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bibliophilea · 1 year

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tension (release)

Written for the @dpauzine. Special thanks to all the mods for working with me to get this story in the zine on time, and to @ecto-american in particular for being an excellent beta!

And thank you, SleepySpacey, for illustrating this work! All images here belong to SleepySpacey on twitter, deviantArt, and tumbl!

Contains: TUE Farmboy AU, Grief/Mourning, Alicia POV, Alicia and Danny bonding, Danny being a bit of a cryptid, Flynn mention

ao3 | ffn

“I’m not okay! I will never be okay!”

The outburst is sudden. Explosive. Like the kid’s been holding it in for far too long. Alicia has known this was coming — saw it in the tension in the boy’s shoulders, in the redness of his eyes, in the way he never smiled and never cried and was always terse around her — and yet. And yet. She is not prepared for it.

“You — you don’t get it! You’re strong, and you’re tough, and I’m — I’m not, I’m just not, okay?!” His voice cracks, but the floodgates are open now. Alicia doesn’t think he can stop, even if he wants to. “You’re fine, ‘cause you’re you, and you’re always fine! I can’t — I can’t do that, okay?!”

He glares at her, and oh, he looks just like Maddie. When their momma died, Alicia needed to be strong enough for the both of them, strong enough to carry them through, and Maddie, she cried and cried, but she got angry, and she glared so hard, too hard and too old and it broke Alicia’s heart to see it. Maddie bellowed — Don’t you care?! — and Alicia couldn’t say anything because of course she cared but she had to be strong and she had to be tough and she had to keep going and couldn’t let it get to her and Maddie screamed something fierce, screamed so loud and so long it was amazing her tiny body didn’t give out, she was so small —

Just like her little boy.

He’s so small.

*~*~*

Alicia needs to find him.

He doesn’t know these woods — probably doesn’t know any woods, and that bit of scrub Amity Park calls conservation doesn’t count. This isn’t some patch of green in the middle of a city where the most you’ll see is a stray cat. This is rural. This is wilderness and farmland, where the nearest anything is two miles away.

And this is nighttime. No local would dare go out at night. Alicia more than anyone knows why. Her city slicker fool of a nephew doesn’t stand a chance out there. And like hell she’s gonna just stand by and wait for it to happen. She ain’t giving up the only family she has left to the woods without a fight.

But she’ll be damned if she doesn’t go out there prepared.

*~*~*

“Danny!”

Alicia knows it’s foolish to call out his name like that. She knows it might not be Danny that answers.

But she’s at a loss.

His tracks should have been easy to follow — and they were, for a time. Danny may be smart, but he’s a city kid. He never learned how to hide his tracks the way Alicia and Maddie had growing up in the backwoods of Arkansas. Never learned to pass through these woods without a sign, like the ghosts in the stories Alicia’s momma liked to tell her and Maddie before she died. Never learned to navigate any woods, Alicia reckons, without help from his mom.

But his tracks disappear.

They stop abruptly, in a small clearing, not too far from the fairy circle she hasn’t had the chance to warn him about because he’s hardly ventured off the farm, let alone this far into the woods and —

She takes a breath, and she realizes she’d been holding it for the past minute. Calm down, Alicia. Panicking here won’t do anything but make her lose him for good. And she can’t have that. She won’t have that. Not again.

She takes another breath, steadying herself, and scans her flashlight over the tracks she can see.

Danny had broken through several branches and a thicket of thorns to get here — then fallen to the ground. Probably tripped on one of the roots that arched just above the dirt, hard to see those in the moonlight. She winces in sympathy — a fall like that would leave a mark.

But even so, he had gotten back up again. She sees it clearly in the footprints that follow the fall — stumbling at first, but they grow stronger as they push on into the clearing. The final tracks he left are the clearest — deep footprints facing the other side, the faded treads of his sneakers’ soles pressed firmly into the soil. It’s like he had jumped into the air.

But there’s no sign of where he landed. No hint of where gravity could have pulled him back down to Earth.

Like the moment his feet left the ground, he had disappeared.

Just like —

No.

She wouldn’t think it.

Not here, out in the wilderness at night, where anything could breathe life into those very thoughts.

Not now, when the only family she has left is all alone out here.

But how is she supposed to find him?

Alicia stands up straight, grimacing in frustration at the pop of her back. She’s getting old. Too old to be out at night searching for her fool of a nephew. Not that she’s any wiser, when she’s the one who drove him away.

She takes a deep breath to call Danny’s name again — then chokes on her voice as a wail brutally murders the silence of the night.

