Author's Note: I really don't know how I find the time to write these things. Seriously. Anyway, I know I've already used the whole Tucker and Sam know each other from camp, but I think it fits here. It adds a little comedy to the scene, which would probably be pure fluff otherwise. The rest of this story is concentrated fluff. Some angst will come in in the next chapter, so I am fitting it in where I can.
Danny heard a knock and grinned. He jogged over and opened it, saying "Hey S-" He stopped when he saw his best friend.
"Hey Danny. What's up?" Tucker walked in, looking around.
Danny raised an eyebrow. "Hey Tuck. Not much, but why are you here?"
"Can't a guy visit his best friend?" Tucker walked into the kitchen with Danny following behind.
"Yeah, but I have.. Um.. Company coming over in a few minutes and it would be uh…awkward if you were here." Danny said, rather lamely.
Tucker walked out of the kitchen with a coke in one hand. He lowered his drink and raised an eyebrow. "Would this company be of the female variety?" He grinned wickedly.
"NO! Of course not!" Danny said, his eyes widening.
Tucker's grin spread and he plopped down on Danny's couch. "There is no way I'm leaving now." He took another sip and smirked at Danny.
Danny blanched. "Tucker.. Please.."
"Nope."
Danny got on his knees and crawled over to Tucker, desperation in his eyes. "I'm BEGGING you!"
"Begging who?" Sam opened the door and walked inside the apartment. As she saw Tucker she raised an eyebrow and placed a hand on her hip. "Dr. Livingston, I presume?"
Tucker narrowed his eyes at her. He turned to Danny. "I never figured you to go for Goths, Danny."
"Tech geek." Sam said in a singsong voice, leaning against the door.
"Veggie girl."
"Carnivore."
"Rich girl."
Sam walked forward and grabbed Tucker's collar. "Take. That. Back." She said, Leaning over him and glaring him down.
Tucker shrank back into the cushions. "Don't hurt me." He squeaked, raising his arms up to protect himself.
Sam laughed and let go of his shirt. "It's good seeing you again, Tuck."
Danny sat on the floor looking extremely confused. "What?"
Tuck laughed at his friends expression. "We met at CTY. We both took an Archaeology course. Me, because I like the new technologies applied to that field of Anthropology and Sam, because she's related to Sir Leonard Wooley. Right?" He said, turning to Sam.
She nodded. "On my dad's side. He helped discover the first ziggurats in Mesopotamia."
Danny nodded, pretending to understand.
Sam's eyes widened and she turned back to Tucker. "Oh no. The picture you showed me…that wasn't him, was it?"
Tucker looked puzzled for a second and then grinned. "It so was!" He started laughing extremely hard.
Danny turned to Sam. "He showed you a picture of me?"
"Yeah." She glared at Tucker. "I hope you're leaving Tucker."
This stopped the laughter. "Why?" Tucker said.
"Because Danny is going to help me map out the night sky. Right?" She said to Danny, smiling at him. He smiled back. Sam turned back to Tucker. "And we don't need wisecracks from you every second."
"Oh, I get it." Tucker said, grinning and rolling his eyes. "Get me out of the apartment so you two can have your fun, right?"
They both blushed crimson. "TUCKER!" They shouted in unison. "GET OUT OF HERE!"
Tucker looked between them, eyes wide. "How'd you do that?"
"What?" Sam said.
"That. That whole knowing what the other was going to say thing. It's really creepy."
They shrugged. "I don't know." Danny said. "It just-"
"Comes naturally." Sam continued grinning at Danny. "Now if you-"
"Wouldn't mind leaving," Danny continued, returning Sam's grin. "We can get to work."
"I'm out of here." Tucker said bolting for the door. Danny and Sam collapsed into giggles. Tucker poked his head around the door. "Have fun, lovebirds!" He said, before closing it.
"WE'RE NOT LOVEBIRDS!" Danny and Sam shouted in unison. They looked at each other and blushed.
Danny got up first and put out a hand to help Sam. She took it gratefully and he pulled her up easily. "How are you so light?" he said, surprised.
She smiled warmly. "One of the upsides to being a veggie girl."
"You're surprisingly happy for a Goth." He commented.
"That's because you've only seen me when I've been properly caffeinated. My friends call me Tiger when I don't have my coffee."
Danny grabbed a bag from on top of the table and grabbed her hand, pulling her out the door. "C'mon. Let's go see some stars!"
Sam laughed and stumbled after Danny. "Slow down!" She shouted. Danny looked over and shot a grin at her before going faster up a flight of steps. When he stopped abruptly Sam was thrown into his back. He turned his head and raised his eyebrows at her. "Well aren't we the impatient one?" He said, grinning, before turning around to open the door.
Sam looked at him incredulously. "You're nuts." She stated, feeling a slight smile come across her face.
