#listen i just want danny to jump out a window is that so much to ask? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spark-my-nature · 1 year

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Demolition Danny - DRW

I'm back again with some self-serving filth. Eat up Danny lane, it's piping hot. Thanks to @gretavanblunt for the encouragement and inspiration! If you're looking for more delicious Danny content, go do yourself a favor and check them out.

Words: 6.6K

Summary: After a blowout with the bickering twins, Danny takes refuge with you and you find a way to release his angry energy.

Warnings: Sexual content, Oral (m & f receiving), destruction of property, breaking things, feelings of anger, NSFW (literally), unprotected sex, loving friends-to-lovers smut.

The afternoon sun’s golden haze set the scene in your living room perfectly for a few hours of reading, which was exactly what you did. Curled up in the small hammock you had installed in the sunny window nook of your house, book in hand, pillows scattered around you like a multicoloured marshmallow kingdom, and so peaceful.

Peaceful until your phone started going off. You jumped a bit at the sudden intrusion of noise, but relaxed and smiled to yourself when you recognized the text tone. A quick dum riff, the classic “ba-dum tsss” set exclusively to the contact of your friend Danny.

Calling Danny your friend left a sour taste in your mouth. You’d been inseparable for years now, but what he didn’t know, you hoped at least, was that you wanted so much more than friendship. You weren’t sure when your crush on him began, but you remembered the first time you admitted it to yourself.

One of the Kiszka’s infamous pool parties, the previous summer, you’d been coming inside to change out of your wet bathing suit for the evening bonfire. You had climbed the stairs and pushed the door open to the guest bedroom, assuming its slightly ajar position indicated it was empty. You’d barely glanced in the room before you caught a glimpse of Danny’s dripping wet, tanned… naked body, facing away from you as he toweled off. You backpedaled quick as lightning, slapping a hand over your mouth quietly and tiptoeing away from the door. You paused, listening to make sure he hadn’t noticed the intrusion, and relaxed slightly when he started humming a song quietly, not a care in the world. You gulped and slipped into the bathroom, leaning back against the door hugging your clothes to your chest. You squeezed your eyes shut and groaned quietly to yourself, cursing the way your heart pounded and warmth spread between your legs. All the butterflies, small touches, the way he whispered little jokes in your ear, the flirting you thought was oh-so-innocent, flashing through your mind, all culminating in the image of Danny’s perfect backside frozen in your head. “Oh god…” You bit your lip and threw your head back against the door. You giggled to yourself after a minute, thanking whatever deity was listening that he wasn’t facing you…

Shaking those delicious but forbidden memories out of your head, you sighed. Twisting in your hammock to reach for your phone on the floor beneath you, you opened it and checked the notification.

Danny Waggy 2:24pm: Are you at home?

You typed back quickly, hoping this meant he wanted to hang out. You hadn’t seen him in a few days, the vast majority of his time spent in the studio the past few weeks.

Me2:25pm: As usual. What’s up?

His response was nearly instantaneous.

Danny Waggy 2:26pm: Can I come over? Gotta get out before I knock their heads together…

You giggled, filling in the blanks that the twins were bickering again. You imagined Danny near ripping his hair out and quickly gave your response.

Me 2:27pm: Yeah, of course. See you soon dork :)

Letting your phone drop on your stomach you smiled to yourself, excitement growing in your chest. Your family’s old farmland, hidden away just outside the city had become just as much of a haven for Danny as it had for you. He spent a lot of time there with you, sometimes even when you weren’t home, just wandering the property to clear his head. You’d come home more than once to find his car parked but no sign of him, and he’d later show up, joining you inside for iced tea or a beer. After a moment, you remembered you were in only a t shirt and undies, and quickly shook away the brief fantasy of Danny’s reaction if he were to see you in only that. Going into your room, you dressed properly in a flowing yellow romper, definitely not because a certain curly headed drummer mentioned you looked nice in it, and fixed the twisted mass that was your hair. Slipping on your Birks, you stepped out the front step of your grandparent’s old farmhouse. You took a deep breath, allowing the familiar peace of the old farmland to seep into you, as it never failed to do. The sun you’d been basking in from your hammock beat down on you with twice the warmth now, gleaming off the car that was… peeling into your driveway.

Shielding your eyes with your hand from the harsh light, you watched Danny’s car pull in and park beside yours with an aggressive jerk. You watched worriedly as Danny threw open the car door, slamming it behind him as he marched towards your house. Looking up and noticing you watching his display, he softened and slowed down, but his fists remained clenched at his sides as he came to lean on the railing in front of you.

Wincing, you chanced, “Bad one, huh?”

His nostrils flared, and you noticed the veins bulging from his arms in his muscle tee. “They’re fuckin’ children, they’re so stubborn they can’t shut up and listen to save their lives,” Danny’s jaw clenched, his voice deeper than usual and rough with tension. You crossed one arm across your chest and squeezed your upper arm, nodding sympathetically. You subtly licked your lips, reminding yourself to relax despite your heart rate steadily picking up.

Looking up at you through the fallen curls framing his face, he chewed on his already red and blistered lip for a second. The sun casted a shadow over his dark eyes, giving his expression a more dangerous edge. You broke eye contact, clearing your throat.

“I think I have an idea, if you want. Something to get your anger out,” you shrugged one shoulder, stepping down to his level.

“Oh? What’s that?” He peered down his nose at you curiously. Your gaze drifted up his torso, tearing your eyes from the way his shirt clung to his sweaty chest and swallowing when you met his heated gaze.

“I- uhm, there’s an old work shed on the other side of the treeline, down by that field,” you gestured. “It’s full of old junk, yknow, broken dishes, couple of old TVs, radios, some cracked flower pots. Things that don’t work but my granddad decided might come in handy someday?” you chuckled.

Danny nodded for you to continue, looking lost.

“You wanna take a few things and go down there? We can bring a baseball bat, or a sledge hammer or something, you can just swing and break stuff if you want?” You looked up at him invitingly.

His lips slowly tipped up into a smirk, and he tilted up your chin teasingly. “Really? Are you sure that would be okay?”

You giggled, “I sure hope so, cause it’s what I do when I get mad.” You smiled wider when his face twisted in surprise. He bit his lip, holding you out in front of him by your shoulders, and you blushed as he jokingly sized you up with his eyes.

“You? You like to break shit when you get angry?”

“What? What’s so shocking about that?” you squinted.

He held his hands up in defense, smirking down at you. “Just never pegged you as the aggressive type, I guess. I stand corrected,” he finished, and you swore his eyes flicked over your body before he clapped his hands together. “Lead the way, fireball.”

Rolling your eyes affectionately, you pushed past him and quickly grabbed the tools from your barn’s workshop area. Handing Danny the heavy iron sledgehammer and rolling your dad’s wooden baseball bat in your hands playfully, you smirked. “Last one there’s a rotten egg!” You took off in front of him, running as fast as your legs would go.

Danny shouted behind you, “Hey-“ and you heard him catching up behind you, squealing and giggling. You both ran all the way across the field, tall grass and daisies trampled in your efforts to beat Danny there, although conceding that it was a lost cause from the start, those long legs of his. You shuffled to a stop, leaning on the small barn beside Danny, heaving with lost breath and laughter.

His large frame was still tense and flushed, but you could tell he was already calming down. “Why do you always challenge me when you know I’m faster than you?” He teased, catching his breath.

You giggled and turned to snap back at him, but your voice died in your throat. His tanned skin glowed under the sun from the sweat, and his happy trail peaked out, his shirt riding up as he raised his arms above his head, stretching. He groaned softly, muscles flexing under his tight grip as he stretched one arm over his head. Switching to the other arm, he did a small double take, noticing your stare. He released his arm and snapped his fingers in front of your face.

You blinked and met his curious gaze, blushing furiously. “Always a chance, I guess,” you said softly. You pushed off the wall quickly and rounded the corner, unlatching the door. Just friends. Just friends. Just friends. Keeping your eyes on the ground, you held the door for Danny, not trusting yourself to look at his face right now. He stepped into the single room, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the lower light.

“Well there it is, hammer town,” you gestured, smiling at Danny’s snort of laughter.

“Hammer town? Is that what you call this place?” He wrinkled his nose and looked around. He strolled around, running his hands over the dusty old objects littering the room. His little yellow shorts hugged his ass perfectly as he inspected the building, squatting down to pick up an old manual from the floor.

Shrugging with a giggle, “I mean, this old shed wouldn’t know the other meaning, but I thought it was funny.”

Danny turned, winked at you with a smirk and hoisted up the jack hammer suggestively. “Well then, I’m ready to do some pounding with you at hammer town,” he waggled his eyebrows. Your eyes widened and you snorted, and it set him off too, both of you dissolving into laughter.

“Okay, okay. Ready?” You smiled wide at him, and he nodded quickly, facing you. You nodded back once, resting your bat over your shoulder. Feeling brave, you winked at him, then swung the bat hard into the screen of an old TV on the shelf.

The loud shatter of glass acted as a starting shot from a blank pistol, giving Danny that final green light to let loose.

It felt like slow motion as you both swung over and over, demolishing the dusty junk adorning the place. You bashed in a few chipped pots, giddy with the adrenaline. Pausing to take a breath after a few moments, you glanced at your best friend across the room and your breath caught in your throat as you froze. You’d looked over just in time.

Danny ripped his already wrecked muscle shirt down the middle, tossing the scraps of fabric behind him without looking. Every muscle in his torso flexed and shone with sweat as he grasped the jack hammer. Remembering how heavy the old iron tool felt in your hands earlier, you swallowed as he lifted it over his head effortlessly, swinging it down into the cracked remains of an old window like it weighed nothing. His arms appeared almost swollen, veins and muscles bulging under his gleaming skin, knuckles white around the wooden handle. The glass shattered loudly, seeming to egg him on. He swung again, destroying the next corner of the window panel. His curls whipped around his tense neck, exposing sweat dripping down to his pectorals. His light patch of chest hair was damp, matching his dark trail of hair leading into his shorts that hung low on the V of his hips.

Your gaze trailed up to his jaw, clenched tight with frustration and focus. His strong nose wrinkled as he gave another powerful swing, his jaw unclenching as he let out the air he’d been holding. But his eyes were what got you the most. Usually so gentle, soft and sweet, chocolatey pools that gave you all his attention, they were now nearly black with molten energy. Testosterone coursed through his body the more he unleashed his fury on the old junk.

As if for his grand finale, Danny tossed the jackhammer haphazardly to the floor with a dull thud and he picked up the brittle wooden window frame. He let out a loud, animalistic growl and brought the frame down over his knee, cracking it in half effortlessly.

Danny let the severed pieces fall beside him, letting his head fall back to face the ceiling. His chest heaved, eyes fluttering shut as he panted.

Straightening up after a moment, his eyes glanced around, landing on you. Your jaw was hanging open, leaning back on the old worktable that you had been gripping with white knuckles. Your lidded eyes widened as you realized he was watching you, your thighs clenched together tightly. You met his dark gaze, and for a moment, it was like a standoff. Neither of you moving first, daring the other to do something, to break the tension. Danny swallowed through heavy breaths, his eyes roaming up and down your body hungrily. You bit your lip, eyeing him up with equal desperation.

Your bat fell out of your loosened grip and landed with a hollow thud on the ground.

Like a bucket of ice water, it snapped him out of his trance. In a few long strides, Danny was towering above you, leaning over you with his hands trapping you on either side of your body. His face suddenly inches from yours, you gasped, hands resting on his warm chest. His heart pounded as he searched your face hopefully, desire overtaking his mind. You swallowed hard, your gaze falling from his hooded eyes to his lips.

Your voice shook as you whispered, “Danny, wh-“ “Can I kiss you?” He cut you off, desperately cupping your cheek as he flicked his gaze from your lips to your eyes. Butterflies overtook your stomach, and you answered by wrapping your arms around his neck to tug him down into you.

Danny’s lips molded to yours in a kiss that had your knees buckling under you. He laced the hand from your cheek back into your hair, deepening the kiss hungrily. You sighed blissfully into his lips, holding onto him tightly. You felt faint as he slipped his tongue out to poke at your lips. You let him in, eagerly tasting him the way you longed to for so long. His mouth on yours felt so right, as though he was meant to be kissing you all along. One of Danny’s hands ventured down your neck, smoothing across your collarbones and slipping his fingers under the strap of your romper. You shivered under his touch, and he groaned quietly, finally pulling away reluctantly with a gasp of air.

Both of you panted and bashfully met each other’s eyes, and then dissolved into shy giggles. Danny’s hand in your hair pulled you close, resting your head on his chest and kissing the top of your head softly. You smiled into his sweaty skin, inwardly squealing and jumping up and down. Above you, Danny had much the same goofy smile across his face, processing what just happened. You lifted your head, tracing a single finger down his collarbone teasingly before you looked up into his eyes.

Danny felt like his heart was going to stop, the way your innocent eyes drank him in, swollen lips smiling up at him. “Hi,” he mumbled, resting his forehead on yours. You giggled quietly, “Hi.” Danny’s nose brushed against yours affectionately. “Wow,” he sighed, smiling at your breathless laughter.

“I’m glad I finally did that,” he admitted softly after a moment. He reached up and stroked your cheek with one long finger.

You pulled away enough to look him in the eye. “I’m glad you kissed me too,” you matched his confessional tone. His smile widened, “You wanted to kiss me?” You nodded shyly. “Since when, huh?” He pried teasingly. You felt your face heating up more and looked down. “Probably since last year,” you mumbled.

He took a step back and held your shoulders, raising his brows incredulously. “Last- last year?? Why didn’t you tell me?” You groaned and shoved his shoulder playfully. “Didn’t think you saw me like that, I guess.” He bit his lip, looking up at the ceiling and then back at you. “I’m sorry, have you seen you?” He cocked his head. “You’re so…” Danny sighed, resting his hand on your thigh, “You’re perfect. God, I didn’t think you’d look my way in a million years,” He chuckled.

You giggled at his dramatics. “Shut up, you’re the most attractive man I’ve ever seen,” you slipped, blushing as soon as the words left your mouth.

Danny smirked, straightening up. “You think I’m attractive?”

You pushed past him playfully and headed to the door. “No, I just made out with you because I think you’re ugly.” Danny laughed and followed you out, grabbing your hips as you latched the door shut. Turning around to leave, you found yourself pinned against the building within Danny’s grip. He leaned down and whispered in your ear teasingly, “I think you’re stunning, and sexy as fuck.” Pulling away, he winked and turned to walk away nonchalantly. Huffing to yourself, you followed after him.

You teased each other the whole short walk back to your house, testing the waters and seeing who could make the other blush more. You had just walked up the steps and inside when you turned to him smugly. “Well I may have the cutest dimples, you have the cutest butt.” You spun on your heel and led him through the living room to put on a record. You heard Danny sputtering behind you, and you bit back a laugh as you set the record on the turntable.

“And how would you know?” he countered, arms crossing.

You shrugged innocently, placing the needle. As you turned to face him, his eyes narrowed. You bit your lip and cocked your head cheekily. Danny stepped closer, leaning down to be face to face. “Is there something you’re not telling me, little one?” his voice becoming smooth and deeper. He raised an eyebrow in your face, giving you nowhere else to look but right in his interrogative gaze. You swallowed, flustered at his proximity.

“And if there was?”

“Then I’d be oh so interested to hear it,” he leaned in further, lips millimetres from yours. Your breath hitched, blushing furiously.

“Imight’vewalkedinonyouchangingonce,” you blurted breathlessly.

Danny pulled back, his face turning adorably pink as his eyes widened. “Wh-“ he ran a hand through his curls. “When?”

The rug was suddenly fascinating. “Last year, one of the guy’s pool parties,” you mumbled. Danny’s jaw fell open. “Last year-“ his hand covered his eyes as he groaned. “How much did you see?” he peeked at you between his fingers.

You shrugged shyly. “Just a millisecond before I left. You had your back to me.” Danny sighed and laughed softly after a moment. When you chanced a look at him, his eyes were already trained on you. He smirked bashfully. “Did you at least… like what you saw?”

You were certain your face matched the red curtains beside you. “Dannyyyy,” you groaned, giggling. He joined you, “Did you?” he teased, tapping your shoe with his playfully. You couldn’t look at him when you mumbled, “God yes. I couldn’t get it out of my head.”

His smirk doubled. He hummed affirmatively, nodded once, turning around and sitting on your couch. He gave you a look of invitation that made your knees weak and patted his lap. You kicked off your shoes and climbed into his lap, straddling his strong thighs, your hands resting on his bare chest.

Although you’d already kissed, this still felt like new territory. This wasn’t heat of the moment, animalistic passion. This was ages of repressed feelings being explored together, both of you learning about your best friend in an entirely new way. Butterflies twisted in your stomach as you met his eyes, seeing nothing but love and hopefulness in them, despite the teasing from a moment ago.

His large warm hands settled on your thighs, sliding up to where your romper had bunched up around your hips. Danny tilted his head and leaned forward, eyes closing, and you mentally took a picture of this moment. You felt his lips press to yours once more, this time carefully, experimental. His lips were so warm, soft against yours, so much better than any daydream. You cupped his jaw, slightly scratchy with stubble and tilted your head more, deepening the kiss. As your lips found a rhythm, you slipped it back into his curls, sighing into the kiss at the silky soft tresses.

Under you, Danny shivered and his hands traveled up over your hips and up your back. The electricity between you made your head spin as his tongue met yours, and your soft whimper into his mouth seemed to make it snap. Danny inhaled through his nose, and the intensity of the makeout suddenly dialed up to max. His hands slipped higher, one threading through your hair, the other slipping under the strap of your romper, this time knocking it down over your shoulder. Danny’s lips migrated from yours southward, licking and sucking down your jaw and neck. Your head fell back, giving him full access, which he gladly took, leaving a trail of gentle bruises in his wake. He slipped your other strap down your shoulder as he lavished your collarbone. You squirmed under his attention, suddenly feeling the rock hard result of your activities against your heat. Danny gasped softly, pausing his attention on your chest. Desperate to hear more of his noises, you carefully rolled your hips into his, delicious friction causing both of you to moan weakly. Danny lifted his face to yours, his eyes darker than you’d ever seen them. His tongue wet his lips. “How far?”

Still lost in the moment, you furrowed your brow, “hm?”

Danny smiled darkly at your dazed expression. “How far do you want to go?”

Realization kicking in, you bit your lip and let your eyes trail down his face and chest. Your hand on his chest trailed down over his tummy before your eyes met his again. “I want all of you, Danny.”

Before you could process his movements, Danny had scooped you up and was carrying you down the hall to your room. You giggled breathlessly, squeezing his flexed bicep and leaning in to kiss his neck. You felt proud when his breathing hitched, sucking a hickey of your own into his neck. He kicked your door open and let go over your bed, letting you fall with a giggle. Smiling down at you, he popped the button of his shorts. You watched his hands pull the zipper down and push them to the floor. You barely had time to glance at the enormous bulge straining his gray boxers before he was climbing on top of you. His eyes strayed to where your romper had bunched above the swell of your breasts, no longer supported by the fallen straps. Through the pounding of your heart, you sat up just enough to pull it down, exposing your chest to him. Danny’s jaw fell open slightly, taking in the sight of you.

“Perfect,” he breathed mindlessly. You shifted under his intense gaze, getting shy. His eyes flicked up to yours. “Can I touch you?”

You nodded shyly. “Please do.”

He cupped your breasts with slightly shaky hands, squeezing gently, before swiping both thumbs over your nipples. You inhaled sharply, and Danny groaned under his breath. “God they’re so nice, even better than I imagined.”

You smirked at that, gasping slightly when he pinched your nipples gently before continuing his kneading. “You imagined?”

Danny looked up at you with a cheeky smile that told you all you needed to know.

He leaned down, his mop of curls falling around his face as he took your nipple in his mouth. You whined, letting your head fall back into the pillows. His warm wet mouth circled it a few times before sucking roughly. You gathered his soft hair in your fist, holding it back for him as he switched attention to the other side. Shockwaves of pleasure shot to your increasingly aching core. His kisses trailed lower still and his hands cleared a path, dragging your romper down as he descended. When he neared your bellybutton, he paused to look up at you. Hooking his thumbs in both your panties and the bunched up romper, he raised an eyebrow questioningly. You nodded, giving him a shy smile, which he returned as he pulled them down. He lowered them to your ankles, sitting up to let you kick them off.

You felt a rush of butterflies in your gut when he met your eyes. and you let your legs fall open. He kept his eyes locked with yours lovingly for a moment before letting his eyes trail down. When his gaze landed on your naked slit, he let out a strangled groan of desire. “Fuck,” he breathed, bringing his hand forward, parting you with his fingers. You watched his face as he spread you open, marveling at how soaked you were. He began rubbing circles on your clit with the rough pads of his fingers, alternating between drinking in the sight of you and checking your face for your reaction.

You moaned, lifting your hips to grind against his fingers harder. “Yes, Danny, so good,” you whispered breathlessly.

“Yeah? Feels good?” His voice had become so rough and gravelly you barely recognized him. It sent another flood of warmth directly where his fingers teased you. You nodded pathetically, “Love your hands. So big,” your eyes fluttered shut as his fingers sped up.

Danny bit back a groan, lifting his other hand to your neck, wrapping it gently around your throat. “You look so small and pretty under my hands, baby,” He praised, earning a whimper from you. He looked down, pausing his motions and wrapping his entire hand over your pussy, easily cupping your entire mound. “So delicate, and all mine,” he growled.

You bucked into the heel of his hand desperately. “Please, Danny, need you,” you whined.

He smirked darkly, roughly shoving your hips back down to the bed. “I love the way you say my name like that.” He gripped your hips, and as if you weighed nothing, rolled you both over so you straddled his stomach. You fell forward, effectively smothering his face between your tits, and you felt his muffled groan.