The wail — she can’t call it anything else, the way its cries linger in the air — howls through the night, making the hairs rise on the back of her neck and setting her teeth on edge. It echoes over itself, multiplying into a cacophony of moans and keens and shrieks — voices of the damned, screaming in agony and grief.

And before she can think, she finds herself sprinting towards the ghastly sound, gritting her teeth as it grates at her ears and pierces her soul. But she can’t give up, can’t slow down, can’t — can’t think as the wail fills her head and pounds against the inside of her skull —

Only one thought breaks through the cacophony, tolling like a funeral bell, pushing her to move faster, to get there before she’s lost him forever.

Not again.

*~*~*

“Danny, I’m so sorry.”

It’s all Alicia can say; but it isn’t enough, and they both know it. She’s losing him, she can feel it — feel the gulf between them stretching further, even when she steps forward, even as she wraps her arms around him, engulfing him in a careful hug — as if holding him too tight would shatter him; as if holding him too loose would let him slip away.

Foolish.

She isn’t much of a hugger, but even she can feel that this hug is awkward and wrong — in the way his muscles tense when she gently pats him on the back, the way she towers over him and holds him in place, the way he holds himself like a wall of ice and doesn’t hug her back.

She finally lets go, and he steps back, away from her, glaring at the floor, shoulders risen to his ears.

Then his eyes snap to hers, and they are icy blue like his fathers, and deadly sharp like his mother’s — but the fire in them is cold, and it chills her to the bone. His voice matches his eyes.

“I don’t need your pity.”

And before Alicia can do anything, he brushes past her, and he storms out the door, into the night. Into the wilderness.

He doesn’t look back as he slams the door shut.

*~*~*

By the time she finds him, the wail has long since petered out, leaving a deathly silence in its wake. She spots him facing away from her, kneeling at the edge of the lake just northwest of her property, the moonlight catching on the edges of his figure but leaving the rest in shadow.

She wants to run to him, to look him over, make sure he’s okay, to bring him back inside. But that’s not what he needs. So instead, she surveys the area, and she approaches slowly, making her footsteps loud in the unnatural silence.

Alicia knows this part of the lake — has spent a good amount of time sitting where Danny kneels, thinking or just taking in the world. There’s always something a little bit different every time she comes this way — some new growth in the plant life, or some new animal tracks after the rain, or even a tree fallen in the wake of a storm. A couple storms have passed since she last came here.

Nothing natural could have changed the landscape to be what it is now.

Multiple trees have been torn from the ground, violently uprooted and radiating outwards from the lake. Some of them almost look like they’ve been hit by gunfire — large chunks of them missing, splintered wood clawing outwards from the gaping wounds. Greenish smoke rises from the exposed wood.

The same smoke curls from Danny’s fists at his sides.

Carefully avoiding the craters and downed trees, Alicia makes her way to the edge of the lake. Not too close to Danny — she doesn’t want to spook him — but not too far, either. She wants him to know that she’s there, that she’s there for him, for as long as he needs it.

She lowers herself to the ground with a huff.

And she sits with him, in the stillness of the night.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watches as the smoke dissipates from Danny’s hands; as his fists relax; as he slowly shifts from kneeling, to sitting, to holding his knees. She can’t help the small sigh that escapes her — the way he’s curled up, hugging himself, staring intently at the lake so he doesn’t have to look at her — it’s just like her son.

Just like Flynn.

She sighs again, deep and long. Then she speaks.

“You had a cousin, you know.”

Danny doesn’t respond. But she knows he’s listening.

“Flynn,” she continues. “He was my son.”

She pauses as memories wash over her. “He could name every fish in this lake — and he would, too, when given the chance. Tell you all about the peepers, too. Sometimes, I caught him just sitting and staring into the lake — right where you’re sitting now — just thinking, I guess. He was a smart kid.”

Alicia takes a breath, and can’t help the way it shudders.

“He’s gone now. And it was my fault.”

She swallows, and feels her throat click. “We had a fight — can’t remember what about, it was so long ago — but he ran out of the house. And I went after him, of course I did, but it was broad daylight — he should have been safe — and I didn’t get there fast enough.”

She can remember it like yesterday: the way the sunlight had shown as he ran, warming her skin against the gentle, cool breeze that ruffled the grass and the trees. She’d been glad it was nice out — meant neither of them would catch a cold when she could finally catch up to her fool of a son. She remembers her confusion when Flynn had stopped running — then her dread as the dark green of the forest in front of him had slowly warped to something brighter, swirling and glowing and radioactive and growing with each passing moment — then her panic as she had realized what it was.

