#dark writes

His mother hummed thoughtfully, but didn’t say anything. Neither did his dad, though he did frown.

“Of course not. Both other half-ghosts you refer to had to develop their own cores, growing them from scratch. You, on the other hand, absorbed yours from another ghost, thus stepping past the initial growing pains.”

Danny felt his heart stop. His core freeze. Thoughts grinding to a halt.

“Excuse me?” he blurted out, automatically, incredulously. “Are you telling me I killed another ghost?”

“No, no.” Frostbite lifted his hands, voice dropping into a soothing tone. “Although it is not unheard of for proper ghosts to fuse together into one, this sort of core-binding is only possible with blob ghosts.”

“And blob ghosts aren’t truly sentient, right?” Maddie hummed in thought, saving Danny the effort of trying to figure out what, exactly, Frostbite meant. “They’re barely more than free-floating ectoplasm, which is common here in the Ghost Zone.”

Frostbite nodded. “Indeed. A more developed ghost couldn’t have been absorbed in such a manner, so there is no need to worry, Great One.”

“That’s a relief.” Danny heaved a sigh. It still felt weird to imagine that his core wasn’t originally his, that it had developed separately, but, well. At least he hadn’t killed someone in the process.

“Although,” Frostbite suddenly started, interrupting Danny’s thoughts. “It is very unusual.”

“Oh?” Danny felt like slapping himself. Why did he ask for more information? He regretted asking in the first place. Knowing more wasn’t going to make himself feel better, was it?

But his parents would probably have asked if he hadn’t. Right? Yeah, definitely.

“Typically, ghosts require some form of connection to be present to bind together. Two fully-formed ghosts can fuse over shared goals or other such traits, but such a thing isn’t possible with a blob ghost. To absorb one of those, a more tangible connection is required.”

Frostbite eyed Danny, but he couldn’t quite read the emotion in his eyes. “Obviously the power of the Ghost Portal let you bypass the part where you weren’t a ghost yourself—” or perhaps he was dying and turning into a ghost anyway, “—but that connection would’ve still been necessary.”

But how. What? Who? The blob ghost must’ve come from somewhere, something, someone, but Danny couldn’t imagine, couldn’t think—

“Oh, that makes sense,” Maddie said, voice casual. “Danny absorbed his twin in the womb, so it makes sense for him to do the same thing with his twin’s ghost.”

“What?” Danny blurted out, turning to her in shock. “I had a twin? A twin I absorbed?!”

“Well, yes.” Maddie nodded, looking at him in confusion. “Of course, it happened fairly early on, so he wouldn’t have become a real ghost. But the impression of it, the potential of a twin gained and lost, that would’ve been enough form a blob ghost.” She turned to Frostbite. “Right?”

“Right.” Frostbite nodded back. “And yes, a connection like that would have worked quite well. A connection of blood and spirit, an action repeated. An echo between life and death.”

Danny shook his head. Well. Jerked his head side to side. “Are you serious? Why are you all acting like this is—this is normal, totally expected?”

“I thought you knew, honey.” Maddie was frowning at him now, confusion deepening. “Weren’t you the one who started using it as a cover?”

“What?” He blinked at her, then realized. Yes. Yes, he had been using that as an excuse for the resemblance between Danny Fenton and Phantom. A dead twin, a ghost which looked just like the living Danny. “I didn’t—I didn’t think it was real.”

“Oh.” She shot an uncertain look at Jack, then Frostbite, then turned to him. “Well. You know now?”

Danny stared at her, incredulous. Then shook his head. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I do now.”

“No,” she admitted, slowly, drawing the word out. “I think that that might’ve been easier on both of us.”

“Figures.” Danny sighed, shook his head, then stepped aside to let her in. “Sit down, this sounds like it’s gonna be a long story.”

“Probably.” She grimaced, but slipped past him. God, had he really been this small at that age? Surely not. Clearly Dani wasn’t him, so he should stop comparing the two of them.

Danny followed her into the living room, where she had claimed one of the comfortable chairs. He rolled his eyes but followed her example, sitting down in a different chair. He probably should’ve invited her up to his room, but something about that felt… weird. Not to mention that she was a stranger, no matter how much she reminded him of, well, himself.

Besides, his parents were down in the lab. They probably wouldn’t surface for hours, if not days.

“Okay, so…” Dani trailed off, then fell silent. Licked her lips. “Um. I’m not sure what to say. Or, uh, how to say it?”

He groaned. “Just. Anything. Who are you and why do you look like me?”

“Well, that’s easy,” she said optimistically. “That’s because I’m your clone!” She paused, before tacking on. “Supposed to be, anyway.”

“My—What?!” Danny’s eyes darted over her again, taking in every detail of her appearance. How, from the moment he saw her, his first thought had been himself. “Who would even—” He felt himself pause. “No, stupid question. Vlad, of course.”

She nodded, grimacing. “Yeah. He was going to age me up further, I think to your age, but.” She gestured at herself, then the room. “I kind of ran away before he could get around to that.”

“Why?” Danny rubbed a hand over his face. “Not that I blame you, because I’m sure I would’ve done the same, but…”

“I… Spur of the moment decision, kinda.” She shrugged, eyes darting away and back again. Posture hunched. “He was… I guess I was always a failure, but he pretended I wasn’t. And I… I believed him.”

He waited for a moment for her to continue, but she stayed silent. “Well, you didn’t know any better, did you?” He shrugged awkwardly. Encouraging people wasn’t exactly his thing. “I can’t blame you for that.”

Dani huffed, but shot him a wry smile. “Thanks. Um. Anyway. I overheard him talking, or, uh, muttering? I wasn’t going to stay, but then I heard my name, and, well.” She shrugged, that same wry smile on her face. “So I stuck around, listening in. And I… he…”

She sighed, deep and rattling, her shoulders dropping down. “He was talking about what a failure I was, how I hadn’t turned out right at all. What a shame it was that I was the best clone so far, when I was so far off of the mark.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” She snorted, shaking her head. “At least there wasn’t much space for self-delusion that he didn’t really mean it.”

Danny snorted as well. “At least it got you away from him, huh?” Away from Vlad, and right into Danny’s hands. Well, his house, at least. Shit. What was he supposed to do now? Gaslight his parents that he had always had a little sister? He couldn’t exactly let an eight-year old run loose, even ignoring the fact that she looked exactly like a younger him.

“Ghost powers definitely helped.” She winked, coyly, then froze suddenly. It took Danny a moment to realize what she had heard. The metal door of the lab. In the kitchen. Uh oh.

Before he could decide what to do—get Dani away and into his room, probably—his mom appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. The light glinted off of the red goggles on her forehead, drawing his eye right to her furrowed brows.

“Danny, sweetheart, who’s this?”

Danny opened his mouth, ready to deliver some sort of perfect excuse. “My clone, apparently,” came out instead. He grimaced, but didn’t refute it. Stupid mouth. One day he should learn how to think before speaking.

“Your… clone,” Maddie repeated, slowly, eyes moving between him and Dani. She moved further into the room, clearly taking in the same similarities that Danny had immediately—instinctively—noticed. Jack appeared behind her, looming in the doorway, but stayed silent as Maddie moved. “So this would be…”

“Danielle,” Dani supplied quietly, when Maddie trailed off, clearly waiting for an answer. “Um. Dani with an I.”

Maddie nodded, stopping next to the couch. Still facing the chairs in which Danny and Dani were sitting. “I see. And where did you come from, Dani?”

Dani shot him an uncertain look, but Danny honestly didn’t have any great excuses either. He shrugged back, but took the lead when she stayed quiet. “Vlad’s, apparently.”

“Vlad.” Maddie frowned again, eyes locked onto Dani. “Vlad Masters?”

“Who else,” Dani muttered, shoulders hunched up again. Danny wasn’t sure if it was nerves, defensiveness, or something else.

“Vladdie?” Jack echoed, finally coming into the room, and clearly startling Dani with his loud voice, based on the way she jerked in her chair. “The V-man cloned Danny?”

Now how was he supposed to explain this without revealing his secret in the process? Well, here goes nothing. “Uh, yeah,” he agreed, shrugging again. “He’s been super weird pretty much since we met him during that reunion. I didn’t think it was this bad, though.” He nodded towards Dani. “No offense to you, Dani.”

“None taken.” She offered him a shaky grin. “It is pretty weird to clone someone without their permission. Or knowledge.”

“Or consent,” Maddie chimed in, voice dark and expression darker. “Danny, why didn’t you say anything before?”

Because he couldn’t really say anything without revealing he was half-ghost, or that Vlad was half-ghost, or both. “Well, he never really did anything.” Bold lie. Speed past it fast, Fenton, before she catches on. “Besides, what was I supposed to say? ‘Vlad gives me the creeps’? Nothing would be done.”

He shrugged loosely, trying to stamp down the fluttering in his stomach—and his core. He didn’t like lying to his parents, but if he could just get through this conversation with his secret intact…

“There was nothing specific?” Maddie was still frowning, but at least she was moving to sit down on the couch now. Jack was still looming near the doorway, uncharacteristically quiet, but Danny would take what he could get and worry about the rest later. “Nothing he did or said?”

“No. Well, actually…” He grimaced. “He keeps calling me Daniel even if I ask him to call me Danny. But I think that that’s just a smug ‘I know better than you’ thing, not a transphobic thing.”

On the other chair, Dani was now also frowning at him. What? What did he do?

“That’s not even your name.” Maddie huffed, shaking her head, frown finally lightening. “Ugh, that man.”

“What do you mean,” Dani finally cut in, having apparently lost her patience with waiting. “With, um. The transphobia thing? What does that mean?”

Oh. No, of course, that made sense. Who would’ve taught an eight year old clone about that stuff? Certainly not stuffy old Vlad.

“Danny-boy wasn’t always Danny-boy!” Jack appeared out of nowhere, enthusiastically clapping a hand on Danny’s shoulder. He startled, just barely tamping down the instinct to phase away. He hadn’t even noticed his dad move further into the room, distracted by his thoughts. Sloppy. “He used to be a girl! Or at least, we thought he was, until he told us otherwise! Right, Danny-o?”

