I like to focus on characters other than Keith and Lance so y’all thirsty mofos better enjoy this you won’t be getting much more outta me this (belated lmao) holiday season
Also!! Bonus points if anyone can tell me what movie they’re watching before Home Alone comes on. It’s one of my faves.
@vldwhumpmas2017 my submission for day 4!! (3 weeks later lol)
Usually, Lance is the life of the party. He always has some person to impress, some story to tell, some stunt to pull. For better or for worse, it’s in his nature. And Christmas has always been his favorite holiday. So it’s very odd to have a Christmas party, however small, where Lance does nothing but sit silently on the couch.
“strep’s a bitch. sorry about that <3” Pidge had texted when he’d told them about it in the group chat. The others had all chimed in as well with apologies and advice. (Except Keith. He left everything on read, as usual.) Still, no one really knew how to make Lance feel better.
It was bad enough that he was sick. As Pidge knew from experience, strep was no fun - sore throat, nausea, a fever - it all combined into one disease designed specifically to knock you flat for at least a week. But the real toll on Lance was the loss of his voice. He relied on it to express himself, and it was as much a part of him as any aspect of his personality. Without it, he felt a little listless.
His friends all picked up on that, but they weren’t quite sure what to do about it. The awkwardness ended up with Lance curled up on the couch underneath of a blanket and everyone else hanging out in the kitchen with eggnog and hot chocolate.
Keith was the one who finally did something about it. He and Lance were never really great friends. They’d met each other through their own friends. Shiro knew Pidge - no, wait, Shiro knew Matt, who was Pidge’s brother, and then Lance… wait, wasn’t Hunk somewhere in that chain of people?
Whatever. The point was, Keith and Lance weren’t close. But over the past couple years, Keith had gotten used to hearing Lance’s loud, laughing voice in the background. Seeing him now alone in his misery felt wrong.
That was how Keith ended up sitting next to him on the couch at one AM with a mug in each hand.
“I made you peppermint tea,” he said, sitting gingerly on the couch. His own mug was dangerously close to overflowing, and he did not want to spend ten minutes cleaning up spilled hot chocolate.
Lance looked surprised to see him, but he eagerly leaned forward to accept the steaming mug from Keith. Clutching it in both hands, he took a tentative sip. Keith was glad to see some degree of relief come over Lance’s features.
Keith stared at the TV in front of him - Lance had some old Christmas movie on - and absentmindedly slurped his own drink. He was interrupted by a sharp wheeze.
He looked back over at Lance and was immediately confused by the huge grin on his face. Seeing his questioning gaze, Lance wiggled his eyebrows and took another sip of his tea, this time sucking it up as noisily as he possibly could. Keith found himself chuckling at the overexaggerated sound. He responded in kind, doing his best to one-up Lance by drowning him out.
He could feel the thin layer of chocolate coating his upper lip as soon as he put his mug down. Instead of licking it away, he turned to Lance with a goofy expression, feeling at ease with their voiceless communication.
Lance quickly leaned forward to place his mug on the table in front of them, shoulders shaking with raspy laughter. As soon as he looked up, having composed himself somewhat, Keith ran his tongue over the chocolate mustache, setting Lance off again.
Finally, they both calmed themselves down and returned to drinking normally, this time both with content smiles on their faces. Just as he was finishing his hot chocolate, Lance tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the TV. Keith hadn’t been paying attention, but it looked like the movie was ending; everyone onscreen was singing in a finale-sounding way.
As he watched, the four leads met behind a Christmas tree and paired off to make out with each other. Keith thought it was a little weird that they did this in the middle of a song - like, everyone else was still singing - but then again, he didn’t really know much about musicals.
The credits started rolling, and a little “Up Next” popped up in the corner of the screen - the classic Home Alone face by the one and only Macaulay Culkin. Keith smiled to see it; Home Alone was one of his favorite childhood movies, and it still held up today as long as he didn’t think too much about the fact that the kid knowingly put the Wet Bandits through that much pain.
Lance sees it too, and immediately turns to him with his best approximation of the face. Keith’s own sharp peal of laughter surprises him after sitting in silence for so long, but hearing it seems to brighten Lance even more. Burrowing more deeply into the blankets, Lance settled in to watch.
Keith was getting tired after the day’s festivities, but he stayed put. He figured there were worse places to fall asleep than watching a movie on the couch with Lance McClain.
I stole the title from a Shel Silverstein poem. Also I love Christmas but apparently I can’t write Christmas themed things lmao this turned into philosophy or something
@vldwhumpmas2017 my fill for Day 1: Fever!
“How’s he doing?” Shiro looked up to see that Pidge had poked her head through the door of Lance’s bedroom, a concerned expression on her face.
“No change,” he told her with a frown. He’d been sitting at Lance’s bedside for hours, but Lance’s fever hadn’t gone down at all; he hadn’t opened his eyes once since that morning.
“At least he hasn’t gotten worse,” Pidge offered, but Shiro could tell that she was just as anxious as he was.
Shiro traced the backs of his fingers from Lance’s temple down to his cheek, feeling helpless that nothing he was doing could get rid of that uncomfortable heat. Pidge walked over and sat on the edge of Lance’s bed, placing a hand on his knee in a futile attempt to comfort the sick paladin.
“I’m mostly worried about exactly what we might be dealing with,” Shiro confessed. “If we were on Earth I wouldn’t be nearly as worried - I mean, his fever’s a little high for my liking, but Lance is tough. It’s just… up here, we have no idea where this might have come from and what it might do. For all we know this is the onset of the most deadly disease in the universe.”
“Hey,” Pidge said gently, snapping him out of the spiral of fear his thoughts were leading towards. “I understand why you’re scared, Shiro. I’m worried, too. And I won’t lie and tell you I haven’t thought the same thing. But… if there’s one thing that I’ve learned out here, it’s that space isn’t nearly as different from Earth as I thought.
“I mean, sure, we’ve dealt with some stuff that we never could have dreamed of on Earth. But think about, like… the Arusians, from way back. They were like nothing we’d ever seen at first. But really, they just wanted to live life, have some fun. That party with them felt natural, like if you closed your eyes and forgot how tiny they were you could have been back on Earth. Or the Olkari! Their tech is way better than anything we have on Earth, but their focus on developing it is similar to a lot of ancient civilizations on Earth that centered their lives around it. Even now, we’re still pressing forward with new ideas, adapting to change, just like them!” Pidge was animated now, her eyes lit up as she reminisced about everything they’d seen. Shiro couldn’t help but smile. Her enthusiasm was contagious.
“Besides,” Pidge added, calming down a little, “Allura and Coran have a lot more experience than we do. Maybe not with humans, but I think that we can trust them to figure out how to help him.” She gave Shiro a confident grin, seeming to have dispelled her own anxiety with her passionate speech.
Shiro felt better about it, too. “You’re right about all that. Thank you, Pidge.”
“Yeah, thanks Pidge.” The two jumped at the unexpected, raspy voice cutting in. Lance was awake now, sitting up in bed and smirking his usual smirk.
