Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Few people paid any attention to the new kid in town.  Actually, most people didn't even seem to notice that there was a new kid in town. After all, he didn't go to school (almost everyone who thought about it didn't even know if he was a minor or not), but he didn't make trouble either. To most people who saw him, he just seemed to be a normal teenager with nothing better to do than bum around street corners.

He wasn't anybody special.

Right?

That's what Danny Fenton thought the first time he caught sight of the boy. He had dark hair and gray eyes, wore faded, torn jeans and a t-shirt under an old jacket. Really, as soon as Danny saw him, he classified him as a 'non threat' and forgot about him.

Two days later, he reassessed that classification. 

As Danny Phantom, he'd just managed to take out Technius again, and although the fight had worn him down, he couldn't help but feel a swell of pride and satisfaction as he flew back towards Fenton Works with a full thermos.

That was when Danny saw the kid again. The half ghost practically screeched to a halt in surprise when his eye caught sight of the same boy in the exact same place as he had been a few days earlier, looking right at Danny…who was supposed to be invisible at the moment.  Uneasily, he glanced down at where his hand should be and saw nothing but the slightest distortion that shouldn't be visible more than a yard away.  Yup, still invisible...but the kid was still watching him and hadn't looked away once.

Not good.

In his mind, he upgraded the kid to 'possible threat' and decided to investigate cautiously.

Slowly, he approached the other boy, making sure to stay invisible. The boy's eyes never left Danny, and it only served to freak him out more.

"How are you doing that?" the boy asked, his voice thick with a British accent. Danny, only a few yards away, froze in the air again. Then, deciding that staying invisible was pointless, he faded back into view.

"How am I doing what?" he asked slowly.

The boy shook his head and then looked back at Danny. "You're completely invisible. That isn't Fade and it's not an illusion either. Your spectral body exists on a visual plane, like a human's, like most of the ghosts around here too, actually —very strange," the boy added that last part on with a wry shake of his head before continuing. "So you should have the same problem Fading that most humans do. You've overcome the problem by turning invisible instead. How?"

Danny blinked, a bit taken back at the boy's analysis. It sounded like someone had given Jazz their father's love of ghosts…or like someone had given his father Jazz's brains. He shuddered at that rather uncomfortable thought.

"Uh…" he said intelligently. "Don't all ghosts turn invisible?"

The boy blinked at him. "No. They use Fade. Surely you, as a ghost, would know of Fade…"

Danny's blank expression must have given him away because the boy pulled the hand he'd had in his pants pocket out causing the half-ghost to tense.  He opened his palm a moment later and Danny relaxed marginally.  The kid held a penny. Still, he didn't let his guard down completely. It wouldn't have been the first time someone had pulled something to surprise him from their pocket.

"Like this," the boy said and threw the penny behind Danny. Unwittingly, Danny's eyes followed it for just a split second before he turned his attention back to the other teen…who had vanished.

"W-wait! Where did you—"

"You really don't know," the boy's voice said incredulously. Danny whirled back to where he'd seen the other teenager and squinted. It sounded as if the voice were coming from where he'd been standing earlier...hadn't it? Or was someone just playing with Danny's mind…again?

It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust, but they eventually caught sight of a form and his eyes widened. The kid hadn't moved. He was standing right where Danny had left him, but it almost felt like his eyes just didn't want to see him.

"How did you do that?" he asked, not liking the situation in the slightest. If the boy was a ghost… Great, that's all he needed: another ghost coming in to try and take over.

"I faded," the kid said slowly, as if he were explaining something to a particularly rambunctious child. "You know, from a person's perception?

"No…" Danny said slowly.

"How can you be a ghost and not know that?" The boy sounded absolutely stunned. Danny didn't like the implications. Was the boy saying Danny wasn't a ghost? That hit a little too close to home for comfort.

Years of hiding his secret told him he had to misdirect.

"And you would know about it how?"

The boy raised an eyebrow, his face a mixture of sadness, longing and pride all hidden under a wry smile. "I'm not a ghost, if that's what you're asking."

Danny couldn't help but be impressed at the boy's correct assumption, but he hid it under a scowl. "I come across a lot of ghosts who say that." Actually, he didn't. Most ghosts panicked if their human cover was blown, but this boy didn't need to know that. There was a first time for everything after all.

The boy's eyebrow rose again, this time giving his face a distinctly amused expression. "Really?"

"Yes," Danny responded, a slight edge to his voice.

