Danny opened his eyes to sheer darkness all around. He made a move to sit up but found that his body wouldn't move. Panic set in as he tried to do so much as curl his fingers only to find out they wouldn't budge. An acrid taste was filling his nose, mouth, every available orifice on him. The rational part of his mind told him to relax. He knew what was going on. There had been times when he had turned tangible while stuck in the middle of some surface. It typically only happened after a ghost fight that exhausted him to the point of wearing his powers out, and it usually resulted in finding himself buried alive under three feet worth of dirt.
This, however, was most certainly not dirt; soil was malleable, easy to escape from. He had had many experiences enjoying the cool feel from the clumps of earth moving out of the way as he ran his fingers around them, occasionally coming across worms and various bugs crawling upon his skin. Whatever he was buried under now had absolutely no give. Its weight was heavy and oppressive, and there were so signs of life to be found within its rigid presence. What little air the was to be had felt tainted and obscene. Danny forced himself to relax his posture and concentrate. Closing his eyes, he struggled against the claustrophobia setting in, and turned intangible. Then, holding his breath, he forced his body to rise.
Within moments he was on the surface, flailing in his fumbled attempts to sit up. Getting to his hands and knees, he began to sputter and cough heavily, retching out the remains of the pervasive material that had seeped into his body. When he had calmed down, he opened his eyes to find himself kneeling at the concrete parking lot of the hospital. He raised his blue eyes up to the building and found it standing tall against the night blue sky.
It had been early afternoon when he had fought Spectra. That meant he had been trapped within the cement all day.
Unsteadily, Danny got on bended knee, testing to see if his limbs worked properly. He seemed steady enough. Cautiously, he moved to stand up straight. His legs shook with the effort, and he collapsed down on the ground again, on the floor of the empty parking lot. An unmitigated sob escaped his throat. He couldn't remember the last time he had been driven to such a level of helplessness. How on earth had Spectra become so powerful? How could he have been so blind – he knew she had disappeared from the Ghost Zone, had heard the Guys in White claim that the hospital was riddled with ectoplasmic energy – 'off the charts' had been their exact words; how could he have failed to put two and two together?
He returned his eyes to the tall white monument. The floor he had been thrown out appeared normal; there were no missing walls, no black, tar-like substance dripping down. Somewhere in that building, Spectra walked, sucking away at the ripples of negative energy that curled up from the people bound behind the walls. And Danny hadn't stopped it. It was, perhaps, his biggest failure, even more so than his inability to save Kwan, for he had delivered the other boy right into her clutches.
Danny drooped, defeated. Almost in response, the shoddy lighting behind him flickered and went out, leaving him in darkness.
Danny's bedroom was completely dark when he staggered inside later that night. After managing to get his legs back into working order, he had opted to walk back home rather than go for the easier option of flying. After what had happened in the hospital, he didn't feel much like transforming into his ghost half right then. Plus, he had reasoned after nearly falling over for the fourth time on the way back, it would help get his limbs back to normal. They still felt heavy and burdensome as he stepped into the shower late that night. Turning intangible may have removed the remains of the cement that had scraped off on him, but he still felt polluted inside.
Twisting the shower tap on, he allowed the warm water to rinse his skin, matting his hair down over his face. Now that they had gotten him as far as his bedroom, his legs took this state of rest as signal to shut down once again. Unable to feel any longer, he allowed his legs to draw him downwards, carefully folding under his weight. He pressed his back against the wall of the shower stall, the feel of the cool glass spiking against his nerves. The warm water beat down on him, and he stared unseeingly up at a corner of the ceiling.
Almost an hour passed by with Danny in this suspended state. By the time he regained enough strength and presence of mind to shoot his arm up and twist the tap back around, his skin had begun to prune under the constant flow of water. He waited several more minutes, sitting on the floor of the small shower stall, before rising up again.
