#in this one Sig actually adopts Jak and then takes him and Mar back to Spargus | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

xadoheandterra · 3 years

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Series: Semblance Title: Patriciate Fandom: Jak and Daxter Chapters: I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | XIII | XIV | XV | XVI Characters: Jak, Daxter, Samos, Keira, Kid!Jak, Ashelin, Torn, Tess Tags: Worldbuilding, Accidentally King of Haven!Jak, hurt/comfort, things go wrong, things get better, things get worse again, slow build, slow burn, slow to update, cross posted, fantasy racism, canon divergence, been meaning to share this here Summary: “It’s yours,” Jak said softly. “Keep it…remember where you come from. At least one of us should remember….”

If Jak knew the consequences of that one, selfish choice…well, he’d probably have made the same decision either way.

Bloodlines mean a lot to any Havenite, whether you were actually born in the city or not.

Jak let the sounds of the Naughty Ottsel wash over him. He kept his forehead down on the table surrounded by his arms, a glass of whatever Daxter grabbed for him from the bar in his hands. Occasionally his ears twitched as he registered a conversation from elsewhere in the bar, but for the most part he let his mind drift in a sort of laze reminiscent of his time on the beaches of Sandover. Here Jak remained simply Jak. Not King Jak. Not Jak of the House of Mar. Just simple, old Jak who happened to absorb dark eco like water and turn into a monstrous beast when angry.

Jak never felt more grateful that only a select number of people even know about the kid, let alone the kid and him being the same person almost thirteen years apart.

“You know the Commander is looking everywhere for you?”

Jak huffed. “Isn’t everyone?” he grumbled, morosely, but didn’t bother to look up at the young Underground soldier Daxter all but adopted. He could hear her laugh faintly at his misery, or possibly at the irony of the situation. Jak sighed and shifted until his chin rested on the table. He debated the merits of nudging the drink over to tilt against his lips; could he maintain the necessary balance or would he spill the precious mixture all over the table?

“No one knows you’re here, if that’s what you’re afraid of,” she said. From this angle Jak could see her chin nestled in the palm of her hand, and he had to fight down a rather violent flinch. He couldn’t stop his ears’ twitch back, even if he could contain his facial reaction.

Fire-bright, darkly amused stared down at him; a face nestled on a hand with a grin he’d begun to loathe, a twisted smile, pain—so much pain, so much fear, hatred—he couldn’t stop it. He tried. He tried.

She sighed, shifted, and turned her head away.

“Sorry.”

Observant, Jak grumbled internally. He let his head fall back against the table, if only to hide the sudden burst of shame that wanted to grace his features.

“I know I look like him.”

Jak snorted.

“You and a prick,” Jak mumbled.

“Ain’t that the truth?” she laughed self-depreciatingly, and Jak could hear her tug up the red scarf that almost all members of the Underground seemed to wear. He wondered, not for the first time, if it actually marked them or not.

Jak also wondered if the red scarf he wore—the one now tightly wrapped up like a hood over his hair, the one he’d worn for over two years now—meant to foreshadow his eventual membership into the organization. Such thoughts inevitably lead down the road towards questions of his own independence—were his thoughts actually his anymore?—so he quickly stomped them down.

Still, Jak huffed another sigh and shifted to peer only at his drink, she made for decent company—her uncanny resemblance or not. He just wished she were less observant.

“You never ask for my name, you know?” she murmured. By the sound of the way the cloth moved, Jak figured she shifted her head in the direction of Daxter’s voice. Jak figured by the rise and fall of a story told it came from somewhere over by the bar itself.

“You don’t seem to mind Dax’s nicknames,” Jak shrugged, “and you don’t offer it.”

She hummed, tucked her feet up—probably towards her chin. She stood taller than him—everyone stood taller than him except for Tess, Jak admitted grumpily—but with better proportioned limbs than Jak’s gangly own.

“I’ve not really had a nickname,” she said. “Not one I liked before.”

“Dax’s good at ‘em,” Jak murmured, then shifted his drink closer to his face.

“You’ll get your clothes soaked doing that.”

