Disclaimer: I don't own DP. Or the card game Go Fish. Or Tylenol.

Thanks to ShadowDragon357, ectoheart, PhantomD, Life In Ivy, StitchingUpShadows, Phantom J. Ryder, Domegfede, ZoneRobotnik, JLK, CaliTacui, Tacolady22, MsFrizzle, MarkTheTinyGiraffe, Guest, too enigmatic 2 b urs, tsukinopen, Cindy M 19, Elisablackcat, floodmaster16, Vicioushotdogs, BreakSalaz, Lady Twice, Guest, Guest, Guest, guest, Saiha Phantom, Guest, solstar16, and Cooked Starrie for reviewing last time. Seriously, guys. I'm sorry it took so long to get this out. I really appreciate your continued support and sending me reviews/messages every so often to check in about this story.

Theoretically Illogical

Chapter 13: Alcohol Makes For a Good Soap Opera

So there Sam was, holding up Danny Phantom as he vomited out his brains. "Great," she muttered, desperately trying to keep his hair out of the way and him from falling sideways as he swooned in exhaustion. She looked up and called, voice strained, "Tucker! You better get in here!"

The techno-geek roommate stared from the bathroom threshold, a little green in the face. "Why?" he whined. "You're doing such a good job and everything."

"He's your roommate."

"He's your romantic interest," Tucker said, crossing his arms. "Really, you should know that ghosts can't handle alcohol. For future reference."

"Thanks," she snapped. "Why don't you tell me everything after it becomes important, huh?"

A teasing smile stretched Tucker's dark lips. The woman had not contested Danny as a romantic interest, which was delightful and entertaining.

"And in plus," Sam grumbled under her breath, "I found him this way."

Danny leaned his cheek against the wooden cupboard beside him, green eyes wide open in agony. "God," he whined, "why did I do this?"

He'd hit some kind of point in his purging spree where his body had given up on him. He didn't think he had the energy to upchuck anymore alcohol—but he had some kind of notion that he'd never be able to do this again. His body was putting its foot down and saying, You're not in control anymore. We're gonna upchuck everything until you regret life.

"You ask why you did this every time you get drunk, man," Tucker called out merrily. "The answer doesn't change. You're impulsive."

"…Nooo," he whined, closing his eyes. He ran his tongue across his teeth and then whined some more. He didn't even know what impulsive meant in that moment, but it sounded bad. It was a big word, and he was functioning off a very limited vocabulary in that moment.

Sam gave Tucker a bit of a worried look. "Seriously, he's done this before? How many times is 'every time'?"

The man shrugged. "Mostly at the Ghost Zone Christmas parties. Those guys get the heavy stuff—and damn, does it snow him over." He waved his hand gallantly. "I've had to save this damsel in distress for years now!"

Danny groaned (still as Danny Phantom, one of the top ten sexiest bachelors in Amity Park). "Not a damsel," he pouted.

"But you are in distress," Tucker said helpfully.

Danny accepted this as a fact of life and so left it at that.

Sam asked hesitantly, "Ghost Zone…Christmas parties?"

Tucker's eyes glinted. "Yeah, you probably wouldn't know about that. Every year, the ghosts all stop fighting each other and hold a massive party to celebrate Christmas. Danny Phantom gets invited too."

"I can't do this," Danny moaned, swallowing hard. He could feel his stomach clench again, his eyes glassing over. "I'm dying—"

Sam patted his head, running her fingers through his white hair to comfort him. "You're already half-dead."

Danny retched into the toilet again, and both Sam and Tucker flinched at the sound. The hero of Amity Park (and one of the top ten sexiest bachelors, to reiterate) seemed to be losing the battle with himself, and as he pulled away, he began to cry pathetically. "I wanna stop," he begged, his green eyes watering up. "Get Clockwork. He can reverse this!"

Tucker almost laughed. "Dude, remember what Clockwork said when you tried that last time?" He crossed his arms. "He called your request an 'abuse of his power.' That guy's not gonna help."

Danny stared at Tucker, an innocent, child-like pout crossing his still-hazy features. He blinked, and a tear ran down his worn face. "But I'm miserable."

