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lexosaurus · 1 year

Text

and then he woke up

Happy @phandomholidaytruce to @bleedingectoplasm! I loved your prompts, especially the part where you said, "idk just hurt me<3" so I hope I delivered!

Characters: Danny, GIW, Sam, Tucker Words: 5103 Warnings/tags: body horror, angst, recovery

[ao3 link]

***

It had been a joke once. Back in high school, his classmates had once bantered about the limits to his healing factor. They giggled, theorizing different scenarios, each more ridiculous than the last. Instances where his finger was cut off, his ghostly tail chopped in two, his torso sliced in half. If he was missing an organ, would his body make a new one? Would he regrow it like a starfish if his arm was cut off?

He had laughed, then. Because of course, those situations were crazy. No one was going to take his organs out. No one was going to cut his arm off.

It was a joke.

It was supposed to be a joke.

His breath shuttered. Above him, white blended with white blended with green. Fire and nothingness cloaked his body, his nerves too fried to produce even a twitch. But still, ectoplasm bathed his skin, pooling on the table below him.

Voices murmured off to his side, and the sounds of machines beeped and whirred around him. But everything was muffled, the white was too oppressive, make it stop, make it stop…

“It’s fascinating.” The fuzzy operative hovered above him.

Danny couldn’t react as metal tools pressed against his skin.

“His body seems to be regrowing his missing kidney. Look, you can see it.”

Another face entered his view. “That’s incredible. Level seven indeed.”

Danny shut his eyes. He couldn’t stomach seeing their faces. He couldn’t know who was opening his skin, shuffling through his body, tearing it apart and putting it back together like a crude jigsaw.

He wanted to cocoon in his ignorance and wake up in his bed.

He woke up in his cell. No bed. No blanket. He was a ghost, and ghosts didn’t deserve luxuries.

He didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to assess the damage. He didn’t want to see how deep the nerve and muscle damage went, didn’t want to know if there was still a hole in his body, didn’t want to feel any dents where organs should be.

He didn’t want to know.

But deep down, some ugly part of him knew. And it admonished him, telling him to be grateful. He could have had it worse, he could have died.

But then, wasn’t he already dead? No living person could have survived that.

No living person could have regrown a kidney.

His eyes burned, and his vision blurred over. After he passed out again, he would wonder what else they had removed from his body. What other things was he forced to regrow like some mutant lab experiment?

And to his horror, a few days later, he woke up.

Back on the metal table.

With another fuzzy operative floating above him, metal tools in hand.

The strap on his forehead stopped him from craning to see what was happening next to him, but instinct pooled in his gut anyway, and he knew.

He knew.

“It’s halfway regrown,” the operative said in a sterile tone.

“Time recorded. And what of his kidney?”

“It looks about a quarter of the way there.”

“Excellent.”

He wanted to ask, to beg, what was the first one? What were they talking about? Had they removed his kidney again? Didn’t they have enough fun the first time? Why were they doing this to him?

But even the mere thought of asking sent nausea down his throat and he couldn’t think about it, he couldn’t ask. His voice was frozen over anyway.

If he didn’t know the truth, then the realities didn’t exist.

When he woke up in his cell that evening, he tried to call out to Clockwork, to the Observants, to anyone who may see him. Who may know what he was going through.

But no one responded.

Of course.

Even though he didn’t expect an answer, it still punched him in the gut all the same. And those fears, those insecurities danced through his mind, twisting their imprints into every corner of his thoughts.

He wasn’t worthy of rescue. He wasn’t worth the trouble. He was just a thing, just a specimen to experiment on. He was…

Alone.

And then he woke up again on the table. And again. By now his nerves had been too torn apart to emit anything other than a numb tingling. The places he could still feel burned—they always burned—but he could ignore it. Shut it out.

Don’t think about it.

Don’t think.

He stared at the ceiling. Unmoving. Unblinking. Passed the masked faces above him, only catching the glint of metal out of the corners of his eyes. He listened as the operatives spoke, slicing parts of him away, but their words went in one ear and out the other.

He didn’t want to know.

And time passed. He kept waking up on the table with more things missing. He kept waking up in his cell knowing they had regrown. He kept waking up feeling tingling, burning in previously numb parts of his body, knowing that it was only thanks to the weekend that his nerves had begun to feel again. But then Monday would come again, and he would wake up with his body numb once more.

How much time had passed? How much of his body was no longer his? How much had regrown like an ugly patchwork of an ectoplasmic contaminated doll?

Was he even himself anymore if so much had been replaced?

How long until he couldn’t call himself Danny?

And then he woke up.

Again.

***

He woke up to dimly lit glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling.

Those had been courtesy of Sam’s insistence. Something about grounding him after he woke up from nightmares—after all, the GIW didn’t have decorations in their cells. It was too bad the stars didn’t exist behind his eyelids. It would be nice to be able to prevent the dreams from happening in the first place.

