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

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"So, Mister Fenton, what is it that you wanted to talk to me about?"

Danny raised his eyes to look up at Mr. Connor, but kept his head down. It was lunch period, Monday morning, and the only free time Danny had found to schedule an appointment with the guidance counselor. He had decided after the events that took place during Paulina's party that it would be best to talk to somebody and the man who had thrown him into the entire situation seemed like the best choice.

"I, um …" his voice sounded hoarse, so Danny stopped talking and gulped in effort to clear his throat. "I wanted to say that I think you were right," he admitted.

Peeking up again, he saw the look of clear surprise on Connor's face. "Right?"

"About me," Danny explained.

"In which way, Mister Fenton?" Connor intertwined his fingers together.

Danny didn't answer right away. Chewing on the inside of his cheek, he tried to find the best way to go about it. "I didn't think it before, but I think you were right about me being depressed," his voice got gradually lower with every word he spoke.

Mr. Connor didn't reply, merely waited for Danny to continue on his own.

"Last weekend I went to a party with Dash Baxter," Danny said.

He stopped there, so Mr. Connor said to him, "I'm glad that the two of you are getting along so well."

Danny gave a humorless snort. "Yeah." He fell silent again, slowly twiddling his thumbs, keeping his focus on the movement.

"That earthquake thing happened while we were there," he informed.

"I had heard about it on the news, yes," Mr. Connor leaned back in his chair. "But the media doesn't seem to think it was an actual earthquake."

"No," Danny shook his head. "They think it was a ghost. They found slime and all.

"But when it happened, everyone at the party thought it was an earthquake. I was—" he broke off, seeming to collect his thoughts, "I was standing under this huge bookcase, and it started to fall. It would have crushed me."

Mr. Connor tilted his head a little bit, but said nothing. Danny looked up at him again, and the expression on his face told him that he was a little put off by this constant silence.

"I think I realized it then," he said quietly. "Or maybe after, I don't know. But when the shelf started to fall, I knew I should have run out of its way; no one was blocking me; but I didn't."

"You didn't?" Danny shook his head.

"I knew that if I didn't move, I was going to die. Everyone else was screaming and ducking for cover. And I just stood there … and I didn't care that I would die. In fact, I think I kind of welcomed it."

Mr. Connor blinked. "An interesting development," he said. "And now you think you might be harboring suicidal tendencies?"

"I wouldn't go that far," Danny hesitated. "I've never tried to kill myself. I've never wanted to." For the first time in his life, he wished that everybody knew about his alter-ego as Danny Phantom. It would have made everything so much more easier to explain. When everyday was filled with evading deadly shots and trying to save the town from destruction, surviving had only served to build Danny's confidence that he would never die from carelessness. How could he possibly explain to anyone that with death staring him at the face every day, he had grown to ignore it to the point where the thought of dying hardly even entered his mind anymore?

And then, when that bookcase had fallen, it wasn't an ectoplasmic blast he could swerve away from, nor a punch from a ghost he could duck and then hit back with. It had been circumstance, something bigger and more abstract than what he was used to, and it had felt as though he didn't need to fight it and could welcome death with open arms for once.

He couldn't really rationalize it. He could pinpoint several thoughts and feelings about the entire situation that made sense, but the more he tried to explain what had happened in those moments, the more knowledge he felt like he'd been losing. In the end, thinking about it too hard simply made everything more abstract and all the more frustrating because it felt like whatever strand he needed to grasp that would lead him to logic was eluding him and remaining just out of his reach.

Danny faced Mr. Connor again, who was watching him expectantly. "It's just that when it fell down, it didn't …" he tried to come up with words to describe what he was trying to say. "It almost felt like relief," he admitted.

Mr. Connor gave a slow nod.

"So, you would like to begin therapy sessions, is that it?" Mr. Connor asked, running a finger over his stubbled chin.

"I don't know," Danny slumped down. "No. No, I don't think so."

"Mister Fenton, to have these feelings run untreated—"

"I already have Dash Baxter around me all day," Danny interrupted. "Isn't that what he's here for, for me to talk to?"

