AHHHHHH OKAY so this is based on a sentence in chapter 38 of Apricity. It was written for one of jointheeggvolution / chippingfruit's prompts and lal-nila-syrin asked for some sort of clarification or expansion and somehow I came up with this while my brain was mostly mush. Figured I should put it up before I get the urge to completely rewrite the thing and counteract all of my productivity, haha.

It's one of those fics that plays around with what affects Phantom has on Danny's Fenton side. Does he need to breathe, does he have a heart rate, what color is his blood, etc. I don't have a consistent head canon for any of those questions, I just write what is needed for any particular story line, haha. So this fic ended up deviating from the original idea a bit but hopefully you can enjoy whatever it turned into.

Suffocation

April 20, 2015

750. Suffocation- The second mistake the mugger made—the first was choosing Danny Fenton as his target—was not checking for a pulse when the scrawny teenager slumped bonelessly against him; not that it would have done him much good anyway, though, because half ghosts didn't need to have a pulse or breathe.

Danny honestly didn't pay much attention to the human crime rate in the city. He had his hands more than full with ghostly troubles and he figured he wouldn't have any problem taking care of himself if he did accidentally end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Not that he actually expected that to ever happen. 'Cause who would be dumb enough to commit crimes while there were ghosts flying through walls?

Guys who liked to take advantage of the confusion during and after ghost attacks to relieve people of their belongings, apparently, because, unknown to Danny, the crime rate had pretty much washed out after his accident. A lot of guys skipped town but the ones who were left enjoyed their expanded opportunities and either laughed at the ghost hoax (and were therefore incredibly skeptical or stupid or both) or didn't mind living in the most haunted town in America (which made them fearless or stupid or both).

Danny should have paid more attention, however, or at least given the matter some more thought or he wouldn't have been caught completely unawares.

He'd transformed back into his human self and walked into a dark alleyway, which had always been safe, protective places for him before this, and unerringly located the scooter and backpack he'd ditched as soon as he'd heard Technus' nasally proclamation of greatness. A quick press of the dial to light the face and a glance at his watch confirmed that he was already past curfew, which meant dealing with a grounding as soon as he walked though the door.

Sighing, Danny reached down to grab his handlebars but never made contact because rough hands grabbed him from behind.

He scrabbled against the hands clamped against his nose and mouth, but he was exhausted after pulling an all nighter and dealing with some particularly resistant-to-capture ghosts over the course of the evening. And this guy was strong.

No breaking out through pure human means, then, and no matter how much Sam and Tucker scolded him for taking obvious risks, he wasn't about to turn into Phantom with someone holding onto him.

They were too out of the way for yelling to be much help and his phone was dead.

Danny landed a solid kick somewhere in the guy's upper groin, but besides an oomph, there was no give in his hold. Running out of good options then and he probably wasn't going to last much longer without…

Oh.

Danny slumped bonelessly against his captor, forcing himself not to breathe. Fourteen years of habit was hard to break, but he didn't actually need oxygen, even in human form.

He didn't understand it at all, but that particular facet of his half ghostness didn't surprise him as much as finding out during gym that he didn't always have a pulse unless he concentrated on it. Now he concentrated on making it disappear, just in case the guy decided to check for it.

He didn't though, which was just rude, and the thief practically shoved Danny off like a sack of potatoes. Danny bit his tongue as he smacked against the pavement. Didn't cry out. And eventually cracked an eye open to watch the man's progress.

The mugger's back was to him and he was rifling through Danny's backpack, though what he hoped to find there of value was beyond Danny. The guy must be a real low life to attack teenagers on school nights.

So he didn't plan to go easy on him. And since he wasn't being watched, it was time to turn invisible and go to step two of the plan. Which was to think of a step three.

He touched down lightly on the concrete, but dislodged a pebble.

The man froze.

So did Danny.

As the man looked around to make sure that he was well and truly alone, he realized that he was even more than he had thought. There was no teenager on the ground beside him. No corpse or unconscious body and he knew that there would have been more noise—the moaning back to wakefulness, the harsh breathing, at least—if the kid had gotten up. Not to mention there was no way anyone could have walked past him without his knowing. The kid had just… disappeared.

Danny watched him grow more panicked as the mugger realized how wrong the situation was. And then he scuffed his foot on the ground purposefully this time, drawing out the sound.

The man whirled around to face him, but could hardly see anything in the pitch black darkness. Danny could see him just fine, however, thanks to the crossover abilities of his ghost powers.

He decided to walk forward with loud echoing footsteps but stopped well before he got in arms reach.

"Who… who's there?" the man asked, but Danny didn't answer. "Is… is anyone there?"

Danny debated what to do next but realized it didn't matter too much so long as it made the guy leave all of his stuff intact. There was no way he could explain to his parents that his scooter and backpack—with all of his homework and assignments and notes in it— had been stolen. That was the only reason he hadn't left as soon as the opportunity had presented itself, really.

But he might as well take advantage of his unique powers to do a different kind of good for a little while, at least.

"I know who you are," he whispered into the alleyway, quietly enough that the man would be debating between paranoia and reasoning that he had heard nothing at all. He didn't really know who the guy was, but he knew what he was and, eh, it sounded creepy enough.

The man froze, the blood draining out of his face. "Wha-at?"

"I know what you did," Danny continued, trying to make his voice wavery. The fact that he was royally ticked off probably added a bit more menace to it which was just fine but him.

A moment later, he was watching the man drop his backpack and scramble in his jacket for a weapon. Knife or gun. Didn't matter what it was after Danny had turned intangible; nothing could touch him.

"I know who you are," Danny repeated, flinching as the guy pulled out a gun and aimed it directly at him. Even knowing you were perfectly safe didn't change the panic when faced with the business end of a gun. He was glad that his heart wasn't beating at the moment or it would be doing some truly spectacular things right now.

The gun went off before Danny could even repeat his mantra. As the shot died away, he flexed his jaw, trying to uncloud his head which was reverberating with the noise.

The thief was panting hard, chest heaving and gun trembling as he still held it outstretched. Shock and fear, Danny recognized as he blinked and stretched his face. Good. Maybe the guy was learning his lesson.

Danny let the silence start to descend before he leaned in and whispered again, "I know what you did."

The guy's face contorted in terror as he dropped the gun and he pushed himself up off of the ground. He lurched into one of the brick walls and then ran around the corner, tearing down the street, looking over his shoulder every few steps.

Danny tried hard not to laugh for fear that he would break the illusion and the thief would realize it had all been a practical joke, maybe search his backpack for clues about the missing teenager's identity. But he couldn't afford any more connections between Fenton and any ghosts whether or not they were Phantom, no matter how slim the evidence might be.

Besides, Danny wanted to make sure that he was too scared to meet the all-knowing ghost to ever try to pull something like this again.

Maybe it wouldn't work, but he was betting that it would keep him out of business for a couple days at least.

And after that… Danny toed the handle of the gun. Well, he'd just have to stop by the police station on the way home. He was already late so one more stop and a couple extra minutes wouldn't really make a difference.

He packed up the scattered contents of his backpack—thankfully all there so far as he could tell—and then transformed and picked the gun up in a gloved hand.

Maybe he should keep a closer eye on the news from now on…

Also wanted to put out there that is there is anything (particularly a sentence in Apricity or a drabble in Turning Pages) that you wanted to see expanded, you can always give me a gentle nudge. I make absolutely no promises but I can always try my hand at an idea to see what happens. And if I don't, most of the stuff on my profile is up for adoption as long as you talk to me first. So... yeah. :)