Chapter Text
This hadn’t been the first time that Danny spent a long period in ghost form. He’d spent his fair share of weekends in the Infinite Realm—especially after his revelation to the media—and had found that the dense ambient ectoplasm in the Ghost Zone was enough to keep his body in ghost form even after he went to sleep.
But while this wasn’t his first time spending a few days in ghost form, this was his first time spending multiple days in ghost form on Earth. And just like how being a human in the ghost zone came with some odd quirks, so did being a ghost in the human world.
There were some minor ones, like how human food tasted a little bland to him, or that he didn’t really need to breathe which may have looked unsettling to those around him, or the fact that his hair seemed just a little too flowy to be human.
But the biggest problem he’d been having thus far was staying grounded.
Because just like how flying took effort for him when he was in human form, walking took effort for him as a ghost.
Staying on the ground, obeying gravity, obeying physics, it was just...weird. It felt off. And it served as a constant reminder to him that he was stuck as Phantom in front of a school full of average humans.
On the first day stuck as a ghost, he did pretty well in the “remembering to walk” department. He stayed grounded during all his classes, he didn’t float at all during his group homework session that night, and overall he managed to keep up his human mannerisms as well as he could have asked for.
Day two? Just as good as day one. He floated around his room, true, but as soon as he was in public, he was fully grounded.
But now it was day three, he was running on almost no sleep, he had physics office hours that morning followed by a five-hour lab session.
Danny was exhausted. Frazzled. Sleep-deprived, hungry, and surviving on the kind of stress-induced adrenalin that only midterms season could bring out in someone.
So it was really only a matter of time before he slipped up.
“Hey, Danny!” A voice called from outside. “We’re getting dinner. You wanna join?”
“Uh...oh, yeah,” he said, realizing he hadn’t eaten all day. “Yeah, I probably should. Hang on, lemme find my ID”
He shoved his hand through his backpack, pulled out his wallet, and then phased through the door.
Carter, Star, and another student from their floor, Madison, stood on the other side, staring at him in shock.
“What?” Danny asked, his ghostly tail flickering below him.
There was a beat of silence, to which a familiar sense of anxiety began pooling into his stomach. “What? What am I missing?”
“Uh, it’s noth—”
“I forgot my key!” Danny slapped his forehead with his hand and phased back into his dorm. Ancients, what a day this was.
He jammed his hand into his backpack again and swiped the key from the front pocket, stuffing it into his hoodie as he phased back out into the hallway.
“Thanks for the reminder!” Danny sighed, the tension unraveling in his stomach. His tail formed two legs, and he planted himself on the ground. “God, that would have been so embarrassing if I’d been locked out. I would have had to call the RA looking like this. You know, I don’t think she’s seen me yet. It would be too weird to explain.”
“Yeah,” Star gave him a thumbs up. “Wouldn’t want you to, uh, get locked out.”
“Of course.” Carter had recovered from his previous look of surprise and was now grinning at Danny like there was some inside joke between them.
Whatever it was, Danny was too tired to figure it out or care. “So, dinner?”
“Let’s go,” said Madison, waving her freckled-covered arm forward. “I’m hungry and it’s mac and cheese night at the dining hall.”
They descended the stairs and exited their building. Even though it had been a few days, the novelty of Danny Phantom being on campus hadn’t quite worn off yet, and stares followed him with every step. No doubt phones were pointed his way as well. Though, by now everyone had heard about why he was stuck as Phantom, and so the initial shock at his ghostly appearance didn’t follow him quite so much.
The girls lead them down the sidewalk with Star and Madison chattering about skincare and some product launch. Danny didn’t know what hyaluronic acid was or why some brand was selling it, but he appreciated their enthusiasm nonetheless. As it turned out, ghosts still needed to eat. And regardless of what Spectra and her purists tried to preach, any strong emotion would do it. Including, thankfully, excitement about…skincare launches, or whatever it was.
Perhaps he was too caught up in the moment that he didn’t see—though he really should have—the gaggle of frat-bros who sprinted across the street and all but barrelled into their group.
“Phantom!” one of the guys shouted, his phone up and likely already recording. “Phantom, Phantom!”
Danny took an instinctive step back. Even though these were just human college students, he didn’t exactly have a great association with being surrounded in his ghost form.
