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It started with a school project.
Just a stupid project for English class; realistically, it shouldn’t have taken them more than a few hours, but for one reason or another they didn’t make much progress and before he knew it, Dash was spending six after-school days and counting in the school library with a Fenton.
Of course, it couldn’t have been Jazz- that would have been too easy. She would’ve finished the project with time to spare on the very first day, then probably made them do a second one, because she wasn’t sure which idea was better and she really wanted a backup, and then she would’ve finished the second one just as quickly.
Jazz would have been a great partner on this project, but she had graduated last year. No, he was stuck with Danny Fenton.
He and Danny- knew each other, for lack of a better way to put it. They weren’t friends, that was for damn sure, but they had spent too many years in close proximity to be acquaintances. Dash had been in his house, thanks to Jazz’s tutoring sessions, had even seen Danny’s bedroom on one particular occasion (there had been a concerning thud-crash-thunk combo from upstairs, and Jazz had rushed to check on him with Dash in tow. Strangely, the room had been empty). They had taken the same classes, struggled on the same homework assignments, been in the same detention periods, and even dated the same girl. Danny had attended more than a few football games as the sub for the school mascot. They just… ran into each other, far more often than they did most other students. Dash sometimes wondered why that was, and if it was, or if he was simply noticing Danny more than the others.
Dash had quit the shoving-into-lockers thing (bullying, he knew it was called bullying, and he had known it was bad, even back then) not far into their sophomore year. Call it youthful folly, or call it a cry for attention and a clumsy bid for popularity. Either way, he had grown out of it. He even called Danny by his first name, most days.
“Alright, Fenton.” Well, so much for that. “What are we supposed to be doing?”
Danny scoffed, not unfriendly but definitely a little sharp. Lancer had assigned the project earlier today in class, and drawn pairs at random, so Dash had reluctantly approached him about meeting in the library after school. Their table was turning unpleasantly sunny as they sat. “What, you think I know? Just check the paper.”
With that Danny ducked for his backpack, digging out the assignment description with only a couple of creases in it. He slid it between them and read aloud.
“We have to… ‘select a modern pop-culture celebrity of [our] choosing’, and… compare them to ‘the most applicable character from any of the three works of Shakespeare we’ve read in class’ Oh boy.” Danny grimaced lightly. “Sounds… great.”
Dash set his hand on the table. “That doesn’t seem too hard.”
They both sat for a moment. There was a big difference between reading the instructions and actually starting the work, and neither seemed too eager.
“We should do Danny Phantom,” Dash suggested.
Danny wrinkled his nose. “No.”
“What? Why not? He’s cool.”
“I just don’t wanna.”
Dash frowned. “What’s your problem with Phantom, dude? He’s a hero! Don’t tell me you agree with your parents.”
“Who would we even compare him to?” Danny lipped, avoiding the question.
He paused. That was… probably an important question, and it had him stumped. “I dunno.” He scowled. “You got a better idea?”
“Literally anyone else,” said Danny flatly.
Dash resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Fine, whatever.”
“We should probably do it the other way around, anyway,” Danny continued, lightening as they moved away from the topic of the town hero. “Pick a Shakespeare character, then find a celebrity that fits them.”
Dash shrugged, so they opened their textbooks and fell into silence. He skimmed for a good character with an easy comparison- a difficult task, when he could hardly read the outdated language.
After a few minutes, he glanced back up. Danny’s hair was falling in his face, leaving narrow windows for Dash to peek through. He had leaned his cheek into his fist, squishing the soft tissue, and his gaze was flicking over the text in front of him.
Idly, Dash asked again. “What’s your problem with Phantom?”
Danny closed his eyes briefly. “I don’t have a problem with Phantom.”
“No, sure,” Dash responded skeptically.
“I just don’t think he’s good for this project!”
“I dunno, Fenton, seems to me like you don’t like him. Is it your parents? You agree with them, think he’s some kinda monster? Thought your sister would’ve taught you better by now. But hey, I guess some things are just-”
Danny slammed his palms on the table. “He’s dangerous!”
He looked sort of shocked that the words had actually come out of his mouth, like it was an opinion he didn’t know he held. But his eyes were fierce, so Dash glowered at him in return.
“He’s a hero.”
“Heroes don’t get to fuck up as much as he does,” Danny insisted, quieter but no less hateful. “Besides, these ghosts wouldn’t bother us if it weren’t for him. Him staying in Amity Park puts us all in danger.”
