Chapter Text
The next morning found Lancer in Ishiyama’s office, discussing the pep rally next Monday.
“So the shirts should be ready Thursday?” Lancer asked, scribbling down meeting notes on a writing pad.
“Yes. And all staff have agreed to the shirts. We've also not had any student complaints. Just the opposite, in fact. The students seem excited - barring Valerie Gray, of course.”
“Of course,” Lancer said with a sigh. He wasn't so daft as to say he didn't understand Ms. Gray's ghost hatred but honestly, everyone could see what had happened was an accident. Ms. Gray just needed someone to blame, and Phantom was the easiest target.
“She hasn't been too bad about it, though,” Ishiyama continued. “She tried to get some other students to agree with her and other than one of the freshmen, not a single student agreed with her. I don't think she realized just how popular Phantom was among her peers.”
Lancer nodded in agreement, relieved that she wasn’t causing any issues. After the little bit of time he’d spent with Phantom, he really was determined to show the ghost he was loved by more than his friends/sidekicks. They discussed a few more things - Dash Baxter’s falling grades, Daniel Fenton’s continued truancy, Tucker Foley’s tendency to hack the school system and leave ‘humorous’ messages for random staff members - but eventually, the meeting wrapped up and Lancer took his leave.
He fell into a comfortable routine over the next few days, almost like what it had been before - but now he texted Phantom every evening, making sure he was okay whether it was due to one of his publicized fights or simply because Lancer hadn’t seen the ghost that day. Sure, he knew he seemed like a mother hen, but honestly, could he be blamed? He’d finally realized all the things Phantom dealt with, and it felt right to do what he could to help him, even if it was only simply checking in.
If Phantom minded his worrying nature, he didn’t say anything.
Still, Lancer couldn;t help the way his heart leapt into his chest with panic when he got a call from Phantom at two in the morning the following Friday.
“Help,” the ghost said as soon as Lancer answered, bleary eyed and exhausted until he heard the word.
“Where are you?” Lancer asked, already out of his bed and pulling appropriate clothing on over his pajamas.
“I’m - ugh,” the ghost said, taking a ragged, pained breath, “I’m near your house. I need to hide. I know it’s a lot to ask, but -”
“Come over, I’ll get the first aid kit ready,” he interrupted. “Are you good to phase in or do I need to unlock the door?”
“I can phase. I’ll be there in five minutes.” Phantom said, immediately hanging up.
The next four minutes were the most slow-moving, anxiety-inducing four minutes of Lancer’s life. He paced his living room, Sola and Luna voicing their displeasure when he refused to sit and be a couch for them, voicing it even louder when he locked them in his bedroom. He grabbed some blankets he didn’t mind losing and tossed them over the couch - if Phantom was bad enough to come here, Lancer could at least try to minimize the stains. And it distracted him for a whole seventeen seconds!
However, even with being prepared for a ghost to appear, Lancer still nearly jumped out of his skin when Phantom came through his walls, immediately collapsing to his hands and knees, coughing up ectoplasm onto Lancer’s pale cream carpet.
The image of Phantom like this, with what appeared to be a spear embedded through his chest, would haunt Lancer for years to come.
“Phantom!” he exclaimed, running to the ghost’s side.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Phantom mumbled as Lancer gently helped Phantom to his feet, keeping a grip on the injured ghost’s elbow as he navigated him towards the couch.
“I’m sure it isn’t,” Lancer lied, studying the spear jutting through Phantom’s front and back. There were few other injuries - some burns, a minor cut on his face - but the visible impalement was concerning enough on its own. Lancer’s anger flared when he realized the spiked side of the spear was the one piercing through Phantom’s chest - meaning whoever had shot this ghost had shot him in the back.
“We need to get the metal out,” Phantom said, adjusting on the couch so neither end of the spear had any pressure on it. “I can’t phase through this material, it goes intangible with me.”
“Pardon my ignorance but is it possible for you to bleed out? Er, ectoplasm out? Please don’t tell me this is something else you’ve had experience with…”
Phantom shook his head and suddenly stopped with a groan, grabbing his head with both hands. “I’ve never been impaled, no, but I’ve had a lot worse done to me where I woulda bled out if I could,” he answered and Lancer forcibly shut down the part of his mind that tried to come to terms with that particularly worrying statement.
“Alright. Well, then, let's get this out of you. It would be best to… pull it the rest of the way through…” Lancer said, his face paling as he realized what he was about to do. Still, he pushed through. “I’m going to cut away your jumpsuit around the entry and exit wounds. I know you heal fast, but I don’t know if how a ghost would react to a foreign body healing inside of you is different than a human.”
