Drug dealing awareness one-shot. (Not everybody who does wrong gets punished. Sometimes, other people are punished for them.)

Some people get away with it.

Inspired by the song 24 by Jem.

X X X

He didn't know exactly why he started selling drugs. To himself, in secret, he might have said it was because the love of his life was sick and dying. To himself, he might have said it was because he got in over his head with his smoking, his addiction, his life. Others didn't bother to ask anymore, they just assumed he was like every other dealer on the street—strapped for cash and starving to feed his own addiction or a selfish useless bastard that cared nothing for others and thought only of himself.

He might have used to argue them, but as time went one, the lines began to blur. He didn't even know why he got into this business or even how. He knew about Sam, though. He had watched her body wither away at the core, eaten alive by the sickness, by the cancer. Maybe he had started smoking to cope. Maybe he had started selling to help pay for her medical bills. Maybe he did a lot of things.

Maybe he even stopped caring.

~Hour 24~

Danny came home to the little ragged apartment, smelling of smoke and of the stinking city streets. Maybe he smelled like a cheap girl, maybe he didn't. It didn't matter anymore. Sam couldn't love him. Her body would break under his lightest touch, bruise under his kiss, tarnish like a fine brass candelabra touched by aged filthy hands. She was sitting at the window in an old wooden rocking chair in a soft white robe, looking like folded paper… like folded wet paper ready to crumble at any moment.

"Where have you been?" she whispered. Her voice was soft, muted, sickly.

"Out," was all he said.

She might have said something else, but her body started wracking with deep choking coughs. Danny went quickly to her side, dropping his smoky jacket on the floor without a care for the precious things carefully packaged away in the pockets, and held her trembling body against his chest until the coughs subsided. Her fingers were digging into his chest, but she was so weak that it didn't hurt at all. He barely felt her anymore. She was as light as an angel.

"Danny," she gasped out finally, but didn't say anything else.

He gently gathered her up in his arms, feeling all the bones of her body pressing against him. She was cold, too, as if she was already dead. He brought her to her bed, the bed they used to share but not anymore, and laid her down beneath the thick heavy blankets. After she was settled, he turned away, but her fingers caught the back of his shirt.

"Please, don't go," she whispered. She was nothing but white skin and soft twilight-colored eyes in the darkness. "Please, stay with me…"

"I have to go out."

"Are you—" she coughed again, cupping her hand to her mouth "—selling again?"

He didn't say anything, just stood in the threshold of the door with his hand on the frame, blocking the light.

"Danny?"

"I gotta go, Sam."

Then, the light came back into her room and he was gone from her room, her apartment, her life. He picked his smoky coat off the floor, shrugged into it, felt around for the lighters and baggies in his pockets, and then left. He locked both deadbolts behind him like the sound of a prison.

Danny used to love the city at night when he was younger. There was no falsity at night, just pure cool black beauty, compressed by the spanning black sky with its moon outshined. Everything was just what it looked like, a different clearer world from the things he saw during the daylight hours. He loved the people, fearlessly dressed according to the season—tank tops and short skirts, long coats and bright knit hats, bathing suits, slinky silky dresses and three-piece suits. He loved the muted sounds of traffic, the music drifting out of open windows and romantic restaurants, the smells of dinner cooking, and the distant crackle of the natural night. He loved the skyscrapers, all lit up like Christmas trees but all year round. He loved to look over the city from high up and feel like he was hanging upside-down. After all, the stretching lights blotted out the stars but looked like stars themselves.

A reversal.

Now, Danny saw the night for what it really was. Ugly. Fraudulent. Fake. The people were all pretending, pretending to be someone else. Business men begged on the corners, husbands bought prostitutes, wives stalked with loaded guns, the slender got mugged, children fell prey to dark alleys, and people like him… did what they did best. The city at night was a place to lie and cheat and connive and claw up from the blackness like monsters from the crypt. It was all lit up, but the light never pierced the darkness, never even touched its thick scaly hide.

He stepped under the tattered vinyl canopy of the dingy bar, Utopia—another fitting lie in itself. (Perfect society, perfect cover.) He used to glance both ways, but not anymore. He didn't care anymore.

There was a skinny girl sitting at the bar, looking out of place and nervous, both hands wrapped around a glass of ice water. A newbie, he noted and almost felt bad selling to her. A few years ago, before Sam got sick, he would have been the first one to try and pull her back out of this world, away from the allure of drugs, but not anymore. He slipped into the seat beside her and watched the shock cross her face from the corner of his eyes. He knew what he looked like and that's why other dealers liked him.

