A/N: Chapter title courtesy of ladynadra on tumblr.

Wes didn't make any big announcement. He just started mentioning it offhand to see how people reacted, slipping it into casual conversation as best he could. He tried to treat it as a simple statement of fact, tossing it in and then moving on as if it were nothing. He wanted to see who else had recognized Danny Fenton as Danny Phantom. He wanted to know how many people agreed with him.

Turns out, no one did.

He endured the sidelong glances in silence. He pretended not to hear the snickers. He couldn't pretend he was ignorant that he'd crossed a line earlier today when he'd said something in Star's hearing. Maybe it was just that they usually swam in different social circles and he hadn't stuck to his, but all of a sudden, it was incredibly apparent that he'd made a mistake.

He hadn't just misjudged the fact that the entire school—maybe the entire town—was in denial instead of keeping a secret for their own safety; he'd misread the situation in thinking that people might actually want to know the truth.

Paulina cornered him by his locker after last period. This morning, he'd naïvely thought it would be at least a week before he attracted attention of this calibre. Now, well…. He just wished she didn't look so terrifying when she was glaring at him from an intentionally close standpoint. "Um…hi?"

"Why're you telling everyone that Fenton is the ghost boy?" Paulina was wasting no time—or breath—in getting to the point, which likely wasn't the best for him.

Wes swallowed. Prepared as he thought he'd been for this, he was still caught off guard; that nail file was pointed right at his Adam's apple, and the tip did not look blunt. "Because he is."

Paulina barked out a laugh, but she didn't step back to give him more space, not even when he winced and tried to cringe away from her. Naturally, his own locker was in the way; she'd chosen her spot well. "Yeah, right. The ghost boy isn't a loser."

"No one as cool as Phantom could be a loser," Star agreed. She hadn't moved from her position slightly behind and to Paulina's right, which was unfortunate for him, as it meant she was still blocking his best potential exit. There was no way he'd get past Dash or Kwan or, well, any of the other students that were starting to gather to watch this go down. The fact that the boys seemed to be letting the girls take the lead on this was not comforting, as that undoubtedly meant they had fully embraced their role as the muscle, ready to jump in if he made it necessary.

He did not want to make it necessary.

He did not need to experience what Fenton went through firsthand to know how bad it could—should—be.

"You really don't know how to spread a rumour," Paulina said, withdrawing her nail file from its unnervingly close proximity to his throat and starting to use it on her left hand as if she were becoming bored of their conversation.

"It's not a rumour!"

She rolled her eyes. "They need to be more believable. Look at what Kyle said about your love life. Much better. Still needs work—too easy to peg and much too easy to trace back to the source—but—"

"My love—? What the heck did he say?" He was going to kill his brother, so help him—

Star hummed. "I dunno, the staring, the stalking, I can kinda see it."

Kyle was dead.

"That's not love crazy," Paulina said dismissively. Wes would've contemplated kissing her for effectively squashing that rumour if it didn't mean he'd be dead in three seconds thanks to Dash, who was glowering as if he knew what Wes was thinking. "That's just crazy crazy."

Or maybe he'd just settle for not arguing with her and making a bigger scene, since as far as everyone else would be concerned, doing that would just prove Paulina's point.

"Besides—and I know this is a hard concept for you, so I'll break it down like they do in your remedial science classes, yeah? Make it nice and easy for you to understand."

Wes frowned. He wasn't in remedial science. Sure, it wasn't his best subject, but he was hardly failing. Besides, he wasn't aware that they offered anything outside of the normal classes here. With the lack of funding this place had—

"Phantom isn't alive, you know?" continued Paulina before he could gather his thoughts enough to protest the whole 'remedial science' thing. That really was a laugh, considering science was exactly what they were ignoring. "He's a ghost. That's what a phantom is. I know you moved to Amity Park, but just because a ghost can touch things, it doesn't mean they're human."

Wait.