“It was one of them ghost portals,” she tells Danny. “I’d never seen one before, but your momma, she’d told me all about them. And she’d told me what all came out of them, too. I ran as fast as I could, and I told Flynn to run; but something reached out and grabbed him. And by the time I got there, it was too late. The portal closed. And my boy was gone.”

She can’t help the shudder in her voice, in her chest as she breathes, in her arms as she tenses them to hold herself together. It’s been a long time since she’s talked about Flynn. Too long. But she can’t break over it. Not yet. Danny needs to know — she gets it.

“Losing Flynn like that — knowing he was right there, that if I’d been a bit faster, or if I’d just listened, he’d still be here — it does something to you. My no good ex-husband, he didn’t get it. I’d be a fool to say he didn’t grieve, in the end — but he wasn’t there. He didn’t see. He didn’t understand.”

She watches from the corner of her eye as Danny stiffens.

“I hunted these woods for anything to get my son back,” she continues. “He just thought I was crazy — me spouting about ghosts and fae, like he knew anything about these woods. It ruined our marriage. And I don’t regret that; but it was a bad time. I had nightmares every night about losing him; and every day I did everything I could to find him. Your parents came out here, too, with all their fancy equipment. Didn’t find a thing. And everything I found out in the woods — none of it helped.”

She sighs and ignores the way her breath shakes.

“I never found Flynn, or the thing that took him. It was my fault. And by now, my son is probably dead.”

Danny’s head lowers into his knees as Alicia speaks. She doesn’t expect him to say anything once she’s run out of words. But a moment later, his voice, hoarse and quiet, echoes out from him.

“How do you do it? Keep going?”

Alicia huffs gently. “One step at a time, I suppose. The world keeps going. No matter how much it feels like it should all stop.” She rubs her face, and she’s only a little surprised to find it damp. “It’s hard, with him gone, knowing it’s my fault. There are times the guilt eats away at you.”

“Does it ever go away?” Danny squeezes his legs to his chest. His voice is small. He’s just a child.

Alicia takes a deep, shuddering breath, then lets it go. “No, Danny. It doesn’t.”

She’s not going to lie to Danny — he deserves better than that.

“Losing someone like that? It never goes away.” She pauses. “It gets easier — or maybe you get used to it. Hell if I know. But it never goes away.”

“Then what’s the point?” Danny sounds… angry. Frustrated. Desperate. He’s on the brink of tears, and he looks tired, so so tired, exhausted even — but it reminds Alicia of… something. Maddie? Maybe Flynn? And she chuckles ruefully.

“See, that’s the hard part. Is there any point to death? To losing someone and knowing it’s your fault?” She sighs. “Danny, I’ve had a long time to think. Ain’t much else to do around here.”

She takes a moment to gather her thoughts.

“You’re always gonna miss them — that won’t change. And they’ll always be a part of you — that won’t change, either. But the world keeps going, one step at a time. And that’s how you gotta take things. There’s work to be done. And there’s people you gotta keep going for. When Flynn was taken, it was your momma that kept me going. Then your sister and you.

“But out here, in the middle of nowhere, that don’t work forever. Here on the farm, you got structure, and you got hard work to keep things going. But mostly, you got solitude. And you got a lot of room for thinking.”

She pauses. “It took a while, but I think I learned how to keep going for myself. Not saying it’s easy — but anything worth doing takes hard work. And I’ll be there for you, as long as you want it, and as long as you need it.”

Alicia looks down properly at Danny then, from where she sits. His face is buried in his knees, and he’s gripping his legs like he’ll fall apart if he lets go. His whole frame trembles with tension.

He’s so small. And it breaks her heart to see him hurting like this.

Alicia puts her hand on Danny’s shoulder, and it nearly engulfs his upper arm. His head shoots up, and he stares at her with wide, glowing green eyes.

Then he starts to pull away from her, turning his head away and blinking his eyes.

“Hey.” Something in her tone makes him stop. She continues. “You don’t have to hide from me, Danny. You can let it out.” And so should I.

Danny searches her face for something — Alicia doesn’t know what. But after a moment, his face crumbles, and he gasps out a sob before launching himself into her arms. Alicia rocks back a bit with the force of it — then catches herself, and holds him tight, rocking him and rubbing circles in his back like she used to do with Flynn.

“I’m here, Danny. I’m here.”

She won’t tell him it’s okay — they both know it’s not.

Maybe they’ll never be okay.

