Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Attention, all students, we are now entering a soft lockdown – this is not a drill. I repeat, we are entering a soft lockdown; please remain in your classrooms, but continue class as normal until the lockdown is lifted. Thank you.”

Chatter fills the room before Principal Ishiyama stops talking. They’d had years of experience in ghost attacks, but they never went into lockdown because of them; Ishiyama would just call about an attack. Actually, unless it was a high-threat ghost, she wouldn’t say anything!

Lancer tries to quiet the class to no avail, and Sam and Tucker lean closer, Sam speaking first. 

“This isn’t a ghost, is it, Danny?”

He shakes his head, frowning and trying not to squirm. Something is wrong. “I can’t feel anyone too close… I can’t feel any aggression at all right now.” He pauses. “But… something’s wrong, guys.”

With a mischievous smirk, Tucker slips a concealed PDA out from under his shirt. “Leave this to the smart one.”

He doesn’t get one search in before being caught. “Mister Foley, put that away.” Lancer crosses his arms. “We are still in class.”

“But this never happens!” He holds his beloved tech tightly to his chest as though their teacher might make a grab for it.

“Yeah, Mister Lancer!” Sam stands up and, ever the activist, slams her hands on the table. “We’re kids, but we aren’t stupid!”

Running a hand down his face, Lancer sighs. “Miss Manson, I never once called you stupid-”

“We want to know what’s going on in our city!”

“Dude! You’ve been holding out on us!” Tucker’s jaw practically hits the floor, and Danny nervously chuckles. 

“Yeah, just don’t tell my parents we can down here, alright?” He rubs the back of his neck. “Technically, we aren’t supposed to be in the lab without them.”

“Don’t worry!” Slinging an arm around his shoulders, Sam grins. “Tucker can erase the footage if you think your parents check it.”

“Hey! Don’t volunteer me!” One pointed look, and he groans. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll do it.”

Danny laughs. “Thanks, Tuck.”

“I agree with Sucker!” Dash stomps closer, glaring over Tucker’s head at the tech. “Well? Pull it up already!”

“Dude, I don’t even know what I’m looking for yet. I’m just looking for the news.”

“Look it up faster! My next class is my gossip sesh with Star, and I can not miss that.” Paulina joins the crowd and Lancer sighs again. 

“Miss Sanchez, you can’t go anywhere until the hold is lifted. Mister Foley, I would usually be on your case – and believe me, you will be getting detention for this – but I am… also curious.”

Tucker beams, typing faster at the encouragement, missing the way Danny squirms. “Okay! I think I can interrupt the feed from another TV showing the live news, so I should be able to get that onto my PDA.

“I’m pretty sure they just started reporting, so we probably didn’t miss much.”

With a dramatic groan, Danny begrudgingly holds up his HAZMAT. “This thing is so ugly.”

“Aw don’t worry, Danny; I’m sure you’ll be the belle of the ball in… that-” Unable to stop himself, Tucker devolves into stitches laughing at the Jack Fenton sticker. 

Sam snickers and positions her camera, prompting Danny to pose with the suit. “Smile!” 

The shutter clicks and a quick flash of light leaves him temporarily dazed. “Okay, I showed you the portal – can we get out of here now?” His friends walk closer, the three of them forming a loose triangle. “My parents could be back here any minute.” He sighs. “Besides, they say it doesn’t work anyway.”

Sam wanders closer to the broken portal, resting her arm against the frame to peer inside. “Come on, Danny! A Ghost Zone? Aren’t you curious?” She grins, lightly punching his shoulder. “You gotta check it out.”

His smile grows with every word until Danny is thoroughly convinced. “You know what? You’re right.” He shimmies into the HAZMAT, pulling the horrifying sticker of his dad’s face to the side to finish zipping it up. “Who knows what kind of awesome, super-cool things exist on the other side of that portal?”

Snorting, Sam waves her hands in front of her to get him to pause. “Hang on.” She steps forward and peels the sticker off slowly, careful not to leave behind any residue. “You can’t go walking around with that on your chest.”

“Don’t listen to her, Danny! I’m sure the ghosts will love it!”

With a final buzz of static, the PDA cuts to the live news. 

“This is Lance Thunder, here at the scene of a potential crime.”

Not a single person in William Lancer’s class isn’t focused on the feed of their local reporter. Ghosts? Normal; everyday occurrence. Crime? Crime is a lot more rare. 

“Mister Foley, I’m impressed.” William mumbles, transfixed with whatever unprecedented situation had happened in Amity Park. 

“After two weeks of non-stop rain, dirt is bound to move. But who knew someone would move with it?”

Danny steps into the abandoned portal, unsettled, but glad his friends had convinced him to investigate – this is sick!  

“Do I look cool in here, guys?”

The trio laughs, Tucker being the first to look up. “Like a real entrepreneur!” 

He treads carefully in an attempt to avoid the stray wiring on the ground. It most definitely seems like a safety hazard, but who’s he to say?

Just in case, Danny takes the mask out from under his arm and puts it on, completing the HAZMAT look. “Yuck. I feel like my parents!” 

“Awww!” Sam coos. “A little Jack in the making.”

“Nooo! Don’t even joke about that!” He throws his head back groaning at the comparison. Absolutely not. “Well, this doesn’t look safe. Like, at all. But I don’t think it can even turn on.”

Sam stops him from taking the mask off. “Dude, there could still be some radiation shit going on.”

Nodding, Tucker agrees. “No chances when it comes to your parents, man.”

“Hey! They aren’t all bad!”

“Yeah, but I don’t wanna risk anything. Sam on the other hand…” He yelps, ducking away when Sam swats at his head. 

Chuckling, Danny starts walking back toward the mouth of the portal. “Alright, guys. This is giving me the heebie-jeebies – I’m coming back out.”

Not a single peep escapes anyone in the classroom. Someone? Who is someone? A paperclip hitting the ground would have had the same impact as a bomb at that moment, and in the silence, Danny, Tucker, and Sam make eye contact. Danny’s face saying it all: something is wrong.

