Disclaimer: All characters belong to Butch Hartman.

Notes: I don't think the idea has been done before, but in case it has, I didn't know about it.

Summary: A slightly different Danny and Sam, in her bedroom, possibly under the influence of black nail polish fumes. Someone should probably be afraid.

Polish

A Danny Phantom Fanfic by

Nate Grey (XMAN0123-at-aol-dot-com)

It was Saturday night. The hour was fairly late, the moon was full above Amity Park, and any teenager with even the slightest bit of popularity was out having a reasonably good time.

Danny Fenton, on the other hand, found himself inside a bedroom that remained nearly pitch-black dark at all times. He was seated rather awkwardly on the bed, doing something, and also having something done to him, neither of which he would've ever imagined being even remotely possible.

Danny was, very reluctantly and very carefully, applying black nail polish to the toes of his best friend, Samantha Manson. At the same time, however, she was doing the same to him, and amazingly enough, he was far more uncomfortable with the former than the latter. For someone who wore combat boots as often as Sam did, her feet looked and smelled remarkably clean, so that was no problem.

No, the problem came in whenever Danny paused to think about why he always found himself in these uncomfortable situations with Sam.

She trusted him completely, and he was unable to refuse her anything.

It had been that way, ever since she'd dared to enter the Fenton Ghost Portal.

Ironically, in that moment, Danny had thought she was going to die. Instead, that was the very second their bond had first begun to truly live. He blamed himself for everything that had happened afterward. Sam had dared him to enter the portal first, and he'd been too chicken to do it. She'd only stepped in to find out if it really worked. And despite Sam's insistence that she wouldn't change a thing about that day, Danny could never completely forgive himself for changing her life.

From all appearances, Sam really enjoyed using her ghost powers (though she tended to call them "Goth powers"). Even if that were true, Danny still felt like it should have been him that entered the portal. The very thought of doing so still gave him nightmares, but anything was better than reliving those long minutes in which he first hadn't been able to find Sam's pulse.

Taking a deep breath, Danny risked a glance at his best friend's face as he put the top back on the small bottle of nail polish. Having much more experience at it, Sam had long since finished painting his toes, and was currently staring at him in a way Danny was tempted to think of as openly fond. He swallowed hard and asked weakly, "What?"

"Nothing," Sam replied at once, as if she'd been expecting that. "Let's do a power rundown while we're waiting for the polish to dry."

Danny couldn't help the sigh that escaped his lips. "Sam, we do that every week. If you had any new powers, or lost an old one, we'd know."

"Better to find out here than in a fight," she reasoned.

"That's not what you said when you broke your mother's favorite lamp."

"That was her fault for putting something both horrid and easily breakable in my room. It was like she WANTED me to smash it." Sam leaned back against the headboard and shifted slightly, absently pressing her foot more firmly against Danny's chest. "Anyway, how would you suggest we pass the time?"

Danny glanced down at her foot, his mind drawing a total blank. With another sigh, he murmured, "Spectral form?" He tried to look bored, but the truth was that he loved to watch Sam whenever she 'went Goth' (as Tucker had once pointed out, 'going even more Goth' was more accurate, but took too long to say in an emergency).

So it was with some difficulty that he resisted the urge to smile as the two black rings appeared around Sam's waist and swiftly moved away from each other, each converting half of her body to her ghost form as it passed. This left her skin a shade paler, along with a pair of small, blood-red horns poking through her hair. Her eyes were now a rather alluring crimson, and Danny found himself getting lost in them again as he stared at her, mere seconds away from drooling. Forcing himself to look elsewhere only resulted in Danny staring at her soft, pouty black lips, and then form-fitting black hazmat suit with the two crimson letter S's on the front. There simply wasn't a safe place to look.

He remembered himself as Sam looked herself over and said, "Check."

"Shadow manipulation?"

"Danny, you know you can't lump it all together like that. We have to do the powers one by one," she reminded him, slightly annoyed.

"Fine, fine," he sighed. "Shadow Claw?"

All the darkness in the room seemed to converge between them, forming an oversized claw that carefully closed around Danny, sending a shiver down his spine.

"Check," Sam replied, dissolving the claw with a wave of her hand.

Danny rubbed his arms a bit to generate some warmth. "Shadow Puppet?"

Sam stared at him intently, her eyes flashing in the darkness.

Danny swallowed a gasp as his hands suddenly began to move independent of his own will. Of course, he felt pretty silly when his right hand began to pat him on the head, while the left rubbed his stomach. "Sam..." he groaned.

"What?" she asked innocently. "You never want to dance for me, so I'm entitled to a little fun. Oh, and check."

"Teleportation?" Danny muttered, hoping she'd release his hands and move on.

Sam dropped out of his sight, and seconds later, Danny felt her arms sliding around his waist from behind, her chin coming to rest on his shoulder.

"Check. This is boring," she decided suddenly, her breath cool against his ear. "Let's skip to Telepathic Touch."

