#pm18d2

Dash was laughing even as he shoved Kwan away from him, Kwan laughing just as much as he bounced right back and threw his arm around Dash’s shoulders. “Seriously, man, you know you’re welcome over anytime. My mom loves going crazy fawning over you.”

“Yeah- Yeah, thanks man.” Dash let himself enjoy the half-hug for a moment before shoving Kwan off. “Now cross the street before you miss your light, jesus.”

“Okay, okay, I’m going! See you at the game tomorrow!” Kawn dashed across the street and narrowly avoided getting hit, cackling as he ran off to the sound of someone screaming at him. Shaking his head and trying to get his heart rate under control, Dash set off towards his own house.  

As much as he hated the weekends sometimes, he was at least looking forward to the fact he’d have the house to himself until eleven, and at that point he’d either be asleep or near it. Toying with the idea of hitting up a grocery store - or maybe the Nasty Burger - Dash paused when he realized he had instinctively dodged stepping in something that was glowing.

Considering he lived in a town famous for ghost attacks that wasn’t too big of a surprise, but it was still enough of an oddity that Dash retraced his steps and bent down to see just what the heck it was.

“Ew.” It was glowing, yeah, but it was also green. It looked like toxic sludge, honestly, like that kind of stuff he’d see pictures about in science class. Thinking on it, ghosts had that whole glowing green thing about them, so maybe it was that.

Scrunching his nose up, Dash looked around to see there was more of the stuff a bit further up. Seemed like there was more the further up it got- Trail. It was definitely a trail. Standing up, Dash shrugged it off and kept walking, trailing to a stop when he saw the trail led into a dark alleyway.

“Fuck.” Dash had seen enough horror movies to know he had just walked into his own. He was also self-aware enough to know that he was the dumb jock which meant he was probably going to die in the next ten minutes.

Chewing on his lower lip, Dash looked in the skies for any sort of sign of a ghost, groaning to himself when he saw nothing and turned to step into the alley. He was so going to fucking regret this. There was probably a ghost waiting to attack him considering how much green shit was all over the… The ground…

Dash stared at the perfect handprint of that glowing green sludge that was pressed against the edge of the rusting dumpster, unable to explain even to himself why he was suddenly filled with the sense of something bad. “He- Hello?”

A quiet groan had him making a noise that he was glad no one on the team would ever hear before spinning around to see a soft glow- It was no surprise he hadn’t noticed before, considering how dim… Holy shit.

“You- You’re- Phantom.” What the hell was Danny Phantom doing pressed up against a dumpster in an alleyway?! “Dude, whoa, are you okay?” C’mon, Dash, don’t be a fanboy.

“Oh, great.” The echoing voice had Dash shifting uncomfortably and the bright green eyes that looked up to his own had him swallowing. “Just what I need.”

“So, uh, do you need help, then? Or something?” Dash took another hesitant step forward. “You look pretty beat up, man.”

“No fucking shit.” Right, okay, Phantom swore when he was hurt, that was something to make a note of. “Sorry. Just- Just get out of here, okay? I mean, not much help you can do for me seeing as I’m already dead, right?”

“Ri… Right.” Dash was talking with a dead superhero. That was crazy. That was so totally- “Right, so, I’ll just- I’ll just leave now.” Except… Phantom looked pretty bad. Dash couldn’t quite tell, but the way he was bent over just screamed that he was in pain. And all that green, glowing stuff… “Are you sure-”

“Leave, Dash!” Holy shit, Danny Phantom knew his name. How did Phantom even know- Oh, ew, he stepped in some of the- The… This stuff wasn’t glowing.

“Yeah, hey, hold on a second.” Taking out his phone, Dash flipped it so the flashlight was pointed down, turning it on and staring with wide eyes at the puddle of red under his shoe. That… Dash was kind of an idiot. He knew he was good at sports and not much else, but he knew what blood looked like. He knew what it was to be hurt. The only problem was that the only ones in the alley were him and Phantom. “Phantom, did you see someone else run down here?”

“I’m serious, Dash, you need to get out of here now.” Yeah, okay, but there was now blood on the ground and Dash was a jock, but he wasn’t heartless.

“Phantom, look, there’s obviously…” Having swung around to look at the ghost, his flashlight had followed and now Dash was staring at a ghost that was squinting at the light and covered in red and green in equal amounts. “What the hell…”

“I thought I told you to leave.” Whatever bite the words had was easily ignored, Dash only looking from Phantom to the brick wall that looked like he had collapsed against it, that green glowing sludge shit slowly fading into red blood. “Get out of here!”

