Chapter Text
Phantom stared at the floor. His eyes stung, and his back hurt, but he did not move, and he did not blink. He couldn't. He couldn't risk it.
People were looking for him. He knew that they were. He remembered hearing people calling out his name in the streets, whispering about him in their homes.
Some people were looking for Danny too, but that wasn't him. Not anymore. Danny was human, and good, and would never have done the things he did. Danny was dead. Phantom didn't know for how long, but he was, and Phantom was all that was left.
He wished that he was dead too. Proper dead and gone, where he couldn't touch or think or see or exist. He wouldn't be able to hurt anyone there. But he was still here, so he would just have to do the next best thing. He would sit, and not move, and let the world go on without him. It was better that way. Better without him.
He didn't know where he was. He remembered flying, and he remembered landing, but he couldn't remember where. He was still in Amity Park, probably. He wouldn't have heard his name so often if he wasn't, unless people had spread the warning about him farther. He wouldn't blame them if they had. All he knew for certain was that he was out of the way, and he was alone. That's what mattered.
There wouldn't be anyone stumbling across him, no one that he could hurt, on accident or on purpose. It would probably be on purpose. He wished it wasn't.
Phantom had been counting at one point, but stopped sometime after four thousand nine hundred thirty four. It had started as a tactic to calm down, one that Jazz had taught him. Then it was to try and keep track of the amount of time he'd been gone. Then, once the number had gotten too big for him to convert to minutes, it had been to keep himself entertained. He'd stopped after that.
He didn't deserve to be entertained. He deserved to sit and be bored and in pain and think about what he'd done.
He found himself wondering if the other him, the future him, still locked away in a thermos somewhere, was sitting like he was. Was it better or worse, for him? Phantom hoped it was better. At least he had an excuse for the things he did. Phantom had nothing.
The footsteps weren't the first Phantom had heard. He'd heard plenty, far enough away that he probably wouldn't have been able to if he'd still been human. These were the first ones that he'd describe as close. They wouldn't be able to find him. He was invisible, and tucked in a corner that he was almost certain a human wouldn't be able to get to. He couldn't risk anyone getting near him.
Despite that, the footsteps kept getting closer . He should get up and move. Even if whoever it was didn't find him, he was clearly too close. He should leave, and find himself a new place to sit. Maybe he'd just phase himself into the ground, let himself get swallowed by tonnes of earth. He didn't need to breathe anyway. He didn't deserve it.
He needed to move. But he couldn't. Maybe it was because he'd been sitting there for so long, but he couldn't will himself to get up and do anything. Even as the footsteps got closer, even as he could hear the labored breathing of people approaching, all he could do was sit there and stare at the same spot on the floor that he'd been staring at for... however long it had been.
They kept getting closer, carrying with them a faint, familiar beeping noise. Phantom kept sitting there. He recognized their breathing. It was probably a concern that he could. Then again, seeing as it was Sam and Tucker, maybe it wasn't a concern. He had known them for so long, it might've been weird to not recognize them. Well. Danny had known them. Phantom had too, but not as long. Not as well. They were Danny's friends. Not his. Danny was dead.
They called to him now. Phantom didn't know if they were in the room or not, couldn't tell if they were able to see him. He could've been invisible. He didn't remember. Phantom didn't answer anyway. They were calling for Danny, not him, and even if they were calling for him, he wouldn't answer. If he didn't answer, then they'd leave. If they left, they'd be safe.
They didn't leave.
He knew this because the rock he'd been blankly staring at for who knows how long was suddenly replaced by Tucker's face mere inches away from his own. That was enough to startle Phantom into finally beginning to move. He tried to phase through the wall, to get as far away from them as they could, but someone's hand closed around his wrist before he could. He tried to pull away intangibly, but was met with resistance. Phase proof gloves, then.
"Oh thank the Ancients you're okay," Tucker said with a sigh, pulling away. He looked tired. They both looked tired, now that Danny could see Sam too. Her makeup was sloppy and barely worked to conceal the circles under her eyes, and Tucker looked like he hadn't slept in a week. Phantom hoped they hadn't been looking for him; that was a terrible reason to lose sleep.
"Danny, we need to bring you home," Sam said. Instead of answering, Phantom tried continued to try and break Sam's grip. "Danny please. Listen to us. We only want to help-"
"Stop." His voice was weak and shaky, barely spoken above a whisper.
"We're not going to stop until you are home safe and we can talk about what's wrong," she insisted. "We're just trying to help, Danny."
"Stop calling me that!" His voice was somewhere between a hiss and a growl, distinctly inhuman. Of course it was; Phantom wasn't human. Why would he make a human sound?
He looked away from Sam and Tucker, not wanting to see their shared look of pity and confusion. He didn't deserve the pity, and he wasn't worthy of confusion. "...why?" Tucker said slowly.
Part of Phantom wanted to say nothing; he shouldn't be talking to them at all, shouldn't be here at all. Another part of him wanted to tell them exactly why. Maybe if they understood that Danny was dead, and that Phantom was dangerous, they would leave, and he could go back to pretending he'd died properly. With both sides arguing, all he managed was a series of garbled syllables.
His nonsense answer worked against him. "Dude, listen, we're just trying to help," Tucker said. He reached out his own hand to Phantom's shoulder. It was supposed to be comforting. All it did was send a pang of panic down Phantom's chest.
He was already pinned by the gloves, and he was already trying to get away without snapping again. He couldn't handle it happening again, couldn't guarantee that he'd be able to keep himself from hurting them.
Phantom needed to get them to leave. He needed to prove that he was dangerous, that he could and would hurt them, so they would run and leave him to rot. They weren't listening to him. They weren't going to listen to him. So he'd just have to show them now, before he lost himself to the violence again.
He grabbed Tucker's hand with his one arm and squeezed, not anywhere near his full strength, just enough that he could see the pain in Tucker's face. At the same time, he started twisting the arm Sam had gripped, twisting it further than Sam's could comfortably go and forcing her to follow or let him go.
"Leave. Me. Alone," he hissed, glaring into Tucker's eyes with as much fake malice as he could muster.
Phantom could see the pain in Tucker's pinched expression. He could hear Sam's grunt of pain as he twisted her arm further, just shy of causing permanent damage, and yet when he loosened his grip enough so that they would be able to break it, they didn't even try. If anything, they held on tighter.
"We're not leaving you again," Sam said through gritted teeth. "I shouldn't have left in the first place, and it shouldn't have taken me this long to figure that out. I'm sorry, Danny. We both are, and we want to make things right. So let us. Please."
Phantom loosened his grip on Tucker's hand and untwisted his own arm, letting the two of them return to more comfortable positions. Neither of them tried to cradle injuries, just holding on even tighter. He didn't process Sam's words. He barely heard them at all, mind reeling from the fact that they were still here. He was a monster. He had hurt ghosts and people and them and they hadn't been scared, hadn't tried to run, had stayed despite him trying to scare them off. They were still here.
He wasn't sure when he started crying, only that he felt the tears running down his cheeks. Sam and Tucker both leaned in closer, not trying to hold him in place anymore, just trying to comfort him.
Danny took a deep, gasping breath, and for the first time in what felt like weeks, let his transformation rings move back over him.