"I'm impressed that any ghost can make themselves visible long enough to masquerade as a human to begin with."

The half-ghost couldn't help a snort. "You haven't been around here long, have you? Fresh out of the Ghost Zone?"

The boy blinked, seemingly taken aback. "Ghost Zone?"

Danny rolled his eyes, but the kid looked genuinely confused, so Danny decided to cal his bluff. "Yeah, you know, the realm of ghosts? The place most ghosts come from?"

"But…" the boy blinked, "doesn't the spirit stay with the remains of the body?"

"Huh? Why would they?" Danny asked now a bit confused himself. The other kid was either a really good actor, or he really didn't know much about the ghosts that haunted Amity Park.

The boy cocked his head, seemingly perplexed. "Well…consecrated ground and all. It gives ghosts a sanctuary—a home," he added the last part a little wistfully before continuing, "and protects them."

"From what?"

The boy paused and scratched his head. "You know, I'm not sure. The Living, probably."

Danny rolled his eyes. "Why would the dead need to be protected from the living?"

The boy regarded Danny for a second, and then shrugged. "Ghosts have powers the living don't. A lot of people would want to take advantage of that."

The white-haired boy's eyes widened. He'd never thought of it that way before… But then again, there was Freakshow, and the Guys in White aimed to capture ghosts too (when not trying to obliterate them), and Vlad, and even his parents to an extent...

Still he'd mainly seen the harm go in the other direction.

"Aren't you getting it mixed up?" he insisted after a moment. "Ghosts are the ones who use their powers to attack humans around here."

"Yeah," the boy conceded, a strange expression that Danny couldn't quite read crossed his face. "I noticed that. I've never seen so many malevolent spirits in a single area, let alone those that can actually affect the physical world so easily…"

"I've never come across a ghost that can't," Danny assured him, frowning.

The boy blinked and scratched his head. "Must be a local phenomenon."

The conversation was starting to really annoy Danny. He had no idea what was going on with this kid and he did not like being left in the dark when it came to ghosts.

"What are you talking about?" he insisted.

The boy raised an eyebrow at him, his expression amused again. "In most other parts of the world, ghosts live in their graveyards or they remain where their body fell or was buried. They don't move on to a 'Ghost Zone' as far as I know and they can rarely affect the physical world."

"How do you know that?" Danny asked again.

"Because I was raised by ghosts."

All Danny could do was blink as his mind tried to process that. He would have laughed outright if he hadn't been so tired and annoyed. "What?" he asked, bringing a hand up to rub at his right temple. He just knew this would lead to a headache eventually, so he may as well start the process of relaxing muscles now. Maybe the kid was insane? Maybe Danny should just leave now and forget this ever happened…

"I wandered into a graveyard near my house when I was young. The ghosts there took me in and raised me."

"Just like that?" Danny asked skeptically.

"No," the boy said, his voice gaining a hard edge for the first time in the conversation. "There were circumstances, but they're none of your business."

The half-ghost wanted to protest at the way this kid seemed to want Danny to share relatively personal information about his powers but wasn't up to sharing himself. Still he could see the logic in the kid's words, so he settled for another frown instead.

"Is that how you could see me when I was invisible?" he asked coldly.

The boy's expression lightened back to normal. "Yeah. Well, I couldn't see you, per se, but I knew you were there."

"How?"

"You ask a lot of questions."

Danny couldn't help but bristling defensively. "Yeah, well, so do you and I never asked someone to come into my town and be completely immune to one of my best defenses. Other ghosts can't see me when I'm invisible most of the time!" Although Vlad always seemed to be able to tell where Danny was. Half the time Skulker and Spectra could too. And strangely enough, the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady…

"Fair enough," the boy said with another shrug. He seemed to like doing that. "Every ghost has a presence. The more in tune someone is with the spiritual world around them, the more they can sense it, whether they're dead or alive. Most of the dead live in the spiritual realm, so they can sense a ghost's or a human's presence."

"And because you were raised by ghosts," supposedly, "they taught you how?" Danny asked, catching on.

"Precisely. Most ghosts are invisible to humans anyway, but those who can sense them…well, invisibility doesn't exactly work. Perhaps that is how the ability to Fade came about," he said with a contemplative expression, as if he'd just discovered or connected something in his mind.

"And how does this 'Fade' work?" Danny asked slowly. "Could…could you teach me?"

The boy seemed mildly surprised. "You would trust me?"