The ghost raised his hand to where the spike poked through his chest, gently pressing at the skin surrounding it. “Just… don’t panic if you see scars, okay?”
Lancer would absolutely be panicking, thank you very much, he would just also be hiding it very well. He dug out a pair of scissors and began to carefully cut a large swath of fabric from around both sides of the injury.
He immediately understood why Phantom warned him about the scars. Sure, Lancer had seen the ones on Phantom’s back that first night at the school.
He hadn't, however, realized there were exponentially more, a fact obvious to determine with the limited amount of skin visible from the bit of cut away fabric.
It also had done nothing to prepare him for the sight of this ghost’s chest - this happy, joking child, gone too soon yet ready to save innocents at every turn despite expecting their scorn - and the top portion of what even he knew to be a Y-incision.
Lancer dug his teeth into his tongue to keep from making a sound and fought to keep his expression neutral. He saw Phantom’s eyes flick towards him when the scar was exposed, a fearful expression crossing his glowing face as he seemed to wait for Lancer’s reaction. Still, the teacher refused to let the ghost see just how utterly devastated he was by the revelation of such a horrific injury.
“Okay, Phantom,” Lancer said, dropping the cutaway portions of suit haphazardly beside himself, “I’m going to pull this out, okay? It’s going to hurt, I’m afraid.”
“Heh. Lancer pulling out a lance. Is that irony?” Phantom asked as he squeezed his eyes shut.
“It most certainly is not, Mr. Phantom,” Lancer answered, wrapping his hands around the spear, careful to avoid the spikes on the end. “Three… two…” he began counting, hurriedly pulling before saying ‘one.’
Phantom screamed, shoving his own fist into his mouth as his body shuddered violently.
“It’s out!” Lancer said, dropping the spear to the floor. It was fully coated in Phantom’s green blood from tip to end, and the ectoplasm immediately seeped into the carpet, growing rapidly into a large stain.
“Fuck,” Phantom breathed, tears visibly pooling in the corners of his eyes.
“I’m going to patch it up, okay? Can you talk to me while I do? I know you said you won’t pass out, but just for my own sanity, okay?” Lancer said, trying and failing to add the notes of humor to his voice that he’d meant to.
“Talk about fucking what?” the ghost growled, leaning forward and wrapping his arms around himself.
Despite the way the ghost tried to hide himself, Lancer still saw the way tears dripped from his face, flowing like an ethereal diamond as they fell to the floor.
“I don’t care. Anything. What’s your favorite topic?”
“Space,” Phantom answered without hesitation.
“Tell me all about space, then. Do you… like… stars?” Lancer asked, grasping at straws. Astronomy was not anywhere near his forte.
Apparently his floundering was amusing, however, as it drew a pained chuckle from Phantom. “Yeah. It’s been something I’ve always liked. First just ‘cause stars are pretty and then I wanted to be an astronaut to go touch the constellations. ‘Course, that was before I realized how space actually worked…”
“Do you have a favorite constellation?” Lancer asked, glancing up at Phantom’s face. He looked paler than usual, his glow dim and his eyes glazed over, but overall he was hiding his pain well, from the looks of it. The biggest indication he had that Phantom was more than a little pain-addled was the fact the ghost actually answered his question.
“Corvus, easy.”
Something stirred in Lancer’s memory and he frowned slightly, trying to remember where he’d heard of the constellation Corvus before. “I don’t think I know much about that one, can you tell me about it?”
Phantom shrugged. “It’s not as big a thing in the human realms, so I’m not surprised. It’s not like Corvus is a Zodiac, but it’s, like, a divine symbol in the Ghost Zone. It’s like the Zone’s version of old Irish legend.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. So, like, the constellation Corvus is the crow or the raven. Corvus is said to be the deceased youngest sister of the Great Queen, one of her triplet sisters. Corvus is the Badb, a war goddess that looked like a crow and one of the lesser rulers under the Queen. When the Badb died in war, the Queen hung her in the mortal sky, a warning to all, and she replaced her sister as the war goddess, and she was already, like, the goddess of fate. It’s… actually a long story.”
“Intriguing - I wonder if there’s a book about this? I’d love to know more.” Lancer prompted when Phantom trailed off, his eyes going more unfocused. The words were slightly stuttering and sometimes took him longer than usual to say, but that was unsurprising. The bandaging was done, so Lancer grabbed a nearby towel and wiped his hands, settling into his chair.
“I’m sure the Ghostwriter has a book on it…” Phantom said. “I’d have to break in and steal it, though.”
