Disclaimer: Don't own DP.
Thanks to ShadowYashi, Darth Synkka, Above the Winter Moonlight, Invader Johnny, NikkieStJohn94, Puppy von Wolfenstein, Crystalmoon39, Domination of the World, ZoneRobotnik, lightshadow101, too enigmatic 2 b urs, trish, Zeki-Kiryuu-kun628, KraZiiePyrozHavemoreFun, noname, and ElectricThrillsAndChills for reviewing last time!
Gah. It's been so long, and now it's….almost August? (Insert pathetic crying.) This miniseries is still in February! I'm so behind the times!
Miniseries Summary: Dan's Secret VALentine Plans (Part Four): Dan uses a familiar human appearance to "spend more time" with Valerie, and to keep her safe from her stalker. Chaos ensues.
Chapter warnings: A few uses of the F-bomb, and PG-13 sexuality. Because Dan.
Deliverance
Shot 26: Dan's Secret VALentine's Plans Part 4
The next morning, Valerie awoke around four, as always. Dan was still fast asleep on the floor, his black hair tangled about the pillow. His bare torso was exposed, and he'd twisted himself into a rather odd position, one arm thrown across his eyes.
She bit her lip to hide a smile. She wasn't sure if she could ever classify Dan as cute, but his awkward sleeping habits were enough to make her question if his subconscious were truly diabolical. It appeared everything he did subconsciously was in fact a normal Danny-ish behavior. Maybe it was just because he was wearing a Danny-ish illusion, and she was looking for the similarities.
Not wanting to take any chances, she grabbed her uniform off of the floor, and she quietly tip-toed out to change in the women's washroom. Dan remained peacefully asleep, even though a few muscles twitched at the sound of her footsteps.
Valerie shut the door behind her, sending up a prayer to heaven that Dan perhaps would not wreak havoc in her absence. She ran a hand through her wild curls, feeling tired and that she needed to brush her teeth and comb her hair. And maybe shave her legs.
And then it hit her that such thoughts were very self-conscious ones, and that she was thinking them precisely because of the man sleeping on her bedroom floor. Her face bloomed with a blush.
What is wrong with me?
Her heart pulled strangely at the thought of Dan, who was also Phantom—and she could not afford to forget that he was Phantom. He was playing mind games with her and enjoying them too much to stop himself. He would probably ooze with pride if he knew that she was fretting over her physical appearance because of him. That her heart was beginning to pound just thinking about him.
She grumbled under her breath as she turned around the corner. "Stupid Phantom." She opened the door to the women's public washrooms.
And standing there, hunched over a mirror as always, was the one and only Paulina Sanchez. At the sound of the door turning, the beautiful Latina turned around, almost apprehensive. She looked Valerie over once. Then her face faulted. "Chica," she greeted in a whine, "you don't at all look like you had sex."
Valerie blinked. "…Cause I didn't?" she retorted honestly, face flushed. "Why do you care?"
"Because Star said Nathan told Kwan and Dash he saw D go into your room!" Paulina complained in disbelief. "Chica, how? How did you manage to go an entire night with that hot piece of ass and not lose something?!"
"How is that any of your business?" Valerie snapped. Was everyone spying on her love life? She moved to the lockers and began entering in her passcode. "Seriously, Paulina. There's reasons it never worked out ten years ago. And a lot's happened since we…last talked."
Paulina rolled her eyes. "Excuses." She was curling the ends of her hair so that each strand bounced upon her shoulders with wavy body. "Don't be afraid to give in, honey. Waiting too long drives them off."
Valerie's eye twitched, and she slammed the locker door shut with a little too much force. "Oh, sure," she retorted, gripping tight to her shower bag and towel. "Because sleeping with someone on the first night really made your relationships last, huh?"
A spark of real pain flashed in Paulina's eyes. She blinked and slowly lowered her curling iron, setting her jaw. In truth, she'd slept with enough men to know that the whole of Amity Park was burned for her. Most men knew Paulina Sanchez well enough to see that she was just a pretty face—and little else, which was an identity she could not seem to break away from. The woman's face began to blush with something between shame and true hurt. "I'm just…trying to live through you," she said slowly. She bit her lip. "Come on, D's not like me or other guys here. He's obviously in this for the long haul."
"Then he can wait. I barely know him, Paulina."
"So….you are playing hard to get, then? Making him sweat it out?"
Valerie inhaled sharply. "Dammit, why does sex have to be a mind game, like…like it's in exchange for something?" Her face was fully red, with anger or embarrassment, she didn't know. "I'm not playing 'hard to get.' I didn't have sex because I didn't want to have sex. Okay? Happy?"
Paulina returned to curling her hair, looking a bit more thoughtful. "You make it sound like it's so easy to not want."
Valerie face-palmed. "Oh my god. Paulina."
"What?" she said helplessly. "How else do you know if a guy loves you?"
"…That doesn't even deserve a response." Valerie entered into a shower stall. Then she began to undress, and she threw her pajamas and her towel over the shower stall door. "Look, D's just a guy from the past. I'm probably just using him to get rid of Nathan, and he's probably just using me for fun. It's not even worth getting involved with him."
Paulina bit her lip. "Did he even ask you to have sex?"
"What does it matter?" Valerie nearly wailed. She turned on the hot water, and the soft waterfall blasted against her, unraveling her tight muscles. She sighed, leaning her head into the stream. She was thankful for her friends. But sometimes, Paulina was just annoying. "I made him sleep on the floor. Nothing happened."
Paulina tapped her chin. "Chica, I'm confused," she called out, voice deceptively innocent. "You say he's just in it for fun. But you were the only girl he'd even look at yesterday. If he were a real player, he'd have at least flirted when you were gone. So whatever he wants, it's not any other girl."
Valerie blinked. She thought back to the way Dan's tongue had slipped against hers, his hands grabbing for her skin in an intimate way. She thought back to their time in her office, where he'd admitted that he had a mental investment in her alone. A strange feeling overcame her. As she stood in the hot water, her skin goose bumped. She wiped the water from her face. She called out helplessly, "Look, I know this ain't gonna last. You don't understand him. He plays mind games, and he just wants power. Maybe he's fixated on me because it's a challenge. Okay? So can we drop it now?"
She could not hear Paulina's huff over the roar of the shower head, but she heard a faint, "Okay, okay." And a great relief tumbled from Valerie's shoulders as she closed her eyes. Thank you, she prayed to the heavens.
For a time, there was blissful silence. Valerie washed her hair and shaved her legs, and by the end of it, she was quite hesitant to turn off the hot water. But she knew she had better things to do, and so she sighed and turned off the water, grabbing onto her towel and wrapping herself up.
As she opened up the shower stall door, she realized Paulina was still bowed over a sink, perfecting her eyeliner. Her hair was curled, her uniform adjusted to expose her arms and thin stomach. Paulina did not even look away from the mirror when she asked, "So was your boy toy up yet when you left?"
The thought left Valerie feeling a bit uneasy. "…No?" So far, no strange clones of Dan Phantom had popped up, and Dan had seemed pretty deep in sleep (although she did not typically equivocate sleep and vulnerability with the infamous Dan Phantom, the Ravager of Worlds). She dropped her shower bag onto the floor, still holding tight to the towel wrapped around her. Then she grabbed for her military uniform and ducked into a different stall to change into her clothes. "I'm not his keeper."
