Ack! So sorry it's taken so long to get this chapter up! Besides being pretty busy, I've also had a serious case of writer's block. X.x But of course, that's my excuse for everything. –sweatdrops-
Anyway, I won't keep you waiting any longer! As usual, additional A/N's at the end. Please enjoy...
Chapter Four"So let me get this straight—first you...kissed—" He whispered the word. "—Sam, and then you decided to dance with her out of nowhere?" Tucker confirmed.
"I guess...yeah," Danny said, putting his hand on the back of his neck. "Man, I don't know what's gotten into me! I definitely don't like Sam like that...it's just that...I've just been getting these weird feelings about her and it's like I'm powerless to stop it."
"Well, now at least everyone in this school doesn't think you're a couple; they just think you're crazy," Tucker laughed.
"Thanks Tuck," Danny muttered. "Exactly what I needed to hear."
The two best friends were walking home from school, intentionally to do homework, but were probably going to go and goof off instead. Sam had bolted for her bus as soon as the final bell rang, probably to avoid this very conversation. For someone who was such an individual and didn't care what other people thought of her, Danny thought, she was sure taking this personally.
"Was I really talking in a French accent?" Danny asked out of nowhere.
Tucker began to laugh. "Yeah, man! Believe me, France is not a place you ever want go. They'd throw their fries and toast at you for making fun of their language or something."
"Ha-ha," Danny muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets. "You know what's weird, though? I only did things like that after I was around Desdemona." Danny shivered at saying the girl's name. "Do you think she has something to do with it?"
"Only one way to find out," Tucker grinned, and started thinking of a plan while whipping out his digital camera, ignoring cries of protest from Danny.
"I thought so," were the first words out of Jazz's mouth when Danny had sat down at the dinner table that night. Looked like it was another day of TV dinners since Jack and Maddie were working on the Fenton Ghost Truth-Teller—obviously it was malfunctioning if it said Danny was a ghost!, they kept saying. Danny just kept his mouth shut.
"What, you thought you were a conceited snob? I thought so too," Danny grumbled, stabbing something that looked vaguely like corn onto his fork.
Jazz let out an exasperated sigh. "Danny...no. And you'll pay for the comment," she complained, aiming her own fork at him. "No, I meant, I thought you had a thing for Sam!"
Danny, who had just shoved a healthy amount of that corn into his mouth, suddenly sprayed it all over the table. "WHAT?!"
"Ew," Jazz muttered. "Anyway, what are you yelling at me for? You're the one who kissed her."
"How did you find out about that?!" Danny demanded to know, gripping the sides of the table, completely ignoring the fact that his left foot had suddenly vanished.
"You'd be surprised at how fast news travels around that school." Jazz gave a self-satisfied smile. "So c'mon, fess up little brother...anything else about you two I should know about?"
Danny gritted his teeth together and resisted the urge to go ghost and plasma-blast Jazz from here to the moon. "No."
Jazz simply raised an eyebrow as Danny concentrated on making all of his limbs intact and stomped up to his bedroom, not hearing Jazz laugh quietly to herself.
"You know what they say Danny; denial is the first sign."
Danny felt like the entire school, teachers included, were staring at him the next morning. Well, not really just him, more like him and Sam, as if everyone was waiting for them to suddenly start making out or something right there in the hallway. Danny's faced heated at the thought. Well, at least no one had seen them ballroom dancing.
The trio was walking to their lockers, as usual, but not talking—not as usual. It was a miracle Tucker was even keeping his mouth shut, but he would just nervously smile and wave at anyone who stared at them as they passed—which, as Danny was still feeling, was the entire school.
Danny knew Tucker's feelings on this whole mess—he thought it was hilarious. Of course he did. Tucker thought everything was hilarious. But what was Sam feeling?
He casually glanced over at her. She was clutching her books to her stomach, looking like she wanted to bite off the head of the next person who spoke to her. Which, really, was how she looked all the time, but she seemed particularly anti-social today.
Danny took a deep breath, ignoring the sweat that was suddenly dripping down his face. "Sam, I—"
She looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. "What, are you suggesting something else we can do to give that crowd something more to talk about?" She shook her head.
"No!" he cried, resisting the urge to slam his head into his locker. Tucker just smirked at the whole scene.
"Look Sam," Danny said once he had some of his sanity return. "Those times, I seriously had no idea what was going on with me—to tell you the truth, I don't even remember half of it!"
The goth suddenly narrowed her eyes, looking angrier than ever. "Oh, so I'm the only one who has to live with the humiliation?"
"Not for long," Tucker suddenly jumped in, whipping out his PDA. "Danny and I were talking about all this yesterday, and we—" Danny shot him a Look. "—I, came up with a plan..."
"What sort of plan?" Sam asked, resisting the urge to roll her eyes.
"Well, Danny said he only did those crazy things when Desdemona was around," Tucker explained. The halfa involuntarily shivered at the name.
"Anyway," Tuck continued. "Like he just said, he can barely even remember what was going on after she would leave or whatever, so next time she comes by and something crazy like that happens again, it's going on the Tuck Cam." He waved his PDA around.
Sam blinked. "That has got to be the stupidest plan I have ever heard in my life! It doesn't solve anything! It doesn't explain anything! All it does is give people a chance to laugh at us more!"
