Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

Thanks to the following for reviewing last time: Iblamepie, Lady Audentium, Invader Johnny, .106, Roses-R-Rosie, Alena-lee, sharkyskadi, ObsidianPhantom, starwater09, JadeliketheGem, MushuFireLorde, Gf24cem, and icecatfire.

Also, I usually don't do this, but to the anonymous reviewer named Curious, who posted a somewhat disturbing review to the last chapter: My interest in the dark gray ship isn't *because* Dan Phantom is evil, omg. It's in spite of his darkness. The history of Phantom as the savior of the ghost zone and human world, as well as Danny's canon romantic history with Valerie, is precisely what makes the ship so intriguing. There's a very complex past informing the actions of both Valerie and Dan in this collection, and obviously, it's not a fluffy-puppy-Hallmark-movie love. Because they've both been hardened by hate and were main-canon antagonists who tried to kill Danny. So these stories work to consider what it means for the bad guys to find redemption. The whole of this collection is called "Deliverance" for a reason, in reference to deliverance from evil, both externally and internally. Furthermore, nice guys don't finish last, and don't ever believe that crappy saying. Throughout every story where Dan turns toward being the nice guy he once was, that's precisely when he starts to regain the very things he craves, like human companionship. Every story where he maintains a structure of evil, he loses Valerie and further sets people against him. He gets shot down at every turn where he glorifies evil. It's the spark of humanity within him, and the hope for good in him reigniting, that fuels this ship for me. It's Valerie's own struggle with hate and loss and seeing herself sometimes reflected in Dan that stays her hand against him, because they're more alike than different. The hope for goodness and redemption is what drives my interest in the dark gray ship. So I want to clarify that right now. Please go back to Hallmark movies if you can't handle nuanced content about two toxic people discovering the consequences of that toxicity and the rewards for pursuing peace and love instead. There's plenty of love stories out there, both fictional and REAL, about a happy, innocent nice guy landing a wonderful woman who loves his goodness. If fictional stories about two fictional toxic people bother you, then trolling this collection isn't going to help you.

Just had to get that out of my system. And now, haha, back to our regularly scheduled program!

Chapter Summary: The Fifth Element Part 2. Valerie considers what to do with the human Dan who has dropped into her life. Her suggestions are less than pleasing to Dan.

Chapter Warnings: No particular trigger warnings besides language and references to violence.


Deliverance

Shot 73: The Fifth Element Part 2


The now-human Dan Phantom lay upon the infirmary bed, worn, his blue eyes sunken in with exhaustion. His naked chest rose and fell with a sharp sigh. "If you must know, there is a relic of great power, hidden in the west coast. I sought its power for myself." He swallowed hard, then closed his eyes in irritation. "It did not have the powers it promised."

Valerie leaned forward in the chair. She dared to even lean an elbow against his bed, knowing that he was harmless to her in such a state. "Yeah? What powers?"

His cracked lips stretched in a sardonic way. "That it would…unleash one's full potential." He opened his eyes, turning his handsome, suntanned face toward her. The mud upon him did not detract from the familiar spark down her spine that she felt, whenever Dan stared at her. Even like this—broken and tired, the man exuded a wildness to him. That he was larger than his own frame, his presence a prickling at the nape of her neck.

The black, tangled locks of his hair were inky against his skin, spilling over in latent rivers.

Valerie found it odd, to see him without the usual flickering of his hair. The humanity of his current form, mixed with the undertow of his aura, left her in a strange turmoil. In want for him to return to normal, in want for him to stay this way forever—

"You should be careful," he murmured to her, searching her eyes. It was odd to see blue irises—an angelic color from a demonic man. "I see you have interest in this relic. But who knows what it would do to you."

She made a face. "I'm already human," she retorted dryly, "and at the top of my game; I don't need no stupid old relic to be better. But I like that it made you human. You're a little easier to babysit like this."

The man huffed in miserable amusement, rattling the bedsheets upon him. Despite the hard scruff on his jaw, the pleasure in him made him seem ages younger. "Oh, Valerie. I am quite certain I will be more of a handful like this than you could ever imagine."

Valerie raised a sculpted brow in disbelief. "Yeah, right."