“If you have been hanging by the small copse in Amity Park Park, you have been sitting atop the unmarked grave of an unknown victim.”

Gasps ring out but the trio remains dead silent. 

“While not yet able to identify the victim, Amity Park officials are quoted as saying that this is ‘one hundred percent the aftermath of a crime cover-up’. Stay tuned; we’ll have more information for you soon.” Lance Thunder, still appearing rattled, signs off in a less-than-professional manner as the class erupts into chaos and panic. 

Paulina’s face falls into her hands; Dash and Kwan hold each other close, never to mention it again; Lancer mutters a slew of book titles; and Sam, Danny, and Tucker just sit down.

Dead silent. They know what this is; only one person would be unearthed on that hill.

Scars snaking up Danny’s hand and arm start to glow. 

He turns to walk out, ignoring the slight tug at his ankles until it tightens. Danny tries to pull his feet out of the entangled wiring to no avail. “Tucker! Sam! Little help here?”

“DANNY! GET OUT OF THERE!”

Shifting to face where the wires connect to the wall, a green glow makes itself very apparent with no signs of dying down. 

With a cuss and a jump, Danny runs for the exit, only to be tripped up and pulled down. The wires behind him disconnect from the wall, and he falls forward, catching himself on the side of the portal, hand landing directing on a mouse-bitten, open circuit. 

A single spark is the only warning he gets.

The portal lights up a sickly, violent green, surrounding him in an instant. 

Danny doesn’t even realize he’s screaming until his throat gives out.

It isn’t quick.

If it was quick, maybe he wouldn’t have come back.

But he did. And it was long.

Bright green lichtenberg figures shoot up his arm, ripping through his nerves as they do, cracking the skin on his hand, his arm, his chest, his neck, his jaw. His entire body is stiff and seizing, refusing to fall until the portal stopped its assault.

Why would his parents build something like this? Why would they leave all of these wires lying around? If this invention “works”, what could happen with the other ones?

Oh fuck; his parents could hurt someone else or themselves. They’d accused innocent people of being ghosts before, but the worst they could do at the time was a few smacks with the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick. This could do so much worse.  

He needs to protect them. No one should have to go through this- he needs to be the only one.

The light dims and his body finally collapses. 

His body collapses, but Danny doesn’t.

Chapter Text

“Calm down, everyone.” William’s eyes narrow. “I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding.”

“How the hell could this be a misunderstanding?!”

“Language, Mister Baxter.” The teacher slowly drags a face down his face. “A person was likely buried in an unmarked grave after passing of natural causes. Let’s not disrespect the dead.”

Tucker sneakily shifts to turn his PDA off, only for Dash to grab it out of his hands. “Don’t even think about hiding it from us, Foley. Techno-geek is the only thing you’re good at, so get to techno-geeking!”

“I-” a glance toward Danny. “-I don’t think this is a great idea, you know? Let’s just let ‘em rest.”

“Yeah!” Sam’s smile couldn’t look more strained. “Like Mister Lancer said, we shouldn’t disrespect the dead – this could be hurting the family too.” 

“Don’t be a pussy, Manson.” Glaring down, Dash sneers, Kwan snickering by his side. “You love dark and creepy shit – why is this different?”

Paulina looks up, long nails tapping impatiently on her desk. “Maybe she did something and Sucker is covering for her.”

“It’s Tucker-”

“There will be no baseless accusations in my classroom. I too am beginning to see how this could be an important story; if this sent the school into lockdown, I believe it would be beneficial to know what happened.” William looks toward the trio, firm, but in no way angry. “Mister Foley, if you wouldn’t mind, I would like to connect your device to a speaker for the class to hear. Is that okay with you?”

Tucker and Danny fold into themselves. “Yes, sir. I can hook it up for you.” 

“DANNY!” Sam and Tucker shriek in unison, sprinting toward the portal. Tucker bites his nails, snapping a few off in the process. “Oh fuck, oh fuck- is he okay??”

“What the fuck do you think?! Look at him!”

They each take an arm and pull, hauling their friend out of the machine, ignoring the way his right hand specifically burns.  

They set him down.

The right side of his HAZMAT is in tatters; ripped and torn and ash and still sparking with dying flames and electricity. Lichtenberg figures leave his body looking cracked, the ones on and closest to his hands leaking blood. 

Danny’s hair is still smoking, and Sam nervously but hurriedly pats it out. 

His eyes are open.

His eyes are wide and open and unseeing and glazed, baby blue tainted with unbridled terror. 

Tucker drops to his knees with a thud, leaning over to get his ear as close to his friend’s mouth and nose as possible without blocking his airway. Despite never having to do this on the clock, his one summer as a lifeguard – taken only to work at a pool – may just come in handy. He puts two fingers to Danny’s neck.

Five seconds pass.

Then ten.

Fifteen seconds pass, but they may as well have been there for hours. 

“Oh fuck- oh shit-” Tucker jerks back, grabbing at his hair. “He’s dead, Sam- he’s dead- we killed him-”

The portal sparks and the two yelp, scrambling back while dragging Danny between them. 

They move just as the machine starts glowing, getting brighter and brighter until it pops, flinging someone across the room as it lights up that same sickly, neon green that had killed their friend only moments ago.

The ghost – he’s clearly a ghost – sits up groaning. Eyes the same color as the swirling portal blink open, white hair floats as though suspended in water; his entire body is glowing. “...Guys?” 

Sputtering and stuttering, Tucker starts shaking. “G-ghost- GHOST!”

The ghost jumps three feet into the air and stays there, wildly looking around. “WHAT? WHERE?”

Rubbing her eyes, not even caring about smudging her eyeliner, Sam blinks. “You!”

“Sam? What are you talking about?”

“H-how do you know my name? What did you do?”

“Tuck-”

“STOP!” Tucker’s grip on Danny’s wrist tightens, and the ghost finally notices the corpse between them.

