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radioactivepeasant · 10 months

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Snippets: Jak and Daxter Thursday Part 2

(As promised, the Less Angsty Part.)

The onlookers all seemed to think Jak had slipped out of the Precursor craft at the last moment. That was just fine with him: it meant no one had seen him teleport out, carrying Damas into the tower. Leaving him there had been terrifying -- even if the monks in the Convalescence Ward had believed him to be a Precursor himself, and vowed to care for Damas with a reverence that made him sick, it was hard to trust his father's care to others. But he had appearances to keep up, just as his other self had warned him. All he could do was focus on his next steps.

Sig had taken the throne as interim regent in Jak’s place, as while he was more than capable of satisfying the battle requirements of a Spargan king, he wasn't yet of age. That was a mercy, but Jak knew Sig loathed the role. Damas had been like an elder brother to him from the moment he staggered through the gates of Spargus seeking refuge. Sitting in his place felt as wrong for him as it did for Jak.

Jak turned a tired smile to Daxter, who met it with a knowing look. Tess raised her brows at Daxter, but he tiptoed to whisper in her ear that he'd explain later. Jak clapped a hand to Keira's shoulder in camaraderie as he passed, and she returned it in kind with a light squeeze.

There was a pain in her eyes Jak remembered too well. Everything had come out in bits and pieces from the moment Haven had traded Jak to Damas, and Keira almost regretted digging for answers. Learning that a beloved parent was capable of such thoughtless cruelty to someone else's child "for the greater good"- well. They'd had their fights, but Jak wouldn't have wished that feeling on her even if she'd joined the Krimzon Guard.

"J- sorry, Mar."

Jak managed a bittersweet smile. "For you, I can still be Jak."

Keira bit her lip and looked skyward for a moment, blinking rapidly until she had her facial expression under control.

"...okay. Jak, I'm...I'm going to denounce him. To think that all that time, he knew- I. I don't think I'll ever- it's like I woke up and someone replaced my dad with a complete stranger."

"We never blamed you for any of it," Jak answered earnestly. "Spargus won't hold it against you if you don't denounce him. We all answer for our own choices."

Keira blinked hard again, and nodded. "And this is my choice. I'm choosing you and Daxter this time. Like I wish I had before."

Jak reached up to squeeze her hand. "...thanks, Keira. We...I missed you."

"I missed you too, Jak." Keira let go to fold her arms across her middle. "Can we start over?"

Swallowing down a lump in his throat, Jak nodded. "I- yeah- yeah we- that sounds good."

Keira offered a wan smile, then let him go. It felt like torture, climbing the last few platforms to the balcony. Sig was there, but so was Samos. And so was Onin. And while Jak knew they were only there because Sig wanted them within firing range if they tried something, it made him hesitant to continue forward. He didn't want to be anywhere near the people who had known about Veger's plot and blithely co-opted it for their own uses.

"Jak, m'boy! Well done!" Samos chortled merrily, wearing that grandfatherly air Jak had always fallen for before.

Not anymore.

"I'm not "your" anything." Jak stepped past him in a hurry. He didn't trust himself not to snap if he remained within arm's reach of the sage.

Sig rose from the throne and held an arm out to him with an understanding look.

"Mar," he said softly.

He clasped arms with Jak, and nodded solemnly.

"I'm proud of you, kid. Your- Your father would be proud."

"He is," Jak answered softly. Then he pulled Sig down to his level by the shoulder to whisper in his ear, "Dax is going to take over the diplomacy stuff down here. Meet me in the C-Ward upstairs."

Sig straightened and frowned down at him. "What'd you do, cherry?" he murmured.

The smirk Jak gave him in reply was so grim he could have sworn it was Damas who stood before him once more.

"I shaped my own fate, like my father taught me."

For a long time, Sig just looked at him. Then he shook his head. "Boy, if I didn't already know you did impossible things-"

The Convalescence Ward was a hive of activity the instant Jak stepped through the door. He frowned. The light eco should have rewound the crushed bones and organs almost perfectly! Doubtless his father would be sore a while, and Jak hadn't been able to fully repair the broken leg before running out of eco, but that wouldn't warrant this much fuss, would it? He opened his mouth to ask what the problem was, and a senior monk rushed to him.

"Young prince! Your father-! He- he-!"

Irrational thought it was, anxiety twisted in Jak’s stomach. "What about my father? What are you talking about?"

The old woman took him by the hand, a slightly disturbed awe wavering in her voice.

"He lives! Your father lives, Mar!"

Relief washed over him, and with it, the events of the last 48 hours that he'd been shoving to one side.

"Let me see him," he said urgently.

"I...must warn you first, Mar," the monk cautioned, and Jak's stomach flipped again.

"He is...changed. The Precursors returned him from the edge of death -- by hand! No mortal can experience such a thing and remain unaltered."

Ah. Just the normal "Mystical Whooo Crap", as Pecker called it.

"I've seen that kind of thing before. I'm not afraid," Jak assured the monk. "Please. Just take me to him, Ruma."

