Prompt: Danny dealing with the revelation of his secret OR something fluffy with either the friend trio or the Fenton family, by mostlikelynothuman on Tumblr

Written: 2-3-2017 Edited: 3-3-2017

Rating: K

Summary: Danny, fed up with his friend's endless debate on food, decides on a rather rash method to get Sam and Tucker to talk it out. He never expected to get a result out of it though.

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom and its characters, and I do not own the prompt. All rights go to their respective owners.

~Rooftop Talks~
A Danny Phantom fanfiction by I'mInk

"Tucker, I'm telling you! The environment aside, you are ruining yourself! The only thing you digest is fat, which holds almost nothing of what is necessary for a human body to grow and keep itself healthy! A person's diet cannot just consist of meat or any other animal product!"

"Oh yeah? And where are the proteins and iron you need to be able to form muscles and transport oxygen in yours, huh?"

They both had used those arguments at least a hundred times before.

"I have supplements for those, and I've got a healthy body. I'm not missing out on anything!"

"Well, my body is just as healthy as yours, so I don't know what you're complaining about. And your supplements, what are those made of?"

Again, no originality there. Or anywhere, really.

"The supplements I use are provided by a brand that cares about animal life, or Earth for that matter, thank you very much."

"You don't know that, for all you know, that company could be lying to get people like you to buy their stuff!"

Okay, that was it.

"GUYS!" Danny yelled, jumping up for the dramatic effect. It did little to nothing, though. Him trying to break their conversation apart wasn't anything new either. They just went on bickering.

Okay, so it was time to come up with something new. Something that would make them shut up for once -for a while, if he could have it his way. And suddenly, a light smirk danced onto our favourite halfa's face as he thought of something.

They did not like this idea. Not at all.

They had been having their usual meat v.s. veggies fight, and Danny had been trying to break them apart, as always. Until all of a sudden, their friend had switched to his ghost half, grabbed the two by their collars, and flew them onto the roof of the tallest building in Amity Park: the bank office.

Once there, he had pocketed all their technological devices -to Tucker's demise and Sam's annoyance- save for ghost hunting equipment, and left them with nothing but their school books, coats, and the parting words of "You two better come up with some new, valid arguments and settle this all or I will leave you here for the rest of the weekend."

And that was the situation they were now in. Huzzah.

Grumbling all kinds of lame insults towards Danny, Tucker sat down and began with the homework Lancer had given them for the weekend. Sam was about to say something to him when she realised they wouldn't be progressing in their argument anyway, despite this new spin provided by their friend, so she copied his movements and opened her Math books, determined to put this time to good use.

An hour of sitting on the hard concrete later, Tucker's voice sounded through the air, but said air was moving too violently for Sam to actually hear what he was saying.

"What!?"

He moved closer and repeated his words.

"Do you think our arguments are about something else than criticising each other's diets?"

Wait what?

"You actually want to talk about it?"

He sighed. "Well, yeah. Danny has enough crap in his life without us constantly fighting over something so minor. And the guy is out there alone right now. We both know that he's too stubborn to let us back him up until we can prove we've reached some sort of agreement. Of course, we have a lot to deal with as well, but probably nowhere near the amount he has to go through. He shouldn't also have to listen to our arguing from time to time." He looked at his hands, which were playing with the hem of his pullover. "I thought, if we can work this out, it'll get rid of at least a little bit of stress for both him and us."

Sam mulled over his words, guilt gnawing in her stomach the longer she thought about it. He was right, their fighting probably was an addition to the huge list of things that were bearing down on their friend, and themselves.

"Yeah…" she mumbled. "So what do you mean by our arguments being about something else?"

He shrugged. "It was something I heard Jazz about the other day. About arguments about insignificant things actually portraying a bigger problem that's playing a role between two or more people. The example she used was a couple living together where one person wanted to fill the living room with bookshelves, and the other wanted to keep it open, like the rest of the house. They argued about it, but in reality the problem was that the book person didn't have enough of their own space in the house, and that they weren't getting enough space in their relationship as well, or something like that."

There was a short pause.

"So you're saying that maybe… I'm calling out on something else I don't approve of about you or about our friendship by calling out on your addiction to meat?"

"I guess so."

Shifting so she could cross her legs and lean her elbows on her knees, Sam looked Tucker in the eyes. "So what don't we approve of of each other? I mean I'm not fan of techno stuff and you're not fan of goth stuff, but I thought we'd gotten past that?"

"I don't think this is about our interests," Tucker mused, "but about our personalities. Something that we can't stand about the other and call out on through the metaphor of food?"

Sam snorted at that. "You want to call meat a metaphor?"

"Hey, you know what I mean!"

"Okay, okay." She ran through memories of their fights, looking for something she could connect to them. Tucker seemed to do the same.

After some silence and personal brainstorming, Tucker was again the first one to speak up.

"I think… what I don't really like is your negative attitude towards anything that is even a bit off compared to your morals. I know you have perfectly reasonable arguments to be like that," he added quickly before she could react, "but sometimes I think you take it a bit too far. Like, something only has to be mainstream and it takes a lot of convincing from me and Danny to get you to try it out. I know you are and want to be an individual, but individuality doesn't mean you automatically have to dislike everything that is popular, ya know. Some things are popular because they are good."

