Interlude Two: Dash Baxter for dessert.

Danny, a year and a half after the accident.

Ghosts exist in a separate plane from humans. The cannot step into our world. They live in a shadow of our world. That's why we've never seen one. They are trapped there - in between here and there.

So then, what did that make me?

I had been asking myself this question for over a year and a half now. I was not fully convinced I was a ghost - or a human. Not anymore. Sam and Tucker were certain that I was half of each.

This past year had been an intense exercise in self-control. There's parts of me that are more primal, that don't use logic based in any sort of human realm. These darker parts of me I didn't yet fully understand, nor did I want to understand as they scared even myself. Instead, I had learned how to manage the more disturbing parts of my condition. For the first few months things had been rough. I had been forced to not only learn how to control some of the more outward powers - like the energy blasts and the invisibility, but also to control the darker... urges. There was another passenger that had taken root in my mind. Not a sentiment being, more of an addiction.

Quickly, I learned that I needed to be around people if I wanted to stay sane. That it wasn't just that I could smell people's intentions and emotions - I needed them to keep some measure of the humanity I had left. I only took what I knew I needed. And really, I only needed Sam and Tucker. Together they were enough to keep the headaches and withdrawals at bay. Perhaps it was their inherent trust in me, or the fact that they had been the two present at the time of the accident, but they were the two people I felt the strongest bond with. I wasn't sure if I could ever tell them I needed them in this way - if they would be disgusted and betrayed to know that on some level I fed off of them. Never enough to hurt them, or to even fatigue them. Never enough that they would even notice.

Not like Spectra had done two days ago - although I was certain I was capable of that. Everything had been going along swimmingly, until Spectra had shown up. For some reason that I had not yet figured out, spirits had started to manifest themselves in the physical world. It was something that my mother had told me wasn't possible. My parents had come to the conclusion that in order for spirits to walk in the human world they would need some way to traverse between the two – a portal. Of course, their own Fenton Portal would do the trick. It was now humming along just fine in our basement. But even then ghosts had no physical form. Unlike me, who still had a body, the malignant spirits that had started to haunt Amity Park had to possess a human in order to cause real havoc.

Most of the ghosts were easily taken down and their hosts recovered. Usually they would just exhibit symptoms of a really bad cold, or mono for a week or two. In reality their life forces had been sapped to dangerously low levels, but they always bounced back. Such was human perseverance. Spectra, however, had taken upon my own feeding grounds and had possessed the school councilor Mary Hills. Mrs. Hills was still in the hospital in a coma from the attack.

This obsession with owning things - another symptom of the incident - I couldn't quite yet explain. Already I had marked certain areas as mine. The school. My house. My family. Sam. Regardless, Spectra had drained the entire student population - and councilor Mary Hills - of life before I had even realized what was going on. Spectra had been smart - preying on me through use of my sister, covering her unnatural aura by twisting my thoughts until I couldn't think straight, and dipping the temperature of her office so my sense was nothing more than an occasional shiver. I was still reeling from all she had said to me, of all the doubts she had convinced me of.

"-you paying attention, Mr. Fenton?"

I blinked, looking up at a looming Mr. Lancer. His disappointment wafted off of him. It hit me in the face like a falling piano.

"Yeah. Sorry." I mumbled, looking down at my empty notebook. I hadn't even attempted to take notes. My grades had slipped drastically. Between the ghost attacks, trying to control these new instincts, and keep up appearances at home, school had dropped to the bottom of my priorities. I could feel Lancer's concern for me as if it were my own. Oftentimes my emotions got crossed, blurred, until I wasn't sure if I was feeling concerned or Lancer was feeling concerned. I constantly found myself trapped in the mood swings of my peers.

"You look a little pale." Lancer mumbled, leaning down to peer at me. I flinched as his face got close to mine and I felt some foreign part of me coil defensively, but I quelled it back. I let out a slow breath, refusing to look into Lancer's face. Whatever this part of me was, it didn't play by human rules and it made no sense. It was purely reactionary and right now it was barely not starving. I refused to allow it to surface fully - not after what I had almost done to Sam the night of the accident. Especially not now that I had seen first hand what kind of damage Spectra had caused. What kind of damage I could cause if I wasn't careful.

