"Danny, hey, look at me," Tucker said, holding up his smartphone.
Danny chewed up the last bit of his chicken nugget. "Why?" he queried, glancing up.
"I read on Tumblr that your friends like it when you take lots of pictures of them."
"You're still following all those hipster accounts, aren't you?" Danny asked, stuffing another nugget into his mouth.
"Uh, maybe." Tucker snapped another picture. "You don't look hot in any of these, by the way."
Danny chuckled, did an exaggerated duck face, and proceeded to pose wildly whilst Tucker snapped pictures left and right, laughing all the while. He then turned the camera to Sam, who quickly said, "If you take any pictures of me, I'll snap your phone in half."
Tucker went back to taking pictures of Danny.
The boy swiped through each picture, smile faltering with every swipe.
"I look good, right?" Danny queried sarcastically. Then, looking up from his mashed potatoes, he said, "Hey, is everything alright?"
"Wes Weston is in the background staring at you in every single one of these."
Danny blinked slowly. "You're kidding."
"No. Look for yourself." Tucker passed the phone over, sneaking a glance at Wes and noting that he hadn't stopped staring. He was taking exaggerated bites from his sandwich, staring daggers into the back of Danny's head.
"What is his problem?" Danny asked, huffing angrily. "I'm gonna go talk to him."
"Danny, don't! He'll stop bothering you if you don't respond. You can't do anything rash or—"
But Danny was already up and out of his seat, stalking towards Wes with annoyance evident in his eyes. He approached the table and was met with curious stares as he slammed his hands down on the table and took the empty seat beside the offender.
"Is there an issue?" Wes asked, taking another slow, smug bite from his sandwich.
"Do you have an issue?" Danny said, biting back yells of anger. "I've been dealing with you for way too fucking long, buddy. When are you going to give up?"
"It wouldn't be bothering you this much if you weren't Danny Phantom."
The people around them, who had been listening intently, rolled their eyes at this and went back to their own conversations. They'd all heard Wes argue his ridiculous case more often than they wanted. It was brought up almost every day, and, quite frankly, they were getting about as tired of it as Danny was.
Danny hummed. "Oh. Obviously. You got me, Wes. Why don't you just go ahead and leave me alone, then?"
Wes' smug expression morphed into one of great annoyance. "I'm not gonna stop until the rest of the school knows what you are, Phantom."
Danny wanted to scream. He promptly stood, turned towards the rest of the cafeteria, and shouted, "Hey everyone! I'm Danny Phantom!"
The cafeteria echoed with laughter. Someone else shouted, "No, I'm Danny Phantom!" and the response echoed as others picked up on it until Mr. Lancer came out and ordered that everyone stop.
Danny sat back down, rested his arms on the table, and smirked in Wes' direction. "There. Now everyone knows. Are you gonna leave me alone now?"
"No," Wes muttered. His entire face had gone red.
Danny cussed under his breath. "If I catch you staring at me or my friends again, we're gonna have a little more than a 'friendly chat.' I'm not dealing with this."
"What are you gonna do? Hurt me?" Wes argued, getting in Danny's face. Their noses were almost touching.
Danny's eyes flashed green. It was just enough for Wes to backpedal, falling right off his stool and hitting the tile floor underneath. Then Danny stood, brushed off his shirt, and headed back to his table with Tucker and Sam.
"What the heck did you do to him?" Sam asked, visibly angry at him for encouraging Wes.
"Threatened him."
"Seriously?"
"Relax, I'm not gonna actually go through with it. I'm just tired of dealing with him."
"Uh, you might want to hold on the whole 'promising not to hurt Wes' thing," Tucker said.
"Why?"
"Because he's still staring at you. He looks angrier than before, though."
Danny glared ahead of him. Sam offered a half-hearted, "Told you." Tucker slipped his phone into his pocket and busied himself with eating.
Mark my words, Danny thought, glaring down at his mostly-empty tray.
This isn't over.
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