Welcome back everyone! Here we are at 50 chapters, and as of this milestone, we have ALSO officially breached 200,000 words. :O I NEVER thought I could write that much for one story or series. Thank you all for sticking with me throughout these last four years!

Chapter warnings: Non-fatal depiction of a normally fatal injury, discussion of trauma, and a Hartman character cameo.

Things shouldn't have gone as bad as they did.

But, Wes figured in hindsight, it really could have been worse.

What had started as a routine Sunday evening patrol had quickly escalated when the Halfa pair encountered a ghost neither of them had seen before, sporting purple skin, a webbed cloak, and an array of spindly horns upon her head, a scepter in one of her hands. Though initially calm from a distance, she'd turned on them in an instant, apparently very fixated on Wes's gaudy black-green-orange getup, for reasons neither he nor Danny could fathom.

Which was how they'd ended up in their current predicament, cocooned in black silk that left nothing but their heads exposed.

"Finally, I have your full and undivided attention," the woman said, her gaze remaining almost solely on Wes. "It was quite foolish for you to leave the Ghost Zone, dear. You should know more than anyone how dangerous humans can be, especially since you aren't at your strongest so far from home. Please, dear, come back to me."

Danny and Wes gave each other a look.

"...Um. I think you've got me confused with someone else," Wes told her.

The spidery woman cocked her head, floating closer. She scrutinized the teen before her, hand extended and gently upturned. As her hand approached, the threads binding him began to loosen ever so slightly, as if to open up and reveal his claim to be true.

He took his chance, darting upwards and flickering a bright white. The ghost hissed, turning her head away from the blinding light. Wes spun, heel extended to deliver a powered-up kick. He was readily blocked by her scepter, which then threw his leg upwards, putting him off-balance.

And then the scepter swung sideways, striking Wes's cheek hard enough that his head snapped in the same direction, discombobulating him. He fell, though luckily not far, the three of them having picked the rooftop of one of the many buildings of Amity Park to fight over.

Despite the short distance, it was a bad fall. He landed almost perfectly on the back of his head, the rest of his body folding over top of it.

CRACK!

The sickening sound resonated in the air, then ended with a silence so thick one could have heard a pin drop halfway across town.

Wes didn't move, his neck still twisted at that bizarre angle.

The woman then shrugged, and harrumphed. "It must be true, then. No pupil of mine would have been caught off-guard by an attack like that."

She turned to leave, only to be buffeted by a frigid gust to her back. She spared a glance over her shoulder, and her solid red eyes widened at the sight behind her.

Danny, who she had largely ignored up until that point, was almost entirely encased in ice, the previously supple ebony silk that enveloped him almost nothing more than a solid block of blue. Rime frost spread across the increasingly opaque surface, miniscule spikes forming along it as the temperature further and further dropped.

A crack formed, and then a fissure, with the sound of a crumbling iceberg. When the frozen cocoon was nearly in half, Danny broke free, a pale, frigid fog rapidly obscuring him as the trapped cold escaped with him. Ice shards twinkled within, slowly growing in size as the ever-increasing chill reinforced them.

The woman knew what would come next. And she wouldn't stand for it. "You dare flaunt your power at me? Do you understand who it is that stands before you? I am Mise-!"

She wasn't given a chance to finish the monologue she was gearing up for. The shards flew forwards, pointed tips heading straight for her. She threw her cape, deflecting the barrage. But the moment she moved to counterattack, the fog rushed in, fully encompassing her. With an upwards flick of Danny's wrist, the entire mass solidified into one large, jagged lump of ice, the mystery ghost entombed within like a bug in amber.

She dropped like a stone, falling heavily upon the rooftop. Despite the impact, the ice didn't crack, remaining firm in its hold upon its prisoner.

The moment she was deemed incapacitated, Danny's feet touched the ground, and he ran to Wes's side, kneeling before him. There was no blood, so surely that was a good sign.

Only, Wes still hadn't moved. He didn't respond to Danny's gentle probing, and his neck looked wrong, wrong, wrong, bent at an angle that it shouldn't be able to bend in at all.

Danny wasn't stupid. He knew what that meant.

But he didn't sob. He fully expected to. But he didn't, like something in his brain refused to acknowledge what it was seeing, even as his vision blurred with unshed tears, even as he vainly shook Wes's unmoving shoulder, even as he repeated "please, please, please," a vain, hopeful mantra–

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, Dan- ow, Danny stop shaking me like that, that hurts!"

Startled, Danny stopped.

Now that he had a little room to breathe, Wes sat up, wincing and groaning in pain. He got his legs beneath him, sitting cross-legged, and turned himself to face Danny.

