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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Danny breathed in deeply, gave a small grunt, curled his toes, and opened his eyes wide. He smiled. He couldn't remember the last time he had had such a good sleep. Sunlight flowed into his room through the light curtains, and he imagined that he could hear birds chirping.
Turning to his other side, he gave a wry smirk when he saw Dash's sleeping form there. The jock wasn't shirtless as he had been last week when he had first started this routine of sleeping over at Danny's house, but his plain black shirt had ridden up, exposing that taut, lean stomach Danny seemed to love so. The blanket had been pushed down to only cover his lower-half, so Danny had a nice full view of the bare skin to enjoy.
As Dash rested, his body moving up and down with every inhalation, Danny wondered what had happened to his resistance and the feelings of shame he had felt about this whole situation before had gone. They seemed to have vanished the moment Dash had kissed him. He had never though that he could have enjoyed a kiss that much – which was saying something, because he used to live for Valerie's kisses and had reminisced fondly many times over the fakeout-makeout sessions Sam and he had been forced to indulge in. How was it that each time he had gone to the popular crowd's party, he had ended up closer to Dash than he ever thought possible of himself, and enjoyed each single moment of it? Briefly he toyed with the possibility of Paulina spraying drugs into the air before her parties.
Dash's eyes fluttered open. Danny remained in his position, looking into them. They were slightly glazed, and Dash squeezed them shut tightly letting out a small yawn before opening them again. They blinked at each other, holding on to their respective pillows under their heads.
"Hey," Dash rasped.
"Hey," Danny said softly.
Dash pushed himself to sit up, one hand firmly on the mattress, the other rubbing one of his eyes. "What are you looking at?"
Danny pulled himself to a sitting position on the bed as well, his arms wrapped around his knees, which jutted out under the cover of the blankets. "You," he admitted.
Dash turned his head to look at him. Danny liked the way the sunlight made Dash's eyes look, as though they had a little bit of a sparkle in them. He grinned embarrassedly about the way he was thinking, but he couldn't help it. He felt happier and giddier than he could ever remember. Dash was looking at him with a smug, triumphant look, and he appeared to pause for a moment before leaning down and capturing Danny's lips with his for a soft kiss.
When he pulled away, Danny found that he couldn't stop grinning, even by biting his lip – all that accomplished was having the thought 'Dash just kissed me on this lip' streak through his mind – and to his utter horror even let slip what sounded like a girlish giggle.
Dash chuckled as Danny lay back in his bed, reaching to pull the pillow over his face, pulling him by the wrist to face him as he lay down as well, and began kissing him over and over again.
Danny wrapped his arms around Dash, trying to keep up with those fast lips and that skilled tongue that obviously knew just when to dart out and where to lick. He was melting.
With a small moan, he pulled away from Dash. Almost involuntarily, Dash leaned in a bit again, as if his lips were seeking out the lost sensation.
Danny smiled to himself. "I think we need to talk."
Dash scrunched up his eyes, looking about as eager for this conversation as Danny felt, but as good as it felt to just keep on kissing, Danny knew that he had to find out what was going on first. "Alright, alright," Dash propped himself up with one hand.
Danny gave him an incredulous stare and let out a short laugh. Dash raised an eyebrow.
"You – you're not even concerned, are you?" Danny asked. "About what happened?"
Dash simply tilted his head, his expression unreadable. It seemed that he was going to make Danny work to get an answer out of him. Danny let out an annoyed little sound.
"Well?" he pressed.
"Well, what?" Dash asked blithely. "From what I recall, you were into too."
Danny snorted. Yes, he had been into it, that was true – but that didn't mean it hadn't taken a lot of thinking and rethinking to get to this point; once it had happened, he had let go of all his reservations and allowed himself to float. But Dash didn't seem to have had any reservations at all, and though he still hadn't come down from the high he had been on since that first kiss, Danny still couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that Dash, who could very well have been the most macho big man on campus in the history of Casper High, could have been interested in this sort of thing without any sort of qualms of his own.
"I know I was," Danny couldn't resist running a blunt nail against a vein on the pale underside of Dash's arm. "I still am," he admitted, surprising even himself. He looked up at Dash. Dash was watching him, waiting for him to continue. "And I'm dealing with it," Danny finished.
Dash still didn't say anything, but Danny thought he saw a subtle shift in his face. "So how are you so comfortable with it," he asked.
Dash gave a tiny shrug, and just when Danny had been about to give up all hope on getting any sort of explanation, he replied, "It's not very new ground with me."
Danny straightened up, shock apparent on his face. He wasn't sure he had heard right. Dash pulled himself up to a sitting position as well.
"Not new ground?" Danny said thickly.
Dash chewed on the inside of his cheek. "No, not really," he said. "I mean, since I was, like, twelve—"
"Since you were twelve?"
"Or thirteen," Dash rolled his eyes in annoyance.
"With whom?" Danny questioned.
"Kwan."
"Kwan?"
"Yes," Dash said impatiently. "I mean, it was just the small things, when we were just figuring this stuff out. You've been friends with Tucker Foley since we were in grade school, haven't you ever …"
"No!" Danny pulled back, his mouth a ridiculous 'o'. His mind was racing. Did Dash actually consider it to be normal to do these kinds of things with one's friends?
