Disclaimer: Do not own.
AN: yeah I know how long it has been, my commitment issues are both impressive and utterly frightening. I decided not to post anything until I had either finished it or was almost finished with the work. That being said this is completely a fly by my seat have no ideas where it is heading just popped into my head work. Whoops broke my own rule!
The early morning sun shown itself through thin light blue curtains. Slowly yet surly the rays creeped across a twin bed covered in a navy duvet, closer and closer to the face of the exhausted youth lying in slumber.
Danny groaned as she rolled over to look at her alarm. Shit! Stupid Box Ghost, she had only gotten four hours of sleep thanks to the tenacious jerk if that!
Springing out of bed with all the grace of a newly birthed colt Danny headed to the desk that was covered in last night's half-finished homework. With a disgusted sigh she shoved the headache inducing one way tickets to detentionism, despite knowing the material without the extra at home practice, into her bag before heading over to grab her outfit for the day. The continuous wearing of the same shirt and jeans that she held multiple copies of both made things easier for her and harder all the same.
While they did offer the ability to not have to think of what she would rather be wearing, they also left a sour taste in her mouth at the reminder of the role she had to play, that same role she had been playing for years.
Headed to the bathroom for a quick brush, rinse, and relieve she deliberately looked anywhere but the mirror or down at the body she maintenanced until she was finished. Then all that stared back at her was the image of her parents' son. Wincing Danny rushed back for her bag and headed down the stairs and out the front door on her way to Casper High.
"So are you ready for another sucktastic day of tests, homework, Dash being an asshole, Paulina being a slutty bitch, and the inevitable ghost attack?" Danny asked her partners in fighting crime.
"Wow someone is channeling their inner goth this morning! Rough night Princess?" Sam asked as Danny joined the other two social outcasts.
"Yeah you skip sleep and breakfast again girl? You know you ain't you when your hungry need a Snickers?" Tucker being his usual sarcastic self even had the gall to pull the candy bar out of his backpack and hold it out to her. So just to be contrite Danny grabbed the bar, ripped it open, and gave a vicious bite.
Better?" she inquired with one brow raised and her mouth full of the admittedly delicious treat.
"No! I was saving that for first period!" Tuckers whined over his two friends rapidly devolving 'sinkers', "Evil women why do I even bother? TF could be hanging with all the Hunnies, but noo he graciously givith of himself to a couple of backstabbing, candy sealing, giggling geese!" Throwing his hands up as if looking for answers from above the tech-geek just shook his head over the sound of his two best friends having a go at his words.
"So what happened to you to put you in such a lovely mood?" Sam asked Danny as they started recovering along the way to school.
Danny groaned in remembrance, "That stupid Box Ghost has been bothering me more than usual lately! Last night he even broke into my room to bug me! Then he had the nerve to complain about the shape of the Fenton Thermos! I'm seriously thinking of just handing him over to Lady Pandora and begging her to put him into the box for a few millennia!" Danny exclaimed in pure frustration.
The other two just looked at her with some worry, "That bad huh?"
Nodding she confessed quietly, "He found the box containing my things. Then started to just dump everything on the ground and was beginning to tease me for it before I thermosed him."
Danny's words would have sobered the other two if their worry hadn't already done so. They didn't need any clarification as to which box their friend was referring to, both being intimately familiar with its existence and the contents held within. Seeing as how they had both helped Danny create and add to the box.
While both of them had known Danny for different lengths of time, with Tucker knowing the young girl the longest, both were well aware of her situation. Tucker having grown up with Danny from an early age had come to a slow awareness. Things he had noticed before they had started school and the occurrences after starting had fully formed into understanding by the third grade. While both of them didn't know the exact term for what Danny was experiencing until Sam with her more diversely cultured world knowledge had come barreling into their lives, Tucker's form of acceptance and understanding had been a lifeboat to Danny.
It helped bond the two gifted youngsters together even more when they skipped two grades half way through the year, first with first grade to second then later on third to fourth. While normally such advancement was highly frowned upon both the school and the parents had noticed their friendship and decided to give it a go ahead as long as both of the boys had stayed together. Something they hadn't regretted to this day.
It helped Danny most of all to have Tucker with her, being surrounded as they both were by older kids that didn't appreciate their intelligence. Having the young boy to confide everything in after he figured things out was god sent due to before. She had had no one at home to talk about the confusing feelings she was experiencing, seeing as both her parents had started to become both too wrapped up in their work most days and after a certain age Jazz had grown into the opinion that playing Barbies with her little brother was odd, especially when he seemed to derive so much more pleasure in their playing and was considerably more involved in the stories they came up with to act out. Thankfully Tucker had no such problems as long as they either played video games afterword or acted out scenes from Pokémon at some point during play.
