyed a lot!! Thank you for the prompt Amistrio!! :D ♥Ao3 link here, to avoid tumblr disaster formatting on mobile.

Staci’s bored. Which is a nice change, because it’s been busy as hell with the holidays rolling through like Hurk Jr. deciding to take a steam roller for a joy ride (again) and christening it “the Hurkulator 9000.″ With spray paint.That’d been a messy day. How the man managed to avoid doing time in jail was a mystery, but then again: this was Hope County, home of the weird.The downside of being bored was that it was really, really tempting to fall asleep. Staci couldn’t fall asleep now though, it was almost the end of his shift, almost time to go home and then he could collapse into bed and play dead to the world for a blissful day of sleep.A blissful day, because he was currently working graveyard shift with the new rookie.Not going to lie, Rook was kind of a weirdo. Joey had smacked Staci for saying so to her—it’d been in private though! He’d made sure the new guy wasn’t around to hear ‘em, Jesus. Yeah, Staci knew he was being kind of hard on the guy, but the guy was kind of…jumpy. Selectively jumpy. Weirdly jumpy.Like, not at all surprised if someone showed up from around the corner jumpy, more like…jumpy when talking to people sometimes. Socially jumpy.Specifically, socially jumpy around him, Joey, Whitehorse, and perhaps a few others around town…despite not being from this area. Dude was from Georgia, down south…which was also kind of a tie-in weirdness given the local doomsday religious cult Hope County was home to, now, sadly. The Seeds had come from Georgia, so…Rook showing up coming from the same home state, looking just like the self-proclaimed prophet? Yeah. That was either deeply unfortunate luck or intentional choice there.But the probie had a rather particularly keen skill at vanishing into thin air right before anyone even remotely associated with the cult turned up.It was actually rather impressive, and had Staci wondering where the hell the guy hid sometimes, and how he managed to disappear so damn quietly.So, while the social jumpiness might have something to do with looking like the local loony cult leader admittedly, but it did raise the question of why Rook wasn’t putting in a transfer right away.That’d certainly been a weird day, when Earl had introduced Joshua to the rest of the department. Staci was sure Earl had asked at least once if not twice if Rook was sure he wanted to transfer once he’d seen the man’s picture in his file, informing the potential new transfer about the situation. Rook had apparently thought about it for a long while, and said he wanted to try working in Hope County anyway, if they’d have him—and the department sorely needed more people, they were understaffed as it was. Hell, Whitehorse had accepted Staci too—not that there was anything wrong with Staci. Just, Staci was a city boy, and Hope County was most certainly NOT that.It was about as far as you could get from a proper city without it being an empty stretch of highway, honestly. Hell, they even had a small, abandoned ghost town here…freaky as that was. Something to do with the history back during some mining age or something. He couldn’t remember. Fuck, that was going to bug him if he didn’t look it back up, Staci groused.Still, it was more than middle of nowhere with this potential weirdery of either a lookalike…or an unexpected relative. Even understaffed, Staci wasn’t sure why Earl had said yes.Perhaps he thought Rook would be useful. Whitehorse was calculating, taking the long view of things, but not manipulative, and not willing to put people, his people, in harm’s way without good reason.The Seeds were definitely brewing up trouble, had already been trouble both directly and by fucking proxy with their goddamned followers.Maybe Whitehorse thought Rook would be a possible ace in the hole…or would seed doubt in the Project’s ranks if or when the truth came to light?No…no, that didn’t fit Whitehorse’s M.O.…guess the guy had been earnest enough for Whitehorse to take a chance on him then. That’d work on him. Joey too—she was a bit more protective of him than Staci would’ve expected even for a rookie on the force.Danny…was the most skeptical of them, even compared to Staci.But Danny was kind of a prick. A rules-bound prick, but a prick none the less. Staci knew Danny would be withholding judgment until he’d seen more of Rook in action and conduct. Specifically, how much of a workaholic the newbie was, how much he respected the rules, if he was a fellow neat freak, how good his aim was, and the quality of his character.Yeah, Danny was a judgemental prick, but it wasn’t a bad list…for an obsessive compulsive. Nobody should be that neat at their desk or have a semi-permanent smell of wood polish floating about it.Staci was of the opinion Rook was a write-off—or he would be, if Staci wasn’t also likely saddled with helping Rook learn to take the training wheels off. …eh it wouldn’t be that bad, training new officers could be fun at times. They’d be playing pass-around but it’d likely help round Rook out, while making sure he didn’t get indoctrinated with Danny’s vengefully personal grudge against dust and disorder. There could only be one, for Staci’s sanity. Yes, it was great that Danny was always on point and made sure everything else was, but the man could stand to take it down a notch.None of them wanted more trouble with the Peggies than was needed though, or to have them snooping about. It’d been a bit of a devil’s deal there, in Staci’s opinion: get some sorely needed help in a time when trouble was festering, but said help might be a wild card.Assuming of course Rook wasn’t some long-lost relative of the Seeds out to do a crazy and reconnect with the family and infiltrate the police force…but that’d be crazy talk.But they were in Hope County, which Staci had learned was a hotbed for weird shit, and crazy was the baseline normal. So who fucking knew.The guy wasn’t really trying to