AN: *grabs Sig* GET THE VIDEO CAMERA!
Sig: *groans* Get Torn or someone to do the damned video camera
RB: *kicks him* NOW!
Sig: *holds his leg* Ow, ow! Fine! *mumble mumble* Bitch. *he gets the camera and turns it on, pointing it toward the girls*
RB: WELCOME TO CHAPTER II OF OUR FIIIIC! *dances around joyously*
PC: *sweatdrop* Took us long enough to get it up.
RB: (achuwie, now DeusExDream ): that's cause we were out of film!
PC: Yeah, well...uh...Disclaimer?
Jak: *dully* They don't own jack shit. Just the plot.
PC: -_-;; Thanks.
DED (previously RB): *kicks Jak in the head*
*~*~*
After the Fall of Angelsby Past and Future (AKA Phoe-chan and DeusExDream, respectively)
Chapter II: Who Needs Sleep?*~*~*
Who needs sleep?
Well, you're never gonna get it.
Who needs sleep?
Tell me what's that for?
Who needs sleep?
Be happy with what you're getting,
There's guys been awake since the second world war.
*~*~*
London, 1999
Jak Hallowell sighed and rolled over, half asleep. He laid in his bed on the tenth floor of a studio apartment complex in the heart of London. Granted, he didn't need sleep, for demons do not need such trifle things as humans do, but he wanted a nap. 200 years without sleep can really rack up on a person's nervous system. However, it seemed Fate was not agreeing with him today.
Just as Jak was drifting into a somewhat peaceful sleep, there was a crash.
Check that. More like...the sound of one's door being slammed open.
'Oh, God...' Jak silently cursed, gritting his teeth.
"HONEY! I'M HO-OME!"
"GO AWAY, DAXTER! I'M TRYING TO BLOODY SLEEP!"
Daxter quirked a brow from his place standing in the threshold and dropped his bags.
He approached Jak's bedroom door, only to have it swing open and smack him in the forehead. He gave a gurgled shout and dropped to the floor, holding his head. Jak looked down at his companion disdainfully, an eyebrow twitching.
"Don't you ever knock?" he asked darkly. A rather wolfish looking grin crossed Daxter's face and he stood.
"Knocking is something that happens to other people!" Jak growled and sat down on his couch, rubbing his temples. He knew demons couldn't get headaches, but he had something that felt a lot like one. Daxter walked over to Jak's bar and pulled out a Jack Daniels. Jak looked at it oddly. He was pretty sure he didn't stick any Jack Daniels in there. "And besides- you don't need any sleep! Why, I didn't sleep for five hundred years after I became a demon!"
In response to that, Jak gave the bottle of J.D. a nasty look and it shattered into pieces. Daxter yelped and dropped it in surprise. He then quickly looked back at Jak.
"I'm not cleaning that up." Jak growled evilly at his long time companion, then glanced around.
"Daxter, where is Deliri?" he asked. Daxter's eyes bugged comically and he looked back and forth. Jak's eyes also bugged and he jumped to his feet, now fully awake. "Bloody hell! Daxter! You let the kid out of your sight for even a minute?" Daxter gave him a conflicted and angry look.
It was about that moment that Deliri skipped in, looking rather cheerful. Both gave a large sigh of relief. The first thing Jak did was look at Daxter questionably at Deliri's choice of clothes today- a fishnet long-sleeved shirt, fishnet stockings, and a white t-shirt WAY to big for the small girl. Daxter looked into his younger sister's mismatched eyes. She just beamed up at him happily.
"Where'd you go, Del? I told you to stay. By. Me."
"I went downstairs!" she responded cheerfully. "And the lady downstairs has a meany dog, but I took care of him!" Jak and Daxter exchanged worried looks.
"What did you do to Bruiser, Deliri?" Jak asked gently. He didn't want to upset the demon girl. The last time that happened, she burst into exactly a hundred and eleven tiny, colored fish and flew around Daxter's manor for four hours while he and Daxter tried to catch her. Deliri smiled cheerfully again and spun around on her toes happily.
"I gave him happy little... um... fluttery... thingy-ma-jiggers," she explained. As she spoke, her hair went curly and turned electric green. Jak and Daxter shared almost identical horrified looks.
"WINGS?" Deliri bounced happily in the hair, clapping her hands in joy.
