Disclaimer: No own, no money made.
Author's Note: My second contribution to Ectoberhaunt and also the phandom at large! Hope y'all enjoy.
Moving Out
by Agapostemon
Chapter One: A New House
"It's basically pocket change," said Sam. "I can afford it and my parents won't even notice the money's gone. Just take it."
Putting it kindly, the house was a dump, because even the Mansons weren't rich enough not to notice the disappearance of enough money to buy something actually nice. Nice, Danny was realizing, was a subjective term. Fenton Works was 'nice.' It had expensive, state-of-the-art equipment in every room. The walls had been painted within the last decade. The furniture was comfortable. His parents loved him.
But.
"Just to have a place to crash somewhere," he said. "I haven't even graduated yet. I'm not moving out."
A determined gleam entered Sam's eye. "Then let's do business," she said. She did not bodily drag Danny into the next room, but he thought it was a near thing. She had an envelope of cash in her pocket, Danny learned, and she wasn't going to rest unless they got a property deed with Danny's name on it.
"This place is a dump," said Tucker, when the three of them crept into the old abandoned property. "Also, why are we sneaking around if Danny technically owns the place?" Danny straightened from his half-crouch. He did own the place. Technically. It just had an air that made him feel like a trespasser.
Also, his name was on the deed, but it had been Sam's money. It was just uncomfortable that she'd done the purchasing and the negotiating, but hadn't laid any claim to the property for herself. For the paper trail, she'd insisted, so her parents wouldn't be able to track it back to her. "It's yours too, Tuck," he finally said. "If it's gonna be mine, it's gonna be all of ours."
"Oh no," said Tucker. "I won't have any part of this."
"It's all yours," said Sam, looking around at the dust covered floorboards doubtfully.
"Well," said Danny. "Anything is better than Fenton Works."
He didn't move in right away. Really, he didn't. That had never been the plan. But if he wanted to do homework away from his parents' invention of the week, well, he had a place to go. Who could blame him if all of a sudden he found himself bringing abandoned furniture from the alleyways and painting the walls a soothing ectoplasm green. Before he really registered what he was doing, he had brought over a toothbrush and a few changes of clothes. A first aid kit, too.
Sam, of course, had made sure that the utilities were on and transferred as soon as Danny had signed the paperwork. He started taking showers there once he'd gotten the bathroom into decent working order. Even as he made himself comfortable, the sense that he was trespassing didn't go away. He couldn't even bring himself to sleep there for a solid two months.
"If I didn't know better," said Tucker, when he was visiting one afternoon, "I'd swear this place was haunted. But your ghost sense hasn't been going off, so I guess it's just the vibe."
That's really what it was, Danny realized. It felt like he'd privately thought haunted places must feel, in the days before his accident and his ghost sense. He couldn't get deeper into that discussion with Tucker, though, because representatives from Amity Park Connect had arrived.
"Welcome!" Tucker said, "It's time we get my boy some WiFi. He's been living here for two whole months without Internet, if you can believe it."
Danny squawked in protest. "I have not been living here."
"Two months? This place was really run down last I saw it and I can't imagine the inside was any better than the outside," said one of the internet folks. "If you haven't been living here, I'd like to know where the hell you've found the time to do all this. Place looks great."
"The ectoplasm green was a weird choice," said the other representative. "But Amity Park is Amity Park. No shame in leaning into the town theme."
Tucker looked at Danny triumphantly, and Danny stuck his tongue out at him. So he'd been spending a lot of time there. His parents had been getting on his case about his plans after graduation, and he wanted to get away. Sue him.
When the Amity Park Connect representatives left, Tucker lounged at the hastily set-up computer desk, poking around at Danny's computer settings and putting the internet connection through its paces. He looked relaxed and at-ease, but absorbed enough that Danny wasn't quite expecting him to pick conversation back up.
Tucker did. "You really haven't slept here yet?" He said it in such a light tone that it took Danny a moment to parse that Tucker was being dead serious.
"Nah," said Danny, trying to project as much casualty as he could. "High schoolers aren't supposed to live by themselves, even if they are eighteen."
Danny could tell that Tucker knew he was spewing bullshit. "Danny, this is your main computer," he said. "At some point, you're going to have to accept that you're actively moving into this place. And that's okay. That's why Sam bought it!"
