#lancer: *slowly slides over* | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cleanlenins · 3 years

Text

He Drives Me Crazy

AO3 FFN

Written for the Minibang

Artwork done by @tumbling-darkling

Mother's Day is today and Danny forgot to buy a present! How did this become Jazz's problem? Danny convinces Jazz to help him pick out a last minute Mother's day gift. He also somehow convinced her to teach him how to drive. Sibling hijinks ensue and Jazz is going to need some advil to get through all of her brother's terrible jokes.

The bird had been singing just outside her window for ten minutes now, but Jazz was well practiced in ignoring Mama Bird's pre-dawn routine. She snuggled further under the blankets, not quite waking as dawn began to break. The soft fingers of early morning light began to brush against her eyelids. She had found that arranging her bed in a way that allowed for natural daylight to wake her was beneficial for her mental health and refreshed her enough to face a new day with an upbeat attitude. Danny said it was proof that she was, in fact, a robot running on solar power. Honestly, he could laugh, but he would benefit from taking a little time to plot out his sleep cycle.

Something suddenly blocked the dawn light, casting a faint shadow that covered her face. She frowned, not quite waking, but some part of her brain was aware of the change.

"Jazz," a cold whisper tickled her ear. She furrowed her brow further, hiding her face from the suddenly cold air. She mumbled incomprehensible nonsense.

"Jazz, I need your help," the voice whispered again, this time breaking from desperation. A finger prodded her shoulder. Poke. Poke. Poke. "Jazz, it's an emergency ."

Jazz bolted upright, startling her little brother enough for him to fall on his butt with an oof . Jazz frantically scanned her brother, her hair a halo of ginger tangles framing her face.

"What's wrong? Are you hurt? Is someone attacking? Did Mom or Dad make something new and horrifying? Are you okay?" She nearly shouted. Her words ran together as she raced to get them out as quickly as possible. Danny flinched from the sudden tirade of information. Jazz searched her brother’s body for any obvious wounds, her eyes as wide as dinner plates. But no, he looked perfectly whole. He was still wearing his pajamas.

“Not that kind of emergency,” Danny said with a pitiful pleading look. “I forgot to get Mom a present!”

It took Jazz a second before she could comprehend Danny’s words. She responded by mercilessly hitting him with her pillow.

“You wake me up for a supposed emergency , and that emergency is you didn’t buy Mom a Mother’s Day present? I don't think you know what emergency means,” She said, not letting up on her pillow assault. Danny tried to protect himself from the feathery flail.

“Jazz, please. This is an emergency! Mother’s Day is today!” Danny pleaded. But Jazz did not let up.

“I know that Mother’s Day is today, you dork. I know how to read a calendar,” She huffed. Jazz dropped the pillow back in place on her bed, slightly out of breath. Danny peeked through his fingers to see if it was truly over. Jazz glared down at her little brother before wrapping herself back in her blanket. “Just fly out and buy her something. Stores will be open in an hour or so.”

“I don’t know what to get her,” Danny pouted. He stood and flopped on top of Jazz, who objected to the movement. “I don’t know what she would like. Jazz, you’ve gotta help me.”

“Why didn’t you do this before now?”

“I meant to do it last weekend, but then there was that weird Simon-Says ghost that made it so you could only do something if you said his name. And the weekend before that I had to study for that big test, remember? And the project Lancer had assigned. And then there was that whole thing with Johnny 13 that ended up with the Mall closing early, so unless I broke in I couldn’t have bought a present anyways.. And then the weekend before that-”

“Okay, okay. I get it. You’ve had a lot on your plate,” Jazz said. She shoved her brother into the floor and unwound herself from the blankets. Danny didn’t bother to move from the contorted position he fell in, but just continued to look up at Jazz with his puppy dog eyes. She sighed. How could she not give in when he looked at her like that? “Did you have any ideas about what you wanted to get her?”

“Well, I had thought I could bake something for her? I also thought to go by that weird academic place and see if they had something she would like,” Danny mused.

“It's just a bookstore, Danny.”

“Weird Academic Place.”

“Whatever. Fine. Call it whatever you want. It sounds like you have it planned out. So what do you need me for?” Jazz rubbed her eyes. Ugh, couldn’t he have waited five more minutes?

“You know her better than I do. You’re actually here most of the time. Not, you know, avoiding...her.” Danny shifted guiltily. He murmured something unintelligible. Jazz ignored it. “I just want to make sure she likes it, you know?”

“I’m sure she will like whatever you pick out.”

“Yeah, but I want her to actually like it, not just ‘Mom-like’ it, you know? I want it to be something she will enjoy because she wants it, not because I gave it to her.”

Jazz sighed.

“Fine, just let me get dressed and then you can fly us over to the mall when it opens.”

Danny shifted on the floor, still looking up at Jazz with his puppy dog eyes. Honestly, those should be criminal.

“Do you think that, maybe, just this once, I can drive your car?” Danny said, increasing the puppy pressure.

“What? No! Why would you want to drive my car anyways? You can fly,” Jazz said. Was Danny’s lower lip trembling?

“I know. I just- I got my learner’s permit now! And I just really want to try. I promise I will be really careful. Just please please please PLEASE. Don’t make me learn using the GAV,” Danny begged. “Do you want Dad teaching me to drive?”

Jazz shuddered at the thought. Imagining a teenage Danny driving like Jack Fenton. Except with no fear of death.

“Well…”

~~~

Jazz was trying very hard to not laugh as Danny was practically bouncing in his seat. The driver’s seat. Of her car. That was a sobering thought. She couldn’t believe that she was actually going to do this. Danny grinned as he fiddled with the seat settings, the seat jittering back and forth with an electric hum.

“Will you quit that?” Jazz snapped.

“What, I need to make sure my toesies reach, don’t I?” Danny grinned, stretching his legs comically.

“So why the heck is the seat all the way back?”

“Well, maybe my toesies need some toe room,” Danny argued, adjusting the seat's backrest all the way forward so his face almost touched his own lap.

“I’m regretting this already,” Jazz muttered, still gripping the keys.

“What? No, wait! I can behave,” Danny said, rushing to return the seat settings back to a normal setup. Not that there was any way to rush the old mechanical chair. The seat slowly moved back, the squeaking of the leather seats the only sound as Danny stared at Jazz, who was really starting to regret this. Neither teen broke eye contact as the chair moved with agonizing slowness. When the seat was finally upright, he grinned at her. “See?”

“Congratulations, you're sitting in the car like a normal person,” Jazz deadpanned. She took a steadying breath. “Okay, so what is the first thing you do now that you’ve figured out how to get your butt in a chair?”

“Uh, plug in the key?”

“Plug in?”

“I don’t know the word! You stick the key in the hole and twist.”

“I thought you got your learner's permit?” Jazz said suspiciously.

“I did, but it's early and I don’t remember words this early. I stick the key in the hole- the ignition! And turn. Right?”

“Wrong,” Jazz said, looking pointedly at her little brother. “First thing: Put on your seatbelt.”

“Why? It’s not like I can die again,” Danny laughed.

“Do you want me to teach you to drive or not?” Jazz snapped.

“I do! I do. Fine, I’ll put on the seatbelt,” Danny pouted. He clicked it into place, then made grabby hands toward his sister. “Keys, please.”

“No, you still haven’t checked your mirrors,” Jazz said.

“They're still attached to the car, I would notice if they weren’t,” Danny furrowed his brow.

“Not if they are still attached, you dork. That you can see with them,” Jazz groaned. Danny blushed.

“Sorry, cars missing mirrors tends to be a more common problem for me,” He said. He sat up and looked at all the mirrors, not having to make very many adjustments. “I think that's good. Now can I please start the car.”

Jazz hesitated, before finally dropping the keys into Danny’s waiting hands. The raven-haired teen looked gleeful at the little clump of jangling metal. He instantly put the car key in the ignition, the engine humming to life.

“Okay, so now you are going to put your foot on the brake. That’s the one on your left. And then you are going to shift the gearshift-”

“PRNDL,” Danny said, already shifting into Reverse.

“You've never even watched that show, it's on the wrong network,” Jazz complained.

“Doesn’t matter. So, do I put on the gas-?”

“No,” Jazz tried not to shout. She took another deep breath. “No, just. Get a feel for how fast it goes before you hit the gas, okay? Cars will go a little bit even without having to press the gas.”

“Sounds like me in English class,” Danny smirked, easing off the brake. The car inched toward the road.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Jazz said. She turned backwards to double check that no one was coming down their street. It probably wasn’t necessary. Most people avoided the street that the crazy Fentons lived on. With her Dad's driving? That was probably a good idea. “You should be good. Just turn the wheel to straighten yourself into the lane.”

Danny nodded and did just that. He seemed relieved, as he switched the car into Drive.

“Okay, cool. So now I floor it, right?” Danny said.

“I can’t tell if you are serious or not, but if you want to continue driving my car you will do no such thing,” Jazz's voice wavered. She squeezed the door handle, starting to feel it slide with sweat. “Just gently tap it. Speed limit is 35, so don’t go over that.”

Danny did a...really good job. Jazz relaxed. His turns were a little hair-raising, but nowhere near Jack Fenton levels. And Jazz only had to ask him to slow down twice. He braked a little hard at the lights. It could be worse.

“You’re doing great, Danny,” Jazz said fondly. Danny’s face, which had slowly contorted into a stern look of concentration as he drove, brightened. He shot his sister a look before she gently slapped him on the shoulder. “Eyes on the road!”

“Am I wheely doing a good job?” Danny snickered, tapping his fingers against the wheel. They were approaching an intersection.

“No puns.”

“Even if I am being carful ?”

“Stop it.”

“But I have miles of them. Can’t stop me now that I am on a roll .”

“Stop.”

“You can’t be tired of them yet-”.

“No, STOP!” Jazz cried. Danny slammed on the brake just as the light turned red, sliding slightly further into the intersection. The squeal of the tires against the pavement attracted the attention of the few pedestrians. Luckily, there were no other cars at the traffic light. It was early Sunday morning. Jazz held her hand to her chest for a second before her head jerked to Danny.

“Danny, are you okay,” Jazz asked. Danny gave her a wry grin.

“Yeah, I’m fine. The seatbelt doesn’t hit near as hard as Skulker,” Danny massaged his collarbone. “Sorry.”

Jazz took a deep breath. Danny was avoiding her gaze, his cheeks flushed the same color as the traffic light. He gripped both hands on the steering wheel, elbows rigid.

“Danny, you're okay. It’s fine. Everyone makes mistakes while learning,” Jazz said softly. Danny shook his head, still keeping his eyes forward. “You’re doing a really good job, I promise. Just don’t let yourself get distracted, okay?”

Danny still didn’t look at Jazz, but Jazz didn’t need eye contact to see where his mind was going. He was fast getting over his embarrassment, but it was turning into something she saw far too often on her little brother’s face.

“Danny, you have nothing to feel guilty about. I promise you are doing a good job. This is your first time driving a car, right?”

“Legally, yeah.”

“Legally-?” Jazz cut that thought short. “Nevermind. This is your first real lesson. You’re doing a good job. I promise. When this light turns green, just continue on a little more cautiously. And maybe don’t make anymore driving puns until you get a bit more comfortable. Or ever. That would certainly make me feel more comfortable.”

Danny’s lip twitched, but Jazz wasn’t satisfied.

“I want you to repeat after me,” Jazz said. Danny groaned. “Just do it. Stop complaining. Now, say ‘I am doing my best.’”

“I am doing my best,” Danny recited. The light turned green and Danny slowly pulled through the intersection.

“And my best is enough,” Jazz continued.

“And my best is enough,” Danny said unenthusiastically.

“Good, now say it all together,” Jazz said.

“Good, now say it all together,” Danny repeated.

“Danny, I’m serious,” Jazz admonished.

“And here I thought you were Jazz,” Danny quipped, his tone light. Jazz didn’t believe it. She knew when Danny was trying to pretend he was okay. She knew when he was trying to deflect. Jazz said nothing and continued to look at her little brother. Minutes passed in silence until they stopped at another intersection. Danny sighed deeply, weary.

“I’m doing my best and my best is enough,” Danny mumbled.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you,” Jazz said.

“I’m doing my best and my best is enough,” Danny said in a normal tone of voice.

“Yes, and I am very proud of you, little brother,” Jazz said fondly. “Really, I am. You do so much. And you work so hard. And you do so much good. I don’t know how I could be any prouder.”

“I thought we were talking about my driving? Why are you getting all mushy?” Danny complained half-heartedly, finally smiling. Genuinely smiling.

“Because I love you. Turn left at this next intersection. It’s faster,” Jazz directed. Danny grumbled something about sisters, but Jazz didn’t let it bother her.

It hadn’t taken long after she found out about Phantom for her to realize her brother always seemed beaten down. And not just literally. But while the scars from the ghost fights healed ridiculously quickly, the mental and emotional scars Danny had been accumulating since The Accident were just getting worse. The constant detentions from teachers who could never understand what he was going through. The bullies that tore at her little brother’s self-esteem. And then their parents. Jazz knew they meant well. She knew they scolded Danny because they thought it would help. She knew they grounded him because they were worried. But the constant negativity was not good for him. When was the last time they had said something positive to him? Something that didn’t bring up their bigotry against ghosts? Something that made him feel safe? Something that made him feel truly loved? No wonder he was stressed about Mom’s gift.

It didn’t help that it seemed like they were always complimenting her. Yes, she did work hard on all her tests. She worked hard for her grades. She had worked hard for her CATs. She had worked hard on her college entrance essays. And she liked the praise. But couldn’t her parents see the damage they were doing by constantly praising one child but not giving the other child the attention they needed? If only they could see all the good Danny did. Because Danny was an amazingly good person who-

“Jazz, this is your short cut. I don’t know where I’m going. So could you stop spacing and tell me when to turn,” Danny cut in, breaking Jazz out of her thoughts.

“Whoops, sorry,” She apologized, taking stock of where they were driving. A store caught her eye. “Oh, they finally opened that new ice cream shop!”

“Really?” Danny said. He glanced around nervously, not wanting to let his eye leave the road.

“Yeah, it opened a few days ago,” Jazz squinted to read the sign, a bright fluorescent green. She groaned.

“What?” Danny asked nervously.

“They called it ‘Scream’. That’s awful . I hate that,” Jazz lamented. And sure enough, as they drove by, the little ice cream shop was taking full advantage of Amity Park’s ghostly reputation. Cute cartoonish green ghosts decorated the windows. A few were curled up on top of ice cream cones, smiling out at the potential customers. Danny snickered.

“Well, I love that. We have to go!” Danny said.

“It’s too early for ice cream.”

“So we get it on the way home.”

“I thought you were going to bake something for Mom?”

“I mean, yeah. But that takes time. And it’s ice cream,” Danny said with longing. “I’m a itty bitty cold core ghosty. I crave the sugary icy treat. It's in my DNA.”

“Danny, you don’t need ice cream.”

“But I do . Ask Frostbite. Complete medical necessity. Don’t be ghostphobic, Jazz,” Danny complained as they passed by the shop. “I need it so bad I could scream .”

“Ugh, turn left for the mall” Jazz groaned, causing Danny to cackle in delight.

“That didn’t sound like a no,” Danny nearly sang.

“You’re paying. If I have to go into a store decorated with ghosts, you’re paying,” Jazz demanded.

“Deal!” Danny crowed in victory. Jazz rolled her eyes. She continued to give directions as Danny drove, interspersed with compliments and tips. By the time they arrived at the mall, Danny was back in high spirits. Was that a pun? Ugh, Danny’s sense of humor better not be rubbing off on her.

Jazz took back the keys when they got out of the car. Danny had turned on the puppy look again to try and keep them, but Jazz put her foot down. Jazz was far less likely to lose the keys than he was. He finally agreed as they headed toward the mall.

The siblings walked through the parking lot, with Danny trailing slightly behind Jazz. It hadn’t been open long, but there were already more people than Jazz had anticipated. Probably other last minute Mother’s Day shoppers. She smiled, knowing the probability that at least one of them was delayed because of ghost reasons as well. Just not her brother’s specific issue. She reached the door and opened it for her brother, turning to comment on that thought, when she paused.

Danny walked past her, not noticing her stalled comment. His eyes scanned the inside of the mall as he took on a tense defensive posture. The baby blue of his eyes didn’t match the sky, as Mom had always said. Not right now. They were cold and hard like ice. The calculated stare of a predator. Walking with purpose, he continued inward, not letting his guard down until some unspoken criteria was met. Jazz wasn’t sure what he saw that made him relax. What did he see that let him know that there was no immediate threat? And wasn’t that just awful that walking into the mall would make her baby brother feel threatened? Jazz watched the tension melt from her little brother’s shoulders as he turned backwards to grin at her. Jazz did her best to grin back at him.

Her brother rushed forward and grabbed Jazz by her wrist. Danny dragged Jazz through the store quickly, not noticing his sister’s lapse in concentration. He weaved in between the shoppers, apologizing quickly when he accidentally bumped into one of them. Jazz worried that he might dislocate her arm. But the pain of that possibility didn’t compare to the emotional roller coaster in her head. It wasn’t the first time she had thought about this. It was wrong. He was just barely fifteen! It shouldn’t be his responsibility. They were just kids. They should just be able to go to the mall and just be kids. Instead, Danny was always on edge. Always ready to throw himself in danger. And Jazz understood because she recognized the Mall as being statistically a likely place for ghost attacks.

Jazz almost tripped over Danny when he suddenly stopped outside the bookstore. He spread his arms wide, gesturing to the facade.

“Here we are! The Weird Academic Place. The WAP,” Danny said, a huge grin across his face. Jazz punched him.

“You are not going to call it that in public. Not if you want my help,” Jazz admonished.

“What do you mean?” Danny asked in feigned innocence. “What is so wrong with WAP?”

“Danny, you know exactly what is wrong with that acronym?” Jazz said.

“No, honest big sister. I am just your tiny baby brother. I don’t know what any word means. Tell me. Does it have a dirty meaning? Why would my perfect sister know something that has a dirty meaning?” Danny tried very hard not to laugh. To keep up the charade. Jazz felt her lip twitch before she couldn’t hold back the giggles any longer. Okay, maybe they still were able to be children. They weren’t actually completely deprived of it.

“Danny, you're ridiculous. Now, did you want to get a present or not?” Jazz asked. Danny winked.

“Yes, a Wonderfully Awesome Present,” Danny said.

“No,” Jazz said, marching forward into the store without him. She smiled when she heard his chuckling get closer, her baby brother following her in.

Looking around, Jazz could see why her brother might label this bookstore Weirdly Academic. Even ignoring his stupid joke. The bookstore was geared toward academic and science books. It was, honestly, a little pretentious. What was wrong with a little light fantasy reading? Nothing. Though, she grudgingly admitted that it was the best store to get peer-reviewed science journals in print.

“Okay, so what kind of book were you thinking?” Jazz asked. Danny shrugged.

“I’m not sure. I don’t think she would want an ectobiology book. I mean, Mom and Dad wrote the most accurate ones. But she is super into science and I am not sure which sciences would be relevant?” Danny frowned in thought.

“Well, why don’t we go look at the ectobiology section and see if anything stands out. Who knows? Maybe we can find something they haven’t read yet. After that, I know Mom was talking about looking into different ways of measuring and predicting atmospheric changes so they can finally go into the Ghost Zone safely. Like a barometer, but for ectoplasm. We might find something about that in the meteorology section. Or the general earth science section. Or possibly even engineering?”

“Sounds like a plan. Let’s go!” Danny said, rushing down an aisle. Jazz waited a few moments before Danny’s head popped back around the shelf. “I’m going the wrong way, aren’t I?”

“Why don’t I lead the way this time?” She said, grinning. She grabbed his hand and steered him in the right direction. He moaned about holding his sister’s hand in public, but both of them could tell his heart wasn’t in it. Just a little brother reflex.

It didn’t take long for her to find the section on meteorology. Granted, she wasn’t super well versed in any of the Earth Sciences. But she had picked up a book here after the Vortex incident. The section wasn’t large. A big portion of it was taken up by a life-sized portrait of Lance Thunder, the local “weatherman” as he used to be known. Now he mostly just got called out to Ghost Fights. He didn’t seem very happy about it.

Danny looked over the books briefly, picking up a very fancy book that seemed promising. It’s title did seem to insinuate that at least one of the articles had something to do with atmospheric changes. But…

“What is it?” Danny said, looking up at Jazz.

“I didn’t say anything,” Jazz replied, a little too quickly.

“You didn’t have to. You don’t think this is a good choice,” Danny sighed, putting the book back into place.

“Well, no. I guess not. I think it might be a bit too broad for what they are looking for. But then again, what they are looking for is very specific. Maybe we should look at the engineering section first. Mom and Dad usually make their own stuff. But maybe there is something in there similar to what they want and they can base their designs on that?” Jazz said hopefully. Danny slumped.

“Fine, lead the way,” Danny said, slightly disappointed. Jazz squeezed his shoulder in sympathy, before they walked over to the engineering section. They passed by the small kids section on the way there.

As with everything else in the store, the kid’s section was education oriented, with science being the predominant field. There weren’t any kids here, probably because of the time. Jazz paused as something caught her eye. There on a display was the book version of Bearburt, Bearburt Knows It All. Jazz looked at the book wistfully.

Back when she was a kid, she was enamoured with that book. She had seen it at the old bookstore when she was five or six years old. She had skimmed it with her tiny fingers, seeing how the book encouraged her to be smart and to study. And to never stop questioning. She read it three times just while they stood in the store. Jazz had begged her Mom to buy it at the time, but she hadn’t gotten it. Mom had been distracted and instead of buying her the book, she had thought Jazz had wanted the stuffed animal that went with it. And Jazz didn’t correct her. Her teachers at school said she wasn’t supposed to correct adults, even when she was right. And so she had taken Bearburt home.

And she loved Bearburt. He had always been there for her. Through the kids that teased her in elementary school. To the crippling self-doubt she hid in middle school. She had thought she had grown out of him when she hit high school, when everything seemed to be working out according to plan. Even though Bearburt had helped her out through all of those hard times, it was the book that had given her the courage to be herself, even when others didn’t approve. To finally speak up for herself when she saw something wrong. And maybe she got a lot of grief over the years for being a know-it-all, but she was happy with who she was.

“Um, Jazz? You okay? I’m supposed to be the space case, not you. Remember?” Danny asked, shaking her gently. Jazz blinked rapidly. “That’s like twice. I didn’t think waking you up early would turn you into a Zombie.”

“I’m not a Zombie. I’m fine. I just remembered something.”

Danny hummed in response, a single eyebrow raised.

“So, the engineering section. This way,” Jazz directed. Danny watched her closely a moment longer, before shrugging off the distraction.

The engineering section was much larger than the section geared towards earth science. Jazz couldn’t be sure, but she imagined it was probably because of the constant destruction in Amity Park. Interest in engineering would likely soar when people wanted to find a way to create city infrastructure that could withstand the force of a giant glowing dragon being suplexed into the road. Or at least that seemed logical.

“That’s a lot of books,” Danny eyed the aisle warily.

“Yeah,” Jazz agreed, scanning the titles. She gestured to one section. “I think those are mostly geared towards Architectural Engineering, so we don’t need to look through those.”

“That still leaves a lot to look through,” Danny sighed. “Oh well, better start.”

The siblings began grabbing books and looking through them. Most of them were collections of articles instead of just being books on one subject, so they couldn’t just read the dust jacket to get a sense of what was inside. Many of the concepts were foreign to Jazz, but she was able to parse out the jargon well enough to get a sense of what was not what they were looking for. The problem was that they didn’t know enough to say if any of the few options they considered would actually be helpful.

“ Status and characteristics of diagnostics on Korea Superconducting Tokamak Research seems like a good option. It details what would work and what wouldn’t work with their design, so that might be a good place for Mom and Dad to start,” Jazz mused, looking at the journal entry.

“Yeah, but wasn’t it published in like 1996. Isn’t that kind of old?” Danny asked.

“Yeah, it’s not ideal . But they mostly just need a starting place. You know that they don’t stick to a blueprint from start to finish very well.”

“But what about this one? Pressure and interaction measure of the gluon plasma came out in 2010, wouldn’t that be better?” Dany said.

“Do you know what gluon plasma is?” Jazz asked.

“No,” Danny admitted.

“Me either,” Jazz sighed. “Who knows if it is similar to ectoplasm or not.”

“Maybe I should just get both?” Danny ventured, before wincing at the price. “Or not.”

“Yeah, academic titles are pricey.” Jazz said apologetically. Danny just hummed in agreement.

“I think I will go with the first one. The one about Korea Superconducting. If it’s the wrong thing, I think she would still enjoy that one more? She said something about superconducting at some point, ” Danny sounded unsure. Jazz hugged her little brother.

“Why touchy?” Danny complained. Jazz just squeezed him tighter.

“Big sister,” Jazz explained.

“Ngh,” Danny wriggled out of her hands. “I'm going to go buy this. You can go look up a book on personal space.”

“Rude,” Jazz called after her brother as he sprinted off towards the checkout. Or she thinks that’s where he was heading. He was going the completely wrong direction. Jazz chuckled. The red-head then put back the small pile of books she and Danny had pulled out, before heading over toward the psychology section. Maybe she could find a book on personal space just to irritate Danny. Actually, that was a good idea. Read a chapter of it here or there out loud until Danny stopped pestering her. Turn his own joke against him.

She noticed the ectobiology section as she made her way through the store. The section was probably bigger in Amity than it was in any other city. Most of the covers sported a massive orange ‘F’ on the front. There was probably twenty years worth of research, countless hours spent by her parents locked in the basement. Researching and inventing and writing papers, day after day. Even now, it wasn’t uncommon for Jazz and Danny to not even see their parents for a few days, their schedules causing the family to be like ships in the night. She wondered if they would ever get tired of that. Did they miss Jazz and Danny? Because Jazz found herself more and more missing them.

Maybe she should pick up a new book on childhood development instead. She passed the ectobiology section and found her way into the psychology section. They had actually restocked since she was last here! She soon found herself lost in a psychology journal article about sibling rivalry and didn’t notice the minutes ticking away from her.

“There you are! Dang it, why is this WAP so complicated to navigate?” Danny said, startling Jazz out of her focus.

“How long is it going to take you to get bored with that joke?” Jazz said, slamming the book closed and replacing it on the shelf.

“Depends. I still say the 'Road Work Ahead' line every time I see one of those signs,” Danny shrugged. He was grinning, and he swung the plastic shopping bag around lazily.

“I know. And there is one on every block,” Jazz bemoaned. She grabbed her brother by the shoulders and marched him toward the exit. “Why do you think I gave you directions the way I did this morning? So much construction.”

“You were trying to deprive me of Road Work signs?” Danny gasped, trying to turn around to stare at his sister. She kept pushing and ignored the false hurt in his voice.

“I was trying to keep you from having to maneuver through a construction zone your first time driving,” Jazz retorted. She was lying, so sue her. He literally said it every. Single. Sign. There are twelve on 4th street alone. “Sometimes I think you let yourself get thrown onto the road just so they put up more of those signs.”

Danny went strangely quiet but Jazz had grown adept at reading the silence.

“You don’t try to destroy the road so they put up more of those signs, right?” Jazz asked.

“I mean, I didn’t before. But you have such good ideas, Jazz.”

“No. Uh-uh. If I get any indication that you are letting yourself get curb stomped for a meme , I will lock you in the thermos for a week and just suck ectodogs in there for you to eat. That has to be the stupidest form of self-harm I have ever heard of,” Jazz chided as she pushed Danny out of the Weird Aca- dang it. Now she was doing it. They now stood in the mall proper. It had grown much busier in the time they had been inside the store.

“Was there anything else you needed here?” Jazz asked, Danny shook his head. “Then let's drive over to the grocery store and you can find something to bake for Mom.”

Danny lit up and held out his hand. Jazz fixed him with a stare.

“I will only let you have the keys if you promise me you will not intentionally get yourself thrown into a road,” Jazz said.

“Jazz,” Danny whined. “Sometimes I have to get thrown into the road. It’s better than getting thrown into the nursing home or doggy daycare or something. Sometimes the road is the best option.”

“Okay,” Jazz said, noting to process that later. “No intentionally getting thrown into the road for a dumb joke.”

A passing couple gave her an odd look, which she ignored. Danny put his hand over his heart, left hand in the air.

“I, Daniel James Fenton, swear not to let myself be thrown into the road for a dumb joke,” Danny said seriously. “Now gimme.”

Jazz sighed, and gave her brother the jangling mass of metal. He tossed it up in the air and caught it once more, a smirk at his sister.

“But you said nothing about a great joke!” Danny smirked, before sprinting through the mall. Jazz took a second to react before she chased down her brother.

“Danny Fenton, get back here with my keys!” She yelled.

