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zmediaoutlet · 4 years

Note

I've always felt very strongly that there is a serious lack of touch-starved Sam fic in this fandom.

(read on AO3)

For a hundred and fifty miles of midmorning blacktop outside of Kearney, Missouri, Dean won’t look at Sam. Sam figures he’s got a convenient excuse—traffic, threatening rain—but he doesn’t really need the excuse, does he. Everything they could say they’ve said and now Sam’s just got to sit here, his elbow on the door and his hand braced over his mouth so he won’t say more. Furious for a few miles and just—dragged-out empty, for a few miles after. It cycles. He wants coffee very badly but after the fight they had he doesn’t want to ask for a thing.

He sat there and let Garth wipe up his face. It wasn’t anything he couldn’t have done himself but he didn’t want to go into the bathroom, not with Dean trying to get the black ectoplasmic goo out of his ear, off his skin. Garth gave him a worried smile before he left with Dean and Sam didn’t return it, and Dean didn’t look at him before the motel room door closed, either. It was left to Sam to try to clean up the room. Not the first time. Glass shards swept up as best he could, broken furniture piled on top as a warning to the maid. Dean tips pretty well, whenever this happens, and so Sam tucked a fifty under an unbroken coffee mug and then sat there with his bags packed and his hands over the back of his neck and thinking, god, where did it go this wrong? Why did they let it?

The blinker tick is the only warning before Dean pulls off at an exit. Sam refocuses. Des Moines, coming up through the windshield, and here an exit with the usual suspects: gas, fast food, motel. He didn’t actually drive all that much, in the last year, and it’s a surprise still how often the car needs gas. Another itching burr, reminding him: the responsibilities he should’ve had. What he ignored, and what the costs of ignoring it were.

A Shell station. Sam opens his door first, before the car’s even in park. “How much on the pump?” he says, and Dean’s hand pauses on the gearshift but he actually answers.

“Fifty.” He half-reaches for the inside of his jacket. “You’ve got—?” he starts, and Sam interrupts and says, “I got it,” kind of sharp, and then wishes he hadn’t said it sharp. Last few miles he’s been more scraped-out than mad. Go figure.

Dean glances at him, at least. Still greyish outside, the clouds thicker the more they drive north, and his face looks white. “Get caffeine, too,” he says, and it’s not sharp. It’s not—anything.

Two coffees, granola bars. A Snickers, since Dean likes Snickers. Olive branch or bribe, Sam doesn’t know, and then for thinking it he rolls his eyes. He gets a Payday, instead, and waits for the old guy in front of him to cash out and then gets the fifty, on the pump, and then stands at the lone hightop by the window with old coffee rings and spilled Equal and watches while Dean crouches to get the gas in the car and then leans against the rear bumper, head sinking between his shoulders. Sam can’t tell from here if his eyes are open or closed. He looks tired. Sam sips his coffee, sugary with the fake hazelnut creamer. Well, they’re both tired.

That argument. He barely slept, last night, and when he did he had a dream of the day Dean came back. Different to how it really happened. In the dream he was the one waiting, in the cabin with the light coming through the dirty windows, and he was so happy, heart-sore, his pulse thudding thick in his throat—and that’s true, at least, that’s how it was when he was coming through the door on that day, thinking it couldn’t possibly be true—but in the dream, when Dean came through the door, he came with black streaming from his ears and nose and the corners of his mouth and instead of eyes he had dark holes and he knocked Sam down to the ground and got his hands around Sam’s throat and he leaned down and said—well, when Sam woke up with his heart thudding sick in his mouth, he couldn’t remember what the Dean in the dream had said. He woke up because the bathroom door had closed and there was a light seeping through the cracks but he couldn’t hear what Dean was doing in there. It wasn’t a subtle dream. He lay there awake, nauseated and sorry, because he was too exhausted to be angry, and he doesn’t remember when he fell asleep again but the next thing it was morning, and the alarm on his phone was sounding, and Dean was sitting up on the far side of his bed with his shoulders hunched up high and his back all tension, and he’d said shut it off, jesus, his voice so raw it sounded like he’d been yelling all night. Sam shut it off and went and took a shower, and that was it, pretty much. That was what they had had to say to each other, today.

Dean accepts the coffee with a nod, and the Payday with a strange twitch of his eyebrows. Sam eats a granola bar in a few efficient bites, tosses the wrapper before they leave, and sips slow at the rest of his own coffee as they drive out of the gas station and back up onto the highway and on through Iowa, wondering if Dean thought he’d actually forgotten or if Dean thought it was carelessness or if Dean—

He shouldn’t care. He shouldn’t be wondering. He should be angry, and he is angry. His hands curl in cringing reflex whenever he remembers shaking Benny’s lukewarm monstrous hand and seeing the slight smugness of his look and seeing Dean’s expression, just behind, warning, saying no. Saying that Sam didn’t get a say, here. Like after all these weeks of lying, of turning away from any real conversation Sam tried to have, of him being jagged-sharp and furious and—and not-Sam’s—this was just another something Sam wasn’t allowed to touch.

There’s a lot of Iowa and a lot of quiet. They stop again for a piss and burgers and Dean says, “Get mine with extra cheese,” and Sam, jesus. Sam does. Extra cheese and onions, too, and they eat at the bar with college football on the television and Sam watches Stanford absolutely cream Arizona and he expects Dean to say something cutting, something snide, but he doesn’t get that, either. Dean just shakes his head as the reporter runs up to Arizona’s quarterback who can’t be more than twenty years old and asks breathlessly what they did wrong, and Dean says, “Should be a law against that,” and signals the bartender for the check, and Sam watches the poor kid struggle to maintain his composure for the cameras and thinks, yeah. Yeah, there oughta be a law.

Dean doesn’t turn west for Sioux Falls like Sam expects. Instead there’s more road and more north and more clouded sky, and more quiet, and it’s a dimming twilight when they pull into St. Cloud, Minnesota, after a full day of nothing, and Dean says, finally, “Think it’s gonna rain,” and roughly one minute later it is. A steady sifting-down kind of rain, the kind that’ll keep going for a week if it goes for an hour.

A motel. Dean goes in to get the room. End of the low building and actual real keys and two queens, like it’s been since Dean got back. Sam drops his bag on his bed and folds the key into his hand until it hurts. “I’m not hungry, you?” Dean says, and rolls on without actually waiting for Sam to say anything. “Figure we can look around for a job here in the morning. Still waiting for word on whatever else.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, looking at the bedspread. Mottled green-and-pink, ugly. Whatever else, said all neutral. Like there’s not a river of blame running through it. “Yeah,” he says, again, and then looks up and says, “Give me the keys.”

Dean’s got his gun in his hand, his bag unzipped and his shit already spilling out across the other bed. Dirty shirts, a tie. What he wore yesterday when he tried to kill Sam. He frowns. “What?”

Sam ignores the gun. “I want dinner,” he says. “Give me the keys.”

A tightness around Dean’s eyes but what is he going to say? No? Sam wants to dare him to. Dean looks down at his bag and then digs in his pocket. It's a clean underhand arc, meant to be easy for Sam to catch, and Sam turns and goes without another word, and when he's behind the wheel he looks at the muted pinkish light of the window coming from behind the thick curtains and he—closes his eyes, and turns on the car, and finds a bar.

It wasn't two beds. Not at first. Not that very, very first day, in the cabin, with the light coming in and Dean strangely tan, all blinding grin and quick manic movement and his hands strong—gripping Sam's shoulders, sliding up under his shirt, bright and hot and dizzying. He'd tackled Sam to the floorboards and cut him and splashed Borax over his skin and then when Sam was still gasping and unprepared he leaned down, right down, and gripped into Sam's hair and said breathless fuck, I missed you so much, and kissed Sam bruising, and Sam could hardly keep up. They barely made it to the bunk in the corner, the one that creaked so bad under their weight Sam thought it would collapse, but it held together somehow. It was so fast it sits in Sam's memory in strange little snatches—Dean's lips smearing across his throat, and the way his head hit the wall and Dean laughed delighted and rolled over on top, and for some reason the very moment of sliding his hand down into Dean's barely-opened jeans and feeling the crisp roughness of his pubes before anything else. That particular feeling.

It was only afterwards that it fell apart. Sam should've lied. He's thought about it a lot, these past weeks. Months. Or maybe he should've told Dean everything: every single second of panic, terror, misery. Every failed summoning and every fruitless hour of research in Bobby's remaining books. Every moment where he thought if he's dead, then I—how every second of living felt like failure, like betrayal, how no matter he what he did he was letting his brother down, so what was the point of counting it—but they didn't lay that on each other. They knew what those days felt like. At least he thought they both did. Maybe it was different, for Dean. Sam wouldn't have thought so, but. Maybe it was.

The bar's mid-sized, kind of friendly feeling. A girl in her twenties pulling beer who's mastered the line between welcoming and actually-flirtatious, and Sam's set up with a beer at the far end by the bathrooms in record time, and he looks into it and thinks, fuck, why not, and drains it fast, and says, "Another, thanks," and the girl's very shaped eyebrows knot a little but she sets him up, so. Big tip for her, later. She smiles, eyes dipping to his chest, and there's a little sway as she walks back down to the couple at the other end. Maybe over the line to flirtatious, then.

A girl. Sam looks down at his beer. He's not sure he ever heard Dean's voice with that much venom in it. Not even—back then, with Ruby. Like this was a worse betrayal than that. He chews the inside of his cheek and shakes his head, tries to focus on—hockey, on the television, but Sam doesn't know anything about hockey, and he can't get it out of his head.

A girl. Like that was the worst part. Like Sam's year of emptiness could be summed up with the fact that he fucked someone else, for a little while. Even if it didn't work out. Even if they ended up more as friends, at either end of a falling-down motel with a shared visitation for a dog, and Sam spent most nights in bed alone watching the blue-and-red neon sign blink through the blinds, and he couldn't— No. And where did Dean get off, anyway? Being that furious, that betrayed, when he was the one who—with Benny— He finishes that beer and orders a bourbon, instead, and settles in. Fuck it. He's watching hockey.

The bartender cuts him off, at some point, but she's very nice about it. Sam knows he's too big to threaten and he tries to be nice back but he's not sure it's working, from her face. "Why don't you drink some water," she says, sweet but with her eyebrows high, and he takes the glass in both hands just to make her feel better. "Can I call you a cab?"

"Can't leave the car," he says and it comes out—oh. So. It's been a few hours and he… that burger was a while ago, wasn't it. Still, this part is important. He has to make sure she gets it. "I can't. Car's special."

"Okay," she says, drawing it out. The hockey's over and there's a too-colorful gameshow on the television. Sam puts his head down on the bar, which is better. Old-people music playing on the sound system. Sam grinds his forehead back and forth on the wet wood. Old-people music is what Amelia called it. Sam just thought it was what his life sounded like. "Okay," she says again, muffled, "I'm just gonna—" and then the glass gets removed from his hand, and she says, "All right, you can't sleep here, we close in thirty. Who should I call?"

Good question. Sam folds his hands over the back of his neck and tries to think of a good answer. Some time passes while he tries to figure it out.

He hasn't been drunk in—he doesn't know. A year. When Dean was gone and Sam didn't save him. Now Dean's here and Sam wants to be anywhere else because Dean doesn't—Dean won't—

"All right," he hears again, but it's a different voice this time. Hard hand on his arm, tugging, and he sighs against the bartop and says Dean, or thinks he does. He lets himself be pulled upright but doesn't open his eyes—that's gonna be bad, he knows that for sure—and so he lets his weight sway, sink, and the hands are still hard but they're holding him up, so that's something, anyway. His head drops back—hard bone, muffle of leather—Dean. "Jesus," he hears, in some tone he can't interpret, and he turns his head in and there's a scrape of stubble against his nose, and he sighs and feels boneless, for once, his body just melted away where it won't cause any more trouble.

"Dean," he says, definitely out loud because Dean says, "Yeah, that's me," kind of annoyed but quiet, and then louder, "Is he cashed out?"

Some answer. Sam's drunker than he thought. He can't remember if he tipped well, hopes he did. His head doesn't hurt yet, like his face doesn't hurt even though Dean was trying to kill him, yesterday, and that's funny kinda, that there aren't repercussions, for anything. Here they are no matter what. He smiles and says Dean's name again and gets steadied, pushed upright a little more. He grasps for Dean's jacket so he can't get away and says, "I love this song," because he knows it at least and likes it fine, and because when Dean talks about music he's happy. Sam wants him happy.

"Yeah, Sam, everyone likes Sinatra," Dean says, and Sam finally opens his eyes to find himself swiveled around on the barstool and Dean in front of him, with unhappy tired lines at his eyes and mouth and looking just—Sam reaches for his face and Dean kind of jerks, like he didn't expect it, but grasps Sam's hand and pulls, says, "C'mon, Jolly Green," not annoyed anymore. Sam slides off to stand with his weight half in his boots and half steadied against Dean's shoulder, and Dean's arm goes around his back and this, this is the most Dean's touched him, since that day, that last day.

Difficult walk in the spattering rain. Propped against the car, and Dean going through his pockets, warm familiar touches. The passenger seat, poured in, and he slumps into the corner between the door and the seat-back and Dean's mouth is in the amber light from the parking lot lights, scattered and blurry from the water, and Sam licks his mouth clean of that same water and wants. He isn't allowed to ask. Driving, then, the car's rumble and sway, and Sam spends the whole drive watching strange flashes of Dean's face appear in turning headlights and fluorescent storefronts and gleaming wet red in brakes and thinking that he dreamed this, more or less this, so many nights, that year in Texas. Dean's cheekbones and lips and freckles and ears and the bump where his nose got broken, way back when they were teenagers, here in the car, where Sam could almost touch him. He wishes he could touch him.

He jerks when they get to wherever they're going. "Last stop, everyone off," Dean mutters. His door opens and shuts while Sam's still blinking, his mouth dry. The rain's still falling and Sam listens to it drumming the roof, the glass. Imagines laying out in it. Feeling it on his skin.

He almost falls when his door opens. "Christ, how drunk are you?" His shoulders were caught but they're out in the rain—cold, on his face, and he closes his eyes and tips and feels it. "Sam. C'mon. Sammy, you're too big, I ain't carrying you. You gotta get your feet under you, man." But there's no good reason for that, Sam thinks. He's just going to fall, and then Dean'll see that he can't do even that, and then what's to stop Dean from just leaving him here? A squeeze at his shoulder and Dean's voice is softer. "Jeez, you're getting soaked. C'mere." His hair's pushed back from his forehead. He reaches for Dean's hand but misses, and his wrist gets caught, and he's pulled back—Dean's body, warm behind his—and his weight tips so far that he has to scramble, lurching, and Dean says: "Hey, there he is. Okay, Gumby, now we gotta do one foot in front of the other—" and hey, it turns out that Sam didn't fall down, and he sways swimming and heavy-skulled from the rain to the chilly concrete walkway to the cool slick polyester comforter, under his back, the room warm and that same pinkish light seeping in behind his eyelids, his wrist still caught in Dean's grip, his jacket heavy-wet and water trickling into his ear. He tips his head, trying to get the rain out.

"You're a mess," Dean says. He lets go and Sam's hand drops to the bed, heavy too. "What were you thinking?" Oh, you know, Sam thinks, but doesn't say. He stretches his legs out, his bootheels dragging on the carpet, and there's a sigh, and then Dean's warmth up against his knee, his voice quiet. "Yeah, I know. Just can't do anything right, huh?"

"Yeah," Sam says, and slits his eyes open. Wet, eyelashes and mouth and his hair soaking the blanket. Dean's splintery up above him, confusing, and Sam turns his head toward the window, the heavy pink curtains blocking out the night. Raining harder. "Yeah," Sam says, again, to someone, his voice sore.

A touch to his jaw, soft. He hasn't shaved for a few days. Dean's fingers drag along the bone, prickling through the stubble, and he scrunches his eyes closed, feeling it. A touch on his chin, on the dip under his mouth. Pausing there, warm. Sam's lips part and Dean's finger brushes the bottom one and Sam drags in air. It feels—he can't quantify it. The touch dips down to his neck, to his collar, where his damp shirt's clinging, to press against the bone there in a way that almost hurts but it feels so good, too, that Sam doesn't want it ever to stop.

"Sammy, I'm—" Dean says, or starts to say, because Sam says louder: "You never touch me."

He reaches up and manages to get Dean's hand. He presses it down, harder. The feel of him, a little damp but the heat of his skin, and the closeness. Sam turns his head and looks up through the shattered light, blinking, trying to get Dean's face. "Right? It's been—no one ever does."

Dean's frowning, when Sam can focus. "Hey, we both got hugs from Garth," he says. Sort of light. "Can't believe you're forgetting that. I still gotta shower off the patchouli."

Like Garth counts. Sam grips Dean's wrist and reaches for his jacket, pulls, and Dean resists for a second but then sits by Sam's hip and even that, the warmth there, that feels good. Right. Sam sighs. "There," he says. Dean's thumb drags along his collarbone. "Missed this part."

Dean's face is so pretty in this kind of light. This golden motel light, with the yellow bulbs that aren't environmentally friendly but are cheap, with the night seeping in behind him so he stands out against the dark. His freckles showing and parts of him shadowed. "What part?" Dean says, after a second. Sam almost forgot what he said and blinks, feels heavy. "Sam?"

"Oh," Sam says, and tries to remember. He smiles at Dean, shrugging against the bed. "Just—when you used to—last time I slept beside someone was… I don't even know. A long time. It was so good when you came back. Forgot how good it was."

It is. Dean's frowning at him but he's still just the best thing Sam's ever seen. Dean's hand slides up his throat, fits his jaw. Slides up, cupping his cheek, and Sam tips into it, all the air going out of him. "Jesus, Sam," Dean says, quiet.

Dean doesn't want this, Sam knows. Not since that very first day. Dean had someone else, has someone else, someone better, someone who doesn't fuck up, and Sam—god, he fucked up. So bad. He's selfish, though, he thinks—he gets to be selfish, today at least if on no other day, because Dean tried to kill him and even if Sam maybe deserved it or something like it then surely at least today Sam gets one thing he wants, and Sam says, blurry, "Could you just sleep here, just so I can—so you'll be here, and I'll know," and Dean says miserable-sounding, "Come on, Sasquatch," and leans down, and his lips land soft on Sam's cheek and then Dean turns his head and his lips find Sam's and Sam breathes through it, not sure, letting Dean kiss him, trying to remember what Dean kissing him could mean.

"Sam," Dean murmurs, and Sam grips his shoulders and lifts into it, spinning. Hand on his jaw, another slipping to his waist, digging in at his side. Dean kisses him and Sam's jaw drops and Dean licks inside and Sam thinks, yes—Sam thinks, finally—aching—and Dean shifts, leaning over, his thigh alongside Sam's thigh and his other leg spilling over Sam's lap and Sam touches him, doesn't dare let go.

God, he's drunk. He's dizzy, laying here on the bed with his eyes closed, Dean's weight over his chest. "What are you doing?" he manages, when Dean pulls back from his mouth, and Dean huffs hot against his chin and says, "Shit if I know—you want me to stop?" and Sam says no and grips his jaw and pulls him back in, not doing much to help but open, grasping, wanting anything Dean'll give, anything he has. The world's spinning lazily with its axis right in Sam's hindbrain, it feels like, but Dean's hand is skimming up his stomach under his t-shirt and Sam's fine if the planet just tumbles away, a skipped marble flashing out of sight.

The touch of Dean's skin is—Sam's been high, Sam's been cracked-open. This feels more than that did. Dean pulls at him, urging, and Sam moves on the bed somehow but the wheeling world's centered right on where Dean's hand is braced there, on his ribs just below one pec, and Sam grips his shirt, pulls him down, keeps him. Fingers at his belt, in his jeans, slipping against his skin, soft and the nails dragging and the shocking warmth of them—"Hey," Dean says, picking his head up, "are you not—" and Sam shakes his head, says, "Don't worry, I—I just want—"—and lifts and gets Dean's uncertain mouth against his jaw, gets his hand around where Dean's thick, filling up his palm, heat and pressure through the denim. "Shit," Dean says, lifting up a little, but Sam won't let him, desperate for the feel of him, the weight. The knowing that he's here. The salt-taste of his throat, and the smell here under his ear where he hasn't showered all day and he smells like—the car, the guns. Beer. Sam's whole life, right here.

Dean has to help, with the belt, the zip. He sighs against Sam's hair when he's free and Sam touches—there, crisp-dry hair and the stiff resistance at the root and the smooth thick pole of it, curving up sweet, enough to get his hand around, familiar in every way. Dean's thigh between his legs, his breath in Sam's ear. "Not fair," Dean says, strain in it. Sam licks his lips, squeezes, and Dean huffs. "I'm getting all the fun, here."

"No, you're not," Sam says, and pulls, and Dean surges against his hand, hot. God, he's hot. Sam couldn't ever match it against anyone else. He's uncoordinated but he wants it, he wants to feel it—"Help," he says, selfish, and Dean half-laughs but there's a rearrangement—Dean half-tipped to one side, his fingers brushing Sam's, knocking them out of the way a little, taking over. Sam touches his nuts instead, careful because he remembers, clearly, some other drunk laughing day when he sucked Dean's dick and then sucked in his balls and Dean yelped, shook, too sensitive—and he doesn't think that's changed but Dean just groans for it, now, and Sam tips into him and mouths at Dean's throat, at the peek of shoulder where his t-shirt's pulled away, feels the smooth jerking pump of his arm, trapped between them. The strong present meat of him, the hardness of his bones. Sam bites and Dean jerks under him, says fuck, says louder, "Sammy, for god's sake," and Sam says back, "Let me feel it," because that's what he wants, that's all he wants. He wants Dean pulsing-present, loud, furious, jealous, hurting—as long as he's here—and Dean says low, "That's it, huh? You want to feel it?" and Sam nods and grips at Dean's t-shirt and pulls him in, and Dean's dick presses up firm against Sam's stomach and Dean pulls Sam's shirt up out of the way and grinds in close and—ah, ah, there. That thick twitch, the heat. Sam turns his face and Dean's there, breathing hard, and Sam kisses him and it takes a second but Dean kisses back, softer. His teeth drag against Sam's lip. Sam drags his cheek along Dean's cheek and can't let go. He's not going to let go.

"I've got to," Dean says, at some other point. Sam blinks, muzzy. Dean's pulling and Sam grabs at his hip, keeping him. "Dude. Enough with the octopus routine."

Quiet. Sam tucks his head down and Dean smells like sweat, now, and there's the smell of come. He drags at the edge of his shirt and his stomach's a mess, and Dean sighs. Touches there, too, and Sam squints down into the shadows between them, and Dean's hand looks somehow like a stranger's but he's careful, dabbing at Sam's skin. His dick's tucked away and Sam misses it. Wishes he weren't so drunk that sucking it was a viable option. Wishes he were less drunk, generally, and that's, he thinks, a sign that he's sobering up. Too soon.

"Sure I can't get you off?" Dean says, after a few seconds. Almost polite. Sam closes his eyes, tips away. "Feels kinda messed up."

"It is pretty messed up, Dean," Sam says, tired now, and Dean sits up—away from him—and Sam thinks, well, that's it.

Dean doesn't disappear. There's a space—the rain louder outside, audible now that Sam's not focused on every breath from his brother—the damp mugginess of his wet jacket, and the way his stomach's starting to complain—and then Dean's fingers, at the waist of Sam's jeans, tracing along the low bared part of his belly, soft. Sam drags in air, feels his stomach suck in, and Dean pauses, but then there's his thumb, pushing against the trail of hair, careful.

"You're gonna be so pissed," Dean says, quiet. "In the morning. Shit, in like, three hours."

Sam tips his head. The clock says two. "I'm pissed now," he says, and it's so not true that he doesn't know why Dean doesn't just laugh at him, call him a liar, say, oh sure, princess.

There's a faint shadow of Dean on the far wall, from the lamp by the door. A big blown-up silhouette over the other bed, his head bent and his details impossible to see. Sam wants another drink and won't have one. Probably not for a little while. Unfair, for both of them, when it doesn't fix anything.

"It wasn't supposed to be this screwed up," Dean says. His fingers drag across to Sam's hip and then away. Sam misses them instantly. "I don't know. It just went wrong somehow."

"Yeah, somehow," Sam says. Dean sighs, and then the bed shifts, and before Sam knows it Dean's standing up, turning away, and Sam lifts on one elbow and says, "Wait."

"Gotta clean up," Dean says. He waited, though, is waiting, standing by the bed with his belt still undone and his ears pink and his eyes hard to read.

Sam's head swims, still a little too drunk for this. "It doesn't fix anything," Sam says, trying to follow the thread. Dean's eyes tighten. "Stay."

"Getting real mixed signals here, Sammy," Dean says, but he steps closer, and Sam reaches out and gets Dean's belt-loop and pulls, and Dean looks down, frowning. His mouth's a low curve. "Darlin', you've got to let me know."

