For those of your expecting action and finding out how Danny, Vlad and Dora got back to Amity from Egypt: Sorry, try again later.
He really did not want to know. He actually desperately wanted to know but at the same time he did not want to know what caused the new cuts on Fenton's side and the large bruise that was healing over his chest. He had gone to see Fenton on Sunday to see if he wanted to hang out some more but his parents said that he had gone someplace to visit his uncle which Dash found to be strange.
'I wonder why he didn't say he was going to visit family this weekend,' he sighed as he watched the boy swim from one of the lounge chairs, 'I should ask him for his number after he's done swimming so I can call ahead first and not look like an idiot again.'
Now on Monday he hadn't seen Fenton all morning and right when his shift was about to end he came in, said hello and started to swim. He didn't know why but he stuck around even after the next lifeguard came to watch the early afternoon crowd though he seemed more interested in watching the more attractive girls that came out for some prime sunning time.
The weird bruising and cuts on his body was telling him something happened again that likely had to deal with his wacko parents' ghost hunting. Besides wanting to know if that was the case he also wanted to show Fenton some of the things he had drawn yesterday. He had spent a great deal of time the previous day drawing more images of the young man's bike and him riding it and wanted to get his opinion on his drawings.
So with that in mind he just sat on a lounge chair next to where Fenton had laid his own stuff. He hadn't had a lot of time to just soak up the summer sun so it was a good enough time to just sit back and people watch while he waited and soaked up the sun.
More people were there during the middle of the day when it got hotter. There were a lot of younger kids splashing and making noise while their parents sat on the side carefully keeping an ear out for trouble while they sat and read their books or magazines. Also lounging around the pool were several girls that he recognized from school, several of which were slathering on enough tanning oil to baste a turkey.
He didn't mind seeing them just sitting there, though, and he didn't even mind the girls that passed by him blatantly checking him out over the rims of their designer sunglasses and giggling. What was really starting to get to him were the girls that were checking Fenton out while he was darting through the water. They watched the raven haired swimmer with rapt interest in his sleek body and it took all his self control not to yell at the girls that he knew that just earlier this year they had been turning up their noses to him.
'Didn't even notice him all these years and suddenly without a shirt on and soaking wet they can't stop drooling. What a bunch of posers,' Dash huffed to himself as Fenton finally pulled himself out of the deep end and shook some of the water out of his shaggy hair. He didn't wear a swim cap today and seemed to go a bit slower, but the guy was still swimming much faster and longer than Dash could.
"Sorry," Fenton reached down to his chair for his towel and started to dry off his hair and press at his ears to get the water out, "I didn't think you'd stick around to wait on me."
"Ehh don't worry about it, I don't have anything better to do and thought we could hang out for a bit. I have some drawings I did this weekend I wanted to show you and I also wanted to see if your bike was making any progress now."
"Heh, I made a little progress this weekend but with a few things that happened I didn't have much time and only really got a basic start on the frame. It'll be a few weeks before I can get everything into place and it likely won't be until sometime in July when I can finally get everything in working order."
"Least it's better than nothing," Dash shrugged, "You ready to get outta here?" Dash stood up with his stuff in tow as he watched Fenton bend down to pick up his stuff. Dash had to force his gaze away to keep from staring at him only to see several girls watching them. Dash looked back at the other guy and sighed. He didn't show any signs that he knew he was being watched by some pretty hot girls, and taking pity on him he lightly kicked at his foot even though he desperately didn't want to.
"Fenton, are you blind or do you just not care that there are some majorly hot girls checking you out at my 9 o'clock?"
The raven haired teen looked over to his right and saw a bunch of girls looking their way and sighed, "Nah, they're just looking at you."
Dash almost wanted to groan at what little confidence the guy had, "Dude, they were watching you swim back and forth in the water and practically drooling when you got out and saw the water dripping down your body," Fenton looked up at him surprised and Dash flustered a bit, "Not that I was looking at you or anything but I did notice them looking at you when you got out."
"Still, I'm not all that interested." He packed up his towel and pulled on a shirt with a cringe. Dash could see that he was likely hurting again from something ghost related
'Unless that's just an excuse he told me and his parents actually beat him!' Dash suddenly thought and then shook his head, 'Snap out of it Dash his parents are friendly goofballs they wouldn't do that, but still why does he get so hurt and why do they let him hunt ghosts if that's what hurt him. And if he's this injured what about his parents, they're supposed to be professionals. Do they get hurt even worse than him?'
Dash rubbed at his temples, thinking like that was going to give him a migraine. Despite the fact that he doubted that he really wanted to know he just let out a sigh and looked at Fenton again, "So how'd you get hurt this time?"
"So you noticed that huh?" Danny cringed as he looked at Dash slightly ashamed.
"Kind of hard to miss a giant bruise across your chest like that," Dash rolled his eyes, "I thought you were with your uncle or something."
When he gave a confused look Dash grunted, "I stopped by yesterday to see if you wanted to hang out or something and your parents said you were with your uncle."
