#Danny goes to comfort this dude who takes one look at him and starts having a panic attack

[stealingyourbones]

Short DPXDC Prompts #201

Danny looks like Willis Todd, Jason’s Dad. The true fucking fear when Jason sees his deadbeat dead dad walk past him. (Danny is like mid to late 30s at this point)

#danny phantom #dc comics #dp x dc #dp x dc prompt #writing prompts #Danny goes to comfort this dude who takes one look at him and starts having a panic attack #but the guy seems to be even more scared that he’s being nice to him and he doesn’t know what to do #like Danny is a kind father figure to Jason #and yet he looks like the man that abused and traumatized him #the conflict #bones prompts

[jvblood]

first encounter

pairing: argyle x gn!reader

word count: 2k

summary: majority wins in a discourse of where to eat, you were the unlucky one to go get the pizza but it doesnt feel the unlucky when you see him at the register

WARNINGS: none, i think : D here is part 2 : )

a/n: i wrote partners last night and this one literally today. Im going out to eat and you bet your bottom dollar that im cooking up the next fic

The thing about you is that you like control. Not in the freaky way, just the way you like to know every outcome and how to find the one where you were positive that you and whoever you were with would be comfortable. Just like how tonight you and a couple of friends were struggling on what to eat. You wanted some chinese take out while the others wanted to get pizza. The four of you sitting in Janet's living room ‘contemplating’ on where to eat. You knew the answer already.  

“The majority votes on pizza.” Janet said. One thing about Janet you always knew is how she always said majority wins. She’s not wrong but honestly it can be annoying. 

“Fine but I get to choose the toppings!” You declare. 

“That’s fine but you have to get toppings for two pies.” Chandler says. The stomach that this guy has is like an empty pit. Not that there’s anything wrong but you seriously consider if he’s ever going to regret those choices. 

“I know, meathead.” You say playfully rolling your eyes.

“Wait, spin the bottle to see who goes to pick it up!” Danny says as he picks up a random coke bottle off the floor. He spins the bottle and it just so happened to land on you. You exclaim in frustration how this was unfair while the other three lay back in comfort. 

“Hey, don’t hate the player, hate the bottle.” Chandler says as if that makes it better. You flip him off as you grab your bag and keys. Soon the other three put cash in the middle of the table and you grab their change. 

“Anything else before I head out?” You ask out. They all shook their head no as they were already chilling watching the TV. 

▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂ 

You arrive at Surfer Boy Pizza and walk into the shop. The smell of oven baked pizza overwhelms your senses and the fast paced workers move as if they were bees in a colony. You see people sitting around waiting for their pizzas but fortunately there was no line. You see the cashier chilling talking to a coworker, his back towards you. You take in how his hair is probably a lot longer than it should be and consider if he’s breaking any health code violations. But he’s not making the pizzas so you should be fine. Right? The coworker makes notice of you coming in so he taps the assumed cashier for him to take your order.

“Welcome to Surfer Boy Pizza! My name is Argyle, how can I be of service to you today!” He greets very enthusiastically, looking down at the register before meeting your eyes. All that confidence he had to greet you suddenly flew out the window. 

“Hi, I was wondering if I can get two pizzas?” You shyly answer back. Something about him made your heart skip a beat. Argyle. That’s what he said his name is. You think about it front to back knowing that ‘Argyle’ is probably the cutest guy you’ve ever seen. 

“Yeah, perfect,” He stutters “ what, uh, toppings?” 

“Oh! Yeah, can I get pepperoni on one and pineapple and ham on the other?” 

“You like pineapple and ham on yours too!” He exclaims.

“Yeah, it’s like a delicacy!” “Oh sweet, dude, me too! Honestly, one of my top favorite toppings for my ‘za.” He says, writing down the order and putting the total through the register. You nod, not knowing if you could be the only one that feels this tension between the two of you. 

“Your total will be $13.96.” Argyle says, waiting nicely for you to take out your wallet. Inside your wallet you fish out for the change only to realize you were two dollars short. Panic starts coursings through your veins as you try to hastily look for any change you could possibly have. You sigh out when you finally come to the realization you have. “Uhm, I hate to ask this but do you think I can come back in to grab two more dollars at home? I’m short a bit.” You shyly look away a bit embarrassed at the fact. 

“Don’t sweat it bro, I got you!” He says waving his hand and grabbing his wallet from his back pocket. 

“No, Argyle, you don’t have to do this.” You say hoping he didn’t have to pay for the rest. 

“It’s just two dollars, dude, no worries.” He calmly says as he puts your cash and his two dollars into the register.  

“Are you sure, I mean I could always come back and get it?” You bargain, really hoping that could come back. 

“Dude, it’s fine. I gotchu, consider this a friendly gesture.” He shrugged it off. You smile and thank him for showing such kindness to you. Something in your stomach feels funny. Were you sick? Do you need to use the restroom? No this wasn’t any guttural instances where you need to be rushed to the nearest toilet. It was butterflies. It feels like shit but feels exhilarating. Little did you know Argyle was feeling the same way. As ironic as it sounds he fell a little bit when you walked through the door but when you mentioned your favorite topping he fell a bit harder. 

You sit and wait for your pizzas considering it won’t be that long. You look around the shop and take it in, before you realize your pizza is already finished. You walk up to the counter and take the pizza from Argyle. You gave him a nod and thank you as you were about to head out. He has this boyish smile that makes you have goosebumps. Trying to play it off as casually as possible you balance the two pizzas into one hand to open your car door and slap the back of your neck for acting so awkward. You’re silently cursing at yourself for thinking you look like a fool back there and Argyle watched the whole thing happen. He couldn’t help himself; he was really enthralled with you. Yet, he had work to do and take the next customer's order. 

▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂ 

It’s been a couple days since you went to the pizza shop and once again your friends are figuring out somewhere to eat. The four of you are in Chandler’s car trying to come up with a plan on wear to pig out for the evening. “How about pizza?” You ask hoping someone will say yes. “Oh, hell yeah.” Chandler says as he puts the car in drive heading to the place you dreamed of. “Just make sure we have enough money, yeah? Argyle was lucky enough to spend his own money to pay off the rest.” You say as you begin looking through your own wallet to see what you have from this week's allowance. 

“Argyle?” Janet asks.

“Yeah, he’s the cashier that was working when I was there.” You mindlessly say as you grab your end of change. 

“Oh! You mean the guy that you’ve been stalking?” Danny says, turning around in the front seat to look at you. 

“Stalking? Stalking! I’m not stalking anyone!” You shout, emphasizing on the ‘anyone’. 

“You’re being defensive–they’re being defensive, aren’t they?” Janet asks the other two as well and they agree and say ‘yup’, ‘duh’.  She pushes you playfully and says, “You need to calm down, it’s okay to have a crush.” 

“I’m not confirming nor denying that statement, so keep your thoughts to yourself.” You huff, crossing your arms and looking out the window. The three all look at you smirking, knowing that they’re right. 

Soon enough, you arrived at the shop. All four of you exited the car and Danny opened the shops door for all of you to head inside. Janet whistles to grab your attention and point to the cashier. It was him. You felt your shoulders relax as you saw him. He was a bit messy with flour on him. Danny and Chandler look at you as if you just asked what two plus two is. The four of you made it to the counter waiting for him to come take your orders. Argyle comes up, breathless, wiping the flour off as much as possible. 

“Hey, dude! Nice to see you again.” He says, failing to get the flour off and just spreading it all over him even more. You giggle at how it just spreads even more and look him in the eyes. After failing to get it off, he gives up and just looks at you, noticing you look at him. His shoulders slumps and he smiles. The other three are just watching in discomfort watching you two interact. The romantic tension is actually causing harm to them. “Yeah, we’d like two pizzas please.” Janet says breaking the tension. Argyle looks at her and nods as he writes it down. 

“Pepperoni and pineapple and ham, again?” Argyle asks as he looks up at you. 

“Uhh–” you shake yourself from your thoughts, “is that alright with you guys?” You ask the others to make sure that was alright. They all agree, taking a mental note on how he remembered the pizza order from the other night. You tell him that’ll be great for the toppings. 

“Anything else?” He asks, looking at you, not intentionally ignoring the others. He just wanted to hear you speak again. 

“Yeah, we’ll get a couple of drinks, thanks.” Chandler says as he pulls out his portion of cash. The other two take out what they have and finally you did as well. “That’ll be $16.46.” He says as he opens the register. You take the rest of the group's cash and see that you have well over enough. You hand the money to Argyle, he grazes his fingers over yours while taking the money. He hands you the change and the receipt as the others find a seat. You thank him and go sit next to your friends. 

“Him? Really?” Danny says, throwing his thumb over his shoulder to point at Argyle.

“Shut up.” “I’m just being real right now, bud.” Danny says, throwing his hands up in defense. 

“Dan’s not wrong,” Chandler says, sneaking a glance at Argyle “ you ended a relationship with that one guy because he was too ‘laid back’ and him! He’s just as laid back– or even more laid back!” 

“Yeah, dude, the two of you just don’t look.” Janet says, trailing on her words as she couldn’t find the right words to say. 

“What? Don’t look like what?” You argue back. 

“All I’m saying is if I saw you and him together, I’d think you’d be his babysitter.” Danny says, taking a sip of his drink. 

“Wow.” You huff out, crossing your arms. “Hey, you said you weren’t confirming or denying if you had a crush on him!” Danny exclaims trying to prove you have no reason to be upset.

“Shut up, Danny. You’re pissing me off.” You scowl as you reach for a pen from your bag. You pull the cap off and write your name and number on the receipt. 

Soon enough, your order is ready and you shoot out of your seat to grab the pizzas. You have two dollars in hand and the receipt with your digits on it, content to give both to Argyle. 

“Here you go.” Argyle breaths out, exhaling the breath he didn’t notice that was stuck in his throat. “And here you go,” You say holding out the note and two dollars “consider this a friendly gesture.” With that you walked back to your friends with pizzas in hand. Argyle looks down at the receipt and two dollars and smiles. He quickly glances up to see you looking back at him and a gesture of a phone, signaling for him to call you.

“Thought you said it wasn’t a crush.” Chandler teases you as he takes the pizza from you, opening a box and stealing a slice. You flick his forehead grabbing a slice from the pineapple and ham box.

#argyle x reader #argyle #argyle fan fic #argyle fan fiction #argyle stranger things #stranger things 4 #stranger things argyle #argyle fluff #argyle x reader fluff #jvblood

[canofspooks]

Phantom Goes Cross-Country (Chapter 1)

Summary: After Danny's life goes downhill, his friends save the day with a roadtrip. Maybe all he needs is to get out of Amity for a while.

Words: 870

AO3 Link

Only a few hours away from Amity Park, and Danny already felt the relief sinking into his bones as he leaned out the window of the car. Without the haze of ectoplasmic mist, he could see dozens more stars dotting the night sky. It was silly, wasn't it? All this time, he could've taken a bus over to the next town and seen just as much of a difference in scenery.

But he hadn't - hence the part where he was getting "kidnapped" by his friends from highschool on an impromptu road trip.

He glanced over at Sam asleep in the back seat. How she managed to pass out in her elaborate outfit was beyond him. It felt like her boots went on forever, only to be continued on by the leather pants that couldn't have been comfortable to sleep in. She had more belts than he thought necessary, and a black tank top adorned with a completely unnecessary amount of chain jewelry.

It was a lazy outfit by Sam's standards, she told him when they first picked him up. Danny's idea of "lazy" involved a t-shirt and shorts - what Sam had rolled up in was mildly motivated at least.

By comparison, he and Tucker were in rags. Tucker was a hipster and wore it on his sleeve, and Danny had rolled out of bed, thrown a hoodie on, and called it a day. It was on-par with what one would expect from a couple of guys in their 20's, and Danny was happy to be a stereotype.

"Is the beanie glued on your head, or…" Danny teased.

Tucker raised an eyebrow. "Says the guy still wearing a hoodie he got in middle school."

"Touché."

With the silence already broken, Tucker's shoulders relaxed. He kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead, and hands grabbing the steering wheel with a death grip, but Danny had seen his friend have the same frightened rabbit posture back when they were first learning to drive. Turns out not much had changed in that time.

"So… what'd you finally decide to do about the ghosts?" Tucker asked.

"I called in a favor with Vlad Masters. He owes me one."

That was a bit of an understatement. What hadn't he done to prepare? With only a couple days' notice about this little reunion trip, Danny had been in overdrive for the last 72 hours. He'd gotten his vacation days in order, done a little mild threatening to make sure his coworkers would actually come to their shifts, called Vlad for the first time in ages to beg the man to keep an eye on Amity, and tipped off the G.I.W. to make sure they'd be on-alert for anything in the next few weeks. And really, he wouldn't be gone long, so what was the worst that could happen?

"Are you still cool with him, or did he go back to being an evil fuck the minute you turned 18?"

Danny leaned back in his seat and looked up at the ceiling. How the hell did they get so many stains on the ceiling of the car, but none on the seats?

"Nah, he's…" and Danny hated to admit this, "he's actually pretty chill now. I think he's just lonely - I should try to hook him up with somebody when I get back, if only so he stops bugging me."

"Bugging you in like a horny way or…?"

"Bugging me in an 'old, weird rich grandma who keeps offering to pay for my top surgery' way. The dude motherhens hard if I drop even a pound. It's fucking annoying. He should get his own kid to worry about."

"I will take one for the team and let Vlad be my sugar daddy, if you won't."

Danny gagged. "Tucker, that is the worst thing you've ever said. I'd rather you joke about my parents."

Between fits of laughter that left him light-headed, Danny realized it didn't hurt as much to mention them. The context was silly, sure, but even jokes always left him with a sour taste in his mouth and a pit in his stomach. Now? Nothing.

Maybe this trip was already starting to do some good.

"Don't tempt me. I've had five years to think of every possible dark joke and I will lay it out on you right now if you're not careful." Tucker warned, shooting a playful glare over at Danny for just a moment. Enough to qualify as "dangerous" in Tucker's eye, probably. That was progress.

"Since when were you such an edgelord?"

"Oh, like I didn't pick up a thing or two from goth-zilla… and Sam."

"Dude, you know I haven't fucked with that stuff since middle school."

"Once a goth-zilla, always a goth-zilla."

"Pull over so I can beat the shit out of you." Danny jiggled the door handle, just to get Tucker worried. Not like he was going to jump out of the moving car. He could - Phantom had done it plenty of times - but Danny was too lazy to fly around right now.

"Whatever, man. I'm not pulling over until we need to fill up on gas. You can fight me at the next gas station."

#danny phantom #spooks reign of terror #yes this is a continuation of the not-quite-ghost zone AU fics #but i'm hoping it's gonna be decent even w/out that context #realized only after posting this that there's still 'campfire' and 'post-reveal' to go #which shed a lot more light on what happened #eh. again. this is meant to be standalone so hopefully it doesn't matter

[linuscaldwellwikihow]

Reservoir Dogs (1992) - Movie Review / Fancast

I watched Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs for the first time tonight. (By the time I finished this, it is actually DAYS later) Remember all of the things stated in this review are my PERSONAL opinion.

Let's talk about Reservoir Dogs, because I enjoyed this film much more than I thought I would.

So, being completely transparent, I accidentally spoiled myself ten minutes in when I went to search which color Tim Roth was playing. Regardless, I enjoyed the film.

I thought the latter half of the movie was more entertaining, with the inclusion of Joe and Eddie and the more in-depth looks into White, Blonde, and Orange.

I'm not very good at serious movie reviews and don't take movies all that seriously anyways, so I am comfortable admitting that Mr. Orange was a big selling point for me. I very much enjoyed the close-up of him smirking. It really felt like a tragic love story at some parts, I was rooting for Orange and Mr. White.

Now on to the more entertaining part, let's recast. Pictures at the end.

We'll start with Mr. White. Originally played by Harvey Keitel, I think Jason Bateman would be an exceptional recast. He does serious, as Ozark proves, he does comedically dramatic, he is dilf material, and I don't think they look UNALIKE... there are some similarities that caught my eye. Honorable mention goes to a man of the same name, Mr. White, Bryan Cranston.

Mr. Pink feels like a no-brainer. Originally played by Steve Buscemi, who else other than Bill Skarsgard. Mr. Pink is slimy and he has awful posture and, for some reason, that reminded me of the very handsome Bill Skarsgard. He will never escape the typecast. For as long as I can remember, Roman Godfrey to Pennywise to that dude in Barbarian... they're all shady as fuck.

You know who else is shady as fuck? Mr. Blonde. Michael Madsen is the original Mr. Blonde and he brings such a specific energy to Blonde. I found it hard to find a good match. Looks-wise, Richard Madden. Though, in general, I think Vincent Cassel would be a very creepy, very sexy Blonde and if you've seen that scene in Ocean's Twelve, you'd know the "Stuck In The Middle With You" scene is in good hands.

I reluctantly add this next one. "Nice Guy" Eddie, played by Chris Penn, is being recast to probably my least favorite actor of all time, Jonah Hill. Fuck, it just works so well.

You know that cop, Martin whatever? Yeah, he's now Rami Malek. This is payback for being in Amsterdam.

Tim Roth, the reason I knew the plot of the entire movie before watching it, I fucking love your face man. Mr. Orange is now fan-cast as Andy Bean. Completely self-indulgent. Though, past Gee apparently thought Joesph Gorden-Levitt was a good contender because his name is very bold in my notes. Also, self-indulgent.

Randy Brook's Holdaway would be brilliantly played by Brian Tyree Henry. If you've seen Bullet Train, he is fucking incredible.

For Joe, originally played by Lawernce Tierney, I give thee Brian Cox of the Logan Roy variety. Or Vincent D'Onofrio of the Marvel supervillain variety.

Moving on to Mr. Brown, I could not decide. Give my dude Jake Sim a couple of years and he's perfect. I also have Michael C. Hall, Matt Berry, and Mark Sheppard. I don't guess it really matters as long as they can deliver an entire speech about Madonna's Like A Virgin and make it as disgusting as possible.

Before researching, I had wanted Edward Bunker's Mr. Blue to be Danny Trejo. Here's a fact I learned while researching for this review, Bunker and Trejo actually served jail time together. Small world. Oh, and Bob Odenkirk was the runner-up for Mr. Blue. I love that man.

Shit, I think that's it. Now I have to go make a collage of all these actors.

#movie review #fancast #reservoir dogs #quentin tarantino

[burning-clutch]

Shielded From The Truth

Cross posted on A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30441042 -.-.-.-.- Warnings: Mild wounds. Number two in the phic phight! When his parents put a shield up around Casper high to keep the ghosts out, and it means that Danny’s day hardly goes to plan. And he was so close to being on time for once too…. PHIC PHIGHT 2021 For team ghost! -.-.-.-.-.- Prompt by: Silverwing013 Danny's parents have kindly offered to set up a ghost shield generator for Casper High. Hijinks ensue as Danny attempts to handle the situation. 

-.-.-.-.-.-

Danny groaned as he only half listened to his parents rattle off whatever ghost nonsense they were going on about as he ate his breakfast. A bowl of dry cereal because the milk was contaminated and he really didn’t want to chance it giving him more than a stomach ache. This had become the norm this week it seemed as his parents seemed invested more than usual into the ghost shields that they had been working on and improving.

Why only shields? They would be installing one in the school soon… but beyond that? He wasn’t sure. They probably told him, sure, but being a teenager and one that had parents that hated half of him, had the effect of making him only lightly listen to the weapons and things that were meant to fully kill him off. That and at least the ghost shields weren’t usually a hindrance to him, in fact, they had proven themselves useful on a few occasions.

Plus he had the added advantage of being able to simply return to his human form and slip through the shield with little issue. Given his parents had no knowledge of half ghosts existing, at least he hoped not, they shouldn’t be designing a ghost and human shield. After all, that would defeat the purpose, right? It wasn’t as if Amity really had any human threats anymore.

Well, regardless of the eccentricities of his parents he could at least take some comfort in the fact that Skulker couldn’t simply attack the school to get to him any longer.

Small mercies he supposed.

Danny blinked as his father said something to him before slapping him on his back causing the teen to practically choke on his cereal from the force of the smack. “Isn’t that just great Dann-o?” the large man exclaimed happily before looking at his son expectantly. Oh great, he wanted him to ask something? Great.

“S-Sure” Danny choked out as he flailed, grabbing in front of him for the orange juice he had nabbed from the fridge, it thankfully hadn’t been in there long enough to start glowing… yet…

He shook his head as he finally got his breath back without inhaling dry cereal pieces into his lungs. When he was sure he wasn’t going to sound like some dollar store squeaky toy he tried to ask his parents a question, always a dreadful time if he were honest, but hey, he would usually be late for school anyway.

“So this will go around the whole school?” Danny tried weakly.

“Yep! And the best part is it’ll sense where there's an evil ectoplasmic entity nearby and spring up instantly! We made sure there won’t be a ghost within Twenty feet of the school before that puppy jumps up to the rescue! Like a big Fenton airbag!” Jack exclaimed all too enthusiastically for what the current time in the AM should allow a normal person to exhume.

Danny hummed noncommittally and sent a glance of ‘help me’ to his sister, who, in turn, rolled her eyes at her little brother. “And the shield even uses the ghost’s power to run the shield right?” Jazz asked side eyeing her father from her own spot not wanting to fully engage in the conversation they were having.

“Oh, yea! That’s the best part!” Jack practically cheered out.

“And the stronger the evil skum is the faster the shield will react and sooner it will be picked up. It will only go off on a level three or higher.” Maddie explained with a pleasant smile as she sips at her coffee.

“And we got it all finished last night to be ready for you kids today” Jack added happily.

“Hooray, more fun on a Monday” Danny sighed out into his last bites of cereal. Jazz snorted but didn’t comment, though Danny blew her a childish raspberry.

Jack continued to go on about the more intricate details of the shield they had put up though only one thing really caught his attention in the spiel, “-And Vladdie helped with the funding to outfit the school! Even helped us get the materials we needed to make such a large shield!”

“Ah, there it is…” Danny groaned letting his head fall forward onto the table in instant defeat.

“Danny! I really wish you would learn not to stay up so late playing video games! Look at you! If I get another call from one of your teachers about you sleeping in class-” Maddie started only for Danny to cut her off jumping to his feet.

“Yep! Thanks for that, mom! Look at the time! Love you bye!” Danny prattled off quick as could be before grabbing his book bag by his feet and bolting like a scared rabbit. After all, if his mother never finished that sentence when he inevitably fell asleep he couldn’t be grounded… she never officially gave him the last warning…

That’ll work, right?

It wasn’t long when he was out of the house that he was at his usual waiting spot for Sam and Tucker. Unsurprisingly, Sam got there first though they didn't have to wait long for Tucker to lumber forward, half asleep to his friends, and together they made their way towards the school as a unit.

Things seemed well enough until he got onto the stairs leading up to the main doors. That was when all hell broke loose. A deep alarm sounded before his father’s voice rang out from the speakers, in his over the top cheery way that only Jack Fenton knew how to pull off.

“Attention kids! Guess there’s an evil spook nearby so we’re deploying the shield! This ghost protection was brought to you by Fenton-works and sponsored by your mayor!”

Danny frowned. “My ghost sense didn’t go off…” He mentioned quietly to his friends.

“Maybe the shield sensors are more sensitive than you are?” Tucker asked with a frown.

“Since when?” Sam argued incredulously.

“Well who or whatever it is, it isn’t bothering me right now and no one’s screaming, no one’s panicking, so it can wait. I’m actually going to be on time for once!” Danny says waving the notion off.

He continues his trek up the stairs and towards the doors of the school, though when he reaches the threshold of the shield he finds himself having to really push hard against the thing. It was like hitting a wall of foam or Jell-O. He could push through if he pressed hard enough but it was not pleasant or as easy as going through the air.

Once through the initial shield wall, he blinked slowly feeling sluggish and as though all his limbs were moving through water. He even sort of felt like he was having to ‘swim’ as he walked like he was both heavier and lighter than he should be, but unable to find that buoyancy happy middle ground.

“Dude…” Tucker said smartly as he frowned at his friend’s almost slow motion, yet stop motion like movements. It was eerie, to say the least, not to mention the more pressing issue that he noticed right off the hop, “Your eyes are shining, man. And your, um… Neck...”

Sam, ever prepared for whatever bull their lives seem to throw their way, slipped her bag around to her front and offered Danny a pair of sunglasses, which the halfa put on promptly, along with the spider webbed patterned black and silver scarf.  “I mean, it’s better,” Sam argued, not even giving Tucker's look of disapproval her full attention.