"Hey, that's a complicated word! I'm impressed," Tucker congratulated him, clapping his hands. Then he turned back to Sam and added, "But seriously, I've crashed the ghosts' Christmas party a few times. You gotta see the pics I took."

"…Will I regret it?" Sam said, looking a little uneasy.

"Trust me, you won't," Tucker sang.

Danny, for all of his sickness, barely heard Tucker's words and was instead now lying on his stomach on the bathroom floor, trying to fall back to sleep in exhaustion. It was then that bright rings of light appeared and stormed down his body, leaving him human and in crumpled clothes.

Sam blinked at that, still somewhat in shock for several reasons—mostly to do with how her life had gone from relatively quiet to entangled with a drunk ghost superhero. "Um, I guess we should probably get him back to the couch…?"

"And then Christmas pics after," Tucker declared, moving forward to help her carry Danny out. "You can't be part of Team Phantom if you don't know all the old stories."

"Team Phantom? That's actually a thing?"

"Yeah, cause that's what we are. Welcome to the team, by the way."

A rooster crowed, the sun gently rose above the hills of Amity Park, and all was calm.

Except for Danny's apartment.

His eyes blearily opened, and the full brunt of sunshine struck him right in the face like a punch. He squeezed his eyes shut again, but it was too late. He moaned. He tried to move his hands to further cover his face, but that required energy that he didn't have.

Then he heard a constant, roaring noise—like a battering ram to his ear drums. Confusion disoriented him, his head pounding. And then the noise stopped but blasted into several sharp beeps.

"Ngh," he whined, desperately trying to move. He realized he was tangled in a blanket. Footsteps echoed like thunder around him suddenly.

And then a form of some kind blocked the sunlight that was burning even his eyelids. He dared to open his eyes then, and he found himself staring at a blurry, feminine figure.

"Danny?" came the woman's voice, which was strained with worry and amusement. "Hey, you okay?"

He blinked, not quite comprehending the concept of language. Words. Her mouth moved.

Words. Right, he had those too.

"…Sam?" he asked, voice cracking. He almost managed to reach out to her, half-convinced that she was a hallucination.

"Don't worry," she told him, sipping on a green tea. "I won't tell anyone that Danny Phantom is a lightweight drinker. You want some Tylenol or something?"

He scrunched his face at the light and stared at her blearily. There was a very-real Sam standing in front of him while he had a very-real headache. Everything was too real. "How much did I have?"

She raised a brow. "Do you remember anything from last night?"

He blinked and started wracking his brain. He could remember the incredible depression he'd felt—the feeling of hopelessness—and then nothing. There was a large, black void in his memory.

"No," he whined, forcing himself to sit up. A thick blanket slipped from his shoulders, revealing his jeans and white shirt from the night before. The action of sitting up made him feel suddenly nauseated and dizzy.

A warm hand—too warm from cradling a cup of green tea—reached out to steady him. Sam's voice grew a bit anxious. "Do I need to bring a trashcan over or something? You look a little sick."

He moaned in agreement. A green tinge began to work up his neck and face, and Sam backed away in panic, nearly dropping her tea in a mad dash to drag a trash can over to the couch.

For a second or two, Danny seemed that he just might pull through. But then his eyes glassed over, and he grabbed onto the trash can for dear life.

Sam winced for him, turning away to give him a little privacy.

The worn man simply moaned again after a time. "What is this?" he cried, shakily pulling away, only to crawl off the couch in his delirium and nearly stumbling over his blanket. His face was flushed red with embarrassment. It was starting to hit him that Sam was in his apartment, looking a bit disheveled and tired herself.

Where had she come from? Oh god, had he really just upchucked in front of her? What was life?

He was crawling toward the bathroom, which he realized must have looked utterly pathetic to her. And so Danny grabbed onto the TV set and forced himself to stand on shaky legs, his vertigo returning. And then, very carefully, he began to limp forward in a desperate attempt to cling to manly pride.

Sam watched him, half-amused.

Several minutes later, a tired Danny reappeared, his hair combed and a bottle of Tylenol in his hand. The rough stubble of a day without shaving still darkened his chin, but he looked a bit more human than before. He turned weary, blue eyes toward her. "Damage report," he said weakly as he grabbed for a water glass Sam had poured for him. "How bad was it?"

