Work Text:
Tires screech as Jazz pulls up to the curb in front of her home. One of the tires jumps the curb in her haste, but she doesn't have time to care about that. Throwing it in park she all but rips the key out, barely checking for oncoming traffic before opening her door.
"Need to contact his friends, need to plan - no, wait-" She leans back and ignores the press of hard plastic against her ribs as she fishes her bag from the foot well. "Okay."
Thoughts still racing over branching plans she slams the door behind her, almost wishing she was athletic enough to launch herself over the hood of the car to cut a few extra seconds as she rounds the front of the vehicle before fumbling with her keys on her way to the front door.
"No time to run." Wrong key, try again. "Notes for his year are on my shelf still, right? I think - just -" She hisses as she switches to the right key, it must be the right one this time, and waits just long enough for it to slide in smoothly before wrenching it open, shouldering through the door as soon as the lock disengages. Nearly trips her way inside as she spares a look over her shoulder to check the quiet street.
Still time, but likely not much.
She's halfway to the stairs when she hears Danny's voice, "Who - oh, hey Jazz. What-"
"No time!" Her footsteps are anything but measured. She takes the stairs two at a time. She's panting as she calls behind while booking it to her room. "Stay there!"
Bedroom door banging off the doorstop, she doesn't really register how close it comes to hitting her on the rebound as she lunges for her bookshelf.
"Not math, not science, where - a-ha! English, social studies, and, oh no, what language is he taking again?" Notebooks pile into her arms, fingers hesitating over her own French notes as she attempts to remember. If she brings it and he isn't taking it that's a red flag, if not now, then later, but if she doesn't - wait, "Sam's good at languages."
Danny is great at science, Tucker could be helping with Math, Sam would cover language. Hopefully. Probably.
Leaving it behind she rushes back out, wincing as she runs into the door on the way, but not letting it stop her. She barely slows on the stairs, grabbing Danny's wrist as she passes.
"I told you to stay!" She tosses the notebooks on the table, her bag at the chair Danny was clearly using, and shoves Danny into a free one.
"What's wrong?"
When she doesn't answer, he tries to help her hurried organization of the table by reaching for his homework to pull it out of her way only to have her slap his hands away. Danny flinches back, not physically hurt with how lightly she did it, but clearly offended. She doesn't have time to fix that, not when she needs to add her own writing to the pages.
It takes him just a moment longer to realize what she's doing to his work.
"What - hey, I was working on that!" He reaches for it again.
"No!" Her voice is sharp and, though she's trying for authoritative, she can hear the waver from the panic that's keeping her heart rate high and her breaths shallow even as she sits at the table. Jazz doesn't look up, can't look away from the pages in front of her as she attempts to organize the piles how she normally does. Her shaking hands make it hard, but she manages.
Takes a deep breath. She can't believe she's saying this. Never thought she would have to stop Danny from doing this of all things.
"You can't do your homework."
"Can't?" Her brother sounds dumbfounded. Understandable considering how many times she's pestered him to do better in school.
She swallows thickly. Checks the table again to make sure everything looks normal then forces herself to meet Danny's confused look. Jazz isn't sure of her expression, but whatever it is makes Danny's frustration melt to concern in record time.
"You haven't done your homework." She says firmly. He glances at the work he was in the middle of doing and she pulls it closer. "You haven't for weeks."
"But-"
"You haven't-" Her slower, firmer repetition is cut off as tires screech outside. They sound louder than normal. Guilt? A glance over her shoulder lets her know she didn't close the door properly.
An oversight.
"The door!" She hisses at Danny, who thankfully doesn't ask why before picking up his thankfully zipped shut pencil case and tossing it just hard enough to push the door closed.
"Now, what do you mean I haven't done it?" Danny demands, leaning close when she hunches closer to his homework. "I've done it all! My grades are finally recovering! I worked ha-"
The door slams back open. Danny flinches. Looks to the door. Freezes.
Jazz doesn't turn. She swallows again, shoving down her fear and her sudden awareness that she was right. She's usually so proud of that, of being correct, of coming to the logical conclusions and solving social or literal puzzles.