“They’re spider glasses.” The boy states with a shake of his head. “Not really digging the whole-” Tucker waved his arm about Danny’s head in little circles, “-pseudo goth thing” he finished finally. Though he had to admit it was at least marginally better than seeing his friend’s glowing eyes and the electric scars showing up on his neck and disappearing under his shirt collar.

“Better?” Danny asked out sluggish, his voice almost sounding like it was being drawn out on a tape deck that was starting to lack battery power and not playing at quite the proper speed making the pitch and timing slower and lower.

Sam and Tucker shared a look before offering a thumbs up to their friend, both deciding it better not to address… whatever that was… The look they shared between one another spoke of their mutual hope that this would perhaps be one of those problems that simply go away on its own.

Ignoring the problems they have usually makes it go away… Yeah, that always works out.  

Danny makes a grab for the door to pull it open again, having that weird slow stop motion effect, like he was flickering between blinks rather than making a smooth motion forward. “Ehm, maybe don’t move around too much man… it’s um… creeping me out.” Tucker offers helpfully.

“Huh?” it took Danny a minute to process, as while he looked slow to them they seemed to be hyped up on caffeine to him… “Why are you talking so fast?” He wondered, his head almost appearing to glitch into a tilted and confused look.

“I think the ghost shield is making you go all slow motion. Just stop talking.” Sam says forcefully before letting out a shudder of her own.

Sam and Tucker share a glance before they each grab onto one of Danny’s arms and half drag him off to his locker. Despite his friends’ efforts he still got many looks shot his way, and a couple of people started whispering to one another as he passed by them.

“How is this going to work if I’m already weirding everyone out?” Danny asked, voice still sounding like a slowed record as he blinked sluggishly and his head jerked almost unsteadily from side to side. From his perspective, everyone was speeding along and talking at 1.5 times the normal speed.

“Maybe I should look for the ghost that triggered this, maybe Tuck, can you look into this mess?” Danny asked after a moment of trying to figure out what was being said around him through the noise of the hall.

“Yeah that might be best…” Sam responded shifting from leg to leg as she locks eyes with a basketball jock who was staring at their group incredulously.

“I got you, man, I’ll change everything to present and, block any ‘call home’ recommendations.” Tucker pipped up already pulling out his PDA to set that up preemptively.

Danny nodded and let out a hum before glitching his way out the nearest exit and out of the shield’s bounds. Once he slipped back out through the barrier, strangely enough, a harder feat than it was getting in, but that wasn’t a problem he wanted to focus on, he already blamed Vlad so he would simply continue to do so until the fruitloop showed himself.

As soon as he was through the green line of the shield Danny practically fell forward in relief. That stifling feeling now gone from his core and bones making his movements fluid and normal, well as normal as a clumsy half ghost could be anyhow…

It was a moot point and not one Danny wanted to think on too long. He gave a quick “thanks” to his friends, before diving between the dumpster and the school’s bricks, transforming into his ghostly alter ego and taking off into the sky. He would do a few laps around the school and city as he looks for whatever ghost set off the shield.

-BREAK-

It wasn’t until lunchtime Danny returned looking much more windswept and all around more miserable. He entered the courtyard through the side joining his friends out on the picnic table they had claimed.  He made it over to them, flopped down on the bench next to tucker with a groan before his head smacked into the table before him.

“You find them?” Tucker asked around whatever horrid monstrosity of a sandwich he was eating, spewing bits of half chewed bred at Danny’s head.

“No” Came the muffled reply, filled with tired disdain.

“No ghost sense?” Sam wandered, flicking the bits of bread from Danny’s raven hair and back towards Tucker.

“No”

“Huh… You think it was you who set off the shield?”  Sam wondered with a thoughtful frown.

“When I went into the back end of the generator though it wasn’t supposed to go off for anything that low, Danny in human form is like a two at best,” Tucker argued spinning his PDA around to show what he’d found when he hacked into the motherboard of the Fenton’s latest device.

Danny groaned. He supposed had he listened to his parents he could have been more prepared for whatever lunacy his parents’ decided to toss his way but alas, his short attention span and teenage rebellion and lack of caring got the best of him yet again.

Joyous of joys.

He tuned out his friend’s back and forthing for a bit, wondering if he could get away with smashing the device as Phantom when Tucker had his a-ha moment of discovery. Danny turned his head and raised a brow at his friend who was furiously typing away at his device.

“You were right about Vlad, Sam”

“Naturally,” She agreed.

“Well, he had an over right line here specifically set for Phantom’s ecto- signature,” the boy states running his finger along the line of code he’d found in the program.

Danny’s mood instantly brightened at that. “So then we just get rid of that bit right? And BAM everything’s fine?” He asked. “Man, what happened to me? Why do I want to get into the school again?”

“To keep up the illusion of normalcy on this mortal plane.” Sam supplied stabbing at her salad a little more forcefully than she probably needed to.

“Eh, yeah, I suppose.” Danny agreed with a lacklustre shrug.

“There, that should do it” Tucker spoke, interrupting whatever tangent Sam was getting ready to spew off about how normalcy was only an illusion created by corporations or some other such thing.

“And just in time The bell just rang,” Danny says with a small grin clasping a firm hand onto his friend’s shoulder. “Nice one Tucker!” he cheered as the trio made their way over to the doors that would lead them back into the cafeteria.

Unfortunately, as soon as Danny’s hand hit the door handle the shield once again sprung to life, though this time, instead of simply having a hard time passing through the shield, he was thrown back across the field earning a cry from several students who were following the trio.  

“Grapes of wrath Mister Fenton!” Lancer, (of course it was Lancer) shouted out in worry, his shout even carrying over the prerecorded message containing his father’s voice. Lancer half jogged half waddled over to Danny who blinked up blearily to his teacher, eyes flashing green for the briefest of seconds before draining back to blue.

“Leave it to Fen-turd to get himself possessed.” Dash snorted from behind the pot bellied teacher earning a few nervous glances between the small crowd of gathering students. The mutterings of the students didn’t take long to start up after that.

“I’m not possessed,” Danny argued, though, it was rather hard to make said argument when the palm of his hand was burned and leaking ectoplasm from where he had touched the door.

“Course he’s not possessed! He’s a ghost himself!” Wes shouted pointing an accusatory finger at the youngest Fenton.

Danny glared. “Not the time Westly.” He muttered under his breath as he was hauled to his feet by his friends. He tried to brush himself off only to end up smearing the ectoplasm from his hand onto his jeans, leaving a luminescent streak across his thigh.

Seeing his chance the ginger jock was all too eager to point it out. “See look! He’s bleeding ectoplasm!”

“No, I’m not! It’s from the shield! it sputtered out at me.” Danny tried to protest, though even in his own ears it sounded like a weak argument.

“Really?” Wes argued and marched over to the shimmering shield. The teen waved his arms about freely in the shield’s range hopping back and forth pointedly across the line of the barrier before showing his hands and clothes were completely clean of any glowing goo. “See! Ghost!” he accused again after he did a little pirouette to show his lack of ectoplasm.

“Yeah? Well, it sputtered at Danny only ‘cuz it turned on with him in the threshold.” Sam tried to argue back glaring at the ginger, venom in her gaze.

“Well then, why don’t you just walk through the shield Fen-toad?” Dash said with a smarmy grin, ever eager to get his own jabs in and seemingly not wanting to be outshined by the ginger conspiracy theorist’s bullying of his favourite punching bag.

“Fine” He spat back bitterly and marched up to the shield with a huff.

Sam and Tucker exchange a glance with one another as Danny presses his hand into the shield again. Thankfully this time there wasn’t anything that blows him back but he also really had to try and push through the shield.  

Danny could see out of the corner of his eye Wes’s smug grin as he grunts and does his best to push through the shield. His persistence is rewarded and he falls to the ground on the other side jumping up and giving a quick ‘HA!’ as he faces the small gathering crowd of students shifting uncomfortably just beyond the shield.

Sam had a look of exasperation and she looked like she was trying to restrain herself from face palming. Tucker on the other hand had no such restraint. He was almost over eager to bury his face into his hands.

From Danny’s perspective, he simply smacked into the ground and stood back up, but from the other students’ perspectives, Danny fell into the shield but instantly slowed down, looking as though he were falling with the moon’s gravity rather than the earthly speed everyone was used to. It also didn’t really look to them like he had hit the ground, instead glitching his body back into an upright position before cheering in that low slow motion state as he had earlier.

And if that wasn’t damning enough his eyes were glowing a lovely shade of ectoplasmic green.

Wes smirked, seemingly very smug and content with himself and this development. “See told you all he was a ghost!”

“T-that’s enough Mister Weston… Right…” LAncer muttered to himself a few moments watching as Danny seemed to glitch about as he cheered before seemingly realizing something was wrong. “I think there was a procedure to depossess a student…I bet the teachers in Bridgestone don’t have to exercise their students in this manner…” He complains. Sure they had gym class and he would appreciate the pun and irony if he wasn’t so tired.

“I don’t get paid enough for this,” he muttered, ignoring the look of panic that spread across Danny’s face.

It took some doing, a lot of flailing limbs and pressing himself against the damn shield, but Danny soon was through back out and free. His eyes still glowed brightly as he stared at his classmates looking very much like a deer in the headlights. Eyeshine and all might he add.

A few of the students were snickering, because only in Amity park could one get possessed by a ghost and have it come across as though someone had merely said something embarrassing or misheard an instruction and was now staring blankly ahead.

“Er….” Danny stared at his classmates half panicked before simply vanishing from view.

“Moby Dick!” Lancer exclaimed, almost dropping the book he was thumbing through from the Fenton parents. Sure it was a ghost, and could potentially be dangerous, but it wasn’t attacking so there wasn’t really anyone panicking.

Instead, the teacher simply felt tired. “Right, I’ll call the Fentons and let them deal with this, Everyone back inside I do believe the lunch bell rang already!” the teacher called out shooing the students into dispersing.

Danny stood there invisibly and holding strong as he internally groaned. At least they thought he was possessed, that could be easily explained away but he was not looking forward to trying to explain it to his parents…

Still maybe if he gets ahead of this…

It was with that thought in mind that he bolted away into the treeline beside the school, transformed and headed off to his home landing in his bedroom only a few minutes later. He went human, back intangible and invisible came out the door, made sure the coast was clear before speeding his way down into the basement.

He just made it down the stairs startling his mother and father who blinked at him curiously, when the phone rang cutting off his mother’s “Honey? What are you doing home so soon?”

“It’s the school calling Mads,” Jack says, sounding disappointed as the large man sent a look of disapproval to his boy.

“Wait!” Danny jumped forward answering the phone and instantly hanging it up.

“Daniel!” His mother exclaimed abashedly.

“I wanna explain first! Do you know how all your stuff goes off on me? Well, the shield at school started doing that and they think I’m possessed! I’m not, it's just the… ya know…” Danny rambled off hurriedly hoping against hope that his parents wouldn’t try to send him to decontamination … again… (Thanks to his ghost half, it burned in places he didn’t ever want to burn)

“You’re possessed Dann-o?!” Jack exclaimed instantly pulling a Fenton gun from somewhere on his person and brandishing it towards his son.

Danny threw his hands up and waved them placatingly at his father. “NO! Just the normal stuff! The contamination from the portal accident set it off. I got too close to the sensor!” He says quickly ignoring how his parents seem to flinch slightly.

His parents shared a look before his father seemed to deflate, seemingly upset at the fact his son wasn’t possessed. “I thought we fixed that... “ Jack says with a frown. “But, we can’t let the school know we may have messed it up! I know we’ll just run the tests again and fix it in the night!”  

“Yeah, that would be- Wait what?” Danny blinks. Why couldn’t they just go down and fix it normally? Of course, his parents had to be weird about this too. “Thanks… Is there anything you need from me to help?”

And with those words said he almost instantly regretted it. “Well… We would really like to know why your ecto signature lines up perfectly with Phantom’s but perhaps that can wait.” Maddie offered with a small amused smile.

Danny sputtered at that, “Wh-What?”

“We set up a monitoring system so we can tell which ghosts most frequent the school… Phantom was the one that triggered the shield twice today. There actually wasn’t anything else that did,” Maddie explained with a deepening frown.

“You sure you’re not possessed, son?” Jack asked again this time sounding almost defeated in how, well, normal a volume he asked that. The hidden meaning was all too obvious especially after he mentioned his accident…

They thought he was dead! The portal killed him! And as the growing pit of dread grew into Danny’s stomach he couldn’t help but feel awful knowing they were correct in that assumption, well at least half right anyhow.

“Yeah… I’m… I’m me…” Danny managed out his voice cracking

“O-oh hun....” Maddie sniffed.

“But it’s not I… I’m me, I promise and I’m not all dead. I still have a heartbeat and everything!” Danny argued or rather tried to as his mother was quick to kneel before him taking his face in her hands as tears bubbled down her chin.

“Mom really I’m like … half at most. More human with a side of ghostly abilities ya know?”

“Oh, it’s okay Dann-o… You're still my son, I know ya are. It’s been almost a year since that accident and you’re mostly still you.” Jack said. “Just worse grades and more hormones and-”

“Thanks, guys really,” Danny sighed in relief both at dodging the potentially awkward birds and ghostly bees talk as well as the tepid acceptance he was getting. Awkward though it may be it was still acceptance nonetheless.  He was happy for it just the same.

“Maybe while we work on fixing up the shield to ignore Phantom’s signature you can tell us about some things?” Maddie asked sniffling again as she looked over her son’s face trying her best to hold herself together and not outright bawl at the thought she had killed her youngest child.

“Y-yeah… I’ve been wanting to tell you about this for a while now but, well, ya know…” Danny offered uselessly.

“I think it’s us who should apologize for that, son but maybe we can just all go get some triple chocolate fudge milkshakes and go deal with that shield after dinner?” Jack offered with a smile, ever the one to break up tension.

“Yeah, yeah… that sounds good.” Danny agreed. Well, it wasn't how he was expecting this to go, but he was kinda glad it ended up like this. Maybe now they could repair their strained relationship.

As Maddie ruffled up Danny’s hair the teen offered her his first genuine smile in almost a year.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Total words: 4245 Complete

#phic phight 2021 #Phic Phight #Danny Phantom #danny fenton #lancer #ghost shields are a problem #kinfa fluffy #danny is so done

[mediocrevideopodcast]

Chicago Lightning

Summary: You and the rest of the Mud Dogs plan a heist on a bank, and end up getting into a pretty serious gun fight. It’s way different from what you usually attempt, but where there’s a will, there’s a way. 

[A/N: Good evening, fellow Mud Dogs enjoyers <3 These three live in my head rent FREE and by god, I’m gonna make that everyone else’s problem.]

Content Warnings: Gunfights, mild arson, copious swearing, crime, and the fear of death. Nobody dies, and there’s a happy ending. <3

Pairing: Mud Dogs/Reader (Platonic/Familial) 

Word Count: 1572

God, your ears are gonna be fucking ringing tomorrow. Whoever suggested staging a robbery is certainly going to get a verbal beating, if you even make it out of here in the first place. The deafening “crack” of a bullet tearing by instinctively pushes you further into the white, porcelain countertop, and you blindly fire a few rounds from behind cover. Your ears ring at the noise, and your legs ache dully from crouching down for so long. 

“What’s the plan?” You yell, glancing nervously towards the pillar where Leonard’s taking cover. 

“I don’t know!” he yells back, “Give me a minute to think!” He taps his fingers against the muzzle of the glock, eyes glancing around the building. Dust from ricocheting bullets clouds the air, sending pits of granite and porcelain dust through the room. The light filters through them, although just barely so. You hardly even recognize the building anymore, you think to yourself. Leonard fires a few shots from behind the pillar before taking cover once more, looking up at the ceiling with furrowed brows. 

“Hate to burst your bubble, Loathsome,” Danny yells from your left, “But we’re already a bit behind the eight ball here. We don’t have time to spare!” 

“Yeah, no shit!” Mickey yells, “And I’m not really in my element, either.” He fires off a couple shots, and the recoil from the gun is obvious despite his white-knuckle grip on the firearm. He scowls, turning to fire off a few more shots from the other side of the counter. What he lacks in experience he makes up for in pure gusto.

“Easy on the lightning, pal!” Danny calls, “we ain’t exactly armed to the teeth, here. If we run out of ammo, we’re screwed!” 

“I’ve got it!” Leonard yells to you, “Grab those bottles of hand sanitizer off the counter and throw ‘em to Mickey. We’re gonna light it on fire, throw it at ‘em, and bolt for the back.” 

“Then what?” You say, grabbing the bottles and throwing them to your friend. 

“Steal a fucking car, I guess? What else?” 

“Sounds good to me!” Mickey calls. His eyes light up as he disassembles the bottles, twisting and turning a few paper bills to create a sizable fuse that leads out of the liquid disinfectant, like the true firebug he is. If they land just right, it should spread quickly enough to get out of control. If they land perfectly, that is. But you’re not gonna have time to tell, are you? You just have to pray that it does, and if it doesn’t, that it burns hot enough to stall them. Oh, how you’re lamenting skipping out on that oxidation unit in chemistry class.  

“Just tell me when!” He shouts, although you can barely hear him over the crack of yet another bullet flying by, a little too close for comfort. 

You look back towards the emergency exit, steeling yourself to run. The bright red sign flickers slowly, just barely clinging to life after being struck with a stray bullet. You tear your eyes away from the door, glancing at your friends nervously. The air between all of you isn’t peaceful: not by any means. But it’s full of understanding: An understanding that if there’s any real, perfect way to go out, it would be right here. Danny’s grip tightens on his gun, and the tip of his tail twitches slightly, as though he were fighting the sensation entirely. Leonard’s eyes flit around the room quickly, scowling down the opposition on the other side of the building. Yet when he turns to the rest of you, his eyebrows soften. And Mickey’s apprehension… God, he’s doing a great job of hiding it. He smiles brightly, but the look in his eyes clearly conveys his thoughts. His fingers twitch around the plastic bottle, peeling at the wrapper as though looking for something to tether him to the world. The pops of your enemy’s guns might as well be static, for all you care. 

But it’s the chipping of porcelain, the crack of a supersonic bullet whizzing past you, and the pop of yet another gun that brings you out of your stupor. The corner of the porcelain countertop chips off and falls to your feet, and you can feel your heart leap into your chest. Had you been leaning out any farther, you’d be dead. Your breath catches in your throat, and you throw yourself deeper into cover. You whip your head around to Leonard, steeling your nerves and throwing him a firm nod. 

“On three!” He shouts. 

“One!”

Inhale. You’re all gonna be okay. 

“Two!” 

Exhale. You shoot one last look at your friends and set your eyes on the door.

“Three!” 

Mickey shocks the flammable paper leading out of the bottle and chucks it towards the entrance of the building the moment it forms a strong and steady flame. And for a moment, the world moves in slow motion. It arcs wildly, but the flame persists nonetheless, crawling its way into the bottle. It hits the ground with a thunk - much less grand than your traditional molotov, you remark sarcastically - and splatters. The flame jumps from puddle to puddle, quickly spreading out of control. The rest of the containers are thrown haphazardly, which only fuels the intense and wild flames: it eats at the carpet, the walls, anywhere it can reach. And with that, all four of you bolt towards the exit. 

Your feet pound against the carpet, and you’re the first to reach the door. You ram your shoulder against the bar, opening it quickly for everyone to follow out. You bolt for the nearest car, looking back once to make sure everyone’s made it out. And sure enough, they have. The nearest car is an old four-door, and you pray to every deity you can think of as you race towards it. You shoot at the passenger side window, shattering the glass almost instantly, and you throw your hand through the jagged pieces to unlock the car as quickly as possible. You throw open the car door, ripping off your jacket and throwing it over the broken glass on the seat before patting around the car for a spare key. You don’t have any fucking time to hotwire the damn thing, and who the fuck knows what year this thing is from? 

You breathe a sigh of relief when you find it and clamber into the car, jamming the jagged end of the key into the ignition and smiling as the car roars to life. Danny is the second to reach the car, sliding over the hood to hop in the passenger side. Mickey is the third, as Leonard runs behind him, providing covering fire for the smaller man. You reach behind your seat, pulling up the lock for him to tear open the door. And with that, Leonard runs the final few feet to the car, throwing himself in the door that’s already open and sliding in next to Mickey. You don’t waste a second, throwing the car into reverse before speeding out of the lot. 

The force throws you harshly back into your seat, but you can’t help but laugh. “We made it out! Holy shit!” You put the pedal to the metal, gripping the steering wheel tightly as you floor it down the street. The buildings zip by so fast that they’re hardly more than a blur, and you revel in the adrenaline rush. The boys laugh alongside you, still reeling from their escape. You swerve off the small street and onto the highway; hopefully, you’ll be able to turn off onto the countryside at some point and find a remote place to lie low while the heat dies down. A farmhouse would be nice, you hum to yourself, although who really knows where you’ll end up this time? 

Mickey leans forward through the armrest. “Dude,” he laughs, “that was the coolest shit ever!” 

“We almost died,” Danny chuckles, dragging his hand along the armrest, flicking off little pieces of glass as he goes, “But I have to admit... it was pretty incredible.” 

“See? I told you guys I had it all figured out,” Leonard says, “And look at all this fucking cash! Even after Big Mama’s cut, we’re still gonna be rich.” 

“And did you see how quickly that fire spread? You might as well have doused the damn building in Everclear!” Mickey laughs, “Something tells me that place won’t be there tomorrow.” 

The highway is practically abandoned, perhaps because of the recent events. And for that, you’re thankful. You’re sure that in a few minutes you’ll be chased down by those blue and red lights, but for now, everything is okay. You press the pedal down as far as you can, making as much distance as possible before the chase starts up once more, and you chuckle. Danny rests his arm on the window, picking up little pieces of shattered glass off of his seat and throwing it out onto the highway. That’ll be someone else’s problem then, you think to yourself. He meets your gaze with a smile, and you return it happily. Mickey and Leonard shove each other playfully in the back seat as they rifle through the duffle bags, presumably counting your earnings. 

“So,” you muse, “how many days do you think it’ll take before we can go to a restaurant without getting arrested?”

#mud dogs x reader #rottmnt imagine #rottmnt x reader #tmnt imagine #tmnt x reader #not me getting emotionally attached to characters with like five minutes of screentime ertcyvbjnlhkjgc #loathsome leonard x reader #dastardly danny x reader #malicious mickey x reader #rottmnt dastardly danny #rottmnt loathsome leonard #rottmnt malicious mickey #rottmnt mud dogs x reader

[aenxiome]

Chapter 4: Who do you call when the ghostbuster is on vacation?

When I awake, I find myself tangled up in the bedsheets, half lying on top of Jazz and the other half plastered against the wall. Somehow we ended up looking like a pretzel. When the alarm started to blare, we startled and accidentally crashed into each other. Some part of her hit me in the mouth while my head slammed into her own.

" Oww, Jazz, cant you keep your head to yourself," I whine accusingly while trying to rub away the pain. " ah, that's going to leave a mark," Wincing as I look at her, holding the side of her head rubbing her temple. We carefully separate ourselves from each other, taking in mind our new splitting twin headaches and my own lasting injury from the day before.

I look over at Sam and Tucker, who are also waking up. It seems Sam found a comfortable spot on the floor using a bunch of blankets and a few of my hoodies along with a pillow from who knows where. On the other hand, Tucker fell asleep in my desk chair with his head on his arms lying across the desk. Jazz reaches over and turns off the alarm. She sits up, still half asleep,p and makes her way out of the room. I continue to lay on the bed as Sam and Tucker finish waking up, with Sam going as far as to put away the bedding and hoodies.

"Hey," Tucker says when he sees that I'm awake, " Are you feeling okay? You're not going to pass out again, are you?" Sam turns around at his questioning and exclaimed, "Danny! Your awake!" I smile sheepishly at them, " I'm okay, a little sore, but I'm fine." I attempt to sit up, but a wince accompanies every move. When Sam notices, she comes to sit on the side of the bed and helps me. Once I'm finally up, she engulfs me in a gigantic hug. When she pulls away from the embrace, she puts her hands on her hips and starts yelling, " Do you know how much you scared us!" Finally, she shakes my shoulder with tears brimming in her eyes, " Don't you ever do something like that again!"

" I won't, and I didn't know that would happen." Tucker comes over and joins the conversation. His expression is serious, " Dude, when you fell, it was like we were back in the lab. I thought…" he brakes, choking up, " I don't know what I thought but seeing you like that again." blowing out a shaky breath he finishes, " I thought we lost you this time."

