Never Have I Ever

III

As the teens became more intoxicated, the quick-fire pace slowed and the game all but grounded to a halt. With every passing round, it got harder and harder to string together coherent sentences and it didn’t help that Danny's powers were on the fritz. Somewhere along the way, Danny had become too invested in beating Dash at his own game that he had lost track of how many units he'd consumed.

This was why he was sitting in the couch.

Not on it like a normal human. Danny had phased inside the couch so that he appeared to be a disembodied head on his seat. When he passed the point of tipsy, he had started to lose control over his intangibility and now his body refused to maintain a physical presence. His attempts to extricate himself had been futile and filtered through the mind of a drunken teen, the scenario was quite amusing.

For every time Dash had taken a gulp of his beer, Danny had taken around ten and – factoring in his supernatural tolerance – the two were equally inebriated, but both insisted they were the picture of sobriety. "Lemme prove that you… are more out of it than I *hic* am," Dash provoked, waving an unsteady finger at Danny's head.

Danny stared at the digit. The harder he concentrated, the less focused it became, but he was never one to step down from a challenge and allowed him to proceed.

"I bet I can freestyle rap better than you," he said, tripping over his words. "You may go first," he decreed with an overzealous bow.

Now with a sense of purpose, Danny was able to free himself from the couch and floated towards the ceiling. Planting his feet solidly on the plaster, he cleared his throat and requested a 'funky' beat from the DJ. (His set would have ended hours ago and he'd only been hired until midnight, but he wouldn't miss this for the world.) Upside-down-Danny started to rap and anyone with a phone to hand started to record.

"Young Danny Fenton, I was just fourteen, When my parents built a very strange machine. It was designed to view a world unseen…"

Then, Tucker chimed in as a pitchy back-up singer, "He's gonna catch them all cause he's Danny Phantom…"

Straight-faced, Danny continued with his origins rap.

"When it didn't quite work, my folks they just quit, But then I took a look inside of it. There was a great big flash. Everything just changed. My molecules got all rearranged."

"Phantom, phantom," Dash echoed.

Two glowing rings appeared from Danny's waist and encompassed his body as he transformed into his alter ego and the narrative started up again.

"When I first woke up I realised, I had snow white hair, And glowing green eyes. I could walk through walls, disappear and fly. I was much more unique than the other guys."

He shot a wink at Sam.

"It was then that I knew what I had to do. I gotta stop all the ghosts who were coming through. I'm here to fight for me and you!"

When he had finished, Danny lost his concentration and de-transformed. Gravity kicked in, pulling him back towards Earth with a resounding, "Oof."

Picking himself up and dusting himself off, Danny swiveled to the bemused faces of his peers. No one knew exactly how to react to his performance but Dash.

"Man! That is one tough act to follow," he conceded.

Danny opened his mouth as if to reel of some trademark witty banter, but a blue wisp escaped instead; a ghost was nearby. The rational part of Danny's brain unhelpfully informed him that this was exactly the kind of situation he had been trying to avoid, but the louder and significantly less sensible part of him decided that it had been worth it to prove Dash wrong.

"Shhh," he told the blonde, his finger taking a winding path to the other boy's lips. "Hold that thought," he said, cracking his knuckles, he prepared himself for a fight and brought on the transformation for a second time. "Guess I'll die," he shrugged non-committedly.

Seconds after Phantom had replaced Fenton, the back wall was torn apart by one of Skulker's ecto-cannons and the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter made a dramatic entrance. Surveying the room, he identified his prey and powered up his wrist rocket. Before Skulker had the opportunity to fire his weapon, Danny phased them both through the wall, glad that he wasn't so off his face that he would think fighting inside was a reasonable idea.

"Hello, Whelp," Skulker spoke tauntingly once they were hovering a safe distance away from civilians. While Skulker's antagonising would normally bring out the best in Danny, he was decidedly off his game and unable to successfully apply himself to even the simplest of tasks, let alone combat.

"Good morning, fine sir," he crowed, bowing cordially.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you" - he cleared his throat - "Hammered, Ghost Child?" Skulker frowned, crossing his arms.

"No, it is you who is drunk!" said Danny with slurred defiance. "You're the one who's upside-down. How'd you 'splain that?"

"I'm not. You are."

Danny checked himself and sure enough, his feet were pointed skywards.

"Touché," he said as he spun back around.

Skulker's arm fell to his side. "I can't fight you. It violates my moral code," he said.

Danny cocked his head. "Since when do you have morals, Skulky?" he asked, trialing a risky pet-name.

Skulker was not amused, but refused to give Danny the satisfaction of a reaction. "Since always. I suppose this shall have to wait," he sighed, extending his glider wings in preparation for his departure.

"Not so fast!" Danny said, doing an exaggerated version of his hero voice and puffing out his chest. "This isn't over!"

Face scrunched in concentration, Danny attempted to channel ecto-energy into his balled fist, but the powerful toxins in his bloodstream redirected the flow to another body part. Angling himself so that his glowing green derriere was now targeting the battle-suit-clad specter, Danny fired a potent ghost ray from his butt.

Still reeling from the impact, Skulker sputtered, "That was uncalled for!" But even once he had recovered, he stayed true to his resolve and did not attack Danny in his vulnerable state.

"So… you're really not gonna fight me, Skulky?" Danny questioned sceptically.

"Stop calling me that before I change my mind," he warned and made to leave again.

"Are you leaving already?" Danny asked, hanging his head in shame. "Was it because I shot you with a butt-ray?" he asked looking sincerely remorseful.

"What is going on here? What is this?" he gestured to Danny's forlorn appearance. "Yes, I'm going. Now enjoy the rest of your party. There will be no more of that when I have your pelt, so enjoy it while it lasts and so on," he heaved a long-suffering sigh as he repeated the usual threat with little conviction. "What now?" he asked impatiently.

Danny looked crestfallen, his eyes twinkled with unshed tears. "Will you stay? Just for a little bit."

"No."

"Please?"

"Um… No?"

The Ghost Boy wobbled his bottom lip.

"Fine," he surrendered.

When the two frenemies touched down in the sitting room, the guests eyed the newcomer warily. Dash was yet to move from his seat on the couch, staring dumbly at the gaping hole in his wall and Danny suspected he was one disaster away from Defcon one. Maybe introducing a hostile ghost to the mix wasn't his best idea…

The ghost in question smiled sheepishly. "Sorry about your wall."

Before Dash could shake off his near-catatonic, shock-induced daze, Danny broke the dumb-struck silence that had settled over the room.

"Guys…" He grinned maniacally. "This is Skulker. Now let's have some real fun…"