I would like to point back to the content warnings on this fic, just for this chapter. It is, by far, the darkest and heaviest chapter in Disinterred. The angstiest, so to say. So, yes, all the warnings tags come back. Implied character death, graphic descriptions of corpses, swearing... and general angst.

That having been said, however... This chapter is skip-able. I even spent several days strongly considering just straight-up cutting it out, but decided against it (as you can see). I certainly feel like it adds to the story, but it's not plot-critical. If it's too much, you can skip it and come back for chapter 7.

Chapter 6: Offer Me That Deathless Death

The lights in the lab flickered on, as vivid white as they had always been. In the back of the lab, easily drawing the attention of everyone who entered, stood the Fenton Portal. Or, well, what was supposed to be the Portal. Currently it was more of a tunnel with a complicated technologically sophisticated arch around its entrance.

It had been one of the few projects that his parents worked on that Danny had actually been somewhat excited about. The idea of an alternate dimension filled with ghosts was kind of absurd, yes. But if they did get the portal to work, it would connect to a whole new dimension! Who knew what kind of awesome things they might run into?

But unfortunately, like most of his parents' inventions, the Portal failed to work. It had sparked, once. But that was about it. His parents had tinkered with it for hours, afterwards, but they failed to find the problem. Eventually Jazz had dragged them outside, and Danny had invited Sam and Tucker over. Soon enough they started talking about the Portal, and its unfortunate failure, and his two friends had begged Danny to show it to them.

And so here they were, in the lab, the Portal standing tall but nonfunctional. Tucker had walked closer, inspecting the various pieces of technology, while Sam was eagerly taking pictures of the Portal with her outdated camera. Despite the bright lights already present in the lab, it still lit up occasionally as Sam's camera flashed.

"Hey Danny, you should get closer so I can take a picture with you and the Portal."

He looked over at her, frowning. "I don't know, Sam. It might be dangerous."

A huff came from the other side of the lab, and Tucker looked up from the thermos (what?) he was holding. "Oh come on dude, it'll be fine! It doesn't even work, you've said so yourself."

"Alright, alright, fine!" Danny grumbled. "But if I die, I'm coming back to haunt you."

"Yeah sure, as the weakest ghost ever," Tucker guffawed. "Just get on with it, you big baby."

Danny shot him a glare, but didn't answer. Instead, he walked over to where Sam was waiting by the Portal. He glanced at it, the tunnel seemingly endless and far darker than the lab, before tearing his eyes away and looking at Sam. She quirked an eyebrow at him, carefully looking over the setting, before she shook her head.

"No no, you should put on a jumpsuit like your parents. It'll look good in the photos."

"Ugh, Sam, really? If anyone sees me wearing one of those, I'll never hear the end of it!"

"They even have one in your size!" Tucker interjected from a different corner of the lab than he had been previously. Apparently he had lost interest in the thermos-thing and wandered off. He stepped out of the closet holding a hazmat suit similar to the ones the adult Fentons wore, but it was, in fact, in Danny's size. Unlike the teal and bright orange his parents favored, this jumpsuit was primarily white, although the gloves and boots were black like theirs.

"See, and it's even in a nice neutral color!" Sam added, shoving Danny towards Tucker and following after.

Danny grumbled, but had no further arguments. Instead, he tore the suit from Tucker's hands, pulling it on as quickly as he could.

The suit was clearly made for him, and fairly recently, because it fit perfectly. It was a little uncomfortable, but not overly limiting, surprisingly enough.

He pulled one of the gloves a little straighter and turned towards the Portal. Sam stopped him, however, and grabbed at his chest. "Wha-"

"Hang on," she said, and peeled off a sticker from the jumpsuit. Danny hadn't even seen it was there, and he was glad that she had. It was undeniably left there by his dad, a cartoonish depiction of Jack Fenton's face. Sam offered him a grin, pointing at the picture that now stuck to her finger. "You can't go walking around with that on your chest."

Danny rolled his eyes, but silently agreed. Instead he wandered over to the Portal, posing in front of it. "There, I'm posing with the Portal. Take the picture and let's go."

"Smile!" Sam called as Danny was blinded by a flash. He blinked rapidly, before rubbing his eyes.

"Hold on, we should take one with you inside as well."