“Yeah,” he grunted, rolling his shoulder with a grimace. “I changed my name to Danny years ago, and most people don’t even remember my old one, but people acting weird about calling me Danny is still a bit of a red flag.”

“Oh.” Dani blinked, clearly processing. “I guess that that makes sense.”

In what way? Was Dani also trans? Did cloning copy transgender-ism? “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, expression clearing up. “Now I understand why I was the most stable clone. Vlad thought something went wrong with me because I turned out female, but clearly he was messing up the other clones by forcing them to be male from birth.”

“Other clones?” he repeated. Then processed the rest. “Wait. The most stable? What—”

“Uh, yeah.” She shrugged, face falling. “They. We… I guess cloning isn’t as easy as Vlad thought. So we’re all somewhere along the lines of ‘somewhat unstable’ to ‘very unstable’. And, um. We melt.”

“Melt.” He felt like a moron, just repeating her words. But. Well. What was he supposed to say?

Luckily his mom figured it out before him. “Danielle, sweetheart, what do you mean by melt?”

“We, so.” She frowned, clearly weighing her words. Shot him a quick glance, though he couldn’t figure out what the look in her eyes meant. “Vlad used ectoplasm in the cloning process. So, um. We—us clones—we’re all kind of… half-ghost? And if we use up too much energy, one way or another, we kind of… melt back into ectoplasm?”

Oh. So that is what that look meant.

Also, yikes.

“Well, that makes sense,” Maddie muttered, a thoughtful frown on her face. “Humans and ghosts are biologically entirely different. There is no overlap whatsoever. Or at least, that’s what we always assumed.”

“It must be more possible than we thought, though,” Jack pointed out, previous enthusiasm muted again. “Otherwise she couldn’t even exist, let alone be this stable.”

Maddie nodded, frown still in place. “Right. But how do we stabilize her further? We can’t exactly re-alive her, not if she has been part ghost since birth…”

Danny turned to shoot Dani a look, but she didn’t seem overly bothered by the conversation topic. On the other hand, if she was used to Vlad, he supposed that his parents weren’t that bad.

Wow, now that was a thought he hadn’t had before.

“Well, we can’t exactly make her less alive either, Jack.” Maddie’s dry voice cut through Danny’s thoughts, and he snapped back to the conversation. Right. The important conversation. About half-ghosts.

“Maybe there’s a perfect mid-point,” Jack suggested instead, while Danny tried to figure out where the conversation had gone while he wasn’t paying attention. “Where both ghost and human balance each other out?”

“But wouldn’t that still put too much strain on the body?” Maddie’s gaze had shifted to Dani, but it didn’t seem like she was really looking at her. “If her human and ghost halves are constantly battling for dominance, isn’t that why she’s unstable now? Unless balancing them somehow gets them to co-exist, which doesn’t make sense…”

Wait. Are they really… trying to help Dani? Not by making her ‘normal’, by making her fully human, but by finding some way she can exist as half-ghost?

Would that… also go for him? Or only for Dani because she was essentially born half-ghost?

Does it matter? He knows what a stable half-ghost looks like. If him staying quiet about his own secret makes it harder to help Dani… what kind of shitty brother would that make him?

“Actually,” he blurted out, interrupting his parents’ conversation and immediately drawing three pairs of eyes to him, “I’m also half-ghost?”

He licked his lips, stalling for a moment. “So. Um. That’s actually why Vlad is interested in me, and tried cloning me, I guess. Because I’ve been half-ghost since the accident with the Portal.” He paused, then hesitantly tacked on, “Sorry.”

“Oh, honey, no.” Maddie reached out a hand, then paused when he automatically shifted away. “We’re sorry you felt like you couldn’t tell us before.”

A massive hand landed on his head. This time, Danny couldn’t repress his automatic response, and he phased through the hand—and the chair—before he could stop himself.

Grimacing, he looked up from where he had landed on the floor, meeting Jack’s startled eyes. “Um. Sorry.”

“Don’t be, Danny-boy.” Jack held out a hand, and Danny cautiously took it. “My bad for startling you.”

Danny let himself be pulled to his feet, then suddenly found himself trapped in Jack’s arms. Oh. A hug. Right. It had been… a while.

He let himself sag against his dad, melting in the embrace. And then stiffened. Right. Melting. Dani. Focus, Danny. Priorities.

“Anyway, so.” He cleared his throat, and waited for his dad to release him again. “So, we can compare my stats to Dani’s and see why she’s unstable. Right?”

“Right,” his mom agreed. She was looking at him like he might flee any moment, but. But at least she wasn’t looking at him he was her dead son. Or a despicable ghost. This was just. Just normal emotions.

“So, um.” He gestured at the kitchen door, vaguely. “Let’s. Go do that?”

Quietly he snuck closer, just to take a closer look. Sure, maybe his parents had invited someone over, but they had a guest room for a reason! And no one would confuse his room for the guest room, would they?

He looked down at the dirty laundry littering his floor. No, definitely not.

Closer up, he realized the person was about the same size as him. And their hair was definitely similar to his own, jet black and messy, and it seemed to be about the same length. Kind of difficult to tell with them lying down, with the blanket tugged up nearly to their eyes.

Squinting, Danny considered his options. He should probably wake them up and ask them what they were doing in his room, but how? Just talk? Give them a poke? Yell? Hm, decisions, decisions.

Well, the fact that they hadn’t woken up yet suggested that just talking at a regular volume probably wouldn’t do the trick. And while he kind of felt like yelling about this whole situation, that was also really gonna sour the incoming interaction.

He sighed to himself. Guess he would try it the normal boring way.

Reaching out, he jabbed them in the shoulder. A little forcefully, but not overly so.

The person in his bed jolted, slapped his hand away, and then glared at him with viciously green eyes. Glowing green eyes.

Instinctively, automatically, Danny stepped back, raising his fists in the same motion. The guy in his bed—the guy with his face, what the hell—blinked in seeming surprise, the green in his eyes fading to blue.

Reluctantly, Danny shifted into a slightly more casual pose, slowly dropping his fists. The… clone? (again?) didn’t seem violent. Just… sleepy, which made sense, Danny supposed. He usually wasn’t at his best either, if someone woke him up while he was dead asleep.

The clone groaned, dropping from his half-raised position back onto the bed. He raised one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Really? Another fucking clone?”

“Hey!” Danny frowned at him. “You’re the clone here. This is my room, and that’s my bed you’re in.”

The… other Danny? misguided clone? Whatever. The other guy dropped his hand again, twisting his head to look at Danny again. “What are you talking about? This is my room.”

“Man,” Danny muttered, probably not quiet enough if the other one was half-ghost as well, “where  did Vlad get this guy from?”

That got the other guy awake enough to push upright. “What did you just say?”

Well, that’s a confirmation on the enhanced half-ghost senses. “Nothing,” Danny answered, offering a shit-eatingly false grin.

“No, no, I definitely heard Vlad’s name in there.” The maybe-clone was sitting up now, swinging his legs off of the side of the bed. His bare feet settled on the floor. The guy was even dressed like him, though he had at least taken off his shoes and socks. “Why do you think Vlad was involved with my…” he paused, clearly trying and failing to find the right words, “my… me.”

Danny snorted, shaking his head. “You’re kidding me. I mean, honestly. The whole,” he gestured vaguely, “Danielle situation.”

“Right,” the other guy said, slowly, drawing out the word. “The Danielle situation. Where a young, unstable, female clone was in our room. And we had to help her out. That Danielle situation.”

“Uh. Yeah.” Danny squinted at the other guy. “Did Vlad somehow figure out how to clone memories, or something?”

“Well, that’s a worrying possibility.” Worrying enough that it finally got the other guy to get out of bed, yawning as he did so. “I definitely feel like I’m the real Danny Fenton.”

“So do I, though,” Danny countered, crossing his arms. “If this is a case of Vlad copying memories, how would we even check which one of us is the real Danny?”

Other Danny hummed in thought, then shrugged. “I mean, realistically one of us would start melting, right? Because if Vlad had figured out how to keep a clone stable he wouldn’t send him here, he would keep him as his son. That was the whole point of the cloning thing, I think.”

“So, what, we’re just gonna keep trucking with two Dannies until one of us destabilizes?” Danny asked skeptically, raising his eyebrow. Because he was pretty sure he was the real Danny, which meant that the other one would surely destabilize sooner or later.

“Why not?” Other Danny shrugged again. “We seem to have identical memories, we’re identical in appearance, we can easily share. Plus, how often do we get into situations that would be much easier if we just had a second us. We can share this life.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong about that. “And I guess if we need the backup of a second Phantom in a fight we can always lie about the other being a duplicate.”

“I mean, that’s basically the truth anyway,” the other Danny pointed out. “A clone is basically just a technological duplicate, isn’t it?”

Danny snorted. “I don’t think it works that way. But hey, why the hell not. You’ve got a deal.” He held out his hand.

The other took it, an easy smile on his face. “Great. Glad we don’t have to get in a fight about which one of us is real.”

“Eh, we can always do that later.” Danny released the other one’s hand. “Although we probably need some kind of nicknames or something. Because we can’t both be Danny, and if we have to pick which one of us gets to stay Danny we will get into that fight.”

“Hm, true.” Probably-maybe-clone-Danny thought that over for a moment. “Well, I guess we can decide that while Sam and Tucker chew us out over this situation.”

Danny grimaced at the reminder. “Yikes, you’re right. Better get that over with ASAP.”

“It’s like you’re reading my mind.” Other Danny winked at him, then transformed into Phantom in a flash of light. “Race you?”

“Oh, you’re on.” Danny let his own transformation wash over him, hissing when the possible-clone shot off before he was done. “Hey! False start!”

---

The door clicked shut behind Trevor, and he looked at the people already in the room. The Fake AH Crew were a fearsome presence, even if he had already been accepted into their midst. Him, Jeremy, standing by his side, and Matt, safe at home.

“Finally,” the big man himself, Geoff Ramsey, sighed, waving the two of them further into the room. “Come on, grab a seat. We’ve been waiting forever.”

