A/N: Written for the Danny Phantom 2010s Crossover Angst Week event, ostensibly for July 13, 2024 (captured by characters of another media), but also including the other prompts I've missed for this week (July 7, GiW experimentation; July 8, post Nasty Burger explosion; July 10, trapped in the thermos for months or years; and July 11, controlled by an outside source; with an honourable mention to July 12, runaway, though I have a separate fic with that prompt). Given the nature of the prompts, this fic touches on character death, dissection, mind control, etc, with some minor swearing (or as close to it as they get on Supernatural).
Danny wanted to cry, but he didn't have any tears left.
He laughed instead.
Everything hurt, and laughing made it worse, but it bubbled out of him anyway.
It wasn't a particularly sane-sounding laugh, which might be why the two men who'd shot and then trapped him exchanged looks and didn't lower their shotguns.
Sitting here now on the worn wooden floor of one of Vlad's cabins hidden in the wilds of Colorado, foiled by a stupid circle of salt, of all things, felt ridiculous.
He'd gotten through so much.
He'd survived so much.
And for what?
I'm inevitable, his evil future self had taunted. And he'd ensured it. He'd stolen Danny's family—their family, blood and bond—away forever. Even Mr. Lancer, who hadn't had an inkling of the truth as far as Danny knew but had tried, on occasion, to make sure he'd do well in school despite the wealth of things Danny had never mentioned to him….
Going to Vlad had been by necessity more so than choice, but Danny had had an idea of how this was supposed to go. He'd still had a chance to make sure that future didn't happen. He'd needed Vlad's help to get back on his feet, to process what had happened. He'd needed Vlad's money—cash, lots of it, squirrelled away over the course of weeks—to make sure he'd be able to support himself when he ran away and kept moving so that Vlad wouldn't be able to find him and bring him back.
Planning had drawn him out of his grief, a reprieve from the numbness as he focused on something else, but he'd still felt hollow, doing all of this without Sam and Tucker by his side, without Jazz butting in to help, without having to hide everything from his parents. He'd never imagined everything would end so suddenly. He'd never imagined, even when he'd first realized what his evil future self had been capable of, that he might lose—and lose everything.
He'd left Vlad to deal with the funeral arrangements, only checking things over before everything was finalized to make sure Vlad hadn't tried to pull something—how could he put this mildly?—unsavoury in terms of his parents' funerals. He hadn't, thankfully; they'd been about what he'd expected. Same with Jazz's. Maybe it was because Vlad had been in shock, too, but Danny hadn't been about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
He'd talked to Tucker's parents—Sam's hadn't wanted to see him; no surprise there—and Sam's grandmother, and he'd cried and allowed himself to feel lost. He'd talked to Valerie, who'd tried to be supportive despite not knowing how messed up everything really was. But he hadn't wanted to talk to anyone else, and even the ghosts had left him alone.
Well, he hadn't wanted to talk to anyone else except for Clockwork.
But Clockwork hadn't wanted to be found, so Danny had yet to find him.
He'd still searched. Searching was—technically—part of the reason he was in this mess now.
"Dude, the Ghostfacers really couldn't handle this guy? He's not trying to break out. Nothing's even flying around the room."
It was the shorter of the two men speaking, though when Danny managed to stop laughing and breathe through his pain instead, the man didn't look as relaxed as his tone suggested. He was still watching Danny with sharp eyes, ready to counteract any move Danny might make.
If Danny were more practiced in telekinesis—or if he were confident he could do it despite the salt line that seemed to be as effective as a ghost shield for reasons he could not understand—he'd probably have ripped the guns out of their hands and emptied them of ammo before flinging everything out the window. The window would break, but that would be Vlad's problem, not Danny's.
Then again, that would give Vlad an idea of where to look for him, assuming everything else hadn't already.
Danny didn't really want that, but with everything he'd gotten into, that might not be a bad thing.
He'd thought he was through dealing with Freakshow, but the man had—somehow—gotten away from the Guys in White. More to the point, he'd gotten away from them and gotten up to his old tricks. Not with Lydia and the others—he'd had a crew Danny hadn't recognized—but he'd either found another stone that could be used to control ghosts or had found a shard of the original one.
Danny wasn't sure, even now.
He couldn't remember enough of that time to know much of anything for certain.
He'd been keeping tabs on Vlad's (public) search for him via the newspapers, which is how he'd caught wind of something that had sounded a bit too much like Circus Gothica for comfort. He'd gone to check it out to reassure himself that it wasn't Freakshow, but of course that had backfired spectacularly.
Most of the details after he'd gone to that first show were hazy or nonexistent. Mostly, he remembered Freakshow locking eyes with him in the crowd and smiling. He remembered thinking that was weird, thinking that he shouldn't be someone Freakshow would have reason to pick out of a crowd, thinking that Freakshow shouldn't remember him after Danny had used the Reality Gauntlet to rewrite reality, but in hindsight, it was fairly evident that Freakshow had remembered. At any rate, he'd certainly lost no time in getting Danny under his control despite Danny being in his human form at the time. Maybe Freakshow had remembered him—maybe remembered everything—because he'd used the Reality Gauntlet in the past? Or at least in a past that still existed on some level even if Clockwork was the only one who knew all its intricacies?
Danny didn't understand.
He'd probably never understand unless Clockwork would deign to be found and talk to him.