She could hear the mischievousness in Paulina's voice. "Then that means we have time to give you a makeover, right?"
Valerie rolled her eyes as she pulled on her clothes, buckling the uniform's belt tightly. At a subconscious level, she tightened it an extra rung, which she knew would better accentuate her figure. And then she realized what she was doing, and she groaned in disgust at herself. "I don't need to look good for anyone," she declared loudly.
But five minutes later found her standing before a mirror beside Paulina, feeling uneasy. As Valerie stared at herself, she began to worry. Her ringlet hair was now but a frizzy, wet bun, her eyes bagged with tiredness, her shoulders bowed over from stress. It was strange—usually, she didn't care at all how she looked to other people.
With a groan, she pulled her hair out of its sloppy bun, and she began to comb it all out. "What the hell is wrong with me?"
"Virgin jitters?"
Valerie glared darkly at Paulina. "Ha ha."
Paulina looked over to her, pulling away from the mirror before her sink. "If it makes you feel any better, chica, D could be a virgin too. Which means if you ever get around to actually having sex, you'll have fun popping a couple of cherries together."
Valerie's face drained in embarrassment. She asked incredulously, "…How would you even know he's a virgin?"
Paulina looked almost as if she were about to give an intellectual lecture, running her nails over the lapel of her uniform. "Sex is about learning the other person and making them happy. You're always a virgin when you start a new, serious relationship."
Valerie's face grew red, and she slapped her forehead. "Oh my god."
And back in Valerie's room, Dan slept on, unaware that his potential virginity was Paulina's favorite point of discussion. The realistic, tactile illusion of his human skin had worn hard on his power core, and at some point through the night, he'd given in, falling deep into sleep to replenish his energy. The Ravager of Worlds slept without interruption, the years of blood lust and destruction wearing down into the silk strands of dreams, his limbs peacefully relaxed within the scent of one Valerie Gray—something of sand and exotic flowers.
It took Valerie nearly half an hour longer than usual to ready herself, between Paulina's inane babbling and her own self-consciousness. She'd left the women's washrooms, her hair pulled down into a low, loose ponytail, her tight curls tamed into sleek ringlets. She'd foregone makeup because she never wore any anyway—and Dan would likely tease her about it if she tried.
But the nature of Paulina's conversations had permanently left her face stained with a blush, and she was certain that she'd never be able to look at Dan the same way again. It wouldn't even matter if he were in his full ghost form. Never the same.
Was she still really thinking about sex and Dan? Did her IQ drop or something? Valerie Gray, Defense Commander, Red Huntress, did not concern herself with trivial social exploits, and quite frankly if she didn't get Dan out of her mind, she was going to go crazy.
She needed a distraction. Now.
Valerie was so caught up in her sudden existential crisis that she missed the human shadow trailing after her in the dark.
Nathan stood out of her periphery, eyes wide at the sight of her. He bit his lip, then paid close attention to the gait of her walk and the way she seemed unhappy. Something dark stretched his lips, alongside a swirl of insane hope. Valerie wasn't with D. And judging by her actions, she wasn't so happy with D after all. She probably felt trapped. She needed someone to save her from her own sins, as D would likely continue to seduce and steal whatever was left of her, body and mind.
Nathan believed he would save her. He just had to get on her radar somehow—or get her away from D. Forever.
Since Dan was asleep, Valerie realized it was the perfect chance to get more of her urgent, classified work done—namely, the inventory stock report from the weapons shipment from Russia. She'd discovered the report in her pile of office work but had filed it away for later. She could not afford for Dan to see that weapons shipment. In the event he truly went insane, it was imperative that she not compromise the resistance any more than it already was…
Valerie sighed as she walked to her office and grabbed the report and a pencil. "As if it matters," she grumbled. "Freakin' walks around like he owns the place…Thinks he's so cool…"
She made her way to the shipment storage and arsenal, still grumbling a bit against Dan. Lucky her, the hallways were still empty—or else she'd have a hell of a time trying to explain away why the Red Huntress was talking to herself.
At the large vault of the high security clearance area, Valerie punched in her passcode and then allowed the screen to scan her palm. "Commander Valerie Gray," acknowledged the female robotic voice. "Welcome back."
"Yeah, yeah," Valerie grumbled, having tired of the AI voice a long time ago. She flicked on the room's lights, and the fluorescent overheads came to life with a cold sterility. Several storage shelves lined the room, but on the floor next to the door leading to the arsenal were a few large boxes with Cyrillic inscriptions on them. She'd become familiar enough with such an alphabet that she could read Recipient: Commander Valerie Gray, as well as the address. Finally. The upgrades for her jet sled and weaponry.
Valerie looked down at the file in her hands. According to the list, the box contained several types of energy boosters, a quantum molecular storage port, and a fusion gun—all rather delightful toys of mayhem that would aid her in protecting Amity Park.
(Funny, her objective used to be destroying Dan Phantom…)
She began to sort through the box. But as she ran her fingers over the smooth energy boosters to attach to her jet sled, she realized something was missing. One of the special guns Russia had promised was not in the shipment.
She growled. "…What the?" This was the second time something like this had happened, and the Russian resistance had been adamant and arrogantly uncooperative. Were they running out of funds and attempting to gain more money?
She pulled the room's satellite phone off of its hook and began to punch in familiar numbers, then waited.
"This is Andrei?" answered a heavily accented, male voice.
She shouldered the phone, craning it against her neck. "What the hell, Andrei? Did I put in an order for a fusion gun or not? Because I got paperwork here that says it should have been in my stuff. And it wasn't."
The weapons transport specialist on the other side of the phone sounded tired from a long day's work. "Ah. Commander Gray. You must look in other box. We shipped all weapons for you and have nothing left here. If you want copy of weapon, you must request order with Anton. Thank you. Good bye."
And then the man hung up before Valerie could speak.
"…Dammit, Andrei." She hung up the phone, face twisted in anger. "There is no other box."
To her further dismay, she realized one of the few people who keep organizational tabs on the storage room and arsenal was one Nathan Green. She groaned. "Oh no. No. No." If she called him up, he would inevitably see it as her attempting to "admit her love" or something like that. If she did not call him up, she would have to live with not knowing why a weapon was missing from her shipment.
She hesitated for a moment or two, debating the consequences, then she (very tentatively) dialed the directory to contact him. Within seconds of punching in his number, his familiar, whiny voice answered.
"Nathan Green, at your service."
She tried to sound brusque and uninterested. "Yeah, Nathan—got a problem with our shipment from the Russian resistance. Says here I was supposed to get a fusion gun. It's missing. Where's it at?"
The man seemed to stall at the sound of her voice. "Valerie? You're calling me?" Then he seemed to snap out of it, his voice tightening in nervous excitement. "Yeah, there were two boxes that came for you…" She heard papers shuffle on a clipboard. "It came in yesterday."
"It's not here," she said flatly. "Did you do something with it? Who else has had access?"
"Uh, I placed it by your shelf?" He stuttered, as if fearful of her wrath. "I c-could have sworn I put them side by side. I don't know who else accessed the arsenal since yesterday. Maybe there was a mix up? I mean, not everyone reads R-Russian?"
