A gift fic for keelzbawesome on tumblr!

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Run

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If his football career wasn't at stake, Dash would never have even dreamed of going to Freaky Fenton's house. If Dash had known that Fenton was going to the one tutoring him, not his admittedly-hot older sister, he would have thrown football to the winds of chance. Yeah, getting an academic suspension from sports would suck and wreck havoc on his social status, but being caught at the Fentons? Social suicide, that's what it was. He'd rather die.

And yet, here he was.

He leveled a glare at Fentonail, who shrunk down in his seat.

"Why are you even doing this?" he growled.

"I need the community service," said Danny, nervously twirling his pencil between his fingers. "So, could you please, maybe, take out your book so I can teach you basic algebra? Maybe?"

Dash scowled at the way Fentonio said basic. It sounded like an insult. No matter how many times Dash wailed on Fenton, he always seemed to bounce back to this.

The silence of the house grew around them.

"Hey, where are your parents, freak?"

"Out," said Fenton, shortly.

"Oh, yeah?" said Dash, getting an idea. He grinned, as Fentoad's face fell. Clearly, even the freak could realize when he'd made a mistake, and made a mistake he had.

After all, it was one thing to visit the weirdo's house. It was another thing entirely to brave his crackpot parents' mad scientists' lab. He could brag about that forever. As a bonus, it would probably get Fentina in trouble, too.

He pushed out from the table, the wimpy chair falling over behind him. That door with the hazard symbol looked promising.

"Dash, wait, where are you going?" asked Fentoerag in his pathetic voice, which hadn't even started to properly crack yet. "You can't go in there!" he exclaimed as Dash put his hand on the doorknob. "That's the lab."

"Yeah, so?" asked Dash, peering down the mostly-dark stairs. He found the light switch, which bathed the basement in harsh white fluorescent light.

"So, there's a lot of dangerous stuff down there!"

Dash scoffed. "Please, as if your parents could make anything that worked well enough to be dangerous." He started to clomp down the stairs, his footsteps echoing slightly off of the metal walls. Near the bottom, though, he realized he was missing something he had suspected. He half-turned. Fentinkerbell was still hovering at the door. "What, are you scared?"

"What? No!"

"You are! Wait 'til I tell everyone that Fender-Bender is scared of his own basement!"

"I'm not scared!"

"So scared he started crying! Are you afraid of the dark, too?"

"I'm not! You shouldn't be down there, some of the things explode."

"Then come stop me, Fentertainment," said Dash, hopping off the stairs and waving over his shoulder as he examined the lab benches. This place really did look like something out of a science-fiction movie, complete with shiny circuits and bubbling green liquids.

He stopped in front of a large, circular hole in the wall. Dash was tall, but even as he approached to stand in the mouth of the hole, the ceiling was almost a meter above him. It kind of looked like something you'd see on a spaceship. Definitely high-budget sci-fi. He stepped over the threshold, then paused as finally heard Fenton coming down the stairs.

"Decided to show up, twinkletoes?"

"Yeah, yeah, ha-ha. You're hilarious, Dash, now can we please get out before you get us both killed? Being in there is really dangerous."

"You're just scared of your parents."

"Why would I be scared of my parents? Let's go, Dash."

Dash didn't like that tone. He walked farther into the hole. "What even is this piece of junk, anyway?"

"It's the Fenton Ghost Portal, and it's not a piece of junk."

"Oh, yeah? Does it work?"

Silence.

"I didn't think so," said Dash, triumphantly.

"Come on, Dash, we're both going to get in trouble."

Dash hummed, as if considering it, and spotted a sort of outcropping near the ceiling. That would be a great place to hang a wedgied Fenton from. "I'll come out... If you prove you're not a scaredy cat."

"Dash..."

"Come on in. What're you afraid of? It doesn't work, anyway."

He turned back to the tunnel mouth. Fenton was standing there, eerily back-lit. Dash couldn't see his expression. This was another reason Dash beat him up. Somehow, no matter what, he always found a way to be creepy.

"Fine," said Fentolio, turning away.

