There was absolutely nothing like the smell of burnt toast in the morning, it really got those tear ducts working. Little else, but the smell of burning breakfast could make someone go from dead asleep, to springing from their beds in quite the same way. Such was a Wednesday morning in the Fenton house, or any day of the week, really. Where there was bread to be eaten and a toaster that hadn't been gutted for parts, a well-meaning Maddie Fenton won't be far behind with half a mind to dedicate to the task of feeding her children. Danny would swear up and down that she did it on purpose because she knew it was the only way to pry him from bed – because at 7 o'clock in the morning toast charcoal and lab fire were two easily confused scents – but she never gave him more than a grin and a wave of the hand when he asked.

(All it took was a single morning in his pajamas on their front lawn after a brush with the fire department for anything resembling the smell of smoke to make him jack knife from serenity like nothing else could).

He groaned into the floor boards, and rubbed at his shoulder, that morning's landing was more rough than usual, but with any luck most of the damage would be gone by the time he got to school. Speaking of which, he rolled over onto his back and with a monumental amount of effort he pulled himself from the floor. He didn't have to look at his phone to know it was just past 7:30, and if he didn't move he'd be late. Without cracking an eye, he stumbled from his room, clothes in hand to the bathroom, and pawed his way inside. It was the same blind, eight-armed fumble as it was every morning. His toothbrush in one hand, a hairbrush in another as he changed out of his PJs with another, and does he even have that many limbs? He couldn't remember – couldn't be bothered to try, not with his attendance record hanging in the balance.

He was determined to make it through sophomore year with his grades, his attendance record, and his dignity mostly intact. He'd succeed so far by sheer will and coffee strong enough to peel paint. All things considered, it was going pretty well, Jazz and her nagging aside. But then, what else was new? His growth wasn't stunted no matter what she said, he'd grown a half a foot over the summer, and lack of sleep or not, there was no stopping Jack Fenton's genes. Danny figured it would even out, if he doubled his caffeine intake, he would end up somewhere between behemoth and average by the time he quit growing.

He made his way downstairs, tripping over every third step, and peeled his eyes open to the sound of his father's chipper, "Mornin' Danny Boy!" from his place at the table tinkering with some invention or other across from Jazz, who was reading a book that looked like it weighed about as much as she did. Grunting his response, he took his usual blackened toast, and cup of coffee with a side of kiss to his temple from his mom. He downed half the coffee before he made it to the table, ate his toast in three chomping bites as he sat, and chased the dry, biting flavor down with the rest of his coffee just before his face met the table with a dull thud.

If Danny were to categorize stares by weight, his sister's would be with Mr. Lancer's near the top of the list. She had the uncanny ability to make him feel every pound of the ten-ton weight of disapproval her worst glares dropped on his back. At that particular moment, he felt the beginnings of Jazz's patented I'm-worried-about-you-but-this-is-your-own-fault-little-brother stare sear into his skull and turned his head to pin her with his best, one eyed shut-up-and-let-me-waste-away-in-peace glare. They continued this exchange until he blinked, and Jazz shot him a triumphant smirk before returning to her book, effectively blocking his eye roll which left him to examine the grain of the table to entertain himself.

It was something of a miracle that the thing hadn't been burned to ashes with all of the fire hazards in the kitchen (namely his mom and dad), in fact, the table was more or less unblemished save a few coffee stains and nicks in the finish. The swirling monotony of the grain trapped his gaze, and his eyes began to droop as he fell into an almost hypnotized trance.

It felt like a blink, but it probably looked more like a brief coma, either way whatever it was didn't last long as a booming, "Long night, Danny my boy?" from his dad had his eyes snapping open with a jolt.

He was just awake enough to respond with a, "I was studying late," without slurring around the yawn building at the back of his throat.

Danny had not, in fact, been studying the night before, late or otherwise, but it wasn't the worst excuse he'd ever come up with. Ghosts had no concept of time and even less of a concept of exhaustion – a trait that he unfortunately didn't share with them – and just as he sat down to study, a certain ghost dog had thought it would be a great time to come barking outside of his window. Cue five-hour goose (ghost?) chase across Amity. At least it hadn't been a violent night out on the town, because of all ghosts Cujo meant him the least harm. His only major faults were not understanding the concept of stay and that he got a little mean when he was upset. Danny could relate to that, more to the point he couldn't fault Cujo for it either, so he'd always erred on the side of a stern 'bad boy' rather than just blasting him like every other ghost that wandered out of the portal.

That and Danny had always wanted a dog.

"Will you be staying out after school again, sweetie?"

He had to squint his vision into focus to meet his mother's eyes, "Probably," he yawned. Damn it, now that he'd started, he wouldn't be able to stop, "I'll let you know if Sam and Tuck decide to spirit me away."

He'd said that without thinking, and while it was a pretty sweet pun, it was an awful turn of phrase to use while Jack Fenton was scant feet away. A genius inventor his dad may have been, but a skilled multitasker he was not. He was, however, a master in the art of selective hearing and nothing drew him out of a project faster than the mention ghosts (or fudge).

"Ghosts!" Danny and Jazz let out a collective sigh, and their father plowed on undeterred, "If any spooks get near my son I'll blast 'em to bits!"

The house could burn down, and his dad probably wouldn't notice unless a ghost had started the fire.

Danny would know, it had happened before.

"Now Jack," Maddie placed a grounding hand on Jack's orange clad shoulder, "what have I told you about making threats while working on delicate equipment?"

Mouth open and hands half raised, Jack looked at his wife then down at his lap, "Uh," he blinked, gathering himself, "don't?"

Her smile was utterly fond, "That's right, dear."

