Chapter Text
Danny groaned and curled up in a ball, very suddenly awake. His head hurt, his leg sparkled sharp and painful, and he felt oddly sticky. “Ow, ow, ow, ow,” he hissed, a few swear words working their way through his teeth as he kicked his brain into trying to think through what was going on.
His eyes crept open, studying his surroundings. Dark. Quiet. Bars.
Bars?
His eyes opened just a touch more, turning his head. Bars on all sides. He was in a cage.
Memory flooded back into his brain - of the school bell ringing, of walking through the park with Sam, of cold rushing down his back, of an unfortunately successful ambush by the ghost world’s most annoying hunter. “Damn it, Skulker,” he whispered.
Having determined himself to be alone in the room full of cages, Danny sat up and slowly pushed fingers through his hair, searching for the source of the pain. It was from right over his left ear, a dull throbbing that was definitely sore, but no blood. Head trauma. Something that would heal with time, nothing to be done about it for now.
He turned his attention to his leg, noting with a frown all the glowing blood smeared across the bottom of the cage. He poked and prodded at his leg, locating the worst of the damage: a huge slash down the side of his right leg. Almost as long as his fingers could spread, it was already mostly sealed over - thank Clockwork for not being knocked out until he was in ghost form. In human form, the blood loss would have killed him.
The fact that a slash that big was almost sealed over made him wrinkle his nose. That had to have taken hours and hours. Perhaps overnight. He’d been out a long time.
He sighed. “I was having such a good day, too.”
Although the cage wasn’t big enough to stand up in, he tried putting his foot on the ground and putting weight on his leg. Would he be able to stand once he’d gotten out of the cage? The pain sharpened, making him gasp and collapse. “Nope, nope, nope,” he whispered. “Ow, ow, ow, ow, don’t do that again.”
Blood started to ooze from the gash again. He’d broken open the scab.
With a scowl, he pushed and pulled himself, maneuvering until he was leaning up against the door. From the fizzy feeling against his skin, knew they wouldn’t be something he could phase through. He’d have to find a different way out. He reached a hand out through the bars to pull at the padlock, studying it. It was the same type of padlock Skulker always used for locking his cages closed. The tiniest of smiles curled the corner of Danny’s lips.
It wasn’t quite true that ghosts couldn’t learn. Skulker had learned new hunting techniques over the last eighteen months. Skulker had learned to keep Danny in human-proof cages. But ghosts learned so very slowly, and struggled with putting together facts they couldn’t see. Skulker knew Danny could get out of his cages - but, never having witnessed Danny perform the feat, couldn’t figure out how. And so he kept doing the same thing over and over.
Danny squirmed and moved around, digging a little box out of one of his pockets. Sam had gotten it for him for Christmas last year, along with lessons as to how to use it. Lock-picking was a skill Danny had assumed would be difficult, but it turned out to be hilariously easy, if a bit time consuming. Danny made sure he kept the kit with him.
It took longer than he’d hoped to open the lock. The pain from his leg kept distracting him and the hit he’d taken to his head was making it hard to focus. But he eventually placed all four of the tumblers, gave them a twist, and the lock fell open.
He grinned, short and sharp, and worked the lock back through the rings on the cage, catching it before it could hit the ground. “Screw you, Skulker,” he whispered, pushing open the cage door and floating himself out, putting the lock into his pocket. He was careful to keep his leg from hitting the ground - even the smallest movements sent sharp shards into his mind. “I’m keeping this as a souvenir.”
Just before he was going to leave, Danny heard a sound from the corner. He tensed, instantly assuming Skulker had been hiding. The glow around Danny kicked up a notch with his anxiety, and he twisted around.
Nothing?
His hands came back down, letting the tenseness fade away. He floated forwards a few steps, noticing a cage far into the darkest corner of the room. There was the faintest glow coming from inside - it was almost like the afterglow of looking at a bright light for a moment too long. Too faint to be a ghost in any reasonable shape. “Hello?” he whispered.
“Mind if I borrow your lock pick set? I lost mine.”
Danny hesitated. The voice was very… human? And didn’t sound at all in pain or sick. The scratchy voice was also not bothering to whisper. “Who are you?” Danny asked, floating closer.
“I’m me, obviously.”
“Helpful,” Danny muttered, drawing up just close enough that if something were to lunge and reach through the cage, it wouldn’t be able to grab him. An odd scent tinged the air, making Danny’s nose wrinkle. He held up a hand, palm towards the thing in the cage, and upped the power flowing through his hand. The glow kicked up and, like a flashlight, illuminated the contents of the cage.
It was a human male, raising a hand to block his eyes from the glow. Red-orange hair raggedly pulled back into a ponytail and a beard that looked hacked short with a knife. Perhaps in his twenties, skinny and tall, and dressed in layers of rags. He had a cloak-looking blanket wrapped around him, and calloused feet wrapped in cloth that left his toes hanging out. Dried, reddish-colored flowers dangled everywhere from his clothes. Danny blinked at the man, startled. “You’re human.”
Teeth glittered as the man smiled - an easy, pleasant smile. At least two of the teeth were missing. “Mostly, anyways.” The scar-covered hand lowered. Eyes that were too bright and green to belong to a human peered at him, blinking against the light. “Lock picks? I’d like to get out of here before the hunter comes back.”
“Skulker’s annoying with his cages,” Danny agreed, lowering his hand and the light. His brain wasn’t working quite right. This… human?… was something like him? …How? “What happened?”
“I was just a tad too slow. Lock?”
Danny glanced over his shoulder, noted the still-quiet room, and settled his body gently back down at the ground. It took a moment for the world to stop spinning from the pain. Then he opened up the little box of picks and started to work on the lock. It was easier from this side, where he could see what he was doing.
“How did it come to be that a ghost knows how to pick a lock?” the human asked.
“This ghost gets hunted a lot. Not the first time I’ve seen the inside of Skulker’s cages,” Danny muttered. “Friend got me the lock pick set.”
“A human lock pit set.”
Danny hummed. “And how did it come to be a human in the ghost zone?” There was a soft click. He twisted and yanked the lock off.Danny floated back up in the air, fighting a wince of pain, and nodded.
“Very long story. Too long for telling inside this lair.” The human pulled himself out of the cage, unwinding his long limbs and stretching upright. From this close, Danny could see the young man was incredibly lean and tall. Too thin. Too tall. Even though Danny was floating, the man’s head was on level with his. Something was off with this human, and it made the hairs on the back of Danny’s neck raise.
This close, Danny could see the dried flowers hanging around his neck were blood blossoms. Before Danny could float backwards and out of the way, the man reached out and clapped Danny on the shoulder, still with that same easy grin. “Thank you for the rescue.”
“Do you…” Danny hesitated, thinking about the fact that the man was a human and they were on a floating island haunted by a hunting ghost, “need a lift? Like, to get somewhere?”
“Away from here would be nice.” The human’s smile faded just a bit. He was studying Danny. “I’m not a flyer. I’d appreciate a lift to… anywhere, really, that’s not right here.”
Danny held out his hand. “You got a name, human?”
The man grabbed his wrist, his fingers burning hot against Danny’s cold skin. “Flynn.”
The feel of the blood blossoms tingled down his arm, an interesting counterpoint to the drums beating against his brain and the stabbing pain in his leg. Danny lifted the human off the ground and took the shortcut through the window, back out into the glowing green of the ghost zone. “Nice to meet you, Flynn. I’m Danny.”