If it were possible, Valerie's face twisted into even greater irritation. "Well, it's not here. So either you lost it or someone took it. We can't have weapons just disappearing on us." She began to read more closely the safety disclosures. "It says here this gun could be potentially harmful to humans."
"That's…not good."
"No shit."
Nathan's voice was almost a whine in an attempt to regain her favor. "What can I do to help? You know I'd do anything for you, Valerie. Anything at—"
Something snapped within her. "—Look, you want to impress me? Find my freakin' gun. I don't care how, just track it down."
"Uh, y-yes! Anything you say, Valerie." A new energy came into his voice. "I won't let you down. I'll find the gun. I'll win your love! I'll—!"
She hung up quickly, feeling ill just listening to him and his passionate fervor. A small part of her felt guilty that she was manipulating Nathan in exchange for a favor. "I'm probably going to regret this," she breathed uneasily.
And then a sudden, new fear creeped through her. Wait a minute. A potentially harmful weapon had gone missing the day that Dan Phantom waltzed into the resistance. Wait a minute. If Dan Phantom had knocked out the whole of the resistance's security against him, then he had potential unimpeded access to even the high security clearance areas. Like the storage and arsenal.
She'd never seen him carry a weapon before, but if for some reason he had re-strategized—just as he had silently learned advanced hacking techniques and could have accessed the arsenal—then what made this any different?
Had he snuck off in the night while she'd been asleep, taking advantage of her trust? And what did the gun do that he would want it so much?
A sinking, sick feeling overcame her—and she suddenly felt as if she were a small child. An idiot who allowed a wolf into a hen house.
A few hours passed in worry distraction over her reports. Did she go confront Dan, or try to search for the gun around him while he was sleeping? Or was it best to…let him sleep and pretend everything was okay?
Valerie even began to wonder if perhaps Dan had created only a clone of a body sleeping on the floor, and that he had in fact tricked her and had been trailing her all day and laughing silently. Damn that none of her gear worked on him. It would have almost been worth it to shut down the Shield and reactivate it to get rid of his virus—but then he had made claims about an army waiting for the instant the Shield went down…
Even if he were lying about the army, it likely wasn't worth the risk to confront him about the gun. She'd lose the strange, calm environment between them. And she had an advantage on him now. Knowledge on his plan. Something she could leverage against him, if she played her cards right.
As she made her way to the cafeteria for breakfast, she mourned her life. "Everything's gotta be so complicated," she muttered in complaint, grabbing a tray and some silverware. It felt odd to go through the breakfast line without him. The cafeteria lady, Margie, mother-henned her about it.
"Where's that sleek-looking man of yours at?" Margie wondered, plating her up with some oatmeal.
"Asleep," Valerie deadpanned.
Margie blinked. It was simply bad form to sleep in past 8:00 in the resistance. "Still?" she asked incredulously. "What on earth did you do to him?"
At the underlying innuendo, Valerie grew defensive. "What do you mean?"
The old lady grew a bit mischievous. "It would take an awful lot to wear that man out." She narrowed her eyes playfully. "He's probably not used to rolling around with the Red Huntress, huh? How many times did you do it last night?"
Valerie's face flamed up, and she stood there, gaping. "What the—?" she stumbled for words. "The hell, Margie?"
"Oh, I know, dear. I'm just teasing." Margie gave her a motherly look. "But really, why aren't you two attached at the hip today?"
She slid her eyes away. "He's probably…just tired from the long trip here," she muttered out a lie. Her face was still blushed with the underlying suggestion of attached at the hip—the saying just didn't work right for this kind of situation. Margie probably knew that.
"Well, don't let him sleep in forever. He'll miss lunch. And then I'll miss looking at him. And you'll be miserable because Nathan will be here to bug you—and we can't have that."
"I can protect myself, you know," Valerie said, jaw setting.
"Oh, I know you can," the old lady nodded. "But dear, you don't. Not when it comes to Nathan."
The young woman turned away in a huff, cheeks flared in a blush. "There's not a lot I can do," she muttered. "Without hurting something on him."
Margie laughed a bit. "In this case, dear, I think he deserves it."
Just then, her comm buzzed with an incoming call. Worrying that perhaps it was an urgent alert to stop Dan Phantom from inside the resistance, she pushed the button and took the call. "This is Commander Gray."
"Valerie?" Nathan's voice was rushed and breathless. "I found your gun. I forgot—I sent it off to Research and Development. They're testing it now to log its capabilities and hazard potential, since it's unknown tech. You'll have it back in a couple of days."
Suddenly, Valerie felt foolish and paranoid. She rubbed her temples. "…What?"
"I said, I found—"
"—No, I heard that part. You mean to tell me you forgot that you moved it?"
"…Yes?"
She almost wanted to laugh or cry. If Nathan had sent it to R&D, then Dan didn't steal away into the storage and arsenal to take it. Which meant Dan was innocent of everything she'd thought to accuse him of. Which meant she'd worried for nothing. "If you'd just…freakin' remembered the first time, you could have saved me a heart attack here."
"But I found it," he stressed. "Valerie, I want to impress you. Anything to make your life easier."
She wanted to punch something. "I'm not impressed. You're making my life more difficult."
"Valerie, you know I love—"
She hung up, feeling worn and distant from herself. "Oh, man." She looked at Margie, who had leaned in to listen to the call.
"Is he calling you again?" the woman asked in disbelief. "I thought he couldn't because the restraining order?"
Valerie turned away. "I thought there was an emergency worth contacting him for." She did not mention that the restraining order she'd attempted to file had been dropped by the courts. "Thanks for the oatmeal, Margie."
And as she walked away, her suspicions that Dan was a culprit suddenly gave way to the greater fear that Nathan had orchestrated the whole mix-up just to talk to her. And she'd fallen for it, just as she always did.
Dammit.
To avoid potential run-ins with Nathan, Valerie took up her old tradition of eating breakfast inside her office. It was cold and quiet, and the book Dan had been reading—Crime and Punishment—was still lying on her desk. A reminder that yesterday had not been a dream, and that the Ravager of Worlds was still likely sleeping away in her bedroom, half-naked and twisted in her sheets. Which was weird and terrifying and kinda hot.
She hid her face in her hands and groaned pathetically. "Make it stop."
But no matter how many files she read through, Dan didn't meander into her office as she half-expected him to do, with a lazy declaration that he had not enjoyed sleep for years and that he'd sneaked onto her bed to maximize his "human experience." Something dropped into her stomach at the thought of a half-awake Dan stealing away into her bed. Leaving his male scent upon her pillow. Yes, that's probably what he was doing—desecrating the sacred space of her bed. With himself.
It wasn't until a few hours later that Paulina burst through her office door in a huff of perfume and beautiful curls. "Chica," she whined. "Where's D? He's supposed to be romancing you, and I don't see him anywhere."
"He's still asleep," Valerie said, not looking up from her report.
"It's like…noon." Paulina's lips pursed.
"Yep."
"What did you do?" Paulina wondered, looking over Valerie in curiosity. "Is your boy toy still even breathing?"
"I'm sure he's still breathing," she lied. Dan didn't have to breathe. "He's just…sleeping in."
"Then go wake him up," Paulina complained. "The world's ended, and we could all die today. He doesn't have time to sleep in."