~~~

Danny Fenton did not, in fact, get back there with her keys. When she made it to her car, her brother was already inside on the driver’s side. He was buckled with both hands on the wheel and beamed at her when she came into sight. Jazz glared at him and his smile dimmed. She marched over to the passenger side and slammed the door as she got in.

“...You know I am not really going to throw myself into the road for a joke, right?” Danny asked hesitantly, sinking down into the seat. Jazz sighed.

“I hope so. But sometimes you say something as a joke and then you actually mean it. I just want to make sure you’re taking care of yourself. The things you do...they are completely out of my depth, little brother. They don’t sell any books on how to handle this. I know what you do is important, but can you please try not to stress me out so much?” Jazz begged.

“Sorry. I guess I took the joke a little too far,” Danny said, rubbing the back of his neck. “But I promise, Jazz. I’m not going to let myself get hurt for some dumb reason. Jokes aside, I really don’t want to find out if I can die all the way.”

Jazz leaned over to give her little brother an awkward hug. He leaned into her. The moment passed and Danny grinned at her like the chaos gremlin he was.

“So, grocery store?” Danny asked. Jazz just smiled and turned around to make sure he didn’t back into anyone. Her brother eased out of the parking space, the mall in the rearview mirror.

The grocery store wasn’t all that far away from the mall, so it was a pretty short drive. Honestly, Jazz had been considering just walking from the mall to the supermarket. But Danny seemed to be having so much fun driving that she didn’t bring it up. The closer they got to the store, Danny’s smile grew and grew. Jazz thought it was bordering on maniacal.

“What’s with that face?” Jazz asked, suspicious.

“What face?” Danny tried to straighten his grin into one of innocent confusion.

“You know what face. Why are you making that face?”

“I don’t know what you mean. This is just my face. My normal human face. No need to attack me about it,” Danny cackled.

“Okay, you’re making a pun. I hear that in your voice. But I have no clue what joke you are making,” Jazz said as she stared at her giggling brother.

“I’m just getting in the zone ,” Danny snarked. Jazz was about to grill him about his behavior when she saw it.

“Oh no, they didn’t,” She said, horror struck. Danny expertly parked the car so he didn’t crash from laughing.

“They did,” Danny gasped, tears dripping down his cheeks. His face was as bright as a tomato as he continued to laugh. Jazz gaped, torn between being insulted by the misuse of government resources and amused by the absurdity.

On the side of the road was a very new sign. And as Jazz looked around, she could see that they were scattered everywhere. How had she missed them? The sign was a bright yellow equilateral triangle with the vague silhouette of a blob ghost, eyes glaring menacingly. Underneath it said-

“Ghost Attack Zone? What?” Jazz was flabbergasted. Danny clutched his stomach.

“I know!” He choked out between giggles.

“What does that even mean? Ghosts attack everywhere!” Jazz threw her hands in the air while Danny just continued to laugh. Jazz tried to stay strong and be the serious one, as usual. But she couldn’t do it. She caved, snorting and laughing with Danny. The siblings leaned into each other and guffawed until their sides hurt. Whenever they tried to get ahold of themselves, they would make eye contact and suddenly they were both back to clutching their sides and gasping for breath.

“Oh Ancients, do you think you can use this against Walker?” Jazz mused when she was finally able to control her laughter. Danny looked awestruck and grinned.

“Sorry, Walker, this is not a Ghost Attack Zone. Attacking me is against the rules,” Danny mocked the absent ghost. “Oh, I have no clue if it will work but I am absolutely doing that. I can’t wait to see the look on his face.”

“I think you can wait. We don’t need him showing up right now. It’s almost noon,” Jazz chided. Danny smiled.

“Would you say it’s High Noon?” Danny drawled.

“That meme is as dead as you,” Jazz rolled her eyes as Danny once more lost himself in a peel of laughter. “Can you please get a hold of yourself and drive to the store? The parking lot is right there!”

Danny held his breath, trying to contain the laughter as he drifted back onto the street. He pulled into the parking lot and began to look for a spot. Jazz pointed one out to him.

“There is one! It doesn’t have anyone next to it so it is a good place for you to practice.”

“I’m not parking there!”

“Why not?”

“The parking lot seagulls are there, minding their own birdy business. Are you trying to get me to commit birdy genocide?" Danny asked aghast.

“They will move when you get close to them.”

“But then they might not like me anymore and take their poop-fueled revenge. I don’t have the gull to make them my enemy. We’re birds of a feather !”

“How does that even remotely make sense?”

“I mean, they're white, they fly, and most of Amity Park thinks they’re a menace when they mostly just want to eat cheese fries,” Danny listed off, slowly passing the seagull mob. “Oh, and they are from the Ghost Zone.”

“What do you mean they’re from the Ghost Zone?” Jazz said, rubbing her temple.

“How do you think a bunch of seagulls end up in a city in the middle of Minnesota? Random transient portals,” Danny nodded sagely.

“Are you making that up?”

“You’ll never know.”

Jazz did not like not knowing things, but Danny was stubborn. Even though Jazz pestered Danny well after the car was parked, Danny refused to budge on elaborating. He just smiled mischievously. Jazz stewed, but it was fine. Danny may be afraid of bird-related vengeance, but she was an older sister. And she knew how to wait. And he should be more worried about Jazz related vengeance.

The siblings entered the store, Danny quickly grabbing a shopping cart. Jazz held onto his shoulder so he wouldn’t zoom off without her. Even so, she was having to speed walk to keep up with him.

“So, what are you planning to bake for Mom?” Jazz asked.

“Um, that’s a good question,” Danny slowed his pace. He looked at her with big pleading eyes. Jazz sighed.

“Well, I know she likes key lime pie but-”

“Great! Key lime pie, it is!” Danny said, successfully zooming away from his sister toward the produce aisle. Jazz wanted to scream, but she walked at a sensible speed after her little brother.

Jazz didn’t like key lime pie all that much. She had plenty of evidence as to why it was the inferior dessert in the Fenton Household. For one, it was green. Or, green-tinted at least. It made it very difficult to tell if it had been contaminated in the refrigerator by her parents' ectoplasm samples. It was made doubly hard by the citrus sour taste, something that limes and ectoplasm shared. Though limes didn’t usually have that battery-acid aftertaste as well. Not unless they had been left in the Fenton Fridge too long. On top of it, Jazz just didn’t like sour things. But if she were to honestly examine her distaste, she may dislike sour things because she had eaten so many ectoplasm contaminated meals.

Danny was still in the produce aisle. Jazz frowned as she watched him grab different fruits and stick them in the cart. He hadn’t even grabbed any of the limes yet. But he was going along, grabbing item after item at seemingly random.

“What are you doing?” She asked once she caught up to him. He looked at her seriously, before slowly reaching into the cart and solemnly handing her a bright red apple. Jazz just stared at it, before looking at her brother suspiciously. He was leaning over the cart.

“I just wanted to apple-ogize for driving you bananas today,” He pulled out the yellow fruit and put it on top of the apple in her hand. Jazz looked at the fruit expressionlessly. “ You kiwi-ckly agreed to go shopping with me, even though apricot to buy Mom’s gift. I cherry-sh our currant relationship, and think your grape for en-durian my jokes. And I will try to not take you for pomegranate again because we make a great pear. ”

As he spoke, he piled each named fruit into Jazz’s hands, who just stood there looking at the growing mass of food she held. When he had finished talking, she had a small fruity hill precariously balanced in her arms. She looked at her brother.

“Are you done?” She asked. He looked at her sheepishly, before sitting a single avocado on top of the pile.

“I couldn’t think of a pun for it in time,” Danny admitted. Jazz just stared at him. And took a deep, steadying breath.

“Why?” She asked. Danny shrugged.

“Fruit was there,” Danny said, as if it explained everything. Which it didn’t. But Jazz was going to at least pretend to be the bigger person.

“Please just put them back,” Jazz begged. Danny grinned as he pulled each fruit out of Jazz’s hand. “Where did you even find a durian?”

“Sam.”

“...were you just carrying that in your pocket?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Jazz,” Danny scoffed. “It was in my backpack.”

“Right. And you are carrying a durian around with you because-?” Jazz prompted, handing over the last of the fruit to Danny.

“They are smelly,” He said, brows furrowed.

“Danny. Please. Explain it to me. Use your words,” Jazz begged.

“It makes it easier for Cujo to find me. Strong smell. And also he really likes playing fetch with them,” Danny shrugged. “Hey, can you go grab the stuff for a pie crust while I put all of this fruit back? We are in a hurry, you know.”

Jazz really wanted to explore how he had found out that the Ghost Puppy enjoyed durian, especially since she wasn’t sure if living dogs could even eat the fruit safely. Was he just chucking random fruit for the dog to chase? There was a story here. Not to mention it wasn't something usually found in the local stores but-

“What kind of pie crust?”

“Um, I guess a graham cracker crust? I don’t know how to make other kinds,” Danny said, still holding his fruit pile. “I think the graham crackers are in aisle eight.”

Jazz turned to walk away, keeping one eye on her brother and making sure he put the assorted fruit back in their place. He seemed to be doing just that, after sliding the durian back into his backpack. She walked past the baked goods. Danny was getting good at baking, somehow, but she would still prefer any of these store bought goods to key lime pie. She tried not to eye the cute little tiramisu that was placed right at the front, wrapped in a hard plastic box. She really liked the little cake, but never found the time to make it. Wait, she was getting distracted. Jazz blinked away the thought and walked briskly to aisle eight. Danny was right. This did have the graham crackers.

It took some time for Jazz to find Danny again. She had taken a detour to make sure he had actually put all of the fruit back in their correct place before catching up with him by the eggs.

"Don't we have eggs at home?" Jazz asked. Danny shrugged.

"I think so. But they have probably been in the fridge for a week so-"

"Ah. Yeah, better not chance it," Jazz nodded.

"Yeah. I guess I could still take a crack at it, though," Danny snickered.

"Oh my god, Danny-"

"You gotta learn to take a yolk , Jazz," Danny drawled out her name. "Don't be so hard-boiled ."

"I'm getting rid of you. I am going to Vlad's house and giving him your birth certificate," Jazz deadpanned. Danny gasped dramatically. "Danielle can just come and live with us. Upgrade."

"You wound me! Also, Ellie's puns are worse than mine, so not much of an upgrade there," Danny shrugged, grabbing a dozen eggs and putting them in the cart. "All that's left is the sweetened condensed milk. What even is sweetened condensed milk?"

"It's just milk that has been heated to remove some of the water from it, with sugar added," Jazz grabbed the cart from her brother and started pushing it toward the baking aisle. It forced Danny to walk at a normal pace. "You know you could have asked me to grab it while I was getting the graham crackers, right? They are in the same aisle."

"Of course I knew that," Danny said, his tone saying he very much did not know that. Jazz chose to drop it. They grabbed the can of sweetened condensed milk, Jazz physically holding her hand over Danny's mouth to prevent another infernal pun. Danny licked her hand, so she did the mature thing and rubbed his spit on his face. When an adult turned down the aisle, Jazz straightened up. She angled the cart toward the registers, but Danny stopped her.

"Let's do the self checkout," he complained, tugging on her arm. She shook him off.

"Do you see how many items we have in this cart? That would be so annoying! The cashier-run register is better."

"Noooo,"Danny whined. He leaned all of his weight on Jazz, causing her to stumble. "Self checkout, Jazz!"

"Seriously? You're going to knock me over," Jazz complained, trying to push her brother off of her.

"Sounds like a personal problem," Danny said, continuing to hang off of Jazz. Jazz was severely tempted to just let him fall on the floor, but that was probably not the correct response to have.

"If you want to do the self-checkout so badly, I am not going to help you. You can do it yourself," Jazz huffed

"Okay," Danny chirped, standing upright immediately. "Why don't you wait in the car while I check out?”

Jazz was going to argue against it, when inspiration struck. A little bit of pay back for her baby brother. She smiled sweetly at him and gave him a kiss on the head. He sputtered and gagged at the show of affection as she turned on heel to head for the car.

It didn’t take her long to set up her revenge. She had kept it on the backburner for a while, a small plan to be enacted when the time was right. Preparation was key. So she waited primly in the passenger seat of her car, giving occasional glances to the storefront. She saw her brother heading toward the car, half a dozen bags hanging from his arms (with one tiny one clutched in between his teeth). She unlocked the trunk as soon as he got close, letting him put the groceries in before slamming it shut with a thud. Danny slid into the driver’s side, grinning from ear to ear. Jazz did her best to hide her excitement as he buckled his seat belt.

“Why are you making that face?” He asked, suspicious.

“Face? What face?” She asked, knowing she was failing to hide her excitement.

“You are worse at keeping secrets than I am,” Danny said, staring at her.

“If you say so. But we need to get going if you are going to get ice-cream,” Jazz said, deflecting.

“Uh-huh,” Danny said, still suspicious. He shifted the car into reverse, and both he and Jazz turned to make sure he didn’t hit someone as he pulled out. He drove through the parking lot, slowing to wave at the flock of seagulls that were currently tearing apart a deli sandwich. He pulled up to the road, about to turn when Jazz made her move.

“Why don’t we listen to some relaxing music on our way,” She said, all too innocently. She turned the volume up, the unmistakable sound of flute and harp warbled through the speakers.

“No,” Danny cried, horrified. His mouth fell open as he stared at the car’s radio, not moving even though he was clear to drive.

“ Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling~ ” The car crooned. Danny groaned loudly, trying to drown out the lovely soprano voices of Celtic Women.

“Jazzy, please! Have mercy on your brother!” Danny begged.

“I have know idea what you mean, Baby Brother,” Jazz said, grinning. “You can turn, you know. There isn’t anyone coming.”

“Jazz!” He cried. “Please.”

“Come on, don’t get distracted. Just think of that frosty treat, cold core ghosty. Go on,” Jazz mocked. Danny fake sniffled as he pulled onto the road.

“Jazz, this is torture. I hate this song! You know I hate this song.”

“What? You hate this song? This is brand new information. I guess I was due to learn something new since you refused to tell me about the seagulls,” Jazz said. “Here, I’ll change it for you.”

Jazz pressed the button that would change the song. A soft organ played a delicate melody.

“ Oh Danny boy -” sang Johnny Cash.

“Jazz!” Danny yelled. “Jazz, why?”

“Oh dear, it seems like this entire CD is made of only covers of the world-renowned Irish hit Danny Boy . Who would make such a thing?” Jazz grinned as her brother expertly stopped at the redlight. “Great job, Danny. You’re doing great.”

“Please, just kill me Jazz. This is cruel and unusual punishment,” Danny said, reaching to turn the car radio off. Jazz slapped his hand out of the way.

“Both hands on the steering wheel, Mister,” She admonished.

“Jazz, I’m sorry! Yes, the seagulls came through a portal. But they are just birds. Please just stop this torment,” Danny yelled over Johnny Cash.

“So interesting, little brother. I am really glad you told me,” Jazz said. She clicked the radio. A fiddle introduced the Daniel O’Donnell version of the song. Danny made an inhuman noise of distress, causing goosebumps on Jazz’s arms.

Jazz directed him, sometimes yelling over the Irish tune to make herself heard. Danny moaned and groaned, throwing quite a tantrum over each iteration of the song as they faded into the next. His driving did not reflect his words, though. Jazz only had to correct him slightly, warning him that he was drifting into other lanes here and there. She considered asking him about the “not-legal driving” he had insinuated, as it really was impressive that this was his first time. Instead, Jazz sang along happily as her brother screeched his displeasure. Before they knew it, they were pulling into the ice cream shop. Danny was shrieking nonsense over the blaring music. A few people in the parking lot gave the car an odd look.

Jazz flicked the radio off, but Danny continued to scream until the car was completely parked. She scrunched her face as the blaring noise.

“You good?” She asked, as he stopped for breath. He gave one more inhuman shriek before ceasing. He intangibly reached into the cd player and pulled out the cd, cracking it in half.

“I am now,” He smiled. Jazz rolled her eyes, before opening the car door.

Scream had really pulled out all the stops for their ghostly ice cream theme. She had only caught a glimpse when they had driven by before. Little blob ghost silhouettes were pasted on all of the windows, statues of some of the more well known ghosts were positioned around the building. Fairy lights were strewn around the outside, each one fitted with a little green ghost bulb. The very front had an almost to scale statue of Phantom, though anyone who actually got close to Phantom could see little mistakes in the appearance. They couldn’t stand there examining every decoration, though. They had groceries in the car.

“They just can’t get my nose right,” Danny whispered, causing Jazz to giggle. Jazz opened the door for her brother and followed him in. The walls were papered with articles about the different ghost attacks as well as drawn art of the different ghosts. Streamers hung from the ceiling, wrapped around themselves in such extravagant swirls and twists that the ceiling was completely hidden in the green and purple paper. The ice cream was set up behind a counter, as any other ice cream shop would have it. But there were also shelves filled with different merchandise. T-shirts, cups, and hats with little ghosts. The logo for Scream clearly in view.

There was not a very long line, only about four people in front of the siblings. This gave them plenty of time to peruse the different flavors and options. It wasn’t a franchise, so they didn’t have as many options as a corporation like Baskin Robbins. Apparently, they even changed their flavors weekly. Jazz thought that was smart for the small time company. But she had to wonder how much money they blew on decorating the place.

Danny was cackling at the flavor names. Jazz just ignored them. More puns. Of course more puns. Did Danny give input for this place or was he just corrupting the entirety of Amity Park? It wouldn’t surprise her if puns became more popular because of a certain Ghost Hero’s penchant for using them in his witty banter. Witty in quotation marks.

“That will be $20.22. Will that be cash or card,” Jazz turned to where a worker was passing a cone to an elderly gentleman and what she assumed was his grandson. The older man whistled.

“That sure is pricey,” He said as he reached for his wallet.

“You get what you pay for. We only use the best ingredients,” The worker said unenthusiastically. The cashier waited for the elderly man to pull out his money, but the grandfather seemed distracted. He started telling the young whippersnapper about how things used to be and how far he could make a dollar go back during the depression. Jazz tuned it out as she continued to look at the options.

“Actually, Jazz. Maybe we shouldn’t do this today,” Jazz turned to Danny. He was looking away from her so she couldn’t read his expression. “This is probably going to take a while, and we do have groceries in the car.”

“It’s fine, Danny. There aren’t that many people waiting. We have time,” Jazz assured him.

“I mean, it is already getting late. And I still have to make that pie without Mom noticing. So maybe we should just leave,” Danny rubbed the back of his neck.

“We’re already here. I thought it was a medical necessity that you get some ice cream?” Jazz was confused. He had been so insistent.

“Yeah, but I think we should just go. We don’t want to be late,” Danny said, turning toward the door.

“Wait, Danny,” Jazz grabbed her brother’s arm. “We came all the way here. And I know you still want some ice cream so why-?”

“It’s nothing, Jazz. I just changed my mind,” Danny refused to make eye contact with her, but glanced over at the man still regaling the tired employee with the value of a dollar. Jazz followed his gaze, before it clicked. Danny was flushed with embarrassment, hand hovering over the pocket that held his wallet. A wallet she would guess was quite a bit lighter after buying gifts. One that was often empty because of ghost related costs.

“You know, I’m feeling really bad about subjecting you to all of those covers of Danny Boy . How about I pay for the ice cream this time instead?” Jazz said.

“Wait, you don’t have to do that,” Danny said, finally meeting her eyes.

“I don’t have to, but I am going to. It wasn’t very ethical of a future psychologist to subject my younger brother to musical torment. Even if it was my right as an older sister. Just don’t get it in my car. Besides, that Coffee Carnage ice cream actually sounds really delicious,” Jazz pulled Danny back over next to the display. Danny made another half-hearted attempt to leave but Jazz ignored him. “What are you going to get?”

“...I guess the Harshmallow Chocolate Chunk,” Danny sighed.

“Even you know that that pun is bad, right?” Jazz asked. Danny snorted.

“No such thing,” He chuckled. The line finally moved.

The siblings got their ice cream and Jazz grabbed so many napkins that the employees had to step in to limit her. The Fenton's walked out of the shop, eating their ice cream and heading for the car. Jazz decided to drive the remainder of the way home, and Danny did not object. It was a little difficult to eat ice cream and drive. And neither Jazz nor Danny felt comfortable with Danny attempting that on his first day. Jazz stuffed the napkins all around Danny to make sure that he didn’t drop the sticky chocolate marshmallow creation on her interior.

“Jazz, I’m fifteen not five. I’m not going to drop it in your car,” He rolled his eyes before fumbling his cone. He had to catch the scoop in his fingers as it threatened to tip off into his lap.

“Right, that makes me feel so much better,” Jazz said as she watched her brother lick his fingers clean. “If my car is chocolate-covered after this, you are going to wish that I still had that CD.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” Danny saluted with his sticky hand. Jazz suppressed a groan and pulled out onto the road. She forgot to take an alternate route and soon Danny was pointing out every Road Work Ahead sign on the road. She felt the muscle in her eye twitching.

After threatening to shove her ice cream in Danny's face if he didn't stop, Danny focused on eating his treat. Jazz kept glancing at him from the corner of her eye. When Danny smirked like that, it usually didn't bode well. Even so, the younger sibling didn't pull anything even after Jazz parked in the Fenton driveway. Suspicious.

Unfortunately, Jazz didn't have time to grill her little brother on the mischief he was planning. As soon as the car was stopped, he shoved the final bit of his cone in his mouth (paper and all, ew Danny) had unbuckled and flung himself out of the car. Jazz watched as her brother scrambled to grab every bag at one time, nearly dropping most of them.

"You're going to drop the eggs," Jazz warned.

"No I'm not," Danny said.

He dropped the egg carton and they would have splattered on the ground if he had reacted even a moment slower. However, precariously balanced on his knee wasn't a super stable place to be. Jazz grabbed it from him, raising an eyebrow. He chuckled nervously, attempting to rub the back of his neck. But the plastic bag on his wrist slapped him in the face. Jazz bent over with laughter, which Danny joined.

Danny and Jazz walked into the house and straight to the kitchen. She started to put the eggs in the refrigerator, but thought better of it. Danny was going to use them soon anyway. She sat them on the counter and turned to the rest of the supplies. She reached out to unpack the groceries, when suddenly Danny was there blocking her way.

"I got this. You don't need to do that," Danny said quickly.

"I know I don't need to, but I want to. It's just a few things," Jazz said.

