ghostharasser | Open Post

[There was no greater relief in the world to Danny Fenton than being able to go to college. His life had started being absolute nonsense at 14 when he half-died, and basically hadn't let up since. He'd thought he was about to get a break when most of the usual troublemakers slowly started acting more like friendly rivals than anything - spurred by his still growing powers, maybe. And sure, he had actually been able to pull his grades out of their nosedive for a while there.

Then along came Clockwork with "Happy 18th birthday, by the way you're King of the Infinite Realms now" and well doesn't that just throw a wrench into everything.

Thankfully, he'd been reassured that he needn't take full office just yet. He had the stupid crown and the stupid ring and the less stupid authority, but it seemed the Zone bigwigs were willing to let him pursue his human interests and life first, thank the Ancients. Plus, you know, being able to declare Amity Park under the Ghost King's protection had proved to be a much better deterrent than just him playing superhero.

And somehow, among all that chaos, he'd actually managed to get into a decent college, somewhere about as far from Illinois as he could manage. He could actually start to do something towards his dream of becoming an astronaut, and he didn't have to put up with his parents and their ghost hunting 24/7. Sure, Sam and Tucker aren't here - they'd each ended up at different universities, but they were getting to chase their dreams too, and as long as Danny has their group chat he thinks he can manage just fine.

Mostly, he's spent this first week being high on just being somewhere where nobody knows either him OR Phantom. No one knows how crazy his parents are, nobody's debating whether the local ghost boy is good or evil, he's Just Some Guy, and sure, he's some guy with ghost powers, but no one has to know that. He's got a pretty cool roommate - obviously, anybody nicknamed after a constellation is immediately cool in Danny's eyes - who also seems to be Just Some Guy, and Danny entirely plans on Just Some Guying his way through his entire college education.

He's doing a pretty good job of coming off as normal so far, he thinks. He's definitely gotten better at excuses, for one. It's always chilly by his end of the dorm? Must be a draft, but it's fine, he likes colder temperatures anyway. The locked medicine box in the minifridge, full of packets of ectoplasm since this place isn't as full of the stuff as home? He's got meds he has to take regularly, and it's really hard to get a refill if they get stolen, you know how it is. Accidentally jumpscared someone by making zero noise while approaching? Haha whoops, yeah he doesn't make a lot of sound when he walks people tell him that all the time! Wasn't intentional, promise. The white streak in his hair? Runs in the family, but hey, at least it looks kind of cool, right?

He did not account for hyperfocusing on his textbook so hard that he started floating. With a faint greenish-white glow around him. Nor has he really clocked that he's doing it yet.]

'Sup.

[He just lifts a hand in a short wave, not even looking up.]

Thirty-six… It’s only thirty-six, right?

[Dipper looks at his watch while dragging his free hand through his hair. He …well, Dipper always looks tired and very frequently goes without sleeping, this is something Danny would have picked up on quickly the longer they’re roomates.]

Hallucinations are a new sleep deprivation symptom at Thirty-six, I’m not even close to shirt-eating territory.

Thirty-six is too long dude, I keep telling you! What're you seeing now, dancing ele-

[And that's when Danny looks up, and realizes the ceiling is an awful lot closer than it should be, glow in the dark stars that he stuck up there in an accurate starmap included. (Honestly, it's amazing Dipper didn't catch him floating while doing that first.)

He immediately just drops out of the air and back onto the couch.]

...phants? [Yeah that last syllable was rather sheepish.]

Hm.

[So, Danny was conscious of it. This was not a surprising floating situation for him. He was speaking back to him so probably not a hallucenation, either. Oh, so was that how he got the stars up there without a ladder?]

[Dipper squints, and then walks over to the couch, giving him a scrutinizing once over.]

Find any strange cursed artifacts, lately? Steal from any witches?

[This ...probably sounds like an absolutely insane line of thought from his Statistics major/production minor roomate of whom he has not known very long. Doesn't seem like a joke, either, he is looking at him pretty serious.]

No way, cursed artifacts are absolutely not worth it, trust me.

