#lexiepiper

Danny idly moved his hand back and forth over the blanket on his lap. He was trying not to be impatient, but he really wanted the doctor to hurry up already.

“Okay Danny, I’m going to take the blindfold off now. I’m going to need you to lean forward just a little bit, okay?” he asked and Danny complied, eager to be freed from his prison of gauze and darkness.

As the gauze made its final orbit, Danny took a steadying breath before opening his eyes.

He only found more darkness.

“Are the lights off?” he asked, hoping it was that or maybe his eyes were taking a bit to adjust.

“Yes, we didn’t want to overstimulate you.”

He hummed in acknowledgment and leaned back against the pillows. “I was kind of looking forward to seeing something.”

“Is it too dark?” the doctor asked. Something about his tone seemed off. It seemed almost worried.

“Yeah. Is there a way to turn on one light or something?”

He heard something being written down, “We can try that. Just a moment.”

Danny heard the doctor walk away so he turned in the general direction and waited for the click of the switch.

“This light is on a dimmer and I’m going to gradually turn it up. Just let me know if it’s too much and I’ll turn it back down.”

“Okay,” Danny nodded.

He waited for the light to come on.

He waited.

Waited.

Why was it taking so long?

“Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“I don’t know? Maybe turn the light on and I can tell you?”

There was the click of several switches and Danny could hear the buzz of fluorescent lights above him.

But there was nothing but darkness.

“I’m so sorry.”

That’s not something he wanted his doctor to say.

He thought it was bad enough that a stupid accident in his parent’s lab had him in the hospital overnight.

But this? It was so much worse.

“But I can’t be blind.” His voice hitched as he tried to keep his composure, “I want to be an astronaut. You got to get your pilot’s license first. I can’t be blind. I can’t!”

He couldn’t keep it together any longer so he asked the doctor to go away. He didn’t want to cry in front of them.

Why did his future have to rely so heavily on sight? You can’t touch stars. You can’t hear them either.

Why did the thing he loved the most have to go away?

He was only trying to be helpful and now it felt like his whole life was over.

He felt so stupid for crying about this. He wasn’t dead. He should just be thankful he wasn’t dead.

There were tons of people in the world who were blind and they got along just fine. This was just something he’d have to get used to. Something new to learn.

He thought he had it all out of his system but he lost it all over again when his parents found out. The second he heard his mom sniffle he was back at it with the waterworks.

The best the doctors could figure, and there were definitely multiple doctors that had come to poke and prod him once they figured out what happened, was that the light from the machine his parents made was just so bright it fried his eyes.

They all agreed that it was permanent.

Part of him hoped they were wrong about that. Part of him wondered if maybe it was just temporary. Maybe his vision would come back, but not all at once? Maybe he’d have to wear glasses like Tucker for a while. Heck, maybe they’d have the same prescription.

He wasn’t really sure how glasses worked, but he wouldn’t mind finding out if it would get him out of the dark.

He didn’t like how he had to stay in the hospital to relearn how to walk. He knew he was clumsy before, but without his eyes, he was even worse.

They got him a cane so he could waggle that around instead of flailing his arms. He hadn’t realized that it was so obvious.

He also had to get used to people just suddenly being nearby. Sometimes he’d just be sitting and zoning out and someone would just start talking to him, or worse, touch him, and he’d freak out because he didn’t know they were there.

Thankfully, his family learned pretty quickly not to scare him like that. His Dad sometimes forgot to announce himself, but he made so much noise just existing that it didn’t really matter. His mom sometimes forgot to say hello, but she always made sure to warn him before touching him. Jazz was the best at it.

At first, she sometimes went a little overboard by announcing literally everything, even the movement of others, but he did appreciate it.

===============================================

It was his last day in the hospital that his friends were finally able to visit him.

“Now remember you have to tell him where you are or if you want to touch him before you do it.” Jazz whispered to someone at the doorway.

“Jazz you’re supposed to say hello first.” he teased knowing she was just about to.

“I was!” she pouted with a little huff. “Anyway, Hello Danny.”

He stuck his tongue out in her general direction as he waved.

“No fair! I can’t stick my tongue out at you.”

“Sure you can! Just make a lot of noise when you do it!” he gave his best example by humming loudly with his tongue out.

Jazz snorted.

Or maybe that wasn’t her?

“Who’s here?” he asked and wondered why he didn’t just wait for her to introduce them before he teased her.

