Chapter Text
Part I: Real Boy
"Every time we touch your hands are colder, colder”
Danny Fenton.
The enigma of Casper High.
It's the first day of the winter semester when she notices him.
She notices him for what feels like the first time. Maybe because at this point he's the only alternative kid other than her.
Or maybe because boom, there he is: the locker next to hers.
She doesn't know that much about him, which feels like an oversight. He’s a Fenton, after all. As far as she can tell, he's on the outs of the social hierarchy, just like her and Tucker.
What she does know is that he’s like a shadow, doesn’t speak unless spoken to, lingers near doorways and skips class at random intervals.
Her locker door squeals on its hinges and she watches him from the corner of her eye. The floppy side-swept emo hair. The circles under his eyes. The way he moves a bit like water.
There’s something about being up close to him… Something that makes her want to move away.
He isn’t paying attention to her, busy with his books.
She’s about to ask why this is his locker now when someone bumps into her from behind. Her books slip from her grasp and scatter all over the floor in a mass of thuds and claps.
“Shit.”
“Oh, sorry, I totally didn’t see you there, goth-freak,” comes a frivolous voice.
Sam turns and glares as Paulina and Star saunter pass, a cloud of bright pink and vanilla perfume.
Star hides a laugh behind her hand.
“Actually, make that two,” Paulina says, elevator eyes appraising Danny.
He stops and narrows his eyes.
She flicks her hair behind her shoulder and they keep walking, blending back into the throng of students.
“Fucking assholes,” Sam breathes. She glances over at Danny, surprised to see him looking back.
“There’s probably a Mean Girls joke here somewhere,” he says with a wry smile.
Sam blinks.
She can’t remember ever hearing him talk for anything other than asking to be excused from class. She rips her eyes away from his and focuses on the ground littered with her textbooks and notes.
“Yeah, no kidding,” she says, kneeling down to start the humiliating task of picking up her shit.
“Are you alright?” he asks, and then he’s leaning down to help her.
She slows, not sure how to process that. “Uhm.” She grabs her History textbook and tucks it into her left arm. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”
He holds out a book and a spiral notebook.
They share another look. She feels tingly from head to toe, like she's looking down the barrel of a loaded gun, but his face is soft and reserved. She forces her arm to move and she takes the books from him.
“Thank you,” she says numbly.
“No problem.” He stands and offers her a hand. After a moment's hesitation, she accepts. She almost flinches, caught off-guard by how cold his hand is—like ice. She stands, holding onto her books so tightly it hurts her ribs.
He still has a pressureless grip on her hand, like he’s waiting for her to pull away first.
She swallows and lets go of him.
The warning bell rings and they wince. Without a glance or another word murmured in her direction, he slips away.
Just like that.
She watches him go; watches him melt into the crowd.
Her hands feel hot against her textbooks in comparison.
She doesn’t know anything about Danny Fenton… but maybe she should.
.
She slides into the spot across from Tucker at their deserted table. The cafeteria bulges with students and the din roars.
He looks up from his phone, expression welcoming at first, before his eyes narrow.
“Uh-oh,” is all he says.
“I haven’t even said anything yet.”
Tucker leans his elbow on the table, arching a brow. “I know that look, Sam.”
“What look?”
“That look.”
Sam rolls her eyes. “It’s not bad, I promise.”
Tucker peels open his plastic utensil bag. “Sure, Sam. Why don’t we let me be the judge of that?” He sinks his spork into the pile of spaghetti on his tray. “Especially after last time.”
This again? She sighs—makes a big show of it. “I said I was sorry and bought you a new computer, what more do you want from me?”
Tucker obnoxiously slurps up a noodle.
She glares at him.
They don’t compete for long before he breaks.
“Okay, so spill it. What borderline illegal thing are we doing this time?” He takes a sad-looking dinner roll and mushes a corner of it into his spaghetti.
“You know Danny Fenton, right?”
Tucker’s brows wrinkle. “Uh, yeah? It’d be kinda hard not to, considering his family's business… Why?”
“His locker is right next to mine this semester,” she starts. She glances down at her hand in her lap. “What do you think of him?”
Tucker glances over his shoulder, like he’s afraid of someone listening—of someone watching them.
“I don’t know, that he’s weird? Plus there were those rumors that were going around when he first transferred.”
She rolls her eyes and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, fighting against a tangle caught up in her piercings. “Come on, Tucker. We both know what bullshit rumors can float around.”
“Yeah, yeah, I guess. Why do you want to know, anyway?”
She’s been thinking since this morning about it. The expression on Danny’s face was nothing like what she’d heard about him, nothing like the feeling of standing next to him.
“I don’t know, I just…” She looks out the window into the grey sky. “He’s kinda like us, don’t you think?”
Tucker looks confused for a second before it clicks. “Ah, a social outcast?”
“Yeah. He was really nice to me this morning, helped me after Paulina and Star gave me a hard time.”
Tucker’s nose flares. “God, when will those two get a life and stop being chronic bitches.”
Sam snorts. “Dude, shut up before someone overhears.”
Tucker waves a hand and goes back to eating. “So… what? Tall, dark and mysterious swooped in and saved you and now you want to be his friend?” Tucker pokes, cheesing through his mouthful.
“Tucker! That’s not how it went and you know it,” she hisses, ignoring the heat on her cheeks.
He puts his hands up. “Okay, fine, fine.”
His smile cools and drains away as he studies his plate. “Honestly, Sam? Even at the beginning of the year, he was…” He shifts in his seat. “I get a weird vibe is all.”
There’s a heavy feeling in the hollow of her throat.
“What if it’s just because he’s lonely? It’s not like people here treat him nice. I don’t blame him for seeming unfriendly most of the time.”
Tucker’s face scrunches up. “I don’t think that’s it.”
“Then what?”
“I dunno, Sam. It’s hard to describe.”
Sam hums.
She’s never been a jumpy or superstitious type, but Tucker? All it took was one dark alley or a weird feeling and he was backing out. “Aw hell no. That’s some white people shit, I’m not fucking with that.” And Sam honestly doesn’t know if it’s getting better or worse now that ghosts are just a part of the living experience in Amity Park.
Sam tries not to be afraid of ghosts. She does. She glares into those same dark alleys. She imagines the worst thing she can think of. Nothing is ever there. But what can she say? She’s a goth; of course she’s fascinated by anything dark, morose and macabre. And ghosts were as good as it got.
In middle school, she’d dragged a kicking and screaming Tucker along on a fair share of “ghost hunts”, armed with nothing but a shitty DSLR camera and some flashlights.
Since freshman year, though, it’s been different.
