Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Danny’s lost count of the amount of times he’s randomly awoken in random places, but it has to be more than five.

It all started after the lab accident, when he’d tried to fix the portal and ended up getting electrocuted in the process. At least, that’s what his parents and the hospital told him — and the lichtenberg figure branched on his arm pretty much confirmed it too. Except, he can’t remember a single thing about the burning pain that people gave him pitiful stares for and patted his hands with “get well soons” and cards with messages of shared sympathies. None of it. 

He might not remember the accident, but he’s sure received the brunt of its side effects.

Randomly appearing in different places was just one of them. Unexplainable injuries, tripping and falling, dropping random objects at times, none of it made sense. And quite honestly, as terrified as he was, it was also beginning to get infuriating.

Heart pounding, Danny rests his head against the cool brick of the alleyway as he processes his surroundings. He’s in some sort of alleyway, cast in shadows despite the sunny sky, with cracked brick walls painted with graffiti every couple of metres, along with bins spewing out rubbish onto the concrete. 

Where am I? What- how the hell?

“I was at school…” he trails off, trying to recall any past memories.

He’d been at school, had he not? Yeah. Mr Lancer’s class, working on a book report or something of the sort. Then there was a sudden cold feeling which overwhelmed him and a bout of cold passed his lips. Thoughts flurried in his head like a siren, but protect protect protect were the ones which stuck out the most. 

“I ran, didn’t I?” He questions nobody in particular, “I ran down the corridor to the janitor's closet and went in, and there was a big flash of light — and I ended up here.”

Danny sighs, whole body aching as he attempts to get up to find out where he is, as a shooting pain rockets down his left shoulder.

“Ah!” He cries, falling back to the floor.

A nasty gash drips blood down his arm, and the raven haired teen cringes in pain. Wincing, he places a hand on the slice, trying to stop the bleeding. Just another mystery and a ton of pain.

Who injured him? How did he even get it anyway? 

He doesn’t have any enemies in particular — even Dash wouldn’t be this brutal. And that wouldn’t explain why he was ages from school grounds in an unfamiliar setting, miles even. His eye catches a few neon streaks on the ground which paint the concrete near his arm.

Huh.. What is this stuff?

It looks somewhat familiar, but he can’t place why or where. The green colour is almost unnatural, resembling the stuff that his parents shove into their inventions in hope of making them work effectively. All the alarms and trackers ever do is key onto him and try to accuse him of being a ghost threat — and he’s human, so the inventions are obviously duds. That was another thing the accident had done — make his parents' inventions attack him.

Tentatively, Danny scoops up some of the green into his hand, which from a closer perspective has small flecks of red in it. It really does look like the stuff his parents used for experiments, even if a bit more.. reddish. What’s it called again?

Ectoplasm . The green drops off his hand in shock.

“Ghosts.” He whispers.

Could ghosts be behind this? All the mysterious teleportation stuff, the injuries, the flukes. His parents are ghost hunters. There’s a motivation for a ghost to want to harm him, to get revenge on his parents. Or even… the thought was absurd.. but it made sense.

Am I being possessed?

Danny’s jarred out of his thoughts from his phone ringing loudly from his jeans pocket. To his chagrin, the screen is cracked which hadn’t  been like that before. Sam’s calling.

“Uh, hi?” He calls timidly, knowing the goth will have a ton of things to flame him about, most of which she probably wants an explanation for, which he most definitely can’t  give. Simply because he doesn’t know.

“Danny, where the hell are you?!” Sam’s voice screeches through the phone, her fury clear.

“I, uh. I’m taking a breather?” he responds, shoving through the first shoddy excuse he could think of.

“A breather, huh? That lasts forty-five minutes and you’re not even on any part of the school property?! Heck, the teachers, me and Tucker, Jazz, your parents, we’ve been trying to find you. I called you six times!” Sam rants furiously.

He looks at his screen, and indeed, six missed calls off Sam.

“It wasn’t even an hour, I don’t see why you’re so concerned.” he says dismissively, instantly regretting the words (and action) as he shrugs casually, jolting his shoulder.

“I can’t believe you! You just ran off Danny — no one could find you! You weren’t picking up, and it’s so recent to the accident. We’re worried for you.”

I am, too.

He gulps, holding the phone to his ear as he stumbles up on weak feet, taking a few steps forward down the alleyway, towards a nearby opening.

“I’m sorry, I know. I just— the accident.” He doesn’t have any explanation. Heck, he doesn’t even understand this himself. And now his friends and family are worried, and there’s no doubt they’ll be expecting a damn good reasoning for running away like that. There’s only so long the sympathy will last for the accident until it runs dry.

“I know. We all know you’re pretty shaken. But if you need some place to cool down, just let us know when, and where first okay? And preferably not in some random alleyway right off Magnolia Street two blocks from school. Try somewhere like the library.”

