“I told you not to do that,” she finally said, grunting as she found herself wrapped up in a hug by Sam a second later, which, alright. That was a little affection heavy for Sam. “Uh, not that I’m not loving the hug and all that, but why?”

Sam clutched her tighter, Dani returning the hug cautiously as she looked at Tucker, who didn’t even seem upset that Dani must have slammed their foreheads together when Tucker was, likely, trying to wake her up from… a nightmare? A dream? “Dude, do you even remember what just happened?” Oh. Oh, no. That meant something bad had happened. Like, bad bad.

“Well, I-” Dani snapped her mouth shut as the memories of what she hoped was only a couple of hours ago slammed into her. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” Tucker said, finally taking a seat on the bed, and, alright, they were just all crammed on there now, huh? Annoyingly, Dani couldn’t even bring herself to pretend to be upset with how nice the affection and touch was. “You’ve been asleep for days-”

Before Dani could have a heart attack, Sam was reaching out to slap Tucker’s arm with a sharp, “Don’t say that shit, she might believe it.” 

“Shit, sorry.” Tucker actually looked contrite, reaching out to grab Dani’s hand and give it a light squeeze. “The humor defense kicked in before I could stop it. It’s only been a couple of hours, promise. School’s definitely over, though.”

“Early weekend,” Dani said, trying to make it sound like a joke and not sure if she quite managed. “Alright, I- I remember the whole. You know.” They had been attacked by a ghost. “But why do I feel like I was just used like some sort of massive battery? I’m- Shit, guys, I’m exhausted.” Even now, she felt like she could barely keep her eyes open.

“Okay.” Sam pulled back only enough to be able to sit beside Dani fully, keeping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. “Alright. First off, what all do you remember exactly? Not to doubt your memory, but you did pass out on us.” 

Yeah. Okay. That was fair. “We just finished lunch and I felt… really anxious.” That had been the first part that had stuck out about the whole thing. Before they had even seen a ghost, Dani had already known something was wrong. “Then we heard something fall over in the kitchen and walked into the start of a horror movie.” 

“Either that or the first five minutes of a Supernatural episode,” Tucker grumbled and complained, standing up to grab a bottle of water from Sam’s bag before he was right back on the bed and shoving the bottle into Dani’s hands after cracking the seal for her. Dani refused to cry from how much she loved her friends.

“You kidding? Definitely not,” Dani managed to say with a steady voice, taking a few sips of the water and damn, that did help. “No one died.” The twin snorts of laughter from both her friends had her smiling a little. “No, but, I remember us seeing that lunch lady ghost from, like, the fifties, and then I remember us running and getting the hell out of there.” 

“We ran for a classroom,” Sam said, sounding relieved that so far it seemed like Dani was remembering everything just fine. Dani was kind of glad of that, too, and that her friends all had the same memories. It made it less likely that everything was a stress hallucination or her body giving out on her. “Do you… remember what happened in the classroom?”

“I mean, my phone died on me when I tried to call Mom and tell her I was right. After that the ghost showed up again-” Dani paused, turning to look at Tucker. “You said something about the desk. I had shoved Sam out of the way when the desk was thrown at us, and you said…” Tucker said the desk had gone through her. 

“It didn’t just ‘nearly miss you,’” Tucker said, his whole face pale and serious as he nervously patted at her blanket covered legs. “It looked- Shit, Dani, it looked like suddenly everything about you was see-through for a second and the desk flew straight through you. Like- Like you weren’t even there.” 

“That wasn’t the only weird thing.” Sam’s grip tightened on her, Dani nervously sipping her water because a part of her knew what was coming next. She remembered what came next. “When that ghost had grabbed you and then dropped you, you… Dani, it looked like you suddenly just froze right before you hit the ground. Like gravity just stopped for you.” 

Yeah. She remembered falling, of thinking about swings and trampolines and what came after the fall, and then she remembered… She wasn’t sure how to explain what she remembered, but the closest she could ever come was that she no longer felt like she had been falling, but like she had been suspended in that moment at the peak of the jump — the single second before gravity kicked in when everything still felt like freedom. 

“I think-” Sam stopped, swallowing nervously and looking to Tucker, who shook his head and then shrugged helplessly. 

“I know I joked about the whole superpowers thing, but, uh… I think it’s possible that portal did more to you than just give you some heart and breathing problems.” 

“Like what?” Dani blurted out, refusing to even consider what Tucker had just said about- Nope! Not thinking about it! “Guys, you saw what it did. It stopped my heart and basically shredded it, it fucked with my lungs so bad I can barely walk from one end of the block to the other- Hell, most of my doctors are shocked that I can even walk, and now- Now you’re acting like it- Like it-!”

Overwhelmed, upset, and angry, Dani didn’t even think before she was giving a short scream and throwing the water bottle she had been holding against her wall with as much force as she could. It didn’t so much as spill and somehow that, more than anything else, was what had Dani crying between her two best friends. 

“I don’t- I don’t want this.” Her body was trashed, she kept having nightmares and panic attacks, now she was hearing voices and feeling things and now- Now-! “Whatever’s happening, I don’t want it!” 

Later, maybe, Dani would feel bad about sobbing her heart out as her friends held her between them like it could actually keep her safe. (Probably not, though. Those two had already seen the worst of her, just like she had seen the worst of them.) 

As it was, Dani wasn’t sure how much time passed before she started calming down, Sam reaching her an insane amount of tissues and Tucker crawling off her bed to get her another water and then one of her old stuffed animals off the dresser. She was grateful neither of them mentioned how hard she squeezed it when it was set in her lap. 

“Okay.” Dani winced at her voice, taking a few gulps of water to get rid of the rasp. She was thankful all over again for her friends when they only waited quietly for her to continue. “Okay. What happened after all that? I remember using some of the tech my parents made, and that Tucker stole, to… get rid of it?” 

“I think it was more like you trapped it?” Tucker sounded half like he was explaining and half like he was asking. “It looked like something out of Ghostbusters, man. But, uh, that was about when you collapsed.”

“It was also around the time your parents showed up,” Sam said, giving her a squeeze. “We’re not really sure if we managed to really explain everything well, though. We were a little panicked.”

“Sam was crying,” Tucker said, signing his death warrant. “But I mean, I was too, so I probably didn’t do much better.” Ah, but at least he was honest.

“We did give that thing, whatever it was, to your parents after we kind of explained what was happening. The four of us managed to get you back here and your parents have been down in their lab since then, so I guess whatever was in there was…”

“Real,” Tucker finished, the word sounding so heavy and serious considering what all had been said before it. “We haven’t called Jazz yet, either.”

“Oh, thank God,” Dani sighed in relief, clutching her stuffed owl tighter. (It was a weighted toy that was made with a bunch of galaxy print material. Jazz had made it for her a few years ago and it was, so far, the best thing she had ever been given for her birthday. Although she still refused to tell Jazz she had secretly named it Athena.) “That gives me time to make it seem like it wasn’t that bad.” Because it wasn’t like her parents would tell Jazz anything of what happened, likely because they wouldn’t even think too. 

“I mean, it kind of was that bad,” Tucker pointed out, frowning at her and nudging the water bottle back into her hands until she took a few more sips. It was kind of funny how much of a mother hen he was when she or Sam were hurt or sick. “Like, that was traumatizing. I’d be saying we probably need therapy if we’d ever be able to find a therapist that would believe us- Hey, when will Jazz be licensed?” 

“It’s gonna be a bit,” Dani snorted, shaking her head. “And yeah, it was- Yeah. That was bad, but also I don’t-” The desk had gone through her. Her body had stopped and floated a few inches off the ground. A ghost had attacked them. “I’m not. Sure, yet. What to do with all of… that.” 

“I don’t think any of us are,” Sam finally said, moving only enough that she could meet Dani’s eyes. “But I don’t think it’s going away, either.” 

No. 

Dani didn’t think it was something that would go away, either.

⁂

Finally certain that her entire household was safely asleep, Dani kept herself as quiet as possible as she made her way towards the basement — towards the lab — that was now finally empty. 

She might have tried to sneak in sooner, but in the end it had taken about four hours before Sam and Tucker felt comfortable leaving her for the night, both of them promising that they would be back to check on her tomorrow. 

She had been right, too, that her parents hadn’t told Jazz anything of what happened at school. She had to assume, at least, since Jazz hadn’t said anything and had acted normal during dinner. (Then again, her parents had skipped out on dinner, so it could have been they didn’t tell Jazz because they just didn’t see her. It had also been another reason it had taken Dani so long to sneak out down to the lab.) 

Either way, everyone in her house was finally asleep and there was no one to stop her from standing right in front of the Portal. (She didn’t care if her parents gave it some fancy name and acronym. It had almost killed her and so she got to call it whatever the hell she wanted.)

“So you actually work, huh?” It was her first time being back down in the lab since her accident and the Portal, instead of a bunch of soldered metal and wires built with desperation and looking like an empty tunnel, glowed. It was the only word she had for it. Like something out of a science fiction novel or, hell, even Doctor Who, the front of the portal no longer showed an empty metal tunnel, but- Hell, how did she even describe it? 

The best she had was that it was like a bunch of fog had been captured and put inside before it had been turned a radioactive green with the use of some high-powered lights. It was also like there was some sheen or film over the fog that kept it from escaping the tunnel, instead swirling around and moving like it would seep out and fill the whole place if given half a chance. 

Taking a few steps closer, Dani was surprised at how angry she suddenly felt. It wasn’t like she could be blamed, though! Thanks to it she was looking at irreparable damage for the rest of her life, and that wasn’t even mentioning… everything else. 

“What did you do to me?” She hadn’t been aware she had even asked the question until she heard it echoing in the empty lab. The helpless, quiet way the words echoed back to her did nothing but make her angrier. “What did you do to me?” 

If this was before, then Dani would have given up and gone back to bed and dealt with whatever shitty hand she had been dealt. But she wasn’t just Dani, anymore. She was Danny, too, and Danny wanted some fucking answers. 

“I’m not going to just- To just sit back and wait until my whole entire life starts falling apart!” Because he had fought a ghost that day and he had- He had done things that he shouldn’t have been able to do. “This isn’t some comic book or- Or TV show! This is my life!” It was his life. It was his life, any yet somehow he felt as if he had been turned into some kind of- Shit, he didn’t even know! He was just so- So-! 

“This isn’t fair!” Screaming the words because when had someone ever actually listened to him in his house, Danny didn’t realize his hand had smacked into something until he saw a familiar metal cylinder that looked like a thermos falling towards the ground. There was no time to catch it before it hit, strips of light around the edges flashing from green to red as he heard something inside it click. 

There was a sudden flash of light, as if a high-beam flashlight had suddenly been flicked on and then turned right back off, before a glowing figure was floating a couple of inches off the ground. It took a delayed second for Danny to not only blink the spots out of his eyes, but to realize he was staring at the lunch lady ghost from earlier who was staring right back at him. 

Before he could so much as open his mouth, the actual real life ghost in front of him suddenly flew towards the Portal and right into the swirling green fog. Danny was running after her before he could take the time to think what he would do if he even could catch her, but stopped inches away from the Portal itself. 

Slowly, carefully, he raised a hand and held it an inch or two away from whatever it was that was swirling around inside. A part of him wanted to plunge his hand in and see what happened, but… He didn’t know what would happen. All he knew was that the ghost he had seen and fought had not only been real, but she had gone into the Portal. 

Did that mean there were more ghosts on the other side of wherever it led? Were there more ghosts over there that could do all the things that lunch lady ghost could? Except whatever was over there- They weren’t just ghosts. She had been able to talk to them and understand them and get angry and- Shit. She had been flying, and going through things, and levitating objects as big as a desk, and she had been able to touch him. She had been able to lift him. 

He… He had been inside when the Portal turned on. With his hand inches away from something that could lead him into a whole other world, he was really realizing, for the first time, that he had been inside there when the energy ripped through him. He had been inside a forming portal between his world and one where a bunch of ‘ectoplasmic entities’ lived — resided? Formed? 

Whatever anger he had from earlier was gone, nothing left except for Dani standing there and feeling lost and helpless as she whispered, “What did you do to me?” 

The only answer she got was silence and a sense of dread that whatever changes had started happening to her… 

They weren’t over.

—

If you enjoyed this story then check out my Writing Commissions either here on Tumblr or at my personal Website.

Rolling her eyes, Dani listened as Sam groaned while probably doing the same. “Yeah? And how are we cursed this week, Tuck?” 

“Are you kidding? How are we not cursed?! Not only is July almost over — our very summer — but now we’re about to enter into the horror that is our sophomore year! We won’t have the grace period that we had as freshmen!” 

Dani poked her head out from behind the partition, still not totally sure she wanted to come out from behind the hideous pink and floral thing Sam’s mom had probably bought for her, but needing to make her point. “We had a grace period?” Because as far as she remembered their freshman year had been absolutely miserable. 

Tucker, as usual, ignored her and kept talking. “And now, here on what could have been one of the best summer days of the year, is a thunderstorm.” The universe, because she had perfect timing and loved to mock Tucker, had the storm rattling with a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning that sent all three of them jumping — except Tucker. He screamed. “Ugh! This is why no one likes thunderstorms!”

Before Dani could really get into the defense of thunderstorms, Sam was rattling the partition again and looking her dead in the eye before Dani escaped back behind it. “Hey, I saw that! C’mon, you can’t hide behind this thing all day.” 

“Watch me,” Dani grumbled, staring down at herself and her layered shirts and faded jeans that probably cost way more than anything Dani owned because Sam had been the one to buy it, and some mismatched socks. “Alright. Fine. I’m coming.” 

“Ah! One more thing!” Seeing something tossed over, Dani scrambled to catch it, pausing at seeing it was her NASA logo hat that matched the shirt she had been forced into (and was definitely keeping no matter how this went). “Since you didn’t want to cut your hair.” 

“Mom would’ve freaked if I came home with hair as short as you wanted to cut it,” Dani pointed out around the brim she had shoved in her mouth, already working to tie up all of her hair before moving to tuck it under the hat. 

Sucking in a deep breath, and reminding herself that it was only Sam and Tucker in the room, Dani stepped out from behind the changing area. If it all went wrong she was at least certain in the knowledge that she could disown Sam and bury Tucker alive at the cemetery. The two wouldn’t even be angry at her for it, either, they would have known that they deserved it. 

“Alright,” Dani sighed, shuffling forward and absently scuffing her foot against the floor to kick up the cuff of the jeans on her right leg. They were a lot baggier than the kind she was used to. “Okay. So… how do I look, then?” It honestly wasn’t that bad of an outfit seeing as Sam had picked it out. 

It wasn’t what she usually wore, but from the relaxed jeans and scuffed up NASA hat to the black NASA shirt and blue button up, she… She thought she looked pretty okay. A glance up had her shoulders dropping, Tucker grinning and Sam near beaming. 

A moment passed and then Sam cleared her throat, putting on her best announcer voice, “Ladies, gentleman, all those in between or outside of, and Tucker, I present to you… Danny with a y Fenton!” Tucker gave a polite audience clap, Dani’s — Danny’s — nervousness starting to be replaced by exasperated fondness for her (his? should she be using he/him/his and all of that instead now?) friends. They were idiots, but they were her idiots. His idiots. (Hm. Weird, but not bad.)

“You guys don’t think it’s too much?” Danny finally asked, picking at the sleeves and re-adjusting the hat even though it rested on his head and covered up his long hair perfectly. “I mean… I’m fine with being a girl, still.” 

Danny was only there because Sam had gotten on a new research kick that involved learning about the LGBTQ+ community when questioning some of her own labels. It had ended with her dragging both her and Tucker down into a rabbit hole of queer history and self-help advice and ended with her thinking that maybe being a him for a bit wouldn’t be so bad. (Apparently it wasn’t normal to look at your body some days and hate it. But it was only some days!)

“I mean. You guys know how I always dressed. Skirts and dresses and things. Isn’t this kind of a big change? Like… extreme?” The name was at least the same, which wasn’t that big of a change and made it kind of easier. The outfit, though, made him look- Well. It made him look like a guy. A good sports bra paired with two shirts did a really good job of making him look pretty flat, too. (It probably helped that he hadn’t exactly hit a growth spurt, yet.)

“It is not extreme.” Sam frowned, pointing at the bed with a firm, “Sit.” She then crossed her arms, drew herself up, and made both Danny and Tucker groan in misery.

Danny threw himself onto the bed with a pout, glancing at Tucker with a quiet, “I thought summer meant we were supposed to be done with lectures.” Tucker snorted, only stopping when Sam gave him a sharp glare. 

The two settled down, Sam eyeing them closely before nodding and starting to speak, “I know I’ve told you about the term genderfluid before, but I’ll go over it again since you probably didn’t pay attention the first time.” Well. That was mean but true. 

Sam launched into her explanation, Danny completely tuned out by the second sentence. It was only Tucker giving him a nudge that kept his brain from turning off completely. A careful glance over at him showed he was smiling — one of his fond smiles that he pretended he didn’t have.

“You know,” Tucker whispered, “You do look pretty good as a guy. And Sam knew what she was doing, making you a walking billboard for NASA.” 

Choking down a snort of laughter, Danny nudged Tucker back with a quick, “Thanks, Tuck.” While Sam was one thing considering how she lived and breathed activism, Tucker was always a harder sell on ‘new’ things. To find him so supportive of something even Danny found weird, still? It was nice. It was good. It was- Shit. Sam was glaring at them silently. “Uh… Yes?”

“How did you two even manage to move on to sophomore year,” Sam groaned, rolling her eyes and leaning against a bedroom wall. “Alright, listen up you nerds.” Rude. “Until Dani, or Danny, figures out what they like best, whether that be female, male, or something else, we can just say it’s a new tomboy look he’s trying out.” 

Sam paused from her lecture, know-it-all attitude fading for their usual Sam. “By the way, how are the pronouns? I know you said you were worried about getting used to them.” 

