Harassed {Jack the Ripper/Poseidon}
Repost
I'm sorry that I wrote this
Warning: mentions of murder and harassment. Don't do any of these things
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Jack the Ripper🔪-
One of your friends had dragged you to a bar one night, insisting you needed to get out more. You didn't have any plans that night but you still refused. After some convincing, you agreed to go.
A few minutes in and your friend is already gone, leaving you by yourself at the main counter. You only took a few shots, but stopped yourself after the 4th shot.
Suddenly, some drunk guy sat next to you, resting his rough hand on your shoulder. He tried so many times to get you to talk, but you just ignored him and walked out the bar. You began your lone walk to your home.
Just when you turned a corner, hands began to caress your sides. You thrash in the guy's grip but he just held you tighter. You took out a small pocket knife and stabbed his leg. You took off the moment he let you go, running inside your house and locked it.
You had a hard time sleeping after that.
The next day, you refused to get of bed, let alone the house. This worried some of your friends and tried to ask you why, but you kept quiet, which led them to ask the friend who took you.
"I do not know. They just left without even saying anything."
That was all they said. They decided to drop it once they realised their question won't be answered.
The next night, while it was dark, you heard a knock on your bedroom window. To your surprise, it was someone who you grew close to, Jack the Ripper. Your first encounter was when he was injured and you, a kind hearted soul, took him in, unaware of who he was. He originally wanted to kill you but seeing how kind you were, the thought of killing you soon went away.
"Milady, what seems to be troubling you?" He asked, his mixed eyes staring into your soul. Your dropped your head down low, refusing to let him see your tears. You wanted to lie your way out, but Jack would be aware of it.
"I-I was forced to go to a bar and this disgusting man touched me and tried to-"
"What did he look like?" You looked up, seeing the man's face turn to his usual murderous expression, but it seemed more dark.
"W-well, he had black hair and blue eyes and looks a little bigger than you. He also had some facial hair on his jaw." You described the man the best you could. Jack didn't say anything and disappeared into the night.
2 nights later~
Sweeping the floors of your house with a headache wasn't the best idea. After finishing off, you rested yourself on one of your chairs. You felt a piece of paper under your hand and picked it up. It was folded neatly and had beautiful handwriting. You opened it up and read the short letter.
I apologise for leaving you in your time of need, but I had to get rid of the beast who tried to corrupt you.
You felt a presence in your room and turned around, spotting Jack, twirling a knife in his hand. Without a second thought, you jumped up and hugged him. Jack held his arms away from you, not knowing what to do.
"You didn't need to kill him." Your voice muffled by his chest. Silence filled the room after you spoke.
"It was entirely necessary. I refuse to let them take your beautiful colours away."
Tears been to fall out, staining his shirt. Jack lowered his arms, slowly wrapping them around your waist.
He always thought he'd never meet a kind person, until life decided to let him meet you.
Poseidon🔱-
Being married to one of the most fearsome gods has its ups and downs.
One up is that you're the only one who can meet his gaze and live the next day.
One down is that he refuses to let you show affection in public to not ruin his public image in being perfect. (It does upset you, but you understand)
He sees you as his equal, so it isn't much of a surprise when another god stupid enough tries to have his way with you and he is informed.
This god won't leave you alone, even when you declined his invitation to accompany him.
"I told you many times! I do not wish to go with you!" You yelled at the persistent god following you.
It all started when he approached you and started a normal conversation. Then, he started getting a little too touchy with you, brushing his hand against your bare skin, his hands lingering on your shoulders and hovering over your chest for too long. That was enough for you to storm out and head back to your husband, the god you truly love.
"Come on, beautiful! I just want to know you better." The god exclaimed, grabbing your wrist. He pulled you closer to him, smirking victoriously when he saw your frightened face.
"I don't think she feels the same way." A familiar voice chimed in. The god froze in his spot, giving you the chance to wiggle out of his arms and step away from him. You felt relieved to see Heracles, his usual smile not present on his face and replaced with a menacing glare. The god trembled in his shoes and just took off to who knows, too afraid to even try to speak to the towering demigod.
"Fucking coward." You thought, watching the god disappear around a corner. You felt the demigod's hand on your shoulder.
