A/N- For all of you who are following my other stories, those will be updated fairly soon, but I don't know any specific dates.
As for categories, I like to think it's under friendship and hurt/comfort more than anything, but you could also put family and romance in there too, depending on which POV you're going for. It's rated for mention of fighting, injuries, and emotional trauma, but it's not bad. Characters- Tucker, Sam, and Danny.
This was meant to be a very light-hearted and fluffy piece, but it didn't turn out exactly as I'd planned. This is what happens when I get in the mood to write hurt/comfort and start with a romance idea.
I want to give credit to Glambertcello for letting me use her idea from her story "Hands Off" to form a basis for this. You can thank her for both the idea and her beautiful story. You need to go check it out, it's fluffy and cute and totally worth the read. Seriously. Go. Now.
Anything that you recognize probably doesn't belong to me.
Tucker doesn't like silence. He hasn't for at least two years, ever since his hero best friend had really gotten into the fighting thing and silence meant they were alone, meant he was gone.
He was extremely relieved that the classroom wasn't silent.
It was filled with little noises. The quiet whisperings of their peers, the muffled shuffling of belongings, the quiet rasp of people moving minutely, and the clear drone of the lecture kept the silence at bay. Normally, this was perfect for Tucker. He didn't like silence; he couldn't function in it, not usefully anyway, so he liked the little noises. Normally, this would have been where he was most productive, but today he's too tuned into his surroundings for his own good. There's something—someone—moving, and he can see it out of the corner of his eye.
Glancing back over there for what he knows is the millionth time in the past hour, he has to stomp down on a smile.
He hasn't seen his best friend even smile more than a small quirk of the lips in weeks—which is scary, to say the least—so he knows there's a grin threatening to pull his mouth upwards when he sees Danny's hands tangled in Sam's black lanyard, his eyes lit up with a simple playfulness he hasn't seen in much longer than he'd care to admit. He has the lanyard falling between his hands, creating shapes with his fingers as Sam tries to snatch it back. The keys are jingling a bit too loudly to be appropriate in class, and Sam's wearing a mock frown, but her eyes are smiling.
It's been a long time since their smiles reached their eyes.
Tucker doesn't realize he's flat-out grinning until Danny catches his eyes and sends him a confused look, one that distracts him long enough for Sam to have the opportunity to grab the material and yank it out of his hands, the keys on it jangling loudly as they connect with her desktop.
Danny pouts at her before grinning broadly—something Tucker is beyond relieved to see—and using his quick fingers to nab Sam's small notebook off of her desk.
He has to smother full-blown laughter at the exasperated huff Sam lets out, her hands making half-hearted attempts to grab the notebook back. Her eyes are deep and dark, just like all of their eyes were, but they were dancing and sparkling in a way that sent this contented feeling through him, like fate was whispering in his ear that all was right in the world.
And because he knows that his friends—family, really—are okay, he knows he can look away. He looks away from their interaction, even though he wants to watch, because he's missing this lecture and he knows that whatever it is that is being taught is important. He knows it's futile, he really does, but it doesn't stop him. His pen is quickly writing down everything on the board at the front of the class and he tries to pay attention.
Even though he got none of what Lancer was talking about, he has notes, and he can go over those later. But he has to stop taking notes when he hears a giggle—one that he's heard about never in his life—and his eyes are wrenched away from the complicated notes he's taking.
Sam doesn't giggle. She laughs, she chuckles, and sometimes when they're all so worn out and stretched thin and something really is funny enough, you can hear her real, clear laughter ring out in air, but she never giggles.
But she is, and Tucker's quickly searching for what's causing it.
He finds it quickly enough. Looking at the notebook that Danny had so deftly stolen, he pressed the palm of his hand flat against his mouth, hoping that it muffled the laughter he couldn't control. Danny's eyes glinted in that mock arrogant way as he lifted the page and flourished his hand to show Tucker his hilarious sketch of Lancer and Technus battling it out in a "Battle of Long-Winded Speeches", as the picture was titled. Lancer was speaking, and Danny had used his pen to color him blue in the face, and Technus was staring, eyes glazed and drooling as Lancer was speaking.
If Tucker was having trouble holding in his laughter—which he was, he could only bite the palm of his hand for so long—then Sam was failing miserably. Her laughter (she was giggling) was bubbling up and slipping through the fingers she had clamped over her mouth, drawing attention to her. Almost all the sets of eyes in the classroom were set on her face, curious as to what she found so funny when she was much more likely to snarl than laugh these past weeks.
Lancer just sent them a hard look, rolled his eyes, and turned back to the board, completely disregarding the fact that half of his class was still staring at Sam's now blushing face.
Sam turned her rose-tinted face towards Danny, fixing him with a glare that made lesser ghosts tremble, but Danny only laughed, letting Sam grab the notebook from his hands.
Even as Sam turns back to look at the board, Danny's got this small smile on his face that sets Tucker's mind at ease.
It confuses him, but he's happy to see it. That small smile has always been a sign that Danny is healing, that things have a chance at going back to normal (or as normal as they get). Normally he sees these smiles after a wound has finally healed, when Danny realizes that it will be okay. Normally these smiles don't happen at school, or in the vicinity of anyone other than him and Sam.
And normally, it doesn't take this long for the smile to appear.
But then, these past few weeks hadn't been normal (there was a small voice in his head that asked him if any of their weeks were normal, but he ignored it).
It was rare that anyone was really hurt other than Danny, it really was. Cuts and bruises, they were common, but injuries were a rarity. Danny was always too much a hero to allow any of his enemies to get close enough to really hurt them, but sometimes not even Danny could keep every attack away from them. Danny had taken the brunt of it, as always, but Sam had a cut stretching from hip to knee that even Jazz had flinched at and he himself had come away sporting burns that sent smells into the air that made even his iron stomach spin.
Danny hadn't taken it well.
They didn't blame him, they never did. How could you blame someone who was not only your best friend, but had literally taken every hit possible so that they wouldn't have to? How could you blame someone who looked more dead than alive when they came out of it, just because they were trying to protect you? It didn't matter much, even though they didn't blame him at all, because he blamed himself enough for all three of them.
And this fight, it hadn't been normal either. This battle had laid them bare, stretched them thin, and stripped them down to the core. It had left them more than just bruised; it had left them a mess that they didn't really know how to clean up. Vlad was ruthless when he wanted something, and he wasn't above using emotional pain against his youngest enemies.
It had struck too close to home, too close to their hearts.
Normally they healed quickly, even Tucker and Sam never stayed down for more than a few days, emotionally or physically. But, this hadn't been normal. It had taken days for the agony to disappear from Danny's normally bright eyes, and another week before the self-loathing had followed it. Sam didn't make sarcastic cracks, Tucker hadn't made stupid jokes, and Danny hadn't smiled in weeks.
So this happy, playful attitude Danny was showing—in class—was entirely welcome to all of them.
Of course, the half-growl half-sigh that Sam let out when Danny reached over and nabbed her purple pen didn't let anyone else know how happy she was to see that Danny was smiling, but Tucker could see it. Danny laughed at it, leaning away from her fingers as she attempted to snatch the pen back, and clicked it rapidly.
Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click. Click, click.
"Gimme that!" Sam demands, leaning out of her chair to attempt to swipe the pen from him.
Tucker bites back a laugh, trying not to draw more attention than they already had, and watches as Sam smirks, her eyes planning and playful all at once. He'd seen that look before, and had learned very quickly to run in the other direction.
Danny evidently had a smaller sense of self-preservation than they thought, as he just kept clicking the pen.
Tucker blinks, and almost misses it. Her hands dart forward, fingers outstretched, and connect with Danny's side, wiggling franticly and without any sort of rhythm. Danny lets out this surprised gasp, his eyes grow large as saucers, and Tucker can see his skin pale under the tan for a miniscule second. Images of pain and injuries and pale faces dance in front of Tucker's eyes, and he knows that there clouding over Sam's, as he watches Danny.
But then Danny laughs, long and loud and healing, and Tucker relaxes.
Sam laughs again as she grabs the pen out of Danny's hand, and Tucker can't help but laugh with them. It's been too long—far too long—since they all laughed like this, free and unworried and over something stupid. He wonders briefly just how affected their laughter is.
He notices that Lancer is staring at them, and he tries sending the man an apologetic smile, but he just shakes his head before looking back to the board. Just as soon as Lancer's eyes are off of them, Tucker hears movement, something sliding along wood and something shifting in a soft surface. He looks back at Sam and Danny to find Sam's black bag in Danny's lap and Sam muttering about the unfairness of ghost powers.
Danny's hands are fiddling with the straps, adjusting them to lengths that are ridiculous, but he never touches the zipper, he's not one to invade her privacy. Sam's grinning, even despite her tirade on unfairness and ghostly traits, and Danny smirks as he hold up her newly adjusted bag.
Tucker snorts as Sam laughs, Danny flinging the backpack to the ground at Sam's feet. It's a testament to just how bad things have been when all of them find the ridiculously proportioned straps funny, and a sign of just how much they have healed to know that they smiled at all. And just because it's been so long, and it feels so good, they go on laughing like this until Danny attempts to snatch something else from Sam.
But, Sam's fast. Her hand reaches out and connects with Danny's.
What she's not expecting is for his whole face to light up, showing more happiness in that one expression then he has in so long, and for him to intertwine their fingers. She doesn't expect the shy look that goes with that smile, or the fact that his hand is warm and calloused in hers when he's been so cold for so long. She doesn't expect for that one act to help her heal more than weeks of time has.
But she likes it, and even though her face heats ruby-red, Tucker can see that she's happy. He watches as Sam squeezes his hand and Danny's smile turns to a full-fledged grin. He watches as Sam finally lets Danny keep the thing that he's grabbed from her. He watches as for the first time in weeks, they are all happy.
And that's how he knows they're healing.