#ecto implosion

[kiiwiighost]

I join the ecto-implosion this year! <⁠(⁠￣⁠︶⁠￣⁠)⁠> It's my first time doing this kind of event and it was really fun!

I had the pleasure to work with @five-rivers, who wrote an amazing fic to go with my piece, go check it out !!

[breakfastatmiles]

So excited to finally share my piece for Ecto-Implosion! The idea started off as a pt. 2 to my Barbie Meme challenge and has since developed into a full story all thanks to @bee__nova

Go check out her wonderful piece!

[praetoring]

Something potent and volatile pulses in the air. He can feel it seep through his skin and into his muscles and bones. It only makes his heart race faster, especially as the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and goosebumps coat his arms. – – – crossed haunts @ ao3 / tumblr

my piece for the @ecto-implosion! this was done in part with the lovely @hannahmanderr who stepped in and wrote a WONDERFUL fic that I adore to pieces and perfectly captured the vibes of this~

this was such a fun event that produced so many incredible works of art and fiction, yall so talented~

alt. version below the cut~

[spacetime1969]

Danny Fenton’s Field Trip to the Ghost Zone!

I have had the wonderful opportunity to write a fic inspired by the art of the wonderful @arisu-artnfics as part of @ecto-implosion. I ended up thinking it would be fun to bring in a trope from a completely different fandom, and write a Peter Parker Field Trip fic for Danny Fenton. This is the first part of that fic. Enjoy!

Prologue

Ao3 | Next

Danny Fenton had died in his parent's basement, and the city of Amity Park hadn't been the same since.

Neither, for that matter, had Danny. The portal had changed him from a normal human to someone different. Something different.

He wasn't just Danny Fenton anymore, but Danny Phantom! The ghostly hero of Amity Park! Yeah, there was a whole thing with his parents trying to hunt him down and stuff, but they were all good now! He had told them about being a halfa and everything and all that happened was his dad hugging him so tight he'd had to use his intangibility to get out before his ribs broke.

His parents had since dedicated themselves to completely redoing their research from the ground up. Then even turned off the portal! They said that until they had a better understanding of ghost culture it was irresponsible of them to be opening a door into their home.

Danny didn't think he had ever been more relaxed in his life. His parents knew his secret and were totally okay with it. With the portal closed he didn't have to worry about any of his rouges popping by for a fight (they were friends now, but they sometimes had a hard time remembering that Danny still had things like homework, and sleep). And to top it all off he and his class had a field trip to the planetarium! Sure Danny went there all the time, but that doesn't mean he isn't happy to get to go again.

Yeah, Danny Fenton was feeling great, for the first time ever his life was going perfect.

~o0o~

At age 14, Danny Fenton died in his parent's lab. His death tore a hole through the fabric of reality, and allowed all manner of beings to cross from their side of the veil to this one.

Danny died, but he was also, excruciatingly, forced to live. The energy of the veil simultaneously tore him apart and forced him back together, turning him into a halfa, one of the first in centuries.

Despite being children who had experienced an incredibly traumatizing event, when the visitors from the other side of the portal began to cause chaos in Amity Park, Danny and his friends worked together to stop them.

They grew into themselves, and Danny learned how to use his powers better and eventually got to the point where he didn't always need them. He learned to use diplomacy with his rogues, their fights becoming something they did to socialize and entertain themselves rather than the desperate battles they had once been.

It took a few years, but he eventually revealed his identity to his parents as well. And just as he had always hoped, but not always believed, they had accepted him. They renounced their previous beliefs to accept their son in his entirety. They’d even shut down their life's work for him.

Unfortunately, actions with good motives can still have unintended consequences, and a door opened as violently as the portal was is not easily closed.

Across town from where Danny was lying in bed, his mind filled with pleasant dreams of his upcoming field trip, the fabric between this reality and the next rippled, and the local park suddenly became lit by an unearthly green glow.

A natural portal. This one was small, but wasn't the first one that had appeared since the Fentons had deactivated the portal mounted into the wall of their basement lab, and, unfortunately for Danny Fenton and his field trip, it would also not be the last.

[i-think-in-metaphors]

Hehehe I can finally post my ecto implosion art! I got to work with the awesome @northerngrail !

[ashboy-3]

The Unspoken Deal

Fandom: Danny Phantom, John Constantine, and DCU Characters: John Constantine, Danny Fenton/Phantom, Batman, Superman, other JL members Words: 3507 Summary:

Danny and John have a deal. It's a simple deal. Every month they have a meet up. Danny keeps as much control over the ghost as he can in return John keeps track of them in the human realm. That's it nothing else should be so simple.

So why do feelings keep getting involved and why does the justice league suddenly seem so interested in the beings of the infinite realms.

John knows one thing for sure: This is all Danny's fault.

“You know these meetings are supposed to be taken seriously? Right mate?” John Constantine asked, only a little annoyed at dealing with the half-ghost.

“Who says? The council, meh I don’t really fully care what they have to say,” the half-ghost laughed, throwing another snowball at the human.

“Why do I put up with you again?” Constantine rubbed his hand over his face.

“You love me,” the ghost teased.

“What makes you so sure,” John hid the small smile that was on his face. He would never admit it, but the half ghost does hold a special place within his heart, a place that very few ever made it to.

“Any big threats I need to know about?” the ghost floated in front of John, ignoring the question that was being asked of him.

“Nothing I’ve heard about oh Danny boy,” John nodded towards him, watching as the Ghost King looked him up and down.

“Sell your soul recently?” Danny eyed him.

“Don’t know what your talkin about mate,” John avoided looking at the ghost, choosing instead to focus on his neglected cigarette.

“Well mate,” Danny easily copied the brit’s accent. “I happen to have a soul piece here.” Danny took the small delicate object out of his pocket, showing it off to John’s widened eyes.

“Be careful with that!” He shouted, seeing Danny just throwing it in the air as if it was a plastic ball.

“I would be if you didn’t treat your soul like a throw away joke,” Danny glared at his old friend, watching him put out the cancer stick as the two walked inside the castle also known as phantom’s keep and talk. “I’m serious John. Every time you sell your soul, I have to find a way to get it. You’ve sold over half of your soul. Soon you won’t have any pieces left,” Danny rolled his eyes, walking into a room where he keeps a singular candy jar, dropping the glowing piece in the jar. It made a small clink as it fell with the other pieces.

“That really is my whole soul isn’t it,” John peaked into the room to look at the jar.

“Farid so. Makes almost a whole soul. Be careful, our time is almost up so I’ll be seeing you next month?” Danny frowned at the idea of John leaving.

“I’ll be sure to give you a call if something comes up mate,” John assured him.

“And the heroes will be kept out of my realm?” They both know Danny’s rules about humans walking around the realms. Even now, years later from his teenage years, the humans he allows in are few and small. Adding heroes to that list just makes it worse.

“No heroes,” John assured him, opening the portal with a simple spell, stepping back into the house of mystery. “I’ll be seeing you ole Danny boy,” John smiled a sad smile at watching the portal close, shutting off his communication with the older ghost.

Recently all of their monthly meetings have the old warlock feeling like this. Feeling like something is missing or wrong. Sometimes he debates saying more, extending their meetings, even offering to meet more than once a month, but it never goes that far, choosing instead to ignore the feeling and continue on his day.

Pouring himself a drink, a favorite activity of his. He couldn’t help the groan that came from his mouth at hearing his phone ring.

Ring Ring Ring

Constantine sighed as the annoying ring hurt his ears. It was worse when he checked the caller ID. “What do ya want bats. Ima little busy?”

“Meeting at the watchtower. Be there,” the rough voice ordered from the phone.

“You could at least butter me up a little,” the thick British accent responded. Batman didn’t dignify him with a response, choosing instead to just hang up the phone.

“Well doll seems I still can’t take a break,” John signed, talking to the house. Downing his drink within one gulp he casted another spell, landing him right in the watchtower.

“Do you have to appear on the table every time?” Superman asked in wonder.

“Just how magic works mate,” John dusted off his tan coat, stepping off the table that was surrounded by multiple leaguers. “Alright what’s this whole shin dig about?”

“We have gotten multiple reports and sightings about strange creatures,” Batman started, clicking buttons on a small remote for all of the leaguers to see. Up on the big screens were creatures, creatures that Constantine was very familiar with. A bad feeling began to weave its way into his liver ruined gut.

“Are they aliens?” one of the leaguers questioned.

