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Sam looks up and over the Danny-shaped lump on her bed. “So, this isn’t working.”
Tucker shrugs, attention split between his screen and everything else as per usual. “Hey, we already tried food bribes-”
“Those work on you, bacon breath.”
“-and video games – which, I might add? You kicked his ass at again, so really that didn’t help any-”
“Bite my ass, Tucker.”
“Ehh.” Tucker waggles a hand noncommittally. “Too stringy.”
Sam lunges. She makes sure not to plant a knee, elbow, or other pointy body part on Danny (who already feels like shit today, and fuck Vlad with a rusty pitchfork) via the simple expedient of just vaulting right over him, sending her hundred-thirty-something pounds directly at Tucker’s face – which gets a whole lot less smug when he realizes what he’s just signed up for.
Tucker yelps, ducking back. He takes a precious second to stow his PDA safely away in a pant pocket, where she’d have to fuck around with buttons or zippers to reach it.
She wouldn’t damage one of Tucker’s precious PDAs on purpose, not unless it was in service of a greater cause (like fucking up Technus); she would definitely play keep-away with it, though, so that wasn’t a bad idea entirely.
It was just really poorly timed.
She’s got Tucker pinned to the rug and screeching ‘Uncle!’ from the wrong end of a half-nelson way before the sound of their scuffling can wake Danny back up.
…and Tucker’s screeching wakes him up anyway. Oops?
“Hi, Danny.” She waves, sprawled nonchalant against a mattress made of teenage boy. He’s really lumpy, between the bones and all of the electronics hidden in his clothes.
“Rude,” Tucker wheezes. “Let me up.”
Danny looks …maybe a touch calmer than he was before his body went on a labor strike and tossed him directly into dreamland. The bruises aren’t fading yet, which is. Less than great.
Sam pushes herself neatly off of Tucker, using her momentum to drag him at least halfway to a standing position. Once he’s not at risk of taking an eye out on her bedposts or something, she lets him go.
Tucker pouts, and starts complaining theatrically. He already has his stylus back in his hand, limiting the use of fingers when he gestures.
She considers using a specific finger, and ultimately decides that he’s not being that annoying. Yet.
Tucker cuts himself off mid-whiney-complaint, and Sam snaps her attention back to Danny. Sure enough, he looks pale and woozy and tired (which is normal, unfortunately) and has planted his face directly into her sheets.
He doesn’t say anything so much as make a ‘hlaurghrhrgh’ sound. “What time is it?” comes out, muffled by the puffy down-alternative comforter.
Tucker checks his PDA. “5:19. You sure you don’t want us to tell your parents you’re staying over?”
Danny turns his head far enough for them to see his scowl. “I can’t. Vlad’s – ugh – coming to dinner tonight. If I leave him alone with Mom and Dad, who knows what he’ll do?”
“Then let us come over!” Sam snaps. “We’ve done sleepovers at your house before. Your parents won’t think twice-”
“-which is the problem, Sam.” Danny sighs, letting his face fall back into the blanket. “Dad still thinks Vlad is his best friend-”
She knows. That’s the problem.
“-so he’ll totally have his guard down!” Danny moans. “Jazz is out of town to look at colleges.” Danny pauses to prop himself up on his elbows, butt down and lower legs kicking up in a classic ‘tween girl reading a magazine and giggling inanely to herself’ position. “And Mom knows he’s a total bag of acorns – but, she doesn’t know about the half-ghost thing, so.” His face scrunches and he waves a hand around. “So I definitely do have to be there.”
No, you don’t, part of her wants to say. Fighting ghosts is one thing. Fighting a grown-ass adult who can’t find anything better to do with his life than to torment one specific family is another.
“You don’t have to do it alone!” she protests.
Danny’s scowl deepens further. “And let you guys get into the crossfire? Nuh uh, no chance. Right now, Vlad just ignores you guys until you get in the way of his plans. And then he just goes right back to ignoring you.”
“And,” Tucker prompts.
“And that’s safe.” Danny slumps, face on his folded hands. “It’s safer, anyway. The more he notices you, the more he’ll try to use you – and if he can’t make you do what he wants, then. Well.”
Well. Yeah.
(What the fuck has Vlad been doing to Danny when she and Tucker aren’t around to play buffer?)
