#He's gonna kick his ass if he tries to do the same thing to Cujo

[duchi-nesten]

DannyMay Day 26: Art/Fic Switch!

Treats and Threats

Summary:

Valerie was going to kick Phantom’s ass for this! The only problem? She didn’t know where to find him.

Good thing Cujo was more than willing to help in exchange for some treats. Too bad he wasn’t very good at distinguishing which Danny he was meant to find though...

Word Count: 2894 || AO3 Link

Did I use this day as an excuse to try writing something for the shared cujostody au?? Maybe...

it referances this comic a little bit...

[Shared Cujostody AU Masterpost]

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Valerie was gonna kick Phantom’s ass for this. Did he think she wouldn’t notice?

She looked over to Cujo, who was sniffing all over her room. He just came over as he often did. Phantom liked to think they had a set custody schedule or whatever it was he called it, but in reality Cujo just came by whenever he wanted and to whichever of them he wanted.

She was reluctant to ‘’adopt’’ the ghost dog at first. Yes, she wasn’t as mad at him anymore after she finally listened to Phantom and found out why exactly Cujo was now a ghost, but that didn’t mean she had to like him. He was incredibly persistent though and the more time Valerie spent around the dog, the more she started loving him. He was just a tiny little puppy, a ball of joy who wanted to play all the time.

She even kept some treats for him for whenever he came over and started making and buying him some dog clothes. He loved dressing up, especially when they got to match. And it made Phantom jealous, so it was just bonus points for her really.

Phantom used to insist that the dog wasn’t his, but now it seemed like they were fighting for who gets to have him. Okay, she was fighting. That idiot seemed delighted to share the ‘’custody’’, he kept making jokes about them being a family which was genuinely getting on her nerves. He was so infuriating.

She did agree to a truce with him after finding out he was right about Vlad, but that didn’t mean she had to enjoy sharing Cujo with that menace. He was too careless and brute with the puppy. Which is exactly why she needed to find him right now and kill him, truce be damned.

Unfortunately for her the ghost attacks have been kinda on the down low lately and she had no idea where he hung out when he wasn’t fighting them. She did send him a bunch of text messages and even tried calling (which was still so weird! How did he even get that phone??), but she was sent to voicemail every time.

If only there was a way for her to track him down…

She glanced at Cujo, who had his head stuck in the plastic box of treats. She sighed. Truly nothing could stop a ghost dog. She always tried hiding these from him, but no matter where she put the box he always managed to sniff it out.

Which gave her an idea. If he could sniff these out then maybe…

‘’Cujo, baby. You know you’re not supposed to eat those.’’ she gently pushed his head out of the box. If he really wanted to he could just phase through her hand and continue, but he was a good boy and always listened. Yet he kept his eyes on the treats as if they would disappear at any moment. She chuckled.

‘’I’ll give you a treat if you do something for me.’’ she said and his eyes instantly snapped to her. His tail slowly swayed back and forth. ‘’Can you find Phantom for me? Sniff him out?’’

Cujo blinked at her before barking happily, tail full on wagging now. He phased through her hand and made his way through the bedroom window. She quickly jumped to follow him, nearly yanking the window off its hinges. Her suit making a humming sound as it activated.

He got quite ahead of her, but she managed to keep up just fine. She did have his ecto-signature marked in her tracker just in case she ever lost track of him, but she also had Phantom’s and that one tended to disappear off her radar at random. She wasn’t so inclined to test if Cujo’s wouldn’t do the same.

They flew their way through Amity Park before Cujo suddenly took a sharp turn towards her high school. She saw him growing into his bigger form before he disappeared behind the building.

As she rounded the corner and saw Cujo’s back, tail wagging. It seemed like he was holding someone in his mouth.

Got ya, ghost boy.

She landed behind the dog and could hear his captive yelling

‘’Cujo! I can’t right now! I told you to go to-’’

Cujo turned around to show his catch to Valerie and…

‘’Oh-... Heheh.. hi Red! Uh.. Huntress!’’

