Tattoo
The alarm clock said 6 am.
Violet eyes fluttered open.
Sam woke up in one of the best moods she'd ever experienced. There was a smooth rush of happiness flowing through her system with the pulse of her heart. So lightheaded and carefree, she almost worried that she'd been drinking. But the tingle on her lips spoke otherwise. Someone had left their warm and loving touch on them. With a deep breath, she released a long, lovesick sigh and sat up.
Her eyes searched the room. The place where her cousin had slept was empty. Sam yawned and stretched, ready to face her first day back at Casper High after 6 months of being away. She rummaged through her closet and wondered if anyone or anything had changed. She'd had no contact with anyone while she was in England.
It wasn't long before her cell phone went off.
"Hello?"
"Sam! We have a problem!" A frantic male voice yelled in her ear.
"Tucker, what are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about you and Danny openly fraternizing while Trinity is in your room!" he hissed.
"Oh, my Go- wait, how do you know Trinity was in my room last night?"
"Because, Sam, she came to see me half an hour ago!"
"Oops…"
She could've sworn her cousin was sound asleep when Danny stopped by, but this was a serious situation. What if she'd seen Danny transform? Trinity was generally good at keeping secrets, but she did sometimes accidentally blurt things out, and that had Sam really worried.
"Well, how much does she know?"
"She saw Danny Phantom carry you back into your room and kiss you before flying out the window!"
"Oh crap. So where is she now?"
"In the shower…"
"What, your shower?"
"Yes…" Tucker shifted uncomfortably as he tried to avoid staring at the feminine PJ's that Trinity had shed before heading to the bathroom. Sam could feel his heat-filled blush blaring through the phone.
"So now my older cousin is trying to corrupt my best friend." She laughed.
"NO! She asked to use the shower and I said she could, it's not like anything else happened."
"And you accuse me and Danny about fraternizing behind closed doors when you've got my exhibitionist cousin in your bathroom."
Sam could hear Trinity saying something in the background. Tucker yelled out a random curse word and a loud thump soon followed. Light footsteps were heard, and the phone cable rustled as a hand scooped up the receiver.
"Who is this?"
"Trinity, it's me, Sam."
"Oh, hey Sammy," Her bubbly British voice held an I-know-something-you-don't-know twinge to it. "I bet you slept well last night; why didn't you tell me the ghost boy was your boyfriend?"
"He's not my boyfriend - Danny is - no wait… I mean, ugh Trinity stop messing with my head!"
Trinity laughed.
"Jeez, keep it down! If Tuck's parents catch you, we'll all be in a lot of trouble! What happened to Tucker anyway?"
"I don't know, when I walked into the room and asked where the towels were, he totally spazzed and fell on the floor. I think he's a haemophiliac or something 'cause his nose won't stop bleeding." She knelt next to him and poked his arm.
"Oh for the love of- Trin, you're naked right now aren't you?"
"Well yeah Sam, I don't know where the towels are!" she replied mockingly.
"Look in the airing cupboard next to the bathroom and for dog's sake put some clothes on!"
"You can't honestly tell me this boy hasn't had naked girls in his room before, I mean come on he's what, 15?" She picked up the base of the phone, cradled the receiver between her ear and her shoulder and walked over to what looked like an airing cupboard. "Besides, I simply had to tell him about you and the Phantom, and since he left his window open, I figured he wouldn't mind."
"You know, Trin, nothing happened."
"Oh sure, a muscular yet sensitive ghost-bloke sneaks into your room in the middle of the night and gently tucks you in, gives you a smooch before staring at you like a love sick puppy and quickly flying away," A sneaky grin crossed her face. "if you ask me, he wants to get in your knickers, love."
Ugh, why is she such a damn perv? Sam felt the blood surge from her cheeks all the way to her naturally dark roots.
