Chapter Text
Danny hopped out of the open door of the GAV with a soft thud, a small cloud of red dirt settling over his shoes from the gas station’s half-paved lot. The afternoon sky was streaked with thin clouds. A light wind ruffled his hair as Jazz climbed out after him, a welcome change from the stale air in the van. They’d been on the road less than a day the first time he’d considered phasing through the ceiling and riding out the rest of the trip invisible on the roof.
They’d passed the aged sign reading Welcome to Gravity Falls and driven through another few minutes of eerie woods before pulling into what was probably the isolated town’s only gas station. The place was unkempt, but not unfriendly. Cracked black pavement sprouting weeds, a pair of gas pumps beneath a stained awning, and a small kiosk building with a single, bored-looking teenage employee. Several more yards of sky-scraping pines obscured the rest of the town from the parking lot’s view.
“It’s … quaint,” said Tucker, scanning their surroundings, not quite able to mask the grimace in his voice. He frowned down at his PDA; no signal since they’d driven into the woods bordering the town.
Sam laughed. “C’mon Tuck, at least pretend to like the place. It’s not like there were many other options.” She glanced back at Danny before turning to elbow Tucker. “Let’s go see if the convenience store has anything edible.”
Tucker eyed her with suspicion. “I’m not sure I trust your definition of ‘edible’, Sam.”
She lightly socked Tucker in the arm, eliciting a small yelp from the gangly teen, and the two made their way to the tiny gas station building, laughing.
Danny sighed as they walked off, and Jazz placed a hand on his shoulder. “He’s not trying to make you feel guilty, you know. Tucker just doesn’t always think before he says things. He wants to be here, we all do.”
Danny didn’t respond. She could see right through him — metaphorically. He knew that. Of course he knew that, but he still couldn’t help feeling like he was wasting their summers with this whole mess. Three months in some town in the middle of nowhere wasn’t exactly the way your average teen wanted to spend one of the last summers of their high school career.
Danny had already been trying to ward off the growing worry of being a burden to his friends; he knew his grades weren’t the only ones slipping thanks to ghost hunting. And then there was Jazz, on her way to a successful path through college and a profession in human/ghost psychology. She should be off applying to internships or something. Not stuck out here in the hicks because of him.
“Don’t be upset with yourself for problems we don't have, okay?” Jazz said, taking her hand off his shoulder before stopping to add, “If you really need someone to blame for this crap, I’d pick the GIW.”
“Ugh, screw those guys,” Danny groaned. They’d hardly been a blip on his radar when they first showed up two years ago, but thanks to some seriously inconvenient private funding, the ‘Ghost Investigation Ward’ had started to become a pressing issue. About two weeks before the end of the school year, the GIW had upped its presence in Amity Park and started ‘cracking down’ on ectoplasmic activity. After one too many close calls in less than a week (and a significant amount of convincing from his family and friends), Danny knew he had to get out of Dodge before the Goons in White managed to do something worse than short out his powers or throw him into a building.
He’d seen what those creeps had done to the animal ghosts he’d rescued from one of their temporary labs.
It had been Maddie and Jack who insisted on it, really. Started scouting for safe places Danny could hide out the second they thought he might be in danger. His parents had gotten a bit clingy after he’d had to admit he was Phantom; they’d taken it well (mostly), but they were not happy about what that implied their son had been going through for the last two years. Their overprotectiveness was good in fights, but it sucked when his parents put him at odds with his obsession. The last place he wanted to be was so far from Amity Park while both its human and ghost populations were at risk. He could only hope the resident ghosts had listened to his warning to stay in the Ghost Zone and that his parents could hold down the fort.
So here they were, Amity Park’s best defenders, lying low under the guise of a summer vacation, practically unreachable in case of emergency. The thought alone made his core twinge with worry. He supposed there was Valerie, though she was another thing to worry about entirely.
Danny rounded the side of the RV, crouched down, and unscrewed the grate that covered the Ecto-Converter with a Fenton Screwdriver™ he pulled from his pocket. It was a new version of the device that could rework raw ectoplasm into energy to power the GAV (the same way ecto weapons worked, but on a larger scale), rather than siphoning power from a ghost. This had the added benefit that a friendly ghost could donate their energy to the converter at no cost to themselves, which is exactly what Danny was doing now.
