#fruity ectober

Something on the ground caught his attention and he bent down next to a bench to pick it up.

“Cool! A quarter!”

He tossed it into the air and pocketed it.

It was a bright sunny day as Wes walked down the... street... He had just gotten out of school and his day had actually gone pretty well. Nobody called him Phantom or made fun of him. It was good. 

Wes’s eyebrows furrowed as he glanced at the bench that approached him. Shouldn’t he have been home by now?

He saw a coin on the ground and something in him was telling him not to pick it up, to leave and head home. But who would pass up on free money?

He picked it up, listened as the metal scraped against the concrete, and held it in his hand. 

It was a bright sunny day-

That bench… Hasn’t he passed it already?

There’s a quarter on the ground.

Wes went to pocket the quarter he already held in his hand, but when he opened his grip inside his pocket there was nothing there.

He ripped his hand out and looked at it, eyes wide. 

“What the hell?” He whispered.

He picked up the second quarter off the ground and held it as he walked. Watching it. A bird flew over his head, causing him to duck and break his gaze with the quarter. When he looked back, it was gone and the bench was to the right of the sidewalk again. 

Slowly, Wes approached the quarter and picked it up, studying it. 1961. 

Anger burned through his veins and he chucked the quarter off in the distance. Bringing his hands up to his mouth, Wes began shouting into the sky. 

“Fenton! I know this is your fault! Knock it off, I’m trying to get home!”

Unaware to Wes, he was being watched from a cloud of ectoplasm deep in the ghost zone. 

“Uh, Clockwork?” Danny stammered. “Not that this isn’t hilarious, but don’t you think we should stop?”

“I supposed.” Clockwork chuckled. “One more time?”

Danny grinned mischievously. “Why not.”

Running down the hall towards the janitor closet, his heart was jumping in his chest. How did Dash’s dad find out? What was he planning on doing?

He turned another corner and smashed into a wide, muscular chest and fell to the floor. Looking up he found Dash standing above him. Danny started to stand but Dash picked him up and pinned him against the lockers. 

“Watch where you’re going, Fentina!” He yelled.

“Shh! Dash, let me go! I don’t have time for this!”

“You have all the time in the world if I say so! What’s got your panties in a twist?”

Danny wriggled in Dash’s grip, trying to pry Dash’s hand from his shirt. “My panties aren’t in a twist! I need to leave!”

“Skipping school again, Fenton?”

“I’m not-”

Danny stopped when he picked up on two sets of footsteps and the voices of Lancer and Mr. Baxter coming down the other hallway. His eyes widened in panic and he gripped at Dash’s hands where they clutched onto his shirt. 

In a soft voice, Danny leaned forward and whispered into Dash’s ear. 

“You need to leave!”

Dash chuckled, pushing harder into Danny’s chest. “Why do I need to leave? Are you gonna tattle on me?”

Danny groaned, and with barely a breath whispered out a reply that wiped the smirk off Dash’s face. 

“Your dad is here.”

Dash’s face turned white and he stuttered out a tilted laugh. “Pft. Why does it- why does it matter if my dad is here?”

Danny glanced down the hallway and looked back at Dash.

“He knows.”

Furrowing his brow, Dash looked away. There were a lot of things that Dash could have done that his dad found out about. Drinking, partying, tee-peeing the neighbors house. What could he-

Dash stared, his mouth open as he looked at Danny only to be met with very familiar radioactive green eyes. He shook his head and dropped Danny to the floor and backed away. 

“He knows? Both of you know? How did-” Dash groaned, burying the heel of his hands in his eye sockets, hands shaking. 

“Dash-” Danny stood up and reached for Dash who pulled away. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” He cried. 

“Dash now it not the time. We need to-” Danny’s head whipped to the left, ears picking up the two pairs of feet just around the corner. His hand shot out and grabbed Dash’s arm, pulling him against his chest and out of the middle of the hallway. Just as they faded from sight, Lancer and Mr. Baxter rounded the corner, confused expressions on their faces. 

The look of confusion on Mr. Baxter’s face morphed into one of rage as he stomped down the hall past them.

“That damn boy! Where the hell did he go?!”

“Mr. Baxter watch your language and volume! Students are in the middle of class!”

Danny watched Lancer follow Mr. Baxter down the hallway and around another corner before he let out a breath and glanced up to look at Dash’s face. His eyes were glazed and he was looking in the direction the two adults had gone in. 

“Dash?” Danny whispered, shrinking away and loosening his hold on Dash’s arm. 

At the movement Dash looked down and grabbed Danny’s hand before it could go back to his side. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Dash’s voice was shaking, his hand trembling. 

Danny looked down and away. “I didn’t… We started hanging out with me as Phantom and when you told me… I didn’t want you to think I had been tricking you.”

Dash looked away and started when Danny spoke up again and started pulling him down the hallway. 

