#The horse that literally saved me and made my life better who got me passionate about riding again the one I fought tooth and nail to buy

[ratskool]

When u find out that ur first heart horse is dying slowly and the title track to The Fragile comes in handy when the lyrics scream “I WONT LET YOU FALL APART”, ya know?

[phantomphangphucker]

INVISOBANG - Ectoplasmic Educational Employment (Quirky Danny Fenton The Teacher? More Likely Than You Think!)

And the stellar artists that made art for this little fic o’ mine!: 

lanaecomics: ART CHECK IT OUT

AND

Trash Shipper; ART CHECK IT OUT

---

Danny isn’t exactly a fresh graduate with a lot of options after Highschool. College wasn’t happening and where the Hell was going to hire him? Mr. Lancer and CasperHigh apparently. As what? As a teacher. A teacher on the subject of ghosts, because of course everything in Danny’s life will be ghost-related. But maybe ghosts, ghost society at large, and even the goddamn Observants will actually think this is, like, a good? thing. He also, apparently, doesn’t suck at it. He’s still weird, eccentric, partly dead, and goddamn eighteen though

Prologue: Employing The Unemployable

Danny never really expected to graduate, honest to goodness he did not, yet his chronically-tardy-randomly-disappearing-handing-shit-in-late-or-never ass has managed to get that stupid slip of paper that was nearly basic necessity to get any halfway decent job; which was, frankly, a load of horse crap. Half the shit school taught was useless and most of it he wasn’t going to remember in three days none the less a year from now; or however long it took to find a job that actually required said useless knowledge. Though really? that wasn’t something he actually had to worry about, seeing as there was basically a zero percent chance of him having anything close to something even resembling a ‘normal’ job.

He could work for his folks? Financially lucrative and everything regarding the subject of ghosts has been effectively beaten into his brain by this point. Whether it was due to being around it so often or to save his own hide from his folks' inventions. He could also arguably get a shady as shit job, he was definitely skilled at lying, hiding, sneaking around, playing a role, even stealing and fighting. Plus a subordinate who can shoot energy beams and turn invisible would probably be a mob bosses, or whatever’s, wet dream. But, uh, that was probably not the best idea in the world; especially when Amity didn’t even have mobs and drugs and shit really. And why would they? They had freaking ghosts. Also having hallucinogenics would just be fucking overkill at this point. Plus Vlad already filled the quota for ‘dangerous men in dark suits that smoke cigars and drink whiskey while planning peoples demise or manipulating them like chess pieces".

Getting a job at the Nasty Burger would be easy enough but he’d get fired so fast. Ditto for working at the town’s only hotel or the gas stations or the grocery store or literally anywhere else minimum wage. Honestly, how the fuck do any of those fictional movie heroes have non-heroing related jobs? Excluding the super-rich ones with public identities anyways. Unrealistic. Completely unrealistic.

Sighing and flopping down on his bed, at least his friends didn’t have this issue. Manson’s don’t work and Tuck’s dumbass has hacked every single security and tech company in at least their entire state so they were basically all scrambling to hire his hacker ass. Val has the Nasty Burger -not that she’d be staying there once she graduated- and not to mention having Vlad’s very very deep pockets at her disposal. Speaking of Val though... Danny chuckles up at the ceiling, “honestly it’s funny as Hell that Val got held back but I didn’t. I mean really? How the fuck did that happen?”, shaking his head and laughing quietly a little more. The rest of the Defect Quartet got a good laugh out of that. Sam and Tuck were never at risk of not graduating, it was just Val and his ass that was a worry. Eh whatever. At least Dash’s dumbass got held back too; not seeing that jocks blonde mug at graduation was goddamn euphoric. It truly, truly was.

Well for now, all Danny can really do is wait, enjoy not having to wake up at the ass crack of dawn to go to school, and hope his folks don’t start go getting on his ass to get work that’s ‘normal’ so he has the experience. To be fair, him knowing what it’s like to work at a normal job would normally be a damn good idea, if he wasn’t a literal superhero who also just so happens to be kinda dead. Dead people shouldn’t have to work in his opinion, but life and deaths not fair so whatever. At least his poor abused bed was soft as shit though, that was something.

Danny nearly jumps out of his skin when his mom knocks on the door, jerking him out of his thoughts, “sweetie! It’s Mr. Lancer! He wants to talk to you!”. Oh Ancients fuck, why? Hopefully, graduation comes with a no tack backsies rule or something because that would be just his luck. Danny swings up his legs and gets up off his bed, mildly shouting, “coming!”. Popping open his door while his mom gives him a seriously judgemental ‘you better not have done something stupid’ raised eyebrow as she hands him the phone; him smiling sheepishly as he takes the phone and re-closes his bedroom door.

Eyeballing the phone with just a mild amount of apprehension before putting it to his ear, “yeah? What’s up, Lance?”.

“Hello Daniel, how’s life as a graduate treating you?”.

Danny chuckles, “that depends on whether or not you’re about to tell me I didn't actually graduate and some kind of wild and unlikely mistake popped up”.

Lancer actually laughs lightly at that, “no nothing like that, you graduated fairly, Daniel. Though considering your poor attendance I’m not surprised you’d be suspicious”. Danny grins to himself a little at that but fuck, not his fault man. Not his fault... Technically. “I was actually wondering how job searching is treating you. Working for your parents seems... less than safe even if that seems like the obvious choice for you”.

Danny nods to himself and chuckles, too true there. Smirking a little, “oh if anyone knows how dangerous FentonWorks is, it’s me”. Sometimes he’s honestly amazed no one’s ever called CPS on him or anything. FentonWorks was a death trap waiting to happen, literally; him being walking proof and all that. Shrugging to himself, “and you know I’m not exactly suited for a nine to five, Lance”, and he’s not even going to mention the fact that Vlad would hire him in a heartbeat because that is so not happening no matter how ‘good-ish’ the man was nowadays. Working for him would be a dangerous game no matter how Danny looked at it; for both of them.

“I don’t think I could even imagine you working an office job or as a cashier. But if not nine to five, then how about noon to three?”.

Danny blinks at that, huh? “um what?”, shaking his head a little and blinking again, “short shift there but you know me, how often did I ever stay in class for the full forty minutes, or whatever?”.

“Fifty-five, Daniel, And I’m sure you could stay for an hour given the right encouragement and approach”.

Danny sighs and tilts his head back, “I don’t need money that badly, man, geez”, shaking his head, “what are you even suggesting though?”. Is Lancer seriously offering him a job? Where even? Short as shit hours though, which technically worked well-ish for him. He never has a consistent time slot where no ghosts show up though.

“Well I’m sure your parents have heard about the ecto-ology class the school board decided to pass”, Lancer grumbling seemingly to himself, “long time coming if you ask me, too long”, speaking up a bit, “your class should have had it, not that you needed it”.

Danny snorts, fair point there, “yeah I could probably have taught it better than the damn teacher”, blinking, wait a fucking minute, “Lancer what the fuck. Are you asking me to teach it???”. What the actual shit. Sure, he could do it, technically, but still. The fuck, shaking his head, “don’t you, you know, need schooling to be a teacher? And come on, I am the exact opposite of teacher material, or whatever”. Seriously, the Hell. The Ancients are probably actively mocking him right now. That or Danny’s totally wrong and making a complete ass of himself.

“You’re irresponsible and... eccentric, yes, but you’re intelligent and excitable about your interests; and really, a teacher is someone who’s hyper interested and passionate about their field of education”, Danny can almost hear a smirk in Lancer’s voice, “don’t even try to tell me you’re not passionate about ecto-ology, I’ve overheard more than enough conversations between you and your friends to know otherwise. Though yes, the number of times I’ve heard you mention ghost jail was more than a little concerning. Especially when it sounded like it was personal on-the-inside experience”.

Danny blinks, “Lance, you frighten me. Now I’m seriously wondering even more why the school never called on my folks, or whatever”. This just in, apparently a vice principal was perfectly willing to just ignore a student going to jail in an alternate dimension. Repeatedly.

“As if that would actually help. Your parents are good, if crazy and negligent, people. And I have a feeling you’re perfectly capable of getting into trouble without their involvement. So what do you say? It’s completely within my power to hire you on the spot”.

Danny pulls the phone away from his cheek and makes wild hand gestures at it, again what the fuck. Though yeah, his folks aren’t half bad, excluding the whole ectophobia thing. Scrunching up his face at his phone before returning it to his cheek, “uh thanks? You know, for not getting my folks in shit”, shaking his head and smirking a little, “so you know a lot of the trouble is just me being me and you’re inviting me to once again spend five days a week at one of the local ghost hotspots? Do you like suffering, Lance?”.

That actually gets a laugh out of the vice-principal, “the ghosts certainly keep things interesting but no, hiring you instead of your parents would reduce the chaos. Your parents are far bigger trouble makers than you ever have been”.

“That feels like a challenge”. Danny absolutely smirks to himself over the sigh that comment gets him before continuing, “though yeah, my dad plus the school five days a week sounds like you’d be actively begging the universe to blow up the entire place while simultaneously covering it in green goo and maybe accidentally teleporting it to an alternate dimension. To be fair, dad’s only managed that twice on the house so far”. And his mom still won’t let the man live down either event, understandable. Sighing, his parents being walking collateral damage machines was useful in school since it kept nearly every teacher from calling them in, but now it was mildly biting him in the ass. Though now that he’s thinking about... who else could the school call in? Val was still in school and the school didn’t officially know about her ‘extracurricular activities’ -though Danny would bet an entire model rocket that most of the teachers knew or at least had a very very good guess- so she was out. Then there was the G.I.W. which... just no. Fuck no. Super bad idea. So that just left his ass, and fine, arguably it would be a decent enough job and Lancer wasn’t exactly wrong about Danny knowing his shit and being a bit excitable about ghosts. He couldn’t help it alright? He was raised on it and actually excelled at it. Plus, he was a ghost; knowing was survival. Plus plus, having someone who isn’t ectophobic teach the ghost class would probably be a good idea. Val was better but... she tried to use the Box Ghost’s face as a battering ram because her closet door got stuck last week, ‘nough said. Sighing again, “okay fine, I think you’re inviting disaster but all your other options would also do that”.

Lancer laughs lightly and sips something, probably tea knowing the man, “agreed. So you’ve got the summer to come up with a curriculum, nothing too serious for the first semester so I’m sure you can handle it”. Danny scowls audibly, though fine how much harder could making a teaching thingy be than overthrowing corrupt ghost government/royals? Fuck him entirely. “Don’t worry, I’ll send over some useful tips and tricks, a little guide; because you are right, typically teachers go to school to learn how to teach”.

Danny gives one very sarcastic and deadpanned, “you don’t say”, in response to that. Great, now he’s got homework over summer, just really weird homework that’ll technically include creating homework for other people. Weeee. Fun. Ugh. But hey, maybe this’ll actually not suck. Shaking his head and chuckling a little, “you know, I’m starting to think you might actually like me, Lance”.

Lancer simply laughs faintly at that. “How about we meet up sometime next week and I’ll see how far you’ve gotten and your ideas”.

Danny leans his head back, “ugh fine”, grumbling to himself, “oh Ancients I’m ‘hanging out’ with my old teacher, fuck me”, and hangs up though more than a little sure that Lancer probably heard that last bit.

Danny rubs his eyes in circles after a bit, sighing again, and picks up his cellphone.

thealiveone: guess who got a job offer first? Suck it tuck

PDAxpda : bullshit, where????

thealiveone: lets just say that lance decided I needed to see things from my poor teachers persepectives

PDAxpda: oh god XD poor casperhigh

Nightshade: So youre becoming part of the ststem? Really Danny?

Nightshade: but with fhosts

PDAxpda: ha! You’re becoming your parents!

thealiveone: HEY! AM NOT!

thealiveone: ...kinda

thealiveone: but hey, ghost teachin bout ghoss. Love the irony

Nightshade: 🙄

thealiveone: ancients be happy for a guy why dontcha geez

thealiveone: even if it’s stupid

thealiveone: and I’ll totally wind up having to ditch and be late and shit

PDAxpda: typical you

thealiveone: 😢

Nightshade: fine but at least be a quirky ‘teacher’ and not some lame rule follower ass

thealiveone: me? Not be quirky? Fuckin riiiiiiiight

PDAxpda: *snort*

thealiveone: anywhay

thealiveone: think I should do a bit on ghost hunger just to make lance regret his chocoes?

Nightshade: 🤦🏻‍♀️

PDAxpda: YES!!!

thealiveone: 😏

Danny had ideas now, and he was about to make them EVERYBODY'S PROBLEM. As he should.

Chapter 2: Cursed From Entry Level

Today was the day, yup it certainly was; Danny side-eyes his ghost-shaped alarm clock. The first Monday of a new school year; which normally shouldn’t mean shit to him since he graduated and all that but fuck his dumbass agreed to turn around and come right back as a goddamn teacher. Why did he do that? That was stupid. Well not really but now that it’s a little past eleven and he has to actually get up, get dressed, and go do the thing that he agreed to do. Fuck. Responsibilities suck. And if anyone’s allowed to say that it’s him, superhero responsibilities kinda outclass all others so suck it. Sighing and flopping an arm over his eyes, had he been smart and bought teacher clothes? No. Or prepared an introduction speech thingy? Also no. Or even bothered to tell literally anyone other than his friends and family that he now worked at CasperHigh? Definitely no, let the fuckers be surprised. He had, however, printed out copies of the syllabus; which fine, was largely because Lancer nagged him about it so much that he did it out of spite. Danny bets being manipulative was totally something taught in teacher school; not that Danny really particularly needed to be taught that… especially when he could just go to Vlad for that kind of ‘tutoring’, not that he actually would. Regardless, he now officially had to get up.

Sighing very loudly into his arm before moving to push himself up and walk over to his closet; did any of his shit qualify as ‘professional’? Haha fuck no. But oh well, screw it. Might as well lean into this ghost teacher thing and the ’Fenton’s are eccentric weirdos’ thing. Time for a ‘I Got A Boo Boo On My Funny Bone Isn’t That Very Humerus?’ sweater and some crust punk pants that are more patches than fabric. He is so not wearing a tie or bow tie though, bandana? Shrugging he nabs up a little alien one that had only a couple small ectoplasm stains, “if anyone asks, lab accident”, and smirks to himself while tying the thing around his neck, shrugging, then heading downstairs for breakfast.

His dad looks up and grins, waving a hand while the other’s still tinkering away on some gun, “morning Danno! Heading off to school?”, tilting his head and chuckling heartily, “or to teach, I should say!”.

Danny rolls his eyes but smiles and chuckles, moving to grab out the cereal, “yup, bet it’s gonna be interesting. My poor fellow teachers”, Danny absolutely smirks at that, because damn they’re gonna hate Lancer for a while once they realise they’re stuck with him for who knows how long. Sure he’ll only be actually there for, like, what an hour or two or so? Eh something like that. He honestly hopes Lancer didn’t tell all the teachers because he absolutely wants to see all of them look at him, do a double-take, and sigh in resigned defeat and pain. Danny can’t help snickering a bit to himself as he eats his food and his dad goes back to tinkering; though with a far bigger grin on his face.

Danny actually manages to get out the door just as his mom’s coming up from the lab, her waving at him erratically, “have a good day at work, sweetie!”, she sounds more than just a little excited to be saying ‘work’ in regards to him. Did make some sense, seeing as he didn’t exactly have any kind of real job opportunities. At least neither of them tried to insist on driving him there, letting him get in a good midday fly instead; one of these days they are seriously going to wonder how the heck he gets places so fast without driving.

-

Landing behind the school in his usual spot Danny takes a few steps back and just kinda stares up at the building for a hot minute, “I don’t know whether this feels nostalgic, daunting, or just surreal”, shaking his head, “well I guess I just better get to it, everyone should be in class right now... right?”, tilting his head as he turns invisible and intangible, stepping through the wall, “how the fuck have I already forgotten the schedule? Ancients”. Thankfully there is, in fact, not a single person and/or spirit in the hallway. He even effectively avoids everyone on his way to the teachers' lounge and successfully uses the key Lancer gave him to get in. Of course, it’s not empty inside though, expected honestly.

Danny pokes his head in and immediately spots Mr. CampBell and grins wickedly, “heeeey”; and the teacher damn near jumps out of his skin before snapping his head around to the door. Mr. CampBell visually recoils, “oh god why are you here?”.

Score! Lancer absolutely did not tell the staff. Danny snickering as he waltzes in, “oh don’t you know? Lancer hired me”. Mr. CampBell turns away and sighs very loudly, Danny absolutely hearing the whispered, “why? I thought William actually liked his coworkers”. Danny only snickers meanly as Lancer walks out from around one of the corners, “we needed an ecto-ology teacher, he’s a perfectly reasonable choice, Joseph”. Huh, so that’s CampBell’s first name. Lancer then turning to Danny and handing him off a coffee cup, gesturing to the corner he just walked out around, “there’s more in the kitchen, since I’m well aware you practically live on the stuff”.

Danny blinks, grins, and moans comically, “oh my Ancients, there’s free coffee in here”.

Lancer quirks an eyebrow faintly at that, “I did tell you”.

Danny shrugs, “eh I thought you were just trying to sweeten the deal for me, Lance”, then taking a sip, “pretty weak shit though”. Lancer quirks his eyebrow further, “it’s free, Daniel”. Danny rolls his eyes, “yeah well, I think I’ll bring in some Deathwish”.

Joseph gives him one very concerned look, “is that an official real coffee or something your crazy parents made?”, he sounds more than a little hesitant for the answer there. Good. Danny smirks, “oh it’s real, and lives up to the name, drinking the cold brew might actually kill you from botulism. The regular coffee is only the world’s strongest stuff though”, then finger-gunning at the man.

Lancer shakes his head as he sits down on the couch, “you concern me some days”, pursing his lips, “most days”, then sips at his coffee. Joseph shakes his head, “I’m just going to head to my classroom”, pointing at Lancer, “you keep that demon child’s classroom consistent, I do not want that ectoplasm stuff getting mixed with Charles’s science nerd stuff”, and throws Danny a scowl before leaving.

Lancer shakes his head before looking to Danny, “your classroom is going to be consistent though, considering I know exactly how often your homework had to be put in biohazard instead of the filing cabinets”. Danny rubs his neck a bit sheepishly at that while Lancer leans forwards, arms on his knees, “do you have everything ready? I could sit in on your first few classes if you’d like”.

Danny snorts, “somehow I think that would just get me mocked, Lance”, smirking, “but that depends on how much you want to leave me unsupervised with a bunch of teens and ectoplasmic substances”.

“You’re... not bringing out ectoplasm on the first day, are you?”.

Danny snickers, “maybe...”. Lancer sighs very loudly but Danny decides to take some amount of pity on the man, “mostly I brought ecto-proofing stuff since I don’t think you want to be replacing stuff a bajillion times. Anyway, can I paint the whiteboard ectophobic green? I mean the ectophobic bit laterally”. Lancer only sighs louder but does nod while putting his face in his hand. Smart man. Danny should probably just go ahead and do that immediately though, the walls and desks and stuff can happen later or fuck he can just make it an assignment because why the fuck not?!? Danny downing the rest of the coffee, clapping his legs, and getting up, “whelp I’mma go do that then”. Lancer speaking up just before he gets to the door, “I will be checking in on you, but feel free to call or ‘text away’ if you need anything”. Danny cringes a little but nods.

Are the hallways empty this time? Nope. Does Danny’s mere presence cause a bunch of whispering as he’s heading to his assigned classroom? Absolutely. Everyone knew who the Fenton’s were, he himself might have techically been a ‘loser weirdo’ but he was also simultaneously popular in the infamous kinda way, especially at school. Most of the comments -that his wonderful ghostly hearing let’s him pick up on easily- are along the lines of ‘guess he didn’t graduate, no surprise there’ or ‘why the fuck’s he here?’, some of the freshmen react with mock horror though so that’s amusing. When Danny gets to his designated room he absolutely spends his before class time painting the board and just throws the rest of his stuff on the provided desk. He is not a tidy person and that is so not gonna change.

He was, however, so not prepared for Val to walk through the door first though. Her and Danny making eye contact, Danny blinking, “‘kay why the fuck would you be here?”. She gives him a dumb look, “hey you yourself, Danny”, then scrunches up her face and sags, “oh my Zone, you are seriously the teacher? You were serious about that? We’re all gonna die”. Danny just smirks while she slumps down in a desk, him scribbling his name on the board quickly; Ancients if anyone calls him ‘Mr. Fenton’ he’ll gag. Speaking of gagging though, putting his class right after lunch was probably not the smartest move on the principal's part. Gives him the perfect excuse to do something weird and just eat ectoplasm or something.

Valerie bangs her head on the desk before looking back up to him, putting her chin in a palm, “though I guess I am kinda curious what the heck you’ll teach with this, you’re always so tightlipped about ghost stuff”.

Danny chuckles and shakes his head a little, glancing back to her before turning around to sit down in his provided chair, not nearly enough burn holes yet to actually feel like his though. He’ll have to fix that, “with you. We don’t exactly see eye to eye on things”. She scoffs at that and rolls her eyes, but other fellow teens are coming in so she doesn’t give him any kind of actual response.

Every single teen does at least a slight pause at seeing Danny in the teacher's chair before taking seats. some say nothing, some swear lightly, others groan, and then there’s goddamn Dash??? Why was that jock taking this class? Better yet, why did it have to be Danny’s luck that Dash would even want to.

“Well if it isn’t Fenturd”. At least half the class snickers or coughs to cover laughs.

Danny glares at the jock, “I can give detentions now, don’t be stupid”, smirking, “or I can just designate you as the ‘helping hand’ and you can handle all the ectoplasmic shit I am absolutely going to bring in”. Dash takes his seat real quick after that while Val’s busy snickering at his expense.

Danny leans back in his chair as the bell goes off, “whelp, guess this is happening now”. Valerie puts her head down and laughs a little, a couple other teens laughing a little themselves while Danny continues, “okay, so obviously I’m the teacher, which honestly? more than a few of you should have seen that one coming”, nodding to himself, “now in case you somehow do not know who I am and also somehow missed Dash being an ass and calling me ‘Fenturd’, I’m Danny Fenton the youngest Fenton, and yeah I’m your teacher because literally no one else is remotely qualified or safe enough to do this”.

More than a few people mutter ‘that's fair’ or something similar. His folks being walking talking time bombs wasn’t exactly a secret and the G.I.W. were honestly more dangerous than the ghosts.

Danny chuckles to himself, digs in his backpack and gets up, “and also, in case you didn’t even bother to look at the class you agreed to take or what was written on the class schedule thingy”, Danny cups the little semi-solid ball of ectoplasm and slaps it on the whiteboard, it spattering across neon green and glowing, “welcome to Ecto-ology! And that!-”, pointing at the green splattered board, “-that’s ectoplasm!”, then shaking a jar of SignalShines -little tiny firefly-like blob ghosts- on the little tray attached to the whiteboard typically used for the markers, “and that’s some ghosts! Some very tiny ghosts”.

Valerie snorts and laughs, muttering, “oh no”, into her hand. Since she obviously figured out that Danny wasn’t going to even attempt at being a ‘normal fucking teacher’. Most of the class snickers and starts laughing after a bit, that or eyeballing the ectoplasm splatter/ghost-filled jar. Danny waving the board and everything off limply, “I ecto-proofed the whiteboard already so don’t bother calling the ecto-hazard line”, then making a point to sound ominous and mildly threatening, “they won’t come”. Which absolutely gets him more laughs and a couple shivers, seeing as he could actually legit pull off scary if he felt like it. Perks of being a ghost and ridiculously highly combative and confrontational.

Danny absolutely hands the syllabus paper stack to Dash to hand out, largely as payback for the name-calling. “So since this year this class is only an optional elective, being a trial run and all that, lets do the whole introduce-yourselves-even-though-I-already-know-who-you-all-are thing with why you took this class and, for funsies, who’s your favourite ghost”. Dash does give him a dirty look, which Danny smirks over, but what follows is people saying their names and giving reasons and shit.

Danny decides to smear around the whiteboard ectoplasm to write down ghost names and tally up how many people say that ghost. Is it mostly Phantom? Yes; even Val votes for him but that’s understandable since she actually got along with Phantom, for the most part, these days. Somehow the Box Ghost earns the second most tallies, Ember’s in third not all that surprising, and two people actually threw a vote Johnny’s way. As for why people took the class?

Well Valerie claims she wants to know more about ghosts and leaves it at that, earning some eye-rolls from the class seeing as everyone knew how she felt about the spookies. Dash took it because a Fenton was teaching, which is information Danny doesn’t know what to do with; what the fuck does that mean? And everyone else? To learn about ghosts (sure), for self-defence (good reason actually. Practical), better than the other electives (fair and probably accurate), easy grade (or so they think... maybe), because it absolutely was going to be chaotic (hundred percent yes). Danny’s content and smirking just a little bit.

Danny sits on the corner of his desk -why not?- and waves a hand around limply, “alright, semi-proper introduction of myself. I’m sure pretty much all of you are damn well aware of FentonWorks and it being basically the only ecto-tech company -besides the ever overpriced Dalvco- and that it is responsible for all the shields and ecto-weapons and all that jazz in town. Surprise surprise, I’ve worked on or outright built a lot of that stuff”, sounding incredibly sarcastic, “truly shocking, I know”, earning him a couple snickers/laughs. “Now you might think that since my folks literally invented the stuff and are some of the only published scientists in the field of ecto-ology that they’re more qualified to do this teacher thing, ignoring the fact that they would probably blow the classroom up or accidentally get everyone teleported into the ghost Zone randomly”, pointing at the class, “not an exaggeration”, before continuing properly, “but guess what? They've never actually explored the Zone or sat down and actually talked to a ghost”, putting a hand to his chest, “I, however, have. So yeah, qualified”; and snaps his fingers a bit dramatically.

James mutters, “not sure that actually means qualified”; and he’s not the only one. Expected, seeing as Danny was not actually qualified to be a teacher obviously.

Danny sticks up a finger, “I have no teacher qualifications though, but Lance decided he just does not care”, getting up and walking to the board, moving around the ectoplasm, “and as for my fav ghostie, you’ve never heard of them”, and scrawls out ‘ClockWork’ on the list of favourite ghosts. Turning back to the class, “ClockWork’s existence is mildly forbidden knowledge, so have fun with-”, Haley shrieking interrupts and most of the class going wide-eyed gets him to turn around and see the very well done drawing of ClockWork looking right at Danny with a glare, there is an ‘I’m flattered, Daniel’ written under it though so... Danny can’t help but bend over wheezing a little, “oh I so saw that coming!”, shaking his head and chuckling, “or something similar at least”. Okay he expected to get smacked over the head with an invisible staff out of nowhere, not a passive-aggressive yet still somehow fond drawing. Straightening up and turning back to the class while whipping at his eye, “y’all signed up for this, remember that”.

Danny sits down and starts going over the syllabus, because that’s what he’s supposed to do, but Jesse interrupts him halfway through, “are we just ignoring everything that just happened with the magic drawing?”. Danny looking at him and smirking, “a good rule of thumb in life is when the literal god of time chastises you, you move on immediately. Just good life advice if you want to keep doing the whole living thing”. Expectedly that gets him a lot of staring. Danny rolls his wrist around, “that Vortex ghost is also a god by the by. Same with UnderGrowth. Pandora’s a minor god technically”, tilting his head, “then there’s the whole mess of Pariah who’s pretty much just a way worse version of Hades”, smirking, “Amity’s seen some big names in the ghost world”.

“What the fuck”.

Danny just snickers at that while Valerie puts her head in her hands and shakes it.

Surprisingly the rest of the class is seemingly going normally, Lancer did stick his head in and eyeball the whiteboard which Danny gave him a ‘what did you expect from me? Honestly’ smirk for, and surprisingly no one decided to ask Danny how the actual fuck he knew the time god if they even believed him on that anyway. But maybe five minutes before class is over, Danny’s ghost sense goes off, because of fucking course, but it just feels like Boxy. So Danny, smirking, checks his phone to use as some kind of excuse for how he knows the Box Ghost’s here, gets up and goes to the window, opening it up, sticking his head out, and shouting, “HEY BOXY!”. That, of course, gets the ghost's attention immediately, who does his scary fingers thing, “YOU DARE DRAW THE ATTENTION OF THE MOST FEARSOME GHOST IN EXISTENCE! THE BOX GHOST!”. Danny just rolls his eyes, points towards the whiteboard in the classroom and shouts back, “WE DID A POLL! YOU'RE THE SECOND MOST FAVOURITE GHOST!”. The Box Ghost stares at him for a bit, goes a little wide-eyed, floats towards the ground, and starts crying. Danny pulls his head back in while cackling, looking back to the class, “congrats, we’ve just made the Box Ghost cry”; which absolutely makes everyone start laughing as the bell goes off. Danny smirking more, “I feel very accomplished with myself”.

Surprisingly most of his freaking students actually wave him goodbye, which is weird as heck but also kinda cool, Dash just scowls at him though; get fucked dick-weed. Val stays behind a bit, expected, and sits on the corner of his desk, “so this is really happening, huh?”.

“Yup. Guess so”, leaning back in his chair a little, “you gonna turn this into a debate club or?”, chuckling, “though I doubt you’ll actually learn a whole lot”. She nods at that, “I could probably teach this myself”, grumbling, “if I wasn’t still stuck as a student”, sighing, “I’m not gonna argue in class though, I know you’re ghost friendly, Danny, that’s gonna show obviously”, shrugging and smirking a little, “I just might need a little bit more proof before I take your word on something”.

“Just for that I’m going to bring in Cujo next class”.

“You wouldn’t”.

Danny smirks, “try me. He’ll really liven up the lesson on classifications of ghost types. Truly he is one of the best examples of an animal ghost”. She sounds downright offended, “then bring in a freaking ectopuss! Not the life-ruining dog!”.

“But everyone loves dogs, Val”, Danny smirks, “besides, ectopusses aren’t proper animal ghosts, they’re a type of blob ghost”. She grumbles a bit incoherently before muttering, “dick”, and leaving for her next class; leaving Danny chuckling.

(And Valerie absolutely spent the next day’s class glaring bloody murder at a tiny green puppy, inspiring slight fear and concern in her classmates; Danny just looked progressively more smug which only made his students more concerned).

-

Before Danny actually managed to leave the school, since he didn’t actually have to be there outside of his one class though something tells him that if the ecto-ology trial run works out then he’ll be stuck ‘teaching’ it two or three times a day. Ugh but also so much potential chaos. Anyway, Lancer catches up to him, sounding just slightly out of breath, “your first teaching experience go well, Daniel?”.

Danny smirks, “brought a ghost to tears, only made one mild ecto-hazard, and possibly annoyed a few thousand ghost cops; so good day actually”. Lancer stares at him a little, “should I be concerned”. Reasonable question.

“Maybe”, Danny chuckles, “to be fair, me teaching people about ghosts was absolutely going to piss off the eyeballs, said eyeballs are some ghost cops, it’s complicated”, chuckling a little though sounding/being a bit serious, “technically I really am the best choice for this, I know more than my folks or the G.I.W. do by miles”, smiling softly and a bit pitying a little, “and I know somethings that the living aren’t exactly supposed to”.

Lancer eyes him and shakes his head slightly, “I know, Daniel. I know”. Danny absolutely quirks an eyebrow at that because what the Hell does Lancer mean by that? So he just gives a simple, “oh?”, for a response; weak as shit but it’ll have to do. Lancer nods, “I’m not as oblivious as I let the students think, so yes I know. Though try to keep your, ghost activities let’s say, outside of the classroom? Don’t bring students into your spat with ghost cops”.

Danny actually coughs, again what the fuck. Shaking his head a little bug-eyed, “again, you scare me, Lance”, shaking his head again, “though no, their problem with me is the fact that I exist, so”, and shrugs; Danny is still a little goddamn thrown here. Lancer sighs, “I guess I should have expected that. And I’ll admit to having some questions about that, but-”, putting a hand on Danny’s shoulder, “-I don’t truly need an answer there”. Danny, for a lack of knowing what else to do, finger guns; Lancer looks less than impressed.

Chapter 3: Ghosts In The Know

It takes a total of three days for a ghost to actually show up during Danny’s designated class time -the Box Ghost and ClockWork’s sudden appearances don’t count- and while Danny’s fairly certain Lancer at least has some kind of guess about the whole Phantom thing Danny’s not going to just go ghost in goddamn class; that would have been dumb when he was a student and it would only be dumber to do as a freaking teacher. At least as a student he didn’t have a class worth of people somewhat staring at him. But hey at least he had just been facing the whiteboard when his breath decided to be all icy fog, that was something; him watching it frost up the board for a couple of seconds and attempting to verbally steamroll right over the random sudden pause in his speaking. He also absolutely can hear Val’s scanner do its little proximity warning beep.

“-but we’re not talking about Cores today even if that’s unique to proper ghosts, so not getting into that right now”. Turning around and putting down the marker, seeing as he can’t exactly just let Skulker go running around. “Now I’ll be right back”, he almost says ‘bathroom’ but as a teacher he doesn’t need to do that shit anymore, he doesn’t have to justify himself to fucking nobody. But just before he gets to the door he points at Val, who’s mouth is slightly open and is definitely absolutely about to ask if she can go, so he smirks, “and no. You can’t”. She looks so confused and a bit freaked out that he can’t help laughing. He does catch James mutter, “did he just pull his bathroom thing? Seriously?”; which just makes Danny laugh to himself even more as he ducks off around a corner to transform.

He doesn’t have to go very far seeing as Skulker was practically directly outside of the area where his classroom was, looking supremely confused and quirking a robotic eyebrow with his arms crossed at Danny, “really, whelp?”. Danny flips him off and shoots him one in the face pretty well immediately, which starts off their standard combat. Skulker shooting off a rocket with a snide and definitely meant to be insulting comment of, “never would have pegged you for teaching or for telling humans our secrets”.

Danny near shouting back with a snort, “secrets my ass! Shove a floppy disk in it!”. That very predictably gets him a more well-aimed rocket to the face.

-

Meanwhile, in the classroom, Jesse glances around, “should we even be surprised?”.

“No but since he’s, you know, the teacher, I’m pretty sure he shouldn’t be playing hooky or whatever”.

Valerie snorts, “oh as if Lancer didn’t know what he was getting into here. Besides Danny was never going to be a normal anything”. Dash smirks and laughs meanly, “no shit, damn freak”. Valerie absolutely throws an eraser at him for that.

“I’m more curious how he predicted Valerie pulling her own bathroom thing”.

“Obvious answer there, he does it so he knows it”.

“Damn, got a point”.

Valerie grumbles and crosses her arms, “and here I thought he’d be totally cool with that”. Emilie laughing, “yeah you’d think, especially if he was going to keep doing it”. Todd pushes himself to stand up with a smirk, “Well I vote we go through his desk, this is Danny after all”; more than a few people look curious, some look cautious though.

Valerie blinking, before smirking and laughing to herself, “yes, go right ahead, do that, see what happens”. That earns even more cautious looks. Valerie knew Danny, had been in his house and room, she knew exactly what kind of state those two places were in. His desk drawers were absolutely boobytrapped. Todd, however, doesn’t give a shit, and just shrugs while moving up to said desk.

Valerie isn’t even slightly surprised when a bunch of snakes-in-a-can pop out of the very first drawer Todd opens, they’re all green because of course they are. Todd mutters a slightly startled, “fuck”, and kicks one of the snakes.

“HA! Suck it, Todd”.

James shakes his head, eyeing the green fake snakes, “I have a feeling that everything in this class is going to be ghost-themed”. Valerie rolls her eyes, “obviously, have you somehow missed the ghost-themed clothing? Or the fact that Danny is, and has always been, a damn pun machine?”. Over half the class groans or chuckles. Valerie rolling her hand and leaning back, “pretty sure he was wearing a pair of Sam’s platforms today, the ones with little plastic green ghosts shaking around inside”. Dash mutters almost absently, “huh, so that’s why he seems taller today”.

“Dash... why are you noticing his freaking height”.

“Shut up, Jesse. I can’t physically shove him in lockers anymore but I sure as shit can imagine it”.

Valerie sighs very loudly at that, but at least Dash wasn’t quite stupid enough to try bullying a teacher. Even if that teacher was Danny and the same age as him. Which, talk about wild. She honestly did not believe Danny for a second when he said he would be teaching at CasperHigh and yet here he was. Teaching. It was definitely weird, but at least nothing had blown up yet. Hopefully Phantom went and dealt with Skulker though, she’d think Danny would be one who let people leave whenever, guess not. Her scowling a little over that. Todd opening up another drawer and a black and white ghost popping their head out jerks her right out of her head though. Todd falling on his ass and scrambling back, “holy shit! What the fuck!”.

James blinks and wheezes, standing up like basically everyone else, “Danny had a whole ass ghost in his desk, what?!?”. Said ghost floats up, looks around, and waves; while the entire class just stands there, many with ecto-pistols drawn at this point.

“I’m picking up a lot of hostility here, busters”.

Todd grumbles, “you have got to be shitting me”. The ghost tilts their head, “I don’t think Phantom would like that very much. Totally not tubular”. Valerie facepalms and lowers her small blaster, “you’re that old ghost that haunts one of Danny’s old lockers, aren’t you”. The ghost gives her a thumbs up, “that’s the dealio!”.

“... and why were you just in his desk drawer?”.

The ghost crosses their skinny arms and huffs, “when I picked up on the Ha-Danny being here again I had to make sure that buster wasn’t up to his bully ways again”. Dash actually burst out laughing and drops back into his seat at that, “Fenton?!? A bully?!? Man what are you smoking?!?”; which the ghost gives him a very strange look for.

“Poindexter, by the Ancients, how many times do I have to tell you that I wasn’t being a bully, I was getting back at one. Geez”. The entire class goes still and snaps their heads around to Danny, who’s just casually walking in. Dash muttering, “I knew that twerp was the one screwing with me”.

Poindexter rolls his eyes, “like I believe that, buster. Someone would have to be a real dummy to do that to you”. Danny very obviously glares at the ghost, “I said that Dash is a bully, not that he’s smart”. Dash scowls very audibly, “I’ll make you eat those words, Fentit”. Danny instantly holds up a pink detention slip and smirks, while Dash very obviously holds back shouting expletives at him. The ghost just looks confused. Danny turning to the ghost, having to look up a little as he takes his seat, “like I said, not smart”. Dash just scowls while Danny continues speaking but while looking at the class instead of the ghost, “so where were we?”.

Amber blinks, “are we just ignoring the ghost that popped out of your desk?”; while everyone starts sitting back down slowly.

Danny quirking an eyebrow at the ghost, “why, man?”. While Amber tosses up her hands and sits back down too.

“I was looking for anything suspicious. Never know with you”.

Emilie chuckles to herself, “I like how ghosts apparently find him as suspicious as people do”. Earning her a few nods.

Dash rolls his eyes, “oh like what, ghost-themed pencils? A change of underwear in case his own class scares him?”. Danny starting to hold up another pink slip shuts the jock up real quick. Poindexter looks genuinely surprised and turns to Danny, “hold the phone, you sayin’ that rumour that everyone thinks you’re afraid of ghosts is actually the real deal???”. Danny just sighs, “it was a very good and effective way out of my folks trying to make a hunter of me”. While practically half the class shouts, “THAT WAS FAKE!”, including one stunned Dash who had thought he was being so smart and cruel by taking full advantage of Danny’s ‘fear’.

Danny chuckles and looks around, “yup. Sorry not sorry”. Lancer picks that very moment to stick his head in, looking at the ghost then Danny, “Daniel...”.

Danny sighs and waves him off, “I know, it’s just Poindexter though. He’s here somewhere in the school almost every day and has been for, like, decades. Longer than I’ve been alive at least. He’s just seldom visible. Here’s his haunt”. Lancer sighs, “very well”, and just leaves; clearly not wanting to deal with all of that.

James blinks, “so, uh, is he going to stay or? And how the heck did you, but not the school, know about him?”. Poindexter huffs, crosses his arms, and seemingly vanishes; Danny, however, watches the transparent teen ghost just sort of float to the back of the class while making ‘I’ve got my eyes on you’ finger motions at Danny. Danny rolling his eyes while responding, “maybe, maybe not. And you know that locker that’s rumoured to be haunted that I was randomly assigned to for a while? Yeah that’s totally true. We’ll talk about lair cores later. There was also a mild body-swapping incident”.

“Excuse me?”.

Danny points at James, “I have been through some shit, man. Body swapping with a ghost was less weird and more annoying though”. The entire class just stares at him which he takes as a chance to get back to the lesson plan. “So as I was saying...”.

-

Valerie winds up approaching him after the bell, “you know one of these days I’m going to figure out what the Zone that nickname that ghosts have for you is”. Danny quirks an eyebrow, because of course Poindexter probably nearly called him ‘the halfa’ since that���s what Poindexter literally always called him. Smirking at her, “I don’t doubt that, Val. Just like someday you’ll be fully honest about your, ahem, extracurricular activities”, and chuckles while she rolls her eyes. Her muttering, “oh whatever. Anyway, wanna go to a movie after school or are you too busy with teacher duties”.

Danny huffs, “as if. I only do one class you know, so sure why not”. Lancer picks that moment to stick his head in again, “actually you need to finalise that first assignment, also you do realise that as a teacher you are supposed to watch your language?”.

Danny gives an awkward, “uuuuhhhhh”, before scrunching up his face in a pout, leaning back in his chair dramatically, and whining loudly while Val laughs at him, “do I haaaaavvvvveeee toooooo?”. Lancer’s sigh is a pained one.

(Danny absolutely starts out the next class with, “so one of you s̴͜͝h̴i̶t̡̨͡s snitched on me so prepare for some slight language changes, b͘͘itc͜͝he͢͝ş̛”. Which earned a mixture of confused looks, laughs, and a couple glares at Todd, Dash, and Brittney; who were the most likely suspects. And really no one was actually surprised in the slightest that Danny seemingly knew GhostSpeak, it just tracked honestly).

---

Was Danny looking forward to this first assignment thingy? Haha fuck no. He’s just going to assume marking is Hell but he already established that he wasn’t the kind of sick freak that makes the very first assignment the one required oral presentation or some shitty quiz; and fine he already put down ‘research assignment on an unusual ghost theory you have’ in the syllabus but what the actual crap was he supposed to do for the guild lines of this to avoid getting the kind of ridiculous shit that he himself would write. Because as funny as getting twenty-odd papers about Plasmius’s clear attempts at making up for his fragile masculinity or about Phantom’s fashion choices would be, Danny’d rather not. Well he could just be like: y’all can either do all your papers on Phantom or none, vote now. At least then he would either be prepared to read a bunch of wild shit about himself or go in knowing he won’t have to read any about himself.