“Sam and Tucker,” she answered. “You can go sit in the chairs over there if you want,” she said to his friends who were still awfully quiet.

“You know you can talk to me right?” he said once he heard them take their seats. “I’m blind, not deaf.”

“You’re taking this rather well,” Sam said, sounding oddly timid.

“I have had a week to deal with it. Plus you know me? I don’t like being bummed out.”

“No one likes being bummed out, Danny.” she retorted sounding more like her usual self.

“Says the goth.” He teased right back.

Something hit him in the arm and he tensed.

“Oh shoot! I’m sorry! I forgot!” Sam quickly apologized.

“You forgot?! Dude, we’ve been in here for barely a minute!” Tucker yelled through what sounded like clenched teeth.

“Guys!” He really didn’t want them fighting. Not now. And definitely not over him. “I’m fine. She just surprised me, is all. Plus, I did kind of deserve it, so there’s that.” he shrugged it off with a smile and just hoped they relaxed.

It was quiet for a few moments.

Then a couple more.

“Could you let me know if we’re good or not? I am literally in the dark over here.”

Both his friends quickly reassured him that they were fine.

Then Tucker snickered, “Wait, did you just make a pun?”

“Of course!” Danny laughed. He was even happier when they laughed along with him.

With the tension finally broken the trio slipped back into their normal rhythm. It was easy for Danny to imagine that they were just hanging out in his room at home.

There was a knock on the door and Danny turned to the sound, “Who is it?”

“Dude, who are you talking to?” Tucker asked.

“Someone knocked on the door.”

“Who did?”

Danny sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, “I don’t know, Tucker, that’s why I asked, who is it.”

“Well, I didn’t hear a knock.” Tucker retorted.

“Boys!” Sam interrupted, “Danny do you want me to go check?”

“Yes! Thank you.”

Danny heard the creak of the chair as Sam got up and he followed the sound of her boots as they made their way to the door.

The door opened.

After a few moments, it closed again before Sam made her way back over to Danny’s bedside. “I didn’t see anyone. Maybe you just mistook one of the nurse carts rolling past.”

Danny furrowed his eyebrows in frustration, “I know what a cart sounds like and that wasn’t a cart!”

“Geez sorry.” Sam apologized sarcastically as she dropped back into her chair.

Danny sighed, “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

He pulled his knees in and just hoped he didn’t piss off one of his only two friends. It’s not like making new friends was going to happen.

He was only frustrated because that wasn’t the first time that had happened. He’d been hearing knocks at his door only for no one to be there all week. It was just often enough to be annoying but not so frequent for him to ignore it.

He thought about telling them about it. Or maybe even ask them to leave the door open in case it really was the cart sounding odd when it passed.

He almost did.

But the knock came again.

“That’s it!” Danny got off his bed in a huff and walked straight to the door, or the general approximation of where he was thinking the door was, anyway. He hadn’t exactly memorized the room yet.

His hip bumped the tray next to his bed, but it was on wheels so it rolled out of the way as he course-corrected.

His friends called for him, both to come back and to be careful, but he didn’t care right now. He needed to find out who was at the door. To prove that he wasn’t hearing things.

He hit the door a bit sooner than he was expecting and it took him a moment of feeling around to find the door handle, but he did it. He took a step back as he opened it to make sure he didn’t bean himself with the thing.

Then he just stopped and stared because he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Mostly it was because he was seeing.

Everything was still dark, like he existed in a void with no discernable up or down, but now there was something else. A woman.

Something about her was off, besides the fact that he shouldn’t be able to see her. At first, he thought she was standing on her toes, but then he realized she didn’t actually have feet. Her legs just sort of morphed together into a long wispy tail as it tapered down towards the ground. He looked back up and noticed her short red hair that defied gravity along with the rest of her. He also couldn’t help but notice that the edges of her seemed blurry like she wasn’t really there.

She wasn’t facing him so he had no idea what her face looked like. She was currently knocking on the door across the hall from his.

He slowly closed his door and leaned against it.

There was a soft rhythmic tapping on the door behind him. Like someone was drumming their fingers against it one at a time.

“I knew you could hear me,” whispered a voice from the other side of the door. “Poor little thing. All alone in the dark.” her sugary-sweet voice sent shivers up his spine. “I could help you, you know? All you have to do is let me in.”

His legs shook so bad he slid down the door until he was sitting. Somehow he just knew she wasn’t asking permission to enter the room. She could come in anytime she wanted, he wouldn’t even need to open the door.

