Don't...Don't ask. I don't even know. I found this sitting in a corner of my folder and I just.
Serial killers?
Serial killers.
There you go.
The thing with being a hero is that you fight villains, and villains, they are criminals. The thing with fighting criminals is that they don't care and, some times, even like to hurt people. That's why heroes are there.
It doesn't matter if said hero is a ghost or otherwise.
The thing is that, though heroes like them try to never hurt humans too badly (ghosts don't matter, ghosts heal in the Ghost Zone and, frankly, most of them are too consumed by their obsessions to be considered as 'people'. Only good ghosts are the exception) sometimes, things happen. When the bad guy is holding at gunpoint an innocent, or controlling ghosts via a magical staff, or holding a knife over your sister's throat, things happen. And sometimes, the things that happen aren't more serious than bruises or even a cracked rib, nothing too bad.
But sometimes, human fragility wins resilience.
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The first time it happens, Danny is understandably upset. Sam and Tucker try to cheer him up afterward, after they've dealt with the body (a burglar, fell from the roof when Danny was trying to catch him, but Skulker had appeared and smashed Danny against a building. Sam had made sure there was no trace of the ghost boy on the broken corpse while Tucker threw up in a bush further away), but Danny still disappears for three days to the Ghost Zone, where he stays with Frostbite and Clockwork until Sam and Tuck have to come and threaten to drag his ass back with the Fenton Ghost Fisher if needed. Danny goes with them.
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The second time it happens, Freakshow has escaped for the third time and nearly ensures that his parents kill him—even after discovering while at it his real identity. To add insult to injury, he then makes his ghost accomplice kidnap Sam and Tucker, and nearly kill them.
(It's not Danny who pulls the trigger of the gun the ghost drops when Phantom tackles her.)
In the aftermath, Danny still stains his hands with blood, though it's technically only ectoplasm, and the three of them decide to burn down the warehouse with the human and ghost corpses.
(Tucker looks at the fire with a faraway look, still in shock and with his hands trembling—the same that had held the gun firmly, a not-so-unfamiliar weight when compared with the shooting game's gun they'd been playing with for months. But it's not a game, it's not a game anymore.)
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Once is an incident, twice is a coincidence, so the third time it happens it's slightly different than the others before (it's always different, everything is. This time, the pain is duller, the horror not quite there, a strange calmness that surrounds their hearts and heads and swallows them with the acknowledgment of what they've done. There's no remorse).
There's a villain, because there always is. There's an innocent being threatened, because there always is. And Danny isn't even in ghost form, he isn't Phantom at the moment, but Fenton and then everything happens so quickly—
It's a bank robbery, all with guns, masked people and terror. They take a kid, barely over nine, and hold a gun against his head even as fat tears fall down his cheeks and his hysteric gasps cry 'Phantom' over and over. Danny's there with Sam, and their hearts freeze even as Sam surreptitiously takes out the ecto-gun she always carries under her skirt and the zapper she keeps in her purse.
The robbers don't expect two invisible bodies to zap them to unconsciousness, and their numbers drop quickly, until only two are standing, holding the crying child (they'd zapped the ones holding the kid first, but the two left had somehow managed to get a hold on him again when the kid had been too scared to even move).The bank robbers shout, turning around like mad dogs, eyes wide, and Danny (already turned into Phantom) materializes to appease them while Sam keeps invisible, walks behind them and—
His clone makes the kid intangible a second before Sam strikes the man with the most potent electric shock she has. It leaves him a heap on the floor, slightly smoking and twitching, but the other guy seems to take advantage of this to point his gun towards Sam, who's still invisible and theoretically safe from being pinpointed but the gun's still close enough to its target's position to produce harm—
So Danny fires an ecto-beam, overriding instinct and own will, aware of what will happen but unable to care in that moment, just when Sam goes visible and the gun goes off.
For a second, Danny dreads the worst.
The man gets thrown against a counter with the impact of the beam, and Danny can hear things crack, but those sounds are meaningless in comparison to what he feels when Sam looks at him, a mix of startled fear and confusion and then relief, and it'll be later when Danny will notice the bullet hit the far away wall instead of soft, human flesh.
Only one person dies that day, but it's a villain, so it's okay.
(Sam, Tucker and Danny tell this to themselves and each other enough times to begin to believe it.)
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The fourth time, blood ends up in Danny's mouth. He's shocked at realizing that the usually coppery taste isn't that, that it tastes much better as a ghost, and then quickly feels nauseated and horrified with himself. He doesn't tell Sam and Tuck, not until they're drunk out of their lights on Danny's sixteenth birthday, safe and alone in a cave in the middle of the forest and protected by an invisible anti-ghost shield, for those that can track Danny down even when he's human (Danny had insisted after the mess that had happened the last time they'd tried to have a 'fun night' and Skulker had decided to follow them).
