Shiptember Day 3: 3rd Wheel
Ship: Pitch Pearl (parasite theory; Phantom was a ghost bonded to Danny)
Summary: During a cross-country road trip, Sam and Tucker notice something going on between Danny and Phantom. They call Jazz in a panic, but she blows past their every excuse until reaching the real reason for their discomfort: Sam and Tucker don't want things to change.
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“Tucker!” Jazz interrupted, her voice ringing through the speaker phone. “Slow down! Start over. What’s happening between Danny and Phantom?”
Tucker forced himself to draw in a deep breath. “Okay, so….” He sat on the hotel bed in a further attempt to calm himself. “It started once Phantom got behind the wheel—”
“You guys let him drive? He doesn’t have a driver’s license!”
“He and Danny were still merged when they were learning how to drive,” Tucker said defensively. “So, he knows how to drive, he just can’t get his driver’s license because he’s not technically a citizen. It’s total bullshit which is why we agreed to make him part of the rotation.”
“And if a cop pulled you guys over?”
“Then Phantom would have overshadowed them. Come on, Jazz, we thought this through. We’re adults now too, you know.”
Jazz snorted. “You’re all barely eighteen,” she muttered.
Sam looked away from the window, and the two friends shared a commiserating eye roll. Dealing with Danny’s sister could be trying sometimes.
“Anyway,” Tucker said forcefully, “that’s when it started.”
“What started?”
“The…” Tucker met Sam’s eyes again, hoping she knew how to describe what they saw, but she only shrugged. “The thing. The thing going on between Danny and Phantom. Danny sat in the passenger seat and coached Phantom through the motions until he started picking up on it again. That was fine. Then the inside jokes started. Just. Little jokes about when Jack and Maddie were trying to teach them. Danny or Phantom would laugh and it was like…like…”
“And that made you and Sam feel left out? Is that what this is about?”
“That’s not the issue here,” Tucker said, evading the question. “It. Just. Didn’t. Stop.”
“They shared a mind for almost two years, Tucker. Of course they’re close.”
“Not like this,” Tucker insisted.
Sam pushed away from the window and approached Tucker on the bed. “Has Danny been hanging out with Phantom?” she asked Jazz.
“Wouldn’t you guys know that better than me?” Jazz asked, confused. “I’m at Harvard, remember? I haven’t seen either of them since Spring Break.”
“Yeah, but you speak to them on the phone, right?” Sam pushed. “Does Danny ever mention Phantom?”
“Of course he does. He keeps me updated on things over there. Phantom fought off an invasion last week, right? He’s worn out, and that’s why you all insisted on this trip?”
“Personal details, Jazz,” Sam clarified. “Does Danny mention anything beyond Phantom’s hero activities?”
“Maybe? I didn’t realize I was supposed to be looking for that kind of information.”
“He’s your brother!” Sam exclaimed. “Shouldn’t you care about how he’s doing?”
“Danny’s doing just fine,” Jazz said, defensive. “A little depressed that you guys are leaving for college, but otherwise…”
“She meant Phantom, Jazz,” Tucker said. “Your other brother.”
“What?”
“Phantom’s your brother too!”
“I love him like a brother, but why do I get the feeling you two are trying to create an artificial relation between us?”
Sam and Tucker shared a forlorn glance. “If Jazz doesn’t even see him as a brother,” Tucker whispered to Sam, “what are the chances Danny sees him as a brother?”
“Evidence would suggest the odds are slim to none,” she replied, huffing.
“And anyway,” Jazz continued, “ I talk to Phantom on the phone too. I don’t need to ask Danny when I can just ask Phantom directly how he’s doing. He’s stressed and suffering from PTSD, by the way. I think this road trip will be good for him. He needed to get away from Amity Park for a while and remember it’s okay to relax every now and then.”
“Does he mention Danny?” Tucker asked quickly.
“Why are you guys so fixated on this? I just said Phantom has PTSD! That’s a little more important, you know.”
“Just answer the question, Jazz,” Sam said. “We’re focusing on one problem at a time, we’ll deal with that later.”
