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 hours after most people in town were asleep and before school began for another day Danny and Dash lay back on the bed simply staring at the ceiling silently. The movie had long since ended, they didn't feel hungry, and there was nothing they really wanted to do. The time of day and the fact that they had been awake for hours and had some eight hours of school stretching out before them left the two slightly dazed.

"I think I might drift off to sleep," Danny muttered.

Dash didn't take his eyes off the ceiling. "Don't."

"I know," Danny said.

Exhaling loudly, he turned to his side to face Dash and closed his eyes, as though going to sleep.

"Danny—" Dash said.

"I'm just closing my eyes," Danny told him, not bothering to open them as he said it. A few seconds later, Dash decided to follow suit, turning on his side to face Danny and closing his eyes too.

"I feel like I'm in limbo," Danny sighed as Dash pulled him closer again. Dash let out a grunt, either of acknowledgement or agreement, Danny couldn't be sure.

They stayed that way for the next few minutes, neither asleep nor awake.

When he opened his eyes again, Danny felt exhaustion pushing him down like a brick wall. His eyes felt sore and he felt certain there must have been deep bags under them. He let out another sigh, and noticed that he was lying on top of something that felt soft yet tough at the same time. Glancing down, he noticed that part of his face was resting on Dash's solid chest. He was wrapped in Dash's embrace with the jock's arms encircling him below his chest.

Raising his head slightly, being careful not to hit Dash's chin, Danny got a look at the clock hanging from the wall. Only several minutes had passed; there was about an hour left before they had to shower and head off to school. He brought his head back down to rest on Dash's body.

Not wanting to close his eyes again and risk oversleeping for school, nor wanting to wake up Dash before he had to, Danny decided to simply lie there. Feeling Dash's body move up and down with each intake of air, he admired the gentle curve of the blonde's arm where skin covered the muscle of his bicep.

Without thinking, he raised his hand and with one finger lightly traced the outline of the muscles in Dash's arm on the jock's tan skin. When he approached the wrist he took note of the veins collated there, deviating from his pattern to finger each one that he could see.

He raised his eyes back up and was a little surprised to see that Dash was looking back down at him with heavily-lidded eyes. The eyes themselves, from what Danny could see, were dark, so dark that they looked almost black, a vast difference from the ice-blue irises he was used to.

Dash didn't say anything, so Danny allowed his finger to trace over the bicep of his arm again. He veered off-course, the finger slipping away from the arm, partly by accident and partly because Danny wanted to see how far he could go before getting some sort of response from the blonde, before he agitated him enough to make Danny stop.

His finger drifted over Dash's pectoral muscles; still the two of them didn't break eye-contact and still Dash wasn't responding. Unintentionally the nail gave a little scratch to Dash's nipple as the finger passed through the area of his areola, and it hardened. Danny, still focused on Dash's face, saw the tiny shift in the boy's face before it smoothed over again before he registered the fact that the nipple had grown erect, and smiled inside at the fact that he had brought out some sort of reaction what with the boy's currently stoic image.

Danny looked down, oddly fascinated by Dash's body. He saw his areolas and nipples, a light pink, so different from his own darker ones, he looked at his skin, a healthy brown tan, also different from Danny's darker one; though they hadn't been out much in the past few days, ghost-hunting typically kept Danny out in the sun more than Dash did. His fingers skirted against Dash's nipple again, and Dash let out a little growl from the back of his throat, tightening his grip on Danny. Danny felt a little thrill at that and the sensation of pleasurable pain when Dash tightened his grip on him, causing his body to arch back on the jock's muscular arm.

In the movement, Danny's arm fell from the area of Dash's chest down to his stomach. When he opened his eyes, Danny found that Dash's tightened grip and forced his head to fall closer to Dash's so that their noses almost touched. Dash was still looking at his eyes, or perhaps somewhere close to his neck; Danny wasn't sure. Regardless, his hand caressed tight abdominal muscles and squeezed the firm flesh there.

Dash gave a small buck of his hips, one that Danny probably wouldn't have noticed had it not been for the fact that they were so close to each other. Their foreheads pressed against each other, and Dash was breathing hard, his breath ghosting against Danny's cheek. Danny blinked in surprise.

