A/N: I'm sorry for being so late on this chapter, I just had far too much to do in the time between posting the last chapter and posting this one. I didn't completely slack off though, and because I feel guilty for waiting so long, as well as to prove to you I did something constructive (as far as Danny Phantom) goes, and most importantly, because I am a review whore, allow me to take this time to advertise for my two DP music videos found in my account under lo0sedefense in YouTube for you to check out (and review :p). Okay one of them I made before I created this story, but I like that video a lot too hahah.
Author: loosedefense
Title: Weak
Pairing: Danny/Dash
Disclaimer: Danny Phantom is the property of Butch Hartman and Nickelodeon. This story implies nothing about the characters nor does the plot of the story have any effect on the show itself. This story is pure fiction and fantasy.
In the time between Dash's phone call and waking up the next morning, Danny had had the opportunity to progress from vague confusion, to indignant anger over the unfairness of it all, to just plain anger at himself, to apprehension over what Dash may do to him now that he had a license to be around him practically every moment, to cold, heart-stopping fear over what it would mean for his double life with Dash constantly around, to a combination of all of the above.
So it was with a quivering heart and legs of lead that Danny woke up and almost mechanically prepared himself for school that Monday morning. Deciding to skip breakfast for the sake of his stomach and fellow students or whoever may happen to be by when he would throw it up, he slowly walked to and entered his car, sucking in a deep puff of air before turning the ignition and driving to Casper High.
The day was mercifully uneventful, as Danny did not think he could take any unexpected surprises, his head too full of thoughts of the meeting in Lancer's office, surrendering his body and welfare to Dash to bruise as he pleased, and random images of how the jock would discover his secret and expose it to the world.
At various times through the day, Danny had caught glimpses of Dash as they headed about their way in the school, most of the times spotting the flashes of annoyance in his eyes to match the dread in Danny's own. Once when he and Kwan had been passing their table, Dash had turned to give Danny a pointed look, never breaking his stride. Tucker had stopped munching on his sandwich, and Sam had held her fork tight over her salad bowl, both of them staring at Danny curiously. "What was that about?"
Danny had opened his mouth to tell them, but had then frozen, a part of him not wanting them to know what he was about to go through.
"Probably a promise to break my bones afterwards or something," he had told them glumly instead. It wasn't far from the truth, as far as he was concerned. After all, there was no way Dash was so dedicated to the Support Group that he would have made sure to let Danny know not to ditch the meeting after school multiple times.
Finally the bell rung signaling three o'clock, releasing the students from their classes. All except—
"Fenton, Mister Lancer has told me that you are to head directly to his office after class," Mr. Boswell, one of Danny's most intolerable teachers said in his signature dry voice, barely looking up from the papers he was marking.
Danny let out a frustrated sigh. Why was everybody so intent on letting him know that he was due at this meeting. It wasn't as if the world would end if he were to be a second late. "Yes, sir, I was just on my way now," Danny informed him, plastering a smile on his face. Not receiving a reply, he ducked out of the class and resignedly began making his way to Lancer's office.
Raising his hand to knock on the wooden door, Danny hesitated, realizing that before him was the potential to ruin his life forever. Taking a moment to allow his life to flash before his eyes, he slowly and unsteadily lowered his hand to hit the door.
"Come in."
They must all have been waiting for him for Lancer to have responded so readily to that.
"Ah, Mister Fenton," Lancer smiled complacently as the boy entered.
"I didn't do anything," Danny said sullenly as a last-ditch attempt to get himself off the hook.
Lancer raised his eyebrow as he turned his head slightly to Dash, as if to say 'What did you tell him?' Dash, however, sitting on the chair in front of Lancer's desk, body half turned to face Danny, missed it as he rolled his eyes in exasperation. Mr. Connor, leaning against the grey locker next to Lancer's desk, gave him a cold smile.
Lancer let out little sound that may have meant to be a chuckle. "You may rest easy, Mister Fenton, no one here thinks you did anything wrong. We are, however, concerned."
Danny desperately tried to will his brain to go numb.
"Mister Connor here has some concerns over the results of the survey he had administered to you last Friday."
Curses, foiled again.
"Mister Lancer, I can assure you I—" Danny started, forgoing all plans to remain silent throughout the meeting.