Ghosts are on the news now. Hell, the Fentons have a cheesy late night commercial that advertises ghost hunting gear. She convinced her mom to let her buy a wrist ray freshman year. After the whole town got sucked into the ghost dimension, it wasn’t a hard sell.
She shakes her head and starts picking at her tofu dog.
“I’m going to invite him to hang out,” she says.
“Today?!”
“Why not?”
Tucker runs a hand over his face. “How about we start by talking to the guy? You just said he doesn’t seem the bubbly socialite type, Sam.”
She sighs. “God. Fine. Meet me by my locker once school’s out, okay?”
Tucker’s gaze flicks around. “Sure, just—if he doesn't want anything to do with us—”
“Then we leave him alone. Jeez, Tuck, I’m not an asshole.”
“I know you aren’t. But you give it your best shot.”
Sam smiles, and after a second Tucker smiles back.
Part II: Claws
"We are not like others
we have claws for a reason”
As far as Danny’s concerned, his old locker was fine. So why it’s been changed over winter break, he doesn't know.
That’s a lie.
He has a hunch.
The preppy girl, Tiffany, was never thrilled that his locker was next to hers. She’d probably complained that he was too weird or too creepy. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s been moved because he gives people the creeps.
He just can’t help but find it funny, this time. It looks like they’ve stuck him with the school goth. They probably think she’s the only one that won’t be off-put by his general vibe. Or maybe it’s as simple as the fact that he looks “goth” too. Birds of a feather and all that.
He knows Samantha Manson.
Well.
He knows of her. Seen her around. For what it was worth, she seemed confused this morning too. He saw the way her eyes kept flicking towards him, even before the whole thing with Star and Paulina.
It’s the end of the school day when she talks to him again. Which is surprising; the way she’d looked at him, he figured he’d be moving lockers again.
“Danny, right?” he hears her say.
He slowly leans back to peek around his open locker door. It’s Samantha and her friend (boyfriend?) Tucker Foley. Her black lips are curved into a smile and Tucker looks like he’d rather be anywhere else.
One side of Samantha’s head is shaved, and she looks at him in a way he’d forgotten he could be looked at.
There’s no thinly veiled distrust, no unease.
It’s weird.
Her eyebrows are neatly shaped, and despite being covered in black and purple, the air around her is bright.
She doesn’t wear black the same way he does.
“Uh, yeah?”
She offers a hand—which is weirdly formal, but sure.
“Sam Manson,” she says. “I didn’t get to introduce myself this morning.”
He obliges her, shaking her hand. This time she doesn’t react to the chill of his skin. That alone piques his interest. “Fenton.” He lets go of Sam’s hand. “But you knew that.” He nods towards Tucker. “And you’re Tucker Foley, right?”
Tucker looks up, body angled away from him. Caution is etched into every line of his body: the slope of his brow, his hands tucked into the pockets of his blue jeans, his tense jaw line.
They lock eyes for a second, a mistake on both their parts if Danny has to guess, and he realizes Tucker has lighter eyes than he thought. Tucker’s gaze flits away as fast as it’d been caught.
Danny almost smiles.
He catches himself.
“Yeah, we—uh, have calculus together,” Tucker says.
“Right. Yeah.”
For a second there’s only silence.
Danny wonders what they want from him. It’s probably something to do with ghosts, it’s always something to do—
“We were wondering if you were free to hang out today,” Sam announces.
Danny blinks.
That… wasn’t what he was expecting. And by Tucker’s expression, he wasn’t either. He coughs and sends Sam a panicked look.
“M—me?” he asks.
Sam looks around. “I don’t see anyone else here.”
Why would they want to hang out with him? Why would anyone? He narrows his eyes. “Did someone put you up to this?”
Sam rolls her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. As if any of the A-listers would get us to do their dirty work.”
Danny… doesn’t know what to say. So he settles for the only thing bouncing around in his head.
“Why?”
“Us outcasts gotta stick together. Plus, your style isn’t bad,” Sam says with a shrug.
Danny spares a glance to look down at his black hoodie and skinny jeans. “Uh… Thanks?”
“You don’t have to say yes,” Tucker pitches in. He looks… genuine, maybe?
“Got nothing to lose though, right?” Sam says, elbowing Tucker.
“Ow, Sam.”
The absurdity of it wells through him. People stay away when they can help it. Even if they aren’t the most… sensitive. His eyes move from Sam to Tucker.
Even before the accident, people called him a loser and didn’t want anything to do with the weird, scrawny Fenton kid.
So why now of all times? Why them? He’s gotta admit, he’s intrigued.
He stares at the two of them for a second.
Why the hell not?
He takes the thermos, puts it in his bag along with his books, and slings it over his shoulder. The word “sure” is on his lips when—
Cold prickles over his skin. It’s not sudden. It starts as a small feeling in the back of his mind.
He glances over his shoulder.
The hall is starting to clear out.
Good.
He closes his locker, latches the padlock and gives the dial a spin. “How about a rain check? Tomorrow would probably work better.”
Sam looks confused, sends a glance over to Tucker. “Uh. Sure… See you tomorrow then?”
“Yep.” He turns to go. He pauses at the last second. “Also, I wouldn’t stick around too long, if I were you.” He doesn’t wait to see their reaction.
The air becomes thicker as he walks down the hall. Colder. It’s not a presence he recognizes. It’s someone—something new.
It sends a zing though him.
He turns a corner just as the lights flicker overhead. The custodian pushes a dirty mop at the end of the hall and doesn’t look up. He ducks into the cafeteria before they notice him.
Once inside, he scans the room. Nothing’s overtly out of place. The tables have been cleaned, the seats flipped up. The kitchen’s closed up behind its sliding metal slats.
His breath fogs from his mouth and the lights shudder again.
The room fills with its presence, expanding to every nook and cranny.
It’s a dull white feeling, something like the dim fluorescence of a morgue.
Rattles the metal, sends a few tables screeching over the epoxy floor.
“You know how to put on a show, that’s for sure.” The acoustics of the room send his own voice back to him.
“You should learn your audience, though. You’ll need to do a lot more than this to scare me.” He lets the challenge drip from his tongue.
This thing has a lot of fucking nerve, showing up here.
Danny feels the cold spike of hatred.
He lets his bag slip off his shoulder. Probably won’t need the thermos, but it’s better to have it just in case.
He reaches, feels. Tries to pinpoint it.
If only he could just—
It hits him from the side. Cold sharp claws sink into his shoulder. He feels the resistance of his skin pop. His teeth grit as the thing flies them through the wall into the back parking lot.
It forces them back to tangibility and slams Danny into a dumpster, holding him by both shoulders.
