Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There’s a maturity that comes with dying. Some sort of wisdom or perspective that makes his life and priorities from before seem incredibly insignificant and childish. He knows that he’s been changed, that he’s died, that he’ll never be the same. There’s no way to change back now.

The metamorphosis altered him beyond his new mindset, species, and subsequent power set. He can’t help but see his classmates and friends (though it is mostly Sam and Tucker that he sees it in) as adorably oblivious. They look so young to him now, so innocent. Most of their actions and worries are trivial in the grand scheme of things, but he can’t help but be enamored. He’s become weak to their pleading because, at the end of the day, they were there for him (even if they were the reason behind it in the first place). They could have left, could have fled once he started screaming. Or before, when they were all humans and got in trouble together doing their hare-brained schemes. But they didn’t. 

They covered for him. They stayed, even if he is now a completely different type of entity than them, a fact they’ve been ignoring in the face of pretending he is still human (even though pure humans would never be able to develop such abilities and skills that he now possesses). His friends, who were there when it happened, seem unable to accept the consequences of their actions and the fact that he’s not the same being who walked down into the lab with them.

He knows dying made an impact on him. That he will never be Danny , be the little kid (barely a teen— oh how proud he used to be of officially being a teen! ) who wandered into the hole in the wall in an effort to show off in front of his only friends, completely disregarding his screaming survival instincts and the voices of his parents in his head that warned him away from the lab. He barely recognizes that version of himself, the boy who had known better, who had hesitated on the precipice of reason before forcing himself to step forward ( to trip and fall and die a death no one but him has accepted or even tried to understand yet ). 

He hadn’t wanted to. He had known it was a bad idea. He had even said as much as they urged him into the PPE, but the thought of backing out and seeing the disappointment in their eyes, had been worse. (He would do practically anything for them.) Besides, his parents, while telling them to stay out of the lab for safety, had claimed that the portal machine was safe , even if they didn’t know why it wasn’t working… so it would be fine, right?  

So, he had silenced the voice of reason, ignored the churning of his guts (instincts that had saved him before), and walked into the device. Not out of excitement, but because turning back had felt like an admission of… not weakness, but something he hadn’t been ready to name. (A feeling that he can no longer comprehend like he used to… his whole way of understanding emotions and processing them has fundamentally shifted and changed with his soul emerging from the human chrysalis it used to inhabit and shifting into his current form.) The jackhammering of his heart in his chest was the last thing he had felt before he had tripped and only felt the A̷̢͈̽͐͛͐̄Ǵ̶͙̤̞͌͆͑̎̚͝͝Ō̶̡͇͖̻̝̠͔̺̭̝̼̠͙̅̋̀̆͒̊̈́̊̍N̸̫̹̘͔̬͍̠̺̘̯̟͖͕̋́̐͒̿̀̔͛̚͜͝͠ͅY̷̘̻̜̠͈̫͚̻͂ of death. (A feeling he will never have again, for he no longer has a naturally beating heart.)

Now, he wonders what that boy would think of who he is now. Would he be horrified (at him or their friends)? Would it be possible for him to understand the ways he’s been reshaped? Would Danny be able to recognize the body he sees in the mirror as his? 

His friends still laugh, still stress over things that once felt important, still carry themselves like the world is exactly as they always thought it was. For all that witnessing his death traumatized them, his friends carry on like the world is still solid beneath their feet. (And to be fair, it is; they don’t have to worry about existing in the same dimension as everything else like he does. It makes him feel like what they did had no real consequence. He hates it.) The only reason he hasn’t exploded at them is how exhausted the two of them have become. With Tucker panicking and updating everything to be even less likely to discharge electricity, and Sam not only no longer joking about being dead inside but also no longer wearing anything that has a death motif… it is clear they were impacted by what happened. The panicked calls for “check-ins” in the middle of the night make that more than clear that they care and were impacted. Even if neither of them have tried to address it.

He doesn’t begrudge them for it. But he knows, with a quiet certainty, that he will never again see things the way they do. And he’s glad. (For all that, he wishes that someone would accept his state of being or at least acknowledge it; he would never ask them to die for him, to face what he did. He just wishes they would accept that he’s no longer human. They deserve to be Protected; they were the twin stars he orbited around after all. But the result of their peer pressure needs to be addressed before it forces him to leave.)

They, his friends, just call it “the accident.” He almost laughs at that sometimes, like it was something minor , something that had no big impact or held much importance. But every day , the evidence piles up as he notices more things that mark him as more “other” than human.

In his human shift, his skin holds no warmth ( all he feels is cold now, but he doesn’t mind, it’s comforting ); his touch startles others, like touching ice unexpectedly. His skin is now pale in a way that feels uncanny if one stares at it too long. He’s the kind of white that the women he’s read about in history textbooks used to die for. Literally, women used to poison themselves for the perfect porcelain complexion. ( Ha! Ironic isn’t it? He achieved what they strived for, it only took his death. His skin is now the shade of death and dolls that gather dust on antique shelves. )

His ears taper to points, his canines long enough to puncture his lips if he were human. His fingernails are much thicker now, almost like claws with their sharp ends. And when he moves, he’s all fluidity and grace; no stumbles, just the precision of an apex predator. His eyes gleam an unsettling and piercing blue, shifting to a glowing ectoplasmic green when his emotions get particularly strong. 

And when he’s outside, or under any kind of light? Nothing. No shadow. Just emptiness where it should be, no matter his form or how solid he tries to be.

And if one were really paying attention, they’d notice that he doesn’t eat anymore. (Despite not eating, he never finds himself hungry. He has found that he can still stomach water, and enjoys drinking it chilled with ice cubes on occasion, but that’s all he can bring himself to stomach. Instead, when he feels fatigued, he goes home so that he can absorb the energy radiating from the portal… if he finds the emotions around his friends isn’t enough to sustain him.) They would also notice that despite the almost translucent quality that his smooth as silk skin now has, there are no veins that can be seen. (It makes sense, when he took the time to think about it. He has no need for blood; after all, he’s not naturally a solid being after all.) Sometimes, when he sees himself in the mirror, he wonders… if he cradled a skull in his hands, would anyone even be able to tell the difference between the color of his skin and the bone he would be holding so gently?

The truth of his being isn’t something he can hide from anyone who cares to look, isn’t something he cares much to hide either, but it also isn’t something he will shout from the rooftops. In fact, he is still discovering things that make him Other , makes him different from the humans he surrounds himself with. 

Not that anyone pays him enough attention to notice, beyond his friends who are living in denial. And Jazz, who has most of the clues but still can’t put the puzzle pieces together. (It’s probably the sheer absurdity of it. Her brother is dead, and she doesn’t believe in spirits or anything like that. And yet, there he is. Still going to school, despite lacking a heartbeat. Still laughing with his friends.) He knows that if the portal wasn’t working, his parents would already know… or at least Maddie would, but they’ve been spending all their down time in the basement working on countermeasures for the portal and possible ghost invasions.

For all that he’s accepted that he’s not a human, he would like to say that he still embodies the virtues that are held dear by them, even if he judges things and makes decisions on a different metric than they do. It sometimes takes effort for him to understand some of the decisions people make, but he tries. It is the least he could do when he wants them to do the same for him.

His true form, he knows, would draw from the masses horrified screams and make him the center of attention with his lack of legs and the fact that his eyes are a swirl of green, blue and white. His deathmark is also far from subtle, sparkling along his pale-blue skin and white lips that match the shade of his hair and eyebrows. Nothing about his appearance could fool one into thinking he was human. He liked that about it. It was in no way misleading or lying.