“Lance!” They were all over him in seconds, Shiro with a more gentle-one armed hug, while Pidge practically full-body tackled the blue paladin. Lance smiled at the attention, though he didn’t crow about it like he normally would have.
“So hey,” he said when they’d finally had their fill of him. “You know what else is shared throughout Earth and space?” Pidge and Shiro exchanged a quick glance, then shook their heads. “No? You disappoint me,” he teased. “It’s Christmas, of course.”
“I haven’t seen anyone celebrating it out here…” Pidge hedged uncertainly.
“You do now. We’re having a gift exchange. Right now. It counts,” he added when he saw her incredulous expression. “I don’t feel like getting up, but if you guys want yours, they’re in that compartment over there.” Lance nodded to indicate where he was talking about. “It should be easy enough to tell which ones are yours, we’ve all been color-coded since day one.”
Pidge wasted no time in making her way over; the allure of a gift was too much to resist. Shiro followed behind her. They opened the compartment to find six neatly wrapped gifts - four in the colors of the other paladins’ armor, and a pink one and an orange one for Allura and Coran.
By the time Shiro sat down with his black box balanced on his knees, Pidge was already peeling the green paper off of her much smaller box. He stole a peek at Lance; the blue paladin looked pale and tired, and the deep flush in his cheeks troubled Shiro, but for now he was awake and semi-alert as he watched Pidge pull the lid off her box.
Based on the size and shape of the box, Shiro had briefly wondered if it might be some sort of jewelry, but he realized his mistake when Pidge’s eyes grew wide the way they only did for one thing. “Lance…” she breathed, taking out her present with a delicacy most would use for a baby bird.
Lance’s smile hinted at smugness, but most of it was tenderness for Pidge’s reverent handling of the Olkari chip. “I figured you’d get a lot of use out of it,” he started, but she was already halfway out the door.
“I’m sure she’ll thank you for it tomorrow,” Shiro said.
“Honestly, her face is thanks enough. I’ve never met anyone else who loved technology so much.” Lance grinned. “I’ll bet she builds herself an android instead of marrying a person. Just you watch. Ten years, maximum.”
Shiro rolled his eyes. “I think that violates some sort of ethics law.”
“You say that like Pidge cares about laws. She broke into a quiznaking military school, remember? Now hurry up and open your present, I’m tired, I wanna go back to sleep.”
“Okay, okay.” Shiro started at the corner of the box, pulling off the black paper to reveal a sleek white box underneath. He lifted the lid and immediately snapped his head up to look at Lance, stony-faced.
“Really.”
Lance began laughing, his breaths mixed in with husky coughing. Shiro sighed, an exasperated smile spreading across his face.
The shirt in the box read, “Was your dad a thief? Because he stole all the stars in the sky and put them in your eyes.”
wtf is an ending
I wrote this as gen but looking over it you could probably read it as shidge or shance if you wanted to so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ok so look here guys I write pretty much exclusively platonic fics for voltron because I've actually watched very little of the show and I don’t really have (m)any ships in particular but,,,,,, I think I’ve dug myself a watery grave next to Davy Jones with this one lads because all of a sudden I will do down with this ship
(and like this isn’t even particularly romantic I just! want to see more of these two chillin together. which two am I referring to? YOU’LL HAVE TO READ TO FIND OUT haha lol I’m great at clickbait guys. jk the whumpmas people will put it in the tags and starclan knows that all of one (1) people will read this on my blog)
@vldwhumpmas2017 GET THAT GOOD DAY 5 CONTENT FROM YA GIRL ZEE
(it’s real late guys I’m so tired)
Cooking with Altean equipment and ingredients always required concentration. Everything was new and unfamiliar. Hunk couldn’t let his mind drift off like he did when he cooked anything at home or he was liable to end up with something that nobody wanted to eat, not even the mice, and they were significantly less picky than any of his friends.
What it was that was distracting him that day, he couldn’t have said. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact that Hunk hadn’t been wearing any kind of protection when he reached into the oven.
The tray clattered loudly to the floor, covering Hunk’s cry of pain. He sagged against the counter, hunched over his burned hands. He felt his eyes beginning to well up and tried to blink the tears away, only to feel them already rolling down his cheeks.
A shadow appeared in the doorway. “Hunk?”
“Keith.” The single word held all of Hunk’s emotions - his pain, his embarrassment and simultaneous relief at being found. Keith crossed the room to get to him, closing the oven as he passed it, and wordlessly held out his hands. Hunk extended his own so that Keith could see, inhaling sharply when Keith’s finger brushed against the tender skin.
“Sorry.” Keith carefully adjusted his grip, peering at Hunk’s hands with an unreadable expression. As gently as he could, he straightened Hunk’s curled fingers to get a better look at them.
“I think you’ll be okay,” he said finally, starting to pull Hunk in the direction of the sink. “They look like first-degree burns.”
“Isn’t first-degree the worst one?” Hunk asked nervously.
A tiny smile quirked up Keith’s lips. “That’s murder. The worst burns are third-degree.” He twisted the handle to turn the sink on, placing a finger under the steady stream to monitor the temperature. When it was to his liking, he placed Hunk’s hands under the water.
Hunk winced at first; the water passing over his burns felt like too much for the sensitive skin. Keith firmly held Hunk’s wrists in place, though, and eventually Hunk was able to relax as the cold started to lessen the pain.
Keith finally noticed the dropped sheet. “Were you… making Christmas cookies?” The sugar cookies, strewn on and off the platter, were meticulously cut into five-point stars. Hunk would have liked to do gingerbread people like he usually did, but without any cookie cutters he’d had to settle for geometric shapes he could cut with a knife.
“Yeah.”
“Why?” The question threw Hunk.
“Well… I mean, it’s right around that time on Earth. I asked Pidge and she said it’s, like, December 23rd or something.”
“I didn’t even think about it,” Keith confessed. “I just kind of figured that… y’know, we wouldn’t celebrate it in space.”
Hunk shrugged. “I don’t know if we’re really gonna do anything big. It’s just, everyone’s been so down recently. I mean, it’s understandable, given the fact that we’ve been away from our homes for months, and the Galra are constantly on our tail, and we’re really poorly equipped to handle, like, any attacks from them-”
“Hunk.”
“Sorry. But, anyway, I just wanted to do something to try to cheer everyone up a bit. And cookies usually work for that. I just sort of went with the Christmas idea on the spot.”
Keith nodded slowly. “I guess that makes sense.” Leaving Hunk by the sink, he walked over and picked up the cookie sheet, careful to hold it level and avoid losing any more cookies. Hunk was saddened by the amount left on the floor, but it wasn’t unsalvageable; about half of the batch was left unharmed.
“Do you think you could decorate those for me?” Keith whipped around, eyes wide. Hunk had surprised himself with the question, actually, but he knew immediately that it was a good idea.
“Me?” Keith was hesitant, but Hunk saw him waver when he darted a glance down at Hunk’s hands, still sore and red under the water. He tried to make his expression as pitiful as possible. It seemed to work, because Keith seemed to panic a bit when he looked back up at Hunk.
