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Kindred Spirits Complete	By : RedelliaValentinos Category: +1 through F > Danny Phantom Views: 507 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom, I don't own any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from writing this story, I write this purely for the enjoyment of writing. It's just me and a keyboard and my wild brain.

Chapter List
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Danny sits on that bench all day. Or for whatever remains of it. But he stays there, on the cold metal and even draws his legs up to himself for comfort. The sounds of the holiday flooded in slowly, on a lazy river muffled by the Minnesota snow. Cheers and trills of joy, children tearing through paper, dinner table speeches and the clinking of countless glasses. All delivered to him in a controlled tempo. Faintly, underneath it all...
"Where's Danny?"
His heart jerks a little. They're asking for him. They're actually wondering.
"I don't know. He went out, earlier. I think he just needs space."
No. That's not what he needs. Not in the slightest. He needs... He wants...
"He should be here," Danny mutters into his knees. He buries his face into his kneecaps in hopes of physically restraining his emotions. He doesn't want to have a breakdown in public, even if he's the only one insane enough to be outside.
"Fenton?"
The call of his name startles Danny out of his slump and he looks up.
"Dash?" His chest quivers in a nervous rattle, unsure of what's to come. With Dash, or any of the Baxter clan, it's never anything good. Granted, the school year has been unusually calm for him, so far. He actually hasn't needed to pull a spitball out of his hair or kick his way out of a locker in a while. But it's Dash.
"What are you doing out here? It's freezing!"
Danny knows this. "Not to me." And he watches the blond's eyes drift down towards his bare feet. Just as pale as the rest of him, just as colorless. Just as dead. Meanwhile, Dash's face is tanned and red in the cheeks and nose from the bitter cold. His toes should be just as red. Hell, they should be necrotic for the number of hours he's spent out here. For a moment, he wonders what hypothermia is like.
Dash sits down next to him. "Your parents throw you out or something?"
"No," Danny says softly, "Just... I guess I just didn't want Christmas this year. ...what about you? Why are you out here?"
"Oh... My parents are fighting again. They fight every year. So, we do gifts and whatnot after desert when they've had a drink to cool down."
Danny winces. "Yikes."
"It's just on Christmas. See, dad's got an ex-wife, and every year he wants to visit her, and mom fights him every time."
Oh. 'That's not that bad,' Danny thinks.
"The rest of the year is fine. They just fight on the one holiday."
'So, what made you such a jerk?' the halfa wonders.
They sit together in silence for a while, just watching the sun set. It's a huge change of pace for Danny, not having to duck and cover from the jock. But it's strange enough of a moment, or maybe it's due to the holiday, but he relaxes.
"So... What happened to you?" Dash asks.
The street lights start to flicker on and Danny's eyes drift downward. To think. To decide what he should say. How to best answer such a question without disclosing his condition and putting himself and Vlad in danger. And all he could come up with?
"I got stupid."
Dash scoffs. "Well, you're always stupid. What else is new?"
Danny huffs, annoyed. His self esteem drops a little. "Do you... Do you ever wonder what happens when you die?"
"Oh, no," Dash groans.
"I'm serious," Danny bites.
"Dude, it's fucking Christmas. Come on. No-one wants that philosophical bullcrap."
For some reason, those words...hurt. They sting and stab. Danny's heart jerks in a manner all too familiar. He suddenly has the urge to cry. He feels...disregarded. Pushed aside. Again. Just like he's used to. Maybe that's why it hurts. Having spent his entire summer being noticed and paid attention to, and knowing what that feels like... A thin veneer of ice forms over his toes and slowly creeps up to his ankles. The snowfall, which had once been calm and steady, sways to an angle and falls a little harder. In thick, fluffy crystals.
"You're right. It's stupid. Forget I asked." He pulls in on himself, shutting a part of himself away before it's dragged down any further.
"Man, I always knew you had issues, but..."
"I get it, Dash. I'm sor-"
"-I mean, you disappear for three months, you come back, you start doing better in school all of a sudden, and-"
"-I was in a fucking coma."
"...oh."
"Yeah. 'Oh.' I was in a coma, mom and dad had no clue where I was, they didn't even pay attention enough to look, Jazz dropped out of school to pay off the hospital, and when I wake up, I'm somewhere in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, Wisconsin, with a complete stranger, and it's a shit show recovery! I slept for two and a half months! I woke up and I couldn't even walk! I had to re-learn how to fucking walk... And mom and dad weren't even there. They didn't... They didn't even notice. I woke up, and everything was different. Is different. A lot happened. A lot changed. And I still haven't figured some stuff out, yet."
"Hey, I didn't mean to-"
"-And this guy that took care of me... He's... He pays attention. He listens. He... Everything mom and dad couldn't do or wouldn't stop long enough to do..." The ice on his ankles climbs up his legs under his jeans and it's starting to hurt. But he doesn't pay it much thought.
