Archive of Our Own

When Dash got his soul mark at 16, he frowned, because it was such a basic mark. A cluster of stars? A soul mark was supposed to show what your soulmate was most passionate about, and when you were touching your soulmate, the mark’s outline would shine, accompanied by a warmth. Unfortunately being in school meant he was around and bumped into so many people all the time, and there were at least three people he could name off the top of his head at Casper High alone who liked space (but of course he hoped…). 

A little over a month after he'd turned 18, he panicked because his soul mark had changed.

If your soulmate died there was a chance a new one would appear. There were people that had more than one, and that sometimes people never got one at all. People with multiple soulmates still had individual marks for each person in completely different spots on their bodies, and while he'd still had the same stars he'd been looking at for the last four years, one morning he'd woken up and they were suddenly interspersed with what looked like… little ghosts? Yup, definitely ghosts. One doesn't live in the most haunted place in America without knowing what the harmless little blob ghosts seen around town looked like. 

The way his had changed had never been recorded to his knowledge, and when it happened he'd done an insane amount of research, scouring the internet.

…soul mark randomly changing…

…can your soul mark change, but keeping the original…

…entire soul mark glowing green???...

At the very least his soul mark was on his thigh and rarely visible to the general public.

“Hey Kwan, you ever heard of someone's soul mark… randomly changing?” Dash hesitantly asked his friend when they were hanging out playing video games one day. 

Kwan mashed buttons prompting his football player on Madden to run and responded, “you mean like when their mate dies?” 

“No like keeping their original, but having it morph or some shit?”

Dash's player intercepted and landed a touchdown so Kwan took the opportunity to look over at him from his spot on the worn beanbag chair in Dash's bedroom. “I don't think so. Sounds weird as hell though. Why?”

Dash chewed on his lip for a moment before putting the controller down next to himself on the bed and lifted his shorts. 

His eyes widened. “Bro, what the fuck.”

“I know! I'm freaking out a little.” 

“Are those-”

“Yes!”

“And you just-”

“Woke up one morning and it was like this.”

“What the fuck.”

“Literally what I've been thinking every moment since it happened.”

“Which was when?” 

“Two weeks ago?” 

Kwan frowned. “You kept it from me for that long?”

Dash threw his hands up. “What was I supposed to do? I've been freaking out about it since then! It's literally never been heard of.”

“I have a thought…” Kwan trailed off. 

“Nope.” Was all Dash said. 

“Bro all I'm saying is-”

“Absolutely the fuck not.”

Dash knew he was thinking they should talk to Danny Fenton, since Kwan was always trying to make up reasons to get them to talk to each other. 

“I'm just saying maybe it's a ghostly thing? You know his parents are up to some weird shit in their basement.” 

“Fine,” Dash agreed begrudgingly. “Maybe we can talk to him about if ghosts can do stuff to marks, but for now I don't need the whole school knowing I'm suddenly a freak.”

Danny on the other hand had hardly had time to actually ponder his soul mark. Between the ghost fights and trying to actually get his grades up, he only had fleeting thoughts about the little paw print on his left hip.

Besides, Danny was Ancients damned exhausted. And this time he could fully blame it on them! The Observants hadn't left him alone for months reminding him about his coronation. He'd told them to fuck off several times but they'd worn him down and he'd finally agreed to be the actual fucking ghost king just to get them off his back. They'd done so, only to summon him incessantly in the week leading up to his 18th birthday for completely asinine things.

If he was being honest with himself, it ended up being a pretty fun party once all the pomp and circumstance was over with. It was basically like the Christmas truce party except his friends and sister had been allowed to join in on the fun. Between the ecto-alcohol, regular alcohol, and the general power he'd felt when the Crown of Fire (which was now the Crown of Frost) and Ring of Rage were placed on his head and hand respectively, he was pretty sure he'd blacked out towards the end of the night. He woke up in bed, sure Jazz and his friends had helped him home, but he'd been fully clothed and wearing a cape and one of those little kids crowns they gave out at Burger King. 

The only thing that had changed otherwise was that he now wore a more low-key version of the Ring of Rage in his human form; a gold signet ring on his right middle finger. He was thrilled that he didn't have to wear the gaudy version the ring took on in his ghost form, and that the Crown appeared at will.

At least it was finally over and he could actually rest. Barring the Box Ghost showing up, because even if he was the king of all ghosts, nothing would stop the corrugated nightmare.

Except he had a whole new problem.

“Have you guys noticed Dash and Kwan being especially weird lately?” He asked Sam, Tucker, and Valerie one morning before classes. 

“You mean the way Dash has been unable to take his eyes off you?” Sam replied, not even bothering to look up from the book she'd been reading.

“That's not especially weird though, he's just being less subtle about it,” Val added.

“Not at all what I was talking about. Also Dash doesn't do that,” Danny said. 

“Nope, the girls are right,” Tucker said. “He's staring more openly than usual, but the Kwan thing is weird.” 

Danny sighed. Over the last year, his friends had been teasing him about Dash having a crush on him. Not that it was that abhorrent of an idea, since he definitely had a crush on the jock, which he was clearly doing a poor job of hiding since all of them teased him about it. They were all too observant for their own damned good.

“Well regardless, they're being weird. Do I have some sort of major difference since I became ghost king?”

His three friends looked him over. Sam spoke first. “Just as much of a dork as usual.” Danny frowned and Tucker laughed.

“I mean, to be fair you do seem a little more… comfortable?” Val said. “You're less twitchy. Like you're not waiting for your ghost sense to go off every three seconds since you're wildly more powerful than any ghost who comes out of the zone.” 

“Plus I've got you to handle things as well,” Danny replied, flashing a hint of a fang when he grinned.