Dash set his jaw, breathing for a moment. Then he leaned across the table, getting close enough to speak in a low, firm tone. “Listen to me, Fenton. Danny Phantom is a hero. He’s saved each and every one of us, probably more than we know- you included. He makes mistakes, sure, but he still goes out there and covers our asses just because we can’t do it ourselves. He gets himself hurt, gets himself beaten to a fuckin’ pulp, then gets up and does it again. If you wanna hate him because of some- some anti-ecto beliefs you’ve got goin’ on, that’s your choice- hell, I can’t stop you- but you might wanna reconsider what’s kept you alive for so long. Ghosts are in Amity, because of your parents, and Danny Phantom is the one keeping us safe.”
By the time he was done, Danny had shrunk into his seat. Dash grimaced and sat back up. That had felt a little too close to the bullying he had tried so hard to move away from, but Phantom was a good guy. If defending his name to some random highschooler was the only thing Dash could do to pay him back, then he would do it.
“...Ok,” Danny finally said.
“What, that’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”
Danny only nodded, keeping his chin tucked low. His cheeks were flushed- Jesus, Dash hadn’t meant to be that mean to him.
“Shit. Sorry, Danny,” He offered. “I- uh. I meant everything I said, but I probably could’ve said it a little nicer.”
“It’s alright,” Danny assured him. He blew a big breath out, then flashed a weak smile. “You’re- you’re probably right, anyway.”
Dash watched as Danny righted himself, sitting up, sweeping his hair out of his face and blinking rapidly. The boy shot him another grin, this one a little stronger, and airily remarked, “didn’t know you cared so much about ghosts, Baxter.”
Dash just shrugged, more confused than anything else. “Phantom’s a good guy.”
Danny bobbed his head noncommittally, and they went back to work.
- - -
The temperature crept higher and higher as the week wore on. On Thursday, Dash fell into his chair in the library, plucking at the front of his shirt in an attempt to fan himself.
He pulled out his notebook and their other references. Danny usually got there a few minutes after him.
As the expected seconds ticked by, Dash shifted uncomfortably, feeling sweat prickle his skin. He grimaced and tugged off his letterman. It exposed the little DP pin that he wore, green and glossy and fixed high up on his chest, but hell, his admiration for the ghost wasn’t exactly a secret. He plucked at his shirt again. The library AC had never worked very well to begin with, but now he was beginning to wonder if it was broken. The sun slicing through the window was barbed, relentless against his exposed skin. He scratched at the back of his neck and wiped some excess moisture out of his hair while he was at it.
Somewhere in that time, Danny had made it to the library, and now he shuffled listlessly up to the table. He was, inexplicably, wearing a black long-sleeve under his typical white t-shirt.
“Dude, how are you not roasting that thing?” Dash groaned without preamble.
Danny just gave a lopsided shrug and slid into his seat. “It’s not that bad.” He was holding himself oddly, posture braced awkwardly like he couldn’t straighten up properly, and his left arm hung at his side even after he sat.
Dash frowned. “I mean, you could lose the extra sleeves? That would be cooler.”
“It’s fine,” Danny promised.
“No, I’m serious, Danny. You’re gonna get heatstroke or somethin’. And then I’m gonna have to take you to the nurse, and we’ll never get this project done!”
Danny just looked at him, amused.
“At least take off the t-shirt,” Dash implored. In any other context it probably would have sounded a little strange, but anyone present could tell you it was too hot outside to worry about things like that.
Danny chuckled, like this was something silly, and not a genuine concern for his health. He wriggled oddly, getting leverage under his white shirt with his one good arm, pulling it up and off.
“Happy now?” he allowed, raising his right hand in compromise.
Dash fought a smile. “It’s better than wearing both, at least.”
Danny chuckled again and shook his head, snagging his notebook and settling in. Dash followed suit.
Danny had left himself in just the plain black long-sleeve, with a wide collar and mock stitching like a Henley. The edge of his binder made a little line across his ribs, showing through the thinner fabric, and Dash had to focus on not letting his gaze linger. He had already known it was there, it wasn’t weird or anything, and he didn’t want Danny to think he was staring. It was just- kinda cute.
With all the discussion of heatstroke, Dash was suddenly conscious of the warmth in his cheeks. Shit, maybe he should have put on some sunscreen this morning. He made a face and went back to his notes.
