#ghost puberty

By the time Danny turned seventeen, he had learned three things.

First: always carry spare sleeves.

Second: never wave too hard.

Third: if your left hand falls off during algebra, act offended, not surprised.

It had started two years earlier with the whole half dying… thing. Yeah that. With him walking into a busted portal at the egging of his friends who said it’d be cool with the optimism only idiots possess. Because yeah, dying was tOtAlLy SuPeR cOoL. Great idea guys. He fucked up, the portal turned on, and a whole ass nother dimension moved against gravity and reached for him; the ectoplasm of the Infinite Realm surging in through him like something recognizing a home.

He remembers screaming. He remembers his skin turning neon and translucent for a second. He remembers waking up in a hospital bed with every monitor screaming back at him.

The doctors had said there was no burns. No remnant electricity. No ecto-radiation they could measure. They called it contamination, his parents called it integration, then quietly everyone stopped using words for it at all.

Because the electricity, the ectoplasm, had not stayed on him. It had gone in him. Became him. Bound to his very genetic code. He, of course, knew this better than anyone else. Sadly he couldn’t exactly hide it fully, it changed him just a little too much. It threaded through his muscles in microscopic filaments. It lined bone, turning it such a dark green that it might as well have been black. It replaced portions of connective tissue with something slick, unstable, and ‘alive’. MRIs showing glowing strands where ligaments should have been. The only saving grace was that it was so bizarre that it distracted both the doctors and his parents from looking too deep into other things. Like Phantom showing up right after Danny’s little accident, or how sometimes ghosts seemed to know Danny Fenton. It also kept his parents specifically from wondering why Danny’s appearance didn’t change at all. They were pretty set on him being at least slightly a hybrid but managed to miss that logically that should have meant visible outward changes. The doctors were too confused too frequently to come to that conclusion themselves.

That didn’t mean there was no physical changes that he couldn’t hide, namely his eye flashing problem. Way too much shit annoyed him to hide that, especially at school; so his folks wound up having to properly ‘inform’ the school and Danny just sorta let all his classmates come to the ‘Danny’s a goddamn sorta ghost but he’s not dead so really he’s just a major freak’ conclusion in their own time; which took a while but still happened. Him being ‘a dork’ and clumsy and ‘meek’ kept anyone for even considering that he was the ‘cool’ and ‘witty’ and ‘bold’ Phantom.

At least the effect on his ligaments only seemed to make him flexible; that was kind of cool actually. Being able to bend and twist in ways that made others gag or let him fit/crawl into places he couldn’t have before. His folks took quick advantage of that, even while half-heartedly warning him to not over do it just in case. Testlauf tried to convince him to get into gymnastics; obviously he wasn’t going to put even more on to his plate so he turned that down. Good thing too, because over time he noticed that things seemed… loose, his body parts were loose; like his body wasn’t as firm or solid as it should have been even in human form.

In fights, in ghost form, it was fine. In fights, his bodies solidity being more of a suggestion than anything was useful. Making a donut of his stomach was a great gag, one that literally made people gag. But… being in ghost form, being without gravity, made the looseness not… loose. His parts stayed where they were supposed to be, the same eventually didn’t apply when gravity was in effect. When he was human, and that was a problem. It was making him wrong, wrong in a way he just couldn’t put a finger on. Like he got to keep his human bones and organs, but didn’t get to keep his joints and ligaments, his connective tissue. All the less solid aspects of the human form had, in him, changed to ectoplasmic goop that was only getting goopier.

The first dislocation happened opening a jar of pickles of all things. His shoulder sliding out of socket with a wet thunk, arm dangling six inches lower than it should. Danny had stared at it in the kitchen mirror for a solid five minutes, trying to figure out what to do and how to do it, or if his arm would just fix its self like his body sometimes did now. It did not fix itself -damn- and his mom nearly fainted when she walked in; which shocked him just enough to realize that this kinda hurts. Unsurprisingly his mom popped it back in place, scanned his ectoplasm levels, and then promptly took him to the doctor to ‘make sure’ she’d set his shoulder right.

The hospital staff knew him pretty well by then, kinda hard to forget the freaky weird kid who should have died and got contaminated with an otherworldly substance, after all. And after all the check ups and with them noticing all the other injuries and bruises that Danny had acquired in a very short amount of time; he barely managed to avoid his parents figuring out where they actually came from, and avoid the hospital staff accusing his parents of abusing him. Dr. Paredes telling him to relax even while not sounding relaxed at all, then looking to his parents, “you’ll probably have a better chance at trying to reduce it”, scratching his head slightly, “we’re officially going with the ectoplasm causing some internal bruising and being rough on his bones”.

