A/N: Oh my god~ what a perfect prompt.
I feel like Star is one of the Phandom's favorite side characters. There's so much that can be done with her!

Funkatron: Thank you for your review! I like it when fluff is scattered throughout the story, and I do intend to keep the comedic bits plentiful as well. While I love me some angst, I want to keep things more adventure-y than just 'Danny gets experimented on'. My poor baby deserves better!

Star considered herself one of the smarter students at Casper High, and definitely the smartest of the A-List, at least in GPA. (Paulina had her moments. She didn't necessarily get the highest of grades, but when she wanted to take advantage or get back at someone, she'd concoct plans all the way from A to Z and make sure each one made your life worse than the last. Whatever anyone thought of Paulina, that took wit, knowledge, and skill… if not ill-placed.)

And no, Star couldn't beat out the historic career of Jazz Fenton, but she was fine and even thankful for that. Even though she was on the cheer squad, being the center of attention wasn't necessarily for her. Of course she wanted recognition and admiration, but she was completely content with being in the shadow of someone else's work, with her only having to reap the rewards. Plus, if the rest of the A-List knew that she was that much of a nerd, they would have shoved her out of the sweet life faster than you could say 'multi-textured perm'.

Star, unlike most of the rest of the A-List, knew that high-school was just the stepping stone to a new and better life. Unlike middle school (where the only requirement is that you pass), a high GPA in high school can get you more scholarships, which can get you into a better school, which can get you a better degree, and, most importantly, a better job. She's not going to be the type of person that peaked in high school and she's not going to be stuck working at the Nasty Burger for the rest of her life. No, she has places to go.

So yes, she does consider herself one of the smarter members of her group, but she wouldn't think of it as arrogance. (And she wasn't an arrogant person, honestly.) It was just accepting that there is more beyond the cliques and boredom of high-school and rightfully preparing for that future.

It's for these reasons that when she heard Danny and his friends bickering at the lab table beside her, she turned to throw a scowl at their way for interrupting the lecture… but they were too preoccupied with looking at their phones and poking each other to… wait, was that… is Danny drooling while looking at his phone? That kid can really zone out sometimes, it's actually kind of impressive.

Tucker seems to notice his friend's inattentiveness and quickly snatches the distracting device out of his friend's hands, this action being met with strong protests from Danny. Star looked on this with a bittersweet combination of contempt and longing, annoyed by their distraction but admiring that strong bond they all seem to share that was well-known by everyone at Casper. That was… lacking in her world. People were very quick to cast people out if they had different lifestyles or viewpoints, Valerie being a prime example. Oh well, once she gets out of here and heads to college it'll all be behind her.

Suddenly, Tucker seems to become distracted himself and points at Danny's face. Star giggles lightly as Danny notices how he was drooling and hastily wipes it from his mouth.

Can't say I haven't been there before.

Weirdly enough, this rather typical and playful banter takes a nose-dive into the weird and creepy when all three of them stop to stare at the drool on Danny's hand. She knew those kids were weird, heck, everyone knew that they were weird, but this had to be crossing some sort of line, right?

She catches a glimpse of it when Danny leans his hand towards Sam, and the light catches it ever so nicely enough that she notices the vibrant color reflecting back at her.

His drool is… green?

They're all whispering now, but she can't quite make out what they're saying. She leans closer to the trio to try to hear and see what's going on but is snapped back into place when she hears Mr. Marx yelling at them from across the room. Her eyes remain glued to them, however. Her head only angling down to the paper in front of her in a feeble attempt to make it not obvious she was staring.

Danny quickly shoves his hand behind the lab table to conceal whatever green smear was on his hand, and as Star follows it with her eyes she can notice a faint emerald light being emanating from it underneath the darkness of the table. She could easily suspend her disbelief and say it was a trick of the light, her being paranoid, etc., but in Amity Park it was better to be cautious and thoughtful about these things, and her thoughts were only screaming one thing.