Maddie and Jack share a look as gooey as melted caramel, and Danny and Jazz share a disgusted gag, if they were going to make a break for it before things got too gross, it had to be then. A shared nod signaled their retreat, and they backed as silently from the house and out the front door as they could manage. (Not that their parents would've noticed, they were too busy being disgustingly in love to even bother).

The morning was a sharp bite at his ankles, the sun sliced through his lashes and cut right into his eyes. His breath huffed in a mist and for a sixth of a second, he thought there was a ghost nearby, but the usual shiver never came, and he rolled the tension from his shoulders, shuffling down the sidewalk just behind his sister. She was always nagging him about wearing a jacket on days like those, like it would actually make a difference. Danny could stand comfortably out in a raging snow storm with hardly a goosebump in sight, a little late winter chill was nothing.

It was a short walk to school, it'd be an even shorter run (or flight, for that matter), but thankfully Danny wasn't in much of a rush that day. He hadn't been in much of a rush at all lately, save for the occasional odd morning when he had to deal with a ghost (or two) before the first bell. He only had that kind of morning once – maybe twice – a week, and that definitely beat multiple daily ghost encounters starting first thing and running into the next day. It was hard enough being a teenager, throwing specters and crime fighting into the mix made it a nightmare. School wasn't going to get any easier, and at the rate things were going last year…well if they'd continued he would have given up his ghost (heh) before twenty, he was sure of it.

(People could die of sleep deprivation).

And on that cheery note, they reached the front steps of Casper High; institution of higher learning and location of his own personal hell. It sounded dramatic, and so unbelievably like something a teenager would say, but he had little reason to think otherwise. High school was probably great for people that didn't have ghost hunting parents, and didn't happen to sit comfortably on the bottom rung of the social latter (not that he'd know anything about that). The pinnacle of Danny's high school existence amounted to people stepping on him for their benefit. In their defense, it's not like he made it hard for them. If he wanted to, Danny could make it more difficult, but he had bigger problems to worry about (that, however, didn't stop him from filling people's lockers with manure). As if she could hear what he was thinking, Jazz rolled her eyes and marched off to go do what ever it was she spent her mornings doing without so much as a backward glance.

"Love you too!" His response was a lazy wave she threw over her shoulder just before he lost sight of her in the crowd.

It wasn't early per se, they'd only made it in with fifteen minutes before the first bell (something he knew drove Jazz mad because she liked at least a half an hour before classes started to settle in), but the halls were still nearly fit to burst around all the teenagers dawdling through them. He resisted the urge to groan as he caught sight of several red letterman jackets floating in and out of view. With his luck they'd hear him if he so much as breathed wrong, and after the unreasonably long night he'd had, Danny had even less of a desire to run into anyone other than Sam and Tucker. So, he wouldn't and save himself the effort of pretending that a dose of Dash was the best way to start his day. Because quite frankly, he didn't have the energy to put on a convincing performance (not that he ever had).

Being invisible sucked socially, but the actual ability to become invisible? Extremely useful. It made it criminally easy to run down the hall in no time flat and give Dash the finger right to his face (which he totally didn't do, because that's unbelievably immature) without receiving a punch to the head. Sprinting with all his might was just as much a learned skill as it was an enhanced one, but fast as he could run, he couldn't do it in plain sight. Nothing about him read as particularly physically fit and if he were to pull a top run time out of his ass in gym class, it wouldn't go unnoticed. It was better for everyone to think of him as an underachiever and ignore him until it was convenient for them.

(That said, it was liberating to race past Lancer and not get a detention for it, snickers streamed out behind him as he ran, eyes half closed in mirth).

The world a blur around him, Danny would have run right past Tucker hadn't refused to quit wearing that beret of his (it also helped that he was flapping his arms around at Sam as he babbled on about something or other). It was easy to miss Sam – as much as she stood out anywhere else, she blended into the shadows that she loved to lurk in a little too well. It took a trained eye and years of practice to spot her as easily as he did. Stopping so fast he was surprised he hadn't left a skid mark, Danny slipped next to Sam in her shadow and released his grasp on his invisibility, flashed her a smile, and while she didn't return it exactly, it was a near thing.

Tucker was still busy trying to take flight midsentence, attention rapt in the conversation he was having with himself – when he pivoted, finger spearing toward Sam and spotted Danny, "Oh hey dude," then continued with his tirade about a particularly hard level on Doom he'd been having trouble with.

Danny missed the days that his sudden appearances made Tucker flip his shit, and by the forlorn sigh Sam let out she did too (or she was greeting him; it was hard to tell sometimes). Sam was her own can of worms, one that – even after over half a decade of knowing her – he just couldn't seem to find the bottom of. It was what he liked about her, even if it drove him up the wall at times. It added a whole 'nother layer of complication to her that he had to decipher on a moment to moment basis. Girls were confusing, but Sam was Sam, and Sam was incomprehensible.

Speaking of incomprehensible, it seemed that Tucker had rambled his way into speaking about his new phone, "-and I found a way to sync it to my PDA so my girls won't be lonely when I'm not around."

Danny honestly worried about the vivid technological delusions Tucker had, but as long as he didn't try building himself a girlfriend out of scrapped PDAs, Danny figured there was no harm in it.

Before Tucker could start on another tangent Sam and Danny had no hope (or desire) to follow at 8 something o'clock in the morning, Sam turned to him, "You look like shit."

Most people would have been offended by that, but a wrinkle creased between her brows and concern laced her biting words, and all he felt was warm. Danny quirked a lopsided smile, "Yeah. I feel like the smoldering remains of a dumpster fire."

"I wouldn't go that far," Tucker cut in, "but my neighbor's dog puked up something that looked like you this morning."