No, she was asking for entry into something else. Something much more important.

This was the sort of thing his parents had warned him about all his life.

For once something they taught him was finally paying off.

He clenched his fists and squeezed his eyes tight. He had to be firm. He couldn’t let her, it, trick him into agreeing. “No.” he opened his eyes and the darkness didn’t seem so dark now, “I don’t need you.”

She hissed and scratched at the door. “You can’t get rid of me that easily!”

“Go away!”

The door rattled in its frame in response to his outburst and he frantically crawled away from it.

He bumped his head into something and he screamed because everything was just too much.

“Danny! Danny! It’s just me! Sam! I got you!” Sam pulled him into her arms and he clung to her as he shook.

“Hey, I’m coming over too, man,” Tucker said as he came next to Danny and hugged him too.

The trio sat on the floor huddled together until Danny finally stopped shaking and could breathe regularly.

He relaxed his death grip and leaned back with a sigh.

“What the heck was that?” Tucker braved and Danny could hear the click of his phone being unlocked. “I mean, I already didn’t trust this place, but that was something else.”

“Wait,” Danny turned towards Tucker and tilted his head in confusion, “What was that like for you?”

“Well at first I thought you were about to flip out over nothing.”

“Gee thanks.”

“So I pulled out my phone to see if I could catch something funny.”

“You recorded that?!”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t going to send it to anybody.”

Danny crossed his arms and huffed in annoyance, “Well?”

“It’s just that once you started talking, things got weird.”

“Weird how?”

Danny heard his own voice through the tiny speakers of Tucker’s phone, but Tucker just talked over it, “Well I thought I was seeing things at first, but I could have sworn your eyes changed color.”

“You saw it too?” Sam asked as she shifted, presumably to get closer to Tucker and watch the video. “Yeah, right there! Pause it!”

Tucker tapped the screen right as past Danny was yelling at the ghost to go away. “Whoa, they just turned green.”

“And they are glowing,” Sam added.

Which to Danny, her addition was a tad more alarming than a slight hue shift, “Glowing?”

“Who were you talking to anyway?” Sam asked, ignoring Danny’s worry.

“I don’t know.” Danny stammered, “There was this woman. I think it was a ghost.”

“Why do you think it was a ghost?” Tucker asked as he set his phone on the floor.

“Because she was floating?”

“You saw her?” Sam asked in awe.

Danny nodded.

“That’s crazy,” Tucker whispered just as awestruck.

That only made Danny more self-conscious. Did they not believe him? Did they think he was nuts now? Had they always thought he was crazy?

“I can’t believe you can see ghosts! That’s so cool! What’d she look like?” Sam asked eagerly as her hands slapped onto the tile and he assumed she must be leaning towards him.

“You believe me?”

“Of course we do!” She answered quickly, “isn’t that right?”

The sound of something, or someone, nudging into someone else was followed by a grunt from Tucker, “Yeah.”

“Danno! Come help… oh.” His dad leaned back out of Danny’s doorway, shouting over his shoulder. “Mads, have you seen Danny?”

“He was studying,” she called from downstairs. “Now are you sure you need to set up the trap so early? Not that you’ll catch anything, but it’s still weeks away.”

“Of course!” he bellowed, disappearing from sight as he headed back down the hallway. “You never know what we might catch!” Danny heard him pound on the bathroom door. “C’mon, Danno! Time to help your old man put up the Fenton Christmas Light Trap! We’ll catch him this year, I know it!”

Danny huffed quietly, massaging his fingers into the blob in his lap when it stirred. He stayed invisible – his dad had left his door wide open – and leaned back in his chair.

When there was no answer from the bathroom, his dad inevitably opened that door as well – privacy be damned in this house – before returning downstairs, grumbling something about teenagers that was mostly lost to the buffeting of the wind against the house.

“Maybe we should get you two back to the Ghost Zone,” Danny murmured. “Don’t want any of you getting caught in the trap before I dismantle it.”

The blob in his hair trilled quietly, nuzzling into his fingers as he scritched it too.

He smiled. It was nice, having little blobs drift in and out of his space most days. Frostbite had said it had something to do with their tiny sparkler cores seeking out stronger, more stable cores to feed off. It was anchoring for their stability, and provided peace for the ghosts that they gathered around. Danny couldn’t remember what Frostbite had called it, something about mutual benefits, but it matched what he’d started to learn in biology class recently. He liked to think that at least some of them were returning visitors, and though he occasionally needed to rescue one of two from misadventure with ectofilters or his parents’ various devices, none of them had been injured.

