Work Text:
If there was one thing Paulina wasn’t used to, it was having issues, having a problem. After all she was perfect, gorgeous looks, dainty pretty voice, luscious hair, flawless style, stunning teal eyes and a perfect jawline. Even her teeth and skin shone with beauty. The biggest issue she ever had, was ever supposed to have, was slightly dry lips when her favourite lip glaze ran out or the store not having something in her size.
She even had that last issue recently, until it fixed itself of course, as it should have. Hmpf.
But now she has a different issue, an issue issue. All thanks to this stupid weird town. Stupid weird glowy dragon thing messing things up on her. Messing her up.
She’s still not really sure what happened with all that weirdness. All she knows is she agreed to go to the dance with that weirdo loser to piss off the geek goth freak, then there’s a dragon, like, an actual fantasy dragon in the bathroom. Well first there was that shirt they sold out on and she got, like, super mad; then she got her shirt anyway. She’s still a little confused about that but guess she’s just so wonderfully lucky.
And after the blue dragon she woke up in the football field of all places? Why would she be there when she’s not cheering? And then Dash tried weakly hitting on her. Ugh, boys were so sad and desperate. Fun and annoying.
Leaning in towards her mirror slightly as she taps on her lip glaze, she got the new cherry honey drip shade today! Capping the bottle, wiggling her mouth, and sticking out her tongue. If she, like, pushed? or wiggled maybe? her tongues insides or something? it would suddenly be forked! and glowy green! It was gross and freaky and she didn’t like it.
That wasn’t even all of it! Things tasted… stronger? with it? And her teeth could be all pointy and sharp! Like a cats! Cats were adorable, and she absolutely made fangs actually look cute unlike the goth freak, but it was super freaky. And Paulina didn’t do freaky.
Pulling her tongue back in and moving to put in her earrings, tracking the shape of her ear to make extra extra sure it wasn’t pointed. The super strong hearing was neat, great for gossip! But pointy ears were so not in style, at least if they did suddenly point on her, her hair would hide them. Just in case she’ll add a bit of volumizer to her hair. The shimmering glowy blue nails, sharp like claws, she could give herself were really pretty though, even if she did almost cut her hair with them one time. That had been so terrifying. Her hands became actual claws if she pushed too hard though and that wasn’t pretty. At least she knew what to do to keep her eyes from glowing green and slitting! Do not get angry. She’s really positive so that’s super easy! But she also can’t get annoyed, which was waaaaaaay harder. So many things were, like, really annoying. A boy not knowing his place by not fawning over her. Teachers giving dumb class work when a concert was going on that she totally had a cute outfit picked out for already. Dash and his weird obsession thingy with beating up the freaky Fenton boy. Lillian stealing all her good hair ties last week. Sooooooo many things to be annoyed by, it was a struggle, truly.
But the green eye thing gives her some kinda hint on what to do, or more so who to make fix it for her.
The weird spooky kid who got messed up by his parents freaky science-y stuff. Danny. His eyes got all glowy green too whenever he got annoyed or mad or excited or, like, emotional at all really. It annoyed her a little that it did really suit his skin, if he wasn’t such a freaky loser she’d even call it cute. And fine, it was part of why she said yes to him for that dance. Ugh.
Point is, he had weird freaky powers and now so did she. But she doesn’t know why. Her parents aren’t weird crazy scientist inventor people, with a weird crazy portal thingy in their basement for her to trip into; that boy was such a klutz. All that she knows is that she met a dragon creature, passed out because dragon obvi, and now she seems slightly… dragon? It’s like the dragon infected her or something! Was It, like, a were-dragon or something? Sooooo weird.
Patting her cheeks to increase her natural blush a little, “whelp, I’m going to make it that freaks problem”, and getting up, flipping one side of her hair over her shoulder. Whether he wanted to help her or not didn’t matter, of course he would want to, obviously. She was Paulina, after all.
