Title: Afraid

Characters: Danny, Mr. Lancer

Rating: K+

Word Count: 1,957

Genre: Angst

Headcanons: Ghost Language

The department was always coming up with stupid new-agey requirements. The latest in their beatnik endeavors was a psyche evaluation exam in the guise of a self-help assignment – to write out your worst fears in whatever form the student chose. The idea was to present the assignment as a way to get your fears out, embrace them, and learn from them, but the teachers were instructed to present any truly disturbing and potentially life-threatening responses to the guidance counselor. 'A lot of good that'll do since we're telling them not to put their names on them,' Lancer thought bitterly as he sat behind his desk, Elegance of the Hedgehog open before him.

It was the last period of the day and clearly no one in the room was invested in their work. They remained dutifully quiet but their hands lazily sloped the pencils and pens over their papers as if automatic.

Except for Danny Fenton.

Lancer had to sit up in his seat just to confirm that yes, the teen was really there for once. He checked the clock. Ten minutes to go, and Fenton had not yet made a single excuse to leave. What's more, his head was hung over his notebook, the edge of his pen bobbing furiously. Lancer picked up his book and watched him overtop it as discreetly as possible. A few moments of writing and the sound of him flipping the page over filled the otherwise noiseless room.

Students came up to his desk one by one, slapping their assignments down onto the desk and returning to their desks, no more enlightened or empowered than before the assignment. Lancer chuckled to himself. Oh-for-one to the board.

At last the bell rang. "Don't forget to read the next two chapters of The Scarlet Letter," he cautioned them as the students all launched up from their desks, breaking out into the customary chatter of after-school pleasantries. It was as routine as ever – the jocks leading the pack, the cheerleaders and socialites trailing, the average students behind them, and the more intellectual ones putting the last of their supplies in the satchels and rounding up the bunch.

Except for Fenton.

Normally Fenton and his two cohorts (though normally it was just Foley and Manson) slipped out between the average students and intellectuals, as symbolic as Lancer thought high school could ever be. The girl and geek were flanking Danny as he remained seated, hissing things under their breath at him.

"It's fine," Lancer barely heard Fenton muttered back to them as he pretended to read the same page over again. "It's anonymous, right?"

The three approached his desk and Lancer kept his gaze on his book. Manson placed her sheet on the top of the pile, Foley slipped his somewhere in the middle, and Fenton slid his in at the very bottom.

"Have a nice weekend, Mr. Lancer," Foley called back to him as the three departed. Lancer didn't respond, eyes glued to the last word of the page until their footsteps and scolding had faded to nothing. The silence thrummed in his ears and finally he placed the book down, not bothering to stuff his bookmark into it. He scooped the pile up in his hands and straightened them on the desk, laying down all but the top one, the one he knew to be Manson's.

In dark, deliberate cursive she had carved out a small paragraph. It was what he had expected of her – "I'm afraid I'm disappointing my parents by not being the daughter they want", "I'm afraid of what will happen to me after high school", the usual. But there at the bottom of the page, in much lighter density, was a little printed message, "I'm so very worried about him."

Lancer placed Manson's paper to the side and picked up the next one. The following six were more to his expectations. College was on every single paper. There were some worried about student loans, not being able to pick a major, whether they should go or stay home and work to help their parents. The eighth one had Dash written on the top-right with a thick angry mark through it that did not conceal the name at all. "I'm afraid I won't get to be quarterback in college" was all his said. Lancer put this one back in the pile he'd set up on the other side of Manson's.

He knew this one had to be Foley's by the penmanship, neat, thin, and straight as a pin. "I'm worried I'm not as funny as everyone thinks," he'd put down, causing Lancer to chuckle a little. That was a worry Lancer knew he could confirm. There was a bit about college but nothing too drastic. Lancer and Foley both knew he'd have no trouble getting into whatever college he wanted. Then, in slightly less neat writing, Foley had scrawled, "and I'm really worried he's working too hard. He doesn't think we can see it but we can. I'm afraid one of these days he's". It had ended there.

Lancer's hand began to shake as he leafed through the others. College. College. College. Popularity. College. One page after another broadcasted the deepest fears the average sixteen year old could muster up from their limited experience. He grabbed the stack in his left fist and tossed them down onto the pile he'd made to his left. At last only one paper remained, completely full of light, wavering cursive. Even if he hadn't seen Fenton put the paper at the bottom her would have known it was his, not only from the handwriting, but from the writing itself.