"You should go back to Uncle. I bet he's missing you." Heracles' face changed to a more cheerful one, his smile exposing his pearly whites. You giggled at his sudden change and nodded.
"I should. Thank you for saving me!"
"No problem!"
With that, you took off to see your husband. Before entering, you took the time to stand up straight, take a deep breath and walked in. You faced your husband, slowly making your way to your throne next to his. Sea Blue eyes observed your form, noticing your slightly messy hair and increased speed of your breathing.
He knew these were your signs of discomfort.
"Who is responsible?" His chilling voice filled the silence. You felt exposed upon hearing his question and hesitated on answering. But you gave up.
"Just another god." You finally answered, your hands gripping the armrests nervously. You knew lying to your husband would be impossible.
"Come here." He demanded. You quickly complied, standing in front of him, unsure of his next demand.
"I said, come here." He demanded again, his eyes staring right in your own orbs. You swallow slowly, stepping closer to him. This was strange, he never demanded, let alone asked for anything like this. With hesitation, you wrapped your arms around Poseidon's waist. When he didn't push you away, you lowered yourself down to sit on his lap.
Crying was out of the question if it was for anything else, but after what happened, you couldn't help it.
Your quietly sobbed, tightening the hug. Surprisingly, Poseidon did nothing but sit there, listening to your sobs.
Poseidon will have to wait until he can deal with the living filth that decided to get his dirty hands on his wife...
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I have an idea for a full-season Eddie arc that I want to put into the universe. tim, feel free to plagiarize me yet again (but this time. i want a dm. i know you're around here somewhere come say hi). So. Anyways. Season 8
8x1: Eddie has broken up with Marisol. By the time this episode rolls around, they've already been broken up for a couple weeks/months. As mentioned in 7x5, he's struggling with the idea of Catholic guilt, struggling with the idea of faith in general. He mentions, in casual conversation, to Buck, Chim or Tommy (who is still with Buck on screen *coughs loudly*) that he's thinking about going down to Texas for a while. His grandmother is the most religious person he knows and he's always found comfort being in her space and soaking in her presence, so he wants to talk to her about his feelings. Whoever he's talking to agrees that's a good idea.
8x2 - 8x7: A couple episodes pass with the idea of Eddie taking some time off in the background of the audience's mind. Nothing major, just little throw away lines about getting the truck tuned up before he makes a big road trip, paying bills before he leaves, things like that.
8x8: The 118 responds to a call of a fire in a church. Two people are getting married and their families are in attendance. Eddie doesn't go inside the church but he fights the fire from outside and helps treat the injured. Almost everyone is pulled out safely but the mother of the bride. Her daughter is crying because she and her mother aren't on good terms and she doesn't want it to be too late for them to patch things up. Eddie and the bride get to talking, and the bride mentions she always felt like she wasn't enough for mom, that she found it impossible to live up to her standards. They had an argument before the fire broke out because the bride realized, on-screen, that she didn't actually want to marry the man she was going to marry because she was in love with someone else (that's what started the fire, her making that announcement caused someone to pass out, and blah blah blah). But she was only marrying this man because her mom thought he would be good for her, and the brides makes a comment about always feeling like she was living her life for someone else, in service of a standard she could never reach. Eddie, of course, can relate. The bride's mother passes away and, it's a tragedy and is treated as such, but at the end of the episode during the voiceover (*coughs louder*), we see the bride reuniting with the person she's actually in love with because her mother's death means she's free from having to try to, like, be perfect.
8x10: Eddie's been getting a call from his dad all throughout the episode but he's been ignoring it because [shenanigans]. This is a light-hearted episode and the tone will be important because when he finally answers the phone during the last five minutes of the episode, he's like "Dad, come on, jesus, what is it" and his dad tells him that his grandmother has passed away.
8x11: Midseason premiere, the episode begins with Isabel's funeral, mainly because I want to see Eddie/Ryan in a nice tailored black suit (timothy, i'm sure you can relate). Anyway, the funeral is outside because it's important Eddie doesn't go inside a church yet. When it's finished, he goes back to the reception at Isabel's house. His sisters are there, everyone is there. He offers to help his mother in the kitchen and she tries to make conversation, but Helena Diaz has never actually learned how to relate to her son, so she says the wrong thing. It doesn't go well (but that's something to be circled back to in another season). Eddie looks at the pictures on his grandma's wall / mantle / whatever and sees himself and his sisters and his cousins when they were kids, smiling big at church christenings or whatever, and he's like... "I don't recognize this kid who was so happy to be inside of religion. I didn't know who I was then, and I definitely don't know who I am now because of it". He doesn't say it, but that's the vibe ofc, and Ryan's face is expressive enough that he can pull that off.