A song? Sam shakes his head. He pulls, and Dean sits, by Sam's hip again, and Sam slides his hand up from the belt to Dean's side, to his back. His skin, warm.

Dean touches the hollow of his throat, soft. Thrilling. "What are you doing?" he says. Almost sorry.

"I don't know," Sam says, clinging to the last bit of whiskey, "but let me."

It's still dark, a quiet carved out bit of black rainy morning. There's tomorrow to remember to be mad. Dean lets him.

#Anonymous #wincest #my writing #one-sided sex #is that a tag? idk #tbh anon this is a very tangential fill #but i couldn't think of ways to get touchstarved sam #when dean touches him All The Time #unless there were a very particular time when he wasn't

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thedannyphantomcookbook · 3 years

Text

The Phantom Origins

Okay, so I know probably a bunch of people have already done this, but I wanted to rewrite Danny Phantom, from just before he got his powers to maybe when he tells his parents.

I’m tired of waiting for a reboot that may never come, so here is what I picture the reboot would look like.

I’ve always thought it would be darker and more horrific, that the ghosts he fights are more monstrous and demonic.

That there would be a little bit more of a medical concern for Danny’s humanity being affected by his ghost half. Is he becoming more ghost like? Is he gradually getting sicker and sicker, and his ghost DNA ravages through his body like cancer?

Would Vlad be not only a sexist, creepy, abusive old man, but contains a thirst for deception and power that he poses a real, apocalyptic threat on Earth and the ghost zone?

Are ghosts actually the spirits of the dead? Or are they a different breed of human that lives in a completely separate dimension, that’s is layered and hidden within ours?

What about Danny’s mental health. He has to keep this big secret from his parents because he absolutely FEARS what would happen if they found it to the point he’s scared they wouldn’t believe he was their son and try to kill him as a result, or keep him hostage in the basement, slowly torturing him and dissecting him until he’s dead? What would the world think of him? A prophet? A demon? Would they accuse his parents for experimenting on their own children? He would have so much fear and anxiety that he’d have to be on edge all the time, falling into depression, panic attacks - not to mention the PTSD he’d get from it all while battle nightmarish monsters and the hanging question over his head of what he is now.

These are just SOME of the questions I’ve had that Butch Hartman will never answer. He set up such a great plot and characters but carried it out pretty poorly over the show (which may or may not be his fault since they wanted to keep it kid friendly.)

I hope to get into the deep and dark and nitty gritty details of Danny Phantom we’ve imagined but never get to see. I wrote the first chapter below, and I plan to write much more. :)

I hope you guys enjoy it!

Follow me over at Ao3

Summary:

Dr. Madelyn Fenton and her husband, Dr. Jackson Fenton, have just built the world's first portal to the Ghost Zone - an alternate dimension where undead linger for all eternity. The only problem is no one believes in what they are doing. The townspeople call them the Fenton Freaks and the rejection letters from the National Science Foundation are piling up. Not even their own children can tolerate their ghost obsession. Their 14 year old son, Danny, does what he can to separate himself from his parents. Mocked by his peers and judged by his teachers, he keeps his head down and stays out of the spotlight.

It comes as no surprise to Danny when his parents' machine fails to work on the first test run. Discouraged, they leave empty handed for the weekend to go to the Ghost Hunter's Expo, where they were expected to present their portal during their panel. As soon as his parents leave, Danny invites his friends over to give a tour of yet another one of his parents' failed experiments. When he gets dared to walk inside the machine, he triggers something that turns it back on, and for the first time ever, his parents have an invention that works. But that's the least of the surprises when Danny emerges from the portal himself...

To Whom It May Concern,

To the esteemed members of the National Science Foundation, myself, Dr. Madelyn Fenton, PhD., and my husband, Dr. Jackson Fenton, PhD., write to you today to consider us for the New Exploratory Scientific Research Grant Award. Our combined decades worth of research within paranormal scientific research fields have led us to believe that the “ghost” entities that haunt our very Earth, could in fact be the missing link to creating new technology, curing human illnesses, and prolonging human life on Earth.

The term “ghosts” is defined as a religious or spiritual being, or the hypothetical soul of the human body, separated from physical forms, usually that of a person recently deceased. Dr. Jackson Fenton and myself have a different theory about the “ghostly” entities that visit our Earth. We have sufficient evidence to prove that ghosts are in fact not the spirits of the dead, but an entirely new species of the human race. We believe they exist in an alternate dimension - a separate plane of existence that is not unlike ours. Recent developments have also shown the possibility of dimensional travel - we believe ghosts are able to pass through into our plane of existence for a temporary amount of time. Through our rigorous research, construction, and experimentation, Dr. Jackson Fenton and myself have created what would be a “portal” to this plane of existence, to the “Ghost Zone.” By exploring and studying the ghost zone, we could collect a limitless amount of research and data that could be used to benefit humanity for the rest of our existence.

We have provided within our application our twenty years of research and development, along with video recordings of our experiments as evidence of our work in progress, as we humbly request your consideration for the New Exploratory Scientific Research Grant Award.

Sincerely,

Dr. Madelyn Fenton, PhD. in Quantum Physics and Paranormal Studies

Dr. Jackson Fenton, PhD. in Theoretical Science and Paranormal Studies

From the Grants and Admissions Office of the National Science Foundation

To Dr. Madelyn Fenton and Dr. Jackson Fenton,

Thank you for your interest in applying for the New Exploratory Scientific Research Grant Award. The New Exploratory Scientific Research Grant Award (NESRGA) is an esteemed scholarship opportunity that looks to provide funding for ground-breaking scientific research to scientists working within small and local laboratories. After carefully reviewing your application and research, we have come to the regretful decision to decline your request to receive the NESRGA.

We unfortunately could not approve your request due to the following issues:

Insufficient or lack thereof evidence or proof of scientific research of ghostly entities and/or undiscovered species, the “Ghost Zone” dimension in which these entities exist, or possible travel to said “Ghost Zone.”

Insufficient of lack thereof peer review research and laboratory data.

Paranormal entities and alternative dimensional research is not recognized under the National Science Foundation as factual scientific work.

We are thrilled to hear that you share such enthusiasm, passion, and ambition in the pursuit of scientific exploration, research and development. You are a part of a wonderful community, and through your tireless efforts, you will help bring our Earth into the future.

We welcome you to apply for the NESRGA again next year.

Sincerely,

Barbara Keaton,

Director of Grants and Admissions

National Science Foundation

GHOST HUNTERS EXPO - THIS LABOR DAY WEEKEND

To Drs. Maddie and Jack Fenton,

We are excited to have you return to speak at the Ghost Hunters Expo this coming labor day weekend. We have reviewed your Ghost Zone Theory and we anticipate your presentation of your research.

Please note: due to new regulations we cannot allow the following into the convention center:

Ecto-infused food, inanimate objects, or animal mutations of any kind.

Alarm or defense systems that release a form of knock out gas, ectoplasmic goo, ectoplasmic foam, spoiled meats, or live rodents. All alarms and defense systems must be turned off while inside the convention center.

Samplings or gifts of homemade cookies or other food, beverages, or gifts to bribe the judges.

Disclosed weapons that are not a part of your presentation and/or not approved by the convention prior (we will have metal detections at all entry points of the convention hall)

Asking for audience volunteers unless approved by us prior your scheduled presentation time.

Ghost claims targeted towards convention guests, judges, or other presenters.

All presentations and inventions must have been tested and approved by a judge prior to your presentation time (i.e. no last minute or surprise inventions).

Fighting or displays of physical aggression.

Destruction of convention hall equipment, the building’s foundation itself, or other presenters equipment and or inventions.

We thank you in advance for your compliance and full understanding of the new regulations.

We look forward to seeing you!

Best,

Trevor Martin

Ghost Hunters Expo Coordinator

“Did you see this?” Jack Fenton asked, waving the notice from the Ghost Hunters Expo. He scoffed. “New regulations...I wonder who were the bimbos that made them enforce these rules.” He crumbled up the notice and threw it carelessly on the floor.

“How’s that portal coming, sweet cheeks?” he asked his wife.

Maddie Fenton was deep within a hexagon shaped chamber carved out of her laboratory converted basement wall. The interior was lined with a colorful array of wires and tiny blinking lights. At the end of the chamber, sheets of metal and hardware fanned in on itself. Maddie was kneeled on the floor, wrestling with a few cords.

“I’m just struggling to connect these last couple of wires,” she answered, pinching the two cords together. With a last bit of strain, the cords connected with a satisfying click.

Wiping the sweat off her brow, she came out of the chamber. “Hopefully that will stabilize the gravitational pull of the Ghost Zone once we get the portal running.” She briefly thought back to a dark memory from their college days when their first Ghost Zone prototype had malfunctioned and the toxins from the Ghost Zone leaked out of the portal, resulting in displacing one of her lab partners for the remainder of their college career.

“We got it this time, baby,” Jack said confidently. “There is no way we could make the same mistake twice.”

Maddie sighed as she walked over to the control panel to record the ecto-readings. “I just wish we knew for certain what had gone wrong that day. All of this guess work is driving me crazy.” She picked up her notebook and briefly reviewed her meticulously hand written notes before adjusting some dials.

“Okay,” she huffed, satisfied. “I think we’re ready for a test run.”

Jack clapped his hands. “Excellent! I’ll go grab the kids!” He ran to the basement steps and shouted, “Jazzy-pants! Danny! Get down here!”

A few minutes later both of their teenage children shuffled down the basement steps.

“Is this gonna take long?” Danny asked, disinterestedly. “Tucker and I were in the middle of planning our next battlefield strategies for Doomed. There’s only a few days left of summer vacation and we still have so much planning to do if we want to beat the other online players and achieve the seven Keys of Destiny.”

“And I was in the middle of an important breakthrough in my self therapeutic psychology research,” their daughter, Jazz promptly stated. In her hands she clutched an open copy anxiety and phobias workbook. “Did you know that high functioning anxiety in adulthood is caused by childhood trauma from never feeling safe in your own home? This would explain so much about me and Danny -” she paused in her speech when she saw the machine her parents were working on.

“Oh, no.” She snapped her book shut and pinched the flesh between her eyes. “ Please do not tell me you called us down here to witness another one of your experiments. Don’t you remember what happened last time?”

��Oh, Jazz, relax,” Maddie said, waving her off. “Those burn marks from the last ectoplasmic gun experiment healed eventually. And look!” She walked over to a closet in the back of the room and pulled out two polyester jumpsuits. “We made you both your own custom fitted, lab safe, jumpsuits!”

Jack appeared beside Maddie. “And we matched them with ours! Jazzy-pants, yours is teal to match your mother’s. And Danny, yours would have matched mine but the store didn’t have orange.” he held out a plain white jumpsuit with black gloves and boots.

“And I haven’t even shown you two the best parts!” he grabbed the jumpsuits from Maddie and spun them around. Crudely pressed onto the fabric of the jumpsuit was a cutout of Jack Fenton’s smiling face, emblazoned on the chest.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Jack grinned.

Jazz was the first to respond. “Dad there is no way you’re going to get me to wear that,” she said while backing away and shaking her head. “How about Danny and I will just go upstairs and you can call us down after you’ve tested it? That way we’ll be safe and not have to wear those hideous jumpsuits.”

Danny silently agreed with her while struggling to conceal his own disgust at the suits. It was one thing to be forced to wear a jumpsuit like his parents but it was an entirely different level of lame to have to wear his father’s face across his chest. What if his parents insisted he wore it all the time, like they did? Involuntary images of him becoming the laughing stock at his new high school was surfacing in his mind, more than he already was for being the son of the city’s eccentric ghost hunting husband and wife team. He was already struggling to stay above the pathetic nerd social ring in his class. They’d have to create an entirely new category of nerd just for him if he wore that suit. The thought of it made him want to crawl away in a hole and be left there to die.

“Mom, Dad, I have to agree with Jazz,” Danny said. “The suits are kinda...lame.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Maddie dismissed. “These jumpsuits are the latest fashion that every ghost hunter wants.”

“And when we reveal these babies with my face on them, everyone will be scrambling for one. We’ll be rich!” Jack stated proudly.

Jazz snorted. “Um, I somehow doubt that. Look, we’ll just go back upstairs and you two can let us know when it’s safe, okay?” She looped a hand around Danny’s arm and started pulling him away.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Jack clamped a hand on both of them and spun them back around. “You two are being given the chance to witness scientific history! And we are not going to let you pass up on this.” He tossed the jumpsuits to Jazz and Danny. They unwillingly caught them.

Jazz glowered at Danny. “If you take any photos and post them on the internet, I will kill you.”

Danny held out his suit reproachfully. His dad’s smiling face seemed to be laughing at him, like all of the students as Casper High will be if they ever found out about this.

“Don’t worry about it.”

A few minutes later, Jazz and Danny stood alongside their parents in their matching jumpsuits. Jazz stood with her arms crossed, silently fuming, her foot tapping impatiently. At her mother’s insistence, Jazz was forced to tuck in her long, red hair and wear the hair sealing head cover and thick, dark eye protection goggles that came with it. At equal height, Jazz and Maddie were identical in their suits.

At least Danny couldn’t match his dad. Jack’s suit was bright orange and about twenty sizes larger than Danny’s, due to his father’s obsession with Maddie’s homemade fudge and cookie inventions. Danny’s own white suit was slightly too large for him, and hung in odd places due to his skinny frame. He didn’t have to wear a hood and goggles like his sister either - another thankful shortage from the ghost hunter’s clothing warehouse. He picked at his dad’s pressed on face design on his chest as he waited for his parents to get the machine ready for its test run. His dad had tried ironing it on, but had done it poorly, so that with a bit of a tug, it was already beginning to peel off.

Jack and Maddie Fenton ran back and forth across the lab, double checking last minute calculations. Machines whirred and beeped around them, the hum of electricity warm in the stagnant air.

Danny had a good idea of how this was going to go. If this would be like any of their past experiments, it would fail miserably. The experiment would go haywire, probably spout ectoplasmic goo everywhere or accidentally giving ecto energy to the nearest food item. One year, their parents had tried making the Christmas Turkey in their newly invented Ultra-fast Instant Pot and instead infused it with demonic ghostly energy and reanimated it. Danny remembered hiding underneath the kitchen table as Jazz had to beat it back with a pastry roller, screaming for their parents.

The ghost zone portal was their most ambitious project yet. For most of Danny’s life, they had dinner table discussions, weighing mathematical equations and scientific chemical balances in hopes of being able to one day engineer the world’s first ghost zone portal. He was fairly surprised when he found out at the beginning of the summer that they were finally constructing it, and even more so when they claimed last night it was completed. They had been rushing to get it done in time to present it at the Ghost Hunters Expo this weekend.

He glanced at the table beside him looking at the pile of papers his dad had haphazardly stacked among the beakers and ghost weapons. Sitting on top of the stack was the rejection letter from the National Science Foundation.

“It means that they don’t think what they’re doing is science,” Jazz had interpreted for Danny after reading it when their parents’ back was turned. “And who could blame them? There is zero evidence supporting the existence of ghosts. It’s just superstition.”

That’s all it was. Superstition. And yet, his parents had at some point in their youth latched on to the idea that ghosts were more than a myth, and even though they’ve never actually seen one in person themselves, they were determined to prove ghosts were real. What amazed Danny the most is the amount of people who also believed in the same theory. In the years past when his parents had dragged him and Jazz to the Ghost Hunter’s Expo, the crowds always seemed to grow bigger and bigger. Scientists, hunters, enthusiasts, and even ghost cosplayers gathered under the same roof for a full weekend, exchanging theories, stories and footage of what they thought were ghosts. The most ridiculous rumor he had heard at the last ghost hunter’s convention was one of a young, blue haired female musician, who became an overnight sensation after one performance at a local carnival. She had also disappeared quite suddenly after the performance, which raised a lot of speculation. Ghost hunters claimed her unusually pale skin and hypnotic vocals were a part of her ghostly powers. Jazz had stated that it was simply because she was a successful female in the patriarchy they had to deem her as a ghost to explain it.

Danny didn’t want to say anything else after that.

“Jack,” Maddie called from across the room, typing away at a computer. “Did you remember to pour in the ecto-purifier?”

“On it, baby!” Jack cried while fumbling with a control panel. Danny watched as grabbed a can of diet cola, which sat next to the similar sized gray cylinder labeled “EP.”

“Uh, Dad?” Danny called. “I don’t think that’s the ecto-purifier.”

“What’s that?” Jack asked. He turned to look at the object in his hand and barked out a chuckle.

“Thanks, son! That was a close one.” He placed the can of diet cola down and picked up the correct cylinder. “Who knows what would have happened if we purified the toxic ghost energies with diet cola. Could you imagine?” He poured the bright green liquid into the appropriate chamber.

In the corner of his eye, Danny saw Jazz shake her head. “Idiot,” she whispered.

Jazz believed she was the only mature Fenton in the family. At some point during her high school career, she had decided it was up to her to convince her parents that ghosts were not real, and to force them to change their careers to something more normal or socially acceptable. She had tried to get them interested in just about any other scientific field she could think of, such as deep sea diving to discover creatures living on the ocean floor, to NASA’s space engineering program. When those didn’t work, she tried to build a case proving the psychological damage they were causing to her’s and Danny’s upbringing. Over the summer, when she wasn’t preparing herself for the SATs she’d have to take later that school year, she poured over every psychological book she could get her hands on from the library. No matter how many times she argued about the permanent damage her parents were inflicting on their amygdala by creating an unsafe environment for her and Danny to grow up in, their parents would say it’s all worth it for the sake of scientific advancement.

Danny tried desperately to stay out of their fights. Most days, he was too focused on trying to survive a day without being called “that ghost geek” by his peers, no matter how many times he told his classmates he didn’t believe in his parents’ work. Maybe it was because of his small, bony limbs that made it so easy for his classmates to mock him. Or the fact that his only two friends in the entire world were also considered a variety of nerd within the social climate. His best friend Tucker was a little too obsessed with the latest technology and his other friend, Samanatha - Sam for short - was the only school’s goth girl, who filled her entire personality and outlook with dark and depressing outfits and literature. In a weird way, it did make sense that the girl who loved to read about the dead, and the boy who loved technology, would want to be friends with the kid whose parents called themselves ghost scientists. Still, they were his best friends and he wouldn’t trade them for anyone else.

He had been telling them about the portal his parents were building all summer. Just like he was, his friends were also doubtful it would work. They deliberated about what the inventions would actually do. Tucker still brought up the time Danny’s parents were testing out an anti-ghost gravity spray, to temporarily make a ghost lose their flight ability. The morning they were testing it out, Danny had woken up in a hovering bed. It had shocked him so much, he fell off his bed and face-planted onto his bedroom floor, breaking his nose. At some point, Tucker and Sam started placing bets about the outcome.

“Maybe the portal will just blast a hole through the wall and you’ll send up in the Amity Park Sewer System,” Sam guessed last night after he told them his parents were getting ready for their first test.

“Bet you five bucks that Danny will lose all of his hair this time,” Tucker had joked.

He absentmindedly ran a hand through his exposed hair and briefly wished he had a head cover and goggles like Jazz. He couldn’t help but notice there was something different about his parents this time. They didn’t have the same, bubbly and excited energy they usually had when showing off a new invention. They seemed more focused this time. Even his dad’s goofy banter towards Maddie had taken a back seat as his dad frowned over the controls. It was weird to see his dad actually concentrating. Maybe it was the hundredth rejection letter they received from the National Science Foundation, or the pressure to present this weekend at the Expo, but it seemed like they were seriously trying to make this thing work. They did not want to fail.

“Okay everyone!” Maddie ran over and started waving her hands. “Backs up against the wall.”

Jazz sighed and turned to walk over to stand behind the boxed in yellow line, the “safe” spot in the lab. Danny thought a metal containment center with a viewing screen would have kept them safer, but supposedly his parents didn’t have time to build one. Danny followed his mother and sister.

“Almost…” Jack muttered at the controls, typing away. Suddenly there was a loud click that echoed off the basement walls. Machines roared to life and lights winked on. Inside the portal, the metal fans began to spin.

“YES!” Jack punched the air, triumphant.

“Jack!” Maddie called to her husband, gesturing towards the safe zone. He jogged over and squeezed himself in between his two kids.

“This is it!” he shouted over the noise, which was gradually becoming deafening.

All around the room, machines and computers turned on. Attached beakers and graduated cylinders filled up with green, bubbling liquid. A wall lined with dialers bounced up and down. Puffs of smoke expelled out of exhaust pipes. The portal itself began to crackle with electricity, its interior fans spinning faster and faster until it started emitting a bright green glow. The pressure in the room changed, popping Danny’s ears. He felt the tips of his hair begin to rise with the electric waves.

The whirring of the fans inside the machine began to ring out a high pitch squeal as the machine glowed brighter, and brighter, blinding Danny’s naked eyes. He squinted and held out a hand over his eyes, peeking through his fingers. The air around them grew warm and staticky. His father clamped a hand tightly on Danny’s shoulder, as if to hold him back from running away.

It was working. Danny couldn’t believe it. Not once in all of their years of inventing ghost machines and hunting equipment, they may have actually been able to build something that worked like they wanted it to.

What would this mean? That ghosts actually existed? That his parents were not the crackpot fools the town took them for? And if they did exist, there was the one question that no one has been able to answer.

Were ghosts dangerous?

He looked up at Jazz. Her expression was unreadable through the head covering. He looked at his parents, wild and furious excitement in their eyes.

Then, when it seemed like Danny’s ears couldn’t take much more of the screeching noise, a BOOM exploded from the portal. Light poured out of the machine and flooded the room. Danny yelped and turned away. Jack stepped in front of his family and hid them with his massive torso from the explosion. Then, very suddenly, the room went dark. Every light and machine that had been just buzzing with life, died. Danny’s hearing rang in the abrupt silence.

“What the heck?” Jack was the first to say something.

“I got a flashlight, hang on,” Maddie said next. Danny heard her fumbling around her utility belt and a small light winked on. She shined it around the room. Curls of smoke rose up from the machines. The glow from the ecto-purifier had also faded.

“I don’t understand,” Maddie said, dumbfounded as she gazed around the room. “This should have worked.”

“We checked every calculation,” Jack said, equally mystified.

“And tested every single machine.” She threw up her hands. “I even made sure the damn computers turned on!”

“Well, obviously, this wasn’t going to work,” Jazz suddenly said, her anger returning. “You guys were trying to open a portal to nothing . Because ghosts don’t EXIST.”

She ripped off the hood and goggles. “I’m going back upstairs to change and burn this stupid jumpsuit, and work on processing this trauma that you have inflicted on us, yet again.” Without waiting for her parents to respond, she stomped back upstairs, her footsteps echoing off the silent basement walls

Jack shook his head. “What is her deal?”

“Oh, never mind her, Jack,” Maddie said. “We need to figure out what went wrong. We only have a day until the expo and we promised to present this.”

Danny’s parents turned their back on him and began working to restore the power, jumping right into a deep discussion. Danny took the moment to quietly slip away back upstairs.

The second he was back into his room, he let out a long exhale. Suddenly remembering he was wearing the jumpsuit, he hastily ripped it off and then threw it in the trash bin in the corner of his room.

He flopped back onto his bed, and lay in the stillness of his room for a few minutes to collect his thoughts. He stared up at the plastic, glow in the dark stars and planets stuck on his ceiling.

He couldn’t believe there was a moment back there where he thought the machine was working.

He didn’t want to imagine what would happen if ghosts were real. There were no real scientific facts about them. All those convention attendees at the ghost hunters expo all had different theories about what ghosts are - the religiously damned, aliens, spirits with unfinished business, souls that died before their time, another species - no one could settle on a single argument.

But if they did exist, what would happen then? Would they swarm the Earth, like cicadas after their years long sleep? Would they haunt each and every home and building in towns and cities, and try to claim it as their own? Would the world be plunged into a ghost apocalypse, where every human had to fight for their own human survival and soul? Were ghosts malicious or peaceful?

His parents might be arrested for creating the portal in the first place, if it did turn out bad. Or the government might force them to work alongside them to rid the Earth of the ghost population. What would happen to him and Jazz? Would they be put into juvie, just for being the kids of the Fenton Freaks? Would they be put into foster care, once the government decided Jack and Maddie were unfit parents for him and Jazz?

What if the human population adopted a sick fascination of ghosts? Businesses would try to profit off the ghosts by selling fake anti-ghost protection devices or offer tours inside “haunted” houses. There might even be a community in which some would fall in love or even want to become a ghost themselves.

The world would become absolute chaos.

Danny shuddered at the thought. He didn’t understand what his parents saw in trying to prove their existence. What good would proving the undead existed bring to the world?

His anxious, spiraling thoughts were interrupted when his computer dinged. Danny got up and sat down at his desk. He wiggled his mouse to wake up his computer. Tucker had sent him a message.

Still have all of your hair?

Danny chuckled and wrote back.

Yep. Nothing happened though. But the power in the basement blew.

