Chapter Text
Why can’t someone just help me out?
And teach me how to thrive,
help me be more than alive.
“C’mon! C’mon!” Phantom flew towards his house, hoping he could get a few moments of sleep but knowing based on how light the sky looked he was likely screwed.
This was confirmed when Phantom heard his alarm going off next to his bedside table as he dropped into bed after flying intangibly through his window. Sighing as he detransformed, Danny clicked the button to turn the alarm off and silently cursed the Box Ghost for keeping him up all night.
“If I have to chase you all the way to the docks again, I’m leaving you in the thermos for two weeks,” Danny whispered to the Fenton Thermos still grasped tightly in his hand. He rattled it a few times for good measure before sticking it in timeout on his shelf.
He whipped around when his dad slammed his door open. Jack Fenton was clad in his usual bright orange jumpsuit and spoke with a booming voice. “Good morning, Danno!”
“Morning, Dad,” Danny said, not matching his dad’s enthusiasm at all.
“Your mom left for the ghost hunting conference last night so I’m making breakfast! Want some Fenton Toast?”
Danny withheld a groan. “No thanks, I can just have cereal.”
“Okay!” Jack turned and ran down the stairs. Danny followed sluggishly behind him.
In the kitchen, Jazz sat at her usual chair with a piece of Fenton Toast and coffee in front of her as she read her advanced psychology textbook. “Morning, Danny,” she said, not looking up from her book.
“Morning.” Danny grabbed his cereal, poured milk, and plopped into his chair. In front of him on the table was a new invention his dad was working on. He eyed it wearily as he started eating his breakfast.
“Look Danny-boy! This is the Fenton Ghost Freezer! It’ll stop a ghost in seconds at the push of a button!” Jack held up the device and Danny cringed as his dad pushed the button.
The device exploded in his dad’s hands, covering his jumpsuit in greenish-blue goo and ice crystals.
“Welp, time to change into a new jumpsuit!” Jack carelessly dropped the remains of the device on the kitchen table and bounded up the stairs, leaving a trail of goo and white flakes behind him.
“I wish he would just wear normal clothes instead sometimes. What’s wrong with wearing pants instead of a jumpsuit once in a while?” Danny complained as he watched his dad leave the room.
“You’re really more concerned about the jumpsuit than the invention that could potentially harm you?” Jazz gave Danny a questioning look and put down her book.
“Yes Jazz, I can dodge the gun but not the embarrassment.”
Jazz rolled her eyes and got up from the table. “Whatever you say.” She put away her dishes and grabbed her backpack. “I’m driving to school. You’re gonna take the usual route, right?”
Jazz made a very unnecessarily exaggerated wink and Danny knew she was assuming he was going to fly.
“Yup,” Danny rolled his eyes, “cya!”
“Okay, be careful! Bye!” Jazz waved as she left. Danny waved back and continued eating his cereal.
A few minutes later, Jack arrived in the kitchen wearing a clean new jumpsuit the same bright color as before. “Want a ride to school?”
Danny cringed at the thought of his dad driving him to school in the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle. “No thanks. I’ll take the bus or walk.”
“Well, you better get going soon if you don’t wanna be late!”
Danny stood up. “Alright.” He slung his purple backpack over his shoulder and headed towards the door. “Bye Dad!”
“Bye, son!”
Danny slammed the front door shut, headed to a nearby alley, and transformed into Phantom. He flew to school, glad that he didn’t actually have to worry about choosing between taking the bus and walking. Flying was the obvious choice.
Usually flying helped clear Phantom’s head, but getting almost no sleep and having to go to school made his flight that morning unpleasant. He kept thinking about how he wanted his life to be easier.
“Maybe if I was cool at school I would at least get some slack. Being a D-Lister is the worst.” He sighed. “Even though I’m the hero as Phantom it just stinks to have to deal with being freaky Fenton the rest of the time.”
He neared the school and dropped to a hidden spot behind a tree and detransformed.
“I don’t even want to be special,” he muttered to himself as he walked to the school’s entrance. “But I guess I kind of am since I’m more than alive. Or half-alive. Or whatever.”
Ugh, Danny’s weird half life was just so complicated.
“And so Ashley said Gregor told Dash ‘I’ll only kiss you if you beat me at table tennis’ and then Gregor lost the game deliberately!” Paulina waved her hands emphatically to make her point as she relayed the story to her best friend, Star. The two most popular girls in school stood in front of their lockers gossiping before classes like they did every day.
“Dash and Gregor are both bi? I didn’t know that,” Star said.
“Star, that’s not the point!”
“Oh right, sorry Paulina.” Star winced. Dash had just broken up with Paulina three days ago and Paulina was definitely not over it yet.
Ashley, who Star hadn’t noticed had been listening this whole time behind them, spoke up, “And then Gregor was all like-”
“I’m telling the story, Ashley!” Paulina shouted as she slammed her locker shut. “Ugh, I hate him so much.” Paulina glared at Dash, who had just arrived at his locker nearby.
