Chapter 4: Not just a one-off thing

Author's note: I'm really happy with all the positive attention that my story is receiving, especially in a such a small fandom. I treasure each comment.

There were many upsides to being an Eco Channeler. The ability to heal, run fast and activate Precursor technology, shoot energy from your hands, and become extra strong, depending on the Eco.
Beyond the tangible benefits, being a Channeler gave Jak a sense of connection, to Precursor artifacts, to others and to the world around him. When Jak channelled Eco, he was more aware of everything, could feel the draw of more Eco and Precursor artifacts nearby, could feel the lifeforce in the ground beneath him when channelling Green Eco.

However, the downsides to being a Channeler, especially in a place like Haven, was that the absence of Eco was a noticeable discomfort.

Growing up around such an abundance of Eco, Jak had never noticed until arriving in Haven. But after a while, he had felt the absence of something, which had left him feeling a bit…off, like things took just the slightest bit more effort. It wasn't a pain or a need, and it was even ignorable at times when Jak was working, but that feeling of minor but indescribable discomfort was always lingering.
After channelling the Green Eco to help heal Jinx, that lingering discomfort had alleviated for a short time but eventually returned, at which point Jak realised that he was suffering from a lack of Eco exposure.

On some level, even Daxter felt it. He may not have been a Channeler like Jak, but he had spent his entire life around Eco, so his body still recognised the sudden lack of it.

Unfortunately, just because Jak had identified the issue, it didn't change the fact that Eco was rather pricey for a trio of boys who had no reliable source of income. And since the absence of Eco was only a minor discomfort, Jak knew better than to spend their dwindling funds on Eco just for the experience of channelling it.

Though, just because they weren't going to buy Eco, it didn't mean that the boys were willing to just go without. Leading to their new pastime of scavenging.

"Hey, some ammo! Never mind, it's used up." Daxter tossed the empty casings over his shoulder.

Nearby, Jak shifted through piles of junk, smiling when he emerged with a med-pack. Only, when he opened it, there was no Green Eco, only some bandages and tiny kit for stitches still in their packet. Frowning, Jak stuffed the half-used pack in his bag anyway, as the rest would probably still be useful later.

Mar toddled over to the teens and smiled proudly as he presented a frayed ball of yarn that was dirty and damp.
Despite not being what they were searching for, Jak smiled at the young boy and patted his head encouragingly, taking the yarn anyway. He then signed 'Eco' to the young boy to remind Mar of what they were looking for.
Mar nodded and toddled off to search a nearby pile, though Jak expected that the boy would likely return with something else that wasn't Eco, wanting to show off his find.

Mar scrunched up his face as he judged the pile of discarded junk in front of him. He was sure that there would be greater treasures inside the pile but Daxter had told him that he wasn't allowed to go digging like Jak was, saying that Mar could get hurt even though Jak was doing just fine. So, Mar was restricted to just looking around the outside of the pile to see if anything stuck out.

As Mar scouted around the pile, his attention was drawn by a low whimpering. Approaching the sound, Mar gasped in delight when he saw a croco-dog curled up under a shelf of broken wood.
He quickly ran over to pet the croco-dog only for the dog to growl aggressively at Mar, freezing the boy in his tracks. Once the growling stopped, Mar tried moving forward again only for the dog to start growling again until the boy backed up to an acceptable distance.

Mar frowned.
He wanted to pet the croco-dog but his dada had told him to stay away from strange animals, especially when they growled at you, that you first needed to earn an animal's trust. Dada had been teaching Mar how to earn a leaper lizard's trust by feeding it before the scary man had brought him to the city.

Reaching into his pocket, Mar brought out the food that Jak had given him to snack on for the day. He didn't like it very much but he had been told many times that they couldn't 'afford' the yummy food that Mar had eaten before. Still, maybe the croco-dog would like it, the thing had to be hungry if it was out here all alone.
Breaking off a piece of the food, Mar gently tossed it to the croco-dog and waited.

The dog looked at the offering for a moment and then inched forward before pausing, after checking to make sure that Mar remained where he was it inched forward more. After a final pause, it quickly snatched up the food and raced back inside its shelter to eat it.
Once the dog was finished, Mar tossed a bit more of his food.
This time, the dog slowly inched forward rather than pausing, though grabbed the food and fled just as quickly.

By the time that the croco-dog stopped fleeing back into its shelter to eat and was more comfortable approaching Mar, almost all of Mar's food was gone. After only a minute of contemplation, Mar offered the last of his food directly from his hand.
At the sight of food in the hand of a stranger, the dog paused again but then inched forward, keeping an eye on Mar for any sudden movements. Mar smiled as the dog eventually took the food and stayed where it was to eat, reaching out his hand to pet it.

