summary .. tucker is the worst wing-man known to any existence. paulina, valerie and star are worse. at least danny finally asked [name] to the dance — even if the necklace he gives her is possessed.
word count .. 3898.
warnings .. not applicable.
notes .. fenton being completely oblivious then having "ah, i fumbled so bad," moments as phantom is my favorite thing to write him doing.
previous .. masterlist .. next
It’s rare that Valerie’s dad drops her off at school, even more so given the fact that all the girls had spent the night at her house, but that was what the day presented itself with. Mr. Damon pulls off after bidding the four goodbye and good luck, speeding out of the parking lot so he wouldn’t get caught in the already slow school traffic and be late for work.
(The football team had a boys’ night of their own, and Dash didn’t want them — mostly [name] — stranded in case he or Quan got too caught up in their own shenanigans, which they did.)
Once sure that he’s out of ear and eyeshot, Star links arms with [name] and points a very obvious finger to the front entrance of the school. “Isn’t that Romeo’s friend?”
Following her guide, the other three catch sight of a girl rejecting Tucker and barely stopping herself from slapping him. He looks dejected, so there’s no doubt that he’s at least twelve rejections deep into his mission.
“Oh, my God,” Valerie cringes. Her nose crinkles in that way it always does when she’s between disgust and begrudging respect. “Don’t tell me he’s been doing that all morning.”
“He has,” Paulina confirms confidently, despite being present just as long as the others.
Star adjusts her hold on [name]’s arm so that she’s hugging it instead. “Magic,” she whines the childhood nickname with a twinge of pity, her big, blue eyes telling her everything she didn’t say aloud. In most scenarios, it was enough alone to make any of the three give in and make her every wish come true; this one being that maybe she find literally anyone else to go with as a date.
This, however, was a very different scenario.
“How his friend acts isn’t a representation of how he acts,” [name] scoffs.
They all watch as he trudges his way back to Danny and Sam while they make their way to their tree. Paulina doesn’t wait for [name] to shrug her bookbag off her shoulder and onto the ground before grappling onto her shoulders with a white-knuckle grip. “.. Girl..”
It’s impossible not to roll her eyes as [name] lowers them both to the grass. While far from the first time that Paulina has chastised her for her taste in men — as supportive as she was when she wasn’t — it quickly started getting old. “I don’t wanna hear it, Paulie,” she says through gritted teeth, holding onto the other girl’s waist when she tries to scamper away. “Not everyone can get a date as easily as you, little Miss Perfect.”
“Ow-uh! Y’don’t know how hard it was for me to actually get Trey to pick up my fifty million hints!” Following [name] as she moves to lean against the tree, Paulina makes herself comfortable lying against her chest and stomach, hands dropping to play with the ends of her hair.
Valerie raises a brow. “Knowing you?” She shifts to lay her head against [name]’s shoulder, arms opening so Star can situate herself similarly to Paulina. “All you did was start dropping loud hints on what your favorite color, flower, and suit style were, and he ran with it.”
“I did,” Paulina giggles.
Star, still enamored with watching Tucker sulk following his collapse to the ground, an inch or two out of the way of Danny and Sam, who scramble to avoid impact and barely put in the effort to catch him, seems to have a lightbulb light up behind her eyes. “We could probably still get you a date with him!”
“Were you not just trying to convince me to go with someone else?”
“He’s looking over here!”
While Paulina and Valerie immediately snap their gazes to the trio, [name] instead leans her head up and starts to slip down the trunk until she’s lying on the ground, ignoring Paulina’s yelp. “And you three think staring is going to help my case?”
“We’re just returning the energy,” Valerie hums. “I mean, guys are crashing into trees and falling into the fountain looking at us, and we’re looking at them.”
“Sam is going to skin me alive.”
Star tuts, “turn her into a frog! — Or, no! A bat! She’d probably like that better, wouldn’t she?”
