Part Three: The Death of Danny Fenton
Chapter Twenty-One
CW: Death, depression, suicide mention, injuries/mild gore, emetophobia
Danny shouldn't have teleported.
His entire body spasmed, little sparks traveling up and down along the Lichtenberg figure as he screamed and his back arched. His chest felt like it was being torn in two, though whether the pain was from his core finally fracturing or the wound in his chest he didn't know. His eyes were squeezed shut, tears leaking out as the pain eventually began to subside, and he curled in on himself, every inch of him trembling and shaking as he sobbed.
It was a long time before he finally managed to look up, opening his eyes to an endless sea of green. He could make out a handful of purple doors and islands floating in the distance, and although he didn't know how it was possible, even though he had only dared to venture here a handful of times since becoming half-ghost, he recognized it.
The Ghost Zone.
"How . . .?" he whispered, his voice echoing. Despite the persistent sense of familiarity and welcoming the Ghost Zone provided, Danny hadn't meant to come here and didn't know how it was possible without opening a portal, which he couldn't do. He remembered waking up to his parents hovering over him and then he knew he panicked, his nightmares too close to the surface, and when his mom apologized (she used his name she said Danny while he was a ghost she knew they both knew) he could no longer think straight as he began to wonder what else they might have done, how else they might have hurt him. He teleported blindly in search of someplace safe, somewhere that would protect him.
He should have gone to Sam or Tucker's. They already offered to take him in if the worst happened with his family, and he half-expected to feel Tucker's hand on his shoulder, quietly giving him comfort even as he stared at the ocean of ectoplasm around him, but there was no one here, the emptiness and isolation oppressive and overwhelming.
His fingers went down to his chest, touching it and the stitches, the bandage on his injured shoulder, and it was only then that Danny remembered that it wasn't his parents that hurt him even if he still ended up as a subject on their lab table. "They helped me," he whispered, awestruck as the revelation hit him. Even as Phantom. Even as a ghost. Even when they knew the truth.
And Vlad . . . he felt his stomach twist in knots as he remembered. He went to the park alone, having left Sam and Tucker at the Nasty Burger after they spent a couple of hours talking, and although they had a thousand more questions, Danny felt too raw, too exposed, and too exhausted to continue. He was supposed to go home after, but he couldn't stand sitting through dinner with Vlad. The mere thought of being stuck at the table with him made Danny nauseous. There was no doubt Vlad would spend the entire time flirting with his Mom while thinking up new ways to kill his Dad, all while being a condescending jerk to him, the creep assuming Danny wasn't worth his time.
He could remember sensing a ghost while sitting near the fountain, transforming into Phantom, and then getting jumped from behind as some kind of grizzly bear ghost mauled him. His shoulder popped as it dislocated, again, making his head spin as he barely resisted the urge to vomit and scream. Danny could remember how he spun around, sending a massive ectoblast in its direction and knocking it over, but as he pulled out his thermos to suck it up he stopped, staring at the figure watching him coldly from the treeline as the ghost fled.
Plasmius.
Their specific conversation escaped Danny, but the undercurrent was clear: he knew. Somehow. Impossibly, he knew. While Danny understood that his secret was fragile, that any mistake on his part could easily lead to the truth being discovered, he didn't realize how easily destroyed it could be until the first crack appeared in that moment when his friends witnessed his death echo. The fractures continued to spiral outward from that point on, splintering into a thousand spider web-like lines as his secret continued to break, rapidly shattering no matter how much he tried to keep it contained.
And now the cracks in his carefully crafted lies had spread all the way to Vlad.
He was surprised when Vlad asked him to join him, to be mentored by him, to connect with him as no other could, the two of them a rarity even amongst other liminals, their state so close to a perfect balance between life and death that it ought to be impossible. And somehow, as Vlad looked at him, Danny saw it went beyond that, too. That there was something Vlad craved as much as Danny craved dreams, that his obsession was linked to a desire he could never fulfill, and that he would destroy everything in his path as he desperately tried to fill that hole, that ache that went impossibly deep, a pain and loneliness that no one else, human or ghost, could truly understand.