Not in the slightest, but that didn't mean that Danny couldn't learn something that could be very helpful in the long run. "As long as you don't try to attack anyone or try to take over the world," Danny warned.

The boy snickered. "I prefer my anonymity, thank you." He held out his hand. "The name's Bod by the way."

"Bod?"

Bod shrugged yet again. "If you want to know my real name it's Nobody Owens."

"Did the ghosts give you that name?"

"Yes," Bod replied slowly. "Why do you ask?"

Danny snickered. "Because it seems that no matter where in the world you go, ghosts will always have about the same level of creativity."

It was Bod's turn to frown apparently and Danny couldn't help but snicker. "Please refrain from insulting my parents."

"Sorry," Danny said, although he was still smiling.

"You know, you just insulted yourself. You are a ghost too, right?"

The half-ghosts smile vanished as that point hit a little too close. "Why do you ask that?"

The boy contemplated his answer silently for several seconds. "And what do I get in return?" he asked, he finally seemed to settle on.

Danny paused, wondering what the heck the kid meant.

"Huh?"

"You asked me to teach you how to Fade. What do I get in return?"

"Oh," Danny responded. "Uh…"

"Teach me to turn invisible."

Danny blinked. "Uh, humans can't."

"I'm not an ordinary human."

Danny frowned. "Why not?"

"Grew up with ghosts, remember?"

"Yeah, but how does that make you different from other people?"

Bod nodded as if conceding the point. "When I was 8, the ghost of a witch put a spell on me. It gave me the ability to learn what ghosts could, I think."

"You think?"

"After that I could Fade and I'd been trying to learn that for months before hand. I could also Dreamwalk and—"

"Dreamwalk?" Danny asked hurriedly, growing more and more worried. He couldn't help but think of Nocturne. Also if this kid had powers, was it anything like when Desiree had given Tucker ghost powers? If he was actually human, was he a ticking time-bomb?

"Another ability normal ghosts have."

"How many other abilities do 'normal' ghosts have?" Danny asked worriedly. He didn't like that he was starting to believe the kid in spite of himself.

Bod hesitated, suddenly wary as he scrutinized Danny. He didn't seem like a very open person, but Danny figured that after being raised by ghosts, he could see that. Still, he needed to know in case a ghost from outside of Amity Park and/or the Ghost Zone came to town.

Finally Bod seemed to deem Danny worthy of his secrets as he shrugged as if to say 'why not?' and spoke again.

"Fading, Dreamwalking—joining your consciousness with another's subconscious or dream, Haunting—or inserting perceptions into another consciousness, kind of like illusions but with feelings instead of vision, it's very similar to Fading—manipulating Fear and sometimes Terror although I don't use that last one."

Danny frowned. "Seems like most ghosts can do that last one."

"Can you?"

Danny didn't answer.

"Well?"

"I don't want to know how."

Bod blinked at Danny for a moment before breaking into a smile. "Right. I like you. How about this, in exchange for me teaching you how to do everything I can do and about ghosts outside, you teach me how to do what you can do and about the ghosts around here. We can compare notes and what not. What do you say?"

Danny thought for a moment. He didn't normally trust people that just rushed into the town (he'd been taken advantage of a few too many times under similar circumstances for him to have not learned his lesson), but here was a boy who had demonstrated his abilities harmlessly and then offered to teach them to Danny for no other reason than to learn in return. It could still be a ruse, but it was a risk Danny was willing to take. Besides, this way he could keep an eye on the kid.

"Alright," he said, extending his hand.

With a small but genuine grin, Bod took it and shook.

Chapter Text

"So," Danny rumbled as he focused yet again on this fading technique, "ghosts usually can't leave consecrated ground?" He glanced at his hand, concentrating as hard as he could, focusing on it not being there while trying not trigger his phasing or invisibility. "Isn't that kind of like trapping them…or something?"

He grunted with the effort he was focusing on his hand only to get distracted when he spotted Bod shaking his head out of the corner of his eyes and scowled.  He had no real way of checking to see if he'd learned to fade yet, but if Bod's expression was anything to go by, he hadn't even come close. "You're going about this all wrong. You're still thinking instead of believing. You have to truly believe you've stopped existing."

Danny opened his eyes as his brow furrowed. "Stopped existing?" How was that supposed to work? He existed and that was that...right?

Bod shrugged. "You're a ghost. Ghosts aren't supposed to be able to affect the human realm, so you have to internalize that feeling and believe that lack of interaction equals a lack of being."

