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radioactivepeasant · 4 months

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Snippets: Free Day Thursday

Belated Valentines because I had no time on Wednesday lol

(Adopted Dadmas au)

"Move it, junior!" barked a man from Longstump. He all but shouldered Jak aside in the market, headed for the vehicle pit.

Jak glowered at his retreating back and rubbed his arm. "You move it," he grumbled.

Daxter stretched to peer over Jak's head and whistled. "Is it me, or is it crowded in the pit today?"

"It's...pretty crowded," Jak agreed. "What's got them all rattled?"

"Hot sale on sand?" Daxter drawled.

"Bro."

"Yeah yeah, it's everywhere. But it is a hot sale, huh? Huh?"

"Bro." Jak grimaced in disgust.

The ottsel sighed. "No one appreciates my wit."

Rolling his eyes, Jak tossed a tomango from hand to hand before tucking it into his scarf. They passed the forges and the armor shops on Smithy Row, and turned towards the Arena. There weren't supposed to be any trials until later in the afternoon, yet the sounds of combat rang out beyond the steps. Jak took the stairs two at a time and, on a whim, headed for the ring.

Daxter grumbled about the sudden change from shade to blinding sunlight, and pulled the edge of Jak's scarf over his face for relief. Jak shrugged as he stepped onto the floating platform. Instead of letting it take him down to the Arena, he bent his knees, tensed, and sprang.

Fingers caught the edge of one of the support beams, and his momentum launched him up over it, kicking off for more height, to the stone forming the viewing box from which Damas presided over trials. His boot toes caught the most meager of ledges, but it was enough. Before gravity had a chance to wrap its greedy fingers around him, Jak hauled himself up to the next handhold. It was just enough for him to hook his wrist over the edge of the balcony and roll up and onto the platform.

As he'd halfway suspected, his father -- stars, it felt good to be able to say that, even in his head -- had "clocked in" to monitor the battles despite it being off schedule. Damas raised one brow as Jak casually arranged himself into a cross-legged position.

He lifted his tomango in Damas’s direction half in greeting and half in a playful toast.

"Hey," he said cheerfully. Then he bit into the fruit, causing Daxter to leap out of the way of spraying juice.

"Aw yuck!" Daxter shook his ears out and scurried into the shade. "Say it, don't spray it!"

"We have doors, son," Damas remarked, but there was an undercurrent of amusement in his voice.

"Eh." Jak took another bite of the red-orange fruit and spoke around a mouthful of tangy flesh under a surprising sweet peel. "It's too crowded. Same as the garages. What's the deal, Pá? Some kind of relic hunt going on? They get a tip on the stuff for the Forest Site?"

Damas looked at him for a moment as though he wasn't quite certain if Jak was being serious or not. The twitch of his left ear seemed to herald a thought, and he lifted a hand to tug at his upper lip.

"Ah," he said at last, "I sometimes forget that Haven doesn't celebrate Heart Day as Wastelanders do."

"Heart...day?" Jak repeated in confusion.

"It's a courtship ritual," Damas explained, a little awkwardly. "Forgive me if this is...less than detailed. I have not participated in one in an...undisclosed number of years, and I did not think I would need to explain it so soon."

Daxter's ears perked up. "Courtship, you say? Ah-ha! I knew you had to be big ol' softies at heart!"

He rubbed his paws together in anticipation.

"So, juicy details: let's have 'em! My bubbly bar-queen beauty is languishing in Haven without me, and I wanna make an impression when we come back!"

He hopped up onto the arm of the throne and leaned forward eagerly.

"So what is it? Flowers? Chocolates? Chocolate flowers?"

"Metalhead hearts, actually," Damas said bluntly. "The fresher the better. So if you want to do this right, you'll have to wait until you're at the city gates before you carve out the heart you want to give the young spy."

With an almighty squawk of disgust, Daxter tipped off the throne and hit the floor.

He lay there for a few seconds, winded, then raised an index finger.

"Methinks," he said, "this advice was meant for Jak. Not me."

Damas nodded sagely. "He's not wrong you know, Jak, this applies to you, too."

Jak wiped sticky fingers on his scarf and stared blankly at his father.

Don't say it, don't say it, please don't say it- he silently pleaded.

"You know-"

Noooooo-

"The young mechanic could probably make use of a metalhead heart, don't you think, son?" Damas asked. Only the twinkle in his eye gave away his mischief. "The aorta makes for a very effective wire insulator."

Jak flushed as red as a tomango. "I-! It's, it's not like that, we're-! We're friends!"

A smirk spread across the king’s face, the smile of a hunter spotting weakness.

"Oh, of course. Friends. My mistake. Tell me, how goes her research?"

He leaned back and his smile grew as Jak launched into an animated description of Keira's search for the catacombs. As if he didn't know his boy was spending at least an hour every few nights talking with the sage's daughter -- poor girl -- on his talk-box.

"-gonna have to make more drones, of course, because that nutcase Veger's force fields fried some. If I could just find one of her old Scout Flies, I know that would work better, but I'd have to rob the museum to get one and we have a lifetime ban from it anyway and-"

"You have a lifetime ban," Daxter corrected, "I'm not the one who punched a tour guide for misattributing the origin of Scout Flies and keeping our a-grav zoomer behind glass-"

"It's not theirs!" Jak fumed, "Keira built that! It's hers! And maybe kind of mine, because I'm the one who drives!"

He looked up and caught the twinkle in his father's eyes.

Belatedly, he realized that he wasn't helping his case. Damas was grinning at him like the cabbit that got the canegret. Rot it all.

With a groan of defeat, Jak put his head into one hand. "....are there any whose parts you can use in anti-grav stuff?"

Damas tilted his head back and hummed thoughtfully. "Off the top of my head? Ginsus and Metalbats, but we don't have those out here. Their wings were never strong enough to carry them over the ocean. Metaljackets are an option -- in fact, we've been getting reports from Seem that there may be a hive of them in the sealed levels of the Temple. I can deal with that later."

Daxter cringed. "Least it's not spiders," he offered. "If there's metalhead spiders in there, you're gonna have to burn the place to the ground and fake your death. It's the only way to be sure."

"Dax really hates spiders," Jak agreed. He blinked and snapped his fingers. "Hey, what about those blue scout metalheads that hang around the forest? Y'know, I've seen them a lot, but they've never attacked us?"

Damas leaned forward with interest. "Grunt dragons! I haven't seen one in years! It's funny that they should have a name like "dragon" and yet be completely harmless. I actually rode on one as a boy once. My parents were furious."

Daxter looked quickly from Jak to Damas and back again. He saw the moment the idea took hold. Eyes narrowed, he turned back to Damas.

"Whatever happens now," he warned, "I just want you to know that you brought this on yourself."

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