Chapter Text
The wind blew through the trees, rustling summer-green branches. Clouds stretched across the sky, obscuring the stars. Amity Park was all silhouettes and slumber, with hardly a headlight cutting through the night.
Still, the signs of FentonWorks blazed, defiant. The neon flickered, casting wavering shadows across the street. Half of the house’s lights were still on and, if someone were to strain their ears, they might’ve heard a hammer clanging at something metal in the basement.
Danny kept away from the windows as he skirted close to the building and under the shadow of the Ops center overhead. He put a hand on the brick, testing. Satisfied when no shock met his touch. It had been awhile since Danny dismantled the ghost shield, but it seemed that his parents hadn’t managed to fix it just yet.
Danny glanced nervously to the street below, worried that someone, or something, might have seen through the invisibility wrapped around him. It took seeing the empty street, washed in that flickering neon, to assure Danny that the coast was truly clear.
He took a deep breath— unneeded, but comforting all the same— and slipped through the brick.
Brick gave way to the dark of pipes, wires, drywall, and paint, before Danny burst out the other side. He blinked, looking around the room.
Something cold and brittle twisted in his chest.
No matter how many times he saw it, no matter how he braced himself, Danny couldn’t quite get used to the sight of his room. Everything was where he’d left it— unfinished homework on the desk, clothes thrown over the side of the hamper, a soda can sitting on the nightstand. It stood, a time capsule, capturing those last moments before Danny shut his bedroom door and took that fateful walk down the basement steps.
The air was too still, the window shut tight and the blinds drawn. A thin layer of dust had gathered on the desk and shelves, and a spider had made its home over the bed. For all the room looked as if Danny had just left, it felt as though a lifetime had passed since he comfortably rested beneath the covers. He longed to do so now, wondering for just a moment if there was any chance he could lay his head down and wake up to find this all a terrible dream…
Danny shook his head, letting out a shaky sigh. For all the nightmares that plagued his sleep, none were this vivid, this cruel.
A crashing sound shook the floorboards and Danny jumped two feet in the air as a voice shouted from below. He hugged the corner, holding his breath, ready to slip back through the wall at the first sign of movement. There was more clattering from downstairs, followed by a laugh. Danny could picture his parents, side by side at the work table as they fiddled with their latest invention. It was late, even for them. Nothing new, not for a while now.
Danny kept still for another minute, sharp ears perked and his eyes trained on the door. His chest hummed uncomfortably, ectoplasm buzzing through his veins. He slowly settled, taking another steadying breath.
Danny’s eyes darted around the room, observing. Deciding. He crept out of the corner, drifting over to his bookshelf, and ran his hand along the familiar spines. He landed on an old book at the end, a copy of The Last Unicorn that Jazz used to read to him when he was small. Carefully, he pulled the book off the shelf, dusting off the top pages. The spine was cracked and worn, the cover marked with pen and peeling along the sides. He held it close, deciding it would come with him.
If anyone bothered to look closely at Danny’s room, they might have noticed things missing. Books, knickknacks, photos. It had started with one of the glowing stars from the ceiling, just a little reminder of home that Danny could carry. He’d taken more things since then. Nothing of value, nothing his parents or even Jazz would easily notice, but Danny cherished each piece. They were his, precious in the memories they held.
Danny turned to go, feeling he'd overstayed his welcome— but hesitated. His eyes landed on the bed, on a corner of a blanket peeking out from under his comforter. He hadn't noticed it on the last few visits, had assumed the blanket was down in the wash or maybe in the living room. He quickly darted close, feeling a smile curl his lips.
Danny grabbed the corner of the blanket and phased it out from under the comforter. His ectoplasm hummed, content. Tears welled in his eyes as he stared, transfixed, at the familiar pattern of bright stars against a midnight blue sky. It had been a particularly bad Christmas, maybe five years ago, when Jazz gave it to him. Mom and Dad were fighting again and had knocked over the tree, covering the living room in shattered ornaments. Danny had spent the evening sitting outside, half-frozen but determined to get away from the noise. The sky was clear that night, just about the only thing worth enjoying.
Danny remembered jumping slightly when the door opened, afraid that his parents were taking their argument outside. His shoulders relaxed when he saw Jazz. She’d smiled, asking if he wanted some company. He'd scooted over on the stoop as she sat down.