convince anyone he wasn’t suspicious by being normal…which, actually worked in his favor, now that Staci thought about it. Was that reverse psychology? It seemed like a lot of work to act as, well, weird as Rook kind of was. It wasn’t really overt or hammed up, just…little things. That didn’t seem likely to be something a person would put on as an act.Ah, fuck. Intrigue was too much work to deal with, but deal with it they had to. Whitehorse had made the choice to accept Rook, so accept Rook they did.And Whitehorse had also made sure they were all on the same page with the official department line of keeping Rook’s unfortunate similarities on the down low. Hell even Nancy had agreed, surprisingly enough, looking wide-eyed enough Staci almost thought her eyeballs would just fall out of her head.How, exactly, a baseball cap and glasses were going to throw people off from noticing that they had a walking double of Joseph Fucking Seed in their ranks was beyond Staci.What was even more out-fucking-rageous was that it was fucking working. Nobody around town had mentioned it, there was no gossip about it, it was like…like…like no one had even noticed Rook’s face yet?It made Staci wonder if he was going fucking crazy. Crazy with boredom in this backwater town. God he needed to get out and find someone new to hang with, find something more to do on his time off. Someone to hit on would be nice, but the city-slicker charm had worn off after a while, and there weren’t a lot of ladies looking for regular one-night-stands—and Staci most certainly wasn’t looking for a relationship, even a friends-with-benefits one. Those tended to escalate far too often, in his opinion. No, thank you. If he wanted to pursue a serious relationship, he would say so at the beginning. Hooking up was hooking up, serious dating was serious dating.Ugh. He probably should see if the rookie wanted to hang out then, since he was a fresh face. Maybe Rook would be more relaxed off-duty with a beer or two in his system.Rook worked hard, at least, pulling his own weight while learning how to get his feet under him. That’d please Danny certainly—all the deputies had been harboring concerns the new guy might be thinking Hope was an easy job with not much going on. Which it was sometimes, just those were the very, very rare occasional blips rather than the day to day norm.Fuck it, fine, the rookie was doing alright in Staci’s book. So far. It was early yet still, a few months in, and it’d be a year before they all settled into accepting Rook as one of their own, but…well, it was nice to have a hair’s worth of breathing room more with another member of the team present. And a gopher to get coffee and doughnuts—he was glad he wasn’t the one getting them all the time now. Well. Most of the time.Fuck, they ran out of doughnuts near the beginning of the shift, but there were granola bars and there’d be coffee in the break room, and he needed something to keep him on his feet until his second (or in this case more like fifth) wind hit. Was it a shitty idea right before he could go home? Yeah. But he wanted to drive home, not drive headfirst into a ditch. Just a small coffee then. And one of those chocolate chip granola bars.Staci stood up with a groan, feeling his bones creak way more loudly than they should’ve at his age—he wasn’t even fucking twenty five yet, God damn. That was an effect of an all-nighter with over time though. Rolling his shoulders as he walked, he rounded the corner, past the bulletin board—and just about walked smack into the new guy. Just about made Staci jump, if he’d had the energy to do so. Too much burn out, not enough coffee for that right now though.“Jesus fucking Christ, Rook. You scared the shit out of me just about.” Staci said, grumbling more than he likely should’ve. It wasn’t the other man’s fault…just, Staci hadn’t heard him coming at all. No footsteps, no nothing.…Staci squinted. Rook’s head was tilted forward a bit, his eyes shut, now that Staci actually was looking.Was. Was Rook asleep? Was Rook a fucking sleepwalker? …that was actually kind of hilarious. Or it would be, if Staci wasn’t dead on his feet. If anything he was a bit illogically envious that the man could walk and sleep at the same time. And that was a sign Staci definitely needed to rest. God.Staci heaved a sigh, annoyed, but really just too tired to deal with bullshit of any kind right now. He reached out and gave Rook’s cheek a quick series of not-quite-gentle smacks. “Wakey wakey, probie, you’re not allowed to sleep on duty even if you can fucking walk and catch forty winks at the same time. Come on now. Raise-y daisy.”Any other time, Staci would’ve considered pranking the other man with this. Grabbing a sharpie and drawing some cartoony dicks and squigglies and whatever else he felt like doodling on his coworker’s face. Well. There’d be other times. Just he wasn’t in the mood right now.What he hadn’t expected was for Rook to snap awake with a sharp intake of breath, eyes wide and wild, hands a blur as he reached up to grab Staci’s upraised arm hard enough for the bones to creak, his other hand clamped to Staci’s other shoulder as he bared his teeth. Staci had flinched and had been bringing his other hand up to try to block, but Joshua had just reacted. Much faster than Staci would’ve expected from a sleep-deprived young rookie with no previous history in martial training, especially upon waking up.That was kind of fucking freaky and he was deeply, immediately concerned he was in deep shit. He’d seen this kind of reaction before, just he hadn’t expected it from Rook.He hadn’t expected Rook to look at him with what Staci could not call anything other than killing intent for a split second there, only to rein it in in the same instance while processing it.Then Rook just stood there, holding onto Staci, breathing harsh and fast, grip easing ever so slowly, the snarl upon his face relaxing into a glassy, wide-eyed looking around. Joshua’s eyes settled on the bulletin board beside them, and Staci felt the other man’s grip tighten.Staci had seen this before, had dealt with enough people with PTSD and heard about it from the veterans at the previous district to recognize what was going on. He reached up and rested his hand on the other man’s bicep, carefully, lightly, trying to get his attention without startling him.