She trades another look with Tucker, who’s stopped dramatically rubbing his shoulder (which she hadn’t even hit just now, good grief) to peer at his PDA screen. Real attentive there, Tuck.
“I think I might have a way to get you and your family an out.”
Danny shifts to sit up, clutching a black ghost-shaped throw pillow to his chest. “Like what?”
Tucker smirks. “Like, we fake a ghost attack.”
Sam’s mind whirls. “That’s perfect. If Danny’s parents are busy chasing a made-up ghost, then they won’t have time to do a family dinner and invite Vlad Masters to it.”
“And if my parents find a real ghost?”
“We’ll handle it,” she says.
“I can probably get their GAV weapons to lock up at a crucial second.” Tucker flicks through some menus. “Scratch probably, I can get that up to a definitely if we cannibalize one of the older Fenton Radios.”
Danny tenses. “What if Vlad follows them anyway? He can duplicate! I can’t fight him at home and out in town!”
“No you won’t, because you have stomach flu,” Tucker said, stressing the obvious alibi.
“…what?”
“You have stomach flu! Or like, a twenty-four-hour bug or something. It just came on, totally randomly, while we were hanging out at Sam’s place. You’re feeling way too awful to have any kind of dinner, never mind with ‘dear ol’ Uncle’-“ Tucker cuts himself off with a face like he just bit into a plain boiled potato. “Man, I can’t even say that sarcastically. Fuckin’ creep.”
“Seconded.”
“Thirded,” Sam rounds out. “So, how is this going to keep Vlad away from the other Fentons, though? And Danny, for that matter.”
Tucker laughs meanly. “Hey, uh, Sam. You know all that movie makeup you break out every year for Halloween?”
She doesn’t even answer that with more than a flat look.
Danny blinks. “We’re going to use makeup to make me look sick?”
Sam peers at him. He’s already a mess, as usual. Wet down his hair, maybe fake some stains… make his face even paler, and add more of a green undertone. Danny’s skin is still pretty pink when he’s human – green will make him look ill. And if she aims to accentuate, instead of trying to hide the eyebags? Yeah. This is doable.
“You didn’t answer the question,” she points out.
Tucker rolls his eyes. “I’m getting to it. Let my genius breathe, Sam!”
She steps on his foot.
“Ow!” Tucker jumps away, twisting to hide his poor sore foot from her. “Was that really necessary?”
“Eh,” Sam admits. “You were annoying me.”
Tucker reels up to argue back. “Oh, I was annoying you while I explain my genius plan to get Danny out of dodge-”
“-your plan, which you totally have.”
“-my plan,” he stresses. “Is to make one of us up to look like we’re Danny, but really really sick.
Sam squints. “Only one of us is white enough for even my horror-movie makeup skills to pull that off.”
“Hey,” Danny whines.
Tucker raises an eyebrow.
“It doesn’t have to be horror movie makeup, does it? I don’t look that bad, do I?” Danny pulls some hair from his bangs in front of his face and peers at it. “Should I get a different haircut…?”
Sam’s turn to roll her eyes. “Moving on! Your plan is that I impersonate Danny, except sick as a dog that just ate something unadvisable. What about me?”
“’You’,” Tucker says, doing air quotes with his less-occupied hand. She stifles the reflexive urge to punch him. She can bide her time. “Are gonna be right there with him. We can set up downstairs in your game center – there’s a kitchen and a bathroom and everything.”
Tucker starts to pace around the room, tapping away at his PDA. “Danny, you and Sam are gonna start out there together. You’ll be made up to look like you’re, like, super ill. Sam: you just be you.”
He points at himself. “I won’t be here, as far as Sam’s parents will ever know. Alas, Mother and Father hath summoned me back to mine abode for dinner by then.”
“Are you actually leaving?”
Tucker waggles a hand again. “Eh, fifty-fifty. Depends on which bait Vlad pays more attention to – Danny being sick and weakened, or the Doctors Fenton being left relatively undefended.”
Danny pulls faces at both of those options. “All of that sucks, Tuck.”
“Hey,” Tucker protests. “I’m working here. Moving on: Sam, you need to make sure at least one of your family members sees you and Danny here together at the same time.”