“Well, you could’ve sent the address a little earlier than five minutes beforehand,” Jeremy snarked back, then immediately went pale as they realized what they’d done.

But Jack Pattillo, the crew’s second, just grinned back. “I like these guys. We’re keeping them, right?”

“We hired them already, I sure fucking hope so.” Geoff shot her a tired look, beckoning them inwards. “Come on dickheads, go sit down.”

“You already gave them the address to our apartment anyway,” Michael Jones pointed out, leaning back in his chair. “Bit late to tell them to fuck off now.”

“Unless we killed them,” Jack said, fake-casually.

“Please don’t.” Trevor pulled back a chair so he could sit down, and saw Jeremy doing the same from the corner of his eye. “I like being alive, personally.”

Jack hummed thoughtfully. “And it’s just the two of you, right?”

“Us, and Matt back home,” Jeremy answered dutifully, shifting in their seat to look more casual than they likely felt. “We’re all sharing the same apartment.”

“Right,” she said, a slight crease between her brows. Trevor couldn’t place its meaning. He knew it wasn’t something about the three of them living together—the crew had a similar living situation—but he didn’t know what else. Maybe that Matt, as the hacker, was staying home instead of coming over to meet the rest of the crew? Maybe they should’ve brought him here, and then back home to his set-up?

“Anyway, Geoff, go ahead and tell us the plan before you burst.”

He heaved a gusty sigh. “Yes, Jack, thank you. If we can all please focus on the job instead of the new hires?” Geoff looked around the room, then nodded resolutely. “Good. Here’s what we’re doing—"

---

Lindsay shifted slightly, leaning against their car, fingers rattling against the side of their phone. On its screen a baking video played, which they were half paying attention to. Well. Maybe a little more than half. That was fine! They could multi-task.

It had been a few weeks since their new crew members, Trevor and Jeremy, had joined. They were glad for it—the two of them had been a lot of fun to have around, and had come out of their shells quickly. Trevor looked so serious and dry but had quickly shown himself to have quick wit and a delightful weirdness to him, and Lindsay wouldn’t say no to having another non-binary crewmember around, especially one as fun as Jeremy.

Not to mention the sheer chaos those two had introduced by mentioning someone called “Matt”, who apparently lived with them, and then never saying anything else about him. Well. They thought Matt was a him. Quite frankly, they didn’t know anything about this ‘Matt’, outside of the fact that he—they?—lived with Trevor and Jeremy.

The sound of a car door thrown shut made them look up, automatically pausing the video on their phone. Speak of the devil.

Trevor threw the other door of the car shut, turning to Jeremy. “Did you give Matt water before we left?”

“Yeah,” Jeremy confirmed, shouldering their bag. “He was sleeping on the desk again when I went in.”

“He’s gonna hurt himself one of these days doing that,” Trevor grumbled, shaking his head. “He has a perfectly fine bed!”

“But why sleep in a bed if you can sleep on a desk?” Jeremy grinned, and Trevor just clicked his tongue in response as the two of them came up to Lindsay. “Hey Lindsay. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

They stuffed their phone into their pocket, the newly gained information running through their mind. “It’s fine, that’s the downside of not having you guys in the apartment yet.”

It all made sense now! Obviously Matt wasn’t a person who Trevor and Jeremy were keeping in the dark—or had informed without telling the crew. Matt was a pet. And, by the sound of it, he might’ve been a cat, even! What other pet would sleep on desks?

“True, true.” Trevor nodded at the car they were still leaning against. “Are we driving further on from here?”

“Nah, it’s just around the corner.” They pushed themself away from the car, and mentally shoved the newly gained revelation away as well. Excitement about cats would have to wait until after the job. But! They would definitely bring it up with the rest. If they invited Trevor and Jeremy into the apartment with them, obviously the two would bring their cat, and then the crew would finally have their long-awaited pet!

And Gavin would be thrilled if they gained a crew cat!

---

“You can’t just keeping saying he’s a cat without proof, Lindsay!”

“Why not? It’s the truth!” They waved their hands around, gesturing wildly. “Besides, what proof? They said it, isn’t that enough?”

“Did they say Matt is a cat, though?” Gavin pointed out, frowning. He didn’t think Lindsay would lie about this on purpose, but, well. Sometimes things happened.

A lot of times things happened. This crew really wasn’t good at clear communication.

They rolled their eyes. “As good as. But if you don’t believe me, ask yourself.” They pointed. “See, there’s Jeremy.”

He followed their finger and, indeed, there was Jeremy. Gavin waved at them, “Oi, Jeremy! Come over for a sec, will you?”

“Uh, yeah, I got a moment.” They came over, looking between him and Lindsay. “What’s up, Gav?”

“You have a cat, right?” Lindsay asked, grinning at Jeremy. “Can we see a picture?”

Jeremy blinked, visibly confused. “Yeah…? I mean, sure.” They pulled their phone out of their pocket, swiftly unlocking it and swiping through the gallery.

“Let’s see… Oh, this is a good one.” They turned the phone around, showing the two of them the screen. On it was a photo of a longhaired tabby, lazing on a cat bed. “One of the few times I’ve been him actually using that cat bed.”

“Oh, what a cutie!” Lindsay complimented, adoration heavy in their voice. And Gavin had to agree. It was a very cute cat. He… He really kind of missed having a cat. Unfortunately neither he nor Lindsay had been able to convince Geoff to get a shared crew cat for the apartment. Or any kind of pet, really. Geoff kept countering that having the lot of them was basically the same as having pets.

“He’s great,” he chimed in. “Thanks Jeremy. If you guys ever move in, will you bring him?”

“That’s the plan.” Jeremy pocketed their phone again, looking between the two of them. “Uh. Was that all?”

He offered an awkward grin. “Yeah, sorry. We were just curious.”

“Ah, that’s fine. I wasn’t in a rush anyway.” Jeremy inclined their head. “But I’ll get going then. Have a good day, Gav, Lindsay.”

“You too! Thanks for showing us your cat!” Lindsay waved them goodbye, and they watched as Jeremy left. “See, I told you.”

Michael snorted, still lounging on a chair behind them. “Yeah Gav, they told you. That’s what you get for doubting Lindsay.”

“Like you believed them,” Gavin countered, rolling his eyes. “Come on. It’s not my bloody fault this crew is rife with miscommunication.”

“Well, not this time.” Lindsay pulled a haughty expression, looking down on him. “Next time, you’ll believe me right from the start.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright,” he agreed easily. “Next time, no matter how ridiculous, I won’t doubt you.”

---

“Ugh,” Geoff grumbled, pulling the next sheet of paper towards him. He had hired an entire team of people to deal with the boring bureaucratic part of running a criminal gang, and still he got tons of paperwork to deal with.

Stupid. Why had he ever agreed to this stupid idea. He should’ve just made Jack boss. She never had to deal with this bullshit anymore. He would’ve made a great right-hand man to her!

He looked at the paper. Ah. Crew payroll. At least this was easy. Just check over it to make sure everything made sense, then sign off on it. Easy peasy.

Oh, yeah. This was the first payroll since they hired Trevor and Jeremy, wasn’t it? He’d have to take a good look at it, then, to make sure everything was right. He trusted the B-team to do everything right, but this would be just the right moment to sneak something in.

Yep, both of their new crew members had been added. Good, good. And. Uh.

“Huh,” he muttered, frowning at the sheet of paper. A third new name had joined the list. Right between Jeremy and Trevor was Matt. As in. Their cat, Matt? He’d even been given the same kind of payout as Jeremy and Trevor, as a new full-time crew member.

“That… makes no sense.” He heaved a sigh, then pushed himself up from his desk. He’d probably been working too long. Time to get a reality check from his beloved second.

Barely remembering to grab the crew’s payroll before leaving his office, he wandered over to the living room. There he found Jack and Michael, playing a game on the tv. Instead of looking what they were doing, he just held out the sheet of paper, blocking her view. “Jack.”

“Geoffrey,” she responded, leaning to the side to look around the paper. “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

“So am I.” He shook the paper, the sound of it lost over the noise of the tv. “Why are we paying a cat?”

“Huh?” She looked away from the tv for a moment, then swore as Michael cackled. “Why are you asking me? B-team takes care of all that stuff.”

Michael snorted over the sound of his mashing buttons on a controller. “That cat must be doing good work, Geoff.”

“Must be,” Jack agreed absent-mindedly, leaning a little further to the side. “Geoff, seriously, move.”

He looked between the two of them, then back to the sheet of paper. “Unbelievable,” he muttered, but stepped away. Apparently he was the only one in this goddamn crew who thought it was weird they were including a cat in their payroll.

Well. Whatever. He still had plenty of boring paperwork to work through. If he spent any time on figuring out this bullshit he’d just lose even more time to it. As long as that goddamn cat wasn’t earning more than the rest of the crew it wasn’t worth the hassle.

He dropped the paper back onto his desk and signed it with a flourish.

---

“—so we’re mostly casual about the stuff here,” Lindsay explained as they showed him the kitchen in the crew’s shared apartment. “Like, don’t touch anything that anybody signed, but otherwise it’s pretty much a free game.”

“Right.” Alfredo nodded. “Even though I don’t live here?”

“Well, it’s not like you’re the only one,” they pointed out, quirking an eyebrow at him. “Trevor and Jeremy have been with us for months and they’re still living in their own apartment. Besides,” they paused to give him a look, “you’ll probably lose your own stuff to the crew as well when you put it in there.”

“Fair enough.” He looked away at the rustling of a jacket to see Trevor coming up to them.

“You’re good taking care of Fredo’s introduction alone, right, Lindsay?” he asked as he pulled on his coat.

They hummed. “Yeah, I’ve got it.” Trevor nodded and turned around.

“Oh, and Trevor,” they interrupted him, waiting a moment for him to turn back around. “Please tell Matt he’s a good boy for me?”

“Yeah, of course,” Trevor agreed easily, nodding again. “I’ll head out then. See you two tomorrow.”

