Chapter Text
Jack and Maddie Fenton always treated their children as an afterthought to their research. Instead of helping with homework and bandaging boo-boos, Jack and Maddie preferred to build military-grade super weapons and play with corrosive chemicals in the basement. To make up for her parent’s inattentiveness, Jazz has devoted herself to being her brother’s keeper. Unlike Jack and Maddie, Jazz truly sees Danny. Jazz sees the sparkle in his eyes when he looks up at the stars, the sight squint he does when he’s focusing on schoolwork, and the telltale shuffle of his feet when he is trying not to cry. Everything she sees in Danny reaffirms her belief that he is special and wonderful and worthy of all of Jazz’s care and attention. Big sisters should look out for little brothers, after all.
Looking out for Danny became a lot harder after he died. Danny’s heroic extracurriculars made him public enemy number one for ghostly ne'er-do-wells and constantly put both Fenton siblings in mortal danger. Comic books got one thing right about superheroes: villains love to attack the hero’s loved ones. Ghosts seem to think that if they kidnap Jazz, torture Jazz, overshadow Jazz, or otherwise make Jazz’s life miserable, Danny will come flying to her rescue, providing ample opportunity to snag him in a bear trap or drain his life force or whatever else the ghost of the week is interested in doing. Of course, ghosts probably think that because Danny does, in fact, swoop in to save the day every time his enemies target Jazz, but she’s long since accepted there's not much she can do to cure Danny’s savior complex.
Jazz huffs air up at her bangs, trying to blow her hair out of her eyes as she dangles at the top of the Amity Park water tower from a rope tied around her hands. Around her, Skulker has set up an invisible tripwire to snare Danny once he gets too close. She’s pretty sure that her left shoulder is dislocated, and the rope is rubbing away the skin on her wrists. To top it all off, Jazz can feel the stitches on her side tearing back open, a souvenir from Desiree’s attack earlier in the week. Danny's rouge gallery forcing Jazz into being a damsel in distress is so common it feels routine. Sure, the first couple of times she was used as bait, Jazz was scared out of her mind, thrashing and screaming and convinced she was going to die, but at this point, she's almost bored by the lack of ingenuity. It feels like she’s trapped in an episode of a bad television show. Skulker’s ill-conceived plan shakes out in the same way every other kidnapping does. Just like every other time, Danny rescues her after about twenty minutes. Just like every other time, Sam and Tucker help Danny temporarily banish the bad guy back into the Ghost Zone. Just like every other time, Lance Thunder covers her peril on live television for all to see, and the news broadcast concludes by declaring Phantom the protector of Amity Park.
And just like every other time, once the cameras are off and Danny flies her inside his bedroom window, Jazz holds him as he sobs into her chest and tells her how scared he was that he was going to lose her. No matter how many times Jazz is captured, the fear of losing her always stays fresh to Danny. She runs her fingers through his sweaty bangs and murmurs comforting words in his ear, reminding him that it’s okay, that she’s right here, that she’s not going anywhere. Through sobs and snot, Danny asks if Skulker hurt her. The question is framed to be about Jazz’s welfare, but she knows that Danny is really seeking reassurance. To satiate his obsessive heroism, Danny needs to know if he took too long to save her, if he was strong enough to keep her safe, if he should feel guilty for being an imperfect savior. Dutifully ignoring the throbbing pain in her shoulder and itching on her wrists, Jazz gives Danny the same answer she feeds him every time they reach this step in this routine: “There’s not a scratch on me, little brother. You came just in time. I’m completely fine.”
After she has sufficiently calmed Danny down, Jazz creeps into her bedroom and pulls a first aid kit from her closet. She watches YouTube videos on how to set dislocated joints and broken bones as a refresher course before she pops her shoulder back into place, biting down on a headband to muffle any sound she makes as fiery white hot pain circles around her joint and radiates through her collarbone. She turns on a Taylor Swift CD and quietly sings along as she stares in the mirror and redoes her stitches. Finally, she places antiseptic on her wrists and wraps them in gauze. Jazz is dimly aware that teenage girls are not usually so adept with emergency medicine, and that the act of administering first aid to herself, like every other part of her routinized capture, should register as traumatic or terrifying. Despite this awareness, Jazz is numb to it all. This is just her life. She dry swallows a few Ibuprofens and reminds herself that it is more psychologically sound for a patient to accept their life for what it is instead of what they wish it could be.