Except he evidently missed the mark. Though his body faced Danny, Wes found that his friend's aghast expression was a good ways off to the right. And maybe a bit tilted, come to think of it.

"Um," Danny said.

Wes reached upwards, fingertips gingerly brushing the skin on his neck. He gasped on contact, quickly withdrawing his hand when he was met with a stab of pain up his spine.

"...Is it...?"

"Yeah."

Wes pursed his lips, humming worriedly.

"...Is anything sticking out?"

"No," Danny replied quietly, airily, like he still wasn't sure what he was looking at. "But the skin's a little..."

Twisted. Too tight along Wes's throat, or where Danny thought his throat might be. It was a bit hard to tell with a broken neck.

He looked at Wes's face instead. He thought looking lower any longer might make him sick.

Slowly, carefully, Wes's hands groped their way around his jawline, grasping as they found their marks. More slowly still, he began to twist, a faint grinding sound accompanying the gradual correction. Wes had to stop, rapidly breathing in and out through his nose as he fought the fiery pain the attempt had brought him.

"...Can you fix it?" he asked meekly. "I don't think I can work up the nerve to do it myself."

Danny wasn't sure he could, either. But he had to try if he didn't want Wes living the rest of his life with a crooked head.

He shouldn't be alive, the presumably human part of him said. The part of him that didn't quite remember that neither he nor Wes were particularly bound to human biology. He shouldn't even be able to move.

Danny placed his hands where Wes had just prior, and didn't give himself or Wes time to protest, finishing the job with one hard yank!

Wes howled with searing agony, shaking and trembling in Danny's grip. Clear-green tears left racing tracks down his face as a singular sob forced its way through gritted teeth. But just as quickly as that near-unbearable pain rose up, it left, fading into a dull, throbbing, bone-deep ache that twinged with every slight movement.

The pressure of Danny's hands left his jaw and retreated to his back, Danny pulling him in and squeezing tight. Knowing little else to do, Wes returned the gesture, fingers lightly gripping the rubber-plasticky fabric of Danny's jumpsuit.

"You're alive," Danny breathed. "You're alive, you're alive, you're okay."

And he was. He really was. Snapping his neck should have been fatal, but just like a pipe to the face, a quick readjustment had been all it took to put him in order.

He should have felt relieved, maybe. Or shocked. Maybe in shock. But instead there was a strange, almost foreign sense of acceptance, like some deep-rooted instinct had always been certain in his survival, even if the more rational part of his brain wasn't nearly as convinced.

"It'll take more than that to get rid of me," he said instead of voicing any of this aloud.

Because after that, even the rational part of him knew it had to be true.

He supposed it could have been worse.

({O})

The rest of Sunday patrol came and went in a blur, the evening going much more smoothly even with the usual commotion that came with it. Danny and Wes parted on their usual terms, returning home just as the sun was beginning to rise to catch those crucial one or two hours of rest before school.

Nothing eventful occurred at Casper High. Classes proceeded as scheduled, with minimal bully interference, seeing as Dash was still largely keeping to himself. The Box Ghost didn't even make an appearance, a rare respite for the high school.

Homework and dinner were equally uneventful for both parties. With the end of the school year rapidly approaching, there was always some sort of essay or research paper to work on, but regular assignments were getting more and more sparse with each passing week, aside from required reading.

When it got to 9pm, Wes began to prepare for his nightly patrol. With summer drawing near, a later sunset meant a later start. And, it being the start of the school week, it was Wes's turn to go solo.

Just as he was preparing to leave for his usual starting point, he felt the telltale spine tingle of a nearby ghost. At first, he fretted. Ghosts almost never got this close to his home, and his father was sleeping soundly just a couple doors down. But as the prickle persisted, Wes's nerves eased as he recognized the oddly specific sensation that he was slowly learning to associate with a friend.

He opened the front door, not needing to wait for a knock, and as expected, he found Phantom waiting for him.

"Danny? What are you doing here?" Wes asked, perplexed.

"Oh, uh, just dropping by to let you know I could take over the patrol tonight," Danny replied with a shrug.

Wes's brows furrowed. "But it's Monday."

"I know," said Danny, "but I just thought, you know, I could take it from here."

Wes sighed.

"Is this about last night?"

Danny didn't reply, which was all the answer Wes needed.

He sighed again.

"Look, can we go somewhere and talk about it, maybe? You always get fired up about this kind of thing, and I don't wanna wake dad up if we end up bickering about it again."

"I don't get fired up!" Danny denied hotly.

Wes lazily gestured at him with one hand, as if to silently say, "See?"

