Chapter Text
Danny was always drowning, the context was just different depending on the situation.
As a child, he drowned himself in anything space related. If there was space news, he’d learn about it. If there was a fact about space, he knew it. If you were wrong about something related to space, he’d politely correct you and then proceed to go on a rant about the right answer. He drowned himself in knowledge, and he was completely happy with it.
As a tween, he was drowning in schoolwork. He felt like there was always so much to do and so little time. Every time one was complete there was another one following it. The fact that he was in the “advanced classes” didn’t really help either. But Fentons were smart and Fentons got A’s. Jazz did it and so could he. So he pushed through it.
As a teenager, he’d been drowned in ectoplasm when he died. It was only for a few seconds apparently but to him it felt like he’d been in the portal for a lifetime. Ectoplasm filled him to the core, killing him, but also not. He was something new now, alive and dead. Human and ghost.
After that was more of an emotional drowning, where he felt everything was too much and all he wanted was for it to all stop. But the waves kept on coming and Danny was always faced with something. He could’ve ignored his ghost sense, but then he’d feel so anxious about who the ghost was, if they were a threat, what if someone got hurt and he wasn’t there to stop it?
That guilt was another thing that drowned him. It took him way too long to realize what an obsession was, especially that his was protecting others. It led him to his doom because he thought his best friends were in trouble and he couldn’t just sit still and wait for something to happen.
He got caught. His parents saw him as Phantom out in the open with Sam and Tucker one too many times and made the correct assumption that they were close. They baited him with them and whisked him off to the lab.
And now? Well, this was the first time his drowning was because of someone else. He hung over a tub of ectoplasm in his parents’ lab. He wasn’t sure what experiment they were trying to do but he knew it wouldn’t be pleasant. Ghosts don’t need to breathe but Danny does eventually and he doesn't think his parents are aware of that little fact.
So yeah, he’d always been drowning.
But at least this might be his final time.