His decisions these days are mostly based on whether he will regret it later and how it would impact those around him. (Since his death, he’s become more aware of the world and people around him. He’s always been considerate, but now he notices the little things: the people who enter rooms after him, the exhaustion that Mr. Lancer always emits, the way Mikey’s eyes light up when someone talks to him. The way his friends, Sam and Tucker, brighten when they ramble on about whatever they want to talk about. And he acts on it. He holds the door open for anyone who is behind him, stays after class to help clean up, makes sure no one gets left sitting alone [even if it means talking his friends into it], and makes sure to hang out with his friends, both together and solo. It feels important now, in a way he never grasped while red blood traveled through his veins.)

Even with this new, broader understanding of the world and what he wants his place and impact on it to be, he finds himself surprised and a little emotionally unprepared as he floats above Danny , the charred remains of what used to be his body.

The reality of his death stares back at him, raw and undeniable. He had already accepted his death. It had become a known fact in his mind as soon as he had woken up. But even knowing of his own demise, stumbling across him (the body, the chrysalis his soul left behind) isn’t something he had expected. ( Oh, Ancients, look at him! That was him!!! ) 

His corpse lies twisted, contorted in a way that suggests Danny had tried , in his final moments, to reject what was happening to him (even though he had eventually failed).  His arm is still stuck out, like it's still touching the button or loose panel that started it all. 

The PPE, meant to shield him, the suit that he put on for a stupid photo he was peer pressured into that would have no significant or emotional meaning behind it , clings like a second, ruined skin, shriveled and warped, desperately holding onto the flesh beneath it as if trying to keep him together. It has fused in places, the fabric melted into charred muscle and stiffened into grotesque ridges where electric fire and energy had licked and seared. In other spots it is torn and peeling, ripped apart where his body had fought against the unbearable heat/pain. The material has sunk in, melted past the epidermis, becoming one with the raw and blackened tissue that had been cooked from the inside out like it was some big steak at a barbecue where all the dads got too distracted and wound up putting everything in the microwave because it got too cold.

And his face— Ancients, his face.  

The fatal wound had slithered its way up from his arm to his cheek, jagged and branching like lightning frozen mid-strike. It stretches across his skin, chaotic and sprawling, stopping just beneath one of his eyes. As if the force that had killed him had managed not to affect him, to not reach his soul through his eyes (the natural body’s window), turning the skin around the area to the texture of jerky. ( A food he hated even back when he was human, one he thinks he’ll never be able to even look at now. )

It is said that eyes are windows to the soul, but isn't this (him being unaffected by it all) then a lie? Like the butterflies that mimic others in order to seem poisonous when they aren't. He is no longer who he once was. He is not Danny , the boy who lived and breathed and grew in that skin. He is something different , something taken from the heart of the star he used to be and exploded and twisted into something new . He cannot say that his death didn't affect his soul because it did . It changed who he is; changed how he defines himself and how he interacts with the world. So, finding his eyes clear of any damage disgusts him. One last falsehood branded on his body. ( He hates this. He hates this. He really, truly hates it. )

The organs remain perfectly preserved, half open and lifeless, as if they should comfort him with their pristine state saying that he was unaffected. But instead, they only disturb him, even with the settled blood staining the ends of the orbs a dark red. It is nothing but a pretty lie, a deception that sickens him… but maybe their state would bring his friends comfort? 

His skin, everywhere else, tells the truth. It is ruined, warped beyond recognition, twisted into something that no longer looks 100% human. In that, at least, he can find comfort. He has come to value truths, a virtue he didn’t hold too much stock in until his metamorphosis. Because beyond his new instincts saying lying isn’t even worth it, he understands now what it means to be the unspoken consequence. 

That is because he is the result, the aftermath, the only evidence (excluding his corpse), of what occurred. His body is a testament to the price paid for foolish actions and his parents’ lies, a scar carved into reality itself. ( Why has he had to pay the price when his parents have no clue that anything even happened as a result of their lies, beyond the portal suddenly working? )

There is no denying what happened. There are no soft edges, no illusions, just the raw, unvarnished truth lying before him in all its glory. And if nothing else, at least the truth does not pretend. (Danny can’t; he’s dead.) It does not soothe with empty reassurances or try to reshape itself into something more palatable. It simply is . His skin bears it, his very existence embodies it. And though the world may try to look away, to forget, to deny, he never will. He can't . Because he is the reminder. The consequence. The floating, talking proof that some things, once changed, can never be the exact same again. He will most likely never lie again (there’s no real point when it comes to things like this).

Finding Danny had been a surprise. Not a shocking one, but something unexpected all the same. (It did raise an emotional response in him, but it was mostly a sense of wrongness; that he shouldn’t be there.) He had wanted to see the portal from the other side, to see if his instinct about how different the swirl pattern in the portal from the other side was right. He never expected this. (He hadn’t truly thought about it. If he had been asked earlier, he wouldn’t have believed that he had left a body behind. Would have believed that his undead form had somehow been bound to the human one he was based on, or perhaps that it had been incinerated from all the energy of the portal opening and stabilizing.)

He thought he’d take a moment to trace the swirling patterns in the familiar green light that followed him everywhere these days, just a brief pause to get a bit more energy before trying to focus on reading that book Sam asked him to look over. But then… but then he saw Danny, and he couldn’t do anything other than stare. It had taken him a moment to realize that he had instinctively gone invisible at the sight, as if hiding would somehow erase the horrifying sight before him. His remains. Danny.

And the worst part? Danny shouldn’t be here. He should be buried, safe beneath the earth, and given a proper farewell. Laid to rest.

But he isn’t . To be stuck on his death site is a horrific fate, a constant reminder of his last moments… No wonder he’s been having issues with his anger. Danny won’t find peace, not here. Not surrounded by the machine that took his life and its ceaseless noises. How could he rest with the sounds of his worst agony constantly echoing around him?

He has to do something about it. And it has to be now.

The moment he shifts dimensions, to move him, to free him from this terrible place, he takes a deep breath (an ingrained soothing habit that no longer really works anymore) and is immediately hit with the odor. He tries to expel it, tries to remove the memory of experiencing it, but it’s everywhere —thick and sticky, clinging to him like syrup left out on the counter on a hot day, something that would be impossible to ever fully clean up.

Danny smells of things that… are just plain wrong . He smells of burnt chicken and sickly-sweet decomposition. The air stings with the scent, almost burning the ecto-strands in his nose with something similar to sulfur and ozone. It’s... too much . Metallic bitterness lingers at the back of his throat even after he turns off his lungs, like blood spilling from an infected wound. The memory/sensation of it sticks to him, sinking to his very core and sticking to it like droplets of slowly coagulating blood. 

There is no escape. He innately knows that there is no shower hot enough nor soap strong enough, and no amount of time in the fresh air will be long enough to get rid of it—of the memory of this discovery. He will carry this with him forever. Though thankfully all the ectoplasm in the air has stopped him from decomposing as fast as he would in any other location.

It takes him a bit to get his bearings, to rally enough to be able to actually approach Danny with the knowledge of his scent (even if the only reason he still smells it is he remembers it and it won’t go away ). He floats closer slowly, cautiously, like he wishes he had allowed himself to be when he was here before instead of racing to get the photo so that he could leave (back when he was alive and fragile enough for it to kill him) . The glow he passively emits in this form adds a light to the glazed-over eyes that only emphasizes their emptiness, that there’s no one home. It’s like a vampire staring longingly into a mirror, having long forgotten their appearance but still having no reflection to view themself with, and so their visage is forgotten.