"But we didn't even do the shapeshifting," Danny pointed out.

"So? They're my powers, and I want to skip."

"But-"

"What are you thinking, Danny?" Sam whispered, bringing her lips right next to his ear. "You want to tell me, or do I find out on my own?"

"Uh... homework," Danny said lamely. "I'm thinking about homework. I should be doing homework right now."

"How come I don't believe you? Maybe you want me to come in there and find out..."

"N-No, that's okay, really," he stammered. "I'm good."

Sam softly pressed her cheek against his. "Let me in, Danny. You couldn't hide anything from me even before I got these powers."

Danny tried his best to think about the most boring things possible, because he knew Sam was wrong. True, there was precious little he'd been able to keep from her, but there was at least one thing she'd never been able to pick up on, because he'd hidden it deep down, where he hoped she'd never think to look.

But now, with her cool, soft body pressed against his, Danny found all his thoughts centering on Sam, and that only made it easier for her to slip through the few defenses he did have from her mental expeditions. He closed his eyes, trying to will her to stop, but it was useless. He was enjoying the physical contact too much to push her away, and the odd sensation of her sifting through his brain was not in itself uncomfortable, only the thought of what she would eventually find.

He didn't know how she would react to the revelation, although he was positive he'd know when she finally found it. And sure enough, when her arms tightened around him a moment later, Danny knew the knowledge was no longer exclusive to him.

"Danny?" she whispered, her voice trembling.

"I can explain, Sam, really," he began, but she cut him off.

"How long have you felt this way about me?"

He closed his eyes. "It's not that simple-"

"You really think I'm beautiful? Even like this? Especially like this?"

"Well... that's just... um..." He trailed off as her lips brushed his cheek. "Sam...?"

"How long have you been in love with me, Danny?"

He could have sworn he felt his heart stop. "What? I never... I mean, I don't... that's not how I feel about you, Sam. I just-"

"Danny," she murmured softly, "that's what those feelings mean. When you... think about someone that often, and see them the way you see me, that's... love."

He shook his head. "Sam, I think you're making a big deal out of noth-" That was all he could get out before Sam suddenly turned his head towards her and pressed her lips firmly against his. He could feel her hand gently gripping the back of his head to keep him from pulling away, but there was no real need. Danny ceased to be anything but hers the instant her lips touched his, and deep in his heart, he'd known it would come down to that eventually.

When Sam finally saw fit to break the kiss, they were both panting for air, their faces still far too close to each other for Danny's comfort. His heart was already pounding in his chest, and if he was reading the hungry look in Sam's glowing eyes right, she wasn't done with him yet.

"I love you, too," Sam whispered. "So, so much, Danny..."

"Sam," he whispered as she gently traced his lips with her fingertips. "You... you..." His eyes widened as a trace amount of red vapor slipped from her lips. "You have to go, don't you?"

Sam scowled, letting her hand drop away. "Sometimes, I wish there were no such things as ghosts. I don't even have a social life, and they still manage to get in the way."

Danny forced himself to smile. "So I'll meet you back at my place, and we'll send whoever it is back to the Ghost Zone."

"Yeah," Sam sighed wistfully. "Assuming I catch them. And that ghost hunters don't show up and accidentally free whoever I just caught." Her eyes narrowed. "And after that, you and I are going to come back here and finish what we started."

"We are?" Danny asked nervously.

She smirked. "You owe me a make-out session, loverboy. The first of many." With that, Sam leaned forward and gave him a quick peck on the lips before literally falling through the bed and out of sight.

Danny stared at the spot where she'd vanished, and then, for some reason, at his newly-painted toes. "So I'm in love with Sam Specter," he murmured, wiggling his toes thoughtfully. "And now she knows. It's not the end of the world. I was already doing everything she tells me to, and at least she didn't find out about the-"

"Oh, and Danny?" Sam asked abruptly as her head suddenly popped through the bed wearing an enormous grin. "We're going to have a long talk about that life-sized poster of me that you keep in your closet. I think I want it on your bedroom door now. Or maybe the ceiling above the bed. Or maybe the bathroom is more appropriate?"

"Sam," he whispered weakly, "you didn't..."

"Don't worry, Danny. I wouldn't tell anyone about that. But you need my permission to look at it, from now on. Some things are just better in person, you know?" She blew him a kiss and sank out of sight again.

Danny groaned and buried his face in the nearest pillow. He was never going to be able to keep anything from Sam, not that he ever really had, apparently. But that was okay with him, somehow. That someone amazing like Sam, who could do the most amazing things, still wanted to be with him, meant a great deal to him. And if all she asked in return was that he stay by her side, that would be easy enough. It wasn't like he had anything else to do.

Endnotes:

I never planned to flush out a full Sam Specter story, this was as far as that idea took me. Which is why it sat in my story folder for close to two years, with me adding bits occasionally. But I did want to produce something before Christmas, and this was the best candidate.