"Dean." The voice of the taller man was flat. "Don't give him any ideas."
"Don't give him any ideas," parroted Dean, and the taller man made a face, which had Dean smirking. "Hey." Dean was looking at Danny again. "You wanna give your spiel for why you've been murdering the locals? I've got time."
"I didn't kill anyone," Danny said, and his voice sounded confident enough, but he wasn't sure if it was true.
Not when he couldn't remember what Freakshow had made him do.
But even if he had, he hadn't killed the people these guys were talking about.
"I swear," he added when they didn't bother to hide their dubious looks. "I'm not going to attack you, either. Promise. You can put the guns down. I really don't want to be shot again." Once had been more than enough.
"Look, kid, I appreciate the effort, but the innocent act isn't going to work on us. This isn't our first rodeo."
"Not mine, either," Danny said dully. He tried again to press one of his hands intangibly through the floor, but it might as well have been coated with phase-proof foam. That wasn't likely something Vlad had done unless Danny just so happened to be sitting above a secret safe or armory or equivalent which—while not unlikely, per se, considering it was Vlad—was doubtful. Vlad would presumably make a better effort at hiding that sort of thing. He'd at least cover it with a rug, wouldn't he?
Actually, chances were, if Vlad did have a secret safe/armory/whatever in this place, it wasn't beneath the cabin. A false wall without a door to the gap behind it seemed likely. Presumably, he wouldn't have been guarding against ghosts here; he'd have been guarding against humans.
Humans weren't likely to start chopping down walls without a good reason, and if Vlad needed anything, he'd be able to get it intangibly almost before his opponent could blink.
"Yeah, sorry, the Ghostfacers don't count."
Danny was pretty sure the Ghostfacers were the ones who'd let him out of the thermos, mostly because he hadn't run into anyone else before these two. The Ghostfacers were ghost hunters, technically, despite being more incompetent than half the ones who'd shown up in Amity Park when he'd first had the million-dollar bounty put on his head. Then again, things had been a bit chaotic when they'd been here, and not just because the ghosts of the animals who haunted this place had been riled up by something they'd done before Danny had been aware enough to register what was happening around him.
Being in a thermos—even what was, as far as he could tell, a knockoff of his parents' technology—wasn't like being trapped in the Fenton Weasel or anything like that. After a while, awareness dwindled, and it was like being held in stasis. Fundamentally, Danny hadn't changed from when he'd gone in there. He knew that. But that had had as many negatives as positives.
Danny tried to muster up a cocky smile as he said, "And you're sure you do?"
Dean frowned, possibly because Danny's expression wasn't hitting the mark or because it was, or maybe Dean wasn't happy about the teasing in the first place. Still, the other man spoke up before he could. "Look, kid. You seem pretty aware of what's going on, so we'll be straight with you, okay? Maybe you were just trying to help people. I get it. I also want to help people. But you can't save people by bringing them over to your side. Most people don't even get stuck in the veil like you did; they go straight to heaven or hell." He hesitated, glanced at the other man, and added, "If you tell us what's keeping you here, we'll be able to free you, too."
Huh.
Danny wasn't sure what exactly these guys believed—when they talked about a veil, did they mean the Ghost Zone? Like it being on the other side of the veil of death or something?—but then again, he also wasn't entirely sure what he believed. Heaven and hell weren't exactly places he'd ever considered to be real on any level that mattered. Granted, he knew not everyone became a ghost after they died. Knowing that some people did become ghosts made it more logical that something happened with those who didn't, but it wasn't like Danny's life had ever run on logic.
To be fair, he hadn't gone looking for anyone after the explosion. Vlad had warned him not to, and he'd looked so broken that Danny had taken his advice. His parents wouldn't have wanted to be ghosts, anyway, but Tucker would have. He admittedly wasn't entirely sure about Jazz and Sam, though he had his suspicions, and he had no idea whatsoever when it came to Mr. Lancer. Yet, if choice had been involved at all—something these guys seemed to be implying if they thought he knew what was keeping him here, which he supposed he did, since it was his human half, but he had a feeling transforming in front of them right now might wind up with him dying for real—then there would have been at least one of them for him to find.
But Vlad hadn't gone looking for Maddie, not even (as far as Danny was aware) behind Danny's back, and if he were willing to let her go….
"I'm not killing people," Danny repeated. "You have things wrong."
The two exchanged another look.
If they weren't family, they were definitely best friends who were as good as (or better than) family.
"Yeah?" challenged Dean. "What've we got wrong? Because you've gotta admit, it lines up from our perspective. Kids hiking on the trail that goes near this place keep disappearing and their bodies turn up torn to shreds. The first hunters—and I shouldn't even be calling them that; I'm being generous—to get wind of it come here and get attacked by you and all your little guard ghosts. You—"
"If they're my 'guard ghosts'," Danny interrupted, lifting his hands to give air quotes around the words that deserved them, "then where are they now? Why aren't they attacking you?"
"Because they went out for the kill after our friend who's playing bait, and they're not coming back from that one," retorted Dean, but he was wrong.
He was wrong because Danny had used the very thermos in which he'd been trapped to capture all the ghost animals. Some of them might have been harmless—or as harmless as Cujo, at any rate—but he hadn't had a lot of time to be discerning. The Ghostfacers had been there for that, but apparently they hadn't realized he'd been defending them and not, from the sounds of it, recalling his 'guard ghosts'.