Danny glared in her general direction, still half blind from the flash. "Sam-"

"Dude, just do as she asks," Tucker interrupted. "You and I both know you're not gonna convince her."

Another glare was shot in the direction of his other best friend before Danny sighed. Tucker was right. He waited a few moments longer, making sure he could at least mostly see, and then turned to enter the Portal. "Fine, fine, I'm going in already."

He hesitated for a moment, but took a deep breath to steady himself and walked in. His fingers carefully trailed the left wall, enough to guide him in the lingering darkness but with no weight behind them. He called out towards his friends, who were crowding around the entrance of the Portal. "How far do you want me?"

"A little further should be fine," Sam called back. "Keep going, keep going..." She was already raising the camera, getting ready to take a picture once Danny got deep enough.

Suddenly the boy tripped, stumbled, and caught his weight on the hand already resting on the wall.

A click, like a button being pressed, resounded through the entire lab.

"Shi-" Danny started to swear, but didn't even get to finish before he was cut off by a searingly bright flash.

Sam and Tucker both stumbled away from the entrance of the Portal, hopelessly shielding their eyes from the light. As the light faded away as quickly as it had come, however, it was followed up something far worse.

A terrible, gut-wrenching scream came from the Portal. Neither of them had ever heard anything like it, but the voice was undeniably Danny's. Sam froze in place, incapable of doing anything except glance at Tucker, who seemed to be in the same situation. They could only stand and listen, horrified.

The Portal had lit up, not with the white of the flash but with a vivid green. The bizarre liquid-like substance filled the entire arch, hiding the tunnel behind it, from which the haunting screaming of their best friend still emerged.

The scream cut off as suddenly as it had begun, and the surface of the Portal stirred. The swirling mass seemed to bunch up before splitting away, and Danny fell through it and onto the floor of the lab.

The moment thus broken, Sam and Tucker simultaneously stepped forward, both intending to tend to their smoking best friend, even if they weren't sure how. They didn't get far, however, before they were distracted by a second figure emerging from the Portal.

This figure appeared to be a teenager much like themselves, but it was clearly a ghost. It emitted a soft white glow, its hair was white as fresh snow, and it appeared to be dressed entirely in black, but with white gloves and boots.

It had stumbled out of the Portal hunched over, and remained standing in front of it. It was curled in on itself, white gloved hands pressed against its face, but the fingers were splayed far enough to show glowing green eyes. Its gaze was fixated on Danny.

Oh shit, Danny. Sam tore her eyes off the ghost and sped towards her best friend, kneeling beside him. She hovered over him awkwardly, hands gliding over him without actually touching him. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know if there was anything she could do. Her friend was burned pretty much beyond recognition, flesh scorched and molten away in various places, and a horrendous mix of red and black where it was left. A few patches of white gleamed, either exposed bone or bits of his hazmat suit that had molten into his skin, but Sam didn't want to look closer and find out which of the two it was.

Sam knew, without a doubt, that Danny was dead. There was no way Danny was still alive, not with the condition his body was in. That didn't stop her from denying it, of course.

"Tucker, come help me with Danny!" she called, turning around to glare him into moving. Tucker wasn't the only one who reacted, however.

The ghost, who up until that point hadn't taken its eyes off of Danny, finally broke out of its fixation and glanced over at her. Its eyes were a haunting acid-green color, the same as the Portal behind it. Sam shivered involuntarily.

Tucker, who had been looking at the ghost, turned to face her as well. "You're joking, right? Sam, I don't think there's anything we can do for him. The fucking- the fucking Portal killed him, man. We killed him."

The ghost, who had looked at Tucker while he spoke, started glancing between the two humans and the dead body, panic growing on its face. Sam would normally feel bad for it, since it was apparently some helpless and confused creature, but right now she had to think of her best friend first.

"Tucker, there has to be something we can do! Just come over here!" she growled at him, fixing him with one of her patented glares. Tucker hesitated for another moment before moving over, but he kept an eye on the visibly panicking ghost.

Sam, however, didn't.

She hadn't even noticed that the ghost had moved until a shadow fell over her, and she started, turning around so quickly that she fell over. The teenage specter stood over her, eyes blown wide and mouth working silently. It wasn't even looking at her, but at Danny.