“Hey, I'm just as thrilled. I've got to get a workout somewhere, but less ghosts means more time to study. Even before the coronation, they started to back off and my grades have risen. Also don't do that, you know that shit freaks me out.” 

“Sorry, sorry, it's been getting harder to control some of my ghost traits bleeding into human form.”

“Maybe that's why they're staring?” Tucker suggested.

He glanced sidelong at the boys who used to bully him. He'd caught Dash staring once or twice, but had genuinely thought nothing of it since he used to be Dash's favourite punching bag as freshman and sophomores. Sam looked at him with a smirk on her face. He started to blush, but he was literally saved by the bell, calling out that he'd meet them for lunch and ran off to his math class.

One that he unfortunately shared with Dash.

He spent the entire class not being able to concentrate because he could feel eyes on the back of his head the whole time. It was like his ghost sense was going off, without the puff of cold air from his mouth that accompanied it. 

The second the bell rang, he leapt up and sped out of the classroom as fast as he could, only to remember he shared his next class, Canadian history, with Kwan, but thankfully also with Val. He also sat behind Kwan. Small mercies he supposed. 

“So how was math with Da-a-ash?” She whispered before class started, drawing out his name in a sing-song voice. He glared at her hoping Kwan hadn't heard. Thankfully Star was chatting with him, effectively distracting him. 

“Pretty sure his eyes never left my back.”

Mr. Faluca started class before she had the chance to respond but gave him a look that said they were definitely still going to be talking about this at lunch. 

“Alright class, please break into your groups decided during our last lesson to discuss your appointed figure from Canadian history. If your group has forgotten, let me know and I will remind you.”

Danny genuinely enjoyed this class, but any enjoyment was completely overshadowed by the fact that his group consisted of Kwan, Wes, and Mikey, two of which were going to be weird about him. Kwan because he'd just been weird today, and Wes because he was sure that any of his more ghostly traits were going to be “further proof” that Danny was also Phantom. Obviously he was right, not that Danny was ever going to confirm his suspicions except for to fuck with him. 

Mercifully, they stayed on topic, but he kept feeling Kwan eyeing him. Wes too, but that was par for the course, and he even purposefully let a couple of those ghostly traits bleed through when he knew Kwan and Mikey weren't looking. 

Ancients, he loved messing with Wes.

At the end of class Mr. Faluca called out, “okay everyone, we'll go over your discussions next time, have a good day.” 

Danny stretched, his shirt riding up and his back popping. He missed the way Kwan distinctly eyed his rarely shown soul mark before standing up and joining Valerie in the hall so they could go to lunch. 

“So I see what you mean about Kwan,” she said when they sat down with Tucker at their usual table. They had realized that the cacophony of the cafeteria meant that as long as they didn't raise their voices, these discussions didn't have to be relegated to secret group chats or late night phone calls where their parents were more likely to overhear something they shouldn't.

“Right! It's weird!” He replied.

“What's weird?” Sam asked, sliding onto the hard metal bench next to Valerie. 

“Kwan. Every time I looked over to his group in history, he was clearly looking over at Danny. His version of subtle needs some work.” 

“Maybe Kwan also has a crush on Danny,” Tucker supplied, unhelpfully.

“Neither of them have a crush on me, and we're not having this argument again.”

Danny looked down and started eating. His friends shared exasperated looks, wondering if there was ever going to be a chance he would realise things for himself. 

Sam mouthed at them, “clueless.”

Kwan, Sam, and Tucker had all noticed at the same time albeit from different sides of the incident. Dash and Danny were both too engrossed in their bully/bullied dance, but their friends had distinctly noticed when Dash's shorts had ridden up from holding Danny up against the lockers and Danny's shirt had done the same from being up against them. 

The faint shining. Despite never having gotten along in the past (except for the brief poetry fiasco), the three of them locked eyes, nodded,  and came to a silent agreement. They wouldn't tell their friends, it was up to them to figure out their shit. 

Eventually, when she'd learned the half-ghost's secret and become a feature staple in their group, the two of them had looped Val in on the info and she seemed oddly unsurprised. She said she was pretty sure a chunk of the A-list crowd and their year in general suspected, but were simply unwilling to volunteer that tidbit of knowledge to either party. 

Sam and Tucker spent a not insignificant amount of time laughing their asses off about how dense the two boys were at that news. When they'd stopped, they discussed how Danny and Dash didn't ever get close enough to notice the tingling that went along with the soul marks, except for bullying.

Two years later and the fact that they still hadn't figured it out aggravated the entirety of their senior class that were aware of their soulmate status. It wasn't as if they were subtle about their feelings for each other, but as much as it was an aggravation, everyone had without knowing it collectively decided it would be more interesting to let it play out. 

Dash had actually noticed the change in Danny. A week ago he was still occasionally flinching if Dash so much said his name or walked too close to him despite Dash's own change in behaviour. Suddenly he acted as if the first two years of high school had never existed at all. He walked with confidence; slouching less, not afraid to take up space, and looked people in the eyes when they spoke. Too bad that last part was never aimed in his particular direction. Dash had always loved how blue Danny's eyes were (even if he'd only gotten to look with them wide in fear), with a barely there ring of green around his pupils. And his newfound confidence looked really good on him, Dash had to force himself to look away on more than one occasion.

It only made the conversation he was supposed to have with him about the soul mark ghosts even more difficult. It was hard enough that he had a crush on the person he used to give swirlies to, it was another when he realized that person was hot, then gotten hotter still after his dad's genes had kicked in one summer and he'd come back to school with broad shoulders and an extra six inches in height.

And all that was on top of his friends who had stopped glaring at him with animosity but rather with some shared joke, which was unnerving in itself. 

Deciding to bite the bullet, he went up to Danny when he and Tucker were waiting on the girls and asked, “hey Fenton, can we talk after school?” 

Danny looked confused and Tucker smirked. “Yeah I guess so?” 