“See you,” Alfredo replied automatically, as he turned that conversational twist in his mind. Tell Matt he was a good boy…? Who the hell was Matt?

Lindsay, clearly picking up on his thoughts, shot him a wide grin. “Matt is Trevor and Jeremy’s cat, and he’s the main reason why they haven’t moved into the apartment yet. There’s a little more logistics involved in moving in two people and their cat, especially if all three are used to sharing a tiny apartment.”

“Right,” he agreed. That made sense. “And you just… ask them to tell their cat he’s a good boy for you?”

“Oh yeah, absolutely.” They shrugged, unrepentant. “That, or I ask them to give him a hug for me. Man, I can’t wait for them to move in. I really want to give that cat a pat myself.”

“You haven’t met him?” he asked skeptically, quirking a brow. “How do you know he’s a good cat?”

“All cats are good cats, duh.” They winked. “And I’ve seen photos, and heard the boys talking about him. Great cat.”

Well, fair enough. He couldn’t argue with that.

---

Jeremy dropped another empty box on the floor of Matt’s office. “There, do you think that’s enough?”

“Should be,” he agreed, spinning around on his chair. “If not we’ll have to grab another box or two. Do we have enough for the rest of the house?”

“Trevor is coming back with a few more boxes, that should do the trick.” They looked over the boxes littered around the office, some half-filled with stuff that could be packed away already. “You got us a storage box to put the house stuff in, right?”

Matt gasped dramatically. “Jeremy, you doubt me? I said I would take care of it and I did.”

“Just making sure,” they assured him, rolling their eyes. “You’re almost done with that hacking thing, right? So we can focus on packing afterwards?”

“Yeah, the last thing is running now. After that it’s just the finishing touches and that should be that.”

“Good, good.” The lock of their front door rattled, and Jeremy tensed for a moment before recognizing the sound of a key in the lock. “Hey Treh.”

“Hey Jer,” Trevor called back from the door, soon followed by the click of the door and then the sound of cardboard hitting the floor. “Thanks for letting me in.”

“No problem man,” they said, grinning at him as he walked in the office. “Everything went well?”

Trevor hummed. “Yeah. They’ll clear out a room for us tomorrow, and one for Fredo as well. Oh, also…”

He leaned over, patting Matt on the head. “That’s from Gavin. He asked me to tell you you’re a “good good boy”.”

“Oh.” Matt grinned wide, a pleased expression on his face. “Thanks. I should tell everyone thanks once we’re there. They’ve been so nice to us.”

“Especially to you,” Trevor said, clicking his tongue. “Maybe I want to be told I’m a good boy for once instead of always acting like the messenger.”

“You are a good boy, Trevor.” Jeremy grinned at him, even as they were connecting the dots in their head. Oh my god. The reason why everyone in the crew was acting so weird was because they thought Matt was a cat. That is why Lindsay and Gavin had asked to see their cat all that time ago.

Oh, this was just too funny! They would have to make sure that no one saw Matt during the move. It had been almost six months since they had joined the crew and no one had figured it out yet. If they kept that up while living in the same apartment…

They hastily shoved down their chuckles. Couldn’t let Trevor and Matt in on the joke. Their reactions would be so good if they found out at the same time as the crew.

“We should make sure Buddy stays in the office,” they pointed out, during the lull in conversation. “At least that first week or so, until he’s settled in.”

“Oh, yeah, good idea,” Trevor agreed, nodding. “Wouldn’t want him to get in anyone’s way.”

“Except mine, apparently,” Matt grumped half-heartedly. “But yeah. That way he won’t accidentally escape the apartment either. And having a familiar person and place will probably help.”

“Exactly.” Alright. Step one: complete. Oh, this was so exciting!

---

Lindsay reclined further in their chair, casually swiping at their phone screen to scroll. Opposite of them Trevor was sitting more neatly, but equally casual, leafing through a book. It had only been a few days since he and Jeremy had moved in, but already they wandered around the house like they had lived there for months.

Well, not entirely surprising, considering that they’d been around for months already, but still. The only sad part was that they hadn’t seen Matt yet. Apparently the cat was staying in their room for now.

They hear a door open and looked up automatically; Michael was supposed to be done soon with his job. But as they did so, they realized that’s not what they heard. The front door had a different sound to it, a click of the lock being undone and re-locked. This was the sound of one of the room doors.

Trevor looked up from his book as well, and together they watch a bedraggled long-haired man wander out of the hallway with bedrooms. The man, seeing them looking, waved as he headed towards the kitchen.

Before they can say anything, Trevor called out to him, “Make sure to grab a snack while you’re out there, Matt!”

“Yeah,” the man—Matt?!?—called back, “I was planning to.”

“Okay, just making sure.” And with that, Trevor just turned back to his book. Zero comment.

Lindsay looked back to the kitchen once more, taking in the man standing there. Long dark hair, big loose clothing, casually grabbing a snack to go with his refilled bottle of water.

Huh. Matt must be some kind of werecat, then. Sometimes a cat, sometimes a human person. But if no one had mentioned it clearly they didn’t want to talk about it, and, well. Lindsay wasn’t rude enough to ignore that.

Buuuut they can bring it up later when Gavin gets back. He would hear her out, no problem.

---

Alfredo grunted, blinking up at his ceiling. Not that he could see it in the dark, but still. Goddamn him.

No. Goddamn Lindsay and Gavin for those stupid damn stories. For days they’ve been telling everyone in the crew—bar Jeremy and Trevor—about Matt the cat not being an actual cat but a fucking werecat. Like, really?

But apparently the thought had wormed its way into his head anyway, because he can’t stop thinking about it now. He had started thinking that they’re pulling some kind of elaborate prank on him, because those two had moved in at the same time as him yet he hadn’t seen their cat in the past few days, but no, apparently not. Because today a long-haired brown cat had run out of their room, only to be grabbed by Jeremy and escorted back in, chastised for leaving. And Alfredo knew he heard Jeremy say the name Matt when they went into their room.

Ugh. Well, if he’s up he might as well grab himself a drink from the kitchen. It was—he looked at his alarm—way past midnight, so no one else should be up. That should save him from an awkward conversation.

He rolled out of bed, yawning widely and he pulled open his door. At least there was enough ambient light in the apartment itself that he didn’t need to turn on any lights. The last thing he needed now was to wake himself up even further with that bullshit.

But, really. A werecat? Their only evidence was that Lindsay had apparently seen Matt as a long-haired man, and that Trevor had greeted him by name. Gavin, despite the vehemence with which he agreed with Lindsay, apparently didn’t even have any proof himself. He just believed them without a doubt.

Unbelievable, Alfredo thought to himself, and then realized there was already someone in the kitchen just before he stepped inside.

He yelped, throwing his hand over his mouth immediately to muffle the sound.

On the other side of the open doorway the burglar(?) jerked, startled by the sound, almost dropping whatever they were holding in their hand. A… bottle? Huh.

“Oh my god,” the man gasped out, quiet as a whisper. “Alfredo, you scared the shit out of me.”

“What—?” he hissed back, automatically matching volume. What kind of intruder would say that? Or know his name?

“Just grabbing a drink,” the man held up the bottle of water. The… The long-haired man. Oh, no. No no no. “Sorry, I need to finish up some hacking stuff for tomorrow. Talk later?”

“Uh, yeah, sure man,” he replied automatically, taking in the stranger’s appearance. Fuck him. Lindsay had been right. There was the undeniable evidence: the man with long dark hair, matching the cat he’d seen exactly.

What the fuck.

He definitely should’ve stayed in fucking bed, fuck him.

---

Jeremy leaned back in their chair, watching the tv with the rest of the crew. The game they had been playing had turned extremely competitive, with plenty of yelling and screaming, and Jeremy had bailed so they could oversee the chaos.

Specifically, so they could see the incoming chaos Matt was about to bring, since the yelling was sure to draw him out.

They had been feeding the flames all week, and still no one had properly connected the dots. They had moved in while the rest of the crew was away on a sudden mission, and Matt had mostly been busy in his new office—their shared room—ever since.

There had been a close call a day or two ago, when Buddy had escaped from their room, but luckily Jeremy had been able to grab him and bring him back before Matt could. If those two had been seen together the game would’ve surely been over.

Honestly, luck had been on their side anyway. Lindsay had apparently seen him but assumed he was a werecat, of all things, and Gavin had just? gone with their assumption. For some reason. And then, a few days later, Alfredo had also seen Matt and, instead of refuting Lindsay’s assumption, and given in and gone along with them.

It was better than Jeremy could’ve planned themself. Absolutely brilliant.

Either way, things were surely coming to an end… because there came Matt. No one else had seen him yet, too focused on playing or watching the ongoing game.

He stood behind the couch, looming over Gavin, Michael, Geoff, and Jack. And then, completely unknowing of what he was about to unleash, very casually asked, “Hey guys, who’s winning?”

They were glad that they had braced themself, because the ensuing screaming was deafening. Even Trevor yelled, probably startled by everyone else. Matt himself jerked back several steps. Hell, Geoff startled so badly he threw himself off of the couch entirely, and Gavin had crawled half on top of Michael.

This was so good. They were so glad they had hung back to watch this happen.

“Hey Matt,” they casually greeted, ignoring the cacophony and barely holding in their laughter.

“See!” Lindsay yelled, suddenly, victoriously, pointing a finger at Matt. “See! I told you guys he was a werecat!”

“A what?” Matt blinked at them, even as Michael shoved Gavin off of his lap and onto Geoff, ignoring the resulting squawking. “Huh?”

Trevor twitched, blinking in confusion. “Yeah, what the hell are you talking about?”

No longer could they hold it in. Jeremy burst out in cackling laughter, and soon enough Matt begun chuckling along, cautiously.

“Get off me, idiot,” Geoff grumbled, pushing Gavin off of himself so he could get up. “Someone help me up.”

“You’re not that old, Geoffrey,” Jack complained, but offered him a hand anyway. “Can someone please explain to me what the fuck is happening?”

“I honestly couldn’t tell you.” Matt shook his head, looking over at Trevor, and then at Jeremy themself, still laughing. “But I think I know who’s responsible for it.”