The Red Huntress almost wanted to laugh at the woman's ignorance, but that did not stop the inner flutter of fear within her. She'd been subconsciously avoiding her room because she would have to finally interact with Dan again, who was shirtless and full of innuendoes and dangerous—and she had silently accused him of a plot that had actually been the result of Nathan. She wondered how he would react if he knew Nathan had played her, and that she'd fallen for it….what he would do if he discovered she'd immediately blamed him for Nathan's mistake…
It was probably best to hide those fears.
Paulina pressed again, "Chica, you're overthinking something. Stop it. Are you avoiding D because you're afraid of a real relationship?"
She groaned. "I'm not overthinking. And I'm not avoiding him because of that." She stood up and swept her files back into her desk. "Look, you happy? I'm gonna go wake him up. Okay?"
Paulina rolled her eyes lovingly. "You make it sound like a bad thing."
"…I'll let you know if it is."
"Is he not a morning person?"
Valerie muttered, "I'm not sure he's even a person."
In short order, the Red Huntress tentatively opened up the door to her room, half-expecting Dan to have gone insane and destroyed it, waiting in the mess to make her miserable. But instead, the walls looked clean and untouched. The room was simply cold from Dan's presence, the effects of his smoking from the previous night entirely worn away.
Her sculpted eyebrows furrowed, and she quietly shut the door behind her. An unmoving body was still lying on the floor, which was likely a good thing. The closer she got, the more she realized Dan's hair was still impossibly tangled about the pillow and his hand, strands sticking every which way in a knotted web, his chest still rising and falling in an even breath. She felt an odd smile creep across her face. The great and powerful Dan Phantom. Reduced to a bed slob.
What delightful information for blackmail.
With her foot, she gently nudged the elbow slung across his eyes. "Hey," she said. "You should probably get up."
Dan hardly responded but for a mindless grump. He seemed to almost sink himself deeper into the blankets. In the light pouring in from her window, she could see the defined lines of his naked torso and the careless way his jeans seemed to angle off his hips. She blushed a bit, looking back up at his face. Really, anywhere else was dangerous.
She nudged him again. "Come on, seriously. People are wondering if you're dead or something, and I don't wanna tell them the truth."
An irritated exhale escaped him, and he pulled his arm away from his eyes to glare at her. "What do you want?" he said, voice cracked with sleep.
She crossed her arms as she stared down at him. "It's noon, sleeping beauty," she said.
Suddenly, the bleary calm in his eyes tightened with awareness, panic, and anger. "What?" he snapped. He moved to sit up, only for the ectoplasm in his body to not surge to his brain. He fell back with a groan, covering his face. "The hell."
She leaned against the wall, looking smug. "I never would have thought that you'd be a lazy bum, given the chance. If I'd known you could be snowed over by blankets and twelve hours of sleep, I would have invited you here a long time ago."
But now that she thought about it, the original Danny Fenton had always been something of a naturally lazy person. It wasn't until he became a half-ghost that any semblance of responsibility entered his life. Fascinating that Dan Phantom appeared to carry some of those tendencies when he wasn't hell-bent on destruction.
He cracked open one bleary, blue eye. The grumpy expression on his face slid into something mischievous. "Invited me here, huh?"
She raised a brow. "Your ghost temp is back," she said, ignoring his suggestion.
"Then get down here and warm me up," he said, smiling cheekily as he stretched out.
Valerie rolled her eyes and nudged his side with the steel toe of her combat boot. "Go smoke or get a shower or something."
"Hmm. Public showers would be more attractive if it were with you."
Her face set in a strange way, and she stood a bit straighter. "No."
An evil, sneaky smile stretched his lips too wide. "Now that's just too bad." Something about him looked more content, his eyes less suspicious, the lines of his face relaxed. He sat up in a lazy way, running his hand through his tangled hair. And then he stretched again, the actions of which were all was so domestic. "I'd heat up much faster with your assistance."
Valerie deadpanned, "Don't be ridiculous."
He gracefully stood up, and she became painfully aware that he still wore nothing but his jeans, and that the frame of her own body fit nicely within his. Those devilish, blue eyes glinted. "And you curled your hair," he commented. His long fingers twisted into one of the side ringlets that framed her face. "For me?"
"No." She smacked away his hand.
He smiled. "You're a terrible liar."
"I'm not lying," she said, tone rising with defense.
The disguised ghost leaned in. "You did curl your hair for me," he declared. His wandering hand twirled one of her curls. "And you don't want me to stop."
She moved to push him away, but her hands pressed against his bare chest and seemed to stop there. The pale, human flesh, the barest dusting of dark hair, the natural configuration of his muscles—none of it hid the reality that the skin beneath her hand was silent and still without a pulse.
That he had no heart.
Dan's false-blue eyes seemed to darken as he pulled away to look at her. His hand slipped from her hair to cover her warm hand, intertwining their fingers, and he felt the tendons of her hand twitch instinctively beneath his touch.
"Searching for a heartbeat?" he hummed, although his voice was turned with displeasure.
"I know you don't have one," she scoffed.
He closed his eyes, almost in frustration. "You're just looking in the wrong place." Then he began to lower her hand. The action was intimate, and he felt her fingers tense as they ran down the hard lines of his flesh.
At a juncture beneath his heart, just skewed and off-kilter from normal human anatomy-there was a hum of sorts, a type of alien vibration. His power core.
He pressed her hand a bit deeper against his skin. "There."
Valerie swallowed hard. She almost pulled away at the pure level of intimacy. A ghost's power core was their seat of power, and she could feel it within him. A low, emanating vibration seemed to animate him, buzzing into her fingertips. She hesitated for a second in awe."…Why are you showing me this?"
He opened his eyes, and his gaze was serious. "You judge me by human standards, and yet you do not seem to understand that I am not human. I want you to know the difference so you will not make the same error again." His hand slipped from hers.
The woman fell very silent, caught between snatching her hand away and actively experiencing the vibration of his life force, but she could not move away, and she couldn't look away from his face. "Y-you just want me to touch you with your shirt off," she said, voice strangled with emotion.
"I would never be against that."
"…Yeah, you wouldn't." But she still didn't pull away. She had a feeling this all meant much more than a simple comparison between human and ghost anatomy. Damn his love for metaphor.
The power of the infamous Dan Phantom almost seemed to pulse at her touch. "This is as close as I can get," he said. "The most human I could ever be again."
His gaze was too heavy. It made her feel closed in suddenly. "I know," she whispered.
Now that he was fully awake, his power core was exerting more energy. "And you are not disturbed by what I really am?" he asked, carefully maintaining an even tone.
And still she didn't pull away. Her skin goose bumped at the increasing coldness around them. "Not anymore."
It felt silent between them, the weight of Valerie's admittance hanging in the air. Dan's face tightened with desire—the thought that Valerie did not despise him for what he was. "Why?" he demanded softly. "You are disgusted by ghosts, and you abhor evil, but I am both. Do you feel desire for me simply because I am the remains of Danny Fenton?"
Valerie's fingers ran down the front of his chest, still amazed by the detail of his illusion over the natural lines of his body—and that he would want her to touch him in such a way. It'd taken too many strange events to twist Dan into who he was, and too many events of the same to make her who she was. Their attraction was no longer about the past, and so she said playfully, "I don't know; I kinda miss the flaming white hair and the fangs."