But she’s there for him. And she’ll be there for him, for as long as he needs. Maybe forever, if Maddie was right about ghosts, if Danny is somehow ghostly.

“I’m here.”

She’s there for him when he lets go and leans against her in his exhaustion. She’s there for him when she keeps her arm around him, and they sit, and breathe, and stare out at the lake, under the stars, under the moonlight.

I’m here.

#danny phantom #dp fic #danny fenton #alicia walker #tue #the ultimate enemy #tue farmboy au #dpauzine #this was so satisfying to write #sleepyspacey #sleepyspacey made such good art!#i love it so much!#bib write #bib work #not a q

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q-gorgeous · 2 years

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The Best Nasty Burgers You’ll Ever Taste

Prompt: Flynn Walker never knew where he came from. What happens when he wonders what else there is besides the ghost zone? (PR289) @greyheartwriter

Word Count: 1672

ao3

ffn

hello flynn walker

The ghost zone was a lonely existence for the only human that lived there.

Flynn was nearing his early twenties, he thinks? And he’s never seen another human in the ghost zone. He doesn’t remember much about where he came from, and he’s sure as heck that he wasn’t born in the zone. Everything else is dead here, he’s the only thing that’s alive, aside from the plants in his garden. That’s gotta mean he came from somewhere else. That he wasn’t meant to be here.

He’s been prepping stuff to leave for awhile now. He wants to explore more of the ghost zone, find that infamous portal to the human world and see what’s on the other side. His friends talk about it every time they visit him and when he asks if he can go with them, they always tell him it’d be a drag for him. What is he gonna do? He can’t terrorize or mess with people like the ghosts do. They’ve also told him about the halfa, how he’s ruining their fun all the time. But he didn’t really think he’d like it if they came to where he lived and wrecked the place either. So one day when he sees him in the ghost zone, he flags him down.

“Hey!” He shouts, waving his hands in the air. “Hey! Down here!”

Flynn sees Danny shoot him an initial look of annoyance but it soon turns into confusion when he sees that it’s a human waving up at him and not a ghost. He flies down and lands next to Flynn.

“What are you doing in the ghost zone?” Danny asks.

“You’re the halfa, right?”

“Yes?” Danny says before frowning. “Did one of the ghosts kidnap you from Amity Park?”

“No? Is that the town all the ghosts go hang out in?”

“If by ‘hang out’.” Danny does some air quotes. “You mean terrorize people and destroy property, then yes.”

“Can you take me there?”

Danny gives him a look. “You didn’t even know what it was, wouldn’t you rather go back to the town you’re from?”

“I want to see where you come from. Where I might come from.”

“Where you might come from?”

Flynn sighs and looks at the ground. “I can barely remember anything from before I got stuck in the ghost zone. I don't remember anything about where I came from. I was really young when it happened.”

“How have you even survived here for all this time?” Danny asked.

“You’d be surprised how much fresh water exists in the ghost zone.” Flynn shrugs. “And some of the ghosts who found me had some old seeds stashed away that they were collecting. They figured they would get put to good use if it meant keeping me alive.”

“And the ghosts didn’t just take you back to the human world?” Danny threw his hands up in the air. “All that time? Especially now? When there’s a working ghost portal that’s open almost all of the time?”

“I don’t know! Go ask Ember or Johnny why they won’t take me.” Flynn throws his arms up into the air back at Danny while Danny mumbles something about how would do just that. “Besides, before that portal opened there were no other constant portals. I would have still been stuck here until a couple of months ago anyways.”

“Okay. I’ll take you back to Amity Park but you’ll have to talk to my parents about this. I can’t imagine being stuck in a place made of ectoplasm for the majority of your life is healthy.”

Flynn walked back to his little hut and grabbed one of his bags. “Do you know why none of the ghosts have told your parents about you being a halfa? They talk about it all the time but none of them have given me a clear answer.”

Danny shrugs. “I have no clue but I’m not complaining.” He picks Flynn up and starts flying towards the portal. “I always figured it had to do with some sort of ghost camaraderie even though it’s clear they all hate my guts.”

Flynn hummed. “I guess.”

They fly all the way through the ghost zone and through the portal. Danny phases through the house and out onto the street, dropping Flynn off in an alley before he transforms to his human form.

“So.” Danny says, peeking his head out from between the two buildings. “What do you want to do first?”

Flynn thinks about it for a second. “I want to try a burger.”

“You’ve never had a burger before?”

“Nope.” Flynn shakes his head. “You can’t grow burgers out of the ground off a plant so it’s not something I could have in the ghost zone. I’ve been told they’re really good though.”