Rolling over in bed and sighing, “well I guess I could just limited the second option to known frequently seen ghosts?”, blinking, “oh and none can be on Boxy because I see too much of that problem man as it is”. Speaking of problems, he also has to figure out how he’s going to spend an hour getting stared at by most of his students (fuck that was still super weird) sans an entire hand; because sure the rest of his arm will have reformed by noon, but the hand will still an issue. Too bad he didn’t manage to find the chopped-off limb before it dissipated into free-floating ectoplasm. While he does appreciate that no one’s going to just stumble across his severed limb, getting it back would have been way better. Eh fuck it, super long sleeves day it is, Jazz did attempt at dark humour once and gifted him a straightjacket so what the heck time to look like a crazy person the legit way.

Of course it’s currently three am so he is not getting dressed right now, not a chance.

-

Does he get to fall back asleep and actually stay asleep till eleven or so? No, when does he ever? Fuck ghosts and their lack of caring about his shitty sleep schedule. It’s now five am, his ghost sense has got him mostly shivering awake, and his blankets don’t even qualify as actually still on his bed. Him letting himself slump onto the floor while transforming and starting to float up in the air before only slightly lazily flying out his window. If anyone asks about his eye-bags, he bought them off the black market. Does that make sense? Not really no. Does he care? Also no.

Him floating up on Ember smashing up a street sign with her guitar, pinching his nose while otherwise hanging limply in the air, “Ember, why?”. He’s too tired for this shit, Ancients.

“Anarchy”. She hits the sign again.

Danny sighs, “well could you go be ‘anarchy’ when said anarchy doesn’t result in my sleep becoming anarchy too? I really don’t feel like having the R.E.M. sleep government centres of my brain overthrown today”. That actually gets her to pause and look up at him, smirking and snickering after a bit, “you do look like shit”, then very pointedly looking to his half reformed arm; hey at least he had a proper elbow again! Shove a dick in it, goddamn. He absolutely flips her off before shooting her guitar, “go home, Ember. I have class”.

She gives him a pitying look like an absolute ass, “oh did they not let you graduate from that indoctrinating soul-crushing suffering?”, then grinning almost manically, “let’s burn it down!”.

“Jesus Ancients no, I work there”.

“Oh so you’ve become a cog in the machine for the man”.

Danny sighs very loudly, “okay what capitalist crawled up your ass and died, fuck. And if anything my mere presence is causing chaos”, chuckling hollowly, “one of the other teachers drank my coffee accidentally and was absolutely losing their beans half the day. And only one person’s gotten a mild case of ecto-poisoning”, sighing, “Ancients, Todd’s a dumbass. I mean-”, gesturing vaguely with his intact hand, “-I knew that, but next time he wants to ‘prove he can bend steel’ with a bar of ectoplasm I’m just going to let him break his arm and get full-blown contamination”.

Ember shakes her head, “I say let him. And so you are teaching humans ghost stuff”. Danny just shrugs kinda noncommittally at that. She smirks, “teaching death is more punk rock I guess, babypop”, while attempting to give him a boot kick to the face since she apparently couldn’t leave without causing him some level of bodily harm. He, of course, grabs her ankle and just flips her over him. Hand-to-hand combat was not her strong suit. She does successfully get him one with a laser drumstick though. Which hooray for a burnt hip. Fun. At least he knows she’ll just head back to her lair now, no real need for the capture and release thing; most ghosts pretty firmly decided they’d rather just go home after a Phantom ass beat down than getting sucked into the thermos, so they left immediately. Others were fine to just leave to their business. Some were true bad time problems. And then there was the Box Ghost... fucking moron. Ancients he is going the fuck back to bed.

-

Annnnnndddd now he’s late. Fuck. It’s a little past noon. FUCK. He sighs very loudly while practically scrambling out of bed, getting tangled in the sheets, phasing through the sheets when he remembers he can do shit like that, grabbing random ass shit from his closet and phasing that on. Quick mirror check... and yup, he looks like a dumbass and his sweaters backwards. At least he actually grabbed a sweater, he, however, did not grab pants. But fuck it, shorts it is. Shorts that are shorter on one side than the other because they got burnt and said burn marks are super noticeable on the neon green fabric.

He’s hopping out his window when he tries to grab the frame and just face-plants instead because, fuck, right, no goddamn hand dumbass. Quickly scrambling back and phasing off his sweater while also tripping backwards over the first aid kit he left haphazardly on the floor like a complete lazy idiot. Landing on his floor with an oof and sighing very loudly, just laying there half-naked for a couple of seconds, “why me?”. When he does get up he successfully grabs that straightjacket and makes it out the window, flying off to school while pulling it on.

Danny doesn’t even bother with walking into school, just smacks into the side of the building below the window to his classroom -honestly him having his own classroom still feels slightly surreal but he’s kinda used to it at this point. At least a little anyways- and a quick glance around plus transforming back human and visible and he knows he’s good, his singular hand holding onto the windowsill. Is he cheating by still defying gravity a little? Yes. But one Danny Fenton absolutely does not feel like falling to the ground and making an ass of himself yet again today. Huffing he lifts himself up, head-butts open the window -which can only open both ways because it’s an added safety feature in case a student got phased outside and was trying to get back inside through a closed window. His folks really did think of everything. Well almost everything- and scrambles in while his class freaks out a little. A couple fellow teens even scream/shriek and Ashley -who sits near the windows- actually fell out of her desk. Danny doesn’t even need to look up to hear Val’s extremely audible sigh though.

“What the fuck, Fenton?”.

“Danny!?!”.

“What the Hell?!?”.

“FUCK! Oh Zone thank everything, I thought he was a ghost for a second”.

“You’re late”.

“We’re on the second story, how the Hell did you get up here? And wait, did you head butt a window?? WHY ARE YOU WEARING A STRAIGHTJACKET??

“What????”.

“It’s a look though...”.

“Okay Danny being late isn’t all that weird, but you’d think... Like this is exactly why this class is after noon”.

“Is there a reason your top half and bottom half look like they came from two totally different fashion lines?”.

“Why couldn’t you have been five minutes later? We could have left then”.

“Are you okay?”.

“Danny.... what did you do?”.

“Wait, were you the thump on the wall just now?”.

Danny shuffles to stand up straight and brushes himself off with the long floppy arm-sleeves of the straightjacket, waltzing to the front of the classroom. Fuck he forgot his backpack. Damn. Guess he’ll just have to talk about the assignment instead of handing out the sheet things. Oh well. Turning to the class and gesturing them to shut up by waving his hand around which really just makes the sleeve flap around ridiculously.

Pretty much the entire class bursts out laughing at him after a couple seconds of silence.

Danny sighing, “okay okay, yes I’m late, but class or whatever begins now. Also y’all need to vote on whether your research c̷͝r͟a͘p҉͜ will all be on Phantom or none will be on Phantom. It’s all or nothing, you mǫ͡t̨͘h̴̛e͠r̷͞f̸u̴c̕k̨e͠r͢s̴”. That earns both groans and slight laughs, eh Danny’s cool with that.

Val doesn’t even give him a chance to ask for hand voting when she blinks down at his feet, “Danny... how did you even manage that???”. Danny quirking an eyebrow, “huh?”, then looking down... looking down at his laced-up socks. Fucking damnit. He thought he had phased on shoes, even laced them up; guess he just phased random shoelaces tying around threw his goddamn socks and laced up the socks. Danny sighs and slumps a little, “well okay then, guess today’s a no shoes kinda day”, and sighs again before looking up and shrugging at Val, who huffs disbelievingly at him. Fair.

Todd jerks up his hand, “can we go shoeless too then? Otherwise, unfair”. Danny sighs and waves him off, “go nuts, f̵̧͢uc̴̨ķ̴̕ if I care today”. That earns him a round of blinking and snickering; some people do actually take him up on his apathy and take off their shoes. Dash snapping, “not that I care, but what the Hell happened to you?”. Danny smirks at him, “I decide your grade so you kinda have to care”, and sticks his tongue out him like a petulant brat purely because he can. “I got hit in the head by an ectoplasmicly infused guitar at five am and didn’t regain consciousness till-”, glancing at the clock, “-however many minutes ago”.

Jesse blinks, “I can’t tell if that’s a creative lie... or not”. Danny finger guns before turning to the board and scribbling on it, “alright, voting hand time. Left for no Phantom, right for all Phantom...”.

Annnnnnnd, glancing around at the hands, looks like he’s receiving twenty-odd papers on himself. Wonderful. Whelp hopefully this’ll at least be interesting and mildly creative. Danny nodding with his hand and stump wrist on his hips at the board then turning around to face everyone with a huff, “alright then, now if anyone sends their research to the G.I.W. you automatically fail. I don’t want them getting any more funny ideas and having Phantom around is at least marginally a good thing. Honestly”. Earning him some snickers.

“Just marginally? He’s better than your parents”.

Danny glares at Todd, “hush, y͜ou͟҉ ̵s͞a̸l̴ţ͠y͘̕ ̢w̡͞et̷͡ ̡͠n͟͟ơ̢͝o͏d̡҉le”. Putting his intact hand back on his hips, “my folks aside, assignments. It’s on the syllabus and really you already know what to do so yeah. I’ll give you guys the papers for it tomorrow because, like my shoes apparently, I forgot them”. More than one teen gives him a really weird look and James mutters, “honestly? I think I prefer this, uh, ‘teaching’ style? He’s just so done”.

“More like one of us”.

“He is literally my age, he is one of us”.

“Oh yeah”.

Danny glances up at the ceiling, sighs, and talks slightly louder than necessary, “as for actual lesson plans, more ghost history slash lore, yay-”.

“At least he didn’t forget where he left off”.

Danny points at Todd, because come on man, seriously, “I will steal all your number two pencils, Todd”. James blinking, “why does that work as a legit threat?”. Danny points at him, “because then the scantrons will f̵̨̢u̵c̨͜͡k̶̵ up so he can’t take tests and he’ll have to ask the teacher for one embarrassing himself because no fellow teen would give him theirs because h͘e ̸s̨͢u̸̧̡c̷̡ks̕͠”.

“The fact that that is even slightly thought out and remotely realistic is actually worse”.

Dash actually looks legit slightly concerned and weirded out. Maybe he finally realised Danny’s kinda a whole ass nightmare when he feels like it. That’s without adding in the whole half-ghost clusterfuck he’s got going on.

-

Danny gets about halfway through his class when Charles just straight up opens the door. Danny should booby trap that sometime. “Okay I can���t believe I’m asking you this but tell me you have a spare stapler... what am I looking at here?”.

Danny had been gesturing a bit exaggeratedly at the whiteboard that had a doodle of a couple of Ancients on it, him dropping his arms and turning to the science teacher, “what, in any world, would make you think I have a spare of anything other than coffee, guns, thermoses, and maybe food; though the last one may or may not be inedible. Also, today was a crazy person day so yes this is, in fact, a straightjacket”. The fellow teacher smirks, “get that from the asylum you stayed at?”. Danny rolls his eyes, “oh har har, dickweed”, and chuckles; Charles was one of the teachers he got on better with even if the guy had zero sense of boundaries and sticks his nose in just about anything he found interesting, and Danny was basically a walking ball of interesting. Danny snaps his fingers and turns to the class, “oh I have actually been to an asylum before though”.

Ashley coughs, “Danny, you could make a living off of surprising people with random life bits. Get a tv show”.

Danny’s ghost sense goes off at the exact moment that an echoing voice says, “oh I quite agree”, from the direction of the window.

Charles goes wide-eyed and blurts out, “wellsinceyouclearlydon’thaveastaplerI’mgoingtogofindonebye”, and promptly shuts the door with a slam. Danny, meanwhile, snaps his head to the window and watches the Ghost Writer cross his legs while floating a bit above the windowsill. Danny blinks, “what and why”, and sounding stern enough to make a couple students jump/jerk in their seats. Valerie, Emilie, and a few others have weapons drawn already; expected and good really. The Ghost Writer rolls his eyes faintly and tosses his scarf over one shoulder dramatically while Danny slowly scoots over to his desk, not that the Ghost Writer seems to care, pursing his lips at Danny, “curious. Here I thought you had a hatred for literature and education”.

Danny rolls his eyes harshly, “no. Just Christmas”, pooping open one of the drawers. The class just watching tensely in the background.

“Christmas books”.

Danny rolls his eyes again, “Ancients fuck, man”, smirking a little, “here have some-”, jerking up an orange -that he, yes, had in his desk purely to spite this very specific ghost even though the Ghost Writer basically never came to the Mortal Realm- and stabbing it with his nails to make its juices leak down his hand/arm and makes the room smell noticeably citrusy, “-vitamin C for cannonball so you can shoot on outta here”. Valerie side-eyes Danny with a slightly dumbfounded look before dropping her arms, and her gun, down and turning to him, “seriously?”. Danny just shrugs loosely and bites a chunk out of the orange earning a lot of disgusted looks. Fair, he hadn’t exactly peeled off the skin or anything. But hey, the Ghost Writer looks thoroughly and deeply offended; so that’s a point for Danny.

The Ghost Writer audibly sighs, pushes up his glasses, and closes his eyes for a second before speaking up, “as I’m sure you know, The GhostWriters Manor has a fairly high and active patronage”, glaring a little, “regardless of men of a certain sort being unwelcome“.

Brittney leans over to Ashley, who’s shaking and a little stiff, “oooo I wonder what the heck Danny did. Boy’s banned from a library”. Dash scoffs weakly and a little wide-eyed, “o-oh please, getting banned from a library is, ah, is weak sauce”. Todd smirking at the jock, “smooooth”; and gets flipped off for the comment.

Danny shrugs and bites the orange with emphasis, speaking through a mouthful, “‘ell maye searaint ‘en ould ave ettr tases”, and swallows harshly. The Ghost Writer scowls. Danny quirking an eyebrow after a bit, “soooo?”. Making the ghost shake his head and mutter, “I truly can’t believe this”, then looking to Danny, “as a man of the written word there is a level of... respect, even begrudging respect, for those that teach it”, digging into his satchel and pulling out a card, “you may have a card again”; the Ghost Writer sounds almost physically pained to be saying that. Which of course means Danny absolutely has to bug the guy and the windows being phase-proof gives Danny ample time to do so.

Danny smirks, “and here I thought I was never even granted one in the first place”, and dramatically puts a hand to his chest, sounding overly sarcastic, “iMaGiNe HoW bLeSsEd I mUsT fEeL tO bE rEcEiViNg SuCh A tRuLy SpLeNdId GiFt SuCh As ThIs”, sauntering over in the most fruity and dramatic way he possibly can, popping open the window seductively, and snatching away the card, “ThAnKs BaBe”, and winks like an absolute ass.

Emilie collapses to the floor and starts wheeze laughing.

The Ghost Writer jerks away from him, scowls, and adjusts his glasses while trying to compose himself. Huffing a little, “consider the libraries resources yours, do be at least slightly decent and use them educationally”, the vanishing from sight; Danny following the flying off transparent ghost with his eyes before pulling his front half back into his classroom fully. Huh. Will he actually take up the ghosts offer? Might actually be a good idea also, fuck the gov he now has even more access to information they could only ever salivate over in dreamland.

Turning back to the class, “whelp, that happened”, humming and tilting his head, “too bad I definitely can’t get approval for an impromptu field trip to a ghost library”.

Valerie throws up her hands, slumps back into her desk, shoves her gun back into her bag, and glares at Danny. Todd bursts out laughing while Jesse blinks, “did that just happen?”. Dash screws up his face a little, “the Hell you little wimp?”. Danny’s just going to assume the guy never realised that Danny kinda had a pair of brass balls.

Danny smirks at the class, smacking the whiteboard, “I’m tougher than you, deal with it or eat a pink slip. Now class is basically over so I’m not even going to bother continuing with this, but in case any of y’all are wondering The Ghost Writer gains power from the influence, importance, and popularity of any form of writing that was written by a ghostwriter or anonymously. Totally in charge of basically the biggest library in the Zone, which yes I was banned from apparently due to blowing up a book”. Todd scoffs at that and rolls his eyes, clearly trying to seem unimpressed.

Ashley sticks up a hand and speaks anyway, “did you really not know you were banned?”. Danny waves her off with his handless arm, okay he’s got a palm again but stilll, “do you know just how many places have banned me or my entire family”, tilting his head, “or just my dad at least”, which earns him some chucking before the bell goes off and he starts shooing everyone out loosely. Emilie goes right up to his desk though, grinning almost meanly, “tell me you are going to bring ghost books”. Valerie goes wide-eyed a little and glares at the back of Emilie’s head, then at Danny when he smirks and shrugs, “oh I don’t see why not, heck let’s make that the reading requirement. Read a book written by ghosts”. Val makes a series of faces, likely torn between curiosity and being completely done with his general shit. Emile smirks and fist bumps before leaving.

Danny quirking an eyebrow at Valerie getting her to finally speak up, “you are unbelievable, Danny”, shaking her head and walking closer, “so about this assignment thing-”.

Danny groans dramatically, “oh Ancients, way to make me feel like a teacher”. She smacks him over the head for that, “better?”. Danny just smirks and nods curtly, giving a cheery, “yup”. Valerie rolls her eyes, “anyway, I know it’s been decided everyone’s doing Phantom-”, rolling her eyes a little, “-but could I maybe do mine on the other Phantom”, and stares at him.

Oh she is so totally trying to gauge if he knows shit, not that that was remotely subtle. Eyeing her a little, “if you don’t save that kind of subject to your computer then sure, I guess I didn’t specify Danny with a y Phantom. But-”, squinting just a little, “-if, say, the G.I.W. manage to hack things and find out some things that might be dangerous”. Valerie blinks before shaking her head in disbelief, “how the Zone”, sighing, “I’m pretty good with tech these days, but yeah okay”, and gives him a bit of a weird look before rushing off at the warning bell.

---

Does Danny decide to take up the Ghost Writers offer? Yes, yes he does. Barging in and walking around like he owns the place, the Ghost Writer blatantly massaging his temples while Danny walks up to the guys little counter thingy, “so got any twelve odd copies of the same fiction book? That a bunch of teens who may or may not wreck them can have? Also could totally use some lore and historical books, you know, for reasons”.

The Ghost Writer sighs, pours himself some tea, gets up and nods, “yes, do attempt to see them returned though”.

“I make no promises”.

That gets him another sigh but Danny follows the ghost around anyway. The Ghost Writer winds up getting a bit excited and gives him an honestly excessive amount of books at the end of the day. Danny also learns that apparently it was Ember who was a blabbermouth and told the writing ghost when she was checking out, or something, a musician's after-death memoir. Figures a singer couldn’t keep her mouth shut.

-

The Ghost Writer patting the stack almost affectionately, “a happy book is a read book and I have a lot here, so enjoy”, and gives Danny a ‘come back’ look that’s just slightly threatening which Danny’s just going to assume is because the guy had vaguely forgotten who he’s talking to, that or the Ghost Writer hated him a lot less than he thought. The ghost holding up a finger, “ah yes, since you were proactive and showed at least some genuine care for the craft, here”, and plops a little green writing quill down on the stack. Danny is oddly genuinely touched.

Danny blushing and rubbing his neck a bit, “uh, appreciated?”. This honestly said more than it seemed, sure they clearly were bickering and were not exactly fond of each other but it seemed that the Ghost Writer was yet another once-antagonistic ghost that was now at least somewhat on team Phantom’s side.

“Yes, now if you’re done loitering”, the Ghost Writer makes shooing motions at Danny, “be on your way”. Danny rolls his eyes but does, in fact, leave... with an unnecessary amount of books in tow.  

Chapter 4:  An Education In Fashion

So apparently someone went and threw a little complaint about Danny’s straightjacket stunt, him wearing a near-floor-length parka the next day with shorts probably didn’t help though, and now Danny’s at the mall for reasons other than having fun or fighting some ghost. How does Danny know someone complained? Well a little conversation with Lancer that went a little something like this: “Daniel, I know the school’s a little... lax, but we do actually have a dress code. Which again, you are supposed to actually be marginally following unless it’s for safety reasons”. Which he had of course responded to with, “technically a straightjacket is a restraining device sooooo...”, which got him glared at. In short, Danny now had to buy new clothing. New clothing meant for teaching, which was weird as fuck.

Was he doing this alone? Zone no! He had absolutely recruited Sam and Tuck to wander around with him. Which, speaking of...

“Sup, dude!”.

Danny grins to himself before turning to his friends, “hey, Tuck man”, looking to Sam and nodding, “look at you slumming it like a mall goth”. Sam rolls her eyes at him and flips him off aggressively. Tuck smacks his arm, “more like look at you actually buying clothing new instead of digging through used stores for cheap shit. What? Did Casperhigh finally develop standards?”, and smirks.

Sam scowls at the techno-geek, “it’s better that he doesn’t support corporate-run stores and name brand garbage. What with all the slave labour, animal abuse, and terrible worker treatment”. Danny looks down very pointedly at her plaid T.U.K creepers that are 100% not bought from a used store; Sam shoves him, making him stagger a little with a laugh.

Him looking to Tucker, “Lance asked kinda nice-ishly so I’m being nice to the poor man”, smirking, “and maybe this’ll make up for me sorta kinda being responsible for one of the water fountains spewing out black water for a bit there”. Both of them stare at him for a bit before laughing, Tucker patting his back after a bit with a smile, “they hired you, what did they expect”.

Danny sticks his arms out exaggeratedly while the trio start walking, “I keep telling them that!”. Sam shaking her head with a smile, “well trying to appease the man or not, don’t you dare say we’re suit shopping”. Danny screwing his face up at her before gesturing around, “do you see Vladdie around? Because I fucking guarantee you he’d have some kind of sensor or informant for if I so much as stepped into a suit store or tailor, and he’d immediately show up to at least stare at my choices judgingly or offer to pay by flashing around a fancy credit card”. Tucker snorting, “that shouldn’t feel as accurate as it does”; making everyone laugh as they head into one of the ‘teen’ oriented stores. Danny was buying new passable clothing, not high-class ‘adult’ clothing.

The first thing Danny sees is bandanas, MORE FUCKING BANDANAS! Yes, he’s so here for this. Well not this specifically but you know. He grabs a new alien one, one that looks like a white dragons mouth (Tuck muttered something about seeing one just like that at a furry con which really just encouraged Danny to take it but with a shit-eating grin), two ghost ones because of course and if one of them is pink and glittery and has sequins then that’s his business and no one else’s shut up, another that looks like bloody tie-dye, and one that reads ‘SATAN just do it’ with a Nike checkmark; the last one might just get him in trouble but he’s pretty sure just the existence of his class/him already pisses off Christianity so why not go for a home run.

Sam eyes the SATAN bandana as she walks back over from another store, her smirking, “nice. Anyway, shoes”, and shoves a bag at him. Danny quirking an eyebrow while digging inside and chuckling at the white doc martins, snorting, “I thought I was the only one here supposed to be making jokes about my suit while also blatantly hinting at my shit”.

Sam scowls and crosses her arms, “they’re not sneakers and they’re mildly ‘professional’, deal with it”. Danny just chuckles as he pays for his bandanas and the dress-shirt with frowning depressed bananas all over it that Tuck threw at him.

Walking out and looking around before all three share a Look, breaking out in matching grins and speaking in unison, “HotTopic”, and then march off with determination written across their faces; which yes, gets them actively avoided by everyone who knew who they were, which was basically all of Amity these days.

Danny’s got crushed velvet straight cut pants that marginally resemble dress pants -Lancer will so not let him get away with freezer burnt crust pants or grey sweat pants at an assembly or whatever- folded over an arm while he’s shoving around some of the angsty and anime-themed hoodies when Kitty finally decides to approach him. Did he know she was here? Yes, obviously. Be weird and concerning if he didn’t. But she was generally well behaved so he let her be. The biggest risk her and Johnny usually posed was traffic violations. So not his problem.

Anyway, Kitty pokes the pants, quirks an eyebrow and hums a little, “nice choice there, Danny”, humming a little more before grabbing up a hoodie with a plague doctor on it and the words ‘there is no cure only infection, and I’m patient zero’, and shoving it at him, “that’s more your style”.

Danny blinks, “I see you’re trying to cut me with edge now, geez. But technically-”, holding up a finger from his unoccupied hand, “-anything that sheds ectoplasm is ‘contagious’ sooooooo”, and rolls his wrist. She gives him a pouty look, “I don’t know what I expected”.

Sam walks up, eyes the punk ghost before looking to Danny, “you’re getting a dress tailcoat, it says ‘dead boy’ on it”; making Danny wheeze a little and nod with a stupid grin. Kitty smiles a little bit before waving the goth off and starts walking away, “looks like you’ve already got a lady friend clinging around so I’ll be going”. Sam chucks a necklace at her while Danny coughs.

Regardless he gets the sweater because now he kinda has to. The tailcoat too though, because of course.

-

Sam and Tuck already have their supersized order of fries and respective meat and veggie burgers while Danny’s ordering his go-to coffee from his go-to coffee shop, gotta get in that dose of judgemental and mildly fearful staring. But Charles -yes Charles, not Lancer. Why the fuck?- winds up calling and Danny picks up feeling just mildly confused and curious, “uh, why? Also, how?”.

“So Danny, you’re an adult, a perfectly responsible adult-”. That tone is ominous as fuck, damnit. “-a responsible adult who does absolutely know how to safely handle ectoplasm-”. Oh Ancients.

Danny cuts him off, “what did you do to my classroom?”.

“Wh-what? I- nothing. Better question is what and why did you, honestly really, have a bomb-rigged drawer? Also, how does someone... convince a chunk of ectoplasm to get out of your closet and stop eating your ties? I mean, I think it might have eyes but I might also be wrong and it keeps squirming away from the microscope, which why would it do that?”.

Danny gives a pained smile, looks to the barista who’s now holding his venti cup filled with around thirty espresso shots, Danny sighing, “if I give you a fifty, could I convince you to add five more to that?”.

“What?”. Danny absolutely ignores Charles.

The barista looks down at the cup like she’s debating if potential manslaughter due to willful negligence was worth fifty dollars. Apparently yes, yes it is. She adds five more shots and Danny’s down fifty more bucks.

He absolutely catches her squatting down staring vacantly at the fifty muttering, “but was it worth it”, though. He cringes just a little bit; then he gets back to the phone call. Sighing, “blob ghosts typically have eyes, Charles, and the little guy’s eating your ties because you constantly let the things dangle down into your samples and don’t fucking wash them in an ectophobic solution. Gosh”, and rolls his eyes as he sits back down with his friends; who just quirk their eyebrows at him while he keeps talking away, “and of course my desk is bobby-trapped, man. If the G.I.W. activates that they’d be so bothered by the cleanliness breach that they’d just go home”. Tuck chokes and smacks the table comically a couple of times, making loud thumping noises.

Charles actually laughs, “true! So what can you do about the blob, buddy?”.

Danny screws up his face, pulls the phone away from his ear and stares down at it. Glancing to his friends, “a teacher just called me ‘buddy’???”, Danny’s not quite sure how to react to that, them laughing at him doesn’t help. Shaking his head he returns the phone to his ear and gives a cheery, “nope! Enjoy your new pet!”, and hangs up on the guy.

“Wha-”.

Danny starts eating the fries.

Tucker points his second burger at him, “you know...”. Danny pointing right back at him with a fry, “hush you”. He knows he’s a teacher himself alright, geez.

(Charles seemingly took Danny up on that pet comment and actually called FentonWorks for a containment unit and to ask about ‘ghost pet care’, Danny’s mom gave him the phone with a truly dumbfounded expression).

---

Alright, today’s the day. What day? Why the day to get paper assignments for the first goddamn time ever and try not to lose, destroy, contaminate, or otherwise ruin them. He’s fucked. Solidly fucked. But hey, at least it’s also the day to show off his shit fashion choices as well, little ray of sunshine there. Some light in the darkness.

He should probably attempt to win some points with Lancer and wear the dress shirt, honestly. So that’s what he’s gonna do. Depressed banana dress shirt, sequin alien bandana, crushed velvet pants, and what the heck the ‘dead boy’ tailcoat too why not; this boy is getting DRESSED UP today! And fine, yes he looks good based on his mirror's reflection; but his mirror is definitely ecto-contaminated so it might not be entirely trustworthy.

His dad also whistling at him as he heads downstairs for breakfast isn’t trustworthy either, considering the man’s fashion style was less of a ‘style’ and more of a scientific protective mess of orange and the occasional tie. Danny rolls his eyes and waves his dad off, “oh whatever, needed ‘proper attire’”, shrugging loosly, “whatever that means”. Jack beams, “just wear a jumpsuit! That’s always proper!”. Maddie looks away from the microwave she’s nuking some noodles in to glare at him, “not at a reunion, dear”; making Danny chuckle to himself while Jack rubs his neck. She still waves cheerily at Danny as he leaves though so...

-

This is one of those days he actually leaves early enough for a few quick patrol laps around his town, two ectopusses, the Box Ghost (because of course), all followed by him literally tripping into one of Skulker’s traps; hence why he was now peeling a basic ass bear trap -be more creative, tinman- off his leg. At least he had the sense to wipe off the ectoplasm with one of his random shit handkerchiefs before walking to the classroom and loudly dropping said beartrap on his desk in what was probably a slightly terrifying alpha move.

Is he early now? Haha no. At least three people jumped from the sudden loud noise. But fuck, Danny was NOT waiting around for Skulker to show his ass for longer than three minutes. Danny had shit to do, man. And apparently the local poacher can’t bother to be punctual when his traps go off. Fuck.

James blinks, “what the fuck?”. While Valerie just sighs and rolls her eyes, leaning back against her chair, “you stumbled on one of Skulker’s traps, didn’t you?”. Danny waves a hand around limply, “yeah? Yer point?”; making her roll her eyes at him very hard.

Danny doesn’t even get a chance to pick up the whiteboard marker before he’s pausing as his throat ices up, him holding up a finger, and just turning to walk right back out the classroom door. Fucking Skulker, goddamnit. But hey, his tailcoat whipping/fluttering about in the air in a way that was actually kinda badass was probably cool looking. He doesn’t have attendance points but he does have style points today motherfuckers.

Dale blinking, “did he just walk in only to leave again?”, slapping the desk, “well I guess he did drop off a bear trap from a ghost so... samples count as teaching?”. Todd snorting and rolling his eyes, “that doesn’t count for shit”; Valerie just chucks a pencil at him.

“I’m more interested in his whole get up. Who pairs a fucking tailcoat with sequin anything?”.

“Oh shut it, Amber. At least he didn’t come in wit a tie or a freaking suit”.

Dash snorts and actually laughs a little, “oh imagine that little twink in a suit! Ha!”. Which just makes Valerie smirk and turn to the jock, “he looks better in one than you do, Dash”.

“Oh fuck you, reject”. That comment was the only excuse Valerie felt she needed for proceeding to kick him in the chin, which might have started up a minor brawl by the time Danny got back.

Danny’s mildly attempting to fix his hair when he hip-checks his way back into his classroom, pausing with his hand stuck halfway through his hair at Valerie just having Dash in a headlock on the floor. Danny blinking, “mmmmm’ ‘kay”. Which fine, the class starts laughing at him for. Danny talks right over said chuckling, “so once somebody’s done with their little vice grip, or whatever, on another person everyone can relinquish their vice grip on their assignment shit and gimme gimme”. Val flips him off but hey, at least she lets Dash start breathing again. It’s something. And everyone does, in fact, start getting up to give him their work. Valerie trying to quietly and subtly ask him if ‘he’s okay’ when she hands hers over though. Danny sighing and shrugging limply, “eh I’m good, Skulker’s gonna be hearing from my lawyers though”, and smirks; resulting in Val smacking him over the head with a scowl.

-

Lancer showing up just after the bell, looking Danny up and down, and nodding with a, “good”, is weirdly chastising and awkwardly awkward. Ashley giggling to herself, “oh I get it, boy got in trouble for his clothing ‘choices’”. Danny points at her aggressively, “hush you”. Lancer leaves without choosing to comment on that.

---

Does Danny basically use the next couple of school days to make the school/his class his own personal fashion runway? Yes, yes he does. Did he also decide to melt some glue on the end of his tailcoat and file it to be sharp and blade-like? Yup. Was that very thing why Millie was currently done with his shit and arguing with him? Also yes.

“He cut the case lock for the microscope and ruined an entire three hundred dollar machine! We’re allowed to be armed but not wear literal blades as clothing!”.

Lancer is very clearly restraining a sigh.

Charles shrugs from the couch, “hey buddy, it was my machine and you don’t see me complaining”, looking to Danny, “I’m more curious about the how honestly”. Which fucking tracks for the man. Millie gestures at Charles, garish bangle bracelets clinking around in the process, “it’s the schools”, turning to Lancer, “at least fine the child”.

Danny crosses his arms, “hey, I’m eighteen not a ‘child’”, he was still considered a child ghost but that was besides the point.

Lancer pinches his nose and holds up a hand, which Millie actually listens too thank fuck for that. Danny’s pretty sure Lancer is literally the only person that lady respects even slightly. “While I’m certain it was an accident-”, glancing at Danny which Danny rubs his neck sheepishly over before Lancer continues, “-and the school could certainly just add this onto the Fenton tab, I doubt that would pose much of a solution for the fact that you simply don’t like Daniel very much, Millie”.

Millie huffs and crosses her arms, “he’s a menace-”. Danny can’t even argue against that. “-is barely older than most of the students-”. Also true. “-and couldn’t we have literally anyone else, anyone who’s a competent decent respectable person, teach his elective”. Oh this woman just loved mocking and treating non-core classes as lesser.

Danny smirks, “be careful or Remi’s gonna put paint in your pencil drawer again”. She scowls at him for that, pointing at him aggressively, “I know you helped her with that”. Danny will neither confirm nor deny that, “oh but how could I possibly remember when your nasty yellow fake nails are being way too distracting”.

“Why I never-”.

Lancer interjects at this point, Danny’s surprised the man even let him finish his witty comeback/insult. “That’s enough, you two clearly need some bonding time so-”, looking to the math teacher, “-Millie, you’ll be sitting in on Daniel’s class, I know you don’t have any scheduled class during that time and that you’re all caught up on grading, so don’t give me that excuse”; she scowls at him. Lancer looking to Danny, “and Daniel, you’ll sit in on her second block grade twelves”, glaring, “and no bathroom breaks”. Danny sags and whines very dramatically and very petulantly; Charles just starts snickering while attempting -and failing- to cover up said snickering with his hand.

Danny is so not impressed. Neither is Millie but that’s not Danny’s problem now is it. But now that Danny thinks about it, this is the perfect excuse to talk about ghost hunger and force someone who didn’t sign up for this shit to listen to/deal with his shit. Danny might just give Millie a more than slightly malicious smirk as he shoves Charles out of the way enough to sit on the couch; the man just rolling with it while trying not to laugh at his expense any further.

Danny only came early today for the cookies Remi said she’d drop off in the lounge, look how hard that bit him in the ass. Doesn’t even have time to sit and enjoy more than one cup of coffee now. Fuck. Wearing his SATAN bandana was probably asking for it a bit though. Flipping out his phone while nibbling on a cookie and blatantly ignoring Millie storming out in a huff.

thealiveone: so guess who just jacked up the tab AND pissed off mille

PDAxpda: millies the math teach right?

Nightshade: nice

thealiveone: yup! she like always hates me nothing new there

thealiveone: she no happy about recent bought of destruction of property

PDAXpda: someone needs to chill that’s what you do

thealiveone: ouch but yes and now have excuse to force her to hear out ghost hunger

Nightshade: you cruel cruel man I apporv

Nightshade: that bitch gave me so much shit about my ‘satanic’ fashion

thealiveone: ahhh yes I remever that

thealiveone: from back when we were young

thealiveone: our youthful days

PDAXpda: *pfffft*

thealiveone: anyone any one want cookies?

Nightshade: 😆🙃 sure Danny

-

By the time it’s time for Danny to head to his shit he has consumed three cookies and stuffed around eight intangibly inside his body for safekeeping; not like Sam and Tuck gave a shit about eating/using stuff from inside him.

Is Millie waiting judgementally outside of his classroom? Yes. Does he care? No. The class absolutely eyes him and the math teacher as he waltz’s in though. Todd snickering, “ooooo someone needs a babysitter do they?”.  Danny just smirks, “oh no Lance-y’s just punishing his problem children. Anyway today’s subject will be light cannibalism”, and smirks wickedly.

Millie glares while taking a seat off to the side, “I’m not the child here”.

“I’m not the one being petty”.

“You broke a three hundred dollar machine”.

“And? Your point?”.

At this point most of the class is snickering, Valerie shakes her head, “you never change, Danny”. Danny finger-gunning, “and never plan to”. Millie’s scowl deepens.

Danny rummages through his desk muttering, “where’d I put it, where’d I put it”, all the while. Because fine, maybe he was saving this subject for when he thought it would be the most impactful, so sue him. Grinning when he actually finds and starts digging out the little habitat with around five or six blob ghosts in it. Well technically they were blebs, a subspecies of blobs, but whatever. These would have probably been a lot easier to find if he hadn’t modified the bottom drawer to be connected to a slight pocket dimension… but then they wouldn’t have even fit in the drawer in the first place. You win some you lose some.

James blinking as Danny puts the container on his desk somewhat loudly, “huh, guess it’s ‘live’ specimens again. Neat”. Emilie grins, “awww they’re cute”, then glares/smirks at Valerie daring the girl to argue. Valerie just rolls her eyes. Danny also pulling out a blender makes everyone go awkwardly and cautiously silent though. Danny’s just busy cursing while he tries to plug the stupid thing in, “why the f̴̢uc̸̢k is it all bent up?”. No one elects to point out any obvious answers to that one.

Danny walking back over to his desk and popping open the bleb containment unit, “so anyone wanna taste test some basic b̴̡i҉̧t͟͟ch̕͠ ghost food?”, and proceeds to drop the bleb into the blender while simultaneously turning it on; does he get ecto splattered on his face because he forgot the blender lid? Oh absolutely and he’s cool with that. At least half the class jerks back and/or screws up their faces. Millie looks deeply offended; success! Danny licks a bit off of his cheek while staring at the class just to be extra. Dash and Val are the only ones who look completely unphased -though Todd’s trying to look unphased- seeing as both of them had seen him straight-up eat a ghost before.

Ashley squeaks, “um, no?”. Which Danny busts out laughing over and losses his composure, sitting on the edge of his desk, “I’m not serious, Ashley. And don’t worry about the little guy, as we’ve discussed, non-cored ghosts basically respawn”, holding up a finger, “plus! Bleb’s like being eaten”, at that he takes a swig straight from the blender and winks at Millie.

Jasper mutters, “oh Zone he’s doing this to fuck with Ms. Felmer”.

“Mood”.

“Understandable”.

Dale chuckles, “I knew Danny was a menace but damn”. Dash looks a little freaked out, “did I mess his taste buds up by making him eat my underwear?”. Danny absolutely has to address that, pointing at him with the blender slightly, “you are not nearly that influential on my life, Dash”.

“Whatever, Fentaco”.

Millie actually snaps, “Mr. Baxter”, over that jab; making the jock roll his eyes and huff. Her voice sounding a wee bit strained pleases Danny greatly though. Truly.

Danny taps the containment container, “now remember I have a really bloody weird ecto-contamination so do not try that at home. Anyway, ghost hunger involves the eating of ghosts. Surprise surprise, I know. And if none of you leave this class today without losing your lunch I will feel personally offended…”. Again, why did the principal think putting this class directly after lunch was a good idea? Oh well, the janitor's problem now.

-

Did anyone actually wind up throwing up? Yes actually. Not Millie though, much to Danny’s dismay. She did look close multiple times though. And fine, maybe, maybe, Danny went into far more detail than really necessary. Which absolutely explains Brittney sticking up a hand and asking, “how do you even know this this well”, while looking more than a little sick. A few other teens nodding their agreement and mutual curiosity.

Danny snickers, “I have walked in on Technus showering and brushing his teeth, do you really think I haven’t walked in repeatedly on a ghost eating another ghost. Especially when all our local blobs and whisps are totally smitten with Phantom’s stomach?”. That earns him a very loud round of gagging, and Val’s staring at her desk like she’s having a mild crisis. Ah today’s been a good day.

“Forget I asked. What the Hell”.

That just makes Danny smirk as the bell goes off. That makes Danny jolt out of his seat, summon his green quill out of his hair, and start wildly scribbling on the board, “oh! Oh! Before you go, grab your assignment şh͘͜i҉͞t̶͝ and to the person who wrote about the theory that Phantom’s a parasitic species and that’s why he can stay here so long -you know who you are- I hate you. Your little quizzes are in there too, I realise I was lazy about marking şh͘͜i҉͞t̶͝ don’t at me. Also also, this-”, tapping the board, “-is the room I’ll be in for the parent-teacher thingy ma jiggy not this room, for reasons”. Which gets him more than a little snickering and some pointed glances at the -now empty- blender, while everyone takes their graded shit. Danny’s just glad he managed to not lose or destroy anyone’s shit. Though Emilie’s quiz did have a mysterious new ectoplasm stain that he… attempted… to get out. He tried okay?

Millie glares at him as she gets up last to leave, “you, boy, are an affront to humanity”, then promptly leaves. Danny puts a hand to his chest and very loudly says, “why thank you”.

Unfortunately, he is now stuck staying here ‘till her shitty math class. Fuck. Sighing loudly at his ceiling before smirking and chuckling a little, “time to do some sketchy shit, do da, do da”.  He could use some ghost summoning practice.

-

Needless to say half an hour later the schools been evacuated and there’s a pissed off dragon ghost -not from Dora’s kingdom which kinda shocked Danny- flying around. Most of the teachers are glaring at him, Lancer included. At least he’s got a duplicate of himself in Phantom form off throwing fist-a-cuffs; well… more like arguing aggressively about not meaning to summon the one goddamn dragon that wasn’t from the Draconic's kingdom.

Lancer sighs at grounded human form him, “you’re still sitting in on Millie’s math class”.

