A Jock and a Hard Place

-By Haiju and AnneriaWings-

A/N:

Anneria: Collabing with this chick is so fun. It was admittedly weird to write something with her that didn't involve hardcore angst, but I'm sure that'll change in the near future. ;D

Haiju: Hi folks! The collaboration bug strikes again. We've whipped up a little misadventure for Danny and Dash in honor of the Phanniemay prompt, Stuck. I hope you enjoy!

Danny wondered if it was possible to go insane by sheer boredom.

The minute hand inched toward twelve. His skull rattled with the sound of Dash's leg bouncing against his desk. Five more minutes.

He'd been stuck in this place for two hours, and that wasn't counting the rest of the school day. Sam and Tucker must be knee-deep in their Dead Teacher marathon. Valerie was probably terrorizing some low-level ghost since her favorite enemy was absent. Even Jazz had to be correcting typos in her textbooks or whatever it was she did for weekend fun. The weekend had started for everyone except himself.

Another paperclip plinked against his head. Danny let out a slow, carefully controlled breath – three more minutes, he told himself, just three more minutes. You can last that long without strangling Dash.

"Well, gentlemen," Lancer stood up, stretching. "As serious as fighting on school property is, I think we can afford to cut detention by three minutes. I've still got plans for the remainder of my day." He glanced at Danny with a sardonic arch of one eyebrow. "I'm impressed, Mr. Fenton; not a single bathroom break in two hours."

"He must finally be in potty training," Dash sniggered. Danny flushed and grit his teeth, gathering his half-finished homework.

"That's enough out of you, Mr. Baxter, unless you want to revisit this experience on Monday."

Dash's glare drilled craters in the back of Danny's head. Danny could hear him shove back from the desk; the jock purposely knocked him to the side as he passed on the way to the door. "You'd better not get me in trouble again, loser," he hissed, too low for the teacher to hear.

Ignoring the jab, Danny shoved his homework into his backpack. Like it was his fault that Dash was a world-class blockhead.

"Enjoy your weekend, you two. I hope you've learned a lesson from this."

"That you're even less fun on a Friday night?" Danny muttered under his breath as the teacher turned his back, tucking the papers he'd been grading into a leather briefcase.

"What was that, Mr. Fenton?"

"N-nothing," Danny gathered his backpack and eased past the jock who slouched, arms crossed and glowering, in the hall. "See you Monday."

Lancer followed, keys jingling as he locked the door behind him. "The janitor will be around to lock up the school in a bit, so don't dilly dally." He waved over his shoulder, then strolled off down the hall.

Danny spotted Dash's knuckles clenching and unclenching silently – the telltale sign that he was about to punch someone into next week. He edged away slowly, glancing over his shoulder at Lancer's retreating back just disappearing around the corner. If he could only get out of sight…

"Oh no you don't." Dash grabbed his collar, yanking him up. "Just where do you think you're going?" he growled.

"Heh, uhh, don't want to be late for dinner?"

"Real cute, Fen-toenail." Dash looked over his shoulder – Lancer was turning the corner, whistling tunelessly. The quarterback swung around, shoving Danny into the lockers with a murderous glare. "I've been waiting for this moment, geekbreath. You think you can lock me up here for two freakin' hours and get away with it?"

Danny's eyes narrowed. "That was Principle Ishiyama, not me. You gave Mikey a black eye."

"You pants'd me. Me! In the middle of the hallway!"

Danny couldn't hide a grin at the memory. Egging Dash on wasn't the brightest idea, but it was so easy… "Hehe, well I wasn't the one who decided to wear Sayonara Pussycat boxers to school."

A little vein popped out on Dash's neck. "Care Bears," he ground out.

"And you call me a loser," Danny snorted. "At least I don't shop in the kiddie aisle-"

The blow to his cheek rattled his skull, sending him sprawling to the floor. Instinctively he kicked out with his foot, felt it connect hard with Dash's shin.

Dash howled. "Shit! You little-"

Danny winced, guilt slipping through his chest. He never fought back. Ever. He scrambled to get up, but a fist like steel drove into his gut. His head smacked back into the lockers, white stars popping in his vision.