He pushed down the wave of anxiety and gritted out, “Yeah?”
“Who is the hottest ghost?” the frat-bro asked.
Danny blinked. “What?”
There was an outbreak of laughter, followed by shushing from the students, before the one guy asked again, “Who’s the hottest ghost that you’ve fought?”
“I—I can’t—” Danny spluttered. “I can’t just say that!”
At that, the group dissolved into another outbreak of cacophony.
“Why not?”
“Just tell us!”
“We’ll say our vote!”
“Because!” Danny could feel the ectoplasm pooling in his cheeks. “They’re my—uh…I can’t just rank the other ghosts like this! I’ll never live it down!”
The frat bro holding the camera broke out into a grin. “It’s Ember, isn’t it?”
Danny’s face was blazing now. “I didn’t say that!”
Regardless, the bros broke out into a cheering roar, high-fiving each other as if they’d just won the Superbowl.
“Look at his face!”
“It’s totally Ember!”
“We were right!”
Danny stood there dumbfounded. He looked to his friends, who were also frozen in place wearing equally flabbergasted expressions.
But before anyone could open their mouth to cut in, the crosswalk light blinked on and the gang of frat bros sprinted back across the street, running through the archway that separated a line of buildings from the grassy common area, and disappearing from sight.
No one in their small group moved until the last bro went out of view. Then a moment passed, then another. And then finally Carter burst into laughter. “What the fuck was that?”
Star followed suit. “Jeez, Danny. What even is your life?”
“Is this shit normal for you?” Madison asked, twirling her curly hair between her fingers.
Danny’s eyes remained fixed on the archway. “I wish I knew.”
Carter elbowed him, jolting Danny out of his daze. “Welp, I guess we’ll see that trending on TikTok later. You still down for food or what?”
“Yeah!” Danny perked up at the mention of food. Ghost or not, he was goddamn hungry.
The group walked further down the street and entered a large building. The food hall was teeming with students, filling the air with chatter and swirling emotions of all kinds.
“Come on, mac and cheese station is down that way,” Madison said, tugging Star along with her.
“You heard the boss,” Carter said.
Danny shrugged and followed, ignoring the jolting halts and stares he got from the students around him.
At this point, he was used to it. He got those same stares at Fenton too, though not as much as now. Danny presumed it was easier to pass over him when he wasn’t literally glowing.
Even so, he tried to appear as unsuspecting as possible in his beanie and baggy hoodie. Anything more than this, and it would have been too obvious. That, and Star would have given him a full fifteen-minute lecture on being confident in who he was and respecting himself enough to not go out dressing like someone who had never seen clothes before.
Which is a lecture that Danny, unfortunately, had been the recipient of once before.
They took their place in line, and Carter shot him a grin. “The shock still hasn’t worn off, I see.”
“What shock?”
He gestured around the room. “Of everyone seeing you in this form.”
“Of course not,” Star stated as if it was a matter of fact. “He’s Phantom. Which, speaking of, hey Danny? How the hell do you eat?”
Danny fiddled with his beanie. “Uh, I have a mouth?”
“Yeah but ghosts run off cores, right? So what does human food do for you?”
At Danny’s look, Star huffed. “You can’t expect me to be friends with Paulina and not know about ghost shit.”
“Still,” Danny said.
“Wait, cores?” Carter asked. “The hell are those?”
“Uh…they’re like ghost hearts, kind of? It’s basically a concentrated ball of ectoplasm that emits and dictates the flow of ectoplasm around my body,” Danny explained.
“Oh, that’s pretty sick,” Madison said, grabbing a tray of mac and cheese.
Danny followed suit. “Yeah, it kind of is. But I still have like all my other human organs and stuff. I have to, or else I would just be a full ghost.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Carter gripped his shoulder. “So, full ghosts don’t have organs?”
“I don’t think so?” Danny paused, plucking silverware out of the plastic cups propped throughout the hall. He followed his friends to an open table. “I mean, that’s what all the ghost researchers say. I…try not to get too involved with that sort of thing.”
“Why not?” Madison asked.
“I’d rather not be on the receiving end of their experiments if you know what I’m saying.”
Carter looked horrified. “You mean your parents would experiment on their own kid?”
