Author's note: I am still completely in love with the cover art MonsterousThings drew for me. ^^


Objectified

Caught up in your derangement

The minutes ticked by. Danny didn't really care to know how many as he continued to wait in the chair his mother had pulled up for him. Any length of time here was way too long.

"We'll start easy." Maddie came up to him with a thermometer. "I'm going to take your temperature, okay?"

Danny only nodded as she inserted the thermometer into his ear. He waited, breathed.

She removed the thermometer and studied the result. "Ninety-six point eight. Tympanic measurements tend to be higher than core measurements, so you're probably a little colder than that. It's low, but still more or less normal. Interesting." Maddie recorded the result on a notepad.

"What were you expecting?" asked Danny.

"I would've been surprised, I suppose, if I hadn't been hugging and interacting with you this past year and a half. You've never felt particularly cold to me, so I guess I'm not surprised on that level. But I would've thought that you'd be colder." Maddie shrugged. "But then again, I would've thought that being part ghost was impossible. This is all going to be completely new to me." She held out a hand. "Let me check your pulse now."

Danny gave her his arm. Maddie pressed two fingers against his artery and counted to herself.

"A hundred and twelve." Maddie frowned down at him. "Are you nervous, Danny?"

"A little," Danny admitted.

"Are you nervous about what these tests might reveal?"

He wasn't sure if he could tell her the truth, that he was nervous about just what tests she was going to run on him. "Sorry. I'll try to relax."

He breathed deeply and tried to clear his head, tried to imagine that he was somewhere else, tried to assure himself that nothing bad was going to happen. Her fingers were on his arm again, and he waited for her to count and measure the pulsing of his artery.

"Eighty-eight." Maddie squeezed his shoulder. "Better, but try to calm down, okay?" She jotted down another note before fitting the cuff of a blood pressure gauge around his arm.

"You have one of these?" asked Danny in mild amazement.

"We have a lot of things here. Your father and I have accumulated quite a bit of medical equipment over the years. Ghosts actually have systemic circulation of their own, you know."

"Are you saying this works on ghosts, too?"

"It actually does."

Maddie pressed a button on the monitor. It hummed and droned, tightening the cuff around Danny's arm. He breathed deeply again in an attempt to bring the reading into a normal range.

"One-twenty-eight over eighty-eight," said Maddie. She scrunched up her mouth as she recorded the number.

"Is that…? What is that? Bad?"

"It's a little high." Maddie smiled at him. "But considering your pulse, I'm not surprised. I think you're still just nervous." She patted his shoulder gently. "You're fine. Don't worry."

He wanted to follow her instruction. He didn't want to worry.

But it seemed he had no control over the part of his mind that was panicked about this whole situation.

She listened to his lungs with a stethoscope and measured other vitals, oxygen saturation level, cardiac output, carbon dioxide concentration. He marveled at the equipment she had, equipment that thankfully wasn't invasive. He relaxed as she continued. This wasn't bad at all. In fact, this was really easy. He was starting to feel silly for being so concerned.

"Not too far off from normal," Maddie observed as she looked over her collective findings. "A little unusual, but not as much as I would've expected." She tapped the page a couple of times with her pen. "But I can see why you were so against seeing a doctor. A doctor would be a little confused by all of this, might even have wondered how you were still so healthy and alive despite these results."

Danny recalled how she had set up a doctor's appointment for him that week and how he had vehemently expressed his reluctance to go. But he was not sure how to reply, so he only shrugged.

"Okay. Can you transform for me now?"

Danny hesitated. "Why?"

"I want to see how your vitals differ in your ghost form." Maddie set aside her notepad and crossed her arms as she waited for him.

Danny stared back at her. It was so strange to hear her make this request. It was so surreal that she finally knew his secret after hiding from her for so long.

Still sitting, he looked away and willed his molecules to alter. A bright light engulfed him, imbued his cells with supernatural strength and power. His mind also changed as his thoughts became more erratic and fretful, but he did his best to talk himself back down to a state of calm.

He could feel his mother staring at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that she had uncrossed her arms. But she did not speak.

Danny at last turned his head to see why she wasn't saying anything. Her mouth was open just slightly as she continued to stare at him, her eyes moving up and down his body.

"I still can't believe it," she said. "All along, it was you? You were Phantom this whole time?"