"I'll move in properly as soon as we graduate," said Danny. "We've only got another month, anyway."
"Whatever you say," said Tucker.
Just to prove himself right, Danny didn't even contemplate sleeping at the house for the next week. He wasn't moving in yet. He wasn't.
The following Wednesday, Danny's parents were building something that seemed like especially bad news. They were excited about it, and Danny couldn't blame them for wanting to share the things they loved with the people they loved. He understood, but something about the whole kerfuffle reminded him of a thirst he couldn't quite slake. Tell them, said a voice in his head. You won't have to keep dodging their inventions if you just tell them! It sounded suspiciously like Jazz.
Stomping that thought down as firmly as he could, he went to the new house to do his homework after school. "I'll go home when I'm done," he said to the air.
The homework was doomed, though, when some of the usual suspects made noise in town. By the time Phantom was done cleaning up after them, it was late. "I just like doing the first aid here," he said to the house when he slipped through the door, locked it tight behind him. "No chance of my parents barging in on something I can't explain."
When he was done patching himself up, he was bone weary. "But my homework's still not done," he said aloud, gathering his notebooks and shuffling to somewhere more comfortable. The bed he'd set up in the largest bedroom was more comfortable. "I'll go home when my homework's done."
He cocooned himself in new blankets while he finished the last few equations on his astronomy homework - if there was any class he'd stay up for, it was astronomy. "It's late," he said when he put his school supplies in his backpack. "I should go home."
But he was so tired, and his new bed was just the right temperature against the brisk spring night. A nap wouldn't hurt, he thought. If he napped for an hour, he could still be home before it got too late, and he'd be safer going home if he had a little rest first.
Danny burrowed deeper into his blankets, still in his street clothes, with his backpack on the bed by his feet. He fell asleep.
He woke to the chill of his ghost sense and light streaming in through the window. "Fuck," he said, bolting upright. "What time is it?"
"It's six-thirty," said a small child that sat on the end of the bed. "And now that you've changed up the whole house and even slept here, I want to know if you're staying."
"What?"
"It's six-thirty," the kid said again, looking impatient. "And I need to know if we have to share the haunt! We always chase out the living when they get too settled, but we usually let ghosts stay, if we all get along. But you're not quite either, are you? We don't know what we should be doing about it."
"What?" said Danny again.
"Are all halfas as slow as you?"
"Hey!" But he wasn't more indignant than he was willing to make fun of himself. "Only in the mornings. When woken up right in the middle of a fantastic dream!"
It had been a fantastic dream. Danny grasped for the details - something about perching on the rings of Saturn - but they were slipping from his memory as the little kid crawled up the bed.
It occurred to him that the kid was the ghost that had set him off, and that ghost-child-crawling-up-the-bed-in-a-dilapidated-house was something out of a horror film. Was fear the appropriate response? Danny wasn't sure anymore.
"Is this house your haunt?" he asked.
"Our haunt," said the kid.
"Our haunt," said Danny. "Am I included in that? Or are you talking about others."
"I'm talking about others," said the kid.
"Hey!" said a ghost, phasing in through the hallway wall. "You don't get to casually tell him about the rest of us!"
"Well I thought I should, so there!" The kid blew a raspberry.
"Charlie," said the new ghost, tugging at his long beard. "We didn't even want you coming in here."
Danny scrambled for the edge of the bed, not standing up, just planting his feet on the solid floor. "Do you want me to leave?" An offer to leave them alone, sell the house, find somewhere new, was right at the tip of his tongue. But Danny realized he didn't want to leave. He'd done so much work to make this place his, even as he denied he was doing it.
"Do you want us to leave?" said the kid - Charlie - with a very earnest expression. They had moved to hover in front of Danny, fixing him with large amber eyes.
"Where's your thermos?" The other ghost had crossed his arms. "You usually want ghosts to leave, don't you?"
How ghosts he never met knew exactly who he was when even his parents couldn't tell, Danny did not want to know. He also didn't want to admit that there was a thermos in the backpack that still sat at the foot of the bed. "Only if they cause trouble!" he said. "I'm not trying to force anybody out of their haunts."
He had been, once, in the early days after his accident when he was all fire and no nuance. But that Danny hadn't lasted long.