“Awwwww”. Danny smirks a little, “also, I need a new desk chair”. Lancer puts his head in his hands and shakes his head faintly.

Danny (as Phantom) and the goddamn dragon pause as Red flys up on her hoverboard. Danny waving goofily, “sup Red”, pointing at the dragon, “he’s just upsetti spaghetti, not a real problemo”. He can feel Red’s annoyance and disapproval. The dragon just growls and attempts to breathe fire at her; which she obviously dodges.

Danny gestures at the dragon while she basically unloads on them, “blame your teacher of ghost things!”, and then resumes attempting to capture the dragon. He can easily hear Red mutter, “Zone damn it, Danny”; which fine, he chuckles at.

Eventually, Danny does manage to get the dragon into his thermos. There’s probably one more ghost out there with a bone to pick with him though. Oops. He’s not even slightly surprised to get a chat message from Val a little later.

Robin: whhhhhhhyyyyyyyyy

thealiveone: 😏

thealiveone: are you not entertained

Robin: 😑🖕🏻

thealiveone: *snicker*

(Danny still does, in fact, have to sit through math, which was just as torturous as he remembers. Millie made it even more awful of course. Though unlike him she didn’t change her class plan just to fuck with his day, she did treat him like a student and called on him to answer questions constantly though… that got him so much subtle mocking).

---

The parent-teacher thing comes up way quicker than he would have liked. Lancer giving him a shoulder pat as Danny slumps down into this room's chair, “I’m sure this will go just fine”. Danny rolls his eyes, “I’m a literal teen, Lance. Adult-y folks aren’t known for respecting teens or whatever”.

Lancer deadpans, “somehow, Daniel, I doubt you actually care”. Making Danny snort, “true true. I do still have a point though”.

“Which is exactly why I’ll be staying here and supervising”.

Danny actively groans at that. But fine, understandable.

Of course the first parents, fuck this is weird Ancients, show up while Danny’s partway through spinning around in his chair. It’s Emilie and she is smirking, telling Danny that they absolutely don’t know this random teen is the teacher. Hell yeah time to fuck with them.

Emilie’s mom looks around, “oh is the teacher not here yet?”, looking to Lancer, “I doubt you’re also the ecto-ology teacher”. Lancer actually chuckles a little at that before shaking his head.

Danny snorts and stands up a bit dramatically, “sorry to say but… he died. Totally dead”. Emilie snickers into her hand. Val picks that exact moment to barge in herself with her dad, “Danny, stop telling people you’re dead. You walking problem”.

Mr. Gray quirks an eyebrow at Danny, “ah so my Valerie was telling the truth, somehow I’m both surprised and not”, then walks right up to Danny, claps him on the shoulder, and says, “good for you, lad”. Which Danny rubs his neck a bit sheepishly over. Both Val’s dad and Tuck’s folks worried about his ass, usually more than his own folks did; which, yes, was kinda a bit fucking wild.

Emilie’s mom blinks and looks to her husband then back to Danny, “you’re? the teacher?”. Lancer takes that moment to actually speak up, “indeed Daniel is. Arguably he’s the most qualified for the position, and excluding some… incidences… his performance is more than acceptable”.

Danny snorts, “complimenting and insulting me all in one go, nice”, and finger-guns at the man. Lancer just gives him a fond but exasperated look.

Emilie’s mom purses her lips before shrugging after a bit. Her and her husband both walking over and sitting down, Emilie lounging behind. “Well alright then, though you are certainly a little young to be in such a position of power-”. Danny has to seriously resist throwing his head back, cackling, and saying ‘you have no idea’ at that because fuck saying he had too much power was a goddamn fucking understatement. “-but how is she doing?”, looking over her shoulder to eyeball Emilie slightly, “not being too much of a distraction”.

Danny snorts, “ma’am, being a distraction is basically my job in class. I guess you could say I encourage active discussion and pretty much ignore the ‘put up your hand before speaking’ rule altogether”. Emilie snorts, “considering you blew up the classroom a few days ago…”.

Her dad sighs, “well I guess that’s still better than Jack”. Which fine, Danny snorts at.

Danny pointing at the man, “to be fair, I’ve taken plenty protective measures and do, in fact, know what I’m doing. The accidental wrong dragon summoning was just a miscalculation and wasn’t even during class time”.

Lancer glares at him a little, “yes, and now you’re banned from unapproved experimentation”. Danny just pouts at him before actually doing the class talking stuff he’s supposed to be doing. Val and her dad are just ‘waiting’ off to the side and chuckling at him faintly.

When it is Mr. Gray’s turn the man immediately asks, “she’s not letting outside interests interfere with your class, is she?”. Danny can practically feel the threat of grounding coming off of that question, holy shit. Lancer dutifully pretends to not be listening, Danny is goddamn postivite Lancer knows about Val since she’s way easier to figure out than him.

Danny chuckles, “naw, in fact I can say that my class is the only one she doesn’t ditch”, and gives a very cocky proud grin. Like a preening peacock. Val glares at him a little, “that’s because you boobytrapped the door. No one can leave unless you let them”. Danny just smirks more, “what can I say? I know how to hold a hostage or two”. Val clearly can’t help snorting/laughing at that. Mr. Gray actually looks a little pleased and impressed.

From there pretty much all the meetings are boring and pretty typical. Granted he did tell Todd’s folks that ‘Todd’s a real dick’, which Lancer apologised for on Danny’s behalf. Todd’s dad saying ‘oh we know’ threw Lancer through a bit of a loop though. And apparently Danny calling their son a dick made him more trustable in their eyes, who knew? Dash’s dad made a joke about how ‘hey aren't you that boy my son whipped into shape?!?’ and laughed heartily. Which lead to Lancer going off on a tangent about Mrs. Testlauf’s unhealthy teaching methods, which is how Danny learned that there is a serious beef between the two.

But then came Sophia with her parents, Sophia was one of the freshmen whose family moved here somewhat recently. Girl basically never talked and always seemed cautious. She did perk up a little whenever anything really dark or gory came up -can’t exactly talk about dead people without speaking of brutal horrid violent death- so Danny thinks she’s, like, a closet Goth or Emo or something. Sam would love to introduce her to the ookie spookie side.

Mrs. Holly comes in walking like she’s a judgmental holier-than-thou know it all with some serious entitlement issues, so Danny’s pretty sure this is just going to be so fun. Sophia looks a little more meek and sheepish than usual too. Mrs. Holly huffs, “I truly can’t believe they’d have such a garish class nonetheless let a child from such a proper family take it”, and huffs for a second time. Mr. Holly shaking his head, “truly unbelievable”. Ahhh Danny can see where this is going, even Lancer's frowning a little. Now Danny could either be ‘responsible’ and handle this ‘like an adult’ or he could just choose violence. He’s a combative motherfucker so one option is much more appetising.

Lancer speaks up first, “if you ask me, this class should be, and in the future will be, mandatory. A core subject. It’s a matter of safety after all”. Danny points at him, “and the general knowledge is way more useful than social or math”. Lancer gives him one unimpressed look at that. Danny shrugs and waves him off, “what? Everyone has calculators in their pockets, there isn’t an app for ghosts”.

The parents decide to speak up at that. Mr. Holly scoffing sarcastically, “ah yes, this ‘ghosts’ thing”. Which tells Danny exactly what kind of head-stuck-in-the-sand motherfuckers these guys are. Mrs. Holly nods and scowls at Danny, “yes, we didn’t expect this town to be a satanic cult stronghold”. Which makes Danny cough because that was not quite what he was expecting. Even Lancer coughs and goes a little bug-eyed.

Danny blinks, “excuse me? Do you not believe in ghosts and just think this town is under the delusions of a cult?”. This was actually a new one for Danny. What the fuck.

“We believe in Jesus. Sad to say you clearly don’t, doing the devil's work. ‘Ghosts’ ‘from the afterlife’. As if those are not other words for ‘demon’ and ‘Hell’. And I am not impressed that my little girl is being allowed to be indoctrinated like this. This is why we need more support for proper Christian homeschooling”, she nods to herself with a huff. Mr. Holly nodding readily as well.

This is actually the first time Danny’s ever been called a literal demon actually. He’s been called a demon child or little devil but not literally a demon. Like, a ‘from Hell’ type demon. Should he be flattered? Maybe? Oh whatever. But choosing violence would be the ‘demonic’ thing to do right? So Danny snorts, “I mean if you wanna raise your kid badly and mess them up for adult life, go right ahead. But when your kid doesn’t know what to do during a ghost attack when we get randomly assaulted by a sentient tornado or invaded by another dragon, don’t come complaining to me. Also don’t come complaining to me when your kid moves out at seventeen and refuses to talk to you for twenty-three years”. Lancer looks like he wants to stop him and make him shut up but also really doesn’t want to. Danny’s probably a bad influence on the man. “If you don’t want to believe in ghosts, something very explicitly real unlike your unproven book god, that’s your dealio. But come on and have some decency and let your kid make up their own mind, yeah?”.

Mr. Holly blinks at him, “how old are you?”. Making Danny laugh, “physically? eighteen. Mentally? A lot older than you, clearly”. Both adults look suitably offended by that and Sophia has a tiny smile though also seems more than a little nervous. Her folks are probably the ‘my house, my rules’ and ‘I brought you into this world I can bring you out’ and ‘this is the way this family does things, so you have to as well’ types.

Mrs. Holly scoffs, “this is unbelievable”, turning around to Sophia -who has a good Poker face, which is actually kind of concerning/depressing- and snapping, “to think you’d even select such a class”. Sophia muttering, “I find it interesting”, chewing her lip a little, “and he did bring proof of them day one”. Mrs. Holly rolls her eyes, “oh yeah? What proof?”, and actively looks like she just won this conversation; which Danny is so not having.

So Danny, being Danny and the undead gremlin child that he is, shouts, “this proof!”, and proceeds to grab an ecto-apple from inside his tailcoat, smashing it down on the desk hard enough to make it explode, and grins slightly manically while the green ectoplasm juice and chunks bubble, start moving, develop eyes and mouths, start sticking up like deadman’s finger fungus, and then start shrieking.

Lancer chokes. The parents jerk and jump back, having gotten splattered slightly. Sophia just blinks wide-eyed, taking a slight step back; she was, after all, slightly more used to Danny and his general wackiness.

Danny sticks his finger in the coagulated mass of screaming green horror and starts swirling it/his finger around, grinning manically still, “proof enough fer ya?”. He does pull out a thermos and suck the stuff up when the desk starts steaming though.

The parents say nothing for a bit before Mr. Holly stammers, “we-we will n-not be deceive-deceived by a w-witch”. Which Danny snorts at, “I’ve got a friend who’s a witch, but naw, not really my thing. I prefer to chill it with the dead rather than pagan gods”, tilting his head, “though I guess some pagan gods are also ghosts so eh”, and shrugs.

Mrs. Holly scowls, turns on her heels, and leaves. Snapping, “come on Sophia”. Her husband scampering after her. Danny waves in the most fruity way he can, speaking singsong,“🎵bbbyyyyeeeeee🎵“, looking to Sophia, “see you on Monday, yeah?”. She just nods at him with a slight smile.

Mr. Lancer blinks after a bit, “Daniel… I almost feel like I need to write you up for that entire stunt”, holding up a finger while pinching his nose and leaning back in his chair, “but. You probably did the right thing”. Danny can’t help chuckling at that, “I mean, I would say I did the right thing but my opinion on my own behaviour is absolutely super-duper biased”. Lancer glares at him while he continues, “and really? not believing in ghosts is a good way to wind up dead. Better to bite that bullshit in the ass than let them think throwing holy water at Johnny would be a good idea”.

Lancer blinks, “they would likely have bad luck for the rest of their lives”. Danny nods immediately, “understatement. Kitty would send that man to her alternate kiss dimension in a heartbeat”. Lancer just stares at him a little bit, “has… has that happened to you?”.

“Happened to all of Amity’s men slash boys once”.

Lancer chooses to not respond to that.

---

“Hmmmm. I see. He is rather handling it well. Fulfilling the proper and respective duties”.

“Ah yes indeed. As… begrudging as that is to admit”.

“We’ll have to have a… conversation”.

“But of course”.

“Most unfortunate”.

“Indeed”.

“But he will accept what he’s due”.

“As he should”.

“However, we can never be sure with… that one”.

“Truly unfortunate”.

“Time and her overseer favour that one far too much”.

“And yet they are right, which is also quite unfortunate”.

“Yes. Quite”.

“Well shall we get to it?”.

“Hmmmm no. Let four nine eight and four nine one deal with that one, they are unwise yet”.

“Very well. Watcher”.

Chapter 5: I Am The Guardian Of The Knowledge! The Knowledge Guardian!

Danny is having a morning alright? Sure he had a good-ish sleep, seeing as he apparently did decently well with the parent/teacher thingy excluding the fact that the school had now acquired a religious discrimination complaint (not that the school cared). And also sure, maybe he got out of genuinely fighting Technus by humble bragging since that ghost was ‘a man of science’ and thus was a sucker for any gossip involving someone taking the piss out of religious folks. Also also, he got waffles this morning. Big plus there.

So you’d think with all that he’d be about to have an awesome morning but nope. Instead, he is currently actively running away from his consequences. Well okay, mostly flying but he can’t exactly do that once he got to school.

Danny walks briskly into the classroom and shuts the door very firmly, even going so far as to lock it a bit dramatically before turning around and giving the class an awkward smile. Heading up to the board, “alright f͜ư͘ck҉͘ę͏r͡s̛-”.

He absolutely ignores the, “Open up”, from outside the door. Chuckling very awkwardly while the class glances at the door then back to him. Danny clearing his throat, “so now that the parent-teacher stuff is outta the way and y’all proved you’re not totally stupid with the quiz and mini lab thing. Why don’t we move on to lairs and contamination-”.

“Daniel James Janus Fenton”.

Danny sighs very audibly and stares up at the ceiling for a second, everyone else quirking eyebrows, snickering, or talking at each other.

“Uhhhh, I feel like he’s using us somehow”.

“Does he seriously have two middle names?”.

Valerie grumbles to herself a bit about how she didn’t even know Danny had a second middle name.

“Better yet one of them is ‘Janus’? The Hell?”.

“Ha, serves the freak right”.

Danny clears his throat a little, “anyway, the Eyes Of Ovi Colosseum is a perfect example of a really stupid specified lair for some mouthless d͏͜į͡ck҉̸͞s҉ nitpicking over laws who think they somehow have the right to control other peoples existences”, and throws a mild glare at the door. Bunch of floating cloaked dicks.

Emilie snorts and laughs into her hand, “oooh someone’s trying to throw a little shade”.

A couple of people chuckle at the, “we have responsibilities, Daniel. Now will you allow us an attendance with you”, that speaks up from the other side of the door.

James quirks an eyebrow, “that sounded more like a threat than a ‘please let me in, dickhead’”. Earning some nods and more chuckles.

“I’m more curious who Danny pissed off enough to stand angrily outside of the ghost-proofed door”.

Danny holds up a finger, “technically, they’re cops”. Earning him a round of shocked gasps and scandalised looks of horror. Rolling his wrist, “anyway, their lair is, like, the biggest standing prison. Vortex’s in it”, shrugging, “they might have tried assassinating me once…”, Danny continues without acknowledging or explaining on that one. And yes, he mentioned it purely to piss off the Observants and rub it in just a little bit more that they failed at ending his ass.

Once the class over bell rings though… he looks around awkwardly and with a level of fake pleading, “anyone suddenly feel like staying after class?”.

Val actually humours him (which he one hundred percent expected), ditto with Emilie actually. Todd just wants any excuse to skip class that doesn’t require him doing anything legitimately bad like leaving school property. Everyone else opting to get up and head to the door, though flashing him apologetic shrugs… or smirking meanly. You’d think they’d be nicer to a guy that can affect their grades. Fucking jerks. However it is Danny who gets to smirk meanly when there is -surprise surprise- two Observants floating outside his door that all of them have to skirt around very cautiously. The Observants, for their part, completely ignore all of his fellow teens/students; instead they just stare -if eyelidless giant eyes even can stare- at him intensely. Danny waves cheekily; they feel like they’re glaring. And pretty much all the other teens that see the Observants just kind of hide around corners and observe instead of heading to their next class. Nosy shits, Danny would do the exact same. He probably shouldn’t feel proud over their want for gossip outweighing the requirement to go to class or to practice self-preservation, but he totally does.

One of the Observants lifts up a boney green hand and points at him, “we need to speak with you”. Making Danny snort, cross his arms, and lean against his desk, “yeah I think I got that one after the multi-hour stalking session”. Valerie snorts at that though she is eyeballing the Hell out of the fucking ghosts.

“Alone”.

Danny puts a hand to his chest, “aawwwww, confessing your love for me in private? How scandalous”.

The Observant on the left looks to the one on the right, “I now understand why the elders didn’t want to deal with him”. Which fine, makes Danny feel exceptionally proud of himself. Emilie laughs, “oooo, I so want to know what Danny did to hurt these poor elders' feelings or whatever”. Danny side-eyes and smirks at her, “oh only colluded with a god to break the laws of temporal displacement”.

“I can’t even tell if you’re serious”.

Danny’s smirk grows malicious, “good”, then sighing and sagging, looking back to the two Observants, “fiiiiiiine. But no, I don’t know who jailbroke whatever prisoner out. Or where Plasmius has hidden whatever artifact of rare and overwhelming power. Or-”

The Observant on the right actually has the gall to interrupt him, “you are not to blame for anything”. The left one adding on, “currently”; making Danny snort. Him then gesturing at his three ‘students’, “but can’t you see that I am busy? I mean really. Some of us actually have work to do these days”; all three teens chuckling to themselves over that while also mildly pretending to be taking notes or some shit. But with another heftily sigh Danny moves to pack his shit… very slowly. Because technically legitimately snuffing the Observants was a recipe for disaster and Lancer probably wouldn’t appreciate the school getting beset by an army of eyeball assholes purely because Danny felt like being a bastard. That… and it might actually be something mildly important; which, arguably, he shouldn’t just ignore.

Today’s turned into real shit.

Valerie quirks an eyebrow at him when he throws his backpack over his shoulder, making the tailcoat flare out a little, “are you seriously going along with a pair of ghosts”, then glaring at Danny when he rolls his eyes at her.

“Val, it’s perfectly fine. Annoying, but arguably fine”, him shrugging, “it’s not like they can harm me”, looking to the Observants and smirking meanly, “seeing as they are incapable of doing harm”, snorting, “pfffft, fucking pacifists, am I right?”. A couple of people in the hallway are noticeably stifling snickers. The Observants, for their part, just ‘stare’ silently.

Joshep shouts from the hallway, “what are all you kids doing out here?!? Get to class!”. Danny’s pretty sure that he -and the Observants- is the only one who can hear Joshep muttering, “what the Hell did that Fenton kid do now? Why does my classes have to be so close to his? Just why?”.

Danny picks that moment to walk out of his classroom, look at Joshep, and laugh very loudly and sarcastically. Joshep grimaces deeply at him, eyes the two FUCKING GHOSTS, and grimaces deeper but also with slight fear. Val, Todd, and Emilie all slip out behind Danny; Val whispering at him, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Danny”. Making him smirk, “when do I ever”; earning him some major glaring. He’d bet money on her not actually going to class and instead trying to secretively follow him ‘for his safety’.

The hallway gets real empty real fast as soon as Danny walks off with the Observants following him a bit unnecessarily close; that really only encourages him to walk slower though so HA!

Just before exiting the building Danny quickly throws Lancer a text, you know, in case the man tries to go looking for him or some shit. Joshep will probably tattle on him for ‘having pet eyeball ghosts’. Though making a pet of an Observant would be one Hell of a power move, goddamn.

Danny : 🚓🚔🚓

Let his sorta boss think of that what he will, for now, Danny’s gotta go and deal with his problems. Apparently anyways. Kinda hard to skirt ‘the law’ when said ‘law’ were ‘all-seeing’. Fuck him.

-

By the time Danny and his two personal shadows get to the Colosseum he thinks the two Observants might just be starting to get close to overdosing on puns. Probably helps that Danny’s using the shittiest, corniest, dumbest ones he can possibly think of. And to think he only got halfway through his stockpiled eyeball-themed ones!

Him glancing around the Colosseum full of Observants, and apparently ClockWork? off to the side cleaning their staff lazily. Stupid Clocky, Danny so could have used a heads up; throwing them a quick pout -which they smirk slightly over- before looking up at Watcher, the head Observant. Putting his hands in his pockets, “soooooo? The fucks up, extra-large eyeball”.

Watcher leaves him hanging for a little bit before speaking up and Danny can practically hear the reluctance and regret in their voice, “Daniel James Janus Fenton Phantom, I’m certain it should come as no surprise to you that we are well aware of your recently acquired… position, as well as how your performance has tracked”.

Danny snorts, “so what? You fucks care about mortal realm teaching now? Isn’t that shit, you know, beneath you or whatever? Not that I actually care. Go ahead and get your knickers in knots about whatever the fuck you wanna. But this?-”, gesturing around lazily, “-seems a little excessive as retaliation for educating mortals. Dramatic as fuck, which mild props there I guess, but still-”.

Watcher cutting him off, “this is not a punishment, as you’ve already been made aware-”. Danny flips him off for that jab. “-rather your… position makes you qualified and befitted of another”.

What.

No seriously, what the fuck?

Danny blinks and tilts his head, “are you trying to also give me a job offer?”; the fuck is wrong with people and springing sudden surprise job offers for shit he is almost definitely largely not qualified for. Though fine, Danny as Phantom had a fuck tone of qualifications here in the Zone. Fuck, he even technically had right to claim the High Throne!

Watcher almost sighs and glances up for a split second, “the answer to your question is neither affirmative nor contradicting. You have taken actions no other has and doing so with more than just marginal success. As such you are the only being fulfilling the role of educating mortals and working through those means to ease the strained and threatening relationship between our realms-”.

Danny jumps in at that, throwing his hands out to the side, “you’re only now just noticing that?!? I’ve been pretty well doing that since the beginning!”. ClockWork holds up a finger, “but was that out of choice or necessity? And were any instances of you actually being educational simply accidents while you were doing what you do best?”, nodding to themselves almost smugly, “I think we both know the answer there, Daniel”; Danny rolls his eyes though blushes a little. Damn it, Clocky.

Watcher doesn’t actively acknowledge ClockWork -which he’s sure ClockWork’s gonna use as an excuse to fuck with them later. Fuck, they might be fucking with them right now- instead continuing to speak at Danny, “you are being granted a position of Ambassador and Sovereign Wisdom, Guardian of the passing of wisdom between the two realms”.

Danny blinks, oh my Ancients. Okay yes ClockWork was absolutely involved in this and the Observants are absolutely not happy about this. Guardians were BIG FUCKING DEALS. The High Sovereign was basically the only one above Guardians. Well and technically the Observants, but that was debatable. Danny snorts, “wow you guys must really hate yourselves. Here I thought you didn’t want me having more power?”. He can feel multiple glares.

Watcher themselves seemingly glares, “while that still stands, what is earned is earned and what is due is due. And while a Guardian of this variety is not necessary, it is beneficial to the realm and future. And, begrudgingly, you do it well”. Danny has to roll his eyes at that, the Observants and their ‘for the betterment of the future’, that got old before he even met them. He does actually put on his more serious face/posture when Watcher floats down to be more on level with him. “so will you accept?”.

“What, in any world, would make you think I’d say no? You don’t have to beg me, you bunch of eyeball crybabies?”. Like really? HE WAS ALREADY DOING THE ‘JOB’. The only reason he didn’t take the High Throne was the added boatloads of responsibilities; that, and he’d have to spend so much time here that he might as well just live in the Zone… not happening anytime soon.

“Very well”. Watcher raises a hand and waves it, a sceptre forming next to their hand floating in the air before it starts moving towards him slowly. Danny decides to leave Watcher hanging and mildly admire the black Arbutus wood with glowing blue carvings across it, legit looked pretty hecking cool. Clocky’s stiff pinstriped staff design wouldn’t exactly suit Danny’s quirkiness. The prehnite crystal on top was a definitively spooky pale opac green with green glowing falling feathers inside; at least the green in green didn’t look weird.

Danny shrugging after a bit and reach out to grab it, the three little silver bells secured by blue leather rope surrounding the crystal chiming slightly from the jostling. Danny furrowing his brows a little and sniffing at said bells; ignoring the twitching in his limbs from connecting to the artifact. Huh, well that smells a heck of a lot like sandalwood and frankincense; eh there was probably some inside. Danny is absolutely blaming the dangling red and green feathers on Ghost Writer giving him a fucking quill though.

Shrugging Danny leans the thing lazily on his shoulder and pointedly makes a point to not react even slightly to the weird pulsing come from in towards his core. Little uncomfortable but not nearly as uncomfortable as being impaled by a giant fishhook. Or mauled by a tiger. Or watching his dad disco dance in public. Little more uncomfortable than Lancer’s attempts to be ‘hip’ and ‘cool’ and ‘relatable’.

Danny thinks he’s being glared at again. ClockWork is absolutely smirking in the stands. Danny also not reacting to a cloak magically poofing into existence attached to his neck is probably annoying the Observants even more. Ha, suck on that. He is the unphaseable one! Phased by nothing! Who is also apparently king of knowledge! Lord of knowing! Yet stupid enough to show up with his clothes backwards more than once (how the fuck did he accidentally wear a jacket backwards and not notice it? Seriously self. Gosh). He does glance at the cloak though, lifting up one side judgingly. Chuckling, “black with blue stitching? What? No green to accent my eyes?”.

“We do not choose the appearance”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “yeah no fucking shit. Blue’s an educational, or whatever the fuck, colour”, tilting his head, “and Lancer’s why I even know that. Huh”. Poetry symbolism was useful for something he guesses. Oh and the clasp is a quill, goddamn that Ghost Writer. Fuck. He’s definitely ignoring whatever symbolism might be behind the slightly bondage harness-looking triple straps going across his chest, he doesn’t want to know honestly. The hood tip zig-zagging like a lightning bolt is supremely obvious though. Like, painfully obvious. patting it a little and looking back to the Observant, “so this all the shit? Don’t feel like fucking with my half-life any further?”.

Watcher almost audibly sighs, turns to borderline glare at ClockWork, “dress your child, ClockWork”. ClockWork grins and pretends not to hear them for a second before floating down.

Danny is perfectly content to let his ClockPops ruffle up his hair, both of them side-eyeing Watcher with mean smirks while ClockWork boops Danny on the cheek with their staff; Danny letting their energy mess with his appearance more than willingly. Suddenly his tailcoat is on him in ghost form, which yeah feels a little weird. An (ecto-ha) green frilled poet blouse underneath with little cufflinks that have ghost pipes (ha!) on them. Crushed black velvet trousers, straight cut and wide/baggy. Silver armoured boots and gloves, which fine, he’s a combative motherfucker. He can also feel some shit going on with his hair, a quick pat-down proving that apparently ClockWork decided he needed some flowers in his hair. Goddamn better be ghost pipes. Danny chuckling, “nice, Clocky”; they smirk lightly and fondly at him.

“But of course, Daniel”.

Watcher does their little hand-wavey glittery thingy taking an in-time ‘photo’ of him to send out through the realm, because bitch there be a new Guardian. Danny just chuckles, “can I go now?”.

“We’d prefer you did”.

Danny snorts, throws a peace sign and finger guns before just fucking off entirely. Him turning away to stalk off making the cloak swish in the air which reveals that the end is, like, curled up into something resembling a scroll. Fucking symbolism, Ancients.

-

Turning human when he gets back reveals the cloak changes to light blue with black stitching, well that’s convenient. Seeing as technically he’s supposed to wear the thing whenever he’s doing his ‘job’ so it changing with his forms is probably for the best. Phantom’s the Ambassador, Fenton’s the Sovereign Wisdom. Plus wearing a cloak to school is totally a weird quirky thing to do, which is perfectly up his alley. Sick as shit too. He’s gonna wear the hood down while human, up and tucked right behind his ears while Phantom; just for that little added difference. Danny had some sense of self-preservation. His clothing is still exactly what his ClockPops gave him… well okay the shoes look slightly more dress shoey than like straight-up knight's boots; eh that’s probably for the best too. Less noisy. And a head pat-down shows that the flowers have gone, good seeing as Sam would mock him relentlessly otherwise.

Whelp, he’s going home now. Because fuck doing anything else. Seriously. A quick check of his phone, however, reveals that Lancer actually got back to him.

Lance: for future reference, Daniel, please reframe from ‘getting ghost arrested’ during school hours.

Lance: I would appreciate a call, after hours of course.

Danny chuckles and shakes his head a little, eh might as well do that on his walk home. “Sup, Lance. I do not have another arrest on my record and I also did not destroy another jail”.

“I do hope that is not sarcastic, but I’m glad you’re alright from the sounds of it”.

Danny snorts, kicking a rock down the road, “nope. No sarcasm here. Perfectly fine. Just had to stand and talk in front of an entire colosseum of ghost cops slash judges and get my sentence”, snickering to himself, “now see that was sarcastic. Well, mostly. Really it was just me getting acknowledgement, or whatever, for basically teaching ‘the mortals’”.

That actually gets Lancer laughing a little, “well my job offer was never meant to get you in trouble or cause you hassle, though I doubt you mind much”.

Danny huffs and rolls his eyes, glaring at the stoplight to hurry the fuck up, “considering this let me annoy the absolute fuck out of the Observants? Zone no I don’t mind. Also I have a cloak now, that I am required to wear. So have fun with that school uniform upgrade”.

“Oh? I can’t wait to see, Daniel. I’m sure you’ll make the appearance work, so long as you don’t show up in a hazmat jumpsuit”.

Okay that one Danny has to laugh at, loudly, “yeah, no, that’ll never happen!”. He might love his suit but wearing anything remotely similar while human was just begging for trouble. Actively and explicitly.

“Good, good. Now I’m sure after all that excitement you’ve got work to do, so since I know you’re fine I’ll let you go”.

Danny smirks, “oh Ancients no, I’m going to bed and napping like the dead”.

“Bye, Daniel”.

Danny chuckles as the man hangs up, got ‘em with the death jokes.

---

Sam snickers and pokes Danny on the cheek, him flipping around in the air to avoid her prodding fingers, pouting at her, “meanie”. Now some may wonder why is she pestering him? well because an early morning flight revealed that the flower hair was still a thing and was likely to be a permanent thing at that. Fun. And he can’t even really be mad, because it’s basically a gift from Clocky. Ever rare and always cherished… by him at least.

Tucker goes and flicks one, “at least they’re ghostly”. Earning an eyeroll from Danny, “har har har, though fully agreed”, looking to Sam, “I am so looking forward to a confused and panicked call from Vlad. Because this-”, gesturing to his entire body, which while is back to his jumpsuit, he is still rocking the cloak and the staff’s stuck in a little solid prehnite ring, “-is not ‘standard halfa physical changes’ and we know how Vlad pays waaaaaaay too much attention to my physical appearance”.

Sam barks a laugh, “he pays more attention than you do”.

“In my defence, Vladdie’s got all the time in the world to be a weird nosey bastard. I, however, am a busy busy man”.

Tucker puts a hand to his chest, “if only you could work from home like me”; earning him a smack over the head from Sam. Danny just chuckles, transforming back human and planting his one good foot on the ground, “that’s only because they decided you’d be too much of a security and safety threat otherwise”.

“That changes nothing”.

Danny throwing his arms around their shoulders as they walk into the school. The administration just ignores them and doesn’t even try to force his two friends to get visitors badges, knew a lost cause when they saw one. Danny glances from one to another, “so you two just sitting in for funsies?”.

Sam rolls her eyes while Tucker chuckles, “Hell yeah why not”. Which Danny just laughs at while using their shoulders as support to lift himself off the ground, swing his legs up, and double kicks open his classroom door.

Ashley jumps, startled, and joins the rest of the class in staring at him before muttering, “Uh, how is it that we’re almost always here slightly before you”.

Danny scoffs, “because I’m chill like that”, while his friends carry him to and drop him into his seat before wandering to the back of the classroom. Danny holds up a finger, “also-”, throwing his one leg up onto the desk, gesturing at his armoured ‘dress shoes’ because yes, he’s still wearing Clocky’s gifts, “-I broke my leg in three separate places this morning. Fun, I know, no need to be jealous. Also got in a little light stabbing because I may have put a little too much effort into sassing someone”.

Valerie sighs very audibly and painfully, “Danny, why? Just why?”, she has long since learned to not care all that much about his injuries. His contamination whisked them away like magic anyway.

Emilie snorts, “I’m more interested in the fucking cloak”. Which Amber absolutely chimes in on, “talk about a fashion don't”. Danny points at her, “hey f̵̶uc̡k̶͝͞ you”; earning more than a couple laughs. Danny shrugging, “anyway, cloaky grants me special knowledge powers so I am officially ‘wise’”. That gets him an eraser to the head, which Danny ignores as he keeps talking, “the ghosties decided that teaching you ghost thingies is officially my job”.

Valerie stares at him, “… but that’s already your job”. Danny shrugs, “eh ghosts like to feel superior”.

Dash throws his hands out, completely derailing the conversation, “what? Are you not going to pink slip Jesse for the eraser?”. Danny smirks at his former bully, “nope. I do have one with your name on it if you’d like though”. Dash scowls at him and Tucker’s laughter is absolutely a bit loud. Which gets James’s attention, him turning to the two, “and what about you two? Why are you here?”. Sam smirks, “living crutches”. Which really should have been the obvious answer to everyone.

Danny beams, “yup! Waaaaay better than some s͟h̴̛it҉t̛y̵̧͜ wood. And yes I got hired by ghosts to do the thing that I already got hired by humans to do, am I changing the lesson plans because of that? Haha f͞u̴͜͟c͏͝k no. Now as for class, we’re gonna talk forbidden knowledge because I am feeling petty”. Which yes, people laugh at.

-

Barely halfway through Charles just kind of barges in, fuck Danny needs to redo his booby traps. Charles looking him up and down, smirking, “oh I so had to see this. Tell me you are starting a cult without telling me you’re starting a cult”. Danny blinks hard at that before bursting out laughing, pointing at him and deadpanning, “yes”.

Emilie beams and sits up straight, “oh we should absolutely all wear cloaks now, Hell yeah”. Amber glares at her, “I’d rather drop out”. Valerie just rolls her eyes at the preppy girl.

Danny looks to the girls, “a couple Christians have already made it their mission to report me daily for satanic indoctrination so that would have some interesting end results”. Charles chuckles, “oh this so is a cult, and if you were a spawn of satan I wouldn’t even be surprised”, then quickly closes the door.

Dale chuckles awkwardly, “I think one thing this class has taught me is that Mr. Trent is way weirder than I thought”. Danny snorts, “oh you have no idea, the things that man has asked me”. He also had a feeling the man tried to break into his house/bedroom once because he got over-excited about some curiosity of his. Shrugging, “back to illegal dealings with guardians and how our mayors a d̶̢i̶͠c̶̨͝k҉͏w͢e̷͟a͏şl̛͘e͘…”.

He doesn’t even get to speak for ten minutes before fucking Vlad bursts in. Danny really needs to re-booby trap that fucking door. Damn. Too bad Vladdie wasn’t in ghost form, then the anti-ghost coating on the door would have at least done something to keep out the rich nutter.

“Daniel, what the Gouda have you gotten yourself involved in now?”.

Danny looks to him slowly, gestures to his class dramatically, “excuse you, frootloop? I mean, timing. But Ancients, chill your tits. Could this not wait twenty f͜͟u̶̕c̸̢͝kin̸g̢̨ minutes? f͞u̴͜͟c͏͝k”. Vlad just glares at him.

Dash leans over to Dale, “the Zone is the mayor doing here?”. Dale just shrugs. Todd snickers meanly, “maybe Danny pissed him off too, because the mayor sure as shit isn’t here to see your shitty ass, Dash”.

“Fuck you”.

“Screw off, Todd”.

Todd just smirks smugly to himself instead of responding to either jock.

Emilie snickers, “maybe he felt Danny talking about him and was summoned”.

Sam smirks to herself, inspects her nails, and deadpans, “it’s cult powers”. Which lots of people actually make ‘ahhh’ and ‘hmmm’ and other understanding agreeing sounds at.

Vlad scowls at the goth, “oh nothing so drab or petty”, actually walking up to Danny and lifting up the cloak, “I am talking of this”. Looking to Danny, “butter biscuits, Daniel”.

Danny snorts, “no I will not butter your biscuits”. Vlad absolutely subtly shoots him with an ecto-beam in his good legs knee. Fucker. Danny rolling his eyes, “the Observants are occasionally tolerable… tolerable-ish. And are occasionally capable of being mildly decent… decent-ish”. Vlad stares at him for a bit before shaking his head, “your desire to be tortured out of existence truly amazes me”, smirking, “if you wanted to suffer you could just fill out a request and I’d be happy to appease you”.

Valerie coughs and actively spits out some water. Dale quirks an eyebrow, “did… did the mayor just threaten to torture Danny?”.

Emilie starts cackling, “yes, yes he did!”.

Danny waves everyone off, “oh please, this is tame and lame”, looking back to Vlad, “I would but only if I could get payment in the form of feeding your internal organs to your cat”. Vlad actually chuckles faintly at that and shakes his head almost fondly. Pulling on his suit jacket to straighten it, “well I guess you’re perfectly well, albeit stupid, but well. I’ll leave you to your… duties”.

“It’s only a duty if I make someone crap their pants”.

Vlad actually stops with his hand on the doorknob at that, looking back, “a poop joke, Daniel? Really?”. Danny just smirks and finger guns while Vlad leaves.

Danny glancing at the clock, “whelp, continuing this class is pointless”, shrugging and looking around at everyone, “I’m honestly amazed this hasn’t already come up yet but me and Vladdie have a very interesting family dynamic”.

Which results in multiple shouted, “FAMILY!?!?!?!?”, comments from everyone.

Valerie rolls her eyes and glances around, “he’s Danny’s godfather”. Danny beams and nods, “yup! And that I’m his chosen heir”.

Dash stares and mutters, “what the fuck”, at that; which, fair. Danny just chuckles meanly at him while the bell rings.

Amber walks up to him through, twirling her hair a little, “so are you, like, rich?”. Danny can absolutely tell people are taking their time to leave class just to hear his response. So Danny smirks, “whole fam is. FentonWorks makes a lot of money. Plus! the government pays us”.

Dale looks almost horrified and Dash is just muttering, “what the fuck”, to himself repeatedly. Amber shaking her head, “well you coulda said something”. Which Danny tolls his eyes at.

Sam doesn’t let him respond though, her snapping, “and what? Have all you people liking and ‘befriending’ him purely because of something so goddamn shallow? As if. Danny -Ancients we are better than that”. Amber, Dash, and Dale all make offended noises; Emilie and Todd can be heard laughing out in the hall. Fuck, Danny’s pretty sure he even hears Hanna loudly cackling out there and she’s not even in his class or even still in school still. Here to hang out with Emilie perhaps? Danny just keeps on smirking as everyone finally leaves and his door clicks shut.

Is he surprised when Vlad suddenly regains visibility next to his desk with crossed arms? Ancients no, fully fucking expected. Even Tuck and Sam are unphased, though they do chuckle to themselves a little while glaring mistrustfully at the man. Danny sighs and looks to the man, “Vlad, I’m fine”, gesturing around at the empty classroom, “all of this just apparently made me qualified to become a Guardian, a Guardian of knowledge”.

Vlad scowls at that.

“And also apparently I’m the ambassador of ghosts now?”.

Now that makes Vlad blink, “and you weren’t already?”.

“That’s what I said!”, waving a hand dismissively at Vlad, “it’s not like you were going to do that”.

Vlad shakes his head, “indeed”, frowning, “but ‘Guardian’? Really, Daniel”. Tucker coughs into his hand, “oooh someone's jealous”. Vlad barely dignifies that with a quick glare.

Danny shrugs, “eh it is what it is”, finger gunning, “but don’t you worry, Vladdie, I’ve still got that claim to the High Throne”.

“Unfortunate”.

Danny laughs, “to you maybe”, summoning out his staff from the ring and holding it lazily behind his neck to rest his head on it, “but for now I do the shitty duty of teaching”. Vlad glares at him for that repeat joke/joke reference. It was pretty crappy, ha ha.

Vlad purses his lips after a second, “well I could lend my expertise in that regard-”.

Danny snorts and cuts him off, “trying to ‘get in the good graces of a Guardian’ will not get you out of the very bad graces of the Observants”.

Vlad rolls his eyes though seems slightly disappointed, “as if my reasons would be so people-pleasing. You know I’m not the type”.

Sam audibly scowls, “oh we know”.

Danny, however, grins meanly, “now you can certainly be a guest speaker just to piss them off”, holding up a finger, “let’s make it about ghost portals and the effect they’ve had between realms”.

Vlad smirks at him, “you are playing with fire, dear boy”. Danny knows the man’s going to make his folks look bad, but honestly? hurting his parents' reputation was impossible and no one would be even slightly surprised. Also yes, he’s aware that basically having the two halfas discuss the very thing that made them halfas was actively asking for it. Sam and Tuck shake their heads in the background while halfa and halfa shake hands.

(Informing Lancer of this resulted in him genuinely questioning if Danny and Vlad were getting along these days, so guess Lancer also noticed his hostility towards the mayor, not that that was hard. Lancer was a bit confused by the fact that the town mayor was into the ecto-sciences though).

---

Apparently Charles, and maybe Danny’s entire class, took the ‘cult’ thing a little too seriously or maybe just had a little too much fun with the idea over the next week because now he’s been called into Lancer’s office to talk about starting a cult. Fuck.

Danny poking his head in and waving awkwardly, “heeeeeeey Lance-y”. Lancer just glares at him and sighs deeply, so Danny goes and takes a seat, “soooooo, I swear I didn’t actually start a cult this time”.

Lancer quirks an eyebrow, “‘this time’?”.

“Eh, it’s happened”. At Lancer’s pained expression Danny adds on, “hey, you knew full well what you were getting into. I keep reminding you of this”.

“And yet you keep one-upping yourself”. Danny finger guns and winks at that. Lancer shakes his head, “regardless, yes I’ve been getting a lot of concerned calls regarding cult behaviour. Though some are clearly just taking any excuse to complain about you specifically”.

“Yeah a lot of adult adults really hate my guts for some reason”.