Damn , was Tucker’s response. And I had just invested in a 25 pack of markers to color your head in Lancer’s class when you fall asleep.

Danny laughed out loud. I can only imagine all the pensises you’d draw.

I had planned no less than 50. Two for each color.

Well I hope you kept your receipt cause I still have a full head of hair. Unlike you. Danny made a jab at Tucker’s own buzzed haircut. He had tried growing out dreads for the school year, but his mother forced him to shave it off after he got caught staying up on the computer way too late one night. She paid the barber to give him a military buzz cut.

Shut up, dude, Tucker typed back. While you were away not getting your hair fried off your scalp, I was devising up a new battle plan to defeat Chaos.

Danny smiled. Oh yeah? Lay it on me.

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phantomphangphucker · 4 years

Text

Ectober Week Glow Stick/REDRUM - Glow Snap

Danny’s been king for a while and that means helping ghosts out sometimes. And that helping has repeated required dealing with humans treating ghosts like crap. But farming ghosts for glow sticks is a new one.

Danny Phantom was beginning to get used to his role as High Ghost King, the balls, the parties, the formalities and respect. The fashion was more difficult to adjust to than everything else in all honestly. Frock coats and even dresses. At least usually all he had to wear was his cape, that was just part of him now though. Another thing he had to get used to were the royal attendances, where he effectively had to just sit at his throne and hear ghosts out. Only if he accepted their request for an attendance of course. He usually rejected the Observants and Vlad, generally on principal alone. Especially since it was nearly a guarantee they were just trying to annoy him. If the eyeballs really needed to see him then they could go through ClockWork and Vlad could literally just show up at his house.

Now if anyone else put in a request to have an attendance with him then he usually paid attention, since that was a rare thing. Most ghosts wouldn’t even dare due to the ‘behaviour’ of Pariah giving the entire throne, title, and crown a really nasty reputation. Most of the Zone simply assumed or worried that this Phantom fellow, who defeated Pariah, was just like him or worse. The ghosts that knew him didn't even bother going through official routes, they just showed up in Amity or invited him to their lair. So when he got a attendance request from a ghost he’d never heard of representing an entire species of ghost that he hadn’t yet met, he accepted without hesitation and felt rather worried. This Brextex likely only knew the High Ghost King as the guy who overpowered the evil tyrant Pariah and was thus taking a chance by willingly asking to be alone in the throne room and lair of the new King. It didn’t help that most of the rumours about him involved the fact that he beat up other ghosts and had made powerful allies. So either this ghost was desperate, out of options, or just recklessly curious. Just in case it was either of the first Danny had elected to stick with his true ghost form rather than ageing himself up to look more ‘adult’ and imposing (or in the Observants case, remind them of Dan). Sure his true form was more visually impressive than it was when he was fourteen, but his seventeen-year-old ass did not nearly have the muscle, size, or defined body structure his mid-twenties self would. He’s honestly wondering when the heck that growth spurt was going to hit him in genuine. But hey, at least his fangs had grown in and he’s pretty sure his ears are beginning to taper.

But anyway, accepting that attendance request is what finds him sitting at his throne, one leg over an armrest and drumming his fingers in boredom on the other armrest. He’s tempted to start pulling down his crown in front of his face only to let go and watch it spring back up, small amusements. The FrightKnight comes in just as Danny had decided to go ahead and do that.

Danny rights himself as his High Dread Knight speaks, “Brextex has arrived, your highness. Are you content to see him now?”. Danny just nods and absently waves for the guy to just go ahead and let the ghost in. He honestly would appreciate the FrightKnight relaxing more on all the formalities, not going to happen but still. His knight nods, letting the ghost in and going to stand outside the doors.

Danny will admit, this is one of the odder looking ghosts he’s seen. He looked kinda like someone who was nothing but skin and bones but the bones under the skin glowed. The skin didn’t though, and he just had glowing light in sunken eye sockets rather than physical eyes. The fact that he walked across the hall towards Danny rather than floated was pretty odd for a ghost too. Eh, maybe he just preferred walking on solid ground; Danny often did.

Brextex immediately kneels when he’s considered officially close enough, not coming any closer. Which was pretty typical for ghosts who had never met him. What does catch Danny’s attention is that he can hear the ghost's bones creaking and straining as if they were real solid bones that had seen plenty abuse. Danny’s joints and spine would creak like that sometimes. “Bless you for seeing me, High King Phantom. May you bless me speak?”.

“You may”. Danny makes a point to smile warmly when Brextex raises his head, which seems to startle the ghost for a second.

“I’ve come to request aid, your highness. My kind, linchens, we- we’ve been suffering for a long while”.

Danny squints a little and leans forward, “how so?”. He thought he had made it clear to the FrightKnight that he wanted to know about any groups, clans, kingdoms, or tribes that were genuinely struggling. Either he’ll have to have a talking with him about what qualifies as ‘struggling’ again, or he didn’t know himself. The Zone was large, so he couldn’t really fault him if that was the case. But the FrightKnight was old, reasonably he should know about all of the different groups. “The FrightKnight was supposed to inform me of any genuine suffering or issues”.

Brextex shifts slightly, maintaining the kneeling position though, “well sire, I don’t believe the... FrightKnight looks beyond the Infinite Realms. See, my kind haven’t been part of it for ages. We’re... located in the Mortal Realm”. Okay, that gets Danny’s attention real fast. He probably looks more than a little surprised, since ghosts weren’t generally capable of staying in the human world for very long. Obviously this kind of ghost, linchens, could. But then that’s kinda weird that he hasn’t run into one yet. Heck, showing in Amity would have been easier than finding a portal and coming to see him formally. It’s not like the hunters in Amity were much of a threat now after all the truces he’s formed. Dora could come without a human disguise and buy tea even. Maybe these ghosts simply didn’t know?

Danny nods, “feel free to explain the issue then, I’m often in the Mortal Realm so I can certainly help”.

Brextex just blinks at him for a bit before standing up quickly and motioning with his hands as he speaks. Clearly forgetting the ‘proper etiquette’ at the serious possibility of Danny not being an unhelpful asshole. “Pariah used to keep us as pets to break our bones for fun so when one of the old ones found a portal to the living world we all fled there. But the living were quick to capture us and decided they liked our bones to and somehow broke our connection to the Infinite Realms”. Danny doesn’t like where this is going and if the G.I.W. have anything to do with this he’s going to be having some words with their head boss... again. “Or that’s the story that’s been passed down. Ever since they’ve been keeping us and harvesting our bones until we fade from the-”, Brextex jerks a bit likely from Danny’s eyes flashing a little angrily. By the ghost swallows and continues “-from the draining. The others were able to get me out since my ecto-field’s weaker and young. We had heard about a new king and thought that- that you would maybe be different. We had to take the risk. We had to-”.

Danny holds up a hand to pause the ghost, because frankly he doesn’t even need to hear more to be willing to help. A group of humans actively murdering ghosts to collect their bones? Hell no. That is absolutely not something he’s going to let fly. But right now he needs to get across that his flash of anger wasn’t aimed at the ghost. Brextex does not need to start begging to him. Standing up, which Brextex looks a bit freaked by, “I’ll help. Absolutely I will”. Walking down the throne steps, Brextex remembering himself and kneeling again as Danny approaches. Danny making a point to reel in the anger, because he does not need to stress this ghost more, and patting Brextex on the head, “you're fine. Humans treating ghosts like monsters and whatnot is something that ticks me off and that I’ve gone well out of my way to deal with. And to hear some have been murdering ghosts, I don’t give a flaming crap why, that is unacceptable”, sighing, “now come on, get up. I should probably at least know why, or what you believe to be why, you and the rest of your kind are being treated worse than animals at an unethical and illegal slaughterhouse”.

Brextex stands up more than a little stiffly and eyes him warily, giving a strained, “bless you”, then clearing his throat, “well... our bone enamel glows really strongly if we snap or break a bone”, he digs in the small little beat up bag he’s got around his waist and pulls out a little bag. Handing it over to Danny though clearly avoiding actually touching the king. “They shave our bones down after harvesting so they’re opaque-”, pointing at the bag, “-and look like that. We’re not really sure why and we honestly don’t care“.

Danny nods and scowls, opening the bag and pulling out a bunch of freaking glow sticks. Danny blinks, honestly a bit too shocked to really feel much of anything, “glow sticks?”. Sure his parents had used to rave about a conspiracy theory that glow sticks were filled with ectoplasm and had thus banned them from the house. But them being actually right was utterly insane.

Brextex furrows his brows, skin pulling tight, “you’ve... seen these before? Why? What are they for? Their purpose? Are they needed? Do the living need to do this to us?”.

Danny shakes his head immediately, because holy shit no. “They’re used for cheap entertainment. Completely unnecessary entertainment”, then scowls deeply, even growling a little, “this is absurd and I’m not having it”. Looking to Brextex, who looks nervous, “where are the other linchens being kept? Because I’m about to have some very not nice words with whoever assholes thinks torturing and murdering anyone for freaking glow sticks is remotely okay”.

Brextex nods and grins a little, “I can take you”. While Danny lifts a hand to form a portal in the air, the ghost watching in a bit of amazement. Danny doesn’t need to tell the FrightKnight he’s heading out, the guy can sense it just fine.

They step out onto a rooftop in Amity, Danny sending away his crown and cape as he turns to look at Brextex who’s looking around, “this place... it is your lair too”, then adding on like he’ll get in trouble otherwise, “your highness”.

Danny waves him off, trying not to seem ticked off, “don’t bother with royal titles here. Humans don’t know and I'd mostly prefer to keep it that way”. The G.I.W. knew but that was purely so he could threaten them more effectively. “Yeah, welcome to Amity Park, the place I usually am. The one place the G.I.W. are banned from”.

“The... G.I.W.?”.

Danny shrugs almost aggressively, “group of anti-ghost terrorists. Almost blew up the Zone once. I’ve had words with them”, nodding curtly, “now, where to?”. Brextex stares at him for a bit before pointing off to the east, a bit of green light sting shooting off. Danny plucks it to see how far it goes. The area seemed just a bit outside of a populated area.

Danny nods, “alright, I’ve got it”, looking to the ghost, “do you want a place to rest? I live with ghost hunters but they’re cool with good ghosts that don’t run around attacking humans. They’re pretty knowledgeable too, so if you need anything they can help. My friends could keep you company too. I don’t want you coming off with me and straining or hurting yourself”.

Brextex stares a bit more before furrowing his brows, “you are... very different. Kind”. Danny smiles at that, “my friends say I’m a little too nice sometimes”, and quirks an eyebrow.

Brextex nods a little, “I’ll... take the offer then”.

So Danny teleports them down into an alley and changes back human. Though that makes Brextex jump back and look incredibly confused. Danny chuckles and rubs his neck, “ah guess you don’t know. I’m a halfa”.

“A... halfa?”.

Danny nods and starts walking, the ghost following behind, “yup, half a ghost, half a human. This is how I look as a human. The people I live with are my human parents”. Danny sends off a quick text for his friends to get their butts over to his house as he pushes in his home’s front door, “mom! Dad! I’ve got a friendly that needs a place to crash for a bit!”.

His mom sticks her head out of the kitchen, glances at the ghost and back to Danny, “well he’s an interesting one”. Danny doesn’t even let her finish that and points at her, “no labs”.

“Alright, no worries sweetie. He’ll be staying in your room?”. Danny just nods as he heads upstairs, his friends joining him and Brextex just as the two had gotten halfway up the stairs.

“Oh! New ghost huh dude?”.

Sam just smiles at the confused-looking ghost.

Danny nods at Tucker, “you guys hang with him while I go unleash ghostly wrath on some people”.

Tucker pats the ghost on the shoulder and the two walk into Danny’s room. Sam raising an eyebrow at Danny, “what is it this time?”.

Danny scowls, “glow sticks are ghost bones apparently”. She scowls immediately herself, “you have my full support”, and nods at him as he turns to leave. Danny promptly teleporting away as soon as he’s back outside.

Danny floats above the little factory-looking building, arms crossed and scowling. It’s not even a debate him taking his mid-twenties full ghost looking form, the fact that his royal cape had a flaming white collar and large green skulls pinning it shut with a shadowy chain only made him look slightly more threatening than Dan did with his simple tattered cape. His crown wrapped around the flaming hair pretty darn well too in a way that just emphasised the crown even more. But before he does anything drastic he’s going to check this place out invisibly.

And what he finds inside is frankly, disgusting. The first thing he comes across are these tools that looked like potato peelers and piles of what he’s sure are ‘bone peels’; which he scowled at, feeling his lips pull over his other fangs. The second looks to be a literal vat of ‘discarded’ glow sticks, ones that were misshapen, damaged and leaking; the fact that they were taking these ghosts body parts and just throwing them away very explicitly pisses him off. Who knows how many ghosts faded for these damn scraps. It wasn’t like fucking glow sticks were important or even necessary, to kill to make them was beyond wrong and idiotic. The room with just boxed up glow sticks doesn’t really bother him beyond just how much was here. How many ghosts had faded in this place? Was there a risk of extinction? If he were to ask the FrightKnight the guy would probably claim to have thought this species of ghost already had gone extinct.

Getting to the centre of the factory is when he finds the ghosts. There are at least twenty or so ghosts that looked similar to Brextex stuck inside plastic cases that were practically skin tight around them, with little hinges and doors that could be opened for access to their arms, legs, fingers, toes, and ribs. There was tubes hooked into the back of the cases that appeared to be feeding the ghosts ectoplasm, Danny can tell by smell there’s some kind of drug mixed in. He’d place money on it being a type of tranquilliser or complacency drug. Especially with one of these linchens ghosts having escaped recently. He can tell from looking at the ghosts faces that the drug(s) definitely weren’t any kind of pain medication.

Floating over to one of the cases and putting his large clawed hand on it, he can sense the ghost inside is a child ghost. Scowling, first thing first, he needs to get them out of here. At the very least there are no alarms set to the cases, even if there were cameras he quickly shorted out with a little ecto-electroshock, meaning he can immediately start disconnecting the drugs and start tearing open the cases; duplicating so he can catch/carry the ghosts when they effectively fall out, either too weak or too out of it to really be aware of him or what’s going on fully. One of the ghosts particularly worries him as she’s gooey to the touch; making damn sure to teleport her to his room immediately with a duplicate, the rest he gives a more thorough look over to before sending them off.

Glancing around the room and nodding to himself with a huff. All clear. Now to scare the crap out of some assholes. Letting himself return to visibility as he heads to walk out, slapping a hand on the wall to send ice out coating everything in the room. Try ever using any of that shit ever again.

It doesn’t take long for an invisible duplicate to find the boss over in the ‘office’ building section, which he smirks over as he kicks in the main doors and blasts blue ecto-flames around him; making damn sure his footprints scorch the ground. The receptionist and people hanging around in the lobby jump over the loud sound before standing up and freaking out. Danny comes to a stop and crosses his arms, forcing anyone with the guts to try and flee to have to squeeze past him. He has no clue how involved any of these people are so he’ll let them off with singed jackets, jolts of cold, and a healthy dose of fear. Most people chose to just huddle in corners and radiate fear.

Danny huffs after a bit and continues stalking towards the big bad bosses office, completely ignoring the secretary as he goes. Though he does grumble with a deep voice, “I suggest you get a better job. There won’t be much left of this company soon”. Let her take that threat however she wants to. He wasn’t about to burn the place down, but an ecto-blast or two should do the job.

Kicking in the bosses door hard enough to blow it clean off its hinges and into the far wall, it just skimming past the guys head. Said guy is too stunned to do more than jerk and stare at him, which Danny snarls at him for. But at least that makes it easy to grab the guy's face and slam his head into the back wall, hard enough to give him a nasty headache but not outright kill the guy. He’s not here to add on to the death-toll.

“Alright fuckface, you and I have a few issues to settle. And this is a non-negotiable communication offer. Specifically about your little ghost harvesting setup”. Dropping him and watching the guy groan before scooting away from him across the floor with his hands and feet. While Danny moves his hand to coat the open doorway with flames, blocking off the only real exit here. Flicking a wrist to make one of his thrones form, simpler than his official throne but still pretty stunning-looking; all in sharp angular black and white and peppered in ectoplasmic gemstones.

Danny sits down while staring the guy down, growling at him, “I suggest you take a seat”. The guy nods and scrambled up without hesitation, reclaiming his average black office chair. Danny snapping immediately, “name and position”.

The guy swallows, “Brillar Glühen. Head of the Kialuma Company”, Brillar clearly tries to force himself to relax into the back of his chair, “and you are?”.

Danny grins very meanly, making sure his fangs are very noticeable, “Phantom, High Ghost King and ruler of the afterlife”, then just to be mean, “some might prefer to call me Hades or perhaps Satan”. No one called him Satan, like, ever. But there were plenty who considered the Zone to be Hell, so he’s fairly sure he can claim the name just to scare some asshole.

Brillar is visibly shaken and swallows, “nice to... to meet you”. Which Danny huffs a mean laugh at, “no it’s really not”, Danny scowls and leans forward on the guy's desk, “look here fuck-stick, I don’t know how someone who’s clearly barely fucking thirty is running a company older than that, but not only do I not care but I also am not going to change my course of action because of that”, pointing a clawed finger in his face, he’ll give him points for not moving back even if the prick goes stiff as a board, “obviously you damn well know how your company goes about getting its end product, if you don’t then you’re an idiot that deserves to be yelled at anyway”. Brillar nods stiffly so Danny scowls at him before continuing, “tell me then, why the fuck do you think it’s okay to tear out a beings bones repeatedly till they effectively die just to sell as a party novelty item”, growling, “last I checked, even humans knew better than to commit needless murder”.

Brillar swallows, “the creatures are already dead-”. Danny snapping, “so’s your mother, your point?”, making the guy jump a little.

“They- they don’t feel pain and-and one moving on is a mercy”,

Danny rolls his eyes harshly, “let me guess, you got that load of horse crap from the previous boss or the G.I.W., well here’s a tip for you. That’s wrong. We feel pain as much as the living. And since you might as well be an informed asshole, ghosts can not ‘move on’ by being murdered. It happens naturally”, scowling, “so knowing that, you see why you and I might have a few issues”. Brillar gulps and nods slowly. Danny growls over the lack of an actual answer, so he stands, grabs the guy's collar, and smacks his face down onto the desk. Lighting a ball of ecto-fire in his hand and holding it in front of the guys face, growling, “so what are you going to do about our little issue?”.

Brillar sounds more than a little shaken, “f-find a different resource. And- and let the-the glowing creatures- uh, ah, ghosts go?”.

Danny bares his teeth in his face a bit, “don't say that like a question, mean it”, shoving his head against the desk a bit more before releasing him and sitting back down, “this is a company that sells a cheap novelty item, that’s it. You have no place torturing sentient beings. And bones? Seriously? Do you even think the living public would be okay with that? You disappoint me”, scowling, “at least if you were some kind of ecto-phobic bigot, your stupidity and cruelty would make an ounce of sense”, shrugging aggressively, “and I’d have an excuse to beat the shit out of you”.

Brillar sits back up slowly and stares at him, Danny flashes his eyes just to freak the guy out more. Brillar swallows, “I- please don’t”.

Danny sighs and rolls his eyes, “I won’t. You’re just an idiot fed some bullshit information and handed a company that was already spinning its wheels financially fine so you felt no need to change anything. Ethics, common sense, and basic decency be damned. Oh and if you think I can’t use human methods to sue you into oblivion or politically murder you, then you are gravely mistaken. So take fucking heed and watch your shit or I will be far far less nice if I have to show up here again”, snarling, “now good day and have fun fixing all the shit I destroyed in your factory”. Then making his throne and himself burst into flames before turning invisible. Let the prick think he ‘road the fires of Hell’ or something. He does have to restrain a laugh when he invisibly watches the guy right himself, pull out his phone while shaking so bad he can barely type, and says, “h-hey dad, uh, can you um, when does the church open?”.

Danny smirks to himself and decides to speak as darkly as possible into the phone, “someone needs to repent and get off of Hell’s naughty list”. Making the guy shriek, launch himself across the room, and throw his phone into the air. Danny rolls his eyes and silently snorts as Brillar eyes his phone warily.

Danny flies out, gathers all the ‘discarded’ glow sticks/bones and the ‘bone peels’, then teleports home. He’s honestly not surprised to see his friends and all the ghosts in the yard rather than in the house. Brextex looking to be fretting over the other ghosts of his kind. All the ghosts jump and go bug-eyed when Danny suddenly appears. All the ghosts quickly and jerkily moving to huddle together when they actually get a good look at him; obviously frightened. Brextex looks less frightened but far more confused than the others.

Ticker comes over and smacks him on the bicep, “dude, maybe take your true form and cool your jets before you scare them even more”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “yeah yeah, but first”, snapping a clawed finger and making all the ghost parts he stole/reclaimed appear in his yard, “you know I have more energy at my fingertips like this”, then changing back to his true ghost form.

Walking over to the group of huddling ghosts, who shrink back from him some. The whole being feared thing may please his ghostly nature a lot but he still doesn’t particularly like being feared. Brextex is the only one who doesn’t actively noticeably shrink away or seem fearful. Danny waves and smiles friendly at them, “relax, please. One of my powers happens to be a pretty heavy dose of age slash form manipulation. That previous form happens to be good for scaring the crap out of assholes”, smirking, “I don’t think you have to worry about being bone harvested anymore and a few humans definitely need to change their pants”. Tucker snorts on the side, the ghosts just look slightly confused but do relax some. Danny looks around and spots the child ghost he was the most worried about, promptly moving to her and kneeling down. Grabbing her hands and checking her energy levels, “glad to see you’re looking a bit better”, frowning slightly, “you’re still lower than I’d like, you can take some from me if you like?”.

She shifts and fiddles with his fingers some, “really?”. He nods so she grabs him and gets rather clingy, Danny picking her up and standing; carrying her around as he moves to check on the others. Easily hearing Sam laugh a little and speak at some of the more surprised looking linchen ghosts, “told you he was a kind soul who’s stupid protective”. Catching a few ghosts looking at her and nodding jerkily, but the group of ghosts do start to seem less nervous and timid around him.

Once Danny’s satisfied with the state of everyone, eyeing the child ghost, “Alright, you’ve had enough. No getting greedy now”, she just hums innocently at him as he puts her down. Turning to face the group, “so I have a question for you all, Brextex said y’all have been disconnected from the Zone. So my question is if you want to stay here in the living realm or be reintroduced into the ghost realm”.

Danny watches as they all look to a linchen with stringy red hair and red ‘eyes’, he felt older than the others so Danny’s guessing he’s their leader, or as close to one as they have. He clears his throat and steps forward, “we don’t have... fond memories of this realm. While we believe our kind left the Infinite Realms for safety... I don’t believe we have to fear there anymore. You... are not Pariah. We’d like to go home... your highness”.

Danny nods curtly and smiles, “then that’s what we’ll do. Now it might take some time for you all to reconnect fully and properly. That’s just the nature of things I’m afraid. So I’ll have some knights keep guard over wherever you chose to set down your roots, that way the miasma and local flora and fauna won’t damage any of you. Alright?”. They all nod looking a bit stunned though. Danny gestures to the bone stuff he brought with him, “these are yours to do with as you wish, as far as I’m concerned they belong to you. If you remember your traditions for respecting the faded, then maybe these will help you do that”. They just nod, clearly only getting more stunned; which makes Danny chuckle a bit.

Sam and Tucker share a look and shake their heads, while Danny makes a portal and guides the ghosts through.

Danny speaks at the FirghtKnight while watching the linchens settle down from afar, “let me guess, you thought they were extinct?”.

The FrightKnight nods, “I rather assumed that when they disconnected from the Infinite Realms it was due to being whipped out. Ghosts being able to exist amongst the living indefinitely as you do is uncommon, my king”.

Danny snorts, “I’m uncommon, Frighty. There any other ghost species that fled to the human world and were never heard of again?”.

The FrightKnight seems to almost sigh, “‘fraid so sire. The fallen mad king chased many off”. Making Danny actually sigh, guess he now has a bunch of things to look into. Hopefully there wasn’t, like, horror movie companies using real ghosts as movie ghosts.

End.

#ectober #ectoberweek2020 #Danny Phantom #phandom #danny fenton #the frightknight #ghost king danny #implied/referenced murder #implied/referenced torture #glow sticks #dark history #unethical #fan fic #phan phic #my writing #have a fic suck my dick #phantomphangphucker

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acousticcheeze · 3 years

Text

Here's my 100 questions for my OC thing!

My OC is Laureli, a 6'2 Altmer trying to make his way in Skyrim

1. What do they smell like?

Whatever alchemy ingredient he’s been working with, really. Lavender is what he smells like most often, though.

2. What is their voice like?

A smooth-ish medium pitch Altmer voice that has elements of calm and irritation.

3. What is their biggest motivator?

Helping others through his alchemy. He wants to improve medicine for Skyrim, as well as all of Tamriel.

4. What is their most embarrassing memory?

He had a whole scientific presentation one year that ended up being completely wrong. He got humiliated in front of everyone.