8x12: He's back in LA. Everyone is treating him with the utmost care because they are good people and they love him, and one evening, Eddie gets a visitor. He opens the door and it's his sister. (one of them lives in LA, remember?). In my head, that's always been Sophia, so he asks what she's doing here, and she holds up a bottle of wine. They sit on the sofa, they talk and reminisce about their grandmother, make apologies for the fact that they haven't been around for each other much despite living in the same city (but this isn't Eddie's family issues storyline, this is the Catholic guilt storyline. We will circle back to this in S9). So Eddie pitches the idea of faith to her, and asks what it means to her. It's the same question he wanted to ask his grandmother. Sophia says she has faith in the universe, faith that things always happen the way they're meant to, and it's a good answer but it doesn't speak to the core of Eddie's problem, which is that he always feels beholden to something he can't name/place.
8x14: Eddie continues to ask the people around him (Buck, Athena, Tommy, Chim) about faith and what it means to them. They all give him different answers. Athena has faith in purpose. Chim has faith in his family. Buck has faith in the inherent good of humanity. Tommy has faith in himself. It's not very helpful in the sense that no one gives him his answer, but it does reveal to him that faith can, does, and should exist absent of guilt, that maybe he's been doing it (or was taught) all wrong.
8x15: Insert an embarrassingly on the nose call about a kind, nerdy, reserved man who's lived by an unspoken rulebook all his life. He came out to Los Angeles on a whim and suffers from a hiking mishap where he's physically blinded by [something] and subsequently needs to trust that the 118, these people he literally cannot see, will save him. When they pull him to safety, he berates himself for even coming out to Los Angeles in the first place because he's not the kind of guy who does this, he just wanted to do something for him and now he feels stupid. And Eddie (because of course it's Eddie) is just like "no, you didn't do anything wrong. Look, you took a leap of faith (episode title btw). That's more than what most people can say. Maybe it didn't work out in this instance, but who knows how it'll work out tomorrow, or the next day. You don't know the future. None of us do, so maybe stop trying to live according to some giant colossal plan and just... live, and try your best. Isn't that all we can do?" And he watches the guy get airlifted away (thanks Tommy! *coughs even louder*) and it's like his lightbulb moment, like, oh. Yeah. He finally gets it.
8x16: Eddie walks into a church for the first time in years, and for the first time all season. It looks exactly how he remembers; wooden pews, high ceilings, the works. He takes a seat on one of the benches and prays / talks aloud to God and is just like, "I don't really know who you are and I don't know how to be what you want me to be. All my life I've been trying to be what everyone wants me to be to the point where I just don't even know who I am anymore, if I ever knew. So I don't know who you are, but I know I am who you made me to be, and I don't know who that is, but I know that person is enough for me right now. And maybe I'll figure you out along the way, maybe I won't. But, right now, what I know is that i can't be your perfect son because I can't be perfect at all, and I need to let go of the idea that I can and start living my life for me." So he walks out of the church and not much changes, but everything changes. You know?
And, like, obviously the story would need to be flushed out a little more. Obviously, this story centers more of the idea of faith than the idea of explicit guilt, but they're one in the same anyway because you can't have guilt without failed/presumably "failed" expectations. In this case, religious or spiritual expectation. So. I don't know. But there's just something so sexy about the idea of Eddie systematically and intentionally dismantling and releasing himself from all the things that have kept him from growing over the years. Starting with his survivors guilt in S5 and working his way through Catholic guilt in S8, I just love the idea of Eddie being purposeful in his own healing, especially in this post-breakdown era. Plus it'll give him a chance to have a storyline that's not romance-focused cos we've been leaning a bit too heavily into those. 🙃 But anyways. (Next up is his issues with Helena. btw. because we have yet to circle back to his family issues in canon but we certainly need to).
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God Only Knows
Everyone knows AU, but Wes doesn't know that everyone knows, and neither does Danny, because even though everyone knows, everyone also knows better than to acknowledge it.
For the prompts:
Everyone knows the connection between Danny Fenton and Phantom. To keep their town's hero safe, everyone pretends to be oblivious. Only this one kid doesn't seem to have gotten the memo. [From @vigilant-insomniac], and It's like Santa, the students of Casper High think. You know he's fake, just your parents playing pretend, and if Danny wants to play human, well. Who are they to ruin the fantasy? [From @uniasus]
This is a take on Wes I've never written before, despite having written quite a few Wes fics, and it was a lot of fun, I hope you like it : )
Read also on AO3
[Warnings for mentioned injuries, threats, and implied bullying]
Danny Fenton was dead. Everyone knew that.
After an accident in his parents' lab, he'd been rushed to the hospital and declared dead on arrival. He had an obituary in the paper, a grave. His death had even been announced over Casper High's PA system, and there had been a moment of silence, and all the science classes had done lessons on lab safety so that what had happened to him might not happen to anyone else.
Then, a couple weeks later, Danny Fenton was back at school like nothing had happened. Hanging out with his loser friends, going to classes, eating at Nasty Burger. Like he was still a regular kid. Except that beakers slipped through his fingers, and he kept walking through vending machines, and falling through the floor. Sometimes all or part of him would turn invisible, or he'd start floating a few inches off the floor and his friends had to pull him back down to earth.
Every time, he would look around in a panic, like he was hoping no one saw, and every time, those who had seen pretended they hadn't. It was Santa Claus, the Casper students reasoned. You knew he was fake, just your parents playing pretend, but it made them happy when you pretended with them. If Danny wanted to play human, well... who were they to ruin the fantasy.
Besides, no one wanted to be the one to remind him that he'd died.
Then the school was attacked by a ghost, and another ghost appeared to stop her. It was the ghost of a 14-year-old boy, wearing a Fenton Works jumpsuit. There was no mistaking that Danny Fenton, the dead kid attending their school, was also the dead kid protecting it.
But after a couple of days, it was clear that Danny himself still thought it was a secret, so everyone else silently agreed to let him keep thinking that. He'd been through a lot, and they didn't need to make it harder on him. Even Dash never brought it up—and he kept bullying Danny, for being week and unpopular, just to keep up the illusion that nothing had changed.
When out-of-towners started poking around, asking questions, everyone kept the secret. The strangers were clearly ill-intentioned, wanting to capture Danny for some reward. Even if he was deluding himself about still being alive, Danny was a good kid who protected the town. The least the locals could do as thanks was act oblivious to keep him safe. They were used to pretending, anyway.
Except this one kid didn't seem to have gotten the memo.
"Uh, yeah, I have some information on the ghost!" Wes called out to the Guys in White nosing around their school.
Kwan grabbed him, covering his mouth and dragging him around the corner before the Guys in White could see who'd called out to them. He felt something slimy on the palm of his hand and let go of Wes with a noise of disgust.
"What the hell!" Wes demanded.
"Did you just lick me?" Kwan asked, wiping his hand off on his jeans. "Gross!"
"Dude, you dragged me down the hallway! What gives."
"You were gonna spill to the Guys in White. You can't do that!"
"Just 'cause no one around here believes me, I'm just supposed to give up?" Wes frowned, crossing his skinny, freckled arms over his chest. "Somebody has to know that Danny Fenton is Danny Phantom, I mean come on, it's obvious!"
"But if you tell the Guys in White, even if they don't believe you, they'll investigate him, and who knows what they'll do," Kwan pointed out. "Hasn't Danny been through enough? I mean," Kwan glanced around and lowered his voice before adding, "he died. Do you really want to make things harder on him after that? Don't you think he deserves a break?"
"Exactly," Wes hissed. "He died. He's a ghost. Ghosts are bad—and why are we whispering?" he added at a normal volume.
"You know that's not true," Kwan argued, keeping his voice low, despite Wes' complaint. "Phantom protects us."
"From ghosts that come through a portal he opened!"
