Danny could not sleep.
He had spent so long these past… Days? Weeks? Months? With all his sleeping, and then the rain, it was hard for him to tell how long had passed, but he'd spent most of it asleep.
But now he was awake, and had been for more than a day, and he itched with it. His skin felt like it would crawl off his body, and at the same time far too tight.
He wanted to move. He wanted do things. He… was barely strong enough to walk all the way around his castle. Walk, not fly. His powers were choppy and exhausting, but not in a way that let him sleep.
The last time he slept was shortly after he and Danny had fished Vlad out of his descent into alcoholism and banned him from having more than one cup of wine every twelve hours. He'd spent a lot of time out in the rain after that, and he wondered if he could still catch colds. Maybe that's what this was. Maybe what he needed was a doctor.
It wasn't like he'd be able to trust any of the doctors he knew.
So, instead, he paced until his legs gave out, then laid on his bed, staring blankly at the false stars set in his ceiling.
His bed. His ceiling. He hated that he thought of them that way, because they weren't.
When he was home, in his real home, in Amity Park, when he felt like this, when the nights were too long, and empty, and quiet for him to wrap his head around them, he would go flying, go stargazing, but that was impossible here.
No stars.
He ached for them.
Then, incensed and frustrated, he threw himself off the bed again.
"Aren't you going to do something?" he snapped.
The question was mostly directed at Clockwork, but it was Fright Knight who answered. "What would you have of me, my liege?"
"I don't know," said Danny. He twisted his fingers in the hem of his shirt, which was precisely the texture and thickness he liked. Everything was too nice, here. Nice and hollow and empty and wrong and good intentioned but suffocating. He wanted to break things. The most he could do was break himself.
"Would you like me to summon your cousin?" asked Fright Knight, hopefully. "She seems to give you comfort."
"No," Danny half-growled. "She's- No." Ellie had her own problems, problems indirectly caused by him and his stupid coronation, and he was terrible company right now, anyway. He wasn't going to be selfish on top of everything else.
"You will figure this out, Daniel," said Clockwork, quiet but sincere.
"Figure what out? As far as you care, everything is going just fine. Everything is the way it was meant to be. Isn't that what you always say?"
"I care that you are in distress," said Clockwork.
"Because that messes everything else up? Because I'm such an inconvenience?"
"No," said Clockwork, voice still even, still patient. "Because I care about you."
Danny sniffed, dangerously close to tears. "Then why don't you stop standing there and actually give me something that will help? Why don't you- Why don't you just stop with the whole mysterious, all knowing, act, and actually help me for once?"
"Daniel," said Clockwork, reaching for him.
"No!" snapped Danny.
Clockwork lowered his hands.
"I just want to sleep."
"There is Nocturne," said Clockwork, folding his hands together, then fidgeting with one of his watches.
Danny shivered, the permanent cold he carried with him these days sharpening. "He's the one who-" He made a short, violent gesture. "He's the one who put me to sleep, so the rest of you could-"
"Yes," said Clockwork. "He was."
Anger flashed through him like distant lightning, stinging his overdry eyes. Outside the palace, thunder boomed.
"Maybe," said Danny, "you should have just made me sleep forever." At least then, he wouldn't be subjecting the entire Ghost Zone to his stupid mood swings. It was bad enough when he had Vortex's power.
Worry and hurt flickered over Clockwork's face before it fell back into something impassive. Good. Clockwork didn't have the right to feel bad about this.
Danny ran a hand through his hair. He was becoming erratic.
"Regret making a half ghost king yet? Maybe if you picked someone who actually wanted this, they wouldn't have to sleep."
"My liege?" said Fright Knight. "I can go fetch Nocturne. I know where he is hiding. If that is your desire."
Danny didn't know what he wanted. He hated this. He didn't want this. He dropped onto the bed again, worn out and still itching to act. Was Amity Park alright without him? Without ghosts? What had happened to the human crime rate? Were there murders again? Were they safe?
