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.
Danny pulled open the door to the medicine cabinet and clumsily pawed through the various items located inside
Danny pulled open the door to the medicine cabinet and clumsily pawed through the various items located inside. Living with a pair of ghost-hunters with a knack for exploding inventions for parents meant that the house was usually well-stocked with beyond the typical first-aid kit. It was nearly two in the morning by the time Danny returned; he had taken far too long to gather his energy to move again after being knocked back down on the ground following his attacker's leave, and his recent injury had forced him to all but float home. All he wanted now was to dress the wound and get some sleep before having to drag himself to school.
He attempted to lean forward to get a better view of what he was doing and hissed in pain, his unoccupied arm flying to the wound. That hurt. It hurt more than any other abrasions he'd received in years. Back in her time, Valerie Gray had gotten a few good hits whenever she and Danny Phantom would scuffle, but over the years, his body's endurance had grown exponentially, and his recovery rate was nothing short of amazing. But this hurt.
"Danny?" he heard a sleepy voice behind him.
"Jazz?" he spun around quickly and winced as his body screamed in protest.
Jazz didn't miss the flinch, and immediately all remnants of drowsiness evaporated. She was instantly by his side, grasping the hand over the wound gently with her own smaller palms. "What's wrong?" she asked worriedly. "Let me see."
"No, it's okay, I—" Danny was cut off when she raised the hem of his shirt and hissed in sympathy at the sight of a nasty burn marring the side of her brother's body.
"How did this happen?" she asked.
Danny's shoulders slumped. "I ran into some guy – and he was carrying a gun."
"What kind of a gun causes … this?" she gestured to the wound.
Danny pulled his shirt back down. "The kind meant to take down ghosts," he snapped, turning back to the medicine cabinet to resume rummaging through it. "Go back to sleep."
"Your skin looks charred! They might be third-degree burns – we need to get you to the hospital – there might be extensive nerve damage preventing you from feeling the full effect…"
Danny winced as he felt a particularly sharp spike in pain. "No, Jazz," he gritted, "I'm feeling the effect, trust me."
He finally found what he was looking for, pulling out a roll of gauze and tossing it to lie on a nearby table. Jazz's face softened, and she reached in to add a few bottles Danny usually disregarded. "You need to clean it first," she reprimanded softly, guiding him to a seat and pulling off his shirt completely.
Danny sighed in relief at being able to sit and let his head loll back. Jazz grabbed a packet containing wads of cotton and pressed one over the head of a container before tipping it over so that the liquid wetted it, then pressed it against Danny's skin. Danny let out a cry at the unexpected flash of pain, but quickly silenced himself for fear of waking their parents.
Jazz tutted and went to refrigerator to pull out an ice tray, breaking off a few and wrapping them in a light cloth. "Here," she handed it to Danny. "Keeping the skin cool will help with further tissue damage."
Danny accepted it gratefully and pressed the cloth against the wound, letting out a quiet hiss. "Why are you even up?" he questioned.
"I wanted to get a glass of water," Jazz told him. "Standing on that soapbox today took a lot out of me."
Danny nodded, feeling a bit guilty about the fact that he hadn't done anything to help alleviate the situation with the Guys in White, but brushed it off quickly. Jazz loved this kind of stuff, and he would probably only get in the way. Still, he felt the need to tell her that he was doing something to help the family, and found himself saying, "I was thinking I'd sneak into the van and see what those guys are up to, if they have anything on us."
He expected Jazz to tell him not to do it, that it was dangerous and stupid, but to his surprise she nodded in approval. "That's a good idea," she commended. "It's always best to see what the enemy's got going for them."
"You think so?" Danny asked, feeling a bit bolstered by her words. "I thought you'd tell me not to because it was breaking and entering."
"It's not like you haven't done it before," she shot back. "I'd say this is an overall better use of your powers than sneaking into the girls' locker room, wouldn't you?"
And just like that, what little bit of a good mood he had vanished. "Jazz…" he started tentatively. He wanted to ask her what she thought about him and Dash, about the possibility that her little brother might be gay. Jazz seemed to sense that he was trying to say something meaningful, because her face arranged itself into a sober expression, waiting for him to get the words out. "…Never mind."