Nevermind, not sorry.

Danny ran his tongue over his teeth, making sure none of them had come loose. He spat out the blood from a split lip and glanced up casually at Dash. "You done?"

"Not even close." Dash grabbed the collar of his shirt and yanked him up, roughly pinning him into the lockers again. The sharp metal handle dug into his spine. Dash swung a fist back, and Danny shut his eyes, flinching… but the blow never came. "Wait… I've got a better idea."

A shiver ran through Danny that had nothing to do with Dash's threat. A breath of cold air set his teeth on edge, and the cool little bundle of energy in his chest quivered, like a spider web when a fly brushes up against it. A ghost in the school. Fantastic. Like he hadn't spent enough time today with ugly, stupid jerks with a thing for slamming him into lockers.

Danny yelped as Dash clamped his wrist in an iron grip, dragging him forward. They rounded a corner – going straight to a janitor's closet. "A couple of days locked up in here should serve you right. See how you feel, missing out on your weekend plans."

"Wait, Dash-" Then Danny's brain kicked in and he shut up. If he just let Dash 'lock him in,' he'd be free to go ghost and get rid of whatever that thing was.

Dash had yanked open the closet and was just about to shove Danny inside when the atmosphere changed. He stopped dead in his tracks – an eerie green light flickered at the end of the hallway. A wet, gurgling moan drifted toward them on a supernatural breeze. He turned pale, his breath clouding nearly as much as Danny's in the suddenly chilly hallway.

"Crud. Oh crud, Fenton, that's – that's a ghost. What are we gonna – oh, crud-"

Danny opened his mouth to suggest they run – in opposite directions – but before he could say anything, Dash slung him into the closet then jammed himself inside. He jostled Danny further into the cramped space. The heavy door swung shut.

Danny stumbled into a hard shelving unit – something heavy and loud fell on him and clattered to the floor. He hissed as an old bruise on his arm throbbed. "Ow! Dash, what the-"

"Shh!" A sweaty hand clapped over his mouth. "You want to end up as freak food?"

A strange gurgling echoed from just outside the door. The two held their breath for several agonizing moments. It hadn't been a very powerful ghost, but if he had to fend it off in human form they'd be in trouble.

Danny half-expected the ghost to phase through the door and shout "boo" at them. He snickered at the image. A thick hand gripped his arm for dear life. Danny rolled his eyes.

Dash whimpered. "Oh god, it's gonna-"

The gurgling growl got closer. "Shush!"

Minutes passed, and the creature's eerie noises drifted away. Nothing happened. Silence returned, and the temperature crept back up to normal. They hadn't been noticed… if the ghost was even looking for a fight at all. Danny's shoulders relaxed slightly, the cold hand squeezing his heart loosening just a little.

"Okay, I think it's gone," Danny said, pulling his arm out of Dash's petrified grip.

"How do you know? It might just-"

"There's no creepy glow, no noise – it's gone, geez. Get the door open, I can barely turn around in here."

Dash muttered something fearfully under his breath, but reached for the handle anyway. There was a short click, a rattling sound, then Dash went stiff.

Danny could barely breathe through the stink of cologne and sweat that saturated the leather jacket two inches from his nose. "Get us out of here already!"

"Keep your shirt on, dweeb; I'm trying, it's…" The door handle rattled loudly, but nothing happened. Dash mumbled a curse and tried again. The sinking feeling in Danny's stomach solidified.

"Don't tell me," Danny said flatly. "It's locked."

A beat passed. Both were silent, trying to wrap their mind around that stupid, simple fact- the door was locked. They were trapped. In a janitor's closet. Together.

Dash was the first to freak out. He let out a panicked laugh, jiggling the handle furiously. "It's not locked, it's just… stuck. Piece of shit old door." When it wouldn't budge, he threw his weight forward, hissing as his shoulder connected loudly with the wood. "It's- it's not…" He kicked at the door. "Come on. Damnit, come on!"

"Let me try."

