Title: Aftermath of the Fake-Out Make Out
Author: Ayaia of the Moon
Fandom: Danny Phantom-half kid, half ghost; all fabulous.
Wordcount: 627
Taunt: My phandom is half-ghost! And it has a cooler logo than your fandom!
-o-
“Jeez. Lighten up, would you? So she kissed you. Big deal!”
“Way to be supportive of my problem.”
“What problem? There’s never a problem when there’s been kissing involved! I thought you liked her!”
Danny blushed. “I…I don’t!”
Tucker smiled in an annoying, know-it-all kind of way. “Right. So what is the problem? Was it a bad kiss?”
If possible, Danny blushed brighter. “It was fine, I guess,” he mumbled.
Tucker’s annoying, know-it-all smile got bigger. “Wait. Wait. It was your first kiss. That’s it, isn’t it? She was your first kiss!” he crowed triumphantly. A beat. “So…why are you upset that she was your first kiss?”
Danny was frowning, now, but the blush hadn’t gone away.
Tucker pinched Danny’s cheek. “Aww…that’s…that’s cute.”
Danny swatted him away, burying his burning face in his arms, slumping to the table. “Let’s just drop it.” The request was muffled, but spoken loud enough so as to be understood.
“You’re the one who brought it up,” Tucker tried to keep the smirk out of his voice. He really did.
“So now I’m saying forget it, all right?” Danny raised his head enough that his face was visible. He wasn’t smiling. Still kinda blushing, though.
“If it wasn’t the kiss, what was it?” Tucker was genuinely curious. Danny, though hesitant, seemed to notice the change in tone and responded slowly.
“It was just…she brushed it off, after.” A half-hearted shrug of his shoulder. He lowered his head slightly into his arms again, now only the top half of his face visible, his mouth mumbling the words as he blushed anew. “It…kinda made me upset, is all.”
Danny was sensitive. Now was the point where Jazz would probably hug him and comfort him to assure him that he was a validated person.
Tucker laughed aloud, not bothering to muffle the sound. “Dude. You know how…girly that sounds, right?”
“Gaaaaaawd, shut up.” Danny buried his glowing face completely in his arms again. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you!”
“Come on! I’m your best friend! It’s my job to give you a hard time. But seriously, a girl you like kissed you! You should be celebrating!” Tucker was confident in the script, now. Danny would stammer disclaimers and when Sam finally got to the lunch table, he’d do something moronic and everything would be fixed.
Tucker was taken aback at the sudden rush of cold he felt. Danny extracted his head from his arms, and he didn’t look so embarrassed anymore. He looked murderous. “It didn’t mean anything to her! And maybe I’m reading too much into it, and apparently that makes me a lesser person, but I’m allowed to be pissed about it if I want to be. If that’s okay with you.”
Tucker did a double take as the last few phrases out of Danny’s mouth were spoken in clouds of foggy breath. Danny, though, took it for what it was-a ghostly presence-and reacted accordingly.
“Damn it.”
Tucker saw, like he always did, the way Danny’s whole demeanor changed. Gone was his blush, his poor posture; he stood up, shoulders tensed, looking around suspiciously to see if the ghost had manifested yet.
“Danny…” Tucker trailed off, registering the look of anger on Danny’s face.
“Whatever. It doesn’t even matter. Cover for me.” In a flash, he’d ducked under the lunch table to do his thing, and disappeared without another word.
A few moments later, Sam joined Tucker, carrying a tray with some wilted lettuce and an orange on it. “Where’s Danny?” she asked conversationally, frowning at the lettuce in distaste and drowning it in Italian dressing packets.
“Ghosting,” Tucker answered absently. The script was the same, and yet…it really wasn’t as much fun as it had been a minute ago.