chapter summary:

change is natural; summer leaves fall to become winter, a caterpillar makes it's cocoon to become a beautiful butterfly, and a wardrobe change is a sign that someone needs to do their laundry. yes, change is natural but always necessary. so why must you fix what isn't broken?

why?

WARNINGS!: unintentional misgendering, the teens have trauma-bonded carl , ptsd? adding this as a just in case, also I'm delving into the effects of how a full body electrocution works but I don't think I'm doing it right

meh

[second verse, same as the first: 2/3]

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Danny appeared to be far healthier than anyone electrocuted had any right to be.

There were studies that said that electrical burns were responsible for high mortality and disability rates. Granted, some of those people were put in electric chairs and Tucker's research couldn't possibly account for the ectoplasm that had been pumped into his friend's body like a cheap defibrillator. He's stopped trembling, Tucker noticed. Danny had exploded into full-blown body spasms that would wrack his body nearly three times a day. That didn't appear to be the case after four days; a hand, a leg, or even the micro-expression on his face, it would tremble and twitch before relaxing. Tucker can't imagine the pain he must be going through.

The pain that YOU put him through.

Tucker gulped. His best friend was fine. Maybe he came out a little charbroiled, a little twitchier, but frankly Tucker would take that over the alternative. 'A little toasted' would have been perfect for the situation except Tucker knew his friend wouldn't appreciate the joke and the idea of joking about his- his- the idea of joking about what happened left a sour taste in his mouth.

"We can't do anything", Samantha 'Call me Sam, or risk your basic motor functions' Manson said. "He has to ride them out himself," she said. They had watched as the undead teen curled in on himself under the covers of his bed, trembling under the duress of aftershocks. "All we can do is wait." Wait. Tucker has been waiting in what feels like forever now, and it was clear as day that Danny was not okay. He didn't understand how Sam could sound so callous over the situation.

Today's the first day of school they were only reviewing previous knowledge and what was expected of them to learn this year. It wasn't so bad, he thinks. Tucker could almost pretend nothing had happened. Algebra was pretty fun in his opinion, but only because he got to share it with Danny. Danny had once explained to him that the combination of numbers and letters made his head swim. Still, with his help, Danny was able to get a passing grade to graduate middle school. So Tucker can't help but wonder where this came from.

"Danny?" the teen whispered, nudging his friend's elbow with his mechanical pencil. It was the teal one because Danny 'borrowed' his red one and never gave it back. Jerk. Danny grunted in response, still scribbling away into his composition notebook while Tucker eyed the other teen's notes. He elected not to comment on the barely legible chicken scratch or the way his hand would occasionally jerk at times. It was only polite not to. "I thought you were bad at math?"

The scribbling stopped.

In front of them the strident clack, clack, clack of the teacher's keyboard served as background noise alongside the soft susurrous of their classmates despite having been warned against socialization. It was the first day of school, who was going to care? Tucker would have liked to take the opportunity to gossip and mingle, catch up with the latest trends and hit up a few girls, but there was something a little more important than that at the moment. He could worry about who was dating who and what happened over the summer later.

"I guess my brain finally got the wake up call it needed. Electrocution sure can do wonders, huh?" Tucker flinched, hunching in on himself. The knot in his chest returned twofold, overtaking him, threatening to choke him from the inside out. The memory of The Incident slammed to the forefront of his mind as blood roared in his ears. He felt as though he were underwater.

(And it was an incident, not an accident, the distinction there was very very important to take note of. Sam had all but pushed Danny into the portal - practically divesting him of any chances of a normal life. And what did Tucker do? Nothing. He did nothing but watch as the goth murdered his best friend. And the look on her face afterwards... That look in her eyes would never leave him.)

Tucker remembered the screaming mostly. The agony tearing through Danny and the sound haunted his dreams. He remembered the smell of burnt flesh. How just the scent of it made his stomach churn. His mother's cooking had never before made him so queasy. Yet here was Danny acting so blasé about his death, or maybe it wasn't an act, maybe he doesn't remember. The teen remembered-

His hair shone brightly in the darkness of the lab, that was the first thing that came to Tucker's mind. An incandescent beacon with its locks wafting through the air to an unknown wind. Danny's skin darkened and burnt, with glittering cracks on his charred skin making their way beneath the suit. The Fenton-Grade jumpsuit clung to him desperately like a second skin, practically fused to him.

