Working Overtime

by mousetrappa

Summary:

Danny Fenton is dead, killed in his parent’s lab in a terrible accident. His friends and family must now deal with the aftermath.

Meanwhile: Danny, flung into the ghost zone right after his accident and unaware he’s left a corpse behind, is having a weird, but altogether alright time as he tries to make his way back home.

Notes:

Yes, it's another corpse au. I have no control over what my fingers write. In all technicality I initially sat down to write for another fandom entirely and this is what got spat out instead. Fic title might change but I am Impatient and don't want to agonize over The Perfect Title right now.

Chapter 1: Tucker & Maddie

The glow of the portal casts a halo of light on the body. It’s still and immobile and burnt and Tucker can’t breathe while he looks at it. He can feel Sam next to him, shaking and crying. Or is that him? He doesn’t know and it doesn’t seem all that important who's doing what, because the only important thing was what was lying just a few feet in front of them: doing nothing but being there.

They were only going to look. That’s all there was to it.

They had gotten together at Fenton Works to play Doomed, same as any other weekend. Danny had been talking about how his parents had finished their portal, so excited for it to work, only for the thing to sputter and die. While Tucker may not have really thought anything would come of it, because as much as he likes to kick their butts in Doomed, he doesn’t think ghosts, poltergeists, and the like exist outside of fiction. Still, Tucker felt bad for them. He’s known the Drs. Fenton since he was like four, and he’s been witness to all the time and energy they've dedicated to their life’s work, same as Danny. It must have been really shitty to go the way it did. Danny mentioned how Jazz pushed them to get out of the house today before leaving for the library herself.

Then Sam went and asked if they could go see it for themselves, and really, what was the harm in it? Danny had agreed, so long as he wore his jumpsuit and that the two of them didn’t get too close, since his parents would nag about safety. And after that they all agreed it would be kind of cool if Danny went inside, because the power was off right?

They were only having fun.

But if fun was going to be described as seeing your best friend since preschool trip on a loose wire and crash into a wall, hear something click before light like a flashbang hit them and all he could hear was Danny screaming something terrible until even that stopped, then no, he had not wanted fun . But here they were anyway. And Danny’s corpse continues to exist in front of a metal-framed spinning vortex that haunts them with its overbearing presence.

What are they supposed to do now?

As though in response to his unvoiced question, he hears Sam take enough shuddering breath and wipe at her eyes before trying to speak.

 

“We should-should,” Another gasp and start, “We need to-to tell someone.”

 

That makes him pause in his tracks. It’s technically the right answer, but how? How could they tell people they killed their friend? Because that’s what they did, isn’t it? They could have not gone down, could have not encouraged Danny to step further in, could have still had his friend. In the wake of his thoughts, all he can do is nod.

Beyond the stair to the lab and from the front door, the tell tale jiggle-click and crash of the front opening travels down. The cacophonous sound of Jack Fenton barging into the house is followed by Maddie’s voice:

 

“Kids! We’re home!”

 

Sam and Tucker tense.

 

---

 

When the portal failed to work yesterday evening it was safe to say she and Jack were plain devastated. 

The two of them had checked and double checked all of their calculations. Frame? Designed to be optimal for containment. Circuitry? All wires marked and accounted for. Energy output? As high as they could feasibly make it; tearing a hole in the fabric of reality to peer into what lies on the other side takes as much power as you can get.

And yet when the time came for the ‘big shebang!’ as her husband would put it, absolutely nothing. Jack had tried to open and close the circuit again to check if it was just a fluke, but again, nothing came of it. Looking around more brought no answers, and they were so sure of everything! Danny and Jazz had gone upstairs after the third time they had investigated the capacitors.

They had taken to moping in the aftermath of their failure. Jack had been working on his needlepoint with the most dejected look on his face and Maddie couldn’t think of anything to say to help from where she sat by him at the kitchen table. What could she say when she was feeling just as miserable? And exhausted, for that matter. While it may have been one of the reasons she married him, along with his sweetness, Maddie is well aware that she and Jack have an awful habit of feeding into each other’s energies, bouncing ideas back and forth until suddenly hours have passed with nary a pause. It’s an occurrence they’ve tried to break ever since their Jasmine was born, but it rears its head every now and again.

Like now: they had barely slept in the past three days leading up to the portal’s activation, so immersed in their work and the excitement of being so close to the finish line that a few hours of rest seemed unimportant in face of completing the biggest project of their lives.

It was Jazz who got them out of their slump; marching downstairs and telling them that they needed to take their minds off the portal for a while and go do something else, all but demanding that they leave the house.

That’s how a few hours later the two of them are back from having lunch at a restaurant and in much better spirits. Their dear Jazzypants was right on that account. The break and food had helped to clear their heads and now they’re back and ready to start again. They couldn’t forget that they were Fentons. Stubborn is their middle name and Maddie sure as hell will make sure to live up to it! Just because the portal didn’t work when they wanted it to doesn’t mean they’ve given up yet. Jack went on ahead to open the door, bounding into the house in his excitement to get back down to the lab. Maddie entered behind him shortly after.

