I told you guys I would have these first few chapters up quickly!
Chapter Two - Tutoring
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Danny Fenton was a teenager who had faced more than could have ever been expected of him. He had battled with fallen kings of yore, faced and won against the inner demons that kept him gasping for air, and even fought when time itself was his enemy. He had faced things no one had expected him to survive, and, in a way, he never really had. At least, the person he once was hadn't survived...this, however. This new task that was set before him. He had finally found his limit of strength...and it was one he could not surpass.
"This...is something I will never accomplish. All my fighting, all the things I've faced...all leading up to nothing more than a few mentions between whispers. There is...no chance of me surviving this."
"Melodramatic, aren't you?" The only response to Ghostwriter's question was a long, drawn-out whine that had him rolling his eyes. Honestly, how one teen could make this big of a fuss over learning Shakespeare, he just wasn't sure. "Yes, well, he was never my favorite, either. You still need to learn of him, however."
"It's. So. Haaarrrddd." Ghostwriter had the horrible urge to make a tasteless joke. It was an urge that suddenly made him doubt spending his free time with a growing teenager that had an immature sense of humor. "This is like- Another language, or something!"
"If you would pay attention, it might be easier for you to grasp." The teen only tried to crawl under the low-set table he had claimed as his, the ghost soon seeing nothing but a mop of messy black hair. "Will you be hiding there for the entire time?"
"Yes. The carpet is comfy. And smells like mothballs." Hm. He might have just broken Danny Phantom. "I like mothball smell...nice carpet." Maybe switching back to math would be a better option. The teen seemed to like math, which had been a pleasant surprise. He supposed he should have expected it, seeing as the teen's parents were scientists in their own right. "Besides, learning this stuff is boring."
"Teaching you is frustrating, and yet you hardly see me complaining and giving up to curl around a mothball scented carpet." This was ridiculous, he had been one of the best in his class, and yet there was nothing in his books on how he could help the teen in front of him. He was close to rewriting reality and brainwashing him, at the rate things were going. "Your attention span is atrocious."
"Yeah, well...so are you!"
"Such a witty and clever repertoire. Truly, those puns of yours must be improving your sense of humor." Maybe if he tied him down and stopped him from fidgeting every ten seconds, they might get somewhere.
"You're mean." At any lack of a returning response, Danny slowly crawled out from under the table, propping himself back up across his scattered work. Things had been going well until they had started English. Math, History, Science- Those were things he understood! English, however...now, that was just inhumane. "Hey, does torturing me count as inhumane if I'm half ghost?"
"I...yes?" Ghostwriter really was not sure what to do with this teen, and it was only their first tutoring session. There were moments when he saw just how clever and brilliant the teen was, which is what made it so believable he was able to outwit his stronger ghostly opponents, and then… Then there were moments like these. "Do you voice every thought that happens to pass through your head?"
"I do when I've been running on two hours sleep and being forced to work on English." Looking up to see the pained expression on the other's face, Danny grinned. "Let me guess, poor sentence construction?" He was just being cruel at this point, but, well, he was allowed to be cruel sometimes. "If you loosened up, you would be a lot funner-"
"I will not hesitate to trap you in another poem." Danny only grinned, seeing the empty threat for what it was. And oh, look. There was that mysterious ghostly humming again. He really hoped he wasn't losing his mind, not that he would be surprised, at the rate he was going. Still, he figured Clockwork would at least warn him if he was about to lose any and all sanity.
"I'm booooored." The sigh of pain and defeat he heard from his tutor was a thing of beauty, truly. "Just face it, I'm never gonna understand this stuff! Like, you aren't the first one to try and get me to understand this stuff. It doesn't end well. Ever."
"I refuse to give up when I know for a fact you are an intelligent person. You merely need these things to be explained in a way for you to understand. Perhaps if we tried reverting to Latin…"
"Yeah, okay. Great. Now you've lost your mind." Seeing the startled look, Danny rolled his eyes as dramatically as possible. "In case you forgot booknerd, I can't even understand English. What makes you think I'm gonna understand Latin?!"
"You...don't know?" At the look he was given, he supposed not. Sighing, Andrew summoned a book to them with a flick of his fingers, letting it hover to an open page in front of the confused teen. "Ghosts have the ability to understand dead languages, which are languages that are no longer used by cultures in the living world. Latin is the one most known by example, but others include Sanskrit, Sumerian, and Ancient Greek. Since many words in English stem from multiple languages across the world, seeing where they originated from might greatly help."
"I'm...reading Latin. I'm reading a book. In Latin." Ghostwriter had to suppress the laugh that threatened to bubble up, although that did nothing for the smile. "This. Is. So. Cool."
"Yes, I suppose it is. You may still be human, but your ghostly half affords you all the instincts of our kind as well. This includes the ability to read, write, and even speak in these languages. The writing might take time to fully understand and learn, but reading you've seemed to pick up on easily enough."
"So. Very. Cool." Well, he supposed this would at least help the teen understand English. Although that still didn't explain some of his past work done… He was excellent in subjects such as Science and Math, if a little behind on the material, and yet History and English seemed to be where he was most often tripped.
"Phantom, can you show me those examples you brought of past work?" The teen vaguely gestured to a stack of papers, Ghostwriter rolling his eyes as he levitated them over. Things seemed okay...his explanations were precise and coherent, and the exact phrasing needed. Yet… Everything looked as if he had been answering completely different questions.