He considers forcing himself onto the physical plane, to place his feet on the ground and feel the weight of gravity, but that feels wrong . Like he’s trying to convince Danny that it’s okay, that he’s alive, but he’s not . Hasn’t been for a while now and never will be again . So, he continues in his natural state, the pull of Earth’s mass towards him nonexistent on his paranormal body as he changes his orientation so that his body is closer to the floor. How does he want to do this?  

Gathering up his courage, he goes to scoop up his corpse into a princess carry, only to find his hands slipping through Danny. He stares at his hands, he knows that they are tangible at the moment, he can feel his body forcing itself to be still enough to be solid. But his hands slipped right on through, leaving them to brush the warm metal of the machine.

Maybe he just missed? Maybe he moved too fast? He knows that isn’t the case.

He steels himself and floats forward again. He squares his shoulders, forcing himself to stay calm. Be solid. Pick him up. That’s it. One thing at a time, he can do this. Then he floats down to scoop up Danny, only for his hands to pass right through him… again.

He blinks. Looks down at his hands. They’re solid. He knows they are, just like he knows that they were last time. He can feel the strain of holding himself together, forcing his form to stay tangible. But Danny? He’s untouched, still in the same position as before.

With a shaky breath, he tries again. He forces himself to slow down, and be more deliberate. He focuses, narrows everything down to the feeling of his hands, his fingers, the forced tangibility he wills upon his body. He reaches. And again, his arms slip through Danny like he’s made of smoke.

A surge of panic bubbles up from under his forced calm. That’s not right. That’s not right . He growls, his eyes flash an even brighter green, and his core rumbles with his rising emotions. And he tries again. And again. And again. Each attempt is more frantic than the last. But no matter how hard he focuses, no matter what he tries, he gets the same result of his hands gliding through Danny like he isn’t there even though he can still smell him. He almost wishes that he could smell his own emotions, that way it might drown out the scent of the corpse but he has a feeling it would also make things worse.

He can’t touch him. He can’t move him. He can’t do anything. And that terrifying truth sets in like trees taking root in his core.

What to do now? He ponders, having finally given up being able to even touch his body. Well, maybe he could get someone else to help move and bury him? Who could he ask? Jazz, Maddie, and Jack still have no idea that he could even be dead, so they’re out… but perhaps Sam and Tucker could? They would freak out over seeing his corpse, and that isn’t something he wants to happen, but he doesn’t have the time to wait for them to accept his death. Danny deserves to be moved from there. As fast as possible. And if that means that he needs to force his friends to face the truth, then that’s what he’s going to do.

He’ll fix this. It’s already a travesty that Danny’s been here this long.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

A glance to the sky and the sun’s position tells him all he needs to know about the time; it’s currently that awkward cusp between afternoon and evening, where one can never truly call it one or the other without feeling some doubt in the fact that they are using the correct term. That means that Sam is unavailable via phone as her family has a no phones policy at the table, though they were probably finishing up eating dinner right about now. It also means that Tucker is most likely free and probably playing one of his computer games or wrapped up in some program that he’s working on, since his family tends to eat their “second dinner” later. 

With that in mind, he makes the decision to call Tucker while he flies over. His friend picks up right as the second ring starts.

“Hey, my dude! What’s up?” his friend greets, keyboard clacking in the background. He must be coding something simple, he deduces. The clacking wouldn’t be as soft if he was playing Doomed or any other game. And if Tucker was coding anything difficult or with many moving parts, he would have stopped so that the project could always have his full attention (unlike that time where he accidentally switched languages in the middle of a program and therefore tried to use inheritance in an non-OOP language and was later confused as to why it wouldn’t work).

“I… discovered something,” he hedges, not wanting to lie, but also knowing that talking any specifics would have to wait till they were in person.

The computer sounds stop. “Danny?” he questions, voice concerned. Tucker probably picked up something in his voice; he has never been all that good at keeping secrets from him. Tucker always tends to just know whenever something is up.

He holds back a flinch as he approaches his friend’s house. “This isn’t something to talk about on the phone. I’m on my way to pick you up.”

“But it’s T-bone…” Tucker starts to refute on autopilot before he stops to actually think. While he knows that he has been clingy, he tries to let his friends have their evenings with families. He understands how important family time is, so for him to request this must be rightfully setting off alarm bells in Tucker’s head. “It can’t wait then?”

“No, I would rather it didn’t,” he replies; the sooner Danny can be removed from the lab, the better.

Tucker sighs. “I’ll let my parents know, but you better be up to playing rubber duck if I wind up forgetting what I was doing.”

“Of course.”

“Alright then, how far out are you?”

“About a minute.”

“I‘ll let Mom know and head out.”

“See ya soon!”

The phone chimes, alerting him to a dropped connection, and he puts the device in his arm after shooting Sam a quick text to let her know about needing to talk about something that couldn’t wait, and that he’ll be at her greenhouse with Tucker in about a half hour. 

He only has to wait a minute or so before Tucker makes it outside. “So, you gonna tell me what’s up?”

“I need help,” he responds before scooping his friend up into a princess carry and taking off invisibly into the sky.

Tucker stares at him, “Dude?!?”

“I’ll explain more once we’re with Sam. I don’t want to have to explain everything twice.”

“I’m holding you to that!” Tucker crosses his arms, trusting his long time friend to carry him through the air, even though it goes against all the laws of physics.

He chuckles and easily agrees. He would expect nothing less from his precious friend. They’ve always trusted each other; nothing could change that.

They settle into a silence after that as he flies over the buildings, making his way to the outskirts of the town since the Manson mansion was right at the edge of the town where all the rich folk had their residences. It takes a bit of time to get there, since he can’t even go anywhere near his top speed considering he doesn’t want to accidentally cause harm to the precious human in his arms.

Still unfamiliar with navigating from the sky, it’s the sharp glint of the sunset off the greenhouse glass that finally proves that he didn’t miss her house and have to do a third sweep of the sprawling neighborhood; everything blended too well into the grass and identical rooftops. Sam rarely has to sneak them over, since it’s pretty easy to avoid her parents when they come over (and they tend to walk there together, so he excuses himself for missing the place the first time he went through the area).

He slowly descends into the greenhouse, invisible and intangible, till he can place Tucker’s feet on the ground. His friend smiles to him in thanks and plops down onto his usual chair at their usual table. Based on the strain in his friend’s eyes, he still hasn’t gotten used to traveling via Ghost Airlines. Since this had become a somewhat common issue, he digs out a bag of candied ginger from his left arm for his friend to chew on and get resettled. Tucker accepts his offering with a nod and eats it slowly.

Sam arrives just as Tuck finishes eating all the ginger in the bag. “What’s up? You don’t usually call meetings late in the day like this. Did you manifest another power?”

“No,” he answers succinctly, ending that train of thought early. Both Sam and Tucker tend to get excited whenever the topic of his abilities comes up, but Sam is by far the most interested in them. 

She visibly deflates and snaps, “Well, what is it then?” 

“I…” he starts and can no longer find the words he needs to say, her piercing gaze and sharp scent of annoyance and disappointment stealing them. It stings; he knows objectively that he is much stronger than her, that she, unlike him, is practically nothing in the grand schemes of things. But still, he holds her in high esteem (and cares about her deeply) and so seeing her being short with him is something he tries to avoid. Especially since he cares about her. And besides, sticking to English… or any human tongue has become more and more difficult as time passes. Core Speak, the language of Realms Beings, comes to him so naturally now that, if he didn’t know any better, he would have assumed it to be a language that he always knew, instead of something he had never even heard of two months ago.