It was Danny's turn to be confused. "Sam...I thought you didn't care about things like that. I'm the one who worries about what people think of me, remember?"
She looked up at him for a split second, and then quickly turned her head away. "Well, geez," she muttered. "What sort of person wants anyone constantly making fun of them?"
Danny and Tucker exchanged a glance. Sure, that was true—but why was Sam taking this so hard? Just because Danny could barely recall any of it? No way could it be just that.
"Sam—" Danny reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. To his surprised, she shrugged it off.
"I'm going to class," she said before starting to stomp away.
"You really have a way with the ladies," Tucker teased.
Danny glared at him. "I don't know what her deal is! I mean, geez, my pants didn't even fall down or anything..."
"What does that have to do with any of this?"
"Nothing, I guess." Danny sighed, watching Sam try to shove her way through a bunch of football players. And of course, one of them was Dash.
The quarterback noticed Sam. "Hey freak!" he taunted, while his buddies laughed behind him. "You and the geek finally getting together or what?"
Sam gritted her teeth. "Don't you dare say things like that to my face. Danny is not my boyfriend, no matter how much you idiots seem to think so!"
Danny's eyes widened. He had never heard Sam talk so...violently. If anyone insulted her, which was unlikely since people seemed to taunt him instead, she would just brush it off, like water rolling off a duck's back. She never really let anything get to her.
So what was up? Danny had asked himself that ever since that stupid kiss, but he honestly couldn't come up with an answer. He felt pretty crummy about it, considering she was one of his best friends. So much about knowing each other inside and out.
Tucker suddenly poked him in the arm, snapping him out of his thoughts. "I think I see Desdemona back there!"
Danny squinted, trying to make her out through the crowds of people that were still hounding Sam. And suddenly—there she was, behind Qwan. It was pretty much amazing to Danny how people could not notice her—he could count on the fingers of no hands of anyone who wore pink tights. He began to shiver.
Just then, she seemed to notice Danny was standing there for the first time. Tucker started clicking buttons on his PDA, but no one seemed to notice. Desdemona's evil black eyes bore straight into Danny's ice blue ones. Her black lips curled up into a small, devilish smile. She clicked her long pink nails together, and almost as quickly as she had appeared—she vanished.
Danny was no longer staring at the spot where Desdemona had been—in fact, he had stopped looking at her after she noticed him. Now, he was gazing at Sam with a sort of dazed look on his face. She was still getting verbally bullied by Dash and his bullies, and she was still putting up with their teasing, shooting back remarks as fast as she could think of them.
Danny's fists clenched. How dare anyone make fun of Sam in front of him?! So what if she wasn't like everyone else? She was...she was...
In an instant, he was suddenly in front of her, glaring up at the football team. Sam gasped, and Danny held out an arm protectively in front of her. He didn't see her roll her violet eyes.
"Danny—" she started, wanting to snap him out of it, but he simply grabbed her hand—and not in the way a normal buddy-buddy friend would, she knew—and continued glaring at Dash.
"Aw, how cute," Dash laughed, elbowing his buds. "The geek's protecting his little girlfriend! How sweet!"
"You better believe it," Danny growled, which caused the football to instantly stop laughing.
"Huh?" Dash honked, while Sam was busy trying to wriggle her hand from his grasp and prepare to deny the whole thing.
"That's right," Danny confirmed, pulling Sam towards him and draping an arm over her shoulders. "Sam's with me." He turned to give her a dopey smile. Sam gasped again, realizing it was the same dopey smile—the same one he had right before he—
She mentally shook her head, not really wanting to think about it. This meant he was under Desdemona's spell, she knew that much. Tucker taking pictures a few feet away from them wasn't doing them any good, as she had predicted. How was the spell broken the other two times?
Think, Manson.
But before she could come up with an answer, Danny suddenly released her shoulder, and stood in front of her. "Yeah, that's right, you guys aren't going to hurt my girl any more." His hands tightened.
Dash and company burst out into instant laughter. " 'My girl!' Fenton just called the freak his girl! Oh man, wait'll the school gets a load of this!"
"They won't," Danny threatened, before he suddenly began to glow. A very familiar glow...
Sam gasped again, grabbing his arm. "Danny, no!"
It was too late. Two rings encircled his body, and floating, covering him in a protective black and white suit, and turning his hair snowy white and his eyes glowing green. Even though the initial glow had disappeared, there was still a faint one around his whole body. Sam and Tucker's mouths fell open.
Danny Phantom had arrived.
In front of practically the entire football team.
AHHH! –runs into wall- Well, well. Here comes drama. XDThank you so, so, sooooooo much to everyone who has reviewed this! I really, really appreciate it! It totally makes my day! :D It's what cures my writer's block—for awhile, anyway. ;)
If you'd be interested in seeing, I have two drawings on my deviantART profile that are related to this fic...heh heh, I plan on drawing more scenes from it when I find the time—right now, though, here's the two I have (take out the spaces to the URLs):
www .deviantart .com /deviation /8719159/ and www .deviantart .com /deviation /9317626/
Hopefully the next chapter won't take as long to get up! Hehehe...until then, though, reviews are greatly appreciated!!!