“Am not!” they immediately denied. “I just found out a week ago, before we moved in. And I haven’t even done anything! The stories fed themselves.”

Geoff found his balance standing up, then stared at Matt for a long moment. “Well,” he finally said, “I guess that this makes more sense than having a cat on the payroll.”

“You thought I was a cat?” Matt asked incredulously. Then, looking at the expressions of everyone around the room, he repeated, louder, “You all thought I was a cat?”

“Well! We all saw the bloody cat, didn’t we!” Gavin gestured wildly, still lying on the floor where Geoff had dumped him. “It just made sense!”

Matt blinked down at him. “The cat? You mean Buddy? You all thought I was Buddy?”

Lindsay gasped. “His name is Buddy? That’s adorable!”

“How did no one here realize?” Trevor blinked at everyone, wide-eyed. “For six months, none of you realized that Matt was a human, or that he was our hacker. Who did you guys think was doing all that work?”

“Uh.” Everyone looked over at Geoff, who shrugged. “I guess I didn’t really think about it. B-team probably hired someone, or something.”

Behind him on the couch, Jack groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Geoff. Really?”

“What? I was right, wasn’t I?” He gestured over at Matt. “Someone got hired to take care of it. All good!”

“I still can’t believe everyone in this crew thought I was a cat.” Matt shook his head. “I mean—Gavin, we’ve been texting for weeks.”

Gavin, in the middle of getting up from the floor, squawked defensively. “Well! I thought it was just Jeremy having a laugh, pretending to text as the cat! We just texted “meow” back and forth!”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Michael waved Gavin down. “So then why haven’t we seen the cat around?”

“Because he’s been in our room?” Matt shrugged, casually. “We didn’t want him to—Wait a second. Jeremy, you were the one to suggest keeping him in the room so no one would realize!”

“But you all agreed with my reasoning!” they countered, grinning widely. “It made sense!”

“Well, I think we should get to see the cat now. As compensation.” Lindsay opened their arms, as if expecting them to just place Buddy in their arms. “Come on.”

“Yeah, one sec.” Matt shook his head even as he turned around to go back to their room. Moments later he returned, Buddy lounging in his arms. “See? Not the same thing.”

Trevor leaned closer from his chair, exaggeratedly looking Matt over. “I don’t know Matt. You do look a lot alike.”

“Oh, fuck you, Trevor.”

---

Matt’s fingers stilled over the keyboard as he activated his new program’s test run. There, now he could just sit back and wait for a moment.

He still couldn’t believe that he worked as the Fakes’ hacker for six months without them knowing he was a human person. Six months! And the only people who had known he wasn’t cat were Jeremy, Trevor, and the B-team, apparently. Fucking unbelievable.

Well. Maybe a little believable, he supposed.

A knock on his door broke him out of his thoughts, and he spun around on his chair. “Come in, it’s open.”

“Heya Matt,” Lindsay greeted him as they came in, hands held strangely behind themself. “You got a minute?”

“Sure?” he answered cautiously, glancing back at his computer for a moment. “What’s up?”

“Here, I got you a little something!” They shoved the thing into his hands the moment he lifted them. Something soft and furry, and—

It was a cat plushy. A very cute, very fluffy plush cat.

He looked at the plush in his hands—so soft!—and then back at Lindsay, who cracked up into giggles.

“Thank you?” he said when they settled down some.

“It’s because we all thought you were a cat all this time.” They gestured at the plushy. “So it’s a little something to make up for it, since I’m the one who started it, I think.”

“Oh, well, it’s fine.” He tucked the plush closer to himself. It really was very nice to hold. “I mean. It’s kinda silly, but it’s hardly the worst thing that could’ve happened.”

“Yeah, well.” They shrugged. “It is pretty funny in hindsight. But I saw that plushy and I thought, hey, why not. Matt would probably like it.”

He smiled back at them. “I do, thank you.” He reached over, settling the plush on his desk next to his monitors. “And Lindsay? Thank you for the compliments and the hugs.”

They laughed, opening their arms. “Yeah, no problem man. You want a direct hug?”

“Well,” he said, drawing out the word as he got up out of his chair. “I’m not saying no to that.”

---

Jeremy leaned against a wall, quickly checking the clip in their pistol. They hoped they wouldn’t need to use it, but better to be prepared than to be caught off-guard.

“Oh, shit,” Matt muttered over the coms. “Uh. I said that wrong. My bad. You should’ve taken the right turn instead of the left.”

“Matt, you motherfucker,” Geoff snarled in the comm, clearly struggling to keep his voice down so they wouldn’t attract the attention of the police. “What the fuck do you mean you sent us the wrong way!”

“I was looking at the wrong thing, sorry!” He sounded genuinely apologetic, but it was clearly too late from the way Geoff was seething. “It’s fine. Just a little further. Follow the alley and then take a right at the end.”

They quickly continued walking, but Gavin was already reaching up to unmute his own mic. “Matt, how did you send us down the wrong way, Matt! It’s just left and right!”

“I was looking at the wrong thing! I said sorry, didn’t I!”

And, well. That was definitely the wrong thing to say. Jeremy threw a quick look over at Geoff, and found him visibly boiling over. They lowered their hand back to their pistol, but hopefully they were far enough away from the police that Geoff’s shouting wouldn’t alert them.

Jeremy tuned out of the screaming earful from Geoff—fed by Gavin and Jack—but kept half an ear on the comm. Just enough that he could hear Matt’s heavy sigh, followed by the quiet mutter of, “I miss being a cat.”

Despite themself they cracked up, laughter cutting off the shouting from the rest of the crew. Oops. Apparently they hadn’t muted their own mic. Everyone fell silent, watching them lose it over a comment none of them heard.

“What did we say that was so bloody funny?” Gavin asked, frowning at them.

“Sorry,” they apologized as they caught their breath again, shaking their head to get their focus back. “Just something Matt said. I’m good. Let’s go.”

They should’ve realized that that would just encourage Matt.

---

BK winced as Geoff’s voice echoed around her, bouncing off of the alley walls just off from his actual voice in her comm. She wished she could turn the comm off, but it wouldn’t do to miss critical instructions. Her admittance into the crew was too new to risk over something like this.

Besides, he wasn’t even yelling at her. And, despite the volume he was reaching, he didn’t even sound that mad. It was more theatrical than anything.

Probably.

She leant around the corner, spotting Trevor opposite of her, hidden behind a stack of boxes. Seeing her in turn, he gave her a thumb’s up and a reassuring smile, and she gladly returned the favor. See? All good.

A weary sigh rattled over the comm, and she winced again, this time in sympathy. It seemed that Matt, for all that he stayed back home as the hacker, caught a lot of Geoff’s ire. Maybe being away from the action made it worse, instead of better.

“Man,” the man in question huffed. “You were so much nicer when I was a cat.”

When—Huh? When he what?

Sudden gunshots interrupted her thoughts. Fuck. Alright, that thought was getting shelved until after the mission. Focus now.

The moment they returned back to the base, however, the topic immediately sprung back into her mind. As she put away her weapons and body armor, the thought kept circling around in her head. What did it mean?

Stepping back out into penthouse proper—the shared Crew home, for all she didn’t yet live there—she set out to get answers. But who could she ask?

Oh! There was Ky! She had been around a little longer than BK herself, so maybe she would know. At the very least, she wasn’t one of the old guard who would surely use this as a pranking opportunity.

“Hey Ky,” BK greeted the moment she was close enough. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure?” Ky turned to face her. “Did something happen during the mission?”

“Kinda.” She made a dubious face. “I heard Matt say something weird. Like… Not normal for this crew weird.”

Ky’s face dropped into a frown, and BK immediately followed it up with, “He said something about the rest of the crew being nicer when he was a cat?”

“He—Huh?” Ky’s expression cleared up immediately—and straight into confusion. “He said that?”

“Right?” BK threw up her hands, feeling exasperation flood through her. “I mean, what does that even mean?”

“When he was a cat…” Ky repeated, under her breath, brow creased. “When he was a cat…”

“Where did you hear that?” a hushed voice interrupted them, and BK jerked away—and saw Ky do the same opposite of her.

Standing next to them was Jeremy, wide-eyed and grim-faced. “Seriously! Be quiet about that, where did you hear that?”

“Matt muttered it over the comms earlier today.” BK felt her heart drop. What was going on in this crew? “Why? What did he mean?”

Jeremy looked around, shiftily, and BK found herself doing the same automatically. But the hallway was clear. Just the three of them.

“Look, Matt doesn’t like to talk about it, okay? Top secret. No one gets to know about it.” They met her eyes first, then Ky’s, deadly serious. “No one.”

“We wouldn’t tell!” Ky immediately exclaimed, then grimaced and lowered her voice. “Jeremy, we wouldn’t, you know that.”

They stared them down for a moment longer, then nodded, slowly. “Alright, fine. But I’m serious—Matt doesn’t want to talk about it. Keep it quiet, okay?”

“Promise,” BK said, and she heard Ky’s voice echoing with her own.

Jeremy nodded once more, then gestured for them to lean in closer. “Okay, so you two know that Trevor, Matt, and I were hired at the same time, yeah? We all lived in the same apartment at the time. And it took a while for us to be moved in because of it, so it took six months until we could move in, at the same time as Alfredo.”

“Right,” Ky said, slowly.

“And it was before we used long-distance comms, so no one but me and Trevor knew about Matt. For six months, none of them saw him, none of them heard his voice, nothing. Just the two of us, whenever we came home from our missions.”

BK couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, even more so than earlier that day. Six months with barely any human contact, and now he got yelled at by Geoff? Harsh.

“And just when we were about to move in, something big interrupted, and everyone had to focus on crew work. So the three of us, we just moved in on our own, without anyone seeing. And then Matt had to get back to work immediately again, having to stay in his new office—our shared room—the entire time.”

Add a little more sorry to that previous count. Yikes.

“So… A few days after we got there, we might’ve had a little unwanted break-out.” Jeremy shrugged their shoulders, a forced smile on their face. “And a cat came running out of his office. Which of course the others saw, and, well. You can imagine what went down.”

