Chapter Text
Have you ever felt like you were falling into a dream just to wake up gasping for air? Was it possible for the dead to breathe if they were waking up from the same experience? Daniel James Fenton woke up to the feeling of falling after his death but he didn't gasp for air. There wasn't a sound when he was revived, all he could hear was silence even though his two friends were clearly trying to get his attention. When he looks back to that day Danny realized 2 things, Daniel died that day and he has never stopped feeling like he was falling. Time stopped applying to him, his Lichtenberg figure burned everyday with just enough force that his whole arm was numb by the start of the new week. Danny kept going, he learned that he had powers and decided to use them for good. He kept going even though Daniel had long since died.
Vladimir Masters always annoyed Danny to no end, it wasn't because Vlad wanted to kill his very neglectful father. As much to Danny's dismay, it was because Vlad had no respect for the dead. Vlad kept calling him Daniel and yes technically that was correct, to Danny, he absolutely despised being called Daniel. That was the name for the living human boy, that boy was already dead. Danny was not Daniel, he will never be Daniel and Daniel is not coming back. However Danny kept that to himself, he couldn't explain that to his living counterparts.
Being envious of the fully dead was never something Danny expected, the ghosts he fought after dying himself were much more interesting than the living he went to school with. They were definitely not as interesting as space but they were up there. The alive never questioned why Danny was slightly abnormal, he was just like his parents after all. Once they found something they like, they would study it even after it stopped breathing. Some people could never appreciate a good study but Danny only felt in tone to follow ghosts. He wonders if they felt like they were falling too.
Danny got his life together, not for his parents but his sister. Jasmine was going to college soon so she asked Danny to make sure he would be ok while she was away. Danny thought about it, he wasn't going to be fine. He hadn't been fine in over 4 months but it was January already by now so it was just a bit longer before she left. His parents weren't as thoughtful as Jazz was, when they remembered that they were parents it was because they were either trying something new in the dining room or Danny was in trouble for something he didn't even do but what else was he expecting. Danny decided to continue living out his life even though it wasn't really his to live.
Time really stopped being relevant for him, here he was. The aftermath of fighting Pariah Dark, the sleeping tyrant that Vlad woke up. The fruit loop really had no respect for the dead. The fight was just a long blur in his memory now that the adrenaline has worn off. Pariah was finally back in his catacomb, though Danny's core nagged at him. It was a stupid feeling that he didn't get. So the halfa did what he did best, ignoring the feeling. He wasn't sure what his core wanted but whatever it was wasn't important right now. Looking at the aftermath of the fight, the people of amity had every reason to believe ghosts are evil. The whole town was taken into the afterlife, they had no reason to trust Danny but the students of Casper High were very vocal advocates that Phantom saved them from the evil ghost.
His family weren't as positive as the students of Casper High. Jazz had some thoughts but she was happy that Phantom helped them. His parents on the other hand were spewing nonsense, that Phantom let Pariah out as a staged act. Danny couldn't help but growl under his breath, all that work and effect and they think that he was the one that opened that stupid catacomb when it was all Vlad's fault. Greedy old man that was the world's biggest creep. Danny decided to take a step on his own, to at least convince them that he wasn't that evil, that was a mistake. His mother slapped him, his parents were never physical before but now even suggesting a ghost could do good in their general presence was heresy. Danny simply held his cheek and didn't cry, tears weren't worth it. He could feel something inside him flare up but he pushed it back down. Daniel was never hit but Danny wasn't Daniel so to these people he was a stranger in his own home. Could Danny even consider this his home?
He went on with life, he went to school with Sam and Tucker. Sam pointed to the bruise on his cheek that wasn't there from the Pariah fight and Danny just waved it off. It was simply from his face planting into his wall from exhaustion he told them. They believed him, Danny had to use Daniel's clumsiness at some point. What didn't concern them doesn't have to concern them. Sam and Tucker try debriefing the whole tyrant situation but Danny didn't stick around long enough for them to actually get through what happened. The ghosts that came to visit started to become more frequent, something about a challenge but Danny didn't listen to all their ramblings. Vlad couldn't have made their meetings any more boring even if he tried, Danny's face scrunched up when Vlad said he wanted to adopt Danny. Well that was new, his core had a very violent reaction to that. For once his mind and core were in agreement, Vald will never be his parent.
