Oh wow guys I didn't think I'd be able to have this out so soon! Okay, so here's the big reveal! I hope no one is too upset by this! There's gonna be some crazy sheet going down in this chapter so hold onto your hats folks. Without further ado, I present to you, Chapter 5!

Chapter 5

"You should've seen them Wally! They actually… actually… seemed to have a semi coherent thought for once… it wasn't natural!" My boyfriend is sitting at his desk going over papers and humming encouragingly every couple of minutes, seemingly unbothered by this strange occurrence. I take a moment to appreciate the form he's adopted since our getting together. Tall, tan, and extremely fit. He's stronger than I am, but not by much. His muscles could fool you though. Where I'm lean, he exudes power and dominance. His outfit is what makes my mind short circuit though. Dark wash boot cut jeans and a black muscle shirt covered with a suit jacket. Impossible combination put together perfectly.

Though I appreciate the view it's always been his mind that fascinates me. Quick witted and annoyingly smart. He always knows how to keep me on my toes. His intelligence shows most in his eyes, glowing green as they are. I lost track of what I was angry about…

Shaking my head from my thoughts I find Wally smirking at me, having been able to tell the track my mind went down. I try to tamp down the embarrassment as an annoyed groan escapes me.

"Listen punk, I'd say the issue you're having? Is a non-issue. So, you found out your biological parents don't hate ghosts as much as you thought. Isn't that a good thing? Maybe this will lead to them eventually accepting your ghost half. Hell, maybe it'll lead to them accepting us. That would be the day wouldn't it…" The last part was muttered as my boyfriend turns back towards his desk; I just continue pouting. If nothing else, being upset always gets me attention from my workaholic boyfriend.

"But Wally…" A loud knock on the door interrupted my attempt at whining and, though his face twitched in a smile for a moment, the warden was quickly back in charge.

"You know the drill," he spoke to me first, "come in!" By the time the guard entered the room I was already wearing my cloak and sitting at the chair in front of the desk with my back to the door.

"Sorry to interrupt sir, I know this is an important meeting, but there's been a report of criminal activity in the fourth quadrant-"

"That's far frozen area, you know we don't intercede with their matters. They declined acceptance of city patrol." Walker's warden voice never failed to make the guards flinch, but I smiled as he spoke of the actual rules we came up with.

"That's the thing sir, the king, Frostbite I believe, was the one that made the report. He asks that they have help because of the type of situation. Usually I wouldn't consider it, but in this case, they are friends of our Ki-"

"Yes, of course. Have a squadron sent over right away. Don't send rogers, he's bigoted and stupid. Squadron thirty-six. They should be good with the climate. Have the case file sent to me as well." The guard gives his stuttered 'thanks' and 'yes's' and 'sorry's' before quickly stumbling out the way he came. Pulling the hood from my head I throw a worried glance at my boyfriend.

"The Far Frozen filed a report? Frostbite filed a report? What could be so bad…?" Looking back at me Wally shakes his head.

"I don't know, but we'll find out and we'll take care of it." I smile at him before walking around his desk.

"You know, your warden voice really does it for me…" I smirk at him, slowly closing the distance between us.

"Oh? Does it now? Guess I'll have to use it more often then." He smiled before pulling me closer for a kiss. An interrupted kiss because my stupid alarm had to go off.

"Fuck, school just ended."

"…and you promised to meet your friends huh?" I smile sadly at him before letting our lips meet briefly.

"Unfortunately." He smiles softly before saying the scariest thing I've ever heard.

"You know, you could just tell them about us. I mean, they know we're friends right? How big is the step to lovers?" I blush at the word lovers and he laughs for a moment before I fully understand what he said.