His hands came up to squeeze them, and you sat up slightly, giggling. “Sorry.” He grinned up at you wildly, “For what?” he winked, squeezing for emphasis. You rolled your eyes playfully watching him get distracted by your boobs again. You brought him back to earth by grinding against his stomach, spreading your warm wetness on him. Biting his lip, he finally moved his hands down to grab your ass, squeezing roughly.

“You still wanna know what I think about?” He asked, blushing slightly.

You smiled wide, “Yeah of course.”

He looked up at you with his big brown puppy-dog eyes, and you knew you’d do anything he asked of you in this moment. “I’ve always wanted you to ride my face,” he confessed, gaging your reaction hopefully and kneading your ass. You giggled and bent down.

“What a coincidence, I’ve always wanted to ride your face,” you answered truthfully. You’d thought about it more than you cared to admit, many lonely nights with your right hand, wishing it was his mouth and that flawless nose instead.

His smile doubled, and he smacked your ass playfully. “Your throne awaits,” he announced, closing his eyes and tilting his chin up in playful invitation. Giggling, you crawled up his torso, thighs coming to rest by his ears. He eyed your pussy hungrily, and you bit your lip, lowering yourself, careful not to smother him. Rolling his eyes in impatience, he pulled your ass into his face, seating you fully against his mouth and instantly rolling his tongue up your slit. You moaned loudly at Danny’s hot tongue slipping through your folds, legs shaking when he groaned into you. He wrapped his lips around your clit, swirling his tongue around it expertly before sucking. Your hips jerked into him of their own accord, earning another muffled groan from him.

Danny pushed you further up his face, his tongue stretching into your entrance. Your clit bumped perfectly against his strong nose, making your eyes roll back. “Fuuuuuuuck Danny oh my god,” you babbled, and he hummed in agreement, sending vibrations directly where you wanted them most. He began shaking his face side to side as he devoured you, his nose catching your clit every time. Moving back up, he let his tongue take over, flattening it as he continued to shake his head. You didn’t even notice his hand leave your ass and maneuver its way to your entrance until one long finger slipped inside you. You groaned, bucking your hips into his face as he pumped it in and out of you.

“That’s it, Y/N, ride me, use my face, please,” Danny begged under you, sounding so desperate for you that you felt faint. He slipped a second finger in, curling into your G spot as you rocked back and forth. Your thighs tightened around his face, your hands flying to his curls and gripping them.

“Danny,” you panted, moaning, “Fuck, your mouth-“ you were interrupted by your own gasp when he sucked particularly hard suddenly. Your thighs shook around his head. “Oh- oh my god you’re gonna make me cum,” you whined. Danny doubled down, eager to have you come undone on his face. He added a third finger, fingering you faster while his tongue lay flat. You humped his mouth desperately, feeling your climax growing steadily, grateful for his long fingers as you fucked yourself on them.

Glancing down at Danny through your haze, he was looking up at you, brows tightly knit and pupils blown wide with lust. His face glistened with your juices, and he moaned into you when your grip tightened on his hair. The desperation in his eyes sent you over the edge, letting out a strangled cry. You worked yourself through it, Danny lapping up your release hungrily until you hissed from the overstimulation. You swung your wobbly leg over and climbed off of him, collapsing beside him on the bed and panting.

After a few minutes, you rolled your head towards him, finding him already watching you adoringly. Your heart fluttered, giving him a shy smile. “What?”

He smiled wider, shrugging one shoulder. “I’m so fucking lucky.” You laid your head back and laughed. “You’re lucky? I just received the best oral I’ve ever had from the most gorgeous man on the planet and you’re lucky?” You shook your head at the ceiling.

He giggled, “Yeah? That good, huh?”

You nodded enthusiastically, furrowing your brow for emphasis. “Easily. You’ve got yourself a full-time job, if the band tanks.”

He laughed at that, one of your favourite sounds.

“Well, you know, you shouldn’t make any final decisions until you’ve had the full experience.” He smiled cheekily. Leaning up on your elbow to face him, you smirked. “Oh, there’s more, is there?” His gaze dropped to your chest, your cleavage accentuated by the side angle. Licking his lips, he nodded, “I’m a man of many talents.”

Teasingly, you squeezed your own breast and bit your lip. “Well I’ll need a full demonstration before I can move forward, then.”

His eyes darkened, grabbing your wrist and placing it beside you as he repositioned above you. “Then a full demonstration you’ll get,” he growled. Your hand snaked down his body and you cupped his covered erection. His jaw fell open, encouraging you to grip him as best you could through his boxers and stroke him slowly. He groaned, eyelids fluttering, and he bucked into your hand.

You bit your lip hard, realizing how big he must be from the weight of him in your hand. You shyly pulled his boxers down to confirm your theory, and his cock sprung out. Your eyes darted down to look at him, widening at the sheer size of him.

Danny looked down and back up at you with a shit-eating grin. “More than you bargained for?” he teased lowly. You blushed, running your palm up his impressive length. “You’re so fucking sexy,” you breathed, wrapping your fingers around his thick girth. You started pumping him in your hand, his head falling forward with a groan. You whimpered softly, your head spinning with the thrill of holding Danny’s cock, not to mention reeling at the fact that it was huge… You squeezed him tentatively as you jerked him, making his mouth fall open. “Fuck, Y/N, feels so good,” he breathlessly muttered. Your mouth watered, watching him fuck into your fist, craving the weight of him on your tongue.

You turned your head, kissing his cheek gently, and whispered, “Can I suck your cock? Please?” He lifted his face, drinking in your pleading eyes. “You don’t have to, sweetheart-“ “I want to. So bad,” you whimpered, swiping your thumb over his sensitive tip causing a sharp gasp. “I-I’d like that,” he shuddered, swallowing hard.

You wasted no time in guiding him to his back, crawling down his body. Continuing to jerk him off, you smiled up at his flustered face. You leaned in and kissed his head softly, watching his eyelids struggle to stay open as he watched. Smirking, you took his head in your mouth, giving the delicate underside soft kitten licks. Danny whined, uncharacteristically high pitched, blushing after. You giggled softly, running your free hand up his strong thigh and squeezing, assuring him. Taking more of him in your mouth, you started bobbing your head in sync with your fist, sucking gently.

Losing the battle and tossing his head back, Danny groaned loudly, lacing his fingers through your hair and holding it back for you. You hummed into him appreciatively, causing his hips to jerk unintentionally. Your throat constricted around him, gagging slightly and pulling back for air. “I’m sorry-“ He started, you interrupted quickly. “No no, I liked it. Just wasn’t ready,” you giggled breathlessly, pumping him tighter and faster in your hand, his twitching cock wet with spit and precum. You took him back in your mouth, sucking harder. Danny’s hand guided your head faster, his moans filling the room and getting you even wetter. Your free hand slithered down between your thighs, relieving your aching clit. Danny, noticing the movement, looked down and growled softly.

He sat up, gently pulling you off of him. He grabbed your waist and pulled you over his body to set you straddling his cock. Your drenched pussy enveloped his erection and you whimpered, grinding over his length on his stomach. Danny’s jaw hung open with his brows knit tightly, watching the tip of his cock disappear and reappear under your pink folds a few times. “Please, Y/N,” He panted, locking eyes with you, grunting softly with each swivel of your hips. You held eye-contact with him, matching his fucked-out expression, and lifted yourself up on your knees, grabbing his cock and lining it up with your entrance. Slowly you sunk down on his length, both of you moaning loudly.

He was the biggest you’d ever taken, but you savoured the delicious stretch of him. Somehow, both of you kept eye contact, wordlessly acknowledging the unbelievable pleasure. You watched Danny’s head tilt back, eyes half lidded, biting his lip hard as he failed to muffle a groan. Rising and falling slowly on his length, you felt the tip dragging along your walls, hitting that sweet spot deep inside. Your eyes rolled back as your hips began rolling over his, your clit grinding deliciously with each gyration. Danny began lifting his hips to meet yours, trying to get you there quicker. His hand snuck around to play with your clit, knowing he was already too far gone, needing you to join him. Luckily you weren’t far behind, as the faces he was making were obscene. Jaw falling open and clenching shut, brows furrowed tightly, his eyes black and absolutely feral.

Faster and faster, your hips slammed together, feeling your orgasm building for the second time, until Danny held your hips still. You almost whined petulantly, but he gripped your hips tightly and rolled you both over without slipping out, immediately fucking into you once more. You wrapped your legs around his waist, a stream of moans and praises streaming out of you. “So. Fucking. Good,” He grunted with each thrust. He leaned down, resting his forehead on yours as he thrusted. “You’re so tight, so fucking hot, taking me so well,” he praised breathlessly, punctuated with a desperate groan. His hand found your clit again, quickly circling in time with his relentless hips.

“Oh fuck, Danny, don’t stop-“ you let out a ragged cry, digging your nails into his shoulders. “Fuck baby, you’re so good, you feel so good.”

Danny let out a sharp cry, feeling you begin to clench around him. “Cmon, baby, cum. Please, cum on daddy’s cock, please beautiful. I need it, need you to cum all over daddy’s cock,” he rambled, interrupting himself by kissing you desperately. You screamed into his lips as your peak crashed over you. Your ears were ringing, but you faintly heard Danny losing his mind as your walls squeezed him over and over. The metronomic rhythm of his hips began faltering, his eyes squeezed shut. You whimpered into his ear, “Cum inside me, wanna feel you baby, cmon.” With a final, feral growl, he shot spurt after spurt of his hot cum into you, bruising your thighs with his tight grip.

He pulled out and collapsed beside you, panting. After a moment of basking in the hazy afterglow, you turned to face your lover beside you. He looked even more stunning than usual, flushed cheeks, skin dewy and glowing, hair a wild halo around his god-like face. He ran his hand across his face lazily, brushing stray hairs away from his eyes as he blinked dreamily. You moved before you even realized, cupping his jaw and leaning over, kissing him softly. He melted into your lips, kissing you back with just as much love and tenderness. You barely broke the kiss, smiling softly against his lips. “God I love you,” you breathed. Your hand was over his heart, and you felt it race from your words. You felt him smile wide, whispering back. “I love you, too.” Your eyes both fluttered open, meeting in a shy, silent exchange, before dissolving into soft giggles. Giddy from the revelations as well as remnants of the mind blowing sex, you rubbed your nose against his.

“I bet that got all your energy out.”

Danny laughed and flopped back onto the pillow, wrapping his arm around you to pull you in close to his side. “Oh, I think so.” You pulled the blanket up from the foot of your bed and wrapped both of your bodies in it, nuzzling into the warm, familiar comfort of Danny’s neck. Humming happily, you felt his fingers drawing shapes on your back as you dozed off in his arms.

#gvf fanfiction #gvf smut #danny gvf #danny wagner smut #danny wagner #daniel wagner #danny x reader #greta van fic #greta van fluff #greta van smut #greta van fleet fan fiction #greta van fleet #greta van fleet smut

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drinkmoarwater · 11 months

Text

I’m finally done with school so I can participate in Dannymay for the first time :)

Day 17: Temper (ik I’m late but shhhhhh)

Jazz had three options, none of which she liked. She could leave, consider this conversation over, and pummel the punching bag at the gym until she passed out or the employees kicked her out again. She could stay and talk until she came to peaceful resolution with Principal Ishiyama, maybe talk her into a corner to admit that requiring Danny and her to pass a ectoplasm screening before being allowed back in school was a mistake. Principal Ishiyama liked her, it wouldn’t be hard to manipulate her rapport for the benefit of her baby brother. It would take a while, but Jazz could do it.

Or.

Jazz could smile, agree, and then burn the building to the ground on her way out. She had a lipstick blaster in her purse. The classrooms had plenty of flammable material. Books, paper, wooden desks, posters. It wouldn’t take much more than a few seconds of a focused blast and whoosh, a fire. Tucker would erase the camera footage before the police got access to it, if the tapes survived the blaze that is. Jazz wouldn’t even need to call in a favor for it, he’d probably laugh and say he owed her for getting him out of ap world history.

As Ishiyama explained the PTA’s petition to document all student’s ectoplasm exposure to her in slow syllables, Jazz noted that Ishiyama’s desk looked really breakable. One solid kick and Jazz would snap it half. The paper weights might hurt her ankle if they collided, but the desk was made of plastic made to look like wood. She could throw the thing over her head if she wanted, right out the window. Maybe that would be more satisfying, to be forced to use both her hands and hearing the crash. It would at least avoid breaking a heel.

Maybe Jazz should play this smart. Ask for the signatures on that petition. Write down their addresses. Take her time the next time a ghost attack wanders down their street. Shoot their mailboxes and say she has terrible aim. Steal their dogs and raise them as her own. Maybe that one’s a step too far.

Instead, Jazz bites the inside of her cheek. Option two was worth a try. “And why isn’t every student required to take a physical examination?”

Ishiyama sighed. “Not every student has been so thoroughly exposed to ectoplasm as those that have passed through your house. It’s a safety issue, one that I’m sure you understand, Jazz.”

“I don’t understand. Explain it to me again.”

“It’s a simple screening. It’s noninvasive, just a swab and a stroll through the ectoplasm detectors your parents invented. You’ll be fine. Your brother will be fine. What is it you don’t understand?”

Jazz pushed her toes into the soles of her shoes hard enough for it to be uncomfortable but unnoticeable. “An ectoplasm screening is not standard school policy. We live in the most haunted city in the country, don’t you think every student has some ectoplasm exposure?”

“If they do, it’s not enough to become a problem.” Ishiyama pulled out a file and flipped through its pages. “Thirty-six broken beakers, forty-two detentions, nine unexcused absences, and a letter of concern from one of your brother’s teachers. His grades aren’t pretty and he’s said to fall asleep in class more often than not.” Ishiyama took breaks from her reading out the files to make hard eye contact. “You have five unexcused absences, a significant jump from someone who had perfect attendance for three years straight, and three of your teachers have reached out to me about your jumpiness and sudden lack of participation.”

“Your point? These are behavioral issues, not physiological ones.”

“My point is that the petition mentioned the two of you by name, and your files give me good reason to listen.”

Taking a deep breath, Jazz let the silence hang for a moment. She put on her best I’m-thinking-very-hard face, an exaggerated pout with scrunched eyebrows. She bounced her leg, a false tell. She didn’t mention that it was wrong, manipulative even to have this conversation without her brother or parents in the room. She didn’t ask what would be done with their information if they submitted to the screening, or what they were expected to do if they didn’t pass, or which staff members signed. She didn’t take Ishiyama’s school district issued pen and blind her with it. Jazz didn’t do a lot of things that she could have, or maybe should have.

She half listened to Ishiyama’s justifications, comparing the screening to vaccinations and flu shots. She stayed quiet, nodding when expected and making unflinching eye contact. Ishiyama had one tell, to her credit. She hesitated over the flowery language of the petition, like she wanted to say “ghost” instead of “ectoplasmic entities and substances.” Jazz daydreamed about keying Ishiyama’s bright blue volkswagen in her assigned parking spot, carving a cartoonish ghost into the paint.

Jazz left the meeting with her shoulders back and her chin tilted downward. She was making a plan. She had many more options than what she first thought.

#dannymay2023 #day 17: temper #jazz fenton #liminal jazz #not plot relevant but know that jazz is real tall #projecting onto jazz rn as a trans person in a hostile state #double projection with the intrusive thoughts that she's lowkey taking srsly lol

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q-gorgeous · 1 year

Text

Static Downpour

fanfiction

ao3

word count: 1106

Danny has a strong fear of lightning. @tourettesdog

this is a no one knows au but i didnt find anywhere to put that info in the fic

Dash remembered when he and Danny used to be friends.

They were the best of friends. They used to play together all the time. They’d play with legos at Dash’s house, and then they’d build space rockets when they were at Danny’s. They spent so much time together that their parents joked about how they were inseparable.

One of their favorite things they used to do was watch as the thunderstorm clouds would roll in. They liked watching as the sky turned colors and how it got so dark even while it was still the middle of the day. They’d listen to the thunder and try to guess how far away it was when it boomed in the air throughout the city.

But the lightning was their favorite part. They loved watching it shoot down to wherever it would land. The way it would branch out from its main course, covering a good chunk of the sky before it immediately disappeared. They loved all of it. They thought it was so cool.

So what happened to make Danny so afraid of lightning?

They were sitting on the comfy couch in the library. Neither of them wanted to forfeit their half of the couch and so they wordlessly decided to share it. Dash could see Danny watching the rain hit the window quietly. But then Dash saw a flash of lightning out of the corner of his eye.

Danny jumped out of his seat, nearly falling onto the floor. When Dash looked at him in confusion, Danny was holding a hand to his chest, his eyes wide as he stared out the window. He looked like he was pretty close to hyperventilating.

What had happened to make him jump like that? Dash had wondered. There wasn’t anything particularly scary happening right now. Maybe if the wind was going a little faster and the tornado sirens went off, that’d be kind of scary. But today was just an average, ghost free day.

Another flash of lightning lit up the clouds outside and Danny jumped again. He was definitely hyperventilating now.

It must be the lightning, he had thought. But why? What changed about it?

Danny had left after that. Dash didn’t know where he went. Maybe he went to go find a spot to sit in that wasn’t right next to the windows. Or maybe he was cutting school again just like he always seemed to be doing these days.

Dash thought it was his fault. Maybe Danny hated watching thunderstorms now. Maybe it just reminded him of his best friend turned bully.

But that still seemed like it was such a strong reaction, to be so badly afraid of something just because it was associated with someone he didn’t like anymore.

It wasn’t until Dash had seen Phantom one night that he understood.

Phantom was sitting in an alleyway on his own. Dash had stumbled across him just to find the ghost crying on the ground as he tried to nurse his own wound. His head shot up when he heard the sound of gravel under Dash’s shoes, a panicked look in his eyes.

A bright flash lit up the alley and a ring appeared around Phantom’s waist. This wasn’t a move he had ever seen Phantom use before. It wasn’t ever used in battles against the other ghosts. It split just a little bit, revealing a white tshirt between two rings before they melded back to one. Whatever it was, it looked like Phantom was struggling to hold it back. He didn’t want it to happen.

Dash walked further into the alley and knelt on the ground next to Phantom. He told him how he’d do anything to help, whatever he needed.

Phantom’s expression seemed to change. It went from fear to something that looked sort of like resignation and relief. He stopped struggling and finally let the rings pass over him.

Danny Fenton sat there on the ground in front of Dash, holding the wound on his stomach. It started to seep through the white fabric of his tshirt.

He decided right there that it didn’t matter what had happened between him and Danny. Sitting right there in front of him was both his hero and his childhood best friend. He needed help right now and Dash was the only one around to give it.

Dash gingerly picked Danny up and held him to his chest. He was going to take Danny to his house to get him patched up. Dash had a pretty big first aid kit in his room. He should have enough in there to help Danny.

He started jogging down the streets. He didn’t want to run too fast with Danny injured, but he had to hurry. He didn’t know how long it took to bleed out but Danny didn’t seem to be doing too great already.

That was when the first drops of rain started falling. They landed in Dash’s hair and hit him in the face. It helped to cool him down, but it was getting hard to see when it quickly turned into a downpour.

They were almost to Dash’s house when the first bolt of lightning flashed across the sky right above their heads. He could feel Danny jump in his arms even before the thunder boomed in the sky. Danny clutched a hand in the fabric of Dash’s shirt and flinched again when another bolt of lightning appeared.

Dash finally reached his house. He struggled to get his key out of his pocket while holding Danny but finally managed to jab it into the doorknob.

He quietly opened up the door and crept up their stairs, listening to make sure the snoring that came from the living didn’t stop. He made it up to his room and shut the door behind him and locked it. He set Danny down on his bed and pulled the first aid kit out from underneath it.

He started cleaning the wound and applying disinfectant to it. Danny didn’t flinch as he cleaned it, but he did flinch every time a flash of lightning shone through Dash’s curtains.

After wrapping gauze around Danny’s stomach, he sat back and took a deep breath. He was still immensely curious about what happened that made Danny so afraid of lightning. There’d be no better time than now to ask.

“You used to love watching the lightning when we were kids. What happened?”

Danny took a deep breath and held up his hand. The faint remnants of a lichtenberg scar ran from his hand up his arm and under his shirt.

“It’s how I died.”

#gorgi writes #danny phantom #phic phight 2023 #dash baxter #danny fenton #fanfiction

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gardensgatekeeper · 5 months

Text

'Tis the Damn Season - Part 2

Pairing: Danny Wagner x Reader

Word Count: 2,078

Warnings: Fluff, angst, sadness, more fluff. As always, let me know if I missed any!

Broke my own heart writing this one :')

If you haven’t already, read part one

Bored was an understatement as you found yourself picking at your sweater while half listening to your family drag on about all the latest small-town gossip, the sole reason you left in the first place. You eventually wandered into the kitchen to get a refill of whatever would shut your brain off for at least five minutes. The holidays seemed to linger like bad perfume, and truthfully you wanted nothing more than to just pack up and drive back to the city but you know you’d never hear the end of it from your mom. And as much as you were highly considering bailing on Danny, something in your brain was screaming at you to hear him out.

You practically gulped down a glass of wine before beginning to refill the glass as your mom walked in. She sat her glass down beside yours, “Pour me one while you’re at it.” The two of you stood in silence as you sipped your drinks until you spoke up. “I saw Danny while I was out today.” You quietly said, as if trying not to let anyone else hear. Her eyes perked up as she turned towards you, waiting to hear the details of your encounter. “Oh?”

Though your mom could be a little perfunctory at times, she really was there for you when things were tough, especially the day Danny called things off. You recall the memory of you coming home with tears streaming down your face. She held you on the couch all night long, gently rocking you in her arms while whispering words of comfort until you eventually fell asleep.