“It's a little early, but Merry Christmas,” she’d said, shoving a present into his hands.
Danny still remembered the wrapping paper, a brilliant silver, carefully tied with red and green ribbon. It was perfectly wrapped, truly Jazz’s handiwork. The paper gave way to a box, the box to the folded blanket inside. He’d pulled it free, admiring the starry design before wrapping it over his shoulders, warm.
The colors had faded since then, the fabric flattened out, but it was still Danny’s favorite blanket. He tucked it protectively under his arm, over the book. Danny hoped that Jazz would never notice it was missing; the thought of leaving it now was not worth considering.
With his treasures held tight, and one last longing look at his bed, Danny phased back through the wall and out into the night. He skirted the side of the house, feeling the need to check just one last thing before he left…
Jazz’s window was close to his own, her bedroom just a wall away. She’d left it cracked open, with the blinds drawn aside. Danny could see her desk, the light of her lamp reflected on the glass. Invisibility hugged Danny as he drew close, and he was glad for it when something shifted from the other side of the glass. Jazz was sitting at her desk, her chin in her hand. She’d looked up, her teal eyes meeting his for a fleeting moment that had Danny freezing in his tracks.
There were heavy bags beneath her eyes, fatigue written across her face. She squinted, as though searching for something— yet her eyes wandered past Danny, unseeing. Her shoulders sagged in what looked like a sigh before Jazz looked back down at the book resting on her desk.
The relief at staying hidden warred in Danny’s chest with something far less easy to describe.
His fingers dug into the blanket. Danny let out a shaky breath, turning away. He shot off across the street and over a row of houses that bordered the park, leaving FentonWorks behind.
~*~
While Danny normally liked to take his time flying, coasting around Amity to ensure the safety of his haunt, this time he flew directly home— if he could call it that. He passed the school building and the football fields, flying over a little patch of woods that hugged a short row of old townhouses. The buildings had seen better days, with cracked glass in many of the windows, and weeds overtaking the sidewalk. More than one of the houses had been abandoned at this point, left to rot.
Danny flew towards the last house on the row, one with a mostly-intact roof and a few windows left unbroken. He phased through the roof corner, gliding into the attic space underneath. His space.
The attic had been a mess when Danny first found it, filled to the brim with old crates, boxes, and forgotten mementos. There was still a rusted old birdcage in the far corner with rotted newspaper lining the tray. A small thing, compared to the five bins he’d tossed into the nearest dumpster, stuffed full of Christmas decorations.
The attic had a sloping roof towards a small window in the back, overlooking a copse of trees in the overgrown yard. Not much of a view, but Danny had made it his own. He’d found an old mattress to shove into the corner, and covered it with enough sheets and blankets to make something of a nest. He used an old t-shirt as a curtain over the window, and had propped up a busted old bookshelf beneath it to hold his things.
Danny carefully set the book down on the shelf and settled down on the bed. He sat for a moment, running his hands over his starry blanket, staring into open space.
If he strained his ears, Danny could hear the sounds of traffic, and the quieter sounds of crickets chirping in the night. A far cry from the music he used to lull himself to sleep with but, well, Danny couldn’t remember the last time he slept well, anyway.
With a sigh, Danny fell onto his back, pulling the blanket with him. His eyes slid over the little glow-in-the-dark stars he’d plastered onto the sloped ceiling, enough for a single constellation. Canis Major. It had always been Jazz’s favorite— a guard dog against bad dreams, she’d once said.
Danny’s eyes slid shut and he pulled the blanket to his nose. It still smelled faintly of his shampoo. He imagined he was still back in his old bed, his parents down in the lab tinkering away on their latest project and Jazz asleep just a room away. He’d fight to wake up for school in the morning, hiding under his blanket until Jazz threatened to leave without him.
A fantasy, one he desperately clung to. One made more difficult by the too-lumpy mattress beneath him, the smell of dust that clung to every inch of the attic, and the creak of old wood as the wind blew against the house. The meager treasures he’d scraped from his room were a small, insignificant comfort. A balm on a wound that would never heal.
Danny burrowed deeper under his blanket, knowing sleep wouldn’t come.