here's part two. please enjoy. thanks again to my gf ashe (hikareh here on ffn) for beta reading even tho you were tired. what a gal ;p

The next morning happens essentially the same way as the first but he doesn't listen to his parents in the lab again. He wakes up early this time, his jitters finally gone, and makes a simple breakfast of eggs and untoasted bread. Jazz is surprised to see him up so early, but she doesn't ask him any questions. It just serves to make him feel guilty so he tells her that he didn't feel well yesterday so he did a lot of sleeping.

She asks him if he's okay. He lies and tells her he is.

Tucker comes over right before lunch, showing up on the doorstep with an awkward smile and fidgety fingers. Danny smiles at him but he knows it probably looks forced.

"Nasty Burger?" Tucker asks, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder.

"Sure," he says, ducking back inside. He jogs upstairs as quickly as he can manage and grabs his wallet and his keys. He glances at his reflection and freezes. Black hair, blue eyes, normal freckles, human skin—he thought he saw… Never mind.

He's back downstairs before he knows it and he calls out to his parents to tell them he's leaving. He can almost hear them pause in their tinkering in the lab. He pushes Tucker down the front steps and tries another fake smile. "Is Sam gonna meet with us?"

Tucker hesitates before he starts walking off. Danny takes a deep breath before following. Something about the way Tucker's shoulders are set and his jaw is clenched makes Danny feel heavy and off. He feels like he's suffocating on unease and he's not sure it's entirely his own.

I'm a ghost. Ghosts are made of ectoplasm and leftover emotions.

He wants to slap himself in the face but he's worried that Tucker will think he's crazy so he doesn't. He wants to scream but he doesn't want to scare his friend, so he doesn't. He kinda wants to die but, well, been there done that, so he can't.

They arrive at the Nasty Burger faster than he thought was possible. The walk was mostly silent, so the sudden loud and noise of the local fast food join has Danny's head spinning and his knees weak. He stumbles, managing to catch himself before it becomes too obvious, and glances at Tucker. The other boy is making a beeline towards the door so he didn't see a thing.

He can see better and he can hear better but that doesn't help him feel better.

He winces, wishing he can cover his ears from the sound, but he can't do that without looking like a freak—is he a freak? Is he a human? A ghost? What is he? Why does he look human if he's a ghost? Why does he look alive if he's dead?—so he suffers through it until he can adjust. Eventually, it turns into a sort of dull roaring that he can tune out, so at least there's that.

Tucker leads him into the restaurant and up to the counter. Danny looks around, trying to spot Sam and it feels like a punch to the gut when he doesn't find her. Tucker must order for him as he's lost in his own head because the next thing he knows, there's a finger jabbing him in the ribs. "You got money, dude?"

Danny nods mutely and pulls out his wallet, passing his friend enough to cover his usual order. It must be enough because the other boy looks away, handing it off the cashier before dragging Danny off towards their normal booth. Danny doesn't fight the hands that shove him onto the bench seat and instead makes himself comfortable against the vinyl seating.

It's silent between them for a moment, Danny staring up past Tucker and at the ceiling, before it's broken by the sound of a throat being cleared.

"So…" The pause is long enough to be awkward and it has Danny shifting uncomfortably as he's hit with a wave of uncertainty. "How are you?"

"Fine," Danny says without feeling. Tucker doesn't see his hands flickering in and out of tangibility. Danny doesn't see them either after they blink out of sight. His breath hitches in his throat and he forces himself to look at something else. I'm alive. I'm alive. I'm alive. "A little shaken up, but I'll be okay."

"Still?" Tucker presses, brows furrowing as his face finally breaks out of its impassive expression. "It's been almost two days now. You're still bothered by it?"

"Isn't Sam?" Danny shoots back, harsher than intended. He bites his tongue hard enough to taste blood and he clutches the knees of his pants. His hands are back apparently. Tucker looks taken aback and he has to take a second to breathe. "Sorry," he murmurs, shoulders loosening from where they'd tensed. "I'm just not… not adjusting well."

I'm alive. I'm alive. I'm alive.

"I can see that, man. You're white as a sheet. You look like you've seen a—" He cuts himself off, eyes going wide. Danny stares at the ceiling again vaguely aware of a jolt of panic that he doesn't actually think is his. He doesn't want to see the moment it connects, doesn't want to see the look on Tucker's face as he realizes that his best friend is dead. Not dead. I'm alive.