Sam, noticing his response, grimaces. She probably didn’t mean to come off as angry or irritated as she did, but what's done is done. None of them have time abilities after all; they aren’t Clockwork or a disciple of his. Sam isn’t one to voice her apologies—she’s a bit too proud to do so, but he can only tell that she is sorry by her body language and the bitter taste of her regret in the air.

He pulses his core to recenter himself. The coolness of it floods his form as he lets himself relax, hovering where he is above the floor, incorporeal but visible to their human eyes. “Thank you both for coming.”

“Of course, my dude!” Tucker responds instantly. 

Sam nods, her guilt forcing her to face away from him and instead settle on the caterpillar crawling on her prized purple roses instead of him. Her fingers twitch from where they are, purposely down at her sides.

“You said you wanted help. And when you need help, we’re your mans!” Sam jabs Tucker in the side. “I mean people! We’re your people!”

“So, spill.”

He opens his mouth to speak and hesitates. He would have to word this carefully since he understands that death is a sensitive topic for humans, and coming to accept it is challenging, but he won’t lie and let them believe and live in a world that doesn’t even exist (in this dimension). Danny deserves to get away from there, and his close friends need to face the music and understand that while they didn’t directly kill him, he is dead and they had a hand in it. (And besides he can think of this as a good practice round for telling Jazz and the rest of the Fentons, which he has struggled to find the right time to do.)

“There’s something I’ve been trying to tell you, to make you understand.” His arm twitches—in memory of the pain of his death, or wanting to go up and rub the back of his neck out of habit, he isn’t sure—but he stills the appendage and keeps his gaze on Sam and Tucker.

They trade glances. He’s always been pretty impulsive and done things all at once, so to hear about him struggling with this probably made the importance of this even more obvious. He could smell a wave of cold smoky dread coming from Tucker, at least one of his close friends understands where he’s going with this.

“I did not survive that day.” He comes straight out with it, not seeing the point of delaying it any further (and not really knowing how else to say it).

“But Danny—” Sam starts to interrupt, but he cuts her off.

“I am not Danny!” he explodes, his arms thrown wide in exclamation, “Danny is the dead body I need your help to move and bury, because I can’t even touch him!” 

“No,” Sam says immediately, harsh and sharp. “That’s not possible.”

He doesn’t answer, reigning in his anger. He needs to remember yelling won’t help, it would just rile everyone up further. Besides, he’s more curious about what her thoughts were than immediately proving himself truthful (though it still irks him). 

“You were fine,” she says, faster now, like speeding through the lie would make it reality. “You got up. You talked to us. You had a pulse and breathed; both Tucker and I checked! You’re fine.”

“I don’t breathe,” he says evenly. “I mimic it, sometimes. Did it out of habit at first. But it stopped meaning anything after the first few hours. Same thing for my heartbeat.”

Sam stares at him in shock.

Tucker’s face is way too pale as he stammers a denial (even though he can see that even he doesn’t truly believe it), “Maybe it’s another near-death thing? Like—you got zapped or shocked, sure, but you didn’t actually die. People survive freak accidents all the time. And are you sure you not needing to breathe anymore isn’t just a power, like your intangibility?”

“Tucker,” he says quietly, trying to be as gentle as he can considering the news seems to be breaking his friend. “I have to focus on appearing more human-like and being tangible. This form is my natural state, not the one I wear when we’re walking about in public.”

“Okay, but—there was radioactivity, dimensional displacement, some kind of quantum field that could have…”

“I don’t have a heartbeat, Tucker. I can force one, if I focus. But I don’t need to; it’s uncomfortable, and it leaves me tired. I don’t eat. I float without thinking. I have to focus in order to appear human-like. You both get headaches when you stare at my natural form for too long. I died in that lab.”

“You’re just—you’re being dramatic,” Sam cuts in, unconsciously echoing the words she had heard her parents say numerous times. “Maybe you passed out. Maybe you stopped breathing, but it wasn’t... it wasn’t death. Not real death. You’re here, after all.” 

“I found my corpse. That’s why I said this couldn’t wait.” His voice sharpens, just enough to make the temperature drop as his core hums a bit louder in his agitation.

“Shut up!” Sam barks, pointing at him. “Stop implying… this like it’s real. Like… you aren’t talking to us right now.”

He answers, his voice noticeably weighted with the truth of it. “You’re confusing continuity with identity. I am here, yes. But I am dead. He didn’t survive. That boy, Danny, he's lying in the lab behind the portal. I looked like him, and since I appeared to be okay it was natural to assume that all was fine, but I only exist because Danny doesn’t anymore. I am dead, no amount of denial or arguing is going to change that. I have a corpse.”

“You—you joked,” she rebutted, panic starting to seep into her words. “You laughed at our inside jokes.”

“You think that means anything? Communication and understanding humor is not just something limited to humans and other living creatures. You think just because I died that I lost the capability to laugh and sense comedy? Of course it’s possible for me to have his memories, my soul came from his. I’m still him… sorta. I’m just… different due to my change of species, natural home dimension, and the whole death experience.”

“So what?” Sam says, crossing her arms. “You look the same, talk the same, feel the same. Why are you even trying to argue this?”

“Because you’re ignoring the differences! I’m no longer even human, Sam. You’re still pretending that Danny didn’t die! And he did! I did! Accept it.”

He hovers lower, closer to the ground so that they’re now eye to eye, and places his hand on her cheek before continuing in a gentler voice. “You want it to be easy. You want to slap an old familiar name on me and keep going. But I’m not Danny. He died in that lab. And neither of you have cared to look.”

“That’s not fair,” Tucker says, softly.

“Isn’t it?” Danny bites back. He’s had to rest there, since that’s where his family lives and it’s the only place he can find that has the energy he needs to absorb in order to keep existing. He hasn’t had any other option since he likes existing and can’t stay at their houses every night or his parents and/or Jazz might notice. “You’re the ones that had to talk Danny into even going down into the lab in the first place, since neither of my parents were home.”

Sam's eyes flash. “You’re talking like it’s our fault? You walked in on your own. You’re the one with scientist parents, not us…”

“You dared me,” he cuts in, “Urged me to just pose for a small ‘harmless’ photo,” he makes air quotes. 

She flinches, and he pulls back to give her some space.

“I told you I didn’t want to. And then, after you tucked me into bed, you ran and didn’t set foot near my house again. Neither of you did.” His voice is flat, too flat, no reverb or echo or static to his words (unlike everything else he says these days), just plain solid truth. He lets them sit with it for a moment.

“I couldn’t!” Sam explodes. “And neither could Tuck! We tried! But we couldn’t even walk down that street without… without…”

“Panicking,” he finishes for her, quiet but sharp. “I know. I could smell it from up in my room whenever you came close.”

There’s no bite in his voice. No exaggeration. Just a truth that’s heavy enough to weigh down their shoulders (it looked a little too much like grief for Danny to really want to acknowledge it at this point, with his emotions as raised as they are).

“You think it was easier for me?” he asks, not looking at her. “I woke up, the second time, alone. I had practically no memories of the first time! I had no idea if you both were okay! I might have known conceptually that you both weren’t dead, since I had been put in bed, but I had no way to confirm it. Not even a simple note!” he yells, gaze bouncing between the two of them, glowing bright enough that his vision was starting to tint green. He pauses and forces himself to calm down; letting his anger take charge isn’t what is needed right now. “I didn’t know if you were both in the hospital or if anything else had happened while I was out. I was practically out of my mind with distress.”

Sam and Tucker turn and face one another, the color drained out of their faces.