The one in his hair was definitely a repeat customer. It always nestled there, and would growl adorably at any other blobs who dared to rise above his ears. Danny was considering naming it, but figured he should probably ask Frostbite if blob ghosts had names first. He didn’t want to be rude to his little friends.

Keeping his hands on the two blobs and holding onto invisibility, Danny slipped through the floor and sank down, through the kitchen (where he could now clearly hear his parents loudly debating the existence of Santa Claus from the living room yet again), and down into the lab.

The floor was covered in a mesh of tangled Christmas lights, and Danny sighed, drifting across to the portal. “Good thing I got out of untangling those, huh?” he asked the blobs, turning visible again and gently ushering them towards the open nexus of spectral light. “Go on,” he coaxed. “You can come back tomorrow.”

The larger ghost disappeared into the light with no further prompting, the portal’s surface sparkling as it passed through. The smaller one squeaked indignantly at the injustice of being moved before it was ready to do so, so Danny reached up and cradled it in his hands. “Come on,” he murmured, drizzling energy into his palms until they glowed with soft green light.

The blob flattened itself into his cupped palms – Sam called it pancaking, and he had to agree with her on that – and set about absorbing the offered energy, its tiny red eyes narrowing to contented slits.

Danny sighed, the contentment sinking into his own core, and curled his thumbs so that he could rub the top of its little head. “You’re gonna get me into trouble one of these days,” he cooed. “You’re too cute, though.”

The blob trilled, snuggling closer for a moment, before they both jumped at the sound of the lab door slamming open.

Danny hurled his handful of ghost at the portal, wincing as the blob chirped in clear protest at the treatment, as his dad’s footsteps thundered down the stairs. “Danno, there you are! Getting a head start, are you?”

Danny forced a laugh, turning away from the portal and shoving his hands in his pockets so the residual energy would have a moment to dissipate. “You know me, always happy to help.” He toed a trailing loop of lights, both of its ends disappearing into the conglomerate mass of wiring and various shapes of glass and plastic bulbs. “Are you sure these’re still good, though? Maybe it’s time to get some new ones.”

“Nonsense! No Fenton’ll ever be beat by some fiendish festive tangle!”

He sighed. “Let’s at least bring them upstairs, so we can watch tv while we untangle them.”

“Way ahead of you!” His Dad hoisted one hopeless ball of lights into his arms. “I’ve got a lineup of holiday movies all ready to go!”

“Mhm.” Danny slumped, picking up the pile that looked the least-tangled and trudging towards the stairs. “Why do I feel like it’s every single version of A Christmas Carol again?”

“Spoken like a true Fenton! You can never study too much about ghosts, even in holiday legends!”

“Right.” He followed his dad up the stairs, already lamenting getting caught. Hopefully once he’d sorted out this tangle he could beg his way out of any further helping tonight, since he really should get at least a bit more study done.

He was unprepared for the state of the living room, though he should have expected it. There were already several tangles of lights waiting in piles, and his mum had set up a station of her own, thick gloves protecting her hands as she worked on untangling strands while muttering under her breath.

His dad dropped his armful in a free space and clapped Danny on the back. “Set yourself up, I’ll go get the rest.”

Danny picked his way gingerly through the mess, finding a clear spot on the couch and sitting with a sigh.

“He thinks he’ll catch Santa this year,” his mum muttered.

He shrugged, trying to seem as disinterested in speculation as possible. “Well, isn’t he stringing the ecto-net between the lights again? At least you might catch some ghosts.” And at least Danny could cut strategic holes in it, difficult to spot, but which he could teach the blob ghosts how to pass through so they wouldn’t risk getting caught.

“We caught nothing but the Wisconsin Ghost last year,” she reminded him, “and he broke free before we could secure him.”

Danny snorted, the memory of Vlad flying full-force into the net only to give a truly hilarious scream of surprise when his intangibility was thwarted by the phase-proof net still a treasured memory. “He did seem pretty upset by it.”

Her scowl lightened into an amused smile. “He did, didn’t he?”

“I didn’t know he could squawk like that.”

“It’s certainly fascinating,” she agreed. “Hopefully we’ll catch more ghosts with it this year.”

His dad’s footsteps rattled back up the metal staircase, and he burst into the room, arms practically full to overflowing. “This is the last of it!”