“Nothing in any of our databases,” Hal shook his head with crossed arms.

“Nothing from under the sea,” Aquaman agreed.

“So, they’ve come from a strange place that none of us have heard about?” Wonder Woman threw her hands in the air from disbelief.

“I don’t believe they come from the underworld, but John would be a better judge then me,” Zatara looked towards the brit.

“I don’t know nothing bout them mate. Prolly best to leave them be for now,” John shrugged, ignoring the questioning looks he was getting from some his ‘coworkers’ with trust issues.

“I’ll look more into them,” Zatara nodded. “Find out if they become a threat.” He assured the league.

“We’ll be looking into the lantern database and getting contact with others, find out if anyone knows anything,” Jon agreed, nodding towards Hal. All three getting up to leave the table.

“Well, if that’s all I’ll be on my bloody way. Drag me out of my house for notin,” John muttered angrily.

“Actually, John if you wouldn’t mind having a conversation with me?” Zatara asked, waving him over.

“Fine,” the brit groaned, getting a pack of his smokes out, lighting one up within the watchtower, ignoring glares he was getting from the three top dogs.

Zatara had taken John to a lone room, nothing really in it besides a desk, a few chairs, and one small couch, it was clearly only a room used for conversations.

“What’s this bout?” John wondered.

“You know something about those creatures,” Zatara stated firmly.

“I know nothin bout nothin,” John nodded, not agreeing with the magician’s statement.

“Oh please, you’re eyes widened when you saw the pictures. If you know something it should be shared. I will not reveal your secrets, however if you refuse to say anything it will just cause everyone, including me, to dig deeper into them.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s a promise. They could be dangerous.”

John laughed at that statement. “If that’s all I’m leaving.” Zatara was ready to fight back but looking up he discovered to see the brit gone.

***

“Danny mate pick up your damn phone!” John yelled at the blasted thing from his third time calling his old friend, now pacing around the old House of Mystery. Grabbing the full glass of scotch that the house kindly made for him.

“Sorry John. I was in a meeting,” Danny smiled into the phone. He may be a supernatural being, but he still had plenty to use of his fourteen-year-old mind, an age he hasn’t been for many years.

“Danny you bloody idiot! I thought that you were keeping them under control!” John yelled into the phone, surprising Danny.

“Don’t you dare yell at me John Constantine!” Danny yelled back into the phone, stopping him in his place.

“You’re right. I’m sorry Danny boy. The Justice League just got on my bloody ass about your spooks. Bats is ready to go to war with them,” John sat down in his chair.

“Want to summon me? We can talk about it?” Danny asked into the phone, both knew the undertones of the conversation.

“Things never go right when I summon you,” John refused to look towards a picture of him and Danny. The old ghost laughing, his baby face unable to grow much facial hair, as John cheered a beer, a smile on his face as well. It was one of their first nights out together in the human world.

“But it’s fun. No funny business this time?” Danny offered.

“Now you’re just tempting fate love,” John grinned into his scotch.

“You’re easy to tempt,” Danny nodded in agreement, both understanding the silent message.

Grabbing a piece of green glowing chalk John stumbled towards an empty part of his floor, no need to look up the sigils Danny choose for his summoning. He didn’t understand most of them, but the guy laughed every time he appeared in the human realm, a silent joke that only he knows. He remembers one drunken night when Danny tried to explain, he got nowhere with the brit.

“Numquam agnus dabo te

numquam agnus dimittam te

numquam amet discurrere et deseram te

numquam agnus fac te clamare

numquam agnus dicere vale

numquam agnus dic mendacium et nocuerunt tibi”

John, always confused by the spell, spoke it loud and clear, letting the candles and lights around the house dance as the green fire descended from the hells, lighting up the circle, leaving in a swirl with a half ghost king, smiling and evil smile at him.

“You summoned me,” Danny stepped out of the circle, walking closer to John.

“I summoned you,” he agreed, the mood much different from their business meeting they had just yesterday. John’s breathing becoming deeper and heavier the closer Danny stepped towards him. It forever amazed him that the ghost could become bigger or smaller with just a thought.

“I promised no funny business,” Danny noted, his half breaths just as deep.

“Screw that!” John declared, pushing their lips together, creating a fire between the two. A fire that would not let out till the two were done.

This was routine for when John summoned Danny. A routine that neither is sure how it started, but neither regret. They both agree it’s just sex. No feelings need to be mixed in, but John can’t help the flutter in hie heart when he thinks about everything that Danny does for him. Keeping him updated, collecting his soul contracts, giving him this. It was everything that he could dream about.

“Do you want to stop?” Danny asked carefully, his breath on John’s.

“If you stop, I will exorcize you,” John glared at the ghost.

“Fair enough,” Danny laughed, the two stumbling towards John’s room in the old mystery house.

The next day, both barely clothed, wrapped up in blankets and each other, John woke up, staring at Danny, tracing his fingers over the old, faded scars.

“You’re staring again,” Danny’s eyes fluttered open.

“You make it hard not to,” John grinned at him, turning around in the bed to light a cigarette.

“You said my subjects are hurting the humans,” Danny started to sit up in the bed, the ring of rage glowing proudly on his finger.

“I never said hurting. I keep an eye on them for you here. I promised, didn’t I?” John turned towards him, clearly understanding that this is no longer pleasure, only business.

“Then what was the call about?” Danny raised an eyebrow, getting up from the bed in a way only one trained in royalty could. John thought that he was beautiful.

“Bats called in a meeting. Trying to figure out where they came from. I was honest. Told them they ain’t form the underworld. Bloody Zatara caught me. Wanted to know how I recognized them. Refused to tell him that they were looking for limbo. I made a promise to ya Danny boy and I intend to keep it,” John tapped his cigarette on the ashtray he keeps by the bed. Watching as Danny slowly dressed himself in his torn-up jeans and shirt, a jacket going with it. One would never think he was dead, much less royalty.

“Do you want me to talk to them?” Danny asked.

“Do you want to talk to them?” John uno reversed him.

“I’m free in two days. I’ll calm down the Justice League,” Danny snapped his fingers, disappearing in green fire, just the same as he arrived. John knows that when he walks back to his living room all evidence of his summoning will be gone as well.

“Damn. You have it bad,” a voice laughed from the living room.

“Damn it!” John shouted, face turning red from anger as he shut his bedroom door, a door that was not shut last night, as he quickly got dressed, stomping back into the living room. “Chas. What the bloody hell are you doing here?”

“Checking up on you. Someone has to,” he shrugged. “Haven’t seen you be like that with someone in forever. So, when’s the next date?” Chas teased.

“Sod off Chas. We’re not dating,” John waved him away, grabbing a cold beer.

“Sure. You only look the people you shag like that because no feelings are attached,” Chas nodded, clearly sarcastic.

“He doesn’t want a relationship. He just wants to make sure I keep his subjects out of trouble while in the human realm. Nothing more nothing less,” John took a big gulp of beer.

“Have either of you ever actually talked about this?” Chas asked.

“C’mon mate. We’ve never talked about it because there is nothing to talk about,” John yelled. “We meet in his realm at a set time we talk. If something comes up, I can call him,” John shrugged.

“so, nothing ever happened while in his realm?” Chas raised an eyebrow.

“Nothing worth bringing up in conversation,” John argued back, the jar that contains his soul in the back of his mind.

“Sure,” Chas snorted, clearly not believing him. “I’ll leave you. Just. Don’t ruin this for yourself John. You are clearly happy with him and that doesn’t happen often with you,” Chas walked out of the house, leaving John by himself, only the house to keep him company.

“I don’t like him. I can’t like him. Why would I even like him?” John asked himself and the house. “The guy only rescues my soul every chance he can get. He willingly comes to visit the human realm for me. He willingly gave me his summoning. “Fuck!” John shouted, realization hitting him.

Panic still fresh in his brain he called up Batman. “I have news about the creatures. Meeting in two days.” John didn’t give the guy a chance to reply, closing his phone and ending the call. He has two days to get his body ass unsober as possible before he has to see Danny again.

***

“Alright bats. Everyone here?” John asked, appearing once again on the table, the annoyance clear on Superman’s face.

“You have news about the strange creatures?” Batman asked, coming from him however, everyone knew that it was an order.

“Yeah yeah. I’ll get to that. Move out of the way people,” John only got down form the table to put his bag down, grabbing the green glowing chalk, and walking back up on the table, aware that he has other magic user’s eyes on him. Writing the familiar symbols, he knew by heart. He still had the old book on his shelf, but he has no use for it.