Danny walked through the hallway, wishing he had remembered to turn invisible before he started passing by the A-Lister’s lockers. Since he was nervous about a confrontation, his foot became intangible for a second and he tripped into Kwan, the large football player who happened to be right next to him.
“Don’t touch me, freak!”
“Sorry! Um, I didn’t mean to-” Danny stammered.
Kwan grabbed Danny and turned him around. Danny couldn’t see him, but he heard Kwan uncap a marker and write something on his backpack.
“Don’t wash this off,” Kwan said as he pushed Danny. He stumbled and hit his face against the wall.
Done with bullying, Kwan turned to Dash, who was getting a notebook out of his locker.
“Dash, my man! Yo, what’s the story with Gregor?” Kwan smirked at his friend.
“Oh, I shouldn’t say,” Dash grinned, “but it’s a good thing I’m amazing at ping pong.”
Eyes focused on the ground, Danny got away from the A-Lister’s lockers as fast as he could without flying. Once he was out of view he stopped to take a deep breath. When he looked up, he saw a poster that hadn’t been there the day before. He took a few steps closer to get a better look at it.
The poster was bright green. In bold letters, it said: “Sign up for Ghost Hunting Club and get extra credit!” There was a list at the bottom for people to write their names, but no one had signed up for the club yet.
“Yeah, no thanks.” Danny turned away from the poster. He didn’t need to give anyone more of an excuse to call him a freak.
He turned a corner and stopped in his tracks. She was there, just a few feet away.
“Valerie,” Danny whispered.
The former A-Lister was wearing her usual yellow shirt and orange skirt. Her brown skin looked as perfect as ever.
“Valerie.” Danny couldn’t stop staring at her. Even though she broke up with him just a few weeks ago, his heart still stuttered every time he saw her. Even though he knew Technus had orchestrated the perfect dates he had gone on with her, he couldn’t stop himself from daydreaming about more dates they could do together like getting ice cream at Elmer’s Pharmacy or maybe spending a day at Floody Waters.
Just picturing Valerie in a swimsuit made his brain short-circuit for a minute. He felt his cheeks heating up so he tried to distract himself by remembering what Spectra looked like as a snot monster, which was pretty effective.
Danny blinked and looked around. Valerie still hadn’t noticed him, so he took a few more steps in her direction.
“Valerie Gray…” He swooned. He couldn’t help himself, even though he knew she still hated his ghost half. She was just so beautiful with her long wavy hair and her nice hazel eyes…
“Valerie.” He was just a foot away from her now.
“Oh, hey Danny. Did you say something?” Valerie finally noticed him. He jumped in panic.
“I- Uh- Hey…”
“Uh, I think someone wrote ‘BOYF’ on your backpack.” Valerie pointed and Danny saw that was what Kwan had written. The bold black letters were pretty hard to miss, but he didn’t have time to think about his backpack with Valerie standing right there.
He couldn’t really think about anything.
“Um... gotta go, bye!” Danny ran away so fast he nearly fell on his face. He probably would have if he wasn’t basically immune to gravity’s effects most of the time.
Valerie stared after him in confusion.
“Ugh, nice going, Fenton.” Danny facepalmed after he got out of Valerie’s sight. “Real smooth.”
As he started trudging toward his first class, he shook his head. There was no point in dwelling on it. He really needed to accept that he’d never be good at flirting. He was a mess. But maybe if he wrote down his feelings he’d have a better shot?
Yeah, maybe a romantic letter would work.
Instead of paying attention to Mr. Falluca’s lecture on the flora and fauna of the tundra biome, Danny started writing about his feelings for Valerie.
After class, he had made some progress on the letter but he wasn’t super happy with it. He was reading it over again when Paulina snuck behind him and grabbed the paper out of his hands.
“Is this a love letter for your boyfriend?” Paulina held the letter out of his reach. Danny wanted to fly and turn intangible to grab it out of her hands but he held himself back.
“No, it’s for a girl. I mean I am pan, but- I- um...” Danny studied his shoes.
“Aw look, the freak is blushing,” Star teased. “Who’s the letter for then?”
“Please give it back,” Danny murmured, still avoiding eye contact.
“Yeah, who’s freaky Fenton got a crush on now?” Paulina leveled a cruel grin at him.
The bell rang, distracting the girls long enough for Danny to grab the paper back using a little bit of his enhanced speed.
“Gotta go!” Danny scrambled out of the room and into the nearest bathroom.
Well, that was mortifying. He read over the letter again and groaned. “I can’t do this.”
He lit a ball of ectoplasmic energy in his hands and the letter crumbled to dust. Sighing, he exited the bathroom and headed to the cafeteria.
Right as Danny was about to enter the cafeteria, he spotted his best friend’s signature red beret.
“Tucker!”
Tucker turned and beamed at Danny. “Danny! Hey man!”
