This is the full version of an excerpt written for a surprisingly popular AU I called Ghost Hunger Variant out of sheer lack of imagination, and then Divergence AU, which caused some confusion when that one movie came out. In this, Danny is, in fact, not the perfectly ordinary son of Jack and Maddie Fenton that he thinks he is, but a thought failed GIW commissioned bioweapon created to fight and consume ghosts. Thought failed, because now that puberty is hitting, all that long dormant programming is getting activated…

On tumblr, nathanlame, now tlawkeye, wrote fic for this, a fact I still can't quite believe! You can find it here: s/9985775/1/Divergence

oooooooo

Things started getting weird for Danny Fenton roughly after his fourteenth birthday. Of course, being the son of ghost hunters in a ghost infested town meant that his life had already been up there in terms of weirdness levels, but this was new.

This did not seem to have any cause and couldn't seem to be stopped.

At first it was nothing more than an increase in appetite that lead to more than one midnight fridge raid, which Danny thought meant he was finally hitting his growth spurt and the idea of getting as tall as, or even taller than Dash greatly appealed to him.

It got worse, though. After a while it seemed no matter how much he ate the more he stayed hungry, the hungrier he got. He could eat until he felt like he'd explode and still feel like he was starving, and the pangs made it difficult to get to sleep.

One morning, though, he woke up blessedly fine and thought nothing of it apart from gratitude that whatever had been happening was over. As he was brushing his teeth in the mirror his eyes flashed green and he was so surprised he swallowed his own toothbrush and began to choke on it. He desperately clawed at his throat and suddenly one of his hands began to prickle with a numb pins and needles sensation, the toothbrush flying out and hitting the floor tiles.

He'd sat there, panting heavily, before he realized his hand had gone into his neck. Was still in his neck. He drew it out with a yelp and watched as colour slowly faded back into it. Intangibility and he couldn't blame sleep deprivation for this one. Only ghosts could do that; had he died in his sleep, had the strange hunger killed him? But no, wait, he still needed to breathe, he'd been choking mere seconds ago, and a frantic fumbling for his pulse revealed it was still as there as ever, to a sigh of relief.

He sat slumped on the bathroom floor until Jazz banged on the door and startled him out of it.

Breakfast was consumed in a confused haze. It was a good thing it was a Sunday; Sam had gotten him and Tucker tickets to a monster movie and he could definitely do with some distraction. He cringed when it happened again, the spoon falling straight through his hand into the milk below, and hid the limb under the table, hoping no one had noticed. No one had.

"Danny, have you seem my ectoplasmic samples? I left them in the fridge." He looked up at the jumpsuited woman frowning into the appliance.

"No, Mom. Maybe Dad moved them?"

"That man… I hope he didn't mistake them for food again. Ectoplasm poisoning is a serious matter."

Frankly Danny didn't know how you could mistake something green and glowing for actual food, but his father was pretty absentminded. He rolled his eyes at the last sentence which seemed to have been pointedly directed at him and his sister. "I know, Mom. I'm gonna head out now, okay?" She nodded, and he put his bowl away and raced out the door.

Nothing… strange happened for the rest of the day, and walking down the street in the sun, chatting with Sam and Tucker about which bits of the movie had been great for all the wrong reasons, the morning's events seemed rather faded and uncertain. Had they really happened or had he just dreamed it? In the end he decided not to mention it to them, and waved at them before walking up Fenton Work's front steps, shaking his head at the sign.

He was almost immediately accosted by a sweet smell which made his mouth unconsciously water. He tried to place it; it was sort of syrupy, acidic and tangy. The thought that maybe his parents were cooking something was negatively impacted by the emptiness of the kitchen; he followed the scent and found it led him towards the open lab door. That was weird.

He stood in the doorway, and stopped. The scent was thick now; he could actually taste it, like licking a battery, and he found himself trying to draw air across his tongue in quick shallow breaths. This probably looked stupid, and he self-consciously ceased.

"Mom? Dad?"

The two forms turned to him, lifting up goggles simultaneously. "Yes, sweetie?" Even that small movement wafted more of that delicious smell towards him and he licked his lips and stepped down a stair.