“Why do you think I was so insistent on being with both of you all the time, especially for those first couple weeks? Spoiler: it wasn’t because I was having trouble keeping myself living-tangible. I needed to make sure you both were okay!” He pauses for a moment before continuing. “I died, and my first conscious thoughts afterwards? They were panicked, worrying if you both were okay.” 

Tucker drops the plastic bag that he had clearly forgotten about (otherwise he wouldn’t dare even think about littering anywhere near Sam) and pounces on him, wrapping him in a hug. The nonhuman saw it coming and managed to turn tangible in time, but he hadn’t expected Sam to join the impromptu group hug. She hates physical affection, claiming she gets too much forced on her at home. But she does join, and he can tell by the redness in her eyes and the fact that she keeps looking up that she’s trying not to cry. They’re finally accepting the truth (and responsibility) and it feels like a balm on a burn that was worse than he thought it was.

They part, eventually. They have to finish the conversation. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t stay with you. I…” Tucker stops, unsure how to continue.

He forces his arm to land heavy on his close friend’s shoulder. “Tuck, I’ve already forgiven you for that. Humans can easily panic. I just need you to accept that Danny’s dead and for you to get him out of there, since I physically can’t.”

“How did you know?” Sam asks, more for show than asking anything she really believes in. He could tell since her voice was shaky at best, and he could see the slope of her shoulders increasing. “How do you know it was…” You? The last word echoes unsaid but still heard.

“Beyond the fact that I’m the only person that could have died there? Beyond everything I’ve brought up earlier? I know because I found him, maybe an hour or so ago,” he informs her. “I wanted to see the portal, but came down from a different place mostly out of curiosity. I didn’t expect to find him! But there I was, floating above Danny, staring down at him. When I went to move him, to put my arms beneath him and get him out of there, I found I couldn’t. I couldn’t touch him. Couldn’t shake him. I kept trying, over and over,” he goes silent for a moment, his gaze far away, still aware of exactly how he left Danny. “I tried until I realized it was impossible.”

“You don’t know it was you,” Sam tries again. “You were where you—where it happened. It could’ve been something else, like a trick of the light or…”

“He’s wearing Fenton gear.”

Silence.

“The new set that was ordered especially for me, with the black boots that I requested instead of the teal ones from before. The space where you ripped off the Jack face sticker was blank. You know, like what I’m currently wearing the reverse of? You haven’t seen him, so you don’t know, but I do. I saw.”

“Why are you doing this?” she asks, her voice breaking as tears start slipping down her face.

“Because you’ve been pretending that I’m Danny. And I need you to accept that I’m not. That your actions, in combination with Tucker’s, led to my death. Besides, I’ve seen the way Tucker gets quiet. How he’ll just stare at me whenever we’re out at the Nasty Burger or just out and about. I know he sees that I don’t eat. That I tend to stick to this form unless I have to because we’re out in public. I know he’s noticed my shirts are always still dry after PE, not even a drop of sweat on the fabric nor a flush on my face, despite Danny being notoriously not fit at all. I had a feeling Tucker was starting to realize something was up beyond the obvious powers and transformation.” He stops, and then continues a bit guiltily. “Plus, I need your help moving him. ”

His voice flattens. The hum of his core pulses once, sharply. “Danny is behind the portal, so we’ll have to turn it off to get to him, but he’s still there. Untouched. Starting to rot.”

Sam turns away. “Stop,” she pleads, voice cracking. “Just stop.”

“Yeah, I think we get it,” Tucker adds, his voice thicker than he has ever heard it before, his eyes puffy from the tears cascading down cheeks still full with baby fat. “We love you. We’ll help you dude, always.”

“Yeah,” Sam echoes, voice weak. “Always.”  She draws in a few deep breaths before straightening herself out and asking in a stronger voice, “Now, what do you want us to do?”

He meets their eyes, both of them, equally. “Bury him, give him a grave away from the lab. He deserves a place to rest, away from everything.”

Sam nods, a look of focus taking over her face. “Ok, let’s game plan. How are we going to do this?”

“Well, first let’s decide where we’re going to bury him, any preferences D—” Tucker starts, then pauses and winces as if just remembering something, “Ummm… you have been using Danny as reference to…”

“My corpse?” He verifies.

“Yeah. So, what should we call you? If Danny is you from before? Do you want a different name?”

He stares. He hasn’t really considered it beyond the fact that being called Danny feels wrong on every level, so he says the first thing that comes to his mind. “You can call me Phantom for now. I haven’t really decided on anything yet.”

Sam snorts, her eyes still red for all that there is mirth dancing in them as she responds. “Figures you'd make your new name a pun on your old one.”

Tucker nods in agreement.

“Sam! Tucker!” he exclaims in fake betrayal, a smile on his face, his core ringing in happiness. His smile is different from all the ones he has given since the incident, since it’s true and carefree.

“Okay, then. Phantom, any preferences for Danny’s burial site?” Tucker asks

“No preferences,” he says, and then really starts to think. “Just… somewhere quiet.”

They nod. “There are quite a few places that fit that criteria. Are you thinking quiet, like in the middle of the woods, or…”

He’s glad he found Danny. More than that, he’s glad it forced him to finally get them to face the truth, however heavy reality might be now as it sits on their shoulders.

Chapter Text

With their planning as complete as it could be, since none of them are really planners, Phantom leaves the greenhouse carrying Sam and Tucker and they make their way to Fenton Works. The flight to his place feels like it drags on much longer than it actually does, with the heaviness of the silence that sticks with the three of them despite his speeds and the open sky around them. The ever chatty Tucker remains quiet during their journey, probably out of some sort of respect or worry for what they’re about to do. Phantom hates it, but he keeps his mouth shut as he flies, conscious about not flying too fast and accidentally causing them harm.

It is only when Phantom goes to place them down in the alley that they used to take as a shortcut to his house that the stinging scent of panic starts to overpower all of his friends’ other emotions. 

The thing is, Phantom knew conceptually that they would panic; he’d figured out that panic (or trauma) was the most likely reason that they stopped agreeing to meet him anywhere near his house so soon after his death. But it is something else entirely to see them start to panic in front of his very eyes as soon as they registered the familiar Fenton Works logo that his parents branded across their home.

Phantom will admit that their panic might have influenced him and got him panicking as well, trying to do his best to calm them down (and get rid of the stinging feeling/scent that prickles against his skin and up his nose with the strength of their emotions). But even with that being the case, it takes shifting to his more human-like appearance and what feels like days to get his two closest friends to calm down, even though it was probably an hour at most. Thankfully, what seemed to help the most was a mix of taking audible breaths (which felt so weird, but they were breathing much too fast and he cares about them more than he could possibly care about some discomfort so he can deal), reminding them that he was here for them (and still cared deeply about them), and that it would be a quick in and out before they never had to approach the building again. By the time they are both as calm as they’re going to get, the sun is fully set and a few stars are already visible in the sky. 

It takes a lot of effort to keep his friends as calm as they are (which is barely) and get them into his home, but he manages it by constantly telling them that he’s here and believes in them. Once inside, he asks, “We made it inside, do you want to take a break before going down to the lab?”

Sam turns to meet Tucker’s eyes and they have a silent conversation before Sam turns to him and takes a deep calming breath. “No,” Sam declares. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Seeing Tucker’s nod, Phantom acquiesces to their decision. He’ll respect it… even if he can still feel the sharp tang of panic that had swelled at the mention of the lab.

Since Phantom figures going down into the lab will also be a trigger (he thinks that’s the right word… he’s heard Jazz say it a few times after all, but he never really paid attention to her rants until after his metamorphosis), he ignores the noises coming from the kitchen and instead focuses on his friends, facing them as he walks backwards towards the lab. Getting down the stairs with his precious ones takes utilising his gravity-ignoring abilities to do it without falling, but he manages it. 