That was not Danny Phantom.

That was Danny Fenton.

‘’CUJO NO. Shit, I’m so sorry Da-uh citizen!’’ She quickly raced up to them and coaxed her puppy into releasing her ex boyfriend. Which he did by letting him fall face first on the ground. ‘’SHIT.’’

Valerie knelt down next to him to help him rise to his feet.

‘’Are you okay??’’

‘’Yeah.’’ he said, standing up to his full height, which was only slightly taller than her. He looked at her and sent her a bright smile. ‘’Don’t worry about it.’’

She smiled back knowing that he probably struggled to see it through her visor. His view got even more obscured when Cujo put his huge snout in between them wagging his tail happily. Which ended up with him accidentally knocking over some full trash cans standing behind him.

‘’Ugh. Cujo, I just cleaned that up.’’ Danny said resigned, moving over to the garbage. ‘’Lancer’s gonna have my head if he sees another piece of mutated meat.’’

Valerie looked at the knocked over trash and sure enough it was full of disgusting glowing green meat. Or at least what was left of it. It looked maimed and burned.

Right. He was recording a tiktok during lunch today. She was eating in the library while working on her missed homework, so she didn’t get to see it herself, but she heard the rumors. Apparently he put some sort of new ectoplasmic concoction from his parents lab in his serving of today’s mystery meat. It backfired and spread to every piece of meat in the cafeteria like a disease.

People were saying it was like a zombie apocalypse with all the meat moving around the room. Some even said they saw the Lunch Lady ghost appear for a second before she noticed Danny in the middle of it and left terrified. Which if that was true Valerie couldn’t blame her. Danny’s eating habits probably made her turn in her grave.

‘’You didn’t eat it, did you?’’ she asked, squinting at a small piece of meat that apparently survived whatever happened to the rest of it and was slowly crawling away from them, likely trying to escape. Danny picked it up and squashed it in his hand before it got far.

‘’Obviously I did.’’ he turned to her with a familiar shit-eating grin on his face, moving the thing he caught closer to his mouth as if to prove a point.

Damn him. How could he be so endearing even when he was being disgusting?

She shook her head chuckling and looked at Cujo instead. He was looking right back at her expectantly. Right.

‘’No Cujo, no treats until you find Phantom for me.’’ she said sternly. She saw Danny trip over a trash can lid out of the corner of her eye. ‘’You good there?’’

‘’Wha-Yes! Ha- Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine! Don’t mind me!’’ he tried to act cool, almost losing his footing again. Dork.

Cujo whined at her, stepping from front paw to front paw and cocking his head to the right. He knew damn well he looked cute when he did that, no matter which form.

‘’Baby, no. I’m not gonna cave. Find Phantom and I’ll give you a treat then.’’ she said calmly trying to stroke him behind the ear, but since he was in big mode she had to settle for his cheek.

He whined a bit more letting out a little pathetic bark to go with it. He turned and stalked over to Danny, poking him in the back with his nose, which made the boy squeak.

‘’No, Cujo.’’ she said, sighing. ‘’That’s the wrong Danny you’re thinking of.’’

‘’Y-Yeah, buddy!’’ Danny chuckled nervously, petting Cujo’s snout. ‘’I’m not the one you’re looking for! Definitely not! I’m not Phantom, why would you even think that? You’re not thinking that right?’’

Okay he was acting weird. Almost as if he was hiding something.

Valerie looked him up and down. His eyes were wide, observing her every move with fear. One arm was rubbing his neck, which he always did when he was nervous. The other still stroking Cujo’s fur almost instinctively.

That’s when it clicked.

‘’No fucking way.’’ she uttered absolutely baffled.

It made so much sense.

‘’W-What?’’ he asked, his voice cracking.

‘’How many times did that asshole leave you as a dogsitter?’’