He wasn’t sure what time it was, and he was too afraid to look at his phone to check. He didn’t want to know how badly he’d messed up his sleep for the night—again—he’d realized. But the room was dark, so he could only imagine.

On TV, when people woke up from nightmares, they got out of bed. Maybe they got a glass of water, hopped in the shower, or started getting dressed.

Danny always thought that was a load of bullshit. Because here he was, his frantic heart beginning to slow, brain flickering images that made him want to gag, and yet he couldn’t even consider the possibility of leaving his bed.

And so he lay there.

Staring up at the ceiling.

He must have dozed off eventually because one moment his eyesight went blurry, and the next he was waking up to the plastic stars. Except, sunlight streamed through the windows, and the stars had lost their sci-fi glow.

He still didn’t know what time it was. Maybe he should check.

Maybe.

His skin was uncomfortably warm, and he could feel his pillow not quite right under his head. His neck was stiff, but still, he didn’t get up. He could have slept for a week. He didn’t have the willpower to get out of bed.

So…he didn’t. He stayed in bed. A sluggish arm pulled out his phone and his fingers lazily scrolled through various social media sites without stopping to read anything. He let the minutes hours pass by until the stale taste in his mouth and his parched throat forced him out of bed.

It was a good thing Sam and Tucker weren’t here. They would be so disappointed if they saw how he spent his days off.

He turned on the faucet, washing toothpaste down the drain. His sink was getting grimy again, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cleaned his apartment. Sam would be so let down. Tucker would be too, though he wouldn’t say so many words as her.

So when his phone buzzed to life and familiar names appeared on his screen, he ignored them.

He couldn’t face them. Couldn’t do it.

Instead, he went back to bed. Not to sleep, just to…exist. Whatever that meant.

And when his phone finally rang, he turned it on Do Not Disturb.

(In his dreams, he woke up in his cell again.)

He woke up to the stars.

Again.

He stayed in bed, dozing until his alarm went off, signaling the start of the work week.

Had Sunday passed? Did his brain skip an entire day without him knowing?

So he had spent the entire weekend in bed.

Fantastic.

He forced himself up, forced himself into the shower. He was careful not to touch his body anymore when he showered—that was what the loofah was for (another gift from Sam). His skin didn’t feel right anymore. It prickled at his touch in some places and burned in others. It had raises and bumps and lines that it didn’t use to. He couldn’t touch it, couldn’t admit to what happened, didn’t want to know.

Of course, it was impossible to forget.

He didn’t even notice he had transformed until he was already invisibly touching down at the subway stop. Danny Fenton took the subway to campus. At least, that was the story everyone else saw.

He detransformed—still invisibly, thank god he’d mastered that—and ducked out from behind the pillar. The invisibility dropped, and he slung his backpack over his shoulder as he made for the turnstile.

Danny Fenton was a researcher getting his MS in aerospace engineering. Danny Fenton was looking for summer internships. Danny Fenton was a normal man, one who grew up with scientist parents, who never went into their portal, who was never kidnapped by the government, who never had his body cut open and was never forced to regrow his organs day and day again.

He was normal.

Very normal.

The sun hit his eyes and he tried to pretend that he wasn’t squinting at the sudden light. That he hadn’t just spent the entire weekend inside. That he wasn’t royally fucked for class today because he hadn’t even glanced at the prep work.

He followed a group of students inside his building and scanned his ID at the front desk. The security guard hardly looked up from his newspaper, and why would he? Danny Fenton was a normal, tired human student.

The elevator dinged at his floor, and he made the same trek to the office that he always made. Someone acknowledged him from the hall—probably Blake, he practically lived at the school—and Danny grunted in response.

He hoped he remembered to shave that morning. He couldn’t remember anything other than the relief and subsequent dread at waking up.

“Got some grading for you, Fenton,” the professor said as soon as Danny walked through the door. He tapped a stack of folders. “It’s a rough one, sorry.”

Danny’s voice crackled as he responded, “Sounds good.” He flushed, realizing it had been several days since he’d spoken last.

(He talked plenty in his dreams, though.)

His advisor quirked a bushy brow at him. “You sleep alright?”

“Fine.” Danny swiped the stack of folders. “I’ll be in the conference room till someone kicks me out.”

“‘Kay.”

He was glad it was just grading. Math had formulas, it had plans. It was either right or wrong. A rocket ship couldn’t fly if the numbers were wrong.

And grading undergraduates was mindless. They either knew the material or they didn’t. In the case of Professor Patel’s class, most of them didn’t.

Which was fine with Danny. If that meant he had to take longer to grade these exams, then that was good. Great, even. It meant he could spend less time thinking.

But eventually, he finished, and Patel ordered him to get food before class.

Danny tried to remember what he’d eaten since Friday. Maybe he had…pizza? At one point? A sandwich? Some ramen? He couldn’t remember. He must have eaten something because he wasn’t that hungry.