He didn't look the stereotype.

Danny had fair pale white skin, unblemished by acne or scars, and big baby blue eyes framed by thick lashes. He had messy dark hair that hung in his eyes and made him look like a child, like someone who needed coddling, like someone worthy of carding every time he bought booze. His body was slender, but lithe and corded. He could take someone twice his size with one hand behind his back on a bad day. He dressed neatly, jeans and t-shirts and his jacket that looked like it could have belonged to his father, could have been an heirloom or a keepsake. He had an honest innocent look about him and no one ever gave him a second glance, unless they were a woman just catching a quick look at what might be a fish they would never catch but would wonder about for a few sleepless nights.

"Hello Paulina."

He saw the shiver go through her and she turned to look at him full in the face. He recognized her in that instant as an old acquaintance and someone he had gone to high school with but it was clear she didn't recognize him any more than she did the spider on her ceiling as compared to the spider in her tub.

"Let's take a walk."

Outside Utopia, he walked nonchalantly with her, not making a spectacle of himself or her though she kept glancing around like a captured animal. Safely out of sight and in the shadow of an alley, he pulled the neatly bagged drugs from his coat pocket and handed it over to her. She had a wad of dirty bills wound up with a rubber band clenched in her fingers. They swapped and he didn't spare her money more than a glance. She was too nervous to attempt to cheat him.

"Thanks," she said.

He watched her shaking hands.

Had he ever been there? Had he ever needed a hit that badly that he was shaking? He watched her slink away, nervous and glancing, remembering the sexy confident cheerleader everyone had been in love with back in high school. Paulina had fallen so low, so far, he thought. As he watched her shadow disappear and felt the greasy bills in his hand, he decided that he had been where she was now. He used to be exactly what she was, but now… he made other people into what he used to be.

By dealing, he had some semblance of control, some threat hanging over him if he started to fuck up again. If he sampled, his body would be broken to pieces by the guys that supplied him with wares. All he did was smoke weed anymore—just a little, just when life was fucking hard, just when Sam's encroaching death hung heavy on his heart and soul—because it didn't addict him like everything else he had tried, because it was easy.

Danny stepped back onto the street, almost bumping into an elderly lady. She smiled at him and he smiled back, all beautiful straight white teeth. She would never suspect he was a drug dealer. Hell, she was probably thinking right now that he was a nice young man who reminded her or her husband when he was Danny's age or her son or even that he grandchildren might grow up to be him.

No, Grandma, Danny thought. I know what I look like, but you don't want them to be anything like me.

He found a shadowed place, dug out his lighter and bowl from his deep pockets, and smoked a little. He felt like a dragon, like a fire eater, as all the smoke billowed out of his mouth, out of his lungs. He coughed a little, but tried not to think of Sam. Then, he tucked everything back into his jacket and continued on with the rest of his night.

~Hour 18~

Aching, everything was aching. Sam woke from a deep dark sleep, feeling all the pain. Weakly, she sat up, bracing herself against the pillows and pushing the covers down her legs. She was still wearing her robe, still wearing everything she had bundled up in. She was always cold anymore, even on those rare nights when Danny chose to sleep very carefully next to her. Hugging herself, she called out for him, but there was no answer in the small apartment. If he had been home, he would have heard her. He had ears like a fox. She called out again, trying to summon a voice that didn't sound like the wind, but it didn't matter anyway.

Danny was out.

Sam put her cold white feet on the floor and spent a moment staring at the blue veins visible through her papery white skin. Sometimes, she felt as if her skin would split apart like a ripe peach if she stood up, if she walked, if she breathed. Sometimes, she felt like everything was going to spill out, go out and leave her forever in favor of something different she didn't understand. Sometimes, she felt like her body wanted to follow Danny, to feel what he felt, but…

She went to her vanity, eased herself down weakly at the little stool, and opened up a bottle of one of her many painkillers. She noticed that the number of pills in each bottle were beginning to decrease at a less than regular basis. Danny must have been selling them on the street. She popped a couple low-dose Tylenol, just to dull the edge of her agony, and pulled on some socks. Her bones felt like glass, like ice, fragile and see-through, translucent. Then, she staggered away from the vanity and returned to her rocking chair by the window. The night was just outside, beautiful and ugly all at the same time. Sam had never liked the night, not like Danny. She sat and rocked and waited, waited for him to come home.