After another few minutes, it was Danny that broke the silence, with his observation of “wait, are you wearing a Danny Phantom pin?”
Dash’s hand went automatically to the pin, running his thumb over the texture and straightening the back. “Yeah? What about it?” His glare was perhaps a little more defensive than need be. He hadn’t forgotten their conversation from Tuesday.
But Danny only waved him off, smiling faintly. “No, nothing. Just noticing.”
- - -
On Friday, Danny came in later than usual. Dash had been working by himself for nearly half an hour when his classmate stumbled in, dragging his feet and blinking blearily. His eyes were stormy and narrow, brow furrowed and mouth curled into a grimace.
“Sorry,” he mumbled as he practically fell into the opposite chair. There wasn’t a whole lot of heart behind the apology.
If it were any year previous, hell, if it were a month previous, Dash probably would have picked a fight about it. But as it was, he just eyed the way Danny was slumping further and further across the tabletop, and moved his notebook aside to make room. “It’s alright, dude,” he replied.
Danny gratefully took the extra space and set his head down. He fit his nose into the crook of his own elbow, eyes already closed, and suddenly it was quiet. The heat wave had broken in the early hours of the morning, a cold breeze dispelling the worst of the stuffiness in the air, so now the sun was something welcome, and the walls of the library were protective instead of stifling.
Danny hunched his shoulders into something like a cat stretch, then resettled and turned his face into the light streaming through the window. His face, which had been scrunched and unhappy, relaxed, and he actually began to smile.
His eyes were ringed by heavy, purple bags, even deeper than usual. He was back in his characteristic white t-shirt, but under the collar Dash could see the blooming mottle of bruises. It didn’t detract from the… well, Dash wasn’t exactly willing to put a word to it, whatever it was that he was seeing in Danny- it didn’t detract from that, but it did make Dash’s eyebrows draw together in concern and confusion. Where, exactly, was Fenton getting all these injuries? As far as he knew, everyone had quit bullying him around the same time that Dash did. Maybe he should double-check. If it was anyone on the team, he could probably force them to stop.
The next time he looked over at his partner, Danny was fast asleep, his mouth cracked open and drool pooling on his arm. The dying sunlight was playing on his skin, showing off the faint freckles across the bridge of his nose that Dash had never noticed before. His hair cast dramatic shadows where it fell, and Dash resisted the urge to brush it back into shape.
- - -
On Monday, Dash had hardly sat down when there was a bright burst of laughter from the other end of the library. He glanced over to find Fenton, Foley, and Manson, the copper-bottomed trio, coming through the doors. Tucker was still saying whatever it was that had made them laugh, and Sam had her hand over her mouth to muffle herself, but Danny didn’t bother. It was his laugh that he had heard; a bubbling, golden sound. It was interspersed with little giggle-hiccups, and Dash stared for far longer than he should have.
He turned lightning-fast back to the table, shoulders tense and face burning. What the fuck? He was just laughing, why did it make Dash feel like his chest was full of hyperactive frogs?
The trio made their way over to the table, and Dash hastily composed himself. Their conversation came to an end. Danny let out one more high, clear laugh. Dash resolved to hear it again before the end of the day.
“Alright, see you Danny!” said Sam, turning back around. Tucker waved.
“Oh, they’re not staying?” Dash managed to ask.
“Nah, I wouldn’t do that to you,” Danny replied casually, dropping into a seat. “Plus, they have places to be, I think. They were just dropping me off.”
Dash shrugged. In all honesty, he wouldn’t have minded the company. Sam and Tucker weren’t bad people to be around, and they seemed to make Danny happy.
Still, that only meant he was on his own for Operation: Make Danny Laugh.
They opened their books, and Dash searched frantically for a joke he could make about the class, or the project, or the characters.
He made one about Tybalt’s dueling choices, mocking his fencing skills, but it fell flat, and Danny just gave him a bemused smile. Dash frowned and went back to brainstorming.
Half an hour later, he cracked one about Lancer having to sort through and grade all of this, but Danny only scoffed and agreed, focus locked on the page.
Finally, as they were packing up and heading home just ahead of the setting sun, Dash stopped. “Hey,” he said, “what do you call a dog that does magic?”
Danny blinked at him. He waited a beat.
“A Labra-cadabra-dor,” Dash finished.