Emboldened by a sudden wave of anger, Sam pushed herself upright and then shoved the ghost away. "Fuck off! Don't you see that we're busy with something far more important than you?!"

The ghost stumbled, tripping over its own legs, and fell to the floor. It looked at her, stunned, mouth hanging open.

By now Tucker had reached her side, and Sam felt the anger flood out of her system again. She turned her back on the ghost, and looked at the body of her best friend, grabbing Tucker's shoulder to turn him as well.

She crouched down to look at Danny again, and Tucker, after hesitating for a moment, joined her. He was still glancing at the ghost every few seconds, but the ghost seemed content to stay seated and gaze back. As long as it would stay out of her way, that was fine with Sam.

Her hands hovered over the body again, and Sam bit her lip, uncertainly. "Come on, there has to be something we can do! He can't just be dead!"

"Sam…" Tucker started, casting for words. Before he could think of anything to say, however, a blinding white flash lit up the lab. For a moment, Sam found herself caught in a horrible flashback (a click, a flash, a scream), but she managed to snap back to the current moment.

The light faded away almost immediately, and Sam blinked her eyes rapidly, clearing her eyesight again. Under her ever-hovering hands, Danny still laid, unmoving. She glanced over her shoulder, but the Portal, too, remained unchanged. So then what had caused the flash?

Next to her, Tucker gasped, and she followed his gaze to the direction of the ghost.

But sitting on the floor where the ghost had been, moments before, was a regular human teenager. His eyes were still blown wide, although they were now sky-blue instead of vibrant green, and his hair had become glossy black. He was wearing that same stupid jumpsuit, that jumpsuit that she had forced him to wear. And seeing him now, she could suddenly imagine him with his colors inverted, the jumpsuit black with white gloves and his eyes green and-

"Oh, Danny," she muttered, still staring at him. He gazed back, blinking somewhat dazedly, eyes darting between her and Tucker. His eyebrows furrowed a little, as if he were confused by something.

Horror suddenly flooded through Sam as she remembered the stories the Fentons always told about ghosts. As Danny's friends, she and Tucker had been subjected to a number of lectures. One of the things that always (always) came up was that ghosts weren't human. They didn't remember ever being human. Didn't remember anything from their former lives.

And looking at her best friend, sitting on the floor, frowning at her, Sam couldn't help but think that the Fentons were right.

But it was so unfair! He looked exactly like he did in life! If he couldn't remember, why did he revert back to how he had looked before? Why did the universe taunt them like this, dangling the image of their best friend in front of them?

Tucker swore under his breath, eyes still locked on Danny's ghost. He clearly remembered the lectures as well, and had also connected the dots.

She bit her lip, hesitating. Then she slowly reached out towards the ghost of her best friend, shuffling over to him with her hand extended in front of her. She approached him as if he were some kind of wild animal, and maybe, in some way, he was. He didn't move, however, just frowned at her as she approached.

Finally, she was kneeled next to him, and she carefully laid her hand against his cheek. He was somewhat cold to the touch, but not supernaturally cold. Just… colder than before.

He blinked at her, confused, before raising his own hand and placing it over hers. His eyebrows remained creased in confusion, however.

They remained like that for what felt like an unmeasurably long time. Finally, Danny muttered, "Sam?"

She froze, pulling her hand away from his cheek with a start. Danny furrowed his eyebrows even further, and his eyes darted over to Tucker, who had jumped as well. Panic had reappeared on his face.

"What's wrong? Why-" he stopped, hesitated, licked his lips. "What happened?"

Not wanting to see the growing panic on the face of her best friend, Sam gently grabbed Danny and pulled him towards her. She then wrapped her arms around him in a hug, burying her own face in his shoulder. He stiffened, momentarily, before he melted away against her, his cool arms wrapping around her. She could feel him shaking, still panicking.

"Shh, shh. We'll figure it out, okay Danny?" she attempted to soothe him. "Just calm down, deep breaths, okay?" To demonstrate, she took a deep breath herself.

She could hear Tucker's feet scuffing the floor as he approached, but she focused on Danny, who still wasn't calming down. His breathing was irregular, but she wasn't sure if it was because he was so freaked out, or because breathing didn't come naturally to him as a ghost.

"Dude, just calm down, okay? She's right, we'll figure this out, we always do."