“So, you’re the one I’ve heard so much about. I’m not very impressed,” it hisses down at him.
Its voice creaks and strains.
Danny collects himself from the impact and gets a good look at the ghost for the first time.
It's humanoid, hollow cheeks and a twisted jaw hanging from an angular and ridged skull. Its eyes are white and glassy inside its sockets.
It’s old, whatever it is, and it's been like this for a long time.
Long enough its humanity has twisted into something taut and mummified.
Its skin is pale and leathery—stretched over a sickly frame.
Danny grins up at it.
“Of course you’re not. You haven’t seen me at my best yet.” He charges and fires an ecto-blast into its gut.
It goes flying off him with a screech like nails on a chalkboard, like bones snapping.
Danny steadies himself; his right arm hangs limp at his side.
Tendon damage, probably. Great.
Cool blood rolls down his arm and chest. He hears it, pat, pat, pat, onto the pavement.
He clenches his fist, fingers squishing in the liquid.
“Why don’t we make this a more fair fight,” he says.
He rolls his shoulders and sinks into the quiet chill of death. His heart stops in his chest and the breath dies in his throat.
Gravity's hold on him evaporates as his form shifts. His shoulder still stings, but it’s easier to ignore like this.
“A ghost so young, holding onto a haunt so large, so… important. I had to see it for myself,” it rasps, gurgles. Ectoplasm dribbles from its mouth and onto the ground. Its arms are thin and lanky, bulging around the joints of its elbows and shoulders. Its long fingers scrape the ground and glint like bone.
It slinks along the brick wall of the school, eyes glittering in the dull daylight, beady and sunken. Its head twists and its misshapen jaw creaks and pops.
Danny’s tail swirls and a hiss like static starts in the back of his throat. “But that’s not all, is it?”
The ghost bares its stained and broken teeth in something like a smile. It launches itself at Danny.
He dodges, shifting to the left and letting the ghost deepen the dent in the dumpster.
It creaks again, a sound from deep in its chest, rumbling up and out of its elongated neck. Its head lolls back and it looks at him upside down before lunging at him again.
Ectoplasm hisses in Danny’s hand, sending off wisps of green. He fires it at the ghost, but it contorts its body around the shot and pushes off the wall to continue flying at him.
Danny reels back, but not fast enough. It slashes its claws across his chest and the white hot pain blooms through him.
Ectoplasm splatters across the ground.
“You aren’t fit for a claim like this. I want it, let me have it,” it breathes, gasps—despite the stillness of its protruding ribs.
Danny could count every bone if he wanted.
“Let me have it.” Its head tilts, empty eyes like moons. “Let me have it.” It pulses with desire, the air growing sick with it.
Want, want, want.
Fury sparks in Danny’s chest, and his vision blurs under the force of it. He sinks towards the ground, the inky black of his tail snapping and curling, filling the small alley with writhing shadows.
How dare it challenge him. How dare it want what’s his. Casper is his. FentonWorks is his.
Amity Park is his.
Protect, protect—
It swirls in his chest, the tight anger loosening into an unrestrained hum. He gives into it, relishes the cold.
The static mounts in his throat and he opens his jaw enough for buzzing laughter to spill out. It’s a low sound at first, but it grows wild and breathy, echoing around them.
“When I’m done with you, not even the Ghost Zone will have you,” he snarls.
The ghost’s form flickers and the sound of breaking bones and pained wheezing comes from its slack, oozing jaw. “Let me have it. They need to pay for what they did. What they did. Let me have it. I won’t stop until they know what it—feels like. Feels like.”
Ice extends from Danny’s fingers, coming to points.
“Not while I’m here.”
He flies at the ghost, a streak of black. He swipes at it with his makeshift claws, catching the side of its face. He feels its flesh tear: a moment of resistance before slimy ease.
It shrieks like a wounded cougar.
It whirls on him, aiming a blow at his head in retaliation. It misses by a hair’s breadth. Danny feels the air stir in its wake.
The ghost moves to flank him, but Danny’s already turning. He lashes out with his tail, a solid hit that snaps like a whip, catching in its midsection and flinging it away.
He barrels into it, slamming it into the ground by its crooked throat.
“You must not have heard enough about me from the right ghosts. Amity and its living are mine. Have been and always will be mine.” It comes from Danny with a raw thrashing force. The air around him crackles and pops.
Its face contorts, furrows deepening around its mouth and eyes. It hisses and squirms, claws raking through the shadowy black of Danny’s body, leaving behind reams that leak green.
His hold on it falters as he hisses and it darts away—smoke through his fingertips. Frustration ripples through him and he lunges after it before it can get far.
Its legs are just as thin and atrophied as the rest of it. Danny’s hand closes easily around an ankle and he yanks it back towards him.
It reacts, swinging out with a long hand and slashing the side of his head. He feels the bolt of pain and a burst of lukewarm ectoplasm starts to run down his neck and over his face.
It just makes him angrier. Makes his core constrict with the giddy impulse to tear his foe to shreds one piece at a time.
It’s a power struggle.
Danny claws his way up the ghost until they’re eye to eye. They flail and writhe on the pavement, entangled and ripping at each other’s throats like rabid dogs.
They paint the ground and the brick walls glowing green.
It’s loud, like most ghost fights are, but if they’ve attracted an audience, Danny doesn’t care. He’d stopped trying to be a “good” ghost in the eyes of the living a long time ago.
Danny hardly feels the pain. Only the adrenaline, the manic urge to defend what’s his. The unbound thrill of the fight, the sweet smell of ectoplasm and violence. It never gets old. It never loses its exhilaration.
The ghost rends his flesh and it only makes his grip around its throat tighter. If he squeezes hard enough he could pop his fingers through its papery skin. He restrains the intoxicating idea.
He moves back, lifts it, then slams its head back onto the ground so hard it sends cracks racing through the concrete.
His mouth tears into jagged points. His eyes narrowing into thin slits of noxious green. His voice cracks and shatters the air like a lightning strike.
“Surrender.”
It writhes, chokes. Green bubbles up from its mouth like a baking soda volcano, dribbling over its fucked up jaw and onto Danny’s hand. Rage burns in its eyes and Danny knows just how much harm it would do to a living person if it won the chance.
It wants him to die. It wants everything to die. It wants to break him like it’d been broken.
But Danny can feel it withering with fear, its strength waning. A grin, slow and wide, stretches over his face.
Satisfaction tastes all too suddenly like ectoplasm.
“Give up and maybe I’ll take pity on you,” he says.
It hisses, lopsided jaw twitching.
He presses a flat palm on the side of its head, leans his weight into it, like he’s going to push it through the ground—or crush its skull into white and green shards.