"But I can interact with humans," Danny protested.

"Which is rare and strange and probably just a local phenomenon, as I've said before." Bod shot back, just a tad of impatience ringing in his voice.

The half-ghost frowned. "Yeah, yeah, I get it. Me and the ghosts around here are weirder then whatever normal ghosts are. Then why am I learning this again when I can just go invisible?" Besides, he knew he could be visible and use his powers in other parts of the world. Among all the mini trips he'd taken with the family in the RV, the length of time he'd spent away from the town on various trips to Wisconsin and the (mostly forgotten by everyone) road trip during Freakshow's little kidnapping stunt proved that.

"You were the one who wanted to learn in the first place, Danny," Bod said, sounding just a little lost, as if he couldn't figure out how they'd taken this turn in the conversation.

"Yeah, well obviously I didn't realize it would involve something like this. I mean, pretending you don't exist? Ghosts do exist. I exist. We can interact with the world and it seems to me like pretending otherwise is a step in the wrong direction!" Danny hadn't meant to go off, but pretending not to exist, well, all he could think of with that was that fear he felt deep inside (possibilities after the Freakshow incident non-withstanding) every time he flinched at his parents latest ghost trap and he pretended he wasn't who he truly was now….

Bod seemed to look at him again, this time with something akin to sympathy on his face. "I can understand, believe me, but the reality is you'll never learn to fade with a mentality like that."

Danny sighed. Maybe this really wasn't such a good idea. He did not like the idea of thinking and believing that he no longer existed. Actually, the very idea made him extremely uneasy. He rubbed his arm with his other hand as if to warm himself. It was a nervous habit he'd picked up from Jazz recently.

Maybe he should talk to Jazz about all of this?

"And I guess it is."

Danny blinked at the randomness. "You guess what is?"

Bod smiled wryly. "Your question from before--about trapping ghosts on consecrated ground. But most of them like the idea of a sanctuary."

"But not all?"

The dark-haired boy shrugged. "Does every human have the same opinon?"

"No."

"Why should ghosts?"

Danny thought about it for a moment and then shrugged, conceding the point. He of all people knew that ghosts tended to have different personalities.

Sighing, he pushed the conversation and ideas aside to concentrate on the task at hand. "I don't know if I can do this."

"Yeah, you're doing about as well as I did when I first learned it," Bod replied with a dry snicker. "I don't know if you can do it either, but then I don't know if I can turn invisible."

The white-haired boy shrugged. "I wouldn't be surprised."

Bod put a hand to his chin, cupping it thoughtfully. "Alright, so tell me again what you feel of when you go invisible."

Danny rolled his eyes. When Bod had first asked Danny what he thought when he went invisible, two days previously, he hadn't really known what to say. He didn't really think of anything…he just kind of did it. He'd told Bod as much and the other boy had then asked what he felt instead then. Danny still hadn't know how to answer.

He'd said something along the lines of how he felt more hidden and safe. Apparently that had helped Bod about as much as the other boy's words on fading had helped Danny—which was to say not at all.

So Danny thought about it again (although he couldn't help the annoyance at having to do so for what felt like the umpteenth time). He even tapped into that cold core of his that gave him ghost powers to begin with and turned invisible.

"I feel cold," he commented, unable to help the sarcasm.

"Cold?"

Danny opened his eyes at Bod's tone. "Yeah. I always feel cold when I use my ghost powers."

"You're not always using them?"

Danny opened his mouth and then closed it again with a slight frown. "Yeah, I guess I am," he replied slowly. When he was in ghost mode, he really was always using his powers…or almost always in any case. It just came so naturally to him.

"Hmm. Cold, you say," Bod muttered, putting his hands down to his sides and rubbing his thumb over his finger tips. Danny had come to learn that Bod did this when he was thinking.

"Cold…but I never feel cold…do I? Is this completely different? Or have I completely missed something without realizing it?"

"Do you often talk to yourself?" Danny asked dryly.

Bod paused and glanced over at him, blinking for a moment as if realizing the white-haired boy hadn't left. Then he shrugged. "Yeah. I don't tend to have many other people to talk to."

"Oh," Danny said softly, frowning again. Not having anyone…that was just sad. He couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy for the other teen.

"I need to think on this," Bod said suddenly. "I'll see you tomorrow, same time and place."

"If another ghost doesn't get in my way," Danny muttered in annoyance.

Bod hummed dismissively, obviously too distracted to really give what Danny said any real thought. The half-ghost couldn't bring himself to feel too offended as Bod had obviously listened to what he'd said before.