Apparently, he did. "Seriously?" Dash raised his eyebrows. "Not even a kiss?"
"No!" Danny raised his voice.
Dash grinned that smug little grin of his again. The other boy's obvious revulsion towards the idea amused him, and he decided to have a little fun. "Not even," his voice dropped to a teasing yet somewhat seductive level, "a little suggestive touching?" His fingers found their way to Danny's arm and crawled upwards along the path highlighted by a vein.
"No." Danny shrugged him off. Dash's grin grew wider. Danny gave him a dark look. "Shut up."
"Make me," he teased.
Danny looked torn, as though half of him wanted to run away and the other half wanted to take him up on his challenge. His lower lip was pouted and there was still that indignant look on his face.
"Come on, Fenton," Dash said, barely audibly.
Danny threw the offended expression off his face and leaned in to kiss Dash on the lips. The moment he felt the brunette, Dash reached out his hands, wrapping them around Danny's back, and pulling him in until they both fell back on the bed, Danny's slender form on top of his own broader one, still kissing.
A few moments passed as both lost themselves in the kisses, but then a shadow of sense made its way back into Danny's brain and he pulled away again. Dash let out a slight groan of frustration. Danny ignored it.
"So you and Kwan have been doing this for years, right?" he inquired.
Dash sighed. "No?" he said, as though it were obvious. Danny gave him a skeptical look. Dash balanced himself on his forearms.
"I told you," he said, "we were figuring stuff out, and we experimented."
"And that's it?" Danny didn't believe him.
Dash shrugged absently. "Well, we did it for a long time. It took time to get used to the idea of trying stuff out to each other, and then we went from the kissing to the—"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Danny pulled his head back as though to signify that he had no desire to hear what they had progressed to.
Dash curled his lip. "Well if you don't want to hear it, can we just go back to making out?"
"Can't you tell me about it without getting into the gory details?" Danny asked.
"No," Dash said, then in his relentless urge to tease him, added, "did you know 'gory' can be rearranged into 'orgy'?"
Danny's face twisted comically, and Dash burst into laughter. He reached upwards and gave Danny another soft kiss, then pulled back again to wait for his response.
Danny was tempted to resume their make-out session, but his curiosity about Dash and Kwan's relationship and how Dash became so comfortable with doing such things with men overwhelmed his temptation.
Dash could see that he wasn't going to win this one just yet. "We went from kissing to touching to … more touching," he continued. "And we pretty much did it until we started going further with girls, and then we pretty much stopped it, can we get back to kissing now?" he demanded.
Danny looked down at him thoughtfully. Something, he thought, still didn't add up.
"If you guys started dating girls, then why are you so desperate to kiss me?" he smirked.
"I'm not desperate to kiss you," Dash replied scornfully.
Danny lowered his face down, and smiled inside when Dash puckered his lips. Instead of heading for the prize though, he planted a big kiss on the athlete's nose. Dash opened his eyes, disappointed.
"Fine," he said grudgingly. "We kind of had an occasional thing going on. You know, when we didn't have any girls around and wanted to get our rocks off." He had been reluctant to mention the last part because he knew that Danny was still new to the whole concept, and he did not want to scare the boy away.
Far from looking scared, however, a look of elation fell on Danny's face. He looked as if some sort of burden had been lifted off his shoulders.
"So you guys were basically fuck buddies," Danny said carefully.
"I guess," Dash said slowly after a few seconds, wondering what was going through the brunette's head.
Danny straightened his back, even more aware now that he was resting on Dash's abdomen and leaning towards his crotch, his legs on either side of Dash's body. "So tell me what we are," he said softly.
Dash didn't know how to reply. The silence between them as Danny waited for an answer was thick. Finally, Dash said honestly, "I'm not."
Danny breathed in loudly, giving a small nod. Dash worried then just how much emotion Danny had invested into this; he himself had known better. But then, a small smile broke out on Danny's face.
For his part, Danny was extremely relieved. A question he had not wanted to acknowledge before about just how serious was this fling with Dash meant to be had just been answered, and it was a relief to him to know that the blonde boy didn't expect so much out of him. Danny had let himself to not think about what he was doing, but had he gotten himself in too deep as he feared, he knew that he would have had to break things off with Dash. The story the jock had told him about how his previous experiences were just experiments had led him to a little bit of hope.
"We're just experimenting, right?" he asked, again in a soft voice.
Dash nodded, gazing intensely at Danny's face.
Danny leaned forward, pleased by this response, and gave Dash a slow kiss.
The tension in Dash's shoulders started to fade away, and gradually dissipated as he allowed himself to enjoy the feel of Danny's lips again.
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By the time Sam and Tucker arrived that afternoon, Danny had already ushered Dash out of the house with one last goodbye kiss after his parents had left, showered, and had been sitting on the couch with a dazed look on his face clad in nothing but a bathrobe when the door flung open.
"You forgot to lock the door again," Sam said breezily.
