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Danny swept into the filth ridden locker room with ease. He knew he would be the only one in there. It was almost halfway through the gym period — he knew he was going to get yet another tardy but couldn’t find it in himself to care — and anyone who valued their attendance record was already in class. The muffled sound of tennis shoes squeaking against laminated wood bounced faintly into the small alcove of a room. Danny smiled; he might even be able to take a cool shower to ease his tense core. Sure, he’d stroll into class forty minutes late, the class only being an hour long, but that didn’t bother him so much. Teachers had begun to expect such behavior from him, and his parents didn’t mind the constant calls so long as he kept up with his chores.
He began removing his clothes, first his backpack then his NASA memorabilia jacket. Off came his t-shirt, then his long sleeved undershirt, revealing a myriad of scars littering his chest and back, Lichtenberg scar popping out and glowing faintly green along his left side. Just as he went to remove his pants, a large hand slammed into the army green locker to his right, blocking him from the exit. Danny’s attention snapped up to Dash, who was glowering down at him from the extra five inches he had on him.
“Fenton, what do you think you’re doing?” Dash muttered. Before Danny could answer, Dash’s eyes scanned his pale chest, surveying each healed wound carefully. “What the—?”
“Dash—“ Danny started.
“You’ve got—!”
“It’s not what it looks like—“
“Did I—?”
“No! Not you—“
“What the hell happened to you?!” Dash yelled, effectively stopping the frantic back and forth.
Danny opened and closed his mouth like a dying trout, unable to come up with an excuse that wouldn’t get CPS called to his house. Eventually, he sealed his lips, opting to shake his head in response.
“Well, if you’re not going to tell me…” Dash trailed off, eyes darting to the door to the gym. In an instant, his intentions were clear; he was going to tell Coach Gibson about his mutilated midsection.
Dash ran to the door, but Danny was faster, slating his body between the door and the jock. Dash tried to pry Danny away from the doorframe, though the halfa was strong and unmoving.
“Dash, chill, ok?” Danny protested, arms and legs spread wide across the cool metal of the doorframe. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“What, so your parents don’t hurt you?” Dash relented. Danny’s momentary silence was enough of an answer, causing Dash to pry against Danny’s limbs harder. “This is bullshit. Fucking bullshit! Let me through, Fenton!”
“Knock it off!” Danny cried out, though his grip was starting to slip. “Seriously, this isn’t what it seems.”
Just as Dash was about to pull Danny off of the door, the entire building rumbled, low and dangerous. The boys stopped fighting against one another, opting to instead look around the locker room as cracks appeared, running up the walls. Dash stumbled back, landing on his knees in the center of the tiny room. A particularly large crack emerged above Dash, a large piece of concrete ceiling slipping into a barely stable position. In a split second, Danny was surging forward, pushing Dash out of the way just as the ceiling gave way.
An avalanche of concrete and asbestos rained down onto Danny’s lithe body, covering his lower half completely. The pain was blinding at first, sharp and cracking intensity bursting from both of his legs. If he had to guess, they were both broken under the rubble. He held back a scream as he bit his tongue, closing his eyes and whimpering breaths in and out.
“Danny!” Dash cried out, propelling himself forward and coming to rest on his hands and knees directly to Danny’s left. “Oh my god, are you ok? Of course you’re not, oh god, oh this is bad.”
“Ghost— attack—“ Danny wheezed. He tried to prop himself up on his elbows, only to gasp in a sharp breath as pain erupted from his legs. He let himself slump back down the ground, each breath labored and whiney.
“Yeah, I got that,” Dash laughed the words out — an obvious defense mechanism. “I, uh, what can I do? Should I start moving the, uh, the rocks?”
Danny shook his head. He could feel his blood thinning as blood loss overtook his senses. “No…they’ll fall more and…and could crush us both. Just…”
“Just…?” Dash asked. Danny hadn’t realized he’d trailed off. He felt his consciousness slipping, and knew if he didn’t act fast, he could die — for real this time.
“Dash, I need you not to freak out,” Danny gasped each word out. “I’m…going to do something. And you’re going to find out something only a hand full of people know. And you can’t tell another soul, got it?”