Danny rolled his eyes again and floated away, back towards his home. As he did so, he took out his cell phone and dialed Sam. He hadn't told them he was meeting someone else to learn more ghost powers. They'd get too over protective and insist on coming along and probably scare Bod away (he didn't seem to like people consciously knowing about him, and Danny had picked up on that almost immediately). He'd have to apologize for ditching them three days in a row…

xXx

"I figured it out," Bod said the next day as Danny landed in front of him.

"Hello to you too," Danny muttered, although again, he couldn't bring his words to have any real bite to them.

"You're right."

The half-ghost blinked. He never could follow this kid's train of thought. He had the most focused, one-track mind of anyone Danny had ever met (and that included Jazz). Danny tended to be a bit more scatter-brained and followed tangents easily.

"Of course I am," Danny affirmed confidently, and then paused. "About what?"

The corner of Bod's mouth twitched up in a smile that bordered on a smirk. "About the cold. I'd never noticed it before, but whenever I use Fade or Dreamwalking or Fear Raising, I feel colder. The change is so minute I can hardly feel it, but it is there. Observe:"

And with that, he closed his eyes and to Danny's surprise, began to fade from view, but not like he normally did. Danny could still tell he was there somehow beyond the fact that he still partially see Bod. Still, it was an improvement.

He couldn't help but smile. "You did it!"

Bod opened his eyes and smiled. "It is very tiring, but I believe that with some practice I can indeed turn invisible. It will be immensely helpful with my Fade ability."

"What do you mean?" Danny asked. "I thought you used Fade instead of Invisibility."

"Yes," Bod nodded. "But to instigate Fade, their eye contact must be broken. Usually this is caused by a distraction, but the tactic will not work every time. Some people simply cannot be distracted." His voice took on the wistful tone that it usually got when Danny suspected Bod was remembering something and the dark-haired boy shuddered.

Danny couldn't help but wonder what the other teen had gone through to have a reaction like that.

He made a mental note of the information for later contemplation and got back to the task at hand.

"And if you can use Fade and Invisibility at the same time…" Danny said, catching onto Bod's line of thought.

"You will be practically undetectable," Bod finished with a grin that Danny simply had to return. He was really beginning to like the ideas of what he could do with all of this…if he could actually learn it.

His smile fell suddenly at the thought and Bod must have noticed.

"I have also rethought how you may use Fade." Danny glanced back at the other boy, perking up despite himself.

"You have?"

Bod nodded. "Yes. Firstly, I believe you may be trying to use too much power."

Danny frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You told me your ability to turn invisible is easy and practically second nature to you, and yet it almost drains me. Fade, however, is one of the most basic abilities I know. I have to use it for a great deal of time before it begins to tire me out. Thus I came to the conclusion that you may, perhaps, be using too much power."

"I guess that makes sense," Danny muttered thoughtfully.

"And I also believe that your line of thinking will never be able to accomplish convincing yourself that you do not exist. So I recommend you think of yourself existing as your surroundings instead. You become apart of it, whether it be a wall, or the street, or the air itself. You exist, but only as that element." He paused, glancing over at Danny. "Does that make sense?"

"Yeah," Danny replied slowly. "Yeah, it does…" He couldn't think of not a state of non-existence and he didn't really want to try. It just…didn't make sense to him. The idea that he wouldn't be able to exist at all scared him, although he would never admit it aloud. Existing as something else though? That was a different story and made far more sense in his mind.

By the time they went their separate ways that night, Danny couldn't help the grin that spread from ear to ear all the way home. He hadn't been able to fade as completely as Bod, but he had made progress. He didn't know how long it would take to master the new ability fully, let alone combine it with Invisibility as Bod had suggested, but he was learning something that could be very useful in the future, and what was better, it expended so little power that he could use it while in human form. He'd be able to escape from Dash without using any obvious ghost powers, it would be easier to hide from really powerful ghosts like Skulker and Vlad…really the possibilities were almost endless.

Right about then was when he decided that he actually liked Nobody Owens. Without even realizing it, he'd come to trust the other boy.

At that thought, Danny froze in mid-air and smacked his forehead. Fabulous. He still had no idea if Bod was a threat or not.

He stayed in the air thinking for several seconds and finally came to a conclusion: he'd have to introduce Bod to Sam, Tucker and Jazz and see what they thought. Between the four of them, they could usually figure things out.