After a brief flinch, the dog let Mar stroke it, tail beginning to wag as it realised that the toddler didn't have any bad intentions and that the pets felt good.

"Alright, time to go."

The croco-dog flinched and hid behind Mar as Jak approached with Daxter on his shoulder.

Jak was stuffing a round of Blue Eco-filled bullets into his bag. He had found them in a discarded ammo create, someone apparently not realising that the box wasn't entirely empty before throwing it out.

Mar smiled and moved to the croco-dog's side to show it off, hugging it.

"Huh, where'd the mutt come from?" Daxter questioned as Jak crouched down and offered up his hand for the dog to smell.

The croco-dog hesitantly approached Jak and sniffed his hand, then wagged its tail and allowed the teen to rub between its ears. Mar pouted at that, it had taken all his food and an unfair amount of time for him to earn the dog's trust, only for it to then trust Jak right away. So unfair.

After giving the croco-dog an appropriate amount of affection, Jak stood and took Mar's hand, beginning their walk back to their hovel.

Once Mar realised that they were leaving his new friend behind, he stopped and pointed at the dog with a frown.
Jak looked at the dog and then reluctantly shook his head.
Mar frowned harder and pointed at the dog more insistently.

"Sorry, kid, we can't take him home." Daxter broke the news for Jak.

Mar scowled and stomped his foot.

"No." Daxter reiterated.

He gritted his teeth when he saw the tears begin to well in Mar's eyes.
It was in rare moments like these that he found Jak's muteness to be an inconvenience. As the one with the voice, he had to verbally lay down the law to the toddler, he became the bad guy because he was the one actually telling Mar stuff he didn't want to hear while Jak could only nod or shake his head and use the few signs that Mar understood.

Mar stomped his feet more and began to cry silently at the idea of leaving his new friend behind.

"Come on, Mar." Daxter pleaded. "We don't have the money to feed it. We can barely feed ourselves sometimes."

Mar shook his head, refusing to listen. He was sure that they'd manage to feed all four of them somehow. He didn't mind sharing his own food if it meant keeping the croco-dog.

Jak tried to pull Mar along but the toddler wrenched his hand from Jak's grip and stubbornly dropped himself to the ground, refusing to move no matter how much he was prompted to told how dirty the ground was.
Upset by how upset Mar was, the croco-dog decided to lick Mar's face to rid him of tears, which snapped Mar out of his tantrum and made him giggle.

Jak and Daxter blinked in surprise at the vocalisation, it being the first that Mar had made since they met him.

Eventually, Jak let out a heavy sigh and picked Mar up. The toddler was quick to restart his tantrum, wriggling viciously in Jak's arms and slamming his little fists and feet into Jak's side and chest, trying his hardest to get loose and run back to the croco-dog, who was starting to whine as the boys left it alone.

…

By the time the boys were most of the way to their hovel, Mar's tantrum had thankfully come to an end. Jak ended up carrying him all the way though, as the toddler's fit had left the boy tired out.
Unknown to Jak and Daxter, Mar's tantrum ending didn't have anything to do with him tiring himself out. The toddler looking behind them from his position in Jak's arms and smiling.

On reaching their hovel, Jak opened the door and then paused as he heard a bark from behind. Turning, he and Daxter found that the croco-dog had followed them all the way back to their hovel.
Mar smiled in triumph and pointed at the dog, as if it following them home meant that he would get to keep it after all.

"Uh…what now?" Daxter questioned.

Much to Mar's chagrin, he found himself being placed inside their hovel with Daxter and the door closed behind him. The toddler was forced to watch through a gap made by the poorly positioned door as Jak attempted to get rid of the croco-dog.

First, Jak tried shooing, but the dog only looked up at him with a big doggy grin and circled around, thinking that the teen was playing with it. Then Jak tried baiting it with a stick, only for the dog to show absolutely no interest in the stick when it was thrown. Then Jak picked the croco-dog up and carried it away, causing Mar to start crying again when the teen retuned five minutes later without the dog.

"I know, kid." Daxter tried to calm the boy as Jak entered into the hovel. "We wanted to keep it too. But we can't."

To try and make things up to Mar, Jak handed the boy a hard-boiled sweet from the tin on the top shelf. With the extra earnings from Jinx's donation, Jak had bought them as a way to occasionally treat Mar and have something to reward the toddler with.

With Mar placated, sort of, Jak emptied out his bag and sorted through their haul.
There wasn't much, some extra non-Eco medical supplies, Mar's yarn, some materials that Jak had picked out to potentially fix up the hovel some more, and the Blue Eco bullets.