Ectoplasm drips off the side of Danny’s face and onto the ghost in thick globs.
With a flash of its eyes, it stops struggling.
“Amity Park is mine,” he says.
It stays still, avoids looking at him.
He lets ice creep from his hands and he digs his fingertips into its skin. “Amity Park is mine, got it?”
“Yes,” it croaks.
Danny eases back. “If I see you here again, I won’t be so nice. And if I hear you’ve hurt anyone, I’ll hunt you down like a dog. You’ll wish the Guys in White were the ones that caught you,” he spits.
Danny lets go and floats back, watches as the ghost slips away, not once daring to look up at him.
His shoulders slump once it’s gone. The darkness fades as Danny pulls back on his power and the silence rushes in.
His front is slick with ectoplasm and he prods carefully. Static pops in his chest and through his teeth as the pain sharpens. He slips his fingertips between his flesh and along the cuts. His hands come away glistening but the lacerations aren’t deep.
Nothing an hour or two of healing won’t fix.
There’s a flash of light and his head snaps up to see a small crowd of onlookers and media gathered some hundred yards away in the parking lot, watching, recording.
Could’ve guessed. He has half a mind to snarl at them and make them leave. But it doesn’t work like that, he knows.
He’s little more than a tagged stray. A wiry thing with trust issues that the neighbors set food out for. It’s been long enough now; most living people know he has no interest in hurting them.
Pity.
He turns and slips back through the wall into the cafeteria. His chest stings and the side of his head burns.
.
The waxing moon is just cresting the bruised skyline when Danny gets home that night. It’s late, but it’s before curfew. He brings with him the vicious late-winter chill. It trots in at his heels like a stray dog and it doesn’t dissipate even when he closes the front door.
FentonWorks, no matter how high the heater gets set, is never warm.
As he walks in, he hears his mom’s voice from the kitchen. It filters into the living room, sinking into the soft surfaces.
“I don’t know, Jack. This is the third rebuild. Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way.”
“Now’s no time to get discouraged, sweet-cheeks! Hell, for years everyone told us that a ghost portal was nonsense, and look at us now!”
He leaves his bag by the stairs and moves towards the kitchen. His parents are at the dining table, his dad holding the Ghost Gabber.
Great, this thing again.
“What’s new with it this time?” he asks, and watches his parents jump.
“Oh! Danno. Didn’t see you there. When did you get in?”
“Just now.” He tilts his head backwards, towards the front door.
“We’ve added in a reverse function, but it doesn’t seem to work,” his mom says, resting her hand on a cocked hip.
Leave it to his parents, ever busy. He assumes the Gabber is off, otherwise it might be working better than his parents think.
It always does with him in the room.
His mom reaches out and takes the device from his dad, turning it over in her hands and flicking it on.
“We’ve expanded the range and sensitivity of the receiver to pick up and better translate the lower and higher frequency register Hertz that humans can’t perceive,” his mom explains.
He’ll admit he’s curious.
“How’s the reverse function work?”
“Theoretically it—” His mom cuts off as the piece of tech bursts to life. Static white-noise bubbles out from the speaker.
Danny stiffens as he hears his own voice. His own ghostly voice. Which isn’t really a “voice” at all, just a collection of sounds unique to him, his own core.
The device crackles a few seconds longer, a low wailing mixed in, repeating in ghost speak a rough approximation of the question.
But it’s all wrong: rough and jilted, with jumbled emotions. It’s nothing like how he would have said it. It grates on his senses and he fights the impulse to cover his ears against the unnerving sound.
His mom and dad look down in surprise, faces oscillating between confusion and triumph. She waits till it stops before speaking.
“It takes human speech and uses a database of pre-recorded samples of ghost speak patterns to translate it the other way,” she explains and looks down at the Gabber expectantly. The device stays silent. Her eyebrows knit in the center. “Hmm. It must still be malfunctioning.”
Pre-recorded samples? What samples are they using? A sharp feeling prickles in his stomach and he’s pretty sure he already knows the answer.
The ghost that’s been around the most consistently. The ghost that’s been recorded during fights the most.
Him.
“Is that static also a malfunction?” he asks, keeping his voice cool. He knows that it isn’t, but it’s the only way he can think to get his parents to confirm his suspicions.
The Gabber crackles again, this time intermixed with a sharp rasping and the creak of something brittle like ice.
It’s still undeniably his speak but it’s even more disjointed than the last time, missing the specifics of the sentence. Crudely, it says: “is the sound wrong?”
Not that his parents know that. Ghost speak isn’t something that can be learned or understood by the living. By nature, it’s a type of communication meant solely for ghosts. Ghosts that are strong enough can still use their native tongue if they want to speak to the living.
Danny was surprised when his parents had originally gotten a prototype to translate ghost speak. Though for the longest time, it only repeated back English phrases with “fear me” at the end. Not a very faithful translation.
But Danny should’ve seen this coming. Of course they’d be getting closer and closer to a more accurate translation device by now.
“I don’t think so,” his mom answers slowly. “When compiling the database for both aspects of translation, we relied heavily on clips of Phantom. His… ‘vocalizations’, for lack of a better term, are notoriously filled with an electrical-static interference. Even when speaking English, this static gets picked up. Not all ghosts sound the same, even if making similar sounds. We’re calling it a voice signature, an aspect that remains constant no matter what state the ghost is in or what’s being ‘said’.”
Danny takes a deep breath and runs a hand through his hair.
His dad shifts excitedly. “It took us some time, but we found something that blew us out of the water!” His dad stands and moves closer to the Ghost Gabber. “Whether speaking English or ghost speak, the accompanying low and high frequency waveforms align! We think the frequencies that humans can’t hear are the main aspect of ghost communication and the audible sounds we humans can hear have very little to do with it. It’s the same way many types of animals communicate with one another.”
His dad is bursting with pride. Danny can see the glow of it on his face.
Sometimes he wishes his parents weren’t so damn smart. He still doesn’t get exactly how the Gabber works, but at this point he doesn’t really want to know.
His mom turns off the device and he lets out a sigh.
“Speaking of Phantom—” shit “—we heard there was another ghost fight at school today. Are you okay, sweetie?”
“Uh, yeah, I’m fine. I was already gone by the time it all went down,” he says, forcing a smile. Mom looks at him closely, before she relents with a smile of her own. It doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Okay, well. There’s food in the fridge if you’re hungry.” She moves away without looking at him.
For a second, Danny hears something deep in his chest like a hiss. Like air from a pressure valve.
Since Jazz left for college, his mom’s been a lot quieter. His dad puts on a brave face, but Danny knows that he misses her too.