His hoarse voice raised. "You cannot kill humans. Whereas before, you had no issue cocking your guns at me." A sly, weak look overcame him. "Would you murder a poor human in his bed, hmm?"

She slammed her hand down on the side of the bed, her nostrils flaring in irritation. "Excuse me?"

"Now that I am in your custody—" he moved his wrist to jerk at the solid handcuffs latched to the bed—"I assume you will legally execute me for war crimes? Or am I to be a caged animal paid for by your taxes? I do not know which I prefer, for either has advantages and disadvantages."

A silence swung between them for a time, and Valerie struggled to respond, her mind's gears whirling. She hadn't thought this far ahead.

Dan's lips stretched. "Don't tell me you're attached to our games, now." Even weak as he was, he managed to wring out such energy from his human body. "I rather enjoy them myself."

Valerie swallowed hard. "You're not—"

And then she cut herself off, in fear of what he would say in return. She pressed her full lips together, then strangled out, "You know you deserve death, for all the shit you've done, and the people you've killed."

There was an odd acceptance in his blue eyes. "Yes." His voice was even. "You know the monster beneath this skin." His lips tilted a little wider. "You know everything about me. I cannot deceive you, no matter how much I desire to."

The scars upon his bare shoulders glimmered.

He was decorated by her violence, just as her city was decorated by his.

"Why would you wanna deceive me at all, huh?" she murmured, quirking a brow.

His deep voice smoothed out into almost a lullaby as he tiredly considered her. "You know why," he murmured.

And it fell silent again.

She pulled away, leaning back against the chair and crossing her arms over her chest. Her dark curls slipped off one of her shoulders. "No. I don't know why."

Dan's blue eyes—she would not get used to that—tracked the bounce of her curls in interest of them. "Must I spell it out for you?"

"Yeah, why not," she challenged. "Just to make sure we're using the same alphabet here."

He closed his eyes and sighed dramatically. With great strain, he turned his body away from her, the blankets twisting. His inky hair clung against him, but the thick locks could not hide the many scars upon his back, the sunburnt skin, the way his vertebrae stood out almost sickly from malnutrition. It struck her that this man had traversed the entire countryside alone for weeks, surviving the elements on his own, in ways that most humans would have perished. "Can a monster," he murmured, "not desire company?"

And there it was. The true strand of humanity left within him—the tiniest spark of his heritage, informing the way he had so often stayed his hand against Amity Park, in interest of other things. More human things.

Valerie recalled many a memory in which Dan had pinned her down—not to kill her, but to ask strange questions, such as, What do you think of the color green?

He'd occasionally prowled the barrier, pacing before it simply to make Valerie nervous enough to come after him. His ghostly, demonic features had relaxed in relief at the sight of her.

There was a battle in him—that the more powerful and isolated he'd grown as the Destroyer of Worlds, the more he ached for the simple things he had given up. Like company. Friends. A listening ear. And as his only equal rival, it seemed he had preferred her company much more over anyone else's.

Valerie stared at his bare back.

"Most apex predators prefer to be alone," she retorted lightly. "And they definitely don't seek out the company of their competition."

He huffed. His voice was exhausted. "Is that all you think of me as, a predator?"

She tilted her head. "No," she deadpanned. "On occasion, I sometimes think you're smart enough to actually be a jackass."

That earned a rough, weak laugh from him. "Oh, Valerie. I missed your insults." He relaxed onto the bed, as if somehow their conversation had reestablished a status quo with which he was quite comfortable.

"…No other ghost comes whining to me, talking about how decorate their lair," she deadpanned. "You're a freak, admit it."

"One of a kind," he agreed, as if almost proud of it. "But your advice to place disembodied heads upon stakes to scare away the rabble was truly inspired—I may not have thought of that without your sarcastic ramblings."

She dared to lean forward. Her dark, lithe fingers brushed against a scar on the back of his bicep, where she had once caught him with a sharp dagger. His muscle tensed at feeling of her touch, but he did not pull away. "And most predators," she murmured, "don't try to seek out what can kill them, either."