"Yeah! Yeah! Them things! Now the doggie is all happy-joy-happy!" she cheered. Daxter sighed and hung his head and defeat.
Jak shook his head and mouthed "It's your fault."
Daxter glared, but shrugged. "Just one more abnormality for the police to get baffled on."
Deliri bounced in the room, spinning in circles around Daxter. The latter looked up to his friend. "So what did you do while we were gone?"
Jak shrugged. "Brooded. Sulked. Watched some rugby on the telly. The usual."
Daxter rolled his eyes. "Man! You need to get out more. C'mon let's go clubbing tonight!"
"And leave your sister here unattended? I think not."
"I'll get someone to baby-sit her!"
"Like who?" Jak inquired, brow arched and arms folded.
"Um..." Daxter put a finger to his chin in thought. "Rune can take care of her!" he burst out suddenly, speaking of his girlfriend's demon cousin. Both were ice demons and were a little stronger than Daxter. Jak lifted an eyebrow.
"Roe's cousin? Do you remember what happened last time? She froze Deliri in a block of ice!" Deliri immediately halted in her bouncing and looked up at Daxter.
"I don't like ice, Daxxie!" she whined. Daxter slapped his forehead and leered evilly at Jak. But Jak merely smiled as innocently as a demon could at his friend. "Don't make the meeeean lady freeze me again, Daxxie!" With a tug on his shirt sleeve, she looked at him imploringly. Daxter sighed. He really was weak under a girl's puppy dog eyes.
"It's not like I can let Roe baby-sit her," he muttered. "I guess you get to come, Deliri." Deliri's eyes got big with shock and a really goofy grin spread across her face. With a happy giggle, she burst into butterflies, then pulled herself back together. She then spun around and stared giggling and dancing, trailing the occasional fish. Jak looked at Daxter like he was absolutely and utterly out of his mind. But he decided not to voice his opinions because it was utterly pointless to try.
"So, oh most intelligent one," he began, sarcasm dripping from each word, "where do you intend to haul my most unfortunate carcass this evening?" Daxter glared at Jak, who just glared right back.
"Roe's got a friend who can get us invites to some really fancy shindig tonight."
Jak arched a brow. "Oh, really?"
Daxter nodded, rubbing his hands together. "Her friend's singing at it or something so she can invite her own guests. She asked Roe to come and bring a few friends. The girl's new around here, I think, so she doesn't know that many people."
Meanwhile, Deliri had ambled into the kitchen and had found the silverware, pulling it out so she could play with it. Daxter looked up to see the girl spinning around with silver utensils spiraling around her. "Deliri! Put the silverware down!"
Immediately the girl came to a halt and pouted while all the utensils fell to the floor with a crash. Jak sighed, massaging his temples. "So… How about telling me a bit more about this party…"
Daxter shrugged and meandered into the kitchen, picking up the fallen utensils.
"There isn't much else to it. I think it's just some rich dude who owns a ballroom flaunting his money. I hear it's for charity, but I doubt that. It is, though, dressy." Jak stepped into the doorway of his kitchen and lifted an eyebrow.
"So this means you actually have to dress like a civil person, Dax?" Daxter shot him a withering glare (and a middle finger).
"Shut up, you stinkin' snob," Daxter muttered. Jak crossed his arms.
"How is it that you act so American, but you're a demon. Demons, and angels, don't have a nationality." Daxter would have spoken, if not for the fact that the fork in his hand turned into a brightly colored frog. "You know what? Never mind. You need to figure out a way to cover up our reflections that don't involve painful incantations." Daxter hissed at him and turned the frog back into a fork.
"Deliri- what did I tell you about turning things into frogs?"
"Don't do it, especially if it's flowers or sharp things," Deliri recited with boredom. Daxter nodded and pat her head. "OH! We needa go home and I can get all dressy and it'll be cool cause I found these neat glitzy thingies a few years ago so I'd have something purdy to wear to a fancy place!" Deliri then took a breath from her run-on sentence and nearly began again before Daxter silenced her.
Daxter sighed and reached for his cell phone. "Let me make a few calls…"
*~*~*
Jak stood in front of the mirror, adjusting the jacket of his tuxedo. It was kind of annoying because his eyes kept wandering back to his horns. 'What if someone seems my reflection? How the bloody hell am I going to explain that? Daxter better think of something smart, this time…'
Jak pursed his lips sourly at the last time Daxter had dragged him out of the house. It was almost two decades ago…
:: New York, 1982 ::
Jak sighed and followed his best friend through the crowded streets towards the club Daxter had conned Jak into coming to. The fire demon turned and grinned a very condoning grin to his best friend. "They say this is the funkiest dig in town, man!"