“Be prepared mates. He’s a tad dramatic,” John warned, muttering the same summoning from before. His eyes turning white as green flames enveloped the room, clearly it was done in a more dramatic way for the audience the two have present.

“Numquam agnus dabo te

numquam agnus dimittam te

numquam amet discurrere et deseram te

numquam agnus fac te clamare

numquam agnus dicere vale

numquam agnus dic mendacium et nocuerunt tibi”

Unlike yesterday where all Danny was wearing was ripped jeans, a t-shirt full of small holes and a warm jacket, today he was draped in armor of black, white, and ecto green. The crown of fire worn proudly at the top of his head and the ring of rage glowing proudly on his finger. Fire forming under his feet as he took steps down the table. John had to take a smirk at how Danny presented himself. This is the same person who tripped over his feet walking in a straight line the other week, crashing his face right into ghost rocks. It never amazed John that Danny could present himself this way, but no one could deny the affect that it had.

“Who are you?” Batman asked, taking the lead as usual.

“Did you not explain to them?” Danny’s voice now held an echo to it, a few leaguers unsure if they were hearing him correctly.

“Sorry love figured you would love to do the honors,” John waved him off, taking a seat.

“I am Phantom. King of the Infinite Realms. John Constantine is the watcher of the human realm for me. He has informed me that the “Justice League” was getting curious about my subjects,” Danny chooses his words carefully. John snorted at his phrasing of the Justice League. “My subjects are not causing lasting harm to any humans. No humans have been injured from them or have been killed. There should be no reason that this club house is looking into my subjects,” Danny’s eyes glowed a deep green, clearly angry about the accusations he has formed in his mind.

“We never claimed that your subjects have injured anybody. We were just concerned. These are new creatures. No one knew of them, and we wanted to make sure they were not a risk,” Wonder Woman was quick to jump in.

“Hah!” Danny grinned, showing his fangs in full view. “My subjects are not new. Most have been around longer then you have been alive. It is your ignorance that has made you assume such a thing.” John knows that if this was with just the two of them alone Danny would have cracked some stupid joke like, “You know what assuming does right? Make an ass out of you and me! Ha! Come on John! It’s funny!”

“I’m sorry?” Wonder Woman was confused.

“My subjects are mostly ghost. Spirits who have refused to pass on. Spirits who have been formed from human ideals. Death, Nocturne, and Time. These are all spirits that have been formed from the thoughts of humans. They will live as long as their ideas live on. There are ones that form naturally, there are ones who have died and left this world, unable to move on they come to my realm. They come back to finish what they started, their right to, or to just cause petty mischief, something they need to do to survive. I keep an eye on every single one in the human realm. From now on if there is an issue you go straight to John. Do I make myself clear?” There was a fire burning in Danny’s eyes as he turned around, stomping out, not wanting to hear any more questions.

“Guess I have no choice but to follow his highness,” John sounded like he was mocking the king, but he knows that if Chas was here, he would call John out on his bullshit quicker then he could snap.

“Did you see their faces?” Danny smiled, as John grabbed Danny’s arm, easily bringing them back to the house of mystery.

“They believe that you are a ruthless tyrant who cares only for his people,” John agreed, pouring himself a drink.

“Pour me one. I know it’s great isn’t it! I worked all day with Ember to get that speech perfect!” Danny’s grin couldn’t get wider, John handed him the drink, watching as Danny drank it with ease.

“Listen Danny boy,” John started, happy that he had the famous liquid courage to help him In this moment.

“What is it, John?” Danny looked up from his drink. There were no problems. The Justice League was handled. What else could there be.

“Mate- Love. It has come to my attention that we might have to rethink our situation John tried, not fully sure how to get the words out.

“You’re going to have to be clearer with me John,” Danny crossed his legs, floating in midair as if Gravity didn’t exist.

“Love I-“John’s throat stopped, not letting him get the words out. “Damn it!” John chugged the rest of his drink, cursing the heavens at his predicament. “Danny I- “once again he was stopped by himself, his beer not helping him at all.

Tired of trying with words, John did the next best thing, he let his actions speak for him. Grabbing Danny, pulling him close, no lust in the moment, unlike a few days ago, he took a deep hopeful breath and pushed a messy kiss upon the half ghost. “Danny, I like you,” John was finally able to whisper.

“Took you long enough mate,” Danny’s smile was wide and hopeful, grabbing John’s neck to kiss him once again. John knows that he’s in for a lifetime of puns, but he is kissing Danny, kissing the half ghost he doesn’t regret a single thing.

[schnuffel-danny]

My art piece for the @ecto-implosion event!

This art has an absolutely amazing accompanying fic by @moipale

Please go check the fic out! I cannot begin to express how honored I am to have a drawing of mine associated with such a wonderful piece of writing <3 I'm honestly still processing the after-shock of reading it, so go give them kudos!!!

[angelheartgamer]

DP x RWBY

When Danny falls through a portal in the ghost zone only to come out the other side no longer part ghost, it's confusing for him, understandably. Unfortunately for him there is no break to figure out what's happened as now he's faced with more deadly problems.

Shout out to my amazing author @harbinger-of-kisses

This is,,,,very chaotic, but I'm running on vibes and vibes alone, I also included my little ref sheet for the character designs.

[redead-red]

It's @ecto-implosion time!!

This is the piece I made for the event~~ you guys already know I'm a sucker for Westons and sibling bonding. And how incredibly lucky I was to be paired with the wonderful writer Missellaineous

Please check the incredible fic The Love That Binds Us

[sillysugargliders]

Dead!! Its here! My dp animatic is finally here! had so much fun with ecto implosion- you can read the fic my amazing author @tumblehcendrum made here!

you can also find this animatic on youtube, so please give it a watch there to support me!

[going-getting-got-ghost]

Battle for the Ancient Realms

-fic written by the talented @blobghost -

@ecto-implosion

[duchi-nesten]

guys i’ll be updating you on the E-I artist-writer gap live, because people like numbers going down

12 PEOPLE.

IF YOU WANNA MAKE THE DIFFERENCE SMALLER CHECK OUT @ecto-implosion AND SIGN UP AS A WRITER!

[spacetime1969]

Danny Fenton’s Field Trip to the Ghost Zone!

I have had the wonderful opportunity to write a fic inspired by the art of the wonderful @arisu-artnfics as part of @ecto-implosion. I ended up thinking it would be fun to bring in a trope from a completely different fandom, and write a Peter Parker Field Trip fic for Danny Fenton. Enjoy!

Chapter 3: The Field Trip

Ao3 | First | Previous | Next

Dash Baxter hadn’t expected that his class field trip would end up like this. He had been expecting a boring day at the planetarium, but instead they had found themselves in the Ghost Zone!

A lot of things had happened all at once. First they had fallen through a portal and landed in the Ghost Zone. Then their bus driver had abandoned them to dive through the portal as it closed, trapping them all behind him. And then, while the rest of the group was grappling with the fact that they had somehow ended up in another dimension, Fenton and his friends had gone and recruited a ghost to fly them home, somehow!

Honestly, Dash could deal with all of that. It was a lot, but he was an Amity Parker, born and raised! What was weirding him out was how relaxed the nerds were about all of this!

Dash wanted it on the record that he wasn’t scared (definitely not). He was just a little nervous, okay? Don’t judge him! They were in the Ghost Zone! How could he not be at least a little nervous? This is where the ghosts lived! Everyone should be nervous!

Not the nerds though. They only seemed to be mildly annoyed by the fact they were stuck in the afterlife another dimension. He could understand Manson and Valerie, they were both pretty scary themselves. He could even sort of understand Foley, but Fenton was infamous for hiding from even the most tame ghosts, disappearing to some hidey-hole until Phantom took care of them. Heck, he even abandoned his friends a lot of the time, leaving them to be saved by Phantom. So why the heck was Fenton so chill now that they were literally flying through the Ghost Zone?

Dash wasn’t gonna be stuck wondering for long, Mr. Lancer had the same question. “Mr. Fenton, How are you so calm!”

Danny stared at him. “Mr. Lancer, the portal to the Zone is in my parents lab. Did you really think that me and my friends wouldn’t have tried going through?”

Mr. Lancer spluttered at Fenton’s dry response. “I had assumed that your parents at least had enough lab safety in place that you wouldn’t have succeeded!”