Danny always came home.

Maybe for her, maybe not.

…

(He never suspected he was being followed. He never suspected that Sam would do what she did.)

Danny slouched deeper into his coat, feeling tired from walking the streets and from selling. He wondered if this was what it felt like to be a prostitute… so much time on his feet, walking, meeting people, selling… but he wasn't selling himself or his body so he supposed this was nothing like being a prostitute. He suddenly felt sure a prostitute would stab him with her stiletto heels if he ever spoke that thought aloud. Maybe he was more like a pimp? Suddenly, he wondered why he was spending time thinking these things. He was a category all his own, already neatly labeled and stereotyped for the police. He wasn't a prostitute or a pimp or a junkie or anything else.

He was a dealer.

Danny walked down a few different alleys, a few extra streets, took a few random turns, even walked past his building a few times before finally deciding that it was safe to go up. He didn't want anyone desperate for a hit to come to the apartment he shared with Sam. He didn't want anyone to know about her. He unlocked both deadbolts, listening to them slide back like prison bars.

Inside, Sam was waiting up for him like she always was. It was like she didn't sleep. There were dark bruise-like circles beneath her twilight-colored eyes and she had been chewing her lip. She was drowning in her robe and blankets, thin and fragile-looking, like a folded paper doll.

"Sam?" Danny whispered and closed the door softly behind himself. "How long have you been up?"

"A while," she murmured. "I was waiting for you."

Danny came to stand beside her and she reached out with white slender hands, clutching at his shoulders and his shirt and pulling him closer. He knelt at her feet and let her hug him tightly. She felt cold again, like an ice princess.

"Come on, let's get you back to bed." He gently gathered her up in his arms and carried her back to her bed, snuggling her beneath the covers.

"Are you going out again?" she whispered.

"No, Sam," Danny said softly.

He shrugged out of his jacket, draped it over the foot of the bed, toed off his sneakers, and pulled back the covers to allow himself into her bed. She smiled a little and nestled against him, wrapping both arms around his narrow chest. She was still shivering, even beneath the blankets and wrapped in his arms and soaking up the heat from his body. He reached down to the end of the bed and pulled his jacket up around her shoulders. It was smoky-smelling, but heavy and warm, and still did nothing to soothe her shivering.

Danny held her tightly, breathing in the scent of her skin and hair. She smelled like hospital, like medicine and antiseptic and death. He wanted to smoke, but he couldn't bear to get out of bed and leave her. It had been so long since he had slept with her like this. He was leaving her alone more and more often now, going out to sell or smoke or something else.

Sure, he sold to pay the medical bills.

Sure, he smoked to make it easier to bear.

Sure, he broke the law.

Sure…

It would never cost her anything.

He did it all for her.

But, sometimes, the people you love the most are the ones you hurt the most.

There was a knock at the door in the middle of the night, which was never a good sign to begin with. It was a loud and echoing sound, very determined. Danny wanted to ignore the knocking, but it didn't sound like it would go away any time soon so he carefully got out of bed, trying not to wake Sam, and went to the door. He cautiously looked out the peephole and spotted two police officers in blue neat uniforms. He knew they sensed him on the other side of the door as if they could see him. There was no turning back now, no crawling back into bed and forgetting this had ever happened, no turning back the clock and being more careful.

He opened the door and didn't smile at them. "Hello officers," he said by way of greeting.

They gave him a small nod and asked the dreaded question—"Can we come in?"

Danny let them in, hoping they would take his openness as a sign that he had nothing to hide.

"Danny?"

Sam's voice startled him. She was standing in the living room with his jacket around her shoulders, pale and thin and rubbing her eyes with one hand. She saw the policemen and lowered her eyes as if coming to terms with something. Then, wordlessly, she dipped her hands into the pockets of the coat and pulled out lighters and baggies and bowls and greasy cash.

Everyone stood there, just staring at her.

"It's me. I sell these. Danny is my front, my cover," she said firmly. "I even sell my prescriptions."

Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Who had the drugs on them right now? Not the dealer, Danny, who they had been watching for weeks. No, his sweet sickly girlfriend who looked like the slightest breeze would cave her in like paper. Who was confessing? Not the dealer, Danny, who was definitely the one. No, his cancer-ridden lover, dying on her feet right now. Who did they have recorded on the wires they were wearing as being the dealer and the possessor? Not the dealer, but this innocent girl, taking the fall. But what could they do? Possession is nine-tenths of the law. She had the drugs, not him. She was confessing, not him.