But knowing Vlad the way he did, Danny knew that there was absolutely no way he could be the person that would help fill that void.
So he refused, and Vlad . . . Vlad reacted poorly. The man always struck him as perfectly calm, too composed to act so rashly, and the ectoblast that pierced his chest caught him off guard, a sharp pain shooting through him as it grazed his core, as it punctured his–
He stopped, shaking his head, refusing to accept it as he laid a hand over the stitches on his chest. No. It hadn't–his heart wasn't–he hadn't–he wasn't–
"Hey, dipstick," said Ember, startling him enough that he tried to make an ecto blast, but his hand spasmed, pain shooting up his arm as the ectoplasm near his palm fizzled and died instantly. He didn't know when she found him, never even noticed his ghost sense go off if it did at all, and the thought worried him. How weak was he now if even his ghost sense wasn't working properly?
"Whoa, easy, it's just me." She held up her hands, her guitar slung over her back as she tilted her head to the side and studied him for a moment. "You're–well, you're not okay, baby pop, but whatever happened, it's over now. They can't hurt you here."
"Ember?" he whispered, his voice echoing faintly as she floated closer to him now that he wasn't about to attack.
"Obviously," she said, rolling her eyes. "Do you know what happened to you, dipstick?"
"I'm not dead," he said automatically, his fingers tracing the stitches on his chest, but he could see the faint glow around him, the vague translucency of his fingers. The odd void and stars that he had seen stretched across his skin before were largely absent, his flesh almost ordinary looking aside from the pulsing Lichtenberg figure that traveled up his arm and chest from the scar on his palm, which looked like a tiny nebula in a way he found strangely captivating even as it terrified him.
But that didn't worry him as much as how weak and insubstantial he felt, as if he were made of air rather than flesh or ectoplasm.
"Humans don't glow like you do," she said gently, but there was no anger in her voice. "They don't survive injuries like that, either."
"I'm not dead," he insisted stubbornly, the words echoing more sharply, but she seemed unphased as she moved to float beside him.
"Baby pop," she sighed, and then bit her lip. "Danny." He froze as she addressed him by name. She rarely did, choosing to address him by odd nicknames that started off as insults and eventually became terms of endearment. "I know what you're going through, even if you might think I don't. I didn't want to accept it, either. I wasn't much older than you, y'know." She pulled out her guitar, strumming softly, her eyes focused on her fingers as they danced across the strings. "And it's okay if you can't accept it yet, but if you spend too much time in denial, refusing to believe what happened to you, then it'll warp you into something you don't want to be."
"And what's that?"
"Angry," she said, slowly plucking out discordant notes and chords that almost formed a melody but not quite. "Cruel. You'll long for something you can never have, and over time it'll twist you more and more until all that's left is the anger and the rage and you think that's enough, that's what you wanted, and you won't care who you hurt as long as you get what you crave, what you need to fill that ache that's been there since the moment you died alone and in pain because of what they did to you." Her hair was ablaze, growing and growing and making Danny uneasy as he floated beside her, not wanting to get burned, and then her fingers stopped plucking at the strings, her eyes closing for a moment, and the flame slowly died down, the occasional little flare flickering.
"Did you ever ask yourself what my obsession is?" she asked eventually, eyes opening once more as she looked at him.
Danny nodded. How could he not? "You want to be remembered. But also . . . to be seen and understood." It felt almost taboo to speak the words out loud, to acknowledge what drove her even as Danny knew there was no specific rule or custom against talking about it.
"Do you have any idea how impossible that was before your parents' portal opened?" she asked. "I was barely substantial for the brief time I spent in the human world. No one could see me or hear me, and although finding my way here strengthened me, it kept me from satisfying my obsession, too . . . When the portal finally opened, my obsession was a scream, the void a chasm. I devoured the worship given to me by my fans who called my name, forcing them to give every ounce of their emotional energy and love to me."