Dash may have been a jock, but he wasn’t stupid okay. He had seen enough movies to tell the difference between a laugh and a cackle, and the way that Fenton’s laughter threw his head back and shook his whole body was absolutely a mad scientist’s cackle. The sound almost scared him more than the fact they were stuck in the Ghost Zone.

“Mr. Lancer, we’re Fentons. If my parents go too long without blowing something up, me and Jazz will do something ourselves just to make sure it’s not too quiet.”

Fenton’s friends were nodding along. “Yeah, the first time Danny slept over at my house it was too quiet for him to fall asleep. So he went down to the kitchen, modified the toaster oven to reach 3000°, and poured molten salt into the bathtub. Gave my parent’s a heart attack.”

Lancer’s eye twitched. “How old were you when you did this?”

Fenton shrugged. “Like six I think? I’m not sure. I did learn to get permission first after that though.”

Dash and Paulina shared a look. Holy shit, Fenton was a mad scientist. Like, it was common knowledge that the Fenton parents were, but apparently they had all missed the fact that Danny Fenton was just as crazy as them.

They both jumped when a mechanical hand popped out from a panel in the ceiling and the voice of their ghostly driver echoed through the speakers. “That's science, baby!”

Fenton gave the mechanical hand a high five and chuckled. “Well I didn’t write it down, but I did learn something, so it probably still counts.”

Manson laughed. “Hypothesis, everyone likes explosions before bed. Conclusion, hypothesis incorrect.”

The nerds (and Technus) laughed while the rest of the bus stared at them. Dash didn’t know whether to be terrified of them or just glad that they were still nerds. Then Fenton made eye contact with him and grinned. Definitely terrified of them.

“Well, in the meantime, we have reached our first stop!” Technus said, as the bus made a bumpy landing.

Fenton frowned. “Wait what? Why are we stopping? I thought we were headed to the Far Frozen?”

“That’s the destination, but, since your parent’s shut down the portal, things in the Zone have been shifting around even more than they usually do. So we will have to go from stop to stop and get directions as we travel,” the ghost replied.

“So where have we stopped now?” Valerie asked.

“Jonny and Kitty’s place!”

Fenton looked out the window. “Oh yeah I recognize it! There’s their track.”

“Go see if they know where Dora’s castle is right now. That should be in the right direction.”

“Yeah alright, I’ll go ask,” Fenton said.

The rest of the class pressed their faces to the windows and watched as he walked out of the bus and over to the dirt track. He held his hands to his mouth and yelled.

“Kitty! Johnny! You here?”

There was a moment of silence, and it seemed like there wasn’t gonna be a reply. Then there was the sound of a revving motorcycle. It appeared from behind one of the embankments, with two people riding it. They rode towards Fenton, not slowing down as they got closer and closer.

Fenton just stood there, not even moving as they barreled straight towards him. Dash glanced over at the nerds to see their reaction, only to see them all looking entirely uninterested. Foley wasn’t even watching, messing with his PDA instead. Dash looked back out the window as his other classmates gasped. Just as they thought that Fenton was gonna get turned into a pavement smear the bikers slid into a skid, kcking up enough dust to temporarily block Fenton and the bike from view.

Dash and his classmates watched as the dust cleared, wondering if Fenton had just gotten run over, but when the dust cleared Fenton hadn’t moved an inch. The bike on the other hand, had stopped barely an inch in front of him.

The couple on the bike and Fenton stared each other down.

“Boo! 3/10 try harder next time.”

Dash flinched at the loud voice next to him. He turned to see Manson giving a thumbs down and heckling the ghosts outside. The guy rolled his eyes and the girl in the red jacket blew a sarcastic kiss towards her. Manson laughed and her friends rolled their eyes. The rest of the class was just staring at her, baffled.

With Manson seeming to have broken the staring contest, Fenton and the two ghosts relaxed and started talking, but whatever they were saying was too quiet for Dash to hear. They seemed to argue for a bit, before Fenton shrugged and randomly tackled the guy off his motorcycle.

The class watched in shock as they tussled in the dirt. The other ghost hopped off the motorcycle and went to join them, but Valerie cackled and jumped out the window of the bus. Lancer tried to reach out and grab her but Manson and Tucker blocked him. Not that it mattered, she was already out the window by the time he’d moved.

“Not on my watch Kitty!” Valerie yelled as she tackled the second ghost from behind.

Manson and Foley cheered as the four wrestled in the dirt.

Fenton managed to pin the ghost he was fighting quickly and he tapped out. The two then sat and watched as the others wrestled. It wasn’t long before Valerie also managed a pin, and they all helped each other up. They brushed their clothes off and shook hands, speaking for a moment more before Valerie and Fenton walked back to the bus.

“Okay, Johnny said that Dora’s is about 10° up with a 30° azimuth.” Danny said as he and Valerie climbed back into the bus.

“Alright!” Technus yelled. “Next stop, Dora's Castle!”

Dash fell back into his seat as the bus jumped and they were once again flying through the ghost zone.

For a long moment all the students just sat there, but eventually Paulina broke the silence with the question everyone was wondering. “What was that?” she screeched.

Fenton just looked at her in confusion. “What was what?”

“What do you mean ‘what was what?’ The fighting and stuff! You went from a perfectly civil conversation to fighting in the dirt! Valerie jumped out the window!”

“Oh that! Well Johnny said he wouldn’t tell me unless I fought him. So I did.”

Paulina spluttered at his relaxed statement before turning to their other classmate.

Their classmate who had literally jumped out a window less than ten seconds ago just shrugged. “I wasn’t about to turn down a fight.” Valerie said.

“Why?” Paulina cried.

Valerie just shrugged again. “It’s fun.”

Dash... had no idea how to respond to that. Apparently, neither did Paulina, because she just slumped into her chair.

Dash had no idea how to react to everything he was learning about Fenton and his friends today.

[i-think-in-metaphors]

I can finally post this! I’ve been sitting on this piece for so long! This is my ecto implosion art and my partner was @wolfjackle and the fic is *chef kiss*

[harpsicalghost]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Danny Phantom Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Danny Fenton & Tucker Foley & Sam Manson, Danny Fenton & Jazz Fenton Characters: Danny Fenton, Tucker Foley, Sam Manson, Jazz Fenton Additional Tags: Danny Fenton's Ghost Obsession is Space, Ghost Powers (Danny Phantom), Hurt/Comfort, Ghost Cores (Danny Phantom), Anxiety, Hypothermia, Ecto-Implosion 2023 (Danny Phantom), creating stars, Astronomy, danny gets new powers and refuses to talk to anyone and sam and tucker almost get eaten by a bog, It's Ok in the end, Inspired by Fanart, Inspired by Art Summary:

“You are being supremely, supremely weird, and that is a very high bar to exceed,” Sam says without preamble, setting her lunch on the picnic table next to Danny. Her words are harsh but there’s a crinkle between her eyebrows and she’s not so much glaring as apparently trying to physically extract what is going on with her friend by the tried and true method of staring really, really hard at him until he cracks.

The stars are calling to Danny in a very real way. Avoiding talking about it, or thinking about it, seems like the correct approach. His friends disagree. This somehow ends in a stinky car ride, the weirdest nightlight ever, and ghostly star science.

- This work is inspired by this amazing piece of art by Aster: https://www.tumblr.com/disregardcan0n/736047764693286912/ectoimplosion-posting-week YOU WILL LOOK AT THIS ART <3 - Danny is tapping his fingers again. Sam’s eyes are drawn to the sound. It’s a staccato tick, and she flicks her eyes from her own textbook, to his hands, up to his eyes. He’s looking out the window, or at least his head is turned away from the front of the room. His shoulders are high. The tapping pauses for a moment, then picks up again even faster.

Sam makes a cursory glance at the teacher to make sure she’s clear, then turns fully around to face Tucker. It’s easy to disguise the rotation as a stretch to crack her spine, and it does actually feel good to loosen up, though she is aiming to catch her friend’s attention. He looks back and she feels a shot of connection and shared frustration as his eyes mirror her own confusion. His lips thin and he gives a little nod, but then his eyes dart past Sam.

“Ms. Manson,” Mrs. Andelu asks sharply, “would you please direct your attention back to the lesson.”

Sam untwists her spine, tries to summon a contrite attitude, fails, and settles for grinning at the teacher. “Sorry, won’t happen again!” She chirps. Mrs. Andelu frowns but returns to lecturing.