“Rook. Rook, it’s okay. You’re okay. We’re okay,” Staci said, pitching his voice low and calm, and oh boy if it wasn’t unsettling to see Joshua’s head snap to focus on him, blue eyes boring into Staci’s soul with enough intensity to make Staci falter for a moment under the other man’s gaze.“We need to get out of here,” Joshua said, words hurried and quiet and urgent, and edge to them that spoke of coiled tension and fear, deep south accent laying it on thick with that rough edge that came from having just woken up. Combined, it made Staci actually seriously question if there was a threat he didn’t know about present. “I’m not leaving you behind, you’ve got to get out and somewhere safe, Pratt. You have to, understand?”…No fucking wonder people followed the Seeds, damn. It was sort of weirdly touching that Joshua 1) recognized him during what seemed to be either a bout of PTSD or as the more uncharitable part of Staci’s brain suggested a bout of crazy, and 2) Rook seemed to actually genuinely be…very concerned about Staci’s continued well being.Damn.Staci withheld a split-second sigh, and made a mental note that he had to buy this guy a drink some time in the future. And be a little bit less of an ass and more…well, friendly perhaps. He hadn’t been a total ass to Rook, but he hadn’t been terribly friendly either, waiting to see if the new guy would stick around and make it through to being a regular or not. That was of course if this didn’t turn up to be a reveal of some factor that disqualified Rook from serving as a deputy. Fuck, he had to check for that as a senior officer here. First things first though, he needed to focus on calming Rook down and getting him grounded and remembering where they were.“Rook…Rook, you’re safe. We’re safe,” He said, trying to soothe the other man and get him his bearings, out of the nightmare or whatever it was that had set Rook off like that. Nightmare, he was sure. “We’re here in the Hope County Sheriff’s Department, here in Fall’s End, it’s 6:45am on a Thursday, we’re going to be off shift in a little over an hour, and Joey’s going to come in with Danny to relieve us and handle whatever new noise complaint related crap the Drubmans will drum up with fireworks and such,” He was just rambling, adding in the date and year and other mundane details to help with orienting oneself in time and space and contex. He was keeping it all slow and easy, keeping his eyes on Joshua as he continued talking like there wasn’t anything to worry about, that they were safe, because they were. Staci watched as the tension drained slowly from Rook’s face, his eyes came into focus and actually seemed to see where they were, recognition filtering in slowly. He felt Joshua’s grip on his shoulder and arm loosening again, all the way this time until there was no pressure applied, and Staci could lower his upraised hand to rest it on the side of Joshua’s other arm.“You’re safe now. Okay?” Staci asked, trying to get Joshua to recognize reality over the traumatic flashback he seemed to be in…or nightmare, or whatever it was. The method didn’t change…fuck Staci wasn’t as well-read on this as he needed to be. “Deep breaths now.”“…Okay,” Joshua said, his breathing finally slowing down, his expression finally looking like he was all there, here, now. “Okay.”He looked shaken. But there.“You alright, Rook?”“Yeah…yeah. I’m sorry, I…”“Don’t worry about it. Come on, let’s go get a coffee then, alright?” It was as much getting Rook something warm to drink as it was because Staci wanted one too. Food and warm drinks helped people calm down, and was one of his go-to solutions. Great way to bribe himself too when he was in a mood, like right now. Fuck sleep deprivation, man.…Fuck that was probably part of all this with the probie too.Joshua nodded, and the two of them turned to head back down the hall to the break room.“Here, you get the coffee poured, and I’ll grab us some granola bars. You like chocolate? Or you want oatmeal raisin?”“Oatmeal raisin.” Rook said, pulling out a pair of cups from the dish rack to check if they were dry, before proceeding to starting filling the first one.Staci just gave Rook an incredulous look from where he was going through an overhead cabinet. Who chose oatmeal raisin over chocolate? “Seriously?”Fuck. That came out of his mouth before he thought better of it.Rook just gave him an amused squint. “Hey I like chocolate but that’s shitty chocolate that’s all sugar and next to no chocolate flavor in the brand we get here at the station. I find the oatmeal raisin one still too sweet, but I’ll eat em anyway if there’s nothing else. The caramel apple flavor’s better, but we’re all out unless I’m mistaken, aren’t we?”“Yeah, Hudson runs through those super quick, you gotta horde some in your desk if you want any at the end of the month before restock day. Still, oatmeal raisin?” Staci wrinkled his nose with an openly judgemental look as he handed the offending granola bar over.“Pay me the funds we use for these, and I can make them better and tastier, with less crap in them,” Joshua said, taking the offered bar to waggle it pointedly at Staci before turning to hand over one of the cups of coffee. “No shit?” Staci asked, genuinely interested. Better food was always a plus in his book.“Yeah man, I love cooking.”Well that was certainly a potential plus to keeping the probie around—if he passed muster. Rook was looking calm now at least, pulling out the milk carton from the fridge to add a healthy amount to his cup. That was a quick bounce back, damn. Promising though…if still a bit haunting to think of how Rook had looked at him at first.Hm. Maybe Rook was just hiding it real well. Keeping busy, as it were.