The old man ghost shot a wry look at the child ghost. And okay, yes, Danny got his point. Children lived to cause trouble. Theoretically, he knew that. "This house hasn't even remotely come up on my radar before," Danny finally said. "I'm not going to displace anybody that isn't hurting anyone, I promise. I just. I need a place to crash. I turned eighteen a few months ago, so legally I'm allowed to strike out on my own and…" he trailed off, realizing that he was about to verbally stampede right into personal territory.
"Is it your parents?" Charlie asked matter-of-factly.
"What?" said Danny. "My parents are fine."
"I think it's his parents," said Charlie in a stage whisper.
Danny was about to leap to their defense - his parents weren't that bad, really - but something in the older ghost's gaze softened. "We'll be watching you," he said. "But I'm willing to try."
He disappeared back through the wall, completely ignoring Danny's shout after him for his name.
"It's Jeb," said Charlie, who hadn't left the room. "He likes to pretend to be all mysterious. You wouldn't believe the hazing he put me through when I first joined the haunt. Something something, kids should be safely tucked away in the Zone, something something. His heart's in the right place though."
"Right," said Danny, still feeling a little dumbstruck.
"And I'm Charlie, by the way. Not sure if you caught that."
"Charlie," said Danny. "Um." He looked around at the room, looked at his backpack, at the sunlight streaming through the window. He'd really slept the whole night through here, hadn't he?
"I'll leave you to it," said Charlie, backing slowly to the hallway wall. "You seem nice."
"Uh," said Danny. "Thanks."
Charlie disappeared, leaving Danny standing there in yesterday's clothes. He wondered if he should go back to his parent's house to change. Home, he thought to himself viciously. Home to change. That was when he remembered the convenient changes of clothes he'd stored in the small dresser.
Danny did want to go home. He even had enough time for it this morning, what with Charlie's early wake-up call. But what if his parents had noticed that he hadn't come home last night? What if they hadn't noticed?
Danny hurriedly dressed himself in the clothes he had available, left yesterday's clothes in a pile on the floor, and went downstairs to the half-restored kitchen for some breakfast before he had time to think too hard about it.
School was uneventful, except for the knowing looks Sam and Tucker shot his way. Danny loved his friends, and he hated them too.
He was out of excuses by the time school finished for the day. Miraculously - or perhaps unfortunately - his ghost fights all seemed to wrap up in a reasonable amount of time, without so much as a scratch he might want privacy to put ointment on.
Danny had homework, of course, and it had become his habit to do his homework at the new house, but. Damnit, I'm not moving in yet, he thought to himself.
As they left through the front doors of the school, Sam asked him, too casually, where he was headed for the afternoon.
"Fenton Works," Danny said decisively. "Home."
"Would you like some company?" Sam's expression was careful.
Now it was Danny's turn to sound a little too casual. "Nah," he said. "It'll be fine."
Danny, Sam, and Tucker had long since devised the route that allowed them all to walk in the general direction of their houses while walking together for as long as possible. If Danny split off a little earlier than he usually did, well. He wasn't going to admit that it was anything more than accidental, no matter what covert glances Sam and Tucker exchanged.
Unsurprisingly, he could hear his parents bustling around in their laboratory from the front door. There was a loud crash. Danny recoiled from the sound, shouted a greeting, and fled up the stairs to his room. He threw his backpack on the bed and flopped face-down next to it. He stayed like that for a long while. This was still his bedroom. Fenton Works was still his home. It was.
Even if his parents apparently didn't even notice he'd been gone.
Right as Danny was trying to get himself started on his homework, Dad broke routine and shouted up the stairs. "Dann-o! Dinner's ready!"
They hadn't had family dinner in at least a week and half. Danny wasn't sure if he should be pleased or worried. "Coming!"
Well, at least the summons had gotten him out of bed. If he didn't lie back down when dinner was over, he had a real shot at doing at least some of his homework. Some was better than none.
He tromped down the stairs as loudly as possible - he was never sure when his parents might be holding something terrible, what they might do if he startled them - but even if he'd crept, it would not have been a problem.
They were sitting at the kitchen table, food already plated out and waiting. It was spaghetti, and it didn't even seem like it was squirming.
"Let's eat," said Mom.
"It looks great, Mads."
"Really," said Danny. "Thank you."