Jazz stood and faced the parking lot, scanning for onlookers, while Danny placed his hand on the converter and gently pooled his energy in his palm. When he pulled back his arm, it tingled slightly, but he was no worse for wear. They’d saved a lot of gas money on the way here, thanks to his little trick. At least he could help with something.
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Sam tried in vain to ignore the din of Tucker raiding the station’s snack aisle as she approached the counter to speak with the cashier. He was about her age with straight, black hair that framed both sides of his long face. He wore a black zip-up hoodie with a bleeding heart on the chest beneath his work vest. He probably would have looked bored out of his mind if he weren’t staring at Tucker as he ravaged the candy displays.
Sam cleared her throat, and the guy managed to tear his eyes away from Tucker, who’d now moved on to rummaging through the fridges, knocking around bottles, and dropping chip bags across the floor.
“Could you give us directions to the nearest motel?” Sam sighed apologetically.
“Uuhhm, I don’t think there are any motels in Gravity Falls,” the cashier responded slowly, still slightly baffled.
“What about a place to park an RV long-term?”
“There’s the campground by the lake, I guess. People don’t tend to stay in town longer than a few days. Not much here for tourists ‘sides the Mystery Shack.”
Sam made a mental note of that. “Do you sell a map of the town in here?”
“Nah, you’d probably find one at the visitor’s center, though. One of the first buildings you see when you make it into town, can’t miss it.”
Tucker trudged up from the back of the store and deposited a mountain of chip bags, candy bars, and soda bottles on the checkout counter, all but blocking the cashier from view. Sam glowered at him while he pleaded with his eyes. She had to look up at him for that now; he’d really sprung up in the last year, she had too, but less so, leaving Danny the shortest of their trio — a fact he was supremely annoyed by whenever it was mentioned.
Sam produced a credit card from the pocket of her skirt, interrupting the cashier’s confused “How the hell are you going to…” and handing it over, still glaring at Tucker with a now comical level of gothic loathing. Tucker’s face twisted while he tried desperately not to burst into laughter.
When they’d gotten everything scanned and paid for, Tucker scooped his hoard back into his arms and started for the door. Sam spared one last glance back at the cashier, still thoroughly weirded out. She couldn’t blame him. He probably barely got any business out here, and then a mismatched gaggle of teens show up in an RV that looks like a cross between a motorhome and a tank and buy out half the snacks in the building. They might have been the weirdest thing he’d seen, living so far out of the way.
The Fentons had tried to make the GAV less conspicuous for the sake of this trip, but no number of repaints was going to make the monster RV on treads less of a spectacle.
At least they’d turned it into more of a motorhome than a mobile arsenal after they’d found out about Danny: Fold-out beds, a functional kitchen, and a lot more storage space than you might have expected. The teens would be able to live in it over the summer if they couldn’t find another place to stay.
Danny was screwing the grate back over the Ecto-Converter as they approached, looking over his shoulder and chuckling at the sight of Tucker struggling to balance his self-imposed snack burden. Sam had made a point not to help him carry the oversized load.
“So much for eating healthy this summer. The Lunch Lady’s gonna kill me when we get back if the sodium doesn’t!” Danny joked at them. Jazz snickered and crossed the parking lot to relieve some of the weight off Tucker’s shoulders.
Team Phantom loaded back into the GAV, picked their poison from the Snack Hoard, and set off towards the Gravity Falls visitor center with Jazz at the wheel.
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With a map of the town acquired, Tucker started scouting for a place for a late lunch. After much debate over the few places the town offered, they’d settled on a place called ‘Greasy’s Diner’, despite mild protests from Sam.
It was an … interesting building. Made to look like the hollowed-out log of a giant sequoia and laid across a rusted, flatbed traincar. Jazz pulled into its dirt lot, nestled against the edge of the forest, and they all clambered out of the van.
