Work Text:
Ghostly Prize
By Vampyra142001
Beta: Emmalyn
"I want to date you," Dash blurted out.
Phantom froze. He wasn't exactly surprised by the admission; Dash made no secret about his adoration of the hero, though at least he managed it without a creepy shrine like Paulina's. But now Phantom had to say something in reply, and...he wasn't quite sure what to say.
"Why would you want to date a ghost?" was all Phantom could manage without stuttering and stumbling over his words.
"It's that you're a cool person, not that you're a ghost. I mean, I guess that makes you hotter, but it's your personality I like more?" Dash frowned, clearly struggling to turn his thoughts into words. The boy had gotten better with emotional expression after Phantom had confronted him about bullying, about finding better ways to express his emotions than violence.
Humming a thoughtful note, Danny considered his options. Yes, he absolutely had interest in dating the star quarterback, but there were a few large hurdles in the way of something more than their current friendship. Dash knew Phantom, if only to a degree, but the other teen didn't know Fenton at all.
"A question: are you gay?" asked Phantom.
Mr. Popular-All-Star-Jock blushed deep red and rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know? Before you I haven't had a real interest in anyone, not that sort of interest."
That made sense to Danny. Dash and Paulina had never really dated despite being at the same social level. Danny had just figured they were both too high-strung for each other. And Dash had certainly never dated any of the other jocks. He'd never questioned why until now.
Danny, however, knew for a fact that Dash had had a crush on Jazz, but since his sister had turned the football player down flat, it wasn't surprising that Dash didn't bring her up. Then again, maybe he was wrong and Dash had only had interest in his sister because it was expected. Who knew? Feelings were confusing.
"I'm honestly just trying to figure out if I would break your heart later in a relationship," the hero admitted.
Dash frowned deeply again, this time trying to parse what Phantom was implying. "If you're asking whether being a Ken doll or having a squid monster in your pants would be a problem, I don't think so."
The description caught Danny completely off-guard and he couldn't help but laugh. Clearly the other teen had put some thought into theoretical ghost anatomy. It also proved Dash wasn't quite as stupid as Danny had thought, to read between the lines that easily.
"Yes, that is basically where I was going with that," Phantom said with a grin.
Floating up off the ground and shifting his legs into a spectral tail, the hero made it clear that he was getting ready to leave. Or, frankly, he was getting ready to flee.
"I'm going to be honest with you," Danny said. "You don't really know me. I've admitted that I go to your school and I've let you assume that I'm just hiding invisibly, but that's not it. I'm right there in front of you every day. If you can find the human me and don't hate what you find, then I'll let you sweep me off my feet. Deal?" Danny finished before he could talk himself out of it.
Dash swallowed. "I...okay."
With that, Phantom flew off, leaving Dash alone with a million questions.
***
"I don't understand why you'd want to risk it, man. Especially for him," said Tucker, shaking his head.
"Gotta agree with Tucker on this one," Sam said. "I get that you've convinced him to be a little better with the bullying, but that doesn't erase years of being punched and shoved into lockers."
"And eating his underwear."
Danny rolled over on Tucker's bed, his legs going up the wall as he stared upside-down at his friends. The pair of them were sorting and cleaning their ecto-weapons.
"Thanks, Tuck, I love that reminder," Danny grumbled and heaved a heavy sigh. The conversation was going about how he'd expected it to. "I don't know. After a point, when he started bullying me differently from everyone else, it started to feel like that toxic-masculinity 'if he hits you, he likes you' sort of thing."
"Which isn't healthy," reminded Sam.
"Which is why I pushed him to drop the bullying. It's been nice only being hit by ghosts."
"He STILL bullies you, even if he isn't shoving you into lockers or anything anymore."
"It's that continued name-calling that really proves my point, though," said Danny. "He only does it to me. Somehow I don't ever fall off his radar."
"And that's...good?" Tucker asked dubiously.
