Work Text:
Don’t get him wrong, Danny loves his parents, he really does. He can’t deny that. Even so, every teenager has those moments when they’re annoyed or embarrassed, and just wanna disappear without any consequences—this is one of those times.
It’s a bright afternoon. The clouds scurried away early afternoon and now the sun is beating down on Amity Park, about half an hour after school’s been released for the day. Jack Fenton swerves the GAV all over the main road, hands drumming the wheel and foot hard on the gas pedal. Maddie Fenton sits in the back, surrounded by screens and inventions as she pores over a laptop with a smile. Danny sits in a hump opposite her, frowning.
Danny has ghost hunting to do. He has a ton of obligations he needs to get to, most of them including a certain something called the Fenton Thermos, and he wishes he could just go do them and get it done with. But here he is—none the better for it.
“Watch how a real Fenton does ghost hunting, Danny-boy!” Jack hollers from his spot in the front seat, all too excited to do just that.
Danny sinks lower in his seat, crossing his arms and glaring at the floor. “I wanted to hang out with Sam and Tucker,” he grumbles. It’s not quite a lie, it’s a white lie—he was planning to spend some time with them, but he’s leaving out just what exactly they’d be doing.
Maddie sighs, shutting the laptop on her lap and setting it aside. “C’mon sweetie, just spend some time with us! You’ll have plenty of time to ‘hang out’ with your friends later,” she says, reaching over to snag the Fenton Finder laying on the floor in front of them and switching the setting to widespread: it makes for less pinpointed results but covers a wider area.
She has him there. Danny rolls his eyes and glances out the window, setting his cheek on his fist, attempting to cover up his anxiety with average teenage disdain.
Maddie gasps. “Oh, there’s a big one!” She sets the Fenton Finder down with a grin, eyes bright and excited. “Head to Axion Labs, honey!”
Well, here they go.
Valerie stands off to the side, a soft smile on her face and hands clasped in front of her new skirt. Her father presents his even more new, state-of-the-art security tech to the Axion manager while some scientists fiddle with their experiments in the open lab. Coming to her father’s work is always more interesting than class.
Her father continues to talk about the different features and settings of the software as Valerie raises her eyes to look at the ceiling. Wooden beams hold the high ceiling up, at least four times as tall as she is, with bright yellow sun cascading in through the glass window. The light dances on the walls and the colors are welcome in the gray interior of the building. It’s a pretty day.
She’s really lucky to be here—she’s all too aware of that. Amity Park may be a pretty welcoming town, but there’s always some bouts of racism and sexism anywhere. As a black teenage girl, she’s at high risk, but instead her father manages to support the both of them as a single dad and hold the family together. She admires him for that.
She brings her eyes back down to see Damon gesticulate with the remote in his hand. “Nobody could get through that!” he says after pressing a button. The door to the hallway on both sides slides closed like a garage door.
Valerie covers her giggle with her hand. He’s rehearsed that speech frantically that morning in front of her, terrified of messing up. He was so worried, but he hasn’t stuttered this whole time. It’s kinda funny how things work out.
She lets a satisfied sigh out, stepping back a little bit and sitting down on an empty nearby countertop. She dangles her legs underneath her, the weight of her pumps swaying back and forth giving her something to do with her body.
There’s a loud bang and a clang. Everyone pauses for a second, a good chunk of the scientists looking up in the direction of where the sound came. Valerie jerks her head to look, seeing the sound coming from one of the hallways. She leans back on her palms as most of the scientists return to messing with their experiments, be it chemical reactions or things to do with robots and tech. She sees a robot dog being worked on in the far back, the creator laughing to themselves as they tighten a bolt.
The sound is normal for a laboratory, so after a few seconds mostly everyone has gone back to whatever it is they were doing. But something echoes again, which has a few people set down their stuff and look at the closed door oddly.
“You’ll see just how good my tech is, now!” Damon says, taking the chance. “A personal demo!”