"You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law," the first officer said after a long silence between the four of them.

Sam nodded her head. "I know that." She met Danny's eyes, gaze unwavering and sad. "I'm the dealer. Danny is my front. He didn't do anything. I'm the dealer."

They didn't put the cuffs on her. Her wrists were so thin that they would have slipped right out anyway. Gingerly, the officers took a hold of either of her arms and led her form the apartment, confiscating Danny's loaded jacket and all the contents of his pockets that had spilled on the floor. Danny followed hopelessly behind them, watching Sam tremble and waver as she walked. They bottled her up into the backseat of their cruiser and the last thing he saw as they pulled away into the night was Sam's small white face and her pale pink lips curved into a strong smile. Danny turned his face to the starry black sky, feeling terribly alone and sick. God, he hated the city at night.

~Hour 13~

Danny/Sam sold everything. Sam's prescriptions and painkillers, marijuana, schedule narcotics, amphetamine, and even some cocaine. The police rarely saw such a smorgasbord of drugs on one person, even a dealer. With the amount she was carrying in that jacket, she was looking at an accumulation of about ten years in prison. With the decline of her body, she probably wouldn't make it through a tenth of that sentence, if she even made it to the court date.

She was going to die.

And soon.

Leaning against the counter with a cooling cup of coffee, Officer Frank Gordon said to his partner, "You know Sam Manson isn't the dealer."

"Of course," Officer Lisa Martin said. She was sitting at a table, writing a report on it. "She can barely walk, but we were wearing a wire and her confession is recorded on tape. Danny Fenton didn't even have anything on him."

"You know that's his jacket she had on."

"Key words there being she had on," Lisa said softly. "She's going to die, that's why she took the rap. Why send her lover to prison and live her last days alone in that apartment when she could go to jail and let him live the rest of his life without her?"

Frank stared hard at her. "It almost sounds like you… support what she's doing to herself."

Lisa looked up from what she was doing, lifted the papers, and shuffled them into a neat pile. "I can't say that in her place, I wouldn't be doing the same thing." Then, she tucked the file folder under her arm and left the break room with Frank staring hopelessly after her.

He took a deep drink of his coffee, wrinkled his nose, and then dumped the cold brew down the drain. "Yeah," he said softly to himself. "When you look at it that way, I guess I can see where the girl is coming from." He tossed the Styrofoam cup in the trash and followed after Lisa.

…

Danny was out running. He was cold, sweating too much even though it was cool. His shirt was pasted to his chest, clutching at him like the clammy hands of a ghost—the ghost of Sam, of her stolen time, her robbed life, her sacrifice. He stopped, bending over with his hands on his knees, and gasping for breath. His head was spinning, around and around and around, like he was trapped in a whirlpool or in a blender. More likely a blender. His brain was being torn apart by those ice-cold blades, destroyed.

He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling his hammering heart and his gasping aching lungs. His mouth tasted like blood, like something had dislodged deep inside him.

He thought of Sam, of her slow laborious heartbeat against his chest the night before while he was holding her in his arms in her bed. He thought of her face, of her softly smiling lips as the night swallowed her up in the backseat of that police cruiser.

Why?

Why had she done that?

Why had she taken the rap for him?

He needed to know why she had sacrificed everything… for him… especially when he had done nothing to deserve it, to deserve such a beautiful sacrifice.

Danny started running again, spinning the block around and around. He just wanted to run and run and run and run, until the pain of condemning his Sam faded, until the pounding in his head went away, until everything went back to the way it had been the night before. Hopelessly, he ran the block again, aching and gasping like a fish out of water when he finally stopped.

~Hour 8~

Danny was driving to the police station to see Sam. After going through a mess of security, they finally brought her out to him and locked them both up tight in a room with the big obvious one-way mirror. Sam looked sicker, her mouth twisted in pain, and heartbreakingly thin in the orange prison uniform. She sat down across from him at the cold steel table and reached her hands out to hold his tightly. Her fingers felt like twigs, so thin and frail.

"Hey, Danny," she said softly in that small soft voice of hers.

"Sam," he whispered. For some reason, his throat felt tight, stony as if he wanted to cry, but his blue eyes were blessedly dry. "I have to know why…"

She cocked her head as if truly confused. "Why what, Danny?"

"Why did you do it? Why did you say it was you?"