"Hey! Where are you going?" Crap. If he actually just walked away, what would Dash do? He couldn't go without Fenton coming in, he'd lose too much face.

"Unlike some people," called Fenton, "I wear proper lab safety gear, because I don't want to wind up with a third arm, or my brain melting out my nose."

When he came back into view, Dash lost it, laughing. "You look just like your freak parents, Freak-ton. You gonna start going on about the wonders of spandex."

Fenton looked down at his black and white spandex. "It isn't spandex, it's hazmat." He pulled a mask down over his face.

Dash covered up his sudden unease by laughing harder. "You keep telling yourself that. Is that your dad's face on that onesie?"

For a moment, Dash thought he'd actually made Fenton mad, mad enough to really react, but all the scrawny freak did was tear off the sticker and stride into the tunnel mouth. Unlike Dash's shoes, Fenton's boots were almost completely silent against the hard metal floor. Dash had to wonder what they were made of.

"I'm in here. Are you happy now? Can we go?"

"Let's see," said Dash, pretending to think. "No." He grabbed Fenton by the front of his suit, and lifted him up off the floor. He frowned. How did this come off? He couldn't very well give him a wedgie if he couldn't get to his underwear.

He did not expect Fenton to kick him.

He did not expect to fall back into the wall, dropping Fenton.

He did not expect Fenton to use the wall to pick himself up.

He did not expect Fenton's groping hand to find a bright green button on the wall.

He did not expect the click and the flash of light that followed.

He did not expect the pain.

They all happened anyway.

.

The rest of the A-list probably thought Dash's behavior strange, but Dash didn't care. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with Fenton. He didn't want to be in the same room as him. Every minute they were breathing the same air was another chance for that to happen. So far, it had only happened when they touched, a mistake Dash wasn't going to make again any time soon, even if his fists itched to punch the little punk, but Dash didn't want to take the risk that it might happen just out of proximity.

If Dash had his way, he'd be transferring out of district, and soon.

He glowered across the room at the freak and his freak friends. Probably the freak was spilling everything. Dash had told him not to, but Dash couldn't really back up his threats anymore.

.

As it so happened, Danny was not spilling everything to his friends, even if they were trying to figure out why he'd been so jumpy for the last month in-between arguing with each other over the latest menu change.

"Danny, I just don't get why you've been so jumpy lately," said Sam, biting into her vegan sandwich with gusto. "I mean, Dash quit the tutoring program, right? You don't have to worry about him anymore."

That was so untrue that it took all of Danny's willpower not to start laughing hysterically.

"Maybe," said Tucker, aggressively poking a bit of lettuce with his fork, "it's all this junk you're making us eat. You can't get a good night's sleep with a stomach full of this stuff! Seriously! Look at the circles under his eyes."

Danny ducked his head and pulled back. He had felt like he was half-dead lately, and, god, he shouldn't joke about that, not even in his own head, not after what had happened to him and Dash in that portal.

Although, it did seem like Danny was more effected than Dash was. Dash looked the picture of health, as far as Danny could tell. On the other hand, maybe the strain on Danny and his inability to sleep at night were more because he was trying to sleep a hallway down from his ghost-hunting parents, and, well...

Danny was pretty sure he wasn't human anymore, at least.

As if that thought summoned bad luck, Danny felt the air in his lungs turn to ice. He doubled over, pained. No. Not here. Not now. He covered up his mouth, trying not to let the damning mist leak from between his lips. If Sam and Tucker knew, what would they think?

"Danny?"

"Man, are you okay?"

Danny shook his head, and, when a hand came down on his shoulder, he jumped up from the table and ran out, letting instinct guide his feet. He had to find it. He'd been able to get rid of those octopuses, right? He hadn't even needed... that.

He slid into the kitchen. The ghost, an elderly, green-skinned lunch lady, floated in front of the stove. Danny tensed. She didn't seem like too much of a threat, but he wasn't sure that meant anything to ghosts. The octopuses had beaten him up a lot, after all. He still had bruises all up and down his side, and his parents were wondering whether or not he had a death wish of some kind. He'd gotten a lecture about fighting ghosts.

