It was the hottest day of the year.
Okay, maybe not the hottest, Danny amended, but it was a close second if the sweat that plastered his clothes to his body was anything to judge by. Of course, the state of undress most of the citizens of Amity Park were currently sporting only emphasized the fact that it was hotter than… Well, hell. Even Tucker and Sam had bowed to the great sun god and had spurned their usual ensembles in favor of things that were lighter and less covering.
Of course, in Sam’s case, it was because she had volunteered (translation: been volunteered by her mother) to help with one of the water slides in the children’s area of the annual Fourth of July Celebration.
It was a big deal to Amity Park. Because of the celebration of the country’s independence, yes, but also because they’d been liberated from another hostile takeover from the Ghost Zone a year before. It had been interesting, to say the least, and Danny was still glancing around nervously as he found his way to one of the hotdog stands in the park.
Tucker was there, waiting for him with his current girlfriend, a girl named Sara, who was a year behind them and held the top of her class rank for the juniors. It wasn’t surprising in the least that Danny found them beaming things back and forth between their PDA’s. Geek love, if ever he’d seen it, and more so than anything he and Sam had been teased for, whether or not they were dating.
Which they weren’t.
Danny still hadn’t gotten the nerve up to ask her, regardless of everyone and their brother telling him it was a sure thing. That had started freshman year, and now they were heading into their senior year in less than a month. He scowled as he thought about that.
Whoever decided that school should let out the first week of June, and start again the first week of August should be shot. Several times, and preferably with a ghost ray to the rear. Or the head, though anyone with as little sense as that must have his head so far up his ass that it didn’t make a difference where he aimed.
“Dude, don’t scowl,” Tucker said as he looked up from his PDA. “Was there a problem?”
The question was casual, but Danny knew what he was asking. Was there a ghost? Danny shook his head. “Just thinking about school.”
“Don’t,” Tucker ordered him. “Grab a hotdog and scarf it before Sam gets away from the rodents. Her mood is going to be bad enough, we don’t need you to toss in how little freedom we have left.”
Danny groaned. “I know, I know. But I can’t help it.”
Sara smiled bemused, saying, “Aren’t you the one who sleeps through all of his classes? What does it matter if school starts again?”
Danny smiled at her. She did have a point. Except that between schoolwork and ghosts, school was the only place he could sleep. Thank god he had his two best friends on his case all the time to remind him about important assignments, and to drill him for tests. Pop quizzes… he failed. But everything else…
“I’ll have you know that I’m pulling a 3.2 now,” Danny said as he ordered not one, but three hotdogs, loading them down with ketchup, mustard and relish before inhaling two of them in quick order. The third he held on to as he scanned the crowded park.
“Is everybody here this year?” he asked as he absently bit into half of the last hotdog.
Tucker shrugged, and Sara laughed. “Everyone wants to see Danny Phantom,” she said as she brushed her short red hair out of her eyes. “After last year, I’ve even heard that some people hope we get hijacked again.”
Danny groaned and Tucker clapped him on the back sympathetically. “At least Paulina is obsessed with Phantom, right?”
Danny shrugged as Sara gave him a quizzical look. Tucker’s current girlfriend, he called her, but they’d been dating steadily for a while, and he almost choked on his hotdog as he realized exactly how long Sara and Tucker had been dating. More than a year and a half. They’d been together for two Christmas’ that he could remember, especially the first one. Tucker had been terrified he’d buy her the wrong thing and made Danny and Sam help him out.
And she wasn’t stupid. Not in the least. She’d helped him out by way of Tucker more than once when he was in ghost mode… Maybe he should talk to Tucker and Sam, see what they thought about telling her. She was becoming a pretty permanent fixture, significant other or no.
He pushed those thoughts out of his head abruptly. Those could be thought later. For now, he was determined to wallow in the misery of the heat.
“Ugh,” he sighed as he slipped into a patch of shade, Tucker and Sara following. “Right now, I wish I were five years old. Then I could go and play on that water slide.”