His eyes darkened for her. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers. She opened her mouth to him, and the next thing she knew, his hands were bunching into her hair, cradling her neck. It was a slow and sweet kiss.
Pressed against his bare skin, she could feel his power core rev up at their kiss—the way a heart would race. It meant that she was affecting him. That she could do things to him he couldn't control. The thought would have been more fascinating, but she was too busy enjoying the feeling of it and the twitch of his bare muscles against her fingers.
All too soon, Dan pulled away with great reluctance. He looked excessively more awake than he did before. "Hmm," he breathed, the cool of his breath like a winter wind against her face. "I could get addicted to this."
In truth, Valerie could too. "As long as you keep killing people," she said against his lips, her voice soft with warning, "don't even think about addiction."
His fingertips ghosted along her neck softly. "Too late."
And then he pulled away to grab his shirt off of the floor, and Valerie felt oddly cold at the loss of his touch.
As Dan dressed, pulling on his jacket, he turned back to her. "Valerie." His voice was deep with some kind of desire.
Her heart pounded a little bit more at the sound of her name from his mouth. "Yeah?"
"…Is the cafeteria still serving bacon?"
Valerie Gray appeared outside in the snow of late February with her boyfriend, D. The roads from the resistance to the main part of Amity Park were abandoned and coated in white snow, tanks and military grade vehicles resting peacefully in the banks.
Although she was bundled up in a hat and a civilian coat, Dan looked entirely comfortable with only his leather jacket, a lit cigarette hanging from his lips, smoke trailing behind him. His messy hair was carelessly tossed in a signature low ponytail, and Valerie wanted to damn him for looking so good with such little effort.
"Bacon?" she complained again. Her warm breath billowed into the air as her boots crunched the snow on the ground. The snowstorm from the previous day had stopped, and all was silent. "Out of all things in the cafeteria today, you're making me trek outside to get you bacon?"
"It's the food of the gods," he said airily, blowing out a stream of white smoke from his lips. In that moment, he almost looked warm and human. "As I am a god, it is the perfect food for me."
She shoved her elbow into his side. "You're not a god. If I didn't wake you up, you'd probably still be sleeping away your afterlife."
"I would have woken up even more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed than I already am." He breathed in another puff of the cigarette, which was still quite a jarring image for Valerie to handle. Along with everything else.
She tried to wave off the whole thing, playfully narrowing her eyes. "Seriously, you slept over twelve hours. What the hell is that about?"
He hummed noncommittally. "Illusions are draining. As we are in a nonviolence pact for now, your bedroom was a perfect chance to rejuvenate my reserves through a more traditional means."
"Well, if you keep sleeping like that, I'll have to call you Rip Van Dan. Because twelve hours is ridiculous."
"…Rip Van Dan?" He paused for a second, then chuckled, his blue eyes turning to her. "Are you attempting to seduce me through literary references?"
"No," she said flatly. "Just warning you that you're about to get a nickname."
"Well, that's a pity," he said. "Because I feel seduced by your use of literature. Do associate further classical works to our lives in any way possible. If I cannot ravage the countryside in a fit of rage, then I require compensatory mental stimulation, which only you seem capable of providing." He dragged on the cigarette again. "Among other kinds of stimulation."
Valerie's face twisted in a blush, and she looked around to see if anyone were listening. "Stop that. We're out in public."
"Stop what?" he asked innocently, turning to her. "The other kinds of stimulation? Valerie dear, that would require you to stop being attractive."
The underhanded compliment, and odd honesty, made her face turn red. "Don't try to butter me up. You just said I'm a distraction from death."
He hummed. "You're human. Everything about you is always dying, or did you forget your own mortality?" He breathed in on his cigarette, then exhaled. "No, I do not look to you for a distraction from death."
"Then why the hell are you here, doing all this?" she pressed, shoving her hands in her coat pockets. Maybe it was time to level-set. "You say you got a mental investment in me. But I think you're just looking to fuck me for some kind of high while you destroy the place. Come on, be honest here."
His eyebrows flew up in mild surprise at the level of strain in her voice. He paused for a second, then cast his cigarette to the snowy ground. "That is why you resist me?"
"You're littering again," she said flatly.
"Forget the littering." Dan stopped walking and grabbed onto her arm to stop her as well. He leaned towards her, his irritated voice low for her ears only, even though they were the only ones on the road. "Let's get a few things straight. You know I hold no love for Amity Park, so it should be no surprise that I still intend to destroy it at some point." They were nose to nose now. He seemed frustrated. "And I don't associate the word fuck with you. It's a word for the lowest, most mindless form of consensual sex. If I wanted such release, I could fuck anyone I wanted." His voice dropped into an intimate, amused tone. "But I'd rather make love to you, Valerie."
Her face flamed in a blush, and she felt her stomach drop into fire. "You probably read that line out of a book," she challenged, her voice wavering. "Who'd you steal it from this time? Shakespeare?"
His thin lips stretched, too dark and wry to be genuine humor. "Are you accusing me now of plagiarism or false testimony?"
Valerie, not being one for emotion or for admitting that she had any beyond anger and irritation, pushed away from him. "You said in the beginning this was all just to maximize my time fighting you instead of hiding from Nathan."
"Of course. I did not lie."
"Then your own reasons don't make sense," she snapped. "You talk about deep love now, but you started off with fighting. Don't manipulate me."
He raised a brow. "It quite depends on your definition of 'fighting,' does it not? Each has a tension, a push and pull. A battle of tongues." Then he leaned in, eyes lit in dreadful desire. "Sweat and blood."
She pulled away again, feeling her body heat oddly. Oh, man. She had a sudden image of them and a bed and her nails digging into his bare back as she gasped and as he—
Valerie squished the thought. "You know what, just stop, okay? You're crazy. You take everything too far and—"
"—Is it so bad that I want to deepen our physical bond to match our mental one?" he interrupted. "I want your time. All of it. In any way I can get it."
"Why?" she demanded.
He looked genuinely frustrated now. "Do you not understand? The lifespan of humans is nonexistent under this shield. You'll be dead in a few decades, and I will have to endure with only memories of you." He moved away. Something about him looked raw as he said, voice straining oddly, "You think this is play, but this is investment in the time we have left."
Valerie swallowed hard. She looked away, then continued walking forward, feeling cold with the realization of her own future death—and his continuing existence. "…Your eternity isn't my problem."
The ghost paused at that. For a time, he seemed almost surprised by her brutal honesty. And then his face twisted with irritation. "It wouldn't be, would it."
She heard the double-edge, and she stomped forward to eye him hard in anger. "You tryin' to pull a guilt trip on me? Make me feel bad that you'll live forever without adding me to the notches on your bed post, huh?" She poked his chest. "If all you want is my time, then why are you trying so damn hard to get something more?"
His face twitched. He pulled away with a frustrated inhale, and he rummaged into his jacket pocket for another cigarette and his lighter. "And if all you want is to destroy me," he demanded, "then why are you trying so damn hard to make me fit your morality?" He lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, re-pocketing the lighter. His frustration was revving up his power core in a way that was icing the air around him—an impressive feat for late February. "Answer my question, and you will know the answer to your own."
