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ghostboybrainrot · 1 year

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Out of Touch Part 2

Part 1, Part 3, Part 4, AO3

Edit: I'm starting the process of transferring these to AO3. Click the link above to subscribe and get updates more reliably! (But don't worry I'll keep posting on Tumblr, too)

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It’s odd being invisible to the living world. Danny doesn’t have to put on a performance. He doesn’t have to awkwardly smile at strangers. He doesn’t have to monitor his facial expressions to make other people feel more comfortable. In a way it's nice. Freeing, even.

He didn't have to worry about people misconstruing his actions or his words. Assuming he had ulterior motives. Looking at him like he was weird for asking clarifying questions.

He wasn't judged for asking someone to explain a joke. He wasn't called rude and self-centered for sharing a similar experience when a friend was venting about their problems. He wanted to understand. He wanted to connect. But it felt like the way he did it was always wrong.

He'd been lucky to find friends who understood him. Who shared in his idiosyncrasies.

He didn't have that anymore, but at least he didn't have to pretend either. It was a small victory, but he still counted it

Of course, his invisibility didn't affect the dead. They could see him just fine. And many do not like what they see. His ghost form had been shifting. He hadn’t made change consciously.

When he looked at himself he saw something sharper, something darker than he used to be. He wasn't happy about it but he didn't feel the need to dwell. This was who he was now. He didn't have any control over it.

If the other spirits he came across flinched away from him, he tried not to let it bother him. Spirits were just people. And he could deal with people.

Fortunately, most ghosts were too distracted by their own problems to pay him much mind. The shades floated around usually tethered to a specific location, sometimes a specific person. They interacted with things that were not there. They carried on conversations with themselves. If Danny attempted to talk to them, they would respond. He’d even held a decent conversation with a couple. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t seeing the same things he was. That their reality was much different than his. Once he’d finished talking, they’d continue about their business as though he wasn’t ever there.

)-(

Danny had settled in an abandoned apartment near Park Row, or Crime Alley, as the locals called it. The building was only 3 stories. It had been condemned but had never gotten around to being torn down. It's not property investors were going to want to build something in it's place. Not in Crime Alley.

The bottom floor had been boarded up at one point but the boards on the back entrance had long since been pried off. Several squatters had made the bottom floor their temporary home. If they heard odd noises coming from the upper floor they ignored it.

Once, a man had come to the top floor to look around. He stepped carefully, testing his weight on the unstable floor. He checked the empty apartments. They’d long since been picked clean. When he neared the door at the end of the hall a chill shot up his spine. This door was closed, unlike the other three which had been swinging ajar before he’d arrived. Was someone already squatting in there? No one had mentioned it to him. He’d stayed here a few times now. Surely, if someone had already claimed the room, he’d have heard about it. He continued to approach the door. The cold sensation was worse the closer he got. He started shivering slightly and he could see his breath misting in front of him.

Weird. He swore it hadn’t been this cold outside earlier. How could it be so cold INSIDE. Maybe a window had been left open? That would explain why this door was closed. The wind had probably blown it shut. It had to be empty. No one would be able to stay in these freezing temperatures.

If nothing else he should go and close the window. Wouldn’t want a draft to follow him downstairs. They needed to conserve the heat the best they could.

He grasped the door knob. For a moment he worried his hand would stick to it. It was like holding a ball of ice. He attempted to turn it. Locked.

He wasn’t sure why but he let go of the handle and raised his hand to knock on the door. Three short raps echoed in the empty hall. For a moment there was silence.

Then. Three short raps answered from the other side of the door.

He jumped back. Okay, someone was in there after all. Weirdo. Who the hell locked themselves in an abandoned freezing apartment. Before he could decide whether to tell this person off or just mind his business, he heard it again.

Three more knocks. These were much louder.

Suddenly there was a steady pounding on the door. It rattled from the impacts. The man’s heart leapt in his throat. He’d had enough. He started making his way back to the stairs. The pounding hadn’t stopped. If anything, it had gotten even louder. And closer! It was following him! It was coming from the walls in the hallway now. He could hear it coming from the other empty apartments. Everything was pounding. The whole building seemed to be shaking. He didn’t remember bolting but next thing he knew he was running down the stairs. Not paying attention to the cracks in the floor, as he had on the way up. He took 2 steps at a time. By the time he reached the bottom, the onslaught of sound had stopped.

At first he didn't notice. He could still feel the pounding. It felt like the banging was coming from inside his head. It took him a moment to notice it was his own heartbeat hammering in his ears.