"Ah, but it's so much more interesting then being insane, don't you agree?" he said, swinging the door open. "After you, madam." He said, before comically bowing.
"Why, thank you, kind sir." She said, before walking onto the roof. "About the insane comment though, I have a reason. If I acted sane, nobody would look twice at my artwork." She shivered and pulled her arms around herself. "My god. It's freezing."
She felt a jacket slip around her shoulders and turned to smile at Danny. "Normally, I would protest, but you have a sweater and I'll get hypothermia without your jacket, so thank you."
"You're welcome." Danny said. He grabbed her hand again and pulled her over to the side of the roof. "Now look up." He said, grinning in anticipation.
Sam looked up. She could see thousands of specks. "There are so many." She said, musingly. "I bet at least one has life."
Danny grinned at her. "You think that's a lot. With all the light pollution around here, you're only seeing a fraction of the stars." He gestured hugely with his hands. "And they each look like tiny dots when they're these great, burning gaseous balls of fire and swirling planets made entirely out of mist all in their own huge solar systems and galaxies and universes." By this point, he was spinning around with his hands outstretched above him. He suddenly became extremely self-conscious and turned red. "Sorry. I'm probably boring you, aren't I?" He looked at her as she sat on the edge of the roof.
Sam shook her head, grinning. "No. I think it's amazing how it never ends. It just keeps on going and going. I love how they're still shining for us when they've actually dies so long ago."
Danny grinned and jogged over to her. "Hey! Who's the astronaut here, you or me?" He said, ruffling her hair. She laughed and shoved him with her shoulder.
Sam sighed, looking up. "But it's beautiful."
"Yeah." Danny said, his eyes never leaving her face.
Sam looked at him and blushed. "I need to go get my sketchbook." She got up and walked through the door. "Don't you dare go anywhere!" She called behind her.
Danny laughed and looked up at the stars. He felt as if he had known Sam forever. They already were acting like the best of friends and they had known each other for almost a day. He just felt really connected to her.
"I'm baaack…" He heard a voice say behind him. Danny yelped and whirled around to see Sam behind him, laughing.
"I am shocked that you would stoop to such means, my lady. And as the gentleman I am, I must stoop in return." Danny grabbed the thick, worn sketchbook out of Sam's hands and began to flip through.
"Hey! Give it back!" Sam said, trying to grab it from him.
"Ah, Ah, Ah!" Danny said, standing up and holding it over her head. "Not until I've seen it first. Danny looked through the pictures. The first few pages held some pretty standard stuff. A sketched bowl of fruit, an egg and a pencil for example. Then there were a few abstract drawing in crayon.
He raised an eyebrow at Sam. "Still playing with crayons, are we Sammy?" She blushed and swiped for the book. Danny spun around and laughed. He continued to flip through. After the abstracts there were…people. There was Mrs. Ferchette, standing on the stoop, camera in hand, looking thoughtful. Then there was Mr. Tjan from across the street, polishing his new car with a look of admiration on his face. Danny smiled at each familiar face. She had captured them perfectly, at their everyday tasks, each emotion expertly captured.
He turned the page. Danny's eyes widened and he focused in on one of them. He looked down at Sam and then back at the book. "Is that me?" he asked.
Sam pulled the book down to see what he was looking at. Danny stared up at her from the page. It was drawn from her point of view from last night. The candles cast parts of Danny's face into shadow, while exposing others. He smiled, almost laughing, as if from an inside joke. Danny's hair fell slightly in his eyes.
Sam blushed and shut the book. "Um...yeah. It was for class. We were supposed to draw something from memory, and you came to mind." She looked up through her lashes, shyly. Danny gave her a small smile.
"Thanks." He said. They stood in silence for a little while, awkward. Danny broke it. "Why'd you draw the neighbors?"
Sam smiled relieved the tension was broken. "I'm putting them in my mural. I'm painting a regular day on our street."
Danny's eyes widened and he grinned. "That's so cool! Which room are you putting the night sky in?"
Sam smiled and sat down. She flipped open her book to an empty page and started to sketch. As she did so, she said, "Well, part of the living room is going to be day, and part is night. I'm going to try to paint a sort of twilight in the middle. And maybe I'll put in a few ghosts."
Danny choked a little. "Ghosts?" he managed to say pretty normally.
"Yeah. I mean, we see them enough hear that they're part of daily life. I'm thinking of painting Danny Phantom fighting…someone. Maybe that weird music ghost he fought a few years ago. I thought she looked pretty cool."
Danny raised his eyebrows. "You think Danny Phantom is good?"
Sam continued to sketch, her eyes darting up and then down constantly. "Yeah. I mean, he fought that evil Ghost King a little while back, didn't he? How can he be bad if he's helping us?" She looked critically at her work. "Does Cassiopeia look off to you?"
Danny leaned over her shoulder, smiling. "No, it looks perfect."