Kwan flinched. Saying Danny had opened the portal was kind of misrepresenting the reality of the situation. Sam and Tucker had reluctantly told the story of Danny's death in the weeks he was gone, and it had been spread around pretty thoroughly before he came back. Everyone at school knew that he'd stepped into that portal and been completely fried. The portal turning on wasn't the part most people focused on when it was always immediately followed by 'while Danny was inside it'.
"I don't think you can blame him for that," Kwan said. "It was an accident."
"One that has yet to be corrected," Wes replied, his anger not fading. "Him fighting the ghosts doesn't stop them from attacking. If he really wanted to protect the town, he'd destroy the portal and stay in the Ghost Zone."
"What about the Fentons?"
"Who cares if the Fentons lose their precious portal when it's endangering thousands of lives!?"
"And you don't care if they lose their son, either?" Kwan demanded.
"So you do believe me!"
"You're a dick, Weston." He'd never called anyone a dick before in his life, but it seemed to apply here. "I don't care what you think, but if you try to hawk your theories on any of the ghost hunters around town, I'll make you regret it, and I'll bring friends, too. I've got a lot of them."
To drive home his point, Kwan shoved Wes against the lockers and glared before walking away. Gosh, that was so aggressive. Kwan hoped it had been okay. He didn't like doing it—he didn't even know if his face could hold that expression long enough to intimidate anyone—but if it kept Danny safe, that was what mattered.
At least Dash would probably be proud of him for it. Dash was always saying he needed to be more assertive to people couldn't push him around. Metaphorically, of course. Literally, Kwan was six feet tall and 190 pounds, even as a freshman, so there weren't many people who could physically push him around as it was. He didn't join the football team for no reason.
Thankfully, it did seem to work. Kwan had his friends—and he did indeed have a lot of friends, since he was a very friendly and likable guy—keep an eye on Wes until the outside ghost hunters declared the hunt a bust and skipped town. He didn't know whether Wes had noticed or not, but either way, he hadn't tried to expose Danny to them again.
Too bad that didn't last. A few weeks later, Wes went directly to the Fentons.
"No one else will believe me, but your son is a ghost!" Wes told them. "He's Danny Phantom!"
Jack and Maddie both froze. They knew.
They knew, and they had both agreed to pretend they didn't. They shot at Phantom, always aiming a mile wide, and shouted threats, and loudly declared their hatred for ghosts. They knew how it made Danny feel, but they also knew he still loved them. They were willing to do whatever it took to keep their son around, and they feared that if he were ever to tell them he was a ghost, it would be because he was moving on and they'd never see him again.
"Why... that's ridiculous, my boy!" Jack declared, a slight waver in his booming voice. "Our son can't be a ghost!"
"But it's true!" Wes insisted.
"Don't be silly!" Maddie cut him off before he could start listing evidence. She knew all the evidence. "I think we'd know if there was a ghost living under our own roof."
"But—"
"You should keep your utterly ridiculous theories to yourself, because you sound absurd," Maddie said. "Now, if you don't mind, my husband and I have very important ghost hunting to get to. Don't you have homework to do or something?"
Wes growled and clenched his fists in frustration but left them alone nonetheless. Clearly, he wasn't getting anywhere with him. And he wasn't getting anywhere at school, to the point where Danny had stopped getting anxious and had started openly antagonizing him about it. Didn't anyone else in Amity Park have eyes, he wondered.
But in truth, he was the one not seeing, because he didn't see that everyone else was on the same page about Danny being a ghost, and he was the one being left behind.
"Hey, Wes-toenail!"
Wes rolled his eyes as Dash stormed up to him with a disappointed-looking Kwan in tow.
"Jazz Fenton told Sam Manson, who told Kwan, who told me, that you tried to tell Fenton's parents about your stupid conspiracy theory!" Dash sneered at him.
"It's not a conspiracy theory," Wes said. "There would have to be more than just one person involved for it to be a conspiracy theory. A conspiracy theory would be like if I claimed everyone in town was working together to hide the fact that Fenton is Phantom," he was too busy rolling his eyes again to notice the look Kwan and Dash gave each other, "but you're not, you're all just a bunch of sheep."
"And you're a... a..." Dash struggled, grasping around his thick head for a comeback.
"A blackberry bramble!" Kwan finished for him.
"A blackberry bramble!" Dash repeated firmly, then turned to Kwan with a confused look. "A blackberry bramble?" he repeated again, this time questioningly.