Danny felt loved in that weird backward kind of way he only did around his friends, "You'd be lucky to look this good after the night I had."

Sam and Tucker trade looks and turn back to him with identical flat stares, and spoke with the same bland tone of voice, "Cujo?"

He sighed and nodded.

Okay so, maybe Cujo had paid him a visit or two (or seven) that month, and Danny had possibly spent some half a dozen hours or so chasing him back into the portal (hypothetically). In his defense, dogs were genetically engineered to look guilty when they did something wrong, so it wasn't his fault he couldn't work up the aggression to blast Cujo.

"Do you think they have dog obedience school in the Ghost Zone?"

Tucker gave Danny's shoulder a pat, "If there was, he'd escape that too."

Sam gave them both a solid kick to the shins to corral them over to their lockers (and there would be a bruise there later because they weren't called steel toed combat boots for nothing). On the way to class, they each took turns grilling him on the material he didn't end up studying the night before, and by the time they sat in their first period English Lit class, there were five minutes to the first bell and Danny's brain felt significantly less empty. Of course, the day he didn't come prepared, Lancer decided to spring a pop quiz on them, but fortunately he had good friends that took none of his shit.

Everything thereafter was a blur – well more of a blur than usual – he must have been paying attention at some point though, because his notebooks were filled with his chicken scratch and he doesn't remember falling asleep. Homework assignments and reminders for project deadlines swam across the pages, and his head felt like it weighed an extra five pounds. The lunch bell cut through the haze and jolted him from his doze in Biology three periods later, and he was out the door before he could blink (it's possible that he threw a little of his supernatural speed into his gait by accident). He had to make a conscious effort to slow down, because getting lunch detention was not something he enjoyed. He'd gotten enough of those for one life time, and it always sucked because he only had so many minutes of freedom a day.

Stopping at his locker, Danny flicked it open with a practiced spin of his lock and rummaged around for his lunch. He'd have to thank his mom for sneaking it into his backpack; he spaced out most days about packing one. And he was pretty sure it would be edible that time around, because she hadn't been working on a major project in the last few days.

Sam and Tuck were probably let out of their fourth period late again and would meet him at the cafeteria. (Mr. Gonzales never dismissed on time). They only had a handful of classes together that year, but at least they could still eat together. With his luck, there would come a year where he shared lunch with the A-Listers and Sam and Tucker would be nowhere in sight. He would definitely lose his appetite with the smell of AXE and crushing anxiety wafting about, and there wouldn't anyone around that appreciated his snark (what a nightmare).

The A-Listers were their own breed of headache, and frankly, if he never encountered them again, he'd live a happy life. It was baffling that he'd ever wanted to be one of them once. Like, okay sure, popularity was a want most people had (Sam wasn't most people, so she didn't count), but he couldn't for the life of him recall what was so attractive about Casper High's brand of popularity in the first place. (Paulina). Popularity was a suck machine that only produced more suck, and the A-Listers were the suckish by-product of that process (and it only took multiple near-death experiences for him to realize that).

But he wouldn't have been human – or half human, rather – if he didn't look over at them every now and then and think 'if only'.

He honestly couldn't say if his life would be easier if he were popular, hell, it could very well have been harder. All he knew is that he wouldn't be shoved into lockers or pushed down stairs anymore, and that he would be the butt of far fewer jokes.

"Hey Fentard!"

Danny sighed as quietly as humanly possible (ghost half not withstanding), "Hi Dash," and swiveled slowly around. "What's up."

"Not much," sometimes Danny wondered if Dash ever learned to read a mood, "just wondering if you got my lunch money."

"Wow, Dash. You pull that line from you grandma's attic?"

He'd been told antagonizing people (Dash) was a bad idea, but advice had a funny way of not sounding good until he didn't follow it. When Dash lifted Danny with a yank to his collar, and slammed him into the wall of lockers behind them, Danny very quickly remembered that advice had been very good.

Cue awful comeback, a quick, solid punch to the face, and violent shove into Locker Town – population Danny Fenturd and his gym shorts. Laughter ricocheted around the inside Danny's locker as Dash walked away, and chatter from the hallway filled the spaces it left after the echoes of it faded. It was like listening to a movie through a tin can; it made his ears ache. He leaned his forehead against the door and winced as the skin around his left eye began to throb in earnest. (Had it been doing that the whole time?) He hoped it wouldn't be too noticeable, if it was he'd have to wait to go home just to be safe. High pain tolerance or not, it wouldn't go unnoticed if Dash had given him a black eye.

He'd have to keep his head down for the rest of the day, just to be safe.

A strand of hair fell into his eyes, and he made to lift a hand to move it, struggled for a moment and gave up with a haggard sigh that (thankfully) blew the hair from his face. If it weren't a regular occurrence, he maybe would have been more worried about being trapped like he was. It helped that he'd been sucked into the thermos as much as he had, and that he had ghost powers and could get out whenever he wanted. Unfortunately, there were still people around, and even if they didn't spare him a glance usually, he didn't want to take any chances by walking through his locker and strolling down the hall. And he couldn't just pull a Houdini and escape the inside of a locked locker only to appear in the lunch room either. Fortunately Tucker and Sam would be by any minute and they'd let him out.

At least that time Danny had been trapped in his own locker; he had no interest in becoming anymore acquainted with any one's unmentionables but his own, thanks.

It took Sam and Tucker all of five minutes to show up, and another moment or two to get him out. Sam was shaking her head at him, frown firmly in place, gaze boring into his skin with an impressive glare directed at his face. (Ah, so it was worse than he thought. Great).