“Or you could just tell me the rest of the story?” Lancer prompted, wincing slightly at how casually Phantom mentioned breaking and entering what sounded like a ghost’s home. “I’ve got no other plans.”
Phantom grinned slightly, his lips barely pulling up at the corner but still there. “So, the Queen declared that Corvus was the constellation of Death, ‘cuz Badb was dead. As time passed, the Queen became associated with doom, death, and victory, because the wars waged after Badb died were more violent and with higher death costs. People stopped tryna negotiate or come to peaceful solutions. The weapons got sharper and deadlier. So, since so many ghosts form from war, she became considered the Queen of the Infinite Realms. It earned her the name the Phantom Queen, even though she rejected the throne of the Zone. But ghosts still pray to her and when they’re on the human side, they look to Corvus in the sky - to the ‘Death above them’ - and will use it to guide them home. There was a legend that if your favorite constellation when you’re alive was the Corvus, it meant the Queen had marked you for death, and the Morrigan would come to guide you to the throne.”
Lancer’s entire body went rigid as he remembered where he knew about Corvus from. Where he knew the name Morrigan. The box in his mind, all the small things he’d noticed, exploded with the force of a collapsing star. “Oh. Uh, I’ve never heard of that. It’s an interesting story,” he forced out as he studied Phantom’s face, so familiar to another’s when he just looked hard enough.
“Yeah, only ghosts know it. I think you’re the only human who knows it, actually,” Phantom said, running a hand through his white hair in a way that cast black shadows and made Lancer’s heart spasm with grief.
“Well, I’m honored,” the teacher said after a moment too long of silence.
Phantom shrugged, the movement making him hiss in pain and he pressed his hand to the patched up wound on his chest, where red lines glared with new vigor at Lancer. “I know how much you like stories.”
Because you sat in my class today, and every other school day, and listened to me tell them, didn’t you? Lancer thought grimly, the story a seemingly troubled teen had written suddenly a scalding hot ember in his mind.
It was taking everything Lancer had not to fall to his knees and sob. The two continued with idle chatter, Phantom quickly healing as they did so, until he was ready to go only an hour after with an easy smile and an apology if he’d said anything weird - he couldn’t remember the past two hours after getting shot by ghost hunters. Lancer didn’t say anything, he couldn’t remember the past hour of conversation as he tried to keep an avalanche of realization from crushing him under the weight of knowledge.
But as Phantom left, forgetting the spear on the ground, Lancer could barely breathe. It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t. It wasn’t, it wasn’t, it wasn’t…
Lancer tried to convince himself it was all a coincidence, it must be a coincidence. He scrambled to his feet and went to the pile of stories he’d finished reading, hurriedly pulling out his damning evidence.
When the name Danny Fenton looked at him from the folder this time, it caused an entirely new type of pain within Lancer. He skimmed through the pages, newfound understanding a caustic bile in his throat.
Lancer was still flipping back and forth through pages, more than a handful now littered with small tears where he’d turned the page too hard, when his clock’s alarm went off. He looked up and out his window, a diluted surprise as he realized it was already dawn. How long had he spent staring at this folder, looking for another answer, one that didn’t make him feel like a house of straw waiting to be blown over?
He briefly considered calling out for the day and continuing his panicked page turning all through the weekend but he steeled himself against the urge.
There were answers he needed that he couldn’t find in the lines of the story he held.
Lancer felt disconnected from his body in a way he never had before as he prepared for the day. He’d been through a lot of surprises in his life. Living with cats will do that. Working with kids will do that. Being in a town with ghosts will do that.
Yet, Lancer didn’t think all of those surprises combined could add up to the surprise he’d experienced that night.
Later, he wasn’t sure when he’d gotten his car or left his house, as he pulled into his parking space. Had he fed the cats? Had he forgotten them locked in his room?
“Are you alright, Mr. Lancer?” Ishiyama asked, startling Lancer. When had he walked into the building?
A smile that felt like someone else’s crossed his face. “I’m fine, thank you for asking.”
The day went so slowly, and so quickly, and then it was time for the eleventh grader’s English class. He assigned them the same thing he’d assigned all other classes that day - “We’re going to do quiet reading today.” No one complained, pretty much everyone appreciating the fact they were getting a lazy Friday.
“Mr. Fenton, can I speak with you?” Lancer asked, motioning the boy closer. Fenton threw confused glances to Manson and Foley but obeyed, Foley giving the other boy a friendly pat on the back.
Lancer didn’t miss Fenton’s hastily concealed wince when Foley’s hand connected. He desperately tried to miss the mostly healed scratch on Fenton’s cheek, where Phantom had also had one - more confirmation for what he knew to be true.