Once in the horrendous space, he carefully questions his friends. “Before I turn the portal off, is there anything I can do for you? Anything that would help with what you’re about to see?”

When she hears one of her kids come home and not yell their arrival, Maddie will admit she gets curious enough to take the food she’s cooking off the burner and go out to investigate. Jack, seeing her go, asks in his typical booming voice, “Is there something wrong, Mads? Need me to go run to the store and pick up a missing ingredient?”

“No, we’re fine, dear,” she answers, a smile on her face. Her husband has always been the embodiment of a golden retriever. “I thought I just heard one of the kids get home, but they didn’t announce themselves, so I'm a bit worried.”

“Well, that sounds simple then! Let’s go check on them!” Jack responds and goes to run to the door, when she stops.

“Jack, they could be hiding something. Let’s try and keep our volume down.”

“Why would they want to keep something from us, Mads? They should know we’ll always support and love them!” he whisper-shouts in response.

“I don’t know, Jack. But they’re both teenagers, so it could be a bit of teenage rebellion. Either way—” her train of thought gets derailed by hearing a confirmation beep from down in the lab. “Jack. Whoever it is, they’re down in the lab.”

Jack’s eyes widen as the information sinks in. “The portal!”

She nods and they race down the stairs to the lab, Jack following her lead as always. Whoever it was is about to be in so much trouble! They didn’t let their kids go down there alone for safety reasons! They worked with a lot of dangerous chemicals and open circuits, so any sort of accident could result in serious harm in the best case scenario! 

Maddie is immediately ready to start yelling at whoever is in the lab, when she registers exactly who all is down there. Because there is, for some stupid reason, more than one person down in the lab with her son. It seems Danny thought it would be a brilliant idea to bring his two little almost-lovers down into the lab. And she is just about to rag on him severely for not only going down there without permission and supervision, but also for bringing his friends who know practically nothing about the ecto-sciences into the lab when she notices the flashing light on top of the portal. 

Oh.

Oh no.

“Danny,” she says, her voice eerily calm despite all the repressed fear that is squirming in her stomach, as if a collection of eels had replaced her intestines.

Danny turns to face her and her words dry up on her tongue. Something’s…. off. Maddie doesn’t know what it is, but there’s some sort of expression on her son’s face that she’s never seen before. She can tell that it isn’t a guilty or any sort of happy expression, but she’s stuck unable to read the nuances of it. Confused, she turns to meet the eyes of Danny’s partners in crime, but they seem to be drowning in guilt and unable to meet her eyes. 

Maddie is about to turn and confer with her husband, when the light above the portal stops flashing and the computer announces, “Portal turned off successfully. Time to get fudge!” and the hazard doors open.

It takes a moment for her brain to catch up with her body, but when it does she is already staring down at the corpse she is cradling in her arms. The tears make seeing through her goggles almost impossible, and the sobs that escape her throat are irregularly interrupted by the hiccups already wracking her body. She doesn’t even notice the stench of him as she gasps. Because this is her boy. Her son. This is her Danny, her precious little astronaut dreamer.  What had happened? How?

A familiar presence joins her, covering her back, and she tilts into the warm embrace of her husband. One of his hands pulls down the hood and goggles of her hazmat suit while the other goes to support the hand she has in her son’s black hair. “Mads,” he whispers tenderly in her ear, “if this is Danny, who is our son’s look-a-like right there?”

So lost in the discovery of her son’s… the body, she had forgotten him. She looks up at the doppelganger, searching for some sort of answer or explanation when she notices that he is staring at her in surprise. Hoping for some answers, she asks the first one to come to mind, “What—”

The image of her son crouches down so that they meet eye to eye and suddenly she knows exactly what, no who it is that she’s been talking to. She looks into his eyes that were never that piercing of a blue, at the paleness of his skin, at that missing scar he no longer had by one of his eyes and she knows.

Her heart breaks as the reality of the situation, that her Danny, her bouncing baby boy is dead, settles in. The tears that she had finally managed to stop come back with a vengeance. Jack’s arms around her squeeze her tightly as she voices for the both of them (he has the habit of going quiet when sad), hoping against hope that she’s wrong, “No, who are you?”

The second the portal was down Maddie was in motion. Her eyes were trained on the newly visible corpse as Phantom watched her frantic dash in surprise. He almost winces in sympathetic pain when her knees audibly hit the metal flooring of the interior tunnel for the portal. He can only stare at her as she scoops Danny into her arms tenderly. 

The scene in front of him reminds him of the ending of that movie he saw with his friends almost two months ago now. He can’t remember the name of said movie, but he remembers how the mother had cradled her son’s limp and lifeless body closely in her arms and wept. How each movement was tender and slow, how she had petted the dead one’s hair and promised them they would never be forgotten, that they were loved so very much. How agonizing the actress’s scream was when she realized her ‘son’ was gone.

It is like the movie scene was superimposed onto the bodies in front of him, with how similar that scene is to the one in front of him. Maddie, his mom, is bawling her eyes out, just like the one from the movie. Ugly tears stream down her face as her body heaves with sobs and the weight of her emotions. Though, thankfully, Jack soon joins her in cradling Danny and he is able to focus back on the present with the sudden change. 

Phantom can only stare at them in shock. Jack joined Maddie in her tears… he doesn’t think he has ever seen his dad cry before. He’s always been so happy-go-lucky that seeing it now makes him even more confused (and a bit uncomfortable, truth be told). He hadn’t expected this reaction at all, from either of them. When the portal had gone down he had expected some sort of confusion, perhaps some panic as they registered that there are two things that they would identify as Danny, but this is something else. Maybe even some sort of horrified reaction at having been working close to a dead body for so long or seeing one unexpectedly. He thought these extreme reactions were done up for the drama in movies, but nothing about the emotions in the air or either of his parents’ reactions reads as anything less than truly genuine to him.

Yes, they probably weren't expecting their investigation into what he was doing down in the lab to reveal Danny, but this extreme of a reaction has him confused. Do they not understand that he chose to stay, and part of the reason was for them? Do they not realize that his being here today and not being human anymore isn’t their fault? Their claim to blame in his death is minimal. Maddie and Jack had set up several safety measures. Which he had to work to circumvent. So then why is their sadness (and grief) tinged with guilt?

He doesn’t really get it. Sure, dying hurt, but he’s okay now and it wasn’t their fault. Death is hardly something to be afraid of. He knows not everyone who dies becomes a Realms being like him; some just linger as an apparition or other form of undead, some get cleansed to enter the reincarnation cycle, and some let their soul dissolve, but nothing is an awful fate. He had perhaps expected tears when they discovered the truth, maybe some panic at not noticing the change, but nothing this extreme. He is here after all, he stayed, even if he isn’t Danny anymore. Besides, people change all the time; he is still their child, as he was in his past reincarnation.

He turns to his friends, hoping maybe they can explain. He knows dying is hard on the living, that it hurts, but he’s okay now. He’s fine. Different, but fine. So, why is everyone sobbing so uncontrollably to this degree?

“What– No, who are you?” Maddie asks, her eyes bouncing between Danny, the portal machine, and Phantom. 

He crouches down to meet her eyes. (That’s what you do, right? When you want to explain something delicately? You meet them on their level... right? He wishes he had paid more attention to Jazz’s lectures sooner.) He answers her, keeping his voice soft and gentle. “I think you already know the answer to that.”