“Oh, uh…” Trailing off, Danny rubbed at the back of his neck, giving a nervous smile as he looked down at the floor. “It’s weird, really weird, but… good.” It was such a stark contrast, but it felt right - at least for that moment. He wasn’t sure how he’d feel once he left Sam’s bedroom, the most accepting place on earth, but for now… “I like it.” 

“Hey!” Tucker slapped Danny’s arm, the sting making him yelp and jerk before he was swatting Tucker back. Tucker, the idiot, didn’t even seem to notice as he beamed. “This means I have a brother now!” Yeah, great, but why did he need to be hit for that? “And you know what brothers do…?”

“Wha-” Oh. Oh no. “No- No, no, no, Tuck, there is no way-” Danny didn’t even get to finish before Tucker was pouncing on him and wrapped around his shoulders. 

“Brothers sneak other brothers into their parent’s awesome super secret lab.” Why? Why oh why had Danny’s best friend turned out to be a geek obsessed about science labs and ‘mad science.’ 

“You know it’s not a super secret lab,” Danny groaned, not even trying to wiggle free. He knew when he was beat. “We have open hours to come to the lab some days.” 

Tucker nodded, as if he truly understood, and then immediately asked, “Does today have open hours?”

Throwing himself back on the bed, and dragging Tucker with him, Danny whined and called out for Sam. “Sammy, you gotta do something. He’s being obsessive again!” 

“Hey, I’ve done my best friend duty for today by giving you a new look.” Evil. His friends were evil. “Plus you know he’s just going to keep asking.” 

“I will,” Tucker agreed, wiggling closer to hug him tighter. “I will absolutely keep asking at least fifteen times a day — thirty if it’s a weekend.” 

Shoving Tucker off, Danny wiggled and struggled to get to his feet before he was standing up with a loud, dramatic, defeated sigh. “Fine- Fine. We can go check out my parents’ lab-” 

The enthusiastic cheer from Tucker and the smug, taunting look from Sam were completely unwarranted. It took a long moment of Danny reminding himself that he loved his idiots and would gladly kill for them if necessary. It took a long, long moment. 

As always, though, he caved and hid a smile and walked towards the door, trying to complain through his smile as he called back to them. “C’mon, then. If you wanna go see the lab then you get to go through this storm, first.” Ah. Tucker’s misery. It was a good addition to the day. 

⁂

Taking a moment to enjoy the rain and the pounding thunder around him, Danny gave a soft sigh as he finally unlocked his front door, pushed it open, and quickly stepped aside. It was an effort not to laugh as Sam and Tucker nearly shoved each other to the floor in their rush to get inside and out of the rain. Babies. 

Glancing back up at the sky, Danny grinned at the bolts of lightning that seared their way across the sky, lighting up the entire world for just a few seconds. He hadn’t had the chance to lecture Tucker back in Sam’s room, but storms were the best. He probably could have stayed out there for another hour, at least, before he felt himself dragged inside where it was dry, Tucker throwing an arm around his shoulder. 

“I’m gonna level with you here, dude.” Tucker stared at him seriously, ramping up the dramatics as always. “Our friend group needs balance. I’m the tech obsessed one, right? Sam - she’s the nature obsessed one. You are the normal one that keeps this friend group from falling into chaos and killing each other.” 

Danny rolled his eyes, patting at Tucker’s chest. “Trust me, buddy, it wouldn’t be killing each other. It would be Sam killing you.” Slipping away at the offended scoff, Danny adjusted his hat before retrieving the towels that Jazz obsessively kept in the front hall for storms and rainy days. He could never tell her that he found them helpful. 

“Here,” Danny said, throwing a towel at each of them before taking one for himself. “Try to dry off before we go down into the lab. Water and exposed wires and papers do not mix — something I’ve found out the hard way.” Age eight was a terrible year to have been born a Fenton, Danny had discovered. “You know, you’re lucky they’re still out at that stupid science convention thing of theirs.”

Tucker grinned, pausing from where he was trying to brush the water off the waterproof yellow hoodie that Danny was pretty sure he never took off. The ridiculous pockets alone made sure that all of his ‘tech babies’ would be safe from the world. Shame it wouldn’t save them from Sam pouring a glass of water into the pockets if Tucker ever got too out of line. (She had done it, once, after making sure he had recently backed everything up and then bought him brand new versions of everything that was lost.) “Dude. Why do you think I asked you to take us to the lab today- Wait. Is your sister home?”

Oh. This was too good an opportunity. “Dunno,” Danny said after a moment of ‘thought.’ “You know what, let me check.” Clearing his throat, Danny raised his voice, “Hey, Jazz! I’m back! I’m also taking Tucker and Sam into the basement which is usually off limits to look at dangerous equipment that still has exposed wires! If you want to stop me then you should say something now!”

Tucker gave a horrified, panicked squeak while Sam smothered laughter into her fist, shoulders shaking. Danny gave Tucker a few seconds to panic before laughing and shaking his head, “Relax. Jazz is at the library doing some work for her college classes or something. She won’t be back until dinner at least.”

“Jesus, give me a heart attack,” Tucker groaned, near collapsing in on himself in his dramatics. Sam, at least, still seemed amused. 

“They really left you guys on your own for a week? Didn’t you almost burn your house down one time when they did that?”

“Hey, we were young and impressionable children when that happened,” Danny pouted at her, holding it for a few seconds before laughing. “Besides, we didn’t burn the house, we almost exploded the house. Totally different thing.” 

“Totally,” Tucker snorted, shoving at Danny’s shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go already! When else am I ever gonna get a chance to study their tech and poke at it to see how it works? This is the lab of ghost researchers after all!”

“Probably why you shouldn’t get your hopes up,” Danny snorted, even as Tucker raced to the kitchen and the bulky steel door that led down to the lab they kept in their basement. Honestly, Danny was almost completely certain that a basement lab wasn’t technically legal. “You know the code?”

“Same code for your guys’ lock with the extra key outside,” Tucker laughed, the sound of beeping soon followed by the deep, menacing sound of heavy-duty locks being released. Danny took a moment to appreciate the horror/sci-fi movie that was his life before letting Tucker rush down the stairs first, Sam following at a much more calm pace. 

Half-following after them, Danny took a moment to look around the near spotless kitchen. The only spot that wasn’t clean and empty of items was a little pile of chips and snack cakes, a note from Jazz resting on top of the pile and dictating that ‘she’ needed to remember to eat. (She should probably tell Jazz about the whole genderfluid ‘trying out being a guy’ thing soon. Maybe once she figured out if it was going to stick around or not.)

Swiping the note and a bag of chips, she (he! it was he right now) shoved the note in his pocket and headed down the stairs after his friends as he got ready to munch on his new snack. As always, the clean kitchen tile and wooden walls faded abruptly in favor of strong metal stairs and former wood walls made of the same metal as the stairs. 

It had once been cool to learn that they had their own lab in the basement and the entire lab had been built to contain radiation and prevent any possible spreading. Jazz had then taught him that having a place to contain radiation meant that there was radiation to contain. He hadn’t grown extra fingers or heads yet, though, so it was probably okay for the most part - especially since his parents hadn’t been down in the lab for almost two weeks. 

Getting to the bottom of the stairs, Danny didn’t even get to open his bag of chips before almost running into Sam. He pouted, giving her a nudge, “Hey, there’s more than just the entryway here, you know.”

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t want any part in that,” Sam said, gesturing straight ahead. Danny peeked out around her and wasn’t sure whether to laugh or groan as he saw Tucker being, well… Tucker. 

His idiot best friend since preschool was just about buried in half-finished inventions and exposed wires that were already twisted around him. They were probably ready to strangle him out of pure spite, especially since everytime Danny came near the lab he was shocked by them. 

The wires did nothing to slow Tucker down, though, his friend a swirl of yellow and green as he moved around the lab and tried to put his hands on every shiny thing that he could. Sam probably had the right idea in staying back. 

“You know, there’s some cool research stuff about ancient ghosts or something on that table way over there out of the line of fire, usually. You wanna-” Danny paused, blinking as Sam was already halfway across the room. Normally she would look menacing crossing a room with such a determined expression, especially with her outfits usually equating to little more than a black hole, but, well. A dripping teenage girl with a white fluffy towel draped around her shoulders did little to scare people.

Shaking his head and dropping his chips and own towel on the stairs, Danny headed over to make sure Tucker wasn’t about to die. He was almost positive that, as he got closer, he could hear Tucker muttering engineering and coding type things under his breath. It was as funny as it was worrying. 

“Remember you promised to not try and hack into government files until you’re eighteen.” Danny threw an arm around Tucker’s shoulders, dragging him back from a table of slightly sparking parts. “Also, while you’re at it, maybe try not to electrocute yourself while you’re down here.” 

“I’m not gonna electrocute myself,” Tucker snorted, batting him away before turning to beam at him. “But c’mon. I mean — look at all this stuff! They’re making technology that shouldn’t exist!”

“Uh huh.” Danny didn’t have the heart to tell him that none of it worked. “Just, uh… be cautious of anything that looks like it could kill you, okay? Half of this stuff isn’t even complete, yet. Just focus on stuff like- Here! Focus on stuff like- Fuck!” 

Tucker barked out a wheezy laugh as Danny jumped back from the stupid fucking device that had zapped him enough to hurt. Tucker’s laugh was doing little to raise Danny’s spirits, too. “Sorry, Danny, but if anyone’s getting electrocuted today it’s probably gonna be you.” 

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Danny grumbled, shaking his hand out and moving away from anything that even so much as looked like it could hurt him. “I’m telling you guys, this lab is out to get me.”

“You think the world is out to get you,” Sam laughed, walking back over to them and looking at all the other papers scattered around. “Okay, so… how does all of this work? Like, okay, secret lab, crazy inventions, and all of it… leads to ghosts? How?”

“Jeez, Sammy, ask the hard questions,” Danny whined, moving to pull himself up on a table and sit. Sam did the same thing on the table across from him and Tucker went back to rifling through tech like the trash goblin he was. “Okay, so… it’s kind of complicated? If you want to be really proper about it and junk, they take part in biological studies to research the development and recreation of ectoplasm and the theorized existence of ectoplasmic entities.”

“Hang on.” Tucker paused, arms full as he looked back at them. “Ectoplasm is that slimy junk that ghosts throw up on people, isn’t it?” 

“No- And stop shoving stuff into your pockets! You’re enough of a walking fire hazard as it is!” Honestly, Danny wouldn’t be surprised if Tucker one day pulled out an actual laptop from those pockets. “Ectoplasm as in, like, an actual element that they’re working on proving to the scientific community at large.”

“They get funding for something like that?” Sam looked down at the papers she had been looking at, expression flat. “This all looks like absolute gibberish — and that’s without counting all the scientific terms.” 

“I mean, it is basically gibberish until they get the proof they need,” Danny shrugged, looking over his shoulder. “That’s why I told you that me and Jazz were outright banned from being in the lab the last couple months. It’s because they were building that.”

Danny pointed over towards the way he had been looking, turning back to see his friends’ shocked expressions. In their defense, it really was something unnoticed until attention was called to it. It was, as his parents like to call it, their ‘life’s work.’

While his parents really were trying to prove that ectoplasm was an actual element, their true focus was to study the entities that were supposedly made of it. There were sometimes months at a time where his parents disappeared into the lab and Danny had been chased out with stern lectures and disappointed looks. After their last spree of inventing, Danny made sure to only come down to the lab and look at what they were doing when he was sure they were asleep. 

Their latest project wasn’t technically their ‘latest,’ either. It was something that they had been working on since Danny was in second or third grade, but it was only in the last few months they had started making progress on ‘their greatest invention.’ 

“Dude… what is that?” Tucker looked like he wanted to run over and pick it apart with nothing but his teeth and nails. Danny made sure to slide off the table he was sitting on and shuffle to stand in front of him so he could at least try to block him when he snapped and went feral. 

“I mean, me and Jazz started calling it a portal, but I think the real term they gave it was the EMD or, uh…” Shit, he had just been thinking about it last night, too. What- Oh, right. “The Ectoplasmic Monitoring Device. It’s basically supposed to use radiation and electricity to form a sort of mirror that they can use to study ectoplasm which, so far as they’ve been able to tell, doesn’t naturally occur in our world.”

“The living world?” Sam crossed her arms and had on her skeptical look that she usually had when dealing with cheerleaders and kids who got caught cheating. “Meaning there’s another world?”

Sighing dramatically, Danny wandered over to the device and gave it a fond pat to the side, expertly avoiding the exposed wires. “If what my parents say is true, then there’s supposed to be another world parallel to our own that is made of ectoplasm. This device was supposed to make it so they’d be able to study that world.”

“Supposed to? What happened?” Tucker frowned as he started looking at all the data banks the portal was hooked up to, Danny leaving him to it. While Danny wasn’t a slouch himself when it came to math and science, he’d leave the actual inventing part up to Tucker, who was much better at it. 

“We don’t really know. They’ve been working on this since I was in second or third grade, I think.” The Portal, which came about after having a bit of a gaming marathon, was aptly named in Danny’s opinion. The thing was huge, created in the style of a hexagon just for structural stability, and had an eight foot long tunnel. It was definitely a portal. It was also off and silent as it always seemed to be. “They said they made a breakthrough a while ago, but I guess it wasn’t enough of one.”

Danny had to admit that they had done a lot of good work on it, though. Whereas before there had been nothing except a multitude of wires and a wireframe structure, now it looked like something more befitting a proper sci-fi movie. There were only a few panels that seemed to be missing and showed the wires and cables that held the portal together, but otherwise it looked like it should have been at least somewhat functional. 

“Danny, you know that this looks like the start of a horror movie,” Sam said, sounding like she was both scoffing and laughing. It probably would have been even funnier if she didn’t sound so right about it. Still, though… 

Unable to resist climbing over the foot-wide gap and into the portal itself, Danny let himself pretend for just a moment that he really was about to enter some grand new world where anything could happen. What would another world even be like? What would a ghostly world be like?

His parents could claim ectoplasmic entities all they wanted when it came to their studies and research, but what they were basically studying was ghosts. Maybe not the horror-comedy cult classic stuff that was around, but real, actual ghosts. What would a world like that really look like?

Would it be full of dead people and just that? Maybe there was old technology that no one used anymore and books no one ever read? Or maybe it was just an echo of Earth, but all twisted and flipped around. Whatever was out there, Danny had little doubt that it would be amazing. 

“You know, it’s kind of weird.” Tucker’s voice brought his attention back to the present, Danny glancing back to see the other was still at the data banks and looking through everything. “Everything’s plugged in, all the readings look good from what I’m seeing, and just… it should be working, but it’s like it just decided not to bother.” 

Danny couldn’t stop his laugh at that, waving around at the room at large. “Dude, they can say ectoplasmic entities all they want, but they’re basically chasing after ghosts.”

“Tilting at windmills,” Sam put in, grinning at the looks Danny and Tucker both shot her. “It means chasing what isn’t there. It was on our English final-”

“Is that what it means?” Tucker’s eyes widened and then he dropped his shoulders and groaned. “Got that one wrong, then.”

Danny snorted and rolled his eyes before stepping further into the Portal, catching a glimpse of Tucker messing with the screens and control area while Sam slipped over to fiddle with dials and levers that, pressed against the wall, fed into the machine itself. Not too worried about it, Danny looked around, absently hearing Tucker mutter about the unworking Portal being a bummer.

“Gotta agree with you there,” Sam called back to him, voice hard to hear from where Danny was standing. It almost reminded him of being inside a wind tunnel when he had been on a field trip with his class. “Could you imagine how cool it would be to explore an entire new world?”

Danny kept silent, but honestly he couldn’t agree more. It would have been amazing if his parents had been right for once and the Portal could one day work. They’d basically be able to explore a new planet.

Now far enough inside to be in the middle of it all, Danny almost continued forward before stopping dead in his tracks as something happened. It felt like being shocked without the pain of it all, breath knocked out of him and some sort of sharp sensation crawling down his spine and prickling at his skin. It was, to borrow his mom’s paranoid words, as if someone had stepped over his grave. 

His friends were still talking outside — he knew they were talking just outside the edge of the Portal — but from where he was standing it felt like he couldn’t hear anything except maybe his imagined heartbeat and quiet breaths. It was quiet enough that he was pretty sure his brain was trying to trick him into thinking someone was talking just so he had something to focus on.

It felt like an eternity of feeling like something was going to happen before the feeling faded away, Danny left confused and standing there before he heard his name called by what sounded like Tucker. Slowly taking a step back, Danny shook his head as he turned around. He was just walking around some scrap metal, as far as he was concerned. He was fine. In fact- Okay. Now Sam was loudly calling for him. 

“Hang on, hang on, I’m coming!” Quickly turning around, and immediately tripping over some exposed metal, Danny stumbled and swore before catching himself on the wall. It may have been scrap metal, but it was still a death trap, Danny supposed. 

Pushing himself off the wall, Danny stumbled again and paused as he felt something under his hand give, like whatever it was was being pressed inwards, a quiet click noise echoing softly throughout the Portal. Frowning in confusion, Danny turned to look at his hand before carefully twitching his fingers apart to form a gap he could look through. 

There, just barely visible through the light spilling in from the lab, was the plastic sheen of a green button. An imprinted word above it read ON. 

“Danny? You okay?” Sam’s voice, sounding worried, had Danny freezing in place even more as he turned to properly look at her. She had a small frown on her face, the beginnings of concern in her eyes and the lines around her mouth. “Hey, what’s wrong? You look like you just saw a ghost-”

The word cut off in the wake of a high pitched whine not unlike what he heard once before when a power generator had started turning on. It was a sound that made Sam’s eyes widen the same way Danny (no, this was definitely Dani, now, who was scared out of her mind) was sure her own had, trying not to laugh hysterically as the whine grew louder around them. She had no doubt that she really did look like she had seen a ghost. 

“Hey, guys?” Dani finally managed through the fear that felt like it was choking her, “I think I figured out why the portal wasn’t working.” 