Dean wasn't wrong about the people being killed, though.
Danny hadn't known about it until he'd been out of the thermos, obviously, but the Ghostfacers—who'd been videotaping the entire time and helpfully narrating what they thought was going on—had filled Danny in on the relevant details.
Bodies of hikers torn to shreds, something the authorities had put down to wild animal attacks. Conservation officers (or animal control or whoever it was) combing the area for signs of the affected animal—or animals; Danny couldn't remember the details terribly well since he'd been recovering from being stuck in a thermos at the time. The sudden reintroduction to the world had not been as smooth as he was used to, though he wasn't sure if that was because he'd been in there for a while or because of the state he'd been in when he'd gone in there.
The Guys in White hadn't exactly been gentle.
There were gaps in Danny's knowledge, and not just because of being under Freakshow's control. He knew when he'd gone to Freakshow's show, and he knew that was months ago compared to now. There wasn't a TV in here (not anymore, but Danny couldn't remember if Vlad had had one last time, either), but Vlad had a radio; Danny left it on most of the time as much to keep himself sane as to make sure he'd catch any breaking news that might be relevant.
Still, he didn't know how long he'd been controlled, how long he'd been held captive, or how long he'd been in a thermos. Too long, by all counts.
He was confident in that order, though.
At least, he knew he'd somehow gone from being one of Freakshow's lackeys to being captured by the Guys in White—presumably, unless Freakshow was now working for the Guys in White, but if he was, he had not been stupid enough to show his face and gloat while Danny had been held by them.
Then again, if he had, Danny wasn't sure if he'd have been able to do anything.
Between the blood blossoms, the electric shocks, some kind of rock that wasn't as ordinary as it had appeared (though, to be fair, it was only ordinary because green and glowing had been part of Danny's life since his parents had started collecting ectoplasm samples), and whatever cocktail of chemicals they'd injected him with, fighting hadn't really been an option.
The only upside of the whole thing was no longer being under Freakshow's thumb, but Danny wasn't sure if it had been a good trade.
He'd spent the three days since the Ghostfacers had freed him recovering, initial capture of the animal ghosts (including the few almost-certainly-murderous ones) aside, but he certainly wasn't fully healed. Capturing the ghosts and avoiding the terrified-yet-trigger-happy humans had taken way more out of him than it should have; he'd struggled to remain in his ghost form (if nothing else, with the amount of ectoplasm seeping through the still-visible slashes in his suit, he had been pretty sure transforming had had Bad Idea written all over it, and he was wary of it now despite stitching himself up), and the fight had technically been quick but had still taken longer than he'd anticipated. Probably because he hadn't expected it to take long at all because he wasn't used to animal ghosts posing a huge problem for him.
Also probably because he'd expected to have the energy to shoot an ectoblast when it turned out he couldn't even muster the dimmest glow of a non-violent ghost ray.
Of course, part of that was because of the Ghostly Wail, but that hadn't been completely intentional.
Which might not help his case, so he wasn't about to admit it to these two.
Come to think of it, that must be another thing the Ghostfacers hadn't told them. They might not be quite so quick to dismiss Danny if they'd known about it. He should be grateful, really—they'd definitely have shot him more than once if they'd known—but if they knew the damage outside had been caused by him and not a plough wind or whatever they'd chalked it up to….
"Hey. Hey, you still with us?"
Danny blinked and lifted his head slightly. It was the taller man, crouching down in front of him now and mercifully pointing the shotgun elsewhere as he did so (though Dean's gun was still on Danny), and this time, something that might actually be concern had crossed his face.
He was a ghost hunter.
If he was concerned, he probably wasn't concerned for Danny.
Chances were, he was concerned that Danny's apparent lack of focus meant he was trying to do something they wouldn't like.
"Yeah," Danny said, though it sounded like a lie even to his own ears. He realized he'd huddled in on himself, hugging his legs to his torso and lowering his head towards his knees, and carefully pulled back, relaxing into a cross-legged position. Huddling had become a habit during his captivity—not touching barriers had become second nature because that had always ended badly—and at some point, his brain must have decided the circle of salt was a barrier.
Which it was, technically.
But not one that would hurt him when he touched it.
Just one that he couldn't get through.
These two had been quick about pouring it around him after they'd shot him and he'd dropped. He'd still been a keening mess on the floor at the time. He should be now, but as awful as his time with the Guys in White had been, it had improved his pain tolerance. His powers had already done that, admittedly, but that was typically when his healing ability was working better than it was currently.
Consequently, he wasn't sure what hurt more: the veritable autopsy scar hidden beneath his now-stitched suit that might very well be bleeding again or the echoing ache of the impact from where he'd been shot that—at the very least—had done a number on his already-bruised ribs.
Something was probably broken.
The thousand knives stabbing him simultaneously when he'd laughed suggested that, anyway, and he wouldn't be surprised to learn the Guys in White had broken something on purpose.
They'd been absurdly delighted to realize that he hadn't just been a mass of goo inside when they'd cut into him.
Danny wasn't actually sure if he still had all his organs.
With all the rooting around they'd done inside, everything had hurt in ways he'd never known before anyway, so it wasn't like he'd feel it if they taken his spleen or kidney or gallbladder or part of his liver or something, and he hadn't stayed conscious when they'd been doing everything.