“Huh. I’ll bring it up with Whitehorse and run it by the others so they’re in the loop, if you really wanna do that on the regular. If you don’t, let us know ahead of time—Hudson deprived of snacks is a bad time for all. Pass the milk?”“Yeah I stress bake from time to time, this works out nicely,” Joshua said, handing the carton over.“Hm. You get stressed like earlier a lot, probie?” Staci asked, glancing at his coworker sidelong while stirring in his own sugar and milk.He saw how Joshua’s expression shifted slightly, lips thinning into an almost-frown.“Ah. That. Yeah I…get nightmares a lot. Doesn’t fuck with my sleep quality, just I’m fucky to wake up sometimes and need a moment.”Staci could tell Joshua knew the score here, and what the intent was for this line of questioning. He still had to ask, though, for the department’s sake and Rook’s own sake. If Rook wasn’t fit for the job, he was a danger to himself and the others in the department.“Did something happen? That looked like a PTSD flashback you were stuck in.” No point in beating about the bush, Staci reasoned. Particularly since he had all the diplomacy of a hungry narwhal right now.Rook shook his head though, not looking at Staci, holding his cup while appearing lost in thought. “No. Nothing happened. Just bad dreams.”Staci snorted, pausing mid-air in lifting his coffee up for a sip. “Yeah and I’m the Queen of England.”Joshua actually laughed a small surprised noise at that, turning to look at Staci with a cheeky grin. “I didn’t realize I was in the presence of royalty! Forgive my lack of manners, your highness.”Alright, he kind of liked this probie. Particularly when he was less of a bundle of nerves. The man was solid enough on the job while being professional, but behind the scenes...had been less smooth. The probie seemed to flounder a bit without a proper “script” to follow. But in this instance? The rookie might’ve hit his stride. It was making Staci smile out of reflex, and fuck he actually was feeling a bit less crabby over all this right now. That was uncharitable, Staci knew, but he was fucking tired. Joshua too, he knew.Joshua’s smile slid back to a more attentive, neutral expression. As much as one could, with dark shadows under one’s eyes. Fuck, Staci must’ve had a matching set too, it was practically part of the uniform during the holidays.“But I’m serious. I haven’t actually been in a violently traumatic experience or such. Some bullying as a kid, and…well, being illegally institutionalized, but it was done without a proper diagnosis from a clinician and was a complete hoax by the parties involved.”Staci almost choked on the sip of his coffee. “Say what now?” He’d followed with the being bullied part, because what kids didn’t get bullied, but the institutionalization part was a new one as far as stories went. “Institutionalized as in like in a mental hospital?”“Yeah. It was fucked. They committed a bunch of foster kids with made up diagnoses and wanted to run drug trials on them to prove efficacy with cooked test results. It all came to light after a couple of years. Corrupt practices, illegal human experimentation, inhumane treatment, kidnapping and criminal fraud charges everywhere, from what I hear.”“Jesus.”“Yeah. The courts sealed it and withheld our names because we were all minors, the other kids and I, but you might’ve heard of it like, a little under a decade ago? Was a bit of a flurry in the newspapers apparently.”“Oh fuck, maybe?” Staci vaguely recalled some mention of that scandal, now that Joshua mentioned it. Probably from a newspaper headline at a gas station or corner store, fuck if he could recall which one.That was weird, recalling reading about something he as a teenager had read about in passing as a tragic but impersonal event, and now standing before someone who it had affected both deeply and personally.He was perhaps learning a little bit more about empathy in this moment than he cared to, right now.“So, you’re saying that wasn’t fucking traumatic?” Staci asked, raising an eyebrow with a head tilt to go with it to indicate he was very skeptical that someone could skate through that kind of experience without coming out a little banged up mentally or otherwise. Some people could, he knew, and it varied from person to person, but the odds were against that he figured.Tonight was certainly an interesting night for gossip though.“Oh it was, I hate being locked up and watched, and drugged against my will until I’m a catatonic ball huddled in the corner quite a lot. Don’t like being questioned while on drugs either, in hindsight. Not really stuff I expect to encounter in any line of work though, including law enforcement. Locking others up doesn’t bother me, so long as it’s legal and ethical and such.” Those first words were light, as if trying to pass the matter off as a bit of a joke. It didn’t quite land. Joshua shrugged apparently trying to look casual about it, but the motion was a bit stiff and jerky, and he glanced down, hesitating while looking like he wanted to say a bit more.So Staci waited.In retrospect, the nicer thing to do would’ve been to reassure Rook, but well, that was more Joey-intuition than Staci-intuition, particularly right now. He’d be supportive in a minute, his sleep-deprived brain needed a bit longer to remember to do things.Joshua clearly needed a moment to organize his thoughts on what to say, which Staci was fine with, leaning against the counter to one side as he took a sip of his coffee in the meantime.“…the physician and psychologist who looked me over afterwards said I was fine, so I just…” Another abrupt little shrug and an accompanying shake of the head, before Joshua looked at Staci. “…I believe I’m sane, I just…still have the urge to say I’m not crazy, which I know sounds bad.”