"Oh," is all he says, as if that's all there was to be said.

"I'm not dead," Danny snaps quietly, still unable to look at Tucker. He hears the sharp intake of breath and continues in a softer voice. "I'm not dead. I can't be dead. Dead people don't look like people. Ghosts don't look like humans. I…" He wants to cry but they're in public and he's worried about what people would think. "I can't be a ghost because I'm still alive."

Tucker is utterly silent except for his breathing and Danny chances a look at him. The boy's jade eyes are wide and his face is screwed into a harsh look of concern. Danny looks away but the diluted buzz of worry he's now sure is Tucker's follows him. "Are you okay?" Tucker asks again, the words seeming to carry more weight than before.

"Honestly, Tuck?" Danny sighs. "I don't even know."

The arrival of their food cuts off further conversation and they move to eat. A heavy silence settles over them and when Tucker breaks it again, the conversation has moved on to more light hearted things. Tucker rambles for at least ten minutes on the latest cell phone models on the market and another fifteen about the upcoming games coming out later in the year. Eventually he starts to talk about school and how he's dreading it even if he is a little excited. The start of freshman year is just around the corner and "you only start high school once."

Danny knows what Tucker is doing and he's grateful. Tucker doesn't expect him to speak all the time even on the best of days, so he leaves little room for Danny to interrupt. If Sam were here she'd be mad about Tucker's tendency to steamroll a conversation, but Danny's voice is still shaky and croaky from the accident—he can still hear the echoes of his own voice—so he doesn't mind. The less he has to speak, the better.

After a solid hour and a half, Tucker finally slows to a stop, pulling out his phone to check the time. "Wow, it's almost two. I should probably get home. My mom wants to take me shopping for school supplies once she gets off work so I gotta be ready by three. You okay to get home on your own?"

Danny nods slowly, gathering his trash. He pulls himself out of the booth and to his feet, swaying slightly. He thinks his butt went numb sitting for so long. "Yeah," he says, just to hear himself say it. "Yeah, I'll be fine."

"Alright man." Tucker sounds like he doesn't believe him but he can't do anything about it. "Text me when you get home. I…" he trails off, looking embarrassed, "I wanna be sure you get home safe."

Had this been any other time, Danny would have teased him mercilessly. Now, however, he just nods. "Sure."

Tucker's lips thin in concern for a minute before he makes his way towards the door. "See ya, dude."

Danny simply gives a small wave back, dropping his hand limply at this side once Tucker is gone. He takes a deep breath, feeling the air fill his lungs until his throat hurts before exhaling hard. He takes his leave of the place, continuing his in-and-out exercise until he feels lightheaded and has to stop.

The walk takes him twenty minutes longer than usual. He stops at the bottom of his front steps and tilts his head up to look at the sky. It's August now, he realizes, so the summer sun is still blazing overhead as the dog days start marching in. He shivers suddenly and he's confused long enough to forget why.

He's a ghost now—but is he?—and ghosts are cold. (At least… he thinks ghosts are cold. Hell, there might be ghosts that burn hot and some that fall somewhere in between, but it's nothing he's ever cared to know before—maybe he should start caring. He wouldn't be in this mess if he'd cared enough to know about ghosts.)

As if to answer his thoughts, he promptly chokes on the cold and has to cough violently to breathe again. Eyes clamped shut, all he notices in the shift in the air as something cloying and menacing moves towards him. Without looking, he stumbles backwards, tripping over a crack in the sidewalk and crashing down, air evacuating his lungs faster than he could pull it back in.

The… aura, for lack of a better term, hesitates above him and he forces himself to lock eyes with the direction it's coming from. There's a confused hiss before his vision is filled with a bright red eyes surrounded by swirling green.

He screams, loudly, and digs his fingers into the ground in his haste to scramble backwards. He's panting, vision blurring, and the only thing he wants is to disappear—

"Ghost!" The voice of his father thunders in his ears and he's dizzy for a second. His sight clears up enough to see a mass of orange storming out of the house, ecto-guns blazing, a high pitched whine coming from the barrel as it powers up. The blast that hits the supposed ghost is a surprise and Danny is gasping silently for air he can't breathe, hoping and praying that the gun won't turn on him.

The ghost screeches and takes off, fading out of the visible spectrum, and Jack sighs disappointedly. He shakes a fist at the sky, shouting, "Yeah, you better run! I'll get you yet, or my name isn't Jack Fenton!" before he turns and heads back into the house, dark blue eyes completely skipping over where Danny is lying.