Tucker sends her what he probably thinks is a subtle wink. It looks more like he’s having a minor seizure. “So your parents aren’t gonna feel like they need to barge in and chaperone, since-” Tucker waves a hand at Danny. “Danny’s gonna be ‘sick’.”
“Then what?’
“Then we see where Vlad is. If he’s still at the Fentons’, then Danny can jet on over there make-up or no make-up; cosmetics don’t carry over, right?”
Danny nods. “Right.”
“Sam, you-as-Danny will provide the alibi for Danny, via lying on a couch wrapped in like eight million blankets and being loudly miserable.” Tucker points at her with his stylus. “You’re also going to be your own alibi. When you need to take off the Danny mask – metaphorically speaking – you’re gonna ditch the short-haired wig and stomp around.”
Danny perks up a bit. “And then leave the wig on a bunch of pillows in a blanket, as a decoy?”
“Exactly!” Tucker tosses back. “And you can switch back and forth.”
Sam raises an extremely skeptical eyebrow. “And if Vlad shows up, here, when Danny isn’t?”
Tucker shrugs. “Then he’ll leave, probably. Danny’s right in that Vlad doesn’t really give a crap about us either way. We’re not Danny – ergo, we are not interesting or worth putting in an effort.”
She and Danny trade looks.
“What’s stopping Vlad from just hurting you guys for fun?” he asks.
“A few things,” Sam says, nonchalant. “But mostly, the Spector Deflectors you gave us ages ago. Which we’re both going to wear.”
Tucker gestures at himself.
“Yeah, you too. Just because I’m being volunteered for this, doesn’t mean you’re getting out of helping. You still have your tech.”
“You can run oversight remotely,” Danny points out.
Tucker taps his stylus against the PDA case. “Not with Mom and Pops over my shoulder at dinner, but if I rush through it…”
Danny opens his mouth.
“Don’t,” Tucker says. “I’ll enjoy my great-auntie’s spicy seafood stew just as well when I’m hurrying through dinner. It will still be delicious.”
Danny looks guilty.
Sam kicks the bed. Now he just looks annoyed.
“What’s the plan in town, then?” she asks.
Tucker opens his mouth. “…that part, I’m still a little bit sticky on.”
“What,” she and Danny chorus.
Tucker shrugs. “Hey, I can keep an eye out via cameras and the weather report, make sure the Fentons are like… still in Amity. But if Vlad does show up and attack them, then the fact that they’re already armed and on guard, and in the GAV already? Is going to be plenty as far as stacking the odds their way.”
“If it’s not?” Danny needles.
“Then you’ll call them ‘from Sam’s’ and babble deliriously about the no-good mean ghost in the cei-”
“Tucker you are not sending Danny’s parents to my parents’ house. Never mind that they could easily survive the repair bill – my sanity won’t survive them.”
She means that as a threat. It lands successfully.
Tucker groans. “All right, fine. I’ll use a burner and a voice changer, and give them a random address somewhere out in nowhere. Tell them I saw Phantom at the corner of X-Y-Z Boulevard or whatever.”
“How will that help, though?”
“Well, if Vlad’s there, then he’ll overhear it-”
“-and if he falls for it, he’ll go chasing phantoms – heh – wherever you say I am. It’s Vlad, though. What if he doesn’t fall for it?”
Tucker tap-tap-taps his stylus. He flicks along the screen, types something out, backtracks. “…I got nothing.”
Danny groans, loud, and flops over again. At least this time he lands on his back, so she can still see his face. He glares murderously at the ceiling. He’s still hugging the ghost plush. “So, I’m screwed.”
Sam huffs, casting her gaze around her room in hopes of catching on an idea.
“We could actually let a ghost out?” Tucker offers.
Danny sits bolt upright, glare flashing green. “What.”
“I don’t mean, like, a nice ghost! I’m just saying, it’s been a little while since you last let out the Thermos-”
“No, Tucker,” she and Danny chorus. Even if it would be really tempting to dump a bunch of ectopi on Vlad and laugh at his terrible face about it, it’s not like it would slow him down.
Tucker accepts that with an unbothered little shrug. “All right, then how about the Fentons’ inventions? We got anything new that Vlad might not know about yet? It doesn’t have to work right; it just has to be something he hasn’t planned for.”