Of course, Sam and Tucker were right behind him.

"Danny, what are you doing? We can't be in here!"

"I know I usually encourage rebellion, but-"

The ghost turned. Danny could hear stunned gasps from both Sam and Tucker.

"Hello, children, can you help me? Today's lunch is meatloaf, but I don't see the meatloaf. Did somebody change the menu?"

"Y-yeah," said Tucker. "She did." He hooked a thumb at Sam, who looked at him incredulously.

The ghost suddenly swelled in size. "YOU CHANGED THE MENU? THE MENU HAS BEEN THE SAME FOR FIFTY YEARS!" Her hair burst into fire. Her eyes started to strobe.

"Run," squeaks Danny, because that's all he can think of right now. There's no way he can fight this.

Plates and silverware rose out of the sink and shot at Sam. Danny just barely tackled her out of the way. This did not please the lunch lady, who roared. The stoves roared, too, shooting flames from their burners and doors, even though Danny had been sure they were electric, not gas.

"Run!" shouted Danny again, louder, hauling Sam to her feet.

They made for the cafeteria doors.

Sam didn't make it. The ghost grabbed her, and flew away, meat products trailing in her wake.

Tucker gaped. "Oh my god," he said. "That was a ghost. A ghost has Sam. Your parents aren't crazy. What do we do? What do we do? Do we call the police? Your parents?"

"No," said Danny. He loved his parents, but he couldn't imagine them making this situation better. "Just..." He shook himself. He knew what he needed to do. He remembered the power available to them in that form. "Look, do you think you can get me a distraction in the cafeteria? Something that would clear the room?"

"What?"

"Please, trust me. I can do something about this."

Tucker's whole face wavered. His skin was bloodless. "You're sure? You won't get yourself kidnapped?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine," asserted Danny with a confidence he didn't feel. "I'll be fine, and Sam will be, too, and- and- I'll explain everything later, I promise. It's just- It's too much right now. You understand?"

"Sure," said Tucker. "Sure. Well, one food fight coming up." He cautiously pushed open the doors to the cafeteria and slipped inside.

Danny turned, and exited into the hallway. Based on where the A-Listers usually sat, he'd come out... Yes, over here. Then he'd go to his locker, possibly pull out a spare set of clothes...

Perhaps Danny should be disturbed that he knew so much about his bully's habits, but the knowledge had kept him from getting beaten up in the past.

He waited, hiding in the janitor's closet, feeling like trash for wasting time while Sam was in danger.

At the end of the hall, the cafeteria doors burst open and students covered in various vegan-and-vegetarian-friendly meal choices swarmed out, complaining and attempting to avoid eye-contact with incensed teachers.

Sure enough, Dash came stomping down the hallway, looking fit to punch something. Or someone. Usually, Danny would have been that someone.

If they circumstances were different, Danny might be marveling at how the tables had turned.

As soon as Dash passed by, Danny grabbed his sleeve and pulled him into the closet, the element of surprise overcoming muscle, if only for a moment. Dash pulled back his hand, making as if to punch Danny, but stopped, blood draining from his face, as he recognized who had grabbed him. At once, he pressed himself against the other side of the tiny room, as far from Danny as he could get.

"What do you want, Fentwerp?" he demanded, as Danny shut the door.

Danny regarded him, head cocked to one side. Should he try to explain first, or jump right in? No, if he tried to explain, Dash would find a way to get past him, and every minute he wasted dealing with Dash was a minute Sam spent in the hands of that ghost.

He leaped at Dash, arms outstretched. Dash instinctively raised his hands to block him.

There was a flash as Danny's body sizzled into energy and was absorbed by Dash's. Danny's mind whirled as it was set loose from most physical concerns and was suddenly beset by signals and instincts that it had only encountered twice before, power a constant headache inducing thrum.

Almost at once, Danny was absorbed by the complex task of making sure all that power didn't just explode out. The outside world seemed to dim and gray, sounds and tactile sensations moving to a similar distance. His focus was the constant puzzle of making sure things worked, that they stayed together.