"Oh," she said softly and lowered her eyes.

"Why did you do that?"

"Danny," she whispered. "I never told you, but… I'll be dead before the week is out."

"Before the week…?"

She nodded. "My white cell count is so low that they don't know what's keeping me alive, now. I didn't want you to… worry."

Danny stared at her, his blue eyes wide.

She smiled softly, sadly. "Tonight. It's over tonight. Without my medication, I'll be dead before midnight."

Danny leaped to his feet. "They can't deny you the medicine that keeps you alive!"

"They're not. I haven't told them I need it."

"But—"

"Danny, I'm in pain. Every day, all the time," she whispered. "I want to end this and," she shook her head, "I needed to save you before I went anywhere."

"Sam—"

"Please, Danny, I need your blessing before I go and your promise."

"My promise?"

"Once I'm gone, live free."

"Free?" he repeated.

"Leave this life behind. Stop smoking. Stop selling."

Danny stared at her, blue eyes wide and his grips on her fingers tightened.

"Please, do it for me." Her beautiful twilight-colored eyes shone in the harsh fluorescent light as if a far off light.

For a moment, he was silent. Then, he softly said, "Yes. For you, Sam…"

She smiled and squeezed his hands gently. "Will you put flowers on my grave, Danny?"

"Yes."

Then, her beautiful eyes filled up with tears and she whispered, "Did I waste my time?"

"No," he murmured.

"I thought I'd grow old… I thought I'd have children, have a family… have a life. It wasn't to be…"

"Oh, Sam."

Danny got up from the chair and went to her side. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly, but she didn't cry or shake. She hugged him in return, gently, tenderly, stroking his back as if he was the one dying and in pain. Then, she pushed him back gently and cupped his face in her cold hands.

"Kiss me and tell me goodbye. You won't see me again, not alive." She said it so plainly that it took his breath away.

So Danny did. He kissed her lips gently and hugged her again. "Goodbye, Sam," he whispered. "Thank you… for this."

She smiled and touched her lips with her fingertips.

Then, his time with her was up and the police officer came to escort her back to her cell. Danny watched her walk away, all orange and white and black. She suddenly didn't look so sick anymore. She looked ready and strong, maybe because she knew her life was over. Danny glanced at his watch. It was eleven o'clock. He never saw her alive again.

~Hour 1~

In just 1 hour they'll be
laying flowers on my life.
It's over tonight.
I'm not messing, no, I
need your blessing and
your promise to live free,
please do it for me…

That was what they put on Sam's memorial card, printed on pretty pulpy paper with flowers and leaves pressed into it in thick swirly black ink.

…

Sometimes, it was hard to know he had gotten away with it. Sometimes, it was hard to know that he had gotten off scot free at the cost of his best friend and his love. Other times, he remembered the pain she had been in at the end and how she had looked so at peace in the police station. He had no doubt that she had done exactly as she wanted.

Danny continued his nightly jog around the block, huffing and puffing. As often as he ran—every single day, rain or shine, freezing cold or sweltering hot—he still hadn't gotten used to it. He stopped to catch his breath, leaning over with his hands braced on his knees, trying to halt the burning in his chest. Then, he looked up at the inky velvety sky all speckled with diamond stars. He could see the stars out here in the country, but not the lights of his distant house. Since he had moved out of the city, he began to love the night again.

X X X

Kind of weird, not sure if I'm completely happy with it.

First, drop a review and let me know what you think! Are the characters way out of character? Does everybody hate me for epic death? Think I torture Danny and Sam way too much (but it's because they're so easy to be mean to, though I always make sure to give everybody a happy ending, sorta!)? Are permanently disgusted and can no longer even watch Danny Phantom thanks to me? Loved it? Hated it? Are scared for life because of what happened? (Flames will be used to roast marshmallows and weenies!) Think I need to do more editing before I post chapters? Post to slow? Chapters are too short? Too long? Yada, yada, yada…

Second, check out my first ORIGINAL NOVEL! The Breaking of Poisonwood by Paradise Avenger. (Summary: People were dead. When Skye Davis bought me at a slave auction as a birthday present for his brother, I had no idea what my new life was going to be like, but I had never expected this. It all started when Venus de Luna was killed and I was to take her place, to become the new savior… Then, bad things happened and some people died. In the heart of the earth, we discovered the ancient being that Frank Davis had found and created and used to his advantage. The Poisonwood—)

Questions, comments, concerns?