Danny looked up at him, his eyes wide and reproachful, having just been jolted out of his reverie so abruptly. Unconsciously, he brought a hand to his lips, grazing them lightly and imagined that they still tingled from that last kiss. Somehow, a kiss goodbye by the door seemed a lot more complicated than making out in bed.
"Yo, you alright?" Tucker waved his hand in front of Danny's face.
"I'm fine," Danny replied, pulling the bathrobe tighter around his frame. Tucker raised his eyebrow.
"You're wearing something underneath that, right?"
Danny grinned devilishly.
"Gross."
Sam leaned against the counter. "So what happened at the party?" she asked. "Anything interesting?"
Danny kept his eyes down and shook his head, pretending to be focused on his fingernails in hopes of ending the line of conversation. "No," he said in what he hoped was a convincing tone.
"Any ghosts break out?" Tucker picked up the remote control and turned the television on.
"No," Danny said. "Why, did you guys find anything?"
"Not me," Tucker informed. "I wouldn't have noticed anyway. Everyone came to the party bringing something – there was so much to eat." A blissful look settled on his face as he relived the previous night.
Danny turned to Sam, silently asking how her night went.
Sam shrugged. "Pretty dull night for me. Did some homework—"
"Why would you do homework?" Tucker shot. "You're a senior."
"—played some pool, watched a movie…" she concluded. "It was good."
"Good, good." Danny nodded. Suddenly, looking at her, a feeling of shame descended on him. He remembered how they had been so close, how they had denied all the catcalls about how they had found each other; he thought about how assured he had unknowingly been that they would one day end up together, and how she had told him it was too late for them. And only a few hours ago, he had been upstairs kissing and grinding against Dash Baxter as though he hadn't a single care in the world.
"Danny, are you okay?" Sam frowned. "You look sick."
Danny sucked in his cheeks as though he had just bitten into a lemon and nodded.
"Good," Sam said, "because you promised to check out what's going on with Walker after the party."
Danny groaned. He had forgotten all about that, but this was not the time. "Can't we just do this tomorrow?"
"Do you have a hangover?"
Danny frowned. "No."
"Then, no, we can't," Sam told him. "Come on, Danny, you were so manic about finding something out on Kwan, but you refuse to do anything about Walker?"
"I haven't been checking up on Kwan though," Danny pointed out. "Not for a while, anyway."
"Maybe not, but I'm guessing that you haven't been able to find anything on him and lost interest," Sam said. "I told you there wasn't anything suspicious about what he was doing, but I'm agreeing that there's something weird going on with what Walker's doing, so I don't see why you're putting this off."
"It does fall under your oath to keep the ghosts at bay," Tucker agreed.
"Right," Sam nodded. "So get up – and put some clothes on first."
Danny raised an eyebrow, and transformed into his alter-ego, the bathrobe disappearing into the uniform Danny Phantom was meant to permanently wear.
"Oh," Sam noted.
Since he was already in gear, Danny decided that there was no harm in going to the Ghost Zone now. The sooner he did, the sooner Sam would stop bugging him about finding out what was going on, and though Danny had nowhere near the level of enthusiasm he once did to find out why the ghosts were so interested in the Plasmius soul, he could at least get one step closer to closing this mystery. Besides, as Tucker had pointed out, Danny had sworn to protect Amity Park from any potential threats from ghosts.
'And it will help me get my mind off Dash,' Danny thought to himself as the heavy doors slid open and the swirling green vortex greeted him.
"So how long do you think you'll need?" Sam asked.
"Five minutes," Danny said.
"Five minutes?" she repeated.
"Five minutes," he confirmed.
Bending his knees, he sprung forward into the portal, and floated through the nothingness. He moved slowly, eyeing the various doors all about him, shifting his weight to gently guide through each one that was in his path. The towers of the ghost prison were visible just ahead.
Keeping a tight grip on the brick walls, Danny closed his eyes and transformed back into his regular self. The hand holding on to the wall passed through, intangible, and, careful not to sink down to the bottom of the Zone what with his ability to float gone in his human state, pushed through the grey bricks to land safely on the floor inside the dismal jailhouse.
Long corridors lay in front of him, but having been here too many times before, Danny passed through them confidently, stopping at the door marked 'Warden'. Instead of knocking, he stepped through the door.
Walker was alone. The movement he caught out of the corner of his empty eyes caused him to look up.
"I told you not to come here again," the ghost warden stood up.
"Yeah, well, your time is up," Danny told him. "I've been waiting over a week for a status report, Walker. How much longer are you going to take?"
Walker's jaw clenched, and it appeared that he was staring Danny down. Finally, he sat back down on his seat, his gaze still fixed on Danny. "It is taking longer than I expected to break Bullet."
"That's what you said the last time," Danny said abruptly. "If you can't handle him, then I'll do something about it. Had I known you wouldn't be able to get me results, I would have dealt with him myself in the first place."
"No," Walker commanded. Danny's eyes widened. "You will not take him. He is my prisoner, and mine to break open."
"I'm the one he attacked," Danny said insistently. "He's hiding something and you obviously can't find out what it is."
