Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom. All characters go to their respectful owners. I only own this story.

Habitual

The first thing Danny does every morning isn't gripe at the alarm clock—though that is often the second thing he does. It is not wonder what he will be doing in his classes at school that day; and he definitely does not look out the window and admire the beautiful sunrise. No, the first thing Danny always does when he first wakes up is look at the mirror. He inspects his face for any residue from the night before and checks to make sure that nothing in his room is out of place or suspicious.

One time Danny is too tired to set his alarm upon his return, and wakes up late. In a dash to the bathroom to take a quick shower before school, he forgets to cover up his tracks, and leaves evidence behind from the night before. The sight startles Jazz, and she refuses to let the subject drop when she finally manages to corner him later in the day. Danny tries to ward her off by answering with his own questions and only responding to her annoyed looks with vague answers that don't really tell her anything. But she isn't fooled—one of the negative things about Jazz is that nothing slips past her, and Danny has the sinking suspicion that she knows exactly what happened. She doesn't questions him, though, and for that Danny is grateful.

The second step in the ritual Danny has acquired is washing his hands. After checking his room for any hints to his activities, and satisfying his constant feeling of paranoia, Danny makes a quick run to the bathroom and scrubs his palms free of any residue that still lingers. Regardless of the fact that he is going to take a shower to clean the rest of his body off, Danny has this strange obsession with making sure his hands are cleaned first. He always spends a minimum of two minutes scrubbing, to ensure that there is no dirt under his nails, and no grime hiding in the crevices of his palms.

He then spends the remaining thirty minutes he has to get ready for school scratching furiously at his scalp and body, knowing that by the time he is through, no evidence will remain of his nightly duties. Despite the fact that he knows the dried, crusted remains are gone almost as soon as he starts scrubbing, Danny always washes his head twice and re-washes his body after he gets all of the extra residue off. It's because of his extra precautions that Danny starts using his own bar of soap when he washes the filth from his body, since his parents had started to wonder why the bar would be gone in almost a week. So, to pacify his unknowing parents, Danny goes out of his way to buy his own soap bar and stop "wasting" his parents' money.

Danny goes through this ritual every morning, even if there had been no activity the night before. He does it mostly to satisfy his constant worry that someone will discover his secret. Be it his parents, his teachers, or the rest of the world, Danny knows he can't let this secret of his be known. Too much will be lost if someone finds out. There is no doubt in Danny's mind that he will be shipped away for study, kept up in the dead of night being asked why he does it and how it came to be. He's gotten along just fine since he's started going out on his nightly errands, and there is no need to involve anyone else.

Danny goes to school every morning looking as average as his two friends beside him. No one gives their group a second glance—because Danny knows he's washed all of the evidence away and has triple checked that not even a hair is out of place. The teachers don't pay him any more attention than their usual annoyed glance when he arrives late to their class again. And his friends don't acknoledge that he seems more stressed than usual—because on the outside he isn't—and Danny is able to make it though the weeks without any additional problems than the occasional unwanted ghost battle and the rare, and always discombobulating, pop quiz.

It's a few months before the news picks up on his secret. They report almost nightly on how the attacks seem to be getting more violent and destructive. Several pictures are shown of the aftermath after the attack has occurred, and, true to their word, each picture progressively shows a place that is in a worse condition than the last. Several "experts" have been called to the scenes to investigate the reasoning behind such hateful attacks, and most of their assumptions are correct—such as their guess that a ghost caused the damage. But they are wrong to think that each attack is random. Danny knows why the attacks occur—there is a reason for everything that happens—and it annoys Danny to think that they are too dumb to realize that ghosts have more motive than to just attack something at random. He wants to yell to the world that ghosts are far more advanced than barbarians, but he knows he would never be able to explain how he knows.

The looks Jazz give him after the news reports start are unnerving, but he brushes off her attempts to comfort him, and refuses to accept her invitations to listen if he ever has anything he wants to talk about. Jazz is much too obvious in her attempts to hide the fact that she knows he is half-ghost, and Danny has known almost from the start that she has figured out the identity of his "other half." That doesn't mean she knows everything, though, and until she openly admits to what she knows, Danny doesn't feel the need to inform her of what exactly he does each and every night while the rest of the world slumbers. Too much information might scare her away and make her feel the need to inform their parents of his alter ego. He has no desire to be dissected by his parents—regardless of how much Jazz keeps telling him they love him. They're scientists, and sometimes their analytical mind takes precedence over being a loving parent.

