"Merry Christmas, son!"
A great clap on the back from a large hand had Danny gasping for the breath that had been forced from his lungs just a moment before. After recovering, he looked up at his father, whose smile beamed upon him brighter than the Christmas lights outside. It was indeed that time of year, as if the extensive decoration throughout the house - the smell of freshly baked cookies having just come out of the oven - the cheer and merriment that radiated off of everyone in the house - the Santa hat which Jack donned upon his head - as if one could ever doubt what day of the year it was. Or rather, what day of the year was to come tomorrow.
With a smile, Danny returned his father's, "Merry Christmas."
And merry, it was, indeed. Even with the day itself not having come yet, its effect was felt upon every soul far and wide. There was gleeful anticipation in the air, Christmas day itself not far away. With every tiny puff of snow fallen to the ground, with every tick and tock of the clock, that joyous time was growing all the more closer.
Yet even now, as a certain Fenton family was assembled in their living room together, the joy and happiness of the next day was seeping into this one. Indeed, it would seem that the family itself was the attributing factor of the happiness within the household, and Christmas was the tiny nudge for them to come together and realize their cheerfulness together.
His eyes moving from the snow outside to his father, Danny's lips spread into an amused smile as the jumpsuit-clad man was sticking his head up the chimney.
"Jack? What are you doing?"
"Just making sure Santa doesn't encounter any technical difficulties on his way down the chimney," a muffled voice came from said chimney.
Maddie rolled her eyes, though a small smile was on her face. Walking over to her son and ruffling his hair before placing a kiss on his forehead, she said softly, "Merry Christmas, Danny."
Smoothing his hair back in place with an expression that cried, 'Eww, mom...' he replied, "Merry Christmas."
His mother's soft smile grew as Jazz came into the room, holding a batch of steaming cookies. As if alerted by the smell, a head came out of the chimney instantly, and followed the call of the cookies as a cat would run to the sound of a can opener.
"Merry ChristMAH!" Jazz cried out at nearly being toppled over by her father, whose intention was merely to embrace her... and the cookies.
"Merry Christmas, Jazzy-pants!" came the thundering boom of Jack as he hugged Jazz. "And hellooooo home-made cookies," he added as he took one off the plate and held it up to his nose, saviouring the sweet scent before effectively devouring it. "Just make sure, kids! Leave plenty for Santa! A big man needs his cookies..."
"I don't think we're the ones Santa needs to worry about," Danny laughed to his sister as he watched his father make another cookie disappear. The kids laughed before the family settled down all cozy-like, with only half of the cookies left for Santa as of now, and Jack wasn't even out of the room yet. Things looked grim for Santa...
It was somewhat of a family tradition of the Fentons' for everyone to open just one of their presents on Christmas Eve. So they sat down, and pretty soon Jack was imploring everyone to open the present he had gotten for them. Maddie complied, and her face lit up at... a toaster?
Danny smacked his forehead.
"Oh Jack... a toaster! How did you know?"
Both bewildered teenagers were oblivious as to how one could sound so excited at the prospect of a toaster.
"Not just any toaster!" Jack held up the toaster with pride. "I call it the Fenton Toaster!"
Of course.
"This baby'll fry any ghost in the immediate vicinity to a crisp. And it toasts toast in record time!" To prove his point, Jack fled from the room to get a slice of bread.
Danny chuckled but his amusement was short-lived as an icy chill went up his spine and frosty air escaped his mouth. He looked about, but didn't see anything unusual. Yet.
"Hey, uh, Jazz... I think I left your present upstairs..." Danny backed away towards the hallway giving his sister a meaningful glance. "So... um... I'll be right back then."
Jazz sat confused at first but then understood. "Oh, sure, Danny. Take your time. No need to hurry back."
Her brother rounded the corner and as soon as he did so he transformed into his ghostly half. Dark hair became white and blue eyes glowed green. He took a moment to compose himself after his transformation before phasing through the wall into the cold of the outdoors. Since there didn't seem to be any paranormal entity inside the house, there was only one other alternative. Danny quickly glanced around. No masses of screaming people. No hamburger monsters chasing people on the streets. No cries of 'I am Technus!' Nothing. There were none of the usual telltale signs of a ghost attack.