Right off the bat the nonsense letters began. Fenton had started doing this somewhat recently. At first it had been one or two words each assignment which Lancer chalked up to be just poor penmanship, and he could determine what Fenton meant by context clues. Slowly it began to aggravate until Lancer was receiving entire sentences in this jumbled up nonsense. He'd pointed it out to the boy but Danny never saw what Lancer meant, easily reading out the words in plain English and giving Lancer a doubtful look. He tried to get Danny tested for dyslexia but never heard back from about it. His friends began helping him and the assignments started to normalize, but then he started speaking the nonsense words.

Frankly, Lancer had no explanation. He stopped calling on Fenton (the few times he was actually in class and had done the assignment they were discussing) and it began to slip from his mind. Until now, that was.

He trudged through the mess of an introduction, picking out a few English words every now and again, mostly articles and a few adjectives. He was a little disappointed to see "college" in there, but he still had a whole page to go through.

It wasn't until the second paragraph that Lancer could make out anything of value. "Most of all I'm worried about doing the right thing. I try my best every day and I know-" more nonsense letters, "priorities kinda out of whack but I try my best to do everything expected of me but it's a lot. After-" nonsense, "and it gets hard to do this by myself. I mean, I have-" there was a T here but it was clumsily scratched out and replaced with "friends that are there for me but I hate to make them worry and that's all they can do is worry. It hurts me more than helps me. I'm afraid I might get really hurt one of these days. I'm afraid for my parents. I know they don't know-" nonsense, "end up like it could have. I know what will happen if I mess this up and that scares me. I'm afraid that no matter how hard I'm trying it won't be good enough and everything will end up the way it would've-"

Lancer rested the paper down for a moment and rubbed his scalp. What was Fenton on about here? He picked the paper up and skipped over the next crop of nonsense. It was now becoming more nonsense than English which was frustrating Lancer greatly. The words he could make out made it even worse. "Hurts" was followed a few scribbles later by "can't keep it up on my own," and later "taking two steps back," and "getting nowhere but I keep going and I don't know why. I'm not the hero, after all, even though I try-"

He flipped the paper over. "I'm scared of myself, to be honest. I'm scared of what I could become, of what could happen to me, of what people would think of me. I'm scared of being alone but I'm scared for anyone to know. I'm scared of no one understanding. I'm scared of hurting everyone or letting them get hurt."

Nonsense.

"I don't really know what else to do but keep going forward. I'm scared of that too because I don't know where I'm going. But I will keep going like I have been because it's the least-" nonsense, "and I want to do everything I can. I'm the only one who can do this and no matter what-"

Nonsense.

Then nothing.

Lancer went over it again and again, trying to make sense of it. What in the name of Ernest Hemingway was this about? Never before had Lancer wished more for Fenton to write in English than that moment. It sounded like he was in some kind of trouble, at the very least.

"I'm so very worried about him."

She had reason to worry. Fenton was a normal enough kid, even with all the tardies and missed assignments. He'd never thought anything bad was behind it, just that Fenton was staying out too late and not focusing on what he needed to. But then the haunted, meek look had begun appearing on his face as he accepted each poor grade or detention, a look that told him "I do care. I care but I can't do anything about it."

Whatever was behind this was either out of Fenton's control or something that was slowly spiraling out of it. He knew he would have to turn this paper in but he didn't want to because of the scribbles. Perhaps he would hold Fenton back in class tomorrow, approach him-

Suddenly there came an explosion from outside. Lancer jumped to his feet, his swivel chair nearly overturning. He stalked over to the window and saw a distant blur of motion and green flashes. It was a ghost, it had to be. Probably Phantom and whatever ghost-of-the-day was wreaking more havoc than him that day. Lancer knew how keen ghosts were to end up at the school so he took this opportunity to begin packing up. He'd take the papers home and think on it for the night-

There came a sudden cold gust of wind from the window. He turned back to it, certain he hadn't opened it that day. Sure enough, it was closed. The room went back to its normal temperature and Lancer returned his focus to the papers. Manson's was there, as well as Foley's. The large stack of everyone else's was there, too. Fenton's was missing. Lancer dropped to his knees despite his complaining joints, searching the area around his desk for the paper. He didn't have time for a thorough check around the class because Phantom was whizzing right by the window, the ghost close behind. Lancer swiped the papers off the desk and into his bag. He paused just long enough to inspect a strange mark on the desk he didn't think he'd seen there before.

Was it a scorch mark?