Danny’s frown softens, but the worry line between his eyebrows sticks. “I think… maybe? Dad’s been working on the Fenton Foamer again. That, or he handed it off to Mom, but that means it’ll be working.”
“’zat the sticky-foam thing?”
“That’s the sticky-foam blaster, yeah.”
“Huh.” Tap-tap-tap. “It’s like, huge and bulky, right? Hard to hide. And of course Vlad knows how to recognize all your folks’ gadgets.”
Danny offers a sarcastic thumbs-up.
“Can we disguise it? Like, spray-paint it or wrap it up with something.”
“‘Wrap it up’, no. If it overheats, it’ll almost definitely explode.”
Sam turns the twitch that wants to happen into a scowl.
Tucker winces. “Okay, that’s out. Still, though. We’ve always got paint – I mean, Sam always has black paint, specifically-”
“True,” she throws in.
Danny drops the plush and starts giggling.
She and Tucker stare.
“Paint! They’re working on ecto-reflective paint! It’s supposed to be an extra layer of defense for the Ops Center, but-”
“-but we could use it to keep an ecto-signal in!” Tucker finishes.
Danny cackles. “Okay, so if we set up an ambush-”
“-at a prearranged location,” Tucker cuts in. “So how would we get Vlad there?”
“Easy. Get my parents there.”
Sam lifts an eyebrow. “You want to use your parents as bait? You?”
Danny makes an eww face, shifting to sit criss-cross. “I really, really don’t want to. But if I’m ‘out sick’, then that’s the most reliable way to get Vlad’s attention.”
Sam narrows her eyes. “Danny?”
Sensing danger, Danny hunches his shoulders in a defensive posture. “Um?”
“Do you still have those g-dawful robots you bought?”
Danny blinks. “The…?”
Tucker snaps his fingers. “Tuckbot and Gothbot! Man, those were funny.”
Sam drives an elbow into Tucker’s ribs. Ignoring his wheezing complaints, she continues. “Would it be possible to make fake versions of your parents?”
Danny’s face contorts as he thinks. He rubs his neck. “Yes, but not in one day. I could make up Gothbot to look like Mom, that’s just a wig and- um.” Danny coughs and blushes. “And one of her spare suits. Dad, though…”
“Your dad’s a giant, man.”
Danny grimaces. “So, that won’t work…”
Tucker squints. “Not so fast. You said we can get Gothbot to look like your mom, right? Which, dude, we are gonna talk about.”
“No we’re not,” Danny says cheerily. “So, make it look like they split up? I don’t know. Do you think Vlad will fall for that?”
“I think Vlad will see whatever he wants to see, ‘cause he’s crazy nuts and obsessive about you and your parents.”
Danny’s nose wrinkles. “Yeah. So… Sam as a me-decoy, robot as a Mom-decoy? And that way at least one of us has a chance to get the drop on Vlad, when he pulls something later at dinner.”
Sam gets a positively evil idea. “Danny?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think your dad would be clueless enough to not notice that a robot temporarily replaced your Mom?”
“Mom? No, he’d spot it. But he’d assume ghost stuff, not robots.”
Tucker lights up. “So, if your Dad pulls out an ecto-blaster and starts shooting at dinner…”
“-then Vlad will be in trouble, too! And Jazz is out of town, and if I’m ‘out sick’-”
“Then Vlad will be screwed.” Sam grins. “All we have to do is get your mom out of the kitchen for a few minutes.”
Danny frowns. “I could call her? Make it sound like I’m really sick, but – I don’t know, she probably won’t even pick up.”
“So, you don’t think your mom’s going to be desperate for an excuse to not have to spend time with Vlad?”
“I think she isn’t going to want to leave him alone with Dad.”
“Does your Mom know he wants to kill Jack, though?”
“Or does she just figure he’s a regular old garden-variety creep who wants her to dump your dad – which, is never gonna happen, anyway.”
Danny nods. “I know. I think she knows about the, uh, murdery-ness? What with the whole ‘two days in a forest in Wisconsin’ thing.”
“That was technically a kidnapping, not a murder attempt,” Sam muses. “Though, I am surprised he didn’t try anything on your dad while you were out of town.”