“How, how do you know where I am?” Even he doesn’t know that.

“Your dad just switched on one of the ghost trackers in case an attack happened while we were out looking. Your location popped right up. Surprisingly effective. You think you’re gonna come back now?”

“I, yeah. You reckon Lancer has a detention slip with my name on it?”

“A detention? Danny, he’s in his office waiting for us to return, with you in tow.”

“Ah crud.”  He murmurs, entering onto a main street, pulling down his t-shirt sleeve so no one can see the injury.

“I’ll let your parents know that you’re on your way back to the school so they don’t have to go all the way where you are. I’ll see you soon.” explains Sam, a twinge of worry in her voice.

“I’ll be there.” Danny replies, anxiety growing as he sees the Caspar High building looming a few blocks ahead of him. “Eventually.”

“And Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay? Like, are you really okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. All’s dandy.” He dismisses casually, before hanging up and sighing heavily.

God, now he’s screwed. Lancer’s in the office, waiting for him to return, probably planning a punishment for his unexplained absence. And his parents! How was he supposed to work his way out of this one?

There were no excuses that could possibly work for why he’d ran out the lesson, or how he’d ended up so beaten up and bruised. That reminded him — he really needs to get a bandage for his mysterious shoulder injury. Thankfully, it had stopped bleeding.

He could say that he’d run out of the lesson because he’d gotten overwhelmed— and that wasn’t a lie either — there’d been an impulse that he needed to protect. Protect what or who — he’d no idea, but it was so sudden and unexpected, along with that awful feeling of cold dread which made him gasp audibly. He needed to leave. Get out of the lesson. And he could remember doing that, heading to a safe place, the janitors closet. The room was dark and had a lock on the door so no one would enter, and it was just peaceful. Somewhere he could dwell on thoughts in his own silence.

But that hadn’t happened at all. Instead there was a flash and he was mysteriously teleported three blocks away from where he’d been. But what could move him such a distance?

Ghosts can fly..

The thought enters out of nowhere, but he shoves it aside. Although…

That was it! The answer was right there.

Ghosts . 

If he states that he went outside for some air, and then a ghost captured him, well, they’d believe him, wouldn’t they?

Danny didn’t want any more pitiful eyes glancing at him with sympathy, and this would do just that. But what other excuses can he make? He feels guilty at lying to his parents and teacher, especially when they’ve done all they could to support him after the accident, and it’s only recently that they’ve begun to slacken the careful observation, watchful of him in case anything was to go wrong.

But this? This would put everything back to square one.

“It’s now or never.” Danny grits, gulping down the dread of the upcoming confrontation, but also the growing fear of whatever the hell was happening to him.

Danny opens the door to the front office, trying not to curse as his arm slips straight through the door as he enters the building. He hopes no one had seen that.

Timidly, he approaches the front desk where the receptionist — Mrs Doyle — is typing away on the computer.

She hadn’t noticed him. 

He coughs lightly.

She looks up, a visage of relief immediately setting on her features.

“Danny! They've been looking for you! I hope everything is alright? Oh, goodness! Are you sure you’re okay? What happened?” She bombards him with questions as Danny blinks, overwhelmed.

When he doesn’t respond and simply stands, the receptionist keeps on uttering questions, her brown eyes scanning him up and down until they land on his bloody hand and shoulder gash. 

"Oh my gosh, you're hurt! Who hurt you? You need first aid!" She starts panicking, her voice cracking slightly.

“No, Mrs Doyle… It's fine." Danny replies, still taken aback. “I’m fine.”

He rubs his bloody hand on his jeans, wincing when the red stains into the denim, his arm since stopped bleeding, but blood remains dried down his arm.

"You're not!" The woman exclaims, incredulous, "I'll call the school nurse to take a look at that before you go down to the office. It looks serious. Who did such a thing to you?"

She sounds angry and distressed, but there’s nothing accusatory in her tone — merely concerned — more as if she was angry at the person, or thing who did this to him.

He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck.

This might be a bad idea. This might be a really terrible idea. He'd have to lie, and telling her a ghost attacked him would probably put his parents supervision up tenfold, which only meant getting more inventions malfunctioning at him.

But he couldn't tell her the truth.

And the truth was, he didn't know who or what had injured him.

There was a period of time that was a complete blackout to him — the past forty minutes or so to be specific. He supposed he could've been unconscious for most of it, but that still didn't explain ending up three blocks from the school near Magnolia Street.

Plus — ghosts attacks were still new to the town. They were adapting, eventually, but a lot of citizens still didn't believe in their existence. What if Mrs Doyle didn't believe him?

Then again, the giant ghost snake that had attacked the main office last week probably said otherwise. At least, that's what Danny had been told. He'd had one of his blackouts, and ended up in a dumpster at the back of the school, so he'd missed the whole thing.