Danny hissing at him, getting a shoulder popped back in had hurt more than it had had any business to, plus he was just a little annoyed, “my shoulder fell out because of pickles”; talk about embarrassing.

“That’s going in the chart”. His parents nodding and writing their own notes, muttering about ‘progression’ this and ‘worsening’ that. He tried to ignore them… thankfully his parents agree with the idea that all the ectoplasm is just being hard on his contaminated bones and contaminated muscles….

But it only worsens from there. His knees could separate if he stepped off of curbs too hard. Fingers slipped out from their sockets, making them look overly long and dangling, if he stretched them too much. His jaw once unhinged during a yawn, and he had to guide it back in with both hands. At least Sam and Tucker found that last one pretty funny, but him speed walking through the hallways with his jaw somewhat dangling open wasn't exactly easy to hide. It wasn't any major gossip at first, just small 'Fenton's a freak' stuff and the occasional 'didn't he have some kind of accident not too long ago?'; not good but manageable and nowhere close to exposing him. Of course, his parents and the doctors overseeing his recovery took much more note. According to his parents, the ectoplasm inside of him was constantly pooling around his joints and dissolving the remaining ligament fibers. But hey, at least it wasn’t painful, right? It was just his body sucking and fucking with him in ways that were getting progressively harder to hide.

The doctors try a few things to help, but no braces hold for long, sutures tear free, artificial tendons fray after days, and his body rejects any replacement material the ectoplasm dissolving it to nothing. Even his folks, with all their genius and tech, couldn't really figure something out that actually works. He even tries going to a ghost or two but well.... Danny's body was significantly more biological and physical than any ghosts, so they didn't really know what to do with him. Simply spending more of his energy or draining ectoplasm out of his system just wound up straining his core, his body right back up to its normal levels in a short time. The doctors kinda gave up on him around that point, largely just leaving his care up to his parents; a blessing and a curse, since they were negligent enough that he could largely get out of check-ups.

At least for a while, things stayed largely the same with his body being weird, giving him time to adjust to a slightly loosey goosey body. Wearing compression garments under hoodies, tape around his wrists, neck brace on the particularly bad days. That last one was the biggest issue, seeing as a goddamn neck brace was super fucking noticeable, but it was a hell of a lot better than his head just goddamn falling and rolling around barely attached to his neck. School gossip was not nice on him, at least his whole dropping beakers problem from the earlier days led to most just thinking he was super clumsy at first. Sometimes Dash would try and take credit, saying he gave Fenton a good beating. Either way, the whole student body whispered about him even more, because teenagers can smell strangeness like sharks smell blood, and Danny was only getting weirder by the day. The fact that there was ghosts frequently all the time now, and that ghosts had more malleable bodies, is what really lead to the student body all coming to the ‘Danny’s, like, kinda ghostly, isn’t he?’… well that and his stupid eye flashes. He’d debated trying to head it off, convince people there was nothing ghostly about him besides some mild contamination, but if shit was gonna keep getting worse that would fail spectacularly. So… he leaned into the ‘half ghost’ idea, and steered the gossip away from anything remotely close to his Phantom identity; so long as everyone continued to believe Phantom was a full ghost and so long as no one realizes Danny could basically shapeshift, he’d be fine… barely. Thankfully all the random incidences did actually help that, since Phantom wasn’t floating around having his spine suddenly misalign or nose nose fall off of his face mid-fight; meanwhile Danny absolutely was.

There was the time his kneecap launched sideways enough to actually cut open his skin during gym, staining his shorts and splattering a bit of blood across the ground. The time he sneezed and partially detached an ear, as in it actually came off of the side of his head. Charlie, sitting next to him at the time, had screamed. Danny had been very thoroughly embarrassed and grinned reassuringly too hard, causing his nose to slide down his face in a streak of sinew and blood, making Charlie vomit; at least Sam got some damn good practice at reattaching ears... Then there was the time in history class, his right foot came free inside his shoe spraying a bunch of blood at the ground, and he had to hop to the nurse’s office carrying it in his fingers by the laces. It took some serious doing to keep the blood and strips of his muscle inside of his shoe. He also absolutely wrecked his pants, but he didn't have much of a choice but to use it to tie around the end of his ankle, had to do something to catch the dripping blood and flesh, to hide the dangling bits of sinew. The janitor was pissed at all the streaking he left in his wake. While the nurse had been horrified, and he'd barely been able to get her to call his parents instead of the hospital. Would have been so much better if the teacher just had not noticed it at all; then Danny could have snuck to the bathroom and just reattached his foot…

So at that point he knew he had to be at least a little more proactive, so he developed rules. Never run, it was too easy now for his legs to fall apart on him; and it would be pointless to run anyway, since his knees and hips and ankles and toes all fucking up and falling apart would just result in him face planting and making a gory mess. Never genuinely clap, his fingers would literally fly off, and no one appreciates the weird kid's disembodied finger flying into their cafeteria soup.