Sam can still hear the tapping, and she grinds her pen into a corner of her notebook. She takes diligent notes for the next ten minutes, a reminder of each point of the grading rubric for the ongoing assignment, then risks looking over at Danny again. His tapping fingers have moved to his thigh, so the sound is dampened. The window, now drizzle specked and somehow looking all the more grimy for it, still holds his gaze. Sam hits her pen against the metal spiral of her notebook three times, at a rhythm fully at odds with her friend’s own finger tapping. It’s a little too loud, and one of her neighbors shoots her a glare but- Danny pauses. When he turns he’s wearing a smile that softens Sam’s eyes even as she refuses to return it. He still looks too tightly wound, upright and weirdly awake. Danny’s sneakers shuffle on the floor and he brushes hair out of his face. Sam realizes that apart from the finger tapping he’d been still as stone since class started.

The bell elicits a mundane spike of adrenaline from Sam that doesn’t even bother to surface as any visible reaction. Amongst the scrapping chairs she can hear Tucker’s distinct unfolding from his seat as he tries to simultaneously stretch, gather his notebook and reading materials, take out his phone, and reconfigure his hoodie for optimal heat regulation. She doesn’t even have to look over at him to know when he’s actually ready to leave as she hears the final zip of his backpack. Danny’s already on his feet. The three clump together and let the flow of other students guide them out into the hallway.

Tucker gets into it immediately. “Dude. This is prime nap time hour and you were extremely not napping. You’re always out on review days. What’s up with you?”

“What?” Danny asks, almost tripping as a freshman unexpectedly stops in the middle of hall, hands stuck deep in a backpack and face a mask of disbelief and fear. Someone hisses displeasure at the slow down, but the trio just slip past. November is rough on freshmen, and there’s no need to be rude about it.

“You clearly want to get out of here,” Tucker continues, nudging Danny with a shoulder.

Danny looks befuddled. He gestures around at the crowd of high schoolers who, in fact, heading for the exit. “Tucker, who doesn’t want to get out of school?” he asks. “Well, besides Jazz,” he can’t help but amend.

“You know what we mean,” Sam says. Leaning in to look more closely, she flicks a finger against his arm as they turn the corner toward the north exit. “You’re being weird. Extra weird. None of us slept much last night. I feel like garbage. Tuck almost passed up lunch to nap. Lunch! But you seem like,” she paused and looked up at the ceiling before gesturing at Danny, “caffeinated or something.”

“I’m just, uh,” Danny stalls out, then shakes himself. “Look, I’m good,” he rocks his hand back and forth in a so-so motion. “More or less.”

Tucker opens his mouth to say something but it is crowding up and the murmuring, occasionally shouting tide of students keeps pulling them toward the exit doors. Danny speeds, the cold wet air sweeping away the highschool funk of the hallway. Sam hooks her thumbs under her backpack straps and hikes the pack higher so she can speed up as well. Danny is nearly jogging by the time he’s out the door, and Tucker yells for him to slow down.

- He’s out of sight by the time the two burst into a miserable drizzle.

“Reports from community members show a noticeably slower Phantom in conflict with two aggressive wolf-like enemies,” chirps a local news reporter from the TV in the other room.

The silverware that Danny has been setting out click loudly against a plate. He holds entirely still for one moment, then goes back to setting them out. The news starts playing something that sounds distinctly like an amateur video of the ghost fight, complete with expletives from the person filming being beeped out. Near the end, there is a crashing sound followed by a howling. Car alarms start going off, and then the video’s sound cuts away.

“Witnesses describe the fight as unusual in its destruction of property,” the reporter says. “We spoke with Tom Zel, owner of a local pizza chain, whose Water Street location was impacted by the ghost fight.”

Silverware in its place, Danny walks stiffly into the kitchen, and retrieves the serving utensils and a bowl of rolls covered in a cloth.

“It really was weird,” says a man, presumably Mr. Zel. “I’ve seen ghost fights, I’ve seen Phantom fight in person and well, from what people have uploaded to the internet I guess, and this was not like that. The wolves- did you see one of them went into the store? It was thrown right into the counter. Horrible. Well Phantom was flying around, zapping them and all that, but not really good. He wasn’t talking. I mean I know they’re like big dogs but he talks a lot normally, right? And the weirdest thing was that at the start, they all came down from the sky. My manager, Al, saw it clearer but we both saw all of them come down from the sky.” He talks fast, and keeps raising his voice then dropping it back to some semblance of calm.

Another voice, this one sounding like a professional, cuts in. “Ghosts are known to fly. How was that unusual?”

Tom takes a deep breath. “It wasn’t how it normally happens. Maybe a ghost flies in from somewhere else, but well, if you’re from Amity Park you know how it is. You can almost feel it approaching, see the light get weird,” he chuckles, but it is strained. “This time it was like 0 to 60. Wham, ghost fight. I think they were really high up, and the wolves dragged him down. Like I said, Phantom didn’t say much, but he did tell them off at the beginning, he said he had been busy.” The TV crackles. It happens sometimes when the plasma in the TV screen responds to the ambient ecto energy that drifts through the Fenton household. Some other question from the reporter is obscured, but Tom’s voice slips through at the end.

“It looked like a bunch of light was all around, all over, Phantom, at the start. It was swarming around him. And he looked sad. I don’t know how else to say it. He looked sad.” Tom pauses. Danny shuts his eyes hard. Then the pizza chain owner on the TV laughs. “Well it really was just the wildest thing, and I still need to pay for a new door and window so please come on by any Zel’s Pizza location, get ten percent off if you mention this, we have locations at-”

“Thank you so much for your time Mr. Zel,” cuts in the reporter. “And next up we have a story about an area teen who is making a change in her community. You don’t want to miss it!”

Keys jangle in the lock and Maddie Fenton shoulders open the side door, toting plastic bags of take out Italian. She deposits the bags into the counter with care, then wraps an arm around her son’s shoulder to give him a kiss on the temple. He squirms out of her grasp and hurries to turn off the TV in the living room. Maddie calls for the rest of the family, and the room fills with warm chatter.

Outside, the stars are singing. He’s going to have to listen eventually. For now he sits through family dinner, trying to keep his eyes from wandering to the ceiling, the windows.

-

The wet pavement smell is a discernible miasma that folds around him as he skims down the streets. He feels fish-like, long boned and photophobic, keeping himself out of the visible spectrum, shying away from the amber glow of streetlamps, but unwilling to gain altitude. It is nice to be at street level, noticing human scale details while letting the ghostly overlay of the landscape color his perception. His core thrums as ghost wildlife travels amongst the living, little bats and mice and eyeshine in corners, the living and the dead both hard to spot and discern even for Danny. Either way, they carry their routines forward, chasing food or shadow or warmth.

Night gliding has become a habit in the last few weeks. Before, he would tend toward heights, toward the roofs and the sky. Lately, the sky has felt so close all the time. He doesn’t need to peel away another layer of human, what? Protection? Facade? When he feels shimmered through by the night sky everytime the sun fades.

Somewhere close to the river, Danny realizes he has a headache. His core stutters for a moment and his spectral tail bunches up on itself as he stops. He is upside down. He yelps, because what is actually happening and- oh.

He’d done the weird, embarrassing thing he did sometimes when he panicked while flying: he had flipped onto his back in midair, pushed his chin and chest upward, belly arched toward the sky and hands gently treading the air as if it were water. This was the swimming float he had learned so young he barely remembered the learning. His parents had taught him and Jazz the technique because if you grew up in the midwest, you probably grew up around water. The Fentons certainly had. A back float was the easiest way to stay afloat and breathing without using excess energy. He had used it with Jazz in pickerel weed lined lakes so they could chatter in the middle of the water, eyes closed against the glare of sun, and he had used it when he struck out into Lake Michigan, to check he wasn’t going too far out, flipping over and over like a seal, until the shore got too far and it got too scary and he hightailed it back to the comfort of baking sand and colorful beach towels.

It was a safe motion. A human trying to keep breathing and keep alive type of motion. With it he had also damped his aura and drew into what his friends called “super invisible.” He didn’t know other ghosts well enough to know if he was fooling himself, but it felt like he let go of the world even more than the casual shaking away of a photon's ability to bounce off him. He felt himself slip, silent, into something more absent than anything else.