"Yeah, but you've already done so much! And I've taken up almost all of your Sunday. Didn't you have to do something for-um. You have a penpal, right? Or, er- the kid you tutor in English online. Weren’t you supposed to message them today?" Danny fidgeted. Jazz's eyes widened before she glanced at her watch.

"Oh, Ancients, you're right! I was supposed to message him twenty minutes ago!" Jazz said, she ran out of the kitchen. She called back "Let me know if you need any help!"

It turns out, her tutee was running late as well. So, no harm done. Jazz spent the next hour helping him, keeping a constant ear out for her little brother. Afterwards, she decided to get a little bit of her homework for next week done. She hoped Danny would come ask for help if he needed it. She hoped that he had learned that she was there for him. When she finally shut off her computer and walked down to check on Danny, he was placing the pie cautiously on the table. The whipped cream was a bit lopsided, but it looked cute.

"That looks nice, Danny," Jazz said. Danny beamed.

"Thanks. I had to cull some of the ectodogs in the fridge. They really wanted to take a bite out of me instead of the pie."

"Why don't I run upstairs and get my present? Then we can get Mom out of the lab to wish her a Happy Mothers day."

"Sounds good to me," Danny nodded. Jazz took a quick trip up to her room. She grabbed her perfectly wrapped gift and brought it downstairs. Danny had found a gift bag for the book, and it was sitting next to the pie. Jazz sat her gift next to the pie, as well. Before she could turn to the Lab, the door burst open and the heavily armed Fenton parents rushed out.

"Sorry, kids. You are going to have to find something for dinner tonight. We just got a call about a potentially haunted house over on Northshore. Don't wait up, okay?" Maddie Fenton said, rushing through the kitchen. Jack hot on her heels.

"Wait, but-"Jazz called after.

"No can do, Jazzy! A Fenton waits for nothing! Especially red lights," Jack Fenton called back. The front door slammed shut, and their parents were gone. Jazz just stood there, mouth ajar. Oh, Danny had worked so hard. And they were just going to leave? She turned to her little brother.

He was eating a slice of the key lime pie (how did he already slice it?). He seemed bored.

"Danny, I am so sorry-"

"Jazz, don't worry about it. We can give her our gifts later. It's not a big deal," Danny shrugged and took another bite of pie. "You want a piece?"

"Um, actually Danny, I don't really-"

"-like key lime pie? I know. I may be clueless, but I'm not blind," Danny grinned and pulled something from under the table. Jazz leaned forward to get a better look.

The little tiramisu she had seen at the store was sitting on a colorful platter. Jazz didn't know what to say.

"I just wanted to say thanks. You know, for letting me drag you all over Amity today. And teaching me how to drive. And for just always having my back, you know, in general," Danny rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly as Jazz took the platter, still speechless. "You're a great big sister, and I love you. I guess. But if you tell anyone about this conversation, I will deny everything."

Jazz fingered the platter-no not a platter. The smooth surface was much too light. Gave too much under the weight of the tiny cake. She picked up the plastic box the cake was in and felt a wet prickle in her eye.

Bearburt Knows It All by C.L. Werk. Jazz gently sat the plastic box on the table and ran a finger over the shiny cover. She traced the letters slowly with her finger, just as she did the first time she read it. She looked up at Danny, who was fidgeting in his seat. He stuffed another bite of pie in his mouth. Jazz laughed wetly, and rushed around the table. She folded her brother into a tight hug, ignoring his protests.

“I love you too, Danny,” Jazz sobbed. Danny chuckled before hugging Jazz as well. Both relished the moment of peace their life so desperately needed.

Words are hard. It's hard to express only in words the love between two siblings. Because it wasn’t always tender. It wasn’t always kind. It was chaotic, and loud, and full of energy. Even with all the words Jazz knew, she knew that no word could ever explain the feeling in that moment. So she held her brother tight, and she would always hold him tight. Because he may drive her crazy, but she wouldn’t miss it for the world.

#Danny Phantom #invisobang 2021 #Danny Fenton #Jazz Fenton #Fluff #My Writing #Fanfiction #Comfort #Sibling Bonding

103 notes · View notes

starxscream · 3 years

Text

Morning Off

“ Forced to take the morning off, Swatch realizes what exactly they have been missing. “

SwatchKaard fic!

Oh buddy we got another bc I have problems and it’s them. (Also check it out on ao3 if it’s easier for y’all to read there!)

It was hard to tell when it was morning or evening in the dark world, but time flowed all the same. Just today, it happened to be early morning, the sound of the rushing fountain in the middle of Ralsei’s kingdom filtering through the windows as if to say ‘it’s time to wake up’. Other than that, however, there was nothing but a blissful silence, Castle Town still in a state of slumber while the Darkeners continue to rest while few others begin to slowly wake up.

Swatch was one of the latter, always an early riser, even if today they did not have to go into work until later- forcibly given the morning off due to the swatchlings thinking that they ‘worked too much’. It would have been the whole day, but Swatch was not having that, needing to make sure that the cafe was being run in perfect order.

The bird sighs sleepily, a part of them torn between trying to doze or shaking off their tiredness and getting up anyways. Eyes barely cracked open, they slowly take in their surroundings, waking up just slightly. They become aware of someone’s back pressed against their chest. Arms still wrapped tightly around the other person, Swatch doesn’t make any sudden movement yet, instead dipping their beak down slightly to be able to bury their face in the mass of hair beside them. They could make out quiet snores from the other person, Swatch’s feathered fingers unconsciously stroking the patches of skin where they held him.

As much as Swatch complained about having the morning off, this was…nice. The knowing that they didn’t have to get up and leave so quickly, just being able to lay here and take in the slow morning. They let their eyes slowly flutter shut again, silently making their decision on what to do this morning.

Unbeknownst to Swatch, however, their oh-so-wonderful partner had started to stir, his internal clock telling him it was time to wake up. Unfortunately he did not want to wake up. A silent groan works past his lips, mouth curved into a frown as he suddenly rolls over in Swatch's arms and pulls himself even closer to the bird, resting his head on his chest.

The sudden movement rouses Swatch from their state of dozing, cracking open a singular eye to gaze down at the other, lifting their beak only slightly while he shifts his position around. Once settled, Swatch lowers their head back down to rest on top of their partner’s a soft coo escaping their beak.

“Good morning beloved.” Swatch whispers quietly, only earning a tired grunt from the other, pushing himself further into Swatch- at least, attempting to. He hung tightly to Swatch, wrapped around them like a coiled rod. It earns a chuckle from Swatch, moving a hand to pet their partner’s messy hair.

“Rouxls…” Swatch speaks again, trying to get their partner’s attention. Hoping to catch him off guard and get him to respond, at least just for a second, a guilty pleasure.

There’s another groan, Rouxls still nuzzling Swatch’s chest, before a huff, rolling his head slightly back to sleepily peer up at Swatch’s face. He sits there for a minute, slowly blinking, trying to shake off his own sleep but not wanting to.

“What does- doeseth…thou…” Rouxls fumbles over his words, trying to speak with his usual accent but too sleepy to properly think it out. There’s a frustrated sigh, Rouxls grumbling quietly before speaking again, “…Good morning.” The blue man lowers his head to bury it back into Swatch’s chest after that, hoping for just a moment’s more peace, expecting Swatch to have to get up and leave soon and Rouxls not wanting him to- as it was every morning. The amount of times Rouxls complained and tried to get Swatch to stay home…

A smile spreads across Swatch’s beak as Rouxls speaks, catching the poor attempt and then lack of the usual arrogant accent, a pleased chitter vibrating from his throat, “Hm…” Their gaze lingers on Rouxls for a moment, “I now see why you are so desperate to keep me around in the morning.” Casually poking at Rouxls as they usually did, waiting for the moment Rouxls remembers what this morning was.

Rouxls mumbles something incoherent, still refusing to pry himself away from the bird. Still too sleepy to question why Swatch hadn't tried to get up for work yet? The thoughts immediately erased by the tired selfishness of wanting to keep Swatch here. To actually stay for even just a morning…

Wait…

Puzzle pieces begin to fall into place, Rouxls’ mind finally jump-starting itself into working. Swatch is still here… It takes Rouxls a moment to realize, still enjoying how warm and comfortable it was in Swatch’s arms, before it suddenly hits and Rouxls’ eyes snap open. He cranes his head back to look up at the bird, blinking slowly.

“Thou art still hereth?” It’s phrased as a question, sleep still lingering on Rouxls’ voice- having not entirely figured it out yet, but enough to realize the important thing.

“Yes my love, I am still here. Did you forget what day it was?” Swatch leans down to give a kiss to the top of Rouxls’ head, “I will be here all morning.”

It takes Rouxls a moment for Swatch’s words to register and when they do his face breaks into a large smile, arms squeezing Swatch tighter. “Of courseth I did not forgete!” Rouxls boasts, obviously lying, “I am...happyeth that thou is hereth.” His voice gets quieter the move he speaks, flush rising to his cheeks at the admittance.

Swatch’s own smile gets wider, heart giving a pang in their chest at Rouxls’ admittance- truly Rouxls’ expressions were their guilty pleasure. “If it makes you so happy, perhaps I can entertain the idea of doing this more often.” They watch as Rouxls seems to light up at that, his own sleepiness fading at the prospect.

“As thou should! Thine paramour shouldeth spend thy morn with their belovedeth! It is as thy haveth always toldeth thou.” A smug tone invites itself into Rouxls’ words, Swatch unable to keep themselves from rolling their eyes at it. Not that the smile ever left their face however.

Rouxls’ hands move upwards, threading into the fluffy feathery hair on Swatch’s head, “I enjoyeth waking upeth and seeing thou faceth, even if thou is stilleth thy most frustratingeth and annoyinge worm-avian.” He hums, no ill-intent behind his words, feeling just a little bit more confident this morning, “Howevere that meanseth, that thou art here, I can noweth do this…” Rouxls pulls himself up further, giving Swatch a soft kiss to their beak.

“Mmm...if I knew I would be getting such special attention from you, I would have taken a morning off ages ago…” Swatch chuckles, opting to pepper Rouxls in more kisses, not satisfied with just the one, “So…” Swatch speaks between kisses, “What is it that you commonfolk do during the morning if not preparing for work?”

Rouxls scoffs at that, yet still giggling in between each kiss, “Commonfolk? Thou must surelyest be mistakene! I am enjoyingeth my time, somethinge thateth thou shouldeth take into considerationeth more ofteneth.” His voice slowly turns to a mumble, a half-hearted attempt to keep up the banter, “Thou ist more commonfolk than thy…”

“Says the ‘butler supremeth’ who has no one to buttle for…” Swatch murmurs in response, fingers tangling in Rouxls hair. Still leaving kisses on Rouxls’ lips, casually and so...normal. Swatch felt as if all of their worries were just...gone, like work was nothing more than an idle thought in the background. Why were they so adamant about not taking time off...

The two continue to cuddle and kiss during their idle banter, neither making any effort to move or get up. Instead just enjoying the time between them that was not usually shared. So distracted with each other, neither of them noticed the door to their room creaking open with a stifled giggle of someone (poorly) trying to sneak in.

It wasn’t until a small round flash of blue and white flew onto the bed loudly announcing, “SURPRISE LANCERBALL ATTACK!” And crashing into them both that they realized Lancer had snuck into their room. The little round prince slams into them, knocking them with a loud oomph, forcing the two to separate from one another.

“LANCER?” Rouxls loudly gasps in surprise, skipping his usual nicknames due to the shock of the sudden appearance. Swatch blinks in confusion, stunned silent for a moment, just taking it in and letting Rouxls handle it for now while he registered the situation.

Lancer laughs loudly, plopping down into the bed in the space between Rouxls and Swatch, his music player in hand. “You should’ve seen your FACES…LOL!” He says the term letter by letter aloud, “Mom Dad showed me how to make MIXTAPES and I made a really really good one! So as my other dads, you have to listen!” His tongue sticks from his mouth, wiggling the earbuds coiled and tangled around him and holding the ends up for Rouxls and Swatch to take.

Rouxls sighs dramatically, “Thine dearest water-beetle, how manyeth times haveth I told thee to knocketh! Does thou needest to learneth thou manners as parteth thou royaleth duties...” He pulls himself up, back resting on the headboard, Swatch mirroring the motions. Lancer’s grin seems to falter for a moment as he’s being reprimanded, before Rouxls continues speaking, “However! I shalt entertaine thee request to listeneth to thou ‘mixtape’ that shalt certainly be nothinge moreth than rackety driveleth.” There was no real harshness in Rouxls’ words, and Lancer lit up again, rolling over and clambering into Rouxls’ lap, the man instinctively wrapping an arm around the prince. Swatch opts to accept the earbud, moving closer and sliding their free arm behind Rouxls to pull the two closer into them. Rouxls accepts the other earbud, the two sticking them into their respective ears.

“I am sure it will sound lovely.” Swatch coos, counterbalancing Rouxls dramatic demeanor with their calmness, “Thank you for sharing Lancer.” Always so polite.

Lancer laughs loudly again, “Of course it will! Now hurry it up, I wanna go show Ralsei!” Kicking his legs up and down in excitement, snuggling closer to Rouxls as if he wasn’t planning on leaving. Rouxls rolls his eyes, still with a hint of a grin on his face, giving a glance towards Swatch who only offers a shrug and a smile.

“Thou needeth to press play.”

“Oh…right. Thanks for the reminder, vice father!”

Lancer slams the play button…unleashing the monstrosity of his fully splat sfx “mixtape” upon Rouxls and Swatch. Swatch was caught off guard, hand flying to his beak to keep from laughing, shoulders quietly bouncing at the absurdity of it. Rouxls…saw it coming, wearing a tired pleasant smile as he endured listening to it- at least this was different than just the usual sounds Lancer constantly played.

Leaning over, Rouxls rests his head on Swatch’s shoulder, watching Lancer fiddle with his music player with one hand and grabbing Rouxls’ and bouncing it around with the other.

Swatch peers over at Rouxls, a contented smile on their face as they lower their hand, resting their own head on top of Rouxls’ while the blue man appeases Lancer- the two keeping with their usual banter as the mixtape finished. Swatch remains silent, simply enjoying the moment with them both, maybe they would thank the swatchlings for giving them the morning off.

Maybe. They wouldn’t want them to get too cocky.

But…perhaps they will take a full day off sometime in the future, if this is what they were missing when they were always at work… Mmm, maybe not a full day. But another morning for sure.

#sugars sweet treats #deltarune #swatchkaard #rouxls kaard #swatch #lancer #whehehe #grips these two in my hands

53 notes · View notes

neitherlightnordark · 2 years

Note

mister roulx kaard

First impression - HAHAHAHAWAHSHJFDDSHJDSABSDBSDDHSASB

Impression now - i like staring at the everlasting fight between him caring for lancer and him searching for a new bad guy to act as the peon of until my eyes are bloodshot. him saying "wait! i have no time to waste on suche frivolities!" or something truly broke my heart. like i said once if we all just left him alone for a bit i think he'd be fine

Favorite moment - when he ominously speaks from the shadows with bare minimum foreshadowing done so we have no idea who he is and then he teleports in like an absolute badass and immediately ruins that by speaking the way he does and then says TOIL WORMS!!! and the puzzle is. the puzzle is that. and then he cusses. and leaves. also when he asks kris how lancer is doing. also also the implication that his puzzle blocks are slowly taking over the maus puzzles in the city

Unpopular opinion - i feel like him and queen would- it feels better to me if they're working on taking care of lancer together!! like instead of the two competing or one being better than the other or rouxls specifically being pathetic or something. they are all a big family. they're working on it. that being said i don't think they'd be good friends immediately. actually i'm still working on how i view their relationship overall (affectionate) so this is subject to change

Idea for a story - heehee... this is silly but related to above queen and him argue over whether they should teach lancer to play a viola or a violin. queen is like There Are Merits To Both Dear Rocks But Also I Am Right and rouxls is like OBJECTION!!!!!!! and meanwhile lancer is hopping into a tuba in the background with susie

Favorite relationship - rouxls and that silent yet meaningful look kris gives the camera whenever said rouxls slides offscreen

#personal

20 notes · View notes

ecto-american · 3 years

Text

Humanity

Upon their arrest by the GIW together, Valerie learns something interesting about Phantom and herself that make her question just how human both herself and Phantom are.

note that this isn’t a phic phight thing, just something i wrote literally months ago for Lexx but forgot that i wrote

on FFN and AO3

----------------

They didn't even have the decency to arrest her before Mr. Lancer's class. Being arrested for...well, the Guys in White were never really clear as to why they showed up to Casper High to arrest her. But whatever the reason, that would have been one hell of an excuse as to why she was not just missing, but why she couldn't turn in that book report that she not only didn't do, but hadn't even read a single page of yet. Valerie had an inkling she knew why, but she remained completely silent the entire march out the front doors of the school. She wasn't an idiot after all.

The agent to her left opened the door, and the agent to her right put his hand on her head to duck her into the white SUV. The door closed, and Valerie glanced to see just how tinted the windows were, as well as the police-style framing of the windows and the separation between the driver and passenger as well as the backseat dwellers.

"Oh, I was wondering why we stopped here."

That familiar voice made her jump, and she turned to see Phantom. He was in the exact same predicament. Hands behind his back, leaning against the seat, though she could immediately tell that his handcuffs were much clunkier and glowed. Obviously anti-ghost.

"You!" Valerie hissed. She immediately leaned into the window, lifting her leg up, and she began to kick him repeatedly. "What the hell are you doing here!?"

"Ow!" Phantom hissed as she got him in the shoulder, and then his rib. She didn't stop, and she didn't miss. "AH! Fuck, stop it! OW!"

"Knock it off!" one of the agents boomed. The sudden, strict tone made Valerie pause. She kicked him one more time, square in the face, before finally stopping.

Phantom made a weird wheezing noise, and she saw him shift to rub his nose on his upper arm and shoulder. He frowned.

"My nose is bleeding," he complained.

"I hope your nose is broken!" Valerie snapped back at him.

Phantom glared at her. He made a weird noise in his throat, and it took Valerie a moment to realize what he was doing. Preparing spit. And indeed, the ghost teen stuck his tongue out, drool instantly dripping, and he leaned in. Valerie instantly leaned away from him.

"Ew! Gross! Get away from me!" she complained.

"Nu-uh!" Phantom replied, his tongue still out as he continued to scoot. He got close enough to open his mouth, and some of his saliva dripped onto her knee.

"Gross, gross, gross!" she shrieked. Valerie kicked him in the side, and Phantom let out a pained wheeze.

"Knock. It. Off," the other agent snapped at them. They had gotten into the driver and passenger's seat, and both were glaring at them.

"She started it!" Phantom accused. The driver frowned at him, obviously not amused. Phantom scooted back to his side of the backseat. Valerie stayed pressed against the window and door. She could hear the drive mutter something about hating kids before turning the vehicle on, and they drove off.

--------------------------

They made the duo sit in the interrogation room for three hours, according to the clock. They had, thankfully, just connected the teenagers to the table via a long chain and handcuffs, so that they could at least be a bit more comfortable, even though Phantom, and for some reason her, were both given anti-ghost bracelets to wear. A box of tissues were also tossed onto the table, and Phantom had spent the first half hour tending to his bloodied nose. He stuffed all the used tissues, grossly, into his pocket, though she suspected why he did that. It had his DNA on it.

Phantom nor her attempted conversation. Neither were stupid. They essentially stared at each other and the walls, their only words were occasional out-loud wondering of when somebody was going to show up to question them already.

Obviously her more pressing question was why the hell they were still together. For some reason, Phantom was with her every step of the way of their weird little field trip. They got escorted in together, processed together, and now were sat at the exact same interrogation table. Why? She had absolutely no idea. Didn't they normally separate people they arrested?

At exactly 6:38 PM, somebody finally opened the door, and she and Phantom sat straight up.

The agent that sat before them was a large man, muscular and tall with big hands and sunglasses that fully blocked any chance of the teens from seeing what he was looking at.

"We know you're both half-ghost."

Valerie's mind instantly went to Vlad. That must have been what he was...she had been debating with herself for weeks now as to what he was. A ghost disguised as a human? A human who had ghost powers?

She pushed those aside to look at Phantom. To her surprise, he was pale. Nearly as white as his hair, with anxiety sweat drops beginning to form. Her interest peaked instantly. Silence hung in the air. The man said nothing, simply keeping his attention intensely on them. Valerie

"That's ridiculous," Valerie finally said something. She nearly added that the entire idea itself was ridiculous too. Well, it kind of was. It was so weird to grasp, but it wasn't really something that she wanted to think too hard about these days, and especially now. There was nothing more that she'd love to do than to throw that manipulative old bastard under the weird half-ghost freak bus. However, not only was it probably not a good idea to start beef with a literal superpowered-villain billionaire...but Dani was still out there.

"Don't lie to me." The man sounded agitated. "Both of your ectoplasmic readings are abnormal."

Ectoplasmic reading? Her? Valerie stared at him as if he had grown a second head.

"I shouldn't have any ectoplasmic reading," she pointed out. "I'm alive. Alive people don't have ectoplasmic readings."

The man opened up his folder, pulling out a few choice pieces of papers to slide her way. Phantom silently watched them, his eyes wide and his face looking utterly blank yet...so fearful. Valerie opted to ignore him for a while, accepting the papers to hold as she read through them.

She was familiar with how to read ectoplasmic readings, charts and monitors by now. Green eyes scanned the data, frowning in confusion as she checked the details, and she could see out of the corner of her eye Phantom leaning in to read too. She adjusted her position so that he couldn't.

This description was definitely her, and...she was giving off ectoplasmic readings. Not really in the same way as a normal ghost; there was something distinctively different about hers that any set of trained eyes could pick up on. But how?

"I don't understand," Valerie spoke slowly. "I'm alive." She put the documents back down on the table. "You can take a swap or slap some ghost goop stuff on me. Hell, prick my finger." Valerie held her palm out to the man. Her anti-ghost bracelet sparkled a bit in the light of the room. At least she now knew why they made her wear the bracelets too. "I'm not dead."

The interviewer stared intently at her hand. He gave a neutral hum of acknowledgement, swooping the papers back up.

"Testing and experiments will be reserved for a later time," he replied. Valerie got instant goosebumps. Testing and experiments? "Maybe a few hours in holding will help you realize why you should just come clean to us."

"Can I get some water first?" Valerie asked. The agent snorted in amusement as he stood up.

"Ghosts don't eat or drink."

She felt numb, and she had no idea how to respond to that. Two more agents came into the room, and they silently took the teenagers further into the building until they reached a door. The third agent opened it, and Phantom and Valerie were ushered inside.

The room almost immediately led into bars, and the first thing Valerie could think of was just how much it looked like jail. Two uncomfortable looking bunk beds on either side, a toilet in the middle, a small sink, and no windows. The light was dim, and the room was cold.

Phantom was pushed in first, and then Valerie, and the bars clunked as they closed. She turned to see the bars begin to glow as the bars were locked.

And there was no goodbyes. The agents were eerily silent as they filed out, and the door was shut behind them. She could hear the faint click as it also locked.

Valerie turned to see Phantom's reaction, and he still looked shaken and pale. She already suspected the answer, but she needed to hear it.

"So...are you?" Valerie asked.

"No!" Phantom's answer was way too quick. "What about you? Don't you hate ghosts?"

"I'm not half ghost!" she snapped back. "I have no clue why they'd think that."

Phantom studied her for a moment. His eyes lit up.

"Your suit!" he declared. "The one Technus gave you. It must make your reading wonky."

The second he reminded her, she felt a cold shiver. Suddenly her heartbeat felt off, and she assumed she was colder than usual because of...ya know. That couldn't be true. It had to be wonky readings. The suit was so nice...so much nicer than the suit that she had made herself. It was so much more powerful, so much nicer, just flat out cooler.

She put her heart over her chest. She still had a heartbeat, right?

"What's your excuse?" she asked. Phantom didn't say anything. He turned his attention to the wall, staring blankly at it.

"...Why would they let us stay trapped in here together?" Phantom changed the subject. Valerie narrowed her eyes at him, but she had to admit. It was a good point. "Especially knowing that we'd just plot our escape together."

"Pump the breaks, Phantom. I'm not escaping," Valerie scoffed. "They'll realize their mistake and just let me go."

"Well, they're not gonna let me go," Phantom frowned. "The Guys in White don't exactly play nice with ghosts. And I'm not leaving without you."

"Not my problem," Valerie replied. She raised an eyebrow at him. "Unless...of course there's a reason for it to be my problem."

"You can't just do it out of the kindness of your heart?" Phantom sounded sarcastic, despite staring at her desperately. Valerie crossed her arms. "Please?"

"Give me one good reason to escape with you."

And thus began a staring contest. Phantom shifted from foot to foot, and he glanced at the floor. A lightbulb made the realization click. The GIW knew her identity. They arrested her at school. But they didn't know Phantom's. Nobody probably did. This was likely a ploy to get them to reveal themselves to each other. How or why, Valerie wasn't sure. But now it was glaringly obvious to her.

Phantom was half-ghost. Just like Dani. Just like Vlad. The Guys in White don't play nice with ghosts, and she had a strong feeling that they didn't care much about playing nice with humans either. Especially if they suspected that there was ghost within them.

"Nevermind," Valerie sighed. Phantom stared at her, and he...looked scared. "I can destroy ghosts…" But I really can't take part in destroying a human.

Phantom grew a bit pale again, as they both knew the unspoken words. He took a deep, shaky breath. His reaction was all she needed to know, that this wasn't some weird lie or ploy.

"So. What's our game plan?" he asked.

Valerie studied their surroundings. She reached out to touch the bars of their shared cell, taking immediate note that she wasn't shocked.

"Well, obviously there's that big shield outside," Valerie lightly mused.