Dan weakly huff again. His human skin had goose-bumped under her touch, but there was a merry tone within him—that he did not find her touch abhorrent, but rather, the opposite.

She pulled away from him, her voice softening. "Why did you come here, of all places? There were a dozen satellite cities you could've trekked to. But you came here."

He turned back to her with a light groan of effort, his hair a black halo around him. "I am drawn to Amity Park," he confessed breathlessly, "for many reasons. Not the least of which being that if I must die, I would have death at your hand." His eyes searched hers. "And your hand alone."

Valerie searched him right back. "No one else would have recognized you, if you'd stumbled to a different city. Not like this."

For all the mud streaking his temples and the unkempt scruff of his beard, Dan still carried a princely air about him as he raised his aristocratic nose in a huff. "I cannot stand anyone else. I would not be among insects."

"You're among one of them right now," she retorted dryly.

"You are not an insect."

Valerie swallowed hard. "I'm human, you know."

"You are different than the others," he declared. It was rare for him to pay her a genuine compliment, from his own perspective.

The two of them fell silent for a time, and Valerie looked away, her dark brows knitting together in a hilarity and frustration. "I'm not that different from anyone else," she said, voice straining. "Maybe you'd see that if you actually paid attention to like, anything."

The man raised his lip in something of a half-hearted snarl. It was another strange moment, to see white teeth—smooth and square. His canine teeth were no longer sharp fangs. She'd known his fangs well, having felt him bite her arm straight through her armor once. It had been a last-ditch attempt to shake her off, and she'd called him a dog several times after that until he never did it again, out of shame of being compared to a lower animal.

"You know nothing of what I see," he said eventually, his deep voice even. He stared at her in a knowing way. "You have never attempted to see as I do."

"Because your way of seeing is fucked up." Valerie crossed her arms and sat back on her chair, beholding him. The great Dan Phantom. Human. Vulnerable. She was not going to get over this soon. "You've got your head so far up your own ass that you can't even see how wrong you are."

Dan huffed at her. She'd ruffled some of his feathers. He hated being told he was wrong. "I can flex in many ways, but your suggestion is beyond what I could achieve even as a ghost." His face twitched. "Perhaps you are the one with the head up their ass, Valerie dear. You speak so confidently in regards to your own people and to this city you defend. But what tangible proof do you offer me that humans are superior for championing love and kindness, when in fact they simply squabble as the ghosts do?" He jerked lightly as his handcuffs. "I have seen them argue amongst themselves and demand your attention for justice. Lawsuits. Bar fights. What pathetic poster children for the idealistic utopia you preach."

Valerie's face hardened. "Now, see here. Humans aren't perfect, and neither are you, so don't lay there like a fucking hypocrite. You think you're so smart with your big words and your snooty nose, but—"

"—My snooty nose?" he cut in dryly.

"—You have no room to talk to me about utopias and shit when you rained fucking hellfire on my life." Her voice broke oddly. "For so many years, that's all you did. You can't expect people to not be a little on edge when they think the world's ending, and maybe they've drunk a little too much because they had to bury their whole family."

The man swallowed. It was an odd action for him. He was perhaps more expressive as a human—or else more expressive as a result of total isolation for weeks in the wilderness. A little crack in his façade. His handsome face shadowed. "You think I don't know what it's like to bury to family."

She pointed her finger and poked his bare chest hard. Tight muscle held her strong. "I know you do." Her voice tightened. "That's why I hate what you are."

Dan stared down at her finger. There was an odd pain stretching across his face. "Even as I am now."

"Yeah." She pulled away. "Even then."

His face twitched again, and for a time, Valerie thought something was truly and genuinely wrong with him. The stress on his face splotched into a pale flush that reached up to the tips of his rounded ears. "That is—quite unfortunate," he said, voice dropping with a distance. "I thought perhaps we might have more in common, at least. It seems instead you desire that I pay in full for my crimes according to your human laws."

Valerie eyed him.

The gears in her mind were turning. It was possible that other people would believe that this human man was Dan Phantom, but she could already see now that most would find the story sensational, if not ridiculous. The dead did not return to life. If she exposed him as such, then it would mean having to explain how such a being returned to a human state of living. She had visions of others trying to pursue this relic of unknown power for their own gain.

