Chapter Text
It was way, way too hot.
Danny rolled over on his bed, groaning as he pushed what was almost a pile of blankets off of him. His room, which was usually a temperature bordering on that of a late-autumn night, was now matching the heat of the outside world. This being the case, Danny was incredibly uncomfortable, sweating and shivering at the same time; the icy chill of his ghost core was clashing with the intense heat surrounding him.
His bed creaked faintly as he pushed himself up from it, making up his mind to go into the lab. Hell, he'd be willing to go into the Ghost Zone at this rate. Anything to get away from the almost painful difference between the summery air and his frosty core. Shivering, the halfa angled his legs carefully over the sleeping body of Sam. Tucker was currently curled up on the other side of the bed, right against the wall, as the two had simply crashed at Danny's after an annoyingly long battle with Skulker. Now all he had to do was get out of bed without waking either of his friends.
The solution came to him, so obvious he could have smacked himself; Danny closed his eyes briefly and floated off the bed to land on the floor delicately. As he settled on the carpet overlaying the linoleum in his bedroom, he looked around him briefly. Nothing on his way to the door to bump into. Good, he could make his way out of his room noiselessly.
Danny padded towards the door, the fluffy socks that he was now thankful that he'd worn to bed making only soft shushing noises on the carpeted floor. If he had to take a guess at the current time, he'd say maybe five in the morning, if the pale grey light filtering in through his window was anything to go by. How odd, though; everything seemed to have silvery outlines and blurred shadows. Danny supposed that it was a trick of the early morning light. Or more likely, he was tired and his vision was still blurry.
As the halfa shuffled into the hall, he saw the open bathroom door from the corner of his eye, then something that was quick to catch his attention.
A flash of vibrant, glowing green. He was sure of it.
Danny whirled on the spot, his socks again making the soft shush shush noise, which only served to mount his tension higher, and he was certain that as soon as his swift turn stopped there would be some ghost standing there, already prepped to do him in-
But there was nothing.
Danny blinked in confusion, freezing so he could listen, and he had the oddest sensation of his ears rotating slightly to catch the noises from the house. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He could hear the slow, even breathing of his friends from the other room, interspersed with soft snores which he presumed were from Tucker. He could even hear the quiet whisper of the wind from outside, and a faint humming of power which seemed to echo through the very bones of the house. He was pretty sure it was coming from the portal. Danny could almost hear the faint pulsing whirr of the portal working. All the way in the basement.
Something seemed wrong to him.
It was the window that caught his eye, and confirmed the feeling that had been creeping through him. That disquiet which was starting to settle not in his heart, but his ghostly core. That feeling solidified as he gazed through the glass pane, eyes wide. Because outside the window, the soft grey light remained, but took on a distinct silvery cast; a silver edge, from the moon.
It was the dead of night.
Danny’s heart seemed to stop in his chest, dread pooling low in his stomach. It was just too bright to be night, (and too hot, some small voice in his head whispered) but he couldn’t deny it based on the moon and the stars twinkling down from the sky above. The halfa’s heart kicked up into overdrive when he couldn’t help but question, what had he seen in the mirror? He knew it hadn’t been a trick of his tired mind, because he’d been jerked fully awake as soon as he’d seen that little shimmer of green in the corner of his eye. With his heart beating hard, hardly able to draw a breath for the tense fear lodged in his throat, Danny turned to face the mirror. And swallowed hard, nervously.
It was him.
As if in a dream, his head spinning now, the teen walked toward the mirror. His eyes glowed an almost fluorescent green, softly highlighting the freckles spattered across his cheeks and the hollows underneath them. What scared Danny was the fact that he hadn’t turned into his ghost half, he could tell, his core hadn’t expanded and he still had the faintest semblance of human warmth, he was still human-
No, even that wasn’t completely right. Danny could see now, as he leaned forward toward the mirror, he wasn’t quite human. Sure, his hair was still black and the freckles on his face didn’t match the fluorescent green of his eyes; but his ears were slightly larger than usual, pointed, and when he bared his teeth in a creepy mimic of a wolf-like snarl, he could see the fangs that most ghosts sported had overtaken his usual dull, human canines. A slightly uncomfortable prickle went down his spine as he watched one ear swivel, picking up the sound of movement from his bedroom. His . . . lair, one might say. A vague, dark form came into view, edged in silver and slightly blurry as it moved. With a faint growl rumbling low in his chest, Danny turned, his spine prickling again. A low, feral-sounding growl tore from his lips as his fingers curled into claws.
“Woah, you just . . . sparked, dude,” Tucker said, muffling a yawn with one hand. “What are you doing up?”
The snarl on Danny’s face froze and faded, leaving him staring at his friend with wide green eyes. The halfa ran his tongue over the fangs he could feel poking into his gums slightly, his luminescent green eyes wide. His stance had been . . . not even defensive, something more. Predatory. He was glad Tucker was too tired to notice, Danny was even scaring himself. He opened his mouth to speak, but a strange jumble of words fell out, sounding smooth but unintelligible. Danny shook his head and shrugged.
Tucker had quirked one eyebrow at him, looking slightly more awake than he had moments before.
“Man, this is weird. What’s up with your eyes?” the darker teen inquired, squinting at Danny through the darkness.
Danny shrugged again, still trying to speak.
“I- I don’t know,” he managed finally, english feeling almost wrong to him, and the words having an almost growling tone to them. “Why . . . why are you up?”
Tucker gave him a slightly odd look, saying, “Can’t you feel it? It’s freezing, dude.”
Danny fell silent, staring past his friend and out the window into the night. He couldn’t feel the apparent chill in the air, but as he put his hands together, he could feel their absolute absence of warmth. What was going on with him? As he clasped his hands together nervously, another prickle ran down his spine. A different sort, one that seemed to run a lukewarm wave through his body. The teen turned to the mirror, watching as green faded from his eyes until they were their normal, clear, sky-blue. It seemed like someone had shoved his head into a bag; everything dulled. He couldn’t hear the humming that had been the sound of the portal, couldn’t see more than maybe a foot in the sudden darkness. He felt Tucker’s hand on his shoulder.
“Come on, Danny, let’s just go back to sleep.”
Danny couldn’t stop staring into the mirror. A spark of something green flashed through his eyes, and he turned to his friend, whose hand felt warm, real, alive.
How Danny wished he could be like that, something simpler.
He didn’t even know if he was human anymore.