God, she wanted to be wrong.
"And what followed after that was the true start of the civil war, see?" He knew that, was already writing this paper about it before she came in. She writes another line, something vaguely close to what she probably wrote for a similar paper when she was in his grade, before looking up at the sound of her parents coming closer.
They hadn't called a greeting.
She forces herself to startle at the weapons they haven't put away.
"What's wrong?"
She watches their eyes reluctantly shift away from Danny, still frozen at her side, to her, and then down to the schoolwork in front of her.
Put it together, she hopes silently. Draw the conclusion.
Their mother relaxes first, shoulders easing even as her weapon stays raised, not quite pointed at them, not anymore, but still closer than it usually is.
"Studying together?" Her tone is guarded, but Jazz thinks she might hear a little hope there.
Maybe she just wants there to be. Wants them to regret what they were planning back at the school.
Wants them to have never planned it in the first place.
"Tutoring, same as always." Jazz confirms as cheerfully as she can manage even though it's been months since she's done anything that could truly be considered tutoring. "Danny usually self-studies when he's at his friend's houses, or so he says."
She carefully puts Danny's pencil down and asks again. "What's wrong?"
"Why are you writing the paper if he's the one being tutored, Jazzy?" Dad always could find the worst times to be observant. Sometimes, at least.
"Oh, they're just examples. Danny writes his own later, I think." She glances at Danny, nudging his foot with hers under the table so he blinks. His startle is a little too big for her nerves, but the stilted chuckle he manages is thankfully just guilty enough for their dad to lower his weapon. Jazz could almost cheer at the misconception - she knows it's because Danny's on edge with ghostly weapons pointed at him not because he hasn't done his own work, but it plays right into getting them out of here in one piece.
She narrows her eyes like she's just put something together, allowing some of the tension into her voice. "Right, Danny?"
"Uh, what?" His confusion is clear, but his eyes keep jumping back to their parents.
A beat of silence. Jazz pulls her suspicious look into a glare and lays the lie out for their parents.
Let this be the one time she can lie believably. Please.
"Danny! I told you they were examples!" She stands and plants her hands on the table, hoping she looks upset at her brother for stealing her work and not terrified of their parent's wild theories. One hand lands over Danny's fingers, because she needs him to play along. Please, please you need to play along. "Is that why your grades are suddenly better?"
"What? No! I-" Danny's confusion starts to slip into outrage before she leans on his hand harder. He glances down, then up at her with a spark of realization giving their parents enough time to react.
"Oh, thank goodness." Their mother is all smiles as she finally holsters her weapon. Dad puts a hand on Mom's shoulder and gives it a pat.
"You were right after all! Not a ghost, just a little cheating." Like that was the preferred reason. Like any doubt was needed in the first place. Jazz loves her parents, but in this moment she hates them too. "What a relief!"
Danny's jaw drops and hurt bleeds across his face, but a quick, soft kick has him blanking his expression before they turn back.
"We aren't happy with you cheating, young man." Mom admonishes, but her frown is gone again before she can even continue. "But it's much better than having to see how far we'd need to go to ensure a long-term possession doesn't have lasting issues though!"
Dad laughs like it's a joke and not something they were discussing in detail not half an hour ago. Details Jazz wants to unhear.
"Here I thought we'd have to pin you down to get that sucker out of you!"
Danny looks at Jazz, meets her too wide eyes, then swallows and manages a weak chuckle. "Yeah, just - just some cheating."
He looks sick at the thought.
Jazz needs to get him out of here. Get them both out.
She wraps indignation around herself like a cloak, hiding her own shaky relief and barely covering the outrage that's been building since she heard them arguing the point and how to deal with 'that rotten no-good ghost' that is supposedly possessing her brother on their way out from a parent-teacher conference.
"Cheating with my work? No, not just mine is it? I'm only helping with two subjects - are you also getting your friends to help you cheat?!" Turning her head enough to hide the significant look she throws at Danny, she starts packing everything from the table into her bag. "We're addressing this now. Go get the rest of your schoolwork from your room, I'll let them know we're coming."