"I can get past that shield," Phantom spoke up. "Under the...right circumstances."

Valerie nodded. If Phantom was able to turn human away from the prying eyes of cameras and more, they could both obviously escape right out the front door. Hell, they could likely utilize both Phantom and his? Human? Side? Whatever he was called.

"This facility was designed for ghosts, not humans," Phantom continued. "If we worked together, we can probably make a quick exit." Valerie hummed in agreement.

"That's not just enough," Valerie replied. "I'll just get arrested again. They know who I am. Like, they know Valerie Gray is the huntress." Phantom frowned, and he thought for a moment.

"We could maybe delete their evidence files or something?" he suggested. Valerie paced their cell for a moment.

"There has to be some kind of computer security room somewhere," Valerie spoke aloud to herself. "If we can find it, we can probably wipe evidence and also fully take down the shield."

Phantom leaned against the back wall of the cell.

"I don't think that's enough," he replied. Valerie stopped pacing to stare at him. "We need to make sure the Guys in White don't do this again. Ever. Never even have the chance to get to this point again." Valerie scowled.

"They help hunt ghosts!" she protested.

"And they'd consider Danielle a ghost and rip her to shreds," Phantom countered. The reminder of that little girl hit her straight in the gut. She sighed.

"I don't know," she said slowly.

"They're a government organization, they'll rebuild," Phantom pushed. "We just need to stall them long enough to buy time for us to figure out how to keep you, Danielle and I safe."

She hated it, but...yeah. She wasn't really in the best position either. Valerie had no clue what was going on with her, but the Guys in White were incredibly persistent...and she knew her dad wouldn't be able to afford a lawyer for her anymore.

Valerie held her wrist up. Her suit's bracelet was basically hidden underneath the anti-ghost one, but she could still feel it there. Her suit wasn't gone. She could still access it, and that made her feel more confident in that she was still human. Which she had to be. Right?

Valerie activated her suit, and she held her wrist up to read the screen. She pressed a few buttons.

"I think I can figure out a map of this place," she said. "And from there we can see where's what."

Her forearm glowed brightly as it gathered data. It took a few moments of calculating, but soon, she had her results. Phantom was soon peering over her shoulder, both of them studying the map.

"How accurate is this?" Phantom questioned.

"It tends to be fairly decent. Sometimes it's hit or miss with collapsed buildings, but overall it's spot on," she replied. She adjusted the screen, zooming it out. "I can only get the floor we're on though."

"That looks like it could be some kind of utility room," Phantom pointed to a specific room. Valerie zoomed in on it, studying it.

"Yeah," she said slowly. "Yeah. Gotta be. It's got a lot of power coming to or from there. Has to be a source, or at the very least some kind of major technology area."

"Either way, we should destroy it," Phantom said. Valerie frowned.

"I don't know," she hesitated.

"I mean, you can't even summon your powers."

Phantom glanced down at his wrists, glancing curiously at them before setting his sights on Valerie's arms.

"Can you shoot them off?" he asked.

Valerie tried to summon one of her weapons. She waited. And she waited. Nothing came, and her gut became queasy. She couldn't get her ghost weapon. None of them would summon. This had to be a bad sign. Or was it just the GIW prepared against humans too? That was the most logical explanation. She couldn't be…But also she could be...after all the ectoplasmic readings...

"Um, actually, I think I can…" Phantom's voice caused her to truly look at him again. The ghost was fiddling with his wristbands, using his knees to lock it in place as he attempted to slip his wrist through the band with no success.

"Here, let me try," Valerie interrupted him. Phantom glanced up at her.

"Can you shoot them?" he asked. Valerie forced a weak smile, but she held up a screwdriver.

"Got something even better. My travel tool kit," she replied. After too many breakdowns in the field, she had replaced a small pouch that previously held smoke bombs, something she rarely used, with a few small tools. It was easily one of the best choices she made.

Phantom held his wrist out to her, and she turned the bracelet around. Eventually she managed to pry a piece of the metallic covering off, exposing screws and a few wires. Valerie didn't undo or cut anything right away, both her and Phantom silently trying to make sense of the connection and mechanics behind it. Would really suck to find out the hard way that disconnecting a certain wire would trigger an alarm, after all.

"I think you shouldn't touch the red wire," Phantom lightly mused. "Pretty sure that's a power, and if you turn it off it'll be bad news."

"Mmm, yeah," Valerie agreed. "I think I can just unscrew this though, and we should just be careful to not slip the wires off."

Phantom nodded, and he waited patiently as she did just so. After twenty minutes of careful disconnecting, Phantom had two hands free, and he flexed his hands with a happy sigh.

"God, that just feels so much better," he told her. He motioned for her to hand him the screwdriver. "Here, I'll do yours." Valerie shook her head.

"I can't leave. I won't say anything if you escape, but they know my identity."

Phantom frowned.

"I'm not leaving you here. Come on, you saw your map. We can destroy their power. We can destroy this entire building," he began, only for Valerie to cut him off.

"And do more destruction? Is that all you think about?" she snapped. "You're safe. They know my identity. You want me to get more charges or something? I can't risk it. I'll just stay here. They'll figure out soon enough that I'm fully human." A full human who apparently had mixed logic as to whether or not they could use their ghost hunting suit. If she was fully human, she could summon those weapons, right? Unless it was specifically preventing any ghost weapon, regardless of the user, use it.

"Red, I don't think you understand," Phantom told her. "They're not going to go easy on you. Even if you prove you're human, they're not going to believe you. You heard them. They already denied you contact to the outside world."

That reminder sent a chill down her spine.

"Then tell my dad," she told him. Phantom stared at her. He began to unzip his suit, and she instantly began to look away. "Dude, what the hell?"

"Valerie, look at me," he demanded.

"You're naked!" she protested.

"I'm not naked, just look."

She decided to humor him with the intention of taking a quick peek. But when she saw him, she felt a cold sweat hit her. Phantom had only zipped enough to expose his chest, and there was a distinctive Y-patterned scar on his chest that stood out against the other scars.

"This is what happened last time I was trapped here. I'm not going to leave you alone here," he stated. He suddenly looked away, and he quickly zipped his suit back up. "There's no way in hell I'm going to risk this happening to you. Red, you need to come with me."

That urgent gut feeling of needing to go finally crashed into her. The GIW would never believe her. Not just because of stubbornness, but...Valerie herself wasn't even sure anymore.

She swallowed dryly, and she nodded. Her right wrist was offered to him.

"Do you know what to do?" she asked. Phantom scowled.

"I just watched you do it," he reminded her. She rolled her eyes, but held her wrist up for him, and a half hour later, she too, was free.

She wasn't sure if she was more concerned or relieved to instantly feel that distinctive rush of power back. The second Phantom removed her bracelet, she knew that she could summon any of her ghost weapons now at her fingertips. But she could still summon her suit regardless, and activate her GPS abilities. Was this normal? Valerie had no clue what this meant anymore.

"So, next step, I think we can escape through here."

Valerie looked up to see Phantom was now floating by the vent at the top of their cell. He was already using her screwdriver to undo the vent cover. She pulled her map back up on her forearm, glancing at it and studying it.

"I'm pretty sure the vent will go straight to that electric room," she told him.

"Oh, now you're finally seeing the big picture?" Phantom lightly teased, glancing over his shoulder as he popped the vent cover off. She nodded at him, but didn't crack a smile.

"...You and Dani may look just alike, but I never want you two to have matching scars," she said. Phantom's smile dropped, and he nodded in agreement.

He placed the vent covering on the top bunk, handing Valerie back her screwdriver. She slipped it back in it's pouch.

"Here, I'll give you a boost up," Phantom offered, pressing his hands together. She nodded, stepping a foot onto his hand. With ease, Phantom pushed her up, and she grabbed onto the vent, pulling herself in. It was surprisingly fairly roomy yet not, and she managed to get comfortable on her stomach, pulling her map back up.

"Ready to commit several federal crimes?" Phantom's voice half joked. She looked behind her the best she could to see the ghost right behind her. She snorted in amusement.

"Ready as I'll ever be," she replied. "Just follow me. It's time to give these idiots hell."

And hell they did. Who knew that the Guys in Whites headquarters could cause such a colorful explosion.

#phics #my phics #danny phantom #danny fenton #valerie gray #humanity

146 notes · View notes

yourlocalloserdefunct · 2 years

Text

fuck it

I'm posting my angsty rouxls kaard fanfic here

(TW: violence, blood, gore... you know all that good stuff)

Tongue Tied (part 1)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Spade King looked down upon Rouxls, hands tied behind his back, forced to his knees, doubled over on the floor of the dungeon cell.

His face was slightly contorted as he melted from the stress, but he remained brave.

"You are going to tell me where Lancer is, now." He demanded,

"..." Rouxls said nothing, just scowled at the king,

"I said... you are going to tell me where Lancer is..." The king lifted Rouxls up by the neck with a single hand, slamming Rouxls into the wall.

Rouxls made a weak choking sound as he was slammed into the wall, "Now." The king demanded loudly,

Rouxls spat dark blue blood into the king's face "How abouteth thou go fucketh thineself?" Rouxls said angrily,

The king looked deeply angry, he growled, baring his teeth, as if showing off his fang-like maw.

"He's safe, he's far awaye frometh you. you...brute!" Rouxls spat. The king's expression changed,

his scowl slowly formed into a twisted nasty grin, his sharp yellow teeth glistened in what little light the dungeon had.

"Well, then... we have ways of making you talk, Kaard." The king said sadistically, he dropped Rouxls's neck, letting his limp, weak body slide down the wall.

Rouxls felt his heart sink, his mind was going through all the horrible things that might be done. "What if they execute me?" he thought

"What if he cuts of my hands?" Rouxls's face began to melt more intensely

"What are they going to do to me??" Rouxls pondered anxiously,

What was going to happen to him?

Before he could finish that thought, his mouth was pried open by the king's hand,

"Lets see if you still talk to me like that once your tongue is gone, Kaard."

In the king's hand was what looked to be a rusty blade... Rouxls's stomach churned,

with his mouth pried open he was just barely able to utter a single sentence...

"...God...damn it..."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I might make a pt.2 of this is i so desire...

...Say...I wonder where Lancer is in all of this?

Part 2

#Deltarune #deltarune rouxls kaard #deltarune rouxls #rouxls kaard #deltarune king #king deltarune #rouxls kaard deltarune #deltarune fanfic #fanfic #TW gore #TW violence #deltarune angst #angst writing #spade king #deltarune spade king #king of spades #king spade #dr #Tongue tied fic

23 notes · View notes

millllenniawrites · 2 years

Text

fit me better (FO!Poe Dameron x f!oc)

part three of when the stars miss the sun

written with @vampirewithbedsidemanners

words: 1.2k

warnings: 18+; dirty talk; fake dating; dark!ooc!Poe Dameron (if you want specifics, dm me); smut; established relationship (sort of); slow burn (yes the two can coexist leave me alone); redemption arc; Pixar ending; murder; warnings will be added as the series progresses

a/n: it’s been a WHILE since I’ve update this series. im trying to get back to regularly updating this, as well as working on finishing off some of the duologies I’ve got in progress. who knows if it’ll actually happen but we’re trying! anyways, enjoy this bit!

Redell sat down on Poe’s bed, watching him closely as they settled into his room on the sub-capital ship they would take to meet the Finalizer.

She’d seen Lancer-class frigates on her sister’s screens in her lab many times, but had never been inside one of them. Empress would take them right up to the Finalizer, the ship the Resistance had been trying to find and destroy for years.

And she’d be on the arm of an Admiral.

The room was cold. Not just in temperature, but in build. Everything in shades of grey, sharp angles, no give or softness or warmth to anything. The way Poe acted about everything, his need for affection more than just sex, suddenly made sense.

They’d spent the whole weekend together in his home, digging through his files and prepping intel to send to the Resistance. For the first time since he started acting as an informant for the Resistance, Poe was present and engaged in the process.

After spending time on his knees thanking her, of course.

They’d only left the house to find some clothes for her, knowing they wouldn’t be back to his place for the foreseeable future — if ever. There was a bittersweetness to it. Red could see it written on Poe’s face as they had left for the last time, sneaking out of his house in the dead of night and catching a First Order shuttle to the landing field before the sun had risen.

“How do we get you promoted to General in the next four weeks? Who do I kill?” She asked, tilting her head to the side.

Poe barely resisted rolling his eyes at her suggestion. He kicked the drawer under his bed closed and sat on the edge, working on unlacing his boots, ignoring that she’d spoken.

“I’m not kidding. You want to make up for your past. It will be much easier to keep my people one step ahead if my man is a General, not an Admiral. And taking out leadership is never a bad way to go. So... give me names.”

Poe hesitated, not looking at her. “Hux,” he finally said. “Armitage Hux. If you take him out, I should be his replacement.”

She snorted. “The First Order is really holding this shit together with duct tape, isn’t it.”

“You have no idea.”

It had been like this for years. Since Starkiller Base had been used on the Hosnian system, the First Order had slowly been disintegrating from the inside out.

It wasn’t enough. Poe knew that. Somehow, even with splintering ranks, the Order was winning.

“I will say, the higher ups are really good at making it look like we’re a unified front. It’s the one thing they’re good at across the board.”

“I’ll fix that when we get to the Finalizer. Give me a week. Revolutions are my forte.” She grinned deviously. “We have one other piece of business to discuss, honey. Before you get me for the night.”

There was something stern about her tone. He perked up, turning around to face her. “Oh?”

“Marry me,” she said simply. His eyes bugged. “If we’re engaged, it’ll be much easier to wiggle out of trouble if I get caught where I’m not supposed to. You’re not the first Admiral I’ve run the whore-cover with. They’ll throw me out of an airlock without hesitation if they find me ‘looking’ for you. But your fiancée? That’s another issue all together.”

Without giving himself time to think about it, Poe pulled his necklace over his head, unclasping the chain and sliding Shara’s ring off. “Here.” Taking her hand, he slid the ring onto her finger. He twisted her hand to the side, examining the ring like handing it over didn’t make him want to puke. “It’s a little big. Is that gonna drive you nuts?”

“No.” She looked down the simple silver band. It was beautiful, a delicate ivy design engraved in its side. “Have you just been walking around waiting to marry someone?”

“It was my mom’s. She died.” He dropped her hand, turning his back to her as he finished taking off his shoes. “If I was ever gonna get married, I’d have used it. The few people that know me know that that was my plan, so it won’t be believable if it’s not that ring.” He wouldn’t ever get that chance. At least if Red had it, she might be able to give it new life after she got out of the Order and he was long-dead.

She took his hand, squeezing tightly. “I’ll give it back to you when we get out of here. You’ll get a chance to use it.”

“We’ll see.” He couldn’t help but melt, even though he knew she was just lying to make him feel better. That curtesy alone was enough.

He tucked his boots out of the way before turning back to her. “Am I allowed to lay down now?”

“You are. Your fiancée demands it.” She giggled, pulling him in on top of her. “Clothes off, sir.”

He quickly stripped before tucking back into his arms. “Happy?”

“Mhm. Very.” She hummed, tangling around him and kissing him hard. “I want you,” she gasped against his lips, her thigh sliding up his hip, trying to press her center to his cock.

“You gonna be this needy when I’ve got real work to do, sweetheart?”

“Yes,” she said, immediately yearning for his darkness, as dangerous as she knew it could be. “You can fuck me while you work.”

“I can’t take you into my meetings, sweetheart.”

“I’ll be good and quiet and stay under the table for you.” There was a glimmer of something in her eyes as she rolled on top of him. “No one will see that pretty cock of yours if I keep it nice and warm inside me. I can put you in my throat or sit on your lap. Your choice.”

To keep himself from spinning out of control, he tried to concentrate on the idea. It was a good plan. A really good plan. Also the sexiest thing she’d ever said, but he couldn’t very well tell her that.

He kept his voice even as she kissed over his neck, trying to stay in work-mode. “I mean, if you want your intel right from the source...”

“Intel. You. Can’t decide which one is hotter.” She teased, weaving her left hand through his right, pressing them to the pillow so he could feel his mother’s ring on her finger.

He held her hip, sliding into her slowly, savouring the way her eyes widened.

Poe leaned down, lips hovering over hers. “What were you saying?”

#poe dameron #poe dameron fic #poe dameron x oc #first order poe dameron #fo!poe dameron #mywriting

17 notes · View notes

sezja · 2 years

Text

Previously: first, kiss, final, numb, broken, wings, melody, rules, chocolate, nostalgia, heartbeat, stranger, confusion, bitter, afterlife, daybreak, audience, endless, fireworks, hopeful, birthday, tomorrow, oppression, agony, return, protection, boxes, hope, preparation, beautiful

One-Word Prompts: #32 - underneath

mildly nsfw (fades to black)

"You sure about this?"

It's a simple question, gently asked: now that they're here (Sanson's house, Sanson's bedroom), there's a hesitation in Sanson that hadn't been there before. Reluctance? Uncertainty? Hard to say. For all they've been traveling companions for a while now, and for all Guydelot had glimpsed a good deal of how Sanson's mind works from his journal, they're still practically strangers; they've not bothered getting to know one another, not as well as perhaps they ought to have before Guydelot found himself naked in the other man's bed.

Still, here they are.

Sanson still lingers in the doorway, a little pale as he takes in the view. "Yes," he says. Then, a little more firmly: "Yes." He takes a deep breath, steeling himself as though for battle. "I haven't... well-"

"Don't tell me you're a-"

"No!" That brings some color to his face. "No, I... I haven't had a partner in..." He clears his throat. "It has been... it's been some time, since I last..."

Ah. Guydelot sits back up, winding the sheets around his hips for a little modesty. "Come here."

Another moment's hesitation, then Sanson drifts slowly in his direction, wary as a stalked hare. Guydelot smiles, taking Sanson's hands in his own: Sanson's still dressed, save for his boots and overcoat, left neatly by the front door. Guydelot's own clothes are lost to the bedroom floor; he'll worry about them in the morning - for now he sets about gently tugging off Sanson's gloves. "You know we don't have to, right?" One glove hits the floor, and Guydelot turns his attention to the other. "I'll think no less of you if you've changed your mind. Just say the word, eh? Any time."

No response, though Guydelot notices some of the tension fade. It'll do. He lets the other glove fall, and lifts Sanson's hands to his lips, kissing the knuckles slowly; he turns one hand over to kiss the calloused palm. A lancer's hands, strong and rough from years of gripping a spear. When he takes a fingertip between his lips, he hears Sanson's breathing hitch.

"Still fine?" Guydelot releases Sanson's hands, letting his own rise to frame the other man's face. Sitting on the bed like this, Guydelot's nearly at eye-level with Sanson, still standing. There's no fear in Sanson's eyes: a good sign. A better one still is when he nods, slowly. So Guydelot reaches further back, letting Sanson's hair down, letting it fall loose so he can sink his hands in it. He smiles. "You've got no idea how long I've wanted to touch that."

"My- my hair?"

"Aye." He draws his hands back, trailing the dark locks over Sanson's shoulders, letting his fingertips graze Sanson's neck. "And you. I reckon I wanted to get my hands on you even when I thought I hated you, Sanson the Stiff."

Sanson shivers at the touch, though he doesn't draw away; color rises in his face once more, pink and pleased. "You oughtn't say such things," he murmurs, unconvincingly.

Guydelot grins in response. "No better time for it, if you ask me. Here we are, you and me, and I finally get to see what you look like underneath all this Adder gear." He lets his hands slide, slow and light, down Sanson's chest and stomach, coming to rest at the hem of the thin shirt he'd worn beneath his jerkin. "A little like unwrapping a present, eh?"

"Speaking of that-" Sanson rests his hands, trembling slightly, on Guydelot's, stilling them. "You do recall what I said when we began traveling together?"

An advisement, when they first began living in close quarters - the brief, stiff declaration of a man wanting to avoid the awkwardness of discovery by revealing it on his own terms. Guydelot remembers. For the first seventeen or so years of his life, Sanson'd thought himself a girl. At the time, Guydelot'd figured it'd never be relevant.

"Aye," he replies, lifting an eyebrow. "Good news is I know how to work the equipment."

It startles a laugh out of Sanson; that musical sound that makes Guydelot stop breathing for a second. "You-"

"You worried I'll see you as less of a man once I see you naked?"

"Perhaps." But he's smiling, and his hands are lighter where they rest on Guydelot's. "But I find... I'm eager to find out." He lets Guydelot tug his shirt over his head, revealing a tighter garment beneath; this he peels away on his own.

"Eager, is it?" Guydelot tugs Sanson onto his lap, where the man settles comfortably, straddling him. Guydelot is pleasantly reminded that he's naked underneath these sheets; the weight is like an electric current. He lifts Sanson's hands to his own shoulders, letting his own hands come to rest on Sanson's waist once more. "Just how eager, eh?"

As though only just realizing he is allowed to touch Guydelot, a look of wonder crosses Sanson's face; his hands stray to Guydelot's chest, applying gentle pressure to make him lie back - an order the bard is only to pleased to yield to: lying on his back with Sanson above him, he is abruptly dizzy, lightheaded with desire.

"You," he whispers, reaching one hand up to cup Sanson's chin. "You're gonna be the death of me, you know that?"

#sanson smyth #guydelot thildonnet #my writing #cut for length not for smut

10 notes · View notes

flutteringdreams-matw · 3 years

Text

Out of Time (17)

First/Last

Read on AO3 /FFN

Word Count: 8593

Previously: The aftermath of the fight scene. Danny's still unconcious and everyone tries to deal. Loads of angst. CW: Injury descriptions, swearing and angst.

Now: The aftermath part 2 - some flashbacks, some concerns and lots of guilt. One of my favourite Lancer and Clockwork moments too.

Please let me know what you think! Feel free to drop a reply or reblog whatever. WE ARE CAUGHT UP! I'm hoping the next chapter will be up on Sunday - depends on if I have a chance to edit or not. Regardless the link will be in the replies!

Sam was going crazy.

She was exhausted - the nightmares that haunted her kept her up most nights. The other nights? Her thoughts spinning out of control over one measly kiss by her best friend.

The same best friend she had a crush on for over a year.

The same friend who kissed her first.

And she kissed him back.

Nope. Not measly in the slightest.

She shook her head, clearing it as she neared the infirmary. She opened the door, a greeting at the tip of her tongue before she stopped with wide eyes.

Frostbite stood over Danny in deep concentration, his ice arm glowing a faint blue as it was stuck through the boy's chest. Ethelwulf nodded absently, eyes running over the core monitor's readings with quick precision. Danny laid motionless on the bed through the entire thing.

Danny's anguished screams as Dan taunted him, attacking his core.

"A little more Frostbite," Ethelwulf told him. "It's headed down."

The way he arched upward in the duplicate's grasp.

Frostbite's hand glowed brighter, engulfing the boy in blue. Eventually, it subsided, leaving the yeti ghost with a grim look on his face. "It should be maintaining its cold by now," he said softly. "Why isn't it?"

His head snapped to his chest, breathing heavily. She wasn't even sure he was conscious anymore.

Ethelwulf frowned. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "His injuries are healing, but slowly - even slower than what a human should be healing at - "

Sam turned abruptly, walking quickly up and out of the lab. She breathed hard, ignoring the memory flashes and the ghosts giving her a greeting. It was too much -she needed to get away.

He was going to get through this.

It's already been a week.

He's going to get through this.

He's not healing.

He's going -

Sam stopped her internal argument when she found herself outside of Danny's room. She blinked, suddenly frowning at where she found herself. She stood there for a few moments, debating whether she should go in before she realized something else.

She desperately missed her best friend.

She swung the door open. The first thing Sam recognized was that it still smelled like him. The second was no one was in here since probably Tucker when he grabbed his stuff last week. Sam smiled softly, walking toward the unmade bed - he probably didn't even sleep the night before. She touched it fondly, thinking back to the strategy meeting in the Ops Center. She sighed, deciding that she should perhaps find Jazz when she kicked something, making it slide under the bed.

With a confused frown, she peered under it, ignoring the dusty litter of old beaten thermoses, the boooo-merang and garbage. The only thing not covered in a layer of dust was a brown picture frame lying faced down. Sam grabbed it, sliding it across the floor and turned it over. It was a photo of Danny with his family in front of FentonWorks, with his arms around Tucker and Sam with a big goofy smile on his face. She remembered this photo - it was just before freshman year a few weeks before his accident.

Wasn't this normally on his desk? She wondered, eyes glancing toward the computer with a frown. Her frown deepened as she noticed that there was nothing on his desk but the keyboard and mouse. Bringing the photo with her, she walked to the desk, noticing the giant pile of stuff on the floor beside it. "Boys," Sam muttered fondly, picturing Danny just throwing things into a pile with a smile, saying absently he'd deal with it later. She put the photo on his desk, sighing slightly as she jostled the mouse.

The computer monitor came alive, the screen brightening the room giving her three options: play, save and discard. "What's this?" she questioned, violet eyes curiously looking the screen over. A video file? She frowned, looking at the computer for any sort of hint to what it was before she saw what it was called.

For Sam.

Why is there a video for me on Danny's computer? She wondered, grabbing his computer chair and rolling it over. She sat in the chair, drumming her fingers on the desk with a thoughtful frown. "I shouldn't watch this," she said to herself. But it's addressed to you her subconscious argued back. She debated for a few more minutes before coming back to the reason she was in his room to begin with… she missed Danny. Besides, she should see if she should save this file, right.

Right?

Biting her lip thoughtfully, Sam pressed play.

The date on the video said September as Danny's face came into view, looking a little uncomfortable as he stared into the camera.