If they didn’t notice how much he avoided them before, they sure as hell’ve started to notice now. When they look at him, it’s always a bit sad.
The biggest issue is that more and more they seem… unnerved by him. Probably that sixth sense thing he gives off.
It hurts a small part of him and soothes the other.
They haven’t tried to feed him blood blossoms or shove him through the Fenton Ghost Catcher yet, though, so he’s probably fine.
He shakes his head and moves towards the fridge.
He eats dinner, takes a shower, and seals himself in his room for the night.
Part III: Venom
“It's been kind of cold, feeling all alone”
Tucker breathes out into his cupped palms, watching the vapor escape between the gaps of his fingers and fog up his glasses.
It’s so fucking cold, and of course Sam’s making him wait. He pounds his fist on her front door again.
“Damn, girl, hurry it up. I’m gonna freeze out here,” he mutters into the cold.
He tugs his beanie farther down over his ears and stuffs his hands in his coat pockets. The butler said she’d be down any minute, but that was already five minutes ago.
After another thirty seconds, he pulls out his phone, about to call when—
“Sorry, sorry! I’m ready.” Sam hops on one foot out her front door, struggling to get her other boot pulled on. “You got here earlier than I thought. You’re never on time.”
“Shut up, that’s so not true,” he says, holding out a hand to her. She accepts the support and holds onto his arm until she can get her shoe all the way on.
“Is too!” She straightens, a twinkle in her eye. Her makeup is dark like always, her eyeliner drawn into little intricate spider webs on top of dark purple lids. How she has the patience to do that shit is beyond him. She does look cute, though.
He rolls his eyes. “It’s too cold to argue, let’s just get to the car already,” he says.
“Shhh!” Sam hisses, glancing over her shoulder at the door.
“Right, sorry,” he whispers.
Even though he legally has his license now, Sam’s mom explicitly told Sam she isn’t allowed to accept rides from him or anyone else. She doesn’t trust anyone but their personal driver to drive her “sweet angel Sammykins” around.
Like with most things her mom says, Sam doesn’t listen.
He clears his throat. “Let’s get walking to school, then!” he announces loudly, wiggling his eyebrows at Sam.
She elbows him in the side, smiling, and her laugh sends out a soft plume of mist into the after-dawn pink.
It’s been just like this for as long as he can remember.
Their steps fall into sync and their arms are looped together… It doesn’t mean anything. Not romantically, at least.
That’s what he tells himself.
They’ve been friends for so long. It scares him to think about if he wants it to be more. What it would mean.
He guides her around the block to where his shitty 2004 Nissan Sentra is parked.
“The red is growing on me,” Sam says.
“Pf, glad someone likes it.”
He unlinks their arms and roots around in his pocket for his keys. He hits the unlock, and the car chirps. He reaches for the passenger door before Sam and opens it for her.
“M’Lady,” he says with a bow.
Sam snorts and lets her bag slide down her arms. It rustles her black waterproof coat. “Say that again and I’m punching you.”
He wants to call her bluff just to annoy her. He doesn’t.
He goes and gets into the driver's seat with a smirk on his face. His ears pop when Sam slams her door shut. The engine starts with an incensed sputter and cold air blasts from the vents.
“Jesus Christ.” Sam angles the vents away from her.
“Don’t complain when she can hear you, Sam.” Tucker runs his hand over the top of the dashboard, leaving a trail in the thin layer of dust. He pats the plastic. “She’ll be warm by the time we get going.”
“God. Can we stop referring to your car as ‘she’ please?”
“And lose all the charm? She’s seen a lot of miles on this big grey ocean, Sam. She deserves some respect.”
She kicks her combat boots up onto the dash and crosses her arms over her chest. It’s slow and deliberate.
Tucker pops the collar of his sherpa-lined jacket and clicks his tongue. He shifts gear into drive and presses on the gas.
“The S.S. Too Fine now leaving the harbor, baby,” he says, extending the Y.
“God, you’re so embarrassing,” she laughs. She reaches down and turns the volume knob until Dumpty Humpty is playing through the tinny speakers. It’s playing track 3 and she skips forward until it's playing track 5. She leans back and drums her fingers against her thighs.
“Do you think they got all that ectoplasm behind the cafeteria cleaned up?”
The bright green splatters spring up in Tucker's head. The sound of the fight had been ringing in his ears for hours last night.
He suppresses a shiver and lets out a breath that clouds the windshield for a moment.
“Hope so.”
“Is it just me, or are the fights with new ghosts always more brutal?”
Tucker rolls to a standstill at an all-way stop with no one to wait for. He stays a beat—then goes.
“Yeah…” He’d just wanted to go home. Leave the ghosts to tear each other apart. But Sam had insisted—wanted to see how it’d turn out. “It was pretty bad.”
“I hope Phantom is okay.”
Tucker flicks his turn signal, listens to it tick tick tick inside the dash.
“He always is, Sam. Either way, it’s not like he can get any deader.” He tries to keep his voice neutral. From the way he can feel Sam’s eyes burning into the side of his head, he didn’t do a great job.
“You still think he’s no good?”
The light changes to green and Tucker turns. “I didn’t say that, I just… I think he’s just as dangerous as the rest of ‘em.” They’ve had this conversation too many times.
Before she can start, he’s talking again. “I know he only fights the other ghosts. But you’ve seen the footage. You saw yesterday and all the other school attacks before that, Sam.”
As he talks, the steering wheel starts to feel brittle, unreal.
He remembers the stray cats on his back porch as a kid. The light of the late summer sun pooling on the ground from between the leaves of the sawtooth oak. The ten pound bag of cat food from the dollar store crinkling in the shed and smelling of salt.
His mom was cooking in the kitchen, and the black cat Tucker called Midnight started screaming. She was wailing and snarling and a new stray cat was tearing at her face. Tufts of fur were floating across the lawn like dandelion fluff.
He hit the ground running. He went to help her. She was getting hurt, she was crying. It’s a sound that he still hears.
He’d never seen her look like that. Eyes wide disks of green and her teeth glinting. Air burst from her throat over her fiery pink tongue.
He’d tried to get them apart. Get the bigger cat away from her. But she turned, and in a flash, pain flared across his arm. Her claws stuck in his skin like fish hooks.
He cried out and she ripped away. The two cats fled in opposite directions, hauling themselves up and over the fence. Tucker dribbled sticky blood and salty tears.
His mom didn’t set food out for the cats anymore after that.
His grip tightens on the steering wheel, making sure it doesn't escape him, doesn't turn into nothing.
“I’m just saying that people can get hurt in the crossfire.”
