Roll to Me

AN: We’ve been trying to work ahead in the fic before posting new chapters, and it seems to be working out so far. So, time to post a new one.

- - - - -

CrabRangoonMonster: We’re going for humor above all else, so hilarity is a good bet.

Grimreaperchibi: Yeah, I know. It took a while to wrap my brain around the proposal, too.  It’s best not to take this too seriously. Or seriously at all, actually…

Kuromei: Thanks! Sometimes an about-face is necessary to let fresh air into your brain.

Kaylarn: Yep, it’s Robin! Robin and pal Amaronith, actually. Razer is dickish because he’s in physical pain, and emotional pain over losing to Jak. Hopefully he’ll be friendlier after a while, haha.

Anon: Thanks so much for commenting this time! It’s definitely appreciated. Here’s a new chapter for ya.

- - - - -

Characters: Belong to Naughty Dog, Inc.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Jak did come back the next day, much to Razer’s surprise.  He brought a bag of fast food with him, and the pack of cigarettes hidden at the bottom of it made the older racer genuinely thankful that Jak had bothered.  He didn’t have half a clue why this boy who had been his mortal rival less than a month ago would wish to stick around a hospital room talking with him, but it beat watching TV at all hours. 

“That Krew woman is getting more and more annoying each time I’m forced to lay eyes on her,” he commented as Jak channel surfed on the room’s small TV and landed on her smirking face yet again. 

Empty burger and fry containers littered the tray table, and Jak had helpfully shoved the bed up against the wall so Razer could open the window and blow his smoke out.  So far the nurse had remained unawares, and he hoped to keep it that way.  Just because he had decent money tucked away didn’t mean he was eager for a fine from the hospital, which firmly disallowed smoking on their grounds.  Damn health-nuts.

“She may be a conniving bitch, but seeing her face every ten minutes is better than seeing G. T. Blitz’s, right?”  Jak still couldn’t bring himself to call the overly dramatic anchor Mizo. 

“She would look better with a ball gag,” Razer snorted, tapping his ash out the window where the breeze carried it swiftly away.

Jak laughed.  “Damn, Razer, you’re kinkier than Daxter.  I never would have guessed.”

“Oh, please.  Don’t compare me to your rude little rodent.  I have no wish whatsoever to ponder his perversions, which are numerous, I’m quite sure.”

Jak just grinned at him. “Everyone has perversions, Razer.”

“Of that I have no doubt, but there are some things that are better left unsaid outside the bedroom.”

“Who would've guessed that you’re such a prude?”

“Maybe I just don't want to hear about your rodent's bedroom practices.”  Razer scowled.  The brat was laughing at him!  The nerve!  Well, he would fix Jak’s little red race car. 



“Daxter would be crushed,” Jak chuckled, though his laughter trailed off as he caught Razer's new expression, one that looked oddly flirtatious. “What?”



“What about you, Jak?” Razer purred at him. “What about your bedroom practices?”



Jak stared at him, like a small animal caught in the headlights, and his face began to flush. “We're not talking about my bedroom practices...”



Razer smirked.  It was working!  “Oh, but I really think we should. What turns you on, Jak? What gets your engine humming, so to speak?”



“Well, what about you?” Jak demanded, completely avoiding the question. “What are you like in the bedroom?”

The black-haired racer wasn’t fooled for a second.  Jak was thinking that maybe if he turned this around on Razer, then the man would drop it.  And maybe he should drop it.  It was just a joke that was going a little too far.  But where was the fun in that?

Razer smiled coyly and blew a lazy smoke ring.  “If you want to know, you will just have to find out for yourself.”

Jak abruptly got to his feet.  “Hey, nurse?  Razer’s smoking in here!”

Green eyes widened in alarm.  “Shit, shit, don’t say that!  Shut up!”  He threw the cigarette out the window and grabbed a racing magazine off the rolling tray to fan any leftover smoke out, too.  “Don’t you make that barbaric woman nurse come in here!”