Danny made no reply.

"You're the ghost I wanted more than any other." Maddie's eyes continued to study him. "You're the ghost I had been hunting."

Danny was not sure what he should say, what he could possibly say. Did she want him to say something? Did she want him to agree or confirm?

He just wished she'd stop looking at him like that.

"Do have you have any idea what I wanted to do to you?" Her eyes were everywhere on him but his face, as if she wasn't really talking to him. "Do you have any idea what I've fantasized about doing to you?"

Was he supposed to have heard this last part? She spoke as if she didn't really want him to answer. Should he pretend he hadn't been paying attention?

He didn't want to know what she had fantasized about doing to him. So he ignored it. If he ignored it, then it wouldn't be true.

"And what I did do to you," she murmured. "I almost killed you."

Danny lowered his gaze to the floor.

"I know."

Maddie turned to her equipment and then approached him again with the thermometer. She placed it in his ear for a moment before pulling it back out and reading the result. "Fifty-eight point six." She creased her brow and tapped her notepad a couple times with her pen.

Danny watched her read some other notes. She didn't say anything for awhile. He stayed quiet while she thought.

"That's definitely cold," she finally said, "but still quite a bit warmer than the average ghost. Most ghosts average about forty-six."

"Even with my ice powers?" Danny asked without thinking.

Maddie frowned in confusion. "Your what?"

Danny instantly regretted letting this slip. Just another thing she was going to want to know more about. "Um…I just also thought I'd be colder, I guess."

"It must be because you're not a full ghost." Maddie furiously began to scribble something down. "You must have some human biological properties even when transformed that need more warmth to operate."

She set her notepad aside and placed one hand on his shoulder, the other right on his chest. Danny's eyes widened slightly in this strange embrace. She stayed like that for some time, her chin and cheek brushing against the top of his head. Danny stayed still, his hands trembling.

She smiled down at him and ruffled his white hair affectionately. "You still have a heart, for sure."

Danny looked up at her with an uncertain blush.

"And your face turns green when you blush." Maddie chuckled as she cupped his face. "That's so cute. You really have ectoplasm running through you instead of blood, huh?"

Danny shyly lowered his gaze.

She lifted his arm, then paused. "You're going to need to take this off."

Danny faltered. "What?"

"Your jumpsuit. I can't read your pulse through this material."

"You…want me to take it off? Like all the way?"

"No, no. Just off your arm is fine."

Hesitantly, Danny put his hand to the zipper at his neck and lowered it just enough so that he could slip his left arm out. Maddie lifted the now limp material of his jumpsuit and studied it closely.

"This is so funny." She grinned. "I remember making this exact jumpsuit. Not in this color, though. I mean, I'm pretty sure it was mostly white with black trim when I sewed it together." She rubbed the material against her face, perhaps because she could not feel it through the gloved fingertips of her own jumpsuit. "But I'd definitely know this material anywhere. Jack and I created it to withstand ectoplasmic shocks and radiation.

Danny recalled how he had been wearing this jumpsuit when he was initially hit with a blast from the ghost portal. Indeed, it held up very well, and it continued to do so.

"I was wondering what happened to it." Maddie lifted the front part of his jumpsuit and studied the white emblem. "I don't remember putting this logo on it, though. How did it get there?"

"It's kind of a long story," said Danny, hoping that she wouldn't make him get into it right now. "Basically, Sam designed it and then figured out how to make it stay there permanently."

"Sam." Maddie pursed her lips. "She's also the one who pushed you to investigate the ghost portal in the first place, right?"

Danny winced at the disapproval in her tone. "Um…yeah, but it was still mostly my decision in the end." He turned away. "Sorry about that."

"Don't apologize. It's okay. I'm just glad it didn't kill you." She lifted his bare arm and pressed her fingers against it, counted in her head for some time. "Fifty-two." She wrote down the result. "That's higher than what I've recorded in other ghosts."

Danny considered this information but did not say anything. He wasn't particularly surprised. After all, even in the ghost world, he was considered an anomaly.

"You really are different from other ghosts. I suppose it might be because your ghostly form still has human functions and properties to maintain." She looked over at her equipment. "I'm going to need to run more tests than I thought to know for sure, though."

Danny blanched, but he could not get any words out to protest. What use would it be anyway? His mother always got her way. He was just the kid, and she was the adult who had to win.