She knew Phantom did that. She caught Cujo in the background of one of Danny’s tiktoks a while ago and when she confronted Phantom about it he admitted to ‘’hiring’’ Danny as a dogsitter sometimes.

If that asshole left Cujo with Danny too often, then no wonder the poor puppy would mistake Danny for his second caretaker. Oh she was going to kick his irresponsible ghost ass even harder now!

‘’Uh… w-wha..?’’ Danny tilted his head questionably.

‘’I know about the dogsitting, Danny. And it looks like he’s leaving Cujo with you so often that the dog thinks you’re him!’’

‘’Oh… you think-’’ he knitted his eyebrows in confusion before his eyes widened. ‘’Oh! Oh, hahah, he didn’t- I mean it wasn’t many times! Maybe like twice! Is this the dog? I didn’t even recognise him, I don’t even remember his name!’’

Cujo whined again, turning into his puppy form and jumped in Danny’s arms, who barely managed to catch him in time. He started sniffing and licking his face distressed.

‘’Cujo stop! I mean! Dog whose name I don’t remember…’’ that made Cujo whine even harder and Danny flinched. He instantly gave up and buried his face in Cujo’s fur. Valerie could barely hear him mutter ‘’I can’t do this to you.’’

That interaction only reaffirmed Valerie’s suspicions.

‘’Don’t cover up for him.’’ she said, crossing her arms. ‘’I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at him. He’s going to pay for this too.’’

‘’Uh…why were you even looking for him in the first place? Did he do something?’’

‘’Yes, he knows what he did! And now this! The moment I find him I’m gonna kick his ass so hard he’ll be the gone kind of dead!’’

‘’… well you definitely won’t find him now…’’

‘’What?’’

‘’Nothing!’’ Danny shoved Cujo in her arms and started walking off before she could even react. ‘’Anyway I’ll be going now! Gotta finish cleaning so Lancer doesn’t kill me! Bye Val!’’

‘’Bye-....wait…what did you just call me?’’

Danny stopped frozen in his tracks. She stared at his back bewildered.

He slowly turned around and stared back at her too.

‘’...Bye Red Huntress! It was nice to see you, I’ll go disappear behind that corner now!’’ he yelled nervously and booked it behind said corner.

It took her a second to shake off the shock. Cujo jumped out of her arms as she quickly followed after the boy.

‘’DANNY.’’

She rounded the corner to see that he did in fact disappear. Shit.

She was sure he called her Val. How did he know about her secret identity? She was always so careful! It did explain his weird behavior though, he probably didn’t know how to act around her like this.

She needed to talk to him immediately, he couldn’t just reveal something like this and run off!

Though that is exactly what he did. How did he even disappear like that? This boy was impossible sometimes.

In frustration she knocked her head on the wall a few times. What was her life at this point?

Her thoughts got interrupted when she heard Cujo’s bark and a yelp come from behind her. Turning around only provided her with even more frustration when she saw Danny mcfucking Phantom laying helplessly under Cujo’s once again big paw.

‘’Why must you do this to the hand that feeds you…’’ he hissed to Cujo before turning his attention towards Valerie. ‘’Hey Red! You look very good today! Are those new arm plates on your suit?’’

Danny Fenton could wait. She was gonna deal with this asshole first.

‘’YOU.’’ she roared stalking over to them. Cujo looked up at her coming closer and switched to his puppy form again laying his whole body on Phantom’s chest, wagging his tail and barking excitedly.

‘’Ah.. hahah, have you been looking for me?’’ Phantom said, raising into a sitting position, even though Cujo was making it difficult for him.

‘’I’m going to end you!’’ Valerie yelled, pulling out her gun and making sure to aim it at his face and away from the dog in his lap.

‘’I thought we had a truce! What did I do?!’’

‘’YOU KNOW DAMN WELL WHAT YOU DID.’’

‘’No, I actually don’t!’’