Mom seemed to appreciate that thank you, but there was something guarded in the smile she gave him. Shit.
The tension built through dinner. Mom and Dad talked about their latest invention - it still seemed like terrible news - and asked him about his day. Thank Clockwork for Astronomy, Danny thought, because for the first time in his high school career he had a class he was actually engaged in despite his dumpster fire life. He could give them details! "We were talking about comet trajectory today," he said. "And you both know I'm better at math when I'm applying it to something concrete. It was really nice to see the equations click in place like that."
His parent's smiles suddenly seemed a little more genuine. Success.
It was when the plates were cleared away and a massive tray of fudge brought out that the mood went serious again. "If you hadn't come home after school today, we would have had to file a missing person's report, Danny," said Mom, looking at the piece of fudge she held with her fingertips.
Maybe they had noticed he'd been gone.
"We called the cops this morning," said Dad. "They said to wait and call back if you didn't come home from school today."
Danny frowned. "That sounds irresponsible of them. What if I'd been in trouble?" He winced as soon as the words were out of his mouth.
"Were you?" said Mom, placing her piece of fudge back down.
"No," Danny said. "I wasn't. I just."
The gulf between them, the sheer amount of things he'd have to explain for them to understand where he'd been last night, seemed huge.
"We weren't sure how to approach you about this," said Dad.
Mom leaned her elbows on the table, finally met Danny's eyes. "It seemed like things were getting better. I know astronomy has you feeling reinvigorated about school. But the last few months you've been out more than ever. Where were you last night? Where have you been going?"
Danny panicked. "Sam's," he said. That was almost true, given that it was her money that had bought his house.
His parents exchanged glances. There was a heavy pause. "Are you being safe?" Dad said. Danny wasn't even sure where Dad was going with that, until he saw pink creeping up under his father's collar.
Danny flushed straight from his toes to the tips of his ears. "That's not."
"You don't have to be ashamed of that, son," said Dad, putting on a brave show for someone who was obviously only barely restraining a blush himself.
"You're eighteen," said Mom. "And we remember what it was like to be newly minted adults, in love for the first time. We just need to know where you are, know that you're being careful."
This, Danny realized, was almost the perfect excuse. It was a normal sort of teenage rebellion, something other people his age were doing behind their parents' backs. It was a hurdle his parents would have known was coming, all the way back when they were first expecting Jazz and frantically reading parenting books. This explanation wouldn't hurt them. Not like learning that he was in the process of moving out into a house he technically owned, haunted by the ghosts they were sworn to study and destroy. But for whatever reason, Danny couldn't bring himself to let it stand. He was already going against their whole way of life. He didn't want to lie about it. Keep lying about it.
"I'm sorry. That was a lie. I wasn't at Sam's. I wasn't doing - " he broke eye contact, fixed his attention on the tray of fudge. "That."
Mom stood from her chair, strode toward the kitchen counter in her frustration.
"Then what was it?" said Dad. "You understand that we need to know that you're safe, right? We need to know what your patterns are, so that we can help you if you need it but can't ask for it."
"Need to know I'm safe. Need to know my patterns," said Danny. He couldn't do this anymore. He couldn't. "Do you pay enough attention to know my patterns?"
Both Dad, still seated across from him, and Mom, clutching the kitchen counter, flinched. But Danny couldn't stop himself from continuing. "And I'll tell you what. Just about anywhere is safer for me than this damn house!"
"Danny!" both of his parents said in unison. But Danny was already realizing what, precisely, he'd said. He fled from the table, up to his room, and slammed the door. They followed him up, but with his door locked and his headphones on, Danny was at least able to do his astronomy homework. If his other coursework fell to the wayside, well, that wasn't anything new.
He stayed the night, though, because he'd promised himself he wouldn't properly move out until graduation. He stayed the night and he emerged from his room for breakfast, up early only because he'd hardly slept. It occurred to him that he might actually be ready to talk.
"I'm sorry," Danny said to his parents, who were fussing in the kitchen and clearly pretending they weren't waiting for him. "I promise you I'm being safe. Honestly, being gone this often these days is a good sign."
His parents' faces were stony. "A good sign?" Mom asked, pouring milk into her coffee.
"I don't know that you not wanting to tell us things is a good sign," said Dad. "Even if it's something positive."