"But let's just finish up these easy ones." She fit a blood pressure cuff around his arm. Danny kept his gaze forward as she continued, barely hearing her as she read aloud certain readings and informed him what she was measuring. He just wanted this to be over already.

Something very tight was winding around his bare upper arm. He turned his head to look at it. A tourniquet? "What are you doing?"

Maddie laughed. "I just said that I'm going to draw an ectoplasm sample!"

Danny watched her prepare a needle and a couple vials. How much did she want? He looked away once she began tapping his arm and cleaning it.

"Ready?" she asked.

Danny nodded.

A small poke, a tightening sensation. Danny kept his head turned as Maddie pulled whatever volume of ectoplasm she wanted out of his spectral vein.

"Can you change back now?" she asked suddenly.

The needle was no longer in his arm. Danny looked up to see Maddie labeling vials now containing glowing green liquid.

"I want to get some blood samples from your human form," Maddie explained without meeting his gaze.

Danny sent the mental command to his molecules, which quickly darkened and returned to their human state. His thought processes quieted and calmed. He sighed in relief. Being transformed certainly made him feel powerful, but it was a power that he wasn't sure he was always in complete control of, especially when he was feeling as nervous as he was now.

But that was something he'd rather keep to himself. Not even Sam or Tucker knew just how different he felt in ghost form.

The needle was once again in his arm and filling up more vials with blood this time. Maddie took all of the vials to a machine set up on a counter a little farther away. Her back was to him as she studied the samples.

Danny stayed still for awhile, unsure what to do since she had not given him any instructions. He looked at the staircase leading out of the basement. He wanted to quietly disappear up them. Maybe she wouldn't even notice.

But instead, he simply removed the tourniquet from his arm that she had forgotten to remove herself. Perhaps she was too distracted and excited. Understandable considering that ghost research was her life's work, and he was obviously the most interesting ghostly phenomenon she had ever come across.

His mind wandered as she studied the samples. He tried not to think about what other tests she would want to do. He thought about what Vlad would do in this situation. He smirked to himself. Vlad would probably love for Maddie to handle him in this way. He'd probably suggest some rather intimate tests of his own.

But Vlad had never experienced being experimented on. He had no idea what it was really like.

Danny, though…he knew firsthand what it was like to be restrained and forced to endure whatever procedure his captor inflicted on him, what it was like to be regarded as an object that was only useful for research and the benefit of others. He had managed to escape from all of those situations, but the scarring memories haunted his darkest dreams.

"How fascinating," Maddie said from across the room. She was still bent over looking at samples through the lens of a machine. "When you're human, you have mostly blood circulating with trace amounts of ghostly antigens and spectral antibodies. That might be why your temperature is a little lower, but not so low that it would shut down the healthy operation of the rest of your body and organs."

Danny looked down at himself. He thought about telling her that he also had limited use of his ghost powers in his human form but decided against it. The less she knew, the less she would want to investigate. Hopefully.

"And when you're ghost, you have almost pure ectoplasm running through you with just the tiniest number of blood cells." She wrote something down. "Not sure if that alone could lead to a higher than normal ghost temperature or not. I'll have to check out some other things." She looked at the samples again. "Incredible. Just incredible."

All right. He was incredible. Got it. Could she please just leave it at that and let him go?

Maddie picked up a set of wires and electrodes. "Transform for me again."

Not a request. It sounded far more like an order.

But he was just being sensitive. Of course he still had a choice. She couldn't make him do anything.

He once again changed over into his ghost form because he chose to and for no other reason. Certainly not just because she told him to.

"Huh." Maddie looked at his arm in confusion. "Did you put that back on before you changed back before?"

Danny also looked down at his arm which was once again inside the gloved sleeve of his jumpsuit. "No."

"Then why…?"

"I honestly don't know. This jumpsuit has been ripped or even completely destroyed dozens of times, but it's always back in one piece and fully on me the next time I transform." He shrugged. "It's as if it has ghostly properties of its own."

Maddie chewed the inside of her cheek in thought. "I suppose that could explain why the color changed." She placed her hands on his shoulders as she looked his physique over. "And why it still seems to fit you perfectly despite how much you've grown since first becoming part-ghost. You've put on quite a bit of muscle."

