Summary: Jak and Keira reminisce and sing a tribute to two friends, lost to love...
To the readers: If you are reading this, then be forewarned that there is mentioned character death, that doesn't pertain to OCs... This story is almost pure angst, with some JakxKeira and DaxterxTess thrown in... Mainly it's TornxAshelin, though. In this story, Jak never kissed Ashelin, and they are, in fact, cousins. (Baron Praxis was the brother of Damas' wife)
Disclaimer: I do not own Jak, Daxter, Keira, Torn, Ashelin, or any of the characters from the Jak trilogy. I also do not own the song 'Whiskey Lullaby', sung by Brad Paisley and Allison Krauss. I no own, so you no sue!
Whiskey Lullaby
By GundamWingFanatic90
Written: Wednesday, April 8, 2006
Submitted: Wednesday, April 8, 2006
Total time: Approximately 3 hours
A young man walked slowly up onto the stage of the Naughty Ottsel bar, closely followed by a young woman and a small creature.
The man had short, bright green hair that was slightly blonde at the tips, midnight-blue eyes that were clouded with an unreadable emotion, and a small green beard that was the same color as his hair's roots. His skin was tan, and had a weathered look to it; the clothes that covered hard, sculpted muscles were almost obviously made for warmer climates; the armor that shielded his body was legendary. He carried an acoustic bass guitar.
The woman had hair that was a mixture of green and blue, forming a sort of dark aqua color, and her eyes were a brilliant emerald shade. Her pale skin was a gorgeous cream hue, and her clothes spoke of a country-like innocence that was as deceiving as her seemingly frail appearance. Her sad gaze quested through the crowd for a pair that would never be there again as she carried an acoustic guitar onto the stage with her.
The animal was orange with a yellow belly and large, beady, black eyes. He wore green pants, and he glanced up at his two companions as he walked over to the small set of drums that had been set up, patting his larger compatriots on the shins as he passed them.
The man cleared his throat as he came to his microphone, the sound echoing through the full bar. This certainly attracted everyone's attention, and the bar's patrons cheered at the sight of the best band that had ever played in the tavern.
"Yeah! Jak, Keira, Daxter! What're ya gonna play tonight?" some of them asked. At the look on the tallest one's face, they started to quiet down again. Jak, the green-haired man, cleared his throat again to get everyone's attention.
"Everyone, I'd like to make an announcement before we begin our first song for the night." he began. His female companion, Keira, glanced sympathetically over to him before swallowing and looking back out over the crowd. Jak took a deep breath and then continued, "As most of you know, my cousin, Ashelin Praxis, was found dead the morning of last Monday, in her room at the Palace." He gulped inaudibly, licked his lips, and pressed onward. "A couple of years ago, a good friend of ours also passed away. His name was Torn." His voice cracked, and he screwed his face up as he tried to finish what he was saying, to no avail.
"We want to dedicate this first song to them." Keira explained in his silence, reaching over to place a comforting hand on his orange shoulder pauldron. He gave her a grateful smile and then looked back out over the now-silent crowd. He could see their remaining friends sitting in a booth in the back corner, with Jynx and Tess at the bar serving drinks, though they were currently inactive with the lack of demand, the patrons' attention being focused on the group on stage. Jak took a deep breath, swallowed, and then looked back and nodded to the orange creature, Daxter, before doing the same to Keira. She smiled, and started to hit notes on her guitar, a melancholy tune echoing through the tavern. After a few measures, Jak stepped up to his mike, opened his mouth, and began to sing.
"She put him out
Like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette...
She broke his heart...
He spent his whole life tryin' to forget..."
Ashelin had had to leave Torn. She had only confided in Jak and Keira about the truth of her mission. She had to go and pretend to fall in love with another man, one rumored to be the head of a major crime syndicate in Haven, and in the process, broke Torn's heart.
When she told him that she was leaving, he hadn't believed her at first. All that had changed when she and all her things were gone the next morning. After that, he had become a regular at the Naughty Ottsel.
Jak remembered how he always sat with his friend in the evenings, listening to him reminisce about his and Ashelin's relationship. It killed Jak to know that Torn was living up to his namesake over something that the former Channeler was unable to tell him the truth about, unable to do anything but sit there as Torn drowned himself in alcohol and tried to forget about his lost love life.
"We watched him drink his pain away
A little at a time,
But he never could get drunk enough
To get her off his mind...
Until the night..."
