Work Text:
A Tale of Grief and Love
(5.5K Words)
Ghosts were the manifestation of strong, raw emotions, combined with the clarity of an obsession, one strong enough to anchor them to the physical plane, or the ghost plane, long after they had passed away. The rest of their personality, values, way of thinking, of the time when they were still alive, faded overtime as the traits were overcome by the power of their strongest obsession. Centuries, millennia, what may have started as humanoid ghosts would gradually lose form until they became one that fitted their main emotion or objective the best.
Danny hadn’t known any of that, the day he lost his family and friends. He hadn’t known that when he turned to Vlad, his archenemy, but also the only person that remained that understood his circumstances, and honestly, did that matter at this point? Did anything matter? Vlad had been considered dangerous because he was constantly trying to kill his dad, flirt with his mom, break up his parents, trying to kidnap or adopt Danny, both seemed like one and the same in the man's mind.
But his family and friends were already dead, there was no one else that mattered that Vlad could threaten. Besides, he was the only one Danny could turn to, considering he was the only one that could…
“Make the hurt go away,” Danny sobbed, pressing his forehead against the back of the sofa, his hands shaking so much he almost let the portrait of his family and friends fall from his grasp. Almost.
Vlad had looked down at him with sadness, pity, whatever, it didn’t matter, nothing mattered anymore.
Vlad was an evil, self-centered bastard, but he was also incredibly smart and a billionaire. It didn’t take long for the older man to come up with a ‘solution’.
One glance at the metallic gauntlets, at the digits adorned with sharp, long claws, told him those things were dangerous and should not be pointed at him.
Danny didn’t care for that risk. He didn't care about permanently losing his powers either, playing hero was what had gotten him into this mess to begin with.
So he was willingly sedated and restrained to a table, not because he trusted Vlad, or because he genuinely thought removing his ghost half would help any, but because he just couldn’t muster up the energy to care anymore.
Things couldn’t get worse for him anyway.
(x)
He was filled with grief.
Grief, at the loss of his family, his friends, his life, his sense of normalcy, everyone he had fought to protect, everything he had tried to keep safe, lost. Lost, from one day to another, lost in a single second. Danny had been too slow, too weak, and fighting too close to them.
Rage, at the unfairness of it all. He had tried so, so hard, to do good with his powers, so hard to control them and learn how to fight off the ghosts that threatened the city. He had tried to be a hero, he was doing good, he was being good. So why? Why take his family and friends away? Why strip him from every single bond that mattered?
He would never receive another hug or head-ruffle from mom as she wished him a nice day at school, he would never feel dad’s strong arm wrapped behind his shoulders as he pulled him into a headlock and showed him the Fenton's newest invention. No more disagreements with Jazz that ended with a heartfelt hug, his sister would never help him sort through his feelings again, never give him pointers or help with his homework or prepare for a test again.
And Sam and Tucker— he couldn’t have asked for better friends, they had stayed through thick and thin, covering for him, helping him fight all over the city, helping him maintain his secret. They were his refuge.
Had been his refuge. From everything.
The citizens hated him, his own parents tried to kill him whenever they stumbled on his ghost form, he wasn’t safe anywhere. Not at school — the bullies, Spectra, the litany ghosts that invaded it— not outside his house — the ghosts that would fly around the city, stumble on him at random times, be that the mall or the local park — not inside his house — his parents, who absolutely couldn’t know about his half-ghost without things turning sour for him, he was almost sure.
Despair, because nothing he had done had been enough to be accepted by the citizens he tried to help and protect. He had tried his best and it hadn’t been enough to keep his loved ones safe.
Grief, Rage, and Despair were the predominant emotions rushing through Danny Phantom as he was separated from his human half, separated from the physical plane, the only thing that could have offered any semblance of balance.