"No, it's not good," Danny said. "But I mean, last night I asked if he's gay, okay? And he said he didn't know. So he's confused. And for a cis, presumed-straight, white guy, confusion usually translates to frustration and anger." The half-ghost shook his head. "I don't think he's just crushing on Phantom because he's a hero, I think he's crushing on Phantom this hard because he was already crushing on Fenton. It's just more socially acceptable to have a crush on a celebrity of sorts, regardless of gender, than one of the school losers."
"I'm still not following how this translates to it being a good idea to reveal yourself to him, dude."
Danny groaned in frustration and vigorously fluffed his hair. "It's not a good idea, but I've already seen, in realities he doesn't remember, that he can be trusted with my secret. Oddly, most of our classmates can be. Also, I've done the 'single identity dating' thing with Valerie, where someone hates the other half of me, and I don't want to do it again. I want someone to accept the entire me, not just half of me." He glanced at Sam. The goth girl certainly accepted him in his entirety, but they wanted different things long-term, and that just was how it was.
"I see what you're getting at and I still don't think it's the smartest idea, but as long as you're not putting yourself in an abusive relationship, we won't stop you," Sam said with a shrug.
"Sooo…should we take bets on how long it takes Dash to figure out Danny is Phantom?" asked Tucker. He smiled. "I'm putting my money on a week."
***
It had been harder than Dash was willing to admit to not immediately call the rest of the A-listers and gush about Phantom. It was just as hard to keep from trying to cheat to figure out Phantom's other identity. Dash prided himself on always getting what he wanted without cheating. Threatening and bribery, perhaps, but never cheating.
There was also that key bit about Phantom having a human appearance. It was shocking, but explained so much. It explained why the hero could act so normal and not seem like an outsider. But it also explained why Phantom was so good at hiding from ghost hunters like the Guys In White and the Fentons, as they wouldn't think to look for a ghost among the humans.
This was a test. And as much as Dash hated tests, he was determined to ace this one.
***
Monday involved a lot of glaring at other students. Dash had actually grabbed one of the seniors on the basketball team who had green eyes and stared the very confused guy down before letting him go, deciding that the guy was too tall and didn't quite have the right face. Otherwise, the day had been a complete bust.
Tuesday was much the same, minus the "accosting other students" part.
By Wednesday, Dash figured he had looked over every student, and none of them were right! Maybe Phantom's human disguise didn't look like the ghost he knew? That would make the search so much harder; he would either have to look at every student's behavior, or luck into a slip-up.
Idly doodling footballs in the margins of his trigonometry homework, Dash rolled his eyes when Fenton bolted out of the classroom to use the bathroom. None of the teachers fought it at this point. That weirdo couldn't even go two days without ducking out of at least one class with the excuse of needing to use the bathroom. Probably because of eating ectoplasm-tainted food thanks to the kid's even crazier parents. Dash specifically remembered the huge dish of glowing chip dip they'd brought to a potluck. Ew.
A flash of green went past the classroom windows followed by a blur of black and white, drawing half the class out of their seats to watch the fight.
The teachers had long since stopped trying to keep everyone in their seats when this happened. The lesson was paused for as long as the fight went on. In this case, it lasted less than ten minutes.
A short time after class resumed, Fenton came slinking back in and sat down, whispering to his friends.
Dash froze. He looked at the window, the door, and then back at Fenton. Surely not. It couldn't possibly be.
He was so lost in thought that he didn't notice Manson and Foley staring at him.
***
"Dude, he totally looked constipated. If that wasn't a revelation face, then he is too stupid for you," said Tucker between laughs.
"I mean, yeah, he really did look like that," confirmed Sam, no less amused but showing it far more gracefully.
"If that's the case, then that means Tucker has the closest guess," Danny said with strained casualness as he shut his locker. Now was the hard part, waiting for Dash to decide…everything.