"It's not opening! Oh my god, we're stuck – I'm actually stuck with you, of all people-"

"Dash." Danny sighed, running a hand through his hair. The lump he could feel forming on the back of his head was beginning to throb.

Dash's arms flailed – nearly smacking Danny in the head. "I know how these things go!" He wailed, "We're gonna be in here for weeks and grow beards and eat each other so we don't starve to death and-"

"DASH!"

The quarterback's babbling trailed off into a whimper.

"Just – just chill, okay? We're not gonna die, and trust me, there will be no people eating. Gross." Danny was kicking himself for not trying to door handle first. He could have just phased the lock and pretended it had just jammed, but now Dash would find that way too suspicious.

Of course, the alternative was spending who knows how long trapped in a closet with Dash, of all people… for how long? Minutes? Hours? The whole weekend?

Screw it, it was worth the risk.

"Here. I'll give it a shot." He ducked under Dash's arm and tried to wriggle between the quarterback's ribcage and a wall prickling with hooks and hung with various cleaning supplies.

"What are you doing, loser- ew, get off me!"

"I'm- trying-" Spray bottles and a broom clattered to the floor.

Dash tried to shove him back with one half-bent arm. "Stay on your half of the closet."

"My half? What are you, eight? I want to get us out of here."

He slammed his palm against the shelving behind him. Bottles and cans rattled. "I told you, it's locked!"

It felt like Dash's sweaty, leather-clad bicep took up more space than Danny's entire torso. "Why are you so freakin' bulky?"

"I'm a football player, wimp, that's what we do. Bulk up."

Danny squirmed, trying to backtrack, but only succeeded in wedging himself half-beside, half-under Dash. "Get your knee out of my back!"

"Stop tickling my arm!"

"Dude, I'm not touching you! I'm on this side, remember?"

"If it's not you, then… what's…" Danny felt the other boy go stiff. Something scuttled on the other side of the closet.

"EAAUGH!" Dash shrieked and flailed, nearly bashing Danny in the head.

Danny flinched, his arm flinging out instinctively. A blast of blinding green light shot out from his palm, slamming into the closet door with a deafening bang.

"GAH! OW! What – what the hell was that?!"

Danny froze. "Er… what was what?"

"That- that-" Danny could just make out Dash's hands gesturing wildly. "That light!"

Danny shook his head. "There wasn't any-"

"Oh my god, I think I'm bleeding!"

Crap. Stupid reflexes. Stupid malfunctioning powers. Stupid Dash.

A siren blared out of the school intercom, barely muffled by the thick wooden door. "What now?" Dash wailed.

A bright green light washed through the walls, the ceiling. The air seemed to fizzle and buzz to life around them, the hairs on their arms standing on end. Danny shivered, a wave of vertigo rolling through him, the acidic taste of bile crawling up his throat.

Ghost shield.

Great.

"Oh god, what's going on?!" Through the dim green glow that encompassed the closet, Danny could see Dash pressing himself against the shelves, eyes wide, clutching his upper arm. He shot Danny a frenzied glare. "What did you do?!"

"I didn't do anything!"

"I saw it! It was one of those green – blast – thingies. You know! Ghost rays! You did that, didn't you? Where are you hiding that ectogun?"

"W-what ectogun?"

"Don't you play games with me, Fenton." He took a step forward – Danny edged back instinctively, pressing his body against the wall of prickling hooks. "Where is it?"

Danny glanced around desperately, and settled on an uneasy grin. "I'd uh, rather not say."

Dash scowled at him, processing, then pulled back, face screwing up in disgust. "Ew. Just, ugh. It doesn't matter. Why don't you just blast the door lock off or something?"

"Rebound," Danny lied, grateful for years of lying about ghost hunting for his lightning-fast excuse reflexes. "It would bounce right back and nail us if I tried it in this small of a space."

Dash snorted. "Well, you better find some way out of here. You owe me big time now, Fen-tonator."

"How do you figure that?"

"You shot me! Me, the star quarterback. If you've hurt my touchdown pass, my dad'll sue you losers right out of Amity Park. Figures that the biggest geek I know would have the nutjob parents who let their little freak in training bring a gun to school."