"But eventually I realized none of it lasted. I would feel whole again, present and remembered and understood on that stage, but then the void would return, worse than before, because none of it was real. All of that anger and the pain, every bit of emotion I devoured to fill me was temporary. But there was nothing better, and even as it filled me it left me hollow and I wondered if there was anything I could, any way I could ever, truly escape the emptiness and ache of undeath . . . and then Phantom came along." She paused, considering for a moment. "You came along. And you made me think I could be better, that there was a way to fill that hole, that void somehow, and you were right, even if you didn't realize exactly what you were doing. But I think you did, because you–you feel that, too, don't you?"
Danny swallowed, looking up at her, his chest tight. He expected her to snap at him, to lash out as her hair exploded into flames again, to strike him with a chord that would paralyze him or send him spiraling off further into the depths of the Ghost Zone, but instead, she merely stared off into the distance, a hint of sadness in her eyes. "Do you . . . do you know?" The weight in the last word was impossibly heavy, and he dug his nails into his arms, clutching them tightly as he waited for her to answer him.
"That you're Phantom?" He gave the barest hint of a nod. "Not until your friends made that stupid wish and I talked to Skulker. He and Desiree put it together. It wasn't hard after what your friends told them. It's not as if you were the first liminal to exist that could be both human and a ghost, dipstick."
"And you're not mad?"
"Oh, I was," she said, the fire in her hair growing a little larger, but it died down quickly. "Ask Skulker what I did to my lair when you see him." She grinned, fingers plucking a gentle melody again as she continued. "I was pissed. I felt manipulated. Hurt. You spent all that time as Phantom shoving us in a thermos, barely even speaking to us, preventing me from fulfilling my obsession, and then you ran around acting like our friend when you weren't in the suit. It felt like a trick, like I–like everything you did was a lie." She paused, looking off for a moment, and there was a hint of flame, a brighter spark in her hair as a hint of anger flickered. "We were supposed to be friends, dipstick."
"I'm sorry. I didn't–I just–"
"-it's fine," she said, waving a hand. "I'm over it. I'm supposed to be your wise sensei now, remember? I can't give you life lessons if I'm not able to understand that you're just a scared, lonely kid hoping to find someone who would see you and understand you. Accept you. Remember you." She leaned over, pulling him into a sudden hug, and he blinked before eventually letting himself relax into it, tears burning in his eyes as she held him tightly in an embrace he didn't even realize he desperately needed. "Never thought I'd have so much in common with a nerd."
"I'm not a nerd–"
"-dipstick, the only one dorkier than you is Pointdexter," she teased, and he pulled away from her as he scowled. "And even that might depend on the day."
"Not cool," he whispered, brushing aside the tears with the back of his hand before they could fall. "I'm not a nerd."
"How many constellations can you point out in the night sky?" she asked. "Or, ooh, what's the speed a rocket has to go to get into space?"
"It's called escape velocity or escape speed," he explained, unable to help himself even as he knew on some level that he was proving her point, "and it depends on what body you're launching from. It's 11.186 kilometers per second from the visible surface of the Earth for a non-propelled object. Rockets don't actually have to reach escape velocity because their engines counteract gravity, but typically they go from zero to eight thousand meters per second to achieve orbital velocity and . . . and . . . " The words died in his throat as Ember cocked an eyebrow at him and he winced. "Fine. But I'm only a nerd for space."
"It ain't a bad thing, baby pop," she said as she started strumming again. "Maybe you'll get to be obsessed with space. I don't actually know if a liminal's obsession can change when they die."
The words jolted him, reminding him of his reality. It had been so easy to relax, to forget for a minute why he was here and what happened to him as he fell into the familiar pattern of conversation with her. "I'm not dead," he insisted.