Of course, he also didn't know if they'd taken anything vital. If they had, his ghost form could evidently survive without it. Ghost 'n' all. But….
His humanity was still there. He knew he could change back.
He didn't know if he'd remain alive if he did change back.
He'd heard them talking about samples.
He knew they'd taken more than pints of ectoplasm out of him.
He was probably lucky he still had all his fingers.
"Kid!" The sharp word was accompanied by a loud clap of the hands that made him flinch. He might be lucky they (presumably) didn't want to cross the salt line or that would've been closer to his face.
Danny blinked again.
Everything was blurry.
He hadn't been out of tears after all.
He sniffed and wiped his nose with his sleeve, careful to steer clear of his wrist, which was still raw from the bindings that had held him to the dissection table. He didn't have any tissues on him in his ghost form. He didn't have anything beyond his suit, period. If Freakshow had permitted him to carry anything, the Guys in White had confiscated it, and refilling his pockets hadn't been a priority when he'd thought no one was coming back.
The way the Ghostfacers had left, he'd been sure they weren't coming back, and he hadn't thought anyone they might tell would be eager to come here.
In other words, he'd been an idiot and now he was paying for it.
But he just….
He didn't want to leave yet.
Maybe Vlad would find him. Maybe not. Danny still wasn't really sure if he wanted that. But he hadn't escaped the Guys in White by himself. Someone had trapped him in a thermos and carried him out. Someone had helped him.
Then again, that same someone hadn't let him out of the thermos.
He'd just been…stuck.
In stasis.
Too hurt to try fighting his way out (it had to be possible if the Box Ghost could manage it, especially when he'd be trying it with a device that wasn't made by his parents or Vlad), too weak to maintain awareness, too tired to try to pull himself together to maintain enough form to be.
He'd let himself scatter.
His condition when he'd gone into the thermos and length of time in captivity aside, that was undoubtedly another reason he wasn't recovering as fast as normal.
"What?" The word came out more crack than croak, but even if they couldn't understand what he'd said, they'd be able to guess, so he didn't try to repeat it.
"You're hurt," said the taller man. It wasn't a question, so when Danny looked down, he wasn't surprised to see ectoplasm leaking through his suit. The shape of the cut wasn't obvious—not all of his makeshift stitches had opened up, thankfully; a normal needle and thread apparently did work in a pinch, at least on a ghost—but he was bleeding at his sternum where they'd shot him.
He still didn't know if his intangibility had failed because of his body trying to flush itself of all the chemicals given to him by the Guys in White or because of whatever these two had shot him with.
"Sammy."
Danny didn't miss the warning in Dean's tone.
Neither did Sammy, though the annoyance crossing his face might be from the nickname and not the admonishment. If it wasn't Sammy, did he usually go by Sam or Samuel?
Sam, probably. Lots of people went by Sam.
The name made Danny's heart ache, though.
(Did he still have a heart?)
"I know what I'm doing," Probably-Sam insisted, and Dean pursed his lips.
Danny tried to make himself smile. He wasn't sure if he succeeded. "Yeah. I know I'm hurt. Contrary to the opinion of some renowned paranormal scientists, ghosts actually do feel pain."
"Hey." Dean touched Sam's arm and jerked his head towards the door. Sam huffed but straightened up and followed Dean outside. The door was open—Dean was clearly still watching him—and Danny could hear them talking, but they were speaking quietly enough that he couldn't make out their words.
He tried to swallow down the lump in his throat, blinked his eyes clear again, and stared at the line of salt instead.
Salt.
If it were ordinary salt, then apparently he now knew the secret ingredient his parents had used to make their phase-proof foam.
Who knew salt was a ghost repellent?
These guys, apparently.
And his parents, if he could still count them.
And the Ghostfacers, technically, but while Danny vaguely remembered them flinging salt around in a panic as they'd been swarmed and attacked by the animal ghosts, they hadn't used it effectively.
Had they?
At least one of them had had a gun like these guys had, and Danny remembered the sound of gunfire.
It had been disorienting. The chill of his ghost sense that hadn't been able to cool the scorching pain in every nerve; the acrid taste of chemical that had still burned on his tongue and in his throat despite the coolness of the night; the cold wetness of the grass beneath him, each blade sharp and cutting even through the fabric of his suit; the gunfire, too loud and close, which had burst through both the general cacophony of the animals and the all-too-human yelling, which had been garbled at first before resolving into words—concerning words, if they'd been true, and he hadn't yet had reason to think they weren't; the too-bright glow of the animals and the blinding brightness of flashlights against the dark of the night; the sharp stabbing he'd felt as he'd gasped for breath, needing to breathe (hadn't he needed to breathe?) and feeling (imagining?) the desperate burn of his lungs….
(Did he still have both of his lungs? Did he still have any part of either of his lungs?)
(Did he want to know the answer?)
The salt was like a ghost shield. He couldn't cross it as a ghost.
He could try to wait out Dean and Sam. They'd have to leave eventually. There was food here, and the place had running water, and they technically could crash on the living room furniture if they wanted one of them to have eyes on him at all times, but he hadn't worried them that much, had he?
It wasn't like one of the Ghostfacers had been caught in his Ghostly Wail. He'd tried to avoid them and the most aggressive ghosts first: the bear, the moose, the cougar, and the wolf.
