This was a very spontaneous write.
Warning: Uhhh I'm like super mean to Danny. Lots of angst.
"This is stupid." Danny glared at the metal device in Maddie's hand. He folded his arms across his chest, his body tense. "This is so stupid."
Maddie exhaled, silently categorizing the human behaviors from the ghost ones. She knew this day wouldn't be easy. It would have been downright impossible for a full ghost, but since Danny was only a halfa…
She forced a warm smile onto her face. "You know you need to do this, sweetie. It may not be ideal, but we have to follow the rules!"
He studied her face with calculating eyes and a tight jaw. His gaze flickered from Maddie to the devices in her hands. Back and forth again. This was Phantom, no doubt. She'd never seen this cold expression on her innocent boy before the accident.
"It's stupid," was his only response.
"Oh well. We can't always get things to swing our way." Maddie took a step forward. "Now will you let me put these things on? You're going to be late for school."
He stepped back. "Wait! Can't we...uh...why don't we talk about this? For a second?"
Damn, she'd been so close…
"You won't feel a thing, Danny!" Liar. Even the Fenton versions of these devices came with minor side effects. "It'll be okay!"
"I know, I just…" He backed into the wall and stopped, his eyebrows scrunched together and gaze downcast. A pang of pity hit Maddie. She could tell that his two halves were in conflict. His human half wanted to be a normal teenager who went to school while his ghost half was simply unable to let go of its power.
To ghosts, power was everything. Ghosts didn't measure their status through monetary wealth or social prowess like humans did; they did it through power. Ghosts who protected their haunt with incredible fortitude were given titles of respect within the ghost community. And the better a ghost protected its haunt, the more social status it had. It was a rather simple social hierarchy that didn't surprise Maddie in the slightest if she was honest with herself. Ghosts were more...well, calling them simple-minded would be an insult to her son (who she loved very much, thank you), but were they as intelligent, as complex as humans?
Play dumb. "What's wrong, sweetie?"
"I just...I don't know." Pink tinged Danny's cheeks. He glanced away. Was it shame? Embarrassment?
Maddie pursed her lips, unsurprised he couldn't admit his deepest ghostly feelings to her. Although, they had been trying hard to reconcile their relationship after Danny was revealed to the world. These things took time.
Time she couldn't afford to spend right now.
Sympathize with the ghost half, Maddie decided. Pretend you understand what it's going through.
"I know, it's very difficult to be vulnerable. Especially at school," Maddie said. "It can be very frightening, huh?"
"Yeah," Danny breathed out, his facial muscles relaxing with relief that Maddie understood. "It is. Because what if a ghost attacks? How am I supposed to protect everyone if my powers are gone?"
Maddie stared at the metal devices in her hands. Sure, they were big and clunky. But they had a metal buckle on the back. "There are sensors all over the school, honey, so if an alarm goes off, then the buckles will automatically unlock. Then when the rogue ghost is taken care of, Mr. Lancer or Principal Ishiyama will lock the devices back on, as their DNA is keyed into the system. So, in reality, you'll be able to protect everyone just as well as before. Okay?"
"But…" Danny was still floundering, as if his ghost half was digging for every reason as to why he should protect himself from these devices. "How will my ghost sense work if I don't have my powers?"
"The alarms will go off if a ghost enters the property," she reiterated, glancing at the clock. She had to wrap this up quickly. After all, school waited for no one.
She watched, waiting for his shoulders to deflate and his fists to unclench, telltale signs of his resignation. But they didn't happen. His rigid posture remained unmoving as his eyes continued to flicker between Maddie and the devices.
Okay, she needed a new tactic. She shouldn't have tried reasoning with him to begin with. Ghosts didn't respond to logic and reason like humans did. They needed...emotions. Human emotions. To be keyed in on, drawn to, like a moth looking at the light.
Shifting her posture, she allowed a hint of desperation to bleed into her eyes. His reaction was immediate. He flinched, bringing a hand up in front of him in a moment of surrender, comfort, as if he needed to calm Maddie down.
No doubt she was setting all sorts of alarms off with his ghost half's obsession to protect.
"Danny, please," she said. "Do this for me? Please?"