"Tell them? That… no… they wouldn't understand… I can't lose them… they're my best friends… and they wouldn't understand… how could I tell them this when it would ruin everything…?" Wally pulls me to his chest so I can wrap my arms around his neck. He knows how much my friends mean to me; we've been to hell and back together. He also knows how scared I am to tell them I'm gay. More than that, the person I'm gay for is DEAD. It would be impossible for them to understand. But you can't keep it a secret forever…

"I hate my voice of reason…"

"It just told you it'll be impossible to hide us forever didn't it?" groaning I smash my head down into his chest while he laughs at me. Stupid, know it all boyfriend… reads minds…

"I can hear you thinking, and I know it's nothing productive, so how about you head over and meet your friends okay? Maybe you can brainstorm ways of telling them. No matter what, I have your back, okay love?" He talks so sweetly for a dead guy. Must've been how I fell for him. Guess it helps that you're half dead too.

"Right, I'll just go meet them, then. And… think. Right." Standing up I yank the hood of the cloak back over my head and grab my backpack hidden stashed under Walkers desk. One kiss and a slammed door later I'm flying through the ghost zone towards my very own lair. I really should look into changing it up soon, a castle is way too much…

The comfortable chill of the ghost zone washes over me as I speed through the sky of the zone. As I get closer to the edge of the city that's home to my lair, I start seeing the faces of my people walking the local shops. Slowing down so I can smile at them, I make my way through the city center towards the tall building in the distance. Really need to look into changing that…

By the time I touch down at the front steps of the palace I can already tell my friends are there. Lights on in the small living room area give away their presence before their voices finally reach me.

"-cker no! You got to do it last time so now it's my turn!" Sam sounded more amused then angry while she spoke.

"Sam you know this equipment is highly delicate since I haven't finished calibrating the dampener yet, if not handled correctly someone could get seriously hurt!" The concern in Tuckers voice made me proud, we've grown up so much since freshman year. Matured in ways it's hard to believe is possible. Yet we still have a long way to go.

"Am I missing something?" I revel in the gasps from my friends as I finally announced my presence. It was so rare I could catch them by surprise. With all we've been through it's hard for any of us to let down our guard anymore. It's nice to know there's still a place where they feel safe. Even if that place is the realm of the dead.

"Danny! Geez warn a man dude… hey can you help me with-"

"-with the calibration of the energy dampener, yeah I can. Can you bring it up to the workshop? You know I don't like playing with stuff out here." Two apologetic grins and a few flights of stairs later I was finally able to get my hands on the newest invention of our resident tech genius, Tucker Foley.

"So, this is loosely based off the designs my parents had for the original portal, but shrunken down significantly…" I let myself trail off as my eyes tracked the connection of two wires.

"Okay. Why did you put this here?" I ask, pointing to the awkward placement of a wire.

"Well, I couldn't figure out how it would connect based off the design changes, in the original design we wired the energy source through here," he moves to point at a small section below my finger, "but in the scaled down version it wouldn't have the connector there. I tried reworking the design a bit but no matter how I change it the connection doesn't exist, and we can't add it without giving the whole thing a portal wall. Which would completely negate the goal. I just don't know if it's even possible to do this…"

While he talked, I worked the device in my hands a bit before reaching for my tool kit. Grabbing the wire cutters, I began stripping off sections and severing some of the looser connections before working on rewiring straight to the energy core.

"If we cut through here it should balance out the stabilizer, and you shouldn't have any problems with the core overloading anymore. What you were doing was putting too much stress on the central processor and causing the whole thing to collapse in on itself. It would have been fine with normal tech, but since you're using an ecto energy core, it made the whole thing unstable. If we just calibrate it now…" I slide my chair over to the computer while Tuck plugs in the device. Clicking a few keys, the screen lights up with a diagnostics program, and a wait time.

"Looks like it's gonna take a while. How about we talk about today while we wait?" I turn to look at my friends as I speak and smile at the look of pride on their faces.

"Yeah, we've got a lot we need to talk about." Sam and Tucker exchange a worried look and I have a brief moment of undefined panic before it settles. No, there's no way they know. How could they?