The whine was loud enough that it seemed to deafen the entire world, Dani unable to hear Sam screaming what was probably her name. She couldn’t hear Tucker, either, the other coming into view and looking to be shouting something before he was wrapping around Sam and keeping her from running into the portal after her. 

It looked like the two were telling her to run, to get out, but Dani just… stood. It felt like she was frozen in place and unable to move no matter how much she tried or wanted it. She was stuck. 

And then it felt like everything happened in one second.

The screams of her friends faded, instead replaced with the sound an MRI machine would make; loud and heartstopping and terrifying. 

Rings of bright white light shone from the small gaps between the metal floor, walls, and ceiling, spreading across the Portal similar to a row of lights in a movie theater. 

The thought of running couldn’t seem to connect with her body, which was rigid straight and locked into place with all her weight still on the button. 

An imagined voice that, for just a moment, sounded like someone was telling Dani to take a deep breath. She didn’t bother fighting off the illusion, merely doing as told because was she about to die-?

A second passed and the thunderstorm was no longer outside but instead it was with her and directly above her and Dani only sucked in another deep breath as she felt the feeling that came right before a static shock only multiplied by a million-

A deep breath, two screaming voices, and Dani braced herself as the storm broke and lightning hit.

—

If you enjoyed this story then check out my Writing Commissions.

“Probably want us all to commit suicide so they don’t have to deal with us,” Sam grumbled, Danny fighting to not laugh again even as Tucker did. “School was not this exhausting last year.”

Danny shrugged, nibbling on a fry, “Dunno. Maybe they’re trying to figure out the smart ones from the dumb ones early.” A glance down at his tray showed that while he had eaten a lot of his lunch already, there was still a good amount left. He was still starving and hungry as hell a lot, but he at least wasn’t scarfing everything down that he could get his hands on like he had in the beginning of the week. “Which means me and Tuck are doomed.” 

“Hey,” Tucker frowned. “I’m smart!” Mm… was he, though? Danny figured the thought must have shown up on his face since Tucker looked even more offended. “Hey!”

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, Tuck, you’re a genius when it comes to coding and hacking and tech and stuff, but… You kind of suck at everything else.”

There was a long silence, Danny waiting for a response before Tucker looked away and sullenly started sipping on his chocolate milk. It was way more hilarious than it should have been, especially when he saw Sam trying to fight back her own laughs. It was possible all the homework might have caused them to suffer from a little bit of hysteria.

“Okay, okay,” Sam said as soon as she was able, sitting back up. “Whose house is up first for homework duty-”

“Not it!” Danny and Tucker both shouted immediately, which, excellent. That meant a study session at Sam’s who was rich and, therefore, had the best study snacks. Sam didn’t even look surprised, anymore! 

“How generous of you boys, truly,” Sam drawled, Danny quickly taking a bite of whatever was closest to hide the stupid grin he could feel forming. It wasn’t his fault being counted as ‘one of the boys’ was starting to become a pretty good feeling. “Speaking of you boys, Danny! Did you finally learn to breathe between bites?”

“Ha ha,” Danny said with as dry a tone as he could muster, not keeping it up long before he was smiling at his friends’ looks. “I dunno, just… I’m still really hungry, but it doesn’t feel like I’m Godzilla waking up from a thousand year long nap, you know?”

Tucker snorted with laughter while Sam shook her head, smiling anyways, “At least there’s that. How’d your check up with the doctors go on Wednesday?”

“Yeah, how’d your escape from the second half of classes go,” Tucker pretended to frown, Danny rolling his eyes and flicking a fry at him. At least, Danny was pretty sure it was a fry. 

“It went fine.” Which was something Danny had already told the two, but, God, it would take someone a lot stronger than Danny to get them to stop worrying over him. “I’m still, you know, not the best, but they’re happy that I seem to be stable and don’t have anything that’s, like, really wrong, you know?”

Not to say he was perfectly alright. He was still dropping almost everything he picked up or tried to hold, but he wasn’t shaking or losing his balance as much anymore. His breathing still wasn’t the best, either, and his heart rate was still kind of trashed, but he at least didn’t struggle for air after walking from his house to the end of the block! 

“The only thing that sucked was that Jazz spent an hour grilling the doctors about the best way to follow the aftercare instructions,” Danny continued, trying not to think back to the pure embarrassment at Jazz’s motherly concern and craziness. “Not sure if she’s just that worried, or if she was trying to make some kind of point because Mom and Dad weren’t there.” Ah… and there were the shared looks.

Tucker was the first to speak, as the more ‘relaxed’ friend, so him speaking first made it seem less like an interrogation, “Your parents didn’t go to the appointment with you? Or were they waiting in the car or lobby or something?” 

Sam was next, pushing in deep and trying to drive the point home and get Danny riled up into confessing what they all already knew, “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course Danny’s parents would go with him to a doctor’s appointment when it comes to something like this.”

“You know,” Danny finally managed after a few seconds. “This was a lot more effective before I broke down your team interrogation techniques. Now it’s just sad.” Ah, the annoyed, upset looks of his best friends. Balance was restored. “They were at home working on the Portal- I mean, I told you guys what happened, right? The whole self-sustaining thing?”

As expected, Tucker was quick to leap onto the subject of self-sustaining energy, “Dude, I still can’t believe your parents might be about to crack into a source of self-sustaining energy that’s actually, you know, self-sustaining.” 

“Might,” Sam stressed. “If this really is running off of- Of ectoplasm or whatever it is, then we have no idea what that could do to someone if they’re exposed to it. I mean, we once thought radiation was safe, too.” 

“Damn,” Danny muttered, looking at Tucker. “I think she won that one because that’s… That’s a really good point.” 

“But she always wins!” Before Danny could think of a response at Tucker’s loud, dramatic whining, he felt his back bend and his nails dig into his palms at the sudden race of electricity that burned through him like he had shoved a fork into a socket and- “Danny? Hey, whoa, what’s wrong?” 

“I-” Danny cut himself off, shuddering as the feeling began to fade, instead turning into something like a low, pouding sense of worry at the back of his mind. “I just- It felt like I was just shocked, just now, but… not. You know?”

His friends both had looks that made it seem like no, they did not know, and Danny wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or grateful when the bell warning them of their next class screeched through the air. Shaking his head and standing up, Danny muttered a quick, “Nevermind. Probably just the normal static shock.” Except it hadn’t felt like it. 

It was more like an exposed wire had been pressed to his skin and then pulled away only to linger in the air just behind him, ready to zap him all over again the second he made the wrong move or choice. It was like an ever-evolving anxiety attack and he was half-tempted to ask Jazz if any of her psychology books had anything on something similar because jesus. 

Already keyed up even while the three were just dumping their trash from lunch, he wasn’t even surprised when some loud banging from the kitchen sent him jumping into the air and almost knocking both himself and Tucker to the ground. “Whoa, dude, you okay?” 

“I-” Danny cut himself off, grateful that he had already thrown his trash into the actual trash can rather than flinging it onto Tucker or some random kid behind them. “You guys heard that too, right? The…” Words running out, Danny gestured vaguely towards the kitchen. 

“Sounded like someone back there might have knocked a pot or something over,” Sam said, standing close by on Danny’s other side and hovering like she was about to catch him. It would have been sweet if Danny wasn’t ready to crawl out of his skin from anxiety. 

“I- I mean. I know the bell just rang, but would- Would you guys come with me to just check? Real quick?” Danny should not be this close to some kind of anxiety attack. He had a weird feeling and now he was just feeding into his terror or something like that. Jazz would have had the words for it, but Danny knew enough to know that he was just scaring himself and he needed to calm down. Still. What if it was something and not just a bad feeling? 

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. We can check it out real quick.” Sam headed for the kitchen doors with a sense of confidence and purpose that meant no one would stop her, Tucker still sort of holding him up as he followed after her and tugged Danny along. (She wasn’t really feeling much like ‘Danny’ anymore.)

“Well, that’s a fun thing to learn,” Dani muttered under her breath, not surprised when Tucker noticed and gave her a questioning look, because Tucker only ever seemed to be observant when she was freaking out. “Not really feeling much like a guy when I’m this… anxious?” 

“There’s probably some insanely long lecture on feminism that Sam has memorized to explain it if you want to ask,” Tucker teased, Dani feeling a little better. 

She then felt a million times worse when they all got to the kitchen door and pushed it open to see that the lights were flickering and dimming before shutting off entirely. Dani gulped and she felt Tucker go still, whispering a horrified, “We’re in a horror movie.” 

“We are not in a horror movie,” Sam snapped, which was a clear enough indicator that she was just as on edge as them. “The lights probably started acting up and caused one of the cooks to drop something.” 

“Are lunch ladies really cooks?” Tucker asked, injecting just enough stupid humor into the situation that Dani didn’t feel like she was going to faint in terror as they crept forward into the kitchen. The door swinging shut behind them made her feel like some dramatic death toll should be going off in the background. “Like, genuinely-” 

“Yes, they are,” Sam said firmly. “And also because one of the cooks here identifies as a man, and it’d be rude to refer to him as a ‘lunch lady.’” Huh. Dani wouldn’t have really thought about that even a couple months ago, but that was a good point. 

“Maybe he likes being referred to as a lunch lady. Maybe he finds it funny.” Ah, Tucker. He was doing his best, but Dani could hear the way his voice was shaking. Not that she was much better, gripping onto Tucker’s arm hard enough that it was probably going numb.

Before the ‘fight’ could continue, there was another clanging sound, like something heavy and metal hitting the floor. It had all three of them poorly stifling their screams as they jumped into each other hard enough to nearly send them to the ground. Dani wasn’t sure how they managed to catch their balance, but all three of them stayed standing.

Dani hadn’t even looked up from making sure her feet weren’t about to trip over each other again when she felt static rolling across her skin, nowhere near as strong as it had been earlier, but enough to make her snap her head up to see that there was some light in the kitchen. 

And it was coming from a ghost. 

Dani couldn’t tear her gaze away even as she wanted to look at her friends’ faces to see if they were seeing the same thing. Judging by the way Tucker was now gripping her arm tightly enough to bruise, she had to assume they were. 

“Oh dear, oh dear… No, no, this is all wrong.” The actual real life ghost in front of them was speaking and mumbling to herself like some fretful old lady who had forgotten something. It was definitely a ghost, though, because Dani could see through her to the wall of pots and pans behind her. She could also see the way she was floating seven inches off the ground. (Seven? Six? It was enough to be noticeable!)

“Oh, hello, dearies.” Ah. The ghost had seen them. The ghost was now talking to them. “Could you tell me who changed the menu?”

Dani opened her mouth to maybe pray to some god she wasn’t sure she actually believed in when Tucker beat her to it. “Do you mean all the salads and junk that Sam added?” 

That was enough to get Dani to turn her head to look at him, shocked that one of her best friends was that stupid. He was even pointing at Sam! Who looked just as incredulous! Yeah, okay, there was no accounting for what someone said when they were going through shock and extreme amounts of fear, but still! 

“Oh. You changed the menu?” The ghost who looked like a lunch lady straight out of the fifties with a pink uniform and hair net and gloves and everything was looking at Sam now and Dani was really hoping that this was some weird dream she would wake up from after falling asleep at lunch. Or maybe they were mass hallucinating. That was a thing, right? “You changed the menu.” Oh. That wasn’t a question that time.

Before Dani could say anything, she saw some of the pots behind the ghost beginning to float up into the air, wrapped in the same glowing light that came from the ghost — who was looking a lot angrier than she had a second- Holy fucking shit. 

Staring with wide eyes at the huge cast iron pot that had slammed into the wall hard enough to dent it after just barely missing Sam’s head, Dani was pretty sure her brain went offline for a couple of seconds in shock. She then decided she could go into shock when she was dead and shoved Tucker hard enough that she might as well have body-checked him before doing the same to Sam and screaming, “Run!” 

It was then Danny who turned back and kept himself between the ghost and his friends.

Let me be brave, Danny thought to himself fiercely, because Danny wasn’t the shy, meek little girl who avoided any sign of confrontation and tried her best to be quiet. Danny was someone who was learning to speak up for himself and was bad at it, but was trying. Danny was the one who was starting to let himself take up space and try to figure out just who he was. 

So it was Danny who grabbed the fallen pot off the ground as his friends ran and threw it up into the air at another one that had been flying towards them. Through some miracle of luck it actually managed to hit, the two making a loud clanging sound that hurt his ears and had him hurrying out the door after his friends.

He didn’t bother to waste his breath to tell his friends to keep running, only shoving them forward when he saw they had slowed down to make sure he was behind them. He made sure it was a decently powerful shove considering he heard more pots clanging into the walls and door of the kitchen, the cafeteria now empty with no witnesses which meant no one to see what the hell was going on. 

It wasn’t until they were a couple of hallways away, all empty since everyone who didn’t have a deadly sense of curiosity was in class, that Tucker was squeaking out a high-pitched, “What the hell?!” 

“Inside, inside, inside,” Sam chanted, jerking open a door into an empty classroom before pushing them all inside and then shutting and locking it. Danny watched as her legs gave out and she slid down to the floor, Tucker not doing much better as he propped himself up against a desk. “That- That was… Was that really-?”

“That was a ghost.” Tucker’s face was paler than Danny had ever seen and enough to spur him into grabbing a chair and dragging it over before pushing him into it. “That was actually- Ghosts can’t do shit like that- Ghosts aren’t real like that!” 

Still gasping for breath he didn’t have, and knowing his heart was going way too fast, Danny finally managed a weak, “That wasn’t a ghost.” As soon as his friends looked at him like he was insane, he shook his head. “No, listen, that- That was everything my parents have ever told me about. That was an ectoplasmic entity or whatever it is that they’ve been studying.” Which meant… “Holy shit, they were right.” 

“Dani, girl-”

“Boy again. Sorry.” 

“Danny, man, I love you, but what the hell does that have to do with what’s going on right now? And the fact that we’re about to die?” 

Making a note to beam over Tucker’s casual acceptance of how he was switching between genders like dresses before a party, Danny forced himself to focus and dug out his phone. “It means that we can call my parents and they can come down here and actually do something about it.” 

Pulling up his contacts quickly, Danny heard Sam muttering something before her voice pitched up in something between offense, rage, and hurt, “You ratted me out to a ghost?” 

“I panicked! I thought-! She looked like my grandma, I didn’t think she’d suddenly start throwing kitchenware at us!” Alright. That was a decent point, actually. 

Phone ringing, Danny blew out a breath when it connected and he heard his mom’s voice. “Danielle? Sweetie, what’s wrong? You’re supposed to be in class right now, aren’t you?” 

“Mom-” Voice breaking, Danny realized just how tense and terrified he still was, all his energy thrumming under his skin like static before lightning struck. (He really needed to stop focusing on the static and lightning analogies, if only so he could stop remembering how much he had screamed.) “Mom, I need you and Dad to come to the school, right now.” 

“Danielle, honey, we’re right in the middle of our work. Something odd is happening with the EMD and we need to figure it out before it can cause any problems. Are you having a bad day? I can call Jazz and she should be able to come and pick you up-”

“You were right!” Danny blurted out, loud enough that Sam and Tucker both jumped and rattled the door and chair they were each leaning against or on. “Everything you ever said about- About ghosts and ectoplasm and all of it, you were right, okay? Everything. You were right and we’re looking at the proof and you need to get down here right now!”

Silent. The other end was silent and Danny felt ready to scream as he pulled his phone away to make sure the call hadn’t dropped. There was nothing but a black screen, Danny clicking the power button to bring up the call. Nothing showed up. He clicked it again, a couple times, and it was like a dawning horror to realize his phone had just died. 

“Shit,” Danny muttered, trying a couple more times before giving up and shoving it into his pocket, other hand held out towards Tucker. “Phone. Mine died.” 

Tucker nodded and moved to get it, Danny snapping his hand back with a sharp gasp as that same feeling from lunch, that same burning jolt of static, shot through him with enough force to have him stumbling away and looking around the room as if something was about to jump out at him. 

He wasn’t wrong. 

The ghost from earlier was suddenly in the middle of the room, both his friends jumping to their feet with enough force to send them stumbling back. The look of fear in their eyes had Danny’s skyrocketing, but at the same time it made him feel angry. 

“You dare change the menu?! The menu has been the same for fifty years! Fifty years of tradition! Of getting it right! And you would dare change it?!” 

Let me be brave, Danny thought once again, watching as one of the desks glowed with that strange energy and light the same as the pots had. Danny saw where it was going to hit as it flung itself through the air on a trajectory right towards Sam. 

Before he could even think he was moving, hands outstretched and shoving Sam away and into Tucker, knowing he would catch Sam. He then braced himself to feel a whole lot of pain as the desk flew- Right by him? 

Okay. Well. He wasn’t about to question his luck there when the desk was in splinters against the wall and they now had a clear shot to the door, Danny shoving them forward with another command to, “Run! Outside!”

His friends didn’t question it and began running at once, Tucker panting out strained words as they rounded the corner. “Danny, that desk- It went through you!” 

“Yeah. I know. Really close miss,” Danny panted out himself, the burn in his lungs starting to remind him really clearly that his doctors had talked about him having problems with breathing at his last check-up. “Talk later.”

“No, man, it went through you!” Okay, they would have time to talk about Tucker’s fear hallucinations later, Danny decided. 

“Outside, outside,” Danny said, raising his voice so Sam could hear, who was already making the turn for the front doors. “We need to get out. Lead it to my parents!” If they could get to his house — or more accurately if they could get to ‘Fenton Works,’ his parents would probably have something in the lab that could deal with everything. 

“We- We can’t!” Tucker gasped like he was about to stop breathing, Danny slowing just enough to make sure he could keep Tucker ahead of him and catch him if he collapsed as they raced down the stairs and out onto the front lawn of the school. Unlike Danny’s possible likelihood, Tucker did have asthma. “We can’t skip school!” 

“Get your priorities straight!” Sam shouted back, enough breath in her lungs to yell at them. It was extremely unfair, in Danny’s opinion. What was more unfair was that the ghost or ectoplasmic entity or demon or whatever it was was right in front of them again, like all their running hadn’t even mattered. It also had grabbed Sam by the wrist and jerked her to a stop harshly enough that Sam let out a short scream. 