Danny blinked, and then laughter bubbled in his throat. “No! Oh my god!” He coughed, choking on his own breath. “No, I meant the government researchers! But I don’t really ask my parents anything not directly related to me because once you get them started, they can go on ghost tangents for hours. Seriously, one time I sicced them on Vlad—this creepy weirdo I hate—and they literally rambled to him about ecto-radiation for like two hours. It was awesome.”
“Well, I guess not all your enemies have to be defeated by violence alone,” Star said.
“Nothing beats the power of being bored to death.”
“I’ll remember that next time we get hit on at the bar during girl’s night,” Madison quipped.
“If only.” Star took a bite from her mac and cheese. “Does this still taste good though in ghost form?”
“It’s alright,” Danny said. “Ghosts run pretty acidic though so weirdly enough, fruit tastes like candy to a ghost. I have a friend Dora who grows ecto-berries on her island in the Zone. They’re fucking awesome.”
“Huh. How bout that,” Carter said.
The rest of dinner passed without much fanfare, minus a few less-than-obvious phones pointed his way which Danny tried his best to ignore. He knew it wasn’t every day that humans got to see a ghost eating. But he could only imagine the texts he was going to get from Tucker later that evening.
That goddamn troll and his Reddit memes…
It wasn’t until they were heading back to their dorm after dinner did they run into problems.
It started with a couple of paparazzi, who had staked outside the dining hall, presumably having seen the Instagram stories and TikTok videos already from the students inside.
Danny had hoped that people would wait to post until after he’d already left the dining hall, but apparently that was too much to ask.
“Phantom,” one of the paps said, shoving a camera into Danny’s face. “How has it been as a ghost attending college?”
Danny didn’t slow his pace. “I don’t know. I imagine it’s no different than everyone else here.”
“Do you feel like you’re pretending to have a life you’ll never get to live, though?” a different one asked.
Despite Star’s tugging, Danny halted. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You’re dead, right?” the paparazzi said, flashing his camera in Danny’s face. “Don’t you feel like you’re just pretending to be human? Is it hard to keep up the act? How does it feel now that you’re facing the truth?”
“Keep walking,” Star hissed in his ear.
Danny shrugged her hand off his shoulder. He glared at the pap. “How am I pretending to be anything?”
“This is the first time you’ve gone out in public casually as a ghost, and it’s only because you have to.”
“So what?”
“Danny…” Carter warned.
The paparazzi smirked. “ So, that means you’re always in human form because it’s easier for you to pretend you’re just a regular person than to admit that you’re a ghost. So has it been hard to finally face the truth?”
Danny felt ectoplasm pool in his fingertips. His glare deepened, and it took everything in his power to keep from blasting the camera right out of the pap’s grubby hands.
“No more questions!’ Star exclaimed, cutting in front of Danny.
Madison threw Danny’s hoodie over his head and shoved him down the sidewalk. “You have your pretty pictures, now go home.”
“Wait! Phantom! Phantom!” They ran after him.
“I’m gonna fucking call the cops,” Carter grumbled.
“Danny, keep your hood up,” Star ordered.
Danny shoved his hands in his pockets and glared at the ground. He stepped over a puddle and watched as his bright green eyes reflected in the surface below.
“Phantom! How do you feel about congress’ proposed ecto-control legislation? Would you still be allowed to continue your education if it passes?”
“It won’t pass,” Danny said.
“No more questions!” Madison repeated.
“Hey!” A drunken voice popped up from a group down the sidewalk. “The fuck? Is that the ghost?”
Star cursed.
“Go back to the GZ, ghost!” the drunk man shouted, passing them by.
Giggles erupted from his friend group. “Daryl! Shhh! He’ll melt you!” one of the girls scolded.
“Fuck off!” Star yelled over her shoulder.
That only elicited more laughter from the group.
“Phantom!” the paparazzi yelled, shoving a camera inches from his face.
Danny stopped, turning around. His heart pounded in his ears, and he tugged his beanie further down his head.
He was too cocky to think that nobody would cause him problems after it was publicly known that he was trapped as Phantom for days. He shouldn’t have gone out so haphazardly, he should have predicted that this would happen. Especially since this was a city campus, there were no gates around the University, anyone and everyone could come and go as they pleased.