Her dark jaw set uncomfortably as she stared at him, falling fully silent now.

And then she tapped her fingers on her knee, leaning forward. "Oh, you're gonna pay for your crimes," she declared. "I'll make sure of that. But you're not gonna like what I do."

Blue eyes focused upon her.

Apprehension creeped across his face, and he narrowed his eyes. "I am a human now," he reminded her. "I have spent many days wandering without food or water."

Dan was attempting to pull on her sympathy.

She leaned forward, her mind lit with ideas now. "Don't worry," she murmured, her rough voice softening with malicious intention and mischief. "You'll get what's coming to you."


Soon, Valerie was walking down the hall of the infirmary, her eyes bright with the same glint that had always made Dan Phantom uneasy and suspicious. As she walked, Kwan spotted her from out of the corner of his eye, and he moved to her, holding his clipboard.

"Valerie!" he called. "Hey, wait up!"

She raised her hand. "Not now, Kwan. I'm on a mission here."

His voice wavered as he ran to her. "That criminal guy you pulled from the Wastelands—what am I supposed to do with him now that—?"

"—Keep treating him," she commanded. Her dark curls bounced as she walked with a dark pep in her step. "He's definitely a criminal. But he's delirious too. He thinks he's Dan Phantom, of all people."

The doctor-in-training. "…Phantom?" he echoed, voice straining.

Valerie huffed in amusement. "Yeah. Talk about crazy, right?" Her dark face was absolutely glowering with mischief. "I guess Phantom did get to him in the Wastelands. He's a piece of work."

Kwan made a noise of surprise, then pulled a pen from the back of his ear and began writing shorthand on his clipboard. "Delusions? Physical or aural manifestations of any kind?"

"He says his name is Dan." Her voice was a smooth, disbelieving deadpan, for all the glint in her eyes. "Sometimes, when a ghost possesses a person, there's an image left over. It jumbles people up inside. He can't give me any other name. Beginning to think this guy was a criminal from one of the smaller towns—maybe Jasper City or something. Someone Phantom thought he could use." She stopped before the passcode-protected doorways of the infirmary, entering in her personal number. The door unlocked, and she moved forward. Kwan followed. "I think Phantom gave up on using him."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because," she huffed, waving her hand, "the dude's been wandering around for weeks now. And it's just like Phantom to let a lackey die."

Kwan's dark brows furrowed. "Why would he be possessing people to begin with?"

"Probably to infiltrate human circles from the inside and learn our defenses." Valerie set her jaw, as if she were irritated. Inside, she was gleeful. "Phantom's been frustrated that he can't knock down our shield. Maybe that's why he's been gone for so long. But I bet he didn't consider that he can't get anywhere if his meat puppet is blaring his ecto-signature."

"So—so you think Phantom is wanting to use humans to take us down," Kwan repeated in worry.

"I think he tried." Her voice lifted up. "But if he can't get his daily dose of doom, then he'll lose interest in Amity Park. He's probably already moving on to other targets if he hasn't attacked us yet."

Kwan's voice raised in anxious hope. "So—so you think this big war might be over? Totally?"

"I'm not holding my breath." She stopped before another door with a passcode and turned to Kwan. "But maybe we can learn a little from this guy. And maybe if you can get him rested up, we can put him to work."

Valerie entered in her digits once more.

And she left Kwan standing there, his mouth caught with a thousand more questions, as she entered the command wing to speak with her father.


One Damon Gray was sitting at his desk, reviewing a report and writing corrections. His pepper brows were knitted together in concentration as he ardently circled an area of concern.

And then he flinched when the door slammed open, and one Valerie Gray came careening through the threshold, with a fire of determination in her eyes. "Daddy," she called. She planted her hands on his desk, and her strength nearly toppled over his water bottle. A few papers unsettled in the air. "I've got an idea?"

He looked up, bewildered. "About what, sweetie?"

Valerie eyed him straight. "So that guy I picked up in the Wastelands."

"Yes?"

"I talked to him." She tilted her head. "He's definitely a criminal. I think he got possessed by Phantom at least once. But I've got an idea for what to do with him."