“We need to get you out of here though. He didn’t seem to have a civil conversation in mind.”

“I- uh, what are you doing here?” Phantom asked nervously. 

Dash gestured to the mess around him. “Packing to leave for college but apparently,” Dash kicked the box of trophies again, “I’m not worth anything to them. They’re trying to erase me from existence!”

“Dash…” Phantom said softly.

“They’re acting like I’m dead! They pretend they can’t see me! And every time I make a noise they jump and lower their eyes, acting like I’m not here! What’s wrong with them? Why are they-? Why…”

Dash slowed down at the look on Phantom’s face. 

“No. No, I know what you’re thinking. That’s not what happened.”

“Dash-”

“No!” Dash yelled, the sound reverberating in the walls. “I’m not dead! I’m not! I don’t remember dying!”

“It was an accident, Dash. You-”

“No!” Dash covered his ears, squeezing his eyes shut.

“I thought you were the good guy!” Dash yelled suddenly, arms flying back down to his sides and his shoulders raised. “I thought you were supposed to protect us!”

“I-” Phantom started.

“I’m a ghost now? Are you going to stop protecting us when we’re dead? What if Tucker died? Sam? Would you turn on them?”

Phantom took a sharp inhale of breath. “Dash, no. That’s not- You haven’t done anything terrible, right? You’ve just been in your house, upset?”

“Of course I’m upset! My parents are ignoring me!”

“No one else can see you anymore, Dash!”

Danny’s yell left the room in startling silence. 

“What?” Dash breathed.

“No one- no one can see you.” Phantom whispered, looking away. “You’re just a newly formed ghost and you’re not very strong yet. And you’ve been here instead of inside the ghost zone.”

Dash stared blankly at the floor. 

“I’m dead?”

Dash sat down on the bed frame heavily.

Phantom nodded. 

“How did I die?” Dash asked.

“Dash-”

“No, I want to know.”

Sighing, Phantom spoke quietly, sitting down beside him on the empty bed frame. “You were at that party with Kwan. You guys got drunk and started messing with some Fenton gear that someone had bought. Kwan was playing with a bazooka when it suddenly charged up, blasting into you.”

“Is Kwan..?”

“Kwan’s fine. But, man.” Phantom’s head dropped into his hands and he grasped at strands of hair. “No one saw him for a couple weeks. We thought- we thought he-”

“Does he know it’s not his fault?” Dash asked quietly. 

Phantom shrugged. “Everyone’s tried telling him. There are some people that blame him. Some people blame the Fenton’s. It’s just… It sucks.”

Dash nodded. “Can we go talk to him?”

Phantom raised his head to met Dash’s gaze. “Yeah, of course.”

Standing up, he brushed himself off and walked towards the light. After a curve in the trail, he found a specter sitting at the top of the hill, watching the sky.

Phantom’s eyes lit up as he watched the stars glitter in the sky, his freckles mimicking the motion. Dash chuckled to himself and walked up to the boy.

“Hey.” Phantom startled at the sound of Dash’s voice, turning to look at him with wide eyes.

“What are you doing awake? It’s three in the morning.” 

“I couldn’t sleep. I could ask you the same thing. Why aren’t you in the ghost zone or something?”

Phantom looked back towards the sky. “I have trouble resting on nights as clear as this. I rarely get to see the stars anymore.” He groaned, rubbing his eyes. “But man, I’ll be tired tomorrow.”

Dash leaned back on his hands as he chuckled. “You and me both.”

They watched the stars sparkle together in silence. They could hear crickets chirping along with the occasional hoot of an owl.

“You know,” Dash started. “I didn’t think the witching hour would feel so peaceful. Especially in a haunted town.”

Phantom laughed and shook his head. “I think the ghosts finally realized there aren’t massive crowds of people to terrorize in the middle of the night. Between midnight and four is usually the quietest.”

Dash hummed. 

They sat there for awhile until Dash heard a soft snore coming from his right. Phantom was curled up on his side, snoring and letting out the occasional hum. 

Choking through a wet cough, Danny opened his eyes to gaze up at his mother. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

She leaned down over him, looking through her red goggles. Reaching towards his face, she wiped off a splatter of red and green residue. “Nonsense! That must be the specter making you say such things.” She tsked. “We’ll be rid of it soon.”

Danny’s eyes widened.

“Mom, no. You don’t understand-”

“It’ll be over before you know it, sweetie. Once I put you under, all I’ll have to do is remove the core the spook placed beside your heart.”

“Mom you can’t!”

Plugging in different tubes and canisters, Maddie spoke with a certainty. 

“This illusion that you’ve been putting on won’t work anymore. I’ve already seen what you’ve done to my baby boy. I can see through the mask you’ve made of his face. There’s no way to escape your fate, ghost.”

“But it’s me, mom! It’s Danny!”