"Prickly, invasive, and impossible to get rid of," Kwan explained. "Sam and I also talked about her garden."
"Oh, that's nice," Dash then turned back to Wes, hardened his expression and said. "You're like a blackberry bramble, and no one wants you around."
Wes raised an eyebrow and shook his head. "Why do you even care? I thought you hated Fenton."
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I want him dead again," Dash pointed out. "His parents are ghost hunters, and they're always shooting at Phantom. What do you think they might do to Danny if they actually believed your bullshit theory?"
"Get rid of him! Because he's a ghost! You know, the creatures constantly attacking our town and putting us all in danger?"
"The fact that you actually seem to believe that is why nobody at school likes you," Dash told him plainly. "That, and your general annoyingness."
"Why do you all care so much about protecting a loser like Danny Fenton?!" Wes shouted, loudly enough that it attracted the attention of everyone else in the hallway not already listening, and he threw his hands in the air in exasperation. "So he died, so what? It's the fact that he's still around that's the problem. Everyone seems to agree that they want ghosts gone until I bring up Phantom. A ghost is a ghost is a ghost, and all ghosts are dangerous, even the quote-unquote 'good ones.'"
He was breathing heavily when he finished his outburst, and suddenly aware of at least a dozen sets of eyes on him.
"That's enough, Wes," Kwan said after a beat. "Danny hasn't done anything to you, or anyone, and it's not fair for you to keep doing this, trying to expose him or... or whatever it is you're trying to do. You'd better cut it out. If this is a joke, no one's laughing, and if you're serious, then you're trying to take a real person away from his friends and family because of your own biases, and that's messed up, dude."
"Yeah!" someone down the hallway piped up. Micah, Wes thought her name was. She'd spit on his shoes when he tried to convince her of his theory.
"Enough is enough!" her friend agreed.
"You lay off Danny, he's already been through it this year already!"
Soon enough, every student in the hallway was chiming in their agreement, and Wes scanned the crowd, mouth agape, offended and outraged. When he turned back to Dash and Kwan, they both wore hard expressions. It looked weird on Kwan's usually jovial face, but it was clear they meant business.
"Whatever," Wes grumbled. He grabbed his math book out of his locker and slammed the door shut with a metallic bang. "You've made your point. I'll stop."
"Will you actually?" Dash insisted, raising a skeptical brow. "Or are you just saying that to get us off your back?"
"I will," Wes confirmed. "I don't need the entire football team and then some making my life a living hell. As long as Fenton keeps his distance from me, I'll do the same for him."
The warning was passed from Kwan, to Sam, to Danny, and in short order, Danny and Wes started avoiding each other. They barely so much as crossed paths anymore. Wes, begrudgingly, stopped trying to expose Danny, and Danny stopped teasing him for his failures, and it finally seemed like Amity Park's ghostly hero could go on protecting the town in peace.
But things weren't always what they seemed, and one day, there was a fight. At first, it seemed like a standard ghost fight, Danny Phantom versus some vampire-looking asshole.
Based on the banter, it sounded like this wasn't their first encounter with each other, so the civilians of Amity Park tried their best to stay out of the way and let Danny do his thing. Parents calling their kids inside, the group of teens passing by ducked into the alley, the one riding the opposite way on his skateboard crossed the street to hide with them, safety in numbers and all that.
Then the tide of battle turned, and all of the sudden, Danny was losing, badly. The enemy ghost had started coming at him with powerful blasts that broke through his defenses and left him reeling. Danny howled as he hit the street, hard, and in a flash of white light, his appearance changed from hero to dweeb, and regular old Danny Fenton laid unconscious in the road.
"You can never truly best me, Daniel," the enemy ghost said, but he didn't have time to monologue.
The teens in the alleyway had a plan, and they were coming to the rescue.
Sam Manson somersaulted into the street, Fenton Wrist Ray™ already armed and at the ready, and she laid down cover fire at the enemy ghost while Dash and Kwan ran out to grab Danny and drag him to the alleyway where they'd been taking cover.
"Guess you can't tell me I'm crazy now," Wes said, smirking triumphantly as the two jocks put Danny down gently on the ground, propping his head up on Paulina's folded up jacket. "We all saw him turn into Fenton, that's proof."