She doesn’t doubt him for a second, really. They’re perfectly safe in here. Well, as safe as you can be in an experimental laboratory. There are definitely moments where experiments backfire, but lab safety is a thing for a reason, and there are many precautions in way before you can get a dangerous experiment confirmed.
Muffled barks echo out through the door. The person who was working on the little robot dog is gone from the room now, so they probably went to go test it in the hallways.
People continue to experiment, the person closest to Valerie mixing vials and watching the various reactions, jotting down notes. Damon continues his speech as well, cracking a few jokes about the dog not possibly getting in.
“Whose dog d’ya think that is?” The chemist says.
“Dunno,” Valerie throws in with a confident smile, “but I know Daddy’s tech can handle it.”
Barks echo through the door again, much louder this time. Valerie leans back a bit and watches her dad nervously fidget, waiting for the manager’s judgement. She’s not worried.
There’s another bark, then a huge glowing green dog steps through the garage door like it isn’t even there, red eyes menacing. Sharp canines are bared, glowing slobber dripping onto the floor. It has big paws with claws that would be sure to leave a serious wound. It’s the size of an elephant, and probably has the strength of one too.
The room temperature dives into the forties. It sends shivers up her arms and she brings her hands up to rub for warmth.
It barks again, and it pierces through Valerie’s ears now that there’s no wall to muffle the sound. Everyone in the room flinches, a few reflexively covering their ears, as the dog steps forward. Its spiked collar drags against the wall, digging into the metal panelling and leaving gouges much like claw marks.
Valerie’s breath catches in her throat. Damon drops the remote in shock and moves away from the door. Some people step back a little, glancing at their projects before trying to make a break for it. The closed doors on both sides are roadblockers.
Amity Park is a paranormal town, but this is really the first time she’s been this close to a ghost with no way out—it’s a terrifying thought. She’s frozen, heart up in her throat. Animals are always unexpected, primal , and you never know how they’ll act. A ghost dog is just adding to the variables and she’s scared to see what’ll happen.
People realize that the tech is now unusable. The dog steps on the remote and instantly crushes it, and that’s it—they’re stuck. There’s no way to go hit the button to open the door. It’s on the other side.
People dive under the countertops and tables, resorting to emergency drill procedures.
The dog sniffs the air, lifting a paw, before it shoves its nose to the floor and goes about the room. It doesn’t care for any equipment in its wake, destroying the counters that it steps on with its pure weight and scratching the floor with its claws and collar.
Broken glass from the chemistry vials are all over the floor. Valerie doesn’t dare put her feet on the ground. Chemicals marinate on the floor, and she doesn’t want to think about the reactions happening there.
She glances up at the dog, who is rummaging through the cabinets and bookcases along the wall. It’s obsessively searching for something, and is clearly getting angry as it doesn’t find what it’s looking for.
Is this what the Fentons meant by ghosts? If it is, then she’s way too eager to get out of this place. She remembers the adults talking over other people at riots and in the town square, trying to get them to listen to myths and science fiction. Except, this isn’t really fiction, now, is it? It’s right here, in front of her eyes. It feels like a dream. Or better yet, a nightmare.
Valerie brings her feet up and hugs her knees, covering her face. She bites her lip.
Everyone watches the dog’s every move. It gets closer to the counter Valerie is curled up on, sniffing the floor rapidly and paws thumping on the polished stone floor. Through the gap between her thighs she can see the glow of the dog light up debris on the floor.
A door slams in the distance and then there’s a pattering of feet.
Valerie looks up just in time to see the door wide open and the dog be sucked into— something —leaving behind a panting, black-haired boy.
Valerie lowers her arms hesitantly, eyeing him warily. There’s the Fentons, finally—in the form of Danny Fenton, that weirdo boy that Valerie doesn’t interact much with.
She sees the ghost gone, then all the adrenaline seeps out of her. Air flows out of her lungs and she inhales sharply, her arms falling to the sides and her legs spilling out against the counter again. She leans over as she tries to get her breath back.
“Hope you guys have good funding,” the young Fenton quips, pointing at the debris around her with his sneaker. “No replacing that, whatever it is.”