“She’d suck me of all my —“
“Girls,” Paulina hisses, moving herself from atop [name] so she can instead sit by her head and manhandle it into her lap, “look presentable! He’s on his way.”
“Is Tucker with him? He is, isn’t he?” [name] continues to refuse to let her line of sight leave the leaves and branches above them.
“Yeah,” Valeries answers in a murmur, “but the goat is leading.”
Star’s brows furrow. “Is that his codename now? Wet goat?”
Paulina squints. “Looking at him now, he reminds me of a Whippet.”
“Stars above, strike me down now,” [name] prays.
When they finally reach them, Danny, with an encouraging pat on the shoulder from Tucker that also pushes him forward, stumbles to the side of [name] and Paulina, resulting in him leaning against the tree so he doesn’t faceplant into it. “.. .. Hi..”
“Hey,” [name] greets, trying her best not to let her embarrassment show. Briefly, her eyes flit over to Tucker, who was attempting to woo Valerie and-or Star to no success, then to Paulina, who had her sights set strictly on [name] with a look that said, “don’t you dare mess this up!”
Like her, Danny quickly glances at Tucker for some sort of support. The equally unhelpful, “dude, you’re on your own, you see me trying to work my magic,” face he receives in turn is incredibly obvious.
“So,” he starts to continue after taking a steadying breath, “I don’t know if you and —“
His hand slips, making him fall face-first into the ground regardless of his previous attempt to prevent that from happening. [name] shoots up, scooting over to help him while Paulina scoffs with a scowl.
“Please! Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly fallen for her. That line is so last semester.”
Rolling onto his back with the help of [name], anyone would assume Danny was petrified still if not for the fact that his mouth moved. “Yeah! I — I mean no! That’s not — not at all! I just —“
From the sound of the fall alone, [name] would think he had broken, if not fractured, his nose. Miraculously, it wasn’t anything of the sort. Bruised, maybe, with some blood starting to trickle out. Her hand gingerly prods around the bruising, softly apologizing when he flinches, the other blindly reaching for her lunchbox, which Paulina dutifully hands her. “It’s not bad,” she notes, opening the zipper and taking out the icepack and a tissue. Another blind reach has Paulina handing her the bandana she saved for cheerleading practice, in case she didn’t have a hair tie.
Wrapping the icepack in the bandana so the frigid item wouldn’t touch bare skin, she places two quick enchantments on it with a subtle wave of her hand. The first was a slow-acting healing one, and the other was to keep it colder for longer.
She offers him the napkin first for the blood, guiding him into sitting up. “I don’t think the nurse can do you any better than this.”
“Thanks — Thank you,” Danny sniffles, voice nasally from him both pinching and wiping his nose. “I’ll give it back to you at lunch.”
[name] shakes her head, pulling his hand down once his face is clean enough to replace it with the wrapped icepack. “Don’t worry about it. It’s the least I can do for literally everything you do.”
Was his face red from the bruise or the compliment? She was willing to bet it was from the latter more than the former.
Eyes darting everywhere that isn’t [name], Danny’s mouth poses to say something, but is cut off by Sam’s slow clapping. “Kudos, Danny. You just set an all-time speed record for drowning in the shallow and plastic-filled end of the gene pool.”
Paulina scoffs in disbelief, looking between Sam, [name], Valerie, and Star. “Please tell me that she didn’t just say what I think she did.”
“Do you wanna tell us what you mean by that?” Star is the first to stand, hands hitched on her hips and head cocked to the side. She didn’t fully understand what was being insinuated, which, put lovingly, was to be expected of her. Most of the student body spoke of her most kindly out of the four.
“I mean,” Sam huffs, puffing her chest out and taking a step forward, “if I can stand in a puddle full of the four of you and not get my feet wet, then yeah, you’re shallow.”
It’s Paulina’s turn to stand up, much more aggressively than Star did. “If you think —“
“I see the boys,” [name] pointedly interrupts, helping Valerie to her feet and drumming her fingers against her thigh soothingly. “Plus, it’s getting late. We need to start heading to class.”