“What’s up?” the boy asked casually, as though he hadn’t been impaled through the chest by ghost hunters the night before.
Lancer’s stomach dropped even further. It wasn’t hard to guess who the hunters had been.
Like he hadn’t been shot in the back by his own parents the night before.
“Er, yes, I need to speak with you after school. Can you come see me after your last class?” Lancer answered, steepling his fingers together in a motion that he prayed looked more natural than it felt.
Fenton groaned. “What did I do?”
“It’s nothing bad, don’t worry. I just need to speak with you.”
The teen narrowed his eyes at Lancer, and Lancer did his best to keep his expression neutral. “Is this about my parents?”
“Whyever would it be?”
“I’ve made sure not to tell them about the pep rally. You don’t have to remind me after school not to mention it to them.”
“It’s not about that, I promise. It’s, uh, a question about your assignment. One better to ask in private.”
He groaned again, running a hand down his face, looking far too tired for someone so young. “Fine,” he grumbled, returning to his desk without being dismissed, settling between his friends. The other two threw glares at Lancer, presumably after Fenton explained he’d been asked to stay after school. Lancer pretended not to notice, keeping his eyes down on the papers on his desk, though he couldn’t actually see the words.
The remainder of the afternoon passed slowly, Lancer trying and failing to hide his fidgeting as it did so. Mercifully, most students were oblivious to his struggles, and the ones that did ask accepted his “Ah, not feeling my best, thank you for asking” excuse.
When the final bell rang, Lancer was about ready to anxiously vibrate out of his skin. He knew he’d needed to talk to Daniel… but he still didn’t know what to say. How in the world was he supposed to tell a student that he knew the student was - on some level - dead?
Still, five minutes after the bell, Lancer’s ears perked up when he heard the trio’s voices outside his door, Fenton telling them he’ll call them later. Yet again, Lancer felt like he was drowning on air. The friends Phantom had, the children Lancer had talked to on the phone last week. That was Foley and Manson. How had it taken Lancer so long to connect those dots?
As the door was pushed open, Lancer quickly wiped his face of the distressed expression he knew he wore, presenting a perfectly neutral face as Fenton walked through.
“So, what’s up?” Fenton asked, dropping down into the desk in front of Lancer’s own and allowing his overly full backpack to slump to the ground.
“I, uh…” Lancer struggled to find the words, still unsure how to proceed. Should he be blunt? Should he explain how he knows? “I need to talk to you about your creative writing assignment,” he decided.
One of Fenton’s eyebrows raised. “I know. You told me. What about it?”
“I wanted to ask about your inspiration for the story. Particularly Morrigan and Corvus.” Lancer pressed.
“Uh, yeah, it’s an old Irish legend. She just seemed the right choice for the topic - a kid caught between death and war and fate. Was the story too dark or something?”
“Not at all! Well, it was quite dark, but not too dark for the assignment. It was actually a really good story, I found myself gripped and wanting to know what happened with the Boy next. You’re a wonderful storyteller, Danny.”
At the sound of his preferred name, the teen tensed. “Then what’s wrong?”
Lancer was struggling to figure out how to continue when the teen’s phone rang. Fenton pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and rejected the call, setting the phone face down on his desk. “Sorry, it’s the GameStop. Probably telling me my order is ready. Anyway, what’s up? You’ve been weird all day, Mr. Lancer.”
An idea struck him and he pulled out his own cell phone, hitting the Call button on Phantom’s contact. As expected, Fenton’s phone started ringing. “Ugh, are they seriously calling me back already? Just leave a voicemail.” he grumbled, turning his phone back over.
Lancer could tell when Danny read Lancer’s name on his phone, the blood draining from his face and panic rising in his blue eyes. Lancer turned his own phone around, allowing the boy to see his screen.
Calling: Phantom…
“I think there’s more truth to your story than myth,” Lancer said sadly. “You use the generic voicemail in case Phantom’s phone number ever got out, don’t you?”
“I don’t - what are you - how did you - what?” Danny stumbled, his free hand digging into the top of the desk so hard Lancer heard an audible crunch as the wood began to splinter.
“Last night, when Phantom - when you -” Danny visibly flinched “- were at my house, I asked you to tell me about your favorite topic. Do you remember?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“I’m not surprised you don’t remember,” he continued, trying his hardest to sound gentle and calming. “That was a lot of blood, after all.”
“Ectoplasm. It’s ectoplasm,” Danny corrected.
“Does it offend you to call it blood?”