“But, wait.” Ky frowned, and BK felt her own mind trip over the vagueness with which Jeremy had told the story. “You mean that long-haired tabby that wanders around the base?”

“That’s the one,” Jeremy confirmed, smiling softly. “So, yeah. It’s a whole thing, and Matt doesn’t like to talk about it, so. Keep it quiet, yeah?”

“Of course,” BK assured them, even if she wasn’t quite sure what to keep quiet, exactly. “Thanks for telling us, Jeremy.”

They nodded. “Yeah, no problem. Better than letting the confusion cause problems. If there’s any pressing concerns, come ask me, okay?”

“We will,” Ky promised, and they watched Jeremy wander off before she leaned closer to BK. “So… Did you get what exactly was up with Matt?”

“No, not really,” she admitted, grimacing. “I guess he… was a cat? For a while? Somehow?”

“What, like a werecat?” Ky shook her head. “How does that even make sense?”

“Well, I don’t know!” BK snapped back, throwing her hands up. “Maybe he was cursed to be cat until the crew fixed him, or something!”

“Shh,” Ky hissed immediately, and they looked around quickly, but no one was nearby. Phew. “Well, then he might as well have been a cat originally, until he got turned into a human.”

BK hummed. “I don’t think that that works in the story. Wait. Or does it?”

“How would I know?” Ky fell silent, face twisting. “Oh my god. I’ve definitely petted him before.”

“You have?”

“Yes! Lindsay was holding him and making kissy faces and then told me I should give him a pat! How was I supposed to know otherwise!”

“Oh my god,” BK groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “This is too much.”

They stood there in silence for a moment, processing.

“We should tell Joe.” Ky met BK’s gaze when she snapped it over to her. “Okay, I know Jeremy said to keep it quiet, but! He’s going to find out eventually, and I’m not going to be able to keep quiet if I see him petting Matt.”

“Okay, true.” BK clicked her tongue. “Well. It should be okay right, to make sure he doesn’t ask Matt about it?”

“Yeah! Yeah, see, that makes sense,” Ky agreed nodding. “Alright. Let’s just. Go do that. Then.”

“Yes. Let’s, uh. Do that.”

---

Jeremy’s fingers tapped out a silent rhythm on the side of their phone. The moment they had stepped away from Ky and BK they had texted Lindsay to let them in on the shenanigans that had just been unleashed, and now they regularly texted with ideas on how to stoke the flames further.

Luckily Lindsay had agreed to keep it quiet from everyone else. Hopefully Ky and BK would do the same, because Jeremy really wanted to see everyone’s reactions when they found out the whole thing had happened again.

Although, admittedly, they were kind of curious to hear what those two had thought up. They had intentionally left their story very open, but still. The options were pretty limited, weren’t they?

Their phone buzzed in their hand, and they looked down. Ooh, a great new idea from Lindsay. Baking cookies shaped like cat treats to give to Matt? Brilliant!

Rapidly texted Lindsay back, they hadn’t even noticed Joe creeping up on them until he awkwardly cleared his throat.

Quickly dimming their screen, they looked up at him. “Hey Joe, what’s up?”

“You, uh.” He looked around the otherwise-empty room, the very picture of shifty, then continued at a lower tone. “You said we could ask you about Matt’s… thing.”

“His thing,” they repeated drily.

“Yeah, you know, the. Uh.” Joe stuck up a finger on each side of his head, wiggling them slightly. Like cat ears, Jeremy supposed. “You know?”

Pressing a fist to their mouth to stifle their laughter, they nodded slightly. “The cat thing? Yes. Who told you?”

“BK and—Uh. I mean. No one.” Joe cleared his throat again, awkwardly looking away. “I definitely found out on my own.”

“Sure.” They shook their head. Definitely something to keep in mind, the poor acting skills of some of the newer crew members. You never know when those kind of things come in handy! “You had a question about it?”

He nodded, shuffling a little on his feet. “Yeah, so he’s like, a werecat, right? Sometimes a human and sometimes a cat?”

Interesting. Was that the consensus that they had reached, or was that just what Joe had decided was the truth? Either way, they gestured for him to keep talking.

“So what I was wondering, um. Is he always fully human, or fully cat, or…?”

“What, like does he keep cat-like traits when he’s human, or something?” They quirked a brow at him, using the pause to quickly search through their brain. Stoke the flames, stoke the flames… “Hm. Well, you know how it is with weres: never fully one or the other.”

“So he’s like…” Joe gestured vaguely, like he was trying to grab at concepts he couldn’t reach. “A little cat?” he settled on, weakly.

“Oh yeah, for sure” they said, casually reclining on their chair. “Haven’t you noticed how he’s always prowling the base at night? That’s the were-zoomies.”

They watched Joe mouth the word ‘were-zoomies’, stifling the grin that threatened to break out on their face. Yes. Yes. Go on, fall for it.

“Right,” Joe said, slowly, like he was testing the word. “That makes sense. Uh. Sorry for bothering you with this.”

“It’s fine,” they assured him, flapping their hand. “Just make sure to keep it quiet from the rest, yeah? Especially Matt, he doesn’t like talking about it much.”

“Uh huh.” Joe nodded. “And I guess you’d know best anyway, since you’ve known him longest.”

“Exactly,” they agreed easily. “Was that all?”

“Yeah. Uh, yeah.” He shifted on his feet again. “Thanks, Jeremy. Again.”

“No problem,” they repeated, even as Joe turned around to walk away. They waited another moment or two, until they were sure that he was leaving—and that he’d really fallen for it—and then turned on their phone again to resume texting Lindsay.

They would love the new twist that had just been added to the story.

---

Idly watching a program run on the monitor in front of him, Matt hummed. “Hey, Trevor.”

“Hey Matt,” Trevor echoed dutifully, sitting on the bed behind him, Buddy in his lap.

“Do you think the new crew members have been acting weird around me?”

Because he was pretty sure they were acting weird. At first he had just assumed it was nerves over joining the crew, but then he realized it was only around him. Like they became instantly transfixed on him whenever he entered a room any of them were in.

“I don’t know.” Trevor sounded doubtful, and Matt spun around to find him frowning. “I haven’t noticed anything, but I haven’t really been paying attention to it, I guess.”

Matt hummed. “I guess I’m just worried I’m spending too much time in the office again, you know?”

“Honestly, you haven’t been that bad.” Trevor leant further back, and they both watched in silence as Buddy stretched out further in the newly gained space. “Maybe that’s why? You’re just around more to notice it, now that we’re not the new guys.”

“Maybe,” he said, doubtfully. “I don’t know. It just seems kind of weird. The last time people were acting all strange around me was, you know, when we moved in.”

“And we wouldn’t want a repeat from that.” Trevor laughed, then fell silent as he saw the look on Matt’s face. “Matt. You’re not seriously thinking about it.”

“What? It happened once, it could’ve happened again.” He shook his head. “Besides, Jeremy is absolutely the type to feed the new guys a made-up story of me being a werecat. They definitely didn’t get their fill of chaos last time around.”

“It’s not like they would’ve needed to do that.” Trevor clicked his tongue, chastising. “You still regularly grumble about missing your old cat life. It’s not like that couldn’t have caused some strange thoughts.”

Matt spluttered, “Now hold on—”

“Besides,” Trevor cut him off, mercilessly. “You also responded to Lindsay going “pspspsps” over the comms just a few days. By muting everyone else and focusing exclusively on them.”

He stared down Matt, as if daring him to defend himself again. When he didn’t, Trevor sniffed. “See? Perfectly normal reasons why people might think you’re a werecat, again, without Jeremy having done anything.”

“Right,” he agreed. Trevor kind of had a point. He did do all of those things. “But consider this: these are exactly the kind of shenanigans that Jeremy is all about.”

Trevor visibly thought about it. Then nodded. “True, true. Guess we’ll see how it all turns out, then.”

---

Paper rustled loudly as Gavin dug through the pile of wrapped presents still left in the middle of their circle. From the sidelines most of the crew was shouting at him to hurry up, either because they wanted to receive their own presents, or because they wanted to see the reactions to what they had given.

Jack just shuffled in deeper into the couch she had claimed. Some of the newer crew members might’ve been feeling uncertain about their picks—it was their first Secret Santa since Jeremy, Trevor, and Matt had joined, after all—but she knew she had made an excellent choice.

Gavin exclaimed victoriously over having found the present he’d been looking for, holding it up proudly. And then groaned when he read the label: addressed to Matt.

Smiling satisfied, she watched him accept the present. Good.

“What is it, Matt?” Joe called loudly the moment Matt begun opening the present, clearly stoked on by Alfredo sitting next to him.

“Give me a moment!” Matt called back, carefully taking apart the paper. And clearly going slow on purpose, based on the way he was grinning at the exasperated—and dramatic—groans around him.

And then he gasped, having seen the contents of his present.

Michael, sitting next to him, leaned to take a look. And then made a face. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s great is what it is!” Matt lifted up his gift to show it to the rest. And Jack knew she’d made the right choice the moment she saw it, but seeing Matt’s wide grin now filled her with pride nonetheless.

In Matt’s hands, he held a knitted sweater. An unbelievably obnoxious, very ugly, and very grandma-style knitted sweater. With a cat theme.

“I love it!” he exclaimed, even as Jeremy, on his other side, made a loud gagging noise. “Wait—”

And then he pulled it on over the hoodie he’d been wearing, wiggling slightly to get it to sit right. And just as she had guessed, it was just slightly oversized for him.

“Oh, it’s so nice.” Matt rubbed one arm of the sweater, plucking at it slightly. “It’s so warm and soft! I love it. Thank you, Secret Santa!”

“It’s atrocious,” Jeremy spat out like they couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Matt, look at it!”

“I am looking at it.” Matt grinned at Jeremy like a cat who’d gotten the cream. “Here, just feel it, Jeremy. Gimme a pat.”

Jeremy rolled their eyes but obliged, patting Matt’s arm briefly. Then they sighed. “Yeah, alright, I’ll give you that. It’s very soft.”

