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Adoption

Characters: Danny, Tucker, Sam, various others

Summary: You'd think after the disaster with Cujo that Danny would be less than fond of ghostly animals, especially given how chaotic they all get. Which is why it's a little surprising to see what exactly he's claiming to have adopted. Phic Phight prompt by speedyowl152.

Danny swung his feet idly, kicking at the metal footrest built into the school's laboratory bench. "All I'm saying is that you guys could be a little more supportive," he grouched.

Tucker pushed his glasses onto his forehead so he could rub his eyes. "Dude, we've always been here for you, but seriously." He dropped them back into place with a glare. "You're giving me a headache just thinking about it."

"I'm all for the preservation of endangered species but even I think you're insane," Sam hissed from his other side.

"But guys," Danny whined, "it's all alone down there!"

Sam moaned, and Tucker thumped his head onto the bench with an audible thunk. Mr. Falluca glared at them and tapped the butt of his marker against the whiteboard. "Mr. Fenton, care to come up to the board and share your calculations for the mass of your Copper sample?"

Danny shook his head and moved a hand to cover his blank page. "Uh, sorry, I'm not done yet."

The teacher gave him a knowing frown before turning to ask Mikey instead.

"Maybe you should calculate how bad of an idea this is," Sam whispered.

"We don't need a calculation for that," Tucker shot back.

"You said it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to be responsible for a pet," Danny interjected.

Tucker lifted his head off the desk and raised his eyebrows in an incredulous stare. "Yeah, like, a dog or something. Like Cujo, so you can stop him from messing up the town all the time."

A shadow fell over their blank papers, and Danny looked up to find himself faced with their teacher. "Mr. Fenton," he ground out, pushing his glasses up from where they had slipped down his nose. "Just because you saved the world from an asteroid doesn't mean you can disrupt my class."

A scattered titter of laughter echoed through the room.

"Sorry," Danny mumbled, ducking his head.

"That goes for you two as well, Manson, Foley. Don't make me reassign your lab team."

Sam leaned her elbow on the table and placed her chin in her hand. "Actually, Mr. Falluca, you can help us tell Danny how scientifically likely his stupid plan is to fail."

"Sam," Danny hissed, nudging his elbow in the direction of her ribs.

She leaned out of the way and continued. "Yeah, he found the Ghost Zone's biggest natural portal and when he went through it he was in some tropical ocean, probably the South Pacific judging by what he found."

The class fell silent in an instant. Even Mikey had paused in writing his calculations on the board, the hand that held the marker hanging slack by his side as he turned to face the strange trio.

Their teacher's gaze gleamed with interest. "Was its position in the Ghost Zone spatially matched to our world, or was there a discrepancy?" he asked.

Danny opened his mouth but Tucker overrode him. "Well, Danny wasn't paying attention to that, because he found some super ancient entity and he wants to bring it into the Ghost Zone and make it his pet."

"It's not that bad," Danny tried, but Sam held up her other hand.

"It's bad," she insisted as Tucker handed the teacher his PDA with a very incriminating selfie on its screen. Danny reminded himself to never text his friends pictures of his adventures again.

Mr. Falluca's face had gone pale, his jaw slack as he gripped the device in fingers that had turned white at the knuckles. "This has got to be fake," he insisted.

"Nope," Sam said, popping the 'p' as she continued to casually lean on her hand. "We can send it to you, and you can do that techno thing where you check if a picture's authentic."

"Guys," Danny whined, feeling incredibly ganged-up on.

"What is it?" Valerie called from across the classroom. "How stupid are we talking here?"

"South Pacific," Sam reminded them. "Otherworldly creature. Danny stupidly wanting to adopt it."

"It's lonely, Sam!"

"Nope," Tucker insisted. "You're overruled here, man."

Valerie's brow crinkled in a frown. "I'm still not getting it."

"Google it," Tucker suggested.

"You parents would kill you the rest of the way," Sam snapped.

"Debatable, Dad would probably want to bring it out of the Ghost Zone and into Lake Eerie or something."

"Then that makes it an even worse idea," she retorted.

"Are you kidding me , Fenton?!" Dash shouted. He brandished his phone for others to see. "You can't be that crazy!"

"Jack Fenton's son," Tucker reminded the jock. Dash groaned in understanding and rolled his eyes.

"I still don't see the problem with it," Danny whined. "I can protect the entire planet from a life-ending asteroid. Why do you guys think I can't take care of one tiny cosmic entity?"

"Tiny," Kwan snorted. "You call that tiny?!"

Danny shrugged. "I can handle it."

"No, " Sam and Valerie snapped at the same time.

Danny glanced between them. "Really?" he grumbled. "Both of you?"

Valerie crossed her arms over her chest. "You can't even take care of a ghost dog."

He winced. "Ouch, Val, that was one time! "

Sam snorted. "She's right, Ghost Boy. If you can't even control Cujo, how the hell do you think you can be responsible for Cthulhu?!"