Jazz seemed a bit disappointed but nodded. She approached the table, taking the ice pack away from him and grabbing another bottle, which she uncapped, aimed at the mark, and then pressed the nozzle. Danny's face twisted and his mouth fell open, but he managed to hold his scream in. "It'll help," she soothed, pressing the nozzle once more. Then she finally reached for the gauze, pulling it across his torso several times until they completely covered the area of the wound and a few inches above and below it.
"You should at least have the school nurse look at it," she advised, pulling back to inspect her work.
Danny snorted, gently pressing his hand against the gauze to see how well it held up. Jazz did good work, he had to admit. "And tell her what, that I was flying over Amity Park when some maniac with an ecto-gun scored a direct hit?"
"Or you could say that the steam from your car's radiator was responsible," she suggested.
Danny pulled his shirt back on slowly and rested his elbows on his lap, keeping his eyes down. "Thanks, Jazz," he muttered.
She ran her fingers through his hair quickly, knowing he hated it when she did that – heaven knows why, she would always think; his hair was messy enough as it was. "Take care of yourself, Danny," she said warmly, then made her way back upstairs, all thoughts of hydrating herself forgotten.
Light filtered through Danny's eyes. He squeezed them tighter in attempt to coax his body back into hibernation and buried his face in the pillow groaning. It became apparent soon enough that he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, so he turned over and rubbed his eyes, stretching luxuriously.
He bolted upright when he realized it was Thursday morning and scrambled for his cellphone still in the pocket of his jeans which were crumpled at the bottom of the makeshift bed.
"Twelve thirty-two?" he shrieked in horror. He had missed half his classes!
Choosing to forgo a shower was a no-brainer. He threw on his clothes and hopped to the kitchen still trying to pull on his pants to collect his books and found Jazz and Jasper there munching on pretzels. Jasper caught sight of him and held one of the packets up. Danny ignored him.
"What's the rush, Danny?" Jazz asked when he flew past her to dump all his textbooks haphazardly into his bag.
"I'm late!" Danny couldn't keep the desperation out of his voice. "Lancer's going to kill me. Why didn't anybody wake me up?"
Jazz shrugged. "Mom and Dad left before you usually do, and we only got down here at ten. Besides, what does it matter? You're a senior."
"Lancer already thinks I'm a slacker, the last thing I need is for him to get on my case for skipping." The idea of staying home did seem tempting. School let out in three hours anyway, what was the point? Danny shook his head. He hadn't managed to get any studying done the previous night – he had to do something to ease his conscience.
Jazz shrugged. "Suit yourself. All I know is, I didn't bother going for the last couple of weeks of my senior year. I found independent study to be much more rewarding."
"Yeah, well, we're not all so lucky," Danny grumbled, snatching up his keys and running out the door.
Lunch was already over by the time Danny reached school. He hadn't been able to find a space in the school's tiny parking lot at this hour and so had had to drive around searching for someplace safe to stow his car without he risk of coming back to it with a ticket under the wiper. He cursed himself for not having thought of flying to school until he was already halfway to his destination point, but there was nothing to be done about it.
Worse luck waited for him inside. "Ah, Mister Fenton," Lancer was incidentally the first one Danny met, "so nice of you to join us. We missed you in History – and in Calculus too."
"Sorry, Mister Lancer," Danny mentally kicked himself for not turning invisible until he had safely secured himself in his next class. "I can't really talk; I'm due in shop class."
"Very well, Mister Fenton" Lancer was surprisingly willing to let him go without a lecture. "Tell your sister my fellow staff members and I will see her at the protest lines."
Danny blinked, then remembered Jazz's ramblings about what was going to happen Saturday. "Right," he said quickly, then rushed off to find his classroom.
Dash happened to take shop class as an elective as well, and he just so happened to be positioned in the seat right behind Danny's. It had been somewhat of a pain at first, with all the opportunities of lobbing spitballs the spot offered the jock, but Danny was glad now for the chance to have him close.
Kwan had taken the class as well, but as he was still in the hospital under observation, Danny took the opportunity to sidle up next to Dash that day. "Whatcha' doin'?" he asked.
"Coffee table," Dash grunted, not taking his eyes off his roaring tools.
"Isn't that a bit simplistic for a final assignment?" Danny questioned, snapping his safety goggles on.