The mist from the hot water had clouded the entire room by this point. Danny could hardly even make out his reflection in the mirror – not that he stopped to look. Methodically, he grabbed the towel hanging on the rack and proceeded to wipe himself down. Absently he noted that he had forgotten to bring in some clean clothes, but that was alright. The bathroom was attached to his bedroom anyway; he wouldn't be running into anyone on the way out.
Opening the door, he slowly stepped into his room. His eyes were focused yet undiscerning, not blinking once, but unable to register any of the images they took in. It was only through memory that Danny stoically made his way to the bed and sat himself down upon the edge of the mattress. He was naked, the lights were on, and the blinds were open, but he didn't care. He was alone in his bedroom on the second floor. If anyone were looking in on him, that was their own doing.
He sat there, hunched over himself, watching stray droplets of water drip down onto his thigh. Danny made no motion to wipe them away. Any strength he may have dredged up in the past few days with his newfound attitude had been solidly wiped away by Spectra.
The first strings of sunlight that pierced the window found Danny slumped on the hardwood floor at the foot of his bed, knees drawn up and locked in place by his arms. He wanted to stay in his room forever, but when the alarm clock buzzed, he knew it would be impossible. Today was the day his shop class assignment was due, and he would have to meet Tucker in Casper High to get the finished device from him.
Longingly he toyed with the idea of skipping until lunch; he would have nothing to do till then, and Tucker had surmised that he wouldn't be done until that time anyway. Before he had the chance to decide, there was a tapping on his door. Danny's eyes widened in alarm when he realized he hadn't bothered locking it after returning home that morning and blindly groped for one of the boxers left lying on the floor. He had only just managed to shuck it up his body in time when the door opened and his mother peeked in.
"Danny?" she called, flipping on the light switch in order to locate her son. "Sweetie, what are you doing on the floor?"
Danny raised himself to his feet slowly. He shook his head, trying to reassure her that he was fine while still finding his voice. "Nothing," he finally croaked. Before his mother could press further, they were interrupted by a heavy clomping as Sam strolled into the room. "Thanks, Missus Fenton," she addressed Maddie. "I can take it from here."
Maddie shot her son another concerned look before nodding and sliding out the room. Sam closed the door behind her and turned to Danny.
"What—" Danny cleared his throat in attempt to get rid of the raspiness that had settled over his vocal chords from disuse. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to make sure you went to school!" Sam exclaimed. "Danny, Lancer is all over your ass – he told me you haven't shown up for classes in days!" She made sure to keep her voice low enough so that his parents wouldn't overhear. "I told him you were probably studying at home or something," she continued. "Tell me I was right."
Danny blinked.
Sam sighed. "Tuck told me he's doing some assignment for you – is that true?"
"No." Sam raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "It's not!" Danny protested. "I mean – yes, okay, he's doing some stuff for me for shop class, but that's only because he knows his way around mechanics and all those gears and stuff; but I was the one who made the clock!"
"Okay, well," Sam gestured to his unclothed form awkwardly, "get dressed. I'm not going to let you skip out on another day."
"I wasn't going to," Danny muttered, ignoring the fact that he had been on the verge of doing just that. He grabbed a shirt, likely in need of a wash, off the floor and threw it on before jumping into an equally rumpled pair of jeans, topping it off with a brush of the hand through his thick hair in attempt to give some semblance of neatness. Sam's lips quirked up in an amused smile at the display.
Trudging downstairs, Danny made sure to keep his eyes averted from his mother's as she absently stirred her coffee with a teaspoon. Sam waved goodbye and led her friend out the door and closed it behind her. Danny was about to slide in to the driver's seat but paused when Sam raised her hand to signal him to halt.
"Did you get any sleep last night?" she questioned.
"What?" Danny had not been expecting the question.
"I can see the bags under your eyes all the way here," she told him. "You're in no condition to drive – here, let me—"
Danny pulled his car keys towards his body protectively. "What are you doing?" he asked loudly. "You don't have a license!"