"If you try to force us to wear those maid outfits again to clean your room, I will make you eat that feather duster," Sam growled at the other boy.
"Oh, don't worry, I got new outfits for you two, with matching ears."
The goth had just grabbed Tucker by the front of his shirt when a shout rang out down the hall.
"FENTON!"
Danny seized up like a deer in headlights, all-too-used to that yell preceding a beating.
Dash was storming down the hall straight for them, and the rest of the student body parted like a sea. The next thing Danny knew, he'd been flung over Dash's shoulder as the football star carried him off, his friends just looking on with a mixture of amusement and mild concern.
"I didn't mean that literally!" the smaller teen squawked, indignant at having been swept off his feet.
Dash dropped Danny on his butt in the janitor's closet and locked the door behind him. Danny picked himself up off the floor, glowering at the other boy and rubbing his bruised rear.
"Alright, Fenton, spill it," the bulkier teen demanded. "I knew you back in middle school, before Phantom showed up, and you weren't dead then. I've made you bleed since then, too, and ghosts don't bleed red."
With a sweep of white rings, Danny changed into his ghost form and floated up to eye-level with Dash. He at least owed it to the other boy to confirm his identity.
"I'm not dead. Well, not all the way dead. I'm a half-ghost. Have been since my freshman year when I accidentally opened my parents' ghost portal on myself," Danny explained. He shrugged. "What I bleed is directly affected by which form I'm in at the time. Just like it's way easier to hurt me as a human than as a ghost. Your punches wouldn't even make me flinch in this form."
"If you've been Phantom for years, why would you let me continue beating you up?" Dash just sounded sad and very confused now, the anger gone.
"Because who would expect the town hero to be a kid who got shoved in his locker regularly?" said Danny. "Having a bully meant having easy excuses for the injuries I got early on. And if you were hitting me, you weren't focusing on people who couldn't heal like I could."
"That's insane," Dash said flatly.
"So is being caught between life and death and fighting ghosts everyday, but I manage," said Danny with a grin and a shrug.
The star quarterback stared at the grungy floor of the janitor's closet, lost in thought, and Danny let him stew for a while. This was a lot to process, he knew.
After a moment, Danny broke the silence. "The question now is...you found me, so now what?"
Dash looked up at the half-ghost, confused. "What do you mean?"
Danny stared at a spot over Dash's shoulder. "What I mean is, is Phantom still...acceptable...even though he has all the baggage of Fenton? Have you changed your mind now that you know your hero is a loser? You gotta give me something here."
"I don't know," Dash said.
"Tell you what. How about I give you my cell number and we can start there?"
"I think I'd like that."
***
It had been a week, long enough Sam to cool off from Tucker's bet payment. Mostly. Dash had avoided the group completely. No shoulder-checking, no names, no dirty looks. Nothing.
It probably would have unnerved Danny's friends if they hadn't already known what caused the behavior shift. As it was, they weren't the only ones who'd noticed. The rest of the A-Listers were becoming restless as well, seeming to think that the trio of losers had done something to Dash.
Kwan, still ranked lowest of the football players, was the one who eventually approached the losers' table at lunch. "What did you guys say to Dash? You blackmailing him or something?" he asked.
"Quite the opposite. He's figuring some stuff out and we're not about to get in the way of that," Danny said, waving a potato wedge in the vague direction of the rest of the A-Listers.
"If he wants any of you to know, he'll let you know," added Sam. "You aren't getting it out of us."
Frowning, the jock wandered back to the popular table. As they watched, Kwan approached Dash and there was a short but indistinguishable argument, followed by Dash dragging Kwan towards the bathroom by the arm.
Tucker and Sam turned to ask Danny if he was going to follow them, but the boy had already vanished.
Phasing invisibly through the door, Danny caught Kwan nodding sagely and saying 'It's not gay if he's dead' in response to whatever Dash had said before. Danny clamped his hand over his mouth and nose, to prevent any laughter from escaping. People were still on about that? That's not how that worked, but whatever excuse let them sleep at night. Still, it meant that Dash hadn't come to a conclusion yet.