“Hey, I may not be one of those Fentons, but even I can tell you’re hurt and bleeding.” Ghosts bled, apparently. Who knew. The fact it was red, though. That- Ghosts were supposed to be dead, right? So how the hell was his blood or whatever it was turning red.

“‘M not bleeding. Ghosts don’t bleed.” Yeah, right, he lost so much of whatever this shit was that he couldn’t tell he had lost more ‘blood’ than should probably be healthy for anyone - ghost or human. “Go ‘way.”

“Just- Why don’t you come back to my place until you heal or whatever? I mean, it’d be pretty shitty for me to leave the town hero bleeding in an alleyway, right?” There wasn’t a response and it had Dash nervously biting his lip as he stepped closer. “Phantom? Hey, are you-”

Startling back at the bright flash of light, Dash thought something had gone horribly wrong with his phone before he realized his flashlight was fine and that the light had come from Phantom. “Was that some kind of ghost power? Man, that was terrifying! You almost-”

The phone light shined down on a curled up Danny Fenton, blood streaking his arms, cheek, and sides.

Dash was pretty sure he had a million questions buzzing around in his head, but they all fell quiet when he saw just how much blood was on the kid. “Whoa, whoa, hey, Fenton-” Shoving his phone away, Dash rushed over, hands hovering over the other as he not-so-quietly panicked. “Shit, shit, shit, what the fuck, Phantom was just here, oh my god, oh my god, this is crazy, this is so fucking crazy-”

A ragged cough tore it’s way out of Danny’s throat and Dash barely let himself think before he was pulling the kid into his arms and standing. It wasn’t like he was going to get any better in the middle of a dirty alley, and, look, he bullied the kid, but he still had a heart, jesus. “Hey- Hey, Fenton, you’re still with me, right? You doing alright? Come on, Fenton, give me an answer here.”

Danny didn’t respond and that made Dash rush towards his house all the more. The sane, logical part of his mind was screaming for him to call an ambulance and wash his hands of this fucking mess, but the smart part of him… Every bit of blood on him had specks of that glowing green shit shining out and that was probably something that a hospital shouldn’t see- Would a hospital even be able to do anything?

Thankful that his coach was insane when it came to keeping in shape, Dash got to his house in record time, fumbling to get the door open before he finally managed and rushed upstairs. “Okay, Fenton, you got a hell of a lot of explaining to do, so you had better not bleed out on me, got it?”

There was still no response, something that was making Dash more and more nervous. Setting the teen down on his bed as carefully as he could, Dash couldn’t stop his wince at the whimper of pain it caused anyways.

“Okay, okay, first aid kit. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” Scrambling to get what he needed, Dash cobbled together what he could from various drama medical shows, rushing back to his room and grabbing a pair of scissors. “Seeing as you probably have five exact copies of this shirt, I think you’ll forgive me for this.”

With that, Dash began cutting the shirt open to see how bad he was bleeding and just where he was bleeding from. He felt the distant urge to vomit at seeing what a wreck the chest was. It wasn’t just the jagged tear that tore across his side and up to his chest, but it was the fact his chest was covered in blood, bruises, and scars.

“Fuck, Fenton…” It felt so wrong. It felt wrong to have this sixteen-year-old kid, who looked like he was still fourteen, bleeding on his bedspread. He shouldn’t be bleeding out in Dash’s messy bedroom that was as normal as it could be. This was so wrong and it felt so wrong because it was like two worlds clashing that should not be clashing. “Fuck, man, fuck.”

“Dash?” Startling at the sound of his name, Dash snapped his eyes over to where Danny was looking at him with eyes that were blue- Green? No, there was- Fuck. “Where…”

“My room- House. Shut up, I’m trying to focus.” Okay, okay, he knew enough to know that the fucking gash on him needed to be fixed up. Stitches? Fuck, why didn’t Dash know what he was doing. “Fuck, Fenton, I think we need to call someone, here. Someone who can sew.”

“Sew… Oh. Don’t worry about it.” Don’t- What the fuck. “Just get some of that antibiotic or vaseline cream or whatever-”

“Fenton- You are fucking bleeding out onto my bed! What the fuck-”

“This is why I told you to leave.” Oh, yeah, cause Dash so wanted to have a dead kid on his conscious. That would be just great. “Jesus, of all the people to find me it had to be you.”