Using his knife, Jak carefully pried apart each bullet to access the Eco stored inside and then emptied out the contents into the jar that had previously held the Green Eco used to heal Jinx. Each bullet held only the tiniest amount of Blue Eco, hardly anything to Jak but apparently enough to be useful in bullets. Once all the bullets had been emptied, there was barely enough Eco to fill the jar.

Jak frowned as he regarded the collected Eco.
With how small the amount was, he'd burn through it in an instant, barely having time to start up a run before it ran out. And after it had been used up, he'd be back to going through the annoyance of Eco withdrawal until he came across another abandoned case of bullets or unused med-pack, which he didn't think would be a regular enough occurrence.

"Wow, that's all?" Daxter commented.

Jak nodded and then screwed the cap on the jar of Eco. Just being in proximity to the small amount of Eco had alleviated the feeling of absence somewhat, so he could put off using it for now.

Thoughts were interrupted by a sudden whining and scratching at the door.

Jak huffed in exasperation as he realised that the croco-dog had found its way back to hovel from where he had dumped it. Meanwhile, Mar grinned widely and had to be stopped from opening the door to let the dog in.

Jak moved to get up, only to flop back down. He didn't have much faith that taking the croco-dog further away from where he'd originally taken it would do much good. The dog was just too invested in being around them.

"Eh, maybe it'll wander off after it realises that we don't have any food for it." Daxter reasoned.

That was why the Sculptor's muse would occasionally run off back in Sandover after all. The man clearly loved and cared for his pet a great deal, but he also had a bad habit of getting so caught up in his work that he would forget to feed both himself and his pet, causing the muse to run off until it was caught and brought back.

Jak nodded in agreement.
It felt cruel to ignore the dog, especially with it begging to be let inside, and he did like the idea of keeping it, but the boys didn't need another mouth to feed. So, hopefully, the dog would get the message quickly and look for food elsewhere.

Mar scrunched up his nose at that idea and decided that he would secret away some of his dinner that night to give to his new friend.

Mar held up a tin insistently at a passer-by only to get ignored.
The boy scowled and pouted at the reaction, people had been doing that a lot lately, no matter how big he made his eyes.

Jak and Daxter stopped their act as Mar wandered over to where the croco-dog was sitting and slumped down next to it, cuddling into the dog.
Unlike what Daxter had predicted, the animal had not wandered off when denied attention and food, following them around as they went about their day. Eventually, the teens had just accepted the animal's presence, much to Mar's delight.
At least with the croco-dog around, Mar had something to play with and keep him occupied while Jak and Daxter did their best to earn lari. The dog was also very protective of Mar, growling at those who got too close, meaning that the teens didn't have to keep such a close eye on their young charge.

Jak took the tin from Mar and frowned when he saw just how little they had earned that day.
Their street performing had been facing diminishing returns lately. After so long of them being there with the same act, people just walked past them without even registering them as there.
With the Industrial District and the Port open to them, there were more places to beg for lari and new people to beg from. However, those areas came with an increased risk of gaining the attention of the Krimzon Guard, and any attention from a KG was negative attention. Jak and Daxter did not want to risk Mar getting the same treatment as that beggar child had in the Bazar back when they'd first arrived in the city

Access to the Industrial District and Port had granted Jak and Daxter more one-off job opportunities. But Jak and Daxter were still just teenagers without citizenship IDs in a city where people had trust issues, so the jobs still weren't a reliable or lucrative source of income, especially when the person hiring deliberately underpaid knowing that the boys couldn't do anything about it and were too desperate to turn down work.

If it wasn't for the money that Jinx had given them, Jak wouldn't have been able to buy them their dinner that night. But even those funds were about to run out, so Jak needed to find a new job soon or they'd have to risk begging in the Industrial District or at the Port.

The boys had just arrived at their hovel when the croco-dog began growling, placing itself between them and the hovel.

On alert, Jak slowly crept towards their hovel, keeping Mar close behind him and eyes darting around for any sign of an ambush.
Getting closer to the door, Jak frowned heavily when he realised that the weak lock on the door had been forced, meaning that someone had been inside, and were possibly still there.

Drawing his knife, Jak slowly opened the door, eyes narrowing when he saw someone sitting on their mattress inside.

"Hey!" Daxter demanded immediately. "What do you think you're doing in here?"

Jak readjusted his grip on his knife to be more sure, ready to defend if the guy tried to attack. He could think over very few options for why the man had broken into their hovel other than to claim it for his own, so Jak needed to be ready to fight for it.

"You the healer guy?" The stranger asked.

That made Jak and Daxter pause and look at each other in confusion.

"I was told that there was a guy who could help fix me up at the boarder of the Water Slums." The guy continued. "That's you, right."

"Wait, you mean like what Jak did for Jinx?" Daxter said, realising what the man meant.

