Chapter Text
The portal accident was painful. The worst pain he had ever felt, a blindingly hot pain that he'd never forget. His life-changing accident was the central focus of the day, and even now nine years later, it was his clearest memory of that family reunion. He vaguely remembered his parents realizing the portal had activated and their assumptions that the Fenton Curse was somehow behind it, remembering Bryan's low mood and Jazz's attempts to cheer him up utilizing everything she had learned about the grieving process, and some of the obviously-ghost themed games they played.
What was most clear was that final step before the shock, and then. Zap.
He remembered it being over, and the pain slowly fading. His chest had no breath and his throat was incredibly tight, and he couldn't breathe. Smoke was consuming his vision as it surrounded him. Looking at his feet, he was slowly disappearing. Danny tried coughing, choking as he fell to his knees, hands bracing himself on the floor. Ears ringing, but he could hear Sam and Tucker's frantic calls for him. It lasted for forever and another minute, until he felt Sam's touch on his back. Everything seemed to go back to normal. No smoke, no intangibility or invisibility, and he could take in a deep breath.
For years…he assumed it was his powers coming into fruition and settling. That it was a side effect of severe pain, him being unable to control his powers from that very start. But that feeling was so incredibly distinct…It had to be…
Danny's eyes snapped open, and he took in a panicked, deep breath. He recognized the ceiling immediately, and fear overcame him. He was in the funeral home. He could tell by the cold metal-like surface that he was on one of the embalming tables too, and he immediately assumed the worst.
"Oh god, the curse got me," he whispered to himself.
"It did not get you, drama king."
Danny glanced to his right to see Sam nearby, standing next to the table, and he felt a wave of relief at her confirmation. His hand reached out for his wife, and she immediately grasped it, giving him a comforting smile. He couldn't return it.
He slowly sat up, gripping her hand tightly as she passively helped, and he realized that Bryan and Shawn were sitting in chairs dragged in from the office.
"What happened?" Danny asked.
"Danny, you saw her, right?" Bryan blurted out. He snapped out of his chair, taking a hurried step forward to lean on the embalming table.
"Saw who?"
"Mom."
Danny's head jerked to give him an odd look. Bryan looked desperate for a confirmation. Sam leaned into her husband to whisper in his ear.
"Ever since we got you inside, that's all he's been talking about," Sam spoke softly. "He thinks he saw his mom."
"I know I saw her!" Bryan protested. Danny rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. He had a headache, and his back hurt from the gravestone.
"I gotta pee," Danny complained lightly, ignoring his question. Carefully, he slipped down from the table. He began to walk to the door, motioning for his cousin to follow him. "Come with me."
"Wait, wh-oh yeah. You guys can't even be alone to pee," Shawn mused. "Couldn't be me. I get pee shy."
"Fentons have become immune to almost every possible shame at this point," Danny said. "Just look at my dad." Bryan snorted. "Come on."
Bryan followed Danny into the hallway as the halfa dragged his feet to the men's room. They had four bathrooms at the funeral home, all single person restrooms. Three were in the main area of the client area, where services were held and the Fentons met with the grieving families to arrange services. Only one was in the back, where the ghostly magic happened, and it was the closest one.
Danny opened the door, Bryan following him in. Bryan went to the counter to sit on it, Danny taking his own seat on the closed toilet lid without undoing his pants. Instead, he rested his elbows on his knees as he rubbed his face.
"I saw her! I'd know my mom anywhere!" Bryan began. His voice began to pitch with hysteria the more he spoke. "And I think she was alive! She didn't look like a ghost! She looked so real, she looked so human. I've seen ghosts, Danny! She looked exactly as she did the last time I ever saw her! She wasn't pale or green or glowing or anything!"
"...Why did I pick for you to come with me to the bathroom over my wife again?" Danny questioned. Bryan ignored him.
"She might not be dead," he continued to ramble. "She might be alive, and after all this time!"