“Great, meet me by the bleachers,” he replied, quickly walking away.

Shit, he thought, guess this is really happening.

He was incredibly distracted by his impending doom (‘it's just a couple questions’ Kwan had supplied at lunch when he'd said that), that he'd gone through the motions of moving to his two afternoon classes but retained nothing. The last bell of the day startled him out of self pitying stupor, his anxiety skyrocketing so high he was surprised that the top of his head hadn't blown off with it. 

He took his time at his locker in an attempt to calm his breathing, and when he went outside he could see Danny leaning against the side of the bleachers on his phone. Taking one last deep breath, he said, “hey,” and was met with Danny fumbling his phone, and Dash saw that his eyes did that thing where they looked like the green had completely taken over the blue. That sometimes happened when he was startled or angry. 

Probably another ghost related thing from his parents lab. Dash once overheard Danny saying he had ecto contamination from it.

“Shit, sorry.” 

Danny had managed to catch his phone before it fell to the ground, and waved him off. “No problem, I was just very in my head. What did you want to talk to me about?” 

Dash hesitated but said, “I think it has to do with ghosts? Like it's nothing super serious, but it's been kinda freaking me out for… a while.”

“How long is a while?” 

“A little over a month maybe?” 

“Dash! Ghost shit can be serious, you know that! They literally have assemblies about it like, every six months,” Danny replied in exasperation. 

“Don't you think I know that? It's just slightly personal in nature.” 

Danny raised an eyebrow. 

Looking around, Dash gestured Danny to follow him just under the bleachers. He whirled around and said, “look you cannot tell anyone about this, I do not need that kind of attention.” 

“O…Kay?”

“So my soul mark has been the exact same since I got it at sixteen, right? So like I said, about a month ago, I woke up to this.” Dash lifted the hem of his shorts just enough to show his soul mark and Danny took in a short, clipped breath. He observed it for a moment, looking in awe at the glowing ghosts.

“So you said it did this randomly?” Danny asked, leaning in. Without thinking, he gingerly reached out to touch the mark, tracing his finger over the ghosts, so focused that he didn't notice the rest of the mark starting to shimmer. 

“Weird, it was just the ghosts that were glowing be…fore…” Dash trailed off, noticing the warmth that was spreading over the mark and snapped his head up to look at Danny who was still staring at it. 

“Danny?” 

Danny broke out of his transfixed stare to look back up at Dash, eyes wide as saucers. He recoiled as if he'd been burned, and several emotions flashed over his face before settling on vaguely terrified before he fled. 

Dash called out, “Danny, wait!” But when he ran out from behind the bleachers, Danny was gone. 

Looks like he had clearly been right when he'd said ‘impending doom’ because he felt entirely doomed after that conversation.

Walking home he thought hard about how neither of them had ever realized they were soulmates, but he supposed it didn't matter anyway since Danny clearly didn't want that. People did reject their soulmates, and it just meant that the soul mark would likely fade over time, but in the moment before Danny had run away, Dash had been fucking thrilled. The guy he liked was also his soulmate? Score! Now he was just embarrassed as hell. Would Danny tell his friends and they'd all have a laugh at how ridiculous the universe was, because there's no way they could ever be soulmates? Truthfully he knew Danny wasn't that kind of person, but he was spiraling, wondering why Danny had looked so terrified. He knew he'd been pretty shitty for the first couple years, but he thought they'd put that mostly behind them. Was it really so bad for them to be soulmates?

Kwan had texted him a bunch of times asking how it had gone, and he wished he hadn't told his friend his plans. He just wanted to curl up in bed and pretend it hadn't happened. 

There had been a brief moment where he thought Danny had been excited too. A small flicker in his eyes where there'd been joy, and he tried to focus on that, hoping that it was shock more than anything. Everything would be better when they saw each other back at school and Danny had had some time to process. 

At least he really hoped so.

Holy shit, was all Danny could think, running away and turning invisible. What the fuck was happening?

Going ghost, he flew up onto the Ops Centre, gazing out over the roofs of his street before falling onto his back and groaning. Shouldn't he be thrilled that Dash was his soulmate? Throughout his whole crushing on Dash situation, he had occasionally thought about his soulmate and the weirdness surrounding that, but people liked other people outside their soulmate all the time! 

He'd felt the warmth too, not even needing to see the glow. So why hadn't it ever happened before now? He tried to think back, but any time they touched enough to have noticed it was in Dash's bullying days, where they weren't exactly paying attention to that kind of thing. Or were they just stupid? He was sure his friends would have picked the latter and rolled his eyes. 

He sat up abruptly and remembered his friends. What were they going to think? They'd been all for Danny's crush, so they would probably be thrilled, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to tell them right away. After all, he'd run out on Dash immediately, which, in hindsight, had probably been a really shitty thing to do, but he'd been so freaked out by the mark he couldn't get out of there fast enough. The image of the ghosts on his leg had burned itself in Danny's mind, and he was trying hard to figure out why they'd been there in the first place. 

Dash had said they showed up out of the blue one day, which was mega weird, but then again, when has ghost stuff ever been normal? Danny had never really looked into the hard specifics of soul marks before, but he was pretty sure they didn't do that. He would have thought if it had to do with his ghost half it would have shown up in the first place, but with it being so recent he wasn't sure what to think.

Ghosts who had once been human had had soul marks, because he'd talked to Ember about it one day, but he'd never heard of a ghost having a living soulmate or vice versa. Plus he knew he was Dash's soulmate so that basically ruled out that possibility. He wondered if Clockwork knew anything about it, but the master of time had told him that despite his ability to see time lines, soul marks were a fuzzy area for him. Something told him Frostbite wouldn't know either, being a ghost zone native that had formed rather than died. 