“Fenton—“ Dash began to argue.
“Please,” Danny begged, eyes falling shut as he let a few tears fall, unable to stop them.
“I— yeah, ok,” Dash relented.
Danny took a shaking deep breath. Then another. After a third, he made up his mind, deciding he had to do whatever he had to to protect his haunt. He couldn’t protect if he couldn’t move — if he couldn’t keep himself alive, how could he keep others alive? With one final breath, he pushed himself up, his legs cracking further. He grunted hard, pulling at his intangibility. His legs slipped through the rubble, and Danny pulled himself backwards enough that his legs were clear of the concrete. Once he was out, he collapsed backwards, though was surprised to find himself still at an incline.
Opening his eyes, he found Dash staring down at him, strong, muscular arms supporting his head and keeping it off the ground. Danny gasped, which only made the hurt worse, eyes squeezing shut as he bore it and wheezed.
“What…?” Danny asked softly as to not jostle his wounds any further.
“H— how did you do that?” Dash asked, voice shuddering and low. Danny pried his eyes open once more, catching baby blue in an instant. “Jeez, you— you’re loosing a lot of— of blood. Shit. You’re not gonna die, are you? Please don’t die. Please don’t die on me.”
“I won’t,” Danny grunted. “Just…you have to promise not to tell anybody. Promise.”
“I swear, I…I won’t tell anyone. Just…do what you need to.”
Danny nodded, propping himself up despite the desperate, frustrated noises from Dash. He closed his eyes tight, letting a few more tears roll down his cheeks and collect at his chin. So this was it. Reveal his secret, or die fully. Disregarding his need for secrecy, Danny let out a low breath, preparing himself for an onslaught of questions. He let his transformation wash over him, icy cold rings of light casting shadows over his closed eyelids. After a few moments, the transformation ceased, leaving Danny Phantom where Danny Fenton had once laid.
“Holy fuck!” Dash fell onto his back, elbows supporting his upper body. Danny floated up, letting out a sigh of relief as his accelerated healing kicked in. He looked down at his still mangled legs, shifting them into a tail so they would heal properly.
“There,” Danny sighed out, “better.”
“Better?” Dash blanched. He shook his head, opening and closing his saucer eyes as if the ghost boy before him was an illusion. Alas, he wasn’t, and Dash was starting to realize the implications of the transformation. “You’re Phantom! Of course — Danny Fenton, Danny Phantom. It’s so obvious.”
“Well, sure,” Danny reasoned, in a much better state than before. “But nobody put the pieces together. So…secret kept, I suppose.”
“I’m an idiot,” Dash lamented, sitting up and letting his head fall into his trembling hands. He looked like he’d just seen a ghost. Technically, he had. “I— of course it’s you. I have a crush on the ghost boy, but wait! ‘He’s unattainable,’ Paulina says. ‘Pick someone else’. So I do and it’s still the ghost boy. What’s wrong with me?”
Danny laughed a bit, not quite registering what Dash had said. “Ooh, you have a crush on me!” he taunted in a sing-song voice. Realization hit a brief moment later. Dash didn’t just have a crush on Phantom. He also had a crush on… “Oh. You have a crush on me?”
Dash peaked up through stubby fingers, which spread across the upper half of his face. Slowly, he nodded, though it was a small action, nearly indistinguishable from his shuddering. “Fuck, I thought you knew.”
Danny blinked fluorescent green eyes, head tilting to the side as he propped himself into a position akin to laying on one’s stomach midair. “How would I know?”
“Uh, the teasing?” Dash began to explain, cheeks reddening with each words. “The nicknames? I— I always try to spend time around you. I…I thought you knew, but were messing with me. I thought…”
“You thought…?” Danny picked up the statement, adding a questioning tone.
“I thought you knew and were being all weird and stuff to, like, tease me.”
Danny started laughing, at which point Dash lowered his hands, expression hardening. “Really? Dude, I had no clue!”
“Ok, whatever. You don’t have to laugh at me…” Dash pouted, crossing his arms in front of him and looking off towards the rubble and sprinkling of asbestos.
“I’m not laughing at you,” Danny said, cascading laughs quieting until they were no more. “Just…I don’t know, at the situation. It’s kinda funny, you know?”
“And how’s that?” Dash buried his chin into his knees, legs pulled in tight to his body.
“I guess because I’ve been gay for you for, like, a few months now, and—“ Danny began, tone light, though with an undertone of sincerity.
“Wait wait wait,” Dash stopped him. He brought his head up, looking at the ghost before him. “Since when have you liked me?”
Danny shrugged, face going green — Dash realized it was him blushing in ghost form — as he looked away from the blonde. “I don’t know. It was…well…I might have seen you run away from home a few months ago.”
Dash took in a sharp intake of breath, earning Danny’s attention. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”
“Well…I did, when I was out patrolling,” Danny shrugged as he spoke. He heard a battle overhead — Valerie cried out about ‘ghost scum’ or something like that, and Skulker ventured back about ‘hanging her pelt over his mantle’. “What even happened?”
Dash hesitated. He looked pale, all blood having fallen from his face. After a few moments of pregnant silence, he sighed, hanging his head and shaking it. “Mom and dad got in this fight. He…he hit her. Hard. Like, she broke a rib. I couldn’t take it anymore, you know? So I…I stepped in before he hit her again. They both threw me out.” He snorted humorlessly. “Mom said I should’ve stayed in my fucking lane. She was probably right.”
Danny let himself float closer to the ground, examining Dash’s downcast face. He hummed lowly, earning an earnest look from Dash. “You know what I realized about you that night?” Dash shook his head. “I realized you were…how do I say this without sounding offensive. That you…I don’t know…felt something.”
“What do you mean?” It was Dash’s turn to tilt his head to the side in confusion.
“I mean,” Danny floated closer to Dash, grabbing a large hand in his own skeletal one. Dash gasped, whether it was from the gesture itself or the cold was undetermined. “You were crying. You were upset. You cared about something so much it hurt and you couldn’t keep it in.”
“What are you talking about?” Dash questioned. “I was being a wimp.”
“You were being human.” Danny squeezed Dash’s hand, summoning a gasp from somewhere Dash was unaware existed. “And this ghost likes human. A lot.”
Dash swallowed hard, nodding and looking away, face redder than before by far. Danny took his hand back, an unwelcome emptiness lacing Dash’s fingers.
“Plus,” Danny added, “it helps you’ve been laying off me the last year or so. Something felt different. I guess I know why now.”
“Yeah,” Dash chuckled with a hint of humor, “I guess so.” He looked back up at Danny, eyes catching swimming pools of ectoplasm. They stared at one another for who knows how long, taking in the recent revelations.
Slowly, Danny swam through the air towards Dash, spectral tail whipping behind him uncertainly. Dash pushed himself up further, bringing their faces closer together. In an instant, Danny’s lips were on Dash’s, ice meeting fire and sparking to life. Danny brought a hand up, softly thumbing Dash’s reddened cheek and letting his gloved fingers weave through his blonde locks. A few moments later, the kiss was broken, both of them pulling away at once. Dash was panting, though Danny could hold his breath for a supernaturally long time, so he wasn’t effected so much by the lack of oxygen.
“Wow,” Dash moaned, falling back to his elbows and looking up at the broken ceiling lazily.
“Yeah,” Danny agreed, drifting off into the air behind him and smiling lightly.
“What does this mean?” Dash asked, eyes traversing the ruined locker room and slowly making their way to Danny’s.
“I’m…” Danny let out a single chuckle, “…not sure.”
“But…we’re going to do that again, right?” Dash asked, causing Danny to smile cockily at the question.
He flew forward with lightning fast speed, both hands on Dash’s cheeks. Danny kissed him again, this time deeper and more passionately. They struggled for dominance, though Danny surprisingly won. Well…maybe it wasn’t so surprising. He was the infamous ghost boy, after all.
“Oh, definitely,” Danny answered as soon as their lips parted.
“Good.” Dash grabbed Danny by the arms, bringing him down and into yet another kiss.