Happy Birthday, Dan

Empty Graves for Empty Souls

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaamn Daniel, back at it again with destroying your humanity and murdering 90% of the world.

God that meme is so old I apologize profusely

Take some angsty Grandma Manson to celebrate the birth of le Danimal heh. By the way, I headcanon Ida as Russian, but considering that the one non-English word she says is babushka (бабушка, meaning grandmother) and that can be either Russian or Polish, there's always the possibility that I'm wrong. Translations are on the bottom.

OHOHO and I forgot to tell you guys that I am so frickin' prepared for Halloween and Ectober. You know what this means? :D ANGSTY HORROR ONESHOTS EVERY DAY (or week) MY FRIENDS

Danny Phantom (heavy sigh) doesn't belong to me. This fic can be taken as a Dan fic or a relating-to-origin fic, whatever you'd like to imagine.

Happy birthday Dan :)

-mono

xxxx

Ida Manson, to be with the slang nowadays, "knew what's up".

Yes, she was an old woman now and her days of speeding down Road 66 were over, but she kept up with the times; she frequently checked her Twitter (1.4K followers do not fight her), ordered Starbucks delivered to the mansion every other day or so, and knew that the things that go bump in the night in Sam's room was just that thin Danny Fenton boy getting bandaged and stitched up.

Ida would sometimes overhear the calls that Sam would take when she thought that nobody except her (possibly) deaf grandmother and a couple of maids, and had gathered a couple things. Her внучка frequently helped her boyfriend (Ida had agreed with Tucker at this point that Sam and Danny were beating around the bush for too long) hunt ghosts, and Danny himself was a ghost (or half? Somehow he turned into a ghost. The little trio kept referring to "the accident", which she still wasn't entirely sure what it was). Sam always kept an ecto-dagger in the sole of her boot, and sometimes filled in for Danny or Tucker whether it be in homework, excuses, or literally dressing up as them.

Ida tried to help sometimes in little ways; she would always "accidentally" do something to distract Pamela and Jeremy to let Sam slip out of the house, or shove a couple towels under Sam's door to muffle the noises Danny would fail to stifle when getting antiseptic sprayed on his wounds. She would hint that her внучка should do what's right and do what she believes in when Sam came home distraught and unfocused, and helped complete a couple problems on her trigonometry homework when Sam fell asleep at the desk. Ida knew that getting directly involved with Sam's ghost hunting would do more hurt than help, so it was the little things that counted. But Sam confided in Ida sometimes, whether it be a snipe to her parents or a shitty something at school, and there was an unspoken truce of secrecy between them.

One day, Sam came into the library crying.

Ida's confident smirk immediately fell into a concerned look. Her внучка rarely cried, if ever. The last time a tear was shed from Sam's eyes was when they made the mistake of watching Marley and Me.

"Иди́ сюда́, внучка*," Ida called, and Sam sniffled and hugged her tightly. Ida stroked her hair and whispered soft comforts into her ear. "What happened? Did someone hurt you?"

Sam shook her head. "I'm fine, бабушка."

"Nobody comes into a study with tears in their eyes, Sammy. I'm used to you entering a room with a fierce fire in your eyes. What's dimmed it?"

Sam tried to blink away her tears.

Ida raised an eyebrow. "Was it that Danny? Now, I can tell you that I can make feet bleed when I run my scooter past them-"

Her внучка laughed and shook her head. "No, Grandma. I mean...it is about Danny, and Tucker, but I just sort of...I needed to look away from the picture for a moment," she said. "Do you know how people change when their loved ones die?"

And in a broken half-truth, Sam told her about an evil man named Dan, who could feel nothing but rage and was the kind of guy who'd have his driver's license next to a Wikipedia list of "men who'd like to see the world burn".

Ida knew that Sam wasn't completely telling her everything; then again, as far as Sam knew, only she and her friends knew of their ghost hunting and Danny being a ghost. Ida knew just a tad more than others.

Just a tad.

xxxx

Danny wasn't expecting to see her in the cemetery.

He came by once in a while; maybe it was because people tended to forget to acknowledge to the dead who weren't ghosts, or that his ghost half was developing and longing towards more deathly places. Or that Circus Gothika stuff rubbed onto him more than he thought. Who knew.

But to see Sam's grandma laying flowers next to a lone tree? Strange.

The hell was he saying, everything in Amity Park was strange.

A thick, cold wind rose goosebumps from his skin. Maybe she was visiting her late husband. Danny had never seen Sam's grandpa, so it was always a possibility.

Ah, well. It was awkward standing here by himself with Leonardo Marloski and family sleeping six feet under right next to him. Might as well join her.

Danny rubbed at his arm to try to gain some warmth, walking up the hill and approaching the old woman. "Hey, Miss Ida. Long time no see."

Ida turned towards him with a smile creasing her face. "Hello, Danny," she replied.

"What brings you here?"

She chuckled softly. "Oh, you know. Paying my respects."

Danny squatted next to her. "Not to be rude, but who's the lucky soul?"

"Didn't you know?" Ida said. "Today was the day Danny Fenton died."

xxxx

*"Come here, granddaughter,"