"I'd love for you to prove me wrong, but this?" She gestured at him, staring at the wound on his chest that was now stitched up. "You're barely substantial now. You're so weak the Box Ghost could defeat you without breaking a sweat. And that injury isn't the sort of thing that even a liminal could survive." She put a hand on his shoulder, trying to provide what little comfort she could. "I'm sorry, kid. I know it's not what you want to hear."
"Because it's not true," he snapped, brushing her hand aside and hiding his face in his hands. He refused to accept it. To believe it. He was not dead. He couldn't be dead. "I'll prove it." Closing his eyes, he let out a shaky breath and then reached within himself for that warmth, that spark of humanity that rested so close to his core. Even in Tucker's room when he struggled to transform back he could still feel it, still sense it, still grasp it within himself and hold it close to his heart, setting off a spark within that would spread throughout his body as it breathed life back into him and summoned his humanity from the cold, empty depths..
But the only response was absence, a void that was frozen and dark and dead, and Danny's eyes snapped open as Ember watched him in silence as he reached for it again, searching and searching, hoping he missed it somehow, knowing it had to be there, that he couldn't be–he wasn't–
"I'm not dead," he repeated hollowly as he choked back a sob. "I can't be dead." He couldn't stop repeating it, even though he knew it was useless to keep saying it. But a quiet part of him felt that it made an uncomfortable sort of sense as he felt the Ghost Zone around him, the ambient ectoplasm resonating with his weakened core, a place that he never called his home but that felt so much like where he belonged now that it scared him.
And why else would he have ended up here rather than at Sam or Tucker's or some other place he felt safe and welcomed and whole, if not for the fact that some part of him instinctively knew that this was where he was meant to be?
"Do you want to talk about what happened?" she asked gently.
"No." He could not begin to deal with the possibility of a death echo, some not-so-small part of him still in denial and fearing anything that might lend more credence to the possibility that he might be fully and truly dead. Because even though he half-lived after the accident, there was no denying he died that day, too, the echo as true for him as any other ghost. And Danny doubted that even he could escape death twice.
"Well if you ever do, I'm here," she offered, and then she stretched out, slinging her guitar onto her back. "Why don't you come with me? I was going to visit Skulker when I found you. He won't mind, promise."
"You know he's tried to skin me like, a dozen times, right?"
"Would you rather be alone?" she asked.
"No. And I . . . I guess for now I don't have anywhere else to be," he said. He followed her in silence, trying not to think about it, about how he couldn't sense it, couldn't feel that spark within himself that always reminded him of his humanity no matter how much like a ghost he felt.
But he remained terrified, uncertain, and unsteady, wondering what he should do and where he should go, if he could ever go home like this or if he would need to learn to embrace that there was nothing and no one left for him there, that it would only be harder for them if he remained and became more and more unlike the Danny they remembered.
The island was obvious even from afar, the giant skull sending a shiver down his spine as Danny landed beside her near an old hunting cabin. "Wait here," she instructed, and he gave a half-hearted salute as he squatted to watch a tiny, glowing bug inch slowly across the ground while Ember went looking for Skulker. He knew there was an entire ecosystem within the ghost zone itself from previous trips here, that it had its own sort of life even if it wasn't life as those in his world knew it. At one point he hoped to study it a bit, see if he could use something he learned to help him convince his parents–his–
His core ached painfully in his chest and he winced, biting his lower lip as he hugged himself tightly and buried his head in his knees. He couldn't think about his family and friends. Not right now. Not when he knew he would probably never see them again since he was–he wasn't–
'Maybe refusing to think about it is why so many ghosts forget about their lives,' he thought, but he pushed his fears down, too. He wouldn't forget them. He couldn't. He just couldn't think about them right now, either, not when he still didn't know for sure if he was fully dead or not and didn't know what to do.
"What?!" Skulker's shout jolted him, and there was a bang as a door slammed and Skulker walked out, glancing around until his eyes locked onto him. For a moment Danny thought about running away, fleeing from him before he could do something awful, but then Skulker wrapped his arms around Danny in what had to be the strangest hug of his life.