His cousin continued, and Danny stayed seated on the toilet, silent. He let the other go on as he tried to process everything.
Those red eyes. That smoke. The tightness in his chest. It was too familiar for it to be a coincidence. Danny had been in so many ghost hunting predicaments over the years. Choked out, electrocuted, been on fire, the whole nine yards. He had never felt that sensation before or since…the portal…
"Bryan!" Danny snapped. His cousin stopped talking, his shoulders slumping some. Danny exhaled softly. "I didn't see her. But I did see something. It wasn't Aunt Amy, but it was…it was something."
"Are you sure it wasn't Mom?" The pure desperation made Danny feel terrible.
"Positive," he confirmed.
Bryan exhaled deeply. The cousins stayed silent for a few moments. Danny felt a twinge of pain as he hit his funny bone, and he inhaled sharply through his teeth. It briefly reminded him of the shock.
"So," Bryan spoke up. "Did you really have to use the bathroom, or did you just wanna tell me that?"
"...Nah I actually have to go," Danny confessed as he stood back up to undo his belt.
"Alright, you guys set to go?" Shawn asked after the cousins both slipped back into the room with him and Sam. Sam put her phone back into her pocket. Danny shrugged, walking over to the wall.
"I mean, we might as well check on everybody while we're here," Danny mused, and he opened up a mortuary cabinet. He immediately sighed. "Because like this. See? Mr. Barlowe's mouth is open and the wires are poking out, he had dentures. I keep telling Grandpa to not use the needle injector to close mouths when people had dentures."
"He does it cause you can tell his hands are starting to get too shaky to do it the other way," Sam commented. Danny nodded in agreement. "He should have just left Mr. Barlowe for you or I to do."
Shawn raised an eyebrow.
"What's a needle injector?" he asked. Danny hid a morbid grin. Bryan already was making an indescribable face.
"It's this tool we use to close the mouths," he explained. "It's this little gun that we put a pin in, attached to a wire. And then we just." Danny put finger guns on his upper gum. "Ka-chink." Bottom gum. "Ka-chink." He snickered at Bryan's disgusted face. "And then we twist the wires together like it's a loaf of bread, tuck them in the cheek."
"Stop it!" Bryan cried out, giving a creeped out, full body shake. "I hate that thing, it's so creepy. That thing alone stopped me from getting into the funeral business."
"That and you faint from blood half the time," Shawn reminded him.
"Come on, Bry," Danny laughed. "We used to play with the needle injector all the time. Grandpa got super pissed cause we injected and twisted Grammy's old dining room chairs together."
"Yeah, but that was before I knew it…did that," Bryan protested.
"But the needle injector just always runs the risk of the jaw opening if your gums aren't the best. Like if you wore dentures for thirty years like Mr. Barlowe did," Sam explained. "So we normally suture them closed. I'll get you the stuff."
Danny nodded, and Sam walked over to some cabinets, fishing around.
"Wait, suture?" Shawn looked fascinated by all of this. Bryan, on the other hand, was sitting down and looking pale. "Like hospital stitches suture?"
"Yeah, exactly!" Danny grinned. "I'm really good at it. Lots of experience stitching up the dead," he joked. He couldn't even count how many times he was stitching up his own arm. He got super good at it, basically a pro by the time he began working here. Though Grandpa Fenton called the practiced skill Danny had a natural talent, and Danny didn't bother to correct him.
Shawn cocked his head curiously.
"Did you intern here or something when you were in like, high school?" he asked. Danny paused.
"Uh. Yeah," he lied.
Sam returned with the stuff, handing it over. Bryan did another creeped out shiver, snapping to his feet.
"I don't wanna watch this," he complained. "Shawn, Sam, one of you, please."
He rushed for the door, grasping the handle and looking back desperately.
"I'll go," Sam offered to Shawn. "You seem interested in the whole thing." She gestured to Danny, who was already beginning.
"Yeah, it's fascinating," he agreed. "Bryan, we should do an episode on funeral homes."