The bear had gone for the pair of Ghostfacers nearest Danny. The moose had been charging at the Ghostfacer holding the video camera. The cougar had picked one of the ones with flashlights farthest away—the only girl, if Danny remembered correctly. The wolf had gone for the other straggler who'd fallen in his attempt to run away. The others had been mostly swarming the two the cameraman had been most focused on, his panning away to show off all the ghosts aside, but when the bear had started running, the other ghosts had come to overwhelm Danny instead.
Danny hadn't stopped to think about whether or not these might be the ghosts Vlad had set on him once—the same ones that he'd then set back on Vlad. He hadn't stopped to think about why these ghosts might be picking off and murdering humans—if it had even been them, but there hadn't been another attack since, and his ghost sense hadn't gone off again.
He hadn't stopped to think about what stopping the ghosts from attacking the humans would look like to humans who were already terrified out of their minds, either.
When he'd realized he couldn't send off an ectoblast or ten, he'd tried to make a shield, which of course hadn't worked. The cameraman had gone down, and Danny had lunged for him, surprising himself when he'd realized he could still fly, and gotten him away from the moose's hooves. Not unscathed, but away. And then the others….
He'd known there was no way he could duplicate himself. He could fly, but he could hardly fly to every ghost and fight them off before they did any more damage.
He'd been desperate.
He hadn't wanted anyone else to be hurt, but he hadn't been sure he'd be able to save anyone.
He'd wanted to scream.
That had been when he'd realized that—frustrated and angry and exhausted as he'd been—he could still feel one power that had been building within him for—weeks? Months? How long had he been tortured and experimented on by the Guys in White? However long it had been, he'd known he had to do something before people died because he hadn't been able to help them.
So he had.
He'd screamed, letting everything out in one long wail.
One of the Ghostfacers must have dropped the thermos after releasing him; Danny hadn't questioned his luck. When he'd spotted it between the other ghosts, snatching it up and using it had been instinct as much as anything else. He'd caught up the pieces of the ghosts that had been destroyed by his Ghostly Wail with the thermos and then the weakened ones who'd only caught the edges of it, and then he'd capped the thermos and tried not to fall flat on his face. Sure, as far as the Ghostfacers were concerned, seeing him obliterate some ghosts by vibrating their molecules apart wouldn't have been comforting, exactly, but he hadn't turned his power on them. He knew he hadn't.
So if they hadn't been hurt by him, and they hadn't told these two about what Danny had done to the other ghosts, would these two really be so careful or would they underestimate him? If they left, he could try changing back. A little salt had certainly never stopped him as Fenton. He sincerely doubted it would stop him now.
But what if the damage done to him by the Guys in White wasn't something he could survive?
Even if it was something he could heal from, he obviously hadn't healed from it yet.
How well could he heal from something if he couldn't even lie down and try to sleep in the meantime?
Could he afford to wait?
He'd still been eating and everything else since getting here. If he stopped, would he feel the effects? Would that make things worse?
If his human body couldn't sustain itself right now, but he only transformed a hand, would he be able to break the salt line and then transform back and leave? Did he just need to break the circle or did he need a big enough gap that he could get through it as if it were the gap in the opening of a door, like he would with a ghost shield?
Would he lose his hand if he transformed it and his human body wasn't ready to sustain life?
Was there any way to know if it wouldn't, short of waiting till he was healing normally and hoping that whatever the Guys in White had removed had regrown? Would whatever they'd removed regrow? Were his only choices—waiting and hoping aside—going to a hospital for a million tests or trying to break back into the Guys in White and read their records on his captivity? Neither was great, considering the first could very well send him back there and the second was probably the equivalent of a suicide mission.
Stupid catch-22 situations.
He didn't know if Dean and Sam would let him try waiting it out.
Was the person who'd taken him away from the Guys in White ever coming back? It couldn't have been Vlad; if Vlad had left him here, he wouldn't have left him here alone. Danny was reasonably certain that Vlad didn't even know he was here. So who did that leave? Vlad had acquaintances, not friends, and on the extremely slim off chance that there was a ghost sympathizer within the Guys in White, they wouldn't know about this place.
It wasn't as if any of his ghost friends could have rescued him from the Guys in White without being caught themselves, either, even if they'd heard about this place somehow. Not unless Clockwork was helping them, but since Clockwork hadn't helped Danny and he could have interfered at any time—literally, any time before this would have been good, even if none would have been as good as in that moment before the explosion—he doubted Clockwork had been feeling generous enough to do so now.
Someone might have tried, though.
Of course, if someone had, they might be controlled by Freakshow right now.
Or suffering as a guest of the Guys in White.
On second thought, Danny hoped everyone—including Vlad, because he wouldn't wish any of that on Vlad—was clueless about where he'd been.
Danny heard the two hunters come back before he'd decided what to do.
Correction: three hunters.
When had the third guy shown up?
Danny assumed he was the one who'd played at being bait to no avail.
Sam and Dean had taken up their positions with their shotguns again, but the new guy was unarmed. Still, he stared at Danny with an uncomfortable intensity, his head cocked slightly to one side. Danny felt like he was under a microscope, and it was somehow worse than all the time he'd endured being studied by the Guys in White. They'd been horrible, gleeful, but they'd never seen him for who he was.
This guy?
It was like his bright blue eyes could see right through Danny's soul, laying every secret bare.