“I don’t… I wouldn’t… I mean, I’d probably just ruin them. I don’t know anything about decorating cookies.” He looked down at the still-warm cookies, uncertainty clouding his eyes.
“You’ll do fine. I can walk you through it from over here,” Hunk encouraged. “It’s easy. Just frosting and sprinkles. Or the closest I could get to frosting and sprinkles, anyway.”
“All right.” Keith gave in. “What do I do first?”
Hunk nodded towards the bowl of yellow frosting he’d managed to make with some creative engineering of the food goo. “Give that a good stir or two and then just spread it over the cookies. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just try and make it even.”
He craned his neck to watch as Keith followed his instructions, face pinched in a frown of concentration. It took him several minutes to frost the first cookie; he was being incredibly careful, perhaps more than was necessary. Still, Hunk waited patiently as Keith moved onto the next one and then the next. As he got used to working with the frosting, he fell into a rhythm, and each one was completed more quickly than the last.
“How’s that?” he asked when he’d finally finished the last one. His voice betrayed no emotion, but Hunk could tell by looking into his eyes that he was nervous, not sure if he’d gained Hunk’s approval.
He had nothing to worry about, of course. The frosting was a bit thinner than Hunk would have done, but that was an individual choice, not necessarily a bad one. The cookies looked beautiful - the frosting went right up to the edges of each one, and was evenly spread. Hunk turned off the sink and walked over to get a closer look, noticing as he did so that Keith had a way of swirling the knife that left a delicate pattern in the frosting.
“You did great,” he said warmly. Keith smiled widely. Hunk was surprised at how readily the smile came, but the smile was contagious; he couldn’t help smiling back.
“Now it’s just the sprinkles,” he said, nodding towards the various garnishes that he’d found and set out earlier. “You can use all of them on each cookie, or different ones, or whatever you want. Leave some without any, too. I think Shiro likes them better that way,” he added as an afterthought.
Keith examined each container, weighing his options, while Hunk gently patted his hands dry with a towel. They were still a bit raw, but the burns were much less painful than they’d been earlier. He’d ask Coran if there was any sort of ointment he could use later.
Keith was intently focused on decorating the star cookies now. He’d already covered about a quarter of them with some sort of silver flakes, and had moved on to carefully arranging long red strips of something across another set of stars. Hunk nodded his approval at the neat lines.
Lastly, Keith opened the container of green powder that Hunk had found. “Is this one… spicy?”
“I think so,” Hunk answered. “Maybe go easy on that one.”
A mischievous grin crossed Keith’s face. Dumping an inordinate amount onto one of the cookies, he announced, “That one’s for Lance.”
Do you ever just write a bit and you nod to yourself and you’re like “goddamn i’m good. i’m such a good fucking writer” well that’s me with the first-degree/third degree bit I thought I was so clever coming up with that
For Day 2 of @vldwhumpmas2017! This is probably really disappointing emeto though lmao. It’s not my favorite thing so I don’t really know how to write it. Also it’s a day late, but whatever, I got a jump on the other days.
Hunk had had his eyes fixed on the horizon straight ahead of him for fifteen minutes now, but it was becoming harder and harder to ignore the nausea that threatened to rise. He hated to do this, but he knew he wasn’t going to last much longer in here.
“Lance, can we -” Lance met his eyes in the mirror and nodded, already turning his hazards on so they could pull over. Hunk didn’t bother to finish the sentence, instead focusing on keeping it under control until he was in the clear.
Once the car was stopped, Hunk pushed open his door, stepped calmly away from the car, sank to his knees in the snow, and promptly began coughing up his breakfast. Lance came up behind him and placed a warm, gentle hand on his back.
Hunk took a second to get his breath back once he was done before the two of them moved away from the stained snow. They sat cross-legged, facing each other, while Hunk recuperated.
“Hey,” Lance said with a delighted grin. “This snow’s fresh.” He scooped some up in his bare hands and slurped it down, shivering a bit at the icy chill. “Remember that time when we were kids that it snowed 10 inches overnight and we had off from school? And your mom made us bowls of snow with honey and chocolate syrup?”
Hunk nodded. “Of course I remember. How could I forget snow ice cream?” He had his own chunk of snow and was nibbling it, grateful to be able to wash the foul taste from his mouth.
“I threw a snowball at your cat and you nearly started crying over it,” Lance remembered.
“She was very distressed by it!” Hunk protested. Still, he couldn’t help smiling at the memory of the two of them as kids, and the mischievous sparkle in Lance’s eyes just before the snowball had exploded in front of Smokey’s paws. Even his mom, who was protective of the old cat, couldn’t bring herself to do much more than give Lance a stern scolding.
Besides, it had been pretty funny to watch her slink away on her toes, her back arched so severely that it reminded Hunk of the pictures of lone, tall mountains that he’d seen.
They sat enjoying the snow and their memories for a bit longer. Finally, the cold got to be a bit much for Lance and he stood. Hunk knew he would never complain about this, but the gentle tremors running up and down his arms betrayed Lance’s discomfort.
“You ready?” Lance asked. “The car isn’t going to drive itself to Pidge and Matt’s.”
“Yup.” Hunk held out a hand and Lance pulled him up. They walked back to the car with their arms around each others’ shoulders.
“One of these days,” Lance said as they slid into their seats, “we’ll figure out the trick so you won’t get carsick every time we take long trips.”
This is a prompt from @taylor-tut who is absolutely lovely <3 I ended up writing over 2k words! Which is pretty awesome, since I tend to have trouble getting more than a thousand, usually. (I have a few other Danny Phantom prompts as well, I’ll be working on those now that I’ve finished this one.)
I haven't read Percy JAckson, so I'll send a DP prompt!! How about something where Danny is sick and hasn't slept in days, and then has detention with Lancer. He tells Lancer that he doesn't feel well, but he thinks it's an excuse, so he tells him "you can either do detention today or all next week" and so Danny goes. But when he's finally there, Lancer realizes that he's not faking--he's burning up and exhausted.
Danny slumps against his locker, pressing his forehead into the cool metal. He’s exhausted after two sleepless nights spent ghost hunting. There had been a lot more of them out causing trouble recently. He’s sure that he and his friends will have to start investigating what was causing the sudden spike, but even the thought of bringing it up makes him want to curl up in a ball; investigations were always lengthy and draining.
“Hey, Fen-toad!” Danny sighs through his nose upon hearing Dash’s characteristic greeting, if it could be called that. He turns to face Dash, who grins at him, his cronies fanned out behind him.
“Get it over with, then,” he mutters, opening his locker and gesturing towards it halfheartedly. Dash’s wicked smile falters a bit; ever since getting his powers, Danny had always put up a lot more of a fight. He couldn’t remember the last time that he’d submitted to Dash’s bullying like this.
Dash hefts his slender frame into the air easily. He unceremoniously deposits Danny into the locker, giving him a second to tuck his limbs inside before slamming the door. It might have been Danny’s imagination, but as the group walks away to pick on more social outcasts it occurs to him that Dash usually roughed him up a bit more than that before moving on.