He tried to explain as best as he could to his dad that Vlad was using a more aggressive approach, he was going to try killing him and was trying to get to mom. Of course his father didn't believe him, why would he believe a 14 year old compared to a man that went to school with him. His dad was so confident that his "god father" was a good person, Danny tried arguing his case but was met with yelling. Danny wasn't going to win when both of his parents were unreasonably stubborn, here was his mother calling him his living counterpart's legal name and scolding him. He flinched when she raised her hand, she scoffed and started berating him about her never hitting him. Ironic how she conveniently forgot that she did in fact slapped him across the face. His mother kept going until Jazz finally returned home from one of her college interviews and Danny took that chance to go to his room.
Why did Danny keep trying to get through to his parents? He doesn't know but he was getting desperate, his arguments were to a wall by now but it didn't stop him from trying. The arguments were getting shorter and the strikes were quicker. Why argue with a wall when the wall fights back. Tucker suggested a sleepover in the middle of all of that and Danny took him up on it. Danny wanted to ask for how long but once he met his friend in the eye he realized what Tucker actually meant. Danny's lies weren't as convincing as they were originally. There was just so much time Dash or a wall were actually involved but he just walked in the school building, no dash or wall to make his excuse believable.
Between staying at Tuckers and sneaking into Sam's room some days, the days he finally came home he almost set off the Fenton security. They changed it while he was away, Danny huffed before pulling out the tools from his bag. He should have expected as much with how frequent the ghost attacks have been. Jazz hadn't been home as often and Danny could just tell, his room was thrown around probably by his father. He adjusted the sensors by the window and went for the ones by the door, in the middle of that his father came up the stairs and was just staring at Danny. He was fixing the sensor just in case one of the food experiments came upstairs, he said. Danny internally scoffed when Jack actually believed him and said he was going to do the same for the downstairs sensors. His parents were supposed to be smart but they were not the brightest.
Some days Danny considered joining Vlad, he had seen the older ghost more than he saw his own parents these days. Even before Danny started couch surfing, Vlad was more present than his parents were. Yet his core was essentially screaming at him to not do that and that it was the dumbest thing he could do. Yes Danny was slightly aligned with Vlad but he still wanted to marry his mother. The same mother Danny was actively avoiding, so Danny just flipped off Vlad and continued his routine of fighting him until Danny won. There was little faith Danny had in anyone, he only trusted his two friends and Jazz, but even his sister was scarce. They met during school hours but where she went after school Danny never thought about.
Red huntress was iffy on the scale of trust. Some days she was an ally, other days she was just as annoying as Vlad. It didn't help Danny when she would willingly work with Vlad. Danny loathed the days she did, but they fell apart after a while so it was the end of that terrible partnership. "Hey ghost boy, whoa you look like.... actual shit." Red huntress pulling up behind him. Danny really didn't have the energy to fight her, he just souped Ember and Skulker. "I don't know how a ghost can look more dead than y'all already do but look at that. An even deader ghost boy." She chuckled at him but Danny didn't bother to respond. He had things to do, one including sleeping properly. Thankfully for him she didn't chase after him. Danny just wanted one good night's sleep, that was all he asked for.
That was all he wanted, a normal day. Time really did apply to him, it just hadn't caught up to him. He was living in a motion blur ever since he came back to life but here he was counting every second. Every second Dan lived was a second Danny was losing. He was losing everything he had in the living world because Dan existed on the same plane of existence. An angrier more violent Danny, a man that had everything good tore from him. But looking at Dan, he wasn't Danny of course not. That was Daniel, the true original that actually had a good life until his parents died in an explosion. If Danny cared enough about his parents would that have happened to him? There was no reason to think of it now. His life was losing seconds, everything went wrong within seconds of Dan revealing himself.
Danny needed things, whatever he could find in the Fentons workshop. Danny was pathetic at best, he always needs something to help him with stronger people. He never believed that he would fight Pariah again even though Vlad wasn't exactly that stupid to do it again, here he was fighting someone just as strong as the sleeping tyrant. Who would have thought he would win this, it took so much energy but he made it. But now he lived in a land where people knew who he was, the world where people realize Danny really is just one bad day away from being evil. Out of the ruins of the crash site and ashes, Danny stood staring back at his friends. Their faces weren't the ones Danny was expecting, fear. They legitimately backed away when he got closer, they were scared of him. Of course they were, how could Danny think he could play this off. Danny himself could become a villain so easily, he wanted to protect the people of Amity but they couldn't look past the monster that was created from that love. So Danny chose to do the next best thing, run.
