Warning: anxiety, depression, dissection discussion, idk maddie/jack being neglectful parents? just teenage stuff

Sleep paralysis, Bad Suns:

"Carve your name in a tree or just run your fingers through wet concrete, yeah

Leave a mark, a mark worth leaving

What's self worth, the moment's fleeting"

That entire first weekend was a massive anxiety disaster. Not only did he have to tiptoe around his entire family, but every time he did an accidental ghostly thing like flickering invisible or phasing through things, Sam and Tucker made the most horrified faces. It was a mix of utter cluelessness and the same scared face they'd had when he'd woken up on the chilled basement floor. It drove him to spend a long time in the bathroom, even after Sam and Tucker finally left. He spent it mostly staring in the mirror debating every choice he'd ever made in his entire life. Everything that had come up to this entire moment, from choosing to follow those kids out into the school field that day in Second Grade, to accepting to showing Sam and Tucker those blueprints, and everything in between that was utterly pointless. He'd pushed the button, he'd killed himself. At that point, he'd leave the bathroom and probably come back in an hour and do it again.

The trio had been fortunate the accident had happened on a Friday night; that and Saturday mornings were both "date nights" where his parents routinely went out for dinner and breakfast. The majority of the rest of the week was spent down in the basement, tinkering with other things and working up the nerve to delve into their prizewinner again. It took them more than half the day for them to realise it was functioning well on it's own. Not only were they none the wiser to his friends being in the house at all, but he had managed to maintain that he'd never been down there and his cold had driven him right to his room. Though the sickness he felt from the lying was true enough, it didn't stop him from going back down in the basement and making sure all the cameras in the house had glitched out during that time. It sort of helped that the surge of power from the portal coming on glitched everything out for about ten minutes. He just deleted the time they were there and extended the empty house. Plus, if he stared at the hole in the wall with that mysterious substance swirling for an abnormal amount of time, nobody would ever know. He deleted that too.

With the realisation that their portal was working, his parents disappeared almost completely. Mom and Dad wouldn't come out until the late mornings, well after he'd go to school, and then sleep until before dinner. Sometimes there'd be dinner in the oven or crockpot, but Danny suspected it was Jazz who did that mostly. They'd both be back in the basement by the time he got back from school with a "Sorry Honey, working again!" note magnetted to the fridge that entire first week after the portal incident. It would prove to be like that for most of the weeks to come.

That first week, though. What a nightmare.

He was a walking ball of anxiety, thoughts of horrifyingly embarrassing scenarios running through his head. Being in a movie theatre with Valerie, his first attempt at slipping an arm around her shoulders phasing right through her. The teacher picks him to answer a question on the board and he goes invisible halfway to the front. Sinking through his chair and desk right into the ground below. He had Sunday to prepare at least. The most important thing he learned was if he focused on the area of his body that was in contact with anything, he would seldom sink through it. That didn't stop the random burst of invisibility where his legs would disappear, or other random parts (his whole head once, that was a trip in front of the mirror). It was lucky he'd been alone because the first couple of days were a mess of slip-ups. That only made it worse going back into the public eye, not knowing if/when it was going to happen again.

Good news bad news, he got to lunch without any incident, but he was so busy focusing on his entire body he didn't hear any of his teachers.

"Hey Danny, how's it going man?" Tucker's voice was usually a soothing thing, but the question seemed so redundant with his anxiety so high.

"You mean hows it going with making sure I'm not going to start sinking or blinking in and out of existence like a human lightbulb, or actually turning into a not-human lightbulb-"

"Okay, I get it, yeesh!" Tucker said, looking mock offended. Danny was lucky he was used to Sam's moods- otherwise he would have gone running or been actually offended.

"Sorry, Tucker. Nothing's happened, but I keep feeling that something might. It's an awful feeling. And I miss my jacket," he said, picking at the red flannel overshirt. No one would ever have to know it was really his sister's shirt. All the secrets he was keeping.

"I hear you man," he said, patting him on the back.

They made it to their outside table, Sam already there with her purple patterned jacket and large brimmed hat, snacking on her absurdly large salad. When they got there, she wanted to know everything that he'd learned over the weekend.

"Well, I can't figure out how to transform back into my ghost form," they both flinched at this, unbeknownst to him who had already decompartmentalized how bad it sounded because it's his life now, "but as long as I focus hard enough I can stop most things. It's harder to engage it, but it should make it easier to hide."

Sam leaned forward, chin on her hand. He loved that her nails were so short and small, but he could still make out the tiniest details of ghosts in the polish. Well, not a sentient ghost- his parents called them "non-sentient ecto-blobs" which frankly deserved a better name. Why is she snapping her fingers now? "-Earth to Danny? What kind of things can you do so far?"