"They're totally different questions!" she hissed in frustration. "And you know it!"
He leaned in, his lit cigarette hanging from his lips. "Are you so sure?"
She shoved her gloved hands back into her coat pockets and looked down at the ground. And for time, they fell silent. But Dan was less angry and more fascinated by the strange creature that was Valerie Gray in her natural habitat. There was no one more simultaneously simple and complex than she was.
He supposed that was why he could simultaneously feel great irritation and attraction towards her...
Eventually, he said, "Valerie. You continue to push away my attempts to connect with you. As our physical attraction at least is undeniable, would you prefer I pursued you only for the physical?"
Her face bloomed in a blush again. "It's not that, it's—this is a trust thing, okay? I don't know if I trust you. And you still wanting to kill people doesn't make me any more convinced."
He stopped. Then he scoffed, "I am walking the pot-hole ridden roads of Amity Park, and no one is dead. I dived for you when I thought you were falling off your jet sled without your gear. I stopped attacking Jasper City on your request." He pointed an accusing finger at her. "You are manipulating this relationship into an exchange. If you cannot accept that I would protect you from death as a sign of trust, then what more do you need?"
She rubbed her temples. "I need time," she said. "A lot of time. We're supposed to be enemies, you know. This is complicated."
If she were to honestly get…involved with him beyond flirtation and free kisses, it could potentially mean the end of Defense Commander Valerie Gray. Too many compromises. A failure to protect her people. She needed more time to level the playing field. To tame the beast within him.
His dark brow raised a bit. "Time is your most precious resource, and my most abundant one. Are you sure that is what you want to waste?"
Her eyes hardened. "Don't manipulate this relationship into an exchange," she mocked.
A huff of a chuckle escaped him. He grabbed onto her hand and squeezed. "Very well."
In the cold February air, his hand almost seemed to seep warmth through her gloves, as if he were the spring before a summer. Valerie gripped his hand back and tilted her head towards the tall, metallic skyscrapers, thankful that Dan was dropping the discussion. She thought that perhaps getting him back onto to thinking about bacon would be a good idea. "The mall's up there. They have a diner that serves breakfast all day."
Dan looked interested. "All day?"
"Yes, all day."
"With unlimited bacon access?"
She gave him an odd look. "There's no such thing as unlimited bacon. We're stretched thin enough as it is, but we'll be able to order some for you." She added innocently, "Just think, if you continue to target places like Jasper, all the humans who make bacon will die."
Dan paused for a moment. For the first time in his afterlife, he actually looked thoughtful. "I did not foresee that complication." He muttered under his breath, thinking aloud, "My plans were initially to decimate the human race. But if it can offer worthwhile services to me…."
Valerie looked at him in surprise.
The gears in Dan's head turned for a while, calculating. He gazed at the wide space that was the hum of life in Amity Park—and he suddenly saw potential resources worth more than the minor irritation he felt at their existence.
"I'll have to reroute my usual attack schedule so that I off only the pointless humans," he declared. "And then enslave the useful ones to our will. Such as those who make bacon."
Valerie sighed. And this is an improvement? "You can't just enslave people. And you can't just kill people because you think they're pointless."
Dan rolled his eyes and then complained, "You destroy ghosts you think are pointless. You even enslaved that one boy—Kwan, was it?—to your will in high school."
"Oh, come on. I haven't destroyed ghosts in a long time. Compared to you, all the rest are just pranksters." Her voice strangled. "And for the record, I didn't enslave Kwan, okay? It was an A-lister perk to have a dude beat up anyone for me, and it was wrong."
He leaned forward in interest. "The infamous Valerie Gray, admitting she was wrong?"
"…Shut up."
Soon enough, Valerie and Dan were walking through the mall, a carryout box piled with bacon in Dan's hands as he munched happily. Valerie was exasperated with him and fascinated as well. He'd patiently waited like a good evil villain while she'd requested several orders of bacon for him. He hadn't even snapped at the worker who'd taken their order.
"Mmm," he moaned. "This is even higher quality than before."
"It's a restaurant, not a military cafeteria." She muttered, "Considering what I paid for it, it better be higher quality."
The mall was a flurry of activity, with children running, couples walking, friends laughing. Dan barely gave the other humans a glance, as if passively acknowledging that they were not worth his attention. Most of them, he did not recognize from his past. "There are more people here than I remember," he commented offhandedly.
Valerie tried to keep her voice level. "We're a stable city, so we attract a lot of refugees." A few of the people passing by recognized her, and they saluted or waved at her. She waved back. "A lot's changed since you were…last here."
Dan watched how the other people seemed to radiate respect towards Valerie, of their own free will. "You've trained the insects to acknowledge you as superior?"
She raised her chin. "I am not superior. And I didn't ask them to respect me."
The disguised ghost seemed to ponder on that. "You do not have to demand their compliance?" He grew quite interested. "What inspires them, then?"
"Maybe you should ask them sometime," she said. She knew exactly why many of the civilians waved at her, but she did not want to brag on herself or alternatively destroy the relatively happy air between her and Dan. He would likely close off in disgruntled silence if he were to feel threatened by morality again.
As they walked along, an odd thought hit him, and he stopped in front of a men's department store, the sleek metallic lights shining down upon him. "Am I still beholden to wearing pants while I sleep in your room?"
"…Yes?" she said. "What does that have to do with anything?"
He shoved his carryout box of bacon at Valerie, who frozen in surprise.
"What the—?" she trailed off. He began to wander off into the men's store, and Valerie panicked. "Dammit, don't just walk away!"
Dan waved off her concern. "Now that I know this wretched mall can provide it, I demand proper sleepwear," he said unashamedly. "These jeans chafe at night, so you are going to buy me clothes since you won't let me in your room without them."
Valerie hurried after him, eyes wide with a growing blush. "What?" Her heart pounded. She looked around and paled. "Dammit, this is the expensive store! And why the hell do I have to pay for you? You should have thought about bringing more clothes when you came here!"
"You should have thought about my comfort when you made me sleep in work clothes on the floor," he retorted.
"…I've rammed you into concrete before and you didn't whine about it," she retaliated, teal eyes narrowing. "Come on, I don't have the money for this. And you already owe me for the bacon."
"Your concept of monetary value means nothing to me." He ran his hand down a rack of shirts. "And you're a woman. You don't understand this kind of chafing."
Her blush deepened again. "Chafing? You wanna talk chafing? Try wearing high heels or a bra with the wire stabbing you death. Then we'll talk."
He hummed, his eyes sliding to her. "Hmm. I'd hate for you to be stabbed to death by your own underwear. I can assist you quite well with removing such contraptions."
Her face twitched. "Oh wow, how selfless of you."
"I know." He stopped before a shelf of jeans, and he listlessly looked around, disappointed at the lack of logical arrangement in the store. He puzzled in thought, calculating, and he muttered, "If I am intending to stay with you for some time, perhaps I should invest in things other than just sleep pants…"
Valerie, feeling irritated and worried, popped open Dan's carryout box of bacon and grabbed a piece. "You better have a credit card or something, cause I can't even afford the pants here." She munched on the still-warm piece, staring at the prices along the walls with wide eyes. "I can't believe you are dragging me on a shopping trip. This is the kind of shit Paulina pulls on me, you know."
