Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

BGM: "8th Commandment" by Sonata Arctica.

Curiosity

I sighed. Of course it didn't work. None of my parents' experiments work. Of course, I couldn't say this out loud, as that would go against their entire worldview, and my parents were far too stubborn to listen. Arrogant, hidebound-

I stifled the thought before it could finish forming. I was the good child. I could not cause trouble. I couldn't afford to be selfish and petty and resentful.

So instead, I gave my parents a little speech meant to comfort them, soothe the sting of repeated failure, and placate them (so they wouldn't bother me). No, so they wouldn't be so upset and depressed, so it wouldn't affect others around them negatively.

Who was I even trying to kid?

"…And what were you thinking, young man? You could have been seriously injured!"

Or worse, I thought glumly, tuning out Mom's desperate scolding. Not that anyone will admit it to Danny, because he has to be taken care of and it isn't healthy to tell small children that they might have killed themselves by thoughtlessness.

I shook my head sharply. Mom and Dad's continued depression must have been getting to me. It had been nearly a week since the Fenton Portal failed to activate, to no one's surprise. Mom had translated that depression into aggression, constantly testing out inventions, read blowing things up. Dad had chosen a somewhat more proactive but no less unhealthy coping mechanism, and had all but shut himself in the lab after he'd caught Danny and his little friends down there the evening of the accident.

Said little brother had, like an idiot, forgotten to wear his insulated haz-mat suit (white, and custom-made to fit better than the hideous orange one-size-fits-all suits up in the Ops Center). Danny had been immediately rushed to the emergency room. He still had bandages over the electrical burn on his right ankle, and was still on a fairly strong painkiller, so I doubted he could even hear Mom's half-hearted tirade.

(Which was upsetting in and of itself. Mom and Dad were many things, but half-hearted had never been one of them. More than likely, the stress was affecting them more than they were willing to admit to their children.)

Mom and Dad faced legal investigation for not complying to basic safety regulations, and I suspected that if they didn't show incontrovertible proof that they hadn't spent the last twenty years barking up the wrong tree, their never-present employers would just let the inspector come and shut the place down. Not that I would miss the constant risk of them blowing up FentonWorks with all of us still in it, but I had to wonder if they could even hold down more mundane jobs.

I tried to imagine my mother as a regular nine-to-five office worker and quietly putting up with idiots talking down to her because she had two X chromosomes, or my father working in a factory surrounded by machinery he wasn't allowed to tinker with, and felt a need to go into hysterics. Who would hire a pair of self-proclaimed paranormal experts? (And where had they even gotten PhDs in Paranormal Studies in the first place?)

Mom asked me if I was feeling alright. I must look as queasy as I feel.

I politely excused myself from the table and went to my room to think in circles some more. As unbelievably stupid and reckless as Danny's actions had been, I could easily understand the line of reasoning. "The Portal is not working, so Mom and Dad are sad. I do not want Mom and Dad to be sad. If the Portal works, then they will not be sad. I want the Portal to work. Therefore, I should try to make the Portal work." There had likely been liberal application of peer pressure along the way, but the logic was, if not sound, at least believable-sounding. (Oh, I wish I'd spent more time learning the basics of formal logic!)

…Focus, Jazz. Worrying isn't going to help. As stupid as it was trying on his own, Danny had the right idea. Before you throw in the towel and start looking up charity organizations, you should at least try.

The Fenton Portal might have been a bust, but it's the first invention that they've actually completed. That will be our best bet.

First step: Ask Mom and Dad what might have gone wrong.

I paced around my bedroom, socks soundless on thick carpet, trying to gather my thoughts.

First step: Failed. Utterly failed. I couldn't believe Mom actually threw me out of the room. I just wanted to help! Danny was hurt, I knew that, but I wasn't a doctor. What was I supposed to do about that? There's nothing I can do!

I stopped, leaning my head against the cool bright-pink paint on my bedroom wall. Yes, it was a setback, but that was all it was. I refused to go down like this, with my brother's friends banned from the premises (by all three sets of parents) and his own behavior growing more erratic by the day, with Mom and Dad shutting out all of humanity in favor of their projects that grew more insane by the hour.

I had to do something, anything, but the first step counted on Mom or Dad helping.

I was not seriously considering…

I couldn't believe I was doing this.

I finished zipping the thick, not-quite-rubbery fabric over my clothes, testing how it constricted my movements. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as I'd imagined. The fabric actually shrank to fit, almost skintight, but it didn't compress anything to the point of pain or interfere with my breathing. Say whatever you wanted about my parents, but they spared no expense when it came to proper lab safety. (Except, of course, for actually setting boundaries between the lab and the rest of the house, which is why I was here in the first place.)

I breathed deeply, trying to slow my racing heartbeat. The boots went on next, thick black rubber with some kind of hard sole. Then gloves, same material as the boots, but slightly thinner and more flexible.