The first time that happened, his finger landed in Elizabeth's soup bowl just the wrong way so that his fingernail hit the rim and popped off, flying off of his disembodied finger and stabbing her in the chin. Never sleep curled up, his back would wind up having basically rearranged itself; thankfully, a quick transformation got it mostly sorted back out, but he’d still have to twists around and dislocate his shoulders to pop it all fully back in place.... But most importantly, never let anyone see how long it takes to reassemble yourself; he wanted as little eyes on him and his weirdness as possible. The last thing he wanted was the government, the G.I.W., getting involved and coming to conclusions he'd really not want them to.

His best defence really was his humour, people take shit less seriously when people make jokes about it, no matter how fucked up it is. When someone asks if he's okay after his elbow slides backward during lunch, a quick, “yeah, factory recall", got them rolling their eyes at him and waving it off. When Dash calls him broken, Danny just smiles and removes his own thumb to throw at the jerk. Dash could be surprisingly squeamish, though he probably shouldn't have tempted the jock, since the guy often just tried to push to see just how far Freaky Fenton would go.

So Danny just kept on keeping on like that for a while, even managed to desensitize the school enough that spotting him shambling down the hallway chasing after his eye that had popped out of its socket got written off. The janitor did shout at him a lot, though, and yes, Danny did pity the guy a little. He learned not to be too rough on his body lest it pop apart on him, in human form, anyway. Things stayed together better as Phantom.

And sure, maybe he shouldn't have gotten too complacent, but Danny has never claimed to not be a bit of a dumbass.

Getting woken up in the night not by a fight but rather by his body was annoying and extremely concerning. The sounds of soft pops, gentle knocks, a limb settling somewhere it shouldn’t; his arm resting across the room like it had gotten bored and left. Him blinking at the limb, "the actual fuck", is all he could really think to say. What was even the point? Then, furrowing his eyebrows, noticing that his breathing sounded like it was whistling? Looking down at his chest, poking and prodding at it with his one attached hand. His ribs weren't in the right spots or even shaped correctly. Sighing and getting up to get his detached limb, it'll be easier to fix his chest if he's got two arms. So much for a restful night of, well, of rest; fuck he’s tired,

Of course, that morning is when he finds out about the leaked videos, because that's exactly how Danny's luck goes. Apparently, a classmate had filmed him stumbling after getting bashed into a locker; his shoulder, wrist, and hip separating in sequence like a puppet cut from strings, then quickly getting dragged back into alignment by writhing green threads under his skin. Danny hadn't even really noticed that, just that his body had fixed itself up for a change... didn't do it very well since he still had had to realign stuff, but still.

Then there was the one recorded by the kid who walked into the bathroom with Danny shoving his septum back into his nose, blood absolutely covering the mirror and sink. Frankly, recording in a bathroom was rude.

And there was multiple angles of last weeks gym class where his hamstring snapped and started flailing and wiggling around under his skin, him slapping at the writhing ‘snake’ under his skin did nothing to make him look less unhinged. That shit looked straight out of the Alien when he was living it, even more so on video….

At least the one where his pointer fingers joints all exploded and he thusly stabbed himself in the eye with a scalpel in science class, was just more so funny and disgusting. Not to mention it wrecked the whole frog dissection thing, Sam applauded him for it and went on a rant about how that’ll hopeful get the dissection requirement removed. Danny had made a joke about how they should just dissect him instead, multiple people shouted about how he did that to himself enough as it was.

A very short loopable one of him telling the math teacher ‘my skeleton was roaming’ and that ‘my rib is under my skin and heading west’.

There was a whole ass compilation of him turning his head too fast and various things popping off or out. An ear, an eye, his lips, nose or part of his nose, his whole jaw twice, the one time he managed to turn into a pole and clothesline himself hard enough his tongue shot out. At least the other compilation of him ramming himself into hard objects to pop back in dislocations is mostly just funny, especially since it was edited to match the We Will Rock You stomp/beat.

One of the times Danny actually got pissed off at Dash, his eyes glowing green, and pushing up his arm sleeves and compression sleeves, then pushing up his arm skin. Just fully tearing the skin off around his wrists and shoving it up to his elbows like fabric. Punching Dash in the chin with his exposed red muscles intertwined with green, and visible green black bone. Fuck he did not realized anyone had recorded that… he really screwed himself over doing that.

Millions had watched the videos.