The walk to the den is amiable and filled with quiet chatter, yet for some reason I feel like I'm walking to the gallows. My feeling of dread from this morning resurges with a vengeance and I take a brief moment to remind myself I'm safe here before joining my friends on the soft carpet of our living room.

"So, today, class. That was… something." Part of me really wants to laugh at the pathetically underexaggerated words that just left my friend's mouth.

"You can say that again…" Sam mutters and throws her head back with a sigh, looking towards the ceiling like it has all the answers, or any answers really.

"So, my parents are… open… let's say… to the idea that ghosts have feelings. That's… new. Should we… do something about this? Let it be? I really have no idea how to proceed here…" Part of the tension leaves me as we talk about the subject I'm comfortable discussing. I look towards my friends for answers.

"Honestly? I think we should just leave it alone for now. I think it's safe to say that with all of our planning and catastrophizing, not a single one of us could picture this outcome. Since we're on completely unfamiliar ground how about we just take it by day? You know, see what happens and react in the moment?" Sam makes a lot of sense; we really don't know what to do. This really is uncharted best course of action might actually be inaction.

"Do you think that's safe though? I mean, with the types of research they must've been doing to find this out, we don't know anything about what they know. For all we know they could actually…" Tucker doesn't finish his thought as he looks to me. I know what he's thinking. What if they found out about me? What if that's why they changed? But it doesn't add up. If they know they would've said something. They would've said something, I know it.

"I really doubt that Tuck. Anyway, if we don't know what's going to happen, we can't plan ahead of time. The most logical thing to do is take it by day. I agree with Sam." Sam looks over at me in gratitude and Tucker looks slightly appeased, all in all I think it's a win. Then I see them share another look and my unease is back full force.

"Danny…" Sam starts softy, as if afraid to scare me. It only serves to terrify me more. Then Tuck clears his throat.

"We know you're hiding something from us dude… no, we don't know what it is. But we're worried about you. You know you can tell us anything man…" Tucker looks so sad as he says this. I suddenly felt horrible for keeping a secret from my friends. But how the hell do you tell them you're dating a dead guy…

"Guys," My voice is raspy, so I clear my throat and try again, "guys, I really want to tell you. But I'm worried you won't look at me the same when you find out…" My nervousness must've shown on my face because before I can blink there's two pairs of arms wrapping around me.

"Danny, no matter what, you are our best friend. How many times do we have to tell you that before you'll believe us?"

"Yeah dude, we're here for you, you could secretly have a thing for Wulf and I'd still be your bro." After cringing at the mental picture of me and Wulf I smile my thanks and hug them back.

"It's… well. I guess… fuck I didn't think through how to actually say the words…" my muttering causes soft smiles to appear on my friends faces before Sam leans close to me to put a hand on my shoulder.

"Danny it's okay. Take your tim-"

"I'm dating Wally!" Two twin looks of confusion and I realize my mistake with a wince.

"Uhm… You guys know him as Wallace, Wallace Walker…" I watch the confusion turn to understanding, then shock, and finally amusement.

"Dude. You freaked out about telling us you were dating the guy you literally built a city with? And spent countless sleepless nights with writing down real rules. And have obviously been in love with for almost two years?"

"We've only been dating for a year though!" I know my face was bright red, but I can't quite appreciate the humor my friends are feeling with the amount of relief flooding through my system.

"Danny. We told you before and now I'll say it again. It's fine, it's all fine. We know how you feel, and we accept you." There are tears pricking the back of my eyes as I listen to Sam talk. Today has been such a stressful day, but I have the best friends. Pulling them both back into another hug I laugh as my sense of dread finally goes away. What a trip today has been...

Ooooooh lord. What a chapter! What a plot twist! No one saw that coming! ...right? Oh well, even if you did it makes me happy. I hope everyone is enjoying this so far. Shoutout to the people who've favorited my story! You guys are awesome! I'll keep working on this and hopefully have more out soon... though maybe not as soon as I got this out... heh heh...