Jazz will never tell Danny about the damage that Skulker did to her, just like she will never tell him about the burn on her thigh from Lunch Lady's frying pan or the gouges in her stomach from Youngblood’s parrot or the other hundreds of injuries that have left permanent marks on her body. Lying to Danny always sits heavily on her chest, but she shoves the feeling down and convinces herself that she is doing the right thing. It’s better if Danny doesn’t know the full extent of Jazz’s injuries. If he knew, he would spiral, convincing himself that he is a failure and that everyone he touches is destined to break. Jazz needs to keep him sane. Besides, this fib, like all the others, is small. It’s barely significant in the universe's grand scheme, and it's really more of an omission than a true lie. It couldn’t possibly be that big of a deal to keep some silly little injuries a secret. Danny doesn’t need to know.
Danny also doesn’t need to know how much he scares Jazz when he’s Phantom. The people of Amity Park usually see Phantom only as a neon green blur forty feet above their heads, which is good for Danny’s reputation. If townsfolk looked at Phantom too closely, they might realize that Phantom’s arms are a bit too long and and his legs sit at the wrong angle in his hipbones. His face is just wrong, populated by two brightly lit slashes on his face placed vaguely where eyes should be and a gaping mouth that cuts high and wide across his gaunt cheeks. And his teeth...dear God. The razor-sharp fangs in his mouth look like they could shred your flesh straight to the bone. As Phantom, Danny looks like a crude mockery of the human form.
He looks like a predator.
When Phantom lurches towards her, Jazz needs to hide her flinch. Her fight or flight screams at her when he unfurls his knobby, clawed arms for a hug. Ignoring the slithering sense of dread through her body to embrace him takes every ounce of bravery Jazz can muster. Her hair stands on end when she looks at his toothy, too-wide smile, and if Jazz stares at Phantom for too long, her sinuses start to sting from holding back terrified tears.
It would be naïve of Jazz to believe that Danny is entirely unaware of his monstrosity. Once, while they were stargazing on the roof of FentonWorks, Danny asked her about it. The question burst from him after a long bout of silence, as if it had been building in his chest, and he couldn’t hold it in anymore.
“What do you think of Phantom’s look?” He refused to make eye contact with his sister when he asked. Danny always does this. He always ambushes Jazz with carefully constructed questions meant to hide the desperate paranoia motivating him and stop her from seeing his all-consuming fear that he can’t handle whatever answer she gives.
Jazz had weighed the question carefully, before she said, “I think that Phantom is you, and I always think you look pretty neat." Danny nodded slowly, and Jazz saw the look of relief that flooded his face before he forced an indifferent expression. “That was such a lame answer,” Danny teased. In response, Jazz shoved him in the shoulder, and he laughed before pushing her back.
Every time Jazz swallows her survival instincts to look at Phantom without quivering, she thinks of that night and Danny’s laugh. Danny doesn't get to laugh much these days. If putting on a brave face makes him feel better, it's worth it. The visions of distended limbs snapping her spine and clawing her stomach open may keep her up at night, but that’s her problem, not Danny’s, so there’s no need to tell him about it. She can handle it so that Danny won’t have to.
Finding the husk of a hollowed-out ghost in the lab only strengthens Jazz’s conviction to protect Danny. The stench is what initially draws Jazz down into the basement. The inside of her nose stings with each inhale. It’s like nothing she’s ever smelled before- almost like the pungent rot of meat, but with an acidic edge that makes it feel otherworldly. Holding her breath as much as she can, Jazz journeys down the stairs.