"I don't think he's human!" Wes interrupted. "That's my point. He's not human." Fenton wasn't human, and he was fooling entirely too many people into thinking he was. If Paulina wanted to talk science—

"Yeah, we know. He's a ghost. If he weren't, it'd be more likely that you were Phantom than Fenton is, so you can stop telling your horrendous lies before the ghost boy hears about them."

Wes gaped at her. "What?"

"I don't want him to think we think he's a loser," Paulina explained, as if that had been the objectionable part of what she'd said. "He might not come around as often if he does, and I like it when he comes to save us."

Wes decided not to mention that Paulina was effectively wishing for a ghost to attack nearby if she wanted to see Phantom in action. He also decided that pointing out she had practically every class with Fenton wouldn't improve matters. If he mentioned either of those points, they'd get entirely too far away from the very important, very worrisome point she'd already made. "No, what do you mean about me and Phantom?"

"You've got green eyes," Paulina said. "If anyone looks like Phantom, you do."

"Yeah!" Star piped up as Paulina blew on her nails. "You could be trying to tell everyone he's Fenton to distract from the fact that you're him. Wouldn't that be the best way to cast all suspicion from yourself, picking someone else to blame?"

The girls dissolved into laughter, cueing the eruption of snickering all around him. Before Wes could muster a proper argument—the ghost boy called himself Danny Phantom, for Pete's sake; how obvious could you be?—they walked away, still giggling and flanked by their smirking jock boyfriends. The fact that they weren't serious wasn't much comfort, as he had the horrible feeling that this was going to come back to haunt him somehow.

The crowd dispersed—everyone except for Manson and Foley, that is. He hadn't seen them at first, but as the other students flowed away with surprising speed and they didn't move, it became painfully clear that they'd been standing on the outer rim of the circle that had formed. Manson had her arms crossed and was glaring at him; Foley was chewing his lip and doing something on his PDA. Wes blinked, not sure where Fenton was, and looked over his shoulder. Empty hallway. He turned back and almost jumped when he saw Fenton standing with his friends.

He wished he could convince himself that he'd somehow missed Fenton's approach, but he knew what the truth must be. Fenton straight up hadn't been visible for it. He couldn't have been. The hallway had emptied out fast, and there weren't exactly any prime hiding spots. Besides, Wes hadn't heard Fenton coming, and he should've been able to with everyone else gone.

Wes braced himself for a confrontation. Despite his athletic ability, it wasn't a confrontation where he'd come out on top. Not if it came down to a fight and Fenton didn't hold back, anyway. Wes had seen Phantom in a fight. Cracked concrete and craters were the norm. Given what Was had seen Fenton lift when he didn't realize other people were around to see him, he was much stronger than he had any right to be. He was certainly much stronger than he looked. It would not bode well for Wes if Fenton took offense.

The kid in question grinned at him. It was a sharp one, all teeth, and for a split second, it looked entirely too sharp. And long. Human teeth were not that long. That was not natural. How could no one else see that? How could everyone else look at Fenton and think, yes, that's a normal human being right there, just like everyone else on this planet? There was very much something to see here! He wasn't hiding it! Not well, anyway.

"You really think I'm Phantom?" Fenton asked, as if it hadn't torn through the school rumour mill at lunch and landed Wes in this mess now. "What gave you that idea?"

Wes let out a slow breath. If he tried to deny it, Fenton's friends would call him on it—assuming Fenton himself hadn't been hanging around unseen, listening to every word. It was safer to tell the truth, even if he didn't know what Fenton would do about it. "Danny Fenton. Danny Phantom."

Manson and Foley exchanged glances behind Fenton's back.

"So?"

Wes blinked. "What do you mean, so?"

"So, what's that got to do with anything? Phantom's a ghost." That was pretty much exactly what Paulina had said. It didn't necessarily mean Fenton had overheard everything, but— "Danny's not that uncommon of a name. It's a lot more common than Wes. Two people can have the same name, you know."

Well, okay, fine, that was true, but that wasn't the point. Wes knew he wasn't mistaken. And Fenton sure didn't look confused that Wes would make this connection. He didn't look surprised. He didn't even look particularly angry about it. He looked downright amused. He knew it was true, and he was enjoying watching Wes squirm.