Headaches in ghost form were- heck, were they just rare? Or completely unheard of? Yeah, human vasoconstriction and sleep deprivation gave him plenty of headaches under the fluorescent lights at school but like- had he hit something lately? What had happened? Normally a headache in ghost form was concerning but linked firmly to a head wound. “Got hucked into a wall by Skulker,” was an unpleasant but causal explanation for the pulsing pain. Out of nowhere? It was like glancing down and realizing you were bleeding without cause, like your wrist had twisted out of place and you hadn’t even noticed.

Caffeinated, Sam had said. And he felt- the lights, buzzing, the brightness, a weird gap of the night sky so blankly dark. And panic. The panic sits on his unrising chest for a moment.

Danny realizes he is upside-down again. He had been, right? Right. The sky was dark, and the streetlamp is so bright to look at that it hurts. That is weird too. Light shouldn’t really hurt. It never had before.

His eyes catch on the faint stars overhead- just the brightest ones with all the light pollution making it hard to peek through. The sky is the blue black haze that he secretly loves, at the edge of complete night. Astronomical twilight, when the stars come out and only the faintest things like nebulae remain hidden by the last presence of sunlight.

They may be hidden but he knows in a rush, in an almost tactile way, how far away each point of light is. Not in light-years but like a map, or a shape. It’s a depth he can wrap his mind around and it draws at it him, a grip on his core, almost a singing resonance. It’s-

He flips back over, rights himself, summons up his legs, and growls in frustration. His fingers in his hair don't even feel satisfying, his hair is so slippery as a ghost, and he can’t give it a good yank like he could as himself. As a human. This was himself too, right?

He needs to go somewhere to calm down. He mutters as much to himself with a few swear words thrown in as a bonus because hey, he really means it. He’s going to be calm, and he’s not going to look at the sky.

Danny’s boots crunch and slide on the loose slush on the roof of the Buehler's grocery store. He can hear the electric hum out of the powerlines nearby. He’s not getting near any of that. He doesn’t so much calm down as pace until he realizes that at least attempting to sleep is probably a good choice, no matter how he feels at the moment.

The ghost shield is up when he returns and there’s a delirious moment as he looks at the faint shimmer of anti-ecto energy domed over the amber glow of the FentonWorks sign (recently dimmed past 9pm after a neighborhood petition) where he considers just sleeping on the roof of the neighbor’s house. Maybe duck into their attic and bed down among old halloween decorations and old bags of clothes intended for donation.

But no. That would raise too many points of disconnect and figuring out lies sounds more exhausting than anything else. Instead he finds the familiar if scary trajectory that will carry him toward the house, allow him to transform at just the right moment to not smack into the shield, and land invisibly in his room. He drops to the floor with hardly a sound.

Sleep doesn’t really work out. And now, even now, his sleepy core feels the gentle pull of stars.

-

“You are being supremely, supremely weird, and that is a very high bar to exceed,” Sam says without preamble, setting her lunch on the picnic table next to Danny. Her words are harsh but there’s a crinkle between her eyebrows and she’s not so much glaring as apparently trying to physically extract what is going on with her friend by the tried and true method of staring really, really hard at him until he cracks. Danny’s whole body curls up slightly. He stuffs a detention slip into his backpack reflexively, like Sam hadn’t seen Lancer hand that out in class earlier today. Danny had gotten up in the middle of class and, instead of the expected dash out the door, had walked up to the window and stared fixedly out for several long moments. To the class’s eyes it had looked like he was ignoring Mr. Lancer’s calls for him to return to his seat on purpose, but Tucker had told Sam that he wasn’t sure Danny could even hear what was happening in the room.

Tucker, for his part, was opting out of this conversation by flopping onto the picnic table and pretending to sleep. Tucker had already been gently bothering Danny in between classes and over texts, trying to check in. Now he had his huge noise canceling headphones and a hoodie crammed under his head. There would be no buffer against Sam’s interrogation.

“What do you mean?” Danny asks and then cringes as Sam draws herself up and motions furiously towards his entire being.

Sam starts ticking points on her fingers. “You don’t want us patrolling with you, you seem really distracted, you barely talk to us anymore but you don’t seem mad just, well, distracted! And you don’t sleep in class anymore, which would be a good thing except it’s like you can’t sleep, can you sleep? That would be concerning? Oh and you’re weirdly drawn to windows. Is there a window ghost? Do I need to start fighting windows? I will fight windows. Oh! And the fights,” Sam does actually lower her voice at this point. Danny stares at her hands instead of her eyes. “I’ve seen the news reports and Jazz says you’re out all night, is it taking you that long to fight? I mean, none of that is good or normal but mostly you’re not talking to us and that sucks!”

Danny has been leaning slightly away from Sam as this went on, but he stops now. “Wait, what did Jazz say about me going out?”

Sam takes a huge breath, pushes it slowly out her nose, then another, and another. Oh fantastic. She’s practicing calming exercises.

“Yes,” Sam says finally, curtly. “Jazz is worried. So am I. So is Tucker. Talk to us.”

Danny cracks his knuckles. Sam waits. Tucker slowly adjusts his headphones to make sure there’s enough of a gap to overhear the conversation, while maintaining his face-in-hoodie position and refusing to open his eyes. Well, at least Danny won’t have to explain twice. But how can he explain?

“Ok fine, yes, I’ve been weird!” he whisper-shouts. There’s not many people eating lunch at the outside picnic tables, but there is still a risk of being heard. “I don’t know what it’s about though and it doesn’t seem… bad?”

“The fights look… rough,” Sam says softly.

“They’re ok,” Danny shrugs. “Seriously, I’m not hurt, or even weak but you’re right about the distraction. It’s like… ok it’s weird. I think it’s about the sky.”

Sam glances up at the sky and gives it serious consideration. Danny chuckles and Sam folds her arms but smiles a little.

“It’s, well, it’s just that I can tell a bit more about the sky and the stars and everything. You I’ve always been into astronomy, that’s not new but now I can sort of feel, or sense what’s going on up there? The stars are just always sort of… letting me know they’re there?”

Sam’s eyes are steady when Danny meets them. She looks surprised, but she unfolds her arms.

“A space sense? Is it just at night? You seem distracted all day too.”

“I can feel it a little? Like- I know that Sirius is right over there,” he points a bit below the horizon. Sam stares at the unassuming bit of pavement that his finger indicates. “It’s easy to tell because that’s one of the closer stars. And it’s pretty, well, mellow feeling?” He ducks his head as he explains and pulls back his hand.

Sam nods slowly. “Huh.”

Danny laughs, consciously relaxing his body language. “I think it’s distracting me because it’s so new, but I know I’ll get used to it. I always do.”

“You sure?” Sam worries at her black nail polish. “That’s honestly pretty… that’s a lot.”

“Oh, no,” Danny waves off. “It’s already getting better. Just more weirdness to pile on. But I’m getting used to it. Just need to stop getting distracted.”

Tucker gives a thumbs up without moving any other part of his body. Sam frowns.

-

The focus knob on the telescope turns smoothly under his gloved fingers. Jupiter shines with amazing clarity and depth through the lens. It’s such a grand planet, so alive almost. And it has been fun spending a bit of time pointing his telescope at various astronomical objects this evening. Danny had readjusted his tripod a bit ago so he could settle on the ground and now his hand brushes against something rough. It’s his backpack. Reflexively, he pulls out his phone and his breath hitches.

It’s 2:07am.

That can’t be right. He had set out to do a little stargazing. Setting the clocks back for the time change was rough, but the sun set earlier in human terms, which meant time for Danny to head over to the big field by the Amity Park observatory to set up his telescope before heading home to do late night homework. He’d caught Jazz earlier that day and explained a bit about what was happening with him and the stars and his weirdness. He wanted to stop avoiding the connection. Being part ghost was just his life, or part-life (“Danny you know I worry when you make these jokes.” “Yeah Jazz, I know.”) and maybe sensing the stars a little bit in his core every second of the day was just something to get used to. So, he’d connect back to his passion for space, see some beautiful sights through the telescope, and integrate this new experience into his bizarre, totally fine, sensory world.

Danny pants in fear. It’s cold out but his breath isn’t coming out in clouds. He’s glowing. He’s in ghost form.

This was supposed to be a human adventure. Stargaze, enjoy the fact that the cold didn’t bite so hard anymore now that his core delighted in the chill, go home and do Lit homework. When had he changed into Phantom?

