Happy Birthday Kas!
Think of this as second-hand POV from Danny's side. It was really fun to write and is basically Danny's thoughts in every Iambic Prose fic I write. Ever.
Inverted
:: (Pre Iambic Prose)
It just didn't make sense. Danny liked to think he at least knew a few things about himself. Sure being a teenager and having ghost powers threw a wrench into the works of how he was developing as a person but he at least liked to think he knew his type of boy/girl.
Geeky bookworm was not this type.
It was ridiculous how all his thoughts had been centering on Ghostwriter, or Andrew as he said his name was. It was just- It was ridiculous! How could one ghost take over his thoughts this much?! He would have thought he was stuck in another poem if it wasn't for the fact he had yet to rhyme.
And it wasn't just that he was thinking about him it was that he was thinking about him. Like during English when he aced a pop quiz because Andrew had sat him down and explained Shakespeare plays in a way that made him understand it flawlessly. Or when he was in a bookstore and he saw a book that he just knew the ghost would love and he ended up buying it and accidentally losing it when he was at the ghost's lair.
Then there was the fact he kept talking about Andrew whenever he wasn't around him, nonstop. His friends and sister had to ask him if he had suffered brain damage three times before he had even noticed what he was doing. And when he was with the writer he asked nonstop questions about his quirks, his habits, his hobbies, the things he liked, the things he hated. It was like he couldn't get enough knowledge about the other.
It was enough to drive Danny up the wall.
The worst part was when he had started ranting to one of the ghosts he was fighting about his dilemma. He always had possessed the irritating habit of ranting when he was put under stress. Like fighting. Considering this was the Ghost Zone everyone but Andrew knew about his not-a-crush by lunch. He was very thankful that Andrew never interacted with other ghosts. So thankful.
He had even looked it up, to see just how long a not-a-crush lasted. Apparently it was four months. Four. He had known Andrew for a year now. A year. To say he was losing his mind would have been an understatement. So now here he was, roaming around the Ghost Zone for the fifth day in a row trying to sort out his messed up priorities and emotions.
At least he thought it was five days. It was summer now and his friends were off on family vacations and Jazz was taking a summer course at college and his parents, he almost laughed at thinking his parents would notice he was gone. So really there was no one to keep track of the stupid things he did right now.
When he crashed into Vidya, Andrew's library lair, he found out that it had been nearer to ten days. Andrew was not pleased with him. In between his ranting and yelling and lecturing he was shoving Danny full of ghost food that would heal him of his exhaustion and food and water deprivation. He was also wrapping him in blankets, putting him near the fire, and giving him a steady stream of water and coffee.
It was when Andrew was taking his temperature and absently rubbing his cheek, as if it was an offhanded gesture of care, that Danny finally realized just what had happened. One gesture and a small smile and it was like the goddamn clouds had parted and the voice of God, or Clockwork, had started laughing at him.
It was like stepping into the portal all over again.
His life was once again flipped upside down – right side up? - with the stupidly simple knowledge of what his problem had been for the past year. Not only was he a Grade A idiot who was as clueless as a four-year-old asking where babies came from but he had also just figured out he was in love with the geeky bookworm who was now fussing over him.
No one would let him live this down.
Danny your friends and family will hold this over you forever.