It takes a second for it to click exactly why his father can't see him, and instantly he reappears, arms trembling as they try to support his weight. He pulls himself upright and drags himself inside, shutting the door behind him as quietly as he can. His father is down in the lab again, no doubt telling his mother what he'd seen, but he can't bring himself to care. He returns to his bedroom and texts the all clear to Tucker before collapsing onto his bed.

He has enough time to tell himself to stop sleeping all the time before he drifts off.

The next time he sees a ghost, it's nearly four days later. He hasn't seen his friends in person since lunch with Tucker at the Nasty Burger but he tries to ignore how much it hurts by distracting himself with some old game that he used to play as a kid.

The ghost shows up suddenly and he's once again choking on his own breathing. It feels like he's swallowed dry ice and he coughs to dislodge the biting frost that unfurls from his lungs. He keeps his eyes open this time because he has to know if he's going crazy or not.

His breath puffs out in front of him, winter isolated to his bedroom, and he watches, mesmerized, as the fog disperses as if it never existed to begin with. So, not crazy then, but coughing up cold air isn't normal per se and it reaffirms that the last four days of relative normalcy—besides the lack of Sam and Tucker—were all a farce. Being this weird, not-dead-but-still-kinda-dead kid is his new normal. It has to be.

(As much as he doesn't want to think about it, he's probably never going to be able to go back to the way things were before. The thought doesn't exactly upset him because honestly when has he ever been normal?)

I'm alive. I'm alive. I'm alive.

This ghost is a bit humanoid but more blob-shaped than person-shaped. It's entirely green, eyes and all, and he has time to marvel at its ridiculously sharp teeth and claws before it attempts to swipe at him. In his surprise, he doesn't notice his becoming-all-too-common lack of tangibility and instead focuses on finding his voice—completely back to normal by this point, thank god—to call down to his parents. As much as he's learning to fear what they might do to him—if he really is a ghost—he's terrified of this creature in his bedroom more.

He manages to stumble to his feet and he's falling through his door before he realizes what he's doing. He hits the railing of the stairs, solid once again, and calls out, "There's a ghost in my room!" before he can truly appreciate the irony.

(It hits him an instant later and despite his growing panicked paranoia, he has to laugh at himself. There's a ghost in my room alright. He lives here. My house is haunted because I live here. Mom and Dad would think that's hilarious if they knew.)

His mother makes it upstairs first, being in better shape and having come from the lab, but Danny's more scared of her than his father so he simply points to his closed bedroom door and ducks into the bathroom down the hall to hide out until the coast is clear. It takes about five minutes for his parents to chase the ghost out—the didn't want to shoot the ghost, seeing as it was in Danny's room, but they haven't managed to create something to contain ghosts yet—but eventually the thing is gone and he's free to get back to… What was he doing before? Doesn't matter, not really.

He finds his phone on the floor beside his bed and he scoops it up to text his friends. He hesitates before he taps out, so there was a ghost in my room, and hits send, the first message he's sent to their group chat since the accident six days ago now. He ignores the messages that rolled in since then, and waits until the first reply comes in.

A few seconds after his message, Tucker comes back with, Dude! Are you okay?

yeah, im fine. He doesn't expect Sam to reply. She hasn't been talking to him. Hopefully she'll take the group message as an olive branch.

What happened?

Danny glances over at his TV, the screen displaying a black screen reading "Game Over" in a bright red font. was just playin a game and all of a sudden i felt cold. turns out it was a ghost.

It was just. There? In your room?

yeah. He wants to also say, its not the first ghost thats been in my room, but he knows he can't just say that. They might think he's been attacked before—which, technically, he has, but not here—and they don't know what he's been going through the past few days. He doesn't want to tell them, not really, not until he figures it out himself.

He's only seen that other form—the ghost form—once. He's still not sure it really exists.

Almost a week later and he still doesn't know if he's actually dead or not. Shouldn't he know by now? Shouldn't his body be—he shudders—decomposing if he's dead? Why does he still look, act, think, feel, eat, sleep, breathe like a human if he's actually a ghost? What if he's not a ghost? What if he's just a freak?

I'm alive. I'm alive. I'm alive.

I'm a ghost. I'm a ghost. I'm a ghost.

