Seeing Double

Rebound - Part 3

He was swimming with the stars.

That's how Phantom liked to view it, anyway. Though he knew he'd have to at least clear the Earth's atmosphere in order to really fly beside stars.

And he wondered, how close could he get to the sun? Would he melt at some point?

Though it was made of ectoplasm, malleable and gooey, Phantom did have a body.

Could he die a second time?

He wasn't even sure if the first time counted, since his body just sort of walked off without him and all.

What Phantom hated the most about this whole situation was being alone at night. Especially since he had nothing to tell time with. No watch, no giant clock tower. Somebody ought to write a letter of complaint to Amity's mayor and demand a big clock tower.

He wanted it to look like the one in Back to the Future.

So anyway, when the sun went down Phantom just... waited for it to come back up. That's all he could do.

He was alone all night, usually.

This time he'd tried to stick with Johnny (it's just nice having someone to talk to okay?) But then Johnny ditched him for a date with Kitty.

That was hours ago.

Now he was flying over a store, watching men in uniforms unload a bunch of boxes.

If he went in there after the employees had gone would be find the box ghost making a mess?

Phantom was debating whether or not the box ghost counted as company (he only ever repeated, like, three sentences) when his Fenton Phones beeped.

He'd been patched in with someone.

"Hey!" Phantom said. "What's up?"

He heard Tucker sigh, "Dude. Ugh."

Phantom flew past the store and landed on the roof of the public library. Feet firmly on the ground, he began to pace.

"Wanna talk about it?" Phantom swung his arms back and forth as he paced. He could pretend he was a regular person on the phone with a regular friend, this way.

Er, with a regular Bluetooth headset type thing.

"I feel like something's going on between Sam and Danny," Tucker said. "But they don't tell me shit."

Phantom stopped pacing. "Are they still mad about the kiss?"

Very dramatically (probably over exaggerating his surprise, in Tucker fashion) Tucker gasped.

"I knew it," he said. "Fuck, I always knew it was inevitable. Now I'm screwed."

"What?" Phantom said.

"You know," Tucker said. "The third wheel. The cock block. The-"

"Wait, wait, wait," Phantom said. "Fenton and Sam? No, they didn't kiss."

There was a pause. Then, "Wait, why would they be mad?"

Phantom didn't know where to start. With the amulet that turned them both into fire breathing dragons? With Ember and her weird love song?

Tucker filled the silence with his own theories. "Does it involve Paulina?"

Oh, right. Phantom had almost forgotten about that. Fenton had been pissed about that kiss too. Did he tell Sam about it?

"Uh, well, Paulina kind of has a crush on me," Phantom said. "I went to her place once-"

Another gasp. "Why doesn't anyone tell me anything?!"

"I don't know, Tuck," Phantom said. "Why did my parents build a force field that locks me out of my house?"

"Oh, the bittersweet irony," Tucker said. "You can fly right into Paulina's house without needing to sneak past her hulk of a father, but you can't walk through your own front door. Sad, lustful times, that."

Phantom wished there was something on this rooftop he could kick. "Whatever."

He let himself sink through the floor and landed on the fourth floor of the library.

He halfheartedly kicked into one of the shelves.

"But they were acting so awkward," Tucker said. "I was like 'why did you guys even invite me over?' They were avoiding eye contact and-"

"What? Are you saying they're dating now?" The kick had just sort of pushed the books deeper into the shelf.

Feeling stupid, Phantom grabbed the books and pulled them back forward.

"Maybe they are!" Tucker said. "Maybe they're secretly dating and just trying to decide when to tell me. Maybe they were just about to, but then there was also this thing with Dash and Sam hit her head-"

"Dash hurt Sam?!" Phantom stood so fast he went halfway through the ceiling. He took a deep breath and brought himself back down.

Boots firmly on the ground.

Stop being a moonwalker, Johnny had said.

But Phantom was still kind of untethered.

"He pushed her," Tucker said. "Cause she was trying to get Danny out of the locker he'd been shoved in."

"Goddammit!" Phantom said. "Fucking Dash, what the hell is his problem?! It's been years since..."

"Phantom?" Tucker said. "Did the Fenton Phones run out of batteries or something?"

They hadn't. Phantom had forgotten what he was going to say.

Because he was surrounded by a room full of floating books.

"Phantom?"

He just stared at them. Took a deep breath.

They all fell at once, but they'd been at different heights so they didn't reach the ground at the same time.

It was a weird series of thump thump thump as they were reunited with gravity, all landing at different spots. Falling from different heights.

"Are you okay?" Tucker said. "Listen, I should probably go to bed. It's just that I wanted someone to vent to. My other best friends are... well, I don't know what they are."

Phantom frowned. Sam liked him first, hadn't she? But that was because she thought of him as the real Danny Fenton.

Maybe she'd realized he was just... a weirdo ghost clone.

"Phantom?"

"Sorry, Tuck," Phantom said. "I wasn't much help."

"That's okay dude," Tucker said. "I just wish you could have been there too. But we were at Danny's house. So."

"I get it." Phantom was picking up all the books now, trying to figure out where they belonged.

"Let's have a game night this weekend," Tucker said. "Just you and me at my place. See how they like it."

Phantom chuckled. "Are you asking me out on a date?"

Tucker laughed too. "A bro-date, yeah."

"I would be honored."

With that decided, they hung up.

And Phantom was left with a library in chaos. Well, he thought, at least I have something to do until the sun came up.