It's a little early in the morning for me right now, so good morning!
I originally intended this chapter to be a little longer, but I like the stark cut-off here. I might combine it with its follow-up chapter in the final edit of the story, but right now, I think it serves as a good landing point. Next chapter, we're probably going to get a little father-son chat, Jack's read on the situation—for better or worse—and some hints as to what ghostwriter and Jazz have been talking about.
I've been stupidly busy lately, so I expect another hiatus. I'm currently dealing with my own medical difficulties; I finally got my top surgery consultation scheduled as well as my testosterone shots set up- I've been given a huge new lease on life, and I want to take as much advantage of it as possible. My back has really been killing me, so I might be in and out of physical therapy for the rest of the summer, but when I'm laid up in bed recovering, I'll probably work on this for you all. -Voorhees.
BOOM!
Everything was normal—so so so so normal, Danny thought as he sped by a weathervane to gain altitude on the situation. The police lights reflected off the damp road, and the whole block flooded with cars.
The squeaking metal obstruction was so loud that Danny took a moment while adjusting to his new position to halt the spinning rusty turbine and sandwiching the weathervane's blades between his gloved hands.
Well, it could have gone worse.
The ghost boy made the executive decision to get the hell out of Dodge.
But he didn't move. He kept watching as lights in the neighborhood began to switch on at the sound of sirens.
Paralyzed.
He had to calm down. Danny needed to calm down.
He had to stop thinking about how nice Dash smelled. That's just weird.
He wanted to stop thinking about how fun it was to push Dash's buttons… until it wasn't. It caused this twinge in Danny's chest.
He didn't even want to apologize in the first place!
Oh god, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?!
Danny didn't even know why he was there. He was compelled to be here. Not a thought or hesitation in his mind. Then, like that — abrupt and harsh, ripped from a dream… like everything that came before was sleepwalking.
How well would that excuse hold up in court?
Sitting on a neighboring roof, all The Phantom could do was watch. Watch it all unfold. His stomach lurched at the chaos. At first, he thought it was to fight back against the bile that crawled its way up his throat, but no…
No.
It was…
He felt it from the bottom of his gut to the tips of his ears—this heat—this… burning. It was like his chest was finally full. The coarse shingles through the fabric of his suit. The blood in his veins seemed to be at war with the rest of his body, running far too hot.
How the rain seemed to hit his cheek but only produced vapor. How piercing the night breeze was, the howls of which were now faint. His arm hair stood on edge. How tight his skin was.
Danny felt it all.
He swallowed before exhaling slowly.
For the first time in a long time, Danny felt real. Real and heavy.
Then, all too soon, the disgust followed. His grip found the collar of his hazmat suit, and the ghost boy wormed his fingers around it. Pulling it taut, cutting himself off, he dug into his windpipe.
In any normal circumstances, he wouldn't be able to breathe.
Normal circumstances don't exactly apply to me, though…
He knew precisely why he was here. He just didn't want to say it out loud. He couldn't say it, for there weren't any words for what he had just done.
A laugh seemed to escape the Phantom. Nervous and quiet, he pleaded, "What's wrong with me?"
It was a question Danny didn't want the answer to. He'd rather just suffer with the symptoms and let it kill him. Finally, kill him.
The answer was an infection that performed like an obsession, taking the stage and bowing in repose as it seemed to puppeteer the Phantom around effortlessly.
Yet he didn't resist.
He'd rather just watch.
In this flurry of far-flung thoughts, he heard just how loud the pulse was in his ears. How satisfying it felt for some unknown reason. How alive he felt… in months.
But it wasn't his pulse.
Just another thing he stole. It was all just a substitute for the real thing.
Danny couldn't tell you when he decided to get off the roof. When exactly he had enough basking and agonizing— impossible to gauge. Another one of those sleepwalking moments, only fueled by a rolling boil of blood and nerves.
The rain was a needed cleanse— the chill in the air and the static only stabilized him as he rushed through the storm, weaving before breaking through the barrier of clouds that kept him from the glow of the moonlight.
He thought about how small his problems looked from a satellite. Fenton wanted his issues to be as simple as maintaining his oxygen intake and floating, no longer bound to anything except the planet's orbit. It would never be that simple, maybe ever again .
Why was he like this?
Why did he like hurting people?
Was that a teenage thing or a ghost thing?
Halting in the sky, his fingers knotted in his platinum white hair and squeezed. Danny wanted to feel something, anything— to distract from what just happened. He wanted to take a black marker and scrub it across the paper of his mind. One of the many downsides of being dead is that physical pain couldn't offer any reprieve from the emotional kind.
Counting the stars, Danny's eyes traced the constellations to the horizon. From above, he could see the town in a valley of mountains. He could see the vast dark rivers and lakes. The man-made clouds that met the sky from the distant metal mills. How the safety lights on the factory scaffolding twinkled from white to red in the distance. The powerlines laced everything together, creating evidence of unity across entire districts that were separated by the financial disparity between them. For all his complaining, Amity Park was a pretty podunk. It's cruel that he couldn't share this view. For a brief moment, Danny wanted to share a part of himself in an uncharacteristically unselfish moment of adolescent vulnerability.