"Oh hell no!"
"I like that, I can use Bryan to demonstrate the needle injector," Danny teased.
"NO!"
"Ka-chink," Danny ignored him. "Ka-chink."
Bryan made an odd noise of disgust, ripping the door open and rushing out, Sam hot on his heels. Danny was choking on laughter as he continued, Shawn also chuckling.
"I'm going to talk him into doing something on funeral homes," Shawn told Danny. "I think it's good to quell some of the fears people have about death."
"Yeah, definitely," the halfa agreed as he continued his work. "I mean. I've been surrounded by death for most of my life in one way or another. Kinda…very intimately familiar with it." He thought about the portal accident. That smoke. That tightness. It was way too familiar. "Between the funeral home, my parents hunting ghosts, and just living in Amity Park, I almost feel like I can morbidly embrace death."
"...When you say you're intimately familiar with it, it honestly gives me the impression that you've fucked a ghost," Shawn said bluntly. Danny looked at him like 'what the fuck man?'. Shawn shrugged his shoulders. "Well, have you?"
"No!" Danny scowled. "I thought you didn't believe in ghosts anyway?"
"I don't," Shawn asserted. "But we've talked to people who claimed they have slept with ghosts before."
"...What?" Danny was absolutely baffled.
"Danny!" Sam's voice caught both of their attention, snapping it away from each other and to the door. "Danny, baby, why are there so many boxes in the hallway?"
Danny paused, trying to process her question.
"...What?" he repeated himself, only louder so that his wife could hear.
"Come here, there's like boxes all over the hallway," Bryan added.
Shawn raised an eyebrow at him, and Danny looked equally confused. He quickly tied off his suture, cutting the excess off before picking up his equipment to put on the counter as he walked to the door, Shawn behind him.
Danny opened the door into the hallway, and he immediately paused. The hallways were always kept fairly clear and clean of anything. So to see it so full of boxes dumbfounded him. Normal moving style boxes, some noticeably older than others. It almost blocked the hallway leading to the back door entirely. Glancing behind him, it nearly blocked that way too, and it gave him goosebumps. They weren't quite trapped. He could clearly see that there were technically paths out, but they seemed narrow and difficult to climb through. If you didn't have intangibility, anyway.
"Were these here when you went to piss?" Bryan asked, his voice hushed as if worried somebody would hear. Danny could see that his cousin had become a bit pale. Whether it was from the needle injector teasing or the sudden boxes, he didn't know.
"They couldn't be," Danny replied, motioning to the other end of the hallway. "We would have noticed on our way in." That observation made Bryan's face drop.
"We weren't expecting any shipments, rights?" Sam asked. She went to one of the boxes, tilting it towards her to scan it. "I don't see any names or labelings."
"I mean." Danny paused. "We are, but who delivers a shipment at this hour? And drops them off like this?"
"I'm recording this," Shawn announced. He began to fish around in his bag for his camera. "This is some weird shit."
"Yeah, yeah! Record!" Bryan encouraged. He seemed to instantly relax at the idea. "Let's see what we can capture!" He glanced over to Sam. "Wait, what are you doing?"
Danny turned his attention to her. Sam had taken her pocket knife out, and she was cutting the box's tape. She glanced at him with a shrug.
"It's in our funeral home," she replied. "I wanna see what's inside. It might be our shipment, who knows? I mean, I doubt it." She had added it upon seeing her husband roll his eyes. "But either way, I wanna make sure it's funeral home stuff."
She opened the box flaps, and she raised an eyebrow. Danny came over to check it out. The first thing he saw was an ancient looking ball in a cup game. He picked it up, turning it over in his hand. There was nothing remarkable or unique about it.
"We're rolling," Shawn announced. The couple made a noise of acknowledgement. "What's in there?"
"A ball in a cup," Danny said, holding it up for Shawn and Bryan to see.
