Chapter Text
…oooOOO-DANNY-OOOooo…
Danny had spent all of lunch fighting ghosts and now, sitting in fourth period drama, he was exhausted. Tucker sat beside him, not paying attention to the slightly overweight teacher rambling on the stage before them.
It was none other than Mr. Lancer; the bane of Danny’s high school career. Something hit the back of Danny’s head as the A-Listers snickered, probably a piece of one of their leftover lunches.
“—Danny Phantom,” Mr. Lancer finished his spiel and waddled to the edge of the stage, his voice flat as a blown tire.
Danny’s head shot up at the mention of his alter-ego, “Tucker,” He whispered, “What’s going on?”
Darn Mr. Lancer and his sonar ears. The teacher swivelled around to stare at him, “Sleeping again, Mr. Fenton?”
“N-no, sir.” The Fenton in question answered quickly, cringing when his voice cracked.
Mr. Lancer simply made a skeptical, “Hmmph,” sound at the back of his throat before continuing; “As I was saying, this year Casper High’s most popular club, the ‘PhanClub’, chose the theme of this year’s school play, ‘The Musical—Danny Phantom’. Written, directed, and acted by Paulina Phantom.” Lancer squinted at the slip of paper in his hand, “I’m sure she meant Sanchez.”
The Latina teen stormed onto the stage with a toss of her long, dark hair, “As Mr. Lancer was so…vividly summing up, our drama class will be performing my musical, directed by none other than me.”
Danny sighed, resting his head back down on the auditorium table, “Wake me up when this hell’s over.
Tucker merely snorted at his friend’s dramatic tone, eyes never leaving his chunky PDA.
On stage, Paulina was still going. “—so today we’ll be holding casting trials for all the boys to see who has the looks, talents, and, most importantly, body, to pull off Danny Phantom!”
One of the A-Listers, a blonde by the name of Star, swooned at Paulina’s words.
Dash shot out of his seat, his red letterman jacket flapping in his haste, “No need, I’m the perfect guy for the job.”
Danny and Tucker chuckled softly; Dash was a full two heads taller than Danny and a totally different build. Vlad would make a better Phantom than Dash.
“All the boys will be auditioning, although I already have a pretty good idea of who’ll get the part,” Paulina smiled and winked at the jock, giving him a thumbs up.
“So subtle,” Tucker remarked dryly.
Mr. Lancer pulled a black and white folder from the stage’s podium and held it aloft, “Here we have the complete character list and script. Don’t worry if you don’t get a spotlight part, we’ll need plenty of set designers and light technicians.”
At the word ‘tech’ Tucker snapped to attention, “I volunteer as tribute, Mr. Lancer!”
“Dork,” Dash snickered. Though from the cascade of giggles the comment spurred from the other A-Listers, you’d think he’d actually said something intelligent.
“For the last time,” Paulina preached from the stage, “We’ll be assigning roles once all the boys have been tried.”
“I’m black,” Tucker stated with a perfect poker face, “Last I checked Phantom was white.”
“Carry on with that attitude and you’ll be joining young Fenton in detention, Mr. Foley.” Lancer gave him a pointed glare before asking, “Any other commentators?”
Nobody answered. It was best not to mess with Lancer when he was in one of his ‘moods’.
“Then let’s get started!” Paulina screeched excitedly. As soon as the words were in the air, a wisp of blue condensation slipped from Danny’s mouth.
With a heavy sigh he raised his hand. “Can I go to the bathroom?”
Mr. Lancer narrowed his eyes at the raven-haired teen. "I don’t know, can you?”
The assembled student body withheld a groan. Nobody liked a wisecracking teacher.
“Please?” Danny asked wearily.
Lancer glanced around. When he saw no one was laughing, his mood darkened considerably, “Fine.”
Danny took off, pushing the heavy auditorium doors open with a surprising show of strength. He slipped into the darkness of a nearby maintenance closet and muttered the familiar words, barely able to stand up straight in the cramped space. “Goin’ ghost.”
Two rings of pure light extended from his midsection, travelling over his simple, baggy outfit, leaving black and white in its place. Large white boots and gloves covered his hands and feet while a belt of the same hue encircled his waist.
With a twitch of his mind, much like how an average person moved a finger, the boy was intangible, passing through Casper High’s few floors completely invisible.
He paused when he reached the roof, the green glow his eyes gave off lost in the bright afternoon sun. Where were they?