So, of course, that got the G.I.W.’s attention, thankfully even his parents distrusted and even outright hated the G.I.W. by this point. Small miracles. Still, he couldn't really refuse giving samples without basically going on the run for the rest of his life, definitely not an option. They wanted blood samples, tissue samples, and long-term observation. At least Danny folks were able to tell them to go pound pavement with the last one, Danny absolutely would have fucked off to the ghost zone otherwise. And hey, his control over his own ecto energy was good enough to keep his samples from being too ghostly. Meaning the G.I.W. just grumbled about how he 'must have been infected with experimental ectoplasm by those crazy scientists', while his dad went off blabbering about types of ectoplasm in a million ways that were all utterly useless for the men.

Danny went to ClockWork after that, desperately hoping the ghost wouldn’t just riddle him. Danny didn't even get a chance to ask.

ClockWork humming and watching some forest in some other time, "your ectoplasm is merely trying to repair catastrophic injuries by replacing damaged tissue. It's behaving as it should. It’s still trying to help you".

Danny, whose kneecap had been taped in place with sports wrap literally half an hour ago, laughs so hard his jaw comes a little loose, "yeah well, I'd like it to stop trying to be damn 'helpful', any pointers?".

Silence.

“Can I at least get it to stop a little bit? Is that even an option?”.

ClockWork shook their head, turning to Danny, "surely you didn't expect not to have any growing pains".

Danny blinks at him, "growing... pains?".

"You're almost eighteen, are you not? And many years dead, well grown into your powers".

Danny stares for a bit before tilting his head back, "oh Ancients, goddamn it", he was 'maturing', 'fully stabilizing', 'becoming an adult'. Guess his ecto just didn't know what to do with all of his human shit, even though its had years to adjust in Danny's opinion. Danny went home thoroughly annoyed and with an amused mentor; sometimes Danny swears ClockWork enjoys Danny's misery.

Weeks later, the degradation had clearly accelerated. His wrists no longer staying attached for full days. Vertebrae slipping enough to send lightning pain down his legs. He had to start wearing a rigid frame under his clothes just to keep himself 'stacked' correctly.

Then came the hand incident.

He's sitting on the school roof for lunch, where nobody but his friends would bother him, when Sam climbed up carrying fries and two sodas. “You skipped lab, pretty sure your grades are way too shit for you to be doing that, Danny".

“Was trying to secret eat some breakfast salad and my teeth fell out into it, and when I fished them out of my food, my radius stabbed through my wrist and popped out onto the floor". A goddamn fair reason if you ask him.

She shrugs at him, “fair, and congrats on discovering the worst croutons ever”, and plops down next to him.

They talked about nothing for a while. Wind. Finals. Whether pigeons were government employees. Then Danny reaches for a fry, and his hand detaches at the wrist and plops down into Sam’s lap.

They both look at it.

Danny closes his eyes, “please throw me off of the roof".

Instead of appeasing Danny's mild suicidal ideations, Sam just picks up the hand carefully, turns it palm-up, and high-fives it against her own. Danny snorts and starts laughing immediately, which of course, makes his other shoulder dislocate. Sam just shakes her head at him and sets it for him, "your body is such a goddamn mess".

Danny rolling his eyes and standing up, wiping rooftop dust off of his pants with his one hand, "yeah, yeah, yeah, be glad I'm the only one here getting puberty from hell. Now give me back my hand".

She smirks at him, "no", and yeets the thing off of the roof. Someone below shrieking while Danny glares at a very smug Sam.

Danny shaking his head at her before walking over to the edge of the roof to look down, one of the freshmen is basically foaming at the mouth unconscious next to his squirming hand, a small pool of ectoplasm and blood pooling around it. Lovely. And then, because once again Danny's luck is shit, both his knee caps pop out sending him over the edge of the roof and crashing into the ground below... at least he gets his hand back pretty quickly this way, regardless of the person shaped blood splat he leaves behind.

Things absolutely were not going to improve from here…

Mr. Bell calling names in his next period, “Danny Fenton?”.

“Here”, he raises his hand a little too enthusiastically, and his forearm detaches at the elbow with a neat little clack and remains upright for a moment, hand still raised, while the rest of the arm drops into his lap; blood slowly dripping down his half arm.

The room goes silent for a beat until someone in the back whispers, “…did his arm just salute separately?”.

Danny sighs, picks up the half of his arm, and slots it back into place like annoyed furniture assembly.

Mr. Bell glances at his attendance sheet, “marked present, I guess”.

Then, not even twenty minutes later, Kayla taps on Danny's desk, “hey, can I borrow a pencil?”.

“Sure", but of course, as he reaches into his backpack, twists just a little wrong, three fingers slide out of their sockets like uncorked party favours. Dangling down by lightly glowing green and red strands of gore. Fuck him entirely.