Danny winced as the huge armful was dumped onto the floor. “I can only help for a bit,” he said, deciding to lay the groundwork for his escape now. “I really do need to study some more tonight.”

“Just one movie then,” his dad said.

“So long as it’s one based in reality,” his mum countered.

His dad pouted. “All Christmas movies are based in reality!” he insisted.

Danny’s mum opened her mouth, but he overrode her before the argument could start up again. “We were thinking A Christmas Carol. Seems to be the tradition, right?”

His dad was already at the tv, waving a dvd case above his head. “I’ll put it on!”

Danny didn’t bother asking which version. He'd seen them all several times, of course, and resigned himself to working on the snarl of wires and spikey starburst-shaped bulbs in his lap.

He missed his blobs already.

It took two whole movies for him to manage to untangle the armful that he’d brought up from the lab, and Danny had also wound up with a blob ghost nestled against his hip, hidden beneath a pillow that he’d surreptitiously placed over it when it had first appeared. His parents had thankfully both been too focused on their respective tangles to notice its arrival, and the movies were enough of a distraction that they didn’t resume the annual argument.

Hands poked and sore from the spikey light bulbs, Danny carefully coiled his blessedly-untangled threads around prepared cardboard rectangles. The failed capture of Vlad last year, combined with a storm, had meant that a lot of the lights had been hastily pulled down from the house’s exterior and shoved into their storage boxes without being coiled up nicely. Which had been fine back then, but now left Danny with sore hands, stiff shoulders, and unfinished homework.

He’d typically be irritated enough to simmer unpleasantly, and potentially even pout a bit, but the blob ghost’s calming effect instead had him methodically winding the lights onto their boards without anything more than slight irritation at how long this had taken.

“Done,” he said as the credits rolled, triumphantly brandishing the final wound string from the pile he’d been sorting.

His dad crowed. “Great job! Now, if you could help your old man with this pile over here–”

Danny shook his head. “Study, remember?” He made a show of stretching, placing his hands on his lower back and using the movement to scoop the little blob beneath his hoodie. It used the opportunity to cuddle into his lap, and so when he stood, he was able to keep it there by shoving his hands into the front pocket and cradling the little thing. He was just glad that it was small enough that it didn’t really show through the fabric.

His dad looked dismayed. “But the trap…”

“Danny has tests before the break,” his mum reminded him. “Let him get another hour of study tonight.”

Danny mouthed a thank you to her as his dad looked back down at the lights with a sigh.

“I’m sure you’ll get it done over the next few days,” he said, tiptoeing through the many tangles that were still piled around the living room floor.

“That’s true,” his dad agreed, “and besides, it means we can do more family Christmas bonding tomorrow!”

Danny groaned. “Sure,” he muttered, and headed for the stairs. Jazz was so lucky that she wouldn’t be home from college for another two weeks.

The blob hummed as he climbed the stairs, wriggling up the inside of his sweatshirt until it could squeeze through his neck hole and tuck itself into the curve of his neck. Danny scratched the top of its little head, and couldn’t help but smile as it chirped softly. “At least I’ve got you guys to help me feel better,” he told it as he reached his room and shut the door. “Now, if only you could help me with this maths, or fixing those damned lights, hm?”

The blob trilled, snuggling closer into his neck, and Danny laughed as he sat back at his desk. His parents’ voices started up again downstairs, muffled by the house and the continuing wind, but doubtlessly continuing the never-ending debate that always dominated at this time of year.

“If only everyone could have some calming blob friends,” Danny sighed, picking up his pencil and once again facing the equation. “Maybe I just need to start this one from scratch, hm?”

The blob hummed, pancaking in the curve where his neck met his shoulder and quickly falling asleep, and Danny worked into the night, comforted by its tiny little snores as he fought his way through the tangle of equations.

He didn’t finish until much later, after his parents had retired and the house had fallen quiet. His shoulder blob had long since left, and Danny had completed his work alone, missing the comfort of blob companionship but reminding himself that they’d be back when they were ready.

He wasn’t sure if he’d gotten everything right, but the residual calmness from his visitors had given him the patience to at least attempt each of the questions on the practice test. He’d be able to hand it in tomorrow fully completed, which was a miracle in itself, and then the marking would provide feedback that he’d be able to put into his notes. With a few more nights like this, he’d maybe even pass the upcoming test!

He stood, stretching with a groan, before dropping invisibly through the floor. He’d worked late enough that he was hungry again, and figured that a quick snack would help him to sleep better than if he tried to rest with the beginnings of hunger pangs.

