Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

To be fair on DANNY it was getting really boring around Amity Park, what with the GIW not being a threat anymore with them being dissolved and the Anti-ecto acts being revoked. The ghosts now being able to schedule fights and not causing havoc amongst the living, the duties of being high king are taken care of by Clockwork till he's of-age, and his parents accepted him for being Phantom they also changed their view of ghosts.

So all was pretty calm, not in a foreboding or bad way, but in a peaceful way, which is … boring in Danny’s opinion, nothing happens anymore and all his friends have new hobbies that they enjoy, and don’t get him wrong, he did try to find something to do just … nothing is interesting to him.

Sam is always tending to her plants in some way, while Tucker is making code for new games or hacking into weird places for fun. Ellie is traveling the world so he doesn’t see her much outside the group get-togethers, and Jazz is at college so he can’t really hang out with her, (also he doesn't want to bother her while she’s focusing on her schooling).

So one day while he’s annoying Sam as she tends to her children - as he and Tucker have taken to calling her plants - she says, “Have you tried going into the ocean?”

“—and O-Class stars are some of the hottest types of stars, their surface being around 30,000 kelvin and som- huh? What about going into the ocean?” I say after being unceremoniously interrupted from my rant about some of the different types of stars and their temperature.

“I mean, have you tried exploring the ocean? You are able to change how your ghost form looks right?” Sam says as she turns to look at me while leaning on the bench she was using to re-pot some of her smaller plants.

“Um… no I don't think I have, but why would I explore the ocean? And yeah I can change how I look as a ghost,” I say, a bit confused about where this conversation is going.

“You need a hobby. You're constantly hovering around either me or Tucker just talking about different star facts, not that we don’t like them. But, and no offence, it gets annoying at times when we’re trying to concentrate, so I was wondering if you thought of exploring the ocean as a hobby,” Sam explains, trying to be nice about it while also getting straight to the point.

“Yeah, I know I need a hobby, so I don’t annoy you guys while also keeping myself busy and sane. But what would I do in the ocean to keep myself entertained?” I state, hesitant of the possibility that the ocean will have nothing fun to offer.

“You could always go treasure hunting, there's a lot of shipwrecks on the ocean floor, and a lot of caves that things could end up being. Oh and if you don’t like exploring the ocean then there's always space you can explore,” Sam says, that last part muttered under her breath as she goes back to re-poting her plants

“I guess it wouldn't hurt to try and there's always other options if I end up not liking it… Sure why not, bye Sam. imma fly to the ocean now,” I say as I start to leave Sam’s greenhouse.

“Ok have fun looking through shipwrecks for random stuff.” Sam says only half paying attention to him.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — —
As Danny left Sam's greenhouse he went ghost to start his flight to the atlantic ocean, while on the way there he began to think about what to make himself look like while he explored underwater and in any shipwrecks he finds, when he reaches the atlantic ocean not even 17 minutes later having flown at around 130km an hour from Amity.

Once he was further out into the ocean, he went into the water and started morphing his body to fit the environment, he made himself bigger, about as big as a whale shark, he traded his legs for a tail, the tail was about 1 metre longer than his legs, with a pair of large pectoral fins, as well as a dorsal fin.

The fluke, dorsal fin and pectoral fins all have a sort of leopard print with stripes appearing around the base and the fluke, the tail is covered in black and white scales, the base colour of the scales is black with the markings being white, these scales also extend up Danny's stomach ending just under his belly button. The scales continue to extend up his back following his spine for a little ending around the middle of it, some scales sit on his neck marking where his gills were located, there were some scales covering his arms from about his mid forearm down ending in sharp claws.

There are some scales just under his eyes going to his temples, and his eyes are a seafoam green, his hair a pearl white that matches the white scales across his body, his hair moves uncontrollably in the water, and any skin that isn’t covered in scales is an olive tone with freckles in the shape of constellations decorated all visible skin and some lichtenberg figures that started on his left hand going up his arm, climbing his cheek a little stopping about halfway up, then heading down from his shoulder connecting in the center of his chest.