Ectoplasm.

She and anyone else with a brain in this school (which, admittedly, are very few) have seen ectoplasm enough to know it very well. A green substance that glows? Ectoplasm. Something glowing? Probably based on ectoplasm. Just green and splattered on a wall? Inactive ectoplasm. Floating? Ectoplasm. It's a theme, unfortunately.

There was one thing that made her question this theory, however. The smear came from Danny's mouth. Active ectoplasm is essentially a radioactive substance, any contact with it can do a number of things from cell deterioration and cancer to delirium and a rash. The latter was much more common, but the former has been said to have happened on a number of occasions, enough that any active ectoplasm that was left at a scene had to be cleaned up by personnel that are 'highly trained'. (usually the Fentons) Anybody that was sprayed with the stuff had to report to them within the next few hours for treatment, which is usually just some sort of topical ointment the Fentons developed. Enough people were afraid of the consequences that they went without much questioning or protest, and it's not like they charged people for the service.

So the fact that it was coming from Danny's mouth was rather concerning. Star thought about telling Mr. Marx about it, but Danny's parents were the ecto-experts, right? He'll probably just tell them about it when he gets home, or use some of that ointment that they hand out, and should be fine. Probably. If it was even ectoplasm.

(Un)surprisingly enough, the infamous trio continues their distracting behavior sans the speaking bit even after whatever Mr. Marx yells at them, taking photos and pantomiming to each other anyway. But then, they take their weirdness a step further, somehow. Danny turns his stool towards Sam (and essentially Star as well) and opens his mouth, and the goth peers into it closely.

What the hell are they doing during class? This is ridiculous! Star's mouth almost falls open at their strange display, but she catches herself.

Wait. She thinks. He was drooling ectoplasm… Star takes a risk and leans back to get a better view as well, intrigued by whatever strange things might be going on. Did he get ectoplasm in his mouth during a ghost fight? No, she hadn't heard of one yet today, otherwise the Twitter page specifically dedicated to that would have notified her. She felt like that was reaching a bit, anyways.

Was he contaminated and it was a side-effect? Possibly, there was that incident where everyone was infected by ghost bugs and it gave us all weird ghostly effects, but they'd probably be more concerned about that, right? And anyways, you could feel it when they were inside of you- really any time a ghost possessed you it felt like there was something… foreign and cold close to your heart. It's not a pleasant experience. If you were possessed you'd want to do something about it ASAP, not just sit and stare at its results.

As Star was running through the list of possible reasons in her head and ordering them from 'impossible' to 'eh, it was Amity', her thoughts were halted when she saw those unnaturally long canines protruding out of Danny's top and bottom teeth. There were a lot of things about the Fenton family that were unusual, but this goes beyond unusual, it's… otherworldly. There's a possibility that he could have just been born with them, but with the way Sam was inspecting his mouth…

Well, to be honest, Sam could just be checking for more green.
Have to anticipate all possible outcomes, Star. Don't jump to conclusions.

During this weird exchange, Star looks around the room. While many students weren't paying attention to the lecture by being on their phones or doodling in their notebook, none of them are noticing the exchange happening in the corner of the room, even after Marx yelled at them.

Literally oblivious. She rolls her eyes.

Looking back towards the trio's table, she sees them passing notes back and forth to one another with Danny looking more and more dismayed as time passes. Something's definitely up, but Star's too far away to read what's written to get any more information. It's then when Mr. Marx decides to interrupt her casual spying for the second time.

"Alright students, I want this done by the end of the period. That leaves you half an hour to record each of your results and turn it in, understand?"

Star finally looks back to her lab materials and sighs. This curiosity is literally killing her, and she didn't even like cats.

