Challenge name: Zainymusings / BabyPorcupine_CuteButDEADLY

The Challenge: School let out early after a ghost attack, and while the crisis has been averted, Phantom is nowhere to be seen. Mr. Lancer finds the boy slumped against his car in the teacher's parking lot, and is struck by how *young* the hero looks.

Rating: T

Pairings: None

Word Count: 2853

Warnings: Lightly graphic description of injuries

Other Notes: This is for the Phantom Phic Phight contest on tumblr.

School had ended early due a ghost attack, but that didn't mean that teachers could leave early too. As policy called, when crisis happened, the teachers had a meeting to discuss the incident once all students were properly evacuated. At this point, Lancer was wondering why they didn't just have a weekly meeting. Ghost attacks were as common as car crashes by now, and the school was almost a magnet. Mrs. Parks, the chemistry teacher, had suggested AGAIN that they make a salt circle around the school to ward them off.

Other teachers had bolted soon as the meeting was adjourned, but Lancer stuck around for a bit. He was already here after the normal hours, he might as well go ahead and finish off grading the quiz and entering it into the computer and his gradebook. It only took a half hour, and he was able to leave a full stack of papers lighter. He felt proud of himself, and he was patting himself on the back as he made his way towards his car.

He unlocked the car as he approached, opening the trunk to put his bag in the back. As he set it down, a black and white figure came into his view, and he jumped in surprise. Lancer tilted his head to look at the side of his car, and his heart stopped. If the white hair and black jumpsuit wasn't a giveaway, the glow was. The infamous Danny Phantom was leaning against his car as he sat on the ground, a light coming from him. There was a badly dented thermos next to him, as well as fragments of something around him.

Lancer felt goosebumps as he suddenly felt too afraid to make any movements. He stared for a moment. He stepped carefully, moving to the side and leaning to get a better look at the ghost boy. What was he doing? Anxiety spiked as he noticed the other's condition.

Firstly, Phantom was clearly sleeping. The noise was a light snore and his eyes were closed. He was...breathing? It looked like it. His chest was rising up and down, occasionally spazzing a bit that made Lancer jump every time. He had a deep looking gash on his leg and claw marks on his stomach. His cheek was bruised. But worst of all. What Lancer found the most disturbing.

He was so small.

Not in the sense that he was physically small. He looked like he had a fairly usual superhero build, but he was a lot shorter than he expected him to be. And his face, despite being bruised and having a few scraps, looked so young. Phantom honestly looked like he could fit well into his ninth grade students, tenth grade if he was pushing it. He died so young...potentially never even went to high school. Never got his license. Never graduated, likely never even considered what college he was interested in. His parents dealt with the loss of a child far too early. He looked, give or take, around the same age as one of his kids. That shook Lancer more than anything.

Should he wake him up? He'd probably get hurt further if he just...drove off. Lancer was too afraid to touch him with his bare hand. He couldn't explain why. He clutched his keys in his fist, a key he never used for anything and was even unsure of the purpose at this point, exposed between his knuckles. He hesitantly stepped forward, leaning down a bit. Lancer lightly poked Phantom with the key.

The ghost's eyes immediately shot up and he jumped in fright. Lancer did too, giving off a small noise of fear. Phantom looked at Lancer, glowing eyes wide in fear as a hand shot to his chest, as if calming a racing heartbeat. That disturbed Lancer a bit. It was too human.

"Um." Lancer hesitated as he stared at Phantom, who stared back. It felt rude to just tell Phantom to scram, especially given his appearance. "Are...you okay?" Phantom leaned back against his car, nodding.

"I'll live," he lightly joked, and Lancer forced an awkward chuckle.

"You look like you're in rough shape."

Phantom glanced down at himself, and he shrugged before looking back at Lancer.

"I've been worse," he replied. The idea of such a young looking ghost having been in worse shape brought back horrible memories of all the abused children Lancer had seen and reached out to over the years. Lancer could only hope that he was referring to his afterlife, and that hope made him feel worse than he expected.

"You might need to get along before ghost hunters come," Lancer told him. Phantom winced at the idea.

"I know, I know," he muttered, and he shifted to look behind him at the car. Lancer noticed when he shifted that Phantom had left light green smears on his car. He had cuts on his back too it seemed. "Fuck, I'm against your car, aren't I? Sorry." Phantom leaned forward in a movement to get up, but hissed and ended up slapping back against the car.

"I have a first aid kit in my car," Lancer found himself offering. Wait, did human first aid even work on ghosts? Phantom gave him a weird look. "I got kids myself. And it's a habit when you're a teacher." Phantom looked flabbergasted.

"You have kids!?" Why was Phantom so shocked? Phantom didn't even know him. Lancer felt a bit insulted, but brushed it off. He was just a kid. Just...a kid.