He lowered his hand and opened his mouth before his jaw tightened again, snapping his mouth shut. Maddie watched in fascination as he closed his eyes, conflicting expressions appearing on his face. She held her breath, unwilling to let herself celebrate the early victory even though she was almost positive she had tugged at his obsession just enough to get him to submit to her command.
She should have felt disgusted with herself. And deep down, her motherly side was admonishing her for daring to play with Danny's obsession like that. But no matter how much she could argue back that she had to for Danny's safety, the scientist in her didn't play by those rules. Those morals. The scientist in her was always hungry to learn, even if the subject was her own son.
Of course, she would never do anything past this. Because, regardless of his DNA, he was still her son. Still Danny. And she would never hurt him.
Right?
After what seemed like forever, he let out one final sigh and looked up at Maddie. "Okay. Do what you have to do."
"Thanks, honey." She stepped forward slowly, testing the waters. Watching her son closely, she searched for anything to suggest that no, he wasn't ready for her to snap the inhibitors over his wrists, ankles, and neck. But he didn't flinch. She took that as an invitation to close the space between them.
"I'm not sure how this will feel, sweetie," Maddie said. "But it's government-issued, so I...don't think it'll be the most comfortable thing. But it shouldn't hurt. You might feel a slight weight around your core, or a numbness in your chest. These are designed to basically cut off the connection between your core and the rest of your body. The question of how you will feel is dependent on where in your body the inhibitors target. They could simply shield the connection around your core, acting almost like our ecto-shield that we use around our house during ghost emergencies. Or it could target the ectoplasm cells specifically, acting like a weighted blanket that dampens the ghostly aura from them. Unfortunately, I can't tell how this is designed to function without the specs, which they did not give us. So...the only way we'll know is if we put these on.
"The good news is, the inhibitors are perfectly safe. They've been in use by the Guys in White many times in the past, according to Operative K. So we know they don't harm ghosts and they're perfectly functional! Operative K did say they've been tweaked a little for you, but he ensured it was only to account for your unique physiology. The inhibitors still function the same."
She looked up from her rambling to see a shadow across Danny's face. She tried to counteract this with a sunny smile. "Everything will be alright, okay?"
He crossed his arms, glaring to the side. "When it comes to the Guys in White, I doubt it. But thanks for trying."
"Well, we agreed to the terms already. And besides, you do want to attend a normal school, don't you?"
"Yeah," he said, his voice bitter.
"Then this is a necessary evil." No, play to his emotions. Logic wouldn't work here. Emotions were better. "And it will make your father and me really happy. We were so worried about you, Danny. We love you so much. We just want to help you thrive now that we know what's going on in your life. I know it's not perfect, but...we're trying our best. And I know it will take a while before we're totally caught up in your life, but this is a good start. I'm so...proud of you, sweetie. I love you so much."
"Okay, okay," he said, waving her off. "I'm ready. Just put the stupid things on so I can go to school."
Maddie fought off the satisfied smirk at the success of her plan, as well as a secondary impulse to smile at how adorable her son was, with face red in embarrassment at his mother's praise. Forcing herself to focus, she brought up one of the inhibitors and pressed the tiny side button, opening it up with a quiet hiss.
"Hold out an arm for me, Danny," Maddie said.
Slowly, a hand was raised.
She brought the metal ring over to his wrist, steeled the opening around his thin arm, and clasped the metal back together.
That was it. The first one was on.
She held her breath and watched as her son's eyes stilled, his eyebrows raising ever so slightly. He felt...something. She couldn't know what. But...there was something there. She needed to know what.
"Okay, next one."
He opened his mouth and froze, his face reminiscent of a fish out of water. Something was wrong, she could tell.
Or it could be his ghost half finally catching up to the situation. Ghosts were brilliant actors when they wanted to be.
"Danny, hold out your other hand for me, please," she said, her tone patient.
He brought his other hand up. It trembled. Something was wrong. Maddie should have stopped. She should have brought him over to the couch, sat him down, and talked it out. Asked him if he was okay.
But…she hesitated. Curiosity gnawed at her mind, and she needed to know what these inhibitors were blocking. She had to see what would happen next. How Danny would react once all of them were on.