“Blood is for humans.”
Lancer made a noncommittal hum. “Is that why you didn’t give the Boy a name in your story? Because you yourself don’t feel human enough?”
Danny fell quiet, glaring at the desktop. Lancer could’ve sworn he saw wisps of smoke as though he was burning the surface with his gaze. After seeing everything Phantom was capable of, he wouldn’t be surprised if that was actually happening.
With a sigh, Lancer pulled the story from his own desk, standing and walking over to the boy, dropping the folder in front of him. “Is it all true?” he asked softly, tapping a finger against it.
“I’m not half fairy if that’s what you mean,” Danny answered, averting his eyes.
“So everything else is true.” Lancer surmised, leaning against his desk behind him, bracing himself with his hands. It was the only way he could think of to hide the way they shook with anxiety.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.” Danny responded harshly, crossing his arms over his chest, his fingers digging into his upper arms as he did so.
“But I do want the answer. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t care.”
“Do you care or is it morbid curiosity?” the teen shot back, his eyes flashing green momentarily, his voice shaking with anger or fear, Lancer wasn’t sure which.
“I care more. If it genuinely is something you do not wish to discuss, I won’t. But knowing what’s happened helps me help you.”
“Help me?” Danny asked, looking at Lancer with incredulity.
“I told you I wanted to help you the night I found you in this classroom. That hasn’t changed.”
“You can’t tell my parents,” Danny said in a tone that brokered no argument.
“Danny, are you afraid of them? We can get you out of that house.”
The teen flipped open his story, stopping on one of the last pages. Lancer knew it was the scene where the Boy had met the Morrigan after being caught by his parents and was waiting for his friends to save him. It hadn’t taken much effort for Lancer to guess the true story behind that scene and the Y-incision he’d seen on Phantom.
“It wasn’t like the story. My accident was… well, an accident. Sure, I wanted to help, but I didn’t go into it knowing what would happen, like Boy did. I screwed up and have been doing damage control ever since. I’m afraid of my parents, yeah. But not for normal reasons, and I physically can’t leave.”
“A lot of kids feel like they can’t get out, Danny,” Lancer said, this conversation one he’d had many times before with many other children, allowing him a sense of normality in a profoundly not normal circumstance. “But you can leave. I can help you out.”
But Danny was already shaking his head. “I need the portal. Both to throw the ghosts back in and because of my ghost half. I need the purified ectoplasm. I can’t leave my house. I never will be able to,” he said, sadness and regret obvious in his voice. “And I do love them.”
Lancer chewed at the inside of his cheek, knowing he was far and above anything he’d done before. It had never been this type of literal life and death. “So how much else was true?” Lancer asked, realizing he wasn’t going to get any more on this topic, despite how desperately he wanted to drag Fenton out of that damned death trap of a house.
He shrugged at the question. “All of it, in some way or another.”
“The body? The kingship? The god?”
Danny nodded. “You’re talking to the King of All Ghosts,” he said, spreading his arms wide in a faux grand gesture. “Wanted the position about as much as I wanted to bury my body in the woods two years ago. Didn’t actually meet the Morrigan, though. She’s, y’know, not actually real. But I do have a… mentor guy? His name is Clockwork. He helps me, kinda. But he’s kind of an asshole.”
“The friend who likes time quotes, I presume, with a name like that?”
For the first time since this convention began, Danny gave a slight smile. “You remembered that? But, yeah, he is kinda like a god of time, so… he likes pointing out all of this was my fate, so typically I just want to kick his Ancient ass.”
“If you ever need back up, let me know. I’d quite like a word with a god that thinks all this is acceptable,” Lancer said, only partially joking. While he’d love to give a piece of his mind to this ghost like he had with many parents, he also knew he’d get his ass kicked.
“I’ll keep that in mind, but you may need to get in line behind Sam, Tuck, and Jazz.”
“Jasmine knows?” Lancer asked. He’d already guessed about Foley and Manson, but he was surprised Ms. Fenton would keep the secret. But that did solidify to him there was more to this than he could understand. Jasmine would’ve been the first person to get her brother out of that house - or tell their parents - if it was possible.
“Yeah, she caught me transforming like three months after the accident.”
“Transforming?” Now that Danny mentioned it, of course he’d have to transform into his ghost half…
“Wanna see?” he asked, seemingly grateful the topic had steered away from his rather dangerous life for a moment.
Lancer waved his hand for the boy to continue, not denying his curiosity.
“I’m goin’ ghost!” was the only warning Lancer got before he needed to raise his hand to shade his eyes from the stunningly bright white light that swept over the teen, his baggy clothes melting away to his skin tight black jumpsuit.
