It wasn't often that something ruffled Danny's figurative feathers. Not since he left home shortly after high school in hopes to hide his unusual self and his friends from the prying eyes of his mom and dad.

But their next door neighbor in the well off apartment complex they lived in was pretty darn close to ruffling his, Sam, and even Tucker's feathers. The crotchety old man seemed to have something against all three of them. Sam wasn't lady-like, Tucker was wasting his time with those technological do-dads, and Danny was the bane of his existence. An easy target to insult today's youth because he didn't fight back or argue. If Danny's parents taught him and his sister anything, it was that he should respect his elders…no matter how much they inspire him to bash his head into a wall over and over at the sound of the cane their neighbor beat against his wall on the flip side of their living room wall because they were making too much noise.

So when the day came that the man who owned the apartments, an old friend of his parents called Vlad Masters and who understood his circumstances more than Danny really wanted to admit, informed the three friends and roommates that their neighbor would be moving out by the end of the month to live with their son it was such a happy occasion. Sam, the oldest who turned twenty-one first out of the three bought a bottle of alcohol and the three celebrated until they woke up the next morning, surprisingly without hangovers. But Tucker just assumed it was because of their 'special' circumstance.

It was a nice, peaceful few weeks. And then Sam came trudging in after a morning shift at the book store and flopped down on the couch as Danny cracked open one eye from where he sat on the living room floor. The carpet coated with a thin layer of un-melting frost that felt as good to him as a fall breeze.

His usually vivid blue eyes glowed a bright green.

He sent a questioning hum her way as the young woman unzipped her heavy steel toe boots. She peered down at him with a raised eye brow at the icy landscape the young man was making of their living room floor.

"So, apparently we're getting a new neighbor." She informed. That made Danny's bright green eyes open in surprise. The already bright room not hiding the odd glow present in his eyes.

"What? When, and is it another old guy?" he asked, standing up and watched the ice receded into nothing at his command.

"In a couple weeks apparently. He's around our age too so maybe we'll get along, who knows?" she shrugged. Sitting back, the woman sighed and pulled her feet up into Danny's lap who kindly let them stay there. He opened up the curtains that uncovered a window facing the outside hall and let in some sunlight.

He would admit to it being nice to have a neighbor more close to their age, yet at the same time, he was unwilling to have the peace of having no people living on either side of the three. They lived on the corner of the fifth floor of the well off complex they could only really afford because a large chunk was paid for by Sam, whose grandmother left her everything and all her assets when she passed when she was nineteen. They lived comfortably now because one way or another, with how each of them acted back in their home town, Danny was sure Sam's grandmother had figured out what happened to them in their supernaturally inclined town. Not that it was all that easy to hide. All three of them had a hard time adjusting, each cursed, or gifted if that's how you see it, with their own set of powers that labeled them as strange, other worldly creatures.

It wasn't always like this. Hiding super powers—as Tuck affectionately called them—from their parents and community regularly plagued my haunting, curses, or other supernatural threats due to in no small part to the giant fucking portal to another dimension in his parents basement laboratory. Hoping day in and day out his mom and dad didn't pick up on their slip ups and demand an explanation, or the right to perform experiments as they please.

How his cryokinesis, Sam's ecokinesis, and Tucks technopathy came to be was one experience he hoped they never had to go through again. And to put it simply, the second they graduated, the three ran off, forgoing their plans for continuing their schooling at universities their parents would have paid for, to simply pulling through the local community college so as to be far away from anybody in Amity Park and their worst nightmares.

Danny leaned his neck down to the top of the couch headrest and sighed, staring up at the ceiling as the green faded from his eyes with each blink to turn into that bright, other worldly ice blue they had been for a long, long time and his hair darkened in the absence of color into the black bed head that he could never brush neat.

Sam seemed to pick up on his less than pleased mood at the news and tapped his thigh with the heel of her foot to gain his attention. Her calm purple eyes caught his.

"Everything will be fine Danny, it's not like it's going to be someone from Amity. No one knows us here…or what we can do." The dark haired woman murmured, looking off to her growing collection of plants out on the balcony on the other side of the living room. The greens of the leaves and ferns were glossy and healthy even though it was the middle of a ridiculously hot heat wave. The blooms on the summer perennials bight and vivid and popping against the green hues of their leaves; vines of ivy had spread along the entire iron fence that kept people from falling down the five story drop. There was no real indication of where the ivy particularly ended, or even where it began. Almost, as if not really meant to be seen, the leaves and ferns and ivy shuddered to the will and emotion hidden deep within amethyst eyes.

…At least she hoped their luck wasn't so bad.

Their luck wasn't bad.

No…it was horrendous.

Danny stared up at the figure across from him, his keys dangled loosely from his weakening grasp as he slowly felt the familiar, unwanted feeling of ice numbing his fingers and sticking them to the door knob gripped in his other hand.