"Well?" demanded Dean.
"He's not a normal ghost, is he?" asked Sam.
"No." There was no doubt in the new guy's gravelly voice. "He's not."
Sam and Dean were looking at him warily now, but Dean was the one to ask the inevitable question. "So what is he?"
"A scared, scarred child."
Danny would bristle at being called a child if it didn't feel painfully accurate right now.
Or maybe he didn't want to move in case the new guy changed his mind about breaking the salt circle, since he was crouching and reaching out as if he were about to do that.
"Cas, are you sure about this?" Dean again.
"I know all of God's children," Cas replied evenly, which was a weird retort as far as retorts went, but Danny was not going to complain, because Cas had just broken the salt circle and solved Danny's dilemma about how to get out of it without possibly dying for good.
Danny didn't try to leave it yet, though.
He didn't want to get shot again, regardless of what kind of bullets these guys used.
Cas stood up, backed away, and sent meaningful glances at the other two that had them lowering their guns.
Sam's dropped before Dean's. Before moving, Dean muttered, "He's still a freaking ghost even if he's the ghost of a kid," and Cas had to give him a second look.
Danny took that as his cue to remind them that he wasn't—and wouldn't ever be, if he could help it—the ghost who had killed his family. Even if not becoming that ghost caused a paradox thing that hurt his brain, Clockwork could sort it out. If Danny had a scrap of luck left, that's what Clockwork was already doing. "I don't want to hurt anyone. You guys included."
"Okay. We believe you," said Sam, but Danny was pretty sure Dean still had his reservations, despite what Cas had said. "Why don't you tell us your side of the story?"
Somehow, Danny didn't think 'my evil future self killed my family and friends, I was taken in by the person who I once thought was my arch enemy but staying with him made it more likely I would become that evil ghost, so I ran away, and then I kinda sorta accidentally sought out an old enemy and got mind controlled by him and I still don't even know what I did, but then I got captured by or turned over to a secret government organization who tried to take me apart piece by piece, and someone smuggled me out of there in a thermos, but I don't know who it was, so I've been hanging around here in case they come back' would go over particularly well.
Instead, he said, "Your friends. The Ghostfacers?"
"They're not our friends," Dean said quickly.
"Okay, well, they found me here. I didn't even know anyone was getting attacked before the Ghostfacers showed up, but I'm pretty sure it was the animal ghosts who'd been here, and I took care of them."
"You took care of them," repeated Dean, and Danny nodded.
He didn't want to tell them the other ghosts were in the thermos in case they got any bright ideas.
"That's what I do. Or try to do. You might not believe me, but I'm a ghost hunter like you guys." He hadn't looked himself up on the internet in ages. Would the news still be good, considering everything that had happened? "I'm Danny Phantom. From Amity Park."
Dean and Sam looked to Cas, who said nothing. Danny hoped that was a good sign. At least with the spotty service out here, they couldn't just immediately look him up. If the news was bad, the poor reception was definitely a point in Danny's favour.
He decided against giving them his home state, just to slow things down a bit, and tried again for a smile. "Um, please don't shoot me?"
"We're not going to shoot you," Sam said. "Look, I'm Sam, that's my brother Dean, and this is our friend Castiel. We've been doing this long enough by now that we know not every supernatural creature is a monster. But ghosts…. We've seen ghosts who start out good and become twisted. It's something that's out of your control."
Danny really didn't want to hear that right now. "I know who I have the potential to become," he said carefully, and his voice cracked on the word potential, but he tried to keep his breathing steady and not think about what the consequences of that future had been or what his evil future self had already done to ensure it. "But like you said, I'm not like other ghosts. I mean, I've met my fair share of evil ghosts, and ones that just want to make mischief and have a bit of fun, or who mostly mean well or are fairly harmless as long as you humour them, some that want to keep to themselves and others who want to make friends, and some who wouldn't meet anyone's definition of evil even accidentally, and they've been around for ages. The Ghost Zone is as varied as our world on that front. Ghosts aren't different."
"What the hell is a ghost zone?" asked Dean.
"It's where most of the ghosts live. The Infinite Realms?" Danny rubbed the back of his neck. "You guys called it the veil, I think."
"Right," Sam said slowly. "And you're not considered a normal ghost because you reside here instead of there?"
He should probably say yes so they didn't bring up the whole 'not a normal ghost' thing again, shouldn't he?
Then again, if they thought living in a different realm didn't make him different enough, they might be inclined to shoot him anyway, despite what Castiel had said. "No, there are other ghosts who hang out here as much as they can. And I don't even know if those animal ghosts had ever been to the Ghost Zone unless one of them can make portals to it, but I kinda doubt they'd have hung around here if they'd had another option. That might be one of the reasons they went a bit, uh, feral. Sometimes ghosts need the stability of the Ghost Zone if they can't get it here. That or they had some latent orders that got triggered somehow."
"Latent orders?" It was Dean again.
Danny shrugged. "I know someone—a ghost," he clarified, figuring he shouldn't throw Vlad under the bus quite yet. "He did a bunch of experiments on other ghosts." Or animals which had then become ghosts; Danny had never wanted details. "They'd do what he told them to. It wasn't mind control; more like suggestions he convinced them to follow. But something might've been…twisted, somewhere. Which led to people dying. Um, how long has that been going on?"