5. How do they deal with/react to pain?

Winces at it, curses, and then gets to treating the problem.

6. What do they like to wear?

Functional clothes that keep him warm and allow him to carry alchemy ingredients in his pockets.

7. Which of their relationships have impacted them most positively?

The relationships with some of the people he’s helped over the years. It gave him a sense of purpose and fulfillment knowing that he could help people, save people.

8. What’s the weirdest thing they’ve ever eaten?

He’s an alchemist...in Skyrim...I’m pretty sure there are a few contenders… (giants toe, large/small antlers, ectoplasm, the list goes on)

9. Describe the way that they sleep.

Normal side sleeper. Prefers to sleep on his left side.

10. What is their favorite food/kind of food?

Horker stew. It’s actually way better than he thought it would be.

11. What do they feel most insecure about?

If what he’s doing is good enough. He has big problems with perfectionism that still persist with him even after leaving Summerset.

12. How do they like to dress?

Robes with an alchemy enchantment and a hood.

13. How do they react to feelings of guilt?

He tries to shake them off, but has panic attacks and whatnot sometimes as a result of them.

14. How do they react to/deal with betrayal?

Is completely shattered by it. He’s dealt with this so many times before, though, so he keeps his cards close to his chest.

15. What is their greatest achievement?

Creating potions that help much more than the average cure disease potion would, as well as all sorts of other concoctions. Also, he’s created a sort of disinfectant and is working on a hand sanitizer.

16. What are they like when they’ve gotten too little sleep?

Cranky, cranky, cranky.

17. What are they like when they’re drunk?

Drunk? Oh no no no no Laureli does not drink (and even if he did he’d be out real quick)

18. What kind of music do they enjoy?

He isn’t really into music, but he enjoys the songs the bard plays at the Bannered Mare.

19. Are they right or left handed?

Right, but is practicing with his left hand too in case something happens to his right.

20. Fears?

Death and failure, mostly.

21. Favorite kind of weather?

As the sun rises and there’s dew all over the grass, the light reflecting through each drop.

22. Favorite color?

The color of eyes. Or, more specifically, the hundreds of little pinpricks of different colors inside of eyes, It’s really quite fascinating.

23. Do they collect anything?

OH YEAH. So many different alchemy ingredients and random stuff to be used in his next works-

24. Do they prefer either hot or cold weather more?

Cold, which is good since he lives in Skyrim.

25. What is their eye color?

Chartreuse (like most Altmer)

26. What is their race/ethnicity?

Altmer

27. Hair color?

White

28. Are they happy where they are currently?

Yup. Breezehome is small, but manageable, and Whiterun is a decent hold to live in.

29. Are they a morning person?

Yes. He gets tired around 9 and can’t stay up past 12.

30. Sunrise or sunset?

Sunrise.

31. Are they more messy or more organized?

Very organized. Again, he’s a perfectionist.

32. Pet peeves?

People touching his things as well as people inserting themselves into his business.

33. Do they own any objects of significant personal importance?

An amulet of Talos a Nord gave him. He hadn’t gotten the chance to learn much about Talos at home, and he found it very interesting talking to the local Nords about their beliefs. That amulet reminds him of his first day in Skyrim, the first day of his new life.

34. Least favorite food?

Taffy treats, or anything with that sort of texture and stickiness that can get stuck to his teeth very easily.

35. Least favorite color?

Very pale green. It looks gross.

36. Least favorite smell?

Death. (Yes, death has a smell)

37. When was the last time they cried?

Recently.

38. Were they with anybody the last time they cried?

No. Oh Auri-el, no no no no. He cries alone and he makes sure of it.

39. Tell us about one of the times they got injured?

Was in a fire when he was younger, he has a burn going up the inner leg on his right leg.

40. Do they have any scars?

Only mental ones. (and the burn scar on his leg)

41. Do they struggle with any mental health issues?

Perfectionism, past abuse, self hate, among others.

42. Do they have any bad habits?

Picking at his nails. He knows it makes them hurt and get bloody, but sometimes he just can’t help it.

43. Why might someone dislike them?

He can be very rude if he’s working, but to be fair, it is really annoying to be bothered in the middle of your work.

44. Why might someone love them?

Who wouldn’t love an overworked science boye? But in all seriousness, if he loves someone, he will be very caring towards them and is also just great listener. Tries not to care any more though because of personal trauma.

45. Do they believe in ghosts?

Yup. He’s heard of people’s encounters with them. Honestly, you’d be stupid to not believe in them.

46. Is there anyone they would trust with their lives?

At this point? No. Farkas later down the line? Yes.

47. Are they romantically interested in anyone?

Farkas, but we ain’t talking about that yet~

48. Are they dating/married to anyone?

49. Do they like surprises?

No. Please do not surprise this poor man he will stagger back and crash into everything.

50. When is their birthday?

9th of Hearthfire (September 9th)

51. How do they usually celebrate their birthday?

He takes a few seconds to acknowledge it and then gets on with his work.

52. Do they have any family?

Yup! A Mom, a Dad, a younger sister, and a male cousin that lives nearby (he’s in the Thalmor and the whole family has very Pro-Thalmor views)

53. Are they close to their family?

HAH- no~

54. What is their MBTI type?

INTJ (Damn this list for making me look up stereotypes for this. Honestly I hate the MBTI system so much-)

55. What is their zodiac sign?

Virgo

56. What Hogwarts House would they be in?

Ravenclaw

57. What D&D alignment are they?

If lawful chaotic good was a thing then yes

58. Do they ever have nightmares? If so, what about?

Yes, but they are often so tangled up that it’s hard to get any real meaning from them.

59. What are their views on death?

“It’s fine, it’s fine, I’ll be fine-” Hopes that he’ll be fine but is really scared about it.

60. What is something that they’re sure to laugh at?

Bad science puns. He will stifle a chuckle before telling you how bad your joke was.

61. When bored, how do they pass time?

This man does not get bored. He will always find something alchemy related to study or look into.

62. Do they enjoy being outside?

Yes. Laureli loves the Skyrim weather (for the most part. Places like Dawnstar and Winterhold suck)

63. Do they have an accent?

Yes. He has the typical Altmer accent.

64. Upon seeing a slice of chocolate cake, what is their first reaction?

“Why is this here? This isn’t mine.”

65. If they knew they were going to die, what would they do/say

He would probably take too long deciding and die before he could do/say anything.

66. How do they feel about sex?

Sex repulsed asexual.

67. What is their sexuality?

GAY

68. Do they become squeamish at the sight of blood?

Nope.

69. Is there anything that they find really gross?

He’s seen so much it would take a lot to surprise him here.

70. Which TV Trope(s) best describes them?

Grumpy scientist with no people skills.

71. Do they enjoy helping people?

Yes, definitely

72. Are they allergic to anything?

Not really. (Lucky)

73. Do they have a pet?

74. Are they quick to anger? What are they like when they loose their temper?

Nope, unless you press his buttons. His anger is pretty much “What in the name of Auri-el is wrong with you?! Don’t touch my equipment!!”

75. How patient are they?

Very...until you hit his limit. Then he gets passive aggressive.

76. Are they good at cooking?

Not really. He can be good at it, he just chose not to learn in favor of working on his projects. Can make enough to live on, though.

77. Favorite insult? Do they insult people often?

He doesn't have a favorite insult (he rarely insults people).

78. How do they act when they’re particularly happy?

Talking fast, pacing, flappy hands.

79. What do they do when they learn about other people’s fears?

Try to avoid bringing those fears up around them and avoiding making fun of them. If their fear is nearby, he will either tell them or take care of it. (which is good because Farkas is scared of spiders)

80. Are they trustworthy?

Yes, but you have to be a very certain kind of person to work with him.

81. Do they try to hide their emotions? Are they good at it?

Sometimes, especially romantic feelings. Romantic attraction? Nope, not possible- (It totally is; he’s in denial)

82. Do they exercise regularly?

With all of the walking he does around various holds, yes.

83. Are they comfortable with the way they look?

Yes. He’s a perfectionist with many things, but has learned to let go a bit more when it comes to his appearance. He still will take ages to get ready, though.

84. What are some physical features that they find attractive on people?

Tattoos, braids, basically everything you’d see on a typical Nord. It’s so different from his home and he’s completely enamored.

85. What kind of personalities do they find attractive?

Himbo nord men. Sweet morons basically.

86. Do they like sweet foods?

Not really. Sweet foods do have their place, but he isn’t wanting to get any cavities, so he tries to limit his sugar. (Especially since Altmer live 200-300 years aprox)

87. What is their age?

52 (~20s for an Altmer)

88. Are they tall or short or somewhere in between?

Tall, but about average for an Altmer

89. Do they wear glasses or contacts?

No, but if he did he would have half-moon spectacles.

90. Do they consider themselves attractive?

Not really. He doesn’t really think anyone is attractive. (Well, except for Nord himbos, but he doesn’t know that until he meets Farkas)

91. What is their sense of humor like?

Practically nonexistent, but when there is humor it’s mostly dry and sardonic.

92. What mood are they most often in?

That sort of focused work mode you get in when you’re really concentrating, as well as somewhat-sociable-but-still-kind-of-tired-and-grumpy

93. What kinds of things anger them?

People messing up his equipment. Oh sweet Auri-el, if you touch his things he will explode. Also, he hates the racism that the Thalmor promote. (He hates racism in general, but he hates the Thalmor’s views the most).

94. Outlook on life?

“It sucks, but I do find quite a bit fascinating and I’ll help where I can.”

95. What kind of things make them sad/depressed?

His perfectionism, how lonely he knows he is, and more.

96. What is their greatest weakness?

Again, his perfectionism, as well as having his work dictate more in his life than he should.

97. What is the greatest strength?

His brain. He remembers small details extremely well, and is practically an encyclopedia when it comes to alchemy.

98. Something that they regret?

How awful he used to be to everyone back home. He got a lot of pushback on his dreams and who he was, so he lashed out. Even though there wasn’t much he could do there, he still regrets hiring his family and wants to try at a relationship again with them (lol good luck).

99. Biggest accomplishment?

How is this different from “Greatest Achievement”?

100. Create your own! (Why is his alchemy so different from the norm?)

Because he’s trying to do something much more along the lines of modern medicine as opposed to just potions.

101. (Bonus!) Why is he in Skyrim?

Because it’s rather lacking in the medicine department compared to the other provinces, so he decided his talents would be best used there. Obviously, his family protested, but he went anyways.

#oc #laureli #skyrim

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dereksmcgrath · 3 years

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That was a really good chapter, and I’m struggling to say anything deeper about why it worked. I will try to summarize why it all works at the end of this post, because before that I want to give some time for topics I haven’t discussed directly up to now--including Aizawa’s disabilities and Mineta’s sexuality. But let’s start with some specific observations about Chapter 325.

“The Bonds of One for All,” My Hero Academia Chapter 325. By Koehi Horikoshi, translation by Caleb Cook, lettering by John Hunt. Available from Viz.

Spoiler warnings for The Big O and Fire Force.

The interactions between Izuku, Kota, and the woman with the giant Quirk were handled very well, in paneling, facial expressions, and dialogue. I love how the panel of tearful Kota reaching out to Izuku is almost identical to Izuku reaching out to Bakugo way back in Chapter 1. It is such a good humorous moment for the woman with the giant Quirk to refer to Izuku as her “crybaby hero.”

And beyond how well these three interact, I also loved Aizawa from afar congratulating Iida for his handling of this entire situation. The most recent episodes of the anime have not shown much in a mentor-mentee relationship between these two, with Aizawa rushing to see Kurogiri at Tartarus and surprised Iida already finished giving the class announcements he was instructed to. The two have not had much in the way of interactions, so having this small moment showing Aizawa does pay attention to his students contradicts a lot of complaints I’ve made how Aizawa has seemed so hands-off, especially when Bakugo has been physically abusive to his classmates.

Speaking of which, Denki dope-slapped Bakugo. That has been a long time coming, and I love that small background gag making its way in the middle of Hawks’s rousing narration. I also spotted Eijiro crying and I think a cameo from Oogami from Oumagadoki Zoo, so overall, the crowd scene was well illustrated.

The final bit I really enjoyed in this chapter--aside from Kurogiri’s return, but I’ll get to that--was the man from Chapter 1 defending Izuku, by invoking one of the metaphors I hate: the stage.

The Big O is one of my favorite anime--at least, until the second season started, then the show became so meta without progressing any plot in a way I enjoyed, and losing the “monster of the week” format that I thought served it better. One of its conceits was that, spoiler, the entire series is fake, just what is imagined as a stage production, or a TV production, or someone who has the power to control everything--and, no, that’s a cheap trick, worse than Dallas or Newhart playing that for a narrative reset or a legitimate series finale gag. This isn’t St. Elsewhere, and Big O is not good enough for that stunt. At its best, The Big O was like watching Cowboy Bebop’s stand-alone episodes: I’m judging it by the quality of its beginning-middle-and-end plot. (Having Steve Blum, Wendee Lee, and others from the Bebop dub with major roles in the Big O dub didn’t hurt.) So, trying to add a second-season arc to justify stuff in the first season that didn’t need to be justified felt like a waste of the stage metaphor.

And another manga, Fire Force, just recently invoked the “what if this is all a fiction, like something on the stage” plotline and, no, God no, we are not going there, we not letting “it’s all a fiction” defend how badly that misogynistic followup to Soul Eater has fallen off the rails, good Lord, no. I was way too kind to that series.

So, I cringed hearing this man defend Izuku by invoking the stage, and Horikoshi and company drawing a literal stage with theater seats. But at the end, no, that metaphor works, especially when it invokes how we first met this man and Izuku way back in Chapter 1: they were watching Woods and Mt Lady fighting that giant like they were watching a live performance of a tokusatsu. Having that man chew out we in the audience for treating this series as spectacle for fighting scenes, and by extension criticizing Izuku too and himself, adds enough humility to have this moment all be easier to approach rather than feeling hackneyed: it comes out of a problem the series has had since Chapter 1, and that any superhero story will have (as I ranted about earlier this week, where the good guy had to fight the bad guy with nothing in society really getting better).

With the good stuff out of the way, that brings me to Aizawa, and ongoing thoughts I have about how MHA portrays people with disabilities.

Over the weekend (through Sunday, September 5, at 7 PM Eastern), the US Embassy of Japan has shared for free online for United States audiences the documentary Tokyo Paralympics: Festival of Love and Glory. As I am not diagnosed with a disability, and as I do not consider myself an expert scholar in disability studies, I leave it to people more familiar with the topics to evaluate the documentary. With that said, I do think the documentary is of its time, as within the first minutes the thesis to the work seems to be that to have a disability is to be a challenge of overcoming having a disability. I do not think that is the customary way of thinking about disabilities today, that it is something to overcome: a disability is something you live with, not necessarily something you think of as overcoming--the verb being used is the problem. Granted, I’m using “overcome” based on the subtitles, not on the original Japanese of the film. But from what I have gathered in disability studies, the focus is not on the responsibility of an individual to overcome anything: it is far more about what societies can do so that, regardless what a person has in way of abilities, they are able to participate fully in that society, as the definition of having a disability has so much to do with society not making access possible regardless of the person’s abilities.

I’ve talked quite a bit about how MHA started with this bifurcated presentation: it wants to show a shiny exterior of a world where people of various abilities all get to participate in society and function within it, before revealing that exterior to be a facade, hiding forms of discrimination, some obvious from Chapter 1 where those without Quirks are maligned, and some soon after, such as a gag strip showing the damage Mt Lady’s ability causes due to her giant size. Then we saw more and more forms of discrimination on the basis of ability. We learned how Shinso, Habuko, Shigaraki, and Toga’s Quirks impede how they may participate in society. We saw how the physical appearance of Shoji, Spinner, Habuko, and now in the manga this woman with the giant Quirk leads to discrimination. We saw how the size of the individual (the woman with the giant Quirk, Mt Lady, and Kamachi in Vigilantes) requires different forms of housing that are often not easily accessible, affordable, or in convenient parts of the city. And we have seen more and more characters who lose Quirks (Ragdoll, Mirio, All Might) or have no Quirks (Melissa) as analogues to having disabilities, and more characters who have what we accept in our real world as disabilities (Ectoplasm’s pre-introduction lost legs, Aizawa and All Might’s Quirks being impeded by physical damage, Compress losing his arm and now more in the PLF Arc, Mirko losing her arm and leg, Aizawa and Nighteye losing limbs and organs in battle).

I don’t know what to make of how Aizawa’s leg prosthetic is first introduced to the audience, as the scene is staged almost the same as how we first saw Re-Destro’s leg prosthetic in the manga: we see the prosthetic clothed in a shoe and a pants’ leg, and that is how much we see to indicate its presence. I doubt the replication of this staging is telling us any similarity between Aizawa and Re-Destro--I honestly think the staging is just a coincidence. But I do think, intentional or not, Horikoshi is avoiding a fixation, an attempt to focus on the prosthetic as if something has been lost, by clothing it in the shoe and the pants’ leg to communicate that this just is his leg now, it’s not an identical substitution but it functions as a leg, it looks different, it obviously is different, but the image will not fetishize it.

I expected Aizawa would pop back up in this chapter after his appearance last time, but I in no way expected to hear references to Kurogiri, Oboro, the Nomus, and Toga--all of that are the real surprises of this chapter, and with All Might seemingly in front of UA, it’s set up for more to come. I have repeatedly complained how Kurogiri and Oboro have been handled since the reveal back in Vigilantes that they are the same body, as I took it as using Aizawa’s back story for plot setup rather than offering anything meaningful to progress Aizawa’s character. I’m not taking back my complaints. But after this chapter, I am less frustrated with those choices made, and less impatient to see where that plot is going, all because of just a few bits of exposition in this chapter to re-contextualize prior scenes to make what wasn’t working work better. It’s not clear to me yet how and when exactly Aizawa advocated for Kurogiri and other Nomus to be transferred out of prison and into medical help--and that is an entire discussion about prison reform that I do not think I can speak to adequately, but I do need to identify. While I wish this chapter or previous chapters did more to show Aizawa’s advocacy, similar to how we saw him advocate to Nezu on behalf of the class he was expelling and re-enrolling, the exposition via brief dialogue between Aizawa and Nezu hit the right beats and ended this chapter on a more positive note. All of this moment felt earned and helped make something more out of Aizawa and Kurogir compared to how I thought their plot had been so far, merely re-shuffling the characters to suit where the plot goes next.

But speaking of where the plot goes next, the invocation of Toga and the safety parameters to deal with her potential impersonation of anyone entering UA strikes me as similar to Nezu explaining the safety measures at UA: you explain the safety protocols so that, when the Villains inevitably break them, we are shocked but understand how this happened. It’s like Ghostbusters: you have to say “don’t cross the streams” so that, when it happens, you know a rule has been broken and things are that desperate. Theoretically, based on the information UA has, if you keep Toga in isolation for so long, her impersonation will wear off: that makes sense. The problems are twofold. First, no, I still don’t trust that Nezu isn’t pulling something. But that’s a conspiracy theory, so I need harder evidence. Therefore, second, UA may not know how much Toga’s Quirk evolved in the fight against the MLA and may have evolved since the PLF fight; predicting the duration of her impersonating abilities, when paired with her ninja-like ability to hide her presence, means that Toga could pop up in UA in the near future. Having All Might somehow now in front of UA instead of having a chat with Stain leads me to think Toga could just as easily have impersonated All Might to get into UA and close to Izuku, but I’ll have to wait and see.

I also have avoided discussing Mineta in these recent chapters. At the time of his reunion with Izuku, I honestly did not read a queer subtext at all: his “I love you, man”-esque reaction to Izuku struck me as homosocial rather than queer. Now that he again has been prevented from getting close to Izuku in this chapter, I can’t avoid bringing it up now.

In the immediate time when the chapter came out, I noticed to distinct interpretations of his remarks to Izuku, based on what he says in Japanese and how Caleb Cook translated it into English: the homosocial as I just said, in terms of Mineta having always been prone to using language and passionate language to express his feelings, unfortunately almost always in a perverted way to girls and women; and the queer reading, that Mineta is indeed making a love confession to Izuku.

I’m not sure which side I find more persuasive, but the latter queer reading is effective, especially in retrospect seeing how often he is near Izuku in different chapters. And it recontextualizes his reaction to seeing Ochaco giving Izuku attention back in the Classes 1A vs 1B Arc: I thought he was jealous that Izuku was getting Ochaco’s affection, whereas it may be that he was jealous of anyone else showing affection to Izuku.

However, I could just as easily take a page out of Scrubs (yes, forgive me for citing a cringey show like Scrubs) when they tried to portray the Todd’s womanizing as part of a larger pansexual identity--which is also problematic, and really is not how I want to read Mineta as being bi or pan, because it again falls into the argument that being bi or pan means you’re hedonistic or horny all the time when, no, by themselves, the terms bi and pan just refer to your emotional and sexual attraction, not at all implying anything about your sex life. This is all the more infurating to have to explain when being a pervert is not tied explicitly to any one sexuality, gender, or sex, so to have it associated with being bi or pan is offensive. Granted, I also am offended by how popular culture associates being a man with immediately being associated with being a pervert, but that’s the fault of toxic masculinity and failure to recognize broader constructions of being a man and masculinity, but that’s another topic.

To summarize, I pause at any notion that Mineta’s characterization is anything beyond just a pervert to his girl and woman colleagues, or any notion whether he was just exaggerating his chauvinism and attraction to girls and women in order to cover up for being gay, bi, or pan, because either case has unfortunate implications. At best, this portrayal suggests is the victim of toxic heteronormativity--which, if that was the case, that doesn’t work because we just had to sit through his groping of Tsuyu, Momo, and others, and no, the story doesn’t get to excuse that bullshit behavior by saying he is young and influenced by the toxicity around him. At worst, this portrayal suggests that being bi or pan just means you are one big pervert and will grope anything that moves--and, again, no, that is not at all what being bi or pan is. That’s like saying “apples are red, therefore this red Stapler is an apple so I’m going to eat it.”

God, this is why I really wish Horikoshi would take the cue I’ve seen from more fanfic writers and just headcanon someone’s sexuality and making it apparent in the fiction: it’s not that hard to show someone’s attractive to someone else in ways that defy our heteornormative assumptions, it’s just that much harder to commit to it beyond some authorial-intent JK Rowling footnote. (And since I invoked her by name: fuck Rowling; trans rights now.)

But I want to wrap up this review on a positive note, even if that means I’m again invoking another cringey TV show. How I Met Your Mother (I warned you this would get cringey) built its symbolism around umbrellas. Having the umbrella scenes around Izuku in the rain, after this manga already invoked Kenji Miyazawa's “Be Not Defeated by the Rain,” coupled with Hawks’s narration--that is all really well-done. Umbrellas are that shield against the elements. It even ties back into Aizawa and Oboro: we first meet these two in Vigilantes when Aizawa couldn’t stand to bring a stray kitten out of the rain while Oboro, whose power is literally clouds, had no hesitation about shielding the cat. Shielding Izuku like this with the umbrellas as a metaphor for how the older man all the way back in Chapter 1 wants to shield Izuku, and how UA can shield Izuku, is a really good way of visualizing what is offered to Izuku. UA is not his home, but like an umbrella, this is a temporary fix against the elements awaiting out there. I’m not as convinced by Izuku saying he can bring things back to how they were before: that’s nonsense, because for society to progress, you can’t just go back to how things were, you have to take what worked and improve it and fix what was broken. I know Izuku knows this, especially after his talk with Nagant, but it is an awkward line for this chapter. But like how we’re dealing with COVID, like how we need to mask up just like we would hold an umbrella against the rain, just as we need to work together (even if, paradoxically, we do that by social distancing, not gathering in crowds like the UA people are), we need to get through this awfulness, and I appreciate that this series again communicates the value of collaboration and not persisting with the “I alone can fix this” approach All Might, for all his good intentions, unfortunately propped up that led to Shigaraki, this mess the characters now face--and, yeah, being political, is why we’re in this mess in a post-2016 atmosphere.

#my hero academia #mha spoilers #shota aizawa #minoru mineta #kurogiri #long post

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datawyrms · 4 years

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hey so do you think you could write stuff about danny and dani being cousins and maybe him visiting the ghost zone to go see her and nocturn cuz the one that mentioned that was super cool

You bet! Sorry I took awhile, I’ve been juggling things and flicking between ideas and not finishing anything :v It’s short and doesn’t go very far but hey just something to maybe expand on later, yeah? (oh look i slapped it on AO3!)

”I have no idea how you stay over here so long.” Danny shuddered, trying to ignore how green everything was. The sky should be blue, not some endless green expanse.

“Stealing to eat is a pain cuz. I don’t get why you’re always over there!” Dani rolled her eyes as she glanced at her trailing friend. “I know you like flying as much as I do and you spend most of the time pretending you can’t.”