“He did,” Danny says. “He just failed miserably on account of Dad and Jazz might have the worst aim in the universe, but they’re actually pretty scary in close quarters. And ‘inside the house’ is really, really close quarters.”
Tucker whistles. “Seriously?”
Danny sighs. “Yeah. I only found out when I was scrubbing scorch marks off the ceiling and asked Jazz where it came from.”
Sam and Tucker share a glance.
“Your whole entire family sucks at communicating,” Tucker drops.
Sam elbows him.
“Hey!”
Danny just shrugs. “I guess? We’re not that bad.”
Sam drops the squabble with Tucker so they can stare at Danny. “Speaking as someone who has an actually garbage relationship with my parents, especially my mother? Danny, yes, no Fenton can communicate for shit.”
“Jazz can!” he argues.
“Jazz can therapize,” Tucker agrees. “But has anyone like, ever heard her say a thing about her own issues? Or is she just defending you – which, dude, you do need that – and acting like she’s totally always perfect and never needs help, ever?”
Danny blinks into space for a few seconds. Then he shakes his head, hard, and scrubs a hand through his hair. “That’s not the point. Right now, we need to focus on stopping Vlad. Do you really think this robot decoy plan will work?”
“I mean, provided Vlad isn’t listening in on- us…” Without another word, Tucker taps furiously at his PDA. He works in silence for a minute.
The PDA does a little jingle.
Tucker deflates. “Oh, thank fuck. Yeah, man, we’re still clear.”
“Uh?” Sam questions. “It’s my room!”
“And Vlad is a monster-class creep, your point?” Tucker shoots back. “Nothing in your room is sending any kind of signals out of it, aside from our cell phones – which I’ve already cleared – and my spy cameras, which are not currently recording. Those are for field use.”
“You have spy cameras?” Danny asks.
Tucker’s turn to raise to his eyebrows. “Dude, you helped build them.”
“Wh- ohh, the little camera drone things. Dude, they’re working?”
“Dude, yes.”
“Oh, heck ye-”
“Boys.”
They shut up.
“Back on topic.” She looks at Tucker. “You’re on code, and Danny’s on parts retrieval. I’ll cover actually making the robot look like Maddie.”
“And then?”
“And then, we tell Danny’s family that he’s sick at my place. I disguise myself and fake everyone out.”
“Wait, where will I be?”
She looks at Tucker.
“Dinner with the Foley’s?” he offers. “I can distract my parents from actually calling yours, probably. Failing that, I can tap the line, and I’ve got a voice-changer app I’ve been waiting to dig out.”
Danny relaxes. “You really think this could work?”
“I think Vlad shouldn’t have given you time to plan-back, if he wanted his plan to work. He doesn’t even know about the robots! …does he?”
“He probably knows I have them. But, uh, neither of them look like Mom yet, so…”
“So we’re good,” Tucker concludes.
“Wait.” Danny holds up a hand. “What about my ecto-signature? Vlad can track it.”
Tucker does a lineface. “Sssspecter deflector?”
Danny linefaces back. “Great. And how will that cover me not being at Sam’s?”
Sam considers. She goes over to her desk, pulls out a few drawers, and takes out a blank ragdoll effigy. “You can put your energy in objects, right?”
Danny blinks. “Uh. I guess? I know I can do it temporarily, like when I make stuff float.”
“Wait, you figured out how to do that on purpose?”
Sam waves Tucker off. “Not now. Power testing on that later.”
Danny grumbles. “I forgot, okay.”
“Clueless,” she replies. Sam crosses back over to the bed, and hands Danny the little ragdoll. “Try channeling a little of your ecto into this.”
Danny looks skeptical. He still does it.
The doll lights up green.
“Tucker?”
Tucker takes a modified ecto-scanner out of one of his endless pockets. “That’s Danny’s signature, yeah. But he’s so close to it, I can’t honestly tell if it’s actually in the creepy little doll or if it’s just ‘cause he’s holding it.”
Sam eyes the blanket underneath Danny.
Danny rolls out of her bed, on the opposite side from where she and Tucker are standing. Typical.
“Coward.”
“I don’t want to eat floor if I can help it, okay?”
“Can you just, like, toss the doll-thingy over here? And I’ll scan it.”
Danny tosses it back on the bed.