Maddie lowered a mask down over Danny’s nose and mouth and soon he was asleep. 

Looking in the mirror, he saw that while his colors remained the same, the face that stared back at him was not his own. 

His head started spinning and just as he fell he could see white rings revealing a new appearance, a human boy. 

He hit the ground, eyes falling shut and finally registered the other two people in the room. They were calling someone’s name. Was it his name? No, they wouldn’t know his name.

“Danny!”

His head turned to look at a hazy black and purple blob above him. He felt recognition click in a different part of his mind and his lips moved of their own volition. 

“Sam?” They croaked out. 

“Don’t worry, Danny.” His head drifted to the side and there was another person beside the girl. A brown and yellow blob. “We’ll go get your parents. You’re gonna be okay.”

His head nodded and his eyes fell closed. Everything around him disappeared.

QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ

A couple months later, him and Danny were finally living in tandem. His ghost powers no longer conflicted with Danny so much and finally they were able to hold beakers in chemistry again. 

Danny and his friends had started referring to him as Danny’s ghost half. As Phantom. Danny never told them that Phantom was once his own entity, that they’d been melded together somehow. 

Danny’s friends quickly grew on Phantom and soon he enjoyed their outings just as much as Danny did. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had someone to talk to. He didn’t think he had any friends inside the ghost zone. The human’s dimension was much calmer. He wasn’t always on the run, avoiding the warden ghost and his minions. 

At some point he’d have to thank Danny for allowing him to stay with him. 

Phantom doesn’t know much about Danny from before their fusion, but he does know that he gets bullied a lot. Danny doesn’t use his powers to defend himself very often, but Phantom doesn’t know how Danny survived without his powers. At most he uses them to invisibly sneak away from Dash, but they were always getting stuck in lockers and wailed on. He was glad that while Danny wouldn’t actively defend himself, he did use them every once in awhile for his own protection. 

Both their lives were better than they were before, although there were some tradeoffs, such as lack of sleep and having to share a body. But Phantom didn’t mind. Danny was someone he could call a friend. 

Standing above his was his evil future self, smiling maniacally down at him. He was on the pavement outside the Nasty Burger once again, watching as the clock ticked down on his friends and family. As the container of nasty sauce exploded, sending him tumbling away. 

Tears sprung into his eyes and he growled, jumping and pinning his future self to the ground. 

“Why?! How could you?! You’re going to pay! You need to pay!”

Danny lifted his hand up, forming an ectoblast in his hand when he felt a soft touch on his face. Looking down, he saw Sam, reaching up to him with a shaky hand. Soon the parking lot began fading away until they were left in Sam’s bedroom. 

Shaking, Danny pushed himself away from where he had pinned Sam to the floor. He tucked his face into his knees and wrapped his arms around his head. 

He felt as Sam scooted over to him, quietly wrapping an arm around his shoulders. She whispered reassurances that fell flat to Danny’s ears.

What was Danny supposed to do if he couldn’t even keep his friends safe from himself? What if he had gone too far?

Slowly he registered that Sam had said Jazz’s name and he peeked out from his position to see Sam hanging up her phone. 

Maybe… Maybe Jazz would know where to start. 

Dash didn’t know what happened to the rest of the students. He didn’t know if they managed to get out of the school or if he’d gotten them. 

It had been so surreal. They’d all been in english class when his friends had started saying his name, asking if he was alright. Soon students began whispering, the volume raising until shrieks and screams had Dash turning around only to meet a gaze filled with a radioactive green glow. 

It was then that Lancer pressed the ghost alarm button and everyone scrambled away, into the hallway and in different directions. 

Dash startled out of his mind as he heard the step of sneakers on the tile floor. It echoed throughout the library, the sound piercing through Dash’s chest. 

His breathing sped up and he crossed his arms over his head, tucking his face into his knees, trying to keep quiet and make himself invisible. 

The steps drew closer until the sound stopped. Dash peeked out from his legs to see a pair of red and white shoes pointed towards him. Inhaling a sharp breath, Dash watched as he kneeled down to look at Dash under the table. 

Danny Fenton stared at him with radioactive eyes. 

Moving forward, Danny shoved Dash to the floor and wrapped his hands around his neck. Dash gasped, trying to pry Danny’s hand off of his neck and finding that the puny boy’s grip was like iron. 

Danny looked down at him unblinking and Dash’s vision began to go hazy. 

Through heavy lids Dash saw Danny’s eyes flicker until all that was left was a baby blue gaze. Horror crossed over Danny’s face and his hands released Dash’s throat.

Dash sucked in a giant breath of air, staring at Danny. A normal Danny. 

It was then that the other boy’s eyes rolled back into his head, sending him falling to the floor beside Dash. 

Dash didn’t know what was going on. His whole body was telling him to run. But he crawled back across the floor and let out a small, nerve filled whisper.