AHHH! I'm sooo sorry it took so long to get this chapter up. A friend of mine came to visit for a week, so I basically wasn't on the computer, and then my modem all but exploded so we had to get that fixed...which took even longer. RAWR. -plots to destroy cable internet- Not to mention all the writer's block and the fact that I'm now addicted to Final Fantasy 8 and spend a lot of my time on the PS2 instead online. Whoops. :D But hey, at least it got me through this whole lack-of-internet thing...
ANYWAYS! I love this chapter. It made me giggle when I was writing it, hehehe. –runs off giggling- And to those of you who didn't like the supposed lack of Tucker, don't worry—I've always seen him as a sort of Cupid figure for Danny and Sam...and this will be no exception! MWHAHAHAHA.
Now back to our scheduled chapter, already in progress:
Chapter Seven
"I'm telling you, Tucker," I complained in the webcam, clearly exasperated. "There's something weird about the ghosts here. Danny's the closest one to any of the ghosts I dealt with back home, and he's a pretty strange case, when you think about it."
"Well, none of them have tried ripping your limbs off, right?" Tucker laughed, and I briefly wished it wasn't over a webcam online so I could whack him upside the head. "So far it seems like Danny's the only one who realizes you can see them."
"I guess," I mumbled.
It was a Friday night, and of course, I was at home with my butt sitting in a chair. Only instead of it being Tucker and I watching movies in the home theater, we were watching each other through webcams, chatting online.
I had told Tucker about the strange Lunch Lady ghost and the Box Ghost, and he was cracking up before I even told him about Danny. "I told you the ghosts would find you there! Oh yeah, who's the smart one now?"
When I did mention Danny to him, though, Tucker didn't find it the least bit suspicious that the spirit of a teenage boy, who was the son of two ghost hunters, was beating up other ghosts—who seemed to be coming out of nowhere—into oblivion. Nope, not one bit. All he did was fall over laughing when I mentioned that Danny wore spandex.
Sheesh.
Which brings me back to the conversation.
"So, what's it like to have a ghost following you around that doesn't want to destroy you?" Tucker asked, snapping me out of my daze.
I narrowed my eyes. "He isn't 'following me around'," I growled. "If he was, don't you think I'd notice?"
"Yeah, but like you said earlier, he was with you at school today—making sure you didn't get lost, I hear..."
"Will you knock it off?" I practically hissed, but only because it was true. Danny had showed up right when I needed him, to my utter shock—and pointed me in the direction of my homeroom and first period, two of the classes I had missed thanks to the lovely first-day-of-school-screw-up I had to endure. When I asked him how he knew this—after all, he was going to be coming here as a freshman, like me—his face fell and he mumbled something about watching Jazz.
Of course, right after that, he had disappeared, thanks to me and my big, insensitive mouth. I hadn't seen him since.
"What are you doing?"
I jumped about ten feet in the air, I swear. After managing not to scream at the top of my lungs, I whirled around and saw Danny floating behind me, his arms crossed and his hair flopping in his face in that really annoying way that made me want to chop it all off.
"You scared me!" I said, trying to sound calmer than I actually was. I mean, c'mon: a ghost had scared the living daylights out of me. You don't get more cliché than that.
"Sorry," he shrugged, not sounding sorry at all. He continued staring at the computer. "Like I asked, what are you doing?"
"Uh, Sam? Is there something going on that I should know about?" Tucker asked. "You started freaking out, even more so than usual."
"Ha, ha," I sneered. "Sorry...Danny just randomly appeared in my bedroom, with no permission whatsoever because it's not a customary practice for me to let ghosts into my room where they have full access at disembodying me."
Danny raised an eyebrow. "I'm not going to disembody you, Sam."
"That's what they all say." I narrowed my eyes suspiciously, even though for some odd reason, I could tell that he was genuinely joking. It was so weird that here I was, chatting up with a ghost—one I had known for about a day—and exchanging witty banter with him back and forth as if I'd known him...well, when he was alive. The only other person I'd ever felt so comfortable around so quickly was Tucker. Weird? Very. It still gave me the creeps.
"They all say what?" Tucker suddenly asked, snapping me out of my train of thought.
"Danny says he's not going to rip my limbs off." I raised an eyebrow at the webcam. "Y'know Tucker, if you could see him, I think you guys would get along."
"How can you tell?"
"Just a hunch." I turned back and glanced at Danny. "Was there something in particular you wanted?"
"Yeah, a ham sandwich!" Tucker called through the screen.
"I'm not talking to you, Foley," I replied without taking my eyes off Danny.
The ghost boy sighed. "Well, I..." He cleared his throat nervously. "I was actually wondering if you wanted to go on my ghost patrol with me."
I couldn't hide my smirk. "Ghost patrol?"