"Do whatever you want," said Danny, waving vaguely at Fright Knight. "I don't care." He rolled over to lie face down on the bed. The false stars were too depressing.
The bed sank slightly as Clockwork also settled on it. "I may not be able to help you sleep," said Clockwork, "but there are other things I can do for you. If you need food, or would like to go elsewhere in the palace, or would like Danielle or Vladimir…"
Danny shook his head. He was quite alright stewing in his own misery on his own. He hardly even wanted Clockwork there, except he did.
"Very well. If you change your mind, I am here."
.
"Hey!" shouted Ellie. "Where are you going?" She flew up next to Fright Knight.
"His majesty has commanded us to find a way to help him sleep."
"Commanded you, huh?"
From the way Fright Knight's body twisted, Ellie concluded that wasn't quite how things happened.
"You can, of course, accompany me, your highness," said Fright Knight.
Ellie thought about it. Traveling was her thing. On the other hand, she felt that leaving Vlad and Danny alone with their emotions was bad… not that she'd been hanging out with them just now. They were just so… sad. It wasn't like Ellie didn't get it. It wasn't like she wasn't sad about not being able to see Earth anymore. But…
But she didn't have ties to it. Not like Danny did, with his friends and family. Not even like Vlad did, with his businesses. She was a free spirit.
And staying here all the time was starting to make her feel restless. Wrong. Like a round peg squished into a square hole.
"Yeah," said Ellie. "I think I will."
.
"Hey," said Ellie, after about a quarter hour. "Exactly what are you looking for again? I sort of doubt there's a pharmacy or whatever out here."
"Anything the human world has, we have here," said the Fright Knight. "Only better."
"And sparser," countered Ellie, waving at their slightly-drizzly surroundings.
"Oi! Phantom!" There was a sound like an engine trying to rev and some rather creative swearing that Ellie decided to commit to memory. "Hey! I'm talking to you, nerd!"
"I'll take care of this, your highness," said Fright Knight, interposing himself between Ellie and the biker punk ghost flying towards them.
"I can take care of myself," said Ellie, avoiding his 'protection.' "I've beaten Danny before, you know."
The biker ghost came up short. "You aren't Phantom," he said, accusingly. "What are you, a fangirl?"
"Excuse you, I'm his cousin."
"Your highness, this is no time to comport with ruffians-"
"Wait! Wait, don't go. I need his help. If you can just tell 'im. It's… Everything's gone all weird, and people are saying there's a new king, and all the portals are closed. And I don't really care about that, there's enough road to ride on here, when it's not raining hard enough to flood my engines, but Kitty- Something happened to her because of his parents' stupid portal, and now with all the portals gone, it's really screwed her up."
Ellie shrugged, uncomfortable. "I don't really know anything about that. But Danny's back in the castle-"
"Palace," corrected Fright Knight. "Castles are fortified dwellings, palaces are not."
"If you think Danny's place doesn't have defenses, you don't know Danny very well," said Ellie. "Anyway, I don't know anything about portals except how to find them. I don't know if Danny knows anything more than that, but Clockwork's back there, too, so…" She shrugged. "But Danny's also got a bit of insomnia, so I don't know how helpful he'll be?"
"Brat's always got insomnia," said the ghost. "Thanks, mini Phantom."
"Don't call her highness-!"
The ghost zoomed away, a dark shadow following close behind.
"Oh, dear," said Fright Knight. "One must hope that his majesty does not take too much offense to that knave."
"Come on, it's Danny. You're talking like you expect Danny to end him or something."
Fright Knight's silence spoke volumes.
.
Danny usually avoided the throne room. He hated it there. Hated the reminder. There was no reason for him to be in there, anyway. It wasn't like he was passing down decrees or holding audiences or anything, and it didn't seem like he ever would.
All of his allies were avoiding him, and it wasn't like his enemies would seek him out. Besides, the Realms had gotten along just fine with Pariah Dark imprisoned, as far as he could tell. They didn't need him. Not really. Not beyond the role he was playing as Fisher King.
He leaned against the door of the throne room and keened lightly. Somehow, staring at the place he had been bound, he felt both useless and used.