He decides not to dwell on it. Instead, he marvels at the fact that he’s actually not too upset to be stuck in his locker. The chattering of the other students is muffled, and he’s able to sit back and rest without getting weird looks.
It’s a testament to how much things have changed when Tucker doesn’t immediately open Danny’s locker to check whether he’s inside. Danny has to knock on the inside of the door to get Tuck’s attention. His friend starts and turns around to scan the lockers behind him, meeting Danny’s eye through the thin slats and instantly moving to unlock the combination.
The door is unlocked in seconds - it hasn’t been that long since this was an everyday occurrence - and Danny sluggishly uncurls himself before sliding out of his locker. Tucker doesn’t wait for him to have both feet on the ground, babbling on about something that he’s programmed on his PDA. Danny looks over Tucker’s shoulder, nodding and humming noncommittally as Tuck explains the features.
He doesn’t get a reprieve from the onslaught of technical jargon until Sam finally shows up. She wastes no time in getting down to business. “Okay, so obviously something’s been going on for so many ghosts to show up. And the same ones every night. I swear, if I have to deal with the Box Ghost telling me to ‘beware’ one more time I’m going to throw him into the nearest ball pit.”
Tucker jumps in. “We’ve seen the most activity around Axion Labs, but there’s also been some spike in activity around the Nasty Burger. I vote that we check things out over there first,” he adds with a huge grin.
“Wherever you guys think we should start,” Danny says wearily. Sam gives him a look, and he gets the feeling that she’s about to call him out. He straightens his posture. “Nasty Burger is as good a place as any,” he continues, a little more assertively. “We can head over there after school.”
The warning bell cuts their conversation short and the three speedwalk towards their classes without so much as a “see ya.” Unfortunately for Danny, his class is farther than either one of theirs, and his pace quickly starts to flag. It’s another minute after the late bell before he finally manages to drag his feet through the door.
“Nice of you to finally join us, Mr. Fenton,” Mr. Lancer deadpans as Danny slouches into his seat. “I do hope that you had time in your busy schedule to complete the homework I assigned as well.”
“You have an awful lot of time in your schedule to pick on your students instead of teaching them,” Danny sasses back, eyes fixed on his desk. The shocked silence that follows makes him realize that he had probably said that louder than intended. A peek at Mr. Lancer confirms this.
Mr. Lancer looks taken aback, but he quickly recovers his authority. “That will earn you a detention, Mr. Fenton. My room after school - and I had better see you catching up on your late work while you’re here.”
Danny bites his tongue to stop himself from protesting. Mr. Lancer’s glare is angry enough already; arguing won’t get him anywhere. He may as well suck it up and do the detention. It’ll be an excuse to put off ghost hunting for a while at least, and Lancer is right - it gives him a chance to catch up on his missed work.
Or so he thinks. As the class drags on he feels steadily worse and worse, which he hadn’t thought physically possible. The throbbing ache that starts at the base of his skull and spreads to his shoulders and back is only compounded by having to slog through the literary devices of a book he hasn’t read.
By the end of the period Danny wants nothing more than to pass out and sleep for five days. He’s made up his mind that he won’t be going to detention or the Nasty Burger this afternoon; even he’s self-aware enough to know that he’ll only be a target in this condition.
As everyone else pushes to leave the room, Danny approaches Mr. Lancer’s desk. The teacher looks up at him, marking his place in his book. “What do you need, Mr. Fenton?” Danny picks up on the tightness in his voice. The guy’s probably still pissed at the remark he’d made earlier. Still, Mr. Lancer’s expression is neutral and open. It’s something that Danny has come to appreciate; unlike a lot of other teachers he’s had, Mr. Lancer gives a lot of second chances. More than Danny would have given in his position, probably.
“Mr. Lancer,” Danny begins sheepishly, “I’m really sorry about what I said earlier. I wasn’t thinking and - and I just really don’t feel well. Could I please do my detention another day? I don’t feel up to staying after today.”
Mr. Lancer’s eyes harden before he’s even finished speaking. “That’s no excuse for being rude, Mr. Fenton. Half the school is fighting off colds right now, but you don’t see anyone else talking back, or at least I would hope you don’t. And doing something that you’d rather not is the entire point of a punishment, in case you’d forgotten.”
Danny’s face falls. “So it’s not possible to reschedule - “
“You can either do it today or all next week. Do I make myself clear?” It’s clear that Mr. Lancer is deadly serious. As much as Danny desperately wants to accept that trade-off, he knows that he can’t. There will definitely be ghosts to deal with next week. If he’s stuck sitting in detention, they’ll be free to wreak havoc or else they’ll come and threaten the school, neither of which is something he wants to deal with.
“Got it, sir,” he mumbles. He’s turning to go when the bell for second period rings, and he groans to himself. “Great.”
To his surprise, Mr. Lancer slides a hall pass over his desk. “Hurry along,” he says, already looking back down at his book.
“Thanks.” Gratitude spurs him to get there as fast as he can, but he knows that he’s in for an agonizing rest of the day.
-----
Mr. Lancer frowns to himself, lost in thought about the events of first period. Danny Fenton’s accusation had some truth to it. He did tend to call out students publicly, and he knew that it went a little bit far sometimes. But he’d never considered the fact that it might be having a negative impact on his ability to teach.
He was tempted to brush it off as a harsh remark made in a heated moment, and Danny’s apology afterwards had seemed genuine. Still, comments like that didn’t come from out of nowhere.
It was possible that Danny had lashed out because he was so frequently the subject of Mr. Lancer’s call-outs. It was something that Mr. Lancer couldn’t quite figure out. His previous teachers had described him as a decent student - not great, perhaps, but well-behaved and with a strong work ethic. At the beginning of the year, Mr. Lancer would have agreed with that assessment.
But early on, Danny seemed to slip. Ever since the incident with the meat in the teachers’ lounge, he had started to build up more of a permanent record. He was often tardy to class, and grading Danny’s homework felt like a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence akin to watching a solar eclipse.
Mr. Lancer had been teaching for long enough to know that there was a reason behind the change, but he couldn’t exactly go digging into a student’s private life, even with the intent to help. Besides, he felt that whatever it was couldn’t be so terrible. Danny always seemed at ease hanging out with Tucker Foley and Sam Manson. Mr. Lancer had always seen kids in bad situations withdraw completely. If there was a problem, Danny’s friends were probably more equipped to handle it than Mr. Lancer was.
He reaches this conclusion just as Danny walks in, dropping into the chair nearest the door.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Fenton,” he greets the student. “You have your book with you, I hope?”
Danny only nods in response, pulling it out of his backpack and resting his chin in his hand as he starts reading - from the very first page, Mr. Lancer notes in resigned disappointment.
The room is utterly silent for a while. Too silent, Mr. Lancer realizes. The sound of pages turning ceased several minutes ago. He scowls when he realizes that Danny’s eyes are closed and his heads droops forward slightly.
“Mr. Fenton,” he barks, “I know for a fact that you are not reading with your eyes closed.” Danny doesn’t stir. This concerns Mr. Lancer. As careless as Danny has been for the rules, he tends to become compliant as soon as the faculty becomes involved. Blatant ignorance isn’t like him at all.