"I wanna go back," he almost whispers, "Some things are better at home, now, but I don't know how long it's gonna last. I'm afraid of it all falling apart. I went through a lot of absolute shit. And he was the only one who really, really cared enough to notice when I needed something, or when I needed help, or when I wasn't eating right... I just want to go back."
He hadn't meant to just unload like that. He didn't mean to bury his bully under the last ten months. Danny didn't even know he'd been holding anything in. Now that the words are out, now that he's finally said his piece, he feels a little lighter. It feels strange, saying what's on his mind. Airing out his frustrations, even it's to the last person he should be airing them to, it feels...good.
"I just can't decide if I should stay here or try and go back..to him."
"'Go back to him?' You know what that sounds like, right?"
Danny blinks. Thinks it over. Thinks it through. What does it sound like?
"You're really messed up, aren't you?"
The halfa's eyes cloud as he keeps thinking, picking apart the other's words analyzing the implied meaning of his own words. It takes him a few minutes longer than it should. But once he picks up on it...
"Oh, god," his face tints pink when it dawns on him. It's the first time he's ever really blushed. As he kicks that notion around in his head, he decides that it makes sense. And Frostbite's words come tumbling back to him.
"What is your opinion towards Vladimir?"
Danny's face reddens further, all the way to his ears, and he drops his forehead into his knees. "That is not what I need right now."
Dash stands up and dusts the new layer of snow off of himself. "Yeah. You have fun with that, Fenton. I'm cold, I'm going home."
"You're not gonna tell anyone, are you?!" Danny asks, and immediately regrets it because of the potential seeds he's just sewn. The garden that could be grown from his agony would feed the school for years.
'Damn it, why do I have such a big mouth?!'
Dash pauses in brushing the snow off of his arms, tilting his head in thought. Thus, each passing microsecond makes Danny worry even more. Because he's thinking about it. And Danny wonders who he'd tell first. Who would crack the first joke. Who would be the first to drag him through the football field. Or worse. But...
"Nah. Not worth it."
The halfa's eyes nearly pop out of his head. "What?"
Dash shrugs. "It's not worth it."
"Are you serious?! This is gold to you! You practically live for this! Your entire freshman year was football and wailing on me! What's changed?!"
'I really need to sew my mouth shut.'
Dash gives him a look. It's a look Danny's never seen before. Not on Vlad, not on his parents, not on any other adult he's run into in his life. A foreign blend of recognition, understanding and empathy. Once again, his addled mind takes a moment to catch its meaning. Were he not so bogged down with everything else in his life, including his newest epiphany, he might have figured it out sooner. But, better late than never.
"Wow... Really? You, too?"
Dash shoves his hands into his coat pockets with a little too much force, turning away and pointedly marching for his house.
"Wait!" Danny's off the bench so fast he nearly trips over his own feet. But he catches up to him pretty easily. "Is that why you're not gonna give me a hard time over it?"
Dash sighs into the cold night air. "That's part of it."
"What's the other part?"
They stop on a corner, under a street light that's actively dying. But it still provides a little light.
"You're gonna follow me home until I tell you, aren't you?" Dash asks, thoroughly exasperated.
"I might. I can. I'm pretty hard to lose, these days." 'Thank-you, power of flight.'
"You're pretty hard to catch, too."
The halfa's heart freezes in his chest. In shock, in dawning, in thorough realization.
"You picked on me because you like me and you didn't know how to talk to me."
"Well, I-"
"And, talking to me would have hurt your social status and possibly outed you to the team. So you started dating Paulina so that you could keep lying to somebody, probably your family, if I had to guess. And you started torturing me to really make it look good."
Dash's head droops in shame. "Sounds pretty bad when you put it that way."
Danny gives a half lidded glare. "That's because it is bad. I'm used to being tortured and left behind. I've been dealing with that my whole life. But, it's Paulina that's in for an ugly wake-up call. You're gonna break her heart. Worse, this'll drag her through the mud. Her friends will drop her like a lead weight. She'll never live it down."
"I know," Dash groans.
"You're gonna have to tell her."
"I know!" Dash barks. He's aware of all of it. And the longer he carries on the lie, the worse it'll be when the truth comes out.
"You're really messed up, aren't you?" Danny asks.
It's meant to be serious. But they break down laughing. The jock gives a half-hearted punch to the halfa, who doesn't even feel it. They lean against a building to get it all out, coloring the night with a more positive tone. It takes them a few minutes to get to where they can breath.
"So...do I have a shot?" Dash asks.
Danny chuckles. "Not a chance in Hell."
"Fair enough," the blond laughs a little more, "Who'd I lose to? I mean, it's obviously the other guy, right? But who is he?"
Danny barely manages to avoid turning as red as he had before.
"Leave that one alone, Baxter. Trust me."
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Kindred Spirits Complete