Clockwork hovered behind him.
A pair of shades, thralls, approached them, and Danny tensed. They were only extensions of his will, but they made him uneasy. They were a symbol of what had changed.
Not that what had changed really needed a symbol, because everything had changed, but somehow, they were much more…
There.
"An audience has been requested," they said.
The last time an audience had been requested, it was Vlad and Ellie.
"Who?" asked Danny.
"Johnny Thirteen."
Danny blinked. Johnny wouldn't have been one of the ones to bind him. He wasn't a leader, an Ancient, or other power. He wasn't one of Danny's supposed allies. He'd been a pretty lukewarm enemy, even, him and Kitty.
They'd even helped each other a few times.
"I'm not in the mood to fight him," grumbled Danny. The shades didn't move. "Let him in, I guess." He glared at the throne. "In the garden," he decided. He wasn't ready for the throne, and even if he was, Johnny wasn't the type to be impressed. "Can you take me there?" he asked Clockwork, mulishly.
"Of course," said Clockwork.
.
"I don't understand," said Danny. "What, exactly, happened to Kitty?"
"I don't know, man. One moment, we're hanging out lifeside, the next, we're getting pulled back and then Kitty gets that static thing going on, like when she was caught in the portal that one time. I got her stuff." He pulled a ring and scarf out of his jacket pockets. "They've got her essence in them, kinda? But I can't get her."
Danny chewed his lower lip. "That sounds… bad." At the same time, the fact that other people were harmed by this brought a perverse sense of comfort to his heart.
"You think?" snapped Johnny. "Look, it's your parents' messed up portal that did this to her, so you've got to fix it."
"I was going to try, anyway," said Danny, evenly. "Clockwork, do you know what's happening."
"Part of her was trapped between worlds, in the universal membrane of the Ghost Zone," said Clockwork. "It's anchoring her there."
"Can you fix it?"
"No," said Clockwork. "But you can."
Danny frowned. "Real information," he reminded Clockwork, snappishly.
"You are king and core," said Clockwork. "You can declare your own borders."
"That wasn't just some nonsense people were saying, then?" asked Johnny. "That's really you being king?"
"I guess," said Danny. "Also, that isn't helpful Clockwork. How do I do that?"
"I do not know," said Clockwork. "I have never been king."
"Maybe you should have volunteered," snapped Danny. He shook himself, fingers curling around the edge of the bench. The buds of the flowers surrounding them, already tightly furled, drew back.
'He could control his borders,' whatever that meant. It wasn't a lot to go on. Hardly anything at all.
He shut his eyes and felt inside himself, like he usually would when trying to reach for a new or difficult ghost power. Then, slowly, he edged outward, feeling for the limits of his awareness.
Outward.
And outward.
And farther still, farther than he'd ever gotten before. And-
There.
He pushed gently. The border shifted, enough for what was in it to fall out unharmed.
Slowly, he came back to himself, and the sight of Johnny and Kitty hugging each other, eyes streaming with tears that floated up, away from the garden. Something inside of him, something he didn't even realize had been tightened like a vise, loosened. His shoulders slumped.
"Thanks, man," said Johnny. "I really didn't know what to do. I owe you one."
Danny opened his mouth to tell him there wasn't anything Johnny had to do. But…
"Actually, if you could tell people I'm not going to instantly kill them if they look at me, that would be nice." How he knew that was what a lot, maybe even most, of people thought… Danny wasn't going to think too hard about that right now.
"Sure," said Kitty. "That's easy enough."
Johnny and Kitty left shortly after that. Danny rubbed his eyes and leaned backwards into Clockwork.
"I want to go to bed," he said.
.
Bonus:
"You're lost, aren't you?" asked Ellie, unimpressed.
"I am not lost, your highness," said Fright Knight, strained. "It's just that this island wasn't here before."
"Sure."
"It's true!"
"I believe you."
Fright Knight hissed under his breath and muttered, "I don't believe you."
"Sounds like a you problem. Just like being lost."