A/N: Fhew, finally done, kind of an off the top of my head chapter.

Note: Alexithymia is the difficulty of recognizing and expressing emotion. This word may be used for a chapter, I'll have to see what I can come up with :)

Aglutition: (n.) The state of not being able to swallow.

Characters: Danny

Genre: Romance

Rating: K

Pairing: Danny/Sam

Summary: In which, Danny becomes a little less clueless.

Was it possible for a man, err...boy, to drown on dry land?

He had been asking himself that a lot lately. At first, the question had been purely hypothetical, a spurred off the moment thought. But the feelings of being breathless came each day, more often than he would like.

The reality of the situation, was that it was just going to get worse until he finally did something about it. He fought ghosts and saved the town on a daily basis, it shouldn't be so hard to pluck up some courage and finally act on his feelings.

Of course, speaking while breathless was usually a hard feat to do. When speaking, you have to actually suck air into your lungs, but he just found it impossible to do around her.

Sam had been leaving him sputtering and gasping for air on occasions, whether it was intentional or not, he didn't know. Sometimes he caught her giving him a smirk, thinking that it was on purpose, but other times he was clueless as ever.

Last week she and Tucker had been arguing about changing his Danny Phantom hazmat into something more...dazzling. Sam had vehemently disagreed, saying how he wanted to keep attention off himself, not attract it.

He hadn't thought anything about the conversation, laughing at the two of them bickering, until Sam threw him for a loop, casually muttering that he looked good, in black and white.

His face had been frozen in shock and bewilderment for quite a few minutes.

But today was the day he was finally going to do something about it. The day he was going to tell her how he felt. It was simple really, walk up to Sam, his best friend since forever, and spout out all of his feelings. Simple, right.

He had played out all of the possible scenarios in his mind the night before, some ending in acceptance, others ending in rejection that might have given him a case of alexithymia.

Pushing the thoughts out of his head, he continued on his way, making it to school fairly early today. Only to wait for Sam of course.

It was when he was waiting beside her locker, speculating the outcome, when she came up beside him.

Sam gave him a smile and a faint greeting of 'hey', before she motioned to open her locker. He stood next to her, a slight flush on his cheeks and mouth ajar. The familiar feeling of the air rushing out of his lungs washed over him. He couldn't swallow, could hardly breathe.

She was oblivious to the effect she had on him and finished rummaging through her locker to grab a notebook for class. Sam slammed her locker shut, stuffing the binder into her book-bag before turning towards him.

Taking one glance at his features, she frowned, concerned.

Barely registering the question she had asked about him being okay, he nodded vigorously. Sam grinned, raising an eyebrow in disbelief. He felt the breathlessness slowly come back from the smile she was shooting him.

She gazed up at him expectantly, encouragingly. The thoughts of rejection silently floated away, only acceptance in his mind.

Danny swallowed.