Today was worse for me than most days. Most days Tucker and Sam had enough life to sustain me from craving any more. But, the two were still recovering from Spectra's recent attack. I was too afraid to take my usual fill as they too, like me, had been victims of Spectra's 'therapy'. Tucker still was barely eating and Sam's face was almost translucent in its pallor. It would take them at least a week or two to get their bearings again. I was uncertain if I could wait that long.

The only people that Spectra hadn't quite gotten ahold of was the faculty. Lancer was still brimming with life. Already I could feel the other part of me reeling at the idea of grabbing Lancer and just taking what it wanted. I felt my gaze glaze over as the entire classroom started to fade in color.

Suddenly Sam's hand was on mine, and she squeezed it tightly. I blinked a few times to shake off the transition.

"-look so good."

"I think he needs to go home. I'll walk him to the nurse." Sam was saying. My gaze was fixated on Lancer's face. I wasn't sure when I had looked up, staring at him, but I felt a sudden wave of unease roll off of him. It was the feeling I gave people more and more often. I tried to hide it - the glimpses that I wasn't entirely human anymore - but sometimes it slipped. Lancer wasn't sure what was off about the moment, but humans had certain amounts of self-preservation in them. They recognized a fight-or-flight moment, the presence of a predator, even if logically it made no sense.

"Danny." Sam yanked my hand and I took in a sharp breath, forcing myself to look at her. She grounded me, giving me a small smile, "Let's go."

As we made our way out of the classroom I pressed my hand to my chest to make sure my heart was still beating.

"Are you okay?" She asked me softly.

"Yeah, sorry."

"It looked like you were in another world there for a moment."

"I just haven't been feeling totally great since Spectra..." I trailed off. I knew I was starving, technically, but I was unwilling to stoop to her level. Spectra had taken whatever reserves I had hoarded over the past year from me. I had felt first hand what the result of my leeching felt like. Only, where Sam and Tucker just got pissy and tired, the after effects of Spectra leeching off me were way more dangerous to everyone around me. Already the control I had fought and practiced so desperately to wrangle for the past year was unraveling like a half-knitted sweater. All of my hard work, wasted in tangled yarn on the floor.

I swallowed, my throat dry as I leaned in closer to Sam, inhaling her scent. However weak it was, it was intoxicating.

"Maybe you should just go home. You know, sleep it off."

I knew for a fact if I fell asleep I would relinquish control. I would find myself in the in-between with no path back until I had gotten my fix.

"Sure. I'm fine, Sam. You don't have to walk me all the way to the nurse."

"I don't mind." She smiled.

"Seriously - who's going to give me those notes if we're both not in class?" Please get away from me before I do something I regret.

She gave me a long, hard look, before she nodded and reached up around my shoulders, giving them a small squeeze.

"Alright, but call me later, okay?"

I watched her retreating form for a long moment before I ran a shaky hand through my hair. I took a few steps towards the nurse's office, but instead hooked a left and entered the men's bathroom.

It was devoid of anyone - thank god.

I leaned heavily into the sink as I struggled to rid myself of the memory of Lancer's smell. I shook my head several times as if that would help me forget about it, to squash the urge to go ghost and haunt him down. My mouth watered for a long moment, my hands shaking in front of me. I tried pinching at my skin to snap myself out of this train of thought but already it was spiraling out of my control. I felt like I was rocketing deep down a dark cavern with no hope of finding my way back. I wasn't sure how long I was standing there, hands gripping the sink as my muscles trembled, but the sound of a door and a voice broke me out of my concentration.

"Fentoad. You don't look so good... You gunna puke?"

When I opened my eyes I saw my own reflection - face pale and gaunt, skinny as a twig, my hair disheveled, eyes a dangerous glowing green. They flicked away from myself to Dash. He should be running, fleeing, if he had any ounce of sense in him. But of course Dash Baxter had no reality of when he was no longer the most dangerous person in the room.

Of course, I didn't look like much of a predator. I weighed a good thirty to thirty-five pounds less than him right now thanks to the fact that human food no longer tasted as appealing. I was shaking, visibly. My teeth were rattling in my mouth, but not from weakness - from the sheer amount of effort it took to not go on the attack.

"Dash, you need to leave." I managed out.

"Oh really?" He took my order as a challenge, rather than a warning. One eyebrow raised. He was wearing his football jersey and there were grass stains on his knees. I could feel the adrenaline rushing off of him. I could read him like an open book. He had been in PE moments before, he had been playing dodgeball. He had smashed at least three different kids - one of them was in the nurse's office right now with a broken finger. He thought he was invincible. His cockiness and vitality was too much for me, rolling off of him in waves like a powerful cologne.

Dash grinned crookedly at me, cracking his knuckles one by one, "I'm not likin' your tone. You gunna make me?"

I watched helplessly as the bathroom started to fade around me into wisps and the ringing noise began from somewhere in the back of my head. The thing - whatever it was because I refused to believe it was a part of me - started to stir again to the challenge in Dash's voice. My head tilted as I took in a deep inhale, feeling all of that masculine arrogance and bravado rush through me.

I shouldn't have smelled him. I clenched my rapidly dilating eyes shut, grinding my teeth together, barely hearing him over the rushing noise as Dash grabbed me by my shirt and rammed me into the wall. My body grated against the cement, but it felt surreal - transcendent.

"-I'm talking to you, wimp." He growled at me, "You gunna make me or what? You weigh like ninety pounds. You bulimic or somethin? That why you're always in the bathroom all the time?'"

"Dash-" I whispered weakly, my eyes still screwed shut, "Please. Please just leave me alone."

His laugh was dessert.

"That's better, Fentonia. I like it when you beg. But I'm not going to forget what you said earlier. You ain't ever gunna tell me what to do, capesh?"

I bit my tongue to stop myself from correcting his grammar - a habit that usually only resulted in a beating afterwards. Of course, whether or not I was a sarcastic brat to Dash didn't matter. He was already punching me in the stomach, but it didn't hurt. I opened my eyes as he reeled his arm back, moving to hit me in the face next.

"I warned you." I said. His fist sailed through my head and into the wall behind us.

Dash paused, confusion flickering across his face. But if he was going to rethink beating me up it was already too late. When I had opened my eyes I had found myself in black and white photo negative of the in-between. We were inverted and hanging upside down. Already I could see the vestiges of lesser spirits hovering around us as dark blobs, moving in and out of space. They didn't bother me anymore. They were too weak to cross between realms and cause any real trouble.

Only Dash's reflection was in the mirror; it looked like he was grasping thin air.

I reached up and grabbed Baxter by the chin, tightly. He was a white trembling cloud, an undefined outline of a human being. I had realized early on that when I was in this world what I saw was human spirit. Their humanity; their life force. They were bright light, while ghouls, demons, and spirits were dark shadow. I myself was neither light nor shadow, but in the grey. Since I couldn't see myself in mirrors I had no real notion of what I looked like in this world besides what I saw when I looked at my hands and legs and what Sam and Tucker described. All photos the press had managed to take of Phantom were mysteriously and conveniently blurry. My white gloved hand was keeping his trembling chin inches from my lips.

"I asked you to leave me alone." I told him, my voice echoing oddly around the bathroom. It reverberated for eons, infinitely, into the distance. Dash's terror was delicious. My grip tightened on his chin, despite him trying to claw his way out, fingers passing through me ineffectively, "Why didn't you just leave me alone? Why don't you ever leave me alone?"

Dash was saying something, but it was hard to make out. Dialogue from the human world to this one oftentimes got lost in translation. I had no real control anymore. I was too starved. Spectra had sapped me of what I needed to stay firmly put in the physical world. Without my reserves it was only a matter of time before I lost all trails back to my humanity. My physical body usually was enough to anchor me, but only with the supplementation of Sam and Tucker's unwavering faith.