After Danny is done morphing his appearance, he takes a moment to get used to the new muscles and sensations, he experimentally swims forward, happy with the way things have turned out.
He looks around at his surroundings and begins to search for some shipwrecks to scavenge.

“If I can't find anything, I’ll just play with the fishes for now,” Danny murmurs to himself as he takes off south of where he was, in hopes of finding some shipwrecks to look through.

Chapter Text

As Danny swam through the Atlantic ocean making his way south to the colder region where ships were more likely to sink, the Bermuda Triangle, but Danny’s not dumb enough to go too close to the unpredictable waters, no matter how curious he is.

“If I was a shipwreck, where would I be?” Danny murmurs in compilation to himself.

He swims further south, close enough to the sea floor that it is visible along with all the flora the ocean possesses in the area, among the reefs housing schools of fish and rocks that laid barren and empty, he swims along, hoping that there's a rogue ship.

On one of Danny’s swims, past some large rocks and a small coral reef with a small amount of bones at the base, he spots a shiver of lemon sharks, currently bored and with nothing else to occupy his attention at the moment. So, he makes his way over to them with the intent to play.

So as to not scare them away he makes himself known, he was about 10 meters away from the lemon sharks when they noticed him, they swim closer to him and when they got within touching distance he ran a hand down the back of the closest one gently grazing the sharks dorsal fin, as a couple of the other sharks get close enough to nudge his back and sides.

“Aw, we’re being playful now are we? I mean, I’m not opposed to hanging out," Danny says to the lemon sharks that were playfully nudging his body.

Danny heads over to the base of the reef and grabs one of the bones sitting there, turning back to the shiver he tries to throw the bone as they get closer, making it temporarily intangible so it doesn't get stuck in the water and barely move. The bone moved a good distance away before it became tangible again and the water became a hindrance, but once it was thrown the lemon sharks chased after it, most of them getting close to it before the smallest of the shiver slipped through and snatched it, quickly turning around and racing back to Danny.

“Well, you're sneaky aren't you? Mmm I think imma call you Rascal, how does that sound?” Danny thinks aloud as he takes the bone from the now named Rascal to throw it again.

This game of fetch with the lemon sharks goes on for a few minutes, with Rascal being the shark that gets the bone the most. As time moves on some of the sharks stick close to Danny, getting pats as they wait for the rest of the shiver to be done playing with the bone, Rascal and the other sharks still playing fetch with the bone return Danny.

“Imma have to go now, I was trying to find a shipwreck but got distracted by playing with you guys, sorry we have to stop playing for now but i promise I’ll come and play with you all whenever possible,” Danny says this as he takes the bone from Rascal and placing it back where he grabbed it, he now moves on to swim in the direction he was before in the search of some shipwrecks, giving his goodbyes to the friendly shiver.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — —
As Danny continued his trek through the ocean after leaving the shiver behind, on his search he saw different schools of fish and clusters of flora, all getting less and less frequent, the little clusters of coral becoming sparse and quiet. After what felt like hours of searching the ocean floor, a shipwreck appeared.

“Finally! Found A shipwreck,” Danny says as he looks around to make sure there's nothing living in or nearby the wreck that would become upset at him if he were to look through the ship.

The shipwreck was surrounded by rocks of all sizes. It looked to be an old ship design having places for oars and was made of wood, the masts were snapped in half all at different angles and the bird's nest was now in contact with the floor and stones around it. Any sails it once had have long since decayed with only slivers of fabric remaining, the ropes that had once helped the ships crew now hung across what remind of the three masts mimicking a spider web, the hull of the ship had a huge hole in it, completely destroying the front, whether the damage was gained before or after the ship sank was up for debate, and the majority of the ship was covered by algae and barnacles that leaked onto the rocks that surrounded it.

“What happened to you to end up looking like this? And how long have you been here?” Danny whispers to himself in compilation.