The father paused, and he set down his pen. His brows scrunched again. "What are you suggesting?"

"We can't just let him back out in the Wastelands," she said. "Because then he'll get caught up with Phantom or cause trouble in some other city. And we can't just imprison him—least of which being that we can't afford the overhead." She bit her lip. "I wanna put him to work."

"To work?"

She nodded earnestly. "Maybe not the Shield or anything important like that. But we've got winter coming on, and we gotta expand our fields below-ground."

Damon remained silent for a time, searching his daughter's eyes and the brilliant spark of life within them. "Are you telling me you want to convert this criminal of yours…into one of our farmers?"

And Valerie's face split with a dark smile. "Yeah. You know, all that manual labor. An honest job in the fields. He's good at getting muddy already—it's a perfect fit, and you know it."

"Did you talk to him about it?"

The woman huffed, then pulled away from the desk. "Well, no, but—"

"—If we don't have a criminal record to hold them, then he's just as free as anyone else here until he does something to abuse that right," Damon warned lightly. "I can't give approval on work orders if I don't have citizen permission."

She flipped one of her dark curls over her shoulder, rolling her eyes. "He thinks he's Phantom. He's obviously disturbed. You're not gonna want him just walking around freely with that kind of brain, do you?"

Damon rubbed his temple, his aged face twisting. "I can't just enforce controls over someone because they're having delusions. You say he thinks he's Phantom. Has he made any threatening statements? Has he struck out at you?"

Valerie blinked. And then she paused, a somewhat unsettled look tightening the line of her lips. He'd called her people insects. But he had seemed far more concerned about himself. "Well, no, but I wouldn't trust him."

"Then keep a close eye on him. Offer him the job that you've suggested." Damon's single, teal eye narrowed on her playfully. "But as much as you hate Phantom, you can't swat a human being with an anti-ecto lead pipe. Even if he thinks he's Phantom."

She face-faulted. "Oh, come on. I know he's human. But can't we make him work here where I can keep a better eye on him? What if he says no? You want some crazy Dan Phantom wannabe just hanging out in the mall, passing out ice cream for a living?"

"If he's that bad, he wouldn't get the job," Damon said dryly. He set back in his chair, eyeing her. "And if he's been overshadowed by Phantom, then he's probably not going to leave your side."

"Why do you say that?"

The father deadpanned, "Valerie, I've lost one eye, not both of them. Attacks from Phantom have gone down in frequency for the last several years. And he's pounded on that Shield simply to bait you for a fight." He leaned back in his chair. "And then you two run off to whatever part of the world he takes you."

Valerie began to narrow her eyes at her father. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying," Damon said dryly, "that I don't think Amity Park is exactly what Phantom wants anymore. And if my guess is right, then this…overshadowed man of yours might have a similar problem."

The woman flushed oddly. "What, you're—you're saying the fucking Destroyer of Worlds has a crush on me? Come on, dad. He can't stand my guts, and I can't stand his either."

There was a silence in the room for a time as he beheld her. "I hope I'm wrong," he said eventually. "But you should be aware, in case I'm not."

She raised her hands in disbelief. "It's not like Phantom's gonna ask me out on a date or something. And this guy might…come out of whatever grip Phantom had on him in the Wastelands." Her voice strained with the weight of the lie, knowing who the man truly was.

Damon's black eye patch caught the light in a strange way as he stared at her—as if he could still not only see her with the full of his natural ability, but perhaps with something more as well.

"I know you can handle yourself," he said eventually, voice even and diplomatic.

"Of course I can." She crossed her arms. The two remained silent until Valerie added dryly, "So I guess I'll ask him, then. About farming. Nicely, or whatever, so I can keep an eye on him."

"Maybe do have Kwan perform a psych eval on him," Damon suggested. "If he's really unruly, then we'd at least have grounds to limit his clearances before he does anything too disruptive."

"Oh, trust me," Valerie deadpanned. "He's gonna get a psych eval. And probably a bunch of other things he'll really hate." And there was a such a glint in her eye that Damon wondered if perhaps Valerie enjoyed the prospect of a new pet project, now that Phantom had gone quiet.