Still, Danny wouldn't be deterred, using a slightly quieter tone when he spoke again. "I've just, I dunno. I've been thinking about it, and I really don't think it's a good idea to have you going on patrols anymore. Especially not alone."

Wes scowled fiercely at that. He knew exactly where this was going. Again.

"Yep, that's it, we're definitely talking about it," he growled, grabbing Danny by the arm and dragging him further outside.

"Wait, right now?!" Danny protested, digging his heels in but making no further attempts to escape his kind-of-boyfriend's grip. "But the patrol–"

"Amity will survive the ten minutes you aren't breathing down its neck," Wes grouched at him. "We're gonna have a private chat, because apparently this is something we have to do every month, and you're not getting out of it, because if you do you're gonna try not to give me another chance. So don't even think about it."

Danny groaned, but complied.

Soon enough, the pair had made it to the outskirts of town, reaching the edge of the woods containing the training grounds. Neither of them were comfortable straying farther from town than that so late at night.

Wes crossed his arms. He knew what Danny would say, but he still said, "Talk."

Danny crossed his own arms, already unhappy with the situation Wes had put him in. "You could have died."

Wes rolled his eyes. "But I didn't."

"But you could have!" Danny threw his hands in Wes's direction. "People aren't supposed to survive a broken neck, Wes! Not like the one you had! We got lucky that being half ghost screwed up your biology enough somewhere that it didn't! What if you broke a different part of your neck? What if you'd cracked your skull? What then? We don't know that being a Halfa will save you from everything."

"Why are you even bringing hypotheticals into this?" Wes demanded. "That wasn't what happened. I got hurt, and I lived, just like every other should-have-died situation I've ever been in."

"That's the problem, right there," Danny countered. "You shouldn't even be in situations where you might die!"

"And neither should you!" Wes shot back. "But that's kind of what we signed up for with the whole half-ghost thing, isn't it? Fighting the dangerous stuff so other people don't have to? Fighting together because we're safer that way?"

Anger flashed across Danny's eyes, leaving as quickly as it came. Wes wasn't even sure he really saw it there. "No, we didn't sign up for this. I did, and then I dragged you down with me."

Now it was Wes's turn to be angry. "Oh, right, I forgot. I never once made my own decisions because you don't let me."

"Of course I do," Danny scoffed, "but that doesn't mean they're good ones. You can't keep putting yourself in danger like this. If something happened to you, I don't know what I'd do. I keep thinking you're ready, but... maybe it's better if you stay out of it from now on."

Wes's anger flared, hotly enough that his eyes flashed red. "Are you really pulling that again?! How many times do I have to tell you I can handle myself?! Who do you think you are to tell me what I can and can't do, when I've saved your stupid stubborn butt at least a few times by now?! I know I'm probably not immortal, but that means you aren't, either!"

Danny spluttered. "Right, when have you–"

"Johnny," Wes cut him off. "You were so busy pushing him off of that bike, you wouldn't have been able to catch Star in time if I wasn't there to do it."

"I too would have–"

"Technus," Wes pressed on. "He would have electrocuted you, probably to death, if I hadn't been able to soak up the charge."

"That doesn't count," Danny protested. "We didn't know you could do that–"

"Riesenross! When he hurt your arm, I stalled him long enough for you to catch him! Vortex! I took a hit that would have killed you because you can't remember your own powers half the time! Vlad! He could have kidnapped you when your powers were acting up, and then kept you powerless if I didn't fight him off! Kazul! You weren't strong enough to remove her crown by yourself! You needed my help! So don't act like I've never been useful!"

"Ugh, okay, you've saved me before," Danny conceded. "But that's still only a few times! That doesn't mean I'm okay with you putting yourself in danger! You could have died in like half of those situations!"

"But I didn't!" Wes cried in frustration, hands clutching at the air like he could strangle Danny if he imagined it hard enough. "I've been a Halfa for over half a year now, and I know how to take care of myself! I wouldn't be here to yell at you about how dumb and high and mighty you're acting if I didn't! Haven't I proven myself enough?! What do I have to do for you to finally trust me?!"

"I do trust you!"

"You don't!"

Danny recoiled. Wes kept going. "You really don't! You keep saying you do, but every time you give me some freaking breathing room, something comes along and I get a little banged up, and then you're right back to holding my hand again! I don't care how strong your hero obsession is, or whatever the heck your problem is! I'm tired of you always coddling me like I'm some damsel you have to rescue! I'm not! I'm more than capable of taking care of myself, just like you! You don't have some sort of super special permission to control what I do every time a ghost breathes at me wrong!"

"Well, what else am I supposed to do?!" Danny challenged. "How else am I supposed to keep you safe?!"

"You're not responsible for me! Why don't you get it?!"