"But- but what if it's more than just Phantom? Like what if there's another guy? A student like us?" questioned Dash, sounding desperate.
"Why would that matter? If Paulina didn't lose status for pursuing Fenton twice, why would you lose status for pursuing a guy?" asked Kwan, with what Danny felt was a shocking amount of insightfulness.
Dash frowned. "It's not like I can just beat somebody up anymore if they decide to give me crap about it."
"Who's going to give you crap about it? The lower classmen don't even mess with Mikey. And everyone in our grade knows better."
"Yeah, I guess." Hugging himself, Dash looked sadly into the bathroom mirror.
Danny took that as his cue to duck out of the conversation and to sneak back to his friends. It was nice to hear that the star quarterback hadn't completely written off his human half.
***
Following a shy text from an unknown number, Phantom flew out to the park to meet up with Dash. It was terrifying knowing how many ways it could go wrong and trusting his old bully to not do any of those things. He settled into the habitual bravado of Phantom as he drifted down to the swingset where Dash was sitting.
"I was half-wondering if you would come," said Dash softly.
"Half-hoping I'd get caught up in a fight so that you would have the chance to second guess my intent?" Danny asked bluntly.
The other teen nodded, not meeting Phantom's glowing eyes.
"You and my friends might think I'm crazy, but I'm definitely not faking interest in you. And I'm not setting you up for some cruel prank to humiliate you at school." Phantom floated down into the next swing over and kicked the ground to start swinging.
"You should be," Dash argued. He sighed, watching the ghost boy amuse himself. "I get that it isn't a good idea...for either of us...for Phantom to be seen dating a human. You're Fenton and I'm okay with that. With…with us being seen together like that."
That wasn't something Danny had expected someone like Dash to have the perception to consider. Honestly, he'd figured the quarterback would just run headlong into things and that he would have to be the one keeping Dash at arm's length for his own safety.
Danny let his swing slow enough for a proper conversation. "Most of the other ghosts wouldn't be a problem. They aren't about taking non-aggressive hostages, with a few exceptions," he said. "It's the humans that would have a problem. The GIW wouldn't have any qualms about kidnapping you for questioning. Or bait." Danny wrinkled his nose in distaste at the underhanded tricks the government agency could and would pull.
Dash nodded. The ghost's explanation was surprising, but when he thought about it, it made sense. Manson and Foley were mostly left alone by Phantom's ghostly opponents, despite being friends with Phantom and playing a part in so many battles.
"So, you're not worried about Fenton trashing your reputation at school?" Danny inquired innocently.
"Um, well, not really? Who's going to do anything about it?"
If Danny hadn't listened in to the conversation with Kwan earlier that day, he might have been a little more impressed with Dash's wording. Still, he was impressed that the jock was willing to risk ridicule for little ol' Fenton.
Danny decided that the star quarterback deserved a reward for such bravery, and floated off his swing to give Dash a peck on the lips.
"Thank you," said Phantom softly.
"For what?" asked Dash, slightly dazed by his hero's cold kiss.
"For being willing to try."
The jock frowned, looking mildly offended. "Be Fenton for a second." Dash waved at Phantom's middle, where the white rings appeared from.
Confused, Danny obliged the other teen, changing forms.
Dash grabbed the back of his head and pulled him into a proper kiss. "Don't act like it's a hardship, Fenturd," he said with a grin.
***
As was expected, most of the school kept their remarks to themselves about Baxter and Fenton becoming an item. And all of the ghosts kept their hands off of Dash.
Naturally, that meant it was only a matter of time before someone had to be a jerk. In this case, it was a blue jerk with stupid hair.
Phantom was having a good time looking across a starry pond in the park with his boyfriend when his ghost sense went off. Then a voice cut through the night, each word dashing through the calm mood.