It was like a wake-up call; he pulled away from Dash quickly, and rearranged his shirt so that it covered every inch of his torso. The clock on the wall said that fifteen minutes hadn't even passed since he had last looked.

Shoving himself off the bed and to his feet, he headed off to the bathroom, trying not to break into a run. "You're not going to lock yourself in there again, are you?" He turned around in surprise to see Dash sitting on his haunches on the bed watching him.

Danny's chest swelled up momentarily, not quite sure how to say everything that he wanted to at that moment. "I'm going to take a shower," he said finally, crossing his arms over his chest and pulling his shoulders near as though trying to close in on himself, "you're crazy if you think I'm going to leave it open."

And with that he stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door shut.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Danny?" Sam called out. It was lunchtime and the students had just been released from classes. Tucker was with her, looking at his friend curiously.

Danny groaned. He was holding the door open with one hand, and had stuck his head inside, while his body outside carried a decidedly defeated slump.

"I feel awful," he said in a dull tone, pulling his head out from the locker. Tucker and Sam raised their eyebrows.

"Dude, you look terrible."

"Thanks," Danny said, closing the door.

"Are you feeling feverish?" Sam asked, concerned.

Danny shook his head slowly, as though he didn't have the energy to do it properly. His mouth was slightly open.

"You sure?" Tucker reached to put his hand on Danny's forehead, but stopped when Danny gave a violent shudder and jerked back. "What's wrong?" he asked, alarmed.

Danny was gazing at him with a strange expression, and looked more than a little wild. "Nothing," he gave a sharp solitary shake of the head. Another moment passed before he spoke again; "I just … I think I might be coming down with something. A cold." He gave another shake of his head. "I don't want you to catch it."

"Are you going to go home?" Sam asked.

"You think they'd let me?" Danny sounded interested at the thought.

"I guess," she shrugged. "Why shouldn't they?"

Danny shrugged. He wasn't one to cut school to go home entirely – usually only to fight ghosts – but the thought of cutting out the risk of running into Dash in school entirely was extremely appealing. And maybe Dash wouldn't even show up – lately, he'd been getting rides off Danny, and if he were to leave now, he wouldn't be around to give Dash one.

"I'm gonna go home," he announced.

"Well," Tucker still sounded a bit on edge from Danny's reaction, "make sure you see the nurse first, or else they're probably just going to mark you as absent, or under truancy."

Danny nodded, then left to go to the nurse's office.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Danny tried to creep up the stairs as soundlessly as he possibly could, but winced when he heard his mother say from behind him, "Danny! What are you doing back home so early?"

He turned around on the spot. "I wasn't feeling well. The nurse allowed me to go home."

"Are you feeling feverish?" Maddie asked, pulling off one of the black gloves she typically wore and pressed a cool hand to her son's head. "Mmm … you feel a little clammy, but I don't think it's anything serious."

"It's not a fever," Danny said, trying to think up of some other affliction. "It's … it's my stomach."

"Did you eat some bad food?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "That must be it. It feels awful."

"Your father and I have been trying to call you down to dinner for the past few days, but you were always asleep," Maddie said doubtfully. "Have you been eating enough?"

"Yeah," Danny said again. "I've just been working really hard on this project. For school."

"Well," Maddie gave him an appraising kind of look, "your father and I are off to work. If you think you're up to it, there're some leftovers in the fridge. And try to come down for dinner tonight, okay, sweetie?"

"Sure mom," Danny gave a quick nod. "Later!" he called, rushing up to his room.

Inside, he closed the door behind him, making sure to lock it, and then stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, wondering what to do. He eyed the bed; he didn't feel tired anymore, and anyway, he wasn't sure he felt completely comfortable lying down on it after what had happened that morning. On the other hand, if he were to lie down on it now, he would most probably be asleep within a matter of minutes and could then avoid the entire world for another day.

Checking the clock on the wall, Danny decided that it would be okay to spend about an hour or two on his computer or something; his parents were leaving, and his schoolmates wouldn't be allowed out until three.

He sat down on the chair usually reserved for when he was using his computer in a rather numbed fashion. He couldn't even begin to explain what had happened that morning. All he knew was that he had felt safe – as a matter of fact, he realized, since the party, he had felt safer around Dash than he had felt for a very, very long time – and now he thought that maybe it was because of that feeling of absolute protection that he had slipped into an absent-minded state of being. Fighting ghosts for four years now, Danny had long since forgotten what it was like to do something without really having a true presence of mind; constantly being on alert for ghost attacks would do that to you.