"Because it's my fault you're dead!"

Wes went quiet, stunned.

Danny's hands unclenched. He wasn't sure when he'd closed them, but now he found himself sagging, suddenly exhausted.

"...Do you know what it was like? Finding you under that tree?" Danny continued. His voice barely covered the distance between them. "Do you even remember it? You almost bled out, and you were too far gone for medical help. The only thing I could think of was to throw you into the Ghost Portal. We can call it "transforming" all we want, but I think we both know it killed you."

Wes swallowed thickly. Even if he was alive on a technicality, it was only that. A technicality.

"...I did save you, but I basically had to kill you to do it. You screamed, Wes. I know you're strong, I know you are. But every time you get hurt, every time I'm not sure you'll be able to stand up again, I keep thinking about that. If I'd paid more attention, or if I'd just been a little quicker–"

"Stop," Wes cut him off. His arms had crossed again, but this time his shoulders were hunched, his head tucked down. "...Please. Just stop."

But Danny wouldn't. "Everyone acts like I'm this great, amazing superhero. At least when they don't hate my guts. But back then, it wasn't enough, and every day I worry that I'm still not enough. Every time I let you fight with me, you end up getting hurt, and I'm terrified that one day, that'll be it. And I just... I can't. I can't, Wes."

Neither of them spoke for quite some time. Danny looked away, as if he could hide his face by doing so. Wes idly picked at one wrist, even though there was no wristband there to pick at. Now that everything was out in the open, neither was quite sure what to say.

"...Not every time."

Danny looked up.

"I mean, sure, yeah, I couldn't do much before. It took ages before I got any offensive powers, and I still don't have many defensive ones. But most of the times I've gotten hurt, it was because we were dealing with something even you could barely handle by yourself. Not because I'm weak."

"I don't think you're weak," Danny contested.

"You think I'm weaker than you." That, Danny didn't dispute. "And you're probably right. You've been protecting Amity Park way longer than I have, and your obsession literally gives you whatever superpower you just so happen to need, right when you need it. Even when we spar, I have to get creative just to stand a chance against you. And that's probably always how it's gonna be.

"But that doesn't mean you get to boss me around, and tell me what I can and can't do. I know you're worried. I get it. I really do. But I can't stand it when you don't listen to me because you think you know what I need better than I do. You're always saying and doing things without giving me any sort of choice, and I hate that we end up fighting about it so much and it never sticks."

"...Wes, come on. I–"

"No. I always listen to you. It's about time you listened to me. But I need you to work with me, because I have no idea what it'll take for you to listen and mean it for once. I need you to tell me. What do I have to do for you to finally take me seriously?"

Danny didn't know what to say. He really didn't. What he wanted to say was that Wes was wrong. About all of it. This went beyond obsession. This wasn't about Wes being weak. It wasn't about him being inferior, or a nuisance, or whatever it was he thought Danny was getting at. This wasn't a matter of strength. Or, not Wes's, at any rate. There was no doubting his capability.

But that was just it. Wes didn't believe him. He didn't trust Danny, because he thought Danny didn't trust him. It was wrong. It was so, so wrong, and that really wasn't what Danny meant at all. He was scared, and uncertain, and any time Wes was out of his sight all Danny could think of were the times he needed to be there. If only he had been faster. If only he had been closer. If only he had paid more attention, if he'd fought just a little harder.

But somewhere along the line, he'd started fighting Wes in the process. He had tried so, so hard to protect him, to shield him from the world, to prevent him from ever getting hurt, that he'd ended up hurting him worse instead. Worse than Danny could have realized.

It was wrong. It was wrong. Danny had to fix it. But where did he need to start? Where was the miscommunication? Did it start with him? With Wes? Where did he need to start untangling the mess he'd thrust them both into? What could he do, when trusting Wes brought him so much harm, but trusting his gut was hurting him so much more? How long could they keep this up? How much longer before their wants and needs become so incompatible that they couldn't stand each other anymore?

He felt pressure on his shoulders. He didn't realize they were shaking until that moment, heaving with too-fast breaths. He leaned forwards, and then that pressure was all around him, gentle but firm. There was warmth to it, soothing the chill of dread that had been creeping up within Danny's chest unbidden. He shivered, suddenly feeling weak in the knees, but Wes's hold kept him from collapsing like he feared he would.

And they stayed like that. Danny wasn't sure how long, but it couldn't have been more than a few minutes. As time passed, he felt his nerves settle, stuttering breaths growing longer. More even.

They were sitting. Danny wasn't sure when that happened, either. The grass was more brittle this time of year.