"I'm not sure if I should be concerned or not. Doesn't he bully you?" mocked Plasmius, though there was a note of something else underneath. He floated well above the pair, whatever evil plans he'd had clearly having been derailed for the time being.
Jumping to his feet, Phantom put himself between Dash and the ghost in white. Glancing between the pair, Dash could figure out pretty easily that this would be one of the 'exceptions' to his safety in a fight.
"Not for quite a while. Not that you'd care," Danny bit out.
"Oh, I assure you, I don't," Plasmius said, amused. "Though I do have to wonder...you dated Valerie as well. Do you enjoy dating people who hit you?"
"Plasmius…" Danny warned, hands glowing as he prepared to launch himself at the man.
The vampire-looking ghost curled his lip in disgust as a thought occurred to him. "Should I be concerned?"
"Vlad! You shut your mouth! Not everyone is as deviant as you!" Phantom dove at Plasmius, flinging ecto-blasts rapidly.
Dash, for all of the rattling his brains had taken during football games, knew when he was thoroughly outclassed and outmatched in a fight. Instead of doing something stupid or even sticking around to parse their argument, the jock opted to retreat. He and Phantom could go stargazing another night.
***
They'd been dating for a few months, and Danny was honestly shocked at how smoothly it was going. Half the drama he had expected just...wasn't there. Was it because he was dating a guy? Was it because everyone was just more grown-up now than they'd been last year? It was baffling, especially given Danny's track record in dating-and even more especially, dating popular people.
It was nice to be able to go places, and hold hands in public, and get normal funny looks cast their way. Nothing to hide, no attempts to measure up to some financial ideology. They could just...be. It did remind Danny of dating Sam, but then again, their romantic relationship hadn't lasted because of their differing life goals, not because they weren't compatible in other ways.
He and Dash had only begun to talk about their life goals, had only just reached the level of comfort where they could consider what they might want together long-term. Danny's first goal was pretty obvious: he wanted to protect Amity Park, since his previous goal of being an astronaut had slipped through his fingers along with his grades. And protecting his hometown meant going to a local college and figuring out what to do as a day job within the area. Danny hadn't settled on what he wanted to do there yet.
Dash's future was a little more ambiguous. As a star football player, the guy had several scholarship offers, both local and across the country, but Dash didn't know what he wanted out of life beyond continuing to do sports. There was a lot that he just didn't have the grades or drive to pursue.
Danny had suggested Dash work towards joining a football team that rivaled the Green Bay Packers. For no particular reason, supposedly. Whatever that non-reason was, it made Fenton grin deviously, eyes glowing.
Currently, the two teens weren't doing anything that had to do with the future. They were wandering through the Farmer's Market, just another couple going shopping on the weekend. Here and there they bought snacks and gawked at the crafts.
As they were getting ready to leave, Danny ducked back towards the tents to get something, leaving Dash next to the fence that made the exit. It took Danny several minutes to return, and when he did, he was holding something behind his back.
"I found something you might want to add to your collection," said Danny, so softly that he couldn't be overheard, knowing that Dash was sensitive about his teddy bears.
Tucked inside the proffered gift bag was a handmade black-and-white teddy bear, clearly styled after the town's hero. It was perfect for his collection.
***
Much later, Dash just stared, opened-mouthed and disbelieving. Danny shifted uncomfortably, trying very hard to restrain the urge to turn invisible and flee.
"Dash? You gotta say something," Phantom near-pleaded.
That snapped Dash out of his stupor. "Sorry, just, I thought I'd hit the jackpot by dating Phantom, you know? I didn't realize how big a jackpot that was," he gushed admiringly. Then he pulled the naked half-ghost into a deep kiss. The kiss didn't stay chaste and their hands began to wander, rediscovering things both familiar...and new.
"You really are the best of both worlds," Dash muttered into Danny's neck, unaware of the happy tears that Phantom couldn't shed.