"Two weeks," Dean said. "Seven people. Three different groups."
Two weeks.
He wondered if he'd been in that thermos for two weeks.
Maybe it really was Vlad who'd gotten him out of there and he'd left Danny because he was laying low until he had time to come back for him.
Then again, if Danny had only been in there for two weeks, then the eight months before that….
He was going to need to figure out how long he'd been under Freakshow's control and what he'd done sooner rather than later.
He might be able to figure out the rest from there.
"I'm sorry." It wouldn't help anything, and he wasn't entirely sure why he was apologizing, but he didn't know what else to say. "If I'd been able to catch them earlier…."
"Ed said something about a thermos?" Sam's question was careful. Neutral.
Oh.
They knew more than he'd thought they did.
"It's a ghost containment device," he said. He wondered if Ed had been the Ghostfacer who'd released him or if he'd just been one who had noticed how Danny had used the thermos after being free.
"A ghost containment device," repeated Sam. "As in captures and contains them?" He was glancing around the room, which made Danny extra glad he'd stashed the thermos in the back of Vlad's pantry in the faint hope that it would blend in with all the cans.
"Until the release is hit, yeah." He didn't need to mention the Box Ghost right now.
"And you, what, made it yourself?" Dean looked as skeptical as he sounded.
"I don't know who made this one." That technically wasn't a lie. "I usually use what the ghost hunters back in Amity Park invented. Easy access 'n' all. But I didn't have one of those, so the knockoff worked in a pinch."
Sam and Dean traded glances. Again. Castiel just…stood there. Watching him. It made Danny want to squirm.
Maybe he'd feel better if he wasn't sitting on the floor and staring up at them.
Getting to his feet the human way would hurt, so Danny let himself float up until he could straighten his legs and stand on the floor. To their credit, they didn't shoot him, even though he saw both Dean and Sam twitch as if they were going to lift their guns.
"They won't be able to help you if you don't tell them," Castiel said finally, and it sounded like a judgement.
It also made suspicion quickly reappear on the faces of the brothers. "What aren't you telling us?" demanded Dean.
Danny found himself staring at the broken line of the salt circle, the one he might not have been able to safely escape on his own.
Would telling them the truth—any part of the truth; he definitely didn't have to tell them all of it, at least not right now—really be so bad? It wasn't like he had a lot to lose. They couldn't exactly drag him home to his parents.
"I was in that thermos," Danny said slowly, finally looking up at them. "One of the Ghostfacers released me by mistake. I don't know why they would have picked it up in the first place. Maybe they just thought it looked cool."
Sam frowned. "So being in that thing does that to you?" He made a vague gesture towards Danny's torso.
"No. That was the ghost hunters who'd captured me. Whoever trapped me in the thermos saved me from them. I just…. I don't know why they didn't let me out right away. Maybe they couldn't."
Maybe they'd been chased. Maybe they'd had a bunch of decoy thermoses to try to throw off the Guys in White and had left him here while they'd gone to scatter the others. Maybe they'd wanted to wait until they could help Danny with his injuries and weren't equipped to do that yet.
Maybe they'd forgotten.
Maybe they'd been captured themselves.
Maybe they'd been killed. Or destroyed.
"They didn't leave you a note?" pressed Sam, but Danny was already shaking his head. He hadn't looked, admittedly, but he didn't really need to.
"They wouldn't have thought I'd get out before they could come back." Danny glanced away again. "It's fine. I'm healing." Slowly.
Too slowly.
What had the Guys in White done to him?
The gentle touch of the hand on his arm surprised Danny. As he looked up at Castiel, he noticed that the action had surprised Sam and Dean, too. "Will you allow me to help you?" asked Castiel.
"Cas, no," growled Dean.
Castiel blinked but amended his statement without missing a beat—just not in the way Dean would approve of, Danny was sure. "Will you allow us to help you?"
There was a weight behind his words Danny could feel but not understand. On the surface, the question didn't merit it—it should be a simple question—but for some reason….
It didn't matter.
When it came down to it, Danny didn't know how to explain to a few humans who thought he was a ghost (abnormal or not) that he was afraid of dying.
He didn't know how to explain to a few hunters who believed all ghosts would become evil eventually that he'd seen the future where he'd become that way and that he intended to do everything he could to avoid that fate.
"You could start by telling us your human name," Sam said. "Do you remember it?"
He couldn't tell them he was Danny Fenton.
Danny Fenton was missing, not dead.
Well.
He might be presumed dead by this point by people who weren't Vlad, but—
Danny swallowed.
He needed help, but could he afford to trust them?
Could he afford not to?
This wouldn't be the first time he'd worked with hunters, though. He'd worked with Valerie a few times. Of course, he'd also known her. "Can we call a truce? Not, like, I don't hurt you if you don't hurt me, because that makes it sound like I want to hurt you and I don't, but you don't hunt me and I tell you about ghosts or something?"
Sam and Dean did not look particularly enthused by those terms.
"Or, um…." They'd been interested in the thermos. "I'll give you the thermos if you want. Show you how it works and stuff. As long as you don't use it or anything else on me? I mean, it'll only get you so far, because I don't know where the nearest portal is to empty it, but—"
"I don't think we'd need to worry about having to empty it," said Dean, and Danny's stomach churned.
Dean had not said he didn't think they'd use the thermos enough to have to worry about filling it, and the unspoken implication….