There's a lot of talking, cursing and bemoaning all the shit they've been through since Danny's DNA turned into a bowl of frootloops ("Don't call 'em tha', Tuck, or I'll freeze your ass. I'm no frootloop."), but they all agree in that they don't regret anything. Danny does confess that at first he wanted it gone as fast as possible, but that having Sam and Tuck helped him a lot. They get mushy and smile at him at that, scooting closer to him to put an arm around his shoulders or take his hand, and then Danny's telling them about his fears and doubts, those that they know and those that they don't know about. He tells them of the blood and its taste, of the small and private thrill that had felt so wrong but so right in his tongue, and they don't turn away, don't push him away in disgust. They simply press closer, sandwiching him in the middle, faces tucked under his chin and so comforting he wants to cry, and he does. And it's good to have them there, pressing lips to his neck and mumbling drunken words of comfort, even if it's different, even if they'd never done anything like it before. And then those lips migrate north, up to his face, and his cheeks and lips are kissed clumsily and he kisses back just as clumsy, trying to have them both against his lips at the same time.
His. His best friends. His co-heroes, because they refuse to be called sidekicks. His Sam and Tucker, Tucker and Sam.
In his hazed, drunken mind, everything seems perfect and quiet for a while. It's bliss.
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The fifth time it happens isn't long after the fourth, and by then they've already decided they want to try out this new thing between them, that could have been chalked the first time as drunk teenagers if it hadn't happened again, and again, without any alcohol and only adrenaline or, in one case, sleepiness involved.
The fifth time is also the first there's a decision discussed and decided.
The man is scum, really, and the three of them know he will get his way, as long as he's as filthy rich as he is. He kind of reminds them of Vlad, which doesn't help much with the animosity. Best not to think too closely on some things.
Children. Fucking children. Danny wants to puke, and so do Tucker and Sam for the matter, though Sam is of the conviction that punching that guy in the face should come first. They discuss long and deep about what they should do with him, and though no one voices it the thought is in the air from the start.
Then, Tucker finds another article on the Internet, one bad enough it freezes their blood and makes them pale, and Sam finally cracks and drops the bomb, asking 'why they shouldn't just fucking kill him', and Danny can't think of a good answer to brush said idea off. They look at each other, somber and serious, and Danny finally nods. Tucker, even though he pales before turning slightly green, nods in answer, and Sam is behind him.
"We have to do it," is everything Danny says, and his best friends, his partners in so many ways, see the truth in his words as clear as he does.
Sam comes up with a good idea to mask the whole thing, aware of what could cost them and what it could cost Phantom if they don't do this right. So Danny goes to the hotel where the CEO is staying, at a time where they know he's there, and Phantom phases inside as Skulker crashes against the window. The man, who's reading the newspaper, doesn't have time to duck before Danny is grasping him and covering his mouth with a hand, turning them both invisible and phasing straight down the fifteen plants to the ground. He clones himself and makes the clone stay to fight with Skulker a little, while he takes the man to the deserted alleyway where Sam awaits him.
No one sees them as they stab the man with a knife, doing their best to make it seem like a mugging gone awry, to the point of taking everything valuable from the man and stuffing it in an old backpack. No one sees them when Danny releases the man and watches him drop to the ground, mortally wounded and quickly bleeding out, and phases himself and Sam to clean them from the bloodstains, before flying (still invisible) some alleyways down, where Tucker awaits with the Thermos one ghost fuller and grim-faced. The three of them nod solemnly, and Danny takes the backpack, puts on the Fenton Phones and phases down the ground, descending in a straight line for what feels like hours. He looks out for Tucker's signal through the Fenton Phones, and when Tucker finally tells him to leave the bag there he does so, before speeding up to the surface as quickly as he can. Danny surfaces a street away from the alley but quickly meets with Tucker and Sam, and the three of them go back to Sam's, where they spend the rest of the day snuggling and breathing in the familiar scent of each other. They ignore the faint smell of blood and dirt, knowing they'll be smelling it for a while.
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From there on it gets easier.
They only take out the irredeemable, sometimes taking advantage of a ghost attack to spirit them away and sometimes making it look like an accident. It's even easier when you can turn invisible and follow them from the sky.
The three of them dirty their hands in blood, even Tuck, who'd gotten sick on the stomach the first time he'd stood guard while Danny finished the job. Sometimes, Danny takes it in himself to collect a little of the blood, or even a body part or two, but only when they're going to make the corpse disappear for good. With Tucker's growing cooking skills, it isn't so hard to convince him to fry a bit of flesh or two, and let his ghost side's growing hunger and blood lust be satiated. One day they even make a picnic out of the situation, snorting the entire time at the dark humor of the whole ordeal.
It's their little secret, one even Jazz doesn't know or suspects nothing about, and they intend in keeping it like that. It would be...unfortunate, if someone discovered it, after all.
They turn eighteen without feeling remorse for the trail of bodies behind them.