The paparazzi had surrounded him again, and Danny mentally swore. He felt Star try to tug him away, but his feet were frozen to the ground. He couldn’t move.
He needed to.
He had to get away.
As soon as the thought entered his mind, his core acted on its own, tugging invisibility and intangibility through his bloodstream and over his skin. He heard shouts from around him, but his sights were already elsewhere. Without thinking, he launched himself into the sky, releasing the intangibility as soon as he was a safe distance from the crowd below.
Maybe it was a dick move to leave his friends like that, but he had a feeling they would understand. After all, he was…
He stilled, floating in the sky, looking down at the tiny people below him.
He was Phantom.
A halfa.
But that was fine with him, wasn’t it? He’d gotten past all his insecurities years ago, hadn’t he?
So what if he didn’t really feel cold anymore? So what if he could fly and shoot ecto-blasts from his fingers? So what if he didn’t really follow the laws of physics, if he blushed green, if he had a heart and a core regulating his body?
He was fine with that. He’d accepted this.
Hadn’t he?
So then why, a little voice in the back of his head said. Why have you always avoided being in ghost form around your human friends? Why is this strange for you?
That was easy, he thought. He was only in human form with humans just like he was only in ghost form with other ghosts. It was because of convenience. It was just…easier, right?
But that’s not the same.
He knew it wasn’t the same.
Being in ghost form around ghosts was about power and status. The ghost hierarchy was based on respect, and they didn’t follow human customs. If Danny wanted to establish himself as a worthy ally, then he needed to present himself accordingly.
But for humans, it wasn’t like that. No one cared about how well a human protected their haunt. So then why? Why did he feel so naked as Phantom?
Why was he still afraid?
Were the paparazzi right? Was he just afraid to admit the truth? Is that why he was being so careful not to be too ghostly, too inhuman around everyone?
He was sure that sometimes, in moments of fatigue and frustration, his eyes flashed green while doing problem sets with his classmates. And none of them had ever pointed that out, had they? And this evening…
Danny felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He had gone through his door to get his key earlier! Oh Ancients, that was why everyone was looking at him like he had three heads, wasn’t it?
And yet, they didn’t appear scared or disgusted by him. None of them ran in terror or told him he was some freak of nature. They just looked amused that he hadn’t noticed his error. Even Star, who maybe once upon a time back when they were still figuring out how to survive in the social hell that was freshman year of high school would have made a face at him, now didn’t even question it. Hell, she was the one who had had hardly blinked when she saw him as Phantom on the first day. She just told him to suck it up and get to class.
So if he was holding himself back, then that was on him.
Danny rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. Because maybe the paparazzi was right, in some twisted sort of way. Maybe he was afraid of being the freak, the weirdo halfa. But he’d also already been in ghost form this entire week, hadn’t he? And his friends didn’t seem to mind.
Hell, they still ate together every night. Of course they didn’t care.
Duh.
A breeze tickled his face, and Danny realized that he was still hovering over the same spot. He hadn’t moved, though the crowd below him had long since dispersed. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed. Though, the setting sun was a solid indication that it was starting to get late.
He needed to get back to his dorm. No doubt that his friends had already informed the RA’s about the incident. If he didn’t return soon, they might call the campus police on him or something.
So if he phased through his door instead of unlocking it like a normal person when he got back? And then went to their floor’s common room and laid his body out in a classic floating “I’m dead please dispose of my lifeless body” position when Carter walked into the floor’s common room that evening?
Yeah, sue him.
“Oh, you’re back.”
“Yeah.” Danny avoided eye contact. “Sorry about that before.”
“No sweat. They were being assholes, man. It’s actually probably better that you left. If you wanna report them to the campus police, I’ll come with.”
“If they come back, then maybe.” He sat up, hovering in the air cross-legged, and took a sip of his drink.
Carter leaned against the wall. “Whatcha got there?”
Danny raised the cup in his hand. “A smoothie.”
“Still hungry?”
“It’s ectoplasm,” Danny said, his nonchalant tone surprising him. Needing to consume ectoplasm by proxy of not living in the Ghost Zone was still somewhat of a touchy topic for him. But he had just promised himself he wouldn’t be so self-conscious around his friends. He couldn’t back down now.