Danny mustered a glare, but felt a cold stone settling in his chest. The words stung. "Shut up, Dash," he growled. "And it's not a gun."

"Whatever!" The jock sneered. "You know it's true – Your dad's an idiot. Your mom's insane. They break stuff and freak people out more than ghosts do! If your family weren't such psychos we wouldn't be in this-"

"Shut up!"

Dash froze mid-sentence, and through the semi-dark Danny could barely make out the slackened jaw and widened eyes. "What?" He snapped.

"Your eyes." Dash pointed. "They're… glowing."

Danny slammed his eyelids shut before he even finished his sentence. Shitshitshit. He had not – Dash had not seen- "No, they're not."

"Y-yes they were!" Fear mingled with triumph in Dash's voice. "Wha- what are you, Fenton? Are you a ghost, huh? Are you possessed?"

"No! No, Dash, I'm not possessed." The last thing he needed was to give Dash another reason to hit him, or… worse. "If I was a real ghost I would've eaten your eyeballs or something by now."

The jock's eyes narrowed. They had that mean, calculating look that Danny had seen before. He was deciding exactly what kind of bullying would hit his victim the hardest. "So you're just some kind of ghost-y freak."

Danny hesitated, then sighed. "Sure, let's go with that."

"Okay, freak." Dash grabbed him by the shirt, yanking the shorter boy right off his feet. "You get us out of here right now, or I swear to god what's left of your face will be on the six o'clock news by Monday."

Ice shot through his blood. Danny shook his head slowly, his mouth sticky and dry. "I can't," he whispered.

"Why?" Danny could feel the terror leaking from Dash, channeling instantaneously into his rage against the nearest living object. Lucky him. "Aren't you some ghost freak? What good are you? Why can't you just do that creepy walk through walls thing?"

Danny gestured to the faint but unmistakable green shimmer in the air around him. "…ghost shield."

"You're kidding me." Danny felt the hands locked into his shirt collar begin to shake. Dash dropped him and slammed his fist into the door. The heavy wood swallowed up the blow like it was nothing, impassive and mocking. "We're stuck. We're actually stuck."

Danny shrugged, tentatively relieved that Dash seemed more interested in that problem than the small fact that Danny had ghost powers. "Hey, it could be worse."

"Are you serious? Today's Friday. Tomorrow's Saturday. You know when they'll actually check at the school for us? Monday. Monday! I'm stuck with you – some loser-turned-ghost-freak – for three days! How the hell can it possibly get any worse?"

The siren that had been blaring off in the distance suddenly stopped. The two boys stood still, their breathing the only thing that broke the absolute, empty silence of the school.

Danny could hear Dash shifting, edging toward the door. "Do you think that means someone's here?"

"Shh!" Danny pressed his ear against the wood, listening. The school was utterly silent and deserted; the faint, echoing whirr of a faraway air conditioner only added to the sense of emptiness. Then the intercom crackled to life.

"Manual response time exceeded," a cool, mechanized female voice announced. "Automated ecto-entity elimination cycle commences in one minute."

Cold shot down into Danny's chest. 'Elimination'?

"Shit. Shit," he mumbled. He shoved past Dash, ignoring the jock's sharp protest, slamming an intangible shoulder into the wooden door. It didn't even crack, refusing to budge. He shot a glowing hand forward, twisting the door handle furiously. Hot metal seared his fingers – he yelped, wrenching his stinging hand back.

"What – what are you doing? Is that melted?"

"Elimination cycle will commence in thirty seconds."

The tiny space crushed in on him, suffocating in its closeness. "Oh god, oh god," Danny gasped. Real terror and panic began to seize him. He whirled around, glancing frantically at Dash. "Dash, we've gotta-"

"Ten seconds. Nine, eight-"

"Oh my god, you actually melted the handle. We're stuck in here forever!"

"Shut up and do something!"

"How?" Dash spluttered. "You just destroyed our only way of getting out!"

"…six, five, four-"

"You're the one who said to blast it off! How about you bash your head on it and see if that works out?" Danny threw all of his strength into kicking the door. It didn't budge. "Damnit, Dash, help me!"

