After Friendship

I know this is a bit short but it was a good place to end the chapter. I could have continued and left you with a mean cliffhanger. But I decided to be nice and avoid it. :) Hopefully chapter five shouldn’t take too long since I’ve already written half of it.

I’m a bit disappointed that I only got one review on the last chapter. *sniffles* I know it wasn’t awfully exciting, but you can’t have action all the time. ;) At least I got some reviews on FF, so I’m happy. And a big cookie for Sej for taking the time to review, yay! :D
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Sej: I’m glad you enjoyed the chapter. And I agree, Jak shouldn’t go on a mission without his Daxter but the big guy is trying to be protective. They really should find a safer job but I guess it can be a bit difficult since Jak is a wanted man, but at least Daxter could work at the bar. Jak would definitely prefer it. I just think the little redhead would disagree, he want to be with his buddy!
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Btw I’ve finally taken the time to do a little illustration to this story. But I must warn you that it’s not very good. I didn’t have time to sit down and do it properly and I think that you rather see me working on this story instead of drawing. But anyway, I thought I show it to you it at least. If you want to see some better pictures of them, you should have a look at my main gallery instead. This was too terrible to submit there, so I put it in the scraps section:

http://sjostrand.deviantart.com/art/Human-again-79243470

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The last couple of hours had been great, Daxter decided. He could finally buy clothes! Maybe that was just something girls should be excited about. Jak sure hated it. But Daxter on the other hand was in heaven when digging through tons of clothes, just to find the perfect outfit. To his disappointment he had to cast away some of the cooler stuff because they were just too big to fit his small frame. But after some thorough searching he did find some fairly well-fitting neat clothes. Jak looked pretty relieved when he announced that he was done. His favourite finds were a really cool dark jacket, leather of course, and some soft fingerless gloves that fitted perfectly. He was practically bouncing on their way home while Jak just strolled calmly after him, carrying most of his clothes.

Because they were in the neighbourhood they also made a visit to Keira at the garage who gave his new look as much, or rather as little, excitement as Torn had. Sure she had already seen him as human before, but still, a little more than a pat on the back would have been nice. At least the visit gave him an opportunity to test his new clothes. He strolled out of the bathroom with hands on his hips and a big smile plastered on his face. He made a little turn to show off his new outfit containing a thin long sleeved sweater in a pale yellow colour and over it a red sleeveless hood with a zipper, black pants and brown boots. The finishing touch was his fingerless leather gloves which he caressed lovingly.

“What do you think?”

Keira looked up from her work, and with a wrench still in her hand gave him thumbs up.

“Very nice, it suits you Daxter.”

His smile widened at the praise, then he glanced questioningly at Jak who leaned casually against one of the many zoomers in the garage.

“You look good, Dax,” the big guy said with a small smile grazing his lips.

Daxter’s stomach felt comfortably warm by both the compliment and smile that was directed towards him.

They hung out at the garage for a couple of hours since they hadn’t been to see Keira for quite sometime and she excitedly showed them her latest work. And to his satisfaction, Daxter also got the opportunity to shock a few more people at the garage who had only seen him as a small orange rat on Jak’s shoulder before. He hadn’t had so much fun in a long time. By the time they headed back it had started to darken outside.

Daxter yawned tiredly; maybe he hadn’t entirely recovered from their little mission after all. He tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes; there was one place he wanted to visit first before he would happily welcome the bed.

“Don’t fall asleep on your feet,” Jak warned who had noticed his jaw-breaking yawning and slight stumbling.

He groaned. “If I were an ottsel I would let you carry me right now. We should have taken a zoomer!”

“You’ll live, we almost there anyway.”

“Hey Jak, I want to visit Tess at the bar first.”

The blond cast him a glance. “You’ll meet her tomorrow, are you sure that you’re up to it tonight?”

He grinned. “Yeah, I haven’t got a chance to celebrate my new body after all.”

On their way back the fresh air appeared to have quite the amazing effect on Daxter’s fatigue, because the redhead seemed to be all over the place and Jak had a hard time keeping track of him. It was dark outside, and if the city was a dangerous place during the day it was twice as bad during the nights. After almost loosing sight of him the third time he settled with taking a firm hold on the back of his hood the rest of the way to the bar. Daxter had always been a bundle of energy but Jak hadn’t quite realised how much more difficult he would be to manage in human size.

He was almost as happy as Daxter when they finally arrived at the Naughty Ottsel; if nothing else just to have the energetic little elf locked up in a smaller space. He pushed the door open with his shoulder and entered. Tess stood at the bar disk and was serving a couple of customers. A few people were at the back, but besides that it seemed to be a pretty slow evening for the bar. She looked up when he heard the door open, she smiled and waved.

