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Some nights are easier than others.
It’s always the quiet nights, when the ghosts seemingly all decide to take a break from attacking the town. Nights like those are always polarizing, Danny has found.
Most of the time, he enjoys the moment of reprieve, a chance to catch his breath (and catch up on sleep) amid the non-stop craziness of the rest of his life. Most of the time, he welcomes the inactivity.
But every once in a while…
He’s not sure wherein the difference lies.
Every once in a while, the quiet gets to him in ways it never did before. It seeps into his mind and presses in from all sides, smothering his thoughts until he’s left feeling empty. Drained, but he’s not sure from what. A hollowness that settles into his bones as he stares blankly, unhearing, at the television with the rest of the family cast haphazardly around the living room.
On nights like these, he excuses himself early, claims to be tired (he is, he swears he is, but not in the way that sleep will help), shrugs off Jazz’s concerned glance and walks upstairs alone. Each step is automatic, practiced, his brain so numb that he doesn’t even realize he’s up the stairs until he’s closing his bedroom door behind him and flicking the lock.
It’s only then, in the privacy of his own room, that his shoulders finally sag under the weight, under the weariness of it all. It’s only then that he breathes out a deep sigh that reaches to the bottom of his lungs, then does it again like it’ll actually bring relief the second time, forcefully pushing out the air that his body stopped needing over a year ago.
There’s a deep pressure in his chest, one that’s always been there, hugging his core where it rests against his still-beating heart. Nights like these, it’s heavier. A solid weight instead of a more metaphorical one. At least, that’s how he likes to think of it; it sounds more poetic. Maybe Mr. Lancer would even be proud.
The carpet is hard and unyielding under his shoulder blades, and he doesn’t quite remember when he decided to lay down, but, apparently, he did. So, he finds himself staring up, plastic stars faintly glowing against the textured white ceiling. He also, apparently, never turned the lights on.
It’s habit, the way his eyes trace familiar patterns that he put up there himself, years and years and years ago, when he first looked up at the sky and, instead of seeing pinpricks of light in the dark, saw possibilities and a future. Beacons of promise, of hope, of adventure, shining bright against a dark and unforgiving void.
It’s been too long since he’s felt that secured in anything, in that twinkling dream. Given how well school has been going, he’s basically stopped thinking about it altogether. No use lingering on lost futures.
Corvus. Cancer.
He’s not sure how much of a future someone like him has, anyways. Even outside of school, he knows his guilt would prevent him from ever leaving Amity Park. Not when he knows how vulnerable it is. Not when he knows it could probably never hold its own against some of the ghosts he’s had to fight. Not when he imagines all the people that will die because he decided to leave, decided his dreams, his desires, were more important than their lives.
Libra. Virgo.
He never realized it at the time, but that moment he died became a halfa, his future was no longer his own. His became a life of otherness, of unbelonging, of solitude and duty.
Of no longer being human, and thus losing all the license that came inherent in that title.
Ophiuchus. Scorpius and Orion.
Things that he used to take for granted, like the comforting release of each breath filling his lungs, the assurance that his heart was thump-thumping at all times, the idyllic ignorance of the taste of electricity at the back of his throat, the unawareness that the capacity to decimate everything runs through his veins, thrums through his core. That there are some things that you can’t come back from. Some things that you can never un-be. And some you can never return to.
Musca. Eridanus.
And god, if he can’t even convince himself that he’s human, how is he supposed to convince his parents? How is he supposed to show them he’s more than something to be hunted, greater than the lies and tricks they think he’s made of. Every brush with them feels closer than the last, a little more dangerous. Every time that he gets away by less and less of a margin, he’s reminded that one day, this will end. That it’s not a matter of “if”, but a matter of “when”. The only difference will be whether it’s by his terms or theirs.
Boötes. Lepus. Pisces.
It’s not all concrete thoughts per say. More like fleeting emotions, muffled parodies of feeling that he couldn’t properly express if he tried, let alone wanted to. He’s more content to let them flit by undisturbed than try to grasp them and pin them down like butterflies. Let them exist even just for the sole purpose of letting his mind live under the pretense that it’s okay.
It’s not. It hasn’t been for a while. But, by now, his life has become nothing more than a dangerous game of pretend, so what’s one more lie thrown into the mix?
