Tired of Pretending Version 2.0
Disclaimer: The usual disclaimers do apply. I don't own any of the characters.
A/N: Some of them may seem OOC, but not exactly if you think about it.
A/N 2: This follows the same basic principles as the first one; however, the story itself is somewhat different.
A/N 3: There won't be many ghost fights talked about, just assume it still happens.
Warning: Dash/Sam pairing eventually.
Pre-Phantom Planet
Chapter 1
Dash
On the outside Dash Baxter has the perfect life. He's rich, he's handsome, and he made it as a starting quarterback as a Freshman, one of only two in the entire history of Casper High. He's on the A-list, is the most popular male jock in high school, and has parents that let him do whatever he wants.
The reality; however, was much different. His dad made sure at a young age that he knew he had to be the strongest and best. He told his son that he had to show the other students who was boss and if he didn't fulfill his request, he made sure he showed his son how weak he thought he was.
He was put through rigorous training to be the perfect football player starting at only three years old. His father made sure that he knew that no son of his had any room for weakness. Perceived weakness was often beat out of him, but never where anyone would be able to see it.
He was put in football camp with second graders in a different town by the time he was in kindergarten. The coach was told that he was small for his age and that they shouldn't hold back because it would build character for his son. A five year old Dash often came home bruised and bloody by a bunch of seven and eight year olds.
Dash's mom didn't dare say a word against her husband. She was beaten on a daily basis so she would 'know her place.' She only wore long-sleeve shirts and long pants to cover the scars and bruises that littered her body. She and Dash would curl up together in his bed when his dad would go out for his nightly drinking binge. She protected him as much as she could, but in the end it wasn't much.
She'd thought about leaving him many times and taking Dash where no one would find them. She'd given up on that dream though. She'd run away with Dash close to ten times, but every time he found them. Her punishment and her son's was so much worse than when she stayed. Each time she and Dash had ended up in the hospital from different 'accidents.' They always went to different hospitals in different cities under different names so that they wouldn't get red flagged for domestic abuse.
As Dash got older, he started getting between his dad and mom for her daily beatings. He tried to protect her the best he could which wasn't much in the beginning. His dad would just go through him to get to her. Later on he was able to withstand so much more and his dad would give up and leave before getting to his mother. He never showed weakness no matter how bad the beatings were. He stood tall and didn't make a sound. After his dad left and he heard his car turn the corner down the street is when he'd finally allow himself to collapse in exhaustion and pain.
When he had to change out for P.E. In school or for football, he'd always change in the bathroom stall. That way nobody could question his scars that were all over his back, chest, thighs, and backside. His dad made sure to never leave scars or bruising that could possibly ever be seen when Dash wore shorts and a tank top. Dash would tell everyone who asked that he didn't want the losers to feel bad that they weren't as built and good-looking as him.
Kwan was his next door neighbor and best friend. He had no idea what Dash's home life was like. Dash would often come over and say that his parents went out for the evening and were wondering if his parents could watch him. It was the only place that Dash actually felt safe. It would be after his dad went binge drinking and when his mom went to bed which was often right after his dad left.
Through Kwan's parents, Dash learned how good parents are supposed to behave. He learned through asking questions of 'hypothetical' situations that men shouldn't use their fists on women or children, that they were to be cherished and protected. That violence didn't always solve problems, and that people should always help those less fortunate than them. He spent as much time as he possibly could with them.
Kwan was allowed to come over to Dash's house as long as Dash asked his dad in the morning before he went to work. Through subtle hints and manipulation Dash's dad got Kwan to agree to tell him how many 'weak' students his son had pushed over or belittled and in later years how many he'd stuffed into lockers. By then Kwan was so used to doing it, that he didn't think anything of it. In fact, he often helped Dash corral them into prime position in order for them to be stuffed into lockers.
When Dash temporarily kicked Kwan out of the A-listers at school, they still hung out after school and after football practice. Their friendship didn't suffer at all. Part of that was that they agreed not to tell anyone else about it. Kwan was the only one out of the A-listers that Dash actually liked. The rest of them were shallow and vain and he would have nothing to do with them if it weren't for the image that was so important to his dad.