[And of course, Danny's knee jerk reaction is to banter back. Wait, he's just digging himself into a bigger hole, isn't he. Uhhh. Think fast, dammit!]

Buuuut I don't see what that has to do with your chronic lack of sleep. Weren't we just talking about you hallucinating things floating?

[Nailed it. But also, yeah, this IS the last guy he'd expect to suddenly go paranormal investigator on him. So maybe he's squinting at Dipper right back, just a little.]

Like I said, it takes 50+ hours at least to push me into hallucinating. Usually. Don't change the subject, dude.

[And to punctuate that he, does a strange gesture with his hand. He waves it like he's trying to make something appear. When nothing happens, he seems satisfied and walks over grabbing the redbull he was after earlier from the minifridge. He cracks it open and sips it, giving Danny a slow, thoughtful expression.]

So, is it magic? Pixie dust? Or scientific. You from outter space, man? Is that why you want to join NASA so bad?

HA! I wish! Nah, I'm just your usual guy-who's-been-obsessed-with-space-since-he-was-five. Meanwhile, you're trying to do...

[Danny mimics the weird hand gesture Dipper just did, and with startling accuracy. If there's a faint green glow trailing off his hand in the process, no there isn't.]

...magic, or something? Seriously, Dipper, go take a nap. I'll hide all the red bulls if I have to.

[Maybe if he can get Dipper to sleep, he can convince him it was a dream later. That threat isn't empty either - it's already become apparent that Danny is insanely good at hiding things. Mostly because he just phases them into the middle of the wall, but hey, it works!]

[He takes another loud sip just to be petty but he will slide that can back into the fridge. He sees what's happening here. Danny is both messing with him but also trying to cover his ass? Which is it actually? Augh, okay he is actually pretty tired for once.]

[He'll play along for now. He can play the long game, don't worry. He narrows his eyes before suddenly he yawns.]

...Fine. Fine, I'll concede for now, but only because the paper isn't due until next week.

[He waves a hand, dismissively.]

If I don't wake up until tomorrow night, don't worry, I'm probably not dead.

No worries, I'd know if you were!

[Danny turns back to his textbook, waving goodbye briefly.

Hmmm. Actually, this is kind of fun. He really, really shouldn't reveal his powers at college, but... he also didn't expect Dipper to be this invested. So, maybe the question now is... how far can he push it and to what degree will Dipper think he's seeing things versus actually suspecting him?

He waits until he's pretty sure he's just in Dipper's peripheral vision - and then abruptly turns invisible.]

[What the fuck.]

[Okay, yeah, maybe he really should get some sleep. He knows he didn't hallucenate that whole conversation. Something fucking nuts was going on but he really is too tired to address it right now.]

[You win this time Fenton, but mark his words. Af-]

[THWACK, Dipper slams his entire face into his bedroom door frame.]

I'm okay!

[Yeah, he just. Just slips into his room as quietly as possible. That didn't happen. Good fucking night (its 2 pm).]

[It's really too bad that Dipper didn't pay enough attention to notice that even though Danny is invisible, he's still making a dent on the couch cushion.

Oh, and a faintly echoing cackle might drift through the dorm, because there's no way he can help laughing at that.]

[Dipper goes to sleep, and as he warned, he is out for sometime after taking his meds. The sleep itself is nothing to write home about. The same muffled dark nightmares that he just barely can’t recall now thanks to his medication. Not great but much better than the active night terrors he used to get.]

[when he comes around he thinks about that interaction with his roomate. He’s not stupid, he is pretty damn certain that wasn’t a dream or hallucination, since he went through the steps to test that while they were talking. Danny seems to have no plans of explaining and was going so far to mess with him over it.]

[To Dipper, that was a challenge.]

[After doing some research on Danny’s name, comes away with some interesting leads and thinks back to what he saw.]

[Okay, two could play that game.]

[Dipper finally emerges from his room a full 18 hours later to riffle through the fridge.]

[Well, what do you know - all the redbulls are gone.

Danny's not still out here, this time. In the time it's taken Dipper to reemerge, he's gone to a few classes - most of his are scheduled later in the day or at night - come back, ate something, chatted with Sam and Tucker, worked on an assignment, showered, and gone to bed himself.