Mr. Lancer moves to nudge him. “Mr. Fenton,” he begins, placing a hand on Danny’s shoulder. His eyes widen when he does do. “Fever 1776!” he exclaims, louder than he’d intended to. Danny’s eyes fly open and he jerks into a sitting position, scrambling to get his bearings and shooting Mr. Lancer a nervous look.
Mr. Lancer sits in the chair opposite Danny and places a hand over the open book to prevent him from trying to read it. “Danny,” he says gently, “you’re in no condition to do anything but rest at the moment.”
Danny blinks at him uncertainly. “But earlier you said-”
“I know, and I apologize. I didn’t realize at the time how sick you were. As it stands, I will not compel you to remain here for detention.” Relief is plain on Danny’s flushed face. “Do you have a ride home?”
His movements are shaky as he packs up his backpack. “I can call my parents from the office.”
Mr. Lancer nods. “And Danny? I don’t expect to see you back in school until you’ve recovered. Don’t stress about completing your work, either. You can come back and talk to me about extensions.” The last thing he wanted was to send Danny home only for him to slave over a week of missed work. His health should come first.
Danny shoots him a surprised glance. “Thanks, Mr. Lancer. I appreciate it.”
“Of course. I’ll walk you to the office.” Danny seems steady enough on his feet, but Mr. Lancer hovers behind him just in case. A fever like that could easily spike and send him sprawling in the hallway.
The secretary looks up as Danny enters. She immediately takes in his appearance - pale and a little out of it - and reaches for the phone. “You need me to call your parents, hon?” Danny nods and lowers himself into a chair, hugging his backpack to his chest.
Mr. Lancer lays a hand on his shoulder. “Will you be all right from here?” Danny turns to look at him, and pity claws at Mr. Lancer when he notices the purple circles under his eyes - has he even been sleeping?
“Yeah. Thanks.” Despite the short answer, Danny’s tired smile gives Mr. Lancer the feeling that he was able to help. He hopes that, once Danny is back in school, he’ll be more comfortable approaching Mr. Lancer for help in the future. That’s all he wants to do, really.
@carnivoroussquirrel It’s done!! ^_^ I hope you like it, I had a lot of fun writing it. (Sorry it took so long! <’:)
(Also posted to my AO3 here.)
The fight was going well right up until a druid blasted Lance in the face.
Lance has just enough time to think, <em>Oh, quiznak,”</em> before he’s knocked flat on his back by the druid’s magic. It takes him a second to get his bearings, but he manages to sit up, feeling around blindly for his bayard. He blinks to clear his blurred vision, but it doesn’t help; in fact, a stinging sensation begins to assault his eyes and Lance paws at his face, his bayard forgotten.
The sting worsens into a full-on burning, causing Lance to whimper in pain and uncertainty. He rubs his eyes harder and they begin to water. Lance can’t tell if he’s crying. Right now he doesn’t care. He just wants it to stop.
He forgets that he was in the middle of a battle until the other paladins find him, damp face nestled in his arms.
-----
“Lance, you doing okay, buddy?” Hunk asks over the comms.
“Yeah, I’m good,” comes the reply.
He at least <em>sounds</em> okay, Shiro thinks, but he’s afraid of what shape Lance will be in once they make it back to the castle. Being hit point-blank in the face by a druid can’t have a good outcome.
“You’re sure?” he probes. Not like there’s anything they could do if he wasn’t, but at least then they’d know.
“Yeah, it’s just… my eyes. Blue’s fine on autopilot, though. Don’t worry about me.”
The silence that follows is filled to the brim with worry.
-----
Coran frowns as he peers at Lance’s eyes, holding the young paladin in place with a firm hand cupped around his jaw.
The others are all telling Lance that he looks okay, but he’s struggling not to blink furiously as Coran examines him. The burning sensation grows more and more unbearable by the second.
Finally, Coran releases him, and Lance closes his eyes gratefully, burying his face in his hands. The relief is minimal as he feels his eyes twitch uncomfortably under their lids, but it’s far better than nothing.
“I don’t think we have reason to be alarmed,” Coran was saying. “I’ll need to look him over more thoroughly, but since nothing looks noticeably damaged I think that there’s a good chance I’ll be able to fix this.”
“How long will that take?” Shiro asks.
“It’s impossible to say right now,” Coran admits. “We still don’t know exactly what sort of spell we’re dealing with.”
“So you’re saying he’s stuck like this until further notice,” Keith mutters.
“I’m saying it’s inconclusive at the moment,” Coran replies evenly. “Now, why don’t you all make yourselves scarce. It will be far easier to work without you all crowding us.”
The other paladins and Allura obediently file out, leaving Coran alone with the blue paladin. Coran gives him a gentle tap on the shoulder. “Lance, I need you to look up, my boy.”
Lance does so, a grimace twisting his features as he struggling to blink away the blurriness clouding his vision. It has little effect and he quickly gives up trying.
“Tell me again what your symptoms are.” Lance can vaguely make out Coran picking up some sort of instrument.
“Um, my eyes feel like they’re burning, and I sort of thought they were dry, but earlier they were watering like crazy. And my vision’s foggy.” With this last development, it occurs to Lance that he might be in danger of going blind. That would end his time in Voltron for sure - what use would a blind sharpshooter be?
Coran hums thoughtfully, and the rest of the tests are conducted in silence. Lance is lost in a whirlpool of imagined scenarios, each one more bleak than the last. Being kicked out of Voltron, being left alone on some planet, hurting one of the others by accident… Coran’s voice is what finally snaps him out of it. Belatedly he realizes that his thoughts have at least kept his mind off the burning, but this only makes the sensation return with a vengeance.
“The spell used on you appears to be some form of anti-water magic, causing your eyes to lose their ability to hold moisture. I don’t know exactly what this might entail with regards to human biology, but an antidote should be simple enough to create. Some form of concentrated water magic should do the trick.”
“Am I going to go blind?” Lance asks in a small voice.
Coran tips his head to the side, weighing his answer carefully as he meets the blue paladin’s damaged eyes. “I don’t think so,” he says cautiously. “Again, I know very little of human biology, so I can’t tell you the long-term effects of having your eyes in this state. However, I have seen blinding spells used by druids before, and those spells all worked instantaneously to render their victims sightless. If that was their intention for you, they would have simply used that spell instead. And I promise you that Allura and I will work as quickly as possible to develop a remedy.”
Lance nods, his shoulders relaxing as he sighs heavily. “Thanks, Coran,” he manages. “I… I really needed to hear that.”
A warm hand clasps his shoulder. “Of course, my boy.” Lance can hear the gentle smile in Coran’s voice. “Do you need help getting back to your room?”
Lance nods, a little ashamed of himself. “Yeah. I don’t think I’ll be able to see where I’m going.”
“Not a problem.” Once Lance is standing, Coran lays a hand on his shoulder and guides his from behind, careful to match Lance’s pace, until they reach his room.
With the blue paladin is stationed safely in bed, Coran nods to himself, already imagining what materials he and Allura might need. He wastes no time in going to find her; they’re going to be in for an all-nighter.