"Basic ghost stuff; invisibility, intangibility, floating. Kinda cool stuff. Along with that I've been gifted with super senses." His voice got so dry at the end, the words could have been blown into the wind.

Tucker could only stare wide eyed over his glasses, a horrified look on his face, understanding the full implications of what that could mean. "Oh no."

"Oh yes. Oh yes, Tucker. Possibly the worst weekend ever until I learned how to shut it off. I heard my parents kissing downstairs like they were right next to my face. I heard my Dad take a shit so fucking loud-"

"OKAY, GROSS!" Sam yelled, shoving his shoulder. Normally she wasn't squeamish, but that was a new low. The mental image was scarring enough. Desperate to change the conversation she asked the next question that popped into her head. "How did you learn to shut it off?"

"It's like pinching your nose, but in your brain. Can't really explain it. Sometimes it switches back on its own, but I find it's only when it means something."

Sam wanted to jump on that too (what kind of things, when did it happen, how did you know it was important?), but Sam could tell that he was just as clueless about the reasoning as she was. She already knew that Danny would begin to get frustrated if one kept dangling something he didn't know in front of his face, so she moved on, but she made a note to ask more later.

"What else can you do? How will you know your limits until you try being more ghostly?"

Danny shrugged, slouching further away by the uncomfortable idea, "It doesn't feel right to try possession or anything like that. And I've seen ghosts shoot ectoplasm blasts before, but it feels pointless to try unless I figure out the transformation. As long as I figure that out, I'll be able to change back and then we can work the rest out."

Tucker was all dutifully noting all this down in his PDA, in a secret code in an encrypted file. He was doing this with pretty much all information, including his embarrassing observations from The Bathroom Incident. There was a reason the shit was encrypted, okay? He was proud of Danny for taking it so well (he'd been short and grumpy since, but paranoia could do a lot worse than that); Tucker was sure if it was him in that situation he would still be in bed, hoping the world would just drift around him until it disappeared. That being said, both Sam and Danny were already conditioned to weird shit (one by choice to distance from family, another because of family). Still, Tucker wanted to do everything he could to help Danny get his life back to his normal, as normal as he could be now being half-dead.

"I guess we'll just have to try and figure out how to help you do it, huh? Challenge accepted." He ignored their eyerolls, but knew they were both in it anyways. Friends were good shit.

There was another, more efficient teacher on the cusp of learning some very useful information. This information was neither malevolent or benevolent in nature, it was just something new where there was nothing before. There was a portal on the far - bottom - left - under area of the Zone that wasn't there before, one that didn't seem to lead anywhere else in the Zone. She knew this just from the feel of the energy emitting from the large rip-hole (almost six of Her's, and she was very large) - it was undeniably alive and fresh. Nothing that leads to the past. This was the most excitement she'd had in a long time, and it seemed she was the first ghost to notice this. However, delving straight into a new portal could be a whole whop of a mess. Worse than a chili pot exploding; it could scramble an essence or teleport one into a trapped dimension. The best thing one could do in a situation like this would be to get some ecto-essence with no sentience and throw it in there. Some of the others wouldn't bother with the non-sentient part, but Lunch Lady wasn't fond of hurting things if it didn't deserve it. If it doesn't explode, it narrows it down to one. That one required patience and constant vigilance. Eventually, Ms. Cafeteria Lady would find that indeed, it does not scramble essences as the random ecto-pusses (ecto-pi?) she'd thrown in there didn't disintegrate. A short time after that she found that the voices on the other side, presumably a man and a woman, stopped at the same time in a frequent matter. Time wasn't really a thing at all in the Ghost Zone, but one learned to recognize the drifting of debris once holding meaning and other floating minerals. Every area of the Zone had a different rotation, but She was perceptive. She'd been watching for seven days in current time, and today seemed to be the day she would try going through. The voices were fading through the green swirling mass of their portal as Maddie and Jack Fenton head upstairs for bed at nearly nine in the morning.

Wednesday and Thursday were a little shocking to say the least. Danny was trying to fall asleep after so many days of constant anxiety; he was finally on that cusp of unconsciousness, Danny could feel it like a warm blanket sliding up his body, up and up towards his head-

"Jack, look, the portal-!" his mother's voice yelled, right beside his face like an air horn jolted him out of bed with a shocked gasp of biting cold air, and a screamed "FUCK!"

(Jazz, the room over still studying at 2:34AM, gave the wall an exasperated look and elected to ignore it for the sake of her education.)

