#i don't know that i'll be able to do a sam centric fic justice... but what if... i tried anyway

[jamiethebeeart]

The Fate of the Dead

(Go to the end for prompt source and ao3 link) Chapter 1:

Sam was able to see the future. 

“A gift” her grandfather whispered on his deathbed.

“A curse,” her mother sneered. 

“Hope,” her grandmother said. 

“Witch” her playmates said. 

One move to a rinky dink town later and even though her parents didn’t say anything, Sam understood – keep quiet, say nothing, and everything would be fine.

-

While the first few years of Sam’s life were a whirlwind of activities, fancy parties, and frilly, fashionable dresses, the next few years were quiet.  Living in a small town where no one knew who the Mansons were, was an adjustment.  Sam, even at her young age, could pick up on the quiet resentment from her parents.  The sidelong looks at the TV over news of celebrity parties, the glance over at Sam when reading the Socialites section of the newspaper, and the way that they frowned when Sam started talking about her visions.  By the time Sam entered 1st grade, she stopped mentioning them to anyone, family or otherwise.  Why would her parents care about the sight of blood on the playground, or the car crash on the interstate?  They couldn’t stop it, and Sam couldn’t either – not without knowing information like “where” or “why” or the most important of all – “when”. 

-

Walking into the 2nd grade hallway, she found her teacher waving students in that they recognized from open night into the classroom.  As Sam approached, the teacher brightened, “Hello Samantha!  Walk right in, there’s a seating chart at the front of the classroom.  Please find your seat and sit down.  Class will start soon.”  Nodding, Sam walked into the classroom and saw a large easel with sticky notes plastered to it.  Each one was arranged into groups like the desks behind her.  She located her seat, turned around, and almost ran into a boy with black hair.

“DANNY!”  A woman slid to a halt, bumping the classroom teacher a little as she caught herself on the door post.  A backpack held up in one hand and breathing hard, like she’d ran to the school.  After a moment, she looked up, “Danny, you forgot your backpack.”

The black haired boy turned around, “Oh!  Thanks Mommy!” he grinned as he ran back to her. 

Sam stopped, shocked – not because of the almost run in, but because that boy looked like a younger version of the one she saw in one of her oldest visions.  The only recurring one she’d ever had.  As the boy shooed his mother off and turned around to head back to the easel, Sam woodenly headed to her seat, refusing to look up from the floor.  Swinging the straps of her bag over the back of her seat, she smoothed her skirt, and sat down.  She blinked a few times, fighting back tears.  Not all of Sam’s visions were unpleasant, but the ones that were, tended to be rather extreme – this particular one included.  She had almost convinced herself it was a recurring nightmare rather than a true vision, but there was no way she could have imagined those screams.  She breathed in and out to calm herself like her mother showed her, fists clenched under her desk, hidden, like her father.  As the thunk of a backpack landed on the desk next to her, she shook her head a little and looked up.  “I’m Sam,” she introduced herself to the boy next to her.  A hand stuck out in his direction.

“Tucker,” the boy grinned, as he shook her hand.

By the end of recess later that day, Danny was sporting a bloody nose, Tucker was on the ground, and Sam stood in front of them, glaring at the blonde kid who started it all.

“Step aside, if you know what’s good for you!” the kid said, trying to stand up tall, chest puffed out.

“You can’t hit a girl!” Danny yelled around the hand clutching his nose.

“Yeah!  That’s, like, super mean!”  Tucker said as he started to stand.

“I might!” was the response.

Sam glared harder, “You can try.”

“Move!” Dash screamed.

“No!” Sam screamed back.

“Over here!  There’s some little kids fighting!”  An older student was yelling across the playground, motioning for a teacher’s assistant on recess duty to come over.

By the end of the day, Dash was suspended and Sam had made two lifelong friends.

-

“But Saaaaaam,” Danny whined, “why do we have to go the long way to the park?”

“Yea, Saaaam whyyy, my feet already hurt from PE today,” Tucker said, a few steps behind the other two.

“Because I said so,” Sam rolled her eyes.  “It’s nice out today - why wouldn’t we take advantage of it?”

Danny slowed down to settle beside Tucker and stage whispered, “I think this is payback for painting the inside of her locker pink.”

“No.”  Tucker solemnly said.  “She’s just trying to kill us.”

Danny nodded, “Aaah, that makes sense.  Do you think she’ll at least pay our funeral expenses?”

Tucker snorted, “She should at least pay for our coffin lining.  I’m thinking light blue.  Sam, what do you think?  Light blue?  Or should you do green for me?”

Sam rolled her eyes and turned around to walk backwards to talk to them, “I think you two are melodramatic and insufferable.”

The boys laughed at her, seeing the uptick of her mouth.  They walked a little faster.  Sam turned back around right before Tucker slung an arm around her shoulders as they fell in step with her. “So, a bottom of the line white?” Tucker asked.

Danny gasped, “And here I thought Sam wasn’t like those, quote, ‘basic bitches’.”  The boys cackled as Sam shrugged Tucker’s arm off with a huff.

“First – I called them shallow.  Second, I would at least spring for a black lining.  If I can’t convince you two to go goth in life, I’ll have to make it happen in death.”  Sam held her head up in mock snootiness before side eyeing Danny and laughing at his grimace.  They made it to the park walking past the people walking dogs and others playing with young kids to the far end.  The trees started to get dense and the park area slowly transitioned into proper woods.  They could hear birds quieting down as they pushed aside branches and went through some bushes.  A slight breeze pushed through their group as they came upon the dry creek.  Stepping on the large stones in the creek bed, they made their way across to a fallen tree on the other side.  Tucker and Danny let out twin groans of relief at being able to plop down.  Sam made a face at their antics and took the seat in between them.

“So,” Sam started.  She refused to look at either one.

The chirping of the birds started up again.  Danny shifted his foot around at the dirt under his shoe, looking up at the sky.  Tucker took off his glasses to clean them off on his shirt.  After putting them back on, Tucker raised an eyebrow, “So?”

Sam laughed sheepishly, “I forgot.”

“What?!” Danny blurted out, taking his eyes off the clouds to look at her.

“Yea! What?! You’re the one who wanted to take us out here today!” Tucker added on.

“We could be at home playing DOOMED, ignoring our homework, instead of out here, tired, overheated, and ignoring our homework,” Danny said.

“That’s it then, I guess I’ll have to take out my homework and have you help me.”  Tucker paused hopefully.  “Unless you suddenly remember?”

Sam furrowed her eyebrows, looking down, “No.  Let’s do our homework.”  She unzipped her spider backpack to pull out her binder.

Danny looked behind Sam’s back at Tucker mouthing, “Are you serious?!?”

Tucker widened his eyes, shrugging and shaking his head towards Sam, “Sorry?!?!”.

Sam sat up with her binder and pencil, cutting their silent back and forth short.  “Alright.  Is it going to be English or History?"  She looked at Tucker, down at his untouched backpack, and then back up.  “Seriously?”  A signature Sam frown was gifted upon him.  “You were the one to suggest this.  Hurry up.  As soon as I’m done, I’m leaving you two behind in the woods.”  At the thought of having to walk back by themselves, Danny and Tucker scrambled to get their backpacks open and homework out.  Sam smiled a little.  As much as she loved these moments, she was already mourning their end.

Prompt: You can see visions of the future, but you learned long ago to keep them to yourself. Now, you have to speak up or risk losing everything you love. Source: https://prowritingaid.com/fiction-writing-prompts

The Fate of the Dead - Chapter 1 - J_Bee - Danny Phantom [Archive of Our Own]