Shot after shot, scotch after scotch, Torn had downed any strong alcohol that he was able to get from Daxter. Jak and the others saw what he was doing to himself, but they could do nothing to ease his pain. The only way they could help him was to carry him home at night, after he was so piss-drunk that he couldn't see straight.
He drunk so much that all physical pain died away. He wanted to drink so much that he would be too inebriated to think about the woman that had left him. In a way, Jak hated Ashelin, for hurting Torn like this when she didn't want to; he knew that she had to, however, and so did nothing. He told her of Torn's drinking problem, told her of his concerns. She was unable to do anything, either.
Torn may have tried to drink her away, but he was never capable of doing so. She never left his thoughts, and when Jak helped Torn into his bedroom at nighttime, he could often hear his friend mumbling about Ashelin in a drunken, half-asleep stupor. It made the Eco Demon sick to his stomach with the pain that was reflected in the voice of the dreadlocked commander of the Freedom League, and oftentimes, he nearly had to use the bucket that he set next to Torn's bed for his own purposes before he fought back the bile that rose in his throat.
The last night that Jak half-carried Torn to his bed, he had thought that the Commander would simply pass out and fall asleep like all the other times...
...but this was not the case. Torn must have been even more drunk and depressed than usual.
When he was late for work the next morning, Jak and Keira went to his house to make sure that he wasn't too hung over. What they found was blood, a body, a gun, and a note clenched in his cold hand.
I'll love her 'til I die.
-Torn.
"He put that bottle to his head
And pulled the trigger...
And finally drank away her memory...
Life is short, but this time it was bigger
Than the strength he had to get up off his knees...
"We found him with his face down in the pillow
With a note that said I'll love her till I die
And when we buried him beneath the willow
The angels sang a whiskey lullaby..."
Jak couldn't help it. He felt tears forming in his eyes with the reminiscence of his late friend.
He, Keira, and Daxter had stood there over Torn's body for what seemed like an eternity. There was a half-full bottle of whiskey on the bedside table next to a bottle of aspirin that Jak had set out for his friend the night before to help with his hangover. A gun was on the floor in a pool of Torn's blood, and the man in question was lying face-down on the bed, his head buried in his pillow. His left hand clenched the note that proclaimed his undying love for his girlfriend.
Jak had been the one to break the news to Ashelin, the one to hold her as she sobbed into his tunic until Keira had stepped in and allowed her to soak her white tank top with tears. They had buried Torn underneath a willow tree in Haven Forest, the one where he had taken Ashelin on their first date.
Ashelin had been silent through the whole funeral. Jak had found her that night, passed out at Torn's kitchen table with a bottle of whiskey in her hand.
"La la la la la la la,
La la la la la la la...
"La la la la la la la,
La la la la la la la..."
Keira's voice supported him as he sang the notes to the Angels' lullaby, and then it was her turn as he rested his voice and tried to fight back the tears that he knew were coming.
"The rumors flew,
But nobody knew how much she blamed herself...
For years and years,
She tried to hide the whiskey on her breath..."
Keira's voice sang a sweet, sad melody, a near match to Jak's own as they plucked out the notes on their guitars. As she voiced the lyrics, she took a trip down memory lane.
The rumors of how Torn had died had, indeed, flown. Some people said that he had been murdered by one of the former Baron's supporters. Others said that he had had trouble at work and it had been too much for him. Still more wondered if it had been caused by some form of heartbreak. These last ones hadn't known how correct they were, but they had not been right in thinking that Ashelin had no regrets about it.
She blamed herself for Torn's death, even more so than her friends and family knew. Only Torn would have been able to tell, but he was not around anymore to warn the others of her impending self-destruction.
Keira knew that during the day, Ashelin had tried to hide the scent of whiskey that lingered on her breath. She always took great care to brush her teeth and use mouthwash, but Keira was so accustomed to the smell of the alcohol that she was able to detect it even under the odor of mint and oranges. In the evenings, however, Ashelin could be found at the Naughty Ottsel, downing shot after shot of Torn's favorite poison.
In the end, Keira had begun to go out with Ashelin, seek the woman out in the evenings at the only bar in the city. Jak often came along with her, and the two of them and Tess listened as she poured out her heart to them in an attempt to ease her pain. It never worked.
"She finally drank her pain away
A little at a time,
But she never could get drunk enough
To get him off her mind...
Until the night..."