Kayla stares... Danny stares. One finger slowly pointing toward the pencil pouch all on its own. Kayla taking the whole pouch with a quick, “I’ll just… keep this side of the desk", and whispering, "what the fuck, man. Why is he more disturbing than the full ghosts". Whelp, apparently him being ‘disturbing’ was actually helping hide his shit… who would’ve thought.

Kwan basically shoving pizza in Danny's hand when he gets out of class, "you're only getting one piece, but it's still damn good. Please don’t do anything weird".

Danny glares and makes a point to bite into the slice hard enough that his jaw dislocates sideways with a wet pop. Cheese stretching from the pizza to his now-misaligned mouth like industrial cable. Kwan gags immediately, "oh come on, why, man?".

Two freshmen at their lockers scream. Danny just calmly grabs his chin, shoves upward, and everything snaps back into place. Chewing once, muttering, “needs more sauce, some ecto maybe”.

Kwan sighing, “you’d be the only one able to eat it then”.

“More pizza for me”.

At least he makes it too gym without any further incidents, Tetslauff blowing her whistle immediately, “laps! Move!”

Danny, unsurprisingly, only manages to jog exactly three steps before his kneecap shoots sideways and pings off of the bleachers; blood absolutely spattering out sideways after it. He collapses with a sigh, "someone wanna get that?".

“NURSE?!”.

Danny huffing and shouting back, “don't bother! It’s just my kneecap!”.

Emily picks the body part up with two fingers only, “do I… just hand this back to you?”.

“Yes, please".

“Gross”.

“Correct”.

She snorts disbeleivingly at him and then bends over laughing, "you're a goddamn human ghost jigsaw puzzle".

Danny pointing at her, "hey, I'll have you know I'm a very nice Lego set, worth at least three hundred dollars".

Tucker handing him one of their little med kits, "you and I both know that Vlad would pay so so much more than that to have you".

Testlauff shakes her head at them, "laps, Foley. Fenton, just head to your next class before I have to get the janitor to do anymore hazard cleaning of my gym".

"You could just let me stop doing this class".

She laughs once, "ha! As if I'm letting you off that easily. Now get, and take all your parts with you".

Of course, it's paired work, Danny getting stuck with Derek, one of the school's wannabe hard-ass 'tough guys'. The guy huffing, "don't slow me down, ghost freak”. Danny shrugs, and his shoulder rolls forward, detaches, and slides halfway out of his sleeve with a soft crunch; Derek making a sound usually only heard from startled goats.

Danny pushing it back in, quirking an eyebrow at the guy, “you were saying?”; it took so much effort to not smirk very meanly at the try-hard.

Derek quietly does all the measuring and calls Danny 'sir' for the rest of class, much to Danny's own amusement.

Star snags his sleeve as soon as he leaves the classroom, looking him up and down quickly, "good, you're put together, quick we need some pictures for the yearbook".

Danny glares, "thanks for jinxing me".

She rolls her eyes, "whatever, just smile please? And keep your teeth inside of your jaw".

"Now you're just giving me very tempting ideas". Regardless, he does a little -gentle- pose by one of the art walls, throws a peace sign, and smiles... the connective tissue at the corner of his mouth giving way with a tiny tear, and the right side of his smile keeps traveling another inch towards his ear which then slips free and lands on his shoulder just as she takes the picture; blood dribbling down the side of his face.

Star looks at him slowly, "goddamn it, Danny".

Danny smirks, "you want a fidget toy?".

"No! Put your ear back on and let's try this again".

"Or...", Danny rolls his wrist, "just take it again quick before anything else resigns"; Danny takes his ear off of his shoulder, wipes off the bit off blood, and fluffs his hair to hide where his ear should be and some of his over exposed teeth. She glares but takes another photo anyways and sends Danny on his way.

Of course, the second Danny turns to walk away, someone texting and walking slams right into him, the impact causing both wrists to disconnect at once. His hands dropped to the floor, one still clutching his disconnected ear. The girl groans, "oh god...", trails off and slumps, passing out.

Danny managing to catch her under the arms with his stump arms, glancing around, "Star? you still there?".

Star walks up next to him, bending down, "give her here you problem".

Valerie just goddamn appears outta nowhere, "Danny, you really gotta learn to keep your hands to yourself".

"Hey fuck you, give me a hand or two".

"One of these days I"m going to start carrying around fake hands just to give those to you when you ask that".

"Please do, that would be hilarious".

"I hate you".

Danny doesn't even bother going to home ec, not like he'd be allowed to cook anything anyway, and he needs to reattach his hands... and ear. Fuck his life so much. He's just gonna hide out in the library, away from any books he might accidentally get bloody.

He winds up sneezing halfway through getting his second hand back on properly, the force dislodging one of his ribs enough to produce a sharp thunk against the chair. The librarian sighing, “Danny”.

“Sorry”.

