It's your local Animation Fanatic back again with another Secret Trio Fic, gotta love these boys.

Summary: Randy takes a not-so-friendly hit to the head during a battle. He learns the hard way what a Ghost's Obsession and Dragon's Possessiveness looks like as a result.

Viva La on with the Story!


Okay so here's the thing.

Randy knew that Danny and Jake weren't fully human, okay? That was obvious from the moment their secret identities were revealed. Not that that particularly mattered – Randy's mentor was an 800 year old book for crying out loud. He knew how to work with non-human creatures. Two of his best friends being not-entirely-human wasn't hard for Randy to wrap his mind around. They were still them.

But the thing is, the Nomicon didn't have mannerisms. Sure, it was annoying, and called to him at the worst of times, but it wasn't a living being. Danny and Jake were, or, well, half-were, in Danny's case. And they did have mannerisms.

As much as Jake hated the Hollywood portrayal of dragons (he called them stereotypes, but can something really be a stereotype if the group creating them didn't really believe that dragons existed?), he had his own hoards. Like, straight up. His room was full of skateboard memorabilia that could make Tony Hawk himself jealous.

Randy would almost call Jake's mannerisms possessive, and it wasn't just towards material objects.

Jake would go mental if someone he considered Under-His-Care got injured. So would Danny, but then again he had a whole ghostly obsession that would drive him insane if he couldn't satisfy it. So it was kind of expected considering that obsession was Protection.

With Danny, it would take a few hours to satiate his obsession if something went awry. If the person was injured, maybe a day. Regardless, once the person was decidedly safe, the halfa would snap back into his usual self.

With Jake, though? It was like he was preparing for someone to steal his loved ones from him at any given moment. It was normally a pretty subtle thing – living as a human meant that Jake was used to masking his draconic urges. He could be a bit clingy at times – overprotective, even – but it wasn't obsessive. But on those rare occasions that something did go awry, well…Randy might as well have been a pile of gold in Smaug's mountain.

Jake wouldn't even let Randy out of his sight. And look, the ninja was touched, don't get him wrong. He loved Howard, but he wasn't exactly touchy-feely, and he tended to make himself scarce when blood was involved.

But considering Jake was still trying to lick the blood out of Randy's hair, well, the ninja would be lying if he said he wanted to be there at the moment.

"Dude, seriously, you need to chill out," Randy complained, shoving the dragon's head off him.

Jake snorted, and hot air billowed from his nostrils as the dragon looked around their surroundings suspiciously. Randy had no idea what he was worried about, they were literally in his room, with the doors locked, and the curtains drawn, in a nest that Jake had insisted on making made of what used to be his comforter and sheets.

Danny was still buzzing around somewhere – his obsession was on the fritz and he was jittery enough to be zooming around for anything Randy could possibly want or need. A cup of water, the Nomicon, the first aid kit, his Nintendo Switch, his keytar, an entire Wendy's meal with extra fries (?), an ultra rare edition of grave puncher's merchandise that hadn't even been released yet (?). The pile was beginning to stack up, but at least Danny wasn't physically swaddling him the way Jake was.

Randy had learned very early on that the two weren't going to be listening to logic. Seriously, it was just a head injury – not even a bad one, he'd been knocked out for much longer before and came out just fine. He was the Ninja, it was part of the job description. Jake and Danny knew this, or at least, their human sides did. But their nonhuman sides completely ignored Randy's protests that he was fine. It was like they couldn't comprehend the fact.

Jake tried to explain it one time — what the New Yorker felt was a deep, seething anger towards whatever caused the injury, and the only way his dragon side could calm down was by making sure that his possession was safe and with him and not the enemy, and that they had to make sure that whatever it was got back to its perfect form and that it stayed perfect and wasn't affected by the imperfections of the intruder because it was his and it was perfect in his mind and could not, under any circumstances, be changed from that.

It was something about dragon's being the literal protectors of the magical world that Randy didn't quite comprehend, other than Jake was lucid but just extremely, stupidly tunnel-vision-ed in making sure that the ninja was safe.

Danny literally couldn't understand that Randy was ok. When the ghost was in his right state of mind, he described an obsession breakdown as some incessant, mind-shattering need that itched at the bottom of his spine and ached at his core and filled everything in him so that he couldn't ignore it. When his obsession saw that someone was injured while under his protection, he could do nothing but try and make up for his mistake. All that he was able to comprehend was protect protect protect protect protect with a guilt that drove through his soul and chased at his nerves like the electricity that took his half-life. He talked about it like how he described his accident: dreadful and painful and terrifying, like he was afraid he'd experience it again if his obsession wasn't satisfied.

Speak of the devil, Danny was back, carrying yet another item (that looked suspiciously like one of Viceroy's inventions?) and wordlessly presenting it to Randy with a blank expression.