When Sam moved to town and promptly made herself their awesome new best friend and the only person in their grade to make friends with them, it didn't take long for the older girl to notice something off about Danny. And had rather spectacularly surprised both of them that year at Christmas when she gifted the Blackett with a jewelry making kit, because she couldn't really tell what the other girl would like. She even offered to let Danny hide the kit and anything else she didn't want others finding in her room seeing as how she obviously hadn't told anyone but Tucker about being Trans. What followed were exclamations, shocks, denial, and tears that cold winter day in the near abandoned park. But as traumatic as it was it left the three friends with a better understanding of each other, and promises of aid researching and coping with Danny's dilemma with her body.
After coming to the conclusion that she just wasn't ready to tell her parents and sister they decided to help Danny adjust somewhat with herself and the dreaded onset of puberty by creating a box that could contain all of Danny's more feminine clothes, accessories, make up, hair supplies, and even a wig for when she came to hang out with one of them, or even when she just needed an out from being in the wrong body. They had even compiled some of the best scientific, psychological, and medical texts and articles about being Transgender and the forms necessary to see a Doctor about starting the long transitioning process already filled out and just waiting for Danny's Mom and Dad to sign off on.
Knowing very well that the more clinical and scientific rout would be far easier and was more likely to get through to the elder Fentons with minimal blaming of ghosts for Danny's condition. Though the likely hood of her telling them anytime soon was growing less and less so due to recent events. Truly the best thing that could have happened to Danny in retrospect was the accident with the portal. Though it did make things far more complicated in regards to pretty much everything, it made dealing with the dread of the encroaching of puberty almost nonexistent. Whatever had happened to her DNA had also slowed her bodies growth to an almost halt.
The relief of having more time to fix her body before it betrayed her was overwhelming to the young halfa. That coupled with the rather fantastic realization that her ghost form was as female as she always felt. Ok so her hair was the same short birds' nest as in human form and yes she didn't have a chest yet but she was twelve give her a break. There was plenty of time for everything else to come, even though she didstill look very boyish at the least her genitals now matched herin that form. And wasn't that just exciting! However her greatest relief came with the downsides of the motherlode.
Everything from being somewhat dead to having to deal with the ghost attacks and her parents' creepy college buddy Vlad The Fruit Loop Masters, the absolute worst part was transforming back into a human boy. The letdown of being in the wrong body after being in the right one even with the wrong one being alive was jarring. There were times where she never wanted to transform back, but she did anyway, felling worse and worse every time.
Her box was meant to help with all that. It was supposed to be a safe place that only she could access, and utilize for whenever she needed or just plain wanted to feel somewhat normal. It had become after the accident a sort of light of inspiration and reassurance that she can change her body to its rightful gender without dying to do so. It was an integral piece of Danny, and one of the best ways to heal from the hurt that came with the transformation, and the day to day living out the role of son, brother,boy. So to hear that someone be they dead or not has violated it for the preteen halfa was rage inducing to the two who had created it for her in the first place.
"Why don't we go talk to her later today, huh? I'm sure she would be more than willing to help. And If not either Clockwork or the People Of The Far- Frozen will. We could even go third period if we don't turn in our permission slips for that college visit, they'll let us go early as long as we turn in a short research paper, ok?" Sam came up with as they grew closer to the school. The sound of her utter fury with the Box Ghost's actions leaking threw.
Danny's eyes glistened as she looked up from watching her feet eating up the pavement on their way to Casper High, "Really? You'll skip the College tour? I thought you were interested in checking out their law courses Sam, and didn't they have a pretty snazzy computer programming course Tuck?"
"Yeah sure, it's all good girl! The Tucker is going for the big leagues in College, MIT or bust baby! He don't need to look around for anything else." The tech-geek piped in more than happy to be doing something more useful with his time than spending it visiting a place that he didn't intend on attending in the first place. To be perfectly honest if Danny and he hadn't met Sam and the Ghost Portal hadn't come online with Danny inside they would probably be in their Senior year by now. While the Goth girl did provide the comfort of companionship, the ability to confide, and overall sense of balance to the two gifted friends. She did hold them back from skipping another year or so, her arrival and subsequent friendship had coincided with the schools debating to advance them again seeing as they just weren't challenged enough. But they both had decided to tough it out with Sam so as to keep and strengthen their friendship with the frankly awesome human being, even if she didn't eat meat the weirdo. That was alright more for him!
"You know my parents wouldn't even dream of letting me attend anything less than Ivy League, sometimes I think that my only saving grace with them is me wanting to be a lawyer. Though I'm still torn on being an Environmental Conservationist professionally or a Rights Activist. Both I won't find in the courses offered locally. And I know you want to be an Astrophysicist so schooling in Amity is out of the question." Sam reassured as they climbed the front steps.
Their kindness was met with one of the most blinding smiles they had seen on Danny's face in a long time and was totally worth being five minutes late.