“You sure you’re alright?” Patel had asked again as Danny gathered his coat and bag to leave.

“Yeah.” He refused to make eye contact. “Just tired. You know, busy weekend.”

Busy weekend of staring at the wall, more like.

“I get it. Grad school is tough,” Patel said. “Listen, I have some meetings later, so I don’t need you for the rest of the day. After class, just go home. Get some rest. Swing by tomorrow.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. Make sure you actually sleep this time.”

Danny attempted a weak smile. “I’ll try.”

Still, shame and guilt clawed at his hollow insides. He knew that he was giving nothing but empty promises.

He managed to go to class where he managed to take notes and he managed to follow along. Somehow. Thankfully.

And then Danny Fenton walked to a secluded spot, transformed, and flew home.

His apartment was dark under the drawn curtains, but he didn’t bother with a light switch. It didn’t matter, he wasn’t human anyway.

He grabbed a container from the fridge—takeout, some days old—and ate it under the light of the microwave clock. It was lo mein, some part of him recognized midway through. It tasted blander than he remembered.

Some part of him thought back to when the operatives had cut out his tongue. Partially to punish him for mouthing off, and partially just for fun. Sometimes he wondered how different his new taste buds were. Was this because they had regrown? Or did he just have issues?

No, don’t think about that.

So he didn’t.

He woke up to his alarm.

He went to school.

Helped his advisor around the office.

Assisted with a class for undergraduates.

Went to his own class.

Had coffee with a classmate after. (What was her name again?)

Flew home.

Ate dinner. Ramen this time.

Woke up.

He woke up to pounding on his door.

He slapped a hand to his forehead, blearily sliding it down his eyes. Ugh, what time was it?

Who the hell was here this early?

Muffled shouting sounded from the hallway, but Danny couldn’t even begin to decipher what they were saying. But a second later, he recognized who was speaking and groaned on instinct.

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” He braced himself for the unforgiving atmosphere that existed outside of his blankets.

“Danny, if you don’t get to the door right fucking now, I’m going to—”

“Yeah! I heard you!” He snapped, dragging his lifeless body from the bed.

“Sam, come on—”

“No, he can’t ignore us, Tuck.”

“I know, but—”

Danny opened the door, blinking as the light from the hall hit his retinas. He yawned. “What the hell?”

“Danny, have you been sleeping all day?” Sam’s tone hardly reigned in her frustration. She stood, tapping her black boots on the carpet and glaring at him through her purple makeup and dyed bangs.

“What?”

“It’s two in the afternoon, dude,” Tucker said, pushing past the door.

Danny didn’t fight him. He’d learned months ago that isolation wasn’t a battle he could win with these two.

Sam wrinkled her nose, picking at his shirt. “Have you been wearing this all week?”

Danny rolled his eyes, stepping back into the dusty apartment. He couldn’t remember when he’d last changed, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. “Will you relax? I was just asleep. Sorry, I’ll change.”

“Danny…”

“Make yourselves at home. I’ll be right back.” He shut the front door and padded to his bedroom, rifling through his laundry bin of clean clothes he’d never managed to put away.

Tucker, of course, took that as an invitation to perch himself on the bedroom doorframe. He stared into the messy bedroom, his arms crossed, and that annoyingly tense look on his face that Danny had begun to recognize was the “you’ve done fucked up” look.

But as usual, Tucker didn’t offer any of that information first. No, Danny had to be the one to grind out, “Okay, what now?”

“What do you mean, what now?” Tucker said.

“I don’t know. You look like you have something to say.” Danny turned away and shrugged his shirt off, speed racing through putting the new one on.

He couldn’t risk anyone seeing his torso.

Even if his two best friends already knew what that looked like.

“Danny. You already know what I’m gonna say.”

“No, I don’t.”

Of course, he did.

But that was enough to snap Tucker out of his judgemental glare. For his crossed arms to fall down to his sides, and for that unmistakable sigh to escape his lips.

“Dude, you’re getting worse.”

He knew Tucker was right. But that didn’t stop instinct from spouting out, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m fine.”

“Yeah, okay,” Tucker snorted, glancing at the piles of dirty laundry on his floor. “If you want to keep lying to yourself.”

“Danny? All the vegetables I bought last week are still in your fridge,” Sam said, poking her head through the door. A clump of her purple and black hair caught on her lipstick, but she didn’t move to brush it away.

Danny didn’t even remember seeing vegetables in his fridge. “Sorry.”

“Have you been eating?”

“I eat a lot at school. You know, networking stuff.”

Tucker quirked a brow, and Sam’s expression looked even less impressed.

He looked at his two best friends, both dressed in unwrinkled clothes with skin that appeared as if it saw the sun for more than five minutes each day. They had their careers, friends, and lives that Danny could only dream of.

“Come on, let’s go get food,” Sam said.

“Food?”

“It’s past lunch, and I know you need it.”

