Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Day 3- Order vs Chaos
Chaos, Splatoon crossover

Day 4-Box vs Staff
Box- Danny moves out
Staff, ft. Jazz

Day 6-Freeze vs Burn
Burn - Vlad crackfic (Hamilton inspired)
Freeze - (Your Brain)

Day 10-Harvest vs Hunger
Harvest, minecraft inspired

Day 11-Thirst vs Drown
Drown, emotional, drowning in sorrows, maybe Maddie drowning Phantom in a vat of acid or smth

Day 13-Restored vs Abandoned
Restored - Danny being restored to life after death
Abandoned, Undertale crossover, someone meets Gaster in the void

Day 17-Hope vs Despair
Hope(s and Dreams), Deltarune/Undertale inspired

Day 18-Eyes vs Teeth
Teeth, Danny has fangs. That’s it. That’s the fic

Day 19-One vs One Hundred
One Hundred - 100 bad days makes a hundred good stories, a hundred good stories make me interesting at parties (song fic)

Chapter Text

Ch.1
Moving to Splatsville had been… a process for Danny.

Like most inkings, at 14 he’d been able to switch between his humanoid and squid form, giving him the chance to get out of the house and explore. By then, most kids were throwing themselves into the popular turf war battles. But as much as Danny enjoyed the games, he still felt, for lack of a better word, bored. Like there was something else out there he could be doing. A part of him that was missing.

Sam, his best friend since they could walk, basically already knew that she wanted to be an activist. If there was an injustice, she’d be there to counter it and it’s one of the things he admired about her. Tucker, an octoling he’d met while searching for a new weapon, was set on either taking over Sheldon’s shop and hacking (“Hacking makes it sound like it’s a bad thing. I prefer modifying”) the weapons after he moved to Splatsville or making it on his own by becoming a stage designer. He wouldn’t admit it, but Danny had a feeling it was from a certain idol who helped make some of the splatfest stages.

So Danny went day by day, playing turf wars and the occasional ranked battle, ignoring the woman with a parasol near the sewer, possibly illegally trading sea snails to change his gear abilities, and hanging out with his best friends. And at first, it wasn’t a problem. He had a good amount of money saved up, his own apartment near Inkopolis Square, and was familiar enough with the shopkeepers that buying things wasn't a problem. On the occasion, he’d try to play rank, before eventually loosing enough times to be satisfied with staying in A rank. It was a bit repetitive, but that was ok.

Until the final Splatfest that is.

You see, Danny had joined the trend of turf battling a little later than most of the cephalopods his age. While most of them already had experience from playing in the Deca tower in OG Inkopolis Plaza, he stayed home for a couple more years before his parents semi forced him into the unknown. Eventually, he moved to Inkopolis Square 2 years after it’s debut and started off fresher than fishstick. (and not in the cool way). Stores literally closing doors in his face for him not being “fresh enough” definitely jump started his turf war career. After a couple of matches he got the handle of things pretty quickly. He’d bought a couple of weapons and slowly made his way up in ranked battles, —

His first Splatfest had been a night he would always remember. The theme, Pancakes vs Waffles, wasn’t anything monumental, but being able to experience something he’d only seen in videos before was definitely eye opening. You see, since Inklings were technically still kids, although they could live on their own there were a few rules they needed to abide by and now of those was curfew. After a certain time, the decka tower and shops would close to encourage the squid-kids to settle down for the night. Of course, there were always the rebellious kids who thought it was cool to break the rules, but eventually they found out it wasn’t so cool when their online subscription was suddenly canceled, and they couldn’t make money anymore. Squid government exists apparently.

Splatfests were amazing, Danny thought. They were the only times that people were allowed out after dark and he loved it. The confetti, the music, and especially the stars. He’d just learned what they were recently, afterall he’d never had a reason to look up before despite blinding himself, but he already loved them nonetheless. There may have been colorful lights shining everywhere, but in Danny’s mind, the stars are what truly lit up the night. Splatfests were something fun and carefree (for the most part). Of course, there were always the people who picked and defended their teams like it was life or death, but overall he enjoyed the semi-monthly tradition. He tended to stay in regular battles because the pros played to win, and even though he knew he would respawn, being splatted repeatedly isn’t exactly painless or fun. He was more of a stargazer.