But he couldn't immerse himself in that just yet.

Dash. A ghost attacked us and took Sam. We have to get her back! He sent Dash pictures of the encounter, even as Dash started to freak out about the changes in his appearance.

"Nuh-uh! No way!" Dash replied, unnecessarily loudly. "I'm not getting into your ghost business."

Rich for a guy floating a foot off the floor. Save Sam.

"Get out of my head!"

No. Not until you save Sam.

"Get your freak parents to do it!"

Danny pushed the strongest disapproval he could along their mental connection. They aren't freaks and they can't handle this. Trust me. We have to do it. I can keep us like this all night. Danny wasn't sure he could, but it was a good threat.

"No you can't! I'll miss practice!"

Save Sam. Danny's mental voice was weaker, as more of his attention and energy was demanded by the powers that jumped at their heightened emotions.

Dash crossed his arms and fell silent.

Your grades already suck. Think you can afford to skip?

Dash growled. "Fine. Where is she? Where's this ghost? Do you even know?"

Danny didn't, and his uncertainty must have shown through, because Dash started laughing.

"This is all some sort of stupid revenge prank you losers cooked up, isn't it?"

We can find her, said Danny, anxiously. The ghost couldn't have just disappeared- Except it could have. It was a ghost. But it had been trailing meat behind it, and... Tucker can find her. The ghost had meat with her, and Tucker can smell meat a mile off.

"Your friends are freaks, Freak-tonio."

Danny spared Dash a mental hiss, then fell silent, monitoring a process that he thought might have something to do with intangibility.

"Fenton?"

He nudged it slightly as it threatened to spin off and activate on its own.

"Fenton?"

Everything here was so finicky, and he didn't have a system yet.

"Fenton!"

Shut up, I'm trying to keep us from falling through the floor. Save Sam.

.

Dash floated cautiously through the halls, turning invisible now and again. Keeping them from falling through the floor. Yeah, right. He had perfect control over these 'ghost powers' even without Fenton's help. Fenton was just a lazy nerd.

He focused on being invisible again as a junior went by. It wasn't like Dash was afraid of being seen. He didn't have that whole 'oh, no, I'm a ghost, my parents are going to kill me' paranoia that Fenton did. He just didn't want to be mistaken for a weirdo cosplayer. Because that's what he looked like, between the green eyes, white hair, and weird clothes. Weird clothes being Fenton's color-swapped jumpsuit stretched thin over Dash's muscles, and, on top of that, a black-and-white version of his letterman jacket, except with all the letters being replaced with weird symbols. It was so weird. Weird enough to make Dash wish he knew more adjectives.

Several minutes of sneaking around went by before Dash realized he had no idea where freak friend number two was.

"Fenton," he hissed. "Fenton!"

All he got in return was a bleary sense of annoyance. Was he sleeping? And expecting Dash to do all the work and get beaten up by a ghost? Oh, if Dash could get his hands on him...

"Where's Foley?"

Detention, probably, said Fenton, shortly, words faded at their ends.

Great. Wonderful. Perfect. Lancer would probably be there. Usually, Lancer would be more than accommodating to Dash, on account of donations made by sports-loving parents being the only thing keeping the school solvent, but Dash was barred from playing until he got his grades up. He'd lost his bargaining power.

Also, even Lancer wouldn't take him seriously in this getup.

Still, he turned to the detention room, and stealthily made his way forward, pretending he was stealing bases, like in baseball.

He peaked through the latticed detention room door window, and saw Foley but no Lancer. Okay. Maybe this wouldn't suck as much as he'd thought. Actually, this might be kind of fun. He grinned. What better to scare the nerd than a ghost?

With a thought, he phased through the door, making sure to stay out of Foley's line of sight. God, this was just too easy. The nerd was oblivious.

He grabbed Foley by the shirt and shook him. The resulting squeak was incredibly satisfying.

