Author's note: Huh. The language seems to get much harsher later on than I usually do it, so I guess a warning is in order. Then again, there'll be lots and lots and lots of reasons to cuss, so bear with the boys. Thus ends the shameless waving of the red flag.
Chapter 3, Dream a little dream of peace
Keira rounded the corner and sped down the harbor, as soon as the door to the shooting range came into view taking a sharp turn and swerving her zoomer to a violent halt. Ignoring the shouts about lunacy and impressed whistles from the few pedestrians and workers that had noticed all of her madness, she hopped off the vehicle and headed inside.
Removing the goggles even let her see properly.
"Hey Keira," came a bright, female voice from the other end of the room.
The mechanic waved as she headed over to the command board seated in the wall beside the gun course entrance.
"Morning, Tess," she said.
She looked at the closed doors, hearing the distinct sound of gunfire from inside.
"Jak's in there, I take it?"
"Yep," Tess said, nodding.
She reached into her blond locks with a fuzzy paw and scratched her head.
"Looked like he had seen a ghost, too," she said, "Daxie tried to explain, but Jak wanted to get to the action immediately."
"Of course…"
Sighing softly, Keira leant forwards to check on Jak's progress on the security screen. It was hard to see what was going on in there with all the confetti filling the air, but it looked like he was forcing Daxter to hang on for dear life.
"What's wrong with him this time?" Tess said, leaning her thin form back against the wall.
She tilted her head and sent Keira a sympathetic glance.
"His father again?" she asked.
"No, wumpbees."
There was a pause.
"What?"
Keira gave the female, perplexed ottsel a pained look.
"One thing about Jak that people generally don't know," the mechanic said, "never, ever talk about wumpbees around him. He doesn't like that."
This was pondered for a moment, until Tess came to the conclusion that she really did not want to know. She shook her head and looked back to the screen.
"Rrright, whatever. I'll remember that."
A small smile grazed Keira's lips, despite the mild worry for Jak.
Tess tilted her head.
"Hey, Keira," the blond ottsel said, "you've got something here."
She moved her own hand to her- err, cheek, or something similar.
"Huh? Oh thank- crap."
Keira removed her hand from her cheek after a quick rub, feeling the slick blackness clog itself to her fingertips. This was what she got for scrambling from the area beneath a new model of a zoomer and speed off without even stopping to check her face in a mirror. Motor oil all over.
And in that position she stood, glaring tiredly at her blackened hand, when the doors opened and Jak staggered out of the gun course, gasping for air and with a string of smoke rising from the barrel of the morph gun.
"Okay, time out!" Daxter called from his shoulder, forming a big T by pressing the palm of one hand against the outmost fingertips of the other, "that's quite enough of psychogoing now, big boy!"
Jak rolled his neck with a grimace on his face, then blinked a couple of times before he finally focused enough to spot Keira. The exhausted frown on his forehead began smoothening out.
"Hey," he said.
Keira smiled. No time to waste.
"Hey. Perfect timing!" she said, deciding to ignore the fact that there probably were more smudges on her than the one she had already spread across half her face.
"Hey, what's with the warpaint this evening?" Daxter asked.
This just proved that even though she decided to ignore it did not make her Dax-proof, of course. Things did not get any better when a grin almost split his face in two.
"Got plans for some battling tonight, babe? Rawr! You lucky blighter you, Jak!"
Keira gave him a copyrighted-by-her blank look and then shook her head. She did note the twitch of Jak's eyebrows, but could not tell whether he was irritated or interested.
Ahem.
Stepping closer she unhooked a small package from her belt and unfolded it, expectantly holding it up to Jak. He gazed down at the small gun, resting in a strangely shaped leather sling of some kind. And when it was described as "small", that meant small. He could have sworn the models Keira had played around with herself had been bigger than this, and even they had seemed tiny.
"I perfected the design last night," she said, "I know it looks like a peashooter to you, but it packs a punch, I swear."
"Why that small?" Jak asked.
He leant the morph gun against the wall, then picked the new weapon up and weighed it in his hand. While he did not exactly doubt Keira's word for it, the gun did seem ridiculous in its size.
"I designed it with backup in mind," she explained, poking at it with a finger, "you should be able to hide it beneath your scarf without it showing."
"And then it'll suddenly blow his head off without a second notice?" Daxter asked and threw out his arms at her, "Keira, hon, sweetheart, babe, I thought you were past this age! 'sides, that ain't no manly gun!"
Without a word Jak looked past Keira's shoulder and motioned at Tess. She made a playful salute and quickly stepped on one of the buttons on the command board. Immediately a cardboard Krimzon Guard popped up from the slide in the ground beside Jak's feet. This caused a pause.
"Torn would go ballistic if he knew there were any of these left," Jak finally said.
"Erm, well…" Tess started.
She clasped her hands and gave a nervous giggle.
"We're almost out of stock, I promise. He hasn't noticed it yet," she said.
"Huh."
Jak took a few steps back, Keira scrambling to do the same as he freed the gun from its sling and aimed it at the center of the cardboard head.
A shot rang out and the doll swayed, painted confetti raining down around the remains of it. A real KG would not have been standing after that one.
"Now we're out of stock," Tess informed from the background.
Jak could not help but blink a couple of times. He had heard that these guns actually were effective, but it was the first time he tried one of Keira's "babies".