Carter stared at him for a moment and then shrugged. “Oh. Well. Sure, what the hell.”
Danny waved his hand lazily in the air. “It’s a ghost thing. Don’t worry about it.”
“Sounds good.” He walked over to the table and dropped his notebook on the surface. “You ready for the p-set tonight?”
“Nope.”
“Same. Star and the others should be here in a few.”
“Okay.”
Carter sat down and drummed his hand against the surface. His brows threaded together, and he seemed lost in thought. But for a normally talkative guy, his silence was unnerving.
“You okay?” Danny asked.
Carter squeezed his lips together as if still debating whether or not to speak, before finally relenting. “I hope this isn’t weird to say, but seeing you as Phantom is pretty trippy.”
“No, no. I get it.”
And he really did.
“I guess…you know, it’s sometimes weird for me to be in ghost form around other people,” Danny explained. “A lot of times, I think people are okay with it in theory, but then get uncomfortable when they see it in person. So, I don’t know. I try to be as discrete as I can.”
“That’s fair. But like, Danny no offense, but sometimes you’re really bad at acting on the down-low.”
He snorted. “Yeah. I know.”
“But honestly.” Carter turned to face him. “I haven’t known you for that long, but after this week? I don’t think anything will phase me.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Also, you know the other day, Star was telling me that they had no idea you were Phantom until the story was published.”
“Hmm…” Danny took another sip of his drink. While the previously deemed A-List group and the trio had mostly made up by the time graduation rolled around, there were still some untouched skeletons in the closet that neither Danny or Star had been willing to bring out until now.
“We weren’t that close,” Danny finally settled on. “We knew each other, but we didn’t hang in the same circles. And that was before anyone knew that half-ghosts were even theoretically possible, so it was way easier to stay under the radar. If no one’s really looking, you can mess up and nobody will notice.”
“Yeah, I feel that,” Carter said, leaning back in his chair. “So nobody knew back then? Not even your parents?”
“As far as I know, no one knew except me and my two friends that were there when it happened.”
“Huh.”
Danny shrugged. “Yeah, it’s kind of weird. I know.”
“No! I just think it’s impressive,” Carter said. “Like, you had to figure all this shit out on your own, you know? That takes some balls.”
“Yeah, I really didn’t want anyone to ever find out. I mean, I figured someday I’d tell my parents, but that was pretty much it. I had no idea that the reporter was even there when I de-transformed. Well, I guess that’s on me for getting kinda lazy about not checking my surroundings.”
“A hard lesson, for sure.”
“Definitely. But it’s okay. I’ve…gotten used to it. For the most part.”
“Still, it’s not fun to have cameras pointed at you all day, I’m sure.”
Danny lowered himself until he’d settled on the couch. He placed his now empty smoothie cup on the floor and leaned back into the cushions. “No, but what can you do?”
Carter shot him a mischievous grin. “Well if it’s any reassurance, I promise to only use you a little bit for Tiktok clout.”
“Very funny.”
“Just one stupid dance with me!”
“Full offense but I’d rather die again.”
“Come on! It’ll be fun! You don’t even have to do anything, just sit there looking annoyed like you usually do and I’ll do all the work!”
Danny gave him an incredulous look. “Carter, one of my allies is an ancient and omnipotent ghost of time. Try anything and I’ll sic him on you.”
“You know, sometimes I really can’t tell if you’re serious or not.”
“Try me.”
“I can’t tell half the time, either,” Star said, rounding the corner into the common area. “Kathrine bailed, so it’s just the three of us tonight.”
“Good!” Carter brightened. “That means I get to hog you as my personal Chemistry tutor even more tonight!”
“Lucky me,” Star said in a deadpan tone. She dumped her bag on the floor and slumped in her seat.
Danny pushed himself off the couch and joined them at the table.
“Oh, by the way, Fenton. Sorry about the drama either. If they harass you again, let me know and I’ll fucking fight them. You good?” Star asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Danny said. And for the first time all week, he actually felt it.
“Cool. Ready to start this? I wanna be done in two hours so can actually get eight hours of sleep tonight.”
“Fine by me!” Carter said.
Star grabbed her pencil and calculator out of her pink pencil case and shot Danny her signature determined look. “Let's do this.”