"Let's see what you have to say once it's done," Dash chanced a grin before turning back to his work again. "What are you doing?"
"Miniature clock," Danny informed. Dash's eyebrows shot up, a sign that he was impressed. "Well," Danny amended, "Tuck's going to handle the mechanical part. I'm just creating the vessel."
Dash snorted. "Why not pick something you can do yourself then?"
"Because I need all the marks I can get," Danny said truthfully.
Danny had wanted Sam and Tucker to sign up for shop class with him, but Sam had opted for Drama instead, having always wanted to see if her artistic abilities spread so far as to help her survive the high school stage, and Tucker had glumly informed him his mother hadn't allowed him to, fearing that combining power tools with eyesight as poor as her son's was a sure death sentence and had insisted that he take cooking instead in order to prevent himself from starving once he was left to fend for himself. Still, Tucker had offered to help with what he could when Danny had mentioned that he needed to step up in order to get as good a grade as possible in any and all of his classes.
They worked in silence for a while again. Danny had to admit he was a bit surprised it was so comfortable between them given the fight they had just had the previous day.
"So Kwan's still not out yet, huh?" Danny asked in order to keep the silence from turning awkward.
"No, but I'm going to see him after school and he'll tell me if he'll be out in time for Senior Breakfast tomorrow." Dash hesitated. "Do you want to come along?"
Danny paused a moment, considering. "Nah," he shook his head. He figured he had done his bit with the visits – it was obvious Kwan was ready to rejoin them any day regardless of whether he made it for tomorrow's event or not – and now he had an excuse to respectfully bow out, thanks to yesterday's incident.
Dash nodded and left the issue alone.
"So I'm picking you up tomorrow," he said conversationally.
"Oh, yeah, I saw," Danny nodded. "Where are we headed?"
Dash smirked. "Surprise."
Danny rolled his eyes. "It's really too bad we won't have any time alone," he said hoping for his voice to find a tone between suggestive and nonchalant.
"Isn't Foley in my car too?" he questioned, to which Danny nodded. "So is Kwan."
"Great. Two best friends to worry about."
Dash snorted. Neither of them could think of a thing to say after that so they continued working in silence. It was quite hard to talk over the whirring of the drill Dash was using anyway.
Danny had always had a remarkable ability to ignore his bruises; even as a child, while other kids ran to their mothers to have them tend to the scrapes they'd gotten, he'd push his out of his thoughts in favor of staying outside to play with his friends some more – a little water, a band aid, and it would be taken care of, he knew – but this time, he'd spent two classes in a row trying to bite down agonized screams, and had so decided to take Jazz's advice on going to the school nurse.
He had never been there aside from one occasion that involved what the nurse described as a 'fainting spell' in his sophomore year – the truth was that he'd been distracted by worries over an unfinished report that was due later in the day and had been slammed right into a brick wall by some ghost and had been carried over by Sam and Tucker; he'd been excused from the rest of his classes and had managed to pull a decent grade on the paper he had handed up the next day – but had gotten familiar with the entire routine thanks to Tucker's many trips to the nurse himself, whether it be due to his tendency to get into accidents or just his habit of faking.
Nurse Alridge ushered him inside and sat him down a tiny bed. "I don't usually get visitors towards the end of the year," she busied herself with getting a stethoscope and thermometer, "much less a senior." She tried to shove the apparatus into his mouth, but Danny resisted.
"I just need you to take a look at something," he protested, trying to bat her hands away. He straightened his back and lifted his shirt just high enough for her to see the marks.
"Dear Lord, what caused that?" she leaned forward to inspect it.
"Uh, my car radiator," Danny remembered the excuse Jazz had cooked up for him. Nurse Alridge stared at him in horror.
"Good grief, Mister Fenton, we ought to take you to the hospital!"
"No!" Danny hollered. "I mean – my parents will take care of it. They'll take me to the hospital if they think it's bad. I just need you to tell me what you think."
"If you say so, Mister Fenton," the nurse said doubtfully. She put on the glasses that had been dangling around her neck to get a better view. "You say your radiator did this?"
"Yeah," Danny said nervously. "Why – does it not look that way?"
"Not really, no," Alridge replied, snapping on a pair of gloves and squeezing a dollop of gel on to her fingers from a tube. "I see some cuts on the area; I suppose the steam could have been hot enough to break the skin, but it doesn't really look that way. It looks like something from a blast or something. Something highly-concentrated."