"Danny, please, do not interrupt me," Lancer held up his hand as if to bring the student to a screeching halt. "What I was trying to say is, with the results of your test, Mister Connor and I feel that it would be in your best interest if we were to …" here he paused momentarily, trying to think of the best way to put it, "introduce you to some of the fine members of the student body – er, members who you may perhaps be able to vent to, should you feel the need?" Mr. Lancer sat back in his chair, the tips of his fingers meeting each other with a smile on his face.
Yes, that had been an excellent way to put it.
Danny raised an eyebrow. The man hadn't even tried.
"A member of the student body?" he mocked. "Don't you mean a member of the Casper High Support Group?"
"Mister Baxter here does happen to be a member of that particular group, yes," Mr. Lancer said. "I think you'll agree, Danny, there aren't many we would trust with the, shall we say, issues of our young students; otherwise, your friends Samantha Manson and Tucker Foley would have been our first choice, of course. But know that Dash is an excellent substitute, as he's had—"
"Training?" Danny offered.
Dash shot Danny a dark look out of the corner of his eye.
"I was going to say experience with helping those in need," Mr. Lancer said after a beat of silence; "but yes, Dash has undergone the training program required of those in the support group, and has risen to the occasion magnificently – it's what makes him such an excellent candidate."
Dash closed his eyes and prayed for strength. What kind of person told a potentially depressed charge that he was going to be taken care of by a candidate?
Danny, however, either did not notice this, or did not care, for he slumped back into his chair, looking too tired to say anything else. It was only then, with the raven-haired boy's shoulder slumped and eyes hollow, that Dash realized how tight and pinched with worry his face had been before.
Lancer seemed oblivious as he leaned back in his own seat, evidently pleased that he had been able to get through the boy without much fuss, the tips of his fingers meeting while he gazed upon the two of them, slouched miserably, but yet, he was sure, determined to work through their problems like responsible adults.
"Well," he said, slapping his palms down on to the surface of his desk, "I had taken the liberty of informing Mister Baxter on what shall be expected of your new 'friendship', and I trust that he will run through his plans for the both of you in the coming weeks to months outside my office."
"Weeks to months?" Danny exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "But sir!"
"Now, now, Mister Fenton," Lancer said in his smoothest voice. "Nothing could be more important than this, the welfare of my students. The program will take however long it needs to."
Danny glowered; Dash folded his arms, a sulky pout threatening to show itself; Connor was restlessly shifting his weight on either foot as he stood by the locker in the same spot he had been for the past twenty minutes; and he, Lancer, was growing tired of this whole ordeal.
"I think we've covered just about everything," he said, getting to his feet and extending his arm to show them to the door. "Now, I'm sure you have many things to discuss – out." With that last word, he had placed a firm hand on Dash Baxter's back and none-too-gently shoved them out, Dash stumbling up against Danny from the unexpected force and toppling out together.
Danny pulled away from the jock behind him, irritated. "Great," he snapped, not being able to catch himself in time before his frustration boiled over. If Dash had a license to beat him up now, he might as well voice out his discontent before it was against the rules.
"Chill, Fenton," Dash rolled his eyes. "The last thing you need to be right now is a drama mama."
Danny's fists started to shake as he gritted his teeth and forced his eyes closed. This time it worked, thankfully, as he had noticed the faint green glow around his hands that indicated that the Phantom within him was being channeled and merging with him in his rage again.
"All right, Dash, how about this," he snapped. "We both think this is a stupid arrangement, so how about we stay as far away from each other as possible and after a couple of weeks we go to Lancer and say I'm completely cured."
Dash frowned in annoyance. "Doesn't work that way, Fen-turd; if it did, don't you think I would have suggested it myself?
"I don't like it either, but Lancer and Connor want updates throughout this damn thing, and if we don't make it good, then we'll both be in trouble, and I'm not going to let that happen if I can help it," Dash jabbed a finger hard into Danny's chest. "And it's not like you have the greatest track record either – if Lancer doesn't see the results he's expecting, god knows what other forms of torture he'll come up with."
A muscle in Danny's jaw twitched as he bit back a petulant demand to be left alone.
There was a tense silence as the two boys stood there, barely a foot between them, arms crossed over their chests while they glared each other down.