Sam moves out of the way as I reach over and clasp my hand on his shoulder and look him in the eye, " Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere." Then, trying to lose the tension, Sam asks, " Hey, do we still have clothes here or," I cut her off, "Oh, yeah, look in the bottom drawer," I say referencing the dresser, "you both should have clothes left in there." They both go to grab clothes and rush off to go get dressed.

I hate lying to them, but I can't guarantee anything. That feeling, just knowing what to do without having to think about it. Just feels so right. It was almost as if, at that moment, I was complete. While, yeah, doing it in my human form was my bad, though. I didn't expect such a big drawback but ill be ready for that next time. Maybe in my ghost form, it won't be so bad, though? I'll have to test this, but where…. " The bathroom is free," Sam shouts as she goes by the door freeing me of my musing. Tucker leaves the room to get ready, and I attempt to get up.

Every mussel protests as I force my fist into the top of the mattress and gingerly force myself to stand. I fight my tight muscles and straighten myself trying to keep my balance. I force myself to walk around the room and get ready for the day. With every step I take and arm movement, I make pain shoots through me. Up through my legs and into my waist into my joints and up inside my chest, my core, I feel pain. When moving my arms, they feel like a ton of bricks, making them feel heavy. I wince as I change my clothes and then put on a neutral face and make my way to the kitchen.

When I get there, the three of them are around the kitchen table eating cereal, but no Mom or Dad to be seen. Jazz sees me first, immediately getting up and forcing me into a chair, which I am so grateful for despite my neutral deposition. " What are you doing down here?" She hisses, " You should still be in bed." I grab a box of cereal and shove my hand in while replying, "as I told them," gesturing to my friends, " I'm fine." Grabbing me a bowl, she says, " You could barely walk stand hours ago. Let alone walk on your own. I'm not buying it." I avoid looking at her while providing my defense, " Spead healing remember. Im better."

" If your sure, man, but wouldn't you rather stay home? Sam had to help you sit up earlier." Tucker says. Jazz points at me righteously, " See, you need your rest! Go back to bed." She demands. I shake my head in refusal, " I can't afford to miss any more school. I'll be fine, I swear." We all continue arguing about my attendance when eventually Jazz gives up but forces an ultimatum, "fine, you can go, but no ghost fighting! Not until your 100%." I groan in response, " Then what are we going to do if a ghost attacks?" I question.

"We can handle it." Said Sam determined. "But what if-" I start to interject but can cut off by Sam, " We help you all the time. Doing it by ourselves won't be hard, you'll see. After all, three is better than one." I relent and let go of my argument. It doesn't take long for us to finish eating and head to Jazzes car.

The struggle starts as soon as we get out the door. The box ghost has managed to get out again. Before anyone can stop me, I fire off a carefully placed ectoblast and force him down. A second later, I pull out my thermos, and he was immediately sucked up and defeated. Maybe it was a cheap attack, but with the way things are currently beggars, can't be choosers.

"Danny!" Jazz shouts accusingly. " What?" At the angry looks, I sigh and continue, "It was only the Boxxy." Tucker tilts his head in question while sam voices their confusion, "Boxxy?" I nod my head agreeing with the name, "Yeah, Boxxy." Tucker looks as if he has swallowed a lemon, "you're giving the ghost nicknames now?" Great something else for us to argue over, "So? Why does it matter? They give me nicknames, So I can give them ones." They still don't look happy, but we are running out of time. "Can we talk about this later? Were going to be late." Tucker takes a look at his PDA and shows it to the others. The conversation is done.

For now.

They may not like what I did, but in my opinion, it is well worth it. One less ghost for them to worry about.

We all pilled in and traveled in silence to the school, barely making it in time. Before we get out, Jazz stops us to give a lecture, "Danny, no fighting today. Not with the ghosts, not with Dash, not with anyone. Understood?"

"Yeah, Yeah," I reply, sulking, "I know."

Then she turns to Sam and Tucker, " Now you two, keep Danny out of trouble. If anything gets out of hand, let me know, and I will take care of it." They answer simultaneously, " We've got it." Then, she turns back to me once again, " if the pain gets too bad, let me know, and I'll take you home."

" I'll be fine," I reassure her.

"If you say so," she says, not in the mood for an argument.

We enter just as the warning bell rings, making me feel a bit bad. While anymore I'm habitually late for just about everything, that doesn't mean that they are. We rush to homeroom and make it just in time to reach our new assigned seats and get ready for class.

The day is just beginning.

How hard could one Friday be?

A lot harder than expected.

As soon as the class finished, I headed out for my next class when I felt something. I was pulled by the back of my shirt into another hallway, separating me from Sam and Tucker. I get pushed up against the wall making an echoey thump in the hallway. I look around the hall, empty, then look up at my kidnapper. Lo and behold, it's just Dash again. When is this guy going to give me a break? I mean, this is ridiculous. Doesn't he have a life? This whole hallway meet-up is starting to become a cliche at this point. So instead of paying attention to Dashs' pathetic reasonings for his grab and go, I drown him out and internally ask the really important questions like:

Does this count as Kidnapping? While yes, I have been taken without my consent, I haven't left the building. So maybe this would be a forced separation? Abduction? Couldn't this be considered as a criminal ac-.

My thoughts get cut off as his fist lands in my stomach. I blanch from the sucker punch feeling my cereal trying to make its way back up. I manage to swallow it back down just as another punch makes contact. I try to keep my composer, but my body just can't take it. A small dribble of vomit makes its way out of my mouth and onto Dashs' arm. " Ew!" He exclaims, "Did you just spit up on me! Uggh, what's wrong with you, Fenton." With a look of disgust on his face, almost as he can't believe I got sick on him, he turns around and goes back into the main hall while I book it to the nearest trash can.

I manage to spit out what I had come up without losing any more of my breakfast. I lean up against the wall trying to pull myself back together. The punches, while weak, still hurt. The force made my core pulsate as if trying to come forward to protect me. When it pulsated, I could feel how strained it is. Even with its call for me, my core is weak, throbbing for reprieve.

The minute bell starts to ring as I force myself down the hallway, gritting my teeth, trying to stop the pain. It takes longer than usual for me to get there, oh how I wish, scratch that (you never know when you-know-who is listening *cough* Desiree *cough*), would love to be able to float right now. Thankfully I didn't get in any more trouble than a simple tardy on my record when I showed up. Being known for bathroom issues can come with its perks.

Classes so far today have been my saving grace. Especially since we have health instead of P.E this week, if I had to move around much more, it would have become the end of me. Not that the hallways aren't trying to get to me first.

To make it even better, So far, the only ghostly activity has been a couple of blobs. Hopefully, by the end of the day, I will somewhat be back to normal.

Once we are let out for lunch, I slowly make my way to the cafeteria. Once I get there, I spot Sam and Tucker near the back of the room already with their food. Sam, of course, has some kind of green thing. I can't tell what it is, but I know it's the opposite of Tuckers. I can identify his food, a leftover pork chop, and other assorted non-veggies make up his lunchbox.

After the Lunch Lady incident at the beginning of the year, they started to favor meals from at home rather than the schools. Sam for the issue with her not being able to eat what they serve as it is not to her taste, and Tucker for his issue with " stinky ectoplasm messing with beautiful meat." Apparently ecto- contaminated meat is where he draws the line with his obsession.

Me on the other hand, I am more than willing to risk it. A meal that Jazz and I didn't cook with less than a 70% chance of coming to life, sign me up. On the off chance that I do bring something from home, it is always factory-sealed junk food. I don't want to be known as the guy who brought murder hotdogs to lunch.

"Danny!" I hear coming from their spot, calling me over to them. I sit down across from them, letting out a relieved sigh. "There you are," Sam says, relieved, " we were getting ready to come to look for you. We thought Dash cramped you into a locker again." Thankfully not, I can't help but think. Those things are cramped. When I got to class after Dashs' interference, they weren't pleased about what had gone down. Tucker looked almost murderous when he found out what kept me.

" Aren't you going to get any food, dude?" Tucker asks between mouthfuls of food. "Nah," I reply and gesture to the line, " there is no way ill be able to get anything before lunch is over." The lines go down the walls of the cafeteria until right before the door. " I'm not hungry anyway," I say, lying through my teeth. " Are you sure?" Sam asks, quirking her eyebrow at me. " Yeah, I'm sure. If I change my mind, I'll get something." Satisfied, we turn our attention to small talk.

After a while, our conversation heads back to current events. " So, what do you plan to do about the ice thing?" Sam asks. I tilt my head a little in confusion, " What ice thing?" I get two looks of exasperation back before Sam slowly says, " You know the thing from the lot." Oh, that ice thing, " I thought that was all taken care of? It's not there anymore, so what is there to worry about?"

"Yeah, it's gone, but where did it come from? It's not like there are a lot of ghosts that can make ice." Tucker points out. A feeling of understanding rushes through me as I part my lips, " Ohh, did I forget to tell you?" Both of them look at me dumbfounded as I wait for an answer. I slump down farther in my seat as I reveal, " The ice is mine." Eyes wide, Sam questions, " You made a spike of Ice?" I nod my head then she continues angry with my omission, " why didn't you tell us!? We thought there was a new ghost on the loose!"

"I thought you guys knew," I say, throwing my hands up in defense. "I'll admit I've never done something like that before, but I thought you would have realized it came from me. As Tuk said, there aren't many ghosts who can make ice." Tucker comes to their defense, "It's not like we have ever seen you do that before." I sigh in understand then try to create the end of the discussion, " I plan to go to the Farfrozen to see Frostbite anyway. After what happened yesterday, I need to know what's going on with me."

"What do you-" Tucker gets cut off by a scream. The whole room goes dead silent. Then, another scream comes right after echoing through the room. After a second, just about everyone is jumping out of their seats in a panic. Sam and Tucker rush to their bags and start pulling out ecto-weapons. " Sit here," Sam orders, " let us take care of it."

"Yeah, Yeah," I blow them off, "well, at least the line is gone. I'm going to grab a bag of chips or something." Another scream echoes out, and they start running towards the door. "Be careful!" I yell out at their backs, but they are already out the door. I get up and go through an empty line and buy some pre-packaged foods and then make my way back towards my seat.

I take a few minutes to eat what I want then put the rest in my bag. I look towards a clock that's in the room and see that almost ten minutes have gone by. Against their orders, I pick up my things and go towards the chaos. Once I make it to them, I see something that I would never have expected. In the middle of the hallway are Sam, Tucker, and Jazz, tangled up with two Ecto-Octopi.

One of them has Tucker hanging upside down, holding him by his ankle. While another has Sam squashed beneath its tentacles and shaking her like a rag doll. Jazz, on the other hand, is the only one who is armed. She Is hiding behind a trashcan with a lipstick blaster.

I stare at the chaos in front of me and can't help but to say, " what in the zone is going on!?" My yell startles everyone. Even the Octopi.

"Danny!" They all holler simultaneously, the people, not the Octopi. " Getaway, we've got this!" Sam yells back. " This what you call handled?!" I say, hands out, gesturing to the scene in front of me.

I walk over to Jazz and take the lipstick blaster away and start over towards the ghosts. Using the lipstick blaster, I hit the Octopus holding Sam and the eye. The pain startled them, and they quickly released its tentacle from around her. Sam hurried away and rushed over towards me. " Give the blaster to me, let us handle it" I ignore her and push us away from the octopus just as a tentacle comes slamming down onto the tile floor.

" Get back, let me handle it!" I say in a rush, " You too Jazz," looking back towards her. I make my way forward with the blaster and go to the octopus keeping Tucker. I carefully point the blaster at its tentacle with a steady hand and fastly slash downward with it cutting it off. The tentacle and Tucker drop towards the ground. The heat from the blaster cauterizes the wound leaving only the ectoplasm from the cut limb to bleed out.

Tucker rushes over to safety as I use the blasters to hit them in the eye once again. While being temporarily blinded, they flail their limbs around, trying to hit everything around them. I, on the other hand, quickly reach into my bag and look for a Fenton Thermos. As soon as I find one, I quickly pull off the cap and suck the octopi up and seal them in.

Once everything is in the clear, I slump down to the floor, huffing for breath. Letting the adrenaline wear off, I stay sitting on the floor while everyone else comes to me. "What were you thinking!" Jazz exclaimed while slamming into me with a hug, " Are you hurt? You should have stayed away. Your powers are out. Don't you realize how dangerous this was?" Giving her an accusing look, I can't help but point out, " I am better off than you. A lipstick blaster? What happened to the weapons you guys took with you?" I ask turning to, my friends. Tucker, mumbling with a blush plastered on his face, admits, " They ate them."

I stare at them, starting to lose some color. Then, stumbling with my words, I stutter out, "Ate them? They ate the weapons, oh my, that's not good." Jazz and I both look at each other with a look of doom. "What, what is it?" Sam asks, now worried due to our reactions. " Those weapons weren't normal Fenton weapons." Jazz confesses. " What do you mean?" Tucker asks, confused, " Your parents made them, right?"

Jazz looks over to me for approval which I don't give before she answers, " Those weapons were advanced models. They aren't supposed to be available to the public." I interject, " Since the weapons are made of metal and not an organic ectoplasmic substance, the octopi won't be able to digest it. So meaning eventually they are going to spit the weapons back up." Looking at them and seeing that they are listening, I continue worried, " there is no way to tell when they are going to drop them, and whoever picks them up could hurt someone."

Before we get a chance to talk, any more noises start making their way through the hall. Sam, Tucker, and I go back towards the cafeteria, but before we get too far, Jazz calls out to me, "Danny," I stop to look at her, " I think its best if you go home." Then, giving her a betrayed look for her suggestion, she elaborates, "you don't look too good. Your really pale, and your barely moving."

"I don't know what you're talking about." I reply stubbornly. Sighing, she walks over to me and takes my bag, " Come on, I'll drive you home." Before I can get out a protest, she reminds me, " You need to go to the Farfrozen right? What better time to go than when Mom and Dad are going to be on a ghost hunt." With that, I stopped protesting and let her lead me to the car.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #jazz fenton #sam manson #tucker foley #dash baxter #octopi #ghost octopus #box ghost #fanfiction #fanfic #phantom #phanfiction

[jerakeenc]

many kidfics i’ve read and loved

look who’s reccing a million year old fics now. kidfics, very many. posted to dw for snowflake, thought I’d copy here as well. will be reading most, if not all. if you don’t hear from me again, this list is the culprit.

101 Ways To Get Lucky (In Love) by lenore

18,200 words | SGA, McKay/Sheppard

Rodney McKay is rich, gorgeous and at the top of his game—except someone just moved the goalposts! Now Rodney realizes he is sorely lacking the one status symbol that everybody seems to have…the perfect family. Rodney needs help, so he hires a relationship coach. Single-dad John Sheppard may be an expert, but not when it comes to his own relationships! And every day he spends with Rodney makes him wish that he could be the one to fill the vacancy in Rodney's life…

A Beautiful Lifetime Event by astolat

29,000 words | SGA, McKay/Sheppard

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.

An Earlier Heaven by regann

67,400 words | X-Men, Erik/Charles

In the wake of Cuba, Charles and his students are ready to pick up the pieces and work toward achieving Charles's dream of a safe haven for young mutants. Those plans, however, take a surprising turn thanks to a very unexpected complication. As he slowly builds a future for his students and for his child, Charles struggles with the loss of Erik and the secrets he's willing to keep to protect his family, but those strides are shattered when Erik makes a startling reappearance into his life. [mpreg, kidfic, ensemble]

And everything nice by noelia_g

30,200 words | Social Network, Mark/Eduardo

The one where Mark somehow ends up with a child and of course needs a nanny for the amount of time he spends at the office. Only problem is a string of nannys keep trying to get into his pants for what he assumes is his money. Cue Mark's assistant hiring a male nanny, enter Eduardo.

asking to be born by longtime_lurker

26,500 words | Bandom, Pete/Patrick

"Don't worry, it's probably just his big gay freakout," Andy yells cheerfully and unhelpfully into Patrick's ear as they're hustling Pete over to the nearest private clinic.

Better with You by harriet_vane

38,100 words | 1D, Liam/Louis

Based on this prompt at the kinkmeme:

Single parent and solo artist Liam Payne hires Louis Tomlinson to be a full time nanny to his four year old son Sammy. Although the two men don't quite click from the start it's love at first sight between Sammy and Louis. Eventually Louis and Liam warm up to each other and get on like a house on fire, in fact the two become a little too fond of each other.

I refuse to apologize for how sweet this ended up, okay? It's kidfic, I am forever writing kidfic, and this one is even kid-fic-ier than usual.

Can't Get Enough of You (Baby) by eternalbreath

22,100 words | Inception, Arthur/Eames

Eames vanishes from dreamshare and Arthur goes a little crazy looking for him until he stumbles across him -- with a baby.

Chelsea, Chelsea, I Believe by empathapathique

300,800 words | Hockey, Kane/Toews

Patrick meets a girl his rookie year.

Don't You Shake Alone by dsudis

62,180 words | Generation Kill, Brad/Nate

Nate looked exactly like Brad always pictured him: exhausted in the full life-in-a-combat-zone sense of the word.

Dude, what's a bulwark? by kellifer_fic

12,150 words | Teen Wolf, Derek/Stiles

Beacon Hills is the kind of small town where everybody knows everybody, and what everybody knows is that surly diner owner Derek Hale and free spirited single dad Stiles Stilinski have been in love with each other for years. If only they knew it too.

Every Other Beautiful World by rhiannonhero

43,280 words | SGA, McKay/Sheppard

Some things are unexpected but still inevitable in every beautiful world.

Forever, Now by harriet_vane

227,100 words | Bandom, Frank/Gerard, Jon/Spencer, Brendon/Ryan, Brian/Greta

Brian rescues kid!Gerard and Mikey from life on the streets, and eventually everyone finds a family.

here comes the sun by oflights

56,600 words | Social Network, Mark/Eduardo

This is a story about growing up, sad 70's rock songs, too much hair gel, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", a baby with curly hair, a Geiger counter, a dog that isn't named Max, the Chicken Dance, Cheerios, pepper-spray, drugs, sex, and a stuffed chicken named Cluckerberg, nicknamed Cluck. or: Mark raises Sean's accidental baby, and I write the fluffiest thing ever.

I Got a Love (That Keeps Me Waiting) by svmadelyn

163,700 words | Hockey, Kane/Toews

There's a lot of different ways this summary could go, like:

Patrick Kane gets more than a gold medal in Sochi.

Or, the classic: It's too late to pull out now.

Or: Patrick Kane continues to thrive in high pressure situations.

Or: Patrick Kane gets knocked up, goes to White Castle, and finds love, not necessarily in that order.

But, ultimately, all that really matters is this: Patrick Kane is keeping his baby.

I Would Be by cathalin

20,290 words | American Idol, Kris/Adam

AU. Adam and Kris meet a few years down the road, when down-on-his-luck Kris and his young daughter Katherine show up to rent a room from Adam, who never made it to an Idol audition.

Ice Ice Baby by uraneia

51,340 words | Hockey, Claude/Danny

A gold medal isn't the only souvenir Claude brings home from Prague.

OR: The one where Claude gets drunk, gets pregnant, and gets convinced to move in with Danny, whom he's been secretly in love with for years. What could possibly go wrong?

my heart is bigger than the distance in between us by estrella30

15,000 words | 1D, Nick/Harry

Nick chuckles quietly but grabs the remote and follows Emma, Aimee coming up close behind him. It’s indeed Harry on the telly, singing along to his latest radio hit and smiling slowly into the camera far too seductively for half eight on a Friday morning, if you ask Nick. He presses the volume just in time to catch the crowd’s roaring applause and see the pink flush Harry’s cheeks. Nick watches him duck his head as he gives a small wave to the audience, and it hits Nick that Harry is still the most humble and appreciative billionaire Nick’s ever met.

Good job, popstar, Nick thinks to himself.

or, Nick is a single dad and Harry is his bff and it's a bunch of years into the future and they fall in love

Once Upon a Furry Octopus by skoosiepants

11,270 words | SGA, McKay/Sheppard

He was an intelligent, intuitive pet, but he wasn’t going to start sniffing out ZPMs or hidden Ancient weaponry or detailed instructions on how to kill a Wraith with a common household item. A pen, for instance.

Reconcilable Differences by astolat

40,000 words | Smallville, Clark/Lex

Luthor Family Values.

Shelter by harriet_vane

63,500 words | Social Network, Jesse/Andrew

From the kinkmeme prompt: Some sort of AU vaguely based on Shelter! For whatever reason, Jesse has to take care of Hallie and give up his dream of being an actor. He ends up working in a dead end job when former, now successful friend (Andrew) returns home. They fall in love, etc, only Jesse can't go away with him because he has a responsibility to his family. CUE ANGST.

Show Me The Way Back Home Baby by stilinskisparkles

15,000 words | Teen Wolf, Derek/Stiles

In which Lydia and Jackson produce the world's cutest baby, and the pack goes crazy-- the good kind of crazy. Except for Derek, who is afraid of tiny cute babies and Stiles who plans to be the best Uncle ever. Even if Danny called dibs on Godfather.

Skybird by windsweptfic

33,785 words | Inception/White Collar, Arthur/Eames

Arthur and Eames adopt a kid and raise that kid into Neal Caffrey.

Small Cells and Fibers by sevenfists

7,830 words | Bandom, Frank/Gerard

Tuesdays were finger-painting days. Frank made sure to wear his oldest pair of jeans, because even with his full-length apron and his constant reminders that paint belongs on paper and not on clothing, he always ended up with tiny, multi-colored handprints all over his clothes. There wasn't a thing he could do about it, so he just wore pants from 1995.

Small Primes and Square Roots by liviapenn

12,500 words | SGA, McKay/Sheppard

"I hope you picked someone really intelligent, otherwise it seems like it would be kind of a waste. Of incubation time, if nothing else."

So Wise We Grow by deastar

81,250 words | Star Trek Reboot, Kirk/Spock

"Commander Spock, we have located your son," the Vulcan lady on the screen says, which would be great, except Jim can tell by the look on Spock's face that he's never heard of this kid before in his life. "If it is expedient, the child will be sent to join you on the Enterprise within the week."

Something Better by lovelypoet

18,350 words | Bandom, Frank/Gerard

"We all have to take jobs we don't like sometimes, you know?"

The Next Time You Say Forever by Thistlerose

27,300 words | Star Trek Reboot, Kirk/McCoy

After his ex-wife's death, McCoy is forced to leave the Enterprise to look after his teenage daughter. Under normal circumstances, this would be the end of…whatever it is he has with Kirk that's more than friendship, but less than what he wants. But the universe has other intentions.

The Reeducation of Misters Kane and Toews by jezziejay

15,900 words | Hockey, Kane/Toews

In which Kaner sort of has a kid, and Mr. Toews doesn't know which of them is the bigger brat.

AU featuring teacher!Jon and hockey-player!Kaner. With bonus 'Hawks characters, love notes, pasta jewelry, Be Better Pizzas, pirouettes, a sprinke of angst and guest appearance by Derek Jeter.

The Road Delivered Us Home by keelywolfe

117,430 words | Hobbit, Thorin/Bilbo

In the years since Bilbo left Erebor, he has lost his respectability, gained a nephew, and gotten on with life at Bag End.

He'd left aside adventure for the comforts and peace of his little Hobbit hole, and for the love of a child who needed him. Though perhaps, adventures can yet find him.

This Story Was Brought to You by Our Sponsors by scaramouche

29,500 words | Supernatural, Dean/Castiel

Dean's post-apocalyptic life is a friggin' soap opera. Romance! Angst! Separations! Reunions! Pizza Dinners! A Child Dean Never Knew He Had! It's all very dramatic.

throw a little sparkle all over it by etben

26,000 words | Bandom, Frank/Gerard

"Hey, Ma," Mikey says. "No, everything's fine—well, I mean, Gerard accidentally adopted a baby—no, he's changing her now, he can't talk."

Tiny Houses by ohmyjetsabel

77,130 words | Teen Wolf, Derek/Stiles

"So this is what Stiles does. He lies in Scott’s bed and waits for Melissa to say she’s found someone to get it out of him, to cure him of the wrongness and the bad, and he dreams.

God, he dreams.

He dreams of fire and swollen bellies and that scene in Alien, of giving birth to jackals through his urethra, the whole horrific nine yards. His head is a terrible place to be, he can’t imagine his stomach is much better, why anyone would want to put a thing inside of it."