It was pointless to try to fight them. “Okay. Give me a few minutes to wash my face?”

“Sure.”

Winter was nice, Danny decided. Winter air meant it was cold, and he had an excuse to bundle up. He didn’t have to worry about short sleeves or people seeing his bare skin.

He could cover it up, not talk about it, not think about it.

“I think you should talk about it,” Sam said finally, placing a sub in front of him.

Danny couldn’t recall ordering anything. In fact, he hardly remembered the walk here. Which was bad. That meant Sam and Tucker had seen him when he was zoning out. He tried not to do that when they were around.

Oops.

“You know I can’t,” Danny said. He picked up the sub and took a bite. It was nice, and then he realized that meant he was probably hungry.

“I’m not saying you need to give details as Fenton. Maybe you can find someone willing to work with Phantom?”

“That’s impossible.”

“Nah,” Tucker said through a mouthful of his own food. He chewed for a moment and then swallowed. “Phantom’s been around for a while. You have a lot of support. I’m sure it wouldn’t be too hard to find a therapist who’s willing to work with you in ghost form.”

“Yeah, okay, let me just do that. I’ll just go ahead and risk finding a therapist on the off-chance they don’t call the government to come take me back there. Sure, no problem.” Danny glared at his food which suddenly didn’t look so appetizing. He huffed, putting it down on his plate, and dropped his head into his palms.

His hands were shaking. He hadn’t even realized they were doing that.

“Danny…” Sam’s voice was gentle this time. “Come on. There are other options.”

“Not really.”

“Sure there are. We can get you to a psychiatrist. You know, as a human.”

“They’d want to do bloodwork.”

Sam was silent at that. And then Danny could hear his breath, how shaky it was, and he hated that. He hated this conversation and feeling this way and he wanted to be home by himself staring at the stupid plastic stars on his ceiling again.

“You can’t keep living like this,” Tucker said. “I’m sorry, but you can’t. This is bad.”

“I know.” His voice was weak.

“So let’s think of something.”

“I’ve tried. There’s nothing else I can do.”

The three of them were silent once again. No one moved until finally, Tucker picked up his sandwich, and Sam followed. And Danny sat there with his head in his hands until the shakiness stopped and he could manage to eat another few bites. Sam wrapped up his leftovers and she and Tucker guided him home.

And that was that.

Until he woke up the next day to his phone ringing. It was Sam—of course, it was Sam—breathless on the other line.

“I’m here.”

“What?”

“Tucker’s outside. Can you buzz us in?”

Danny groaned, dragging himself up again because these two idiots didn’t know how to leave him alone. He hit the buzzer and then waited at his door for the sound of murmurs, footsteps, and the polite knock that followed (it was Tucker’s knock this time). He opened the door to see his friends with their backpacks suspiciously full.

“Guys, stop,” Danny said, stepping aside to let them in.

“Stop what?” Tucker said innocently.

“Stop mothering me. You don’t need to bring me stuff. You already did that last week.”

Tucker hopped over to the kitchen. “Oh well, if you see Danny, tell him we’ll stop bringing him groceries when he admits he can’t survive on ramen forever.” Tucker set his backpack down on the counter and unloaded its contents into the fridge.

Danny mumbled incoherently, pulling out his phone to Venmo his two friends because he knew they wouldn’t accept repayment otherwise.

“Come on,” Sam said, pulling him away from Tucker. “Let’s watch TV.”

Danny allowed himself to be dragged to the couch, and he didn’t resist when Sam pushed him down and threw a blanket over him.

“There,” she said.

“I’m a halfa. I wasn’t cold.”

“But now you’re comfortable.”

“And you have groceries,” Tucker said, jumping onto the couch. He threw his hoodie-covered arm around Danny, patting his shoulder. “See? We got you.”

“I’m sorry,” Danny said reflexively. He was sorry. He was so sorry that they had to deal with him, that he wasn’t just fine and back to normal. That, for some reason, he couldn’t handle what happened even after all this time had passed.

“It’s okay, dude.”

“No, it’s not.” He moved his mouth soundlessly, shoving his trembling fingers under his blanket. He could feel the other two still beside him, and he wanted to unload everything, but that wouldn’t be fair to them. He couldn’t keep using them like this, it wasn’t fair.

“Danny, come on, we’re your best friends.”

“Yeah, but this is crazy. I’m crazy—or, I feel like it. You know? Like…I don’t know, I just feel like the world keeps slipping and I don’t know what to do.”

Admitting the truth was bitter, and he couldn’t look at the other two. He couldn’t see their reactions. He didn’t want to look at Sam’s concerned expression, her eyebrows tight and pulled in, and he didn’t want to see Tucker’s wide eyes and their underlying hard look. Because that would mean that what he said was real and that the dreams were real and he couldn’t do that. He didn’t want to know.

“As we said before,” Sam said, her voice cautious. “You know, there are options.”

“Those are impossible for me.”