Dash was the first to break the silence. "Look, Fenton," he said venomously, "if we have to do this, don't be a child about it. Let's just get through this as civil as possible, and if we're lucky we'll be done before the month is over, alright?"
There was another moment of silence as Danny considered this. "And you won't hit me?" he asked suspiciously.
"And have you tell Lancer and get me kicked off the group? Right," Dash rolled his eyes.
"Why do you even care?" Danny asked. Ever since he had been told about Dash's position, he had not been able to understand why the position meant so much to Dash if he spent the rest of his time nullifying his work by acting as the resident school bully, nor if he acted that helping the students was such pure torture.
"It's what I do," Dash retorted. "It's my safety plan, so if I have to do it, I might as put in some effort so that I don't get kicked out and end up screwed. Maybe if you had a little bit of that attitude instead of whining to yourself about how you're so alone in this world or whatever, we wouldn't be here right now."
Oh yeah, Danny stewed angrily. I don't put in enough effort – let's see how well you do when you have to spend every night saving the collective butts in this town. He bit down on his tongue to keep anything from slipping out.
"We'll start tomorrow," Dash announced before stalking off towards the front doors.
Danny released the air he had been holding in his lungs, feeling his body droop in the exhale. Shuffling to his locker to get whatever books he needed to complete his homework for the night, he had just reached in when he froze, his mouth involuntarily falling open as a cold waft of air escaped. Oh, no.
He slammed his locker door shut and bounded over to he first empty classroom he saw, slamming the door behind him. Squeezing his eyes shut, his body shook as two great white rings materialized around his waist, one rising up and the other drifting down his body. As they moved in their opposite directions, the plain white shirt and baggy jeans started to disappear, the beginnings of a black jumpsuit taking the place it had once been. The blue eyes flashed before being overtaken by green, and the jet-black hair sitting atop his head faded into snow-white. Complete with a D emblazoned on his chest, Danny Phantom stood, a cocky smirk on his face before leaping into the air and zooming to the ceiling, turning invisible and intangible as he did so.
Popping out above the school's rooftop, he materialized into solid form again, scanning the school grounds desperately for any sign of threat. There was none that he could see; the grounds were filled with students, teachers and select others walking and chattering calmly, and there were no charred holes formed in the grounds, which at least told Danny that whatever had activated his senses was not either huge in size or huge in power.
Still, that did not mean it didn't pose a threat, whatever it was; Danny had learned a long time ago that the most complicated messes could come from those that seemed to lack the characteristics to pull it off – even the Box Ghost had managed to rough him up before, although granted it had been in a future destined to never come true.
There were no telltale signs that he could see of a ghost; his ghost sense didn't activate again, and he saw no sign of an ectoplasmic being, nor traces that one may have been around.
All of a sudden, while his eyes sifted through the crowd, he heard a yell from down below, and turned to the direction of the sound. He saw a boy with a mass of dirty blonde hair with his finger pointed to something, and people looking to see what he was pointing at. Danny quickly tried to find the menace, but stopped when he saw that people were actually running in the direction of whatever the boy was pointing at.
It took an embarrassingly long time for Danny to realize that the boy was pointing at him.
He straightened his pose and gave an unsure grin and wave of his hand as he heard the cheers from the public as they jumped for his attention before floating back down into the school through the roof and back into the class he had been in previously.
As easily as anything, the two rings appeared around his waist again and within a moment the ghost was gone and Danny Fenton was back.
Still feeling uneasy about the undetected ghost but feeling rather pleased with the positive reaction he had gained from the crowd when they had noticed him, Danny turned the knob, but stopped when he heard the loud commotion outside. He didn't have to rush out to know that it wasn't about a ghost threat though, as the voices and rush of footsteps around the area were loud enough to tell him that his "fans" were outside searching for him in hopes of getting another glimpse.
Crap, they must have seen me go into the school! Danny realized.
Not a problem. With a confident smile he felt all solid matter in his body disappear as he turned intangible and invisible once again, this time in his human form. Sauntering out, undetected, he waited only until he was out of range from the crowd before becoming visible again.
Whistling as a little tune as he walked to his car, Danny failed to notice the boy in the letterman jacket still gazing at the classroom he had been in just a few minutes ago with his signature smirk.
"This is almost too easy."