Haven and all the characters excluding Thara are products of Naughty Dog, SONY, blaah blaah et cetera.

Meowen, hahaa, loved your reply! I don't mind if you go crazy over my story! Å, du talar Svenska! Jätte kiva, jag tycker om det fast jag är ett 'offer' om 'the evil n sinister' PAKKORUOTSI!111elv But I like Swedish, trying to learn to talk it fluently. I confess, I took the chin-ups thing from European Jak II site, heh. But I took it coz I wanted to show that although Jak appears as an introvert, subdued shell in front of Erol, he's ready to make it stop and works for it, desperately trying to become stronger etc…He's fighting! Blaah blaah, personal growth, wobbeldobbeldoo… Special thanks for Muse. –smile-

Squirrel-under-a-bus, christ-on-a-bike I review myself. A bit desperate isn't it?

Darth Tank, I'll keep on.

jaklover123, it was a flashback; it was about the time during Jak 2's intro, when Jak was in jail. It would help a lot if the grammatical errors were mentioned, like "this and that there and here" coz I just don't see them with my English…

Thank you all for the reviews (except me myself and I perhaps), I cherish them!

Sipuli: "Am I the only one to love this chapter name?"

maestro: "No you are not, I adore it, too, yet the content could be –"

Lucius: "Control freak! You're never satiated!"

maestro: "Do not interrupt me, young rodent."

Lucius: "Still bitter of my achievements in the last chapter?"

Sipuli: "Here we go again…"

12. Waste Your Life & Ignore Your Death

"Honestly, how many gunshots does it take to kill him?"

Erol recognized the familiar male noise and finally managed to open his eyes. The orbs felt strange, both hot and cold. Actually his whole body felt strange, like it had been either tightened or loosened from every corner. His head ached, his temples throbbing along his heart, which wasn't sure how fast it should pump, thus skipping beats and changing the tempo irrationally.

Keira in a negligee. Good!

Angry Torn in his underwear. Very bad!

And hell no, not again that boy.

"Erol!" the angry-Torn-in-his-underwear yelled and shoved him against the wall. Erol noticed that his arms were tied up and when he tried to move his legs, something around his ankles hold them back making a metallic rattle.

"Great…" he muttered.

"What!"

"What?" his hair was itching. Lice?

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"What?"

"You know", Keira-in-a-negligee said and crossed her arms, "you should be dead."

"That much I know", Erol snapped and realised his eyes we're getting dry. Immediately as the thought rose up, his eyelids took the command and started blinking in a slow, natural rhythm.

Torn bit his teeth, wanting to say something but he failed to find anything worth enunciating.

"Why are you here?" she continued.

"That much I don't know."

"Liar!" Torn snarled and shoved him again at the wall. Rattlerattle.

"You've been killed two times…" Keira seemed to be talking more to herself than to the newly-alive body, "how can you always come back?"

"I wasn't dead, I think, when I exploded, I think… I fail to remember…"

"That explains us so much", Torn's voice could have drown a small village into sarcasm, "you've somehow resurrected yourself and you've got no idea how or why."

"Yes", Erol was too numb to realise the scorn, instead he realised he was completely naked, "I've no idea."

A voice of a slamming door echoed in the basement and soon they heard a familiar noise: "the army of ottsels is coming!" that was Daxter who soon rushed into the jail past Jak, who was silently leaning at the doorframe, "sheesh, someone seems to be found alive again and again…"

"Now, pay attention!" Tess shouted and immediately climbed on a small disk placed under a locker, and Keira and Torn backed out of the cell.

"This thing", she took out a bottle, "the red pills, they keep his blood running – if he's got blood anyway. We must keep him chained all the time and we don't want him to get a thrombus, do we? I suggest that we keep him alive and keep an eye on him all the times, because if he has really come from the other side, we don't know what's against us."

"Wow, honey, you've really figured these thing's out!" Daxter congratulated his girl and was accompanied with Keira's and Torn's nods. Jak remained stiff three steps above them.

"Thanks, Dax!" Tess's voice returned to the normal oh-Daxybaxy-tone for a second until continuing the lecture: "and now, these purple and yellow pills are food. It's true that we have a bowl –" she pointed at the usual coarse cell toilet bowl, "and we've got equipment to let chained prisoners to ease their being, but I guess we don't wanna do that too often… And also with that immobility the digestion doesn't work properly. At least eight of these pills a day, four yellow, four purple, but not over twenty each – Torn", the ottsel had noticed the redhead's smirk, "do not think about it, you know what happens –"

"What happens?" Jak spoke for the first time.

"Well, we can call that a kind of an inner eruption –"

"She means", Torn told smirking again, "that he would lose the control of all of his exits. Those pills are old KG stuff."

"If you do that", Tess's voice could have made a Metal Head army retreat, "you clean it!"

"Not that big price…" Jak shrugged his shoulders and Daxter cracked laughing.