He scrambles to unlock his phone, which lights up with unread messages. Two calls, one from the house and many from Jazz’s cell. Way too many texts in the group chat with Sam and Tucker. He swallows, and flips through them.

Sam and Tucker are actually pretty calm. Apparently Jazz was looking for him, but the cover story was he was at Tucker’s place for a project. There were even a peppering of questions about homework and plans for the week, which petered out around 11pm.

Jazz, meanwhile, had called eight times, first with exactly thirty minutes gaps between them, and next with exactly five minute intervals. He hadn’t heard a thing, but his phone wasn’t muted. There is a single voicemail.

“Danny,” Jazz’s voice is so tense Danny cringes. “You are working on a group project at Tucker’s. Parents seem unconcerned. I am concerned. Call me.”

Danny texts Jazz in a rush to say that he is very ok and very very sorry. Immediately he gets an incoming call from Jazz and gathers breath he doesn’t need.

“Hi,” he says, phone pressed tight against his ear. “I’m ok, I lost track of time, I’m ok, sorry.”

Jazz’s shaky breath carries across the miles.

“You didn’t… nothing happened? You just lost track of time?”

“Yes,” Danny affirms, and he hears the echo in his voice. He digs his fingers into the grass, which is wet with cold dew. He does not look up.

“You’re… there wasn’t anything more?”

“No, just wrapped up in the telescope I guess. Look, I’m going to put you on speaker now so I can get it packed away, ok?”

He taps the speaker button and lays the phone in the grass. He hadn’t even bothered to bring a blanket. Jazz’s voice crackles up from the phone. He wonders if his echo sounds louder or softer on speaker.

“But that means that- oh my god, I could have just driven over there. I should have done that. But you’re. I can hear that you’re-.”

“It’s fine!” Danny calls as he latches the last of the telescope pieces in place and zips the whole bag up. “I’ll be there in a moment, sorry.”

“Danny, I-”

Danny hangs up.

-

Jazz’s door creaks as he presses a palm against it. The glow from her desk lamp fills the room. Danny pads barefoot across the rug. He’d taken a moment to change- change into human form, change into pajamas. Jazz is sitting cross legged on her bed, blanket clutched in her fingers. She looks owlishly at him as he approaches and sits next to her.

They don’t say anything, but after a while Jazz lets out a long shudder of a breath, and wraps both arms around her brother. Danny has to lean sideways to make it a real hug. His core murmurs away, unheard by human ears, but calling out a family hum.

“I’m too tired to talk about it,” Jazz mumbles.

“Yeah. Me too.”

“We should though.”

“I know.”

-

School is normal. School is one ghost attack (Skulker, frankly easy to resolve, and since Danny isn’t holding back so it’s quick), two quizzes, an actually cool chemistry demonstration, and burrito day in the cafeteria. Danny does not look out any windows. He ignores that that doesn’t matter.

-

At midnight the stoplight down the street from Fentonworks switches from its normal red green cycle to flashing yellow and flashing red to allow the thin trickle of traffic to flow efficiently through the suburbs. Danny, who has been flopped belly down in bed in a pretzel of sheets and blankets, sees the faint shine of the color change flashing on his wall. The streetlamps feel brighter and more invasive lately. Even with the curtains shut he can see the light.

He phases out of his blanket nest and puts his head in his hands. Restless. Caffeinated. Distracted. And maybe even losing track of time. The stars are calling and his core is calling back.

He shoots a quick text to Sam and Tucker.

Danny: this is 100 to keep jazz unfreaked,im good, check the observatory if im out too late.

And then he’s in the air outside. The dark and the cool is an immediate balm. Had he felt hot? Was he just tired?  He is rushing toward the bulging head of the observatory outside town which completely redirects his brain while his hands remain forward and he keeps flying. The stars sing.

Tucker is in the zone. The zone includes the correct proportion of snacks and drinks, folding himself up into his computer chair, and watching Super Smash Bros esports compilations on Youtube.

The first few notes of the ghostbuster theme blat out of his phone. He smirks a bit- his little script switches the trio’s group chat from a parent and teacher pleasing mozart jingle to the ghostbusters theme at 8pm, and back again at 7am. It was a fun thing to write, if a bit silly, and it’s nice to hear it working.

His phone alerts again, twice, and he grabs it.

Danny: this is 100 to keep jazz unfreaked,im good, check the observatory if im out too late.

Sam: ????

Sam: danny what.

Tucker jams the spacebar and pauses his video. He stares at the screen for a moment, then turns his eyes to the window. It looks cold outside. The sky is a blank gray cloud that catches light pollution and turns into a diffuse background for houses and trees to silhouette against. The moon is out there somewhere, blurry bright. No stars.

Then again, Danny had pointed out a star, in full day, that had been blocked by the planet’s bulk. Tucker unfolds and texts Sam outside the group chat.

Tucker: let’s deal with this. can you drive?

-

Sam neatly dodges the gate that blocks the entrance to the observatory, pitches the car partway into the ditch, proceeds anyway, and puts the car in park in the gravel lot. Sam and Tucker get out, bundled up against the cold. Still, they hunch against the chill, hands shoved in pockets.

The field abutting the observatory is empty. But something sparks in the woods beyond.

At first it looks like someone’s setting off fireworks. Sam keeps waiting for the pop but it never comes. Instead the lights cluster and expand, arraying out in huge clouds and sometimes gathering pinprick bright, blues and whites and yellows. It looks like watercolor paint smearing, or clouds at sunset maybe. Or like the images from the Hubble telescope, but come alive. They weave in and out of the trees, filling the open meadow.

Under the lights are somehow more lights. It takes a moment to process, but it’s a pond, iced at the edges but still water in the center. It looks cold. It catches every bit of light and mirrors it.

At the center is Phantom. His eyes blaze green, and ectoplasmic pinpricks ghost around his hair, his shoulders.

Sam puts a foot forward and realizes the meadow is more marsh than land. She sinks up to her calf in mud. Tucker’s hand catches her elbow and the wet meadow burps up under them both.

It smells immediately like muck. Sam gasps at the cold. Tucker is prepared, headlamp ready to lurch out into the water but Sam is shaking, she’s only up to her knees and she’s clenched over.

“My socks,” she chokes.

Danny is a glimmer of a starlight in the center of the pond, suspended above the tannic water. Each catch of bright light reflects and contorts on the now rippling pond water.

The lights dance above and Tucker gasps out, shivering cold, pushing into the water and mud. “They’re stars.”

Danny barely even notices them push into the boggy little meadow. He’s facing the sky, one hand extended, rotating gently, the other hand loose by his side, holding gently onto a ball of something so bright that it leaves an impression burned into their eyelids even when they glance away. And when he turns to face them, his eyes are joyful, and he is so, so still.

“Hey!” Tucker yells. He sloshes forward. A tiny galaxy pings against Danny’s fingers. His eyes glance down at the humans, and away. A nebula is spreading from Danny’s hands, coalescing into stars, a recapitulation of the night sky trapped over the vernal pond. He reaches both hands up and grins as more light sparks out from his fingers. It is so beautiful, and it is so cold. Sam is sinking, gasping at the cold, and Phantom is smiling but not at his friends. The trees seem to lean inward.

The hickory bark peeling off the trees spooks Tucker in a way ghosts don’t. There’s a glow around a lot of ghost conflict. It says: I am to be feared but the fear is the point, not the broken femur, not the trapped hand. The emotion, the conversation and response, is the goal itself.

By contrast the pond says to Sam and Tucker- nothing. The pond will continue to be with or without bodies or screams. If humans come to harm or health, it is nothing to the pond. The silt will shift but the water table has its say. It will be. The landscape is a reminder of the inevitability of decay, and the central water seems to drag them in. It did not stir, even as they struggle.

There is a very real chance that both he and Sam are slipping into hypothermia. Both he and Sam are gasping now in pain, and Tucker can’t feel his legs. His hands hover over the water, and Danny, his best friend, seems untethered from the world. Well, he and Sam have always been good at getting him back

“Hey!” Tucker shouts as loud as he can and in the effort tips forward a bit. Sam shrieks and hauls him back up. Green eyes flash toward the noise. There is a long, unquiet pause and then Danny recalls every light back to hand, where they smother like a blown out candle. Everything except Tucker’s headlamp goes dark.

“Guys?” Danny’s voice echoes in the open wood. A bit of swamp gas burps up from the muck, and Tucker lets out a hysterical laugh that chokes into a cough.