"...I don't know what to do," he admitted. He tried to open his eyes, somewhat impeded by the smooth white fabric of Wes's jersey. "I feel like I've tried everything, but it's always wrong."

The gentle stirring of air. Wes had sighed through his nose.

"...Yeah. Stuff like this kinda gets messy fast, huh."

There was another moment of silence as both of them pondered that.

"...Well. If you want to do the right thing, how about putting a little faith in me?" Wes proposed.

Danny snorted. Wes could be so one-track-minded when he wanted to be.

"I always do. But you obviously don't think so, so maybe be a little more specific?"

Danny didn't have to be able to see Wes's face to feel him rolling his eyes. "You know what I mean. Maybe respect my thoughts and feelings every once in a while? If you think I can't handle myself, let me show you I can, instead of smothering me the second things look too tough."

Oh, that would be hard. That was kind of the whole issue. The second part more than the first. "I don't know if I can promise that."

A huff. "Then can you promise to try?"

It was too hard to tell what Wes was thinking like this. He'd started so loud, but now he was so quiet. Danny needed to see him.

He turned his head, just enough to take in Wes's face.

He'd expected anger. The softer sort that usually followed the more explosive indignation. But when Danny looked at him, he didn't see any of that. It was almost like it wasn't there to begin with. There was sadness, sure, and some of that hurt, once subtle, but so obvious now that Danny knew it was there.

But beyond that, there was patience. Effort. Some sort of understanding that Danny couldn't parse out. What did he understand? What had become clear to him in the short time they had been arguing? What had he figured out? Would Danny eventually get to know?

Something about this moment struck him, then.

The Wes Danny knew was loud, boisterous and bombastic. He was animated, engaging, and sometimes quite obnoxious. He was stubborn and rash, tempered only by socially mandated discipline. He was larger than life, and nothing could have ever hoped to contain him.

That included Danny, he supposed.

This Wes was still very much all of those things, but there were nuances that Danny was still only just learning. Wes was loud, but only when he felt like he needed to be. He was animated, but each movement he made served a purpose, conscious or not. He was obnoxious, but... No, not obnoxious. Expressive. Genuine in a way that most people weren't. He was stubborn, but that stubbornness came from a place of care, of desire for mutual respect that he rarely seemed to achieve.

Again, that seemed to include from Danny.

Wes had changed a lot. Or, maybe he'd barely changed at all, and Danny was only now beginning to really understand. Maybe he was still changing. Maybe there was still more to learn.

But Danny knew that the Wes holding him right now, showing him compassion and understanding in the same breath in which he expressed his frustration with him, was very different from the Wes in his head that arbitrarily and angrily threw himself in front of ghosts for blurry photos.

The Wes that Danny was looking at now was a far cry from the Wes he'd been trying so hard to protect.

Danny sighed, feeling like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. It didn't leave him completely; it probably never would. But right then, it finally felt like he had room to breathe.

"...Yeah. I'll try."

Wes smiled at him, planting a light kiss on his forehead. "That's all I ask for."

"...Still, um. You think I could come with you on patrol?" Danny asked. Wes's scathing look returned, so he was quick to clarify. "Not to take over. Just to watch. You wanted to show me you can handle yourself, right?"

Wes relaxed, hackles lowering. "If that's all you're doing, and if it'll actually stick this time, then sure. And I promise I'll be careful."

Danny smiled. "Sounds like a plan."

He thought, optimistically, that this might be good for them. Seeing Wes in action, without interference, fully capable of handling whatever came his way even if he got beaten and battered in the process, would help settle the part of Danny whose knee-jerk instinct was to hold him close and never let go. And if Wes knew Danny was extending that sort of trust, then maybe Danny would gain some of that trust back.

It wasn't perfect, maybe it wasn't ideal even. But, Danny supposed, it could have been worse.

Me: Hmmm, I want chapter 50 to be special. I wonder what topic I should tackle to commemorate such an occasion?

Me:

Me: Oh I know! I'll write my 285627th chapter about Danny helicopter-parenting Wes and them arguing about it :D

All joking aside, I figured it was a reasonable point in the story to address WHY Danny has been so restrictive on that front, and why he keeps relapsing. His obsession is a significant factor, sure, but a lot of it has to do with the circumstances around Wes getting as involved as he is. Microwaving a guy will do that to you lol, and is the main reason Danny will let Sam, Tucker, and even Jazz help him out, but hesitates to let Wes even though technically he's inherently safer. (Also he's gay, surprise surprise lmao)

I have not yet written the next chapter, but I think I know what I'm gonna do for it. It's mostly a matter of puzzling out the circumstances and timeline of events that occur. But I'm thinking it's about time to shake things up a little bit. ;)