-----
Lance wakes up the next morning to find tear tracks cascading down his cheeks. He wipes them away in annoyance as he sits up in bed. Logically, he would think that the tears being forced out of his eyes would at least offer some relief for the irritation. Then again, he knows nothing about magic.
Lance gets dressed and heads to the dining hall, preparing to blink his way through a blurry breakfast. He can feel the other paladins shooting occasional glances his way, but his relative normalcy seems to reassure them, and the group’s strained chatter becomes more comfortable.
“All right, everyone,” Shiro announces as they finish up, “we’re going to be working on combat today. We’ll get started in five minutes.” The team disperses rapidly, not wanting to get caught on the wrong side of five.
Thankfully, no one says anything when Lance does exactly that. It had taken him far longer than it should have to find his bayard, but the combination of his injured eyes and his helmet’s visor had greatly reduced his eyesight. Lance was wondering how he would even manage to get through training.
Shiro addresses the assembled group. “We’ll warm up with hand-to-hand before we do anything too crazy. Hunk, you’re with me. Keith, you’re with Lance. Pidge, you’ll switch out with someone after the first round.” Lance nods and faces Keith, putting his arms up in a defensive stance. The red paladin follows suit, eyes narrowed as he studies Lance.
Keith strikes first, and Lance is barely able to get an arm up in time to block him. Keith continues with a relentless barrage of punches; Lance isn’t able to get any hits in, but he’s able to block Keith pretty well. The fight stays pretty even until Keith suddenly aims a kick at his side. Lance flinches when it connects. Out of nowhere, Lance’s eyes throb harshly and begin to well up with tears. He hisses between clenched teeth and takes a few steps back from the fight. “Stop - stop, I need a minute.”
“Oh, come on, Lance, I didn’t even kick you that hard,” Keith protests, exasperated. The irritated look on his face quickly shifts to one of guilt when Lance pulls off his helmet, swiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Oh - quiznak, are you crying? I didn’t mean - Lance-” Keith’s almost panicked voice surprises him. He squints at Keith in confusion, eyes still watering uncontrollably, as the rest of the team hurries over to the two of them.
“It’s alright, Lance,” Shiro tries, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re injured.”
“Yeah, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Keith tries, still seeming uncertain of himself.
“Woah, woah, guys -” Lance waves a hand through the air, trying to cut off the cacophony of their consolations. “It’s fine, I’m okay. It’s… this just happens. From the stupid druid magic.”
Awkwardness trickles in as the others realize what had just happened.
“Well, good,” Hunk finally says, a little too loudly.
“I take it back, then. You messed up real bad,” Keith says drily. Both Lance and Pidge give identical incredulous snorts at his poor attempt at a joke.
“Well, at least I know when I’m supposed to say ‘Tron,’ unlike someone here,” Lance fires back, thumbing away the last remaining drops from his face. “Who messed up then?” Keith only rolls his eyes.
Pidge takes control of the conversation. “Okay, so, clearly training isn’t gonna work out for Lance today if his eyes are acting up. I say we all start working on less intense stuff that still needs doing. That way, we’re still being productive and Allura won’t kick our butts.”
“Like what?” Hunk asks.
She shrugs. “We could clean our lions.”
Keith pulls a face, but Lance nods. “That would work. There’s a lot of stuff in the castle that we could clean, actually.”
“So we’re agreed?” Shiro puts the question to the group. Looking around to see everyone nodding, he returns the gesture. “Fine. Take your suits off and start looking for the sponges.”
Lance grins as the paladins split up. “Bet I can clean the most things.”
Hearing Keith predictably rise to the bait and Pidge start on about how ‘things’ should be measured in surface area warms him inside. Lance knows that they’ll stick by him no matter what happens.
@sad--ghost--kid I finished your prompt!! :D I hope you like 2600 words of hurt and minimal comfort. (This is actually pretty unusual for me since I lean towards comfort but I really had a lot of fun with this.) I hope you enjoy it!
Prompt: “danny breaks his arm in a ghost fight, and even though he can reset the bones with intangibility, and has fast healing (at least as i hc it), it will still take a few days for his arm to fully heal. how does he handle school the next day? hopefully it’s cold enough that he can wear long sleeves to cover the bruises, but that’s only one aspect of many regarding hiding a broken arm that doesnt even have a cast ;)”
Danny’s always been a pretty smart kid. He’s followed the rules, kept himself safe. He doesn’t run on wet floors. He looks both ways before crossing the street. He wears his helmet when he rides his scooter.
Unfortunately for him, he probably should have been wearing more than that.
He’s not sure at first what it is that makes him fly off of his scooter, but the chances are good that it’s another ghost. He’s actually relatively calm in the moments between when he’s knocked aside and when he hits the ground. There’s no reason to believe that this should be anything other than a routine battle. And then-
crRACK.
The sound Danny makes when he hits the pavement is somewhere between a gasp, a wheeze, and a whimper. Hot pain flares along the length of his left arm, with the worst concentrated just below his shoulder. Tears fill his eyes and he focuses on blinking them away, so much so that it takes him some time to realize that he’s been holding his breath.
His subsequent attempts to breathe evenly are cut short by a blow to the face that leaves a deep gash across his cheek. Danny jerks his head sharply away and scrabbles backwards, slowed by the fact that his injured arm is cradled tightly against his body.
Once he’s put some distance between them, Danny is finally able to get a good look at his attacker. He feels the smallest pinprick of relief that it’s not one of his more powerful enemies, just a mook, but he’s still on guard - the big bad could still be somewhere nearby. As it is, what he’s facing down now looking to be some sort of ghostly… buffalo? He doesn’t know. He got a C in Biology.
Well, whatever it is, the thing is pawing the ground with its razor-sharp hooves like it’s ready to charge. Danny’s going to have to transform, despite the throbbing in his arm.
He closes his eyes and breathes as deeply as he can. “I’m going ghost,” he murmurs, more to get himself in the right frame of mind than anything else. It takes an immense amount of willpower, but he forces his thoughts to the transformation.
The relief that comes once he’s transformed is immediate; the searing pain is replaced with a cool, tingly sensation. A cocky grin crosses his face. “Time to put you out to pasture,” he taunts, a plan already forming in his mind. He stares the ghost down, crouching as if prepared to wrestle with it.
The ghost’s red eyes narrow and it snorts angrily before leaping into a charge. The speed takes Danny by surprise, but he holds his ground as the specter bears down on him. He waits… waits…
And at the last second, he goes intangible. The buffalo doesn’t have enough time to stop - instead, it crashes headfirst into the wall behind Danny. He wastes no time in uncapping the Fenton Thermos and pointing it at the dazed ghost.
He races to come up with a witty send-off as the buffalo is absorbed into the Thermos. All that he manages is “Bye, son.” He winces at his own joke - even he knows that was bad. Are bison and buffaloes even the same thing?
He should have saved the pasture joke for the end. Now that one was good.
Reluctantly, Danny turns his mind from the puns. He has a more pressing issue to deal with. How, he’s not sure, but he can’t exactly waltz home with a broken arm.