Danny, his eyes bright and wide, burst into startled laughter. “Dash, what-” he kept laughing- “why?”.
He chuckled for a moment longer, stopping with his backpack in one hand and his teeth shown in a wide smile. “That was… pretty awful,” he eventually remarked.
“Ya, that’s why I said it,” Dash agreed. His chest glowed with pride, because he had made that happen. He had brought out that perfect sound.
Danny snorted, gracing him with a few more weak giggles. “Nice one. See you tomorrow, dude.”
“See you tomorrow, Danny.”
- - -
Tuesday was day number six in the library, and Dash started to wonder how much longer this project was going to take. It wasn’t that he disliked the time with Danny, quite the opposite, but this was getting a little ridiculous.
The library was quiet, the wood grain of the table smooth and worn under his hands. The sky outside the window was gradually dimming. Danny was focused on the textbook in his lap, his face blank, showing no sign that he even remembered Dash was there.
Dash thought about all the times he shoved that face into a locker, or shoulder-checked it towards a wall. He chewed absently on his own tongue.
“You don’t like me very much, do you?” Dash asked softly, without really meaning to. Danny startled from his reading.
“What? What gave you that idea?”
Dash considered the way he had been gravitating around Danny lately, noticing trivial details about him. It felt like he was chasing after the moon, and it eluded him, whilst showing no sign that it cared. Not that it should- it was the moon, after all, and he was just a boy.
“Well, I- I dunno, just…”
He thought again about the way he had treated Danny, the physical abuse, the insults, the mocking, and how miserable his first year of high school must have been.
“...I bullied you pretty hard, didn’t I?”
Danny put his textbook aside and leaned forward, setting an elbow on the table. “I mean, yeah,” he began, “but we were, what, fourteen? Everyone does dumb shit at fourteen. Plus, I’ve seen how hard you’ve worked to change since then. You’ve grown, Dash, you’re not a bully anymore.”
Dash frowned, chewing at his lip instead now. “...Can I apologize? That’s probably weird, two years after the fact, but… I feel like I should.”
“That would be nice,” Danny allowed.
So, he took a deep breath, gripping the front edge of his chair and forcing his eyes up from the table. “I’m sorry, Danny,” he said. “I’m sorry for the- the bullying, and the lockers, and the lunch money, and the- all of it. I’m really sorry. I was just- trying to- I dunno, prove something? And you didn’t deserve that, so… I’m sorry.”
He finally, finally released the tension from his shoulders. His posture drooped.
“.... I won’t lie, that felt really good to hear,” replied Danny, with half a laugh. “So. Apology accepted, wrongs atoned for, etcetera etcetera….”
Danny took a deep breath of his own, then stuck his hand out. “Friends?”
Dash hesitated, then took it with a smile. “Friends,” he agreed.
- - -
On Wednesday, Dash was the one late to the library. In his defense, it was mostly Paulina’s fault.
He had heard that laugh in the hallways, the one that he loved so much, cutting through the chattering conversations and slamming lockers and scuffling shoes. A dozen lockers down, Fenton- Danny, stood with his friends, like always. Sam gesticulated with her hands, and Danny laughed harder, tilting his head back with eyes scrunched shut.
Dash had figured out that he was gay in his freshman year, after he had dated Paulina for two whole months and had exactly zero desire to kiss her. He couldn’t exactly tell his parents, but Kwan, Paulina, and Star all knew that he was gay. No, that part wasn’t a surprise now.
What was surprising was Danny fucking Fenton, of all people, crawling into his life and making a home for himself. Dash was having some of the wildest two weeks of his life (which was saying a lot, in this town), and Danny was the pinnacle of it all.
Dash hardly realized that he had been tracking Fenton, turning his head to watch him leave, but Paulina did. She closed her locker with a slam, ready to leave for the day, only to find Dash staring down the hallway.
Her perfectly lipsticked mouth dropped open. “Oh-Em-Gee.”
Dash jumped and turned back to her. “What?”
She hooked her hand in his elbow and dragged him all the way to a quieter corner, leaving him trailing confusedly after her quick footsteps.
When she stopped, she whipped around fast enough to make him lean back in brief terror. Then she said one word, with as much incredulity as possible: “Fenton?”
“Fenton what?”
She slapped him in the shoulder. “You like him, dummy!”
“Oh.” Dash started tinting pink. “Well, I- no, I don’t, it’s-”
She just raised her eyebrows, opening her hands in a “duh” gesture and waiting for him to get it.
