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Danny Phantom Fanfiction Fictober24; Day 4 - "No, we're not doing that" Read on ao3 Words: 367

“You know you can go intangible, right?”

“Sorry, I was too busy getting viciously mauled.”

“Still alive, aren’t you?”

“That’s horribly offensive. Probably.”

Danny flinched as Sam swabbed one of the scratches that ran down his chest. It wasn’t deep, but it was inflamed, puffed up as if his skin was developing hives. He grabbed her wrist, stopped her antiseptic assault on the constellation of claw marks, and pulled her into his lap. 

“Danny, are you…allergic to cats?” Sam asked. She wound her arms around his neck, tangled her fingers in the soft hair at the base of his skull. She pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth, his shoulders slumped as he relaxed into her touch. “Because that might be a deal breaker.”

“I saved the damn thing from a tree and this is the thanks I get.” Danny dropped his head into the crook of Sam’s shoulder, placed a kiss against the pulse point. 

“It was probably trying to get away from you. You have dog energy.”

“Excuse me?!”

“Golden retriever.”

“Sam, you’re killing me.”

“Just finishing the job.”

A couple of things happened at once. 

Danny pulled Sam’s face to his and slanted his lips against hers to stop her verbal assault. Unfortunately, that meant he didn’t hear his mother’s disembodied call to go to bed. Or her quick knock on the door. Or her turning the doorknob. 

“Daniel Fenton!”

Sam leapt away from Danny with the agility gained from years of dodging errant ecto-blasts. She followed Mrs. Fenton’s gaze to the scratches on Danny’s chest, the rumpled covers on his bed, an alcohol wipe wrapper that looked suspiciously like…

“It’s not what it looks like!” Sam blurted. It was too quick of a denial. Mrs. Fenton lifted an eyebrow, disbelief written in her face.

Danny floundered. “NO! We’re not doing…that.”

“It’s…natural,” Mrs. Fenton finally says, but her face betrays her shock. “Your father had that, um, talk with you, right?”

A little slow on the uptake, Danny yelped, “they’re just cat scratches!!”

“Sweetie, we don’t have a cat.”

“I’m going to go lay in the road,” Sam mumbled.

“How about you take the guest bed instead, honey.”

[safereturn]

let me hold your hand (and dance around the flames)

Another Ember Island Players Fic Word Count: 1956 Zutara one-shot Read on ao3

Zuko is sure his shame will consume him, obliterate him, turn him to ashes and blow him away in the wind. The only evidence of his existence will be that awful play and the wake of destruction caused by his own implosion.

And yet, it pales in comparison to the anger flowing off the water bender walking beside him. Fearing retribution, he keeps his gaze steadily ahead, focusing on the trio walking in front of them. Sokka, Suki, and Toph chatter about their portrayal; Toph lets out a roar that sends Sokka yelping into Suki’s side. Suki laughs so hard she snorts and slaps Sokka’s back as his cheeks tinge red. 

Zuko bites back a snarky comment. It’s simply propaganda, the events told with the inevitable agenda of a Fire Nation playwright, but at least they were written as comic reliefs. 

They weren’t failures and traitors. 

As they approach his family’s old vacation home, Katara’s sandal gets caught in the transition of cobblestone to sand. She loses her balance, but just as Zuko reaches a steadying arm out toward her, she rights herself on her own. Aang huffs behind him. 

Not to mention the resentment radiating off the young Avatar. Aang all but limps toward the house like a wounded puppy, head tucked into his chest. 

Katara pulls away from the group and storms off toward shore, back stiff, fists tight. Zuko slows to a stop as he watches her. She marches on to the beach, right where the tide stops overlapping the sand, and slumps to the ground, knees to her chest. 

The rest of the group carries on into the house. Aang sends one last glare at Zuko, then runs up the stairs and slams the door behind him, rattling the frame and sending an explosion of sound that evacuates nearby cicada-crickets from the trees. 