“...What?” He floats closer. “This… this can’t be happening.” Tears well up in his eyes, erasing any belief the two once had in the Fentons’ studies about a ghost’s – theorized lack of – feelings. “Tucker, Sam… it’s me; I’m Danny. What happened?”

Lance Thunder returns just as Tucker connects his PDA to the speaker. They wouldn’t be able to see, but hearing should be more than enough. 

“This is Lance Thunder, back with breaking news of a body found in Amity Park Park. In case you missed us, two weeks of non-stop rain appear to have worn down the dirt and underbrush in the park’s cluster of trees enough to reveal the scene of a potential crime. 

“After being beaten down by pouring rain for two weeks, the bushes and roots have given way to soft dirt, where the near-skeletal remains of what officials believe to be a fourteen-year-old boy were seemingly buried.” 

Only three jaws don’t hit the floor. 

“Great Gatsby.” William rests his head on clasped hands. 

Sympathy floods Kwan’s face. “I kinda hope this isn’t just a burial. He was only two or three years younger than us.”

Valerie’s white-knuckled grip on her desk only tightens. “That would mean he was murdered! That’s worse!”

“Let’s…” Visibly rattled and visibly trying to hide it, William rubs his temples. “We can either turn this off, or cease our discussion of the dead.”

The classroom falls silent. 

“You… you can’t be Danny!” Tucker inches closer to Sam. “Danny’s…”

“Tell us something only Danny would know!”

“When we were twelve, you set Tucker’s goldfish free and told him it ran away.”

“DANNY!” The two throw themselves at Danny. Danny is alive.  

…Maybe not.

A bright light flashes at the contact, and when they pull away, Danny – a human again – stands in the ghost’s place. His body is shaking and the lichtenberg figures have yet to fade but dammit, Danny is here.

“What will my parents think?” He runs a trembling hand through his hair, wincing at the touch. “Oh fuck, what will my parents think?”

“Danny-”

“They hate ghosts! Holy shit, they’re gonna kill me-”

“HEY!” Tucker whacks him over the head as lightly as possible. “We’re gonna fix this!”

“Yeah! Don’t worry; we can make this whole thing disappear. Your parents will never know, and you’ll be safe!”

He sighs, tensed muscles relaxing by a hair. “Okay, yeah, you guys are right.” The glow of his eyes dims slightly. “I think we have some old sheets in Jazz’s room. We haven’t used them since my Aunt Alicia stayed with us during her divorce, so no one will miss them.”

Tilting his head, Tucker fiddles with his hat. “Why would we need sheets…

“...Oh. Yeah.”

“Uh… Mister Lancer?”

“Mister Fenton.”

“May I go to the bathroom?”

“Aw, is Fentoe-nail feeling sick?”

“Mister Baxter, that’s enough. Anyone in their right mind would feel ill.” William turns back to Danny. “I apologize, Mister Fenton, but no – we are in the middle of a lockdown and therefore unable to leave the classroom.”

The teen noticeably blanches, turning a lot whiter than what should be possible. “Please?”

“No.”

At that, Danny shrinks into himself, pulling his hood up to hide his face. Tucker and Sam shift closer, in an almost protective manner. The three have always been closer than most, but not usually in the physical sense; William knows something’s up – teens have attempted to hide a lot from him – but he can’t press. Maybe one of Daniel’s relatives passed. Or one of his friends at the least.

Unfortunately, it would appear that the information is going to come out long before the boy is ready. 

Now there’s something they weren’t taught in health class; turns out, dead weight is a lot harder to carry. 

Danny moves to help his friends, but an overwhelming feeling of NO stops him in his tracks. He can’t touch his corpse. Something won’t let him. He can’t touch his corpse.

“I- I can’t touch… it.” He steps back shuddering.

Sam and Tucker just nod and do it themselves, Sam grabbing the arms, Tucker taking the legs. Danny spreads the sheet out and the two carefully place the body.

Thankful they had decided to use the fitted sheet first. They tuck his feet and head into the folds before rolling him up. 

Danny lays out the top sheet next for Sam and Tucker to double-layer, and once the corpse is all bundled up, Sam ties it off with a stray extension cord. 

“Tucker, I need you to get rid of any and all footage of this. I’ll go with Danny to… do something… with this.”

A single sharp nod and Tucker is at the Fenton Computer, logging in despite never having been told the password. Sam takes hold of the body’s feet through its wrappings and drags it toward the door with Danny in tow.

She feels her heart skip a beat with every thump the head makes against the stairs. It’s the middle of the day; how are they going to hide an entire body?

They’ll wait. That’s how. 

“Officials have decided to make a public appeal, so here’s what we know:

“The remains belong to a fourteen-year-old boy; cause of death is possibly trauma to the head, but that is not confirmed; the bones on the right hand and arm are burned; the boy was wrapped in two layers of sheets; and time of death appears to have been two or three years ago.

“This is all authorities have released on the matter. More when the rest of the story comes out.”

William bows his head in mourning; there is absolutely no world in which that death was an accident – one doesn’t wrap a body in two layers of sheets, drag it to the park, and bury it under bushes unless something is horribly wrong.

Of Mice and Men, he hopes this is all just a misunderstanding. 

Sam only relaxes – and even then, not by much – after the bundle is safely stuffed under Danny’s bed. She and Tucker were already planning on sleeping over, so after everyone else is in bed, they can slip out.

A knock.

On Danny’s bedroom door.

“Guys?”

“Tucker! Dude, you scared us.”

“Sorry man! Is everything…?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah.”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“Danny? Sam? Tucker?”

Danny yelps. “Mom!” He bolts down the stairs, nearly running into her. “H-hi, Mom. How was your day?”

“Your father took me on the best date.” Maddie bats her eyes at Jack, who grins back in a way Danny does not want to decipher. “What did you three get up to?”

They answer in unison, “nothing.”

Jack hums in something probably close to a thought. “Well, okay. As long as you didn’t go into the lab. I wanna be there when I show off all our cool equipment.”

Chapter Text

“Professionals are currently working on identifying the child via dental records. They have looked through every missing persons case in Amity Park, and even some around, but so far, nothing has come up. If you, yes you, know anything that could help. Please come forward.”