"Yeah, five," Lancer replied, keeping his tone light. He stood up straight, feeling his back crack a bit as he went to dig through his trunk. He came back a moment later with the kit. Lancer looked over the ghost. Where should he start?

He decided with the gash on his leg, and he knelt down to see what he had to work with. Not much. It was a standard first aid kit. Lancer pulled out some disinfectant and cleaner. If nothing else, he could clean Phantom up and bandage him.

"I've never seen any of them around," Phantom told him, snapping him out of his thoughts. Lancer chuckled.

"They don't attend Casper High," Lancer explained. "My oldest three are in college, my youngest two are still in middle school." Phantom got this odd look of realization, and he nodded. He watched Lancer as he began to clean up his gash, wincing.

"What are your oldest kids studying?" Phantom wondered.

"Well, Ophelia is studying English like I did. Wants to be a professor, she's in her first year of graduate school," Lancer began to explain as he carefully put aside the green-covered cleaning pads. He took out the bandages. Phantom lifted his leg so that Lancer could properly wrap it. "Miranda is graduating this year. She's studying psychology, wants to be a counselor. George's on the pre-med track."

"Ambitious," was all Phantom commented, but he was smiling weakly. Lancer smiled back.

"They're all good kids," he replied. Silence overfell them for a moment as Lancer handed Phantom a pad. Phantom accepted it and began to clean up his own stomach.

"My sister wants to study psychology."

Lancer felt his heart jump into his throat. He hadn't even considered the possibility that this entire thing was a chance to learn things about Phantom nobody else knew. To ask questions that Phantom normally avoided, to get answers Phantom never gave.

"Does she?" Lancer replied lightly. He didn't want to scare Phantom into silence. "She must be smart." Phantom chuckled.

"She's crazy smart. She really wants to help people," Phantom told him. "Especially since I, uh, you know. D-died." Would it be overstepping his boundaries to ask Phantom how he died? Lancer decided to not ask, just in case.

"She sounds very caring," Lancer told Phantom. Phantom's eyes almost sparkled.

"You have no idea," he spoke in such a light and happy tone.

"Can you lean forward?" Lancer questioned. "I wanna clean up your back before we wrap the bandage around." Phantom hesitated, and he scooted away from the car, leaning forward only slightly.

Oh dear lord, his back was an absolute train wreck. The cut was so deep...Lancer shivered, but he decided to push it aside for now. With what little cleaning pads he had left, he began to clean up Phantom the best he could. The ghost gave small shivers and occasional whimpers of pain.

"Will you be able to get home?" Lancer asked. Phantom glanced at him.

"Eventually," he replied. Lancer frowned lightly, and he thought heavily for a moment.

"Do...do you want me to give you a ride somewhere? It can't be safe to stay here for too long, especially with that massive ghost attack," he offered. Phantom shot him a weird look before it turned into a thoughtful wonder as he seemingly internally debated. To Lancer's shock, the answer was

"Uh, that might actually be really helpful."

Holy shit holy shit holy shit. He was going to see where Phantom lived! Wait, Phantom lived somewhere? Where was Phantom even going to direct him? Lancer felt confused and anxious, but an eager one. He was truly going to learn more about Phantom than anybody else. There was an odd sense of pride in that.

"Of course," was all Lancer could think to say. He was honestly shocked that Phantom even accepted the offer. He had expected the ghost to shrug it off and decline. The cold realization that Phantom was more hurt than he looked struck him. He looked too young to go through so much.

They finished bandaging Phantom up in silence. When he was done, Lancer moved to open the passenger door to his car for Phantom. Phantom stared at the door with an expression Lancer couldn't read. Worry? Anxiety? Fear? Anger? Maybe a mix? Teenagers were an odd breed. He made no move to get up, and Lancer stepped forward to offer a hand to him. Phantom accepted it. He pulled the ghost to his feet, surprised at how light he was yet heavy. Lancer figured a ghost would be weightless, but yet Phantom seemed to be an odd middle of being light yet heavy.

"How old are you?" Lancer wondered. He felt Phantom's grip on his hand tighten as he helped the ghost kid into the passenger seat.

"Fourteen." The answer unnerved Lancer badly, and the breathy, pained tone didn't help. Phantom was only a year and possibly some change older than one of his kids, John, and three years older than William. Lancer ended up not replying.

He cleaned up the mess by his car and repacked what was left of the first aid kit, only momentarily studying the green ectoplasm on his car. There was much more than he expected splashed against the car. He'd have to hose it off when he got home.