“He wants to talk.” You muttered out, your voice full of dread and anxiety. “Well, honey. I know you two didn’t end things on good terms but maybe it’ll be good for you. For both of you. You’re both adults now, you shouldn't keep holding onto the past.

You hated how much she was right but simply nodded in agreement. “Just don’t go in with any expectations. Be open minded and mind your tongue before you start jumping in with blame.”

You took a long sip of your wine before replying. “I know. But you know how hard I worked to put all this behind me, I’m worried about messing all that up.” She placed her hand over yours, gently rubbing it and offering a warm smile. “I know Y/N. But I also know that you’ve got a brain up there that will tell you exactly what to do. You’ve got this.”

Well shit, didn’t expect to start crying just yet.

“Thanks mom. I think I’m gonna go lay down for a bit. If I have to hear Grandma Jean talk about ‘this damn inflation’ one more time, I might actually go crazy.” She chuckled in response as you both exited the kitchen and parted ways. Crawling into your bed, you continued sipping your wine as you aimlessly scrolled social media. Your heart panged a bit as you saw your friends had taken a weekend trip to the mountains. Something you had been suggesting to them for weeks. So much for that.

Setting your phone on the nightstand, you chugged the rest of the liquid in your glass before grabbing a blanket and closing your eyes, letting sleep consume you, even if for just a few minutes.

---

Clink!

The sound woke you from your slumber. Confused, you rubbed the sleep from your eyes as you took in the now dark room. How long did you sleep for? You grabbed your phone and was slightly blinded by the brightness but managed to distinguish the time, 11:13pm.

Clink!

The same sound snapped you out of your thoughts as you turned to look for the source of the noise. It wasn’t until the third time that you realized it was coming from your window. Cautiously, you walked over and gasped at the sight.

There, Danny stood with several small rocks in his hands. You quickly opened the window and stuck your head out, the brisk air fully waking you up.

“Danny, what the hell are you doing?” You quietly yelled out. “Sorry, I figured you’d probably changed your number when you moved. Wasn’t sure how else to contact you.” He replied honestly, wiping his hands on his jeans after dropping the rest of the rocks back to the ground. You shook your head at his stubborn determination, something that used to drive you crazy. “Plus, if I remember correctly, you agreed.”

You were then met with his outstretched arm as both of you knew you’d need his help to climb out of the window that was just a touch too high off the ground. “C’mon, just like old times.” His smirk held the memories of the countless times he’d helped you sneak out of the house to go on these late night drives, something the both of you quickly made a habit of.

It had been years since you’d crawled through this window, yet you still found yourself doing the same maneuvers to twist your body through the opening. His hands quickly found their way to your hips, gently squeezing as he helped you down. When your feet finally touched the ground below, his hands didn’t leave your hips. You two locked eyes for a moment until he realized what he was doing, clearing his throat. “Sorry. Uh, shall we go?” You nodded as he led the way to his truck parked on the street in front of your house.

“Still driving that old thing?” You fake insulted, though mostly surprised that it was still running. “Gets me where I need to go. No need to get a new one when there’s nothing wrong with this one.” He grinned, giving an encouraging pat to the hood of the truck.

Like old times, he opened the passenger door for you and you muttered out a quiet thank you. You felt like you were transported back in time. Apart from the more worn leather seats, the interior of his truck looked virtually unchanged; the same beaded necklace still hung from his rear view mirror, but what surprised you the most was the little drummer rubber duck still perched up on the driver’s side dashboard. One of your nephews had given you the small toy years ago at their birthday party and naturally you gave it to Danny. You couldn’t believe he had kept it there after all these years.

Danny slid in the driver’s seat and cranked the truck to life before slowly pulling out of your neighborhood. For a while, the only sound was that from the radio, a familiar tune filling the slightly awkward silence. That was, until Danny spoke up again.

“So, how have things been? Big city girl now, huh?” He suddenly broke the silence. “Yeah uh, kind of a haste decision but I love it.” You replied. He took a deep breath before speaking again. “Was it because of me?”

“Danny, are we really gonna do this?” You sighed out, already starting to feel the rush of emotions come flooding back.

“Yes, Y/N. We are gonna do this. Because I fucked up, okay? I’m sor-.” Despite your mom’s words from earlier playing in your ear, you couldn't help the word vomit coming up.

“Are you though? Are you really Danny? Or are you just saying that? Because you weren’t there. You went away to college while I was left to pick up all the pieces. You have no idea the shit I went through because you decided to just give up on us.” The tears had long started falling down your face as you barely choked out the last few words.

He was silent, accepting your words as he knew you were right. ‘Danny you really hurt me. I couldn't escape it. Everything reminded me of you and it fucking hurt. Do you know how hard it was having everyone look at me like I was some pathetic little lost dog. You never even reached out.” You whispered, wiping the tears from your eyes.

He suddenly pulled off the road into a field that lined the backroads the two of you were traveling down. As he put the truck in park, he turned towards you before replying.

“Y/N I know and I swear to god if I could go back in time and change it, I would. I was so fucking stupid for ever letting you go. But by the time I realized it, it was too late and I was scared. Scared that you had moved on and found someone new. Scared that you wouldn’t feel the same way anymore. Scared that I had really lost you forever and that there was nothing I could do to fix it. Please believe me.” He reached his hand over to grab yours that rested in your lap.

“I love you so much Y/N. I never stopped loving you.” He spoke. You couldn't help the tears as they started flowing again, much harder than before. Danny suddenly released your hand, quickly exiting the truck and you watched in confusion as he walked over to your side, throwing the door open. He reached over your lap, unbuckling your seatbelt before gently guiding you out of the vehicle. He simply engulfed you in a hug and just held you as you continued to cry out. “I’m so sorry baby.” you could hear the sniffle in his own voice as the two of you just stood there embracing one another while the stars twinkled above.

A couple minutes later, you spoke up again. “I often wonder what my life would be like if things would have worked out. I wouldn’t be living in a city with my so-called friends. I’m pretty sure they don’t even like me. None of them can tell which smiles I’m faking like you could.” You replied honestly.

“You know. The only reason I ever come back here is because of you. I’m always hoping that one day you’ll be here. Looks like I finally got my wish.” He answered, slightly pulling back to look at you. Slowly at first to make sure it was okay, he began gently kissing away each individual tear that had fallen from your eyes, getting dangerously closer to your lips with every peck.

“Danny-” You whispered out. He pulled back once more, looking between your eyes once more for any sign to stop, but there was none. Leaning back in, he pressed a soft kiss to your lips. Though gentle at first, it quickly evolved into one with so much more passion and hunger, as if trying to make up for lost time. Trying to heal all the damage and hurt that he had caused. Despite not having done this in years, the two of you found your rhythm just like that. Like nothing had changed.

Before things could get too heated, he pulled back again. Confusion shot across your face as you immediately began to feel regret. But just as quickly, he sensed it and reassured you. “I don’t want to push things. I just got you back and I don’t want to lose you again. Not this time Y/N. Let’s just take it slow.” You were a little disappointed because his lips felt so perfect against yours but Danny was right.

He released your hand and grabbed the blanket you briefly remembered seeing folded up in the back before walking around to the back of the truck to open the tailgate. Nodding his head towards the bed of the truck, he held his hand out for yours. “C’mon, let's just watch the stars. I remember you used to love that.” You smiled as his hands found your hips once again to help you up before joining you.

There, the two of you sat together on the blanket, holding each other incredibly close like your lives depended on it. It wasn’t long before your eyes started feeling heavy and a yawn escaped your lips. Danny shifted a bit so you could lay more comfortably against his warm chest as he kept one arm around you while the other drew gentle patterns on your legs. The soft beat of his heart lulled your mind into a deep state of relaxation. Just before sleep consumed you, you felt him kiss the top of your head and could have sworn you heard him speak softly. “Still so perfect.”

✶ ✶ ✶

Taglist:

@jannysarcher @gretnavannfleet @bimbokiszka

#greta #greta van fic #gvf #gvf imagine #gretavanfleet #daniel robert wagner #danny wagner #gvf danny #danny gvf #dannywagner #danny wagner x reader #danny wagner x you #danny wagner x y/n #gardensgatekeeper

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asjjohnson · 2 years

Text

Here's the main part of my Phantom Remnants ficlet. :)

Background information: In this AU, Valerie cares about a comatose Danny Fenton, Dan isn't quite stable but he can handle it, and during a battle Dan takes advantage of a weak spot in the shield to squeeze his way into Amity Park.

---

Phantom Remnants: Converge

Valerie had gone through the shield after Phantom, but, as she hovered above the city, he was nowhere in sight.

The sirens were sounding, but hardly anyone was running to the shelters. Instead, people were peeking out of windows or hesitantly walking along the street while glancing up at the sky.

What was wrong with these people—didn't they know the shield didn't have to be completely torn down for it to be an emergency?!

Valerie descended until she was near ground-level, following the streets and calling out, "Get to the shelters!"

As she approached Fenton Works, her dad appeared in the doorway. She hopped off her board in front of the building.

She spoke quickly; urgently. "I don't know where he is. Where's Danny?"

"A nurse already picked him up—he's on his way to the shelters. As for Phantom... I can't tell. I think he's below-ground."

"Is he trying to break into the shelters?" she pondered mostly to herself.

Her dad gave no response.

Valerie jumped back onto her board. "I'll go—"

The street rumbled, and her dad lost his balance and had to grab the front steps' railing to steady himself.

Phantom burst from the Fenton Works' roof, sending pieces of the building in all directions.

Valerie grabbed her dad and swung around to safety across the street, just before a chunk of the Ops Center fell onto the front steps.

It was a good thing Danny hadn't been inside.

Valerie let her dad off her board, then leaned over to give him a brief hug. "Daddy..." She wanted to tell him to go to the shelters, but the image of Phantom slaughtering everyone inside was still in her head. "Be safe," she said instead—firmly, as though saying it would make it so.

"You, too. Be careful."

She gave him a smile, her eyes watery. "Yeah."

Then she turned away from him, soaring into the air, again looking for Phantom.

This time he wasn't so hard to find.

Laughing, he dived through a building and out the other side. Then shot a few ecto-beams toward the ground, before sending an arc of energy through a different building. He was all over the place, like a kid on a sugar high.

Now the townspeople were running to the shelters. Valerie rolled her eyes in annoyance. More like they were causing a large traffic jam and giving Phantom an easy target.

"Phantom!" she shouted. Pulling out a bazooka, she let it charge while waiting for him to turn around.

She nailed him right in the face.

He crashed through the second story of a building, and was back in the air in a matter of seconds.

He wiped some ectoplasm from his nose and smiled. "Val-"

She pulled the trigger again.

He crashed through the same hole as before.

She slid her foot over to one of the buttons on her board as he leapt back into the air, this time with a glare and ecto-energy glowing around his fists.

As much as she would love to see how many times in a row she could hit him in the face, she needed to get him away from the people.

"Come get me," she said instead.

And sped backward.

Phantom followed. He raised one of his glowing hands and sent an ecto-beam her way.

She rocked her board hard to the left and ducked, rotating vertically around the beam as it passed, then used the leftover momentum to smoothly transition to a horizontal spin that got her facing forward. Her board jerked as she switched gears, but launched ahead quickly.

The acceleration smoothed out, and she loosened up her stance.

There was an interesting fact that ecto-beams produced a high-pitched staticy sound. Quiet, but possible to hear when actively listening for it. And right now she could hear that sound.

She dodged to the left, and the beam passed her and continued on to hit a building. Debris showered down on the crowded street.

She needed to find a deserted area to finish their fight. Maybe the park, or—

Hearing another ecto-beam, she dodged right.

Or, if she could get him to follow her long enough, she could lead him to the edge of the shield and have her dad let down a section just long enough for Phantom to pass back through it.

She wondered if her dad could even get to the controls.

What had Phantom done inside Fenton Works anyways? Had he destroyed their ghost portal, or jammed the shield's controls?

She probably should've checked the damage before looking for Phantom.

She angled her head a bit, listening for another ecto-beam.

There should be another one any time now.

The stretch between attacks was a little odd. He was still following her, wasn't he?

Something splatted against her neck just behind her ear, knocking her off her board as she shouted a startled "Gah!"

She called her board back, but hit it at a bad angle and rolled off, falling the rest of the way to the street and rolling to a gritty, bumpy stop.

Well, she was going to feel that the next morning.

She sat up with a groan, feeling dizzy, and reached up to grab whatever was on the back of her neck. It squished between her fingers, and ripped at some fine hairs as she tugged it off. She made a face at the green slime and rubbed it off her glove onto the asphalt. Ectoplasmic goo.

She should've remembered Phantom had that in his arsenal.

Then she looked up at her surroundings.

She was in the middle of the street, with a crowd of wide-eyed people around her—backed up against the surrounding buildings or else pressed tightly around a nearby shelter entrance. Closest to her was a hovering medical stretcher, unable to squeeze back as far as the standing people.

She picked herself up and glanced around for her board, but her eyes lingered on the stretcher.

It took a few seconds to register that it was Danny strapped onto it. One of the nurses she knew was standing at his side, giving Valerie a worried, almost pleading look.

Cold seemed to seep through her as she realized the situation.

Flying was illegal when the sirens were on—even for emergency vehicles. It was a safety thing. The skies needed to be kept clear for a fight so she wouldn't have to dodge cars. And if Phantom attacked people, pedestrians didn't have as far to fall.

But that meant Danny had to be taken to the shelters on foot, among the crowds, and fight his way in like everyone else.

And now he would be in danger, out in the open.

A few people in the crowd turned their gazes skyward, and squeezed back even farther. Grunts of pain proved how tightly they were packed. A door opened, someone gesturing people inside the building, while glancing up worriedly.

Valerie turned and looked up as well, knowing what she would see.

Phantom alighted on the street, his cape drifting down behind him. Glowing green streaked his face and suit, and his expression showed only seriousness and determination and anger.

"This ends now."

His words felt louder than they really were, carrying well on the silent street.

She couldn't remember hitting her head, but she wondered if she had a concussion; time seemed to be moving sluggishly. Or perhaps it was blood loss catching up to her, since she hadn't been paying attention to her injuries and probably had red smeared on her like Phantom had green. Or maybe it was shock.

Whatever the case, she had to figure out how to get Danny out of the line of fire. She had to be strategic about what she stood in front of this time, and though there was no good place to direct fire toward, at least it could be somewhere other than toward Danny.

She started taking slow side-steps away from Danny's stretcher, watching Phantom closely.

Phantom's eyes flicked away from Valerie, immediately toward Danny's direction, and her heart sank.

Phantom took a step back. "He's supposed to be dead!" Oddly, the words didn't feel like a threat. But then his brows returned to a furrow and he bared his teeth. His arm raised toward Danny, an ecto-beam charging in his palm.

Her breath caught in her chest, an icy feeling of alarm; she jerked out a large ecto-gun.

But then... something strange.

Phantom's torso seemed to zigzag like an old TV.

Were her eyes playing tricks on her? She blinked hard, squishing her face tightly together, before doing a few rapid blinks—but the distortion looked more noticeable than before.

Phantom seemed to notice her small action. He stared at her face for a second, before following her line of sight to his torso.

"Not now," he muttered in annoyance—though Valerie, and probably the whole street, could hear the quiet words.

Was he... fading out? But no, this was different somehow. She had never seen this before.

His charging ecto-beam was forgotten, the glow dimming around his outstretched hand. His stance tensed and his jaw tightened with a look of concentration.

Valerie shot him in the face.

He fell onto his back with a grunt of pain. The visual anomaly suddenly worsened, a strange doubling spreading through his body, with the asphalt starting to show through him. It was like the color channels separating on a monitor: translucent white pulling to one side, black to the other.

He jerked his head up to look at Valerie with wide red eyes. Reflecting a raw fearfulness she had never seen from him before.

Then whatever-it-was spread across his features, pulling all the color from his face.

Before she could get a good look, one part started to blur and drift away. The other part made a grab for it, but it evaded and zipped into the distance, leaving the remaining part behind.

Pale. Eyes without pigment other than underlying ectoplasmic green. Wispy white hair that had lost its flame. For the rest of his body, only his faint logo and extremities were visible against the black asphalt.

He still had that terrified look about him. His eyes darted back and forth. His arms came up to circle around himself, as though trying to keep himself together. He started to blur, pulling apart in a way Valerie did recognize.

But then his gaze stilled. He closed his eyes and appeared to let out a long breath, before reopening his eyes. A look of calm resolve seemed to settle over him. As though he had made peace with his fate.

His eyes briefly turned to Valerie, before refocusing on something else.

He leapt into the air, although his boots passed straight through the asphalt.

His essence condensed into a trail of light and streaked through the air. Valerie shot twice at its arc. People shouted as the shots went on to land in the crowd.

The light entered Danny's chest.

Her weapon nearly slipped from her fingers—that's what he'd been looking at! She rushed to Danny's side.

Danny's head shifted, and his eyes fluttered open.

"Phantom, if that's you...!" she said harshly, bringing her ecto-gun up. That conniving, underhanded, cowardly piece of ectoplasmic scum. How dare he pull at her heart.

Danny's eyes widened, in what appeared to be surprise. "Y-You know?" His voice was gravely and weak.

Valerie clenched her jaw. She despised Phantom for doing this. She was beyond frustrated that she couldn't just shoot him into sludge right now. If there was enough substance left to pulverize into sludge. Why couldn't he have just faded out and accepted defeat?! She'd thought he'd made peace with fading out!

The light blue eyes glided away from her. "I... I'm in Amity Par—?" His voice cut out altogether. He coughed a few times, and croaked out, "But I was with Vlad... What happened?" He sounded like he was talking to himself. Spacing out.

"Phantom," Valerie growled in warning. He had better start paying attention to her. She had made a promise to Danny, and she was going to keep it. If Phantom refused to budge, she would force him out one way or another.

His eyes widened again and he tensed, looking alarmed. "The, experiment. Can I—" He started struggling, like he was trying to sit up—Valerie wasn't going to unstrap him. Then a white light sparked to life in the air above his waist. Valerie followed its path with the barrel of her ecto-gun.

Bright rings left behind a solid version of the Phantom she'd seen earlier. Green eyes and Caucasian skin, messy white ponytail. Like a strange mix of her Phantom and the Phantom of ten years ago.

The straps and tubes fell through both him and the stretcher as he sat up. He breathed a sigh of relief.

Valerie's hand shook on her weapon. Where was Danny? What had he done with him?

Phantom again looked at Valerie, eyes raking across her. His expression slowly fell. "...Oh." Then morphed to something resembling dawning horror. "Oh!" He leaned forward, hunching in on himself. "Oh, no, nonono..."

He looked up at her with pleading eyes. "I'd only wanted the guilt to stop. I didn't mean..." The pleading look faded and his gaze drifted.

She could only stare, her mind blank. Trying to make sense of what he was saying.

"I didn't want to feel bad for killing my own friends and family. That's what went through my mind," he said sardonically. He rolled his eyes and his lips formed a disgusted sneer. "Yeah, what a great solution! Just get rid of my human emotions. It would be sooo much easier as a ghost who didn't mind killing people."

The expression of self-hatred fell from his face, and his eyes moved horizontally across the still-crowded street, before he closed his eyes and brought his gloved fingers up to rub his temples.

She stared as the seconds drifted by.

...Danny?

---

This is part four of a little series. To see all the parts, look here: Phantom Remnants

#danny phantom #valerie gray #dan phantom #dark danny #danny fenton #the ultimate enemy #asj post #asj writing #phantom remnants fic #should I continue the story?#this had been for DPREVELATIONS2022 day 7 but it's super super late.

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theplanetprince · 2 years

Text

Schrodinger's Adolescent || Ch. 18

Fic: AO3 || FNN

Fandom: Danny Phantom

Rating: Teens and Up

Word Count, as of update (approx): 133k~

Chapters: 18/40 (subject to change)

Relationships:

Dash Baxter/Danny Fenton,

Sam Manson/Tucker Foley,

GhostWriter/Ember Mcclain,

Characters:

Danny Fenton,

Dash Baxter,

Sam Manson,

Tucker Foley,

Cujo,

Johnny 13,

Ghostwriter,

Sidney Poindexter,

Mr Lancer

Additional Tags: Slow Burn, Slow to Update, Canon Rewrite, Post-Reality Trip, High School Setting, Fake Dating (Kinda), Unrequited Love, It's requited but they're dumbasses, one-sided attraction, fluff, I know the content warning is extensive, but I promise there's fluff, tooth-rotting fluff, Danny Fenton has PTSD

Content Warnings: A lot of talk/descriptions of food, mentions of starvation, stalking, inappropriate contact with a minor, assault,

Fic Summary: “Schrodinger put his cat in a box with a bottle of poison. He closes the lid. The cat is alive or dead— In this state, the cat is neither. He leaves the box closed. You are the cat.”

All Danny Fenton wanted was to be normal. He had to work harder at it than most of his peers. Normal wasn’t exactly an option while being the Phantom of Amity Park. Of course, that all changes when Danny accidentally outs himself to his bully, Dash Baxter. Between dances, big games, school plays, and violent biker demons— Danny’s got his hands full. What may be surprising is just how much Dash cares about the human underneath the ghost…

Author's Note: I am beyond relieved to have finished this chapter. I am so glad. It took me all week but I've finally can carve my way forward. I guess I should thank Wes for this one. Wes really changed the direction for this chapter, and I think I owe him that. -Voorhees ✌

Wesley liked the outdoors— No, he adored the outdoors. Home to Wes wasn't limited to the construction of a building. He was never the kind to feel comfortable in one place for long. He had to move, and he had to stretch his legs. He loved climbing trees. That was the big positive he took away from the move to Amity Park. They called it the sticks for a reason. There was so much life compared to the major cities the Westons resided in prior. At first glance, at least. The irony wasn't exactly obvious then.