"Well," Sam ticked off from her fingers, "you did a few interpretive dance moves, and thanks to a highstakes game of Go Fish, I now own your abs and both lungs."

He winced. "That bad, huh?" He quickly downed the Tylenol, chasing it with water. Something in his movements still did not seem coordinated.

"Yep," she replied evenly. "That game was pretty intense."

He gave her a curious look as he gingerly sat back down on the couch, wrapping himself in the blanket. "Did I win anything from you?"

"My eyes and my left boob."

He paused. "Only the left one?"

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Yeah, only the left one."

"But…" he trailed off, innocent confusion and disappointment mixing in his voice, "why only the left one?"

Sam had the decency to blush while she said bluntly, "Because you lost the game for the right one. And I won your abs."

"That doesn't seem fair," he muttered under his breath. He subconsciously scratched his stomach. "Abs come in pairs too."

"Nuance," she said. "Get a lawyer next time before you gamble off body parts."

He hid his face and winced. "Will do. Is there anything else I should know about? Like why I have this weird impulse to give all my money to an animal shelter?"

Some kind of relief sped through her as she realized that Danny had absolutely no memory of what he'd done. It made hiding the fact that he'd kissed her to the floor much easier to hide. "You transformed and almost exposed your secret to the campus, but I stopped you." She looked up at him and sighed. "And then you saw one of those abused-animal commercials. You were really, really drunk. You're lucky I saw you hanging off the roof before anyone else did. You'd be one exposed superhero without any money left in his savings."

He blushed and awkwardly rubbed his neck. "Yeah, well…" He looked up at her. "I'm sorry you had to see me like that. I know you probably didn't want to see me…after…"

Her face twitched. "Danny," she said hesitantly. "Did you really try to drink yourself to death because of me?"

The man pressed his lips together, falling silent. Something in his dilated, blue eyes seemed vulnerable. He turned his face away. "No?" he said. But his voice was weak. "I m-mean…"

Sam bit her lip. "Look, you know about the…thing that happened in my past. And when I first saw you transform, I was just really surprised. It brought back a lot of memories." Her face tinged a bit red, and she turned away, feeling the familiar wave of suffocation and black ink come over her. Thinking about Gregor—Eliot—always made her feel like that. She swallowed down some pride and uncertainty. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

Despite Danny's splitting headache, an uncertain and hopeful smile lifted his lips. "So you don't hate me?"

She retorted, "If I did, do you really think that I would've saved you from exposing your secret to the whole campus? And then stayed here to make sure you didn't asphyxiate yourself?"

His smile grew, and then he paused. "And you don't think I'm a freak or anything either?"

Sam gave him a pointed stare, then said softly, "Oh, you're a freak alright." Her face twitched up a small smile. "But you're the good kind. And I want you to know that if you ever need anything, you can count on me to be there. Because I owe you one."

For a moment, the two held gazes. The silent tension between them dissipated into some kind of understanding. Then, Danny's face turned green, and he vomited into the trash can. Sam winced.

"Oh god," Danny breathed. "This sucks. I'm never drinking that much ever again." He groaned and flopped back onto the couch like a wet noodle, holding his stomach. "Never, ever doing this again."

The door to Tucker's room opened, revealing a dark-skinned man wearing a robe and pajamas with little computers on them. "Yeah, right," he called, yawning. "Because it's not like you don't say that after the Ghost Zone Christmas party every year."

Blue eyes turned in surprised. "Tucker? What are you doing here?"

Tucker raised an eyebrow. "What am I doing here? I live here with you, man. Did you forget?"

Sensing where this was going, Sam intervened. "Tucker got here late last night. We bonded over stories about the early days." A wicked and mischievous glint sparked in her eyes. "So how many times did you hit on Kitty before Johnny 13 punched you in the face?"

Danny glared evilly (or as impressively evil as one could with a hangover). "Seriously? Seriously, Tuck? Out of all the stories, you choose that one?"

From out of his robe pocket, Tucker pulled out a phone. "Hey, I've got proof it actually happened, unlike some of the other stories I could tell."

Danny turned his head to stare back up at the ceiling. "Why do they conspire against me?"

"Because that's what friends do," Sam said, voice casual.

