#pretty detailed description of animal death due to laboratory testing

[glow-worms-are-believers]

The Curse of a Cure (dp blurb)

(tw lab animal testing, tw animal death) A lab rat dies gruesomely, so be warned. This whole thing is pretty grim, really.

At first, Madeline had been horrified. There was Danny standing in front of her and Jack, looking like he was expecting a blow and Madeline had thought "I did this". She had shot at her son and had hoped to dissect him and write a successful paper on it. For a second, Madeline thought she might throw up.

Jack had surged forward for a hug and while her husband didn't notice, Madeline saw the flinch Danny tried to repress at the sudden movement. Her heart had felt like it was slashed by one of their sharp scalpel. She had joined in and had squeezed her baby as hard as she could as they all started crying. Jazz had joined in and soon they were on the floor blubbering as she and Jack tearfully apologized and made sure to smother both children with hugs.

It was only afterwards, when her emotions had calmed down that she started thinking about the implication of her son being Phantom. And that was when the doubt first started.

Because Madeline may have been a mother first, but she was a scientist second. And she had dedicated her life to the study of ectoplasm and what was termed in the common vernacular as 'ghost'. There was a reason she and Jack had gone with theory of ghost being imprints of consciousness instead of simply a continued state of existence. Ghost formed upon the death of a being if that being was surrounded by enough ectoplasm. However, they had observed that nothing that was lost from the corpse during the formation of the ghost. In other words, the ghost did not use any of the existing tissues to transform it and feed the ectoplasm, it simply copied what was existing. The ghost was a mere imperfect copy of the previous being, and one that did not evolve over time as living organisms did. They were incomplete, violent copies of living consciousness that could not learn and change which explained why so many ghosts displayed obsessive behaviours as they could not grow past them. Jack and Madeline had thus determined that ghosts were not real beings, but rather twisted echoes of people.

Danny did not behave like a twisted echo of himself though, and Madeline had told herself this was proof that there was something the science had not found, something that explained why ghosts were more than they had hypothesized. She did not mention this to her husband as it felt like a betrayal of the total acceptance they had promised to provide for Danny.

It wasn't until a few weeks later that the doubts came back. Danny had explained to her that he was considered a 'halfa' which was a term for half-ghost and half-human. And once again, Madeline went back to their research. Upon realizing human tissue and ectoplasm did not interact naturally, she and her husband had decided to force them to interact. They had injected a rat with an absurdly diluted amount of ectoplasm, a dose so small that even botulinum wouldn't harm the animal in this quantity. At first, there had been no reaction and for a few days the rodent had been fine. After a few days though, the rat had started behaving strangely, it had stopped eating and its breathing had become slow and erratic. It had started having muscle spasm, and within a few hours it had been unable to move. The spasms had soon turned into full on seizures with its muscle locking into place. It had finally died in what seemed like terrible pain after a few hours of torture. A ghost had formed shortly afterwards which they had captured for future reference. Madeline had taken a scalpel to the body and had found that all the blood in the rat had turned to ectoplasm and that its internal organs had started melting as well. After some further testing they had discovered that if ectoplasm entered the bloodstream, no matter in what quantity, it would eventually contain the whole body and would turn it into ectoplasm which would then start corroding the body from the inside. The results were so gruesome, she and Jack had abandoned this experiment and had resolved to insure never to let ectoplasm enter in contact with their blood.

So when Danny had said he was half of a ghost, which meant half composed of ectoplasm, Madeline had known that was impossible. She had still held onto the hope that she may have been wrong and that their results were incomplete, but the evidence kept piling up: Danny's declining health since the accident, how he had stopped eating as much, how he was not breathing as much as he should, how his heart rate was well-below the normal rate. And Madeline had known she could not keep it to herself any longer. She'd shown Jack her findings and he had fell into a grim silence, the realization settled heavily on them. Their son was going to die, probably in terrible pain unless they did something.

This was still Danny, Madeline was convinced, but the ectoplasm in his body was poisoning him and he did not even realize it. It was not a symbiotic relationship as he had explained, but a parasite clinging to her baby boy and siphoning his life away. Every time she looked at Danny now, the image of that rat's last moments, twisting and squealing brokenly kept replaying in her mind.

So, she and Jack told the children they were working on a new ghost shield and they locked themselves in the lab searching for an answer, something to save their baby boy. Time was ticking and both parents were aware that they did not have any of it to waste.

It took too long, weeks, but eventually they found it.

Ectoranium. It was a very rare element that was not found anywhere except meteorite debris. They had been able to get their hands on some of it by pure chance, and after tireless work, they had managed to distill some into a solution that could be injected into the bloodstream and hopefully negate the effect of ectoplasm. They did not have enough for a proper round of testing but they did inject one of their lab rat with it and it showed no adverse effect, even after a week. They'd made sure it was safe for humans as well by injecting a small amount in their own body, which had showed no effects once again.

Madeline had discreetly broached the subject of purging ectoplasm from Danny's body by introducing it as a thought experiment. Both Jazz and Danny had reacted explosively with their son insisting the ectoplasm was what was keeping him alive. She tried to talk about the rat and the experiment they had done. She had compared its symptoms with Danny's but had been brushed away with a roll of the eyes and a "Frostbite would've told me it there was any danger of that." That was when she realized her children would not be convinced no matter what evidence they showed them.

So, one night, while Jazz was on a sleepover with a friend, they waited until Danny was asleep before getting him down to the lab. They secured restraints around his wrists and despite the padding they had added to make sure their baby wouldn't hurt himself, Madeline felt her throat close up and her resolve waver at the sight of it. But she remembered the rat, and she shoved the guilt away to deal with later. She would apologize a thousand times once her baby was safe. They had hoped Danny would stay asleep for the duration of the process, but unfortunately, he woke up as she was finishing up the syringe preparation.

He blinked blearily before realizing he was restrained. Then he pulled on the restrains as he looked around.

"Mom, dad? What are you doing?" he asked blearily.

"Sh, Danny-o," Jack said. "Don't worry, you'll feel much better soon."

"What?" Danny said, before he caught sight of the syringe. "No, wait let me go!"

"This is for your own good, baby," Madeline said as her gut twisted when she saw the fear in Danny's eyes.

He started struggling in earnest and tried to go intangible but the restraint held fast. He yelled at them to stop, but Madeline forced herself to tune him out. When he saw that she was still walking towards him with the syringe, he started screaming in terror and she could see Jack turn away with tears in his eyes and she could hardly stop her own, as she approached her baby. "Sh, baby, please, this will help you, I promise," she repeated in a choked voice.

Danny had started crying and Madeline joined in as well, as she pet his hair in comfort, shushing him brokenly, while with the other hand she inserted the needle in his arm.

"I love you," she repeated as she pressed down on the plunger, injecting the solution in his veins as he let out one last anguished cry that Madeline forced herself to ignore.

This would save him. She knew it would.

#tw animal death #tw lab testing #tw animal injury #pretty detailed description of animal death due to laboratory testing #angst #danny phantom #does this count as a dissection fic? #Coz I'm pretty sure it's a must for every dp writer and I don't have one yet #madeline fenton #jack fenton #they love their children very much #but that's not enough #or at least it doesn't matter when they're so very misguided #hurt no comfort vibe #roxpox #roxpoxwrote