"I'm not some superhero who can just-"

"-two, one. Commencing cycle."

The air pulsed. Danny gasped, his knees buckling and sending him staggering, throwing a hand behind him. He fell headlong against Dash. Dash squawked and shoved him away.

A twisting, tearing, wrong feeling curled through his toes and raced up his spine. Metallic fire blazed through his teeth – Danny could feel every hair on his body standing up. He wasn't sure if he screamed or not. Dash's slack-jawed, dumb expression was illuminated in neon green. He went rigid, his arms taut at his sides.

Then it was like some invisible string that had been stretching him toward the ceiling was suddenly cut. His boiling aura dissolved into nothing.

Silence rang in his ears, cut only by his own ragged, sobbing breaths, and the hiss of the melted door handle. A hot, sick feeling settled into his gut. Like being roasted in the eye of the sun, or crushed under a mountain of a stone. Danny's core was a throbbing, unsteady mass of pain, pulsing drunkenly off time from his heartbeat. It quivered, threads bursting into his lungs with jabs and flickers of energy, like a miniature start trying to tear itself apart.

Dash was pressed against the door, as far away from Danny as possible. The door. It stood immobile and mercilessly solid, trapping them. Even gravity felt compressed and bore down on Danny's shoulders.

Dash gripped the sides of his letterman jacket. He shivered. "What…what's going on? What's happening to you?"

Danny laughed; it came out high-pitched and hysterical. "Who knows? Feels like – my insides are melting. Maybe they finally figured out a way to dissolve ghosts without even touching them." They'd been talking about some new invention earlier this week. He hadn't paid attention, relying on Jazz to fill him in later if it was important… how stupid could he get?

What color he could see in the barely-there light of the ghost shield drained from Dash's face. "I swear Fenton, if I die from one of your parent's freaky screwups-"

"It won't hurt you, okay? My parents don't make things that hurt humans."

Dash seemed to process this, relaxing a fraction. "So – so you really are… a ghost? You don't… look like one."

Danny would've dropped to his knees if there was room. Instead he ended up in an awkward half-slouch, one elbow pressing into the bristles of a broom, his back jammed against a shelf that jabbed him with various chemical containers.

"Half… half ghost," he mumbled, stunned at himself. What was he doing? Telling his most dangerous secret to his worst…well, his worst human enemy? Was he suicidal?

Dash was silent for a long moment. "How is that even possible?"

"Beats me," Danny whispered. "I'd ask my parents, but I haven't felt like getting picked apart just yet."

"They would… really do that?"

Danny remained silent. Sweat stood out on his forehead, phosphorous and rolling upward against gravity. Dash's face appeared in the faint glow, wide-eyed and terrified. He kept blurring in and out of focus. Suddenly the world took a vicious right turn.

"Woah!"

Danny was vaguely conscious of arms catching him around the chest and easing him to the floor. There were less than three feet of actual floor space, so they ended up in a claustrophobic jumble of arms and legs, Dash half-crouched and Danny leaned against him. His arm splashed into the dank, murky water in a mop bucket – ew – the water felt weirdly cold and burned against his skin.

"Oh man, oh man," Dash moaned. "You can't do this to me, Fenton. You can't eat it now! I can't be locked in a closet with a dead guy." A pause. "A dead-er guy."

For some reasons this struck Danny as hilarious. He giggled. "Dead, half dead, what's it matter? Can't kill something that doesn't even have a heartbeat half the time."

Through the darkness, Danny could feel Dash's stare. "What are you?"

Danny shrugged, echoing Dash's earlier words. "A freak. Makes you happy, right?" He shuddered; nausea rolled over him in waves. "You can stick it right there next to geek and loser. Not that you ever needed an excuse to rag on me."

Silence. Danny wondered what the other teen was thinking. Then he wondered why he cared. Of all the stupid ways to die, this had to be the worst. Hiding in a closet with his least favorite person while some weird device he'd never even seen sucked the life right out of him.