Maybe he could look through the tomes in Dorothea's lair. Or in Pariah's Keep, which he supposed was his Keep now. It definitely needed a new name, he'd have to make a note to talk to Sam about that. 

Before he knew it, the sun was starting to set and he realized he hadn't checked his phone since he'd spoken to Dash. Changing back to human, he looked and had ten messages and three missed calls from his friends asking about where he'd gone and if he'd been making out with ‘his boyfriend’ under the bleachers. He grimaced and opted not to call them back, but instead messaged them in the group chat.

Danny

chill guys im alive

Tucker

youre objectively not tho??

Val

stfu tuck

danny what happened with dash???

Danny

nothing

he just had a ghost question

Tucker

dude

Danny

??

Tucker

he could have just asked you in front of me

Danny

dunno what to tell you

Sam

a little birdie told me you guys went under the bleachers

Val

EXPLAIN 

Sam 

yeah danny, explain

Danny

look guys it was nothing

Tucker

didnt look like nothing

he looked so nervous to talk to danny 

Val

oooo I'm intrigued 

spill the deets 

Tucker

awe shit

hes offline

Sam

pussy

Danny knew he was going to get the third degree at school, but that wasn't until Monday, and he had some serious research to do in the zone, which he headed into first thing the next morning. 

The research didn't end up going well. There was so little information on the topic in general, and what there was had been woefully unhelpful. His connection to the Keep made finding books about it much easier but reading them was a different ball game. Becoming king had lent him a whole host of knowledge, but the most ancient texts were written in ghost speak so old he only understood a quarter of it. Which meant he needed another book to help with any basic translation but even that only helped him so much. In the end, he had to go to Clockwork, since Pandora was way too far to travel, and Vortex, Nocturne, and Undergrowth tolerated him as king, but still didn't like him all that much. He got the time Ancient to help him with the last bits, but in the end it was still not what he needed. 

Sighing, he headed over to Dora's castle, not taking for granted the way the swirling expanse of the zone washed over his ghost half, soothing the worst parts of his anxiety over his predicament. 

“Sire! To what do we owe the pleasure?” Dora greeted him with a curtsy when he'd arrived. 

“It's just Danny, I've told you this. You're a princess so there's no need for formality.” 

“You are still the king and at a much higher rank than me.”

“Tell that to Skulker,” he muttered. Dora giggled but repeated her earlier question. “I'm looking for some books, but I'm not sure if the ghost zone will even have anything on it. Anything to do with soulmates.” 

Dora contemplated it for a moment. “I know we have some, but it is as you say, they are few and far between. Let us see if we are able to find them.” 

When they arrived at the library, Dora pulled out about six books automatically. She put them down on one of the long tables in the middle of the room before asking, “if I may speak plainly, what is it you wish to find in them?”

“I have a… dilemma about my own mark and I'm trying to look into it.”

“Ah yes, I forgot that as a half-ghost you would still have one. I truly cannot remember what it was like myself. As you can imagine, soulmates were not taken into account when strategic marriages were more important.”

Danny frowned. “I'm sorry that was the case.”

“It is of no consequence now,” the princess replied with a smile. She snapped her fingers before going to pull one final book from the shelves. “There has never been another like you and Plasmius,” Danny grimaced at the mention of Vlad- he was NOT going anywhere near him with this issue, “but there is a story about a ghost and a human where the human had a soul mark and the ghost did not. I cannot for the death of me remember if it was fact or fiction however.”

Danny brightened a little at this. “Thank you Dora, I really appreciate this.” 

“You are most welcome! Good luck!”

Before she disappeared, Danny had the forethought to add, “oh and if my friends come by, please don't tell them what I was here for.”

Dora winked, and was gone. 

Danny read through the book Dora had mentioned, completely engrossed in the book and while it had been a genuinely good read, it did turn out to be a work of fiction. It begged the question of if there were more writers like Ghost Writer in the zone or maybe a human with ties to the other side wrote it? Danny shook his head, filing that away for a future date, but for now his head had a date with the table, banging it twice on the wood surface. Groaning, he skimmed through the rest of the books she'd pulled for him, eventually putting them away on their respective shelves, as they had been more or less the same information that he'd already read.

He ended up spending most of the day in the zone, coming out just as the last dregs of daylight left. There were plenty of new messages in their group chat, some regular ones but enough directed at him trying to suss out what had happened yesterday that he swiped them away, not ready to deal with them yet. As it was, he still wasn't sure what he was going to tell them. 

“Danny!” Someone called out. He jumped in surprise, before realizing it was just his sister. 

“Hey Jazz, I forgot you were home this week.”

“Clearly, since I haven't seen you at all since I got in this morning.” She glanced down to the lab where he'd come up from. “Something important going on in the zone?”

“Not exactly…” he said. Silence filled the room, and Jazz knew him well enough that she waited for him to continue. “You haven't met your soulmate yet, right?” 

She frowned. “No, not yet. I'm not worried though, I'm still young. Why? I thought ghosts didn't have soulmates anymore.”

“They don't, but I do. And like, obviously I'm still half human but since the mark showed up after I turned half-ghost I was like ‘well what does that really mean for me’ right?” He started to pace back and forth across the kitchen. “And of course I was too fucking busy fighting ghosts at sixteen to even spare more than a few moments on it since there was always a small chance that one ghost would be the last straw to making me a full ghost and then it wouldn't matter because, like we established, ghosts don't have soulmates anymore, but I never actually stopped to consider what my soulmates mark might look like since I'm half ghost- like would that effect it in any way? Not to mention the fact that at some point I'm going to have to tell them I'm a ghost, and not just any ghost but the fucking KING of ghosts! What if that's a deal-breaker?”

He looked up at Jazz whose eyes were wide, mouth parted slightly in shock. She blinked the expression off her face and guided Danny through to their living room, gingerly stepping over spare ghost weapon parts to sit on the couch.