"Sure I do," Sam said easily, pulling out her wallet and holding it up for him to see.
"When did you get that?" Danny asked. "I thought you failed your driving test on purpose because you didn't want your parents to buy you a Beemer?"
"Well, that'd be pretty stupid of me, wouldn't it?" Sam retorted, slipping her wallet back into her backpack. "I aced my driving test; I just didn't tell them. Now give me your keys."
"You don't know how to drive my car," Danny protested.
Sam shrugged. "It can't be that hard. It's not like it's a stick. Now hurry up ... unless you want to fly us to school?"
That was the last thing Danny wanted, but he didn't tell her why. Instead, he held out the car keys resignedly for her to take. "Be careful," he warned. "My dad will have a conniption if this thing gets damaged."
Sam's only response was to eagerly snatch the keys from his fingers and shove him out of the way. Danny slid into the passenger seat with no small amount of trepidation. For the first few minutes, he was hyper-alert of everything Sam did, but when it got through his brain that she hadn't landed them in a ditch somewhere yet, he allowed himself to relax, and almost immediately found his body melting against the upholstery. Sam was chattering on about something or other the entire time, but he ignored her words in favor of staring out the window at the scenery.
When there was a lull in the conversation Sam was having with herself, Danny turned to glance at her only to find her staring at him. He realized then that she had asked him a question. "What?" he asked dumbly.
"I said," Sam repeated with an air of patience, "are you going to tell me what it is that kept you away from classes for so many days?"
"Oh," Danny resumed gazing out the window. He recalled hiking up to the top of Castle's Point and looking down upon Amity Park, his ruminations over the role he bore upon the townspeople. "Nothing, really," he hedged. He thought about his feelings for Dash, how they made his heart feel so full, remembered parking outside his house and staring wordlessly up at it, wondering what the boy was doing. "Just thinking."
Had Sam not been obliged to keep her eyes on the road, Danny was sure she would have kept staring him down until he finally caved, so he was grateful when he felt the weight of her amethyst eyes move away from him and back on to the street. She slowed down once they reached the parking lot of Casper High, her eyes darting about to find a suitable spot, then easing into one available between two cars.
"Told you I could do it," she crowed triumphantly. Danny said nothing, knowing that she had made one fatal mistake, and simply waited for her to find out what it was. Sam unsnapped the seatbelt off her body and opened the door, only for it to press up against the door of the car next to her, giving her hardly any available space to maneuver out of. Danny allowed a smirk to tear across his face, ignoring Sam's attempt to catch his eyes in a silent plea for help by staring resolutely out the windshield.
Sam huffed and twisted the key to turn on the ignition again. Unfortunately, she twisted it the wrong way and the car let out a screech of discontent.
"Sam!"
"Sorry, sorry," she hastily apologized, turning the key the correct way round before straightening her posture and attempting to regain her composure. Then she backed out of the parking space and entered once again, this time allowing herself more space to exit the vehicle. She smiled confidently as she shut off the ignition and opened the door, easily stepping out and leaning back in to smile down at Danny.
Glaring at her, Danny opened his door without even looking, already knowing that he wouldn't be able to get out from his side. Sam's victorious expression dropped away, and she slid back in with a grumble and turned the ignition on once more.
"Stop complaining, the bell hasn't even rung yet," Sam said later in the hall. Danny swung his locker shut, too tired to respond. He hadn't actually been complained, having remained silent since Sam finally managed to gauge the width of the car accurately enough for the both of them to get out, but the strange mood he had been in all morning nonetheless irked her. Danny didn't have the energy inform her that it had nothing to do with her, and had no desire to go into the details of the real reason behind his behavior either, so he just let the matter be.