Now that they knew why the man was there, Jak noticed that he was holding his shoulder and his face was pale with pain.

"Just here for heal?" Jak signed, Daxter translating for him.

"Yeah. Then I'll be on my way." The man confirmed.

Jak nodded and put away his knife. He settled Mar in the corner with the croco-dog, reluctantly letting the animal inside to keep the toddler occupied.

Seeing that Jak had agreed to help, the man turned to show his back and removed his shirt to show a nasty-looking blaster wound on his shoulder.

"Geeze!" Daxter exclaimed upon seeing it. "What were you doing to get that?"

"A blaster misfired at the shooting range." The man answered defensively.

"Right." Daxter drawled, clearly not believing him. "Did you use your gun as a back scratcher or something?"

The man didn't answer.

Jak went over to the crate where he kept the medical supplies and Eco gained from scavenging.
Luckily for the stranger who had broken in their hovel while wanting their help, Jak had managed to salvage a pair of fully-stocked med-packs while on a job in the Industrial Sector.

Jak paused when he opened up one of the med-packs and saw the jar of Green Eco. The fully-stocked med-packs had been a lucky find and there was no guarantee that Jak would get that lucky again and find more. In Haven, Eco was not something easily just given away, especially for a Channeler like Jak.
Unbidden, Jinx's advice about charging for healing others pushed to the forefront of his mind.

"What's the holdup?" Daxter questioned after his friend spent too long just staring at the med-pack.

Jak looked up at Daxter, his indecision clear on his face.

"Ask pay?" He signed to his friend.

Daxter hummed, rubbing his furry chin.

"Well, we need the money, don't we?" He said pragmatically. "And we did do a lot of work just to find those."

Closing his eyes, Jak let out a breath and then nodded. If felt wrong to charge someone who came to him with an injury, but Daxter was right in that they needed the money.

"Alright, buddy, here's the deal." Daxter took charge, speaking to the man. "If you want the Green Eco treatment, then you're going to have to pay up."

The stranger looked disgruntled at the idea but at least didn't object, though he did haggle with Daxter on the price until it was something they both agreed on.

Once the lari was given, Jak set to work healing the man's blaster wound.
Like he had done for Jinx's burn, Jak manipulated the Green Eco, channelling it through the wound until it reached the worst parts and then healed those as much as the Eco would allow. Then, Jak wrapped the wound the way that Samos had taught him, having to rewrap a couple of times until he remembered the correct way for a shoulder wrap.

"Heh." The man smiled slightly, rolling his shoulder to test how well Jak had done. "Thanks kid. Jinx was right, you really are a miracle worker."

The boys didn't relax until they were sure that the man was truly gone. He hadn't been threatening to them at all, but him so easily breaking into their hovel and intruding on their space had set them on edge.

It was only the next day when someone else showed up at the hovel in search of healing, thankfully while the boys were still there this time.

The injury had been a rather large piece of glass stuck in the woman's arm.

Jak had Daxter take Mar and the croco-dog outside for that one, not wanting to subject the toddler to the site of all the blood that came pumping out of the woman's arm when he removed the glass, or the poorly muffled swearing the woman gave throughout the whole process.

The other jar of Green Eco had been used to deal the depths of the wound, then Jak had used the contents of a different kit to stitch the cut together before wrapping it.
All in all, it had been a very unpleasant experience for Jak, even compared to the last two times. Blood had gotten all over his hands, there were some droplets on his trousers, he'd had to throw out a blanket because so much blood had dripped onto it, stitching a wound was only something that he'd known about in theory and so the job had looked very messy, and he'd felt completely out of his depth throughout it all. He never wanted to do that again.

"How many people did Jinx tell you were a healer." Daxter said in disbelief after the woman left, having mentioned who had sent her.

Jak nodded in agreement as he tried to get the blood out from under his nails.
He was not a healer. The best he could do without a sufficient amount of Green Eco was wrap wounds, splint bones and give shoddy stitches. He'd only done as well as he did so far because he'd had some amount of Green Eco, and now that was all gone again.

"Still, I'm not complaining." Daxter said, counting out the lari he had haggled from the woman. "It certainly pays."

With the earnings from the man and woman directed to them by Jinx, they would be able to afford food and even other supplies for a little while, temporarily erasing the issue of their street act hardly earning them anything. They could probably even afford to keep the croco-dog around now, which was good since Mar was stubbornly attached and they were starting to get attached themselves.

Still, without Green Eco, Jak's medical skills were hardly worth paying for. He'd need to go scavenge for more med-packs if people were going to be coming around for help.

Just how many people did Jinx end up telling about them?

Author's note: Please comment

Tada, I have introduced the croco-dog. Now he just needs a name.