Monochromatic

By inepta

Genre: Angst/Romance

Characters: Sam Manson, Danny Fenton, Tucker Foley

Word count: 2,680

Author's note: Behold, arguably my most pretentious fanfiction, ever. Beware of parenthetical inserts and cheap symbolism. I found this sitting in my email along with other Danny Phantom oneshots I wrote last year. I edited this one a bit recently and inserted one more scene. It would be a waste not to post them. Expect more, perhaps, if the rest of my oneshots aren't cringe-worthy. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: Danny Phantom belongs to Nickelodeon/Butch Hartman.

"People will always prefer black-and-white over shades of grey, and so there will always be the temptation to hold overly-simplified beliefs and to hold them with excessive confidence."

― Thomas Gilovich, How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life

Twelve-year-old Sam Manson rests inanimately in a gondola in solitude. As she peers down, astonished at the land before her, warmth possesses her body in an accommodating sort of manner.

She allows the bubbly sensation to settle in her stale, rigid form. The mountains skid past her while the mix between snow and rain gently attacks the roof, creating a dull thud-thud beat. A cloudy breath is released from the girl's pale lips. She smiles at the cold. She smiles at the winter.

Below her are mountains, hills, villages, and frozen bodies of water. Barely anything stirs below her for it is only the break of dawn. She observes the occasional rustle within the snowy, barren land. But other than that, the spot is still.

The colors engulf her curious, childlike mind. Almost nothing is remarkable. But perhaps that's what captures her attention―the coldness and the monotony of it all. She sees the blacks and the whites dotted non-uniformly across the surface. There is, of course, the crystal white snow. And then there are the lackadaisical, nearly ash-black stumps and branches that were once vivacious trees colored almost every shade of green.

She decides in her youth that these are the most beautiful colors she's seen. The blacks and the whites painted in her mind feel right. No more silly pinks or ridiculous neons. It is only then that she feels alive. The mature little creature has never felt her spirit more. She plans to keep it that way.

A year later, the meditative child still retains her strange values. Blacks and whites were the only things that allow her to survive in her world full of insignificant and petty affairs. She allows herself to take action to have a stronger grasp on her identity―to avoid losing herself in the ocean that tried to drown her in the false promises of sadistic monsters that were commonly dubbed as "humankind" or "people." Feelings aren't important to her.

With her strange philosophy comes peculiar restrictions that emanated from deep contemplation. Attachment is strictly prohibited, for what in the earthly world could appear as alluring as the invisible? Surely the spirits, the ghosts, the angels, and the demons are the true captivations that were worthy of her proud and stubborn heart—not any humans who abuse their spirits or lifeless objects that just shatter after a few months of torturing use.

The animals and plants are an exception most of the time. The thirteen-year-old once read a very flabbergasting book about the spiritual aspect of the unintellectual creatures. She realizes that sometimes, these beings were even more intellectual than the apparently "gifted" human creature. It made her laugh to admit it.

She paints mindlessly on a sheet of paper the blacks and the whites―the goods and the bads. It satisfies her gothic mind.

(Feelings aren't important to her.)

Sam soon begins to realize after another year of brooding that her odd philosophy of blacks and whites was not all perfect. Or maybe she's the imperfect one. Either way, she wants to eliminate the flaws immediately.

She does not detach herself completely from society. She knows how to converse. She has friends―even if they're two boys low on the non-existent social pyramid. What kind of pyramid is that, anyway? Ridiculous.

Danny and Tucker are very... different. Danny's a wimp, to say the least. As much as Sam likes him, she can't deny that he's not the most coordinated person in the world. On the other hand, Tucker is this freaky geek who loves his stupid PDA and steak more than his own soul. Weirdos, those two.

Sam's affinity for ghosts is heightened by Danny's parents deep interest in studying the field. She has always thought that ghosts were cruel and heartless from what Mr. and Mrs. Fenton had to say. She wants to know more and to see more, so she performs a very imprudent action that cost half of her best friend's life.

When Danny falls out of the defective ghost portal and doesn't get back up, Sam is alarmed and she feels all the boiling blood rush into her ears, deafening her out of fear.

The first thing she notices is his appearance, of course. But what grabs her full attention is the colors. The blacks and the whites. His hair was a pure and natural snowy white. Sam resisted the urge to run her hair through it. He looked immaculate, glowing moderately a clean white.

When he opened his eyes, Sam saw a new color that wasn't black or white. It was a lime green that emitted a radiant glow like a cat. Sam didn't know what to think of it―she thinks she might have liked it.

(Feelings won't touch her.)