The first thing he saw was Vlad, in his human form and with the gloves glowing, and all Danny perceived him as was an outlet for his overwhelming feelings. It didn’t matter that Vlad was not responsible for the citizen’s hate, the ghosts that targeted him, or the loss of his loved ones. Vlad was an enemy, a 'bad guy', and that was all there was to it.
He wanted justice, wanted to regain a sense of fairness, in whatever form that may look like. To give back to something, someone, a fraction of what had been done to him.
So he took the gloves for himself, and did to Vlad what had been done to Danny: he forcefully separated the ghost and human halves of a single entity.
The process was painful — the human Danny was just starting to blink awake, as the anesthesia started to lift — and the human part of Vlad fell to his knees, screaming and sobbing as he processed the sudden loss.
The ghost side of Vlad slammed against the wall and stayed there. Disoriented, lost, so lost—
Just as lost as Danny was, without his human half to center him. He needed a center, but a part of him knew, knew that human Danny didn’t want him to rejoin, didn’t want him to go back to being just one.
Danny was lost, so lost, he needed something, someone to center. The human Vlad would just end up being possessed, he couldn’t merge with a human that was not himself, and the ghost Vlad...
The ghost Vlad was resting against the wall, looking at him. Could he merge with another ghost? Was that even possible?
The despair turned into desperation, the need to try something, anything, that would make things better, make him feel better, something to center, to fill up the empty, to regain a part of what he had lost.
So he turned translucid and flew towards the older-looking ghost, with the intention to merge into a single being.
Grief, rage, despair, desperation— his loved ones, his family, his friends, all lost. It was all so painful.
The need to control, the hunger for power, for knowledge, the self-centered way to perceive everything that happened to him. Nothing was ever his fault, nothing, it was all on them, all on others, it had been Jack’s fault so many years ago. Unfair, he deserved better, deserved the world—
Painful loss, he had lost everything.
He hadn’t deserved that, he had done nothing wrong, it was all their fault, the world’s fault. The world deserved to burn.
If he had lost everything, then so would they.
(x)
The city of Amity Park was left for last.
He wanted to finish things in the same way it had started, he told himself. The perfect end.
It had nothing to do with the fact that the idea of destroying the place that had once been his home had made him feel ill, it had nothing to do with the fact that seeing familiar faces — Valerie, the classmates — looking at him with nothing but fear and hatred made something deep inside him feel wrong.
It had nothing to do with the fact that he had still visited the graves of his loved ones, that he had stopped by to kneel on the ground and rested with them, as if that would ever allow him the luxury of listening to their voices one more time.
The love he felt towards his parents was the first to dissipate with the pass of time.
He had loved them, strongly so, but they also had been the source of much pain, and he hadn’t felt truly safe with them, ever since the accident where he became half ghost.
The memories of Sam and Tucker started to lose their clarity. A part of him had loved them, a part of him had seen them as nothing more than another obstacle to overcome, and in the end, the time they spent apart became larger than the time they had spent together in life, and the warmth, gratitude, and love that had once burned like the sun became little more than the fickle of a candle, blowing weakly somewhere in his memories. They had existed. They had been relevant. They were gone now. All facts, and none of them made him feel much of anything anymore.
And then there was Jazz.
His older sister, the one that had been his only refuge when living inside his once-home, his only semblance of safety and unconditional love. She would have stood for him, had his family known of his life as a ghost fighter, he was sure of it.
Dan had pressed his forehead against her grave, slowly pushing the stone backwards as the years continued to pass, as he continued to grow stronger, taller, broader. Could ghosts age? He felt like he was aging, his appearance shifted and changed along with his personality, now so much different than Danny’s had once been. And yet, at the end of it all, only his love for Jazz remained unchanged.
He would never admit the despair and rage that had filled him to the brim once the city was put under its protective dome, and he was unable to visit his sister’s grave.
He had gone on a carnage, be them ghosts or living creatures, he hadn’t differentiated among them as he screamed a wail full of rage, grief, and pain. The first time he had cried in nine years, used his Ghostly Wail. He had mourned the loss all over again, raged for weeks, the feeling raw and bleeding as he fought and destroyed everything he came across with.