Now that he was out of his room, however, he felt the edges of weariness pull at him. It would be just his luck if he fell asleep in Lancer's class. Danny shifted the weight of his heavy Calculus textbook in his arm while walking in the direction of their class. He would have liked to go down to the cafeteria beforehand in order to buy a cup of the putrid coffee they served to wake himself up further, but he knew Sam wouldn't allow him to show up late, not even if it was just homeroom.
On the way, they heard a commotion taking place in the middle of the corridor ahead of them. Students squeaked as they were unceremoniously pushed out of the path of a great lumbering beast stomping through and making a great deal of noise.
"Looks like Dash is back to his usual asshole self," Sam muttered to Danny, watching the jock march down the halls, a murderous look in his eyes. Danny didn't say anything, keeping his eyes trained on the blonde boy heading their way. Dash didn't appear to see them; in fact, he didn't seem to see much of anything; his nostrils flared out, his shoulders hunched forward, and his arms, clenched into fists, hung stiffly by his sides.
Danny watched with alarm as a redheaded freshman in glasses who failed to jump out of the way in time let out a yelp of pain as one of Dash's meaty hands reached out and practically threw him against the row of lockers to their left. Dash ignored him and moved on, letting out a growl of frustration and blindly tossing a young girl to the floor when she failed to back away from blocking his path.
Sam let out an affronted sound as Mikey Fordham, a geeky senior whom Danny had never spent much time around, was swept aside by Dash's palm to skid down the linoleum floor, but didn't have much time for anything else before they found Dash directly in front of them. Thankfully, she managed to jump to the side in time to avoid Dash's wrath, but Danny, who found himself rooted to the spot and unable to do anything more than watch his onetime secret boyfriend revert back to the characteristics of a caveman , wasn't so lucky. Dash laid his hands on Danny's bony shoulders, preparing to launch him down the aisle, and Danny jumped slightly when Dash's fingers pressed against him, feeling a sudden jolt of electricity shoot through his veins.
It seemed that Dash felt it too. Danny stared up at the huge blonde jock, unable to catch his breath from the unexpected reaction, and watched as Dash's eyes regained focus once more, realizing just who it was that he was holding between his palms. Danny gave a shudder as the warm hands pressed even tighter upon his frame. Dash stared down at him, mouth agape, and the two boys remained frozen there in the middle of the hallway, caught in each others' gaze. It occurred to Danny that this was the first time they had properly looked at each other since their falling out.
Nobody said anything. The students were watching in quiet apprehension, waiting to see what would happen next. Dash's hulking form went up and down as he swallowed gulps of air, his body quieting down after the rampage it had just torn through, and Danny did the same, his body still burning up within the heat of Dash's unyielding grip and his heart beating so fast he thought it might just burst out of its cage. Absolute silence rang through the air as the two boys stared into each others' eyes.
Finally, Dash let go, setting Danny back down in a gentle manner and straightening his posture. Neither of them broke their gaze for a long moment, drawing out the encounter even further. It occurred to Danny this was the first time he had looked at Dash properly since that scene he'd walked in on at the Nasty Burger.
Dash broke their connection at last, shifting his gaze downward, as though unable to look the other boy in the eye any longer. Quietly, he sidestepped past Danny's tense figure and stoically walked down the other end of the corridor. Had Danny been able to move, had he been able to turn around, he would have seen Dash walk away rigidly, his shoulders still hunched, his fingers still clenched, but his arms swinging loosely as he moved.
Whispers started to break out amongst the students over what they had just seen. Danny stayed where he was, still not trusting his legs to move. Sam made her way over to him, her face contorted with rage. "God, what the hell is his problem?" she asked angrily. "You know, I thought he was starting to become a little more tolerable, but he's still a big fat jerk! I can't believe you had to spend every day with that."
Danny ignored her, feeling a dizzy wave overcome him. His body was heating up, and his heart rate had not slowed down in the slightest.
Sam hoisted Mikey to his feet, leading him over to where Danny was standing lost in his own world. "You okay, Mikey?" she asked compassionately, holding on to his frail arm.