The area the ship was in was deserted, no reefs of any type, no schools of fishes, no pod of whales, nothing. Even the water felt stale. This was a place no flora or fauna came to often, the water itself was cold, dark and quite nothing moved except for the currents over head, the quiet that surrounded Danny was a calm quiet, one that could and would lull anyone to sleep no matter when they last slept or how tired they were, it was peaceful in a way that land can’t quite achieve even in the most untouched places.

As Danny finishes his look around the wrecked ship he heads to the deck, trying to find anything interesting. All that lays on the deck is snapped ropes, broken floor boards, rusted weapons and armor, along with a few maybe five or seven skeletons littering about, one is sitting up against the mainmast, three of them were scattered around the deck in different positions, and two of them were where the oars sat snapped and splintered most likely from the collision with the rocks, they all had pieces of metal positioned around their bodies, arm, shoulder and shin guards, chest plates, and a helmet. The weapons were always near a corpse with the one at the main mast still holding his spear.

“I figured any shipwrecks I find would feel creepy, but I didn't think it would feel this creepy,” Danny murmurs this into the open ocean around him while looking at the deck around him.

Danny shivered as he made himself smaller — about as small as the lemon sharks he encountered previously — and began to head below deck to see what was there, he headed to the door that would take him below deck and entered. Once he is down he can clearly see the giant hole in the hull, turning away from it he looks around spotting some more skeletons and scattered weapons, deciding that the weapons were the most interesting thing on the ship he begins to collect them carefully, as to not cut himself and require a tetanus shot, and he takes them above deck creating a pile of the one he wants.

This goes on for a little while as he has to make many trips, to keep the blades from cutting him, after gathering all the weapons he wants he turns his attention to the captions quarters.

Once Danny’s in the captain's room he looks around for more for anything of interest, as he looks around he notes the amount of deteriorated scrolls, maps and the rusted weapons still in their racks. There's a desk with a small pile of scrolls with about three of them on the floor, one of the maps still on the wall is torn down the middle and any image once on it has faded beyond anything recognizable, sitting next the the desk is a rusted chest with algae and barnacles keeping it welded shut.

Heading over to the weapons rack, Danny collects them and takes them back to his pile. After all of them were collected, he grabbed one of the daggers he found and returned to the chest to try and remove the barnacles to see what's inside and if it’s worth keeping. Putting the dagger to the base of one of the barnacles, he tried to cut it off, when that didn’t work as well as he had planned, he moved on trying to pry it off the opening.

When that worked, he moved onto the other barnacles covering the opening on the chest and continued removing them, letting them fall to the floor one after the other. After about ten minutes of removing the barnacles, the chest was able to be opened.

“Lets see what’s inside you,” Danny says as he opens the chest to reveal a small pile of coins and different gems, along with some more fancy daggers.

Danny places the dagger he was using inside the chest and begins to move it to the pile of weapons out on the deck, after the chest is brought out he begins putting all the small weapons into the chest for easier movement. Anything that didn’t fit into the chest, like spears and long swords, were wrapped in some of the rope that was still usable and any sharp bits were wrapped in any cloth that remained, then they were tied to the side of the now closed chest. Danny backed up and made himself the size of a whale shark again before he returned to his new collection of weapons and picked them up.

“Now, what to do with these weapons and jewels I've found. Mmm…maybe I could hide them in a cave somewhere? That should work, right?” Danny contemplates this as he swims away from the shipwreck with his new collection of old weapons, now in his possession.

Chapter Text

On his way back to land, Danny found a cave not too far off Florida's east coast that was perfect to hide the stuff he found. So,he headed into the cave and placed the chest, along with the wrapped up spears and long swords, where they wouldn't be disturbed by any person or any animal.

After making sure that he could find the cave again by imbuing one of the ropes – holding the big weapons to the chest – with ectoplasm, he turned and left the cave and moved back deeper into the ocean.

Once he was far enough away from any prying eyes that might see him, he left the water and turned back into his normal ghost form, still with his white hair the moved even without a breeze, his olive tone skin with freckles that look like constellations and the lichtenberg figures that ran up his neck, and his eyes changed back to their neon green. The rest of his body was covered in his signature black hazmat suit with white gloves, boots and belt.