Danny didn’t even think. He didn’t stop, or scream, or gasp, or anything. He just kept running, fear and anger pounding through him at seeing Sam’s terrified face, before he slammed into the ghostly lunch lady that was looking at them with burning red eyes. He was honestly surprised when he made contact, and apparently so was the ghost since he saw her grip on Sam loosen enough that she was able to free herself. 

“Danny!” The warning came a second too late, Danny wincing as it was his arm grabbed that time. He heard Sam scream again, and Tucker too, but it was a little hard to be sure when all of his focus was on the searing pain in his arm as he was lifted off the ground higher, and higher, and higher-! Too fast, this was all going too fast, he couldn’t even think-

“Now, dearie, it’s quite rude to interfere,” the ghost chided him like he was a misbehaving child, Danny swinging almost twenty or thirty feet up from the ground and trying to hold back a scream. The pain in his arm was enough to make him think it was dislocated, all of his weight hanging by the grip around his wrist. “This should fix that, and you should be just fine, even. Just a few broken bones, is all, I think!” 

Danny looked up at the ghost who smiled at him like she was being genuine and just putting him in some sort of time-out before he realized he was falling through the air. 

For a brief second that had to have been controlled by hysteria Danny decided the feeling of falling through the air felt like when he had jumped from a swing as a kid or when coming down after bouncing too high on a trampoline. 

The next second had the panic overwhelm him, a voiceless thought that he didn’t want to feel that much pain again, but it was quickly drowned out by fear that Sam and Tucker were next. 

He didn’t give a shit if he got hurt along the way, but he was not going to let some insane research of his parents hurt his best friends. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. No matter what it took, he was going to protect them-!

A sudden jerk had him stopping in his descent, Danny braced for the pain. He instead felt a wave of shock at there being none. He then realized there was no pain because instead of hitting the ground, he was floating a few inches above it. 

In the seconds before he dropped the last few inches to the ground, Danny looked at Sam and Tucker to see they were stunned, completely still and silent. He also looked at the ghost who looked as scared as he felt. 

A part of him wanted to just sit there and just give into the urge to sob in terror, but then he realized what he was looking at. She was scared. That meant there was something that could stop her. 

Rolling over and shoving himself up onto his knees, Danny saw the ghost was still up in the air, still too surprised to move yet. Danny, now an expert at pushing his panic attacks away until later, furiously tried to think on what he could do. 

A whisper. 

A nudge to his back. 

A swirl of soft blues and purple that he couldn’t see but somehow knew was there, the faintest, Backpack. 

Following the nudge, Danny didn’t stop to think as he ran for Tucker and turned him around before he ripped his backpack open, ignoring Tucker’s sputtering and squirming. Instead he found just what he had been looking for. 

He had almost forgotten, but that time at the lab, on the day of the Accident, he had seen Tucker grab something from one of the tables. He had probably been wanting to play around with it and see what it did, but Danny remembered his dad talking about it. It was an old thermos he had converted into a container for ectoplasmic energy. 

He had no idea how it worked, absolutely no clue if it would do anything towards the ghost that had almost tried to kill him, but he didn’t let himself hesitate. 

Let me be brave, Danny thought as loudly as he could, ripping the cap off the thermos and fumbling to turn it around towards the ghost that was quickly getting over her shock. Let me protect them!

“Soup isn’t on the menu, child.” The ghost was smirking like she was someone who knew they couldn’t be hurt, but Danny forced himself to not believe it. She had been scared, after all. 

She had been scared and so, with every scrap of hope he had left inside of him, Danny held up the themors and pressed the bright green button on the side of it. 

There was a moment — a second — where nothing happened and Danny felt like his heart was about to throw up. Then he felt the metal in his hands heat up with enough force and speed that it took everything in him to not drop the container, eyes wide as a beam of bright white light or energy or something shot out and hit the ghost directly. 

Danny braced himself as he felt the container vibrate in his hands, the ghost screaming as it looked like she was almost being pulled into the thing. He expected her to rip away from it and escape until the last second when both the ghost and the energy coiled back in on itself, Danny capping the thermos without thought. 

“Sorry, lady,” Danny said, a laugh of what was definitely hysteria leaving him as he suddenly felt a million pounds heavier, not helped at all when he heard what might have been his parents starting to shout at him. Or maybe it was Sam and Tucker? “But it looks like lunch is over.” 

Letting out a breath, Danny tried to figure out just what to do with a container that had a ghost in it like straight out of an old sci-fi movie. He also tried to figure out how he was going to explain this to his parents and maybe even the teachers. 

He then realized the black at the edges of his vision hadn’t gone away — had only grown stronger — and that was probably a bad thing. 

After that, all he knew was that it was dark and quiet and he was tired. 

A nap would be fine, right?

—

If you enjoyed this story then check out my Writing Commissions either here on Tumblr or at my personal Website.

“Petricoff,” Danny cut in, viciously pleased to both be distracted from his worries and see Jazz pause, close her mouth, and then gain a look. It was the same look she usually had when she wanted to say something bad about their parents but then remembered it was about their parents.

“Alright,” Jazz said after a minute. “Maybe not all of your teachers are understanding, but Petricoff doesn’t count and you know it. She’s some evil, demonic creature from the pits of hell.”

Not bothering to fight back a laugh, Danny couldn’t help but push it with a smug, “Never gonna forgive her for that C, huh?”

Danny half-expected some lecture about forgiveness and not holding things against people, but instead he was blessed with a wonderful, “Never. She’ll be in her grave and I’ll be sure to graffiti her tombstone every halloween. Now, did you get everything for your first day back? Backpack?”

Looking down at his backpack, which was on the floorboard, Danny looked back to Jazz, who was glaring at some old guy without a helmet passing them on a motorcycle. At least she was consistent in her hatred of motorcycles. “No. I threw it out my window to try and attract the attention of some aliens.” 

“Notebooks and pencils?” After the first day of freshman year? Danny was pretty sure he had a notebook and pencil for each class — including lunch. 

“Nope. I used them all to build a boat. I plan to use it to escape down the river tonight and sail all the way to Atlantis.” It was disappointing that Jazz no longer even looked at him. 

“Lunch money?” 

“Donated it to an organization that has a goal to punch every first grader in the face.” 

“Phone and phone charger?”

“Gave ‘em to Tucker so he could make a supercomputer out of them. I’m pretty sure he’s just a few pieces away from taking over the White House.” 

“Tell him the real power is through the Senate and to strike there first. Pain medication?”

“Took it all this morning at the same time so I can finally enter into a coma like I always dreamed of.” 

“And should I be calling you Dani or another name now?” 

Words dying in the back of his throat, Danny felt like his heart, which had traitorously calmed down in the familiar back-and-forth between him and Jazz, was going to explode. He was pretty sure it was beating faster than possible, Danny barely able to suck in a breath because how was he supposed to respond to that? 

He had no response. He had nothing planned, his mind had gone absolutely blank, and there was no Sam or Tucker around to distract Jazz or defend him and he had no idea what he should be doing. They were pulling up towards the school so Danny could always bail and jump out of the car and run. That seemed like a good, solid option. 

He was just about to try when he felt the car roll to a stop behind a few others, Jazz’s hand settling on his shoulder and it was fifty-fifty whether she would freak out or start being over accepting and- “I see you’re trying out a new outfit today.”

“Wait, what?” Was she being subtle? Jazz wasn’t subtle. She was as subtle as a brick wall. Was it a trick? It was probably a trick. “I mean, uh, yeah- No? Um… Sam helped me pick it out.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” Jazz laughed, a hand resting on his shoulder and giving a light squeeze and okay, that was… a good sign? “You look good…?” The last word trailed off and sounded like she was trying to ask a question- Oh. Oh! 

“Danny.” She wasn’t freaking out. “Still Danny, just with a y, now. And another n.” She wasn’t going off into some spiel about accepting every part of himself like she would have even a couple years ago, either. “At least it, uh, sometimes is. I think.” She was just… smiling at him. 

“Well, Danny.” And there was emphasis there. There was emphasis to show that it was more than just… her. (It showed it was him, too.) “I think you look very nice for your first day back at school.” 

Letting the silence stretch and half-aware that they were probably going to get honked at soon because they were just sitting there, Danny finally bit his lip and risked a quiet, “Really?”

“The only thing I ask is to keep me updated so I know whether I should be gushing about my smart baby sister or my smart baby brother.”

“You’re the worst,” Danny managed, refusing to admit he was choked up and absolutely ruined by such simple acceptance. Danny had been expecting some dramatic scene or a fight or to try and find the words to explain what the whole thing was about and instead it was just… It was Jazz smiling and accepting him. Just like that.

He really shouldn’t have expected anything else considering this was the sister who, after being told that Danny planned to become an astronaut, went out and bought a couple hundred dollars worth of instruction booklets and flight simulators. Still, it took way more than it should have to resist the urge to start crying and school hadn’t even started yet. 

“The absolute worst,” Danny repeated, grabbing his bag and tumbling out of the car as he tried to steady himself because he had been ready for some kind of fight and instead he got that. Jesus, it was like the universe knew it gave him pretty useless parents so it made it up to him with Jazz. “Why can’t you insult me like a normal older sister!”

“Have a great day at school, sweetie!” Jazz called out to him through the open passenger window, grin smug and ugh. He loved her. “Be sure to make new friends!” 

“Hey, now, what’s wrong with his old friends!” Ah, and here came Tucker to make the situation even worse. Danny didn’t even flinch at the familiar arm over his shoulders, Tucker beaming at Jazz and breaking up whatever had been left of The Moment. 

“Like I said, make some new friends!” Jazz called as she started to pull out from the lineup of cars dropping off kids, Danny just barely biting down a laugh at Tucker’s over-the-top offense.

“See if I get her any obligatory Christmas gift,” Tucker huffed, squeezing Danny’s shoulder and giving him one of those quick, questioning looks even as he grinned. “Ready for our first day of sophomore year?”

“As long as we make sure to find Sam so she can scare off the jocks for us.” Right. Right! His first official day as Danny Fenton. What could go wrong? 

⁂

“You know, when you think about it, there’s probably enough jaded students to start an all out war against her.” Sam’s bracing, amused tone was the only thing keeping Danny from shoving himself face-first into a locker out of a mix of rage and shame. “Like- Here. Hey! Mikey! What do you think about Petricoff!”

Mikey, one of the self-proclaimed ‘nerds’ in their year, startled from where he was walking next to them in the hallway on his own way to lunch like the rest of them. Danny, somehow, managed to feel even more shame and embarrassment, “Sam. Don’t just-”

“She’s a total asshole,” Mikey answered, which, okay, he hadn’t expected that. “See you guys at lunch.” With that he was speed walking away, which, fair. Sam had just shouted him down in the middle of the hallway and Sam could be… Sam. 

“See? Total asshole and all the students hate her,” Sam beamed, linking her arm with Danny’s before her grin fell into something a bit more serious. “I promise, no one else in class looked like they agreed with her.” Well. At least there was that. Danny had been too busy trying not to look at anything or anyone when Petricoff had started frowning when he corrected his name on the call-sheet from Danielle to Danny (or Dani, depending on the day).

“Pretty sure some of them were glaring at her,” Tucker chimed in, bumping his and Danny’s shoulders together. “Plus, hey, she was the only teacher who had a problem with the whole name thing, right? We can deal with one homophobic teacher!”

“It’d be transphobic since this is a gender issue,” Sam cut in, frowning and slowing down in the hallway. “At least I think. Technically it’s about gender fluidity, but still…”

“Guys, it’s not that big of a deal. I mean, my name still is Danielle, and she’s a teacher. Pretty sure she gets final say.” While Danny hadn’t expected to have to go through his first day telling most of his teachers that he would prefer to go by Danny (Dani, technically), it hadn’t been that awful. Most of them just nodded, made a note of it, and then had kept going with roll. Petricoff, though… 

Danielle, apparently, was what was on the attendance sheet and so in her class her name would be Danielle. After all, Dani sounded like such a boy’s name, and she didn’t want that, right? 

God, the only thing that had kept Danny from sinking through the floor was Sam’s hand snapping out to hold onto his tight enough to hurt and Tucker’s chair squeaking like he had actually been about to get up and start a fight. 

“Not every adult can be as cool as Jazz about the matter and, besides, there’s more important things to worry about, like the fact I’m starving.” Which wasn’t a lie. Danny was pretty sure he could eat at least three servings of a Thanksgiving dinner he was so hungry. 

“That is the fifth time you’ve complained about being hungry and lunch has only just started.” Sam shook her head as she steered them along towards the cafeteria lunch line, other kids already sitting down and digging in. “Did you even eat this morning?” 

“Bold of you to assume Jazz would let me leave the house without eating as long as she’s still at the house and not the dorms,” Danny snorted, digging out his lunch money, and, yeah. Jazz had been paranoid so he could probably double up on some things. “Think there’s a limit on how much cafeteria food I can- Shit!”

“Got it!” Tucker caught the dropped tray — and the food already on it — before it could hit the floor, handing it back to Danny with a frown, “You okay? That’s like the sixth or seventh time you’ve dropped something today.” 

“I…” As much as Danny wanted to snap and say he was fine, that… had definitely happened more than it should have. 

It was Sam to set a hand on his shoulder, giving a light squeeze, “Hey, it’s okay. Just let us know when you need help or if you need to go home early.”

“Yeah, man, I know you wanted to see the first day through, but you’re still recovering,” Tucker said, Danny pretending not to see the look of fear in his eyes. “It was… It was pretty bad, Danny. When you came out of there-” 

painpainpainpain it hurt it hurt why did it hurt so fucking badly 

cant breathe cant breathe cant breath make it stop make it stop makeitstop

why does it hurt so much-

“I’m fine.” Absolutely refusing to look down at his hands which he knew were shaking, Danny grit his teeth and kept moving down the line, shoving his stupid memories down as far as they could go. “I’m just a little shaky. It’s nothing some food won’t fix.” 

Even as he said it he knew it was a lie. He hadn’t felt his hands shaking constantly like the doctors feared they would, but he knew what side-effects could be caused by getting electrocuted. He was lucky he could walk without his body suddenly going limp and numb from all that energy rushing through him-

“Oh, look, hey,” Sam’s voice, louder than it should be, had both him and Tucker following the direction she was pointing. “I told you guys the school board approved my petition to add vegetarian options to the menu!” It was an olive branch and distraction in one and Danny happily took it for what it was. 

“Oh, yeah, you were saying something about that a few days ago.” Danny shoved a few fries in his mouth as Sam loaded up on her salads and fruit cups, Tucker making a face at it. “Is it here for a trial period or…?”

“Nope! Year-round,” Sam grinned, her happiness making Danny feel a little less raw around the edges as they finally got up to the cashier. “Hey, I got it,” Sam said, digging for her wallet before Danny could pay. “And it’s important to make sure kids have the choice to eat healthy and follow their beliefs.” 

Glancing at Tucker and half-expecting the blood feud of carnivore versus herbivore like in middle school, and most of their freshman year, Danny was pleasantly surprised Tucker did nothing more than roll his eyes. “What? No fight about meat being better?” 

“She’s got a point about the whole belief thing,” Tucker sighed, dramatically. “And the health thing. Just because my body can handle five double cheeseburgers in a row doesn’t mean it’s the same for everyone. Plus, Sam’s paying. I’m not gonna start shit until after I’ve eaten.” Ah, there was the jerk best friend he knew and loved. 

Focused on completely decimating his fries, Danny absently listened to his friends talk until they were settled in their own little corner at a table. It was while Danny’s mouth was full that his friends looked at him and ah… The battle was about to start. 

“Focus up, Danny, it’s time to go to war.” Sam was looking way too serious as she pulled out a notebook and pen that Danny had no doubt was for nothing except dramatic effect. “We need a battle plan if we’re going to survive the year.” 

“I thought our battle plan was to just keep to ourselves and avoid pissing anyone off,” Tucker countered, shaking out some of his fries onto Danny’s own tray. Danny made a note to let him win the next game they played because his best friends were literally angels — fallen angels, yeah, but still angels. “Unless you changed that plan and we’re going to war against the A Listers, now.”

“Oh, god, tell me that stupid name didn’t stick.” Sam looked horrified while Danny smothered his laughter into his food. While ‘A Listers’ was a little on the nose when it came to identifying all of the ‘popular’ kids, it was great to use just to hear Sam complain about what an awful name it was. “Okay, Tucker, you’re literally wired into the internet. Have the generals remained the same?”

Tucker took a moment to just stare at Sam, finally shaking his head, “Okay, you know I love you, but you’re getting into the war strategy way too much. How late were you up playing last night?” The guilty look was answer enough and made it even more hilarious considering Sam had been looking ‘menacing’ while talking about ‘battle plans.’ 

Swallowing the last of his burger in a few quick bites, Danny gave Sam a light nudge against her foot with his own under the table, “No worries, Sammy, we all get caught up in all-night gaming marathons, sometimes. Seriously, though, come back down to high school. We need you to survive.” 

“And to answer your question, yeah, everyone came back for the year as far as social media has told me,” Tucker chimed in, counting off on his fingers. “Paulina, Dash, Kawn, Star, and Valerie all accounted for.” 

“Good, we should tell Paulina about the name thing, Danny. Gossip monger that she is, she'll have it out to the rest of the school before- Holy shit, are you already done?” Jumping at Sam’s words, Danny glanced down to his empty tray, which, yeah, okay, so he had been a bit hungry. “Your tray was filled.”

“Guess I was just hungry.” He still was, honestly, but like hell was he going to say it when Tucker and Sam were already giving him those looks again. The looks that showed they were worried and ready to call Jazz to take him home early because now he was fragile and hurt and-  “Okay, what’s our ‘battle plan’ for the rest of the day, then?”

