Chapter Text
FEBRUARY 11, 2021
"NO"
"What do you think, Maddie, should we call our friends in white?" Jack fiddled with the straps on the bench Danny was secured to. He forced his son's jaw open and slammed a gag inside.
"Sure, honey, that's a great idea!" Maddie dumped more ectoranium solution into Danny's slowly emptying IV bag. The butterfly needle was clipped haphazardly to his left cubital vein, the rest of his arm pockmarked from failed attempts to get the thing in.
Danny hadn't quite gotten all of the ectoranium taken care of. Some of it had slipped through orbit anyway, and through a disgustingly simple procedure involving phosphoric acid, his parents had been able to isolate ectoranium ions and create multiple solutions of ectoranium phosphate. The metal actually behaved similar to nickel, providing similar colors of compounds and similar effects on ghosts to what nickel has on humans. This was great for the scientific world, not so great for Danny.
That solution was currently coursing through his bloodstream, making him extremely nauseous and woozy, unable to function as anything other than a human.
Jack and Maddie finished up their call with the GIW and Dad Jack made his way over to the row of syringes lined up. They all had thick, nasty looking needles attached to their ends. After all, ghosts can't feel pain, can they? The largest one over by the ecto-ray was filled with some sort of green fluid, either a very good sign, or a horrible sign for Danny. He didn't register much more than that before the gigantic needle was stuck into his neck.
FEBRUARY ???, 2021
He came to with his wrists zip-tied to his ankles and his head bumping up against some sort of wooden surface. There were fresh stitches on the back of his neck, under which he could feel some sort of lump. He still couldn't go ghost. Danny tugged feebly against his bonds, but it only resulted in the plastic ties digging harshly into the meat of his arms and legs. He could hear road noise, feel slats of metal bolted together against his bare back. There was a harsh thump and Danny jolted upward. Judging by the pothole, he was definitely in a moving vehicle.
The truck? van? rattled along a straight road, wheels bouncing minutely and swaying the floor of his enclosure to the rhythm of sixty-five miles per hour. One of the drivers yelled something, but he was too sleepy to really catch it.
Serration? Temptation?
Oh.
"Sedate him!"
The lump on the back of his neck beeped and everything went dark again.
???????? ???, 2021
Above him there was white, so much white. Almost like a doctor's office. But there was no heart rate monitor hooked up to him, nothing evaluating his blood oxygen levels, no friendly, kind nurses with Hello Kitty masks and patterned scrubs. Instead there was a harsh, blinding light stationed just above his open eyes.
He squeezed his eyes shut, but that only resulted in the glaring white light turning into neon green. It was like a twisted dentist, the same minty-alcoholic scent of antiseptic, the same lingering taste of gloves in his mouth. The only noticeable difference was the throbbing ache in his neck and the distinct feeling of hard leather straps tight against his ankles, wrists, torso, and neck.
A door opened, a metal cart rattled through, footsteps followed, then the door was shut. The doctor? whispered something to themself and the snap of gloves being secured around wrists sounded out as Danny wriggled his legs against his bindings.
beep beep beep--click--hissssss
The doctor? swore under their breath and something snapped shut. Danny's eyes were still squeezed tightly shut against the harsh light. A faint whirring noise filled the room, another click, and then the whoosh-thud of some sort of tube sliding into place. Another click echoed around the room with a sound like a latch soon after.
A pen scratched against a paper on a clipboard, then Danny flinched as a loud screaming noise filled the room he was in. The screaming continued while the doctor? swore and shuffled around some utensils on the table. There was another sequence of beeps, another click and hiss, the sound of a tube being filled with liquid, then poured into another. Another tube slid into place, and another latch-like click sounded out before being overtaken by a soft whirr.
The doctor? picked something up and uncapped it, metallic by the sound of it, then Danny's right eye was peeled open. He thrashed against the table straps as the doctor, now obscuring the light from above, reached to the side for some tool or the other. She gripped onto his top eyelashes with unforgiving latex, and without warning, raised her tool and fastened Danny's eyelid securely to his brow bone, transfixed by sterile titanium staples.
Danny whimpered lightly before closing his throat to choke off any noise.
If he made noise, they would think he was pretending, and it would only get worse.
His lower eyelid got the same treatment, gripped harshly with matte latex and pinned to his cheekbone, his eye now exposed in sharp, unmoving contrast to the rest of his contorted face.
A quick series of deep pokes in and around his eye numbed the area, rendering him unable to clench against the thick staples holding his lids in place. Thick, oozing green fluid was beginning to pool on and around his pupil and iris, his left eye rolling in sympathy as he was unable to rid himself of his obstructed vision.
The Doctor dripped a translucent solution into his open eye, clearing his vision, but his mind was unfortunately locked onto the only thing he could see, a nasty looking fine-tipped scalpel that approached nearer and nearer until he could feel the pressure of it just below his iris, sliding, but not hurting. Another incision was made to the right and left, then the top, then something was lifted out, and he lost all focus in that eye.
Then something was in him. Slid right through the gaping hole of his pupil, desperately dilating in the hopes of getting more information to focus his eyes. That same thing slid out, dripping salt-smelling fluid onto his upper lip, dripping down through his tightly-pressed lips into his silently screaming mouth. It tasted like tears.
His fingers flushed brown from where they were holding leather straps in death grips. The skin over his knuckles was screaming in strain over the stretch he was putting it through.
There was now a heavy feeling in the hollow of his eye. Whatever that thing was, it left something in there. Danny desperately fought back a wave of nausea as the Doctor turned around, seeing to whatever had finally stopped whirring. A tube was pulled out, then there was the distinctive sound of a pipet tip being discarded, then a syringe flicked to be rid of excess air.