William’s eyes sweep over his kids, jumping from one terrified face to another. This was a bad idea; these kids never should’ve had to shoulder this. On the other hand, however, he is nothing if not an educator, and he has always been of the firm belief that even teenagers should know what is happening around them. He sighs again. Fahrenheit 451, he’s certainly in it now. 

This is a good group of kids, and while they can be mean and even downright cruel, most of what they do are just classic teenager antics . He doesn’t think – or at least sincerely hopes – none of them are involved in this. 

He knew from the moment he decided to be an educator that he’d have to deal with difficult situations: Abuse, neglect, abandonment, post-traumatic stress disorder; he thought he had seen it all. This, however, is unprecedented. 

1984, William Lancer hates to admit it, but he is scared. 

None of them get a wink of sleep. 

They lie awake in Danny’s bed, lying not even a foot over Danny’s corpse.

After what may as well have been an eternity, midnight rolls around. 

Jazz is most certainly asleep – studying psychology, she knows how important it is; and Jack sleeps like a baby after the lights go out. Though, babies are kind of infamous for not sleeping, so maybe it’d be more accurate to say that Jack sleeps like he did that one time he’d accidentally left baby Danny in the car. 

Maddie is the one they need to worry about, but if she were awake, there would be a lot more banging and cussing coming from the lab, so seeing as they hadn’t heard any of that since Danny… died… they’re probably safe. 

Sam sits up first. “Psst… guys!”

Tucker snorts humorlessly. “We weren’t asleep.”

They creep out of bed and Danny opens the window. He shoves the screen out, cringing at the clatter it makes on the pavement. No explanation needed, his friends shove and shift until they can dump the bundle out of the window. 

At the thump it makes, they find it safe to close the window and slip back downstairs and out of the house, grabbing the very-obviously-body-shaped wrap as they set off for anywhere to hide it. 

“Danny, are you sure you don’t want to stay home?” Sam frowns. “You’d be able to cover if your parents find anything wrong.”

He shakes his head. “No. I need to come.”

Without any argument, they continue on, Danny carrying the shovels;Sam leading the way toward the park. She knows that on the outskirts, there is a small copse, packed tightly with trees and brambles and bushes and, most importantly, good dirt. She remembers playing in it just to spite her neat-freak parents when she was younger, but now, it’d actually come in handy. 

Guess she won’t be playing in it anymore.

A win for her parents under the worst circumstances. 

They walk on.

“That’s enough.” William stands up, not angry – just firm. “I will leave the speaker plugged in for the time being, but it’s high time we get back to actual schooling.”

Danny shoots up, eyes blown wide with panic. “Wait! Mister Lancer, what if something happens?”

“The authorities and professionals are on it, Mister Fenton.” His eyebrows furrow in thought. “However, if you wouldn’t mind seeing me after class.”

The poor boy winces as the rest of the room snickers, and William quickly backtracks. “You’re not in trouble; I would just like to speak with you on a personal matter.”

Sam and Tucker press closer to their friend. “Okay.” He seems relieved.

Maybe this is related to him. 

William gets back to teaching, but his usual heart and energy aren't really in it. He loves being an educator! Especially when it comes to literature. But of course he’s distracted; one of his students might be personally involved in a death, and the rest of them are without a doubt nervous. 

But, alas, a sense of normalcy must carry on.

And so he does.

Danny blinks out of existence the moment they arrive at the site, three shovels clattering to the ground. 

They ignore this.

If he came back from the dead, he’ll come back now too.

He has to.

Tucker and Sam each grab a shovel and start whacking away at the underbrush, clearing a Danny-sized patch of soft, fertile dirt. 

No one will find him here. He can keep on living his life. He doesn’t have to be a ghost.

They start digging. Being the middle of August – especially in Illinois – the air is hot and sticky, creating a ground with enough give to properly bury something.

Someone.

Tucker checks his watch. 

01:47.

Maybe four feet down, the hole looks deep enough. 

Danny blips back into sight as they pick up his body, this time in ghost form. He watches, head hanging in mourning as they lower him down as gently as possible. They try to keep the burial respectful, but only being two kids, they wind up sort of unceremoniously dropping his corpse into the hole. 

The cord had been tied with the knot facing the same way as Danny’s supine body.

They can’t see the knot.

Danny doesn’t even get the grace of facing the sky.

A worm squirms over the bundle, already looking for an entrance as Sam dumps the first clump of dirt back into the hole. 

Tucker follows suit, their breathing the only sounds in the night.

Only two people are breathing.

When the last heap of earth is pushed into the ground, The two start stomping, ensuring nothing would be able to dig him up. They pull brambles and branches over the disturbed dirt, and faintly smile as a small cluster of ghost flowers nudge their way up toward the moon. They’re clearly unnatural – no plant should be able to grow that fast – but it would appear that the name is quite fitting.

Sam wonders if ghost flowers grow over every ghost’s grave. 

That’s a nicer thought.

William’s face betrays a slight smile; he’s in his element, doing what he loves! Even if the kids aren’t exactly the best at time management. “Does anyone have any theories as to why George killed Lennie?”

“Lennie dies?!” Kwan buries his face in his hands. “Dude… spoilers…”

Sighing, William pinches the bridge of his nose. “May I take this teaching moment to remind everyone that the reading was assigned two weeks ago? It was two chapters.”

His students grumble, Sam and Wes looking particularly cocky. At least two of them did it. That’s better than the last assignment. 

The two raise their hands together, Sam just slightly faster. “Yes, Miss Manson?”

“I interpreted it as-”

“This is Lance Thunder, back in Amity Park Park.”

Any attention – which, was already very little – trained toward Sam is quickly torn away. 

“The dental records of the teen don’t match any of the missing children. Officials have started to consider the possibility that this boy is a ghost walking amongst us; they will continue to examine and research.”

Soft muttering fills the classroom, students nervously glancing around, trying to figure out if one of their own is dead.

