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It was the ticking sound that woke him.
Danny yawned, blinking sleep out of his eyes and stretching out his sore muscles. Looking around only served to confuse him though. He wasn’t in his room anymore, and he wasn’t downstairs either (which sometimes happened with his body’s penchant to fall through not only his bed, but the floor). He was in a large, heavily shadowed room that was on the edge of familiar, and it was taking him a moment to place it in his sleep fogged mind.
“It’s not healthy to fixate on what could have been,” came a deep, familiar voice from behind him.
Startled, Danny spun around to see Clockwork floating a few feet away. He was in his eldest form, long knitted beard and all, and was gazing past Danny towards something further in the room.
Following that gaze, Danny saw what exactly Clockwork had been talking about and flinched, flying quickly away from it and over towards the Ancient.
It was a Thermos, horridly familiar and just- sitting there on a pillow as if for display.
“How did I get here?” Danny asked, putting Clockwork between himself and that thing .
Clockwork hummed, stroking his beard a moment before slowly answering, “I suppose, the likely answer is that you were having a nightmare.” He lowered a hand to Danny’s shoulder and led him out of the room and back into a more familiar part of the clock tower. “Let’s get you some tea before I send you home, it might calm your nerves.”
Danny followed, eager for distance, before asking, “the likely answer? Does that mean you don’t know?”
“Despite what you and certain others seem to think, I am neither omniscient nor a mind reader, I cannot see into your dreams,” Clockwork said and Danny chuckled softly. “Besides, Nocturn would likely be unappreciative if I was interfering in his domain.”
“You know Nocturn?” Danny asked stopping and tugging lightly on Clockwork’s cloak so that he’d stop as well.
He did, lifting one of his eyebrows and answering with a dry tone, “of course I do, I know everyone.”
Because of course he did. It wasn’t like he didn’t just tell Danny that he wasn’t omniscient, that was clearly a different skill set to someone as determined to be mysterious as Clockwork. Danny found himself wondering if the intrigue surrounding the older ghost was not mostly of his own creation, an attempt at seeming aloof and beyond comprehension while simultaneously laughing behind everyone else’s backs.
A wash of amusement filtered through the ambient ectoplasm of Clockwork’s lair and Danny scowled up at him, “I thought you weren’t a mind reader?”
Clockwork tried to hide his smile, unsuccessfully, and nodded, “I do not need to be, to hear the accusations you make towards me,” he guided Danny to the main room of the tower where the screens were kept along with the relatively recent addition of a couch and coffee table. There was warm tea, purple and slightly glowing, already waiting for them.
“So I’m right then? You are just messing with us all the time?” Danny grabbed his own cup, dubious, Clockwork wouldn’t poison him right? He would know whether a half ghost could drink something if anyone did.
If Danny was expecting an answer, he’d be dissapointed, but when a ghost spent enough time with the mysterious Ancient it became increasingly clear that straight answers were not something they would get in large supply. So instead he rolled his eyes and took a sip of his tea, Clockwork could be as obnoxious as he wanted after saving Danny’s family like he did.
The least Danny could do in return, was accept his eccentricities.
“Do you remember your dream?” Clockwork asked and Danny shook his head. There were bits and pieces, sure. Certain emotions and feelings that flashed to the surface when he closed his eyes or tried to think about it. He’d never been good at trying to recall something once he was awake, and despite Jazz once offering to buy him a dream journal to ‘help him decode his inner turmoils’ he’d never felt the need to try and change that.
He sighed into his tea, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you. I know you’re busy.” There was no way he was going to get a decent amount of sleep now, especially since he’d have to fly all the way home first and he didn’t even know how late it already was.
Clockwork’s lips twitched slightly upwards, “Daniel you’ve never once cared before how busy I am when you’ve come to visit,” Danny flinched, well he wasn’t wrong , “and besides, I quite enjoy your company. It’s no trouble at all.”
“Ah,” Danny didn’t know how to react to that, he was pretty sure he was nothing but trouble, especially with a certain future of his locked up in that other part of the clock tower they’d been in, “thanks?”
His host sighed, taking the time to sip his own eerily glowing tea. The silence stretched, but not uncomfortably and Danny found himself starting to drift towards sleep again, the struggle to try and keep his eyes pried open quickly becoming a losing one.
That was probably his cue to leave, as nice as it was to just sit here and not worry about things like classes and ghost attacks, he was probably already pushing it close to the first bell at school. He stood up and Clockwork’s eyes followed, “I have to head out, thanks for the tea Clockwork. I’ll try to be more considerate the next time I drop by.”