A shiver rocked his body. He felt like every iota of energy was being sapped from his arms and legs. His head lolled back, the muscles in his neck refusing to hold it up. Real fear crawled up his spine, his breaths turning harsh and shallow. He couldn't move. He couldn't move anything. Would it keep going? Would he be able to breathe in ten minutes? Would his heart keep beating?

Dash seemed to sense his inner panic; a large set of heavy hands gripped his shoulders, hauling him over near the door. "Hey. Here, take my spot. There's less clutter…"

It took superhuman effort to push himself up against the door into a sitting position. The air seemed thicker, like they had breathed up all the oxygen, even though Danny could feel the open crack beneath the door. The silence outside was oppressive. Would no one come to turn off the ghost shield? Since it was the weekend, it meant no one was in immediate danger…

"Fenton!"

Danny jerked, straining blearily to see Dash through the darkness. He closed his eyes, feeling Dash lean in to study him closer. "You're really in trouble, aren't you?"

"No, Dash, I'm faking dying on purpose." Danny managed. He felt really sick now, but whatever muscles were in charge of throwing up weren't listening to him.

Dash wiped sweaty hands off on his jeans, crouched, stood up, crouched again. "There's gotta be something, right?"

Something must have happened. Maybe the alarm part had malfunctioned. Maybe Mom and Dad were doing something else. It was just his usual, rotten, miserable luck kicking in.

"Either I've got to get away from the shield, or somebody has to shut it off. We can't get out of here, and—" The four walls that surrounded them seemed to close in, solid and suffocating. Danny swallowed hard, reality sinking in. "Nobody's coming."

"HEY! Somebody come open up! We're in here!" Dash's bellows filled the tiny space and broke the long silence that'd stretched between them. His fists pounded on the heavy wood door, sending vibrations through Danny's aching brain.

He squeezed his eyes shut. Those were the only movements left to him now – facial expressions. Everything from the neck down had faded into a sick, prickling haze. Air trickled into his lungs with agonizing slowness.

Dash had propped him up against the sink that took up the back wall of the room. Their legs were a confused tangle of Danny's bent knees and Dash's ankles.

"Nobody's… there…" he whispered as the jock paused for breath.

"There's gotta be somebody! I mean, we can't just wait for you to – to-" Dash's voice failed him.

"Dash… just forget it. It's…" His throat closed up over the words. Danny felt tears prickle in his eyes and was glad of the dark. He wanted to say that it was okay, that it was fine… but he didn't want to die like this. Not here. Not in such a stupid, lousy way. Not with Dash, of all people. In the freaking janitor's closet on the floor, with moldy mop water dripping down his right shoulder and a dustpan jabbing him in the back.

Danny closed his eyes and stubbornly ignored the waver in his own voice. "Give it… up."

"Up…" Dash echoed with a funny tone in his voice. "Up! That's it!"

Dash lunged past him in the dark, clambering over him onto the sink so close that jeans brushed against his face. The plastic sink groaned under the weight, threatening to come right off the wall.

Through the haze clouding his mind, Danny inched away, half-expecting the sink – and the two-hundred-pound jock – to come crashing down on him. "What… are you…"

"Come on," Dash muttered, groping for something Danny couldn't see. There was a bang; a shower of dust, plaster broken ceiling tiles clattered down and fell on Danny.

He coughed reflexively and shut his eyes against the stinging shower of debris. It was too dark to see what Dash was… a clatter sounded above him, then a scramble of limbs in an echoing space that seemed larger than the closet should be. There was the sound of cloth ripping above him, a curse echoing off metallic walls. The sounds retreated. Danny was alone.

Alone? How…? He tried to wrap his mind around the concept, but his thoughts refused to congeal, flickering half-formed and freckled with pain.

Running footsteps outside in the hall. The door banged open. Glaring fluorescent light poured in, slamming painfully into his eyelids. Danny felt himself being yanked up and tossed like a sack of potatoes over someone's shoulder.

Things were happening in snapshots now – flashing black and green, in and out.

