Hey y'all! This is my first post ever on so read it and be nice!

Disclaimer: yeah. Like I own the Jak universe. HA HA HA! -sigh- If I did, you'd be able to play as Torn and Ashelin would be DEAD

(AN: this is before the precursors left, so Tess is still human)

Rating:PG-13- some swearing, and I guess, implications, but nothin' bad

Mr. Brightside

by

mecca-dog

There they were over in the corner, laughing and talking like nothing had happened.

But something did happen. Something big. At precisely 6:57 p.m., on August 7, Jak-err, Mar- had stuck his tongue down his girlfriends throat. Oh, and they had defeated Cyber Errol and the Dark Makers too, but that was beside the point.

Okay, so he and Ashelin were never officially "together", but the heated looks and obvious flirting had to mean something, right? Didn't sacrificing the lives of his own men to save her life mean anything to her? He danced with her for Mar's sake! Didn't she care!

Apparently not, as she had just begun to kiss the eco enhanced warrior again, in plain view of him and everyone else. Bitch.

Torn sat alone at the bar of the Naughty Ottsel, glaring at his half empty bottle of beer, looking occasionally in the mirror in front of him, behind the bar. In said mirror, he could see all that was happening behind him.

Sitting with the two traitors was the rat and Tess. She was rubbing his stomach affectionately while "orange lightning" rattled on about something (probably how he took out Errol), obviously drunk. Jak and Ashelin were still kissing like it was the only way to take in air, oblivious to the excitement around them. Ew, they just started to use more tongue than before.

Torn tore his eyes away to the gruesome sight that was second base. To the happy couples left sat the precursors themselves, along with Samos and Onin, Pecker on her shoulder translating for the mute/deaf/blind mystic.

Sig was talking to some chick in a rubber mask, Seem, he guessed, and some big guy who ,if he recalled, was called Kliever. Sig was starting to get drunk; never a good sign.

He sighed. He didn't belong here with all these happy people. He didn't do happy.

When your heart gets ripped from your chest and eaten whole, you start to wonder what's wrong with you. Torn looked up into the mirror and saw a pair of ice blue eyes staring back at him. Maybe the reason she left me, he mused to himself, was because Jak was better looking than me. Jak was blond with deep, ocean blue eyes and a muscular build from all his adventures. Torn was brunette (with his signature 'rows of course), tall and lanky, and there was a certain harshness that came from him. His body was covered in the marks of an ex-KG commander, covering his deep beige skin with ugly black ink. Personally, he didn't think he'd be winning any beauty pageants any time soon.

Or, he thought, maybe she left me because I wasn't always out there on the front lines. It was true, he gave the orders, and Jak carried them out. But it wasn't all his fault; it'd been like that even in his guard days. He was one hell of a tactician. His plans almost always worked and the FL couldn't afford for him to be killed. Jak gave off more of a sense of danger, of adventure. Woman went for that kind of thing. You didn't want to mess with Torn, but you wouldn't necessarily call him dangerous.

He finished off his beer, contemplating whether or not he should grab another before he left. That's when he heard the sound of a bottle being opened to his right. He glanced over and his eyes met the sight of a very depressed looking Kiera drinking a diet root beer like it had personally insulted her.

He'd forgotten about her. And by the looks of it, so had all her so called "friends" too. No one, not even her father, spared her a glance; they were all too busy having a good time. She was in the same boat as him, hurt and alone.

Torn suddenly felt worse and better at the same time. Worse because the usually cheerful girl was obviously upset, and better because someone understood how he felt. He wasn't alone. The FL commander knew exactly how the girl felt, even though he didn't know her all to well. He had seen her face as she, and everyone else, had witnessed Jak's kiss with Ashelin. She really had loved him, and he really didn't care he practically destroyed her life. She was tough, he thought, any other girl would have cried, or something. She didn't even tear up a bit. Just looked like she'd be shot and didn't know ahead of time.

Jak was a moron to let her go, he mused, she really was quite beautiful. Her hair and large eyes stood out against her flawless alabaster skin, and she was so petite and slender. Sure, Ashelin had the body, but Kiera had an odd innocence about her that made most men instantly attracted to her. That and, although not to Ashelin's standards, her curves were very appealing...

Torn shook his head. He needed to stop thinking thoughts like that about a 17 year old girl ( 5 years his junior ). Besides, he needed to go back to headquarters and clean up a bit, maybe try to get some work done. Haven wouldn't rebuild itself. He figured he could do the rest of the city like New Haven; he liked the way he'd laid it out when he'd planned it. Although, sometimes he missed Underground HQ; it'd been his only home after he deserted the KG.

A frustrated sigh brought him out of his revere. He looked to where the noise came from and discovered Kiera trying to open another, particularly stubborn, bottle of root beer. For some reason, this made him smile slightly. It was ironic that she spent all day working on zoomers, but yet her little mechanics hands couldn't open up a simple bottle. Mechanics hands...

He shook his head again. He really needed to sleep. You don't start thinking thoughts of that variety about a minor without either getting slapped or arrested. She'd had no luck with the bottle and was now glaring at it like it had insulted her mother. He needed to get home, so as a way of silent apology, for (in his opinion) being a perv, he got up and walked over to her. In one swift movement, he grabbed the bottle, opened it, and handed it back to her.

The aqua-haired mechanic looked up at him, shocked, it seemed, that anyone was paying attention to her.

"Thanks," she said with a weak, but genuine smile.

"No problem," he replied with a smile that matched hers.

And with that he left the bar, trying his hardest not to attract any attention.

Thanks for readin'! If somethin's wrong, let me know, k?