“Hi there Jak, long time since I got any visits from my favourites customers!”

Jak shrugged. “We’ve been a bit busy lately.”

She looked him over, than frowned. “So where is my little fuzz ball?”

“Right here baby, alive and kick’n!” Daxter choose that moment to stick his head out from behind Jak with a grin.

Tess looked confused.

“It’s me, Dax.” He held out his arms and made a little turn. “Didn’t I tell you I wasn’t always fuzzy.”

“Daxie?” she asked disbelievingly.

“The one and only, baby.”

“Daxie!” She squealed and came running from behind the counter.

She threw herself around Daxter’s neck, and almost made them both tumble to the ground. Jak couldn’t help but, to feel a little jealous at the sight of Tess practically pawing all over him to make sure what she saw was the real thing. For a second he hesitated at leaving Daxter with her tomorrow, but quickly scolded himself. He would be safe here, that’s the only thing that mattered and definitely not some misplaced jealously from his side.

He walked up to the bar and sat down heavily on one of the stools. It had been a long day, and Daxter wasn’t the only one feeling tired.

Tess and Daxter eventually broke apart, to Jak’s relief, and came to join him.

“I need something to drink!” Daxter declared and began to rummage through the bottles behind the bar disk.

Jak sighed, he hoped the redhead wasn’t planning on getting overly drunk tonight. A drunken elf should be a bit harder to manage than a drunken ottsel. While Daxter was busy making a mess among the shelves behind the bar disk, he took the opportunity to lean forward over the counter towards Tess.

“I’m going on a mission tomorrow; I want Daxter to stay with you here. He isn’t too excited about being left behind, so could you please try to cheer him up?”

“Sure thing, Jak.” She glanced over her shoulder at the clink of bottles hitting each other. “But if you let him at it tonight I don’t think he will leave bed at all tomorrow.”

Jak followed her gaze to Daxter who was sitting on the floor and lovingly cuddled a big bottle of some clear liquid. He sighed.

“A couple of drinks Daxter, that’s all,” he warned.

“Aww, but I’m bigger now Jak, I can handle more!” He got to his feet with the big bottle still clutched in his hands.

Jak doubted it.

And just as he thought, after a couple of drinks Daxter seemed just as drunk as he used to be as an ottsel. Not too bad yet, but if he didn’t want to carry the redhead back home he better keep the alcohol at a safe distant from him. In the corner of his eyes he saw Daxter fumble for the bottle on the counter to refill his glass, Jak smoothly interfered and pushed it away just out of reach.

Daxter kept his arm outstretched for a couple of seconds, like he was willing the bottle to return to within arm’s grasp. But when nothing happened, he dropped the arm and plopped down his whole upper body over the counter in defeat.

“Jaak,” he whined.

“I’m not carrying you back to our room so if you don’t want to sleep here tonight on one of the bar stools, that was your last drink.” Which was not entirely true, because Jak wouldn’t leave his friend sleeping at the bar no matter how drunk he was.

“You’re mean.”

“You will thank me in the morning,” he stated matter-of-factly.

The redhead mumbled something that was lost to his ears.

During the evening Tess had got a marvellous and slightly over-exaggerated story of the day’s events from Daxter. It was illustrated with big gesture and Jak had to place a steadying hand on the small elf’s back numerous times during the story, to keep him from falling right of the stool in his arm flailing demonstrations. But now the fatigue seemed to have caught up with Daxter again, and he lay slumped over the bar disk like a lifeless doll.

“How about we get you to bed, Dax?”

Another incoherent mumble.

It looked like he would have to carry his friend home after all. Not so much because he was overly drunk, but because he seemed to be half asleep already.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

He looped a slim arm around his shoulder and heaved Daxter up on his feet. “Up you go,” he murmured.

The sudden change in position brought some life into the drunken elf and he looked up at Jak with a dazed look. “We’re leaving?”

“Yeah, we’re leaving. It’s time for bed.”

“Mmm, bed.” A grin spread across Daxter’s face and he slumped in Jak’s arms like he was expecting to already have a bed right under him.

Jak quickly tighten his arm around Daxter’s waist before he could fall to the ground.

“Not yet Dax, we gotta get there first.” He glanced at the bags of clothes behind the bar, but decided to leave them. Daxter could pick them up tomorrow.