He was maybe a little out of sorts, but he was fine, or at least, he was recovering. Besides, being a little hungrier than normal and a little more clumsy didn’t mean anything bad. It just meant he was a little off his game, so, really.

He was fine. 

Even if, after all she ate, she was still hungry- He. She. Ugh, Dani didn’t even care anymore whether it was he or she or even it because she just wanted to go home and get something to eat before crashing in bed. God, she’d never even be able to admit it but coming back for the first day had been a horrible choice. 

She was starving, she was clumsy to where everything she held kept dropping it felt like, and now her skin was all tight. Her skin felt like it did after a bad sunburn or a too hot shower, all tight and overheated and like it was all just about to crack. 

It was her last class of the day which was of course her stupid English class which meant of course she had Lancer and, of course, he was the one teacher who cared. That meant he kept looking at her as if checking to see if she had finally kicked the bucket or not.

She was honestly ready to either jump out of the window or stand up and scream if it would make the stupid day end early. Maybe she could distract herself by eating the notebook paper in front of her. It probably wouldn’t taste good, but- 

Static. Static electricity. 

Static electricity felt like it punched her in the chest before spreading out to every inch of her, skin tingling like her entire body had fallen asleep and was now just waking up. The only reason she didn’t call it burning or lightning was because it didn’t technically hurt but also what the hell. 

It was like the feeling of when she had been really little and had been watching an old VHS tape before the movie had ended. She had been left with a static filled television and the feeling of dragging her fingers through the static that prickled up from the television in the remaining quiet. It was like that except everywhere. 

It reminded her of the Portal way too much. All the static spreading across her skin and making it feel like a storm was about to break reminded her of the Portal way too much. The only thing that kept her from going into a full-on breakdown was the feeling of her pencil bumping into her fingers and almost rolling off her desk, sending her scrambling to catch it and right, right. 

Right. She was fine. She wasn’t in the Portal. She was in her English class and she was supposed to be taking notes about what books they were going to read that year and she was okay. She was… Actually. She was okay — or better, at least. 

Apparently a flashback to the worst moment in her life was enough to distract her because she no longer felt starving or even hungry, just bored as was usual in Lancer’s classes. She… He. That was right. 

He still had to finish his first day of school.

⁂

Holding her breath as she sat down carefully on the middle step, Dani didn’t let herself breathe until she heard the soft, frustrated voices of her parents from where they were sitting at the kitchen table. While Dani couldn’t see into the kitchen from where she had sat herself, she could hear them well enough, and even see the harsh kitchen light that filled the hallway and ruined the soft darkness that had been there. “-just don’t understand. None of these readings make sense. We shouldn’t be seeing such a sharp increase so soon.”

Her mom definitely sounded frustrated. It was a tone Dani was used to overhearing when it came to discussing whatever they were working on in the lab, but it had been a while since Dani had heard the tone sound angry, too. Her dad didn’t sound much better, mumbling something that was just too soft for Dani to catch.

“-checked them against the previous readings. I even made sure to check them against our projected readings. The numbers aren’t lying, Jack, it’s just… far more powerful than we planned for.” The two were definitely trying to keep their voices down, but they weren’t trying to be quiet. 

“You think we should try shutting it down? It’s been running since Danielle’s accident.” It was nice to hear the concern in her dad’s voice, but Dani was more focused on how the accident had happened just a little under a month ago. That meant the Portal had been active for almost four full weeks. That was… a long time to have something so dangerous and experimental up and running. Even Dani knew that. “The numbers have only been climbing.”

It was quiet except for the sound of rustling papers before his mom gave a sharp, frustrated sigh, “No, I don’t think we should try shutting it down, it just- There’s so much we don’t understand, yet. It’s making me as angry as it is excited.” 

And that was definitely her dad laughing, the sound nervous and excited both, “Hey, we always planned on it being powerful. We just didn’t plan on it becoming self-sustaining.” Okay, whoa, hang on, the Portal had become what? “Mads, this could change a lot.” 

“It could, but please remember, dear, that we’re not scientists looking for a cure to the world’s energy problems,” her mom said, anger and frustration seemingly gone as her laughter filled up the hallway. It made everything in the hallway seem less empty for a few moments. “We have all of this set up for a reason.” 

“Hey, nothin’ wrong with dreaming about winning the Nobel Peace Prize here and there, right?” Her dad may have been joking but, well… Self-sustaining energy. That was a pretty big deal. If it was running off of nothing but itself and ‘ectoplasm’ instead of the generators and power though, then that was a huge deal. “I know, I know, we’ve barely even scratched the surface. It’s… All our old research is holding up though, Mads.”

“I know.” Voice soft and excited, she reminded Dani of Jazz in a way she couldn’t quite name before she focused on the quiet words. “Jack… Isn’t this exciting? Our life’s work — we’ve almost done it.” 

There was another laugh before their voices dropped off, the sound of rustling pages and long strings of words and numbers filling up the space instead. Dani took the opportunity for what it was, careful and quiet as she snuck her way back upstairs and into her room. 

Moving to collapse on her bed, Dani stared up at her glow-in-the-dark stars once again. This time she made sure to stick her tongue out, “Judge me all you want, but I’d like to see you try to get information out of them.” 

Her parents had always been strict about their lab work and keeping them out of it so they didn’t get hurt, but after the Accident? Dani was lucky if she could even mention the lab without her parents sharing looks and Jazz swooping in to usher her back to her room and seriously. There was an entire world — or at least close enough to an entire world — in their basement. How was anyone not supposed to get excited over that! Even her parents were crazy excited! Granted it was for different reasons, but still! 

The Portal was up and running. The Portal was working. Just down a few flights of stairs was a portal into what was an entire new world and-

“Jesus-!” Body flinching and arching away from what once again felt like so much static shock tearing through the air, Dani swore even louder as she slipped off her bed and landed on her hardwood floor in just the right way to hit both her elbows. 

It was a tense moment of mentally screaming every swear she knew as Dani waited for either Jazz or her parents to start yelling at her or panic-worrying. When neither happened, Dani eased herself off the floor with a soft grunt, wincing and rubbing at her elbows.

“Jesus, universe, if you wanted to teach me a lesson about eavesdropping then there are easier ways to do it without triggering me,” Dani muttered more to herself than the universe at large, tugging herself up and back into the bed cautiously. There were no more shocks from the blankets or anything else, but jeez. 

It had felt almost like it had in her English class earlier, a sensation of static jolting through her heart and then spreading out through the rest of her body. If the Portal really was still active and self-sustaining and putting off a ton of crazy energy, it might at least explain the crazy static shock everywhere. 

Right. She had school tomorrow and her parents kept the lab locked up tight. There was no time or way to do anything about the super-secret-awesome portal that led into another world. 

Then again… no one ever said she couldn’t daydream about it just a little.

—

If you enjoyed this story then check out my Writing Commissions either here on Tumblr or at my personal Website.

“They did not say you were fine, they said you were stable,” Jazz stressed, nervously trying to take her temperature again. Dani probably would have fought more if she still didn’t remember just how terrified Jazz had been during that time. Her first memory of seeing Jazz after her Accident had been her looking wrecked. It definitely wasn’t a stretch to say her sister, who was a very firm five years older than her, looked after her more like an actual mom than a sister. 

Considering too that Jazz had seen everything every step of the way, she was probably right to call Dani out on her bullshit of being fine. It was after Jazz started glaring at the thermometer again that Dani sighed and conceded, “Alright, maybe I’m not exactly fine, but I’m definitely doing better than I was.” 

Jazz gave her a long, hard stare before it softened and she pulled Dani into a warm, familiar hug. She then ruined it by saying, “99.9 is still a fever, like it or not.” 

“Ugh!” Breaking the hug and collapsing back on her bed with a groan, Dani gave Jazz her best betrayed look. “Come on, already! Haven’t I suffered enough by missing the rest of my summer vacation? You’re going to make me a social outcast and doom me to a life of failure and flipping burgers by making me miss my first day back in high school?”

The first day back at their age was the same as being given an armistice to scope out enemy lines, map out escape routes as needed, and decide who would be allies and who would be sacrificed for the greater good. It wasn’t something to take lightly-! Hm. That sounded a little too much like Sam, actually.

Still. It wasn’t a day she could dismiss just because she had gone through some stupid ‘major traumatic event’ where she had apparently been actually, honestly dead for a couple minutes after being shocked by millions of volts of electricity- “I just don’t want you to overdo things and hurt yourself, Dani. You and I both know you have a habit of pushing yourself when you shouldn’t.”

Looking up at Jazz, it didn’t take much to see that worried, scared look in her eyes again. If they were being technical, Dani hadn’t been the only one to go through a major traumatic event — she was pretty sure Jazz thinking her baby sister was dead for a few minutes was traumatic all on its own. 

“Jazz.” Dani sat up, taking Jazz’s closest hand and giving a small squeeze. “Look, I know you’re probably sick of hearing me say I’m fine and everything, but I’m… I’m getting better, okay? I’m healing. I’m resting like I’m supposed to. I’m taking whatever meds they shoved at me. I’m even eating whatever awful healthy crap you give me! I know you’re worried, but come on. I’m still here — pulse, annoying attitude, and everything else.” 

Finally — finally — Jazz gave a startled snort of laughter before squeezing Dani’s hand back with a shake of her head. “Okay, okay, I get it. As long as your fever breaks then fine, you can go to the first day of school.” 

“Yes!” Dani threw her arms up, ignoring the aches and pain from where she had been doing nothing but lying in bed for weeks. “It’s legally binding we were holding hands when you said it! And 99.1 doesn’t count as a fever!” 

“99.9, however, does.” Jazz snorted and shook her head before standing up and gently pushing Dani back down into the blankets. “So that means rest, fluids, and not overdoing it. I’ll go start on dinner and check on you in a couple hours, okay?”

“Yes, mom,” Dani rolled her eyes, the familiar teasing name making Jazz roll her eyes back just as sarcastically. It was great. “I’ll just sit up here in my room lazing around with nothing to do but play video games and talk to my friends.” 

Jazz gave another laugh, not leaving until after a ruffle to Dani’s hair and a warm smile. As soon as the door closed, Dani didn’t waste a second before she pulled out her phone and immediately called up Sam and Tucker for a video call. Her friends, gems that they were, answered immediately. 

“Took a while, but Jazz’s paranoia is calming down and it looks like I’ll be good to go when it comes to the first day of school.”

“That’s my boy!” Sam cheered before pausing. “Or shall it be girl, today? Or neither. Neither is also a valid option!”

“It’s just girl today,” Dani said, thinking back to Jazz’s reaction when she had finally asked about the new clothes. Dani was pretty sure she knew it was something a little more than just ‘a new look,’ but she hadn’t pried about it. Her parents, so far as she could tell, hadn’t noticed anything, but that was par for the course, and they were probably more distracted by the whole electrocution thing. “And probably will be for as long as I’m trapped in bed. Not like there’s any reason to go all guy or whatever.”

Ah, and there began Sam’s rant about gender experience and expression and identity and how it all connected and didn’t connect. Tucker, sharking a look with Dani, removed his headphones. Truly, Dani could time it all by clockwork- 

Ringing. There was a sharp ringing in her ears loud enough to make her eyes slam shut, breathing hitching as all sound then vanished, an afterimage of bright green light blinding her as words were pressed into her skin, a deep thrumming of too dangerous to let this come to pass!

Swirls of blue replaced the green and there were more words, wrapping around her throat, a shimmering, sickly must stop this at once, Clockwork! 

Tick. 

Tock. 

Tick. 

Tock. 

Purple overwhelmed her and I’m afraid this has long been set in motion. Perhaps if you deign to look beyond the surface you’re so fond of skimming over you could see the change that… Ah. Interesting. 

Colors overwhelmed her where there should be nothing but black and the sound of ticking just at the back of her head made her struggle and gasp for breath and- 

“Dani!” Immediately wincing at hearing her name screamed by both of her friends, Dani groaned, hating how it sounded more like a whimper. God, it felt like head was about to explode.

“Ugh, guys, take it easy, I’m fragile and almost dead here. What’s with all the shouting-” 

“Oh, gee, lemme think.” Oof, that was Sam’s upset, sarcastic tone of voice that meant she was going to yell some more. Dani wondered if her earplugs were nearby. “Maybe the fact you just went silent, stared at nothing-” (stared at nothing? but her eyes had been closed, hadn't they? “-and didn’t so much as twitch for minutes!”

“Less than,” Tucker chimed in, waving a stopwatch in view of his camera. It was hard to read it over a video call on her phone, but she was pretty sure it hadn’t gone that far over a minute. “Timed it, but yeah, no, that was scary as fuck. Are you alright? Did you have a seizure? I don’t know how to help with seizures, Dani!”

“Whoa, whoa, guys, calm down.” Jeez her friends could be overprotective — and that was coming from her, who had a very bad case of using too much energy to help people when she didn’t really need to. “I didn’t have a seizure, I think I just dozed off for a bit. Haven’t been getting much sleep.”

The looks she was given made her feel both offended and like she needed new friends. It was a shame she was stuck with her current ones. (Alright, so she loved them and adored the fact they cared and worried for her, but still.)

Sighing, Dani slumped back against her pillows, adjusting her phone. “Look,” she settled on. “I know it wasn’t some kind of seizure and I had some weird dream thing flash in my head for a few seconds, so I think I’m just very close to REM sleep because my body’s trying to recuperate from what happened.” 

“Ooh, science Dani,” Tucker teased, ‘looking’ at Sam. “That’s how you know she’s being serious about it.” Right. Tucker had five more chances before Dani gave up on him and dropped him off at a nice geek orphanage. He’d at least build them a router out of scrap metal just so he could keep having Wi-Fi. 

“Fine,” Sam said after a long moment, pouting about the matter. “But if it happens again I’ll tell your parents.” Ha. That wasn’t a threat- “And Jazz.”

Tucker laughed even as Dani whined and that wasn’t fair. “C’mon, Sammy, you know she’d fuss and hover over me for weeks if you do that! You’ve seen how bad she is already!” It had been bad enough when Jazz found them while they were still down there- Not thinking about it. Nope. This was her. Not thinking about it. “And… In case I didn’t already say it, thanks, you guys. For covering for me.” 

“Of course,” Tucker snorted. “It’s not like we were going to tell anyone that you went in there on your own — especially Jazz. She would have killed all three of us.”

Sam hummed, stroking her chin in thought, “Do you think we would have gotten a discount if we were buried at the same time? Triple funeral?”

Relaxing as she watched and listened to Sam and Tucker start planning out their funerals, Dani gave a soft sigh, her friend’s antics making weird dream-induced anxiety into nothing more than a whisper. 

Reaching for her laptop to properly get some serious gaming done, and switch the call to something without shitty phone speakers, Dani had to pull her hand back with a swear because fucking static shock. 

“A miracle! Lightning does indeed strike twice!” Tucker declared, Sam giving a horrified laugh while Dani tried to decide whether to laugh or curse some more. She decided he was down to four chances. “Seriously, how many times have you been shocked since you got home?”

“More than enough,” Dani huffed, poking at her laptop before finally dragging it onto her bed. “Not too worried, though, just some static shock from lying in bed with these stupid blankets all the time. Now, who wants to help me conquer the world?”

While her friends rushed to their own computers, Dani flexed her hand where she had, yet again, been shocked. If there was one thing she was looking forward to most about being able to leave her bed and Jazz-forced quarantine, it was no longer getting shocked by just trying to pick something up. Thankfully, though, that wouldn’t be long. 

Her life would be back on track and back to normal and Dani could go about surviving the next year of high school. 

⁂

Danny wasn’t sure if he was going to survive long enough to get to high school. Like, yeah, okay, almost shocked to death and now he had some heart problems and a couple of breathing problems and was a lot more clumsy, great, that was fine- Not fine. It wasn’t fine, but it was something he was coping with. 

No, that was all liveable, at least. The whole not surviving thing came about because everything electronic around him decided to hate him. 

It had started with his phone. Being confined, trapped, and chained to his bed for an eternity had left him with little to do besides dick around on his phone and constantly call and talk to his friends whenever they weren’t able to come over and infect his room. The problem that arose that prevented him from constantly calling and talking with them, however, was that his phone decided to die twenty minutes after a full charge. 

The first few times Danny could forgive. There had definitely been times before when he thought he had a full charge and his phone, his stupid, stupid phone, hadn’t given him a low battery warning before it shut itself off. The fifth time of it happening, however, had Danny beginning to craft an argument to use on his parents for why he needed a new phone because his was obviously broken. 

And it would have been fine at that — because phones died and phone companies were jerks and new models came out all the time — but it wasn’t just his phone. It was also his laptop. And his lamp. And his bedroom lights. And basically everything electronic with wires that he managed to come into contact with. 

“I dunno, Danny, maybe it has something to do with you basically being struck by radioactive lightning in a lab accident- Ooh! What if you got superpowers-”

“Be serious for once in your life, Tuck. An accident like this is more likely to give him radiation sickness than it is to give him powers-”

“Hey, guys, yeah, the whole talking about radioactivity and me dying thing? Really not helping with this experiment.” Danny shot a glare at his phone — which was propped up against his wooden table and windowsill with nothing metal at all anywhere near it and Danny not so much as touching it.

Over the video call Sam rolled her eyes while Tucker snorted. Danny ignored them both and kept a careful eye on the battery power left in his phone. It was, at that exact moment, at forty-seven percent. Slowly, so slowly, Danny reached out and tapped a corner of his phone. It dropped to forty-three. “Are you kidding me?!”

“How much did it drop by?” Tucker asked, already sitting back and pulling a pen and notebook into view. 

“Started at forty-seven. I tapped the right bottom corner, since it’s propped up sideways, and it dropped to forty-three.” Danny was satisfied only by the fact that Sam and Tucker gave winces with the proper amount of pain. 

“Yeah, that- Yeah, no, that’s just weird,” Tucker shook his head, looking down at his notes and then back at Danny. “Hey, have you considered it’s something to do with that mirror portal thing being on? I mean… how much power does that thing use? It’s probably blowing through the generators and making everything in the house flicker or have power problems.”