He spent several minutes at the bottom of the stairs, hands on his knees gasping for breath. After his heart finally slowed and his breath came easier, he went back to the room where he'd placed his sleeping bag.

He thought about packing it up. This place no longer felt safe. What if whatever it was followed him?

He glanced at the door that led to the stairwell. If it were going to follow him it already would have. It was already late and this wasn't the first time he'd crashed here. And something told him, whatever it was, hadn't just arrived. He swallowed nervously. It had probably been above him this whole time.

He looked back down at his sleeping bag. He'd paused partway through rolling it up. Lost in thought. Finally, he decided to stay. At least for the night. He rolled it back out and got ready to get some rest. He was exhausted. The adrenaline from only 10 minutes prior had fled his system. Leaving his muscles weak and his brain foggy.

He wasn't going to be able to find a safer place this late. There were worse things than ghosts haunting the streets of Gotham at night.

If his upstairs neighbor didn’t want to be bothered. He just wouldn’t bother them.

—-

Danny felt a little guilty for scaring the guy. In the moment it had been exhilarating. Like playing a prank. After all, he had no intention of ACTUALLY harming him. He wasn't in danger. He just didn't want the guy poking his nose around his stuff.

But of course the man had no way of knowing Danny wasn't a threat. It wasn’t like Danny was going to jump out and yell 'Gotcha!' In fact, that probably would just scare the guy even more.

Danny looked down at his hands. They were clouds of black smoke. The edges were fuzzy and undefined. His fingers were long and came to sharp points.

Scary, he thought.

Before he could linger too long on that uncomfortable thought, Danny decided to make it up to the guy.

It took a while for the man to fall asleep, unsurprisingly. But Danny waited patiently.

)-(

When the man woke up the next day he found a few cans of soup, some clean socks, and a small pack of baby wipes. It had been stacked neatly next to his backpack. Clearly, it had been left for him. He looked around but no one else had come to join him in the night and the door to the room was still locked.

He didn’t mention the interaction to anyone. And none of the other squatters mentioned it either. He knew they had to have heard it. The pounding that shook the building. He knew he hadn’t imagined it. Even if he had, it didn’t explain the food left in a locked room in the middle of the night.

He decided whatever this entity was. It wasn’t kicking him out. Just expressing a boundary. He could handle that. As long as he left the apartment upstairs alone, he should be fine.

Hopefully.

)-(

Danny hoped the guy would see the gifts as an olive branch. He thought about leaving a note, but decided against it. It was one thing to insinuate that the building was haunted. It was another thing, entirely, to come right out and say it.

Hey I'm the ghost that haunts the upper floors! Sorry to give you a fright. Here's some food as an apology just stay out of my area, okay?

Thanks!

He smiled at the thought. It'd be funny but l would just bring more attention to him. The last thing he needed was other people finding his haunt. A note was tangible. The guy could show others. More people would want to investigate. Without any concrete proof, people were less likely to believe him.

Danny did not want to have to move, especially when he had just gotten settled.

He’d just gotten running water. It had taken a lot of time and effort but he'd finally figured out how to turn the water back on.. He'd had to phase through a lot of walls holding a flashlight in his teeth. It had taken a week of following pipes around and messing with valves, but he’d done it! Granted, when he first got it, it still went out randomly and it wasn't hot or even warm. But it was a start.

Now getting electricity, that had been much harder. He wasn't an electrical engineer. He felt uncomfortable with the idea of trying to mess with high voltage wires. Getting electrocuted again, scared him more than he'd ever admit, even to himself.

Eventually, he settled for a small generator. He'd pilfered it from a big chain farming supply shop several miles outside of Gotham. It was a pain lugging it all the way back. It wasn’t that he was too weak to carry it, but it had been very awkward to hold.

He set it up on the roof above his apartment. Feeding the wire down into the apartments poking holes through walls. It didn’t look professional but it worked.

The best part was that he’d gotten a model powerful enough to run the old hot water heater.

Danny hadn't taken a hot bath in months. The closest he got was taking quick showers in the 24 hour gym down the street. He'd go in the middle of the night after patrol when no one was around. But he tried not to linger in case someone decided to do an early morning workout. Those showers were more functional than relaxing.

He didn't need to bathe that often, anyway. He spent more time in his ghost form than his living form and he didn't sweat when he was dead. He'd been getting by on baby wipes and paper towel baths at the sink in public restrooms.

So, when he finally had an opportunity to have a real bath. He decided to treat himself.

He lit a couple tealight candles and set them on the counter. He turned out the lights. The bath/shower combo wasn't very deep but fortunately Danny wasn't a very tall teenager. For the first time he counted himself lucky that dying had stunted his growth.