He raised his chin with a superior haughtiness. "Your stalker has shown signs of persistence despite my presence, and for that I must extend my stay with you to ensure his defeat." He waved his hand at the clothes. "This is an investment to maintain my illusion."
"I thought you just wanted sleep pants," she complained. "The whole chafing thing."
"That too." He began to grab a pair jeans off the shelves, blue eyes narrowed in distain and concentration. "Honestly, Valerie. You have no idea what I'm putting up with in the name of saving you. Be thankful I am not resulting to murder, since you care so much about other people. Unless you prefer I murder Nathan?"
The dressing rooms of the high-end department store were well lit and crisp with the scent of high prices. Valerie paced outside of Dan's dressing room, munching on another piece of bacon.
"I can't afford this store," she said, staring at the price tags of the clothes on an extra rack. "This is ridiculous. Who the hell pays two hundred dollars for jeans?"
"You paid hundreds of dollars for a shirt once," he said, his baritone voice echoing with pointed accusation. The rustle of clothes swept up his body, alongside a zipping sound.
Her face faulted. "Those pants better not fit," she called out in warning, voice muffled as she chewed on a piece of bacon. "Cause we're not getting them."
Without warning, an intangible hand grabbed onto her arm and forcibly phased her through the door of the changing room. She squeaked, eyes wide as the world seemed to cave in around her into the grain of wood, then opened up into soft lights and the amused face of one human Dan Phantom.
"But sweetheart," he mocked, "these pants are actually comfortable."
Her heart pounded as she leaned against the wall, clinging hard to it and to the bacon carryout box in her arms, trying to catch her breath. She'd never gone intangible before. It had made her feel cold and unstable against solid things. "Holy shit. Don't ever do that again," she said, voice tight. She turned wide eyes to him. "Did anybody just see that? Are you crazy?"
"It's a dressing room," he shrugged. "There's no cameras here. And we're the only ones around, if case you haven't noticed."
As she schooled her breathing back into a normal rhythm, she gave him a dark look.
The jeans he wore now were darker in color and better fitted to his body than the ones he'd been wearing. The new shirt was a dark maroon, and Valerie realized Dan looked quite attractive in red.
She blushed. She was inside a dressing room in a men's department store. With a man. "What the hell did you do this for?" she demanded, voice low. "I'm not supposed to be in here!"
His lips stretched in great satisfaction. "I know." He grabbed the box of bacon from her and set it down on the seat beside them. "But it was the only place in public that I knew we could do this without calling much attention."
She blinked, eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Do what?"
Dan leaned in. "This." Then he kissed her, his hands moving to her waist.
Valerie responded with a muffled noise of surprise, only to lean into his kiss. His familiar scent swept around her, and she nearly forgot to push him away. "Bad idea," she warned, even though her heart was pounding from his touch. There was something thrilling about doing things with him in public.
He pressed her between himself and the wall, feeling the heat of her body radiate against him. He whispered against her lips, teasing her with feather touches, "I believe there's a saying. Friends close, enemies closer?"
"This is too close," she whispered back.
In response, he kissed her hard, solidly holding her to him. "Not close enough," he breathed heavily, kissing her again. He opened his mouth to hers. Suddenly, Valerie began to hold onto him tighter against her better judgment, her moan of desire and anger softly rumbling their lips together. He could feel her want in her fingers and the way her tongue slid against his.
This was all a sort of war, in a way. A battle for dominance. He'd appreciate the concept more if he weren't so busy appreciating Valerie.
When she pulled away, Valerie was breathing hard, her eyes dilated with lust. "I hate you," she said. Her normally rasped and harsh voice had softened with desire. "So much."
"If this is hate," he hummed, "then I hate you more." And he nuzzled his nose against her neck, breathing in deep her scent. He could feel her racing heart and her breathless huff of annoyance, then the way her lithe fingers came to rest on the back of his neck, as if to hold him there.
He kissed the skin of her neck in a teasing nip, and she instinctively leaned her head back to feel him more. "Really hate," she said, but her voice wavered with a shake. She wanted him to kiss her lower than just her neck, and the thought made her skin flame hot. She tightened her fingers into the free locks of his hair.
His lips stretched into a smirk against her skin. "Oh, I feel the hate."
The shake in Valerie's fingers, the racing of her heart, the flush in her dark skin, made Dan realize that he'd done this to her. These reactions were for him, and him alone. That he could inspire this side of Valerie—it made his dead heart swell with strange emotions.
"I can't trust you," she breathed unsteadily. "Like this. I shouldn't."
He moaned against her skin. "I would swear blood oaths that I have no intention of harming you." He suddenly felt willing to do anything if she asked it. His hands dropped lower, bunching into the sides of her pants, feeling the curve of her hips. "Give me a chance, Val."
This was all suddenly becoming too intimate, too personal. Valerie began to hesitate again, stiffening. "I can't."
He pulled away to eye her straight, fully pained. "Then why tease us like this?" he demanded with his voice husked by desire. "Why allow me even this much?"
Valerie closed her eyes, as if to hide from his searching gaze. "I don't know," she said shakily. Her heart was still racing. "It's wrong."
"…By whose standards?" he asked, and he leaned in to kiss her again, but she turned her cheek.
"Dan," she said. Her voice hardened against him. "I'm serious."
"No, you're afraid again," he pulled away from her, disappointed. His mouth was set in an angry line. "That's what this is. Fear."
"Well, what did you expect?" She looked greatly pained. "You really expect me to just give in to you?" She crossed her arms to hide the goosebumps she felt across her body at the thought. "To let you ruin my life more than you already have?"
A darkness sparked in his eyes. "Ruin your life?" He scoffed. "Without me, you would have been a stupid bimbo sucking off a trophy husband for cash. I'd say I saved your life. From pointlessness."
Her nose scrunched. "Oh, you did not just go there!" she hissed, fury rising against him.
Her indignant anger—the way it flamed her face red and made her jaw set—was enough to amuse Dan out of his own irritation. Truly, he enjoyed making her angry. He smiled. "You'd probably still have all that baby fat too," he hummed, patting her cheek.
She flinched away, suddenly falling deep into self-consciousness and a red blush. For a time, she was completely speechless, staring in shock.
"Let's face it," he said seriously, "I had to become what I am to save you from yourself. And here you are, worrying about jumping in bed with the only man with your best interests at heart. How contradictory."
"That is such bullshit," she hissed, her voice still strangled. "Are you even listening to yourself?"
He leaned forward. "Don't worry," he whispered in the scant inches between them, "I'd sacrifice myself again to wake you up."
She scoffed to hide how embarrassed and raw she felt before him. How was it that Dan made her want to slap him and kiss him at the same time? "You didn't do me any favors," she whispered hotly. "You killed billions of people. And you're gonna pay for that baby fat comment."
He leaned in closer, waggling his eyebrows. "Do you have any specific punishments in mind?"
Her eye twitched. "As a matter of fact," she said, tilting her head up so that her lips nearly brushed his, "I do."
She did not know who kissed whom first, but next thing she knew, she had him pinned between herself and the room's mirror.
"Say anything about my baby fat days again," she whispered against his lips, running her fingers down his muscled chest, "and I'll tell everyone that Dan Phantom still wears boxers with little hearts on them."