The proof obviously convinced Daxter as well.
"Swe-eet precursor underwear! Well that just proves once more that the size doesn't matter."
He stood up and waved at a point behind Keira's back, violently winking with one eye.
"Right, Tessy-poo?" he cooed.
"This is better than I expected," Jak said, trying to block out Tess' ultra-sugarcoated reply.
"Great!" Keira said with a huge grin, adding up to the blocking of the other female's voice, "I'm glad you like it."
She took the sling from his other hand and held it up.
"There's no need to worry about it going off on its own," she assured, "I've designed this thing to make absolutely sure that won't happen."
Jak was mere inches from pointing out that he had never needed any extras before, but she looked too enthusiastic for him to break that to her. And as he considered it, in his profession any offered advantage should be tested.
Nodding, he reached up and pulled the scarf from his neck, nearly sweeping Daxter off in the process. With an annoyed sound, the ottsel slid down his partner's arm and headed for the control panel. He had enough animal instincts to tell him when it was a good time to stay out of the way unless he wanted to be flattened by more things than an out of control scarf.
"Now lesse here…"
Keira stood up on her tiptoes and easily slung the leather ribbon around Jak's neck. Even as she fastened the buckle holding it up, the strap rested easily on his shoulders without any risk of getting even close to strangling him. She pulled the sling until it hung down just below Jak's shoulder panzer, trying to ignore the voice in the back of her head shouting that there was something she had forgotten. As she held up her hand without looking, he put the gun in her grip and waited for her to place it in the holster.
"There, that should do… it…"
As she lifted her hands away from the belt, she could not help it. The back of her fingers stroke along the underside of Jak's jaw, causing just the briefest twitch of his eyelids. Strange how that small thing never had a chance escaping her notice – she looked up and met his gaze.
"Hooboy, major fluff alert!" Daxter hissed up to Tess, "let's get outta here before it's too late to save us."
She snorted in amusement and leaped off the control panel, skittering after her darling ottsel as he dashed towards the exit. They slipped out as quick as physically possible, which was quicker than they could have managed if still in their original forms. Hey! Fur and shortness had more advantages than usually known!
They missed out on Keira's gasp and hiss.
"Crap!"
"What is it?" Jak asked, almost taking a step back in surprise at the sudden change.
She stared at her hand, which she had snapped back from his face as if it had burnt her. With a guilty look she showed her palm to him, revealing the oil stains on her fingers.
"I forgot, sorry…"
Jak reached up and rubbed his thumb against the area she had touched, skin sliding over skin far more easy than normal. Holding up the hand he studied the dull darkness now covering his finger.
More of that again?
A horribly discolored handkerchief, which once upon a time might even have been white, came into view and engulfed his whole hand.
"I bet there's some on your clothes after that, too," Keira said, massaging the cloth against his thumb as she spoke, "I'm really sorry, Jak."
He remained still for a moment, narrowing his eyes at the black stain on her cheek. On her, it did not seem that dark. Instead, it called back the times when her face had been prickled with grime, eyes twinkling in excitement as she presented the newest model of her zoomer and almost shoved him onto it, unable to wait even for his own enthusiasm to get him out on a test round. Thrilled giggles with the blue, smog-free sky behind her, long before Haven had pushed onto her the ability to frown and carelessly lined her smooth face.
But she should still have the ability to balance his darkness. He believed so.
"Uh?" Keira mumbled as the handkerchief was swept out of her grip.
Jak took an absentminded hold of her shoulder to steady her as he pressed the cloth against the blemish on her cheek. It became apparent rather quickly that the best he could perform was to make the smudge more grey than black.
"Don't worry about that, we'll need something to remove it," Keira said, "I've got stuff for it back at my place. I'll try to get your clothes clean too, I promise."
"It's nothing."
"It's hardly the worst I've ever been stained with," remained unsaid, but the thought was apparent from the way his gaze wandered away.
"Jak…"
She gently picked the cloth from his hand and pressed it against the stain on his jaw. Jak's head tilted to the side from the light push. He looked down at her, his lips curling upwards from the way her eyes narrowed in determination at the simple task of getting rid of the smudge.
"Didn't you say it wouldn't come off that way?" he said.
"I can try, can't I?"
"Yeah, sure…"
At all times she was aware of his hand still on her shoulder, especially when it moved up to her cheek. Fingertips worn from careless treatment and dirty work brushed against the base of her ear.
Keira looked up into Jak's blue eyes, lowering the cloth from his jaw as she tilted her face upwards.
The door slid open.
"Jak! Pecker says to- whoops!"
Daxter gulped as he met Jak's glare, from the corner of his eye seeing a big hand fly towards the morph gun.
"I'll uh… wait a little longer," the ottsel quickly said and backed out.
The door closed again, but Jak kept scowling towards it.
"It's a curse, isn't it?" he finally said.
Keira buried her clean hand in his hair and pushed his lips down to hers.
Funny how much nicer the dirty room smelling of gunpowder and oil suddenly seemed, even with her back against the cold wall. Because Jak was warm, and Keira was a lot softer than the harsh world around both of them.
Just a brief moment of peace before heading back out there again, to see whatever Pecker wanted to see him about, and before heading off on the mission. Then maybe, just maybe the demons in his mind would remind silent a little longer.