Whenever the world got to be too much, as it often did when you were a teenager, Wes could just put one hand over the other. Then suddenly, his issues didn't seem so bad. They seemed so small up above the ground. His brothers had affectionately given him the nickname 'spider-monkey' due to his habit of dropping everything when he made eye contact with something he could climb or jump off.

More often than he'd like to admit, Wes would pop open his bedroom window and slide down the rain gutter and walk to the park just like he did tonight.

He walked until he found the tallest tree he could. He elected to climb it until his arms burned from carrying his weight. He didn't hear it when the motorcycle pulled up. No, he was still lost in his thoughts and grief. He was stewing from another fight with his parents. They had busted his chops for his 'attitude' … again. Like Wes wasn't entitled to one after being trapped in this hellhole. Attitude was how you survived.

Resting his back flat against the trunk, he exhaled. Tapping the back of his skull against the bark, Wes turned over the argument once more. He thought about the look of worry on his mother's face. He thought about how his dad never used to shout so much before they moved here—wondering what he could have said differently. What could he have done—?

Did it even matter?

No one even listens to me, anyway.

Not my parents, not Kyle or Easton. Not even Dash…

That brought his thoughts back to the present. What was he going to do about Dash? Why was he so… stubborn?! He had to know the Fentons were bad news.

Wes didn't have friends anymore. Danny made sure of that. But Wes still owed Dash his loyalty— Wes still needed to keep him safe. Wes wanted to cling to whatever he could hold. He couldn't just come out and say it like that, right? Wes and Dash weren't exactly on speaking terms… but…

Why did this have to be so hard?

Wes wanted to be good. He wanted to be true and good. The issue therein, nobody believed it. Nobody thought Wes was capable of such noble pursuits. Most of all, he wanted to be happy, but the world wouldn't let him. Not if the world still had Danny Fenton in it.

Danny Fenton was a stain that refused to fade.

Danny Fenton was a monster.

Danny Fenton had to die, but by some miracle— he couldn't. He can't die.

What's the opposite of a miracle?

Weston could care less who delivered the coup de grâce. He just wanted to be there to witness it. He wanted to know exactly what kind of evil sustains itself for that long without burning up. Maybe it would be like discovering a new element. He wanted to see them open him up. What kind of diseases could you cure with a guy who refused to die? How much money would that be? Had to be enough for a bus ticket out of Amity Park.

It wasn't exactly righteous to wish death upon someone. But since when was it righteous to walk back from your maker?

If people had read the Bible like they claimed to, they'd know it was cover-to-cover murder.

Then again, this wasn't about what Weston wanted. He was just the running joke at Casper high. He wasn't one of the zealots who praised the heavens for opening and gracing them with the Phantom. He was crazy; after all, why should it matter what he wanted?

That's the thought Wes kept coming back to. As if his brain was a one red-light town and every road led back to the same question and the same solution.

If Danny Fenton died… would this all go away?

The question sat there and stared at him. Stared at him with that same idle and taunting expression that the ghost boy did.

Would everything go away? If even for just a little bit? A couple of days at most?

He sat in the tree at least thirty feet off the earth and let the breeze pass him by. The chill made him aware of the tears on his face that definitely weren't there before. Wes wiped his eyes and rubbed his nose. The moon bounced off his pale, skinny limbs, and he mulled over how he got here. He fiddled with his sweatshirt ties. The red cords were fraying at the ends, the plastic parts having cracked. He pressed them between his thumb and the rest of his fist, spreading the threads even thinner. Twisting.

Why did he have to look at me like that? Like I was dirt?

Why is he so obsessed with Danny Fenton all of a sudden?

How could he be so—

"Easy Shadow, easy. We'll go see our boy soon enough. You have to leave them wanting more." There was a chuckle in the dark.

Drawn to the sound of boots crunching gravel and a voice, Wes peered down from his perch. There was someone below him.

Through the bramble and leaves, what the ex-jock could make out, was a man… and something. Something distinctly inhuman surrounded him. It looked like… slime? Like oil animated and suspended in the air. Whatever it was, it shimmered in the borrowed glow of the moon.

It had teeth.

A lot of teeth. Sharp and pointed, like that of a predator, evolved to kill for the joy of it and not for sustenance.

"Yknow, It's gonna be a real shame about that kid… " The biker continued to muse to himself as he put down his kickstand. Adjusting his long flowing jacket as he went, brushing the dust off his leather clothes. He retrieved a box of cigarettes from his pocket and then a lighter.

Clasping onto the paper roll with his teeth, he flicked the metal wheel a few times before a spark caught the tip.

Exhaling a plume of sour smoke, the stranger spoke hoarsely and with the faintest bit of humor, "He really didn't have to make himself such an easy mark. But walking around like that with the perfect body—?"

He stood up, stretching his arms above his head casually and sighing, "With that whole, 'you gonna finish that?' line— it's like the kid was after my own heart."

The stranger snickered.

"Such a shame…" He shook his head, "No one's gonna even know the difference when we're done."

The shadow gurgled a reply to its master, or what Wes assumed to be its master. It seemed to have a rapport with the man, like a pet. It followed the gestures and waves of the stranger's hand.

"What kind of a name is 'Dash' anyway? We're definitely changing that."

As Wesley leaned to his side, balancing himself between an adjacent branch and the one he was sitting on.

Did he just say—

The tree cracked, disturbing the still atmosphere, sending the residents of said dwelling into the sky with alarm. The pine needles rustled as what Wes initially thought of as a sturdy foothold began to rumble.

The duo on the ground snapped their glares up into the night. The moonlight blew out their eyes. Their scleras glowed white like feral animals caught on a trail cam.

Ghosts.

Holy shit.

Wes held his breath. His lips folded into his mouth to hold back a scream. Sweat caressed the curves of his cheekbone and poured down, down, down off his chin, and to the bark chips below. He clenched his teeth so hard that Wes thought he would somehow break through his jaw.

Please don't see me. Please don't see me. Please don't see me. Please don't—

Crickets and cicadas chirped in the stillness.

"Lay back, Shadow." The man took another drag off his cigarette, turning his gaze to his beast, "I don't wanna keep lover boy waiting."

The comment made Wes' stomach sink. There were thousands of ways he could've interpreted that, but none of them were good.

The man chuckled. His deep voice was like trying to fathom the rolling ocean. Yes, it was serene to a point, but it hid so much. It hid too much. Maybe there was a bottom to it… but not one desirable or one that wouldn't utterly destroy you before reaching it.

"Remember, buddy, if you catch it—" A twig snapped as the biker took a few more steps under the tree's canopy. He knocked on the trunk.

He growled, "You eat it. "

The biker departed. Tossing the filter of his expired cigarette to the side, the embers faded into the seamless dark.

Wes couldn't hear him leave, whether that be because of his heart beating in his ears or because the ghost had shed his physical form.

Maybe he didn't leave. He only wanted to lull Wes into a false sense of security.

There were a few seconds at most where the conspiracy theorist didn't move—just a few seconds of doubt.

A few seconds too many as the sentient black mass darted under the tree.

Cautiously, Wes centered himself on his weakened branch. He got his knees under him and perched on the balls of his feet. The tree replied with another sharp crack. He was getting down one way or another. Let it be through gravity or by his agility.

He was on the clock now.

Hands dove into this center sweatshirt pocket. Finding his field notebook, he tossed it—he found his copy of the ghost hunters' almanac. The written word would do little to help him now. The papers he kept with him only rustled in protest.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!

The thick viscous sound of that animal— that creature— that thing slithering up the tree caused his body to break in goose flesh. It was the sound of the world ending as clouds blotted out all the light. It was the sound of rain falling in reverse. It was the last gasps of the cosmos that no one could perceive in the vacuum of the void.

From the roots, the tree began to tremble as if caught in the middle of a cataclysmic earthquake. He got his back to the wall and limited his window of vulnerability.

It was indescribable. It was the hoofbeats of hell's cavalry.

And it was getting closer.

Futilely Wes called out, "Get back!"

In his panic, the edge of his palm brushed the cool metal of his taser.

Thank god for overnight express shipping.

Unrelenting thoughts racing, Weston realized he never looked up. There was a branch just out of his reach—

The monster wailed in its bottomless hunger. It wove itself into the spaces between the fabric of the bark. Tendrils coiled around the pine needles, and molecule by molecule, the entity rewrote itself into nature as if it weren't a cruel parody. It moved like a disease—Swift as an infection.

All it took was a jump. Just a jump—

Wes snapped his glance from impending doom consuming his foothold to the branch above him. It would be a stretch, but it wasn't like he had any other choice.

Kicking the chip in the branch, more of the white inner flesh became exposed. All it would need is all of his weight coming down on the weak spot.

Knees apart, Wes took the leap.

The branch still persisted.

"C'mon! Dammit!"

One more time, the young man channeled all of his strength to his legs—

The last fibers of the branch snapped with an almost melodic sound. It was so beautiful and terrifying. Terrifying, for a brief moment, he was in the air. He was nothing but mass and matter. One-hundred-twenty pounds of dead weight that hung there in the sky. In anticipation for the nine-point-eight-two per second squared equation of gravity to finish him off.

But Wes caught himself— just barely. Just enough. There was liquid seeping from his hands. Hot and burning.

It wasn't his time yet. There was still work to be done.

Not today.

The impact sent up the gravel in a cloud of dust and the monster down with it.

"Yeah! Bitch! Now you know!" A tight laugh escaped his diaphragm. It punched its way out of him with his victory. He tapped his sweaty forehead on the limb of the tree. Wes repeated to himself, " Now you know ."

His biceps burned as he pulled himself onto the higher hold. He swung his legs and pressed his eroding sneakers against the trunk until he got the upper branch between his thighs. He flipped onto the top side, still trying to catch his breath.

"I-I should've stretched. Whew —" Rolling his shoulders, Wes shuddered.

"Yeah— yeah, I-I definitely pulled something." He ghosted his hand over the stitch in his side, " Aghhh…"

So much ow. Whole lot of ow.

The pulse in his hands only got stronger as warm blood began to rise from his flayed palms. He glared down at his sorry hands. He didn't dare try to make a fist, and he can forget about basketball for—

Wait, what was that?

That awful noise…

Something between an infant trying to form its first words and something being blended between the teeth of an irreparable garbage disposal. The gurgling returned. It was a throaty clicking and rasp of a death row inmate seeing stars in his vision as the injection took hold, as he choked on his own bile. That sound. That awful sound.

It was so close. It was practically all he could hear.

But where is it?!

Then the death rattle evolved into an ear-shattering squeal. Like Wes had left the calm serenity of Amity Park's forest and entered the killing floor of a meat farm. The breath of the monster was as thick as blood and rotting meat. He could hear the links of chain beating against the stained floor as they raised the carcasses to the ceiling. Wes could hear it all despite shutting his eyes tight and using both of his hands to block it out. It's what he would do during thunderstorms or if the curtain plagued his tired mind with shapes of someone that meant him harm. It was all he could do. Close his eyes and pray.

Oh, God, no.

The needles in the tree rustled in weak protest as the dark being darted in and out of the gaps, working in a whirlwind to tie the living down. The spots of green withered into ash, decaying into nothing.

It had latched itself onto the bottom of Wes' shoe like mud, and it chilled every nerve and cell in his body. The stain only grew and grew at an illogical panic-inducing pace. Its spread was uncontrollable. It clouded his vision. It eclipsed him. The Shadow contorted Wes's body against his will.

Forcing Wes to pulverize himself.

It didn't want him. Shadow didn't want Wes. Johnny didn't want Wes. So, it would kill him. It would stop when Wes's remains were no longer entertaining.

Nobody wanted Wes.

It was a few more moments after Wes's abrupt landing before someone said anything.

"Oh, great, that's exactly what this situation needed. Another dead child…" Stephen gestured to the body of the high schooler in front of them. He was tempted to poke the boy with his shoe to see if he would twitch.

The Phantom's initial startle had sent him skyward. He had jumped six feet out of his skin and floated there. Danny didn't say a word. Not even scolding the senior ghost for his barb disguised as levity.

Ghostwriter turned his glance toward his ward, it was unfocused but still burning, "Friend of yours?"

Still gawking at the young living on the ground, it took Danny a few moments to register that Wes was unconscious. That wasn't unsurprising, he did fall from a tree for god's sake—but seeing him there on the ground…

It didn't feel good. There was a pang of unidentifiable emotion that pulled at him. It pulled and kept pulling him further into his memories he was better off abandoning. Guilt? Was that it? Why did it hurt to look at Wes this way? Barely Wes's chest was still moving. The subtle rise of his lungs expanding was the only thing tipping the scales in his favor.

Unnerved that his companion who had talked his ear off the entire journey to this point, Stephen snapped, "Daniel!"

The Phantom's voice exited his body with no coherency. He made a noise but it wasn't a word. It was just in acknowledgement that the other party said something. Danny had dropped from his flight, and landed on the ground jostling from one foot to the other. He moved to his classmate with hesitation. Danny wasn't sure he could do anything to help, but something compelled him to try anyway.

His approach was curious, cautious, and excruciatingly slow.

Lowering himself, Danny tried to sift through thousands of questions and thoughts that all seemed important but held no weight like smoke. Scouring the recesses of his mind for any faint flash of the article Sam made him read for how to treat concussions. Anything he retained from health about first-aid.

Anything… anything at all.

Selfishly, the Phantom had made the assumption he was indestructible. He didn't think he needed to know. There were better uses of his time. For the life of him, Danny couldn't tell you what those uses were now. Off playing video games and screwing around. Not paying any attention yet again. Now his mind was painfully blank.

"What's going on out there?"

His sister's voice brought him back to reality.

"I— Jazz— I-I need you to read me off the steps on how to revive an unconscious person!"

The static crackled across his ear piece, "Wh—"

"Now! Jazz, tell me what to do! I found Weston… I found…" The Phantom trailed off uselessly, his voice was quivering like he was that scared boy in the basement again, " He's hurt real bad, Jazz. "

For all the posturing, for all the bravado— this was the creature everyone in the zone was so terrified of? Stephen crinkled his nose at the scene. The elder would have been so bold as to call the sight… tender.

Ever still woozy and boozy— Stephen had exhaled a burp. He took a respite under the tree, hunching over. The ghost tried to rationalize that he no longer had functioning organs so he did not need to be nauseous but this did little to elivate the feeling. The living world would remind him with no sympathy that he was supposed to be rotting worm food, and by existing in this plane all he was doing was hurting himself.

Why would Johnny choose to subject himself to this willingly? Surely he wasn't that sentimental about this little town.

As Stephen widened his stance and kept his head towards his chest, that's when he saw it.

A book.

A hardback book just sitting face open in the dirt. An unassuming brown leather tome. The cover was upside down or— or Stephen was a little more than half-in-the-bag. He picked it up, and brushed the debris away from the cover. As his marble like eyes scanned the serious typeface to make sense of it, the Ghostwriter began to cackle—

The Ghost Hunter's Almanac, Written by Edna Wickett.

The kid was a ghost hunter! Of course! Irony seems to follow the Phantom just as closely as the shadow of death.

Danny ripped his head away from his task and to his elder, "What's so funny?!"

"A ghost hunter! The boy's a ghost hunter." Stephen guffawed, slapping his forehead with the heel of his palm. His clawed fingers tangled with his curly black hair.

"If you're just gonna stand there and not be any help— can you shut up?!" The Phantom glared at the drunk, trying to find his sister's calm and level voice again.

Danny did as she said with no room for error, listening for a heart beat, seeing if Wes's airway was blocked, it was obvious she was reading off of a website but it was more resources Danny had at the moment. By his unprofessional opinion, Wes was fine— just asleep and banged up. Really banged up.

Danny pleaded with his sister, "Is… is there nothing I can do?"

"... I'd maybe call an ambulance?" Jasmine offered gently, "If Wes' not up and walking around within a few minutes. Just to make sure he did sustain a neck or spinal injury?"

Danny's gloved hand ghosted around his own throat when she posed that option. He blinked rapidly and swallowed. He really hoped it wasn't a neck injury.

"I-I can't leave him here. We can't… No hospitals …" Danny couldn't imagine a good outcome if he were to drop off Wes on the doorstep of the emergency room.

He gripped the living teen by the shoulders and softly shook him, quietly whispering pleas and demands that fell on deaf ears.

Stephen leafed through the book. Curling each page around his claws. It was well-loved. Frantic notes in the margins and highlighter ink that bled through the worn page. The information didn't seem to bridge any gaps, or enlighten the older specter on anything new. He had seen this book in his library as well. The opening passage was etched into his brain.

In regards to the recently deceased… They are to be treated with the utmost respect because at one point they were our friends, our neighbors, our parents, our siblings, our lovers, our children. Soon we will join the choir. It is not a matter of if, but when. This book is to be a guide to navigate the uneven rocky terrain between birth and death. This book is also a warning to those who are not satisfied with answers provided. A warning that must be heeded. Unless you wish to be adopted early into the choir of hollow voices.

Still chuckling, the undead-shut-in took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes, "I don't understand you." His shoulders bounced with his stifled reaction, "I really don't. Why do you… why do you try so hard ?"

"What're you talking about?" Danny barked.

"You know better than anyone that these— People —" The way the author wielded the word you would have mistaken it for poison.

The elder ghost spat, "These people aren't worth the effort ."

"I knew that when I was alive!" He tossed the book at Danny's side.

The book landed with its covers clattering. The Phantom didn't flinch. He knew what it was.

" Stop it, " Danny replied solemnly. He fidgeted uncomfortably. Caught between a lie, or a statement he simply didn't believe. But he wanted to. Danny wanted to believe that Ghostwriter was wrong.

"We're petty, and stupid— so, unbelievably stupid—" Stephen slurred, "Small, and cruel ."

He exhaled breathlessly, "And it only gets worse when we die."

"It only gets worse ."

Danny said nothing. He only listened. Replaying that look on Dash's face. That terrified look kept replaying on the backs of his eyelids. Biting the inside of his mouth, the Phantom was caught between punishment and atonement. As if somehow they were the same thing.

"But that's what I can't stand about you, boy—" Stephen braced his palm against the trunk of the tree, the colors of his form only saturating with his anger, "You think you're better than us. You think you're above it. Don't you?"

The Phantom couldn't conjure a reply. It was better to stay in silent denial, than to keep lying. It was getting harder to breathe, the blockage in his throat refused to wilt. Jazz's voice was in one ear, and Stephen was in the other.

"Don't you?!" Stephen exploded, forming a fist and scratching his nails down the thick skin of the tree, "You deny what you are, and for what?! You think these people actually care about you?!"

He scoffed, "The Phantom of Amity Park! They love you in the same way they love a caged bear. They love you because they fear you. They would feed you their young if you asked and fear the consequences if they didn't follow through. You think they're smart enough to know the difference between a good ghost and a bad one? Yeah, if that's what helps you sleep at night, Daniel—" Ghostwriter mocked his younger, " Congratulations , they love you."

Giving a slight turn of his head, Danny's hateful eyes found the Ghostwriter, his chest heaved with his growing fury, "Got anything else on your chest, old man?"

"You're still an animal." Stephen growled, "And animals need to eat. And you're starving by pretending to be noble."

Brow only knitting, and shoulders tensing— The ghost boy seethed.

"Oh my god, you don't know!" Stephen inclined his head in disbelief, his grey skin dewy with perspiration and reflecting the moonlight. He exclaimed in mutter, "Of course! Of course you don't know."

The Ghostwriter put into small words for the child, "Ghosts are evil. Intrinsically. We are not a part of the ecosystem. Ghosts feed off of misery. So we create it. Wherever we go we hurt people, because that's what keeps us here. We exist as blunt instruments— reduced to repeating patterns and base primal instincts. That's why I never wanted to leave the Ghost Zone…" Stephen watched his physical form jitter and flicker. He stared at his hand, and tried to keep his anger at the forefront of his mind. It was the only thing that anchored him here.

"That's why you're hesitating. Isn't it? It's why you're paralyzed. It's why you're leaving him there in the dirt—to suffer—because you're feeding—"

The gravel shifted as the Phantom's boots agitated the ground as he turned between his two points of focus, "The only thing you should be concerned about, Stephen , is staying out of my way…"

Danny exhaled several glowing cyan wisps from his throat, "You talk too much. Way too much for a man who can't fight his battles."

As the boy snapped back to treating the living, the Ghostwriter could barely perceive the light trail that followed Danny's awful piercing stare. A stare few forget and even fewer survive. The ghost boy exhaled an affirmation only for himself, "I'm not evil."

A toothy smirk curled into the book-keeper's cheek, and it tinted his voice, "And you'd be the judge of that… wouldn't you?'

Over the ear piece, the ghost boy could hear the distinct rattle of a phone vibrating against his sister's desk.

"Wh-why is Dash calling me right now?" Jazz said in between mumblings and rereadings of the article in front of her.

Without thinking, Danny blurted out, "Wait— Wait! Don't answer that! You need to focus and help me—"

"What if it's an emergency?" Her voice collided with her brother's. Jazz didn't let her panic become anything other than background noise, however everything seemed to be happening all at once without rhyme or reason, "Dash'd never call me like this out of the blue, what if it's a ghost attack?"

"Jazz, whatever you do— don't answer that—" Was all the younger sibling could say in the absence of another lie. Danny was desperate for any excuse to keep his sister away from hearing just how screwed up he actually is. Reflexively he clapped over his mouth.

It was the last question he wanted to hear. It was a razor slice around the curve of his quivering, gasping throat, leaving him to bleed out. There was a beat of silence, a beat where Jazz debated if she really needed to know the answer. Her voice was clear amongst the compression of the device, Jasmine asked, "...Why?"