"It's just simple blood testing, we can do mine first." Star quickly pricks her finger with the lancet and places a drop on each sheet, already becoming annoyed with overhearing everyone freak out about how they have to see blood or how much it's going to hurt. Her lab partners are Dale and Nathan, and she's at least semi-confident that they'll be able to do their own work without her help. Well… they as in Nathan doing both Dale's and his, but she wasn't particularly concerned with that as long as it got done. She pulls the used needle out of the device and puts it on a napkin, passing the reusable bit to Nathan, going back to observing the table beside her.

The three talk amongst each other for a little bit before they all seem to come to some sort of conclusion. Danny raises his hand while the other two fiddle with the lancing device.

"Mr. Marx, can I go to the bathroom?"

Classic Danny.

Marx glances over to Danny and waves him off while continuing to talk to a different group. Danny leaves, uttering a quick "Be back soon" to his friends. Sam flips the page in her notebook and starts writing down a template for the lab. Star's eyes narrow.

I bet that notebook has something in it about Danny.

Now, Star was no novice when it came to snooping, she had to help Paulina out with it regularly after all. She found that finding, blackmailing, and revealing people's secrets was a pretty immoral thing to do, and usually tries to convince Paulina away from it when she can. In this case, however, she was only doing it to satisfy her own curiosity and had no plans to tell anybody about the Fenton kid's weirdness unless it was harming himself or anyone else. It probably wouldn't be difficult, either.

Star gets up from her seat and walks over to Mr. Marx, knowing she has limited time. She stands next to him and waits until he turns his attention to her.

"Yes, Star?"

"Hi Mr. Marx, do you think you can talk to Tucker and Sam again because they were being really distracting during your lecture, even after you asked them not to."

He narrows his eyes at them from across the room. "Alright, thank you for letting me know, I'll talk to them in a second."

Star turns on her heel. "I can let them know you want to see them, thanks!" She speedwalks over to their group, not giving him a chance to object.

Star leans on Tucker and Sam's table and looks at her phone, acting as nonchalant as she could. "Mr. Marx asked me to tell you to go talk to him, apparently it's about before."

Sam grunts and rolls her eyes. "Wait here Tucker, I'll be right back."

"He said he wants both of you."

Sam glares at Star, who simply meets her gaze and shrugs. She grunts even louder before beckoning Tucker and heading across the room, but not before the creepy technogeek wiggles his eyebrows at Star. Gross.

After they leave Star is quick to jump into action, flipping the page of the notebook and taking a burst of photos of the conversation with her phone. She then flips the page back and walks back to her station as if nothing happened, leaning up against the wall and immediately opening the images.

"Star, what are you doing?"

Star looks up from her phone to see Nathan staring at her quizzically and Dale looking up from his own phone to do the same. She pauses.

"Something for Paulina" she quickly spins "mind your own business, Nathan. Aren't you supposed to be doing Dale's lab anyway?"

Dale directs his attention to Nathan, scowling and hassling him for slacking off. She tones them out and manages to find the clearest image, flipping it around to read it at the right angle.

Sam and Tucker appear back at their table right when Danny walks in the room and they immediately pull him aside to whisper to him, presumably about what happened based on their glares towards Star, but she couldn't care less about that.

Looks like it's stopped, but your canines look sharper too, and your tongue is less pink and more grey, and pointed a little... I think?

great, another thing I have to hide. When does this stuff even happen?!

don't worry dude, we got your back. :)

Of course! Plus, it seems like it's only noticeable if you're really looking for it. We'll talk to Jazz tonight, maybe she has some insight.

Thanks, guys.

Star is pretty sure she can tell who wrote what based on the handwriting (already knowing the absolutely awful one is Tucker's, thanks to him being in her English and her having to grade his prompts) and she can't help but read and reread the conversation.

So, this teeth thing is a new development, and Danny didn't even know about it. What does he mean by 'another' thing to hide? Does he really have some huge secret? I thought that was just gossip…

Of course, Danny's disappearing acts have been noticed by a fair number of students at Casper, as well as the fact that he sometimes comes back looking like he'd been hit by a truck. A number of hypotheses have been mentioned, he might be working for a gang, dealing drugs, fighting ghosts, possessed by a ghost, part of an underground fight club, is a ghost, has some weird deal with the teachers, home abuse, and self-harm, and each one has a list of 'evidence' behind it. Nobody really cared, it was all just something that the teenagers do to pass the time, but Star can't help but get drawn into the mystery now that she likely knows a fair amount more than anyone else.