Paulina spins on her heel to convince her to let her place some sort of curse on Sam, only to quickly get shut down by Valerie gripping onto her bicep and pulling her away. Star lingers behind with [name] to collect their bookbags, trying to school her face and keep herself from scowl-pouting. “Hope your nose gets better soon,” [name] says with a clear of her throat, letting Star link their arms together again once they’re done.
Neither stays long enough for any of the trio to slip anything more in.
The next day, Paulina forces herself to ignore the way Sam makes her blood boil in favor of going through with her master plan.
Dragging is nowhere close to the word [name] would use when it came to Paulina taking her to Danny’s locker, where he and Tucker stood. She had the sweetest smile she could muster on her face while paying no mind to the lovestruck sighs the students let out as they passed by, throwing up a hand not currently death-gripping [name]’s to catch the trio’s attention.
“Yoo-hoo, Danny!” She doesn’t have to yell, even with the number of people crowding the hallway, because they were too busy being captivated by her to make any noise.
Danny visibly freezes. His back straightens as he turns to look at [name] and Paulina from the corner of his eye, muttering something to Tucker, who nods smugly, steps away, then rushes back to say something else before really leaving.
“Hey, you,” Paulina hums once close enough. She shoves [name] in front of her, hands hooking onto her shoulders while she leans her head against hers. “I remembered you were gonna ask her something yesterday, but couldn’t, and she didn’t mention anything about it last night, so I’m just gonna assume you didn’t! I think that —“
Dash slams Danny into his locker and shuts it with a quickness that leaves neither girl the time to react.
Leaning against the locker door so Danny can’t get out, Dash gives his signature smirk to them and reaches out for [name]’s hand, planting a kiss on the back of it. “We should go out sometime? I was thinking the same thing,” he suggests, incorrectly finishing Paulina’s sentence. “We should hit up that bowling spot we always went to when we were kids! When’s the last time you were — in Dash’s body?”
Paulina’s grip on [name]’s shoulders loosens from shock. Her hands come up to cover her mouth, and her eyes dart between Dash and [name]. “You —”
“NO?” [name]’s voice is louder than she intends, but the absurdity of Dash’s sudden shift in behavior, Paulina’s assumption, and her own befuddlement have her out of sorts. “No! We don’t — We haven’t — Dash, what is wrong with you?” The words come out as a hiss, pulling him out of his own astonished thoughts.
“I didn’t mean that. I just — Someone was being weird. I heard it. Uhm.” Uncomfortably, he keeps intense eye contact with her, and there’s a witchy instinct in [name]’s brain saying: “that isn’t him.” Why? She couldn’t figure it out. Of course, that wasn’t including the fact that he had a slip-up that bad and stuttered. While it wasn’t downright impossible for him to do either, it really only ever happened when he was caught off-guard, and nothing had happened for him to feel so.
Though something in her gut was telling her it was a possession, it didn’t make sense. It was rare for ghosts to do so without wreaking some kind of havoc, and it was even rarer for them to know their host’s name. What’s more, Phantom would be somewhere nearby to suck the ghost into his thermos and send them back to the Ghost Zone.
Then again, who was she not to trust said instinct?
The issue with acting on it arises when Paulina lets out a quiet squeak. “You.. You do know that you two aren’t staying together the whole night, right, Dash? Why can’t the Whippet ask her out?”
“Paulina,” [name] warns.
“The Whippet?”
“Y’know! The,” Paulina makes a gesture towards Danny’s locker.
Dash looks annoyed for the briefest of moments before his face calms. “Oh.” He glances at the locker, eyes squinting at it before he says, “Yeah, sure. I need to, ugh, go.. check and make sure I won’t fail biology again.”