“What is the problem exactly?”
“Does Phantom mention Danny?” Sam repeated.
“No,” Jazz said forcefully, almost groaning the word. “Not very often, anyway. Mostly just when he saves him. He likes bragging about it. I think he gets some sort of ironic pleasure out of rescuing Danny because of their past. But otherwise, I guess their paths just don’t cross very often. Is that what you guys are getting at? You think they don’t hang out?”
“I never noticed them hanging out,” Tucker confirmed. “And Danny and I share everything! I would know if they were best buds.”
“Once they started talking, it was like they had just rediscovered an old friend,” Sam explained.
“So?”
“So they haven’t stopped talking.”
“So?”
“So it’s been six fucking hours!” Sam exclaimed.
“So?” Jazz repeated pointedly. “They have a lot to catch up on. They’ve been separate for, what? Two years?”
“So you’re saying…” Tucker and shared another glance with Sam, “six hours of nonstop talking, laughing, gossiping, and touching? That’s not weird at all?”
“Touching?”
“Danny keeps touching him,” Tucker whined. “He just won’t stop, it’s like he’s, he’s drawn to him or. Something. And Phantom keeps leaning into, like what? What the fuck?”
Jazz started laughing.
“It’s not funny!” Tucker and Sam shouted.
“Oh my gosh, you two are jealous!” Jazz cried, laughing still. “I can’t believe this!”
“I’m not jealous!” Tucker objected.
“This is serious, Jazz!” Sam yelled over Jazz’s laughter. “Your brothers are falling in love with each other!”
Jazz snorted a laugh and squeaked, “That’s why you guys keep pushing the brother angle, oh my, ohhh my sides…”
“Jazz!”
“It would be so much easier for you two if Danny and Phantom were actually like twins, wouldn’t it?” Jazz said, snorting still, her tone mockingly sympathetic. “Then you could just sweep all the discomfort under one easily labeled trash can and throw it out, huh?”
“What are you talking about?” Sam demanded.
“Forget it. I can see you two aren’t mature enough for that sort of introspection.”
“Hey!”
“What makes you think they’re falling in love?” Jazz asked. "One six-hour conversation during a long car ride doesn’t really mean anything, you know.”
“It’s the way they’re speaking to each other,” Tucker said, groaning. “I don’t think you understand, Jazz. And it wasn’t just during the car ride. It was at every rest stop, too. It was during dinner. It was in the backseat. It was everywhere! We arrived at the hotel two hours ago, and they’re still talking! They went swimming together, Jazz! Swimming!”
“Oh no,” Jazz said in mock horror, “Swimming! I hope they brought protection.”
Disgusted, Tucker shoved his phone into Sam’s hands. “You explain it to her!”
Sam groaned. She sat on the bed beside Tucker, but Tucker didn’t want to sit anymore. He stood and walked over toward the window, maneuvering around the bags Danny had yet to unpack. He had set them beside the bed he had chosen, the bed he and Phantom would share. It had seemed like the least awkward arrangement when they had been making plans. Sam would get her own room; the boys would get the room with two beds. Danny and Phantom were bi, so Tucker had been just a little bit shy about sharing his bed with either of them, and Sam definitely couldn’t without stirring up old flames, which meant the two who used to share a body would have to share a bed.
Easy.
Phantom would sleep with his human half. Danny could sleep beside his ghost half.
Easy.
Nothing would happen between them, right? Danny certainly hadn’t seemed all that uncomfortable with the idea. He had only shrugged. Phantom had only seemed grateful he was actually going to sleep in a bed at all. Danny had warned him not to hog the blankets, and Phantom had warned him not to snore.
But that had been at the start of their trip. Tucker wondered now if Danny would be so blasé about sleeping beside someone like Phantom. Dubious past aside, Phantom was the hottest heartthrob in their year group, as voted by the senior yearbook—and he hadn’t even been in the running! How was Danny’s gay little heart supposed to resist Phantom after they had spent all day acting like lovestruck fools?