Danny tried his hardest not to blush at this comment. He didn't want her to make any more embarrassing comments about how he looked or how he turned green instead of red.

"Okay, but this time, I actually do need you to take off your jumpsuit all the way."

Well, so much for trying to save himself from further embarrassment.

"Why?"

"Because these need to be against bare skin." Maddie held up the electrodes.

Danny did not move.

"You're wearing something under that jumpsuit, right?"

"Just boxers."

"Well, it's not like I haven't seen you in your underwear before. Or in swim trunks. All the same."

No, this wasn't the same. Not at all.

"Danny, come on." Maddie spoke firmly, pressing him.

There was no way he could prevent an ectoplasmic blush this time. He stood and, without looking at her, lowered the zipper of his jumpsuit so that he could step out of it.

Fully exposed. Entirely vulnerable. He resisted the instinctual urge to raise his hands and cover his face. He had been in so many uncomfortable positions since the acquisition of his ghost powers, but he was sure nothing could top this.

Maddie placed the electrodes on his head, his chest, his neck, his back, his legs. He had no idea why or what she even wanted to measure. He just let her, didn't bother to ask for her reasons. He convinced himself that this would end sooner the less he questioned and resisted.

She took various measurements, made several readings. He could hear the drones and hums of machinery as she worked and wrote and calculated and did whatever else. She asked him to change between his alternating forms. She pinched and poked at his skin in either form, felt him up and groped him all over, drew more samples of whatever she insisted she needed from him.

And as she continued, she spoke less and less. At first, she would tell him what she was doing and when she was going to do it. She would let him know what the results were and whether they were normal for either a ghost or human.

But as the tests went on, she stopped narrating the procedures. She fit devices on him without asking if she could, scraped at his skin for cell samples and placed lead aprons on him for X-rays without a word, stuck needles into him and plucked illusory strands of his white hair without even warning him. She stopped sharing the results she was finding. She walked around him, no longer even making eye contact. Every once in a while, she would say something under her breath, but she was clearly talking to herself and not to him.

As if he were no longer in the room with her.

No, more like she no longer thought of him as someone who could hear or comprehend her.

No, no, rather, more like she didn't care that he was someone who could hear or feel.

Or maybe it was more like…he wasn't someone to her anymore. He was something.

That couldn't be right. Danny tried to dispel the thought. There he was, being sensitive again. His mother knew who he was now and definitely regarded him as a person.

But then why did he feel as if he was being ignored even though she was constantly around him and touching him?

In his human form and fully clothed again, Danny waited for whatever Maddie was going to do to him next. The end to all of this was still not in sight. She seemed far too feverish and frenzied to stop anytime soon.

He had the power to leave at any time. He could easily turn invisible or intangible and get far away from there in seconds. Or even without his ghost powers, he was still stronger than she was. There was no way she could make him stay there without physically restraining him—

—she wouldn't do that to him, would she—?

—and yet he could not leave. He had to stay because she had told him to stay. He had to stay because she was in charge. She was the parent who had authority over him, and he was the child who had to obey. His whole life, he had been conditioned to believe that his mother always knew what was best for him and that he had to honor her and do whatever she told him to do.

He winced at a sudden prick in his arm. She was sticking yet another needle into him, and he had no idea why.

Why was she doing this to him?

A small tear escaped him, streamed down his face and landed on Maddie's hand. Danny felt her pause, but he could not bring himself to look at her.

"Danny, are you okay?" she asked him.

He shut his eyes tightly, then opened them again. He blinked several times in an attempt to prevent further tears. "Can we stop now?" he begged. "Please?"

She was staring down at him, but he still couldn't look at her. He gazed straight ahead and to the floor.

Maddie at last stepped back, pulling the needle out of his arm as she did so. Danny immediately stood and walked away, walked away from the lab, walked away from her.

Upstairs in the living room, he internally fought with himself over what to do.

Run away? Would she hunt him down?

Fly away? Would she shoot him down?

Or did he have to stay because she was still his mother and still in charge of him and hadn't given him permission to leave the house?

If he left, what would the consequences be? Would she be upset with him? What would she do to him then?

He collapsed onto the couch in defeat.


(This is NOT the end. I know we all love seeing Danny in misery [it's just a fact of the DP fandom], but he'll be getting a relatively nice ending. ^^ There's still one more chapter, so stick around if you're interested!)