Zuko feels his chest constrict at the thought of following them inside the house. He isn’t claustrophobic–years spent at sea on a Fire Navy cruiser in close quarters with his crew desensitized him to any fears of being too enclosed. But there was a sort of heat burning under his skin. He was restless and itchy. Like if he walked into that house, he would explode, bringing the walls down around him in a terrible blaze.

Zuko glances over to the silhouette of Katara sitting in the sand again, still hunched, gently swaying back and forth with the tide. He’d seen her move like this once before, flying high over the ocean on Appa, the rain coming down around them. 

After confronting her mother’s killer, Katara had been near catatonic. They’d walked away from the quaking old man, but the further they got, the more she had withdrawn. Zuko had helped her climb onto Appa’s back, and she collapsed onto the saddle and stared blankly ahead. She might have been crying, but the rain had cast everything in a haze. As if it were all a dream. And then, like a child being comforted by a mother, she rocked herself side to side. 

She hadn’t spoken to him until they landed back at camp, and Katara had thrown her arms around him and granted him forgiveness. He remembers the warmth of her body against his, it had spread through his chest and she gave him a gentle squeeze before letting him go.

Zuko decides he would rather drown at her hand than suffocate amongst childhood memories. He approaches her as one would approach an injured turtle duck, softly and with no sudden movements.

“Go to bed, Aang.” Katara’s words are thick, tinged with finality that left no room for argument. It doesn’t escape him how maternal she sounds, as if she were scolding a petulant child. 

“It’s me,” he says. Katara peeks at him over her shoulder, then looks out toward the ocean. “I can go further down the shore if you want to be alone,” he offers, “but I’d rather not be in the house right now.”

He watches her shoulders rise as she fills her lungs with a long breath. Then, slowly, she places a hand on the sand beside her and gives it a pat. 

“You can stay.” She sounds tired now, but her tone is softer than her previous chiding. 

He sits cross legged beside her, sitting a little closer than intended, his shoulder brushing against hers. Zuko’s nerves were raw, his fingers had been trembling since the end of the first act. The gentle warmth of Katara’s arm against his was like an anchor, grounding him, giving him something to brace against. She doesn’t acknowledge it, she simply sways into him, then back, her chin resting atop her knees. 

“I’m sorry about tonight,” Zuko says. “That wasn’t a good play.”

Katara raises an eyebrow. “You didn’t write the play, Zuko.”

“No.” He grabs a handful of sand, it’s clumpy and coarse, still damp. Zuko squeezes it in his hand, then lets it crumble between his fingers. He does it again. “I'm just– sorry. I’m sorry you had to relive that. Relive me.”

She’s examining him. Zuko doesn’t dare make eye contact, but his skin prickles at the heat of her gaze on his face. It travels down his arms, to his hands, until she’s watching the grains of sand trickle between his fingertips. 

Again, he feels too large. He waits for his skin to burst open. 

“That wasn’t you on that stage, Zuko.”

“It was all the things I’ve done. All the ways I’ve hurt people.” 

How much good would he have to do to counter balance all the bad? Terrorizing citizens for any knowledge about the Avatar, burning down villages…

The Catacombs under Ba Sing Se.

The look of terror on Katara’s face, the smell of burning flesh, the cry that tore itself from her lips as she fought to get to Aang, fought to get them to the surface, fought against Azula, fought against him.

The look of anguish on Uncle’s face as he fought to keep Aang and Katara safe. 

Zuko chokes on a shuddering breath. His skin burns, his chest burns, his eyes burn.

“I’ve hurt so many people.”

So much blood.

Katara grasps his hand, grains of sand gently chafing against skin as she twines their fingers together. “Stop,” she whispers. “That was not you on that stage.”

His mind stutters, trying to pull himself from the memories. Katara squeezes his hand once and brushes her thumb over his knuckles. Back and forth. He sucks in a breath, then lets it whoosh out of his lungs. The tension in his shoulders drops. 

“You have done more than enough, Zuko.”

Enough. 

If there is wetness on his cheeks, Katara doesn’t mention it. She simply keeps rubbing soothing circles in his skin with her thumb. They watch the waves crash over the horizon.