He was not stupid. He knew, had realized many years ago, shortly after the start of his crusade, that if he went through this, nothing would remain. No one would remain. The physical plane would be no more, and only ghosts and whatever remained of the Ghost zone would be left for eternal company.
He had considered stopping.
Then he had remembered Clockwork’s existence and settled on continuing. If everything was destroyed, he would surely have no option but to interfere to fix things.
Dan hadn’t expected for so much time to pass without any interference. It had made him wonder if it had anything to do with his visits to Jazz’ grave, if Clockwork still considered not all hope was lost...
There was a way to change that.
“You can’t break through our shields!” Valerie stated over the comms, as confident as ever.
“Until today.”
The Ghostly Wail was enough to shatter the city's shield, as he knew it would, and the citizens rushed to the underground bunkers like scared ants going back to their anthill. He ignored them for the most part, deciding to visit what had once been the Fenton’s lab.
“Hello Valerie.” A smirk, as he extended a single arm forward. “And goodbye.”
The explosion had destroyed the Fenton’s laboratory. A show of power, a show so Clockwork would finally see that there was no hope left, that Dan would not stop at anything, not for anything, much less so for the remainders of the humanity he had once had.
He had destroyed every single helicopter and tank they sent his way, destroyed the empty buildings that had stood tall and unharmed for the last ten years. This city had stopped being his city as it continued to advance in technology, growing vertically in its limited land. The thing that had once stopped him had been the familiar faces, the Fenton’s building, and that was not a limitation anymore.
And if city's graveyard remained completely untouched — who would notice among the destruction? No one cared to protect the dead, when so many of the living were at stake.
He was flying across the streets when he heard the unmistakable sound of Valerie’s laser being shot—
...to someone that wasn’t him? The Fright Knight had retreated at his command already, what other ghost could be in the area?
The answer to that question was exhilarating.
“Sam and Tucker, it’s been a while…” he greeted, noticing the way their presence didn’t ignite anything in him, except for the flicker of excitement at having his plan work. “Ten years to be accurate.”
He waved his arm, freezing the two humans in place. Danny had already left, to catch Valerie and soften her landing since Dan had thrown her across the city.
Danny’s presence here was a telltale of Clockwork’s meddling on its own, but the fact that all three of them had managed to snatch the time medallions was a welcome surprise. Now, what exactly was Clockwork’s plan… why send this group to him? To show them the horrors of the future, as if that would prevent them from happening? How would these three children know what had caused this — what had made him be himself — if they could see nothing but the results of his existence?
No, this was not enough, witnessing the consequence wasn't enough. They needed to understand the root cause, if they were to change anything.
“You know, if I had an ounce of humanity left in me, this would be a very touching little reunion,” he said with mild-interest, looking down at the trapped humans. “But of course, I surrendered my human half a long time ago.”
This should be one of the most important hints he could offer. He had no humanity left- not like it was his fault. His human half had been the one to reject him first, he had simply returned the sentiment, in a very permanent manner. None of it had not been Dan’s fault.
He could feel Danny’s presence behind him, the forceful sigh of red smoke at the proximity of the younger ghost. He turned around with an unimpressed expression.
But he still let the ghost-blast collide against his chest, falling down as if that weak attack was truly enough to make him lose his concentration, and freed the teenagers.
“Sam, Tucker, run!” Danny ordered, panic and worry present in his voice. Oh, how many times had he screamed that in the past, only to fail to save them when it mattered the most?
“Run? Where are they going to go?” he mocked another hint. There was no place that was safe from him in the future, they would have to return to their own timeline; remove the medallions.
Leave two of the most powerful objects of the Ghost Zone behind for Dan to use.
The teenagers had been young, but not stupid, not when it came to these things. So when Dan made the Fenton’s building collapse over the two mortals, he was relieved, unsurprised to see no corpses, nothing left behind among the debris except for the abandoned time medallions.
Now, the beginning of his act, as if he cared to preserve this apocalyptic future he had molded with his own two hands.
“And you’re not going anywhere, if you can’t remove your time medallion.” Dan had more knowledge on how things worked now. The part of Danny that was half-ghost would work overtime to either keep his insides in his gas form at all times, a partial transformation, or focus on keeping the object translucid enough to avoid internal damage.
Predictably, Danny fell unconscious as his energy focused on keeping him alive, so Dan left him by the statue that should be the biggest hint of them all.
‘GONE, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN,’ the base of it had collapsed, a collateral to one of his earlier attacks, but the figures of Danny’s family and friends were still undamaged.
Thankfully, Dan didn't have to wait long before his younger counterpart woke up once more.
“W-what happened?” Danny looked up at the statue with surprise and horror.
“Strange, how an overheated mass of condiments can ruin your whole future," Dan answered with a smirk, avoiding to look at the statue himself.
This was how they had died.
Danny had been fighting a ghost in town. Mr. Lancer had asked for his parents to come to the Nasty Burger, to tell them all about how Danny had cheated in the aptitude test, and Jazz had accompanied them to try to mitigate the consequences Danny would face.
The ghost fight had escalated, and his parents needed to be kept out of the loop for this one, so Sam and Tucker had joined them at the Nasty Burger, doing their best to help keep them inside the restaurant and unaware of the fight outside.
Danny had turned intangible, let a ghost blast phase through his chest.
The laser attack had hit the containers of the sauce directly.
After that everything had happened much too fast for Danny to stop it.
“Doesn’t matter if I can go back in time or not, I’ll never turn into you!” Danny defied with both determination and fear, bringing Dan out of his thoughts. “Never!”
“Of course you will,” Dan mocked, taking the appearance he had often used to sneak into this city and visit his sister’s grave, at least during his first year of existence.
Danny watched in horror as Dan transformed into an exact physical replica of his human appearance.
“It’s only a matter of time.” Because Danny had yet to know what caused the explosion, or why all his loved ones had been reunited in a single place. And now…
Now that he had one of Clockwork’s medallions, he could ensure things would end differently, even if the events that led to it remained the same. Why leave it to Danny to fix things up, when Dan could go back in time and see his sister alive again, to ensure things stayed as they should have from the very beginning.
The need to control was a part of Vlad’s ghost that hadn’t gone away with the pass of time. He would ensure things went close enough to the script, then change the ending where they all perished. Simple as that.
He tossed Danny through a portal to the Ghost zone, since Dan was the enemy of all humanity in this timeline, Danny may not survive if left trapped and weakened in the destroyed city, not with Valerie out of commission and unable to intercede on his behalf, with no one left to explain that Danny was not Dan.
Immediately after he activated Clockwork’s medallion and went back to the present, fusing the object inside him to ensure he would not leave this timeline before it was time to do so.
(x)
No one had given him any trouble so far.
“Danny? We need to talk.”
No one except his sister Jazz who had, apparently, caught on the fact that Danny had the answer sheet to the upcoming test.
Something inside his chest uncoiled and finally breathed again, as he interacted with Jazz. Bantering with her felt as natural as blinking. He fell into old behaviors with ease, answering in the way Danny would have, and watched with fond amusement as his sister’s exasperation and frustration continued to build up.
“Danny, don’t you understand—?”
“That I’m destroying my future?” Dan interrupted like Danny would have, ignoring the sudden weight in his chest at how close that hit home. How true it was. He let out a humorless laugh. “You don’t know the half of it.”
His sister had always had a sharp eye to uncover what was hidden underneath. In the blink of an eye, as if she had noticed the grief and hurt disguised under juvenile anger in the last sentence, her whole demeanor softened.
“Danny, I know all of it. About everything. That you’re part ghost, that you’re always doing the right thing with your powers,” she said softly, momentarily proud, before she placed her hands on her hips and frowned again with disappointment. “Until now.”
“You knew?” And Dan couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. Since when— had Dan’s sister also known, before the accident, was this how she felt about it?
Proud of him, had she always felt proud of him?
“I know. And I’ve been covering for you with mom and dad because I’m proud of you and the good that you do.” Listening to the words, it felt warm, the first time in the last ten years when Dan could say he felt something outside of the strong emotions that had brought him to life as a ghost, that anchored his very existence.
“But not anymore,” Jazz frowned again, and the flicker of warmth faded away like a dying ember extinguished by the force of a hurricane.
That was fine, it made what he had to do a bit easier. After all, Clockwork must be keeping a close eye on him.
He had a role to play, and that was not the one of the hero.
“You were always smarter than I gave you credit for,” Dan admitted, changing into his real self.
Jazz took a step back. “You’re not Danny.”
“I was, but I grew out of it,” Dan gave his sister a playfully teasing look, that probably was very reminiscent of the one of his teen years. She was still his sister, it was hard to treat her any differently. “The Danny you know is floating helplessly on the Ghost Zone, ten years into the future.”
He wondered if Jazz would notice anything odd. Why would Dan volunteer so much information, if not because he wanted them to piece it all together, wanted things to turn out differently? Would she understand someday?
...did it matter if she ever did? So long Clockwork didn’t notice the ruse for what it was, that was all he needed to succeed.
“He'll escape. He'll beat you!” She didn’t seem as afraid of him as she had looked like before he introduced himself as Danny's future self.
“How?” Dan mocked, not addressing the relief he felt at seeing the fear fade out from her gaze. “Is the answer A, the Fenton Portal? Destroyed it. B, the only remaining portal? The one my idiot cheesehead archenemy has? As soon as I find it, that's going too.”
Hah, as if he didn’t know where it was located, as if he hadn’t been born in that very lab under Vlad’s mansion.
“Cheesehead— Vlad Masters?! He's your archenemy?” Good, Jazz was keeping up, he knew she would. Vlad had been left alive, and he would be the last piece for Danny to understand what had happened.
“Is it C, you? No. You can't stop me from cheating on the test and solidifying my future, so it must be D—”
He froze her with an ectoblast, knocking her out in the most harmless way possible.
“None of the above!” Dan laughed, acting for an audience that was horribly omniscient, present throughout past, present, and future. Clockwork was the one he needed to convince, above everything.
…and yet, he was still unable to just leave his sister laying on the floor.
He transformed and took Danny’s appearance once more. “Wouldn’t do for the Fenton’s to suspect anything’s off quite yet,” he justified outloud for Clockwork’s sake, taking Jazz into his arms to take her to bed. He could claim she had fallen asleep helping him study.
Like his own sister had often done in his own timeline.
So what if he went as far as to tuck her in, as if the blankets could protect her from the world’s dangers? It was all part of the act, or so he hoped Clockwork would think.
(x)
She had woken up faster than he thought she would, and was now standing right outside the classroom. He may have gone too soft on her…
Dan made a clone, one that came into existence immediately invisible, intangible, and phased through the floor so he could continue to cheat on the test.
The clone had electrified her to knock her out, a bit more strongly this time. He had transferred his own invisibility and intangibility to her, so she could be removed from the scene without anyone being any the wiser. He needed more time.
“Mrs. Fenton? It’s Mr. Lancer. Could you meet me at the Nasty Burger at—”
So far everything was going as planned.
(x)
“South Beach Diet, people, what's going on here!” Lancer sure had been imaginative to curse without cursing around children, huh?
Jazz's foot slammed down, encased in the Fenton Peeler. Yes, this was a good moment for the bad guy to be revealed.
“I'll tell you what's going on. Or better yet, I'll show you!”
She fired at Dan, and he allowed for the blast to peel away his disguise, revealing his true form. He fell to his knees, hands supporting his weight.
“That's not Danny!” Jazz exclaimed what Dan hoped would one day be true.
“Where is he, where is our son!?” Jack sounded so angry, so serious, the sound of the redying gun almost made Dan want to take the threat seriously. Almost.
“What have you done to our boy!?” Maddie demanded next— and oh, that one was too good to let pass.
He laughed, the childish part of him rejoicing at the chance to play with the most iconic scene of Star Wars. “I am your boy!”
The joy died quickly, as shock and horror covered the expression of everyone present. He had mildly hoped that his parents would be the same as Jazz, that they would have put two and two together, and he had just never realized it before losing them.
An idiotic hope.
Dan hovered into the air, clouds starting to swirl around him in toxic green. If anything, he should make this impacting.
“What kind of parents are you anyway? The world's leading ghost experts, and you can't figure out your own son was half ghost!” And if the mocking was disguising the hurt and disappointment, who would notice? “Hello? Danny Fenton? Danny Phantom? Ever notice the similarity?”
He looked at Jazz, pointedly keeping his gaze from softening. “Jazz did.”
“Liar! Don't move!” Oh-hoh was Jack angry.
“Actually, nobody's going anywhere. Not until it's time for you to be blown everywhere.”
This, the final act, at last! The villain has been revealed, the victims are strapped to the container that would blow up shortly—
Jazz attempted to punch him from behind, and even as his flesh moved around her fist, leaving a hole in his chest, he found himself surprised at the fact that he had neglected to include her in his initial attack.
He had, instinctively, refused to trap her with the others.
She gasped in surprise and pulled back her arm, and Dan wished she had just left to request backup, because now he had no choice but to counter.
“Nice try, Jazz. But me, my future? I'm inevitable.” He really hoped none of this was. He fervently wished so, even as he strapped her among the others.
This is where the hero should appear, the moment Danny made a miraculous return. Clockwork would ensure that, wouldn’t he?
“Hey, old man! Ready for a blast from your past!?”
Wonderful timing.
Dan grinned darkly and met him head-on, but the fight was short-lived. Even when holding back, trapping Danny was much too easy.
“What are you gonna do, waste me? What happens to you then?” Danny defied.
“I don't have to waste you, I just have to run out the clock until your entire life falls apart,” Dan smirked as he justified out loud, hoping Clockwork wouldn’t choose this time to start wondering about why Dan had left every single person he had once known as Danny — Vlad, Valerie, the classmates, among a handful of others — alive all this time.
“Your time is up, Danny. It's been up for ten years.” Ten miserable, long years. “What makes you think you can change my past?”
“Because I promised my family!” Good attitude, but it needed a stronger feeling to it.
Dan laughed. “Oh, you are such a child! You promised?”
"Yes! I PROMISED!!!”
Dan had never been happier to be blasted out across the street, as he was when the Ghosty Wail was used against him, because—
“That power— I don't get that power until ten years from now!” Which meant things were already changing.
“I guess the future isn't as set in stone as you think it is!” And as good as it felt to see everything going according to plan, Dan had to admit, he was a lot less exhilarated at receiving another Ghostly Wail practically right at his face.
It sent him flying again; crashing into a building that collapsed right on top of him. Could he have turned intangible to minimize the damage? Yes, he could have, but this was the part where the villain was defeated.
So when he rose a single fist from the rubble pile, forcefully bursting from the wreckage instead of just phasing through it, he looked more like the villain at the verge of defeat he was supposed to be. Bruised up, flames dying, and uniform ripped, everything about him should be screaming ‘time for the final hit’.
Except Danny was in his human form, bruised and obviously exhausted. Dan had… probably gone too hard on him. A part of him had always resented the rejection, he hadn’t really forgiven Danny for trying to permanently get rid of his half ghost. He never did.
“Time’s up!”
Not that any of this mattered anymore. The Fenton Thermos was aiming at him, it was Game Over, at last.