“Told you.” Matt shook his arms slightly, letting the too-long sleeves fall over his hands. “Oh, right, my turn to pick a present. Hm, let’s see…”

---

Matt absentmindedly twirled the glass in his hand, watching the liquid in it swish around. Ever since he and Trevor had realized that BK, Ky, and Joe thought he was a—a werecat or something, he had become aware of just how much they stared at him. It was like, equal parts fascinated and terrified. So probably werecat then? Were they thinking about him just suddenly turning into a cat in front of them, or something?

He didn’t know, and quite frankly, he had no idea how to ask.

Up went the glass as he took a drink from it. Nope, still no idea.

And the three of them were still staring, on the other side of the table.

Really, when Trevor had suggested that Matt just go out with them for a night to find a way to bring it up, he’d thought that Trevor would’ve come along. But nooo, that would’ve been too easy, huh? Had to go and do this all alone.

How the fuck were you supposed to start a conversation about this, anyway?

“So,” BK blurted out suddenly, leaning forward on her elbows, “When you turn into a cat, does that hurt? Like, is that why you never do it?”

“When I what?” he answered automatically, somehow feeling caught off-guard despite wanting to get into this exact conversation.

Also, apparently that is how you start a conversation about this kind of stuff. He’d consider it good to know, but he was really kind of hoping not to get into this situation a third time.

Groaning, he pinched his nose. “I’m not a werecat, or whatever Jeremy told you three.”

“But the—the were-zoomies.” Joe gestured around the last word as if to emphasize it.

“The what?” He shook his head, setting the thought aside. “Look. I don’t know what Jeremy convinced you three of, but I can guarantee you it’s not real. Although I guess that that does explain why Buddy has been begging for more attention from the rest of us…”

“Buddy?” Ky repeated cautiously.

“Yeah. Buddy the cat.” He pulled up a photo on his phone, even though he was sure they all knew exactly who he was talking about. “See? That’s our cat. Mine, Jeremy’s, and Trevor’s, before we moved in with the rest of the crew. I’m sure you’ve seen him around.”

“But—But—” BK spluttered, and then fell silent when he swiped over to a photo of him holding Buddy. “Oh.”

“Yeah, exactly.” He rolled his eyes, tucking his phone away again. “Honestly, it’s kind of unbelievable this happened again. Although I guess it doesn’t really count if Jeremy orchestrated this on purpose…”

“But I heard you complain about missing being a cat!” BK gestured at him. “What does that even mean!”

He nodded slowly. “I assume Jeremy told you about how, when I first joined the crew, no one saw or heard me? They only knew me by name? So, somehow, they wrongly start to think—"

---

“JEREMY!”

They looked up from the game they had been playing. Was that BK? Hadn’t she gone out with Ky, Joe, and Matt?

The door slammed open, and they spun around on their chair. Standing in the opening were all three of the new crew members. The crew members they had tricked into thinking Matt was a werecat.

“So uh.” They looked between the three fuming crew members. “You figured it out, huh?”

“I’m going to kill you!” BK snarled, making grabbing hands at them from where she still stood. “You asshole! Months!”

“Oh yeah, you really fell for it.” They giggled, ignoring the way the three of them crept further into the room. “But hey, now you get to join the club with the rest of crew! You’re fitting in just right!”

“You’ll fit in just right in the hole you’re about to make in the ground,” Ky growled, stepping up to them. “Because we’re about to drop you off of the roof.”

They looked over to Joe. Who shook his head. “Oh no, I’m with them.”

“Shame.” They shrugged, putting down their controller. “Ah well. Worth it.”

Buddy meowed from the corner of the desk where he’d been sitting.

Well… Jack hummed to himself, stepping around the table. Maybe that could change. A prank might be just what was needed to break the walls between the two of them, to finally get Danny to talk about what was going on. Sure, he’d always been closer to his mom, but he wasn’t telling her either, Jack knew.

“Hmm?” a sleepy voice muttered behind Jack, and he froze. Turned slowly.

Danny had apparently woken up. Well. Kinda. He was blinking slowly, eyes mostly closed, still slumped on the kitchen table.

And he hadn’t noticed Jack standing right behind him.

Now, Jack wasn’t exactly an expert on jokes and pranks, but this? Perfect opportunity!

Hands raised, Jack breathed in deeply.

“Boo!” he shouted, dropping his hands down onto Danny’s shoulders.

He had expected his son to jerk in startlement, but instead Danny went flying to the side. Literally. Jack’s hands swept through Danny’s shoulders like they’d gone intangible, a flash of light blinding him and making it impossible to tell what happened next.

Trying to blink the worst of the spots from his vision, Jack’s eyes wandered over to his son’s. And met searingly bright green eyes looking back at him, wide with surprise.

“Fentonia,” Dash growled back, leaning in close to Danny’s face. A little too close, thank you, ever heard of personal space? “Finally.”

Danny bit back the automatic reply—aw, were you waiting for me?—and settled for grimacing at Dash.

Not that that went over well, of course, because Dash’s other hand found its way to Danny’s shirt as well. With Danny well in his grasp, Dash lifted him, slamming him against the lockers again, this time with his feet off of the ground—no easy way of getting out. Not without using his powers, at least.

“What’s wrong, Fenturd?” Dash asked, pressing Danny against the lockers even harder. “Ghost got your tongue?”

Ha ha, how creative. How funny. Danny was sure he’d come up with funnier jokes in his sleep. “Fuck off,” he grunted at Dash as his back was slammed against the hard metal behind him again.

“Ooh, he’s got bite today.” Dash leaned back a bit, a vicious grin on his face, then crowded Danny against the lockers again. “Oh, no, never mind. Looks like he’s all bark.”

Danny snarled back at Dash before he’d really thought about it—before he could stop himself, really. It wasn’t even words, really, just an animalistic snarl and the pulse of his core that meant his eyes were glowing.

Oh, fuck. And Dash was way too close to miss that.

“Hey, there you go!” Dash… cheered? The fists clenched in Danny’s shirt released, and his feet thumped down on the ground before he’d really caught on to what was happening. Dash was already turning away from him, nudging Kwan. “See, I told you Fenton could do it too!”

That… was not the reaction he’d expected to get to ghostly glowing eyes. What the fuck?

Kwan laughed audibly, and Danny wrenched his eyes away from Dash and towards the other boy. The… the laughing, visibly cheery boy.

Seriously. What was going on?

“So, uh… No bullying anymore today?” Danny asked, and then felt like he could kick himself. Absolute moron. Who asks that sort of thing?

Dash snorted, apparently amused (amused???) by Danny’s idiotic question, and waved a dismissive hand. “What’s the point? I got what I was after.”

Okay? Good? That explained absolutely nothing. If anything, Danny felt even more confused. Had Dash seriously been bullying him trying to get him to glow eyes his? To snarl at him?

What???

Apparently he vocalized that last thought, because Kwan’s eyes turned back to him, a hesitant grin on his face.

And then Kwan’s eyes flashed a bright, glowing, cyan.

Danny, still leaning against the lockers he’d been pressed to, froze up automatically. He knew what that meant. Had spent enough time combing through his parents’ research—and with his own experience—to know that briefly glowing eyes couldn’t be caused by ordinary ghostly causes. An overshadowing ghost altered the eye-color of their host, but that was constant.

And, if there had been a ghost, Danny would’ve felt them. He’d grown more than strong enough to sense ghosts even if they were hidden in a host.

“He’s had them for a while.” Dash spoke casually, like this wasn’t a big fucking deal. “We couldn’t find anybody else with that brand of ecto-contamination, y’know, so Kwan was feeling super down about that.”

“Dash,” Kwan groaned, sounding put-upon. As carefully as Danny listened, the only thing he could hear was the undercurrent of care Kwan held for Dash. For his friend.

“Shut up, man.” Dash nudged his friend, then picked up his explanation that didn’t explain anything. “See, but I knew I had seen you do them too. The glowy eyes, I mean.” Dash underlined the latter with a vague gesture at his own eyes. “So I just had to push you into doing them while Kwan could see, to prove that he wasn’t the only one.”

“Uh.” Danny blinked at them, feeling like he missed everything Dash had said after the words “ecto-contamination”. What?

No, seriously, he knew he’d uttered that word a lot these past five minutes—even if only in his head—but what?

“You had to get him angry, though,” Kwan muttered, bumping shoulders with Dash. “You know that’s not the only way to make them glow.”

“Yeah, but it was the easiest to push him into,” Dash easily admitted.

And then, while Danny was still reeling, feeling like he’d missed at least seven steps in this conversation, Kwan stepped in closer and shot him a bright smile. “Thanks, Fenton. I feel a ton better.”

“Uh, yeah.” Danny blinked, watching the two of them wander off like nothing happened. “You’re welcome?”

“Man, what was all of that?” he muttered to himself, staring at the empty hallway for a moment before pushing himself away from the lockers. He desperately needed to talk to Sam and Tucker, see if they had any idea what all of that was about.

Somewhere, he kind of wished that Jazz was still in Amity. She would definitely know what the hell all of that was all about.

Seriously. Dash had just casually muttered the words ecto-contamination, and then suggested that it was common enough for there to be accepted variants of it.

How had Danny missed all of that?

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

“There’s Val,” Sam whispered, leaning in closer. Danny followed her gaze and, indeed, there was the girl they’d been looking for all morning.

Well, it figured that they wouldn’t manage to pin her down until lunch, but it was frustrating nonetheless. Sam and Tucker hadn’t known what the stuff with Dash and Kwan had been about, either, so they had decided to ask the only person they could reasonably ask: Valerie Gray.

But that, in turn, meant that they had to just sit on the knowledge until lunch.

At least she had picked a distant enough seat that they could talk in private. Small blessings.

“Let’s hope she actually knows what’s going on,” Tucker muttered, before nudging Danny forward. “You go first, dude.”

So quick to sacrifice him to the ghost huntress. Danny shook his head but walked over, slipping into the seat opposite of Valerie. “Hey, Val.”

“Danny,” she greeted him back, raising an eyebrow at Sam and Tucker, who sat down on either side of him. “Well, this feels like an interrogation all of a sudden.”

