DANNY PHANTOM: THE WAY I SEE IT
DIAMOND GRYPHON
DATE TYPED: 12/12/06
Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom or Cliff's Notes.
I'm sorry for the confusion. I posted this by accident yesterday then I deleted it.
The parts are all in order and they will try to stay that way for a while. The only thing that can be a bit confusing is the slight overlap between Sam and Danny.
CHAPTER 4: THE FIRST THING I NOTICED
Jazz
The first thing I noticed was that as much as Danny looked the same, he was not the boy I used to know.
It's a fact that our past experiences shape who we are. Danny didn't have the same experiences as he did last time I saw him. He didn't respond the same way he used to, he didn't act the same way either.
His personality was more subdued, quieter. He was always calm and it was hard to push him to show emotions. He rarely smiled; and it took a long time to get him angry.
Danny used to be funny and easygoing; he would have had many friends if the popular crowd hadn't labeled him as an outcast after he ran into Dash Baxter on the first day of school. Now he seemed to have no friends at all.
When I asked him about it, he didn't seem to care.
The more I saw, the more I had to admit it. Danny acted like a ghost. Not noticeably, no one would ever guess his secret, but it was undeniable.
He wandered around like a lost soul. He avoided interaction with other humans. If he actually focused on something long enough he did really well, but his behavior was almost obsessive.
It worried me.
Danny was human; he needed to act that way. The only ways I knew how to get him to learn human behavior was through observation or study.
He outright refused to study psychology.
I was thrilled that for once he had an opinion, but frustrated that it had to be against my field of study. If he wasn't going to study, that left observation.
That was why I forced Danny to go to the dance.
Sam
The first thing I noticed was that the popular kids were all in the center of the room. I made a mental note to stick to the walls.
Next, I scouted out the refreshment table and grabbed a glass of punch before heading off to a corner of the gym that I had chosen in PE the day before. To my surprise, someone was already there.
It was that awkward, shy kid who sat in the back of the class (What was his name? Oh yeah), Danny. He was wearing his normal clothes, a large, black sweatshirt and a pair of blue jeans with black sneakers. He seemed to be watching the popular group with a bored expression that indicated that his mind was elsewhere.
Why would he come to a dance? He didn't seem to like being around people, I didn't know of anyone who would call themselves his friend. There was no one close enough to where he was standing to be his date.
I thought about it for a minute before walking over to him. He was a unique individual, and that meant he might be interesting conversation.
I walked up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. He was so startled that he nearly spilled his punch by jumping around to face me. I had to suppress a snicker. I had forgotten how clumsy he could be.
"Hey." I started, once he was calm again. "Mind if I hide back here with you?"
He merely shrugged his shoulders before finding something else to stare at with his continually bored expression.
"So, why did you decide to go to the dance?" I tried starting up a conversation since his oblivious attitude was annoying me. Seriously, goths don't usually show much emotion but compared to him, I was sentimental.
"My guardian forced me to come." He stated simply, not bothering to look in my direction.
"Same here." I might as well be talking to a wall, for all the response I got out of him. I don't know why I even bothered trying. "My parents thought that it would be a good opportunity to hang out with my friends." That got a reaction out of him.
"Friends?" He turned to me, blinking his eyes in confusion. "Don't you just have Tucker following you around all the time?"
"They don't know that." I was startled that he knew that. Most people generally ignored us, or taunted us as being love birds. Even if anyone did notice that we didn't love each other, they didn't see how one-sided the friendship was. Danny must be a lot more observant that his laid-back nature gave him credit for.
I stood there a moment contemplating this new information before he broke the silence.
"My guardian thought it would be good for me to interact with other people my age." The fact that he was offering information voluntarily caught me off guard. "I'm not used to the company of others."
"Why not?" It was true that I had never seen him before, but I had just thought that he transferred from another school.
Danny
The first thing I noticed when she talked to me was that my heart started beating faster. After that came the warm squirming in my gut. Then my face began to heat up.
Luckily I had enough control over this strange emotion that it didn't show.
I answered her questions idly while wondering why on Earth she would talk to me. She didn't seem to have any friends. The only person who I had seen at her house, other than Jazz, was her grandmother. She dressed in dark clothes, a goth, maybe she saw my mostly black outfit as a sign of kindred spirit. I made a mental note to wear white on Monday and see if she ignored me.
I found Sam's company oddly comforting. Jazz was the only other one I felt that around. I soon found myself talking about random things. I let slip that I hadn't been around people much, she asked why and I spouted off my cover story that Jazz had made me memorize in great detail. Needless to say, I gave her the Cliff's Notes.
"My parents are archeologists and are always out of the country. Usually I stay with my grandfather, who home schooled me, but he is getting too old to have me running around the house." I shrugged. "Now I live with my cousin."
We settled into comfortable silence as we watched a jock trip and spill punch over his date. Sam burst out laughing as the girl slapped him and stormed off.
She looked over at me in confusion when I didn't even crack a smile. Sam sighed and brushed off her skirt in a businesslike fashion.
"Well, you do need help." Her voice was cheerful, which surprised me. "I don't know if I'm the best person to for this, but I'll help you if I can."
"Huh?"
"You can hang out with me." She shrugged. "I may not be an expert on high school, but at least we could learn together."
"Oh." I found it weird that someone would take enough interest in me to talk to me, let alone help me. "I'd like that."
"Good." She gave a definite nod before offering her hand. "Friends?"
"Friends."
Ok, let's put all these questions to bed once and for all.
Yes, this is a slight
AU. I have split the characters from the show into two categories. 1)
They are the same age as in the show as of 15 years ago. 2) They are
the same age as in the show as of now. Here is how the characters are
split so far:
1)Jazz, Mr. and Mrs.
Fenton, Dash, and Valerie
2)Sam, Tucker, and
Paulina(you'll learn this later)
That means Valerie is
somewhere around 30 years old while Tucker is still 15. His old
friends were not named Sam and Tucker, and you can call them Thing1
and Thing2 for all the difference it makes (This is a cut and paste
of the reply I gave to Tornada Silverwind).
I decided not to post the one-shots until I am done with some other fun stories that I have been working on.
This is my sister's favorite chapter, mine is chapter 6. Mush vs Action. How on earth are we related? (Sister's Note: Hey, she wrote the mush, so it must be somewhere in the gene pool.)
Updates every Tuesday, expect extra updates for the Christmas season however!
-Gryph