"Man, you might as well live in there," Tucker said as he prodded at Danny, in search of more bruises probably, "I still don't get why you just let Dash do this kind of shit to you."

Danny grunted when Tucker's fingers landed on a particularly sensitive patch of skin at his elbow. He slapped his friend's hand away, "It's better this way."

Tucker poked at it again, "No it's not."

"No," Danny sighed, blowing his hair from his eyes, "but every time I've tried to flip the status quo it's always blown up in my face."

When Sam slapped Tucker's hand away, it was with way more force than Danny had. Tucker winced and whined in response, "Yeah I get it," he said around the fingers in his mouth, "stick to the stuff you know and all that shit."

"Don't mess with the flow," Danny chimed, as they began walking.

"No, no."

Sam glared over her shoulder at them, "If you chuckle fucks break into song, I'm disowning you."

Danny and Tucker share a look and break out into snickers, Sam rolled her eyes and stomped further ahead of them. Even if it hurt to smile around what must have been an impressive shiner, Danny couldn't make himself stop. His friends always had that effect on him, and the thought of filling Dash's locker with crickets was certainly aiding his good mood. Dash glared at him across the cafeteria as they came in, and Danny's grin cemented itself in place at the sight.

Nothing devalued someone's attempts to make you miserable like smiling in their face (or so he'd been told. And he'd already not followed good advice that afternoon, so it was better to be safe than sorry).

Lunch was a rife with the usual debates of carnivorism vs ultra-rescyclo-vegetarianism through mouthfuls of food (but that was mostly Tucker). Danny used to feel like he had to pick a side of that debate, but by then he'd learned to tune it out, and nod along like he cared. It wasn't something he cared about much – labeling himself always seemed to get him into trouble – but it mattered to his friends, so he had to at least look like it mattered to him. His lunch was simple, and – miracle of miracles – wasn't covered with a smattering of ectoplasm and seasoned with an assortment of nuts and bolts, and that's all that was important to him.

He had electives after lunch, a Latin class he took with Sam and a Music Appreciation class he took with Tuck (Sam would've joined them for that one, but Botany was calling her name). Latin was a breeze, but then – to his bemusement – he had an easier time with dead languages (which had to be some kind of joke). Spanish was pretty much a nightmare for him freshman year, and he'd thought it'd be the same with Latin, but lo and behold, he was a natural. (He'd been meaning to ask if that was a coincidence or not, because honestly, what were the odds?) Tucker had noticed it first, oddly enough, and thought it was hilarious.

But, hey, it was an easy A, and it made English class a little easier for him to follow.

English was still giving him a hard time, despite all his improvement, and even with Sam and Tucker's help, he still struggled with it. They just didn't explain it in a way that stuck with him, and Jazz – well-meaning as she was – wasn't much better. When she explained things to him it felt like she was pouring alphabet soup in his ears. There were definitely words happening, but whether or not those words meant anything to him was an entirely different matter. Luckily, he'd found a tutor that didn't make his brain feel like spaghetti. Lancer went a lot easier on him, when he saw that Danny was making an effort, and that made his life far less difficult.

After the final bell, he sent his mom a text, letting her know he'd be back late and got a reply five minutes later. Danny learned quickly that his mom was the least likely to crush (or otherwise destroy) her phone on a monthly basis and would answer her phone even if she was busy.

Why his parents hadn't made a Jack proof phone, Danny had no idea.

He and his friends walked halfway home together, waving their farewells as they parted down their respective streets. Danny ducked into a back alley and crouched out of sight as a cool wave of light swept over him, leaving Danny Phantom in his place. He tugged backpack into place, half a conscious thought turned him invisible, and a shift of his muscles lifted him from the ground. If he'd hardly felt the cold that morning, he didn't feel a thing then. It blew through him politely, courteously keeping its chilly fingers to itself as he drifted over town. He'd forgotten flying didn't have to be a mad dash all the time, that he didn't always have to have a destination in mind, and that he didn't need to rush there if he did. Flight could be as leisurely as cloud watching in the park, as liberating as getting into his pajamas after a long day, and as comforting as curling up in bed afterward.

But he had places to be, and only so much time to get to them.

It took him a while to realize that the accident had sharpened his senses. At first, he'd just thought it was paranoia, that the lack of sleep and constant vigilance was making him see and hear things, but things could never be that simple for him. Danny had thought he'd lose his mind, everything was too much, and his ability to focus on anything else suffered because of it. Humans just weren't equipped to handle hearing mice skittering between the walls down the street, or seeing the pores on his teacher's skin from the back of the classroom. Becoming half ghost had loosened his stitches, leaving them to catch on everything in sight. He'd felt like he was being pulled in a dozen different directions at once, all while he desperately tried to hold himself together. Stitching himself back together had not been easy; he was terrible at sewing and learning had been a pain in the ass, but a couple hundred pin pricks were better than unraveling.

And when he allowed his seams burst and let his senses to snag, his head felt like it was deflating with a rush of lead.

He breathed in the city, the sounds and sights of it billowing through him. Despite being a ghost town, Amity Park was anything but quiet, but that evening it was hushed in a way that didn't make the skin on his arms raise (thank god). He had a project due in English in a few days, and he didn't have the brain space to worry about wily ghosts and their schemes.

Winding his senses back into their spindle, he turned and made his way across town and toward home. It didn't take a sense of direction to find Fenton Works, just a working set of eyes and a basic grasp of spatial awareness. It was useful when he was little and prone to getting lost, but by the time he hit middle school, it was more embarrassing than anything else to have a road flare for a house. Denial was less than useless when your name was slapped on the side what you tried to ignore, reluctant acceptance was all that remained, and by high school he'd pretty much learned to tolerate it and everything that came with it.

