Failing Since the Start, a danny phantom fanfic

Hey. I was reading Ethereal Reflection when I came up with this. Get this: it's a half-baked one-shot! Wait…now it's full-baked. Fried, if you will. This is, hopefully, going to be all angst. Emphasis on hopefully. I have a habit of being angsty and not knowing it but when it comes to writing, well, I can't write it. I can say it in my mind but it fails to come out on paper or screen. Anyway…

NOTE: does anyone know when Reign Storm/Doctor's Disorder(s)/Pirate Radio is coming on again? I was away, like, all summer!

NOTE: now that you mention it…all my fics are PRE-Reign Storm/Doctor's Disorder(s)/Pirate Radio until I see them because of the reason presented above.

DISCLAIMER: don't own him.

NOTE: this is probably the only fic where there isn't going to be a major battle, or physical battle.

NOTE: unless you are very sure you do not want to do anything you'll regret very much (even if you're not alive to realize it) do not read this. If you are not sure, I will quote part of the bottom for you:

And no one take this seriously. It's rated T for a reason! I don't want anyone taking this seriously enough to try it. You all have loving families and friends. Anywhere, somewhere, realize it or not. Just come up with one reason, just one measly reason, and that can keep you going, okay?

SUMMARY: Danny is thinking what he thought he'd never do at age 12. Everything he'd ever known, ever stood for is slowly dying and he suddenly is breaking down. Will the powerful ghost boy succumb to a teenage mortal peril?

Failing Since The Start

I sat there. I sat at my desk, turning my head to look out the window. There was the town, only a few damages done. Everything was quiet, but not for me. For me, everything was a disaster. In my mind, the town was blowing up, dying, and I couldn't save it. It was my duty, what I had committed my life to, and I couldn't fulfill it.

I dropped my head. A chuckle actually escaped my mouth. If only people could see the ghost boy now. The heroic ghost boy who kept coming back even though everyone hated him.

If only they could know. If they could know who I am. That would top my life off. I'd be utterly depressed, coming home each day with bandages and braces every day to a pair of parents who would continue to hunt people like me. If you could even call us people. We're more like its. Just traces of another life. Forms for which people have no mercy.

I banged my head against my desk. Tears had blotched my textbook. Honestly, I didn't care. I glanced over my shoulder and a glint blinded me for a split second. I seriously considered it. If I can't even handle myself, how can I handle anybody else?

Failing. It hit me. I was failing from the start. Ever since I had spent that last minute in the basement as a normal kid, or as normal as it gets for me anyway, I had been failing. I thought I was winning, but I wasn't. All this time, I wasn't winning or tying. I had nearly failed all those battles, and they knew when to get me. They knew when I was most vulnerable. I had let slip pieces of my personal life to the ghosts and they took what they needed from that, sucking it up like a vampire does to blood.

If only. Everything was if only. If only I was normal. If only I had a regular, standard family. If only Amity could see the town hero in fine, perfect even, condition tearing apart at the seams. If only people knew. Everything always leads back to it. I wasn't about to reveal myself, though. No, that's stupid.

I turned away from the window. I grabbed the glinting object by the handle. I held it up to the light, examining it from all angles. Its dullness, its sharpness, its point. I set it down. Maybe. Only maybe. Once again, another if only came up. If only I could. If I could just rid the world of one person. Save the world in a better way than I ever could have. Everything Amity had trouble with, it was my fault. They wouldn't have that trouble if I did it. Whether anyone realized it or not, I would be doing the world a favor. This would be the sensible thing to do. But I don't know what to think anymore.

I'm collapsing, and as a result, so is the world around me. Sam is slowly laughing less, hiding away in the sanctuary of her room every day immediately after school. She's started cutting herself. Tucker is steadily giving up computers. He's just lying around on his bed, wondering what is happening. Everyone is slowly becoming depressed. And all it needed was a seedling. Me.

"I need to do something," I murmured, my head still on the desk. Suddenly, I shot up and I tried to slam down my hand on the table, yelling with closed eyes. "ANYTHING!" I cried. I expected a sting on my hand, but my arm just made a cycle as if my desk was never there. This happened too often nowadays. Everything was going berserk. All because I had failed. Failed the world. Failed my friends. More importantly, failed myself.

I had set low standards for myself: beat any ghost in my path, slim chances or not, and survive high school while keeping my secret. I can't even do that. I can't. These standards are way too high. I'm useless. If I can't survive high school, how am I going to survive a ghost attack? And everyone is finding out about me because my powers are acting up all the time. I think it's high time to take the easy way out of this.