“I couldn’t imagine why that would be, Daniel”. Lancer shakes his head again before digging in his desk and pulling out some papers, “so now you and I are going to be making up letters addressing this and sending them out to all the parents”.

Danny’s sags back in his chair and groans, “ah come on, man! This is Charles’s fault! Not mine!”.

“I’m sure you encouraged it”.

Danny gives a very petulant and pouty, “…maybe”, perking up a little, “but so did literally everyone else”.

“Students can get away with it, you, as a teacher, can not”.

Danny pouts at him again, “boo. Boo to you”. Which gets him glared at before Lancer hands him letters to work on. This is gonna suck ass. Fuck him.

-

Did writing up letters suck? YES. MAJORLY. But Danny was honestly cackling now seeing as Lancer let him read all the complaint letters. Some claiming he was certainly coding classes with hidden satanic messages of murder to increase the ghost population. Others claiming he was teaching them to torture people; which wasn’t entirely wrong, how to harm a ghost could be also used to torture them or a human technically. And a couple claiming he WAS a ghost, which was just straight-up true. There was two insisting that a priest needs to be present for his classes, which fuck no; he’s already had one too many run-ins with holy-water-rosary-clutching types.

Danny leaning back and chuckling, “people are crazy”.

“Coming from you?”.

Danny points at Lancer, “hey, crazy knows crazy”. Lancer puts his hands up in surrender.

---

Did Danny feel like having a guy who arguably could have actually become a cult leader if he wanted to guest speak the day after the letters went out was actively being spiteful? Yes. Though the fact that this happened on the day that Walker curb stomped his throat also felt spiteful. (Was Danny wearing crust punk pants again today? Absolutely, purely because of the multiple anti-cop patches on it). Danny clearing his throat painfully and using his quill to write on the board, ‘cheese head will be doing the talkie walkie today. Don’t play with portals kids’, and draws an arrow pointing at Vlad before sticking the thing back into his hair.

At least half the class quirks their eyebrows at him so he croaks out, “got throat curb-stomped by the po-po”. Vlad chuckles, “your timing is impeccable”. Danny flips him off while putting a little triangle of paper on the side of his desk reading ‘return books here ditto with the essay thingies on them’. Surprisingly almost all of them were undamaged. Val’s was a little singed and stained, Dash’s had a coffee ring on the cover, and Dale’s looked like it had been burned on a stove element; but Todd’s literally had the pages all torn out of the hardcover, it was obviously intentional.

Vlad eyes the stack for a second before actually addressing everyone, while the class tries not to be weird -or actively tries to murder him with her mind in Valerie’s case- over the mayor freaking Vlad Master, near richest man on the planet, teaching their freaking class. “For those of you that don’t know, which I imagine is all of you, I worked with Daniel’s parents in the ecto-field back in college”. That earns the man a round of coughs and disbelieving staring. Danny just nods to confirm the man’s statement.

Vlad speaks sounding truly pained, “Jack couldn’t make anything that didn’t go horribly wrong if his life depended on it, and that’s how he got me sent to the hospital for seven years with ecto-acne and didn’t even bother to visit”.  Danny has to try really hard not to laugh at him. “I will find and force-fed you nails if you say anything, Daniel”. Which honestly just makes it harder not to mock the man relentlessly.

Todd speaks up for him though, “wow sounds like someone’s pissy, bet it was your fault actually”. Vlad glares at him, “coming from a child who’s going to get abducted by a man who wears glasses and a ratty scarf tonight”. Everyone gives Vlad some very confused looks and Danny has to put his head down and wheeze slightly painfully into his desk. This was a good idea. Also a horrible one, but whatever.

Vlad shakes his head, “Jack was the one who decided to power up a prototype ghost portal in my face, I will have you know”. Danny sticks up a finger and mutters, “diet pop in filtrator”. Earning a glance from Vlad, “that fudging imbecile”.

Emilie snickers, “I think the mayor hates Danny’s dad just a little bit”. More than a couple fellow teens nod.

Vlad then goes and erases Danny’s whiteboard writing and draws out an over detailed diagram of a man made protal and a natural one. Danny rolls his eyes at the overkill, but Vlad was nothing if not highly excessive. Who shows up to ‘teach’ in a fucking Armenian suit? Danny’s pretty sure the buttons are solid rubies, like, for Ancients sake.

“Natural or artificial some basic rules, that even the simple-minded can follow, are the same. Don’t create a portal in front of someone’s face. Don’t walk inside of one and then activate it-”. Danny doesn’t so much as move when Vlad smacks the side of his head, ever since Vlad found out that that was how Danny half-died the crazy nutter has given him shit for it at every opportunity. So he saw the head smack coming a mile away.

Dale chuckles, “looks like Danny’s a dumbass”. Dash snickering meanly, “what’s new”. Danny absolutely holds up a pink slip over that. “Oh come on!”, Dash sags in his desk grumpily; you’d think the guy would learn. Vlad’s just smirking faintly before continuing, “don’t walk through randomly. And don’t tie a string to it and another person in an attempt to make the portal follow them”, Vlad smacks Danny over the head again. Danny has a feeling Vlad’s annoyed with him today for some reason. It couldn't possibly be that Danny replaced the water in his water bed with wet cement just before he went to bed two days ago, could it? Never mind, Danny knows that is exactly why. Fuck that was funny.

“Hey, it worked”.

“It really should not have, Daniel”.

“Cloning also shouldn’t work yet here we are”.

Vlad glares at him but continues talking at everyone, “another basic rule is that if the portal is any colour other than green, leave it alone; the town and I will not cover whatever happens if you don’t…”.

Vlad actually manages to get to go on for a while without being actively petty towards Danny or starting a mild bickering match with him. Danny’s honestly a little impressed. Vlad also gets almost overexcited repeatedly, very much proving he’s a scientist at heart while also clearly forgetting he’s talking to teenagers; more than a few things clearly go over everyone’s head. Val still looks like she’s plotting murder though; Danny can admire the tenacity.

But when Danny straightens out a bit from his ghost sense going off Vlad sighs, picks him up by his cloak collar and just walks him to stick out the window, unceremoniously dropping him. Danny screaming, “WHAT THE FU̢C̶͞҉K͟! FU̢C̶͞҉K͟ YOU!”, as he falls and hits the bushes below with a thud. Vlad leaning his head out to reply, “you were going to leave anyways, thought I would simply hurry the whole process up. I do know how lazy and tardy you can be”.

“I WILL PISS IN YOUR FRIDGES FANCY ICE-MAKING COMPARTMENT!”.

Vlad doesn’t dignify that with a response, instead turning back to the class with a smirk, “so on how to topple the ghost government…”. The class stares at him in shock and amusement at the sudden subject change. Valerie just stares with even more hatred now knowing full well he set her up during the Pariah incident when he gave her that ring. She does throw an ‘are you okay’ text to Danny though, which he responded with ‘I smell like bush’ to.

What’s really sad is that Danny got dropped in a bush from the second story of a building because the Box Ghost was having a lovers quarrel with The Lunch Lady in the park. By the time Danny got there it had descended into a full-blown food fight involving boxed-only foods. More than a few townsfolk had even joined in, and honestly? Danny said fuck it -not out loud ‘cause fuck his throat still hurt- and just joined in the chaos.

Vlad could handle a class of teenagers and if the man tried anything then Val wouldn’t hesitate to outright commit attempted murder.

Did Boxy win the food fight? No, obviously not. The Lunch Lady wasn’t super powerful but she still outclassed The Box Ghost’s ass. Danny finger gunning at the box-themed man who’s currently covered in crackers, “I’d buy her something nice before she decides to fill all your boxes with enough meat to make them rounded”. The Box Ghost looks completely scandalised and insulted, “you don’t think she would”.

“Oh she would, Boxy. She absolutely would”. Considering that women caused a meat tsunami purely because Sam wouldn’t eat meat…

The Box Ghost flies off in a hurry and Danny gets to back to his class with literal armfuls of boxed goods. He also got to discover that Vlad could not handle a class of teens who were now discussing how to overthrow Vlad from the mayoral office to the mains dismay and insult. Vlad looking at him, “your students are demons. Suiting”. Danny just chucked a box of frootloops at him.

(Apparently and according to the Ghost Writer, the Observants went and gave Walker shit for interfering with his Guardian duties. Danny was absolutely tickled green by this news. The Ghost Writer, however, was not happy about Todd’s apparent intentional destruction of a book; Danny doesn’t envy Todd who did, in fact, get abducted that night).

Chapter 6: Feather Quills And ‘Tests’ To Fill

“Danny, you’re overthinking this”.

Danny sighs and leans back in his chair, groaning very loudly at his bedroom ceiling before looking to his sister, who was, as per usual, attempting to be helpful… helpful-ish. “But this is the final, it’s kinda a big fucking deal. And considering how fucking splendidly I usually did on those things, how the FUCK am I writing one up? Plus, like, how do I condense this shit? Do you know how many subjects I wound up covering? Too fucking many!”.

Jazz hums encouragingly at him so he just keeps on ranting, which was probably exactly what she wanted.

Danny gesturing a hand around wildly, “ecto-biology, ecto-linguistics, ecto-medicare, ecto-history slash ecto-culture, ecto-psychology slash ecto-behaviouralism, ecto-literature, ecto-mechanics… Too fucking many”, sighing and sagging, “also pretty sure I just made up, like, all those names”.

Jazz giggles a little, “ecto-Medicare is accurate, though I have a feeling you explained far more than just treating ecto-burns or regular ecto-contamination”. Danny snaps his fingers at her, “well obviously, might as well teach the fuckers how to treat a ghost and not just humans affected by ecto stuff”.

“A roundabout way to achieve self-preservation. Should any of them stumble across an injured Phantom”.

Danny pointing aggressively at her, “hey, none of that”. Jazz just could not chill it with the psychoanalysing. She just grins at him like she’s done nothing wrong. Him sighing again and just staring up at his ceiling, randomly mentally drawing out the constellations his glow-in-the-dark ceiling stars made.

Jazz getting up and ruffling his head jerks him out of his ceiling watching though, “hey!”, him flailing his hands around to shoo her off which, as per usual, just makes her giggle at him fondly; which he absolutely pouts at her over. Her speaking up after a bit, “you know, if you find a proper written test so annoying you could just simply do something more unconventional”, her beaming a bit smugly, “my advanced abnormal psychology prof didn’t even make a final at all”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “yeah but that’s university, they can do that. And as awesome as it is that you got to start break early, they should have kept you”, and smirks while she shoves him one.

“Now that was just mean, Danny”. Shaking her head and going back to sitting on his bed, “but I am serious. Do a final project, or just an essay”.

Danny glares slightly, “essays as finals are the goddamn worst, I would never”; she rolls her eyes at that.

“I prefer them actually”, nodding to herself, “far more room for exploring ideas and showing your prof your personality”.

Danny grumbling, “more like how to really rub it in when someone doesn’t know everything perfectly”. Sighing after a bit, because she did have a point. Tests were fucking bullshit and did a shitty ass job of doing literally anything other than telling how good someone’s short-term memory was. Becoming more opinionated about how schools do schooling is one side-effect of this teacher thing that he so did not see coming. Eh whatever, not like he isn’t right. But what the fuck else can he even do? What could even qualify as ‘finals’ worthy? He sure as shit isn’t doing oral presentations, those things were like a mild form of torture… unless you were a drama kid, which Danny was not. Sure he didn’t have to worry about whatever the fuck being an absolute clusterfuck because a regular-ass test would be a clusterfuck anyway since he basically covered the ghostly version of EVERYTHING, EVERY SUBJECT AVAILABLE IN SCHOOL… except math. Fuck math. What kind of nightmare test jumps from laws of an alternate death dimension to ghostly art? Ghost hunger followed right up by portal safety? Plus, does he even remember everything he taught? Ha ha FUCK NO! What, in any world, would make anyone think otherwise. A ‘project’ would totally help deal with that issue. Grumbling, “how would I even have a project that covers everything?”.

Jazz humming to herself and tapping her chin, “well you could have them go fishing for blob ghosts through a portal?”.

Danny blinks a bit harshly, what the fuck? Looking to her, “Jazz… what the Zone kind of Uni friends have you been making?”. Though he guesses that anything involving blob ghosts would cover a tone of shit. And it’s not like he hasn’t talked a literal fuck ton about blob ghosts. They were like a go-to example/comparison tool.

Jazz shrugs, “my dorm-mate likes to fish dangerous fish”. Danny just blinks, well that sorta? explained it. Sorta.

“What kinda fish”.

“She kept a displayed piranha”.

Danny whistles at that, damn, “guess Amity’s not the only land of crazies”. She laughs a little at that and nods with slightly crinkled eyes.

Danny uses his foot to push himself around in his chair, grumbling incoherently to himself. He did kinda like the idea of dragging blob ghosts into his problems, but taking people portal fishing -snort- was just ridiculous even by his standards. Not that Charles hadn’t ‘gone fishing’ in his desk to get his hands on one; yes Danny’s still a little miffed about that, but hey, at least the man kept his grubby hands out of his desk ever since.

Blinking, wait a fucking minute…

Grinning, Danny stops spinning and loudly slams his hands down on his desk repeatedly, “HA! Pet ghosts!”. Jazz shakes her head good-naturedly, “not sure the school will go for an adopt-a-ghost program as a final”.

Danny points at her and snaps his fingers repeatedly and a bit excitedly, “no no no no no no. Blob ghosts. Catch your own blob ghost. Keeping It ‘alive’ would cover almost everything, catching It would cover most else, and naming It, like, a ghost name in ghost speak could be the whipped cream on top!”.

“Danny, how are you going to get all the parents to even agree to that?”. Glaring at him when he smirks, “without abusing overshadowing”. Danny actively pouts at that. He does have an actual answer though, “oddly most of them take me seriously or respect me some. Weird, I know”, sighing slightly and tilting his head, “Sophia’s still hate my guts though”.

Jazz laughs at him, “so what you’re saying is that they are not going to approve”.

“When does everyone ever approve of the shit I do? Get the majority vote and everyone else can just suck it up”.

“See that is likely part of why they apparently hate you”.

Danny flips her off for that one.

Jazz shaking her head and getting up, “regardless, feel like treating your very proud big sister to dinner?”. Danny rolls his eyes fondly and sighs like this is just so much effort and such a massive hassle while getting up, “fine. But we’re going to the Soup And Ham Can because their coffee’s good”. That earns him an eye roll right back as they head out of his room.

---

Now see Danny wasn't stupid or mean, he damn well looked around town to make sure that a bunch of teens could feasibly capture some blob ghosts… without ghostly superpowers. And yeah he also did the responsible thing of actually doing the proper paperwork which made him feel super old and simultaneously like he was too young to do this kind of shit. He’s eighteen and ‘doing paperwork’? Fuck. It so didn’t help that he accidentally complained about paperwork around Vlad, which turned into the elder halfa complaining about his own paperwork; which both of them got just mildly weirded out by. Vlad still thought of him as a child after all, and Vlad was absolutely an old man in Danny’s eyes. It was fucking weird. Vlad did get a little smug about Danny ‘being like him because there’s no way that fool Jack did any paperwork’, which did cause the entire encounter to turn into a minor fistfight. Regardless of the man being right or not.

At least Danny was stronger than the man these days, and both of them were well aware of that. Which honestly? might be part of why Vlad chilled the fuck out.

Anyway, said paperwork that’s making him feel old is absolutely why he’s getting an early morning Lancer call. Has to be. Unless Danny absentmindedly destroyed something without knowing it… which was always a fair possibility.

“Daniel, I’ll admit this is probably the most interesting request I’ve ever received as a finals alternative and I can’t say I’m particularly surprised that you’d rather forgo a formal written final”.

Danny snickering and leaning against the park's water fountain, “hey you know me, I like to keep things lively in the deadly kinda way”.

“And so long as blob ghosts aren’t capable of being deadly then I don’t see a reason to deny this. But this can not interfere with other classes, as in, they can not bring ‘awesome pet ghosties’ to their other classes”.

Danny snorts at that, yeah no fucking shit, “well duh, Lance. That would be asking for trouble especially with Charles”.

Lancer audibly sighs, nearly groans actually, on the other end, “now I don’t doubt that. And because I don't want any possibly ecto-contaminated paper from FentonWorks making its way into the students' homes, I already sent out the permission slips”.

Danny blinks, well damn, appreciated he guesses? Blinking again, “huh, well ah, thanks, Lance, I guess. I’m taking it that you just mailed them out though and that I still have to actually tell my own class of fellow teens that they have mandatory pets now?”. That gets a chuckle out of the man.

“You requested this, Daniel, now you have to deal with it. Though somehow I think you’ll be getting ‘thank you’s rather than annoyed groaning and complaining”.

Danny chuckles, “hey if you want everyone to like you more you shouldn’t assign so much work”.

“I’d be doing you teens a disservice”.

Danny rolls his eyes at that one, the man was dedicated he’ll give him that much. “Not ‘fully grasping literary genius’ isn’t really gonna affect anyone negatively, Lance. I’d definitely rather sleep than brush up on your beloved Shakespeare”.

“It’s good for the mind”.

“So’s sleep”, snorting, “and I missed enough of that as it is”.

“Now that I can agree and attest to, considering your class habits. I’ll let you go”.

Danny blinks at his phone, well that was abrupt. Fucking rude. Eh, it’s not like Danny didn’t fuck off randomly all the time. Oh well. Sighing and pushing off of the fountain, “whelp, guess I know what I’m stuck doing tomorrow… or the day after tomorrow? Fuck, what day even is it?”.

Hint: it was Friday. And Danny, like a dumbass, forgot to even attempt to show up for class.

“Ah well. Fuck”.

It probably says a lot that Lancer didn’t even bother cussing him out for that. Should he feel ashamed? embarrassed? at least a little guilty? Probably. Does he? Honestly, no. He stopped feeling guilty about that kind of shit a long ass time ago. Being a little half-dead hero that has to tap out constantly and lie all the time kinda does that to you after a hot minute or two. Which probably wasn’t exactly healthy. But also, it’s not like ‘healthy’ was really a thing he was familiar with these days. Eh, whatever.

Anyway, time for a night fly/patrol.

---

So now it was Monday and Danny officially has to ‘face the music’ or whatever the fuck.

To bad Technus got fancy with the house's microwave and basically destroyed half of Danny’s bedroom. Meaning he couldn’t even look good… good-ish. He absolutely gets some smug pride from the fact that him going to his ‘professional job’ in tattered clothes would piss Vlad off something fierce though. Actually deciding to stick with wearing a pair of pants with one leg torn off so badly that his boxers were able to be seen probably wasn’t the world's smartest idea. At least his shitty Antichrist button-up t-shirt was intact! … More or less anyways. (It was missing a pocket and maybe the bottom wasn’t quite the same shape it once was but he’s not too sure about that bit). The cloaks perfectly fine of course, being ghostly clothing and all.

Pushing the classroom door open with his foot, “alright little ectoplasm knowledge nuggets, we actually have some housekeeping s̷͞h̷i͞ţ̧ to see to so…”.

Val doesn’t even let him actually get to the whiteboard, “so what was up with Friday?”.

Emilie leans back in her seat, “yeah, the only class that’s actually neat is also the one class with a tardy teach”.

Danny points at her, “hey, I resent that statement of truth”, finishing his walk to the board and smacking it, “honestly? I forgot”. Val just stares at him so he winks at her, earning him a scowl and a thrown pencil; which he lets just bounce off his head. Pulling out his quill and striking it all the way down the board, the words ‘FINAL ASSIGNMENT’ magically forming.

Jesse shakes his head, “I still don’t understand that stupid quill”.

Brittney scoffing, “whatever, it’s not like he’ll give us one”. Danny snorts over his shoulder at that, “yeah, no s̷͞h̷i͞ţ̧”. Turning around dramatically enough to make the cloak fan out, “what’s also no s̷͞h̷i͞ţ̧ is that finals are a thing and that I also -like any sane teen- hate written exam s̷͞h̷i͞ţ̧, so we’re not doing that”.

To no ones surprise that announcement results in some smiles, some cheers, one or two fist pumps/high fives, and multiple relieved sighs.

Val chuckles and leans her chin on a palm, “yeah I was wondering how you were going to write some test that covered everything”. Danny absolutely chuckles and nods at that.

Plopping down onto the side of his desk, “so hear me out, since I’m obviously not writing some written thingamajig out and I’m not nearly enough of a sadist to make oral presentations a thing that’s happening”, clapping his hands together cheerily, “so instead y’all are gonna be ghost hunters for a bit”, shrugging, “or for however long it takes you to catch a blob ghost in our town”, tilting his head and tapping his chin, “which honestly shouldn’t take that long all things considered”.

The class just blinks at him for a bit before most burst out laughing.

Emilie wheezes a little, “you are one quirky fucker”. Valerie shaking her head, “here I thought you were about to ask us to catch a proper ghost”, smirking, “which I’m down for”.

Danny rolls his eyes, “as fun as it would be to torment Boxy by making fifteen odd teens repeatedly catch him, I doubt that would accomplish much”.

Todd puts his hands behind his head, “we can totally still do that”. Dale laughing, “HA! Yeah! That could be fun!”, and elbows Dash a couple of times which turns into a mild dude-bro shoving match. Todd snickers meanly at that before looking back at Danny, “and what’s up with the lame-ass underwear? Becoming a bad stripper or something”.

Danny rolls his eyes at the jab, “Technus got a little friendly with a microwave”.

“They’re green”. Apparently, Todd doesn’t give a flaming fuck about the ‘why’, just the colour. Figures.

Valerie rolls her eyes at the fake ass ‘bad boy’, “Danny’s a joke, of course they’re ecto-green”. Danny nodding and rolling his hand about in the air, “and besides, sleeping in phase-proof underwear is a pretty solid idea, all things considered”. That earns some understanding cringing from the class. Danny sticking up a finger, “just like having you lot bring me some captured but not destroyed-”, giving Val a meaningful look, “-spookies makes perfect sense for an ecto-ology final!”.

A couple of people shrug, Ashley muttering, “oh what the Hell”, toying with her fingers a little, “but does it have to be a big one?”.

Danny waves her off, “naw, so long as it’s in the blob family I don’t care”.

James sighs, leaning on a palm, “but why can’t we just do something normal? An essay?”.

Danny puts a hand to his chest in mock offence, “why I never! I just said I’m not a sadist”, waving a hand around, “and because, I am the true multimedia teacher of spooky academia, just handing out knowledge like a new kind of haemophilia. So I am creating g̵͡o͝d̶͡d͠҉am̛n͘҉ new educational finals criteria. Just don’t go getting into necrophilia on me”, and winks as everyone else groans.

Dustan muttering, “so much for not being a sadist”. Sophia sticks up a hand.

“Yes?”.

She plays with her fingers a little, “well, um, what about our parents?”.

James jumps in, “hey yeah, are we just supposed to keep a ghost in our rooms till finals week?”.

Dash scoffs, “aww is some scared of a little blob ghost”. James just rolls his eyes at that.

Danny shrugs, “eh Lance already sent out permission stuff so parent stuff’s already covered. And naw, catch one by…”, humming to himself, “… oh let’s say next Monday. Bring me proof”, holding up a finger, “but also don’t let the little bugger go. Because if you think all I’m asking is ghost capture then ho boy you’re wrong”. Let them make of that what they want. More than a few look slightly disturbed and he absolutely hears Ashley mutter something about dissection. Danny’s pretty sure Lancer wouldn’t let him get away with that. The blender stunt had been pushing it already, apparently there was a such thing as detention for teachers. Shudder.

Jesse glares at Danny then Valerie, “you better not be marking this on time because some of us have unfair advantages”.

Dash jumps in, “yeah! Little miss anti-ghost psycho probably fantasises about this!”.

Todd rolling his eyes, “as if you need to worry about that, you’d piss yourself before catching one anyway”.

“FUCK YOU!”.

Danny chuckles, his class was probably the only one where anyone could shout ‘FUCK YOU’ and not get in shit. Though Dash being ‘star football star McGee’ probably wouldn’t get in trouble for it in any class. Tch. “Now now, just g̵͡o͝d̶͡d͠҉am̛n͘҉ catch one”, shrugging, “don’t care how or when or colour or whatever the f̵̛u̕͞c̴̶̡k̶̨͠. Ancients, go climb a crane and fish one out of the bucket for all I care. But if you die, don’t haunt me”.

Val sighs, giving him an exasperated look, “great, now someone’s going to do exactly that”. Emilie laughing, “I call dibs!”. Making Val thump her head on her desk. Danny does at least give her an apologetic shrug, hey not his fault that people like to take him up on his bullshit to fuck around and find out.

(Did someone actually take him up on the crane idea? According to the news, yes, yes someone did. Danny’s personal bets are not on Emilie even if she did ‘dibs it’, it was probably one of the quiet kids honestly. At least they were smart enough to wear a disguise. So long as Lancer doesn’t find out…).

---

Danny groans face down in his bed, Lancer was in his bedroom. WHY?!?!?!? Well okay, he knew exactly why. Lancer specifically asked for Danny’s makeshift final to not interfere with other classes and what happened? Well apparently a blob ghost ate the cord to the old school projector that Joshep loved so much. BECAUSE OF COURSE THAT HAPPENED! Danny had some truly shit luck. Groaning again, “I didn’t ask them to randomly bring them to school!”, mumbling, “at least not until next week”. What dumbass caused his problem? Probably Todd honestly. Dash might want to shit kick him but the jock was not nearly petty/sneaky enough to ‘get Fenturd’ in this kind of roundabout way. Todd, however, was the definition of petty. Though Danny was a lot more petty; but he’s a ghost! He’s allowed to be!

Lancer sighs faintly, “you’re still the reason ultimately. Even if Joshep has little room to talk, considering how his class law experiment went”.

“You’re talking about the one that was a recreation of that prison psychology excitement thing? Because yeah, that was bad even by my standards and my experience with jailers involved a lot more tasers”.

“… Daniel, I explicitly remember you tasing people at that time even though you weren’t even in his class”. Danny can practically hear his technical boss shaking his head, “that doesn’t change that you owe Joshep a new projector, and I am not putting it on the FentonWorks tab”. Danny groans very loudly over that. Fuck.

Danny rolling over in his bed and just staring at the ceiling, “forcing me to spend the paycheck you give me on stuff for the school, smarmy shit”.

“That word doesn’t mean what I think you believe it does”.

Danny shrugs, “eh. And besides, Lance”, turning his head to actually look at the man, who quirks an eyebrow before Danny continues, “lords of knowledge, or whatever, should be allowed to ban finals because reasons”, putting a hand very egotistically to his own chest and trying to bleed ego, “a lord like me specifically”.

Lancer chuckles and shakes his head slowly, “I’m sure you would ban them if Id let you”.

“Oh yeah, no shit. In a frickin’ heartbeat-”.

Both of them pause and glance at the floor when a very loud explosion sounds and actually makes the floor shake a little. Not for the first time Danny’s glad he’s nailed/screwed down a large majority of the shit in his room. He even got those weird suction drinking cups that even he, with his ghostly strength, couldn’t slap over.

Barely seconds later his mom pushes open his door, smiling quickly at Lancer, “sweetie, Mr. Lancer, you may what to head outside”, rolling her eyes a bit fondly, “Jack, the dear, might have blown up the photon carbon ecto-endaton”.

Danny blinks, “you mean that new bomb thing? You guys actually blew up something that was supposed to blow up?”. His mom actually has the fucking balls to nod sheepishly. Lancer, however, is sweating unpleasantly.

They absolutely head outside.

Danny patting Lancer on the shoulder while they stand from the sidewalk watching smoke pour out the door/windows, “I’m guessing this’ll be the last time you make an unexpected house visit?”.

“… your home life worries still… this has not helped”.

“‘Life’! HA! Good one!… so will you not dying today count as payment enough?”.

“No, Daniel. Just no”.

“Damn. Was getting my hopes up for a second”.

Lancer glares at Danny a little before heading home; Danny cackles to himself a little. He may be paying for Joshep’s stupid projector love out of his own pocket, but at least he got to make someone -Lancer- regret their life choices in the process. His ghost sense going off tells him that he’s also going to get someone to regret their death choices. Nice. Two for one coupon.

---

Thankfully there were no other blob ghost-related incidences, that Danny heard about, before Monday.

“So did everyone catch a blob ghost?”. That question gets Danny a pretty solid round of ‘yes’s and people holding up blobs in jars or just waving around their phones to show pictures of their particular blob. Danny nodding to himself, “good good”, sounding ominous, “now your final can begin”.

Earning lots of concerned staring and worried glances at the present blob ghosts. Which makes sense, ominous-ness deserves at least some worry. Especially considering the things that usually followed Danny specifically being ominous.

Danny, content with his mild terrorising, actually explains himself while staring down his class like he’s some kind of government agency boss, “your assignment is thus, you will keep that blob ghost ‘alive’ until the twentieth. One full month. And you bet your knickers I’m gonna be tagging your suckers so I will know if you f̵̛u̕͞c̴̶̡k̶̨͠ it up and try to replace them”, glaring at the class comically, “you can keep it trucking however you see fit, use that knowledge! Bring It to hang around Cored ghost! Give It ecto food! Ecto-water! Use your imagination”, chuckling, “just don’t try creating a ghost portal to throw It in the Zone. That’s a real good way to die”.

Jasper grumbles, “yeah the freaking mayor was pretty clear about that”.

Amber purses her bubblegum pink lips, “and how do you plan to ‘tag them’? Half of us didn’t even bring ours!”, and huffs to herself. Danny smirks almost meanly and flops backwards in his chair to spin around more lazily in it, “I’m a teacher not a cop, meaning I don’t have any jobly standards against breaking and entering”.

Emilie snorts and starts snickering while Dash half shouts, “there’s no way a twerp like you has the guts!”. Dale shrugging, “well his freak folks do bust down walls all the time”.

“Still! Fenton’s a wimp!”, Dash grumbling to himself a little, “even if he’s manned up a little”, grumbling even quieter to himself, “… and some of the wimpiness was faked”.

Danny rolls his eyes, toying with yet another pink slip, “pinky pinky someone should keep their lips zippy zippy”. Earning death glares from Dash. Danny chuckling, “anyway, considering my lack of giving a s̛hi̸t̡ about school rules and whatnot you'd think me also lacking in the s̛hi̸t̡ giving department towards general laws would be some kind of a given”, shrugging, “eh whatever. I’ll tag your suckers and I’ll tag ‘em just right”, and smirks, turning back to face the whiteboard.

Valerie rolls her eyes and coughs a little, “well that wasn’t creepy at all, Danny”. Which really only makes Danny smirk more as he shoves himself out of his chair before going about writing up what in all this ‘final assignment’ even involved with his funky little quill. And while everyone goes about reading that shit he’ll walk around and ‘mark’ all the little blob ghosts, which sit all pretty and proper for him; being that he’s the strong ghosty here and being that they all ‘live’ in his wonderful little lair.

Brittney scowls at her blob, “why does It listen to you? Every time I touch It, It tries to bite me”, her attempting to pet It and getting almost bit in response feels like emphasis, and more than a few people nod at that. Danny just chuckles meanly, “because they fear me”, and moves on without explaining that at all.

Dash scowls and grumbles down at his desk, “as if anything fears him”. Which really just makes Danny smirk. Oh how wrong that was, in more ways than one. Which he wasn’t exactly always happy about. Danny did like certain fear, he was a ghost after all, and he definitely liked it if it was The Observants or Boxy’s fear. Just not genuine fear from the general population of humanity, Amity, the Zone, etcetera.

Danny popping back over to the board, “ookily dookily, now that that’s done and over with”, glancing at the class meanly, “I will get the rest of you later”, then back to the board, “now for actual class class s̛hi̸t̡. Which yeah sure fine, this has nothing to do with the final so technically you could just ignore my a̡̡s͢͞s̸ or f̢̡u͞c҉k͡ off entirely if you think you can sneak out for a half hour-ish without getting caught. But hey! My s̛hi̸t̡ might be useful s̛hi̸t̡”, shrugging, “or at least interesting. Unlike most stupid classes”. That gets him some snickers and laughs. Success. He’s also not surprised no one takes him up on the ‘fucking off and leaving’ option; most people took this class because they actually wanted to hear some nut job yammer on about ghosts… or at this point they just wanted to bear witness to whatever shit might happen to or be done by Danny. Perfectly understandable.

---

“You did what?”.

Danny shoves another mouthful of the noodle dish in his mouth before looking up to his mom, “uhhhh, it seemed like a better idea than some useless info dump regurgitation required test”. Okay so maybe it was stupid of him to think that his folks, oblivious as they often are, would just… not notice? people running around after blob ghosts.

She gives him a worried look, “but Danny, they’re still ghosts. Still dangerous”. Danny makes a point not to roll his eyes. Sure her genuine worry was ludicrously misplaced and steeped in ectophobia but it was still genuine… and while Danny is indeed a little shit, he’s not an utter dick.

He does still wave her off though, “i’s’ine”, swallowing his food, “it’s not like they haven’t spent an entire semester learning about this shit. Ghost shit”. She frowns at him, “still”.

His dad waves her off goofily, “oh I'm sure the kids have some idea what they’re doing, Mads!”, laughing loudly, “especially with Danno over here!”, and smacks Danny one on the back hard enough to make him cough. Danny appreciates the confidence but does he really have to get mildly assaulted at the same time? Not that he really minded but still.

Danny sticking up a finger, “and besides, Lance did approve it soooooooo…”, and waves his hand around limply. He’s honestly a little amazed by that fact still. Either Lancer trusted him a wee bit too much or didn’t want to see what else he might request if denied. It worked out mighty fine if you ask Danny. So far everyone seemed to be doing fine, sure Val had called and asked if she’d lose marks if she ‘used It as a pin cushion’; Danny said ‘yes’, of course… she was definitely disappointed. And both Dash and Dale were trying to teach theirs to fetch footballs. He might have to go give Todd a talking to about trying to turn his into some kind of feudal warlord over the other ‘wild’ blobs though.

She sighs and picks at her food a little, “it’s not that I don’t trust Danny”, actually looking at Danny, “but couldn’t you have just had them catch and release or even track Phantom down and hand them off to him?”. Danny sighs a little, “but that would have hardly covered anything. How’s that supposed to test their understanding of low-level behaviouralism or stuff like ghost hunger”. She actually blinks at him, sounding slightly confused, “ghost… hunger…”.

Ah

Shit

Right

Sometimes he forgets he actually knows -and teaches- shit his folks don’t actually know. Which is weird all alone. But hey, ectophobes don’t deserve to know. So Danny just shrugs and elects not to even attempt to explain himself. They’re -or at least his mom, based on his dad going back to chowing down food- are probably just slightly worried about what he’s teaching his fellow teens.

His mom, of course, presses the issue, “…Danny…”. Which Danny takes as the perfect time to get up and head towards the door, “whelp, guess I should go and stop someone from establishing tyrannical blobby rule”, waving his folks off as he actually heads out said door, “Todd’s kinda a dick… and moron”. He doesn’t miss his mom frowning or her muttering, “maybe this job wasn’t the best idea… and is he implying someone’s trying to teach leadership to a blob?”. His dad laughing a little, “yeah so weird! Those things can’t even be trained not to bite! HA!”.

Danny rolling his eyes as he looks up at the sky, “oh they’re easily trainable”, and chuckling to himself a little.

-

It’s a simple ten-minute flight before he’s got himself perched on his ankles on Todd’s bedroom windowsill. Apparently the guy keeps his bed right next to the window… which is street-facing. Fuck that’s stupid and reckless. How has he never gotten rudely awakened by Phantom him or some other ghost getting throw into/threw this wall. Fucking Ancients, mild death wish much. But hey, it gives Danny the opportunity to be a creepy little bastard gremlin. Aka, Danny absolutely leans ominously down over Todd before speaking, “looks like sleeping beauty’s been naughty”. Todd, like Danny wanted, gets jolted awake, yelps, shuffles backwards, smacks his head on his headboard, and just stares at Danny in shock. Danny snickers meanly, “trying to establish tyrannical rule, tsk tsk tsk, can’t have that now can we”.

Todd gulps and musters up some -clearly fake- bravado, “what the Hell man”.

“Not from Hell but I’m sure Satan would be touched that you think I’m his handy work. Real compliment right there”.

Danny hops off the windowsill, over Todd/his bed, and lands in the guy's room; cloak fluttering in the air faintly all the while, he was technically doing his job right now after all. “So as I was saying, trying to make a merciless authoritative ruler out of your blobby is not part of the final and is honestly quite objectionable”.

“You broke into my room”.

“And you sleep right next to a street-facing window, so clearly I’m not the one making stupid life decisions here, buddy”, turning around and smirking at his fellow teen, “you’re practically begging for a break and enter, be glad it’s just your quirky teacher taking you up on that offer”. Granted he was also basically the most powerful ghost around town, but hey right now he was just teacher. Shrugging, “granted breaking in here isn’t apparently all that entertaining, considering all you’ve done so far is wake up and stare at me from your bed like a brain-dead monkey”.

Todd jerks and glares at him, “aww am I boring you. Get out of my room”.

Danny shrugs again, “ah naw, I’m good right where I am”. Snapping his fingers and sending out a bit of his energy to call over the little blob ghost that Todd’s SUPPOSED TO JUST BE TAKING CARE OF BUT IS INSTEAD GROOMING INTO A WAR MONGER. The blob ghost of course listens and immediately zips over and rolls around under Danny’s raised palm. Danny turns his attention to the little guy, speaking like one does to a small child or kitten who’s being misled by a miscreant, “now you listen here little one, don’t let this jackass fill your head with silly little thoughts of blob world domination”, staring at It meaningfully, “Phantom’s the more peace-seeking type”. The blob actually shudders slightly over the prospect of being rejected by Phantom.

Todd screws up his face and mutters disbelievingly when the blob turns to him and hisses. Danny smirking at the teen, “have fun taking care of them now”, and throws a very cheeky peace sign before strutting smugly over to the window and dropping out it down to the sidewalk.

Danny’s not even slightly surprised to get a bunch of empty energy cans thrown out the window at him along with a very loud, “FUCK YOU”… and a slightly shrieked, “YOU BIT ME!”. Hahahahaha have fun with that Todd, serves him right.

---

Todd had glared at him angrily and was more of a nuisance than usual for multiple days, not that Danny gave a shit. He also ‘reported’ Danny as a ‘peeping Tom’ to Lancer which did result in a ‘conversation’ with the man but Danny’s counter of outing Todd as attempting to turn the general blob community in harbingers of war -which fine was a major exaggeration but whatever- resulted in Lancer sighing exhaustedly and basically throwing out the report. One of these days Danny’s going to run out of ways to make Lancer slightly regret ever offering him a job but that day has yet to come.

Danny smacks a hand on the whiteboard a couple of times, “alrighty alrighty alrighty, test results time!”, turning around and smirking at the class, “you get that s̛h͜i̕͟t͠ now since no one has to waste time grading a bunch of stupid paper scanner thingies and then rechecking them for fu̕͝c͟k̛͜ ̧u͝p̸̨s”, and smacks the board again. Though pausing at the cracking sound and snapping his head around to the board. There’s a decent-sized crack/dent in it, making Danny grin like an idiot, throw his hands up, and cheer, “YES! FINALLY!”. He has cracked the board! It has happened! Turning back to the class, actually tearing up a little and wiping his eyes, “I’m truly overjoyed. Blessed really”.

James blinking and muttering, “is he crying?”. Dash snorting, “ha loser”. Val actually turning around to the jock while Danny holds up a pink slip, “do you never learn?”.

“I’m collecting them at this point”.

Val blinks at that, “now you sound like Danny”. Dash looks genuinely offended and like he’s seconds away from starting a brawl right then and there, “you take that back!”.

“Make me!”.

Danny just laughs and waves a hand dismissively, “now now children, no fighting”. Earning him eye-rolls and scowls, Val laughs though so it’s a win in his books. Summoning out his staff and pointing it rather aggressively at the class, only Ashley jumps so clearly they’ve gotten too used to his shit by now, “now present to me your blob pets for grading!”.

Everyone dutifully pulls out their jarred blob ghosts and places them on their desks. Maple sticking up a hand, “do we have to release them or?”.

Danny chuckles, “you can keep ‘em if you wanna, wouldn’t exactly recommend it but hey Charles’s -that he so rudely stole from me- is doing cool so”, shrugging, making his staffs bell jingle. Danny pushing his energy into his staff making the feathers multiply and extend out to ‘assess’ the blobs. It was fucking weird that his staff could basically do anything so long as it had to do with his ‘role’ as Wisdom Guardian.

Jesse shakes his head at his blob attempting to nibble the feathers, “I’m just going to pretend this makes sense. This class is almost weirder than the ghosts are”. Danny simply smirks at that.

Danny nodding to himself after a bit, feathers retracting, gesturing the staff over the board making the results magically appear. Danny nodding smugly at his handy work/his students' results, fists on his hips, “Ancients the G.I.W. would hate me so much”.

“You say that as if you don’t already”.

Danny ignores that, turning around grinning and gesturing grandly at the board, “behold! Crack or no, your results!”. Walking to his desk and flopping down into his chair, “of course no one failed”, leaning back and feigning being utterly desolate, “oh how disgraceful that would be. To think my pupils would even consider bringing such shame upon me, after everything I have bestowed upon them”.

Val gets up and slams a cup of coffee on his desk, “will you stop being overdramatic now?”. Danny snagging it up eagerly, “oh why thank you”, gesturing dramatically, “my beloved emergency caffeine maid, how I thank yo-”, Val promptly cuts him off by punching his head into his desk.

“Call me ‘Maid’ again and I’ll make you a ghost”.

Danny just grumbles incoherently into his desk while the class goes about looking at the results.

“Oh Hell yeah! Guess who’s average is going up!”.

“Honestly I thought I did worse. Wow”.

“The bastard seriously docked me marks. Jerk”.

“You deserved it, Todd”.

“I’m honestly actually kinda proud of this. Doesn’t feel as meaningless as tests usually do”.

“High five bro!”.

“Heck yeah bro!”.

“That’s enough ‘bro’ing. Fuck”.

“Shove it, pipsqueak”.

“Is it sad that I care more about this result than my math results?”.

“Now if only uni gave a shit about this class…”.

Danny lifts his head up off his desk and rests his chin in a palm, “good for all of you”, sipping his coffee, “granted I’d got all happy go lucky if I ever got decent grades”. Val actually gives him a slightly sympathetic look at that, even if she says, “well maybe if you didn’t skip constantly”. Danny just takes another sip of his drink before standing up, “so who wants to do a blob release party in the field? Like releasing balloons into the sky”.

