Hi! Me again. Thought I'd try and write another DP oneshot. Warning- Severe angsty fluffy Ember/Danny shipping ahead. They are my OTP, don't judge.
In a town like Amity Park where ghosts were a regular ooccurrence (though really, Amity Park was the only town like Amity Park), it was easy to see why so many people would choose to avoid the cemetery. After all, it was a the place where ghosts were laid to rest. It would seem they would cause trouble there more than any other place.
What only a few knew, including a certain hybrid currently strolling through said cemetery, was that no ghost would ever, ever disrespect their fellow dead in such a way. Ghosts fought plenty, usually for trivial reasons, but their former lives were held in a state of reverence and respect. As such, cemeteries and other burial grounds fell under the same 'truce' rules as Christmas or a ghost's deathday.
And Danny Fenton, who tended to constantly be harassed by ghosts, was very happy to hear there was a twenty-four/seven neutral ground not two blocks from his house. He often went on walks there when he needed to relax without fear of ghost attacks.
Usually the cemetery was dead silent. Even people paying their respects left as quickly as they could for fear of ghost attacks. This time, however, was different. A low, smooth humming filled the foggy air, occasionally broken by a sob.
Danny couldn't help but think the song sounded familiar. He followed the music to the back of the lot, where the older graves were. The first he saw of her was a white blur through the fog. Then he could see her from the back, and a shock of recognition fluttered through his chest.
Her hair was burning very low, flopping limply against her back. It looked almost depressed. Her guitar lay abandoned by her side, and she was down on her knees, crying into the headstone. Streams of blue fire ran from her cheeks and collected in puddles around the base of the grave.
She looked the worst he had ever seen her (including that one time he threw her into a television), but there was no mistaking that hair.
Danny felt, correctly, like he was intruding on a private moment. Ember was his enemy, but this was something that should belong to her and her alone. He turned to go.
A twig snapped under his foot. Ember's head twisted almost a hundred and eighty degrees, and he got a full view of her face for the first time that day. Her makeup was a smeared mess down the sides of her face, and more watery blue flames flicked in her eyes, wide with surprise.
Her hair flared up in anger for only a brief second before deflating again, turning her eyes back to the grave. "Hey, dipstick," she greeted, but without any of her usual fire. He sidled closer to her, a bit uncertainly.
There was a bouquet of blue roses tucked between her knees at the base of the headstone.
"Um, hey, Ember. Do- do you want me to go, or..." he trailed off, uncertain how to handle a situation like this.
"No," she sighed, sounding so incredibly tired. "I could use some company right now, if you don't mind."
"Ah, sure? Do you mind if I sit down?"
She slid to the side a bit and gestured to the empty grass beside her. He sat next to her and reclined against another tombstone, staring at the one she had been crying on.
"The name is scratched out," he noticed after a moment.
"Yeah," she agreed. "My dad did that. What a charmer, he was."
"This is your grave?"
"Got it on the first try, dipstick." Her banter fell flat amidst the somber mood of the graveyard. He sensed she was trying too hard to lighten the atmosphere.
"Why did he scratch your name out?"
"He'd desecrate his daughter's grave because he was mad she burned down the house in the process of killing herself."
Danny didn't know what to say to that. He simply listened.
"You know what the really sad part is?" the rock star ghost continued tonelessly, decades of misery oozing into her voice.
"No one has noticed." She laughed a bit then, bitterly, angrily, cursing her luck. "No one noticed the little grave with the name scratched out. Just another meaningless teen death. She was probably drunk or on drugs. She was probably stupid."
"No one remembers my name," she added after a moment.
Carefully, worried she might burn him, Danny wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She stiffened at the touch before leaning into it, the heat of her hair warming his face as she rested her head against him.
"I don't think that's true," he admitted after getting up the courage to speak. "I mean, you're Ember McLain! Lots of people know who you are."
"Yeah, whoop-dee-fucking-doo. I get to spend eternity forced to be the sort of person I could never be when it mattered. Eternity as a goddamn cautionary tale. Do you know," she suddenly asked, "why so many ghosts hate you?"
He blinked in surprise at the sudden change of topic. "Um... no, I don't."
"It's because," she explained, "ghosts are miserable. They are miserable with their existence, the fact that it's endless, and they're haunted by whatever fragmented memories of their past life they can remember. A spouse's name, with the face floating just out of reach. Half of a conversation. Knowledge of children but no idea if they're even alive."