Danny has attempted to tell them in the past about Danny Phantom, but as soon as the name escapes his lips, their weapons are out and their eyes are looking everywhere but where the danger is actually lurking. He wants to laugh at their ridiculous display of over confidence, because he knows he could throw even his father at least fifty feet in the air without breaking a sweat. He doesn't, though. A good son comforts his parents when they are frightened, and sooths their overactive imagination, so that's just what he does. He spends a few minutes redirecting their attention back onto him—the real person they're looking for—and lies through his teeth once he has. They never suspect that once they've gone to bed that night that their very own son will turn against them and destroy the weapons he saw earlier that day. Danny Fenton is a kind, loving teenage boy that loves his family more than anything in the world. He doesn't have the heart to tell them that Danny Phantom doesn't have those benefits. Surely it would break their hearts to hear what he does in the middle of the night—because he certainly isn't finishing his homework. If they really want to know, they can just watch the news. That's what everyone else does.

Sam and Tucker worry about him, Danny knows. They don't ignore what the news channels are saying just because they know how far the reporters usually are from the truth. Even though they usually disregard whatever ghost theories the "experts" seem to come up with, with no evidence whatsoever, the pictures aren't something that they can fabricate—well, they could, but who would demolish an entire supermarket just to fabricate some story about ghosts running rampant? Danny tries to comfort them by telling them the same lies he has told everyone else since the attacks have started, but they, like Jazz, are insightful and know when they are being deceived—almost always, at least: they at least know when they aren't being told the whole story, which is often enough to make Danny's job more difficult than it should be. So he brushes off their concerns with half-truths and stories that won't hold up under any sort of investigation. But that's the benefit of having his two best friends trust him: unless he does something to completely blow his story out of the water, they will accept his words as the reality, even if it is out of fear of discovering the truth.

They easily accept that he has become more jumpy and paranoid because of the attacks—which is mostly true. He just hasn't told them that he's afraid that they'll find out who is behind the attacks, because Danny knows that if they figure that part out—the one hole in his story he still doesn't know how to cover—no amount of lies and trust will be able to hold them back from standing in his way. It's only out of love, he knows, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he appreciates it. Trying to stop him would be pointless, because they would have no way of holding him back. Standing in a ghost's way is one of the stupidest moves they could do, but Danny knows they would do it anyway, and he doesn't want them to get hurt as a result. He can't lose his only friends. So he hides what he knows, and doesn't let anyone in on what the motives are behind the attacks that happen almost every night.

Vlad has managed to figure out Danny's secret—or maybe he knew from the beginning—but then again, it isn't like it's very difficult to unearth with even the most mediocre investigative skills. Heck, Danny's father could probably figure it out if he the took the time to actually sit down and listen to every side of the story. The evidence is sitting right in front of everyone, but they're all too blind to realize the obvious—of course, Danny knows this only works in his favor, and he would never be able to keep up his nightly activities without the stupidity of his town. Although, it is a bit disappointing when Danny realizes that even with the additional advantage of having known him since he was young, Sam and Tucker, his only friends, aren't able to see in between the lines and see through all of the lies he has become a master of stringing together. Not that it matters anyway. They aren't strong enough to stop him from doing what he loves—including Vlad.

Danny doesn't know what drives him to sneak out, after everyone else in the house has fallen asleep, every night. He knows he should stop, and that his life would probably be a whole lot easier if he did, but he can't. Something inside him burns for the satisfaction he receives from his deeds. Unfortunately, Danny has realized, he isn't receiving the same amount of gratification he used to from the smaller, less significant attacks. At first the attacks are small and satisfying, and no one takes any notice. Danny is able to easily get away from these without anyone so much giving him a sideways glance. But then the feeling of euphoria is less and less, and it's only once the size of the attacks increase that he starts to feel anything at all afterwards. So he starts ignoring the lesser nuisances and starts improving his performance to deal with the more threatening attacks, even though they're still no match for him. Danny makes himself leave the house earlier and earlier—though he always waits until everyone is asleep—so he has more time to hunt and secure a victory. The attacks are still small enough that nobody notices, but they are starting to gain a bit of attention.