Sam takes her feet off the dashboard and shifts in her seat.
“I know,” she says, voice soft. “But what’s the alternative? The Fentons—the Red Huntress… They can only do so much.”
Tucker glances over at her. She’s running her nails along the fabric of the polyester seat belt like a guitarist moving down the frets. It makes a sound, small, like a whisper.
He looks back to the road. “I know.”
.
The day passes slowly—like glacial ice or some shit. But eventually the end of school comes.
Tucker leans against Sam’s locker, waiting for her. He looks at his phone while he waits.
He just hopes she gets here before Danny. He doesn’t have a problem with the dude. Really, he doesn’t. If anything, he’s easier on the eyes than most of the guys at Casper.
But he’s just… off, somehow. It rubs him the wrong way, makes him feel cold.
It’s just the whole ghost business, Tucker tells himself over and over.
He doesn’t know what he’d say if they were alone together. Danny’d kept to himself like normal in Calc, which was a huge relief.
Tucker blows air through his lips and unlocks his phone. He refreshes his feed and looks at the newest post. A news article about the ghost fight yesterday. He grimaces and scrolls past.
He just has to play it cool. It’s gonna be fine. Make a new friend. Easy.
A post about Mikey’s new PC setup. Double tap.
He has no reason to be so anxious.
Mia’s new cat. Double tap.
Why is he so freaked, anyway?
“Hey, dude.”
Tucker jumps so violently he fumbles his phone. “Jesus fucking—” It clatters to the floor, bouncing a few times before coming to a stop face down. He looks up to see none other than Danny Fenton.
The overhead lights shine on his black hair—make it look a bit white.
“Oh, shit,” Danny says, and leans down to pick up Tucker's phone. He flips it around and Tucker sags in relief when he sees the non-cracked screen. Danny holds the phone out towards him.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
“It’s uh—’s fine,” Tucker says. He takes the phone. It’s cool to the touch.
Danny gives him a barely-there smile, before he turns to his locker. He starts spinning his padlock. His fingers are long and deft in their movements, the tendons and veins on the back of his hand well defined.
Tucker swallows and shifts his weight. He glances over his shoulder.
Where the hell is Sam?
He jumps again when Danny sighs.
“Listen.” He slows in putting his books into his bag. “I know this wasn’t your idea. To hang out with me,” he says. He doesn't look at Tucker, instead studying some middle-ground between the locker and his hand.
Tucker tightens his grip on his phone.
“I just wanted to say, it’s cool if you don’t want me around.”
He doesn’t know why but it feels a bit like he’s been punched in the gut. Danny looks over at him and— Christ, were his eyes that blue yesterday?
“I won’t hold it against you, trust me,” Danny continues. He smiles, like it’ll ease some of the guilt Tucker is suddenly feeling. But it doesn’t. Because there’s a hollow loneliness that he can see just under the surface of it.
Tucker feels like he’s swallowing sand. Not even beach sand, but playground sand with wood chips mixed in, fragmenting and giving him splinters all the way down his throat.
Danny really doesn’t have anyone.
Sam and Tucker have never been popular or well liked. But at least they had each other. He wonders what it would be like to be that alone. He imagines it for a few seconds before it hurts too much.
“No, no, it’s fine!” Tucker rushes to reassure him. “I just… don’t know you that well, to be honest. Nobody does.”
Something flickers across Danny’s face, but before he can try and decipher it, it’s gone. Danny smiles again. This time, it softens his eyes.
“Only if you’re sure.” He goes back to his stuff. He pulls out a Fenton Thermos and puts it in his bag.
Which is weird… because he’s never seen Danny fight a ghost with his parents. His stupid ass is about to ask about it when Sam shows up.
“Ugh! Mr. Lancer kept us late for a pop quiz, sorry guys.”
Tucker didn’t know how he’d missed her heavy footsteps. He rips his gaze away from Danny and settles it on Sam.
“No big,” he says.
She stops for a second and looks between the two of them. “Am I interrupting something?” she asks.
Danny and Tucker reply at the same time:
“Nu-uh.”
“Nope.”
Sam lifts a brow but doesn’t say anything. She gets her stuff together and then slams her locker with enthusiasm.
“Okay, so, how about the mall?” She asks. “I wanna go to the bookstore. We can hit the food court and then maybe play some laser tag?”
Tucker shrugs. “Sounds good to me.”
“Great! Let’s go.” She grabs them both by the sleeves and starts hauling them down the hall.
Danny stumbles at first before falling into step. He casts a helpless look at Tucker that can only mean: “Is she always like this?”
Tucker lifts his eyebrows and smiles.
Yeah. Yeah she is.
.
They get to the student parking lot, careful to not slip on the patches of cloudy ice. There’s a group of kids playing on the pile of snow that’d been plowed to the end of the lot.
“Isn’t the mall the other direction?” Danny asks, once Sam lets them go.
“Yep. But lucky for us, Tucker has a car.” She points across the parking lot at it.
Danny gives Tucker an appreciative look. “Nice.”
“Eh, it’s nothing fancy. Yet, at least.” Tucker has some wicked plans for a souped up sound system. He reaches for his keys—then falters.
Sam walks to the passenger door and yanks on the handle. When the door doesn’t open, she looks up at him.
“Uh, Tucker? Unlock?”
Danny hovers by the back door on the same side as Sam.
“On second thought, maybe we should walk,” he forces out from his tight throat.
Sam blinks at him like he’s lost his damn mind.
“Tucker, it’s thirty degrees outside, why the fuck would we walk?” She puts her hands on her hips.
He grips his keys tighter. Tight enough to hurt. “Uh, you're not supposed to have more than one person in the car that’s under twenty until you've had a license for a year.” He tugs at his beanie. “Or turn eighteen.”
Being in trouble with Sam’s mom was one thing, but…
“If I got pulled over…” He doesn’t finish the sentence. Can’t.
The words turn the air so heavy it’s like being at the deep end of a pool. It presses in on his eardrums.
He watches the understanding dawn on the two of them and he feels stupid. He feels like a coward.
“Walking is fine with me,” Danny says, turning away from the car.
Sam’s eyes harden. “I’ll drive.”
Tucker runs a hand over his face, moving closer to her. “Sam, you only have your permit.”
“Yeah, and?” She holds out her hand, makes a gimmie motion.
Tucker glances at Danny, who looks out of place.
“You could get in trouble too, Sam.”
“Yeah, I could. I won’t though.”
“You drive like a bat out of hell on a good day.”
“Tucker.” She makes the hand motion again, breath billowing out of her nose like a cartoon bull about to charge. “I’m the daughter of the Mansons. If we get pulled over I’ll get a slap on the wrist or at worst my parents will get called.” She glares at him like she's staring directly into his soul.