"Uhh . . ."
"I apologize for being so emotional, whelp," said Skulker as he squeezed him tightly, the robotic arms digging uncomfortably into his side, and then he released him, studying him closely. "But you were the only human to look at us with a shred of kindness, and you did not deserve such a violent end."
"You never seemed to care before," said Danny. He tried to reach out to Skulker once in the hopes that he could get the ghost to redirect his obsession, but the attempt went so poorly that he never made a second one, and Skulker never stopped trying to hunt him as Phantom.
"I refused your offers but appreciated the attempt. As did all of us," said Skulker as Ember stepped outside and joined them. "As the greatest hunter in the ghost zone, I will happily pursue whatever quarry brought you down, child."
"You won't."
"I–"
"-it was Plasmius," interrupted Danny.
Skulker frowned as he crossed his arms over his chest, his expression darkening. "Ah."
"Wait, that creep is the one that killed you?" snapped Ember, her hair igniting. "I've always hated him. Maybe Skulker isn't willing to go after him, but I've wanted to break his smug face since the first time I met him."
"I appreciate it, but I don't want anyone else to get hurt," said Danny. Ember stood no chance against Plasmius. Neither did Skulker. Danny thought he might have, once, but clearly, he misjudged the situation more than he realized. "Vlad's too dangerous."
"Dipstick, I–"
"-I won't take another job from him," promised Skulker, kneeling before him, and he tapped Danny's bare chest for emphasis. "You were a child. There is nothing you could have done to deserve this end. And I'll talk to the other ghosts, too. We may not be able to defeat him on our own, but together, we can make this world a very unwelcoming place for him."
"Thank you," said Danny softly, a bit confused. "But I mean, you hunted me, too, didn't you?"
"I didn't know you were a whelp," said Skulker. "If I had, then I may have spent years pretending to hunt you, to chase you and help your skills develop, before I finally took you down for good. There's no thrill in defeating a child."
"That's not nearly as comforting as you think," whispered Danny, wiping tears from his eyes. "Were you–um–did you tell Plasmius? About me?"
"No. Did he know, then? When he struck you down?" asked Skulker. Danny was surprised he hadn't told Vlad. He assumed, given their relationship, that there was no way he wouldn't let the man know as soon as he learned the truth.
"He only just figured it out. I–I refused to join him, and he–he turned around and he–" said Danny, touching his chest as he stared at his feet, and the zone reverberated with the faintest of echoes, of a shot to the chest and his collapse, and he found himself sobbing at the confirmation.
A death echo.
"To harm a ghost child, liminal or otherwise, is a grave crime, particularly if he knew the truth," said Skulker as Ember put a hand on his shoulder. "He will need to face justice for what he has done."
"Please don't go after him," begged Danny. "I don't–I don't want to lose anyone else."
Ember and Skulker exchanged a long look. "Very well," sighed Skulker. "But I still won't work for him again."
"Does your family know yet? About what you are?" asked Ember after a long moment of silence passed between the three of them.
"I didn't tell any of my friends, human or ghost. The human friends I have found out like three days ago after Nocturn attacked Amity Park. And my family . . ." The terror and panic on his parents' faces flashed through his mind, and he gripped his core tightly, forcing out a breath he didn't need. How long before his desire to breathe finally died for good, too? "Sorry."
Ember and Skulker sat down beside him, and he felt her put a hand on his back again, trying to comfort him once more. He appreciated the effort, however small, as he hugged his knees against his chest. "Do they know what happened to you?"
"My parents do. I was in the lab. I thought they were trying to, um, y'know, but I actually think–I hope–that they were trying to help me," he whispered, wiping tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. "Sorry. I should stop crying. It's stupid. I've already sort of been a ghost for almost two years. I shouldn't be so messed up about this."
"There's a big difference between when you can turn it on and off and when you can't anymore," said Ember. It wasn't exactly accurate–there was no turning off his otherworldliness completely, even when he was human - but it was close enough to reality that it stung.
