Congrats, my friend! I saw you're taking prompts. I love the idea of Dan actually still being a half ghost. Him discovering he still is part human or becoming human again would be interesting.
First of all how dare you! this is evil! how dare you call me out unknowingly about my unfinished, currently very much neglected plans I mean as, khm... thank you! ❤️
And this prompt bothered inspired me as much that I wrote this in anger one-sitting... (I hope it fits! 🤗)
(I have a wip - that I ignore for months again by now - which might fit this concept even better, but now, I wanted to write something else that would turn out independent from that, so then, here it is...)
(I might upload it later to ao3 too in a form of a prompt collection or something, but only later...)
- - -
It couldn't be true what he saw, but yet, it was.
He knew it... was - as much his mind tried to deny it. The proof was in front of him after all, even on repeat if he wished like that - if he asked kindly at least the Masters of Time to rewind it and play it again for him. But that request would mean and that would tell that he couldn't perceive it, that it must have caught him by surprise - it didn't, of course, it didn't, that would have been a lie, stating that…
Dan took an unaware step back, shaking his head.
"No, this is not... right. This is not... not the--"
"--truth?" Clockwork worded it for him.
It took him a great effort to keep back a snarl over the sorry tone.
"This is not how it happened!" Dan waved toward the damned screen that just showed him that day. "This is not--I can--"
"--remember to it?" The purple ghost tilted his head to the side, pointing out the glitch in the famously faulty memory.
"Yes," Dan hissed. "I remember it, and this is not how it happened! I killed--"
"--Daniel? Your human half? The one that gave you mass?" The ghost listed.
"What...?"
"Ghosts can't recall their death." Clockwork began the tale, moving his gloved hand in the air slowly and the just-manifested picture on the screen disappeared. The eternal swirling green returned like nothing had happened a moment ago, like nothing world-twisting had been revealed.
"Can you recall your death then, that's what you are saying, every piece of it? Or, should I say, every fragment of ending Daniel's life then?" Clockwork asked.
Dan frowned, but then as the hooded ghost turned towards him with a rose eyebrow, he snapped. "It's irrelevant! I'm not Danny!"
Dan couldn't tell whether it was a curse or a desperate wish for it not to be true, because if it was true, then... No, he had no clue what it meant if it was true. Danny couldn't be still a part of him. He could have known. He should have felt it - him - through the years... He should have--
Then, his fingers unconsciously tightened over his chest - he didn't notice his arm slipped up or since when he was fidgeting over his core strangely, like there would be some uncomfortability underneath…
There was that odd aching lately, spreading caustic warmness through him and... And sometimes there was that sharp pain, like a stab, twisting and twisting as if in a way of conscience over his done actions...
No, he did not care about others, he did not–yet.
The what if made him wonder now...
What if what Clockwork's screen showed to him was true, what if he was for real still Danny in a way...
What it would mean for him?
"You see it now, aren't you?" Clockwork asked him then some minutes later in a low voice - there was a pity, some understanding over his struggling mind...
"Oh, shut up!" Dan slapped his hand down to his side, turning away from the ghost and showing his caped back instead - though he was sure his flickering hair still reflected his disturbed mind even when he tried to be out of plain sight for the other ghost.
Then after a long, silent second, Dan spoke again, his mind getting clearer and clearer.
"Me and Danny... It always felt like an unfinished business because it was always an unfinished business..." He voiced his slowly going ahead train of thoughts. "Because I am him."
"It's more like to he is you." The Master of Time phrased it right.
Repressing an eye-roll, Dan remained quiet. Suddenly he let his mind drift about how he could have looked with a solid, human body...
He marked his gloved fingers, trying to imagine the usual turquoise colour in a human pastel one...
If he closed his eyes, faintly he could recall Danny. But only the fourteen (or fifteen) years old one. And what he was now? Twenty-five? So many years passed…
No, he couldn't even be sure how old he was in fact. The years seemed endless and now he could feel on his shoulders the pulling weight of the elapsed time.
For a thought, Dan dared to imagine another life. A twenty-five-year-old Danny's, with his old hopes and dreams...
Surely, now all of those childish, naive dreams felt ridiculous, especially in retrospect. Funny was all.
So then, dismissing to visualizing another (better?) world, Dan opened up his eyes, blew out a long breath, and first, after ten years attempted to recall the feeling of his transformation: as the light enveloped his body all those years ago and how chilly it felt when he changed to Phantom and how warm when he turned to human… Both were welcoming.
There was a mocking note, back in his mind over the impossible image that he would turn back to Danny now if he tried, but Dan exiled that mental laughing in the most locked corner of his mind - to the place where all his painful memories lay about his family, where all his cries about his loss were pushed through the years...
Then, something flickered. It was some odd, abstract mix of black and white around his hip and over the familiar sight his breathing peaked.
No, it couldn't be happening. It just... couldn't.
But at the moment, he hoped, so hoped it was true.
(And he knew it was.)
Dan didn't dare to open up his eyes until the light travelled through him. Instead, his fingers clenched over his chest, fingertips pressing against his skin... Despite checking whether he managed to change or not, the soft drumming was enough - said enough.
For once, after ten years, Dan again felt being home.