What is Danny Fenton's secret?

TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

Star sits in her next class just as distracted as she's been the entire day, it definitely doesn't help that she has to stare at the back of her mystery's head for the whole period. She looks down at her notebook.

Fight club

Gang

Dealing drugs

Doing drugs

Abuse

Bullies

Self-harm

Is a ghost

Possessed by ghosts

Working for ghosts

Threatened by ghosts

Fighting ghosts

Of course, the ones that are left are ghost related. Amity in a nutshell. Star sighs.

She could rule out most of the less paranormal options simply due to Danny's personality. He was a quiet kid, but in the few times she spoke to him he really did seem pretty nice, if not a little oblivious and naive. She can't see him willingly doing anything for a gang or dealing drugs, and doing them is probably out of the question too. That and they don't explain the 'drooling ectoplasm' thing or the fangs, so she nixed them.

And then the ghost theories. Even though most people at Casper knew the basics of ghosts, they really didn't know anything beyond that. Danny was the Fenton's son, he could be in contact with ghosts far more than any of the other students would be, so maybe it's a side effect of being around ectoplasm all the time? If that's the case, then why wouldn't he just ask his parents to fix him instead of hiding it? The note mentioned them talking to Jazz, who everyone knew was displeased with her parents' strange profession. Why wouldn't he talk to the ghost experts? They probably don't know.

Then there's the darker ideas. The fact that he might actually be possessed by a ghost or even has been replaced long-term. That would explain the need to hide the strange occurrences from his ghost-hunting parents, but then why would Sam and Tucker, who've been friends with Danny even before this ghost stuff all happened, be working with it?

No matter how much Star racked her brain for answers, nothing made sense, she needed more information. Sure, it would be easy enough to just ignore it all and move on with her life, but this is one of the most interesting things that she's stumbled upon in a while. While ghost attacks and whatnot is probably what most people would call 'interesting', to Amity it was just a minor inconvenience. It became boring after a few months, and even the larger ghost attacks haven't happened for a long time anyway. It'll at least be a distraction for the boring monotony of school life.

As Lancer was ending their history lecture on the Napoleonic wars, the bell finally rang for lunch. Danny got up immediately, and Star packed up her things as quickly as possible, completely intending to follow him.

Before a hand appeared on her shoulder.

"Hey, Star... right? Can I talk to you for a second?"

Star looks over her shoulder to see a shorter girl with long, brown, straight hair looking up to her. She vaguely recognizes her from her other classes, but she's usually pretty quiet. Star thinks she's seen her with Sam a few times, at least in the past, and knows that some of the popular girls used to give her grief for being a scene/goth type kid.

Star looks over to Danny, who has already met up with the other two of the trio, and sighs. She drops her books back on her desk.

"Is there something you need? I'd like to get to lunch." she says, a hint of frustration in her voice.

The girl smiles sweetly and, dang. She could have definitely been in the popular troop if she dropped all of the black dresses and creepy jewelry, she was pretty. The goth girl pulls herself up to whisper into Star's ear, a gust of cold air snaking out of her mouth and making Star shiver.

"Stay away from Danny Fenton, or you'll be the next mystery that this town will never solve."

The girl leans away and looks her dead in the eyes. Star freezes, her whole body tensing in primal fear. She lets go of her shoulder, and the girl's black dress flutters as she walks away, leaving Star alone in an empty classroom.

A/N: Boy that was hard to write, and I have no clue why. Anything constructive would be wonderful!

Updates are going to slow down for the next week or two, as I've got a lot of school stuff to take care of. It should still be at least once a week though, so stay tuned!