It’s hardly hard to find the boy, totally expected, he’s by his locker with the creepy geek and freaky goth. Those two weirdos are arguing with each other again as if he’s not even there. She, frankly, has no clue why he even hangs out with them. If they were popular, or rich, or hot, she’d get it but no, they are not. She’d rather have no friends than be friends with those two. Ew. Extra ew with creepy geeky one. At least with the goth she can respect her slightly for wearing designer clothing, even if the designs were super icky, and for being a strong willed girl. But her personality was so ugly, and the vegan dirt eating thing? Ew ew ew.
Anyways, she saunters right up to the three, one had on a hip and the other grabbing Danny’s ear. Smiling sweetly, “I’m borrowing you for a minute, ‘kay?”, and drags him off by the ear before anyone can even consider denying her. Since she knows the goth totally would, ugh. That freaky witch was so weirdly possessive. It was not flattering, and couldn’t be good for her skin; not that her skin was good to begin with, with how gross and sickly pale she was. She never seems to have pimples though, so that was something she guesses.
Oh whatever. Not Paulina’s issue.
She pulls the boy into the girl’s washroom, making him a flushing embarrassed mess immediately. Gosh that was such an easy way to throw a stupid boy off their game, almost sad really. Then again, the girl’s washroom was obviously cleaner and smelled nice.
“Er, uh, ah, Paul- Paulina, uh, what… what are you, um, doing?”.
Oh she really hopes he doesn’t drop his pants again. Sure his boxers were actually clean unlike most guys but still, she so doesn’t need to see that any more than she already has.
Running a hand through her hair and batting her eyelashes a little, trying to make him just that little bit weak in the knees (she had absolutely heard him say that happens to him around pretty girls. Aka not Sam).
Crossing her arms, “okay look, you’re, like, totally a freak and all-”. He looks slightly annoyed but still totally nervous so wahtevs. “-but, like, that’s kinda what I wanted you for? So, you know, it’s cool right now”, and purses her lips cutely at him.
He blinks, flushing a little and rubbing his neck, “it’s… cool?”.
She hums and nods a little, faintly smirking, “uh huh. Dios mio, definitely”. It’s not. Definitely not. Pouting at him a little, in that way she does when she’s coaxing Dash or Kwan into doing something for her by pretending to just be a little damsel, “especially ‘cause we, like, totally have that in common, and I’d, totally, like pointers or whatevs. So got any tips for a girl?”.
He scrunches up his eyebrows at her like he doesn’t get it, surely he can’t be that dense right? That’d be so sad. Then he… surprises her? It’s, like, she doesn’t know, like his whole posture changes? Like he’s ‘at attention’, like what her father does sometimes when someone’s making him angry or telling him something suuuuuupeeer important. Weird. So weird. His back’s straight and she can just tell his hands are only relaxed because he, like, is forcing them to be? Weird…. and kinda cute? Nope! Not thinking about that! His face is firm and jaw set, voice is… gentle but stern? He’s weirding her out a little actually. Only older hot boys acted like that??? “What do you mean exactly?”.
She twirls a bit of her hair with her finger, feeling… kind of… awkward and weird now? He was acting older than her and she doesn’t know what to do with that okay?! She never knew quite how to act around her army cousin either! Biting her lip, “um, well”, oh whatever! She uses her fingers to push her upper lip up, making her teeth sharper, she wasn’t about to stick her tongue out at him, what was she five??? And then holds her hands up, finger nails towards him, and pushes? them to make them, like, claws again. Took her soooooo looooonnngg to figure out how to really do that. Super annoying. Like, really. This should not be her problem.
He blinks and loses a bit of that weird tough boy edge, which she’s honestly thankful for. What is she supposed to do with that kind of behaviour from a boy who’s supposed to be at least a few months younger than her??? Dios mio. He steps forwards and moves his hands towards hers, looking at her face, “do you care if I, freaky Fenton, touch them?”.
If she did she wouldn’t be showing him! Hmpf! “Obviously not”, sticking her nose up in the air, “that’s why we’re in here”.
He shrugs like he doesn’t really care before just grabbing her finger claw things. It… feels very weird because they have scales! Like a lizard! Ew. And the claw parts have no give like nails do. So weird. She could really do without all of this. Ugh. She’ll actually consider being, like, actually nice to him if he can fix this. She huffs at him but doesn’t stop him from looking her claw things over like he’s a doctor or something.
