Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom, obviously. Butch Hartman does.
"You're kidding me, right?" Danny said. His arms were folded across his chest as he floated above the ground.
"No, I'm being completely serious!" Desiree protested. She held out the hat again. Danny stared at it doubtfully before finally sighing, reaching into it, and plucking out a slip of paper.
"Youngblood?" he yelped, reading the slip. He groaned in dismay. "I have to get a gift for Youngblood?"
"Hey, you drew the slip," Desiree shrugged. "At least you don't have to buy presents for all, like we've been doing for the past hundreds of years. We finally decided that we would draw slips of paper and whoever's name we got, we would get something for them, and if we wanted to buy anyone else stuff, we could do that, too." She started to fade back into smoke, having been delegated the task of passing out the slips and still having quite a few to go. "Besides, Youngblood's not even that hard of a person to get something for, or one of your 'worst enemies' – I heard Nocturne's been going around on a rampage after he drew your name out of the hat." With that, she vanished completely.
Danny facepalmed. "Oh my God," he moaned. "She says he's not one of my worst enemies, but he's an annoying little pest – and now I have to get a present for him!" he sighed. "Well, at least it wasn't Skulker…or Vlad. Oh my God, that would have been awful."
The teenager glanced at the clock tower across town. It was just after three in the morning.
"Brilliant," he muttered. "Many thanks for it being the break…" The halfa started t o head towards home. "Ugh, I hope Mom and Dad don't make me get a gift for Vlad now that he's living in town and all…stupid megalomaniac fruit loop."
The Christmas celebrations this year were much better (from Danny's point of view) than last year's, probably because this time he wasn't trapped in an annoying poem and actually knew what was going on. He hadn't been able to get away from his family until rather late at night, and from the looks of things he was the last to have arrived at the ghosts' party. It wasn't entirely his family's fault, however, as he had gotten lost on the way.
"Hey, Youngblood!" Danny called out a few minutes after arriving, spotting the child ghost (decked out in full pirate gear) by the refreshment table, eating cake. "Here," he said, tossing the somewhat clumsily wrapped present at the pirate when he turned around.
Youngblood grinned excitedly as he tore through the wrapping paper. His grin turned into an expression of awe as opened the box and saw his present.
"Oh my God," he whispered. "Thanks, Phantom!" he all but shouted, looking up.
Danny rubbed the back of his neck. "You're welcome," he said.
The teenager stayed for a few more hours before he begged off for sleep. He was quite happy with the present Nocturne gave him, which turned out to be long dreams that were meant to be really good ones, and even if he didn't get very much sleep their side effects would leave him feeling well rested. He thanked the ghost awkwardly, sincere in his gratitude upon receiving the gift but put off by how strongly the ghost was glaring at him angrily.
A few days after Christmas, Danny sighed to himself.
"Why on Earth did I give that to Youngblood?" he asked, staring up at the sky. "That was such a stupid thing to do!"
Then, shaking his head, he went back to chasing down the young ninja who was swooping around town.
A/N: Fair warning to all of you, the next two chapters are going to be the shorter DP one-shots that were on my profile - I'm moving them here because THEY ARE TOO SHORT. If you haven't read them yet, great, feel free to read them. If you have...well, then you don't have to read them, do you?