Tucker squints at the readout. “Okay, so there’s def something with your ecto in it on Sam’s bed. It’s just not in the right place to be that creepy doll.”
“What? Then-” Danny flushes. “Oh, no.”
Tucker picks up the plush ghost pillow. The shell is black wool-and-cotton, recycled from an old coat of hers, and it’s been stuffed with rags; it has white “X”s stitched on for eyes, and a sharp-toothed felt smile underneath. “Oh, yes. I think you accidentally haunted Sam’s, uh.” Tucker clears his throat. “Little black-and-white pillow ghost, here.”
She kicks him down behind the kneecaps.
Tucker flails to the floor, because he still sucks at breaking a fall properly. “Ow! Again! Why?”
“You know what you did.” She picks up the plush and dusts it off.
Danny walks through her bed and helps Tucker to his feet. “You okay?”
“Ugh, yeah.” Tucker shoots her a nasty look.
She returns it.
Tucker breaks eye contact first. He picks up the scanner, running it over the plush in her arms. “Yeah, that’s your ecto-signature, all right. There’s not a whole lot, though.”
Danny pulls a face, still a bit red. He puts a hand over his face. “I really didn’t mean to.”
Sam shrugs. “It’s fine. It’s not like you’ll do anything with it.”
It’s kind of nice, honestly, knowing that a little bit of Danny will linger here in her room. It’s not like the boys don’t already forget stuff here almost every time one of them visits.
It’s a little different, though, than a forgotten worksheet or a half-completed spy drone. A ghost’s energy is what they are; an ecto-signature is as unique as a fingerprint. Danny just accidentally did the ghost equivalent of calling dibs on her pillow, which… well, she can make a new one. “Do you want to keep this, after we do the plan?”
Danny grimaces. “At my house? Heck no. Anything ghost-related is just going to get ripped apart.”
“Hey, if it’s up for grabs, I’ll take it,” Tucker jokes. “Can’t have too many desk pillows.”
She spares him a look. “Tucker, this is not a proper lumbar pillow.”
“Who said anything about lumbar? I meant, like, falling asleep at my desk. It looks pretty comfy, aside from the patches.”
“The patches are flat, Tucker.”
“Um,” Danny says. “Can I have it, like, for now? If we’re using it as a me-decoy.”
Oh! “Okay,” she says, and hands it over.
He picks it up, hefts it, and frowns. “I have no idea how I did that.”
She facepalms. “Just channel energy into it, you goof.”
“But last time it didn’t stick!”
“It’s already stuck,” she points out. “Just try it.”
Danny rolls his eyes, but does it. “It feels pretty much the same…”
Tucker’s very focused on that pillow. “Do you think it’s the feeling that does it?”
Danny stares. “What?”
“Like, the emotion. Your ghost powers are stronger when you’re feeling something, right?”
Danny nods.
“So, maybe you have to feel something for another thing, to make your energy stick.”
“By that logic, he should be trying to haunt a model rocket.”
As one, they facepalm.
“I’ll grab one of my model kits from home when we pick up the Mom-bot.”
“Or I can grab one? I’m already working on new programs for Gothbot – Mombot, ‘scuse me. I can do that right here, and save some time.”
Sam nods. “Okay. How about this: Tucker and I go to your house, Danny, and do disguise work on the robot. And get a model kit.”
Danny looks nervous.
“I swear on sweet Tiffany, we’re not going to hurt your model rocket. We can put it someplace safe when we get back to Sam’s.”
He softens. “Thanks. So, I should stay here and just… act miserable?”
Sam nods briskly. “Only if someone goes downstairs. My room isn’t really secure. It’ll be better to do this in the basement.”
“So, that means Danny’s going to have to get the ‘oh woe very sick person’ make-up done now.” Tucker grins. “Sweet! I’ll work on the Mombot’s mannerisms, in the meantime.”
Danny groans. “Do I have to?”
Sam glares. “Makeup is for everyone, Danny. Goth knows no gender.”
He grimaces. “I know! It’s just so sticky, and it takes forever to wash off.”
“…dude. You remember you can just go intangible and let it fall off, right?”
Danny opens his mouth. Shuts it. Smacks himself in the forehead.
Sam laughs. “Nice. Okay, so we’ve got a plan.”
