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Title: Human

Fandom: Danny Phantom

Alternate Universe: None

Pairing : None

Rating : T

Warnings: Underage Drinking, Depersonalization, Assumed Major Character Death (Nothing explicit or angst worthy, though.)

Inspired By: ibelieveinahappilyeverafter com/post/130834871670/daddywhaler

Summary: "I think I am a better ghost than I am a human being."

::

The confession came on a hazy summer morning that saw dawn just barely breaking over the horizon as three friends sat in a bedroom that was too small and held bottles of liquor that tasted too bitter. All three of them had flushed cheeks and glazed eyes, the only sound to be heard an old, dented air conditioning unit that made a rattling sound that was like trailing dots to what had just been said.

A strained laugh was what broke the silence, followed by a slightly hysterical giggle. "Alright, there, ghost boy, I think the alcohol is finally getting to you." Sam's own bottle was swinging loosely in her grasp, knees pulled up to her chest and bright purple lipstick faded and worn from the day, chipped nails painted in shades of green lightly tapping against the glass.

"Or maybe it's not getting to him enough," Tucker chimed in with another laugh, taking a swig of his own, far more empty bottle. It was cheap and tasted like it was strained through a dirty sock a couple dozen times over, but it made them ignore the exhaustion that dragged them down and dulled the pain of the bruises and scars that covered their bodies.

"Come on, Danny, what even is that? Some movie quote?" Sam took a sip herself, tossing her shirt at Tucker to stop whatever he was about to say. She had shed it near an hour ago, heat too much to care about being in nothing but a short ruffled skirt and a sports bra - it was nothing her friends hadn't seen before. There had been far too many nights when the blood had flowed freely and they had gagged trying to clean it up, after all. "You're just as human as you've always been."

"Yeah… Yeah, guess I am." Danny's voice was slightly strained, a note of emotion to it he hoped the two couldn't place, his own bottle already empty as he lightly nudged it with his bare foot. He had drunk it in one go near the start of their night, trying to dull the pain of the wound on his back that had near tore him open. Ghost fighting, he had found, was nothing like he once thought it was.

As he listened to his friends argue and disagree about something trivial - something important? - he tipped his head to rest against the edge of his old, worn bed, studying the even older glow-in-the-dark stars. The small child who had spent days meticulously arranging them into constellations seemed so far away, at this point. That child seemed like someone completely different.

As he stared, and barely listened, he couldn't help but be thankful for the alcohol that had dulled his friends' senses and jumbled his words up into something they could understand instead of what he had said. He had never worried about being less human or about not being human… It was never that, it was just…

He was better as a ghost.

He remembered that the realization had come late one night while carving through the skies, flying over the river and eyes wide at the beauty of it all. Far away from the city the night sky had been bursting with stars, the river below aglow with the reflection of it all, just as bright as the sky itself. It had felt like he had been lost inside a mirror, or another world, and he had realized… He had so much freedom.

How many other teenagers, he wondered, could say that they had touched the sky? He had been so close that he had heard the whispered stories of the stars themselves, and had flown through the sky for hours on end, as if nothing could ever trap him down. Once, long ago, he thought flying would be like jumping on a trampoline and simply not falling down. Now he knew it to be something far different.

It was like all the strings that had tethered him down had been severed and he had been left free to glide across the sky. It was like the pressure, and the force, and the pain that had kept him tethered and tied and stuck had vanished and left him free… He was free to go and do whatever he wanted. It was the understanding that came after that that had made him so very afraid.

It was the realization that had made him return to his weak, chained human form, hiding in his room for hours. He was free, free to go anywhere. He could have flown off at anytime he wanted and he could have never come back… Thinking on it, he could see why Danielle hardly ever visited, why she hardly ever left the skies, and why she was always on the move. The second she had tasted freedom she had never returned. She had broken her cage and flown away as fast as possible. With Danny…

He lingered on the edge of his cage, door open wide but never stepping near it.

It was an offhand comment that made him question even more.

"Ugh! Sometimes I wonder how you're ever even human." A tossed insult, a throwaway attempt at a joke, an irritated response at something he had said or done, but still… It had made him think in ways he didn't want to. Had he ever been human, truly?

It was stupid. To even think something like that, it was completely stupid, and yet… He had grown up in a house that sat on a rift between the living and the dead. The portal hadn't been built when he was young and born, not yet, but… Amity Park held a rift and an attraction to portals. He lived on the largest rift for fourteen years before it had torn through him and left him half alive and half dead.