But ghosts hadn't been attacking for a long time, had they? Aside from the increased number of attacks since Vlad had given him the Plasmius soul, as Sam had said, the ghosts had pretty much learned to leave Amity Park alone. Danny surmised that the lack of attacks may have caused him to grow lazy. And when Dash had saved him … it truly was the first time Danny ever considered someone saving him. Sam, Tucker, and even Jazz had done so in the past, but not when he had been so utterly helpless.

The thought of Dash pulling him out of the bookshelf's way inevitably led Danny to thinking about how nice it had felt to rest on the other boy's sturdy shoulder, and how Dash had comforted him. He blushed, remembering the way Dash had stroked his hair and his bare skin that night.

Shaking his head, Danny refocused his thoughts back on explaining his behavior. His habit of remaining on high alert had deteriorated over time due to the lack of ghost attacks, he knew that. And when Dash had saved his life, he seemed to have grown a special affinity towards him, he knew that now too. Why else, he reasoned, would he have insisted that Mr. Connor not cease his intervention program with Dash – other than the fact that it would have meant having to see a professional psychiatrist on a regular basis? And with those feelings and factors combined, Danny supposed that he had simply ran his fingers through Dash's muscles without really thinking about it, focusing only on the fact that he felt safe, especially in the boy's arms. He remembered the sheer awe he had felt gazing at Dash's muscular body, something he had never managed to develop, even with the fighting he got into as Danny Phantom.

But how then could he explain continuing to touch Dash's body when he had found the blonde boy watching? Danny blushed again when he remembered how he had gripped at Dash's firm stomach, how Dash had pulled him closer when – oh, God. Danny felt like hanging himself when he recalled the way he had brushed Dash's nipples over and over, enjoying the way it agitated the jock. What was wrong with him?

There was no time to ponder further though. For the first time in days, Danny's mouth opened involuntarily as a cold wisp of air left him. Jumping up, he opened his arms wide and transformed into his ghost-fighting half.

Zooming out the window, Danny turned his head left and right, searching for his foe, but there was none to be seen. Still, he braced himself for some sort of attack.

On the roof of the neighbor's house, an invisible Skulker cursed himself. He had been spying on the ghost child for Walker again as part of his assignment, but had been careless and gotten too close to the window.

Pocketing the binoculars, he returned to his corporeal form. It was, he decided, better for the half-ghost to duel with him now than for him to grow suspicious. If that happened, there was no telling what might happen. The child was the bane of many in the Ghost Zone due to his ability to figure out their plans and stop them in time – Nikolai, however, fully deserved what he got, hollering his plots for all to hear.

Danny caught sight of his appearance immediately. "You know," he said, "I was actually starting to wonder what took you so long; usually, you don't give up until a gorilla's turned your body into a can opener." He drifted upwards. "But I guess I've knocked even you down a peg."

"Down a peg?" Skulker was offended. "Let's just see who gets knocked around this time then." Immediately after the words left him, a part of the armored suit in the area of the shoulders parted and an array of missiles were raised. Using his visor to lock on to the cocky teenager, Skulker fired.

Danny's eyes widened, momentarily unsure what to do. Instead of relying on the usual trick of turning intangible though, he concentrated and felt his body shift into odd angles, elongating itself as though it were made into rubber. As the missiles headed straight for him, Danny twisted, and felt one missile zoom by his body. Only a second later, he felt another one zoom past the other side.

The next four were incredibly close, but what was a fight without a bit of a challenge, right? Danny forced his elongated body down in a strange sort of ducking motion; the third missile shot through overhead. The fourth, however, was blasting straight for his chest. A brief flash of panic hit him, but he stretched his torso to the left, causing the weapon to miss him completely. The next aimed below his knees – simple enough; Danny simply had to raise his legs. And the last one was going straight for his face. This time though, Danny didn't bother twisting his body but instead turned intangible. The missile went through him, but just as it passed through, he turned solid again and reached behind him to grab the end of it.