I felt the power that I knew I locked inside start to rush forward despite my attempts to keep it in. Dash tried to scream, but I covered his mouth with my hand, my lips a mere inch from his, almost kissing the back of my own hand as I inhaled in one powerful gasp more than I had ever dared to take from another human being. I couldn't stop myself, it was addicting. I was an addict, taking a hit after attempting cold turkey sobriety. Dreamily I felt my lips peel back as I moved in to lock my lips against his - to take the best part: the heart. However I seemed to realize exactly what I was doing when Dash's light flickered and he went limp in my grasp. Even after he collapsed in my hands it took me a long moment to regain control. And when I did I felt the world pitch right side up and I fell onto the bathroom tile, heart thudding rapidly in my ears. It was freezing. There was a water drop frozen mid-drip in the faucet.

With a terrified noise I ripped my hand off of his pale face. His eyes were half lidded and for a horrifying heart-stopping moment I was certain I had killed him.

"No-" I whispered, eyes wide. I pulled myself up and scrambled at his neck for a pulse, feeling it there, weak, "No, no, no..."

I locked the bathroom door and wrapped my arms around myself as I paced, panicked, ignoring how the light in the bathroom flickered out and plunged us in darkness. Anger flooded through me, desperation, and fear. Lots of fear. Fear that I could have killed him - that I might have killed him. Would he wake up? Would he ever be the same? I didn't even know what I had done to him or how to fix it.

The place where he had punched me should have hurt. In fact, the limp I had had ever since fighting Spectra was gone. I looked at myself in the mirror. My face was flushed, my eyes bright. I even seemed to have more weight on my bones. All of this only served to make me feel even more miserable. I had taken all of this life from someone else. It wasn't mine. How did I put it back? Was that even possible?

Do you want to? A voice whispered conspiratorially from within.

I turned away from the mirror and hoisted Dash up by his armpits, heaving him against the bathroom wall. He was heavy, but I was strong.

Quickly I wetted a towel with freezing cold water and slapped him across the face several times. He looked grey and dull. Almost like he belonged in the ghost-world. I had almost put him there, I realized, with a sharp pang of guilt. It didn't matter that he was a bully. I had hurt someone. I hadn't meant to - but I had lost control and really, truly, hurt someone.

Dash started to reanimate, swatting lethargically at the washcloth like it was a fly.

"The fu-" He mumbled, "What happened?"

"Dash?" I kneeled down in front of his face. He didn't flinch away from me, instead he looked confused and disoriented.

"...Fenton? ...What?"

"How do you feel?" I placed the cold washcloth behind his neck.

"Like crap." He grated out.

"What do you remember?" I asked, anxiously. Did he see me? Did he see my other form? Did he see Phantom? Did he remember my grip on his chin? The way I had pinned him in my grasp?

"I remember..." He struggled, peering up into my face. It seemed to trigger some recollection, "I remember going to the bathroom and seeing you. Teasing you. Then.. I must have passed out?" I felt myself sag with relief. The lights flickered back on and the roaring noise receded to a dull hum. He seemed alive and himself. Tired, but alive and he had no memory of what happened. Which, was good - for him and for me.

"You keeled over." I lied. I dug around in my backpack, grabbing a candy bar and unwrapping it. I wasn't sure if getting his blood sugar up would help, considering that wasn't really the problem. It couldn't hurt, however.

"Eat this." I tossed him my water bottle, "Drink this. I'm going to go get the nurse. Don't get up. Stay right here."

His eyes had already drifted half-shut again, not listening. I vaulted myself from the bathroom, the door slamming shut behind me as I found myself in an empty hallway. The temptation to run far far away overtook me. To flee and never come back. I could leave right now and no one would ever know what happened. No one would ever find out the truth of what I had done, of what I was capable of doing. I would never have to face what had just happened - what had almost happened. I had nearly killed him.

"Tucker was wrong." I whispered to myself, "I'm not so sure I can be the hero." Not anymore.

tbc..