"Y – yeah," Mikey replied, sounding almost as affected as Danny felt.
"Someone should really teach him a lesson," Sam said, glaring up at the path Dash had taken behind Danny.
"Nah," Mikey waved off her words. "He's just having a bad day. He's been lookin' ready to burst all week."
All week, the words swirled around in Danny's head. He remembered the disgruntled look he had seen on Dash's face in the cafeteria with Tucker on Tuesday. He had tried to convince himself it had nothing to do with him, but that moment ... Danny hadn't thought moments like those even existed in real life. When Dash had touched him, it felt as though a lightning bolt had struck him. The fog that had wrapped itself around his mind ever since his battle with Spectra last night had been all but eradicated that one moment.
It was like coming back to life.
Danny let out a sharp breath, shakily raising one hand to place over his heart. It had slowed down some, but was still beating harder than Danny could ever remember it. Sam shifted a concerned look his way. "You okay, Danny? He didn't hurt you, did he?" she asked.
Danny slowly shook his head no. Dash hadn't hurt him. Not in the least.
Mikey dusted himself off and fixed them both with a winning smile. "Well fellas," he stated, "it's been fun, but I gotta get to class."
"Us too," Sam said quickly. "Come on, Danny. Don't want to be late, do we?" She held out her hand for him to take. Danny hesitantly reached out and fit his palm over her smaller one. It felt nice, he supposed – sort of like they fit, but not really.
But it didn't feel anything like a lightning bolt.
Sam waved goodbye to Mikey and led Danny down to homeroom.
"See you at the prom!" Mikey hollered over his shoulder as he scurried in the opposite direction.
At lunchtime, Tucker found them both sitting together at their usual table in the cafeteria. "Finished!" he declared proudly, setting the clock Danny had given him in front of his eyes. Danny pulled himself out of his stupor, breaking his routine of swirling his spoon around his bowl of soup to stare blankly up at the other boy. "What's wrong?"
"He's been like this all day," Sam commented, taking a bite of her tofu burger. "I don't think he's heard a single word anyone's said to him since this morning."
Tucker sat himself down on the bench next to Danny. "Whatever," he said casually. "Now listen, I'm gonna explain to you exactly how I, Tucker Foley, the King of All That Is Awesome, got your clock to work, and I want you to repeat every single word to your class when you show it off..." and he launched into the mechanics of what he had been working on over the past day or so, hardly even stopping to catch his breath. Danny stared mutely at him as he continued to blather on.
"...and that got the gears turning, but it didn't synchronize properly, get it?" Tucker shared. "The hands were moving, but they didn't have the proper balance in order to tell time correctly. So then I had to..."
Danny tuned out once more in favor of sliding his eyes over to the jock table. Once again Dash was absent, and since just about every single popular student in school were present and accounted for, chatting happily to one another, Danny doubted the boy had chosen to sit outside that day. His attention turned back to Tucker when he felt his friend shaking him by the arm. "Danny," he whined, "you're not listening! I put a lot of effort into this thing, and I want you to know how it works."
Danny closed his eyes tiredly. He appreciated the lengths to which Tucker had gone through, really, but he just couldn't deal with this right now. He had never felt so out-of-sorts with himself before. He hadn't even had the energy to drink the coffee he'd bought, which had now gone cold, let alone listen to Tucker spout some drivel he didn't even care about.
Fortunately, that was when the bell rang signalling the end of the lunch period. Danny gratefully pulled himself to stand up, and gave Tucker a hearty slap on the back to express his thanks. Then he grabbed the clock and raced over to his shop class.
He sauntered in with a whole group of students who were excitedly discussing the projects they had made. Danny held on to the clock for dear life, and set it carefully down on his work station, waiting for the teacher, Mr. Bernstein, to come in. Unable to control himself, he turned his head to glance over at Dash situated at the table directly behind him, and was surprised to find Dash looking back at him. When Dash realized he had been caught, he quickly averted his eyes and started fiddling with the tools set on the table, acting as though he were testing to make sure they were in perfect working order.
