FORMERLY songfic to "I Will Carry You" by Clay Aiken. Then dear old ff .net went psycho. Please excuse the odd scene jumps as a result of the removal of the lyrics.

A/N: Hi everyone. This turned out a lot differently than I had thought that it would, but I still like it a lot. Hooray for a new computer, too:-D This is from Dax's POV and there's angst and… angst! So have fun reading!

Disclaimer: I don't own Jak and Daxter. The next one really does need to come out soon!

"Jak!"

"What?" his friend innocently asked, small zoomer free-falling down momentarily, missing a large guard ship by scant inches. Before the ottsel had a chance to reply, it jolted back into the air once again, then repeated the process a few more times as the pilot wove in and out of the slow traffic.

Daxter squealed in terror and grabbed onto his friend's head for dear life as the zoomer was jerked to the left, rolled over, lowered, and shot back into the air, nearly slamming into another car. "Dax," came Jak's muffled voice from underneath his two furry paws. "If you don't want to crash, I need to be able to see…" The ottsel hastily moved his paws, though his hold on his friend did not slacken in the least.

The zoomer eventually stopped with a jolt, coming to rest just outside the stadium. Daxter heaved a sigh of relief as soon as they were off of the thing. Jak chuckled, a rare thing, and the orange rodent looked at him in surprise. "What?" he demanded.

"Nothing, nothing."

"No, what? Why are you laughing?"

The smile left Jak's face, and he looked over at Daxter, eyes wide. "I did nothing!"

"JAK!" he yelled, moving around on Jak's body to place his face eye to eye with his companion, who kept walking although his view was blocked. Daxter glared into Jak's deep blue eyes, and Jak looked straight back at him, quite obviously trying hard not to laugh.

Giving up, the rodent moved back to his normal position, and Jak stopped walking just in time to avoid smashing face-first into the wall. Both looked into the garage when a snicker was heard, Jak's face hardening immediately as his good mood evaporated.

"Well, well," came a voice. "Look what we have here."

Dax looked into the room. Keira sat atop a metal table, Erol leaning onto it right next to her, though his head was turned to face them, a cruel smirk on his face. Daxter felt Jak's fist clench as his friend saw how close the two were to one another.

"Come to give up?" the rude voice asked.

"Never," Jak said, glancing at Keira meaningfully. Though it was only a whisper, it carried clearly to everyone in the silent room.

Daxter felt his heart twist suddenly as he watched his friend focus upon the girl on the table. Suddenly, he didn't want to watch the scene unfolding before him any longer, and his eyes dropped down uncharacteristically to focus on the ground, hands tightening their grip on Jak's armor.

"Perhaps you should, Eco Freak," Erol said, walking towards him and stopping when he drew even with them. "No one would ever choose you… or perhaps no one knows yet? After all, if they did, I should think that you'd be shot like the beast you are." Daxter felt Jak shaking with fury as he whirled around to glare at the retreating form of the leader of the Guard, jaw clenched and countenance deadly.

Keira said nothing, only looked questioningly at Jak, ignoring the ottsel completely, as usual. Jak turned to face her, and Daxter raised his eyes to his friend's face. Discouraged by what he saw there, the rodent sighed inwardly. Nothing was said until Jak's communicator came to life, voice of Torn demanding that he go out and kill more Metal Heads immediately, as usual.

Dax watched Jak scowl at Keira before the elf turned on his heel and stormed away. He practically jumped onto a zoomer and shot off, and Daxter was too busy pondering to do his normal yelling and screaming.

He hated it when Jak was this way, hated it so much that he wanted to scream in his face, rip out his hair, smack him, anything to make him stop acting like that. Because each time that he stopped smiling, each time that he closed himself off to the world, each time that he closed himself off to his best friend, Daxter feared that he would never smile again.

The furry ottsel paid no attention to their destination, nor did he even speak as Jak took out his gun and blasted his way through Metal Head after Metal Head. He let his friend work out his anger on the odd creatures as he would, not doing anything but looking around.

And then all hell broke loose.

Daxter could feel what was coming, knew what was going to happen the instant that Jak's muscles tensed in their special way. The energy began to dance over his pale skin, cracking with its force, strengthening with each passing second. It reached out to something within him, making his fur stand on end and playing with his form as it did Jak's. He, however, did not change form; trapped within this body, there was nothing more for him to change to. Instead, it entered him, twisting around his soul and mocking him, intensifying all the sorrow and anger that he shoved way inside him and twisting it so that it was him, twisting it so that it became pleasurable to him, like dose after dose of a narcotic drug that rushed through his bloodstream. Unable to do anything more than cling to the twisted for of his companion, Dax was left in a haze, eyelids half shut and face stretched into a wide grin. All he felt, all he knew, was the desire to relax and flop around on the shoulder of the demon that killed in cold blood even as he gazed blearily around at the carnage.