Valerie’s face falls and she glares at him openly.
The Fenton adults flood in through the open door, eagerly toting their weapons over their shoulders. Once they see no ghost in sight, they both sag in disappointment.
“Where’s the ghost?” The woman says, eyes darting to and forth, a radar looking machine in her hands. “The Fenton Finder said it was here!”
Valerie lets her shoulders fall as she watches the two adults rush up to their son and look around warily. Some scientists, now that the door is wide open, abandon the wrecked lab and take off, with only a few lingering as they pick up the remains of their projects.
“Ugh, it’s fine, I caught it,” Danny Fenton says, “just chill for a second, won’tcha?”
Valerie stiffens as she hops off the countertop, watching her step carefully so she doesn’t step in the chemical spill at her feet or so glass doesn’t tear open the soles of her shoes. She walks up with confident strides, the fear from a few moments ago all but gone, and shoves her finger into the boy’s chest.
“Where the fuck were you before everything got destroyed?” She curses, jerking her head at the debris behind her. “We just lost thousands of dollars because you couldn’t catch one shitty ghost.”
Fenton shoves her hand away, his face furrowing in a frown. “Look, man, I’m sorry that I can’t be everywhere at once.” The apology is weak and sarcastic, and they both know it.
“So you’re just fine with this?” She crosses her arms and looks at him judgingly.
“Of course not!” He bursts out, shoving the little device—is that a thermos?—into his hoodie pocket. “Can’t exactly do shit when we have to obey the speed limit.” He mutters something under his breath Valerie can’t quite catch.
She really doesn’t have the time for this. She lifts her head and straightens her spine, showing him just how much better she has it. She turns around and goes around them when she steps on a chunk of debris and she goes flying, landing square on her butt.
Fenton hides a snicker behind his hand.
Valerie picks herself up from the floor, swiping the dust off her skirt and continuing her stride. He covers up his laugh and shoves his hand behind his back, looking off to the side, whistling casually. Oh, what a dick .
Danny doesn’t appreciate this ghost dog.
Cujo somehow manages to always escape the Ghost Zone a few hours after he puts him back, and it’s starting to grate on his nerves. He can’t keep this ghost-hunting schtick up forever. His parents are starting to notice how much time he’s not spending at home, and now it’s because they want to spend time with him that a whole laboratory setup is destroyed.
He knows that he’s not spending enough time with them, but can you blame him? Him, a liminal being on the verge of life and death, not quite human and not quite ghost; versus parents who specifically hunt ghosts because of their biases. He’s afraid to look them in the eyes. He doesn’t wanna know what they think of him now.
Maybe the reason Cujo keeps coming back is because Danny named him? He remembers hearing something about naming a dog makes it so it’ll never leave you alone. He doesn’t quite remember the exact phrase but maybe that’s what’s happening here. Cujo wants something, and maybe it’s Danny.
Though that can’t quite be it. Cujo seeked out Axion Labs this time.
And because Danny didn’t get here fast enough, Axion Labs is now maybe-sorta-a-little destroyed.
That girl is right. He really should’ve gotten here sooner. He hates that and it’s really just his fault, but he can’t do anything about it until Cujo’s dealt with. So he’ll send him into the Ghost Zone as soon as they get home.
He feels guilty for laughing when she tripped, but he kinda needed a laugh. Once he saw her glare he shut up, though.
The Fentons quickly apologized to the Axion Labs manager and then rushed off as soon as they came, making their apology come off as insincere. Maybe Danny should come back and apologize to that girl tomorrow.
Yeah. That sounds good.
He plugs the thermos into the wall and hits eject, closing the portal doors and heaving a sigh. He’ll deal with this, whatever it is, tomorrow.
Valerie comes to school the next day in a slump.
She holds herself tightly, lips pursed and eyes down at the floor for the whole day. Her dad’s security system was thrown out the window yesterday after it failed to stop that ghost dog and made it impossible for people to escape once it was there. The second the Fentons left, her dad was promptly handed a pink slip and told to leave the building with his daughter.