With that, Dash steps away and whatever possessed him leaves, holding his head as though dazed and muttering under his breath. [name] watches him for several steps worriedly, naturally, but he seems fine now.
Paulina opening the locker door reminds [name] of Danny’s current predicament. She turns on her heel to help him out just as he’s about to fall flat on his face. Decidedly ignoring the way his hands are trembling and are clammy when he offers a shaky, “thank you.”
“Oh! What’s this?”
Eyes turning to his locker, they both find Paulina a necklace that makes [name]’s heart drop. She didn’t have a clue why that was, unlike Dash’s possession. Because she was no stranger to magically enchanted objects, her only reasonable assumption would be to say that it’s something related to a ghost, which was the opposite of her expertise.
Why would Danny of all people have something that’s haunted? Yes, his parents were fanatic ghost-hunters who usually failed at it (usually used because Phantom found some of the items he stole from them useful). Still, he told everyone and their mother that the last thing he had any interest in was following in their footsteps. How could his parents not pick up on the fact that the item could likely be cursed, either?
Wiping his hands down his pants to get rid of some of the sweat, Danny takes the necklace from Paulina and examines it as though it’s his first time seeing it. “This? Ugh, it’s a.. uhm.. Do either of you like it?”
Paulina gives [name] an incredibly pointed look.
“It’s.. uhm..” [name] knew exactly what Paulina wanted her to say. Compliment it, subtly ask if it was for her, accept it, then say that she’d gladly go with Danny to the dance. The issue was that the thing was haunted and the last thing she wanted to do was risk her own or anybody else’s safety by taking it.
Paulina had been in [name]’s coven since they were kids, and the same could be said for the rest of the A-listers, even if some were more inclined to notice magic than others. That being said, it wasn’t out of the ordinary for certain members to be more skilled in certain areas than others, regardless of whether they were born with magic or not. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that Paulina wasn’t able to notice the power within the necklace because her specialty was making illusions with makeup — enchanted and cursed items were more Valerie’s forte, given her dad’s position at Axion, whereas Star’s was more attuned to animals.
Needless to say, Paulina willingly ignores the hint.
“It’s so beautiful, Danny,” [name] hums, trying to suppress the unease in her voice. She takes the necklace from him when he extends it towards her, looking it over carefully and trying to keep her smile from dropping. “Where’d you get it?”
Eyes focusing just below her own, Danny takes a moment to answer. “The.. ugh.. The mall. I found and thought of.. you,” he eventually answers, not convinced of it himself. “But, it’s good that you like it! Since I did — ugh — get it for you.”
“Oh.” [name] doesn’t know whether or not she believes that. The hopeful part of her wants to believe him, especially since she’d been fiending for it since the dance was announced — and yet the logical part of her knows that something was undoubtedly wrong with the necklace and Danny’s explanation. “I just —“ She sends another hopeful glance to Paulina, but is only met with a fierce look. “I don’t know if it’ll go with my dress..”
Danny’s jump from [name], to the necklace, and then back to her neck specifically. “You don’t have to wear it with your dress! You could wear it now — only if you, uhm, wanted to, of course! I — I got it in case I ever got the nerve to ask you to the dance, and you said yes, I thought I’d want to give you something, and it’s — it’s for you, but I can go and get you another one if you want!”
“No, no, this is fine!” [name] unclasps it, handing it to Danny before turning her back to him and moving her hair out of the way. “I’d love to go with you.”
Internally, she’s clawing at her brain for accidentally talking herself into owning and now wearing a possessed item. What was her Grandaddy going to say? Even if he didn’t mind, he would still ask her a million and one questions on how she got it, if she knew what it did, and why she even took it in the first place. She either needed to learn more about it with the girls once school was over, or she needed to show it to Phantom and ask for his thoughts.
Paulina moves in [name] peripheral vision as Danny slips the necklace in front of her neck. She’s making that face she always does when she’s excited about something, her index finger shaped like a hook and covering her mouth so her grin is barely visible.