"Will you shut up, Wes?" Paulina snapped while Star checked Danny over, trying to assess his injuries. "We knew that already."
"What do you mean you knew?"
"Everyone knew, the whole time," Paulina reiterated with a derogatory scowl. "It's like, super obvious."
"Then why did you all treat me like I was crazy?" Wes demanded.
"Because you are," Star said. "Not 'cause you think he's a ghost—because, like, duh—but 'cause you kept trying to tell everyone. Some things should stay secret you moron."
"Why you even wanted to constantly remind the dead kid that he's dead, I'll never know," Paulina added.
"Plus, you constantly trying to expose him was putting him in danger," Kwan said. "Phantom is a hero, and you were trying to get him killed."
"He's already dead!"
"Yeah, we know," Sam jeered at him as she returned to their cover. "Everyone knows. But you're the only person in the whole town who's being a dick about it!"
"Hey, that's the same thing I told him a couple months ago!" Kwan told her, delighted. "I never called someone a dick before, but I did, 'cause he was being one."
"Good job calling him out, Kwan," Sam said, sounding genuinely satisfied. "It's good to hear that you're being more assertive and standing up for yourself and others."
"That's what I said, too!" Dash noted. "God, it's so weird that I actually agree with you on stuff now."
"Can we get back to the fact that you guys all knew the whole time that Fenton was a ghost and nobody thought to clue me in?" Wes said, looking around at the rest of them incredulously.
"Clue you in the Danny was a ghost?" Sam asked sardonically. "I thought you knew."
"No, that it was apparently common knowledge and you all just felt like making a fool out of me!"
"You wouldn't have looked like a fool if you'd just kept your fool mouth shut," Paulina pointed out.
"You—"
Wes was cut off when Danny groaned into wakefulness and everyone's attention instantly snapped to the ghost boy.
"Mn... ugh," Danny took a shaky breath and blinked his eyes open, quickly widening in shock when he realized how many people were leaning over him. "Uh... hello, citizens," he said, putting on a voice in the hopes they wouldn't recognize them. "Please, step back and stay away from the—"
"Danny," Sam said, "You changed."
"Huh?" He looked down at his hand and gasped. "I mean, I have an explanation for this. I was uh... being overshadowed?"
"It's okay, dude," Kwan told him. "We're not going to tell anyone. This'll be our little secret. Right, Wes?"
They all looked pointedly at the redhead, who opened his mouth to protest, and closed it again, his shoulders slumping in defeat.
"Yeah, okay," he relented, though his left eyebrow was nevertheless twitching in irritation. "Our secret."
"We just wanted to get you out of the line of fire before Plasmius took things too far," Sam told him. "You know I've always got your back."
"Thanks," Danny said. "All of you."
They gave him their smiles and their 'you're welcome's while Wes griped and grumbled and left the alleyway with his bike to finish riding home. Plasmius had flown off shortly after Sam started shooting at him. He was content in his victory over Phantom, and didn't feel the need to fight a powerless child like her, so the coast was clear for the rest of them to leave as well.
Sam said goodbye to Kwan so she could walk Danny home while the rest of them resumed their walk to the mall. Sam had been planning to split off before they got their anyway, she was just taking the opportunity to chat with them—mostly Kwan, whom she'd accidentally befriended during Danny's brief stint of popularity earlier in the year (his 'goth' poetry was awful, but they'd bonded over gardening and a love of animals)—since her house was on the way.
"You gonna be okay, Danny?" she asked, as they walked arm in arm so she could catch him if he stumbled. "You don't have a concussion, do you?"
"Maybe?" Danny said, squinting uncertainly. He shrugged. "I'll be fine. I always am. I'm still just amazed how lucky it was that the A-listers and Wes, of all people, were willing to keep my secret. It's gonna be all over the school, tomorrow, isn't it?"
"Oh, I don't know," Sam said vaguely. "Kwan's a decent guy, at least. I'm pretty sure they'll keep their word."
Danny scoffed in disbelief, but didn't voice an argument. The rest of the way to Fenton Works, the chattered about whatever topics came to mind, just to keep Danny from falling asleep in case he did have a concussion, and when Sam dropped him off at home, she held off her mournful expression until she had turned away so Danny didn't have to see it.
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