Oh, and hidden all the energy drinks in the walls. That too. Don't worry, he put ghost ice around them so they'll still be cold when he eventually puts them back! Although Dipper might wonder why parts of the walls feel weirdly cold now.]

[...]

[Right so, he is pretty sure no court would convict him if he found a way to kill his roomate. Stan would help him hide the body, he's pretty sure.]

[Ugh, okay, fine, he'll go to the coffee pot and make coffee. Or- well. He will in a sec. Is there Danny's weird ecto-capri suns still in the fridge? Because if so he sure wants to look at them.]

[There sure are! The lockbox is on a different shelf than Dipper last saw - between drink pranks and dinner, Danny has recently used one. Alas, he has not forgotten to relock it. Although... it's not weird Fenton tech or anything, it's a pretty simple lockbox. Probably not too hard to open if you were really determined, or knew how to pick simple locks.

Alternately, Danny is really, really bad about leaving dishes in his room, and since he hasn't appeared yet, he's probably fast asleep. Seeing if he left the used packet out or anything might be an avenue of investigation as well.]

[Not only can Dipper pop the lock on that thing, but he will. It's only fair after Danny hid his redbulls, he thinks. He pulls apart a paperclip and gets to work. Having an uncle like Stan really comes in handy for crime, you know.]

[Provided nothing goes awry there, he will snatch one of those and squirrel it away in his room to do some analysis on it.]

[Yeah, no problem, it's very easy to pick. Dipper has obtained one(1) silver foil packet of some kind of mysterious ooze!

...and Danny is none the wiser. Well, he's asleep, and even if he knows Dipper suspects something's up, he thinks the guy is cool. He's not, you know, expecting him to steal some of the stuff that Danny claims are important meds.

Either way, it's going to be very obvious very quickly that something is fucky with said "meds." There probably aren't any real medications that glow neon green, for example. Hell, Dipper's raised the dead and talked to ghosts before - he might even recognize ectoplasm, even if he hasn't seen it in a purified state before. Or if he didn't know it's possible to treat certain metals to contain it, like this foil packet.]

[Look, he's going to be careful about this. He's a(n occult) scientist. He doesn't want to break the seal initially so if there's a way to get a little sample without doing so, he will. However, if not, he might actually hunt down a used one instead. Clearly it's not a hazmat situation if Danny just leaves them around afterwards.]

[But yeah, he can tell it's ectoplasm pretty quick. Not only has he raised the dead and talked to ghosts, he's done many exorcisms in the last several years, which is why his minor is in production to begin with.]

[So floating, turning invisible, and eating ectoplasm. It all points to a very strange ghostly existance. which is ...pretty weird! Because Danny is clearly not Full Ghost. He goes to school. He's solid! Most of the time. It all gets more and more curious.]

[So, Dipper decides to test something. He's going to play a little prank on his roomate.]

[He's going to set up a spirit containment circle in the kitchen and see if it contains him. Nothing dangerous, something that, if it works, will make him hit invisible glass like a drunk mime.]

[It's a clever idea, especially because Danny is not a morning person. Or a just woke up person, regardless of time of day. He has a habit of dragging himself through the kitchen like a zombie before he gets food and caffeine in him, and the next morning/day is no exception.

Save, of course, that as he attempts to approach the fridge he runs smack into some kind of invisible barrier. He stumbles backwards a step or two, blinks several times, and tries again. Whap. Nope. Danny feels around in front of him as he pulls back once more, hands finding solid resistance in thin air.]

...Bwuh?

[Yeah that's about as far as his brain is getting right now.]

Oh, hey man.

[Dipper looks up from whatever book he's reading and doing work out of to give Danny a ...smile. It seems pleasant but there is something deeply unhinged about it. Like he just proved the existence of big foot and the nay-sayer is in front of him and also the bigfoot.]

Don't mind that, just put down an anti-spirit barrier since it seemed like we were having a weird ghost problem earlier. Did you need to get into the kitchen?

Edited 2024-08-25 03:45 (UTC)

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3/5 sorry it keeps going

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done

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