 “Maybe I should apologize to Aang,” Zuko says, thinking of Aang’s glare. 

He can feel her deflate next to him, slumping into herself. Katara presses her face into her knees and heaves a sigh.

“He’s not angry with you,” she mumbles.  

“You didn’t see the look he gave me.”

Katara shakes her head and with a shrug says, “He’s angry with me. We had a fight at intermission.”

“What could he possibly be mad at you for?” Zuko saw the way Aang looked at Katara. He worshiped the ground she walked on, what could she have done that was so bad? And why would Aang take it out on him?

“It’s complicated.”

Zuko huffs. It’s not quite a laugh. “Try me.”

Katara gives him an uncertain look, then turns her gaze back to the ocean. Just when Zuko thinks she’ll ignore him, her voice breaks over the sound of the waves.

“Aang had… a hard time distinguishing between the play and reality. Ever since we met we’ve been really close. For months it was just me, Sokka, and Aang. And then Toph joined and it was the four of us. I always trusted them with my life, but it felt like Aang was on my side when Sokka and Toph pushed me too hard. He helped me through some pretty bad things, and I helped him, too.

“I found him in an iceberg, so I was possessive , I guess. He was going to save the world. My world. And I would have done anything–” Karata’s voice cuts off, followed by a frenetic breath. The waves wash higher on the shore, in time with her quick breaths. The water sweeps against their feet.

“I would have done anything to make him happy. He’s my best friend and of course I love him, but what he wants...” Katara heaves a shuddering breath. And then another. Her next words come quickly, garbled. “It’s too much. I’m trying to win a war, and so is he! But I can’t–I feel like I can’t even breathe.”

And then Katara makes an awful sound, a low whine cut off by a choked gasp. And then, even worse, she’s apologizing .

“I’m sorry,” she breathes, pulling her hand from his and swiping under her eyes. “This is stupid, just like that ridiculous actress.” Her hands leave behind grains of white sand on her cheeks. 

And for the first time, Katara looks defeated. Not even nine months ago, in a much colder continent, with her family's lives at stake and only a water whip to protect them did she look so small. She had built herself up with fury, indignation. She made up for what she didn’t know in determination. 

Now, with her eyes squeezed shut and shoulders hunched, there was nothing she could fight to make this hurt go away.

Zuko is at a loss for how to comfort her, and he hates himself for it. She so effortlessly brought him from the edge of panic. Forgave him when he was the face of everything that was taken from her. 

He thinks of her arms thrown around his neck. Her thumb brushing circles into his hand.  

And he does what he should’ve done when Katara sat numbly in Appa’s saddle. Zuko pulls Katara into his side, tucks her head into his shoulder, and hugs her. He winds his arms around her back, and sways her gently, his chin tucked over top of her head. Katara lets out a whimper, and then her arms circle around his waist. She buries her face into the crook where Zuko’s neck meets his shoulder. 

For a moment, all there is is the roar of the waves and his stiffness. He doesn’t want to jostle her, spook her. But her fists clench handfuls of his shirt and she is shaking, chest heaving with silent sobs. 

Zuko thinks of his mother and turtle duck bites and cries met with warm arms and soothing whispers. And he sways her, side to side, soothing a hand down her hair. She smells of sea salt and the old bath oils left in the wet room.

“Okay,” he says into her hair, “okay.”

It’s not okay. Zuko knows what it’s like to collapse under the weight of expectation, knows what it’s like to choke on the disappointment of others, knows the taste of desperation. It had almost killed him, back in that apartment in Ba Sing Se. And when he’d made it back to the Fire Nation on the basis of Aang’s murder, there were times he wished the fever had taken him. 

So much pain.

“Nothing like the actress,” he says. There is wetness and sand and shuddering breaths against his neck. “You are strong, this is strength.”

Katara takes a deep breath. Then another.

The waves wash back out to the ocean and quiet to a lull.

“You’ve given more than enough."