"And then there's you, a 21-year old slice of British womanhood who sneaks into a teenage boys bedroom in the early hours of daylight and waltzes around stark naked like it's no big deal," She covered her eyes with her free hand and shook her head. "I can tell by now that Tucker has seen your other tattoos, not to mention those piercings of yours that quite frankly freak me out just thinking about them."
"I don't think he even noticed; he fell over pretty damn quick."
"Do you have a fresh change of clothes there or would you rather walk back to my place in your birthday suit?"
"Oh, har-de-har Sammy, just get hold of Danny and meet me and Techno boy at school. Oh, and don't forget my iPod! It should be fully charged by now. Buh-bye, dahlin'!"
CLICK…
Her cousin had hung up the phone. Sam knew that bringing her along to visit Amity Park probably wasn't the best idea in the world. She was a real scatter brain at times, often doing random things like this, but she was going to get all four of them into a whole mess of problems if she continued her rambunctious behaviour. Clearly her unsupervised situation in England left Trinity with a wild stallion type of attitude; an untamed bundle of late-bloomed hormones with the legal freedom to do pretty much anything she wanted.
"Oh well, what's the worst that can happen?" Sam thought as she dialled Danny's home phone number…
Why, oh, why does she have to do this? Sam groaned and hung her head in complete doubt.
Danny, who had been walking to school with her, was too busy laughing to notice that she'd stopped in her tracks and put her hand over her eyes, as if a migraine bomb had exploded in her brain. Trinity stubbed out yet another cigarette and waved them over. Tucker stood next to her, grinning wildly at them.
It had quickly become apparent that Trinity had not gone empty handed when she traversed to his house at the crack of dawn this morning, seeing as she was not in her pyjamas and Tucker was not in his usual t-shirt and cargos.
"Hey guys," He beamed. "what d'ya think?"
Tuck gestured to the outfit that Trinity had convinced him to put on after he regained consciousness. A white shirt with a light blue zipper jacket over it, that went surprisingly well with the black 'trackie bottoms' (as she had called them) and gold sneakers. The attire – not too unlike what Danny had worn to Dash's party in freshman year – was topped off with a checked baseball cap and three thick silver chains round his neck.
"Whoa, Tucker, you look… kinda…" Danny was unsure how to word it.
"Like a Chav…" Sam finished with a sigh.
"I was gonna say he looked like a sofa, but whatever that word is that you just used seems to work." He grinned.
"What the hell is a Chav?" Tucker asked Trinity.
"In England, a Chav is someone who wears a lot of sportswear and disturbing amounts of jewellery; I believe you Americans use the term 'Bling-bling', but Sam's just jealous because the Chav thing literally doesn't suit her." Trinity smirked.
"Nah, I'm happier being casual," Sam tugged at the extremely loose t-shirt and denim jeans she had on. "but Chav looks good on you, Tuck, especially with those contacts."
"Yeah, I didn't know you wore contact lenses." Danny noted.
"The ladies love a guy who can wear contacts, and at least I don't look like I've crossed the gender barrier." Tucker remarked jokingly.
"He has a point y'know Sam, with that short hair you don't half come across as a guy with boobs," Trinity laughed. At the mention of breasts, Tucker turned slightly pink. "like, if you wanna be non-binary that's fine, but you'd need to flatten 'em a bit!"
"Eh, even girly girls like to casual sometimes." Sam shrugged.
"Come on, I wanna find that Dash boy," Trinity kicked up her stilettos and led the way into the double doors of Casper High.
Danny hung back a bit so he could watch Sam from behind. A soft growl left his throat. He followed her into the building, eyes not once leaving the metronome swaying of her hips. He bit his lower lip and rubbed his arm; how was it possible that she could resemble a smouldering temptress even in casual clothes? It presented a few problems though. Danny feared his powers would go wrong and cause him to phase through the floor, or that the blood pumping faster and faster round his body would soon move down to somewhere a lot more embarrassing.