“So that’s how your jumpsuit is alway so pristine after fights…” Lancer trailed off.
“I just literally died in front of you. And you’re impressed by my suit.” Phantom deadpanned.
“Please don’t phrase it that way, my brain is already on overload,” Lancer retorted, only half-joking.
Phantom shrugged. “I make a lot of death jokes. Jazz says it’s a coping mechanism.”
“Are you actually dead?” escaped from Lancer’s lips before he had the chance to think the question through, and the teacher flinched as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Phantom flinching as well. “Haunting of Hill House, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it, don’t answer that.”
“I’m in a limbo state,” the teen answered, to Lancer’s shock. “Right now, I’m clinically dead. No pulse and no brainwaves, based on my parents’ tech.”
Lancer’s mouth went dry as the mention of the Fenton’s tech. He had a gut feeling Danny hadn’t exactly consented to the circumstances where he’d discovered this, a sentiment which was confirmed when Phantom continued with, “It’s how they justify what they do to ghosts. We shouldn’t be able to feel pain, on a scientific level. But back to the limbo thing - yeah, right now I’m dead. My human half functions like a normal human, though.”
Lancer bit his tongue a little too harshly, pain radiating in his mouth. He kept having to remind himself that if it was possible for Daniel to leave the home, Jasmine would have had him out years ago. He was also confident that she wouldn’t have returned to school after break if there was a concern of it happening again.
So, Lancer turned to his strengths, what he knew he could handle in this instance. “Well, let’s discuss accommodations, then.”
He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a look of such incredulity as Phantom loudly went “Huh?”
“Well, clearly this condition has affected your ability to do schoolwork,” Lancer said, sliding comfortably into his teacher role. “You’ve missed many assignments and skipped a lot of classes managing it. I think it’s time you got a break, don’t you?”
Lancer grinned slightly as he took in Phantom’s amazed expression, the rings forming around his waist and leaving scrawny little Danny Fenton back in his place. “Like disability accommodations? Lancer, I don’t have a disability.”
“I never said disability, I said condition. And I think you’ve earned more than a few forgiven assignments by now. Don’t you?”
Danny fidgeted slightly. “It would be nice not to fail…”
“Then I’ll work on getting the papers written up. Obviously, we can’t list the actual reason for the accommodations, but I fully believe between Mr. Foley and Ms. Manson, a fake doctor’s note could be generated.”
“I have a doctor,” Danny blurted out.
Lancer raised an eyebrow. Why did the smallest things keep surprising him? “Oh?”
“He’s a ghost yeti from the Far Frozen,” the boy explained and Lancer quickly amended his ‘smallest things’ mental note. “He’s my doctor, though. He’s, uh… given me more than a few bogus doctor’s notes when I’ve had to stay overnight and missed school, either because of injury or because I got busy with King stuff.”
“Right. Injury and King stuff.” Lancer repeated, again feeling more than slightly out of his depth. Nope, nope, this is fine. These were accommodations and no condition should be treated with surprise; just because he couldn’t comprehend living with it didn’t mean he got opinions on it. Somehow, Lancer had managed to forget that Danny had already confirmed that. In his defense, he’d been more caught up on the ‘burying my body in the woods’ bit.
“Yep! Also true,” Danny said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly and Lancer remembered all the times he’d seen both Fenton and Phantom do that particular nervous tic. “I’m King of the Ghost Zone. Remember when Pariah Dark kidnapped the city?”
Lancer nodded numbly, recalling both the event and how Daniel Fenton had been out of school for the next week because he’d been ‘caught outside the ghost shield and attacked.’
He also remembered the detention he’d given Fenton the week after for being twenty minutes late to English class. If he thought hard enough, he would probably also remember a ghost attack at the same time.
“Yeah, well, long story short, accidentally killed him when I shoved him in a magic sarcophagus. Then, surprise! Have a crown! No take backies!” Fenton said, sighing.
Lancer was at a loss for words. This kid had been through every degree of Hell, more than even Dante had ever predicted possible, yet he still helped with a smile and a quip.
“Wow,” he finally managed.
Danny laughed. Lancer was amazed he even could laugh anymore. “It’s a lot, I know.” His face fell into a frown as he continued. “You can’t tell anyone the truth about me. You get that, right? My parents aren’t the only risks.”
“I promise, your secret is safe with me.” It’s literally the least I can do.
“You’re taking this better than I would have guessed,” he said, leaning back in his desk’s chair.
“I used up my entire lifetime’s worth of surprise when ghosts turned out to be real,” Lancer laughed.