[safereturn]

In the fresh light of day (I felt something fall away)

Read on ao3 AI-Less Whumptober2024; Day 3 - Shared Trauma Words: 1295

The night before Zuko’s coronation, it storms.

A relentless deluge falls from the sky. It hammers against the glass of the windows, a relentless cadence that washes out the heartbeat in his ears. His breath hitches in his throat, panic twisting around the muscles in his chest, grabbing hold of his ribs, rattling them like prison bars. 

There is a great flash of light followed by a snarl of thunder. It illuminates Zuko’s room and turns the scarlet curtains into embers, casting twisted shadows along the walls. 

Zuko doesn’t see it. With his eyes squeezed shut and the brilliant white light pounding against his eyelids, he sees the engraving of Azula’s wild eyes and calculating smirk. He sees Katara’s stricken eyes, lips parted on a scream. 

His stomach rolls.

He needs to get out.

With a hand against the wrappings around his chest, he swings his legs over the side of his bed, panting as the blood rushes to his head. The rug is plush between his toes, squishing under his feet as he pushes himself to stand. Running his hand along the wall, he cruises to the set of high wingback chairs that sit opposite of his bed. He leans against the back of one, pulling in a breath that didn’t want to come. 

The quick rap on his door startles him. He yelps, which sends him to his knees as his diaphragm pulls against the forming scar tissue on his chest. 

“ Zuko!”

There is the slam of the door opening, and then a cool hand grasps his shoulder. Another brushes his cheek, then presses against his forehead. “What happened?” Katara asks him. He sucks in a lungful of breath, grimacing at the sting, then lets it out through pursed lips as Katara helps him push to his feet. 

“Just… wanted water, I guess.” 

Zuko follows Katara’s gaze to the pitcher of water that sat next to his bed on the ornate nightstand. She lifts an eyebrow at him, then eases him into the chair he’d been leaning against. Her fingers press into the flesh of his neck for a few long moments, then she has him follow her finger with his eyes.

Perhaps it was a trick of the candlelight, but her fingers were trembling.

“What are you doing here?” Zuko asks, as she grabs the hem of his tunic to check on his wrappings. It was late (or was it early?). She should have been fast asleep, already been dreaming for hours. 

“Oh, you know, I just wanted some water,” she parrots back at him with an empty smile. 

There is another brilliant flash of light and Zuko’s chest seizes once again. He feels his tunic tighten around him as Katara’s hand fists in the fabric of his hemline. Through the lingering rumble, he hears her teeth click together in her jaw. 

Gently, he untangles her fingers from his tunic and wraps her hand in his. “I see it, too,” he says, a soft whisper. He places his hand on the seat of the chair to his right, and gives her a pointed look. 

She meets his gaze for a moment, eyebrows furrowed, eyes flicking between both of his as if she were searching for something. Slowly, she settles into the chair. 

They’re quiet for a long while. Zuko leans his head against the back of the chair, catching his breath and fighting the wave of fatigue that washed over him. Katara places her elbows on her knees, cradling her face with her hands. He wants to beg her not to close herself off from him, wants to decipher what was written on her face. 

The last open expression he had received from her had been moments after she had brought him back from the brink of death. A soft, teary smile filled with relief and hope. 

He wants her to look at him like that again. 

“I knew you were still alive.” Zuko's breathing stops with Katara’s hushed confession, muffled against her hands. “I promised myself I would never … Not after Yon Rha… but I reached for you. I felt your blood pumping in your veins and I knew I had to fight. That there was something to fight for.”

Her next words come out thick, laced with desolation. “But in my dreams, I can’t feel you, and I know that hope is lost.”

His eyes burn, a lump lodges itself in his throat. 

Katara chokes on a sob. “Why did you do it, Zuko?”

He’s not sure how to respond. He hadn’t been thinking when he’d leapt—he just knew that it couldn’t be Katara . Wouldn’t ever be her, if it could be up to him. 

“You’d already lost so much,” he rasps. “I wasn’t going to have you lose your life, too.”