Damas was awake now -- he hadn't been when Jak had seen him last. One leg -- the still broken one -- lay propped up where monks could splint it. Dark blue shapes twisted and curled under the skin, as if lights were shooting through his veins. The rest of him looked strangely normal for having just been yanked back from the edge of death. The monks not splinting his leg quickly backed away from the bed as Jak approached.

It had worked. The timeline was closed now, and Damas lived.

Like a puppet with its strings cut, Jak dropped to sit in a heap on the edge of the cot. He fumbled for Damas’s hand and held it to his chest as he let out a shaky breath.

"You're here," he croaked.

"I'm here," Damas repeated, almost confused. Then his face split into a wide smile. "I'm here."

Jak blinked. Something wasn't quite right about his father's face. Something about his eyes was a little brighter than he recalled. And the teeth...Too many? Too few? Too sharp? His mind couldn't decide for a few seconds before the bones in question seemed to settle into a fairly standard -- if unusually sharp -- set of human teeth.

A memory of his own face, saturated with both light and dark eco, rose to Jak’s mind, and an uncomfortable thought followed on its heels.

Had he altered his father's physical form by healing him in the Precursor craft?

Further speculation was cut short when Damas pulled his hand free to tap playfully against Jak’s cheek.

"You once pushed a chair in front of the door -- a toddler's chair, mind you now -- because you thought it would keep me from going to work without you. You never could stand being left behind, could you?"

He sounded like he wasn't certain whether he was more amused or annoyed.

So much pain, so much loss, and here they all were at the end of it all, still standing. So to speak. The exhilaration of not being the only one left to tell the tale filled him with a heady feeling he would later come to recognize as joy.

With a giddy laugh, Jak threw himself forward and into Damas’s chest.

"We did it!" he crowed, "We did it, we did it!"

Damas’s arms folded over his back, and his chest vibrated with a soft chuckle.

"So it would seem! Though how I'm to explain this, I'm not certain."

"So just don't explain," Jak snorted, "and let them come to their own conclusions."

He ducked away from the hand tweaking his ear with a laugh.

"And let someone start some crackpot theory about our already bizarre bloodline?" Damas feigned offense. "That sounds like a terrible idea!"

"Terribly clever, I agree."

Damas lightly thumped Jak over the head. "Impudent little- When I get out of this cast, I oughta-"

Finally seeing an opportunity, a monk gracefully interrupted. "My lord, your leg requires time and watchfulness to heal correctly. You must leave it immobile for at least two weeks until we know what the eco is doing in your bloodstream."

She turned and nodded respectfully to Jak. "I trust you will keep the injury well tended-to?"

Jak slid over to occupy the space between Damas and the small nightstand. He leaned back against the wall beside his father and nodded back.

"Don't worry, he's not going anywhere. I'll make sure of that."

"This is elder abuse," Damas complained, just as lighthearted and almost giddy as his son. "You can't make me stay in bed! That's mutiny!"

"No," Jak retorted with a broad grin, "That's what happens when Sig gets here and finds out you're alive!"

"Argh, you're right!" Damas slipped an arm around Jak’s neck in half a hug, half a headlock. "And then I'd have to contend with Daxter!"

Jak gently poked Damas in the side with a smug grin. "Daxter? No no, Tess is the one you should be afraid of."

Damas flung his other hand into the air in mock exasperation. "Rot me, it's a conspiracy! I'm outnumbered!"

When the monks had finally taken the hint to leave the pair alone to catch up, Damas sobered slightly. "You know we'll probably have to make a plan for if the Precursors choose to retaliate for this."

Jak's eyes danced with mischief. "What're they gonna do without their technology? They're as powerless as Veger!"

Damas raised a brow -- no, Jak hadn't imagined it, there was something weird about his eyes now. The pupils weren't supposed to have little points of light like stars, were they? Not for humans.

"Alright cub, what did you do?"

"What did Daxter do," Jak corrected, deciding to deal with the possibility of his father gaining a Light Form later. "He confiscated the old one's staff, and then made them drop the ship with the Precursor we hatched from the Stone last year. Because they weren't being responsible with time and space."

Considering the young Precursor had been sitting on the beach that would one day hold Sandover Village, happily building elaborate sandcastles in lieu of blueprints, Jak had a feeling the new owner of the time machine would have fewer agendas to push. And given how the glowing being had greeted them as "My friend Mar" and "little Scout-brother", perhaps subsequent timelines would be kinder to his family. The other ottsels' horror and chagrin boded well, anyway.

#jak and daxter #fic prompts #writing prompts #prisoner exchange au #got a little Eldritch Dad in there but that's fine #keira hagai #keira gets to reconcile with jak #Damas lays low for a bit to let enemies think he's dead #Jak formally cuts ties with Haven but many of them still feel entitled to his service #Damas accidentally earns the nickname Damas the Undying because of Jak and he thinks its really annoying #Tess takes to Wastelander life like she was born for it and it's a little terrifying #and if Kleiver doesn't watch out Keira will stage a coup and take over the garages entirely #if you remember the last scene of the old disney robin hood with prince john and co in striped prison uniforms breaking rocks #that's what ottsel veger and the minor Precursors are up to #jak and daxter thursday #free day thursday #dadmas #king damas

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