Maple practically skips back to her desk and actually hugs the jar her blobs in, “not mine”. Danny waves her off, “that’s perfectly fine”, standing up, swinging the staff behind his head to rest on his neck/shoulder. Wandering over to the window and just falling out of it, “see you out there!”.

James blinks, “we’re… not following him, are we”.

Valerie shrugs, “yup”, and basically jumps out of it.

“There’s a lot wrong with the two of them”.

“That’s nothing new”.

“I’m taking the stairs, this is ridiculous”.

“Well it is Danny for you”.

“I love this class”.

-

Danny just grins at everyone with their jars, nodding at them all before pointing his staff up at the sky for no real reason other than dramatics, more than a few classrooms have teens staring out at them while everyone -well almost everyone anyway, a small handful opting out- opening their jars and letting out the random blobs.

Some of the blobs just start zipping around or floating off, a couple nuzzle their particular caretakers, one or two just straight up stay and take naps on the grass. It was all kinda cute actually.

Amber crouching down on her ankles petting one of the grass sleeping blobs, “yeah I guess we kind of put you guys through the wringer, huh”. Danny chuckling, “oh yeah, for the most part, blobs do perfectly well living on their own in the wild-”.

Half the class basically speaks in unison and in time with him, “so long as there’s enough ectoplasm around”, followed by, “we know”.

Danny pouts at everyone, “well at least y’all remembered”. He has been successful at this teaching thing. Hurray. Good for him. Guess for now he’ll just enjoy the view of the healthy blob ghosts running around. Todd’s is apparently still somewhat ticked at him, taking the time to naw on his pants before fucking off. Hopefully, that one doesn’t cause problems in the future.

---

“So how was it? I saw that everyone passed”.

“Surprisingly enjoyable”.

“Really now”.

Sigh. “Fine I’ll admit it, you were right about this being a good option for me”.

“Good. So you’re up for doing this again next semester I take it”.

“At this point? No shit. Though I think my folks are going to interrogate me about my ‘usual’ and ‘forbidden’ and ‘impossible’ and ‘can’t possibly be true’ knowledge at this point, all things considered”.

Slight chuckle. “Good, it might do them some good. Their bigotry only seems to grow more concerning”.

“Heh, nice to hear it called bigotry honestly”.

“You’d be the one to say that”.

“Yeah, I guess so”.

“You know you’ve got one more thing to do now though”.

“Oh yeah? What?”.

“Get Christmas gifts from your students”.

“FUCK”.

“We also have a staff holiday party”.

“…oh I hate you so much”.

Chapter 7: Probably Utterly Unnecessary Overly Wordy Self-Imposed And Unintentional Obligatory Closing Chapter (But Christmas-Themed) Because I Knee-Jerk Hate Christmas And Will Take Any Given Opportunity To Take A Piss On The Season So In The Words Of Danny Fenton ‘Dude, I Am *Sick* Of Christmas!’… ‘I Know! (Puts Down Walker’s Arm And Grabs The Orange) How ‘Bout *This*!’

🎵All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth🎵

🎵My two front teeth🎵

🎵See my two front teeth🎵

🎵Gee, if I could only have my two front teeth🎵

🎵Then I could wish you, "Merry Christmas"🎵

…

….

…..

🎵What a bright time, it’s the right time🎵

🎵To rock the night away🎵

🎵Jingle bell time is a swell time🎵

🎵To go gliding in a one-horse sleigh 🎵

Danny’s grumbling almost aggressively and marching to class looking like he actively wanted to murder someone… slowly and violently. Repeatedly. Scowling up at the ceiling, nearly snarling at the speakers, “swell time my ass”, before basically kicking in his classroom door. Was he wearing an anti-Christmas sweater? Yes. Only because apparently teachers were ‘highly encouraged’ to show ‘holiday spirit’ with their clothing. Fuck Christmas. Fuck Christmas cheer. Goddamnit. His shirt said ‘sleigher’ -because Danny will pun regardless of how shitty or not his mood may be. And currently, it was quite shitty indeed- with a murdered reindeer. A graphically murdered reindeer. He’s pretty sure no teacher has tried to dress code him because of the fear of throat punching based off his facial expression.

Anyway…. door kicking. Ancients he wishes the stupid thing wasn’t built fucking solid o that his goddamn foot would have just smashed a nice little hole in the bottom. But hey, at least the door bangs against the wall hard enough to shake and bounce back enough that he has to kick it again to get it out of his way. And fine maybe he has to do that repeatedly. And sure maybe he just gets more violent about it. And okay he absolutely broke one of the hinges. Whatever. Fuck that door.

Valerie just sighs and shakes her head, well aware of Danny’s hatred for Christmas and well used to him turning into an angry chihuahua this time of year. Dash also rolls his eyes, even if he’s slightly intimidated. The rest of the class just looks on concerned as Danny walks over to the whiteboard, him smacking it hard enough to make the cracking spread, “alright so the next fucker who asks if I’m going to decorate this room will get stabbed and I will use your blood as the decoration to make this place look like Satan’s personal spa retreat, including something demonic-looking getting summoned into the corner to stare at you all menacingly”, glaring at a couple of people in particular, “and the next person to give me a bag of feathers as a present is spending the holidays with Boxy in a warehouse. Got it. Good. Anyways, since we don’t need no stinking stupid-ass review periods because we’re already done with that shit, what the fuck do ya wanna talk about and preferably loud enough to block out the crappy Christmas music”.

Todd blinks, “what crawled up your ass and died”. Danny snapping at him immediately, “my will to live in this god-forsaken time of year”.

🎵Who doesn’t love to sing We Wish You A Merry Christmas?🎵

Danny’s rye twitches, him half shouting towards the ajar door, “I fucking don’t!”.

🎵Good tidings we bring🎵

🎵To you and your kin🎵

🎵Good tidings for Christmas🎵

“Take those ‘tidings’ and shove them up your ass!”.

🎵And a happy New Year!🎵

Scowling and looking at the class, “y’all better start talking or I’m going to get in trouble for vandalism and destruction of school property”. Now that gets the class chuckling at him a little, making him roll his eyes somewhat fondly.

James shakes his head, “so I take it you don’t exactly like Christmas”. Valerie turning to him, “understatement. Danny hates Christmas more than the Box Ghost hates circles”.

“Well damn, that’s actually impressive”.

Danny sighs and glares at the ceiling, “and I actually hate it less than I used to”. That gets him some disbelieving staring. Whatever. Yes his hatred might be excessive but he’s a ghost goddamnit, excess is the name of the game; fuck off.

Amber purses her lips, “soooo… you don’t want presents then. Or any more anyway”. Danny sighs, “it’s fine. But make them Christmas-themed at your own peril”. The class absolutely laughs at him, not that he gives a shit. So long as no one gives him Christmas socks they can laugh all they want.

(Does basically everyone eventually give him something? Yes. Was it mostly ghost-themed/related? Also yes. Did at least one person be a complete jackass and give him something Christmas-themed? Definitely; but no one else did after he dumped ectoplasm-infused eggnog on that particular teen's head)

“Ignoring Danny’s hate boner, I vote we talk about Phantom”.

Dash grinning, “well duh!”.

Danny chuckles and shakes his head a little, “I swear this town has a mass obsession or something”, shrugging, “eh what the heck why not”. Val rolls her eyes which makes him smirk, even if his mood’s still shit. He pretty much just lets everyone chat amongst themselves; him flopping down in his chair and pretty much zoning out.

By the time class is coming to an end Danny’s got his feet up on the whiteboard ledge, Danny glancing at the clock, “whelp this has been fun”, lifting his feet off and spinning his chair around to face everyone, “guess this whole teaching thing was, like, an actually good idea. Dealing with you people wasn't terribly horrible”. He’s amazed the whole Phantom thing never got caught.

“Yeah fuck you too, teach”.

Danny grins and finger guns. Emilie getting up and tilting the door to get it open graces his ears with more fucking Christmas music though.

🎵Let’s sing Merry Christmas and a happy holiday🎵

🎵This season may we never forget the love we have for  *bell sounds*🎵

Danny snags his quill and flicks it at the speakers, shorting it out and making it smoke worryingly. Then blinking, “wait did they censor ‘jesus’? Haha nice”, smirking a little, that was probably Sam’s handiwork. Whelp anything that defaces a Christmas song is a plus in his book. Val shakes her head at him, “you going to wreck the other door hinge?”. Danny just gives her a thumbs up, gets up, and kicks the bottom hinge hard enough to bust it apart; the door falling with a thump to the ground. Danny nods, satisfied, to himself with crossed arms. Val rolls her eyes at him and gives him a friendly shove on the shoulder. Normally that would boost his mood entirely but his ghostly ears means he’s still able to hear the stupid fucking music from the other intact speakers.

Fuck this time of year.

(Though fine some of the presents he wound up getting were actually pretty neat. The ectoplasm lava lamp even impressed his folks, even if they were none too pleased about the ‘team ghost’ flag).

---

By the time the staff holiday party rolled around Danny had warned Lancer that if there was Christmas music playing the whole time or -Ancients help him- carollers, then he was going to invite Technus. Needless to say, said party did not have Christmas music.

Lancer shaking his head at Danny, “you can be quite intimidating when you want”. Danny just scowls at him, “you have never seen me legit piss off, Lance”. Even Danny knew angry Danny was a scary -and dangerous- Danny. The man simply chuckles, handing off a cup of punch to Danny. Who mutters down at it, “I could totally spike this with ectoplasm”.

“Don’t even think about it, Daniel. As it is we already had to put a cage over the noodles you brought for the pot luck”.

Danny snickers and side-eyes the writhing noddles with teeth gnawing on the bars. Unsurprisingly he was the only one willing to eat them. Frankly… they were delicious. “I like my food thank you very much”, and nods smugly. He can practically feel Millie glaring at him from across the room; she’s not exactly alone in said glaring. Not that Danny actually gives a shit.

Remi grins at him mischievously, practically slapping a reindeer headband on his head, “at least you made things more interesting, Mr. Grinch”. Danny scowls and subtly sets the antlers on fire. A couple teachers jerk away from him, but Charles laughs loudly, “you’re on fire!”. Danny smirks, “and? I happen to think it’s very friendly fire”. Remi giggles at him while Xander dumps some of the punch on Danny’s head. Rude. Understandable, but still rude.

“Whelp. Now my hair’s wet”.

“And that’s not better than being on fire?”.

Danny grins and nods smugly, “nope”.

Things go on for a while and there’s even a few shitty party games and a little dance thing which honestly just makes Danny think he’s going to die from mortification. What is it with full-blown adults and bad/embarrassing dancing? And pin the nose on the snowman? What the fuck, man. A certain purple cloaked figure distracts him from wincing over Mainers attempt at what appears to be some kind of shuffle? Eh whatever.

Danny grins at the blonde-haired man, honestly it still surprises him sometimes that his Guardian had a human form… well illusion would be more accurate. Not that that should really be surprising, considering their strength. “ClockWork”.

“Daniel”.

Lancer -who has apparently wandered back over for more punch- chokes a little, eyeballing the currently human-looking ghost. Right, he’s pretty sure he explained his Guardian to Lancer; possibly more than once actually. Lancer eyeballing Danny, “… Daniel”, with more than a little worry and warning in his voice.

Danny waves the man off, “it’s fine. ClockWork’s the last one you’d have to worry about”.

The ‘blonde’ nods, cloak moving slightly in a nonexistent wind, “indeed. Not that any would claim me harmless”.

“Nope, just legless”. ClockWork cuffs Danny one over the head for that. Danny pouting and rubbing his head, feigning injury. “Meanie”. ClockWork gives him an almost invisible fond smile.

Lancer blinks a bit harshly, “well… this is still for teachers”. Danny smirks, “and they ‘teach’ me. So there”.

ClockWork shakes their head, “I’m not here to partake, rather to remind someone that he has places to be”. Danny pouts at that, speaking incredibly sarcastically, “but I’m just hAvInG sO mUcH fUn. CaN’t YoU sEe?”, putting a hand to his chest dramatically, “BuT oH hOw NiCe Of My ClOaK bUdDy To CoMe FeTcH mE. oH hOw GrAtEfUl I aM”. ClockWork actually glares at him for that.

“Someone will come to fetch you”.

“Oh I know. But this party is just begging to be crashed”.

Lancer sighs, “for the love of Shakespeare, Daniel”. Putting on some obviously fake bravado and glaring at the ghost, “and where are you trying to take him”.

Danny sighs and sags a little, “Ancients fuck, Lance. Ghosts just so happen to have truce parties and maybe some of them get a little aggressive about me going to one”. More than a few of the other teachers are eyeballing Danny at this point.

Joshep glaring, “of course the ghosts actually like him”.

“Honestly isn’t he a little biased to be teaching about ghosts then?”.

Danny rolls his eyes, muttering, “having someone who dislikes ghosts would be what’s biased. Geez, been over this much”. Lancer claps Danny on the shoulder, avoiding ClockWork though, “for what it’s worth I agree with you, and my opinion just so happens to matter more”. Danny does smile over that, but eh, it’s probably a good idea that he skedaddles at this point.

Danny shrugs at Lancer before turning to ClockWork, “alright, cloak buddy, I’m sure Johnny’s already challenged someone to an unfair race and I’d rather a place get trashed after I’m there than before. But first…”, Danny turns around to grab up one of the Christmas oranges and lobs it through the ajar doorway. Resulting in the now more familiar than he’d like sound of Ghost Writers voice in the form of a shriek.

Lancer grimaces a little as Danny heads to the door, a few people watching awkwardly/cautiously, “I still don’t approve of you tormenting a poet with fruit”. That just makes Danny grin meanly at Lancer, then at the Ghost Writer who’s around the door and glaring at him.

Millie shouts after him, “you could at least dispose of the abomination that you call ‘food’!”. Danny shouting back, “naw! Why would I deny everyone the joy of such yummy friendly food!”, then snickering meanly to himself. Both ClockWork and Ghost Writer shake their heads at him, though ClockWork looks a lot more fond… and amused.

-

So what’s the first thing that greets Danny when he actually gets to Dora’s kingdom -which is apparently the place hosting, for his particular group anyway, this year- why it’s Skulker with a slice of pie in hand of course. Always was, probably always would be. Danny shaking his head fondly at the robotic ghost, “so what’s the flavour this year, my determined little poacher”.

“Berry and fish”.

Danny stares at him a little, “… okay yeah fuck you”, but takes the pie anyway. Like always it’s freaking delicious, but come on? Seriously? Berry and fish? Ghosts are weird, man. Not that he isn’t totally here for said weird.

It takes not even five minutes for Dora to practically skip up to him, putting a dainty hand on his shoulder lightly, “you look well, nest-mate mine”.

“You as well, Aurora”. Danny liked his nicknames, including for ghosties he actually liked. Danny smirking, putting a hand to his chest as she takes a step back, “in fact, I’m wonderfully well off. Got a group of teens to entertain most days,  then there’s the Guardian thing I’ve got going for me, oh and all these fuckers-”, jabbing a thumb towards the random crowd of ghosts, “-actually somewhat respect my human job”.

Ember scowls and snarks, “messing with a Guardian’s duties is just asking for trouble”.

“And you don’t actively want trouble? Huh, guess I misread you”. Ember flips Danny off for that. Dora, however, giggles lightly, hand over her mouth, “trouble-seeking as she maybe, there is a difference”.

Danny rolls his eyes, waving her off, “yeah yeah yeah, I know. Still fun to poke fun at everyone though”, and sticks his tongue out in Ember’s general direction; she throws a guitar pick at him, though she does look a little amused at least.

That was the nice thing about ghosts, they liked picking fights and poking fun at each other… and they liked others doing that back to them. Unlike humans, who usually got pissed off if you snapped back at them regardless of if they snapped at you first *cough cough* Dash *cough cough*.

Dora hums and nods to herself, “well you enjoy the party and may the truce for you be bless-ed, nest-mate”.

“May it be bless-ed for you as well, nest-mate”.

Dora was a nice sorta sister to have, and considering the Queen/mother fucking DRAGON thing he didn’t really have to worry about anyone picking fights with his little -even though she’s legit older than him- sister.

YoungBlood zips over and whisper laughs into Danny’s ear, “you should totally go bug that nasty Aragon about your boring adult stuff”, snicker, “he so doesn’t know”.

Danny grins wickedly, “oh Hell yeah”.

The kid -that Danny’s pretty sure he can only still see because he was absolutely still immature and because of the right to the High Throne thing- laughs and gets overexcited, “can I come! Can I come! Can I come! I’ll bring grapes”.

“Does everyone just know that I throw grapes at that bastard”.

“Yup!”.

“Fuck you, yes you can come”, smirking at the child ghost, “but make sure they’re extra squishy”. YoungBlood giving him a goofy thumbs-up before getting distracted by the sweets table.

Kitty giggles from the side at him, “here I thought teachers weren’t supposed to swear around children”.

“I resent that”, putting a hand to his chest, “why I in fact taught them to”, sticking up a finger, “in ghost speak specifically”. They had totally been taking advantage of that to get away with swearing in their other classes. Which Danny one hundred percent supports wholeheartedly. Kitty laughs at that and Danny’s going to take a guess that Johnny’s off hitting on some other girls here. Kitty speaking up again, “you know…. The flowers are kind of cute”, and giggles, leaning over to fiddle with one of the ghost pipes. Well that feels like proof to him.

Unsurprisingly Johnny comes out of nowhere, scowling at him then smirking attractively at Kitty, “come on babe, whatcha doing with him”.

She just huffs at him; Danny taking the opportunity to subtly slink away from the pair while they go about having one of their typical lovers quarrels. Danny damn near crashes into Desiree in the process through.

She scowls at him a little before shaking her head, “and that is why I absolutely do not ‘want a man’”. Danny chuckling awkwardly, “ah come on now, some of us are at least fun to mess with”. That gets a smirk out of the genie ghost, “true. Still not worth the trouble”. Danny just chooses to shrug before wandering off to the little appetiser table, Desiree’s tolerance for him was minimal at best… especially because he was a guy.

-

Danny barely gets to spend ten minutes demolishing the appetiser table before Walker is there being a pick and shoving a present at his chest unnecessarily hard. Danny letting out a little oof followed by a not so eloquent, “jerk”, in the prison wardens general direction.

The skull-faced ghost scowls at him, “I hope you are teaching those delinquents the law”. Danny rolling his eyes so hard it almost hurt, “of course, Whitey. I might be lazy and have a complete disregard for law but when I have responsibilities I actually tend to do them”, shrugging, “with the occasional shortcut”, smirking meanly at the ghost, “besides, the best ways to break the law require knowing it”, and winks. If it wasn’t the truce Danny is a-hundred-percent positive Walker would assault him right now.

Walker sneering, “you’re lucky it’s the truce, punk”, and stalking off feels like proof in Danny’s books.

Walker taking the initiative with the present giving basically results in everyone else following suit. Which of course means Danny gets pelted by boxes, which the exception of the occasional one that’s actually handed to him. They were all combative motherfuckers alright? Danny laughing probably doesn’t discourage it though.

Like always most would prove to be useless or even slightly insulting. Not that the gifts he chucks back won’t be equally offensive/pointless. He’s pretty sure his gift for Boxy is literally just a shit ton of marbles with square shapes inside them to really bug the guy. ClockWorks was a little touching though, being a gear cog accessory for his staff, and fine maybe Danny also gave ClockWork staff accessories. Like minds think in kind. Too bad FrostBite and Pandora have their own kingdoms truce celebrations to see to. Eh, he’ll visit them at some point. Besides, they all took turns hosting his group's truce celebrations. Technically he could go to those parties too but Danny’s not putting himself through three to six ‘Christmas’/‘Yule’/truce parties every year. He’s not a fucking masochist, regardless of what anyone might say.

Eventually, everyone gets all well and done with their present-based assault of each other. Dora nodding to herself and raising her chalice, “to a blessed and successful-”, everyone glancing judgingly at the Ghost Writer, “-truce!”. Danny, and more than a few others, chuckling at the Ghost Writers expense before sipping their prospective drinks. Was Danny’s the most disgusting horrid-looking concoction he could come up with based on what ingredients he had at his disposal? Abso-fucking-lutely. He even stuck in an orange wedge for the fuck of it. The smell was truly atrocious and the mild glaring that causes only makes Danny feel all the more smug. Drinking what’s effectively consumable battery acid with a devilish smirk as the party begins to draw to an end.

-

And boom bada boom, another year's festivities over. Guess the class shit’s over for another year too, so a nice little two-for-one ending there. Nice. Now to do it all over again in, like, a month. Well okay, a year for the truce crap. Oh whatever. Class starts again in January…

Eh at least Lancer had the decency to put Danny’s ecto-ology class in the afternoon again. Hopefully, that will never change. Though the fact that Danny still managed to show up late would probably cement that afternoon time slot. Ancients Danny might not show up at all out of spite if the man scheduled it any sooner. Lancer probably knew that too, the man had proven he understood waaaaaaay more than Danny ever thought/knew.

At least no one was treating him different due to the Guardian/teacher thing. Much anyways. Goes to show that Danny could probably change into infinitely stranger things and people would probably still go ‘eh that’s just Danny for you’. No one, ghost nor human, should have expected he’d become a freaking teacher (except ClockWork anyway… and the stupid fucking Observants) and yet everything went more or less fine.

But still, fuck Christmas.

And fuck the Observants for good measure.

What the heck, fuck the educational system too.

Throw in a ‘fuck his half-life’ for bonus points and to complete the nonexistent list of things to flip off before he goes to bed.

End.

[slowly-writing]

Whispers

Avengers x Teen!Reader

Word count: 1.8K

Requested by @shady80smusicsingercolor : Avengers x teen!reader Where the reader is a cheerleader at the high school that Peter goes to, reader was during school hours when the teen heard the rest of the squad talking crap about them,teen gets upset,and after teen decided to skip practice,when they arrive to the avengers tower,Steve was the first one to notice but yet haven't notice the sadness in the reader face,but then realized the teen should be in practice,Steve now notices the teen face, calls for the team,and team comfort her

A/N: this was requested so long ago (literally April 10th), and I’m so sorry it took me so long. Thank you for your patients!

“Bye Pete, I’ll see you back home. I’ve got practice after school,” you remind the boy, waving as you turn the corner out of the cafeteria. You always left lunch a little early. Your next class was across the school and you really didn’t like to be late. So that’s what brought you here, alone and hearing voices ahead of you. Normally you wouldn’t think much of it, being in a school there’s constantly someone somewhere, talking about something. But then you heard your name.

You paused creeping close to the corner, but not quite rounding it. Listening to the voices you recognized as your teammates.

“What’s the deal with y/n and Peter? She’s always with him...I wonder if they’re dating,” Betty whispers to the group you can’t quite see.

“They can’t be. She’s way too good for Parker. It’s just a charity thing. Cause she lives with the avengers and he works there or whatever. She probably pities him,” Brad counters and you shrink further in on yourself.

“She’s kind of a weirdo too though. With that whole mysterious backstory and weird accent she tries to hide. Where’s she from? And how did she end up at the avengers tower?” Liz joins in and your frown deepens.

Did they really think you were shallow enough to think you were better than Peter? Just because he wasn’t on the football team? If only they knew how awesome he really was. And why did they suddenly want to know everything about you? They never asked before and you don’t really want to unpack their analysis of your home life anyways. That was none of their business.

You silently turn around, taking the long way to class. You really don’t want to see any of them right now.

xxxxx

When the final bell rang you sat at your desk, debating whether you could face practice. They don’t know you heard them gossiping, and it hurts more that they said it all behind your back, so you shake your head sending a quick text off to your coach, claiming you have a migraine, and start walking home.

You kept running over the things they had said. They really thought Peter was lame? After everything, you’d thought they’d gotten to know him. He’s the coolest person you’ve met, even without the whole spiderman thing. He was sweet and super passionate about the things he enjoyed. He was smarter than you could ever hope to be, but you never minded listening to him in the lab as he rambled about the new web shooters he was working on. You think he’s amazing, and you know that’s more than your massive crush talking.

Then there was the fact that they thought you were hiding things. It’s not like your living situation was a secret, but it wasn’t something you enjoyed talking about. You were born in Sokovia and lived there with your parents until the attack with Ultron happened. Most of that day is a blur, a mix of confusion, chaos, and repressed memories. But you know Steve got you out, but your parents were lost in the tragedy.

Steve and the other avengers felt some sort of responsibility to you. You’re still not quite sure why, but you know better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. A lot of people from your hometown came out of it with nothing, and the team is always sure to help when they can, but you’re grateful for your new life and all that it’s given you.

You’re so lost in thought you don’t even register that you’re almost home until you reach the front door of the tower. You smile weakly at the security guard and make your way to the elevator, silently praying nobody is home. As the doors open you see your prayers haven’t been answered, but the silver lining is Peter’s not there yet. Maybe Steve will forget you have practice today.

“Hey, kiddo. Didn’t you have practice after school?” shit.

“Uh yeah...it umm. Got cancelled. Last minute...gardening emergency. They had to close the field for the day,” you wince and Steve raises an eyebrow. “I gotta go. Homework.”

With that lame excuse you scramble to your room, closing the door behind you and flopping face down on the bed.

xxxxx

“Hey, Peter. Did y/n seem off to you today? She seemed upset when she got home from school,” Steve asks Peter in the lab, Peter furrowing his brow before responding.

“No, not that I noticed, but I haven’t seen her since lunch. Maybe practice was rough, I know they’re getting ready for that competition in a few weeks,” Peter says softly, trying to figure out how to help you.

“No, practice was cancelled. They closed the field,” Steve’s words cause Peter’s head to snap up.

“No they didn’t. I saw them practicing after school. The soccer team was on the field too. I didn’t look too close because y/n says it’s embarrassing when I watch practices, but I know it happened,” Peter stands, setting his tools aside, “I’m gonna go talk to her.”

“I’ll come with you,” Steve follows him out of the lab, and not five minutes later, there’s a knock on your door.

“Coming,” you yell, only to immediately shrink back after opening the door. One look at their faces and you know they’ve caught you in your lie, “hey.”

“I think we need to talk,” Steve says in his captain voice and you let out a sigh, opening the door enough for them to follow you into the room.

“Why did you skip practice?” Peter’s head is tilting to the side like a confused puppy, and you have to remind yourself that this is a serious conversation, not a time to fawn over how cute he is.

“I just-”

“And don’t try to lie again,” Steve cuts you off. The man really knows you too well.

“You know how in movies and TV shows cheerleaders are always such jerks?” They both silently nod, “and how when I moved here I tried really hard to fit in so they’d be nice to me?” two more nods. “I thought it worked but it turns out that in real life they just say the mean things behind your back when they think you aren’t listening.”

“What’d they say?” Steve’s voice is softer now, he’s always been afraid of you having problems at school. He knows his fair share about bullying, and knows kids will always attack anything different. Your accent may have faded over the years, but it’s still clear that you’re not from here and you’re not quite used to the New York lifestyle. Back home everything was smaller, but you’re always excited to learn about your new home. It’s rare to see you without a smile on your face and he always hoped your naive compassion would save you.

“They were talking about how weird it was that I kept secrets about why I lived here and…” you trail off, looking at Peter. He looks ready to go to war for you, and you don’t want to admit the rest out loud, “that I must only hang out with Peter out of pity. But it's not true! Sometimes I think it’s the other way around. You’re so sweet and smart that sometimes I think the only reason you spend time with me is because you feel bad for me. The freaky kid from another country with no family. I try to fit in a school, so I don’t talk about my home, and I’ve learned to talk like they do. But no matter what I do, I still stick out. Maybe it’d be easier for you if we weren’t friends at all.”

By the time you finish your eyes are firmly locked on your hands in your lap, tears building up in your eyes.

“That’s not true,” Peter says firmly, in a rare show of anger. For a moment you think he’s mad at you, until he continues and you see the real object of his anger. “I don't hang out with you because I pity you, or I think I have to. I hang out with you because I like you for who you are. You make me feel normal. Not like the geeky kid at school everyone likes to tease, or the hero the city looks to for help. With you I’m just Peter. You listen to me ramble about tech I know you couldn’t care less about and you tell me about cheerleading moves that are so foreign to me they may as well be in a different language, but it doesn’t matter. We’re there for each other, it’s what we do. And I wish I could’ve been there for you this time. I know what it’s like to feel like you have to keep secrets but you don’t have to do that with me.”

You let his words sink in, letting him brush away the tears that have made their way down your cheeks before Steve speaks.

“And you have a family. I know you lost yours in Sokovia and I can’t even imagine that pain, but you’re not alone. You have all of us and any one of us will be here to listen to you, or take your mind off of it for a bit. What happened to you was traumatic, you lost your whole life and it’s okay not to want the kids at school knowing that. But you don’t have to forget where you came from to fit in.  Wanda makes food from Sokovia on Peitro’s birthday every year and I know she still keeps her journal in Russian. You’re allowed to miss your home, y/n. It doesn’t make you wierd, or ungrateful. It makes you human,” Steve wraps his arm around your shoulder and you lean into his side.

“I do like it here, but it’s just so hard sometimes,” you admit softly.

“We know it is, but you’re not alone,” Peter tells you and you smile up at him, gently taking his hand in your own.

“Now, I think you need a fun, relaxing night with no responsibilities. What do you say to a movie night. We’ll watch whatever you want,” Steve proposes and your smile widens as you nod. “Then it’s settled. I’ll go gather the troops, and you two come join us whenever you’re ready.”

It’s silent for a few moments after he leaves and you soon realize you’re still holding Peter’s hand. You go to pull away but his grip is firm. His other hand on your chin, drawing your eyes to his. “I mean it you know. I like you, as more than just a friend.”

“You do?” your voice is barely above a whisper, but there’s a happiness in your eyes you can’t hide and Peter’s whole face lights up.

“Yes really. I have for a while now, I just never knew how to tell you. I wasn’t sure if you felt the same way.”

“I do,” the words tumble out of your mouth before he’s even done speaking, but he’s smiling, and so are you. For now it all feels right as he gently presses his lips to yours. The whispers in the hallways don’t matter, because you have a family, and it seems you may have a boyfriend now too.

Tag list: @rvgrsbrns @rororo06 @prizmix-and-friends @worlds-in-words @im-salt-but-not-salty @5aftermidnight @riotmaximoff @xxxtwilightaxelxxx  @stop-drop-and-drumroll

[stxrshxpxd]

“do not expect this to be the last you see of me” (part 4)

check masterlist (in bio) for the other parts <3

Pairing: Kili / Legolas x (wood elf) Reader

Word count: 1.552

Warnings: None

* * *

“Since when do you get cuddly with dwarves?” Legolas said with an unjustified amount of irritation in his voice. He held my arm in a tight grip and I could feel his breath on my cheek.

“Since when do you care who I get cuddly with?” I asked back and pulled my arm away. He let go instantly and he looked down, seemingly embarrassed. His long hair hung to frame his face and he exhaled a frustrated sigh.

“Since I’m your best friend.”

“And that means you get to a say in who I-” I began to get heated but cut myself off. “Who even said I’m interested in him?”

“Oh, please,” Legolas exhaled and turned around for a moment. He paced around a small circle in my bedroom and I let my eyes jump from his braided hair to his muscular back, down his sculpted waist and then back up to his vibrant eyes as he turned to face me again.

“You’ve never smiled at anyone like you smile at him.”

“I don’t even know him,” I argued. I didn’t want to admit to myself why I so desperately wanted to hide my newfound infatuation from Legolas. We had never really had conversations like this before - about love and attraction. It just felt odd to discuss it with him.

“You can’t be with a dwarf-”

“Who do you want me to be with?”

Legolas got quiet. He looked around in the room, searching for a fitting answer. I knew what he wanted to say and I knew he couldn’t get it out.

“Legolas.”

My voice softened and I took a couple steps closer to him. His jaw was tense and his gaze set somewhere behind me.

“Mellon nin,” I whispered. He sighed and flinched at my words.

“Don’t call me that.”

“What?”

“Friend,” he said.

I reached my hands out and gently held his clothed arms. He looked away from me but willingly stayed under my touch.

“You just called yourself my best friend earlier,” I chuckled but Legolas looked miserable.

He finally looked up into my eyes but the eye contact didn’t last long. He suddenly pressed his lips against mine in a kiss more passionate than I had ever experienced before. He quite literally took my breath away. I had instinctively closed my eyes but I opened them halfway through the kiss. His eyes were closed tightly and his brows deeply furrowed. The side of his nose was pressed against mine and I felt him exhale sharply through it.

Once again Legolas had made me completely forget about Kili’s existence for a moment, but then his voice cut through my foggy thoughts and made me pull away. My hands left Legolas’ forearms and I purposely avoided eye contact as I headed out of my bedroom.

“Sorry?” I asked for Kili to repeat his question. He looked at me through big eyes and held an apple up next to his face.

“Can I have the last apple?” he asked again and I nodded out of impulse without even consoling with Legolas. I didn’t dare look at him for now. My emotions were boiling up inside me and they seemed impossible to read. Looking at Kili, I felt the same. Only without the feeling of impending doom regarding lifelong friendship being on the line.

“Y/N, I was thinking..” Kili said and then took a big bite of the apple. “..I would like to show you Erebor. I’m sure all the dwarves would love to see you again. Let me return your hospitality.”

I could barely hear what he was saying. All I kept thinking about was how Legolas had yet to make it back to the kitchen and how incapable my brain was of demanding my body to turn around. I had no idea what he was thinking.

“Yes,” I said in a weak voice. “That sounds great. I would love to see your home.”

Kili had sparks in his eyes and a big content smile on his lips. His cheeks were filled with apple and he continued munching on it in silence as he nodded.

“I will travel with you on my way back home. And from there lend you a horse for your journey to the mountain,” Legolas spoke in a steady voice behind me. This time I turned around and we exchanged brief looks. I watched him pass me and head directly for his bow and arrows that stood leaning against my wall.

“Very well,” I said with a lack of better words.

“Great,” Kili nodded.

It had only taken a few minutes to pack the food I had left in my cupboards and find our way back down to the mossy ground. Kili had mounted his pony and we were all strolling in silence down the familiar path. The only sounds were those of the forest - the birds in the trees, the distant stream of water and the breeze blowing through the bushes.

It would take a little over an hour to get to Thranduil’s Halls and I knew Legolas didn’t want to talk to me. I couldn’t figure out if he was embarrassed or angry or sad, but his jaw was tight and his gaze turned away from me.

“Oh, look,” Kili gave a shrill whisper and pointed his arm into the deep forest. We all obeyed his wish and discovered a tranquil doe standing in the bushes. She was a gorgeous sand colour and her ears twitched attentively as we carried on down the path.

“Friend, not food,” Kili pointed out and nodded his head at me.

“I’m proud of you,” I laughed, tilting my head up slightly to look him in the eye where he sat on the back of his pony. He had a dorky little smile on his lips and it was a contagious one.

Legolas didn’t say much during that hour, but Kili made up for his lack of conversation with a myriad of anecdotes. Ones that included his brother and uncle - most of them did - left him somberly silent on occasion. I didn’t quite know how to react to his emotions, so I mirrored his silence.

Being an elf, I had an interesting relationship with death. It felt distant in the sense that it wasn’t inevitably in my fate that I would suffer it someday soon. But I had of course seen it happen to many around me, some that had been close friends and family members.

Kili was always quick to regain his spirit and by the time we reached the Elvenking's Halls he was in the middle of another funny anecdote, but Legolas cut him off.

“I will be right back with your horse,” he announced and earned all my attention for a few seconds. His stern air had now turned into an undeniably miserable look.

“Thank you,” I muttered and he was off.

“Go on,” I chuckled weakly at Kili who had been suddenly interrupted.

“Well that was pretty much the extent of it, the fun bit of the story anyway. Because then the wargs came and.. well, you happened.”

He said it in such a way that it made me sound like the most exceptional event. To be fair, I did save their lives that night, but that wasn’t it. His eyes had a special twinkle in them and his smile wasn’t as dorky this time, but rather tamed and resembled a smirk more so than a wide grin.

“How funny. That was the same night you happened,” I added as the last couple of words, because he had in fact begun to lean closer to me. For maybe the first time in my life I had to stand on my toes to kiss someone, as his lips were just out of reach where he sat on top of his pony. Kili’s scruffy chin pressed into mine and his one hand grazed my cheek about as delicately as his dwarf genes would allow.

I had forgotten the world around us existed for a moment - and where we were within it - until galloping hooves came closer and reminded me of our whereabouts. Some type of deep guilt washed over me and made me pull away from Kili.

That miserable look on Legolas’ face was now as legible as an open book, and yet neither of us acknowledged the fact that he had just caught me kissing Kili. I hadn’t done anything morally wrong per se, but there was a horrible feeling in my stomach that was eating me up from inside.

Legolas swiftly slid off the large grey horse and dug the heels of his boots into the muddy ground. I accepted the bridle from his hand and he impulsively dragged that hand across the horse’s strong neck for a moment.

“My father will not be pleased to know one of his horses is gone.”

“I’m sorry,” I said as it was the first thing that came to mind. Legolas shook his head.

“I’m happy to help. Mellon nin.”

He said it in a way that left me with a stabbing feeling in my chest. I uttered a light sigh of torment and Legolas turned around.

“Have a safe journey,” he wished in a quick turning of his heel and then continued walking away from us.

[iliumheightnights]

Peter Pevensie Fluff ABC’s (Male Reader)

Peter Pevensie x Male Reader

For my dear friend @itslouielou​ ...

A = Attractive (What do they find attractive about the other?) - Your looks. I wish I could say Peter wouldn’t care about your looks, and he doesn’t, but at the same time he thinks you’re so hot and that’s what he finds the most attractive. At least at first.

B = Baby (Do they want a family? Why/Why not?) - Yes he does. Growing up he had been raised that’s what he was SUPPOSED to achieve with his life but that all changed when he fell in love with you, a man. That was DEFINITELY not how it was supposed to go. But that didn’t matter to Peter, he loved you and he still wanted a family...luckily Aslan helped out there.

C = Cuddle (How do they cuddle?) - He’s the big spoon! He likes to hold you close to him as tight as he can. Sometimes you have to tell him to ease up a bit because he just gets really clingy.

D = Dates (What are dates with them like?) - In Narnia, they are the most incredible and outgoing dates. He’ll throw large galas and parties to show you how much he loves you. Sometimes you’ll go on amazing adventures throughout Narnia. Back in England it’s a whole other story. Two men going on dates in public in his time? Good luck with that. You’re lucky if he brushes his hand with yours every so often. But that doesn’t mean he won’t take you on dates, they’re just in secret. The occasional picnic with Lucy who eventually runs off to ‘explore’ something. The late night drive through the country roads. Anything he can do to take you out.

E = Everything (You are my ____ (e.g. my life, my world…)) - “You’re my king M/n.” He says it with so much love and adoration, but you can’t help but say a joke. “Of course I am. I had a throne right besides you.” He’d only playfully roll his eyes.

F = Feelings (When did they know they were in love?) - It would have been during his time in Narnia. He would have had a feeling and know that he possibly liked you before that in England but...two boys in love? That wasn’t possible...was it? But in Narnia, there he was king and no one would judge him for who he loved. So he acted on his feelings.

G = Gentle (Are they gentle? If so, how?) - Peter is gentle...or at least he tries to be. Peter’s a teenage boy and still trying to figure out just how relationships work. When he gets to his more mature age and grows into his crown he knows exactly how to treat you.

H = Hands (How do they like to hold hands?) - In Narnia he will hold hands with you all the time, Everyone knows just how important it is to both of you to hold each other’s hands. In England it’s a whole other story. Hand holding practically became none existent besides when you were alone together. However sometimes the two of you held pinkies if it was possible.

I = Impression (What was their first impression?) - The first time Peter ever met you it was in England. More than likely you had met in school and had become friends. Honestly I could see Peter as a little kid Bullying you in school but the two of you eventually became friends.

J = Jealousy (Do they get jealous?) - Peter is a jealous boy. The moment he sees someone talking with you, no matter their intentions, he’s immediately by your side intimidating them into leaving.

K = Kiss (How do they kiss? Who initiated the first kiss?) - Honestly you were probably the one to initiate the first kiss. Peter would honestly be kind of sloppy at kissing at first until a bit more into your relationship. Then his kisses become filled with passion and love.

L = Love (Who says ‘I love you’ first?) - Fun fact. You both do. You literally would say it at the same time and laugh at it.

M = Memory (What’s their favourite memory together?) - It was a memory back in Narnia. Some Noble at insulted Peter and you had just gone OFF on the noble, bringing shame and dishonor to him.

N = Nickel (Do they spoil? Do they buy the person they love everything?) - In Narnia Peter would spoil you with so many things. From the finest clothes to the most elegant jewels, even if you didn’t want them. “Only the best for my boyfriend.” He would always say. In England it would be a bit different, he would no longer have the means to get you fancy clothes and elegant jewelry but hey, he’s still gonna give you small gifts. Such as food, home made things he made (With Lucy’s help of course), and some things for your hobbies.

O = Orange (What colour reminds them of their other half?) - Red. Red reminds him of Narnia, which reminds him of all the special time he got to spend with you.

P = Pet names (What pet names do they use?) - My King, My Prince, Love, your majesty.

Q = Quaint (What is their favourite non-modern thing?) - horseback riding or fencing. It reminds him of his time in Narnia and what he missed.

R = Rainy Day (What do they like to do on a rainy day?) - Spending time with you, probably listening to the radio. Honestly anything that saves him from boredom.

S = Sad (How do they cheer themselves/others up?) - Peter likes to just let it out. He was raised in the belief that ‘boys and men don’t cry.’ but you showed him it was alright to cry. However when he does let it out, he likes to be around you for comfort. Normally he’s better after a good crying session.

T = Talking (What do they like to talk about?) - He likes to reminisce about your time in Narnia. “Do you remember when-” Yeah it’s a lot of that.

U = Unencumbered (What helps them relax?) - Peter loves taking a nice warm bubble bath to relax, sometimes even you join him.

V = Vaunt (What do they like to show off? What are they proud of?) - Peter is proud of his brawns. He has brains of course, but his brawns are what he’s really proud of. He’ll flex his muscles off every now and then and will try to show off how strong he is. But hey that’s good to you.