He blinked, pausing at the sight in the kitchen.

The place swarmed with little blobs. They were zooming around, trailing tinsel and lights, and there were a few who seemed intent on hanging baubles from the light fitting.

“Hey,” he said, turning visible and changing into ghost form so that his glow would illuminate the space without needing to turn on the main lights. “What’re you all doing?”

The blobs let out a series of chirps and trills, before one of them zoomed towards Danny and landed on top of his head with a triumphant purr.

Several more blobs swarmed around Danny, making various little happy noises before dispersing back to their decorations. Which, now that Danny looked, he realised were in various stages of being stuck to the walls and ceiling…

He floated through to the living room, eyes wide. “Wait… no way…”

The ghosts in the living room also dropped what they were doing, swirling around him happily before flitting back to their stations and continuing their work. All of the lights had now been untangled, and the tinsel and other decorations unboxed from their stacks against the wall. Everything was now almost fully up in place, and when he glanced towards the windows, Danny could see little glowing blobs doing similar work outside.

Their calming influence was sinking into his core already, but Danny felt an extra level of something there, and it took him a moment to realise that it was affection. Affection for him.

A blob bumped against his hip before flying up his chest and settling on his shoulder.

“You all did this for me?” Danny realised, his voice catching at the thought. “You saw I was annoyed, and you did this to help me?”

The ghosts in his hair and on his shoulder chirped in unison, snuggling closer, and Danny sniffed as his throat grew tight. “Thank you,” he choked. “You all have no idea how much this means to me.”

Several of the blobs hummed, and more swirled around him, ushering Danny back into the kitchen when his stomach audibly growled. He laughed, but followed their prompting, grabbing a slice of bread and smearing it with hazelnut spread.

By the time he finished his snack, the decorating was practically complete. A few stragglers here and there were still figuring out where to stick some residual ornaments, but that was about it.

One of the larger blobs did a clear circuit of the area as though inspecting it, before giving a single chirp. Several blobs moved to the power points, flicking switches with their tiny spectral tails, and the lights burst into a blaze of colour.

Danny laughed again, spreading his arms wide as dozens of blobs swarmed around him in glee.

There was a thump upstairs, and the unmistakeable shout of “Ghost!”

“Crap,” Danny hissed, flapping his hands at the blobs. “Quick, portal!”

The cloud of blobs clearly got the message. They streamed down the lab stairs in a trail of light, but were nowhere near fast enough – Danny’s Dad bounded down the stairs, followed closely by his mum.

They stopped, eyes wide and mouths open as the stragglers trickled directly past them on the way to the lab, before turning to face Danny. Danny, who was currently Phantom floating in their fully-decorated living room, with blobs nestled on his shoulder and in his hair.

“Uh, Merry Christmas,” he said, giving a wave and a sheepish smile before turning invisible.

“Phantom!” his dad shouted, lurching forwards. “Come back!”

Danny flew up, avoiding his dad’s sweeping arms and phasing back through to his bedroom.

“Wait!” he heard the muffled cry through the floorboards. “Do you know Santa?!”

Danny snorted, turning human and switching off his light. “You two can stay for now,” he offered, illuminating his hand and using that to guide the way to his bed. They both allowed him to transfer them onto his pillow, and he changed into his pyjamas by the light of his own powers before yawning and pulling back the covers.

He laid down, the blobs shifting to cuddle under the blankets, and closed his eyes with a contented sigh. “Thanks again,” he whispered.

The two little blobs trilled, pressing into his chest and stomach, and Danny curled his arms around them with a smile.

Footsteps hammered up the stairs, and Danny groaned as his door was flung open, the light from the hallway falling across his face.

“Quick, Danno, get up! Some dastardly spooks have sabotaged our Fenton Christmas Light Trap! You’ve gotta help us investigate!”

Danny made a show of squinting. “What time is it?” he slurred.

“The witching hour! Phantom was just here, with an army of formless minions!”

He grunted, squinting at his clock. Sure enough, it was almost three in the morning. “Dad, I have school,” he whined. “Can’t I help you tomorrow?”

His dad paused. “Well… alright then, first thing once you’ve finished school. We’ll put up the net and catch those dastardly spooks, once and for all!”

He pulled the door shut, heavy footsteps retreating down the hallway, and Danny sighed, drawing his little friends closer. “So much for a Christmas miracle, huh?”