The splatfests continued for a couple more years, and despite not participating in all of them, he’d enjoyed them nonetheless. Fighting with, or against, Sam and Tucker on splatfest teams was always a tradition he hoped would stay a part of his life forever. Gazing upon the stars

So when he was watching the unskippable news play out and a splatfest being announced, he wasn’t too surprised, even slightly intrigued. The theme was chaos or order, which seemed like it'd lead to an interesting splatfest. But then Pearl, (insert opinion here), went and invoked some Splatfest article rule thing that made it so whoever one got to shape the world to their view!? WHAT?!

Danny had many questions.

-Splatfest prep
-Talking to S+T
-Night of the Final Fest

Ch.2 - Post Fest + Moving to Splatsville

It seems like Tucker’s plan of selling “modified” weapons seemed to work out well for him because not too long after Sheldon left Ammo Nights for Splatsville, there was chaos on the battlefields. People were throwing way more bombs than their inktanks should allow, cephlapods were flying (not superjumping, flying), and you could barely leave your own spawn without being splatted anymore.

So he donned a cape, a red and white shirt, and some boots, and began his travels to the Splatlands. He packed pretty lightly since he assumed his things from the Square would transfer over. He didn’t feel like carrying all of his weapons and gear with him for the travel that would take who knows how long.

It took a bit of a while to get there. His navigator kept telling him to go through places that he physically could not. Unless he could turn intangible. That would be cool. Anyways, he had to take a lot of reroutes to get to his location. There was said to be a train station that led to the Splatsville everyone was so excited about, so he’d head there first.

Somewhere in the sand, he saw the slightest bit of movement, and got closer to investigate. As he approached, the sand separated and out popped a little smallfry.

Danny immediately backed up and put his hand out for a weapon that wasn’t there. He wasn’t a full time worker at Salmon run but he’d been splatted enough times to learn that even the small salmonids were a threat. However, this one’s all alone, and the salmonids normally travel together, and not out in the middle of the desert of all places. Also, this one didn’t seem to have any malicious intent. The staring contest continued between the 2 species before the smallfy stated circling Danny.

“Oh no, he smells the blood of his ancestors.”

—

Splatsvile, Danny immediately noticed, was big.

Like, extremely big compared to Inkopolis Square. He got lost a good number of times before being able to find his way around by super jumping.

After settling in, he spent a few days straight playing turf wars and a few ranked battles. Apparently, he had been able to save some of his data from the Square, but not in the way he thought. He was broke, back at 0 again which he thought was unfair due to how much time he spent to gain it. Still, Sheldon gave him a couple of golden licenses (since when did he use those?) so that was something, But he was still very much broke. New stores meant new shopkeepers who didn’t think he was fresh enough to shop there, and he was back at square one again. There also was a new store for lockers and stuff, which was sorta interesting.

Ch.3 - Down the Manhole (Crater- SS Camp)
“Oh, and another thing. Please try not to tell anyone you’re an agent. Society’s already freaked out enough that the Great Zapfish has been stolen again”

Why do I feel like this happened before?

“Don’t worry. I’ve got this”

“Sam, Tuck, you’ll never believe what just happened

Ch.3 - Site 2 + Boss

Chapter Text

Vlad, unbeknownst to literally everyone in his life, was a theater kid at heart.

Of course, he’d never been able to pursue his dream of becoming a star because after his star, Maddie, came into his life, he knew he would have to change his priorities to convince her to be his. Maddie was taking science, so he had to ask his counselor to change all of his classes to match hers. It was a lot of rescheduling, but eventually, he got what he wanted.

After the schedule shift, he got to spend more and more time with the love of his life. He found out what made her laugh, what made her frown, and what brought that special spark to her eyes. Most of the time it was ghosts or anything that had to do with them. She was studying to become an ectoobiologist so Vlad guessed he was too now. Along the way, she introduced him to Jack, another student studying ectobiology and engineering, and they all became one of the closest trios in the school.       

Until the 3 of them had made an unstable portal that blew up in Vlad’s face (literally) and sent him to the hospital for years.