"Hey Sam," he started with a sheepish smile. He rubbed the back of his head. Sam laughed softly, a sad smile on her face as he got settled. "This is kinda weird, but Jazz says it actually might help in the long run." Suddenly, his face was serious. "If you're watching this, it probably means… well I'm dead."

Sam paused the video, rolling the chair back with wide eyes as she stared at the screen. He's saying goodbye. He was recording this to say goodbye? She frowned as she looked at the date. September… apart from Vlad becoming mayor, nothing happened in September. So why back then? And why is it on his computer now?

She rolled closer, wondering whether she should continue the video. Curiosity got the better of her, pressing play again.

"Well -more dead I guess," Danny continued, shrugging. "Not now obviously - but Jazz will have all the files and give them to people. She thought it would, I dunno, I guess give me a way to say bye." He paused, again looking uncomfortable, opening his mouth to speak before the video skipped.

Sam frowned, watching a slightly older, tired version of Danny on the screen. The time stamp said eight days ago, pretty early in the afternoon. That explains why it's here. There was no sheepishness in his behaviour, dark circles under his eyes from the lack of sleep. "Hi Sam" he greeted softly. He smiled at the camera. "I just… I wanted to say…" he frowned, furrowing his eyebrows in thought. "If I don't make it back," he said finally. "I want you to know that I -" he broke off, eyes widening just a little as he stared at the camera. He stammered for a moment, before he sighed, looking down at the floor. He muttered something quietly that the microphone didn't hear. Sam waited with baited breath, watching Danny try to compose himself. He stiffened, looking at the camera determinedly. "Sam, I -" suddenly losing all confidence, he deflated. He sighed in defeat, looking up into the camera sadly, his arm moving toward the monitor.

The video shifted again, this time with Danny Phantom at the computer, floating in the air. Sam assumed he had pressed record. With a playful smirk, Phantom turned his back to the camera to the bed, where Danny Fenton's legs currently hung off of. Sam laughed softly, realizing that he had split himself.

"Oh come on," Phantom teased, hands on his hips. "This isn't like your facing down a legion of ghosts for the fight of your life. It's just a video."

"If you say that one more time - " Danny started.

"You'll what? Shoot a ghost ray at me? I have our powers right now idiot, I'm the one -" Phantom was cut off when a pillow hit his face. "Okay, fine, be that way."

"You think this is easy?" Danny asked angrily, sitting up on the bed. "I don't like doing these damn videos!"

"It's not about the videos," Phantom retorted smartly. "It's about this video."

Danny frowned. "What do you mean?"

Phantom made a frustrated noise. "You know what it means." Phantom floated in front of the bed, staring at his human self like they were in a mirror. "Why is it so hard for you to admit it?"

"Because I don't want to say it like this!" Danny said, his voice rising. Sam watched as his hands gestured wildly to the computer.

Phantom's eyes narrowed. "Say what?" he challenged, voice also rising.

"You know what!"

"But do you?" The question caught the human off guard, making him sputter a few excuses at his ghost half. Phantom rolled his eyes, pointing a gloved finger at him. "You need to come flat out and say it. To her face."

"I'm not sure -" Danny started.

"You are sure," Phantom said angrily. His eyes flashed. "You're so afraid of changing things! Why is it so hard for you to tell Sam you like her?"

Sam gasped softly, watching Danny Fenton's whole body tense as he stammered excuses. "I don't know!" he exclaimed. "It's Sam! It just is okay!"

"Because," Phantom pressed, gesturing for the boy to continue.

"Cause I -" Danny's voice cut off, looking at little unsure.

Phantom got in his face. "Because you what?" he asked.

"Because I think I'm in love her!" Danny exploded.

Sam gasped again, pausing the video as she stared at the screen. Her mind was racing at his admission, her heart doing backflips in her chest. She looked back at the screen, watching both Phantom and Fenton mid-reaction with wide eyes. I shouldn't - this is -he l-….what!?

Numbly, Sam pressed play again, desperate to see what happened next. Phantom had jumped backward at the boy's outburst, dropping out of the air and onto the floor. He stared up at Danny with wide eyes. Fenton had paled drastically, chest heaving and wide terror filled eyes stared back.

What. The.

They were quiet for several minutes, staring at each other in absolute shock as the admission settled in the air around them.

"You just…" Phantom said quietly, trailing off.

Danny nodded. "I know…" he breathed.

"Did you -" Phantom started again.

"I. know." The boy punctuated each word, breathing hard with wide eyes.

"Do…. Do we even know what that word even means?" Phantom finally asked. Danny stared at him dumbly. "I mean - we do, but like…. To say that…"

Danny put his elbows on his knees. "I dunno," he said. "I've never felt like this before." He sighed heavily silent for a few minutes.

Sam waited, every nerve on fire as she watched him swallow nervously on screen. "I… I like her" he said at last, shaken. "A lot."

Her heart burst as she heard him say those words.

Phantom grinned, punching the teen lightly in the knee. "Told you so," he teased. Danny glared lightly. "So what now?"

Danny raised an eyebrow. "Apart from going up against an evil version of us from the future, ignoring any glimpses of time that come our way and fight for our lives?"

Phantom gave him a pointed look. "I meant that revelation of a lifetime."

Danny frowned. "You want me to tell her, don't you?"

Phantom raised an eyebrow this time. "You want things to change right?"

Danny fiddled with his hands for a few moments. "I mean, yeah."

"Only way to do that is to tell her how you feel," Phantom told him earnestly, shrugging.

"But now?"

Phantom scoffed. "No, at graduation - yes now!" he said sarcastically. Phantom flew up, floating toward the door. "Preferably before we face Dan."

Danny didn't move, face suddenly clouding in thought. "Dan," he said quietly. Phantom turned, frowning at his human half's tone. Whatever light heartedness at their revelation was snatched out of the air. "What's he after?"

Phantom regarded Fenton for a small moment. "You mean other than revenge?"

Danny looked up. "Yeah," he said. Sam watched both their brains work, desperately trying not to yell at the screen in warning. "I just wish-" Danny broke off, grimacing as blue sparks wracked his frame. Phantom disappeared, leaving the boy stifling a scream as he weathered the abuse from his core. He doubled over, face turning away from the camera for a few minutes before they disappeared, leaving the boy breathing hard.

"Fuck," he said. "That one hurt." His brow furrowed, left eye turning green for moment before he rolled his eyes. "Shut up," he muttered. Danny rubbed his chest absently, frowning in thought at whatever vision over took him. Then he got up and left his room.

Sam sat watching the video play on, her mind reeling at what she just saw. Danny had not intended to record that conversation - nor anything that came after. His face after he admitted he liked her looked so terrified. Did he like her? Was it the time visions messing with him? It was -

It was hours before their conversation in the Ops Center. He was about to go downstairs and run into her. Where he told her he wasn't afraid anymore. And she shot him down.

What had happened in between? She had wondered later, staring at the monitor for some clue. Tucker had changed her mind, but what changed his? Why didn't he say anything - do anything - until that moment in the clearing?

Frowning, she watched ten minutes go by on the computer. Danny still hadn't returned.

"You don't get to say what you want to say and then just run into battle."

"What happens after this Danny? After you say what you want to say and go off to face Dan… would you regret it?"

She had told him those things- she didn't want to get her hopes up. It wasn't his regret that she was worried about.

It was hers.

Realizing Danny wasn't coming back soon, Sam hit fast forward, watching the timestamp speed by until his room door finally opened. Sam hit play, just as Danny entered.

His expression was unreadable, blue eyes dark in thought. Clockwork she realized, remembering the Time Master interrupting their conversation. Danny faltered, crying out as another set of blue sparks coursed through his body. Sam frowned worriedly, watching as he fell to the floor, writhing in pain. How many times did he go through this before he faced Dan? He breathed deeply, letting them subside before he let out a long shuddering sigh that seem to envelop his whole body. He stayed crouched for a few moments before he stood, hair covering his face. Then he transformed, flying out of his bedroom.

Sam fast forwarded the video again, watching the time zip forward before she saw Danny flew back into his room. It had been a few hours since he left. She pressed play, watching as his transformation slowed to normal speed and illuminated the room.

Danny sighed, walking over to the computer desk tiredly. Blue sparks ran through his frame, making the boy stumble and grimace in pain. He clutched the edge of the desk, fighting the sparks and pain that was coursing through him. Suddenly, Danny's expression changed to one of anger, blue eyes turning green. With a yell of frustration, he swept all the items of his desk onto the ground with a large crash. Sam jumped at noise, glancing briefly at the pile of stuff next to the desk.

"That's enough!" he yelled, sparks suddenly disappearing and leaving the boy breathing hard. Danny's arms were shaking with effort as he gripped the desk for dear life, black hair blocking his face from the camera as he looked down. Phantom appeared behind him, hovering a few feet behind the teen watching him in pity. Sam reached out to the monitor, unable to help.

Neither spoke, only Danny's ragged breathing coming through the computer microphone as time ticked forward. Eventually, Danny broke the silence. "Why does it have to be me?" he asked, broken. Sam's heart broke at the words.

Phantom's green eyes softened at the question. "I wish I knew," he replied quietly. He ran a hand through his white hair and breathed out deeply. He floated closer to his human half slowly. "Clockwork did say there was one favourable outcome."

Danny snorted. "He also implied we weren't coming back alive," he snapped back.

Phantom held up his hands in surrender. "All I'm saying is: it's possible."

Danny sighed, back straightening slightly, but still not moving from place in front of the camera. Sam still couldn't see his face. "We could run," he whispered. "Let Vlad and Valerie handle this; get the GIW involved."

Phantom snorted this time, crossing his arms in disgust. "I can't believe those words came out of your mouth," he said drily. "Like you'd ever run from this."

Danny laughed bitterly, finally standing up straight and looked Phantom in the eye. "True," he agreed, a small smile on his face. The smile faded as he crossed his arms in thought. "Did you ever think we'd be here after almost two years of having these powers?"

Phantom rolled his eyes as he made a face. "Dude, you're proving that we do have some sort of hero complex."

"No, not like that," Danny told him, making the ghost frown. "I know we've faced big threats before and anticipated not coming back. This fight though..." Danny bent down and picked up a small picture frame. "Did you ever think we'd be ready?"

Phantom was silent, observing his human self searchingly. He made multiple attempts to speak before he sighed tiredly, just waiting for Danny to continue.

Danny gripped the frame determinedly. "I'm not going to tell them," he continued softly. "They'd talk us out of it; attempt to make a plan that might put them in danger. It's better if they fight in the city. That way they won't-" Danny's voice cracked as he broke off.

Phantom nodded readily. "Okay," he agreed softly. Green eyes drifted to the computer before they settled back onto the black haired boy. "Are you at least going to talk to Sam?"

Danny let out a shaky breath and shook his head. "She's right," he said softly. "I can't tell her how I feel and go face Dan. If I somehow make it back, then I'll tell her. It wouldn't be right otherwise."

Phantom scowled. "So you're going to make the decision for her? Somehow, I think she'd be even angrier at that."

Danny scowled back. "Don't you think I know that!" he argued, waving his arms emphatically. The frame in his hand went flying onto the bed, bouncing slightly at the two teens glared at each other. "It's easier if I don't tell her."

"For you," Phantom countered angrily.

"For her!" Danny shouted. Phantom raised one of his eyebrows as Danny sighed. "Look – if I tell Sam and don't make it back…" He looked down to the floor. "I can't do that to her… not… not now."

Phantom frowned as Danny trailed off. He floated over to Danny and put a gloved hand onto his shoulder. "I get it," he said simply, floating past the boy. They stood side by side, facing opposite directions as if they were two sides of the same coin. They were silent again for a bit, before Phantom started speaking again. "Being fifteen sucks."

Danny's laugh was cold and sardonic at the abrupt change of topic. "Tell me about it," he replied ruefully.

Phantom looked up at the ceiling wistfully. "What would you do if we got out of this?" he asked.

Danny smiled, lost in thought. "Same things I normally do," he said. "You?"

Phantom chuckled. "Probably annoy you a little more," he joked. "More of the same."

Danny and Phantom turned to each other, any sort of amusement sliding off their faces as the reality of their fate once again sunk in.

"You ready?" Phantom asked.

Danny nodded. "Let's do this."

Both boys turned to the opening door as Jazz walked into the room. "Danny, you in here?" She looked over to them, surprised, before frowning slightly. "Are you okay?"

Phantom disappeared, leaving Danny standing alone on his side of the room. He gave her a bittersweet smile. "Yeah," he replied softly.

"Good cause –"

The video stopped, the pop up window again giving her the options of play, save or discard.

Sam's eyes were wide as anger, fear, regret, guilt and sadness overwhelmed her as she stared at the screen. It had been a week since this video. So much had happened.

And Danny wasn't any closer to waking up.

More tears came to her eyes - she thought she had finished with them by now - as she sat at his computer.

"It's fine… This can wait."

"Let's talk later."

There wasn't a later.

It didn't wait.

She replayed the video.

:-=-:

"I don't know! It's Sam. It just is okay!"

Jazz stiffened, hearing her brother's voice for the first time in over a week. "Danny?" she breathed hopefully.

"Because?"

She frowned, cautiously walking down the hall to Danny's room. That was Phantom's voice. The door was opened a crack, a small glow of light coming from the room. Had her Mom or Dad finally gone in?

"Cause I -"

Danny's voice sounded again, making Jazz's eyes widen. "Oh no," she whispered rushing forward.

"Because you what?"

Jazz flung open the door.

"Because I think I'm in love her!"

"Sam!" Jazz exclaimed. The girl paused the video, turning slowly in the chair. She was breathing hard, like she couldn't get enough air, tears flowing down her face. Jazz moved quickly, rushing over to the girl and knelt in front of her. "Sam, what are you doing in here?" Jazz glanced at screen with a frown. "And what're you watching?"

Sam didn't answer, starting to hyperventilate. Realizing the girl was more of a concern, Jazz breathed with her, trying to get her to mimic her actions. Her breathing became a little more normal, hiccupping slightly as she continued to stare at the red head.

"That's it," Jazz soothed, nodding. "Breathe in and out." Teal eyes glanced at the computer again, eyebrows furrowing in thought. "That's better. Want to tell me about it?" She took in Sam's appearance, the dark circles under her eyes more pronounced up close. Sam stayed quiet, making Jazz sigh. She stood, moving past the younger teen to the computer, dragging the mouse across the video clip and watching glimpses of her brother on screen. Jazz pursed her lips. "Did you watch all of it?" Jazz asked softly. Sam nodded. Jazz sighed again, moving back in front of the teen.

"I was wondering yours went," Jazz told her gently. Sam looked at her in confusion. Jazz smiled sadly. "It was my idea - after the whole Fear incident and my parents finding out… Danny was worried about, well, worrying about us blaming ourselves. That he wouldn't be able to say that whatever happened was on him." Jazz chuckled fondly. "Guess he took the whole 'saving people' thing too seriously huh? There's one for my parents, me, Tucker - I think he did one for the news too."

Jazz paused, sighing again. Sam looked at her expectantly. "After last week, I took these out again - just in case he-" her voice cracked. Jazz swallowed, shaking her head. "In case he didn't make it," she managed. "Sam, I'm sure he didn't want you to find out like this."

Sam scoffed, a hint of the girl's personality flying outward. "He didn't even manage to tell me," she said bitterly. Jazz looked at her confused. "He split Jazz - Phantom pressed record. They didn't even remember that it was going." Suddenly, her face softened. "He tried to - before he left. I… I thought he was just trying to tell me in case... It wasn't that, I see that now."

Jazz gave her a gentle smile. "He cares about you Sam."

She had said it as comfort, but Jazz's words made Sam upset. "We shouldn't have let him go out their Jazz," she said darkly. She pointed to the screen. "The Time Visions affected him more than we realized, he was… he was at his breaking point. And Dan? Dan -" her eyes scrunched tightly, a pained look on her face. "I still hear his screams. Still see Dan's hand through his chest. Danny twitching in between consciousness as Dan electrocuted him. All that blood. Now he's…."

"He will," Jazz assured firmly. "He'll get better Sam."

Sam shook her head. "I heard Frostbite and Ethelwulf," she replied. "He's not healing anywhere close to normal - not for him, a ghost or a human." Sam's eyes glistened with tears. "Did I do the right thing?" she asked hushed. "Giving him the Ecto-Enhancer?"

Jazz's eyes watered, realizing now what Sam had been going through over the last week. Sam blamed herself.

"Am I the reason he's still like this?"

:-=-:

Tucker closed his locker a little forcefully, eyes narrowing at the metal object.

"What do you want to do for your birthday honey?" His mom had asked him yesterday. "It's not every day you turn sixteen."

"If you miss my birthday caused you died, I'm running up your tab at the Nasty Burger."

"The Usual?" Danny had asked.

"With extra everything."

He fiddled with the lock, growing more and more frustrated with every second. Eventually, he growled, punching the thing angrily. He winced, wringing out his hand with a small string of curse words underneath his breath.

I want my best friend to be okay.

It was their first day back at school since Dan's attack over a week ago. Ten days since he last spoke to his best friend. There was still no word on when he'd wake up.

If he'd wake up.

"Remember Tucker, it was Dash who stuffed you in there, not the locker itself. Stop senseless locker abuse."

His head whipped up at Sam's voice. She grinned, rolling her eyes at him. "Happy Birthday you big idiot," she wished, leaning against the lockers in her best Danny impression.

He smiled. He and Danny had thought the birthday greeting was the best thing ever since they learned 'idiot' meant. "Thanks," he said. "I needed that."

Sam's grin morphed into a sad smile, her eyes dull with guilt and self-loathing. "I think I did too," she admitted. "Jazz said her parents had the school excuse them for the last few weeks. She's only coming in for her exams."

Tucker nodded. "They told Ishiyama and Lancer then?"

"Yeah," Sam said softly. She looked down the hallway, whispering teens surrounding them. "Wonder how long it'd take for the whole school to find out."

Tucker shrugged. "Beats me." He noticed the dark circles under her eyes and frowned. "Still having the nightmares?"

Sam scowled. "Are you?" she retorted with an eyebrow raised.

"Yeah," he admitted readily. Tucker gave her a searching look, daring her to lie. "And all I know is what I saw when I hacked into the school camera system. Sam - it's okay if -"

She held up her bandaged wrist. "I am," she replied sourly. "Happy? I admitted it." She sighed. "Between Dan's attacks and Danny kiss-" Sam stopped abruptly, eyes widening as she realized what she was about to say.

Tucker's eyes widened also. "The what!?" He exclaimed loudly, causing some students to stare. Sam turned red, glaring at Tucker. The boy grabbed her shoulders, shaking her. "He - what? When? Why didn't you tell me this sooner!? Sam this is huge! He actually -"

A cough stopped his excited rant. Tucker and Sam turned.

Valerie stood, her hand on her hip watching them with an annoyed look on her face. She eyed both of them warily, green eyes glancing briefly to Sam's bandaged wrist before addressing them both. "Where's Danny?"

The two friends looked at each other.

"Still out sick," Tucker told her, shrugging non-committedly.

Green eyes looked him over. "Sure he is," she said bitterly. "Not what I heard."

Sam's eyes narrowed, stepping forward. "And what did you hear?"

Valerie shrugged. She took off her backpack, rummaging in it for a moment before grabbing a small envelope. She held it out to the two friends. "Nevermind. Can one of you give this to him? When he's up?" she asked.

Tucker eyed it suspiciously, paling slightly as he saw the name 'Phantom' written on the top. "Wait - which Danny are we talking about here?" he asked confused. Sam took the envelope, glaring at Valerie.

Valerie stared at them for a few moments, challenging them to do something. Her eyebrow rose again. "It matters?" she replied coolly. She turned, hearing the two friends gasp behind her as she walked down the hall. When she got to the end of the hall, she looked back, watching their wide eyed stares looking back at her.

:-=-:

Skulker phased into Plasmius' lab, frowning at the half-ghost's back. "You wanted to see me?" the hunter asked.

Vlad didn't turn around from the computer, nor did he transform from his human form. "Ah Skulker," he greeted. "Any word?"

The ghost landed, green eyes glaring at the man's dismissive tone. "The whelp's still not awake," Skulker replied. "Though why you insist on using me instead of just asking the humans is beyond me. Aren't you toying with the orange one?"

Plasmius scoffed, still typing away at the computer. "Jack only tells me the basics now that he knows who I am. You tell me what I need to know." Vlad got up, finally facing the ghost with a sombre look. "Do you think he'll survive?"

Skulker hesitated. "They still don't know," the robotic ghost replied, shrugging. "The young hybrid is strong, so it's possible."

The half-ghost sighed. "Best make contingency plans then," he said softly. He locked eyes with the ghost in front of him. "Can you retrieve the Infi-Map from the Far Frozen?"

Skulker blinked. "The Infi-Map?" he asked slowly.

"Yes," Vlad said, pacing. "I'm sure it will be easy to steal since most of Frostbite's people are tending to Daniel."

Skulker watched him, frowning in thought. "That would go against the truce."

"And?" Vlad said, raising an eyebrow.

"A truce against the Far Frozen and the Master of Time," Skulker replied, as if the answer was obvious. When the half-ghost didn't respond, Skulker let out a frustrated sigh. "Plasmius, you cannot do this. Messing with time and space is unwise."

Vlad transformed, floating above Skulker with a smug grin. "I didn't take you to be a coward Skulker," he challenged.

Skulker's eyes glowed at the insult. "I am more versed in Ghost Law than you, halfa," he growled. "Going against a truce lands you in Walker's prison. Going against a truce from Clockwork? I don't remember any ghost being alive to tell their tale."

"Daniel did," Vlad retorted flippantly. "And I am much smarter and powerful than him."

"Are you though?" Skulker rose in the air, staring his employer down. "Can you do any of what the whelp did?" he tested. "The boy defeated Pariah Dark and the abomination."

"With my help!" Vlad cut in.

"And yet it's Phantom who is victorious," Skulker stated with crossed arms. "You've heard the whispers, I'm sure."

Plasmius' eyes glowed. "I will not be ruled by a child!" he retorted angrily. "They're just rumours - they cannot be true!"

Skulker glared. "They may not be… but those rumours are why you're collecting powerful artifacts," he said. "Why you're trying to force ghosts to your side. Plasmius - the Master of Time sides with him. You will not win with war."

Plasmius laughed. "Who said anything about war?" His hand lit aflame, watching the swirling energy light up the robotic ghost's face. "If Daniel dies, then the throne is open."

The ghostly hunter eyes flew wide, letting out a sharp gasp. "You wish death on your own kind?" he asked suspiciously. "After everything you've done to get the boy to your side?"

Vlad's face fell slightly. "No," he replied softly. "But the boy's core is damaged Skulker. If he survives, I doubt he'd be able to take his place. Nor will he want to. I'm just preparing to step in for him. This is about protecting him." Vlad sighed heavily, red eyes looking defeated. "I do not want Daniel to die - but I cannot deny that with him out of the way benefits my plan. He's young - too young to make this decision."

Skulker watched the older hybrid start pacing again, regarding him carefully. "Somehow, I think he'll see it differently." Skulker sighed, shaking his head. He floated upward. "Do as you wish Plasmius," he said quietly. "But do so alone."

Vlad stopped pacing, staring at Skulker incredulously. "You would go against me?"

Skulker shook his head. "I will not go against Clockwork - even if it means siding with Danny Phantom."

Vlad watched him go with a frown. "Daniel…" he whispered worriedly in the silence. His eyes found the computer screen again, shifting his train of thought. "I guess I must do this myself."

:-=-:

Lancer fidgeted with the small pouch in his hand as he heard the doorbell echo throughout FentonWorks.

"We're not giving any interviews!" he heard Jazz's irate voice from inside the hallway. "Go awa-" The door flew open, the girl stopping mid-sentence as she realized who was in front of her. "Mr. Lancer?"

"Ms. Fenton," Lancer greeted. The star student held a broom in her hand in an attack stance. She looked down at the broom and sheepishly put it behind her. "Are your parents home?"

Jazz looked back inside. "I think Dad's asleep," she said with a concerned frown. "Mom's in the lab. I can get her?" She opened the door wider, inviting the teacher inside. He nodded in thanks, looking over FentonWorks with a small frown. The normally vibrant house was filled with a soft buzz, tension filling the air as soon as he settled himself in the living room. He fiddled with the pouch again, wondering what he could do to help.

"She'll be right up," Jazz said, returning with a tray and teapot.

The teacher looked her over, frowning. "Jasmine, are you alright?" he asked.

She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Haven't been sleeping much," she replied. "It's been a rough two weeks."

"I'm sure," he agreed softly. He changed the subject. "Decide on a college yet? I know Yale's deadline is fast approaching."

Jazz smiled. "Amity U," she replied. "I'd get more on the job training here than anywhere else." Lancer arched an eyebrow. "It's okay," she told him softly. "I'll head there for Grad school. My place is here - at least for a little while longer."

Lancer studied her closely. "Jasmine, you can't put your life on hold," he said.

"Mom and Dad said the same thing," she admitted with a sad smile as she poured him some tea. "And Danny will probably be upset with me when he finds out -" Jazz stopped, her eyes widening slightly as a deep rooted sadness washed over her features.

"I'm sure he's proud of you," he assured softly.

Jazz gave him a watery smile. "He is."

"Jazz?"

"In here!" the girl called to her mother.

Lancer watched as Maddie Fenton came into the living room, the same dark circles around her eyes as her daughter. "Sorry Mr. Lancer," she apologized, taking a seat across from the man. "Was working on something to help Phantom."

"Any luck?" Jazz asked hopefully.

Maddie caught Jazz's eye. "I hope so," she said. Jazz looked in between her mother and Mr. Lancer and nodded.