That had resulted in a badly bruised cheek. Which at the time, he'd brushed off as Dash's doing. It made sense, Dash had thrown him into the dumpsters before. He probably punched him unconscious before doing so, this time.

Despite the fact that his last memories of consciousness hadn't contained Dash at all, and he hadn't been punched either.

But it was easier just to believe those lies, even if deep down Danny knew his arguments had gaping flaws in them. And now, this.

Well he wasn't sure of what to think anymore.

"It was a ghost." He lies, after what must've been a while, as Mrs Doyle had started typing on her computer again.

“A ghost?” She questions, her look averting to him as she raises a brow, then looks back at her computer, typing away, “I just sent an email to the nurse to tell her to be awaiting you. Do you remember what happened?”

“Uh, kinda.” mumbles Danny, glancing at his arm with worry, eyes gazed intently on the crimson blood as his mind rakes for any ghosts he can pin the alleged attack on. “Uh, uh…”

He tries to think of any ghosts, but he doesn’t  really know any by name, Danny didn’t really see it as necessary. There had been a ghost that both his parents had been talking about the other day, an incident in the town hall, except Danny had never seen the alleged spectre in person. It would have to do.

“I don’t know his name, but it was that ghost that did something in the town hall? I can’t really remember. Mom and Dad were furious, though.”

“Oh, you mean Phantom?” She pipes up, “He was the one to stop the snake ghost here last week. I think he’s got good intentions. Just goes about it a bit weirdly. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but he seems familiar. He always looks out of it. The lights are on but no one’s home.”

“Yeah, it was him then.” Danny says dismissively, waving his left arm.

Phantom. Huh. He feels like he’s heard the name before, even though he didn’t even know the ghost’s name until a second ago, and doesn’t even know what he looks like.

Blood starts dripping down again, and Danny sighs. Waving his arm probably opened the wound.

“I better go get this fixed.” Gesturing to the wound, Danny smiles at Mrs Doyle, before opening the door from the office into the main corridor.

Behind him, Mrs Doyle murmurs under her breath, “But I thought he was a good ghost…”

It doesn’t matter to him anyway. Strolling down the corridor, hand clenched to his shoulder, he ignores passing stares of students whose eyes widen at the sight of his wound, or the people stood at their lockers whose stares followed him down the corridor.

Finally, he reaches the nurses office, and takes a deep breath, before opening the door.

The explanation of a ghost attack doing this was simple enough — but having to explain how he received the injury itself? Impossible. If it was a burn, that'd be easy enough, since ghosts fired ectoblasts.

But this was a deep gash, as if he’d been sliced with a knife. What sort of ghost would weld weaponry like that?

He looks up.

Infront of him, the door remains closed.

Huh, that was strange. He could’ve sworn he opened the door—

His hands aren’t there. Only a bluish sheen remains. He can see right to the floor where he’s sure both his hands should be.

Holding back a gulp of alarm, Danny tries to open the door again. His hands fall right through the door.

He can feel the weirded out stares of people as they watched him struggle with the door. 

Heart pounding, Danny takes a deep breath.

It’s alright Fenton, it’s just another side effect. Just stay calm.

Danny figured when he got riled up or emotional, that the side effects would flare up more, so staying calm and taking it slow usually allowed it to dissipate before long.

‘Why’s he just standing there?’

‘I’ve never seen someone take so long to open a door. What’s he doing?’

‘Do you think he’s having a panic attack? I’d get the nurse, but he’s blocked off the door.’

‘Looks like Fenton’s being weird again. He ran out in the third period, everyone was looking for him.”

‘I saw his parents in Mr Lancer’s office before. Wonder what he’s done to land himself in so much trouble.’

Whispers of different students enter Danny’s ears as he takes another breath, and his hands reappear.

“Thank God!” He mutters, taking no time to grasp the handle and fling the door open. Anything was better than listening to the murmurs outside.

“Hello? Nurse? Anybody?” He calls, walking in further as he looks around the room, and sees the school nurse sorting out some gauze and bandages on the countertop.

She looks up, recognising his voice instantly, a twinge of intrigue sparkling in her eyes.

"Daniel Fenton." she titters, shaking her head, "At this rate we'll be building you your own miniature hospital! This is the third time this week! So, what happened this time? I hope Dash Baxter hasn't been throwing you into dumpsters again."

"No, Nurse Riley." He chuckles lightly, sitting on the examination table and holding his arm out. He's always liked Nurse Riley — she'd always helped him when the bullies took it too far, liked to have a joke around, and had the courtesy to be one of the rare adults who didn't give him a look of pity or discontent.