“On a more certain note, I have received the clearance necessary to report on finer details of the state of the body:

“It was buried face-down, wrapped in sheets and tied with an extension cord. There is a logo on the cord, but that has yet to be identified. The bones on the right side are charred in a manner similar to that of lightning victims, and there is evidence of the back of the head being repeatedly bashed. There are fractures along the front of the skull as well, suggesting the boy fell from a height.

“The body is too decomposed to say anything else for sure, but when we have more, I’ll be back. Lance Thunder, signing off.”

“That’s horrible!” Paulina looks through watery eyes. “Do you think we know him?”

“Dude, he would’ve been in eighth grade with us!”

“Dale, you dumbass, he died two or three years ago; he would’ve been in our freshman class.”

“Who do you think-”

William tunes the students out, zeroing in on one specific trio. He sighs, taking out his walkie-talkie. Ever since the ghost attacks started, it had become mandatory for every staff member to have one. “Deborah Tetslaff, this is William Lancer. Come in.”

“Will? What happened?”

“Are your students following the news as well?”

“Yeah, but every minute they listen is two minutes of running laps.”

“Debbie you evil, evil woman.” William laughs softly. “You have Daniel Fenton next hour, right?”

“I do. I worry about the little man sometimes; he’s always hurt, y’know?”

“Unfortunately yes. Look, Debbie, I’m sorry to do this, but would you mind if I keep him after class? It would cut into his gym time, but I believe a serious home-life issue needs to be addressed.”

“Sure thing, just let him know he ain’t gettin’ out’a laps.”

“Of course.” Turning to his students, William raises his voice. “Attention, students!” For once, they listen. “If even one person is uncomfortable, the radio will be turned off.” He meets Danny’s eyes and offers a small smile. “I would like everyone to put their heads down; we are taking a vote.”

Danny, Sam, and Tucker exchange a look and a whisper before complying and To Kill a Mockingbird, he hopes they vote to turn it off. William isn’t blind; he knows they get bullied. But, if he doesn’t directly see it, he can’t do anything, and none of them had ever made a report. If he starts making wild claims without proof or support, Dash’s parents might pull their funding from the PTA. Not to mention the possible lawsuits. 

“Please raise your hand if you would like to turn the radio-”

“Speaker.”

“-off.”

Danny’s hand twitches, starting to lift, but in the end, not a single hand is up.

“Okay then.” He tries not to let his feelings show, but a rock settles in his stomach. “We will keep it on.”

The outcome of a vote would usually be met with cheers from the winning side. 

Now, there is nothing but a silent acceptance and fear. 

The walk home is lighter in every sense. Danny is back to his human form – disregarding his lack of breathing, heartbeat, blinking, and body temperature – and now that the whole situation has been dealt with, a weight has been lifted from all of them.

It takes some adjusting.

Just as every change does.

The lichtenberg scars never fade, but at least now they only glow in the dark; Danny still has some training to do in order to master his new abilities; and that entire fateful night doesn’t leave them. They will never forget what happened, but maybe they can work through it.

Somehow, Danny instinctively understands ghost culture. Sam likens it to how a baby giraffe can run from the moment it’s born, but he thinks that analogy’s kind of gross. 

He likes fighting the other ghosts! It’s fun – a good way to feed his Obsession, for other ghosts to indulge theirs, and just to get some pent-up energy out.

His first Deathday party is Ember’s. She catches him on a night fly, playfully tackling him down into the pavement below. 

“Hiya, dipstick!”

Danny grins and shoves back. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Deathday party, baby!” Ember laughs, hair flickering wildly above her. “Tomorrow. Be there, or be killed again!”

They goof off through the night, and she eventually flies off, leaving Danny to get ready for school. He knows what a Deathday is – every ghost does – but he’s never been to a party before. 

He assumes the party is the day before their actual deathday; it would be pretty difficult to get crunk whilst simultaneously reliving death. 

Unless that’s how they died.

That would be pretty traumatic.

He wonders what the party will be like. 

William sighs as the news comes back on. Not at the dead – never at the dead – but at the whole situation. He’s been teaching these kids since they were freshman, somehow being transferred to teach one class up every year. That boy could’ve been one of his students. 

“This is Lance Thunder, back with the fastest break in any case we have ever seen. The extension cord wrapped around the sheets and victim has been identified as one of many originating from FentonWorks TM . What this could mean is unknown to us, but may not elude the police. That’s right folks: Amity Park police officers have officially gotten involved in what is shaping up to be a murder case.

“This has been Lance Thunder with the latest update.” 

All eyes in the room turn toward Danny, who only grimaces and shrinks further into his clothing. 

Meanwhile, Sam and Tucker exchange a… (Nervous? Guilty? Remorseful?) a glance that by no means goes unnoticed by William. 

He doesn’t know what – if any – involvement they have in this, but Pride and Prejudice he hopes they’ll be alright. 

Danny’s Deathday party goes better than he could’ve imagined thanks to Ember, Kitty, and Johnny! Not to mention the lunch lady – who he’s now come to know as Miriam – and Boxy even bring their baby girl.

Sometimes, Danny feels closer with his ghost family than he does his real family. Oddly enough, Ember, Kitty, Johnny, and his cores resonated enough to bond. He didn’t even know they could do that, but apparently, their cores liked each other enough to make them actually ghost family. And, while Kitty and Johnny definitely don’t feel like parents, they’re his favorite aunt and uncle, rivaled only by Aunt Alicia. 

Being human and unable to breathe the ectoplasmic air, Sam and Tucker can’t make it, but he makes sure to tell them everything; how Desiree got wine-drunk and totally tried to flirt with Spectra, how he and Ember took Youngblood on a joyride and may or may not have crashed Johnny’s motorcycle, how Skulker utterly failed at teaching Sidney how to shoot a modern gun, how Technus wouldn’t stop commenting on loving Skulker’s “big guns” as he did so – everything!

The whole party is an absolute success, having thoroughly accomplished its goal of keeping his mind off of what is to come tomorrow.