"Jak!"

"Chill up honey, I'll watch after him", the male ottsel calmed her down, "how many of those red ones, sugarwumpa?"

"One a day. These must be given on a regular cycle, like ev'ry morning or ev'ry evening."

"So we must not give one yet", Keira weighed it in her mind, "otherwise we'l need to hmm – feed – him in the night."

"Yeah, let's wait 'til the morning. Oh, and these", the female ottsel pulled out a small box and opened it, "here we have turquoise flakes. These are expensive, hard to get and illegal, made of seayakow roe."

"What do they do, babe?" Daxter asked.

"They prevent his muscles from atrophying, withering away."

"You got those", Keira turned to Jak.

"Well, I lost sinew."

"You got it in via an IV-drip", Keira explicated, "it's recommended be taken via mouth and digestion."

"Losing muscular tissue is normal, we do it all the time – well not we but you gain and lose it", Light explained, "but it ain't the same as atrophying."

"These must be taken once a month", Tess continued, "I think we should give one now, or what do you think?" she gave the granular flake Torn, who walked to Erol.

"Say aa."

Erol's knee jerk reaction was to keep his mouth tightly shut – never eat anything given to you by an enemy - but he realised he had no other way… But as soon as the flake touched his tongue he started retching and coughing and spat the cookie to floor.

"That's disgusting!" he exclaimed, "never tasted anything worse!"

"Yeah, it's a bit sour", Torn said lightly and picked the softened flake from the floor not bothering to clean it from the dust, "but like it or not, you'll swallow it. Teeth apart."

"No, honestly –"

"I deeply suggest you open your mouth."

"No!"

"Your way, then", Torn punched the prisoner in the midriff and then pressed from both sides of his skull forcing the jaws apart. Then he stuck the flake in Erol's mouth and forced him to move his jaws.

Erol struggled, the incredibly sour pure-evil devil-flake brought the tears to his eyes and made creeps run all over his body, but Torn was in command.

"Now swallow it."

Erol swiftly grinded the flake to smaller pieces and gulped it, and caught his breath.

"And we must give him water like for a normal person, we shall use that thing –" Tess pointed at the bowl again, "once a day. And I can't do it, I'm too small for that. What a pity, isn't it?"

"I won't do it", Jak said and couldn't hold back a small twitch, "we'll keep him in our home?"

"We can't let him walk away", Tess explained, "he knows too much about us – well, at least about this secret cell now - and is dangerous anyway."

"Don't let's rescue the world again from him, buddy?" Daxter smiled.

"I guess you're right…"

"We need to keep guard over him", Tess continued.

"I'm off", Jak snorted and disappeared to the corridor.

"Jak-buddy", the orange lightning rushed after him, "wanna have a beer?"

"Volunteers?" Tess asked, "I'll need to go to check Ottsel, too."

"I can do it", both Keira and Torn said quickly and then changed glances.

"I will do it", she said and Torn bit his teeth again.

"Fine, well, of course you could both do it but in my opinion –"

"I will do it."

"Fine", Torn snarled.

"You join us in Ottsel?"

"Naw, I'll go catch some z's", he said and walked out of the door.

"Okay then" Tess shrugged and jumped down from the disk, her evening gown making a noise of a ripping seam, "shit! Oh, excuse my Kras… Keira, you don't have to spend all the night –"

"I'm fine, Tess."

"Well, Torn ain't gone, so anytime –"

"Have fun, 'mum'!"

"Whatever then… Bye!"

"Bye."

"Ya so quiet!"

"Huh?"

"'N' ya ain't listening to me!" Daxter said, "and ya'ven't touched ya drink!"

"Oh, go ahead!" Jak snorted and leaned back. He regretted his reply a bit as Daxter sink the drink, but asking for a new one right away seemed stupid.

"Ta, bud", the ottsel placed his elbows on the table, "ya know wha'?"

"Huh?"

"Well I know neither."

"Huh?"

"Why ya so quiet now?"

"Dax, I never used to be much louder or more extrovert."

"Wow, I'm proud of you", Light hollered in his head, "good word!"

"Well… We'ven't talked bout anything these days."

"That's a shame, really. But we never talked – it was always you that talked, I listened, nothing bad in it though.…"

"Ya know wha'?"

"Do you know now?"

"I s'pose", Daxter raised his hand and hollered, "Thara, two purple thingies here!"

"Of course, sir!" it only took a moment and a busty faery delivered their orders, "anything else, sir?"

"No, Thara, not yet at least."

"Fine, just call me!"

"Yeah yeah", Daxter continued after she had gone: "she's just a big fat wet tongue in my ass, but who cares? She's a good waitress, ya know. Of course worse than Tess, though."

"Are you saying that you have had some activity with others –"

"What? Ya crazy, buddy! I would never – ever – do anything like that to my sugarbabe. Just about the services for Ottsel, not me, ya know. Huh, you are crazy."