It made Wes feel like he was the specimen about to be dissected in biology class, pinned by the intense gaze of those bright green eyes.

Wait.

Green?

Wes had backed into the locker behind him before he even noticed that he was moving away from Fenton, and the shuddering reverberation from the impact echoed his own nerves.

Danny Fenton's eyes were the same bright blue they'd always been.

"You okay?" Manson asked, sounding skeptical. "You don't look so good." Her eyes darted briefly to Foley and she lowered her voice before adding, "Maybe you should go to the nurse's office."

Wes felt his heart thundering in his chest, racing as if he'd just come off the basketball court. "I…."

Fenton's eyes had been green. He'd had Phantom's eyes, just for a moment.

Wes wasn't crazy, whatever anyone else might think.

It hadn't been a trick of the light. The hallway was lit by the same fluorescent lights as always, and frankly, light just didn't do that. Those eyes had been glowing. Glowing. This wasn't some subtle shift that Wes might have imagined.

He licked his lips and tried to sound braver than he felt when he looked at Fenton and said, "I don't ever see you going to the nurse's office."

Sure, it wasn't like Wes staked out the office or anything, but he'd spent enough time keeping an eye on Fenton to see things that should have constituted such a visit. Last week in gym class, Wes had been the only one close enough to Fenton to hear the sickening crack when he'd slipped and fallen on his arm. It had bent the wrong way. Wes had seen the pain cross Fenton's face as he'd pushed himself back to his feet and then pulled his arm straight again. There hadn't even been tears in his eyes, let alone full-out crying or screaming or anything else that would be a normal reaction.

He hadn't talked to the teacher. He hadn't asked to go to the nurse. He hadn't asked to go to the bathroom or let himself get hit by a ball so he could sit on the bench for what would, at the pace Dash was going, be the rest of the dodgeball game. He hadn't even tried to call Dash out for the series of deliberate headshots he'd been taken, despite those being against the rules. No, Fenton had never said anything about it, and Tetslaff hadn't noticed, just like none of the other kids had noticed, Dash included. Somehow.

However, Wes had seen Fenton favouring that arm. For the rest of the day. The next day, it had been business as usual for him.

Well.

Fenton had favoured his arm for the rest of gym class, anyway. For all Wes knew, it had been fine by the end of the next period. He didn't have that one with Fenton, so he couldn't be sure, and he hadn't seen a similar injury, but—

Foley whimpered.

"We try not to go there unless we absolutely have to," Fenton said, and Manson just glared at Wes. "Tuck's getting better, but, y'know, baby steps."

"And that place doesn't have anything to do with you making wild accusations about Danny," Manson bit out.

"Yeah, wild," Fenton said, still grinning widely. Did…did his teeth look normal now? Wes really hadn't imagined things earlier, had he? "What do you think I am, a dead man walking?"

Wes's tongue was thick in his mouth. His heart was still playing a quick tattoo, and breathing in slowly through his mouth wasn't helping to calm his nerves. "You're Phantom," he repeated before he lost his nerve. "I know you are."

"So you think I'm dead? Even though I'm standing right here, talking to you?"

Wes couldn't hear the threat in Fenton's voice. It sounded like Fenton thought this was incredibly funny. It looked like he was three seconds away from laughing in Wes's face. Still, Wes felt cold, inexplicable terror freezing his insides and trapping his breath in his lungs.

Fenton shrugged. "Okay. Don't be surprised if I haunt you, then. See you around, Wes."

Wes didn't move as Fenton and his friends turned and walked off.

When Kyle found him five minutes or an eternity later, he was still staring in the direction they'd gone.

"Yo, you still with me, bro? I was gonna introduce you to Nost. He's chill."

"Fenton's dead," Wes croaked. "He's dead, and he knows it."

"Everyone knows it," Kyle said, despite all the evidence Wes had just gotten to the contrary. "People just think it's safer if they don't talk about it."