And it’s because of the stupid fucking Fentons.
She stomps her sneakers down on the tiled floor under her feet, slamming the gross cafeteria tray on the A-Lister table. Noodles splay around, dirtying the just wiped clean table. Paulina makes a disgusted face as she delicately eats homemade food from her private chef.
“Hey guys,” Valerie says, a dark expression on her face.
“What are you doing here, Val?” Dash says, crossing his arms. “You’re not an A-Lister anymore.”
“No more mooching off Daddy’s money,” Paulina chimes in with a snippy tone, waving her fork. She uses her leg to push Valerie’s thigh away from her, ignoring the fact that’s exactly what she does, too.
Valerie grumbles at the action. “Fuck off,” she says emphatically to both of them, but picks up her tray anyway. She bites her lip and stands up straighter, walking over to the high tables pushed against the windows. She plops her tray down and pushes a chair over to sit down, hooking her foot around one of the supporting legs.
She looks up out the window. It’s a bright view of the parking lot and the courtyard, trees whistling by in the cloudy noon. Valerie takes her fork out of the wrap and shoves it into her spaghetti, twisting the noodles around the spines of the plasticware.
She’s too tired to be angry at this point, really. She watches the clouds pass by outside as she continues to spin the noodles around the fork, not very hungry.
“Hey, uh, you okay?”
Valerie looks to her left and there’s the boy from yesterday. He’s rubbing the back of his neck anxiously, a nervous smile on his face. His red hoodie is tied around his waist, and he holds the disgusting spaghetti tray in his right hand.
“What are you doing here,” Valerie deadpans. She ignores the question, because does she look fine ? Bold of him to assume she could be okay after yesterday.
The Fenton boy slides a chair back and sets his tray down, even though he wasn’t told he could sit there. “Wanted to check in with ya after yesterday,” he says, not meeting her eyes. “Mom and Dad can be reckless with their ghost-hunting. Don’t really pay attention to things.”
He honestly looks like he’s about to apologize. For real this time. She doesn’t quite wanna forgive him just yet, but she’s ready for a genuine apology.
His voice shakes, which betrays just how nervous he is. She looks at him with one eyebrow raised, unamused. “Ya got that right,” she says, twirling her fork some more. She makes her tone as sarcastic as possible.
“I guess, I just…” Fenton trails off, staring at the floor. “I dunno.”
Fenton breaks out into a shiver, goosebumps going up his arms. It’s odd behavior, because it’s been stifling hot in the cafeteria all period. The AC hasn’t been working for a week and the amount of people raises the temperature, degree by degree.
He jerks up, kicking his chair back and making it fall on the floor. He rests his palms on the counter, standing, and says in a single breath, “I gotta go!”
Then he bolts off to who-knows-where.
Now she has to dump his tray and clean up his mess, not to mention he chickened out of apologizing. What a fucking asshole .
Valerie turns to scowl at her own tray. She’d really like to shove all of the food into the trash, just like his stupid face, but abstains from the action. She stuffs the bite of spaghetti into her face and starts to chew.
Really, who does he think he is? Just because he’s the son of ghost hunters in a ghost-ridden town doesn’t mean he can just do whatever he wants. He’s so full of himself. He still has to be a kind person. He needs to learn what it’s like to put effort into things.
Stupid white boy privilege, she swears.
She looks up at the sky again, the white clouds flitting by in the soft wind. Classmates and fellow freshmans chatter at the tables behind her, the cacophony of the open room welcoming and inviting. She’s always been an extrovert and she just loves chiming into conversations.
Right now though, the sound is nothing but irritating. She sits here, all alone with no friends, and it’s that one boy and his family’s fault.
Valerie huffs an angry sigh, shoving one last bite into her mouth. She isn’t hungry and she probably won’t eat much. With that she decides to pick up her tray, righting the downed chair, and leaves Fenton’s tray to rot.
Heading to the other side of the cafeteria for the garbage cans, she moves down the walkway adjacent to the window. Valerie’s fingers trace the countertop as she moves, then she jerks it away.
