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raaorqtpbpdy · 26 days

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Spaghetti and Specters

Spike is going to his girlfriend's house for dinner to meet her family for the first time, and Man does he regret not doing any research on them beforehand. Now he has to fight for his damn life over a plate of what is honestly kind of mediocre spaghetti.

For @darthfrodophantom's prompt: Jazz brings a date home for the first time. She didn’t exactly brief them on her family’s whole ghost thing. Antics ensue.

Read on AO3

[Warnings for anxiety and overthinking spirals, mentions of abusive parents (not the Fentons)]

"You're sure about this?" he asked. "Parents don't typically like me."

He was standing on the front porch of his girlfriend's house. The sun had just gone down, and it wasn't quite dark yet, but it was starting to get cold, and it made him wish he'd brought a jacket, aesthetic be damned.

"My parents are not your parents, Spike," Jazz insisted, straightening his leather vest and fishnet sleeves, and he relished the warmth of her hands as she did so. "My younger brother has a goth friend who comes over all the time, and they've never had a problem with her. They're not the types who judge based on appearances. They may be... apprehensive, but they'll at least give you the chance to prove whether your respectable or not before they give you the shovel talk."

"Oh, joy."

His sarcasm was something his parents had tried to shame out of him for a long time, but Jazz never did. She said that it was just a coping mechanism, and a pretty common one at that. The worst she would ever do was roll her eyes like she did now.

"Come on, Spike, they're giving you a chance," she said. "The least you can do is extend them the same courtesy."

"And what about the non-binary thing? Have you told them yet?"

"My brother's trans, too, I think I've told you that before. If they hold that against you, then there are gonna be much bigger problems at this dinner than whether they like you or not," she responded, amusement lacing her tone. "I know you're anxious, and that's understandable. If you really don't want to do this, I won't force you, but you're stronger than your fear."

"You definitely want me to meet your parents?"

She shrugged and nodded. "I won't force you to, but yes, I do."

"Then I'll do it," he said. "For you."

She smiled that pearly smile of hers, the one where you could actually see that she'd never forgotten to brush her teeth in her life, and she pushed up on tip-toe to give him a kiss on the cheek. Spike was actually shorter than her, when he took his shoes off, but his platform goth boots alleviated his dysphoria over his height, and they looked damn good doing it. He liked when she stood on tip-toe to kiss him, loved the feeling of tilting his head down and wrapping his arms around her warm body and pulling her flush against him like she belonged there.

He didn't do that now, because they were standing on her front porch, illuminated by the bright neon sign overhead, and all the neighbors could see. But a kiss on the cheek was nice too.

He took a deep breath and smiled at her. His smile was small and dull, barely a twitch of the lips, and nothing like hers, dazzling, and full-toothed. She said she liked it anyway. She said it suited him. And he always believed what Jazz told him, because she was the most brilliant person he knew, and she'd never ever wrong.

"I'm ready," he said.

Jazz pushed open the door and walked in, and he followed a few steps behind her, his steps feeling mechanical and his shoulders tensed. At first glance, the inside appeared to be a perfectly normal home. On closer inspection, however, there were a few things that didn't quite fit. The vacuum cleaner in the corner looked weirdly high tech, and there was a magazine called Ectoscience Quarterly on the coffee table. The air also smell faintly of ozone and something else Spike couldn't place, something sour. Citrus maybe? No... he didn't think that was right.

Standing there, in the living room, Spike became suddenly and acutely aware that Jazz never talked about her parents. She talked about herself, and her dreams, and stories from her past; she would bring up her brother in passing from time to time, and although Spike never learned very much about him at one time, she'd mentioned him enough now that Spike had begun to form a mental image of the freshman in his mind; but she never talked about her parents.

Spike talked about his parents all the time, since Jazz was usually willing to let him vent to her, though he always asked first, just in case. He liked having someone to talk to that he trusted, and he trusted Jazz more than anyone else. She said that his family was manipulative, controlling, and emotionally abusive, and he'd never once argued with her, because they were. Jazz was always right, after all. The second he turned eighteen, he was going to move out, one way or another, and she had an open invitation to join him, although she hadn't accepted it. At least... not yet.

The most Jazz had ever said about her parents was something along the lines of, "and my parents, ugh, they're certainly not making it any easier."

That, she said kind of a lot. He'd asked before if she wanted to vent, but she always shook her head and told him she'd rather focus on other things instead of dwelling on her frustration. Her parents, apparently, frustrated her a lot, though he knew she loved them anyway. He hoped that meant that she could love him anyway, too, even when he frustrated her.