Jak rolled his eyes, but followed his companion, who was dressed in bell-bottoms and a silver shirt. Topping his outfit was a head full of slicked-back hair.
Jak, himself, had "pegged"* pants and a ruffled shirt, his own hair sticking straight up. The two blended in nicely with the crowd. Just as Daxter and Jak stepped into the club, they were met with the smell of alcohol and smoke.
And a very bad surprise.
"Daxter! The whole damned place is mirrored!" Jak hissed, staring at the many mirrored tiles, covering the ceiling, walls and floors. Daxter gulped and stared at his reflection. "Damn, this isn't good…"
:: :: ::
Jak shook his head, ridding himself of the memory. They had been lucky that most of the people were too wasted to really notice. Needless to say, Jak hadn't been clubbing since.
Sighing to himself, Jak fiddled with the high neck of his outfit, frowning. Something was missing…
Oh, yeah. His hair.
Jak grabbed a comb and began to fix the mangled blonde tresses that fell about his head, giving him a very sexy, untamed appeal. Parting his hair, Jak pulled the long strands into a small ponytail at the base of his head, a few wisps falling out and into his face. 'Good enough.' Jak mused.
Just then he heard a knock at the door. "Jak! Jak, it's me, Roe!"
Jak recognized the alto British voice as Roe's and walked out of his room to get the door. 'I guess everyone's meeting at my place…'
Jak opened the door to see the ice demon standing there with a box. "I have something for you to wear tonight, Jak."
Jak arched a brow and stepped back, letting Roe in. She looked amazing in her outfit of a silver dress that clung nicely to her small frame. Her blonde and ice blue hair had been pulled back into a mess of curls and pretty clips and her violet eyes were accented with a set of rectangular framed glasses. Roe was an ice demon and stayed with the cooler colors of the spectrum. It was quite an odd pairing since Daxter was a fire demon, but the two had been dating for forty years.
Roe was an artist, and often nearly broke compared to Daxter's sum of money saved over the past three millennia, however she had connections.
She stood in front of Jak's mirror, which reflected her true self, pale blue skin, white hair and icy spikes jutting out from her shoulder blades and upper back. Reaching in the box, she slipped on a silver amulet with a pearly stone and immediately, her reflection was human. "There are three amulets just like it, the golden one with the onyx is for you, Jak."
Jak fished around in the box for the specific amulet. Finding it, he slipped it on and tucked it under his shirt. Turning to his now human reflection, he grinned darkly. "Roe, I owe you one."
"You sure do," Roe mumbled, and waltzed out, smirking. Jak rolled his eyes and gave his human reflection a final glance, then followed her.
In his living room was Daxter, leaned against the wall, smirking at his girlfriend. He then wrapped his arms around her waist and placed an affectionate kiss in the hollow of her neck. Roe giggled softly and kissed him. Jak nearly gagged.
"Get a room," he muttered, too quiet for Daxter and Roe to hear.
"Lookin' sharp, Jak!" Daxter said. Jak nodded his thanks and looked at Daxter's clothes. Daxter himself wasn't in a tux, but more along the lines of a suit. It was black pants with a dark, wine red shirt. Over that was a black blazer. Daxter never wore ties because he claimed that it gave him bad memories of when they tried to hang him during the Spanish Inquisition. Jak looked around for a moment.
"Oh god, where's Deliri?" he asked, fearing she was giving the dog downstairs some other unneeded pieces of anatomy.
"I'M RIGHT HEEEEERE!" screeched the girl's voice. Everyone turned to the door leading to the bathroom to see Deliri standing there. Jak stared at her choice of formal attire. She wore her usual fishnet shirt and stockings, but she also wore a big, pink ballet skirt and a black, sequined shirt... And combat boots. Her hair lead to the floor and was bright red... And only half her hair was like that. The other half was in a buzz cut. Her makeup was bright blue eye shadow reaching her eyebrows, and bright pink lipstick.
"You're really going to let her leave like that?" Jak asked, raising an eyebrow. Daxter sighed and hung his head.
"That's as good as you're gonna get, bub." Deliri bounded over to them, still trailing butterflies.