The Doctor approached him again, yet another sharp pain in his already aching neck, then Danny was down for the count once again.
??????????? ???, 202?
The Doctor's footsteps were familiar, always had been from Danny's first day at the facility. There was a certain click to her heels against the hard linoleum-tile floors. There were others he knew now too. Adam, her assistant. Jordan, the lab tech. But the Doctor had only been referred to as Doctor, no first name, no last name, just her title.
Adam seemed to be more than a little in awe of her, following her around the room like a puppy hot on her heels, doing anything she would ever ask of him with a yes ma'am and a squeak of acknowledgment. Jordan was a bit more hesitant. They always stayed out of her way, addressing her curtly but respectfully, never saying more than they had to. Their voice was distinctive, a kind of husky rasp that seemed to whistle and curl around the ends, the voice of a smoker.
Danny liked Jordan's voice, he found it soothing. Adam grated on his nerves.
Here, splayed out on a stainless steel table, sedative coursing through his veins, he couldn't form many opinions, let alone thoughts. The Doctor would slit open a different part of his body each time he woke up, orating tonelessly to Adam who wrote down dutiful and extensive notes on her process and findings. He didn't know how often he woke up. Danny only knew that every time he was brought out from his sleep, he was subject to large amounts of lidocaine and even larger amounts of tiny slits in his skin.
The lidocaine wasn't for his comfort, he knew that now. The lidocaine was so he didn't twitch. He learned that the first time they opened up his trachea. They'd strapped his chin against the table, criss cross straps across his chest as well. That was also the first time he'd screamed, all the way up until she propped open his vocal cords, allowing only air to escape.
Danny didn't know how old he was. By his count, he'd only woken up 56 times so far, but he could've miscounted or not been lucid enough to count during some. In the brief pauses between sedation and anesthetic, he could feel the dozens of tubes providing him nutrients and fluids. He wasn't sure if it was worse to be awake or asleep.
He drifted back into nothing.
???????? ???, 202?
The last time Danny woke up, the facility was blessedly, blissfully dark. He'd been taken off the table and placed in a bed of some sort, still surrounded by tubes and wires monitoring his existence. Unfortunately, he'd also been taken off painkillers. He was keenly aware of every even stitch made in his chest, every long, deep gash in his flesh, every tiny little cut made to test the sharpness of the Doctor's instruments.
He gingerly opened his eyes. His right eye, predictably, was out of focus and heavy. His left eye, surprisingly, was completely fine, well, as fine as it could be considering he hadn't opened it outside of bright light for who knows how long.
He reached a long fingertip up to his right eye, feeling along the surface until he happened upon the square hole in his cornea. He carefully leaned over his bed and shook his head. Something white and chrome dropped out of his skull. It felt huge, but in actuality was around the size of a particularly large grain of sand. The relief was immediate.
He tested his legs to see if he was fit to get out of bed and discovered that since the sedative had worn off, he could float. He slammed his hand against the bed and discovered that yes, he could turn intangible too.
He bolted. He flew straight up until he reached fresh air, then even higher to get a vantage point of his surroundings. Alarms started blaring below him.
A different alarm blared off to the right, no, not an alarm, a train.
He zipped down to hide away in one of the cars, tucking himself behind a pile of boxes of jeans and curling into his hospital gown, not daring to breathe loud enough to be heard by a dog. Not daring to breathe.
Danny drifted into a troubled sleep, for the first time in a long time, by choice.
SOMETIME IN WINTER, 202?
Danny stumbled out of the rail yard, momentarily stunned by the brightness of the yellow sodium lamps after the complete darkness of his train car. There was still an accursed lump on the back of his neck keeping him from doing anything particularly powerful, but he would fix that as soon as he got a knife and some time.
It was cold, he realized, bare feet creating grimy tracks against wet, flaky snow, more reminiscent of freezer burn than anything he'd seen in Illinois.
We're not in Illinois anymore, are we Toto? He thought deliriously. Where's my fuckin' Toto, huh?
A shadowy figure stalked toward him straight from the front. He didn't notice until his nose was knocking right up against their helmet. He could've sworn he wasn't that tall.
The voice that came from the helmet was surprisingly gentle, rasping softly in the same sort of way that Jordan's had.
"Hey man, are you okay?"
He didn't register much more than that before the device in his neck beeped, and he passed out.
When he came to, he was immediately aware of two things. 1. This was the most comfortable surface he had ever laid on, and 2. He was in handcuffs. A third observation came keenly after, he wasn't being watched. He was also fully clothed.
Danny phased his hands through the handcuffs with a scoff and dropped them off the side of the couch he was laying on. He peered over at the coffee table, noticing a recent-looking copy of the news. It was Valentines Day 2024. He turned over, pulled the blanket on his stomach up to his chin, and promptly fell back asleep.
"How'd you do that?" Danny just shrugged. The man in the helmet from earlier was sitting in front of him, holding up the handcuffs that Danny had phased out of earlier.
"I know trained professionals who couldn't get out of these, what makes you different?" Danny shrugged again, this time smirking a bit to let the man know he wasn't getting anything out of him.
"Do you need a job?" Danny nodded tentatively. He certainly wasn't going to turn one down if it was offered. He opened his mouth, nothing but a croak escaping at first.
"Are you offering?" His voice was thick and cracked from disuse, sounding more like a screech on a chalkboard than anything resembling human. The man nodded his response.
Danny swallowed. He nodded back.