W = Wedding (When, how, where do they propose?) - Remember you both spent a long time in Narnia...that’s where it happened. He proposed to you during the golden age of Narnia when the Pevensies ruled, right there on the terrace of Cair Paravel. Of course you accepted, you’d be crazy not too.

It was only a couple days after that the actual ceremony took place and you became Peter’s husband. But then you returned to England you both wondered...were you still married? You both decided yes.

X = Xylophone (What’s their song?) - Okay but like...hear me out. “I can’t wait to be king” from lion king. That is perfect for him.

Y = Yes (Do they ever think of getting married/proposing?) - Well...he did haha. If he has to do it again in England he will.

Z = Zebra (If they wanted a pet, what would they get?) - A lion! No, but well maybe. If anything he’d totally get a horse.

[lugialagia]

A new King for Asgard

Summary : Loki falls in love with Y/N but the day has come when she chooses to marry Thor and be the new Queen of the realm. But Thor has something else in mind and for once, Loki will be the one to be tricked.

Pairing : Loki x reader (3rd person)

Words : 1,994

Loki was going to attend to a big event. All Asgard was waiting for this. One of the Princes was going to be married. There will be a new King on the throne. The kingdom was happy and it was all that mattered.

After Odin’s death, Asgard was ruled by his personal guard. The King’s guard must take the King’s place if none of the Princes was married. A King could not rule without a Queen. Thor nor Loki had a maid to bride, so none of them could have the throne.

It was during this period of time that Loki tried to make amends for his acts. He wanted to change for Thor. His brother could have been the new King marrying Jane Foster, he asked her to marry him. But she refused. She didn’t want to leave Midgard and rule an entire kingdom. It was too much, too many responsibilities. So, the two of them broke up. Obviously, Loki laughed at his brother because, well, he despised the mortal girl and he didn’t want a mortal to rule over Asgard. But Odin’s son’s sorrow affected him more than he wanted to admit it.

The Jötun Prince did everything in his power to cheer him up and even promised him to not be so evil again, he had learned from Midgard. The two brothers had reconnected and finally went to the tavern together again and trained and hunted like when they were kids.

And one day, during one of their hunt days, their life changed for the best.

***

Unhabitual sounds made its way to their ears. They were in the middle of a clearing. The sounds didn’t come from animals nor nature but from men. The more they got close, the more they heard sounds of men and blades clashing together. Thor and Loki eyed each other with worry and ordered their horses to run faster. The trees were blurry and the poor wild animals ran away quickly when they heard hooves clashing on the ground.  

When they arrived near a fall, the two Princes saw a rather uncommon scene. A woman was fighting in the middle of at least thirty warriors. And what surprised the most Thor and Loki was the twenty bodies on the ground around her. Loki seemed to be enchanted by her moves. She was fighting with grace and ferocity, impaling a warrior with a sword while piercing the neck of another warrior with a dagger, who was charging behind her. This woman had a very particular combat style, it was like she was the perfect mixt between Thor and Loki. And Loki couldn’t take his eyes off of her.  

This moment of drift only lasts a second. Loki teleported himself next to the mysterious woman and created a magic shield around them while Thor grabbed Mjölnir and landed in front of his brother, smashing his hammer on the ground. All the enemies fell at the same time because of the electric charge. Loki then destroyed the shield and looked at the Goddess on his right.  

Her face clearly showed her surprise. She wasn‘t prepared to see the two Princes of Asgard fighting at her side to save her. Loki was the first to speak. “Are you hurt, my lady?” he asked. “N-no, my lord. I’m doing well, thank you.” These words soothed him immediately. He gave her a tender and true smile, introducing himself, even if she already knew who he was. “I’m Y/N.” she said back. The Prince took her delicate hand in his and kissed her knuckles softly. "Glad to meet you, Lady Y/N.’’ interrupted Thor.  

***

It has been eleven years since then, and the three of them became close friends. This woman changed their lives. Thor was in a better mood thanks to her and he even forgot Jane. Loki spent all his time with Y/N because the two of them shared many common points, like reading and making tricks. He read to her his favourite books, took her with him to play some tricks on the guards and they had deep or philosophical conversations. But Y/N liked Thor with the same passion. She spared with him to improve her strength, she assisted to the fests until the next morning while laughing at Thor and his friend’s jokes. She was spending all her time with the two Princes.

That’s why Loki was happy today. He was happy to see his brother and his best friend get married. Deep inside, his heart was aching. He would never say it, because he didn’t want to spoil this beautiful day, but he was in love with Y/N. Since the beginning. But he was also proud of his brother, that he found love again. Even if it meant that he would be sad.  

Thor was literally shinning in his new armor, made especially for the event. He had a large smile plastered on his face, waiting next to the throne for her bride to come. The royals of other kingdoms were present in the room as well as most of the city. The marriage was something big for everyone.  

Every heads turned toward the large doors. They opened with a heavy noise, and Y/N was here. The young Aesir was wearing a beautiful green and black dress, with a little trail behind.  

Wearing my colours at your marriage with my brother. How can you do that to me, Y/N ?

Y/N walked in the middle of the crowd toward her husband-to-be. When she walked past Loki she gave him a wide smile that he gave back without thinking. Bitterness was still present in his heart but he couldn’t help but smile at the girl he loved.  

Once she was in front of Thor, their hands joined like they were attracted like two magnets. The actual King was accompanied by a matrimonial sorcerer. It was him who would unite the couple with a symbol that each of them will forever have on their skin. “Asgardians.” said the King. “We are reunited on this day to celebrate the most important event, the union of our next King and Queen. I am proud to directed this marriage because it is a great honour. But I am also sad that the Allfather can not be here to assist to this ceremony.” Each face in the room showed pain. They all remembered Odin’s death. On the other hand, Loki was impassive.  

“But I am sure that he is looking at us in Valhalla and that he would be proud of you Thor.” he said with a sincere look. Then his eyes stopped on Loki, to show him that his father would have been proud of him too. “We are now going to begin the ritual. If someone wants to speak his disagreement, speak now or keep it until death.”

At the King’s words, Loki was fighting to not scream “No!”. He wanted to do it, of course, but he wanted to respect Thor and Y/N's choice. He should have confessed his love for her, he knew it. But Loki knew that happiness was not something he could have. She would have rejected him. And he was right. Because Y/N was in love with Thor, not him.  

But he couldn’t help himself. His silver tongue couldn’t be restrained. “I disagree.” said Loki with a perfect calm voice. Every Aesir turned their head toward him. No one was impressed, like they already knew the God of Mischief was going to interfere. “With all my respect, Y/N I don’t want you to marry my brother. I know you are a perfect match as friends, but I’m not sure it will be the same as a couple.” he confessed while staring at Thor. “And I know that I am a perfect imbecile to not have said it sooner, but I am deeply in love with you Y/N. Since we met. I didn’t tell you because I was afraid of being rejected like every time.” Then his eyes suddenly found the ground interesting. “But on the other hand, I don’t want you to cancel your marriage. I want you both to be happy and I know you are perfect for the throne. I just needed this to get out of my chest. I am deeply sorry.”

Thor and Y/N gave each other an accomplice look. “I’m glad you finally opened your heart, brother.” Thor then walked in front of Loki and hugged him. He put his hands on his brother’s shoulders and make him take his previous spot in front of the bride. Thor then went back at Loki’s place in the crowd. Loki didn’t understand anything. He was staring at Thor and his love with a questionning look. “I don’t think I understand what is going on right now.”

Thor nodded his head toward Y/N who was smiling mischievously. Loki was completely lost. “All of this was just an act for you to confess your feelings, Loki. I was not going to marry Thor.” Y/N explained. “You tricked me?” Loki asked, dumbfounded. “We must find something to help you have her, brother.”   Loki smiled, defeated. “I must admit that was a good plan. But it means there will not have a new King on the throne.” he said with a frown. “You really don’t understand, brother. The ceremony still is.” Thor replied.

Loki looked at Thor with wide eyes. “Me?” Thor nodded. “I don’t see anyone else on this throne, Loki. You will be a great King, like Father wanted you to be.” Right before someone could interrupt the discussion, the King intervened. “My Prince, do you want to marry Lady Y/N, right here and now, and become the new King of Asgard?” Loki looked at his lover with apprehension. “Do you want to?” he asked, uncertain. “Wans’t it all clear? Of course, I want to be your wife, that’s all I ever wanted.”

Loki released a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Well, I agree too.” Suddenly, people started to clap their hands for Loki. Once the silence fell on the room, the ceremony continued. “Good. I think it is good to say that no one object the new union.” The King waited some more just to be sure and Loki was really nervous. Many Aesir hated him after what he had done on Midgard. So, he was expecting a wave a disagreement. But no words were spoken. The King then left his place for the sorcerer.  

“Loki Odinson, Y/N Austridottir, by joining your left hands, you agree to love each other for eternity, beyond Valhalla and to rule over Asgard as the King and Queen of this realm.” Without any hesitation, the two of them hold their left hands, a smile on their lips. The sorcerer started to chant his spell. Magic surrounded them. It wasn’t a dark and evil magic. It was like love had a shape and was floating in the air. And it was the case because the sorcerer needed their love to create the symbol that will seal the couple.  

A soft heat invaded their wrists just before the tattoo appeared on their skin. They eyed the new found drawing with interest. It was a snake around a spiky flower. Each one had a golden eye. Obviously, the snake represented Loki. And the flower represented Y/N. It was a special Asgardian flower that was very dangerous but had a sweet taste. The golden eye represented the royal couple, because the King and the Queen were always watching over their people.  

The crowd cheered the new couple, and most important, the new King and the new Queen of the realm. Everyone was smiling, but the most beautiful smile was Thor’s one. He was so happy to finally see his brother with the woman he loved.

Loki looked at his Queen and without wasting any time, he placed his hands on her waist and brought her to his chest, kissing her lips with passion.

[ssa25]

Naruhina - Save My Soul -NH2020

For Naruhina2020 March (Bodyguard AU) and April (Celebrity AU)

A/n: Re-posting this long oneshot after major edits. I’d blundered previously when I posted this with huge chunks of old drafts attached at the end, smh. If you have read this story before, please ignore this post.

Rating: Mature

Warning: Modern AU with RTN Hinata and RTN Naruto

-

Hinata knew how some people have fetishes. She never thought she had one. Until that moment.

Wait. Would it still count as a fetish if she found that particular body part extremely sexy and distracting on only one specific person?

Sitting in the back seat of her chauffeur driven customised Maybach, Hyuuga Hinata could not take her eyes off of the large manly hands of her bodyguard who was sitting in the front passenger seat. Her nipples puckered and rubbed against the lace of her bra under the short black dress, as flashes of those very same hands skimming over her body, played through her mind. Especially how his long fingers had pinched and thrust into parts of her anatomy that had made her scream and tremble in toe curling pleasure. Involuntarily, her thighs clenched together at the reminder. 

She had to force herself to look away from the man who was absolutely unaware of how his mere presence was wreaking havoc on her mind and body. Not even the constant chatter of her relatively new, chirpy assistant Matsuri, who was sitting right beside her, could pull her thoughts away from the self destructing path she was seemingly on.

Get over it, get over him, she told herself.

Uzumaki Naruto did not want her. He had made it clear. That one particular night, exactly nine days back, had been etched, engraved and embossed into her brain, was supposedly a slip-up on his part. A rare moment of weakness, was how he’d labelled it.

He was her bodyguard. Nothing more, nothing less.

So why did her body yearn for him? Had she imagined the explosive chemistry they had shared in bed? Was she not his type?

The whole world assumed that being a young famous singer-songwriter, she had more men in her life than she could handle. But little did they know that all through her existence, she had been left sorely disappointed by the men who truly meant something to her.

-

As soon as she entered her suite at the hotel, she flung her crystal studded killer heels to the side and made a beeline for the well stocked mini bar. 

She had only had a few cocktails at the lavish and exclusive birthday bash of a world renowned, award winning artist, at his sprawling mansion in the outskirts of the city. Usually, she preferred to be in control of her senses at these events. She absolutely hated the idea of other people witnessing her in a weak moment.

It was probably one of the very few traits she had inherited from her now-estranged father. Her already precarious relationship with her only living conservative parent blew into smithereens when she decided to pursue her dreams. 

But that topic was a terribly sore spot for her, and she did not even want to think about it. The only thing she wanted was to drink herself to numbness, now that she was back in the security of her room. Just so that, she could stop feeling unwanted and unrequited emotions and just drift off to sleep.

She could hear Naruto stepping inside the suite, but she willed herself to not glance back at him. He would sleep on the sofa bed in the living room like he had done the night before.

He had been hired by her label’s President to protect her. After she had, apparently, irked quite a few psychopathic, batshit crazy fangirls of the famous rockstar Sabaku Gaara. Just because they had casually dated for a few months last winter. They went especially haywire when the man had written an entire song about her and had openly admitted to it in an interview.

Their relationship ended prematurely, but the threats became progressively scarier and outrightly morbid. That’s when Naruto was taken on board from an elite security organization. He was to protect her, accompany her everywhere for the foreseeable future and always stay within reach. 

Lucky her.

Hinata picked out a small bottle of red wine on impulse and carried it to her room. She shed down to her lacy underthings and poured out a generous amount of the merlot into a bulbous glass.

Taking it to her ensuite bathroom, she began wiping off her makeup in preparation for bed. The process had become so common for her, she was lost in her musings while doing a perfect job of stripping her face bare. 

Refilling her glass again, she lifted it to her lips, when it was snatched away. The harsh tug of Naruto’s fingers made her gasp and spill some wine on her chest. She had not seen him enter her private bathroom.

“What the fuck are you doing?!”, she snapped at him. “You spilled wine on me!”

His gaze flickered to her wet cleavage before he looked away. With his jaws clenched, he poured the drink into the sink and looked at her with a less than pleasant expression.

“You should know better than to drink irresponsibly. Matsuri has already reminded you that you have an early morning meeting with Mr. Senju. The last thing you need is a hangover.”, he uttered those words with a straight face. He tried his best to seem unaffected.

She forced a smile on her face. “I can’t sleep without getting myself drunk. Unless you can think of another way to tire me out. That might just help.”

She was shamelessly coming on to him, but at this point she could care less. Or it was probably just plain ol’ liquid courage.

“Go to bed, and count sheep, for all I care.”, his voice was steady but she could see the inkling of desire in his azure eyes.

She wanted to egg him on, and brought her hands to the front clasp of her bra. “Oh, come on, help me out a bit. Just one more time.”, she was almost playfully begging him now. And she knew she would take whatever he would throw at her. It probably went against feminist ideals, but she was never this weak for another man. She needed him like no one else. Why did he not get that?

“Don’t you want me again?”, she propositioned him and unhooked the wet lace bra to tempt him further.

But before he could get an eyeful for her naked heaving chest, he turned around to walk out of her bathroom. She could only laugh, while her heart squeezed painfully inside at his outright rejection.

“You’re such a pussy!”, she commented mockingly to goade him further.

And lo, behold, it made him stall at the door. His fists were clenched at his sides, but he did not retaliate with words. Just when she felt a sliver of doubt that he would walk away, he swung around and marched over to her, capturing her burgundy stained lips under his hungry ones. 

She moaned audibly at the surge of passion in their liplock, it positively made her giddy. His hands pulled and pressed her body against his, before cupping her perky round bottom and lifting her up against him.

Hinata squealed into the kiss at the sudden change of altitude, but she did not dare break away from him. She needed him so badly that she grasped at his short hair desperately to gain leverage and rub her core against his hardening length.

She heard him groan out loudly and then he pulled away from her lightly bruised, swollen lips, as he joined their foreheads and continued what she had started. Holding her from her bottom, he pushed her against the nearest wall and started thrusting upwards for some desperately needed friction. The silk of her panty was really thin and flimsy, and the ridges of his jeans gliding over her most sensitive point was delicious.

“Yes!”, she cried out. “Naruto… Please!! Don’t stop…!!”

Her hoarse pleading made him curse out loud. Abruptly, he her away from the wall. But instead of taking her to the bedroom like she had expected, he stepped into the large glass walled shower.

Unceremoniously, Naruto pulled the tap handle and the shower sprayed them with really cold water. She screamed as the icy water fell on her skin, instantly cutting off the heat of their encounter.

“F*ck! What the hell?!”, she scrambled out of his grip and out from the chill of the water. “What was that for?”

The cold spray had drenched Naruto, by the time he turned the supply off.

“That was me trying to act on the shred of rationality left in me.”, Naruto said seriously while rubbing a hand across his hair. She shivered and wrapped her arm around her naked chest.

“Oh, for f*ck’s sake, do you have to be so rational all the dam* time?!!”, her voice echoed against the walls. “What’s wrong with you??!!”

He slipped out of the shower cubicle and threw the nearest dry bathrobe at her. She quickly pushed her arms through it to cover herself. Doing what he did was humiliating enough, especially after she had literally begged him to take her.

“Call me old fashioned, but I prefer my women sober in bed…”, he replied with a snort.

“Oh just stop with that holier than thou attitude… I’m barely tipsy… You’re the one who’s got his panties in a wad for no reason.”, she let her frustration speak through with zero filter. “Seriously, have you ever let yourself get carried away by your instincts? Instead of being so dam* uptight 24/7?...”

“Oh, I’ve tried it… Look where that got us…”

“You say it as if it was bad for you…”, she followed after him into the bedroom.

“That is beside the point… You, Miss Hinata Hyuuga, are my employer… It is inappropriate for us to sleep together...”

“It’s a little late for worrying about appropriateness, don’t you think?!...”, her voice was laced with sarcasm. “Surely you realise that or have you lost your memories while perched on your moral high horse?”

Naruto gritted his teeth and glared at her with icy blue eyes. “I haven’t forgotten anything… But I have more self respect and pride than repeating my mistake of being your rebound hookup.”

She felt hurt by his accusation. “Is that what you think? A rebound?... Gosh, Naruto... I have been over Gaara for months...”

“Well then, what else is it??”, he demanded.

She was tongue tied by the abruptness of his question. What was it? 

She was crazy attracted to him. She cared for him. She wanted him to do unspeakable things to her. She wanted to do similar things back to him. But that was as far as she had thought.

Seeing her speechless, he nodded curtly. “That’s what I thought.”

He moved away from her before her muddled brain could make a sense out of the deviation their conversation had taken. Naruto picked up his wallet, blazer and keycard before walking towards the main door.

“Get some sleep… Please… I will be right outside.”

Hinata could not utter the right words to stop him. Even if she desperately wanted to. 

-

By eight o’ clock next morning, Hinata was seated in an upscale rooftop restaurant that was famous for its breakfast menu. Mr. Senju was notorious for being an early riser, and he believed in using as much of the daylight as possible to conduct profitable business.

Clad in a flowy lavender maxi skirt, a white lace crop top and a pair of comfy birkenstocks, Hinata was half heartedly listening to Mr. Senju. Her mirrored sunglasses provided her the perfect ruse to hide her tired eyes and also to frequently glance over at Naruto, who stood a few feet away, where he had the perfect vantage point of the whole setting.

Matsuri sat beside her, jotting down important points that were discussed. By the end of the meal, Hinata had agreed to lend her voice to a character of a big budget animated movie that would be produced by Mr. Senju. Few remaining details would be ironed out by her label before she would sign the contract.

“Then I’ll see you back in the city in two weeks, Miss Hyuuga.”, Mr. Senju shook her hand. “It was a pleasure meeting you. Have a good day!”

Hinata smiled widely and bid him goodbye.

“Wow… That was definitely worth losing a few hours of sleep…”, Matsuri commented.

Hinata nodded listlessly, and nibbled on the poached eggs. She would have certainly liked Naruto to join her at the table, but he had maintained the cool aloof demeanour from last night. Like they only worked in a professional capacity.

Hinata could not openly make any grand gestures towards him because the restaurant was decently filled with posh clients.

From behind her shades, she had even noticed more than one woman staring in the direction of the tall figure of her bodyguard. And it lit her with jealousy. It was absurd. She had no claim over him, but she wanted to gorge the eyes out of any woman who so much as second glanced at him. Curiously, she had never felt this possessive about any of her past boyfriends. Not even Gaara, who the craziest female fandom their music industry had ever seen.

Speaking of the devil.

Gasps and murmurs filled the air, as Gaara Sabaku waltzed into the establishment like he owned the place, with his manager right behind him. Most patrons were affluent enough to not stumble out of their seats to approach celebrities for an autograph or selfies. But there were quite a few heads turned and much interest shown, when the red haired rockstar made a beeline for her.

“G-G-Gaara!”, she squeaked and flushed uncomfortably. Hinata was amused to see her so flustered. Especially, when she was quite unaffected by the famous actors and singers at last night’s bash.

Hinata got up from her seat to greet her ex-boyfriend.

“Hinata… What a pleasant surprise to see you here…”, Gaara spoke fondly as he engulfed her in his arms.

Hinata was a little taken aback by his enthusiasm, but she let it slide. There was nothing wrong with acknowledging an old friend or acquaintance with a genial hug. But she noticed the way Naruto had become stiff and alert, standing a few feet away from them.

“It’s nice to see you too Gaara… Weird running into you here… What are you doing so far off from the city?”, she asked him casually.

“Same thing as you. I made it to the party a little late last night… My flight got delayed on my way back from Seoul… By the time I got there, you had left…”, he explained.

“Ah, yeah…I was feeling a little tired…”, Hinata replied. She felt a little uncomfortable by Gaara’s attention, so she deviated from their conversation. “Gaara, this is my new assistant Matsuri… Matsuri, this is Gaara… You might know him….”

Gaara nodded at her nonchalantly before focusing back on Hinata. “How long are you here for?”

“Umm… Just for tonight.. We will be driving back to the city tomorrow morning…”

“That’s great! We must have dinner together tonight. Especially when we are both staying at the same hotel.”

Hinata was quite surprised at his invitation. She could see from the corner of her eyes, Naruto got closer to them and stood behind her protectively.

Was he jealous? Or was this a part of his job?

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea Gaara…”

“Come on, it’s just dinner… I won’t try to kiss you or anything… Unless you want to, ofcourse!”

Hinata fixed him with a mocking glare. She had separated from him on amicable terms. He was not keen on her suggestion of breaking up. But as a free spirited musician himself, he loathed the idea of binding her to him against her wishes. So he let her go. Now, even the thought of having dinner plans with him seemed to hold no attraction for her. Deep down, she realised the reason why.

“Haven’t we had enough problems because of our past? Being seen together again in public would be asking for more trouble.”, she tried to reason with him.

“Fine, if that’s your worry. How about you come over to my suite? We can have a private dinner where no one can see us.” Gaara glanced at Naruto and added, “You can even have your guard installed outside my door to keep an eye out for you.”

She really wanted to decline his invitation without seeming rude or uptight. But it seemed a little difficult now, with Gaara being insistent and the eyes of other patrons of the restaurant on the two of them.

She lowered her voice and replied, “How about I think about it and text you back?”

Gaara smirked and nodded. “Okay. Remember, I will be hoping for a yes.”

He flicked her chin lightly, like he used to do when they were back together, and moved towards his reserved table.

With that, Naruto suggested they make a move out. He trailed closer than ever before, and kept a light protective hand on her back while the few paparazzis outside clicked furiously. She wondered if Gaara’s invite had spurred this extra protective and possessive streak in him. The idea of making him even more jealous appealed to her. But she absolutely hated toying with people to play games like that. She wanted him to want her back without any underhanded tricks in play.

Once back inside the car, Matsuri asked incredulously, “You are not seriously thinking about going out with him, are you??”

Hinata rested her head back and watched Naruto for any sign. He did seem a little stiffer than usual, even as he was busily texting someone on his phone.

“Technically, it’s not ‘going out’... More like ‘dining in’... But I haven’t made a decision about it. Yet.”

A full minute later, her phone pinged and she took it out to read the new text message, thinking it might be from Gaara.

‘For your eyes only. Make sure no one is peeking into your phone.’

It was from Naruto. When she raised her head up, she saw Matsuri trying to inconspicuously peek at the text. She understood that Naruto might be trying to communicate with her without Matsuri knowing about their recent past.

“Who was that?”, she asked nonchalantly.

“Uh, no one.”, Hinata lied easily.

Seconds later, another message popped up. This time she was careful about not letting wandering eyes stray over to her phone.

‘I have to warn you about something. But what is most important is for you to NOT panic. Matsuri has a carving knife in her bag. She picked it up from the restaurant. Beware. Do not engage her in any conversation about Gaara. I have alerted the police, we will get you to safety soon. Just keep calm. You will be fine.’

Hinata grew pale as she finished reading the text. Why would Matsuri pick a knife? Slowly, the pieces fit together, and she realised that her new assistant was one of the psychopathic fans of her ex-boyfriend.

“Was that Gaara?”, Matsuri’s suspicious voice broke her trance.

“Umm… No…”, she replied faintly and looked outside the window to hide any signs of distress on her face.

“I think meeting Gaara again would not be good for either of you.”, her assistant kept talking.

If Naruto had not warned her, she would have snapped back at Matsuri and given her a piece of her mind. And that would have been disastrous. She looked to the front and found Naruto looking back at her. He gave her a small reassuring nod.

“If he thinks-“

Naruto interrupted her just as she spoke. “We’re almost here. It will be ideal for both of you to discuss this in the privacy of the suite, while I run a small errand.”

Soon the car stopped, Naruto jogged out to open Hinata’s door.

“You did good. I am here with you, don’t worry.”, he muttered close to her ears.

Hinata felt safe in his presence and she had to stop herself from leaning into him. The trio moved through the hotel lobby that seemed quieter than usual. Matsuri did not suspect a thing, but she raised an eyebrow at him when he joined them in the elevator.

“I thought you had an errand to run.”

Hinata understood that she was trying to get rid of Naruto to confront her in the suite.

“I do. I just need to grab some papers from my suitcase.”, he lied easily.

As soon as  they entered the suite, they were confronted by the police who were waiting for them. Matsuri turned vicious when her plan was foiled. She tried attacking Hinata even with so many officials around, but she was easily tackled by Naruto.

“Stay right where you are!!”

Soon, she was handcuffed and dragged away, but she kept hissing and cursing at Hinata.

“B*tches like you don’t deserve any love!! You f*cking wh*re!!!”

Hinata was aghast watching the complete switch in her personality. It was chilling to realise that someone who harboured ill intentions for her was kept close.

Her sight turned blurry as she stood rooted to her spot. Whether they were tears of relief or shock or exasperation, was anyone’s guess.

Naruto dealt with the police officials quickly before he went up to her. Wordlessly, he gathered her in his arms and hugged her tight.

“I don’t know why I am crying… I am not a crybaby…”, her words were muffled by his suit jacket.

“It’s okay… It’s okay to feel the way you do...I’m right here for you.”

But she shook her head and looked up at him. “How did you realise…”

Naruto explained his observation of Matsuri’s expression when Gaara came into the restaurant.

“It was somewhere between shock, awe and fanatical lunacy… And when he kept his attention solely on you, she looked vengeful… Both of you were too busy chatting to notice the stark change in her demeanour…”

“Oh…”, she pondered over the events. “So, that was why you stood close to me… Because of Matsuri… Not because you were jealous?”

Naruto sighed and lifted her face up to him. “I was jealous. Extremely so. But even in that moment your safety was my priority.”

Hinata looped both her arms around his neck. “Oh Naruto….About yesterday-“

“Don’t worry about it.”

“No… Let me say it… When you asked me about what you meant to me… I was unsure of how I could put my feelings into words… It might not be love yet, but you are so much more than a rebound… No, actually let me rephrase that… You are nothing like a rebound… I feel very very strongly for you…Honestly, I always keep thinking of you, my eyes keep looking for you... So much so that I’m afraid it might turn into an obsession.”

He smirked and leaned his forehead towards her. “Are you sure that’s not the after effects of the traumatic event talking?”

She grabbed him by his lapels and mockingly glared at him. “Don’t make fun of my feelings for you. I know what I want. Besides, I would hardly call this encounter traumatic. It was shocking and a little scary, but I can get past it. I’m stronger than you think.”

Naruto nodded and looked away from her gaze. “And you are sure you don’t mind that we have almost nothing in common… I mean, you could do much better than me.”

Hinata rolled her eyes at him, “You sure like doubting yourself for someone with so much pride and self respect.”

He just shrugged, “Just putting it out there… Fair warning… I am not easy to get rid off… So I just want to cover my bases…”

“That’s strange…”, she replied with a frown. “I was going to give you the same warning.”

“There’s one thing common between us then.”, he commented before asking. “Shall we seal the deal with a kiss?”

“Only a kiss??”

-

Over the next few days, Naruto and Hinata received several phone calls informing him about the development of the case against Matsuri. She had confessed to all accounts of threats and intention to harm but pleaded not guilty citing mental instability.

x

Note: Apologies for the very late entry. And also I would like to apologise to fans of Matsuri, she was portrayed negatively in this story, but I assure I have nothing against her! If anything, I like to feature her as Hinata’s friend in a lot of ny other stories.

[gunslingertales]

Saving grace || A.M - Chapter 2

Story summary: Arthur struggles with his guilt and his loyalty towards the people he always thought of as family. He starts questioning the life they’ve been leading lately and wonders if there’s still a place for him somewhere out there in a world that’s so quickly chaning. Then he meets a woman with fire in her eyes and gold in her heart who seems equally lost in the great unknown that’s life. 

Chapter Two: “ Dreams”  Find the other chapters on my blog under /masterlist

Chapter summary: As he rides into Valentine, Arthurs plans on having a drink or two with young Lenny and then returning back to camp. He doesn’t expect running into a familiar face. And spending the next day with that person. And learning about her childhood and her dreams.

Likes, comments and especially reblogs are more than appreciated ♥

[additional note: I am German. Sometimes I get the tense wrong or make mistakes. I am useless when it comes to punctuation. Go easy on me, please.]

The small town of Valentine is an awfully dirty place. Both figuratively and literally. You don’t even have to take two steps and your shoes are already coated with mud. Like the sweltering humidity of the Lemoyne swamps that cling to your skin or the grimy winds coming from the mines of Annesburg that settle on your lungs, the dirt lies upon the town like a thick blanket you just can’t shake off. 

Arthur thinks it’s ironic, how the people turn their noses at him and the gang and their way of living. Of their makeshift camps and on-the-go lifestyle. They scowl at the thought of their tents and bedrolls yet voluntarily move to a town like this where you can’t tell if you’re wading through mud or your neighbors’ shit. 

Then again, Arthur doesn’t care an awful lot for other people’s lives. His own is chaotic and confusing enough, what good could it possibly do to rack his brain about other people’s choices? Least it ain’t quite as bad here as it is in Saint Denis. That place is a cesspool of every single thing Arthur has an unprecedented disdain for. Too many people pretending to be above everyone else just because their jackets got fancy gold buttons.

He can’t picture himself ever living in a place like that. Though to some it might be a place of comfort, of safety, to him it only feels like a cage. And he’d rather die than give up his freedom. 

Mouse slows down to a gentle trot as they approach the Valentine Saloon. A golden glow shines through the newly fixed window of the building and laughter and song echo through the room and flood out into the streets. Lenny hitches his horse next to Mouse and gives Arthur an expectant look “Just one of two, right?” 

“Sure. Just a drink, no drama”

None of the men are getting lots of chances to wind down. Sure some of them are perpetually drunk to some extent but to really get a night off to - to have fun, that’s not a chance that presents itself very often. Living a life like they do, you always have to be alert. Life ain’t your friend so you gotta look out for yourself and your people.

There’s quite a few people inside, drinking and eating and laughing. Sometimes Arthur wonders what his life would be like if he had married Mary and given up on the gang. Would he spend his free time here drinking away his sorrows and his feelings of inadequacy compared to Mary and all she could’ve had? Or would they wander into town every once in a while, grab a bite to eat, and enjoy each other’s company?

He shakes his head to push the thoughts away. There’s no use in getting lost in what-ifs. They’re just another reminder of what he can’t have and what he messed up.

“You,” the Barkeeper approaches, pointing at Arthur as he leans against the bar “ I don’t want no trouble!”

Arthur raises his hands in mock surrender “And you ain’t getting none from me. I was just defending myself.”

Though his eyes still hold a hint of doubt the barkeeper seems to be satisfied with that answer. Something tells Arthur that he isn’t the first person butting heads with that damn Tommy guy.

Lenny regards the exchange with a smirk playing on his lips as a shake of his head.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just … do I wanna know?”

“Nah don’t think you do.”

They share a laugh and receive their drinks and for a moment, Arthur’s heart feels a bit less heavy. For a second the weight of the world doesn’t rest inside his chest. Like he can be unbothered for just a night.

Two drinks in he leans his back against the bar and lets his eyes wander around the Saloon. Drunk fools stumbling over each other, a piano player belting out melodies, smiles upon smiles and songs, and music. 

In the furthest corner of the place, a woman sits alone by a table, a plate untouched in front of her. She seems too fancy to end up in a dump like this. Her hair is pulled up in intricate braids and her blouse has frilly lace in the front. Something about her intrigues Arthur. 

The first time he ever laid eyes on Mary an electrical current surged through his system like waves crashing to the shore. She was beautiful and smart and she spoke like she knew the world belonged to her. He never felt deserving of her and he never was but for a while she let him believe it. She was beautiful and soft and she wasn’t … she wasn’t what he’d known all his life. And maybe that’s also part of what intrigued her when it came to him. The excitement and the unknown. But that novelty wore off for her rather quickly it seems. The night she broke the engagement and his heart, he doesn’t remember that night but he does remember the pain.

Looking at the woman in the corner, he doesn’t feel the excitement or the sense that he needs to have her in his life, the way he did with Mary. That doesn’t mean he’s unaware of his intrigue. As much as he doesn’t want to get involved with other people’s drama, he sure likes to hear their stories. After all, ain’t that what our life is made of? Stories. One after another. Sometimes you’re the main character and sometimes an onlooker. Sometimes your the hero and sometimes - sometimes you ain’t.

When she lifts her head though, a strange sensation floods through him. Though the dimly lit room doesn’t allow him to get a perfectly good look at her, Arthur can immediately read the sadness on her face. It’s radiating from her. He knows it ain’t his fault, at least not entirely but still, a pang of guilt settles in his stomach. A knowledge that he ain’t innocent in any of this either. Seeing her brings back all the heaviness and the weight that rests on his heart. It floods back in and clings to him like cigarette smoke.

He wants to leave now. Just get out of here and take Mouse for a ride through the fields and valleys and relish in the great wide somewhere. But he can’t. His legs feel like they’re stuck to the ground like flies on a honeypot. He feels guilt sometimes, about his deeds. Especially when the people don’t deserve his unkindness. He’s never really felt like this before. Then again, usually, they don’t have to face their doings again.

Drinking his third beer, he tries to ignore her. He genuinely does. It ain’t his fault and it ain’t his problem. Why should he care? No one asked her to pawn off her jewelry for a mistake she didn’t commit. Maybe that’s exactly the problem though, the knowledge that she’s a good person and the fact that Arthur voluntarily chose not to extend the same kindness towards her.

A commotion from the corner pulls his attention back towards her. A big burly man with a frizzy, unkept beard stands beside her table, leaning on it for support. A bottle dangles from his fingers and the sway in his posture tells Arthur that he’s way deep in by this point.

“I’m just tryin’ to be nice Miss. Ain’t no reason to get feisty on me.”

“Can you please let me enjoy my dinner in peace?”

“Come on sweetheart, lemme buy you a drink at least. Then maybe I can take you up to one of them rooms. How ‘bout that.”

“That’s disgusting and I said no!”

Though he can’t see her eyes, he’s sure they’re filled with the same fire and wrath that had been directed at him just a few weeks ago. With every moment passing, he gravitates more towards her, ready to jump in if the man got any more stupid ideas running through his head.

There’s a special place in hell for men who can’t extend a certain amount of respect towards the fair gender. He knows that even some men in his own group, his own family, often seem to forget that and Arthur is the first to call ‘em out on it. They call him soft for it but he doesn't think that’s him being soft as much as it’s him basically being raised by two men who value women for what they are. Smart and beautiful and human beings worthy of being treated with respect. Not objects for their own enjoyment and entertainment.

“Lady, I ain’t gonna be asking so nicely no more.”

“Is there a problem here?”

May’s eyes snap up towards Arthur as he approaches the table and he catches a glimpse of the flames, passionate and … pissed off. Though as they fall on him, a kind of calmness washes over her and he isn’t quite sure if he likes it or if it makes him nervous. 

“Just a dispute between two lovers, ain’t that right Dove?  None of your concern, buddy.”

“We ain’t lovers you delusional rat !”

Arthur can’t help but let out a laugh at her insult. It fits the guy, really, though his frame is broad and meaty, he’s got beady eyes and a long face.

“You better shut your mouth you-“

As the man lifts his arm, that’s when Arthur really sees red and takes a step in between him and May who, despite her best efforts, can’t suppress the worry and fear settling on her face.

“Nah, I suggest you shut up and get the fuck out of this place. They just fixed the window and it would be an awful mess if I had to break it again when I throw you out. Of course, I could also shoot or stab you right here right now but, I don’t think that’s in any of our best interests now, is it?”

Arthur’s voice is low and deep and though that’s both a result of bad genes and chain-smoking, it does come in handy every once in a while. Mary–Beth had once told him that it gives him a sense of perpetual danger and toughness. 

The man stares at Arthur, unsure of what to do. His eyes then shift towards May, back to Arthur and back and forth one more time. Carefully he considers his next move and then — then he shrugs his shoulders in defeat, huffs out an annoyed sigh and turns around, leaving the saloon with the slam of a door.

“What a horrible horrible man.”

“Sorry about that”

May rests a gentle hand on Arthur’s arm and signals for him to sit down, which he does - reluctantly. Again she extends a kindness towards him he is severely undeserving of.

“What are you apologizing for? You ain’t don’t nothing wrong. “

“Oh, I’ve done plenty of things wrong in ma life.”

“I meant right then. What brings you here then, Mr. Morgan? Spending my money on a beer?”

Though she says it with a smirk and not a hint of malice, it still sends a sting to his chest though. He could ease his mind and tell her that he hasn’t sold the ring, hasn’t even put it in the camp’s collective. The earrings yes but not the ring. It still sits in his saddlebag waiting for — well he isn’t exactly sure what for.

“Just having a drink with ma friend over there and saving women from delusional rats it seems. What about you amiss Everly? What’s gotten you dressed up so fancy? You look like one of them ladies on the poster they hang by the theatre in Saint Denis.”

She scoffs then takes a bite of her lamb fry. “Glad you think so but unfortunately that ain’t no consolation to me.”

“What happened?”

He’s well aware that he has no right to ask her about it. They hardly know each other and yet she’s been so open and forward from the first second she opened her mouth that day he came around the Downes Ranch, it doesn’t feel strange asking her about it. It feels natural. Like the right thing to do.

“ Well since Thomas ain’t doing good and I’m looking for a new place of work I thought about finally taking a leap and making my dream come true. But, as you know, I am no woman of a big fortune nor do I come from a family of money. I was trying to get a loan from the bank of Valentine but …. no luck.”

“Huh, ‘m sorry about that.” He’s not exactly sure what he’s sorry about. The fact that Mr. Downes is dying or the fact that she wasn’t granted a loan. Or maybe both. Probably a bit of both.

“Ah,” she shrugs “I’d already expected this outcome. Some big-shot oil tycoon from Saint Denis already has his eyes on my piece of land anyway so the money is only the first obstacle.”

“Piece of land? You wanna become a rancher now?”

May lets out a sweet chuckle, “ No. I wanna be a teacher. I want to build a school for Valentine.”

“A school? What for?”

“Well … to teach. The world is changing, Mr. Morgan. We’re living in the age of progress but what good does it do us if we have machines taking us anywhere and everywhere when we can’t read even the most simple of instructions? We owe it to the children to start the progress with them.”

Arthur has never set a single foot inside a real school all he’s ever learned he learned on the road. From Dutch and Hosea. Reading and writing were never something he was particularly fond of learning but now that he’s older, even he can admit that it’s a big advantage in life.

“If you say so.”

“I do. I taught Archie to read. Edith too. I think it’s a luxury we should all be able to afford.”

“ Well, I ain’t gonna disagree with that. Let me buy you a drink.”

She takes the last bite of her lamb, then wipes up the remaining gravy with a potato, before softly tapping a napkin to her lips. “That’s very sweet of you but I should go. I have a room at the hotel for the night and I’m quite concerned that if I agree to one drink I will agree to more and then I won’t make it to my room and that’s just money wasted now ain’t it.”

For a second he wants to be brash. Wants to tell her that he wouldn’t mind making sure she gets to her room safe and sound. Wouldn’t mind joining her there. But while he lets himself think it, it just ain’t his personality to speak those words. Especially not to a woman who shows him kindness time and time again when all he ever does is disappoint and do the wrong things.

“Alright, Miss. You stay safe out there. I sincerely hope it all works out for you. With that school and all. “

May places her small hand on his stubbly cheek, warm from the alcohol coursing through his system and the gentle touch of a woman.

“Oh don’t make this sound like a goodbye. Our paths will cross again, I know so. Trust me, Arthur!”

He likes the way his name sounds falling from her lips. Likes her warm smooth skin on his. Like the sincerity in her eyes and the fire softly burning beneath it. He likes this girl and that’s one scary thought. Ain’t nothing good ever happened to the girls he liked.

“You have a good night, Miss Everly.”

As he returns to the bar, Lenny already fixes Arthur with a look of amusement and mischief. His eyes are glossed over from the drinks and his balance don’t seem to work quite as he’d like.

“So who was that pretty lady?”

Just the woman he hasn’t been able to get out of his head since he met her. The one he’s been sketching in his diary over and over again. The one he ain’t don’t right by. The one that’s way too good for him.

“No one. Just some girl. Now how about another drink, Lenny ma boy?”

The night goes by in a flash. It’s a blur of yelling and dancing and laughing and fighting. Of searching for Lenny, several times. Of walking into a room he has no business walking into. Of making friends and enemies. And then fade to black.

That is until the next day when the midday sun beats mercilessly down onto his tired body, slumped against the trunk of a mostly barren tree. It’s the sun that wakes him up. The sun and — her.

May stands before him like a goddess in an ancient story from a foreign country. The sun shines behind her veiling her in a golden glow, giving her a gleaming halo.

“Look at you, I told you our paths would cross again. Why are you down there?”

“Fell asleep.”

“On the floor?”