“Take your skeleton outside if it can’t behave”.

He snorts and carries himself, somewhat literally, out into the hallway. So much for that plan. Frankly, he'd just go home if the school wouldn't phone his parents... Bathroom? Yeah, that's probably for the best.

Does the bathroom idea turn out to be a good idea? Yeah, it absolutely does, since apparently there was a reason his body was being such an ass today. Sitting on the floor with his back against a stall door, and twitching, feeling a sort of internal full body pull. Every green filament inside him seemingly tightening at once. His joints aligning, his spine straightening, and for the first time in two years, nothing seems to slip when he twists his waist back and forth testingly after a few minutes.

Alright, cool, nice, time to see if his bodies chilled its tits.

Standing up... no slight pain, no looseness. Smacking his wrist hard on the wall, it pops off... damn. But... the strings of red and green connected to it retract his hand back to his wrist. Blinking, "whelp, that's fucked up but useful? I guess?". Shaking his head and wandering his way over to the mirrors, there’s green lines glowing faintly beneath his skin like constellations. Lifting his hand up and flexing his fingers, pushing it further and basically just breaking all his fingers, watching them snap back to their proper shape after a bit. Fucking weird ass ghost puberty.

He shakes himself out and beelines out of the bathroom to find his best friend.

Throwing an arm over him at the guys locker, "hey Tuck, guess what?".

"Who's causing issues now, your parents, Vlad, Skulker, Technus, or Lancer?".

Danny pouts at him, "hey I don't just use you for your tech skills. Slap me like you mean it".

Tucker quirking a very judgmental eyebrow at him, "do you want your jaw to go flying across the hallway? Who are you trying to torment?".

"Oh, come on, man, just whack me one".

Tucker gives a long suffering sigh but spins around and absolutely open hand clobbers the side of Danny's face. Danny just grinning wildly at the guy when his jaw does not go flying. Tucker blinking, "holy shit nice dude". Danny smirks, lifts his hand up and uses the ectoplasm in there to bend all his fingers at their joints at different angles. Tucker smack him again while gagging, "you ass!". Danny only snickers and lets Tucker keep beating him; he can absolutely hear someone mutter about how ‘holy shit ghost boys not popping apart’.

Thankfully, the next day is finally a normal day, normal in that he’s not failing apart every goddamn ten seconds. Apparently that makes more than a few people nervous, seeing as people keep giving him cautious side eye like they’re just waiting for his spooky ass to do something disturbingly fucked. Hell, Danny was almost tempted to do shit intentionally just because of all the looks.

But he refrains and makes it through second without incident. Then, of course, the second he steps out of class he slips on some spilled juice. Multiple people gasping, groaning, cringing, or quickly looking away; obviously expecting the usual avalanche of limbs and now knowing they’re going to have to deal with his shit. Instead, Danny bends his body backward unnaturally, joints flowing like liquid hinges; and catches himself one-handed against the floor, spine curving like wire, then rising back up smoothly. No popping, no falling apart, just inhuman spooky contortion.

Dale near the lockers muttering at him, “what the hell are you now, because that is not a goddamn ghost thing what the fuck?”.

Danny flexes his fingers as faint green lines move beneath the skin, nodding to himself and giving the jock a decidedly creepy smile, “version two point oh”.

Dale blinks, “does that mean that like, are you, I don’t know, fully dead now then? Or did you just die again? Pop a body part off one to many times?”.

Danny snorts and shakes his head, “no, I’m just an adultier half dead idiot”.

“Congrats on not being a child? I’m leaving”.

And surprisingly nothing else happens before lunch. Sam munching away on her kale, “so, happy to finally figure out how to glue yourself together”.

“Har har, yes”.

Then Dash shows his ugly mug, the jock slapping Danny’s tray hard enough to splash chili onto his hoodie.

“Oops”, speaking with all the sincerity of a snake wearing a tie, “did your freak reflexes miss that?”.

Sam sets down her fork and rolls her eyes, “Dash, go develop as a person somewhere else”.

Dash of course ignores her, “what happens if I hit you harder? You scatter like a toy?”.

Danny looks at the chili dripping from his sleeve and gets a… very mean idea. Slowly, deliberately, he reaches across with his right hand, grips his left forearm just below the elbow, and twists. There’s a moist metallic clack and his left arm comes free. Multiple people muttering, “oh fuck”. Dash taking one nervous step backward. See at least Dash had a good sense for when Danny was going a do something fucked up.

Danny standing, holding his detached arm like a club. Green filaments dangling from the socket like wet tinsel, faintly drip his weird blood mixture onto the floor. “You know”, grinning, “the funny thing about detachable limbs is range”.

And Dash’s bravado evaporates out through his pores, “you’re insane, Fentwirp”.

