I'm in a 'present' mood lately, apparently. Too many drabbles written in present tense...

The Pawn
A Danny Phantom Fanfiction by Cordria

I hate to say this but I really have to give credit where credit is due: I've learned a few things from Vlad. I've learned what I'm never going to let myself become. I've learned how to accept defeat. I've learned some new powers from him.

But mostly I've learned to be a sneaky little git who can get away with almost anything I want. It's hard to admit, but it's sadly true. In the past two years I've gone from someone who couldn't even get a lie past my distracted parents to being able to lie straight-faced to my best friends.

Sometimes it keeps me up at night, you know? When I think about it, anyways – like I'm doing now. Lying on my back as the clock ticks towards midnight, staring at my seriously messed up ceiling, wondering why my life has taken the turns it has.

I know I've jokingly quipped to Vlad a dozen times that ghost powers really mess with a person's mind… but they really do. Or maybe it's just the secrets that surround having ghost powers that's really the problem. Maybe everything would still be normal if I hadn't thought to keep it a secret from my parents all those months ago.

Probably not, though. Ghost powers come with too many issues even if you subtract all the secrets. And, had I not kept it a secret from just about everyone, there's a good chance I'd be sitting in a lab somewhere being experimented on right now. Now that would lead to a normal state of mind, don't you think?

I really hope that the sarcasm came through that. If not, go back and reread it for me, would you? Add in a thick layer of sarcasm in that last sentence.

Take my ceiling for example. My ceiling really has little to do with my mental state – well, I guess it does, more than you'd think anyways, but it's a good place to start – and it's something that I have to deal with simply by being what I am. I'm a ghost, or at least part of me is or was or will be, or whatever. And in being a ghost, I have a lair: my bedroom.

Over the past few years, my ghost has 'settled' into my room and the whole place has started to take on some of the same aspects as a real ghost's lair. It's colder in here with no obvious excuse as to why, shadows get stuck in the corners easier, and it just feels different in here. My friends say it feels creepy, like they're being watched all the time. I say it feels more like home. There are times I don't want to leave. Those are the times I totally understand why Vlad sits in his mansion and doesn't have a girlfriend.

The best part – or maybe the most messed up part, depending on your opinion – is the fact that my room has started to respond to me. Ghost lairs in the ghost zone become whatever their ghost wants or needs them to be. I've always thought it was a neat trick. Now that mine is doing it too… it's still a neat trick. Incredibly hard to come up with excuses for when my parents actually notice something, but still awesome.

Like the ceiling. You're probably wondering what's up with it after all this. My ceiling used to be white. Boring flat ugly white, with the exception of a few oil stains from when my parents were building the ops center. You've probably got a ceiling just like it. Well, minus the ectoplasmic oil stains.

It's not white anymore; now it's a field of stars, showing exactly what would be shining in the sky if the clouds, the ops center, and the ceiling weren't in the way. I can see the moon usually – not tonight, though, as it's a new moon tonight. The rest of the stars are there. Sirius and Vega and Polaris and Mira and Arcturus… Even some of the planets. I can trace the constellations all night if I want to. Even in the bright light of the day I can still see them.

It's absolutely awesome. I can't think of any sort of ceiling that would be better than mine.

"Danny? Sweetie, why are you still awake?"

I roll my head over to look at my door – which I forgot to close again, I really should write myself a note or something – and sigh. Mom. What is she still doing up? I thought she went to sleep hours ago. "Not tired."

She walks into the room and settles onto the bed next to me, unconsciously crossing her arms at the feel of my lair. One of these days she's going to realize that she's doing that and figure out why, and then I'm going to have to use the excuse I've been cooking up. I've been keeping a ghost in a Thermos under my bed, ready to let it go when my parents start demanding to know why my room feels like a ghost's lair. Perfect reason: there's a ghost in it. I'll even give them the ghost to chase away. They don't need to know that there are really two ghosts in it.

"You're 'not tired' a lot lately," she says softly, reaching out and flipping on the small light next to my bed. I have to close my eyes at the bright flare of light – I can see just fine in the dark once my eyes get used to it, but it seriously hurts when someone turns on a light so they can see – and wait for her to continue. I know she wants to. "Something on your mind?"

I shake my head and work at getting my eyes open again. I hate it when people flip on lights like that. "Not really," I say, not nearly as smoothly as I could, half hoping she'd pick up on it and half hoping she'd just accept it and go back to bed.

Mom makes a disbelieving sound in her nose and shifts her weight on the bed. "You're going to have to stop lying to me one of these days, kiddo." Her words are solemn, but there's a lightness to her tone that lets me know she can see the humor in the situation.

"Never," I reply dramatically, finally getting my eyes to open and grinning up at her. "My life is not yours to pick apart." My smile widens a little at the double meaning to that – whether lie-by-lie or molecule-by-molecule. I need to remember that phrase to use again later.

She rolls her eyes good-naturedly, but then her expression goes serious for a moment. "Danny, you know we're worried about you." I nod and put my hands behind my head. "All this disappearing you do… the lying… all these problems you're having at school. I wish you'd talk to us, let us help you."

