IT'S HAUNTED.

People didn’t notice Ruby. It was part of what had helped her survive Thurmond for all those years. She wasn’t loud and rowdy like some of the other kids had been at the center – causing trouble just for the hell of it. She wasn’t like Sam whose very presence said “LOOK AT ME”. Ruby kept her head down and tried to mind her own business, but minding her own business didn’t always keep her out of trouble and Samantha hated that it made Ruby such a push over sometimes. It had taken her so long to learn how to stand up to others, but she still hadn’t mastered the art of standing up for herself.

So when someone barreled into her and left her eating dirt for a moment, Ruby simply scowled and brushed her knees off, picking small pebbles from her skin. She wasn’t expecting anyone to notice. The voice startled her for a second and she blinked as she looked up into the sun before noticing the boy in front of her. “Um… yeah. I’m fine.”

It was unnerving, to watch someone react so little to something that would have set Danny off like a firework. His mom had always said that Danny got his temper from her, but he liked to think he was only reactive in really high intensity situations (even though it most definitely wasn’t true, if the amount of times he nearly cracked a tooth over the tip of his pencil breaking after he’d just sharpened it had anything to say about it), and not just for little-to-no-reason.

Someone practically shoulder-checking him into the dirt? Yeah, that was a no-go. It was bad enough that the bullies at school regularly shoved him into lockers or gave him atomic wedgies brutal enough to have him see stars - but a stranger? No way.

Danny held a cool hand out to the girl, hoping to help her up.

“I’m Danny,” He started distractedly, eyeing the place the stranger had been, “— okay but like are you sure? Because I will totally go find that guy if you need me to. That wasn’t cool.” And maybe Danny talked with his hands too much, because he nearly whipped the girl in the head with his own gangly arms, “Err- sorry. Anyway - what are you doing here?” Smooth move, exlax, Danny sighed, scratching at the back of his head somewhat sheepishly, chin down, “No - I meant - what...brings you here?” 

danny fenton + tv tropes

Usually, Kaz was able to deal with the pain in his leg. He had become quite good at pushing off pain and ignoring it entirely - both the emotional and the physical kind. There was no time to be nursing an old injury when he had things to do - items to steal, bargains to make, empires to destroy. But some days, it got to be too much, and he needed to deal with whatever his body was crying out for. Sleep, proper nutrition, or to take his weight off of a half-broken leg. 

Today was one of those days, and it didn’t help that he could feel the temperature dropping, sure a storm was coming when the limb felt more stiff. He’d sat down at a park bench, thinking no one was watching as he moved to massage his leg, trying to rub knots out of the tense muscle. 

In his apartment, he tended to alternately ice and heat it in order to keep the pain from getting too bad and to keep the swelling down. An ice pack and a heating pad worked well, but he also still rarely had the time or the inclination to spend over an hour pressing something to the leg when he’d gotten so good at ignoring the problem in the first place. The slight commotion in the park helped, though, and he thought he’d have a minute to regain his composure as he grit his teeth through the pain. 

So focused on what he was doing, Kaz hadn’t noticed more going on, hadn’t noticed until it was too late when someone spoke to him. “Fine.” He gritted out through clenched teeth, letting go of his leg even when it throbbed painfully. He suspected tomorrow would be a day spent working in bed - he’d be lucky if he could even manage to make it to his desk. He craned his neck, grabbing his cane again to try and return to a composed state and hide his discomfort, seeing that someone had run off that the boy had been trying to figure out. “Chasing ghosts?”

Something dark and unnerving curled in Danny’s gut, a tingling sensation that made its way from the teen’s toes all the way up his spine. Whether it was coming from the man in front of him, or the hooded figure that had escaped, Danny wasn’t sure, but he’d learned to trust those gut feelings pretty well. “Yeah,” He murmured offhandedly, eyes still searching over the space where the figure had disappeared to, “Something like that.”

His sister always told him that his hero complex would get him killed someday, but Danny rarely listened to Jazz, specifically when she was making a particularly logical argument, so why in the Hell would he start now? “Danny,” He said with an outstretched hand, freezing for only a moment when he eyed the cane. The last thing he wanted to do was offend the guy and get whacked in return, “You uh, see a lot of ghosts around here?” The joke hit a little too close to home, knowing that both Fenton parents were probably back at the house, working on some theory about specters and ectoplasm, and finding a way to embarrass Danny in public some more.

&

As a rule, student groups sucked. They were loud and messy and smelled like gym socks and roller rink pizza (so, also gym socks), and liked to heckle the guides and the animals and make everyone’s day a little bit worse. This morning’s group had been some thirty eight year olds, at least two of whom had been caught trying to throw pennies and erasers into the touch tank. One particularly vicious little girl had called Percy an old fishy loser, which felt really great. He’d wanted to smile and say, Actually, Kaelynn, I’m a young fishy loser, but then she’d cry and he’d get in trouble with The Moms, who he feared even more than the kids.