“I’m not exactly cheering about all this, either!” He found a hurt Phantom in the middle of an alleyway and now suddenly it was Fenton talking back at him and saying not to worry about the fact he was bleeding- Shit. “Just- Jesus, what do I do, here?”

“Like I said, got any of that cream stuff?” Not willing to question it when the other was looking so pale, Dash dug through the kit until he pulled out two jars and a tube of the stuff. “Okay, so just rub that over whatever’s cut open.”

“Whatever- We’re talking about a gash the size of your fucking arm.” Dash unscrewed the jars anyway, swallowing as he doubled back to put a pair of old, crumpled up latex gloves on because he really didn’t want to touch blood that was kind of sort of glowing green.

“Just do it!” Swearing and cursing to himself, Dash began to do as told, trying not to be too grossed out at all the blood as he rubbed the stuff over the gash. It was at least stopping the bleeding, but it still needed stitches.

“This isn’t going to magically fix you, you know,” Dash finally said, using both jars and near all of the tube before he was satisfied. “It’s also probably stinging like hell.”

“I’ve had worse,” Danny muttered, staring at Dash. “Stitches aren’t worth it. It’ll be healed by tonight.”

“Bull fucking shit, Fenton. Humans don’t heal that fast-”

“I’m not human.”

Three words. They were three words, but they seemed to ring out and get louder and blast in Dash’s head on repeat for what felt like an eternity before he shook his head because no- No. He was living. He was bleeding.

“That’s not funny.” Dash had felt him breathing when he had run here and he had felt the kid’s heartbeat when trying to stop him from bleeding. He wasn’t- What kind of joke- “That’s not funny.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be.” Danny tried to turn and Dash was stopping him at once, glaring at him. Danny glared right back. “I need to go-”

“How! You’re pretty much fucking dying!” The stubborn expression didn’t leave and this was why the kid pissed Dash off so badly! He was always so fucking self righteous! “You can’t even sit up, I bet.”

“I don’t need to sit up.” Danny smirked, Dash raising an eyebrow as absolutely nothing happened. The smile fell. “Oh.”

“Yeah, so, tell me what to do before I get some thread and a sewing needle.” The look Danny shot him was cold as the fucking Artic. It was kind of funny. “Now, Fenton.”

“Jesus, I told you, it’ll heal. Just- Just don’t do anything. It’s fine.” Danny looked away, Dash staring before standing up and heading to the bathroom, soaking a washcloth before walking back out and dropping it on Danny’s chest. It was kind of funny to see the other jerk and swear. He wasn’t aware Fenton even knew that many swears. “What the fuck-”

“Shut up, dried blood sucks to get off so it’s better to do it when it’s still wet.” Dash started scrubbing off the worst of it, avoiding the gash that he was doing his best to not even look at. He was trying to do his best to block out the entire night, honestly.

“How would you know?” Pausing, Dash pushed away a flood of memories, shaking his head roughly and pressing down harder than he needed to.

“Don’t worry about it. Now shut up.” Jesus, Fenton had scars, bruises, and now that the blood was out of the way, Dash could see he was fucking ripped. Why the hell did he let Dash push him around when he was like this? How… How many of those bruises were caused by Dash-

“No, seriously, how do you know that. I mean, I could believe if it was just a one time broken nose or something, but you made it sound like it’s a thing-”

“Danny.” Seeing the other’s mouth snap shut, Dash stared at him and thought of what to say that would maybe fix whatever mess he had dropped himself into. Maybe… “We all have our own secrets.”

Danny stared at him and he seemed ready to say over a thousand things before he turned his head around. Dash sighed, wondering what the kid would do if Dash told him he knew what it was to have just as many bruises. Jesus, he was just as bad as his old man.

“Look, just, stay here and rest, okay? I have to go make dinner before my old man gets home.” Wiping away the last of it, Dash dropped the cloth on top of the first aid kid, ripping the gloves off as well. “I’ll, I don’t know, I’ll bring you something up later, I guess.”

“You could have left me there. I wasn’t your problem.” Pausing at that, Dash looked up to meet eyes that didn’t belong to the wimpy kid he had bullied for years.

“No. I couldn’t have.” He was fucked up, but he wasn’t a monster. “Get some sleep, nerd, you look-” Dead. Phantom. Ghost. Dead. Dead. “-tired.”

“Yeah… We probably have a lot to talk about, huh?” Jesus. That meant more than just the whole bleeding out in an alleyway, he bet.