It did not make up for the shriek of rage that cut through Dash's mind. Foley slipped through Dash's suddenly intangible fingers as Fenton's mind went back to doing whatever the hell it had been doing before.

Dash, of course covered his surprise and consternation by looming over Foley.

"Who are you?" asked Foley, eyes wide.

Dash almost told him, but suddenly realized it would be better for his dignity if he didn't. "It doesn't matter," he said. "A... little birdie told me you're good at tracking meat?"

Foley's already bug-like eyes got even wider. "You're what Danny was talking about when he said he had a way to save Sam? But you're a ghost!"

Dash rolled his eyes, and ignored Fenton's incensed hiss. "Yeah, yeah, whatever, Foley. Less talking more sniffing." He shoved Foley towards the door.

And Foley actually did sniff. Like a dog.

What a freak.

He led the way down oddly dark hallways with flickering lights and down stairs to the frigid basement where, lo and behold, Manson was held prisoner in a mound of meat.

Served her right, for forcing that gross vegan crap on all of them.

Fenton mentally smacked him. Fight her. Save Sam.

"Easy for you to say," grumbled Dash under his breath, "you're not the one doing anything." Even so, fighting was something Dash could get behind.

"What?" whispered Foley.

"Shut up, nerd."

Then the lunch lady ghost caught on fire again, and everything went to hell. Fast.

Fighting with superpowers was harder than comic books made it looked. Most of the time, Dash kept getting thrown around into the floor, into the walls, into boxes of frozen meat.

He was going to be a giant bruise tomorrow. Hell, he was already a giant bruise.

One of the ghost's attacks hit Manson and Foley, making Fenton suddenly jump to attention.

"Fine! Fine, I get it!" snarled Dash, flying at the two smaller children. He grabbed them, and flew through a wall and the ground, up into the open sky.

God, it was late. School was letting out. His parents were going to kill him for skipping the second half of the school day.

Also, he was exhausted. He started to drift lower, and lower, until, a few feet from the ground, the transformation gave out, and four teenagers tumbled to the ground.

Dash bounced to his feet, feeling refreshed. Fenton was asleep on the ground. Typical lazy loser.

Manson and Foley were staring at him, their eyes round and their mouths open. "Dash Baxter?" said Manson, incredulously.

It suddenly occurred to Dash how bad this could get. After all, comic book superheroes had reasons for having secret identities.

"Yeah," said Dash, sneering. "And if you tell anyone about this, well, you'd wish I'd just pummeled you."

He turned on his heel and walked off, trying and failing to make it seem like he wasn't running.

He was never doing that again.

.

When Danny woke up he felt like he had taken fifteen math finals and then been hit with a car. He moaned and rolled over.

"Hey, Danny? Are you okay?"

"Sam?" he said, wondering why she was in the hospital with him. Because he had to be in the hospital if he was feeling this bad.

Then he remembered.

He sat up straight in his bed. "Sam!" he said, joyfully. "You aren't kidnapped anymore!"

"Y-yeah," said Tucker, who was also in his room. "About that."

.

"What will you do if she comes back?" asked Tucker as he walked to school with Danny and Sam.

Danny shrugged. In an act that Danny would be eternally grateful for, his two friends had put aside their food-related rivalry in favor of an existential crisis. "Blackmail Dash into helping again, I guess."

"Do you think that'd work?" asked Sam. "I mean, he can't kick you out, can he?"

"Not if I hold on, I think," said Danny, gripping the straps of his backpack. "At least, he couldn't yesterday." He really hoped the ghost didn't come back. "We haven't exactly experimented."

"You probably should," said Tucker.

"Even if it's Dash?"

"Especially if it's Dash. If I know my comic books, and I do, this is probably your life, now."

"This isn't a comic book, Tucker," said Sam.

They reached the school just in time to see a giant truck with the word MEAT emblazoned across it pull into the driveway.

Cold stabbed through Danny's chest, and a wisp of blue forced its way out from between his lips.

"Oh, this is going to suck, isn't it?"

.