When the Fenton's moved to town, his dad made sure to tell him to target Danny. He wanted Dash to try to beat out the ridiculous 'ghost business' out of him before he got sucked into his parents weird beliefs. If he didn't at least approach Danny and tell him how stupid he was, then his dad made sure to let him know how upset he was with him.
Reading and writing was an escape for Dash. An escape from his reality into the one's of fairy-tales and fiction. His mom always told him how proud she was when he brought home a perfect paper or that in his writing he was using vocabulary for college age students let alone fifth graders. He used words like 'plethora' and 'superfluous.' At least he did until his dad noticed.
His dad did his best to beat it out of him. He let him know that only weak-willed people ever used words that other people had to look up in the dictionary. He said the only reason that those intellectual people used words that normal people didn't understand was to make up for what they were lacking in other areas such as looks or sports. No son of his was lacking and therefore had better not be speaking like he was better than everyone. He would prove to everyone he was better than them by demonstrating his strength and prowess at sports.
After his father left that night his mother told him how proud she was of him and that he should keep his grades up and keep on reading even if it was only in secret. When Dash got his grades back and got straight A's, his mother gave him rewards such as books and journals that he had to hide from his dad. It wasn't uncommon for his dad to sell or destroy his books if they were laying around and he felt he was spending too much time reading and not enough on football skills.
He pretended to get bad grades for the A-listers and Danny Fenton. He never felt like he could be himself. He was always pretending. Pretending to be stronger, dumber, vainer, shallower, etc. He was tired of it. That was his life. He often snuck into the library to write in his journal. Most of the high school thought that Dash Baxter didn't even know where the library was.
He always went to a table that was far away from everyone. It was hidden behind a curved row of books and couldn't be seen from the majority of the tables in there. He was able to go to the library when he was scheduled for study hall. He didn't know what the other students thought he did every day. Mr. Lancer and he had a deal. He wouldn't tell anyone about Dash being on the honor roll for having straight A's and he in turn would keep the A-listers from making him into one of their pranks, always directing them to somewhere else instead.
He went home that day, the last day of Freshman year, and went up to his room to empty his bag and hide his literary books and journal. He found the books, but the journal was nowhere to be found. The most he could hope for was that someone either turned it in without reading it, an absurd assumption he knew, or that the janitor threw it away. He could only hope that none of the other students had found it.
The beginning was filled with nonsense he didn't believe or practice just in case someone were to read it. However, after about maybe ten pages or so, he wrote things that were real and deeply personal. He would wish that someone would get bored before getting to those things. He tried not to think about it.
Sam
On the outside Sam Manson was confident, cool, collected. She thrived under pressure, loved being different than everyone else, and didn't care what anyone else thought of her. Her attitude was along the lines of I'll be myself no matter what you say.
On the inside she felt hurt, insecure, and alone. She felt hurt because more often than not her parents discussed how disappointing she was as a daughter when they thought she wasn't listening. Insecure because she'd never been even called pretty in the very basic sense of the word except for Gregor or Elliot or whatever he's calling himself today and that was fake. She felt alone because although she and her two best friends were almost always together, they were growing farther apart or at least she felt like she was from them.
The older they got into their formative teenage years, the more her two best friends, who happen to be guys, became girl crazy. Sometimes she thought she either needed to become a lesbian or have man parts in order to even begin to want to listen to some of their conversations. She didn't have anything against lesbianism, in fact she thought it would be great to have one as a friend, but she didn't swing that way and a sex change was definitely not an option for her.
She didn't mind them being girl crazy, it happens to all straight guys eventually. What upset her, besides her ridiculous crush on Danny beginning of Freshman year, was that whenever there was a female within the same room whether it be two feet or two miles, it was like they had an instant radar, and zoned in on whoever she may be paying absolutely no attention to Sam until whoever she was left. It wasn't like she wanted them to look at her like that, especially now that her crush on Danny was over, she just wished they wouldn't completely become hormonal idiots.