Still, that wasn't to say he knew nothing about her parents, just... almost nothing. He'd heard the Fenton name thrown around enough, at school, and by adults around town, that he'd at least gathered they were somewhat infamous, though he didn't know why. Spike was never one for eavesdropping, or gossip, and his hearing wasn't the best anyway, so he was always out of the loop on the local hot topics—except for the stores.

The Fenton Works sign on their house seemed to indicate that they owned some kind of business, although doing what, he didn't know. Maybe some kind of technology or repair shop? Although most of the business must've been online or their ground floor would be more commercial.

Come to think of it, he had seen them once before, at the beginning of the school year—months before he and Jazz had started dating, back when he was just the classmate who helped her with her psych homework. If he recalled correctly, they'd captured Jazz in a net for some reason and carried her away. Whatever that had been about, he had not wanted to get involved, especially since he honestly barely knew her back then, so he'd just left.

Now that he was in their house, surrounded by that weird, increasingly acrid smell, he was wishing he'd done a little more research before agreeing to come over for dinner.

"They're probably in the kitchen," Jazz said.

He continued to follow her through a doorway, and into what looked, on the surface, to be an ordinary kitchen. Counters, cupboards, tile floors, all perfectly ordinary. There was a decent-sized, round table in the center of the room with five mismatched place-settings, and as many mismatched chairs. There was a homey feel to it. Though it was a little cramped, and eclectic, it still felt much more welcoming than his own dining room ever did, always with a spotless tablecloth and matched sets of dishes and silverware.

But Spike also noticed suspicious green stains on the table's surface that didn't look like they could have come from any food he knew of. Just like the vacuum cleaner, all their kitchen appliances also looked like they'd be more at home on the set of a sci-fi movie than in an urban apartment. Again, he wished he'd tried to learn more before just showing up here.

There was a red-haired woman in a teal jumpsuit standing over the stove, humming pleasantly, and Jazz groaned when she saw her.

"Mom, I thought I asked you to dress normally when Spike came over!"

"But honey, this is how I normally dress," Jazz's mom replied, turning. "And you must be Spike. My, that's a nice vest! Jazz has told us a lot of nice things about you."

"Uh, yeah, that's me, and thank you," Spike said awkwardly. "It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Fenton."

"Oh you can just call me Maddie," she said. "And it's wonderful to meet you too. My husband's downstairs in the lab, but he'll be up for dinner, you can count on that."

She chuckled like that was supposed to be funny and Spike let out a weak, uncertain laugh so she didn't think her joke fell flat, even though he didn't understand it.

"You can go ahead and have a seat wherever you like," she told him. "Jazz, would you mind letting Danny know that dinner's almost ready? He's up in his room."

"Sure, Mom."

Jazz left the room without a second thought, and Spike was left with the utterly horrifying decision of whether to sit down at the table, risk taking someone else's usual seat and disrupting the family's usual dinner dynamic, as well as condemning himself to spending time alone with his girlfriend's mom; or backing out to find a seat in the living room, and giving Mrs. Fenton the impression that he was the kind of rude, anti-social person who would just leave her there to cook without any company or conversation.

Oh no, he realized.

He'd been standing there too long to leave. If he'd wanted to wait in the living room, he should have left the kitchen at the same time Jazz did. There was no backing out now. Now his only option was to sit at the table before he gave her the impression that he was an indecisive wuss by standing there too long. But which seat? Should he go with the one that looked the least worn? They all looked pretty worn, but maybe that was just because the seats didn't stay in the same position.

Just sit down anywhere! urged Spike's panicked thoughts. Your mere presence at the table is going to disrupt the dinner dynamic. Sit down now before she thinks your some kind of weirdo!

He reached out mechanically to pull out the chair closest to him and take a seat. Mission success. God, this was why Jazz said he probably had anxiety disorder. He was really trying to stop overthinking things so much, but this situation just made that tendency flare up like it usually only did around his own parents.

"Sorry none of the tableware matches," Mrs. Fenton said, though she was still standing over the pot, and not looking at him. "Jack and Danny are both a bit clumsy, so dishes tend to get broken a lot by mistake around here, chairs too, if you can believe it." She laughed.

When Spike smiled, he tried to make it bigger than usual, stretching his lips a little wider so she wouldn't mistake that he was smiling. It probably just looked creepy. He should stop. Should he stop? He should say something.