“So?”

“Do you want to ruin your lovely red hood?”

“Drat.”

Jak let his head slip back down again, let the noise wash over him. Even her, the sound of her breathing and heartbeat, of her voice, he found more soothing than the time at the palace. He wondered if he could just sleep behind the bar at night instead of the plush bed Ashelin all but ordered him to use.

“Think Tess would mind if I slept here from now on?” Jak asked.

“I think it’s more if Lady Praxis would mind, instead.”

“Ashelin can shove it,” Jak grumped, and then opened his mouth to continue on when his companion tapped the table with her nails. It stood for the unspoken warning signal that someone grew close to listening distance who wasn’t aware of Jak being more than simply Jak.

“Hi,” his companion chirped, and Jak’s ear twitched to the sound of feet that thumped and thunked in an even rhythm.

“Hello there, firecracker,” Sig’s deep baritone eased what little tension that drifted into Jak’s shoulders away, and prompted Jak to raise a hand in greeting. “Hello there, cherry. You drinking yourself into a stupor?”

“I wish,” Jak growled. He sighed and sat up, gaze stubbornly and morosely on his drink.

Gorgeous, firecracker—whatever nickname people used for her in the moment—shifted over so that Sig could sit down beside her. Jak glanced up, took in the weary features, and glanced back down with a frown. Sig looked worse than the last time Jak saw him. How long ago had that even been? He remembered Sig at the party, but after that? Jak sighed again. He sighed a lot lately.

“You look troubled, cherry,” Sig arched an eyebrow, and Jak shifted one shoulder up. His arm twisted slightly, his brow ticked down—without Daxter no one really noticed the full meaning in the motion. “Boring, huh?”

“Close,” Jak mumbled, “and yeah, kind of. Not a lot to do, I guess.”

“Not a lot you’re getting to do,” Firecracker pointed out, and Sig arched the other eyebrow. “Commander Torn has Jak on ‘hero leave’ for the time being.” She even did the finger quotes and eye roll that Daxter would at the words, even added the little sneer. Jak would’ve called it cute, once, except now after all this time he found someone mimicking Daxter a bit creepy.

“That what he calling it?” Sig questioned with a snort.

“That’s what Dax’s calling it,” Jak corrected faintly, picked up his drink, and took a sip. Tess wandered over, dropped Sig off his drink, and then wandered away with a smile and a wink. “Torn calls it needed rest.” Jak scowled. Ashelin called it getting caught up on all the shit Samos should’ve taught, Jak internally grumped. Like he even really wanted the lessons to begin with.

Precursors he was the King of Hell. Jak dropped his head back to the table with a faint whine.

“I just want to shoot things in peace,” he sounded like a whiny teenager, damn him, but he hated politics.

“I hear ya,” Sig nodded, tipped back his drink, and sighed. “What with this crazy traveling embargo Haven’s got up and running I can’t go salvage crap.” Sig glanced to Jak. “Your friend Ashelin tell you anything about that?”

Jak huffed. “I’ve had enough of Ashelin right now, Sig.”

“That bad?”

Jak scowled at his drink, sighed, and stood up.

“I’m going to go find Keira,” he mumbled, and started off. He only paused when Sig called out, “By the way like your new headpiece!” For a moment Jak thought Sig meant his hair, then he remembered his scarf and grinned.

“Trying something new,” Jak shot back, and slipped out the door of the Naughty Ottsel.

Keira peaked her head out from underneath the zoomer she worked on when Samos went quiet. She’d just begun to actually fall into a rhythm to the tone of his lecture, so the sudden stop felt almost jarring. The aged sage stood tiredly, a contemplative frown on his face, gaze off in the distance. Keira sighed, pulled herself completely out from under the zoomer, and wiped her hands down with a rag.

“Daddy?” she asked, a faint tilt to her head in curious worry.

“Hm? What?” Samos jerked around twisted around, the logs at his feet clacked noisily on the metal-and-stone ground of the garage. “Ah, Keira. Yes, where was I?”