“Are you going to quit being a pervert?” Jak growled, crossing his arms over his chest.  His cheeks were still pink.  Was the boy really that embarrassed?

“A moment ago you were accusing me of being a prude, if you will recall.  I was simply proving you wrong.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t expect you to hit on me!”

“Oh, grow up, little boy.  It was a joke.”

The arrival of the Barbaric Woman Nurse curtailed the argument.  She frowned at them from the doorway, eying Razer suspiciously.  “What’s going on in here?  And why has your bed been moved?”

Razer smiled charmingly.  “Absolutely nothing, dear woman.  I asked my young friend here to roll me to the window so that I might take the air.  It’s such a lovely day outside, you know.”

“Quite.”  She didn’t look the least convinced.  “Since I was already on my way to tell you that your doctor has discharged you, I won’t comment on the smoke I can plainly smell.  You’re being released within the hour, as soon as someone can get up here to get your casts off.”

“Really?”  Razer’s ears flew up in delight.  Score!  “How nice to hear.  It will be wonderful to be back in my own home again.”

“Of course.  I’ll just run through release protocol with you now, shall I?”  She whipped out a clipboard and began to flip through the papers on it.  “These documents state that you’ve been informed about the after-effects of the green eco procedures.  Your injuries have been healed by the eco, for the most part, but given too fast or in overly large doses, it can actually seal the natural porous pockets in your bones and make them prone to future breakage.  This is why the treatment has been stopped and you’re being allowed to go home and do the remainder of your healing naturally.  Any questions?”

“None whatsoever.”  He was ready to bid the hospital a firm goodbye.  “I was told all of this before they started the eco treatments.”

“Good.  Now then, remember to take it easy for a week or so.  Your limbs aren’t broken anymore, and you’ll still be able to use them, but you still need lots of rest.  No hard exercising or heavy lifting.  If you live alone, you may want to look into having someone in to help you out with your daily routines, at first.”

Razer’s ears angled back as his thoughts immediately jumped to his so-called “friends” that he might ask the favor of—Shiv, Edje, Cutter.  The louts hadn’t even bothered to visit him in his time of need!  “I’m sure I’ll be quite alright on my own, thank you.”

Then, the very last thing Razer expected to happen, happened.

“I’ll do it.”

He stared incredulously at Jak.  “I beg your pardon?”



“I’ll do it.  I’ll come help you for a little while.  As long as you don’t mind me sleeping on your sofa.”  The green-blonde looked entirely serious. 

The nurse nodded before Razer could stop sputtering and fumble for words.  “That’s very generous of you.  Now, Mister Razer, if you’ll just sign these release forms I’ll go see who is supposed to be removing your casts and we’ll get this ball rolling, shall we?”

As soon as she left, Razer turned to hiss at Jak.  “Are you mental, or just plain stupid?  I don’t need your help!”

Jak snorted.  “Oh, yeah?  And what are you gonna do when you break your leg again because you pushed yourself too hard?  Lay on your floor until you die?”

“Despite recent evidence to the contrary—initiated by you, not I, might I add—we are still more enemies than friends.  Why would you want to help me?” 

There was a long pause before Jak shrugged.  “Like I said.  I really don’t have anything else to do right now.  And you are a talented racer in the end, I guess, and… well, we’re kind of friends, right?”

Razer blinked, propping himself up on his arms.  “Wow.  You certainly don’t have many friends, do you?”

“I do so!”  Jak looked affronted.  “I have plenty of friends.”

“Just because people don’t want to kill you outright, that doesn’t automatically qualify them as friends.  They are acquaintances, at best.”

“… oh.”

With a deep sigh, Razer grabbed for the clipboard the nurse had left him and began to sign the release forms.  In the chair across from him Jak was covertly counting on his fingers, no doubt making a tally of friends versus acquaintances.  If the boy was lonely enough to follow him home like a lost crocapup, then that had to be an abysmal tally indeed.

- // - // - // - // -

Jak didn’t know why he was so bothered by Razer’s comment, but he was.  He counted quickly.