A dark and empty hallway with its rows on rows of lockers jolted by in a twilight blur. White tile squeaked under pounding tennis shoes. The raw, stinging odor of ectoplasm and blood curled through his nose. There was sweat on the neck pressed awkwardly against Danny's shoulder and he could feel the person carrying him heaving for breath even as his own lungs refused to open. Black spots spun in front of his eyes. Every nerve screamed with a need for oxygen, black pain crawling up from his fingertips and squeezing at his heart.

"Don't die, don't die, don't die," Dash was chanting, voice shrill with hysteria.

Doors swung wide and they half fell, half jumped down the school steps. Tennis shoes pounded on raw earth. It hadn't worked – they were outside the school and-

Something popped loud against Danny's eardrums. Green flashed in his eyes and a shock knifed through his body – then, suddenly, that was it.

It was like a crushing weight had been lifted off Danny's chest. Air flooded into his lungs, his heart hammered in his chest, blood thundered through his veins as if to make up for lost time. He lay on his back in the grass, gasping open-mouthed. His ears rang with the sheer energy of being alive.

The rest of his surroundings sank in. Power lines cutting fragments out of a pearly pink sky. Cool, dry grass under his back. Distant cars rumbling on the street. He raised his head slightly and could catch sight of the back steps of the school, and just a yard or so away, the faint glimmer of something green, just a flicker in the air. Amazing how something you could barely see could be completely deadly. Danny shuddered.

"You okay now, Fenton?"

Danny's eyes flicked to the side; Dash Baxter crouched next to him with eyes as big as saucers. The quarterback was streaked with sweat and layers of dust, his usually carefully gelled hair sticking up in tufts.

"Uh," Danny took one more deep breath and let it out. "Yeah, I think so." An awkward pause. "Are you okay?" When the quarterback just stared at him, Danny tried cracking a smile. "You look like you've seen a—"

"Shut up, turdbreath," Dash growled, standing up. "I guess if you're making lame jokes you're fine."

Danny laughed. For some reason he couldn't wipe the stupid grin off of his face; it just felt so good to be alive. Half-alive. Whatever. "I guess if you're calling me lame insults, you're fine, too." His fingers twirled a blade of grass, dread curling around his heart. "Umm… you won't tell anyone about the ghost thing, right? I really, really don't feel like being torn apart or-"

Dash scoffed. "What, and lose my personal punching bag to a bunch of ghost hunters? No way."

Danny released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

The quarterback glanced at his watch and scowled. "I missed half the playoff game because of this. Smell you later, Fenton."

"Sure." Danny listened to Dash's retreating footsteps, trying to muster up the effort to sit up. Now that he was over the wonderful, amazing act of breathing, he realized that every square inch of his body ached. He was numb and heavy with exhaustion from his toes to his fingertips. Even lifting his hand to wipe the cold sweat that stung his eyes took a massive amount of effort.

By the looks of the sky it was still a couple of hours till curfew, which meant even Jazz wouldn't be concerned. Danny wondered gloomily what the chances were that Sam or Tucker might stroll by the school. Whoever came up with the idea that cell phones were something you should get grounded from needed to be shot. Or nearly turned into jello and left as ghost bait on the back lawn of a school.

The sneakers returned. Danny could just make out Dash scrutinizing him in the gathering dark. "…you can get up, right?"

He returned the look deadpan. "Sure, Dash. I'm just lying here flat on my back because I like the view."

"Can't you like, fly home or something?"

Danny winced; it was too much to ask for Dash to forget all that, wasn't it? "I'm too wiped out for ghost stuff," he admitted finally.

Dash muttered something unintelligible and reached down, hauling Danny up and slinging an arm around his ribs. Danny's legs warped treacherously under him, but he managed to propel himself forward, leaning heavily on Dash.

"Anybody sees us, it's not what it looks like, understand?"

Danny chuckled. "What, you being a decent human being?"

"Walking a loser to his house. On a weekend. During football season." Dash sounded like he couldn't believe it himself.

"Don't worry, I'll tell them you're gonna shake me down in an alley for my allowance."

Dash's free arm swung up and cuffed the back of Danny's head. "Real cute, Fentwerp."