“Daddy are you okay?” Keira questioned. She set the rag down on the bench and walked over toward Samos, hands snapped out to grab him by the elbow. “Maybe you should sit down?”

“Keira I’m fine,” Samos brushed her grasping fingers away with a harrumph. “There is merely a lot on my mind, so much to prepare…so much you need to know!”

“I’m not going to take up anything political for a few years, daddy,” Keira pointed out carefully. “Just because you and the rest of the Underground decided to…push Jak into this doesn’t mean I have to suddenly do everything either. I’ve got a good job here, a good thing going…and after everything that happened this city needs a good mechanic and some decent distractions.”

Samos sighed and didn’t resist as Keira moved him towards the couch set up on the other side of the mechanic pit. Kiera had the thing installed after the fourth time Jak popped up with the kid out of nowhere, intent on hiding from KG patrols. There was even a bowl for Krieg, the crocadog—although where the darn thing got off to Keira didn’t know.

“I know, Keira,” Samos said wearily, “I just don’t want you to be unprepared. I didn’t anticipate this outcome, and….”

“…now Jak is floundering,” Keira rolled her eyes. “Yeah, daddy, I’ve heard the story. Daxter won’t stop about how you should’ve told Jak something—even if it was just stories.”

“I tried…I did, Keira,” Samos shook his head. “That boy never listened. In one ear, out the other—if only he listened then none of this would be the way it is!”

Keira frowned. She’d heard Samos make the same arguments, and yeah she understood his concerns. As kids Jak, Daxter, and sometimes even herself were quite willful. Jak and Daxter always got into trouble, always into a mess or a location they should’ve been well away from—a part of Keira worried about them, too—but in the years in Haven they’d grown up. They were stronger, older, and world-wearier than Keira even expected to see.

“Daddy…” Keira said softly, and nibbled on her lip. “We’ve…put a lot on Jak’s shoulders.”

“He’s a strong boy,” Samos waved off her concerns. “He can handle it.”

“We put a whole city on his shoulders,” Kiera pointed out. “Sandover was one thing, saving the Sages was one thing, stopping the Acherons was one thing…it involved travel and danger and fear, but daddy? This is a city. This isn’t just the Sages, or the Acherons, or dealing with Lurkers. There’s so much to Haven and Jak…I think Jak needs a break.”

“He’s fine.”

Keira didn’t believe Jak to be fine. In fact he barely reminded her of the Jak she knew. Sure the zoomer races made her think of the times Jak helped her test the A-Grav, and the few times she saw Jak on the hoverboard—it was like Jak surfing on land instead of off the beaches of Sandover. There were little things, small snippets of the fourteen year old boy she knew, but the majority of Jak stood as a tightly wound ball that just waited to go off. Kiera didn’t like to admit it, but she feared Jak in a way now. She feared what Jak became, what had been done to Jak these years in Haven.

“Dax said he spent two years in the prison,” Keira whispered. “That he spent two years looking for Jak.”

“Probably did the boy a world of good,” Samos harrumphed. “A little solitude to think never hurt anyone!”

“Daddy…” Keira sighed. “I…don’t think that’s what prison was like for Jak.”

Erol never once mentioned Jak being in prison, back in the first year that she’d asked. In fact he seemed completely unaware of who Jak actually was, unlike during the races this past year. More times than Keira liked to admit Erol came into her garage, charm and wit in equal measure, just to ask her about the mysterious racer whose zoomer she worked on. Keira didn’t mind gushing to Erol—this was Jak, after all—and given Erol’s response at the time he obviously knew who Jak was.

“Be careful, Keira. Your friend is dangerous, more than you know.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Samos waved aside her concerns.

“If you say so, daddy,” Keira mumbled, and not for the first time wondered how long Samos sat in the prison.

Jak never did tell her just where he found Samos, but given the haunted look in his eyes it wasn’t anywhere nice. Keira patted Samos hand, gave him a wane sort of smile, and shifted over to her zoomer.

“You go back to work, dear,” Samos sighed, “and I think I’ll head over to Main Town and the Palace District.”

“Oh?”