"And some really old clothes," Sam added. She pulled out a neatly folded item of clothing, but nobody could immediately identify the type. Using another box, she gently set it on there and unfolded it, revealing it to be a child's shirt. She glanced in the box, pulling out a pair of pants that unfolded itself as she retrieved them. She set it on a box next to the shirt.
"Lemme see," Bryan requested.
He stepped forward to look at the outfit, Shawn following him. Sam shifted off to the side to let him, tilting the box towards herself to check for more items. Danny peered in too, and the only other item in the box was a wood carved horse.
Danny focused his attention on another box. He picked up Sam's pocket knife, slicing the tape on that one and opening it. Inside was another outfit, this time much more colorful and clearly for an adult woman. He picked the clothes up some to check underneath, seeing a cassette tape player and old headphones resting at the bottom next to a pair of sandals.
"It's another outfit, and like, an old cassette player," Danny announced. Sam put her hand on the box, tilting it towards her to look. Bryan gave a curious hum.
He reached into his pocket for his keys as he stepped to another box. Shawn followed close behind him. Bryan opened the box, checking it out and rummaging through it. Sam peeked over his shoulder.
"Uh, more clothes and some books," he announced.
Sam knelt by another box. Danny passed her the pocket knife, and she repeated the process. The men all stood over her as she opened the container, exposing more clothes. This time, it looked like a suit, and Sam shifted the clothes around to look.
"Yeah, same here," she reported. "Outfit and a set of car keys, sunglasses, and some whiskey."
"Are these all just a single outfit and a few items?" Shawn wondered.
"I guess so?" Danny said. He picked up a few boxes at a time experimentally before setting them back down. "I think so, cause none of these boxes are really all that heavy."
"This is so weird, cause like." Sam paused, collecting her thoughts as she leaned forward on a box. "I can kind of understand having all these random outfits. People wanna be buried in weird things sometimes. But none of these clothes are from the same period of time."
"What do you mean?" Danny asked. "Like, aside from the first one, these all look fairly normal."
"The first set of clothes is like, ancient," Sam explained. "They gotta be from like, colonial times."
"Well yeah, but that's the outli-," Shawn began, but Sam interrupted.
"Those are from the 80s, they gotta be," Sam said as she jerked her thumb to the box Danny opened. "The style, the colors, the cassette player. That's the 80s. Bryan's clearly from like, at least the 40s. Just read the book titles, look at the covers. This box has also gotta be from years ago. Look at this label!" She held up the bottle of whiskey. "And these glasses, they're not modern." She set the bottle down and picked up the sunglasses to show them off.
"Okay, so where did they come from then?" Danny asked. Sam shrugged.
"Beats me," she said.
"This has just gotta be old funeral home stuff," Shawn spoke up.
"Oh, no no no!" Bryan protested. "This has ghost written all over it!"
"Come on, dude, like Sam said, people get buried in weird stuff all the time!"
"Yeah, but like Sam also said, the different eras-"
Danny just watched the two as they began a light argument over how supernatural everything was. He glanced at the wall of boxes, standing on his tip-toes to grab one. He copied Bryan's method from earlier, fishing for his keys to use his car key as a makeshift knife. This outfit was another much older one. He couldn't place the time period for sure, but it had to be really old based on the simplistic items paired with it, the alphabet on a piece of board with some snow gear.
He and Sam continued going through the boxes silently, listening to the Youtubers as they debated. After a few minutes, he felt Sam nudge him.
"Danny," Sam whispered softly, as to not draw the attention of the others. She gave a subtle nod towards the box she was looking in. Danny took one glance inside, and he froze.
Like the others, the box had an outfit and two personal items. A very familiar t-shirt, dark green bomber jacket, jeans, an Apple watch, colorful socks, and a set of sneakers. A notebook and a camera. The couple looked to Bryan as he stood talking to the camera in Shawn's hands, animatedly moving his hands, one gripping the same notebook. And Danny couldn't help but notice that he was wearing the exact same outfit that rested in the box.