The interior stuck to the theme, with wood-paneled floors and log cabin walls that curved into an arched ceiling, matching the exterior shape. It smelled like coffee and pine resin.
Now Danny really wanted a coffee.
There was one other group in the diner, four people sitting in one of the window booths. Two old guys (in their 60s, Danny guessed) who looked almost exactly like each other—twins, Danny thought—and a brother and sister, a year or so younger than Danny. Also twins. That was kind of weird; not nearly as off the wall as some of the stuff Danny had seen in the Ghost Zone, but still. Interesting for the human plane.
All four of them were talking loudly over what looked like a scrapbook that had been drowned in glitter and a series of water-stained notebooks. Danny noticed the boy was staring at him, quickly turning to write something in one of the notebooks when Danny looked his way.
Danny shrugged it off as Jazz, Tucker, and Sam filed in behind him. “Hiya there!” called the older woman behind the counter. She wore a stained apron over an old-fashioned pink dress, her left eye was closed, and she’d overdone her makeup, but she had a friendly face, and she waved them towards the window seats with her long nails. “Pick a booth and Pacifica’ll be over in a minute to take your order!”
The four of them piled into a booth and pulled out the map of the town, unfolding it across the table. No one spoke for a moment, the ambient sounds of the kitchen filling the wordless air. Tucker opted to start the conversation.
“So…what now?” he asked hesitantly.
“I guess we find a place to stay.” Jazz offered. Danny knew for a fact that wasn’t what Tucker had been asking about, but sitting in a slightly sticky booth in a not-quite-empty diner was not the best place to be discussing certain topics. “You guys asked the cashier in the gas station about motels, right?”
She turned to look at Sam. “He said we weren’t going to find anything,” Sam answered, “and judging by the map, he was right. Our best bet is gonna be the campsite the guy said was by the lake.” She gestured to a spot on the map labeled ‘Lake Gravity Campsite’.
Tucker let out a disappointed groan. “You mean we’re gonna be camping out here for three months? What about internet access!?” he cried in an exaggerated whine.
“I’m sure it won't be that bad, Tuck. The GAV’s basically an actual RV now, and I think my parents have a portable WiFi router in there for the onboard computers.” Danny chuckled, hoping to hide the twinge of guilt in his voice.
Not hidden enough, apparently, as Tucker grimaced and quickly responded, “ No, dude, it’s—it’s fine. No big deal. It’s not like this is your fault.”
“Yeah, sure.” The awkward silence drifted back over the table. Danny pulled his hands into his lap and rubbed the scar in the center of his left palm with his thumb.
Danny really wished wanted (Desiree definitely wasn’t here, but he shouldn’t break the habit) them to stop tiptoeing around his feelings like this. Granted, he wasn’t sure what he wanted them to be doing instead, but he’d had just about enough of them treating him like a balloon in danger of popping if they said the wrong thing.
The tension was breached when a girl wearing the same dress and apron as the woman behind the counter strode up to their table and asked for their order. Pacifica, Danny guessed.
She finished taking down their orders (a double cheeseburger, no lettuce or tomato, two breakfast plates, and a Caesar salad with a side of fries), and Danny watched as she clipped the paper she’d jotted them down on to the window into the kitchen. Then she walked back out from behind the counter and over to the other group’s table, where she shared several hushed words with the boy sitting there. Danny couldn’t quite make out what they were saying; his senses dulled in his human form, but he could tell they were talking about him from the several veiled glances they shot his way.
That was…odd. (Was that odd? Maybe it was just a small town thing. He hoped it was just a small town thing.)
Twenty minutes later, their food was out and Danny finally got his coffee. Another forty-five and Sam was handing over the cash to pay their bill.
Danny wondered for a moment if her parents had given her the money she’d brought or if she’d just stolen it from them. Money was one thing their little group didn’t need to worry about, what with all the cash his parents made off patents they’d filed. But Sam continued to insist on paying whenever the opportunity presented itself. He wondered for a moment more how she’d even managed to convince her parents to let her come on a trip with the ‘troupe of hooligans’ they’d heavily considered filing restraining orders against.