“I have to reintroduce myself to what remains of the sage lines,” Samos continued with a huff. “Now that they know what I did in my errant youth there is quite a lot to make up for. Not that what I did was wrong; dare I say half this city wouldn’t be around if it weren’t for the Underground!”

“If you say so,” Keira said offhandedly, and Samos hobbled his way out of the garage. Keira watched him go, lips pressed thin. She looked back to the zoomer, and then looked away. Too much noise in her head, too many thoughts and concerns. Too many memories.

“Keira, I mean it; be careful around Jak. He’s not the boy you knew.”

Keira closed her eyes.

“Neither were you,” she muttered to the memory, and stepped around the zoomer. Maybe tinkering with the precursor artifacts were a better idea. Zoomers, right now, had too many bitter memories.

Halfway towards the Stadium and Jak decided not to visit Keira’s instead. He turned his feet over toward Main Town, and from there toward the upper noble houses. He kept his walk toward the shadows and fingered the passes in his pocket. Over the year he’d gotten quite the collection going. Red, the original card he’d found, then green, and then yellow for the areas connected to the agricultural sectors. Once, somewhere in the middle of the year when his rage started to mellow into something a bit less uncontrolled, but still fairly feral, Jak was given a pass for the upper crust of Main Town.

Now Jak found himself in control of two, but then he never did mention the first pass to anyone but Dax. He picked out the two passes from his pocket and stared at them contemplatively. Vin, way back in the early days, actually manage to lock the passes together into a wallet and Jak meant to use it—he did—but he always seemed to forget about the thing somewhere. Ashelin gave him something similar after being named King—said he should keep it on him at all times. Jak stuffed it into the sock drawer back at the palace in disgust.

If a wallet Jak must use, then he’d use the one Vin gave him—wherever it might’ve gone. He trusted Vin over anyone else with matters of technology, if only because Vin made sure Jak could follow along. Sure a lot of what the older man said went right over his head for the most part, but the fast-paced speed talking always felt like a slice of home. The way his eyes virtually glowed when he finally took off his goggles, the way they swirled like liquid blue eco, felt familiar. It reminded Jak that eco saturated blood beyond dark eco still existed in the world. That there was more than just dark eco here if you knew where to look. It felt like a slice of heaven in hell.

A house, lopsided and more ‘old world’ compared to the metal walls set in square designs with neat and perfect gardens, loomed up ahead. It looked rickety, worn and well cared for, and still somewhat chaotic and stranger. Tubes, wires—electronic devices of some make or model that Jak couldn’t understand—poked out of holes and out of a couple of windows. The eclectic design felt reminiscent of the Blue Sage’s hut that Jak sometimes visited as a child.

Jak slipped out of the shadows and into the blinking lights of the house in front of him. He pushed open the gate, ignored the way it creaked and groaned, and slipped past the overgrown front lawn. The flowers were pretty, as were the weeds that had over taken it, and the few pieces of discarded technology that seemed to thrive with the overgrowth. Calmly Jak picked his way towards the front door, raised his hand, and waved with a sort of faint smile.

“Uhm, hi,” he said, and shifted nervously on his feet. “I’m…sorry I didn’t call ahead. I—” The door swung open before Jak could continue, and Jak closed his eyes. He took in a shuddering breath and stepped past the threshold. Behind him the door slid back shut, and when Jak looked up it was into the eclectic, electric eyes of the person he came to visit.

“Jak.”

Jak breathed out a heavy, shuddering breath. “Hi, Zoe,” he mumbled. “Sorry I haven’t called.”

Matriarch Zoe smiled softly, the drawn lines of her aged face gentle and caring even as she lightly brushed her fingers against the red of his scarf, as if to tuck invisible hair behind his ear.

“You came now, child,” she said carefully, “and that’s all that matters. That’s all he’d want.”

Jak nodded once.

“Tea?” Zoe asked. “I was making Vin’s favorite.”

“Yeah,” Jak muttered. “That’d be great.”

#fic: patriciate #fic: semblance #jak and daxter #accidentally king of haven #canon divergence #wip #fanfic

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