"Well, yes," Mr. Connor agreed, "but the school assigned Mister Baxter to be your support mentor to help you through any hardship that we suspected you may have. Now that you acknowledge that you may actually be depressed—"

"Dash becomes useless?"

"Now that you acknowledge that you may actually be depressed, it may be more beneficial for you to see a professional," Mr. Connor finished with a glare. "The support system is not without its success stories, but at the end of the day it is still merely comprised of high school students, ones that lack proper training that a professional would have."

"It's all the same thing anyway," Danny argued. "Unless you're suggesting I get medicated to suppress these feelings that I may have, there shouldn't be any difference between talking to a professional and talking to Dash."

Mr. Connor inhaled sharply, and to Danny it looked as if his round figure was ballooning up with indignation. "Obviously, Mister Fenton, it is up to you on how the situation should be treated," he said in a low voice. "If you do not wish to see a professional, there's nothing that I can do to change your mind."

Danny raised his hands and rested his head on them against the chair, a little smirk on his face.

"Incidentally, why is it that you came to me with this instead of Mister Baxter?" Mr. Connor leaned forward on his desk curiously.

Danny shrugged. "Just needed a way to organize what happened into words. I'll only be talking to Dash later, and I couldn't wait that long."

On that note, he got to his feet and walked out of the office, not sparing another glance to the dumbfounded counselor.

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Ignoring the invitation he had gotten from Jennifer during the party to join the popular group during lunch, Danny stayed indoors and sat down with Sam and Tucker, both of whom, he thought, looked dazed and morose.

"Hey," he greeted.

They looked up in surprise.

"Danny!" Sam exclaimed. "How was the, uh, party?"

"Okay," he said nonchalantly, stealing a look around the cafeteria to make sure no one was paying attention to them. Then he leaned closer to her, Tucker doing the same, and hissed, "What happened? It was all over the news this weekend that there was a huge ghost attack."

"There was," Tucker said guiltily.

"I told you guys to call me if there was any trouble!" Danny said.

"No," Sam said deliberately, "you said to call you if we needed any help. We didn't."

"What happened?" Danny brushed it off. He wanted a recount of exactly what had happened on Saturday night.

Tucker gave a little shake of his head. "We were out driving looking for any ghosts that might have been about, and," he gave a disgusted little shudder, "you remember that huge one you were fighting with the tentacles? The one that knocked you into a tree?"

"Yeah," Danny said slowly.

"Well, it got out again," Sam said. "And it was knocking everything around by slamming its tentacles to the ground. It took some slick drivin' to get around that," she looked proud of herself.

"Anyway," Tucker said dryly, "it was too big of a risk to suck in straight into the thermos, so we tried to weaken it with a fight – only it chose flight instead."

"So it headed to Paulina's street, while we tried to catch it," Sam told him.

The ghost slamming its way down the street must have been what caused those rumbles to grow in intensity, Danny realized.

"We shot at it with one of your dad's guns, but that just made it go crazy," Tucker continued. "Well, crazier. It started waving a tentacle around and slammed it against one of the walls of Paulina's house." Which, Danny knew, had caused the bookshelf to tip over.

"We wanted to check in on everyone, Danny," Sam said earnestly, "but after that scare, it ran off, and we decided it would be safer to catch it before it did anything worse. We figured you would be able to take care of yourself and everyone else inside."

'Yeah,' Danny thought to himself, chewing on his lower lip. 'That's what I figured too.'

"Well," he said, forcing his voice to sound cheerful, "everything was fine. No one got hurt."

Sam and Tucker sounded relieved by this.

"We tried to call you on Sunday," Tucker frowned. "But you didn't pick up your cellphone. Where were you?"

Danny blinked, trying his hardest to think up an excuse. "Oh, I was sleeping," he lied. It was the only thing that came to him. "Yeah, that party was a real rager."

Sam frowned in confusion. "What? You mean you guys kept on partying even after that ghost slammed into Paulina's house?"

