Chapter Text
Danny felt heavier. Contrarily, he also felt lighter. The heavy clawing sensation of anxiety still sat in his chest, nestled somewhere between his lungs. In spite of this, he felt like he wasn’t alone for the first time in years.
From the very second that Danny stepped into the portal to now; Danny has had to tip-toe around how he feels. Sam and Tucker watched him die. They heard him scream, flail and spasm, all lit up like a Christmas tree. Sometimes, Tucker throws an arm over his shoulder and Danny can feel him checking for a pulse. Sam’s never that obvious, but Danny knows it’s no coincidence that her giant electricity ball disappeared soon after.
No, Danny couldn’t burden his friends more than he already has. It’s his corpse that haunts their waking dreams, that catches Sam's breath if he moves too suddenly. That stops Tucker from exploring the technology in the lab with him.
There was no way he would make them feel worse, by talking about it, but Danny was scared.
He wakes up at three am, iron on his tongue and ozone in the air, a scream in his heart. He felt different, and wrong, and somehow alien to the world he grew up in. Maybe he died, maybe he didn’t, it hurt to think about.
What if he can’t save his friends and they end up like him?
When Stiles caught him sneaking in Danny thought he would scream and alert his parents. He thought he would be terrified of the existential crisis that Danny has become. Then Stiles listened and comforted him. Ancients, he was even hugging Danny. Like they could still be family even now, like Danny deserved it.
He hadn’t noticed the absence until it flooded him all at once - warmth, safety, comfort. Danny held on to Stiles like he would disappear.
“Hey, hey hey hey, it’s alright Dan-o I’m not going anywhere. Let it out. We have all night, everyone else is sleeping.”
“It’s so - It’s so hard to know when I can be honest. There is so much I haven’t said out loud before. I’m not even sure I know what to say.”
Danny was choked up saying that much, somehow he wanted to say so much that he stayed silent. The secrets he held so tight, compressed like a cork in his throat.
“That’s cool bro, all chill. I can start first, tell you how the werewolf chaos started,” Stiles shifted away from him, leaving one hand on his shoulder, an anchor. “Sophomore year, Scott and I went out to search for a body in the woods. Then Scott was bitten by a werewolf.”
Stiles continued to detail the insane story of his life. Including everything from lizard people to human sacrifice. Then now Danny’s cousin was apparently studying to be some kind of witch? The crazier the story got, the easier opening up felt. Stiles might actually understand him. Their stories were wildly different but similar in all the ways that matter.
They both made one stupid decision with their friends, then had spent the next couple of years picking up the pieces. Neither of them could have predicted the consequences, but neither could deny that even without hindsight they made a stupid decision. It took personal experience to understand that kind of guilt without blame.
“Wow stiles, sounds like you’ve had a beast of a year,” the breathless laugh Danny received was all the encouragement he needed. “No, seriously we should fang out more, that must have been hard to handle. You know I’m always happy to throw you a bone if you need one. We're a family, of corpse I’ll always be there for you.”
“Wow dude, only you would make puns during such an emotional moment,” Stiles grinned at him. “It feels good that you know about all this. When you didn’t it felt like trying to be close to someone without ever talking. I missed being close.”
It was Danny’s turn to give Stiles a reassuring hug.
“Me too Stiles. It’s been stressing me half to death keeping this a secret. Especially when all I wanted was to tell you. I think I’m ready to tell you my story as well. But, for real, dead serious, call me next time shits going down in Beacon Hills. I’m willing to help anytime.”
The returning promise to help with the ghost fighting was more reassuring than Danny would have thought.
“Does it bother you? Being sort of dead now?”
“I try not to think about it,” Danny exhaled slowly, “But it’s kind of shoved in my face a lot. Hard to ignore when I have to go ghost everyday. Sometimes it’s really cool. Like I have superpowers now, and nobody has died for good yet. Other times I feel so cold and ungrounded. I wonder if I will ever properly die now. Or if I would notice if I did. Ghosts have a lot of different abilities, what if I just convinced myself I was alive so well that I learnt how to fake it. What if none of this is real at all and I just went crazy after I got electrocuted. Most of all it hurts knowing that this is real. I died, and neither of my parents even noticed.”
Danny couldn’t stop the tears then, he never wants to speak ill of his parents. They love him and give him everything he needs, minus the attention. He doesn’t want to act like he’s abused when he isn’t, or like they don’t love him. Sure maybe they endanger him and jazz with their experiments, sure Jazz has been a more consistent parental figure than his parents but that's not what neglect means. Right?
At least he knows Stiles has seen the whole picture, being family he knows how the Fenton dynamic works. Stiles wouldn’t make a judgement of his parents from one angsty confession at two am.
“That’s… a lot. I don’t know where to start man. Do you want my input though Danny?” waiting a moment for the affirmative sniffle Stiles continued. “It doesn’t matter if you’re dead or alive. I know that's a shitty take but the way I see it, you are real, you are here, you feel pain, emotional and physical. That’s everything you will get from life. You don’t lack any signs of life, you just gained some signs of death, almost like you aren’t half dead half alive, rather full alive, sort of dead. I mean, it’s not like you left a corpse right? So you can’t be fully dead, just a little ghostlier than your average joe.”
None of that made it better - he still didn’t have any answers - but at least Stiles had faith in his humanity. That had to count for something.
“I suppose there’s no pretty way to spin your parents not noticing though huh? That really sucks Danny. But it’s not like nobody noticed, Jazz did, I did. Your parents have always been the obsessive distracted sorts. Especially after discovering proper evidence of ghosts. I’m sure that feels unbelievably shitty. Can I give you another hug?”
Wrapped in his cousin's arms, Danny tried to stifle his tears, he always was a crier. Despite the fact his problems hadn’t suddenly disappeared he felt significantly better. At least he was understood by someone. Thinking about what Stiles had been through, made it easier to trust his reassurances. They had always been similar, different people sure, but same kind of crazy.
Sleep came easier that night.