Knowing her, she probably did.


Meanwhile, the human Dan Phantom struggled with his cuffs to sit up in bed, leaning heavily against his pillows as he stared down at his wasted body. It had become a familiar sight to him—to see himself becoming less. To feel it in the waning strength of his muscles and the ache of hunger in his stomach.

So human. So very…fragile.

He shifted the bedsheets to peer at his bare leg and then the bandages wrapped on his foot. He did not hardly remember wounding himself while walking, but the last day of his wandering had become such a blur of thirst and madness that he had no doubt he could have stepped on sharp sticks or the metal shards that infected the Wastelands beneath its increasing return to greenery.

Dan huffed at himself. He was partially drugged by virtue of the IV jammed in his wrist, which held pain medication mixed with nutrients It made him sluggish and sleepy. "Dammit, Valerie," he muttered under his breath. "Even as you help me, you ruin me." He leaned his head back, his black hair slipping down bare shoulders. He tried to blow it out of his face, to no avail. His breath was weak. He was tired.

It was around then that the door slammed open again, with Valerie Gray storming back into his life the way she always did.

The action was far less irritating to him, and almost something akin to the sounds of home.

He raised blue eyes to her. "You rang?" he murmured.

Without saying a word, the woman moved to his IV, reading over the various substances in it. There was a hard line in her brow and some kind of happy anxiousness.

Her expression was similar to when she usually had an insidious plan against him and was trying not to divulge details.

"Have you come to poison me to death?" he asked airily. He barely had the energy to care about it if so. "You've already buttered me up for such. What a clean and simple execution you offer me, for all of your threats as to punishment for my crimes." He searched the lines of her body, as if to memorize her. "What mercy."

"Oh, shut up," she grumped at him, her black brows angling together in concentration. She activated the arm of her battle suit. It surged in panels over her dark arm, the red panels interlocking tightly together, shuddering to sharp, pointed tips over her fingers. She'd swiped at him several times with those gauntlet fingertips. "I'm not killing you."

"I do not believe you," he said. He fought to sit up a little more, a string of pride in him. His voice hoarsened with the effort. "You have that look upon you, Valerie. The look of death. I know it best of all, that you have something in store for me."

"Yeah, like maybe a shower and a shave," she deadpanned, stepping away to eye him. "The beard is really throwing me off."

He tilted his head. "You do not like it?"

"Not a damn bit."

Dan's thin lips stretched. "Then I shall keep it, if only to irritate you."

"If you don't shave that thing off first chance you get, I'm holding you down and shaving it off myself," she huffed. "It doesn't look right. You have a goatee, and that's it. That's how it's been for like, eight years."

"And out of all things different with me," he retorted in disbelief, "it is the beard that most disturbs you."

"Yeah. The beard." She glanced at him from the corner of her eye as she looked over a few of Kwan's medical papers.

His deep, baritone voice pitched into a whine. "In that case, I have a mosquito bite on my leg. It is very distressing to me." He weakly jingled his handcuffed wrists. "I cannot even itch it."

"Oh," she cooed in distraction, "poor baby."

Dan watched her, increasingly confused. "Is that your strategy, then—to make me suffer in chains?"

"No. But you deserved that mosquito bite, and before you ask, no I'm not itching it for you." She flipped through the papers, reading over Kwan's estimates for time to full recovery. She then began to enter data into the small screen attached to her plated arm.

Dan dared to whine at her, his voice darkening. "You are a cruel and evil woman."

"Yeah, yeah, fuck you too." She leaned against the counter, her dark curls slipping down the green of her military jumpsuit. She narrowed her eyes, making a noise of curiosity in the back of her throat as she read Kwan's chicken-scratch notes. "Says here you're type O negative. That's a pretty rare blood type."

He narrowed his eyes right back at her in suspicion. "You sound pleased by this."

Valerie looked up, her full lips stretching in deviance. "It means you're a universal donor. So if my plan A doesn't work so well, we can always just keep you around as a blood and plasma cow for our transfusion reserves."

Dan's face tightened in a mix of hilarity and indignancy. He yanked at his handcuffs once more. "I will have you know, I am not a cow of any kind. And no human may have my blood. I will not see you defame me in this way."