Tip, Slide, Tumble by j_s_cavalcante

42,900 words | due South, Fraser/Kowalski

Ray knew when he found the body in the alley it was going to change someone's life. He just didn't expect that life would be his.

Turn by saras_girl

306,000 words | Harry Potter, Harry/Draco

One good turn always deserves another. Apparently.

Unless it's lies or it's love by sprat

25,300 words | American Idol, Kris/Adam

In which Adam (a rock star) meets Kris (a single dad) at an Emergency Room in Arkansas at the end of a particularly shitty night. Also features: San Francisco, fresh starts, baked goods, OCs, cameo appearances by Matt and Megan, pirates, monsters with garbage heads and a recording studio.

What Child Is This by lamardeuse

30,150 words | Merlin, Arthur/Merlin

A modern AU with Merlin, Arthur, mayhem, a baby and a jingly elf hat.

What to Expect by arsenic

29,200 words | Bandom, Bob/Mikey

Mikey has his band, and his little girl, and that's enough. Really, it is.

Winter's Children by neery

66,890 words | Marvel, Bucky/Steve

When their attempts to recreate the super soldier serum failed, Hydra started trying to breed Captain America clones from his genetic samples. Unfortunately, the serum's effects aren't passed down genetically, so instead of an army of tiny Captain Americas, they get a bunch of tow-headed, asthmatic, allergic, immuno-compromised little Steves.

And then the Winter Soldier stumbles across Hydra's failed experiment...

With Six You Get Eggroll by speranza

31,000 words | due South, Fraser/Kowalski

"Kick 'em In The Head: A Guide To Parenting."

ETA: Bonus! Because I apparently lost my bookmark for this one but have the memory of an elephant for kidfic, so it came to me eventually. :D

A Farm in Iowa 'Verse by sheafrotherdon

166,000 words | SGA, McKay/Sheppard

John inherits a farm, Rodney ends up entirely out of his element, and there is much ado about baseball.

#kidfic #recs

[mrmallard]

If you actually knew about the situation, vinny didn’t do anything, and the situation was made up to make him look bad, and the audio provided was spliced, please do your fucking research!!!!

I've had a bit of time to think about my responses and the information that's flying around at the moment. In hindsight, I didn't say much in my second post that I didn't already cover in my first post, and I understand why people would be upset with my input so far.

I'm going to have another shot at this, because the level of fatigue I had when I tackled this topic really didn't do me any favors. I think my first post was pretty solid, but I dropped the ball on the second post and I understand why someone would be upset with me over that. I'm sorry.

I would also like to say that as more information comes out about this, my opinion will likely continue to change. I'm open to new information. I'm coming to the best conclusions I can with the information that's been provided to me. This is an opinion, and opinions can and should evolve with new information.

And finally, I would ask that you stay with me on this post because A) it's really long and B) I'm going to explain myself to begin with and then go over some angles I didn't cover in my other posts - it's gonna look like I'm retreading the same old stuff to begin with, but I approach the subject with more nuance later on. I would ask that you reserve judgement until you read my final statement on the matter.

TL;DR - the question I'm concerned with is whether Vinny slept with fans or not. I don't have the answer to that question - though I personally think it looks likely - and so the extent of my feelings on the matter depend on whether this is the case or not.

Otherwise, I want to explain where I'm approaching this all from.

In my last posts, I mentioned power imbalances and inappropriate behaviour. I still stand by the basic tenets of what I said - a celebrity has a degree of power over someone who looks up to them, and that can easily create a relationship where one person puts in a lot more work to make the other person happy, or to maintain what they see as a once-in-a-lifetime relationship with someone they admire.

I would like to stress that this imbalance exists whether the more influential person acknowledges it or not. It can be "used" - Quinton Flynn comes to mind - but for the most part it's a neutral force that's inherent to a creator/fan relationship, and neither party may realise that this is the case until a breaking point is reached.

Fame, and the power that fame affords an individual, is relative - Vinny isn't Brad Pitt, but he still has influence with his fans. And as such, I find the notion of Vinny sleeping with fans to be inappropriate due to his inherent influence in the situation.

And so, that brings us to the main question of this post - does Vinny sleep with his fans?

Before I even attempt to answer that, I want to outline my feelings on the document. Because I want to make it clear that there are aspects of it that I don't agree with, and I'm not approaching this with an all-or-nothing mindset.

First of all, the first accusation uses some manipulative rhetoric. "Imagine if you were in that situation", "imagine how you'd feel if..." etc. I understand the point of it - personally, I think it's a useful piece of rhetoric to argue in favour of more humane policies, because if you can make someone understand an inhumane situation by putting them in someone else's shoes, you have a chance of getting through to them. If the accuser has gone through a hard time, I understand why they would want the reader to empathise with their plight.

But given that this is a document where we can't verify every little happening or goings-on that the accuser is presenting to us, it pays to be wary of that kind of rhetoric. And as we can't confirm everything being said here, I would be extra wary of rhetoric like that being used.

Secondly, the audio recording does seem to be stitched together - even the transcript is choppy as fuck. I don't buy that it's all from one single call, and that would indicate that the accuser is trying to paint a particular picture of him and take things out of context to make him look worse.

Though I have to ask - is there any question as to whether the man on the other end is Vinny?

If it was Vinny talking about giving someone HPV, and that someone was indeed a Vinesauce fan - then that says that Vinny does sleep with fans. And because of that, I would find his behavior inappropriate.

If we accept that this recording has been compromised, then I can't verify one way or the other - but if this was indeed the case, I would have to stick with my guns and condemn Vinny for behaving inappropriately.

So you might be thinking to yourself that by labelling this behavior as inappropriate, and suggesting that Vinny has engaged in it, I'm calling Vinny an abuser, or a pervert, or any number of things. I want to clarify what I'm saying.

The accusations levelled against him are heinous and far-reaching. You have people equating him to a pedophile for chatting up younger women, you have people painting him as a malicious abuser. I don't think this is that extreme. I am not trying to further such heinous accusations.

My take on Vinny from the start has been that while something in his relationships might have gone awry one way or the other, I don't think it necessarily comes from a place of malice. I think he's an awkward dude navigating a grey area between private life and the public eye. I like Vinny's content - I'm a long time fan. I sympathize with him, and I understand that opening this can of worms is extremely hard on him, especially if he didn't do anything wrong.

The issue is that if aspects of these accusations are true - and while there are aspects that can be called into question, I don't think we can throw everything out just yet - then it isn't unreasonable to assume that there has been some degree of harm that has resulted from Vinny's relationships with Vinesauce fans. Not intentional harm necessarily, but harm all the same.

I can't just block up my ears and walk away from that - if it's true, I have to take that into account. And outside of this entire narrative being proven false, that's the best case scenario.

I would like to stress that my take on all this is tied strongly to my personal values as a person. And considering that, I think it's important to address that the content creators I follow have engaged in behavior that goes against my values in the past.

I like Game Grumps - I think Danny sleeping with fans in a groupie sort of way is inappropriate. I didn't believe the worst aspects of his accusations because I saw that RantGrumps were involved and they've been trying to take him down for years - sure enough, the person accusing him of grooming her as a teenager ended up deleting her shit and disappearing. The story was suss, and it was pointed out that he didn't do anything untoward towards a minor which was the bulk of the backlash - but the fact remains that Dan sleeps with his fans, and I disagree with that for reasons I've laid out earlier in this post.

I feel similarly about this situation with Vinny. We don't know everything about this story yet, and aspects of the main allegations don't sit right with me. I don't think a fully accurate picture of the situation is being painted. Much like I sat out the biggest bombshells about Dan Avidan, I don't think it would be constructive or appropriate to go all in on any of this without verifying its truthfulness.

With Dan, we can say that we know about his dalliances with fans. I disagree with that, and I condemn that behavior. I think there's a very real potential for harm towards Game Grumps/NSP fans who sleep with Dan, stemming from Dan's influence. I have to take that into account if I'm going to enjoy the content he produces - and given that there is no malice here, I could come around and engage with Game Grumps content in the future with the understanding that Dan is on thin ice, and that there needs to be more responsibility on his part.

The question I'm asking is whether Vinny is having dalliances with his fans. If he is, then my feelings towards him are identical to the ones I just posted about Dan.

And so, that begs the question - has Vinny slept with his fans?

I think there's a chance he has - I haven't seen proof that he hasn't. In which case, I would think it should be said that that's inappropriate behaviour, and I can't condone that.

Do I necessarily believe that it would make Vinny a predator if this was true?

I don't feel comfortable making that much of a leap.

I think Quinton Flynn is a predator. I think there have been much less e-famous personalities who used their influence to get away with a lot worse - specifically in the Smash Bros. community.

I don't have all the answers, but I absolutely believe that painting Vinny as a predator is a step too far with the information we have.

So, to sum up my final thoughts:

I understand that we don't have the full story. There are aspects of the accusations that I don't trust. On the same token, I have seen women saying they've gotten in contact with Vinny and had relations with him, though the first example I saw of this did at least say that he was apparently decent about it. Even then, I can't say I agree with the notion that Vinny sleeps with his fans.

But given that Vinny hasn't acted with malicious intent, I can say that I could eventually come around and engage with Vinny's content in the future with the understanding that he's on thin ice, and that there needs to be more responsibility on his part. Of course, that's if he has slept with Vinesauce fans in the first place - which I have been led to believe, but can't say with 100% certainty.

We need the full story. And until we have a better understanding of all this, I can't say for sure what's true and what isn't.

If I have somehow missed the whole story, before I finished writing this post or while I was writing this post, then I understand that this post has been a wild goose chase - but all I'm seeing is more drama and accusations flying around about who was behind all this with no definitive answer about what's true and what isn't.

Until we know everything, this is where I stand. This is my view of the whole situation. I don't want any innocent party to suffer in all this, which is why I'm taking this approach. And I would like to stress above anything else that A) I'm open to new information that confirms or denies aspects of this situation, and B) I'm engaging in this discourse in good faith.

I'm still not over the Quinton Flynn stuff - as much of an open and shut case as it was, it was still a shock and a sad surprise to learn about what he did and accept that he was a scumbag. I'm still upset about the Close Your Eyes, Look At The Mountains stuff - I loved those comics, but Kaycee was right to speak out about her experiences.

I don't want this to be true about Vinny. I like Vinesauce. I've already lost faith in so many entertainers I used to think of in a positive light. But I can't write it all off until I have confirmation that it isn't true. That's the reality of the situation, and you're free to feel otherwise.

#vinesauce

[sleekervae]

Young God [0.3]

Despite the obvious connection she felt with Andy, the way they clicked, Taylor had told herself not to get attached to him, that they were strangers passing and that this week was probably the only time they would ever meet. But when she watched him on stage, when she observed him in his element, she forgot about all of that.

Even in his lanky nature, Andy was an explosion on stage, like a paint bomb going off in a white room. There was something about the way he hyped the crowd all the way through the set, his smile when he heard them singing back to him loud enough so that he didn't have to, the infectious joy she felt watching the band play -- according to their setlist -- Fallen Angels.

There was so much to explore in the spunk, the charisma, the effortlessness of his performance that accentuated his raw talent, his long hair in his face and eyes, his nose resting on the microphone as he sang into it, the way he leaned well over the stage, how he bent down in a passion-fueled growl, how he seemed to get lost in the moment and it was hard to believe she'd only known him a couple of hours because she felt so intrigued and interested by him, his mind, drawn to his presence.

When Black Veil Brides' show had come to an end, Taylor was jolted forward when Danny suddenly slapped her on the back. He held a grin like a proud parent watching his kids perform on stage, beaming with the energy that had just been expelled from the last forty-five minutes.

"Oi! What were that for?" Taylor scolded him, rubbing at her sore shoulder blade.

"Well, what'd ya' think?" he asked, completely ignoring her irritation at his actions.

Taylor grinned then as she stole another glance at the sweaty boys coming off their stage, "... Very loud," she chuckled, "Very impressive, though,"

Later on in the day Taylor found herself sitting under a white pop-up tent, guitar sat in her lap as young kids, probably ranging between the ages of 12 to 19 came funnelling in. They sat either on the grass or in folding chairs. Taylor's rhythm guitarist and best friend, Maxeen, was sat next to her. Her own nervous tension bounced off of Taylor's and reverberated around the small square space.

The heat radiating off the sun certainly was no comfort to them.

A close but discreet enough distance away were Danny and Ben, promptly joined by Andy and Ashley who they invited to come and watch Taylor's set. With a fresh cigarette in his fingers Andy watched with intrigue as Taylor balanced her scratched and sticker-covered acoustic guitar in her lap, strumming it a few times to tune it just to her liking. She inhaled deeply a few times as she watched the crowd grow to the size of the average school classroom. Her blue hair fell over her face just to be quickly tucked behind her ears. He could tell she was terrified.

Their mediator came to address the crowd, a taller, scruffier man with sleeve tattoos and a Hawaiian shirt. Taylor took another deep breath.

"Thanks so much guys for coming out to Warped Tour this year!" he announced, earning a few faded claps and whoops, "We brought out a very special guest for you all today. She's the newest budding rock act in England right now, and she was gracious enough to find time in her schedule to come and hang out with us this week!"

He then turned to Taylor and winked. She smiled politely.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm Warped welcome -- trying saying that ten times fast -- to Taylor Wray!" the mediator stepped away to another round of echoing applause.

Taylor took another deep breath as the clapping died down, "Yeh're all doin' alreyht, yeah?" she spoke softly, "Please forgive the accent," the unique zang of her Geordie accent brought a merry giggle to the audience. That was a small comfort at least. She looked to Maxeen, who nodded encouragingly and Taylor counted them in.

"Okay, one, two, three, four..."

The soft, haunting twang of her guitar floated through the airs, wafted pleasantly through Andy's ears as she started to sing. From the moment she opened her mouth her voice was golden, flowing like rich velvet with a raspiness that he found incredibly sexy. Her fingers plucked delicately at the string, and her brown eyes were focused on the worn out wood so as not to face the reality that she was really performing here. He noted how Taylor's knee trembled as she tried not to bounce from the nervous energy, or how she was glancing at her partner now and then for reassurance. She had to clear her throat once or twice before the next verse, but regardless she was unlike any specimen Andy had ever laid eyes on.

Yet as she sang, there was an underlying darkness to her. Perhaps it was the solemn emotion, or how her heartbroken poetry struck a chord within him. She had key phrases in her songs that had chills running down his spine. The crowd seemed just as taken with her as he was, sitting quietly yet their attention appeared undividing from Taylor's music.

"She's pretty good," Ashley mused, "Is she doing any stage shows?" he asked Ben.

"No," he huffed, "But you guys gotta' see her on the electric guitar. She goes insane!"

"Yeah!" Danny piped in, "She's even better then Ben!"

Andy snickered as the taller boy glared at his bandmate, but he shrugged nonetheless, "I'm not even gonna' argue with that one, actually. You're right," he chuckled.

Andy took another drag of his cigarette, "So how long is she here for?" he asked them.

"Rest of the week," Danny replied.

He and Ashley was surprised at that, "That's it? She's not doing the circuit?"

"We was lucky enough to get her out for a week," Ben said, "If we can get her signed to a label here, she could stay for longer next time,"

"So, where does she go to get signed?" Andy asked.

"Whoever wants her," Danny said, "Unfortunately, we haven't met a lot of labels who're interested in taking on a rocker bird like her. We just managed to talk our boss into signing her,"

"Fuck. They're loss, dude," Ashley scoffed bitterly.

From just behind the clouds the sun was able to come through, spotlighting a glow just behind the Englishwoman's head. The light made her hair appear platinum, shifting from dark and light wash blues with every little move that she made. When her song came to an end she finally opened her eyes, and her gaze fell on Andy himself. Near immediately her knee stopped trembling, and instead a soft smile wormed its way to her face.

Andy took another quick drag.

A sum of hours had passed. The night was beginning to christen the sky with hues of vibrant oranges that would soon fade out into encompassing purples and indigos. The last of the acts were going on stage and soon the festival would be cleaned up and packed off for the next destination.

In that time frame -- that of which Taylor hadn't kept track of -- she was sitting in the middle of Danny's flat and was refolding and packing her clothes for the venture tomorrow. Beside her was an ashtray with a sizzling joint. She felt calmer now then she had earlier, her first performance in America now checked off her list. Well, perhaps maybe half a check mark would've sufficed? An acoustic only show was blatantly boring to Taylor.

The front door suddenly swung open and Danny came jogging in, being the sole epitome of giddiness and stimulus. He was a little less put together from when she'd last seen him -- with greasy, messy hair and sweat-filmed skin; not to mention the brash odour of overworked body that followed him through the door.

"I've walked this road for hours

To the white hills, and the oceans I search for solace in this toxic land of sin Just let me in! Just let me in!"

Taylor smirked at his off-key, top-of-lungs singing, "I take it you had a good time," she said.

"It was great," he huffed, "We missed you afterwards,"

"Well, they didn't need me anymore," Taylor shrugged back, "Thought I'd come back and catch a few winks. Maxeen and Robin went out shopping,"

Danny ran a hand through his soggy hair and flopped down on the couch, "Well, you could've slept on the bus," he said.

Taylor scrunched her nose at the notion, "No offence, Dan, but I ain't putting me head on any of them surfaces in that bus of yours. I don't know what's touched the cushions,"

Danny started to laugh, "Tay, what do you think we do? Have a good wank before the show?"

"There have been stranger pre-show rituals," Taylor replied, "You gonna' shower? You smell like sweaty-dude-in-a-cheap-gym,"

"Yeah, I'm gonna' shower," Danny said, "What're you doing with your clothes?"

"Packing," she shrugged, "Where are we going tomorrow?"

"Ventura," he huffed, "Maybe see some talking animals? Perhaps we'll run into a particualr skillful animal detective?" he wiggled his eyebrows at her. Taylor shook her head with a chuckle.

"I've heard funnier, Danny," she said.

He gave a small hmph before snatching the joint out of the ashtray and taking his own drag, "Very well. You up for a night out?" he asked her then.

Taylor couldn't help but groan, her head was pounding at the thought, "Again, eh? Last night weren't enough for you?" she replied, hoping that he was just joking.

"Come on, we won't go crazy tonight. We're going to just drink beer and bullshit on the bus," he said, "If you want, you don't even have to do anything rough,"

Taylor stopped and stared up at him. Danny stared back too, right until they caught onto the same page and chuckled merrily, "That's what she said," they said in unison.

With that, Taylor stood up from the floor and did a quick stretch, throwing her hands over her head to pull out the knick that that formed in her lower back. Fuck, when did the floor get so hard?

"The guys from Black Veil are coming," Danny suddenly piped in.

With that mention, Taylor started to smile. Her exhaustion then was repleted with a small burst of energy, "Oh, yeah?"

Danny nodded happily, "Yeah! They liked your set. I mean -- Andy and Ashley did, anyway. I don't know where the other three were,"

"I didn't meet Ashley," she said.

"Well, now you can," Danny put the joint back down and went for his bedroom to freshen up, "What did you think of their show, love?" he called.

"You already asked me that!" Taylor replied.

"Yeah, but you weren't smiling the way you are now, you cheeky shit," she could just imagine the shit-eating smirk on Danny's face now.

"Oh, fuck off, Danny," she scolded back.

"I'm only teasing ya', Tay," Danny suddenly popped back out of his room, only donned in a pair of track pants, "I told him if he dares lay a hand on ya', I'll kill him,"

Taylor scoffed back, gawking at him up and down, "Danny, you're about as threatening as a beach ball," she told him.

"I have muscles though!" he replied, "Biersack's a twig,"

"What's your point?" she asked.

"You can fuck a beach ball," he replied, "A twig I reckon is unsavory,"

Taylor stared at him in near disbelief at his words, then she started to laugh, "Mate, what the fuck?" she exclaimed, "Tell me you haven't actually... like you didn't... like... wait, Danny," she stopped laughing then when she wondered if he was being dead serious in his analogy.

"I haven't, if that's what you're wondering," he said, "I wouldn't put it past Cam though. He might be small enough to fit it in the air hole,"

With teasing disappointment, Taylor grabbed one of her shirts and threw it at him. It missed him by a few inches, "You're sick!"

"I love you!"

Andy glanced through the top of his beer bottle, peering at what was left before he quickly down the rest and set the glassware aside with a few of the other empty bottles. Not solely all of his, to be clear. He was only half listening to Ben's drunken story which involved James, alcohol, nudity and a very pretty fan from one of their European shows. His fingers drummed on the armrest of the couch, glancing out the window now and again to see if he could spot Danny and Taylor somewhere in the night.

There was a new and unfamiliar excitement that coursed through him with every thought of Taylor. Never before had he been so taken by a woman like her; somebody who at first glance appeared so shy and quiet like a little church mouse, yet within her held a great and unequivocal power that hypnotized those who paid close enough attention to her.

He took another beer from the six pack and started to listen in.

"... and then I just look at this sad sack o' shit and go 'mate, I was just going to ask if you wanted to eat'," Ben's story had the other boys in stitches, apart from James who scowled and blushed profusely as that particular disdainful memory.

"I didn't think it was funny," he grumbled.

"You're just upset 'cause she didn't call you back the next day," Sam awed at him.

Cameron just shrugged nonchalantly with a swig of his own beer, "I didn't think she were that pretty. She were like one of 'em trashy Essex girls," he said.

"Well mate," Ben leaned over and patted James' shoulder reassuringly," when you've had as much to drink as James did that night, anybody's beautiful," The bus cracked up in drunken laughter again, the only being that seemed lit and raucous on a rather quiet night in the bus parking lot.

Meanwhile, Taylor squeaked and scampered off to the side to narrowly avoid being hit by Danny's mud splash, "Fuck off, Danny!" she cried, quickly checking to see if he'd stained her outfit. Not that she put much effort into it; only a pair of ripped skinny jeans and a white t-shirt with a pair of tits drawn on the front.

"Oi, simmer down, Tay. I'm only teasing with ya'," Danny wrapped his larger arm around her and proceeded to ruffle her teal blue hair, much to Taylor's chagrin.

"Yeah, you're just teasing with me," she wriggled out of his grasp, "Wanker,"

"My deepest apologies,"

They trudged through the field, reaching a park lot that was crammed to the brim with vehicles. Tour buses, equipment vans, jeeps and SUVs. They passed a larger bus decked out in black, with tinted window and a bright red stripe on its side. It loomed over and cast an imposing shadow over the three musicians, swallowing the gravel and grass beneath them in a pool of black. The ultra bright stadium lights set up around the park were the only stark contrast to the shadows, guiding them to their destination.

They finally approached the desired bus, jet black and donning the band's logo on the side in crisp Times New Roman. Danny knocked while Taylor waited anxiously behind. They waited only for a mere matter of seconds before a subtle click echoed through the air and the door swung open. Taylor was taken aback to see an older man standing before them, donning longer hair and an open denim vest. His arms were near-full sleeve tattoos, and he had a face that held this brooding, yet cute quality to it -- kind of like a grizzly bear.

"Ashley, mate!" Danny raised his hand and full-on bro-hugged the older lad, "Handsome at ever, man,"

"Back at you, dude," Ashley replied, his eyes then landed on Taylor and his smile grew.

"And it's nice to finally meet you, Taylor," he said, "I'm Ashley,"

Taylor smiled shyly and shook his hand, "Pleasure," she said, "Areyainthebandthen?"

Ashley's smile then faltered. He bent his head down as though he couldn't hear her, but in actuality he didn't think it was humanly possible for people to speak so fast and still hear them.

"Come again?" he said.

"She asked if it's your band," Danny said, "Tay's a Geordie, they have their own funny accent,"

"It ain't funny!" Taylor cried, "It's jus' unique,"

Ashely then nodded, "Okay... well, do you drink back in Geordie? Or whatever part of England you're from?" he then chuckled.

"Sure," Taylor replied, "In fact, I can drink Danny here under the table still do a perfect cartwheel,"

"Bullshit you could," Danny scoffed.

"We'll put it to the test inside," With that, Ashley stood back again, "Welcome to Warped Tour, Taylor,"

Taylor followed Danny inside with  Ashley taking up the rear. The first thing that hit Taylor was the distinct smell of charred nicotine and hops. The next was department store aftershave, the good shit though; not the cheap bottles her dad used to buy. Coming into the atmosphere of an actual tour bus felt somewhat claustrophobic and confining to Taylor, yet at the same time, she felt quite safe inside. Glancing out the tinted windshield she could see the world, yet they had no inkling of whether she was inside or not.