He paused. Thought about it. “Shit,” he said.
“There we go.” She grinned and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Ok, later you’re going to give me all of the details, but right now you have a boy to meet! Go, go, you’re gonna be late!
Ok, maybe it was a little bit his fault too. She had shoved him away from the wall and sent him on his way quickly enough to be on time, but he walked slowly, all the way up the stairs to the second floor and into the library. He felt like maybe he was in shock, his brain full of static and butterflies. So he was late, and it was mostly his own fault.
He found his seat with a “sorry I’m late,” which Danny brushed right off with a smile. His eyebags were lighter today.
Dash pulled out his notebook and stared numbly at the page, thinking about how well and truly fucked he was.
- - -
Despite Dash having a head full of cotton all Wednesday evening, they finished their notes, and by Thursday they were ready to start the poster. In class, Danny had acquired a larger sheet of paper for them to use, and Dash had folded it into quarters in his backpack for safekeeping. Now he pulled it out, standing and spreading it across the table. The now-familiar walls of the library were bright, the natural light mingling with the yellow glow of the overheads.
He picked up a marker, then stalled. He set it back down.
“You should do this part, you have better handwriting than me,” Dash decided resolutely.
“No, I definitely don’t.”
Dash frowned thoughtfully, crossing his arms. “Show me?”
Danny obligingly pulled over some scrap paper and wrote ‘my name is Danny’ in the absolute worst chicken scratch the Dash had ever seen.
“Oh, God, ok. I guess mine is better,” he conceded with a mild degree of panic. He would just have to use his very best handwriting, apparently: not great, but legible.
Danny came over to his side of the table, pulling the extra chair out of the way like Dash had with his own. “Here,” he said, trying to pass him the marker, “I’ll read the notes and tell you what to write, that way you can focus. Deal?”
“Deal,” agreed Dash. He didn’t mention how he definitely wouldn’t be able to focus with Danny standing so close. He took the pen, careful to keep their fingers from brushing, but Danny’s hand still grazed his arms on its way down. It knocked Dash’s heartrate up a couple of BPM, at least, but what he really noticed was that his skin was cold.
“Jesus, do you need some gloves? You’re freezing!”
Danny shrugged. “It’s just shitty circulation,” he said easily.
“Do you want my jacket, or something??” Dash offered, before he could think any better of it. Danny only snickered at him, cheeks pink.
“I’ll be fine, Dash. Just work on the poster.” With that he swayed to bump Dash gently with his shoulder, prodding him to work. His shoulder was cold, too.
- - -
On Friday, they didn’t get a whole lot done, because Skulker had apparently decided that this Friday was the perfect day to terrorize highschoolers.
“Oh,” Dash commented as the ghost blasted past their window, “looks like we’ll need Danny Phantom.” And he shot Fenton a look, almost daring him to say something, because this was their one topic that remained contentious. “You don’t have a problem with that, do you, Danny?”
Danny pursed his lips. “No problems here.”
Dash glanced back out the window.
“Actually,” Danny said suddenly, “I think I left my pencil in my 6th period. I’m gonna go grab it, I’ll be back in a few.”
Dash nodded, until he saw Danny’s pencil sitting plainly in the middle of the table. “Wait, it’s right-” he lifted his head, but the boy was already gone, “...here.”
Outside, Phantom was trading insults with Skulker. The metal exosuit shook the wall when it slammed against it, and Phantom’s plasma blasts echoed across campus, turning tinny as they passed through the flimsy glass next to him. Dash moved over a seat in case it decided to break.
The window was relatively narrow, not offering a very good view, so Dash caught the fight in flashes. Skulker falling out of the air, Phantom getting clocked in the jaw. Skulker switching weapons as Phantom swept his hair out of his face.
Things like this were routine now, and Phantom wrapped up the fight quickly; Dash watched the offending ghost get sucked into a thermos, just like always, and then Phantom was gone.
Seconds later, Danny jogged back in, a little out of breath. “Thanks,” he said, as Dash handed him his pencil. Dash said nothing, mind churning.
- - -
By the time Monday rolled around, there wasn’t much work left. The project was due tomorrow, and all that was left was to rehearse their speeches. To keep from disturbing the silence of the library, they walked laps around campus and took turns ‘presenting’ the project.