Danny's shoulders fell at my amusement. "Fine, if you don't want to..."
I rolled my eyes and grabbed his arm, stopping him before he could fly through the ceiling or however it was that he got in here. "Sorry. Sarcasm's a habit. What do you mean by 'ghost patrol'?"
He blinked, his eyes brightening a little, if that was even possible. "Well, ever since I died, there've been a lot of weird ghosts around, trying to terrorize the town..."
"Terrorize the town?"
He frowned, and I sighed heavily. Geez, was Tucker the only one in this world who could appreciate my sarcasm?
"Sorry. Go ahead."
"Anyway...there have been a lot of weird ghosts around, so ever since I've been starting to see them, I've been flying around, trying to catch them before they start trouble. Kind of like a patrol," he added quickly before I could say anything. "And since you're the first person I've ever met that can actually see them, I was wondering if you wanted to go with me."
I blinked, totally stunned. A ghost was inviting me to hunt other ghosts? What was wrong with the world I was living in! If Danny was a normal case, this would be the time where he would be blasting me into oblivion with that ghostly power so many other ghosts seem to love using on me. No, instead he was inviting me along, like I was some kind of friend of his.
A human, friends with a ghost? It could never happen.
Then again, I'm not one to play by the rules.
"Okay," I answered. "I'll go with you." Before I could see his reaction, I turned to the computer screen, where Tucker looked confused beyond all belief. "Hey Tuck...Danny and I are going to scour the town for evil mind-controlling spirits. Cover for me?"
Well. I always knew Tucker had a big mouth—after all, he certainly talks enough—but his jaw had practically hit the floor. In fact, he had probably been stuffing his face with something when I wasn't looking, because there was clearly a chewed up...something in his mouth. Ew.
"Uh, Tucker, I don't like see-food," I coughed, scowling. He quickly swallowed whatever he was eating and just stared with wide eyes. I tried again. "Cover for me?"
"Huh? What? Oh, yeah, sure," he finally agreed, tapping some stuff on his PDA. "I've still got all the sleeping excuses on here. Just crank up the volume on your computer and you're set."
"Thanks Tuck. I owe you one."
"Correction--you owe me..." He paused, his PDA whirring and clicking. "...Three-hundred and seventy-six, counting this one."
"Yeah, whatever." I rolled my eyes, knowing Danny was probably confused as anything. But hey, at least he could see Tucker. Tuck didn't even have the privilege of seeing the First Ever Friendly Ghost. Oh, well.
"Go on, get out of here you two lovebirds," my best friend suddenly said, absentmindedly toying with his PDA.
My mouth fell open. "We're not lovebirds!"
Before he could retaliate, Danny grabbed my shoulder, rolling his eyes at the computer. "Sam, don't worry about it. Let's go, okay?"
"Okay..." I growled, just because I knew Tucker could hear me. He was going to pay for that 'lovebirds' comment. I saw him grin before the webcam screen went blank.
Danny, of course, wasn't paying attention. Instead, he was staring at me nervously, probably regretting the fact that he could see a human as freaky as me.
I raised an eyebrow. "What is it now?"
"Well, uh..." he stuttered, suddenly looking at the floor, the walls, the computer, anything that wasn't me. "I've, um, never made another person intangible before, but, uh, I think I'd have to..."
"Have to what?"
He visibly gulped. "Hold you?" Those blinding green eyes blinked at me, and I was sure that if he could, he'd be blushing his brains out—although, to my surprise, there was a faint color staining his cheeks.
However, internally I was trying not to die of laughter. He was this nervous about putting and arm around my shoulders or whatever and enabling me to fly through walls as if they weren't even there? Well, okay, I could see how he would be nervous about that, but he was acting like he'd never been around a girl before!
Hmm...well, come to think of it, he did die right before he was supposed to be an incoming freshman at Casper High. So he was the spirit of a fourteen-or-so year-old boy, which meant it shouldn't have been that funny that he was so nervous.
But come on.
"Sam? Are you alright?" Danny asked, his blush growing deeper. I guess I had probably been standing there for quite awhile with a weird look on my face. Ah, well, nothing new for me.
"Yeah," I coughed. "Yeah, I'm fine. So...how about that ghost patrol?" I grinned and swung and arm around Danny's shoulders, hoping my parents wouldn't decide to suddenly barge in my room—no doubt I'd look really weird. Although ghosts are invisible and intangible to everyone else, meaning they can't see or touch them, they weren't that way for me. Good thing, too, because I've done a lot of ghost-related punching and beating in my day.
"Y-Yeah," he stuttered, nervously placing an arm around my waist. He stood stock-still before finally relaxing in the fact that I didn't chop said arm off. "Well...here we go."
He closed his eyes, probably to concentrate on rendering both of us intangible. I actually have had this little ghost power done to me before, but it was usually in a very unpleasant setting, such as an angry ghost setting half my body through one wall and the rest coming out the other, and then leaving me solid again. So this was the first time I'd actually be able to enjoy this nifty little ability.
A tingling sensation flitted through my stomach. I looked down, only to realize I couldn't see my own feet—or anything of me, even though I felt it. I grinned. Danny had done it!
Our feet began to float off the ground, and I instinctively clutched his shoulder a little tighter. Hey, he was new at this too! The last thing I wanted was to be a pancake on my own floor!
We continued to fly, though, and went through the roof—literally—without a hitch. I turned to see Danny grinning happily as we became solid again. He didn't say anything, but started to glance around the streets we were flying over, his expression suddenly intense.
"How exactly do you go about this 'patrol', anyway?" I asked.
He didn't look at me, but continued to look around. "Oh, you know, just fly around town searching for any ghosts. Normally I can't see them, since they're trying haunt people's homes or something, but—" He paused, and to my utter shock, a wisp of blue smoke suddenly emitted from his mouth, curling invisibly into the air. "My ghost sense lets me know if one is near."
My mouth was hanging open. "Is that why—" I started, but was interrupted when something green and wiggly shot out from the roof of a random house. It faced the home, make a weird, echoing, growling noise, before turning to face us, an evil gleam in its red eyes.
Danny sighed. "And ectopus? Is that all?"
"Wha...?"
"An ectopus," he repeated, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. "One of the first ghosts I ever fought. They're nothing. Hang on." He shifted his grip on my waist and with his free hand, fired an ecto-plasmic energy blast at the ectopus. It whimpered lamely before disappearing in a poof of green smoke.
"See?" Danny grinned, now fully looking at me. I'm pretty sure my jaw was going to be permanently unhinged after tonight. "Easy enough. But sometimes there are ghosts that aren't defeated in a single blast. Well, one for sure, but I think there's more."
I shook my head, unfazed by his babbling. "Danny," I started, unable to contain my question any longer. He was a ghost! He was fighting other ghosts! This went against everything that I had ever learned about spectral beings throughout my whole life! "Why exactly are you fighting all of them? I've always thought that was my job."
He raised an eyebrow. "You can shoot plasma beams from your hands?"
"No, but I throw a mean punch." I gave him a half smile. But only half.
"I'll take your word for it." He smiled fully at me, the same dorky smile that I had seen in the pictures on the Fenton's walls, and I couldn't help but imitate it. What? Smiling had to be...contagious or something.
"So are you gonna answer my question?"
He turned away from me and shrugged. "I don't know why I fight them...it just seems like the right thing to do. And since my parents are ghost hunters and all, I guess...I guess I'm doing it in their honor, since they've never seen a ghost in their lives."
"I'd be shocked if they did." We were flying over the park now, which was obliterated with extremely bright street lamps. "Honestly, though, I think fighting them is sort of what's keeping you here."
Green eyes stared at me again. "What do you mean?"
"Well..." Ugh, I'd always hated this part. Whenever I'd try to suggest to any spirit as to why they were still on the human plane, they'd get totally mad and deny, deny, deny. When I'd find a way to prove they were, indeed, dead, they'd insist that haunting whatever they were haunting was the end of it all—and then, of course, came the flying fists. Or plasma blasts.
On the other hand, something in the back of my mind was telling me it was different in Danny's case. He had said multiple times that he wouldn't mutilate me...but then again, he was a ghost. Better safe than sorry.
Loosening my grip on his shoulders ever-so-slightly, I continued. "Well, I don't think ghosts are really meant to fight each other. They're just here because something on earth is holding them back—preventing them from moving on to the other side."
"'Other side'?"
"Next life. Just rewards. Whatever you want to call it. The point is, ghosts aren't meant to fight each other. They just need to find out what's keeping them here and move on." I made a sweeping motion with a free hand to prove my point.
"But Sam," he sighed, those eyes sweeping around as we continued to fly. Where we were going, I had no idea. "If I don't fight them, who will?"
"I will."
"Really..." He didn't sound convinced.
"Danny," I rolled my eyes. "I've been doing this for what seems like my whole life. I think I'm used to punching the living daylights out of ghosts by now."
He paused. "Okay, so where were you when that Lunch Lady ghost attacked?" My mouth fell open, but no noise came out of it. He looked at me and smirked. "Thought so."
"Okay, fine." I couldn't help but sound a little crabby about the whole situation. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to have a sidekick."
"Sidekick?"
"Well, I'm still going to be doing all the talking around here. And like I said, I throw a mean punch."
"Yeah, well, don't test any of them out on me." He gave me another goofy smile and yet again, I couldn't help but mirror it. "But just to warn you...there have been a lot of weird ghosts around here lately..."