He’s not sure how long he lies there. Long enough that at one point, he hears Jazz’s soft footsteps come up the stairs and stop in front of his door. A soft rap on the wood, a quiet call of his name, a slight rattle of the doorknob. And then a moment of quiet, a sigh, and the sound of her departing steps as she heads to her room for the night.
He’s lying there long enough to hear the other two sets of feet make their way upstairs, one barely audible, the other a heavy thud on every step. His dad heads right for their room, but his mom stops in front of his own door. She also gently tries the doorknob, and when she too realizes it’s locked, she quietly retires to the other end of the hall, the hallway lights going out.
Which just leaves him.
Lying on his bedroom floor.
By himself.
He wishes he could sleep on nights like this. Wishes the air entering his lungs didn’t feel like an imitation of breath. Wishes his brain didn’t feel like pulled cotton inside his skull. Wishes his chest would stop hurting and his core would stop pressing—
His eyes close as he lets his transformation wash over him, feeling the cold tingle radiate out of his chest and flow through him in a wash of light. He doesn’t even think; he doesn’t want to think. Turning himself invisible on instinct alone, he lets himself sink through the floor, pulling a lazy loop around the living room and fazing through the front window.
The air outside is brisk, the February chill bringing with it a soft blanket of snow on the surrounding yards, lazy flurries settling on the sidewalks and roads, already an inch or so thick. His core hums contentedly in his chest as he breathes in the crisp air.
Still invisible, he drifts lazily down the dark street, the night quiet and empty, everyone driven indoors by the cold. Everything feels muted beneath the soft crackling of the freshly-falling snow, the world for once peaceful, relaxed. The moon stands high in the sky, it’s light barely a sliver in the darkness, allowing the stars to shine a little brighter onto the sleeping city in the places where they aren’t obscured by clouds heavy with snowfall.
He allows himself to drift higher, up above the houses and the Ops Center, above the skyscrapers in the distance, allowing the features of the city to smudge and blend, watching it all shrink further and further away until he can barely pick out individual buildings among it all. He keeps climbing, up into the clouds, the icy winds whipping at his hair and whistling through his ears, freezing dew sticking to his face. Eventually he breaks free of it, emerging from the cloud layer and into the open air above. Then, and only then, does he slow his ascent, still invisible as he flips over onto his back, interlaces his fingers behind his head, and looks up.
When you’re this high up, the light pollution down below has a hard time reaching.
Even a bright city like Amity Park dulls in comparison to the expanse of stars suspended in the air above him. The sky stretches to either end of his vision as he’s fully encompassed by the space beyond and its infinite reaches. Each pinprick of light dwarfed against the endless black sky, its own star, its own galaxy, one of billions out there, impossibly out of reach. And yet, they feel familiar, comforting, his eyes tracing well-known patterns and shapes the same way fingers brush well-worn grooves in a brick wall. Habitual and grounding, done only by routine. He knows so many of them by name, though there are billions and billions he will never see, never get to meet. And yet, here, he bears witness to them all, basking in their light from where he rests thousands of feet up in the troposphere, finding contentment in their bright glow.
It takes his breath away every time.
There’s something about coming up here, hanging in the air amongst so much stark beauty, that almost makes him feel small. But it’s not intimidating or overwhelming or anything of that sort. It’s… humbling. Staring up at it all, at the billions of other galaxies lightyears and lightyears away, and somehow here he is, existing amongst it all, doing what he can to get by, risking his everything doing something he feels in his bones is important.
And maybe it’s exhausting, and maybe there are times when he resents it, and maybe some nights, on nights like tonight, he just feels like it will never be enough, that he isn’t enough, that it’s too much, and that someday he’ll have to face that.
Some nights, Danny Fenton feels like the weight of the universe is on his shoulders, ready to crush him at the slightest misstep, at the first mistake.
His eyes search through familiar constellations, and he finds one, right against the horizon.
Columba.
He breathes out, the tightness in his chest loosening its hold ever so slightly.
Some nights, the universe feels too big to handle. But then, when he comes out here, he’s always reminded that the universe is not his to bear. And…
And that’s okay.
And he’s okay.
And one day, maybe, he’ll finally believe that.
But until then, he’ll be content to just lay up here and watch as the universe rolls by.
And maybe, just maybe, he’ll find it in himself to float back down to Earth, crawl into bed, and finally sleep.