Danny lowers his hand. “Yeah.”
“Get in the chair, Danny.”
“Fuck.”
“Me,” Tucker says.
She and Danny stare at Tucker.
Tucker looks up from the tiny screen that is definitely murdering what’s left of his terrible eyesight. “What?”
“Did,” Danny starts. “Did you mean to say that, or?”
“Say what?”
“You said ‘me’. I said ‘fuck’, and then you said ‘me’!”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Danny, sit.” She pushes him down into her desk chair by his skinny shoulders. “And you’re going to have to stop talking in a second, so-” She circles a finger through the air. “-wrap this up fast, boys.”
“But-” Danny protests.
Tucker shrugs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Sam hides a smirk behind her hair. She knows.
She grabs the face cleanser, pouring some onto a soft cotton cloth wipe. She goes over Danny’s face, making sure to get anywhere that grody-teenage-boy skin oils and crud could be hiding.
She’ll let Tucker stew, for now.
She swaps through tones, picking out a foundation that almost matches Danny’s usual skintone. Just a touch lighter. “All right, boys, shutting the fuck up time is now.”
Danny closes his mouth. This doesn’t stop him from whining through his nose.
She pokes his cheek. “Stop.”
And they work like that, side-by-side in relative silence, until Danny’s gone from ‘normal levels of pasty nerd’ to ‘oh fuck, someone call a doctor’.
Tucker finishes up on his PDA a little before she’s ready to reveal her work, so he pokes around in her room. She doesn’t care, as long as he’s not stupid enough to even look at her diary.
Luckily for his health, he doesn’t. He just wanders over to her bed, perches on the edge, and picks up the pillow ghost. Ghost pillow.
And he hugs it.
“…dude. Sam. This is really plush. And the stitches are softer than I thought they’d be. All cotton thread?”
“Organic cotton. I am not willingly going to contribute to pesticide and herbicides polluting our planet.”
Tucker squishes it again, and puts it down. “So, are we ready, or do I gotta play Tetris or something?”
She throws a makeup brush at him.
He ducks. Boo.
“Do you want me to do a rush job and get us found out?”
Tucker mumbles something. She chooses to pretend she didn’t hear it.
“Okay. Danny, you can open your eyes now.”
She does one last pass with some green, just to make sure he looks absolutely ready to keep the fuck over. A little red around the ears, on the cheekbones.
Perfect.
“Okay, we’re set.”
Danny lets out a huge, cold sigh and sits up. “Finally! How long did that even take?”
“Like, twelve minutes? Not that long, admittedly.”
He wrinkles his nose.
She swats his shoulder. “Don’t smudge that. Do you need me to seal it?”
Danny shrugs. “If it’ll make it more convincing?”
“All right. Stand up, eyes and mouth closed, and do not breathe in until it’s had time to settle.”
Tucker packs up his tech as she sprays Danny’s make-up sealed.
“You can talk, but don’t open your eyes again yet.”
“Oka- augk, gah. That tastes bad.”
“Go rinse your mouth out in my bathroom. And wet your hair, to make it look like your sweating.”
“Get your neck and shirt, too.”
Danny grimaces.
“You’re not naked under there, man. We’re gonna see jack and shit.”
He flushes, and moves off to her bathroom.
“Don’t knock anything over!” she calls, packing up her make-up kit.
“Can I look yet?” he calls back.
“Just do the clear eyelids thing,” Tucker suggests.
“Oh, yeah.” Danny continues to her bathroom, looking way less like he’s about to trip and eat shit. “So, should I go and scou- ow.”
“Did you just walk into the door.”
He whines, and remembers to actually open the door and walk through it.
She and Tucker watch him go.
“What a dumbass.”
“Yep.”
Danny emerges, arms out in front. “Okay, it’s really annoying to keep just my eyelids invisible without them going intangible. It’s like there’s a layer of weird cake batter on my face. Can I look yet?”
…her bathroom has a perfectly good mirror. “Sure, go ham.”
“Thanks.” He walks over to her vanity, opens his eyes, and screams. “Sam! You said you’d make me look like I was sick, not like I’m dead!”
“Your lips are pale, Danny, not blue. I went with green undertones because we’re faking a stomach illness, so it’s too gross for my parents to think about. Just hang out in my basement and pretend to be nauseous. I’ll do my own makeup when Tucker and I get back.”
