Don't get Danny started about clouds.
Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom. Or do I? No, I really don't.
Overtly Overcast
"Contrary to popular belief, the view from the top of a cloud isn't some spectacular thing. In fact, I only go there when I want to completely clear my head. Nothing very outstanding about a cloud. Or, well, a cloud up close. A cloud far away has a kind of whimsical thing to it. Like a ship sailing across the sky. Ya know how Sam sometimes stops whatever she's doing, just to gawk at the 'ethereal beauty' of some cloud? You know how you and I always tease her for that? She is supposedly this big, scary Goth after all. That is not to say that I don't like when she gets like that. There's always this dreamy look in her eye, and this smile that no one ever sees on her face. And yeah, I probably get that same look when I see her doing this. But that's all beside my point.
And yes, I had a point. My point was in fact about an up-close view of a cloud. Er… or maybe that was just building to my point. In any case, the view on a cloud is rather dull. It can be hard to imagine exactly what it's like to be in a cloud, even for me and I've done it countless times. But I'll try to describe it to you, because as I said, I had a point.
A cloud is white. Don't give me that look. You just don't get what I mean by white. Have you ever been in a pitch-black room? Like in the middle of the night, before your eyes adjust to the dark? Some people think that's scary. To that, I say that they've never been in a cloud. You see, even in a pitch-black room. Even on Halloween night, right at the stroke of midnight. Even if there is not a single ounce of light to help you out. Even with a creepy noise lurking in that blackness. Even if you feel something brush past your leg, or hum in your ear. Even then. It is nowhere near as frightening as the inside of a cloud.
The inside of a cloud is white, as I said. But it's more than that. It's… impenetrable. And silent. Eerily silent. Sam once told me that black is all the colors at once. And I might be going on a tangent here, but how funny is that? That darkness that we always associated with monsters and fear and death. That darkness is full of every color ever. It's beautiful and alive. White, on the other hand… Sam said that white is the absence of color. White. The color of purity and goodness and angels. But really, it reflects away all color. It smothers life. It suffocates beauty. It is this all-encompassing mass of emptiness. That's what a cloud is like. It takes away all the color and all the sound. And there's nothing really to touch, so it's a lot like you don't even exist. It's like you're dead. And stop with that face, I know I'm dead, but it's more than that. Ugh, grow up.
But actually, and this is just a side note, doesn't my hair make so much more sense now? It's black when I'm human, and white when I'm a ghost. Black and white. Alive and dead. Crazy!
So, anyways, as I was saying, the view on a cloud is pretty awful. And that, my friend, is why I'm not currently sitting on one. Well, that, and the whole cloud's-aren't-dense-enough-to-sit-on conundrum. There's a much better view from here, thank you very much."
Danny concluded his fairly disjointed explanation with a humph, and dropped from where he'd been subconsciously hovering as if to punctuate his point. He then pushed his snowy bangs out of his narrowed green, green eyes. Eyes which were glaring at Tucker, whom was currently, trying and failing to swallow his laughter.
"Du-Dude!" Tucker exclaimed as he finally gained back some control over himself. "What the hell are you talking about?!"
Exacerbated, Danny recapped the bit about the clouds. His hands gesticulating wildly in his frustration.
"No, no no no. Not the clouds again." Tucker shook his head with an almost maniacal grin stretched across his cheeks. "No, I get why you don't want to be sitting on a cloud right now. I heard you with the whole bad view, absence of color speech. That's not what I was wondering about. I was wondering why you're sitting in a tree outside of Sam's bedroom."
Danny's cheeks flushed a deep green, and he let his oh-so-frightening white hair fall back over his eyes.
"Er… I… she… hmph…" He bit his hand reflexively, while making a sport out of avoiding Tucker's eyes. His friend rested an elbow on the windowsill of Sam's room, his grin not even the least bit faded.
"Well?" Tucker asked leisurely. Danny hated that obnoxious lilt of smugness in his voice. And even without looking up from his twiddling thumbs, he could feel Tucker's smirk.
"I, well, I just wanted to make sure she was okay. I, uh, saw some ghosts around here. I saw a bunch actually. Yeah, there was practically an infestation of them! And well, as the, er, concerned friend I am, I decided maybe I should check up on Sam and make sure she's alright." Danny grinned brightly. A perfect explanation for where he was! He gave himself a mental pat on the back.
"So why are you in a tree, and not, I don't know, asking her if she's alright?"
Danny's mental pat on the back retracted abruptly.
"Well, I saw that you were over, obviously, and I didn't want to just invite myself in. That would be rude! Yeah, very rude. And so I sat here, because I thought I could see if Sam was okay, without being rude and just barging in. I'm a gentleman really." His mental hand, now reassured, resumed patting him on the back. "Where'd Sam go away anyway? You're, um… you won't tell her I was here, will you?"
Tucker's grin only widened, much to Danny's dismay.
"Oh I promise I won't tell her. She got back from the bathroom about ten minutes ago anyway, and heard the whole thing." Right on cue Danny's heart stopped, and a second face appeared in the window. Sam's raven hair was pulled back in a ponytail, leaving nothing to hide the mischievous twinkle in her amethyst eyes or the devious smile on her lips.
She opened her purple-glossed lips, and in a completely foreign sultry tone, said, "Oh Tucker, you should have told me I had a gentleman caller." She then leaned in further, resting her elbows on the sill, and lowered her eyelids. Now peeking through her long lashes, she winked. "Maybe next time, you should come by when I don't have," insert a meaningful glance towards Tucker, "company over. Then maybe I could give you more of a… show." She finished this with a well-choreographed, slow lick of her lips, and added another wink for good measure.
Danny swallowed hard. His green blush had spread farther and farther with Sam's every word. His eyes had tracked her tongue during its trek across her very distracting mouth. It was just a sliver of pink. But it had left him incapable of any other thoughts. He sat there, his fingers curled in his lap, and his eyes wide. Occasionally, his mouth would open, as if to speak. Maybe it was to defend himself. Maybe it was to declare his undying love. Maybe it was just to stutter out some incoherent description of clouds. But really he just ended up making a halfway decent impression of a fish out of water. Seeing how desperate the situation was becoming, his mental hand slammed down across his face with a mental resounding, slapping sound. This threw Danny headlong back into reality.
"Right! Yes! No more ghosts around. Seems like you're all good here. Gotta go, uh, my parents said something about Vlad visiting, and you know, I should probably make sure he doesn't kill my dad. Well, bye!" He then sprung off his precarious position on the branch and flew head first into the trunk of the tree. Reeling in pain, but unwilling to stick around any longer, he fumbled (intangibly now) into a beeline home.
Sam and Tucker's laughter echoed across the sky after him.
Face covered in embarrassment he took in the clear, blue sky and muttered, "Where's a cloud when you need one..."
Not gonna lie, this started with me free-writing about clouds. I just couldn't resist a little amethyst ocean