A/N: Noooo. AUUGGGGGGH. This chapter freaks me out ;o; I'm really sorry to be so mean to Dax. Honest. This should be rated, like, mature plusplusplusplusxxxxx, and then a little angry face at the end.

IMSORRY. Jak isn't really evil. Really.

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SIX

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Days went on: Doc's advice on nixing booze kept me a bit cheerier in the daytime, and a bit less horrified for my life in the darkness, 'cos Mar's pad was still my second (nocturnal) home. Dark Eco radiation or none, it wasn't somethin' you could easily float away from, y'know? I'd find a way to deal with turning into an eco-fueled, pissy purple people eater, I thought. Maybe that way I'd be a match for the guy, huh?

But, okay: so, one of the downsides of practically moving in with someone? My stuff migrated there, and tended to stick. I was always leavin' one thing or another on Mar's bed, or under it (Precursors, that night was weirder than most…), or whatever, so I had to trudge back to get it more often than not. Loveable bastard sure wouldn't bring it to me, and like hell I'd let him inside my rat-motel of a pad. Ugh.

This could also be used as an excuse to drop by his house, or so I've learned. I mean, hey, I was entitled enough as it was, I didn't think I needed an excuse, but…

God almighty, I wish I'd just left it. Wish I'd just waited 'till another freakin' time.

I was already through the front door at our usual time, peeking around for any sign of the live-ins, when a shriek sounded through a closed door to my right. A shriek.

I nearly popped clean out of my skin at that, more so when it was answered by a roar. Wild fantasies of the Spargian zoo breaking out of the room and trampling me flat retreated in seconds, and fear didn't stop me from inching closer once I figured out the sounds were very, very human. Damn me, I've never been able to resist watching any kind of fight, and I approached the door with a pounding heart, moving until the almighty uproar segued into actual words--

"-can't blame him for it, Mar!"

"Shut up!"

"You can't blame him for it!"

I almost sighed. It was just him and his little sister. They were at it again, tossing verbal daggers back and forth. My ear touched the door.

It was none of my business, I knew that, but maybe it was just like gaping at a train wreck. You just couldn't stop. Maybe it was 'cos, even as the more I learned, the less I liked… I had to know. About him. Anything.

"Are you fucking out of your mind?! I can blame him for everything!" The voice of Mar lashed out, dark and vicious, instantly freezing the blood in my wrists. "My father died because of him!"

"Daddy didn't crash the buggy!"

"He should've been there to do it in person! You know it; you know it! He sent my father out on a crackpot run to get something that didn't even exist, and he never made it back. My father trusted him, and all he got for it was his death--"

"Mar, we've… we've been over this so many times!" Keira's voice gave a hysterical waver, but then hardened with poison and conviction, with what she knew to be a stab in the dark. "Daddy took you in. It was… an apology, to say sorry, he was so sorry but he didn't have to--"

"He took me in!? To do what? Ruin what life I had left?!" Mar demanded, now screaming at her. I knew he was clenching something, trying not to hit her. "Shut up! Your father used me, just like he used Dad!"

She stopped. Stuttered. Oh god, the lull, the nauseating, guilty pause--

"E... eco is his life, and… you know you showed the biggest reaction to it he'd seen in a long time; he didn't mean it to go that far! He just wanted a little bit of information, just a little, he didn't… want it to turn into a--"

"Into what!? An addiction? Where… where I can't fucking put one foot in front of the other without hitting up on a solid kil of Darkroot before going out? Where it hurts so bad when I don't shoot up, it feels like my skull is ripping apart?! Where… where I can't even go out in the daytime anymore, 'cos the sunlight'd burn my fucking eyes out!? A vampire, a freak?!" He heaved a breath, drew back and screamed again—"This is what he turned me into, Keira, this is what I am!"

I'd frozen. Just… stopped, palms flat against the door, listening to that howl come ripping out of him. Keira cried out to stop him from… hating, from wanting to kill, but it wasn't going to work.

He was in too much pain.

"He didn't mean it that way. Daddy didn't do the worst of it! He tried to get you out of there, before they could… make it worse! He tried, but we just didn't have the money, you know that! We talked to the council and everything! We tried!"

I could almost hear their heartbeats in the silence. There wasn't a sound—not a stir—until Keira stuttered, subdued and pleading.

"I… I mean it, Jak. Daddy loves you."

"Don't call me by that name," he snapped back, so quickly, so lethally it made the hair stand up along my arms. He stopped, as he so often did, then snarled it without mercy: "Don't you dare call me that, you bitch!"

She wasn't really listening. She just said, achingly quiet:

"I love you, Jak. Daddy loves you too." She paused, and a malaise seemed to waft from it: a flinty, masochistic sting as she waited for him to take the bait. "I'm sorry we ruined your life."

"Get out."

I could feel her wide eyes. But he slapped her with his voice again, mercilessly.