“Hey,” Sam says, teeth chattering but clear. “It’s us. Can you get us out of here? Nice text message by the way.”

Danny flies down and tries to say the word “sorry,” as often as possible. Make eye contact, and what do Sam or Tucker get? A sorry. Look away? A sorry. Try to dig a limb out of the muck for more than five seconds without help. Another sorry.

This goes on through the whole rough process of extracting themselves from the bog. It is genuinely difficult, even with adrenaline and ghost powers and handlamp. Sam at one point struggles for more than a minute, says she is giving up on shoes, and then pops out of the muck barefoot and trying to distribute her weight in such a way that she doesn’t sink. It works alright. Danny, rattled, tries for intangibility and manages to get Tucker out, clothes pretty much in place.

Everything smells. Sam and Tucker are shaking uncontrollably, and Danny scoops them up and brings them to the car. Danny manages to strip most of the water out of their clothes, which leaves behind a mostly dry silt layer. They duck in the car and Sam turns the heat up to full blast. It stinks worse.

“Ok,” Sam says through chattering teeth. “I drive. Then shower. And warm. We can do this.”

She drives away from the gravel lot, starts swinging into the ditch around the gate to exit, but Danny taps her arm, slaps a palm on the dashboard, and makes the whole car intangible.

At the mansion, Sam heads them all up to the guest wing, aided by Danny’s invisibility. They each claim a pristine shower, nearly clog it with pond grime, and emerge to don Manson branded pajamas. Sam turns up the heat for the wing using some proprietary app, and they all head for the bizarre cabin-like section of the wing with wood paneling, rustic knick-knacks, and bunk beds (“for when my cousins would visit and the adults wanted all the kids out of the way,” Sam explained). They each take a moment to simply warm up in dry, pine scented beds. Sam and Tucker nearly got hypothermia, but Danny shakes too.

“Hey,” Tucker says finally and sits up. Sam looks a little glassy eyed but her cheeks are pink. Danny turns toward the wall so Tucker can’t see him.

“Danny?”

Danny speaks in a rush. “I know I said I was sorry and I am but I am really sorry.”

“I- it’s ok?” Sam says, sounding a bit confused. “You helped us.”

“Barely noticed you,” Danny grits out.

“Well, you did eventually,” Tucker reassures. Danny is silent. The programmed warm air flows gently into the room, humming from the corner. While Sam and Tucker burrow into their comforters, Danny flings off his blankets but remains laying on the bunk bed, turned away from his friends.

They both look at each other, and then wrap their blankets around their shoulders before walking over to sit next to Danny’s curled up body. He shifts a bit to let them scoot in, but otherwise doesn’t respond. It’s a long moment before he speaks.

“Ok,” Danny whispers, “ok, it’s a bit more than distracting.”

“...Do you want to say more about that?” Sam prods.

Danny sits up and twists his hands in his lap. His friends lean in next to him. They breathe together for a moment.

“I think this is a big deal,” Danny starts, “and I think it’s staying. I really can feel the stars around the planet, just, all the time. I can feel them right now, it's almost like music? That’s not quite right it’s…” He huffs and grimaces, unable to find words.

“Look, we get that ghost stuff is weird,” Tucker fills in. “We know we can’t get it all the way but some on, this isn’t out of nowhere. You always wanted to be part of NASA, you love space, it’s not a secret. The ghost part probably makes it different.”

“Yeah,” Danny continues finally. “It’s kind of scary too. It’s amazing, I mean, I won’t deny that. Did you know the sun is noisy? I have to go pretty high up but I can hear it. And it’s amazing to get a feel for the stars- I think I’m getting signals that are past the visible spectrum for normal people. It’s so cool. But also, earth is just one planet. It’s so big out there, it’s hard to even fit it in my head. I’m used to being Phantom but this is like, what if I get lost in how big everything is?”

What if I slip away? Mutters a mean little voice in the back of his head.

“And tonight was amazing actually. I hated not seeing you all, that sucked, I really am sorry.”

“We know,” Sam and Tucker say in unison. Danny covers his eyes with his hands but smiles.

“I really got it tonight. It didn’t feel just like all this stuff outside me, it was like I could really understand the stars, where they come from, where they’re going. It was so easy.” He snaps his fingers for emphasis. A tiny burst of star cloud stretches like a spider's web between his snapped fingers. Danny’s eyes go wide and he shakes his hand violently, dismissing the little nebula.

“Wait,” Tucker reaches out like he’s trying to grab the wispy little thing back. “Can’t we see?”

Danny laughs dryly and hunches his shoulders. “Is that a good idea?”

“I don’t know,” Sam says, tapping her lip. “Why not? You weren’t scary or anything, just focused on what you were doing. And we weren’t invited to the show. Maybe now you can tell us about it.”

Danny, if anything, hunches further into himself.

“You don’t have to,” Tucker says, “But Danny, you said it yourself. This isn’t going away. And if it is a big deal, we’re part of it.”

Sam reaches an arm over Danny’s shoulders, her hand ghosting on Tucker’s neck, while Tucker leans in closer until Danny is pressed tight between his two best friends. His tensed muscles ease over long breaths.

“Ok,” Danny says, “and as a warning this is a little nerdy.”

“I am shocked, completely shocked,” Tucker intones. Sam giggles.

“So,” Danny says, snapping his fingers again. The little swirl of cosmic dust stretches fine between his fingers. Sam pulls out her phone, mashes something on her mansion’s fancy home app, and the lights dim. “This is how stars start. They’re not stars yet just, well, the start of it all. It’s called a stellar nebula. It’s not that hot, and it really is just a bunch of gas. Sometimes it stays that way but sometimes,” Danny presses his fingers together and a point of light concentrates at the center of the cloud. His eyes glow a soft green, and he glances between both his friends.

“It starts gathering, it wants to be a star,” Sam fills in. “But how?”

“It’s a collapse. All that gas, it can’t hold its loose form. Once it reaches that point, it’s going to concentrate.” The little bead of light in Danny’s fingers brightens, and the surrounding cloud weakens and contracts toward the point. It’s a warm little protostar.”

Tucker puts a finger up to the little baby star, not touching but close. It feels faintly warm.

“Next it really gets going. It starts letting go of energy and a lot of heat. It’s not quite fusion though. That’s the T-Tauri phase. After that it’s actually in main sequence. We see nuclear fusion, it’s hot, the core is releasing helium.” The little orb in his fingers shifted brighter and warm enough to be noticeable. It shines a soft blue white. “Main sequence stars can be all sorts of sizes, colors, and temperatures. There’s other types too, white dwarfs and giants and all that but this guy,” he lifts his hand, “is a little B-type main sequence star.”

They all take a moment to just marvel at the little star. It feels suspiciously like a little space heater.

“So stars have cores like ghosts?” Sam asks.

“Yeah,” Danny presses a hand to his chest, over his heart and his sleepy core. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that, but they- we share that. They’re different, but still.” Tucker hums and unceremoniously waves a hand in front of the little star.

“Shouldn’t this be blinding us? You’re not supposed to look at the sun and this is a little sun.”

Danny laughs. He tilts his hand up and bounces the ghost star gently into the middle of the room. It twirls languidly, lighting the room like a nightlight.

“I mean, I think it’s made of ectoplasm, not actual hydrogen. I don’t think it would be safe to be near, not to mention look at, if it were,” Danny says.

There’s a warm silence again, this time relaxed. Yawning starts to set in. Danny’s eyes have dimmed back to blue, although the star persists. Tucker’s chin bumps his chest and he jolts up a couple times.

“I think,” Sam whispers, “that this is ok. You don’t just have the ability to do this star stuff, you actually understand it. And you stayed with us the whole time.”

“Yeah Danny,” Tucker says through a yawn, “and if it gets tough again, we’ll figure it out.” Then Tucker sweeps long arms around his two best friends and overturns them all in a hug that results in as much squawking as giggling.

After that sleep comes quickly. Danny asks if he should dismiss the little star, but Sam assures him that the only people who visit this wing are cleaning staff. The trio each pick a bunk bed and settle. The gentle hiss of the little blue star and the steady breathing of his friends mingle into a murmur that lets Danny drift to sleep, feeling grounded for the first time in weeks. He thinks he can get caught up in the sky if he has this to return to.

[ashgunnywolf]

Ecto-Implosion fic complete! Check it out!

👻 @ecto-implosion 👻

Warnings for medically induced paralysis and vivisection, specifically hand gore!