Okay, I'm having a hard time getting my writing chops back into practice. I've been struggling for inspiration all day. Every time I would start the next chapter of WA, I would end up deleting it three lines in.

So I got on Tumblr and started looking for one-shot prompts, which lead me to discover the most awesome blog ever. f***yeahfanficprompts, minus the asterisks and replaced with the letters...ahem. If you have a Tumblr and struggle with occasional writer's block, I highly suggest following them, or at least checking them out.

Anywho, this is a quote they had posted and I was immediately struck with a drabble idea. It's not very long, but I'm okay with that if you guys are.

Ah, okay. I think that's it.

I don't own Danny Phantom.

Enjoy (:

"Look into an infantryman's eyes, and you can tell how much war he has seen." - Bill Mauldin

His eyes, his eyes.

His eyes were so dead.

Sam watched him across the table, watched him carry on a conversation with Tucker about new fighting techniques which was beginning to morph into a question of whether or not the speed of the Spector Speeder could be increased. His eyes were withdrawn, dark, clinical. Bags hung beneath those crystal orbs, so dark and heavy, and yet they were such a newly permanent feature on his face that she hardly noticed them anymore.

She chose not to contribute to this conversation, which neither boy appeared to notice. That was just fine to her. She was left to pick moodily at her salad and muse.

They used to be bright and cheerful, a direct reflection of his demeanor. Sure, he was picked on and bullied and ignored by the pretty girls, but he was still a happy-go-lucky goofball.

Until the accident.

That damned accident changed everything.

His eyes grew more disciplined, more wary, and at first she thought it was a good thing. At first, it was a good thing. There's nothing better than waking up to find your best friend has matured and started the process of growing up, at least emotionally. She hoped that maybe with this newfound maturity, he would begin looking beyond a girl's face and start looking for a little depth.

And he did. Valerie, while Sam disliked her, was a major step up from that little tart they called Paulina. Valerie had opinions. Wrong opinions, but at least they were there. And that heartbreak, that was the first time she ever saw a shadow of darkness in his eyes.

That was the start of his spiral down.

Looking back, she found it difficult to believe that three years had passed between that accident and now. It seemed like a blur. A blur of studying, bleeding, fighting, and running. Little moments of peace came here and there, but mostly she was on her feet and in action, alongside Tucker and Danny. She wondered if her eyes were as dead as his were.

He caught her staring. He studied her for a moment while Tucker talked, meeting her gaze evenly. His eyes flickered over her face - a habit he had gotten in to about a year earlier, in which he assured himself she was not hurt. He could read her like an open book, and she quickly discovered within the first year of his powers that trying to hide an injury from him was futile. Now, he was so in tune with her facial expressions that she could not even hide a paper cut. She watched him glance down at her neck, before landing again on her eyes.

He nodded once, a small twitch of his neck, and she pulled her mouth into what was supposed to be a smile, but it was probably closer to a grimace. A year earlier, he would have interrupted Tucker to ask her what the matter was, but now he simply closed his eyes briefly before turning his attention back to Tucker. The little exchange they shared did not go unnoticed by Tucker, either, but he had long since given up with his teasing. He did not miss a beat in whatever topic he was droning on about this time.

When did we get like this? Sam wondered to herself. When did we get so...numb? She glanced past Tucker to the cafeteria beyond. The trio was settled at the end of a long table shoved in a corner of the cafeteria, as far away from the general populus as they could get. In the past, the popular kids would sit just a few tables up from them, and they made it a point during every lunch hour to hurl insults their direction for at least five minutes. But now those kids sat on the opposite side of the cafeteria. No one even glanced their way anymore. They had gone from nerds to being completely invisible. Unnoticed by the world.

Her appetite officially gone, Sam stood and carried her salad to the trashcan at the end of her table. She heaved a heavy sigh and began scraping the leftovers in. Movement at the table on the other side of the trashcan drew her attention up; a young couple were sitting nearly nose-to-nose. They were both grinning foolishly and a lovely pink blush colored the girl's face. Sam cocked her head to the side, frozen in the motion of scraping salad out of the bowl, completely enraptured by the couple. That could be us, she thought suddenly. That should be us.

She looked away when they kissed, her chest suddenly tight with emotion. She stood there a moment longer, chewing her lip and battling internally, before clenching her jaw and raising her gaze to the horizon. She would feel again.

Forcing herself to not think about what she was about to do, she dropped the salad container on the end of the table and marched down Danny's side of the table. Her heart was suddenly hammering and adrenaline pumped through her system, a welcome change to the comatose numbness she had been wrapped in for so long now. He did not look up until she was almost on top of him, and he only looked up because Tucker had spotted her expression and was gazing at her with a furrowed brow. He half-turned in his seat, the question in his eyes, and before she could chicken out, she seized a fistful of his shirt and yanked him toward her.

She kissed him hard, holding him in place. His grunt of surprise was muffled and she felt his arms jerking in surprise, but he was not pulling away. That was a good sign, maybe.

When she shoved him away just a moment later, their lips made a wet, smacking noise. Her stomach flipped at the sound. He was staring up at her through wide eyes, breathing heavily, and for the first time in months she saw something like life flickering there. More stomach flips.

Tucker was making sounds of disbelief as Sam straightened. Sam glanced at him, but did not really see him. After a quick glance over her shoulder - no one had even noticed this little outburst, life was still carrying on as usual behind them - Sam planted her boot in the seat beside Danny. She ignored their gazes as she walked over the table and leapt to the ground on the other side. She grabbed Tucker's shoulder to steady herself as she bent at the waist to retrieve her backpack from beneath her seat, and refused to meet either one of their gazes as she shrugged one strap on and walked away. She seized her salad container as she walked away, and nodded as she passed the young couple at the table beside the door.

She was already at her locker, pulling books and binders out, when she heard him call her name. She closed her eyes, preparing herself for the lecture she was sure to come, and shut her locker.

"Look," she said as she turned, eyes cast downward, "I'm sorry, it's just -"

He all but slammed her into her locker. He swallowed her gasp with a searing, fervent kiss, and she was only infinitesimally aware of the fact that he had planted his hands on either side of her shoulders, caging her in. He ground his body into hers, pinning her firmly against the lockers. His kiss was much deeper than hers, his lips far more demanding against hers. He flattened his hands along her torso, gripped her hips possessively, before running his palms up her stomach. He stopped just short of her chest, moving his hands around to her back instead of further up.

He held her there as he pulled away, his eyes half-lidded and smoldering when she finally managed to force her eyelids open. They breathed heavily, in sync, foreheads touching and noses brushing.

"Thank you," He whispered, moving the tip of his nose lightly against hers in an Eskimo kiss.

"F-for what?" She all but panted. God, he drives me crazy...

"Making me feel alive again," He murmured. He pecked her lips before she could respond, and soon one peck became three, then five in quick succession, and then he was kissing her deeply again.

Anytime, oh please, all the time...

This is gonna be a one-shot dump, not unlike All of Me Loves All of You, but these won't be related in any way. I'm gonna go ahead and put this as complete, but I'll update and add on sporadically. Feel free to jump around. Each one-shot will be inspired by a word, phrase, or quote, and each word, phrase, or quote is absolutely free for your own adaptation. If you are interested in expanding on any of these one-shots, send me a PM and we can talk.

Thanks for reading, loves.

- Tori (: