#when you're stuck in a box during a sandstorm with a teenager who shapeshifts into a small demon when angered

[radioactivepeasant]

Halloween Fic Special Preview!

(A little chunk of Jus Sanguinis for the week while I try to scrape together enough brain cells to finish the last major scenes)

The coastal city of Spargus had lived with the storms for generations, watching the once broad oases narrow and dwindle as the winds displaced topsoil at devastating rates. The sands had swallowed many of their warriors before the Spargans created The Crawler. The massive armored vehicle, replete with emergency supplies and enough armor to give even a metalpede pause, undoubtedly saved lives. But it was slow moving, and Wastelanders on foot often did not have enough time to get to the mobile shelter before the damage to their skin and lungs was beyond the power of an eco pack to heal. And being the only vehicle of its kind meant that if one part broke -- say, a blown head gasket -- the behemoth was stranded until a replacement could be located and driven to its location...after the storm had ended.

"Piece of crap-!" Jak aimed a vicious kick at the front end of the cab and slammed the door behind him.

"This never happens when Daxter is here."

"I don't know whether that is meant to compliment Daxter, or to insult me," his companion said dryly.

King Damas pulled his scarf further up over his mouth and nose and gestured grimly to the massive tank on the Crawler's back.

"The wind is picking up. We need to get inside."

Jak shook sand out of his goggles and dropped to the ground to join him.

"What about the rest of the raiding party?" he snapped, "We can't just leave them!"

Damas’s hand twitched -- the only visible indication that he had any opinions on Jak’s tone.

"Getting angry is counterproductive," he said sharply. "They are all experienced survivors. They will know their best bet is to make it to Broken Sandal Canyon."

You're tense, too! Jak wanted to shout.

But fighting with Damas, he had long since learned, was a very poor life choice. Besides, this man had all but pried him out of the jaws of death before he even knew what Jak was capable of, binding their lives together despite the doubts of his subjects. Jak knew he didn't deserve to be lashed out at. But he just couldn't help it!

Without Daxter he was on-edge. Unsettled.

It couldn't be helped: Daxter was very unwillingly resting at home with some variation of a local childhood disease. As it turned out, being born hundreds of years earlier did not make one immune to The Gripes. Jak, curiously, had yet to manifest the allegedly contagious disease, despite having been in close quarters with Daxter until leaving with the raiding party that morning. Perhaps it was his generally eco-saturated nature that made him resistant to some germs?

Speaking of eco, were you paying attention to your dark intake during the ambush?

Jak shoved the thought away and trudged through the worsening winds to the back of the Crawler.

His eco levels were a little high, sure, but nothing he couldn't handle. He'd gone days without exploding before.

Liar. You exploded every single day in Haven, or near enough to it.

At least the engine failure didn't prevent anything else in the Crawler from working. The closing of the back hatch left them both stranded in a little island of flickering overhead light, while the sounds of the storm faded to a muffled hiss. Damas lowered himself to one of the benches anchored against the wall and stretched his legs out, using the net of medical supplies hanging from the overhead rack as a kind of backrest. He seemed far more comfortable with the situation than Jak was. He watched Jak pace in front of the hatch, noting with some interest that Jak was far more on-edge than usual. He wasn't just frustrated, he was rattled.

"It's just a storm, kid."

Damas leaned back and closed his eyes.

"You've driven in them before."

"Yeah," Jak grunted, "with Daxter."

"Hm." The king raised his brows, but did not open his eyes. "You're not often apart, are you?"

"Not if I can help it," Jak answered shortly. "Not looking to repeat two years of involuntary separation."

The hiss of the sand against the hull rose for a moment in the quiet that followed Jak's words. Then, half to himself, Damas murmured, "Ah. The prison."

Jak's stomach turned a flip.

He still didn't know what had possessed him to confess to his erstwhile conservator why he could transform. What had been done to him in the pits of the Fortress. Damas had taken it well at the time -- no disgust, or condescension- or worse, pity. But the fear nagged at Jak regardless with each following day, whispering in the back of his mind that Damas was looking at him different now. That if Jak strayed too far out of line, his past might be held up in front of him in an attempt to make sense of his actions.

The second he told people something was wrong with him, it became their go-to explanation every time he did something they didn't like. Even Dax did it once in a while- though he at least made conscious efforts to be less careless with his words. Honestly, Jak was shocked Damas hadn't brought it up after his moment of defiance in the Arena.

Something smacked against the Crawler's armor -- likely a rock -- and Jak jumped and cursed. It was too quiet in the shelter. He didn't like the quiet, or the lack of windows showing him what was going on outside. It was like being in a storage crate, or a garage.

Or a cell.

Feeling an electric twinge of weirdwrongbad crawling along the nerves surrounding his scar tissue, Jak began to pace quicker. He focused on breathing as much as he could, and let his gaze sweep across the hold. Any detail that could set this place apart from the cells was noted and clung to.

"Settle, boy."

Damas still hadn't opened his eyes. He folded his arms across his chest and shifted his weight slightly.

"We'll need our strength once the storm has passed. Don't waste your energy on restless nerves."

"Easy for you to say!" Jak retorted.

Watch it, Jak. Eco's boiling up. Get it under control before you really start mouthing off.*

"We've both seen what a storm like this can do to a person. To a broken down vehicle. How are you so calm right now?!"

The older warrior's lips quirked up with a soft chuckle.

"I've been around, kid," he answered wryly, "I've waited out my share of storms in the Crawler. This is no larger or smaller than any other sandstorm I've faced before."