Danny rushed over and hugged his friend. Ever since Tucker stopped using Foley, by Tucker Foley Danny had noticed that he smelled... Really nice. He might have hung on to the hug a bit too long, but he was having a bad day and his friend’s embrace was really comforting, okay?
After a few more seconds he finally did let go, feeling his cheeks blushing a little. Hopefully, Tucker didn’t notice. Tucker was still grinning.
“Seems like you’re having a good day,” Danny said. “Listening to Dumpty Humpty again?”
“Yeah, dude! I’m listening to their latest album and it’s amazing.” Tucker tapped his headphones for emphasis. “Also, I just got a new PDA in the mail today and she’s gorgeous!”
“That’s great.” Danny and Tucker walked to their usual lunch table where Sam was already sitting and eating a salad.
“Anyways, how was class?” Tucker asked Danny as they both sat down.
“Yeah, you look like ass. What’s wrong?” Sam added.
Danny sighed. There was a lot going wrong today. He took off his backpack and set it on the table.
“What does ‘BOYF’ mean?”
Tucker took off his backpack and set it next to Danny’s on the table. His had “RIENDS” written on it in black marker.
“Oh, it says ‘BOYFRIENDS,’” Tucker said. Tucker and Danny both blushed and looked away from each other. Sam facepalmed, but neither of them noticed.
“Ancients, just because I’m pan and you’re bi it doesn’t mean we’re automatically dating, ugh,” Danny said. He and Tucker were just friends! Obviously! They were really close friends since they had known each other forever. It was normal to think about kissing your best friend sometimes.
“Yeah, they just don’t get that we’re just friends,” Tucker agreed.
The three sat in silence for a bit as they ate their lunches.
“Anyways, I wrote a love letter to Valerie during class today,” Danny said.
“Oh, how did that go?” Sam looked up from her salad.
“I, uh, incinerated it.” Danny cringed. “It wasn’t good.”
Tucker patted Danny’s shoulder. “It’s okay, I saw on Discovery that humanity has stopped evolving!”
“Would being half-ghost count as an evolution? Like in Pokemon?” Sam asked.
Danny contemplated this. “I don’t think so. Being half-dead doesn’t really count as progress.”
“Forget about that!” Tucker said. “Evolution is survival of the fittest, so now we don’t have to be strong to survive.” He elbowed Danny with a wide grin on his face. “That means there’s never been a better time in history to be a loser! So own it!”
Danny got what Tucker was saying, but he wasn’t really feeling it. He didn’t want to be a loser, because being one really sucked most of the time.
“Why try to be cool when you could be-”
Something caught Danny’s eye. His jaw dropped.
“Signing up for Ghost Hunting Club!” He felt like he should have expected this but he was still surprised. It was her!
“I was going to say getting stoned in my basement but-” Tucker said, slightly confused by Danny’s interruption.
“No, I mean look who’s signing up for the ghost hunting club!” Danny pointed and both his friends turned to look.
“Valerie? She is a ghost hunter, so that makes sense,” Sam said.
“You’re not going to-” Tucker started, but Danny didn’t hear the rest. He was already stepping away from their table. Without a conscious thought, he was already halfway to the sign up sheet.
Danny suddenly didn’t care what people were going to say. Valerie had signed up for the ghost hunting club, so he had to sign up too.
He grabbed the pen hanging next to the poster and wrote his name on the sheet.
“Freak!” Several A-Listers nearby taunted him. They were laughing at him, just like he knew they would when he saw the sign up sheet earlier. He tried to hide his embarrassment and walked away without saying a word.
“Are those bullies bothering you again, pal?” A familiar voice popped up next to him as he walked down the hall. Danny looked up and saw a sympathetic grayscale face as his ghost sense went off.
“Nah, it’s fine Sidney. Just the usual,” Danny shrugged, feeling resigned. Sidney Poindexter had become one of his ghostly allies at school ever since they got past their initial misunderstandings. Despite the fact that the ghost came from such a different era, they had a lot in common. “I know I’ll never be the cool guy, but it would be nice if someone could help me out, you know?”
Sidney nodded. “I know how that feels.”
The bell rang and students started to crowd the hallway. Sidney waved and disappeared and Danny was left alone again. The rest of the school day passed by and Danny barely paid attention.
Finally, the last bell of the day rang and Danny met Tucker and Sam by the classroom where the first Ghost Hunting Club meeting was going to be held.
“You don’t have to do this,” Sam said as she peeked through the window on the classroom door. It didn’t seem like anyone had arrived yet.
“Yeah, but we’ll mock you forever if you don’t,” Tucker said, patting Danny on the back. “Good luck, dude.”
“Thanks, guys,” Danny said. “Cya later.”
“Bye!” Tucker and Sam both waved and walked away, leaving Danny alone in front of the door.
“C’mon, c’mon,” Danny whispered and started to reach for the door. He slowly turned the door handle and opened it.
No turning back now.