"I don't mind," he said. "It makes this place feel lived-in—like a home, I mean. I just think there's something kind of... uh... aloof about everything being a perfect matched set."

"You know, I like that," Mrs. Fenton said. "That's a very interesting point of view. Certainly makes me feel better about it." She laughed again. She was a cheerful woman, that or she just happened to be in a very good mood today.

"I must say, you seem like a nice boy," she said after a moment. "Jazz's last boyfriend was a punk. Very disrespectful and reckless. I don't know what she saw in him."

"I'm actually not..." Spike trailed off, unsure if he should even say anything. Jazz said her parents wouldn't mind, but he was still hesitant to contradict her mom.

"Hm? Not what, dear?"

Oh, damn it, she was already calling him dear, he couldn't lie to her now. "I'm non-binary," he said, trying to keep his voice steady and not let it fall too quiet as he spoke. "I'm Jazz's partner, not her boyfriend."

"Oh! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to assume," Mrs. Fenton said immediately, looking back at him sympathetically. "Would you prefer I use they/them pronouns for you?"

"I actually prefer he/him, but they/them is fine with me, too. Whichever's easier for you."

"If you prefer he, then I'll use that," she told him. "I know that's what Jazz uses, too. I guess that's why I assumed you were a boy, but that's my bad. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

The only thing stopping Spike from tearing up at a parental figure not only correcting themself when they misgendered him, but also apologizing for it, was the fact that he'd worked so hard on his eyeliner before coming here and didn't want to smudge it by crying.

"It's alright," he said, then cleared his throat to keep his voice from shaking. "It was an honest mistake."

Jazz reappeared in the doorway then, with her little brother right behind her. Spike had seen the kid around school. He kept the company of one of the only other goth kids at Casper High, which was probably the only reason Spike had ever noticed him. He hadn't made the connection that this was Jazz's brother, though.

"Spike, right?" the boy said. "Danny. Nice to meet you." Without waiting for a response, he turned to look at his mother. "What's for dinner?" he asked.

Spike had been wondering that, too. He couldn't tell from the smell because it was overpowered by that other strange scent he still had yet to identify. He could swear he'd smelled it before, but he just couldn't place it.

"Spaghetti, Cobb salad, and garlic bread, and yes, you have to eat some salad before you leave the table," his mother replied. A timer dinged and she turned off the stove burner and put on a pair of oven mitts that were on the counter. "Danny, would you let your father know dinner's ready?"

Danny walked across the kitchen and opened a door on the far wall. Behind it was a dark, sloped hallway and some stairs, probably down to a basement.

"Dad! Dinner!" Danny called down before closing the door and walking back to take a seat at the table.

Jazz, mercifully, hung her jacket on the back of the chair to Spike's right to claim that seat. Then she went to help her mother transfer the food onto serving dishes. While the two of them started to put the food on the table, the building started to shake.

Spike grabbed the table, surprised. Was this an earthquake?

The basement door burst open, and Spike's eyes blew wide as he saw a gigantic man enter the kitchen. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit and a beaming smile that was actually strikingly like Jazz's. This must have been her father. She could have warned him that the man was a friggin' giant.

"Did I hear something about dinner?" His voice boomed, though it didn't seem like he was trying to be loud, more like he was just naturally big and imposing in every way.

"Yes, Jack, now take a seat," Mrs. Fenton told him. "Jack, that's Spike, Jazz's partner. You remembered he was coming over today, right?"

"I did not," Mr. Fenton said plainly, taking the seat on Spike's left. "It's nice to meet you, son!"

"He's non-binary, Jack," Maddie corrected gently. "He probably doesn't want to be called son."

It was true that, from a gender standpoint, son was not Spike's favorite word, but with the amount of affection Mr. Fenton had said it with, he actually didn't mind.

"Whoops, my mistake!" Mr. Fenton said. "It's nice to meet you, kiddo!" he turned to his wife. "Is that better?"

Spike tried not to get too choked up. "Yeah, thanks," he said, wondering if the Fentons could just adopt him now, or if that would be too awkward, since he was dating their daughter.

Everything was put on the table, and Jazz and her mom sat down in the remaining seats, Jazz to Spike's right, and Mrs. Fenton to her husband's left. Then the serving dishes were passed around the table so everyone could scoop themselves some spaghetti and take a slice of garlic bread and some salad (not very much salad in Danny or Mr. Fenton's case).

This part of dinner had little talking, except to ask for the salt or garlic bread to be passed. But once everyone had food in front of them, the conversation—the scary part of dinner with your girlfriend's parents—began in earnest.

