Made for rarepair week 2k17.
Day 1, Colors/Grey
Rarepair-of-choice: savant par
Originally posted on tumblr.

Prompt: Danny's ghost sense evolves into a completely out-of-control fog that surrounds and suffocates his ghost fights. The fog has supernatural and horrifying characteristics.

In the event of a disaster, it is not safe to go outside.

Empty cars cluttered the sidewalks, some with the driver's doors still hanging open and keys dangling from ignitions. It was like a scene out of a b-rated zombie movie: the streets were freshly abandoned, a spilled cup of coffee was still warm on the concrete when Tucker stepped over it and crept around abandoned vehicles. The city's population had evaporated like water on a hot day, and the only thing left behind was the fog.

A thick, white haze that shrouded every block in mystery was his only companion as Tucker quickly made his way down Keaton Avenue. His footsteps had a strangely metallic echo to them, as if the blacktop he darted across might actually be hollow. The fog did that. Distorted sounds, made them echo from strange directions and with odd new twists. To any casual observer, the fog was a horrifying, living thing, full of disjointed voices and unseen faces.

Tucker ignored everything he heard. He marched bravely along the yellow line in the middle of the road, following it and the map highlighted on his phone. People judged him from behind 'safe' boutiques and eclectic local shop windows, their shadows moved in the corner of his eye. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention, and his teeth clench, but the watching eyes were normal.

He did, after all, look a whole lot like a crazy person lost in the whispering mist.

His phone vibrated, a message appeared. Keaton and Maybury, hurry up. A bubble of warmth passed over his left ear, a woman's voice told him a secret, and then faded away. He forgot what she said as soon as heat drained out of his face. Tucker blinked, shook his head, and broke into a jog. He carried his inhaler in his left hand and his phone in his right, his backpack threatened to throw his balance and Tucker minded the cracks in the pavement. More bubbles of warmth grazed by him, whispering; unseen hands caressed his knees.

According to GPS, Maybury Street was only a block away.

He decided to run.

His feet slapped the pavement and clanged with the force of beating drums. The street corner arrived in a haze of shadowy pillars that were either manmade or monsters. The area clamored with hundreds of half-heard conversations. His palms grew sweaty. Sick to his stomach, Tucker dropped to his knees and pulled off his backpack. From there, he began to pull out his equipment - a modified pedalboard amplifier, an ancient boombox, and a Fenton Thermos. He extended a mismatched antenna from the amplifier, connected the boombox with an aux cord, and set one of his proudest mixtapes in the tape deck.

He hit play. The cassette hummed with static before music flowed up and out of the speakers, charged with a little bit of extra Fenton protection. The fog started to fizzle with distant pop-crackles.

Tucker turned up the volume and increased the ecto-purifying frequency on the amplifier. The musical stylings of Childish Gambino and Chance the Rapper railed against the fog, thinning it out with a rhythmic beat.

All she needed was some,
(All she needed was some,)
All she needed was some…

He crossed his legs and let the sound take its course, chasing away the fog to reveal the romanesque pillars of the Amity Park library and a bashed-in mailbox. In no time at all, Tucker sat in the center of a haze-free bubble that did not whisper. Tucker picked up the Fenton Thermos and removed the lid, then counted down from ten. At seven, the concrete trembled. At five, a very real howl found its way into the fogless street corner. At three the beast arrived, a black hound with piercing red eyes and two tails darted into the square. As it burst into the anti-fog zone, and mist faded off of its body, the creature came to a stop. It stood still with hackles raised, searching the obscure walls that surrounded them. Tucker clutched the thermos.

At zero seconds, a figure appeared across the street. The ghost moved with distinguishable arms and legs, but blurred beyond reasonable distinction of anything short of a shadowy limb-cloud. While entering the cleared air, his body shifted and refracted light in all directions, as unreal as the haze itself.

Tucker could still make out Danny's cocky grin underneath it all, though.

He got to his feet and aimed the Fenton Thermos.

The hound leapt at Phantom.

Tucker captured it.

"Gotchya." Danny's voice echoed and changed and came back with ringing-bell attached to it. He turned to Tucker, and his insubstantial edges began to harden down into a solid, opaque body. As Danny became more real, the fog followed, raising from the atmosphere and clearing through the streets. Tucker got to see his inhuman green eyes with perfect clarity before those eyes turned blue in a flash of sparkling light.

The cocky grin remained on Danny Fenton's face. "Twelve ghosts in one hour, Tuck. That's gotta be a record, right?"

"You trapped people inside for an hour."

"Everybody has to check Facebook sometime." Danny rubbed his arm and eyed the Fenton amplifier, "Can you unplug that? This music shouldn't be giving me chills."

"Because it's fire?"

"Tucker Foley, D.J. Extraordinaire, of course it's fire."

"Hah. Sweet. Now, speaking of chills." Tucker unplugged the aux cord, and the boombox continued to play on its own without the added ectoenergy-repellant. "Your mist attack starts to get grabby a half hour in. I feel very violated."

Danny rubbed his neck and made the face he usually makes when he's not going to say 'I don't know how to control that' out loud.

"It's fine." Tucker began replacing things in his backpack - he kept the boombox out to carry at his side while they picked their way through the street. People were starting to appear on the sidewalks, looking up and down the streets for traces of paranormal fog. They entered the crowd and began their way uptown.

"I just hope nobody else got caught in it. Did you hear about the shelters in the news? Three people almost went crazy." Danny flushed and shoved his hands in his pockets. "I can't stop it from spreading, that's the problem. Give it fifteen minutes and I've drowned a five mile radius."

"I've been thinking about how to fix that." Tucker rubbed his ear, "But you're not going to like it."

"Oh?"

"Fenton amplifiers and music kill the fog, so… uh, I've been working on this," Tucker stopped on the sidewalk to slide his backpack off his shoulder and retrieve a case from the front pouch. He passed it to Danny. "It's…"

"Holy shit." Danny ran his hand over the imprinted logo on the case. "How much was this?"

"It's a gift. You're not supposed to ask that."

Danny unzipped the case. "Tucker."

Tucker flushed, "Yeah man, sorry. I modified them, so the warranty is bust."

Danny pulled a pair of very sleek noise cancelling headphones out of the case. They were round, silver, and lined with a very familiar green. "… you made something to help me turn it off?" Danny asked, reverent.

"I'm sorry, it's going to be a little uncomfortable, especially in your ghost form, but —"

Danny wrapped his arm around Tucker's shoulder, and pulled him close. "Thank you." He whispered. His breath was warm on Tucker's cheek. Tucker flushed.

He'd prefer this to the whispering fog any day.

This is probably all I'll be able to write for the event, I'm spending all my creative energy on Beyond Beasts right now.