Right don’t those whacko parents of his technically have, like, doctor degree things? Weird. And his sister was scary smart, and not, like, geek nerdy loser smart, but, like, rocket scientist veterinarian smart. Future rich I-built-my-own-fortune smart. She totally respected that. And her hair was a really pretty shade of orange, she totally got Dash’s little crush on the girl.
He’s still eyeing her claws, “how long have you been able to do this?”.
She puffs her cheeks out cutely a little, “I don’t know, like, sometime after that dance with the totally weird dragon in the bathroom?”.
He cringes his entire face, it is supremely unattractive, he should never do that again. Her scowling daintily at him, “do you want wrinkles, don’t do that to your poor face. Ew”.
He blushes furiously again, good. Turning his head to the side and coughing awkwardly, “uh, wrinkles aren’t really a problem for me”, glancing around a little before giving her a small nervous borderline adorable puppy look, “you know, weird spooky powers and all”.
Wait! So this weird dragon thing might cure her from ever having wrinkles!!! Putting her hands- claws to her face, careful not to cut herself, “oh mi god, are you saying I’ll never have wrinkles”, putting a hand to her forehead and dramatically feigning fainting, “I’ve changed my mind, this is very cute”. Scales over wrinkles one hundred percent! Especially because she could make the scales go away!
He actually chuckles a little, clearly amused by her, not that she’s going to complain about that… in private at least. Or, well, mostly private anyways. “I’m not making promises, but eh?”, he shrugs, “you probably? Won’t? Have wrinkles? But-”, he scrunches up his eyebrows again, “-is the claws and teeth all? Nothing, you know, more extreme and stuff, uh, no, er, reason or anything though, but like yeah…”.
Oh man this boy so could not hide nerves. She can’t help but giggle at him meanly with one hand over her mouth, eyes crinkling lightly, before shaking her head and dropping her hands, “no. My eyes are doing that, you know, green thingy yours do all the time, especially when you’re around Dash”, smirking faintly, “but with, like, slitting like cats do? And my tongue can fork”, moving her fingers up to one ear, “and my ears can get all pointy, hearings, like, super good now though”.
“And that’s it?”.
Oh she hopes it is! Puffing out her cheeks at him again, hand claws going to her hips and leaning at him slightly, “it better be!”. Gee how freaky was Fenton??? Not that she blames him for keeping what he could to himself, totally gets that.
He tilts his head at her, hums, and then has the guts to actually ask, “can I touch your chest quickly?”. Her making a point to raise an extremely judgy eyebrow, what kind of boy asks that! He goes very red, good!, and stumbles over his words, “I- what shit, fuck, uh. Crap”, turning away and gesturing exaggeratedly at the wall, “not in a weird creepy Tuck way-”. Oh good, he knows that boy is super gross, at least he’s not that dumb. “-I mean in a more, If I can touch your chest I can, like, feel- oh shit that sounds way worse”, he bends over and wheezes, “I swear it is not creepy”, straightening up really quickly, “I sorta have a whole ass ‘nother organ normal people don’t and it’s in my chest and I can tell by touch if you have that too and if you do then you’re way weirder than just what you described so can I check?”.
She blinks at him, that was, like, so many words to take in, wow. Blinking again and crossing her arms, “fine. But you better watch those hands and you tell no one”.
He holds both his hands up, “yup okay obviously not gonna tell a soul”, swallowing, “not like that would make me look good either you know”. She rolls her eyes and doesn’t move when he moves his hand to put a few fingers on her chest, just a bit under the collar bone at least. It’s weird. It’s awkward. If anyone comes in here her reputation is going to need so much damage control. Ugh… Unless it was Star, Star would never hurt her like that. Star was great.
…
It’s really uncomfortable him just standing there, fingers on her chest, and staring at his own fingers. Quirking an eyebrow at the freaky boy, “well?”.