But can he be both? It's impossible, completely and totally illogical, and he throws the idea out immediately. He has to be one or the other. No one can possibly be a human and a ghost. Ghosts are made of ectoplasm and humans are made of human things. Ghosts aren't alive and humans are. That's just the way the world works. There's no way that he's… that he's some kind of freaky, unnatural hybrid for god's sake. It's just not possible. It's not normal.

Since when have I ever been normal?

He's the most normal out of his family if he's being honest. The Fentons are "a family of geniuses" but yet he somehow manages to completely break the mold. He's not an inventor or a scientist like his parents and he's certainly not as book smart or studious as his sister. He's average, mediocre Danny Fenton and he just wants to fit in, get good grades, and grow up to be an astronaut.

He's fourteen years old and he's dead. So much for fitting in. So much for growing up.

His phone pings in his hands and he ignores it, turning it off and plugging it in. It's getting late—it's only ten o'clock—so he hopes Tucker will assume he went to bed—even though he slept until noon. He's been doing a lot of thinking the past few days and it's made him realize that he has to face his parents eventually. It might as well be sooner rather than later.

Mind made up, he leaves his room and descends all the way downstairs to where his parents are yet again working away in the lab. He doesn't know what they can possibly be doing down here all day every day, but he doesn't question it because he doesn't know if he'd like the answer. He sees his father first, broad shoulders and head hunched over a workbench, and he pauses for a moment at the bottoms of the steps.

I hope I don't regret this.

"Hey, Dad?" he calls out quietly as he approaches so as to not startle the large man. It works to extent, as the jump Jack gives is a small one, so Danny continues. "Can I ask you guys some questions?"

Jack's smile is wide and warm and Danny almost finds it in him to smile back. "Sure thing, Danno! Did you come all the way down here to hear me blather on about ghosts?"

Danny gives a miniscule nod and watches as his father lights up like a kid in a candy store. "I wanted to ask you guys some… hypothetical questions, if that's okay?"

"Why of course, Sweetie!" Maddie comes up behind him and puts both hands on his shoulders. If she wasn't holding him down, he would have jumped. "What did you wanna know?"

Danny takes a deep breath and, with a tentative look at his practically vibrating father, he asks, "What are ghosts made out of?"

His mother gives a light laugh as if he said something offhandedly funny. "Oh, Danny, you know what ghosts are made out of! We've told you a million times!"

Danny grimaces. "Yeah, but like. What specifically are they made of? How are ghosts made?"

Maddie gives a thoughtful hum and releases him to step around to face him. "Well, as you know, ghosts are composed entirely of the otherworldly substance known as ectoplasm. Ectoplasmic energy is what makes a ghost able to move about and keep its shape. Ectoplasm tends to ignore a lot of physical sciences."

"Ectoplasm hates physics!" Jack booms and Danny winces. "It likes to spit in the face of gravity and friction and it almost seems to have a mind of its own!"

"In addition to ectoplasm," Maddie takes over, cutting off what was sure to be a long winded rant that would blow over Danny's head, "ghosts are made of the imprint of feelings, emotions, and memories left behind when someone or something dies."

Danny quirks a confused brow and she waves a hand. "Any living thing can become a ghost once it dies. People and animals can become ghosts and some theories suggest that there are ghostly plants as well." Maddie rolls her eyes. "Anyway, to put it simply, ghosts are made out of energy, emotions, and memories. Does that help?"

"Yeah. A little." Danny takes a deep breath before plunging into his next question, clasping his hands together to stop his fingers from trembling. "So, hypothetically, do ghosts need to eat or sleep or breathe?" He tilts his head in a way he hopes looks innocent and not completely terrified. "And would they have a heartbeat?"

The roaring laughter that erupts from his parents catches him off guard and he falls backwards a few steps. "That's a good one, Danny-boy!" his father crows, wiping a tear from his eyes. "Asking if ghosts need things that us humans do. Goodness, no!"

"Ghosts are made of energy, dear. They don't need to get it from anywhere else. They don't have the necessary, ah, parts to possess lungs or a heartbeat. Any ghost that looks like it's breathing is probably just mimicking the action," Maddie tells him, the smile on her face lined with mirth. "Where would you get that idea?"

Danny fakes a laugh that's more nerves than keeping up appearances. "Ah, I dunno, just something I've been wondering since I… saw the ghost in my room." Liar! "Since it kinda looked like a person I was wondering if it… acted like one."

