#for example the street i work on was teargassed a couple nights ago so u know

[reallydumbdannyphantomaus]

Holiday Truce

@ectopal so fucking sorry for the lateness!!! it has been a little wild in my life lately but i did get it done!!! i picked your prompt of dash finds out danny's secret in micromanagement. very sorry if this is not what you were hoping for, but here's what happened :D

“So,” Dash said.

“Uh,” Fenton said.

Dash looked at the shaking nerd in front of him. Fear, he recognized. Fear, he knew. He used it as a weapon, knew how to loom, how to make himself larger and intimidating. Hell, he’d seen it on Fenton plenty of time before.

Except this time Fenton wasn’t afraid of his fists.

“You’re—you’re he? Him?”

“No?”

“Are you lying?”

“... No?”

Dash reached out with a finger and poked Fenton in the shoulder. It was solid. Squishy, but he thought that had more to do with Fenton not being muscular than with him being a ghost. Still, he knew what he saw. This whole time, he’d been shrunk down with Phantom, the cool, brave, awesome hero of Amity Park, the guy he had a poster of in his locker. Then they get unshrunk and Phantom is gone. In his place: Fenton.

Dash wasn’t the best at math, but even he could add this up.

There were thousands of things he could have asked in that moment. Things he’d wanted to say to his hero for years. Thanks for saving us or Can you take me flying? or Can I have your autograph? Instead, what came out was: “So, are you dead?”

Fenton flinched. “No, I—it doesn’t matter. Just—just be quiet, okay?”

“It doesn’t matter?” Dash wanted to thwack himself in the head. He didn’t want to be continuing this line of questioning. Why was his mouth saying this shit?

“Not to you, anyway.” Fenton spoke with such vehemence that all at once Dash was reminded that Fenton being Phantom also meant that Phantom was Fenton. His hero was the same nerd he’d been shoving in lockers since middle school.

“Oh.”

“Look. Just don’t tell anyone, okay? No one would believe you anyway, so just don’t tell anyone.”

“Okay,” Dash said, voice thready and small. What else could he say? Fenton could’ve been kicking his ass all this time, but instead he’d been saving it. If nothing else, Dash could keep a secret.

“Good,” Fenton said, turning to leave.

“Why?”

Fenton stopped without turning around. “Why what?”

“Why don’t you tell people?”

Fenton’s voice was nasal through his sneer. “Try thinking about it. I’m sure the answer will come to you.”

—

The answer did not come to him.

He watched Fenton from a distance, noticed all the signs he dismissed before. Constant bathroom breaks. Bruises in the morning that were gone by the afternoon. Gasps of blue air that always preceded a ghost.

But he never saw why Fenton kept it quiet.

Teachers yelled at him for being late. Other students laughed behind their hands when he fell asleep at his desk. Paulina watched him rush out of class to the “bathroom” and whispered, “He should start wearing a diaper to school if he goes so much.” He tried to chuckle, but all he could manage was the slight curling of his mouth, and even that was strained. Paulina would never say something like that if she knew the truth. Fenton would have so much support from everyone in the school if he would just tell them the truth.

So, yeah. He didn’t get the secrecy.

Fenton, though, had avoided Dash like the plague. He’d never sought Dash’s company out before, but now the sight of Dash’s shadow was enough to have him scampering away. He tried to corner Fenton once, in the janitor’s closet, but forgot about the whole ghost thing. Since there was no one else around to see, Fenton just walked through the back wall, leaving Dash alone with the mops.

What was he supposed to do?

It felt like a secret of this magnitude should change things more. True, he couldn’t bring himself to shove people around anymore (what if some of them were secret heroes, too?) but otherwise, life went on. He went to football practice. He failed his math test. He laughed when Kwan made fun of Lancer’s pants falling down (again).

He stared at Danny Fenton across the cafeteria.

Danny Fenton did not look back.

—

No one in Amity Park liked the Guys in White. They only ever got in the way of Phantom trying to do his job, while being utterly ineffective. Even the Fentons did more to keep the city safe from dangerous ghosts—mostly through supplying anti-ghost tech and not through actual hunting, but it was still more than the GIW ever did.

So when the GIW locked down the school, most everyone rolled their eyes in disgust.

Every once in a while, the GIW had one of these sessions. He wasn’t entirely sure what the point of them was, but it usually involved a bunch of dumb questions about whether they’d talked to any ghosts. Like they were all conspiring against the government with the ghosts, or something.

(Well, he probably would, given the opportunity, but he hadn’t exactly talked to a lot of ghosts who weren’t trying to kill him. The only ghost he knew personally hated being in the same room as him.)

“Have you had any contact with the ghost masquerading as a musician, known as Ember McClain?” The agent in white drummed his fingers on the desk. Dash had the sudden urge to bite his pinky.

Dash furrowed his brow. “I think she is actually a musician, though?”

“What?”

“Ember. She does, actually, like, play guitar and sing. So I think she’s a real musician? Just. You know. A ghostly one.”

The agent leaned into his face. “So you have had contact with her.”

Dash leaned back. “Uh, no? Not since the time she mind controlled a bunch of us. Which I don’t think is my fault.”

“And you haven’t sought her out since?”

“Uh, no. I don’t actually enjoy being mind controlled.”

“Hm. And the menace known as Phantom?”

Dash barely kept his shoulders from tensing. “What about Phantom?”

“Have you contacted him?”

“I mean, he’s saved me a couple times. But he saves everyone.”

The agent snorted. “That’s what the ghosts want you to think, kid. Make no mistake: all ghosts are the same: evil, greedy, and power-hungry. We don’t yet know what Phantom’s true intentions are. It’s our job to get that creature off the streets and into containment, where he belongs.”

Dash was never the smartest person, but sometimes, when all the pieces were in front of him, he could add two and two and get four. He remembered the Fentons echoing the agent in front of him almost word-for-word. Or maybe this agent was echoing them.

Either way, Dash finally knew why Danny Fenton had a secret.

Dash curled his hands into fists. Fenton didn’t want to talk to him; that much was abundantly clear. But Fenton had still saved his life, saved the lives of everyone in the town, the world even. He could do this much for him.

“Look, dude, you think what you want,” Dash said. “I can’t exactly change your mind. Never been good at persuasion. But,” he said, and he stood up, crossing his arms and hooding his eyes, “no one else here believes your bullshit, dude. We know the truth, no matter what you say.”

“Mr. Baxter, the science—”

“I don’t care what studies you’ve faked. I’m telling you right now that if you seriously go after Phantom like you would any other ghost, you’re going to have to go through the whole town first,”

And Dash wasn’t very smart. And he wasn’t persuasive. But he knew fear. He was 16. This agent was probably somewhere in his thirties. By no means should the man be afraid of him. But Dash knew how to make himself bigger. Dash knew just where to strike someone, just what made them scared. This man was only as brave as his badge. A whole insurrection? One aimed at him? That thought terrified him.

The man was silent.

Dash smiled a shark’s smile. “Do yourselves a favor and leave Amity Park alone. We’ve got it handled from here.”

The door swung shut behind him as he left the agent alone in a dark room, still stuttering for a response.