Everything including the excessive amounts of machinery lying about that could kill him or worse. (And it probably would be worse, seeing as he was pretty much already – for all intents and purposes – half dead).

To avoid being fricasseed every time he walked through his front door (or back door, or window), Danny and Jazz took turns disarming the house's ghost detection and targeting system. It usually took a few days before their parents noticed and inevitably reactivated it. (Their parents were bound to notice how odd it was that their inventions somehow always ended up locked onto Danny, and at that point he was only delaying the inevitable). It'd been two days since Jazz had last deactivated them, so it was going to be a gamble to try and slip into the house as Phantom, so with a teaspoon of caution, he grabbed at his invisibility, and popped his head through the front door.

The house was quiet save for the soft hum of machinery knitted through the walls, and Danny paused, nose wrinkling at the stillness. He pulled the rest of his body through the threshold of the house and hovered an inch above the floor. His gut stirred, and for a moment the quiet began to breathe through him, raising from the floorboards and limping around the room, staggering like a corpse that just woke from its grave. But as quickly as it rose, it was buried by a rush of sound as a small explosion rattled the walls and picture frame shattered on the floor along with the hush. Danny let out a gushing breath and dropped noiselessly from his place in the air. What some may have called paranoia, he called healthy suspicion, because it was better to be safe than blasted (or so he thought).

He dropped through the floor and almost went through his dad, pulling himself to a sharp stop was difficult, but not impossible (not that his dad noticed). Jack was cursing up a storm while his wife was putting out his fires, something she did often, in that case though it was a little more literal. (If his parents were trying to roast marshmallows in the middle of their lab, they were off to a great start). It was a dance Danny knew well, something blew up, property was damaged, and his parents scrambled to fix the problem before it got any worse. After the twelfth time the house was almost burned down, his mom put a fire extinguisher in every room, and a half a dozen in the lab. It was excessive, sure, but at least they still had a house to live in.

Danny drifted past them, only feeling a little guilty leaving them alone in their smoldering lab. One man's spiraling mistake was another man's distraction, after all, and he didn't have time to waste if he had any intention of taking advantage of it.

He did.

The sound of the portal opening was masked by the commotion behind him, and Danny slipped through it without looking back. He felt that familiar sweep of silence creep over him as the doors shut behind him with a whooshing snick, and Danny cast his gaze around, cautiously taking everything in.

The Ghost Zone looked different every other time he visited. Parts of it were familiar, but they were always in different places, moved on its own illogical axis, in an orbit he couldn't begin to track, much less understand. It was green and parts of it rippled like they were submerged in water, while the rest lay stagnant. He felt a drift, and his sense of direction and time were fucked in the most inexplicable way. The place had its own kind of pace, but it wasn't one he could ever sync himself to, and it always left him feeling flat and dimensionless. Sound traveled through the Ghost Zone like it did with water, carrying over its surface and muted from below. Jarring as it was, Danny had learned to tune it out. There wasn't a horizon, no line where doors hung above winding, unseen pathways ended in the distance, but he knew there was a point where they did somewhere just beyond his sight.

Land didn't meet sky, and Danny didn't belong, not completely.

It was a feeling that got easier to shove down every time he came, and somehow the wrongness of his being there consumed less and less of him too. Like he became immune to it – or more like it, the Ghost Zone, became immune to him the more he visited.

Even with everything constantly in motion, there were some places in the Ghost Zone he could always find. It felt like an anchor weighing him to places, leading him back if he ever got swept too far away. Frostbite called it a kind of imprint, a claim of sorts over something he considered his territory, his haunt. He didn't claim to completely understand how it worked, mostly because Frostbite had a tendency to technobabble Danny's ear off, but he understood the parts that mattered, so that was good enough for him. They served their purpose either way, and it made his life a hell of a lot easier.

Danny blinked, his daze lifting from over his eyes. Ah shit, he was gonna be late again.

He followed one of his tethers through a good quarter of the Ghost Zone and into safer harbors, which in that case took the form of a cottage floating over a great expanse of nothing, glowing gently into the dimness around it. It was one of those kinds of buildings that looked best from a distance. Rose bushes and ivy vines laced its walls, wrapping around each other in a never-ending struggle for dominance over the stark, dark wood underneath. They grew through the bricks and ate at the porch, popping up from every crack and crevasse the cottage had to offer (which was a lot), holding it together and pulling it apart in equal measure. Where the door met the frame, its sky-blue paint had chips in it and the ornate, iron knocker on it was stuck in place. The shingles were held in place by hope and bubblegum, the chimney slouched in place, and Danny couldn't have felt more comfortable as he drifted closer to it.

Danny got the feeling that no amount of oiling could get the door to quit creaking, never mind the fact that by that point, he was sure that'd he'd miss it if it were to stop. A soft, crackling bass rift swayed around the room, guiding him forward as he floated in. The air was stained with some soft, citrusy scent he could never quite place, and some smoky something that smelled like pine. A rounded, peachy armchair and an overstuffed, periwinkle couch that distantly reminded him of Sam's parents fit just so into place around a dark lacquered table in the living nook. A pair of speckled mugs sat waiting on the table, steam wafting playfully above them. His feet sunk into a plush, paisley rug as he dropped from the air and glanced around.

He frowned, brow furrowed, "Lyn?"

There was a crash from the back of the house, "Comin'! Comin'!"

Sweeping from the kitchen, a lacy apron fastened at her waist, her short, licorice dark hair dusted with a stark patch of powdery white was Lyn. Her skin flared a little brighter in her surprise, in not quite what he'd call a flush, but something close enough that for a moment he forgot she was dead. There was a gentle purple glow about her; skin shone pale with it. It wasn't like the purple Sam liked to paint her nails with - all harsh and sharp and dark - it was more like that color's softer, distant cousin once removed. More white than purple, but not white enough to be mistaken as anything but purple.