Out in the parking lot and back into the GAV. Out of the parking lot and back onto the wooded road. The sun was sinking below the treeline as they passed through the mass of trunks, washing the reddish dirt with its golden glow.
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It was late when they made it to the campground. It wasn’t much, just a cleared plot of land right up against the lake, devoid of other campers. It had a few marked spots to park an RV, fire pits, and a freestanding building with a bathroom and shower. They’d forked over 300 bucks for the week (Tucker was still hoping they wouldn’t have to camp for the whole summer), pulled the GAV into a plot by the bathroom, and started setting up for the night.
The air in the van was still tense. Danny’s human body was becoming uncomfortably oppressive. Over a week without transforming to throw the GIW off his scent while they prepped for this trip, and then another three days getting here. Danny didn’t think he’d gone this long without being Phantom since—since ever, really. It wasn’t a bad feeling, but it was gnawing, like the impatience of waiting for a school day to end so he could finish a video game. Anticipatory. And the night sky he saw through the window was beautifully clear. Not a trace of the light pollution that obscured the stars in Amity Park.
“I’m going on a walk,” Danny said flatly. No one objected.
He lifted slightly off the floor and turned to leave when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked back. Sam’s eyes met his. Jazz and Tucker were looking at him, too, halting the soft shuffles of beds being made and luggage organized.
“Just…Be careful, okay?” Sam said. This time, Danny accepted the sympathy in her voice. They really were only trying to help.
“You know I always am,” he smiled. The stillness in the air eased as the other three scoffed at him.
Danny turned again, phasing straight through the side of the GAV, tugging at the pool of ice in the center of his chest. Weightless, he shot across the lake and up the cliffside, his now white hair whipping around his newly pointed ears.
He settled on a ledge halfway up the cliff face, far above the yawning valley, its colossal trees miniaturized by the distance. The lake glittered below him, its still surface reflecting the sea of stars above. A first-quarter moon hung in the inky expanse. Danny felt his face warm slightly, his freckles glowing to reflect the patterns in the sky, as he sat and leaned against the wall of rock behind him.
Danny pulled his focus away from the stars to properly examine the atmosphere of Gravity Falls. He could sense the energy of the place when he was human, but the full scope of it was dulled with his organic body in the way. As Phantom, Danny absorbed ambient energy easier and faster, and he could tell immediately why his parents had picked this place. It was remarkably similar to Amity Park. It wasn’t ectoradiation, that much was clear, but whatever it was that flowed through the air here interacted with his core in almost the exact same way.
When Jack and Maddie had first decided Danny would be safer away from Amity Park, they had started looking for another town capable of supporting a ghost’s energy needs. Danny wasn’t actually sure he needed a consistent source of ectoplasm to remain stable the way normal ghosts did, but his parents were not about to take that chance. They’d spent a week poring over old scans and notes from when they were first deciding on where to build the GZ portal, finally rediscovering their old notes on Gravity Falls. Energy readings nearly identical to Amity’s, though distinctly not ectoplasmic. The place should have been prime for ghost activity, except the veil between the Ghost Zone and the living world was thicker here than almost everywhere else they’d looked. The place was no good for a Ghost Portal, but it was the perfect place for a teenage halfa and his friends to go on ‘summer vacation.’
His friends. Danny frowned. He was grateful they were here; there was no way they weren’t going to come. But that still didn’t stop him feeling guilty. And the way they walked on eggshells around him, trying to keep his mind off things, was only making it worse.
Maybe it would help if they just let him be upset. Let him be mad. Let him be pissed off at the GIW, at least. Ghosts were emotion-based entities after all. From what Frostbite had explained to him, Danny knew ghosts' emotions were often tied to obsession fulfillment. Being so far from Amity Park couldn’t be doing much for his mental health. Maybe it would help if Danny started doing Phantom work in Gravity Falls? If he gave himself something to latch onto here. But he couldn’t afford to attract the ire of the GIW, for the sake of himself and the people who lived here.
Danny forced himself to relax and turned his face back toward the sky. He’d talk about all this with the others tomorrow. His eyelids grew heavy as he traced the constellations in his head, and he drifted into sleep with his thoughts in the stars.