"I told you to give me time, ghost-child," Walker growled. "This is a sensitive matter. That's not to say Bullet doesn't have a breaking point; it just means that I have to attack it by unexpected means."
Danny didn't want to argue anymore, and the indifference he had gathered about the subject was starting to return to him. "How much longer do you need?"
Walker surveyed him. "One week."
"One week!" Danny yelped. "Forget it. I'll have Sam crack him."
"Very well," Walker held up his hand. "Six days."
Danny rolled his eyes. "You're not very good at negotiating, are you."
"Be quiet."
Danny folded his arms across his chest. "Six days," he agreed. "And it counts today. I'll be back to see what you've got Friday afternoon."
Walker didn't reply, and Danny didn't wait for him to show him the way out.
When he was sure that the teenager was gone, Walker picked up the communicator and said into it, "Tell him to hurry up."
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When Danny landed back in his parents' laboratory, he barely had a moment to change before Sam and Tucker surrounded him, firing questions.
"Well? What did he say?" Sam asked eagerly.
"Did Bullet break yet?" Tucker wanted to know.
"Did you see him?" Sam added.
Danny held up his hands in surrender. "Whoa! Whoa! A little breathing room, please."
They apologized and backed away. Danny reached over and closed the heavy doors with his handprint.
"So what did he say?" Sam jumped in.
Danny shook his head. "He wants six days."
"Six days?" Sam and Tucker repeated in disbelief.
"He still hasn't broken Bullet," Danny told them.
"But he wants six days for it?" Sam raised an eyebrow. "You should have just brought him here."
"Yeah, give Sam a metal bar, and she would have broken him in six hours," Tucker quipped.
"Tops," Sam nodded.
"Hey, relax guys," Danny made his way to the door. "Six days is fine. Walker will have the week to get somewhere with Bullet, and I can find out what he knows on Friday. That way, we'll have the weekend to figure out how to handle this. At least he's locked up safe in the prison instead of running around the Ghost Zone or over here unchecked."
"And meanwhile we can find some other ghost to spill his guts, right?" Tucker nodded.
"Sure," Danny said dully.
He pushed open the door to the living room, and they herded into the kitchen. "Er, Tucker, you mind?" he gestured to the fridge. In his human state, he was still clad only in the blue bathrobe, as he had not bothered to change before crossing into the Ghost Zone. Tucker pulled open the door, reached in, and pulled out three cans of soda for them. "Thanks," Danny said, unclasping his and bringing it to his dry mouth.
Sam chewed on her lip, and Danny knew she still had the issue on her mind. Samantha Manson was not one to let things go easily if she perceived an injustice had been occurred. Danny still remembered that time in freshman year when she had campaigned for a larger vegetarian selection, which had escalated until there had been no meat to offer the school's carnivores.
As he had expected, she soon opened her mouth and claimed, "Six days is still too much. I mean, what if Walker and Bullet are working together now? Danny, you should go back into the Ghost Zone and get him yourself. It'd be no problem for you, Walker can't touch you while you're in your human form there."
Danny sighed. "Sam, why would Walker and Bullet work together—"
"Because Bullet is his second-in-command!" Sam raised her arms in exasperation, sloshing brown liquid everywhere.
"Hey!" Tucker protested, jumping aside in order to avoid soda slopping on his front.
"Walker is obsessed with law and order," Danny reminded. "Even if Bullet is – was – his second-in-command, we have an understanding. He wouldn't stand for one of his guys blatantly attacking me without his orders."
"I think you're putting too much faith into this little 'understanding' of yours," Sam said acidly. "The point is that Bullet earned enough of Walker's trust before to rise in his ranks. What makes you think he would side with you over him?"
Danny changed tactic. "Okay, suppose I managed to break Bullet out of Walker's prison – what then?" Though he had told Walker that Sam would have easily been able to find out what the purple ghost knew, he was quite sure that if Walker wasn't able to find out anything with his torture devices and sadistic mind games, they wouldn't get very far with a metal bar either. "Bullet's just going to go intangible against everything we throw at him, and he'd just fly out of here and roam about freely.
"Not to mention what Walker would do when he finds out what I did; the last thing I want is another one of those full-scale attacks of his; I don't think I could handle it right now," he concluded. "Trust me, it's better this way."
Sam could see that there was no way to change his mind. "Where are your parents?" she asked.
"At work," Danny replied. "Inventors don't get many days off."
He took a sip of his drink. "So what do you guys want to do today?"
Tucker shrugged. "It's Sunday. We could just hang here."
But Danny shook his head. "No, I don't want to stay here all day. Let's go somewhere."
"We could go to the mall again," Sam suggested.
Danny frowned. "No, I was just there the other day."
"Well, where else do teens get to hang out?" Tucker asked.
They stood by the fridge for several minutes proposing ideas and shooting each one down, until finally opting to just go down to the Nasty Burger. As it was close to FentonWorks, they decided to simply walk there instead of drive, and so Danny went upstairs and changed into his favored white shirt and baggy jeans. As he came back downstairs, he couldn't help but think to himself that they might run into Dash there. Sam, however, didn't share his sentiments.