A gag forces itself out of Jazz’s throat when she sees the carnage on the steel table. At first, she can't quite make out what is on the table; it's just a mangled mass of meaty ectoplasm dripping onto the metal floor. She wants to run out of the lab and forget that she ever saw anything, but she needs to know what’s on the table. She hasn’t seen Danny since she dropped him off at school this morning. The logical part of her brain tells her that everything is probably fine, that Danny is probably safe, but she needs to know, she needs to be sure, so she moves closer.
Jazz can’t keep her hands from trembling as she takes in the slaughter. The body on the table has been slit open with a Y incision. The cuts are jagged and messy, as if the creature was wriggling around too much for the scalpel to move steadily. Ectoplasm flows from its wounds like blood, with large clots interspersed with thin fluid leaking from the creature's side. Its skin has been flayed to reveal ragged muscle, and its skeleton looks like it has been torn open, like someone just put their hands in the crack between its ribs and just ripped. There are no organs inside its body, just a hollow round space where a human’s heart would be. The creature is clearly made of ectoplasm, but it lacks the distinctive radioactive glow that ghosts usually have. Its flesh is sickly grey, and its fur is slick with its own bodily fluids. The horror show is completed by clamps around the creature's paws, binding it to the table.
Sluggishly, the pieces of what Jazz is seeing click into place. Fur. Paws. Her initial adrenaline rush fades, and Jazz heaves a sigh. This was an animal. This wasn’t Danny. Bile rises in her throat as relief rapidly morphs into disgust. A glint of metal around the animal’s neck catches her eye, and Jazz leans in to read the simple dog tags around the creature’s neck. Cujo. Her parents slaughtered Danny’s dog. She thinks of Cujo coming to the house to play with Danny, remembers his wagging tail and exited barking. She can almost hear Cujo’s scared whines and howls as her parents pressed a scalpel to his stomach. Her parents wouldn't have bothered with anesthesia. Why would they, for creatures they believe don't feel pain? Jazz's traitorous mind supplies information about ghost anatomy that only serves to make what happened here all the grimmer. Danny has told her from personal experience that her parents are wrong, and that a ghost's pain is incredibly real. Once, he explained that a ghost’s primary organ is something called a core. A core is a ghost’s essence, a hyper-concentrated physical manifestation of the self tucked under a the ribs of the dead. If a ghost's core is destroyed, they cease to exist. Destruction of the core is a second death far more excruciating and permanent than the first. It’s not hard to put the pieces together and figure out what the hollow in Cujo’s chest means. His core has been extinguished. He has died the ultimate death.
Jazz’s lungs rattle with shaky breath as she struggles to regain her composure. Danny can’t see this. On autopilot, she strides across the room to open the portal to the Ghost Zone. She doesn't dare to touch Cujo's exposed tendons and tissue, so she wheels the entire dissection table over to the mouth of the portal and shoves it inside. The Ghost Zone is vast. It can swallow many ghoulish things. It can consume what remains of Cujo. His ectoplasmic sinews will dissolve, or some carnivorous ghost will devour the evidence of what happened here. Regardless, Danny won’t see it. Jazz alone will live with this truth; she alone will see Cujo’s butchered body each time she blinks. If Danny knew what happened in the basement, he would never feel safe sleeping in his home again.
As Jazz processes the carnage she found in the lab, the weight of her parents’ cruelty begins to crush her. In the days that follow, Jazz can no longer muster any familial affection for her mother or father. They are a threat to ghosts, and Danny is a ghost, so regardless of whether they realize it, they are a threat to Danny. Because they are a threat to Danny, Jazz hates them. No, that’s not quite right- it's a deeper, stronger feeling than hate. Jazz loathes them. Jack and Maddie have become her enemies. And to thwart her enemies, Jazz must fully understand what they are capable of.
