Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Ah! Fuck!” Danny cursed as he hit the ground, feeling a sharp pain in his left arm.

“You alright?” Tucker asked as he walked over to where Danny was picking himself up off the gym floor. 

“No!” Danny groaned as he cradled his arm with his right hand. “I think I broke my fucking arm!”

Sam jumped down from the rope next to his and landed smoothly on her feet. Of course. “You fight ghosts all the time and climbing a rope is too hard for you?”

“I just fell, alright?” Danny blushed, “It can happen to anyone!” 

“Sure it can, bud,” Sam patted his shoulder condescendingly. 

Tucker made a surprised noise in the back of his throat. “Uh… Hey, Danny? What's up with your arm?”

Danny groaned, keeping his voice down so as to not draw the attention of everyone else in the room. “I told you! It's broken.”

Tucker shook his head, eyes fixed on Danny's arm. “No, I mean. It's… glowing?”

Danny paused, then looked down, and sure enough. His arm was starting to emit a green light. “What the fuuuck?”

“That's rad,” Sam said with interest, leaning in closer to look at his arm.

“It's not rad, Sam! What's going on? What if someone sees!”

“Hm,” she hummed in thought, sounding completely unbothered. “It's probably because the ectoplasm in your body is trying to heal it?”

“It's never happened before!”

“Well, have you broken something as a human since the accident?”

Danny thought about all his injuries and exclaimed, “Of course I have! I always…” then he trailed off with a frown. Or, had he? He was always getting hurt when fighting other ghosts, but then he was almost always in ghost form himself. And as a ghost his bones were much softer and didn't break as easily, and he healed fast enough that it usually wasn't a problem when he turned back into a human. “Okay, I'm not sure. And stop laughing, Tuck!”

“I'm sorry, it's just,” Tucker descended back into laughter, “You work just like a glowstick!”

“It's not funny!” Danny complained. “My arm is broken!”

“It's a little funny,” Sam said with a hand over her mouth which did nothing to conceal her laughter.

Danny hunched further over his arm. “What am I gonna say if someone—”

“Hey, Fenturd! What's wrong with your arm?”

Danny cursed and stepped behind Tucker and Sam. 

“Hiding behind your parents?” Dash jeered at him, leaning to the side and looking at Danny's arm. “Whats wrong with you, you freak?”

“Aw,” Sam cooed, “You're worried about him?”

“I don't want him to infect the whole school with his freakiness.” Dash straightened up and puffed out his chest. “Someone has to protect everyone.”

Danny has heard enough. He steps out from behind his friends ansmd raises his arm. “Ah! I think a ghost is possessing it!”

Tucker snorts. “Just your arm?”

“Yeah,” Danny agrees easily and then turns the drama back on. “Oh! Oh no! They're moving it! I can't stop it! Aaaah!” he shakily raises it, straining as if fighting against it, and then flips Dash off.

Dash looks scandalized.

“Really?” Sam asked with an unimpressed eyebrow. 

“Dude. Isn't your arm broken? Doesn't that hurt?”

“Like hell,” Danny agrees with a nod, keeping the finger up.

“Shit!” Sam cursed and Danny turned to see her stumble over a root.

Tucker waved his hands in front of him as he slowly walked forward with uncertain steps. 

They were working their way through a dark forest and as night had fallen and the moon disappeared behind clouds it had gotten darker and darker. 

Danny could still see, probably thanks to his—according to Tucker—creepy cat-eyes, but Sam and Tucker were left in the dark. Literally.

They were trying to follow a ghost antelope and Danny had promised not to go alone after last week's fiasco. Also because he was currently permanently intangible in human form and couldn't really fight any ghost by himself. He didn't want to talk about it. 

Neither of them had their phones, also courtesy of last week's fiasco. They would make sure that Vlad paid.

But currently, the result was him trying to lead two blind humans through the woods while not being able to touch them. 