Such thoughts were pushed away however when Trinity finally caught up with her lover boy, Dash Baxter. Nothing like the prospect of getting bullied to repel any dirty thoughts rushing in his head.
"Honey!" Her British voice choked out when she practically wrestled him to the floor.
"Whoa!" He wobbled somewhat, but soon managed to regain his composure, despite the fact that she was now clinging to him in the style of a piggyback ride. "Hey babe, you've got a decent tackle, ever think of playing football?"
"Nah, I ain't got the balls for it." She cheekily grinned and laughed at her own cheeky joke.
Dash soon laughed along with her, having taken a few moments to get the true meaning of the statement.
"What're you hanging round these losers for?" He asked, sneering at Danny and Tucker. He didn't seem to recognize Sam at all.
"Aw c'mon Hun, don't be so harsh, these guys are friends of my cousin." She gestured to a very tomboyish person next to Danny.
"Is he new here or what? I've never seen him before," Dash leaned in closer to examine the 'boy'. Sam was insulted that she'd just been called a 'he'. "What's your name, dude?"
At this point, she narrowed her violet eyes and huffed irately. Sam reached down to grab the hem of her shirt and, before Danny or anyone else had a chance to stop her, callously took it off. She slung it over her shoulder and glared at the quarterback angrily.
"Holy hell! Manson?" He howled in shock and stumbled backwards.
"That's right, Baxter, and my name is Sam as in Samantha NOT Samuel." She bore a snide smile. "I believe you know my cousin Trinity Manson from yesterday at the Nasty Burger?"
"No way are you two related!"
The two girls nodded simultaneously.
"Surely you noticed she was a girl six months ago, why the confusion now?" Trinity wondered.
"Just the shock I guess," He eyed her up and down, trying to understand how that scrawny Goth geek he once knew had filled out into this. "well, Manson, you clean up pretty good don't ya? Twenty bucks says half of that is thanks to cosmetic surgery…"
Danny's blue eyes raged with neon green. His hands balled so tightly into ready-to-punch fists that his knuckles turned as white as Sam's jeans. Tucker handed him a tissue and motioned to his nose. He ran his finger just above his lip and saw that once again, his nose was bleeding. He tried not to look at Sam, now stood in the middle of the corridor with only a dark blue bra shielding her 'assets' from the world.
"Excuse me? You dare to refute the honour and natural beauty of a Manson woman?" Trinity fumed as she pressed her index and middle fingers onto Sam's left boob. "I'll have you know that these are 100 percent natural!"
THUMP
All eyes looked to Danny unconscious on the floor. Tucker attempted to keep his intense laughter bottled up when Sam, still shirtless, knelt beside the halfa and gently slapped his cheek.
"Jeez, what a wimp." Dash peered at the boy and shook his head in pity.
"Give the guy a break, he's not used to seeing 'em in the flesh," Trinity agreed. "he got quite a shock the other night when he found out I sleep topless."
"Oh, really? Is that so?" He shot a saucy glance in her direction.
"I know, he's so inexperienced bless him!" She giggled.
"No, not that, I mean do you really sleep topless?" He flashed a flirtatious smirk.
"Maybe," She teased, pushing herself up against his athletic body and forcing him to stumble in reverse until his back met the cold steel lockers. She drew invisible circles on his chest and winked. "play your cards right, mate, and you might find out for yourself."
She pulled away and crouched down near Sam to help wake Danny, fully realising that the skirt she was wearing just about gave Dash a taunting shot of the curve of her backside. He walked away, momentarily satisfied and feeling reasonably impressed with himself. It didn't take long for Tucker to notice the small, yet very familiar emblem on Sam's chest. He raised an eyebrow, not really sure what to make of it.
"Is that what I think it is?" Tucker squinted at the black symbol precisely parallel to where her heart was.
She nodded.
There, on Samantha Manson's left breast, just peeking above the cup of her bra - in all its tattooed glory - was the exact same DP logo as that on Danny Phantom's spandex top…