That was fair. Hilariously and horrifically out of touch with the reality of their relationship, but fair. Danny pulled a box of cereal out of the cabinet, took the bottle of milk from Mom.
"I'm moving out," Danny said as quickly as he could, ripping off the bandaid.
"What?"
With deliberate slowness, Danny brought his Lucky Charms to the table, sat. "I bought a house two and a half months ago. I've been fixing it up in my spare time. That's where I was the other night."
"What?" said Dad.
"How?" said Mom.
Both of them were unnaturally still, postures tense.
"Look," said Danny. "I've been keeping a lot of secrets from both of you for a long time. I know you know that." Clockwork, his parents looked practically ashamed. Danny couldn't look at their faces anymore, so focused on his breakfast.
Mom took a long drink of her coffee. "We do."
"Is this our fault?" said Dad. "Did we do this?"
Yes, kind of. "Does it have to be anybody's fault?" said Danny. "Falling asleep there was honestly an accident. I just got caught up. I'm not planning to move there entirely until I've graduated - I figured I should have this last bit of high school at home. I liked my childhood here."
"But not enough to want to stay. We thought you'd be attending community college from home!" said Dad. "Two and a half months ago? You bought that house as soon as you turned eighteen!"
Neither of his parents seemed like they knew what to do with that. "How?" Mom said again. "How did you buy a house, Danny? I know you sometimes cover Valerie's shifts at the Nasty Burger, but you don't make that much money!"
"I don't know how to answer that," said Danny, because he genuinely wasn't sure. It was bad enough that he'd bought a house and was in the process of moving out. Surely it would be worse if they thought that one of his closest friends thought it was a dire enough situation to fund it. "Listen. I'll tell you everything you want to know when I'm ready. I promise."
"Can we visit?" said Dad, eyes wide and fragile.
Danny let out a soft breath from between his teeth. "When I move in properly. The week after graduation, even. We both know that's coming up." Danny hesitated, thinking of Charlie and Jeb and the other ghosts they'd hinted at. "But hard no to any ghost weapons."
Mom's hand flew to the gun at her belt. Dad cast a hasty glance toward the lab. "You can't be serious," said Dad.
"This town is practically infested with ghosts," said Mom. "We can't just leave home without our weapons!"
"If you can't cross town without them, drive the GAV. Leave the weapons in it. They're not coming in my door."
"Is this what you meant by not being safe in this house?" said Mom. "Danny, you know perfectly well that our weapons don't target humans."
If neither one of them had noticed that their weapons still targeted him after four years , Danny didn't know what to tell them. "That's not the point," Danny said, because it wasn't. Danny would have let them traipse through his home, weapons and all, if it was just himself at risk. But Charlie and Jeb were all ghost, and they clearly didn't trust him at all. He had to earn that. "But can we drop it? There is literally nothing you could say to make me change my mind on this."
Mom's lips were pursed into a thin line, expression grim. Dad just looked hurt. Clockwork , Danny hated hurting his parents.
He took a last bite of his cereal, brought the bowl to the sink.
When Danny left for school that morning, part of him hoped that his parents would try to stop him from leaving. He hoped that they'd ask their questions again and insist on getting answers. They didn't.
"Have a good day at school, Danny," said Mom as he ducked out the front door.
"Watch out for spooks," said Dad.
That weekend, Jeb interrupted Danny while he was avoiding his homework by sanding the floor in the upstairs hallway. "Are you going to move that pile of clothes you left here a few days ago off the floor?" It was in true ghost fashion: voice somehow both quiet and impossible to miss, despite the rumble of the portable sander.
Danny had not really spent much time in the bedroom he'd designated as his since he'd spent the night in it. He'd completely forgotten about the small laundry pile, even though he'd certainly walked past it. "Uh," he said, switching off the sander. "Sure. I can do that. Do you make a habit of going into my room?"
"Do you make a habit of moving into other ghosts' haunts?" Jeb asked, crossing his arms over his blue plaid shirt.
Danny stood up. "I don't, actually. Usually my ghost sense lets me know when I'm intruding."
Jeb did not look chastened. "A ghost can hide from that, if they want to. If they spin themselves to almost nothing."