Too overwhelmed with trying to breathe, focusing on not losing whatever semblance of control he had, Danny didn't answer her. He couldn't answer. Preoccupied with not collapsing and breaking into a thousand pieces right here in the dark. He gulped down lungfuls of air but he was still drowning— he knew he didn't need to breathe, it offered no relief like how it did when he was alive. Helpless. Helpless and heavy. Everything was so heavy and closing in on him—

"...Wh-what did…" Jasmine stuttered out, "What did you do, Danny?"

Swollen eyelids fluttering open, Wes stirred. His thin legs began to draw towards his center. His worn sneakers kept worthlessly scratching against the dirt. The ginger moaned in pain, as he summoned all his strength to his arms to prop himself up.

"Hey—Hey, man, hey take it easy." Danny croaked out, "Do-do you r-remember your name and where you are?"

"Fenton…?" Wes blinked his eyes before holding his presumably pounding head into his hands. Weston's vision was waning, but his hearing was pitch-clear-as-a-church-bell-perfect apparently.

"Well, uh, that's uh— that's me technically." The ghost boy replied, with an anxious flutter to his voice. Hoping his creeping panic attack wasn't obvious.

The living teen kicked, and thrashed away, causing a cloud of dust to rise around him. Wes the end of the cut volatile wire with no grounding agent. Danny could almost see how his lungs kept fighting against Wes' chest muscles. Wes shuddered and twitched, he was scared but his anger—? His anger was blinding. Wes snarled, "Fenton!"

Danny wanted to set their petty rivalry aside for a moment, "You took a really nasty fall ther—"

A searing jolt hit the ghost boy's core. His abdominal muscles convulse and flexed wildly without any permission. His body racked with pins and needles. Fire ignited in his blood as his body rebelled against the sensation. Danny's torso hit the ground next.

Coughing, the ghost boy peered up at Wes, holding a device engulfed in blue static in his hand.

"What the hell's the big idea— huh?!" Wes dialed up the wattage of his pocket taser, "Wh-what the hell did you do to me while I was knocked out, you—you freak?!"

Danny spat some grains of sand from his teeth, "That—That, really , h-hurt."

"—Fuck yourself, Fenton," Wes rose to his knees, huffing the entire time, "What's your angle, asshole?!"

"I… I-I di-didn't do any-anything to you," Danny kept repeating. Drool began to exit from his numb face. Two pale rings sprung free from the undead-teen's ribcage. The last of his strength extinguished, Fenton kept writhing as if his back was being used as a butcher's block.

Wes' expression dropped, as he slowly enunciated, " Bull. "

The ex-jock gestured to his face and then the motorcycle, "You invite a couple friends down here, then what? What're you planning? You wanna Hijack some bodies, what for?"

When Danny didn't answer right away, Weston raised the taser above his head—

A hand had clasped around the living boy's wrist. Black claws contrasted Wes's pale flesh. The intense pressure Stephen put on the teen's arm was enough to bruise.

Ghostwriter's face split in two as he let out a devastating wail, " GO AWAY ."

The author's jaw dislocated and fell, and kept falling. It stretched beyond all physical reason. Wes could see into Stephen's gaping mouth curtained with pointed teeth, he could nearly see into his empty stomach. Grey rotted skin barely held Ghostwriter's bones in place.

Wes stumbled back. He stumbled, eyes wide with horror. The young man scrambled and bolted from the scene.

There was a loud crack. Danny assumed this was Stephen setting his mouth back into place. There was a wet click, as the elder specter regained control over his forked tongue.

The Ghostwriter sighed, hearing the haphazard footfalls of the young man tearing away into the night like a spooked deer. He lowered his glance to Danny's hobbled form.

"A resilient little cuss, isn't he?" He adjusted his cardigan and glasses, "I suppose you've both got that in common."

It was lunchtime at Casper high again. Nothing remarkable on the menu today. Something unrecognizable to the human taste palette, yet the school still charged four dollars for. Some chose to forgo the whole thing entirely. Some would eat in their classrooms or the rooms of their favorite clubs. Some wouldn't eat at all if they could help it.

Often the seniors and those with cars just went to the gas station down the hill to get their bags full of all the name-brand junk food they could find. From the track field, the quarterback could see the platoons of cars depart, and students eagerly get their fix. He halted in the middle of his lap, checking his pulse. Pressing his fingers to his throat, he felt his heart struggling to keep up with the rest of his body— just under the pads of his fingers.

At least one-ninety, Baxter decided.

In a glance, he saw the painted lines on the asphalt become vacant as cars peeled out of the exit. Dash blinked and what was beyond the chain link fence that rattled was empty. He was surrounded by emptiness. Sweat cascaded down his body; it clung tightly like a second skin. It burned his eyes. Dash closed them again and cleaned himself off.

What he wouldn't give for just a little rain. The clouds had been heavy and welcoming, but it proved nothing more than to be meteorological red herring. It was pointless to think humans could predict anything. We're just making sense of a world much bigger than us, after all. A world much older and wiser than us. We assigned meaning to such patterns because we were the first to record them. The cold hard truth of it is that the universe is chaotic and, therefore, meaningless.

His heart was beating so hard— he could feel it travel up his spine. Thrumming in his brain stem, as if the momentum would rip him apart. Dash exhaled a breath he didn't know he had been holding, "...Rough start."

It was just like this last night. When he saw the ghost kid standing there. In his room.

There was no point in lingering on it.

He was something of an icon for students at Amity Park. Something about him spoke to the unseen and undying boiling anger in the hearts of teenagers. Anger was the keyword. The Phantom was hardly invested in being a hero. It was more so an obligation than a genuine goal of his. Some were just glad The Phantom was on their 'side.'

…

No one liked it when you pointed out that there weren't any sides. They just wanted to assume ownership of the 'good' ghost. No one wanted to think what would happen if the Phantom one day decided he wasn't a people-person anymore.

There was nothing Dash could have done to stop him. You don't contain a force of nature; you just… pray. This was a ghost town. It's best not to argue that with them. There were theories, of course, but Dash didn't much believe in any of them. That's all anyone had in Amity Park. None of them really stood up under scrutiny.

The ghosts were pieces of people repeating patterns from displaced periods of time. This theory seemed to absolve all the creatures of guilt or even liability for the harm they did to the living.

That one was quite popular with the intellectual head type thinkers. But nothing about last night was routine or ordinary. In fact, the reason why it was terrifying was because the Phantom never did stuff like that. At least to anyone else. Dash believed in concepts he could touch, grasp, and feel, but he didn't trust ghosts as far as he could throw them. Which unsurprisingly wasn't very far. Spirits led to many loaded questions no one wanted to think about. Amity Park citizens were confronted with the inevitably of death every single time they opened their front doors.

Ghosts were the victims of violent or unjustified deaths. Dash would scoff at this like it was a poor joke. Okay. If that's all, it took, explain what happened to the ghosts of those in any war ever? Being something of a hopeless romantic in love with the earth and the people on it— there was the unspoken other side of the coin Dash typically fronted with. The utter pessimism that with the ability to love gives you just equal depth to hate just as hard. Baxter wouldn't admit it so much out loud, but his bitterness came from a place of being so infatuated with people that you hate them for hurting each other. He didn't want to believe that somehow that need to hurt others persisted. Maybe love neutralized that pain, or perhaps it made that hurt more tolerable. We could just be destined to hurt each other no matter what. It's probably why Dash would rather be alone. It's probably why we strive to find the one person it's okay to hurt over and over again.

That's what people do best. Break each other's hearts.

Is that what I have to look forward to when I die?

Maybe this was just projection on his part, but— Dash knew physical pain was such an ephemeral concept. You could outlive pain. You grow from it. You channel that energy somewhere else. Pain was mortal. That was the athlete's perspective, wasn't it? It was the ability to take your hurt and rage into your body effortlessly as if absorbing poison.

Perhaps the ghosts just had unfinished affairs in the living plane.

No theory ever seemed to fit perfectly. It was as if they were all popping seams.

The horrible truth was that gave Dash a knot in his throat. They were all ghost stories in the making.

He opened his eyes and stretched his neck. Looking over his shoulder again to the parking lot. There was a motorcycle in one of the spaces close to the fence. With his leather duster barely grazing the ground below him, the man stood out.

When did he even pull up? Why didn't I hear the engine?

…

There was this pang in his chest, and his blood ran cold.

The man from the woods yesterday. That man… that man sat on top of the machine. He flashed the quarterback a toothy smile and a wave.

Hesitantly, Dash waved back. More accurately, he lifted his hand in acknowledgment of the biker's presence.

Taking two fingers, the man stuck them in his mouth and whistled so wolfishly it echoed across the field.

Well, he's persistent. Shouldn't he be a creep on his own campus?

Dash rigidly walked back towards the main building, quickly stopping by the benches to gather up his jacket and books.

From the fence, Dash could hear the husky voice of the man from the woods call out, "Aw, leavin' so soon, superstar? C'mon, don't be shy!"

Baxter said nothing as he put an arm through his letter jacket. This school had to get better security.

Kwan, whose nose was stuffed deep into a geometry textbook, wearily asked, "Can we please get something to eat? I'm starting to see triangles when I close my eyes."

The metal risers creaked under while the linebacker fidgeted. He seemed unaware of anyone besides the two of them on the field.

Running a hand through his hair, Dash hastily agreed to the solution that would get them the hell out of there as fast as possible. He nodded, "Yeah, yeah, I just need to change out of my gym clothes."

"Are you okay?" Kwan detected the hurried tone.

"It's nothing. Don't worry about it." Baxter pulled his friend along, believing there was strength in numbers, "Let's just get a move on before the line gets too long."

Maybe the man would leave if he could see the kind of people Dash really hung around with. The quarterback would say it was unlike him to be scared, but that would be a lie. Dash knew whatever that guy was up to; it was no good. He was peppering on compliments and flattery to get something from Dash. What that 'something' was, remained to be seen— but Baxter was not sticking around to find out.

"It's nothing, or I shouldn't worry about it?" Kwan picked up their bags, carrying both his and his best friend's books under his arm. However, he was still being dragged along by his superior.

"Dash, Dash, easy, dude!" Kwan pried his friend's wrist off his bicep as soon as they were in the safety of the gymnasium.

"Sorry…" Baxter said.

Kwan's brow pinched in the middle, "Are you sure you okay? Do you, like, maybe want to call your doctor to—?"

"I-I'm fine… just, spooked, I guess." Dash slowed as he reached the locker room door, holding it open for his friend so they could continue their conversation. "But I promise, everything is under control."

Without a better word, Kwan was a good friend because he made Dash feel safe. He didn't ever want to do anything that would compromise that feeling of safety between them.

"You came to my house, drenched in sweat like you just ran a marathon, and you threw up in the yard." Kwan shook his head and bounced the door off his shoulder. His tone was flat, just repeating the facts, following his friend to the lockers.

Dash's eyes fell slightly as he wrestled out of his gym shirt, "I'll replace the wonky flamingo I destroyed with my stomach acid."

"That's not the point, and you know it." Kwan crossed his arms. He watched Dash to ensure he didn't blindly punch himself in his hurry, "You never actually told me what happened last night."

Hunched over by his locker, the captain was just stripping off his first layers and reorganizing his lockers. He reapplied his deodorant.

"It was just… nerves, s'all." The athlete fumbled with the cap and stick, "It's hard being the quarterback in a school where the leading cause of our failure is somethin' called the 'quarterback curse'."

"Is it those snobby Elmerton douchebags?" Kwan threw out the suggestion, prodding for any answer, "Did they jump you or something?"

"No," Dash said tersely. Pulling on his black shirt that he wore last night. Thankfully, it didn't smell like puke. Kwan's mom was nice enough to make sure the kid got his clothes taken care of.

Slapping the tops of the lockers, Kwan was getting frustrated, "Did Wes say something to you?"

The quarterback's face was tense but neutral. Not giving a single indication of his thoughts. He stared hard into the crimson surface as if the metal would start to warp. Barely moving his lips, then just to breathe and say, "Wes and I have nothing to talk to each other about as far as I'm concerned."

Kwan sighed, "Your shirt's on backwards there, Patrick Bateman ."

"Goddamnit."

Electing to look at the wall, so his captain could fix himself, Byun-Ji barred his arms over his chest and leaned back on the bench, "Sue me for caring about your stupid ass. But you're really starting to scare me. So just… tell me that this is the worst of it, and you'll be fine."

Kwan didn't mean to sound so… desperate, but he tacked on an additional caveat, "Can you do that for me, Dash?" Even quieter, Byun-Ji demanded, "Please?"

Baxter knew what his friend was asking for was impossible. What the entire world was asking of Dash just wasn't in his ability to do. He couldn't be 'normal.' He was cracked into so many different facets that Dash couldn't recognize the original anymore. The schism deep within himself was only eroding further and further into nothingness. The Dash Baxter Kwan needed may have existed one point years ago, but… truthfully, Dash has forgotten which traits he's stitched to his eclectic tapestry of people he's become. The leader, the golden child, the one everyone pins their hope to, the canary in the coal mine—

Then the pendulum swings back. He's Mr Johnny football hero. He's every cliche in the book; he's the big bad wolf.

The quarterback wanted off the ride. He wanted to disappear. He was terrified of the day someone got too close to realize how rough the patch-ups were.

Smoothing out his shirt over his stomach, Dash agreed, "Everything's under control."

"That's not what I wanted to hear, but I'll take it." Kwan raised his hands up in surrender before slapping his thighs, "I'm gonna name my first grey hairs after you, y'know that knucklehead?"

Unceremoniously, Baxter hopped into his sweats, covering his shorts with them, chuckling while cinching his waist with the black drawstrings in the band. The lock clicked back into place—

Picking up the letterman, Kwan's eyes caught the bright red patch just above the elbow. The saying on it was applicable 'Fragile! Handle with Care!'

Cocking a brow, Byun-Ji had this incredulous expression.

Snatching it away, Dash shook his head and muttered an explanation, "it's an inside joke with a couple of friends…"

The linebacker said nothing as he migrated to the locker room door.

However, that heavy door burst open suddenly.

Both boys startled in place.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Weston put his back into shoving the heavy drab door out of his way, using all the strength in his thin and brittle body to get inside.

Neither Kwan nor Dash said anything, despite Wes's careworn stare.

It didn't occur to him until after they stopped being friends, but Baxter couldn't stand it when Wes looked at him. His green eyes bore too close of a resemblance to the Phantom's. It was such a superficial reason— but it was the truth. Dash didn't like to look at him.

"Yeah, don't get up, assholes." Wes exhaled.

He always looked sleep-deprived, but today? God, it was as if he got socked in the face by a pitching machine. His eyes were swollen and purple— leaking discharge of some kind. Little nicks were on his face, which he didn't seem to bother covering. It was like he went one to apeshit with a cheese grater on his skin. A large cut across the bridge of his nose was barely contained within a thin butterfly bandage.

"Jesus, Weston—" Kwan exclaimed and winced.

Dash took a moment to compose himself, "What— what happened to you?"

The sounds of his high tops squeaked against the concrete.

Naturally, Wes wanted to roll his eyes but obviously could not. He shuffled to the sinks to wash his face. He muttered something to the effect of, "Do you want the truth, or do you want the version you're comfortable with?"

There was a beat of silence as Wes stared at them from the restroom area. He turned the faucet on, "I fell out of a tree."

Kwan decided to humor him for a moment, "Did you get any good pictures before you fell? Preferably of that one house, they rent for porno?"

Dash's expression got all folded and irritated at his linebacker's comment.

Coughing, Wes smiled sarcastically, "You wish."

The football players stood awkwardly and fumbled with their belongings for a moment. It got quiet again. What were they supposed to say?

Dash offered with a weak gesture of his hand. Like he was reaching out but couldn't commit to it. As if the commitment was too great. He was reaching out because the bridge of their connection was still actively burning; it wasn't too late for them to save each other.

He quietly instructed without any warmth in his voice, "... You should increase your vitamin c intake over the next few days. It helps you heal faster. Try not to sleep on your side if you can help it. Wrap a towel around your neck to keep yourself in place."

"This isn't my first time being punched in the face, Baxter." Wes splashed some water on himself.

"Just figured you'd want the advice of the leading expert on being punched in the face, Weston," The quarterback shrugged, fiddling with the strap on his book bag.

Wrinkling up his face, Wes pried the bandaids off one by one, turning the surface of the porcelain sink red. He winced, "Keep your eyes on your own work, Baxter. Try not to screw it up this weekend, okay?"

Kwan opened his clenched jaw to say something to Dash's defense but was called off.

"Try to keep your nose clean, alright, Atlas?"

'Stay alive,' Was what Dash meant to say.

Why couldn't they say, 'I care about you'?

'Don't do anything stupid.'

Softening at the nickname, Wes traced the lines on his face. He nodded, "No promises."

Without another word, the pair departed, leaving their classmate to his own devices. What else could they have done? Forced him to the nurses' office? Make him go home? It was clear that whatever his goal was this time, it wouldn't be achieved unless everyone saw. What did unstable people ever want? Attention? Mission accomplished.

Dash didn't know what was in his heart in regards to Weston. Not pity. Not anything positive.

As the football players navigated the turns out of the gym and across the courtyard. The blond passed his palms over the foliage. His fingers caught on the twigs and leaves. Thoughts passing to what Wes said yesterday…

What the hell did he mean by that?

Dash was in danger every single day of his life—

He exhaled at this, though his stress only seemed to sink further into his being.

The cafeteria was amok with underclassmen. The lines hadn't entirely spiraled out of control yet. The menu was some kind of food item. Foodstuff, Dash believed that was the technical term. He couldn't remember the last time he actually looked at a sloppy joe, let alone actually consume one. The cafeteria offered plenty of health-conscious options. Extremely sparse salads. Damp broccoli that was supposed to be steamed. Cut carrots. Some kind of chicken that inspired indifference.

Kwan grabbed a tray for both of them out of habit.

And out of habit, Dash followed along. A routine he had done so often that it was practically muscle memory. It no longer felt like a conscious choice when he spoke up with his order.

Food was complicated.

It's probably a little silly, but Dash couldn't help but think about his favorite food. Eclairs. They were nostalgic. He would split them on the couch with his mother while they watched television. She'd put them in the freezer beforehand so it would make the soft stuff softer. The outside would melt against your tongue, and the cream would escape.

He'd also say tomato soup. Not for any particular reason. Probably because it was the only thing he could cook without screwing up. Canned tomato soup required very little, just the stove to get it going. It was sweet and thick and warmed your chest.

Dash yearned for the days of simplicity but then came the hypocrisy in the form of pancakes. The breakfast people most associated with mistakes and failure. Pancakes were never perfect or circular. They were messy and sticky. The hassle never seemed worth it until it did.

Baked potatoes reminded him of barbecues during the summer. Potatoes were something shared with everyone, chips, fries— it was stock food that stuck to your ribs. They kept you alive when nothing else did. They could be cooked so many different ways they hardly held a resemblance to its original form.

The woman behind the counter in the clear hairnet clicked her tongs and dropped a number of cold vegetables on his organized plate.

Another woman dropped a ladle of chili and mystery meat onto Kwan's plate with white bread.

Dash had trained himself to become nauseous at the scent of grease. His stomach lurched, and bile bit at his throat.

Their usual table in the center of it all. This was done so the A-listers could survey their kingdom. Little did they know their panopticon was only an illusion. They were the natural spectacle. Even when the gods sat high on mount Olympus, they were only as real as the public believed in them. And like those parables of mythology, they were studied, compounded for their flaws despite their responsibilities. As if they didn't suffer from the same sickness as mortals— desirous of everything. Grasping onto things they weren't supposed to have.

High school blows.

It was a fun house with no real theme, just mirrors.

When Dash thought about eclairs, he thought about Danny. It was a natural thought progression of things Dash should not have. He thought about elementary school. He thought about the day he tackled Danny when he wasn't expecting it. Grass stains on both their shirts and faces.

There wasn't so much thinking involved in that process. Just energy that needed to go somewhere.

"Kwan, could I ask you something?" Dash didn't look up from his food tray, only pushing it around with his fork.

The linebacker in question slapped a hand on his captain's back, "Of course. Your mileage may vary, but anything you need. Thank you for choosing Byun-Ji; how may I be of service?"

Dash untensed and rolled his shoulders. Not fully relaxed but approximating it. He cautioned with a laugh, "Um… I'm not really sure how to ask this… but uh, y-you've kissed people before, right?"

A wide smirk broke out across Kwan's face. Amused didn't even begin to describe the near devilish expression that became affixed to his features. Nodding slow, Byun-Ji pointedly agreed, "Yeah?"

"Forget it." Exhaling suddenly through his nose, Dash decided against it, "It's stupid; forget I said anything."

Grabbing his water bottle, Dash could only attempt to drown himself from here. It's not like he could un-ask—

Poking his captain, Kwan all but demanded the details, "Oh, no—no, you've been sketchy and twitchy all week, and you're telling me it's because you've met a girl?!"

Hiking up his shoulders around his ears and fumbling to make himself smaller— Baxter muttered, embarrassed, "There's no girl."

"Tell me everything, dude! What year? What club?" Suggestively the linebacker added with a wiggle of his brows, " Measurements?"

Uh, sophomore, no extracurriculars whatsoever— oh, yeah— and a guy.

"It's not like that ."

"I can't believe you didn't mention this last night! You know my parents are gonna want to meet her— I think they're more invested in your marriage prospects than mine." Kwan grabbed the quarterback's shoulders in an effort to entice more information out of him. However, he was met with silence.

The linebacker leaned on his serious face and bridged his fingers over his face in mock dramatics, "I knew God would answer our prayers about your lack of hoes."

Dash raised his brows and deadpanned, "Har har."