As she pulls out another blank sheet of paper, watercolors, acrylics, and her paintbrushes, she recalls the earlier events in her no longer arid life. She remembers when Danny showed her his flight powers and his intangibility. It's a breathtaking sight, to say the least. Human Danny is already breathtaking in himself, but now Ghost Danny has to come in and attack Sam's weak heart even more. She can't bear it.

She dips her paintbrush into the dark liquid and pauses above the paper, allowing a drop of black to fall onto it gracefully. She doesn't know what to think anymore. She watches the black spot spread out onto the paper with the water.

The splotch is faded at the sides. She has been fretting over the blacks and whites of the world, and she has failed to acknowledge what is in between. The grays have so many hues. Black and white only have one shade, and anything else is a gray.

Sam paints and paints different figures onto her blank canvas. Birth is a white, definitely, and death is a black. The things between the two are what puzzle Sam the most. The gray. She stares in concentration at her creation to study it. This takes a few years, to be honest.

Her parents are a gray. Gondolas are a gray. Danny is a gray. There's no ease in classifying something accurately as either good or bad. Maybe that's why she can't see the good in anything anymore.

(She doesn't know what to feel.)

In one of her most vulnerable states, she is left with Tucker in Danny's bedroom while their other friend was out fighting a ghost.

"Tuck?"

"Yeah?"

"I… I've got something to tell you."

Her friend senses the odd atmosphere Sam was emanating; he treads this conversation carefully, holding back any jokes that crept up in the back of his mind for the time being. "Uh, sure. You know you can tell me anything."

Sam laughs weakly, and that alarms him even more. "I know, I know." She bites her lip and looks down. "But… this is different. You can't tell Danny, okay?"

She can see she was making Tucker nervous, but it was too late to stop. After a few moments of hesitation, he meekly replies, "Oh… okay."

Scooting closer to Tucker on the floor, Sam leans in, her jaw trembling to let out the words: "I think… I think I like Danny."

Tucker's expression softens from anxiety to amusement. "Aw, Sam. I already knew that."

"You what?" Sam is this close to punching Tucker.

"Sam, come on, everyone knows you like him." When he saw Sam's eyes widen in what he perceives at anger, he shakes his hands vigorously in front of her. "No, no, Danny doesn't know! And by everyone I mean Jazz and I."

Sam slouches and looks down at the floor with a dumbfounded expression. She decides against getting mad at Tucker. "What do I do about it?"

Tucker treats Sam more gently this time. "What do you do about your feelings?"

"Yeah. My… feelings. For him. Help me, please." The expression in her violet eyes is pleading for advice.

Smiling, Tucker puts a hand on Sam's shoulder. "Well, if I were you, I'd tell him. You know I'm not one for beating around the bush."

Sam chuckles. "Well, fortunately, I am not you. And Danny's not some guy I can admire from a distance. He's… I don't know. He's our friend—our best friend. Isn't it weird for me to like him that way?"

"No, it's not. Danny's a great guy. And you're amazing. Him being our friend makes it even easier for him to recognize that."

Tucker sees the gears in her head spinning. With a lighter look on her face, Sam mumbles, "God, I am the worst at being a Goth, huh?"

"Nah." Tucker sits up and speaks more cheerily. "You don't have to follow every rule in the Goth Handbook—if that even exists—it would be weird if it did." Sam rolls her eyes playfully. "Anyway, Sam, seriously, just follow your rules. It's okay to feel things sometimes. You like being different, right? Then you should just follow what your gut tells you and go for it! It doesn't have to be now, though. Follow your own timing. Even if that'll take, like, fifty years. I think Senior Danny would still be interested in you even if you turned into an old maid."

Leaning against the wall, Sam smiles. "Thanks, Tuck. I'll keep that in mind."

He smirks. "That's what I'm here for. So are you gonna tell him?"

Sam shakes her head. "No. I'll follow my timing." She shoves Tucker playfully. "Even if I'll be sixty-four when I finally get the courage."

Through all the ghost fighting, all their adventures, Sam learns. With the dangers they have to face constantly, she discovers more emotions. It's not just happy and angry anymore. She finds trust, fear, gratitude, disappointment, hope, all coupled with a mix of bittersweet sentiments that came with the ghost fighting.

She remembers what Tucker told her: it's okay to feel things sometimes. So she does. And it feels better than she expected.

She learns to smile more. The smiles reach her eyes this time.

She learns to warm herself and not to only depend on others to keep her out of the cold. She learns to love.

Her friends help her with every step she takes. They guide her, and in return, they are also guided to love, to real love.