“It’s not that hard to fly if I want to,” his shrug was dismissive, but he couldn’t keep the frown from his face. “I just don't get why you don’t just hang around the Far Frozen if you like being in the Ghost Zone.” Well, it was more ‘why can’t you hang around ghosts that HAVEN’T tried taking over the world’, but the last time he’d phrased it like that, Dani had kicked him.

“Not all of us have ice powers!”

“Uh. You totally do. Or should eventually, I guess.”

She seemed to appreciate he didn’t bother voicing the obvious, slowing down so they didn’t need to keep hollering at one another. “Nope. Frostbite didn’t seem to think so when I asked.”

“Really? Huh. Your ghost sense is like mine though isn’t it?”

“Don’t ask me, I’m just listening to big, smart and fuzzy. Just means I can get something way better than ectoblasts but Blue.”

Well when she made it that easy… “Nothing cooler though!” Ducking the hurled ectoblast was easy enough, she’d aimed a bit high.

“Looks like my power is shooting people who make bad jokes.”

“So saying to chill out would-” he broke off laughing as she tackled him at full speed, sending the two half ghosts in a barely controlled spiral.

Still, the clone had joined in the laughing by the time the two managed to steady themselves again. “You’re awful.”

“I get too much practice.”

“No kidding. You’ve sent how many ghosts back here this week? Eight?”

“Try twenty and you’ll be getting close,” his amusement faded. He really, really should be getting back. Yet he’d promised to at least try visiting sometimes, so he had to at least get to the place. Even if every bit of him was wanting to get back to Amity already now that he was thinking about it.

“Whoops. Sorry cuz, forgot you’re reallll territorial sometimes.” Dani elbowed him, forcing Danny out of his own thoughts.

“I am not!” His denial was a bit more forceful than he’d like to admit. “You just reminded me how many ghosts might hold a grudge this week.”

“Uhhuh. Since you know we’ve been attacked so often today.” the smaller ghost paused as if she needed a moment to count. “ All zero times! The horror.”

“Real funny. Don’t you feel weird over here?” he caught her eyes, a little confused to see a complete lack of understanding. “You know...that feeling? That we don’t belong over here? That little pulsing at the back of your head?”

Her blank stare answered that well enough. “Noooope. I don’t know if that’s a ‘you’re a territorial nutcase’ or a ‘you’re a corpse stuffed with ectoplasm’ thing.”

“One, no I’m not, and two EW? Gross!” he gagged, fighting off the urge to shudder. “Someone call you that as an insult or something?”

“Mhm, Kitty was trying to explain why humans are kinda weird.” she gave a little shrug. “So we’re even weirder. Though I totally melted so I’m probably not lugging a corpse around all the time, but you might be!”

“Yup, that’s it, you spend wayyyy too much time around ghosts.” He had not expected to get a new nightmare from Dani nowadays, she’d given him plenty already. Yet life was apparently full of surprises.

“Or you don’t spend enough time around em.”

“No, pretty sure you crossed from morbid to just disgusting there.”

“Hey, if you really want to creep someone out just crack your knuckles at em. Get a shudder out of any ghost that can’t get over to the human world, guaranteed”

“I’m not really big into the scaring people thing.” The fact Dani was still made part of him twinge in discomfort. She was her own person, obviously. It should be a good thing that they were different in more ways as time passed...

“Pft. You’re such a human cuz” she gave him a nudge before shooting forward “Almost there! Don’t shoot at a sleepwalker if it surprises you!”

“I won’t,” he muttered, already more alert for any movement.

He didn’t really expect Nocturn’s lair to seem so inviting. He’d been expecting the dull wasteland that he’d seen back when they’d fought, dark skies, ominous towers, that sort of thing. A hazy sort of garden lit by gently swilling lights had not gotten on his list of possibilities. Even the clouds seemed to be dotted with stars now that he was close enough to see them. The tower nearby didn’t seem dangerous with the surroundings feeling so peaceful. Though that was probably a trap, all of Nocturn’s power was tied up in sleep. Getting an enemy fired up and wide awake would just make him have a harder time, wouldn’t it?

“Hmmm. I thought he’d be outside.” Dani crossed her arms, glancing at some of the nearby trees.

“I’m mostly here to see you anyway.”

“Which is why you need to see him! Otherwise you’re just gonna keep grumping about how I’m being corrupted or something.”

He’d like to deny that, but the lie would be pretty obvious. “He has better taste in lairs than takeover plans, at least.”

“There’s a place inside that has a way to see the real stars! The ones out here are nice too though.” Dani brightened at his admission, a little more animated as she pointed out the scattered ‘stardust’ clouds.

“Is that why you stay around here then?”

“That, and no nightmares. Noc can just cut them off before they start if I’m nearby.” she paused, kicking her feet. “It’s really, really nice not having to remember him every time I go to sleep.”

Well, Nocturn couldn’t be all bad if he’d help his poor clone with that. He’d be pretty tempted by a ‘no more nightmare reminders’ offer. “I bet.”

“You still think he’s up to something, don’t you.” her frown burrowed into him so he had to glance away.

“I can’t help it! We didn’t really meet on good terms.” Maybe he was being unfair, but the uncomfortable feeling he always had in the ghost zone combined with that bad history was making him jumpy.

“Do you think I’d lead you into a trap?”

“What? No!”

“Well I’m the one who invited you!”

“Well, yeah, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t plan something behind your back.”

Dani let out a frustrated groan. “He won’t! You don’t mess with family cuz.”

Danny’s retort died in his throat as Nocturn seemed to melt into visibility behind the smaller half ghost, struggling with the impulse to shove Dani out of the way to protect her.

“Sorry Dani, I was distracted by a particularly interesting set of dreams, I’ll have to show you. I think you’d enjoy them.” Nocturn seemed to have no such difficulties, speaking easily and giving her a warm smile. “Did you fly far?”

“You bet!” she nodded before glancing back. “Brought someone back while I was at it.”

Danny’s pulse quickened when the lanky ghost finally took notice of him. Had he really just...not noticed he was right there?

“Ah, your wayward cousin.” the dream ghost gave a small nod. “I expect you had an uneventful trip then?”

“Yeah, sorry if you were expecting any gossip.”

“A safe trip is the best news you could deliver regardless.” he messed with her hair, earning a hug before she pulled away.

“Nuh uh, you’re a total snoop Noc.”

Maybe he’d been a bit of a jerk for expecting something worse. They just seemed...happy. Really he just felt like he was intruding at the moment.

“Only while people sleep.” there was a hint of a laugh, but when his red eyes caught Danny again it died out. “Is there an occasion for the visit?”

Dani rolled her eyes, glancing back at Danny and his stiff posture. “Trying to get someone to relax already. Sheesh cuz, your brick wall impression is great.”

“Sorry,” he let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. The first impulse that he had to protect his clone had passed with the two ghosts interacting in a friendly matter, but he couldn’t quite dismiss Nocturn as a potential threat.

“Don’t be. I am aware our previous meeting made an unfavourable impression.” No apology for the attack was in those words. That, and Dani had made it pretty clear he wouldn’t be getting one either. How did ghosts just think that putting people at risk was no big deal?

“That’s an understatement.” Dani’s scowl at his words only earned her one of his own back. “I had to use Dash as a weapon of mass destruction. It wasn’t a good day, okay?”

“Yeah, but we’re not even close to Amity and you’re still being tetchy.”

“Don’t be so hard on your cousin, Dani. He wouldn’t have made it this long without that kind of caution.”

He hadn’t really expected Nocturn to come to his defense. Great, now he felt like even more of a jerk for still wanting to punch the ghost in the face. “Uhh. Thanks?”

“I guess. Should we hold off on exploring more till another time then?” She was looking at both of them now.

“...Yeah. I should be getting back.” Admitting it made the guilt worse, but the itching need to be away and back to his home made the idea of staying any longer sound like torture. Even if there’d be an accurate set of stars to look at.

“You are welcome at any time, though Dani does tend to roam. Safe travels.” There was no judgement from the older ghost, only a sort of understanding look.

This ghost of all people knowing how he felt better than himself was disquieting. He settled for a stiff nod before turning to take flight at his top speed. The sooner all that was behind him the better. Questioning how his feelings towards the whole situation might be more his ghost half than human half talking just wasn’t something he wanted to be thinking about right now. Later maybe, when he wasn’t this on edge.

#Danny Phantom #dani phantom #nocturn #answered ask #my stuff #oh look something that isn't totally cursed #but mostly just goofing off #thinkin about ghost stuff #i still think hiding out in the ghost zone is smart of dani #much less vlad in there :v

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longforgottenunofficial · 7 years

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The Séance Circle Part Two: Davenports, Cabinets, and Other Furnishings

There's obviously a significant gap between the aquatic critters and bat-winged cats flying around St. Anthony's head in an old painting reproduced in an old book on the one hand and a Marc Davis concept sketch for the Haunted Mansion Séance Circle on the other, and there's another gap between that sketch and what eventually was built into the ride. By now, that's what we've come to expect around here. In many cases, the gaps are such that you can't recognize any traces of the original inspiration in the finished product. Not here. Davis's squiddly creatures and airborne felines notwithstanding, for the most part the Séance Circle is the place in the Mansion where the line between source material and finished product is the thinnest. At times, the Imagineers merely reproduced an effect directly. Hey, I wonder where they got the idea of hanging a bell by thin wires so it could float around overhead?

Call me crazy, but I think that possibly they got the idea from séances where a bell was suspended by thin wires so it could float overhead.

Our sources are 19th and early 20th century séances and ghost shows, of course. The period from about the 1850's to the 1920's was the heyday for mediums, spiritualists, and "spirit photography," as well as a heyday for theatrical and parlor magic shows—not coincidentally. It's hardly worth the trouble, for our purposes, to try to sort out the tangled continuum between real, sincere spiritualists and real, sincere attempts to contact the dead via séances at one end of the spectrum and openly-stated illusioneering for entertainment purposes by stage magicians (in the David Copperfield sense of the word) at the other end. There were those, and there was also everything in between. You had fraudulent mediums who insisted they were genuine even while admitting to using tricks now and then, and you had stage magicians who flatly denied they were mediums but also claimed that the ghosts they produced onstage were real. Harry Houdini was a famous skeptic and used his knowledge and expertise in professional stage magic to debunk spiritualists and mediums. These efforts did nothing to keep some people from believing Houdini was himself gifted with psychic powers. The blurring of lines makes sense if you think about it, since a good fraudulent medium is almost by definition a good illusioneer, a good magician. Some of the Haunted Mansion Imagineers were card-carrying magicians (Yale Gracey and Rolly Crump), with a natural interest in all of that stuff. Is it really a surprise that apart from the spectacular Madame Leota effect (which nevertheless may owe something to 19th c. magicians like Harry Kellar), the main difference between the HM séance and a "real" 19th-early 20th c. séance is the fact that one is an honest fake while the other is a dishonest fake? Otherwise, they're both going about the same business: creating realistic-looking spiritualistic effects that could fool a gullible soul under the right circumstances. In fact, the HM version is historically realistic enough to require some annotation. And that's our job. Begin with the ectoplasm ball floating around behind Madame L.

(pic by Jeff Fillmore, SCL photography)

Ectoplasm was commonly produced at séances, usually manifested as a white-ish substance oozing from somewhere on the medium's body. In photos it looks suspiciously like chewed up gauze or paper, and even if you're a true believer, those photos are embarrassments. Real eye-rolling stuff. There's some ecto on the face of the medium in that earlier photo. In "spirit photography," you sometimes saw ectoplasm leaving glowing trails. Not much different than the Disneyland version, really, even if they couldn't figure out how they wanted to spell "ectoplasm" on the Effects blueprints.

Even when the Disneyland version started making faces at guests early in 2006, they weren't departing from tradition, since faces often appeared in clouds of ectoplasm at the "real thing."

The Davenport Brothers

So far we've been talking about the 19th-early 20th c. phenomena in general. If there was a specific historical inspiration for the HM Séance Circle, it was the stage act put on by the Davenport brothers. These are the guys who disclaimed being mediums while suggesting that the ghosts were real. They started in the 1850's and were a very big act throughout the '60's. It all came to an end when one of the brothers died unexpectedly in the 70's.

What they really were were top-notch escape artists and illusioneers, with an excellent staff of assistants who never got caught and never blabbed. The Davenports would be tied up good and tight, and then as soon as the lights went out musical intruments started flying around and ghostly hands and arms appeared, touching people and scaring 'em good. On with the lights, and there are the D bros, still tied up. They invented the "spirit cabinet" for their act. It was a large cabinet in which they both sat, all tied up, sometimes with an audience member sitting between them. After the lights went out, the usual levitations and creepy manifestations followed.

It didn't take long for professional mediums to recognize the advantages of having a large cabinet to work with. The "spirit cabinet" very quickly became a standard fixture at séances. With perfectly straight faces the mediums spoke of the cabinet as a kind of "spiritual storage battery." Seriously. Most often, the "cabinet" was not a wooden chest but a tent or a booth in the corner of the room. The medium might sit in it or at its entrance or in front of it, while spirit manifestations appeared in front of the cabinet.

"And look how fast that button spins when I pull these back and forth!"

Wow, how do they do that?

Okay, nevermind.

It's easy to make fun of these phonies and the people taken in by such simple tricks, but many of these mediums were highly skilled magicians in their own right. It takes practice. I mean, how many people can control their urine stream like this?

Spirit cabinets are present at the Haunted Mansion séance, although it's doubtful if many guests recognize them for what they are. Both types can be seen behind Madame Leota.

It originally looked more like this under show conditions, of course:

As previously noted, the Séance room in the Haunted Mansion is yet another idea that goes all the way back to Ken Anderson, and if I'm reading this sketch correctly, the novel idea that the medium is herself a ghost is also his. Notice that she is emerging from a spirit cabinet, already in this early concept artwork.

Just like the real thing.

Or the real real thing.

Hat tip to Craig Conley. From Puck magazine (1884), perhaps a political cartoon

But getting back to the Davenport brothers, we know about them mostly from written accounts, of course, and one famous description of their act appeared in the London Post. Compare the description of the musical instruments at a Davenport show with what we find in that earlier Davis sketch and in the inner circle of the actual attraction.

Floating tables, even high-flying, large tables, are nothing new to séances.

"Great Caesar's ghost, look at all the old gum wads!"

Marc may have wanted flying animals, but I think even he realized that furniture and musical instruments were more authentic. He still couldn't resist throwing in a cat, though.

The musical instruments are the more interesting feature. Madame Leota refers to most of them in her incantations, as you can see right there in her open spellbook . . .

. . . or hear isolated in this sound file:

Leota's Incantations in the Ride [Audio Link]

That gives us a bell and a tambourine. For the horn, drum, and some kind of stringed instrument, we have to cite two incantations that were recorded but never used. Leota's Incantations Never Used [Audio Link]

Horned toads and lizards, fiddle and strum, Please answer the roll by beating a drum. Harpies and Furies, old friends and new, Blow on a horn, so we'll know that it's you. No one knows why these weren't used. It could be something as simple as a head movement during filming that misaligned the face at that point. If you examine the instruments in the posters for the Davenport brothers, you'll see four kinds, the now-familiar horn, tambourine, and bell, plus something to "fiddle and strum," a guitar. It doesn't take much thought to see why the guitar wasn't kept for the HM séance. That instrument has undergone a complete reinvention in popular imagination since the 19th century and now has utterly different connotations. It is no longer even remotely associated with the exotic or the quaint. Oddies and Endies, out of the past, come to us now, and we'll deal with you last. We've noted the connections between the Séance Circle and its historical sources; now it's time to wrap up a few curious odds and ends. Madame Leota's wooden spirit cabinet originally served a very practical purpose. It was going to house the projector that produces her face. Back then, she was going to face in the opposite direction. You would see her face as you enter the room and swing around behind her. This was the plan up until three or four months before the Mansion opened, at most. It was probably ditched because you wouldn't be able to prevent people from seeing the projector at some point as they went by. Looking at the outer ring of floating objects, here are some random observations. The wicker table is part of a set, and other pieces from the same set have been kicking around in the Attic for years and years. The banner on the longhorn says "X = ?" I think it's a sly tribute to X. Atencio, or maybe they're teasing him ("X? What the heck kind of name is 'X' anyway?"). The gong was originally going to be a cluster of three bells. Oh, and you know that floating candelabra back in the Endless Hallway? It was originally supposed to be here in the Séance Circle. The second drum has been missing at Disneyland for a long time. The last time it was certainly seen was in 1991.

Perhaps it will show up on eBay some day.

Forget about the Phantom Drummer of Tedworth; what's the phantom drum overhead worth?

Originally Posted: Monday, August 9, 2010 Original Link: [x]

#long forgotten #haunted mansion #séance circle

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phantomphangphucker · 5 years

Text

Legless On Maim Chap. 5: Those Legs Ain’t Quite Timely

For Ectober Day 11: Time (Part 1)

Danny takes a leap of faith and doesn’t splatter into ectoplasmic goop. Lewis gets philosophical and ignores the replies. The rest of the quartet finds out aliens are a thing and that Danny is an idiot about that too.

Danny’s got a few options. Two really. Thankfully they wouldn’t know that some flesh and muscle had in fact regrown, so that wasn’t an issue. And it was covered in bandaging so it’s not like there was anything to see really. Doesn’t have to worry about scars or the -totally nonexistent but should definitely be there- stitching. It was the tail that was an issue, if he hid it now he’d basically have to hide it permanently...or at least until he could let his legs fully regrow. He’s still not even sure what to do about that. Passing real legs off as robotic ones was not going to work. And while he’s done a lot for his secret, just not letting them grow or removing whatever regrows was a bit extreme even for him. And Lewis will kill him, or might actually force him to heal. At this point, he wouldn’t put it past the guy to knock him out or something.

But showing them the tail posed the same issue as letting them in on the fact that his legs are regrowing. It was too ghostly. But at the same time, Val knew and she also knew halfas were a thing, yet didn’t make the connection; or hadn’t yet anyway. It was easy enough to pass off the tail as just the ghost of his legs, which was less weird than regrowing limbs. Arguably anyway. With his ‘ecto-contamination’ already making him a bit more ghostly and sensitive to ghostly things, it probably wouldn’t make them too suspicious.

Though seeing them share another look probably means he’s taking too long to decide and making them feel bad about asking him. So he decides to ask them something to break up the tension a bit, ease the conversation some, while he mentally debates what to do, “is that why you’re having some issues with wiring and weighting?”.

Jack and Maddie are just assuming Danny needs to warm up a bit before being comfortable letting them see. Clearly he wasn’t expecting them to ask about his injuries, Maddie nodding, “for the weighting, yes. But it’s more about the power source”. Jack shifts and nods as well, “we’ve got to get ectoplasm throughout all of them so you can feel properly. With no matter from your actual body throughout it, that’s proving a bit difficult. But! With the right shape and connections, it should work splendidly!”.

Danny blinks, well shit, he basically had the solution to that. His tail could probably be made to fit and, due to not truly being solid and all of it being able to move, it could easily slide around whatever mechanics or wiring. He can also tell his dad’s bullshitting a little, his dad had no viable solution yet for this issue. Danny chuckles while transforming his tail back human A.K.A. looking like it was made out of bandaging, “heh yeah, not the same as making an exoskeleton huh?”.

Maddie nods and ruffles his hair, “yeah it’s not, and we can’t have it sapping your life force or anything”. All three chuckle slightly at that. Jack smiles, functionally speaking without thinking, “especially with there being less of it!”. Maddie glares at him slightly, but blinks a bit surprised at Danny actually laughing.

Danny can’t help but smirk a little, tail wiggling around some, though being intangible keeps that from being noticed. Technically there wasn’t any less of him, half just happens to be stuck all ghostly. He’s half ghost in a much more literal sense, which is a bit hilarious. Half ghost squared. Doubly half-ghost. Shifting some, “uh yeah, about that...”, Danny scoots away from where his mom is sitting a bit and pulls his now tangible tail in front of his stomach. Smiling a bit awkwardly as he lifts up the corner of his blankets and reveals the tip of the tail, “I think you might have to change some things”.

Danny chuckles even more awkwardly as they just sort of stare, so he starts talking, which is probably not the best idea, “had it sort of under the jacket earlier. Cause weird right? And definitely can’t let those men see something like this of all things. And bet it’s, like, cause of all the ectoplasm in my system. Which is totally a pretty, um, different way for that to affect me. But, like, hey! I’ve still got something there. Which is kinda nice even if it feels, like, super different. Very energetic in a lot of ways. ‘Cause y’know, made of energy. But also just, like, never really stops moving. And Ancients, say something? It’s weird yeah, but, like, just me. Part of me. My body and all that. And me having ectoenergy is super established and okay right? So there’s just part that’s nothing but that-”.

Jack goes slightly wide-eyed and snaps his fingers. Getting an idea, pretty well steamrolling past the ghostly strangeness of this in the name of science and inventing, and cutting Danny’s rambling off, “ectoenergy! Can you control it?!? You could move your ectoplasm to all the areas yourself then! And we’d need less reliance on the neuroreceptors, because you could use the tail for that some! Can you feel with it?!? How solid is it?!? Could possibly fit around what we’ve already got started since ectoplasm is more malleable and a gaseous liquid! Could even possibly be able to move the CyberSteps with the tail alone if the neuroreceptors malfunctioned! Oh! Ghosts only have these when they’re defying gravity at higher speeds usually! Could you defy gravity yourself with this?!? How would that work? You’d have to balance the rest of yourse-”. Maddie closes Jack’s mouth and gives him a warm smile, “Jack dear, don’t bombard him”.

Maddie ruffles Danny’s hair again and eyeballs the tail tip, “do you think we could see all of it before your dad explodes with questions again?”.

Danny chuckles, the quizzicality is a nice normalcy but also a bit unnerving, saying, “yeah, okay”, before pushing himself to sit up with his arms -coming to sit on the base of the tail a bit- and pushing away the blanket by coiling his tail out and letting it wave in the air a little.

Jack promptly blurting out, “how long has it been there?!? Why’s it look like that?!? I’ve never seen one coloured like this!”, Maddie glares at him and he shrugs sheepishly.

Danny chuckles, “it’s okay mom, I’ve asked myself the same”, rubbing his neck, “Lewis did too. He’s, um, the one who noticed it first”.

Maddie nods with a slight smile, “noticing something like that is part of his job”, was this weird? Yes. It was a fair bit more ghostly than she ever expected her son to be. But Jack was right, this solved a lot of the issues. And Danny wasn’t a ghost, well actually his ‘legs’ were. But why were they a tail instead of just ghost legs? She wants to ask, but she doesn’t want to overwhelm him and Jack’s already asking a bunch. Nodding as she looks at it, “the amount of ectoplasm in you must be high enough and have enough support to let your ghost actually form some”.

Danny nods a bit eagerly, that was the conclusion he was hoping they’d make, “yeah, that’s my thought. And yes dad, I can control it”. Bringing it up and letting them poke at it. Jack actually winding it through his fingers some. Jack mouthing, ‘wow’ and squishing it some. It was surprisingly solid but it was clear Danny could control its solidity, catching him smirk slightly as the tail acts more like mist than a solid suddenly. Maddie running her hand through one of the little misting off bits of shedding ectoplasm, muttering, “it’s shedding”.

Danny nods a little sheepishly, “yeah, I’m probably a bit of a contaminate now”, or more than he already was, they just didn’t know that. Shrugging and looking at his tail instead of his parents, “can’t really stop that. Control over it or not, ghostly tail is still a ghostly tail. It’s going to work like one”.

Maddie gives it a little pat, before watching Danny move it away from them and move it around in the air, wiggling a bunch, for a bit. Nodding and ruffling his hair, “of course. Are you at least getting used to that a little? Having part of you act so ghostly?”.

Danny smirks and nods at them, “I’ve had the time to toy with it, which yes, I can float with. It seems to do the balancing, or whatever, on its own”, moving his tail around a bit so this seemed less like he’s been doing this for the better part of two years, as he floats off the bed some.

Jack beams a bit, this was so cool! weird, but cool! Waving his hand under his floating son some, “clearly it must come really naturally!”, before chuckling some at Danny wobbling in the air a little. Practice would make perfect of course!

Danny nods, his tail and floating was one thing that had always come easily to him. Coiling his tail tip around a finger, “yeah and I haven’t had much else to do besides figure it out for the past days”, blushing and rubbing his neck a bit awkwardly, “I’ve had it for sure since the second morning. I just didn’t really wanted to show you yet I guess”, shrugging, “you can be a little excitable and you kind of hate ghosts”, gesturing at the tail, “I’m quite literally a bit ghost”. This was starting to feel like a trial run for really telling them what he was.

Maddie and Jack exchange a look before promptly hugging him gently, not wanting to jar any injuries. Maddie ruffling his hair, “oh sweetie, it’s part of you so it’s different. You’re not fully ghost and you’re clearly in control of it”, looking to Jack. Jack nodding, “at least you have legs in a sense still! Weird as they are!”, tilting his head and poking at the tail, “it’s curious that your ghost doesn’t have legs! Can’t really see any other reason for the ghost of your legs to not be ghost legs”.