"You shouldn't go to the human world for a bit," advised Skulker. "It's . . . challenging, if you meet the living while they still remember you, whelp. They won't recognize you."
He thought of Sam, then, as he sat on Tucker's bed and the incredible way she managed to see him despite the shadows and stars that danced on his skin. Of how both of them accepted him, listened to him and showed genuine curiosity and affection despite the clear uneasiness they felt, too. But that was before, and now? He might look like Danny Fenton, but over time, as he forgot his life and family and friends and his obsession pushed him further and further away from his humanity? He wasn't ready to admit he was fully dead, but if he was? "You're probably right."
Danny sat with the two of them in silence for a long time, their presence strangely comforting. He tried not to think about what this meant or what he should do. He tried not to think about the hollowness that was still there in his chest, an ache he could not fill, that he now doubted could ever be fixed and that might eventually drive him to devour more dreams. At some point, he should see Nocturn. He made the bargain in good faith, but there would be no keeping it now. Ghosts, as far as he knew, didn't dream.
Once or twice, whether out of sheer denial or habit, Danny tried to reach for that spark again, that warmth that embraced him when he transformed back, but he still couldn't sense it. The confirmation was damning, even as he desperately tried to ignore it.
"I'm still going to speak with the other ghosts about Plasmius," said Skulker after a bit. "But you are welcome here until you find your own lair."
"Thanks."
"I know you've been to the Infinite Realms a couple of times, but I can give you a tour, baby pop, if you'd like a distraction," said Ember, nudging his arm.
"Sure." What else was there to do?
"Cool, let me grab something quick." She hurried back inside the cabin, returning a few minutes later with one of the t-shirts from her brief tour in the real world before Phantom put a stop to it. "Your appearance will probably change eventually. They always do. But you can have this for now, if you want."
He pulled the t-shirt over his head without a word, feeling infinitely grateful since he definitely preferred wearing one of her concert t-shirts to running around without a shirt on for now and the scar across his chest visible to every ghost they encountered. The scar on his palm was obvious enough, but this? He couldn't–he didn't want to discuss it. He didn't want to think about it.
The two of them flew for a while before he bumped into the other ghosts that he knew. The Lunch Lady gave him a hug, too, but that was normal for her, the physical affection a constant even during the time he spent alive and learning how to bake from her in his family's kitchen. "The transition is always hard, dearie, but you're a strong child. You'll endure," she said kindly as she offered to keep giving him baking lessons if he was interested and sweets even if he wasn't, despite both of them knowing that if Ember was right, he wouldn't need food again.
Technus claimed he didn't care. Danny wasn't surprised–he never managed to develop a relationship with the ghost, despite his repeated efforts. Maybe Tucker would have had better luck. "In my time, living to sixteen was a luxury," he said simply as if Danny ought to be grateful for being murdered so 'late' in his life. Danny didn't point out that he was only fifteen, a few months away from his birthday still in late August. He doubted the distinction would make much of a difference.
"A gift for you, child, in recognition of your first death day," offered Desiree when they found her, and she gave him a small necklace in the shape of a star. His stomach clenched (did he still have a stomach? He felt so insubstantial now, barely present), but he accepted it, tucking it beneath his shirt.
Poindexter sought them out. "I came as soon as I heard," he said, hugging him too for a long time. "I was only a little older than you, y'know." It was a fact Danny acknowledged but rarely dwelled on, especially after Sidney showed him his own past. "I'd really like to show the bully that did this to you what's what."
"Please don't. I don't want anyone else to get hurt, and–and it's fine," lied Danny, swallowing. It would never be fine. Despite how much he considered ending his own life, this–it wasn't the same. It wasn't his choice. He didn't even get to say goodbye. To explain. To apologize.
Kitty and Johnny offered him a room, which shocked him even as he declined the offer. "We don't use it, really," said Kitty. "We prefer the open road. But it can take time to find the right door, so if you change your mind, let us know."