Then a voice accompanied by a flash of light sounded to his left, and he knew exactly who he was dealing with.
It was the Box Ghost’s familiar, “Beware!"
For the first time that day, Danny Phantom smiled. His grip on the Fenton Thermos loosened as he charged an ecto-blast. This would be a piece of cake.
…oooOOO-DANNY-OOOooo…
There was a bright flash of light as the Thermos was activated, pulling the now battered and bruised Box Ghost inside.
“This isn’t the last you’ll see of me!” The denim-overall clad spectre shrieked as he vanished in a blue vortex.
Danny, still in his Phantom form, didn’t even bother with a reply. A yawn pulled at his mouth and he paused, allowing it to seize his features.
He didn’t want to go to class, but he’d already racked up one detention. No need for another.
So it was with another heavy sigh that he floated back into the bleary lighting and odd colour schematics of Casper High. He wasn’t sure he could survive another year of this.
Soon as he pushed the door open, once more in his baggy jeans and signature tee, a familiar voice screeched, “—Danny Phantom!”
Danny, having his second identity related heart attack of the day, glanced down quickly to see if he’d forgotten to change back.
With a glance he saw that nope, he wasn’t Phantom.
His eyes found the stage and the air was abruptly punched from his lungs. Paulina was holding up an obviously DIY’d black and white hazmat suit, the boots comically large.
It was strange seeing a crude approximation of his suit just hanging there, especially without him in it.
Danny studied it carefully, eyes dropping down to stare at his own feet. They weren’t that big, were they?
“If all the boys would line up over here,” Paulina gestured to the right of the stage, “We’ll get auditions started.”
Dash shouldered his way to the front, knocking an enthusiastic Mickey to the ground, “Out’ta my way, dweebs.”
Tucker sighed and reluctantly joined the line, Danny hot on his heels,
“Why do we even have to audition?” Tuck muttered under his breath, eyeing the stage ruefully. “Dash’ll obviously get the part no matter what.” He shot his PDA a heartbroken stare, “I could be levelling up right now.”
“And I could be sleeping,” Danny muttered, literally dead on his feet.
Dash stood by Paulina and grabbed for the hazmat suit, only to have his hand smacked away by the Latina’s. “No!” She pulled it out of his reach, “You must audition without the costume, that way I can see who can channel the Phantom’s true essence.”
Danny snorted, turning it into a cough when some of his nearby classmates turned toward him.
Dash took the stage, the large, yellow spotlight making his hair glow. He opened the script and shouted out, “Perish, fiend!” in a failed attempt to make his voice lower. It sounded like he was gargling with marbles.
Paulina read the responding part, “Argh, Ghost Boy! Your witty banter is too much.” She placed a hand to her forehead, dramatically fanning her face with it.
The watching class dissolved into heartless giggles at the pathetic script.
Dash broke into song and, Danny had to hand it to him, the quarterback’s voice wasn’t half bad.
Certainly not great, but nowhere near as ear-splitting as Tucker’s. There was even a smattering of applause when the jock finished.
The line moved at a snail’s pace, each audition progressively worse than the last until Tucker went. He took the cake for absolute fudgery. The techno-geek’s voice was so bad that a few of the hard-core choir kids shed actual tears.
Danny was last in line because of his encounter with the Box Ghost, his feet dragging behind him out of sheer exhaustion. He took the script from a skeptical Paulina and turned to face the watching crowd.
Had he been actually trying to get the part, all the eyes on him would’ve been nerve wracking.
As it was, he couldn’t care less about this stupid play.
Danny simply opened his mouth and said in an apathetic tone, “Perish, fiend.” His voice even squeaked mid-sentence.
Across from him, Paulina blinked in surprise before speaking her own line.
Danny glanced over the next part that he was supposed to sing only to gag at the cheese ball lyrics. There was no way he was going to speak, let alone project, what was on that page.
“Mm, no,” He gave the script back to Paulina, bumbling down the stage steps on tired legs and tripping over Dash’s outstretched foot on his way back to Tucker.
The last twenty minutes of class were absolute torture as Paulina interviewed possible cast members for the role of the ‘Wisconsin Ghost’. Danny half wished Vlad was here to see this, just because he knew the older man would hate it.
When the bell finally rang, Mr. Lancer’s drama class fled the auditorium in a mass exodus full of tense excitement at the prospect of being one period closer to freedom.
Danny let himself be pulled forward by the wave of bodies knowing all too well that there was no release for him, only a very, very long wait in detention.