“Hey, Val! You doing good?” Tucker Foley says as she passes by, shoving the spaghetti in his mouth like there’s no tomorrow. Sam Manson sits by his side at the window, legs crossed and eating a vegan meal from home. Fenton’s friends. People she’s really not in the mood to interact with at the moment.
“Shut it,” Valerie retorts.
Foley promptly shuts it.
He eyes her weirdly, muttering something to Manson that she doesn’t deign to catch. She reaches the garbage cans and bangs the tray against the inside of the compost bin, then disposes of it on the dirty tray stack next to it.
Valerie heads back the way she came, deliberately ignoring the two teens eyeing her as she walks. What can a girl do to get some quiet around here? Maybe she’ll head outside for a second once the bell rings.
She plops down further down than where she was sitting originally, turning her head to stare out the window. Huffing, she sets her cheeks in her palms and watches people go by on the sidewalk, some people walking their dogs.
A dog barks. Which is odd, because the dogs she sees are too far away to hear.
Then the temperature in the room plummets. Goosebumps raise on her arms under the cheap red sweater she bought from Target the other day, and she shivers. The cafeteria noise slows to whispers and ambient noise of the refrigerators running and the wind outside.
Valerie knows what this means.
A glowing green dog materializes out of thin air in front of the window, and she ducks down under the tabletop. It walks through the glass and kids rush up from the cafeteria tables, running into the hallways. Teens scatter and rush out side doors and other exits if only to get out of the place. The room is soon empty, save Valerie and the ghost.
The ghost brings its paws to the floor again, sniffing around just like yesterday. It tramples over abandoned tables, spreading debris all over the concrete floor. The dog pauses and shakes, then jerks its head and catches sight of her.
It breaks into a trot and is in front of her in seconds, then presses its nose and starts sniffing her, much to her disgust. It leaves glowing green slobber all over her sweater.
(She can’t afford a new one now—all of their money is going toward moving out and into a new apartment on the outskirts of town, so she’ll just have to live with this for now. Maybe she can stop by the nurse and borrow a shirt for the day.)
Ew .
Valerie groans, trying to kick the dog in the muzzle and get it away from her, but it takes it as a chance to play and starts licking the sweater.
“Cujo, she’s not a chew toy!”
Valerie turns her head in the direction of the echoing voice. ‘Cujo’ perks up and bombards the new ghost, making his green hoodie even brighter with its glowing slobber.
He pushes the dog away and Valerie gets a good look at him. He’s a short ghost with white hair, a black hazmat with white accents and a shaggy oversized hoodie. His eyes are blazing ectoplasm green, and a soft green glow surrounds him.
Inviso-bill. The ghost that people around the school are talking about—and here she is, right in front of him.
Inviso-bill whips out a soup can much like the Fentons out of his hoodie and throws an ectoblast far away from his direction. The dog chases the light and then a blue beam sucks in the ghost, leaving Inviso-bill to simply cap the thermos.
“And stay there,” he says, pointing a finger at the thermos as if to scold the dog. It’s a funny image. “Anyway.” He turns to look at Valerie, his green eyes meeting hers. He rubs the back of his neck nervously. “Uh, hey, you okay?”
He floats down and plants his baggy boots on the floor, stuffing the thermos into his inner hoodie pocket. A functional use for inner seams.
“Sorry about Cujo, he really doesn’t like staying in the Ghost Zone.”
“I’m good,” Valerie says, waving it away. She’s entirely forgot her anger from a few moments ago, and is just dazed. “Thanks, Inviso-bill, I guess.”
She would’ve liked to save herself, but she doesn’t have anything to do with handling ghosts. She can at least thank him.
He cringes, shoulders rising up and pointed ears going down. He flushes green. “Uh, it’s D-It’s Phantom.”
Rumors that are whispered through the halls of Casper High tend to get some things wrong. It’s why the game Telephone is a thing. Valerie’s been on her side of the rumors getting things wrong about her. She wonders where the entirely new name came from, though.