Kwan slid in through the second door at the back to take his place next to Dash, causing Danny to break his stare and turn back to the front of the class.
When the shop teacher – a man in his late fifties, Danny surmised, with hair only on the sides of his head and along his jawline – walked in, he caught Kwan's eyes and snapped his fingers to him, "Over to the front, boy." Kwan obligingly followed the order and moved to stand next to the older man.
"Now, I've been instructed by the vice-principal not to request for your assignment, considering your, er, nasty fall," Bernstein said dryly. "But just because you've already got an A in my class, don't think I'm not going to make you work for it. You're going to serve out your time as manual labor, helping any of these overachievers," he gestured to the disinterested group of students in front of him, "carry whatever projects needs to be carried over for their presentation."
"Always ready to help, sir," Kwan said just as dryly.
"Right – Foster," he stuck his thumb behind him, indicating for the student in question to come up to the front, "you're up."
Jacob Foster bounded over to stand next to Kwan and held up what looked to Danny to be a long stick with holes in it. "It's a flute," he announced to the class. "I whitted it down myself, mostly using a knife, but I had to use the tools in this class to get it to look just right. That counts, right?" he turned over to Bernstein for confirmation. Receiving no response, he raised the instrument to his lips and started to play it, stopping and starting every few seconds to rearrange the position of his lips or to suck in a deep lungfuls to catch his breath before resuming his sonata.
"Terrible, Foster, just terrible," the teacher said shortly. "You get a B."
Jacob grinned and pumped his arm into the air in victory, practically bouncing all the way back to his seat.
"Robson, what do you have for us?"
Kyle Robson made his way to the back of the class, where his project was stored. Students who were creating an item too large to carry home were invited to keep them at the large shelves in the back of the class, so Kwan took this as his cue to lurch forward and help the boy carry it to the front.
"It's a bookcase," Kyle stated baldly, with his arms folded behind his back.
There was a short pause where he stared silently out into the crowd and they stared silently back.
"Would you care to tell us a little more about it?" Mr. Bernstein prompted.
"Well," Kyle looked the project over with a critical eye, inspecting it as he circled around the object as though he were a connoisseur. "It's got four shelves ... pretty narrow ... I didn't have time to paint it," he concluded.
Bernstein stepped forward and looked it over. "No polish," he muttered. "Wobbles," he shook the shelf around; "you didn't even sand it properly!" he turned back to Kyle, who was watching him with wide eyes. "You cut any fingers off making this, boy?"
"Um," Kyle blinked, "no."
"B-plus," Bernstein said gruffly.
The man surveyed the students before him shrewdly. "You there," he snapped his fingers. "The one with the breasts."
Lisa Dunston, the only girl in class, made her way down, carrying a large object over her head with both arms. Kwan made to help her, but she shot him down with a nasty look. Once she had made her way to the front, she set it down in a none-too-gentle motion. "It's a chair."
"So it is," the teacher agreed. He hiked up his trousers and sat firmly down on the round seat. He contemplated its sturdiness for a moment while fingering the scraggly beard all around his jaw. Just as he was starting to look impressed, the chair's legs gave out and he fell flat onto the floor.
"Oh," Lisa said blankly. "I guess I didn't fit them in well enough."
"For land's sakes girl," Mr. Bernstein sputtered, struggling to sit upright after the shock of the impact. Kwan helped him to his feet, and he dusted his bottom off, fixing her with a glare. He turned back to Kwan, muttering, "Looks like you ain't the only one round here suffering nasty falls, boy." To Lisa, he simply added, "B-minus," before scouring for his next victim.
He narrowed his eyes at a boy seated at the back. "You there," he called out, scanning through his attendance list for the appropriate record, "the one named like a Kraut."