Danny hesitated. "Yeah," he nodded. "We just, um, we moved to a different spot after that happened. Nothing gets in the way of these guys when they want to party."

"Typical," Sam muttered. "Just what I would expect from them. Actually, no, even I didn't expect them to be as shallow as that."

"Well, that's not true for one person at least," Tucker raised his eyebrows at Sam significantly. Sam blinked blankly at him for a second, then took on an expression that suggested that she was in a very bad mood. Danny turned his head from her to Tucker, perplexed.

"One of your new friends showed up while we were fighting the ghost," Tucker informed him.

"Who?" Worry welled up in Danny's chest.

"Kwan," Sam said vehemently.

"Kwan?" Danny was confused. It was only then that he remembered that they he and Dash had had basically no contact with anyone since the ghost slammed into Paulina's wall and threw him into disorientation. He couldn't even remember if they had passed by Kwan as Dash dragged him to the car.

"He just showed up and pulled out a gun and started shooting," Sam told him, raising her head to look at him.

Tucker seemed to decide that this was a good time to change the topic. "So where'd you go last night? We thought you'd show up any moment since Paulina's house was the one the ghost hit."

Danny looked down at his tray of food, still mostly untouched as he had only been playing with it with his spork while the two of them related what had happened on Saturday night. He didn't want to risk naming any place; what if the two of them had passed by it after capturing the ghost? They'd know he was lying, and with more prying, he couldn't guarantee that he would not spill his secret.

"Listen, I totally forgot – I made an appointment with Mister Connor during lunch period," he pushed his seat back and picked up his tray. "I should get going."

"Oh," they sounded surprised. "Okay. See you later."

He waved goodbye to them and dumped the untouched remains in the trash bin when he passed it.

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Having had nowhere to go after leaving Sam and Tucker, as he didn't dare show his face around the popular table, haunted by wonderings of what they must have thought of him after his freak out at the party, Danny had been forced to spend the rest of his lunch period in the library with an empty stomach. So he was in a sufficiently bad mood when the final bell rang that day and the students were released from classes.

What he saw as he crossed the school's tiny parking lot managed to erase all his mutinous thoughts though. Dash was leaning casually against the hood of his, Danny's, car with a pair of sunglasses on, clearly waiting for the brunette.

Danny made his way over to his car and the blonde jock. "Hey," Dash said in greeting, lowering his head enough for Danny to see those light blue eyes focus on him over the shades' rim.

"Hey," Danny said in a light tone, sliding the bookbag he had been carrying over one shoulder into the backseat of the car. "What are you doing here?"

"Getting a ride," Dash said, jumping over the door to land on the passenger's seat. "Kwan's held up for a while."

Danny chuckled at Dash's cocky assurance that he could simply get a ride without question, opening his own door and getting in. "Don't you guys have practice this week?" he asked.

"Cancelled," Dash said simply.

Danny started the ignition and pulled out of the lot. The drive was a quiet one, and he was grateful for it. It gave him time to think of what had happened after the party. He had been avoiding it, forcing himself to change his train of thought whenever the memories crept up on him, but now with Dash sitting right next to him, it felt next to impossible to fight it anymore, the assurance he had felt with the blonde boy watching over him that weekend, the absolute gladness he had felt when he saw him waiting and having him by his side right now.

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When he pushed the door open, the first thing that greeted Danny's sight was Dash pulling off his shirt. The boy's jeans were already pooled around his ankles on the floor, and as he tossed down his shirt as well, he was left in nothing but his blue boxer shorts.

"What are you doing?" Danny asked. His voice sounded hoarse.

Dash looked up at the sound of the other boy's voice.

"I didn't want to sleep on the couch," he sighed. His voice was filled was exhaustion. Danny felt a twinge of guilt.

"You stayed up the whole night?" he asked.

"I wanted to be awake when you got out," Dash told him. There were bags under his eyes; the night had obviously taken a toll on him. "I wasn't sure how long you would take."