“You can say that again,” he mumbled, before sitting up straight, suddenly serious. “But, like, seriously. You’re not gonna out me to my parents? Or the government? Just to be clear?”
At the obvious fear in Danny’s eyes, if the teen had said Lancer had to quit being a teacher, move to Russia, and change his name to work in the mines forever, Lancer probably would’ve done it. As it was, though, this request was much more reasonable. “You have my word, Daniel.”
“And you can’t like… treat me any different. People aren’t that stupid, y’know?”
“I can promise you, I absolutely will be treating you differently.” Danny opened his mouth to protest and Lancer hurried on before he could be interrupted. “Because you will have accommodations on file, entirely unrelated to being a ghost. No one is going to make a connection because, as far as everyone else knows, there’s been nothing to indicate a change. This town still exists because of you, Daniel. You’re the reason we all have a chance to live somewhat normally. I can at least give you a chance to graduate.”
And Lancer meant it. There was nothing else he could do. This wasn’t a simple case of calling CPS or recommending a therapist. This was something beyond what Lancer had training, knowledge, or experience for. So, as much as it killed him to do so, he’d let Danny return home - return to parents who hurt him. Lancer pulled his key ring from his pocket, swiftly removing his house key and placing it in front of Daniel. He had a spare in the bushes outside his home. “Here. Any time, no questions asked, my home is open to you. Whether it’s for ghost injuries, your parents being too much, or just a quiet place to work on homework. You’re not in this alone. Not like the Boy was.” Lancer said, tapping on the folder holding Danny’s story.
To his surprise, Danny picked the key up without protest. “You’ll have to learn how to get ectoplasm out of fabric. It stains pretty badly.”
Lancer kept his face carefully neutral. He understood the warning for what it was - it was ‘I will show up, but I will show up bleeding and hurt. Are you prepared for that?’
“I’m sure you have some good tips by now.” Lancer replied evenly, hoping he would understand between the lines as well. ‘I know what you are, I know your history. I know this is nothing new to you. I still will help.’
Danny nodded, pocketing the key without any fanfare. “Thank you.”
“My genuine pleasure,” Lancer responded.
The two continued talking, hammering out the details of Daniel’s new accommodations and coming up with a realistic diagnosis for them to fake on the paperwork.
Wrapping up some time later, they bid each other farewell. Fenton left the room and Lancer sighed deeply, dropping his head into his hands, feeling like his mind was about to explode.
“Mr. Lancer?”
He looked up, seeing the door partially opened and Danny’s face poking through the crack. “Yes?”
“Thank you. Like, seriously. It… it feels nice to have an adult who knows now.” Fenton said, his cheeks reddening as though embarrassed at the idea of giving thanks.
“Not a problem,” Lancer smiled.
Fenton just smiled and nodded, taking his leave and shutting the door behind him.
Still, the interaction made Lancer smile to himself. His head still hurt and he felt so out of his depth, he may as well have been swimming in the Mariana Trench, but he was doing what he’d always wanted to do - helping a child who was in over his head.
A literal super-powered comic book hero of a child, but a child nonetheless.
As Lancer drove home that day, though, he was almost surprised to see life moving in Amity like normal. His world had irrevocably changed, been turned upside down. How was everything normal? Shouldn’t something have changed?
He knew the answer to that was no. Still, it didn’t stop the nearly whiplash-like feeling.
On autopilot more than anything, he got home and let Luna and Sola out of his room, apologizing copiously at their extended, aggravated meows, grateful they had a litter box in his attached master bathroom. “I know, I’m the evilest evil to ever evil,” he said as he sat down, Luna jumping up in his lap and meowing loudly in his face.
Lancer smiled and scratched her behind an ear, her angry meow settling into a satisfied purr. “See? So evil!” he said, leaning back and relaxing, turning his TV on.
And there Phantom was, at Amity’s Serenity Park, fighting with the hunter ghost who liked to scream for Phantom’s pelt. Even as Lancer felt the blood drain from his face at the implications of that, Phantom let out a joke, and a laugh, and then an ectoblast to Skulker’s face.
If Lancer looked hard enough, he could see Manson and Foley in the background, just barely visible to the camera. Children, fighting for the lives of Amity, while the adults sat around or ran away or attacked the wrong ghost.
Phantom won with ease, smiled and saluted the camera, and flew off in the opposite direction. He hadn’t taken any noticeable damage, but this time, Lancer didn’t relax, instead worrying about everything else. How much schoolwork did Danny have to do? It would be a little bit before they got the accommodations in place! Would he have enough time to have fun and be a teen? Would there be more ghost attacks?