He said good night to Tess before he started to half-carry his friend out of the bar. The walk home was an awkward affair with Daxter stumbling into him every step or so. When they approached the headquarters he was dragging the redhead instead of supporting him. And at the same time as he tried to keep his friend on his feet, he did his best to glance around at their surrounding for any possible threats. It wasn’t an easy task.

“Jaaak, do you think you’ll miss Orange lightning?”

‘Yeah, now I do,’ he thought to himself when Daxter, for the hundredth time that night stumbled into him. A drunken ottsel had been so much easier to handle.

“I don’t need to. You’re still here just in a different package, the original package.”

Daxter seemed to ponder over that fact and the thud of their boots hitting the ground was the only sound that was heard for awhile.

“I think I might,” Daxter suddenly added quietly.

Jak looked down at him, puzzled by the admission, and by the sad look that crossed his face.

“Dax?”

“But this is great too you know, more booze and more chicks for Daxter.” He smiled weakly. “And cool clothes, I love my new clothes,” he added with a mumble.

Jak didn’t answer, and instead he concentrated on getting the limp redhead through the door to the headquarters. It seemed more like Daxter was talking to himself anyway.

When he finally got them inside, the stairs to the second floor stretched before them like an unclimbable mountain. He glanced down at his cargo and sighed; Daxter had practically passed out with his head resting heavily on his shoulder. He could try to shake some life into his friend, but decided it would be easier to just carry him the rest of the way. He heaved the limp body up into his arms and started to climb the stairs. Luckily Daxter still wasn’t very heavy even as human, which was good because Jak wasn’t up for any heavy lifting at the moment. He was exhausted. It wasn’t just Daxter who was in need of a bed.

As expected, the hallways were pretty much empty this time of night, with the exception of a few rebels Jak passed on his way to their room. He nodded in greeting and they looked at him puzzled. They probably wondered where his side-kick had disappeared to, and who the unknown redhead in his arms was. Jak wasn’t exactly well-known for being a guy who liked close contact. Everyone knew to keep at least an arms length away from him. So seeing someone pressed up against him, besides his orange rat, must have been quite a surprise for them. Jak smiled; well, that would give them something to gossip about.

He sat Daxter down beside him when he got to their door, but still kept a secure hold around his waist while he fished for the keys in his pocket. He mused over Daxter’s strange comment from before. The ottsel had wanted to become human again, right? He had been nothing but happy since he changed back, so Jak hadn’t really considered the fact that he wasn’t pleased with the transformation. Maybe he just needed some time to get used to it. The hero decided to dismiss it; Daxter always said the strangest things when he was drunk, after all. Instead he settled on concentrating on manoeuvring them through their narrow doorframe. He closed, and locked the door before dragging Daxter the last couple of steps to the bed and dumping him there.

That’s when it appeared to him, they only had one bed. And right now it was being occupied by Daxter who was snuggling the covers with a content smile on his lips, not even bothering to get under it.

“I guess we both could fit,” he muttered. It’s not like they had never shared a bed in Sandover and they had after all done it every night since Daxter became an ottsel. It would be a bit tight but they could manage.

He took off his boots and changed into an old t-shirt. He removed the redhead’s boots before he made a mess in their bed and after some consideration decided to get Daxter out of the hood as well. Jak decided to leave the rest of the clothes on. He was not going to strip his sleeping friend; he had seen enough of his skin in one day already. Jak rolled the limp elf over on his back and unzipped the hood. He earned himself some grumbles when he tried to manoeuvre it off the not so very helpful Daxter, who quickly curled together on his side when left alone.

He gently shoved the redhead to the left side of the bed before he joined him and pulled the covers over both of them. He lay facing Daxter, who had his eyes closed and was breathing deeply like in sleep. Jak quenched the sudden impulse of reaching out and touch the smooth looking cheek of his friend.

Instead he started to close his eyes in an attempt to follow Daxter into oblivion, when he felt the body beside him stir. The redhead suddenly curled up to him, just as he used to when being an ottsel. Jak blushed when feeling the lithe body pressed against his chest. ‘I guess he doesn’t mind the sleeping arrangement then.’

“I want come on your missions, Jak. I don’t want to be left behind,” Daxter murmured into his chest.

He patted a slim shoulder awkwardly, in an attempt to comfort.

“I know Dax, I know. Try to get some sleep.”

He didn’t know if he was heard, because the redhead already seemed to have returned to the land of dreams and was snuggling his t-shirt with content. He wondered how pleased Daxter would be to wake up in his best friend’s arms tomorrow, but right then he didn’t care, and soon after he was sound asleep.

TBC

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That’s all for this time, I hope you liked it. Please review!