Tucker choked on a laugh. “Right. Because you only want to get wet.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Danny asked with narrowed eyes that wanted to flicker to green at the mocking tone in Tucker’s voice. He blinked them closed quickly, only opening them when he was sure they would still be bright blue.
The heat was really getting to him.
Tucker shot a quirky smile at Sara, and she laughed against his shoulder. “Oh, a certain girl I know—who just happens to be goth—is currently sporting a bikini in front of the kiddies,” Tucker said, and then collapsed with laughter, his arms winding around Sara as they tried to support each other.
Danny just stood there with his mouth hanging open.
Sam? In a bikini?
Oh yes, that moist stuff running down the sides of his head wasn’t sweat. No, it was brain mush, from where his brain had just burst from the confines of his skull as he contemplated the mental image of Sam Manson in a bikini.
“A black bikini,” Sara shot at him as she laughed again.
Not burst. Exploded.
“Uh,” was all he said.
Sara patted him in the cheek. “It’s alright. I know. You’re an oblivious male, and you’re excused for that.”
“Ah,” he said. “Oblivious?”
Tucker shook his head at Sara as she shot him a bemused look. “He’s worse than that. I’ve been trying to get it through his skull since we were fourteen.”
“My,” was all she said as she linked arms with Tucker’s. “Let’s go find some shade on the hill before someone else tries to take it.”
“What about Sam?” Danny asked as he trailed after them, dropping his crumpled-up napkins in a garbage can on their way up the hill and underneath the trees. “How will she know where to find us?”
“She’s coming,” Tucker said.
Danny glanced back and saw that Sam was indeed coming, and dragging a cooler with her. A cooler that was obviously heavy, and piled high with a thick blanket and a case of sodas that must not have fit inside it. He jogged back down the hill until he was even with her, taking the cooler with a quick smile and hoisting it easily.
That was one good side effect of three years of ghost fighting. He’d never have to worry about failing a fitness test again.
“Thanks,” Sam said as she trudged up the hill ahead of him, and he found his eyes glued to her shorts.
Her shorts which, while not as pleasing as the bikini she supposedly had underneath them might look, were definitely nice. She’d ripped the pockets from the back to leave to slightly darker patches on either side where they once were, and the slightly frayed cuffs dangled just under the curve of her butt, clinging to it and emphasizing it nicely.
More than nicely, he realized with a grimace as he dropped the cooler next to Tucker and immediately dropped to the ground, legs pulled up to his chest.
“He who hauls sets up not,” Danny intoned and Sam began to grab the sodas and blanket from the top of the cooler. “Uh uh,” he said as he reached out and grabbed her hand, tugging her down beside him. “You hauled, too. They can do it,” Danny said with a nod of his head at the couple seated next to them, currently giving each other dental exams.
“Uh, guys,” Sam said with a humored cough. “If you want a room, I can recommend a few hotels.”
Sara blushed pink and Tucker just grinned. “Really?”
Sara whacked him over the head with the blanket she had grabbed from the cooler, and he grabbed it, spreading it out between them. It was a fairly large blanket, big enough for all four to fit on it and still have a little room to spare. Sam was busy pulling chilled sodas from the cooler and passing them around as Danny absently plucked at his shirt, trying to get a breeze going up underneath it.
Sitting still in the shade was much better than standing and walking around out in the sun, especially with all of the town gathered into such a small area, but it was still too hot for Danny to be comfortable. Or anyone else, he realized as clothes began hitting the ground from where Tucker and Sara were sitting.
“Oh god,” he muttered as Tucker stripped off his tee shirt, but he was relieved that he had on a tank top beneath it. Sara had stripped out of her shirt and rolled the length of her shorts up until they were little better than a pair of underwear, but still modest enough not to show even the hem of her bathing suit. It was a pale, pale blue that emphasized her evenly tanned skin.
Sam, to his great disappointment, only rolled her short sleeves up to cuff them at her shoulders.
Between the healthy snacks Sam had brought (though he wasn’t even touching the stuff that looked like dried grass) and the people watching they were all participating in, the heat grew a little easier to bear as the afternoon wore on. It wasn’t until Lancer showed up at the fair that he even realized that his shirt was soaked with sweat, but the disgust was more than the heat.