Howard Mehnke, whom Danny only knew because he was the only boy in Casper High to actually wear makeup, shuffled forward. He was dressed all in black, with his face nearly caked in white and topped off with a thick layering of black lipstick. In his arms was a misshapen ball of something which he pushed into the older man's arms.
Danny watched as the thin man held it up into the light trying to make out what it was that he had in his hands. "What is it?" he finally asked.
"Birdhouse," was Mehnke's only reply.
Bernstein quirked an eyebrow. "I see. Can you tell us a little more about it?"
Howard Mehnke gazed up at him with an inscrutable expression on his face. His head tilted at an odd angle. Danny could feel a distinct air of discomfort radiating off the other man. Kwan shifted slightly, as if subconsciously trying to put some distance between himself and this strange creature. "Holds birds," Mehnke said at last.
The teacher stared at him for a long moment.
"Baxter!" he called suddenly. "Come save us!"
Dash strolled over to the back of the shop class, preparing to lift the project he'd been working on. Kwan brushed past the retreating form of Howard Mehnke to help his friend. Danny's eyes widened when he caught sight of the object. The table was impressively large, causing students that were in its way to duck their heads to avoid being hit by it. The two boys carefully set it down at the front of the class.
"Wait," Dash prompted, ambling back to his workstation. "I have one more piece." With an audible grunt, he began to lift. Kwan hurried over to help him with this extra object.'
The coffee table had a lower section with a panel of wood running between the two sets of legs. Kwan started to lower the object he and Dash held to rest in that area, but Dash quickly shook his head, indicating that he wanted to place it at the very top.
The two of them stepped back to show the creation off to the class.
Danny's jaw dropped.
The 'coffee table' Dash had made was a deep mahogany. It had a circular rim, most of which was taken up by a center made of glass. The legs, while not too intricate, displayed some impressive woodwork, designs extending outward and then curving upwards and inward again with shapes that resembled leaf patterns. And at the very top, placed from one end of the table's wooden surface and all the way to the other end, was a sculpture of a feline. It was made of the same rich timber and painted the same deep brown as the rest of the coffee table; Danny couldn't tell if it was a cougar or a panther; whichever it was, it slunk low in a prowling position, a hind leg extended backwards to rest on one end of the coffee table, and a front paw reaching forwards to rest on the other end. Its sleek body hovered over the delicate glass that took up most of the coffee table's surface, not touching it at all, and its head was turned to the audience with its mouth open in a roar and baring sharp incisors that threatened to tear them to shreds.
There was a stunned silence throughout the class as everyone took in the sight of Dash's work. Even Mr. Bernstein appeared dumbstruck, his mouth hanging open in the shape of an 'o'.
"Great Scott!" he thundered after a moment. "You made this?"
Dash rubbed at his right calf using the sneaker that adorned his left foot. "It's not finished yet," he said awkwardly. "It was, but then I got inspired to make the centrepiece at the last minute. I intended for it to be a coffee table."
Mr. Bernstein circled the project several times, pulling at the hairs on his chin. "Not much space to drink coffee with this monstrosity in the way," he commented mildly.
"No, I guess not," Dash said. "I guess I sort of changed my direction at the last minute. I got the idea to add this in last week. If I had more time, I would have added a few more panels between the legs..." he toed at the singular plank of wood that connected the two legs together, "... you know, changed the position of the current legs so that I could add two more, and a row of planks in between them, make it more of a shelf that people could use store stuff; so I guess it's more of a ... magazine rack?"
Bernstein was still staring down at the piece before him, nodding along dumbly to Dash's words. Finally, he snapped his head up to take in Dash's eagerly anticipating eyes. After a moment's pause he said, "Well, I don't think there's any doubt about it, Baxter: A-plus."
Dash's face broke into an ear-splitting grin, gratified to know his work had gone over to well. He turned to the class, gracing them with his perfectly white teeth, and his eyes settled on Danny. And if Danny didn't know any better, he would have sworn that Dash's grin grew just that little bit bigger.