"Oh- So! Oh! That's what it meant!" The ghost blinked up at his student, happy to see he was filling the worksheets and homework out with little problem now that he seemed to understand the lesson. Although he didn't know how the boy was able to see anything, with his face being pressed that close to the paper- Oh...hm. Well, that would explain things.
Danny effortlessly filled in his homework, only looking up when he heard objects falling and rapid cursing from another room. Deciding it would be better not to question it, he went back to his work, squinting at one of the questions. Why did they have to make this print so small. Really, it was just...suddenly bigger? What on- "Um...why can I suddenly see better?"
"Those would be the glasses I slipped on when you weren't paying attention." Blinking in confusion, and reaching up to check, Danny did indeed find a pair of plastic frames on his face. They were obviously reading glasses, with a rectangular frame, in contrast to the usual ovals the other ghost himself wore. "It's surprisingly easy to slip things past you when you've had so little sleep."
"Yeah, my friends have games where they move my things and draw on my arms and then try to say I did it." Ghostwriter raised an eyebrow, Danny grinning. "They're great friends. And making each other doubt our perception over reality is how we show love." Ghostwriter wasn't sure whether he should be worried, or amused.
"Has your vision improved?"
"Very well, actually," Danny reluctantly admitted, slipping the glasses back on and quickly finishing his homework. "It's gonna make school a bigger hell than it already is, though. I figure you're not so out of touch with time that you know just how well liked kids with glasses are in high schools."
"It at least teaches you how to hold your breath for longer time periods," the ghost snickered, waving his hand and letting most of the books he had been using fly back to their shelves. "And how to duck- Which is something you could sorely use work on, after seeing a few of your fights."
"Oh, this is gonna be good. The booknerd is going to teach me how to fight? This I'd love to see." Danny blinked at the suddenly wicked smile he was shot, mentally wondering why it felt like he had just signed his death warrant.
"Hardly worth the effort, I think." Wow. Rude. "Go ahead and finish whatever you have left, I'll make some coffee so you can stay awake long enough to fly home without fainting in the middle of the Zone-"
"I don't faint!"
"My apologies, fall unconscious due to a lack of maintaining your physical stature." Hmph. Prick.
Danny did as instructed anyways, quickly finishing his homework and putting it away, along with the scattered mess of his other books. He stopped halfway through when he noticed a book that was about to fall off one of the shelves, the teen quickly jumping up to catch it as it did just that. "For a book nerd you think he would notice- Ohmygosh! This is the extended edition! I didn't even know there was a copy that still existed!"
Danny bounced to his feet, immediately changing into his ghost form and flying after Ghostwriter, almost startling the ghost into dropping the two cups of coffee he was preparing. "Just what-"
"Iknowyoudon'ttrustmearoundbooksbutIreallyneedtoborrowthisonepleasepleaseplease!" The book ghost slowly blinked, nervously looking around his kitchen for, what he mentally realized might be, some form of weapon. It was a few seconds later before a look of realization was on his face.
"Oh! Which book were you curious in borrowing?" Immediately Andrew was looking at a cover that was all too familiar to him, the shock showing through on his face.
"Please don't you dare say one bad word about this book. Not when I was just starting to like you."
"...what?"
"Dude, please. I need to borrow this- It's- It's the extended edition! Do you know- These don't even exist anymore- I mean, I've read the standard version about a couple thousand times, enough to where my copy is kind of worn and ragged and almost falling apart- Don't worry though, I had my sister help me rebind it- But, um, extended! There's things in here about the world I've never read and please you have to let me borrow it please please please please!"
"Did- Was that ghost speak?" Danny paused, nervously nodding. "I...you like this book that much?"
"Dude- Did you not just hear? It's The Soundless Clock- How could I not love this book?! I mean, the characterization is perfect, it's LGBTQ+ friendly, which the older books almost never are! And the world building was utterly perfect, better than Harry Potter and Hunger Games combined- And ugh, don't get me started on how perfect the plot and mystery was- It was so unexpected and yet at the same time the clues were right in plain sight the whole time! It was incredible and and and- You have to let me borrow this book! Please!"
"I- Uh…" Ghostwriter trailed off, not quite sure on how to respond. "You can have it? I mean, I never read it anymore-" The rest of his sentence was cut off as he was suddenly tackled to the floor in a very eager half ghost hug. He was surprised to find he wasn't as upset about it as he thought he would be.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank YOU, THANK YOU! You are the bestest and most awesomest person ever."
"Please never butcher a sentence like that again."
"I make no promises." In a flash Danny was letting him go and flying back to their study area, Ghostwriter finishing up their coffees and following after, mind still reeling. It wasn't that he had doubted Danny was the type to love reading books, he just...didn't expect him to love that one. "No freaking way. It- Prologue. Thing. New scene." The words trailed off into overly excited giggling, Danny curled up on one side of the couch and looking as giddy as a child on Christmas morning.
"And no more reading headaches~" Ghostwriter had a feeling he wouldn't be getting those glasses back, not that he minded. They were rather well suited to the teen. Even if they had somehow changed to white frames in the teen's ghost form, which, really...how did that even make sense? "Yesss."
Ghostwriter really was not sure how to react. He figured, however, that it would probably be best if he avoided telling the teen he was the one who had wrote the book he was so enamored with. "I DON'T REMEMBER THIS LINE IN THE SONG?! WHAT- HOW MUCH HAVE I BEEN MISSING?!" Yeah…
He'd keep that secret a while longer.
Here's a fun fact, for you! The Soundless Clock by M. J. Anderson? Well, that's actually a book I was planning on writing! Still in editing stages, but I thought it would be fun to slip it in!