The confusion in her eyes dissipates as despair sinks in. The tears start falling again, thick and fast, streaking her face with physical proof of her misery and grief. As if the emotions he can smell in the air didn’t tell him that already. Maddie’s chest heaves with each sob, like a butterfly trapped in a web trying frantically to break free while the spider approaches. “Who are you?” his mom asks again, dread in her voice. 

He looks at her, trying to be kind about it. Death is such a hard topic on the living. It’s the least he can do. “I’m Phantom, the result of Danny’s death and subsequent change of species. I am planning on staying around, I just came here with Sam and Tucker to get him buried and out of here.”

“So, you’re Danny?”

“Sort of. I’m the same soul that was Danny, but I’m not him exactly. I’m different,” he explains. Then, seeing mostly confusion in their eyes, he pauses to think of a good analogy he thinks both of his parents would understand (Which was hard, since they both thought about things wildly differently. For example, Maddie only thought in images with no words at all, while Jack had trouble with making mental pictures and the like). “Think of it like me being a butterfly. Danny was the caterpillar. Death wrapped his soul in a chrysalis… and I’m what emerged. A butterfly isn’t a caterpillar, but it carries the memory of crawling. And like how a caterpillar is not a butterfly, but is the same species, I am not Danny but am of his soul. Still the same soul, just a bit fundamentally distinct.” 

“We… we proved our theory on ghosts, but…” Maddie trails off as the tears stream down her face faster and her chest heaves with the force of it all. “The cost…”

“This wasn’t your fault,” Danny tries to sooth as Jack pulls his wife even closer and rubs her shoulders in a soothing motion.

“You’re dead. My son is dead,” Maddie whispers, heartbroken as she breaks into sobs yet again. 

“But he remained here. He didn’t disappear or leave us,” Jack manages to croak out, his voice weak and failing him multiple times as he speaks, attention tied between the two of them as he rubs Maddie’s back. “Our son is still here, just…” he trails off.

Phantom takes pity on them and asserts, “Just dead.” As if they weren’t currently holding his corpse in their arms. He doesn’t get the need for the clarification. So, Danny is dead. Big deal. His soul and memory are still here, now in the shape of a Realms Being, and still views his family and friends from before as his still. He doesn’t get what’s so hard about it; he’s not human anymore, but why should that matter? In their past life most of them were platypuses. Souls change species all the time. Besides, he's here and has no plans to leave.

The quiet hangs heavily in the air for a moment before Phantom is hit with a face-full of grief, guilt, and other such emotions too strong and muddled to name individually. He flinches at the intensity of it as it stings and burns his skin metaphysically.

It’s a lot… it’s too much actually, he realizes he can feel himself trying to absorb all these negative emotions (which isn’t good! Too much absorption of negative emotions can greatly impact how he grows).

He almost wants to disappear, let himself go invisible and intangible and fly away from all this emotion, but that’s when Jazz enters the lab (she must have gotten curious since the doors were left open, which never happens). 

It doesn’t take his sister long to scan the scene. It takes even less time for her to scream the second her gaze makes it to his corpse.

Her voice is pure agony. It is high, it is sharp, and the sudden pain cutting against his skin (but leaving no wounds) is inescapable as the force of her emotions fill up and stuff the whole room, amplifying all the negative emotions already there till he feels suffocated with it all.

It hurts to get closer to her, the pain getting stronger the closer he is to her, but he refuses to give up. He might not exactly be Danny, but she is still his sister.

She must think he’s a hallucination or something, because she doesn’t react to him until he has wrapped her in his arms. She flinches at the contact (his cool skin probably surprising her), but then she hugs him back tightly, buries her head in the crook of his neck, and sobs. (It’s eerily reminiscent of that time he got lost when he was six or seven, and it took everyone hours to find him. She’s doing practically the same thing that she did then when they first reunited.)

It burns, being this close, touching the source of such agonizing emotion when he has done his best to only absorb happy emotions so far, but he refuses to let go. He can feel that this is helping. What seems to aid her even further is their parents joining the embrace (after gently placing the corpse on the floor). Thankfully, all the emotions settle down as they relax into each other.

Eventually, the hug ends and the little family separates, rough emotions soothed for the time being.

“What’s going on, Danny?” Jazz asks.

“Call me Phantom, please. And the answer is pretty simple. I finally explained to Sam and Tucker that their dare did result in a casualty—mine—and that I needed their help to relocate my corpse.”

“Your corpse…” Maddie repeats, her voice breaking as her eyes flit back over to Danny like they’ve been doing this whole time. “Wait… when was this?”

“The day the portal first started working, ma’am,” Tucker responds, shaky but respectful.

“But…” Maddie starts and turns toward her husband.

“That was a month and a half ago,” Jazz whispers, horrified.

Phantom says nothing as he waits for the information to sink in.

“But…” Jack starts, then stops, lost on what to say and how.

“How did we not notice?” Maddie asks in despair.

“We went out and saw that meteor shower together last week,” Jack says, looking down at his boy.

“We did,” Phantom agrees. “And I helped Mom by carrying some of the grocery bags when we went on errands together yesterday.”

“But…” Jazz asks, her eyes searching. 

“While I might not exactly be Danny, might not share blood and species with you anymore, I still remember you. I still consider you all part of my family,” he declares, meeting not only Jazz’s eyes, but his mother and father’s as well.

“Oh, son,” Jack declares before starting another group hug.

“I think I need to hear the full story,” Maddie says, eyes stern but voice soft. Phantom could smell the pungent aroma of the loss and terror she’s suppressing, same as Jazz and Jack. A scraping noise draws her attention to Sam, who’s dragging Danny further out of the machine.

“Samantha? Tucker? Care to share?” Maddie asked as if her body language didn’t clearly state it was a command.

The thing was, in any other situation Phantom would stand up and do what he could for his friad, but they needed to face this. He would not shield them from this. He hadn’t wanted to die at the time, and yet their actions forced the hands of Death to claim him early and endure the ensuing metamorphosis process.

His two friends kept silent for a while before Tuck broke first and started explaining the events of that day. His words were detached as he held back his thoughts and feelings on the matter, just stating the order of events as they occurred. “...Sam dared him to go into the portal machine. I said nothing, though I did get out the camera. He refused to even get within several feet of the machine without putting on his hazmat suit. But when that was on, Sam tore off the picture of Mr. Fenton’s face and pushed him toward the contraption.”

Tucker was obviously going to continue, but Sam put an arm on his elbow and finished the retelling herself, probably because Tucker’s voice was starting to tremble enough that he was having to repeat himself more and more and his eyes were starting to get wet with tears (again). “He originally posed directly in front of it for the picture, clearly uncomfortable, but I urged him forward. I told him not to be a wuss and actually get inside it since it would look better, but there must have been a loose wire or something on the floor, because he lost his balance and then suddenly the machine was on… and he was screaming.”

Sam lets the silence stretch a bit as she recollects herself (which is good, because Phantom can sense that the short break helped everyone else’s emotions settle). When she finally continues, it’s obvious that she is forcing her voice to continue working as it trembles and fails her several times, “I don’t know how long it was, but eventually the portal stabilized and the screaming stopped. For a while, I was convinced he was truly gone. That I had—” she swallows air “—vaporized him. I thought for several moments that I… never mind, that’s not the point. Eventually, a humanoid-like figure emerged.”

Sam turns to him and nods, urging him to show his family his natural form. With an encouraging look from Tucker, Jazz, and his parents, he relaxes his hold on his human-shift and transforms into his more natural state. 