"Just got stabbed by a ghost." He says casually, hoping his voice doesn’t quiver as Nurse Riley grabs a gauze pad and soaks it under the tap, eyes distractedly focused on her computer screen full of emails.

“Well that’s certainly a new one.” She hums, leaning forward and gently dabbing the gauze onto the wound.

Danny hisses in pain slightly, but almost freezes in shock at what the blonde haired woman says next.

“Hmm, this doesn’t seem as serious as I first thought, with the amount of blood I would’ve thought it’d be worse.” She announces.

What did she mean by that? The last time he looked at the injury, it was at least a few inches deep. No injury could heal that quickly.

“What do you mean?” He asks, then takes a look at the now clean gash. His eyes widen.

The gash didn’t look the same as he’d last seen it, somehow managing to shrink by a few centimetres.

“From that way Marissa was using all those exclamation marks, I thought it was more serious than this.” Shrugs Nurse Riley.

“Marissa?” He raises a brow.

“Mrs Doyle.” she responds back, whilst picking up a new gauze pad.

“Oh.” Danny nods in realisation, whilst focusing on his arm. It wasn’t possible for a wound to heal that quickly, he could’ve sworn it looked awful. Maybe the amount of blood made it look worse than what it was? But that wouldn’t explain why there had been so much blood. Maybe he’d been imagining it being so bad?

What’s going on?

“You okay Danny? You seem rather distracted.” Nurse Riley asks, pressing gauze to the wound and rolling bandages around his arm.

“Ah, yeah. Fine, everything’s great.” he stammers, trying to hide the growing panic within him. Amidst wondering who could’ve been attacking him or why it would’ve happened, now his wounds are healing as fast as lightning.

It doesn’t make sense.

A few minutes pass before Nurse Riley pats his shoulders.

“Alright! You’re all bandaged up and good to go. Mr Lancer is waiting for you in his office.” She informs him.

“I know.” Danny grimaces, fiddling with the new bandage on his arm, “It’s just…I’m scared. I don’t know what to say to Mr Lancer, or my parents. They’ll ask what happened but I can’t even recall it myself.”

“Then admit that you can’t tell them, if you’re not able.” Nurse Riley says, “You’re not lying to them and causing yourself more stress than what it’s worth. You can tell them when you’re ready.”

“What do you mean, lying?” He stutters, sliding off of the table and sidling to the door, facing the woman the entire time.

“I know you weren't stabbed by a ghost Danny, least of all Phantom. That kid would never harm a human, if he did, it'd be an accident and he’d probably stick around until you became conscious again to check you were alright.”

“Okay…” He wavers, and goes to open the door behind his back, cursing as his hand sails swiftly through the metal.

Dammit! What is it with his hands and doors right now?

After a few futile attempts, he manages to get a firm grip on the handle and twists it firmly, walking out of the nurses office. He doesn’t notice the strange look that Nurse Riley gives the gauze pad she’d used to clean the wound with — as the red blood contained strange green streaks within it.

Trepidation grows as Danny trails down the corridor, the pain in his shoulder much less than before. His chest starts clenching with anxiety as his steps eventually cease at Mr Lancer’s office. Blurry shapes of neon blue and vibrant orange hover behind the small misted window on the door.

His parents.

Danny gulps, and instead opts for knocking on the door to avoid another awkward incident of a side effect, which he definitely doesn’t need his parents taking knowledge of.

The door opens.

“Mr Fenton.” Mr Lancer’s exasperated voice sounds as he opens the wooden door and looks down at Danny. His eyes are weary and his mouth pulled into a wry frown. 

Behind the teacher, both his parents are sitting in seats, staring at him with glances that are either displeased or relieved, he can’t tell.

“Come in.” Lancer announces, eyes narrowing.

He pushes the door wider and steps aside, inviting a quivering Danny into the office.

The door squeaks shut, and Lancer moves around to sit at the desk, gesturing to a third, empty chair for Danny to sit at.

“I believe an explanation is in order for this little stunt you pulled.”

But his head is empty of any explanations, and no words spill through.

“I can’t tell you.” He shrugs, not daring to face the three adults in the eyes. Helplessness claws at his chest. 

What else is he supposed to say? 

The blackouts. The injuries. The teleportation. The healing. The accident he didn’t remember.

There’s no logical explanation for it at all.

His heart pounds, and Danny wraps his arms around himself. He can’t say. He doesn’t know. What was he doing? What could he say?

“I just can’t tell you.” He murmurs.

Because how can he tell them — when even he doesn’t have an explanation for what’s happening to him?

Chapter Text

Hi! It’s been a while for this AU hasn’t it?

Looking back I find the writing is a bit clunky and not where I wanted to start the fic off. So I’m planning on doing a rewrite of Lapse. 

I won’t be deleting this original one or anything like that, so you can still read this too.

Thanks for reading!

Murphy <3