“Oh my god,” Sam said as she hid her face in her hands.
“What?” Tucker asked as Sara made a gagging noise.
“Lancer,” Danny choked. “Gross.”
Tucker glanced down the hill towards where all three were pointing and turned faintly green. “Dude. That’s not right,” he said.
Lancer, the bane of his existence, was walking around the carnival in neon green shorts and Birkenstocks. And nothing else. It was… wrong. So wrong. And then he turned away from them to head in the direction of the game area and Danny cracked up laughing.
“Think someone should tell him?” he asked as Sam spluttered soda, shaking her head.
“No. no, but we need a picture. Tucker, picture now. Sara, both of you, NOW!”
PDA’s came out, multiple frames were taken, and they all collapsed back onto the blanket trying to wipe the initial disgust from their brains. And the initial images of Lancer walking around. It was more than made up for, though, Danny decided as he grabbed Tucker’s PDA and flipped to the photo files and realized Tucker had gotten some excellent pictures of Lancer’s hairy back. Lancer’s bleached hairy back.
“This is too good,” Sam said from where she was looking over Sara’s shoulder at those pictures. “Think we can blackmail him?”
“Maybe,” Danny said as he sat again and flipped his shirt to create a breeze underneath.
“You know,” Tucker suggested mildly, “You could just take it off if you’re that hot. We’re all in various stages of undress, here.”
Danny turned red at Tucker’s words, saying, “That didn’t sound right.” Tucker grinned widely as Danny continued trying to usher air up his overheated body. “I, uh, can’t,” was all he said.
The last thing he needed to do was lose his shirt. His luck, Sara would ask. And there just weren’t enough excuses in the world for the scars up and down his body. He was lucky about that, he told himself. Most of the scarring was seriously on his torso. Sure, he had a few everywhere else, a really nasty looking one across his right bicep he’d earned not two weeks ago. But it, too, was safely hidden under the sleeves of his shirt.
He couldn’t even get away with rolling his sleeves up like Sam.
“Sure you can,” Tucker said with a grunt as Sam poked him hard in the side. He glared at her as he said, “All you have to do is grab your shirt by the bottom and yank it over your head. Sam could even help you,” he added, and yelped loudly as she punched him in the shoulder.
“Tucker,” she said warningly, and then his eyes widened.
“Oh,” he said. “I got it. So, stay hot, Fenton.”
“Why can’t he take his shirt off?” Sara asked evenly as three heads swiveled to face her, three mouths working simultaneously to produce an actual reason. She smiled, then laughed. “I don’t see why not. It’s not like he’s turning into Danny Phantom right here in the park.”
And three sets of jaws dropped as eyes grew round and stared.
Lucky for Tucker, it didn’t occur to Sam or Danny to suspect him of revealing the secret, and the amused smile Sara was giving all three of the shocked teenagers was definitely not what they were expecting.
“You, um, know about that?” Danny asked, clearing his throat as he tensed in an automatic fight or flight response.
“I’ve known since last summer. A year exactly, today,” she said. “And I haven’t told anyone. Not even Tucker,” she said with a fond smile and a quick kiss to Tucker’s surprised cheek.
“Ah, how?” Tucker managed to gasp out.
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Tucker, I’m just as smart as you.”
And Sam started laughing. “Oh, come on, it’s funny,” she said as Danny looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “At least she’s good at keeping a secret.”
Danny shrugged.
“Well, at least now you don’t have to sweat to death. Er, undeath?” Sara asked, a cute confused look crossing her face.
Danny smiled as he tugged at the hem of his shirt. “To death is accurate,” he said as he tugged the shirt off and relaxed back in the semi cooler shirtless state he could now enjoy. “I’m only half dead,” he explained as he studiously ignored Sara’s dismayed expression as she looked at his body.
“Oh my,” was all she said, and Tucker wrapped an arm around her.
“He’s a survivor,” Tucker said quietly to her, without prejudice. He and Sam had seen Danny’s battle scars many times before. Hell, they’d even bandaged most of them, though a few Jazz had managed.
