Walking home alone late at night, Danny takes the long way back. Everyone knows that Phantom battles ghosts, sure, but no one talks about the ones that just need someone to talk to—the ones he helps the most.
The Ghost Sense
The autumn air is crisp, leaves swirling and crunching beneath his shoes as he walks. The sky is dark and velvety, though the streetlights are bright and cast harsh shadows that appear overly sharp in the twilight. Eddied tendrils of fog edge his vison.
Danny shoulders the strap of his bookbag higher onto his back.
Ahead of him, Sam and Tucker chat enthusiastically about the film they'd just seen. They laugh and elbow each other several times, looking back at him often enough to keep him engaged in their conversation. Danny nods and smiles when appropriate, though he finds he's unable to stay focused.
They pass under several bright streetlights.
Until one begins to flicker.
Danny hesitates. He narrows his eyes at the blinding light, just as the whisper of chilled breath wafts from his mouth. His fingers tighten on the strap of his bag. He frowns.
In his peripheral, a silhouette emerges, lurking and scarcely visible.
"Danny?"
His head jerks around and meet's Sam's worried gaze. He hadn't realized he'd stopped under the flickering light. Or that he'd already taken a single step in the direction of where the shapeless figure waited. The fluorescent light sets her eyes ablaze with violet fire, churning with worry.
"Everything okay, dude?" Tucker asks as he walks back, stopping at Sam's side. They stare at him in worry and, to his disdain, silent pity.
Danny bites his lip. They know about the ghosts he fights. Hell, they'd been there on the day he died, watched him be reborn into a creature unlike any other. They knew him better than anyone.
But they didn't know everything.
"I'll catch you guys later," Danny says. He stares at the ground as he talks. "I'm gonna take the long way back."
Tucker squints at him. "You sure, dude?"
"Yeah, Danny," Sam says. "We can go with you if you want. We really don't mind."
"Uh, we don't?" When Sam elbows Tucker hard in the ribs, he amends that with a wheezed, "Of course we don't!"
Danny smiles. It does't quite reach his eyes. "That's okay. See you guys at the Nasty Burger tomorrow?"
Sam continues to frown at him. He can tell she wants to argue with him, just by the way her brows pinch and that familiar crease forms between them. Instead she says, "Yeah, sure. Just let me know if you need anything. You know where my window is."
Sam turns on her heel, dragging Tucker with her.
"G'night, dude!" Tucker shouts.
Danny waves, slowly. He waits until they disappear into the inky darkness, and continues to wait. Just to be sure.
Then he sighs.
The fog drifts. Closer, closer.
When he turns to face that part of the street where he'd spotted the shadowed figure, he sees it is still there, waiting for him in a sea of mist. He walks closer.
Danny sadly acknowledges that it is a boy this time, no older than seven.
He has learned over the years to never stare or appear alarmed by their appearance, and this boy is no exception. He barely gives The twisted limbs or the blueish-white skin flecked with gore a passing glance.
Instead, he stares where the boy does. They stand together, observing the same spot in the road, marveling over the small bits of asphalt and chipped white paint that mark the shoulder.
Whorls of Danny's breath continues to waft from his mouth, but he is not cold.
"What happened to me?" the boy finally asks in a wobbly, singsong voice. He turns to face Danny, blinking owlishly at him. "Why can't I go home?"
Danny swallows. "Have you tried?"
The boy nods dejectedly. "I can't find her. I need to find her."
"Can't find who?"
"Mama. I can't find Mama. Where is she?"
Danny's breath hitches in his chest. Shakily, he says, "I bet she misses you."
The boy's yellowed eyes widen. "She does?"
Danny nods.
"Where is she?"
"I don't know," Danny admits. "But you will see her again someday. I am sure of it."
The boy's shimmery form flickers along with the flourescent lights that surround them. They both turn to stare at the pavement, where Danny's shadow is the only one to linger.
The boy's bottom lip quivers. "I used to have a bike."