God…
He hates it when she makes sense.
He heaves a sigh and then slaps his keys into her palm. “Fine.”
She closes her hand around the keys and gives him a triumphant smile. She pops the locks, and heads around the front of the car to the driver's seat.
They pile in, tossing their bags into the unoccupied seat next to Danny.
“Just be careful, okay?”
She snorts and slots the key into the ignition. The engine comes on, the air and music along with it.
Tucker peeks over his shoulder into the backseat at Danny.
“Make sure your seat belt is on tight, dude.”
Danny grins. “Oh, trust me. She can’t be as bad as my dad.”
Tucker thinks back to the times he’s seen Mr. Fenton driving that giant tank of an RV through downtown Amity Park.
“Uh. Yeah, on second thought, you’re probably fine.”
Sam shifts into reverse and turns the music up a bit more.
“Man, I love this song. You listen to Dumpty Humpty, Tucker?” Danny asks.
“Hard not to with this one around.” He jerks a thumb towards Sam. “She got me into them in middle school.”
“God, that was a great era for them. Their new stuff is badass, but honestly nothing will top their third album.”
Sam lights up like the fourth of July. “Holy shit, right?! That’s what I keep saying! I’ve been trying to tell Tucker that for like three years now.” Sam lurches out of the school parking lot.
Tucker holds up his hands. “It’s not like I’m saying that the third album isn’t good. What I’m saying is that their newer stuff has a lot more refinement. Like they finally know what they want to do with their sound.”
“But the third album and early stuff was so raw and unfiltered!” Sam insists.
“I’m not having this argument with you again,” he says, waving a hand and slouching into his seat.
They lapse into a comfortable conversation from there about Dumpty Humpty and other bands, and it only hits Tucker once they’re pulling into the mall parking lot just how… natural talking to Danny is. He wonders why he was so nervous.
Danny is just a normal guy. Nothing to be intimidated by.
Sam puts the car in park and unfastens her seatbelt.
“So, what do you do outside of school?” she asks.
“What?” There’s a weird tenseness to his voice when he asks.
“Like for fun. Your hobbies.” She twists to look at him in the backseat. Tucker does too. Danny chuckles and rubs the back of his neck.
“Oh, yeah. Obviously. Uh… You know. Comic books, video games.” He shrugs and looks out the window.
“What games?” Tucker asks. Sam shares a look with him.
“Doomed and stuff?”
Sam shoots a smile at Tucker and then Danny.
“Well, you’re in luck. Tucker and I rule at Doomed.” They get out of the car, buzzing about their favorite Doomed maps and strats.
They go to the bookstore first.
Sam wanders around the horror and fantasy section while he and Danny drift towards the comics and graphic novels.
Tucker plucks a few comics down and flips through them. He isn’t planning on buying anything but there's no harm in looking.
Danny pulls down some comic and flips the cover towards him.
“You read this one?”
Tucker looks at the cover, some superhero with black hair in goggles and a yellow, blue and black suit. Danny’s hand is obscuring the title.
“Nah. It doesn’t look familiar.”
Danny shrugs.
“It’s pretty good. I have the first few issues, if uh…” He stops and puts the comic away. “I don’t know. If you ever wanna borrow it?”
“Sure, sounds good to me, man,” Tucker says.
Danny looks startled. “Really?”
Tucker frowns at him. “Uh, yeah? Why wouldn’t it?”
“No reason, just… Sorry,” Danny says. He reaches back and runs his fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck.
“For what?”
Danny lets out a laugh. It’s dry and humorless. “I’m outta practice with this whole ‘friends’ thing.”
Danny looks at him and Tucker doesn’t know how to place the emotion that buds in his chest.
They’ve only been hanging out for half an hour and Tucker wonders why in the hell it’s taken so long for him to notice that Danny’s just like them.
He swallows as he realizes that it's his own fault.
He’s why.
Just like everyone else, he was quick to put Danny in the “creepy freak” box. It feels hot in his stomach.
“Don't even worry about it, man, for real. If anything, I should be sorry,” he admits.
“Why?”
“For not realizing how cool you are sooner, for starters.”
Danny blows a raspberry.
“Oh, come on. I’m a lot of things but cool is never on that list. Ask anyone.”
Tucker walks over and punches Danny’s shoulder.
“Take the compliment, dude.”
Danny looks at Tucker for a long time before he nods. It’s almost sheepish.
“Come on, we should go find Sam. She’s probably halfway through a vampire romance by now.” He turns and starts for the next aisle.
“So are you and Sam like…”
Tucker stops.
“…A thing?” Danny finishes.
He feels heat rise to his cheeks and he’s suddenly very thankful for his dark complexion.
“What? No? Where’d you hear that?”
“Nowhere.”
“What do you mean ‘nowhere’?”
Danny rolls his eyes. “I’m pretty sure it’s just ‘cause I have eyes and a brain, Tucker.”
Tucker pushes his fingers underneath his glasses, burying his face.
Jesus Christ, is he that obvious?
“Listen, me and her…” He drags his fingers over his eyelids and holds his warm cheeks. “We’ve been friends since like second grade. I don’t wanna mess that up, okay? Plus, I’m not really her type.”
Danny looks sceptical. “What’s her type?”
Tucker gestures towards Danny’s person.
“Me?” he asks, incredulous.
“Uh, yeah? Guys like you: emo goth guys. It’s not that out of left field, my dude.” Tucker doesn’t really blame Sam, but that’s neither here nor there.
Danny shakes his head. “I don’t exactly claim to be goth or anything, I just…” He pulls at the collar of his black hoodie.
Tucker bumps into his shoulder, disrupting his unsettled expression. “Don’t worry about it, seriously. I can be your wingman.”
“But you—”
“There you two are.” Sam’s voice startles them and they turn to see her walking up with a stack of books in the crook of her arm. “Let’s get to the food court, I’m starving.”
.
Danny stops pumping his straw in his milkshake. “Okay, say it again. You’re a…”
“Ultra-recyclo-vegetarian,” Sam and Tucker say at the same time.
“…And that means, what exactly?”
“She doesn’t eat anything with a face on it,” Tucker says as he tears a bite off his pretzel.
“Huh.” He slouches back in the cheap plastic food court chair across from them. “To each their own, I guess.” He pulls on his milkshake. “Least you’re not vegan.”
Tucker snorts. “God, can you imagine?”
“Hey, some vegans are fine,” Sam says, fixing them with a look. She tears her own pretzel and dips a chunk of it into a cup of bright yellow cheese sauce.