"Here's hoping we don't run into those self-absorbed jerks," she said on the way there. She didn't have to specify who she meant.
"You know, you should really lighten up on those guys," Tucker said. "Danny's in with the in crowd now. This could be our chance to get to know them better."
"Why would I want to get to know them better?" Sam asked. "Meeting Paulina and her little clique in the bathroom is enough for me, and even that's too much." She turned to Danny. "Come on, aren't you sick of seeing Dash's face?"
'No,' he thought instantly. A small smile crept on to his face. "He's okay, I guess," Danny replied in what he hoped was a casual tone. He didn't bother trying to sell Sam on the prospect of hanging out with the popular girls as he knew that it was a fruitless effort, and would do little more than irritate her.
When they reached the Nasty Burger, he pushed open the door and scanned the crowd. Almost instantly, he caught sight of a familiar head of blonde locks, and felt his heart swell in his chest.
Remembering not to linger on the sight too often, lest he aroused Sam and Tucker's suspicions, Danny walked in quickly, keeping his focus on the large menu lighted up behind the counter. "What are you guys having?" he asked.
"Salad," Sam told him, the same as Tucker piped, "Double patty with cheese."
Danny walked to the counter, but before he reached it, Paulina came up to him and said demurely, "Hey, Danny."
"Uh, hi, Paulina," Danny greeted, somewhat surprised that she was talking to him not just in public, but at the hangout of every teenager in their high school. He felt several eyes on him now. "Why don't you come join us at our table?" Paulina held a knowing glint in her eye.
"Uh …" Danny looked at Sam and Tucker behind him. Paulina leaned to her side, as though she had only just noticed that they were with him.
"Oh, your little friends can come too," she chirped. "Hey, Sam."
Sam, caught off-guard by her acknowledgement, stammered, "Er … hi."
"You're actually offering to let us sit at your table?" Tucker said loudly, then drew his lips into a tight, thin line, no doubt chastising himself for sounding like such a loser in front of all their peers. Danny was only thankful that he didn't draw more attention to this by slapping his hands over his mouth or something of the like.
"Of course," Paulina said breezily. "Why wouldn't I?"
Sam opened her mouth to answer, but closed it up again when she felt Tucker jab her sharply with his elbow.
"Sure," Danny said awkwardly. He stole a glance at Dash out of the corner of his eye. Paulina caught the motion and her smile grew even bigger. Danny was suddenly filled with dread. Paulina led the three of them to the table. Danny thought he heard Tucker whistle to Sam in a low voice, "In with the in crowd."
They slid into the booth with the rest of them, Paulina by Danny's side, Tucker and Sam edging in next to him. Only Star, Kwan and Dash were there, so there was enough room to accommodate them all. Danny could still feel the other patrons watching them. He tried to look at anyone, anything, besides Dash, but slowly his eyes slid back to him. The blonde was watching him steadily, one side of his cheek moving as he slowly chewed on the burger he had just bitten into.
A waitress with her auburn hair tied into a ponytail came up to them. "So, what will you have?" she asked.
Danny blinked. "Um … one salad and two double patties, please. With cheese." She wrote it down on her pad, then whisked away to fill their order.
"I thought this place was self-service," Tucker said, astonished.
"It comes with being part of the A-list," Star informed them disdainfully. Danny briefly wondered if she was capable of speaking to anyone in a way that didn't suggest that they were dirt under her designer shoes. He had certainly never heard it, anyway.
Dash was still looking at him, and Paulina still had that secretive smile on her face. Kwan was nibbling on a handful of fries.
"Uh, do you know everyone's staring at us?" Danny broached.
"Comes with—"
"Comes with the A-list," Sam interrupted Star impatiently. "Yes, yes, we got it. Is knowing how to make them stop also part of the package?"
Star smiled at her coldly. "Not while you're dressed like that."
"That's a great idea!" Paulina said excitedly. "Sam, we should go shopping!"
Sam stared at her as though she had grown a mutant head. "Excuse me?"
"Oh, it'll be a great way to bond," Paulina said. "We could get you some really cute outfits."
"Unless you actually want to go on looking like this," Star said. She tilted her head. "What's the matter, don't you want to fit in?"
"As a matter of fact—"
"Of course she does," Tucker interjected, beaming. He nudged her under the table. "Will you chill?" he muttered. "This could be our chance to get out of high school on top."
Either he had spoken too loudly, or Dash was paying far too much attention to Danny and his friends, because he groused, "Who cares about leaving high school on top? You're going to graduate and never see any of these people again, anyway."
Sam gaped. Clearly, she hadn't expected anyone from the popular group to share such a disengaging sentiment. Danny tried to hide the small smile on his face. It was quite hilarious to witness Sam's perception changing right in front of his very eyes.
He caught Dash's eye, and felt his face heat up when the jock gave him a flirtatious smirk.
Paulina shifted in her seat. "So, Danny, I hope you had a good time at my party last night," she purred.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, it – it was really something," Danny said distractedly, turning to glance at her for a moment before returning to watching Dash watching him. Out of his line of vision, Paulina grinned widely, sharing a look with Kwan out of the corner of her eyes, who also felt a smile tug at his lips. Sam and Tucker felt lost.