Danny wiped a hand across his forehead and cheek. "Yeah, well, it's probably best that you stayed out here." He made to move to the bed, and Dash did the same, pulling the covers out and, crawling in one side, pulled it over himself. His eyes were still half-open and focused on Danny, who hesitated. He didn't want to sleep in these clothes, but it felt a little weird to be sharing his bed with another man – much less Dash Baxter who had tried to make every day of the past few years a living hell for him – who was currently sleeping in his underwear.

Deciding that he would rather be comfortable, Danny pulled off the shirt and the tight jeans, leaving him in his boxers as well, and crawled into bed next to Dash, who, upon taking note that Danny was in bed, closed his eyes and snuggled into the warm sheets.

Danny couldn't stop a small smile from forming on his face at the sight of this adorable gesture. Sleep was beckoning him, and his eyelids felt heavy. His eyes glanced over Dash's impressive form, and as he pulled the blanket up to his chin, he moved slightly closer to the other boy, taking comfort in the body heat radiating off him.

Dash peeked out at him, and wrapped one arm around Danny's slender waist, pulling him a bit closer. "I hug pillows," he said in a muffled voice, the kind, Danny supposed, a person would get when they were about to lapse into deep sleep and couldn't be bothered to form complete sentences. "There aren't extras here."

Danny gave a slight nod in understanding, though he wasn't sure if he was big enough for Dash to have seen it, as he was currently enveloped by a blanket and was snug against his own pillow. Closing his eyes, the last thing he felt was Dash's warm arm against his belly.

He woke up hours later, feeling refreshed if slightly unsettled. Dash was in the middle of the room, still undressed except for his underwear, leaning down to inspect one of the objects that lay on his table. Danny inhaled sharply. "What time is it?" he asked.

"Late," Dash said. "Almost midnight. We slept the whole day away."

"Oh, crap," Danny turned his head hastily to check the clock on the wall. It was true. "Great," he muttered. "Now my rhythm's going to be totally messed up."

His stomach growled, and he clutched it wincing. He hadn't had anything to eat since lunch with Tucker and Sam hours before the party. "Your parents bought Chinese," Dash said, not fooled for a minute. "Your dad knocked, but I didn't dare say anything."

Danny pulled himself up and landed his feet on the ground beside the bed. "I'll go see what there is to eat."

After a few minutes, he returned to the bedroom, pushing the slightly ajar door open with his hips, his arms laden with food.

"Wow," Dash's eyebrows shot up.

"Yeah, we order a lot," Danny grinned sheepishly, standing over the bed and loosening his grip so that the packages of Chinese food was dumped onto the sheets. Dash joined him, and getting back on the bed, they picked the foodstuff apart together.

And as the hours passed, Danny resigned himself to the fact that he was spending his weekend in his room sleeping at odd hours thanks to a screwed up circadian rhythm and grabbing whatever pieces of semi-cold Chinese leftovers was closest whenever he felt peckish with Dash. As they leaned back against the headboard of his bed, discussing various topics during the final hours waiting for the sun to rise so that they could drive to school, Danny realized that neither of them had bothered to get out of their boxers or in fact even leave the bed.

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Pushing open the door, Danny heaved a sigh, fatigue taking over him again, as it had been hours since he and Dash had last slept. Dash seemed to feel the same way, for he raised his hand to his mouth to cover a yawn.

Wordlessly, they trudged up the stairs and into Danny's room, and the both of them collapsed on the bed.

"Isn't Kwan supposed to be coming over?" Danny mumbled.

"His fault," Dash exhaled. "I'm not waking up for him."

A snicker escaped Danny, and as he felt Dash's hand wrap around his waist again, he felt the rush of gladness once again to have Dash with him after everything that had happened.

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Author's Note: I'm so sorry for this very (relatively) late update. I've been bogged down with assignments lately, and didn't get a chance to work on this chapter for weeks. I know it's short, especially compared to the last chapter, but this one was to show the aftermath of the party and how their relationship is changing.

And a huge wow at the reviews for the previous chapter! Hope to hear from all of you again.