His parents and sister stare at his… his everything. His gravity-defying, pure-white hair that looks to be made out of strands of pure light and snow reflections. His eyes which are a swirl of green, blue, and white, and his standard issue black top and white gloves (which now ended in points so he could scratch things with his claws) from the hazmat he had worn to his death in the reverse color scheme. The crawling pattern made of solid ice that stained his skin (evidence of what he went through) originating from his palm, under his clothes. They looked at the abnormally long length of his ears, his pale-blue skin tone and white lips that hid the long canines that allowed venom to wet his mouth when he got angry or defensive. His facial structure and build is similar to Danny’s but different, everything too symmetrical and too defined yet not at the same time. Though what they studied the longest was his black tail which is what replaced the legs he no longer had need for. It is decorated with glowing specks that move into different shapes and patterns he didn’t know if anyone else would recognize as his favorite constellations. He halfway wonders if they’ve noticed that his whole body glows, or that he lacks a shadow, but decides to remain silent.

“You’re a ghost,” Maddie whispers, as if speaking any louder would make it true. 

Jazz looks just about ready to cry (again) at the incorrect declaration, so Phantom is quick to correct it and reassure her. “Not exactly. I can see where you’re coming from, with the ghost claim, since Danny’s dead and all that. But, I’m a Realms Being,” he tries to reassure. They were raised on horror stories featuring ghosts after all. Maybe that’s what has her spooked? Plus, their parents have been obsessed with the topic of ghosts their whole lives, and their claims about them are pretty horrifying to consider if they applied to him or any other being. “I have no malicious urges. I’m not bound to one location nor am I stuck intangible and/or invisible, though I can easily do both. As you’ve seen, I can manipulate myself into an appearance close to that which my soul previously held, but it isn’t an exact match since I’m neither human nor alive. And as such there are things that I just cannot hide, like my lack of shadow, my claws, and my inability to sweat. But I am not a ghost. That I can tell you with perfect confidence, I would even swear it on the Ancients or my first stuffed rocket.”

Jazz giggles wetly at the reference. He’s always held that little thing in the highest esteem any human child could. He’d gotten it when he was three as a gift, and it never left his side for years. Even now it holds a place of honor on his bed.

Jazz’s mouth opens slightly, the edge of her lip trembling like she might say something else—but nothing comes. Her eyes dart from Phantom to the still, silent form of his body. Danny, who is currently on the floor by Sam and Tucker’s feet. 

Jazz’s hands curl into fists beside her, holding her breath like it might anchor the moment in place. No one speaks.

Phantom doesn’t move, but his glow dims slightly in response to the way his sister’s expression (and emotions) shift—no longer terrified, no longer confused, just… growing heavier. “You stayed,” she says quietly, her voice thin. “All that time… you stayed with them. You let them think you were fine.”

“I didn’t let them,” Phantom says, careful. “They saw what they wanted to see. I looked like him. I wanted to tell them, but I was unsure how, and I couldn’t… I didn’t want to hurt them.”

“But you were dead,” Maddie whispers, half to herself, still staring at the body. “That whole time.”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” Phantom admits.

“You could have come to me,” Jazz professes. “You know that I will always be in your corner, right?”

“But,” he hesitates in his answer. He wants to make sure that he words this correctly. He doesn’t want to accidentally hurt her. “You’ve always been so against all of Mom and Dad’s tales. Saying that there isn’t such a thing as the multiverse or the supernatural, and I didn’t want to risk having it go poorly, or you not believing me. Besides, I'm still trying to re-understand how human emotions work again.”

Jazz breaks down into tears again, and draws him in for another hug. “I’ll always believe you, little brother. Always.”

Slowly—like her neck can barely carry the weight—Maddie turns to face Sam and Tucker. Her eyes flash as realization dawns on her. “You. You both forced him to go in there alone. You stood there, and you watched him die!”

Sam flinches, a small wounded sound escaping her lips. Tucker makes a small sound—a breath, or a sob, Phantom can’t tell.

“You killed him!” Maddie screams, her voice tearing raw from her throat. “You killed my son!”

“Mads!” Jack yells, grabbing onto her fiercely. He then turns and whispers in her ear. “They. Are. Children. And while they certainly need to face the consequences of their actions, you need to calm down. Do you really want to force our kids to be down here any longer, to punish our son’s crushes in front of him?”

Mom takes a deep breath. Then another as the scent of her anger and sadness slowly dissipates as she forces herself to relax.  “Jazz? Danny? W-”

“Phantom, just call me Phantom,” he reminds them.

Maddie chokes at his interruption, but Jack is already responding, “I like it! Phantom Fenton! Really rolls off the tongue, don’t you think Mads?”

She looks at him, and whatever she finds has her shoulders slumping as she nods. “We’ll have to talk about changing your name at school later, but it’s fine.”

He didn’t know he was anxious about both of their responses to his new name till he felt his claws retract within his body. That hasn’t happened before, but it probably happened because he hasn’t felt this safe since he became who he is now.

“I’ll take him upstairs,” Jazz promises, inferring what their parents were originally going to ask of them.

Back up in his room, he floats in front of Jazz awkwardly as he waits for her to spit out whatever it is that she wants to ask.

“So, tell me, have you noticed any changes in your thought patterns since your death?” she asks, and Phantom knows everything is going to be fine. His sister accepted that he’s dead and not going to hurt her. His parents have accepted him and are forcing Sam and Tuck to face the consequences of their actions. His friends are going to dig him a grave. It wasn’t perfect. Not yet, several talks needed to happen before that could be achieved. But it was enough—for now. Things would be okay, he knew it.

Chapter Text

Phantom stares down at the butterfly on one of his fingers as he hovers above the ground near the grave stone he had watched Sam carefully carve for hours, and feels content. It had only been a week since the day he found Danny, but it feels like it’s been much longer. 

Things have been better, even if multiple awkward conversations had taken place. He not only felt more settled in his core, but a huge pressure was off his shoulders since he no longer had to hide his nonhuman characteristics from those close to him. 

Yesterday morning they officially held his funeral, or as officially as one could when they never reported his death to the authorities. Everyone had worn black and lots of crying occurred, not that Phantom fully understood why there was so much sadness when he was right there (though Jazz had attempted to explain it to him when he asked afterward).

Currently, Sam and Tucker were away at a lab safety seminar—one his parents had insisted on. But that wasn’t the only consequence. They’d been forced to sit through a formal meeting with every parent involved and explain, in detail, exactly what they’d done. Afterward, they were made to dig the six-foot deep grave by hand, and the cost of the coffin came directly out of their allowances. Jazz, ever thorough, added her own punishment too: a long lecture on peer pressure, as well as forcing them into courses on the topic that she had found online. (Which both of them accepted without complaint.)

He also earned his own punishment for the whole ordeal, which—he admitted—was only fair. Jazz’s lecture all about boundaries and the importance of speaking up before things spiraled had been long, but he had listened to it with the attention it deserved. Their parents had chewed him out too, though it had been peppered with concern and awkward references to his “little crushes,” which had made him glow even brighter in embarrassment as his core rumbled.

He looks down at his grave one last time:

Daniel “Danny” James Fenton

2XXX ~ 2XXX

“Death is but the start of something new,

I’ll see you again.”

His phone chimes, and he checks it curiously as he slowly flies away, a butterfly beside him. It seems the safety seminar was finishing up and they were verifying plans to meet up later. He can’t contain his smile. He is well aware of all their feelings for each other, but he is in no rush to ask them if they would allow him to court the both of them. 

He understands that they still need to get accustomed to his new state of being, and he can wait. They have time after all, he’s not going anywhere. And he’ll protect them from anything that could take them away.

Things were good, and he knew they would only get better from here. All was as it should be.