Danny tried to keep an ear out for anything that Paulina or anyone else at the table might have been saying, but his brain wasn't bothering to pay attention to much else aside from Dash's face. Vaguely he remembered how Sam and Tucker had informed him about his tendency to obsess over one thing, and mindlessly agreed with them now.
Dash dipped his head to take a sip of his drink from the straw. Danny didn't have much time to enjoy the sight though, because all of a sudden, he felt someone tugging on his sleeve.
"Danny!" Sam cried breathlessly.
"What?" he said, annoyed.
"Ghost!"
"What?" Danny's head whipped around. Suddenly, screams enveloped him on all sides. Barstools scraped the floor as the people sitting at the counter scrambled to get out of the way. Several people sitting at the tables decided to hide under them. Most, however, ran straight for the back door, as the ghost, one that Danny had never seen before, was hovering too close to the front for anyone to dare cross it.
This one, just like the one he had encountered at the cinema a few days earlier, was massive too. 'What is with these guys?' Danny wondered angrily. Couldn't he ask for just a few days to himself? Why were all these ghosts he had never encountered before in the past four years suddenly attacking now, and why were they so huge?
He got to his feet, his hair falling into his face as gusts of wind from the shoving crowd swept them there in their efforts to get out of the building. He needed a place to go ghost. With the few people still hiding under the tables and behind the counter, it was too risky to change right now. His only chance was to go to the bathroom.
Before he could take a step, he felt calloused fingers grip his arm. But following Dash to safety was the last thing on Danny's mind, so he willed his arm to turn intangible. Dash's fingers slipped through it easily, and the boy was already heading outside, too consume with fear and adrenaline to really notice that Danny was not with him.
Danny leapt forward, getting dangerously close to the ghost's path in order to duck out of sight, but fortunately he moved too fast for the ghost to single out. Skidding to a stop by the bathrooms, Danny stole a quick glance around before changing into his ghost half.
His fingers curled into fists, he flew back out to the main area of the eatery and hovered before the ghost. "If you're here for what I think you're here for, you won't find it," he told the ectoplasmic mass.
It grunted. Figures. This one was stupid too.
"Alright," he amended. "Guess I'll just have to beat the message into you." And he charged forward, slamming his fist into the ghost's forehead. It let out a roar, and Danny took the chance to land a few more solid punches.
The ghost eventually gathered its wits about enough to try and defend itself. As Danny darted about, he was forced to avoid a large hand aiming for him to swat him away. The ghost's large red eyes narrowed, and it raised its other hand, bringing both of them together. Danny, caught in the middle, realized that it was now attempting to squash him like a mosquito.
Gritting his teeth, he surged upwards, forcing himself to move faster so that no part of him would be caught. He managed to just reach above its long fingers, but felt himself forced back by the force of the ghost's hands clapping together so close to him. He tumbled back, and caught sight of Sam and Tucker looking fearfully up at the fight. He tried to call for Tucker to throw him the Fenton Thermos, but was suddenly thrown across the room before he managed to get a word out. The left side of his body hurt. He winced. The ghost had managed to swat him while he was caught unawares.
"Tucker!" he yelled, raising a hand and shooting a beam of ectoplasmic energy towards his adversary, "I need the Thermos!"
The ghost let out another roar, drowning out Tucker's words. Before Danny could ask him to repeat himself, however, he heard someone call out his name. He turned, and saw Kwan holding up a Fenton Thermos. "Catch!" Kwan shouted, tossing it to him. Danny caught the pass gratefully, turning to the beast. Closing his eyes, he opened the lid and focused his energy on activating the thermos. The beam of light shot out, hitting the ghost directly in the chest.
It was a sight to behold. The ghost's cheeks puffed up, as though it were trying to hold in air, or – more likely, Danny thought – trying to hold in a scream. The beam of light centered around its chest, and its translucent tail was pulled up, towards the vacuum, and entered the beam on its chest. The ghost then proceeded to disappear within itself, the tail being pulled in, followed by its torso from the bottom up. Eventually, there was nothing left, and Danny capped the Thermos again, not entirely sure if the ghost was in there or if it had actually disappeared out of existence.
He zoomed towards the bathrooms again and, when safely out of sight from the remaining patrons who were still hiding, changed back into Danny Fenton, landing safely back on the tiled floor.
He reappeared to see Tucker and Sam helping people to their feet, a few others getting up on their own, shakily looking around. The damage had at least been minimal.
The three of them waited a moment before finding someplace private to talk. "How did Kwan get hold of a Fenton Thermos?" Danny wondered out loud.
Sam squinted. "So you didn't give it to him?"
"No, of course not," Danny frowned. "Why would I?" He turned to Tucker. "Why didn't you throw me the Thermos when I asked for it?"
"Because I didn't have one on me," Tucker replied blankly.
"What?" Danny voice rose. "Why not?"
"I haven't had one on me for days," Tucker said. "Not since the cinema incident."
A sense of foreboding overcame Danny. "You … didn't have one then either?" he asked slowly.