“Not necessarily.” Sam reached down into her backpack and pulled out a folder. “I hope you don’t mind, but last night Tucker and I went ahead and looked into some psychologists nearby. We compiled a list of all the ones who had liked or posted pro-Phantom posts on social media.”

Danny’s brain was slow to react, but when the implication hit him, he carefully reached out for the folder and opened it. Inside were stapled pages of various therapists. He leafed around to see printouts of their backgrounds, therapist pages, and their interactions with Phantom-themed social media.

“Wow…” He stared at the papers, hardly soaking in the words in front of him. His throat felt tight, and something prickled behind his eyes.

“Like I said, we got you,” Tucker said.

Danny quickly wiped away a tear that betrayed him. “I—I’m sorry.”

“You’d do the same for us, dude.”

“Wow. Well, still. This was…really nice.” He glanced at his friends and saw nothing but kindness behind their eyes. “Thanks, guys.”

“Will you let us help you find someone now?”

Danny nodded.

“Good.” Sam put her hand on his shoulder. “We’ll get through this, Danny. I promise.”

And if he had to wipe away another tear from his cheek, his friends were kind enough to not point it out.

***

“You look better,” Tucker said through a mouthful of a pastrami sandwich. “She’s good?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Danny sipped on his coffee, glancing toward the window. Snow flurries had begun to fall, though too sparse to stick onto the pavement. The sun was undecided if it wanted to commit to hiding behind the clouds and letting the snow commence, or if it wanted to break up the incoming storm in favor of blue skies.

But regardless of the weather, the world moved around him. People hurried along the sidewalks, their hands shoved in their pockets and their eyes trained low, blinking away the little white speckles that stuck to their eyelashes. Cars whizzed by with bikes trailing alongside them. Across the street, a man dressed in all blue stood on a box, preaching to the scurrying passerby.

“I’m glad she’s working out,” Tucker said.

Danny was glad as well. Though, he could never express just how relieved he’d been. Looking back, it was almost embarrassing how quickly he had broken down to Amy. He couldn’t even remember what question she had asked him, just that it apparently hit the exact nerve he had spent months pushing down further and further into the recess of his mind.

That had been the first night in a long time he didn’t have a nightmare.

“How’s your job going?” Danny asked. “Sorry, I haven’t really asked.”

“All good, dude! And it’s been going well. My team’s awesome. I can’t really talk about what we’re developing—NDAs and all—but it’s been fun to figure out how to build everything. You know? It’s like a jigsaw puzzle.”

Danny felt the corners of his lips twitch up. It had been too long since he’d seen this, the spark that hit Tucker’s eyes when he got on the topic of technology. For so long, his daily routine had been making sure he didn’t drown, that he’d forgotten how nice it was to be able to breathe air.

“You can’t tell me anything? Not even a little hint?”

Tucker groaned dramatically, pulling his beanie down over his eyes. “Don’t tempt me, dude! Staying quiet about this is already bad enough without having you guilting me into spilling.”

“Aw, you’re no fun.”

“And what about you? You’re working for your advisor, right?”

“Yeah. Patel’s cool. You know, it’s mostly just me doing his bitch work. But he’s been talking about introducing him to some of his contracting buddies. So that’d be cool.” Danny shrugged. “Whatever gets my foot in the door, really.”

“The first job’s the hardest. After that, it gets easier.”

“That’s what Sam said too. And Jazz. And my mom.”

“Well, they’re not wrong,” Tucker said, turning his attention back to his sandwich. “You remember me complaining about my first job. My boss was an idiot who thought more lines of code meant more productivity. No matter how many people explained that fewer lines are actually—a lot of the time—better and that debugging was a thing, this guy couldn’t grasp the concept. I couldn’t wait to finish out my year and get out of there.”

“Bad bosses are everywhere, I guess.”

“Yeah. But you know, now I’m working at this kickass place and it’s great!”

Tucker didn’t have to convince Danny of that. Just looking across the table, Danny could see all the ways Tucker had changed since they were kids. He was taller, more filled out, and he sat with his shoulders back, head held high. He still had that shit-eating grin, but it seemed more genuine now. Kinder.

Danny had a lot of catching up to do. But maybe…maybe one day, he’d get there too.

“Well, I’m sure I’ll be complaining about my first boss too.”

“It’s a rite of passage.”

The laugh escaped his lips before he could stop himself. “Sure it is.”

“So what’s on your agenda for today?”

“Eh, nothing fun. I’m still catching up with all my schoolwork.” It hadn’t been fun facing the mountain of assignments and studying he had fallen behind on. But it hadn’t exactly been the first time he’d been in this academic predicament either. And as experience had taught him, once he’d started, he had found that his backlog of work wasn’t quite as bad as his anxiety had made it seem.

“We’ll be seeing you on Friday still, right?” Tucker asked.

Danny took another sip of his coffee and nodded. “For sure. I’ll need the break by then.”