He jumps, like he’d completely forgotten she was even here, how rude and unbelievable. No one should be forgetting Paulina! Especially when they were touching her! Hmpf! This boy! “Oh, um, right. Just give me a second, I’ve only been this way for like a year at best okay? I’m not some expert who can tell in a few seconds”. She rolls her eyes at him a little.
Her pouting a little, “alright fine, I get it”, giving a cutesy sigh, “just hurry up”.
“Yeah yeah yeah, let me concentrate”.
So bossy! Ugh. Though she guesses he’s less sad and weird like this. Well… more weird but a better kind of weird. Whatever. He smiles and nods to himself after a couple more seconds or something, taking his fingers off of her quickly, “well you’re not just like me, so that’s, I dunno, probably a good thing?”, shrugging, “eh”, looking up at the ceiling and tapping his chin, “what I think happened is you got basically infected? I guess? by that ghost dragon from the dance, with ghost dragon ecto”.
“That was a ghost dragon!”. Was that worse or better??? Blinking and tilting her head slightly, “so ghosts are, like, totally real? Your whacko parents aren’t crazy?”.
Danny snorts, chuckling, “yeah. Hence me calling my spooky powers, ‘spooky’”, waving a hand around, “mine are more, uh, general? than the dragon thing you seem to have going on”.
Meaning she’s special, good. She should be special. She doesn’t like how ‘infected’ sounds though… “I’m not going to, like, die right?”.
“Naw. It’s been a while, if you were going to keel over you would have by now, and you don’t have a core so not kinda dead either”.
Okay she feels like she’s losing him a little here, maybe he actually was smart? And not in the loser kinda way? Weird. Pouting a little, “is it just going to go away then? Or?”.
He scratches his head, totally looking confused, “honestly? Uh, no clue? But if it hasn’t gotten worse or better by now then no? Um, probably not?”, giving her a silly dumb little thumbs up that is oh so very awkward, “so congrats on dragon stuff? I don’t know I just vibe with my weird shit”, dropping his hands, frowning a little, and shaking his head, “honestly? with all the ghost shit that’s happened in the past few months, if it can rub off or whatever like this then you’re probably going to be the first of many who are slightly spooky”.
Oh great, so this was gonna be, like, an everybody problem. Meaning she’s simply ahead of the curb, the first one on trend as always. Still though, this isn’t really a trend she wants to be, like, legit proudly rocking, “well keep this to yourself, I do not want me being sorta dragon, or whatever to be school gossip until I decide it’s cool”; because once Paulina Sanchez decides something’s cool, it’s cool.
“So long as you don’t go telling people I have extra organs, people give me enough shit as it is”.
… Wow did he always swear this much? Oh whatevs she probably would too if she was stuck with his freaky family and loser friends. Sighing at him, “fine. Now how do I get this stuff to stop just, like, doing its own thing?”.
And he actually laughs at her in the mean way, like the kinda laugh she’d expect to hear from Val or Brittany, “ha! If you figure that one out tell me”, tilting his head at her, “why do you think I keep loosing my freaking pants? Or getting stuck in walls? Or dropping crap? This shits a fucking pain in the ass”.
She blinks, “you know, swearing is so not cute”. Sure as a boy he could get away with it more but still. But she’s so glad this is just giving her claws and teeth and stuff, and not, like, making her pants fall off. She could never return to school again.
He flushes, like he just remembered who he was talking to. “Er, sorry?”, shaking his head, “anyway, if you wanna be sure sure, you’d have to, well, let my parents check you out. Honestly? Don’t recommend”, he glares, not at her but, like, the air? Wow he is so easy to distract, easier than most boys. “Telling them was definitely the worst choice I coulda made. Zero outta ten, one hundred percent regrets”.
So… so she is not getting a ‘check up’ from Danny’s whacko freakazoid parents. She’s heard more than a few rumours of them being actually dangerous and harming their kid, super messed up; that’s one of the reasons she doesn’t really bother him about his crazy parents. Bugging people because their parents are mean to them is never cool.
“Oh and don’t let the ghosts find out”, him grinning a bit manically, one of his fangs even sparkling or whatever, “other wise they’ll hunt you for sport”.