"Of course I did," Tucker looked at him strangely. "You used it to suck in that ghost, remember?"
"Wait, wait, wait, you've lost me," Danny held up a hand. Sam watched the exchange, nonplussed. "I gave that Thermos back to you."
"Danny, no, you didn't," Tucker said. Danny could see the confusion in his eyes. "You used it that day – at least, I'm assuming it was the same thermos – and you've kept it with you ever since."
"Tucker's right, Danny," Sam looked at him curiously. "You didn't give Tucker that Thermos back. I know; I was right next to him the whole time."
"Wait, hold on," Danny's mind was racing. "You threw me that Thermos, and after I was done with it, I threw it back to you."
But Tucker was shaking his head. "Dude, I never threw you that Thermos." Danny gaped. "It rolled out of my hand while we were hiding." He turned to Sam as if waiting for her to confirm what he was saying.
"When that ghost attacked …" Danny said slowly.
"We were all near the snack bar," Tucker said, just as slowly. "You got behind the counter and then went to fight it, and Sam and I crawled over to hide behind that poster because you and the ghost were getting too close for our comfort." Sam nodded along to what he was saying. "And when we got there, I realized I didn't have the Thermos with me; it must have dropped out of my hand on the way. But then I saw you with it, so I figured you had grabbed it while I wasn't looking."
A chill suddenly descended upon Danny as he heard what his friend was saying. Tucker hadn't thrown him the Thermos – but Danny had clearly heard someone warning him before throwing it to him. Looking down at the object gripped tightly in his hand, everything began to click as his brain recreated the scene. It was impossible, but then there was no other way to explain it...
"Danny?" Sam said worriedly, looking into his eyes.
"Danny?" Tucker repeated. "Dude, are you oka— hey, where are you going?" For Danny had suddenly broken out running, shoving past them, his mind flashing through every event that had taken place within the past few weeks. Fury gripped him, and he could barely see where he was going, though his legs carried him automatically. As he sprinted over the small hill on the road, he leapt up, transforming once again into Danny Phantom, and zoomed through the sky.
Flying was automatic too. Danny's mind was so full that he was unable to register anything, but sheer instinct took him where he wanted to go. His rage blinded him, but soon he saw the house he had only been to a few times before. Turning intangible, he went right through wall and glass, reappearing only after he had passed through the window and aimed straight at his target.
Kwan hadn't seen him until it was too late, and when Danny kneeled above him, one hand gripping the Asian boy's thick neck tightly, the other raised up and curled into a fist, radiating dangerously with power, the shock on Kwan's face only served to fuel his anger further. His green eyes glowed brilliantly.
"D – Danny?" Kwan choked out.
"How long?" Danny asked through clenched teeth. His face was scrunched, and his body was shaking harder than it ever had before.
Kwan remained bewildered. "How long what?" he managed to get out, feeling Danny's grip on his neck tightening with every second.
"How long have you been possessing him?" Danny snarled.
Kwan astounded face remained only a moment longer, and then it relaxed into a mask of passiveness. His slanted eyes closed, as if he were going to sleep, but even as it shut, Danny felt and saw a presence leaving his body, gliding smoothly from the jock's head and lingering in midair, facing Danny. Danny released his chokehold on the boy, and, with massive effort, pulled his trembling body into a standing position.
"So, you've finally found out," the ghost before him said. His voice was deeper than that of Kwan's, showing no trace of youth in it.
"Yes," Danny said quietly. His eyes were narrowed, and still glowed, and his hands were still clenched into fists.
"How did you?" the ghost asked.
Danny ignored him. "You've been following me," he accused. "And you were overshadowing him to do it," he nodded to the unconscious Kwan lying on the floor between them. "I should have known sooner. All the signs were there."
He fixed the ghost with a hard stare. "I should have known, but I wasn't paying attention. How you refused to eat or drink anything, it was because you're a ghost. You don't eat food."
"I only ate the barest minimum, so that I could get by without this body collapsing," the ghost agreed.
"And the exercise," Danny said shakily. "I'd wondered why you kept going and going without stopping for a break." He let out a breath of air he didn't realize he'd been holding in. "It's because your endurance lasts longer than a human's."
"Very astute," the ghost replied.
His insouciance infuriated Danny. He had infiltrated one of his schoolmate's bodies for weeks now, had purposely gotten close to Danny, and here he was now, simply flaunting it and waiting for Danny to piece everything together.
"But I should have known," Danny continued, "I should have known when my ghost sense started getting affected."
The ghost remained silent now, his ghostly tail wavering.
"All this time," Danny felt shame rising within him, thinking of how he had missed the most obvious clue. "All this time, the answer was staring me in the face; I just couldn't see it." His gaze grew cold. "That day when I'd been sick, and found Technus in my parents' lab – that was the first time I noticed it. My ghost sense was working fine when I found him, but later when I had my back turned to him, and he hit me – I should have been able to sense him coming towards me. I didn't realize at the time, that was when I first thought something was wrong with my powers. But now it's so obvious: I couldn't sense him coming at me because you'd only been a few feet from where I was standing at the time.