"How would you know that?" Danny questioned.
"Being a nurse at Casper High offers you training no other institution could give, Mister Fenton," she rubbed at the spot, sending a cool sensation spreading through his body. "You wouldn't believe the things I've seen. Did you know, Valerie Gray used to come in with the strangest afflictions on her body … how does this feel?"
Danny gritted his teeth, not used to the stimulation around his wound. "Fine," he got out.
Nurse Alridge pushed her chair back and slid her glasses off her nose. "Well, Fenton," she said, "I highly recommend that you go to a doctor as soon as possible with that. Until then, take this," she reached over to the cabinet behind her and tossed his a moderate-sized tube. Danny inspected it.
"What's this?"
"Aloe vera. It's the only thing I can think to prescribe without knowing what caused your wound – I think we both know a car radiator wouldn't be capable of that," she added severely when he opened his mouth to protest.
"Thank you," Danny said shamefully, stuffing the tube into his backpack.
"Good luck on your finals, Mister Fenton," she bade before shutting the door.
Danny ran into Sam and Tucker outside when the final bell rang. "Hey," Sam said with some surprise. "We didn't see you in homeroom. We thought you skipped out."
"I was late," Danny fumed. "I slept through my alarm, and Jazz did nothing to wake me up."
"Why'd you come? I thought you had no problems with ditching," Tucker reminded.
"I don't want Lancer getting on my case any more than he's already done," Danny defended, then after a moment, added, "and I needed to see the nurse."
"Why?" Sam frowned.
"It's nothing major," he tried to console. Then he sighed, "Well, actually, it is – come here."
He pulled them to one side of the building where there were less people milling about, looked around to make sure no one was paying attention to them, then lifted his shirt. Sam and Tucker hissed in sympathy as they saw the welts and cuts.
"Danny, what happened?" Sam asked in a horrified tone.
"An ecto-gun happened," Danny said soberly. "You'll never believe what I ran into last night." And he proceeded to tell them the story of the mysterious ghost hunter and his death threat.
"Who would want to hunt you down?" Sam questioned.
"That's a little obvious; maybe it was a Guy in White," Tucker suggested. "They've got the build, and they've got the access to hi-tech gear."
Danny hadn't considered that, but it was a very plausible idea. They had more motive than anyone else he could think of. "Look, I've got to take care of this. Jazz is worried and the nurse said I should go to a doctor. I just can't let my parents find out."
"What are you going to do?" Tucker raised his eyebrows. "Any reputable doc will definitely call your folks."
Danny growled. "Isn't there some confidentiality law or something? I mean, what if I were pregnant? Would they call my parents for that too?"
"No," Sam smirked, "they'd call Time magazine and make the rounds to all the talk shows." Danny glowered at her.
"Will you guys just help me, please?"
"Alright, alright," Sam held her hands up, and paused to think. She snapped her fingers. "Is Jazz still home?"
"I don't know. Why?"
"If she is, we can give them your home number and she could pretend to be your mom. She's got the whole maturity thing going for her, doesn't she?"
"Since she was, like, eleven," Danny muttered. "Alright, let's go." He tossed Sam the car keys and slid into the passenger seat. On the ride to the hospital, he called Jazz on his cellphone and quickly explained what he needed her to do. She was hesitant, unsure that it would be so easy to fool the hospital and feeling certain that they had forgotten some important aspect, but had agreed eventually.
The receptionist was a dour-looking woman with heavy bags under her eyes. "Yes?" she grunted as the three teenagers approached.
"My friend here needs a doctor," Sam gestured towards Danny. "He's got a really bad burn, he needs someone to look at it."
"Fill out this form," she pushed a small stack of papers through the hole in the glass that separated them, and returned to her paperwork.
Sam eyed the sheets, her lip curling. "Can't we do this later? I mean, he's burned! He needs medical attention quick."
"Everyone needs to fill the forms, ma'am," the receptionist didn't even sound phased by Sam's unpleasant tone. "We need your personal information and medical insurance before a doctor can treat him."
The three of them froze. "Medical insurance?" Sam stammered.
The receptionist nodded slowly as if she thought the goth girl were a stupid child. Tucker collected the papers and they slowly made their way to the chairs.