Danny couldn't believe it, he was just about to sleep and all of sudden his hearing had been auto-tuned in to his parents in the basement. They were making weird gasping hiccuping sounds, and he realised they were crying. Danny didn't understand why his ghost powers had grabbed onto this and was about to switch it off when his dad's soft voice-

"It is a ghost."

"A non-sentient ecto-blob, dear."

A cold drop of sweat dripped down his spine in fear. Danny couldn't believe it, if he was hearing this right. A ghost came through? The portal?

"A ghost came through our portal, Mads…"

"I know, Jack, let's get to work."

Her tone was excited. They seldom talked after that, into their routine already of analyzing the thing that came through. Only to ask for a tool, or announce a reading.

Danny sat there- and would continue to sit there until morning-, rubbed his face with his hand like in a dream, before covering his mouth with his hand, breathing in once before ceasing to breathe for the night.

"Fuck…."

(Another one came through the next night. He got the same cold breath that shocked him head to toe. He prayed Put a lock on it, please put a lock on it, a door, something.)

Friday didn't feel any different for Danny; he still was running on fruitless hours of sleep that seemed to drain him more than refuel him. He had sat for most of the night before trying to change forms, but only managed once and he couldn't figure out how to change back. When, eventually, his body reverted for him, he noticed something he'd never noticed before. There was a chill that not only accompanied the rings of light that traveled up and down his body, but there was a cool tingling in his skull between his eyes. Not believing he'd never felt that before, Danny spent over an hour focusing on that spot behind the bridge of his nose with no results. Eventually, he admitted that he was finally crazy and attempted to get some sleep.

When he arrived at school in the morning, already irritable and dragging his feet from exhaustion, he was greeted with the lovely sight of a very large double-sided protest. There was all sorts of yelling that was endorsed by Casper High, judging by the goady logo on cheap megaphones carried by every person with half a brain. Danny couldn't understand it, public school; half the time the school was telling them to be quiet, be seen and not heard. Like telling teenagers not to do something was ever a good idea, but maybe they knew that, and that's why they supported educational protests on school grounds?

What was so educational about eating a straight-meat diet vs. straight veganism argument, Danny didn't know or really care. He was just grateful people were so busy arguing about the stupid thing or laughing about it, they were paying less attention to him. He kept his shoulders shrunk down and tried to go around the crowd unnoticed. He got halfway around the horde to the front doors before his super-hearing unwillingly locked onto Dash and his buddy Kwan near the bike racks. "Looks like loser Foley and Manson are at it again!"

A flashback took him back to the beginning of the week, a light argument he had zoned out due to his prioritising of importance (focusing on his new ghost powers versus a debate over diet held no contest on Monday). Sam and Tucker both getting increasingly heated over stupid topics were something he learned about them quite early on, but this protest had taken it to a new tier. It wasn't stupid or trivial anymore; this was organized. He was already conditioned to it; his parents debated about stupid shit all the time (the Santa thing had destroyed his childhood), but there was two negative things to being the third party. Him, being an outcast would draw more attention to himself and worse, they would expect him to pick a side.

Oh shit.

Danny spent most of his classes sketching designs for a portal door and drawing electrical schematics that he hoped would spread out enough that it could be powered by the excess energy from the portal. That way, even if there was a black out or something, the door could still be powered and functioning. It was in his second class, head bent over his drawings with an arm protectively curled around it that a blast of his cool breath chilling his face caused him to shoot up. The teacher stopped talking at his jump and raised an eyebrow. Of course it was Mr. Lancer, the only one who would bring attention to something pointless like that. "Something to add, Mr. Fenton?"

"Uh, no sir, may I go to the bathroom?"

"Yes, could you leave your bag- Oh, Dorian Gray!"

(Danny was out the door by "leave").

He spent the rest of the period until lunch in the bathroom, head between his knees and trying not to panic. Sure, if his ghost sense (that's what he was calling the breath mist he couldn't stop) went off at every little ecto-blob that came through the portal, he shouldn't be freaking out. But, at nine AM his parents were most definitely asleep and whether they put an alarm on the portal was a shot in the dark. Most likely they did, but they also did put an ON/OFF switch inside their portal that they left out of all the blueprints and forgot about. Danny was going to be sick, anxiety swirling in his gut. The bell for lunch made him jump another foot off the toilet and he floated there until he could coax his body to remember gravity. He rushed to find Sam and Tucker, who were already beneath their tree outside.

"Jeez, you look like you've seen a ghost!" Tucker laughed, Sam punching his arm for Danny. Danny couldn't help it, he gave out a light punch in the same spot. He was too close to the mark for Danny's liking. Tucker yelped and rubbed his arm with fervor. Okay, maybe it wasn't that light. "Sorry, Tuck."