“You thought you were an acceptable sacrifice?” She asks, indignance brewing in her tone. 

He can’t take it anymore, Katara hiding away from him. He reaches over and pulls her hands away from her face, brushes fingers under her jawline, coaxes her to look at him. Blue eyes meet his gaze, watery and red rimmed. She sniffs, and blows out a shaky breath. 

He does not brush her hair out of her face, does not tuck it behind her ear, does not cup his hand at the base of her neck.

“I had ideas of what the world might look like if one of us had died,” he confesses. He shivers at the idea of the world cast in flame, the air thick with ash, rivers drying up and tinged with blood… “But I couldn’t make myself picture a world without you .”

“Don't you understand? We needed you." Zuko hates that her voice is so small, so broken. "I needed you..."

“You don't need someone who doesn’t know how to do this.” He breaks Katara’s gaze, jaw clenched as he stares at the rug in front of him. How could he say that to her? After all she had risked her life for and here he was, admitting that he had no idea what he was doing. They had ended the war, but they hadn’t erased years of indoctrination, years of depleted resources and growing dissent. 

He was going to doom them all again. 

“I imagine it’ll be like how you helped me with my mother’s murderer.”

His head snaps up, eyes locking on to her contemplative face. “ What? ”

Katara’s head tilts, eyes roving over the features of his face. “And it’ll also be like how you helped Aang with his firebending. Or how you helped Sokka get our dad back.”

Zuko swallows the lump in his throat, cheeks burning. “I’m not sure how that helps me lead a nation.”

“You listened to us. And then you jumped into action. Maybe you had to change course a couple of times, but… You were there for us. Like you’ll be there for your people.”

His heartbeat roars in his ears. As Katara’s gaze loosens the tightness in his chest, he notices the distant birdsong and the soft orange light peeking through the gaps in the curtain.

The storm had stopped. Day had come. 

“Let me get you back to bed,” Katara starts again, shyly, grabbing hold of Zuko’s hand. “You should try to sleep for a little bit.”

He simply takes her hand in both of his, relaxing back into his chair. “Stay with me, just a little while longer.”

And with his eyes squeezed shut, Katara’s hand laced through his, he rewrites the scene behind his eyelids. Erases her terrified shriek, her trembling hands, her shaky sobs. Replaces it with a hopeful lilt, warm fingers wrapped in his, her soft praise. 

As daylight overtakes his room, the panic releases it’s iron grip and falls to the floor. 

[safereturn]

we keep our spirits high (but they fall like flies)

Content warnings: major character death, falling from great heights, there is no comfort here Read on ao3 AI-Less Whumptober2024; Day 2 - Unfortunate fall, "Don't move. You'll be okay." Words: 914

There were many things Sam had gotten used to when it came to ghost fighting. 

She was used to the weight of a Fenton Thermos tucked in her school bag, tucked next to her history essay and an ecto-gun. 

She was used to late nights and early mornings, ditching class, dodging parents (literally and figuratively). She was used to the weird looks she’d receive as she’d return to class disheveled and dirty, smelling of copper and ozone. 

She was used to the sting of ectoplasm on her skin. The sticky feel of aloe slathered on red and festering wounds; sometimes covered with leggings, sometimes sleeves, sometimes with hair pulled in front of her face. 

She was used to Danny catching her when she fell. 

She was so used to that. 

Time did not slow. 

There were no profound thoughts about death and dying. No sudden clarity. 

There was only the flip of her stomach as her gravity shifted and the scream that tore itself from her throat, born from deep in her stomach. There were only the splotches of light flashing behind her eyelids, squeezed shut because she would not stare death in the eyes. 

The air wrenched itself from her lungs, the deep crack of an explosion rang in her ears.

There might have been a small part of her that recognized she was prone on the asphalt, the taste of copper and tar in her mouth. A warm hand cupped her cheek, then trembling fingers trailed down to press against her neck.

“Don’t move. You’ll be okay. ” It was like there was water in her ears; he— Tucker? —sounded so far away. She wanted to wave him away, tell him she just needed a minute, but her tongue was heavy in her mouth.