Okay normally Paulina isn’t one to care about the lower class or the losers and geeks and nerds and weirdos and whatnot, but like, this sounds pretty not great and might hurt her or something? “Wow your life sucks”, shaking her head and poking him one on the forehead, she didn’t come here for him to, like, trauma dump, “I’m def not telling your crazy ‘rents. Nevar gonna happen. And why would I tell some freaky ghost? Ew”.
“Uh, good? Plus I could, legit, just steal their stuff and scan you myself”, then adding in a rush, “or give it to you to use on yourself after I explain how the dumb things work, heh”, him swallowing, “as for control? Just practice with however it works for you? The eyes are lost cause, so… breathing exercises?”, and tilts his head innocently, “and don’t be too surprised if you have new tastes or instincts and stuff? Considering dragon you’ll probably just like meat more maybe, I don’t know”. Well that seems okay? She so totally wasn’t going to be weird about it like that creepy geek kid was, ew.
Ugh, he really isn’t that much help, but it’s something she guesses. As per usual she’s the most reliable one. “I’ll allow you to use whatever thing on me, I’m above that sort of thing. I guess you weren’t nearly that useful to me, Naco”. He couldn’t fix it, didn’t have any, like, tips on it, and now she has to worry about his whack job parents or ghosts finding out. But at least she might never get wrinkles! And she wasn’t, like, dying or something.
He rubs his neck, “ah sorry?”, then jumps a little, almost startling her, his face lighting up a bit, somehow getting paler all over, “oh! Yeah that dragon that, I guess, dragoned you? She’s a ghost princess so”.
Oh but of course, if Paulina was going to get strange dragon powers they would be from royalty. It was only proper. Smirking and sticking her nose up in the air, “I would expect nothing less”. If anyone in this dumb town was going to get something from royalty, it should be and deserved to be her and only her.
He finger snaps and finger guns at her, earning him a disgusted scowl. Like, really? He was such a freaky dork. Him wincing, “right, totally not friends, cool”.
She scowls a little more, not enough to risk wrinkles but still, “absolutely not”. Even if they had this… ‘thing’ in common, that meant absolutely nothing in her opinion, and her opinion was the one that mattered. Huffing and using one hand to wave him off, at least she had her hand back to her perfect normal manicured nails, “you can go now. If I want to talk about this, I will, don’t even think about coming up to me about it”.
He… actually rolls his eyes at her, hmpf how dare he! “Yeah, sure, Paulina”, sighing and moving to walk to the door, looking back at her, “just, actually let me know if you do have, you know, issues? There’s literally no one else who could possibly help you, if you do. My parents are nutz, but they’re also geniuses. And I have no issue lying to, stealing from, or sneaking around them”, then the door opens and he’s gone; her catching a glimpse of him running a hand through his hair and laughing in, like, a cocky amused way?
That exit was… like totally cool actually? Danny Fenton was the last person she expected any amount of aura farming from what the??? Shaking her head and moving to the counter, to check her make up obviously. Sure she also puts that sort of… pressure to her eyes to make them slit and glow green, tilting her head, it’s weird but… yup it totally does suit her; especially if she’s matching with an actual princess. Sharp defined angular face and sharp defined eyes, it’s a look. Not one she’ll be rocking around anyone though, like, ew no nevar. Blinking her eyes back to normal and turning to head out herself, it’s been long enough that no one’s going to think she was doing anything with the freak Fenton boy. Even if her opinion of him went up slightly, that would only mean anything if she actually bothered to mention it to anyone. Which she won’t, like, duh. If that silly naco wants to ‘climb the social ladder’ then he at least needs to dump those ‘friends’ of his. Like, absolute necessity. Especially the creepy techno geek.
Up date the clothing next, obviously. Maybe if he leaned into that tough side of him she caught a glimpse of? With the fangs and piercing blue eyes and pale skin that could totally work for him. Perhaps, if she does figure out a handy tip or two she might deign to tell him. That way if he ever does climb out of the social hole he’s in, she’ll already have something on him.
End.