These people had a way of destroying ghosts, something that was the equivalent of tearing them apart molecule by molecule.
Sam held up one finger. "Just a quick clarification. I'm assuming we're in the clear because Cas hasn't done anything, but why, exactly, are you not a normal ghost? You didn't make a deal with a demon, did you? Get yourself ten years of whatever this is?"
"What?" The words were so far out of left field that Danny was still trying to wrap his head around them. "Demons? Demons aren't real."
"They are," countered Dean, "and they're dicks. Just like almost every angel you meet."
"Present company excepted," added Sam.
"I'm, uh, not an angel, either."
"Yeah, we figured that." Dean finally put his gun down and stretched, though Danny had a feeling that only made Sam watch him more closely. "So don't keep us in suspense, Casper. What's so special about you and your brand of ghost?"
Castiel was still touching Danny's arm, featherlight and careful, but he didn't stop Danny from taking a step back and breaking their contact. "I'm not going to hurt you," he repeated. "I promise. But I'm also not going to tell you more about me when you could just shoot me because you think I'm lying." It wasn't like he was in a position to prove anything right now. "I don't have a death wish."
"Says the ghost kid," snarked Dean.
"Let's just say death and I have a complicated relationship."
Dean smirked. "So you pissed off Billie?"
Who the heck was Billie? "No." Probably not, anyway. Unless he'd run into this Billie while under Freakshow's influence, in which case, it was totally possible.
"So the previous Death, then?"
"What?" Maybe he shouldn't even consider getting help from these guys. Maybe he should just grab the thermos and run. Maybe he should—
The familiar whine of an ecto-weapon charging up filled his ears, and Danny dropped.
The reaction turned out to be unnecessary (and unnecessarily painful, considering how hard he'd hit the wooden floor), since nothing streaked through the air where he'd been. Instead, he heard Valerie, of all people, growl out, "You have three seconds to explain what the heck you're doing here or you're going to regret it."
Danny was aware enough to see Sam and Dean turn baffled expressions in Valerie's direction and note that Castiel didn't look surprised. Maybe he'd heard her coming? She was in her suit, though, meaning she'd come on her sled, and Danny knew how quiet that thing was.
"Apologies for the intrusion, ma'am," Sam said smoothly. "We're with Fish and Wildlife. Agents Ford, Hamill, and Fisher. I've got my ID in my pocket if you'll allow me to get it?"
Valerie had retracted her helmet before coming in here, so everyone could see her scowl. "How stupid do you think I am?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Star Wars." She looked as angry as she sounded. "Get out. I'm not warning you again." Her eyes flicked to him, but her weapon didn't follow. "You okay, Danny?"
Danny, not Phantom.
Not that he thought she'd ask Phantom if he was okay, but still.
Did she know?
She must.
But how? Since when?
…Had she been the one to free him from the Guys in White?
Had she joined them and then risked everything to get him out of there?
Maybe he was getting ahead of himself.
He couldn't even tell if she was wearing white beneath the suit.
"Ma'am," Sam started again, and Valerie swung her weapon into his face.
"Ten bucks says I can pull the trigger before you can."
A blast from an ecto-gun to the face wouldn't be pleasant, but it wouldn't do any real damage to a human.
The others clearly didn't know that, though.
Sam's movements were slowly and openly choreographed as he put his gun on the floor and slid it towards her. "We don't want any trouble."
"Great. So get out."
"They're ghost hunters," Danny said, which had the effect of Dean throwing him a glare over his shoulder, "but they're just trying to help. You don't need to shoot them."
"Did they shoot you?" she countered.
"Just the once. And they had a lot of opportunities."
"Fine." She disengaged, and the gun retracted into her suit. Judging by the raised eyebrows Danny could see, the others hadn't expected that level of technology. "I'm Valerie. That's Danny. He's with me. Touch him and you're dead."
Dean coughed. "You know he's a ghost, right?"
"You know he's a boy, too, right?" she shot back.
Yeah, she'd definitely found out the truth at some point.
Would Vlad have told her? He didn't know why Vlad would have told her. One of the other ghosts, maybe?
Or maybe she'd just figured it out on her own when Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom had both gone missing.
She strode past the other hunters and offered Danny a hand up, then seemed to re-evaluate the situation and crouched so he could put one arm over her shoulder. He still lifted himself with her so he didn't pull anything that really didn't want to be pulled, but he appreciated the effort.
"We need to talk," she murmured.
Danny thought that was an understatement, but he nodded anyway.
"Being a ghost and being a boy aren't mutually exclusive things," Sam said carefully, and Valerie sent a withering glare in his direction.
"Yeah, well, I can guarantee something you do think is mutually exclusive isn't. So unless you're going to help me take down the Guys in White and free everyone else, scram."
Everyone else?
Who else did they have?
"Who the hell are the guys in white?" said Dean. "They sound like men in black rip-offs."
"Think of them that way, then. It'll be easier on your head," snapped Valerie. "They're a super shady secret government organization committed to the experimentation and ultimate destruction of ghosts. And they don't care if any humans become collateral damage."
Castiel was looking at Danny again. "Will you allow us to help you?" he repeated, and there was that same indescribable weight in his words as there'd been before.
Danny glanced at Valerie, but she was too busy trying to glare Sam and Dean into submission, so he met Castiel's gaze and whispered, "Yes."