"You know, it's really sad when I have to take the hard way out just to make it more of a challenge," Danny said. He pulled the missile in front o him, and then hurtled it towards Skulker. The ghostly hunter stood in his place, frozen. Danny grinned as it exploded on impact with the armor.

Skulker keeled over, but Danny didn't have time to revel in his victory. Dodging the missiles had left them open to hit innocent people or destroy parts of the town. Turning around again, he raced after the strays.

He didn't think he was going to make it, but pushing himself to the limit and beyond, he began to close in on the shells, grabbing one after another and cradling as many as possible in each arm. 'Now all I have to do is make sure I don't drop them,' he thought to himself. The last one was dangerously close to the ground. Danny squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself faster, faster, and when he felt his fingers graze against the metal, it was only more reason to speed up. Finally, he had it within the palm of his hand, and as if by instinct, shifted his body so that he changed direction and narrowly avoided crashing on the road.

Danny didn't pause until he had slowed down, then let his legs down to touch the grass. He was shaking all over; the shells rattled in his arms. Looking around, he turned intangible, and sank into the ground until all around him that he could see was brown soil. Only then did he unfold his arms, letting the objects fall from the crook of his arms. Once they were separate from any part of his body, they turned solid once more and remained stuck in the dirt.

Floating upwards, Danny went back home at a lazy speed, feeling as though he had absolutely no energy left.

When he got back to his house, he paused to check if Skulker was still around. Half of him hoped that he was still on the neighbor's roof – he made a mental note to check of any damage the explosion may have caused when the missile hit the ghost – so that he could keep him in check, but the other half just wanted Skulker gone so that he could just get some rest.

He didn't see anything when he went to check, and although there was some charring on the roof, the damage was thankfully minimal.

He returned to his room, and transformed back into Danny Fenton.

He hadn't even taken a single step when he heard the toilet flush in the bathroom. His jaw dropped open in shock. Who had gotten into the house?

The bathroom door opened and Dash stepped out.

"Dash!" Danny exclaimed.

Dash took a step back. "When did you get in here?"

Danny's expression remained one of shock. "This is my house! When did you get in here? Why aren't you in school?"

"Why aren't you in school?" Dash raised an eyebrow.

"Because I didn't want to be anywhere near you!" Danny's voice was ridiculously high-pitched. "What are you doing here?"

"I didn't see you in class, so I decided to come here and check if you were around," Dash informed. He paused; Danny could see him trying to phrase his next statement. "You weren't in your room when I came in. When did you get here?"

Danny ignored the question. "How did you come in?" he demanded. "My parents left for work, and I wasn't downstairs to let you in."

"Well, then you need to tell your parents to start locking the door when they leave," Dash said coolly. "It's very dangerous not to."

'Oh great,' Danny rolled his eyes. 'Dad must have been the one who shut the door when they left again.'

"You can't be here," Danny told him. "I'm tired and I'm … embarrassed. Deeply." He took a moment to breathe. "Please leave."

"Danny—"

"Fenton."

Dash stopped, looking as though he didn't understand.

"I think it's best if we went back to being on a last name basis," Danny placed his hands on his hips and raised his head as though daring Dash to challenge him.

"Oh for God's sake, Fenton," Dash sounded irritated now. "You really need to grow up. I'm not going to star calling you 'Fenton' all over again. Danny," he added as an afterthought. "You're making too big a deal out of this."

"Whatever," Danny walked to his bed. "I'm sick. You're not. You have to go back to class."

"I'm a jock, I can skip whenever I want," Dash said. Danny turned to him, indignation on his face.

"No you can't!" The system couldn't be that unfair.

"Okay, maybe I can't," Dash conceded, "but when I go to school tomorrow and say that I left because I felt awful, they're not going to ask Nurse Peterson if I went to see her for confirmation."

The system really was that unfair.

"And," Dash added, "I can just tell Lancer that I was making sure my charge was alright, because I care."

"Oh, and how is that?" Danny raised his voice. "From what I've seen, you don't seem to care about anything!"

Dash didn't say anything, waiting for Danny to go on.

Danny let out a whoosh of breath. "You're always going on about how things don't matter because we'll be graduating within a couple of months."

Dash stepped forward. "I don't recall 'always going on' about graduation."