The reminder that he might have a lair now jolted him. He hadn't before, or at least, never found one, and he pushed the thought aside, refusing to think about it. It was almost easy to deny the truth, to ignore the reality that struck him until he felt his stitches catch on the t-shirt he borrowed from Ember or the occasional, sharp pain in his core. Eventually, he would have to face the truth. He knew he would. But right now, he wanted to dwell in the gray, the space in between. At least he had a lot of practice.
He didn't know how long he and Ember were traveling when they arrived at Dora's Keep. Danny helped Dora overthrow her brother about nine months ago and hadn't seen her since. She was the only one who didn't know him as Danny Fenton but as Phantom. She still liked him despite the other ghosts' hatred for Phantom, but it probably helped that he only shoved her into a thermos once before eventually helping her out. "Do you feel anything when you see any of the doors or islands?" asked Ember curiously. "A tug, maybe?"
"Nothing," he said. He refused to tell her that he wasn't looking for his lair, knowing already she would lecture him about refusing to accept the truth.
"Dora has space. I'm sure she'd let you stay here if you want. You could be a knight," said Ember gently, resting a hand on his shoulder for a minute before they headed inside. He could see how hard she was trying to help him, to comfort him, to prevent him from spiraling. It probably wasn't enough. He could feel himself starting to break, the cracks spreading.
"I don't think I want that." He spent the last two years trying to save everyone, and for what? To simply die (no, not die, he wasn't dead) in a park alone? Maybe at some point, his obsession would drive him back to it, but for now, he preferred to do literally anything but fight even as he worried that not doing so might lead to him devouring dreams again. How long before he became exactly the sort of monster his parents feared?
The palace was radically different. The castle was bright instead of dour, the artwork and decorations having jumped forward at least two or three hundred years in history. Dora greeted them at the gate, smiling warmly at him as they explained who he was, and Ember was right about Dora offering him a space.
"You may, Sir Phantom, have a place here at my side as my knight if you wish it," she said. "This time in your afterlife is important as it will define who you are for centuries. Change comes slowly for most of us."
"It seems to have come pretty quickly here," said Danny, wondering if that had more to do with the keep now being shaped by Dora's own desires or his previous liminal status impacting it somehow, the way Nocturn implied it could. "But for now, I think I need more time to adjust."
"Of course, Sir Phantom." Dora bowed as the two of them took their leave.
He flew with Ember for a little longer. The two of them were eventually ambushed by Cujo, but unlike the other ghosts, the dog refused to leave.
"I think you're stuck with the mutt for good now," she said as she scratched behind Cujo's ears. "He's probably better company than most of us."
Danny hugged Cujo to his chest, letting the dog nuzzle his face for a minute. "If you want to go, I think I'll be okay for a bit. I . . . I kind of want some time to myself."
"It's cool, baby pop," she said as she punched him gently in his uninjured arm. "Come find me if you want to keep up with the lessons or if you need a distraction. Skulker's on a hunting trip like every other day, so I've got some time. I know the first few months are hard."
"I will." He watched her fly away, leaving him alone in the endless green expanse. Danny curled up and floated in the middle of the Ghost Zone while Cujo rested in his arms and leaned into his chest. It should've hurt. Cujo was right against the spot where Plasmius shot him, but instead, the pressure felt comfortable, the warmth almost mistakable for the tiny spark of humanity that used to reside there. His eyes closed and he felt strangely exhausted as he relaxed. It was a bad idea to just stop like this in the middle of the Ghost Zone. But Cujo would wake him if something tried to attack, and besides, what else could possibly happen to him at this point? He was already dead.
And although he thought it was impossible, Danny found himself falling asleep and dreaming of home.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews, faves, follows, etc! I super appreciated it! I'm hopefuly it won't be over a month before I post the next chapter, but I'm pretty busy with Invisobang and this chapter required my rewriting about half of it, so . . . we'll see.