Chapter Text

William breaks down the moment he locks the door of his home behind him. Great Expectations.  

He never wants to go through that again. 

His cats rub against his legs, doing little to ease the weight of the world that had settled on his chest with no intention of leaving. 

That could have been one of his students.

What is he thinking; he’s the vice principal – that was one of his students! Being buried so close, that boy probably went to Casper High. 

He was only a freshman. 

After taking an extremely long, extremely hot shower, William sinks into the couch in front of his television, a stack of essays ready to be graded on the table. Taking a sip of his tea – having decided that a real dinner wouldn’t sit well with him – he breaks out his “grading pen” and gets started. 

This assignment is from last unit: Harlan Ellison’s short stories. His students were to write a short essay connecting any of Ellison’s top hits to their own lives, explaining how what the characters went through is similar to their personal stories and how it has impacted them. 

He grades on six categories. Focus: Does the student properly answer the prompt? Title: Can he tell which story the student is referencing based on the title alone? Word count: Is the essay between seven hundred and one thousand words? Originality: Is the student sharing their own unique story and outlook? Grammar and punctuation: Self-explanatory. And, of course general content: Is the essay generally well-written?

Dash Baxter. Well, his paper is most certainly not in MLA format, but the title makes the essay quite obvious. 

“Repent, Dash Baxter,” Said the Teacher turns out to be a less-than-reviting piece, explaining how, despite how hard he tries, Dash Baxter just can’t be on time. While missing the point of Ellison’s story completely, he somehow manages to connect the Ticktockman to the teachers and family that push him to be responsible when he just wants to enjoy his high-school peak, brushing over his ADHD diagnosis in favor of focusing on his school life. 

Chatting with Death: a surprisingly well-written essay by Kwan, connecting Ellison’s Moses to his older brother and Anubis to a surgeon. He takes William through the tale of the time he and his brother were playing hockey – a game that ended with Kwan suffering a traumatic brain injury that nearly killed him. He offers genuinely heartfelt gratitude toward the surgeon that saved his life, saying that he doesn’t think of his brother as Ellison’s Moses, but merely as someone who caused an accident, contrasting the two very poetically. 

They Have No Voices, so I Must Scream: a rage-filled essay on activism and standing up for those who can’t by Samantha Manson. She connects the torture of the main characters to that of victims of rape, murder, and abuse, stating that no matter what the authorities do to silence her – a brilliant callback to AM – she will keep screaming and fighting for those unable to. 

The Whimpers in Plain Sight: Paulina’s title took him a moment, but her paper itself is extraordinarily clear in what it is referencing. The poor girl painfully drags William through her time working at a restaurant, sharing in excruciating detail about the time she got groped by a coworker in the middle of the establishment and no one did anything about it. She focuses on how even after she reported it, nothing was done. While William can see that she missed Ellison’s “whipped dogs” analogy, the essay is written very well, and very viscerally – linking her own tale to Ellison’s almost seamlessly. 

On a Downhill Slide: A clever pun but odd choice for Valerie, considering her hatred of ghosts. She walks him through her story of picking up multiple jobs and fighting when her father can’t. She discusses regret and love, explaining that, while she wants to make the best of her life, she worries that she’ll die regretting everything she didn’t get to do. Valerie doesn’t connect the ghosts’ motivations to herself so much as she desperately begs anyone listening to keep her away from that fate. She doesn’t want to leave behind unfinished business, but her responsibilities may not give her a choice in the matter. 

Paladin of a Stranger’s Fate: The essay William had expected Valerie to write, surprisingly being submitted by Dale. The young football player dives into his home life, discussing how he would love nothing more than to be an author, despite his parents’ insistence he be a lawyer. He connects Billy and Gasper’s friendship to the love he has for his parents, creating a chronological timeline for not only Ellison’s characters, but for his own life, furthering his thesis that while he respects his family, he isn’t sure he can pick up the responsibility Billy did.

How Interesting: A Laughingstock: A shockingly frustrated piece by Wes, expressing anger and betrayal at the fact that he became the boy who cried wolf. He connects the tiny man to his theories and the scientist to himself, almost ranting about the fact that the people that once listened to what he has to say now think him a nut; only good for spewing conspiracies. It is an… interesting piece, to say the least. But William knows how it feels to be disregarded.

“Repeat, Harley Quinn,” the Sad Ticktockmen: A bizarre title at first glance, that wound up making a lot of sense as Star recounts her time in school spent living with dyslexia. William would have to ask her about a 504 plan, but in the meantime, the essay is written – all things considered. He’d have to go back and regrade with this new information in mind. Star utilizes a unique style of writing, deliberately mixing up words and blending lines together in an attempt to portray her everyday life, and while he would usually dock points in the grammar category, the mess-ups are a stylistic choice and placed specifically to demonstrate the story she has to share. She narrates as Ellison did, putting herself in the position of Harlequin and authority figures in the place of the Ticktockman

Ghosts, and Chasing Fantasies: William tilts his head at the stray from the alcohol pun kids would usually jump at, but he can’t say he’s surprised; the Fenton parents are famous for their eccentric-at-best nature – it’s no wonder their son has something to say about their obsession. Danny speaks in the third person, following Ellison’s formatting as he speaks directly to William, just as the Danny in the story speaks to his psychiatrist. He talks about how he got in over his head with them, giving examples of how many times their “harmless” inventions have hurt him and his sister. That is… concerning. William will have to speak with Jasmine on the matter. Danny continues, drawing a connection between a seemingly innocent lamp and a seemingly innocent portal, furthering his essay by linking mindlessly rubbing a lamp to touching broken and unplugged machinery. The teen says that while no djinn came out of the portal, it – much like the lamp – was triggered by what should have been a harmless action, turning on, and shocking him. 

The essay ends abruptly after that, closing with a clumsy conclusion about how everyday decisions can alter the course of one’s life in an extremely negative way. 

Something about Danny’s essay feels… off. William doesn’t like that little factoid that his parents’ inventions have hurt him, and he definitely doesn’t like the fact that whatever happened with the portal had such a lasting impact, he continues to write about it. 