So, yeah, student groups sucked.

Students themselves, though? Not all bad. Danny, for one, was pretty much nearly Percy’s age, and reminded him an awful lot of himself. It wasn’t just the trouble with school, though, been there, done that, too (hello, kicked out of military school twice). It was the energy, the humor, the knee-deep sarcasm hiding something very, very tired and a little bit sad. Danny was always a welcome sight, especially at work, and would usually warrant as much of Percy’s undivided attention as he could muster.

But, just as Danny entered, Percy’s phone lit up.

There she was again. 

wise girl. 

Probably another insult. He smiled at the name. Annabeth, her blonde hair and violent grey eyes, and– and. They barely knew each other, but she felt like the first puzzle piece falling into place. Maybe the only one he needed.

And then Danny was there, calling him out, and Percy blushed. “It’s no one,” he said. “Just a– don’t worry about it.” He shoved his phone into his pocket, message unread. His felt warm, and he ran his hands across his face, shaking his head. “Right, yeah, no, dude–dude. That’s awesome. I knew you could do it.”

Danny had been surprised to make another friend - after all, it had just been the trio since elementary school; Sam, Tucker, and himself. Somehow, Danny seemed to just rub most people his age the wrong way ( on top of having the world’s most embarrassing parents ever ), no matter how hard he tried, so it was nice to connect with someone outside of his best friends. The worry that maybe Percy just put up with him out of pity seemed to persist, but the guy hadn’t told him to buzz off yet, so Danny pretty much just keep counting himself lucky.

“I don’t know, man. You’ve got that dopey look on your face - the one Tuck tells me I have when I look at Paulina.” Attempting to wiggle his eyebrows and failing miserably, Danny props himself up on the smaller counter, clearly intended to be chest height for a small child, “Are you holding out on ––”

Percy’s reiteration of his newest achievement had him stalling out, a triumphant shrug of his shoulders and a grin plastered to his face, “It was close, I’m not going to lie to you - Mr. Lancer was going to try and keep me back, but I practically begged my physics teacher to boost my grade from a D-minus to a D-plus, and eventually, after I practically laid on the ground and cried, he gave in, so my GPA was high enough!” 

With a fist pump, Danny kicked his feet, shaking his head at his own dramatics.

Danny leans back against the bench with a tired sigh, relief coming over him for the first time in an hour or two. He’d been getting these persistent headaches, strong enough to make his vision blurry and his eyes water, when they hit hard enough. When his aching eyes do close, scenes of neon green and blue play behind his eyelids, and everything seems to fade away to static for just a moment.

He doesn’t know what they mean, but the thought of going home to his mom and telling her about them makes him feel uncomfortable. The last thing Danny needs is the one person he knows he can trust with anything thinking that he’s weird too. 

The scary part was, they were becoming more frequent. They’d started out as glimpses, here or there, and have now grown into something else entirely. Still, a nagging voice in his head begged him not to let anyone know. Hell, he wasn’t sure that if he told his parents, they wouldn’t believe he was possessed by a ghost or something. They were pretty embarrassing already, the last thing he needed was his dad hanging out in his room at 2:00am with an EMF reader above his head.

Brushing dark hair out of his eyes, Danny spots someone not too far from him, just at the edges of Echo Park. The person is walking one direction, and a stranger the opposite, before they collide - just a second of rough treatment - before the stranger is off, walking faster than they came. Danny’s up in an instant, eyes narrowed and a dangerous blue. “Hey!” He shouts after the person, retreating quickly with their hood up, before turning his attention to someone who looked vaguely familiar, in just his passing glimpse.

It had finally happened for him –– Danny was graduating high school. It was crazy, that it had taken so long (He’d been held back for a year, sometime in Junior High, but for the life of him, no matter how many times he’d asked his parents why, he could never seem to remember it just a few short hours later), but it felt like a weight was finally going to be off of his chest.

The door to the aquarium chimed with his entrance, a familiar calling since he’d done the same routine nearly every day for the last year, and Danny through his bag to the floor, more than happy to rid himself of it. “You’re never going to believe it - they tried to tell me I had to stay for some rehearsal thing after school today! The calendar says ‘seniors’ last day’ and they want to milk that time for all that it’s worth. Nutcases, right ––”

Danny stopped in his tracks, seeing Percy somewhat distracted, smiling at his phone, not a care in the world. It was rare, when the guy took a moment to himself and actually like, smiled. A symmetrical grin slowly rose to the teen’s face too. “I’m totally not taking this to heart, but – this is slightly underwhelming.” The youngest Fenton peered over his friend’s shoulder, “Who’s got you so distracted?”