 

“Kids! We’re home!”

 

No response, which isn’t all too concerning, but a bit odd. Jazz is old enough to drive and likes to frequent the library, but it’s a Saturday, and Danny typically invites his friends over to hang out. Maddie can’t hear the familiar sound of the three of them yelling to ‘Shoot that pinkie Sam! Quick!’. They must have gone out instead.

Walking to the kitchen Maddie sees that the lab door has been left ajar. Were they that out of it that they forgot to close it? The kids knew they weren’t supposed to be there without either Jack or her with them.

But there’s something wrong with the air. A chill that she swears she’s not imagining. All of a sudden Maddie is tense and wary. She sticks an arm out to stop her husband from walking further and meets his questioning eyes quickly with her own before turning them back to the door. She calls out louder just to check.

 

“Kids? Are you down there?” Still no response.

 

…

 

Something’s not right. Call it a mother’s instinct but she can feel something bad , a sense of dread sinking deep into her bones. Not heeding her own warning to stop, Maddie throws caution to the wind and marches down the stairs. Her heart seizes once she reaches the last step and can look around the corner; she gasps.

 

The lab is bathed in green, and in its glow she sees Sam and Tucker necks turned to look at her like deers by headlights. There are tears in their eyes and they’re kneeling in front of a prone body. It’s wearing a…jumpsuit…a white and black jumpsuit. 

 

She recognizes that suit. Jack had been sewing it all together in their bedroom only a few months prior. Danny’s jumpsuit.

 

It’s charred.

Chapter 2: Danny

Summary:

Danny wakes up.

The first thought that comes to Danny’s head when he gains consciousness again is Green. The whole world seems to be engulfed in it; large swaths of swirling spirals encompassing the sky. He can feel himself laying on the ground (grass?) and staring up at it, the green. It’s mesmerizing as much as it is strange. Definitely not like anything he’s ever seen. He can almost taste it, oddly enough. Is this what television static tastes like? Danny used to put his hands on the screen to feel the buzzing in his fingers before his dad would pull him away.

The second thought that comes to his mind is fucking owwwwwwwwww.

The sensations that Danny’s brain was able to stave off for a short time through the power of unawareness  quickly hits him with full force. His entire body is tingly—TV static indeed—and bone dead exhausted. But at the same time he feels like a livewire, like the world is moving how it should be, but every motion he takes seems to slingshot him forward in time. A shift of his arm appears at a normal speed to his eyes but feels like somebody hit fast forward on a VHS tape. It’s weird as hell and Danny would like it to stop, please and thank you. 

Speaking of his eyes, unless they’re playing tricks on him (which is not unlikely considering what’s surrounding him) his suit is inverted, black with white accents instead of the opposite. And his hair, the part of it that always gets in front of his face, looks like it’s as white as a blizzard. And…glowing? To expand on that it looks like he’s just glowing, period. Like a living nightlight

Okay so, green, TV static, weird color swap, looking farther into the distance, are those islands? Floating islands? A quick pinch to his arm only adds to the buzzing under his skin, so confirmation this isn’t a dream. Dead, then? The last thing he remembers is going down to the lab with Sam and Tucker, joking around, wearing the suit his dad made him for his birthday, going inside and—

Lightning and pain pain pain—

Oh. Dead it was. Looks like his parents were right after all. 

Does that mean he’s a ghost? He doesn’t feel evil and malevolent like his parents said all ghosts are, but maybe that comes on later. Or they’re wrong about that fact. As much as he loves them his parents can make some outlandish claims sometimes.

They must be home by now, and Jazz too. Do they know he’s dead yet? Sam and Tucker were already down there so they must have seen him—yeah. That must have been…not great…to see. (It sure as hell wasn’t great to feel he'll tell you that).

It all happened so quickly.

One moment he’s standing there in awe, because even if it didn’t work the portal still looked cool, and then the next his foot catches on something and he’s stumbling to right himself, reaching out to the wall and feeling the area underneath his hand depress before shooting lightning into his entire body. There must have been a problem with the wiring. Was that what made it malfunction? What luck, Mom and Dad checked the thing so many times and never found it! But hey look, Danny did!

A laugh bursts out of him so suddenly–loud, and then devolving into a stuttering wheeze—that he has to take in a big shuddering breath afterwards. Which only clues him on the fact that he hadn’t really been breathing before that point. Which…makes sense. A quick check shows that his heart isn’t beating either. He shouldn’t be surprised by these things, ghosts don’t have any use for stupid stuff like air and a circulatory system, but it still catches him off guard.