"I'm sorry."

"Ya shall be", Daxter sank his 'purple thingy' and continued: "now tell me, why are you so piped down? Speechless, maybe?"

"Just – uh – nothing. Just thinking", Jak stared at his drink. Teeny weeny purple bubbles were begging him to pledge them in honour of alleviation.

"Ya know wha'?"

"What?"

"It doesn't suit you."

Jak barked with laughter and drank his glass empty. "We wanna see Thara again, don't we?"

"Excuse me", Erol spoke, "just to let you know, I'm not up to world demolition or domination. I, I've never been."

"Do you forget the so-called Cyber Erol?" Keira snapped.

"That… That wasn't me… Kind of…"

"You kidding me? It was you but it wasn't?" she leaned at the bars, "I'm no dolt, Erol."

"I know how smart you are!" Erol stared at the floor. His body had stopped feeling odd… Maybe it was just because of… well… he didn't know. "I was inside it – and outside it… I gave Errol the soul, the brain, the voice… And half a face, but… It was… My mind was not mine… I was watching over how a computer remo-chip was controlling me in its own minatory ways…"

Keira snorted: "You're saying that you had a reason and emotion chip controlling you? Just to let you know, roboboy, not a remo-chip has ever worked. What you say could be possible in theory, but remoes just don't work. Even I tried to turn my hand on them before they were illegalized, but no, remoes always cremate the one they're put onto."

"Just to let you know, mechagirl", for the first time Erol's voice had some emotion to it; bitterness, "I was mostly cremated anyway."

"Pity you", Keira shrugged and turned her back. She didn't want Erol to see that she was fighting back tears and kept her voice sarcastic, "what is it on the other side?"

"I honestly don't remember anything. I remember myself being beaten by that boy –"

"Jak."

"Yes, of course your dear beloved Jak –"

"A", Keira turned again to the bars, "I don't love him. B, he's not my dear."

"Oh", Erol seemed surprised but soon the gall returned, "pity you."

"We never were 'us'."

"That's why you used me as a substitute for him, right?"

"You weren't a substitute!"

"You used me anyway!"

"True", Keira turned around again and continued in an icy cold tone, "you helped a lot. Thanks."

"Well, I'm sorry about torturing Jak, but –"

"C, who cares?"

"I just needed to speak my mind."

"Not you. Jak! Who cares about his torment?"

"Oh", the orange haired faery remained silent for a moment, "you really had a row didn't you?"

"The row only came after the ire had been given birth."

"What time is it?" Erol asked after a longer silence, "and where am I?"

"What?" Keira looked at him.

"The year. The month. The place. Is this Haven?"

"You've been gone for two years. Over three if we don't count Errol. And it's Lisha the second. And yes, it's Haven. My home."

"I've missed three years…" the ginger prisoner seemed shocked, "no, why am I lying? I've wasted all my life since I was eleven!"

"Luckily for me."

"I deserve all your scorn, but –"

"But what?" Keira exploded suddenly and banged her fists at the bars, "not only were you the only one ever to make me feel passionately desired. Not only I started feeling remorse of using you. Not only I fell in love with you although you were arrogant, full of yourself, serving the Baron, whatever and using me. You go and die and come back and die and come back! Erol, I don't love you anymore, my whole heart is dead, but you still rip my ev'ry stitch open 'cause I have my mem'ries! Please… And not only you make me say this all aloud! I'm off now, try to figure something out of your life 'cause it will waste even more here."

"Keira!" she heard him calling her, but it didn't stop her. She strode up the stairs, only to find Jak and Daxter passed out in the hall, sleeping side by side.

"Why me?" she cursed from between her teeth, "why always me?"

She didn't bother trying to get either of her friends to bed; she rushed to her bedroom. She saw herself in the mirror, was reminded tat she wore hardly anything modest and started screaming into her pillow. She wished the champagne table to come to her. If it came, she would surely give up to it… But no, of course it didn't appear out of thin air. Keira wrapped herself in the coverlets and suddenly she was completely somewhere else, somewhere with a warm glow, only to notice she was in her bed again…

"I do need some rest", she sighed and was soon caught by an army of z's.

Da: "This time it was Keira who's sleep ended our chapter."

Sipuli: "Oooh, how variable we are! -cough-"

Lucius: "How bruised we are… -sigh- "

maestro: "Ommm… But now we are asking help –"

Lucius: "Yep. An ambulance, anyone?"

maestro: "Interruption! Ommm, now, how is Jinx?"

Sipuli: "Who is he?"

Da: "How does he talk?"

Lucius: "What does he do?"

maestro: "And so on, ommm… We need to know all that you can tell us about this Jinx."

Lucius: "We can't write about him unless we have a picture of his characteristics in our head, can we?"

Da: "Yes, we can."

Sipuli: "Platinum! That would never work out!"

maestro: "So please, could you give us a helping hand?"