Chapter Text
The Fentons were falling apart. Jazz had known this, seen the signs for years now of course, but this? This was something else.
It had started when Danny was still in elementary school. Their parents had always been considered rather out there on the scientific spectrum, but they had always managed to reign in their interests to a manageable degree.
The two would hang up their HAZMATs at the end of their work day, and spend time with their children after school. Their dad had spent time building a fort for Danny, and then played with him around it, while Mom was helping Jazz with her homework. Trips to the ice cream parlor, camping, and playgrounds were done regularly with the Fentons during those years.
That all slowed down a bit once Jazz started 6th grade. It hadn't happened all at once but as a slow trickle. Their parents' work hours became longer, and the kids were trusted to get ice cream on their own. Nothing that would immediately set alarm bells ringing for most.
But then the experiments started. Up until that point, all Jazz had ever heard about her parents’ work had been theoretical. Yes, they were eccentric ghost scientists, but they simply hadn't had a large enough supply of ectoplasm to mess around with. Once they had the ability to extract the stuff from ambient matter, their curiosity increased.
Jazz and Danny both had been disturbed when their Mom would come up from the lab to cook dinner, still dressed in her suit. Even more so when she turned, and they saw her front splattered in glowing green goop.
That was the first time Jazz could remember them skipping a meal at home. It wouldn't be the last, but that first time stuck in her head. She hadn't known it at the time, of course, but it was when their family began to fall apart at the seams.
Jazz had to learn responsibility quickly. It was clear to her that she needed to be the one to hold everything together, not for her sake, but for Danny. He was still so young and needed a strong family unit at home to rely on. She had seen from experience how cliques started to form in middle school, and she worried about potential bullying. She wasn't naive. Danny had no interest in sports, and as amazing as his astronaut dreams were, she knew that his ambitions would have him labeled as a nerd.
So, she did what she could. When their parents started working all-nighters, Jazz would be up in the morning to get Danny ready for school. When they were still locked away in the basement in the afternoon, Jazz would help Danny with his homework. When dinner started to come back from the dead, Jazz had to learn to make do.
Then, Danny started high school, and things became worse. Their parents' portal was working, and Danny was becoming more and more distant. She tried to brush it off at first. He was 14, and a little bit of teenage rebellion was normal at that age, or so she read. It didn't stop her from doing her best by him, of course. She tried to act as a barrier between him and their parents, tried to give him some semblance of normality. Well, as much as one can when your mom and dad are the area's most acclaimed and disliked ghost hunters.
He resented her for it, she knew. Claimed she was overbearing and coddling him. It didn't matter, ultimately. He was her baby brother and she would do whatever she could to help him, even if he hated her for it.
When she saw him transform in the alley, Jazz knew things needed to change.
She had tried her best to further shield Danny from their parents. While in the past she had tried to negotiate with them, make them see reason about the whole ghost thing, she knew that wouldn’t work now. She’d like to think that they’d accept Danny’s ghostliness if they knew, but she could also see Danny’s point of view. All their lives, the parents had been so firm in their beliefs, never once budging. Who knew how they’d react to their own son being the thing they hated so much?
So Jazz offered to drive Danny places, tried to help him in his fights, and gave him an alibi whenever she could. She had thought that she was so slick with it all too, but no. Danny saw right through her. Still, he trusted her with his secret, and that's all she could really ask of him.
Today though? Today was different. School was out for a long holiday weekend, but despite that, Danny had been busy. There had been several ghost attacks across town, to which Danny had intervened before their parents could arrive on scene. This had frustrated them of course, making their mom just a touch trigger happy. When ‘Phantom’ disappeared into a park, she followed, firing one of their various Fenton weapons at a shadowy figure before realizing that the target was not in fact a ghost. It was Danny.
Jazz had seen him when they’d come home. He had this shell shocked look to him as he clutched his arm. When their mom had guided him inside, he’d flinched away from her touch, eyes hollow and staring straight ahead. He didn’t seem to take in anything their dad had said as he rambled on about how the weapon wasn’t supposed to hurt humans, only ghosts. He didn’t look at them when their mom had sworn that she was meaning to hit a ghost, not him. He didn’t say anything as he shrugged off help and wrapped up the burn, only wincing as he swiped ointment on the raw skin.
After dinner that night, their parents had gone straight back to work in the lab, and Danny had shut himself in his room. Jazz, figuring he shouldn’t be alone, knocked on her brother’s door and listened. He didn’t respond, but she could hear sniffling and near-hiccuped breaths from inside. Her heart clenched, and she cracked the door open just slightly.
“Danny?” She couldn’t see him sitting on his bed, so she pushed the door slightly further. There she saw him, wrapped inside a blanket next to his desk. He looked up at her, his eyes glowing an otherworldly green the way they always seemed to anymore when he lost hold of his emotions. Usually, she’d only seen them like this when he was angry. Now they were tear-filled and distant.
Quickly, Jazz closed his door behind her. While it was unlikely for their parents to come upstairs for a good few hours yet, it was better to be safe. She crossed the room to Danny’s side, and sat down next to him, making sure to give him his space in the process. The two were quiet for a moment, unable to find the words to discuss what had happened to him earlier that day.
“Hey Jazz?” Danny was the first to break the silence, though he was no longer looking at her. His glowing eyes were fixed on one of the faded glow-in-the-dark stars taped to the ceiling.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think I can go with you? When you go to college, I mean.”
Jazz leaned back in surprise.
“I just, I don’t think I’m safe here anymore Jazz. I don’t want to be alone with them.”
Something broke in her hearing that. She’d done everything she could to keep her brother happy, to keep their family at least somewhat functional. Despite everything she tried though, it’d finally happened. Their relationship with their parents had finally hit its breaking point, decaying and rotting to pieces in front of them as their mom had justified taking a shot at her son. She hadn’t even waited two hours before going back to her work, all but forgetting the incident. Now, it felt to Jazz that all they had left were each other and their home. Their home which was the production site of weapons meant to harm Danny.
“I,” Jazz swallowed, trying to force down her emotions. Danny needed her to be steady right now, he needed her to be composed so that he could break down in private. Not out there, where their parents might see and ask questions. If they even noticed, that is. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll make it work, little brother. I promise.”
Jazz felt another weight drop onto her shoulders with those words. She knew that more sleepless nights would be coming her way as she researched apartments, grants, and scholarships. She swallowed down another wave of emotion. Why did it all have to fall to her? Why couldn’t she just be a teen, excited at the prospect of college and independence and trying new things?
Danny leaned onto her shoulder, his breaths slowly evening out. It wasn’t fair. She knew that. None of this was fair to either of them. But she had known from the second she was old enough to understand that she would do anything she could to protect Danny. She was his big sister, and she loved him with all her heart. She’d make it work. She had to.
After all, that was her job, right?