She knew the exact moment a female entered the room. They'd both get this slightly creepy glazed look in their eyes and depending on how pretty the girl was, there was sometimes drool involved. Then they'd start calling dibs on her like she was a piece of meat making her glad once again that they didn't see her like that. Once the 'she' was gone, then there eyes came back in focus and went back to their previous conversation like it never even happened.
She just wished she could be considered at least one tenth as pretty as any other girl in this school by basically anyone. She didn't want anyone to have a crush on her or anything, but being considered at least slightly attractive would be nice. The fact that she wore a miniskirt and half shirt and still the exotic beauties like Paulina and the curvacious beauties like Valerie were drooled upon only wearing long pants and a tee-shirt wreaked havoc on her self-esteem.
She didn't want to be looked at like a piece of meat. She wasn't trying to get noticed by anybody wearing what she wore. She just found it to be comfortable and exactly her style. She wasn't looking to impress anyone. She thought it would be nice, that's all. She knew, however; that such silly daydreams would get her nowhere.
When Sam still had a crush on Danny, her study hall would be filled of her doodling him in ghost form on her notebook or just watching him in general, which now that she wasn't in that stupid crush haze, felt slightly nauseating. The lovesick puppy look she probably had on her face didn't make her feel any better.
Now that she wasn't constantly trying to get him to notice her, not that her subtle hints helped the clueless boy, she was able to get much more done. She often had her homework done before she was ten minutes into study hall which greatly annoyed her as she didn't want to sit there doing nothing other than staring at the clock on the wall. So for the last few weeks of school she'd gone to the library.
Every once in a while she thought she'd see Dash go out the library doors once the bell rang, but knew that had to be a mistake. She doubted the boy even knew what a book was none-the-less where the library was located. On the last day of school she just had to make sure. Nobody would believe it if it was true, but if it wasn't she wanted to see who on Earth looked like him that they could be mistaken for him in the back.
When the bell rang she saw him rush through and out the doors. She headed in the direction he had come from and went around the curved bookshelf. She saw the table and what looked like, at first glance, a book someone had forgotten.
She went closer slowly, feeling as if someone might come back any minute. She saw there was a plain blue hard cover, but in the upper right hand corner written in permanent marker was 'Dash B.' She looked around making sure that no one would see her and quickly shoved it in her bag. She ran out to meet with the guys before she could talk herself out of putting it back. She wasn't sure if it was homework, a book, or a journal, but she knew she could use this as a bargaining chip if nothing else.
She wasn't usually into stealing or mind games, but when it came to Dash Baxter, she figured they could use all the help they could get. He never hurt females physically. Mentally and emotionally on the other hand was fair game along with the physical way he tortured the male student body, especially Danny. With her crush on Danny gone, her rose colored glasses on her view of him shattered. That didn't mean that even if sometimes she felt he deserved being shoved into a locker or tortured to some degree, she would allow it if it could be helped.
That night her parents informed her of their intentions of them all going to Europe for the summer. Her grandma was coming, which helped her mood immensely. However, they were gonna leave the next day and not come back until the week before school started up again. They didn't give her more notice because they knew she'd complain about it and try to get them to agree to let her stay by herself.
They thought maybe the fashions and styles along with artwork and other things might inspire her to become more girly. Or at the very least put more color into her wardrobe besides the predominance of black. The first thing on the agenda was shopping for gowns to go to the opera in which Sam pointed out they had in the U.S. Then her mom was going to take her and her grandmother to the spa all day followed by the salon in order to get ready for that evening. It sounded like pure torture to Sam, but she decided to play nice... for now.
She packed and they left, her taking her backpack with her. She forgot all about what she found earlier that day until two weeks later. She had finally managed to get some time to herself after being primped and prodded for hours followed by endless tours of museums and what Sam thought as 'rich, snobby culture.' She finally convinced them to go somewhere by themselves while her grandma took a nap and she stayed in the room by herself.
She opened the book to the first page and began to read...
A/N: So what do you think? This is the same basic story line as the original... Sam finds Dash's journal. I wasn't really sure what to do with the other one. I didn't want to take it down because so many people liked it, but I thought I might try again in another direction.