Let Me Count the Ways ask game
Requested by @bunnyscar
Fandom: Jak and Daxter
Characters: Jak and Daxter (though it kind of ended up being more about Samos and Jak ^^')
Prompt: "Where are your clothes?"
Samos could see the two boys as they sneaked up the beach to his hut. Well—boy and ottsel. Instead of an awkward boy tripping along at Jak's heels, all arms and legs next to Jak's confident grace, there was just a smudge of tawny orange clinging to Jak's shoulder. “So, it's happened at last,” Samos sighed, stroking his long, white beard. Ten years ago, he'd known as soon as a buck-toothed boy opened his obnoxiously large mouth that this day would come, but now that it had....
Jak clearly thought he was being stealthy, flitting from shadow to shadow as he dodged around various villagers on his way back home. But he didn't seem to have taken into account that Samos' hut was the tallest structure in Sandover Village, nor that Samos had a telescope with which he could watch their every move.
Even from a distance, he could see Daxter's mouth moving a mile a minute, yapping away in Jak's ear as always. Samos snorted. “And to think I actually thought I would have a quiet, peaceful life here....”
Samos set the telescope aside and let his gaze drift upwards and to the north. A sadness settled in his old bones, a sense of finality, of inevitability. This was always going to happen. The boy's path was already set before him, and there was nothing Samos could do to turn him from it. Not if he wanted the world to survive the coming devastation.
So he had to bite his tongue. Let Jak careen down that path, knowing the whole time that it would bring him unimaginable pain. When that unavoidable day found them, Samos could do nothing to protect him. Jak's affinity for eco would wither, his innocence would be ripped away, every friend and every familiar thing would be stolen from him...and Samos would be able to do nothing but languish in a cell for two years while he waited. Waited for the hero to save the world, as was his destiny.
When he'd taken up the task of raising the boy, far away from Metal Heads and Dark Eco, Samos had thought it would be easy to keep his heart out of it. He knew Jak's destiny, he knew what was at stake, so it would be simple to keep any sort of emotional entanglements from getting in the way.
And yet...and yet. Precursors help me.
A creak of floorboards behind him, and suddenly the ache in Samos' heart gave way to an outburst of anger. “What in green tarnation do you two want?” he snapped, whirling around to face them. “And where are your clothes, Daxter?”
The two-foot-tall orange rodent put his hands—paws?—on his hips. His completely bare hips. “Really?” Daxter snapped, his voice as loud and grating as it had been when he was a human boy. “I walk in here lookin' like this, and that's the first thing you say?”
“You're right,” Samos said with sarcastic cheer. “I should have said, 'Welcome home, boys. I'm so glad the two of you went mucking around in the only place that I told you not to go!'” His voice rose with every word.
“Hey!” Daxter protested. “It's not like you told us Misty Island had some kinda purple goop that would turn me into this!”
“So what did you do?” Samos said, stomping closer to them. It was jarring, after all these years, to finally see Daxter the way he was when they'd first met. “Go skinny-dipping in the first pool of Dark Eco you could find?”
“Look, old man,” Daxter shrieked, his voice even more shrill as an ottsel than it had been as a human, “are you gonna keep yappin', or are you gonna help me outta this mess?”
“I'm gonna keep yappin'!” Samos retorted, stomping away again. Jak raised a hand in half-hearted protest, but Samos ignored it. “And don't think I'm letting you off the hook either, Jak! Honestly, I expected much more from you, boy! Daxter's actions don't surprise me in the least, but you....”
His voice trailed off as he turned around again in the middle of his pacing and caught a glimpse of Jak's face. Beneath the embarrassment and chagrin at being caught (unfortunately, a common enough occurrence for these two), there was something desperate in those big blue eyes. Jak looked down at him, silently pleading, and waved his hand in Daxter's direction. Help him, the gesture clearly said. Please.
Samos had seen the same look dozens of times before, when a little boy with tufts of green hair would silently beg Samos to let him go swimming with his best friend, or let him keep some mangy beast as a pet, or fix a bird's hurt wing. Now that boy stood so much taller than him, with strong limbs and hair in a tall crest bleached blond by sun and salt.
But those eyes were the same, filled with distress as he glanced between the man who had raised him and his best friend. One day, those eyes would be filled with rage and pain, but right now...now he was still just a fifteen-year-old boy, out of his depth with forces he didn't understand.
Samos' shoulders slumped and his voice softened a little as he said, “I'm sorry. But even if I wanted to...I can't help you. This is beyond my power to fix.”
“What?” Daxter shrieked, erasing what little sympathy Jak's pleading had garnered him. “You mean I'm gonna be stuck like this forever?”
“Why are you complaining?” Samos sneered. “In my professional opinion, this is an improvement! But if you truly want to fix things,” he said, turning to address Jak before Daxter could do more than splutter indignantly, “you must go see Gol Acheron.”
As he filled Jak in on the quest before him, the sadness burrowed deep into his soul. This was how it all began. In only a short time, the happy, mostly carefree boy he'd raised for the past ten years would be gone. They would eventually be reunited and face the future together...but nothing would ever be the same again.
Thank the Precursors there was one obnoxious little rodent who would never change. They had an odd sense of humor, but for the first time, Samos thought he understood a bit of their reasoning. Jak would desperately need something familiar and stable in the days to come. And if that something had to be Daxter...well, so be it.
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