And there was something else, something that she refused to acknowledge, that was budding inside her chest. It wanted to bloom. But she refused to allow it to. It was sick, after all. This was her son. Of course she didn't want to hurt him.
And her son was clearly uncomfortable.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Uh, I think. Yeah. I'm fine," Danny said, his eyebrows furrowed.
"Alright…I'm going to put the next inhibitor on, okay?"
"Yeah. Sounds great."
She was his mother, true. But she was also under direct orders from the government and the PTA stating that Danny absolutely had to wear the inhibitors if he wanted to attend Casper High. So if she had to push him a little to comply with the government orders...well, so be it.
"Okay, let's do this together. I'm going to put it on now, okay?"
"Just do it."
There was the Danny she knew, always ready to face whatever challenge life threw at him. And always so, so eager to please the adults in his life.
She carefully wrapped the next bracelet around his outstretched arm and clicked the buckle in place.
The color immediately drained out of Danny's face. His eyes widened, his breathing hitched, and his hand flew up to his chest. He staggered, and his free hand shot towards the wall in a vain attempt to steady himself. His hand had hardly brushed up against the wood before his vestibular sense failed altogether and he collapsed on the floor.
Maddie peered down at her son, who was beginning to tuck his legs into his chest. "Sweetie?"
Danny gasped. "I...I can't…" He cut himself off, wheezing, his fingers clawing at his shirt as if he could dig inside and grab his core.
His core…
Oh.
"Danny? What's going on?" she asked. Play the oblivious parent. Play pretend, if only for more information. Show concern, and his obsession might override his own pain to comfort her. She'd perhaps get to keep the science experiment going for a little longer.
But of course, she only wanted what was best for her son. That was all. Nothing more...
"Mom...I…"
He tilted his head towards her, his eyes searching the air to meet hers. But his gaze was too unfocused to have any success. Giving up, he allowed himself to relax back onto the floor, groaning.
Something was wrong. Something was so very wrong with her son. It was obvious that—if the Guys in White were doing what she thought they were doing—this would be absolute hell to experience for a ghost. Or she could be wrong. And Phantom could just be overreacting in a counter effort to gain his powers back. It could be a ploy to make her stop putting on the inhibitors.
Her fingers traced the bracelet. It was now or never. Either she could listen to her motherly side, which was yelling at her to put the bracelet down and comfort her son, or she could follow her scientist side, which was begging for more.
Which Maddie was she going to be today? The angel or the devil? The mother who doted on her son's feelings or the scientist who demanded answers?
No, that was all silly. Of course she was a mother first. Ghost or not, Danny was her son. She watched him take his first step when he was ten months old and say his first word when he was eleven months old. She drove him to his first day of preschool, supervised his first play date, taught him how to read his first picture book, bandaged his first knee scrape against the pavement, directed him as he shot an ecto-gun for the first time.
Maddie was Danny's mother, through and through. Nothing would come in the way of that.
She knelt down on the floor and opened her arms. "Come here, Danny. It's okay. I know it hurts."
His gaze shifted over to her face. He stared at her, his face apprehensive. No, that was the wrong word. His face reflected fear.
Of her?
"Oh, my poor baby." Maddie leaned in, wrapping her strong arms around him. He trembled in response. "I'm so sorry, Danny."
"It's...okay…" he whispered. "I'm...I'm fine…I...I just—"
"Good."
She jolted forward, wrapping an inhibitor around his ankle…
His body went rigid. "Wait! Mom, no—"
...and snapped it shut.
"Please!"
Click.
He moaned, his body turning limp against hers. She laid him back down on the floor and watched, fascinated, as his body started reacting to the new inhibitor. A thin coat of sweat appeared on his forehead, and he screwed his eyes shut. Both of his hands shot to his gasping chest. "Please, Mom...this...this...isn't right...nng..."
"What's hurting, Danny?" she asked, her voice light and innocent. Play pretend, if only to hide this growing fascination. A lock of red hair fell from behind her ear, but she didn't stop to push it back. Her eyes soaked in the display on the floor, Danny fighting inside his body, his mind, to tell her what was so very wrong.