Everything was shoved back into the trunk of his car. After a moment of debate, Lancer took a bottle of over the counter pain relief with him and a bottle of water from the case he had been too lazy to remove from his car earlier. The trunk lid closed before he got into the driver's seat. Phantom had put his seat belt on and had leaned the passenger seat all the way back. His eyes were closed again, and he looked like he had fallen asleep again.

"Uh, Phantom?" Lancer spoke up. Phantom's eyes opened half-way, lazily. He held up the medicine and bottle of water. Phantom shifted to put the seat back up, accepting it and happily taking the medicine. Lancer put both hands on the steering wheel as the radio station he had been listening to that morning filled the previously silent air. Did medicine even work for Phantom? It, if nothing, gave Lancer a small ease of mind. Phantom was so close to his own son's age. The dented thermos was resting in his lap.

When Phantom finished, he recapped the lid on the water bottle the best he could with shaking hands before setting it in the cupholder. He leaned the seat all the way back, giving a soft groan as the seat jerked a bit when it hit it's limit on how low it went. Lancer stared at him.

He really had to be fourteen. He was about the same size as John, down to how short he was in the passenger seat on the days he sat shotgun. Fourteen was too young. Too young to be playing superhero. Too young to have died.

"Where," Lancer began, briefly cutting himself off. Where was he supposed to drive? The local cemetery? Where on Earth, where in Amity Park, would Phantom even ask him to drive? "Where should I take you?"

Phantom didn't reply for a while, and Lancer was worried he had fallen asleep. Despite having his eyes closed, he didn't look asleep, but as if thinking.

"Do you know where the Nasty Burger is?" Phantom suddenly spoke up. Lancer paid close attention.

"Yes?" Lancer replied curiously.

"If you're going towards it from Main Street, and you go left onto Madison Street, keep going about four blocks until you hit the Madison-Silver intersection."

His mind raced through the directions. Those directions were familiar, and he knew that general area well enough. Which house there was home to Danny Phantom?

"Alright," Lancer agreed, and he buckled himself in.

The drive was eerily silent except for the radio. Phantom had drifted back off to sleep, if his snoring was any indication. Lancer decided to not question him, instead letting him rest for now. It was just like how his own son often fell asleep in the car. He didn't have the heart to wake Phantom up.

He had lost out on so much. If he had to guess based on when Phantom appeared, Phantom really didn't ever make it to high school. His parents had mourned the loss of a son who may have only recently hit their teen years. No driving lessons, not even a permit. No colleges, no graduations. No watching their son fulfill his lifelong dreams of doing...What did Phantom even enjoy? Phantom would never know the joys of falling in love, having children, having a career, enjoying life. It began to haunt Lancer.

He soon passed the Nasty Burger, and he turned onto Madison Street. He lightly nudged Phantom. The ghost woke with a jolt.

"I'm almost there," he told Phantom. He glanced over at Phantom, who began to groggily sit up. He stared out the window for a moment, narrowing his eyes as bit as he rubbing one of them with the palm of his hand.

"Uh, just pull over right here please," he requested, gesturing to an empty area on the side of the road.

Not really sure what else to do besides follow the directions, Lancer did as requested. He pulled up and parked alongside the sidewalk, a few cars passing by. Phantom looked out the window, resting against the back of the seat. Lancer looked around at their location. They were in a residential area of the city. Definitely not the cemetery. Did Phantom live in one of these houses? Oh Lord of the Flies, what if he was haunting his old family?

But this place was so familiar, but yet he was sure he hadn't been here before. Did a student of his live here? Had to be. His home was over twenty minutes in another direction, as was his kids' school.

"Thanks," Phantom suddenly spoke up.

"You're welcome," Lancer replied politely, staring at the ghost boy curiously to see what he did next. Phantom had yet to make any efforts to leave just yet.

"I really mean it," Phantom continued. "I don't think I'd have been able to get really far without you. I appreciate it. You saved my bacon." He had grown a bit pale and looked tired still, bags under his eyes more noticeable.

"You're too young to be doing this, you know," Lancer told him. Phantom laughed in amusement.

"Somebody's gotta keep Amity Park safe," he replied. Phantom sighed, undoing the belt buckle. "Thank you again."

Phantom looked carefully outside. After a moment of studying, he quickly exited and closed the car door, quickly limping into the alley. Lancer stared after Phantom as he made his way further into the alley, hand on the side of the building for balance with his thermos tucked under his other arm. The alley went through to the other side of the street.

Lancer leaned towards the alley, squinting a bit before it dawned on him that the bright lights of FentonWorks was proudly displayed on the other street. Very odd that Phantom would want to get so close to the ghost hunters when so hurt. But they did have a ghost portal, and he was a ghost. By now they were probably at the school.

Giving a confused shrug to himself, Lancer put his car into drive and pulled back out onto the road to go home.