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#hhhhhgh I’ve been going back and forth on posting this but I think I’m gonna bite the bullet and do it
ghostey-o-toby · 2 years
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Danny takes something that doesn’t belong to him- my first phic phight fic
Prompt: Danny has a break down after he starts feeding on human emotions.
“-and nobody’s going to do anything about it, because rampant corruption has made meaningful change almost impossible!”
Danny took a long, awkward sip of his milkshake. He never knew what to say when Sam got riled up like this. Her passion for social justice definitely wasn’t a bad thing. With her connections in the goth and vegan communities- plus a bit of her parents’ money- she’d actually managed to do some pretty cool stuff. But sometimes, her overwhelming anger at the injustices of the world got to be a bit… much. The other customers at the Nasty Burger were starting to stare.
Sam went on with her tirade, gesturing frantically as she explained loopholes in campaign finance laws and monopolization in the animal agriculture industry using the same tone of voice that Danny’s parents used to describe their latest encounter with a ghost. He wasn’t sure how to tell her she was making a scene. If he was up-front about it, she might get embarrassed, which would suck for both of them. If he didn’t say anything, someone else might get up and say something to her, which would suck even more. Instead, he reached out and tapped her shoulder.
The tap made Sam pause. She looked back at Danny for a few seconds, confused, before getting the hint, sitting down, and continuing more quietly.
Danny stared at his hand in shock. Sam’s skin was warm. Really, really warm. Not in the normal way living people felt warm to Danny, either. This warmth left a pulsing, buzzing, energetic feeling in his fingertips. A good feeling. But not a normal one. He tried to ignore it and focus on what she was saying. He couldn’t.
Without thinking, he grabbed her shoulder again.
The wonderful, fiery, alive feeling rushed into Danny, filling something inside himself that he hadn’t even known was hollow. It spread through his body, somehow heavy and satisfying even though it seemed to be completely weightless.
“Hey, what the heck are you-“ Sam began, but then the sharpness in her expression vanished, and she shook her head. “I mean… wait. Never mind.”
The dazed look in Sam’s eyes was unsettling.
She was completely silent for the rest of their meal.
“You know, I didn’t even think it was possible to screw something up that badly,” said a shadow in the corner of Danny’s room.
Danny flopped onto his bed, tired, confused, and not in the mood.
“Go away.”
Penelope Spectra’s human disguise flickered into existence as she stepped out of the darkness. She surveyed the room for a place to sit, eventually settling on the dresser.
“Don’t worry. I’m not hungry, if you catch my drift. I just heard a rumor that you were. I wanted to see for myself, and hey, what do you know, it was true!”
Danny looked up at her, even more confused than before.
“You’re here because you think I’m… hungry?”
“You were hungry. I’d be surprised if you were still hungry now, after that buffet you just had. You don’t have any self-control at all, huh? That poor little friend of yours is basically a husk now!”
“Sam? Did I- wait, what are you- is she okay?
“I’ve never taken that much in one sitting. I do things a lot more slowly. I talk to people while I feed, give them new feelings to worry about while I suck out the old ones. It’s a lot easier on their little souls than what you just did. Isn’t that funny? After all that griping about how I do things, you ended up being worse!”
“What are you talking about? Is Sam okay?”
“Look, kid. Your friend probably won’t die, but you scrambled her brains up big-time. If I were you, I’d give her a call. Talk her into growing replacement emotions.”
Spectra hopped off the dresser and melted back into the shadows. She wasn’t physically in the room anymore, but she was still there.
“Here, I’ll let you have some space so you can do that.”
Sam’s phone was making a noise. Ringing. Ringing meant you were supposed to pick the phone up, unless you didn’t want to. Sam didn’t want to, but she didn’t want to not either. She picked up the phone.
“Uh, hey. Sam.”
It was Danny. Danny had eaten lunch with her earlier, at the Nasty Burger.
“Hello, Danny. We ate lunch together at the nasty burger today.”
Danny made a noise. Danny usually didn’t make noises like that.
“Yeah. I know. Hey, Sam, can you tell me… how you feel?”
Sam thought about that for a moment.
“I don’t feel anything.”
Danny made another noise.
“You keep making noises,” said Sam. “I don’t know what the noises you’re making mean.”
The noise Danny made this time was louder than the others.
“Okay! Uh… okay. I broke her. Fuck, this is so-“
“Is this going to be too hard for you?” Asked a voice that probably wasn’t Danny. “If you want, I could try my hand at it. Imagine how miserable she’d be!”
“NO,” Danny said, loudly. Then he said some more stuff, also loudly.
“Who are you talking to? Why are you being so loud?”
“Don’t worry about it. Uh, Sam, you know you’re pretty cool, right?”
This was a compliment. Sam knew that. When you got a compliment, you were supposed to feel good about yourself. Sam tried to figure out whether she felt good about herself.
“Uh, and I like spending time with you. And I hope you like spending time with me.”
Sam thought that she must like spending time with Danny, because she agreed to spend time with him at lunch earlier. If she didn’t like spending time with Danny, she wouldn’t have agreed to do it.
“I think I like spending time with you, because I agreed to spend time with you at lunch today,” she said.
“Um… cool. That’s cool. Thank you?”
More noises came out of Sam’s phone. These noises couldn’t have been made with Danny’s mouth. Or anyone’s mouth. It was more like… rustling. Was that the word? Rustling?
Then she heard Danny’s voice again, but much quieter.
“Hey, am I doing this right? I’m not gonna, like, mess her up even worse, am I?”
“Well,” the other, non-Danny voice responded, “you’re certainly not doing it how I would, but you don’t want to do it my way, do you? Just keep talking to her.”
The rustling started again, and then stopped again.
“So, Sam. Can you tell me about something interesting? You were telling me about corruption at lunch. Maybe talk about that!”
“I was?”
“Yeah. You were mad about it. You said people in charge get paid to make bad decisions or something.”
“Oh. I was mad about that, wasn’t I?”
“Yeah, you were. You’re really passionate about stuff like that.”
“Yeah. I guess I am.”
“She’s still gonna be fragile for a few weeks. If you feed off her again before she’s healed up, you could end up doing permanent damage. And not the yummy kind of damage, either.”
Danny pulled a blanket over his shoulders and glared at Spectra.
“Aww, come on. Aren’t you gonna say, ‘thanks, Ms. Spectra, I don’t know what I would’ve done without your help,’ or something like that? After all, I did just totally get you out of a jam.”
“You’re evil and gross.”
Spectra tilted her head to the side and frowned.
“Why? Because I feed on human emotions? Is that what makes me evil and gross?”
“W- You tried to murder my sister.”
“Bygones,” she said, waving her hand. “Besides, I think we’re even now. I almost killed your sister, you stopped me. You almost killed your friend, I saved her. It’s all water under the bridge!”
“Water- what? No! This is way different. I didn’t… do that to Sam on purpose, I was just-“
“Curious? Stupid? Hungry? I understand. It feels wonderful, doesn’t it? Almost like you’re alive- well, completely alive, in your case. I suggest you enjoy it. Maybe take a day or so to digest, and then chat up a neighbor, test your limits, see how much you can drain before they start to go kooky. That sort of thing. This ability is a rare privilege, even among ghosts.”
Danny groaned. Part of him wanted to try to explain the concept of compassion to Spectra, but he knew it wouldn’t get him anywhere.
“Why are you trying to give me advice, anyway? You’re the worst.”
“Oh, look at the time,” Spectra said, pointing at her clearly watch-less wrist. “Gotta jet. Seeya!”
She disappeared.
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