“Alright, you can do the first half, and then I’ll do the rest,” prompted Danny. “Sound good?”
He nodded. The breeze from the previous week lingered, but it had gentled in the days since they’d seen each other. It ruffled the grass as it swept past, mellow puffs that made slow waves in the fields every now and then. The overhead sun cast the worn dirt track in sharp relief as he spoke to it.
He described their character and then their celebrity, one after the other, and finished awkwardly without any sort of transition in mind.
“Cool,” Danny replied easily, and took over. He went on to outline every similarity they had found between the two; he was more than a little flat in his delivery, definitely scripted, but hey, they weren’t being graded on enthusiasm.
Danny was a puzzle, Dash had decided. But he had taken the whole weekend to think about it, and the pieces were starting to solidify. The bruises, the disappearances, eyebags and exhaustion. Once he started thinking about it, he realized that similar things had been happening a lot longer than this.
“...they’re similar in disposition, as well as skills in….”
It was a little difficult to line them up in his mind, to reconcile the idea that some nerd from his school was the town’s hero, but after spending the last two weeks with Danny, it made more sense. He was… well, he was Danny. In Dash’s mind, Danny could probably do anything on the planet and be good at it, too. And if that included shooting blasts of energy out of his hands and passing through solid walls like they weren’t even there, well, maybe that wasn’t so crazy either.
As if summoned by the thought, an apparition materialized ahead of them, just past the rolling green waves the wind was making in the football field.
“I am the Box Ghost!!” he proclaimed to no one in particular, “BEWARE!!”
Danny stopped in the middle of his speech and in the middle of the path. He glanced nervously at Dash.
“You can go,” Dash said carefully. The evidence for his theory was piling up, the puzzle pieces were fitting together. “It’s alright.”
Danny’s expression flashed through about a dozen emotions in a minute, before settling into hard, steely determination.
He knew that look. He’d seen it countless times on Phantom’s face. On Danny’s face.
“We’ll be talking about this,” Danny assured him darkly. Then he veered away and sprinted for the nearest tool shed.
Dash, too, changed his course. With nowhere better to go, he headed for Mr. Lancer’s room, ready to drop off their finished poster. With Danny’s luck, it would probably get ‘lost’ right before their presentation, right along with his fifth backpack that year, so it’d be safer left in the classroom.
He made his delivery, then walked slowly towards the parking lot. He listened to his own footsteps on the grimy tile, the halls blessedly empty except for the occasional teacher.
His theory was all but confirmed, now. Fenton is Phantom, he allowed himself to think. He almost wanted to slap himself at the obvious symmetry in the names- but oh well. Something about hindsight being 20/20, or whatever.
It made perfect sense, though. God, how long had this been bothering Dash, without him even realizing it? He had always wondered about Phantom using Fenton tech, and even dressing like them, too. He had always seemed so… well, human, strangely so for a ghost. Dash had originally explained it away as his desperate mind grasping for straws to make his raging crush on the hero seem a little more acceptable.
If anything, his crush made all this even more obvious- but, to his own credit, it probably obfuscated the point as well. His interest in Phantom had always remained just that- a crush- but his feelings for Danny had changed over the years. What had been a strange fascination, a fixation, an attunement of sorts at 14 had morphed. Nearly three years of high school and countless instances of considering his classmate for just a second longer than he should have, along with apologies in a dusty slice of library sunlight and a whole hell of a lot of self-reflection had grown his fledgling attraction for the scrawny boy into something that was getting scarily close to devotion.
So yeah, by now there was some difference between his feelings for Phantom versus Fenton, but there were still far too many parallels to be coincidence. Of course Dash had gotten a crush on Phantom- he was Danny.
Hell, the sudden dip in Danny’s attendance halfway through freshman year should have been signal enough. Lord knows Dash had been watching him closely enough to notice.
Danny had never struck him as the kind to be afraid of ghosts, so it cleared that up too. He was small, sure, and definitely not very athletic, maybe a bit of a wimp about some things, but the violent, irrational fear of ghosts had never quite made sense in Dash’s mental picture of the boy.
The puzzle was huge, it seemed, and Danny was good at keeping secrets, so it had taken Dash a long time to assemble all the pieces. But yes, a double life explained everything strange about Danny Fenton.
Well. Almost everything. There had been some other things Dash had noticed about him too, other behavioural inconsistencies.