Okay, when astonishment or mockery wouldn't get him anywhere, the duke of Casper high knew when to call in the heavy artillery. Removing his aviators from his pocket with the practiced motion of a federal agent, Kwan solemnly stated, "We have ways of making you talk."

Eyes blown wide— Dash waved his hands in a declarative motion, but it was too late.

Taking a sharp inhale, Byun-Ji kicked up his feet onto the bench. The linebacker leaned on his captain, crushing him with his mass into the corner wall and subduing his protests. Kwan cupped his hands along his mouth to make a megaphone and yelled, "YO! POLLY-POCKET AND HER BAND OF MERRY POMPOMS, GUESS WHO'S GETTIN' HIS V-CARD PUNCHED!?"

The entire cafeteria turned their heads to the noise. Some laughed— actually, correction— a lot laughed. The student body loved their daily dose of A-lister Antics. It gave them something to speculate on in their free time. And by God, when the ghosts didn't attack, students had a lot of free time.

"Kwan, I swear to— I'm gonna kill ya!" Dash shoved against his would-be subordinate, though it was impossible. Kwan was in a totally different weight class. He was fitfully grabbing fistfuls of clothing, hoping to either pull his friend off or slip out of the pin, though no such luck.

This earned the blond a noogie, "Tell me you aren't this bad at talking a girl out of her bra too?"

With a furious groan, Dash knew better than to fight it. He rode out the sharp knuckles grinding into his scalp and fussing up his hair.

Next thing Baxter knew, he was being held nearly horizontally in a headlock, Kwan practically dragging him across the bench. Then he was watching a platoon of kitten-pump pink heels clicking across the dusty linoleum towards their lunch table.

"You have gossip for me, Kwan-cakes?"

Barf.

No one in their right minds would say that Kwan and Paulina were dating. It was more like she was using him to upset her dad, and Kwan could still flirt with anything that showed any interest. The pair seemed to have a mutual contract instead of a relationship. Or perhaps this is just what relationships were to them. Maybe there was a feeling of faint affection and gravitational pull that drew them together. Though boy-girl arrangements never seemed to be Dash's area of expertise. Byun-Ji would often claim to have the best girlfriend ever; Paulina would, in turn, show him off like a prized-show-pony. They never seemed to fight. They liked being around each other clearly. But there was never anything more than that. Their relationship was… primarily gathered by subtext. It was confusing. They were close. Kwan and Paulina were in the way your elbow and tongue were close. Like something about it just didn't quite line up.

Why can't I have that? Why can't I have a fraction of what they have?

It was a more enviable teenage confusion than what Dash was working through.

The head cheerleader set down her burgundy lunch tray and took a seat across from her boys. Her legion of followers did the same thing, each acting as a limb of their host—simply an extension of her brain. If Ms Sanchez needed some napkins, faceless cheerleader number six would be passing up the chain of command. The girls came in near surgical organized lines and fanned out to find any and all available seating. Forcefully nudging lesser students out of their way.

Efficiently, Paulina tore open the plastic utensils that came with her lunch—for some reason, Dash always pictured her future career as being a courtroom stenographer. It was the way she tucked her flat-ironed hair around the curve of her ears and showed off the delicate pink pearl earring in her lobes. Something about it screamed Law and Order . She just needed those kitschy bright red cat-eye glasses—though good luck getting her out of her puka shell jewelry and tattoo choker. She wasn't trendy; she wasn't capturing a moment—Paulina was the moment.

"They were out of those black and white cookies you like, so I just got you two brownies—that okay?" Sanchez asked with a sickly sweet smile to her beaux.

Dash was now imagining blowing his brains out, in case you were wondering.

Happily, the linebacker snatched up the pastries from his cheerleader, finally releasing Baxter.

"First things first, Dash, not every girl likes kissing, so don't worry if you suck at it." Sanchez delivered this charitable donation with about as much passive aggression as possible.

Somehow this is worse than if my parents were to give me dating advice.

"Yeah, if she's anything like Paulina, she'll hate kissing. So just stick to, like, stuff you're confident in. Oh, practice on your hand or like—"

Dash interrupted, "Please, God alive, do not finish that statement."

Arriving fashionably late, Star took her rightful seat across from Dash as she was his cheerleader.

This day keeps getting better and better.

"What's up about Dash's virginity?" Star queried, a bit too loudly for comfort.

Why did I know that was gonna be the first thing out of her mouth?

"Uh, still intact." The quarterback said awkwardly. He was discrete in wanting to shrink to a speck of dust on the atomic level and never be seen by human eyes again.

Robinson smiled, "Oh… that's, uh, good?" She paused to read his growing pained expression, "or uh, I'm sorry?"

Kill me, kill me, kill me.

"Yep." Dash was practically scarlet. His entire body became pink. You could fry an egg on his forehead with the power of pure mortification.

Kwan snickered, "He's got a girlfriend."

"I really don't," Baxter retorted defensively.

"Then why're you asking for kissing tips?" The linebacker was boisterous and slapped the table with an open palm.

"I dunno, just felt like taking a survey! What's it to you?!" Dash weakly shoved him away.

Paulina speedily got through her disclaimer before placing a single leaf of salad into her mouth with precision and poise, "You have to tell us who she is, so I can tell you why she can do better."

"Is that why you didn't have your jacket yesterday?" Kwan badgered some more, hoping to shake out some information.

"Scandalous…" Paulina purred

Dash only groaned in response, burying his burning face in his hands.

"Guys, don't tease him too hard," Star whined, "He's gonna pop a gasket."

"That's not the only thing he's popped— look, he's wearing a promise ring—!" Snatching His right hand, Sanchez directed everyone's attention to the gold band adorning Dash's ring finger.

"Oh no, this is actually a funny story…"

…This drifter gave me a ring because we shared cigarettes— and, wow, that's way too many red flags.

Dash rephrased, "Not, like, funny ha-ha, but unrelated funny."

This did nothing but earn him steely stares from his peers at the table.

Anxiously he rubbed the back of his neck.

"I didn't think you'd be this bad at lying," Paulina muttered with an even level voice, "Yet, here we are."

"So, does she go to a different school or what?" Star pressed a fist into her cheek, trying to fight the irritation that pulled at her features, feigning disinterest.

"I didn't even consider that Star!" Kwan declared, wiping crumbs from his chest and continuing to speak with his mouth full, "Does she go to Elmerton? Is she a Papermaker? A couple'a regular ol' Romeo and Juliets."

This earned a chorus of 'aw's from the background cheerleaders.

Dash dissented, "You guys know that's a tragedy, right? Not a romance? They both kill themselves?"

Like a rabbit, Paulina worked on one salad leaf with delicate little bites, "I can help hide the bodies if needed."

Expecting another round of bitching from their captain bitch, Kwan glanced over to Baxter. But the quarterback was staring off at something just off in the distance from their table at the front of the cafeteria, with a view of the land they reigned over. Following his gaze, Kwan was met with a sea of faceless Casper High students. It was clear Dash was starting at something— someone, maybe? But no one Byun-ji could assign any significance to.

Without another word, Baxter stood up jerkily and off-balance. Taking his tray with him.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the cafeteria, at the table closest to the rear exit to the courtyard, surrounded by trash cans and litter, Sam, Tucker, and Danny had been chatting amongst themselves there.

The goth raised her brows as her hands were preoccupied with her BLT, excluding the B.

In the middle of a joke, Foley saw Sam's eyes shrink towards a shape in the distance.

Daniel, with his face propped on his fist. The picture of an exhausted high schooler in his element. Fenton didn't have to turn his head. He already knew. Danny could detect Dash's aura from yards away, it seemed. Like his ghost sense, this… sensation, this unidentifiable shiver across his atoms— gave him a few seconds to brace. What Danny would be bracing for remained to be seen. Dash didn't scare him. Don't make him laugh. But this unpredictability was becoming tiresome. The anxiety that the quarterback sparked caused every single one of the ghost boy's muscles to tense. It was a bottomless apprehension that left him physically sore. Maybe if Fenton didn't look, then maybe, the trainwreck coming wouldn't be so bad. He wasn't afraid of him but afraid for him. How would Dash embarrass himself today?

The stride was focused and only gained speed as Baxter's target came into view.

Armed with his tray, the quarterback dropped it in the empty space in front of Danny. He was flushed and in a hurry. But in a rush to get out of there as fast as possible, Dash relayed in as neutral a tone as he could convey, "I'm not hungry."

And for added measure, he gave Fenton a noogie. However, it wasn't knuckles against scalp in the traditional sense. Dash more so playfully ruffled Danny's bangs out of his face before making a quick exit out to the courtyard.

Sam and Tucker, in tandem, put on big smirks in the ghost boy's direction.

He threatened under his breath before grabbing a fork and picking up where Dash left off, "Don't even start."

It was a case of excellent timing because Danny was inexplicably starving . Even if it was crummy cafeteria food, it was better than the nagging emptiness in his core—that static vacancy right behind his ribs.

There was something kind of sad about turning the guy who'd, by cliche definition would, steal his lunch money into a delivery boy. Then again, Dash was so loaded he didn't need to lower himself to mugging nerds for their allowance. Was there anything really awful about this kid, or did Danny just imagine it all? Christ, the guy, organized canned food drives and coat donations during the winter— not because he had to, but because he was good at it. How could you hate someone like that? Maybe it was easier to hate him than to think of all the ways they differed. Of course, Dash was popular. Of course! He was easy-going, generous… handsome. Kinda… when the golden sunlight dappled through the tree leaves just outside the window. The way it complimented his hair and olive skin. It wasn't hard to look angelic in that lighting. However, what kind of angel would have a notched nose and a crooked smile?

Hating Dash Baxter was like hating the pop song chorus stuck in your head. He was so universally accessible to hate. The quarterback was a song that wanted to assure you that everything was great and only good times were in your future. Suntans, parties with solo cups on a Friday night, or the cloudless beaches of California. The song called to mind the scent of chlorine-filled pools. All with an air-tight shrink-wrapped beat. Dash Baxter, like any radio party anthem, was designed to be perfect. That's why he needed to be destroyed.

But Dash wasn't perfect. Far from it, actually.

Danny wasn't about to admit that right now.

What was being a teenager besides being angry for no reason? God, he could kill something. And the scary part was that he was in constant doubt of his restraint. Why was he even angry? He couldn't remember. Danny just wanted to stop. For a little bit, at least. The best way he could describe it was in chemical terms. Acidic.

Leave it to the quarterback to just get lean meat and vegetables.

#schrodinger's adolescent #schrodinger's adolescent 2.0 #danny/dash #teddy ghost #swagger bishie #dandash #danny phantom #dp #phic #enemies to lovers #slow burn #mine

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grimgrinningghoul · 2 years

Text

Come Back Down

Hey there @jadenoryuu , I was your Secret Santa for this year’s Holiday Truce! I went with your prompt regarding Danny finally getting to enjoy a Christmas- I hope this meets any expectations! I had quite a bit of fun writing it and, as per your request, tried to keep it fluffy. Enjoy!

“Are we there yet?” Danny droned after another eternity of silence.

“Four minutes closer than we were the last time you asked,” Jazz replied, peppy as always, earning a dramatic groan as Danny keeled over to be sprawled across the back seat, “Patience is a virtue, Danny. I promise it’ll be worth it.” He could practically taste the amusement in her voice at her brother’s boredom induced plight. “Besides, it’d better than being home, right?”

“Well, yeah. But I could’ve just gone to Sam or Tucker’s if Mom and Dad got too annoying. At least I would be able to see,” he griped, rubbing at the thick blindfold he’s had to wear since the drive started. It was itchy.

“Were you actually planning on going to hang with them, or were you just gonna suck it up because you didn’t want to be a downer and thought you would ruin their Christmas?”

“I,” was definitely going to do just that, “... shut up.

“Can I at least take the stupid blindfold off? It’s been hours,”

“Nope,” Jazz answered with a pop, “Not until we get there. That’s the deal, you agreed to it,” She didn’t have to be so smug about it. “Also, it’s been forty-five minutes.”

Danny relented with a huff, even though a petty part of him wondered if she was lying. She probably wasn’t. But still. Regardless, he settled back against the cold glass of the window, enjoying the chill on his skin. Despite the fuss, he couldn’t say he hated this. Just a calm, quiet drive with some occasional banter. No stupid fights, from parents or ghosts- even with the Truce, the wilder ones never really got the memo. But he wasn’t dealing with that right now, and even though Jazz was being all cryptic about it.. it was nice.

That was until the car suddenly came to a stop, causing him to lurch forward and slam his face into the front seat. “Ow,”

“Oh, that did not hurt,” he could hear Jazz shuffling things around and proceeded to stick out his tongue in her general direction. If she saw, she didn’t comment; she instead turned the car off and stepped out. “We’re here, by the way.”

Danny could only listen as he strained to follow his sister’s movements outside. He considered just taking the blindfold off at this point, but he had a feeling Jazz was excited about whatever this was going to be, and he couldn’t bring himself to ruin her fun.

So, like a good brother, he waited.

Eventually, he heard the click of his door and felt the cold air rush in, tentatively reaching out until Jazz quickly got the hint. It’s not like tripping and falling on his face would’ve caused much damage, but help getting out of the car was still preferred.

Danny followed along as Jazz led him forward, mostly confused about the feeling of undisturbed snow crunching under his shoes. Where were they? Definitely not in town. But he didn’t have much time to ponder before they were stopped. He could hear Jazz move behind him and resisted the urge to jump at the feeling of warm hands along his jaw, tilting his head up towards the hidden sky. It suddenly clicked in his mind what they might be here for.

“Ready?”

“I guess,” he did his best to sound nonchalant, even though he was very quickly veering toward feeling extremely chalant.

Jazz must’ve seen right through him, because she didn’t waste any time pulling the blindfold off his eyes, revealing a vibrant sky of dancing light. Cool greens streaked the horizon, accented with various hues ranging from blue to pink. The stars shined behind them, painting a picture that Danny desperately wanted to see up close.

He only barely waited long enough for Jazz’s nod of encouragement before letting the cold seep in, the rings lighting up the snow in a brilliant flash of light, before taking off towards the sky.

Danny went up.

And up.

And then he stopped, allowing the free fall to guide him back down to the trees below. He danced with the shimmering lights, up and down, left and right. He fell, and he flew, following the nonexistent rhythm. He counted the stars, mapped out the symbols, reveling in the warmth in his chest.

It was a warmth he didn’t know well, but he did know. It was a warmth that filled his chest late at night, perched on top of the Ops Center, fighting the cold that he’d grown so used to. It was a warmth that downright burned the higher he flew, like the stars he couldn’t reach.

But eventually, he went down.

He went down to his sister, who waited for him. She sat on a blanket draped over the car’s hood with a thermos- a real one- held out for him. Danny drifted closer to accept it, twisting off the cap and taking a slow sip of the hot cocoa inside.

He didn’t feel inclined to sit, which Jazz didn’t seem to mind. So Danny simply floated, crossing his legs and turning his head to the skies above.

The cold settled in his chest, but he couldn’t be bothered to care. It was moments like these that reminded him why he always came back down.

Because the stars don’t care about him. Not like his family, or his friends. The stars won’t fight for him like Sam and Tucker. They won’t cook his favorite meals when he’s sick or down like Mom. They won’t encourage him and his interests like Dad. They won’t take time out of their lives to give him a nice night like Jazz. The stars will always make him happy. But they’ll never make him feel as loved as he did here, with a warm drink in his hands, staring at a breathtaking view with his sister.

And that was fine with him.

#DP #Danny Fenton #Danny Phantom #Jazz Fenton #Little bit of Space!Obsessed Danny in there 'cause I thought it fit #There is. A little angst. BUT NOT A LOT #I understand you didn't want much angst but I tried to incorporate it to add more to the fluff at the end #I hope you like it!#2021 holiday truce #holiday truce 2021 #Idk which one I'm supposed to tag whoops #Also I hate coming up with titles don't look at me

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captain039 · 3 years

Text

PART 5

Secrets of mutation

Logan(wolverine) x reader

Warnings: Age gap, student/teacher, AOB, trauma, swearing, sexual, intimate, a little forceful, heats, smut, unprotected sex, lil kinky, angst, jealousy

Xmen X new mutants

Previous chapter <-

You awoke with a jolt, you looked around the sunlight filling your room. You expected an already awake roommate but found none. Last night hit you quickly and you went to move. You sighed in relief as Logan tightened his arm around you. You rolled over to face him and he grumbled softly half asleep. You looked at his sleeping face, relaxed, not so angry and stern.

“I know you’re staring at me” he said voice full of sleep.

“Do not” you huffed playfully as he opened his eyes. You smiled softly and he gave you a smile too.

“You can smile?” You said and he laughed turning over to stretch. He relaxed back on his side and you kept your eyes on him.

“The professors gonna kill me, so is Jean” you mumbled and he sighed.

“He’ll kill me, Jean’ll send me through the wall and you’ll get time out” he grumbled and you chuckled.

“Time out?” You chuckled again.

“You’re one of his prized pupils” he mimicked Charles with the last bit and you laughed. A knock came on your door and you froze. You didn’t know who it was, didn’t care, you didn’t want Logan to leave. You wrapped your arm over him and hid under his neck.

“Y/n” it was Jean who called but you didn’t answer. Logan wrapped his arms around you too body tense.

“Y/n please answer, I know you’re in there, and you too Logan” you went wide eyed as Logan sighed. He moved slightly and you gripped onto him.

“I’ll go talk to her” he whispered and you gave him a worried look.

“I’ll be back omega” he whispered and you nodded slightly letting go. He stood and got dressed sighing as he went to the door. You grabbed a sheet to covering yourself and tugged it close. You heard a soft argument and grabbed the pillow and covered your head with it.

“Jean leave it!” You heard him snarl as he walked back in. The door closed a little harsh and you flinched. He sighed before shuffling around the room.

“Y/n” he said his voice softer as you peaked out from under the pillow.

“If you have to go that’s fine, I’ll um” you sat up leaning against the headboard, holding the sheet to your chest.

“This probably shouldn’t have happened” you said.

“I’m gonna have a shower” before he could speak you stood and took the sheet with you to the bathroom. You ignored his calls and locked the door. You heard him sigh on the other side before his footsteps left and a door opened.

You felt tears in your eyes as you folded the sheet lazily and started the shower.

You stood under the water for a bit, your body still hot. You cried, or maybe it was the shower, you didn’t know what to feel.

You dried off and looked in the mirror, you were still in heat, you could feel the release from last night wearing off.

You sighed when the door opened, you frowned as Logan stood there one claw out.

“There’s a thing called knocking!” You glared as he stared you down. You gripped the towel a little closer thighs clenching together. He stalked forward and you kept your back to the sink griping it.

“Logan” you muttered as you hung your head. You heard him sigh quietly and rest a hand on the back of your neck, letting your head rest on his chest. Your body tingled at the feeling and you wrapped your arms around his neck. You were on your tiptoes before he picked you up to sit you in the counter. You leant back arms still hanging around his neck. You kept your eyes downcast not wanting to go into his deep gaze.

“Omega” you tensed and huffed looking up. You caught his gaze and stared back, your body heating up once more.

Your body made the choice and kissed him, you were rough a needy. He responded with an eager kiss also, his arms went around you, pulling you flush against him. You moved your hands, pushed him back a little and gripped his shirt to pull it off. You worked on his belt while he unhooked your towel and let it pool on the counter. You undid his jeans before moving your hand down his waistband. You grabbed his already hard cock and pumped your hand slowly. He leant his head on your shoulder, breathing shakily. You kissed over his neck feeling his hair tickling your tongue and face. He growled softly at you and lifted his head to capture your lips again. He shuffled his pants down before pulling you close again, fingers teasing your entrance. You huffed moving your hips closing to his so he got the hint.

“Eager” he teased and you glared as he lined himself up and pushed in.

You sighed leaning your head back at the feeling. Your heat had already lubed you up, the feeling of an alpha inside making you shudder. You felt him kissing around your neck as he moved his hips against yours quickly. You moaned quietly the best you could, you leant your head forwards again and he leant up to kiss you. His pace had quickened and his hand slid between your body’s and pressed against your clit. You moaned into his mouth pulling back to breath as he rubbed his fingers, urging you to come. You bit your lip and gave a stifled cry as you came he thrusted a few more times before coming also. You sagged against him for support and shuddered with after shocks. You were both panting, your butt had gone to sleep on the counter.

“I can’t feel my butt” you whispered and he laughed. You smiled as he pulled out slowly and steadied you to your feet. You let out a small sigh, thankful your heat had gone down for now. He grabbed your towel and wrapped it around you again before pulling his pants back up. You wrapped your arms around him though a saddened feeling filling you. He was startled but let one hand go around you to hold your waist. You had nuzzled into his neck taking in his scent before letting go slowly.

“Omega?” He questioned softly but you left to go get dressed.

He left also after dressing, you sighed looking out the window and to the large open field. Your stomach grumbled though and you walked to the door slowly. You peeked out and saw no one thankfully and darted to the small kitchen across from your room. You grabbed a big bowel and poured some cereal, grabbed a juice and sat down at the kitchen island. You ate slowly hoping nobody came in. You were aching still, numb cramps in your stomach and hot all over again. You pressed the cold bottle of juice to your forehead and hummed softly at the feeling. You jumped though seeing someone in the doorway.

“Rahne?” You questioned as she walked in more.

“Hi” you mumbled flushing, you probably reeked of heat and Logan.

“I smell like him don’t I?” You mumbled and she nodded.

“Sorry” you said embarrassed.

“It’s alright” she finally spoke.

“No it’s not” you sighed.

“It’s not alright” you added.

“Fuck” you mumbled feeling tears roll down your face. Rahne sat next to you, hand on your back.

“Stupid” you muttered leaning to her without meaning too.