"But-" He cuts off at her sharp look and then ignores the fact that she's got nearly all his stuff in her own bag, filling it to bursting, to head upstairs.
"And bring my pencil case from the top drawer of my desk!" She calls after him already punching in the numbers for Sam.
"Oh, Jazz, honey," the endearment is so warm, but Jazz almost flinches at it before looking at her mom. "It's almost dinner time. I'm sure this can wait until tomorrow."
"Sam's family always eats early, plus Danny said they'd be meeting up tonight." What's another lie on top of the rest? "Better to nip this in the bud."
She needs to speak to Danny away from them. Needs to discuss what's happening with those who can make a difference.
Sam picks up and saves her from having to continue the conversation with her parents. By the time she hangs up Jazz can't remember what they said other than some vague insinuations and Sam's easy agreement. Danny's waiting by the door when she heads for it, trying to shove two pencil cases into his full backpack.
"Let's go." She says opening the door. It feels like she's desperately lifting a heavy weight when she manages to call back a goodbye to their parents as she usually would instead of an easy daily ritual.
The door closes on their responses and she locks it. Takes a breath.
"Get in the car."
They're both quiet as she starts up the car. It bumps, scraping a little as she pulls off the curb and takes off down the road.
"You wanted them to think I was cheating." Is what Danny eventually opens with, two blocks away.
"It was the only thing I could think of." He's hunched in the passenger seat when she glances over. Her fingers tighten around the steering wheel and she has to break a little too hard for the next stop sign, almost missing it even though she stops at it each day. "You heard what they said."
"Possession." She can almost hear Danny's eye roll over the disgust in his voice. "Like I can't raise my own grades."
"They left that meeting with your teachers talking about pulling every drop of ecto from you to see if that would keep you from being possessed again." The words come out so fast she's nearly slurring them together by the end, but she can't stop now that she's saying it, like she's been waiting for a reason to scream it from the rooftops. "They stood in that hall and made plans, discussed new tools, drew up a timeline of torture that they wouldn't even realize they were inflicting on you and not some ghost taking your place!"
She's shaking. She's cold.
She might be in shock.
She shouldn't be driving like this.
But she needs help.
Danny needs help.
They need help.
"Jazz!" She inhales and focuses back on the road. They're fine. She hasn't hit anyone.
They're almost there.
"Jazz, this isn't the way to Sam's." Danny's words are slow like he's trying to make sure she's hearing him. He probably asked before.
He's right. That's not their destination.
"We're getting some help first." Focus on the goal, one thing at a time. Keep worse case scenarios for if the others don't work. (Danny has her emergency cash in his bag, they can leave if they need to.)
(Jazz isn't ready to leave.)
(She's not sure any bird is really ready to leave the nest, but she can't stay if it's going to kill him in the process.)
"Help from who?"
She blinks a little harder to clear her vision.
Focus.
"Our parents think that your grades improving is a sign that they should hurt you, thinking it's the only way to save you." Saying it out loud hurts, makes it feel more real. She hates that this is reality. Jazz pushes through and completes her thought as she parks in front of a small house she's only ever really thought about in a 'fun fact' kind of way. "Letting you continue to fail so they won't go through with it will only hurt you in the long run. We need help from those who can solve at least one of those issues."
She gestures for him to get out of the car and locks the doors before leading the way to the front door.
"And who can help with that?" He asks as she hits the doorbell.
A trusted adult. Someone who was just singing Danny's praises not an hour before. Who had no idea that his conversation with the doctors Fenton would ever have any negative outcome. That scholastic improvement could ever possibly result in the slow death of one of his students.
The door opens before Jazz can push the answer past her lips.
"Miss and Mister Fenton?"
"Mister Lancer." Jazz's composure, already threadbare and worn from the ordeal that's really only beginning finally snaps, their teacher's name enough to start the flow of tears. He's already taking a step forward, concern wiping any exhaustion he was showing from his face as Danny presses his shoulder to hers. "We need your help."