"What are we going to do?" he hissed.
"I don't know," Sam whispered back. "If we try to fake it, they could can us for insurance fraud." They caught sight of the receptionist studying them and quickly bowed their heads pretending that they were working on the forms.
"Maybe you should call your parents," Tucker told him. "They can get everything sorted out."
"And have them freak out? How would I explain that I'd just been shot?"
"They'd never know! Without their insurance, how are you going to get your wound checked out?"
"This could be what you need, Danny," Sam nodded. "If it was a Guy in White, then this could finally be the reason to get them off your back."
"Whoever it was thought he shot Danny Phantom – how am I going to explain why Danny Fenton has the marks without giving myself away? Not to mention that if we're wrong and it wasn't a government agent, I'd have dug a bigger hole for myself."
Sam chewed at her lip. "I've got some money we can use," she offered. "If we can pay cash upfront, insurance probably won't matter."
"I am not going to use your money," Danny said, then clammed up in embarrassment as he realized just how loudly he had declared that. Lowering his voice, he muttered, "What do you take me for?"
"Then what are we going to do?" Sam persisted. Danny was ready to wash his hands clean of the whole matter. If he couldn't afford treatment, so be it – he still had the tube of aloe vera, and his recovery rate had often left him with hardly a trace of a mark from his previous scrapes. "I'm going for a walk," he muttered.
"Whoa, dude, we still have to finish this," Tucker waved the pile of papers in his hand but Danny was already walking away. Without thought, his feet guided him down the familiar path to the elevator and up to the floor Kwan was on.
"Fenton!" the bigger boy greeted cheerfully when Danny walked in.
"Hey, Kwan," Danny said glumly.
"Whoa, what's up with the raincloud?" Kwan noted immediately.
Danny shrugged and threw himself on to a chair, not bothering to meet the other boy's eyes.
They sat together in silence for about ten seconds before Kwan asked, "So, where's Dash?"
"Huh?" Danny blinked in surprise.
"Dash? Every time I see you here, you're with him. Is he signing in?" Kwan elaborated. Danny stared at him blankly for a moment before it hit him.
"Oh, no, I'm not – I'm not with Dash," he said lamely, and hated himself for how those words triggered another swell of moping within him. He knew he was being a baby, and unfairly contradictory with what he was expecting out of this relationship with Dash – some might even go so far as to say he was being unreasonable; butt damn it, he had spent the last four years of his life trying to protect the town he lived in only to be continuously hounded by the government and whatever civilian bearing a grudge who thought she could take him down on her own, deprived of human contact the way he needed it and craved it for too long and now was faced with the prospect that he, just his whole life in general, had no idea where it was going; he had more of a right to be unreasonable than Sam during that time of the month.
"Oh," Kwan sounded disappointed by this, but propped himself against his pillows to better look at Danny. "So what's up?"
Danny shrugged. "I was just around, I thought I'd see how you were doing."
"Thanks," Kwan said sincerely.
There was a moment's pause. "So how are you?" Danny asked.
Kwan shrugged. "I'm good. My folks are trying to get the doctors to let me leave since they can't find anything wrong with me."
Danny nodded mutely again. The truth was, he couldn't think of a single thing to talk to Kwan about. The friend he had thought he made so many weeks ago had disappeared, and now here was the boy he had gone to school with all his life but had never gotten to know. At least he wasn't the only one – Kwan tapped a finger against the blanket that covered most of his body while keeping his eyes averted. Eventually he piped up, "Hey, so Senior Breakfast; that should be fun."
"Yeah," Danny said, grateful that Kwan was the one who brought up a topic. "You going?"
"Maybe," Kwan said. "Depends on if I get the okay from the doctor." They lapsed into silence again. "How's CH?"
"Huh?"
"Casper," Kwan clarified.
"Oh, it's…" Danny paused, then decided it would be no use to lie.. "God, it sucks. Lancer's gone off the deep end, everyone is scared shitless for finals, and these are the guys who actually did something with their year to get into college, unlike me, I just sat on my ass for all of eight months; I think the government might be spying on our school because of me, and..." The look on Kwan's face told Danny that he was rambling and he was fortunately able to pull himself together before spilling any more secrets of a more incriminating nature. "Sorry," he hung his head abashedly. "I'll just be going now."