"Do I look pretty!?" Roe smiled affectionately down at Deliri and nodded.
"You look very pretty, Del," Roe said. Deliri squealed happy, looked ready to burst into butterflies again, but quickly calmed herself. She didn't want to ruin her dress. "So who's car are we taking?" Jak smirked and grabbed up the keys to his Mercedes.
"Mine."
*~*~*
Jak drove down the road at a swift pace, eager to hurry up and get to the party. It wasn't the party he was looking forward to, but rather, he was getting sick of Roe and Daxter making out in the back seat. "Will you two bloody cut it out?!"
Deliri nodded, strapped in on the passenger's side of the car. "Cut it out! Cut it out!" She chanted, while playing with a glow-in-the-dark slinky. It wasn't night time quite yet, but for some odd reason, the slinky was glowing very brightly.
Daxter turned his attention to Jak. "You really need to get a lay to loosen up, buddy. My cousin knows a really hot chaos demon who would just love—"
"Finish that sentence and I swear to Praxis I will tell Deliri why steams comes out from under your bedroom door when Roe and you are in there."
Everyone except Jak stopped what they were doing. Roe blushed a deep crimson and Daxter cursed quietly, removing his hands from around her waist. Deliri looked wide-eyed at Jak. "I thought you said they were playing twister!"
"Twister?" Daxter inquired, arching a brow. Jak sweatdropped. "Um, well… you know… some of the positions and stuff…"
"You're a sick, sick man," Daxter replied, before shouting, "Oh! This is the place! BRAKE! BRAKE!"
Jak hit the brakes, screeching to a stop in front of a beautiful mansion with tall iron-wrought gates. "Next time, a little warning would be nice."
Just then, the passenger's airbag inflated.
"DELIRI!"
"I didn't do it!"
*~*~*
"One scratch and I will personally make you wish you'd never been born," Jak hissed evilly. And the bus boy knew he meant it. He then skittered off to park the car, terrified beyond all belief. Jak watched him go and smirked, laughing softly. He joined his friends on the steps leading to the manor. Daxter crossed his arm and lifted an eyebrow.
"You enjoy that entirely too much," he muttered. Jak just kept on smiling and walked through the massive gates. As they continued through the main entrance hall, other rich people gabbed on about their social lives, only stopping to stare at Deliri's wild outfit. There was a screech and Daxter, Roe, and Jak all whirled around. Someone had stepped on Deliri's floor length hair. And that caused it to turn bright green. Daxter's eyes nearly bugged out of his head and he left go of Roe's arm to go help Deliri out.
There was a moment of apology, a moment of forgiving, and a moment of Deliri turning the man's wine to bugs. Then, with a satisfied grin, Deliri waltzed away, leaving the rich man utterly horrified.
"Did you really have to do that?" Daxter asked. He didn't seem amused at ALL. Deliri stopped and turned to Daxter.
"I've seen you do much worse."
Jak rolled his eyes, quickly moving away from Daxter and Deliri. If he had to go to a party he was going to stay as far away from them as possible. Daxter put his arm around Deliri's shoulders and directed her away from the crowd.
The crowd returned to their chatter, but one man turned to his companion and inquired, "Funny, I do say that the longer side of her hair was on the left, not the right…"
Daxter sweatdropped. "Del! You switched your hair!"
"Oops…"
Jak watched from near the foods, picking up a glass of wine and taking a sip. He looked at Roe to see her waving Daxter over. With his acute hearing, he could hear her excited voice from across the room. "Hurry! They're about to announce my friend's entrance!"
Jak turned his attention to the platform set up for someone to sing. Roe had never mentioned this 'friend' before. He arched a brow as the lights began to dim. A man walked on stage and leaned into the microphone. "Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight we have a very special treat for you. Please welcome song artist, Keira Hagai!"
To Be Continued…
*~*~*
PC: Wee! Second Chapter Written! No individual thanks since some of our reviews got deleted. And to Natasha: If you don't like it, don't read. This fic is for our enjoyment, we're not writing for a grade, you know? Not trying to be mean but, really, c'mon!
DED: Yeah, anyway, thanks for the other 10 or so reviewers who were pleased with the fic-ness.
*DED and PC burst into lots of fish and swim away from 'Bane's wrath.* Review!!!!!
~Past and Future ("Life is but a dream!")