He pulls a face.
“Stop making faces,” she says, poking him in the arm. “Sealing it means it won’t smudge, but it can still crack if you distort your face too much.”
“This isn’t distorted?” He waves a hand at himself. “I look like shit.”
“That’s literally the point, though.”
Danny groans. “Fuck. The literal second you guys get back here, I’m phasing this off.”
“Fine.”
Danny pauses. “Actually, could you reuse the makeup?”
Uh. Huh. “Well, your face is actually clean under it. I’m not sure it’ll fit right…”
“Won’t that make the disguise more effective, though? And you’ve got that filler stuff you use for fake scars, you can use that to make your face less pointy.”
“Mm. Yeah, that could work.”
Danny looks at his phone. “Good, ‘cause we’ve got less than an hour before Vlad shows up – and that’s if he doesn’t decide to show up early, as a ‘nice surprise’.”
She beelines for the door. “Danny, with me. Tucker, you go ahead and open the basement.”
They head down the hall, towards the unnecessarily fancy stairs that go down to the entry hall. Normally they’d use the side stairs – the old servants’ stairs – to avoid her parents; but, since the whole point of this is to establish a cover…
“Danny, once you’re settled, I’ll go tell my parents that you’re feeling under the weather. And that you’re staying here. That way, I can get any yelling match out of the way, and give them a reason I’m not showing up to dinner.”
They head through a sitting room. Sam grabs one of her blankets and tosses it on Danny. “Here, look pathetic.”
He fusses around with it until it’s over his shoulders like an oversized shawl. “Got it,” he croaks.
She nods and throws him a smile.
He lights up.
“Less happy, Danny. You’re ‘sick’, remember?”
He tries to frown. It’s more of a sad-puppy pout, but… whatever works.
Tucker waves them down into the basement. “Come on, I got the TV on and some of Sam’s awful tea heated up.”
“There’s tea here/” Danny asks.
“There is an entire kitchen. The tea is ginger, so no one will get suspicious about you drinking it. Or why you haven’t thrown up again. And if you want actual food, Sam’s at least got crackers and stuff.”
She kicks at Tucker.
He scuttles behind a couch. She lets him, for now.
He continues. “So until we get back, Danny, you’re on vacay. Just sit down next to that bucket, stay put, and be really tired if anyone tries to check on you.”
“Buck-?” Danny wrinkles his nose.
“Tucker, that had better be fake.”
“It’s totally fake! I got it from a prank supply catalog.”
Danny glares. Sam joins him.
“I wasn’t going to use it on you guys!”
“…sure.”
“Uh huh.”
Tucker rolls his eyes.
Danny pulls a face. “Great. And I’m supposed to just sit here and ignore it?”
Tucker shrugs. “The bucket has a lid. Just take it off if you hear anyone coming downstairs.”
Danny groans, but he sits down. He puts the lid on the bucket, covers the source of the terrible smell, and picks up the mug of ginger tea.
Tucker claps his hands. “Great! Have fun, watch cartoons or whatever, and we’ll be back as soon as possible. C’mon, Sam, let’s go.”
Danny narrows his eyes. It does make him almost look creepy, with the hospital patient make-up on. “If anything happens, or there’s any sign of Vlad.”
“We’ll let you know.” Tucker does finger guns. “We got this, Danny.”
Danny sits back. “…okay.”
“Bye, nerd,” she tosses down the basement stairs.
“Bye, jerk,” Danny says in a voice he might think is too quiet for her to hear.
She’ll get him back later.
She shuts the door behind her. She and Tucker just stand there, for a few seconds.
Tucker starts cursing.
Sam agrees fluently.
“…ugh. Okay, come on. I gotta get to the Fentons’, and you-” Tucker waves a hand. “Good luck, scary lady.”
“Thanks,” she deadpans. “Do you think he’ll stay put?”
“I think we have, like, twenty minutes until he gets an anxiety and goes looking for us.”
“Swell. Let’s get going.”
Tucker nods, shoulders set. “Operation: Vlad Can Eat Shit is a go.”
Sam grins and punches his arm. “Awesome.”
“…Sam, ow.”
“Bite me.”