Once he was fully out of the water and back to his original look, he began heading home to collect his things for the sleepover he, Sam and Tucker had planned.

It took Danny a little longer to get home than it did to get to the ocean because of the fact he was tired - it took him a little over 19 minutes to get back home - once home he quickly headed up to his room to grab his duffle bag of supplies and left turning off any lights and locking the front door. His parents were at a paranormal convention in Pennsylvania for the next two weeks and Jazz was at college till the spring, so no-one would be home. After making sure the door was locked he turned and left flying over to Sam’s place for their sleepover.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — —
It didn’t take long for Danny to arrive at Sam’s – only taking 30 or so seconds – and when he stopped at the front door, he changed back to being alive, his hair changed from white to black, his skin became pale still with his freckles and lichtenberg figures where they were, his eyes were now a sky blue, he was wearing loosely fitted jeans with a white and red top and a black jacket. His bag was hanging off one shoulder as he reached up and pressed the doorbell of the Manson household.

It did not take long for somebody to answer, and that person just so happened to be Sam.

“Took you long enough, you’re late dude,” Sam says as she hugs Danny before letting him in.

“Huh, what time is it?” Danny asks.

“It’s 6:35pm, you spent nearly 4 hours out at sea, you dork,” Sam states teasingly.

“Wow, didn’t realise I was there that long, couldn’t exactly check my phone while under water though,” Danny notes to Sam as they make their way up to her room where Tucker’s most likely waiting for them.

Once they enter Sam’s room, they see Tucker sprawled across Sam’s bed with his PDA held in the air as he’s playing with some type of code – most likely hacking into the government just because he can – clearly not paying attention to his surroundings otherwise he would have noticed him and Sam enter.

While Danny goes to place his bag over by Sam's desk where Tucker’s bag is currently sitting, Sam gets closer to Tucker, and once she’s standing close to him and within arms length of the PDA, she snatches it out of his unsuspecting hands.

“HAY! Give me my baby back Sam, what was that for?” Tucker huffed as he grabbed his PDA back, hugging it to his chest and sitting back down on Sam’s bed.

“Well maybe you should pay more attention to your surroundings, cause I know I was within your line of sight, and either way Danny’s here now so get up,” Sam stated, pointing over at Danny.

“Oh sup dude. By the way, what were you doing all day? I was trying to find you before,” questioned Tucker as he got off the bed and made his way over to the door.

“I was looking for shipwrecks to look through to see if they had anything cool left, oh and I met a group of lemon sharks I played fetch with them for awhile too,” Danny answered then added, “why were you looking for me though? Did you need something?” As they all walked out of the room and started heading down to the theater on the first floor.

“I wanted to know if you wanted to play doomed with me before, it doesn't matter anymore,” Tucker clarified as they reached the doors to the theater room.

“All right boys, what do you want to watch, because personally im feeling like a horror movie right now, what about you two?” inquired Sam as she turned on the big screen and began sifting through the horror movies currently out.

“I don’t mind a horror show,” Tucker replied, “what about you Danny?” Tucker made his way over to a beanbag.

“Sure, I don't see why not, what did you have in mind Sam?” wondered Danny as he also made his way over to one of the empty seats.

“I was thinking about watching the conjuring, what do you think?” Sam asks as she moves over to a seat with the remote in hand.

“Thats fine with me, I haven't seen it so why not,” answered Danny.

“Yeah that’s good for me,” Tucker replied, still looking at the screen of his PDA.

With everyone on the same page Sam begins the movie and gets comfortable, as the shows about halfway through Danny yawns and looks around the room, Tucker is fast asleep, head laid back and PDA screen down on his chest, while Sam is still watching the movie with her full attention. After looking around, Danny faces the screen again but this time with half-lidded eyes, not even 15 minutes later Danny’s fast asleep with the movie still playing, and in the company of his closest friends.