“Good.”

“And, you know, thanks.” Danny ducked his head. “I know I’ve been off. Thanks for sticking it out for me. I really appreciate you guys.”

“Dude, of course. You know, we moved here together, so we’re gonna stick together.”

“Yeah. Still, thanks.”

“We got you.”

When Danny woke up on Saturday, he wasn’t in his bed. He was on his couch with Sam and Tucker pressed up on either side of him. They must have fallen asleep watching terrible movies again. Empty cans of spiked seltzers and a family-sized bag of pretzels littered the coffee table, and the ‘Are You Still Watching?’ message splayed over the TV screen.

He heard the soft snores of Tucker and the consistent breaths of Sam, and something warm and fuzzy grew in his stomach. After months and months of feeling empty, the warmth was almost jarring at first, but that was quickly replaced by bliss.

Because even though it had been a while, even Danny couldn’t forget how nice this all felt. To have friends, family even. To be loved and cared for. To know that no matter what, he always had these two by his side.

Honestly, what would he do without them?

“Thanks,” he whispered, closing his eyes.

He could wait until they woke up too.

#danny phantom #fanfiction #phicc #my writing #and then he woke up #we got some trio bonding #we got some dissecc #i mean really what more could you need

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raaorqtpbpdy · 1 year

Text

Radium Girls

Based on the Phic Phight prompt: Uh oh! Star has a crush…on Paulina. She doesn't want to talk to any of her friends about it, but she desperately needs to get some advice, so she decides to talk to the only person at Casper who doesn't seem to care what anyone thinks of them: Sam Manson. (from @bleedingectoplasm)

AO3 Link

[Warnings for mentions of radium poisoning and minor swearing]

A lot of students at Casper High thought that being one of the A-listers meant they'd have it made. After all, the popular kids had it easy. None of them had problems, or fears, or complex inner turmoil. They all knew exactly who they were. They were confident, comfortable. That was what made them popular in the first place.

Of course, that wasn't true in the slightest, and Star knew that better than anyone. Dash had troubles at home, judgemental parents whose expectations he could never meet. Paulina, flawless Paulina, only put up a façade of confidence to hide her how deeply self-conscious she was. She spent an hour staring in the mirror every day, looking for gray hairs and pimples, terrified of her looks fading because she thought her looks were all she had.

Kwan was always so cheerful and happy around his friends, but Star had heard his parents yelling at him about how he'd never amount to anything if he only focused on sports and not classes. Kwan worked very hard in his classes, and had a 'B' average, but that wasn't good enough, apparently. And Star? Star had her own share of problems. Namely, a burgeoning crush that cut into her heart like a jagged knife, because she knew she could never pursue it.

Star sighed softly for the hundredth time that day as she stared across the classroom at Paulina, sitting in the front row. Perfect, lovely Paulina, so mean to others, yet so nice to Star.

She probably didn't really belong in this level of math, honestly, but Star always helped her with her math homework in the evenings to keep her grade up and help her pass. Star was happy to do it, because as long as she did, Paulina could stay in the same math class as her, and she could spend fifth period staring longingly from her seat in the back row. She used to sit next to Paulina until the teacher separated them for talking too much.

When they first started, Star's feelings had been manageable. Unfortunately, they'd only grown stronger as time passed. She'd never been that great at hiding her emotions. Now, after months, she felt like she might burst if she couldn't tell anyone.

But she couldn't tell anyone.

Her friends would probably laugh at her, or tell Paulina behind her back, and they all had their own problems to deal with. If she talked to anyone else, it would be all over the school by tomorrow. She had to keep it in. Her social status was more precarious than her classmates seemed to think, and being outed would absolutely ruin her.

"Star, Sam, you'll be working together," their history teacher announced, and both girls groaned. Star was usually better at paying attention, but history was the last class of the day, and once school was out, she had cheer practice with Paulina, so she'd been a bit lost in her thoughts. That happened more often than she cared to admit lately.

Sam approached her after class and slammed a piece of paper on her desk while Star slipped her things into her bag. "My phone number," she said.

"You're not my type," Star shot back with a derisive look.

"Shut up." Sam rolled her eyes. "I know you have cheer practice or whatever, so text me when you're done so we can meet up and work on the project."

"I can just do it myself," Star told her.

"Not a chance," Sam refused. "If you don't text me I'm going to your house at five. No offense or anything—who am I kidding, I don't give a crap if you're offended—I'm don't trust you. Even if you do make something we get a good grade on, it'll probably be about, I dunno, historical jewelry, or the origin of cheerleading or something dumb like that."

"And let me guess, you want to do the Salem Witch Trials, or something equally mainstream history? Right? It is less work that way, but it's kind of stereotypical, don't you think?" Star scoffed, but she stuffed the number into a pocket in her bag. "Fine, I'll text you when cheer practice ends at four-thirty. But we're meeting at you're place. I don't want my parents thinking I associate with your kind of people."