“It’s just so…”
“It’s not always shoving the Box Ghost into a thermos,” Sam said softly as she reached a hand out to trail a careful finger along the newest scar of his extensive collection, her eyes meeting his as she echoed the very words he’d said to her the first time he’d gone into a serious battle.
He took her hand in his, squeezed it gently before dropping it back to her lap. “Skulker,” he said to her unasked question. “New upgrade.”
“Oh,” was all she said.
“Skulker?” Sara said. “He’s the one with the metal suit, yes?”
Tucker nodded. Then smiled. “Since you know, we could always have a private tutoring session…” He leered at her and she giggled.
“Why Mr. Foley, I do believe that there’s a nice clear patch of hill over there,” she said as she pointed past a row of hedges and two very large trees.
Sam rolled her eyes as Tucker dragged Sara to her feet and then in the direction she had indicated. “I swear, we’re going to be godparents before they’re out of college.”
Danny snickered. “At least you’re not saying high school. That would suck.”
Sam shrugged. “As far as I know, they’re not.”
“I didn’t need to know that, Sam.”
She poked him in the back and he grimaced. “It’s still too hot,” she said, and Danny had just enough time to glance back over his shoulder and see her tugging the black tee-shirt off, dropping it next to his and lounging back on her elbows.
“Well, if you didn’t always wear black,” he said as his brain once again found its way out from the confines of his skull.
She was, he decided, perfect. Smooth, pale skin split only by the skimpy black material that someone had decided deserved the title of bikini. And he could kiss that person. Soft, creamy skin rose to disappear underneath, and the lines of her neck as she tilted her head back, one hand coming up to push her hair back nearly made him whimper.
Added on to it that without the shirt her shorts were barely anything more than an exaggerated bottom… Her legs went on forever. And she was wearing sandals, so that he could see her feet, arched delicately and ending in slim toes that were tipped in a deep, deep lavender.
Sam slit one eye carefully, peering at him through lashes and enjoyed the fact that he was staring at her, tongue practically hanging out of his mouth. She had learned a few things by now, and knew that he wasn’t about to make a move on her. Not without being hit over the head until his skull was dented.
But she could certainly toy with him and see if she could overheat his brain into forgetting his shyness, ignoring his permanent friendship boundaries.
She opened her eyes, lilac deepening as he stared, and smiled. “You look like you’re still a little hot, Danny,” she tossed at him with a flirtatious smile.
He kind of grunted at her and she smiled wider, sitting up and flipping the cooler open to reach in for… A piece of ice? Danny watched her quizzically as she popped it into her mouth, sucking on it before grabbing another piece and leaning forward to run it across his shoulder. He let out a shuddering sigh as it melted against his skin, burning cold followed by the heat of her fingertips, and he closed his eyes, swallowing and looking away before he did something he’d regret.
Of course, looking away might have been regrettable, he realized and looked back. Sam was leaning back again, a new piece of ice held between her slender fingers, and she was running it down the long line of her throat, a faint sigh pushing its way past her lips as water slid across her skin to disappear beneath the bikini top. He made a faint noise, forgot how to breathe, and finally remembered again as the ice trailed its way down across her collarbone, dangerously close to the soft curve of her breast before finally melting all the way and making her open her eyes in faint annoyance as she realized it was gone already.
Danny wasn’t sure whether to hope she grabbed another piece, or to watch as he fingers remained at the slope of her breast.
Both, either, or, he decided as she sat back up and reached for another piece of ice, staring at him as she ran it across her lips before sucking it slowly into her mouth.
“It’s nice and cold,” she said as she took the ice and reached out to him, letting it slide across his lower lip before he opened his mouth, obediently letting her slip it in, fingers dancing at his lip before leaving and making another trip to the ice chest.
He imagined he could taste her on the ice still, where she had touched it to her mouth, let her tongue melt it smooth. He imagined what it would be like to be the one holding the ice, smoothing it across her skin. Following it with his mouth, searing her cold flesh with kisses and being the one to make her breathe out those throaty sighs.
Fucking ice cubes.