“Go to the right!” Danny called, uselessly trying to grab Sam’s hand and drag her in the correct direction. “No, right!”

Tucker spun around and started walking back the way he came, Sam turned and almost walked right into a tree.

Danny groaned. “Stop! Both of you.”

Thankfully they both paused. Danny pointed, as clearly as possible, and prayed that their eyes had gotten used to the dark.”It's that way.”

“Danny!” Tucker complained, “You know we can't see anything!”

Clearly they had not. 

Well. There was only one way through this.

Danny grit his teeth and then—

Snap snap!

“What was that?!” Sam asked, spinning in a circle.

“A twig? Is the ghost here?!” Tucker asked as he grabbed the gun at his side.

“Not a twig,” Danny pressed through clenched teeth and raised his hands. Two glowing lines at their ends. 

Both Sam and Tucker paused, then Tucker exclaimed, “Dude! Did you just break your fingers?”

“You didn't see what I was pointing at!” Danny defended himself, trying to ignore the pain in his hands. It would pass soon enough, he knew, but it still hurt.

Sam threw her hands in the air. “You can create ectoplasm! It glows!!”

Danny paused. “...I forgot I can do that as a human.”

“Fucking really?!” Sam complained.

“It looks really creepy,” Tucker added uselessly. 

“Well, what's done is done,” Danny defended himself. He pointed both of his glowing fingers in the direction they had to go. “It's that way, by the way.”

“Why did you break two fingers?" Tucker asked, sounding exasperated. “You can point with one.”

Danny grinned, knowing they couldn't see it and started gesturing. 

After a few quiet seconds Danny saw Sam raise her hands to groan into them. Got her.

Tucker let out a sound halfway between a groan and a laugh. “Did you just mime the loss meme at us with your glowing broken fingers?”

“No?” Danny said innocently.

“Well,” Sam said as her face reemerged from her hands. “Show us the way E.T.”

Danny sputtered. “Don’t call me that!”

“I’m so sorry,” Tucker said, suddenly sounding very sad.

Despite his better judgement, Danny asked, “Why?”

“You don’t even have your phone. So you can’t phone home.”

Danny started walking faster. “I’m gonna leave both of you in this forest.”

“We can follow your creepy glowing fingers,” Sam called after him and Danny stormed off to the sound of Tucker’s loud laughter.

“Danny! What are you doing here?” Tucker called over the loud conversations around them and the loud music pumping through the house. “Didn’t you just fall off the roof?”

Danny raised a cup high and took a swig. “The party never stops!” He lowered his glowing arm and staggered closer on his glowing legs. “And this is perfect as a halloween costume! Since I didn’t have time to make one.”

Sam made a disgusted face. “Just how many bones did you break?”

“Your pain-tolerance has gone completely out of whack,” Tucker agreed, sipping his own drink.

Danny ignored them and took another swig of his drink, which was probably for the best considering the amount of pain he was in.

“Fenton? What happened?” A sudden and concerned voice reached them as Paulina made her way over. “Did you get dunked in ectoplasm?”

“I’m possessed by the party-ghost!” Danny smiled at her, overcome once again with happiness at the thought that the A-listers were actually nice now. Or well, nicer. They had all come a long way since freshman year.

Paulina just raised a questioning eyebrow at Sam and Tucker, as if they would know more than him, which was rude!

But before Danny could get huffy about it, someone yelled right next to his ear, “That’s a sick halloween-costume!”

Danny turned to find Valerie and smiled at her. “Thank you!” Danny yelled back. “I’m in so much pain right now!”

“Aren’t we all,” she laughed.

He knew the pain would pass soon, and he refused to miss out on the party of the year. It was their last halloween together as seniors and Danny refused to miss out on it because of something as trivial as some broken bones.

He looked down at himself, noting how his whole body lit up under the sparse lighting of the living room. Okay, a lot of broken bones.

It looked sick as hell though, Danny thought with a smug smile as he got another compliment to his “costume” and sipped his drink.