But still his ghost sense went off a second time as if reprimanding him for not having encountered the ghost yet. He flew about near his house keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. It wasn't long before he spotted a figure leaning on a lamppost. He was about to dismiss it but his ghost sense went off again as if to say 'You are an idiot if you can't see the ghost in front of you'. Looking again, Danny could now see clearly the ghostly aura that the man emitted. And looking yet again, he saw that this ghost was familiar.
Oh no... This guy?
Frowning, Danny charged at the ghost, his legs disappearing and his ghostly tail replacing them as he picked up speed in flight. He readied himself to collide into the ghost, only to find that he passed through him. Yelping from the lack of resistance he had faced, he managed to control his flight and slow to a stop before whipping around to face the other ghost. Most of them don't react that quickly to turn intangible out of nowhere like that. Were the thoughts that tugged at Danny's mind, but were dismissed as he faced the more present dilemma.
The ghost, still leaning against the lamppost, looked undeterred by the half-ghost's actions. He simply gazed ahead for a moment, in which Danny now realized that he was looking through a window of his house, before turning to him with simply a curious expression.
"Look, if you still haven't gotten over that poem from last year, then you got some serious problems." Danny crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at the other.
The Ghost Writer smiled, his sharp teeth gleaming in the moonlight. "Applying salt to open wounds... it truly stings me." His smile faded, but it wasn't replaced by malice or hate like Danny expected. Instead, his gaze merely dropped to the ground.
Danny blinked. If he wasn't here to pick a fight then what was he here for?
"Can't a dead man indulge in a little Christmas cheer every century or so, hm?" Ghost Writer turned his head back to him, as if reading the boy's thoughts.
Danny didn't reply. Not at first. He was too busy staring at the other, watching for any hostile movements. There were none. Eventually he consented to answer his question... with a question, "Ten paces from my house?"
That smile crept up on the writer's lips again, though thankfully his teeth were concealed behind them. Something about sharp teeth made Danny rather uncomfortable. He wasn't sure why. Vlad's influence, perhaps.
"Ah yes, well. There is a reason for that."
"Care to elaborate?" Danny asked as he flew up to the other ghost, several inches off the ground so he could look eye-to-eye at the other.
No response came. That smile remained, if not grew. Fed up with the silence, Danny threw a punch at the writer's nose...
...Only for his fist to pass through the ghost. It wouldn't have been disturbing, if the Ghost Writer wasn't still in his view. He hadn't turned intangible, yet his hand had passed through him as if he had. Pulling his arm back, Danny looked first to the limb then at the ghost it had passed through, with a look of half annoyance and half creeped out.
The ghost author sighed, "Some things just won't change, will they?" With that he looked down at his hands, and Danny now saw that they were slightly transparent, along with the rest of his body.
"Is that... normal?" Danny couldn't help but ask. Most ghosts he met were either surprisingly solid or completely intangible at a time. The strange mix of the two that was now in from of him was, to say the least, different.
Another sigh from the Ghost Writer, this one sounding... sad. "Unfortunately, yes." At the Phantom's strange look he continued, now with a faint smile, "I am a writer, dear boy. Writers do not get involved in their plotlines. We simply write them out, unknown by the characters... Even in this story of Life, of which I can certainly make no claim to writing, I remain invisible."
Saying nothing more, the writer walked straight into the wall of the Fenton residence, passing effortlessly through, of course.
"Hey!" Danny called after him, disappearing from sight and phasing his head through the wall to peak in unseen. There was his family, happy and jolly, and there was the Ghost Writer, quietly sitting in the chair the boy had left, in plain sight to the half-ghost, yet undetected by the rest. The older ghost looked in the general direction of where the other entity watched, knowing he couldn't be far, and silently rose from his spot and phased through another wall. Danny, of course, followed.
He found the Ghost Writer standing mutely in front of a mirror, with no reflection staring back at him. Materializing behind him, Danny felt he understood, "You're not really here, are you?"
"I'm here," came the reply. "Though no one knows it. Unseen by all... but you."
"Why?"
The ghost turned to him, raising an eyebrow, "You are not entirely human."
"What difference does that make?"
"The chapters of your life are already written in a book most do not see until death. This story," the Writer gestured about him, "is one that you take part in, but you take part in another. And in that story, its characters' eyes are forced to see the world for what it really is, and I am simply a part of that hidden reality."