“Nope”, Danny beams, weighing the arm in one hand, “but I am left-handed”; and cocks back to throw the limbs at the jerk- but then a hand shoots in from nowhere, seizes the detached arm by the wrist, and yanks it cleanly from Danny’s grip.

Jazz has one hand on her hips, still in her uni clothes, hospital clearance badge still clipped to her chest, dark circles under her eyes. She’s seemingly come straight from a twelve-hour study and work expirence day, looking ready to fight a God -that god being Danny- in a parking lot. She tucks Danny’s arm under one shoulder like confiscated sports equipment, “No, bad Danny”:

Danny blinks, “Jazz, what are you doing here?”.

“Picking you up for your appointment, that mom and dad have successfully remembered you’re actually supposed to be going to”, she glances at the crowd, then at Dash, then back to Danny, “and apparently preventing felony assault with a humerus”.

“It’s technically radius-ulna plus hand”.

“Do not get anatomical with me”.

Dash points shakily, clearly still trying to act a bit tough though, “he was going to throw his arm at me!”.

Jazz stares at him before sighing, “and yet, Dash, I know you’re the one who walked over here”. Dash opens his mouth, she raises one finger, he smartly closes it again.

Danny reaches for his arm, “can I have that back?”.

“No”.

“It’s mine and I need it”.

“You needed it five seconds ago”. She tucks the arm more securely under her shoulder and grabs Danny by the collar with her free hand. “Come on, you pain”.

“But Jazz”.

“Walk, before I decide to go get a thermos”.

“I have one arm”.

“You have one arm available. Move or it’s thermos time and I mean it”. She marches him off through the cafeteria while students part and stare at them.

Sam snorting from the lunch table and shouting, “text me if she gives it back!”

Jazz shouting back over her shoulder, “no promises!”.

As they reach the doors, Danny twists back to glare at Dash, “I’m gonna arm whack you next time“; not remotely surprised when Jazz smacks the back of his head with his own detached hand.

“Try not to lose anything in the waiting room?”.

“I’ll do my best to remain conceptually whole”.

“You were born annoying”.

“I improved through hardship”.

She parks and Danny unfolds himself from the passenger seat in stages, like a camping chair! Sure he seems to be more put together now but there is a such thing as not testing his luck… too much anyways. Same reason he’s still wearing the neck brace, his neck fucking up tended to freak people out way more than anything else.

Danny waves at the toddler stared openly at his neck brace, and the way his left shoulder sits a little lower than the right. Of course, three fingers shift out of alignment and then snap back; the toddler goddamn claps.

Danny’s decided he likes the kid.

Of course the kids mother moves to the far side of the room; away from Mr. Spontaneously Turbo Fucked Fingers.

At reception, the nurse smiles professionally, “Name?”.

“Danny Fenton”.

She sighs, “a Fenton?”, then addresses him again, “reason for visit?”.

“uh, general structural collapse?”.

The nurse does not laugh, she just keeps on typing.

They call him back after about twenty minutes and one minor wrist separation that Danny did to himself out of boredom.

Nurse Patel takes his vitals, “pain today?”

“Define pain”.

She looks over her glasses, not taking Danny’s shit, “on a scale of one to ten”.

“Biomechanically or spiritually?”.

“Number”.

“Two”.

She nods, “improvement. Any new symptoms?”.

“My left hip clicked the alphabet last night”.

“Anything else?”.

“I think things are a little more settled now”.

More typing.

She wraps the blood pressure cuff around his arm, him watching it inflate. Okay… either he can let these people know just home better his body seemed to be or he could pretend to still be a somewhat falling apart mess. See the later will get less tests and less questioning. So… he ‘lets’ his forearm detach at the elbow with a moist clunk and slide halfway out of the sleeve; the cuff continuing to squeeze the lower half independently.

Nurse Patel closes her eyes for one full second, “I’ll note patient has… mobility”.

“That’s generous”.

She hands him the detached portion, “hold this”.

Dr. Kessler enters with scans, coffee, and the expression of a man who deeply both wished he’d never met any Fenton ever AND wished he could ignore the hippocratic oath, “Danny”.

“Doctor”.

“How have we been?”.

“Plural”.

“Accidentally force fed anyone your body parts recently?”.

“Hmmmm, maybe?”.

Dr. Kessler sets the films onto the lightboard. Danny’s skeleton looks like it has been assembled from memory. Joints sitting slightly apart, shoulder sockets shimmering with a green haze, ligament spaces were threaded with filament-like lines where no lines belonged. The doctor taps the image of Danny’s knee, “this patellar tendon appears to be replaced by… something braided”.

“That’s my better knee”.

Dr. Kessler sighs, “let’s do a range of motion exam”.