Danny pointed to his head and she blinked at him, "Oh!" and ruffled her curls with a careless hand to rid them of the floury spot. There was another streak on her forehead, but he didn't feel like it was important enough to mention to her.

He felt his lip twitching as she untangled herself from her apron, further tousling her hair, "Sorry dear, I was just pullin' the muffins from the oven." She smiled at him, drifting closer as she spoke, tongue dusted with her soft, vintage New York twang, "They just need a minute'ta cool," her gaze snagged on his eye, and he winced as her mouth went flat. "And what's this about?" Lyn flapped a hand in the general direction of his face.

Ah yes, the shiner. He'd forgotten.

"Uh. I tripped?"

"What? Into someone's fist?" He grimaced, she sighed through her nose, "And you look exhausted!"

Like that was news, "I'm fine."

"See, you say that, but your eye is swollen."

"It really isn't that bad, and I'm not tired."

"And when was the last time you slept?"

"Last night," she glared at him, "Briefly. I'll make up for it on Saturday – maybe I'll even break my record. Think I can beat thirteen and a half hours, Lyn?"

"I think that'd be considered a coma."

"Sounds festive."

She pinched the bridge of her nose, "Congratulations, you've successfully given a dead person a migraine."

Maybe he should feel guilty about that – he didn't, "I've been called impossible."

"There isn't a word more fitting," she sighed and shook her head. "Go sit, I'll be back with snacks."

Hardly giving him a chance to respond, she draped her apron over a willowy arm, and turned back to the kitchen. Full skirt fluttering at her knees, and her bare toes licking the ground as she glided just above the floor.

The couch looked like it could eat him whole – all soft blue and clinging fingers – but that wasn't new. The entire cottage looked like it would just love to swallow him up and never let him go. But almost like the place knew he couldn't stay, it always stopped just short of making him not want to leave. It was just difficult enough to get up from the couch once he'd settled, and it was easy to get too comfortable once he did. That didn't stop him from flopping onto the couch, his backpack finding a home at his feet, as his body sunk just so into the cushions.

Danny studied the walls with his head tipped back against the couch cushions, straining his muscles pleasantly as he absently took everything in for what must have been the dozenth time. Nearly every empty space was covered with something, be it an album cover, a tapestry, or a sunburst mirror, it was up there. Lyn had a hard time getting rid of things, he knew, too many of her trinkets brought her joy and she couldn't bear to say goodbye to them. It was never messy at Lyn's; never a knickknack out of place or a frame crooked on the walls. The clutter about her little cottage was arranged carefully, lovingly, with everything puzzled into place just so, charging every surface they touched with an extra pinch of personality.

The scent of baked goods announced Lyn's presence before she did.

"What are you up for," she was carrying a silver tray with muffins balanced on top, "pumpkin cashew or banana blueberry?"

"Both."

She grinned, "Great choice."

Like his response had cut the ties holding them down, a pair of muffins lifted from the platter and drifted toward him, settling themselves onto a waiting plate and into his lap. He nibbled idly at the blueberry one as Lyn settled in the peachy arm chair adjacent to him, absently noting how she tucked her legs beneath her and the straightening of her spine as she sipped from her speckled mug.

She hummed some song he couldn't recognize into the mug as she took a final fortifying pull from it, let it slip from her hand and into the waiting air, and glide steadily over to the table where it landed with a faint clink. She turned to him, "You got the final draft of that paper done?"

"Yeah." He grabbed for his mug, which he knew before he even stepped through the front door didn't have coffee in it, "Well, as done as I can get it."

"Alrighty then, let's see it shall we?"

He used his foot to lever his backpack onto the couch as he polished off the blueberry muffin and moved to the pumpkin one, rifling around in it for the folder where he shoved all his homework in progress. (Which, you know, might not have been the best system for managing his work, but he never claimed to be an organized individual).

Lyn just gave a bare shake of her head at his use of his foot, and threw a crumpled napkin at his head as he rolled his eyes at her. Danny, for his part hardly paused in his search for his paper, and stuck his tongue out at her, sure to let as much of the bite of muffin in his mouth to show as he did. His fingers found the folder as she wrinkled her nose at him, eyes sparking with laughter and mouth pursed in disgust as she took it from him. He shoved the remainder of the pumpkin muffin in his mouth, and washed it down with a swig of his hot cocoa as he watched her scan over his paper. She absentmindedly sawed her pointer finger nail on the pad of her thumb, a faint crease between her brows as she scribbled the occasional note in red ink between the margins.

It was hardly five minutes later when Lyn looked up at him, "Okay, so. Besides the grammar being atrocious, it's not bad." She gave the paper another, quicker skim, "Actually, it's pretty good."

"'Pretty good'?"

The look she shot him was flatter than his dad's singing voice, "Danny, dearest, compared to what you used'ta hand me, this is practically Shakespeare."

He scowled but didn't disagree; it was true and they both knew it. Words weren't his thing – he liked numbers better, even if they didn't like him back.

Danny made grabby hands for his paper and blew a raspberry at Lyn when she rolled her eyes. He didn't have to act his age til he was thirty, and nothing she did would change his mind about that.

He looked over the paper and, "I thought you said it was good!"

"Pretty good."

"Why is the entire second page scribbled out?"

"You can't use the word 'dickhead' in a formal paper."

"He doesn't deserve my respect."

"It's Tom Buchanan," Lyn snorts, "he doesn't deserve anyone's respect."