"Get out. Now."

She took a few steps, then ran. Ran out and out somewhere back in the room, slamming the door behind her. No more sounds. I soaked it in with a hollow feeling, completely forgetting where I was, only thinking silence meant safety. Until I realized with a horrible cold start that, after that savage episode, I didn't know where Mar was, and that was a dangerously important thing to know right then—and just as I thought it, Mar ripped open the door.

"Holy-!"

I practically flipped away, slamming into the opposite wall, but his fist snaked out to grab the neck of my shirt, yanking hard. I gave a breathy gasp, and was jerked up face to face with Mar's livid blue eyes.

What are you doing here, why were you listening, the questions went on and on-- everything he could throw at me that I was incapable of answering without a helpless shrug. Shrugs wouldn't satisfy this guy! I shouldn't have listened; I know that! Just lemme go, for the love of god!

I shook silently, waiting for him to slam down on me, to hurt me somehow, but he just snorted real softly, eyes burning into me.

"How long have you been there?" He demanded, giving me a little rattle-- like I wouldn't fess up! I wiggled in his grip, trying to look like he wasn't choking me as much as he actually was.

"U-uh, like, just now!" I stumbled, half-pleading, willing my eyes as wide as they would go. Innocence, fear, anything to get outta his hands!

His eyes narrowed, thin lips hiking disdainfully. I choked.

"I just g-got here, I swear to god! I swear it!"

Did this guy even recognize a plea for mercy?!

He just looked at me for a second, then swung me into the hallway, battered me through a series of closed doors (I groaned as I hit them, head slapping on each, he didn't care) and then into his dark, clean room. He slammed the door, never letting go of my shirt. I could feel the pissed pink on the back of my neck, and was just about to whine about it when he dragged me closer, and I could smell that stuff on his breath, fleshy and dark. Angry.

"Do you want to fuck?" He hissed suddenly, and the anger was just a want of violence now, his eyes lighting up dangerously and singing mine. I winced, pulled away, my hands scrabbling up his meaty wrists. He was pulsing, all of him, and he shook me again when I swallowed my tongue, gods, couldn't answer--

"I said, do you want to fuck?!"

"U-uh, y-yeah, sure!" I barked it, hysterically, eyes shut, still worming in his grip, arching as I just said it. Just yes to anything he wanted, yes. Yes, yes, whatever, be the fucking bobble-head and maybe you'll get outta this alive—

"Good." He breathed it, feral like he didn't mean it, like all of it was just a formality. He was gonna do it anyways.

My heart was hammering in my chest as he let me go-- let me go and let me stumble to my knees-- only to haul me up again at the waist, bruising everywhere he could reach.

I wasn't even hard; I wasn't feeling any of it, I was so damn scared. He was gonna kill me.

My pants first, the buckles undone with some kind of stumbling familiarity and yanked down my hips, zipper zinging angrily. Then his, pants pooled around his knees, he turned me around, pushed his legs behind mine and made me stumble.

It was all a blur. Mar bent me over the bed, elbow hard against my back, my hips in the air. I heard the lid click open and him cuss as it dribbled down my leg, chill and wet. I felt sicker than I ever had, cringing and shoving my cheek into the sheets as he hung himself over me, stifling a growl as he shoved in, thick and sudden. Just lay there as he clenched hold of my hips and did it, skin slapping wetly, zipper scratching my thighs, squeaking the bed.

It was mindless. I just took it, breathing sharply with my eyes closed. Sobbed through my teeth when he finished, and shook me, wrenching his caveman fingers into my skin.

I felt inches from retching as he rolled off of me, breathing hard through his nose, my back sticky with his sweat. I crumpled, gagged, lashed out at the nauseous confusion as I burned from head to toe, curling up for a second and trying to keep my gasps from cracking into something like a sob-- then just bent down, shivering, and tugged my pants up.

Tried to get ahold of myself, leaning heavily on the dark, clean, ready-made bed.

Hold it, just fucking hold it, you're safe. That's all that matters, you're safe, breathing, whatever. The hysteria was dying down, every breath wasn't a hiccup. It's over, he got what he wanted, everything's dandy. I mean, what was that? Just sex. Just a bit of a fuck. It's fine, no worries. Calm the fuck down.

Heard him refasten his pants.

Time ticked on like a bomb, and I sat down gingerly on the bed, not knowing what the hell else to do in this gouged-out silence with its dry heartbeats. What, run? Make small talk?

Making conversation was the farthest from my mind as I felt the wetness inch up my thighs. Sickness, sickness; the last seven minutes was pounding on my hollow skull, begging to be let in or out. Needed something to break the silence, but hell if it was gonna be me. Luckily, loveable, caring, gentle old Mar wiped any social demands clean from my plate by stalking over to a cabinet against the wall, ramming it open, snatching out a bottle of hard gin and throwing it back like he hadn't had water for days. But this water was a little riper than most.