"And the first time my powers stopped—" everything was clicking in his brain now; Danny wasn't even regulating the words coming out of his mouth. They just came as each single connection was made. "I hadn't noticed it back then, but the first time my ghost sense fizzled out … Ember had snuck up behind me. You must have been right below me, because we came into my room, you burst in and started attacking. You were blocking my ghost sense."
"During Paulina's party …" he muttered. "I thought that we'd been struck by an earthquake. Sam told me it was a ghost; it had slammed its tentacle against one of the house's walls. I should have been able to tell it was a ghost, but I couldn't – and you were beside me the whole night." He leveled his gaze with the ghost's.
"And," he realized, "that day I ditched you and Dash to go to the park with Tucker! Dash said you'd left to find me only a few minutes after I left, but we didn't come across you at all. You were hiding from us – that's why I didn't sense Bullet when he came after me."
He racked his brains for more instances. "That day when Bertrand attacked the school – I told Sam and Tucker to get away; I heard her tell someone to get lost, but I thought that she was talking to Tucker." His breaths were coming in short gasps now. "When I was searching for Tucker to get the Fenton Thermos, he hit me from behind." The scene replayed in his brain; he remembered the searing pain he had felt as Bertrand got in an easy hit. "I had just passed the classroom you were in," he remembered. "And that's why I couldn't sense him; you were only a few feet away."
Mentioning the Fenton Thermos brought him to the last example. "And that day in the cinema," he said quietly, "that was my biggest clue of all; I just didn't know it.
"I thought Tucker had thrown me the Fenton Thermos. But he didn't; you did. I didn't know you were there, but it makes sense now. That's why I didn't sense that big ghost, and that's why I didn't sense the one at the Nasty Burger today. And that's how you got hold of a Fenton Thermos." His eyes flashed. "You picked it up when Tucker lost it; I threw it back in your direction when I was done, because I thought that was where he was." His feet left the ground and he hovered in midair, just like the ghost in front of him was doing. "Did I miss anything out?"
"I'm sure whatever you may have, you'll be able to figure out," the ghost replied. "You've done so well already. I admit, I didn't expect to leave behind such a long big trail. I didn't know I managed to block out your spectral sense entirely; I had willed it, so that you would not detect me so easily, yes, but to obstruct it completely – I suppose I don't know my own strength."
"A lot of good that'll do you now," Danny's hands flared with green fire. "By the time I'm through with you, you won't even have the strength to pick yourself up from the floor."
The ghost raised his hand, gesturing for Danny to stop. "You misunderstand me," he said. "All this time, I've been around you – don't you think that if I wanted to kill you, I would have done it by now?"
"You were biding your time," Danny said quickly.
"And exactly what would I have been biding my time for?" the ghost demanded.
"You're after the Plasmius soul," Danny rose higher in the air. "Just like all the rest."
"And if I wanted the Plasmius soul," the ghost reasoned, "wouldn't I have gone for it by now?"
"No," Danny shook his head, his mouth in a grim line, "not after seeing me deal with everyone else that had come after it. Your strategy was to get close enough."
"Not only are you jumping to conclusions," the ghost gave a thin smile, "you're leaping in bounds and struggling to find a strand of reasoning. If my strategy were simply to get close to you in order to obtain the Plasmius soul, as you so call it, why would I settle for this body, this human you apparently held almost no contact with until after I arrived rather than one of those two friends of yours? In this form, you don't trust me enough to even talk about the spirit you keep, much less give me a chance to get near it."
"You've been in my house!" Danny bellowed. "Any of those times you strolled in, you could have tried to take it."
"Yes," the ghost said softly. "I could have. But instead, all I have taken during my time here are weapons to arm myself with and this device you use to store ghosts in.
"Don't you see, Danny?" he said, "I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here to protect you."
Danny stared, stunned. "Protect me from what?"
"All the ghosts that want the soul for themselves," the ghost said. "I don't want them to have it any more than you do; we both know that they would do nothing with it but to further their own means. The spirit is safest with you, and that's where I want it to remain. Why do you think I've been training myself so hard? It is so that I can better defend myself against the onslaught, and thus better defend you."
His smooth voice told Danny not to trust him, but he had to admit, he felt some of his anger ebb away. The ghost floated closer. "My name is Tyrant," he offered. Then without warning, he whipped forward back into Kwan's body. Taken off-guard, Danny stared baffled for a moment, then with an angry sound raised his fist up and slammed it down into Kwan's body.
The moments he had spent trying to gather his wits, however, cost him the advantage, for Kwan's body turned intangible, unharmed by Danny's fist. Inwardly, Danny was thankful; he had reacted without thinking, and only now realized that such a blow directly into the jock's body could have killed him.
Kwan's body rose up, still intangible, and floated out of his range before turning solid again. "You don't trust me yet," he said, returning to the boy's regular voice. "But you will, Danny, you'll see."
And with that, he propelled himself backwards, turning intangible and phasing through the wall, flying off into the night.
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Author's Note: Thanks for all your great reviews in the last chapter. I hope you enjoy this one too.
Kichi Hisaki, it never really mattered to me who was on top and who was on the bottom.