Is it even broken? He hopes not, but given the pain that he was in earlier… On a whim, Danny lets his injured left arm go intangible.
Shit. Shit. That’s definitely broken. He squeezes his eyes shut and inhales shakily, desperate to get ahold of himself.
Okay. He’s gonna have to deal with this no matter what.
Danny tries to mentally detach himself when he opens his eyes again to get a better look at the fracture. It looks like a pretty clean break, at least, and the bone isn’t sticking out of his skin. A closer inspection reveals that there are a few fragments of bone floating freely. Danny figures that he should try to remove those first.
Very carefully, Danny reaches into the intangible arm and closes his fingers around a sliver of bone, extracting it easily. He stares at the tiny white chip in his palm, smaller than a dime, with morbid fascination. I just pulled this out of my own body.
Not sure what else to do with it, Danny lets it drop to the ground and goes back in for the next one. He falls into a surprisingly easy rhythm of removing the fragments, one at a time, one after another.
Eventually, all of the fragments lie piled at his feet, glinting dully in the harsh illumination of a nearby streetlight. There’s no ignoring it now, Danny knows. He’s going to have to deal with the real problem.
His upper arm bone - the humerus? - is jaggedly split a little below the shoulder joint. The two pieces are unaligned; the one connected to his elbow seems to be pointed too low.
Danny hesitates, then closes his eyes and gives the displaced bone an experimental tug. The sensation that results certainly isn’t pleasant, but it’s not quite painful, either. He can only describe it is a stretching sort of feeling, as if his muscles are slowly catching up with the bone that they’re attached to.
Time crawls by as Danny resets the bone, inch by inch. He keeps his eyes shut tight, going by feel instead of sight, forced to wait longer and longer periods of time for the muscles to match the bone. Soreness creeps into his arm despite the natural anesthesia that his ghost form seems to provide, and he dreads the agony that he knows he’ll be in once he switches back.
At long last, the edges of the snapped bones grind together. Danny opens his eyes and peeks at his arm, sighing in relief when he sees that the bones appear relatively normal. He would have appreciated a diagram to be sure, but he’s working with what he has. Which is nothing.
Only now that he’s finished setting the bone does Danny realize that he’s quaking with anxiety. He lets his broken arm return to its tangible form and lowers himself to sit on the curb, in desperate need of a chance to process the night’s events. His mind drifts to other things - how late it is, the homework that he still has to do, doesn’t he have a test coming up this week? - so that when he transforms back he does so without thinking about it.
This was a mistake.
The scorching, sickening ache tears through him anew, just as intense as the initial impact had been. Danny bites his lip to stop himself from screaming, so hard that the skin splits under his teeth and blood rolls down his chin. Nausea roils within his stomach and he tucks his head between his knees, frantically dragging air through his nose as his entire body tenses up.
Danny becomes acutely aware of the pounding of blood through his veins, almost deafening in the silence of the night. He latches onto it, grounding himself with the constant thump, thump, thump until it fades away. The pain lessens alongside it - not by much, but enough to be bearable.
Danny wipes the blood off of his chin with his shirt sleeve, wincing a bit when he presses the still-fresh wound against his teeth. He stands up decisively, glad to find that he’s much steadier on his feet than he would have predicted when he leans down to retrieve his scooter using his good arm.
As he sets off for home, pulling the scooter along behind him, it occurs to him that he’d been in the beam of a streetlight the entire time. It’s a real stroke of luck that no one had walked by and witnessed all that; he’ll have to be more careful in the future.
It takes him longer than he would have liked to walk the last block home, but on the upside, the house is dark and no one bothers Danny on his way upstairs, not even Jazz. It’s an absolute relief. He’s bone-tired and not in the mood to be interrogated, and he definitely doesn’t have enough of his wits about him to make up an excuse for a broken freaking arm.
Danny melts into bed without bothering to shower or change into his pajamas. His broken arm forces him to lie uncomfortably on his right side, with his injured arm tucked tightly against his body. It’s a completely unnatural position, and despite his exhaustion it takes Danny at least an hour before he finally is able to acquiesce to sleep.
-----
Danny feels like roadkill when he wakes up the next morning. His left arm is the worst of it, but the rest of him is stiff and achy from the awkward sleeping position. On top of that, he’s just plain tired. It’s as if he hasn’t slept at all.
He slides out of bed and stumbles to the bathroom in a daze. His face reflected in the mirror is a miserable sight - he’s pale and drawn, and the bags under his eyes are so swollen and blue that they look like bruises. His lower lip is crusted by a messy scab, which he cautiously probes at with his tongue. The only good thing that he can say for himself is that the cut across his face is completely healed.
The rest of him doesn’t look much better. A dark streak of dried blood stains the right shoulder of his shirt, which is torn in various places from the brawl the night before. He catches sight of a dark shadow underneath his left sleeve and rolls it up, apprehensive.
A mottled mosaic of bruising in various shades of yellow, purple, and black covers a huge portion of Danny’s shoulder. He runs his fingers over the area as lightly as he can, wincing when he notices the swelling.
Danny pulls the sleeve back down. He knows that he’ll need long sleeves to hide it, but there’s no way he’s lifting his arms up to change his shirt.
It takes him a while rooting around his room with one arm to find his red hoodie, and even longer to pull it ever so gently over his injured arm. The hoodie is old and a little small, and for a minute or so Danny thinks that it won’t fit over the swollen shoulder, but finally he prevails. Once the hoodie is zipped up, the injury is well hidden.
Danny zeros in on the medicine cabinet once he gets downstairs, intent on a pain reliever. There is no way he can make it through the day without one. He’s focused enough that he doesn’t notice when Jazz comes up behind him.
“Danny?” She places a tentative hand on his shoulder - the wrong shoulder. Danny flinches away from her.
“Don’t touch,” he snaps, more sharply than he means to. Jazz obligingly draws her hand back, concern painting her face.
“Danny, you look awful. You should be in bed. Did you check your temperature? If it’s more than a hundred it’s an excused absence.
It takes a second for Danny to understand the situation. “Umm…” he stalls, mind whirring. Then it clicks. “Uh, yeah, I did, it’s only ninety-nine. Point four. Um. And I have a test today… English test. You know how Lancer is, just won’t let up on us hardworking students!”
It’s a total lie, and Danny worries that his rambling cover-up will make his sister suspicious. Luckily, she seems to chalk it up to his supposed illness.
“Okay, okay, if you say so,” she relents. “But if you get worse you need to go to the nurse so she can send you home. And here, take these. They work best for me.” She grabs a box from the cabinet and sets it on the counter in front of him.
Danny deflates when he realizes that it’s cold medicine, not a pain reliever, but he knows Jazz isn’t going to let him back out of this unless he comes clean. He scarfs down a granola bar and mentally crosses his fingers before taking a small dose, hoping that it won’t have any adverse effect.
“I can drive you,” Jazz calls from the door. “I’ll be in the car when you’re ready.” The door slams behind her.
Danny doesn’t bother trying to get his injured arm through the backpack strap as he walks out the door.