He blinked as the newest ice cube dripped wetly across her stomach. He was jealous. Of an ice cube. More than one, sure, but still. It was demeaning. And such a turn on, he decided as he shifted where he sat, trying to hide exactly how much of a turn on it was.
“Sam,” he choked out as she lazily circled pale skin with melting water.
“Are you still too hot?” she asked, her lips curved in a delighted smile as she sat up, leaned towards him.
His eyes shot to the rivulets of water that were slipping across her neck, down to her breasts and dampening the material there. Breathing was highly overrated, he decided as Sam reached out to him and pressed her hand to his forehead, concern on her face, but covering something else. Not that he cared, he decided as she grabbed another piece of ice and touched it to his throat, and he swallowed convulsively.
“Wouldn’t want you to get heatstroke,” she said to him as she let the ice slip and slide down his neck and across his chest.
He made a faint noise as his eyes locked with hers, and she smiled, the ice melted and her hand flat against him, burning into him like a thousand flames heating his skin. “Sam…” But there wasn’t much he could come up with to say to her. Certainly nothing that didn’t completely butcher the friendship lines between them, but he wasn’t really sure he cared anymore.
No, was absolutely sure he didn’t care as she produced yet another piece of the delightfully torturous ice and ran it along his jaw, her face so very close to his, close enough to feel the warmth of her breath as she ran the ice up to his lips, lightly rubbing them, numbing them, then lifting the ice to her mouth and sucking slowly, just like before, her eyes hot on his.
Danny’s tongue flicked out unconsciously, licking his lips as he watched her, and then she smiled at him, ice forgotten in her hand as she leaned forward to press her lips to his hesitantly. There was maybe a second where Danny’s eyes shot wide as he wondered how exactly he’d gone from fantasizing about Sam, to her kissing him.
Two seconds at the most, and certainly no more. Then she was pulling back and he was wondering what was better, the heat of her body as she had pressed close to him, or the icy chill of her lips.
His hand shot out and dragged her back down, his mouth on hers and his lips gently working against hers as she willingly leaned into him. His hand came up, tangling in her hair as he ran his tongue across her bottom lip, hesitant, silently asking—begging—for permission to deepen the kiss.
With a sigh she parted her lips and Danny thought that there really wasn’t a reason for him to be jealous of a little ice cube, not if playing with a few could end with him kissing Sam like this, tongue sliding across the other and breathing ragged as her fingers clenched against his skin. Her hair soft as it wrapped around his fingers, her lips losing the cold and heating as he kissed her.
Not if it could have her whimpering in such a wonderfully erotic fashion, exactly like she was right now.
There was a loud laugh, a faint giggle, and the rustle of bushes behind Sam and they broke apart, looking up and realizing that there was no one there. Not yet, at least, and Sam smiled at him as she reached back into the cooler for, and he bit back a groan, another piece of ice. His eyes glazed as she ran it back along her throat as she settled into the blanket as if nothing had happened.
Another laugh and the bushes parted as Sara and Tucker stumbled back, her hair mussed and his lips rather more red than they should have been. Lipstick, Danny realized as his eyes flickered back over to Sam and the nearly melted ice cube that was currently cooling her collarbone, droplets trickling down. He made another faint noise and blinked, eyes suddenly glassy.
Sara and Tucker sat, closer together than before and hands held tightly together. “Have fun while we were gone?” Sara asked brightly, glancing at Sam and Danny before raising an eyebrow and looking back at Tucker.
Sam smiled, reached for another ice cube. “Just cooling off,” she said.
“What’d you do to Danny?” Tucker asked, as he realized that his other best friend was not exactly there. Or rather, he was. But his eyes were glued to the ice in Sam’s finger and there was a hungry look about his face.
“I think he’s a little overheated,” she said with a smug grin. She shot a look at Danny as she slipped the ice across her lips, saying, “I can’t wait for the fireworks.” Then the ice disappeared into her mouth.
Danny blinked. From where he was sitting, there’d already been plenty of fireworks. One thing was for sure.
Danny Fenton would never look at ice cubes the same way again.