Finally, it was over, and the fog slowly evaporated from his mind. He realized after a while that he was on the ground, laying with his face pressed into the hard dirt. "Ugh," was all he could manage, spitting some of the offending particles from his mouth. He levered himself up, annoyed at having to brush more dirt from his fur coat. He glanced around, heart nearly stopping when he saw Jak.

The elf was lying on the ground, curled up and moaning in pain. His face was covered with sweat, one hand clenched at his chest, eyes screwed tightly shut. Daxter was relieved to see that his friend was not possessed by his dark side any longer, but his friend had never acted like this after one of his dark spells. The ottsel ran over to his friend, screaming his name. "Jak! Jak, wake up!"

Jak only groaned more loudly, swiping at his friend without looking and knocking the ottsel back to slam into a rock. Gasping in pain, Daxter tried to rise once more but failed. He collapsed back to the ground again, unable to breathe. Eyes shut against the world, he tried unsuccessfully to focus on ignoring the unaccustomed pain.

"D-dax?" came a hesitant voice. Unable to reply, barely able to suck enough oxygen into his broken chest, the ottsel could do nothing more than lay there. Slowly, agonizingly, his small form was lifted in warm hands and held. Warm drops splashed down onto his orange face. "Oh, Dax… I am so sorry! Gods, please be okay, Dax…" There was a jolting, and Daxter foggily realized that Jak was running as he held him. He painfully opened his eyes to look up at Jak and immediately wished that he had not.

He had never seen Jak cry before, never, even when he was in the deepest of his dark moods. But cry he did, tears flowing down his face to fall and bathe his own immobile form. Those crystal blue eyes glanced down into his own, and Daxter decided that he hated all of the self-loathing and horror that he saw in there. Jak tried to smile but failed miserably, and then looked away so that he could concentrate on running.

And then the world went black.

Daxter woke lazily, opening his eyes to the perpetual darkness of the Unerground base. The rodent slowly stood and climbed down off of the hard bed, wandering over to where Torn sat at his desk, doing whatever he always did. "Hn… I see that you're awake."

Daxter ignored the biting tone in the man's voice, though he scowled a bit, not noticing that he did so. "Where's Jak?"

"Gone." Daxter's heart stopped in that instant, breath catching in his throat. Gone? No… he wouldn't just leave… he can't be… he isn't! He wouldn't just leave me… But here was doubt in his mind, doubt that threatened to overwhelm him.

Apparently Torn saw something in his expression, because he gave the ottsel an odd look. "He went to go d something for Vin. Just wait here… as far away from me as possible." Relief washed over him then, and he felt incredibly stupid for doubting his friend.

Daxter returned to his bed and slowly fell into a light doze, part of him always awake and waiting for his friend's return. But the night faded to the bright light of day, and day changed again to night. Eventually, he could wait no more, terrified that Jak had foolishly taken some stupid risk in his unhappy mood and seriously injured himself. Just before dawn, Daxter pushed himself up out of the bed and ran for the door, no one even noticing that he was leaving. Out into the cold morning he ran, searching, calling his name until his voice was raw and cracking. A drizzle began to fall from the sky, changing to a thick, cold rain that cascaded down as the sun rose, masked behind masses of cloud and smog. Cold, soaked to the skin and very much in pain, the ottsel still kept going, looking anywhere that the elf could possibly be. No one was out on the streets but him, very few zoomers passed overhead. Eventhe guards seemed to have taken refuge from the downpour somewhere unknown to him. But none of that mattered. The only thing that he cared about was his friend.

And finally, he saw Jak's form, hunched up in a corner of the slums that Daxter had found only by the purest chance. Scared for his friend, Daxter ran over to the immobile form, tugging at his sleeve to get a reaction. He calmed a bit when he realized that his friend was simply asleep, though he looked absolutely horrible. The rain obscured any tear tracks, but Daxter knew full well that they were there. His friend's body was limp, skin pallid and lips blue from the cold. Daxter was afraid for his friend, who looked so much like the form that the darkness took when it seized possession of his dear friend.

Glancing at the clouds that continued their relentless deluge, Daxter sighed. He didn't want to wake his friend yet, didn't want to bother the elf. He slowly climbed into his friend's lap, curling up into a ball and laying down. Jak's hands moved to rest on his body, warming both him and the appendages that wove themselves through his fur.

"Jak," he whispered as his eyelids lowered in contentment and relief blanketed him and brought him to the brink of sleep. "I'll never leave you, I promise… just don't leave me either… I'll always be here for you."

Above him, Jak's worn and troubled face stretched into a smile.

And as the two slept, the rain stopped and the sun began to peek out from behind the clouds.