"Danny, dude, I'm gonna need you to calm down." Randy desperately tried again, shrugging Jake off him as the dragon, once again, began grooming at his hair. The dragon spit was horribly similar to blood in consistency, so the ninja had to wonder what Jake even hoped to accomplish doing it.

"I don't need anything else. Where did you even get this?" he held up what was, indeed, one of Viceroy's smaller bots. Not an attacker, but something that was obviously made to help assemble things. Skittishly, Randy set the robot to the side, and Jake promptly moved it so that it was pressed against his chest, effectively claiming it as his own as his tail flicked in an aggravated manner.

Randy really wasn't expecting Danny to answer, so when the halfa didn't, it didn't phase him. Or, well, maybe he was, but Randy hadn't heard Ghost Speak enough to be able to tell when they were words or just noises. An echoing something that resembled a chirp left Danny as he zeroed in on Randy's head, which once again prompted Jake to burrow his snout into his hair and blow more hearted air onto the wound. It sent another chill up Randy's spine, and with Danny's icy presence, it certainly didn't help.

"You guys really aren't gonna let this go, are you?" He resigned as Danny promptly materialized some ice that was practically glowing, pressing it against Randy's temple with another echoing-rumble-whine thing. "Seriously, I'm okay! I've had worse before. You know I've had worse before!"

It was true, but not while they were fighting together. All of Randy's worse injuries up until this point had happened on his own solo missions. And to be fair, the shot that incapacitated him this time was a lucky one, especially with two companions who could fly at well over 200 miles per hour.

Despite his protests, Randy could admit that the ghostly ice felt good against his temple so he carefully snaked his hand around Danny's, who understood his action and let his own hand go intangible. The halfa phased through Randy's hand and left him clutching the ice on his own instead.

The thing about Danny's ice was that it didn't melt. Randy didn't know why – neither did Danny, but they weren't going to argue about it considering it wouldn't leave a puddle when it vanished.

Closing his eyes, Randy leaned back into Jake's side. The dragon lifted up a wing to provide shade from something, which still made little sense considering the only thing above Randy was his own ceiling fan.

The Nomicon pulsed from where it had been laying in the pile of Danny's collectibles, and the ninja turned to look at his mentor with an almost-eye roll. "Can you believe these two, Nomi?"

The book pulsated again, red aura materializing for a split second as if to say, "you have the art of healing waiting for you, you shoob."

Okay, well, the Nomicon wouldn't use swears – yet alone the extremely niche ones of Norrisville, Texas – but its point was still true. And Randy would have used it to prevent his friends' breakdown if it weren't for the fact that his mask was currently in the washing machine on account of the blood. So, really, the Nomicon was chastising him for nothing.

He knew that he shouldn't close his eyes – sleep really wasn't something you should do with a concussion, but Randy couldn't help it. He was sure the wash would be done in the next half hour. Danny seemed to be taking care of it, though why he didn't just phase the blood off his mask, Randy didn't know. He supposed he had to give the halfa a break, as he seemed to be the number one priority of his friends at the moment, not his mask, so something as menial as the means of cleaning his suit wasn't something Randy was going to complain about.

A sigh left the ninja as he tilted his head to the side, letting the temple that had the ice pressed against it lean towards the ceiling. Jake's breaths were rising and falling gently against his back and finally, finally, he could feel Danny's icy presence trail somewhere around them, circling like a restless predator, before settling down to Randy's left. He didn't know what caused him to suddenly calm down enough to stay put, but the ninja wasn't going to push it. If there was any sign that Danny's Obsession Breakdown was lessening, it was a win in Randy's book.

The ninja peeked an eye open to see the ghost shuffling around his collection, still letting out those echoing noises any time Jake butted in to mess with one thing or another. Despite himself, a snort made its way out of Randy at the sight: seeing the (unofficial) Ghost King and Magical Protector of North America arguing over a dead Nintendo Switch was utterly ridiculous.

Yeah, they weren't human, but they were his friends. Randy didn't particularly like being cared for, but he supposed this was better than nursing a possible-concussion on his own.

And that was all that really mattered at the end of the day.

Well, that, and figuring out how to sneak Viceroy's robot back into McFist headquarters without anyone noticing.


I'm supposed to be working on a bipedal rig for my Rigging I class and instead I'm writing fanfiction for three shows that are well over ten years old.

Listen I just love….non-human psychology ok? It's a very particular niche interest of mine.

In case you're new to my stories, you should know that I choose one vine/tik tok to quote at the end of every chapter/fic. It has nothing to do with the plot of the story, I just like sharing them :)

"Oh! Free donut from the donut dinosaur! *takes bite*….did I just become bisexual?"- user "psychicer999" on tiktok

Thanks for reading, my lovelies :)

~ Local Dragon Haunt