Aimless chatter and laughter struck her ears, some men and women. Taylor nervously pushed some of her hair behind her ear, forcing herself to put on a smile to engage new strangers. The bus was clean enough, just some pillows were awry on the couch and the countertop was littered with cans, bottles, and red cups. The Asking boys were sat around in company with a few other strangers she had yet to meet.

"Fellas!" Ben suddenly called when he spotted his friends, "The party has now begun!" he raised his arms to the side as though he were giving a church sermon. The three young strangers stood and greeted Danny, whilst Taylor hung back, looking aimlessly at her sneakers as the old friends got reacquainted. She then noted the rips in her jeans, showing off the several week-old bruises that freckled her knees. That was an occupational hazard, she always tried to look badass and slammed down on her knees during her guitar solos, effectively yet unintentionally harming herself. The crowd however seemed to love it.

"I'd like you guys to meet somebody," Danny interjected then, stepping back to let Taylor have the hot seat, "Meet the hottest new act in Britain,"

"Danny!" she scolded, abashed as red tinted her olive cheeks.

"What?" he shrugged, "Was I wrong?"

"He most certainly is not!" a lankier young man approached, with a long face and smudged makeup beneath his eyes that just seemed to burst with enthusiasm, "I'm CC,"

"Nice to meet ya'," she shook his head.

CC then turned to his friends, "And over here we got Jake and Jinxx," he pointed to two young men, dressed similarly to himself with floppy hair and old makeup stains, but they were brawnier, "And this bean dick on the couch is Andy,"

"Take a look in the mirror, dude," Andy scolded.

Taylor bit the inside of her lip when she saw him again, and she averted her eyes back to CC to avoid her cheeks growing any redder, "We've actually already met," she said.

"In that case," he then turned to the Asking boys, "Over here, we got Sam, Cameron and James --"

"Oh, shut up and have another drink, CC!" James exclaimed.

Taylor snickered quietly, "I think he's had plenty already," she said, noting the way this boy wavered slightly on his feet.

A few hours had passed into the night, mostly filled with alcohol-fuelled interactions and wild stories from early band days. Once having a few beers, Taylor found herself beginning to settle down around this metal band. They weren't as scary and wicked as her first impressions had told her, if anything they were complete nutters. It helped having Danny and Ben around, just so Taylor didn't feel so lost and out of place amongst them.

Taylor found herself snuggled between Danny and Ben, just listening as oppose to partaking in conversation. She was still so tired beyond anything she'd ever felt, and Taylor quickly regretted coming out tonight. She wondered what Maxeen was up to back in the motel room she'd rented, probably conked out to be well rested for the trip tomorrow.

From across the couch where she sat, Andy was perched on a beanbag, only semi-paying attention to Ben's story about a recent scuffle he had back in York as his eyes kept panning back to Taylor. There was an air of fatigue that floated over her head, her deep brown eyes slipping shut before popping open again at the slightest raise in volume. If she had just come from across the Pond, Andy didn't blame her for being so sleepy. Her teal-blue hair fell delicately around her shoulders, raising gently with every shallow breath she took. His eyes averted then to the holes in her jeans where her bruises were just peaking out. Subconsciously, he pressed down on the rib brace underneath his shirt.

Her glance suddenly shifted and her eyes locked with his, and she blushed when she noticed Andy watching her. She wiggled her eyebrows a few times and suppressed a giggle, a warmth flooded through her when he smiled back. His lips turned into a cocky smirk. Taylor was utterly perplexed by Andy; the cockiness he exuded was undeniable, but she couldn't help but think he was contrastingly soft at the same time, each consuming feature of him seemingly met with a delicate counterpart.

"Tay, you're falling asleep on me," Danny's voice suddenly wafted through her ears and she sat up at the sudden mention of her name. She blushed profusely when the others giggled at her shock.

"Sorry, babe," she mumbled, yawning into her fist. Andy raised his eyebrows and suppressed the snigger that was fighting to make its way out at the way she drawled her words, her accent unlike anything he had heard before.

"That's some accent you got there," Ashley said, near-reading Andy's mind.

"Got it from me ma, dear," Taylor drawled back.

CC then started to laugh to himself, clearly at a well-off point of intoxication, "Deea," he slurred, trying to mock Taylor's accent, "I like the way she says words," he said.

Taylor glanced at him with uncertainty, but she shook her head as she sat up and did al little stretch, "I assume that's a compliment," she said.

"It is," Jake confirmed with an apologetic nod, "So, where are you from in England, Taylor?"

"A little coastal town called Newcastle," she then averted her eyes to the sozzled CC, "We all speak funny there," she grinned.

"But she lives in London with me" Danny said.

"For now," Taylor pointed out, "Until I can afford to get my own flat,"

Cameron snickered, "It's gotta' be fucking awkward when his bird's over," he said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Taylor looked over at Danny, "Well, it would be nice if the walls were sound proof," she then looked to Ben, "Though it's nothing compared to when Ben comes over,"

"Aye, poor kid," Ben looped an arm around her, "She has to sleep with earbuds in the entire night," he smirked.

"We appreciate your support though, Tay," Danny smirked back.

Taylor refrained from rolling her eyes at their bromance, instead decided to fish her lighter from her pocket and stood up, "I'm gonna' nip out for a cig,"

Andy's mouth moved faster than his brain did, "Care for some company, darlin'?" he asked. Taylor raised an eyebrow at him. She suddenly realized that all of the boys were staring at her expectantly, and felt herself go flush again.

"Why not," she replied. Andy took that as an invitation and hopped to his feet, wavering a little as he struggled to find his balance. From there he grabbed a packet of cigarettes off the countertop and followed her to the bus door. Danny suddenly shouted after them.

"Have her back in ten minutes, Biersack!" he called in a threatening manner.

"Yeah!" Ben piped in, "Or we'll come find ya!"

Andy smirked at them, "I'm quaking," he mocked. Taylor rolled her eyes as they stepped outside. Much to her relief, the night air was warmer than what she'd come prepared for. She regretted wearing her thicker denim jacket. Andy blew strands of hair out of his face and shook his head, acclimatizing himself to the warmer air. The two of them sat on the grass, leaning against the side-trunk of the bus. Andy produced the cigarettes and Taylor pulled out the lighter.

"So," Andy exhaled, handing Taylor a cigarette, "Taylor Wray,"

Taylor grinned, "Andy... w-what's your last name again?" she asked as she placed the bud between her lips.

"Biersack," he replied.

"Oh," Taylor clicked the flame and lit the end of her cig, then handed the lighter to the long-haired rocker, "Is that European?"

"German," he replied, "Where does 'Wray' come from?"

"Scotland,"

"... But you're from England,"

Taylor gave him a wayside glance, "Their two parts of a whole, babe," she held up two fingers just to make her point.

Andy smiled sheepishly and took another drag, "... I knew that," he said.

Taylor giggled to herself. Her captivating smile and the tiny creases around her eyes as she laughed drew Andy in instantly. He wasn't sure if she was laughing from his meek comeback or it was just the alcohol doing it for her. But by God, the noise bubbling from between her lips was melodic and addictive from the first note.

"Have you ever been to England, Andy?" she asked.

"I was there about a month ago for the Download Fest," he replied.

"You went to Leicestershire?"

Again, Andy paused, grinning like a fool at her accent as he puffed away on his cigarette, "Yeah, we went to Leisheshire,"

"Leicestershire," Taylor corrected, "Le-shy-steh-shire,"

"Leshestasirw," Andy drawled, "Leshesham. Lesbian. Who gives a fuck?"

"People from Leicestershire, I'd imagine," to both Andy and Taylor's surprise, she started laughing again. She didn't know what had gotten into her suddenly, but she couldn't seem to help herself. Why was she so fucking giggly all of the sudden? It may have been the way Andy was looking at her; transfixed by his crystalline eyes that seemed to bore a hole right into her soul. Despite the hair covering his face, those eyes of his were so crisp and clear.

"Are you already plastered?" Andy asked, reigning his own grin of amusement.

"No!" she exclaimed just a tad too quickly for her own liking, "Look, I -- right. I have been drinking. That being said, I am also so fucking exhausted from this jet lag. So, please forgive me if I act like a fucking nutter,"

"A fookin' nuttah?" Andy mocked back, making Taylor giggle some more, "You're pretty cute, Taylor,"

"Well, you're not so bad, neither," she admitted shyly, "It's nice to see what that face looks like without the makeup,"

Andy took a drag and exhaled slowly. He held this electric charisma about him, seemingly so that it wouldn't matter how many times he'd verbally tear himself down, he was a cocky, confident young man.

"Did I freak you out today?" he asked.

"Hardly," she replied, her gaze dropping to the ink on his arms, "You have a lot of tattoos, eh?"

"Why, yes I do," he replied.

"You got a favourite one?"

He didn't reply. Instead, Andy raised his right arm, proudly showing off the Batman tattoo on his forearm, "Is now a good time to mention I'm a huge Batman nerd?"

"You could've fooled me," Taylor replied, shedding her jacket to reveal her bare arms, "I'm more of a Poison Ivy fan myself," she held her forearm out to proudly show off the dark green inking of an ivy vine, the inside filled with a dulled red.

"It's cute," he brushed his fingers over the delicate lines, only noting then how Taylor suddenly winced when he touched her. He pulled back, "Are you okay?"

"Your hands are freezing, mate," she chuckled.

Andy relaxed again, "I just naturally have cold hands, can't explain it," he grinned sheepishly.

Taylor brought her own cigarette to her lips, and out came three rings of silky grey smoke; an old trick she had picked up back home. Andy just watched, his own breath nearly getting caught in his throat when her lily perfume intermingled with the smell of charred nicotine.

"You showing off now?" he asked.

"Maybe," she shrugged back, leaning in closer so her nose just barely touched his. She was unsure just what had made her so brazen suddenly; perhaps the deadly combination of alcohol and fatigue had something to do with it. Whatever it was, Taylor found it undeniably exciting, "You got any secret talents of your own, Andy?"

Andy swallowed back whatever qualms he was holding on to, slowly memorizing every delicate detail of Taylor's face as though he was afraid to loose one mere second of her. However, before he could reply, they heard a shout come from above.

"Oi! You two!" they both looked up, and lo and behold, Danny and Ben had stuck their heads out of the bus window, "Get your arses back in here!" Danny exclaimed.

"You said we had ten minutes!" Andy replied, "Besides, you're no one's parent!"

"Yeah!" Taylor cried defiantly.

Ben tutted at them, "But we're morally responsible for Taylor. Ain't that right, honey?" he smirked.

"Oh, suck my dick, Ben!" Taylor replied, loud enough so that the others would hear her. With that, Andy burst into a fit of laughter, and more could be heard from inside the bus.

Danny shook his head, "How unbecoming of a lovely lady," he mocked.

Taylor looked to Andy, who was caught in the throes of hysterical amusement. She chuckled herself and took another quick drag before crushing the end into the grass, trying not to stare at him as he calmed down. But fuck, from the way he threw his head back to the curl of his lips when he smiled, Taylor felt herself falling into a rabbit hole she feared she wasn't going to crawl out from any time soon.

#andy biersack #andy black #andy biersack imagine #andy biersack fanfic #andy black imagine #black veil brides #black veil army #andy bvb #fanfic #jake pitts #jinxx bvb #cc bvb #lonny eagleton #original female character #original story #original art #girl bands #english girls #rock music #rocknroll #hard rock

[lobsterdex]

beach house living

so y’all remember my beach lifeguard au from like 2015???? no?? that’s fair!! but i said fuck it i still like that au and decided to write it! so here’s what i have so far! featuring Jack being super awkward and lardo taking no shit! now featuring a part 2!

.

The girl who opens the door is about a foot shorter than him. She’s also wearing a red sweatshirt that’s probably twice her size, making her look even smaller. 

All of that still doesn’t make it okay for Jack to blurt out, “Aren’t you too short to be a lifeguard?” 

What the fuck Zimmermann, he thinks. 

She raises an eyebrow. “Aren’t you too tall to be a douchebag?”

Yeah, he deserves that. At least she didn’t slam the door in his face. 

“Sorry. I-I deserved that. I didn’t mean-I just, uh. Sorry.”

“There aren’t any height restrictions,” she says flatly. “It’s not an amusement park.” 

Jack wants to die, “I’m sorry.” 

She stares at him for a very, very long moment, sizing him up. 

Jack wants to disappear. He’s considering apologizing again and then just leaving and never coming back when she says, “I’m not a lifeguard. But still, not cool dude.” 

“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that.” 

“It’s whatever.” 

Jack doesn’t know what else to say, figures he should probably just keep his mouth shut. The cab he took here is probably already gone. He could walk a block and call another one, head right back to the airport. When’s the next flight back to Canada? Fuck, he might have to get a hotel room for the night. 

“Tell you what,” she says, apparently taking pity on him. “How about we start over. I’m gonna close the door, wait ten seconds, and when I open it again you’ll say something polite and respectful, and we can move on from there.” 

She doesn’t wait for a response. Jack stares blankly at the closed door. He’s still staring blankly when it opens again.

He’s silent for a beat too long. She raises her eyebrows.

“I’m Jack,” he manages. “Uh, Zimmermann.”

“Nice to meet you, Jack.” She holds out her hand for him to shake. “I’m Lardo.”

He shakes her hand. “Uh, my dad said you’d be expecting me.” 

She nods. “We are. Come on in.” 

She steps aside to let him in. “Everyone’s at work except me and Shitty. We have off today.” 

“Okay,” Jack says, unsure of whether he should ask if Shitty is a person or if that would be rude. 

“Shitty’s the only one with his own room, so you’ll be bunking with him. Hope that’s okay.” 

So Shitty is, in fact, a person. Who he has to share a room with. Okay. 

“Your dad mentioned that, right?” Lardo says, and Jack hopes to fuck he didn’t just look as panicked as he felt, because no, his father most certainly did not mention that. 

“Uh, yeah, he did.” 

Lardo lets it go. “Cool.”

“You guys are in the downstairs bedroom, so you have your own bathroom. It’s right across the hall,” she says, stopping in front of what is apparently his and Shitty’s room and pointing at the closed door across from it. “You can put your stuff in here, get settled in. He cleared out closet space and shit. We’ll be in the den, so just yell if you need anything.” 

“Okay. Thanks.” 

“No problem. Welcome to the Haus.”

She heads off down the hall, so he steps inside the room and closes the door, dropping his duffel on the ground. 

He sighs. That could’ve gone better. 

Too late now. 

He looks around the room, taking in the place he’ll be spending the next few months in. Two twin beds, two nightstands, a big armchair, a dresser, and a closet. The room decor is beach themed, soft blues and yellows, seashells on the lamp stand. It’s nice, if somewhat cheesy. 

One half of the room is clearly lived in, bed unmade, a closed laptop on the floor next to it, a phone charger plugged in next to the nightstand. Jack picks up his duffel and sets it at the foot of the other bed, then sits down and stares at the wall, trying not to panic. 

It’s just the first day. The first hour. Bad start, sure, but Lardo was willing to give him a second chance, which is a good sign, and he didn’t have to meet a bunch of people at once, which he hates, so that’s good too. Shitty’s side of the room is relatively clean and he apparently made space for him in the closet, which he didn’t have to do. His dad said they were nice, kinda weird, but good people. Since one of them apparently goes by Shitty, Jack believes the weird part, but Lardo seems nice enough, considering the first words out of his mouth made him sound like a jackass. 

It’s day one. He’ll be fine. And if he’s not, at least he’ll have the room to himself during the day while Shitty is at work. Maybe even the house to himself when everyone is at work. 

It’ll be fine. 

There’s a knock on the door.

“Uh, come in,” Jack says. 

The guy who opens the door has a mustache that’s actually pretty impressive and is wearing nothing but boxers that have cartoon mustaches on them. 

“Hey man,” he says, leaning against the door frame. “I’m Shitty.” 

“Uh, Jack.”

“Nice to meet you. Welcome to our crib. Well, I guess it’s your dad’s crib, so yours by association. Welcome to your crib.” 

Jack blinks at him. “Thanks?” 

Shitty grins. “I’m your roomie, if you didn’t already know. I’ll keep my shit on my side and I don’t snore, to my knowledge. Bathroom is across the hall. Left half of the closet is yours, so are the top two drawers of the dresser. You want a sandwich?” 

“Um, sure.” 

“Cool. All we have right now is turkey, we need to go on a grocery run. Figured we’d wait until you got here so you could go with us and get whatever shit you need. Sound good?”

“Yeah, uh, thanks. You didn’t have to.” 

“No problem, brah.” He pushes off the door frame and heads down the hall towards what must be the kitchen. Jack takes that as his cue to follow. 

The kitchen is nice, cream colored cabinets and warm toned marble counters. It has an open floor plan, flowing into the den where Lardo is lying on a comfortable looking, squashy blue couch. The wall opposite the hall has tall windows and french doors that lead out to a deck, and Jack can see wicker furniture and a grill. The view is of the beach, colorful umbrellas and the ocean. 

“Sup,” Lardo nods at him. He nods back. 

“Beach closes at 5,” Shitty says, taking ingredients out of the fridge. “Well, it doesn’t technically close, people can still be on it, but the lifeguards leave at 5. So everyone will be home at, like, 5:30? 5:45? Then grocery store, then dinner, is the plan for the night.”

“We’re all usually out of here by 9 in the mornings, so you’ll have the Haus to yourself a lot of the time,” Lardo says from the couch. “There’s beach shit in the shed for you, and an umbrella and some chairs.”

“Oh yeah, towels are important. Did you bring any?” Shitty says. 

What. “No?”

“Beach towels,” Lardo clarifies. 

“Oh. No.” 

“All good dude you can just borrow ours. Do you want mustard?” 

“That’s okay, I can just buy one,” Jack says. “And no thank you. And I can make my own sandwich.” 

Shitty shrugs. “Whatever works. Hella places sell towels around here, but bigger and thicker is better.” 

“That’s what she said,” Lardo grins. 

Shitty points at her with the butter knife he’s using to spread mustard on the bread. “She did say that. But we mustn't neglect skinny penis.” 

Lardo nods wisely. “We mustn't. It is ya boy.”

Shitty looks back over at Jack. “You want tomatoes?” 

“Yeah. I can make my own though, really.”

Shitty waves the knife around dismissively. “I’m already cutting them for me, it’s no problemo.” 

“If you’re sure.” 

“All good, my man. We’re out of lettuce, but we do have spinach?” 

“Sure.” 

“Swiss or cheddar?”

“Swiss is fine.” 

“Right on. So Lards,” Shitty turns his attention back towards the couch. “It’s the one with Kristen Bell in it, and Danny DeVito is there and he sells sausages.” 

“I swear to god you’re making this up.” 

“Cross my heart, Lards. It’s actually really good as rom coms go. And Kristen Bell is a fucking delight.” 

“I do love Kristen Bell.” 

“Who doesn’t?” Shitty says, and Jack thinks, me, because he has no idea who that is or what is going on or why they have separate towels for beaches. But they’re no longer focused on him, which is a relief. 

Shitty slides a plate with Jack’s sandwich on it across the counter to him without breaking the conversation. Jack tries to keep up, is fairly certain they’re still talking about rom coms, but nothing they say sounds familiar. Eventually, he gives up and focuses on eating. He finishes his sandwich, rinses his plate and loads it in the dishwasher, then silently excuses himself.

#beach au #jack zimmermann #lardo duan #check please #omgcp #omgcp fic #mine #my fic #tangotangredi #bhl

[saturn-in-autumn]

BRO your art and writing are both so good ajsbsjjs can I request a danny reveal to valerie? I would assume this would be a small drabble prompt but I'll let you choose how to do it and if you even want to do it in the first place whoops

ASDFGJHJK Thank you so much! 

Omg, first off I am SO SO Sorry this took me so long to get back to you! It’s actually so bad... But I finally finished your request!! It took me a while to figure out how to phrase everything and get my head around it but I ended up getting a little carried away in the end, I’m sorry... 

So here it is I suppose! I’ve also posted it to Ao3 here if you’d like to have a look, but it’s also under the cut if you want to read it on here! 

Thank you so much for your patience, I only hope it was kind of worth it? Idk. I ended up writing a short story/one shot rather than a drabble haha, I just didn’t expect it to get so long!  And thanks for the request idea! 

- Fire and Water -

Valerie sometimes thought Danny was like water.

He was so perfectly clear somehow, an undisturbed lake shining in the moonlight. His iridescent blue eyes sometimes felt like they could see right through her, somehow sense exactly how she was feeling, understand her deepest secrets.

That eerie calmness rippled and cascaded through him, so clear and tranquil, yet so incredibly dangerous.

He had a depth that terrified her to no end, a feeling that if she dove down too deep he would overflow, drown her with his power. As if his little lake held all the fierce might of the sea.

(In which Danny has a secret to tell Valerie, but doesn't quite know how to go about it)

“Ugh, what am I supposed to do Tuck?” Danny groaned, resting his head on his elbows in the grimy corner booth.

Tucker shrugged, patting his back awkwardly in what he hoped was a comforting manner. “I don’t know man, I don’t have a murderous ghost-hunter for a girlfriend.”

Danny sighed, looking forlornly across the crowded restaurant of the Nasty Burger. Valerie was still standing by the till, laughing with some customer as she took their order. She was gorgeous even in the grease-stained yellow of the fast food uniform. Silently Danny watched as she tucked a stray strand of dark hair out of her eyes and looked away. He was such a loser.

“Hey… but then again, it’s not really our decision to make.” Sam’s voice cut through Danny’s musings and he looked up at her dolefully. “Whether or not you want to share it with her is up to you.” She took another slurp of her slushie and frowned. “I thought you had sworn not to. Why the sudden change?”

Danny looked away, straightening to peer out the window at the passers-by on the street. “I don’t know… I just feel… like it’s wrong to keep lying to her is all…” Danny could feel Sam and Tucker’s eyes on him as he sighed again, “Look, we’ve been going out for almost a year… That’s, like more than I’ve ever been in a relationship my whole life! Plus, even if she doesn’t know it, I know her secret, but she doesn’t know mine, I can’t help feeling like I’m cheating on her or something weird like that…”

“Danny…” Sam started but he continued.

“But at the same time, I’m terrified that if she finds out she’ll hate me y’know? Like… I don’t want to lose her in the process…”

“Look Danny, as the current female representative at the table.” Sam said, placing her drink firmly on the table to look at him in the eyes, “I can safely say that telling the truth is probably your best option. If she finds out and it’s not from you, it’ll probably hurt her a lot more than just coming clean.”  

Tucker nodded, “You know, Sam’s right, if you really care about her what’s the worst that could happen?”

“The worst is that she’ll shoot an ecto-blast through my chest faster than I can say ‘Sorry’.” Danny moaned. “Or she’ll tell my parents or something… Then I’d really be dead meat.”

“And the best-case scenario is that she doesn’t mind.” Sam said with an eyebrow raised. “I’m sorry Danny, but if you guys really care about each other then keeping secrets probably shouldn’t be on the table. Valerie has a right to know if you’re hiding things from her, chances are she’ll figure it out sooner or later. Her aim’s getting better by the day.”

Danny winced, rubbing his upper forearm where the burn mark still stung.

Sam’s eyes softened and she reached over, taking his hand gently, “Danny I honestly think that anyone who knows you, the real you, won’t hate you no matter what you are. The real test is whether or not you think you can trust her enough to tell her and get away with it. She’s still the Red Huntress after all. I wouldn’t take this decision lightly.”

Danny nodded but smiled. “Would you guys mind though?”

Tucker blinked, “Dude, we’re your friends. If you want to date the most dangerous ghost-hunter in Amity Park we have your back. As Sam said, it’s you’re secret to share with whoever you want.”

Danny closed his eyes and stared at the ceiling, “Thanks guys…” he mumbled, glancing over to where Valerie was once again. It looks like she was packing up. “I think I’ll try and tell her tonight…”

At that Tucker’s eyes widened, “Wait, really? Like you don’t want to think about this a little more before you run in guns blazing?”

Danny blinked at him, “Well, I know it’s a little brash sure, but the sooner I do it the sooner I can sleep easy right? Whether she hates me or not I’ll at least know.”

Sam sat back, “You heard the man Tuck, if he’s stubborn enough he’ll do it.”

“Hey!” Danny said, sounding offended, “Okay maybe I’m not 100% on it, but I’ll feel better if I’m not lying to her. Besides…” He smiled slightly, “We’d kinda already had a date planned for tonight. I might as well make use of it…”

As if on cue Valerie walked over, she’d thrown a dark green jacket over the orange of her uniform that perfectly complimented her eyes. “Hey!” she said, arm raised and smiling, “You ready to go?”