The weekend passed in something of a haze. He was grateful for his cats, for setting some normalcy back into his life. They didn’t care about troubled kids or fighting ghosts, they only cared that the Big Hairless God fed them at the appropriate times. Their entire world was this home, and Lancer was almost jealous. So he fed them, and finished all assignments he had left to read and grade, and read the second Percy Jackson book, and messaged Danny Phantom at night to check in.
When Monday came around again, Lancer thought he had everything pretty well compartmentalized.
“I have news about Phantom!” Ishiyama said the moment she saw Lancer in the halls that morning.
“Oh?” Lancer said, immediately panicking. Had something happened? Was Danny okay? Had Lancer missed a fight?
“He stopped by my office earlier!” she continued and Lancer forced the tension out of his shoulders.
“I presume there was no ghost attack that prompted his visit?” Lancer asked, thinking of the way they’d asked Fenton to make sure his parents didn’t catch wind of the pep rally. Knowing what he knew now, their concern was almost humorous. Danny didn’t need to be asked to keep attention off of Phantom.
“Don’t even joke about that, we’ve managed four days without an attack!” Ishiyama scolded and Lancer did laugh that time. “No, he was there to tell me he heard about the pep rally. He was going to make sure he was there, but he’d be invisible to keep commotion at bay. He wanted to give his thanks and make sure we knew our hard work had been appreciated, even if we didn’t see him there.”
“That’s wonderful news,” Lancer replied with a soft smile. Somehow, that kid continued to surprise him. Danny got nothing out of reassuring Ishiyama he’d be there, but he’d done it to be kind.
“Isn’t it?” Ishiyama said with a grin.
The day passed, and eventually it was time for everyone to make their way to the gym for the pep rally. Lancer changed out of his normal blue button up and into the simple black shirt all the staff had changed into. He smiled as he saw all of them together - the lunchroom workers, the janitorial and maintenance staff, the office folks and the teachers themselves - all matching.
Phantom’s symbol was huge and emblazoned on their backs, stark white against the black just like the ghost’s suit. Beneath the stylized P, Casper High Has School SPIRIT! was written in smaller text. A miniature version of the symbol rested over the breast pocket on the front.
The pep rally was supposed to be for the upcoming basketball semi-finals, but no one seemed to mind it becoming a pro-Phantom-palooza instead. The cheer squad did a routine in the ghost’s honor, the theater club did a micro-play thanking him, the A/V nerds put together a little PowerPoint talking about how cool he was, the athletes for various sports all gathered and chanted about the ghost’s coolness.
As it was wrapping up, Ishiyama came to the stage, wishing the basketball team luck, then cleared her throat and bid everyone to settle down. “Alright, alright, I know we’re having fun, but a time for seriousness!”
Quiet filled the room (well, as quiet as a bunch of students in one echoing room could get). “I know we’ve kind of hi-jacked the basketball team’s pep rally, and I do apologize for that.”
“We don’t mind!” the basketball captain shouted, hoots and hollers of agreement from his teammates joining him.
“Good to know. Still, the apology stands,” Ishiyama said with a laugh. “But, Phantom, I hope you’re here. And I need you to know: thank you. From all of us at Casper. We’ve watched you - no older than one of our own students - defend us time and time again. We’re sorry for whatever happened to you so young, and we hope you find peace one day if that’s what you want. I can only speak for the staff, but I think most students agree - you’re a hero.”
“Damn right!” Ms. Tetslaff yelled, and the entire room laughed. “You’re pretty impressive, for someone who’s scrawnier than a pole!”
Various shouts filled the room, different students declaring Phantom their favorite superhero. Lancer looked up to the one student who remained quiet, even as his friends held his hands and shouted Phantom’s praises with the rest of their schoolmates. Tears slipped from Fenton’s eyes as he listened - finally listened - to all the people screaming his alter ego’s name in joy.
“Here’s to Danny Phantom - the hero of Amity Park!” Ishiyama shouted when there was a lull in the student’s shouts.
“The hero of Amity Park!” everyone shouted, including Lancer himself. Fenton’s eyes met Lancer’s and the teen didn’t hide his tears, so few people knew why he was crying anyway.
Fenton mouthed something to Lancer and Lancer grinned at him, despite not being able to understand. This pep rally would never make up for what had been to him - in his life or in partial death. He would never truly recover from the horror he’d lived through. But he would survive, and he would carry Amity Park’s survival with him, whether he was asked to or not.
The second time Fenton mouthed to him, he slowed down and Lancer was able to understand.
Thank you.