Danny spread his arms wide in a 'What the Fuck' gesture.

"He's an asshole, and you can think it all you want, but you can't call him a dickhead in an essay that your teacher's gonna grade."

"Daisy deserved better," he grumbled.

Lyn looked like she'd taken a shot of lime juice, "Daisy was vapid and indecisive; what she deserved was a reality check."

"Well at least Gatsby actually loved her."

"Point," she tipped her mug in his direction, "but you still have'ta do a major edit of the second page."

"Okay," he sighed out, slumping back into the cushions, "what do I do?"

"I'll give you the same advice I always do." She started, and Danny said the next part along with her by wrote, "Write insults in formal works the way Vlad would say them to Jack with Maddie in the room."

"Yeah I know."

"Don't look so down. You're awful with words," Danny threw her his most offended look, "but that's what I'm here for."

It was difficult to stay upset about it for long, though, because Evelyn's eyes were doing that thing where they flickered like lively fireflies, and the corner of her mouth twitched into that conspirator's grin of hers that made him feel like there was some joke he'd missed. (Did all girls insult their friends? Or was it just him?) His responding grin was lopsided, but no less genuine; as was the wince that it became when his eye throbbed in response.

"Well, the good news is," Lyn's mug drifted from her hand, "it doesn't look nearly as bad as it was."

"But it's still noticeable."

"Extremely."

The clock above the fireplace (set to Amity Time for his convenience) told him he had about twenty minutes before his parents started to wonder where he was. It hadn't felt like he'd been there for three hours – it never did, and yet somehow it always surprised him when he checked the time. Sometimes minutes felt like days and hours felt like minutes, and it never failed to fuck with his brain. He'd asked Clockwork why that was, and he'd just shrugged and told him that Ghost Zone was so far removed from the world of the living, that it didn't have any of its laws to adhere to. (Whatever the hell that meant). And when he'd asked Evelyn, she'd said that the world filled with the dead didn't need a logical sense of time; that in death time ceased to matter.

(Those answers really only made sense if he didn't think about them, so he didn't).

A hand on his chin jerked him from his musings, and he nearly shot from his seat before he noticed Lyn on the other end of that hand. Danny eased just as quickly, and Lyn's smile was knowing in that fond kind of way that made him feel a warm wash of embarrassment all the way down to his toes. (She always had a way of making him feel like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, even if he hadn't actually done anything). Looking away made little difference when she tilted his head up, neither did his slight flinch when her thumb gently brushed under his bruised eye. The distant throbbing pain disappeared in a way that felt like pins and needles running through a numb limb, and then rapidly vanished with a rush of feeling that left him blinking almost dizzily.

"I still can't get over how weird that feels."

"I wouldn't know." She'd said it in a way that implied a shrug, but she hadn't moved.

"Well, with any luck, I won't need your magic touch anymore this week," and maybe he shouldn't have said that.

Lyn's fingers tightened minutely on his jaw, "Let's hope you won't."

Danny swatted her fingers away, "You can't do anything about it, Lyn."

"Daniel."

"Evelyn."

She crossed her arms at her chest, "Why do you gotta so fuckin' noble?"

"Because," he sighs, and she repeats him word for word, "using my powers for anything but ghost fighting always screws me over."

"I know," a huff, "but I still think Dash needs'ta soak his giant, douchey head."

It felt more like they were reading a script than they were arguing, and despite every inch of her screaming defiance, Lyn's eyes were grim with displeasured resignation. As much as he'd love to see Dash's face when Lyn barged into Casper High and ripped him a new one, he didn't want the kind of attention it would shunt in his direction. People were only just accepting that his parents were obsessive ghost hunters, he didn't need them thinking he had any interest in their career, and he definitely didn't need his parents catching drift of any of those rumors either.

They held each other's gaze for a long, silent moment until Lyn sighed out her defeat, and shook her head in a dejected kind of way that almost made Danny want to beg her to follow him to school the next day. (Not that it'd have gone well, because he was pretty sure that bringing a ghost to Show and Tell wasn't an okay thing to do). Danny began to gather his things as Lyn leaned back letting the air catch and hold her where she hung for a second, and then fell back to her chair not unlike the way flower petals fluttered in a light breeze.

She blew a stray stand of hair from her face, "One of these days I'll rampage through your school, and there'll be nothin' you can do about it."

The idea both amused and terrified him, "I don't doubt it."

"You'd better not," she snorted and tidied the mess on the table with a flick her wrist. "Now, go on get," she shooed him in the direction of the door, and made no move to stand from where she sat. "And you best be back with good marks on that paper!"

"Yeah, yeah." He flapped a hand over his shoulder as he drifted off.

Her call drifted through the front door, "Don't patronize me, young man."

"See you Monday, ya old fogey!"

Lyn's half offended sputters pressed warmly into his back until he couldn't hear them anymore.

Getting home took a lot less time – or that's what it felt like, anyway – and by the time he made it to where the portal was supposed to be, it was just opening to let him through. It couldn't have been any later than six thirty, or it could have been, and Jazz was late opening the portal, but his sister didn't have a tardy bone in her body, so he seriously doubted that.

Danny set one foot into the lab and peeked his head out from the swirling vortex shoved into its walls, and there she was. His sister, his eternal beacon of disapproval, forever his guiding light in the face of fun and generally stupid choices. Arms crossed, foot tapping away at the stained, blueish tile of their drafty basement, face utterly neutral until he looked at her sheepishly from beyond the portal. That's when a frown creased her face, like she knew what he was thinking (he always wondered if she actually could read his mind. Danny never asked, never wanted to confirm his fears).

"Hello, oh sister of mine," he chirped.