“Er, thanks, Phantom,” she corrects herself.
She shivers in the chill. The active ghost activity combined with a now wet sweater makes for quite an uncomfortable situation. She bites her lip and peels away the front to check if her bra is still dry—and it is, so small mercies.
Phantom looks at her, tilting his head as he starts floating again. He leans forward just a little bit, his legs bent behind him. He points at her sweater, to which she blinks.
“Christmas doesn’t look too good on you,” he says, resting his cheek on his hand. “Just hold on.” He starts to shrug off his hoodie, pulling the thermos out and offering it to Valerie. “I can phase the ectoplasm out of it, you can wear this real quick.”
Valerie jerks back, a slight heat in her cheeks. “Don’t you dare fucking look,” she threatens, before grabbing the hoodie and taking her sweater off, handing the wet fabric to him. She wraps the surprisingly warm hoodie around her shivering shoulders.
Phantom takes the sweater and it takes on a transparent hue as the green globs of slobber fall to the floor, leaving a perfectly dry sweater that is handed back to her.
She shucks her sweater back on and throws his hoodie back to him in a ball that he catches. “Thanks, I guess.”
Phantom ties his hoodie around his waist and looks at the floor. “Uh, also, I’m sorry,” he says, not meeting her eyes.
Valerie blinks at the words. "For what? You helped me out there."
Phantom freezes. He flounders, waving his arms around and then settling for the back of his neck, an uneasy smile showing off his sharp teeth. “Heh, I guess I did.”
“Not all ghosts are bad, huh?” She says, raising a brow.
“Uh, yeah. My-The Fentons are wrong about a lot of things. Their equipment is still good, though.” He gestures to the thermos.
“You stole that?”
“No!” He shouts, then his shoulders sink. “Maybe…”
“Can’t even catch a ghost if it’s under their own roof,” Valerie quips.
He lets out a laugh. “You got that right,” Phantom says. “Uh, I’mma head out. They’re probably on their way.”
With that, he blinks out of existence like he was never there, leaving Valerie all alone in the cafeteria. She hugs her sweater around her as the cool subsides.
What an odd day, really. She was wrong about ghosts, and the Fentons.
(Maybe Phantom needs some help.)
The Fentons really are incompetent.
They call themselves ghost hunters, and it’s so odd, because when they’re called upon they rush in half an hour after both ghosts have left. They’re brandishing their ectoguns, kits of weaponry stuffed into sacks on their backs, all too excited to start ghostbusting. They don’t really seem to take this seriously. It’s annoying.
Valerie huffs out some air while the woman (she introduced herself as Maddie) waves a radar over her, checking for ecto-contamination. She slips the invention back into her back and chirps, “Just residual! You’ll be fine!”
And it’s no thanks to them.
Valerie glances at her, holding back from cursing them out. She’ll settle for just doing it in her head. “Can I go now?”
“Of course!”
Valerie hops off the tabletop, glancing back and forth through the cafeteria—Maddie’s already busied herself with checking other students for ecto-contamination and the man is checking if his gun is loaded. They’re both busy doing whatever it is they think they’re doing.
Valerie takes a deep breath and slinks by the door, seeing a backpack that the male Fenton left haphazardly out in the open with the zipper undone. She flops to the floor, hands on her knees and feet behind her, leaning over the bag.
She starts rummaging through it and finds a useful looking gun. She slides her hands down the slim neck and slips it into her sleeve, nabbing a thermos similar looking to what Phantom had albeit with different panelling and a wrist-ray that she all stuffs under her sweater.
On second thought, Valerie reaches deeper in and pulls out a ghost radar, slipping it under her sweater too. She glances again at the adults—nothing.
Valerie raises herself from the floor, careful not to let anything slip out, then goes out the cafeteria doors into the hallway, wary of other students passing by. She goes to her locker, immediately unlocking it and shoving her newly stolen equipment deep into her backpack.
If the Fentons are incompetent—well, she’ll just have to make up for it, right?