Then a familiar quote floated in my head. Take the right road, not the easy one. But that was just it. Was there such a thing as something easy and right at the same time? Surely there could be! It's like sleeping; it was easy to fall asleep and it was the only way to get energy. But could that be applied to everything else? Maybe it was the right way out. I was already half-d e a d, anyway. It's too much hassle for me. Maybe it was high time that I gave up, caved in, finished off the job that my father's portal had failed to complete. I picked up the object again. It shone, almost pleasurably.

I wondered. If I cut myself—just a small cut—would blood come out? Or ectoplasm? Nothing, perhaps? Was I human? I really don't belong in this world. I'm just a freak trying to act like a normal person. My b l o o d means nothing, my life is worth less than that, my abilities useless. Maybe I should be caught. Sent into the ghost zone. But what's the point? It won't do much unless I'm completely gone. Until my traces have completely disappeared.

Who would care if I would leave? Sam? Tucker? No, they'd be happy ghost hunting was over. My parents? They'd probably be happy to be rid of such a depressed and retarded child like myself. Who would care? My mind came up with nothing and a single tear dropped on the page of my textbook. Maybe I should see. Maybe they'd care, maybe they wouldn't. Either way, whether anyone is happy or not, whether anyone realizes it, I'd be doing a favor.

I grabbed the object firmly. I decided it. I'll see what happens. I gingerly held the thing and found a place between my wrist and my elbow and created a small gash. It didn't hurt. Nothing ever hurt anymore. Only my insides could writhe with pain now. Ectoplasm leaked out thickly. I shut my eyes. I'm not human. I'm just pretending to be, in hope that someone would buy my trickery.

No, I couldn't leave. That would be at the expense of my loved ones. But what about the rest of the world? I love them, too, in a way. And they, me. And that rules out my true loved ones. But when it comes to the measure of love…well, I'm pretty sure it'd come out that the world would want me gone more than my loved ones want me to stay.

I'm falling apart, I realized. I can handle any ghost in my way, even resist Paulina's beauty and Dash's beatings, but I can't handle myself. It's too much for me. I have too many insides. Twice as many. Or just half of what everyone else has, really. And yet it hurts more than ever. My insides call out like a helpless voice, a lost soul, but it doesn't come out of my mouth. I'm screaming for help, but I refuse to take any out of sheer pride. And what stupid pride it is.

While I'm falling apart, it would be best to leave. Flee the world, leaving nothing, not even my body. Go into the ghost zone and get it over with. Leave my body to the ghosts of vengeance and revenge. My soul is slowly dying, disappearing every second. What's the point to life? If everything leads back to where it started, then why bother with life at all if all of the hard work just goes down the drain just as quickly as you came into the world? 100 years at most worth of work in a lifetime, but all of it gone in a blink of an eye. Just as you came?

I can't believe that this subject is just being noticed. How naïve I was. Thinking friendships could last forever through thick and thin, that no one would have the heart to stab you in the back. I was wrong. Everyone had their reasons for doing everything, and to them, I suppose, the reasons are very good. I should've done this a long time ago. Leaving the world painlessly. Instead of trying to grasp onto life's last finger, hurting myself along the way.

I then noticed. I myself was grasping onto life's last finger. All the times I had been injured, I had fought my way back to health. Life's hands were becoming sweaty, but I desperately grabbed until I held on for a while. I could've just let go and leave without enduring any more pain. But I struggled through it and continued. Now, when I would do anything to just leave, to let go of life's last finger, I find I could've let go and fallen down a deep black abyss a long time ago. Most people would have found that something to brag about, but I found it a frustration, a wrinkle in everything. All those times, I could have dropped dead and just now do I realize it!

Wouldn't it be wonderful to just not be able to breathe? To lose the boundaries that keep us alive, just forget them and live on happily? Maybe, if we're lucky, to d i e and continue with what we think is living as ghosts? To blissfully live on as a specter? All of the bodily functions we have, useless! Eating, sleeping, walking, breathing…why do all that when I don't have to? Eating wastes time, as does sleeping and walking. Hell, I could walk through a person if I felt like it. As for breathing, well, no one could suffocate me. For one, I wouldn't be able to breathe in the first place, so it's to no avail. And also, I can't die twice, can I?

Actually, I can, now that I think about it. That shock in the lab was really bad, it felt bad enough to die. And alas, in a way, I did. I had half-died. My soul had half-abandoned me, deserted me. I lost my soul to an invention of my parents'. Technically, I could d i e twice. I could die painlessly and I might as well have been recorded for one death because of the pain of the first one, but two deaths never leave anyone. I am scarred because of the immense pain of the first death. But if it hurts as much the second time, if it hurts as much to get rid of my last living piece of me, then I'd be beyond scarred. As a ghost, I'd be paranoid.

It would be better to finish it off now painlessly and carry on as a ghost as I do now half-alive rather than carry on with a missing part of myself and risk getting scarred twice. Even in my afterlife I would expect to feel something. Anything. Physical. Mental. Emotional. I would expect to feel something like that. I know a feeling I've had as a ghost: revenge. Revenge on my parents' profession, revenge on the real reason I was marked a criminal.

If I was marked a criminal, though, why hadn't I gone by now? Surely I would have! But my common sense was out the window at the time, I guess. Instead, I stayed, survived the attacks, helped everyone think I really was bad involuntarily…

Besides, it would have been better off if I just left for Valerie. She wouldn't have to continue hunting after me. She could continue with her life, no more Inviso-Bill. No more Cujo. No more rejection. I think she mostly went after me because of the rejection. But I had it harder than she did.

Half the time, my guts were pounded from the inside out, or what was left of them, anyway. For Valerie, half the school was at her command. When the freshman populars rejected her, it was a small taste of my own. She was lucky. Or unlucky really, for popularity is just an illusion, a ploy, set by others to make another happy. I was rejected by the nerdiest of nerds, the geekiest of geeks, the freakiest of freaks. They were quite happy to have Tucker and Sam join their little groups as long as I wasn't in there. But they stuck at my side like true friends.

But if they were true friends, would I be having this conversation? Perhaps. Maybe it was a ploy. But I highly doubt it. They've stayed in the face of dangers. They've accepted me even as a ghost boy. These two people are either very good and loyal friends not worth leaving, or they are very bold traitors. I would lean on traitors, since Tucker and Sam always said something negative or teased me. They say they are jokes, but how can I be so sure? Unless I'm telepathic there's no way of proving that. I've learned over the years to be very wary with friends. Do not trust them with secrets until you feel you know them well enough. I broke my own rule, now that I think about it. After knowing Sam and Tucker for only two years, I trusted them with my secret. Two years only. That may seem a lot overall, but for a secret as big as mine, two years is way too soon.

Really, I don't think I'll amount to much. The only possible job for me is either ghost hunter (for no pay) or working at McDonald's. And if I do that, I'll never live it down. I'll never hear the end of it from anyone. Except for maybe Dash, but his grades are too low to amount to anything at all. I should leave. Let my sister get offspring and continue the Fentons' perfect grades streak. I'm the only one who's broke it.

All the reasons to leave outnumber those to stay. And I've been failing. I can't win. No way I can win. No one can win the game of life, for there is no winning side, only a losing side. But I can't win the arcade games that life throws at me. I always lose them while anyone else wins. And I should leave, because a failure only weighs the world down.

I'm not loved. Through all that, I just notice I'm not loved. Not my teachers, not anyone. And a lesson in 8th grade at my old school floated in my head. The teacher had said that God would love you no matter what, even if you're a murderer. God loves those who are not loved on this Earth. I picked up the shiny object once more. I looked at my reflection. God. God, you're the only one on my side. All I have now is you and my knife. And you'll wait for me, right? You'll love me like anyone never did me, right? Just wait, God, I'll be right there. Right there, as soon as I have a last talk with my knife. It's only you and my knife on my side, God. Please wait for me. 'Cause I'll be there in a few minute's time.

I grabbed a sheet out of my notebook and rummaged for a pen. In the neatest handwriting of my life, I wrote a note.

To Whom It May Concern:

Check the closet. I've left the world, and leave me to peace. If any of you find my ghost, don't attack me. Please. I can't really say thanks for bringing me into this world, seeing as how I left it as quickly as I came, but a hollow thanks to you all the same.

--Danny Fenton

P.S. I'm the ghost boy.

I went into the closet. I turned the light on. Good-bye world. I can't wait to see you, God. This is all for the better. And you and everyone else know it. I turned on the light. I took the small knife with me. As an emptiness took over me, as my now green eyes stared at the knife. You'll even love the mutants, right God? Even the freaks of nature? I brought my finger up to the sharp side. I let out a beam to sharpen it. Perfect. I changed back, black hair falling in my natural blue eyes. I took the knife and slit open my left wrist, then my right. No pain at all. None. I'll see you soon, God. I started getting drowsy and woozy. Ectoplasm oozed down my wrists and I fell with my eyes closed, a happy smile upon my face.

Hi, God.

Wow. I can't believe I just made an argument about suicide 5 pages. This is actually my own perspective contorted until it was Danny's. Remember, Danny's lost the will to live and is so depressed and deep in his thoughts that he can't help but wonder if he's really loved. And he is so depressed, he wants to change everything for the worse so he can commit suicide.

I know, I'm evil for killing him off, but don't you think that he should have this conversation in his head? Surely he'd like to give up and leave, right?

P.S. the original idea was that he is having an emotional/mental conflict with himself. Sort of like, oh how the mighty have fallen. Because he's faced mightier things than himself (like Vlad) so it seems like he's failing. But then it evolved into this (when it became full-baked)