Tucker and Sam seem to pick up on his changed behavior almost immediately. But they don't comment on it. He can hear their whispers down the hall when they think he isn't around. They don't know what to think about his more forward attitude. Is it a result of the ghost fighting? Is he trying to keep them from danger by pushing them away? None of their guesses are even close to the truth, but Danny knows he isn't supposed to be hearing this conversation, so he never brings up the subject to correct them. He does, however, modify his behavior so he doesn't attract as much attention. The whispers he hears behind his back quiet some after this, but he still manages to overhear some of his friends' concerns occasionally. Danny only hopes that they will completely disappear with time, because if he tries to act any more "normal" he's going to completely blow his secret.

The news stations don't begin reporting on the attacks until Danny has been doing them for months. By the time anyone takes the time to stop and wonder if they should be concerned with the amount of violence that is occurring everywhere around them, the attacks have gotten so fierce that collateral damage is starting to show up. Danny suspects that the only reason anyone is paying any attention to his actions is because of the hardware store that indirectly got demolished to little more than pebbles during one of his larger attacks. He knows he should feel bad for temporarily putting several people out of a job while the repairs are performed, but maybe their temporary discomfort and struggle will give others some insight to how much he, a teenager in high school, goes through every day. It's nothing close to even resembling the urges he feels almost constantly, but Danny hopes that every unemployed person's desire to get a job at least starts to hint at how much pain and unhappiness he has when he knows he isn't doing what he does best.

Eventually the collateral damage is too great for Danny to avoid raising suspicion, and he begins taking the attacks out to the forests around Amity Park, where there are fewer people and, therefore, less destruction to others as a result of his blasts. A few trees are burned to the ground, but thanks to his ice powers, any potential raging forest fires are quickly destroyed, and he just has to worry about getting home before the sun rises. He doesn't bother to hide the evidence at the scene, because no one ever goes out this far into the forest, and without having to spend an extra hour looking for any clues, Danny is able to get home even sooner, and he is more rested than usual.

Unfortunately, one attack gets too close to an occupied campsite, and he spends the next few hours leading them away from the mess he knows he has to clean up. He's not sure why it takes almost two hours to get the campers lost in the woods, but as long as he isn't caught, it doesn't matter. The rest of the night is spent checking and double checking and triple checking the attack site for any evidence that would tie back to Danny Fenton. Even then he isn't satisfied, but he has no choice but to leave and go back home, because the sun is coming up and the campers have somehow managed to find their way back. By the time Danny returns to his bedroom, the sun is flooding the room with light and his alarm is blaring, screaming at the teenager to get up, because it isn't smart enough to realize that Danny never fell asleep.

Jazz's appearance is unexpected, and the only thing Danny can do before she barges in and catches him is dive under the blankets and pretend he is having trouble getting up. His mind races as he tries to think of some reason as to why his alarm has been going off for ten minutes—at least, according to Jazz—and he still hasn't risen from his bed. When Danny speaks, his voice reflects how exhausted he feels from spending almost the entire night working to keep his secret safe, and, luckily, Jazz doesn't seem to care what his reasons are for not being out of bed yet. He wants to hug her for giving him a way out by asking if he is sick, but he knows that would be counterproductive, so he just answers "yes" and pretends to feel ill. His parents don't even bother to remove the blankets to see if he is lying or not—another reason he enjoys having people's trust so much. He wonders what they would think if they realized how easily just pulling back the covers and looking at him could reveal his secret.

Danny makes sure his hands touch his blankets as little as possible as he moves, because he doesn't think he parents would believe him if he said he suddenly felt like doing the laundry while he was home from school. But he somehow manages to avoid staining anything—though he makes a mental note to remove the dust from his bed when he isn't faking being sick. And, like any other morning, Danny runs through the course of examining his face—which looks much more dirty today than usual—checking his room, washing his hands, and taking a nice, warm shower to clear the rest of the dirt away. After he is served breakfast in bed, Danny spends the rest of the day catching up on some very much needed sleep and finishing the homework he never started the other day.

After school, Sam and Tucker come over to make sure he hasn't died, and they listen as he explains why he doesn't look like he is sick at all. He is honest when he tells them that he didn't get home until after the sun was up, but he doesn't correct them when they assume he spent the entire night fighting ghosts. He isn't lying when he says he did fight one last night, but he doesn't feel they should know it was only the Box Ghost, and that the entire fight—including introductory greetings and defeating him—took less than thirty seconds. The more blanks other people fill in on their own, the less suspicious Danny looks when he has to stop speaking for a moment to come up with a legitimate reason behind his absences. The afternoon is spent coming up with plots Vlad "revealed" the night before, because Danny knows that no matter what he says, Vlad is one of the few enemies he has that his friends understand is a bit too powerful for them to be assisting with. So he makes up some reason and gives a silent sigh of relief when they don't question him.