Running was for those who had nothing to lose, Danny had nothing left. His friends were afraid of him, Vlad was the butterfly that created Dan and his parents- could Danny even call them that. Jack and Maddie were working with the government, they were probably coming to hunt him down as he ran. Danny had been different since the day he was born, not 14 years ago, when he came back a few months before this. He was angrier than normal, he was labeled creepy a lot more. The day Daniel stopped being human was the day Danny was born. Not as Daniel James Fenton, but as Danny Phantom. The lost soul of a 14 year old that died from his parents neglect. The soul that was connected to a hazmat suit that haunted the streets of Amity for the following months. He was a tired soul, he wanted to rest but he couldn't be put to rest. He died so violently that he couldn't move on, he was living in a body that should have decayed by now but it was in an eternal cryostasis, a weird form of cryostasis that still required him to act as if he was alive.
Danny Phantom was tired. Daniel James Fenton wanted to move on. The life of a halfa was the worst thing in existence, it was the agony of existing that was too much for him. He doesn't want to exist anymore, there was no reason for him to exist. He wanted to fade away so he kept running. Perhaps running will finally lead him somewhere that could give him what he wanted. He kept going, kept pushing. At some point he found himself in the infinite realm.
He found it.
More like his core was attached to this place for some reason. A coffin that should never be opened, it changed lives and afterlives that last time it was opened. But that voice in the back of his mind told him this is what he wanted. If he opened it at least he would be the first one to go, he wasn't going to watch what happened next. This was his forbidden chance, Pandora's box of his life. Once he opened it there was no going back, but what did he have left to lose. His parents despise him, his friends were afraid of him and his sister? Danny doesn't even know where Jazz was. They used to be so close but his sister was gone before she even went to college.
It was all going well had it not been for Pariah. Not even, if it wasn't for Vladimir being a greedy narcissistic old man who didn't care about anybody else but himself Danny would have been well off. But Danny couldn't go back to find Vlad now could he? Seeking out a narcissist will only inflate his ego even more and Danny is feeling all forms of spiteful at the moment. He looks down at the coffin before him and just contemplates his options, the Ancients that put him away originally hadn't come to stop Danny. Do the old spirits not learn to put guards on this tomb? Danny didn't care anymore, he choked out a sad laugh before making his way to open the coffin. If Danny was going to die, at least he chose the way he could go out this time.
It was a slower start to what he imagined, watching Pariah reawaken from his slumber was one of the most anti-climactic things to possibly be witnessed. Danny was really debating on trying to find a cast iron pan and hitting him with it just so he would wake up faster. Pariah was so slow with his entrance to the conscious world that Danny sat Chris crossed on the floor and started playing Tic-Tac-Toe with the air. Once Pariah got up from his slumber, he went into a 10 minute monologue and Danny genuinely debated why he woke up this overly dramatic flamboyant supposedly tyrant. It must have been written all over his face because Pariah immediately snapped to look in his direction and scoffed. How rude when Danny was the one that woke him up.
Finally he got the reaction he was waiting for, Pariah growled at him and Danny felt his core pulse again. The original tugs that Danny felt when he put Pariah away. He wasn't going to bottle up these feelings anymore. He was going to let go of every emotion finally, all his anger and frustrations, every piece of annoyance that came from all the adults in his life. Adults failed him when he needed them most. His teachers berated him for his grades, his counselors couldn't help him get out of his situations, no matter how many times he made anonymous complaints the coaches always loved Dash and his parents- there wasn't a list long enough to put every time they failed him in order. He was doomed from birth. Danny couldn't help but laugh at himself, there wasn't a time where he wasn't doomed. His luck was nothing better than a wet cat.
So he mentally noted today is where he died. Today was the second death of Daniel James Fenton, the first death of Danny Phantom. He wanted to make sure this time he didn't come back, he took a fighting position and stood before the sleeping tyrant. He was ready to go out, he was no longer Schrödinger's cat because he shouldn't exist. He wasn't going to die, he wasn't going to live, he wanted to just cease to exist. And almost like irony, when people are supposed to be sad when they are about to die Danny doesn't feel sad. He could see Pariah getting ready to start and Danny just watched.
For the first time in many months, Danny Phantom genuinely smiled.