He went into his imprisonment willingly, relieved. Now all that was left was for Danny to rescue his friends and family, and that would be it.
At last, everything would be as it was always supposed to be.
(x)
Dan had expected to disappear, to vanish along with the timeline that would never come to be. In the odd case he didn't, he had expected to remain imprisoned until the end of time.
Being freed from the Thermos hadn’t been part of his list of possibilities. He looked incredulously at the familiar room, then at his own hands. He wasn’t— he wasn’t even restrained.
“Why am I still here?” Dan asked Clockwork without bothering to lift his gaze. “The past has changed. Why do I still exist?”
Everything was supposed to end for him, for his timeline. His ghost obsession had been to make things fair, to destroy everything, in order to fix everything.
That objective had already been completed, and perhaps that alone would have been enough to dispel a lesser ghost. On Dan's case however, his ghost core immediately kept demanding fairness. What did Dan deserve now that his previous goal, his previous obsession, had been completed?
“You are my responsibility, now that you exist outside of time,” Clockwork mentioned, appearance changing to that of an old, long-bearded man. “Your timeline has collapsed, but it did so when you were outside of it. And well— the time medallion is still inside you, isn’t it?”
The Master of Time didn’t seem concerned, nor surprised by any of this.
“You knew all this was going to happen,” Dan turned his hands into fists. “All of it.”
All his years of pain and suffering, all the years where he had inflicted that same pain and suffering onto others. Clockwork had known what Dan was trying to do, from the very beginning.
“Everything's the way it's supposed to be,” Clockwork repeated the phrase Dan had muttered to himself many times across the years, specially at the beginning, everytime the part of him that had once been Danny started to second-guess if his plan would ever work at all.
“You could have interfered sooner!” Dan growled and launched himself forward, trying to punch the smug bastard in the face. His fist was blocked by the clock scepter.
“No, not without the Observants deeming the future was doomed enough.” The ghost looked like a child now. “Which was the reason why you ensured that would be the case, didn’t you?”
Dan growled and hissed, renewing the fight with vigor. Whether Clockwork had always been aware of this or not was no longer relevant. It was done, his plan had already been completed.
What did Dan deserve now that his previous goal had been completed?
The part of him that had once been Danny whispered something along the lines of "to rest".
The part of him that had once been Vlad demanded "to own the new, fixed world".
“Your headband, your note, your handwriting… Jazz, for how long have you known?”
Danny’s voice echoed across the room and Dan couldn’t help but turn to face the portal depicting the conversation of the siblings. It was enough for Clockwork to restrain him.
“You've given everyone else a second chance,” the ghost child transformed into a man again, voice uncharacteristically soft and understanding as a single hand rested on Dan’s shoulder. “Why not grant yourself the same courtesy?”
Dan growled and huffed, but couldn't tear his gaze away from the scene playing in front of him.
“...since the Spectra thing. I didn't want to tell you until you wanted to tell me. It's your secret,” Jazz admitted. Since Spectra? She had known for quite a while then…
Danny chuckled. “Well, it's our secret now.”
Seeing the siblings hug so tenderly made Dan's longing and heartache all the more pronounced.
“What if I told you, there is a way for you to join them?” Clockwork said invitingly, hovering somewhere at his side.
Dan closed his eyes and hung his head. What did he deserve now that his previous goal had been completed?
Dan, the combination of both halves of different ghosts that had become his own person across the years, made his longing for a sense of normalcy his new obsession. What exactly that entailed, he wasn't sure yet, but he sure as hell wasn't going to get it if he stayed imprisoned in the thermos, or stuck here in the clocktower.
He wanted to be in that world, he deserved to stay in the world where everything was as it was supposed to be. It was the result of his plan, and staying to enjoy it was the only thing that felt fair.
“...tell me how," he demanded in a low growl, already testing the strength of his restraints. He could break free, one way or another.
Clockwork hummed with something akin to interest.
"In that case, I'd suggest you listen carefully."