She let her gun disappear back into her suit and angrily knelt beside them. Picking up Cujo from his lap, she turned him around to show Phantom a charred section of fur on his right back leg.

‘’I FOUND SOME SINGED FUR ON CUJO AGAIN. You were playing too harshly with him! again!’’ she put the puppy down, so she could stand up summoning her gun back and aim it at the ghost boy in front of her.

Phantom looked from the gun to her, at Cujo and then back to the gun.

‘’……. Listen in my defense he really likes fetching ectoblasts…’’

‘’He’s gonna be fetching your ectoplasm when I’m done with you! What were you thinking?! He’s not one of your vile rouge buddies! He’s a little puppy! How many times have I told you to be softer with him?!’’

‘’Valerie, with all due respect…That dog can chew off Skulker’s head, he can take a few tiny burns! He doesn’t even react to it!’’ he defended standing up too. He kept his hands in the air as a sign of surrender. ‘’Can’t I just play catch with my own son?’’

Cujo barked from the side.

‘’UgH your SON that you constantly leave with Danny! Apparently you do that so often that he’s more used to Danny’s scent than yours!’’ she yelled irritated.

‘’Uh…I’m a ghost…. I don’t have a scent?’’ he answered, uncertain before nodding to himself. ‘’Yes. Yes! I don’t have… a scent for him to find. Only uh… Only material beings do.’’ he added still unsure and she swore she could hear him mutter something about being a genius.

‘’What.’’

‘’He couldn’t sniff me out and uh… you and Danny are the only humans who have me on speed dial so he thought that was the best next thing. Yes, that’s definitely it.’’

‘’…What.’’

‘’Yeah! It’s true! Totally! So he did good!’’ he motioned to Cujo which made him wag his tail more. ‘’Give him a treat, he deserves it. He’s a good boy!’’

The puppy barked happily.

‘’Yeah, you are!’’ Phantom crouched to coddle Cujo. ‘’Your mother just couldn’t see it! But don’t worry, your cool ass dad always got your back.’’

There he goes again with the family bullshit. Valerie slumped defeated and hid her gun.

‘’Ugh. Stop saying things like that to him, we’re not a family.’’ she groaned.

‘’Well yeah, we’re divorced.’’

‘’We never even dated!’’

‘’As far as you know.’’ he looked up at her with his dumb trademark smirk.

‘’What’s that supposed to mean?’’ she asked because what the actual fuck did he mean by that.

‘’Nothing!’’ he stood up quickly picking up Cujo to shove him in her arms and woah, did that give her deja vu. ‘’I have to go, can I have a rain check on that ass kicking? I’m very busy right now!’’

‘’Wha- No!’’ she protested trying to keep Cujo from licking her face. ‘’Get back here!’’

‘’Bye Val!’’ he yelled and flew off before she had the time to react. God damn it!

She turned her gaze down to Cujo’s pleading eyes.

‘’Alright.’’ she pulled out a dog treat from a tiny storage in her glove and gave it to Cujo. ‘’You did good baby.’’

She put him down on the ground so he could devour the treat in peace and sighed loudly. Phantom ran off like a little bitch and apparently Cujo couldn’t sniff him out. He would just go to Danny again.

Which reminded her. She still needed to have a talk with that boy. She did trust him not to tell anyone, but she needed to know how he found out in the first place, so she can make sure no one else can find out the same way. She should probably give him a bit of time before she gets Cujo to stalk him out again though.

The puppy had finished his little treat and was now looking at her with those cute red puppy dog eyes. She couldn’t hold back the smile that overtook her face. Whatever. She’ll deal with Danny at school tomorrow. And deal with Phantom whenever she sees him next.

‘’C’mon Cujo. Let’s go home.’’

It was on the way home when a sudden thought hit her.

DID PHANTOM TELL DANNY ABOUT HER IDENTITY THE SAME WAY HE DID WITH HER DAD?