-----
The cold medicine doesn’t kill him, at least, but it does make him very, very drowsy. As hard as he tries to pay attention, he finds himself nodding off, his head pillowed on his good arm. To his tired gratitude, his teachers all let it slide. Even Lancer, after an appraising look at his wan face, ghosts a comforting hand over Danny’s shoulder. “You can make this up another time,” he whispers. “Do you want to go to the nurse and take some medication?”
“I already did,” he mutters. It’s not technically a lie.
Mr. Lancer’s concerned look doesn’t lift, but he doesn’t press the issue, moving down the aisle to pass out the rest of the tests.
Danny’s sleep is fitful, disrupted by the sharp ache of his arm, which the meds haven’t made a dent in, and the noise of the students around him. He stumbles to each class more tired and disoriented than the time before. It’s a miracle he doesn’t get lost before his last period - gym class.
That miracle comes in the form of Sam, who carefully grabs Danny’s good arm and steers him towards the boys’ locker room before peeling off to go to her own. Vaguely, he recollects filling in her and Tucker on the details of last night and that morning.
Tucker finds Danny staring dully at his locker, groping for the combination to open it. “It’s all good, Danny, I talked to coach, he says you don’t have to participate. Honestly, all of the teachers know already, I’m surprised they haven’t sent you home yet.”
He gets the gist of what Tucker says to him. After his friend changes into his gym uniform, Danny lets Tucker lead him into the gym and to the wall. He immediately slumps against it, tilting his head back and drifting once again into a doze.
The class has hardly started when Dash’s voice rings out above the clattering din of the gym. “Looks like Fenton caught a cold. But can he catch this?”
Catch what? Danny forces his eyes open, but he’s too groggy to move, not even after he sees the football spiraling through the air toward him.
Yet another mistake in a long line of them.
The point of the football connects with the break in his bone. With sickening clarity, Danny feels it displace for the second time in as many days. A choked sob escapes him, and his eyes swim with tears. This time they fall, tracking freely down both sides of his face. His jaw clenches and his teeth slice open the cut they made last night. It’s all too much at once.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Dash!?” Sam’s voice, deep and throaty and fierce, like it gets only when she’s worried about something. About him.
Danny comes the the hazy realization that he’s balled up, lying facedown on the gym floor and cradling his abused arm. As black spots dance in front of his eyes, his pain and misery fade into relief.
At least I won’t have to hide it anymore, he thinks, before passing out cold.
Will you do Danny & Dash #30 for the cuddles prompts? Preferably not romantic, but I'm certainly not going to complain if that's where you really want to take the prompt. ^_^
#30: Out of necessity (trapped in a small space, etc.) (from here)
Thanks for the request, anon! :D
@everyone else who has given me requests, I am working on them! It’s a bit slow at the moment because school decided it wanted to kill me this year but I do plan on finishing all of them.
I do want to say that there’s kind of an abuse mention, but it’s really only one throwaway line, nothing graphic at all. Still, if you’d rather not read it, that’s cool.
The last thing that Dash had expected to find himself doing today was cradling Danny Fenton in his lap. But here he was.
It had all started with the ghost attack. It’s not like it came as a complete surprise. There were ghost sightings every day in Amity Park. It was just a thing people expected now; smaller ones weren’t even covered on the local news station anymore. But this attack was on another level. It was brutal, more terrifyingly brutal than any other up until now.
It had started so suddenly, too. Ghosts had phased through every single wall, oozing into the school like so much floodwater. Screams echoed through the halls as kids ran to escape. Dash winces at the memory of Kwan’s panicked shout when a ghost had plucked him right off his feet and whisked him away.
There was nothing Dash could have done to help Kwan. He knew that. But guilt had torn a hole in him regardless. Maybe that was why he had stopped to help Fenton.
The guy must have gotten separated from his nerd friends in the chaos, because it was the first time Dash had ever seen him without Foley and the goth girl on either side. Fenton had been sprawled out on the floor, teeth gritted, his right leg clearly useless. His pained expression just so happened to fall on Dash. Without a word, the jock had knelt down and dragged the both of them under a nearby lunch table.
It had come as a shock when Fenton had wrapped his arms around Dash’s neck. Instinctively, he’d stiffened and tried to squirm away from the unexpected touch. It was only a natural response when he rarely had the luxury of gentle contact - football or elsewhere. But slowly, Dash relaxed. The space under the lunch table was cramped, so they couldn’t exactly spread out, and Danny was clearly in pain. The younger boy had buried his face in Dash’s shoulder and had the fabric of Dash’s shirt clutched in both hands.
His first thought was that he didn’t want Fenton’s tears and snot all over his jacket, but he didn’t have the heart to shove Danny away when he remembered the time freshman year that he had dislocated his shoulder during football practice and Kwan had let Dash sob disgustingly all over him until the ambulance arrived to take him away.
Kwan…
Dash let Danny Fenton cry into his jacket, for Kwan.
So after all that, here Dash was, returning Danny’s desperate embrace, both of them searching for some small comfort in the thick of what was most definitely the worst day of either of their lives.
Dash was acutely aware of each and every one of Danny’s shuddery breaths, the quiet whimpers as he tried to work through whatever pain his leg was causing him. As tightly as Danny was holding onto him, Dash could tell that his grip was pathetically weak compared to Dash’s strength. What Danny did with his spare time, Dash had no idea, but it certainly wasn’t lifting weights.
But anyway, Dash pulled him just a bit closer to make up for it.
Dash had closed his eyes and, somehow, nearly drifted off into an uneasy sleep before he was yanked back into reality by someone croaking his name.
“Dash.”
Danny’s voice was barely audible over the sound of the ghost takeover. His tear-streaked face made Dash’s heart twist with sympathy.
“What’s up, Fen-toast?” he asks in a dull voice, lacking any of the usual mockery.
Miraculously, Danny’s mouth curls into a bitter grin at the nickname. “Can you help me stand?”
Dash doesn’t think he’s heard right. “Are you crazy? You’d die out there in two seconds flat.”
The look Danny gives him is more intense than he was expecting. “I can put an end to this. Help me out. Please.”
So Dash does. He wriggles out of the little alcove, mindful of Danny’s leg, and works the both of them into a position where he’s supporting most of the weight on Danny’s right side. Danny hisses in pain when they move as one into a standing position, but stays on his feet.
“Now what?”
“I’m going ghost.”
Dash snaps his head sharply in Danny’s direction at that quiet, determined statement, just in time to see him transform.
And now he’s not keeping the weight off of Danny’s injured leg, because Danny has no legs.
Dash can only watch in awe as Danny Phantom floats high above him, emitting a high-pitched wail that sends all the ghosts in the room tumbling head over wispy tail. The pieces fall into place one by one - this nerd that Dash has been tormenting all year has been protecting him, all of them, has been Dash’s hero, even.
And looking at the carnage around him, Dash doesn’t know if he’ll be able to pull through this time. Not with this many enemies to take down, coming in from every direction. But he’ll sure as hell try, Dash knows that much. He leans down to pick up a fallen textbook, thick and very, very swingable.