“You bet!” Danny laughed, sliding past Tucker and leaving his money on the tray, “I’ll… talk to you guys later then?” He offered and Sam winked.

“Go get em’ tiger.”

Danny grinned, giving Valerie a quick peck on the cheek and the thumbs up to Tucker before the two of them walked out of the restaurant.

***

When they were gone Sam’s lips quirked into a smile, “He’s gonna die.” She chuckled, taking another slurp of her drink as she sat back in the booth.

“Wait what?” Tucker asked swinging his saucepan-sized eyes to her in disbelief, “What was all that about ‘accepting who you are’ then?”

Sam eyed him across the table, “You kidding? Valerie’s gonna stomp his heart into pieces with five-inch high stilettos, but even then, I doubt she’ll hate him for it.”

Tucker sighed and took another bite of his burger, “I don’t know. It’s just odd he has this sudden conviction to tell her everything. It’s a pretty big deal is all.”

Sam shrugged, “Yeah, but then again I guess it’s just a sign of how much she means to him. After all, he told us pretty soon after it y’know… happened…”

“Yeah but that’s different, we’re his best friends and you’re one of the main reasons he got his ghost powers in the first place. Plus, Valerie hated his guts on principle back then because she was still with the A-Listers… now she just hates him for different reasons…”

She scowled at him, but nodded, “Well then fine. Maybe he just wants to take their relationship up a notch. I don’t know why you’re having such a hard time with this Tucker, if Danny wants to go blabbering about his powers to people, he has his reasons for it. Despite appearances he’s not that much of an idiot to get caught by his parents or the GIW.”

“I know it’s just…”

“Ohhh,” Sam grinned, cutting Tucker off with a shit-eating grin. “Oh, I see, you’re jealous.”

“What!” Tucker shrieked, “Am not!”

“You’re jealous that Danny is opting to bring someone else in on the team, this was the same thing with Jazz! You’re too proud to admit that you like being a sidekick.”

“What!? Never. I’m Danny’s guy-in-the-chair! His wingman! His Q to his 007! It’s not like Valerie could—”

“Oh yeah totally, the Red Huntress with an arsenal of weapons and ghost-hunting experience would never take Tucker Foley’s precious slot as the guy-in-the-chair.”

“Fuck’s sake Sam.” Tucker spat, “I’m not jealous, and fine then, I don’t care who the hell Danny goes and talks to. Are you happy?”

“Ecstatically.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck me yourself coward.”

“I hate you so much…”

“I know. So… you down for Doomed later?”

He shrugged, standing up and throwing a few notes on the table, “Sure. I’ll catch you around 9.”

***

Danny hadn’t planned for this at all.

He mentally slapped himself as he and Valerie walked to the movie theatre, absentmindedly chatting as best he could about her day. The street was almost deserted at this time in the afternoon, couples walking to and from places, laughing as they held hands. Danny smiled. They were all so… alive.

Valerie said something and Danny watched her out of the corner of his eye. Her breath clouding in front of her face before hugging her jacket closer to her body and cupping frozen hands around a fresh cup of coffee to keep warm.

Amity Park in autumn was both beautiful and freezing with the golden brown and red of leaves staining the paths and parks like wounded soldiers on the fields of battle.

He would have shivered if he could.

As it was Danny looked away, the cold didn’t really seem to affect him in the same way anymore. A pang of guilt struck his chest as Valerie laughed at something, she sounded so happy. If only she knew who she was walking with…

After the movie, he vowed, after the movie I’ll tell her. She deserves to know.

“Hey! Are you even paying attention?” She asked and he blinked, startled out of his musings.

“Uh yeah, sure… what did you say again?”

She sighed throwing her hands up in exasperation, “Honestly, you can be so… distant sometimes. What the heck goes through your head anyways? Stuck in the stars again NASA boy?”

Danny laughed, “I guess you could say that…” Was he really that obvious?

“Well, I asked, what do you want to see?”

“Oh right!” Gazing up at the selection he paused, “I…” he bit his lip, his mind going blank, it didn’t feel right to choose… “I don’t mind, how about you pick?”

She looked at him sideways, “Man you’re acting jumpy today.” A gleam caught in her eye and Danny gulped, “How about a horror?”

“Uh well… if that’s…” Danny stumbled over his words.

“Great! Glad that’s decided. I want to get really scared tonight, two tickets to your most horrifying film my good sir!” She chimed to the guy behind the counter.

The guy looked them up and down but shrugged, “Cinema 5, have fun.”

***

Danny wasn’t really paying attention through the film.

Guilt was eating away at him, gnawing at the edges of his subconscious as Valerie laughed and jumped at the loud noises and crappy special effects that Hollywood perceived ghosts to be. Danny smiled absently, they really had no clue how wrong they were compared to the real thing.

She held his hand in the gentle darkness of the cinema, and Danny couldn’t help but look at her in the faint light from the screen. Her green eyes glistened with excitement and curiosity, taking in all she saw with such conviction.

He smiled, she was light, warm and comforting. Even as she gripped his ice-cold skin Danny couldn’t help but admire her. She laughed when she felt like it, got angry when she felt like it, smiled and danced in her own brilliant warmth. Danny’s eyes softened as he leaned into her touch, savouring this moment. Feeling her heartbeat through her skin.

She was dazzling.

Danny pulled away slightly, his eyes narrowing, but she was like fire to his ice. She melted him in ways she could never understand, but he was sure, he was frighteningly sure he was going to burn her irreversibly in the end.

But if that’s the way it had to be, then so be it.

“Hey Val?” He mumbled, leaning further into her shoulder in the gloom of the theatre, feeling her warmth against his cheek. She stopped gazing at the screen and turned to him, her eyes still dancing in that dull luminosity. Danny sighed, letting his dark hair fall into his eyes so she couldn’t see that he was on the verge of tears. “I’ve been… keeping something from you. For a long time now… I just… don’t know how to say it…”

He felt her shift under his weight, and he pulled away, looking in the opposite direction. She was looking at him, he could feel her green eyes taking him in and he felt his heart panged with annoyance. Annoyance at himself, at how weak he was.

“Danny…” Valerie started, and he looked at her, she was smiling softly in the light, “It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me anythi—”

“No, you deserve to know. But… maybe in a bit if that’s alright?” He grit his teeth and looked back up at the screen as the final scene began, he smiled sadly locking eyes with her. “I just… want this moment to last a little longer is all…”

***

Valerie sometimes thought Danny was like water.

He was so perfectly clear somehow, like an undisturbed lake shining in the moonlight. His iridescent blue eyes sometimes felt like they could see right through her, somehow sense exactly how she was feeling, understand her deepest secrets.

It was awe inspiring. Like Danny knew exactly where she went when she snuck out of class, knew her connection to ghosts and the other shadows of Amity Park. Knew who she really was.

But he never seemed to care. It was why, she supposed, she was so drawn to him in the first place. The eerie calmness that rippled and cascaded through him, so clear and tranquil, yet dangerously so. Pooling with something else.

A darkness. A depth that terrified her to no end, a feeling that if she dove too deep he would overflow, drown her with his power. As if his little lake held all the fierce might of the sea.

Why did that feeling surface now? That dread that crashed against the shoreline of her heart. Breaking the tension as Danny lead her out of the theatre and into the cool night air. What was this in her chest that felt like the pressure of being unable to breathe?

He laughed at something and Valerie felt a shift in the atmosphere as she looked at him in the light of the street, his blue eyes reflecting something she couldn’t see. Something beyond where they stood outside a bustling theatre.

“I want to show you something,” Danny said, there was a kind of relief to his words, like he’d been daring himself to say them. “But not here.”

He glanced at her and she felt that terrible drowning sense in her chest again as his clear-blue eyes softened in the moonlight. He looked… so sad, like this was somehow the last time she’d ever see him.

Danny stayed silent as they walked, weaving in and around the humdrum of pedestrians and life that flittered around them like moths to a flame.

She let him pull her along, feeling the familiar chill that buzzed between her fingertips of his skin brushing hers. He was so cold, so frozen in time. It gripped at her.

It was only now that she started to watch him in comparison to the people on the street. In his dark, navy jacket and worn jeans he stood out and blended in at the same time. Like he wasn’t meant to be there and was there all at once. It seemed unnatural somehow…

She shook her head, following him across the street to the park, letting the dull glow of the stars guide them along the cracked paths.

What was it he wanted to show her? And why did it feel like an ending and a beginning all at once? Her curiosity ate at her but if Danny was willing to show her, she would be patient.

The park seemed twisted at night time. The trees warped somehow in the dark, green grass glowing blue in the silver light of the moon.

Danny looked around and hurried on, pulling her up the hill to where a small crop of trees nestled between the undergrowth. There was no one around for miles but Danny seemed extra cautious, double and triple checking their surroundings to make sure they weren’t being followed.

“Danny, you’re scaring me you know that.” Valerie finally said, breaking the silence that had hung over them for so long.

He chuckled softly and came to sit next to her, looking out at the twinkling lights of the city spread out below them like a map. A perfect mirror for the stars above.

The throb of life buzzed about them, the shrieking of tyres, the chink of glasses and the laughter of people. The metropolis was a beating heart but here in this secluded tower, they watched it all in silence.

“I’m so sorry Val…” Danny finally said, and she looked at him as he laid back, staring upwards towards the sky. “I feel like I’ve been lying to you, from the very beginning.”

She wanted to interrupt, wanted to tell him what a mysterious jerk he was being and just to cut to the chase, but she said nothing, too entranced by the wandering lights that reflected in his irises.

“The truth is, that I…” Danny’s expression changed slightly, and his teeth gritted together. Whatever it was that he was trying to say to her, Valerie knew that it was probably something major.

“Danny… you don’t—”

“No, I do.” He said, pulling an arm across his eyes so that she couldn’t see him. “I have to tell you; cause otherwise you’re just going to find out from someone else and then I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”

He sat up and turned to her, his dark hair framing his face as he gripped her shoulders. Her heart fluttered slightly in her chest; he was crying.

She watched as that perfectly clear water fell from his eyes, carving rivers in his pale skin. She felt something press against her lungs, that fear of drowning, and she opened her mouth to speak.

“I—”

“I love you…” Danny said, cutting her off, his head bowing as she blinked at his words, numbly they settled on her like falling snow as she felt her heart lighten. “I love you so much… That’s why it’s not fair to keep hiding myself, the real me, from you any longer.”

“Danny I—”

“No, Val, please, let me finish.” Danny looked at her and she felt a pang of guilt cross her chest. He smiled, such a sad smile, as he continued. “Val, I love you. I didn’t think I would fall for someone so hard as I do for you… you’re incredible you know that? You’re so strong and dazzling to look at it hurts my eyes.”

She felt her eyes widen but he continued, “Ever since I met you, you’ve shown me time and time again how great you really are. And quite frankly, I don’t think I deserve you. But I wanted to tell you that I love you. Let you know how much you truly mean to me so that you don’t lose sight of who I am.”

Danny looked at her, “I’m an idiot you know that? I’m such a complete and utter loser that I take so much of what I have for granted. Sam and Tucker have always told me so and that’s why I want to stop hiding from you Valerie. Because I care too much for you to continue acting, continue pretending that I’m alright.”

Danny began to shake as he spoke and she shifted closer to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him in close to her as a smile lifted her face. “Hey. Look at me,” he lifted his eyes to hers and Valerie smiled, “You know, if you’re scared to tell me you don’t have to Danny. Cause…” She felt light, “Because I love you too.”

He blinked at her and smiled, “I was afraid of that…”

She laughed, “Oh yeah and why’s that wisecrack?”

He smiled but didn’t laugh. “Because of who… no that’s not right… because of what I am Val.”

She stopped laughing, he was dead serious, she gripped her chest, that tightness was suffocating now. The fun-loving idiot she had fallen for seemed to melt off him as his eyes narrowed, turning to her fully to look at her dead in the eyes. “Val, I don’t want you to think any less of me, I really and truly want us to continue being close, I want to hold your hand and laugh, go see movies and continue living like this with you for the rest of my life…”

Wait. What was he saying? What did he mean by…

“But, Valerie Grey. I can’t keep hiding forever. I brought you here tonight to tell you something about myself that I can’t share lightly with anyone. But you have to promise to trust me, promise me Val. Please promise me that you won’t think any less of me for it and that you won’t tell anyone else... please this is important.”

She felt the pressure in her lungs choking her now, but she nodded, why was she so scared? So utterly terrified that she might lose him? “I promise. I promise, whatever you want to tell me it’s okay Danny. It’s okay, you can tell me…”

Danny smiled and nodded, his shoulder’s sagging as he did so as if all the tension released from him in one motion. Like he had been waiting his whole life to hear those words. “Val… I…maybe it’s easier if I show you instead?”

She blinked but nodded, allowing him to let go of her as she sat back.

Danny looked at her, she was so perfect, sitting there patiently waiting for him to show her what he meant. He closed his eyes and looked to the stars, here goes nothing…

“Val, I’m so sorry…” he whispered, and triggered his transformation.

Valerie watched in mild horror as the light sparked around his mid-section, twin-rings expanding at his waist.

Wait what?

They broke and spilt, traveling over his body slowly as he stood there, changing him.

What’s happening?

Danny sighed at the feeling of relief, the cool sensation of weightlessness taking hold as the rings reached the base of his neck with a rush of adrenaline.

Valerie felt her hands fly to mouth to cover the shriek of shock as Phantom touched down lightly in front of her. His skin glowing in the eclipse of the moon, the black jumpsuit replacing the familiar jeans and jacket Valerie knew so well…

She stumbled, her mind racing a marathon as her heart banged so hard against her chest, she swore it was audible. No. No this couldn’t be right… Danny was… Danny was?

He looked at her with that same sad smile and she allowed herself to gasp. The clear blue of his eyes now glimmering green like emeralds against the sky.

He sunk to his knees and looked away; he’d ruined it hadn’t he? The curling white of his hair intermingling with the evening breeze. Looking down almost resentfully at the snow-white gloves that adorned his hands. “I’m so sorry…” His voice echoed across the space between them and Valerie inadvertently shivered. “I’m so sorry Val…”

Valerie just sat there, staring blankly at the scene in front of her as Phantom… no Danny, hung his head in his hands. She reached out, but paused, no this couldn’t be right… This was all a big misunderstanding, right? A joke?

She pulled her hand back, cupping it against her chest. But it felt so real, so obvious that she mentally cursed herself for being so stupid.

Danny Fenton, Danny Phantom, he’d barely even changed his name. She blinked, observing the shape of his face, the style of his hair, it was all the same, all exactly the same… But even then… Danny couldn’t be a ghost! Surely not… surely… and of all ghosts Phantom? The town hero? Her ultimate enemy? It couldn’t possibly be real; this couldn’t possibly be happening right now…

“You’re probably wondering what happened right?” Valerie snapped her attention towards him as he laughed dryly, the sound was grating, so completely alien to her, “That’s usually the first question I get asked…”

She nodded, she felt so numb.

“It was the Fenton Portal.” He smiled, the white of his hair playing on the breeze like snow, “Mum and Dad couldn’t get it working so I thought it was safe enough to look inside… I… it turned on while I was in there…”

Valerie shuddered, phantom screams of Danny being electrocuted rattling her skull as if she’d been there herself. That was how he’d died? Screaming and alone?

“I’m so sorry Val…” He said again, looking at her, she jolted at the green of his eyes, but he continued, “I’m so sorry you had to find out, but I couldn’t lie to you forever. I just couldn’t keep pretending it was all fine considering our… history…”

A sharp pain rippled through her heart as she realised that he did know. Of course he did. Phantom had known she was the Red Huntress from the beginning, and yet even after every fight they’d had, every insult and curse she’d flung his way… Danny still continued loving her, being around her even then. Even then…

She felt cheated slightly, like he’d known her deepest secret for so long that it wasn’t fair she didn’t know his in return. But she stopped, hadn’t that been the point though? What would she have done if she’d known earlier? What good would it have done to know?

She reached for him cautiously and he flinched as she touched his shoulder. He was so cold, so incredibly cold but she gripped him, feeling the static of ectoplasm under her fingertips as she turned him to her.

His eyes were wide, but she smiled slightly, pulling him down into her, drawing him into a hug.

He was like ice against her, buzzing with electricity and energy that was the only way he could survive. “You’re so stupid you know that?” She felt him twitch slightly against her but she smiled, “I can’t imagine what it was like… what you must go through every day Danny… knowing that there is this side to you that you can’t share with anyone…”

“You’re not scared? Or angry? You don’t hate me, do you?” He sounded so timid, like a frightened child.

She thought about it, sure, she was certainly angry. But not as much as she’d expected, she laughed slightly, she hadn’t planned on this when she finally had Phantom in her grasp.

“Danny… I… don’t think I do… You never told me the truth because I never gave you a reason for it. I was so completely bent on destroying you that I don’t know… I lost sight on what I was fighting… but I’m glad you waited until now to tell me…”

He pulled back from her slightly so she could see his face, “You mean that?”

She nodded, “If I had found out earlier, I might have blasted you to bits. But as it stands… I’m…” she grinned, “I’m really glad I got to know you, Danny Fenton.”

He blinked at her reaction, pulling back further so that they were at eye level. “I…” he started but she pushed a finger to his lips.

“Let me finish loverboy. I believed ghosts were… well monsters. Bent on destroying this world and everyone in it, senseless and unstoppable monsters and nothing more… I never let my guard down, never let anyone see me weak. Until you Danny. I let you in and now, you’ve let me in. And that means so much more than I think you realise. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty shocked, and it’s gonna take me a week to digest all of this… but I love you Danny. You, no matter what you are.”

His eyes widened and he laughed, the familiar sound tinkling against her making her smile.

Valerie didn’t exactly know how she found himself in the position she was in next, but all she felt was the soft press of lips against hers and she wrapped her arms tightly around Danny, feeling light as air. She slipped her hands from his waist to over his shoulders, pushing in for the kiss. Danny felt like his world had exploded into stars, she tasted like strawberries and sunlight mixed together in utter happiness. And Valerie smiled against him, he tasted like static but she didn’t care. Danny could’ve stayed like that forever, and he probably would’ve if Valerie didn’t slip her hands off of him and gently push away.

She smiled, the heavy fear had lifted from her chest and she sighed as it dispersed. The clear water moving in it’s wake.

“So what do we do now?” She asked and Danny blinked, smiling softly as he scratched the back of his neck sheepishly.

He looked to the stars, feeling lighter than ever, “I don’t know.”

“Well, Phantom, how about a truce to begin with.” She winked and Danny laughed, getting to his feet he took her hand and pulled her up with him.

“My my, the Red Huntress herself is offering a ceasefire? I never thought I’d see the day!”

“Oh hush, I can still shoot you.”

He gulped but nodded, a bright smile lighting up his face as he began to float slightly off the ground.

“Not for nothing,” she murmured, eying the space between his feet and the ground warily, “But how about you… uh… what’s the word you use? Switch back? Cause if you walk me home in that state, I think my dad’s gonna have to bring out a little heavier an artillery than a shotgun.”

Danny nodded, touching down without a word, feeling the rings of light split around his waist again as the world held weight once more.

Valerie gasped as Phantom fell away but regained her composure, “Somehow I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that…” she muttered, and he laughed, his blue eyes sparkling.

“Val… I’m… I’m really happy with how tonight went…” Danny grinned as they walked back towards the path, “But you’re sure that you’re okay with this whole… me being Phantom thing?”

She hummed in thought but nodded, “Yeah, but you’re going to have to answer a bunch of questions I have about yourself and the other ghosts. Plus,” she winked at him, “I still expect to be able to fight. Treat me as an equal ghost boy, I refuse to be your sidekick.”

Danny laughed but waved a hand, “Oh don’t worry, I think Tucker wouldn’t talk to me again if I let you have that role.”

“Then that’s settled then… shall we—”

Danny’s breath misted in front of his face and Valerie stiffened as a wave of static swept the park. “Oh no,” she mumbled, a sensor beeping quietly on her watch as she reached for her backpack, flicking the switch on the underside.

He speeder hit the ground and Valerie’s eyes narrowed as she pulled down her hood, snapping the butt of her ecto-gun against her palm as she whirled to Danny.

He was already in fighting mode, the human boy she’d fallen for melting away as the half-ghost hero Phantom stood by her side. Just as a massive, bloated figure rounded the corner ahead of them.

She looked at him a smile playing on her lips, “You ready ghost boy?”

He grinned, “You bet, partner.”

#dannyphantom #danny phantom #nikelodeon #fic #danny phantom fanfic #danny fenton #valerie grey #valerie #my writing #requests #thank you so much for the request #one shot #ao3

[mischiefandspirits]

Parental Bonding: Chivalry

S01-E02, part 2 of 2: Trying to keep his dad from embarrassing him while facing off against a teenage girl in dragon form keeps Danny on his toes.

Last time on Living Phantom

“I don't understand why I have to wear this stupid thing,” Danny’s dad complained as his mom adjusted his tie.

The two were standing in the kitchen preparing for the Spring Formal. His dad was in his normal hazmat suit, though with a tie around his neck while his mom wore a black dress. Jazz stood nearby in her own dress, checking her purse. Danny was next to her, tugging at his own tie and occasionally glancing down at his phone.

“Because it's Danny's first big dance, Jack,” his mom answered. “If we're gonna chaperone this thing, we have to make sure we don't embarrass him.”

“How would we embarrass him?”

Jazz and Danny shared a quick look before their mom turned to them and came over to fix Danny’s tie as well.

“I think it's great when you guys do anything that doesn't have something to do with your sick obsession with ghosts,” Jazz said pointedly.

“Funny,” their dad said, eyes narrowed. “I don't even remember volunteering to chaperone the dance. It's all a vague blur.”

Danny’s shoulders crept up and he tried to push his mom’s hands away.

“By the way, Danny, just so you know, I'm on to your little secret.”

Danny jerked backward, nearly choking himself as his mom was still holding his tie. “What?! Wh-what secret?”

“The clumsiness, the nervousness. I can't believe I didn't figure it out before. You have a girlfriend!”

“I can expl-I-I mean, she's not my girlfriend. She's just going to the dance with me.”

“That's great!” their dad cheered, wrapping an arm around Jazz. “I can meet her and talk to her about ghosts!”

Jazz rolled her eyes and pushed his arm off so she could adjust her hair. “You better let her know your family's insane now, Danny. If you marry her and she finds out later, that's entrapment.”

The doorbell rang and Danny sighed with relief. “That’s Sam and Tucker. I’ll see you guys at the dance.”

Jazz took that as her opening and grabbed her purse. “I should get going too if I’m going to pick up Michelle and Robin in time.”

As Danny and Jazz slipped into the living room, he thought, Okay, so I'm gonna have to keep Paulina calm and keep my dad from embarrassing me. I can handle that.

He patted where the Fenton Ghost Fisher was hidden inside his jacket in its collapsed form then opened the door.

“Mr. Fenton,” a man in a suit greeted him. “I’m Donald. I’ll be your driver tonight.”

“Uh…” Danny looked past the man to see a limo -- a luxury stretch limo -- parked at the curb. One of the windows was rolled down to show a waving Tucker. “Right, thanks.”

He glanced up at Jazz as he followed the driver to see her staring at the car, floored. The driver opened the door and Danny slipped inside.

“Dude.”

“I know!”

“I thought you said Sam’s parents were taking us.”

“I thought that’s what she meant. I didn’t think she was going shell out for a limo!”

“There are sodas and juice in the mini fridge,” Donald said as he got in and started the limo.

“It’s all included,” Tucker said, grabbing an open soda from his cup holder.

Danny glanced at Donald, who nodded in the mirror. He grabbed a clear soda just in case he spilled then slid over to sit next to Tucker.

“You ready for your dragon date?”

Danny elbowed a snickering Tucker with a glare. “I’ve got it handled.”

“Uh-huh, sure buddy.”

Danny elbowed him again and Tucker elbowed him back.

The two chuckled and shoved each other until they pulled up next to Paulina’s house.

“Good luck,” Tucker teased, patting Danny on the back as Donald opened the door for him.

Danny flipped him off then headed up to ring the doorbell.

What to say? The heirloom idea is stupid. Maybe he could say it belonged to someone else? Someone like…

The door opened and Danny looked up. And up.

He blanched as he looked up into the angry face of a tall, muscular man. Nervously, he said, “Uh, hi! Uh, you must be Paulina's dad.”

“If you upset her, we're going to have a violent talk,” the man said, punching his palm.

“Papa?”

Danny blushed as Paulina stepped out from behind her father. Her curly hair had been straightened and half pulled up with a large glittering clip that was a soft pink color to match her dress.

It made the gold and green collar stand out all the more.

She smiled at him. “You're scaring him. Come on, Danny. We're going to be late.”

“Have a wonderful evening, baby.” Her dad kissed her cheek, then gave Danny a death glare. “I know where you live.”

“And I'm glad we had a chance to chat,” he chuckled weakly as Paulina took his arm.

She gasped as they turned to the street. “You got a limo?”

“Yeah, well Sam did,” he said, opening the door for her. “I-I thought we could all go together.”

“Hey, Paulina,” Tucker said a little breathlessly.

“There are drinks in the fridge,” Danny added as he got in and she grabbed a sparkling water.

“It’s nice,” she said once they were on the road again. “Really nice. How did she afford something like this?”

Danny frowned at her tone, but shrugged it off. “Her parents must have lent her the money.”

Paulina hummed disbelievingly.

He turned to Tucker, who clearly didn’t get it either. Yeah, it was a limo, but it couldn’t have been that expensive, right?

They pulled up to Sam’s house and Tucker got out, looking grouchy.

Danny focused on Paulina, giving her a smile. “You look really nice, by the way. I meant to say earlier, but your dad, uh…”

She chuckled and pat his hand. “That’s okay. I know I look nice, silly. It’s me!”

He nodded and glanced out the window.

His jaw dropped.

Sam stood on the stoop in the same black and purple gothic medieval dress that she’d been looking at when they’d gone shopping -- no way her parents bought that, he knew she wanted to come -- with artful dark purple makeup to match. Her hair was braided up her head then pulled into a flower-like bun on the top while roses had been shaved into the short side of her head.

She smiled at Tucker before pulling him down the steps.

A throat cleared behind Danny and he turned to see Paulina glaring at him. Her eyes were a bright red with slit pupils.

“S-sorry,” he said, raising his hands. “It’s just, uh, weird to see her all dressed up like that.”

“Your right,” she snorted. “She does look weird. What’s up with that dress?”

A frown tugged at his mouth, but her eyes had gone back to normal so he forced himself to keep smiling. “Right.”

~~~~~~~~~~B~~~~~0~~~~~0~~~~~~~~~~

Sam glanced around the gym thoughtfully. She was about to ask Tucker if he wanted to dance, just to give them something to do, when she spotted Paulina standing on her own. “Where’d Danny go?”

“What?” Tucker followed her gaze. “Maybe he went to get snacks?”

“Do you think it's safe to leave her alone.”

He smiled. “Well, I could always -”

“Tucker, Sam, we've got trouble.”

The two looked up to see Danny’s dad standing over them.

“We had nothing to do with it, Mr. Fenton. It was all Danny's idea.”

“Tucker, it's me. It's Danny,” their friend in his dad’s body huffed. “Sam, you need to keep an eye on Paulina. Text me if she starts looking angry. Tucker, watch my dad just in case I need to go deal with Paulina. If he starts talking to anyone, text me, got it?”

They both nodded and he left.

“This dance gets better and better with every passing minute,” Sam snorted and followed after Paulina.

It only took a few minutes before the popular girl started looking annoyed and Sam sent Danny a quick text before trailing after her into the bathroom. She hesitated in the doorway a moment before pasting on a smile and stepping in. “Hey, Paulina. I should have said before, but that's a nice dress.”

“Yes, and it goes so nicely with your necklace, don't you think?” the other girl asked, turning to her with a smirk.

Sam frowned. “My necklace? That's not my -- Right! Listen, my grandma gave me that, and -”

“Forget it, sweetie. I'm not giving up this trinket or your little boyfriend Danny.”

“My boyfriend?” Sam choked. “Haha! And they say pretty girls can't be funny. Danny is not my boyfriend.”

“He's not?”

Sam rolled her eyes. She and Danny had known each other since kindergarten. She’d slept beside him at a time when they could still share a room for sleepovers. She’d comforted him after he found out about his father. She’d been there when his family had gotten back from two years in California and he tried to convince the few middle school classmates they had that knew him in elementary school that he’d actually always been a boy and they were misremembering. She was the one to threaten those who didn’t buy it to keep quiet. She’d held his hand when he’d nearly begged their seventh grade English teacher to call him Danny, not Daniel, because it sounded too close to Danielle.

Sure he was cute -- especially when his hair fell into his face just right or when he and Tucker would let her put some makeup on them for Dumpty Humpty concerts -- and his ghost form was really sick looking, but they weren’t like that.

“He's my best friend. Maybe that's why I was so hard on you. I didn't mean to call you shallow.”

Paulina laughed. “What a bummer! I only agreed to go out with him because I thought I was stealing him from you.”

Sam froze, barely noticing as Paulina took off the collar and put it on her. She had… She had… to DANNY? Danny, who was too sweet for his own good and…

“Here, take your crummy necklace. I'm going back inside to dump your dorky friend.”

Sam’s fists clenched as she felt a blazing heat flow through her. How dare she? HOW DARE SHE!

“Shallow little witch!” she roared and everything went black.

~~~~~~~~~~B~~~~~0~~~~~0~~~~~~~~~~

Danny was grabbing a couple glasses of punch when he felt his phone vibrate. He pulled it out of his dad’s pocket to see Sam had texted him.

🕷Sammy-kins : Your dates ticked and heading to the bathroom.

Me: OMW

He opened a new message and texted Tucker.

Me: Going to deal with Paulina. Watch my dad

🎮TuckNo: 👍🏾

He slipped out of his dad and grabbed his phone. Invisibly, he flew over the gym, heading for the bathrooms. He tucked his phone into the pocket inside his jacket.

He paused as its weight disappeared the moment his hand left it.

He reached back into the pocket and his eyes widened as his hand kept going. “Oh my god, it’s a literal pocket dimension!” he whispered, pulling his jacket open so he could look inside. He reached in again, this time purposefully trying to grab his phone.

He found it immediately.

“Oh man, wait until I tell Tucker! Also, note to self, stick a thermos in here, just in case.”

A roar sounded, just barely audible over the music, and Danny’s eyes widened. He dropped down behind a trash can near the bathroom and transformed back.

“Paulina? Sam?” he called into the bathroom. When no one answered, he checked that everyone was looking away then slipped inside.

His eyes widened as he saw the destroyed wall and ceiling. He grabbed the fisher out of his pocket and turned back into a ghost. Once the fisher was stored in his -- Poltergeist Pocket? Pocket of Holding? Spectral Space? Yeah, that one! -- Spectral Space, he flew out to see the blue dragon soaring over the football field. Eyes narrowing as he saw the form held in her claws, he shot towards her and kicked her to the ground.

“Take it easy, Paulina. You don't want to hurt Sam,” he said, landing in front of the dragon. He looked at the girl and frowned when he realized Sam wasn’t the hostage. “Paulina?” He turned to the dragon as she opened her eyes to glare at him. “Sam?”

“Shallow girl!” she roared, standing.

“Yep, that's Sam.” He rolled to the side to avoid her fire. “Whoa! Sam! Two words: breath mints.”

He flew up to free Paulina, but Sam’s tail slammed into them the moment he got her free. They were knocked towards the bleachers and Danny turned them intangible before they could hit. Instead, they landed in front of the fence, spooking a kissing couple into fleeing. Danny set down Paulina just as his phone went off.

🎮TuckNo: Your dads heading towards lancer

Great, one short-term fix, coming up. Danny dove into the ground and came up behind the dragon. “I hate to do this, Sam.” He grabbed her tail then pulled her off the ground, swinging her around until he built up some force. He let her go and she flew off into the distance. “Heh, I made a dragonfly.” His eyes widened. “Oh, man. Dad!”

He bolted down into the gym and looked around. He spotted his dad standing over Mr. Lancer with a fierce glare and quickly dove into the jumpsuits man.

“Jack, this is Mr. Lancer from the parent-teacher conference,” his mom was saying, the second half in a whisper.

“Right, right. I'm sorry, it's just in this light I thought you were Vin Diesel. Isn't he sharp, Mom? I mean, Maddie,” Danny stuttered, trying to make his voice as low as possible.

He wasn’t sure if he was the only one who heard his normal voice, it seemed like it, but just in case.

“Well… Thank you,” Mr. Lancer chuckled.

“Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to dance with my wife. That's what we adults do, dance with our wives.” Danny grabbed his mom’s hand and led her onto the dance floor.

He briefly wondered if he should dance normally or like a parent, but then just danced like himself.

He was trying to make sure his dad didn’t embarrass him, after all.

His mom sighed. “Doesn't this bring back memories?”

“If by memories you mean things you remember that I don't, then yes! Go ahead and remind me of stuff. I'll totally agree to remembering.” Smooth.

The song ended and Danny blinked as his fellow students started cheering for him.

Well, that’s one thing down.

He slipped out of his dad and flew back out of the gym.

Just in time, it seemed, as Sam was quickly approaching the school. He dove around the fireballs she shot at him and reached into his pocket. He brought out the fisher and extended it. He arced around another fireball as he swung the line towards her, catching it on one of the scales near her wing. Then he started circling her, dodging her tail and fire until he had her wings bound in the glowing wire.

As it turned out, ghost dragons did, in fact, need their wings to fly.

Or maybe it was just a mind thing? She did seem to hover for a few seconds and Danny stood by his assessment that those wings couldn’t support her weight on their own. If it was just a mental thing then -

Focus!

Sam dropped to the ground and Danny landed next to her neck. As soon as he pulled the necklace off, she shrunk down into herself. He stuck both the necklace and rewound fisher in his Spectral Space then ran up to Sam, transforming as he went. “Sam? Are you alright?”

“Wow,” Sam said, sitting up and holding her head like she had a headache. “Did I have fun at the dance?”

“Well, uh… Let's just say you had a roaring time.” She gave him a look and he blushed. “You somehow got the dragon necklace on you and, well, I think you can put the pieces together.”

“Paulina,” Sam growled.

“Yeah, sounded like she did something,” Danny said, helping her to her feet.

Sam opened her mouth, then closed it. She stared at him for a moment then shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. Come on, I think you owe me a dance.”

He smiled. “Sure, I'd love to.”

“Promise me you'll keep your pants up.”

“I'll do my best.”

~~~~~~~~~~B~~~~~0~~~~~0~~~~~~~~~~

“So how long until your parents get back?” Sam asked as Danny let them into his house.

“Mom said they had to stay until the end of the dance, so another half hour at least,” Danny said.

“I can’t believe I still ended up dateless,” Tucker huffed. “Couldn’t you have at least ditched Paulina in a way that left her open for me to swoop in for the rebound?”

“I didn’t ditch Paulina,” Danny denied.

“She ditched him,” Sam said.

“Yeah, when she came back into the gym to find you two dancing,” Tucker snorted. “She looked ready to breathe fire even without the amulet.”

“I didn’t see her,” Danny worried as he pushed open the door to the lab stairs. “Should we have waited for her? We were her ride.”

“Nah, she took off with Dash right after. Some A-lister afterparty. No worries,” Tucker said. “Anyways, what are you going to do about the amulet? Just chuck it through the portal?”

“I don’t know. I thought maybe -”

Danny paused and his friends leaned down to look over his shoulder.

Floating in the lab was a green-skinned ghost with long blonde hair and an electric blue medieval dress. She looked like she had been searching for something, but stopped when they came in.

“Uh, what are you doing?” Danny said, eyeing her and trying to push his friends back.

“My amulet! I must return with my amulet,” she wailed, tears in her eyes as she stood up from her crouched position. “But it’s nowhere to be found!”

Danny nodded. “You were the original dragon ghost, right? The one who wanted to go to the ball.”

She sniffled and nodded. “And you are the knight who fought me off.”

“Right.” Danny transformed and dug into his Spectral Space.

Danny didn’t see her eyes go wide, but Sam and Tucker did. “I thought I had imagined it,” they saw her whisper.

“Here,” Danny said, holding out the necklace. “You can take it, but only if you agree to go straight back where you came from. Deal?”

“Of course. I must return to my brother. I’ve been gone for far too long, but I needed my amulet.”

Danny hesitated. “Your brother, was he the one that hurt you?”

She took the necklace from him and put it on. “Thank you, Sir Knight.”

“It’s Danny. Uh, Danny… Phantom. You didn’t ans-”

“Thank you, Sir Phantom,” she said, giving a curtsy, then flew into the portal.

“I’m guessing that’s a yes,” Danny sighed. “I hope she’s okay.”

“She can turn into a giant dragon, I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Tucker said.

“Sure, except the legend says her brother can do the same,” Sam pointed out.

“Oh, yeah.”

The three watched the portal for a moment before Danny pulled the fisher out of his Spectral Space and tossed it on the table. “Come on, there’s nothing we can do. Let’s go get changed and turn on some movies.”

They agreed and the three trudged upstairs, their earlier post-battle excitement lost.

“Danny Phantom?” Sam said.

“I panicked. Besides, it’s kind of a pun. Phantom, Fenton.”

“You're a ghost called ghost,” Tucker snorted.

“Shut up, I’ll come up with something better.”

“Nope.”

“You’re Danny Phantom now.”

“No takebacks.”

“I hate you both.”

“Love you too, dude.”

~~~~~~~~~~B~~~~~0~~~~~0~~~~~~~~~~

Sorry for the late posting. I had to take my mom to the doctor's yesterday and didn't get a chance to post until it was too late. Next chapter should be on time as usual.

#danny phantom #parental bonding #sam manson #tucker foley #dora #living phantom

[darks-ink]

Synonym

Prompt:  "Memory Blank" AU where Sam can't convince Danny to go into the Portal, so she goes in instead. Prompt by: @anthropwashere​ Word count: 4,568

[AO3] [FFN] [more Phic Phight fics]

---

“No, look.” Danny threw out his hands, motioning exaggeratedly, and almost hitting her in the face. “Do you realize how much of an insane stretch any of this is? But I’m playing along, aren’t it? I’m willing to believe you on all this crazy stuff.”

Sam narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re willing to believe me on all counts, except for this one very important thing.”

“The very important thing which could get him killed, dude,” Tucker pointed out. He was frowning at her—had been the whole time, really. “You keep saying half-ghost, but there’s absolutely no proof that that’s a thing. For all we know, he was just a ghost that could look like a human.”

“There was proof—”

“Proof which you can’t show us,” Danny interrupted her. He sighed. “Look, Sam. I’m willing to put my trust in you, alright, because there’s obviously some truth to your story. But I can’t— I can’t walk into that Portal, knowing what it can—and will—do to me.”

It felt like she had swallowed a block of ice. “Danny—”

“No, Sam.” He stared her down, hard and resolute. His eyes were a clear blue. Not even a spark or hint of green. “If it’s really that important, why not do it yourself? Out of all of us, you have the most experience with this, don’t you?”

And, well. He had a point there. “It might be a compatibility thing, though,” she said, instead of agreeing with him. “A certain amount of prior contamination necessary to stop you from getting terribly sick or dying.”

Tucker scoffed. “If you really were another best friend of Danny’s, and mine, you’d be contaminated as shit. You can’t set foot in FentonWorks without it, let alone eat dinner at their place. There’s no way that Danny is viable for this kinda thing while you’re not.”

“I’ll let you into the lab, and I’ll help you set up the machinery, if need be, but I won’t do it.” Danny ran a hand through his hair, shooting a quick look at Tucker. “You can even borrow my jumpsuit, if that’ll make the difference, and we’ll be right there. But I… I can’t do it, Sam.”

She never could fight against those sad eyes of his.

“I get it. I… I’ll do it myself, then.” She took a bracing breath. “I’ll take you up on the jumpsuit, though. I don’t have anything white to wear, and I’m not gonna submit my ghost form to white clothing, no matter how temporary it’ll be.”

That startled a laugh out of the two boys. Ah. That sounded like nostalgia.

---

See, the thing was, it was all Sam’s fault. Not just the current situation, but all of it, really. She’d never gotten past the guilt of being the one who pushed Danny into going into the Portal. Of being the one who made Danny half-ghost.

So she’d wished that she’d never met Danny. Not just because he was infuriating, sometimes, but because she wondered… What would Danny be like, if they had never met? If she hadn’t… hadn’t forced him to go through all that? The Portal, becoming half-ghost, fighting to protect Amity Park…

But then when it had all come true, when she’d been forced to see, to know. She had scrabbled back. Because Danny was happy, yes, but Amity was in trouble. Amity needed its half-ghost protector, in a way they all keenly felt, yet no one knew.

Desiree could do many things, but she couldn’t erase the past, not like that. So every single person in Amity knew, somewhere deep inside them, that they missed something. And every single ghost that attacked knew, too, that Amity was missing its protector.

The world screamed for the wrong to be corrected, but Sam was the only person who knew how.

And Danny told her no. He said “no” and “I can’t do it”, and Sam could only think of Danny’s scream when he’d gone into the Portal, and found she couldn’t blame him.

Yet the world screamed, and Amity Park screamed, and the citizens screamed under the endless ghost attacks.

Something had to give.

She’d forced Danny to become half-ghost once. She had been the one who forced him to endure all of that. This was… This was penance, wasn’t it? A chance for her to owe up to her mistakes. To even it out.

How hard could it really be, to take down Desiree? Because that’s all Sam would have to do. Take out this one ghostly enemy, and wish for everything to go back to normal.

Easy enough. Right?

---

The Portal stood large and looming. The tunnel behind it looked even darker and even more cavernous than Sam remembered it.

“Having second thoughts?” Tucker prodded, standing in the middle of the room with his arms crossed. “You tried to make Danny do this, you know.”

“I know,” she gritted back, tearing her eyes off of the empty frame. “I’m the only person who remembers, Tucker. I know exactly what I pushed him into.”

“Please stop fighting, guys!” Danny fiddled with some of the Portal’s controls, eyes dancing between the machinery and the photo she had, taken just before the original accident. “I get it, you two don’t get along. But you’ve managed it before, apparently, so please manage it again.”

Sam snorted. “That was all your doing, I’m afraid. You’re the balancing factor, Danny.”

The balancing factor between her and Tucker, the balancing factor between the human world and the Ghost Zone, the balancing factor between human and ghost in general…

Yeah. He was made for the job. She would just have to borrow it for a little while, until he could get his powers back without redoing the accident.

“I could use your jumpsuit, right, Danny?”

“Yeah, go right ahead.” He fiddled with some dials. “You know where the closet is, right?”

Yes, because she’d pulled his jumpsuit out of said closet for the original accident.

“Uh huh,” she said, her voice just barely wavering. “I’ve got it.”

The look Tucker gave her was utterly unconvinced but, hey, what did he know? They were all going to forget about this once she’d beaten down Desiree, and boy, was she going to beat that ghost down.

She reached into the closet, her fingers hooking into the jumpsuit she’d seen so much in recent times. It was stark white, now, and felt rubbery against her skin. When Danny wore it, it buzzed faintly, she began to realize now. She hadn’t even noticed until now, now that she was missing that.

Not for long, though. Soon enough, the buzzing would be back. First as part of her own body, and then as part of Danny’s again.

Okay. That sounded a little weird. Good thing she didn’t say that out loud.

“I’m gonna go upstairs to change, okay?” She tucked the jumpsuit against her chest, turning back around. “Call for me if you need me.”

“Can’t you just pull that on over your clothes?” Tucker asked, looking her up and down. “That’s how Danny is supposed to wear it, right?”

“Yes, because he wears pants and a t-shirt.” She rolled her eyes, then freed one hand to pluck at her skirt. “This? This isn’t going to fit in that jumpsuit. Not comfortably, at least. Chill, I’m not gonna plant my bare ass in Danny’s clothes, alright?”

Tucker stiffened, but nodded. “Gotcha.”

He still hadn’t warmed up to her. She supposed she couldn’t blame him, not really. If some stranger showed up, suddenly, claiming to be their third best friend who’d been removed from their memories, she’d be skeptical too. Especially if that person started pushing for their mutual friend to walk himself directly into a highly dangerous machine, claiming that it would only kill them a little.

Yeah. She definitely couldn’t blame Tucker. But she would need his assistance for the next bit, so hopefully he would ease up a little after she did this.

Sam went all up from the lab, and then up another floor until she reached the bathroom. The Fentons had a toilet on the lower floor, but it would be cramped and inconvenient for changing.

And… she wanted to see herself in the mirror, when she was done changing.

She took off her shoes, putting them to the side, and took off her skirt, leaving her in her shirt and leggings. She made a face, contemplating that. Her shirt would definitely roll up in the jumpsuit, and her leggings would chafe like hell. The jumpsuit was Danny’s, and they weren’t the exact same size.

Underwear would be fine, right? It’s not like he would be wearing this jumpsuit, anyway. Desiree could revert him back to Phantom, and none of this would’ve happened. It wasn’t weird.

Sam stripped down to her underwear quickly, half folding her clothes before dropping them aside. She then reached for the jumpsuit, stuck her legs through it, but paused with it hanging off of her hips. The material was tight and clingy, sticking to her legs like a second skin.

No hesitation, Sam. Danny didn’t get to hesitate, either, when you made him do all this.

The body of the jumpsuit was pulled up, and she wrestled her arms through the sleeves, too. Zipped it up right across her front, ignoring the increased tightness around her chest.

Huh. She really was a little bigger than Danny. Funny, the things you discover when you put on someone else’s clothes.

She met her eyes in the mirror, then made a face. Right. Peeled the sticker of Jack Fenton’s face off of her chest.

Better. But not quite there yet. Like this, she was just… just doing exactly what Danny did. Phantom 2.0. That wasn’t… That wasn’t Sam’s thing. Exactly replicating someone else.

She looked down at the boots and gloves that she’d laid to the side. Then to her own stack of clothes. Now there was an idea…

Oh, she was so glad that she had put on socks today. Her boots grounded her the moment she put them back on, solid and heavy. The Portal would dye them white for her ghost form, but that was alright. A little white would make her jumpsuit look even blacker, just like it did for Danny.

The boots helped, made her feel a little more unique, but there had to be more she could change up. Right?

She met her own eyes in the mirror again. Bit her lip in thought. Bent down again to dig through her skirt’s pockets until she unearthed a purple hair tie, and swapped it for the green one she usually had in. There. Now it would match her eyes in her ghost form.

Nothing else came to mind, though. She could hardly put on regular clothes over the jumpsuit, and she didn’t want to risk messing with the jumpsuit itself too much. They had never quite concluded how vital it was to Danny’s half-ghost-ness.

Actually, they never quite figured out any of that. For all she knew the Portal could kill her the moment she hit the switch.

But the world, their entire reality, still screamed for its missing half-ghost. And if it wasn’t going to let her convince Danny, well, it would just have to settle for her.

Sam bent down to pick up her abandoned clothes, her fingers running along the purple skull on her shirt, and paused. Actually…

Danny’s room was still the same barely organized mess she was used to, thankfully. It took her barely a minute to dig out some scissors, which she took back into the bathroom. Out of her backpack, which she’d luckily taken up with her, Sam pulled a needle and some thread.

The skull was cut out of her shirt, and the jumpsuit taken off again. With some overly hasty stabs of her needle, Sam sewed the cloth straight onto the chest of the jumpsuit. It wasn’t very well attached, but she would just hope that it would stick in her ghost form.

Redressing herself, Sam met her own eye in the mirror for the third time. Purple eyes, purple hair tie, purple skull on her chest, like a superhero logo. Only this logo was deliciously ironic, a skull for a ghost.

Black boots, heavy and square, solid in the nose. Black gloves, tight and rubbery, but just as shiny as the boots. Black hair, loose without getting in her face, her ponytail in the back.

White jumpsuit. Like fresh fallen snow, like the innocence she’d lost when she watched Danny die due to her own persistence.

“Good,” she decided out-loud, listening to her voice echo in the small space. “Let’s get this over with.”

When she made it back to the lab, Danny and Tucker had moved to one of the mostly-empty lab tables, bent over it. They looked up at the sound of her boots, allowing Sam to see that they were bent over her photo album.

“Ready?” Danny asked, pushing himself up entirely. He paused, then frowned at her. “What did you do with my jumpsuit?”

“Added a bit of personality.” She shrugged, dumping her backpack next to Tucker. “I don’t want to be Phantom 2.0. That’s not my thing, that’s yours.”

“Or so you keep saying,” Tucker scoffed. He shook his head when she glared at him. “Chill. Your photo album is crazy, but it’s kinda convincing. You don’t look like the type to be able to pull off such convincing photoshops.”