"A bike? That's pretty cool," Danny says.
"I don't have it anymore, though."
"No?"
"No." The boy's head bows as he stares at the spot in the asphalt again. His little shoulders rise to his ears and tremble.
"Hey," Danny says in a soothing voice. "It's okay. I'm here."
"How can you see me?" The boy demands in voice that is edged and deeper than a little boy's voice should be. The lights begin to flicker faster, a low buzzing starting to emit from every lamppost. The fog arcs in a jagged line that twists at the boys feet. "No one ever sees me."
"I can," Danny says. "I can see you."
"How?" the boy whispers.
Danny doesn't shift between forms, but he allows the teeming core of energy within him to expand a little, just enough that his eyes flicker with the acid green of his Other Self.
"Because I'm like you," Danny says.
The boy's eyes narrow at him and then return to the asphalt where he continues to stare, but—
Danny realizes that the boy is not staring at that same cracked part of the asphalt, but at Danny's shadow that is cast about their shoes, as if to mock them both.
"But I'm like them, too," Danny amends.
"Like them?"
"The humans," Danny says. "The living."
The boy's frail shoulders rise again. He shifts from foot to foot, a single misshapen arm grasping the other. "And I am not living?"
"No," Danny chokes out, the words thick as molasses in his throat. "You're not."
The boy's eyes glisten and green ectoplasmic tears, incandescent under the streetlights and the soft glow of the moon, trail down his rounded cheeks. They leave a path of starlight against his deathly pale skin.
"Is Mama mad?"
"No," Danny says. "Your Mama loves you. And she misses you every day. She can't wait for the day she sees you again."
The boy nods gravely. "Will you tell her for me?"
"Tell her what?"
"That I'm sorry. She told me not to ride my bike in the road and I didn't listen." The boy looks at Danny again with wide, misted eyes. "I just wanted to find the ice cream truck!"
"It's not your fault," Danny tells the boy, his own tears threatening to fall. It takes everything he has to keep them at bay. He repeats, "It's not your fault."
The boy sighs once. A long, stuttering breath that comes from somewhere deep within.
"Okay," the boy says. "I think . . . I think I can go now."
Danny nods. He offers the boy a smile when he says, "I'll make sure she's safe. I'll protect her."
The encroaching fog seems to grasp the boy, pulling him within its embrace. The boy's corporeal form begins to dissipate then. It recedes into the plumes of foggy moonlight that now spiral in every direction.
One last time, before all that is left of him evaporates forever into the silvery vortex, the boy whispers, "Thank you, mister. Thank you."
The world around Danny seems to exhale and the whispering fog begins to fade. Danny's knuckles are white from how hard he clutches at the straps of his bookbag, as if they are the tether that binds him to remain. He stands there for a while, unable to look away from that crushed part of the asphalt. His heart and his ghostly core lurch together in sorrow, manifesting into the tears that streak down his own cheeks, mingling with those of the tragic little boy.
The next day, at the Nasty Burger, when he picks at his food, he barely notices that his friends don't prod him. They don't ask questions. In fact, they barely speak at all, watching him quietly.
Sam and Tucker share a glance, and then Sam's hand drifts until it touches Danny's.
He looks up to meet her gaze and is surprised to see the compassion that brims in her shining violets. She says nothing, though her cool fingers tighten over his hand in a firm hold.
Danny's throat bobs.
He wonders if his friends know.
He wonders if they figured out that, sure, Danny Phantom is the hero who fights the ghosts that threaten Amity—
But it is Danny Fenton who encourages the rest, the ones that lurk as troubled husks in their ruined deathlike forms, to find peace and move on.
His hand turns under Sam's so his fingers interlace with hers and he squeezes back. He can't help but mirror the small smile that she gives him. Beside her, Tucker reaches across the table and grasps his shoulder.
Perhaps he is not so alone, after all.
A/N: I watched The Sixth Sense and then I wrote this. Enjoy, I guess?