"Well I guess you could call him that, he's like an honorary uncle but yeah I was with him." They grabbed their stuff and started to head out. Dash saw the girls watching them as they walked by and had to hold back a snort at how they stared without any kind of discrepancy but decided to just ignore them.
"So what did you do this weekend that got you so hurt? Ghost hunting again?" Dash looked over Fenton's body like he could still see the injuries through his shirt as they walked together. It had been a pleasant morning and Dash had decided to walk to the pool that morning instead of driving his car.
"I was actually uh… helping him test out some weapons and devices and well…" Fenton cleared his throat, likely to give himself a few more seconds to think something up in Dash's opinion, "A few mishaps happened and I got hurt, but it's nothing major. If I wasn't ok I wouldn't have been allowed to come swim again today."
"You seriously need to be more careful if you're going to be doing this sort of thing, Fenton. You're going to get yourself killed if you don't look out for yourself more."
"Heh, maybe, but I try not to think too much about it." Dash wanted to ask what he meant by that but decided against it as they made their way along the streets the boys falling into an odd silence until the blond finally decided to break it.
"So what did you do this weekend with your uncle besides test weapons?"
"Oh we uh… traveled around a bit, saw an Egyptian exhibit and really just had a pretty boring day, nothing to talk about. What about you?"
Dash raised a brow at Fenton and thought for a moment that the guy was not giving him the whole story but just let it slide again, "Mainly stuck to my place, drew some more, got a few drawings done, worked some on my comics, and talked to Kwan. He's eager to get back home this week and I'm sort of eager to show him what I've been working on; and your bike too if you'll let him."
"Sure, Kwan's always been a pretty good guy even if he sometimes bullied me and others he didn't do it often. I'm glad he's coming back though, I'm sure you miss him," Fenton gave Dash a smile and his heart felt like it was melting with how warm and sincere it was, "Wait a sec… You've got a comic that you work on?"
That alone made Dash's face turn a nice shade of pink. It was one thing for him to admit to drawing and being an artist, but it was a whole other scenario to admit to drawing comics that always made him feel nerdy and childish.
"Y-Yeah I sorta have this comic that I draw but it's nothing really great. I don't post it online or anything I just do it for fun and sometimes I show Kwan and he says he likes it but I dunno…" He rubbed at his shoulder and Fenton smirked at him.
"Well this I have to see then. C'mon, we can hang out at your place for awhile before I have to head home." Dash didn't know how or why but he agreed and walked with the other teen back to his empty house.
"My room's at the top of the stairs to the right," Dash pointed up towards the second floor that over looked the living room and headed toward the kitchen, "I'll get us some sodas, Coke ok?"
"Yeah, that's fine," Fenton started to walk upstairs and Dash went to grab the drinks. He really didn't feel comfortable with showing the raven haired guy his more personal work but he had already spilled the beans so he figured he might as well get it over with. With one last sigh he trudged up the stairs and opened the door to his room to see Fenton sitting on his bed just looking around and waiting.
"Here's your drink," he handed the Coke to the boy and went to his desk to dig around his piles of papers to find something he could show without his face going red while the raven haired teen sat behind him and popped the tab to the can. Rummaging around through his notebooks Dash tried to find something that was complete and that wasn't horrible before he came across one of his better works where Danny Phantom faced off against a ghost sword that possessed its wielder into attacking people they cared for so it could drink their blood. It was actually a pretty good story and was one of his longest too. Dash had actually been quite proud when he was able to finish it before the end of sophomore year.
"Here's one of my comics, I like to think it's one of my best considering my limited experience," Dash held it out and when Fenton caught sight of the title he coughed and had to beat on his chest a few times to keep from choking.
"'Danny Phantom vs. the Ghost Sword'? You've drawn comics about Danny Phantom?" Fenton's eyes were wide in shock and surprise and Dash had to fight down the rising blush of embarrassment that was coming to his face.
"Yeah, he's a hero and I really respect him," He looked away for a moment before fixing his gaze back on the other teen, "You don't think he's some evil ghost that needs to be hunted down and experimented on do you? I know your parents are ghost hunters but I hope you have more sense than they do to see that he's a good guy and trying to do right by us!"
"Hey, whoa…" Fenton raised his hands up in defense of himself, "Calm down, I was just surprised you drew a comic about him is all. And yeah I know he's a good guy and tries to do right by the town. I don't think he's evil and my parents actually like him now a lot too. I'm sorry if what I said came out wrong I was just really surprised."
"Sorry, I didn't mean to snap," Dash rubbed at the back of his neck looking away before he sat in his desk chair, "I just get real embarrassed about my work and defensive about Phantom. I mean he's a hero but he's a kid like us so he's going to mess up a lot and I get that he might accidentally damage some property and stuff but it's not like he's doing it on purpose and if he didn't stop the other ghosts then they would likely cause even MORE trouble. Like that time with the ghost dragon or when our town was being overrun with those ghosts wearing what looked like SWAT armor and he even helped save me from a ghost that was trying to hunt him down and we got shrunk together. He's a good guy, and a hero. He's just young and inexperienced so he's going to make mistakes but that's part of what growing up is about, right?"