"For a ghost, sometimes the only upside is being able to have powers that are kinda cool. You get the powers, you get the family, you get a life. That's why they hate you."
"Now, that's not fair," Danny complained. "I didn't ask for this. I never thought this would be my life! I juggle ghost fighting, school, dodging suspicion and bullets from my own parents... does that seem like anything to envy?"
"Life ain't fair, dipstick. If it was all lollipops and rainbows, I would've lived to old age and had better taste in boyfriends, and you would be a regular kid without the weight of the world on your shoulders. Mind you," she added after a moment, "it was you who put it there."
"No one else was going to."
"You can't know that. It's not like you're the only human who hunts ghosts. You're just the only one who's halfway tolerable company."
"I'm honestly not sure whether that was a complement or an insult," Danny admitted. Ember chose not to clarify the matter for him.
They sat in silence for a while before Danny let out a noise of surprise.
"What now, dipstick?"
"Just noticed the dates on the gravestone. 1970 to 1986? You were only sixteen when you died."
"Only? Excuse me, but aren't you fifteen?"
"Fifteen and a half," he mumbled, almost too quietly to hear.
"So you can't talk, but... yeah. That's when I was alive. Your point?"
"Well, it explains the whole 'youth revolution' thing, for one."
"I'll still get that going some day."
"And it makes all of this a bit surreal."
Ember twitched a heavy black eyebrow. "Really? You're half ghost. You hunt ghosts. Your parents hunt ghosts. And the weird part of this is that ghosts are, in fact, dead people?"
Danny shifted his eyes away and flushed red, quickly changing the topic. "Can I ask you a sorta personal question? You can tell me if I'm intruding."
"Shoot."
"What was that you said earlier about having bad taste in guys?"
"And he goes right for the touchy subject," Ember groaned. Danny opened his mouth to withdraw the question, but she held a hand up. "It's fine. Just thinking how to answer."
She appeared deep in thought for several minutes before speaking again.
"I wasn't popular in when I was alive, in high school. I wasn't very attractive or anything. Dreamed about being a rock star but knew I didn't have the money, the skills, or the looks. There was this one guy... his name was Mark. He was sweet. He noticed me, made me feel important. You've got to understand that having an abusive dad doesn't do wonders for your self-esteem, so all of a sudden a guy treating me decent to get into my pants becomes a gift from God."
She sighed heavily. Danny hugged her securely- he could sense where the story was going and wanted to keep her grounded in this time and place. If nothing else, a hug couldn't hurt as she continued recounting her painful memories.
"So, as it turned out, the sex was all he wanted. We didn't have protection. I'd never done it before, and he figured if I got pregnant than it was my problem, not-not his. And... I did. I was thrilled at the time, thought we could have a family together."
Ember was starting to cry again. Sapphire flames trickled from her eyes, down her front, and over Danny's arms. For season's he didn't quite understand, he planted a kiss on her forehead. She didn't object, just snuggled deeper into his arms and continued her story.
"I tried calling him... and calling... and calling. He never picked up. Next time I saw him at school, I ran up to tell him the good news. He pretended like he didn't know me."
The story was broken up by Ember's heaving sobs as she shuddered in Danny's embrace. She paused to catch her breath.
"So, that night, I went home... found some gasoline in the garage."
"Oh, Ember," Danny murmured, horrified.
"...dumped it over myself and lit a match. The next thing I know, I'm watching my own funeral. No one came." She paused before adding, "Mark didn't come. I doubt he even knew I was gone. Small, quiet service. My dad, my only family, stayed behind just long enough to scratch the only reminder I ever existed off the face of the earth," she finished, gesturing toward the scarred headstone.
"I'm sorry," Danny said after a frozen moment. "I'm so sorry."
"Thanks, dipstick, but last time I checked, you can't change the past. Even with Clockwork's help."
"I can't change the past, true," he admitted, kissing her tenderly on the lips, noticing how warm she was, "but I just might be able to improve the future."
Uhh... wow, okay. My plot bunny attacked me at like two in the morning and I ended up marathon writing this. It's probably horrible, but... well, I like it. *shrugs* Please review and tell me if my sleep-drunk writing is good or bad.
My headcanon of Ember's backstory and death was largely based on her song lyrics, along with a bit of creative license.
Sorry if either of them are OOC. Like I said, sleepy writer.
Thanks for reading!
-Holly