When Danny was three his parents forgot him at home during Jazz's piano recital, he learned that he didn't need someone to tuck him in at night.
When Danny was four, they forgot to hire a babysitter when they went out of town for Jazmine's award ceremony, Danny learned the easiest thing to make to eat was cereal.
When he was five, he started school, they forgot to pick both him and Jazz up from school frequently, they learned together the fastest ways to get home.
When he was six he learned it best to not ask them for help with homework, dad would just somehow turn it into a tangent about ghosts and mom would turn it into a lecture on listening in school better and going back to the lab to continue their experiments, in the end he went to Jazz who was more than happy to help him.
When he was seven, it was more times than not that their parents would forget dinner or dishes or laundry, so Jazz and him learned through trial and error how to do the laundry, how to make something other than cereal, and the best way to not break the dishes.
When he was eight and having trouble with bullies in school, it was Jazz who put a bandage on the hurts and wiped his tears away as their parents continued to be in the lab for three days in a row.
When he was ten he learned how best to cheer Jazz up when mom and dad forgot her birthday again, a trip to the library and ice cream afterwards. It made her happy and turned into a lecture on her favorite subjects… but it made her smile so it made Danny smile as well.
Now don't get him wrong, his parents loved them both, they just were busy. They were busy and had important work to do, that's why they were always down in the lab. They were adults and had responsibilities and sometimes that meant they knew Jazz and Danny could take care of themselves just fine, at least that's what Jazz explained to him whenever he asked.
Relying on himself and Jazz was all he ever knew, his parents never helped him with school work, made meals, or helped him with his problems. His teachers never cared enough to stop Dash from bullying him. And the one time he tried to open up to his friends at school they just took it on a rant about their family and their problems and how he should be happy his parents let him do whatever he wants.
It was Jazz that helped him start early on his dreams for Nasa. Checking out books on stars and constellations, watching the discovery channel with him about space and all the interesting facts currently known about it, sat him down and explained that to get to Nasa you had to be good at specific things because being interested in constellations wasn't going to get him there so here's a few mathematics books and an introduction to physics.
Admittedly both were very hard for him to grasp, it didn't come easy like academics did for Jazz, but she said that it didn't matter and that if he worked hard at it, one day he could be an astronaut. She lectured him about the importance of good grades so he can get into a good college so he could work for Nasa, which made a bit more sense why she was always nagging him about doing better in school.
So long story short, fourteen year old Danny knew that the only other person he could rely on was Jazz, and even then she was busy herself, doing alot of extra work and afterschool stuff, and getting looking towards her future of being a phycologist. So he tried his best to not bother her too much, except with things she found important for him, like help on homework. She never minded if he asked for help on that so long as he didn't expect her to do it for him.
Though he knew this was not normal, he… he couldn't go to her for this. Dad and mom wanted the lab cleaned up a bit after their project didn't work, so he dawned his hazmat suit, the one he tore the logo from, and took his time picking up the loose tools and such, they even left some on the inside of the portal thing they were making.
It only took a trip and a fall and a button being pressed before a shock went through him followed by excruciating pain, it was horrible, like molten lava being dumped on him from the inside out before freezing over into a cold so frigid it felt burning. It felt like he was being torn up from the inside and being shredded, and time seemed to stretch on and on until it didn't.
He didn't even realize he passed out until he woke up on the cold floor, strangely he didn't feel the cold that much, strange since he knew the lab was much colder than any other place in the house. The pain was still there with a buzzing in the back of his head as he stumbled to the small bathroom down in the basement, eyes locking onto the strange sight in the mirror.
White hair, green eyes, and his suit inverted. Oh fuck. What was this? What even was this? What happened? He- he was just cleaning up and then? He lost his footing, almost slamming into the sink as he looked down finding a leg missing, no no he still felt it, what was this?! Body flickering out of sight once or twice, he spun back to the room, looking over the invention his parents made.
A portal to the ghost world… did he somehow get ghost powers from it?
It was several hours later after he unplugged the portal and hit the off switch that he stumbled his way back to his room, hair back to black, eyes their normal blue, and pain still burning in his chest. The thought of telling anyone never crossed his mind. How can he get ghost powers if he's not a ghost. Well he's not a full ghost, he still looks human, he's breathing and things hurt so that must mean he's not a ghost because if he was a ghost then that would mean…. That would mean… no no no no no.
He shoved that thought to the back of his head, burying it in the back of his mind, warding off the budding hysteria. Ha, nope. Homework? Homework sounds good. Just homework and just ignore when your hand disappears and the pencil falls through, ha see nothing wrong, nothing amiss. Just… just another normal day.