When it came to most of his classmates, Danny was brief, and fairly neutral, tending to brush them off and go about his day without seeking much from anybody. But when it came to Dash, he was… different. He lingered. Especially these last two weeks, he had been holding eye contact, and giving him his full attention. Making pithy comments without much real bite behind them. Offering him sharp, teasing smiles and standing close enough to make Dash’s heart race.
Dash lifted his head and glanced needlessly around the hall. He straightened his back, moistening his lips and taking a breath in. He forced himself to walk a little slower, before his feet started running to keep up with his racing thoughts.
He had been so focused on the superhero side of his classmate that Dash hadn’t even noticed this other other side of him, until now. Looking back, he realized that Danny had been acting odd in more ways than one.
This project taking them as long as it did was starting to make more sense. Neither of them had been working very quickly. Dash, because he had been thinking about Danny, and Danny, because he had been thinking about-
Dash inhaled abruptly again. Danny had been fighting, trying to keep them all safe from ghosts. That was probably all there was to it. He shook his head. His heel squeaked along the tiles as he jammed his hands in his pockets.
He was only a few turns away from the exit, when a hand in his elbow yanked him aside. In a rapid, disorienting maneuver, Dash found himself in (of all the cliche places) an unlit supply closet, and the door shut firmly behind him. He blinked a few times and waited for his eyes to adjust to the low lighting.
“Alright, Baxter,” said Danny firmly, “talk.”
The closet was narrow, dusty shelves crowding in on three sides and leaned broomsticks and mops taking up the limited floor space. Danny wasn’t even a foot away. He was in Fenton form right now, giving him some semblance of normalcy, but his eyes blazed in a way that had Dash a little starstruck.
“You finished with the ghost that quickly?”
The boy waved a flippant hand. “It’s Boxy. Not the point. Now talk. How did you figure me out?”
So, Dash explained. He explained the bruises, the sleeping, how he noticed when Danny was injured or late. How he put the pieces together.
“I won’t tell anyone, I promise,” he assured him. “Really, I won’t.”
“I believe you.” Danny sighed. “I was wondering if I slipped up at some point, but it sounds like I did everything right. You’re just really observant. What the hell, man?”
Dash shifted his weight. He knew why he had been observant. That didn’t seem like information that needed sharing. Instead, he asked, “...can I see?”
“See… Phantom?”
He nodded.
With an unnatural glow that made his eyes sting after the darkness, Danny Fenton transformed, and in his place was Danny Phantom, ghost, teenager, and hero of Amity Park. He traded his hazmat-suited legs for a floating tail, and rose to Dash’s eye level. The startling icy-blue had been replaced by venomous green. Dash swallowed, feeling rather seen.
After another moment, Danny changed back, looking smaller, more tired, and much more breakable as a human. Dash supposed that would explain, in retrospect, what made him lean down. The awe, and the care, the shock of seeing his favorite superhero and the boy he liked slip back and forth right in front of him. Maybe they explained why he swayed towards Danny- not seeking anything, other than to be closer, closer to the being that broke most laws of physics and stole his heart in one fell swoop.
What they didn’t explain, however, was why he had so little self-restraint as to look at his lips when Danny said his name.
“...Dash?” Danny asked again. Dash inhaled sharply and backed up, knocking a few rolls of paper towels off their shelf.
“Shit,” he said. “Sorry, uh-”
Danny blinked, brow furrowing. He peered up at him for a long moment. He was looking at Dash like he was the puzzle, and the last few pieces were in Danny’s hands. He just had to turn them the right way to make them fit.
He blinked again. Then his face gentled. “Dash,” Danny muttered for a third time. It was softer now.
Dash was trying to put the paper towels back, bumbling this way and that. “Dash,” Danny repeated, “stop moving.”
Then he leaned in, reached as high as he could, and kissed him softly on the mouth.
Dash supposed this was the part where people would start noticing the feeling of the lips against their own, or what their partner smelled like, or where their hands were, but he was finding that the only thing he could do was experience it.
Besides, Danny only lingered for a moment.
Dash exhaled all at once, the air gusting over his own bottom lip. “Oh,” he mumbled. The puzzle made sense to them both now, it seemed.
“Okay,” Dash said softly, nonsensically. He moved, hesitated, and moved again, until they were inches apart, and Danny’s eyes, piercing blue that could change to glowing green on a whim, met his own. Danny set a hand on his cheek, and Dash let himself close the gap.