He studied her with a wary look in his eyes, probably a little afraid of her reaction. And though it felt good to see she could be intimidating enough for a person to act like this around her, it wasn't appropriate for this kind of conversation, so she made a point of showing that she wasn't going to snap at him by staying relaxed and looking over Amity Park's skyline as she thought about his words. He was right. Again.

She had been taking it too far lately. It had taken the two boys a week of convincing for her to join them in watching Code Black, a hospital series she had immediately dismissed as another overly dramatised office drama, but had turned out to be incredibly intriguing, even if it was filled with drama. And maybe she had been too strict in her lecturing on the strain daily behaviour can put on the environment. Some things couldn't be helped right now, so she might as well give her friends a break on it and focus on that what could be righted.

Tucker was still trying to read her expression and she couldn't help the chuckle at his anxious face. "Relax, Tuck. I'm not going to harm you over some honesty. And you're right anyway."

His shoulders almost immediately fell into their usual relaxed position. "Really?"

"Yeah. I mean, I realise I did lose myself these past few weeks. Man, I must've been a menace to put up with."

He snickered at her comment. "Nah, don't forget us men are tough. We can handle a strong, somewhat wayward woman like you." Then he sobered up. "Your turn."

Her turn. "Okay… What I find annoying… is that you seem to run away from things. And by that I don't mean in battle, you can handle yourself just as well as I can, but you seem to shy away from having to deal with things you don't like. You don't like vegetables and you prefer meat, and you know that you're really missing out on important nutrients. But you push that thought away and try to pretend it's not there and will go away on its own. And that's only a minor example. When something you don't like pops up, you solve your problems by trying to forget them, procrastinating doing what needs to be done, and often making the solution a lot more work than it would've been would you have dealt with it when it came up."

She watched him cringe a little, knowing that she hit a spot he hated talking about -which exactly proved her point, didn't it-, but he nodded anyway.

"That's me alright. Man, talking about this sucks."

"I know, it feels like we're turning into techno and goth versions of Jazz."

Giggles rose in the air as the image of them with long hair and know-it-all faces popped up.

"So, my fellow psychologist," spoke Tucker, flawlessly imitating Jazz' adult voice, "what do you suggest we do, now that we have shared our opinions on each other?"

Sam stood up and heaved her finger like Jazz would do when lecturing them. "Well, I suggest we both make a plan to change our ways so that our comrade doesn't have to suffer through our tedious banter any longer, and promise to help the other commit to it."

"Sounds solid to me. So that means you're going to be looking over my shoulder to make sure I don't procrastinate on the coming health survey, and you will come with us to the new Disney film?"

She scowled at the thought of a princess film, but nodded. "Pretty much."

"Sweet!"

"Don't get your hopes up though."

He grinned at her, quirking an eyebrow. "Trust me, you have no idea. Don't go making assumptions on something you haven't seen yet."

Ignoring that last comment, she looked around, but there was no sign of a half ghost swooping in to get them down. "Danny didn't really leave us with anything to contact him with. How long did he think we would need for this?"

"Knowing us, probably forever."

"True."

In all honesty, Danny hadn't expected his plan to actually work. It was more of method to get them to fight it out elsewhere for a few hours. But the next Monday after he had picked them up from that bank office rooftop, the result turned out to be much more than he would have imagined.

The moment they had entered the cafeteria that day, he had braced himself for the inevitable. Instead, Sam and Tucker had simply exchanged a glance, and sat down at their usual table without any one of them tossing a repetitive argument at the other.

And they hadn't left it at that. When the yearly health survey came up, a list of questions about daily behaviour each student had to fill in, something Tucker despised ever since the school nurse had requested a check up after she had read through Tucker's eating habits, Tucker hadn't complained once. Well, if you didn't count his cranky mood for the whole day. Instead, he and Sam just looked at each other, and he got to filling his form out without another word. It baffled Danny.

But that didn't mean he didn't like this new development. The three of them had been friends for ages, but Sam and Tucker had never been more than day-to-day friends, being closer to him than to each other. Now, they could pass messages with just their eyes, and he could see they were getting better at it every day. Danny enjoyed watching them do it. He didn't feel left out either. The constant bickering among them had had him worried at times. Worried that they only hung around each other as much because of him. Them having a bond together with or without him would strengthen the friendship of their group so much more.

And they would need it. Who knew what they would have to face tomorrow, or the day after?

Author's Notes:

1: I do not own the example about the couple that argues about books in the living room, and I can't remember where I got it from (or if I found it in a Dutch or English text).
2: I put Code Black in there as an example because I think it's an amazing series, and it never fails to get me staring at the television on the edge of my seat.
3: English is not my first language (Dutch is), so some descriptions may be a bit cringy or awkward. Please point them out for me to improve.

Thanks to mostlikelynothuman on Tumblr for the prompt, and to my father for proofreading this at 23:00. This is the first thing I've uploaded in months, so forgive me if I'm rusty (though I wasn't good to begin with anyway).

Criticism is always appreciated, hate isn't. If you have any tips for me to improve my writing or found any errors, please tell me about them. Don't shy away from pointing out what you didn't like, as long as you give me a reason for it. Simply shouting "Ermahgud you're writing freagging sucz" isn't going to help much, XD

If you have a tumblr, I'm more active on there, so if you're interested in following my whereabouts, my url is always-ink.

Thank you so much for reading,

See ya!

-Ink