Was Tucker going to have to wear earplugs just to drown out their whispering? Was he going to wake up and find them spooning?
He had hoped it would happen before, but that was just because he wanted to tease them! He hadn’t wanted it like this.
“They’re so focused on each other it’s like they’re the only two people in existence,” Sam complained to Jazz.
“I’m sure they haven’t forgotten about you and Tucker.”
“Yes, they have!” Sam snapped. “You’re not here, Jazz! Trust me. They wanted to be alone so bad they ran to the swimming pool just to get away from us.”
"Did they say you couldn’t come?”
“No…”
"Then they weren’t trying to get away from you. You could have gone too.”
“Yeah, well, no thanks, I don’t feel like throwing up. I can handle only so much lovey dovey shit in a single day.”
“You could try being supportive, you know.”
Sam snorted. “They don’t need any support.”
"They will once this dream is over and they have to return to reality.”
Tucker froze, his hand halfway toward the curtain. Behind him, he heard Sam suck in a breath. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“Have you two forgotten how hard same-sex couples have to fight to be accepted? Danny hid his attraction to guys for so long out of fear, do you really want to be the ones who make him feel ashamed again?”
“This is a little more extreme than having a crush on Kwan,” Sam objected, but her voice had softened.
"Yes, it’s going to be even harder because Phantom isn’t just another boy, he’s a famous hero, an infamous troublemaker, a mystery to all Amity Park! He is under intense scrutiny, and once he starts dating another boy, that scrutiny is going to turn on Danny. Danny won’t just be judged for dating someone of the same sex either, he will be judged for dating a ghost. What would have been accepted in a straight couple will suddenly look amoral between two boys in a biracial—bi-species?—relationship.”
“Oh no,” Sam said softly.
"The worst offenders will, of course, be Mom and Dad.”
“Shit,” Tucker added. He glanced over his shoulder at Sam, but she was staring blindly into the distance.
“If Danny is serious about pursuing Phantom, he will eventually tell Mom and Dad, and then he’ll be back in that uneasy position where he has no idea if our parents will kick him out because of his connection to Danny Phantom.”
“Would they?” Sam asked quietly.
"I don’t know,” Jazz answered honestly. "They’re paranoid. They might suspect Phantom of brainwashing Danny somehow. It’s easier to believe this is all Phantom’s fault than to accept Danny likes the infamous ghost boy. They might accept Danny’s choice, but it’s equally likely they’ll try to ‘fix’ him.”
Tucker drew in a sharp breath through his teeth.
"Danny delayed and altered this confrontation, but so long as he pursues a connection to Phantom, he’s always bound to circle back to seeking Mom and Dad’s acceptance. Don’t make him have to fight for yours as well.”
Tucker pushed a hand beneath his glasses and rubbed his fingers against his eye. He turned away from the window and pressed his back against the wall, suddenly feeling sick.
“But, Jazz,” Sam said, “Phantom is Danny’s ghost half. They can’t date. They’re the same person. This isn't like if Phantom started dating some random human, this is his human half."
“First of all, that was two years ago. In all that time, Phantom has been fighting, defending, training, and only occasionally relaxing. Danny has been living as a normal student trying to catch up on his grades so he could graduate high school after spending those first two years flunking nearly every class. If you believe they are still the same person after living such extremely different experiences, you haven’t been paying attention. People change. Growth is inescapable, especially for Phantom. He’s had to learn some tough lessons that Danny has never had to face, and they have affected him as a person.”
Sam’s eyes finally met Tucker’s. She was frowning, which alerted Tucker to his own. He was relieved to see she didn’t like hearing this anymore than he did.
"Secondly,” Jazz continued, "Danny has repeatedly stated Phantom was a ghost that fused with him during the accident, he's not his ghost. It might just be a matter of disassociation where Danny is trying to distance himself from a very stressful period of his life, but from what he and Phantom have told me, they truly believe the portal accident brought two souls together for a time.”
Sam made a soft “oh” sound.
"They may look similar to us, but their souls are not the same, according to them. It might just be all in their head, but it's what they believe. That might be why they’re able to look at each other as strangers and talk for six hours without getting bored.” She scoffed. "I have no idea how they could talk so long, but I never had a crush before either, so…”
“Oh?” Tucker said archly, gaining a little of his fire back. “Danny says otherwise.”
“Danny’s a filthy liar who needs to keep his mouth shut.”
“So, this really doesn’t bother you at all?” Sam asked, cutting off Tucker’s teasing retort.
"Not really. What other people do with their lives is their own business so long as they aren’t hurting anyone. It’s something you two will learn in college someday too. I tried so hard to fix peoples’ problems when I got here, and it was totally the wrong thing to do. I hurt my friends, and I exhausted and stressed myself out over things that were none of my business. There’s only one thing I care about now. Are they happy?”
Tucker and Sam shared another look. Tucker pushed himself up from the wall, turned toward the window, and pulled aside the curtain.
“Yeah,” Sam said. She still sat on the bed. She didn’t need to see Danny’s lovestruck expression. They had been seeing it nearly all day.
“And you’re sure they’re falling for each other? It might just be friendship.”
Three stories down, Tucker saw Danny and Phantom in the pool. Or rather, he saw Danny in the pool. Phantom sat on the edge, his bare legs lazily kicking the water. Danny’s body drifted chest-deep in the water, his arms folded over the ledge, cushioning his cheek as he stared up at Phantom. It looked like Phantom was talking about something—flying maybe, given the smooth glide of his hand gestures—and Danny was just watching him.
Watching him with a little smile, a soft glow in his eyes completely unlike the kind that used to be there when he and Phantom were one.
“No way,” Tucker said. “I haven’t seen Danny look at someone like that since—” Tucker cut himself off and guiltily looked at Sam.
She sighed. “Danny has that dopey expression whenever he looks at Phantom now. You know the one.”
“Kind of strange since they don’t look that different,” Tucker said. “How can Danny be attracted to someone that looks so much like him?”
“Actually, that’s very common! You might notice couples often look alike, and this is believed to be caused by something called ‘positive sexual imprinting.’ It isn’t the only determining factor, of course, but scientists and psychologists have long studied why we—and other animals—are more attracted to mates who share physical—”
“Yeah!” Tucker interrupted. “Danny can just develop a crush on himself because humans are strange! Got it!”
"If you don’t believe me, google ‘couples that look alike.’ You’re touching on a huge academic topic here. Maybe I should make a paper about this…it's probably why Danny was attracted to Sam. You two look alike too. Remember that rumor about you two being twins?”
Sam grimaced. "That's not the same thing."
“Isn't it? I’ll repeat, Danny and Phantom aren’t brothers. Just because you two see them as brothers doesn’t mean they feel the same way. If you can’t let go of your preconceived notions and listen to what Danny says, you aren’t any better than my parents.”
Tucker grimaced. “That’s not fair…”
“Neither is forcing my brother to accept your views at the cost of his happiness!” Jazz snapped. “Danny loves you two. You are just as capable of hurting him as our parents. Knock it off. You knew all of this already. You two are just trying to justify how upset you are by shifting the blame onto Danny and Phantom. That way you don’t have to confront what’s really making you two upset.”
“Oh yeah?” Sam said hotly. “And what’s that, Doctor Jazz?”
“You and Tucker are leaving Amity Park to attend your dream colleges,” Jazz said, gentling her tone. “But Danny is staying behind. Your childhood where the three of you fought ghosts together is over. After Danny and Phantom separated, you still clung to this idea that he and Phantom were still somehow the same, because that’s how everything started. But now that they’re falling for each other you can’t hold onto that belief anymore. This is the end of that chapter, and the beginning of something new, something you two won’t be a part of. That’s why you’re upset. That’s why you want them to stop.”
Tucker made a low noise and stared down at Danny and Phantom.
“You’re getting a little too good at that phsycobabble stuff,” Sam said quietly.
“Please, I should have let you two discover it on your own if I really wanted it to stick. But Danny and Phantom don’t have that kind of time. If they actually fall in love on this trip—or even if they just get closer —that will be good for them. Phantom needs that human connection, and Danny will need someone after you two leave for the semester.”