His eyes. Oh his eyes. They snapped open, swirling the most violent shade of purple he's never seen.

They froze Tucker in place. Even the pupils glowed, the fight or flight instinct ingrained into every living being told him. A meager dot of acid green, a rather prominent contrast to the iris. Tucker's instincts continued screaming at him to run, leave, this is not a place of honor. The more logical side to him reminded him that running in the face of a predator was a very, very bad idea; if he wanted to avoid becoming prey he should definitely, absolutely, not run. He didn't dare breathe. He didn't dare make any sound. Lichtenberg scars were thin filament-like things in Tucker's opinion, like cracks on glass or ice fractals, and they made his best friend look so much smaller yet intimidating than he was before. They were pulled taught as Danny spasmed and heaved before uttering chilling words in a hoarse voice,

"Where's my heartbeat?"

-things he couldn't bear to think about. Was it his fault? If Tucker was just a little braver, a little bolder, could his friend have avoided his fate?

"I'm not angry at you."

"What."

Tucker's thoughts ground to halt. The teacher continued clicking away at her keyboard with all the focus of someone's life on the life. Or their next paycheck. The class chattered nonsensically about topics Tucker couldn't even begin to wrap his head around at the moment because he was suddenly struck by the absurdity of the moment. Tucker had basically committed manslaughter and his friend - or what was possibly the departed soul of his friend - wasn't demanding retribution?

Danny continued scribbling away, completely apathetic to the emotional turmoil his friend was going through.

"I said I'm not angry. I'm just as guilty, you know? If I hadn't let myself get talked into it, none of us would have been down there in the first place.", Danny explained in a lax tone Tucker doesn't recognize.

He never even looked up once from his notebook, leaving Tucker floundering for some sort of foothold in the conversation. Was this a good or a bad sign? Is this one of those 'say one thing, mean another' kind of situations? No, wait, that was for girls. What the heck was going on?

"So don't beat yourself up over it. Honestly, I'm more surprised none of my parents' inventions has yet to put me in the hospital." He said with a chuckle.

You killed him.

Tucker's eyes began to burn behind his glasses. His breath hitched. "I'ms'rry", he mumbled under his breath. The guilt loosened its hold over him but now a flush spread over his body from head to toe. The roaring had abated but now his heart had begun to pump faster and faster with each second. (Danny's heart beats all wrong.) Somehow, the shame was worse than the guilt.

Tucker knows now. He knows he could've stopped it.

If only Sam hadn't been so pushy. If only Tucker had protested even a little. If only, if only, if only.

You killed him.

The scritch, scritch, scritch of graphite against paper stopped. It's silence spoke louder and its words weighed heavier than before. Something definitely different. It's in the furrow of his friend's brow, how the smattering of freckles followed the creasing skin, the flaring of his small nose and the tensing of his jaw. The following silence reels in the awful memory of The Incident with too much clarity yet Tucker stubbornly persisted.

You killed him.

"I- Danny, you know that I - we never meant for that to happen. You said it yourself - We didn't even think it would work!", he stumbled his way through, unsure of how to properly convey his feelings without sounding like a- like a- "So I'm - I'm sorry. I'm really, really, really sorry for what happened to you." I'm sorry for not doing more. Tucker swallowed the pool of saliva that had gathered. He felt gross. They've been freshmen for only just a couple of hours and he just dumped all his emotional baggage onto his undead friend who was worse off than him.

This was wrong. This was all wrong.

Tucker shouldn't even be here, behaving like everything was okay after having a hand in his friend's death. He was a murderer, an accomplice, a criminal. He should be in a juvie imprisoned for his crimes. Tucker should be anywhere but here.

His skin continued to burn hotly.

Tucker is unfamiliar with the expression on his friend's face. It's… it's not one he thinks he's ever seen before, but when finally Danny deigns to look at him, Tucker immediately retracts a former statement. It was very much a good thing that Danny never looked at him before because-

Because-

Their face having smoothed out, swirling around Danny's pupil was a thin ring of radioactive green that appeared to be simmering. It occasionally bled out into the blue like a corona flare.

"Danny?"