Bracing his forearms on his knees, he hung his head, dark hair falling in front of his face, and his eyes locked onto the numerous green spots of ectoplasm that no matter how many times the carpet had been cleaned over the years, refused to come out. Some of them still glowed faintly after his parents had given up on any real attempts at removal, only reminding him of the soul mark that had caused this whole problem in the first place. 

“Did something happen?” She asked, pulling his attention back. “I haven't seen you this freaked out since Technus and Skulker worked together and combined their powers that one time.”

He shivered at the memory, reminding him of the future that would never be. “Could have done without them ever doing that,” he mumbled. He fell silent, trying to decide how much to tell his sister. She had definitely become a master at keeping secrets these days, but he felt guilty keeping his friends out of the loop when he knew that deep down they were worried about him. 

He sighed, deciding to give some version of the truth. “Now that I've had the time to actually think about shit other than the villain of the week, I guess I've just actually been thinking about the whole soul mark thing. Like, does being a ghost change anything?”

“So you went looking for possible answers in the ghost zone?” 

“Yup.”

“And it didn't go well?”

“Nope.”

“Because ghosts don't have soulmates.”

“Pretty much. Do you know how much research I did? How many books I had to read?” Throwing his hands up he cried, “schoolwork has nothing on this shit!” 

Jazz smothered a giggle behind her hand and Danny shot her a withering look. Dragging his hands over his face he continued, “not a single ounce of it was useful, and I searched the whole Keep and Dora's library. Clockwork was of course no help either.” 

She nodded, a soft look on her face. “I wish I had the answer for you little brother, but this problem is uniquely yours.” 

“When isn't it?” 

“What do Sam, Tucker, and Val have to say about it?” Silence stretched between them. “Oh my god Danny, they're your friends! You should be telling them this stuff.”

Danny pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I know, but things are just so normal right now. I don't want to drop my existential crisis on them.” That was at least 100% the truth.

Jazz wrapped her arms around him and said, “I'm sorry this is all so much, but you really should talk to them about it. Let them be there for you.” She squeezed him tight and let go standing and saying, “mom and dad won't be home till late. How does Chinese sound?”

Monday rolled around and Danny only had a half formed idea of what he was going to tell his friends, so he did what every mature person did; he ignored it until the last possible moment. He went invisible to grab his things from his locker since they were waiting for him in front of it, and was lucky enough to not share his morning classes with any of them. 

He did share English with Dash though, and threw himself whole heartedly into listening to Mr. Lancer so he could also ignore any lingering looks thrown his way. Except, there weren't any. Dash seemed to be just as ‘interested’ in Hamlet as he was, which was admittedly not what he was expecting. Though, to be fair, he supposed were the situations reversed, he would be reluctant to talk to the person who had run out on him after finding out they were soulmates.

He glared down at the book in front of him, cheeks burning in embarrassment. He wasn't ready to talk to Dash yet, but he knew it was so so shitty of him to have done that. When class was over Danny thought he'd seen Dash glance over at him but left so swiftly he couldn't be sure. 

The bell rang after his next class much sooner than Danny would have liked, knowing he was about to face the music. If he didn't show up to lunch, Sam would throw the Booooomerang to find him, and frankly? He was sick and tired of getting lumps on the back of his head from that thing.

The first thing she did when he walked into the cafeteria was smack him upside the head with a book, so he supposed it wouldn't have mattered either way. 

“Ow! Was that necessary?” He asked rubbing where she'd hit. 

Her glare could have made a grown man cower. “Yes, it was. We talked about you going radio silent. You can't do that! I know you're the king now, but shit can still happen.” She smacked him with the book a second time. 

“Hey! What was that one for?”

“For ignoring us about the other thing,” she hissed. 

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

Sam leveled him with a flat stare. “Daniel James Fenton, despite you keeping your secret identity a secret for the last four years, your lying skills still need work.”

“Oh shit, she broke out the full legal name,” Tucker said with a smirk, putting his lunch down. 

Danny was about to reply but Dash walked into the cafeteria, locking in on their table. He made to walk over, but stopped. Danny wasn't sure what emotion Dash had seen cross his face when he'd shrunk down into his seat, but he could see a flash of grief across the blondes before he veered off to his own table. 

Sam and Tucker watched the interaction with rapt attention, eyes flicking to each other then over at Kwan who was already looking at them with a grimace. 

“What the fuck was that?” Sam asked, voice noticeably softer despite the words themselves being harsh. 

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Danny repeated, voice barely above a whisper. 

“Dude, at this point we're just worried about you. You went M.I.A for the whole weekend and then that? That wasn't nothing.” 

Danny could feel anxiety creeping up his spine, and was warring within himself, Jazz's words from the other night floating around in his mind. They were clearly worried for him and for once it was for something that wasn't likely to get them maimed or worse. Well, hopefully, since there was clearly a ghostly aspect to the whole thing.

He knew he should probably wait for Valerie to say it, but he knew if he didn't do it now, he'd lose his nerve. Steeling himself, he whispered, “Dash is my soulmate.” 

He waited for their reaction, but neither of them seemed to have one other than relief. “Um, hello?” 

“Oh thank fuck,” Tucker finally said. Sam cuffed him on the back of his head. “What? It's about time!”

Sam tilted her head to the ceiling and muttered, “ancients give me patience,” then to Tucker said, “you're right but that doesn't mean you need to be a dick about it.” 

Danny gaped at them. “I'm sorry, what?”

“Dude, we been knew. We just didn't want to freak you out. Given the fact you disappeared when you found out, I think we were justified.”

Danny wanted the ground to swallow him up and he fully debated going invisible right then and there. 

Sam could tell immediately he wanted to do just that and said, “oh no, you're staying right here or I will use the Plasmius Maximus on you.” 