Oh well. At least he was keeping himself busy.

…I suddenly wanted to vomit again. It wasn't just watching him; it was just being around him. My hand clapped to my mouth and my head was full of hot echoes again.

I could'a pinned him for rape. I knew that.

Every reason was there, point blank. No interpretation required, none of that fence-sitter, dodgy moral stuff. Cut and dry. I didn't want it, he did it.

Half the Krimzon guard would'a kissed me if I had turned him in. They'd even ignore the fact that there are men out there that aren't screwing women, which the higher-ups don't like to think about. They like little things like rape cases: makes it seem like they're doin' somethin', when there's a huge drug ring goin' on underway that they don't dare lay a finger on. Big guy named Krew heads it-- and he's big in the 'Establishment', even though everyone knows he'd palm weed off to a three-year-old if he had the cash. So the KG like to be all 'moral' and help the people. It's those little things, y'know. Those lovely little excuses.

'Coulda turned him in.

But I didn't. And I have no idea why.

Maybe it was the bitch-fest I'd heard. Maybe it was the pure fact of what Mar had to do every day. Maybe I was just scared spitless that he'd come after me. All of those could'a worked.

Because… I was plenty scared of him. Honest. But Mar really was hooked. He was a druggie. That eco-root shit was his mainstay--but bowing out meant getting knocked out of the running. If he didn't take this stuff—this horrible, rage-fuelling poison--he was dead. Dead.

I shivered again, trying to scrounge up anything besides hollow, restless nervousness. My insides were drying and peeling off in grey, nauseated sheets. Maybe that's what it would feel like, having to lean so bad on somethin' that your life depended on it. No rest. A tombstone always waiting around the corner.

Maybe that's why I didn't turn him in. Just 'cos he didn't need anymore problems.

'Cos maybe what he just did… shut up, I know it happened—I know—but maybe it… wasn't his fault. Maybe.

But even if I didn't call an abuse hotline, I still wanted to get out of there. It was the first thing on my mind, even as he dragged me into the room. And even though I can't imagine trotting on home and sitting there, trying to be normal, after this… again, there was that feeling. Y'know, like I didn't have permission to leave.

I just gave up, wondering just how screwed we all were in life, how utterly fucked I was, and flopped back on the mattress with a whiny little (pain-sharpened) sigh, but he choked.

"No, wait. Don't… go to sleep. Yet."

Woah. Color me shocked. That actually sounded like less than a command. … It also rallied my emotional, vomity urges into one horrible desensitization-fighting force. I hated hearing his voice.

"Awright, awright, whaddya want?"

I heaved myself up by my elbows, rolling my eyes. With my normal attitude hitting me unexpectedly in the gut, I suddenly wanted—needed--to sob and cry, like a dozen dirty needles to the throat, then shut my squalling inner child up as he came over.

He sat down next to me, hands shaking. I flinched.

Then he grabbed my hand like he was afraid to do it and bent in low to my neck. I kept waiting for a kiss, not knowing if I could stomach the taste of him after all that shit, but it never popped up. I never convulsed. He just sat there, lulled onto my shoulder, and when he finally did plant one on me, it was on my cheek. On my cheek, and soft and needy and everything that wasn't Mar.

"You could've said no." He muttered it.

Fuck, I thought dully—viciously. And be sent outta here in a stretcher?

But I knew it, knew it even as I hated the fact that he had the guts, that it was a graceless little apology. An apology. Foreign as anything, fucktard didn't even know the meaning of the word. I was probably the first person he'd apologized to in years, so he was a literal corpse at it.

I wondered if I could make myself care enough to shrug, but before I could try it, his arms wound around me and he hugged me close, pressing another kiss to my cheek. My heart started pounding again, short and hard and sucking at my ribcage, for reasons very much to do with a blinding fear of the man and what'd just happened and what might happen again, but it had a rival: his heart. It was rattling in his throat; you could tell he was trying to rein it in, breathing real stiff and steady. He was jittering worse'n anything, stinking of gin, eyes wild. Obviously shook up by the whole ordeal. Well, that made two of us.

Wordlessly, he let me down onto the mattress, arms still close and strong, curling his legs up after I was settled.

And for the first time, we actually slept together.

I mean, Y'know, slept. As in, snoozed. No screwing. Just dropping off to sleep, breathing slow and syrupy, my cheek pillowed on his shoulder. Don't know how I could've trusted him enough to do it-- gods, I just don't know, what with my crumpled body still feverishly damp and his breath in my ear, but I dropped off real quick. And he didn't kick me out afterwards. That night, I could'a sworn to hell and below that something was different.

But I came to in the morning, and Mar was AWOL. Made me think it was just a dream. He was the gloriously pointed asshole as always when he came back, and seemingly without a hangover, so all was normal.

And so, life trudged on.

Never turned him in.