Unwilling to return so quickly to his friends who were no doubt still puzzling over the admission forms, Danny tucked his hands into the pockets of his baggy jeans and strolled around, not paying attention to anything in particular. His focus returned when he thought he heard a voice calling his name.
"Daniel!"
"Vlad?" Danny couldn't keep the surprise out of his voice when he found himself staring at the older man dressed down in one of the hospital gowns and lying in bed. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, I came in about a couple of days ago," Vlad said casually.
"Why?" Danny frowned.
"That crackpot I hired up and quit on me," Vlad growled. "Said that he couldn't handle the abuse anymore, when I was the one who housed and clothed him out of my own expenses when all he had to do was give me the medication he prescribed." He laid back, a serene smile gracing his face again. "So I decided to come here and receive the best treatment a former mayor could possibly receive," he gestured to the large private room.
"What are you in for?" Danny questioned.
"My heart murmurs," Vlad reminded. "And what brings you here, Daniel?"
"Oh, I was just…" Danny decided midway to show him, and lifted up his shirt. Vlad winced and let out a hiss of sympathy. "Sam and Tucker are trying to get me checked out by someone here right now, but we're trying to figure out how to do that without alerting my parents."
Vlad fingered a nonexistent beard. "And I suppose you're going to tell me I'm to blame for you receiving such an injury?" He clearly had not forgotten Danny's accusation the last time they had met.
"I'm pretty sure this is all on me, but then again, I'm not very sure of anything these days," Danny said pitifully.
Vlad didn't say anything for a minute and Danny wondered if it would be proper to excuse himself when the older man was scrutinizing him so closely; then Vlad said, "Well, I think I have the perfect solution then," and he reached over to buzz a nurse.
A heavyset woman with an exasperated look on her face appeared. "Something you need, Mister Masters?" she asked with a tone that suggested she had asked this question too many times before.
"Oh, nurse," Vlad said in an overly-sweet manner, "my young charge here is in need of medical assistance. Could you be a dear and have a doctor attend to him? Tell him that I shall cover the bill."
The nurse's eyes shifted to Danny, who ducked his head in embarrassment. She gave a curt nod and walked away. Vlad patted himself on the stomach in self-satisfaction. Danny turned to him, unsure whether to thank or berate the man, when he noticed a rather large scar on Vlad's right arm.
"Hey, what's that?" Danny's eyes widened. The clean line running through his skin looked new. He reached for Masters' arm to inspect it more closely only to have his palm slapped rather painfully away.
"Don't touch that," Vlad snapped.
Danny rubbed his stinging hand. "Don't tell me you drove the nurses here so crazy that they tried to scratch you to death already," he mocked.
"Oh, I see," Vlad said sarcastically, "this is how you show your appreciation for people who have just offered to pay your medical bill."
That sobered Danny up, and he gazed at Vlad with grateful eyes. "No, seriously, thanks Vlad. That means a lot to me."
Vlad folded his arms, looking determined to continue admonishing him, but then sighed and said, "Well, what else is a rich old man to do?"
"Oh, come on," Danny said awkwardly. He usually teased his parents about their age, and so was unsure how to cheer the grey-haired man about his.
"No, Daniel, it's true – my life is coming to a close, I told you that when I gave you my ghost half," Vlad paused. "Well, not in so many words, but why else would I give it up?
"Normally, I would have left you to squirm and let Jack scrounge up the money to bail you out, but I've got to spend my ridiculously large fortune some time, lest it go to the government or whoever sees fit to rob a corpse."
Danny stared as Vlad's fist curled in detest. "Uh, yeah. Look, I better go. Thanks for taking care of it!" he chirped over his shoulder, throwing a careless wave goodbye.
Author's Note: I did write more, but it always seemed to end on a boring note, so I figured better to cut it abruptly and leave it a bit funny instead.
Sorry for the massive wait, things have been getting hectic in college. Please read and review! :D
Edit: WTF happened to all the lines I used as dividers? Why are the people who run this place so obsessive-compulsive about changing every little bit of this site's capabilities until you never know WHAT'S happening anymore? One day you can't put in an obliq, one day you can't put the kinds of dividers you want - what next? Are we not going to be able to italicize with the next "upgrade"?