He needs to do something. But what can he do, realistically? Danny knows he can’t get back home, even if the portal did work. The fact that it was dubbed the Fenton Ghost ‘Portal’ in the first place was a bit misleading. In its current state a mirror would be a better descriptor; A way for his parents to look into their hypothesized ‘Ghost Zone’ and confirm it was real and only then potentially continuing onto a full gateway.

Which is all to say it’s no use trying. Sure, logically there has to be some way to get back, how else would there be so many accounts of ghosts on earth without one, but who knows how long it would take to find it. Besides, he’s a ghost now, the Ghost Zone is where he belongs, would his parents even want him to come back? Mom and Dad always said they would protect him and Jazz from any spooks that ever dared to show their faces, blasting them with their experimental guns, and while he would always roll his eyes at their antics, it makes him wonder what they would do if they ever found out their own son was a ghost?

Danny takes a moment to lean against some kind of tree? Thing? It almost looks as if someone were to have taken a tree and flipped it upside down: thin and wriggling roots grow into the air while large blue leaves stretch into an odd ring around its base, some of them piercing themselves into the ground. Whatever land he’s on is covered in them. When his back touches the pale green trunk, it feels cold. Danny revels in the coolness, it helps to clear his mind.

He ends up sitting there for a while, just continuing to stare out into the distance. It’s still honestly quite pretty, the swirls of different colored greens and purples flow into each other, mixing and clumping together like gas in a nebula. The place where a heart should be in his chest twinges painfully, he’s never going to get to be an astronaut. But he doesn’t want to think about that right now, he goes back to appreciating the ghost nebula until he’s zoning (ha) out on it again. 

By the time a good ten minutes pass by, Danny is relaxed enough that it takes him until half his torso has sunken into the weird ghost tree for him to notice. The second he does he only has a brief moment to think oh crap before he falls completely backwards, phasing through the tree entirely. Right. Ghost. Notoriously known for being able to fly through shit.

Hold on a minute. Fly. He can fly.

Filled with giddiness, Danny jumps up from his seat. And promptly gets flung up much higher than intended. Floating away, away, away from the ground like gravity never even existed despite his use of it just a few seconds ago. When he stops he’s level with the highest root-branches of the tree. Huh! He thought he would have to put more effort into it, but holy cow he’s flying! Admittedly, his arms are splayed out and knees bent out at an awkward angle, giving the appearance that he’s trying to ride an invisible horse while also reaching out to catch something. Danny’s glad no one’s here to watch him, but even if they were he’s too excited to care. Now he just needs to get the hang of it. He doesn’t really know how he shot himself up in the first place, it just kinda happened.

Closing his eyes, Danny tries to focus on his body, he can feel something in his chest, the same something he felt before, actually. With no other ideas, he tries to nudge it somehow with his mind.

Evidently, something happens. He feels his body go all cold, and when he opens his eyes, he can see through his arms to the grass below. Staring at his hands, they look transparent, with everything tinted a light blue. Clasping his fingers together he feels as tangible as normal. So this must have been what happened with the tree earlier, only amplified? He groans in annoyance. It’s very interesting and he’s definitely going to experiment with it later, but it's kind of not what he was trying to figure out right now.

Trying again, he closes his eyes and really tries to focus this time. Willing the thing in his chest with everything he has to move, go, fly please.

Instead what he gets is a shock of cold once more and something bright. A halo of light bursts around him and the next thing he knows he’s falling.

Notes:

Tucker: My best friend just died and I helped kill him

Danny: Wow everything is so green and tastes like TV static isn’t that crazy?? Also, despite the fact that I’ve been thinking about it a lot, I’m avoiding completely processing the fact that I’m dead

Tucker: What.

Danny: What?

The thing about the whole world feeling normal but every movement you take feeling like super speed is just fully ripped from my own experiences. I’m actually really curious if this happens to anyone else. It just happens out of nowhere it’s really wacky.

This was supposed to be tonally a lot goofier but Danny just kept wanting to be sad and I couldn’t stop him.

Anyway I really wanted to have this out yesterday like I promised but it took a bit longer than expected. If you noticed, this fic now has a final chapter count! I ended up taking the time after posting chapter one to sit down and outline everything. Currently I have nine chapters outlined and twelve is my estimate for how much is left after that. We’ll see how that holds up!

Thank you for reading! I think I’m going to take some more time to post the next chapter since I’d like to have some semblance of a backlog to keep me going. I just wanted to at the very least set up both side of our story.

Notes:

I will make it my life long mission to support the Fentons are Good if Sometimes Incompetent Parents Agenda. You can never take it away from me.

Thank you for reading! While I'm not totally jazzed (ha) about this first chapter, I like it well enough! So posted it shall be before I psych myself out of it and this never sees the light of day. Next chapter should hopefully be up tomorrow or the next day. Here's hoping I can finish this all in its entirety! I think I've got a solid idea for where I'm going but still have aspects that need refining.

Kudos and comments are very much appreciated and I eat them as fuel, but not necessary.

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