"Whatever, fuck you very much. I'll see you later," Sam said. She slung her silly little spider backpack over her shoulder and left the classroom.

—

"Something wrong, Star?" Paulina asked, because for all her mean girl behaviors, she was surprisingly perceptive when it came to her friends.

"I got paired up with Sam Manson for a history project," Star moaned immediately. "I have to go to her house, which is probably haunted, and I bet she's gonna make us do the project on some dumb witch trials or something, and I wanted to do it on all the petty drama between Tesla and Edison!"

"Oh my God, Star, I can't believe you have to do that!" Paulina said sympathetically, and wrapped her best friend up in a comforting hug. Star's heart beat so fast she thought it might actually explode when Paulina finally let go of her. "Whatever you do, don't let her get any goth on you, alright?"

"God no!" Star said, genuinely alarmed at the thought of herself in goth clothes, and thankful for something to think about besides how soft Paulina's skin was, and how warm her arms had been around her. "Black so doesn't suit me."

"I wasn't gonna say it, but it makes your skin look totally washed out," Paulina agreed. "Red is much more your color, brings out your pretty, rosy cheeks." Star nodded in complete agreement and carefully did not blush at the compliment, nor gasp when Paulina took her by the hand and dragged her onto the field for practice.

When cheer practice was over, Star dug the phone number out of her backpack and sent a text.

[practice over whats ur address -star]

She waited, toweling the sweat off her neck and drinking water until Sam texted back the street and number.

[thx eta 15]

Star cleaned up, changed and said goodbye to the rest of the girls. She climbed onto her teal blue Vespa and headed to Sam's place to get their stupid history project over with. The sooner they worked on it, the sooner they'd be done.

The Manson house was nothing like Star expected. Logically, she should've guessed that Sam's parents weren't as goth as she was, and it was their home, so maybe assuming there would be black bricks and gargoyles had been a bit over the top. It was big, and very fancy, but it looked, aesthetically speaking, much the same as all the other homes on the street.

Star parked her scooter and walked up to ring the doorbell. Sam herself answered the door and immediately let Star in, leading her up to her room. Sam's room was much closer to what Star had been expecting, with black and purple curtains, gothic wallpaper, a shelf full of creepy-looking dolls, and a trunk at then foot of the bed shaped like a coffin.

"I'm just making it known now that I don't want to do this project on witch trials," Star said. "It would be nice if we could pick a topic we're both interested in, or at least one neither of us hates."

"I suppose I can't argue with that," Sam reluctantly agreed. "So what kinds of historical stuff are you interested in?"

"Math and science are more my areas," Star admitted. "I initially was hoping to do this project on Tesla and Edison's famous rivalry, but I imagine you don't want to research two old, white guys who hated each other."

"Yeah, pass," Sam scoffed. "I'd suggest topics, but I can't really think of any sciencey ones. All I'm coming up with are more occult-leaning."

"What about the radium girls?" Star suggested after a moment of thought. "It's got activism, fighting against greedy capitalists, dangerous chemicals, horrifying deaths, the works."

"Oh, I think I've heard of that," Sam nodded thoughtfully. "They had to paint watch dials to make them glow, and the radium they were painting with made them sick, right?"

"Radium does a lot more than just make people sick, but that's the gist of it. So, do we have a topic?"

"Yeah, I'm down for that."

With their topic chosen, they got to work researching. The two of them actually worked fairly well together, dividing up the work and getting it done efficiently.

"I gotta say," Sam spoke up after a little while, "I know you said you could do this project by yourself before, but I honestly thought I'd end up doing most of the work. I was forced to do a lab project with Paulina once, and she barely lifted a finger."

"She's... more suited to supervising and management," Star said, and Sam responded with a derisive snort.

"That's a nice way of saying she does fuck all."

"She doesn't like getting her hands dirty, but I do mean it when I say she's a good manager," Star argued. "If you'd ever see her manage a cheer practice, you'd get it. She's actually super organized and really good at taking charge and getting people to where they're needed. Everyone's got their strengths, you know?"

"Uh, barf." Sam faked a gag for effect. "Put away those heart eyes, would ya?"

"What?" Star's eyes widened in alarm.

"It was a joke, chill."

Silence fell, and Sam looked back to her computer but Star only bit her bottom lip in thought. She'd been all but bursting to talk to someone about her feelings for Paulina, and maybe now was the time. She couldn't talk to any of her friends about it, but... well, Sam was the one person at school who never cared what anyone thought of her. Maybe it would be okay.

"What if it's not a joke?" Star asked.

"What?"

"What if I do have 'heart eyes' for Paulina?" she reiterated. "What then?"

"I dunno, what're you asking me for?"

"Sam... you're so cool. Do you know that?" Star told her.

"I'm not cool, I'm a loser."