Fenton stared at him for a few moments and blinked making Dash feel embarrassed again by the guy in front of him, "That… was surprisingly deep coming from someone like you."
"What's that supposed to mean?" He shot an angry glare as Fenton started to look at the comic he had been handed.
"Nothing," he shrugged off handedly, "It's just that you never seemed like the understanding type. Then again being a bully for years sort of left a lasting impression on me about your personality."
"Yeah, I'm sorry about that, but hey we're friends now at least, right?" Despite Dash wanting to seem impartial and cool about it, he couldn't help the hopeful tone that leaked into his question.
"I guess we sort of are now," Fenton chuckled and seemed to quickly scan over the pages of the comic.
That brought a smile to Dash's face. He thought that even though they were getting along that Fenton still saw him as just a bully and that worried him because he no longer saw Fenton as just some loser. Now he saw the awesome guy that he had always been but apparently had been too blind to see for himself.
"So what do you think?" After a few minutes of pleasant silence Dash decided to see what the other thought of his comic.
"It's really not bad, Dash. I mean the plot is pretty simple and the language might be a little cheesy in places but in my honest opinion it's really good."
"Really? Thanks!" He beamed at the praise, "It was really hard work and I had to have Kwan come over to help me a lot on poses and things."
When ice blue eyes looked up at him curiously Dash took the comic and flipped to one of the pages where Phantom was holding a non-possessed sword, "See how he's holding the sword? I had to have Kwan come over several times and hold a long stick or something in certain ways so I could draw the hands and arms right. I'm telling you hands are one of the hardest things to draw and I absolutely HATE drawing them. Just glad Phantom wears simple white boots those don't take any time at all to get right."
"I wouldn't know one way or another about drawing hands or anything but I guess I can see how they'd be hard to draw."
"Man, don't get me started," Dash walked over to a book case and squatted down to pull out a few notebooks, "These here are filled with nothing BUT drawings of hands, feet, and shoes. It took me forever to get anywhere decent with any of them."
When handed the notebooks Fenton flipped through them and bit down on his lip to hold back a laugh. Some of the sketches and drawings really were pretty bad and there were a lot of harsh lines drawn through certain ones that if he hadn't been told what they were going to be he might have had a hard time figuring it out.
"It's ok to laugh I know for a fact those suck and I have no problems admitting it." Dash crossed his arms in a huff and sat back down at his desk.
"Oh man that's good 'cause I just came across this and it's hilarious," He held up one of the notebooks towards a page and Dash looked at it and groaned before he let his head fall back in frustration, "I mean what is this? An octopus?"
"I was trying out a technique I read about online that was supposed to be an easier way to draw hands and needless to say it didn't turn out that great. I got so frustrated half way trying to learn it that I just gave up, made it into a squiggly mess of shapes, and put the book away for the night."
"Well at least you got better at it," he chuckled and continued to flip through the pages to admire the work.
Reaching into one of his desk drawers Dash decided to pull out some of his other comics and placed them beside Fenton, "Here's some more to look at if you want. I've done more comics since the sword one and I think I am getting better."
"Thanks, I'll take a look at them too."
A smile crossed both teens' faces and as one started to go through the art work presented him, the other turned around and pulled out a sheet of paper. Dash had been working on his comic a lot lately and after looking at his last page where Phantom had caught up to the ghost bats that had been stealing all manner of equipment he decided to get to work on the next one.
Dash just sketched out the first few panels of where Phantom would fly into the cave the bats went into and suddenly be attacked. He figured it would be dark and he'd likely use those green energy orbs that came from his hands to light up the dark gave. While it would give him a good excuse to be a bit lazy with the drawings he thought that at the same time it would later make for some interesting lighting effects he could try out. He got so caught up in his art that after awhile he almost forgot that he wasn't alone in his room today but when he turned around he saw that Fenton had lain down on his bed and fallen asleep.
The dark haired teen had fallen back onto a pillow and his hair was mussed up around his head. The soft rise and fall of his chest that came in a slow steady rhythm was quiet and uninterrupted. He was practically dead to the world around him and Dash couldn't help but smile at him.
'Damn he looks cute just sleeping like that.' Dash chuckled and went over to pick up his art and put it away. Then almost as an afterthought he took the loose sheet he covered himself up with on warmer nights and covered the sleeping teen with it.
'I've got to stop thinking about him like this,' he sighed and stroked back the dark strands of hair that was covering Fenton's face. He had dark bags under his eyes, like he hadn't slept enough, and from how much he swam and the injuries he seemed to have gotten Dash figured he must have been exhausted.
He let his hand slide over his forehead to brush back the hair once more and then went back to his desk. He'd let him sleep for awhile, get some work done and wake him up if it started to get too late. For now though, he had drawings of evil red eyes and a teen ghost to draw out.
Long chapter, enjoy the fluff and see you next chapter.