When Danny caught sight of his car in the parking lot at the end of the school day, he suddenly realized that Sam still had possession of his car keys. He cursed silently to himself as he pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and dialled Sam's number.
"Hey!" she chirped when she answered the call.
"I hope you're still in school, because you never gave me back my car keys," Danny said to her.
"Sure am," she said coyly. "Turn around."
Danny spun a full 180 degrees and found Sam grinning mischievously at him with her phone still pressed to her ear. Danny found his mouth forming a corresponding grin as he shut his off and slid it back into his pocket. Tucker came up behind Sam and nodded to Danny. "Hey man."
"Hey, Tuck," Danny said fondly.
"Well, you seem like you're in a better mood," Sam pointed out. "I take it that means shop class went well?"
Danny nodded slowly, his mind full of images of Dash and his beautiful, earnest grin. "It sure was," he responded, knowing she was referring more to his project. "All thanks to Tucker here," he acknowledged his friend, reaching out to slap skin with the other boy. "Thanks, Tuck."
"Anytime man," Tucker said, a slow smile forming on his face. "What grade did you get?"
"I got an A," Danny informed him. Tucker whooped.
"Do I rock or what?" he cheered.
"Yeah, you do. You really, really do." Danny's eyes drifted along the parking lot, noticing Dash, Kwan and Jason, one of the less prominent members of the football team, carrying out the coffee table to load into Dash's car, speaking animatedly to one another. He remembered Dash being told to take it home and display it proudly, because it was simply too good to rot within the bowels of Casper High. "It was the second-best project in the class."
Tucker's face fell slightly at this news, oblivious to the creation the jocks were supporting in their arms just behind him. "Oh well, I guess that just means it's two good two be number one," he quipped. Danny snorted in disbelief.
"So ... are you going to tell us now what had you so upset when I found you this morning?" Sam asked slyly.
Danny took in her face, curious with a glimmer of impatience lurking beneath the surface. His eyes darted to Tucker's left where Dash was leaning against his car in a relaxed pose while the other two regaled him with some story or other. The sun was especially bright that afternoon, lighting up the scene, causing Dash's skin to luminate, his hair to glow, and his wildly exuberant expression to burn into Danny's mind. His grin widened as he watched Dash throw his head back and let out a hearty, unrestrained laugh.
Dash's head rolled to the right, trying to recover, and even though he was too far away to be sure, Danny imagined the jock caught sight of him looking over at that moment. His chest puffed out, full of pride and something else for the blonde boy. He turned back to Sam and Tucker. "Yeah," he said finally, realizing he was at last ready to tell them about his fight with Spectra. You're not going to be the one to save him, Lancer's words returned to him. What did Lancer know anyway? For the second time that day, Dash had freed him of his anchor. "Yeah, I am
Author's Note: This is actually half a chapter. While I was writing it, I realized the full thing was going to be WAY too long, so I decided to cut it in half so that it wouldn't be too time-consuming to read. I'm sorry for taking so long to update it, but it's getting to that time of the semester when assignments are due in and finals are around the corner (I'm sure you all relate). I cut it off here because this part is all about Danny/Dash and I would like to assure you all right now that yes, this IS a Danny/Dash story!
I know you're all terribly impatient waiting for me to get them back together, and I'm a horrible person for putting you through this, but I really want to give you a story that I'm proud of. A lot of you commented earlier on in the story that you admire the way I took my time to develop the relationship between these two characters rather than go for the 'I hate you/I love you' approach, so consider this to be the same. You can see in this chapter Danny has finally learned to overcome Lancer's words, so it's only a matter of time until a reunion. I don't want to give it away, but it's coming very soon.
Since this is a two-part chapter, expect the second half to be up very soon (within a week or so).
Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! Can't wait to hear what you think!