"Yeah, you."
"Besides me. And Sam, I really don't think they died here or anything. It doesn't seem like they've been here for all that long."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I dunno, just this weird feeling I have."
"I guess we'll know soon enough. I'm just hoping no ghosts come to attack me in the middle of the night," I grimaced. "Last time that happened was back in Dimmsdale. I fell asleep in my bed and woke up tied to a chair with a greasy-haired street punk of a ghost demanding to know what I did to his girlfriend."
He quirked an eyebrow. "Did you do anything?" I glared at him. "...Stupid question."
"Darn right." I paused, noticing my house coming into view. "I guess the ghost patrol is over?"
"Yup," he said, closing his eyes for a moment. My body gave in to the feeling of being intangible, and Danny flew me back into my room in one piece. He gently set me down on the floor and we stood there for a moment, smiling at—well, I'm not sure what—until we both seemed to realize that we were still holding on to each other, and let go in a flash.
"Uh...heh. Sorry," he apologized, rubbing the back of his neck, not quite meeting my eyes. "But, um—thanks for coming with me. I'm glad there was nothing worse than the ectopus."
"Me too," I agreed, making way to my computer. The screen for the webcam was still blank, which meant Tucker had probably been forced off-line. Heh, heh. What a geek. There was a sound program up, though, that had random noises of people snoring and sheets rustling. That was my cover for when I had to leave to make midnight ghost-busting calls—Tuck had created the program about a year ago, and it was a huge help for whenever I had to sneak out.
I was about to shut the computer down when the webcam screen lit up. I raised my eyebrows as Tucker appeared, his eyes shifting like he was looking for something.
"Grounded from the computer?" I asked.
"Pfft, me? Never." I raised an eyebrow. "Okay, yeah, they kicked me off-line, but I had to ask how it went. Are you sure Danny's not going to break all your bones?"
"Uhh..." Danny, who was still the room, gave the computer a series of interesting looks. First a confused one, then a glare, until finally he started laughing, shaking his head in disbelief.
"Tucker..." I sighed. "He's still in the room. I'm pretty sure he's not going to throttle me in my own domain."
"I dunno." On the screen, I saw him shove a handful of cheese puffs in his mouth. Did this kid ever stop eating? "Remember that Damon dude? He practically tried to rip your head off while you were asleep."
"Don't remind me." I narrowed my eyes. "Anyway, hang on a sec, okay?"
"What, the lovebirds gotta say goodnight or something?"
Not even dignifying him with an answer, I turned back to Danny and gave a somewhat apologetic smile. "Sorry, Tucker's a little...enthusiastic. Don't see why though; sometimes I'd give anything for him to be the freak seeing ghosts instead of me."
"Nah, don't say that," Danny smiled, not quite looking at me. He rubbed the back of his neck again. "I'm glad I met you."
My eyes bugged out of their sockets. Huh?
"Um...Sam?"
I blinked, regaining my composure. "What?"
"You wanna go on ghost patrol again with me tomorrow night?" He finally looked at me, a hopeful gleam in his eyes. "Since you did proclaim me your 'sidekick' and all..."
I had to laugh at that. "Sure," I agreed. "I'd love to go with you. Same time?"
"Yeah." He was grinning now, his eyes somehow oddly brighter. "Well...'night Sam."
"Goodnight Danny," I replied as he gave a little wave and went intangible before flying through the wall and into the night sky.
I faced the webcam again, only to find Tucker hiding what was probably a guffaw. I flicked the screen and scowled. "What's your problem?"
"I heard that." He was grinning from ear to ear. "Well, your half anyway. You're actually willingly hanging out with a ghost?"
"So?"
"You crazy lovebirds!"
"...Shut it, Tuck."
--
Aw, I finally stuck a little bit of fluff in there. Yay! Hopefully that will hold some of you over for now...especially the totally awesome people who reviewed the last chapter: shadow929, dPhantoMfreak, Shiro and Fubuki, conan98002, divinedragon7, animeobsessed3191, Blues59, Mizz Moony Luver, Sasia, passing4insane, luv2bamom, Fantasywriter13, WWMTgirl, Black January, Star-In-The-Sky-25, dArkliTe-sPirit, jessicajason, ShananaginSilverstarsEbonyskies, phoenix wanderer, punkettebebe, Seigyoku Kiryou, cutereviewgirl, Ohka Breynekai, KittyKiChi, and ShadowHawk360(P.S. yup, this fic is inspired by the 'Mediator' series :D )
Yay! –gives you all cookies- More where those came from if you awesome people review again! Pwease? –puppydog eyes- You can't resist the eyes! Uh, okay, what if Danny gives you puppydog eyes? Mwhahaha...
On an unrelated note, I'm now taking oneshot requests to wake my Muse up! See my profile for more information!