The dark haired young man wanted to throw the door to the apartment back open and dive in, only to barricade himself inside and never come out to the light of day again. A lump formed in his throat and ghost pains from his neck to his gut tormented him as he tried everything in his power not to scream at just how messed up his life was right now.

How did this happen? Was God really this much of an ass? What had he or either of his friends done to deserve the powerful back hand to life that was having Dash fucking Baxter as their new next door neighbor?

Similarly, the tan, reasonably handsome face of Dash Baxter, his high school bully stared back down at him, slack jawed with the color draining from his face.

Danny hadn't seen Dash or anyone from his hometown since the day after graduation when the trio—who had gotten the help from his older sister, who was in the know—secretly packed up all their belongings and got the hell out of dodge before any of their parents were none the wiser.

Dash was older now. Twenty now if going by his and Tucker's age, he still had that tall, broad shouldered quarterback build to him. However, he grew out of his bulkiness; was still broad shouldered but his waist wasn't as narrow, he apparently learned not to skip leg day and he could see the outline of his abdominals through the clinging fabric of his shirt.

Dash's jaw was still strong and square where his was narrow, rounded, made him appear younger than he was. Sam called his appearance childish.

Danny called it two middle fingers on him for being condemned to never looking as manly as he wished he did…what with all the fighting he did back in Amity Park….

A loud 'thunk' broke Danny out of his branching thoughts, causing him to flinch self-consciously. He almost expected the sound to be followed by an angry, familiar shout of 'Fenton!' before a painful beat down. Yet, when both he and Dash looked down at the new residences feet, there was a box, whose corner had landed on Dash's toe after dropping it in his surprise.

The dark haired man was the first to recover then and yanked his hand off of the door knob as he fiddled with the keys, completely forgetting to lock the door like he had planned until the rude fucking awakening that was his past coming to punch him in the face.

Danny couldn't deal with this.

He bolted right passed the blond bully, eyes wide and frantic muttering no no no in quick succession; ignoring the shout from down the hall for him to wait. But Danny didn't want to. He didn't want to deal with Dash Baxter, or Amity Park, or what he and his friends did there, or the events leading up to it all.

He just wanted to hide.

The following week was hell. It was like every time one of the trio were leaving the apartment they ran into Dash. His hard set eyes eying them, like it was odd to see one of them after spending most of their lives in the same grade, or like they were entirely different people.

Whatever the reason, he apparently had this burning need to open his mouth to say something to them. Where did you go after high school? Have you guys been here this whole time? Your parents freaked when they found you left! What have you been doing? And of course…why did you all just disappear like that?

Sam usually shot him down pretty quickly and Tucker just laughed awkwardly before catapulting out of the nearest door. With Danny however, He seemed to try folding back into old habits.

The first time he grabbed his bicep in an attempt to pull him back into a wall Danny had twisted his wrist on reflex. Too much strength was added and he could practically hear the jocks bones creak. Dash had made a surprised gasp at the sheer power and skill behind Danny's defensive maneuver that Danny immediately let go and apologized. His pale hands had hovered over Dash as if the towering man would break under his touch before he realized who he was worried over and apologized once more before running away like a bat out of hell.

Dash stopped trying to talk to them for a while after that. When the two young men would find themselves in the hall of the complex at the same time there would, of course, be an awkward silence. Danny, avoiding all eye contact, feeling Dash's dark blue eyes one him. It was nerve wracking. And sometimes, he was surprised no one else they knew from Amity Park showed up, because surely Dash wouldn't have kept this secret from his friends.

Danny and his friends knew exactly what kind of disappearance they made; they knew exactly what kind of effect their choice to run away from everything would have on his sister, Sam's grandmother, and all their parents. They were the three teenagers that were granted the least amount of attention in town, the three no one particularly expected a lot out of due to their nature as outcasts. And suddenly, they were gone. The police could not find them and the last person to see them well, Jazz Fenton, would not speak. They had asked her, to tell their parents they were fine, not to worry, but not about where they were or how to contact them.

Danny didn't need the questions from his parents, couldn't even try to bring himself to think about what the truth would make him in their eyes. A freak, a monster…a son who had to die before he could really live.

Sam had to go, their environment was stifling her, her parents suffocating her with expectations and a lack of understanding what it was she held dear. Her powers, she knew would be the breaking point in her family's relationship if they found out. Everything in Sam's life had already been decided for her and she had had enough. It was time to move on and she wouldn't have it any other way without her two boys.

Tucker simply couldn't put his parents through any of the weird adventures the trio got themselves in after the incident. He didn't want them to worry, and wherever his friends went, he did too. Simple as that.

They all had their reasons for cutting their ties, kicking up a storm in their hometown, and essentially going missing. They also know that if they were ever found that no one would understand.

And the trio excepted that, their fate, their powers, and their new lives as strange creatures that were no longer alive, but not dead either.

They weren't too sure anyone but Jazz would ever accept them, she was there after all.

Eventually, life went back to how it was before Dash moved in next door. They had grown use to his presence. They still didn't talk to him, and Danny could see the frustration in the blonds' eyes at that, but it was better than nothing.

