"How did the two of you meet?" some well-meaning kid would ask one day, and Danny wouldn't be sure which truth to go with.
"Oh, he just shoved me into lockers, every day, for most of eighth grade," he'd say, all nonchalant, then smile serenely at the horrified child and say, "Actually, we got turned into mini people by my parents' mad scientist guns and I lost my superpowers one by one until we almost got skinned by a ghost and eaten by a mouse, and then we hid in a disgusting bag of chips until he discovered my civilian identity and then we talked it all out."
Would he wink at the kid?
Oh, he totally would.
"Like men," he'd say, and wink.
It was a love story no one believed. Not in the dynamics between them – the bully and the bullied, the jock and the nerd, the asshole civilian and the half-dead hero.
Dash Baxter and Danny Fenton. It shouldn't have worked.
"Remember when Sam and Tuck refused to talk to us for a week?" mused Danny. He was sprawled like a cat on his partner's couch, his legs dangling off the arm rest. Craning his neck, the grin he tossed the other boy was upside down and blindingly bright.
"What?" asked Dash, bleary-voiced. He'd burrowed into a corner of the couch, plucking lint off his letterman jacket between a forefinger and thumb, half-distracted by the cartoons on the television. Dark blue eyes cleared, and his locus of attention narrowed onto Danny – onto his expression, his words.
Dash cleared his throat. "Yeah. You, uh... still thinking 'bout that?"
"We're good, I told you." Danny flapped a hand, and his grin melted into a genuine smile.
Dash's scrutiny remained a weight on him, so he reached over and patted the boy's jean-clad thigh, solidifying his reassurance through a firm grip on his knee. On instinct, Dash's hand wrapped around his, calloused and grounding, and his eyes fluttered shut.
"It was years ago," Danny murmured.
And it had been years since. They weren't fourteen anymore, playing roles they'd undertaken in freshman year, navigating teenagedom with worldviews not yet warped by the world. Huddled between softened potato chips, breathing air foul with particles of chili pepper and sheltered by nothing but flimsy, oily aluminium, secrets were swapped and facades torn apart.
There had been little space for those, for anything apart from wits and guts – and trust. Tentative and recalcitrant, but it was a bud, all the same.
It was in this little space that they'd first forced their planets into orbit. After the ordeal with Skulker, staying on this path had been treacherous, with eyes on them like pinpricks of stars – silent, waiting, searing. Casper High had watched them and they had watched each other, circling and cautious, but endlessly curious.
The casualness they shared today: curled on Dash's couch before the Sunday morning programming, their bodies interlocked by the warmth of their clasped hands – it was the fickle light at the end of the tunnel, light only they could see after working through the problems within and outside of themselves, and between each other, at the eye of it all.
Danny treasured it.
It was why, when Dash called his name and asked if he could indulge in an idea, he squeezed the other's hand and said, "Sure."
Dash peered at him. "Seriously? You're not even gonna ask?"
There was an odd delight in his words. Suspicion crawled back into Danny's awareness, and he popped his eyes open. "...I should, shouldn't I?"
A winning smile radiated off the boy's face. It sent his nerves fluttering, then Dash was swinging his red-white jacket before Danny with the flourish of a bullfighter brandishing his muleta.
"This," he said. "You. Monday."
Danny rolled over and sat up, running a hand down his hair, mussed from the couch. Looking from the jacket to Dash's wide-eyed grin, his mind tried to work out his three unhelpful words. He frowned, rotating the cricks out of his neck, and stole a glance at the flickering television. "I don't get–"
Then he noticed what Dash had been watching: a boy and a girl, on an after-school date, spluttering with laughter in a diner by the ocean. The animation style was clean-lined, simplistic, but there was no mistaking the blue-white varsity jacket draped over the girl's shoulders.
Danny balked. "Nope," he said. "Nope. "
"Aw, come on," wheedled Dash. His lips downturned and his eyes shone, like a goddamn puppy. For a millisecond Danny wondered what his fourteen-year-old self would've done upon seeing this expression on the other's face. Be traumatized, probably. "You get cold this time of the year, right?" Dash continued. "You've been whining about it for the past week."
"Dude. You've never offered your jacket over the week."