Ashelin had drunk herself silly every night for two years, ever since that fateful day when Jak had given her the news that Torn had committed suicide. It appeared that she and Torn were more alike than they had known, however. She may have always gotten drunk off her rocker, but when Jak and Keira escorted her home at night, they always had to endure the pain that her mumblings about Torn were laced with. Once, Keira had even broken down into tears as soon as the two of them had left Ashelin's home and entered the bedroom of their own. Jak had held her and kept his own tears at bay until she had fallen asleep.
Torn and Ashelin were even alike in the manner that they were found and they had killed themselves.
His picture, the only one that they had managed to get of him while he was smiling, was clutched to her bosom and plastered with blood.
"She put that bottle to her head,
And pulled the trigger...
And finally drank away his memory...
Life is short, but this time it was bigger
Than the strength she had to get up off her knees...
"We found her with her face down in the pillow,
Clinging to his picture for dear life...
We laid her next to him beneath the willow
While the angels sang a whiskey lullaby..."
Keira closed her eyes as her voice escalated into a high note, her fingers deftly plucking the strings of her guitar as Jak's own instrument hummed along with her own. Tears coursed down her cheeks, but she did not allow them to influence her voice.
Usually, when a girl committed suicide, they did it in a non-violent manner, usually choosing to overdose on pills or hang themselves. It was not so in this case.
It seemed so long ago, and yet not, that they had gone to investigate Ashelin's uncharacteristic tardiness with a growing sense of dread, only to find that she was lying face-down in her pillow, a picture of Torn gripped tightly in cold, unmoving fingers. A gun laid on the floor next to her bed in a pool of her own blood. It was clear what had transpired.
Keira had run out of the room to vomit into the sink before promptly collapsing on the floor in tears.
Jak was shocked out of his mind.
He had been the one to make the announcement of the Governess' death to the city.
Haven City had been stunned at the news, before a great wail of grief rose up and rebounded off of the buildings and echoing into the desert.
Jak and Keira hated them all for this, for crying for a person that they did not really know. How could they try to sympathize with Ashelin's friends, who knew her better than anyone out there? How dare they pity Keira and the rest, who had stood by the Governess' side through everything?
The funeral had been a small private one. This time, Jak and Keira were the ones who were silent through the whole ceremony.
As they laid Ashelin's body to rest next to Torn's, Keira could have sworn that she saw the two lovers dancing together underneath the blooming willow tree, looking more free and happy than they had ever looked in life.
They had been the ones to listen as the angels sang a whiskey lullaby.
"La la la la la la la,
La la la la la la la..."
Keira sang the notes as loudly and clearly as she could through the tightening in her throat, Jak's voice quietly backing her up. Once done, she played the notes on her guitar, and then her lover repeated the chords with his voice while she supported him with her own voice.
"La la la la la la la,
La la la la la la la..."
He played the notes on his bass guitar, and then they sang the last few measures of the song. Jak swore he saw two familiar dreadlocked faces smiling at him as he glanced over at one of the back booths. He blinked, and they were gone.
"La la la la la la la,
La la la la la la la...
"La la la la la la la,
La la la la la la la..."
'Torn, Ashelin... I hope you're happy... We all miss you. We'll never forget you, and I'll try to do a good job in your stead. Goodbye...'
-:- OWARI -:-
Argh, I can't believe I did that... The damn song got stuck in my head and wouldn't leave me alone and then I got a plot bunny... It was originally going to be from Daxter's point of view with Jak and Keira being the focus of the song, but then I thought that Jak and Keira don't seem like the type to commit suicide, so... Torn and Ashelin, on the other hand... Yeah.
Sorry if anyone was or seemed OOC.
If you didn't figure it out, the last sentence at the end was supposed to be Jak's thoughts. Basically, he's going to try to run Haven in Ashelin's stead, and Keira's going to take over Torn's position as head of the Freedom League.
Anyone who's a real TornxAshelin fan, I'm sorry that it was so sad. I even nearly cried while I wrote it! (okay, maybe not, but I can say it, can't I?)
Anyone who's a fan of JakxAshelin or TornxKeira, I'm really surprised that you read this far. Personally, those pairings are on my hate list...
To everyone who's read this far, please read and review. This is my first posted Jak and Daxter fic, and I'd like to know your honest opinions. Constructive criticism and praise are appreciated, and flames will be accepted and read before being fed to the Metal-Pedes that live in the black hole under my bed.
Please note that this is a one-shot, and while I may write more of them in the future, this is a stand-alone fic, and will not have a sequel, prequel, or anything of the sort.
Hope you liked it!
-Fanatic