“…yeah that line never sounds great coming from a potential coworker or someone you have to spend more than the next five seconds with there, rookie,” Staci pointed out dryly. But hoo boy, Joshua…probably got a pass on that after being falsely labeled as in need of medication. “And for the record? Having a mental illness or something doesn’t make a person crazy. They need help, and we are sometimes the ones who need to help them get to the right people who can help them, medical professionals or otherwise.”Well, with that backstory reveal, Staci was inclined to cut Rook some slack on the weirdery, provided Rook managed to get his feet under him in good time. Rattled, but tentatively sound enough so far as early impressions went for what the man had been through.“Yeah. Yeah I know just…they treated us like we were crazy. To be disregarded, like we didn’t have an ounce of common sense between us all. They didn’t listen. Maybe it was also because we were kids,” Joshua said, looking away, “kids that no one cared about if we went missing.”“And that’s fucking wrong by any moral standard. Nobody should fuck up kids like that.” Staci said, followed by another sip. Humans sometimes were absolute assholes, but that was nothing new as a revelation to Staci. He’d certainly seen enough of that growing up. HE glanced down at his cup, noting that it was half empty already and commented offhand, “God I can’t believe we’re having a heart to heart chat at seven in the morning, after a full night shift, and after over time. Fuck, man.”Joshua breathed a laugh, but didn’t look at Staci.…right, he wasn’t reciprocating much was he. Fuck. Time to be a bit more heart-baringly friendly then. “And I agree, you’re not crazy. You seem perfectly sane so far, questionable granola bar tastes aside,—”That got Staci a proper laugh from Rook then, and he smiled in his little moment of social victory. Ah, and Joshua was back to looking him in the eye again. Good, good, they were restoring proper “friendship potential” connections.…ugh, Staci was trying to be friendly. It was too damn early for this. Or late, depending on point of view.Continuing, he said, “—and frankly the shit you’ve been through sounds real rough. I’m not the most eloquent guy even at the best of times let alone at the end of a long night shift, but you seem alright in my book. If you ever want to, I don’t know, talk and have a drink about it, honestly Joey’s the better choice for that but hit me up if you need it.”Eh, close enough. He wasn’t giving out details of his life, it just…didn’t fit the flow of what he said? But maybe another time. Was he leaving Rook hanging with awkward did-I-overshare-feelings? …GOD being nice was hard. But worth the effort, yes. He just wanted to grumble a bit about it right now.“We can swap shitty childhood stories or something sometime with enough beers or something. After we’ve both slept, I can’t be fucking bothered to do serious story time with heavy shit right now. No offense,” He added as an afterthought because that might’ve come off as abrasive. “I’m fine with listening in moments like this if you’re okay with a low level of emotional response and engagement, but I’m gonna be snarky.”“Oh so that’s just you in general, not because oatmeal raisin granola bars offended you in particular then,” Joshua said, looking rather amused at that point.“Hey, those are shitty granola bars, Rook. I just can’t believe you like them.”“I tolerate them, Pratt. I know good fare from shitty fare, and good fare ain’t that. Also, you can call my Joshua you know.”“Staci, then.” He offered a hand as…he didn’t fucking know, sleep-deprivation-addled reflex to what his tired brain thought of as an introduction of sorts? They’d been introduced when Joshua had first showed up of course, and shaken hands then, but it’d been a perfunctory greeting. This was a more welcome to the club house kind of greeting, or something. Fuck, fine, Staci was accepting Rook as one of theirs more officially-ish.Joshua was either too tired or was more of an accepting sort, taking Staci’s hand and giving it a shake. “I’ll buy you a drink sometime then, after we’ve both slept some. You wanna swing by my place later this week to help test out homemade granola bar flavors?”“Sure man, where d’you live?” Staci asked, letting go of the other’s hand to rip open his granola bar with the one hand and his teeth, before taking a bite.“I rent a place outside of town, I’ll text you the address and directions?” Joshua offered.“Yeah, alright. Stay awake until you get home then, probie, and don’t fall asleep on the way back.” Staci said, raising his half-eaten granola bar in a mock-salute that Joshua responded to in kind with his coffee cup as Staci headed back to his desk with what remained of his own coffee. It was tempting to get another cup, but he needed to sleep sooner rather than later once his shift was over, and the end was in sight.Fuck, guess they might be becoming friends then after all.…well, that wasn’t such a bad thing, now was it.Hell, maybe it’d work out. It wasn’t like he was overbooked with friendships galore around here in Hope, after all. Rook’s backstory seemed kinda heavy on shitty things that’d happened to him, but, well…why not. Staci was willing to give it a go if Joshua was. Plus it wasn’t like Staci himself had come from a peerless background either. He took another sip of his coffee and a second bite of the granola bar.…hm, maybe Joshua had a point. Maybe these were too sugar-heavy on the flavor instead of a more chocolate-rich taste, now that he was paying attention.Fuck. Now he couldn’t fucking un-taste that cheap-mass-produced-granola-bar flavor. He shoved the rest of the bar into his mouth grouchily, chewing on it with a bit of spiteful prejudice. At least there wasn’t much left of this one, for what consolation that was worth. Staci really fucking hoped they got better granola bars now, either by Joshua baking them or a different brand, because there went his bland, non-attentive, mindless enjoyment of one shitty junk food snack masquerading as a healthier snack.God fucking damn it.