"It's...ugh...it's my...c-core…"
Ah, she was right. The Fenton Inhibitors were programmed to hover outside of the ghost's core in a magnetic dome, allowing just enough electrical impulses through the force field to keep the specimen functional. The end result was—minor lethargy aside—the ghost retaining its necessary motor functions while losing all of its powers.
But the government seemed to have gone down a rather different path. Instead of building their inhibitors to allow for a small area of space around the core, it attacked the core directly, filling it with an electrical dampener. It was cruel and reeked of every bit of arrogance Maddie had come to expect of the Guys in White. But a small part of her, one she refused to admit existed, was almost enjoying the ghost's act at its core being so thoroughly violated by this electrical dampener.
No, not the ghost. Her son. Her son was hurt. She needed to comfort him.
Pulling herself out of her musings, she glanced down at Danny. Tears slowly dripped from his eyes. His mouth was wide open, begging for more air. His body, curled up on the floor, squirmed against the discomfort of the inhibitors.
But that feeling inside of her was too strong. An itch for answers. A hunger for more of this show. There was something deeply satisfying about watching this ghost fall to its primal instincts in front of her. Because of her.
And besides, what harm could one more inhibitor bring? All inhibitor effects were temporary. All she had to do was take them off and Danny would be back to normal in an instant. So really, this was an inconsequential opportunity that she needed to take advantage of.
Her lips moved automatically. "I'm going to put the next one on now."
"No...please...no more...no more…"
"Danny, you know I have no choice," she said. Liar. "I don't want to do this." Liar!
"Please...make it stop…"
"I have no choice," she whispered. Her eyes were glued on the squirming body of her son. The halfa. The half ghost. She couldn't help but wonder...would his reaction be stronger if he was a full ghost? Or was it stronger now because he was a level seven ghost? Did his human half even play a role in his reaction? Did it matter?
Focus, Maddie. Your son's in pain. You should stop this. Homeschool him. This isn't worth it.
She bent down and clicked the other anklet on.
A sob tore its way out of Danny's throat. "Mom…"
"I know it hurts," Maddie said. She stood up, allowing her body to cast a shadow over the writhing halfa below her.
His body twisted and turned, legs flexing and unflexing, arms twitching and hands clawing at his chest and hair, all in desperation for any sort of release from this torture. And as she watched, the budding flower inside of her began to grow. Petals creeped out from their pod, arching back and exposing themselves to the sunlight. As the one flower bloomed, more followed, spreading to the darkest corners of her mind.
"Make it...s...stop…m-make...it…" His words slurred together, drunk and undefined.
"I'm sorry sweetie. I know this hurts. Here, let me—"
"No! Don't!" His hands rushed up to form a protective barrier between him and his mother. "Please...no…"
This wasn't Maddie's fault. She was only doing what was ordered of her, right? Danny had to go to Casper High, didn't he? That's what he said he wanted. Couldn't he see the sacrifices she was making to ensure he got a good education? Didn't he understand how hard it was for her to see him like this? She was doing this for him.
"No more...no more..." he begged, hardly able to speak through his laborious breaths.
"This isn't my fault," she said.
Danny eyes cracked open, regarding her with utter betrayal that normally would have torn her maternal instincts to pieces.
She should stop now. This had gone too far. There were plenty of homeschooling programs online he could do. Wouldn't learning at his own pace be better for him anyway? He had always struggled so much in school. Hadn't she promised Danny she wouldn't use Phantom as an experiment? Hadn't she sworn up and down that she loved him all the same as before and that nothing was different with this revelation?
"Please…take...them off...I can't...I can't..."
But the hunger inside her, it had morphed into something much stronger. Uncontrollable. Uncontainable. She stepped forward, allowing her shadow to grow across his body until it completely blanketed his figure. She leaned down, leering over her son in wonder.
Delight.
Fascination.
"Please…"
"No."
With one final swoop, Maddie clasped the remaining inhibitor around his neck.
Click!
Thanks for reading! :)
HUGE thanks to imekitty for beta-ing this oneshot! She's amazing everyone go read her fics!