Danny paused, leaning back in his chair and that… that would make a lot of sense, now that he thought about it. Especially if what his parents and Tucker said were true about how much power it ate through. “I mean… I haven’t heard Jazz or anyone complain about problems, but that actually makes a lot of sense. Especially considering the lights have been flickering in almost every room I’ve gone in.”

“Sorry, but how does your unplugged and battery-run phone relate to power problems caused by generators?” Sam looked at them both like they were idiots and Danny realized he and Tucker had skipped ahead a couple steps and explanations. 

“Sorry, Sammy, jumped ahead there. It’s because if there are power problems then it’s not getting a full charge at night through the cord, or it’s been glitchy enough that it’s been messing with the battery itself, a lot of rapid oh look it’s changing followed by oops, now it’s not. Tapping it like I did could be enough to jostle the battery and cause connection problems or something like that?” Phones were more Tucker’s territory, but Danny liked to think he knew enough to not sound like a complete idiot.

“Oh. Well then if that’s the case then you don’t have to worry about it,” Sam said reasonably. “Just wait for your parents to fix it.” Yeah. Yeah, honestly. If the power shortages were driving Danny crazy then they were probably driving his parents nuts. “Back to more important matters… What are you wearing for the first day of school? Are you going as Danny or Dani?”

“The way you said those names sounds exactly the same,” Tucker grumbled, Danny hiding a laugh and that… was a really good question, wasn’t it? While he was slowly starting to get used to, well, he, there were still times he wasn’t sure if it was just a phase that he was exploring, in Sam’s words, or if it was a him — her? — thing. 

Like, okay, he had felt totally great when he had first seen himself in Sam’s mirror after wearing his new ‘guy outfit,’ but then he remembered a couple nurses asking for his pronouns at the hospital after he had really woken up. While his dad had looked confused, his mom had looked condescending and he was pretty sure he remembered the words Of course she’s a girl! What else would she be? 

It had made her feel pretty shitty for a while, and even now it hurt a little to think back on, but it wasn’t like she could up and explain it all. Especially when in a hospital and hooked up to a bunch of equipment. Jazz had made it feel better, using a lot of gender neutral terms to the point she wasn’t even sure she had meant to, but there was still that uncertainty. 

What would kids at school say? Yeah, okay, their cover story was that Dani was going through a ‘tomboy’ phase, but the fact she needed a cover story was just… It didn’t exactly feel great. It felt like she was playing a game she didn’t even know how to play, let alone win. 

“Hey, you know, my cousin does this online thing where she sells wigs.” Startling at Tucker’s sudden comment that had been spoken way too loudly, Dani (Danny?) looked up at the video call to see Sam looked just as startled since she had been in the middle of talking and planning for, in her eyes, what was going to be their first battle of the year. “Some of them are made from donated hair, which, yeah, creepy, but it makes them look really natural.”

“And you’re interrupting my battle strategy to talk about wigs, why, exactly?” While Sam crossed her arms and looked ready to have Tucker drawn and quartered, Tucker only looked at his camera so it made it seem like he was staring right at Dani. 

“Just thought, you know, if Danny is having a guy day and wants some shorter hair or something, I can get a wig or two off of my cousin that’ll look like your natural hair. And a couple long ones, too, in case you want to cut it, but want to go back to long when you switch.” Oh. Oh. “Can also get some colored ones if you want to give Jazz a heart attack and go through some temporary teenage rebellion.”

Silent and way too emotional for a moment, Danny (much better) finally nodded and managed a perfectly normal sounding, “You’re such a dork, Tuck.” If Danny really was close to crying, his friends at least did the mercy of not pointing it out and god he had gotten lucky when it came to his friends, if nothing else. 

Right. He just had to remember what Sam had said. It wasn’t about one or the other, it was about being who he was in that moment. That was something he could do, just focus on the moment and not what came after. 

Finally settled he only paused when, for a second, he felt something brush against his skin, a sensation that had no feeling and Danny. Danny with a y Ph- 

“-stick with the NASA theme.” Sam’s sigh was loud enough to break through his thoughts. “At least it’s familiar ground.” Right. Battle strategy. First day back at school outfit. 

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with NASA clothing,” Danny defended immediately, brushing away the thought that had fluttered through his mind. “And I’ll have you know that galaxy themed clothes are fashionable-”

“No, they’re not.” The fact that came from both of his friends hurt. It hurt deeply. Danny would have to remember to pay them back in kind as soon as he could. In that moment, though, it was a good distraction from having to think about everything else. 

Moments with her friends, though, didn’t last forever. Especially not at night when she was back to being Dani and everything was still and quiet and the loudest thing in the world was her too quick breaths. 

It wasn’t like- She knew she wasn’t fine. She could say it to her friends and family all she wanted, but… But how could anyone just be fine after something like that? Movies and books made it seem a lot easier, but… She wasn’t fine.

She knew that when she had gotten a jolt from a pile of freshly cleaned clothes and had almost collapsed from how fast her heart had started beating. 

It was in how she had smelled something like bleach or antiseptic and had immediately collapsed over the nearest sink to gag, visions of yelling doctors and pain seared against her.

She wasn’t fine because instead of sleeping she was staring at the dark, cool colors of her room, eyes hardly closing for even half of a moment. She had seen enough of white walls. 

She had only been in that hospital for two or three days at most, but it had felt like so much longer. It hadn’t helped when every time she had managed to fall asleep for just a few minutes her dreams (nightmares) were terrifying and had made no sense. She was pretty sure she had jumped at the color green way too many times after seeing it so much in her dreams. 

Then there was the fact that she had barely even seen her parents since she had gotten home — she had barely seen them while she was in the hospital. Her mom and dad hadn’t arrived home from their science whatever until the day after Dani had been admitted into the hospital. They hadn’t been there long, either, because they had to rush home and deal with whatever had happened to the Portal after hearing why she was in the hospital to begin with. 

It had definitely been lonely. Sam and Tucker hadn’t been allowed to stay with her because they weren’t blood related. Jazz was the only one who had been there the entire time and had seen what had happened from beginning to end, and, well, Dani couldn’t blame her for all the hovering and worrying that she had been doing since then. 

For hours it had been Jazz, who had practically raised her with how busy their parents were, who had watched her on the verge of death. Dani could only remember what was probably a quarter of what had actually happened and even that was enough to know just how bad it had been. The doctors had been talking about how she might have needed a new heart because of the possibility of how badly the electricity had damaged hers. She was pretty sure most of the doctors and nurses had been surprised she had actually pulled through and been alright. One of them had even gasped when she had actually managed to stand up and walk around the room.

She could say she was fine all she wanted, but it wasn’t like she hadn’t heard the recovery instructions and the debriefing the doctors had given Jazz and later her parents. Her heart was damaged and weak, so there would no doubt be problems when she was older. She might have trouble breathing and being active if her lungs stayed as badly damaged as they had been. There could be memory loss, amnesia, confusion, hearing loss, and so much could have gone so wrong. 

Yet there Dani was, sitting in the kitchen in her nightgown after getting too restless and claiming she was fine and thinking about the invention that had almost taken her life. 

It couldn’t have been any earlier than at least two or three in the morning, probably closer to past three, and considering Dani had school in a couple of hours she should definitely be at least trying to sleep instead of sitting at the kitchen table and staring at the thick metal door that separated her from her parents’ lab. 

Ever since her Accident the two of them had kept the door down into the lab locked and sealed tightly, not even a crack of light escaping from any part of it. 

Considering how busy the last few weeks had been Dani couldn’t be sure, even that late at night, whether her parents were upstairs asleep or down working in the lab. If it was the latter she wouldn’t have exactly been surprised. What she had thought would be nothing but useless scrap metal had turned into something very active. 

Dani wasn’t sure of all of the details, but she had understood enough of her parents’ excited ramblings as they drove her home from the hospital and got her settled into bed. The Portal — the Ectoplasmic Monitoring Device — was no longer just a working theory. Instead it actually worked. 

There had been a lot of big words and a lot of emphasis placed on the importance of it finally working, but Dani and Jazz had read between the lines as easily as they had always done. The Fentons had work to get done and Fentons never stopped until the job was finished. 

Her parents had been studying the ‘scientific breakthrough’ since the second they realized it was working. They hadn’t released it to the public yet, but Dani was sure it was only a matter of time. After all, it was… definitely something. It was definitely something and Dani couldn’t even see what it looked like. 

Looking at the stove, and seeing that she was right and that it read half past three in the morning, Dani carefully got to her feet, shivering at cold tile against bare feet before she was walking over to the lab door, tucking her hair back and placing an ear up against it. 

She didn’t hear her parents in any way and, while the door muffled sound from the laboratory, it wasn’t soundproof. It was a safe bet to say that her parents were upstairs finally getting some rest, but… For once, Dani had to agree with her parents over Jazz. 

While Jazz always complained about how their parents tended to ignore everything else outside of their current project, in this one case Dani couldn’t even begin to blame them. If the Portal was actually working like it was intended then… there was a whole new world down there that they could see. 

Oh, Dani had no illusions about there being life or ‘ghosts’ in whatever realm or reality or whatever that they had busted their way through to, but it was still something so new. This wasn’t a faraway planet out past the distant reaches of their own galaxy. This was a world. Even if it was empty, it was a world that was right down there.

Dani didn’t even realize how closely she was pressed against the door until she was shivering from the cold metal that leeched the heat out of her and her simple nightgown. Taking a few steps away, Dani took a bracing breath as she just… stared. 

It probably looked amazing down there. Even if it was just a mirror image of whatever they were seeing, it probably looked incredible. 

“The door’s locked,” Dani said firmly, almost jumping at the sound of her own voice after the silence of the kitchen. It was just the reminder she needed to take a few steps back. “The door’s locked because that’s a lab down there with radiation where I almost died.”

Except, well, she hadn’t died. Oh, it had been terrifying as all hell and she certainly felt like she had gone through death, but she was still there, alive and breathing. She was still there, just standing still, just like that world that was just out of reach-

“Nope!” Snapping her mouth shut as the word came out louder than she wanted, Dani risked a glance at the stairs and sighed in relief when it didn’t sound like anyone had heard her. She then immediately cursed at herself along with a halfhearted, “Idiot.” 

What was she thinking, honestly. She had wanted to go down and look at the thing that had almost killed her? Yeah, no, if she hadn’t had a panic attack before then, that would definitely do it. Nope. Nope, nope, nope, she was going straight up to bed. 

She would shake off the phantom screams that she absolutely did not hear and that absolutely did not sound like her and march right up the stairs because it hadn’t mattered what had happened down in that lab and what did matter was that it was late and she should be sleeping.

Forcing herself up the stairs, Dani didn’t stop moving until she was collapsing into her bed and staring up at peeling glow-in-the-dark stars that were judging her. She was tempted to throw something at the ceiling if it wouldn’t just come right back down and hit her. 

“I’m fine.” Whatever was down there and whatever had happened didn’t matter. As it was now she was alive, and breathing, and physically exhausted even as her mind was absolutely wired for her first day back at school- Her first day. Actually. It might have been time for Danny’s first day of school.

—

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“Yeah, well, you don’t even have to be here.” Danny grabbed their most recent trash bag, holding it open and giving it a little shake to get Jazz’s attention. Once she looked over, Danny opened it wider, nodding at the dress that was still being held up. “You could have just told them you came out before curfew to drag me back in.”

“Hey, big sisters are supposed to watch out for their stupid little brothers.” Jazz wadded up the dress into a ball and threw it at the trash bag, nailing it right in the center. Danny had to work at not laughing when Jazz threw her arms up with a cheer. “Besides, this isn’t so bad.”

“Of course you think it isn’t that bad. You organize stuff for fun,” Danny laughed, dropping the bag and going back to moving the boxes around. “You know, this is really Technus’ fault. We should do something to get back at him. I mean, who honestly wants to take over the world? That’s so much work! My sleep schedule is suffering here, you know!”

“I have a feeling some of that suffering comes from your constant late nights that have nothing to do with ghosts.” Did Jazz really have to be so mean to him when he was already suffering?

“I beat that game fair and square and the sleepless nights were worth it. Can we get back to the real subject, here? I mean- We have to do something. He keeps trying to take over the world!”

“I don’t think there’s much you can do to get back at a ghost like Technus, Danny.” Jazz went back to her clothes folding, humming and cooing at whatever she was finding. Danny decided to just focus on his own task - or at least try to. “I wonder why Mom stopped wearing all of these. Some of these dresses are cute!”

“When was the last time you saw Mom outside of a hazmat suit or lab coat?” Danny counted out five seconds of silence before he heard Jazz make that irritated little humming noise that proved he was right, but she didn’t want to admit to it. “Face the facts, Jazz, everything in here is either useless or some leftover experiment.”

“Do you think forcing Technus to work at a call help center for the day would be enough of a punishment?” Jazz sounded as if she was honestly considering it, Danny stifling his laughter as he pulled over a decaying box that was messily taped and started going through it. “Maybe we should consider getting things together to donate them.”

“Pretty sure that’d be a health hazard considering where we live. You know, all that radiation.” Digging through the book, Danny found himself mildly curious when he saw it seemed to all date back to his parents’ college years. “Hey, think there are any embarrassing college photos in here?”

“They would have to have the ability to feel embarrassment in order for their college photos to be embarrassing.” Jazz was vicious when she wasn’t trying to ‘be the adult.’ Sometimes, Danny loved his sister. “Alright, move over. Let’s see what we can find.”

“You’re just as nosy as I am.” Laughing and sitting down, Danny upended the box, photo albums, textbooks, and a million other little things scattering across the wooden floors. Danny wouldn’t be surprised if the floor broke from how much was in that box.

“How heavy was that box?” Jazz dropped down to sit beside Danny, stacking the various textbooks and albums into separate piles.

“Dunno, the weight of regret in here probably added a few pounds, though.” Grinning at Jazz’s little snort of laughter, Danny picked out the newspapers articles that were ragged and faded at the edges. Some of them still seemed in pretty good shape since the picture of his parents and Vlad was still crisp and clear in the one he was looking at. Wait.

Carefully smoothing out the article that looked as if it had been cut out from a school newspaper, Danny glanced over the words quickly. It was a piece on the new ghost hunting club that had been formed by Maddie Walker, Jack Fenton, and Vlad Masters. The three were standing in front of a table in what looked like a science lab, the picture in black and white. All three were wearing lab coats and were… smiling.

Danny knew that Vlad had been changed into a half ghost due to an accident that happened when he was a college student alongside with his parents, but he supposed he hadn’t realized they were really friends. Maddie was smiling and looking like a proper scientist while Jack and Vlad had their arms around each other’s shoulders and were beaming.

“Is that… Vlad?” Jazz leaned against Danny’s shoulder, Danny tilting the paper so Jazz could see what he couldn’t believe. “They look happy.”

“I mean… I knew they were friends, but I guess I never really believed it, you know? I mean, he’s always trying to kill Dad and marry Mom and stuff!”

“Evil is never really born, Danny.” Jazz took the clipping from him carefully, studying it with a calm, almost blank expression. “What really happened between the three of them? I mean, they don’t know Vlad is half-ghost, right?”

“No, they don’t. That’s how I won our first fight at the reunion, I threatened to expose us both.” Just the thought of exposing himself to his parents terrified him. It wasn’t a surprise that Vlad, who had been hiding the secret for twenty years, felt even worse about it. “I think he said something about how they abandoned him?”

“I can’t believe that.” Really? Their parents weren’t the most conscious of people, sometimes. “Look at some of these photo albums.”

“What about them?” Danny jolted as one was dropped in his lap, staring at it before sighing and opening it to a random page. He almost wished he hadn’t. “Oh.”

Every picture had some mix of their parents and Vlad, all of them looking happy and like they were having the time of their lives. There was one picture, however, that made him feel as if ice had been poured down his shirt.

The picture was warped a little at the edges, but the bottom corner had part of Maddie’s grinning, laughing face. The cause of her laughter was the center of the picture where Jack and Vlad were curled up on a picnic blanket under a tree, textbooks and notebooks scattered around them as they slept curled up to each other.

It was almost a perfect copy for a picture Sam had of him and Tucker after they had fallen asleep near each other.

“They were like us.” The words were quiet, but the realization was deafening. “Mom and Dad and Vlad? They were like me, Sam, and Tuck.” Right down to the fact that Sam had been the cause of his ghost powers, in a way.

“That doesn’t mean the same thing will happen to you.” Jazz was quick to go into her reassuring parent voice, Danny almost laughing at the quick change.

“I wasn’t thinking that it would.” No, it was more the fact that now he understood. “Something had to have happened so that they never visited him in the hospital.” 

Because if they were that close, they wouldn’t have left without an act from God or something equally as worse. Danny hadn’t ended up in the hospital, but if he had, he was certain that Sam and Tucker would have been curled up on either side of his hospital bed with him.

“What did happen though?” Jazz shook her head, looking frustrated that this was a puzzle she couldn’t figure out. “I mean, why didn’t they show up?”

“I don’t know, but Vlad makes a lot more sense.” It made perfect sense. Danny had never understood Vlad, but now he did perfectly. If Tucker and Sam hadn’t been there after he had become Phantom… And then if he was still crushing on Sam and Tucker ended up getting together with her while he suffered through ghost powers alone? Vlad made a hell of a lot more sense.

“Hey, uh, Jazz.” Danny closed the album, giving Jazz his best sad eyes. “So, you know you’re my favorite sister in the whole wide world, and that I really love you-”

“Don’t bother,” Jazz said, standing up with a dramatic, heavy sigh that Danny had stolen from her years ago. “Go on ahead, then. I’ll finish up here.” Letting his powers wash over him, Danny blinked away a few spots of light as he floated into the air, clutching onto the photo album.

“You really are the best big sister. You know that, right?” Because this all had been a lot harder when he didn’t have Jazz by his side. Shit. He’d have to admit Ghostwriter was right about the whole fighting alongside your sibling thing next time he saw him. “I just… I think he needs someone to talk to who actually gets what he’s going through.”