He had swiped a bath bomb from a dollar store a few blocks away. He'd never used one before but he figured he should at least try one to get the full relaxing bath experience. He drew himself a warm bath and dropped the lavender-scented bomb into it.

As soon as he sunk into the water he immediately felt himself start to drift. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this relaxed. He closed his eyes and was asleep within minutes.

)-(

Danny was having a bad night.

Nights? He wasn’t sure.

He’d gotten carried away again. He felt that familiar tug at his stomach. He wasn’t sure for how long. He knew he needed to stop. To take a break. At least grab a drink or something to eat. But he knew if he stopped, if he switched forms, he'd be too exhausted to switch back.

He just kept telling himself one more. Just one more person to save. Just one more person to stop. And then he would rest.

As he neared his apartment he felt his form stutter.

Oh no.

Just a little bit farther. He could still make it! The form continued to stutter. He felt gravity pulling on him. He couldn't keep flying like this.

He looked for a place he could land. There was an empty alley below him. Only 50 feet or so ahead. He angled his descent. But he was falling too fast. His ghost form continued to flicker, petering out 20 feet above the ground. He plummeted, reaching out trying to find purchase on the side of the building. Only managing to scrape his palm. He hit the ground on his side, with a soft thud.

He groaned. He had definitely broken something. His earlier exhaustion had been replaced with sheer terror as he'd fallen. This was the only thing allowing him the energy to push up off the pavement. He sat in the alley wincing with every movement. He took inventory. His shoulder was bruised as hell. He'd, also, bruised his ribs, breaking at least one. He was lucky he was so resilient. Falling from that height would have been much worse if he wasn't already half-dead.

He tried to pull himself to his feet. His leg buckled under the weight and he fell back on his backside. He'd definitely messed up his knee. He reached down to palpate around the joint. It was tender and he could already tell it was starting to swell.

Great.

He pulled himself up again favoring the side that hadn't impacted the ground. He braced himself against the wall of the building. His vision swam. He realized it probably had more to do with the fact that his blood sugar was dangerously low than his injuries.

After a couple minutes, his vision began to clear and he could take in his surroundings.

Good news, he knew where he was. He was close to his apartment. Bad news, his apartment was in crime alley. And he had a couple blocks and two flights of stairs before he could get to it.

Danny did not like his chances of getting there unscathed. Normally, it wouldn't be a problem. He could just switch to ghost form and fly straight there. But seeing as how he'd already been doing that, and he'd fallen from the sky. He didn't think this was going to be an option.

He tried anyway. Focusing hard on fading into his phantasmal form. He felt the barest hint of a flicker but no transformation came.

Figures.

The adrenaline from the fall had worn off, at this point. He was feeling woozy again. His exhaustion and hunger hitting him full force.

The ground next to a nearby dumpster started to look very enticing. His eyes were drooping. He had enough awareness left to know if he was going to pass out he needed to hide.

It wasn't the first time he'd had to take an impromptu nap in an alley. Usually, he found a cozy dumpster to crawl in to sleep it off. Bit his leg was too injured and he was too weak to pull himself up.

Behind the dumpster would have to do.

He kept his hand against the wall as he stumbled forward, ignoring the pain in his palm from the scrape, he'd suffered during the fall. He wondered, dully, if it was a bad idea to be rubbing an open wound on a grimey building. Probably not, but he'd have to worry about that later.

He felt like he was moving through molasses. As he rounded the side of the dumpster he looked back, making sure no one was watching. Satisfied he was alone, he tucked himself into the corner behind it. He was already pretty small. It didn't take much to pull his hood over his head and pull his knees to his chest. He pulled a few loose pieces of plastic and cardboard over him. With that and his grimey clothes he was pretty sure it would be hard to spot him. At least, in the dark.

Certain this was as good as it was going to get, he closed his eyes and fell immediately into a dreamless sleep.

He hadn't noticed the figure in the dark when he'd fallen. He hadn't noticed its eyes watching him as he pulled himself up and limped toward the dumpster. And, he didn't notice as the figure approached the sleeping boy.

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Sorry to anyone who was waiting for me to update my Ghost Zone Amity fic! This one was making my brain itch so this is the one you get.

I love getting comments! Keep them coming. Who do you think found Danny? Is it one of the bats? Is it a rogue? Let me know what you think so far!

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@alinmenttreasure @quirky-gardener @mnemovoid @amercurio @may-rbi

@allmune @i-havenothingelsetopost @kittenline @alienzil