"I'll check on Dad," she said. She rolled her eyes. "He has another conference call with Vlad this afternoon."

Maddie pursed her lips, watching her daughter go.

"I thought your husband and the mayor were friends?" Lancer inquired, catching the girl's tone.

Maddie sighed. "It's gotten a little complicated," she told him. She turned to the teacher. "How can I help you Mr. Lancer?"

Lancer gripped the pouch tighter. "How's Daniel?"

Maddie tensed at the question before she sighed. "He's still unconscious," she said wearily. "There's been no change."

Lancer nodded, not quite trusting his voice in the moment. In all his years of teaching, this was a first. "May I ask…" he asked finally, his question trailing off.

Maddie watched him closely, lips pressed together before glancing at the stairs. "He's been ill," Maddie said, still staring at the hallway. "We thought it was a cold at first, then he started collapsing." She finally turned back to the teacher with a thoughtful frown. "Tucker told me you had a run in with Phantom?" Perplexed, Lancer nodded. "What happened?"

"Dan - that's what Phantom called him - came after me," Lancer said. After a moment's pause, he frowned. "Actually, I thought it was Daniel that came toward me; Said something about the Career Aptitude Test creating him. I thought he was possessed." Maddie nodded. "What does this have to do with Daniel's condition?"

"Everything," Maddie told him fiercely. "What happened next?"

Lancer's frowned deepened. "Phantom came and told me it wasn't Daniel, that he was safe at FentonWorks."

Maddie chuckled. "That boy," she admonished softly. Lancer gave her a quizzical look. "Did Phantom tell you about Dan?"

"Briefly," Lancer replied. "Something about a future that doesn't exist."

Maddie nodded. "Dan is… was an alternate Phantom," she explained. "A dark Phantom. Danny's decision to hand in the answers changed the events so that he never existed. That's why Dan targeted him."

Lancer's mouth hung open. Maddie continued. "Dan made him sleep deprived; paranoid. He made him relive parts of the alternate future over and over again… we thought it would be fine when Phantom faced him." Maddie sighed, taking a moment to compose herself and look toward the ceiling. "Dan and Phantom, they were drawn to each other in the worst ways. I think Sam saw that before any of us realized."

"So she went after Phantom," Lancer said, remembering the absurd phone conversation he had between Mr. Foley and Phantom.

"Dan trapped them both," Maddie continued, nodding. "According to Sam, it was a close call." Maddie gave him a sad smile. "Danny… Dan must have shown him something that made him go out there, something awful. He managed to push Sam out of the way and got hit with a large ecto-blast instead."

Lancer paled. "He what?"

Maddie's sad smile grew slightly, eyes radiating with regret. "We should have been there sooner," she admitted in disdain. "Then maybe both of them would be okay."

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Lancer broke it. "Can I see him?"

Maddie gave him a small smile. "I think he'd like that."

Lancer smiled in appreciation. "Oh!" he exclaimed suddenly. He brought up the small black pouch and held it out. "I'm not sure, but I think this may help Phantom. He left it behind."

Maddie's brow furrowed. "What is it?"

Lancer shrugged, unzipping it and holding it out to her. "He asked me to give this to him - to heal him."

Maddie gasped. "Is this…" she whispered hopefully. She swallowed, looking from the pouch to Lancer. "You administered one of these?" Lancer nodded. "What was the effect?"

"Phantom looked quite a bit better after a while," he replied. He frowned, watching Maddie's eyes dart back and forth as she did calculations in her head. She took the pouch from the teacher, staring at the last syringe as if it was her only hope. "Is this… helpful?"

She looked up at his with wide eyes. "If this is what I think it is," Maddie said slowly. "Then it could be the breakthrough we're looking for."

:-=-:

Lancer watched Maddie walk in first with a deep breath, a nod and a then a smile. He attempted to do the same, but stopped at the sight of his student lying in the bed.

When Maddie had told him Daniel was injured, he wasn't expecting this.

Daniel's chest moved steadily with the help of machines. His face was covered by a small mask over his mouth and nose. Lancer noticed the many bandages along his torso, almost covering the boy from shoulder to hip. He swallowed heavily; taking a deep breath as he finally stepped inside the makeshift hospital room.

"Hi sweetheart," Maddie whispered softly, touching the side of the face. "You have a visitor." She turned back to the teacher, waving the pouch at Lancer. "You'll have to excuse me; I need to give this to Ethelwulf." She glanced to the corner. "Clockwork, you coming?"

Lancer turned and jumped, seeing an old ghost with purple robes shaking his head. "I will remain here," he told her, his voice calm.

Maddie nodded. "Let Clockwork know if you need anything, Mr. Lancer," she said quietly before exiting the room.

Lancer approached the bed apprehensively, unsure how to interact with his unconscious student. He settled in a vacant chair, watching the boy's chest rise and fall. He frowned, noticing now that the boy sported many more injuries than he originally had seen. "How can one blast do this?" he asked quietly, green eyes finding the boy's bruised neck.

"It didn't."

Lancer jumped, turning to the old ghost in the corner as he spoke. The red eyes seemed to look through the man, making the teacher shiver. "What?"

Clockwork raised an eyebrow. "It didn't," he repeated, a small frown hidden underneath his long silvery beard.

Lancer's eyebrows drew together in confusion, expecting the ghost to elaborate. Clockwork merely stared back. "What do you mean? Mrs. Fenton said -"

"I'm aware of what you've been told," Clockwork cut him off. "But you're also a smart man, William."

"Come on - you're a smart man."

Lancer bristled, remembering the words the dark Phantom had said. "How… how do you know my name?"

"I am the Master of Time," Clockwork said. Lancer detected a bit of bitterness underneath his calm voice. "Or at least, I will be again when this is all over."

"Come again?" Lancer asked weakly.

Clockwork sighed, floating toward the bed. Lancer's green eyes followed him, confused and unnerved by his presence. "I cannot see the present or future currently, but I can see the events of the past." Clockwork told him softly, regretful red eyes bore into the teacher. "I saw what he did for you."

Lancer was thoroughly confused, frowning so intensely that he was slightly worried it would stay that way. "You mean Phantom?"

Clockwork didn't reply, instead turning to the unconscious boy in front of them. "Even I cannot deny fate for a moment of my choosing," he said apologetically, red eyes soft as he looked the boy over. Clockwork put a frail hand on the boy's injured shoulder, holding it there slightly before he sighed, floating back to his corner.

Lancer turned back to his student, taking in the strange conversation and looking at the boy again. The bruising on his neck looked familiar but he couldn't place where. "I never would have thought Daniel would be involved with ghosts," Lancer said after a while. "Ms. Manson, maybe. Mr. Foley even! But Daniel?" Lancer shook his head. "I was under the impression he was scared of them."

Clockwork smiled mysteriously. "You'd be surprised what scares that boy."

Lancer glanced nervously at the old ghost before turning back to the teen. "He could've died."

Clockwork's red eyes looked Lancer over again. "You're his teacher?" he asked. Lancer nodded. "I find teachers are the best to pick up on change and growth faster than most." Clockwork glanced in Danny's direction. "Does it really seem that strange that he wanted to save his family? His friends?"

Lancer looked at the ghost quizzically, before turning back to the student. Lancer's impression of Danny's freshman year was a lazy student, often skipping class, falling asleep or forgetting his homework. But he was loyal - fiercely so - to his friends and family. He understood the consequences of his actions, accepting of detentions with a brief nod of the head with a resolved expression on his face. This year he had hardly gotten in so much trouble, but that loyalty he displayed in freshman year grew. So did his confidence in the person he was growing to be. He looked like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders - almost as if…

As if he had to save it himself.

"That isn't Danny Fenton. And it never will be."

"Nah - He found out what would happen on his own; realized it was too high a cost."

Phantom had told him that earlier. The teen who literally throws himself into battle with no regard for himself; Just as Danny threw himself in front of his best friend to save her life. "Clockwork," Lancer started, finding himself staring at the boy's neck. His mouth went dry. "Where's Phantom?"

Clockwork shrugged. "Here," he said flippantly. His red eyes sparkled in amusement at the question. "At FentonWorks."

Lancer frowned. Phantom's neck had been bruised too; he had remembered thinking the ghost's vocal chords being crushed. Danny's entire neck looked swollen, blue-purple blotches that look suspiciously like the boy was choked. But didn't he just jump in front of a blast? To save Ms. Manson?

"She's with Ethelwulf, safe and away from battle."

Phantom was friends with Tucker and Sam. Best friends he had said. Danny's only friends were Sam and Tucker.

"It was more how I said it rather than what I said."

Phantom has been seen battling ghosts all over town at all times of day. Danny regularly missed school.

"That isn't Danny Fenton."

Phantom spoke to Lancer as if he knew the man. Danny had Lancer as his teacher for two years.

The shield had been up for days before Phantom's first clash with Dan. Danny was at school for all of an hour before he collapsed.

"Do you see it yet Mr. Lancer? The resemblance?"

"The Strange Case…" Lancer murmured softly, eyes widening just a fraction. "Of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

"Yes," Clockwork said with a hint of amusement. "I believe Stevenson's novella does apply here. Although, perhaps not in the way you may think."

Lancer swallowed, nodding as he remembered his interaction with Danny Phantom, playing it over in his head as he stared at the unconscious teen. "There's more to this story, isn't there?"

He heard Clockwork chuckle. "There's always more to a story than what is on the page."

:-=-:

Ethelwulf held the last Ecto-Enhancer in his disguised hand over Danny's unconscious body, glancing at the ground with unease. "There's no guarantee that this could work," he told them gently. He locked eyes with Frostbite, the latter shaking his head as he withdrew his hand from Danny's chest. "Are you willing to risk his life?"

Maddie and Jack shared a look briefly before sending an uncertain looks toward Sam, Tucker and Jazz. Tucker stared grimly at the heart monitor, Jazz nodded stiffly and Sam stared at the Ecto-Enhancer as if it would explode.

"What would happen if we didn't?" Maddie asked evenly.

"The Great One's core is shifting," Frostbite said gravely. "I have been able to cool it down, but after two weeks, it's starting to injure him rather than heal. If this continues, he'd either assimilate to the new core or…"

"Or he dies," Sam finished coldly. Frostbite nodded grimly.

"So what, he'd gain new ghost powers?" Tucker asked, shuddering slightly.

Ethelwulf shook his head. "The Halfling has been gravely injured - we have no idea how a new core will affect his mind. In an alternate timeline, it broke him." Ethelwulf paused, looking at them intensely. "This will help him heal physically, but if his mind is already gone, he may not be who you remember."

The weight of his words sank in, Jack grabbing Maddie's hand tightly. The mother swallowed. "Can he reverse it?" she asked curiously. Ethelwulf looked at her in confusion. "Danny, could he reverse whatever is happening to his core?"

Frostbite hummed thoughtfully. "If he can reclaim his self-generation of cold core energy, it's possible," he replied. "But for all the power the Great One possesses, I'm not sure if he's strong enough to pull that off." His paw glowed, showing a small smooth ice sphere with patches of snow. "This energy," he pointed to the smooth clear sections of the sphere, "is the Great One's normal core energy. The patches are whatever is growing around it. As it stands, we are not sure what has the upper hand."

"From what Sam and the teacher has told us," Ethelwulf continued, waving the syringe in the air. "It seems like this was an immediate reaction into his blood stream. For this to have a chance we'd need to dilute it; else we run the risk of an overdose or worse."

"What about a diluted dose to his core?" Jack wondered out loud. When Ethelwulf beckoned him to continue, he elaborated. "A small amount to restart some of his speed healing and cold energy regeneration - to monitor what his core does. Wouldn't that tell us if he could overcome it?"

"That could work," Frostbite said in thought. "Providing his normal core energy still outweighs the foreign one. "

"Which is a large if," Ethelwulf replied sombrely. "If we're wrong, we could be dooming us all." He looked from his hand to the group of humans around them. "Are you really willing to take that chance?"

Maddie didn't hesitate. "I believe in him," she said without any guilt or remorse. Jack nodded readily at her shoulder. "If anyone can do this, Danny can."

"Mom's right," Jazz said strongly. She looked at the two other teens. "Danny's been in similar fights before right?"

Sam's mouth was in a thin line, looking worriedly at Tucker. Flashbacks of Danny's injured body floated through her mind, vowing to return with a smile. "Tucker?" she asked.

The boy in question jumped. "I shouldn't be part of this," he said finally. "I nearly killed him -"

"Tucker," Jazz admonished, but the boy shook his head.

"No Jazz," he said softly, anger and self-loathing covering his words. "I told you all that I wouldn't put up the shield until I knew I had Danny's ecto-signature programmed. I promised. And I really thought I had it," he looked down at his hands. "I shouldn't have listened to him - we could have got to him in time!"

Frostbite and Ethelwulf frowned pitifully at the young teen. "Tucker of Tech," Frostbite said gently. "I watched you work on that shield, saw the gravity of what the Great One had asked of you." The ghost showed him the orb again. "I don't believe he knew how much his core was altered."

"It also makes you the most knowledgeable person to make this decision," Ethelwulf added. "Apart from myself, Frostbite and the Fentons. You know Danny's signature, do you believe you made a mistake?"

Tucker hesitated, looking at Sam for assistance.

She smiled. "Hey, you're the one who figured out what the Ghost Zone's destruction would do to our world," she said lightly. "And took down Nocturn with just your PDA - Tucker, I think you had it. I say we go for it. The bigger question is - do you think this will work?"

Tucker looked at the heart monitor again, watching his best friend's core reading beep simultaneously with a heartbeat. The core was cooling again. Not trusting his voice, he nodded.

Ethelwulf nodded, hand outstretched to Frostbite for another syringe. "Then let's try it."

#danny phantom #cartoons #fanfiction #danny fenton #action #adventure #cross posted on ao3 #no phantom planet #But his parents know #ecto storm series #Out of Time #multichapter #ANGST #family #friends #Lancer #we need some comfort after this hurt...

11 notes · View notes

kinglazrus · 4 years

Text

Therefore I am

Phic phight 2020

Submitted by @kili-kai-wox (kilikani on ffn): Danny is surprised when he receives an A+. I wonder what subject it could be from?

Summary: There are two things Danny never expected to get out of his philosophy class: an A+ and to be confronted about his never-ending existential crisis

Warnings: discussion of/thoughts about death and the meaning of death.

Word count: 2971

Today is a grim day for Danny Fenton. It just might be the end of him. He's backed into a corner, enemies approached from all sides. His allies have abandoned him. Friends, family, all gone. He's on his own out here and it doesn't look like he's going to make it. Rations are getting low.

Jazz slaps her hand against her forehead and groans. "Don't be so dramatic!"

Danny, pinned against the lockers by his friends and sisters, howls in outrage. "I'm almost out of gummy bears!" He shoves the near empty plastic bag in Jazz's face, shaking it furiously. "And look! It's mostly just the white ones! I might as well starve."

"Ooh, I love the white ones!" Tucker snatches the bag out of Danny's hand. Fishing a few gummies out, he pops them into his mouth and chews, a blissful smile on his lips.

Danny moans. "My rations."

Sam rolls her eyes.

Danny was on his way to the cafeteria for lunch when they cornered him. They came out of nowhere, surging out from the crowd of shuffling students, surrounding him before he could realize what was happening.

With Jazz in front of him, Sam to his left, and Tucker to his right, they block off all routes of escape. Except the ghostly ones, but too many students are milling about for him to safely use his powers.

Danny doesn't like the look in their eyes. Sam's eager glint, Tucker's grin, Jazz's stern frown. They all set him on edge.

"Can I just please go to lunch?" he begs. Thanks to Skulker, Danny didn't have time to eat breakfast this morning, except a handful of cereal. The only thing he wants right now is to go get some food, even if it's the crappy cardboard pizza they serve in the cafeteria. He needs sustenance damn it!

Tucker stealing his gummy bears is the deepest betrayal he could get right now.

"No," Jazz and Sam say at the same time.

Tucker stealing his gummy bears is the second deepest betrayal.

"Come on, man," Tucker says around a mouthful of gummies. "Just spill it."

"It wasn't my fault," Danny whines, wilting against the lockers. Jazz's frown deepens, turning from disappointment into a full-blown pout. Left with no other choice, Danny relents. "Fine! But I'm telling you, he was asking for it."

He's about to expose his plans but stops when he catches their confused faces. "What?" he asks.

"Lancer was asking for it?" Sam asks. She leans against the lockers next to Danny, eyebrow raised.

"Lancer?"

"Yeah. Mikey told us what happened in philosophy class. And we told Jazz," Tucker says. "What do you think we're talking about?"

Danny thinks about his parents' new ecto grenade—completely harmless to humans, of course—rigged up in Dash's locker, ready to explode as soon as someone opens the door. "It's not important right now. Philosophy? I got an A, yeah. Awesome, right?"

"And you didn't tell me!" Jazz says, offended.

Oh, Danny thinks. That's why she looked disappointed. He doesn't know how he was supposed to tell her, though, because this is the first time he's seen her all morning.

"Dude, you didn't just get an A," Tucker says.

"Okay, A+."

"Dude."

Sam, exasperated, grabs Danny's shoulders and forcibly turns him toward her. "Mikey told us how Lancer stood up at the front of the class and said your paper was the best he'd ever read in that class."

"Oh." Danny's cheeks burn and he ducks his head. "Yeah. That."

When he turned the paper in last week, he honestly thought he would fail the assignment. The night before it was due, Cujo managed to dig his way out of the Ghost Zone again and immediately wanted to play. Danny was happy to oblige since, for once, he had all his homework done on time and there were no ghosts to take care of that night. The real trouble came when he had to go downstairs for dinner, leaving Cujo in his room with a stern reminder not to leave it.

Miraculously, Cujo obeyed the command. But that meant there was a bored, excitable puppy in Danny's room, alone, for almost an hour, with nothing to play with. His room hadn't been neat when he left it, but it was trashed by the time he came back. His backpack was particularly mangled, and his essay ripped to shreds.

Danny hadn't thought Lancer would accept "a ghost dog ate my homework," as an excuse for not having the assignment done. But he no longer had the library books he used to write the damn thing in the first place. Which meant he had to replace his typed, carefully referenced, well-thought out essay with a rushed, handwritten mess that consisted only of Danny's personal thoughts.

Suffice to say, he wasn't too confident in the new essay. The last thing he expected was to get a passing grade for it, much less actual praise. Danny doesn't get praise, not outside hero work, at least. He gets lots of sighs and disappointed looks. Maybe a stern, "This is proof you can do better," when he pulls a grade higher than a D. But not praise. Never praise.

"It was... something," Danny says. He doesn't usually get embarrassed by attention, although that doesn't necessarily mean he likes it either. But getting called out by Lancer in front of the whole class was an entirely new experience.

Before Lancer started handing out the papers, he had stood at the front of the class and waved the stack in the air.

"I have to say, I'm very impressed by the work some of you did. Very thoughtful," he started. "But there is one paper in particular that I would like to bring up."

Lancer shuffled through the stack, shifting everything around until a bundle of loose leaf ripped from a notebook sat on top. The pages were stapled poorly, and the handwriting was borderline illegible. Danny knew instantly it was his and expected the worst.

"This paper was, perhaps, the most insightful essay I've ever read in all my time teaching this class," Lancer said. He beamed in Danny's direction. "It was speculative, introspective, and intuitive. Written purely from the student's own thoughts on life and death. This is what philosophy is about, and I hope I can see similar work from the rest of you in the future."

Danny sank into his seat as Lancer walked down the aisle, heading right for him, and held his paper out.

"Thanks," Danny muttered, taking his assignment. He couldn't bear to lift his gaze and meet the burning stares of his peers. The worst part, though was when Lancer asked to see Danny at the end of the day.

"Are you gonna go?" Tucker asks.

"I don't know." Danny's grip on his backpack tightens as he thinks about the paper stuffed inside. "I'm not in trouble or anything, and it didn't really sound like I have to go."

"I think you should." Jazz reaches out and ruffles Danny's hair, smiling proudly at him. "You did good, little brother. You're smart, and Lancer knows that. Whatever he wants to talk to about, I'm sure it's good."

Danny grumbles, shoving Jazz's hand away and fixing his hair. He doesn't make it neat, but he messes it up the way he likes it to be messed up. There's a difference.

"I guess. As long as no ghosts interrupt, I'll go," Danny says. Jazz is right—she usually is, much to his chagrin. Whatever Lancer wants, after what he said about Danny's paper, it has to be good. But he still hopes the Box Ghost shows up so that Danny doesn’t have to go.

"Can I have my gummy bears back?" Danny asks, turning to Tucker.

Tucker, cheeks puffed with gummies, looks down at the empty bag. He slowly shakes his head. "I don't think you want them back."

—

Danny hesitates outside Lancer's door. The final bell rang five minutes ago, and most students have already fled the school grounds. The football team is still here, somewhere, because they have practice in half an hour. Everyone else is out front waiting for their buses. Jazz left in the initial crowd. Sam and Tucker offered to hang around and wait for him, but Danny waved them off and told them to go ahead. They have better things to do.

It crosses Danny's mind that he can lie to them. If he skips out and only tells them he talked to Lancer, they will probably accept it and leave it at that. Jazz might probe him a little about it, but if he acts annoyed about it, she'll stop. But he's being ridiculous. There's no real reason why he can't walk through this door right now and get this over with. Jazz is right. It's probably a good thing. But something about it sets Danny on edge.

Sighing heavily, he reaches out and knocks on Lancer's door, standing on his toes to peek through the window.

Lancer, sitting at his desk, grading a pile of new assignments, looks up. He sees Danny and smiles, waving him inside.

Danny pauses for a second, then turns the handle and steps into the room.

"Please, Mr. Fenton, close the door and take a seat," Lancer says.

Danny does as told, closing the door a little too hard, and shuffles over to the desk closest to Lancer's. Swinging his backpack off his shoulder, he sets it down on the floor beside him and slides into the chair.

While Lancer makes a few more notes on the paper in front of him, Danny scans the classroom. Sometimes it feels like he spends half his day in this room. Lancer teaches a surprising number of courses. Danny's almost impressed by the range. Little hints of each course are scattered throughout the room. A poster about calculating surface area by the window, a cartoonish timeline of US history along the top of the wall, aperiodic table taking up most of the back wall.

For philosophy, there's a collage of famous philosophers taped to the front of Lancer's desk. Danny thinks a former student made it, because it's just some images cut out and glued onto a stiff piece of poster board.

Danny stares at each face in the collage, trying to recognize them. Friedrich Nietzsche is the only one he can identify by name. The only reason Danny remembers him in the first place is his wild mustache. Hard to forget something like that.

"Mr. Fenton."

Danny's head snaps up, gaze jumping to Lancer.

"I'd like to congratulate you again for writing such a wonderful paper" Lancer says. "But I had a few questions."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Are you okay, Mr. Fenton?"

Danny blinks. "I– what?"

"In your paper, you spoke a lot about death, dying, and our perceptions of life now that we know there is some form of afterlife. Some of your points were rather... personal."

Danny thinks back over his paper. The moment he realized he had to make the whole thing up, he decided to talk about the one philosophical debate he was personally invested in: the significance of life after death. He mentioned his parents' views on the matter, that ghosts are mindless monsters, but mostly spoke about his own and what questions he had about it. Thanks to his personal experience with dying, he had a lot to talk about.

Lancer reaches for an open notebook sitting on his desk. Lifting it up, he scans the page for a moment, then reads, "'Some people falsely believe ghosts are not, and never were, human, but are instead creatures from another dimension connected to our own. While some ghosts definitely aren't human, I have met countless that were. They remember living and dying, and there is evidence of their human lives left behind. What does this mean for people who are still living? If we can die and nothing changes for us, does dying matter at all?'"

Danny immediately recognizes his own words. Lancer must have written down what Danny said in his essay. It makes him uncomfortable. He doesn’t want his thoughts lying around where anyone can read them. He especially doesn't want Lancer to pick and choose them at random for whatever this conversation is.

"That doesn't really sound personal," Danny mutters.

"No, it doesn't," Lancer agrees. "But the things you go on to say after this point are concerning, to say the least. Which brings me back to my original question. Are you okay?"

Danny's face scrunches as he thinks. So what if he got personal? It's a personal matter. That was the whole point when he wrote it. He doesn't understand what Lancer's getting at.

Lancer sighs and keeps going. "'Lots of people think about what happens after they die. Usually, they're talking about religion and what waits for them on the other side. Personally, I wonder about what happens to everything I leave behind, and what dying would do for me.' Would you like to expand on that?"

Danny leans away. "No?"

"What dying would do for you," Lancer repeats.

"What are you– oh." Finally, realization dawns on Danny. He squirms uncomfortably. "I'm not– I don't want to–"

He cuts himself off with a sight. How is he supposed to explain what's going on in his head without giving his secret away? Danny's not okay, but he isn't not okay, either. He's just... dead.

He died, but he lived, and it changed him. And yet, at the same time, nothing changed at all. In the grand scheme of things, Danny died and everything stayed the same. No one noticed, except his friends, who were there and are probably scarred for life.

Besides, Danny lived, in the end. So he's supposed to be fine, right? But he doesn't know how to deal with going through something that traumatic and realizing it didn't matter.

Ghosts look at life differently. They don't regret dying because once you're dead, whatever led up to that point no longer matters. They remember their lives, but they don't care about them. If Danny had died all the way that day, he wouldn't care either. Thinking about that messes him up.

Lancer watches him expectantly. Danny realizes he's been silent for too long, and he has to say something.

"It's complicated."

"We have the time, if you'd like to try," Lancer says.

Danny shakes his head. "I really don't. You don't need to be worried about me, or anything. I don’t want to die or anything. I just..."