“Someone who understands and who he’ll listen to,” Jazz nodded, pulling Danny over into a, thankfully, brief hug. “Be safe.”

“I’ll be back before you know it.” Ghostwriter had been right those few weeks ago in the library. He did fondly believe in second chances.

                                                            ::

“Oh, jeez… Have you never heard of a spring cleaning?” Danny had gone through the Ghost Zone to get to Vlad’s lab, but he was starting to regret it considering what a wreck the place was. It looked like the Fenton lab during the whole Pariah Dark mess. Actually, Danny was almost sure that this was worse.

“Right. Focus, Fenton.” Danny took a breath, floating through the lab. It was bigger than their own, but it was also so much creepier when the lights were off, and the only light source was the ghost portal behind him. The fact there were thick power cables and glowing substances in the distance did not help.

“Keep calm. You’re a Fenton and half-ghost. You’re fine. You’re not allowed to be scared about this.” It was bad enough that his friends still mocked him for being so scared of horror movies. “Just… gotta find Vlad.”

Besides the hum of the portal and electricity through the cords, it was rather quiet, though. It was possible Vlad was at one of his businesses, since he was technically CEO of a lot of different places. Hard to remember, though, when he was so petty over some things.

Jeez, what was Vlad even working on? The whole place was a mess of torn apart machinery and wires and Danny would have thought some monster had torn the lab apart if it wasn’t for the precision of where everything was placed. The weirdest part, though, were the large vats around the room - except they weren’t quite vats. A closer look made Danny think of those sensory deprivation tubs, but honestly, they looked like those body jars in every sci-fi movie ever.

“Whatever you’re doing must be big,” Danny muttered, bending over some exposed wires. He wasn’t exactly a science genius, but he knew enough to know that didn’t look quite right. Prodding it with his foot, Danny startled as a wall of transparent pink was separating him from the sudden arc of static that looked more like lightning. “Uh, heh, hey, Vlad. Um, thanks for the save, there.”

Vlad’s shield flickered out and Danny looked to where Vlad was lurking in the shadows like the vampire he claimed he wasn’t. It was creepy. “Daniel… What are you doing here.” It wasn’t much of a question, and it wasn’t until after he asked that Danny realized Vlad had just kept him from getting hurt.

“Oh, uh, well, I actually kind of wanted to talk to you about something, I guess.” Danny dug his fingers into the edges of the photo album, taking a steady breath. Vlad was talking before he could work up the courage to continue, though.

“Whatever inane problem of the week you’ve managed to wrap yourself up in, I want nothing to do with it. Your misplaced blame can leave, as well, since my plans have no concern towards you.” Ah, right… Vlad had a more pretentious way of talking than even Ghostwriter.

“Oh, no, I, uh, I didn’t want to fight or argue or blame you for anything. It’s actually sort of good news, I guess?” Danny tried for a smile, hoping Vlad was in a good enough mood to hear him out.

“Leave, Daniel.” Vlad’s order was more of a hissing snarl, Danny trying not to show his flinch. While there were a few times where he saw Vlad wanting to get better, there were moments like this where the other man felt… dangerous. “You’ve made it quite clear that you have no business with me.”

“Well, not business, no.” Right. Phantom. Cocky hero. He could do that. “Come on, Fruitloop, I’m trying not to start a fight, this time. At least hear me out before you go all doom and gloom mad scientist, here.”

Instead of Vlad throwing back with his own sass, Danny heard a low, menacing growl. Before he could figure out what the hell horror movie monster was about to kill him, he grunted as a sudden force slammed into him, the photo album dropping out of his hands as he scrambled to stop whatever was pushing at him. 

When he righted himself and grabbed at his power to form an ectoblast, Danny could only blink as he saw that he was back in the Ghost Zone, Vlad’s ghost portal gone from in front of him. It took a long moment for Danny to realize that he had just been shoved out of Vlad’s lab before the man had shut down his portal. It was the same thing as pushing him out the door and then slamming it shut in his face.

“Right. Not a good day for talking, then.” He had lost the album, too. He had been planning to use it to show how close Vlad and his parents had been, though, so maybe Vlad would find it and realize it on his own. It could even end up jogging some happy memories, so this was for the best, kind of! “Right. Okay.”

Trying to gather his thoughts, Danny could only stare at where the portal had been because that really had been weird. Vlad was always kind of a douche, but he had never been so aggressive before. Loud, and forceful, and not afraid to get what he wanted, but Vlad had never been outright aggressive like… a ghost. 

“Uh huh. Why do you think we’re about to face a threat, Danny? And give me an exact reason, not a ghost sense sort of reason.”

“None of the ghosts have attacked in almost two weeks!” Alright, Sam’s groan was unappreciated and wildly unhelpful. “C’mon, Tuck, back me up here. You think it’s weird, don’t you?” Maybe he was exaggerating a little with it being a Pariah level threat, but it was weird.

“Yeah. Weird.” While Tucker gave strange responses sometimes, that was weird even by their standards. He usually never shut up, but thinking about it, Tucker had been weirdly silent during lunch this time.

“Tucker? You alright, buddy?” The three were in the cafeteria, so Danny had been a little concerned with eating before his food was stolen or shoved down his shirt, but now that he was looking, Tucker had a lot of papers and notebooks out. “Okay, last I checked February wasn’t even over yet. What’s with the finals level studying?”

“It’s not studying.” Tucker was staring down at a packet of papers with utter seriousness, food completely abandoned and ignored beside him. It was, Danny decided, absolutely terrifying. “It’s for the student council elections coming up.”

Danny didn’t even get to open his mouth before Sam was kicking him, which, alright, he probably deserved that considering he hadn’t even known that his best friend was running for student elections. “Cool- Cool. That’s cool. Uh, refresh my memory, which position are you going for?” Because if Tucker was aiming for President, then he had quite the depressing news.

“Vice president. In this school, the VP always is the one behind the big changes. The jocks can fight for the figurehead position all they want, but I know what I’m doing.”

“Never doubted you for a second, buddy.” At least he had done his research, this year. “So, uh, what kind of plans you have in mind? Hopefully nothing that will end up with a changed lunch menu.”

“Hey! We agreed to never speak of that moment again! Nothing I did or said as a freshman can be held against me and you know it.” Sam glared at him and Danny knew without any doubt that she could kill him anytime she pleased.

“Right, right, so, uh, student council. Vice president. You wanna… talk about it?” That’s what supportive friends did, right? Talk about student politics?

“You have time for it?” All three of them seemed to realize how harsh that was at the same time since Danny winced the same moment as Tucker and Sam. “Sorry- Sorry, that was… Sorry, man.”

“Yeah, no, hey, I get it. I haven’t exactly been around the past few weeks like I should have been.” It had been one crazy thing after another, it seemed, but things were settling down, now. “The ghosts haven’t been by in almost two weeks, though, so I think I’m good on time for the moment.”

“Oh… Right! Well, uh, so first-” The next few words were drowned out by the ringing of the school bell, Tucker looking disgruntled as Sam hid a laugh behind her napkin.

“Raincheck?” Danny grinned, happy when he saw Tucker give a grudging one of his own. “We can talk about it after school. Gaming party at yours?”

“You know it.” Sharing a quick fist bump with the both of them, Danny helped Tucker gather a backpack’s worth of paper as Tucker looked like he tried to stop himself from smiling too widely. “Just you wait, man, I have so many ideas on how to keep this place from becoming hell- Oh! I had a few ideas about our, uh, club.”

“Club? Tuck, we don’t-” Oh. Oh! “Right! The club.” Ghost hunting was a club now, then. Great. “Uh, sure- Yeah. That sounds great.”

A little gaming time with Tucker while talking about their lives sounded like something that was long overdue.

Unfortunately, the ghosts never stayed quiet for long. What was supposed to be a fun night of gaming turned into six hours of fighting off Technus and his latest plan to use the Gamestop in the mall to take over the internet. It was six hours of his life that he was never going to get back, but he figured he could at least make it up to Tucker by taking him to the mall that, thanks to ‘Phantom,’ was still there.

Of course, it would have been better if Desiree hadn’t shown up and started granting wishes by the fountains. One would think that the town of Amity Park would have learned not to wish for things out loud, but four hours of hell proved otherwise. Danny was still trying to figure out who wished for walls to be made of jello. He would kick their ass, if he ever figured it out, that was for sure.

After that it was the Lunch Lady causing a riot at one of the local soup kitchens, Ember trying to enslave a group of teenagers in the park, the Box Ghost taking over the post office, and Johnny and Kitty having a fight that almost destroyed an entire city block.

Finally, though, March was here and things were calming down once again. “Tucker- Hey! Tucker! Wait up!” Student elections for next year’s positions weren’t going to be voted on until late April so Danny had plenty of time to listen to Tucker’s plans and help him out with campaigning and all of that. It would be easier, of course, if Tucker would slow down and wait for him. “Hey, so, I was thinking that today-”

“You could leave me behind and go off and hunt ghosts on your own? Yeah, sounds perfect, Danny, let’s do that.” It wasn’t the words that hurt so much as the way Tucker sounded so bitter. “Here, you can even get a head start. I’ll go home, and you can stand here and wait for the next ghost attack, which should be in, oh, ten minutes? Five, maybe?”

“Okay, no gaming marathon today, then.” Danny shook his head, trying to find out where the bitter attitude was coming from and finding himself unable to. He knew it had been a rough few weeks, but it wasn’t like any of that was Danny’s fault. “Okay, right, I’ll bite, what the hell? I mean, I know I’ve been busy-”

“Busy?” Tucker near knocked Danny over with how fast he turned around. “No, busy would be dealing with the ghosts and then coming to talk to me afterwards. You’ve been a jerk-”

“I’ve been a jerk? You’ve been avoiding me all day when I’ve been trying to catch up to you so we can talk. And I’m sorry, since when am I considered a jerk for taking care of threats that no one else can?”

“No one else- Do you even realize- Do you even see us?! All of this - everything - is all your fault! And you’re too much of a stubborn jerk to even see that!”

“My… And just what, Tucker, is my fault?” None of this was his fault! How was any of this his fault? He had his own stuff to deal with, too, and by the time the fights ended these days, he was too tired to do much more than to make it home and collapse.

What Tucker thought was his fault was something Danny didn’t get to hear. Instead he heard a high-pitched whine, saw Tucker look shocked and scared, and then he felt nothing but pain. Pain and fear were the last things he felt before he saw black.

::

“Greetings, prey… I had a feeling that my weapons wouldn’t trigger that little detection power of yours.”

“Oh, God, of course it’s you.” Danny’s ears were still ringing, and his mouth felt like it was stuffed full of cotton and sand, but he had enough sense to recognize Skulker’s voice when he heard it. “And here I thought you finally chased the wrong prey and got your suit destroyed or something.”

“Unfortunately for you, that is not the case. No, whelp… You see, I’ve decided that it was high time that we bring our little hunt to new grounds.” Right, Skulker was just going on with his dramatics. That gave Danny at least five good minutes to figure out where the hell he was and why he felt so awful.

The second one he could probably blame on whatever Skulker had used to knock him out. He remembered electricity, just barely, and that was enough. Skulker had probably gone to Technus to have his weapons upgraded, the jerk.

Okay, okay. Focus. He had been leaving school and- Tuck. Tucker. Right. Well, even if they were fighting, he was still sure that Tucker would call Sam and Jazz and some rescue attempt would be put together. At least, that was what he thought until he heard a familiar groan beside him.

“My brains… feel like oatmeal.” Pushing himself up faster than he should have, Danny’s vision swam as he stared down at where Tucker was lying down next to him.

“Ah, yes. I even brought along a friend of yours for our hunt today. I couldn’t have him running to tell others and interrupt our hunt too soon, now could I?”

“Skulker, the second I can see straight I am going to punch you in your face!” Of all the things to happen of course Tucker would be trapped alongside him! Sam, at least, could have kept pace with him, but Tucker? Depending on where they were, they might just be doomed.

“Maybe once you might have been able to, whelp, but I have the home field advantage.” The… The home field advantage? Stomach feeling like it had been taken out of him and dropped off a skyscraper, Danny shot his gaze up towards the sky and saw nothing except green. Green meant that they were in the Ghost Zone, but Skulker wouldn’t be so smug if it was just that. “Now, since I like to give my prey a sporting chance, I’ll give you a ten-minute head start.”

Feeling a tug to his wrist, Danny’s gaze snapped over to where Tucker was looking shocked and scared, eyes wide as he stared at the handcuffs that chained them together. This, Danny realized, just became a lot more difficult.

“Oh, and did I mention your ten minutes began when you awoke?” Skulker’s smug, satisfied words had Danny scrambling to his feet, fighting the wave of dizziness that swept over him as he grabbed Tucker’s arm and pulled him along as he started to run.

“Danny! Do you even know where we’re going?!” Tucker’s shouts only had Danny pulling them along faster, because the sooner they got away from Skulker, the better.

“I think that as long as we’re running away from the crazy mecha suit, then it doesn’t really matter,” Danny yelled back, eyes wide as he tried not to run them into any trees. He had caught glimpses of a forest in the Ghost Zone once before, but since when had there been a jungle? Were they at Skulker’s island or lair or whatever it was?

“And how do we know we’re not gonna just wind up going in circles!” Feeling a jerk on his arm as Tucker tripped over something, Danny swore as he slowed down enough to make sure Tucker didn’t fall before pulling him along again. “Ow- Danny!”

“Just shut up and run, Tuck. We wouldn’t even be in this mess if you hadn’t been acting like a jerk-”

“You’re blaming me for this?!” Tucker stopped again, and Danny grunted as he felt a sharp tug to his wrist where the handcuff was locked around him. He was starting to hate these handcuffs and he couldn’t wait to punch Skulker in the face for this. “This is your fault, dude.”

“My fault? It’s my fault that you’ve been ignoring me for the last few days?” Seeing the other ready to reply, Danny sharply shook his head the same time he pulled on the chain of the handcuffs. “We don’t have time for this. Just shut up and I’ll fly us out of here.”

Danny let himself relax before he was triggering his change into his ghost half, except there were no rings - or anything else. Trying again, Danny swallowed as, again, nothing happened. “Oh no.”

“Oh no?” Tucker frowned, crossing his arms and bringing Danny’s own arm with him. “Why are you saying oh no?” Changing wasn’t working, nor was flying, or intangibility, invisibility, ectoblasts, or anything else.

“We might have a problem,” Danny finally admitted, looking to the handcuffs and realizing for the first time that they were glowing. “Scratch that, we definitely have a problem.”

Tucker followed his gaze after a moment and it seemed to click at once considering the loud swear he let out. “This thing stops your ghost powers?”

“Seems to be the case,” Danny hissed, fingers scrabbling against the cuff on his wrist. He almost started swearing when it didn’t even budge. “Okay- Okay, just- Don’t panic. Just follow me-”

“And who put you in charge?” Tucker looked even more defensive than before as he took a step forward, poking at Danny’s chest, and, seriously? “This is my life on the line, too, you know! Why do you get to make all the decisions?”

“Can we not do this right now?” Danny frowned, batting Tucker’s hand away. “Look, I get it, you’re pissed I don’t get to spend time with you anymore, but we need to get out of here before Skulker tries to skin us or something. As for the other thing, I get to be in charge because I know about ghost things.”

“And I don’t?” Instead of his words reassuring Tucker, the other only seemed to be getting even angrier. As great as it was that they were finally talking, now was really not the time. “Dude, I’ve been right here the entire time! You don’t even see me, but we’ve been learning all of this stuff at the same time! The same pace!”

“Where is this even coming from?!” Danny finally shouted back, not caring that their ten minutes were probably up and Skulker was on the hunt for them. Skulker was the last thing he was worried about, right now. “It’s only recently that we’ve been fighting like this-”

“Recent?” Tucker’s voice was whisper soft before he was yelling again, looking angrier and angrier with each word. “Recent- It’s always been like this! You’ve always been so damn prideful and full of yourself and it’s gotten worse ever since you became ‘Phantom.’ You think you’re above everything!”

For a second, Danny could only stare at his best friend in shock. Then the shock ended and anger set in. “Above- You have no idea what I go through!” They could never understand. Tucker and Sam could never understand what it was like to be half-ghost. They saw him, but they didn’t see the aftermath. They never saw. “I’m trying to be ‘in charge’ because I, at least, know about all these damn ghost things-”

“And I don’t?!” They were the same words, but this time Tucker screamed them as if Danny had just stabbed him. “I’ve been right here this entire time and learning it all the same time as you! I’ve been here the whole time and you don’t even see me! I’m nothing but the tech guy to you!”

“At least you know what you are!” The words exploded out of him, Danny certain that his powers would have already been reacting if they hadn’t been suppressed. “I don’t even know if I’m alive anymore some days-!” Danny’s words died in his throat as he saw green energy that was speeding towards them.

Their ten minutes were definitely up, and Danny realized in that moment how loud they had been screaming. He then realized that while these weapons could hurt ghosts, this was technology that could kill humans, and it was flying right for Tucker’s back and no-

Danny was moving before his brain could make the decision, hands grabbing Tucker by the arm and back of the neck before he was spinning them around to switch places. He then immediately pushed them towards the ground. The blast of energy felt like fire against his skin as it seared across his back, gritted teeth feeling like they would break as he suppressed a scream and hit the ground a second after Tucker.

He didn’t give himself time to recover, instead dragging the two of them up before running through the jungle again, trying not to focus on how Skulker’s laugh boomed all around them. Danny knew Tucker was trying to say something, but Danny ignored it until he was skidding into a cave opening, knowing the hiding spot was only temporary.

“-alright?!” Tucker’s whisper shouting finally sunk in, Danny blinking as he looked over to see Tucker was staring at him with wide, wet eyes and shaking hands. “Dude- Dude, you pretty much just took a bullet for me.”

Staring at him for a minute, Danny finally shrugged and tried for a grin, “I can handle stuff like that.” Tucker couldn’t. Danny was stronger against these types of things even in his human form.