“Does Val know?” When they nodded, Danny sunk even further into the bench, and he knew his face must be the colour of a fire hydrant. “Please let me die the rest of the way.” 

With a fond sigh, Sam said, “Danny, it's okay. I thought you would have been happy about this, but both you and Dash looked like you'd rather be literally anywhere else but in the same room as each other.” 

“It’s… complicated.”

“Does this have anything to do with why Dash specifically asked about a ghost problem?” Tucker asked. Danny's chin dipped slightly in confirmation.

“Were you able to figure it out?”

Danny's answering sigh gave them their answer. 

“Can we help?” Sam asked. 

“I don't…” he trailed off. This part was tricky because as much as this had to do with him, he didn't want to tell his friends anything that Dash wasn't fully ready to discuss. Which meant he had to have another conversation. 

He'd finally gotten himself together enough to call Kwan and tell him what had happened. He was sort of shocked that there wasn't a single ‘I told you so’ which in his heart he knew Kwan wouldn't do but he would have been justified. After several assurances that he was going to be fine, Dash spent the subsequent 48 hours trying to keep himself busy and failing miserably. Danny's expression haunted his every waking moment.

When Monday morning came, he debated skipping, but knew he couldn't avoid things forever and it was better to just get it over with. He still took the long way around to make sure he didn't walk by Danny's locker, and made a point to do nothing but pay attention to Mr. Lancer even if he didn't actually retain a single word. 

When the bell rang for lunch he cast a quick gaze over his shoulder, but Danny was staring aggressively down at his copy of Hamlet. 

When the lunch bell rang, Kwan came up to him at his locker and asked, “are you really okay?”

He thought about lying but replied, “no, not really. I'm not sure what to do.”

“You gonna try and talk to him?”

He made a non committal noise and turned towards the cafeteria, hoping his soulmate and friends had decided to sit outside.

Lady luck was not on his side, because the moment he entered the room, his gaze locked with Danny's. Without realizing it, he took a step in that direction, but Danny's eyes were wide with fear (albeit not terrified which he supposed was an improvement) so he changed course to sit with his friends. He was staring at his food when he sat down, so he missed the look that Kwan shared across the room. 

“Dashy, if you keep up that look, you're going to get frown lines,” Paulina remarked from beside him. 

He shuddered out a sigh and tried to smooth his face out of the deep frown he'd been wearing. “Are you going to explain what that was about?” 

“What what was about?”

She arched an eyebrow and he knew she wasn't about to let it go without some sort of explanation.

“Fentonismysoulmate.”

“I'm afraid I didn't catch that.”

He looked helplessly at Kwan who gave him a sympathetic look. Leaning forward and lowering his voice, his best friend said, “Danny Fenton is his soulmate.” 

“Oh, okay,” she said and returned to filing her nails. 

Dash would have waited for her to have a larger reaction, but he'd known her long enough to know that was all he was going to get. So instead he looked back at Kwan who said, “we kind of already knew?” 

“... the fuck?” Kwan shrugged apologetically. “How long have you known?”

“A while,” Kwan replied. 

“How did you guys even find out?”

Paulina tuned back into the conversation saying, “babe, just because you two weren't paying attention doesn't mean the rest of us weren't. We were still being assholes to them back then, and he was your favorite punching bag.”

“Wait, that was almost two years ago. What the actual fuck.” He paused to take in her whole statement and paled. “What do you mean by the rest of us?”

“Dash I love you dearly but I'm pretty sure half the student body knows.”

Dash let his head fall to the table with a thunk. “I don't think I've ever been so embarrassed in my life.” 

“Not even when someone stuffed all your teddy bears into your locker?” Kwan asked. Dash turned his head sideways to level a glare at him.

His eyes slid over to Danny's table and judging by the way he was behaving it seemed they were having a similar conversation. Dash let himself get lost in the familiar noise of the cafeteria and hoped that despite his status at school, he could fade into the background. 

The next day, he made a point to take the most direct route to his locker even if it meant passing by his soulmate. He wondered how long it took for a soul mark to fade when someone got rejected so he could put this behind him as fast as possible. He wasn't sure if it was a good thing that Danny wasn't at his locker when he went by, but either way he'd have to see him in class again. 

While the first couple years of high school saw Danny missing numerous classes, he barely missed any these days, so it was a little odd that he wasn't in English class that morning. Dash would have thought it was because of him, but the fact that Danny had shown up the day before made him unsure. His friends sat without him at lunch as well, but they had their heads bent low conspiratorially and definitely glanced his way once or twice. That confirmed that they definitely knew. 

He felt a little better by the end of the day, and when he opened his locker, there was a sticky note stuck to one of his textbooks that read ‘meet me under the bleachers’ in blocky handwriting. 

Anxiety settled in his stomach wondering if it was going to be the official rejection he'd been dreading. 

He left the school out the back, took a couple deep breaths and dipped into the shadows below the bleachers. Danny was waiting there much the same as he had been on Friday but with more tension in his frame. Instead of looking down at his phone, he stared off at nothing and was spinning the device between his thumb and index finger. 

Dash made an intentional scuffing noise with his feet to alert Danny to his presence but he still almost dropped his phone in alarm and Dash stifled a chuckle despite himself.

They stared at each for a long moment in silence before Danny blurted, “I'm sorry!” 

Dash continued staring, brain not computing the words that he'd spoken. “What?” 

Danny sighed. “I'm sorry that I ran away last time. I fully panicked and was halfway home before I realized what I was doing. I'm also sorry it took this long to tell you that.”

Dash was still unsure how to feel. It was all well and good that he'd apologized, but he wasn't sure where that left them.

Danny kept talking when Dash was still silent. “Look, I don't know what's going on with the whole ghost thing but I want to figure it out with you. I just might need help.” 

That got Dash's brain working properly again. “What? No no no, I told you because you know about ghosts. Did you tell your friends, have a good laugh about my freaky mark?” 

“What? No! I didn't tell them anything because even if we're soulmates, that's not my decision to make, what the fuck man?”

Dash deflated. He knew that wasn't the kind of person Danny was, but the last couple days had left his emotions frayed.

“Speaking of… what are we doing about that?”

Danny flushed all the way down his chest, and he looked at his shoes as if they were the most interesting thing in the world. “I'm not exactly upset about it, even if I freaked out before.”

Dash's heart stuttered. “Yeah?”

Danny nodded. “I need you to tell me what you want to do about it, too.”

“I'm super not upset about it. Like not at all. Like I'm actually pretty thrilled?”

Danny's blush darkened, and he looked up at Dash very seriously despite it. “Then there's two things we need to do, and unfortunately, the second is tell my friends about your mark.”

Dash pursed his lips in disdain. “Do we have to?”

“Do you want to figure out what's going on?”

He sighed in resignation. “Fine. But what's the first thing?”

“First, you gotta promise not to freak out.”

“That's rich coming from you.”

“Okay, I deserved that.”

“I'll try not to though?”

“Just know that I've only done this on purpose one other time, so I'm a little out of practice,” Danny said. Before Dash could ask what, two rings of bright white light washed over Danny's mid section and a familiar black and white outfit replaced his clothes. Where there had once been a full hazmat suit, there were now short black fingerless gloves, a tight black top with his signature logo, a white cropped leather jacket, black cargo pants, and white combat boots. Even if the style had changed over the years, it was unmistakably the white hair and green eyes of Danny Phantom now standing where Fenton once was. 

“Holy shit. How the hell…” Dash trailed off, brain fully offline.

“Remember how I missed a week of school back in the ninth grade?”

Dash nodded slowly. “Wasn't the power out for half your neighbourhood after that?.

“Yep. Got electrocuted, but they said it was less serious than the power outage would have suggested. Turns out that five hundred thousand volts of electricity coupled with opening an interdimensional rift on top of yourself isn't that serious in the eyes of the doctors.”

Danny transformed back and gave him the Cliffs notes of becoming a halfa and the after effects of becoming a ghost hunter. 

“That weirdly makes so much sense. I'm sure I'll have a full freak out later on my own, but I think I'm good for now.” 

“So about the mark?”

“Yeah, yeah, we can loop your friends in.” Dash sighed. His heart rate picked up when he realized there was still one thing that needed to be clarified.  “Um, before that, when you said you weren't upset about being my soulmate? I'm still not totally sure where that leaves us.” 

Danny chuckled and with two steps crossed the distance between the two of them. His eyes searched Dash's face before leaning in, pressing their lips together softly for a moment before pulling back. It was like the tension between them had finally snapped, and without being sure who leaned in first, they met in the middle, lips slotting together easily as if they'd done it dozens of times before. Dash's hands came up to cradle the sides of Danny's head, while the half-ghost wrapped his arms around Dash's waist, pulling him in close. Dash licked at the seam of Danny's lips, gaining entrance and gently sucked on his tongue, resulting in a quiet groan that would live rent free in his mind for the rest of his life. 

He pressed Danny up against the bars of the bleachers, slipping his hands up into his hair, tugging it back and breaking their lips apart, using it to tilt his head to the side so Dash could access his neck. He kissed down the pale column and back, before sucking a red mark into the place just behind his ear. 

“Dash-” Danny gasped out, and pulled Dash's lips back to his. Dash pushed up against him so the entire length of their bodies were pressed to each other. Danny bit down lightly on Dash's lower lip, but he felt a sharp pain, a coppery taste flooding his mouth. Pulling back, he touched his fingers to his lips and they came away slightly bloody.

“Oh shit! I'm sorry,” Danny said. “I'm uh, not used to being careful of my teeth aside from in my own mouth.”

Dash cocked his head to the side in confusion, and Danny opened his mouth, showing the pointy edge of his fangs. 

Holy shit that's hot, he thought. Out loud he asked, “ghost thing?” Danny nodded. “I'm surprised I never noticed.” 

“They've only been extra noticeable the last month or so, they've just looked like slightly elongated canines since the accident” he explained. Grinning mischievously he added, “didn't know you paid attention to me so closely. Guess all those times I thought I caught you looking at me weren't just my imagination.” 

Dash closely resembled a fire hydrant in that moment. He looked off to the side to avoid looking at Danny's face and said, “it's hard not to.”

Danny laughed and turned Dash's face gently to look back at him, his cheeks flushed as well. “I did some looking of my own to be fair.” He placed a chaste kiss on Dash's lips. “As much as I would love to continue doing this, my friends are waiting to hear from me. Or us. Depended on how all this,” he gestured between them, “played out. Are you still good with them knowing?” 

“No. Yes. I don't know. I'm not excited about it, but I know it's my best chance at figuring this out.” 

“Our best chance. This is probably totally my fault, so I'd like to know what the hell I did to you.” 

Half an hour later, Dash, Danny, Sam, Tucker, Valerie, and Jazz were all gathered around Dash's leg, staring at his mark. 

“You sure the house of ghost hunters is the best place to be doing this?” Dash asked. 

The other four nodded. “Danny's folks are actually the least likely to bother us. They're elbows deep in a new invention, which means they'll be occupied for the rest of the night,” Sam said, face uncomfortably close to his thigh.

“Not to mention I may have set them back a few hours making it less deadly. Is less deadly the right wording when it's for ghosts? Less deadly for Danny at the very least,” Tucker added. 

“Can we focus?” Danny asked. “Both of us are a little worried about it.” 

Jazz smirked. “Is that what the other night was? Cause that looked more like a Grade A freak out.”

Danny zapped her with a small ecto-blast that had the same shocking power as carpet static. She yelped and stuck out her tongue. 