He’d been alone in a hospital bed as he slowly died. Losing his humanity and becoming something new. A small flame now burned close to where his heart was, and every day he remained in the same bleak hospital room, the fire grew ever so slightly, burning him from the inside out. While he went through this painful process alone, without so much as a note from his so-called “friends”.

Well, that's what he originally thought. 

You see, it had been a normal day of coming up with plans to woo Maddie, get rid of Jack, and convince Danny to become his son (as the mayor of a ghost-infested town does), when he’d gotten an email from his old university. He’d since forgotten about it, with his only important memories there being of Maddie, but just to satisfy his curiosity, he clicked on it.

Apparently, after all of the years he’d been MIA, the school had decided to contact him about the belongings that he left after his “unexpected early graduation”. Vlad couldn’t remember anything important that he left behind, but he made a mental note to stop by and pick up his things sometime within the week.

He was surprised to see a small cardboard box among the many objects. He carefully took it out and opened it, revealing tons of white envelopes with the same thing written on all of them. To: Vlad Masters, from Maddie and Jack

Insert letters about Maddie and Jack updating Vlad about their lives and being sorry about his accident.

Burning some letters wouldn’t do him any good. They were all written in the past anyways. Nothing would change, and he probably wouldn’t feel any better.

Burning some letters wouldn’t do anything.

But maybe burning a house would.

Ch.2

Let’s list a couple of facts before we begin.

Danny’s 16. He goes to bed at 5am and wakes up at 7 on a good day. When he’s not at school or fighting ghosts, he's struggling to survive in his own home which is filled to the brim with weapons that could potentially off him for the second time.

Well, at least he didn’t have to worry about that last problem anymore.

Because Vlad burned their house down.

You’d think a house inhabited by scientists would be fireproof and his parents swore that it was. Against ghostly fire at least. Apparently regular fire did the trick just fine.

Can we just make it clear again that Danny is 16?

Danny doesn’t even know whether to laugh or cry. It wasn’t even like anyone was injured, which knowing Vlad he should probably be grateful for, but he had stuff in that house that was really important to him. Now, he’d never see the dim glow-in-the-dark stars that adorned his bedroom ceiling, the model rockets he’d spent hours to days building at a time. So many memories gone in an instant and Vlad had the audacity to offer his mansion to them to stay at.

So here he is at a 7-Eleven, drawing his sorrows in slushies as ironic as that sounds.

Chapter Text

Danny was always drowning, the context was just different depending on the situation.

As a child, he drowned himself in anything space related. If there was space news, he’d learn about it. If there was a fact about space, he knew it. If you were wrong about something related to space, he’d politely correct you and then proceed to go on a rant about the right answer. He drowned himself in knowledge, and he was completely happy with it.

As a tween, he was drowning in schoolwork. He felt like there was always so much to do and so little time. Every time one was complete there was another one following it. The fact that he was in the “advanced classes” didn’t really help either. But Fentons were smart and Fentons got A’s. Jazz did it and so could he. So he pushed through it. 

As a teenager, he’d been drowned in ectoplasm when he died. It was only for a few seconds apparently but to him it felt like he’d been in the portal for a lifetime. Ectoplasm filled him to the core, killing him, but also not. He was something new now, alive and dead. Human and ghost. 

After that was more of an emotional drowning, where he felt everything was too much and all he wanted was for it to all stop. But the waves kept on coming and Danny was always faced with something. He could’ve ignored his ghost sense, but then he’d feel so anxious about who the ghost was, if they were a threat, what if someone got hurt and he wasn’t there to stop it?

That guilt was another thing that drowned him. It took him way too long to realize what an obsession was, especially that his was protecting others. It led him to his doom because he thought his best friends were in trouble and he couldn’t just sit still and wait for something to happen. 

He got caught. His parents saw him as Phantom out in the open with Sam and Tucker one too many times and made the correct assumption that they were close. They baited him with them and whisked him off to the lab.

And now? Well, this was the first time his drowning was because of someone else. He hung over a tub of ectoplasm in his parents’ lab. He wasn’t sure what experiment they were trying to do but he knew it wouldn’t be pleasant. Ghosts don’t need to breathe but Danny does eventually and he doesn't think his parents are aware of that little fact.

So yeah, he’d always been drowning.

But at least this might be his final time.