It burned brilliantly and acid-like only to flicker out. It was soon subsumed by an unnatural shade of purple. Tucker is familiar with purple eyes. He had slowly accustomed himself to Sam's washed out lavender, and Mrs. Fenton's particularly deep shade of violet had become a common sight over the years. This purple, however, orbited Danny's pupils and glowed a rich, almost electric, hue that made Tucker feel like a bug laid prostrate before a microscope, preparing to be put on display. It made his neck itch. It made all the hairs on his body stand. It made him feel small before Danny. (It made him a terrible friend.)

"I'm so, so sorry. For everything."

("-see somehing?" "Everything. I saw-)

"...Thank you." Danny's eyes shuttered to a close, finally taking his uncomfortable gaze away with him.

Tucker swears he's going to break his neck after all the emotional whiplashing from today. He tugged at the collar of his polo shirt to cool himself off. The teen still felt too hot.

"You're the first one to apologize, so thank you." Danny said. Tucker couldn't help but heave a sigh of relief at that. For all that Danny didn't change too much outwardly, there was no denying that something inside of Danny changed on a fundamental level. He'd ask but... He wasn't really sure if he wanted to know. (Did he deserve to know?) The weight in the air finally began to lighten and Tucker could slowly feel himself cooling down. The silence that followed felt too charged, to heavy and uncomfortable and the teen just couldn't help himself.

"Sooo... We're cool?", Tucker cringed at the crack in his voice. Danny just grinned back all soft and crookedly, a smile full of teeth that looked ill-fitted for his mouth.

"The coolest."

The bell rang, signifying the end of class. Tucker only caught a glimpse of his notebook before closing it. Half of the equations had been left unfinished.

Murderer.

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There were people out there that liked to say that death had a way of putting things in perspective. Ann would like to say that she didn't wholeheartedly agree with that statement. She is familiar with the loss of a loved one, intimately and through second-hand, but she couldn't allow these things to weigh her down. Not when there was still so much to be done.

That was Before.

Now that she has personally experienced death herself, well, Ann doesn't think she's changed all that much. Her body may not have beens hers but she was still the same woman who slashed someone's spare tire in a fit of pettiness. The same cannot be said for everyone else. Ann also knows this. Ann knows that some people don't share her views and she respects that. That doesn't stop her from feeling surprise when Tucker apologizes.

It was... unexpected. Not unwanted though. It was... nice?

Learning of the boy's guilt, listening to his clumsy apologies, it filled Ann with an undeserved peace. But it also filled her with a quiet grief. Because although Ann wasn't Danny, Danny was still very much a part of her. It filled her with a sadness to know that his friend's apology came a little too late, that the friend he thought he'd confessed his guilt to had been replaced by a grave robber. Yet the peace never went away.

Ann doesn't have an eidetic memory of the cartoon so she wouldn't remember if Danny's friends had ever apologized upfront, but it was... admittedly nice to hear it firsthand. Good kid, Ann mused. Danny has a good friend, and he's lucky to have them.

Now Ann has them and just what was she expected to do with them? Did she even want them to be part of her life? Tucker was well-meaning which was better than outright insensitive, she hasn't had a full, and most importantly coherent, conversation with Sam to get a feel of her, and Danny's family was... odd. Something about the Fenton parents left her feeling uncomfortable in their presence but she couldn't quite put a finger on it.

Ann wasn't quite ready to welcome new people into her life.

She already had a nice and loving family, despite the lifetime of separation. Danny's peers were a little too young for her but it wasn't as if Ann was the pinnacle of maturity herself. Hmmm... Would they even want to be involved in her life? She wasn't who they expected her to be so who could say if they accepted her should they learn the truth.

No. Perhaps it was best to keep them at an arm's-length for now. It's in her best interest to focus on herself and the future dangers headed her way. There were other important matters to attend to at the moment.

Back in Before, when Ann was still young and obedient, she found school to be a chore. It had been bleak, monotonous, and overall unbearable. College certainly hadn't done her anxiety any favors until Ann found herself with the sudden realization she couldn't live like that anymore.

Nowadays, the thought of school fills Ann with nostalgia, ambivalence, and an eagerness, she hadn't known she could still feel.