“It happens.”

His voice is rough with sleep and exhaustion from the night before. He ain’t as young as he used to be and nights like the previous one leave marks now. It’s something he doesn’t like to admit but something he has to come to terms with.

“I know it’s past noon but I can offer you some breakfast if you like,” May exclaims pointing towards her horse and the little wicker basket strapped to the saddlebag. “Well it’s lunch for me but breakfast for you. I got coffee too.”

Arthur rubs the sleep from his eyes and scratches his beard in contemplation. He’s got nothing to do today and he’s, he could be checking up on Dutch and his plans but with the way things are right now, he doesn’t really mind getting some time away from all that mess. Micah is also waiting for him in a cell in Strawberry but that’s so far down on Arthur’s list of things to do. That nasty son of a bitch can rot there for a while longer. Might do him some good, actually.

“Coffee sounds mighty fine.”

“Alright, you’ll have to follow me though. “

“Sure. Lemme get Mouse real quick. “

Arthur drags his tired body back towards the Saloon and a few minutes later he returns, now straddling Mouse and carrying a big bundle of fur on the back of his horse.

“What in the world is that,” May asks, swinging herself back onto Beans.

“Fur of a grizzly.”

“No way! You’re a hunter, then?”

The two of them fall into a slow trot next to each other with May walking just a tad in front of him leading the way.

“Ain’t much of a hunter. Just pure luck. Had help from my —“

What exactly was Hosea to him? His father, kind of but it wouldn’t feel right calling him that. He had had a father, albeit a pretty poor example of it. But he’s more than a friend. He’s family.

“ from a family member.”

“I think you’re allowed to take pride in this, Arthur. It’s a nice fur and it seems like it was one big fella. That’s something not a lot of people can do. Allow yourself to be proud.”

Pride, Arthur knows, makes men do foolish things. It makes them feel invincible. Makes them stop paying attention. It leaves them vulnerable. Pride ain’t doing no one no good.

“Whatever. Where we going anyway?”

“Oh, I’m just going to break my own heart real quick,” May says as if it’s a completely normal thing to exclaim. 

They gallop on for a short while until she stops at the top of a small hill. Slowly, not moving her eyes away from the patch of land before her, she gets off of her horse and takes the wicker basket. “Come, let’s sit down by the trees.”

A row of oak trees provides some shade from the burning sun as they sit down on the warm prairie grass. For a moment the world is still. Not silent but still. Soft and comfortable. The scent of coffee fills the air, waves along with the desert winds. The mug May hands to him, it’s warm in his hand and for the first time in a long time, Arthur feels at peace with himself and the world.

“This is it,” May announces and, arms spread out wide, gestures to the land before them.

“Well I must say, this is quite impressive,” Arthur humors her, voice laced with sarcasm.

“Oh, you big oaf. Stop making fun of me. This is the piece of land I wanted to buy. The school was supposed to sit right there. Walking distance for the children of Valentine and the surrounding ranches. Now it belongs to Mr. Robert Montgomery and god knows what he’ll put here.”

“I’m real sorry about it. I ain’t ever really had a dream like that but I bet it’s not a nice feeling. It’s a damn shame too. Can see you teaching them kids some things.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure.”

She looks wistfully across the valley, a glimpse of longing sparkling in her eyes. “It’s all I've wanted to do since I was a little girl. My daddy never had much and he wasn’t a good man but he was honest and he was a hard worker. My momma was soft and sweet like honey. She made him more gentle. Made life sweet for him. They both came from nothing but when they had me they wanted to make sure they gave me everything I needed to survive in this world. To make something of myself. Momma learned to read and write from an older lady who lived across the street and taught it to me and my daddy. From him, I learned to fish, to hunt, to skin and prepare animals. I think with the way they gave me all this knowledge they wanted me to become good at something and make that my crime. Instead, I became passionate about sharing knowledge. About giving this education to other children. That’s where our future rests, ain’t it? The children?”

She’s right. Whenever he looks at Jack. Whenever he watches Abigail or John look at Jack, all he sees is the hope that he turns out better. That his life doesn’t rest with them. That there is more for him than robbing and plundering.

“Do you have children?”

It’s an innocent question but it manages to hurt him more than any other question probably could. It reaches all the dark corners of his heart he tries so hard to ignore. He doesn’t have children, but he had. Past tense.  Ring a father, another role he failed at filling. He ain’t never been a good father to Isaac. He wasn’t there when it mattered. Wasn’t there when they killed him for a meager 10$.

“Nah.”

“Did you go to school?”

Arthur scoffs a laugh at that, imagining himself young and wild sitting in a classroom with a bunch of other rowdy kids. 

“No. Never. I was taught how to write and read by my family. Like you.”

“See, I told you we ain’t so different.”

Her smile, it sends another shiver through him. Not uncomfortable but oh so scary. She doesn’t know the kind of person he is. The one he really is. A bad person. The goddamn villain of the story.

Everything in him screams at him to go. To leave her alone. To not get in any deeper. But for one day, just this one time, he wants to allow himself to relish in a what-if. So he stays and they relax in the shade as the sun fills the valleys with rays of gold.

They stay there for so long, that Arthur is sure the sun has turned his skin a shade of red. When they get back on their horses, he notices the crown of white daisies sitting on top of Mouse’s head. A crown matching the one adoring May’s. The white flowers shine atop her flowing red locks like little stars when the setting sun is coloring the sky a blood-red but the stars have come out to play already.

Her hair is down for the first time since he’s met her and she looks beautiful. Like the wilderness and the calm all at once.

“Thanks for listening to my dreams, Arthur Morgan.”

“Thanks for sharing them, May Everly.”

Her name sounds sweet on his tongue. 

“Now don’t look so blue. We'll meet again, I know it. I was right last time, wasn’t I?”

“You were.”

And as she rides away, red hair flowing in the wind like the wings of a Phoenix, Arthur hopes she’s right again this time. He ain’t ready to let go of the way she makes him see the world and her and himself. Not yet.

[whenimgoodandready]

4 years ago, I heard about “Star vs. The Forces of Evil”. I didn’t think much of it, but I gave it a shot (it was like a childhood callback to my “Sailor Moon” phase when I was younger) to see how it was. I made a little review about it to let everyone know what I thought and after a couple of more episodes, I was drawn to it! A twist on the Magical Girl genre of the heroine open with her being magical and fighting villains while still going about an everyday life. Neat characters, funny dialogue, cool storylines, original music scores, plot twists and the shipping dramas! I was so obsessed I made fanart/animation, bought whatever merchandise there was of it! (Star and Marco’s Guide to Mastering Every Dimension (original and Stump Day Edition) and The Magic Book of Spells) and been having dreams of the show as well! My reviews have changed since the first season. It started out as just words, but then came frames and then later pictures and now, finally gifs! Writing is my passion. I just love writing down how I feel about things and having others see it and what I have to say about it as if I’m a voice to the people. Speaking of which, I gotta get to this finale review before I’m over my writing limit is up. Lol!

We open with what we saw in the promo for finale. Star transforms in her golden Mewberty form getting ready to enter the portal to The Realm of Magic, say The Whispering Spell there and destroy all the magic. Despite the major drawback to the aftermath (No Starco😢). She turns down Eclipsa and Moons advice on taking on Mina all together and is just single minded on her plan. Star, maybe that would’ve been a better idea. You know, like the whole Total Annihilation Spell thing that Eclipsa used! That could still work! Huh!? HUH!? HUH!? C’mon!!! (are we not gonna call her out for making a hasty decision based on her impulsive anger from her Moms betrayal!?) Before that however, she didn’t tell Marco the bad news of her plan to save him from heartbreak and Hekapoo was cool with Star going forward with her plan. Uh, seriously Hekapoo!? YOU’RE GONNA DIE! WHO’S THIS CHILL ABOUT DYING!? Guess after literally everything she thought, “Eh, I lived a long life. Besides, magic sucks a**”. Okay, I mean, if that’s how she feels then.

Marco goes with her and after getting one last back handed burning slap on the head (“Running with Scissors”), takes the wand from Moon and gives it the old “Marcos wand” look! (“Deep Dive”) Unknownst to Moon that he’s used it before. (the drawn on mole would’ve been a nice touch. I’m just sayin’). This is it! Their one last adventure before the whole things over. With that, they hold hands (Marco choosing the top arm of Stars left) and walk into the portal to destroy the magic. Oh God!

They arrive in The Realm of Magic and Star tries to do The Whispering Spell while Marco eats pudding that Glossaryck left behind for him and Star. Unfortunately, Star starts to lose her memories and Marco realizes he’s still fine. He finds out it’s the pudding! The Pudding!? OMG! You mean to tell me this is why Glossaryck kept eating pudding the whole time!? Not just because it was delicious! WOW! Marco shoves some pudding in Star which help keep her memories and then they see..............

Thomas Draconius Lucitor! Riding on the corrupted dark unicorn from “Mama Star”! Hey Tom! How you been!? Haven’t seen you since well, that episode I just mentioned! Last we checked, you were stuck in your demon form on fire and with that seatbelt still on!..............which you’re now wearing as a sash for some reason. Guess you never were sent back to Mewni, or the Underworld, or wherever else cuz no one bothered to mention what became of you. Tom, we can explain! A lot of sh*t happened in Mewni and it was all Mina (and Moons) fault! Also Starco is for finally canon and Stars gonna destroy the magic! Btw, why do you have glowing blank eyes like Stars real/fake ancestry?....................Tom, you’re scaring us............Tom, why are you charging at Starco!? Are you pissed that they forgot you!? TOM! TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Back on Mewni, River and Eddie finally make it to the sanctuary to save Globgor and just before they could open it, Mina catches them and the two biggest idiots of Mewni accidentally blurt out what they’re gonna do! (face palms). No thanks to that, Mina now tries to get into the sanctuary.

Over to The Realm of Magic again, Marco fights off Tom using the wand by blasting every bit of whimsical spell Star does and some with his own while Star finally does The Whispering Spell and for the finale, we actually hear what all that whispering was! “Break the bond, tear the fabric, cleave the stone, stop the magic” again and again. And it works! HOLY SH*T IT ACTUALLY WORKS! I didn’t think her plan would work by doing that, but it’s true! It’s freakin’ true!

However, it still doesn’t work. I knew it, I mean, saying the Whispering Spell in The Realm of Magic to destroy all magic! Puh-leeze! It’s only for the wand! :P. Just then, Moon and Eclipsa w/ Meteora show up and decide to help. That’s the quickest moment of forgiving I’ve ever seen, after all what Moon did, Star just accepted her again! Marco finally stops Tom from killing him w/ the corrupted dark unicorn by feeding him pudding, but in the process, getting stabbed! Don! Don! Don! After Tom is cured, he and Marco head back to Star. 

Star, Moon, Eclipsa and Meteora Dip Down in their Mewberty forms (the fandom gets their wish on seeing Eclipsa do that) and are joined by the Past Queens of Mewni (starting from Skywynne not the 26 before her cuz that’s all the queens the book mentioned cuz the staff didn’t have enough time to come up with designs, personalities, history, etc for them and also Skywynnes mother, Lyric, didn’t save the original Magic Book of Spells :P) in spiritual form assisting them with destroying magic. They still don’t talk as they didn’t have time to that and cuz it’s the last episode and we’re about wrapping up here, so :P to that.

Mina finds The Realm of Magic and charges after Star, Moon, Eclipsa and Meteora, but gets distracted when she sees her queen, Solaria, and gets attacked by the dark corrupted unicorn. Mina calls out to her for help, but Solaria, the queen that created Mina, transformed her and thought of her as her answer to finishing off monsters, did nothing! Nada, ZIP! Sure she hated monsters, but did she hate monsters more than she loves her daughter!? Some things are just more important. 

After he was done with Mina, the dark unicorn goes after the queens, but Marco f**king flips the horse! DAMN! Well, he’s fought monsters, did a bunch of cool sh*t in the Neverzone, helped save Mewni twice and punched Toffee right through him! So yeah! He can flip a horse! 

Suddenly, the magic starts getting destroyed, the baby unicorns melt, the wand is no more and the realm prepares its destruction.

The Queens start disappearing with Moon seeing her mother, Comet, one last time, Solaria accepting of Eclipsas monster love and her hybrid granddaughter and most of all, Glossaryck goin’in bye bye. Farewell Glossaryck, you were pretty annoying, but kinda right. It was nice knowin’ ya. 

Star then tells Marco he needs to go up the waterfall to Earth, but doesn’t answer him on the bad news that they’ll never see each other again :’(. However, I think he figured it out from their tearful good-bye.

 Everyone comes out the well, but Star makes a big sacrifice and decides to go to Earth to be with Marco. Turns out, Marco stayed behind in the destruction of The Realm of Magic cuz he too thought, with or without magic, ღ they belong together! ღ STARCO FOREVER! 

With that, they hug for the very last time with their last bit of magic giving them their glowing cheek marks, unknown what will become of them during the destruction (possibly death) and then 💥BOOM!💥

The sanctuary is now gone along with the magic, well dimension traveling, (the narwhal blasting) and most of all, no more signature cheek marks on Star or anyone else who had ‘em on the show! And Star floats a drift on an alligator where Moon finds her riding on another alligator like a jet ski.

The new Solarian army falls apart and all the Monsters, like Buff Frog and his kids, are now finally safe from harm all thanks to Star. Destroying the magic actually did turn out to be the solution to fix everything (I personally didn’t think so cuz I would’ve preferred Star go with Eclipsa’s Total Annihilation Spell from the beginning) and Stars tapestry did predict the outcome of it:Magic gone, no more Glossaryck, Mina defeated, Monsters safe, Reconciled with Moon, Eclipsa and her family alive and well and the Monster Temple still standing, but still, no Starco 😢. However, Star was still happy all the monsters were okay, her family safe and even Eclipsa and her family safe.

With the magic gone, Mina Loveberry has been brought down to normal and unfortunately, still coo coo! Now, with the other villains in the show, most of ‘em got redeemed (Ludo, Tom and Meteora) and others died (Toffee), but our final “Forces of Evil”, Mina, who can no longer transform into her Hulk-like warrior self, still remains mentally ill (there’s no cure for that). Moon tries to talk some final sense into her and help her out with her diseased mind, but Mina refuses her help cuz despite the fact that she’s depowered, she runs off continuing her goal on eliminating monsters cuz it “lingers to her”. Well, she’s a lost cause and no one really gives a sh*t about her anymore (except maybe Manfred), so good-luck to ya ya psycho b*tch!

Moon apologizes to Star for working along side with Mina and making the biggest f*ck up in history, but Star easily forgives her since she (Star) always f*cks up too. I guess the apple doesn’t really fall far from the tree after all, huh!? Star says it’s cuz all families f*ck up (some more so than others), but that what they need to do is just live and learn from it all. So yeah, it’s true. Star heads back to the infirmary to check up on her friends and since the magics gone, those Solarian fatal wounds have already disappeared and everyones okay. Like Pony Head and Rich Pigeon! Star tells Pony Head that destroying the magic was the only solution there was to defeat Mina and save everyone, but despite the fact that she’s happy all is well and done, the tragedy of it is there’s no more Marco Ubaldo Diaz! NO MORE STARCO! IT DIDN’T LAST! 😭 He’s just back on Earth with Janna cuz that’s where they belong much like how Kelly went back to Woolandia and Talon at that Dragon Spit bar thing and that she can’t deal with Pony Heads sassy character trait stuff right now! 

Pony Head sees how heartbroken Star is and cheers her up by saying that Kelly is crying tears...........of joy! And happily goin’ on adventures with her “Battle Buddy” Jorby and that Talon is making up cool stories about his adventure to the bar taverns and it does in fact cheer Star up.

From the magic gone, we learn what became of the MHC and that they were reduced to just junk. Omnitraxus Prime is now a lifeless skull like the ones you see stereotypically in the desert, Rhombulus is now a lifeless crystal which was originally his head and his free will snake arms are now just regular old snakes and Idk what happened to Hekapoo, but I’m assuming since she was a demoness, she must’ve just turned to a poof of smoke or something. Omnitraxus was so close to be mature, but sadly he failed to realize what Hekapoo saw. Still disappointed in how Rhombulous turned out (sigh) oh so disappointed. Oh! And uh, Sean just overfilled himself on pizza. He was never important. Whatever. 

Just then, Tom shows up and he’s okay too! Pony Head didn’t mention that he was looking for Star after she decided to supposedly leave Mewni to live on Earth and I think it’s cuz she ships Starco now cuz we all know Tomstar failed not once, but twice! Hey! It’s the finale, so I’m tellin’ it like it so :P (third times not always the charm). Any way, Tom shows Star a portal that”s floating around in the distance and that it leads to Earth! (gasp)

Speaking of Earth, since the The Realm of Magic was located under Britta’s Tacos, and is now gone, the restaurant is too. Oh great! 😒 First we lose The Bounce Lounge, then Quest Buy and now the taco place! (as if it wasn’t bad enough we don’t have Starco!). The whole destruction to them was known as an “earthquake”. 

Marco is on a gurney, but he’s safe and healed now that the magics gone with that unicorn wound no longer there and his parents and baby sister are relived he’s okay. Sadly, much like Star, he's miserable without her. 

Janna rolls in on her gurney attached to a heart rate monitor and she cheers up Marco by saying even though he lost Star, they still have each other as friends. Despite the fact that she drove him nuts most of the time, he did in fact consider her a friend and vice versa. Janna then tells Marco about a portal from a distance that leads to Mewni! (gasp). Janna then tells Marco that he should run for it while she fakes her death in 60 seconds to distract everyone. DAMN! RUN! DIAZ! RUN!

So I’m guessing their last bit of magic together while embracing one last time was the result of that portal (no it’s not a “gas leak” from the “earthquake”), but how long is it gonna remain open!? Both our heroes run like Hell to see each again with a build up theme tune playing with Star punching her way through the Forest of Certain Death and Marco violating traffic laws cuz one thing is set on their minds, make Starco canon! 

Marco uses Jackies skateboard to head faster while Star turns down a friendly game of basketball with Ludo and Dennis. So nice that we saw more of the minor characters again. sk8er girl Jackie with her new French mate, Chloe, starter villain Ludo fully redeemed and happy, those two guys that Daron never wanted to exist, Alfonzo and Ferguson, fangirl Starfan13, mean girl Brittany (well finally! Where was she!? Still wish we saw Jeremy though even if he was a little sh*t, I’d still would've liked to have seen him) we even saw that creepy woman and her new dog, “Willoughby”! (”Fetch”). 

Okay enough about them, let’s get back to Starco! They’re getting closer!........

closer!.........

CLOSER! AND- 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! 

WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHY!? THIS CAN’T BE! YOU MEAN TO TELL ME I WAITED 4 YEARS, WATCHED 4 SEASONS AND WENT THROUGH 4 SHIPS (JARCO, OSTAR, TOMSTAR AND KELLCO) FOR NOTHING! Why does Daron hate us!? Huh, why!? This is it! THIS is how the story ends!? No Starco, no endgame, no HAPPILY EVER AFTER! NO NOTHING! WHAT’S IT GONNA TAKE TO MAKE STARCO HAPPEN!? WHEN DRAGONCYCLES FLY ACROSS THE EARTH SKY!?

Wait! Are those dragoncylces? Flying across the Earth sky!? Holy Sh*t! They are! 

And are those, mermaids!? Swimming in the aqueduct!? (was that a giant spider?).  

Is that Rich Pigeon getting chased up a tree by Earth dogs!? 

Did a helicopter just fly by the Cloud Kingdom over the Pony Head family!? 

Whoa! Whoa!.....WHOA! Are you telling me, that Earth and Mewni have merged into one whole dimension and that it’s now Earthni!? Was it that last bit of Starco magic from the embrace that caused that portal to open and explode to do this!? WOW! Now I get it! “Cleaved”! Good one there, good one! Okay, so it’s a little hectic what with the two worlds becoming one thing, but maybe with time, everyone will get used to it (shrugs).

So if the two worlds merged then that means.............................

STARCO AT LAST! The final unification! Better than the one from “Battle for Mewni”, not awkward like in “Lint Catcher” just pure unadulterated Starco and with their beautiful theme music playing once again to emphasize it. They meet, they smile, they walk towards each other and...............they say Hi. No big kiss or hug or even a silent stare, just plain old “Hey how ya doin’?”. It’s a little tame, but considering this is a children's show, it’s still sweet and more importantly, it was endgame ;). 

🎶 I wanna be your endgame,

I wanna be your first string,

I wanna be your A-Team,

I wanna be your endgame, endgame 🎶

Since Star Butterfly wasn’t there to do her closing inner monologue like how she did with her opening one in the pilot of the show, I’ll be doing it here. So the show ended with Starco like we all hoped for except with the unexpected twist that both their worlds, Earth and Mewni, collided together. Never in a millions years would we have thought this would happen! I’ve seen fan works of Starco either living together on Earth or living as royals in Mewni with their “Starco child(ren)”, but the fact that we got a best of both worlds finale was a huge surprise! Now the happy couple can still be with their families and friends and even have Meteora and Mariposa grow up together like they promised they would. If you ask me, this sounds more like a new beginning, like how are the Humans and Mewmens gonna adapt to their new surroundings and interactions among each other like it’s the start of a whole new season! But I guess that was left to the fans to use their imagination on how that’ll go cuz so many people already had left the show to pursue other things and that they needed to wrap it up quickly. However, we’re still left with some unanswered questions such as why we didn’t see the Septarian, Seth, and how he was the head honcho of the Septarian army cuz he was a big deal in The Magic Book of Spells and since that book was foreshadowing everything in the final season, I assumed we might’ve gotten a look at him and maybe have him make an appearance since it was last said he disappeared, but I guess like in the book, he’s history. Second, there’s Toffee, from the very beginning he wanted the magic destroyed such as having Star use The Whispering Spell in the Season 1 finale and then corrupting it in the tv movie and it wasn’t until near the end where Star realized he was right to do so after all the chaos that’s been goin’ on. Granted it wasn’t for the same reasons she wanted, but overall just doing away with it to not give anyone an advantage to use against someone. I actually thought (like some fans) that he’d come back again, cuz he was mentioned a lot and it was hinted in the final seasons episode premiere about the use of magic and that he might’ve, but after two seasons and a movie, I suppose it was enough and at least he got a cameo in one. Still, his actions were a big concern for Star. Thirdly, the rebel princesses, last we saw, Meteora blew up the whole school after finding out about her true background and we never saw what became of ‘em. Hopefully, they’re fine like Pony Head is and that our minds shouldn’t go into a dark place thinking about that. Speaking of darkness, monster arm, he looked to be hinted at coming back after his defeat, but instead he was just left as a scare gag and irrelevance to the plot. Lastly, the same goes for that mysterious sun/moon/star room in St.Olga’s. It looked to be a big plot point to bring up in a later episode, but alas, we got nothing out of it! We suspected it had something to do with The Blood Moon, but even that was all for nothing! Never did we find out what that room was supposed to mean and I guess it was never meant to have been pointed out in-universe cuz that was for us fans to see it as an up and coming big Starco moment like how the Blood Moon was never magic and that it was just a gimmick with the whole “soul binding” thing to spice up it’s appeal. The finale was good. Could’ve done it as an hour long special or tv movie to close it off, but since Daron and the staff kept goin’ through so many changes in episode plots (and believe me, I’ve seen plenty of “what-could’ve-been” plots like the original idea for the show with Star younger and non-magical annoying everyone around her with her big imagination of her being a magical girl princess), I kinda think maybe they rushed into it, but even so, it was a nice finale and it left a good memory for me. I found some nice people through this fandom and just to name a few there was that ever popular head cannon blog, @svtfoeheadcanons which than went onto @seddm. Thank you for your words and blog and answering some of my questions (even though it was kinda anon, but I think you might’ve recognized me from my writings) you are brilliant, @moringmark, your comics of the Starco/Jarco child clashing story were fun as well as your Starco Child Headquarters comic and I am now enjoying your “F.R.I.E.N.D.S” parody of the Past Queens of Mewni and also the Meteora and Mariposa comic, thank you for your comics, I always check on and comment on ‘em and last, but certainly not least, my good svtfoe friend, @agentpfangirl1997. Hey girl! I love how I found her and we chatted about what we thought about the show and checking each others reviews and fan arts of it. Her drawings are awesome! Glad I got to know such a great person. Even with the show, we still keep it alive through our love for it and will treasure it for years to come. Thank you, Daron Nefcy! @daronnefcy 

[statusquoergo]

Credit where credit is due, Gabriel did a nice job directing this episode. He had more screen time that I’m used to from actors pulling double duty, and he seems to have handled the extra workload well.

That’s not to say the episode was flawless. Yeah, by Season 9 standards, it was pretty good overall, but I mean. Season 9 standards.

We start off at home with Louis and Sheila having a terse exchange over tea as I wonder, yet again, why they’re together at all if they’re always so goddamn pissy about everything. Louis bemoans his demotion as Sheila irritably directs him to drink his rooibos and asks him what the big deal is, being that he didn’t even want the job in the first place (true). Louis parries that he only said that because Donna offered it to him the same night he found out about Sheila’s pregnancy (true), but at any other time in his life, he would have taken it (false). On the contrary, you may remember this fairly unambiguous exchange from “Pecking Order” (s08e02) between Doctor Lipschitz and Louis: “As I recall, you accepted Harvey becoming managing partner after Jessica left.” “That’s when I realized I didn’t want to be managing partner.” I suppose I’ve never accused this show of internal consistency before, why bother starting now?

Louis then delightfully compares himself to a ball-less cat and laments that though “the job wasn’t sunshine and rainbows, [he] was getting really good at it,” and excuse me but what? Forget that disastrous hearing that summoned Faye to their doorstep, his most recent acts as managing partner include trying to bully Professor Gerard into letting him be the keynote speaker at Harvard’s Ethic Conference to talk up his failing firm, and going completely off the rails trying to fire the poor IT guy for failing to digitally break into the New York State Bar Association. Louis sucked at being managing partner.

Next up is a reminder that I need to be careful what I wish for as Donna and Harvey discuss his reflexive support of her impassioned but quite incorrect argument against Louis trying to fire Benjamin, and how much she didn’t appreciate it. Turns out it wasn’t so reflexive; he did it because she thought she would like it, which is its own magnificently flawed concept—thinking she’ll get mad at him for disagreeing with her doesn’t say much for his respect for her integrity—but then Donna realizes that he’s afraid she’s going to leave him if he doesn’t unconditionally support her, and you just know the writers thought they were being real clever with this. (Wait, isn’t one of Harvey’s defining character traits his ability to read people? “You read books, I read people” was actually one of the first things he said to Mike in the pilot… Gosh it’s been a long time.)

As I was saying about this show’s internal consistency, two things about this whole exchange: One, all through Season 7, Harvey had no trouble calling Paula out when she was being ridiculous and disagreeing with her about all kinds of shit. Two, as recently as “Everything Changes” (s09e01), Harvey cooed that “[he’s] finally where [he’s] supposed to be” when he’s with Donna, to which Donna replied “We both are,” and like, are they a match made in Heaven right out of the box or what? His trust in their relationship is wildly inconsistent. Unless he wants to forfeit his autonomy for some reason? I don’t know, it’s weird and I don’t like it.

I also take issue with Donna’s dismissive “Oh, my god. Of course. Harvey, I’m not gonna leave you.” This has been an issue for him since forever, as she well knows, but rather than ask him what’s wrong—is he really afraid she’ll leave him over something so small?—or point out that he needs to go to therapy (if she wants to be tactful, she could ask if he wants to “talk to someone” about this), she treats it as an endearing character quirk, and someone needs to save Harvey from all this shit yesterday.

The interruption to this…reconciliation isn’t quite as cringy as the can opener bit from the last episode, but I’ve gotta call it out for being just some truly lazy storytelling. Gretchen appears out of nowhere to tell them they “need to go see Louis,” on account of his demotion, and Donna’s deer-in-headlights response is “Oh, my god. We need to go to him right now.” Yeah, no shit, that’s what Gretchen just said, except this framing affords Harvey the opportunity to mount his noble high horse and declare: “No. You go to him. I need to go see Faye.” Which he does, dramatic music and all, declaring that “dammit, not everybody has to do everything by [her] book,” and I must point out that she demoted Louis for trying to fire the employee who he asked to perform an illegal activity that he failed to perform only because he was caught; in what book is that okay? He then asserts: “You want consequences, I’ll give you consequences,” which is delightfully reminiscent of that old classic, “I’ll give you something to cry about,” in that it makes absolutely no sense, and Harvey, you adorable impetuous dumbass, if your goal is to convince her to leave, I think you might be going about it in a little bit the wrong way.

Roll title crawl! (No seriously, that was all just the cold open.)

Anyway Donna does go to comfort Louis, already treating herself and Harvey as a unit when she assures him that “if [he] ever [needs her] or Harvey during any of this Faye bullshit,” they’re there for him, and dropping the much more interesting detail that she has a much older sister she doesn’t want to talk about who “turned every man she was ever with into an emotional doormat,” which I don’t have time to fic right now but I feel like might explain a lot. Then Alex and Samantha have an endearing little exchange wherein Samantha proposes doing something to help Louis and Alex clarifies that it has to be ethical, and it’s nice to know that at least a couple of people around here aren’t completely insane.

Speaking of things being insane, I won’t fault Gabriel for this because the direction itself is fine, but from a writing perspective, the narrative construct of this next scene is terrible. Harvey shows up at a meeting with Some Guy whose nondescript company is apparently, thanks to his board and the company’s lawyers, being taken over (by someone) against his wishes, and the only hint of context for any of this is that “the people” orchestrating this takeover are “related” to Faye. The obvious conclusion to this exchange is that Harvey is going to help this guy, who is apparently the CEO of this random organization, sue the company by acting as a shareholder rather than a C-level employee, and I still have no idea what the fuck is going on.

Back at the firm where I do kind of know what’s going on, Susan the Associate approaches Katrina with a problem she found in the VersaLife case Katrina’s working, and as soon as they gave her a name in the last episode, I know she was going to be important. More to the point, it looks like Katrina’s got herself an associate! (Remember when senior partners were required to hire their own associates? It was a whole big thing back in Season 1, I think.)

Next up, Louis is having lunch with an old friend, Saul the Judge, who informs him that some other judge is retiring or being fired or something, and offers him a judgeship, and there is so much wrong with this scene that I don’t even know where to begin.

Yes I do. Since when has Louis’s lifelong dream been to be a judge? This is literally the first time he’s ever expressed any interest in it, at all. And another thing, that is not how judicial selection works.

In New York State, judges, depending on the court, are either appointed by the governor and confirmed by the State Senate, nominated by a commission and approved by the governor, chosen at a partisan nominating convention and elected by the voting public, or appointed by the mayor. Qualified individuals can apply to be considered, such as by the Mayor’s Advisory Committee, but there’s no one-and-done offer/acceptance transaction between someone currently on the bench and his lawyer pal, so either this guy is offering Louis a job that doesn’t exist or, more likely, the writers don’t know shit about the New York City legal system.

Moving on. Harvey shoves a recusal form in Faye’s face as he informs her that he “got” a case against her old firm, and he’s “taking it,” as though he didn’t go way out of his way to hunt it down in the first place. He then throws a stupidly juvenile hissy fit, claiming he’ll use whatever he fucking has to to “win,” and prove his system his better than hers, but he won’t have to cross any lines because she de-balled (second reference, just as charming as the first) the guys at her old firm so much that “they’re shaking in their boots” at the mere threat of lawsuit. This whole exchange is basically a showcase of Harvey acting like a spoiled child, and I know he’s a passionate guy but I gotta say, I’m getting tired of this whole act.

Back to that clusterfucking disaster of a judgeship offer, Louis fesses up to Sheila but admits that he doesn’t want to accept the drop in salary with a kid on the way, or leave his friends in the lurch, and she in turn fesses up that she asked Saul to make the offer in the first place because “being a judge has always been [his] dream.” (SINCE WHEN?) Louis is incensed until she tells him that it was basically Saul’s idea, but that if he doesn’t take it now, he’ll never get the change again, which… Why? Well, I guess they haven’t pointlessly manufactured any tension in awhile. Anyway, Louis promises to sleep on it.

Elsewhere, Samantha proposes committing conspiracy to get Faye out of their lives and Alex shuts that shit right away, and I’m actually really enjoying their dynamic right now. Susan asks Katrina what she should do about a smart, funny paralegal she clicks with; Katrina, having “seen that before,” recommends finding a new paralegal, and I’ve never had this question before but is Katrina anti-Machel for some reason? Doesn’t matter. Susan proposes reaching out to opposing counsel, who just so happens to be an old family friend, and Katrina wisely tells her not to, but somewhat less wisely starts and ends her rationale with “Because I know,” which I’m sure won’t motivate Susan to act in any sort of way.

Now, I’m no dream theorist, but luckily this show has all the subtlety of a Liberace action figure, so it’s not too difficult to figure out what Louis’s subconscious mind is trying to say: He wants to humiliate Faye (for demoting him and taking over his firm), he wants to bang Donna (and maybe also Alex), he thinks of Harvey as his peer but also his inferior (who he wants desperately to impress and probably also to fuck), and his confidence is mainly derived from the approval and admiration of others. Also he wants to have sex with basically everyone. Maybe not Gretchen. But everyone else.

Dr. Lipschitz, to whom Louis was evidently relaying the events of this dream, finds the whole thing quite amusing, but points out that if Louis takes the judgeship, he won’t have his friends around him anymore. Double-edged sword and all that.

Part II

[lumikinetic]

*flops down on sofa*

*exhales*

Tumblr gives me a lot of wild shit every now and again. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's hilarious, sometimes it's disheartening. And then yesterday came along and gave me the one-two punch of:

Captain Marvel being dolled up by the Russos instead of a jacket, S.H.I.E.L.D baseball cap and a Nine Inch Nails shirt, which is how she should be (not gonna talk about this, just want it out there that I'm pissed about it)

One Day At A Time being cancelled

ODAAT I'm gonna kind of touch on because it's not really what I want to talk about, but it did help me finalize the words for what I do, and that's capitalism in entertainment.

The most annoying goddamn trend in filmmaking (and of course in TV and Netflix/Prime originals) is companies caring more about their bottom line and less about making good content, and yeah I know this dead horse isn't just beaten, it's thrown into an active supervolcano but it really pisses me off and it's why I hate the new Star Wars stuff (well OK hate is a bit strong but they're uh Not Good) but I'll get to that. What corpos can't seem to get into their bloated skulls is that one cannot exist without the other. You need to put out good, quality content with value so that fans like it so they give you money so they increase your profits so you can make more content and so on. But somewhere down the line some fuckhead went "what if we just pushed out what we have?" and just kinda expected us to not take notice.

Now before the comments section gets all hot and bothered because I know some people on this site don't have the gift of reading comprehension, I know profits are important, I'm saying when companies shun good filmmaking for more money, they get lazy and all they can think about is profit and not how they make that profit, they don't care at all about using that money to make more good, valuable content.

One Day At A Time

I've never watched One Day At A Time but the fact Netflix just outright cancelled it knowing damn well what it meant to the people the characters are representing is just disgusting. And they have the fucking audacity to blame it on the viewership? I've seen hundreds of artworks, gifs and a video clip here and there of this show. I've seen precisely one (1) meme of 13 Reasons Why and that is literally it. I'm not following the tags for either. Plus, #saveODAAT has, last I checked, 350k tweets on trending or thereabouts?

So obviously the viewership isn't the problem, it's the racism and homophobia of cancelling a Spanish (? - again, never seen it), LGBT+ focused show that a lot of people quite happily and positively connect with when a crap show about suicide and Friends gets to stay on. It's just ugh. Cancelling a show like this then paying something like $100mil to keep Friends. I was going to expand on the shitty capitalism here but tbh that's it, Netflix are making bad decisions and like I say, I'm only going to touch on it because it's not the main part.

Star Wars

Go watch the original trilogy and it's clear George Lucas was trying to create and do. He was trying to make art. The key difference between that and modern SW to me is BB8. Look at C3PO and R2D2 and already you can see they belong. C3PO is a translator droid and I'm not sure what exactly R2's job description is but it's obvious he does some kind of pilot assistance for X-Wing fighters. I never understood people who said R2 never did anything, because they obviously haven't seen Star Wars. You get that this is an R2 unit, right? Like, there's more than one out there and they have a job they were specifically built to do, it's just this one particular R2 unit who had to carry the message? Anyway, I'm derailing. R2 and C3PO have functions and they're clearly not new, they've been used for a long time. Then you look at BB8 and instantly it's like "this is a toy. This so called character was designed to sell toys". And then he was. He's a toy, he's on bags, notebooks, pens, clothes, everywhere. Disney is less concerned about making a Star Wars movie and more about making money off of the Star Wars name.

Into The Spider-Verse VS YA Movies

YA movies tend to suck because they were adapted from books and we all know how that pans out but the reason I'm using YA books specifically is because my mind jumped to The Hunger Games. I couldn't tell you a single fucking thing that happens in those movies. They're so dull and dead and forgettable and the characters are borderline unlikeable but you know which one I do like? Catching Fire, for one reason and one reason only: Jena Malone as Joanna Mason. Save for Haymitch, she's the only character I liked because those two are the only characters with any kind of charisma or life to them. They made an at most halfway decent attempt overall at recreating some otherwise really great books and they made a big show out of it, hiring some pretty well known names. And I'm not disparaging their performances, it was just what I call, ever since Suicide Squad came out, the Harley Quinn effect, in which good actors get given a good character and perform them really well and, through no fault of their own, fuck it up because the character was written poorly and no matter how well they act, if the script doesn't change, the performance will always be shit. The same for Divergent. And Percy Jackson. And Fault In Our Stars.

Then outside all of that you have Perks Of Being A Wallflower which is just a great, heartwarming movie because the characters feel like people and the brightness isn't turned way the fuck down in post and you actually want to be invested, and they're not afraid to have a colour palette beyond a splash of pink here and blue there and red there. Plus, Ant-Man as an English teacher. THEN you go watch Spider-Verse and oh hey. I can actually see the movie now. And I mean see it. They do not slack off when it comes to visuals. Even by animation's standards, everyone is so expressive and alive and... animated. Sorry, I couldn't get a better word but they are! When you look at Miles in comparison to Katniss in terms of writing and performance, the difference is just startling. The only times I can think of where Katniss shows any kind of emotion in the first movie is when she slams the knife in the table and Rue's funeral and I had to think about that. Without thinking for Miles, already I've got "who's Morales?", the scene where Uncle Aaron teaches him the shoulder touch, the scene where Miles spray paints in the subway, that scene in the alley, the moment in Olivia's office when he just freezes after she says she can't wait to watch Peter in immense pain Like That and made all the wlws melt in their seats. You get the idea. So what's the point for this section? Well, as simply as I can put it, Hunger Games was made with money, for money. Spiderverse was made with love, for love. Spiderverse cared about people who read comic books and paid more than enough tribute to the art forms people think of as lesser for no goddamn reason other than elitism and proved for the thousandth time that it is something that can be used in filmmaking. They were trying to make art. Hunger Games and most other YA novel movie adaptations saw a preestablished fan base they could exploit for money. They were trying to make money.

Rambo

This was a weird one, yeah. Don't worry I was confused too when it popped into my head. I saw the original Rambo a while back and what I liked about it (and Apocalypse Now) is it wasn't a war film where the USA charge in and hooray everything's all right, this movie grabs your shirt and says "hey. Vietnam did something to these guys and they're not OK. Probably they'll never be OK". Then I watched the Rambo reboot that came out in like 2011 or something and I remember thinking "OK so now he's just this dude? Who lives in Thailand... And what, that's it?" There was no scene to show his psychological state today. Nothing to acknowledge his PTSD. They just thought "hey! Let's make Rambo but this time, just give him guns and and yelling and spray some blood!" The reason I kind of ended this train of thought quickly is because I realised that, let's be real, the main body of Rambo's audience just want to see Sly Stallone kill some fools. But yeah, the fact that they just ignored John's mental state in place of mega violence is such a glaringly obvious move to just appeal to violent teenage boys.

The Auteur

My favourite director is Wes Anderson and my favourite movie is The Grand Budapest Hotel (though Panos Cosmatos seems to be eyeing these titles with Beyond The Black Rainbow and Mandy, I haven't watched them yet). Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, Wes Anderson, auteurs always stand out even though their movies are all the same, and I think the reason they're so successful is because that specific style is so much better than most other mainstream cinema. I'm not saying that those other movies are bad, I love them and will watch them again and again but I'm saying Wes Anderson could make a short movie and it would be better than most Marvel movies put together (don't talk to me about Captain Marvel, I haven't seen it yet. Gonna see it this Sunday). No matter what you think of these directors, you can instantly tell the difference between these movies that they care about and the passion and hard work they put in and Disney pumping out their 400th reboot.

It Keeps Working

You guys wanna know the thought that keeps me up at night? Someday they're going to make a Fortnite movie. You guys wanna know why it keeps me up at night? Because it's going to be popular. Yeah, obviously not at the box office, because it'll be a videogame movie and those are worse than book movies, but it will be popular for no apparent reason. And what pisses me off is that Fortnite's popularity is only because of the battle royale mode, which has now essentially become synonymous with dying franchises and it just adds another layer to the lack of creative effort and the movie will just be Hunger Games with guns. Exactly the same as what I said at the start of this rant, there's a really noticeable shift from making content to jumping on whatever bandwagon is passing by because you know it'll make you money. Yeah, you have to spend money to make money but that doesn't mean you get complacent in what you spend your money on or if you spend money at all because when you cut corners, consumers can see that shit.

Anyway I'm done complaining thanks for having the willpower to pay attention to my dumb opinions.

[distant-rose]

Carousels and Pretzels

Notes: @welllpthisishappening​ is an amazing person and I will never forget the day we met and started chatting and realized we know a lot of the same places. This is a dumb and purely indulgent fic that is full of Albany/Capital Region references most readers might not understand but admittedly, they’re only meant to be understood by one person and that’s Laura. She’s a phenomenal person, literally one of my favorite people and just an all around amazing human being who doesn’t get enough recognition for just how perfect and wonderful she is. Anyway, this was going to be a much longer fic but I kinda ran out of time. Also, Druthers has better pretzels than Brown’s, fight me. Summary: Emma Swan takes a job at Hoffman’s Playland with the hope of not running into anyone she knows from UAlbany. Instead, she runs into Killian Jones, a former lacrosse athlete whose tragic accident she covered as a story back in February. Word Count: 2,000+ Rating: T+

Hoffman’s Playland wasn’t Emma’s first choice of summer employment. If it were up to her, she would have been working for the Troy Record all summer, but their internships weren’t paid, and Emma had to rent to account for and she refused to hike all the way up to Lake George to work the depressing lunch shift at King Neptune’s again. 