Dash wasn't about to admit it, but he was hiding, and not from the giant meat monster. He was hiding from Fenton. There was no way in hell he was going to fight that. Fenton would just have to get the attention of his freaky parents. Or the police. Or the military. Yeah, that sounded good.

He crouched lower behind the dumpster as something crunched out in the school's front lawn. He didn't want to think about what could have caused that noise.

Breathe, Dash, breathe, he told himself. He turned away.

Fenton was there, standing right in front of him, his eyes strangely reflective.

"Found you," he said.

.

So, Dash was once again fighting a ghost while Fenton slept in the back of his head. This was harder to do than it sounded, even for the great Dash Baxter, because the goth freak kept riling up the ghost with her vegan nonsense.

Although, honestly, Dash didn't get it either. It was a meat ghost. Shouldn't it be happy it wasn't going to be eaten?

Then the meat monster split itself into one big meat monster and a bunch of little meat monsters. The little monsters were puny, no match for Dash, but there were a lot of them.

A whole lot of them.

A whole lot of them who hauled Dash up into the sky, turned around, and then started hurtling towards the ground.

Dash did not scream like a little girl. No matter what Fenton might insinuate later.

(Danny did not insinuate anything later. He was too busy maintaining the fusion to notice.)

Halfway down, Dash 1) remembered he could fly, and 2) was hit in the face by something cylindrical and shiny.

Also, hey, were those Fenton's parents? What were they doing over there? Why weren't they fighting the meat monster.

Fenton thermos, whispered Fenton. One sec. Dash's hands started glowing blue, then faded.

"What the hell?"

Traps ghosts. Use it.

"How?"

Fenton showed him a series of images.

"You're lucky I'm better coordinated than you are," grumbled Dash, turning back to the meat monster. "Here goes nothing."

He pointed the 'Fenton thermos' at the ghost, hit the button on the side, and blue light, the same color that his hands had glowed, poured from the mouth, surrounding the ghost and sucking it it. Almost automatically, Dash capped the thermos.

"Huh," he said, surprised the thing had actually worked. Maybe the Fentons weren't as crazy as he had thought.

No, scratch that. They were the reason he was in this mess to begin with. Screw them.

It was then that Dash noticed the cheering. Dash was used to being cheered, it came with being a genius sports star, but this felt... different, somehow. He looked down, and gave a half-hearted wave to the people below. Being cheered or not, he didn't exactly want anyone to see him like this.

He flew away.

.

They separated behind the school, and Danny leaned against the wall, panting. Keeping the fusion together, managing all that power, it was tiring, and, even if it technically wasn't his body doing the fighting, Danny still felt every blow. It took a couple minutes for Danny to get his breathing under control, and while he did that, he had time to think.

What they had done, up there, fighting that lunch lady ghost, protecting people... It had felt good, it had felt right, as if something he had been missing his whole life had been revealed and filled in. If he could help people like that again, he'd even work with Dash.

Too bad Dash probably didn't feel the same way.

Speaking of Dash... He looked up. Surprisingly, Dash was still there, looking down at him.

.

Dash wasn't sure why he was still there, watching Fenton struggle to breathe. It really was pathetic. Fenton was such a wimp. But.

But.

Maybe Fenton really was doing something while they were stuck together, after all. Maybe it really did take something out of him. He did have a bruise forming on his lip, just like Dash... If he was getting hurt, too, doing this probably took him more courage than Dash had given him credit for.

"What?" asked Fenton, harshly, looking up at him.

Dash tried to pull his lips into a smirk, but they weren't cooperating.

"Guess you're not as much of a wimp as I thought you were," said Dash. "But you're still a wimp."

"Great. Wonderful to hear."

The freak couldn't take a compliment, could he? "So, if you run into more ghosts, you'd better come to somebody who can actually take care of them." He pointed both his thumbs at himself. "Me."

Fenton's jaw went up and down. "Are you serious?"

Dash snorted. "I'm not gonna repeat myself, Fen-dork." He tossed the 'thermos' at Fenton. "You take care of that."

"Right," said Fenton, almost fumbling the thing. He took a couple steps backwards, then sprinted away.

What a loser.