Was he changed before that, though? Was he ever really - really - human? He had taken so easy to being a ghost. He had figured out how to change between ghost and human within a month, if that. He had taken to flying as easily as a duck to water. He had discovered power after power after power after power. Most ghosts only had two or three powers like his. He had so many. He was an anomaly among both of his kinds.

Was he ever really human? How could he be when he was such a good ghost? He had his powers for only a year or two and yet he had beat a man with the same powers who had possessed them for twenty. He had beaten decades of experience and wisdom and logic with raw strength and intuition that even he didn't know the full extent of. Within months of meeting the only other halfa in existence he had matched him par for par. Within half a year, he could hold his own. Within a year, he often won.

Him stating that he was a better ghost than a human wasn't a drunken phrase, but the simple and honest truth. All the times his powers had been suppressed or taken away and what was he? Nothing. He failed even at simple things. He was clumsy, and inept, and could barely get out of bed in the morning without falling over clothes and banging into furniture. But as a ghost - as Phantom - he was so very different.

Fighting came naturally to him and flying was as second nature as even breathing sometimes. He had faced ghost after ghost over years that had felt like lifetimes and every time he came out as winner in the end. Maybe not at first, maybe not when it was tough and agonizing and he was torn to shreds, but he always won. Damn if he didn't have the scars to prove it, too.

He had beaten Skulker when his powers had still been new. A hunter who everyone in the Ghost Zone feared or respected and he had beat him. Maybe not alone, but nowadays… There was no ghost that fought him that could really stand up to him.

"You don't get it do ya? I'm still here. I still exist. That means you still turn into me."

As for Dan…

He had destroyed nations and worlds. He had ravaged the Ghost Zone into nothing but shattered wastes and he had laid waste to the human world for years. He had destroyed for fun and was seen as invincible and undefeatable, yet Danny had beaten him.

At fourteen.

The last fight between them had just been the two of them. Two ghosts fighting against each other. One against what he could become and another against what he had been. What Danny had always found morbid interest in, though, was how Dan had been half of his ghost self. Had been half Phantom. And not only that, but he had been the greater half. The one in control. The one with the powers and the strength.

Yet it was simply Danny who had won. Fenton and Phantom… The lines had blurred so much he wasn't sure who he was on most days. Sure it was easier when he was with his friends, laughing and arguing and being idiots, friends, and just kids. But on nights like these… On nights like these when the exhaustion was clear on his face and heavy in his voice and when the weight of the world dragged him and his thoughts down and drowned them…

He was meant to be a ghost.

Maybe that was why he was now in the basement, Fenton Portal standing in front of him like a noose damning him. Or perhaps it was more like a gift giving him salvation. With dawn truly beginning to break, and the sun once more rising and his friends passed out upstairs… He took a step inside, bare feet skimming against cold, harsh metal, the teen not even phased by the chill. His steps walked a familiar path and his fingers trailed over familiar edges and textures.

That was the whole thing about it, though, wasn't it?

"What are you? A ghost trying to fit in with humans? Or a creepy little boy with creepy little powers?"

He wondered if Spectra had meant for that to happen - for those words to get to him so much that years later they still twisted and withered in his head. He wondered if she knew that her words would dig under his skin and send it roiling and bubbling, like fire in his veins - words that came alive and twisted into his nightmares and dreams and dug into him over and over until it felt like they had dug his grave.

A bitter smile took over Danny's face and he couldn't help but give a chuckle that echoed and bounced off the metal, making it sound distorted and unearthly- It amde him sound ghostly.

Fingers paused at feeling smooth plastic, the teen gazing almost absently at the button that rested under his left hand. A hand that still carried the scars of the first time he had been inside and his curiosity had gotten the better of him. Back then, he had gone inside as a joke and came out a twisted punchline that held no humor. In the end, though…

He was a better ghost than a human.

It was simple fact. Simple truth. It was in the times when he glided through the sky for hours with no troubles. It was in every time he fought and his human nature dragged him down and amplified the pain. It was even in every breath he took, the air rattling in his lungs in a way it shouldn't. He had never been meant for human life. He had never been meant to come down from that high - from that intoxicating feeling of freedom. He was never meant to stay in a cage that was open.

It was the feeling of fingers pressing even harder against the button that made him come back to himself, the teen staring at the smooth plastic as if it held the answers to everything- In a way, he supposed it did… He wondered what would happen if he gave up what humanity - what human nature - he had left.

He wondered what would happen if he left this cage and never came back.

Click.