That wasn't her dying-twice-over speaking. Ann had wanted for some time now to return to her studies, she was just unable due to her... extenuating circumstances. And no, it wasn't quarantine although that probably didn't help either. Her opinion on Casper seemed thus far; overall nice, if it weren't for the miniscule detail that Ann nitpicked like a scab.

Oh, she could handle a couple child bullies. They were children after all. Ann could even put up with some of the more irresponsible members of the staff. Not to mention, schoolwork was of little concern to her. Provided she didn't stick her nose where it doesn't belong, Ann's next four years at Casper should be a breeze. 'Should' is the key word here. No plan survives first contact.

So what did Ann do about this?

She inspected the locker before her; the metal door desperately clung to its unoiled hinges, covered in so much rust she's surprised no one's caught tinnitus by inhaling in its vicinity, and going off the shape of those dents...

Locker 724 was just a sneeze away from collapsing like a house of cards.

Ann welcomed her free period, allowing her the chance to explore the school. Nothing really seemed to stand out of place. She counted the anti-bullying posters plastered around the corners - so far the record was 7, inspected the dicks graffiti'd onto the bathroom stalls, and familiarized herself with the general layout of the establishment. The entire experience was underwhelming which was a stupid thing to feel as she was trying to avoid trouble in the first place. But now, standing in the middle of an empty hallway under fluorescent lighting, the cold bite of frost clawed its way out of Ann's lungs and made itself at home on her tongue.

Ann stole a quick breath, before exhaling. Nothing. No chill, no mist, no nothing. The ice still sat contentedly within her mouth, not budging an inch.

There are no ghosts in Casper, Ann realized.

It wasn't like outside where you nearly collided - or walked through - into another every three steps, no the halls were empty of any roaming phantasms. Not even those little wisps of green swimming around were to be found. She wondered if this was the reason why.

A soft humming in the back of her mind began to rise in volume; a buzz. Raising a scarred hand towards the locker warped the sound. Sharp as needles, it hissed and dug its way into the back of her head. Slowly. Carefully. Her hand began to blur out of focus around the edges and fuzzed like a low-quality video. The sensations of ants crawling out from beneath her fingernails, spreading onto the rest of her hand, past her wrist, past her elbow-

Her hand shook. The green flannel shirt she found in the depths of Danny's closet fell to the floor with a flop.

That was fine.

Better than fine actually.

Her pants didn't fall down which in of itself is an achievement. Neither did she fall through the floor like last time.

Progress.

It wasn't a power she thinks she'll ever get used to. Whether that was due to her unfamiliarity with it or because she had nerve endings were questions for another day.

Ann quickly reached into the locker before she began to phase off the rest of her outfit. It would have been so much easier to rip the door off its hinges but that was too noticeable. It could draw all sorts of unwanted attention. A lifetime ago it would have been child's play to dismantle the lock and crack this thing open. That wasn't who she was anymore. She was trying to move past that.

Besides, she wanted to put some of these new abilities to use.

(Every second-minute-hour spent in solitude was put to use, every ounce of her being dedicated into replaying important details of the show in her mind. Old instincts blared from the back of her mind, warning her to run, run, run but where would she even to? Even if Ann ran there were doubts that she would get very far. And Ann... was tired. She was so very tired of that. So if Ann's second chance involved these powers then it would be in her best interests to learn all their bells and whistles.)

Maybe she should feel guilty. This was technically considered stealing. Ann extended her hand deeper and deeper, searching for-

"Eeep!" What the fuck!? That hurt!

She hissed, inspecting her hand for damage but found no signs of it.

First of all, ow. And second of all, what. The everloving fuck. Was that? Eyeing the locker she warily phased her hand through the rusted metal again and prepared herself for another assault.

Nothing happened.

No, what happened instead was that she had found her prize. She carefully inspected the item in her hands, flipping it over, tilting it side to side, before staring into the reflection of a (un)familiar face. Maybe what she was doing was wrong, but... How exactly is that new? The hissing was gone only for a voice to echo in its place.

"Hello?"

date finished & published: 07/04 & 10/04/2021 • word count: 3,399

note: I don't have a proper shock factor after many years of reading a lot of other people's works so if there is anything that needs to be addressed or tagged please tell me so.

fun fact: had to look up how to spell the word defibrillator.