It was a late night one weekend, Sam and Tuckers day's off coincided with his own, so the trio decided to do a little investigating.

"Where were the rumors saying the spirit was located?" Sam asked again as they walked down the illuminated streets of the trendy downtown they lived a few blocks from. The streets were busy with locals enjoying the opening bars and nightlife that attracted the trio to this town in the first place.

It had this sort of unfamiliar energy to it that was unlike the lazy Saturday nights where the teenagers would flock to the warehouse district for a local band or the adults would hit the few bars in town to knock a few back in Amity. This place has a collection of bars, or clubs, there were events every month and to Sam's delight, a sprawling goth community. It was this community and their attraction to the spiritual side of their world that got them the most rumors about haunted locations in town, or hot spots for strange activity.

And it was their job to find those spirits and help them. Help them to move on, or to accept their fate, or gift, or what they must protect. It was the least that they could do know that they could see them, that they essentially became one themselves.

Tucker swiped his thumb over his smart phone, Danny and Sam waited as they geek scanned the map and waved his free hand in a general direction.

"Passed the cemetery on Heather street, there's an old house. It's being converted into a safe house for troubled teens but the locals don't want it touched with a ten foot pole."

"Lemme guess," Danny rolled his eyes. "Weird things are happening; they hear voices or feel someone touching them in the old house."

"Pretty much, dude." The dark skinned man shrugged.

"Got to admit, sounds a hell of a lot easier than the shit we dealt with back home." Sam stuffed her hands in her pockets as they waited to cross the street with several other locals.

"Dude, everything was harder in Amity, portals to the land of the dead usually make shit harder." Tucker snarked. "I'm just happy the only curse we've had to deal with was no another murderous, stalking doll, but a ghost that followed that one guy everywhere."

"Why do people insist on playing games where the prize is a ghost following you where ever you go?" Danny sighed.

None of them really had an answer so they just walked across the street with the rest of the crowd.

Sometimes, Dash looks back on his life and the only thing he can really say about it is 'god, I was such an asshole'. He couldn't really fix that image of him. Not anymore at least. 'Dash the Asshole' was know the only thing he would ever be seen as in Amity Park and with the separation of his father in his life, with more time spent with his mother and estranged sister, that just wasn't who he wanted to be anymore by the time graduation had rolled around.

His mom had understood it. His sister helped him. She lived just out of the city in this one town that she said was just perfect for him to make a new start, a place where no one knew 'Dash the Asshole' and he could start from the ground up to build himself into the person he wanted to be, take the classes he wanted in the state university or community college.

He and his mom loved the idea, they worked on it for weeks, finding the best apartment for him in the best location, close enough to take a bus to his sisters' neighborhood, but close enough to walk downtown where the locals liked to hang.

Everything was set on the day of graduation and as he handed out his number and new address to Kwan and Paulina, the only two friends he thought was worth keeping in touch with he couldn't help but notice one very odd occurrence.

Despite the fact that this had to be the greatest moment of their lives, the greatest wish of their parents, three particular people stood out amongst the crowd of graduating seniors as quite and subdued. They still hugged their parents, took pictures with people that asked, and yeah, maybe Dash wasn't the best to really speck of it. But to him, the murmured whispers amongst Danny Fenton and his friends and older sister was weird. Their smiles tight, their actions stiff.

Something had been up that day, but really, it was none of his business, Dash wasn't their friend, they hated him, and he was sure they wouldn't take kindly to the bully that tormented Danny on a regular bases asking questions.

And then they disappeared.

The whole town was in an uproar as their graduating class were all rearing up for life after high school. It was on the news; people drove by Fenton Works and saw police cars. Jazz Fenton was arrested for a short time for withholding evidence and her witness testimony on where her brother and his friends had disappeared to. Her parents bailed her out of course. And no one was quite sure what she said to the police to get them off her back and treat her like some kind of suspect. But the fact was that within the span of a night, the biggest losers of their town got everyone's attention and people feared they had died in some freak accident or something.

If Dash was being honest, it was kind of scary. People saw Maddie Fenton crying in her husband's arms and missing posters, pleading for their son and his friends to come home were handed out all the way to the next town over.

But no contact was made and eventually after the case went totally cold, Dash had left for his road trip to his new home in another town entirely to start his new life.

And then Danny fucking Fenton appeared outside the apartment next door looking for all intents and purposes like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

He had looked up at him with such big, bright blue eyes that his voice caught in his throat with the sudden realization that oh god he's here, he's not hurt, he looks the same as the day he left, and why why why did he suddenly miss him?

And then Dash dropped the glass plates on his toe and the dark haired man bolted.

Sam Manson and Tucker Foley were living with them, they were all together, all safe and alive and he didn't understand why none of them contacted their parents. He tried talking to them, tried reaching out, but they each ran away from them, Foley literally jumping out an open window on the first floor front office.

Danny's reaction to him was the worst. Of course it was the worst, because if anyone deserved to almost break his wrist it was him.