"Then you can't hold it over my head that I didn't notice!" Danny was spoiling for a fight with someone he shared a domestic situation with, he realized. His parents weren't a good option, so he was lashing out at Jeb instead. Jeb who hadn't done anything, Jeb who just wanted Danny to pick up his dirty socks. Danny breathed.
"That's fair," Jeb said, clearly attempting to restrain his own temper and taking Danny by surprise. "We were actively hiding from you. I can't blame you for not noticing us."
"The others still are," Danny pointed out. Charlie had made a point to heckle him over the last few days, but nobody else had made their presence known. "Shit. Did my room belong to anyone specific?"
Danny realized that he'd gravitated toward the room he'd chosen (distinctly not the master bedroom) because it had felt the least like he was intruding, but that wasn't a guarantee.
"No," said Jeb, looking shifty. "Most of us haunt the house collectively more than a specific place."
"I'll bring the dirty clothes to my parents' house tonight, okay? And I'll make sure there's a solution for laundry before I move in. Can I get back to sanding?"
"Uh. Sure." Jeb, it occurred to Danny, looked a little awkward. Like he'd gotten himself into this conversation without really knowing where it was going, and now he didn't know what to do next.
Well. Sometimes the best way out was through. Danny gave Jeb a nod, sat back down, and switched on the sander. He could feel Jeb still haunting the room; hovering, watching. Danny ignored him, and continued sanding a century of grime and bad polish off the hardwood. It would look beautiful when he was done with it, he just knew.
He met the rest of the inhabitants of his haunted house one at a time over the next weeks. He met Claire in the kitchen, where she was casually leaning against the counter and inspecting the coffee machine. Rebecca booted up Doom on his computer while Danny was at school one day, and he met her right as she obliterated his top score.
Tim liked to be in the garden. He'd hidden a raised bed of cucumbers from Danny under some sort of ghostly mirage and it seemed to just appear one day. Tim was with it, sitting on the edge and lovingly stroking the leaves. "It'll be a good harvest this year," he said to Danny instead of introducing himself.
There were quite a few blobs, too, that liked to bounce and play under the couch in the living room. "I was hiding them until I knew you wouldn't hurt them," said Charlie, with one snuggled up under their neck. Danny wasn't sure if he should be hurt by that remark. Charlie seemed to notice, added, "I let them out now because I know you won't."
Danny found himself blinking rapidly. "Thanks," he said.
Predictably, Sam was delighted by the whole mess. "We put a half ghost into a haunted house," she said gleefully, elbowing Tucker in the side. "This is the best thing since that time I made seitan from scratch and got flour all over that hideous dress Mom bought me."
"Am I allowed to be nervous about this?" Tucker asked, glancing around the living room. "I know I said this place felt haunted, but I didn't mean it. Not when we all know what haunted places are like."
Charlie and Tim were the only two who showed themselves to Sam and Tucker right away. Charlie because they would never turn down an opportunity to socialize, Tim because he saw Sam as an opportunity to nerd out about his garden.
Rebecca waited to do the same with Tucker and video games until Tucker stopped looking a little green about the gills every time he walked through the front door. It didn't take long.
Both Jeb and Claire were quiet sorts. Sam and Tucker had made a game of pretending that they didn't even exist, that Danny had invented them to inflate the ghost count.
Life settled into a routine. It was a pretty nice way to live.
Mom and Dad were getting more insistent on seeing the place as graduation creeped nearer, though. "When I move in," Danny would say. "After graduation."
"You keep saying that, Dann-o." His parents were not unaware that he'd basically moved in already.
Finally, Danny decided to call in the big guns. "Jazz?" he said on their mandatory weekly phone call. "You're coming in for my graduation, right?"
"Of course," she said.
"Mom and Dad want to see the house," Danny said.
"Did you expect them not to?" There was a sigh on the other end of the line. "You're their son, and you suddenly have a house."
"Can you. Can you help? Be there when I show it to them? You know there are ghosts there, and I need to be able to protect them."
Danny could practically hear Jazz smile over the phone. "I'll be there. We'll figure it out. Are you still planning on, you know. Telling Mom and Dad?"
"Yeah," said Danny.
"I'll be there for that, too," said Jazz.
When he hung up the phone, Danny leaned back in his bed at the new house. The air of trespassing had all but disappeared. He belonged there, now. Next: Danny just needed to figure out how to show his parents that.