Danny’s not quite sure the reason why himself, he knows that’s not it of course though. Poking the tail himself, “well it looks like bandaging because I have bandaging over the whacked off area, so it’s copying what I have. All ghosts can have tails, so since I don’t have legs for it to ‘copy’ it goes with the default. That’s my idea anyway”. Watching them cringe a little over his word choice, probably should have spoken a bit more gently. Danny smiles and pats both their arms, “I’d squeeze ya, but I don’t have the range of motion for that. I’m fine okay, I’m used to it. I’m more so waiting for you guys to be okay with it”.

Maddie pats his hair, he was a strong kid though she’s not sure how he can be quite so okay with this. Especially with the tail making it even stranger. Maybe that strangeness was distracting him some, might even view it as his ectoplasm doing something for him. But this also meant he was without question going to become a ghost one day. Which is...not a pleasant thing to know. Maybe with this partial change his ectoplasm will remember who he is as a person and not become emotionless or evil as a ghost. So maybe this was for the best, nurturing and giving experience to his ghost. But not having...legs, would never really be okay. Ghostly tail or not, robotic legs or not. But she’ll be damned if they’ll make Danny feel bad or uncomfortable about it, they will adjust, “that’ll take some time sweetie”.

Danny smiles softly and nods a little, “that’s fine. Just don’t let this interrupt our normal life much, though maybe no anti-ecto stuff where my tail can easily whack into it. That would probably not be fun for anyone”, they both nod readily while Danny smiles a bit wider, “good, that’s good”.

They sit a little awkwardly for a bit before Jack gets up, “with this we could probably have the CyberSteps ready by morning if we work now!”, smiling wide at Maddie, who smiles and nods; quickly kissing Danny on the head before getting up herself. “You make sure to call us or get us if you need anything, alright sweetie?”.

Danny nods and flat-out lies, “of course”, as they leave. Finally breathing out heavily after a bit and flopping to lay back on his bed, “well that was painful, but at least it ended okay”, turning his head to look out the window. He had never used duplication so much, as he duplicates and sends the duplicate out on the town.

He’s more than a little pleased that both the G.I.W. and Amorpho have flown the coop. Time to check in with his friends...and girlfriend. Thinking back on the microwave call, “okay, Val first. Definitely Val first”, of course he couldn’t just show up at her place but a phone call would do splendidly...maybe. Pulling out and putting in his little Fenton Phone, setting it to cancel out his ghostly echo, and calling her cell. He could call the suit, but he doubts she’d actually appreciate that.

It’s not really surprising she picks up quick, “hello?”.

“Hey Val, figured you might li-”.

Val promptly cuts him off, “I better be the first call you made, I’ve earned it. How’s your y’ know”.

Danny chuckles, “back to normal and yes you are. My folks seem not so pleased about the y’ know. But not, like, upset either. Oh, and I met Lewis’s wife, you heard her earlier”.

“The lady Tucker attempted to start hitting on?”.

“Yup, though I don’t think she really cared. Same with Lewis. Considering their best friend is literally the wife’s ex-fiancé”.

“How is that not awkward? His wife is weird like him, isn’t she? And I’m glad your folks didn’t freak over something you have no real say over having. Ghostly or not”.

Danny smiles at that, clearly she was more okay with it herself now, “wife saw the y’know and didn’t even bat an eye. So I’d say so. She also decided that if anyone ever tries to charge a ghost with their own murder, she wants to represent them. I’m glad you seem more comfortable over the y’know now”.

Val laughs, “I’ve had time to mentally adjust. And of course the doctor’s dating a lawyer”, sounding a bit bitter, “rich accomplished people always stick together”.

Danny, deciding to nip that idea in the butt, though he gets why she’s bitter about that, considering how her rich ‘friends’ had treated her. “The ex-fiancé has been described as a literal trash fire and apparently dresses like a homeless man that just got beat up by bigoted cops. Even almost been homeless. So I doubt it’s a rich money thing. Seems more like people who help people sticking together. Doctor who literally save lives, pro bono lawyer, and a ‘for the little guys’ reporter”, Danny’s firmly leaving out anything to do with Vee. And he probably should give Lewis a heads up that he keeps no secrets from his friends. He won’t tell any of them really without an okay though. But considering even Lewis’s wife knew shit now, it would be a dick move of them to not be chill with Danny’s friends knowing. Eddie and Vee’s friends knew, Danny’s friends would know. Seems fair enough to him.

Val snorts, “so slightly worse dressed than you most days? And fine, I guess one of them isn’t some rich prick. And he’s not some charity case?”.

Danny sighs, “not all rich people are dicks you know”.

“I believe that when I met one who doesn’t give a damn about other people’s wealth. Doctor doesn’t count”.

Now Danny has a damn point to make, so he doesn’t really care if Sam will be a bit annoyed, while he smirks at spotting the Box Ghost. Making sure to mute everything but his voice on the phone, “does Sam give a damn?”. Promptly blasting at the Box Ghost before he can even open his mouth. Danny chuckles to himself.

“Sam’s not rich and why are you mocking me?”.

Danny shakes his head as he sticks out his tongue before punching the Box Ghost, “Val, Sam’s family are one of the richest in the entire world. There’s a movie theatre and bowling alley in the basement. You know those little deli toothpicks with the wrapping on them? Yeah, that’s a Manson creation. Every time people use or buy those, they make truckloads of money. None of them will ever work and are filthy stinking rich”.

The Box Ghost doesn’t even look all that offended that Danny’s not really paying attention to him, shouting about his boxes of DOOM while Danny just beats him up some more. Val breaths out after a bit, “well shit. Why the Zone doesn’t she flaunt that? Paulina would lose her shit”.

Danny sighs with satisfaction as he captures the Box Ghost, tail wiggling happily, “‘cause she doesn’t want to be treated different based purely on her wealth. Me and Tuck didn’t even know for years ‘cause she didn’t want to make friends based on money. I could totally see her telling Paulina just before graduation though. Just to bug her”.

“Well damn. I guess I gotta believe it now. You told me this just to rub it in my face didn’t you?”.

Danny smirks, “absolutely”, looking around some before just floating lazily over buildings, “you didn’t get into trouble over you know what did you?”.

“You little shit and no, don’t even think anyone noticed”.

Danny can’t help but laugh at that, “good! We’re all good then. Though I should probably actually check in with Sam and Tuck at this point”.

“True, I think Sam picked up we’re a thing again. I also think she’s pissed. You have the most protective friends ever. You take care, you damn idiot”.

“I know, they’re great. And you too, you stupid idiot”, Danny turns off the phone to her muttering about how he basically just called her a double idiot.

Knowing full well that Sam would be worse to deal with but also be even more worse if he puts her off, he flies in through her window. Not even surprised she’s just standing on the other side of the curtains with her arms crossed.

“Took you long enough”.

Danny rolls his eyes as he sits on the windowsill, “we’re all lucky my folks even left me alone eventually. Yes I’m fine, yes my folks saw the tail and didn’t go crazy, and Lewis knows basically everything now”.

Sam sighs but smiles, “at least you trusted someone else. But are you sure we can trust him? And I want a damn answer about Valerie, I know you heard me before Tucker hung up”.

Danny rubs his neck, “can’t give a guy a break can ya? Not even when he’s all battered and legless”.

“You’re always battered, you better tell me before I get my shoe”.

Danny makes an overacted show of fear and waves his hands back and forth erratically, “I’ll pass! I’ll pass!”, chuckling at her eye-roll, “trust me, Lewis has seen weirder shit. He hid and carried me around in a thermos for an entire shift, he’s good”.

Sam tilts her head and laughs slightly, “okay he’s good. Now what about Valerie?”.

Danny sighs, knowing damn well neither of his friends were going to be happy, “yes okay? We’re a thing again. Which is not a ba-”.

Sam whacks him over the head, not too hard though, “idiot. She still very specifically wants you and all things ghostly dead. Whether she helped you away from those white-suit pricks or not”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “she’s seen the tail Sam, she told me she’s Red. Things have changed. Sure I’m still working on the ghost hate, the Phantom hate. But she likes Dani, she knows about halfas, she’s not the same as she used to be”.

Sam glares at him and throws her arms out to the side, “you wouldn’t care if she was the same as she was”, shaking her head and sighing, “and fine I’ll give you that her accepting the tail and telling you about being a hunter is a massive thing. But she’s still a hunter, I’ll trust her when she stops hunting you. And we’ll stop being protective of you, when you stop being a selfless idiot”.

Danny pokes her nose with his tail, “that will never happen. But at least I’m not intentionally destroying myself for love”.

Sam glares slightly before joining Danny in sitting on the windowsill, “it’s a close thing”.

Danny bumps his shoulder into hers, “oh she’d never destroy me”.

“Don’t you dare make a bet on that”.

Danny, deciding this is really the only way to tell her without getting assaulted, quickly blurts out, “she also knows you’re rich now bye!”, and zips out the window. Her shouting, “DANNY!”, after him.

Danny goes in through Tuck’s window and just flops down on his sleeping friend, making the guy jerk awake. Tuck flicks his face, “you asshole...I’m glad you’re okay though”.

“I mean, me too. Fucking owe you for hacking shit”.

“Damn fucking straight you do. So how bad did doc and the lady freak over the call?”.

Danny chuckles, “do you even know what you called through? A fucking microwave. They were very confused. But otherwise unfazed”.

Tucker snorts and laughs, “so y’all were talking to a microwave. Something tells me we don’t even have the tip of the iceberg on just how much weird that guys seen”.

Danny grins goofily, “oh you have no idea. The crap he’s told me, just wow. Sworn to secrecy though”.

Tucker makes a pouty face, “what?!? No fair! Why do you get to know all the weird crap? Besides being his patient. Which is hardly a reason! Even those strange friends of his I’d like to hear more about. Anyone who could give you a run for your money in strange Ville is worth hearing about”.

“Because he kept trying to match my weird! He ran out of material with the whole CW is my friend and sorta a god thing. On the High Ghost Prince thing too”.

Tucker blinks, “wait what? The Zone Danny? Why does doc know about that?”.

Danny gets up then and leans on his hands, letting the tail do its thing. Looking down at Tucker, who looks more than a little unimpressed, “he walked in on me and a duplicate. He hid me in a fucking thermos. He knows I’m Phantom, Tuck”.

“Did you at least freak him the Zone out?”.

Danny huffs in fake annoyance, “it made him pause but that was about it. Which I absolutely am a bit miffed about. But seriously, with the shit he’s told me, it’s fucking expected. He still firmly believes I am not the weirdest person he knows. Weirdest life, but not weirdest person”.

“The Zone is wrong with his friends?”.

“A fucking lot. He literally showed up in the near-dead of night to ask about setting up a damn hangout between me and his friends. Because we have a ton in common. Not half dead though”.

Tucker raises his eyebrows and asks in a slightly mocking tone, “are they a black and white battered idiot vigilante with a questionable body and fucking atrocious fashion sense? And only keep their shit secret through dumb luck and general public stupidity? Oh and are dating someone who has, and sometimes still does, try to kill them? Because don’t lie dude, Val’s macking lips with ya again”.

Danny looks around and pointedly doesn’t say shit. Tucker blinks at him and wheezes, “oh my fucking Ancients, is your doc just a damn magnet for you fuckers?”.

Danny gestures one arm around wildly, “that’s what I said! Weird just attracts weird I think. I mean, y’all fuckers are weird. You attracted me. Lewis is weird, pretty sure his wife is too”.

Tucker wiggles his eyebrows, “I attracted you now did I?”.

Danny smacks Tuck’s forehead, “not like that you damn creep”, tilting his head at remembering some of Lewis’s rather strange comments, “though with some of the shit Lewis’s said, it might be like that with his friends. His wife literally dated one-”

Tucker snorts, cutting Danny off, “oh I will absolutely make bets that something currently is or will be going on there. Then again, Valerie’s a friend and literally dated, and is dating, you. And no way me or Sam are gonna make moves on her”.

Danny laughs, everyone would be very confused if either of his friends made moves on Val, “good. I don’t think my ghost side would be cool with sharing. And yes fine, we’re dating. She’s okay with the tail and tripped through the window in suit”.

Tucker screws up his face and starts laughing, “seriously? That’s how she comes clean?”.

Danny sticks his hands out to the side and floats up off the bed some, “I know right?!? I chewed her out for that”, yawning slightly, fuck he got a little used to more regular sleeping and getting a full night of it, “anyway, my folks are leg fitting me tomorrow and I relearned how to sleep, sooooo...”.

Tucker chuckles, “that’s going to be awkward, what you doing about the tail? And good, you should sleep more”.

Danny waves him off, “not a priority. And probably should have stared with this, but they know. They’ve seen it and didn’t go all crazy ghost hunters about it”.

Both of them yawn and Tucker pats Danny’s arm, “good. That’s good really”, while Danny waves at him and flies out.

Danny decides in the morning, as he slips into the little hover cushion, that just floating around with his tail would be a bit too much for his folks. That and he needed to not seem super used to it. But he does let it stay visible and move around freely inside the device. The tip curling over the edge here and there since there really wasn’t quite enough room, as he hovers down the stairs for breakfast.

He’s really honestly not surprised to see a pair of robo legs just standing in front of his sitting dad. Who’s fiddling away and absent mindedly eating cookies. But they did actually look pretty awesome, clearly they listened to him. Light gray metal with dark forest green lines all over and dark gray ‘boots’. Lean and matte instead of shiny. They also looked a lot more like a finished product than a prototype. Reminded him a bit of his original jumpsuit, which was clearly intentional on his parents part. Even Sam and Tuck would pick up on that.

Hovering into the kitchen, “mornin’, how’s that comin’?”. Both Maddie and Jack jerk slightly, looking to the legs and back to Danny a bit awkwardly. Danny waves them off and moves to grab his cereal, “don’t worry about it. I’m not bothered”. Sure that was partly because Danny was used to them toying with things that could hurt him directly in his face and also shooting them at him. But these were going to be attached to him. He damn well better be okay with them. And robo legs or no, walking again would be goddamn nice. Actually feeling ground under his feet and taking steps, funny how you could miss something like that.

Danny would complain about his mom basically making the cereal for him and putting it on the table, but he could barely move his fingers, her doing that for him was damn reasonable. And it was worlds better than being damn spoon fed. Muttering, “thanks”, as he hovers the hover cushion to sit in the chair, tail flicking out of it lazily. Which Jack and Maddie absolutely do eyeball a little.

Jack asking after a beat, “in that case, what do you think? Looks cool right?”.

Danny, speaking without really thinking, “who needs legs with legs like these”, everyone blinks, including Danny. Who then rubs his neck, “eh too soon? Anyway... they look good dad. The softer colours are definitely better. Will I be able to curl my metaphorical toes though?”.

That gets Jack looking down at the ‘boots’ having not considered that, promptly picking up and bending the legs to sit on the table and getting to work on that. Danny just chuckles, that was a little bit weird. Knowing that was basically his lower-half sitting on the table. While Maddie watches Danny a bit and smiles, he really was okay, not just faking it. She’s not sure if that bothers her or makes her proud.

Danny had just shoved a spoon of cereal in his mouth when Lewis walks in the door. Danny leans his head over the back of his chair, spoon in his mouth, “mor-”, promptly choking on his cereal slightly and coughing.

Lewis does find it more that a little strange to just see a pair of legs sitting on the kitchen table, shaking his head at Danny, “I just got here and you’re already exercising the whole ‘getting hurt around a doctor gets you free treatment’ trick”.

Danny coughs slightly before turning his head around to smirk at Lewis, “I’m not surprised that’s a thing. Speaking of exercise and to tackle the possibly weird thing going on here. Know that today’s not normally my leg day, but I’m willing to spice things up sometimes”.

Lewis chuckles while Maddie’s a little surprised that comment was not only said but didn’t seem to faze Dan.

Lewis walks over and looks at the legs, his two friends tech had come a long way, smirking at Danny, “well you certainly don’t need that sort of exercising”.

Danny points at him, “one less thing for the gym teach to pester me about”, shrugging, “not that she’ll really know though”, pointing at his cereal, “want food?”.

Maddie gets Dan food even if he shakes his head while Jack just shrugs off the weirdness, easily remembering why Dan had been a great friend. Nothing really bothered the guy much. Hooking up the little ecto-battery to test out the toes, which results in him accidentally making one leg kick Dan’s oatmeal out of his hands. Jack chuckles awkwardly, “might be a tad bit over sensitive”.

Danny shakes his head, “I’m not even wearing them yet and they’re already breaking shit. I feel called out”.

Jazz comes in and, spotting the mess, cleans it up before making both herself and Lewis food. Easily manoeuvring around her mom who’s gone to help dad with the sensitivity. “Morning Danny and Lewis, I don’t think your room’s actually fully set up. They got distracted”.

Danny wiggles the tail tip at Lewis, who easily gets the ‘I told them and they didn’t freak out’ message. Lewis nods as he sits at the table, “distractions are a spice of life. They’re best plentiful but not constant, otherwise you can’t taste anything else”. Digging in his bag and promptly shoving a little cake at Danny, who looks a bit confused, “speaking of spices and tastes. Apology cake, white chocolate spiced with cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom”.

Danny squints but then chuckles, the guy gave his two friends one for telling Danny their shit. Lewis was giving him one for telling his wife Danny’s shit. “Unnecessary, but I’ll take the free food”.

Jazz glares slightly at Lewis as Danny digs into the cake and is clearly loving it. Danny shrugging off whatever Lewis did, didn’t really mean much, it took a lot for Danny to hold something against someone. But to actually make a cake showed effort. Danny pokes Lewis with the spoon, which was previously being used for cereal, swallowing before speaking, “just how often do you make apology cakes? And how’s this one actually better?”.

Lewis shrugs and ignores how Danny’s face twitches while he bats Jack’s hand away from the cake. “Not often actually. I do make cakes for fun though”.

Danny takes another scoop of the cake before pointing the spoon at Lewis, “agurf, yer theph couge”.

Jazz shakes her head, recognising the slightly possessive and territorial behaviour, as Danny bats dad’s hand away again, “swallow first Danny”. While Maddie shakes her head, “I know you’re capable of polishing off all of that but let your dad have a taste sweetie”.

“Naw, my Lewis apology cake”, Danny shoves another piece into his mouth to stop the growl trying to rise up. While Lewis brings out a thing of cupcakes, gesturing at them, “I’m not mean. Same flavour”. Jazz sends Lewis a grateful smile for that and takes a cupcake. All three polishing off the cupcakes pretty quickly, Jack looking downright giddy, “you’re an amazing baker! Have you ever made fudge!”.

Jazz mouths, ‘please say no’, while Lewis shakes his head. He really hadn’t. Maddie smiles at him, “you’ll probably be learning then”.

Not even five minutes later Danny’s polished off the cake and Lewis is a bit impressed by that. Vee plowing through food wasn’t impressive, they could eat people whole. But Danny, at the very least, wasn’t currently performing that level of mouth dexterity.

Lewis takes his two containers and looks over the legs again. Highly interested in how they were supposed to work. “How is he supposed to pilot these?”. Jazz just groans over how you should never ask the ‘how’.

Danny looks down at the little hover cushion then back at Lewis, “you ask this after having seen hover-boards and what’s basically a hover-bowl?”.

Lewis points at him, “that’s not attached to you and has a control panel”.

“Point”, even the big ass battle suit had controls.

Jack flips up the neuroreceptor strip, moving the branches slightly, “neuroreceptors latch onto his spinal column and into the nervous system! Sending signals to these babies the same as his body would natural legs! The CyberSteps have their own built-in nervous system and somatosensory system! So it will all connect smoothly and he’ll be able to feel them!....”.

Jack keeps going while Lewis is a bit caught off guard. Not only was making something like this that actually worked basically a medical marvel -these were literally prosthetics that could function like real limbs pretty well completely!- but it was also a bit insane. Blinking and interrupting, “you’re hooking into his spine? And nerves? That’s actually impressively dangerous and as his doctor I can’t even consider officially approving of this”.

Jack looks slightly crushed but Danny just rolls his eyes, while Jazz speaks up, “this isn’t the first time they’ve made something like this. It’s fine, dad himself tested out the first years ago”.

Lewis eyeballs the legs, something like this had been made years ago? And they just used it? Like it was nothing? Patting Jack’s shoulder, “you two might be most intelligent people ever. And I didn’t say I’d try to stop you”. At that Jack beams.

Maddie smiles softly and nods at Lewis, “we made sure it would be safe long term. Made specifically for him and runs off his ectoplasm”, looking at Danny, “just a little of course”, looking to Jack, “and definitely will not be sapping anyone’s life force”.

Danny elbows Lewis, “just to bug the doctor in you, the first thing they made that used these neuroreceptors slowly killed the wearer”, shrugging, “unless you took it off of course”. Danny pulls out his phone and types away on it.

Lewis, reading the screen ‘I stole it, used it. Used up like 99% of my life force, turns out you can recover from that shit’, he wants to emphatically point out every reason why that was insane to do and incredibly stupid. That’s possibly dumber than befriending, and falling in love with, the creature eating your organs.

Looking at Jack as he nods with a laugh, “yeah just the pants part of that suit nearly knocked me out after five minutes. Good thing people can heal from that kind of drain!”. Lewis shakes his head, “well I'm glad you worked that kink out”. Jack nods as he tests out the toes again, this time satisfied.

Danny only ignores his dad looking from the legs to him and back a few times before speaking up, “yes dad, I’m cool with testing them out”. Lewis practically having to scamper out of the way as Jack pretty well aggressively throws himself, and the legs, at Danny. Though setting them to stand in front of Danny’s chair moderate carefully.

Lewis tilts his head, “you know, this reminds me of the time I went to my friends' house and he was sunken halfway into his couch. Just the upper half of him was sticking out. And in the corner there was this deep freezer with a pair of legs just dangling out. Which was slightly weird, cause they don’t even own a deep freezer”.

Danny screws up his face, “yeah because that’s what’s weird about that situation. Did you check the...legs?”.

Lewis nods immediately, “oh yes, I do have some limits for the level of reckless I’ll tolerate. It was a random guy legitimately asleep, yes I checked their pulse. No clue who they were and decidedly didn’t want to know”. Sure that was partly because he’s pretty sure Eddie had actually knocked the guy out. Plausible deniability was a legit thing that he’d like to at least sometimes have.

Danny chuckles, “then I guess his sleep schedule was literally, instead of metaphorically, put on ice”, then looks down the centre of the CyberSteps -at least that was a somewhat cool name-, there was easily enough space for him to wind his tail around in the legs, though splitting his tail would be a bit strange. And he can tell there are little spots where his ecto-energy can ‘latch on’. Floating himself up and grabbing the rim of the top of the legs and letting his tail just sort of slide in. It was like putting on really stiff pants over legs made of misty mouldable rubber. Securing the belt around just above where his hips should -and were starting to- be, the fit for his tail was actually a little snug but that would probably become less tight as his ectoplasm fuelled the legs. Hitting the little button with a thumbprint scanner to activate and attach the neuroreceptors.

Lewis tilts his head a little at the strap thing clicking onto Danny, he had just assumed this was very literally a ‘see if they even fit’ sort of situation rather than Danny actually hooking up to them. Considering Danny had severe spinal injuries, that his parents knew about, and Danny’s wearing a back brace. But apparently, these neuroreceptors can go through clothing/braces/bandaging and didn’t actually need to be on the skin. Was it just transmitting signals through the material? How? Lewis muttering, “I have so many questions, but are you sure you should be doing that? Considering the spinal injuries”.

Jazz blinks, realising that yeah this would be insanely dumb for Danny to be testing if he was still injured. Danny just waves Lewis off, he is not putting off testing these things.

Though Danny does pay attention to how it all feels just in case, and them hooking into him was just as jarring as last time, even if going through the braces dampened the feeling some, and he definitely could feel the drain on his ectoplasm pretty well instantly. However, feeling his ecto-energy sparking in his eyes was not an expected reaction, and his tail starts becoming a bit more erratic; sliding around throughout the legs. “Uh pretty sure that’s no-”, Danny pauses at his voice echoing and promptly deactivates the neuroreceptors. Danny grumbling, “I’m not going to tempt fate too much”, voice still echoing and blinking his eyes to try and make the ecto-energy chillout, which it does not.

Lewis looks around at the confused and slightly awkward faces, “I'm going to guess that something’s not working correctly”. Danny slowly looks to him and gestures to his glowing green eyes, “clearly”. Alright, so the ghost eyes were not intentional.

Jack scratches his head while Danny squirms a bit before pulling his, extremely erratically vibrating and lashing, ghostly tail out of the CyberSteps. Everyone watching ecto-energy shedding off it very excessively; like his tail was smoking. Jack muttering, “it’s like they supercharged you instead of sapping”.

Danny shakes his head, “no, I could feel the draining. More like making my ectoplasm produce more or whatever”. Danny blinks, feeling the rising coldness in his chest and repressing a shiver. Not good, “maybe you guys should go figure that out? I’ll be fine, got doctor dude right?”.