Danny sighed before slumping down onto the table once he took a seat. "Sooo I've got this "new" ghost ability where I breath this cold mist and it lets me know when another ghost is nearby."

Sam immediately punched his arm too, "Ow!"

"What do you mean "new"? Why are you saying it like that? Neeeew? How long have you known about it?"

"Uh, one or two days?"

She punched him again, "Two! Jeez, they were non-sentient ecto-blobs! But it just happened again, and I have no idea!"

Sam and Tucker looked at eachother then at Danny, "Should we ditch?"

He stared up at them through his bangs, effectively pulling off the sad puppy look. "What if it's just an ecto-blob? Or did my parents intercept it? How do we explain why were there? Or if it's already floating around town? Or-"

"Or we just get out of here and go for a walk and chill?" Tucker interjected, "I'm kinda feeling a Nasty and you look like you need a milkshake."

Danny's uncontrollable laughter was answer enough.

Tucker ate his food from his greasy brown paper bag despite both their protests, but as soon as Danny mentioned the park near his house he stuffed it all back in and dragged them outside. Sam looked at him in bewilderment at first, but then kept poking him and giving him a knowing smile the whole walk there. It made Danny forget the whole reason he was freaking out in the first place for. The park was so big, and on the cusp of the city. It borderlined natural pastures and woodland, which made it a good escape from the city life, and more importantly prying eyes. They followed a distinct animal path into the woods, then took a left of the track until they found an empty clearing. Danny always kept a compass in his pockets (and an odd assortment of other weird crap he probably didn't need), so he wasn't worried about getting lost. Tucker finished Danny's milkshake as he focused on his powers, eyes closed.

"OK, now!" he said, opening them sharply. They flashed a bright neon green for only a moment before fading back to blue. Other than that, nothing.

He sighed and slumped onto the log that they were sitting on. "Man, I totally thought I had something with that brain-freeze thing."

Sam tapped her chin, "Well, what do you know about ghost biology? Maybe it's more of a body thing than a spiritual thing."

"What, like I push my belly-button and change into a dead guy?"

She slapped his arm, "No, like maybe you're thinking too much with your human brain and not enough with the other one."

"I thought we weren't supposed to think with that one," Tucker chimes in.

"Not helpful over there. I mean your ghost brain."

"Ghosts don't have brains. Not until me, I guess. We've used X-Ray equipment on them, they don't even have bones."

"Well, that's not kinda fucked."

"That's why my parents don't believe they're sentient beings. They see them as highly intelligent jelly-fish, which is just so dumb I dont know where to start. Contradicting, for one, but you can't really convince them otherwise that ghosts aren't just a mass of high-functioning energy around a powerful source."

Tucker leaned forward at this, eyebrows furrowed. "But what's the energy source?"

Danny shrugged, "Their soul? I don't know. Hypothesis is that not all ghosts were once human. The ecto-blobs are just congealed excess ectoplasm, created by the emission from other ghosts. Their ecto-blasts or whatever other powers. The other ones, with cores, used to be human and this is what differs them, really. They don't know what the core is, they've never caught one and been able to find out."

They were all quiet for a minute before Sam spoke up, "Is that why you won't tell them?"

Danny gave a bitter laugh, "What? Me, afraid of being dissected by my own parents, in which scenarios include them not even knowing or believing it's me? No."

His sarcastic drawl would have earned him a bump from one of them if he didn't lean forward and bury his head in his hands.

"Hey man, it won't go that way," Tucker said.

"Who knows what would happen? They dissect everything they get, I've been listening to it."

"We'll tell them what happened if it ever comes to that. Now c'mon, what about this core thing? Where is it?"

Danny leaned back blowing a big breath, exasperated, "I don't know, they seem to have concentrated radiation in their centre, it's what powers the ectoplasm and-" He had unknowingly touched his sternum with his hand, and as soon as he started picturing a glowing orb-shaped powerhub in his chest he could almost feel it. A chill took over his body, two rings phasing over him in either direction as he changed into the ghost he saw all those nights ago in a dream. Sam and Tucker already knew well enough to avert and close their eyes as soon as they recognized the hair-standing pull of Danny's powers.

"Oh, well that seems to be something." Danny said, casually floating about two inches off the log.

"Danny, you did it! Can you change back again?"

He pictured it again, his core which was becoming more and more apparent as a full chill next to his sluggishly beating heart. It was becoming as prevalent as the fact that he may have had half of the regular BPM, impossible to ignore when it's thudding in his ears. The chill flared and he transformed again.

Danny had the biggest grin on his face as he looked at them both, excited and proud that they'd finally figured it out. "You guys did it, oh my god, cores of course-

His smile only got bigger as a laugh bubbled up his throat as they both tackled him to the ground in a hug.