It’s possessed, she’s finally able to mouth now that Danny couldn’t see her face anymore.
Her expression drops, but she manages to bring it back up long enough that, when he finishes and steps around to make sure the necklace sits nicely, Danny doesn’t notice anything different.
“Thank you,” [name] hums, bringing Danny in for a hug. “I love it.”
Paulina mouths from behind Danny, What’re you gonna do?
Her face briefly scrunches, saying, To be figured out.
After a moment, Danny’s hands finally rest on her back and shoulder after being frozen, patting once before letting them rest on the surface. “N — No, ugh, no problem.”
[name] pulls away sooner than she would have liked in any other scenario, stepping away and linking an arm with Paulina. “I’ll see you later,” she says with a wave and a turn of her heel.
“B — Bye,” he mutters.
“What do you mean you don’t know yet,” Paulina huffs into [name]’s ear once they’re far away enough.
Shrugging her shoulders with a shaky sigh, her head shakes. “I mean, I don’t want him to have it! What if he gets possessed? It’s better if I have it than him.”
“Girl, you are hypnotized by a loser.”
“I’m sorry for having a sense of morality, Paula.”
There’s a look of unease on Paulina’s face. It’s too delayed to be from what [name] said (even if it was less than a second after), and yet she had been looking her in the eye when it did flash. That same logical part of her mind tells her that she should ask about it — but the queasy feeling in her entire body keeps her from doing so.
“I like your necklace.”
There’d been a long, comfortable silence between [name] and Phantom as they worked around the graveyard. There was no one to look for specifically and no ghost for him to thwart away (aside from Box Ghost, but he’s as harmful as a gnat), and they’d gone through every possible topic about two hours earlier.
Looking down at the jewelry, she looks down and notices that it’s fallen out of where she had it tucked into her shirt. She’d only felt the need to keep it hidden because there had been an incident with Paulina, Valerie, and Star at cheerleading practice, then Dash during the drive home, where they tried taking it off of her. Why wouldn’t she try her hardest to keep any of them from doing so? It was probably the most forward Danny had ever been when it came to either of their feelings, and she planned to wear it for a good long while, no matter how much it clashed with her outfits.
“Thanks,” she purrs, running a finger over the jewel. It’s a comforting gesture, and she can only assume it’s for the same reason she refused to take it off. “Everybody keeps saying that it’s possessed, but I think it’s just because I got it from my date.”
“What.”
[name] laughs at the way he blanches, slipping her fingers under the jewel and holding it out for him to get a better look. “Yeah! Normally, they’re not so.. weird about us being openly romantic — not my boyfriend, though, he has his reputation and whatnot — but I do remember getting this bad feeling when he first pulled it out and put it on me. I’m just glad that it went away after a while.”
Phantom stares blankly at the necklace, not even breathing (a habit he said he could never grow out of, even after dying). He stays like that for a good long while, enough so that [name] returns to their work on cleaning off a headstone belonging to a late librarian, a Roman Riley.
“Your date gave you a.. a possessed amulet..” Phantom manages to start, moving again if only to be closer to her. “And even after your coven tried taking it off, you’re still wearing it..?”
“I am.”
“And you don’t think that’s.. cause for concern..?”
“Well, they’re not full witches, so it’s not like you can really trust their instincts the same way you can mine.”
“Can I.. Can I look at it?”
A noise of consideration leaves [name] before she can stop it. “Maybe after the dance,” she offers, swatting at his hand when he reaches out to touch it. “I just don’t want anything to happen to it.”
“What if he asks for it back?” Phantom doesn’t stop warily eyeing her, then the necklace.
“Well, he said he got it for me, so I don’t think he will.”
“But if he does?”
“I don’t think I could,” she sighs.
“That’s,” Phantom starts to speak through gritted teeth and a low voice, hands clenching and unclenching as his temperature lowers enough for [name] to really feel it, “great. That’s really great.”