Val sat back and let out a weary sigh that belonged to someone much older than her 17 years. “Dash, remind me of how long ago this change showed up?”

“About a month?”

“Do you remember the specific date?”

Dash didn't falter when he said, “March fifteenth.”

“Hey! That's Danny's… birthday… oh ancients, it's so fucking obvious,” Tucker said, and smacked a palm to his forehead. 

Jazz and Sam were wearing matching expressions, clearly having understood. 

Dash and Danny looked confused, so Valerie asked, “Danny, how old did you turn?”

“Eighteen.”

“And what big event happened on your eighteenth birthday?”

Danny glanced sidelong at Dash. “Er– I know what you're talking about, but we haven't exactly gotten that far into the ghost stuff yet.” 

“Cher, I swear on the zone, even you can't be this clueless,” Sam growled. “If Dash suddenly had ghosts appear in his mark on the same day that happened then that must mean…” 

“Holy shit, I am the stupidest person on both the earth and in the ghost zone,” Danny said, burying his face in his hands. 

“There it is!” Tucker cheered. 

“Someone wanna fill me in?”

Danny seemed to have not heard his soulmate, and started pacing, throwing his hands in the air. “All that fucking research! For nothing! A waste of a perfectly good Saturday! It's so obvious!”

It was Danny's friends turn to look confused but Jazz assured them he was just being dramatic. She turned to Dash and said, “you know how eighteen is when you become a legal adult? Well weirdly enough, because Danny is half human, the ghosts sort of abide by a similar rule. Do you remember when the whole town got sucked into the zone a couple years ago?” Dash nodded. “Well during that time, the old tyrannical ghost king got loose and Danny technically best him in single combat.

“Now, the ghost zone operates on a system where power is valued above all else, so by doing that, Danny became the most powerful ghost in the zone. By that right, he was next in line for the throne, but because he was only fifteen at the time, he was deemed too young until his birthday two weeks ago. Obviously we can't say with absolute certainty, but Danny cared deeply for the ghosts in the zone even before all that happened so it's likely that when he was crowned, he became equally as passionate about his subjects as the stars.” 

“I wonder if it's because he has two halves to himself so, by default, two soul marks make up the one,” Sam said.

“But ghosts don't have soul marks,” Danny said, adding under his breath, “I would fucking know, I only read every damn book.”

“When have you ever done anything normally?” Valerie asked, rolling her eyes. 

“Wait, crowned? Next in line for the throne?” Dash asked incredulously. 

“Oh yes, your boyfriend is royalty,” Tucker snickered.

Both Danny and Dash blushed at the use of boyfriend since they hadn't really talked about it yet, but Danny said, “yea, as of my birthday, I am the king of ghosts.” He went ghost again, and snapped his fingers, willing the crown to flicker into existence. “Ta-da.”

“What in the fresh hell have I gotten myself into?” Dash asked no one in particular. The aura that Danny had as a ghost visibly dimmed. He noticed his blunder, exclaiming, “what I meant was that it's just a lot to take in! I've been bombarded with a shit ton of information in a very short amount of time.”

Danny literally brightened, a soft smile on his lips. “I'm sorry, you're right. The last few days have been insane. But we figured it all out! Now I think I need to nap for a hundred years.” 

Danny's friends and sister left shortly afterwards, leaving him and Dash alone, sitting together on the bed. Danny leaned against the headboard, and Dash had one leg bent up on the bed, the other hanging off.

“I really am sorry, I know you didn't sign up for such a complicated soulmate.” 

He grabbed Danny's hands. “Yea, it might be complicated, but that's okay and I'm not about to run away because of it.” 

Danny's responding smile was more than worth all the complication. 

“Also, now I get to say I'm literally dating a king, even if it's just between us.” Dash started a smile but faltered, widening his eyes. “Ohhh shit. Um, how do you feel about getting more practice with telling people your secret?”

Dash really hated causing Danny to look fearful. “Why would I need to?” 

“Obviously it is one hundred percent up to you and I can totally bullshit some story, but Kwan knows all about what's been going on until now.” 

“I guess that makes sense, he is your best friend…" he contemplated for a moment. "Okay. I don't want you to have to lie to him all the time, but maybe let's not tell him about the royalty part?” 

Dash finished the smile that he'd cut off before and kissed Danny hard, relishing in the fact he could just do that whenever he wanted now. 

“I really appreciate it, and you're right, I would hate lying to my bro. I would do it in a heartbeat if you asked me to, you know that right?” 

“That's why I'm not asking you to.” 

Dash's heart swelled with affection for him and he glanced down at his mark and asked, “by the way, what does your mark look like? I don't actually know if I've ever seen it.” 

Danny lifted up his shirt to show him. “I'm glad you thought of that, I was actually curious about it.” Dash looked at the paw print and thought about how that was completely accurate. “I know you have a dog but I wouldn't have thought it was a passion thing.”

“I wanted to be a vet when I was younger. It took me for fucking ever to convince my parents to let me get Pookie, and I realized that seeing animals in pain was too much for me so I scrapped that idea. Plus all the math and science for that? No thanks. I volunteer at the animal shelter all the time though.” 

“Who would have thought Dash Baxter was a huge softie,” Danny teased. “But for real, the shelter? That's so great, do they just have dogs, or other animals?

Dash told him all about his favourite shelter animals and how he would never buy from a breeder, and in return, Danny told him more about the ‘regular’ ghosts that are always causing trouble in town, and what it was like trying to keep a secret identity. They talked for so long, Danny's parents emerged from their invention fugue, which meant introducing him officially as his soulmate, glad that Dash had met them enough times to not have them scare him away. 

And if the next morning at school, half the student body simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief at watching the two finally figure their shit out, walking hand in hand into the building, no one made mention of it.