A belt went over the suit, water-resistant (and heat-resistant, and acid-resistant, and everything-else-they-could-think-of resistant) fabric with tiny pockets that had no useful purpose I could discern, and hooks and loops I could fix things to if I needed my hands free. I took advantage of these, attaching a waterproof flashlight, a thin loop of light-duty synthetic cordage and a micro toolkit. I wasn't my mother, but at least if it was something obvious, I could try to patch it. As for the cordage… I wanted something to tie myself to in case things went wrong and I had to drag myself out.

Why was I even doing this?

A high, staccato knocking started on my bedroom door.

"Jazz?" Danny called through the wood-and-paint barrier. "Are you going to eat something? There's still some leftover pizza in the fridge."

And there was my little brother, making light and joking around like he always did, as he had been doing for years. In the meantime, I'd been busy with my ever more challenging studies and the teachers who lavished praise on me and the college admissions officials who were all but licking my feet to get an once-in-a-lifetime genius at their schools, one more feather in their respective caps.

In fact, I'd been so busy I didn't even notice my little brother had had an accident, and very nearly a heart attack, until my father came in at 5:03 the next morning and oh-so-carefully explained the whole mess to me. Because I had had my ear glued to a phone, and my eyes glued to my computer screen, and my hands busy writing notes and typing notes and collating things and whatever was happening to my silly little brother, it couldn't be that important, could it, because it was just Danny!

It was just Danny, and he would never get in real trouble.

And now I was going to do this because I was an idiot. Because I should have seen this coming, I was the smart one, the mature one, but I didn't. Because, for once, I couldn't think of anything better and there were no good choices. Because where smarts fail, all I have left is luck.

I swallowed everything I wanted to say, and forced myself into some semblance of calm.

"No thank you, Danny."

"You sure?" Now I could hear the slight rasp that meant pain, and the odd shifts in tone that meant his painkillers were kicking in.

"…Yes. I'm sure."

I padded through the lab, steps muffling on an unexpected layer of dust. Mom and Dad had always been scrupulous about not allowing any outside contaminants in the lab, however much the experiments might spill out of what had been their set workstations. Now, my feet raised a slight cloud of dust with each step, a small cloud of pale green glitter lit by the remaining active machinery. Motes drifted across the path of my flashlight's beam when I flicked it on, wincing at the suddenly-loud click of the switch being flipped.

It had been more difficult sneaking past Danny, who had gotten very clingy after the accident, than it had been to get into the lab. After all, the Fenton genetic lock Dad had installed at some point between dinner and breakfast a few nights ago would only keep out people that didn't have Fenton DNA. Danny had learned his lesson, and I was apparently assumed to be too sensible to pull a stupid stunt like this. "This", I knew, would use up my entire life's worth of "good child" credit.

I went over to the tables, trusting in my parents' utter lack of any organizational skills. Parts, beaker of glowing green fluid, more parts, partially constructed ray-gun, even more parts, last week's grocery list with some formulas written on it – there! The blueprints and design notes for the Fenton Ecto-Portal Mark II. (Mark II? So there was another one?)

I drew back with my find, careful not to jostle anything else and risk making noise. The lab looked oddly menacing, now. (Now that I knew something strange must have happened, because Danny hadn't had a pulse when I'd found him.)

Finally, I stood before the empty hulk of the Fenton Portal.

I paused and breathed in. (What if this didn't work? What if I get seriously hurt? What if I die? What if I'm injured so badly that I die before the ambulance gets here and Danny has to watch me die? That could destroy him.)

I drew myself up and exhaled. (What if Mom and Dad lose their funding? What if we lose all our money? What if they try to take Danny and me away? Yes, Mom and Dad are crazy, I know they are crazy, but they're still our parents. That could destroy them.)

I stepped forward into the depths of the great machine. This had to work, it had to.

I looked around frantically, scanning for clues, for possible explanations as to why (other than the obvious "it's all bunk") the Portal hadn't worked. All wires properly insulated (especially after that disaster), all hatches closed (and latched, in a few cases that I was suddenly itching to investigate), all switches in the "on" position (even Mom and Dad weren't that oblivious).

…Was that a big red button with "OFF" on it?

Yes, yes it was, right next to a nearly identical green button that quite clearly said "ON", except the red one was depressed and the green one wasn't.

I shook my head slightly, not wanting to believe they'd made such an obvious mistake. But then, I remembered from tutoring my slower peers, obvious mistakes were the last ones most people looked for. It was just disappointing, in a way, realizing that my parents were not only oblivious and delusional, but that they could be as stupid as any of my classmates.

I slumped a bit, lowering my flashlight and turning to leave.

…Something was pulling my hair.

A/N: I can't believe I've started yet another story. *hits head on wall*

Please read and review. If you don't think Jazz is in character, then say so and please explain why so I can figure out how to fix it.