Danny had been walking around school with a tingling ache in his chest for weeks now and he still didn't know why he felt so empty all of a sudden.
It was a deep ache in his heart and if he wasn't already half-dead he might have worried about his health, he also might have blamed said half-dead status if he didn't know for a fact that the ache wasn't because of his ghost powers going on the fritz. He'd already asked Clockwork about it and the ghost had just given him a sly look and told him not to worry about it.
But it wasn't going away. And it was starting to get worse.
The most infuriating part and the part he tried his hardest to ignore, was that it eased (just a little tiny bit) whenever he came into physical contact with Vlad Masters (the only other half-ghost in the high school and the only other half-ghost in existence).
It pissed him off. Vlad pissed him off.
He was the biggest, snobbiest, jerkiest asshole Danny had ever had the misfortune to come across. He used his ghost powers only to serve himself and he sneered down at everyone else in the school the tallest fucking high horse. He was rich and that made him part of the in-crowd but even they hated him most of the time. He thought he was better than everyone else; smarter, stronger, and deserving of anything and everything he ever wanted.
It pissed him off. He hated it. He loathed it, despised it.
Vlad was so smug about everything and Danny wanted to punch him every damn time he saw his face, which was freakishly often.
He was mostly glad that the deep, boiling, hatred was a mutual thing.
Vlad hated him just as much for whatever reason.
Which meant that Danny could duke it out with the douche as often as he wanted and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Vlad didn't question it when Danny started instigating more fist-fights even though they used to spar only verbally. In fact, Vlad seemed to want to fight Danny just as much, like he was just as desperate to get his hands on the other. Just as desperate to draw blood and keep contact.
It didn't help that the bastard was hot either. But that was a fact that Danny kept buried in the very, very back of his mind. In the deep dark recesses that he was ashamed to admit came back to haunt him in the night with shallow breaths and flushed cheeks.
Those were secrets he'd take to his grave, his full-dead grave.
Along with the tingling ache still creating a gaping hole in his chest, because he'd be damned before he found out just what, exactly, it was going to take to get rid of it.
He had a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with the biggest dickbag to ever grace the halls of Casper High but he's wasn't going to test this theory at all. Ever.
He'd just have to make do with slamming his fist into the other teen's face and being in detention for eternity for it.
It was working well enough. Especially when Vlad was so eager to fight back. To grab his own fist-fulls of t-shirt, to slam Danny's body into the lockers with just as much force, to glare at him from such a close distance with burning cobalt eyes, inches from Danny's baby-blues.
And the ache would disappear for a while. A few hours at most. A few minutes at least.
Then it would come back, mostly long after he and Vlad had been forcefully separated, sometimes even stronger than it had been, sometimes not.
He hated it.
Danny slammed his locker door shut with an echoing bang at the thought of it.
Sam and Tucker, his closest friends, the ones that knew nearly everything about him, shared a knowing look. Danny had been extra irritable ever since the ache had started up and even though he'd kept it secret from them, they were still trying their best to cheer him up. It rarely worked.
"Up for a game of Doomed after school?" Tucker asked, books held close to his chest like he could use them as a shield against Danny's bad mood.
"Can't," Danny replied shortly, "I have detention."
Tucker's shoulders sagged and gave a dejected, "Oh yeah."
Sam huffed an irritated sigh, "When are you going to stop getting into fights with the Masters kid, Danny?"
She glared as she put her hands to her hips and continued with her lecture, "He's not worth it. Nobody's worth it. It's wrong for you to fight normal humans when you have super powers on your side, Danny. It needs to stop."
And that was the crux of the matter, the thing that frustrated him more than anything with his friends, they didn't know. They didn't know that Vlad could take a punch from him, they didn't know how much of an asshole Vlad really is, they didn't know that Danny needed to fight Vlad (needed to fight him with every fiber of his being).
"Yeah, yeah," Danny made a poor attempt at placating her as they walked down the hall, "I'll try."
"That's not good enough, Danny!" Sam swung around and faced Danny head on, causing their group to stop right in the middle of the hallway, a few other students looked their way. "These fights are getting out of hand! They need to stop."
Danny's fists clenched at his sides, anger burning in his chest. His voice was low and bitter when he spoke, "And what are you going to do about it, Sam?"
He stood his ground and grit his teeth, "Are you going to put me in detention too? Fight me yourself?"
Sam narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. "No, Danny," she said calmly, condescendingly, "You're fucking things up enough without my help. But I can't condone fighting like this and I can't be around people who do."
"Whoa, whoa, Sam," Tucker put himself between them, "You don't mean that do you?"
Danny sneered, covering up the pain that stabbed at his chest as he held Sam's determined glare. "Yeah, Tucker," he turned his back on the both of them. "She does."
"Danny, wait!" he could hear Tucker calling after him but he ignored him and kept walking, fists still clenched at his sides.
If there was ever a moment for him to run into Vlad, now would be the best, just so he could vent his frustrations by shoving his smug face right into a locker.
Apparently, someone was listening to his prayers and decided to answer them. Or they just really wanted to see blood spilled today because Danny turned a corner and ran right into numero uno asshole himself.
It was an instantaneous chemical reaction; the moment Danny realized who he'd run into he exploded, shoving Vlad back against the wall with his arm to Vlad's throat.
Vlad sneered and his eyes glowed a pinkish red for a moment, matching the green glow in Danny's own eyes, before he grabbed fistfuls of Danny's shirt and shoved him into the wall on the other side of the hallway.
"What the fuck, Fenton?" he growled, face stopping inches from the other teen's.
Danny didn't bother to reply, just clawed at the hands holding him against the wall until they loosened enough for him to fling them to the side and swing a fist into Vlad's gut.
Vlad doubled over slightly with the hit but managed to shove at Danny's shoulders to throw him off balance, the momentum sending them both to the floor.
There was more punching and then kicking and then someone started bleeding but they didn't stop fighting, just getting more aggressive and quick and violent. Cuts and bruises appeared and disappeared just as quickly, their ghost powers each taking most of the damage.
A crowd of students had gathered around them at some point, cheering them on and clogging the hallway. The fights between Vlad and Danny had become legend within Casper High; one, because fights were always exciting events for high schoolers, and two, because Vlad and Danny were known for fighting often and viciously. You could always count on blood being spilled at a Masters-Fenton fight.
"BREAK IT UP!" one of the teachers shouted, pushing her way through the crowd of teens, most of which were now scurrying away at the presence of a teacher. "FENTON! MASTERS! BREAK IT UP!"
Tetslaff, the gym teacher, grabbed the back of Danny's shirt and pulled him up and away from where he'd pinned Vlad to the floor. Both of them snarled at the interruption but didn't do anything more, just let her pull them apart.
"Suspension," Tetslaff spat out. "You two have been a menace to this school and I'll be surprised if Principle Ishiyama doesn't kick you out for good."
Vlad crossed his arms and looked away, shrugging at Tetslaff's ominous sentencing. He walked off without a word, pissing off the gym teacher even more as she shouted after him.
"WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING, MASTERS?"
Vlad didn't say a word and kept walking, walking right out the doors of the school without second glance.
Danny didn't care, just wiped at the blood smeared across his face as he watched the other teen go.
The ache was already back.