"And now that Sam's a part of Team Phantom, she deserves to know the truth," Tucker added. "Let's face it; it was about time our team expanded. And maybe with two of us on campus, we can get it through your skull that inhaling that much alcohol at once is a dumb idea."

Danny had the decency to blush. "Stop ganging up on me," he whined. Then he pulled the blanket over his body, laying back down fully. His voice was muffled. "It's a rough life."

Sam said dryly, "And it's a good thing it's Sunday. There'd be no way you could make it to class like this."

Even the thought of class made him groan.

Sam bit her lip to hide a smile, and then she tiredly began to put her books in her backpack. "Well, now that Tucker's awake to make sure you don't asphyxiate yourself, I guess my job here is done. I'm gonna go catch some z's back at my apartment."

Tucker's face turned down in disappointment. "Oh, what? But we were gonna play Doom."

"That was before I stayed up all night and you didn't," Sam said dryly. "Challenge me later, okay?"

The techno-geek huffed at that, but he grudgingly accepted. "I guess you'd be a better opponent if you slept first."

"Please," she retaliated, her purple eyes narrowing playfully in a tease. "I could probably still beat you right now. It's just not a priority."

"You say that," Tucker called to her, raising his finger. "But you just wait. You'll be defeated by my awesomeness soon enough."

Sam shouldered her backpack, still holding onto the coffee mug she'd stolen from their cupboards. "Yeah, have fun with your dreams while you still can." She raised the mug. "I'll hold this hostage until I wash it, if that's okay?"

"You merciful woman," Tucker said. He was starting to like her more by the moment. "You remembered that with my delicate disposition, I can't touch green foods, including green tea?"

"…Trust me, I figured as much from you, Mr. Orange Soda."

Danny feebly pulled himself up from the couch to stare at the coffee mug in Sam's possession. It suddenly hit him that the mug had a rocket ship on it and was his favorite one, from NASA. He whined. "…You put green tea in that?" Something in his face dropped. "Not coffee?"

"What?" she asked innocently. "It's not like I brewed tea in your coffee pot. I had some tea bags in my backpack."

He narrowed his eyes at her blearily, then fell back against the couch once more. "I can't handle any false alarms or surprises right now," he moaned, covering his eyes with his arm. "The coffee pot is sacred. My heart is pounding. I can't—I almost just died."

Sam raised sculpted, dark brow. "The coffee pot is fine. Your world's not ending."

"Yeah, man," Tucker called, almost offended. "Have some faith. I would've thrown my body over the coffee pot if she tried anything, you know that."

Danny groaned, sinking down until only his hair stuck up over the edge of the edge of the couch's armrest. "I trusted you to delete those Christmas pictures," he retorted wearily. "Some friend you are."

With that, Sam giggled. She turned to Tucker, then said seriously, "So. None of this ever happened. If anyone asks, I wasn't here."

He nodded seriously. "Right."

Her face softened. "Take care of him, Tuck."

"Will do!" And then he saluted her as she walked out the door and shut it with a soft click.

For a time or two, the two men remained in silence. Then Tucker spoke up, "Damn, man. She plays Doom. I ain't never met a girl who plays Doom before. I think this was fate. I think we're really looking at destiny here because she's the perfect addition to Team Phantom. I think you might even be able to heat up that ice heart of hers yet."

Danny moaned, "She stole my NASA mug. And put green tea in it."

Tucker stroked his chin. "Yeah, but I mean, that's relationships. You gotta give and take, my friend. Give and take."

The half-ghost blushed, closing his eyes to ignore the innuendo in Tucker's voice. "Any ghost alarms while I was conked out?"

Tucker waved off the concern. "Nah, just an alert that the Box Ghost was at the grocery store this morning. I hacked into the speakers and told him you were mad-drunk and looking for a punching bag. He high-tailed it back to the Ghost Zone."

Danny relaxed a bit in relief. "Oh, good."

"I know, right? It's like the ghosts knew you needed a day off or something. Or maybe they're all over at Clockwork's again, watching us like we're a soap opera."

The thought made him stiffen up again in paranoia. "Clockwork said he'd at least warn me the next time that happens," he muttered, running a hand through his hair.

And then his alcohol-muddled mind began to remember flashes of things from the night before: warm, female lips stretching over his, his fingers tracing down clothed hips. His body straddling another body…

A gasped, breathless whisper. "Stop…We can't."