"But you are cool! We may rag on you about your clothes and how you act, but it never gets to you. You just don't care, no matter what we say. You never get rattled, or self-conscious.... I've always admired that about you."

"You admire me?" Sam asked, confused and unconvinced.

Star hesitated before nodding. I was weird to admit it out loud, but it was completely true. Even if she was weird, and goth, and Star did not care for her aesthetic at all, Sam was undeniably cool.

"How do you do it?" Star asked. "How can you be so unbothered. I'm constantly worried, overthinking, trying not to mess up, or let anyone figure me out. I mean, I can't even talk to my own friends about my crush because I'm absolutely terrified of what they would think, but you.... Do you remember back in middle school when you asked out Miranda and she called you a slur and you broke two of her toes stomping on her foot and she moved away? I could never have the confidence to do that in a million years, but it was awesome."

"Uh... thanks?" Sam said. She stared at the blonde for a moment, thoughtfully. "Do you really have a crush on Paulina?" Star nodded. "Well... good luck and condolences, I guess."

Condolences? Star's shoulders slumped at that. It meant that Sam didn't think it could work out. That Star would inevitably be disappointed.

"If it makes you feel any better, I get having a crush on a friend and not wanting to tell them because you're afraid of ruining your friendship," Sam assured her. "I have a crush on Danny, and I'm mostly waiting for it to go away, because I already know he likes preppy girls, and probably wouldn't be interested in me."

"At least you know he likes girls," Star groaned miserably. "Honestly, what is wrong with me? I could have basically any guy at school, and here I am with 'heart eyes' for my straight best friend? It's a waste of my good looks!"

"Hey! There's nothing wrong with you," Sam scowled. "I mean, you have questionable taste, but liking girls isn't anything bad. Girls are hot, even Paulina, although her negative qualities pretty much cancel out her looks if you ask me."

"The mean girl thing is an act," Star said. "I mean, not completely. You hates you guys, but with the rest of the A-listers, Paulina isn't nearly that bad. She's actually really attentive toward her friends, and she memorizes all out schedules so she can organize days to hang out as a group, and she color-codes her day planner, and she bought this really nice jasmine and vanilla perfume for me because I mentioned that it smelled nice."

"Wow, you've really got it bad for her, huh?"

"My point is, she's not as bad as she wants people to think."

"Why would anyone want people to think they're a bitch?" Sam asked.

"She wants to feel superior over people because she's self-conscious and unsure of her place in the world," Star said. "It's a common teenage conundrum. You do basically the same thing, but in a different way. You think you're better than everyone else because you're strong willed and anti-conformist, but really you're just as uncertain as the rest of us, aren't you?"

"Wow, just flay me alive, why don't you?"

"Sorry," Star apologized. "My mom's a therapist, so I just sort of... notice things. I should've kept my mouth shut."

"Nah, it's fine," Sam said. "We're fourteen. None of us know our place in the world. It'd be more weird if we did know exactly what we wanted to do in life, and who we wanted to be."

"Yeah."

"You know, you don't have to jump into the deep end," Sam said.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, well, the way you're talking, it sounds like you think you're only options are to tell Paulina how you feel and destroy your friendship, or to keep all of your feelings bottled up forever. You can work your way up to the hard stuff."

"How so?" Star asked, scrunching up her eyebrows.

"I dunno, casually compliment her looks," Sam suggested with a shrug. "Comment occasionally that you think a girl is pretty. Hold her hand in a friendly way. That sort of thing. Drop hints. Build up to coming out and maybe, if you want to, even telling her how you feel. I hate this saying, but you know about the boiling frog analogy, right?"

"If you put a frog in boiling water it'll jump out, but if you put it in cold water and slowly turn up the heat it'll boil to death?" Star recalled. "That's not true, by the way. If you put a frog in boiling water it'll die almost instantly and if you put it in cold water and turn up the heat, it'll jump out when it starts to get uncomfortable."

"I know, but that's not the point," Sam said. "The radium girls are a good example too, actually. They were exposed to small doses of poison and didn't realize how much it was affecting them until their bones were gone, but if they'd been exposed to a much higher dose that killed them much faster, they probably would've noticed something was up before their jaws fell off." Star cringed.

"Okay, kind of a gross analogy, sorry," Sam apologized. "The point is, instead of dropping a bomb on her, if you slowly get Paulina used to the idea of other girls being attractive, of casually touching you, of you liking girls, she's more likely to take it well and at least let you down gently, even if she doesn't accept your feelings. Get it now? You don't have to jump in the deep end."

"Yeah... yeah, I think I understand now," Star said. "Thanks, Sam. I'm really glad i decided to talk to you."

"Yeah... glad I could help." Sam grumbled, though Star could see the tiny traces of pride in her expression. "Can we get back to work now?"

"Right! Sorry for derailing our study session." With that, they got back to researching, and writing their report.

#phic phight 2023 #phic phight #fic #things i wrote #dp #danny phantom #sam manson #star dp

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