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“You’re staring again.”
Fenton stopped mid-chew on the end of his pencil. It took a minute for Phantom’s words to register, but when they did, he shot a glare at the ghost. “Am not.”
Phantom flashed him a bonafide smirk from his midair perch. “Of course. You just so happen to be looking directly at me while you oh-so-diligently contemplate the complexities of pre-calculus.” He nodded to the still-blank homework sitting in Fenton’s lap.
Fenton flushed red and, with a scowl, quickly drew his knees up to his chest to hide the homework from view. “Yeah? Well…” He glanced back up at Phantom. “You’d only know if you’d been staring too, you know.”
To his frustration, Phantom’s grin only widened. “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”
“So wait, if I’m staring, it’s a problem, but if you’re staring, it’s suddenly okay?”
“When did I ever say it was a problem?” Phantom rolled over to float on his stomach, chin resting in his hand. “On the contrary, in fact. I find it to be the opposite of a problem.” He flashed his teeth again. “I quite like staring at you.”
Fenton’s scowl deepened in spite of the flutter in his stomach. He lobbed a pillow at the ghost, who easily phased through it with a laugh.
“Well, it’s creepy. Do you know what it feels like to have a ghost staring at you?” Fenton grumbled. Slowly, he lowered his knees until the unfinished math homework was visible again. “It’s distracting me.”
“Mhmm. Clearly, I am the culprit here.”
Fenton refused to look up and acknowledge Phantom’s sarcasm. Instead, he held his pencil to the paper and fixed his eyes on the little dot that appeared on the page. It took him a moment to realize his heart fluttered relentlessly and his jaw still clenched tightly shut.
To say he had a love-hate relationship with Phantom’s mischievous side was the understatement of the century.
As if to prove his point, a gloved hand darted out and swiped the book and notebook to the side, where it fell into a haphazard heap on the bed beside him.
“Hey!” He glared up at Phantom, who now hovered inches from his face. The lack of space between them became excessively apparent to him, and he resisted the urge to swallow. “I was doing that!”
Phantom’s grin made his blood boil in more ways than one. “No you weren’t.”
Without breaking the glare, Fenton reached blindly for the homework and made it a point to pull it back onto his lap. “Don’t you have better things to do?”
“Like… you, perhaps?”
The pencil jerked across the page as Fenton choked on his own breath, leaving a thick line in its wake. “God, Phantom, I swear -”
“Well that’s flattering and all, but I’m no god,” Phantom interrupted, the grin still plastered onto his face. He rolled in midair until he floated on his back, then tipped his head back to look at Fenton upside-down. “But, if you insist, I’m more than happy to be yours tonight.”
Fenton’s breath shallowed out, and, much to his dismay, his heart resumed its frantic flutter. Phantom was doing this on purpose. He knew that. Both of them knew that.
And unfortunately for him, Phantom knew perfectly well it drove his human crazy in all the right ways.
Why wouldn’t it though? He was floating right there. All Fenton would have to do would be to lean forward and their mouths would meet and he could yank the ghost down and maybe take control of him for once.Without thinking, his tongue poked out and he licked his lips. The idea was tempting. Too tempting.
Too late, he realized he was staring again . With a wordless grumble, he forced himself to look away. He began to scrub the eraser furiously on the streaked paper.
“I don’t understand why you’re so bent on doing this homework now ,” Phantom mused aloud. Fenton could practically see him examining the fingernails of his gloves in faux disinterest. “I mean last night, you were far more bent on doing me .”
This time, the pencil slipped out of Fenton’s grasp, and he inhaled sharply. Breathe! he commanded himself, even as memories flashed across his mind - tangling himself with Phantom’s body, Phantom’s lips exploring every inch of his own body, the consuming sensation of being so close in body and spirit with his other half, his perfect match, so close it felt like they could unite back into one for even just a moment.
“One,” he said shakily, once he was confident he could get his voice to work again, “you’ve already made that joke. Two, that’s exactly why I have to do this now, because someone kept me a little preoccupied last night.”
“Aw,” Phantom cooed. “No need to downplay it so much. We both know you loved it. I know I certainly enjoyed it.”
Finally, Fenton’s head snapped back up to stare daggers into the ghost’s playful green eyes. “You. Are. Impossible, ” he bit out.
Phantom’s eyelids began to lower, though the mischievous grin still stayed glued to his face. “Only for you, love.”
“I won’t be your love for much longer if you don’t knock it off .”
Phantom righted himself and brought a hand up to his core. “How could you say that?” he said, feigning shock. “I thought what we had was special.”
“Sure.” Fenton rolled his eyes and glared back down at the paper. “Tell me all about it, why don’t you. Distract me more, ‘cause that’s all you’re good for apparently.”
“Oh, but I’ll gladly tell you,” Phantom replied brightly. “There’s so much I could tell you about just how special of a relationship we have. I could tell you all about how it’s like my soul gets lost in you just when I look into your eyes. Or how you ignite a fire in me like no one else can. I could tell you how simply irresistible you are. How it takes every bit of my willpower not to take you and ravish you and make you mine .”
As Phantom spoke, his voice took on a different quality. A ghostly quality, Fenton realized. A possessive quality.
It made his heart feel like it would explode out of his chest.
“I could just go on and on about how alive I feel when I have you,” Phantom continued. If he noticed Fenton’s increased tension, he said nothing about it. “Or how I feel… like you complete me. Like I wouldn’t be who I am without you.”
There was something else in Phantom’s voice. Something Fenton couldn’t quite place. Hesitantly, he glanced back up at the ghost only to be taken aback when he couldn’t see the playful sparkle in Phantom’s eyes.
Instead, what took its place was something deeper. Something that left Fenton feeling as though he was peering into Phantom, into the ghost’s soul. Something raw and vulnerable and authentic, not at all like the teasing that had been there moments ago. Something that had Fenton hanging on to his every word.
Something that drew him in closer and closer, wanting more. Needing more.
“You’d tell me all that?” he found himself whispering before he even realized it.
Phantom nodded. “I could,” he said quietly.
They were close enough now that Phantom’s cold breath drifted across Fenton’s lips. Despite the chill that ran up his spine, Fenton felt his cheeks warming. This sudden transparency from Phantom, the way he spoke poetry about Fenton’s place in his core… It was strange. Unexpected. Entrancing…
Fenton leaned in. He was so close…
Phantom’s eyelids lowered further. “I could…” he repeated.
So close …
And in the blink of an eye, Phantom pulled away, and the impish sparkle in his eye returned. “But you have homework to do. Which is clearly more important. So I won’t.”
Fenton blinked. It was only when he finally processed Phantom’s shift and shot him the most scathing glare he could muster that Phantom began to laugh uncontrollably.
“I’m sorry!” he gasped between giggles. “I’m sorry! I couldn’t help it! Oh, Ancients, I’m the worst! I shouldn’t - but it was too good to pass up! I’m sor- oomph! ”
Phantom was cut off by Fenton springing up and grabbing his shoulders, twisting the both of them in midair and pulling down so Phantom bounced onto the bed. Fenton straddled Phantom on all fours, face flushed and breathing heavily.
“You asked for it,” Fenton murmured, low and dangerous, before sealing Phantom’s lips in a kiss.
He pretended to ignore the feeling of Phantom grinning into the kiss as he lowered his weight onto the ghost.