"So, Spike, was it?"

Spike nodded at Mr. Fenton's question.

"What's your opinion about ghosts?"

"Dad!" Jazz whined. "Do we have to talk about ghosts at the dinner table?"

"What? It's just a question!" Mr. Fenton defended. "What else am I going to ask about?"

Jazz leaned over to Spike and shook her head. "You can ignore that. Ghosts are not a topic of conversation we have to engage with."

"No, it's fine," Spike said.

He really didn't understand why she was acting like this. They lived in Amity Park, so ghosts were a pretty common topic of conversation. When they attacked the town almost every day, that did tend to make people talk about them.

"Alright," Jazz said, as though he'd just insisted on going skydiving without any training, rather than having a conversation about current events. "If you're sure."

"Uh... I guess I'm neutral about ghosts," Spike answered finally, suddenly very unconfident in his decision to engage. He had thought ghosts would be a relatively safe topic, but he was definitely second guessing himself now. Were the Fentons some kind of ghost fanatics? "I wish they'd stop attacking our school so much, because it's really disruptive, but other than that, I don't really care one way or another."

"Disruptive, huh?" Mrs. Fenton repeated. "Yes, I'd say that's a perfect word for what ghosts are."

"Yes, although, I'll say if they were attacking my school all the time, I wouldn't exactly be neutral," Mr. Fenton agreed. "I'd want them gone."

"You want them gone anyway," Danny pointed out, rolling his eyes as he poked at his spaghetti.

This was, evidently, not the first time they'd heard all this.

Spike leaned over to his girlfriend and whispered, "Did I miss something? What's your parents' deal about ghosts?"

She turned to look at him with wide-eyed shock on her face. "Oh no," she whispered back. "Don't tell me you somehow didn't know? Everyone knows."

"Know what?"

"My parents are ghost hunters," she told him under her breath. "I thought you would have seen them making fools of themselves all over town, I didn't think there was anyone in Amity Park who didn't know, or I would have warned you."

"Oh."

Oh.

So her parents were fanatics, and he'd just decided to play hopscotch in a minefield. Great. At least that explained the weird stains, magazine, and anachronistic technology. And the smell. Now that Spike knew, that acrid smell was unmistakably ectoplasm, and if they were ghost hunters, it was no wonder that smell got stronger the closer he was to the basement where Mrs. Fenton had said the lab was.

How are you gonna worm your way out of this one, Spike? he wondered to himself.

What were his options?

First, he could keep trying to hold a conversation about ghosts with two people who A) knew way way way more about ghosts than he did, B) were way more passionate about ghosts that he was, and C) appeared to be very intense in their opinions on ghosts and would no doubt try to make him feel the same way they did. That sounded awful, but as long as he let them lead the conversation he could probably come out of it without looking like a bad person or a bad partner for their daughter.

Another option was attempting to change the topic, but that would require coming up with a new topic to talk about, and depending on the depths of the Fentons ghost fixation, there was a solid chance they'd find a way to bring the conversation back around to ghosts anyway. If they did that, he'd have to come up with another new topic of conversation, and that loop could continue until the end of the night when he could finally leave. He wasn't sure how fast he would have to cycle through conversation topics, and his mind was already blanking trying to come up with just one.

His final option was to fake some kind of emergency and run, but that would almost certainly lower the Fentons opinion of him, so he would rather put that in his back pocket and use it only as a last resort.

In his silence while Spike considered the best course of action, the Fenton parents had continued talking about the danger ghosts represented for the town's schoolchildren, and how they should really be taking much more thorough precautions than just installing ecto-detector proximity alarms.

First and foremost, Spike's goal for this dinner was to get Jazz's parents to like him. No matter how much he dreaded it, he knew which of the options for conversation would put him in the best standing with them. He only hoped Jazz could forgive him.

"So, you guys are ghost hunters," Spike began. "Have you met a lot of ghosts, then? What would you say the most dangerous ghost you ever fought was?"

Jazz turned to him with betrayal written all over her face. He knew that she hated talking about ghosts, and she obviously hated listening to her parents talk about ghosts even more, but if he wanted to get in good with her family, sacrifices had to be made.

Immediately, Mr and Mrs. Fenton started debating who the most powerful ghost they'd ever fought was. Mrs. Fenton said that it was, without a doubt, some ghost called Pariah Dark, although Mr. Fenton argued that they hadn't so much fought Pariah Dark as held him off. He seemed to be of the opinion that the most dangerous ghost they'd ever fought was Danny Phantom, who had—according to rumors, anyway—been the one who actually beat Pariah Dark.