“Thanks.” She combed a hand through her hair, the gloves feeling odd against the skin of her head. “Is the Portal ready?”

“As ready as it’ll ever be, I guess.” Danny turned to look at it, his mouth thinning. “Are you sure that this will be okay?”

No. No, because it wouldn’t be. She could only be sure of it if it was Danny going in, and even that would not be okay, not in any measure of the word.

“Yeah,” she told him, as encouraging as she could. “Yeah, I think it’ll be fine.”

“Go for it, then.” Danny stepped to the side of the Portal, and Tucker wandered over to the other side of it. “We’ll be here for you.”

She nodded at the both of them, standing in front of the Portal once more. Took a deep bracing breath. Walked in, step by step.

Her hand found the button on the Portal’s inside like it was drawn to it. She hesitated for just a single moment, a single lingering second.

The button clicked underneath her black-gloved hand, and everything went green, then white, then black. A single moment, suspended for infinity, the shortest and the longest second of her life.

Sam heard screaming, haunting and echoing. Some of it, she knew, was hers. But she could swear that she heard, layered underneath it, Danny’s own dying scream.

It was like reality warped itself around her, through her. Everything shifted, like someone stirred the milkshake of reality.

The floor of the lab was hard underneath her hands, but stable. The light was blinding. Two pairs of warm hands patted her on her shoulders, her arms, her back. Their voices were buzzing in her ears, sound with no meaning.

She groaned, pressing her head against the cool floor. It felt like every molecule of her body hurt. She felt cold-hot-cold, simultaneously energized and dead-tired. Her heart alternated between racing and faltering, a humming in her chest not quite synced up with the thumping.

“Sam?” Danny asked, and the worry in his voice made her guilt spike all over again. “Sam, are you alright? You didn’t say—”

“Might’ve repressed this part,” she muttered back. She braced her hands against the floor, pushing herself up into a sitting position. Ooh. Woozy. “You didn’t get hit, right?”

“Shit, dude, you really went for it.” Tucker laughed, dry and humorless. “You really are crazy, Sam, no offense.”

“None taken.” She certainly felt crazy. “Ugh. I’m starting to think that Danny left a lot out when he told me and Tucker about what the accident was like for him.”

Tucker snorted, a little more humorously. “That sounds like Danny, yeah.”

“Hey!” Danny puffed himself up, the picture of indignance. “That’s not true!”

“So if you were hurting, but you could keep it a secret from your best friends, you would tell us?” Sam prodded, working her feet under herself so she could stand up. She felt light as air. No wonder that Danny usually flew when he was in ghost form.

He huffed, but didn’t respond. Yeah, that’s what she thought.

Sam pushed herself all the way up until she was standing. She teetered for a moment, but Danny and Tucker reached out to catch her, standing on either side of her.

“Thanks,” she managed, feeling her core splutter in her chest. “I think I should shift back to human form.”

“Okay,” Tucker said, encouragingly. “Go on, then. Don’t let us stop you.”

She made a face at him. “I… don’t know how.”

Luckily her body did know. Or maybe her core just gave up on holding her ghost form.

Her core jerked in her chest, and light haloed around her. Swept over her body, washing away the black jumpsuit and replacing it with the white one again.

“Oh, well, there we go,” she said, shrugging lightly. “Problem solved.”

“For some reason, I thought the jumpsuit was going to magically stop existing.” Danny shook his head, clapping her on the shoulder. “Well, come on, let’s get you back into your normal clothes.”

Sam laughed a little awkwardly. “Ha, yeah, uh. Can I borrow a shirt? I might’ve cut the skull out of mine.”

Danny shot her a flat look. “Yeah, sure. You already got my jumpsuit, what’s a shirt compared to that?”

---

Sam crouched on the hill. On either side of her, Danny and Tucker did the same. Both held an ecto-gun, and she’d given them a quick training course on shooting those, but…

But it would come down to her, now. It was up to her to save the day.

Her heart thumped, her core whirring up a storm in her chest. It hadn’t even been a day since the reenactment, and here they were. Facing down Desiree, before she got too powerful for any of them to stop.

With a mental tug on her core, Sam summoned the rings of light to return her to her ghost form. They danced over her, until she was left in the color-shifted outfit she’d put together. Danny’s jumpsuit, deep black, contrasted against the white gloves and matching combat boots. Her hair, just as white as Danny’s had been, whispy and drifting in the wind. Her ponytail flared like a flame, the hair tie a bright cyan. The same cyan as her eyes, as the skull on her chest.

“We’ll be right by your side,” Danny said, and he grinned as the ecto-gun in his hands buzzed with power. “Go when you’re ready.”

Ready? Ready? She would never be ready, not really. Not in a million years. The core in her chest was still an alien sensation, leaking power when she didn’t want it to, yet refusing to give her any when she did want it. It wasn’t hers. It shouldn’t be in her chest, it should be in Danny’s.

But she was going to fix that, now. Just once, it would be up to her. And then everything could go back to normal.

“Let’s go, then.” Sam pushed herself up onto her feet. “Before she gets too powerful.”

She jumped up into the air, forcing herself to forget gravity. To stay afloat like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Shockingly, that actually worked.

Well, time for step two. Controlled flight. She’s seen Danny do it a ton of times, and has even flown with him. How hard could it be to replicate that?

Her core kicked up a notch, but she remained steady in the air. It wasn’t fast, but it was flight. It brought her to Desiree, and that’s all Sam wanted from it.

“Desiree!” she shouted, once she evened out with the ghost.

The genie whirled around, her blue tail curling. Cocked her head at Sam. “Oh, hello, young one. I’m afraid you have the advantage of me, because I don’t know your name.”

“Sam?” she bit at the ghost, incredulously. “Sam Manson? You must’ve heard it at some point while you were stalking me, hoping that I would accidentally wish for something to ruin Danny?”

Desiree blinked. Her expression was blank, like she didn’t recognize any of this. “I think you must have me confused with someone else, Sam. I can say with certainty that I’ve never met you before in my life.”

“What, because I’m half-ghost now? Because I’m here as a ghost, instead of a human?!” Sam felt anger boil in her chest, red-hot and vicious. It wasn’t good, she knew. She had to rational, not emotional. But if she didn’t listen to her anger, she would hear the doubt underneath it.

And she couldn’t bear listening to the doubt. Not yet.

“Half-ghost?” Desiree repeated, looking intrigued. No, no, no! “Those are a rare sight, but, no, I doubt that that is it.” The ghost tilted her head, frowning a little. “You seem upset. What is troubling you?”

“What’s troubling me?” Sam echoed sharply. “What’s bothering me?! This! This is bothering me! You fulfilled a wish of mine, just a few days ago, and I want to undo it! But you don’t seem to remember any of it, either! Aren’t you immune to your own granted wishes?!”

“No, certainly not.” Desiree coiled her tail, gazing down at Sam. “Although it is odd that you remember it, yet I do not. Can you repeat it for me?”

Sam growled, feeling her core hum with increased speed, increased force. “No, but I can paraphrase. I asked you to make it so that Danny and I never met. What’s weird about that, huh?”

“Wishes like that could have a huge area of effect.” Desiree seemed content to ignore Sam’s anger, the snarling of her core. “Although it seems odd that it would have affected me, too. Fulfilling your wish should’ve split reality, creating a separate track, which could be merged back onto the original line when the wish gets broken.”

“Okay, so break it!” Sam snapped back, her hands balling into fists, even though she didn’t want to get physical. Not anymore. “Danny’s down there, the pale kid. He is supposed to be the half-ghost, here, confronting you. Fix it!”

Desiree paused, moving to stare Sam right in the eye. “You switched places?”

“I— yeah?” Sam blinked, momentarily stunned, before snapping back into focus. “Why? What does it matter? I just want you to fix this! I’ll wish for it, if I have to!”

“That won’t help.” Desiree shook her head, her black hair moving like a wave. “You have irreversibly changed this reality.”

It felt like Sam had swallowed ice. Like her heart—and her core—had frozen over. “What? But— We needed a half-ghost here to confront you, and Danny wouldn’t do it!”

“I am sorry,” Desiree said, and damn her, she really did sound sorry. “There are limits to my powers, too. I created a simple split, which could be reversed easily. A ‘what if’. You might’ve noticed it, yourself, with your knowledge of the true timeline.”

Sam nodded, slowly, reluctantly. “I… It felt like reality was screaming for… for its protector. That Amity needed its half-ghost back.”

“And now it has that.” Desiree gestured over at Sam. “Reality wanted its half-ghost. It had a hole in its very being. By becoming a half-ghost yourself, instead of the one who was before, you’ve reshaped that hole. And now the original will no longer fit.”

“No.” Sam shook her head. It couldn’t be. She refused. “No, I can’t… That can’t be! It was supposed to be a temporary solution, until you turned it back to normal!”

“You’ve permanently split the timelines. I can’t help you any further.” Desiree’s green hand patted Sam on the shoulder, suddenly. “If it would make you feel better, you can wish for it. As proof.”

“I…” Sam sighed, running a hand through her hair. “No, there’s no point. But can’t I— Can’t I wish for the same thing as the first time? Just do it over again?”

Desiree frowned. It was a sad frown, and maybe a little disappointed, too. “You’ve already tried convincing your friend once. What makes you so sure you’ll be able to do it on a next attempt?”

Sam opened her mouth to reply, but Desiree held out her hand. “It doesn’t matter, because I can’t do it. This timeline is already fragile. Splitting it again could shatter it entirely.”

“And what would that do?” Her heart thudded so hard that Sam was sure it was ramming against her ribs. “If the timeline shattered?”

“All of this,” Desiree made a large sweeping gesture, passing over Sam, over Danny and Tucker below them, over Paulina’s party in the distance, “All of this would be gone forever. Not a single soul would remain. Not ghosts, not humans, not even the slightest speck of it. You would risk the permanent non-existence of everyone and everything here.”

Desiree’s eyes grew sad, and she swept some of Sam’s hair out of her face. “I ask you this, Sam. Is this reality really so much worse than your original, that you feel you must risk so much to get it back?”

Sam swallowed. Her throat felt stoppered up and dry.

Penance, her mind shouted at her. It is your life now, instead of Danny’s, that is forever ruined.

“No,” she said to Desiree. Her voice wavered, and her eyes felt wet, but she didn’t cry. “No, I guess that it’s… fair. Reasonable.”

The ghost frowned at her like the reply didn’t quite make sense, but she nodded. “You have a lot on your mind, Sam. I won’t fight you. But if you want the fulfilled wishes to go…”

“Yeah, I got it.” She unclipped the Thermos from her belt, uncapping it. “Desiree, I wish that you would go into this Thermos, and that all fulfilled wishes were undone.”

“So you have wished it,” Desiree said, her smile soft and sad, “so shall it be.”

And, without another word, Desiree was sucked into the Thermos. All around them, wishes fell apart, returning to their original forms.

Sam waited until everything settled down. No change. She sighed, but lowered herself to the ground again.

The moment she landed, Danny and Tucker were by her side.

“What happened?” Tucker asked, watching her put the Thermos away again. “I thought you were going to fight her?”

“Wasn’t something supposed to change?” Danny frowned, glancing around them. “It looks like every wish was undone, except…”

“It’s fine, it’s done.” Sam released her tight hold on her core, and shifted back to her human form. “This is… This is it. We’ll just have to make new memories.”

Now Tucker frowned at her as well. “And the… the half-ghost thing?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she insisted, wrapping her arms around them to draw them in for a hug. “Everything is as it should be.”

Don’t be guilty, she thought, projecting the thought out to them. Don’t continue the cycle of guilt.

#phic phight #phic phight 2020 #phic phight 20 #danny phantom #dp fanfic #phanfic #sam manson #tucker foley #danny fenton #dark writes #personally i usually go with 'desiree just makes everyone forget danny's halfghost but cant actually undo it' but canon is a lie so #this was a fun take and i enjoyed writing it #also i spent like 10 minutes looking up a name for sam's ghost form and used it 0 times #also i want it to be known that i named this one before Antonym #Synonym was a possible chapter title for Absurdism that i shelved and then picked up again for the Phight #i considered it for my first but liked it better for this one #and then named number 1 Antonym to match

[datawyrms]

Dumb Danny Phantom Headcanons That Occurred By Listening to the Same Album for Eight Hours.

> Sam and Tucker realize suggesting things to watch or listen to Danny has become a bit of a minefield. This is mostly a Sam problem, considering their interests. Tucker figured out ‘keep it funny’ years ago.

> It’s a weird balancing act between Danny gleefully telling the box ghost he’ll be their ‘G-U-I-D-E to the other side’ while capturing him or just staring blankly at the chosen media and going ‘uh. i guess that’s cool’. As death is totally funny unless it is arbitrarily not funny today.

>Anything with a ‘Chosen one’ or ‘inescapable destiny’ is not touched with a ten foot pole. For obvious reasons. ‘Everything happens for a reason’ will get you the scary eyes.

> Jazz absolutely exploits this by picking books that have these themes for his book report he should have started on ages ago (he of course did not even PICK a book yet, that’s due next week???) because Danny might hate the idea, but at least it gives him a solid starting point for the report. ‘He’s passionate when he’s angry, or he’ll at least hit the word count!’ (He’s not amused, but it does work...)

> It’s easier to throw Danny though a wall than to get him to take things seriously. Considering he often goes flying through walls and still cracks a pun about it, this makes it very, very hard to have a serious conversation. This is why Tucker’s cracks about possessing people can get incredibly mean spirited, since he won’t listen when his friend is going DUDE YOU ARE WAY TOO COMFORTABLE WITH THAT POWER in any serious context. this is kind of a Problem they can’t figure out how to deal with

> Danny does his best to hide it but his friends have absolutely noticed that he’s gone from a big fan of shlocky horror and slasher movies to going out of his way to avoid them. The way he fidgeted and kept looking away from the screen during a Dead Teacher marathon clued them in that even if he doesn’t want to admit it, becoming a half ghost has changed how he thinks. They decided to spare him by saying they’d ‘outgrown’ their shared beloved franchise. (They still watch it without him though.)

> Jazz is much less subtle about pointing out things that have changed, and Danny resents the hell out of it. Vlad’s the one who’s a creep that’s obsessed with things, not him! She does only point out positives like how he’s more likely to think about other people to try to get him to come around to the idea but he’s stubborn and hates all of it.

> The more dangerous and painful the fight, the harder he doubles down on the sarcasm. Sam and Tucker can generally figure out how bad a ghost fight went based on what sort of songs he goes for. If ‘The Whole Being Dead Thing’ comes up he’s probably got a wound he should have bandaged. And didn’t, again. (not that that song existed yet but hush.)

> When it’s more peaceful is when Danny can’t really ignore the whole ‘I’m not a human and I’m not a ghost either’ thing. He tries to reason he’s still himself, he’s honestly fine with what he is, that he’d never give up his powers to be human again. Yet part of him wonders if he only feels that way because he’s changed so much and can’t notice it. He can’t fight feelings and shove them in a thermos, much as he’d like to.

> Valerie thinks Phantom stalks people when hiding, since a lot of his battle banter can be tied back to references. If he didn’t, surely he should be using older terms. That, and he’s keeping up with new popular items...(Danny has similar tastes as Phantom and it weirds her the heck out)

#dp #danny phantom #headcanon #tucker foley #jazz fenton #sam manson #why only headcanons? #because dannypocolyse is coming #and i want to try participating for a change #so writing energy is saved for DR rn. #yeesh the last time i poked my head in The Phandom was when pink printer leg danny was all over the place #and now wes is like. phandom canon. it's kind of amazing. shine on you undying fandom.

[five-wow]

considering what we now know, one of the last of these i might ever get to do: i watched 10.18! thoughts under the cut.

the previously on reminds us of adam’s yakuza problems, so i was braced for that, and then we get an establishing shot of the mcgarrett house instead! and suddenly steve is ironing a shirt on a towel in his kitchen again, and for a moment i was extremely confused because this is very clearly not the same shot as in the valentine’s episode but it’s also... the same thing?

BUT THEN, of course, we get steve raising a finger and going “don’t” just before we’re shown that danny is SITTING ON THE KITCHEN COUNTER WATCHING HIM, again i might add, and danny hasn’t even said anything yet but steve is already defensive and claiming that he likes ironing (which i love, that is a wonderful headcanon) and as far as déjà vus go, this is one i do not mind in the slightest. this is, in fact, the exact content i come here for.

okay wait, EVEN BETTER, danny seems to be sitting on the counter... reading a book? he is... in the kitchen, reading (writing in? idk) a book (in a room where there are zero chairs, which is usually where people locate their asses when they read books), while steve is also in the kitchen, ironing a shirt? dear lord. danny moved in and suddenly eddie wasn’t the only guy following steve from room to room in his own house anymore, i guess.

waiiit, steve is going on a date with emma. that is. not bad, just, so very confusing. (potentially very much a lie, omfg. that kind of confusing.)

HAH. i’m not the only one who went “?”, because danny doesn’t believe steve either.

fdjkfd steve asks alexa for his schedule to prove he’s telling the truth but what this really proves is that if it’s a lie, steve had the foresight and intention to put a fake appointment in his calendar, which i would in no way put past him. that’s the easiest thing in the world.

also, danny casually dropping in that he bought alexa for steve? i??? danny is just “casually” hanging out in rooms steve is hanging out in while it makes no sense for danny to be there, buying steve presents, pulling steve’s pigtails by questioning everything he does when he gets the chance, and that’s? that’s normal now?

junior!!! junior pops into the kitchen!

and he’s GOT A DATE TOO, which is a) WONDERFUL and b) a reason for danny to start describing tani which is fascinating and c) a reason for steve to say “well you know what, i think it’s great that you and tani are giving it a go, bud”, which is super cute and it’s A+ to know they have steve’s official stamp of approval (i mean, he’s their boss, that could’ve somehow gotten awkward), but also leads to a shot we get of danny pulling a face that’s kind of “ugh” and “yeah right” mixed into one and just. you know where i’m going with this. if you’re on this blog and you’ve read this post all the way to this point you definitely know where i’m going with this, but yes, this is absolutely danny mentally yelling that it sure is great THEY’RE giving it a go, steve, and doesn’t that potentially inspire you to ruminate on something going on in your own life, like, say, how you feel about your best friend and partner who also works on the taskforce with you and has a big mouth and whose name is oddly close to tani, actually, for that matter?

steve gets a call about shots fired at adam’s building and i’m just now realizing i’m only two minutes into this episode. i’ve spent at least ten times the amount of time rambling that i have watching anything. gonna need to shake that up a little bit.

fdjkfd lou and hpd enter adam’s apartment and they find at least three guys in actual gear, all dead, and adam curled up on the floor in what looks like sleep clothes, with blood all over him, and a) is adam literally superman now? but also b) even if i do accept that it’s possible he killed all of those guys before they managed to hit him anywhere vital even once, then how did he get smeared in blood that evenly all over? did he roll around on the floor before he curled up in the corner? i’m not an expert, but i feel like that’s not how a person would look after fighting off three attackers and presumably shooting most of them.

oh BOY. adam, with a crazy glint in his eyes: “i’ve been trying to dismantle kenji’s operation for months now. and i finally have the evidence to do it.” i both unexpectedly like this, and already low key hate it for how it’s probably going to be used as the show’s way of clearing adam from all the completely bonkers things he’s been doing all on his own with zero authorization or backup and bringing him back into the fold of five-0 as a somehow still trusted team member.

oh dang. opening credits do their thing, and then there’s no pause to check whether there’s even actually any actual evidence on that thumb drive adam was holding, but we just jump to swat, adam, lou and junior rolling up to kenji’s house and engaging in a huge shootout.

adam is now the lone dude pursuing kenji through the dark woods, who is also alone, of course. they brawl, adam gets the upper hand, and he gets a chance to shoot kenji which he doesn’t take, and then he calls for emts (good! this is good!) and extremely dramatically tells kenji “you were right not to trust me. i was working for five-0 the whole time”, and it just sounds like such a weird brag at this point. so i guess adam never went to the bad side again, suddenly? he just... keeps pretending he does over and over, and the criminals on this very small island keep being stupid enough to trust him, which honestly, is on them.

adam keeps bragging and oh gosh, tell me there’s a twist here and this is not just his victory lap. there’s so much of the episode left that something has to go very wrong about adam’s nice plan to wrap it all up neatly.

aha! it’s implied that letting kenji live might go badly for adam because kenji has information about adam that is bad for him. they did not completley forget that adam did crime stuff!

noelani seems to be at a funeral and we meet her parents and they don’t exactly seem super proud of her achievements, which i think we were told in the past, but now we’re shown, and it hurts my heart.

oh noooo. noelani gets to the open casket and immediately finds marks on the body that she clearly thinks are suspicious. that’s! not going to go well, gosh.

fdjkfdjkf adam and steve are in steve’s office and steve basically just went “so your plan to fight the yakuza was to join the yakuza” and adam very seriously goes “yes.”

steve is very not happy and adam doesn’t truly seem to grasp why and then steve’s phone rings and there’s a case, which is very nice timing for adam. saved by the bell.

so five-0 is on a ship that got robbed by pirates but it’s all very mysterious, and then they realize there might still be a pirate on board and they split into search parties and it’s junior and tani as one (who start talking about their missed date), and steve and danny as the other (who are not shown talking about dates, but who knows), and just. i love watching both of those duos work together, and the junior-tani vs steve-danny parallel is once again very in your face, hah.

tani gets locked in a kitchen with the pirate and junior is outside freaking out and that’s angsty but then junior and steve finally break through the door in a combined effort and they and danny rush in, only to find tani has already solved the problem without their help. YES. GOOD CONTENT.

jkfdfjdk over on the island, quinn is now helping noelani intimidate the coroner who wrote a bad report on noelani’s uncle’s death and that is ALSO very good content.

dfjdk lou welcomes most of the team back to hq and asks “anybody left pining”, which he follows up with the rest of a sentence about the high seas, but UH. YES. i know some people who might be pining.

lots of plot stuff happens and it’s genuinely interesting to watch, but also, oh my god, quinn and noelani are making me cry.

fjdkfd tani goes to meet one of the guys from the magnum pi crossover and he says he’s still waiting to hear back from quinn about the dinner he was hoping to have with her, and i like that because my lesbian quinn headcanon is still going strong.

quinn and noelani encounter a teen trying to get out of gang life who might be on a wealthy person’s hitlist, and my first thought is just. put the kid in the mcgarrett house. not only will he be instantly adopted by steve (and thereby gain a complicated network of siblings), but he’ll also be living in a place where he’s protected by not one, not two, but three members of five-0, two of whom are former seals. just. aside from the dire lack of beds, it would be so good.

jfkdslf, steve, danny and junior find the pirates and a room full of bags of powder that looks like drugs but probably isn’t, seeing as it killed the pirates, and then a small army rolls up outside and starts shooting at them, forcing them to take cover in the room with the powder, which starts dusting the air as the bags get shot. i love how the writers made the circumstances work here, omg.

I LOVE THE WAY THAT PLAYED OUT EVEN MORE, because it made a) for a very interesting shootout with clear stakes, and b) for a somehow both hilarious and potentially super angsty moment when danny is fairly affected by the powder, which has to bring up some bad sarin gas memories for him, and then steve shoots one last bad guy right over danny’s head and danny’s ears are ringing and he yells something and steve doesn’t understand him and just kind of pats his back in comfort, which in turn gives me strong driving-a-nuclear-bomb-through-the-woods, name-your-restaurant-Steve’s-please flashbacks, oh my gosh.

tani makes a REALLY LAME PIRATE JOKE and i LOVE HER.

quinn got the whole team together at a bar so noelani wouldn’t be sitting at home alone!!! the type of supportive female friendship i want to see!!!

and then quinn wants noelani to come dancing with her, but the magnum pi guy shows up and noelani tells him that maybe he could take her place. GAY QUINN IS SOARING. also, poor woman. this has strong vibes of danny setting steve up half against his will.

tani and junior watch quinn and the guy dance and decide to join and/or dance fight them in the best conversation ever, and it looks they’re all having SO MUCH FUN and it makes my heart happy.

what ALSO makes my heart happy is how much i enjoyed this episode, because i thought there would be a lot of yakuza stuff after that “previously on” and the beginning, but adam just kind of disappeared after his talk with steve, and suddenly there were two entirely unrelated plots which were both very neat and gave me so, so many character interactions i adored, ahh, how wonderful. i love season 10 so much.

#10.18 #h50 #so much good stuff!!