"You really think so?" Wes had not gotten the impression that anyone else saw how much of a threat Fenton could be, Kyle most definitely included. While he'd figured that was a likely possibility, none of what he'd seen today had indicated that. Paulina's words…. She'd seemed too genuine. Maybe the rest of the school was just following her lead, but….

"Well, yeah."

"What happened to ghosts not being real?"

"Dude, that doesn't have to do with anything."

"How does it not—? He's dead!"

"I know, but being Dash's favourite target doesn't have anything to do with ghosts."

Wes stared at his brother, finally realizing they'd been talking about two very different definitions of being dead, and then groaned. "You're an idiot."

"Says the guy who completely swallowed the whole ghost conspiracy."

"It's not a conspiracy!"

"You're right," Kyle agreed, and for the briefest of moments, Wes thought his brother had finally seen sense and had been pretending otherwise just to annoy him. Naturally, Kyle continued, "It's a tourist trap, and everyone's in on it except you. Seriously, bro, if you could just appreciate how much work this town puts into the ghost thing—"

"That's not what it is!" Wes didn't know why he was trying to have this argument again. He never seemed to win it.

"That's exactly what is. Danny's just at the heart of it 'cause his parents are, like, spearheading this entire thing. I thought you'd figured that out. You know Tucker's the one who started those ghost tours, right? You've at least seen that connection?"

How do you convince someone of something when they write off all the evidence in front of them and somehow turn it into justification for their (very wrong) argument?

Whatever. He'd wait until Kyle saw something himself. Something he couldn't deny. Something that couldn't chalked up to coincidence or technology. If Kyle didn't get the same creepy vibe off Fenton that Wes did now, he would once he saw Fenton do something like walk though a locked classroom door or shake off some horrible injury like it was nothing. Fenton couldn't keep pretending forever, and he'd give himself away sooner or later.

"When'd you sign up for remedial science classes, anyway?"

"What?"

"Remedial science. I didn't even know they had that here. Y'know I'd tutor you, right?"

"I'm not in remedial science!"

"It's not something you need to be embarrassed of, bro. It's just like how you're better at English and history and stuff than I am. We can help each other out like we always do."

"I have higher marks in biology than you do!"

"So it's chem, then? Or physics? Physics, right, for the math bits? I know math's not—"

"I'm not in remedial science!"

Kyle shifted his shoulders in something that was more acknowledgement than shrug. "Whatever you say, man. Just know that I'm here for you. Not really convinced this school has the funding for any good remedial classes anyway, so my offer's open if you change your mind."

Great.

Paulina had slipped in one rumour to prove a point, and now everyone assumed he was terrible at science because he couldn't tell the difference between ghosts and humans. That was not going to help his case. If they assumed he was awful at science, none of them were going to listen to him when he tried to show them all the reasons Fenton wasn't normal.

At least it was less ridiculous than the idea that he himself was Phantom. Both were easy to disprove—easier than proving the inhumanity of Fenton, apparently. And Fenton probably wouldn't turn up at his house and try to murder him in his sleep. Maybe.

Wes decided to sleep with the light on for a while, just in case. And a baseball bat under his bed, for lack of anything better. Maybe some salt, too, in case there was any truth to that. If he had to ward his entire house against ghosts to keep Fenton at bay in case he decided to try anything, well, better safe than sorry, right? And maybe it would keep the other ghosts away from him. He'd nearly been grabbed by an ectopus the other day before the Red Huntress had turned up, and Wes would really rather not have to explain that he was late for supper because a ghost had jumped him.

Kyle had yet to witness such an attack, and his teasing was merciless, even though Wes had the sucker marks to prove it—or maybe because of that.

Still. In the end, Kyle was just one person, and there was an entire town of people in danger if they didn't accept the truth about Fenton.

After all, what if Fenton wasn't the only one? If people had never noticed him, maybe they'd missed someone else, someone Wes wasn't close to. Who knew how many people like Fenton could be hiding, in this town and beyond?

Wes needed to get people to accept the truth. He needed them to open their eyes. He couldn't let this go, no matter the cost.