Beneath the din, Spike leaned over to whisper an apology to his girlfriend.

"I'm sorry, I just really want them to like me, please don't be mad."

Jazz's look of betrayal twisted into a conspiratorial smile. "You sly bastard," she said fondly. "That's actually pretty clever."

"Danny Phantom never pulled the entire city into the Ghost Zone," Mrs. Fenton reminded pointedly.

"Just because he hasn't doesn't mean he couldn't!" Mr. Fenton argued.

That went on for a while until Danny huffed in annoyance and decided to put an end to it.

"Why don't you just tell him about both ghosts?" he suggested.

Spike wished that Danny had specified not to do so simultaneously, because what he got was a double-barrelled lecture on the most dangerous ghosts they'd ever talked. Both Mr. and Mrs. Fenton trying to talk over each other, neither of them pausing to let the other be heard, getting progressively louder and louder, even though Spike had poor audio processing abilities and didn't register a single word they were saying.

Finally, their explanations came to an end, and Spike nodded and tried to look impressed, even though he had absolutely no idea what either of them had said about either ghost.

"Wow," he said, it seemed like a safe response. "Sounds like you guys have had a lot of... uh... intense ghost fights?" he glanced at Jazz, who nodded encouragingly. "I bet there were some easy ones, too, though. Who's the weakest ghost you ever fought.

"Oh, the Box Ghost," both Fenton Parents, and, surprisingly, Danny, said simultaneously.

Spike had been hoping that question would carry the conversation a little longer, but he should have known better. Even he knew who the Box Ghost was, a total joke that didn't present a legitimate threat to anyone.

"Of course, I should have known," he said.

"You kinda should have," Jazz teased.

"Okay, well... how do you... I mean... what do you do with the ghosts, after you fight them?" Spike asked. Maybe that question would keep them talking longer than the last.

"We capture them, of course," Mr. Fenton said, which didn't bode well for Spike's time consuming endeavors.

"Then what?"

"We take them to the lab for study," Mrs. Fenton said.

"How do you do that?" That was it. If Spike could just keep asking follow up questions he could make it to the end of the night.

Mrs. Fenton began to describe her scientific process. It was kind of gross, but a little bit interesting. She finished with, "Unfortunately, I don't get to actually do that very often. Somehow the ghosts we capture end up escaping through the Fenton Portal. We keep increasing and overhauling the security systems in our containment chambers, but there must be some flaw we haven't found yet."

"At least they're escaping to the Ghost Zone and not into town to cause more trouble," Danny pointed out.

"I suppose that's true," Mrs. Fenton agreed. "It could be worse."

Eventually, everyone finished eating, and dinner did end. Mrs. Fenton invited Spike to stay for fudge. He said no, since it was getting very late and he didn't want to miss his curfew, but agreed to take a little box of fudge with him when she pressed. He didn't want to make her think he didn't like her cooking—although when he ate a piece at home later, he was sure that her fudge was way better than her spaghetti had been.

Jazz walked him out so they could say goodbye.

"You played them like a fiddle," Jazz said, beaming with pride. "I think they love you more than me after that dinner." She laughed. "And you were worried you'd mess everything up."

"Oh yeah, I was worried the whole time," he agreed. "But you were right. Everything went fine. You're always right."

"And don't you forget it," she said.

Spike leaned down to give her a quick goodbye kiss, taking her hands into his own.

"Thanks for having me over," he said. "Your parents are good people, even if they are obsessed with ghosts."

"I told you."

"Yeah, yeah," he huffed a quiet laugh of his own. "You always do."

"See you at school tomorrow," she said. "I love you."

"Yeah, I love you, too." Then he let her hands slip out of his and walked down the steps, waving goodbye.

He was not looking forward to returning to his own empty, aloof home, and his own cold, judgemental parents. One more year. Less than a year. Ten months, three weeks, and two days. Then he would be eighteen, and he could leave that awful house and live alone—or with Jazz, if she agreed. He didn't expect her to, but he could hope.

#dp #danny phantom #dp spike #jazz fenton #danny fenton #maddie fenton #jack fenton #meeting the parents #jazz x spike #idk the ship name for that #fic #things i wrote #phic phight #phic phight 24 #anxiety #parental abuse mention #overthinking #nonbinary spike (dp)#trans danny fenton

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