But he is unprepared for the knowledge that one of the campers was a reporter, and somehow managed to notice a change in the appearance of the campsite Danny spent hours trifling through. He doesn't expect the news station they work for to go out and search the forest for any more strange sights. And he is at a loss of what to think once they discover all of the evidence he has been leaving behind for the past few weeks. Apparently the news station doesn't know what to make of it either, because the best the news anchors can come up with is that someone is setting fire to the forest while people are out hiking—although there are no bodies, apparently people have reported that people have gone hiking and never returned. Danny knows their fire theory can't possibly be true, because—at least, as far as he knows—it is impossible to burn down that many trees without having acres of smoke fill the air as a result. The news conveniently overlooks this glaringly obvious flaw in their "serial killer" idea. And, knowing how everyone responds to a good drama, the rest of Amity Park won't care to figure that out either, Danny thinks.

But Jazz isn't fooled. She recognizes the scorch marks on the surrounding trees, and how everything in the damaged area is nothing more than ash and rubble. If it weren't for her experience with ghosts, Danny knows she would never have been able to figure out why the damage didn't look anything like a fire, though. She doesn't admit to Danny that she knows his secret, but she just barely manages to keep her mouth shut and avoid asking if he killed those people when she drags him to his room and lectures him on how dangerous ghosts are. She seems to conveniently forget that she's talking to one of the most powerful ghost on the planet when she says that, but Danny doesn't have the heart to tell her. He just sits quietly and nods in the appropriate places and doesn't argue when she says he needs to stay away from ghosts. She still isn't seeing the big picture he is, but Danny is sure she will in time.

Tucker and Sam keep their mouth shut out of fear of the truth, Danny knows. They accept his story of how the killings are due to other ghosts, and he, Danny Phantom, is trying to put a stop to them. Whether they believe him or not, Danny knows they will willingly accept what he has to say because they can't fathom that their childhood friend is a serial killer. Even after a few months, Danny knows his friends will begin to question why he isn't upset or at least making some headway on preventing the murders, but then they will be faced with the choice of accepting what their best friend has done or continuing on blissfully unaware in their own little sheltered world. And he knows without a doubt that they will happily return to their shell of ignorance, where they are cocooned with Danny's comforting lies and false fronts, and they won't dare venture out again.

It's not that Danny can't stop going out every night to spend some time alone with himself, it's just that he doesn't want to stop. There's something so satisfying about the sight of fear in someone else's eyes when they realize they've been caught and have no hope of escaping. He doesn't mean to do it at first, but once he catches the criminal, they insist on fighting him, and that fight ends up drawing blood from the challenger. Danny doesn't expect the thrill he receives from the sight of it, but that doesn't hold him back from doing it again. There's nothing like the feel of another's blood on his hands. It feels like nothing else he has ever experienced before. Blood is warm and slick and doesn't come easily out of clothing, and it's so foreign to Danny that he wants to find out more. So he starts attacking every person he goes after. They all react differently to the sight of their own blood; even the criminals that take the blood of others seem to be afraid of their own life source.

It seems Jazz had figured out why Danny went after the criminals in the first place, but Danny knows she can't wrap her mind around why on earth he would harm innocent people. He guesses that's why she never confronted him before, and he can only assume it's out of fear that she doesn't confront him now. Although she still voices her opinion whenever another body is found—or isn't found—by repeatedly crying that they were innocent people who hadn't done anything wrong. Their parents don't know how to comfort her—especially when they agree and are nodding sadly at her statements—and Danny doesn't bother to explain.

If Vlad has any qualms about the recent discovery, he doesn't voice it in their battles. Although, Danny notices, he has stopped comparing himself with the teen. Apparently, killing innocents is taking things too far in Vlad's eyes. Not that Danny cares. Vlad couldn't beat him before—maybe temporarily, but not for long—and he definitely can't now. It doesn't matter what the rest of the world thinks or what his friends think or even what his own family thinks. When Danny sets his mind on something, there isn't anything that can sway his view but his own revelations. And the only revelation he has had recently is how much he enjoys blood mixed with fear. Besides, it isn't like anyone is strong enough to stop him even if they tried. Danny Fenton can't be framed—he makes sure of it—and he has yet to meet a ghost he can't beat.

Danny is happy to realize—which he expresses with a yell into the empty night—that there is no better feeling than having the knowledge that he has all the power in the world, and that no one will ever stop him.