This is probably where I should make a clarification: my parents are very often termed "oblivious". I'm pretty sure Vlad started the use of that adjective and it only goes to show how little Vlad truly knows about my family. My parents aren't really all that oblivious. They're well aware that something is wrong with me and they can list – in either alphabetical or chronological order, depending on your preference – all the problems I'm having. And they can hit the nail on the head with each one. I'm positive that if 'half-ghost' ever came into their frame of thinking it wouldn't take more than a few minutes for them to connect the word and me.

My parents are, in fact, just incredibly distractible. They'll stop whatever they're doing to chase a ghost that may or may not exist, or research some new idea, or build the latest invention that's jumped into my father's mind. It's really useful for me, as whenever they remember their questions about me and start following me around I can quite easily find something to stop them in their tracks. It sometimes takes them weeks to even remember that I exist, much less that I'm having some kind of problem.

Do I feel bad about it? Definitely. Is it a bit too much like Vlad to suit my tastes? Without a doubt, yes. Do I do it anyways? Over and over? Yes and yes.

"I can figure it out," I say and shrug, which isn't the easiest thing to do when one's hands are behind one's head. "It's no big deal."

"It's a big deal if you're lying to me about it so often." Her words are soft, the sigh evident. Her eyes are sleepy but they gaze at me with a quiet steadiness that I can't shake. "And it's keeping me up at night too." The smile reappears on her face, but it doesn't touch her eyes. She seriously wants to know what's bothering me. "Just give me a hint. Please?"

I'm not heartless. I'm very proud of the fact that I'm not a heartless fruit loop like Vlad, able to turn his back on starving children and kicked puppies without even a twinge of regret. My eyes close and I groan in my head. Dang it. I'm going to have to tell her something or she's going to stare at me with those eyes until I break and tell her the real truth. "Well…"

She says nothing as I search for what to say. The best lies have a few things in common. They stick as close to the truth as possible, making it easy to remember and harder for other people to pick apart. They also hand over an answer the other person is willing to accept or, even better, is precisely the answer that person is looking for.

Lies inside of lies. The gray area between truth and fiction. The ability to appease my mother's conscience without destroying what I've been working to build up for two years.

I hate Vlad for having taught me this.

I fix my eyes up at the ceiling, tracing the lines of Ursa Major. Normally when you lie you should look someone in the eyes, but not when the 'truth' is being dragged out of you. Especially the 'truth' I'm about to hand to her. I shift uncomfortably on the bed, the sigh and close my eyes. I don't want to have this talk right now, but I really don't want to have the other talk. "It's Sam."

I can almost hear the pleasure in her voice. "Sam, huh?"

Fighting not to roll my eyes, I lever up on one arm and let my eyes drift around the room. "Yeah." I shrug one shoulder and wait for her to speak. If she jumps to her own conclusions it's not really me lying to her. I fully realize it's splitting hairs, but I've been doing a lot of splitting hairs lately and sometimes it's the only reason I can sleep at night.

'It's Sam' really could mean anything. There could be a Sam in school who is sick. Or a Sam on the football team who's going to beat me up before school tomorrow. Or a Sam on a TV show I can't get out of my head. There could be a million things those two words could mean, but I trust my mom to jump to the right one for me. I just have to stay quiet until she does.

"You like her."

Bingo. I feel my skin flush a little as I nod. Honestly, I'm still not sure how I feel about Sam. I know she likes me – likes like me – and I know I like that she likes me. And I fully understand that I hate the dismal feeling in the pit of my stomach that I get whenever I use her to distract my parents from the real problem. I know she wouldn't care – the fake-out-make-outs were her idea, after all – but I still don't like how using her makes me feel.

"Sweetie, there's nothing wrong with liking Sam. She's a really pretty girl and you two have been friends forever." She smiles and pats my shoulder. "I've seen how she looks at you, I know she likes you back."

"Yeah," I say softly and flop back onto my bed, trying to picture Orion holding his bow up in the stars in an attempt to get my mind off of what I'm doing to Sam and my mother.

She leans over me with a bit of a scowl, blocking my view of the stars she doesn't know are on my ceiling. "That's no reason to lie to me all the time." But the frown vanishes and she adds, "I guess I understand it a little, but if you want to go see Sam you should just say so rather than lie about where you're going."

"I know."

A look drifts across her face and she whispers, "I know you know." Before I can even being to process what that might mean, she leans down and gives me quick kiss on the forehead. "Now stop staring at your ceiling and go to sleep. Mom's orders."

I finally allow my eyes to roll and listen to her chuckle as she gets to her feet. "Night," I say as she makes her way across the room.

"Good night, Danny."

After she leaves, I flip the light back off and let my eyes readjust to the darkness. My hands go behind my head and the stars twinkle at me from my ceiling, my mind retracing the 'talk' I'd just had with my mother. She accepted the Sam excuse for now. Sam would probably never even realize I'd used her – again. A scowl appears on my face – I can't even deny to myself that I'd just lied and manipulated my way through another conversation with my parents. It makes my stomach sour.

Somewhere, Vlad's probably laughing his head off. "All the pawns doing exactly what they're supposed to," he's saying with that better-than-thou smile on his face. "You're getting more like me every day, little badger."

"Ghost powers really mess with a person's mind," I whisper into the darkness, then push the whole mess from my mind and roll over to try to catch some sleep.

Uploaded August 29, 2009
Ech. Whatever. CHESS! PAWNS! I don't know where it came from either!
Thanks for reading!