“But- We were fighting. We were fighting and you still- Ow! Hey!” Watching Tucker clutch the back of his head where Danny had just hit him, Danny gave a mock glare.

“Dude, do you seriously think that I would let you get hurt just because we’re fighting?” Danny was definitely pissed at Tucker and he had the urge to drop him off a small hill or something, but even at their worst he would never want Tucker hurt, let alone killed. “Idiot.”

Hearing leaves rustling, Danny jerked them further into the cave, biting his lip at the wave of pain from his back even as he pulled Tucker down to the ground and into the shadows. The two were utterly silent and still as the rustling leaves slowly moved away before they disappeared altogether.

“Okay, we need a plan,” Danny finally said, looking to Tucker and giving him a nudge. “Any ideas, VP?” There was a long moment where Danny thought Tucker was going to make a thing of it before he looked away with a grudging smile.

“Elections aren’t until April, you know,” Tucker said quietly, Danny beyond grateful that they weren’t the type to go into feelings. “Sorry. I-”

“Nope, no, nuh-uh, we don’t have time to deal with emotions. You’ve been a jerk and I’ve been an arrogant asshole or something and got carried away and forgot to tell you that we’re a team, and you’re not just backup.”

“I’ve been a jealous asshole,” Tucker finally corrected, looking suspiciously emotional. “And you’ve been a prideful prick who doesn’t like to take suggestions.” Ah, much better. “You think I would have learned the first time about being jealous.”

The memory of Desiree and her powers sent a shudder through Danny and Tucker both, especially as they remembered the end result. While ‘Tucker Phantom’ hadn’t been bad at first, it had showed Danny that he could get as wrapped up in himself as anyone else. Had he really started slipping that easily, again?

“I haven’t exactly given you reason not to be,” Danny finally said, sitting up slowly and trying not to show how much his back was hurting him. Tucker probably knew, anyways, judging by his wince. “Tuck… I didn’t think I had to say it because I thought you knew, you idiot.”

“As always, you’re full of such affectionate nicknames,” Tucker grumbled, peeking his head out of the cave. “Looks clear, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had Technus rig up some kind of spying system.”

“Yeah, but Tucker, look, man, I’m trying to emotionally connect, here.” At the look on Tucker’s face, Danny did his best not to laugh. “I’m serious. You’re not just tech support.”

“Yeah, yeah, man, I know, we’re friends and I’m part of the team and-”

“We’re not friends.” Danny let Tucker’s shocked silence sit for a moment before he grinned, giving him a nudge. “We’re brothers, aren’t we?”

“Oh my god you almost gave me a heart attack.” Even as Tucker dramatically clutched his chest, Danny could see the way his eyes were getting wet. He knew his own were the same, so at least they had mutually assured destruction. “This conversation never happened.”

“What conversation? Seriously, though, please tell me you have a plan or something, because otherwise we’re kind of screwed.”

“I don’t know how to get these cuffs off, but I do have something.” Watching as Tucker twisted and squirmed around, Danny shook his head as the teen finally got his backpack open from where it was stuck on one arm.

“Tell me that you’re not about to pull out some plot device to save the day or whatever. I know our lives have gotten kind of crazy, Tuck, but-” A Fenton Thermos was being waved in front of him. A Fenton Thermos that was black and green. “Whoa. Dude, what…?”

“I told you I’ve been working on our ghost stuff, too. This is one of the things I was trying to show you, dude.” The Thermos, which looked a lot less like a thermos these days, was the same size as the old ones, but had a metal plate that had a circular pattern to it covering the top instead of the lid it used to have. “It’s like one of those cool sci-fi kinds of openings, you know? You just a press button, this opens up like a circle thing, and boom, you have a ghost capturing ray.”

“Tuck, you’re a genius.” Taking the Thermos, Danny’s grin got even wider as he thought about how much work must have gone into something like this. “You’re my favorite.”

“Sweet. I’d tell Sam, but I don’t know if the satisfaction would be worth both of our deaths,” Tucker laughed, falling silent the same time Danny did. A branch had snapped not far off from where they were sitting. “Wanna take that thing for a test drive?”

“Tuck, you read my mind.” Danny grinned as the two of them stood back up, Danny realizing in that moment that Tucker really had been through it all with him. As Skulker stepped out of the foliage, Danny’s grin grew wider. This was going to be fun.

::

“I was wondering when you would be back! Honestly, you could at least give warning if you’re going to disappear for weeks on… end.” Ghostwriter stared at him and Danny could see the exact moment that he registered Danny’s back was bleeding and he was chained to Tucker. “This one must be Tucker, I presume?”

“Oh, cool, you do talk about us!” Tucker’s voice was a cheerful little chirp as he stuck his hand out. “Yo. I’m Tucker Foley, Danny’s best-friend-slash-brother. You must be the ghostly book nerd he won’t shut up about.”

“You’re going to make me regret bringing you here, aren’t you,” Danny grumbled, reluctantly amused when Ghostwriter cautiously shook Tucker’s hand. “So, uh, hey, do you know how to lockpick handcuffs?”

“I do, actually, yes.” Oh, cool. That made this easier. Danny also knew what he was asking Ghostwriter about next time he visited. “I take it those handcuffs were not a choice, then.”

“Why- Why would you think it was a choice?” Danny was grateful that Tucker looked just as horrified, but Ghostwriter only looked amused as he opened the door properly for them.

“Who am I to judge another’s preferences? Come on, then. It shouldn’t take me long. I take it that’s been cancelling out your abilities?”

“Yeah, Skulker’s a dick,” Danny nodded, pulling Tucker into the library and using the handcuff like a leash when it looked like Tucker was about to run off to explore. “Do you have bandages, too?”

“Goodness, you’re certainly high maintenance,” Ghostwriter sighed, looking amused instead of concerned, thank God. Danny was good enough with all the concern he already got. “I should have something.”

“So, hey, you know, you could totally go digital and get rid of half these books - maybe free up some space, even. I mean, paper copies aren’t really efficient.”

Ghostwriter, after faltering in his steps and looking back, gave Tucker the dirtiest look that could ever be imagined, Danny breaking and starting to laugh when Tucker only beamed back before going in depth about the advantage of technology over books. It was good to have things back to normal.

Idly thinking on maybe going back to visit Ghostwriter when he needed help on his homework, Danny didn’t slow down his quick pace until he was getting close to the school steps, catching his breath as he felt every inch of happiness leave his body as he stared up at the now familiar building. He was definitely back at high school, at least.

“Incoming!” That loud cry was all the warning Danny was given before he suddenly had a best friend wrapped around his shoulders. Danny was eternally grateful for his ghost strength, because otherwise he and Tucker would both be collapsed in a pile of snow. “Danny! Buddy, pal, friend, chum, sport-”

“Who did you piss off and who are you hiding from?” Danny probably shouldn’t encourage Tucker’s crazy behavior, but it was hard to hold in laughter when Tucker was shifting and moving around him like a demented squirrel.

“Me? Piss someone off? Danny, please, come on. I’m the most likeable person in this entire school. I really don’t appreciate-”

“Foley!” Biting his cheek to stave off his laughter this time, Danny felt Tucker slap him on the back before he was given a crazy grin.

“And that’s our cue to get to homeroom!” With that, Tucker was pulling him along, Danny easily letting him as he kept an eye out for the color black. Somehow, even with him keeping an eye out, Sam still managed to sneak up on him enough to almost give him a heart attack.

“Jesus, Sammy, are you trying to make me use my ghost powers?” Danny accepted the hug anyways, getting a face full of a furry hood that was attached to a coat and had a sheen to it that made it look like it was forever stuck between being black and being purple. It was probably some fake fur made of human skin or something like that, too. “At least Tucker gives warning.”

“And I give you impromptu training. You’re welcome.” Damn. He really had missed these two. Like, yeah, okay, he hadn’t been that long since he had seen them, but still. “So, I believe you were catching us up on some ghostly poem drama last night before we ended the call?”

“Oh, yeah, right. There’s not much to it.” Danny used the rest of the walk to class to quickly explain the basics of what had happened over Christmas with the whole poem incident. When they dropped into their seats in homeroom, he was completely unsurprised to see that Tucker was holding back laughter and Sam was looking offended.

“A ghost messed with my memories? I mean, I’m glad the town didn’t really remember that mess and they don’t hate you again or anything, but is that why I can barely remember what I did over the holidays? Oh, that’s so-”

“Hey, hey, Ghostwriter isn’t all that bad.” At the look he was given, Danny gave a weak little shrug and half of a smile. “What can I say, I made a new friend. Doing the whole apology thing and spending time at that library probably made it the funnest winter break I’ve ever had.”

“Dude. Now I’m offended.” Tucker, very dramatically, held a hand to his chest. “You don’t count our winter breaks as fun?”

“Last winter break you almost had us thrown in juvie.” That had been an interesting one to explain if nothing else. It made kind of a funny story. At least, to them, it did, but not so much for their parents when they had picked them up at the local courthouse jail or whatever it had been. “You have your own category of fun.”

“I still can’t believe there’s a ghost out there that can control us all like that.” Leave it to Sam to stick to the heart of the matter. “Are we sure he isn’t going to do that again? I mean, we can barely even remember what he did.”

“You’ll probably be fine as long as you don’t piss him off,” Danny shrugged. “I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty good with never again angering the guy who can control reality, although Clockwork did mention there were limits to his powers.”

“It’s because he’d be overpowered, otherwise, and the universe knows that isn’t fair,” Tucker said solemnly. Danny was a little disappointed that Sam beat him to it when it came to kicking Tucker’s chair. “Hey! No kicking in class!”

“You don’t have any proof.” Sam crossed her arms and smirked at Danny. “Let’s get back to the true heart of this matter where you befriended a guy version of Jazz.”

“I did not!” Thinking on his week with Ghostwriter, though, and what he had learned about the guy, Danny supposed that maybe he kind of sort of maybe kind of had. “Shit. I totally did, didn’t I? Well, you know what, he might be a kind of friend, but he’s still annoying!”

“Hey, at least you have another ghost that isn’t out to hunt you down or kill you or anything.” Tucker finally got his chair perfectly straight before Sam nudged it just a bit to the left. “Dammit, Sam!”

“It is nice to have another friendly ghost on our side. Like, yeah, okay, he’s a little weird, but… He can actually be pretty fun.” Danny hadn’t thought discussing books could even be fun until he and Ghostwriter had almost destroyed a couch arguing about one of the books.

“Fun, huh?” Sam raised a single eyebrow which, really, how the hell did she even manage that? Danny bet she practiced it in the mirror. “I can tell since you spent an entire week with him.”

“Whoa, hey, no, I spent five days with him.” That didn’t really sound all that much better, but Danny was on thin ice to begin with.

“That’s a school week,” Tucker piped up. “It counts and there’s no way I believe that you were just ‘organizing books’ for an entire week at that place. Spill it. What else did you do over break?”

“Settle down, students.” At Lancer’s voice, Danny let out an explosive sigh and slumped in his seat. Thank God.

“I never thought I would say this, but thank God, class is starting.” Both his friends choked on a laugh, Danny smiling himself. It was nice for things to be normal, again. “Hey, wanna hit the mall after school?”

“Oh, hell yeah! I hear Techtopia has a sale going on.” Oh, Tucker. He would never change. “I’m sure there’s probably a deal going on at the Hot Topic there, too.”

“Please,” Sam snorted, looking toward the board at the front of the class before glancing back. “There might be a new year sale going on, actually.”

“Mall it is.” A little time to be just a normal teenager was just what the three of them needed. Besides, after ghost hunting, the mall was harmless as could be.

::

“Right. Note to self. The mall is never harmless.” Danny dragged himself out of the pile of store merchandise he had crashed into it and waved at the scared cashier at the counter. “Sorry about that. Send a bill to the mayor, I guess? Sorry!”

“None can stop the all-powerful Technus 2.0!” Oh, God, Technus was worse than ever before. Danny seriously might lose his mind if he had to keep this up for too long.

“Yeah, yeah, all hail the megadork. I seriously can’t believe your upgraded form is just you with a mullet. Where are you from, the eighties?” Dodging the electronic wires that came after him, Danny grinned at Technus and tried to make himself as annoying as possible. At least he was used to being used as a target, unlike everyone else here. “Ooh, did I hit a sore spot?”

“You will be the first to be crushed under my might, ghost child!” Eugh. That was probably the most annoying moniker he had yet. Well, he guessed his break really was over now. It had been nice while it lasted.

“Yeah, yeah, master of technology. Hey, you know what? It’d be more impressive if you actually ever managed to win!” Quickly dodging a blast of energy, Danny gulped as he felt the searing heat just barely brush his arm. God, he really needed to work on never getting hit by those because they hurt-

“Ah!” At the cry of pain, Danny quickly snapped his head around, eyes wide at seeing Valerie on the floor and sitting up with a hiss of pain.

“Oh, I’m gonna break you in half!” Feeling energy pour into his hands, Danny unleashed half a dozen blasts all at once, viciously pleased when most of them managed to hit Technus on at least some part of his body. “Well? You’re after a fight, aren’t you!”

So, alright, maybe Danny had the tendency to jump the gun and get too angry and protective and all that, but he was trying to keep the ghostly stuff away from his friends! They shouldn’t have to worry about stuff like this when he was supposed to be here taking care of it!

“C’mon, Technus! You wanted a fight, didn’t you?!” Readying more energy, Danny narrowed his eyes when he saw Technus looked intrigued. That was never a good look. He would know, too, after growing up with scientists his entire life.

“Interesting.” Technus’ gaze flickered to Valerie and Danny was attacking again at once. The last thing he wanted was for ghosts to put together that Valerie was the Red Huntress. They were less forgiving on ghost hunters than they were on him. “Oh, don’t worry, ghost child, I haven’t forgotten about you.”

“Dude, could you sound any more like a super villain?” Dodging the wires that snapped for his ankles, Danny grunted as he was hit with a blast strong enough to send him crashing into a huge stack of boxes and god that fucking hurt. Pushing himself up and catching his breath, Danny frowned when he saw he had changed back. “Ugh, why do you never work when I need you to?” Stupid powers.

“Danny?” Freezing at the voice, Danny blinked up at seeing Valerie looking down at him with raised eyebrows and, yeah, right. Phantom crashed and Fenton appeared. Right.

“Ah, hi, Val. So, uh, hey, those ghosts gone yet? I was trying to find Sam and Tucker and suddenly boxes were falling on top of me.”

“Yeah, they’re both gone.” Valerie gave a laugh and held her hand out, Danny smiling as he let himself be pulled to his feet. If nothing else, Valerie had a nice laugh. “You okay?”

“Just another day in Amity Park, I guess.” Danny gave Valerie a quick once over, relaxing when he saw that she was just fine. Technus’ blast didn’t seem to do any real harm to her, which, good. “You good? I saw you go down from that one ghost’s attack or whatever it was.”

“Knocked off my feet, I guess, but I’m good.” Valerie’s smile seemed to soften before she suddenly stepped back and dropped Danny’s hand and oh, yeah, that- Huh. He had forgotten they were even holding hands in the first place. “So, uh, you were looking for your friends?”

“Yeah- Yeah. I was. Sam and Tuck. My friends.” Danny really wished he could clone himself some days, just so he could slap himself. He just was never sure how to act around Valerie some days. She was kind and sweet and friendly and had a pretty sharp wit and she was also a ghost hunter who absolutely hated his guts with everything in her.

“Right.” Valerie looked away and Danny was about to move before he heard her clear her throat with a rough cough. “So, um… You’re good at Chemistry and everything, right?”

“What?” At the dry and sour look he was given, Danny gave a slow nod. “I mean, yeah? I usually get by with a low A or sometimes a high B. Why?”

“I was wondering if maybe we could meet up in the library some time and you could run me through a few things? Petricoff is making it way harder than it needs to be.”

“Ugh, I know, tell me about it.” Danny loved science, don’t get him wrong, but that demon that taught the science classes as Casper was pure evil. She probably really was a demon. Danny wouldn’t have been surprised. “But, uh, yeah, sure, I can help.”

“Great. Exchange numbers?” Valerie was already holding her phone out with a new contact pulled up, Danny fumbling to do the same with his own before they swapped. “Thanks. I know I haven’t been the nicest friend lately.”

“We all have our rough spots. I mean, it is high school.” Was he alive? Did Technus’ last hit kill him? Because he was exchanging numbers with one of the more popular girls in school and she was honestly smiling at him.

“Tell me about it,” Valerie laughed, taking her phone back and tossing Danny’s to him. It was a close save to keep it from dropping, Danny slumping in relief as Valerie laughed. “Hopefully having scientist parents pays off.

“Yeah.” Okay, so, yeah, maybe Valerie was the Red Huntress and all that, but she was still pretty amazing, and she actually seemed to like Danny. That alone was an impossible miracle considering the only people who had ever really liked him in his entire school career was Tucker and Sam.  

“So, hey, do you need to meet up with your friends right this second, or do you maybe wanna grab a bite to eat real quick? I was about to grab something before the whole dick measuring fight took place.”

Choking on a laugh, Danny silently nodded as he followed Valerie back towards the food court. Sam and Tucker would be okay for a while yet, and, well, maybe it was time to move on from his puppy crush on Paulina. Valerie’s dad had taken her suit away after that whole Pariah mess, after all, so Danny would be perfectly safe dating a ghost hunter.

Heh. Dating. It was the time for New Year’s Resolutions and all that Jazz stuff. Maybe he could make a resolution to try a little bit harder to be a normal teenager. Sure, he should probably be worrying about Technus getting away, but he could let his parents handle it or something. They were the professional ghost hunters, after all.

“You know what, Val? Grabbing a bite to eat sounds great right now.” Food did sound pretty great but being just an average Amity Park teenager sounded even better.

“You’re pretty chipper all of a sudden. Should I worry about you being possessed by a ghost or anything?”

“Nope. Just possessed with some good company.” Grinning at Valerie’s startled laugh, Danny felt something in him relax.