“Oh you have no idea. The Nasty Burger has the best burgers.”

Flynn’s brows furrow. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Danny wraps his arm around Flynn’s shoulders. “Ignore the name. It’ll be the best burger you’ll ever have.”

“If you say so.” Flynn shrugs.

They walk to the Nasty Burger together. As they walk inside, Danny waves at two people standing in line.

“Hey Sam! Tucker!” He runs over to them and gestures at Flynn. “This is Flynn. I found him in the ghost zone. Flynn, these are my friends Sam and Tucker.”

“What do you mean you found him in the ghost zone?” Sam asked. “Does he live here?”

Danny shakes his head. “No. He was living in the ghost zone when I found him. We’re gonna hang out and do some human stuff around town before having my mom check him out.”

Tucker’s been squinting between Danny and Flynn since they walked up to them.

“Sam, do you see the family resemblance?”

Sam looked between Danny and Flynn a couple times before her eyes widened. “Oh my god, you’re right.”

“What?” Danny asks. “How could there be family resemblance? I just found this guy in the zone like half an hour ago.”

Tucker shrugged. “I don’t know, but he looks a lot like you.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “I think you’re imagining stuff. Come on, let’s go order our food already.”

The four of them walk up to the counter and they order. Flynn doesn’t know what most of it means or why there’s so many meaties in one sandwich name, but soon they’re taking their food to a table and sitting down. Flynn unwraps his burger and when he takes the first bite, his eyes open wide.

“This is delicious!” Flynn exclaimed. “This is so much better than eating carrots and potatoes every day for months!”

Flynn’s burger is gone in just a few bites. He picks up a second one that was sitting on his tray and starts digging into that one too.

“If you think burgers are good, wait until you try bacon.” Tucker says.

“Or ice cream.” Sam adds on.

“Or deep fried oreos.” Danny says.

Flynn’s looking between the three of them. “Can we try all those things?”

The three friends look between each other before looking back at Flynn.

“Why not?” Danny says. “We should go all out on your first day back in the human world, right?”

QQQQQ

“That was great!” Flynn says, swinging around a plastic sword he got from the amusement park they went to. “The ghosts told me I’d be so bored here because I had no ghost powers! I don’t know what they’re talking about!”

“Ha.” Danny laughed. “Betrayed by one of their own. I can’t wait to mock them for it.”

They walk up to the front door of Danny’s house. Danny turns around to face Flynn with a serious expression on his face.

“Okay. Just remember, no mention of me being Phantom. Got it?”

“Got it.” Flynn nods.

Danny nods his head back at Flynn and turns around and opens the door.

“Mom!” He calls. “I have someone you need to meet! Phantom found a human that’s been living in the ghost zone for the past fifteen years or so and so he dropped him off here. We think you should check him out just in case!”

“We’re down in the lab sweetie! We can take a look at him in a few minutes. We’re in the middle of a conversation right now!”

“This way.” Danny waves Flynn towards a set of stairs that lead down into the ground. Flynn could feel it get colder the further down they go and he’s looking at his feet as his foot hits the bottom step. He looks back up at the sudden sound of broken glass.

There’s two women staring at him, as if they’d seen a ghost. One of them has a shattered glass sitting on the ground in front of her.

“What’s going on-”

A man walks up to them and when his eyes land on him, he stops mid sentence, just staring at him.

Danny mumbles something about forgetting someone was visiting when the older of the two women walks up to him.

“Where did you find him?” She whispers.

Danny points a thumb over his shoulder. “Phantom found him in the ghost zone. He just dropped him off at the front door a few minutes ago, Aunt Alicia.”

“Fifteen years ago I lost my son.” She whispers, staring at Flynn. “I watched him walk into a swirling green portal that appeared in the two minutes I had my back turned. By the time I saw what was happening, he had already walked in and the portal disappeared.” She choked back a sob. “I thought he was gone forever.”

“Wait, we’re actually related?” Danny asked.

Danny’s mom nodded. “Yes. This is your cousin, Flynn Walker.”

“Woah.” Danny said quietly.

Alicia walked up to Flynn slowly, her arms coming up.

“Can I hug you?”

After a moment, Flynn nods.

He doesn’t remember much about his life before the ghost zone, but he did remember someone with warm red hair who sang him songs about bears and trees.

#gorgi writes #danny phantom #danny fenton #flynn walker #sam manson #tucker foley #maddie fenton #jack fenton #alicia walker #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #phic #phic phight #phic phight 2022 #phic phight team ghost

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