Come to think of it, the teen didn’t have such shaky hands and grades at the beginning of the year – in fact, Danny was shaping up to be one of William’s best students until Thanksgiving break! In the span of one week, he had gone from A’s to C’s, his handwriting had gotten incredibly sloppy, he went from having a steady hand to dropping every piece of glassware he touched, and transformed from a kid that genuinely enjoyed learning to someone jumpy, exhausted, and scared. 

William’s heart sinks to his gut. 

The kid had been acting weird during their little “conference” earlier too; twitchy, watching the door, itching to get out, avoidant of anything related to the news – he had been acting beyond weird.

He sighs, allowing his head to fall into his hands as one of his cats rubs against his chin, fur catching in his beard. William Lancer is scared, and he knows one thing for certain. 

Daniel Fenton is involved in something far bigger, and if he hasn’t gotten hurt already, William knows he will soon.

Chapter Text

Sam and Tucker are with him when it happens.

He feels the need to go somewhere private, so they do.

One minute until the exact time it happened.

Thirty seconds.

Ten.

Three.

Two.

One.

The lichtenberg scars light up, starting from his hand and making their way toward his heart and face. 

Oh Zone. He feels everything again. 

The electricity shooting through his body, rendering his heart rate irregular, forcing him into a seizure; everything.

This time, however, he doesn’t get the release of death.

Oh no. 

He is conscious through everything.

He shudders and spasms, limbs flailing out of control as he collapses to the ground, letting out what ghosts know as a death wail. Actual wail or not, whatever sound a ghost made as they died is a death wail.

And Danny’s is not quiet.

Just as he did exactly one year ago, he screams and screams and screams until his throat gives out.

The electricity doesn’t stop.  

It shocks and shocks and shocks until finally, it’s over. 

Danny slumps forward, unable to meet his friends’ tear-streaked faces. He falls to the ground and allows his eyes to flutter shut as they pull him into their laps, falling into a fitful sleep after dying for a second time. 

The next day isn’t any less eventful, the school full of kids and teachers alike, unable to speak of anything but the body. 

He hopes the other faculty members aren’t stirring up too much fear.

“William!”

Speak of the devil and he doth appear. “Good morning, Avery.”

Avery Falluca groans, rubbing his eyes under his glasses. “I would ask if you’ve heard the news, but I think it’d be weirder if you hadn’t.”

“You can say that again.” William sighs, unlocking his classroom. The bell doesn’t ring for another fifteen minutes, but he has some students that like to come and talk. “I’m worried for them; the boy could’ve been one of our charges.”

“Yes… that’s something I’ve been thinking about too.”

They lapse into silence, interrupted only by a few early students ambling in. Surprisingly, Daniel Fenton is one of them! Notorious for running late, but here he is ten minutes before the bell. 

Actually, the kid looks awful – hair messier, eyebags darker, posture worsened; the poor boy looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks. He sits in his chair with a thud, slumping over his desk.

“That’s my cue to rock on out.” Avery offers a sad half-smile. “Bye, Will. Have a good one.”

“Take care.”

The bell rings, the last of the students filter in, and class begins.

Danny wakes up dazed and confused. He wakes up in his friends’ laps, hidden in an abandoned warehouse, feeling like death warmed over. 

Then again, he supposes that description is painfully accurate.

He drags himself to a seated position, waking Sam and Tucker with the tightest hug he has ever given. “Thank you.”

“Of course man.”

Tucker grins and pokes Danny’s hair. “You look like a lost cat when you sleep – how could we resist?” 

“Hey!” He pokes back as he stands up stretching. “What time is it? And don’t say multiple days.”

“You got me. But it was Sam’s idea!”

“No it was not you little-”

“ANYWAY! It’s sometime at night. Not too late I think.” Tucker twists, reaching for his PDA. “‘S like, nine, dude; you’re good.

“You have time.”

The three arrive at the grave in record time with Danny’s improved fight speed, each with a quarter in hand.

The ghost sets them down a few feet in front of the copse and is the first to kneel. He pushes his coin vertically into the dirt, and watches as it sinks down and down toward his corpse. 

Sam and Tucker give him a moment to grieve before stepping forward and mimicking the action. He had never explicitly told them what to do, but it felt right. 

They mourn, but it will never feel the same. How does one mourn the person standing next to them? 

Danny can’t breathe; he doesn’t have a heartbeat; his skin is cold to the touch; his face is an unnatural pallor. By all accounts, Daniel Fenton is dead.

Daniel Fenton is dead, but here he is, crouched beside his own grave. 

He can walk, talk, laugh, cry; he can do anything any human can do.

But by all accounts, Daniel Fenton is dead. 

“Pick up those knees, Baxter! I thought you were a quarterback!” Debbie sips her coffee, whistle hanging, jostling against her neck in warning. “Manson! Good work.”

As for Fenton… Will is definitely right about him – the poor squirt looks like he can barely stand. Foley is, of course, being Foley. Kid can’t keep his hands off his tech. 

Foley can’t keep his hands off tech, which is why she’s surprised when Manson is the one to pull out a phone. Debbie isn’t the best with tech – her wife usually handles all of that mumbo jumbo – but that looks brand-spanking new. She’s used to the unique and personalized flip phones and such. Not what appears to be a touch screen. 

“Manson! Put that away!”

“Sorry, Miss Tetslaff!” The girl cringes, but doesn’t put it away. “The news came back on, and… you know-”

Oh boy. The sentence acting as an atomic bomb, the attention of every student in the class locks in on Sam.

“This is Lance Thunder with the breaking news that the body has been tampered with! Here at the scene are local forensic investigators, discussing getting the FBI involved-”

Soft mutters are quickly shushed out.

“-the victim was lying there with the words ‘stay away from my body’ written on the wall behind it. This led authorities to officially believe the theory that whoever this boy was is currently a ghost walking among us.

“In better news: professionals have ruled out most kids in Amity Park, bringing us that much closer to identifying the victim.”