“It’s not stupid, it’s just your biology” she said.

“Pretty sure my biology is stupid too” you joked and she smiled before forcing it away.

“Did you-?” She didn’t finish as you nodded embarrassed even more.

“Did he mark you?” She asked and you shook your head.

“Well I guess that’s good” she said and you sagged.

“Maybe not” she quickly added.

“It’s not, I don’t know what it is, maybe I’m just desperate and lonely and-“ you stopped seeing Danny by the door.

“How much did you listen too?” You questioned.

“Everything” she admitted and you sighed. She sat in the other side of you and kept her hand on the other side of your back as you sighed resting your head in your hands.

“Sam I know your there” you called sending him. He came in awkwardly as did Roberto.

“You guys don’t have to hide” you rolled your eyes.

“Well it’s girl stuff” Roberto said.

“You are a girl” you grumbled lamely.

“How’re you feeling?” Sam asked softly.

“Like shit” you answered pushing your bowel away, not hungry anymore.

“So Logan- did he uh?” Sam gestured around a bit and you raised an eyebrow.

“Yes Sam” you huffed and he nodded awkwardly.

“I hate myself so much” you sighed feeling tears again.

“He’s what 100? Smells good and-“ you flushed thinking back to last night.

“I’ve been here what two weeks? Three?” You questioned.

“A month” Rahne.

“A month?” You repeated and she nodded.

“Oh” you mumbled.

“How’s Illyana?” You asked.

“Adjusting, slowly” Roberto answered and you nodded.

“I just wanna sleep” you said sighing.

“Go back to bed then” Rahne spoke.

“Too far” you complained making Sam laugh.

“Come on” he walked around the island to you and held his hand out.

“When were you doing nice?” You joked taking his hand. He smiled shaking his head as the others followed.

“Thought we were going to my room?” You questioned.

“You need some fresh air first” Sam said and you shrugged. They led you outside and sat under a big tree. You sighed, Rahne on one side and Sam on the other. Danny next to Rahne and Roberto next to Sam and Danny. You leant back against the bark not really caring about your PJ’s and slippers. You leant against Sam without knowing and closed your eyes. His scent was nice now that you took it in, not as strong as some but still present. You don’t know how much time passed till you fell asleep. Your body jolted you awake and you sat up scaring the others.

“Sorry fell asleep” you mumbled stretching and yawning.

“Didn’t mean to lean on you” you said to Sam and he shrugged.

“I’m gonna go take a nap” you said standing up slowly.

“You guys can stay, I need sleep” you chuckled and they nodded.

“Sleep well” Danny said and Rahne nodded.

“Night” Sam waved as did Roberto. You waved back going back to the mansion.

You sighed walking to your room and opening the door. Logan stood by the window, arms crossed as he looked out.

“Thought you were a teacher” you said walking to the bed and crawling in it.

“I was just outside” you added.

“I know” he finally spoke.

“Ok” you mumbled curling up in the blanket. You closed your eyes and sighed, you heard light movement till the bed dipped.

“What are you doing?” You said tiredly.

“Getting in the bed” he stated kicking his shoes off and going under the sheet. You rolled your eyes lazily closing them again as he got comfortable and laid down.

“You move when I’m almost asleep I will kill you” you warned softly and you heard him chuckle.

“Don’t worry princess” he said as you felt him close. You opened your eyes, soft brown eyes staring back at you.

“What?” You whispered as he lifted a hand to rest it on your cheek. He didn’t answer and you huffed closing your eyes again. He gently stroked your cheek before resting it on top of the blanket over your waist. You felt sleep tug and tug before you gave in, world going dark.

Logan watched as your breathing evened out and your face relaxed fully. He sighed softly lying on his back and staring at the ceiling. Jean almost threw him through the wall and the Professor stayed silent the whole time he was in his office. He had stormed out tired and wanting your presence again. He saw you out under the tree falling asleep on your friend Sam. He watched the boy tense and shift slightly making him pissed for some reason. You five had only known each other and that Dr you were with, a family bond like that was hard to break. He thought back to when you tried to fight him, you didn’t want to, you weren’t a soldier, just a young woman who had her life stolen from her to early. When you went into heat it hit him, he almost did cut that kids tongue out if he kept speaking. He kept beating himself up for leaving you in that room by yourself when you clearly needed someone, when he heard the crash he got worried you might’ve hurt yourself, when he found out you threw his pillow he sensed your frustration with him and gave in. When you fell asleep that night he swore to protect you, you had nightmares but never woke up till the morning so he stayed. No here you were passed out from exhaustion, sleeping next to a soldier.

Next Chapter ->

#x reader #marvel #fanfic #aob #hugh jackman x reader #logan x reader #xmen #wolverine x reader #the new mutants

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jinmukangwrites · 3 years

Text

@damianwayneweek Day 2 (6-14): Undercover | Sibling rivalry | Damian having a nice day

Warnings: Mentions of trafficking, threats, violence, attempted kidnapping, injuries, healthy doses of angst

Note: hahahahaha once again I'm begging you all to pretend I posted this when it's still the 14th somewhere in the world. Please enjoy.

---

Damian didn't mean to get caught. Honest. As annoying as it is, he understands that there are certain parts of their nightlife that have to be handled by an adult. Going undercover, for one, is usually something that's left to Grayson. It's easier for adults to blend into some things than it is for... well... Teenagers.

Children, as Grayson would say. Even though Damian is not a child.

Not that it matters, however. Grayson, for the past week, has been putting off their normal patrols to get insider information on a recent underground trafficking scheme. Grayson has been working hard to find the people responsible for this and get on the inside to find where the victims are being kept and Damian had respected that. He's kept to the sidelines and worked on other cases that don't require so much adult delicacy.

The only issue was that tonight he ended up getting bored. There wasn't anything for him to do, and that butler wasn't giving him any useful suggestions to fill his time. He wasn't allowed to patrol alone while Grayson was undercover, but escaping through his bedroom window in a dark hoodie was simple enough.

One thing leads to another. He ended up walking into an alleyway where a man was getting rather forceful with a drunk woman. Damian was jogging forward and calling him out on the disgusting behavior before he even realized he recognized the profile of the man.

Grayson turned from the woman with wide, horrified eyes, not moving a muscle even as the woman slipped from beside him and rushed back into the bar's side door.

"Shit," is all Grayson said before more people came out from the shadows, and Damian realizes he's just stumbled upon Grayson's undercover work.

Damian, for all of his training, has no idea what to do as he's suddenly grabbed by one of the newcomers. He's just witnessed Grayson in his undercover work... attempting to kidnap a woman... and he shouldn't be here.

"The fuck did this brat come from," the man grabbing Damian sneers.

Damian reacts instinctively now, slamming his elbow back into their gut. The man wheezes and weakens his hold. Damian then ducks under a new pair of arms making a mad grab for him and is sure to trip them over onto the cement ground as they stumble past.

A beefier man charges at Damian like a bull, and he prepares to retaliate... only for Grayson to grab him by his arm and shove Damian behind his back.

"Wait," Grayson gasps, bringing his free hand up in front of him. The man stops in his tracks, as do all the others. "It's my... brother."

"Your brother?" A woman scoffs, and Grayson gives her a hard look.

A mean looking man steps forward, glaring daggers at Grayson. "What's he doin' here Malone? Thought'chu said you weren't followed."

"I'm sorry," Grayson says, sounding panicked. Damian wants to jump out from behind Grayson and give these kidnappers a piece of his mind. There can't be more than seven of them. Damian can take them with his hands tied behind his back. Grayson must sense this, because he tightens his hold on his arm. "I thought he was at home."

"Well, he wasn't," the man snarls. "And now that bitch is probably in there telling the barkeep some guy got handsy with her."

Grayson shakes his head. "She isn't. I paid off the barkeep. If we calm down, I can go back in there and finish the job. Danny here won't say anything, he knows what we have to do to survive these streets. Right, Danny?"

Damian's lips thin, but he nods. Damian doesn't know why Richard is acting all frightful right now. Has he forgotten the legacy of Damian's father that he holds? He carries the name of Batman, yet here he is looking like a frightened animal in front of these low-lives. He wants to argue and take down these imbeciles... but if there's one thing he's learned while in his ever lengthening stay in Gotham, Grayson usually has a reason for everything he does. If he thinks they need to act like they're frightened, then Damian will humor him. For now.

The man looks down from Grayson and gives Damian a narrowed look. It lasts only a moment before he looks at the bar side-door and... smirks?

He looks back at Grayson, keeping that smirk. "Alright, Malone. I'll take you up on that offer. You get the bitch, and we'll take care of Danny."

A bad feeling settles in Damian's gut. The hand on his arm tightens even more, proof that Grayson has the same bad feeling. They don't have a chance to say anything about it, however, before the man strides forward and grabs Damian by his other arm; yanking him away from Grayson and towards the big man.

Grayson shoots them a murderous glare, but doesn't come to Damian's aid as the big man tightens both of his hands on Damian's biceps. His pointer fingers press just under his shoulders, and he swears his pinkies wrap close to Damian's elbows.

"Go on," the talkative man says, jerking his head to the door, showing his rotting teeth in a grin. "Get the bitch."

Grayson shoots a look Damian's way, then nods. "Okay," he says placidly. "Okay." He turns his back and starts towards the door.

Then, the man looks at another in their group and nods his head. The man's cheeks rise like a Cheshire cat before he starts towards Grayson, raising a fist.

"Grayson! Look out!" Damian shouts. Grayson, for his part, reacts immediately. He ducks under the blow and side steps his attacker.

However, that's all Damian sees before the man that has him in his grasp changes position quite suddenly so that Damian is practically hanging in his grasp—an arm the size of a log wrapped around his neck. Damian's hands fly to the arm and he attempts to kick his feet for purchase. His air is already cut off, and he curses himself for getting in a situation like this.

He stills, however, when something cold and metal is pressed against his head by the man's free hand. Through blurry eyes and choking gasps, he notices Grayson has gone still too.

"I knew you were fishy," the man from before cackled. "Grayson? That your real name?"

Grayson glares, but doesn't move.

"Here's what's gonna happen, you're gon let us do whatever we want wit'cha, and maybe we'll let the kid live after."

And just like that, Grayson is at the receiving end of a savage blow to his jaw from another member of the group. Grayson stumbles and clutches his jaw, but he doesn't fight back even as another jumps in and throws their own punch. Damian can already see blood dripping down his cheek from a cut in the skin.

He's hit again, and he continues to not fight back. Damian knows he'll take the beating, even though he can easily take them down. He won't risk the gun pressed against Damian's head. He won't risk the arm wrapped so right around Damian's neck it feels like he's breathing through a coffee straw.

A particularly savage punch has Grayson falling to the floor, scraping his hands, elbows, and knees on the rough and suspiciously wet asphalt. Damian growls and digs his nails into the arms of his captor, but they tighten the grip threateningly and his struggles are forced to come to a stop.

Pathetic. Idiotic. Childish. This is Damian's fault. Every blow that hits Grayson's body as punches are replaced by kicks might as well be dealt by Damian himself.

He argues with Grayson. Calls him out on not acting how his father would. He calls him incompetent, insignificant, idiotic... but some time these past few weeks the bite he means to carry with those words have turned fond.

He... He likes Grayson. He's the first person to show Damian unconditional kindness... other than his own mother. While being stuck here with him rather than his own father had, at first, been miserable and annoying... it's turned out to be... fun. For the first time in his life, he almost feels like a normal kid with Grayson here to lead him along the way.

Damian wonders at night if that's what his mother intended. Why she hasn't taken him back yet.

He doesn't mind it. He likes the time that he spends with Grayson now, even if he would never admit it. And here he is, helpless and unarmed as Grayson is being beaten to a bloody pulp all because Damian couldn't listen to instructions and snuck out when he shouldn't have.

For a moment, pure terror fills Damian's veins that he's most likely going to witness the death of Grayson tonight. If he tries to fight his captor, he'll get a bullet in his brain. If Grayson decides to fight back, then Damian would die anyways. Grayson wouldn't do that. He would rather die himself.

Another blow hits Grayson's body, and he lays on the ground and groans, unmoving for a worrying few seconds.

Then, the bar door slams open and the woman from before runs out with fire in her dark eyes. No one has a chance to do anything before she kicks the main guy in the jaw, sending him down to the floor with more force than any woman... or man... should have.

Damian doesn't question it. The rest of them are distracted by her sudden entrance, and Damian uses that to his advantage. He throws his hands up and grabs at his captor's distracted face and claws at his eyes. The man yowls and drops Damian, leaving Damian completely free to make his own attack. He easily disarms him and jumps onto his back, wrapping his own arms around the man's neck and squeezing as tightly as he can.

It's all over in a matter of seconds. The man falls unconscious in Damian's grasp, and the woman finishes taking out the others.

She was in on this whole thing too, Damian realizes as she rushes towards Grayson's still form and grabs his arm.

Grayson blinking slowly at her through already bruising eyes and whispering "Donna..." is all the proof Damian needs to confirm his suspicion.

"I got you, boy wonder," Donna says fondly. She helps him to his feet and wraps his arm firmly around her shoulders, helping him stand. She looks at Damian. "You got a way to get us out of here, squirt? The cops are gonna be on their way any minute."

"What-" Damian starts, then pauses. Shame fills his gut. "What about the mission?"

"It's fine," Grayson says with a pained strain in his voice. "They're low in the chain. Won't be missed in prison. Can't give much away. I'll-" he cuts off to gasp as Donna shifts her hold on him. "I'll just try again later."

Damian nods, but the guilt doesn't leave. He looks away from Grayson and Donna to pull out his phone and request Pennyworth send the Batmobile to their position.

The entire way back to the manor is filled with tense silence, broken only by Grayson's hissed curses and groans as Donna helps give immediate first aid to the worst of the bruises and cuts.

Damian... he messed up. He disobeyed Richard and ruined the mission. This woman, Donna, is a better companion to Grayson than Damian ever was. Or will be. They get along. She's kind. She was trusted enough by Grayson to bring her in on his solo mission, and she clearly trusted him enough to go along with it and let herself be captured.

Grayson will never trust him as much as her. He's... He's fucked it all up. He won't want Damian around anymore. He'll want to send him back to the League, and if his mother and grandfather don't take him then his suit and the name of Robin must surely now be forfeit.

Drake will take back the suit, and Damian will forever be left behind by the man he thought... He hoped...

Sitting by his bedside after assisting Pennyworth in dressing Grayson's wounds... he mulls these thoughts over in his head. Grayson is fast asleep, and Donna has retreated upstairs for a shower and dinner by Pennyworth's insistence.

Then, as he's considering leaving so he's not the first thing Grayson sees when he wakes up, a hand grabs hold onto his.

"Don't blame yourself," Grayson whispers, blinking through his puffed up and exhausted eyes. Damian wonders how long he's been sitting here with his thoughts and when Grayson started to awaken without him noticing. "You have the same look in your eyes... That B always did..."

Heat flairs behind Damian's eyelids. He bursts. "But this is my fault. If I hadn't gone out- if I had listened-"

Suddenly, his hand is jerked, and Damian is dragged onto the cot and into Grayson's arms. He attempts to fight the hold, but Grayson holds tight despite his injuries.

"Mistakes happen," Grayson says, "they always do. I will never give up on you, Dames. No matter how many you make. Trust me on that."

He sounds so very much in pain, but he's relentless in his hold. All Damian can do is stop his struggling and lay in Grayson's grasp. His brain studies the words said to him, and his heart wants to believe him. Guilt pools to his throat and he opens his mouth to let it out before he can stop himself.

"I'm sorry," he chokes. He doesn't know when he started to return the hold Grayson had him in. His hands are bunched in the material of Grayson's shirt.

Grayson shushes him. "It's okay," he says. "What's done is done, and we've learned. We're okay. I got you."

And perhaps it's the moment of weakness, but Damian can't help but believe him.

#damianwayneweek2021 #damian wayne #dick grayson #robin #nightwing #dc comics #jin writes #fanfiction #violence tw #kidnapping tw #held at gunpoint #guns tw #im just in the mood for batman!dick and robin!damian angst this week huh?#hopefully donna being here made sense lmao

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ghost-strawberry · 3 years

Text

Art is a Window to the Soul

Fanfic for Phic Phight 2021. Prompt by Arioz: In his sophomore year Danny decides to take an art class as a required elective. His teacher is... concerned with some of his work.

"It's... something." Miss Davies gingerly picked up the sketchbook, turning it one way then the other, occasionally squinting her eyes. She carefully turned a page and her face flashed through a mixture of horrified shock, outraged fear and then settled on acute anxiety. The teacher placed the sketchbook down and lifted her gaze to meet Danny's. He squirmed internally under the stare. Glancing downwards he could see the artwork spilling from the open page, bright reds and greens in stark contrast to the dripping black. Danny could have kicked himself. Why did he hand this stuff in to his art teacher? He should have just kept it to himself. Or better yet, not made it at all.

Danny didn't respond. He didn't know what he could say to explain himself. That these nightmarish visions were a reflection of his inner landscape? These violent scenes are something that happens to him almost everyday? Normal kids didn't paint things like this. They painted flowers, or self-portraits, or wind-swept landscapes. His heart dropped further as he looked back towards her and saw her furrowed brow and worried expression. He knew she would tell him that he was deranged, that he needed psychiatric help, or that his mind didn't work right and shouldn't be bothering everyone else with the horrific images in his brain. Danny waited, shuffling his feet on the tiled floor, wishing he could just turn invisible. Serval wild escape plans ran through his head, including transforming into Danny Phantom right there, knocking Miss Davies out, wrecking the sketchbook and hoping she would think it was all a dream. He stood patiently. "Are you okay?" Her warm and friendly tone surprised him. "Uh... what?" "Are you doing alright?" "I... Yeah, I'm fine." Danny looked away and picked at a loose thread hanging from his shirt. Miss Davies closed the book on her desk and sat down heavily on her seat, gesturing Danny to do the same. It was the last thing he wanted to do right now. He slowly took the seat opposite her. He ran through an imagined scenario where he over-shadowed her and made her think this was someone else's artwork. "It's very good you know," she commented lightly, referencing the work as if she was talking about the balmy weather. "There's a lot of movement in it, very expressive, obviously. You're certainly skilled with a paintbrush Mr Fenton." Danny opened his mouth and closed it again. Miss Davies continued, "but, you know, it does alarm me somewhat, the content of your work. There seems to be a strong narrative within the art, even through your abstract pieces, of pain... and brutality." "I... I just saw that stuff in computer games," Danny stammered, desperately trying to come up with an explanation, "yeah I was thinking about... the struggles that people face across the world, the endless wars. I wanted to make something that... raises awareness about the problems that some people face." Miss Davies made an affirming noise that didn't sound like she believed him. She slid the sketchbook across the desk towards him. Danny looked at it and made no move towards it. He wondered if his parents had ever made a device that wipes peoples memories. Miss Davies spoke in a gentle voice, "I think it's really great that you feel able to express yourself like this. Creating is so important in how we process the things that have happened to us, the emotions that we experience. The topics that you have chosen to represent... they are very important for people to know about." Suddenly Danny couldn't stand to look at her. Her sweet words were too much, her pity was almost unbearable. He stood up too quickly, grabbing his sketchbook so fast it was hard to see, causing her to jump. "Sorry," Danny said, automatically in an emotionless tone. "Daniel, please," she implored him, "is there something that you want me to know about? Is there something happening at home?" Her deep brown eyes were full of concern. She was young, for a teacher. Danny hadn't noticed before. "Really, I'm fine Miss Davies. I'll try and paint, less graphically, from now on." Danny started towards the door. He kind of wished he could tell her the truth. How many times did he have to assure people he was fine? "Don't ever censor yourself Mr Fenton," she said, her voice slightly raised now, but not unkindly, "you have a real talent for art. I think you should keep pursuing what you feel strongly about." "Sure," Danny lied. He turned and walked out of the room. "And don't destroy that sketchbook!" Miss Davies shouted after him. Danny sniggered with the irony; the book had already started smoke from his between his fingers. He cut off the flow of ecto-energy to his palms. Maybe he would throw it into the Ghost Zone and say that he lost it. He was sure Youngblood would get a kick out of it, if he came across it. Danny kept walking down the hallway. When Miss Davies thought Danny was out of listening range, she picked up a phone and dialed a number. He heard her speak softly; "Mr Lancer, I want to arrange a meeting with Mr Fenton's parents."

#Danny Phantom #phic phight 2021 #aw ye first phic for the phight #danny has some angst

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chicgeekgirl89 · 3 years

Text

Heart of a Hero

Fandom: 911 Lone Star

Characters: Carlos Reyes, T.K. Strand, Tommy Vega, Nancy Gillian, Andrea Reyes, Gabriel Reyes

Rating: T

Warnings: Mass shooting incident

Notes: A million thanks as always to @bluenet13 who beta read the heck out of this and listens to all my writing woes.

Written for the @badthingshappenbingo prompt “Ambulance Ride.”

Read on Ao3

It was his day off. It was his goddamn day off. But apparently crime didn’t take days off or respect the fact that he was just trying to run errands like a normal human being. Something that should have been a safe activity for everyone. Not a terrifying, violent event.

Carlos had been in the vegetable aisle when he’d heard the distinctive popping of gunfire. He’d dropped the mango in his hands, instinctively reaching for his duty weapon, despite the fact that he didn’t carry it on his days off. It had taken him only seconds to assess the situation, to realize the shots were coming from outside the store rather than inside, and to start running toward them. “Get to the back of the store!” he yelled to panicked customers and staff as he moved past them toward the doors. “Find somewhere to lock yourselves in and call 911!”

He stopped momentarily to help up a woman who had fallen to the ground, pushing her in the direction everyone else was fleeing as another round of shots sounded and the glass windows at the front of the shop shattered, causing everyone nearby to scream in terror.