[gottacatchghosts]

Frame by Frame

This is for Phic Phight 2019! I’m on Team Human, with team leader @currently-lurking!

Prompt: As a result of having a time medallion phased into him, Danny begins to exhibit time powers.

Word count: 3360

Prompt by: @five-rivers​

Characters: Danny, Jazz, Clockwork (Sam and Tucker, briefly)

Warnings: none that come to mind, unless you don’t like pseudosciencey stuff lol

Extra notes: this was a fun prompt omg

[writing tag] | [Phic Phight 2019 tag] | [My fills] | [fic index]

FFN/AO3 links to come following the end of the event.

There’s something wrong with Danny.

Well, wrong isn’t the best word to use. Weird is more appropriate, but really, what about Danny isn’t weird these days? But still, something is wrong and Danny has no idea what it is.

Ever since that incident with that alternate future, Danny’s felt off, off balance, off kilter, fundamentally changed in a way that has nothing to do with the trauma of seeing almost everyone he’s ever cared for caught in a fiery explosion. (That part doesn’t bother him at all, no really, honest.)

It didn’t even have to do with seeing that abomination with his name and his face claiming to be him. Ten years from now is so obscure to his fourteen-year-old mind that even the thought of being twenty-four is enough to separate him from the “could-be”s.

No, it’s something else entirely. Something Danny can’t put his finger on.

It was little things at first. Things that didn’t stand out as wrong at the time, but in hindsight it feels obvious that something happened. Little things like the shower never running cold despite standing under the spray for longer than usual, like finishing his homework before dinner even though he was sure that he’d be working on it the rest of the night, like how he’s been on time getting to class every day this week even when there’s a ghost encounter on the way to school.

Danny tries to tell Sam and Tucker. Tries to tell them that he thinks something’s wrong, that something is up, but they just brush it off.

“Maybe you got lucky with the shower?” Tucker suggests.

“You’re smarter than you think you are!” Sam assures.

“You’ve gotten so kickass with your powers dude!” Tucker crows, pumping his fists with a grin.

“Have you been leaving earlier? That might explain it,” Sam points out, shrugging it off.

Danny doesn’t believe he’s just gotten lucky or smarter or stronger, but he smiles and nods along with them, saying, “Yeah. That must be it. Sorry for being so weird about this.”

“It’s not a problem, Danny! You’re probably still a little out of it from having to kick your jerky older self’s butt.” Tucker puts a hand on Danny’s shoulder, nodding sagely.

Sam hip checks him and smiles back. “Don’t be afraid to tell us if something’s happening!”

Danny laughs. “I won’t!”

He keeps the oddities to himself after that.

For the next few months, nothing really changes. Life goes on, ghosts still attack, Danny’s grades slowly but surely pull up into the low A high B range they’d been the first couple weeks of high school, and still Sam and Tucker find nothing wrong with this strange new turn of events.

Jazz, however, once she finally joins the team and she and Danny go back to getting along, is more willing to listen to him when he says he thinks something is happening.

She pulls him into her room one day after driving him home from school and shoves him into her desk chair. She then pulls out a notebook and sits on her bed, giving him her full attention. “What do you think is happening?” she asks, cutting straight to the point.

Danny shrugs and rubs his arms. “I don’t know, really. It’s not like it’s been just one thing. It’s like a bunch of little things that all add up and point to the same thing, except I don’t even know if they do. I wanna just accept whatever it is, but the problem is that I don’t know what it is.”

Jazz nods and jots down some notes. “And how long as this been going on?”

Danny hesitates and looks away. “Since the, uh, since the CATs.”

Jazz pauses her note taking and glances at him over the top of the notebook. “The CATs?” She bites her lip and looks back down. “Does this have anything to do with… you-know-who?”

Danny sighs and leans back in the chair, throwing his head back. “I don’t know. Maybe?”

The room is quiet for a few minutes before Jazz shifts to the side and pats the bed beside her. After a moment’s hesitation, Danny joins her and together the two flop backwards on the bed to look at the ceiling.

“What exactly happened?” Jazz asks, voice soft. “I know you somehow swapped places with that older future guy and got stuck in his time, but how did that happen?”

Danny groans and shoves his hands into his eyes. “After Sam, Tuck, and I jumped through this portal in Clockwork’s lair into that timeline, we ran into Future Valerie, and then he showed up and started attacking everyone. Sam and Tuck got out of there by taking off their time medallion things—they ended up back here in Amity like nothing happened. But.” Danny’s voice dies and he moves his hands to lay them at his side.

“But?” Jazz prompts, nudging him with her elbow.

“He phased the time medallion into my chest,” Danny says. He puts a hand over his breast bone and stares at the ceiling, eyes far away. “Just stuck it right in there. I don’t remember much right after that, just that I somehow ended up in the Ghost Zone, tied up and floating aimlessly.”

“How’d you get it out?” Jazz asks, voice little more than a whisper. She rolls over to face him and links an arm with one of his, a steady, calming anchor.

Danny tenses up, slight enough that she wouldn’t have noticed without physical contact. She squeezes his arm in an attempt to be reassuring and the hand resting on his chest slides over to sit over hers. “Vlad.” Danny looks at her from the corners of his eyes. He still has that thousand yard stare but a little bit of life creeps back into his eyes as he takes in the surprise on her face. “I found where he was hiding and got him to help pull it out.”

Jazz takes note of the finality in his voice and gracefully sweeps past the subject. She can ask him about it later. “And you came back here after that?”

“Yeah. And then I really only had enough time to grab some of Mom and Dad’s ghost gear before I had to fight him off.” Danny sighs. “I didn’t really win. Sure, I got him in a Thermos, but you guys all still…” His voice dies and her clears his throat. Jazz won’t make him say what happened. She knows he still has nightmares about it and she has a pretty good idea of what happened. “Clockwork stopped it. Reversed time, saved everyone, took the Thermos, gave me a second chance.”

“And how soon after did this Something start happening?”

“Pretty much right after.” Danny runs a hand through his bangs and closes his eyes, thinking back. “After I gave Lancer the test answers back, I went home and crashed in bed for a while. It felt like forever but it was only a couple hours.” Jazz nods and sits up to grab her notebook. She makes a few quick notes and Danny waits until her frantic scribbling slows to a stop. She gestures for him to continue and he tells her what he told Sam and Tucker.