Suddenly, Dan's eyes widened the slightest fraction, and he paused far too long. A small blush weaved across his cheeks despite his attempts to suppress it.
Valerie stopped and blinked at his strange reaction. Then she pulled away in great interest. "Wait. Do you really?"
He paused far too long, trying to weigh the consequences of answering either way.
The silence told the truth.
Valerie was able to keep a straight face for a few seconds. And then she burst out laughing, her heart light with triumph at besting Dan Phantom with a bluff about his boxers. "You do!" she accused.
He flushed hotly. "I do not," he hissed. But the uncertainty on his face made her want to see Dan admit the truth.
In a sudden wave of confidence, Valerie pulled at the side hem of his jeans, grabbed at the material beneath, and pulled up. The hem was red with distinct, white hearts cutting across them.
She raised a brow. "You don't, huh?" Biting her lip to suppress her laugh, she released the hem of his boxers, her fingers still tingling with the cool of his bare skin. "Well, well. Bet you didn't think that through today."
Dan almost seemed to sputter. The human skin of his face was tinged red, and whatever suave darkness typically emanated from him had faltered into something far less dangerous. "You just manhandled me." He looked quite shocked.
"Oh, don't be so dramatic," she said, amused voice dropping into something sensual, her teal eyes staring up into his. "You manhandled me through the door."
"So this is payback, then."
"Something like that." She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms. "But at least I like the heart boxers."
The thought was an odd one. His face twisted. "You are a horrific tease," he said, pouting as he readjusted the hem of his jeans. "Kissing me and sticking your hand down my pants, only to tell me no and then manipulate me into forgiving you. You're evil."
Valerie's expression grew a bit too wicked. "You love it," she mocked.
His expression shadowed with desire and amusement, even as his face was still flushed with an odd blush. His calloused fingers brushed across her cheek. "I do hate you sometimes."
His touch was soft, loving. Valerie wanted to feel more of it.
"Oh, I can feel the hate," she said, leaning into his touch with a snarky quirk of her brow.
For a time, there was some kind of impasse between them. The atmosphere had changed around them in a comfortable way that could not be undone.
And then a salesperson knocked on the door. "Umm, excuse me?" the man asked, voice uncertain and a bit disgusted. "This is a department store? Can you two…get a room if you're gonna bang each other?"
Valerie snapped to in sudden panic. She slapped her hand over Dan's mouth and laughed nervously. "Uh, we're not—uh…He just got stuck! In his clothes—they were too tight. Can you get us the next size up?"
A cold tongue swept across her palm, and she nearly squeaked, instinctively snatching back her hand and staring at her wet palm in disgust. Dan's lips stretched into a naughty smile as she wiped her hand down his arm.
The salesperson on the other side of the door did not seem amused. "And what size do you need?" he asked, voice dull.
"Don't mind her," Dan called out cheerfully, an undertow of trouble in his voice. "I like it when she has to undress me."
Valerie's voice was a tight, embarrassed snap, even as she face-palmed. "Oh my god."
From beyond the door, the sales person gawked and stepped away from the dressing room where a couple was most certainly breaking a public decency policy of the store. He wondered if he were somehow being trolled, and so he backed away slowly, face twisted. "Uh, I'm gonna leave now…and pretend this never happened…"
And the salesman scurried off in a hurry, wheeling out a rack of clothes, leaving Dan and Valerie in the silence of each other. Which slowly became more tense, as Valerie's face was a stone-cold mask of pure disapproval. "...You licked me," she accused.
He waggled his eyebrows, his baby blue eyes glinting something devilish. "I could do more."
Her mind immediately fell into the gutter, where it got hopelessly lost in the concept of Dan and bedrooms yet again. "Uh, no. Absolutely not."
Dan gave her an odd look, quirking a brow. "Even if I'm wearing boxers with hearts on them?"
"Even then."
"That's just cold."
"Well, so are you."
He leaned in anyway, his face hovering inches away from hers. "Am I?" he asked her, his voice too even and calm. "To you, am I?"
Valerie suddenly had a distinct feeling that he was challenging her in a metaphorical sense. That the meaning of cold suddenly had exploded into too many things. "Hell yes," she said defensively, backing away from him to gain some time. "You're freezing."
He grabbed onto her hand and held it tightly. His fingers were cool, not unpleasantly so, but they goose-bumped her skin. He whispered to her so that only she would hear, "Is it so bad?"
The intensity of his gaze made her falter, and she began to blush, even though she didn't entirely understand why. "You're crazy," she whispered. "All your double speak and metaphors and shit, making everything so freakin' difficult."
A dark and amused smile stretched his lips. "You know you love it."
"I hate it," she corrected him.
And then he captured her lips with his again, and Valerie forgot again that this man wasn't human and that he wasn't really alive. Because in that instant, nothing in the universe felt more real than him.
She was breathless when they finally pulled away, eyes dark with the knowledge of the taste of her enemy's mouth and the lines of his body.
"We should go," she whispered. Before I lose something more than a few hundred dollars.
His set his forehead against hers. And then he smiled in a lazy, dark way. "Always trying to stop the inevitable, aren't you."
By the time the two of them left the store, they'd managed to pick up an extra pair of jeans, a shirt, and sleep pants. Valerie complained Dan was too high-maintenance, and Dan complained that she was too cheap. He swung the small bag of clothes over his shoulder in a nonchalant manner, tossing his empty carryout box into a trashcan. "Really, Valerie. No wonder you're pissy all the time if you force yourself to wear cheap, uncomfortable clothing. Your mood swings are more understandable now."
Valerie gave him a hard look, then looked down at her coat, which was old and worn. "My clothes are fine," she said. "And I'm not kidding, you better pay me back somehow."
"Pay you back?" He pushed back some of the free locks of his hair, eyeing her. A wide smirk split his face. "…How exactly do you expect me to pay you back?"
As they walked past a calendar stand, a strange man in a baseball cap ducked down. From between the slots of the shelves, his eyes trailed after their every move and the way the two seemed to lean into each other. Valerie's profile was flushed and alert, her teal eyes narrowed playfully at D as she said something out of ear shot.
"No," Nathan whispered, slamming his fist lightly against the shelf. He wanted to yell. Despite the backslide of this morning, D had seduced Valerie in the worst of ways—encouraging her to spend her hard-earned money on him! What a mooch and a manipulator!
Nathan had worked so hard just to hear her voice. And yet D had waltzed in, demanding everything, and Valerie had given it him, one by one.
Tears began to rise to Nathan's eyes.
Then a deep, unquenchable anger lit within him.
A/N: This was a slightly more difficult installment for me to write, simply because I wanted to show more of Valerie's life with Nathan and her suspicions, as well as Valerie and Dan's increasing comfort level with each other, both physically and emotionally. But the boxers just wrote themselves into this. Darn you, excessively-late-Valentine's Day-installment! Also, "Rip Van Dan" is a reference to Rip Van Winkle, by Washington Irving in 1819.
And sorry for late update and if I rushed anything. My job is taking me on more business trips lately, with hours that go past midnight. Going forward, my goal is to finish out the Valentine thread before I start any new stories in this collection. Let me know if there's anything you want to see happen! (And just what will Dan do to pay Valerie back?)
Please review with thoughts, comments, requests, or ideas! Thanks!