He was met with a stare that Danny usually reserved for most of the teachers at his school. "Okay," he began. "This is officially why I do NOT read! Books never make any sense, and you might as well be a walking, talking dictionary."
A chuckle escaped the 'dictionary', but he said nothing.
"Look, what do you want?"
The Ghost Writer turned to face him fully with a confused expression written on his face, "Do I have to want something to be here?"
"Well most ghosts don't come here to have a friendly chat." Danny crossed his arms. "Yourself included."
"I'll remind you that I only intervened in the affairs of this town at your provaction."
"So you really haven't gotten over that, have you?"
The ghost's eyes flashed red for a moment before he closed them and kept them closed to the point where Danny was convinced he was counting to ten in his head.
"As aggravating as you can be," the Ghost Writer said with a slightly strained tone in his voice, as if he were trying to keep his anger down. "I did not come here to fight."
"Then why are you here?" Danny asked with a strained tone of his own, growing impatient with the other's presence in his house. In his bathroom, of all places.
That soft smile returned the the writer's lips, "I came to see if your lesson was learned."
The half-ghost snorted, "You're the all-knowing author, shouldn't you know?"
"The story was concluded at the happy ending in which humans, ghosts, and everything in between" - here the Ghost Writer gave Danny a significant glance - "rejoiced for the holidays. Everything after remained a mystery to me."
No retort came from Danny at this, though the writer, perceptive as he was, could tell he was trying to think of one. At the child's silence he continued, "So, Danny. Have you learned your lesson?"
That earned him a glare. "Can't you tell for yourself?"
"From the looks of happiness and cheer downstairs? I can, but I want to hear you say it," the writer pressed.
"No."
"Why?"
"Because!"
The Ghost Writer blinked. "You're making an awfully big deal out of this," he pointed out. "Are you too proud to admit you learned something from me? Or is there still some lingering hatred for the season that I need to take care of?"
Glaring, Danny looked away. It was true; he was too proud to admit the ghost had taught him a lesson, even if it was in some dark, twisted form from which he had learned it. Stupid poem... But he began to carefully consider the ghost's second inquiry. Sure, he didn't hate Christmas anymore but... he still didn't feel the way he felt he was supposed to feel. Sure, he was content, maybe even happy when he had been down with his family in the living room, but he still felt something... missing.
Turning away, ignoring the look the ghost was giving him, Danny phased through the wall, out into the cold, night sky. He stopped to look at the moon, which did not have a grinning face with purple rimmed glasses, thank heavens.
"Danny?"
Just as he had expected; the Ghost Writer had followed him outside. It seemed he felt clingy this Christmas, though why he was stalking him around, Danny could not fathom.
"Please come down," the ghost said from the sidewalk where he stood.
"Why don't you come up here?" the half ghost asked, teenage stubbornness dripping from his voice.
"I can't."
Had he heard him right? Danny gave him a strange look, "What?"
"I said, I can't."
The look remained plastered on Danny's face. What was that supposed to mean? Surely - oh. Wait - it couldn't mean that, could it? It seemed impossible. But come to think of it, he's never seen the Ghost Writer...
"You... can't fly?"
The ghost averted his eyes away from him, but the look on his face said all.
"Wait - but all ghosts can fly," Danny said as he touched down to stand in front of the other.
"Obviously not."
The ghost child blinked at this. He'd never before met a ghost that couldn't do what seemed to be so basic and natural - fly. It was one of the first things Danny learned to do when he turned into a half-ghost hybrid, and it was one of the things that every ghost in the Ghost Zone seemed to have in common. Apparently not.
"Why do you seem so surprised?"
Danny was pulled out of his thoughts at the Ghost Writer's voice. He stammered for a moment, but then managed to say, "I-I've never met a ghost that couldn't fly."
The Ghost Writer looked a little agitated, "I don't see what the big deal about flying is. I was human in life, not a bird. Why must flight be so essential as a ghost?"
"Well, then, how do you get around the Ghost Zone?" Danny asked incredulously, thinking of the realm in which ghosts inhabited, of which was very little solid ground and mostly empty space. Flight was a must unless you intended to drift about.
"I don't," was the reply.
Danny chuckled a bit, "Why am I not surprised? You never leave your library?"
The Ghost Writer shrugged, "There is never a reason to."
"But there's a reason now...?"