“Well that’s stupid.” Sam puts her hands on her hips, though it looks preformative. “Didn’t the ghost just tell them to stay away?”

Danny’s eyes don’t leave the ground. “When has that ever stopped them?”

Chapter Text

“Ah, Danny, my boy!” Jack thumps him on the back, grinning ear to ear. “Did ya hear the news? We got another ghostie on our hands!”

“Uh, yeah, Dad.” Danny pulls away. “That’s great. Let me know if you catch him.”

“Don’t be silly, Danno! That’s when we catch him!”

Danny’s core jumps into his throat.

Someone is at his grave.

But… it doesn’t feel malicious. 

He makes it to his burial site in record time, just missing whoever or whatever had stopped by. And… oh, Zone.

Someone had left flowers at his grave. 

Barely concealed by the undergrowth, someone had put a small stone marker at the head and left a beautiful bouquet of white lilies in front of it.

Danny can’t help but cry.

He knows ghosts are beings of pure emotion, and he knows that emotion is increased exponentially in dealing with their deaths, but he didn’t know just how much this would affect him.

Someone had left flowers at his grave.

His core pulses in wonder and unbridled joy.

Maybe it will be okay.

They’re in Lancer’s class when it happens.

Tucker’s PDA – reconnected to the speaker – turns on.

Danny doesn’t like this.

“This is Lance Thunder- oh, who cares?!”

Oh no.

“The body has finally been identified!”

Sam and Tucker lock eyes, wide with unexplainable fear. Danny’s gaze stays trained on the floor.

“Through hard work and dental records, the victim of this heinous crime is without a doubt, Daniel Fenton.”

Not one pair of eyes isn’t trained on him.

Danny can feel them; they’re all watching- they found his corpse- they desecrated his corpse.

A classroom full of terror and all he can feel is rage.

“Mister Fen- Danny, would you mind coming into the hall with me?” Lancer’s face settles into something unreadable. “I want to make sure you’re safe.”

“No.” A hiss escapes through tight lips, sharpened by fangs. 

“Danny,” Sam moves to put a hand on his arm, but slips right through him.

“I can’t-” He stands. If he could breathe, he’d be hyperventilating. 

Danny looks out over his horrified classmates. Sam and Tucker are sad; Dash is… guilty; Paulina is paralyzed- he can’t keep looking.

He takes a step back, his friends moving closer. Blinking slowly, Lancer holds his hands up. “Danny, we aren’t going to do anything. You don’t have to worry.”

“I’m sorry.”

Eyes softening slightly as the feeling of invisibility washes over him, Danny flies for his life, going intangible to slip through the wall.

He ignores the screams that follow hot on his tail.

They desecrated his gravesite.

They desecrated his corpse.

And he will never let that go.

The days following are… difficult. 

Jack and Maddie don’t exactly cope well, and they spend the days searching for the ghost they say is pretending to be their son. With Danny missing, their investigations only get more frantic, and more violent.

Jazz doesn’t change much. She has an air of a sad resignation about her, but inevitably has to focus her efforts on college preparation. Maybe she knew.

Phantom is furious. He still hangs around and protects the town, but some people seem to be on the receiving end of excessive property damage. He seems to be in the rage stage of mourning. He definitely knew about Danny; there isn’t a ghost in Amity Phantom doesn’t know about.

Sam and Tucker handle it a lot better than anyone thought. Now, they don’t handle it well. Who could? But, they talk with Phantom and they talk with Jazz, and they keep their grades up. Actually, Sam keeps their grades up, but for having been Danny’s best friends, they take the news extremely gracefully.

The other ghosts are furious as well; Amity Park has never seen more damage through rage since Pariah Dark. News reporters, detectives, police officers, forensic experts, and morticians have never been more haunted. 

William Lancer is devastated to say the least. How could he have missed one of his student’s deaths? Poor Danny died freshman year – he was in William’s English IX class! He had Danny as a student for three years and never noticed. He’d never had a kid die under his nose before until now. 

Maddie and Jack face a lot of scrutiny in the aftermath. Their entire property is thoroughly searched with some items getting seized, and their lab is shut down. Of course charges are pressed for child neglect. The state tries to push for abuse, but even with the iron maiden in the basement, there just isn’t enough evidence of it or anything else having been used.  

Jazz rents an apartment and moves in somewhere close to college early to escape the impending press. 

Sam and Tucker, despite being seventeen and sixteen respectively, might be tried as adults for involuntary manslaughter. Apparently, the footage from that day couldn’t be deleted without the system notifying the Fentons, but Tucker has found a loophole allowing him to transfer the feed to a tape. The teen had seemingly tossed it in with some other lab junk, under the impression it would be thrown away. 

The Fentons had never been known for their cleanliness. 

It is, however, revealed that the two were only thirteen at the time, significantly lessening the possible charges. 

And Danny. 

Danny remains hidden, only revealing himself to Jazz, Tucker, and Sam. Phantom remains – he can’t just leave his haunt. 

The town holds a funeral for the boy they never noticed had died. They mourn the unknown loss of a child, and the unspoken death of a family. 

The casket is open – a decision made by Alicia Fenton, who had been declared Jazz and Danny’s official guardian until Jack and Madeleine’s court case would come to a close. Alicia wanted everyone to see what reckless ghost hunting had done to her nephew. She wanted everyone to know what happens when teenagers aren’t watched.

She doesn’t blame Sam and Tucker; she understands that they were just kids messing with something they should have feared. She understands they should have been taught and told just how dangerous the lab was.

But they weren’t.

And while she loves her sister and her brother-in-law, Alicia doesn’t know how to forgive them yet. 

The funeral is held on a beautiful day. Alicia refuses to press charges against the kids, so with only a fine, Sam and Tucker are in attendance. And, regardless of the fact few of them actually knew him, nearly all of Casper High shows up to mourn Daniel Fenton. 

Phantom is there as well, unusually stoic and silent. 

He barely makes eye contact, let alone speaks with anyone, but when the casket is closed and lowered, Phantom smiles.