Lewis was going to object but he’s pretty sure a snowball just slammed into his shin, so instead he nods at Jack and Maddie, “at this point, I’m pretty sure I’m able to handle somewhat ghostly oddness”.

Jack and Maddie exchange a glance, it made sense that Danny would want legs as soon as possible. But his body was doing something weird, looking at Dan, “I guess you have had a bit of experience now”. Danny was experienced with his ecto-contamination, used to it. So surely he would know if something was off with it, and if he genuinely needed help.

Danny’s just thanking his lucky stars as they do indeed head down to the lab with the legs. Promptly looking to Jazz and blazing his Core’s ectoplasm in his eyes. Her instantly getting the message that Danny’s basically an ice bomb, while Danny shivers. Jazz kicks the freezer, making the systems start acting up and freezing over before yanking Lewis out of the room.

Lewis muttering as he just goes along with this, “what’s going on?”. Jazz only getting a chance to say, “flash freeze”, as both of them watch cold steam basically blast out of the kitchen doorway, like liquid nitrogen. Lewis quirking an eyebrow, “is it safe now?”. Jazz nods after a beat, so Lewis sticks his head in and blinks. Everything is just covered in ice and frost.

Danny uncurls fully, rubbing at his Core a bit. It was definitely still producing too rapidly, so he starts making little ice sculptures with his hands while eyeballing the lab door. Danny waves one hand over his shoulder, “you can come back. The frost won’t bite you”.

Lewis is glad he’s got thick socks as he comes back in, Jazz promptly sitting back down and looking like nothing weird had ever happened to her in her entire life. Lewis quirks an eyebrow at Danny, his eyes could also glow blue? “Nice eyes”.

Danny chuckles and tosses him one of the little ice popcorns, “I got two kinds of ectoplasm remember?”, pointing an ice sword toothpick at his eyes, “Core ectoplasm”.

Jazz nods, “you’ve seen his regular ectoplasm overproducing, this is his Core ectoplasm overproducing”. Danny does little jazz hands, snow falling from his palms. Cryokinesis for sure. Lewis is firmly glad Danny didn’t ‘flash freeze’ at the hospital, that would have damaged the equipment.

It doesn’t take long for Danny to decide to retire to his room, Lewis joining him because he’s pretty well required to. Jack and Maddie fully expecting him to keep a medical eye on Danny. Especially with his body doing weird ghost things.

Lewis blinks upon entering Danny’s room, he was more than a little used to the smell of viscera; even rotting flesh and sepsis. Even once worked on a lady whose breast implant ruptured during surgery and turned out to be filled with mould. That had been an interesting day. Danny’s room, however, smells suitably like death. It’s not the worst smell, but it was up there; and there was definitely no strong near burning scent of sanitiser to accompany it. Commenting, “clean your room”, as he eyeballs the desk chair with a level of caution only a guy who gives medical treatment to a man-eating alien can convey.

Danny rolls his eyes and flops on his bed, chucking a snowball at the wall, “eh, it’s not that bad. Plus, that would take forever”.

Considering Lewis decidedly sidesteps a slightly squishy section of floor, he thinks it is indeed that bad. Giving the chair another once over before sitting and leaning back in it.

Danny rolls his eyes at Lewis’s dubious eyebrows, “you smell gore all the time and you’re friends place can’t be all that much better”, pointing with his tail at Lewis, “do you wear anything other than dress shirts?”.

“Not particularly, and their place smells more like the college dorm of someone who never learned to clean or cook properly. Yours smells like a morgue that’s never seen an ounce of sanitiser but someone sprayed citrus air fresheners to make up for it”.

Danny chuckles and comments with fake wistfulness, “ahh that’s the smell of death, sweet sweet ectoplasm. That’s a scent I can’t really do much about though, since me ecto-contaminating my room to the Zone and back is unavoidable”, floating up and over to his window, gesturing out, “it’s a scent everywhere in Amity, my room and the lab are really the only places a regular humans nose will pick up on it though”.

Lewis figures that does make sense for his room to smell like ectoplasm then, watching as Danny’s tail is still shedding ectoplasm a bit excessively, “the lab?”.

Danny nods and points at his floor, “right below us, pretty well packed with ecto-samples, ecto-inventions, and of course, the portal. It gets cleaned more often though and all the surfaces are non-permeable and somewhat ecto-phobic”. Honestly, it was a bit of a wonder that the basement wasn't worse than his room.

Lewis doesn’t get to comment on that as Maddie knocks on the door, “you in there sweetie? And Dan?”. Danny frowns slightly and responds with a little less cheeriness than normal, “yeah, supper?”.

Maddie says, “yup”, while Lewis claps his hands on his knees and gets up; Danny slipping back into the hover cushion.

Maddie’s not happy there’s still a green ring glow to Danny’s eyes. But at least they were blue now and the glow was faint. And at least the glow was just the colour of general ectoplasm not red or something. His...tail...is still moving a bit erratically but it’s clear Danny’s making a point to keep it mostly contained in the hover cushion.

Lewis smirks slightly at seeing Jack fiddling with the freezer, clearly the two thought the freezer was responsible for the kitchen freeze over, “strong freezer?”.

Jack laughs, “yup! Froze the whole house over once!”.

Lewis eyes Danny as he sits down, Danny promptly answering the unasked question, “it’s true, I was honestly impressed”. Lewis chuckles over that, the freezer must get blamed for so many ice-related mishaps.

Danny does absolutely note that neither of his parents brought the legs up, quirking an eyebrow, “Cyber’s don’t got an easy fix?”, before shoving a fork full of spaghetti noodles in his mouth.

Maddie sighs and nods, “unfortunately yeah, the connections are correct and everything but the timing seems off and we had to build in a conductor to counteract how much ectoplasm it takes”.

Jack nods with a slight frown, swallowing his food before speaking, “can’t let it take too much and it has to control how much output there is otherwise they’ll be way too strong. And! This way if you’re lower on ectoplasm somedays than others there would be a reserve! Since these are supposed to be a long term solution”.

Danny chuckles, him being lower on ectoplasm literally never happens. Well okay, that wasn’t entirely true. He actually uses his ectoplasm pretty frequently, so it probably does actually fluctuate. If they just drained the same amount form him all the time then, wow yeah that could have some bad consequences. That would be really bad if he was in a tough fight and feeding these legs resulted in him not having enough ectoplasm in the end to maintain ghost form. Plus there was the massive drain that was his Wail. So these legs being able to hold a reserve and just not feed off him when he was lower in ecto-energy would be a damn good thing. Nodding slightly, “yeah okay, that makes sense. So the timer’s off? Or they just can’t start/stop properly?”.

Jack nods, “exactly! But I’m sure we’ll figure that out! We just somehow need a timer that is way more powerful and capable of starting and stopping all or just specific functions easily and without taking up much room”.

Jazz tilts her head, “what about using the same sort of thing as ecto-batteries do for output control? I know that their input control is pretty janky still, but it’s halfway there”.

Maddie shakes her head and Lewis is pretty sure at this point that every Fenton is basically an expert on Fenton tech. While Maddie responds, “that was what we tried first, the input in those is just simply too unstable and finicky to be so close to a strong ecto-energy source. Especially for so long”.

Jack nods and speaks almost too eagerly, “they’d explode! They did explode in fact! It was very messy...”.

Danny scrunches his eyebrows and laughs, yeah that would be quite the mess. Not as bad as the portal exploding or even the portals ecto-filter exploding but still. Danny snorts, “yeah that would probably be unpleasant if they just blew up on me, but it would be really eventful if that happened at school”, chuckling with a shake of his head, “now that would really confuse some teachers”.

Jazz sighs, “they wouldn’t even be surprised since it’s you”.

Danny points at her, “hey now, I think my legs blowing up would really be a new high, or new low depending on how you look at it, for me”.

Lewis tilts his head, “you know...a friend of mine has blown quite a few things up. Mostly intentionally though”, pointing at Danny, “I’m not sure if I told you this, but they blew up a rocket-ship once. Their reasoning was sound”.

Danny gives Lewis a look of deep offence, “not cool. But considering everything, yeah they probably had good reasons”.

Jack beams at the conversation, clearly Danny and Dan have become good friends! He was friend-sharing with his boy! Sure it was clear there was something between Danny and Vlad, but Jack isn’t as dense as he seems. Usually he is, but not always. He knew that those two disliked each other on a deep level. They seemed to do things purely to annoy each other, it was almost like a little rivalry. Just a hate rivalry rather than a friendly one. Which was weird, because V-man was great! Sure he was a little reclusive, but so what? Smiling and finishing off his plate, trying to think up a way to correct the issues with the CyberSteps.

They needed something small yet strong, have a central location but to either be or have affect all over, it couldn’t run off Danny’s ectoplasm or life-force and it couldn’t really have a battery of it’s own, it would have to be easy to access without being easily damaged, and of course it would have to look good too; no way was he sticking his boy in something hideous. Which, yes, was absolutely part of why he liked the idea of the legs looking something like Danny’s missing jumpsuit. Jumpsuits were a Fenton staple! Even if Danny was getting one in a rather strange and not so pleasant manner. At least he didn’t have to die for one! Though near death was still rather unpleasant. But! At least he seemed okay and well adjusted to it! And of course the legs did have plenty of jumpsuit qualities. The metal, like all FentonWorks products metal, was slightly ecto-phobic. Only enough so that ectoplasm wouldn’t damage it of course. They couldn’t make the legs as ecto-resistant and ecto-phobic as true hunter jumpsuits, because that might interfere with Danny’s ectoplasm; or at least the health or production of his ectoplasm. However it was that happened.

Sometimes he did wonder if Danny was somehow ecto-absorbent and was just stockpiling all the free-floating ectoplasm in the house and town. Of course if that was the case, then Danny’s levels would have dropped a fair bit during his hospital stay. But that didn’t happen, so somehow his body was self-producing. Could be that his body had become accustomed to having ectoplasm and thusly adapted. But factoring in the tail, Jack thinks it’s much more likely that Danny’s ghost was somewhat active inside him. At the very least the tail was definitely Danny-boy’s ghost showing. Just the ghost of his legs, which was still really cool actually!

Jack taps his chin and nods slightly, watching Danny’s tail wiggle around. Danny wasn’t shifting around or even paying the tail any mind, so clearly he was used to. More so than just a few days would really make sense. Heck! Jack had been stuck with an arm brace for weeks once! He firmly never got used to having that, but maybe Danny was just much more adaptable. After all, he had gotten used to living in the worlds most haunted town and house with fondness! Though sometimes he seemed a little fond of ghosts themselves, instead of just the pride of living in a unique town. It was weird, but maybe he saw something they didn’t! Or maybe the little bit of ghostliness he had made him see them a bit differently. Or! Maybe he actually experienced more ghostly stuff than just physical things. Sometimes it did seem like he was forcefully hiding things. And he did hide the tail really effectively, Jack hadn’t even noticed the ghostly body part at all!

Maddie meanwhile, isn’t having any better luck on figuring out how to fix the legs. Possibly Dan could help, but that wasn’t too likely. But at least he might have some different ideas or can look at it from a different perspective. Being a surgeon he definitely had a keener eye and steady hand. Jack had always been more of the inventor and mechanic, and he was definitely not careful or all that keen eyed. She was much more of the scientist and detail oriented. But even she missed things. Looking Dan over quickly, it would be best to set his room up first, even if he wasn’t moved in right now he would be soon enough. Gathering up the plates, “now that everyone’s done their food, you up for finishing up setting up the spare room, Dan?”.

Lewis smiles and nods, it was the polite thing to do of course. Though he wouldn’t really care how it was set up, so long as he’s got a good bed and the area was clean, he’s good. And at least Danny isn’t visibly wincing over his name now, slight deer-in-the-headlights look aside, so positives.

Danny, meanwhile, had had a mild mental freak out thinking that his mom was calling him by that name. Which Jazz clearly picked up on, “and me and Danny can just watch tv. Where you can easily stick your heads out and check on us”. Danny nods a bit stiffly and the three adults nod in return before heading upstairs.

Lewis chuckles at seeing nothing more than a bed and dresser, it was fine really but judging by the rest of the house, minimalism wasn’t really a thing here. Though he knows for damn sure they cleaned up before he came over. People always did if a doctor was coming over or patient returning home. Just like people always bushed their teeth more often before seeing their dentist. These two even more likely did a massive clean up, if the house was really as bad as Danny had implied it to be.

They wind up deciding to just move things around some and add a few more pieces of furniture. Lewis commenting as he pushes around a little side table, “so what theories do you two have over the ghost tail? Being ghost experts and all”.

Jack beams, glad his friend’s curious, even if it was likely largely because of Danny being his patient, “I’m sure there could be many reasons! But we’re both pretty sure the only real option is that it’s the ghost of his legs!”.

Maddie nods, if there were other possibilities they’ve never heard of such things, “I think Danny has enough ectoplasm in his system from the ecto-contamination that it’s able to actually be connected enough to him to materialise his ghost”, sighing slightly, “but of course that means that him becoming a ghost one day is inevitable”. Maddie’s not sure if Danny’s clued in on that fact, if he has then he’s either ignoring it or he’s too ghost tolerant.

Lewis nods, Danny’s already a ghost so they’re not exactly wrong. He just had the tail because he had two bodies with lower extremities, not one. And only one had actually lost them entirely, so the other was simply taking their place until he was fixed up. And he would be fixed up. But Maddie’s bothered sigh definitely did not go unnoticed by Lewis, “you seem bothered by that?”.

Jack shakes his head rapidly, “oh no! The tails kind of cool! And Danny-boys clearly comfortable with it!”.

Maddie giggles slightly and shakes her head at Jack, “not that Jack dear. I’m pretty sure he means the becoming a ghost thing”, Lewis just nods when she looks to him so she answers his question, “of course. Ghosts are dangerous cruel emotionless things. I wouldn’t be happy about anyone become one of those things”, sighing, “but with his ghost being partially formed like this, maybe his ghost won’t lose Danny’s memories or his emotions will carry over to the ectoplasm somehow”.

Lewis frowns a little, ghosts lost their living life’s memories? Though he’s pretty sure ghosts don’t lack emotions. Danny seemed to be entirely emotionally there, if ghosts didn’t have emotions then Danny’s should be muted. They definitely were not. While Jack jumps in, “and he’s a Fenton! If any ghost could be good, it would be a Fenton’s!”.

Lewis tilts his head, “sounds like you’re working under absolutes. Universals. An ‘all ghosts are inherently bad’ theory. I remember taking a few psych courses as an undergrad. The theory of ‘all humans are inherently bad’ was a pretty common and debated one”, waving his hand around some and ignoring their slight frowns, “of course, that was always followed by nothing but objections. Especially with such universals being nothing more than hypotheticals. As the only things truly universal about behavioural universals is that they are universally inaccurate and generally only cloud judgments”, chuckling slightly, “though belief in universals can certainly make my job more interesting. Debating with the inebriated can be quite thought-provoking”, tilting his hand back and forth in the air, “as for dangerous, dangerous can be good. Logically I’m quite dangerous, as are you two. Really, humans as a whole are impressively dangerous, heck dealing with the dangerous side of humans is half my job”. Though Danny’s list of powers implied he was more than just a bit dangerous. Danny was explicitly extremely dangerous actually.

Maddie and Jack exchange a glance, neither going to disagree with his last statement, he probably saw attempted and successful murder victims; and all three of them were definitely dangerous. But they did it for good, ghosts were selfish and only sought to harm or cause mischief. Maddie replying, “you’ve been talking with Danny some, haven’t you?”, shaking her head slightly as she sets up a little light, “sometimes universal are true. Ghosts are nothing but ectoplasm. That’s all that makes up their forms. None of that can convey emotions. They’re driven by nothing but instincts and Obsession. Humans are more complex. Ghosts are what remains after a person dies, all that human complexity staying with the body. The ghost left with nothing but human post-consciousness”.

Jack nods, “ectoplasm that a human mind imprinted their last strongest desires on. Creating the Obsession! Those that die peacefully and satisfied don’t become ghosts”.

Lewis is officially wondering if they know about not all ghosts once being alive. Because if they did they were firmly ignoring that purely to fit their theory, and that doesn’t sound right. So he’s not going to mention that since Danny’s the only reason Lewis knows and they’d question how Danny knew. Though now Lewis is also wondering just what the Hell happened with Danny for him to have a protection focused Obsession. The only thing he can think of is that someone else was in danger at the time. That, or it was because whatever creates a halfa was more than a little weird. Tapping his chin, “people used to believe plants emotionless and uncaring. Until that was proven to be rather wrong; even if they were simple things. And truthfully, humans aren’t complex themselves. Just flesh being able to be put to multiple different uses based off of DNA plans. You could say that the human body and self is nothing more than flesh imprinted by genetic plans created by their parents. And personality, well that’s the whole nature vs nurture debate”, twirling his hand in the air as he re-aligns one of the desk drawers, “plus, universals really do not exist. If there is even one outlier then the universal is untrue. Which is actually largely the bases of nature vs nurture and why there will never truly be an answer. Plus to go on the complexity argument, language requires complexity even if said language didn’t need to be learned. Same with making executive decisions”, tilting his head, “logically, an Obsession of any kind would require executive decision making. Otherwise instincts would actually overrule said Obsession. When it seems pretty clear that Obsession overrules instincts. And even working under the idea that said Obsession is simply the impression of a living beings last strongest thoughts even while dying unpleasantly, then logically most Obsessions would actually be positive rather than harmful. Since most people’s strongest dying desires involve getting peace or wishing to have seen happier times”, frowning slightly because that’s appropriate when talking about death, “I’ve heard even the cruellest of people wish for only that. To eat good food, to be alone, to bask in sunny days, to claim that prize they never could; like fame, fortune, or love. Not a lot of people die wanting to cause harm. Playful mischief sure”.

Jack tilts his head and blinks, that did make sense. And there was Phantom. Who was an outlier to nearly everything.

Maddie shakes her head, “only those of ill intent would be damned to exist as a ghost; and the possibility of Danny becoming a ghost doesn’t count as he became rather ghostly beforehand”.

Lewis shrugs, “powers seem like a dream come true for many. If you ask me, it seems more like the universe acknowledging that someone died horribly, unjustly or with an incomplete existence. Thusly giving their being the chance to indulge in and focus on one thing they valued highly at their time of passing; free from the constraints of the living world and with all the power needed to fulfil their desires”, tilting a hand and his head back and forth a bit, “and maybe some become ghosts because their existence is vital or needed for one reason or another”. Lewis has a gut feeling that the ClockWork ghost was genuinely needed. And maybe Danny had access to so many powers purely because he needed them to fulfil his Obsession, in-fact he had pretty well said that without truly realising the possible deeper meaning.

Jack blinks hard and gapes slightly, muttering, “is Phantom needed to control other ghosts?”, looking to Maddie and asking, “could there be other kinds of ghosts? Ones that are ‘needed’ ghosts and the regular evil ones? Because Phantom, he’s always different. Different kinds of ghosts! Subsections of ghosts! Beyond just dead’s! Whole nother aspects to research! and discover!”.

Lewis blinks, that was not what he was going for but there was multiple kinds of ghosts from what Danny’d said. So this was progress, positives Lewis. Though he might have just made them even more incorrect about Phantom. Since he was, in fact, a ‘dead’ ghost, just not all dead. Like Eddie was technically an alien, just not really.

Maddie scrunches up her eyebrows, that was a very different take on ghosts. And, unlike pretty well every theory they’ve come up with, it accounts for Phantom’s oddness. And Jack was clearly hooked on this idea, of course he was, it meant more possible theories and aspects to research. Tapping her chin, “maybe”, looking at Lewis, “but their existence, powers or not, are a damnation. Being bound to an Obsession, the feral instincts, lacking emotions, the constant battles, being trapped in a dimension of chaos, indefinitely existing in that state”, shaking her head, “even if there could be more than one kind and maybe, possibly, them not be evil and cruel; they’d still be surrounded by ones that are”.

Lewis, coming on a bit of an idea, “so an idea of two races of ghosts. One that’s possibly okay and good due to acting in alignment with what you deem okay. And one race that is automatically bad and evil and thusly lesser, due to behaviours that differ from your own. I feel like I’ve heard this one before”, Lewis let’s them sit with that statement for a bit before continuing, “I’d say there being multiple kinds of ghosts only makes sense. Even something as simple as grass or lilies have hundreds of variants. Even rib bones vary wildly. Blood type, brain structure, skin texture; everything has variants”, shaking his head some, “I still don’t buy the emotionless idea. To go along with my earlier idea of becoming a ghost functionally being a gift in repentance for an inadequate life. I’d say it’s likely ghosts like being as they are. An Obsession that’s more like a well-loved hobby. Instincts can be fun or lifesavers, otherwise no one would like adrenaline rushes even half as much as they do. Even humans love fighting, so that’s a moot point. One persons chaos is another’s persons idea of freedom, hence why so many people wish the apocalypse would actually happen”, Lewis shrugs, “people love the idea of the break down of societal norms and spending their days fighting, living as they please. And maybe ghosts only exist as long as they need to or until they’re finally satisfied”.

Maddie and Jack share a look, their running theory was that ghosts ‘moved on’ once their Obsession was satisfied. And neither really have anything to counteract Dan’s statements this time. This wasn’t some whimsical idealism from their kids or other teens. This was coming from someone who had definitely seen the darker side to the world, was highly educated -more so than them in truth-, and didn’t truly have invested interest or stakes in what they believed. Maddie mutters, “maybe so”, as she looks out over Amity through the window. Their town was basically a ghost playground and as much as she tried to ignore everything Phantom did, there’s no way her and Jack -even with the help of The Red Huntress- could keep a handle on all the ghosts. They needed sleep, they got hurt easier, they weren’t naturally equipped with weapons; the list went on. So saying Phantom was...needed...wasn’t, wrong.

Jack scratches his head some, many people did say the Fenton’s were chaos. But it was their chaos and they loved it. He was also oddly reminded of the war.

Lewis, seeing they’re both off in their own little worlds, decides to ground all these hypotheses and detached contemplations. Because regardless of how overarching the ideas were or what his two friends' passion was, Danny -or more so Danny’s ghost- was the end focus. He’s positive, without a doubt, they value their kids above their opinions and research. Clearing his throat and walking next to the couple looking out the window, “all this conjecture aside. There’s one thing I think we can all agree is more than likely an eventual certainty, is Danny becoming a ghost”.

Maddie simply nods while Jack says, “yeah”.

“One of the big things those of us in the medical field are taught is patient relations. You don’t just tell someone they have a horribly disfiguring condition, that only serves to hurt them and make them more difficult. Or, if I am to be blunt, make them seek to destroy themselves. If someone has to deal with something eventually for the rest of their days, telling them how horrible it is, is the opposite of a good idea”. Lewis simply nods slightly to himself over their mildly horrified faces, clearly realising where they’ve messed up. Because honestly? Even if they were right and Danny wasn’t already a ghost and thusly aware they were wrong, telling him that what he was/would likely become were all inherently evil violent monsters; was dumb, unhealthy, and kind of mean. If Eddie did that to Vee, everyone would be being eaten by aliens right now. If he hadn’t just accepted Vee changing their mind and hadn’t been basically complimenting them, even with all the gratuitous murder; Lewis, Eddie and Anne would all be very dead. Or Eddie would just be a meat puppet.

Tilting his head and thinking on that, “I have a friend. They come from a family of violence, killers even. Yet they are arguably good, they save lives even. They’re supported, encouraged, to be good. And just a little tiny bit of that encouragement and support was all they needed to do good”, looking at the two of them, who look back, “if you tell someone they’re doomed to be evil or bad, they’re likely going to be. Even if you don’t say them specifically. And saying ‘oh you’re an exception’, doesn’t help”, looking back out the window and tilting his head, “in fact, that’ll just make them feel like a weird freak. Some folks like being the freak and outlier, but most want to fit in. Even if that means doing bad. Groupthink, herd mentality, conformity. Not always a good thing”.

Deciding now might the time to leave them be, instead of overwhelming them, Lewis turns and heads to the door, speaking cheerily, “now I’m going to check on my patient before I have to head out”.

Danny had decidedly ignored the upstairs conversation after Lewis had basically played the racism card, which was firmly jarring. But also made him think, there really wasn’t any issues between the different kinds of ghosts. Sure clans and kingdom stuck to themselves, but ghosts were solitary in general. Really halfas were the only ones treated a bit different, but that made sense. They were literally their own different species in a sense. Halfas bodies followed different rules. But ghosts didn’t treat them like shit. Pretty much just treated him like another ghost, a very rare strong ghost. Vlad was treated more like a human though, so clearly it was more behaviour based. Because Danny did absolutely behave more ghostly, but he was also more ghost than Vlad. Eh, whatever.

Looking at Lewis as he comes down the stairs, “CW would like you. You think outside the box and can be a deep bastard”.