“Key word ‘some’ ,” Tucker mumbles.
They fall into an easy silence as they eat their pretzels. Tucker finishes his first, followed by Sam.
She crumples up a napkin and swirls her milkshake with one hand. Tucker can tell she’s thinking—can hear the gears turning.
“So what was with the switch?”
Danny looks up, and Tucker swears for a split second he can see something like fear in his eyes.
He coughs and sets his drink aside. “Uh. The what?”
“The wardrobe.” She gestures up and down at him.
“Oh. That.” He grabs one of the strings from his hoodie and twists it around a finger. “Grew out of all my other shit. So I bought new clothes with Christmas money.” He shrugs, noncommittal.
“You didn’t seem to have a big liking for black when you first came to Casper,” Sam presses. She leans forward in her seat.
The dude already answered. Why pry? It seems perfectly reasonable to him.
“Yeah, well…” Danny sits up and looks around the food court. “Black is easier,” he says, voice subdued.
There’s silence again, and this time it’s different.
After a few seconds Danny snatches his shake. He pops the lid off and throws back the rest of it.
Tucker blinks.
Danny doesn’t show any signs of a brain freeze or even discomfort. Maybe there wasn’t as much left in there as Tucker thought. Weird.
Danny wipes his mouth with his hand and stares a hole into the table between them.
“You guys are really great,” he starts, pressing his thumb into his bottom lip, “this has been great, but… are you sure you want me around?”
At first, Tucker just chalks it up to insecurity, but when Danny looks up, his expression isn’t shy or nervous—it’s dark. Tucker feels something coil at the base of his spine.
“What do you mean?” Sam asks first.
Danny looks away again, stubbornly avoiding them.
“I mean… Well—people at school, for one.”
“Pf, trust me, Danny. We can handle the A-listers.”
Danny runs his hands backwards through his hair. It looks weird like that: not in his face. He fixes his eyes onto that point in the middle of the table, holding his head on either side.
Tucker shifts, shooting a look at Sam.
Is he okay? he asks with his eyes.
She doesn’t know any more than he does.
“Then it’s the other stuff you should be worried about.”
Sam’s face wrinkles, and her hand twitches in Danny’s direction.
“Other stuff?” she says, gentle.
Danny drops his hands and the hair falls back into its place, obscuring him. He lets out a breath through his nose that could almost pass as humorous. He crosses his arms on the table, hands holding the backs of his arms.
“Family business,” he says, admits it like a confession—like some big heavy thing they don’t know about.
“What about it?” Tucker risks asking.
They’d agreed not to mention any of the ghost stuff to be polite. Tucker didn’t think Danny was going to be the one to bring it up.
Danny’s fingers twist into the fabric of his hoodie sleeves. “Ghosts aren’t exactly fond of my parents. Just by association…” He sighs. “You guys seriously didn’t wonder why there was a huge spike in ghost attacks once I started going to Casper?” He finally looks up at them.
The words sink in and Tucker realizes… he hadn’t noticed. It seems so obvious now.
“So you’re saying that… what? Ghosts want you specifically dead?” Sam says, disbelieving.
For some reason, Danny smiles at that. It only lasts a second, but Tucker feels a chill prickle across the back of his neck. It was a little too wide—his smile and his eyes.
“I guess you could say that. Really, it’s more like… Ghosts are more likely to show up around me.”
The thermos in his bag makes a lot more sense now.
Sam looks unphased, because of course she does.
“Okay, and?”
Tucker and Danny both look at Sam, surprised.
Tucker doesn’t know how to feel… Knowing that just being around Danny is increasing their chances of being in danger.
“It’s not like it’s your fault, or you mean for it to happen, right?” Sam says.
Danny’s eyes flit around before they land on her. He shakes his head.
“Then it’s fine. We’ll just avoid the attacks like we already do.”
Unease still makes Tucker's throat feel thick, but… It wouldn’t feel right to not be someone's friend because of something they can’t control… as much as Tucker hates the thought of being any closer to ghosts than they already are.
Danny rolls a shoulder. “If you change your mind, I won’t be mad,” he says. He says it like he really means it.
Their table goes quiet again.
Tucker clears his throat. “So… laser tag?”
“Absolutely.” Sam stuffs her napkin in the grease-spotted paper bag and stands up. “I hope you two like to lose.”
.
As it happens, maybe challenging someone from a family of ghost hunters to laser tag wasn’t the best idea.
Tucker crouches behind a wall, back pressed flat against its flimsy surface. His breath comes in heaves. Kids are screaming and laughing and the dark room shudders with black light and fog machine smoke.
He and Sam are on the same team and losing. Badly. Tucker doesn’t claim to be a master at laser tag, but goddamn.
Sam rolls towards him, pushing her own back flush with their cover.
“This is just ridiculous,” she says breathlessly.
Tucker adjusts his grip on his gun, peeking around their cover to make sure no one's coming their way.
“How many times has he stunned you by now?”
Sam puffs hair out of her face. “Like, twenty? Honestly, I’ve lost count.”
Tucker can’t help but laugh.
She gives him a dirty look and shoves him, almost sending him stumbling from cover.
“Oh shut up, you’re not doing any better.”
“Never said I was. I told you we should've tried to be on the same teams but no, you just had to be stubborn and competitive about it."
“You know what, I’m gonna go team up with the group of thirteen year olds.” She flips him the bird.
“Aw, come on, Sam, don’t be like that.” He fails to keep the smile out of his voice. And that’s when, boom boom, both his and Sam’s chest plates light up as stunned.
The laser cuts through the air in a shimmering line, and Tucker turns to see Danny, nothing but a dark shadow at first, slip out from behind cover.
“You guys would probably be doing better if you—y’know. Actually played.” His gun hangs loosely in his hand. He smiles when he says it, and Tucker forgets that they haven't been friends for years.
.
“I’m just saying, you had to be cheating somehow,” Sam says as she pulls the car door closed after her. “I barely saw you all game.”
Danny lounges back, an ease to his body language that Tucker hasn’t seen until now.
“Dark clothes,” he says.
“I’m in all black too!”
Danny holds up his hands. “I swear, I didn’t cheat. Scout’s honor and all that.”
“Next time it’s gonna be a different story, mark my words,” Sam says, jabbing her finger back towards him.
Danny’s expression falls a bit. He blinks.
“Next time,” he says blankly.
Sam turns and starts the car. “Yeah, next time. If that’s something you wanna do.”
“Right, yeah. I, uh… Yeah. I do.”
Tucker sends him a reassuring smile before he shifts towards the front and pulls his seatbelt on.
Looks like their duo just turned into a trio.