Her smirk stretched into a full-on laugh. There was a dark edge to it. "What's the matter, don't like the idea of helping your own people?"

He tried to bare fangs at her, but his teeth were square, his canines hardly any more threatening than Valerie's. The attempt was something that gave him pause, and a flush stretched across his tan face. He looked down at himself, then sputtered out in retort, "I would rather you torture me."

"That could be arranged," she said, voice pleasant. "But you forgot to explain what kind of torture you want."

Dan now was on high-alert. He knew she was playing a game. "What manner of torture do you have in mind for me?"

She watched him. At times, her teal eyes seemed almost inhumanly bright, the curls around her cheeks appearing to shift slightly on their own. He was convinced she could almost turn men to stone with a certain look.

And that was the look she was giving him right now.

"The fact is," she said, voice dark, "you're in my world now." She moved to the rail of the bed, planting her hands on it. The armor around her arm disappeared, revealing her long sleeve and bare hand, the scars from fighting apparent against her dark skin. She leaned forward, meeting his gaze fully. "You're going to see every hardship that you've made us live. And you're gonna toil in the dirt like the rest of us, trying to grow food until your hands blister and your back hurts."

Dan's jaw set. "What sort of deal is that?" he demanded petulantly. "I am not a slave for you."

She reached out and poked his chest, hard. "You got a lot of debts, buddy. And you know it. If you wanna play human and come to Amity Park, then fine. You're gonna live like us too—where we all have to work hard to put food on the table in the middle of the goddamn nuclear wasteland that you pinned us in."

His blue eyes hardened. "And if I refuse such labor?"

Valerie leaned forward, to the point where her nose and lips were only inches from his own. The tension of fury and attraction hung between them. "I'll cast you out naked and will tell every other city that they're not to take you under their protection or offer you resources. And you know they'll listen to me. Which means you'd end up wandering again, probably to die alone in the Wasteland."

Dan scoffed. "This is blackmail. These are very underhanded tactics, Valerie, for all of your talk of justice."

She reached out and dared to raise her hand to his cheek. "Cry me a river," she said. The tips of her fingers caught on a little smudge off dirt still staining his high cheekbone. "Once you're kicked out of the infirmary, you'll be a good little farmer for me, I think."

His face twisted in impending dread and horror—and shame, that his position as Destroyer of Worlds had been so twisted in the hands of Valerie Gray. "I do not want to be a farmer. Is there no other option?"

Valerie smiled brightly. "Nope."

"I would rather you slit my throat immediately," he said, voice raising with furious passion. "I'd rather be soaked in my own blood and burnt upon a pyre than be pushed and prodded along to grow food for your people."

She patted his face. "Aww," she added, her voice softening with a tease. "But you're kinda cute when you're covered in mud."

Dan blinked, and he froze in surprise and consternation. A noise strangled out from the back of his throat.

For the first time, he had no retort.


A/N: Just missed my goal of trying to get this up within September, but I definitely wanted to return to the human!Dan AU I'd started back in July. Human Dan is such a trip to write and so fun too. He's a mess of weakness and frustration, haha. I hope you enjoy this version of him and Valerie!

Not really sure where all this thread is going, so please let me know if there's anything you'd like to see in the upcoming chapters!

In addition, Lady Audentium and I have been interested in expanding our Dark Gray group chat via Discord, which is a very intuitive chat/gaming platform that also hosts the main Danny Phantom server as well. We've got a few members in the Dark Gray chat so far, and we tend to go in waves of activity vs inactivity, but if you're interested, please reach out to me or Lady Audentium for an invite! You can PM us or reach us on tumblr at ladyaudentium or thelightningstreak. No pressure, though! Just something fun to consider if you have the time. It's not an 18+ server, but there are some protected NSFW channels that require your confirmation that you're 18 or older to access.

As another aside, I've been thinking of starting up a DP-separate AO3 account to also upload this collection and to post a redesigned, more mature Dark Gray story. I've heard DP archive has been kinda moving toward AO3 in general? Regardless of what I do there, I will continue to upload to this site as well.

Thanks for reading, and please review!