Lewis chuckles and shakes his head, “that’s some good hearing you’ve got”. Danny gives a slightly awkward attempt at a thumbs up, while Lewis comes over and indeed looks over the braces and bandaging. Because it’s frankly something of a miracle that he hasn’t ruined Lewis’s work yet again. Clapping Danny on the shoulder as he stands up, “look at that, it’s all intact. I feel like I should give you a sucker or something”.

Danny gives an attempt at flipping him off, he can’t bend his fingers enough to truly pull it off though, “oh piss off, maybe I’ll light it all on fire just to bug you”.

Jazz shakes her head, “please don’t”.

Lewis chuckles and shakes his head before heading out. If Eddie said that he’d be worried, but Danny was a jokester.

Danny’s not sure what to do about his folks giving him weird looks the rest of the evening and he’s firmly happy when there’s a knock on the door and Jazz opens it to reveal Sam, Tuck and Val. Danny instantly sending them an, probably overacted, expression of ‘dear Ancients please save me’. The three shake their heads and/or chuckle, before eyeballing his hover cushion. Tuck snorts and bends over laughing, Danny just rolls his eyes and points over his shoulder at the stairs. Everyone promptly following him to his room.

Sam and Tuck instantly flopping down in their beanie bags while Val stops and scrunches up her nose, Danny points a hand at her, “don’t you go telling me my room smells like death with a side of death”. She gives him a look clearly saying that it indeed does. So okay fine, maybe he really should clean.

Danny promptly parks the hover cushion on the ground, floats over to his bed, and sits on it. Val joining him and looking at the hover cushion, “why are you even using that? Probably better to practice with the tail”.

Sam, Tucker, and Danny all responding, “parents”. Valerie just shakes her head, Danny’s parents disliked ghosts a lot but surely not so much they’d stop him from getting around with what he’s got? Maybe Danny was just trying to avoid freaking them out, that was a very Danny thing to do. Absentmindedly petting at Danny’s tail as it sort of wiggles and coils around her arm and legs, Danny was clearly just letting it do what it wanted. Firmly ignoring how Sam is just glaring at her, the ear full she had gotten from the two on the way over had been a bit much. She was glad he had such good friends, but that didn’t make dealing with the protectiveness any less unpleasant. Deciding to ignore Sam even more by flopping to actually lay down, patting the vibrating tail, “I’m almost surprised your dad’s not making you do excerise laps with it. But yeah I guess it’s smart to warm them up to it slowly”.

Tucker snorts, “I’m surprised they haven’t already stuck him in leg prototypes”.

Danny points at him, making a damn point to not purr contentedly from Val’s lazy petting. Which just yay, she was more or less comfortable with it. Gesturing at his waist, “oh they totally did. It’s practically finished, just some kinks, namely that it supercharged my ‘plasm”, vibrating the tail a bit excessively which Val does jerk, startled, a bit over. While Danny continues speaking, “tail was literally and figuratively vibrating out of my skin. Still a little hard to wrangle in”.

Valerie gives it another pat, the end curling around her wrist, “at least it’s healed and healthy though”.

Tucker raises an eyebrow and laughs, “wait, they actually made something that strengthened ectoplasm? Seriously?”.

Danny points at him, “and it was somewhat intentional. They’re making a point of not letting the, yes they already named them, CyberSteps take too much of my ‘plasm as fuel and they built in this reserve thing, but there’s timer issues and stuff. Oh, and get this”, Danny smirks, full well knowing his friends will get it but Val will be a bit confused, “the colour palette is light grey with dark grey boots. Pale and dark green lines over top. Very cyber jumpsuit esque”.

Sam and Tucker exchange a glance and smirk. Of course his folks went with Danny’s original jumpsuit design. Tucker chuckles, “your dead shits always gotta have the suiting colour scheme I guess dude”, smirking, “they just had to get you in one even if you had to die a little”.

Danny smirks right back, “it is a killer look, very form-fitting for my very literal dead ass. Phantom skins for phantom limbs”.

Tucker blinks, goes slightly wide-eyed and points at Danny, leaning forward out of his beanie bag, “more like Phantom tin, you’re a metal ass now”, speaking with meaning and thick humour, “you... tincan”.

Danny blinks, oh Ancients Skulker was going to have a field day with this. He might mock him or be proud, hard to say. Smirking devilishly, “only half tin-can. So skin-can”.

Valerie screws up her face, she did not need that mental image, and smacks Danny’s head, “that’s disgusting!”.

Danny just laughs, “well I got opened up like a can!”, before flopping down to lay partly across her stomach, tail coiling around his waist some and flicking off the bed, “I’m awful and I know it”.

Sam glares slightly at the two, while Tucker almost awkwardly says, “then clap your hands?”. Which Danny actually does, making everyone laugh a little. Before Sam and Tucker both get up and join the two on the bed.

Danny snickers, “can’t wait till these braces are off, then I’ll have back my right to bare arms”.

Val sighs but smiles slightly, “I wish you still had the right to legs”.

Danny snorts, “I guess I just didn’t have enough of a motional attachment to stop doc from spiriting them away”.

“Zone goddamnit Danny”.

Danny smirks and pokes Valerie and Sam with his tail, “what? Ya can’t expect me to have any decency, after all, I’ve got no soles”.

Sam groans, though internally smiling, Danny making jokes was always a sign either he was good or he was getting his ass absolutely handed to him. “And now the horrible jokes come out”.

Danny snickers, he had so much new material to work with now; leg jokes, amputation jokes, robot jokes, should probably work on some...cannibalism jokes, “I would complain about you trashing on my great choice of words, but I’ve got no legs to stand on”.

Val wheezes, sounding almost pained. While Tucker pokes Danny, “at least that one won’t be applicable soon”.

Danny waves him off, “eh, I can just detach ‘em”.

Tucker debates right back, “but you still own said legs. So you still have legs, attached or not”.

“Fuck you and your semantics”.

After sitting in silence for a bit Tucker pipes up, “soooooo... sworn to secrecy? Any gossip you ain’t gonna be tight-lipped about?”.

Both Sam and Valerie asking, “‘sworn to secrecy’?”. Which Tucker laughs over before sitting up and looking at the two girls, ignoring Danny’s slight glare as Tucker responds, “doctor dudes been telling Danny tales about his friends and Danny here hinted at some of them being more than a little weird”.

Valerie quirks an eyebrow at Danny, not surprised there was more stories, “the ones who had a lovers quarrel that involved assault with a fridge and Lewis getting hit with a pan?”.

Sam shakes her head, “are we talking about the ones that got into a car chase with bombs and attempted to murder your doctor?”. Valerie coughs and goes a bit wide-eyed at that and squints at Danny with an ‘are you serious?’ look.

Danny chuckles, “oh yeah, seeing as those two are apparently his only friends, shits been out of this world”, Danny jabs Tucker a bit hard, “and I ain’t got any stories to be telling. Probably shoulda asked him while he was here if I could”.

Valerie scoffs, dramatic Danny, “oh whatever, if he’s telling you then clearly it’s not really secret”.

“Val, I practically know their life stories. I wouldn’t even be surprised at this point if Lewis showed up with baby pictures”. Danny almost hopes he does, because baby phots of aliens, he is so here for that. They probably don’t exist though. Heck, what would baby balls of slime or whatever even look like? Tiny slimes? Little blobs of goo? Are their cradles just like little play doo containers? How would a ball of goo even have kids? How are they born? Was Vee a tiny little blob of black murder once? A murder baby of questionable size and solidity? Heck, did Symbiotes even care for their young? He’s pretty sure the answer to that one is a firm no. Muttering, “now I’m making myself sad”.

Sam shakes her head, “hey, I’m supposed to be the one supplying doom and gloom here, not your doctors friends and babies”. While Valerie fiddles with Danny’s tail, “how does babies even make someone sad?”.

Danny sticks his arms up into the air, “I’m just thinking of them all tiny and alone. Just a little mess left to survive by chance or die”.

Valerie shakes her head, she knew how rough circumstances or childhood could lead to being weird, abandoned from birth would be worse for sure, “no wonder doctor guy described them as being a drunkard mess”.

Danny waves her off, “oh no, the drunkard is the other friend”.

Valerie breathes out, “sweet Zone, well does that one have a good reason?”.

Danny snorts and promptly nods but says nothing, which Tucker groans over, “awww come on man. How ‘bout we call the doc and ask?”.

“He’s probably in surgery Tuck, having his personal time with the bone saw. Though Anne’s probably off work by now, if she left just as early this morning as yesterday”.

Tucker laughs, “ooooh the lady, I approve this plan. And what, doc attached to the tools of his trade”, Tucker gives his PDA a quick peck for effect. While Sam grumbles about how that would be so dangerous to do with a saw.

Danny chuckles a little, while Tucker goes about calling the Lewis house, probably through the microwave. Danny commenting, “I’m not about to claim to know how much a surgeon is supposed to use that, but I don’t think it’s that much. And Tuck, Anne seems more likely to throw a fashionable heel at you, than amuse your womanising ways”.

Sam smiles and sighs, “I like her already”. Sam, Danny and Valerie all groan at Tucker actually going through with calling.

Anne’s voice coming through sounding only slightly annoyed, “use the phone”, then promptly giving the house number. Sam hangs up for Tucker at that point and everyone waits for Anne to pick up from the actual house phone.

She sounds quite pleased with herself, “there, that’s much better. If you’re also calling for a rain check to clean up a questionable mess, I will be a bit amused”.

Danny coughs, pretty sure ‘questionable mess’ translated to bloodbath, “Zone no, Tuck wants the gossip on your twos odd friends. And unlike a certain doc, I don’t ‘tell tales’ as he puts it. Without the go-ahead anyway”.

Tucker, Sam, and Valerie then give out a chorus of hellos and Tucker throws in his two cents, “y’all know Danny dudes weird shit, me and the goth know all his shit. And the girlfriend knows a bit”.

Valerie grumbles, “hey, I think I know him pretty well”.

Anne’s pretty sure that’s one blatant way to say that the ‘girlfriend’ definitely did not know somethings. She’d thrown off a text to the group chat pretty well as soon as Danny had stopped talking, not even surprised when the response had been ‘you’re a better judge of character than I am. AND LESS OF AN IDIOT. Asshole. TELL THEM WE WILL EAT THEIR SPLEEN IF THEY HURT EDDIE. Fuck no, don’t’, at least Vee had the decency to always use all caps. Anne huffs, amused, before responding to the collection of teens, “your friends hardly seem like the super law-abiding type, so go ahead. Eddie’s signed off on it, and Vee only threatened to eat their spleens, which a person can live without, so that’s as good as a green light as there is”.

Danny cringes a little, “I’m assuming said eating is more of a ‘don’t hurt us or else’ than anything else?”, Valerie just coughs a bit startled. While Tucker mutters, “I like my spleen though”. Sam just laughs.

“Yeah, Vee’s the protective type”.

Sam, Tucker and Valerie all groan, Tucker jabbing Danny in the arm, “well that definitely sounds familiar. Though I think I’d choke if Danny-dude threatened someone with organ eating”.

Anne chuckles, “it’s Vee’s go to, not that they even need a reason to threaten someone. They threatened to decapitate a pigeon at lunch today. You kids really should be going to bed, don’t get in too much trouble; or at least get into less than Eddie and Vee do”.

They all say bye at Tucker’s PDA as she hangs up. Danny shaking his head a little, while Tucker laughs, “sounds like they truly are as reckless as our idiot”, then sitting up and looking down at Danny, “so spill dude, just how weird are the two friends that doctor dude thinks they’re weirder than you, a guy with a ghostly tail instead of legs and whatnot”.

Danny puts up his hands and says with a goofy smirk, “aliens”, then shrugging, “or alien really”. Because really, that is absolutely what should be started with.

Valerie raises an eyebrow after a bit, “oh you’re serious, are you sure they’re not pulling your leg?”.

Danny chuckles, “if Vee’s human I will eat my carpet”.

Valerie grimaces while Tucker laughs, though Sam’s the one to ask, “that convincing? Where they from then?”.

Danny throws his hands around animatedly, “besides space, which is awesome, Klyntar, also the species name. Called Symbiotes here though. Crazy mad scientist dude brought them here and tried to fuse people to them to survive in space, yeah really dumb. He got blown up in a rocket”.

Sam grunts, “same rocket Lewis said these friends blew up? And yeah Lewis probably isn’t lying with there being genuine details”.

Tucker pokes Danny, “if you replace us with an alien I will be sad but also impressed”. While Valerie mutters, “no wonder doctor isn’t bothered by weird. I guess aliens ain’t that much different from ghosts”.

Danny chuckles before raising an eyebrow and snorting, elbowing Valerie, “you might actually think they ain’t all that different. Unless your opinions on ghosts have changed”.

Valerie grumbles, “a little I guess. Less evil, more just usually bad”. Both Sam and Tucker mockingly gape and gasp. Danny just grins like an idiot a little and wiggles his tail in the air, “spooktastic. The better ghosts probably don’t come to the land of the living much. But Symbiotes, Vee’s literally exiled and was basically supposed to be killed for not being a totally evil world-conquering and devouring monster. Because they want to coexist and love their host. It’s really adorable actually”, Danny snickers a little, “it’s a Disney Princess story where true love saves the world, just uh, with aliens and explosions and body snatching and human experimentation and probably a lot of death”. Danny grumbles, because really, he’s not sure how he feels about the idea of his very human, and thus more vulnerable, friends being around someone who eats humans, “still weird Eddie’s just okay with body roommate lover and the whole diet thing. Through that does take attached at the hip to its highest conclusion”, tilting his head and poking Valerie, “it’d be like you dating your suit, if it was sentient”.

Valerie glances at her arm a bit incredulously, while Tucker smacks Danny’s arm, “wait, hold up, Vee lives inside Eddie? Literally symbiotic? That sounds like it might be hilarious. And lots of death? And you, with your shit, are okay with that?”.

Danny nods rapidly, “Vee’s, like, just a puddle of black goo that squishes around Eddie’s organs and shit”, before shrugging awkwardly, “as for the death thing, me and Doc had one intense ass conversation about that. I don’t approve, not even kinda, but I understand. And I guess, technically, it’s not much different than humans eating cows”, Danny looks around at the confused and slightly concerned faces, poking Tucker, “you remember the whole need to eat meat thing that you were slightly jealous of? Yeah, very specifically human meat, so maybe don’t be jealous at all”.

Valerie coughs, that’s more than just disgusting. Tucker pulls a face but shrugs, “I mean, I’d try if offered”. Everyone looks at him judgingly, while Danny shakes his head, “I wouldn’t tell them that if I were you. I seriously wouldn’t be surprised if they shoved a chunk of something in your face”.

Sam gets up and shakes her head, “that’s disgusting”, continuing to speak while gathering up her stuff, “but if they’re not here then whatever-”.

Tucker butts in as he gets up too, “oh no, Danny dude said he was gonna hang out with them”.

Both Valerie and Sam hit Danny and snap, “idiot! Why?!?”.

Danny shrugs exaggeratedly, it was probably stupid to agree to that but ClockWork approved and they did have a ton in common, “we’ve got somethings in common, very black and white fellow and timely too. And aliens! I have so many questions! They’re, like, super super old; who knows all the planets they’ve been to!”.

Sam facepalms and shakes her head, though picking up that ClockWork said this was fine and these two must be heroes or something, “you’re a reckless idiot”, putting her hand on her hip, “if they hurt you or eat you, I’ll be finding something new for your parents to want to dissect”, then looking to Valerie, “you coming?”.

Valerie rolls her eyes and glares, scooting to sit with her back leaning against Danny’s shoulder, “I don’t need to head home yet”. While Danny mutters, “can you even dissect a sorta liquid?”, before shaking his head and giving Sam an unimpressed look, his friends could be far too protective, “Sam, she’s fine and I don’t think you have to worry about Vee, they sound pretty darn wrapped around Eddie’s finger. Through Eddie might be wrapped around theirs too”.

Sam sighs, “idiot”. Danny’s pretty sure she’s talking about the whole dating Val A.K.A a ghost hunter with extreme prejudice, thing this time. He’s not sure if he should be happy or preparing for an impending verbal lashing when she huffs, shakes her head and turns out the door with a clipped “yeah whatever, see ya”.

Tucker chuckles at Sam’s back before pointing at Valerie, “I could hack your suit. Danny deserves the best, it’s no secret we don’t really think that’s you”.

Danny growls a little, “for fucks sake, that’s up to me I’d say”.

Tucker just chuckles and waves as he heads out. Danny floating over to his window and watching Tucker run to catch up with Sam. Their hearts were in the right places but it was kind of annoying.

Turning his head to Val on the bed and floating back over. Promptly wrapping his tail around her waist, “they're great friends, just a little much sometimes I guess”.

She shakes her head and flips to lay back down, functionally dragging Danny down with, while she speaks, “I’d say make more friends but your idea of doing that apparently involves weird doctors and what I'm pretty sure qualifies as a sorta cannibal”.

Danny chuckles a little awkwardly, normal friends would never work out for him, “yeah, and you don’t seem phased by your suit getting brought up? Did you tell them too? You better have done a better job of those reveals”.

Valerie shrugs, shoving part of a blanket between where Danny’s leaning on top of her slightly and herself. Those braces were pretty darn hard, “they’re practically attached to you, no way they weren’t going to know. I just told them bluntly, I don’t care what they think, Danny. I’m definitely not dating them, though we’ll probably become closer friends now I guess. Could Tucker seriously hack my suit though? I know he’s good but still”.

Danny nods immediately, “I’d be shocked if there’s anything he can’t hack. And I’m not sure if that’s a better or worse reveal. You disappoint me”. Valerie just hits him lightly and they lay in silence for a while, the glow from Danny’s tail the only real source of light in the dark room. Which Danny gets slightly annoyed with the brightness of and throws a blanket over top, sure he was used to his glow being around but genuine darkness was nice to have sometimes; even with his perfect dark vision. Muttering with a bit of a laugh, “I’ll never need another flashlight or nightlight”.

Valerie fiddles with the blanket and yawns, “less it’s covered. The whole legs thing”.

“Yeah, guess it won’t, or shouldn’t anyway, show through those”, Danny chuckles, “you’re not going home, are you?”. Valerie just smirks and shakes her head, before readjusting into the blankets.

Danny’s not surprised Val’s still there in the morning, what he is surprised by is it being just past noon when he wakes up. Looking out the window and just barely catching himself from asking out loud ‘where the heck are all the ghosts?!?!?’, surely Amorpho isn’t still running around playing hero? Pushing himself to sit up and turning to look at Val, who’s fixing her hair in his bedroom mirror, “mornin’ anything interesting while I was out?”.

She pulls a bobby pin out of her mouth and shoves it into her curly hair, “there was some ghosts I chased down if that’s what you’re asking. Box, Technus, some animals. At least three things have blown up in the basement lab, might be the same three things though”, walking over and poking Danny, who looks a little confused, “ghosts being near makes you shiver or something, since when did you have a ghost sensor? And yes, I figured out how to turn mine off”, grumbling to herself incoherently, because she needed to find some way to make her stuff exclude Danny’s tail.

Danny blinks, partly wondering why the Zone he didn’t wake up -probably something to do with being injured or something- and slightly annoyed that after all this time now is when someone actually notices his ghost sense. Though yeah, if there was ever going to be anyone who noticed his ghostly shit, it would be Val. Rubbing his neck and thusly getting firmly reminded of the stupid braces, “weird, usually that wakes me up”, stretching out and grumbling about being sore. While Val raises an eyebrow at him, “so that’s normal? I pretty much used you as a ghost sensor, chased them off pretty quick so maybe that’s why you didn’t wake up”.

Danny squints at her with his arms over his head, “did you even sleep? And, uh, yeah normal. Like my little bit of ectoplasm, since you know I’ve got that shit, reacting to their ecto-field or something”.

Valerie tilts her head and laughs a little, she could use something like that, “guess that’s why you never seem to get caught where ghosts are. You know they’re there and reasonably avoid them”.

Danny puts a hand to his chest and speaks with mock offence, “me? Reasonable? Never”. Considering he actively ran at them, which arguably wasn’t a reasonable thing to do. It was what was right and his need of course, but still arguably dumb and dangerous. It was also part of his ghostly nature to fight, socialise like any ghost would.

Valerie shakes her head with a smile and pushes his shoulder, which he just moves with and lays back down on his bed; her shrugging and crawling in to lay next to him. It was a little weird having a ghostly tail wrapping around her ankle and leg rather than a second pair of legs, not to mention a little cold, but it wasn’t bad. Snickering a bit as rubbing her foot over the tip of It makes him shiver, Danny just blushes a little. The moment getting ruined by a loud bang from downstairs, Danny, chuckling awkwardly, “probably should see what they’re doing”.

Valerie sighs but relents and gets up, trying not to side-eye Danny too much as he floats over to the hover cushion, it was clearly not made to fit all of his tail, “any clue what they’re working on by chance?”.

Danny snorts and spins the hover cushion in a little circle, “besides legs? And things for them? No clue. Honestly, that’s probably all they’re working on. Which yeah, little worrying, considering the exploding”.

Valerie raises an eyebrow as she steps out the door, “a ‘little’?”. Danny just rolls his eyes as he follows her down the steps.

Danny shakes his head at the slightly ridiculous amount of pancakes on the table, his mom looking a little flustered. Danny speaking as he hovers over to his chair and grabs a plate, “Uh? What’s going on? Thanks for the food though”. Valerie opening and closing her mouth a few times before shaking her head and joining Danny at the table for food.

Maddie looks over Valerie, who must have spent the night, and raises an eyebrow at Danny, “trying to distract from a bit of inventors block sweetie. And morning Valerie”, she says that last bit with a slightly unimpressed tone.

Danny rolls his eyes and smirks a little, swallowing bits of pancakes before speaking, “it’s not like I can really do anything”, Valerie chokes a bit at that and Maddie gapes at him, while Danny keeps talking, “guessing the timing stuff still isn't cooperating? And heh, bit too soon?”.

Maddie puts on a smile and nods slightly, she’s not sure if she should be happy about the joking or not. And that fact that’s he’s right isn’t really something she wants to think about really. He can’t have kids. Not that that should really be a concern for him right now. Jack thankfully saves them from the silence as he bounds up the steps and grins wide, “you’re up! Sleep good!”, Jack keeps speaking after Danny nods, “great! CyberSteps are still giving us some hassle, but! The framework and design is more solidified! So long as you’re cool with the look of them anyway”.

Danny smiles slightly, “do they look pretty well the same as what I saw yesterday?”.

Jack nods eagerly, “yup! Just a bit more defined! Dan gave us some tips on the way muscles would be shaped, so we adjusted some. Looks more realistic!”. Jack nods curtly more so to himself, well aware that Danny-boy wanted these to look realistic, shape wise anyway. Though he’s definitely glad Danny didn’t want them flesh coloured. Still a bit off-putting what exactly they were, replacement legs, but it was almost like working on exoskeleton! And impressing Dan was an awesome bonus!

Danny raises an eyebrow, “Lewis’s here? And yeah, in that case, the design’s fine with me”. Danny will be surprised if the legs don’t undergo some design changes though, who knows how they’ll have to be modified for the timer thing to work. He’s sure his folks will figure that out eventually, he’s not even sure what he’ll do if they can’t figure something out. Dealing with the regrowing legs thing will be an even bigger basket of problems in that case.

Jack nods and points a thumb over his shoulder at the lab doors, “awesome! He’s been down helping! And! Pretty sure he said he’s going to be moving in tomorrow too! Having him here is sure an interesting reminder that I wasn’t actually the strangest of my college buddies!”.

Danny mutters, “understatement, fruit-loops got you both beat by a mile and a half”. He’s not sure anyone other than someone legitimately insane could out crazy Vlad. While Jack sticks a finger in the air, going a bit a wide-eyed, clearly having just remembered something; before running back down the lab stairs.

Danny had just shoved another fork full of pancake in his mouth as Jack comes back up with a little flat disc thing cradled in his hands. Danny can’t help but snort as his dad puts it on Danny’s plate, it was roughly the same shape and thickness as a pancake. While Jack starts talking animatedly, “we’ve made some progress but it’s still super touchy! It keeps blowing up when we get it too close to something with an ecto-field! Which is of course no good...”, Danny pretty well tunes his dad out and stares down at the little device. He was something with an ecto-field.

And as if on queue, said device cuts off whatever else Jack happened to be saying and promptly explodes; sending pancakes and syrup flying everywhere.

Which makes for an interesting scene for Lewis to walk up from the lab to. Blinking and looking around, there’s pancake stuck to pretty well every surface and Danny’s plate is smoking. Danny just looks to him slowly and sighs.

Danny, taking in Lewis’s tousled up hair -that somehow still looks poster-worthy even with also being peppered with ash- and his burnt dress shit with its sleeves rolled up stylishly, “mornin’ doc, and welcome to the Fenton household”.

Lewis just watches a pancake slowly slide off the top of Danny’s head and back onto his plate, at least his bandaging and braces looked intact. Positives, Lewis, positives.

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