My whole life is just one big existential crisis.

"Mr. Fenton." Lancer stands up, pushing away from his desk.

Danny keeps his eyes on the philosophy collage as Lancer approaches. Holding himself perfectly still, he doesn’t look away, even as Lancer crouches next to Danny's desk.

"Okay."

There's nothing special about the word, or the way Lancer says it. He has no clue what's going on in Danny's mind right now, but he's looking at Danny with warm eyes, offering him a comforting smile, and Danny actually feels like he could be okay.

"For whatever it's worth, Mr. Fenton, I don't think my days would be the same without you. But I understand."

He really doesn't, but Danny appreciates the effort.

"If this isn't something you'd like to talk about with me, I won't push it. Perhaps I could have approached you more delicately about the matter." Lancer pats Danny's shoulder. "I hope you will talk to someone, if you need it. And don't let this stop you from pursuing your interest in philosophy."

Danny doesn't have the heart tell Lancer he only took the class because he thought it would be easy.

"You have a knack for it."

"Um, thank you," Danny says.

Lancer pats him again, then stands. "Don't let me keep you. I'm sure, as you students would say, you have to get vibing."

Danny grimaces. "We really wouldn't."

Dismissed, he gathers up his backpack and practically sprints to the door, yanking it open. Halfway out, he pauses, looking back over his shoulder. Lancer is back at his desk already, resuming his grading.

"Thanks, Mr. Lancer," Danny says. "You're not really 'hip', but... you are kind of cool."

He runs out of the room before Lancer can respond. Lips pressed in a firm line, he contemplates whether today was good or bad after all. A+ on his essay? Good. Getting praised in front of the class? It sounded good, but it felt bad and it was awkward as hell. Tucker eating all his gummy bears? Definitely bad.

The talk he just had with Lancer? Debatable.

Danny rounds the corner, heading for the front doors, and almost barrels right into Dash. He swerves at the last second—thank you reflexes—and skitters out of Dash's way.

"Watch it, Fenfreak," Dash says.

Danny rolls his eyes. "You get more creative every day, Dash. Why are you even still here?"

"Practice tonight, duh," Dash says.

Right. Danny gives Dash a critical look. "Going to your locker?" he asks.

"My stuff's already in the gym, dweeb. Why do you care?"

"I just thought I saw Paulina put some in there early. Could have been a love letter or something." Danny shrugs.

An eager gleam enters Dash's eye. Danny almost feels sorry for the poor guy. He's probably the only person who can't tell Paulina is hopelessly in love with Star. Why else would Paulina say she can't date any boys because she's saving herself for the ghost boy? Seriously.

Dash runs for his locker, yanking it open. As a resounding bang echoes down the hall and green go splatters all over the walls, floor, ceiling, and Dash, Danny finally makes up his mind. Today is a very good day.

#phic phight #phic phight 2020 #tw discussion of death #danny phantom #danny phantom fanficion #phanfic #phicc #tumblroneshots #lancer is a good teacher #lancer bonding #sort of #dash gets pranked because why not

523 notes · View notes

phantomphangphucker · 4 years

Text

Ectober Day 8: Shackles - Weeping Flesh And Bone Chap.3: Got The Best Intentions

A man’s success is proven by his affect on the world and those around him. For a teacher that success is measured by how bright of a future path their students walk down. But sometimes that student’s brightest path is nothing but darkness and suffering. “I’ve got a hero living in me”

Lancer stiffens and pauses just before he’s going to open the fourth bandage when Daniel turns his head to the side and scrunches up his eyebrows. Daniel sighing after a bit, “alley, again?”, blinking and squinting up at the kitchen light, “not alley”. Then snapping his head to Lancer, making him cringe. Daniel shouldn’t be moving so much.

“Careful”, Lancer can’t find any other words at the moment, especially as Daniel pushes himself up slowly.

Daniel looks down to the damage, hair falling to cover his eyes, “I...”, glancing around the kitchen slowly, “did you... carry me the whole way?”, Daniel sounds genuinely baffled and that feels like a knife stab to the gut.

Lancer nods at him softly. Daniel scrunches up his eyebrows and looks back to him, “why?”.

Lancer knows full well that Daniel’s not asking why he brought him here specifically, but rather why he even bothered in the first place. “Because I care. And I’m going to tell you that as many times as it takes for you to believe me”. Especially now. Now that he knew it was so much worse then he could have imagined.

Daniel stares at him for a bit, confusion written across his face. Was it really so hard for the boy to believe someone could care? To believe that someone would see him and lend their hand instead of turning away from him? In a sort of sad miserable way Lancer understands. Because that’s exactly what everyone else had done. Had turned away from him. The way that makes his stomach clench only serves to make him feel more queasy.

Daniel looks away, to his stomach, and puts his hand over it, below the still open major wound, “you didn’t... have to do that. My body would have, uh, put itself back together eventually”. Lancer absolutely hates that he knows Daniel knows that for a fact.

“What’s done is done, and I’m not going to regret my choice”, thumbing the bandage in his fingers, “certainly this will at least help. Do you think you could lie back down?”.

Daniel gives him an incredibly confused look, “I don’t understand you”, but thankfully does lay down slowly. Lancer has a bad feeling that Daniel was not unused to someone patching him up.

Lancer speaks as he opens the bandage, wiping away a bit of blood that had seeped out of the wound due to Daniel jostling it, “you said that earlier”.

“Did I?”.

Lancer just nods, Daniel must have either been pretty out of it or blinded by pain to not remember. But it really hammers home just how much Daniel just couldn’t grasp someone wanting to be there for him.

Lancer hates how Daniel doesn’t so much as flinch as he works in silence to bandage the rest of his torso together.

He wants to ask who did this, how often this happened. But he said he wouldn’t, so he won’t. He won’t risk this small honesty, this small openness, like that. It was far too precious. It shouldn’t be. But it was.

Lancer speaks back up as he unrolls bandaging; Daniel pushing himself to sit up again like this is routine. “Careful”. Daniel gives him a small nod and looks off to the side while Lancer wraps him up, before moving to the burn cream for his shoulder. The injury looked minor enough that it would do him some good.

Daniel seemingly knows what he’s doing without having to look, which tells Lancer far more than the boy probably knows. “I don’t need that either”.

“You’re getting it”. Lancer is thankful that he doesn’t argue with him on that as he caps the small bottle. “Do you have any other injuries?”.

Daniel looks to him, seemingly studying him. Which tells Lancer the answer was ‘yes’ and Daniel was deciding whether to tell him or not. Lancer hopes to everything that Daniel takes the leap of faith.

“No”.

Lancer sighs but nods and doesn’t push. Pulling the gloves off his hands. “Would you be more comfortable on the couch? I don’t have a spare room, but-”.

Daniel doesn��t let him finish, sliding himself off the table to stand, “no that’s fine. I, uh, should probably head home”.

“I’d rather you didn’t”. Lancer makes a point to make eye contact, so that Daniel knows he means it. Knows he wants him to stay. Knows that he’s worried. So very worried.

Daniel scratches at his arm, effectively covering the bandaging pulled snug around his too-small frame, “I shouldn’t”. And Lancer knows this is him trying to protect others from being caught up in his life and problems again.

So Lancer tries a different tactic. “It would help me sleep at night”. Daniel cringes at that.

“I... okay”. Lancer doesn’t like how defeated that sounded. But that’s not something he can do anything about unfortunately, as he watches the boy walk himself over to the living room; finding the couch with ease.

Lancer decides, in that moment, that he’s cleaning out the storage room and heading to the local used store for a spare bed frame and mattress. Daniel’s home wasn’t a home anymore. But maybe, hopefully, Lancer could give him something of one if he ever let himself accept it. Even if it was only just one room. Lancer will put a deluxe first aid kit in there too. Maybe that will at least get him to come here when he gets hurt.

‘When’ not ‘if’.

Because Lancer knows better, especially now. Going to grab the boy a blanket or two and returning, eyeing the boys scarring as he hands them over. So much damage. And no one noticed. His friends had been with him through it and just... didn’t care or simply accepted it as ‘fate’. Now he understood the alcohol, cheap pain medication that caused less suspicion than keeping a collection of medications would.

Did Jasmine even know?

She had to. She was too observant not to. He doesn’t want to think about the implications of that. His parents... probably didn’t.

Right.

Daniel was, in some way, a ghost. Dead. And he lived with ghost hunters. He can’t help the way his stomach ties in knots over that. But he knows if he asks he won’t get an answer. So instead... “is it alright if I ask how you... died?”. A part of him needs to know. Has to. Could he have prevented it?

Daniel looks up from the couch at him, blankets adjusted to cover all but his head, “that’s, um, kinda rude to ask but... electrocution”. Lancer doesn’t miss how his eyes flicker green for a second. “One of my parents’ inventions”.

Lancer’s stomach drops at that. No. That was just so... wrong. Lancer never, never, wanted his worries, his fears, to be confirmed like this. Desperately didn’t. If he hadn’t just hoped, stupidly hoped, that Jasmine was fine so he would be too. Then maybe...

Daniel pulls his left hand out from under the blanket and blinks at it while opening and closing it. “It was my fault. I was messing around where I shouldn’t have been. With things I shouldn’t have been”. That, in Lancer’s opinion, didn’t make it better. A parent should never ever keep something that could kill their child where they could play with it. Lancer watches the boy's hand, feeling bile in his throat when he recognises the kind of scarring; he would have realised sooner if there weren’t so many others over top.

Lichtenberg figures.

And if memory serves him, they covered even his chest. The sheer amount of electricity that would require. Part of him wishes he hadn’t asked.

Swallowing, “I’m sorry. Do you... want anything? For the pain? Or to drink?”.

Daniel looks to him, pulling his hand back under the blanket, “don’t be. I accepted it a long time ago. And I’m not, uh, entirely dead”. Lancer can’t help the small relieved sigh at that. He’s not going to question the ‘how’, that shouldn’t be possible after all, instead he’ll take it for what it is. Daniel was alive. If Daniel noticed his relief he doesn’t show it. “And no. I’m fine. I don’t need anything. Just get some rest”.

Lancer sighs, “I should be telling you that”, but leaves the boy be regardless. Heading back into the kitchen to clean up as quietly as he can and prep the coffee machine for the morning. He had a gut feeling that Daniel was thirsty, but just didn’t want to be an inconvenience. At least this way he can make coffee when it’s closer to morning for Daniel and pass it off as wanting some himself.

Lancer lets a small smile spread across his face when he checks up on Daniel, having gotten everything cleaned. He was sound asleep. And Lancer couldn’t be happier over that. Even if he was also sad.

So very sad.

If he had done things differently. If he did less worrying and more doing. Then maybe Daniel wouldn’t be like this. Wouldn’t be here. Maybe he would still look at the stars like he would own them one day and be well on his way to doing just that. Instead of partly dead and seemingly bound to whatever was hurting him so.

But second-guessing himself does no good. All he could hope to achieve by doing that was making Daniel feel bad for him again. And he refuses to do that to the boy.

So instead he’ll just try to be there enough to keep the rest of him alive and the ghost part from ‘fading’. He’ll do what he can in the ways that he can. And he’ll just have to hope that someone else will do everything in the ways that he can’t. And that Daniel will let them.

It takes only a few hours for the sun to begin to rise. Lancer glances to the clock and starts up the coffee, him and Daniel would need to get ready for school soon. He wants to tell the boy to stay. To rest. But he knows he won’t. Lancer has a bad feeling he’s gone to school after suffering worse.

He leaves Daniel’s cup on the side table before heading up to get ready himself. Staring at his showers wall as the water falls. The water felt good, but it did little for his mind. This forsaken town. Ghosts. Ghost hunters. Lancer can’t help but think that maybe everything would be better if none of it existed. But Daniel said he was okay with his... death. And surprisingly...

Lancer believes him.

But heading back down the stairs, Lancer’s not surprised that Daniel’s gone; the mug empty. But he can’t help the way it makes him sigh and slump down into his old weathered recliner. Rubbing his tired forehead.

He’s also not surprised that when he sees Daniel at school later that day, the boy acts like nothing ever happened.

But...

He doesn’t say ‘no’ when Lancer offers to go get coffee with him.

End.

54 notes · View notes

ziracona · 3 years

Text

Been a hot minute, but I have like three segments ready to go one after the other, so I’m taking it as a win. Here’s the first!

The Kid (pt: 1, … 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, ?) [Fate Grand Order AU]

A flurry of arrows slams into the wall just past me, blowing a hole in it the size of a person, and I pivot and sling myself through.

“Here!” I call, skidding to a stop just long enough to bolster a surge of mana and take a shot at the ceiling. I roll out of the way of falling debris, and Emiya slides into the room and past me, springing off the debris as it hits and leaping up onto the next floor.

Robin and King David come dashing in the room after, and as soon as I see they’ve cleared the doorway, I leap up too. Emiya and I are both in the air when the other two clear the floor, and that bone thing crashes through the wall below and bursts up through the ceiling, snapping at us.

It's close—it’s too close. I hear screams around me but don’t have time to look yet, send a burst of bullets into that thing’s mouth as swords appear out of nowhere around Emiya and launch themselves at the yokai. The force is enough to slow it, and Robin and King David land safely on the floor as Emiya and I do too.

More screaming. There’s humans on this floor. Lots of humans. I see big groups of guards—maybe fifty people, on my left. Another squad about the same size on the right and running this way, but at a distance. People in business suits and more in lab coats litter the floor, those close to the explosion we just made dragging themselves back to their feet and fleeing, those further away not even looking back to help fellow workers before doing the same, all desperate to avoid the thing dragging its massive body out onto the floor. I see a guy close by in the rubble, trying to pull himself away from the bone monster and failing—he must’ve been right above us when I shot the floor, because it looks like a chunk of shrapnel from the explosion got him in the leg, and he can’t make it up.

However human Robin smells from Ritsuka’s hair tie, the man has to smell 18x as real, and the gashadokuro turns its hungry, empty eyes on him.

I’m really tempted. To just watch it eat him. I haven’t ever seen this guy before as far as I know, but a lot of the time I didn’t have the strength to lift my head high enough to see anything but dress shoes. Whoever he is, he’s got a name card and a lab coat. He works here. He’s doing this to us. That’s more than enough reason. I still got my own memories real fresh, and what I saw of Robin and King David and the Lancer guy.

The gashadokuro opens its mouth and snaps, force there to rip his head off his body so it can drink his blood. I get there first, hand on the back of his collar, and fling him down the hall on my right with so much force he goes about three yards, hits the ground, and rolls.

Angry at missing its snack, the monster turns on me and makes a sound like a roar without a voice behind it, and takes a swipe with its giant hand. I leap out of the way, ricochet off a wall, and land crouched on its other side firing from the hip into the back of its skull.

The second one erupts through the floor down the hall, not by us. Shit—must have smelled the humans. It’s on top of the group of fifty or so guards and I hear bursts of gunfire and screams.

“Shit!” calls Robin out loud. King David’s already past him, positively rocketing down the hall. He darts right into the center of the group, and I hear his harp for a second, then lose sight of him. The gashadokuro snags a human with its huge hand, but as it tries to lift him, somehow the man, to both their surprise, slips through his fingers. Gotta be King David, I think, impressed, and I take a shot at its hand, knocking it away from a second target.

“I’ll go with him,” calls Robin, “You two take this one!” and he’s gone then too, running up onto a wall and springing off it, taking shots from his crossbow as he gets close. I almost miss a swipe the monster by us makes, but I hear the sound of the wind through its fingers and roll out of the way. I riddle its hand with a cylinder worth of bullets, but the damn bone regrows a second after splintering—these things are infuriating to fight.

Above it, Emiya summons a longbow and takes a big shot at its skull, and the whole thing explodes, fragments of bone going everywhere, but its already rebuilding by the time he lands, and he’s breathing hard now.

“We running out of mana?” I ask him mentally, a little worried myself.

“We’re pushing it,” he replies, and I can hear the tension.

The gashadokuro drags itself completely out onto the floor and goes crawling after the fleeing people on the right, towards Emiya. He curses and summons his bow and fires at its oncoming form, but it barely slows down.

Ah shit.

“Hey!” I call.

There’s a sudden burst of bullets and I stop, halfway to calling out my noble phantasm, staring at the myriad of holes in Emiya’s chest. He flinches, and looks down at them in a very real mixture of surprise and disgust, and turns to look at the fleet of guards still heading this way.

They shot him. Unbelievable. We’re slowing these things down and keeping them from getting eaten, and they fuckin’ shot at him.

He vanishes, and reappears beside me, the lancer still slung over one shoulder, a grimace on his face and blood running down his chest. I look at him in surprise, then turn and watch with him as the yokai with no real interest in us tears off in an awful crawl in a space too small for something this massive, after the squadron of guards realizing their mistake, and the staff trying to flee past them.

Uh. So. Are you just…letting it eat them now…or?

He glances over at me and lets out a breath, then turns to watch the monster again. It starts to get close. I can see the guy I threw earlier, just barely made it to the front of the guard line, but not past. This thing is going to destroy all of them, and a pretty big part of me really wants to let it. But, I promised, and I raise my pistol.

“Hold on,” says Emiya.

I glance over, and his expression is hard. “I want to put the fear of God in them. If we don’t scare them, they’ll never unsummon that thing. Wait until the last possible second, and aim for the head.

He flicks his wrist and his longbow appears in one hand, a sword in the air, which he takes and pulls back like an arrow as I watch. “I’ll get whatever hand it picks someone up with.”

I nod, aim, and wait.

There’s endless bursts of suppressing fire from the guards, screams and shouts. Fear and desperation—from behind us where King David and Robin are, and in front. Shit, hope they didn’t shoot Robin or King David too.

“You gonna be okay?” I ask, glancing at the blood still running down his chest.

“Yes, it isn’t dangerous, but I can’t afford to patch it up yet.”

He’s right. We’re all running deadly thin on mana.

Which sucks, because leaving the wound’s gotta hurt like hell. We do what we gotta though.

Okay. Ready. Steady… I keep my eyes fixed on the yokai as it gets closer and closer to the line of armed guards. It reaches them, hungry jaw open and grinning, empty black nothing of eyes perusing food with hate and hunger. It whips out a hand and snags two at once, and I hear people calling to each other and panicked shouts, more gunfire.

“Now,” says Emiya.

“Time for a duel—One bullet, and I’m gonna lay you flat! Draw!” I call out my phantasm, feeling the mana from Ritsuka flood from her into my body and then burst out as an unparalleled shot from my colt.

My noble phantasm goes off like a bolt of lighting, tearing through the hall and into the thing’s head, rupturing its skull and the top of its spine and sending it collapsing against the ground. At the same moment, Emiya lets his sword fly and the hand holding two captives explodes in a shower of bone, and the men hit the floor gasping for breath with probably some bruised ribs and definitely, like Emiya had hoped, the fear of God in them. As a mass, everyone in the hall there—guards, staff, they all turn and run, firing as they go.

I lower my gun. Then immediately raise it again as the thing’s skull begins to reform, and while it still only has half a skull, it turns its head to roar at us.

Ah shit.

Beside me, I hear an unexpected voice groan, and remember that Emiya is still hauling the lancer around on his shoulder. I look over and see the guy open his eyes slowly, still hanging limp over Emiya’s chest, and then lift his head a little and squint at the room ahead. His expression changes. “Oh what the fuck is that,” he says, looking for Emiya and taking a second to realize he’s slung over his shoulder, but finding him pretty quick. “Did you all actually manage to make the situation worse while I was out?”

“Well, we’re actually doing okay,” I answer for him, “We got both gashadokuro onto a floor far away from Ritsuka, and we’re hoping they got a way to unsummon them.”

The lancer turns his head to look back at the bone monster. It has decided hating us is less important than wanting to eat any human it can find, and is crawling after the fleeing Ur-shanabi staff again.

“Do we follow I guess?” I check with Emiya, snagging a quick look over my shoulder for King David and Robin. I can see both. They’ve managed to embed their yokai in the wall, and the civilians and security staff on that side of the hall are fleeing as well while it’s slowed down. It’s already dragging itself back out though, and it’s definitely going after, so we’re all in about the same position.

“Hm,” he replies with a nod, deep in thought himself.

“Why are you pouring blood?” asks the lancer, staring blearily at Emiya’s chest.

“The guards shot him,” I reply, starting to run after the monster.

Emiya takes off too, and I hear the lancer call out, “Hey—you can put me down! I’m awake—I can walk!”

“Can you?” asks Emiya in a very interesting tone of voice, and he dumps the lancer on the ground without looking. The lancer curses and tries to drag himself up, and I pause to make sure he can, when something happens. It’s hard to describe—it’s like getting the breath knocked out of me, except on some deeper level. Almost like getting faint but really, really fast. I stumble and almost trip, barely catching myself with a hand against the hall wall. Just ahead of me, Emiya stumbles too, and skids to a stop and turns, eyes on the lancer. The guy isn’t moving.

“Shit,” whispers Emiya, reaching his side again in an instant and stooping beside his body, “You okay?” he asks me.

“Yeah. Little…dizzy, I think,” I say, “But okay.” What…? I feel it hit me. The only thing it can be. Ritsuka!

I reach out with my senses and try to find my master. This should be easy—we’re supposed to always be able to find them, so we can go to their side and protect them.

I can’t sense her.

Shit.

Okay okay—she’s alive! I can still feel the contract in effect, so she isn’t dead! But she’s somewhere I can’t see, and she must have just used—wait. Right, two possibilities. A little relieved, I look back to King David and Robin, and my heart sinks, because even from here, I can see no traces of Robin’s phantasm, and they’re both stopped too, like Emiya and me—talking and looking confused. Crap. Crap nobody else used mana then. Which means Ritsuka did. But why? Defending herself?

“I can’t find her,” I tell Emiya tensely.

He looks up at me with a kind of frozen alarm, and I can tell he’s trying himself, to find her. “Shit,” he whispers again, looking at me, but hand still on the lancer’s chest.

“He’s alive?” I ask.

“Just almost out of mana,” confirms Emiya, lifting him up and slinging him over his shoulder again. The guy groans and mutters something unintelligible. Emiya seems relieved by that. “He’ll probably be up again in a minute.

“Hey—We can’t sense Ritsuka,” comes Robin’s voice in our heads, tense.

“We can’t either,” I reply.

“The mana drop just now was from her,” adds Emiya mentally to all of us, “Something’s wrong—We need to move, now. –Those things are Ur-shanabi’s problem. We’re finding the kid.”

#the kid #the kid (fic)#fate grand order #fate go #fate go fic #fate go au #fate fic #fate #billy the kid #emiya archer #fate robin hood #fate king david #fate billy the kid #writing

3 notes · View notes

fuwafuwamedb · 3 years

Text

The Pup Was Collateral (Rin, Setanta(Cu Chulainn))

The day was slow.

The rain was coming down slowly, the sound of Emiya cooking in the other room could be heard as she flipped through another magecraft book in her hands. The familiar was really getting the hang of taking care of many of the menial tasks around the house while she focused on her reading. There was a vast and colorful garden outside, blooming away despite the dreary brick and mortar outside.

Not a sound other than chopping or the occasional clatter here and there of pots and kitchen supplies being moved could be heard. Sometimes she’d flip the page of the text in her hands, earning that soft sliding sound of paper sliding against paper. At other times, she could hear the fabrics of the couch as she adjusted once more to find a better sitting position.

Everything was peaceful.

That was how everyone wanted their day off from school and magecraft studies to be, wasn’t it? She could look at the writing before her and really focus in on what was important.

That is- if she could focus at all.

As it to mock her, Rin couldn’t help but to rub at her sore gaze. A soft sigh comes out, marking the first noise she’s uttered since awakening and bringing her teacup to the living room.

It was her birthday.

Something should have been going on during her birthday. Whether it was an exciting visit from friends and frenemies or simply just a gift from the Mages Association, marking that she was 18, an adult by European terms; something should have been going on.

Hell, she’d waited for a full hour in the kitchen for her Archer, Emiya, to say something.

The man had scrubbed countertops instead.

What was she supposed to do if the whole day continued like this?! Was she to just shrug it off, focus her energies on other things like more magecraft or planning another shopping trip? Was she supposed to beg and plead for someone to spend time with?!

God, but she wouldn’t demean herself to such a manner. If they couldn’t bother to spend time with her or acknowledge that she was present and celebrating life, then good riddance.

Her books closed, the layers of this vexing mood worsening as she glances to the dark skies and downpour of rain.

Going outside and adventuring forth was an option and it certainly sounded good, but not in this kind of weather. She didn’t want to be bothering with carrying an umbrella and shopping goodies, not when it would require telling Archer that she had no plans or friends coming.

…

It was probably a really bad plan.

A terrible plan, indeed- she really didn’t need to be wandering down to her magecraft room in the basement, looking over her father’s surviving possessions and eyeing the circle. It’s a worse plan to be moving to said circle and trying her hand at speaking Archer’s least favorite language to said circle. Those words, at worst, were the same ones she’d used to summon her familiar.

The old form of Gaelic comes out so nicely after so much practice. The room begins to gain wind, brushing papers from shelves and dust up from the corners were no broom dared to tread. She can feel the warmth radiating forth, the light glowing brighter and brighter from the circle. The hairs on the back of her neck rise up as her breathing halts. Her eyes widen a second before-

A whiteout.

The blast of golden white light blinds her for a moment, nearly destroying the fluorescents in the basement as she falls to her knees. All that dust seems to have come straight to her, making her cough and cover her mouth.

“Ah, master, you look a little green there.”

Why does she know that voice?

A pair of arms wrap around her before she can look up. The servant she’d summoned, a bit taller than her, is wrapping his arms around her, patting her back.