He tells her about the shower and the homework and the suddenly improved grades and attendance and she listens, more so than Tucker and Sam ever did. It doesn’t surprise him at all, really. Jazz has always been the type to stop and listen, even if she does have her moments of single mindedness. Even if this really does turn out to be nothing, he’s glad he’s got Jazz on his side to figure it out.

When he’s done explaining his concerns, she pauses and reads over her notes again. She purses her lips and lowers the notebook, giving Danny an expectant look. “Have you talked to Clockwork about this?”

That gives Danny pause. “About what?”

Jazz levels him with a look of absolute certainty. “It sounds to me like you’re gaining time.”

“Wait, what?” Danny throws himself upright so he can be at eye level with Jazz. “Explain.”

“That, or you’re slowing it down.” Jazz nods once herself and waves a hand up and down, from his head to his feet and back. “From what you told me, it sounds like you could be slowing down time.”

“That’s crazy,” Danny mumbles, crossing his arms. “Clockwork controls time. I can’t do anything like that.”

“Not before, you couldn’t.” Jazz raises a brow. “Think about it. You were fused to one of those time medallions for who knows how long and you couldn’t just take it out on your own. Who’s to say that you didn’t pick up some kind of temporal power?���

Danny squints at her for her use of the word “temporal,” but considers her words. “Maybe,” he says slowly, thinking aloud. “The time medallions allowed us to move outside of time. Whenever Clockwork froze time, if we had one of them on, we could still move around and stuff. And then when we were in the future, and when those future ghosts attacked this time, the medallions allowed us to stay there. Taking them off sent us, and them, home.” He presses his lips together. “Maybe you’re right.”

“You should talk to Clockwork,” Jazz says in between her notetaking. “I don’t think I can help you with this anymore.”

Danny reaches and puts his hand on hers, stilling her writing. Jazz looks up and he smiles at her. “You’ve already helped a lot. Thanks, Jazz.”

Jazz smiles back. “Anytime.”

Clockwork’s citadel is hard to find and Danny suspects the only reason he can is because Clockwork allows it. Danny’s never seen the outside of it before, but the giant floating cogs and gears make it pretty obvious he’s found the right place. The place looks like a cross between a grandfather clock and a castle and Danny has a nice chuckle at the tasteful scythes adorning some of the roofs.

The double doors at the base of the tower creak open and Danny pauses for a moment. He half expects Clockwork to greet him outside, but he’s equally unsurprised when nothing happens. He floats through the doors and ignores the way they close behind him in favor of seeking out Clockwork himself. Clockwork has to know that Danny was coming, being the all-seeing and all-knowing Master of Time, so Danny doesn't feel too bad about just barging in.

After all, the doors were open.

Danny comes to a stop in front of Clockwork’s viewing screens, too nosy for his own good and not completely looking forward to the conversation he knows the two of them are going to have. They show ordinary, mundane scenes of many different people—and ghosts—going about their lives, oblivious to any unseen watchers.

“Everything is as it should be,” Clockwork says from behind Danny, startling the boy several feet higher than he’d previously been floating.

“Clockwork!” Danny says, spinning around and lowering himself to be closer to eye level.

“Hello, Danny.” Clockwork cracks the barest hint of a smile and Danny rolls his eyes. “Come,” Clockwork says, waving Danny over as he turns and floats off. “We have much to discuss.”

Danny follows quickly, turning his head to catch a glimpse of the row of Time Medallions hanging on a rack near the portal screens. He shudders once and looks away.

Clockwork leads him through several archways to a library full of different types of texts; scrolls, stone tablets, and the oldest books Danny’s ever seen all line the walls and crowd the towering shelves. Clockwork gestures to a small nook with several cozy looking couches and nods, encouraging him to sit.

Danny hovers over to the nearest overstuffed arm chair and allows himself to fall into it, giving it to the artificial gravity of the Zone. It’s a comfy chair, just like he’d hoped it would be and he can feel the tension leaving his shoulders. Clockwork sits on the chair opposite his and waits, giving Danny a chance to mentally prepare himself for their talk.

Eventually, Clockwork clears his throat to catch Danny’s full attention. “I know you’re nervous, but do try to relax.” Danny huffs, somewhere between amusement and exasperation, then Clockwork continues. “I’m sure by now you’ve noticed the temporal abnormalities you’ve been experiencing.”

“So…” Danny’s brow furrows. “It is a time thing?”

“Correct.” Clockwork smiles at the boy. “I’m afraid your experiences with the timestream have had… an unforeseen outcome.”

“‘Unforeseen?’” Danny echoes, bolting upright. “I thought you saw everything!”

Clockwork gives a slight grimace. “As the Master of Time, I have the unique privilege of experiencing time like an outsider. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always extend to myself, or anything existing outside of time.” Clockwork reaches into his cloak and produces a Time Medallion. “Wearing these allows someone to temporarily displace themself anywhere in the timestream and instantly return as soon is it is removed.

“They’re not made to become a part of one’s person.” Clockwork outright frowns. “When this Medallion was fused to you, it lost some of its potency.” He passes it over to Danny and the boy frowns as he inspects it. “The medallions make the wearer immune to my ability to totally stop time by placing them, technically, outside of time.”

“So what does that mean for me?” Danny asks, looking back up at Clockwork.