"Baby brother." Danny's smile dropped a millimeter, but of course Jazz didn't miss it and she smirked at him in a way that reminded him greatly of a fat cat, "Change back before mom and dad see you."

"You," he stepped the rest of the way out from the portal, "are no fun."

"Danny," she didn't sigh, but it sounded like she was contemplating it.

"Really, Jazz, would it kill ya to live a little," he waited until the full force of her glare was directed at him before he changed back, leaving her blinking back the flash.

"That's rich, coming from you," she scowled, rubbing at her eyes.

(Served her right).

"Oh haha. A dead joke, real original, Jazz."

"It won't be a joke for long if you're not coming through the front door in the next five minutes."

Foiled once again by Jazz and the ever-effective Parent Card, Danny scowled as hard as physically possible and mocked Jazz just barely under his breath, and his completely mature sister promptly chucked the nearest object (which just so happened to be a the fucking Booo-merang. Where the actual hell was she even keeping that?) in his general direction. It hit his head with a hollow clunk, and he hissed out expletives in her general direction, flipping her the bird over his shoulder just before he made his indivisible stroll through the walls and out of the house.

The fact that their door still used the same old lock and key said something about his parents' security priorities, that the door was unlocked said even more.

His parents greeted him from the couch, glad to see him at different volumes, and Danny ducked under the TV on his way to the kitchen. Apparently, dinner was stir fry that looked suspiciously like it came from the restaurant down the block, but food was food and Danny couldn't cook. He stood waiting, hip resting against the counter, as his dinner spun 'round in the microwave, staring blankly at a nebulous stain on the wall. His fingers tapped idly on his thigh to the rhythm of the hum of the microwave and came to an abrupt stop when it let out a cheerful chirp and its hum cut off.

Danny ate standing in the doorway of the kitchen, watching reality TV over his parents' shoulders, taking too big, too hot bites of his meal mindlessly. He let out a huff of breath around a scalding hunk of beef and broccoli, desperately trying to cool the damn thing down and it came out in frosty puff. He didn't groan when the usual shiver chased itself down his spine, but it was a near thing. Backing into the kitchen as quietly as he could manage (which hardly mattered, because his parents didn't notice he was there to begin with), he put his plate down on the table soundlessly, and phased out the back wall of the kitchen.

Muscles coiled tight like a steel spring, Danny didn't even breathe as he scanned the alleyway. It was dark, the sky only carrying a vague hint that it had been a sunny day mere hours ago, but that hardly made a difference to him. Bright, dim, or dark he could see virtually unobstructed regardless (not that he needed much light to see a ghost, dim as their glow was, they stilled glowed). The silence pressed down on his chest, and closed around his lungs until an echoing bark nearly made him jump from his skin.

Danny nearly melted from relief, "You're early."

He turned around and found a small, green ghost pup panting eagerly at him. Or, rather, he found the head of a small, green ghost pup, the rest of him disappeared into the building behind him. Cujo yipped and practically trembled with excitement, and Danny didn't need to see his tail to know it was probably whipping around like a flag in a hurricane.

Danny shook his head, and Cujo cocked his head to the side tongue lolling out the side of his doggy grin, "Really, buddy. You didn't even let me start my homework this time."

Either Cujo didn't understand, or he didn't care about Danny's scholastic dilemma; his continuing to stare at Danny like he was said it was a little of both. Danny sighed, put a hand on his hips, and made shooing motions at the errant pup. Cujo merely cocked his head the other way, and blinked up at him, and Danny was struck by how crazy he must have looked about then (which would've been about the dozenth time that week, really). Danny groaned skyward, and – miracle of miracles – Cujo disappeared the rest of the way into the wall.

Danny blinked at the wall like it would summon an answer from some distant dimension where things made sense (it wouldn't, but that would keep him from trying). He didn't dare look away from the wall as left, like the sheer force of his stare would keep Cujo at bay. But then, like a vengeful jinx, Cujo reappeared with a worn tennis ball in his mouth, and Danny shot the wall a look heavy with betrayal.

"So you founded it, huh?" Cujo's yipping was muffled, and the sigh Danny let out sounded suspiciously like a laugh, "Yeah okay."

The light of his transformation bounced off the walls and glimmered in Cujo's eyes, painting the entire alley in icy hues, but as amazing as his shift was, it apparently wasn't as interesting as Cujo's tail. There was hardly any hesitation in the way he dropped the ball, and even less when he started doing doggy doughnuts in and out of the brick wall nearby to chase it. The ball rolled to a stop against Danny's shoe, and as he picked it up, he thought of all the places he could hide the damn thing, so he could maybe (possibly) get some work done, and possibly (maybe) get some actual sleep so he wouldn't fail that quiz in first period tomorrow. Vlad's house sounded like a good idea, and if it wasn't, at least it would be funny.

Either way, it was going to be a long night.

Howdy, howdy everyone! This particular story has been in the works for months, and I just happened to finish in time for Phanniemay, so I'll pretend like that was on purpose. This was supposed to be a one shot, but I had more ideas, so it might become a series set in this universe (and I use that term extremely loosely, mind), so let me know what you think of that.

I haven't posted in literal years, I blame my ADHD brain and my inability to motivate myself to do anything but procrastinate, but won't let that keep me from writing. I burned myself out a while back on a story (or several) that just didn't pan out. After that writing became like a chore, so I made myself slow down and let this project take on a life of its own instead of forcing it out. It's taken nearly six months, and my writing style evolving a few times, but writing doesn't feel so much like a chore anymore.

I'd so love to hear what you think, and if you'd like to see more! Until next time!

-LS

here's a song I've been loving lately:
Foster the People - Helena Beat