His blue hair falls into view as Rin opens her eyes.

“Easy now, Master. Better in and out rather than one or the other.”

Her eyes meet a crimson gaze.

All the words she could have possibly said to the servant vanish.

“…Lancer?”

“Saber,” the boy corrects, “but I could see how you’d get confused. It’s the staff, ain’t it? Or maybe you’ve met me before?” The smile- god, but it’s worse than before. The boy smiles like all the world is in his hands. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Setanta. I know some people call me Cu Chulainn, but I’m a little immature for that title, you know?”

A bark comes from nearby. Her heart takes flight in her chest as Setanta laughs.

“And how could I forget my great companion? What are you doin’ there, pup? We got a cute girl here with us! Make yourself look good now, come on.”

He moves to squat, puffing up his chest at the beast of an animal sitting on her floor over the summoning circle.

“That’s a good lad, proud stance. We’re in a lady’s home now. We’ll find you a nice bone and make sure you don’t ruin any of her good linens. If I see you so much as lift a foot…”

The pup whines.

Setanta laughs, “I’m messing with ya, but don’t do that, got it?”

“He understands you?”

“Huh? Oh man, you have such a voice,” Setanta’s smile seems to bloom back into fruition, his eyes gleaming. “Yeah, my pup’s pretty good at understanding shit-stuff going on.”

The correction comes with a sheepish look.

“If you want, you can pet him. He’s real sweet. I swear he won’t bite.”

“He’s a wild animal.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty great.”

The strange flutter is back in her chest.

Rin’s not even sure what to make of it as she finds the Cu Chulainn of youth moving to her side, pulling her back to the beast and reaching her hand out.

“Cu-“

“Setanta,” he corrects. “Just call me Setanta. And you’re doing great, see?”

“He’s deciding whether to eat me.”

Those beady eyes were looking at her a little too much as Setanta holds her hand out. The longer they wait, the more she finds herself debating how hard it would be to quickly burn the man before Archer comes down and finds out what she’s done. It won’t take him long to notice.

A decision forms as she thinks. A pink tongue, right out of the fluffy white pup’s mouth, comes forth, lapping at her hand.

“Awww, he loves you too.”

“Too?”

“Of course,” Setanta replies. He slips a bit closer, his face moving in before she can do anything.

A kiss, soft and sweet, taps at her cheek.

“You stole my love away first, my faelike beauty of a master. The pup was collateral.”

#drabble #drabbles #sometimes the best gifts are the ones we give ourselves

13 notes · View notes

blackevermore · 3 years

Text

x Secrets of The Lake: The Company of Misery and Pain

{ Chapter 10 }

Summary: Vladimir Masters’ family tree has always been tainted by secrets swept under the rug. From generation to generation there have been countless reasons the Masters’ family had seemed to keep private from the public. Even to this day, Vladimir was no exception. But what was one to do when a restless spirit from the settlement years finally breaks free from restraints and demands you answer for your ancestor’s crimes? Vladimir doesn’t know. However, Clockworks does.

Notes: We just having fun, rewriting some of the canon, new adventure new characters. I will apologize now for any grammar, spelling, weird sentence structuring in advance. My brain writes faster than my fingers and even when I go back through to reread it I still miss things. Sorry about that!

Word Count: 5086

P.s: I feel like this chapter is shit :/ but we honestly have to keep going!!

Danny could feel it, Sam could feel it because Danny could feel it, and Tucker could only feel it because Sam told him via passing a note. Something was wrong or something was going to be wrong. Danny had kept it to himself all morning up until lunch. The annoying feeling like he should probably skip class and fly around to make sure everything was okay itched away at the back of his head.

“Okay so lemme get this straight, Vlad is currently keeping a ghost at his house that Clockwork told him was coming to haunt him from the past. He has to deal with it or something bad will happen in the future?” Sam recapped and Danny only nodded as he bit into his sandwich.

“Not gonna lie Vlad did give off that energy his family owned slaves,” Tucker muttered and Sam kicked him under the table. “What?! Come on I mean....come on.”

“I said the same thing Tuck,” Danny chuckled and rested his face in his palm. “But he insisted they didn’t and this ghost was purely a paid-ish servant. But whatever, she’s here and lemme tell ya she’s got this crazy power that changes your emotions. Yesterday after finally getting her down I almost punched Vlad for breathing.”

“You should have done it anyway and played it off.” Sam smirked and poked at her salad. “I still don’t like the guy.” She sighed and pushed her food away, not really feeling hungry.

“I don’t blame you, but I assure you he’s not the same person anymore. Same antics but now in an Addams family uncle way. Plus Dani and him playhouse and I think that actually made him become better. We haven’t fought in almost two years so I say that adds up to something.” Danny smiled and Sam only nodded along and shrugged. Danny knew it would take Sam a few more years to wrap her head around Vlad actually laying off and doing something else with his life. Hell, it took Danny by surprise when everything suddenly took a turn and both of them were outed out as halfas.

Danny actually felt like he had a friend to help take the blow with when it came to explaining to his parents about everything. Vlad had stood as his rock and that was enough for Danny to consider Vlad really was changing. Guess he finally grew up. Danny chuckled at his own joke then turned to Tucker. Tucker was a lot more laid back about the whole thing, of course, he was also ready to throw down if Vlad tried his shit, but if Danny felt safe, so did he. But it’s always been like that and that's why they got in trouble the most and Sam was the brains of the group.

“I just have a bad feeling.” Danny turned away from his friends and looked around them. Danny tried to single out if the feeling was coming from any of his peers. High school was filled to the brim with overly emotional teenage hormones that rubbed off on each other. Maybe Danny picked up some cheerleaders' manic panic feelings when he walked past them this morning. Or maybe it was the game club’s mourning from their loss last week, Danny understood that especially when he and his friends lost their games. “But it's not a ‘Vlad’s planning something dangerous’ bad, just an ‘oh no’ bad.” Danny sighed and ruffled his own hair to distract himself. He was tired and stressed out about school and life in general, he didn’t need anything else, mudding up the last of his managing teenage mind. Sam was quick to change the topic to something more fun and Tucker quickly took the chance to show off a new feature he tweaked on his phone.

Danny only half listened as he continued to watch people and drown out from the rest of the world. That was quickly cut short when a fire truck raced quickly past the school and busted left down an avenue and headed off into the distance.

“Who sets stuff on fire at 11:30 in the morning?” Sam snickered.

“It’s almost 12, they waited long enough,” Tucker added which made the girl laugh and Danny nodded with a smile. Danny was about to make the following joke but his phone dinged with a message. He pulled it out and his face nearly turned white as he saw it was Dani.

Phantom 2: Fire Truck just shot past me and their heading towards dad’s

Phantom 1: Shouldn’t you be in class...

Phantom 2: Wrong response…...FIRETRUCK HEADING TO MASTERS HOUSE!

Danny slammed his phone down and grabbed the sides of his head. His friend's small conversation was brought to a halt and they looked at him. Danny groaned and stood up and one command so did Sam and Tucker to do what they did best and cover Danny so he could transform and take off. They were seniors and yet the ol’ ‘cover me guys’ was still strong in their blood.

“Be back before last period or Lancer will be on your ass.” Tucker winked and Danny rolled his eyes before turning invisible and taking off. His friends couldn’t see him but they could take a guess which way he was going. Tucker turned to Sam and hummed before putting his hands on his hips.

“Should we follow him?” The geek asked the goth.

“You just don’t wanna present in Econ next period.” Sam rolled her eyes and sat back down at the table, now feeling the urge to finish her salad.

“You do most of the talking anyway, I’m just there to flip the slides.” Tucker shot Sam finger guns and the girl only smirked and shook her head.

It took Danny no time to make it to Vlad’s home and see two windows had been blown out on the top floor and pink and purple smoke mixed together piling high into the air. Neighbours on either side of Vlad were out of their house and watching in worry. Danny could hear the firetruck getting close. Danny began to cough as the smoke got into his lung, he lowered himself and quickly shot inside the house to see what was going on. When he landed in the bedroom hallway and quickly started to check the rooms. When he got to the end of the hallway he saw the anti ghost bars were turned off and Tayonna was gone. There was a fire in her room and busted windows.

“Oh shit,” Danny whispered then felt the floor rumble from below. He sank through the floor and was almost hit with a pink blast. Danny barely missed it as it flew past his head and quickly dove down to the floor. He turned visible and made cover as another blast flew over his head. Danny looked up from the floor and saw Plasmius dodging another attack and Tayonna still in her human form standing firm on the ground. Tayonna held purple flames in the palm of her hands and a giant ring of flames surrounding her.

“Tayonna stand down!” Plasmius yelled and fired a fireball towards Tayonna who reflected it with one of her own.

“You no longer tell me what to do Vladan!” Tayonna rose her hands towards the air and conquered three ectoblast that was set ablaze

“For the last time, my name isn’t Vladan!” Plasmius yelled and blasted one of the fireballs Tayonna held steady. Danny could tell Vlad was slowly reaching his limit of tolerance. It was likely Tayonna tried her mind junk on the man and it backfired terribly. Tayonna threw down her hands to send off the last two she had. Plamsius shot down the second one then took hold of the last one and threw it back. Tayonna wasn’t prepared for the returning attack and it hit her in the chest, sending her falling to the floor. The girl groaned and tried to push herself to the side to get back up but Plasmius shot at her again.

Tayonna must have sensed it and threw her arm back to create a line of fire around her to stop the blow. She slowly stood up and stepped back before doing a digging motion that created lines of electricity to shoot across the floor and upward to where Plasmius stood. Being as fast as the older ghost was, he simply teleported away before any of the bolts could hit him. He teleported right in front of the girl ready to shoot her back but Tayonna was faster and like a glitch she was inches away from him, placing both of her hands on his chest and with full strength shot him back with purple static.

The cry of plain Plasmius let out told Danny that the attack was more than he was ready for. Plasmius was slammed against the door and Dany was happy he didn’t go through it. Tayonna began to float into the air doing the blurry ghostly movements Danny saw at the pond. Danny thought quickly and reached for the thermos, he was so happy he always kept that bad boy strapped, and unclasped it and sucked Tayonna in. The girl turned at the feeling of being pulled and let out a horrendous scream as she was dragged into the dark void. Within seconds she was sucked in and Danny was making sure the lid was on as tight as it could go. Danny quickly hurried over to Plasmius as the older halfa pulled himself from the door and rolled to his knees. The same creepy red mist fell out of Vlad’s mouth and the man let out an ugly fit of coughs.

“What the hell happened?!” Danny didn’t mean to raise his voice but in a fit of panic it did and Plasmius only groaned and pushed himself up by a knee. Once standing Plasmius turned back into Vlad and the older man couldn’t help but clench his chest. “How did she get out? Who let her out? Vlad, you didn’t let her out, did you? Why would you-”

“Shut up!” Vlad yelled and pushed the boy away in annoyance. “Get out of here before they break down my door and see you.” Vlad turned away from Danny and tried to look less in pain than he already was. Danny frowned and grumbled about Vlad being a dick and shoved the thermos towards Vlad. At first, the man was confused but took it anyway before turning another cold shoulder to Danny.

“You have to answer me later!” Danny yelled before shooting through the roof and up into the sky. The firefighters had just broken down the door and neighbours were gasping as they saw Vlad being pulled out of the house. Danny stayed a while to make sure nothing else crazy happened before he heard the sound of his phone ding. It was Sam telling him to hurry up, last period was in 20 minutes. Danny shoved his phone in his pocket and rocketed back towards his school. He knew he would have to come up with some other ghost fighting excuse for why he missed two periods when he got home. Danny told himself he needed a break. He needed a break so he could make it to graduation and to sweet sweet summer break.

Danny was already checking his phone for a news update for the incident at Vlad’s house. But there was nothing. Surely the people of Amity would know if their former mayor’s house went up in flames. It surely knew when Vlad’s ass was all over the news. Danny told Sam and Tucker he wouldn’t be walking home with them but to make sure Dani got home safe. When he got out of school he still had to serve a hour long detention from Lancer for something he already forgot about. Danny made his way through the air to Vlad’s to check up and see what happened after he left.

Danny stood right outside the house invisible, everything was quiet, the smoke from the upstairs windows was gone. When Danny made it up to the front door he noticed it was no longer busted off the lock. It was fixed as if the events of today didn’t even happen. Danny ghosted inside and gasped, the whole foyer was cleaned and just as fancy as it was when Vlad first moved to town. Danny could see his reflection in the marble floor which he couldn’t the day before. Danny flew upstairs and even the stairs had been clean.

“Vlad?” Danny called out hoping that maybe the older halfa would be lurking around. Danny poked his head through a few doors and saw no sign that Vlad could even be home. He got to the bedrooms and checked those and still no Vlad to be found. Danny did notice however the guest room Tayonna was in was cleaned and the windows were brand new. Danny poked his head into the room but didn’t sense anything, not even Tayonna’s ungodly emotional pulls.

Danny looked around once more just to double check himself but no one seemed to be home. He was about to give up and fly home until he heard the sound of stuff slamming coming from below. Danny moved with caution as he went to Vlad's basement. Down below Vlad sat at a worn down chair tapping away at a computer with the thermos next to him. Ghost scattered around the place rebuilding screens and some of the portal that was broken by Tayonna. Danny landed on his feet and quickly ducked as a ghost flew over him with a monitor in hand.

“Good to see you back, little badger,” Vlad called over his shoulder as he continued to type away.

“How did you-”

“Simple,” Vlad spun around and leaned back in his chair. Danny’s face turned to confusion before he narrowed his eyes and shook his head. As long as it wasn’t actually hurting anyone Danny could turn a blind eye to it. “After I got everyone to leave and nearly all the news anchors to pretend they never had a story. I had to get the place fixed up and I really didn’t feel like calling anyone. Besides, we have wonderful handymen in the Ghost Zone.” Vlad didn’t seem to be in the ugly mood he was in earlier, Danny could see in his eyes there were still traces of annoyance and maybe the typical Vladness, but not anger. It almost seemed like Vlad was in a better mood and Danny wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or if he could quickly punch the man to double check.

“Has she been in there the whole time?” Danny pointed over to his thermos and Vlad sighed and nodded.

“I wasn’t letting her out again.” The man grumbled and spun back around towards the computer.

“Again? So you did let her out.” Danny walked closer and picked up the thermos making sure Vlad hadn’t started poking at it. Vlad ran a hand over his hair and nodded looking almost ashamed he had to admit he caused the problem.

“I was curious of how far her mimicking powers could go and as soon as I asked-”

“Seems more like you to command than ask.” Danny corrected.

“As I asked her to do it again she refused, then the red mist showed up and jumped down my throat and before I knew it I was reaching out towards her and grabbed her arm. Then of course you showed up and saw where that led us.” Vlad rubbed his throat a bit then cleared it. A bit more of the mist flew from his mouth and Vlad waved it away angrily. “Blasted thing.”

“Is this mist also a ghost?” Danny tried to sense if the mist was around or not. It seemed like it was gone at the moment and Danny sighed. Danny knew whatever it was that now clung to Vlad like Tayonna had an important role in this mess as well.

“I don’t believe it’s a ghost. It’s more so like dead ghost memories that follow her. It could be what makes her restless and has manifested into a physical form.” Vlad rubbed his chin and held out his hand for the thermos. Danny was slow on handing it over but finally caved. Vlad was about to untwist the top but Danny quickly shot out his hands and stopped him.

“Whoa, what are you doing?! She almost set your place on fire and now you're gonna let her out, again?” Vlad quickly snatched the gadget away from the boy and pointed behind him. Danny turned his head and saw a ghost trap on the floor already set up and ready to go. Danny hadn’t realized that he almost stepped in it. Would have been great if Vlad had just said to move out the way or something.

“She’s not going to cause any more trouble once I get this on her.” Vlad reached over and pulled the drawer open and pulled out a collar.

“So you’re gonna do the collar thing again, that’s totally gonna get her on your side.” Danny crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. He couldn’t help the faint sting and itch around his neck as memories of being in the collar himself flashed through his head. Danny should have known Vlad would keep the damn thing even after Danny broke it.

“I defused the shocking system, all it will do is make her as powerless as possible. That means even her emotional mind games. She will be as human as she’s pretending to be.” Vlad handed Danny the collar to hold as he fiddled with the thermos to get it open. Danny eyed the thing and repeated Vlad’s words in his head. And with three easy seconds, he had a monkey brain moment and snapped the thing around his neck. Danny felt his powers get pulled back inside his body and his core shut down as he collapsed to the ground and turned human. Vlad snapped towards the boy and palmed his face in disbelief. Vlad quickly gave the command for the collar to release and Danny shot back up holding his breath. The teen tried to play it off like he wasn’t caught red handed playing around.

“I’m good...we gucci.” Danny shrugged and blushed from embarrassment. Vlad rolled his eyes and picked up the collar once more and handed it to Danny with a silent ‘stop playing’ and turned back to the anti ghost circle. Vlad popped off the lip and flipped the switch to release and pressed down on the button. A bright blue glow sprung to life from within the container and Tayonna was shot out to the ground. She was discombobulated as she held her head, slowly blinking and looking around. When she turned and saw Vlad and Danny she got to her feet and flicked her wrist to activate her powers.

When she didn’t see the glow of purple she looked down at her hands and back up to Vlad with anger. Vlad tried not to meet her in the eyes but there was something alluring about them and he couldn’t pull away. He strongly regretted it when he saw how angry she was and how angry he became suddenly. His anger rose as he thought about the years he spent in the hospital alone. The anger he still held against Jack and the fact he himself didn’t have the honour of marrying Maddie.

Vlad almost lost himself in the anger until he felt Danny nudge him. He snapped his neck towards Danny and the poor boy jumped back as Vlad’s eyes faded from blue to a red void and back again. Vlad blinked a few times then covered his face to get away from Tayonna’s sight. When he felt himself calm down with the help of counting down from ten he turned back towards the boy and pointed towards the collar.

“Yeah well, how are we supposed to get it on?” Danny whispered and Vlad groaned as he hadn’t thought about that.

“Fudge muffins.” Vlad closed his eyes and sat back down in his chair. He knew he couldn’t simply ask her to wear it without having to wrestle her down to the floor. Which threatens the chance of them rolling out of the circle and her being able to use her ghost powers. Vlad didn’t have time for his lab to be ruined all over again as it was nearly finished. Vlad had to think of something that could possibly trick the ghost into wearing it.

“Tayonna,” Vlad called out to her calmly and that seemed to confuse not only her but Danny. “Let’s make a deal.” Vlad didn’t wait for a yes or a no as he stood up and crossed his arms behind his back and walked to stand right in front of the girl. He left himself open as he locked eyes with her again. Either he would end up yanking the collar from Danny and getting it around her neck while dealing with false emotions. Or in the low chance he managed to get her to back off and be compliant he would simply snap the thing around her. It seemed that the former would be the winner until she started to breathe heavily, her brows turned upward in sadness and she finally backed away from him. She lowered her head and turned away. Vlad fought the smirk that laced itself across his lips and kept them pressed tight.

“What do you want?” Tayonna asked, not above a broken whisper. Vlad held out his hand to Danny and the boy handed him the collar.

“You will wear this collar and we can actually speak like civilized people. Or you will stay down here in the basement in this small circle until you can be civilized.” Vlad held up the collar with an open hand and waited for the ghost to turn towards him. It wasn’t much of a deal and he knew it but whatever had to be done would be done. He could see the way her hand slowly inched up her dress and he tsked a few times. “If you try that again I will not hesitate to rip you apart molecule by molecule. I don’t take playing with my core lightly.” Vlad’s voice dropped to a growl and that worked to get the ghost to move her hand away from her chest. She turned towards him qualmy, eyeing the collar then up to his eyes, she scrunched her nose at the idea of having to wear it.

“You’ve never put me in a collar.” She said.

“And I wish I didn’t have to,” Vlad didn’t know why he said that nor where it came from. When he saw the way her face dropped again he felt it in his heart and it made him take a deep breath before letting it out. “If you wear it, it won't hurt you, I promise you this.” It will never hurt again. Vlad was sure these were just her false emotions projecting but deep down he could actually feel that he meant it. Somewhere inside him he truly didn’t want to collar her or hurt her, and that bothered him. Tayonna looked lost in thought as she looked between the two males in front of her. Danny looked confused by Vlad’s sudden calm demeanor and ready to stop the whole thing. The boy held his wrist and just stood there. Tayonna looked back towards Vlad and her eyes went wide. Vlad could see it in her eyes she looked at him as if he was someone she was looking for and it pained her. Then her brows fell in knots and she shook her head before walking closer to the edge of the circle.

“I promise,” Vlad whispered to her once more than brought the collar up to snap around her neck. Tayonna flinched a bit at how tight it was then brought her hands up to touch it. Vlad held out his hand and she hesitantly took it as he led her out of the circle. Vlad almost felt happy to have the girl calm and willing. He watched her face closely as she looked around her. She was beautiful. What? Vlad winced at the small voice in his head but continued to stare at her. She’s always been so beautiful. Vlad’s eyes went soft like the way they did when he looked at Maddie, but in his mind, there was no Maddie, just Tayonna. Tayonna quickly took her hand back and held onto herself when she noticed Vlad’s hard stare. She wavered on if this was a good idea or if she had just handed herself over to the wrong person. Vlad snapped out of whatever fix he was in and cleared his voice before turning towards a very baffled Danny.

Vlad held up a hand, he didn’t have the answers himself, “It seems we might be getting somewhere, Daniel.” Vlad walked past the boy and lifted up his jaw. Vlad walked towards his portal just as the last monitor was fixed in place. He forgot all about the work being done during that whole thing. Vlad thought it was best now that he got the girl out of the circle to put space between them. He didn’t need any more little voices in his ear telling him things he didn’t believe.

“All done, boss!” The ghost workers all called off and Vlad thanked them before turning on the portal to allow them to leave. Vlad sighed in pure happiness as the soft green glow of the Ghost Zone illuminated his face. It was comforting since Vlad spent a lot of time there when he wasn’t taking care of his companies. It felt like he needed to take a quick flight through the zone to refresh himself before stepping foot in his house ever again. But that will have to wait as Vlad now has to get Tayonna to talk. Vlad turned back to the others and the default smile he normally wore. Danny only gave him a slightly worried expression while Tayonna turned completely away from the portal.

“Well, Daniel I think it’s best if you made it home.” Vlad stepped to the side and held out a hand ushering Danny. The boy bit his lip and looked back towards Tayonna who hadn’t moved an inch since getting out of the circle.

“Is this a good idea?” Danny walked over and going ghost.

“I can assure you it will,” Vlad gave him his best smile and nodded.

“You’re not gonna do anything...dangerous to her are you?” Danny leaned in towards Vlad with narrowed eyes and a finger pointed towards his face.

“Daniel, have I done anything to warrant your concern, as of recently?” Vlad’s smile dropped and he cocked a brow towards the teen. Seriously if Vlad wanted to cause trouble he honestly wouldn’t wait for the opportunity, he would go out and do it. Danny seemed to back down from that and rubbed his neck.

“No but old habits die hard. Keep me updated, fruitloop.” Danny shot through the portal and off into the Ghost Zone. Vlad sighed and rolled his eyes and closed the portal before turning on his heels and walking back towards Tayonna. When he got close she flinched away from him and shot him a glare.

‘The constant mood swings are rather annoying’ Vlad thought but kept his face neutral. “Miss Tayonna, it would be better if we went upstairs. Unless you wish to stay down here.” Vlad held out his hand but she refused to take it, with a shrug he dropped it.

“I don’t.” She responded and Vlad nodded then started towards the basement stairs to head back towards the first floor. Tayonna silently followed behind him.

Vlad kept an eye on Tayonna as he ventured around his house. She continued to follow him without complaint. At first Vlad found it endearing, she seemed so lost and followed him everywhere, but when he forgot she was there from how quiet she was and tried to go to the bathroom he quickly had to set rules of sorts.

“You don’t have to follow me, you could go sit somewhere until I come for you.” Vlad turned around and faced her and she seemed embarrassed for a moment. She turned her head from him and huffed.

“I have no idea where I am.” She mumbled.

“You’ve been in my house for almost a week and you don’t know your way around?” He tried to not sound condescending but it was a bit hard when the ghost that’s been haunting you acted like a puppy.

“I stayed by your side the whole time.” Tayonna looked back up to him and Vlad felt his heart skip a beat and his mouth run dry. He thought it was oddly flattering until he remembered she did it in ill will. Then there was something that caught his eye that really made him choke up. On the right side of her neck in the small dip before her shoulder were bite marks. That’s when he noticed the way she tended to only stand towards him on her left. Tayonna noticed his eyes staring towards her right and she turned away. Vlad didn’t have to say anything to confirm that that one particular dream she had actually infiltrated. ‘Dream manipulation, emotional manipulation, and mimicking...interesting’ Vlad blushed a bit and cleared his throat. Even with the stab in the back, he couldn’t help but still enjoy it for what it was. But he wouldn’t rub that in her face, yet.

Vlad turned away and motioned for her to follow him towards his downstairs office. He opened the door and allowed her to walk in first, he offered her a seat and Tayonna took it. Vlad walked over to his desk just as the phone began to ring. Ahh yes, what a wonderful time to receive a personal call. Vlad frowned and let out a heavy sigh before answering.

“Masters speaking.” Vlad gave his professional voice and the voice on the other side sighed and for once Vlad felt at ease by the rude welcoming.

“Hello Sir, you have got to be shitting me.”

#📖Ghost Stories👻#vlad masters #danny phantom #dp fanfic #my writing #Secrets of The Lake

2 notes · View notes