The moon loomed large, washing him over with its borrowed refracted light. The sight was enough to make the pain inside of him swell, and he cried out, "WHAT THE HELL WRONG WITH ME?!"
BOOM!
A thunderclap replied in the distance.
The ghost boy took a gulp of air, sniffling— he rubbed his eyes. It had been so long since he cried… that he thought the rain had somehow followed him up.
Danny's vision blurred the approaching neon sign of his family's home.
Why did he have to be born as Danny Fenton?
Why not any other name to any other family?
It was always his family that had to complicate things.
He's only this way because they made him this way, right?
As the neon sign bearing his birthright only seemed to glare at him, he wished with all of his might to take aim and extinguish it.
But no. Danny stayed staring. His eyes spilled with searing tears, yet he remained resolved.
Danny would rather stare at the sun than anywhere near a mirror—because he knew at least one had the possibility of changing.
He swiped at his eyes. These aren't his tears; they couldn't be. It's just another facsimile, another thing he stole.
This night had to be over.
Wanting nothing more than to crawl under a blanket and die— the ghost boy zipped around the back of his house to find his window.
As the pads of his fingers made contact with the cool glass—
CRAAAAAAAACK —
A wave surged up his arm. Somehow, instead of phasing through his window, he had plunged his hand into an abyss of needles. A shooting pain ran up and down through his shoulder to the very center of his chest, nearly causing him to drop like a stone.
Danny jumped back from the opening. He had every ounce of discipline and strength within his body not to yell out and wake his parents.
Attempting to get the feeling back into his limbs, he shook it out—
Examining the window… a shimmer caught the moonlight and tangled between the raindrops.
The ghost shield…?
…
He seethed, "Jazz…"
Clenching his fists, Danny dove down and landed in the alleyway behind the house. The balls of his feet made contact with the ground before gravity allowed his full weight to hit the driveway.
In a flash of light, he was himself again, yet… the self-hatred only seemed to linger.
His now black hair fell into place.
To test this theory, he approached the back wall of Fentonworks, his knuckles brushing against the brick.
Nothing.
Amidst the chaos, Danny felt a strange sense of calm wash over him. It was as if he had been playing a game of chicken with a lit stove burner, anticipating the inevitable jerk away, but instead, there was nothing.
A profound emptiness filled his being, leaving him questioning—every motion—and every thought that had brought him to this moment. Whatever his intentions were—it didn't make him feel better.
The ghost boy shambled forward, his feet landing in ice-cold puddles of rain. He traced his hand along the outside wall; he was sure it was where the kitchen floor met the foundation of the basement.
Why? Why did this have to happen to me? Why did it have to be him?! It could have been so much easier if it wasn't Dash—
… I just… I want to go home.
Despite already being home, he still yearned for it. He craved it—not longing for a place but for a different period of time, a time when things made sense.
Danny couldn't remember if he made a wish when he blew the candles out— but maybe instead, he could just ask for a do-over. Nothing had felt the same since then. It was another end to the tentative stability he thought he had under control. Why did it have to change? Why did he have to change?
He wished he didn't have to be fifteen anymore, but he knew he was too late. It was like he had gotten off at the wrong exit and was now stranded here.
Cars and time just passing him by as the hazard lights keep him company.
Danny wanted to be a kid again with no questions asked, yet that was nothing more than a fleeting fantasy.
As he stared at the door, the numbers on the side of the frame were clear and legible.
He was home.
And there was no relief from the guilt.
He wanted to open the door, and there would be no questions asked. No explanations, no lies. Just the arms of his family holding him to their chests so his heart had a chance to sync with theirs.
Danny desperately wanted this door to lead back to a time when answers didn't matter and worries were only something discussed in rooms away from him. Cartoons were on the television with inviting colors, and canned spaghetti was the best meal he ever had.
Hesitantly perched on the back stoop, the ghost boy refrained from knocking. He was reluctant to make any noise; he didn't want to remind anyone that he existed. Danny didn't want to demand something he didn't deserve.
His forehead landed on the door. The rain fell down his back.
…
Without warning—Danny nearly tumbled inside his kitchen, just barely catching himself from face-planting onto the tile.
"Danny, there you are— did y'know it's past curfew!"
The sound of his father's voice hit his ears, yet he couldn't make sense of the words. It was as if they had lost all meaning to him.
The ghost boy kept staring at the ground, wanting it to open up and swallow him whole.
His body had slumped forward, hitting the wall of his father's chest. Approximating what a hug was defined as.
"What's the matter, huh?" Jack secured his hand around his son's shoulders— shaken by the silence.
The only thing the younger man could say was, " —Forgot my keys… "