Danny nodded, minutely, and took a deep, if somewhat shaky, breath. Slowly he released it, before he pulled himself out of the hug. He nodded again, more forcefully.

"What… What happened?"

Sam and Tucker shared a glance before shrugging at him. Sam swallowed, before hesitantly speaking. "What do you… remember?"

Danny frowned again, rubbing in his eyes. "I don't know. Everything, I think?"

Tucker snorted. "So your parents were wrong, then?" Seeing the quirked eyebrows of the others, he added, "About, y'know, ghosts?"

Danny stilled, suddenly. As his hands dropped back down, his eyes slowly grew wider again. "Oh."

"'Oh' what, dude?"

"I didn't-" Danny paused and groaned before trying again, pressing his hands against his eyes. "Am I a ghost now?"

"Uh, pretty sure you are, yeah," Sam deadpanned.

Danny groaned again. "How can you be so sure? I don't even look any different!"

"Dude, there is no doubt in my mind that you were a ghost when you walked out of that Portal." Tucker fixed the boy with a stern look. "And I really doubt that you can go from being a ghost back to being, y'know, alive."

"Wait, what do you mean?" Danny frowned, glancing between his two friends. "Did I… look different?"

"Uh, yeah. Your colors were all like, inverted and stuff, and you were-" A bright light sparked from Danny's chest, and Tucker snapped his mouth shut mid-sentence.

The light brightened even further, before it suddenly expanded into a ring around Danny. The boy blinked at it, confused, and moved as if to reach out towards it. The ring didn't give him a chance to do so, however, as it suddenly split in two and shot along his body, steadily increasing in brightness as it did so. Tucker and Sam flinched away, closing their eyes against the brilliant onslaught.

When the light faded away, Danny had returned to how he looked when he left the Portal.

"Yeah, like that," Tucker said, dryly.

Danny glared at him in answer, managing to be moderately more intimidating than normal thanks to his now glowing eyes. He gave up fairly quickly, however, instead gazing over himself and his new appearance.

Tucker coughed, awkwardly. "So..." he said, drawing out the 'o'. "Do you think you can, I dunno, switch on command. Or something? Is that some kind of ghostly ability?"

"I… don't know," Danny admitted, frowning. He raised one of his white-gloved hands, carefully flexing it. "I don't really know how I did it."

"Well, I don't know what triggered the- the change the first time," Sam hesitantly started. "But this time, Tucker was talking about your… more ghostly form, I guess, for lack of a better word, and then you changed into it." She shrugged. "Maybe thinking about your… your normal appearance will make you turn back again?"

"I- Maybe," he allowed, nodding. "I guess it can't hurt to try."

He shifted slightly, settling down in a more comfortable sitting position, and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, and then slowly exhaled. Suddenly the light sparked back to life, soon followed by the rings. Before long, Danny had once more returned to his old, human appearance.

He opened his eyes, slowly, and glanced at his hands. Seeing the gloves once again black, he raised his eyes towards his friends and quirked an eyebrow. Against all expectations, his eyes sparkled with life.

"It worked, right?"

Both others nodded, and he sighed. "Well, that's something, I guess."

Tucker cleared his throat, and the other two teenagers snapped their attention over to him. He gestured broadly towards the body that was still lying on floor of the lab.

"So, um. If Danny is a ghost, then that's…" he trailed off. "Right?"

Danny wandered over to the corpse, and knelt next to it. His eyes were roving over the scorched carcass, never settling too long on any part. Sam wondered what it was like to look at your own dead body, and decided she never wanted to find out.

A silence fell over them as the reality of the situation dawned on them. Danny had died in the Portal. He had entered the non-functional Portal his parents had built, coaxed by his friends, and somehow he had turned it on while he was still inside it.

And now he was a ghost.

Oh god, what would his parents think? Would they accept him, accept that their research was wrong? Or would they insist that Danny wasn't their son anymore because he was a ghost? Would they… Would they hunt him, like some kind of animal?

"Maybe..." Danny muttered, so quietly it would've gone unheard if it weren't for the absolute silence of the lab. "Maybe we shouldn't tell anyone."