"Of course not!" His mother laughs again and turns away to look over his dad's current project. She starts ranting about the ghost that had been in his bedroom and he has to admit that sometimes he's glad they're so obsessed with their work. It makes it easier for him to slip past unnoticed as he backs away slowly and turns tail at the stairs.

If he's being completely honest, he knows the feeling of being invisible already, ghost or not.

He creeps back into his bedroom and locks the door behind him. He's sure he's going to regret this, but he has to know. Am I alive? Am I a ghost?

He's not sure he really wants to know anymore.

He tries to remember what it felt in that other form, what it felt like to kill himself again, what it felt like to be a ghost. The burning, stinging pain is a fading memory now and he that worries him more than anything. Ghosts are made of memories. What happens once those memories fade? (He forgets that he remembers everything important about his life—like his friends and family and such—and that his memory, as far as he could tell before talking to his parents, was as fine as it was before the accident. His newfound paranoia is quickly becoming his worst enemy.)

Danny remembers a flash of light. He also remembers a deep set chill, a blistering cold that almost hurt, a frost that made its home in his bones, a numbing feeling like he couldn't feel anything anymore, like an arm that's falling asleep. He remembers the jumpsuit, the stark white on pitch black, the snowy hair and the swirling eyes, the ghostly-but-human pallor of his skin.

The cold suddenly flares in his chest—if Danny's being honest with himself, and he's not, then he would be able to admit that he can always feel the cold, but he chooses to ignore it—and he imagines himself reaching out for it and pulling it closer to himself, closer to the surface. Goosebumps break out over his skin and he gasps out a sharp exhale as the feeling of his blood turning to ice spreads throughout his body.

He tries to keep his eyes open but the flash is too bright and he has to squint to see past it. There's a ring of light, right there around his waist, and it splits in half to travel over him, chilling him, changing him as it goes. It doesn't hurt this time, he notices vaguely, though it does tingle. It reminds him of static electricity. Ironic. The light passes over his face and he's almost disappointed that his eyesight doesn't magically get sharper or anything. (Danny's not sure when he started imagining this… transformation being something akin to one of those magical girl cartoons that Tucker likes to watch, but he banishes the thought from his head. Magical girls aren't supposed to be dead.)

The light fades out and he's left standing in his room with nothing but his faint glow to keep him company. He steels himself and puts his hands against his chest and breathes, feeling his chest rise with the force of the action. Danny walks over to his bed and sit down, staring at the clock on the end table as he takes another deep breath and holds it in.

It takes at least ten minutes for his chest to burn and he exhales, marveling at the little black spots that fade from his sight as he lets himself breathe. "Ghosts don't have lungs," he murmurs to himself, eyes wide and frantic. He holds his hands up and tells himself that they're invisible. They fade away and he waits for a minute before telling them to come back. They're exactly where he expects them to be. Danny thinks about shoving his hand through his bed so he does it, his translucent arm numb and cold as he waves it around where his bed, solid as ever, should definitely be. He pulls away and brushes now solid fingers against the covers. He thinks, very briefly, Ghosts can float, and then he's hovering in the air.

Danny curls into a ball, mind scattered and confused, and shoves his fingers against his neck, checking for a pulse. "Ghosts don't have a heartbeat. They aren't alive so they don't have a pulse." He swallows, breathing shallow. "Ghosts are made of memories. They copy things because they remember them." Danny doesn't remember how often a heart is supposed to beat. He knows how to breathe because it's an action, something that can be done on command. A heartbeat is completely involuntary.

I'm a ghost. Ghosts are dead. Ghosts don't need to breathe. Ghosts don't have a pulse. Ghosts don't have lungs or heartbeats and neither do I.

A soft beat under his fingers has his breath hitch in his throat.

I'm alive.

He digs his fingers into his neck, drifting back down to sit on his bed without realizing, and he waits. He waits so long he's sure that he never felt it the first time and then he feels it again. His eyes tear up and he wraps his other arm around his legs, pushing himself tightly together as if he can hold up the broken mess he's become before he shatters into a million pieces. There's another beat and he sobs, burying his face into his knees as he realizes that yes, he has a heartbeat, yes, he needs to breathe, so what does that mean for him?

Is he a ghost? Is he a human?

What if he's both?

I'm alive. I'm alive. I'm alive.

I'm a ghost. I'm a ghost. I'm a ghost.

I'm alive. I'm alive.

"I'm alive."

But how can he be both?

What if he's neither?

Fin.

if you liked it, please take the time to leave a review. i haven't written dp in years but it feels good. i like it here lol