"What are you working on?"

The larger man beamed. "I knew you'd be interested! This here is a ghost we've managed to capture! Come see!" He moved his frame such that Danny could get a good view of the dissection table, and it was indeed a dissection table for lying pinned at four corners was something green, globulous and in shape indefinable. Danny's stomach turned even as he had to swallow down a tide of saliva. Jack, completely oblivious to his discomfort, began expounding on what they'd found.

Danny tore his gaze away from the thing as a gloved hand laid on his forehead and he looked up into a face full of concern.

"Are you okay, Danny? You look pale."

"Fine, yeah, fine um… I just remembered I totally forgot some homework due Monday I'll just go do it bye!"

He practically bolted up the stairs and into his bedroom and sat on the bed. What was wrong with him? He looked at the clock. Too early to sleep but he didn't feel like going down to dinner. He pulled the covers over himself anyway.

He woke up several hours later, inexplicably cold. He shivered and pulled his blankets around him and watched his breath mist up in the air, which was stupid because it was August. After a few more futile tosses and turns he sat up and decided he'd go see if the thermostat was broken since it was clear he wasn't getting any sleep until things were at a more sane temperature.

He glanced out the window and froze, more figuratively than literally this time. A figure was moving, floating, down the other side of the street, glowing blue and trailing boxes. Ghost. He sank down below the level of the window and hoped it hadn't seen him, which was his general response whenever a ghost showed up at Casper High. The other was screaming and running. The third was being generally mortified by his parents showing up.

And yet…

Almost against his will, he moved closer to the window and peeked over the top of the sill. The ghost hadn't seen him and was a little further down the street, and inexplicably Danny had to wrestle with the urge to jump out the window and chase it before it turned a corner and was lost to sight. Danny lightly thunked his head against the wall. He hated ghosts, he feared them, he was not going to leap out a second story window after them like a barefoot maniac.

And yet…

Something in him was disappointed. It was a strange part that did not seem to understand that he was only a puny human and ghosts could kill or hurt him in any number of creative ways; in fact it seemed to scoff at the idea. He groaned and wondered if this is what Dad had meant about 'the Fenton genes eventually kicking in'. Next thing he'd be wearing a jumpsuit and then there'd be no hope for him.

At some point the issue with the temperature seemed to have had resolved itself and he got back into bed, only to wake up a scant few hours later feeling like he'd swallowed an icicle. Not again. Evidently further sleep wasn't happening tonight. He got up and turned his alarm off; it was only half an hour until he'd have to wake up anyway, and rubbed his eyes.

The ghost was outside the window again, and it was closer and it was looking at him. He yelped and dived under his bed, and after a few seconds realized he was growling at it, what the fuck, and clamped his hands over his mouth. The ghost seemed pleased by this reaction; it threw up its arms and yelled "YOU RIGHTLY FEAR ME, FOR I AM THE BOX GHOOOOST!"

Danny did not care what kind of ghost it was, only that it was one, and stayed perfectly still and silent in the hope it would go away or his parents would hear it's shouting and come in guns blazing, which was unlikely given his dad's snoring and mom's earplugs. It moved through the window and into the room and he tensed, not daring to look away. His eyes felt like they were burning, and he blinked away tears. The ghost paused in its advance, before pointing dramatically at him. "THE MIGHTY AND GENEROUS BOX GHOST HAS DECIDED THAT YOU MAY LIVE ANOTHER DAY! BEWARE!" At that, it turned and flew away back though the wall.

Before Danny even realized he was moving he was lunging for it, rising up like a runner at the starting blocks and if he'd been more inclined to notice he'd have felt himself phase through the bed to do so. His foot caught on his schoolbag where it had been unceremoniously dumped on the floor and he slammed onto the hardwood boards face first to great complaint from his chin. When the stars had disappeared the ghost was long gone.

That disappointed feeling was back, laced with a certain amount of almost had it frustration, but mainly Danny was relieved that that stupid impulse hadn't come to anything. He didn't know what would have happened if he'd actually managed to grab onto it.

Oh great, his mouth was watering again. He wiped the excess drool onto his sleeve.

Was it too much to hope the weirdness was over?