“It means, Danny, that your sister was correct. You’ve developed an immunity of sorts to the normal flow of time, becoming something of a human Time Medallion. I’m unaware as of yet how far this power will extend, but if I’m correct, the ability will only be limited to yourself and whatever is on your person, including anyone you may be in direct contact with.”

Danny blinks several times, processing the words. “That’s actually kinda cool.”

Clockwork allows himself a small chuckle. “Because of this slight immunity to time, you also appear to be exhibiting some temporal displacement abilities, the ‘gaining time’ that Jazz mentioned. What this means is that time moves much more slowly around you while allowing you move freely and as normal. From an outside perspective, one might say that you look to be moving at high speeds.”

Danny nods as he turns the words over in his head. “When you say that you can’t always see things that exist outside of time, does that mean you can’t, like, watch over me? Since I have the immunity?”

“I can see you just fine the majority of the time, don’t worry,” Clockwork says, waving off the concern written on Danny’s face. “When you use your powers, it’s like looking through a fog. The image becomes distorted and blurred, but then it clears up again.”

“I didn’t even know I was using them.”

Clockwork nods and smirks. “Control will come with time.” Danny snorts, and relaxes a little. “Have you noticed anything in common with the incidents?”

Danny thinks, pushing a fist against his chin. “Uh… They all seemed to times when I wanted… more… time…” He trails off, eyes wide. “Wow. I wanted more time in the shower, I wanted my homework done faster, I wanted to be on time for school… and then it all happened.” Danny cracks a grin. “That’s pretty useful.”

“Indeed.” Clockwork looks Danny in the eyes. “I just want to impart with you the importance of not abusing an ability like this. Time is a powerful thing.” Danny nods, completely serious. “That said,” Clockwork grins again, “I cannot stop you from using it to your leisure.”

Danny laughs. “So, what, exactly, can I do with… whatever I’m supposed to call this?”

“What you call it is up to you. What I can tell you is that a power like yours has limits, and you can rest easy with the knowledge that your temporal powers are no where as powerful as mine. You cannot stop the flow of time completely, nor can you reverse it or speed it up. Your power is limited to only slightly and temporarily slowing down time for yourself. That’s it.”

“That’s still pretty awesome,” Danny says, gazing at the Medallion in his hands again. “Hey, wait. You said I’m kinda like one of these things, right? Does that mean you can’t freeze me in time anymore?”

Clockwork blinks, expression flat. With no warning, he raises his staff and says, “Time Out!”

Danny suddenly feels like he’s underwater or submerged in something thick and viscous. He blinks, ever so slowly and moves his head up, inch by inch to look at Clockwork. Before he can say anything, Clockwork moves—and he’s fast, so fast, like he’s dropping frames to snap into new positions without any movement between them—and then Danny is free from the heavy feeling. “That was weird,” is all he says.

Clockwork nods. “It appears I can no longer stop you completely, and you can move under your own power ever so slightly. From my perspective, it was as if you were moving in slow motion.”

Danny throws his head back and laughs, the idea that the crazy powerful Master of Time being unable to control him completely being too hilarious to pass up. Clockwork rolls his eyes—though it’s hard to tell without a pupil—but allows Danny to ride out his amusement.

“I feel you have another question for me,” Clockwork prods, drawing Danny back to the present.

Danny nods, rubbing a tear from his eye. “Yeah, just one.” He holds up the Medallion and asks, “How did this give me time powers?”

“Danny, how much do you know about how ghosts work?”

Danny shrugs. “Not a whole lot. I know ghosts are made of ectoplasm and that ectoplasm is kinda everywhere, but I don’t really know how much of what I heard Mom and Dad talking about growing up is true.”

Clockwork nods. “Ghosts are, indeed, made of ectoplasm, and ectoplasm can exist in many different types and forms, including raw energy. At the center of every ghost exists what is known as a Core. A Core is the purest essence of a ghost and where the most powerful abilities and attacks originate. I won’t get into the types of Cores for now, but I will tell you that there are seven elemental types, two incorporeal types, and then an additional, unspecialized type.”

Danny nods, eyes wide. “Do I have a Core?”

“Yes, you do.” Clockwork points at the center of Danny’s chest, just right of his heart. “And it because you possess a Core that the Medallion had such an effect on you.”

“Wha—really? How?” Danny presses a hand against his chest, along his breast bone, and he can almost imagine his feels a thrumming pulse he never noticed before.

“When the Medallion interacted with your Core, some of the energy that infused with the Medallion was absorbed by your Core. Whether it was self-preservation to protect you from the foreign object, a subconscious absorption of power, or a result of your Core still developing, some of the Medallion’s powers were leeched off and into you. Over time, this new energy and ability has settled in your Core and it has become a part of you.”

“When it was still stuck in here, I learned how to use my Wail. And even though I felt tired afterward, I could still keep going. Would that have made a difference?” Danny tilts his head in question. “Or was it just because I was in the Zone?”

“It could have been both.” Clockwork thinks it over for a second. “That’s likely when the strongest transfer of power happened. The Medallion fed you some of its energy to recover what you used in your attack.”

“Weird.” Danny stretches in his seat, considering everything that he’s learned. It takes him several minutes to sort through his thoughts, but then he looks up at Clockwork, eyes glowing brightly in determination. “Teach me how to control it.”

Clockwork smiles and takes to the air again. “It would be my pleasure.”