“Why doesn’t Danny just leave with us?” Tucker asked, subdued. “He doesn’t have to stay in Amity Park anymore.”
“He said he didn’t feel right leaving Phantom to deal with the ghosts on his own.”
“Really?” Tucker perked up a little. “So maybe this thing isn’t actually all that new.”
“Nope.”
“You said they never mentioned each other,” Sam accused.
“I said Phantom rarely mentioned Danny. Danny talks about Phantom’s all the time. I suspected something like this might happen. It seems even Danny isn’t immune to Phantom’s heroics, but I could never be sure if it was just admiration or…admiration, you know? What about Phantom?”
“What about him?”
“Do you think he feels the same way?”
“Yes,” Sam answered promptly. “Without a doubt.”
Tucker groaned. “If he ever took his eyes off Danny, it was only because he was driving. It was his idea to go swimming…”
“Oh, the dreaded swimming. All that bare skin. How scandalous.”
“Shut up, Jazz.”
“Are they still in the pool?” Sam asked warily.
Tucker hummed, watching as Danny pushed away from the edge. Phantom slid into the water so gracefully he had to be using his flight powers. They were still talking. They were still focused entirely on each other. The underwater lamps rendered Phantom’s glow obsolete, and for a moment he didn’t look any different from a human aside from his white hair. He dove under the water, and a second later, Danny was yanked under with him.
“They were just talking, but it looks like they’re playing now,” Tucker said.
“Are you two watching them?”
“Noooo,” Tucker and Sam said in unison.
“You two are impossible.”
“Shut up, Jazz,” Sam said loftily, “our friend is falling in love here. These are trying circumstances.”
“Yeah, yeah. Give them privacy, you stalkers.”
Tucker made a rude noise. Danny and Phantom finally broke the surface, both of them panting. Danny’s face was red, but he was laughing. He splashed Phantom, and Phantom splashed him back. They did that a few more times, and then Danny threw himself at Phantom, and they went under again.
“They really do look happy,” Tucker said quietly.
“Just let them do their own thing,” Jazz suggested. “Neither one of them has had a serious relationship in a while. I doubt they’ll be able to think clearly if they are infatuated. Just give it time. They’ll calm down. Eventually. You have all summer, right?”
Sam groaned. “Don’t remind me…”
“All summer to watch our friend fall in love with a super powered hero and forget about us,” Tucker said. “Fun.”
“Maybe we should crash their little pool date,” Sam said thoughtfully.
“Oh!” Tucker let the curtain fall closed and turned around to face her, his eyes bright. “Now that sounds fun! I’m going to cannonball right between them!”
Sam flashed him a wicked grin.
Jazz groaned through the speaker. “Why do I even bother…?”
“Thanks for your help, Jazz,” Sam said, lifting the phone. “But we need to breakup their romantic night now. Bye.”
“Bye. Tell Danny I love him. Oh, and, if it comes up at any point in this trip, remind them to practice safe sex or I will personally come down there and give them a lecture they’ll never forget.”
“That’s so won’t be necessary with the two of us on duty, right, buddy?” Tucker said, grinning at Sam.
She cackled. “You bet!”
“Uh-huh,” Jazz said, unconvinced. “You two will keep two hormonal teenagers from doing anything when one of them has ghost powers? I bet you twenty dollars you’ll catch them making out in the backseat at some point.”
“First of all, that’s my car and they better fucking not,” Sam said. “Secondly, you’re on. We got this, right, Tuck?”
“Right!” Tucker said, pumping his fist. “There will be no falling in love on my watch!”
“You can probably stop them from kissing, but you can’t stop them from falling in love.”
“Ha!” Sam scoffed.
“Watch us!” Tucker shouted.
“That’s—you know what, never mind. Have fun. Don’t get yourselves killed.”
Sam and Tucker laughed. “Bye, Jazz!”
Sam ended the call, and Tucker pounded his fist into his palm. “Let’s do this!”
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