When she was little, back before her relationship with her parents soured, but just after she had joined Amity County Public Elementary School in lieu of fancy private schooling, Sam took a trip to the Detroit Institute of Arts with her mother. 

“Culture is how we connect with others, Sammie,” Pamela lectured as they strolled through the galleries, passing statues carved from marble, fragments of ancient mosaic glass, luxurious canvases brought to life with oil. 

“I don’t think Danny and Tucker are really into this kind of thing,” Sam had replied. “I want cool things to talk to them about but…” she wrinkled her nose at a still life; a vase of flowers in the background next to a cluster of garlic cloves. A dead hare splayed across the foreground. “I don’t think this is it.”

“Fix your face, darling,” Pamela chastised, with a pinch of her cheek. “I meant business connections. Used correctly, knowledge of different cultures can be used as a weapon to influence relationships…”

Pamela was still droning on, but Sam’s attention had been stolen. In front of her, painted in rich oil, a woman lay sprawled across a bed, draped in a satiny white dressing gown. The woman’s arm lolled off the side of the bed, her long fingers brushing against the floor. Her back arched, almost as if she were stretching. Or maybe broken.

A demon sat on her chest. 

Grotesque and heavy, the demon sat his weight on the woman’s ribs and held Sam’s gaze. His bulbous cheek rested against too long fingers, as if he were contemplating her. Will you be next?

As a child, Sam had been exasperated that the woman didn’t move, didn’t wake up.

Now, Sam understood that she couldn’t. 

As shallow breath swirled through her lungs but did not linger, she thought that perhaps she had been the explosion. There was a disconnect from her body as if she had detonated. And that demon was deep in her chest, mocking her as she fought for control of her body. 

A twitch of her fingertips, a flutter of her eyelids.

Nothing. 

Somewhere in the distance there was the sound of metal scraping against metal followed by a feral howl. Beside her, Tucker cursed and then there was a pressure covering her ears. His hands?

And then it was loud.

The feral howl grew into a prolonged wail that rattled the teeth in her skull. It was the sound of desperation, of desolation; the sound of an animal caught in a trap with no other option but to chew through its own leg.

Tucker's lips were moving against the shell of her ear, but there weren’t any words she could hear… Perhaps he was telling her help was on the way, or maybe that she would be okay. His cheek pressed into her temple and she breathed in the scent of him; salt (from his sweat? His tears? ), laundry detergent, and smoke. 

Sam wondered if she would be his woman in the painting, if Tucker would forever wonder what would have happened if she had just moved. 

There were many things Sam had gotten used to in life.

She was used to greasy tofu patty melts from the Nasty Burger, movie nights in her basement theater, all-nighters crushing levels in Doom. 

She was used to shy glances, meeting soft blue eyes, flushing cheeks, and embarrassed denials. 

She was used to high-fives, and relieved sighs, rushing back to a basement lab to flush another ghost back into the portal. 

She was used to closing her eyes at night, knowing that no matter what had happened that day, she’d get another shot when the sun came up. 

She was so used to that.

[safereturn]

October 2024 Master List

Check here for links to my different -tober2024 submissions.

we keep our spirits high (but they fall like flies) There were many things Sam had gotten used to when it came to ghost fighting. [AI-Less Whumptober 2024; Day 2 - Unfortunate fall, "Don't move. You'll be okay."]

In the fresh light of day (I felt something fall away) There is another brilliant flash of light and Zuko’s chest seizes once again. He feels his tunic tighten around him as Katara’s hand fists in the fabric of his hemline. Through the lingering rumble, he hears her teeth click together in her jaw. Gently, he untangles her fingers from his tunic and wraps her hand in his. “I see it, too,” he says, a soft whisper. [AI-Less Whumptober 2024; Day 3 - Shared Trauma]

Reaction A little slow on the uptake, Danny yelped, “they’re just cat scratches!!” [Fictober2024; Day 4 - "No, we're not doing that."]