It wasn’t the worst place in the world to work. Though she was forced to wear the ugliest combo of a polo and cargo shorts and the staff break room constantly smelled of Subway, her coworkers were pretty okay and was only a thirteen-minute commute from her apartment in Troy. Furthermore, it was monotonous enough that she could spend her days plotting how she was going to run the Inklings magazine this year and whether or not she should apply to grad school or try to apply for a job at the Times Union while she’s finishing up her last year.

Another plus was no one knew her at Hoffman’s aside from Mary-Margaret. It made everything easier, especially after her huge breakup with Neal and the amount of rumors of drug use that circled around afterward. They had broken up not longer after his dorm got raided and he tried to pin his stash of pot on her, nearly getting her expelled from the school. The last month of Spring Term was awful and she was lucky that most of her newspaper and literary magazine friends stood by her or else she wouldn’t still be in school, let alone have made it as the sports editor of the Albany Student Press and Inklings in the fall.

Still, the way things went put a bad taste in her mouth and she hoped that it would too stale for anyone to care about by the time that September rolled around. With most of the clientele of Hoffman’s being families with small children, she’s highly doubted that she would know anyone who went there.

Until she did.

Actually, that wasn’t entirely true.

Emma didn’t know Killian Jones personally, but it was a name and face she’s gotten to know well over the past three years. While she had never truly met the guy, it was imperative that she knew of his existence as a staff writer for the student paper and then later on as the girlfriend of Neal Cassidy, the starting lacrosse goalie.

His name wasn’t one that was said with fondness, but usually disdain. The name Killian Jones was generally premised by the use of the word “fuck”, “screw” or any variety of obscenity. There were three reasons for this hatred: 1) he went to Siena, UAlbany’s cross-town rival, 2) he played lacrosse and 3) he was good at it.

At least he used to be.

In February, he got into a car accident in Troy, a mere three streets away from her apartment. It has been a nasty one, which ended in the loss of not only his girlfriend’s life and his hand, but also his lacrosse career. She remembers quite clearly writing up the article on it for the Albany Student Press and then later on the party that had been thrown by Neal in celebration of his fallen adversary. Neal had hated Killian with a passion and the two of them had gotten in a fight during a game last year, which ended with a picture of Killian punching Neal square in the face on the front page of the Times Union sports section. 

Emma, on the other hand, felt bad for him. Despite the fact she had attended Neal’s horrible party, she had argued that it was in poor taste. Killian might have been “the enemy” but what happened to him was horrible and alongside reading a very sympathetic article on his behalf, she had even sent a condolence card.

Since then, Emma hadn’t so much of heard or seen anything on Killian Jones until he was standing in front of her, wearing a green Siena lacrosse sweatshirt and jeans in the middle of July and holding the hand of a small blonde girl no older than six.

She was so stunned by the fact he was standing in front of her that she did little more than stare at him for a good few seconds. She completely forgot to give her greeting and safety spiel.

Luckily, she was saved by his little companion.

“Hi!”

“Um, hi.”

“You’re pretty.”

“Thank you. You’re pretty too,” she replied, laughing at her awkwardness. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Alice! What’s yours?”

“I’m Emma,” she smiled. “Would you like to go on the ride?”

“Yeah,” Alice beamed before tugging roughly on Killian Jones’s hand. “Uncle Killy, give her a ticket!”

“Right,” he mumbled, fishing through the pockets before handing her a crumbled ticket.

She deposited it in the proper container before starting up the ancient carousel. The old music croaked through the speakers as it slowly started to move, but Alice didn’t seem to mind. It’s obvious to Emma that she’s pretending that the horse she’s riding was real, and the sweetness of the scene filled her made her smile.

Still burning with curiosity, she glanced back at Killian. He was standing a few lengths away and watching his niece with his forearms practically stuffed into the front pocket of his hoodie. As if sensing her glaze, his eyes shifted in her direction. Despite the urge to look away, she often him a small smile instead. He didn’t return the gesture.

When the ride stopped and Alice hopped off, he took her hand and left without a word. Only Alice turned back to give her a wave. Emma returned it tentatively, wondering if she upset him and swallowing her questions.

She didn’t know why she cared so much.

Much to her surprise, they return the next day. This time, he was wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a leather jacket despite the fact was nearing a ninety-degrees. Again, he didn’t speak much, letting Alice do all the talking. They show again the next day and the day after that; each and every time Emma had tapped down her inner journalist to keep from asking questions that were burning in the back of her throat. What happened to you? Why do you wear long-sleeved shirts? Why do you keep coming to this ridiculous 1950s amusement park?

Following Wednesday was a cloudy and humid day and there was only a handful of people in the park and none of them seem interested in riding the carousel. Emma fought the urge to play on her phone. Despite the horrible weather, Killian and Alice showed up yet again. The little precocious girl handed her a fistful of tickets.

This time Killian stood closer to the operator stand, practically hovering over her shoulder. He and Alice had been coming every day for nearly a week and a half now, and never before he had stood so close to her. She did her best to ignore him, focusing all of her attention on the little girl on the painted horse.

“How many times do you think she can ride that thing before she throws up?”

She nearly jumped at the question, turning to face him with surprise. He wasn’t looking at her, his eyes trained on Alice, but Emma could tell he was waiting for a response.

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Depends on how strong her stomach is, I guess?”

He nodded. A few beats passed before he spoke again. “You look tired.”

“I haven’t been sleeping well,” she admitted. “I don’t have any air conditioning and my room in my apartment is kinda like a hot box.”

“That sucks. We don’t have AC either, but we’ve kinda be taking to sleeping on the porch since it’s screened in.”

“I don’t really have the option. I live in Troy.”

“Oh? Where? I’m familiar with it.”

“Let me guess? Bootleggers?” Emma asked sarcastically, without thinking. Bootleggers was a well-known college bar a few blocks away from where she lived and it was known to be frequented by obnoxious underage Siena students with fake IDs. It was constantly being shut down and reopened.

Killian laughed, a loud and boisterous sound that caught Emma by surprise once more. She had never seen him look so animated.

“Maybe, when I was a baby freshman, but I would like to think my taste level has gotten better since then. So, yeah, you located? Lansingburgh? North Central? The Hill? Sycaway? 

“Downtown. Third street.”

“By Brown Bag burger place, right?”

“That’s on Fourth street, but yeah, pretty close. More by the Ruck.”

“I love that bar. They have great wings.”

“They do and they’re less expensive than Brown’s. One of my roommates is a bartender there. David. He may or may not give us free pitchers occasionally.”

“Brown’s is expensive, but it’s good beer. I love their oatmeal stout. Their pretzels with the honey mustard are amazing.”

“They do have good pretzels but the one at Druthers are better.”

“Druthers? Isn’t that in Saratoga? It’s a bit hike, isn’t?”

“No. There’s on in Albany on Broadway,” she responded. “It’s not too far from the Pump Station and Old English.”

She was almost embarrassed about the fact that she often referenced locations by the bars in the neighborhood. In her defense, she had lived in the Albany area for nearly three years and have been involved in more Birthday tours than she could count.

“You’re a bit of a foodie, huh?”

“I used to write for the local eats section of the Albany Student Press my freshman and sophomore year before they switched me over to a different section,” Emma chuckled. “Needless to say, it was a bitch to keep off the freshman fifteen when you’re eating at every cool and exciting places across the Capital Region every week.”

“Sounds like a hardship.”

“For my scale, yes, it was,” she laughed.

When they ran out of tickets, Emma wasn’t sure who was more disappointed, Alice for no longer being able to ride the carousel or Killian for having to end their conversation. He reach forward and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

“You here tomorrow?”

“Same time, every day.”

“Good. I’ll see you then.”

He didn’t disappoint. This time not only bringing his niece, but also a large Dunkin Donuts coffee as well. Emma stood in shock as he handed it to her.

“I figured that you would like this since you’re not sleeping lately.”

“You didn’t have to do this.”

“No, but I wanted to.”

“Why?”

“Because you treated me like a person and not some wounded animal,”

“Oh…” She didn’t know what to say to that. “We just talked about food.”

“And it was the best conversation I’ve had in a long time,” he responded, lifting up his arm, which was once more covered by a Siena lacrosse hoodie. He pulled it back to expose the scarred stump left behind by the accident. “Yesterday was the first time I talked to someone aside from my niece who didn’t mention or talk about my accident. I felt normal again.  Coffee is the least I could do.”

“You’re welcome, I guess. Seriously. Thank you. It’s the nicest,” she said, taking a sip and giving him a small smile.

Growing impatient with the conversation, Alice tugged her uncle’s sweatshirt.

“You didn’t ask her yet,” she told him impatiently, not at all impressed with her uncle. He looked amusingly chastised for someone being told off by a six-year old.

“I was just getting to it.”

“Well, ask her so she’ll let me on the ride.”

“Okay, okay, Miss Pushy,” he responded with a roll of her eyes before giving Emma an apologetic grin.

“Ask me what?” Emma prompted him with a question.

“Well, if you’re not doing anything later, would you mind going to Druthers with me and, you know, having some pretzels and comparing them to Brown’s?”

“Just pretzels?”

“Well, and a beer or two? Perhaps maybe even dinner?”

“He likes you and wants to be your boyfriend,” Alice stated, crossing her arms in front of her chest and huffing at Killian.

“Well, that’s a good thing because I like him too,” Emma laughed. “And, yeah, we can go to Druthers and depending on whether or not, he agrees Druthers has better pretzels, maybe, just maybe, I’ll be his girlfriend.”

[sidhewrites]

World Building. 1600 Words. Summaries of a few folk tales from around the world of Coriander of Cresce. I definitely want to add more though, so if anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to send them my way.  As always, feel free to send Asks or Messages about what’s written or anything you’re curious about. 

Cresce

The Maiden and the Knight, or Silent Little Poppy: Poppy is a young scullery maid who wanted to escape her miserable life while the Knight is a young man who isn’t named and got tired of being always on the move so they swapped places. Poppy fights in tournaments and learns to fight and becomes a soldier of the realm while the knight learns to clean and cook and they write letters of their adventures and fell in love and married.

Horrid Mungora and Rotten Lobetta: Two ugly witch wives who live in a forest and raise pigsies and play pranks on travellers, but usually get it turned back on them in some way and sometimes die at the end of the tale. There’s a BUNCH of stories about them.

One about them idk trying to lure kids in to eat them, but end up getting so involved with the luring kids that they step in their own snare trap and are left to hang by their toes above their own cauldron of stew.

One where they argue so long about what to save first in case something goes wrong that when something DOES go wrong (A boulder falls from the cliffside) it crushes them and everything they love.

Trying to steal horses from a farmer but then they end up getting all the flies that were bothering the horses instead.

Lavender the Shoemaker: An old woman who had no children and lost her husband at a young age, and was plagued by pigsies. She lured them all into one place with a bunch of shiny buckles, then trapped them each within a shoe that became enchanted and cured the bunions and sores of anyone who bought it from her.

Lady Hollyoak’s Crown of Leaves: A story from cresce taking place in Gaelgallah. A young elfin woman who travelled the world and collected leaves from every part of the world and put them together into a crown and idk something about how curiosity is a good trait but taking things from their natural habitat is bad so don’t take things that don’t belong to you kids, maybe the kingdom was plagued by pigsies whose leaves were stolen for Holloak’s crown. And she ends up returning each and every leaf and returning home in shame.

Felice the Bold: A young woman who could speak with wolves and refused to wear clothes and cut off her hair and ran away from home because no-one could love a girl like that but she didn’t want to be loved anyway. She became the leader of a pack of wolves and defended a forest from soldiers who wanted to cut it down.

Horace: A horse in the wrong place at the wrong time and got magicked into a human by a local witch. Through a series of misadventures, he ended up becoming king. It was written to make fun of King Horace, a notoriously inept king from a few hundred years ago.

The Ugly Shoes: One day a cobbler makes just the ugliest pair of shoes. I can’t remember WHAT they looked like. They’re just disgusting and she gets kicked out of her house for it. So she wanders the countryside and they follow her everywhere she goes, just looking for someone brave enough to put them on their feet but nobody ever does. Legend has it they’re still wandering to this day. Alternate ending: But legend has it that they did find someone and that that person has the world’s ugliest feet. And oh? It just so happens I DO remember what they look like -- and then you’d describe the shoes of whoever you’re talking to, or describe your own shoes as a practical joke.

Ninoom

Old Iskender: an ancient king who rejected the throne and arranged marriage and politics and left to sail the world instead, learned to speak with merfolk, and supposedly created some of the first maps of the world beyond the sea. Talking about how just because someone trained for a position all their life doesn’t mean it’s their passion and let people figure out what they want to do with their lives because not all talents and passions and people are the same. (Everyone is a genius but judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree and all that). 

The name for sea foam in Ninoomi comes from the same language as the word beard because it’s said he sailed the sea so much he became a part of it and the waves are his beard or some such and he grew a long white beard.

Six Gold Rings: A king had six fingers and had a ring on each finger. He married a Seer who he mistreated and who he forced to tell him the future, and made bets on horse races and trades and everything but he got worse and worse to the point where he couldn’t be convinced he could be wrong ever. He usually said “I bet one of my six fingers that X will/won’t happen,” and usually it did so the person he bet would have to give him all the gold in their home or w/e.  BUt then the seer said he was going to fall ill and lose all his gold so he sent the seer into the desert and made his own bets without them and ultimately lost all but his thumb and was thrown into the desert where he met the seer who had joined a nomadic group. They said he could join them if he agreed to a wager that it would rain that night, and if he won he could join them. So he said “I wager my thumb that it will not rain tonight” because it hadn’t rained in a hundred years but the seer told them earlier it was, and he lost his thumb and was left to wander the desert forever. This is the start of the phrase “You gonna bet your fingers on that?”  or “Let’s bet six fingers” or other variations, meaning you’re doing something stupid and you ought to know better or your hubris will be your downfall.

Nashoth

Kate the Meek: a REAL dwarven toymaker, a young woman who didn’t speak but was very good at woodwork and stuffed animals. She was considered odd because usually it’s clay and stone carving, but hey. And so the dwarven prince who was like 5 would not stop crying and it went on for months so the queen said “hey. Whoever can make this kid can join the household” so kate shows up and the baby says he can’t play w stone toys bc they keep hurting his hands so she gives him wooden toys and dolls he immediately brightens up. Then the queen is like hey try that on the princex who’s been morose for months bc someone broke their heart so kate shows up and listens to what they have to say and the two of them fall in love and she makes lots of dolls and becomes queen the end

Beard Pigsies: A children’s song that talks about a dwarf who didn’t brush or wash their beard and got crumbs in it. Pigsies took up residence and he got so weighed down he couldn’t do anything and starved to death. Keep your beards clean kids or else BAD things will happen to you.

The Candlemaker: A dwarf who became so obsessed with their craft and making the Perfect Candle they did nothing but make candles to the point where they ignored their spouse and family and children and worked through holidays and everything. Finally, they did what they thought was the perfect candle, and took it out to show everyone, only to find they had missed the ceremonies and weddings of all their children, their spouse had divorced and remarried, and no-one liked them anymore. Be friendly with everyone kids. Its ok to not be perfect, because life is more important.

Wedding Wine: Literally that one story where two people got married and tradition said pour your best wine into the vat for celebrating and this one family decided that they’d just give water bc who would notice one bit of water among wine. But then when it was the wedding day and it came time to break out the wine it was only water and as it turns out everyone did the same thing the family did. A drop in a bucket goes a long way kids, don’t do nothing just because you assume other people are gonna pick up your slack.

Gaelgallah

The Stars are Whispering: It’s in old elfish and everyone who doesn’t speak the language thinks it’s a reverential, almost spiritual song based on the tune alone, but actually it’s all these puns about how the stars are huge gossips so don’t do anything bad at night because the stars are gonna tell EVERYONE. It goes on for 57 verses and chronicles various stupid things people have done and the shame that came upon them. It’s a game among elf kids to see who can memorize the most verses at once, and people make up their own verses as well. Popular for teaching old elfish grammar and pronunciation as well.

Probably like half of all elf travelling songs are pun based.

One verses is about a guy who licked a metal fence in winter. Come morning everyone came out to laugh at his sorry ass.

Another guy was practising his music in a field at night. HIs pants ripped and now everyone knows him as underpants mcgoo

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[okase]

DnD Character Questions: Zephrine

B/c my friend’s gone and done these and they looked fun. Original questions is here

1) What is their full name, and does it have any special relevance? Alternatively, what nicknames do they have?

Zephrine Auclair is her full name, as far as she’s concerned. Her actual full name is unknown to her though she’s aware at least that Auclair isn’t the surname she was born with. Adopted and all that.

As for nicknames, Zeph is a shorthand she’s okay with, and her stage persona when she was a performer was very creatively named Zephyra. 2) What hobby would they like to be good at?

Cooking, or sewing. Probably sewing a little more than cooking, since she’s at least somewhat passable at cooking. Also, gardening. She loves plants and flowers but doesn’t quite have the green thumb that her mother does. 3) If they played dnd what race and class would they pick?

A gnome Beastmaster ranger or Circle of the Shepherd druid. She’d want to be something completely different from what she is or can turn into in real life. Also, she’s always wanted healing abilities and loves animals(most of them) so she would want either one really close animal companion or as many animal friends as she could possibly make. She would also inevitably get really distraught when something happened to said animal friends. 4) If they could go back in time and change one thing, what would they change?

She would have left the circus to travel with Therila sooner. Even though it’s not really her fault, Zeph still feels an incredible amount of guilt for getting her girlfriend into the situation she’s in. She feels if she’d followed her heart and been less indecisive, she could have saved Therila a lot of hardship.

That said, Zeph has grown very attached to her new friends she’s met, so that would make changing things hard. There’s several things she wants to help them with and the idea of not being able to help wouldn’t sit well with her. Zeph would feel like she was abandoning her new friends for Therila.

She’d still change things, if she could, because she would want to spare Therila what she’s been through, but it would be with a heavy heart. If she could find a way to have it both ways, she’d do it in an instant. 5) What is their favourite weapon to wield?

Her magique. She has a dagger and a quarterstaff, but neither of those has really felt “right” for her, nor have they been particularly useful. Her magic, though, is not only incredibly useful and versatile, but more importantly it’s a part of her. Not only, that, it’s a part of her that she loves. Zeph gets frustrated at her inability to tap into it, or control it, but she’s never felt negatively towards her magic itself. Because when she gets it right, she feels powerful, incredible, even celestial. It feels right, and it feels good.

6) If you could behove them one magical item, what would you give them?

Robes of Self Confidence! Ring of Decisiveness. Underwear of Stop Doubting Yourself and Be More Assertive.

Or, idk. Boosting her charisma further would be nice, I guess??? I don’t know enough about dnd magical items. Also some of the stuff she has is already pretty sweet so I can’t complain. (She has a cloak that can let her turn into a raven for an hour! It’s baller.) 7) If they didn’t have to adventure, would they stop?

No. She’s gotten a taste for blood now. Nothing can stop her.

Jk, but still no because she’s kind of found her calling in it. She gets to help people, and wants to continue doing so until she finds a better way to help people that maybe involves less murder and nearly dying all the time. 8) What do they look for in a platonic or romantic partner?

Passion, and compassion. A strong moral compass and the courage to not only adhere to it, but stand up for it as well. A sense of humor and some self-confidence doesn’t hurt, either.

Also, it’s not a thing she consciously looks for, but one thing that all of her previous partners have in common is that they are/were all very assertive people. Make of that what you will lmao 9) Do they trust easily? Yes and no. When she was younger, I would say yes without a doubt, but she’s put her trust in the wrong people more than a few times throughout the years and I think that’s made her wiser than she lets on.

I think the best way to describe it is that, if she hasn’t been given reason not to, she’s willing to give people a chance and will put herself out there even knowing it could end badly. She’s been hurt enough times to believe it’s a risk, but she believes in people as a whole enough to also believe it’s a risk worth taking. She’ll believe in you until you give her reason not to.

10) What is their favourite colour?

Blues and greens tend to be her favorite, so I’ll go halfway and say blue-green. Robin’s egg blue.

She also likes bright yellow. Just, not on her. 11) Diplomatic or aggressive?

I’m gonna say diplomatic, but I think it would be more accurate to say she was manipulative than truly compromising like diplomacy tends to imply. She’s aggressive about her morals, but I don’t think I’d call her aggressive overall, and she’s definitely not the punchy sort. She definitely prefers non-violent solutions to problems and disagreements. Unless you’re an utter monster but I’m not sure that counts. 12) They get arrested, and thrown in jail, how do they escape?

Probably most likely to talk herself out of jail. If she’d been put in there unjustly, she’d try and prove it. If she was there justly, she’d try and suggest alternate ways she could serve whatever sentence she’s been given, or if her sentence was pretty minimal and none of her friends were in danger, she’d just serve it.

If talking didn’t work, she’d try and get a guard close enough to incapacitate them, which she would do via hold person or fire + hot metal prison bars. Get the keys, go from there. Or if there was a window, she’d see if there was a way to climb out that way. 13) Would they leave their party for any reason?

Currently and for the short-term future, she would only leave if they would no longer have her. She’s rather attached on a personal level, and beyond that, they’ve done a lot for her and she feels it’s only right to do a lot for them in return.

The only way other than that would be for them to do something really morally reprehensible, but I can’t really see them doing something bad enough for her to just up and leave. 14) If they could own any creature as a pet, what would they have? 

A GRIFFIN. Or she would, if they didn’t eat horses at best and people at worst.

More realistically, she’d probably like to have some sort of fat lil’ songbird, provided she didn’t have to keep it in a cage. If not a bird, a rabbit or a guinea pig would also do.

15) How have you influenced your characters personality?

Unfortunately my stupidity and inability to tell a coherent story for the life of me has been inflicted upon Zephrine. She can be kinda ditzy lol

Also my temper, a bit.  But also my desire to do good and my love of the arts and also pretty things!

Oh, but also my anxiety. I’m SORRY Zephrine lmao 16) Do they have any tattoos? If so what? If not, do you think they would get one in the future?

Nope, and no.  She appreciates them on other people,  but they're not really for her.

The Tiamat mark on her arm doesn’t count. 17) Where would they like to be in ten years time?

Alive, surrounded by friends and making the world a better place. She’s found love and managed to keep it. Therila is safe and happy, her friends are safe and happy. Her mother isn’t alone when Zeph isn’t there, and is content. Zeph travels a lot, be it with her partner, her friends, or both, righting the wrongs of the world, changing things for the better and helping others along the way. They travel, but they always have a home they can return to when they need to catch their breath. Ideally in the more literal, physical sense- in which case there needs to be flowers, and lots of them- but the metaphorical sense works, too. She’s found her calling, her purpose in life and she’s able to guide others to theirs, as well. The world has less suffering in it than it did before and it feels like she’s able to make a difference.

Zephrine knows that’s probably not realistic, and she knows that life never really goes the way you want or plan, but she’s certainly going to try and make things reality where she can. She’s gonna at least make an effort.

18) What do they look like? Either description or picture.

She looks like if a dragon and a disney princess had a baby together.

And if I’m feeling more descriptive, I’d say she’s got shiny brass scales and the rounded brass dragon crest to match, big orangey-brown eyes with some yellow towards the pupils. She’s got a ‘3’ mouth, kinda like a python. It’s very cute.

Body-wise, she’s built like a ballerina, with legs for days and a lean musculature. She’s got slightly broad shoulders, kinda narrow hips, and a tail that she has to lift slightly at the end so it doesn’t drag on the floor. The end of it kinda looks like a giant leaf. She also has small, useless dragon wings that are either cute or creepy depending on who you ask.

Clothes-wise and just in general, she’s very meticulous about hygiene and just as meticulous about her appearance. She doesn’t have the excessive ruffles and lace and gemstones of someone upper class, but everything she wears tends to be colorful and chosen very carefully. She tends to be a fan of bishop/peasant sleeves and either A-line dresses or long, flowy tunics. She’s also big on putting in little details, like a fancy belt buckle or some really nice boots. She’s very fashion-conscientious but not completely impractical.

19) What genre of music would they be into?

Zeph appreciates all types of music and that would be no different if she had access to our stuff. From rap to metal to bluegrass, she’ll pick bits of anything, but her favorites would likely be dance mixes of upbeat pop songs, or something with synthpop. Or funk/r&b??? Something she can either dance to or something indulgently sad she can listen to while languidly lounging and being dramatic and morose. Depends on her mood. 20) What would be the worst thing someone could say to them?

“I hear dragons hoard things like gems and weapons and armor. I think your hoard might be failed relationships and promises you can’t keep!”

Basically anything along the lines of: You really should stop trying; You don’t know what you’re doing; You’re just a hindrance; You’re not actually helping people; Why are you trying to help others when you can’t even sort out your own problems, etc.

Imply or outright state that she just causes trouble for other people, especially if it’s something she can’t refute. Poke her right in the insecurity.

[shadowsof-thenight]

Had a voice: Chapter one

Summary: For two years you had let him dictate your every move. Dictate your time, your friends, your work. Everything, literally.  And for the life of you, you could not understand why you’d done so.

Now, here you were. In a beautiful but still strange city that had never become your own. And you were all alone. It was time to take back your life.

A/N: This story will follow the reader, which in this case means that Bucky does not show up immediately. Slow burn we'll call it.

Words: 1927

Ship: BuckyXreader (although not yet)

Warnings: none

Masterlist                                              Story Masterlist ***

The next morning you groaned loudly at the sound of your alarm. The sun was peeking through the curtains and you knew you had to get up. Still sleep had been such a nice reprieve and you wished it had lasted just a little longer.

You knew you had to get moving if you wanted to change and better your current situation. Only you could change it now, nobody else. And nobody else had any say in how you went about this.

For the first time in a long time, you were solely responsible. You were your own person. Nobody was telling you what to do. In a few days that would probably become frighting, but for now it was exhilarating.

And so you got up of the bed and grabbed the clothes you had laid out the night before, taking your room-key and walking towards the nearest free bathroom. Today you were going to find yourself a job. Preferably a job you liked, but anything would do at this point. You really just wanted to go about getting it yourself. You were confident that this would work.

It took you three hours to even find companies that were looking for employees and they would only accept digital letters. A little disheartened and hungry, you went and bought yourself a salad and a paper. Perhaps the paper could help you. You took a seat on one of the benched in time square and began flipping through the paper.

You circled a few things, but were quickly losing your confidence. Most places asked experience and diploma's. You had neither. At least not the experience required.

You knew you would have to start small, build something for yourself, but you no idea where to start. You had forgotten what you even really liked to do. For too long, you had ignored your own instincts. Your own passions. You would have to find them again. But first you needed a job to pay your bills. To have food, a roof over your head and perhaps even healthcare, you know, small stuff.

***

You had looked at a job flipping burgers, but you had been told you were too old and too expensive. You had checked with book stores, but there weren't many vacancies there. You had tried toy stores, but they too thought of you as too expensive. Eventually you went to an employment agency and asked them to put your name in their files. That was days ago now and you had not heard back from them.

Two weeks had passed since you left the relative safety of your faulty relationship and right now you wished you hadn't. You had nothing to fall back on and nothing to move towards. Life was kicking you in the shins and you were at your wits end. The past two days you had spend simply walking around. You didn't truly look around any more, you just walked. Disheartened by the whole job search. Convinced nobody wanted you.

It wasn't until you ran into someone on west 51st street that you even looked up at your surroundings.

“I am so sorry” you exclaimed and looked into the kind eyes of a small redhead. She smiled and offered you her hand to pull you up off the ground.

“I wasn't looking at where I was going, I'm really sorry” you said again and she smiled once more.

“Neither was I, I was preoccupied with my tickets” she said holding up her theatre tickets. You looked to the side and nodded. You had somehow walked all the way to the Gershwin Theatre. A place you loved, but had not been in a while.

“Nice,” you smiled, “what are you seeing?”

“Oh, I'm not. Unfortunately just picking these up for a friend. But they are to wicked” she said still smiling, “Are you okay?” she added, looking you over for any injuries.

“I am fine. A big klutz like me can take a little fall on the street” you chuckled before adding, “ That's a good one” pointing to the tickets.

“So I've been told. Perhaps I should find out for myself” the redhead said.

“You really should” you smiled and extended your hand, “ I'm Y/N.”

“Wanda” she said and shook your hand briefly. For a moment you stared at each other a little awkwardly. Then Wanda looked at her watch and gasped.

“Sorry, I have to go. Sorry for knocking you over” she said and you laughed.

“I can take it” you said and waved as she rushed off. Leaving you to look at the posters that hung outside the theatre. Staring at the black and green poster from Wicked, you almost missed the little notice to the side.

'Help wanted'

Almost. You had almost kept walking if it had not been for the girl. You smiled as you tried to door and upon finding it open, you walked inside. Asking the first employee you saw, about the vacancy they had. They kindly directed you to the people in charge and before you knew it, they asked for your CV and planned an interview.

Elated you left the building a little later. An interview. That was the closest you had gotten in all those weeks. In three days you would get to explain just why they should hire you. Walking towards the hostel, you felt like there was a skip in your steps. This had given you new found hope, that everything would work itself out. And you had three days to prepare.

***

Those days were spend with reading online tips and tricks for a good interview and perfecting the outfit you were going to wear. Looking presentable was important after all. Or at least that's what your parents had always said. Along with; a good preparation was half the work.

And turned out that it was indeed half the work. You felt confident going into the interview and the conversation had gone swimmingly. You got a call the next day saying you got the job. You could start the next week.

With a sigh of content you had dropped down on the bed after that call. This was just what you needed. It had been two and a half weeks since you dropped everything and while you had significant savings, it scared you that you were going through them so swiftly, without any new income. Next week that would change. Next week you would have income again. One you had procured for yourself. Nobody had helped you in any way. This was something you did all on your own and it made you incredibly happy.

***

In the end it all seemed to be going so easily, it made you a little suspicious. The past few years, nothing had really gone your way. At least not this easily. But the job was good and you decided to not look a gift horse in the mouth.

It only took you another two weeks to get into a bit of a groove at work. You quickly got a handle on the computer system that controlled the sales part and you got on a first name basis with many of your co-workers. Everyone had been really nice. Even better, not one of them seemed to have ever heard of your ex, Daniel. He was not involved in any way in your life at this point. That gave you a sense of safety that you had not even realised you had missed.

“Y/N” the voice of your manager, Jenny, called out that afternoon and you set down the broom as you walked towards her.

“Yes?” you asked with a smile as she looked around a little distracted.

“Tonight is a full house and Tammy called in sick. Can you manage the cloakroom?” she asked you and you quickly nodded. So far you had been doing every single low level job in the theatre and Jenny had already mentioned that she was content with your work ethic. This was an opportunity to show her you could help out in a crisis. Surely the cloakroom wasn't a management job, but it got crazy sometimes and you would show her how calm you could remain.

“Thanks, you will work with Maggie and Tom” Jenny told you and you just nodded. Maggie and Tom had been really nice to you, so this would be a fun evening.

By the time it was 6.30, half the cloakroom was already full and you were running back and forth with your co-workers. It was busy and would not light up for another 20 minutes at least.

You were barely seeing any of the faces of the visitors, until one of them said your name.

“Y/N, hi” the voice said a little surprised and you quickly looked up, a little shocked. Who would know you here? Before you stood the redhead you had briefly met a few weeks ago . You were very surprised that she still remembered your name.

“Wanda, good to see you. Giving it a try I see” you replied with a smile as you took her jacket from her and hanging it away, returning with a numbered card.

“Yes, my friend said it was really good so I figured I'd have to see it for myself.” Wanda replied.

“You won't regret it.” you said as you took the coat of the person next in line, hanging it next to Wanda's.

“I'm sure I won't.” Wanda replied.

“Have fun!” you said and she turned around with a small wave and a smile. You didn't have time to see where she went too or who she was with, as the next person was already pushing their coat in your hands.

A few hours later you walked out of the theatre with sore feet and a painful back. You sighed a little, knowing you had forgotten your metro-card and you would have to walk the 20 minutes to your room. Not only did you hate walking that far at night, you had not done the much needed investigating of the area. Was it even safe to walk?

About two blocks into your walk, your name was called and this time you recognised the voice of Wanda immediately.

“Hi.” you said, turning towards the bar on your left. She was sitting at a small table, a drink in hand. You weren't sure why she kept talking to you, but you weren't too concerned. You knew nobody and she seemed really nice.

“Have a drink with us” Wanda said and waved her hand towards an empty chair. You looked at your watch and wondered if it was a good idea. You had to work again tomorrow. Although, there was no matinee show. You would not have to get up too early.

You smiled and took a seat, ordering a cola for the server that was quickly by your side.

“This is my friend Bruce” she said and you shook his hand.

“I'm Y/N. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too” He offered a kind smile, which you returned.

“How was the play?” you asked them and while Wanda became giddy, Bruce sighed deeply. That was the start of a great conversation that lasted well into the night and by the time you got home, you knew your would surely regret it in the morning.

Chapter 2

Tags:

@slender--spirit

[thecastcompany]

The Writing Prompt given to the Cast Company was....

What was your childhood like? What was Azeroth or your Planet like when you were a child? Share a nice childhood story with us.

Here is the stories of: Lora, Rak'kaba, Zaneryne, Vida, Selth, Sam, Lyla and Maddi

Lora reaches up to adjust the dark red hat on her head, "Vol'dun wasn't great, but I had big sister there! At least...when I was little I did. A story?" She pulls down on her hat, almost covering her whole head with the brim. "Well, there was this one time our caravan stopped near some ruined building or something. The adults said we were gonna stop there for a few day and asked Nika and me to go find supplies and food and stuff! So Nika had a great idea to go explore all the buildings! Of course I wanted to follow my big sister on a big adventure! So we set out and started digging around the rocks and stuff." She seems to lean forward a bit as the memory of the story makes her more and more excited.

"Anyway, I didn't really find much but Nika found this, like, door or something. Me being much smaller, I could fit into the crack in the door, so Nika stood watch while I climbed through! When I got inside, there were these stairs that led underground so I followed them. When I got to the bottom, it was...amazing! All kinds of crazy paintings and broken pottery and stuff! I never found out what anything in there meant but there were these holes in the ceiling that shined light on all the walls and stuff!" Her tail begins to move erratically behind her as she continues to describe the walls in exhausting detail.

"Anyway, we didn't find anything useful, but I think Nika just didn't tell anyone what I had found and just said the place was empty. Maybe someday I can try to find that spot.." Her voice trails off as she starts talking in her native tongue about who knows what for a while...

click, click, click A singular, weathered talon taps against a table. It fills the silence, but leaves the interviewer wondering if they are speaking to a Mercenary. . .or a Bird of Prey. The bird in question hums, the talon finally pulling away from the table. "Hrm. Childhood? I do quite like talking about myself.  I will enlighten you on how I became a Solar Priest. Hrah! No questions, only listen." Rak'kaba begins to pace the room, making wild hand gestures as they speak. "As a hatchling, our Elders decide our fates. However, we can also decide ourselves. So I did whatever was necessary. Like tossing the flightless ones over the Spires." It's hard to tell what sort of emotions are expressed with the bird, but one thing is for sure - they think it's hilarious. "As a hatchling I excelled in the arts of Solar energy, I can make Night into Day with just myself and a particular ritual. Hrm, yes, I suppose I learned it to throw off the competition mainly. The Elders were impressed by my talents at such a young age. Hrm, you are impressed by my talents, correct? You should be. I am very important." The Arakkoa continues to speak for quite literally hours on end about themselves, making sure the interviewer understands just how important they are and not so much about the home they were exiled from.

Zaneryne smiles slightly to this question, "Well as all noble children of the Sun our lives were filled with schedules, schedules and more schedules....sure I grew up with a silver-spoon in my mouth, and had a lot of stuff to do, like school, mage training, this or that, but it was still a good life. I don't really know what the rest of Azeroth was like, I just knew what Quel'thalas was like. It was a golden palace of silver and golds and the finest of stones, everyday felt like a fairy tale and that you were the Princess of the city...but my most cherish childhood memory was.....a picnic we went too....it was my mom, me, my sister Zainstra and our father, we all day sat in the sun and ate cakes and sandwiches and chased geese and had some chase us back, and it was not until night when we made a fire and my parents told us the story of how they met and fell in love and had smores together, and my father was so particular about not having chocolate of anything smudge his face cause appearance was EVERYTHING!" flutters her eyes before rolling them.

She giggles a little, "He had the smallest smudge of chocolate here..." taps the left corner of her mouth, "my mother pointed it out by kissing it and saying he tasted sweet, he quickly went to wipe it away and this started a huge food fight, my mother smearing her smore into his face, and then me joining in, Zainstra at first was a little afraid to join in, but the tickle monster, aka my mother dragged her in and smear chocolate on her and we left the park looking a mess."

From Vida:

"Alright strap in, this is a story from like 20 years ago!" She said as she sighed nostagically. "So before I got into modeling and all that mess, I had a talent for tinkerin!  I mean at the time I could build a whole bunch of fun things!  I build a dancin robot, a music box, and explosive!"  She said as she laughed "the noise and sight were fun to watch!"  She said as she got comfortable in her seat.

"So at the time my old man and my ma lived in Dun Morogh.  My dad had this job he had hated working for this gnomes corporation.....I mean yeah he made a lot of money, but he had zero fun doing his job!" She said passionately.

"My ma didn't care about his happiness cause she was out spendin his money!  Man I wish she would die already!!!!" She said as she snapped before calling down.  "Anyways!"  She said happily

"So my dad took me to work for bring ya kid to work day and showed me some of the stuff they were workin on, and thats when I saw it!"  She said with excitement. "In my dads bosses office they showed a device powered on pure mana!  The goal of it was to help mages power interdimensional portals or somethin...who cares!" She said as she leaned closer.  "So when no one was lookin I decided to sneak back in and well....ya know play around with it!

"My daddys boss had a whole lot of cool things to tinker with, So I started really goin to town!" She said as she raised her goggles up " and after a hour later, my greatest creation was active!"  She said proudly.

"Daddy and everyone were lookin for me but when they found me my daddys boss flipped out!"  She laughed "like he saw what I made and panicked calling all law enforcement and nearly evacuatin the city we were living in!"  She said as she busted out laughing "apparently I made a dirty mana bomb that was SUPER unstable!" She said as she fell out of her chair from laughing "can you imagin it!?  Me making a dirty mana bomb!?  Man I was a stupid kid!  If I were more mature it wouldn't  had been dirty!" She said as she still laughed as she got back up.

"Anyway, they were able to defuse and everythin, dad was proud of me, ma was pissed and my dad lost his job.....oh as we were banned from ever enterin that city again!"  She said as she snickered

"Whats funny is that a shit ton of years later no one would be able to enter that city!  I mean I may have almost blew up gnomergan, but atleast I didn't irradiated the hell out of it!" She laughed

Selth

The forsaken man smiles as he pets his rather massive stitched abomination hound. "Ah, Lordearon, used to be so nice back then, less volitale plague, more green and normal mind you." The man tosses the hound a snack of a leg that still looks a big bloody, it appears to be an entire bear's hindleg. "I grew up on a farm, I spent many days helping gather crops, herding sheep, occasionally riding with my father to sell at the market, truly it was a better time."

The forsaken man smiles at his hound a moment, patting the head of the beast laying next to him chewing on the bone of the leg. "It was around my fourteenth birthday my father gave me Cerberon, an early birthday present, I loved him as much as I still do! He was always just an adventurous pup, and grew into a very strong dog, why he once helped me move a small tree that had fallen in the road on the way to the market." He frowns a moment as the next distinct memory comes to mind. "Then the scourge came..." he snaps out of it. "Apologies, a story best saved for another time I think."

Sam

Sam growls, getting in the interviewers face, baring his night elven fangs, "Drop it..." Sam storms out of the room leaving a young night elven woman behind looking apologetic. Lorianda Moonfury sighs, "I am sorry about my father's reaction. His childhood is a very sore subject, one he rarely even confides to me about." The young woman smiles, "Still, he is a wonderful father, he took me in after my family was killed by the Scourge and gave me a wonderful childhood."

Lori smiles fondly, "I remember one year around this time, though he was still stuck in his cat form he put on a beard and red suit and played Greatfather Winter for me. I believe it was the year after he adopted me and I was still suffering from the heartache of losing my family. He did everything in his power to make me smile and laugh, the man he is right now I don't recognize. I still see flashes of that wonderful father, but they are buried behind whatever mask he is wearing right now. Please do not think badly of him."

Lyla

Lyla sat back and sighed “Honestly most of our childhood was amazing. Full of love, and compassion, and family. My brothers were always picking on me, always. I sort of grew used to it and now that all of them but Teav have sort of given up I miss them picking on me. It was full of laughter and pouting. We did tons of farm work, and learned what working hard meant. We were responsible for the animals and crops but I learned the value of hard work.

I think one of my favorite moments include all the pranks we would play on each other. I gave Teav a box of crickets for Winter’s Veil. He squealed like a little girl. We were all laughing, my mom was in tears. That was also the year we got our horses. Teav and I were given really rare twin horses. The last gift from my mom before she died. I miss Westfall and the way things were, now I just hope to be able to give these two a life as grand as mine. She places her hand on her belly and smiles

Maddi

Maddi smiled “My childhood itself was … entitled. I was an only child, my mother died so my dad made sure I had the world. I had the best dresses, the best teachings, the best training and tutors. My father raised me towards the light, I would say the teachings were more like brainwashing, but it didn’t work. All I wanted to do was fight” She laughed “I would spar with the soldiers at night because they gave me everything I wanted. Even sweets. I was on a strict diet, and schedule. I  had amazing holidays and birthdays and literally got everything I wanted...I remember once I sat down with my dad and he asked what I wanted for my birthday, I told him a sword like his. He refused, so he got me my horse. And I fell in love with him, he was my only friend most of my life. I learned to do handstands on him and everything. He’s getting old now, but I love him. When I went back home after everything, he was still there being loyal. He was injured from many years before and his leg didn’t heal right but we rehabbed him and he only has a small limp now.