Danny snorted. "Believe me, you do." He didn't notice Dash was getting on the bed until he had actually clambered on. Danny stared at him, unable to believe the boy's bravado to get on the bed and actually unbuckling his belt and pulling his jeans down.

"Get off my bed!" he shrieked, shooting his body forward to push the bigger boy off. Dash stumbled backwards in only his shirt and light blue boxers.

There was a pause while Danny tried to collect himself again. "How can you be so calm about this?" he asked in a more composed, albeit still loud, tone. "I mean, I felt you up!"

Dash leveled him with a glare. "Fenton, you did not feel me up." Without warning, he grabbed one of Danny's hands by the wrist and pulled it forward to rest on the front of his boxers. Danny's eyes widened. Dash flung it away, still glowering.

"If you're going to complain about doing something," Dash said, "at least do it first." And grabbing his pants, he left the room.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hours later, Danny staggered down the stairs, holding on to the banister for support. He had spent some time thoroughly washing his hand in a meticulous fashion, and afterwards had spent over an hour simply lying in bed thinking nothing.

Finally, he had decided to go downstairs, something he had put off for hours for fear of finding Dash waiting on one of the couches in the living room.

Mercifully, the house was empty. Danny felt a twinge of guilt at the thought of Dash storming home, but quickly reminded himself that he had come home to avoid him in the first place and had done nothing wrong. He learned to quickly shut his brain off whenever this happened because any further thought would lead to uncomfortable questions, such as analyzing why he had touched Dash and why Dash had seemed so disappointed by the fact that nothing worse had happened.

He paced around for a little bit, wondering what to do now, before remembering the conversation he had had with Tucker and Sam the previous day about checking up on Walker to see what was going on with the interrogation. It was something to do, so he yanked the door to his parents laboratory open and rushed downstairs, transforming into Danny Phantom as he made his way down. Unexpectedly, a cold wisp of air escaped his mouth.

"H—hey!" he shouted when he saw a figure downstairs. The ghost that had been scouring the room turned around at the call, its mouth open in an 'o' of surprise.

"Technus," Danny snapped, "what are you doing?"

"Er," Technus hovered above the air, "would you believe that I was looking for something to pin my hair down?"

"Your hair is already tied down," Danny pointed out. "And sorry, but I think my sister took her stuff with her to college," his hands began glowing with ectoplasmic energy, "but maybe Ember can loan you something when I knock you all the way back to the Ghost Zone."

"Now, look here, child—"

Danny lunged for him. Technus screeched, trying to back away from the danger zone.

Danny missed, but that didn't stop him from trying again. Careful to not destroy any of his parents' inventions, he and Technus dodged and danced their way through the laboratory.

The fight was cut short, however, when Danny heard a voice call out from above, "Danny? You here?"

"Kwan?" Danny turned to face the door. It opened. "No, don't come down here!" Danny ran to the stairs.

Kwan appeared, peeking down to get a better look at him. "Why not? I—"

Danny let out a cry of alarm when he felt something hit his back painfully. He fell down, and turned around to see Technus floating above him.

Kwan responded quickly, pulling out the ecto-gun he had taken from the lab and shot at the dead genius. Technus, not expecting this, backed away. Danny got to his feet and chased after him.

Technus, finding the portal blocked, turned around to face Danny. Then, he put his hands together to form a ball of ectoplasmic energy and threw it. Danny tried to avoid it, but the speed at which it traveled and the short distance between the two of them didn't allow for such a dodge. The ball of energy hit his right hand, knocking it back and causing it to land directly on the genetic authorization recognition key that opened the doors to the Fenton Portal. The heavy doors opened, and Technus fled inside.

By the time Danny recovered, the doors had been closed again. He let out a sound of frustration. He could chase after him, but there didn't seem to be much of a point, and he didn't want to go in with Kwan of all people around. He realized then that without Tucker or Sam to key in the manual override code to open the doors, there would be no way for it to open again to let him back out.

"Thanks," he said grudgingly to Kwan when he neared him. He willed himself back into his regular self.

"No problem," Kwan said.

They climbed up the stairs together. "Dash with you?" Danny asked dully.

"No. He left after lunch and didn't come back," Kwan told him.

Danny nodded, but didn't say anything else. He had a lot to think about, and absolutely nothing to voice.