To stay ahead of her parents, Jazz develops a new after-school routine. In the evenings, Danny goes out on patrol, dueling any ghosts he encounters and returning them to the Ghost Zone. Like clockwork, her parents leave an hour after Danny, practically foaming at the mouth at the prospect of leveling their weapons at Phantom and his enemies. After her family has left for the hunt, Jazz’s work begins. She creeps down to the lab and meticulously inspects every item on every shelf, comparing it to the guns and ectosamples her parents had the day before and noting any changes. Once she is satisfied that she knows what every weapon in the lab is capable of and that Jack and Maddie have no new ghostly captives, Jazz begins looking through her parents’ notes. This part of her investigation is consistently the most infuriating. While her parents claim to be people of science, their notes are filled with bigoted stereotypes masquerading as observations. Maddie’s flowery handwriting fills page after page with stories of ghosts “pretending” to be hurt, her mother’s preconceived notions of ghostly nature preventing her from considering that the ghosts may genuinely be in pain. On other pages, Jack’s messy scrawl records his fantasies of ghost mutilation in fanatical detail.
About a month into her evening investigations, Jazz finds a portion of her father’s notes that makes her heart stop. It reads: “Reflections on the vivisection of Specimen 248: For the first hour of the procedure, Specimen 248’s wounds were undergoing regeneration at the rate of one cubic centimeter per minute and Specimen 248 was emitting a ghostly aura. Once we gained access to the chest cavity, we observed an orb of intensive light. This orb dissipated after incision. After the orb dissipated, Specimen 248 ceased regenerating and its aura faded. Additionally, Specimen 248 no longer responded to stimuli. More research needed.”
It's Danny’s worst nightmare. Cores. Her parents discovered Cujo’s core. “More research needed.” The words stare back at her on the page, mocking her with their malicious potential. Jack and Maddie are the worst type of cruel: they are brilliant. If they do more research into cores, they may realize the role a core plays in a ghost’s anatomy. They may realize that destroying a core will destroy a ghost. They may build a weapon that can destroy a ghost’s core with just one well-placed shot. They may use that weapon to destroy Danny. Jazz’s blood curdles at the thought. She can’t let that happen. She needs to stop her parents’ research in its tracks.
Slowly, gently, Jazz rips the page of notes out of her parent’s book. Careful fingers pluck out the little bits of torn paper caught in the notebook's metal spirals until Jazz has removed all evidence that the page ever existed. She shoves the page in her pocket, replaces her parent’s book, and dashes up the stairs. Once Jazz arrives in the sanctuary of her room, she shoves the paper under her mattress frame and collapses in her desk chair.
It's fine. The page is gone, and it will be fine. Her father wrote those notes, and he would forget his head if it wasn't attached to his body. There's no way that he will notice it's missing, no way that he'll give the orb in Cujo's chest a second thought. Her parents will make no further progress toward discovering what cores are and what destroying them can do. She fixed it. And since she fixed it, there’s no need to mention any of this to Danny.
He will never know, and it’s fine. It’s good. Healthy, even. What Danny doesn’t know can’t hurt him. Danny protects everyone else, so someone needs to protect Danny, even if that means protecting Danny from the truth. Jazz repeats this mantra to herself with every item she adds to her list of secrets. She reminds herself that she is doing what is best for him as she looks Danny in the eyes and chokes out chalky, bitter lies that stick to the back of her throat.
“No, it didn’t hurt when Ember bashed me the back of the head with a guitar, honest Danny, don’t worry about me, let’s just set your broken arm.” “Huh, I haven’t seen Cujo in a while either, kiddo, maybe he found his owner in the Ghost Zone? I’m sure he’s alright, no need to waste time searching when you have your English final on Monday.” “I’m sure those kids weren’t running away from Phantom, little brother. You know how kids are, they’re unpredictable. Of course, they liked Phantom’s smile, who wouldn’t love your smile?”
Guilt fills Jazz’s lungs with murky sludge until it’s hard to breathe, and she has nightmares about bloodied dog carcasses and bursting stitches and rows of teeth in an overextended jaw, but it’s fine. She’s fine. Danny will be fine. He doesn’t need to know.