And horror washed over him.

"You're not…you."

He pulled the blanket away from his body, sitting up in a flash. The remains of his dignity melted into a panic-stricken, pale face. "Oh my god, what did I do?" he demanded to Tucker. "With Sam. Alone. Did I do something? What did I do?!"

Tucker leaned on a counter, looking devilish. "See, now—that was my question. Sam was incredibly silent on the subject, the whole damn night. Can't imagine why."

His blue eyes widened, face blushing hard. "Um…"

Danny suddenly had an image of Sam beneath him on the floor, her black hair in twisted angles around her head. Her full lips were open in a gasp, her purple eyes wide and dilated.

His heart began to pound, in absolute terror and an incredible desire. "Oh my god," he breathed. "I…"

"…You what?" Tucker demanded. "Did you try to kiss her or something? I mean, she obviously forgave you if you did, but I gotta know."

He touched his lips, fingertips almost shaking. "I did more than that," he admitted fearfully. "Holy cow, how did I not get slapped? Or did I get slapped and I just don't remember it?"

The techno-geek blinked. "Say what?" He leaned forward, incredibly interested. "Dude. As your best friend, you're obligated to tell me everything. Everything."

And somewhere in the depths of the Ghost Zone, several ghosts were crammed on a couch in front of one of Clockwork's time portals, which was set on Present Time, Amity Park, Daniel James Fenton.

Clockwork was in the back, working on the gears of a highly favored grandfather clock. "You do realize," he called out dryly to the audience before the portal, "I have to alert Daniel of this infringement at some point?"

Ember stuck her hand in the large bowl of popcorn. "Oh, don't ruin the fun, old man. It's just getting good."

Kitty grabbed onto the bowl next and passed it down. "Ten bucks on Danny running after the goth-chick to apologize," she called out merrily.

Skulker looked up from a weapon he was recalibrating. "I'll take that bet. The welp is too inebriated to get off that couch."

The green-haired woman narrowed her eyes playfully. "Ten bucks says he'll still try."

Skulker huffed. "I know my prey. He'll try, but he won't make it far."

And just then on the portal, one Danny Fenton attempted to untangle himself from the blanket and stand up from the couch, only to stumble over his own feet and face-plant into the floor with a groan.

"Ha ha!" Technus crowed. He leaned over Skulker to steal the popcorn bowl. "Classic slapstick humor. You just can't beat this channel, I'm telling ya."

Johnny 13 sat up a bit straighter with a sudden thought, then twisted on the couch. "Yo, hey, Clock-man. So say Phantom gets hot for goth-chick, and goth-chick says yes. Can we, like…watch?"

Kitty gasped and kicked him. "Johnny!"

"What?" he said helplessly. "It's not like Clock-man doesn't!"

"It's Clockwork," the powerful ghost cut in dryly, "And I don't." At that, he grabbed onto his scepter and activated it, freezing them all in time but for himself. He had a small headache blooming just behind his eyes, and he sighed, running an aged hand down his face.

Had he not allowed them to watch a portion of Danny Fenton's life, the time stream suggested the ghosts would have ruined Danny's few moments of peace, allowing his drunken memories of kissing Sam to slip away in forgetfulness—and thereby unfavorably altering the time stream of Danny's future. "The things I endure for the safety of the world," Clockwork grumbled in complaint. "Lewd commentary and disrespect from a bunch of moronic pranksters."

He supposed he was obligated to tell Danny Fenton now that a portion of his enemies had in fact just spied on him for entertainment. Luckily, Clockwork's previous agreement with his charge did not demand he tell Danny prior to such an incident.

Because Danny was notorious for not thinking things through.

A small issue that Clockwork, the Master of Time, occasionally found useful.

A/N: Wow, so I wrote five pages, got stuck for several months, and then wrote the last pages in two days. The freak is that about. I do not understand how that works. It's almost like I have to get depressed in real life to write something funny? (Hopefully this chapter was funny?)

I'm currently working through some stuff with my health, so keep your fingers crossed that my blood test results in two weeks show a better prognosis than what doctors are thinking right now. I could really use any good vibes my way.

Anyway, please review with your thoughts, questions, critiques, and ideas! Thank you!