The ghost librarian stared intently at a crack in the sidewalk for a while before replying, "...I needed to make sure my poem had its impact."
"But you said yourself you know it did," Danny pressed. He sighed softly and pinched the bridge of his nose, "Ghost Writer... why are you here?"
Silence. Danny looked to the ghost to see him toying nervously with his scarf. Strange... he didn't seem so devilish now...
"I..." the bright green eyes never left the ground, never dared to raise themselves to look at the one he was speaking to. Strange... his voice had taken a soft, hushed tone Danny didn't know he was capable of. "I just -" he stopped himself again, closing his eyes in frustration. Strange... how the writer was having difficulty finding the words he wanted to speak. Raising his head suddenly, he said firmly, "I just wanted to say... I'm sorry."
At Danny's bewildered look he lowered his eyes again, but continued, "I have a bit of a temper, Danny... and when you struck a nerve that day I just... I just couldn't control myself... I was just so... angry that... I know I did some things I probably shouldn't have..."
Some? Danny couldn't help but think. He was about to retort when those eyes lifted themselves from the ground and looked at him with such sincerity that Danny knew he meant every word he had said. With that the words he had spoken actually sank into him.
With a softened gaze Danny looked back up at the writer to see him still staring at the ground, his arms wrapped around himself as if he was cold. He didn't look like such a bad guy, Danny realized, because he really wasn't. And with that Danny realized... maybe he hadn't been the bad guy that Christmas.
"I'm sorry, too." These words caught the Ghost Writer by surprise. He lifted his head to see that it was Danny's turn to stare at the ground. The ghost's surprise only grew as the boy continued, "I obviously destroyed something that meant the world to you that day... And I..." Danny couldn't go on. He buried his face in his hands. He was disgusted with himself, not only at how he had acted that Christmas but that it had taken a year later for him to realize it.
Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Danny continued, "...And I didn't even acknowledge it. I was too caught up in my own grief to even comprehend it. I was a real jerk then and... I'm sorry..."
This confession left the Ghost Writer speechless. Never did he think that Danny's pride would allow him to spill out an apology like that. He never expected anything from the boy. And yet here they both were, standing awkwardly silent in the middle of a quiet sidewalk.
When they each had the courage to meet each other's eyes, Ghost Writer was the first to speak, "Um... we can... forgive... each other, then?"
The other nodded, hope in both of their eyes. The writer then, hesitantly, offered his hand. "Um... acquaintances?"
Danny looked to the ghost and, after a moment, took his offered hand, which was cold but, surprisingly, solid. "Acquaintances," he agreed quietly.
After having let go of each other's hand, silence engulfed the two of them. Danny was the first to break it. "Well," he said simply.
"Well," the Ghost Writer echoed. "I should probably get back home."
"Alone? On Christmas Eve?"
"I wouldn't want to overstay my welcome," the Ghost Writer said politely, turning to walk away. "And I've heard horror stories from the other ghosts about that thermos of yours."
Danny snickered, "I'm sure." His smile then turned slightly sad. Weird... he'd never felt bad about a ghost leaving.
"Farewell, then." The ghost fully turned and began to walk down the lonely sidewalk.
A thought occurred to Danny, "Are you sure you'll be able to get home alright? What with your not being able to -"
"Ugh... Again with the flying thing?" the Ghost Writer turned back to the boy with a grin that matched Danny's. "I got here, didn't I?"
"That's true," Danny consented, though his grin didn't fade in the slightest.
Turning again, the ghost did make his depart. His trench coat turned to flapping papers in the wind and his body followed suit and blew away in a flutter, disappearing in the distance. Danny gawked for a moment, Creepy writer. Smiling to himself, he flew home, through the wall, and changed into his human self. He rejoined his family, his parents of which barely noticed his absence over the disaster the Fenton Toaster had created. Ghostly toast goop covered some of the walls when Danny re-entered the room. He looked to his sister who just sighed.
Sitting back in his spot, a feeling of contentment passed over Danny. He vaguely remembered the feeling of something being missing. It was gone now. Whether it was the peace that had been made with the ghost, or whether the act of a poem written a year ago had finally taken its full effect, it was uncertain. What was certain, was that Danny was happy, right then, the clock having just struck 12:00 to bring Christmas Day, with his family.
Merry Christmas to all
And to all a good... night.