Okay.  Daxter was his best-est best friend forever, to quote the ottsel.  Keira and Samos were his good friends; one of whom had helped to raise him, and the other had been the girl he had thought he was going to marry when he was twelve.  Torn and Ashelin were his friends—even if they did seem more interested in him as an errand boy and general Mr. Fix It. 

‘That does still make them my friends, though… right?’  He frowned and kept counting.

Sig was his friend—even if Jak did suspect from time to time that the big man looking out for him was mostly due to loyalty to Damas’ memory.  Tess was his friend because… well, because he was Daxter’s friend, probably.  Jinx was his friend… maybe?  Vin, Pecker and Onin, Seem and her Precursor Monks?  All acquaintances, almost certainly. 

And then there was Rayn.   Rayn was his friend.  Or, at least, he had thought she was, until the bitch turned around and betrayed him, betrayed the team. It made Jak's blood boil to think about.

So he had a total of one best friend, two good friends, three decently-friendly friends, and…

Jak’s ears drooped.  Well, damn.

“What’s the matter, boy?  Don’t like your tally?”

“Shut up,” Jak said immediately, but there was no heart behind it.  Shouldn’t the Hero of the World Three Times Over have more people to be friends with than that?

“If it makes you feel better,” Razer said causally as his pen scribbled on the paperwork, wobbly in his bad hand, “I recently discovered that I apparently do not have any real friends at all.  Not that I need them, mind you.  They are most annoying.  But regardless, you at least have your little rat.  That’s something, yes?”

Jak stared hard at Razer.  The preppy, arrogant, sarcastic racer who had tried to off him on the track who knew how many times.  But at least Razer had never lied about his intentions of trying to off him.  And now that they were no longer racing opponents…

“Hey, Razer?”

“Hmm?”

“Let’s be friends.”

Slowly Razer’s eyes rose to meet his.  “What?”

“You heard me.  There’s no reason we can’t be friends.  We’ve gotten along alright for the past two days.  We’re not rivals anymore, technically.  And it’ll be easier for me to be in the same house taking care of you if we’re friends.”  He cocked his head, trying not to look too hopeful.  “So, are we?”

Pen clacked on clipboard as Razer swore elegantly.  “Damn it all, boy, why must you seem so cute?!”

Jak blinked.  “Huh?”

“Don’t you make that clueless face at me!  You’re like a cute little crocapup trying to make nice and friendly.  I would be lured into giving you a man-hug, if I didn’t know better and suspicion that you are a biter!”

Jak threw back his head and laughed.  “I don’t bite, Razer.  At least, not when I’m not in my dark eco form.”

“Your what, now?” Razer asked as an ebony brow quirked.

“Nothing.  I’ll tell you later.”

Within ten minutes the official cast-cutter-off-er arrived, and proceeded to take another ten minutes to do with a little electric saw something that Jak could have done in two minutes with a box knife.  Then Razer was helped out of bed, much to his relief.  He washed his face, combed back his hair, fussed over his posh clothing, and was finally ready to leave. 

“So, where do you live?” Jak asked conversationally as they left through the revolving doors at the front entrance of the hospital. 

“I live in a very nice apartment on the north side of town,” Razer said as he lifted a hand flippantly and a cab screeched to a stop beside them.  “We’ll have to be covert.  I’m afraid the lease forbids crocapups.”

“Hey!”

Razer chuckled and climbed, rather mincingly due to his injuries, into the cab.  “Come along, Jak.  I’m looking forward to a decent meal.”

With a huff, Jak climbed in beside him.  He would never have guessed when he decided to stay in Kras a week ago that he would wind up riding in a car with their former enemy—let alone bunking with the man on the premise of being his helping hands while he healed from a gang beating.  However, as Razer imperiously ordered the driver toward one of the fanciest restaurants in town, Jak had to admit that it promised to be an interesting experience.

- // - // - // - // -

To be continued.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(2^nd)AN: Oh boy. Now things can get interesting.  That is all.

- - - - -