Carlos paused at the front doors, trying to assess where the shots were coming from before exiting to the sidewalk outside. He could see people running, what looked like a body on the ground, but no sign of the shooter. Or shooters. There had been an awful lot of gunfire for it to be only one person.

There was a flash and more popping and Carlos caught a glimpse of someone in a black or dark blue hoodie running toward the building before ducking behind a mailbox for cover.

Running out into an active shooter situation unarmed seemed incredibly stupid, but there were still a lot of bystanders around and Carlos needed to do what he could to stop further casualties.

He crouched low, pulling the door open just enough to let himself out and moved quickly toward the fallen person on the sidewalk. The man let out a groan as Carlos got close and he felt a brief wave of relief that the man was alive. “Help me,” he said, breathing hard, eyes wild with fright.

“I’ve got you,” Carlos said, looking up and around for either shooter, but they seemed to have disappeared for the moment. “What’s your name?”

“Danny,” the man said, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Danny where are you hurt?”

“My leg,” he said, in obvious pain. “I was running and I tripped. I think I broke my ankle.”

Another wave of relief. Broken ankles were an easy fix compared to gunshot wounds. “We need to get you somewhere safe,” Carlos said. “I want you to put your arm around my shoulders, I’m going to help you get behind that table over there. It’s probably going to hurt, but I need you to stay as quiet as you can, all right?”

The man nodded and Carlos wasted no time in putting an arm under his shoulder and moving immediately toward the table a few feet away just as the assailant reappeared, apparently having reloaded a fresh round of ammunition.

Carlos dragged Danny the last few feet, hunching over as more glass shattered nearby. “Oh my god, oh my god!” Danny gasped.

“Stay down!” Carlos ordered, putting as much of his body over him as he could.

And that was when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. The door to the grocery store opened and another man stepped out, looking up and down the street.

“No! Get back inside!” Carlos yelled.

He was on his feet and moving before he even thought, gunfire ringing in his ears as he tackled the man to the ground, both of them grunting in pain as they hit the concrete.

There was a squeal of tires and Carlos looked up to see the man in the dark sweatshirt jump into the back of a jeep, slamming the door shut as the driver hit the gas.

He was just able to make out the first three digits of the license plate before it turned the corner and disappeared from sight.

“Are you all right?” he asked the man underneath him, still breathing hard.

The man let out a moan. “He shot me.”

Sure enough there was blood seeping from a wound on the man’s arm. “Okay, deep breaths,” Carlos said, sitting up and reaching for his phone with one hand while the other clamped down firmly on the man’s arm, ignoring the pained swear words coming from his mouth.

“911 what is your emergency?”

“This is Officer Carlos Reyes, badge number 1-3-0-8. I am at the Machado Family Market on Ninth Street and we have a mass shooting situation. The suspect fled in a white jump, first three license plate digits 6-3-1. I have two known victims both male. Victim one is in his early thirties and appears to be suffering from a broken ankle. Victim two has been shot in the arm. Requesting immediate police and medical assistance,” Carlos barked as he grabbed a wad of napkins from a nearby table and pressed them against the man’s arm.

“Officer Reyes I am dispatching all available police units in your area and rolling medical,” the dispatcher told him calmly. “Do you need me to walk you through what to do with a bullet wound?”

“No I’ve got it,” Carlos said as he tried to stop the bleeding. He looked down at the man. “What’s your name?”

“Ian,” the man said with a grimace. “How bad is it?”

“Just stay still and keep taking deep breaths,” Carlos said. “We have ambulances on the way and they’re going to take good care of you.”

It didn’t look that bad to him, the bleeding seemed to be slowing, but he wasn’t a medical professional and he wasn’t going to make any promises. “How you doing over there, Danny?” he called over his shoulder to the first man.

“I’m all right,” he called back.

“Just try and be still okay? The less you move the less damage you’ll do,” Carlos called back.

It felt like an eternity before sirens split the air around them. People had started emerging from the store. A woman who said she was a nurse had gone to take a look at Danny’s ankle while others sort of walked slowly through the debris in a state of shock.

“Reyes?”

Carlos looked up to find a colleague, Matthew Cruz looking down at him. “You just have to be in the middle of the action at all times huh?” he asked.

“Something like that,” Carlos said, managing a half smile.

“You need help?”

“I think I’ve got him for now. If you can just send medical over as soon as possible that would be great.”

“On it,” Cruz said, keying his radio as he and the rest of the officers worked to clear the scene so medical could come in. “Any idea what happened?”

“It was one person,” Carlos said. “Dark hoodie, medium build. I got a partial plate when they fled the scene.”

“Yeah they picked up the Jeep’s tail a minute ago. Nice work.”

Carlos nodded.

Within minutes the scene was cleared and medical swarmed the area. A paramedic that Carlos didn’t know ran over and knelt beside him. “Need some help over here?” he asked.

“This is Ian,” Carlos told him. “Single gunshot wound to the arm. Bleeding was under control until a minute ago but I think the bullet might have moved and hit an artery.”

Blood had begun gushing through his fingers in the last few seconds and Carlos felt panicky at his inability to do more.

“Okay I’m going to put my hands over yours and you are going to slide out, got it?” the medic asked.

Carlos gave an affirmative and they switched places as another medic came over and joined them. “You take care Ian,” Carlos said.

“Thank you,” Ian told him, his face pale and sweaty.

Carlos got to his feet, surprised at how shaky and nauseated he felt. This type of scene wasn’t new for him, but he’d never been out of uniform during a crisis of this kind before and it was getting to him more than he would have expected.

“Carlos?” He heard T.K.’s horrified voice before he saw him and his heart sank. His boyfriend was going to be beyond upset.

“Oh my god! Are you all right?” T.K. moved toward him eyes wide, a bag slung over his shoulder with Nancy right behind him, looking equally concerned.

“I’m fine,” Carlos assured them. “A little shaken up, but fine.”

“There’s blood all over your hands,” Nancy said.

Carlos shook his head. “It’s not mine. There was a man who was shot, somebody from the 130 has him.”

“Hey! We need some help over here!” An officer beckoned the medics toward a woman who was bleeding from the head.

T.K. looked back at Carlos who waved him off. “Go help everyone else. I’m all right, I promise.”

They didn’t look convinced. “Don’t go anywhere, okay?” T.K. asked.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Carlos assured him as they moved to help the woman in need.

He was vaguely aware of T.K. calling out vitals, Nancy rushing past him to grab something else off the ambulance as he wiped his arm across the back of his forehead, sweaty despite the fact that he was beginning to feel cold. The adrenaline that had fueled his heroics was wearing off fast and he knew he should probably sit down before his knees gave out, but he couldn’t quite figure out where to go.

Another team had already packed up the man with the broken ankle and Carlos gave him a nod as he rolled by. He could sense T.K.’s eyes darting back and forth from him to his patient, but he ignored his boyfriend. He was fine and T.K. needed to focus on his job.

He sucked in a deep breath and put his hands on his hips, swallowing hard as the nausea in his stomach swelled.

“Carlos, are you okay?”

He had spotted Tommy speaking to the incident commander a moment ago, but apparently she’d finished and was now standing in front of him with a worried look on her face. “Did someone examine you?”

Carlos shook his head. “No, I’m fine. What’s the situation? How many casualties?”

“Several injuries, mostly minor from broken glass or trip and falls. One gunshot victim so far.” She looked him up and down and he could see that she wasn’t going to let him go. “You look like you’ve been through it; why don’t you let me check you out?”

“I should go see if I can help—“

“Carlos, you are not on duty right now,” Tommy said, guiding him to a nearby chair, her fingers settling on his wrist to take his pulse. “Do you have any pain?”

“Not really,” Carlos said, feeling extremely tired now that he was finally sitting. “I’m kind of nauseous. Shaky.”

Tommy hummed in sympathy. “That could be the adrenaline. All this blood is another victim’s?” she asked, looking at his hands.

“I think the bullet may have found an artery,” he said, by way of explanation. “I was on him pretty fast but I don’t know if it was enough.”

Her hands ran up and down his arms as he spoke, searching for injuries. “You did everything you could,” she said.

Her hands moved across his chest, down his torso and then she stilled. “Nancy?” she called without taking her eyes off of Carlos.

Nancy looked up from where she was bandaging a cut on a woman’s forearm. “Yeah Cap?”

“Can you go get me a fresh kit and some oxygen from the rig?” Tommy’s voice was calm. Too calm. Carlos felt his heart begin to beat faster.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Carlos I want you to listen to me and stay calm,” Tommy said, her voice smooth and gentle. “You’ve been shot.”

Panic jolted through him. “What? No I—I’m fine.”

“We’re going to get you on the ground all right? Easy does it.” She put one hand on his shoulder and the other on his left side, sliding him easily off the chair and onto the sidewalk even as his confused brain tried to catch up. He couldn’t be shot. He would have felt it. He would know if he’d been shot.

“I don’t feel anything,” he said, noticing now that his voice was shaking and he felt even colder than before.

“That’s probably the adrenaline,” Tommy said. “You’re out here being a hero and saving everybody without even taking care of yourself.”

Nancy reappeared and her eyes widened in horror as Tommy cut up Carlos’ shirt and exposed his abdomen. “Nancy, go get T.K.”

“Cap…”

“Go quickly please,” Tommy said and now Carlos heard the sharp edge of urgency in her voice. “Here we go Carlos, take some deep breaths for me okay? This might hurt.”

Oh! Carlos choked back a cry as she put pressure on his right side. A lot of pressure. Pressure that sent all the agony he hadn’t been feeling burning through his body. He tried to arch his back and move away from her, but either he was weak from blood loss or she was stronger than she looked.

“Easy, easy Carlos,” she said as he gritted his teeth and tried not to let out another pained moan. “Try and relax for me. I know it’s hard, but I need you to stay as still as possible.”

Stay still when it felt like he was on fire?

T.K. appeared above him, eyes wild with fear, a hand cupping his cheek. “Cap what—?”

“Gunshot wound to the lower right quadrant,” Tommy said evenly. “No apparent exit wound. Nancy get him on oxygen. T.K. can you work?”

“I—“

“Yes or no?” she asked sharply.

“Yes, yes I can,” T.K. said, but Carlos could see tears in his eyes. He wanted to reach up and wipe them away, but his arms didn’t seem to be working anymore. He felt weirdly detached from his body. Detached from everything except the pain radiating through his side.

“Okay let’s get him on some fluids,” Tommy ordered. “How you doing Carlos?”

“Fine,” Carlos slurred from underneath the oxygen mask. He didn’t like the way the air blew against his face, but breathing did seem easier so he didn’t try and pull it off.

“Carlos stay awake,” Nancy ordered when his eyes slid shut.

He forced them open again. Why? Why did he need to stay awake? He couldn’t quite remember.

“T.K.?” his eyes searched for his boyfriend, it was hard to see with the mask covering half his face.

“I’m right here babe,” T.K. said, appearing in front of his eyes. “You’re all right. You’re going to be just fine okay?”

He put a hand on Carlos’ head and Carlos felt an odd urge to cry, tears pricking at his eyes, his throat tightening, making it even harder to breathe.

“Let’s get him on the gurney,” Tommy ordered. “Carlos let us do the work okay? We’re going to get you out of here.”

He might have blacked out when they lifted him onto the gurney. He definitely threw up. It was horrible.

T.K. got the mask off just in time and Nancy rushed to put a basin under his chin. He fell back with a moan that turned into a whine, not something he was particularly proud of. He wanted to go back to ten minutes ago when he’d just been shaky and weak in the knees. Nothing had hurt then. Now everything hurt and he wanted it to stop.

“T.K.,” he whimpered, tears pooling in his eyes as they slid him inside.

“I know, I know it hurts babe,” T.K. said and Carlos could see he was near to tears as well. “Tommy can we up his morphine?”

“Give him a few more milligrams,” Tommy said as she slammed the doors shut behind her. “Let’s go Nancy!”

Carlos felt a tiny bit of relief from the pain as medication flooded his veins. He pulled the oxygen mask from his face. “My parents,” he rasped.

“I will call them as soon as we get to the hospital,” T.K. promised.

“I’m sorry,” Carlos said, closing his eyes as tears slipped down his face.

“No, no, no,” T.K. said quickly, putting the oxygen mask back in place and stroking his hair. “You don’t need to be sorry. You are good and brave and perfect and you have nothing to apologize for.”

“Don’t want to leave you,” Carlos said, his heart splitting into two at the thought.

“You’re not,” T.K. said firmly. “You’re not leaving. Right Tommy?”

“Absolutely not,” Tommy said as she adjusted the IV’s. “You are staying right here with us. A little surgery, a few days in the hospital, and you’re going to be good as new.”

“See?” T.K. said, his voice breaking just a little as his thumb moved back and forth over Carlos’ forehead. “You’re fine. You’re going to be fine.”

He drifted in and out after that, everything coming in flashes and blurs of noise and light and pain.

“I love you,” T.K. said to him over and over again, pressing his lips against Carlos’ forehead. “I’ll be here when you wake up."

And then he was gone and there was pain and strangers and the sharp smell of antiseptic burning in his nostrils. There were voices all around but he didn’t understand what they were saying, didn’t know what was happening until someone with a soft voice took his hand.

“Officer Reyes we’re taking you into surgery now. They’re going to remove the bullet and repair any damage. You’re going to go to sleep and when you wake up things will be much better.”

Then someone was putting something over his face, telling him to count, but he was so tired and his tongue felt leaden in his mouth.

He had no idea how much time passed. He woke up to voices, some familiar some not, and excruciating pain in his side. He might have cried, he thought maybe someone wiped his tears away. Someone definitely put a straw in his mouth and encouraged him to drink, which felt good on his dry throat, but then he was drifting again.

Everything was heavy and tired and painful and sleep kept dragging him under again and again like waves beating against the shore. He wasn’t strong enough to fight them, not even when T.K. was whispering things in his ear or when he felt his mother run her fingers through his hair.

It felt like a long time before he was able to swim up from the darkness and blink his eyes open in the harsh lighting of his hospital room. He swallowed hard, his mouth and throat still parched and tasting of medication. “There he is.”

Carlos turned his head and found his father sitting by his bed, a smile on his face. “Are you with us mijo?”

Carlos nodded, brain still foggy as he tried to piece together the events that had gotten him here. “Are you in pain Carlitos?”

His eyes searched until he found his mother sitting in a second chair, a pile of knitting in her lap. “I was shot?” he asks, his voice coming out raw.

“Yes, mijo,” his father said, sitting forward. “At the grocery store.”

“How,” he swallowed painfully, “how long?”

“It’s been about six hours,” his mother said. “You lost a lot of blood.”

Carlos winced. “Bad?” he asked, apparently only capable of single syllable words.

“Nothing they couldn’t fix,” his dad assured him. “They were able to remove the bullet without complications. There was minimal damage. You can ask your boy, he knows all the medical stuff they’ve been talking about.”

“Where is he?” Carlos asked, shifting uncomfortably in the bed.

“He just went home to get some things for you,” his mom said. “He got here before we did and hasn’t left your side, but we knew it could be a while before you woke up and he was still in his uniform. He looked very uncomfortable.”

“He should be back soon. Do you want us to call him? Tell him what you’d like from home?” his father asked.

Carlos shook his head, already feeling himself drifting away again. “Just tell him to come back.”

His mother squeezed his leg through the sheets. “He’s coming Carlitos. He’ll be here soon. Just rest now.”

The next time he opened his eyes T.K. was there. His uniform was gone, replaced by jeans and a grey hoodie, the strings of which he was fiddling with absentmindedly as he stared a hole into the wall across the room. “Hey,” Carlos croaked.

T.K.’s eyes immediately flicked to him and he sat forward on the chair. “Hey babe,” he said softly, his face a mask of worry and exhaustion. “How are you feeling?”

In pain was the answer, but Carlos wasn’t going to let him know that. “I love you,” he managed to croak out, tears tightening his throat.

“I love you too,” T.K. said, reaching for his hand and threading their fingers together reassuringly. “I love you so much.”

Carlos shook his head and tried to get his emotions under control. “I made peace so long ago with the idea that one of us might die in the line of duty. But I never…I didn’t ever think that picking up groceries…”

“I know,” T.K. said. “Me neither.”

Carlos shook his head and had to swallow down a moan of pain as he tried to get more comfortable in the bed, a seemingly futile task. “Easy,” T.K. said, coming to help him. “Take it from someone who knows, bullet wounds hurt like hell.”

“I uh, I asked my parents but they don’t understand everything like you do. How bad is it?”

T.K. squeezed his hand. “As far as gunshot wounds go, you got very lucky. It missed everything vital. Barring any complications you’ll be out of here in a few days.”

Carlos exhaled slowly and looked up at the ceiling. “Okay. Good.”

“How’s your pain?” T.K. asked. “Do you need more medication?”

“No, I’m all right,” Carlos said even though the pain in his side was slowly growing from an ache to a knifelike stabbing.

T.K. fixed him with a look. “You don’t have to be brave,” he said bluntly. “If you need more medication, you can have more medication. There’s no reason to tough this out. It won’t speed up your healing time at all.”

It was all said in a forceful, strained tone and Carlos took a good look at his boyfriend, noting the pallor of his face, how drawn he seemed. “Are you okay?”

“You’re the one in the hospital bed,” T.K. pointed out.

“And you’re the one who had to save my life while I was bleeding out on the street,” Carlos countered.

“You should be resting, not worrying about my feelings.”

“If you don’t talk to me I’ll just worry more.”

“Carlos.”

“T.K.” Carlos gave him a pointed look.

T.K. sighed and leaned back in his chair before looking into Carlos’ eyes. “It was terrifying. The most…terrifying thing I’ve ever lived through. And I feel,” his voice caught. “I feel so guilty that I didn’t see it when I first got there. That I let you walk around, bleeding out…Carlos I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, no,” Carlos said. “T.K., this was not your fault.”

T.K. clenched his jaw and shook his head. “You, and Tommy, and Nancy, and your parents and, my parents can say that all you want. But I’m going to have to live with the guilt for a while.”

“You were doing your job. You were helping people who needed to be helped.”

T.K. leaned forward, pain in his eyes. “My first, and most important job is taking care of you.”

“You did,” Carlos said. “You always do.”

T.K. still looked like he was in pain. “Is there something else?” Carlos asked. “You can tell me.”

He shook his head. “You’re tired and you’re hurting. We can have this conversation another time. You don’t need to be worried about me right now.”

“I always worry about you,” Carlos said. “That’s part of the deal in a relationship.”

T.K. blew out a breath. “You know, when Alex and I ended, I had to figure out how to be enough for myself. To look inside myself for strength. To find it within me to continue on with life even when it got tough.

“And then I met you and it was so easy. Being with you is…it’s the best I’ve ever felt. I feel whole. Like myself. And looking at you in that street, holding your hand, trying so hard to keep you alive…I had a lot of time in the waiting room to sort through my feelings and try to…try to figure things out.”

“And?” Carlos asked gently.

T.K.’s mouth shaped into a sad, forlorn smile. “I realized that…I can do it. I can do this life without you.” His breath caught and Carlos saw tears pool in his eyes. “But I really, really don’t want to.”

“Hey.” Carlos reached out a hand and gently grasped T.K.’s wrist. “You don’t have to. I’m here.”

T.K. finally managed a small smile. He reached up and smoothed a curl from Carlos’ forehead. “Yes. You are.”

He cleared his throat and Carlos watched him shove all his pain and feelings deeply back inside. They would need to pick up this conversation later. Maybe when his mind was a little less foggy and his entire body didn’t hurt like hell.

“And listen, we’re even now. I got shot, you got shot, that’s enough. It’s not a competition,” T.K. said, flashing a manufactured smile.

“I will definitely try not to get shot again,” Carlos promised. “How’s everyone else? The man with the gunshot wound and the guy with the broken ankle?”

“Both fine thanks to you. Everyone else only had minor injuries. You’re a hero,” T.K. told him. “Your face is all over the news.”

Carlos closed his eyes and groaned. “How did they get my name?”

T.K. gave him a wry smile. “Adriana and Francesca are in the waiting room with your parents. I think they’ve hit on every doctor, nurse, and orderly in the place.”

Carlos sighed. “And they talked to the news crews.”

“They really didn’t like you being referred to as an unidentified officer. They’d like you to get full credit for your heroics. And hopefully a medal. And a monetary reward. Which you will use to take them on vacation.”

“God they’re the worst.”

“They definitely are,” T.K. agreed. His face sobered. “But they’ve been here since I texted and refuse to leave even though they can’t come up. Underneath their astonishingly blatant horniness and greed, they’re really worried about you.”

“They always come through,” Carlos said.

“They also brought coffee and donuts. Don’t tell them, but I love them.”

“Your secret is safe with me.” He shivered and winced as he was reminded that any movement at all was beyond painful.

“Are you cold?” T.K. asked.

“A little.”

“It’s probably the blood loss.” He reached into the duffel bag next to him and pulled out a blanket that Carlos recognized.

“You brought me a blanket from home?” Carlos asked, heart melting at his boyfriend’s thoughtfulness.

“Hospitals are notoriously cold and their blankets notoriously suck,” T.K. told him as he tucked it gently around his legs. He kissed the tip of Carlos’ nose. “You should try and get some sleep. Hospital wake up call comes early.”

“Thank you,” Carlos said. “You’ll uh, you’ll stay with me?”

T.K. smiled and leaned closer, carding his fingers through Carlos’ curls. “If you’re here, I’m here.”

#911 Lone Star #911lsfic #Carlos Reyes #T.K. Strand #Tarlos #Gunshot wound #Hurt Carlos #Carlos whump #Ambulance ride #Bad Things Happen Bingo #Hurt/Comfort #911 LS #Tarlos Fic

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