"Danny…"

"No, Tuck, don't. Just..." Danny shrugged somewhat helplessly. "I mean, you both know what my parents are like. They'll kill me when they find out. Well, not kill, but you know what I mean." He shifted, uncertainly. "And… I'm not ready to be dead yet. And maybe… Maybe it's wrong to pretend that- that nothing happened, but…"

Sam punched him in the arm. "Shut up, moron. It's your life. Or, well, afterlife?" She shook her head to clear her thoughts. "Either way, we're in this together. If you don't want to tell anyone, we won't either. Okay?"

"Yeah," Tucker chimed in. He grinned at them, a smile that was just a little too forced to be convincing. "But really, Danny, I thought you were joking when you said you would come back to haunt us."

Silence fell for a moment as both others processed what Tucker said. He waited, patiently, hoping that his attempt at lifting the mood had worked. Then, suddenly, Danny snorted and Sam scowled.

"Y'know Tucker, I thought so too."

"Alright, while I'm glad that you two have found the humor in this situation, we still have important matters to discuss," Sam urged. Seeing the raised eyebrows of both boys, she sighed. "If we want to hide what happened here, we should probably do something about this dead body."

"Oh. Uh, yeah. Probably." Danny wrung his hands uncertainly. He glanced at the body, understandably upset over the prospect of having to move it. "Any brilliant ideas?"

Tucker scoffed. "Why don't we just bury it in the woods?"

"Tuck, that's…" Sam thought about it for a moment. "Actually, that could work. How are we going to get it out there?"

"My parents have a cart we could use?" Danny added. "They never use it anyway so they won't notice if it goes missing, and we could cover it with a piece of tablecloth or something. The only problem is getting it all the way to the woods without being-" he gradually quieted as he watched his hands disappear. Soon, he was entirely gone, Sam and Tucker staring at the spot where he had been with their mouths hanging open.

"-seen," Danny's voice finished, unchanged. A noise like a clicking tongue could be heard, before he spoke again. "So uh… I guess my parents were right about some things after all."

Tucker reached forward until his hand hit the smooth fabric of Danny's jumpsuit. He quirked an eyebrow. "What, invisible but not intangible? That's kind of a letdown."

"Nah," Sam hummed. "I think his powers activate based on his intentions. He wanted to move the cart unseen. If he was intangible, he wouldn't be able to touch the cart either."

"That," Danny suddenly became visible again, "makes sense. But I don't think I can maintain it very long. Not yet, at least."

"Well, you've been a ghost for all of what," Tucker glanced at the clock hanging on one of the walls of the lab, "30 minutes, tops? It would make sense that your powers will need time to settle down."

"And it might be like a muscle," Sam added. "If you practice, you might get better at controlling it."

"Yeah, well, maybe. For now, let's focus on getting my-" He licked his lips. "On getting the body to the woods."

Tucker nodded. "Yeah, let's go."

Title from "Take Me To Church" by Hozier. And yes I thought it was a clever title to refer to the accident, even if no one realizes that Danny isn't actually dead.

As those of you familiar with Unearthed might've noticed, last chapter contained the end of said fic. This chapter, instead, is based on the prologue I cut from Unearthed - and later uploaded as Buried. It's been tweaked A LOT since, and this chapter is by far the one I fought with the most. If you compare it to the original, you'll notice that I've shuffled around a lot of the events from Buried. I liked the original concept, but felt like my execution needed some work. I'm still not entirely sold on it, but I think this is the best I'll get it, for now. I've only been writing for a couple months, after all, in a language that isn't my own. D'you know how hard it is for my perfectionistic ass to put this down and go "this is as good as I'll get it" and be happy with that?

Anyway, this has always been a transitional chapter to me, but the fic, as it is, doesn't need said transition. It was for me, while writing, the transition between Unearthed and Disinterred's new content. But I tried to make that transition smooth, which in turn means that this chapter really just kind of... has no proper place in the storyline. There is no ideal spot for it to exist.
But I also felt like this chapter adds an important look into the mindset of Team Phantom during the Accident. Why they made the (stupid) decisions they made, and continue to make. So I didn't want to remove it entirely.

So yeah, this is definitely the chapter I feel most insecure about, haha. Hope it was enjoyable nonetheless, because I quite like it despite the trouble it gave me.

Anyway, next week: Chapter 7 - Our Lives Would've Only Just Begun