Danny stands in the center of the room. “Raise your arms overhead”. He does as he’s told, and ‘lets’ the right shoulder dislocate with a crack and rotate backward far enough that his elbow points at the ceiling.

Dr. Kessler winces, “lower them”.

“I can’t with this one”.

Jazz, sitting in the corner, doesn’t look up from her phone, “use your other hand”. Danny rolls his eyes but grabs his own wrist and folds the arm down manually.

“Bend forward”. Danny bends and ‘lets’ two lumbar vertebrae slip with a series of wet pops, shortening him by nearly an inch.

Dr. Kessler murmuring, “interesting”.

“It never is when you say that”.

“Walk heel-to-toe”.

Danny takes three steps before ‘letting’ his left foot rotate ninety degrees, continuing walking anyway.

The doctor nods, “adaptive”.

Jazz sighs, “stubborn”.

Then comes palpation; doctors always want to poke things. Dr. Kessler pressing lightly along Danny's collarbone, the bone 'suddenly' springing upwards beneath the skin like a tent pole, stretching the flesh in a sharp ridge. Danny snorting when the doctor jerks back. Danny clearling his throat and trying to seem sheepish, “ah. It does that when startled”.

“How does a clavicle become startled?”.

“Hostile touch?”.

Jazz actually laughs into her sleeve, while Dr. Kessler cautiously pushes the bone flat again.

“Any numbness?”.

“Sometimes my right hand forgets it belongs to me”.

“Any weakness?”.

“My jaw fell off chewing cereal”.

“That is not weakness”.

“It felt unsupportive”.

Dr. Kessler pinches the bridge of his nose, “any changes in the ectoplasm filaments?”.

Now Danny could bullshit the guy and say no, but it was visually noticable and bound to get caught on camera sooner rather than later. So Danny rolls up a sleeve and beneath the skin, thin glowing threads move slowly around his forearm musculature, tightening and relaxing like something thinking. Something sentient, because it was. It was his ectoplasm, his mind was in every ectoplasmic molecule of it, the same way that it was in every mortal molecule of him.

The room goes very quiet, even Jazz lowers her phone. Dr. Kessler leans closer, “can you make them move intentionally?”.

Danny flexs, the filaments contract, and his detached ulna shifts audibly back into alignment with a click.

Nurse Patel, from the doorway, whispers, “nope”, and promptly leaves.

They finish up with recommendations, the doctor rubbing his forhead, "continue bracing and avoid impacts”.

“Define impact”.

The man sighs, “everything”.

“Harsh”. Plus Danny 'aviod impacts' was a fools game and litterally never ever going to happen. Even ignoring his Phantom extraciriculars, he bashed into and got bashed into constantly. There was literal video evidence of this.

“Hydrate. Sleep. Report sudden changes”.

Danny nods and, largely to be an ass, lets his left ear detach at the upper cartilage and flop onto his cheek; blood running down his neck. Dr. Kessler stares at it for a long moment, Danny intruptting the mans mental anguish, “anything else?”.

The doctor slowly wrote one more note, shaking his head, "condition remains dynamic".

Jazz stands, grabbing a gauze pad, and smacks it onto Danny's ear, “come on, Ikea Skeleton”.

“That nickname is ableist”, pointing, "but congrats on making a creative insult for once".

“You are literally modular, Danny”, she marches him out with a sigh.

In the waiting room, the toddler waves again, Danny obviously waving back and 'letting' his whole hand come off this time; the toddler, like a badass little champ, cheers.

Jazz eyeing him in her car, "is it really still this bad? I thought you said you'd sorted yourself out?", bleeding concern for him.

Danny waving her off immediatly, "yeah, yeah, it's just better the normal person doctor thinks I'm still a mess", smirking and fingergunning at her, "the less I'm consatnly falling apart the less people will notice that, and the more they'll notice everything else".

She eyes his fingers and relaxes a little, driving off, "well considering you didn't just make your fingers explode or snap apart or collapse or fly off, you must be better". Danny fingerguns again purely to make his middle fingers and thumbs break and twist around at the joints, blood beading up around his nails. She scowls at him, "you're disgusting, keep your gore to yourself".

"Never".

Did Danny continue to treat his family, his freinds, his school, and the town as a whole, to his twist it bop it pull it body? Obviously he does. They hate most seconds of it and he loves efvery second of it. It's also very funny when someone asks him as Phantom if "ghosts just pop apart all the time, like the Fenton kids half ghost ass?", and Danny got to make a show of looking disgusted and saying "Zone no, I don't know what in the Realms his ecto did to him to mess him up like that. I blame the human shit or maybe expirencing grvity just really sucks. Definitely seems like it does". Thusly furthering the divide between human Fenton and ghost Phantom.

End.