There was a small pinch between Clockwork’s brows, something he wasn’t saying or that Danny wasn’t hearing. “I’d rather you didn’t,” he assured and Danny let out a chuckle. He’d probably respond with something equally sarcastic, if not quite as dry, if he wasn’t so tired.
Clockwork seemed to be of the same mind, “Daniel, when was the last time you slept through the night?” He asked it as a question, as if he didn’t already know. Then again, maybe Danny was giving himself too much credit, it was entirely possible Clockwork didn’t waste his incredible power watching to see if Danny bothered to sleep at night.
“Yesterday,” Danny lied, a yawn built behind his jaw as if to discredit him but Danny held it back stubbornly. It didn’t seem to work though, as Clockwork’s lips tightened. He looked over at his screens, eyes flicking quickly over each one while his fingers tapped a steady rhythm against his staff. That, combined with the gentle ticking of clocks and general comforting atmosphere of the other ghost’s lair was making it more and more difficult for Danny to keep his eyes open.
He flinched awake fully as a hand shook his shoulder, shit, did he fall asleep standing up?
“Daniel,” Clockwork’s hand was still on his shoulder, practically holding him up at this point, “you can always sleep here.”
Danny shook his head, “I don’t have time-”
“Daniel,” Clockwork interrupted, his expression flat.
Oh right.
“I don’t want to…” he tried, “It’s just, you already help me all the time, you’ve fixed so many of my stupid mistakes and-” and Danny was tired of being a burden. He was tired in general, but ancients was he tired of that specifically.
He was tired of seeing his friends lose sleep to help him as back up, he was tired of constantly having to go behind his parents backs and lie to their faces he was tired of watching as Jazz’s once perfect grades started slipping just enough because of all the time she spent helping Danny with his and he was especially tired of knowing that he wasn’t worth the effort in the first place.
Not if he could turn into that .
But Clockwork didn’t let go of his shoulder, in fact, he pulled him closer into a hug, a real, full hug like the ones he used to get from his parents before they started wearing their weapons and he was scared to get near them. “I’d rather you slept here than wandered around the realms half asleep. Who knows where you’d end up,” he said, speaking gently into Danny’s hair.
“You would,” Danny said before losing the battle against another yawn and relaxing fully into Clockwork’s arms. “You know everything. Can I really sleep here?”
“Of course,” Clockwork released him, leaving one hand on Danny’s back to guide him to a staircase he hadn’t ever noticed before. Just how big was this clock tower anyways?
The room Clockwork took him to was a little bigger than the one he had at home and nothing like what Danny had expected. Most of the tower was colored with dark purples and muted greens, with the occasional brush of silver or brass from the multitude of gears and cogs that littered the floors and walls. This room however, was full of dark blues and greys, a swirling galaxy floating above a single full sized bed that Danny easily sunk into when Clockwork led him to it.
He blinked up at the stars, they were perfectly accurate to the night sky above Amity Park if it didn’t have the light pollution and had to stop himself from counting every constellation rendered there in perfect detail or he’d fall asleep just like that without even bothering to thank Clockwork for offering to stop time for him.
“You made me a room.” It should have been obvious, of course, but Danny hadn’t fully processed what the room and it’s decorations meant until he’d said it out loud and Clockwork didn’t even try to deny it.
Clockwork fazed the blankets through Danny in order to pull them over him properly, tucking him in. Danny was almost tempted to ask for a bedtime story, just to see how he’d react. “Yes, I made you a room.”
Danny frowned, he didn’t understand, “why?”
“I suppose it’s a bit of an excuse to have you visit more often,” Clockwork said, ruffling his hair before sitting at the foot of the bed, “and an offer for you to get some proper sleep before you sleepwalk into someone else’s lair and I have to fight for custody.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Danny mumbled into the pillow, his eyes drifting shut.
The last thing he heard before he drifted off was a soft chuckle and a gentle reassurance that he needn’t worry about anything like that just yet. Maybe, if someone like Clockwork could see the absolute worst of Danny, the monster he could become, and still care enough to make him a room and be sure he slept, then maybe Danny couldn’t be as terrible a burden as he thought. Surely Clockwork, who could see all the futures stretched out below him like a parade, wouldn’t waste his efforts if he didn’t think Danny was worth the time.
He dreamed of stars and ticking clocks and didn’t worry for once about how soon he’d have to wake up.