Dash's grin froze. "W-well–"
Danny's lips tilted into a smirk. Gripping the collar of the jacket, he pulled it down so it rumpled between their laps, and leaned in as close as his quickening heartbeat dared.
Traces of his partner's deodorant mingled with his breath, fresh like the scent of football fields at dawn.
"No," he said.
Dash's cheeks flushed. "I'm sorry, man, but I was thinking about it!"
Danny pulled away. "You were thinking about it so much you forgot to act on it?"
"I–" The pink deepened, racing over his cheekbones. Danny thought about putting him out of his misery, but then Dash shook off the embarrassment on his own and squared his shoulders, the entire expanse of it. "I mean, yes! Damn straight, Fenton. You in my jacket. Thought about it all day in school."
"Oh," Danny said, and his face became hot.
The image was ingrained in his brain, but as quickly as it had formed, he thought of eyes on him, of gazes like silent brands searing their veiled judgements into his skin.
His excitement soured. Danny swallowed, and sent a quiet prayer that it didn't show on his face.
It must have not, because Dash wasn't giving up. "Every other jock's girlfriend does it."
Danny didn't know if the tug in his gut was relief or disappointment. "I'm not your girlfriend," he countered, and heard harshness tinge his tone.
At the slight hunch of Dash's shoulders and tilt of his head away, Danny's mind scrambled. This moment was slipping between his fingers. He could feel it, their connection crumbling.
"I'm– I'm your boyfriend," he rushed out, trying to bridge the chasm, but it was as if he had only a wooden board to overcome a pitless depth, "so– I'm not wearing the damn jacket!"
Dash huffed. "I'm just saying. I thought it'd be cool. You don't have to if you don't want to."
"Well, I don't."
"Alright, alright." Dash gave him a smile, and with the death of the conversation, turned his attention back to the television.
Danny sunk into the couch.
On the screen, the couple was having a much more exciting time. Separated by the burst of a kraken at the harbor, they swore to see each other again, conviction expressed through gritted teeth and clenched fists. The animation was dramatic, all fierce lines and desperate curves. The girl was still wearing the damn jacket, which stayed miraculously clean despite her sopping wet hair.
"I'll come back for it," said the boy, ensnared in a tentacle of the kraken. It dragged him beneath the waves, and his captor's cackle echoed, its engorged eyes glaring at the screen.
Danny thought of eyes on him, blue as the ocean on a cool summer day.
The letterman jacket lay on the couch, abandoned in the space between them.
"I'll get cold," he declared.
"What?"
"On Monday." Danny slid his gaze to his boyfriend, to the surprise blossoming across his face.
Dash appeared struck dumb, just watched him with an ever-widening smile.
Danny rolled his eyes. "I'll wear the–" He pointed at the article of clothing.
Dash whooped and swooped him into an encompassing hug, arms wrapped securely around his shoulders and waist. Danny yelped at the tight squeeze, a little awkward from their positions on the couch, a hand cupping the spine on the other's back and another carding through fine blonde hair.
Later, in his shadowed bathroom in FentonWorks, he tried it on before his mirror, compelled by curiosity.
The letterman jacket engulfed him. The seams slid past his shoulders, tapering into white leather sleeves that ended in red elastic bands past his wrists. They wrapped around his knuckles, snug and warm, and his fingers peeked out.
Danny ran a thumb along the Casper High's varsity letter. It was sewn into the left breast, and he dipped the pad of his finger into the red woollen vest, appreciating its smoothness. It was lint-free and untorn – cared for with love.
Danny's T-shirts and jeans tended to collect tears and stains from his ghost fights. Dead beings ready to rumble did not wait for him to transform before dealing the first blow. After they'd begun hanging out more, Dash had started giving his (unsolicited) input on the state of his clothing. "Did you dig 'em outta the dumpster?" he'd crow, and Danny would open his locker the next day to discover a new T-shirt, neatly folded and nestled atop his books as if it was where they'd always belonged.
The memory drew a smile out of him. In his reflection, he reached a hand up and adjusted the collar. He could be a jock if he wanted, he thought.
Stepping out of the bathroom, he shrugged off the jacket and draped it over the back of his chair. He would pick it up and put it on, come Monday.
Feedback welcome :3 Crossposted to AO3 under Kiestan.