Sixteen-year-old Sam rests inanimately in a cable car again. But she's not alone.

Danny keeps her from freezing by sitting close. His breath doesn't emit a cloudy puff of frosty air unlike Sam's because of his ghost powers, so he offers her his jacket willingly. No more detachment from the earth. The earth actually does have more than frivolous ideas and possessions. Happiness, spirit, contentment, love. Those can only be found here―with people.

They ponder individually for a few minutes―about anything: life, themselves, others, each other, the world, the universe, everything. Every person has to sit back and sit in silence with only their thoughts every once in a while. But the happiest people have others to share those thoughts with.

They talk for forever―about life, themselves, others, each other, the world, the universe. They understand.

They've sat in their cable car for how many hours already―the staff stares oddly at the two as they go for their fourth round up to the mountains. In circles they go without any care in the world. For once, finally, a moment to breathe.

They laugh a lot. Falling into silence now and then, they're given time to reflect on their silly little lives and their silly little burdens. Sam looks at the horizon again. Nothing has changed.

Sam looks down at the same ground in the same cable car in the same mountain range with the same person for the sixth time that day. And she's sick of it. Stupid vacation. At least she was able to get Danny to tag along.

She guides him out of the gondola and onto the mountains. The one of the staff members attacks them with overpriced photos of her and Danny that were taken before the ride started. Politely, she declines the offer and moves out of the station with Danny.

Danny asks her why they've suddenly alighted from the gondola, they were already having fun in there, the mountains are boring, why can't they just stay in there like they planned to? Sam rolls her eyes affectionately and finds a spot to sit. A small bench that looked like it was about to fall apart is located near an almost complete view of the mountain range. Sam blankly stops there to rest, and Danny, with a slightly fuddled expression smeared on his face, silently follows suit.

A puff of cold air escapes Sam's mouth. "The mountains are really pretty."

Danny nods in agreement. "They definitely are."

"See the colors? You can barely see the trees anymore. All I see are the black land and the white snow. It's cool. It's like looking at a painting where the artist only used black ink to create it."

Danny leans over Sam to point at their view. "But I can see the trees. If you look close enough, you can see that shrubbery there near the foot. There's green. And see the browns and the grays scattered around? I think you need glasses, Sam."

Sam chuckles and scoots closer to Danny. He doesn't even flinch when she hugs his arm and leans onto his shoulder, squirming as she finds a good position to ease the pain in the back of her neck.

She sighs weakly and dully yet manages to retain her amused countenance. "You're ridiculous."

"And charming?"

"And charming, of course."

Sam utters it with a glint in her eye and a smirk plastered on her chapped lips. Then she feels her best friend's arm transfer from her grip to her shoulders, wrapped clumsily as she buckles slightly and bumps him mellowly in her surprise.

"You're not so bad yourself, Samantha."

Her blush and her gaze are more wrathful than any other ghost in time. "What on Earth is that supposed to mean?"

"Stop acting stupid; you know. And I know."

"We know what—?"

A snappy shimmer of the most captivating blue possesses her whole being before she can even register what is happening to her. It takes a few milliseconds, and she is able to connect her senses to her consciousness again. And Lord have mercy on her dilapidated soul.

There's something touching her lips. It feels cold and frozen. Her elbows seem to be gripped by someone's hands. And she can feel Danny hold her close and hug her and do things that Sam would never be brave enough to do and―

Sam feels something strange bubbling within her. She doesn't know what it is and what to do with it. All she knows is that she's warm again. It felt... happy. Yes. Happiness. That's what it is.

Before she can even respond, it's over. She seems to have lost control over her body and remains paralyzed in her place, too much absorbed in her thoughts to even remember what the heck was happening.

Her body seems to move for itself then and she can feel herself grabbing him again and pulling him closer and kissing him again and oh lord, what was she doing, and she can see all the colors in the world occupy her sight behind her eyelids and―

"Wow, Sam, we're both really brave today, huh?"

She can see again. "You can put it that way."

He grasps her gloved hand. "You know I like you."

She shakes her head and laughs. "You know I like you."

"Then why did we take so long?"

She tilts her head and looks at Danny in the eye. "We were waiting for the right timing, I guess."

She feels content.

Is the world all that bad? Is it not worth knowing, not worth living for? Maybe, maybe not. But Samantha Manson knows that she isn't ready to let go of it. Not just yet. She's not erasing these feelings.

(Because she can feel.) (Finally.)

Author's note: Hurray for cheesy teenage existential crises. (P.S. I never knew the proofreading feature of this site was nice. Wow.)