He shot Sam a meaningful glance, but she just grinned back, pushing herself to sit more squarely on the seat. Rude.

“Danny had a weird interaction with Dash and Kwan this morning,” Tucker started explaining, breaking the tension before it could really go anywhere. “We were hoping you could offer… I dunno, some clarification, since you know them better than we do.”

She snorted, leaning back slightly. “They’re Dash and Kwan. Every interaction with them is weird.”

“Well, yeah, but they were…” Danny paused, briefly hesitant to mention it—what would Valerie think of ghost-powered humans?—before powering through. “They were talking about ecto-contamination, and known variants of it.”

The look they got in response was flat. Flat, and clearly confused.

After a long and exceedingly awkward moment of silence, Valerie cleared her throat and asked, clearly hesitant, “None of you noticed?”

“Noticed what?” Tucker frowned, glancing between the three of them and Valerie.

“That pretty much everyone in Amity Park has ghost-like traits?” She raised a questioning eyebrow at them. “Everyone, but especially the kids here at Casper High, has ecto-contamination so bad that we’re all, well. Becoming a little ghost-like.” She paused, shook her head, then asked. “None of you seriously noticed?”

Danny drew back, considering his words, but before he could really think about it, Sam had already flapped a dismissive hand. “The three of us spend so much time in and around Fentonworks that we’re already contaminated to hell and back,” she dryly explained. “And honestly, Valerie, how much time do we really spend with anyone outside our direct circle?”

“Fair enough,” Valerie allowed with a shrug. “Right, so, it mostly seems to be caused by the Portal and the constant ghost attacks. I mean, obviously, right?”

“Right,” Danny agreed, ignoring the way his stomach was turning. He’d tried so hard to keep everyone safe, but had the presence of ghosts been endangering them all along? Had the spilled ectoplasm really affected people, and so badly too?

“Now, what we started noticing pretty early on is that people generally only display a single ghost power, once they become contaminated enough to actually have a discernible ghost power. Some people consider them distinct variants: people with invisibility, with intangibility, flight, etcetera.”

Sam and Tucker both hummed, thoughtfully. Valerie raised her other eyebrow at that, then shook her head and continued on.

“Generally people don’t get contaminated enough to display more than those basic powers, but exceptions exist, I guess. And your contamination is probably way worse than anyone else’s, except maybe actual ghost hunters like the Fentons.” She made a face. “And that’s assuming their jumpsuits don’t protect them, which I doubt.”

“I’m pretty sure they do,” Danny mumbled, trying to inconspicuously watch both of his best friends from the corner of his eyes. The more Valerie explained about the ecto-contamination that apparently haunted all of Amity Park, the more their expressions twisted into something they usually called “suddenly understanding weird shit that had been happening”.

It was, unfortunately, a somewhat common expression these days. What with ghosts becoming a common thing, and all that.

“I… Some of the plants in my greenhouse grow unusually well whenever I’m near. Some even seem to react to my presence…” Sam admitted, her voice quiet, uncharacteristically reluctant. After a moment of hesitation, she tacked on, “And sometimes, when I really really don’t want to deal with my parents, they just… overlook me, like I’m not there at all.”

Like she was invisible, they all heard, despite the fact that Sam didn’t say the words.

Seemingly encouraged by Sam’s admission, Tucker added on, “I rarely, if ever, charge my tech. Their batteries just don’t seem to empty as long as I have them on me. And sometimes when I’m digging into code, it feels like… like I can alter it directly, like I’m tapping into some inner world that doesn’t—shouldn’t—exist.” Just like Sam, Tucker also paused for a moment. “When I’m running from a ghost or whatever, sometimes I run into an alley that I know has a dead end and never hit the wall.”

Like he was just phasing through it, going intangible before he hit it.

Danny swallowed through the clog he suddenly found in his throat, watching Valerie turn a meaningful look to him. She wanted him to tell her about his— his ghost powers. But he couldn’t just pretend all of his powers came from the contamination of living at Fentonworks, could he?

And he definitely couldn’t pick certain powers as acceptable and others as not.

“I… I guess weird shit has happened to me too, yeah,” he finally admitted, cautiously, hoping she guessed the source of his reluctance wrong. “But I never really thought about it, to be honest. Anything I could blame the ecto-contamination for could just as easily be caused by actual ghosts.” And in a way it was, of course. Anything caused by his ecto-contamination was caused by an actual ghost: Phantom.

“But,” he tacked on, knowing Valerie wouldn’t just let that lie. She was far too stubborn not to investigate. “Dash and Kwan apparently saw me with glowing eyes?”

Valerie hummed, then nodded. “That makes sense, I guess. I know Kwan has the glowing eyes variant as well, so that would explain why they’ve been targeting you.”

“It’s been around that long?” Sam asked, leaning forward, clearly curious despite herself. “I figured it would’ve taken longer than that to show up.”

“Oh, no, that was long after I got kicked out of the group,” Valerie said dismissively. “But Kwan saw me with a ghost scanner one day, and he begged me to scan him. I guess he was seriously worried that he had been overshadowed, even if overshadowing doesn’t work like that.”

“I don’t think he got rid of that fear, to be honest.” Danny shrugged, uneasy. “At least, he seemed pretty cheered-up when I, uh, glowed my eyes at him and Dash.”

Tucker snorted, and Danny could see Sam crack a grin as well, probably at his word choice. Well, fuck them. What did you call it, if not “glowing your eyes at them”?

“Anyway, I can’t help but notice that we all told you, but you haven’t said a word about what you can do,” Sam prodded, nudging Valerie. “Come on, Val.”

“Yeah, that does seem a little unfair.” Tucker leaned forward as well, an expression of genuine curiosity on his face.

And, honestly? Danny kind of wanted to know as well. Her ghost hunting suit probably hadn’t protected her, and her new suit definitely didn’t. If anything, the Technus-made suit probably had just worsened it.

“I…” Valerie visibly hesitated, then gave in. “I can fly, a little. It’s not really all that great, but at least I won’t break anything if I ever fall out of a tree or something.”

She said it with a light tone, like it was just a casual joke. All Danny could think of, however, was all the times he’d seen Valerie fall off of her hoverboard, especially at the start.

He carefully does not wince.

“That’s pretty neat,” he forced himself to say instead. “Less lame than glowing eyes, at least.”

Valerie grinned back at him, but before she could say anything the bell rung.

“Guess we’d better head to class,” Sam said with a grunt, pushing herself off of the bench.

“Yeah.” Tucker got up as well, then nodded at Valerie. “Thanks for the explanation, Valerie.”

Danny followed suit, shooting her a smile. “Same. Thanks, Val.”

Danny frowned, then sat up straighter. “I… think so? But there’s some specific rules to it or something, so people can’t just go about summoning the Ghost King or whoever.”

“So could we do it?” Sam pushed, leaning closer to where he and Tucker were on the floor. “Because we’ve got a connection to you and stuff?”

“Maybe?” Danny shot a look at Tucker but he shrugged, apparently content to not get involved. “But why? Except like, curiosity.”

Tucker hummed. “It could be useful, I guess. To get you out of a bad situation, or if you go missing. Depends on how easy it would be to summon you, I suppose.”

Oh. There was a point to it beyond curiosity. Color him surprised. “Well, I know some things about how it works,” he supplied, since this was clearly going to happen one way or another. “Maybe if we combine that with what Sam knows we can figure something out?”

“Definitely.” Sam swept her hand over the desk and came up holding a stack of papers. Hm. Apparently this wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing after all. Good to know. “Here’s what I got, based on the most reputable sources. It’s probably not great anyway, but it’s better than the rest.”

“Great,” Danny muttered, gesturing for her to give him a piece of paper. “Here’s what I know about the actual summoning of ghosts.”

He scrawled the basic components of a summoning circle on the paper, noting down what the various parts were supposed to do. His parents had done a surprising bit of research into them, but couldn’t figure out how to make it work after all. It wasn’t until Danny thought to ask Frostbite that he learned about the limitations, and realized that that had been what had stopped his parents.

Looking back, he was quite glad for it. If his parents could summon ghosts directly to the lab, nothing could stop them from their experiments. Or from summoning him, more than likely.

Yeah, no thanks.

“There’s a few components,” he began explaining to Sam and Tucker, trying to get his mind off of that terrible image. “I think we can leave out some of the more complicated stuff if we make it specific enough, and by playing off of our connection.”

Sam hummed, settling down on the floor to take a closer look. “Quite a few of these papers refer to a blood sacrifice. Will we need to do something like that?”

“No, right, Danny?” Tucker grimaced when he saw Danny’s expression. “No, come on dude, really?”

“Yeaah,” he admitted, drawing out the sound. “The whole connection thing doesn’t work without blood. But,” he intercepted before either of his friends could say anything. “Just a single drop of blood should work fine. Like, a papercut would suffice, as long as the blood gets on the symbol.”

“Great,” Tucker grumbled, tugging on his beret slightly. “I guess we can miss a drop of blood in exchange for bringing you back when you go missing.”

“Maybe we don’t even need to go that far,” Sam suggested, halfway through drawing a possible summoning circle. “If we draw it on our skin—or stamp it, or get it tattooed—we could probably use it just by pressing a finger to it. It could draw the blood directly from our bodies. No mess, no pain.”

“Well, tattooing is definitely out of the picture for now.” Tucker pointed at one of the bits of the circle. “Maybe his logo here, since it’s a key part of his ghost identity?”

Sam nodded, drawing it in. “Good idea. And yeah, I was just thinking ahead. We should test it drawn on the skin first, and then maybe Jazz can get it tattooed first.”

“My sister Jazz?” Danny asked, skeptically. “You think she would get a ghost summoning circle tattooed on her?”

“To keep you safe?” Tucker snorted. “Absolutely, dude. She would kill for you, what’s a little ink compared to that?”

Danny grimaced. “I guess that that’s fair. Anyway, no point in speculating unless we get this circle working.”

“What do you think I’m trying to do?” Sam bit at him, no venom in her voice at all.