#Also Damas: hovers anyway

[radioactivepeasant]

Fic Prompts: Free Day Thursday

My writing brain is on a roll with the Meddling Mar au, so that's what y'all are getting once again lol (Faulty Info has been Fighting Me, but I'm finally in the home stretch for chapter 10)

Part One, Parts Two and Three, Part Four, Part Five

The second day was the hardest. 

It was the first time Jak remembered waking up, not that he was awake for all that long.

There was an itch in the crook of his right arm, but he couldn’t even muster the strength to lift a finger, let alone scratch at the offending sensation. He couldn’t open his eyes. He couldn’t move his limbs.

The smell of antiseptic permeated everything.

If he'd had anything in his stomach, he would have vomited.

Seconds, minutes, hours- Jak had no way of knowing how much time was passing. Or if it was even passing at all. One moment he would hear voices near him, the next there would be nothing but the whirring of fans and an ever-present, infuriating beeping. 

He hated the beeping.

As if it somehow knew that, the sound would get faster the angrier he got. But being angry was as exhausting as everything else, and soon enough the beeps would slow down as everything spun into nothingness again.

Jak dreamed -- though what he'd dreamed, he couldn't have said afterwards. There were only impressions of colors and voices and an endless sea. 

Sometimes he woke to something blessedly cool resting against his head. Mostly he wasn't awake long enough to pin down any specific sensations at all.

He woke periodically through the night, each time expecting Daxter to be there.

He never was. There were only solemn, painted faces looming over him and chanting prayers. 

Jak decided he was still dreaming.

The longest he was awake was the moment they took out the IV. Until then, he hadn't even known there had been a needle. Jak remembered screaming, yanking his arm away from the old woman. It was more movement than he'd been ready for, and he'd collapsed against the pillow, out of breath. 

The woman didn't scold him for making her job more difficult. Instead she had cooed and apologized -- apologized!! -- to him for hurting him. Hurting him!

"Oh, oh, I'm sorry, dear," she'd clucked, wrapping a bandage tightly around his elbow. "I know that stung. I'm sorry. That was the last one, promise."

That was how Jak found out he'd been hooked to electrolyte solutions for two days after collapsing in the desert. He'd panicked again, looking around frantically for his companions. 

He was alone.

The old woman squeezed his hand and propped a pillow up behind his back. The gentleness of it all very nearly brought him to tears. 

She wouldn't if she knew I was an eco freak.

She wouldn't be so kind if she knew I was just the Precursors' spare key.

"Mm-" Jak's voice was rusty with disuse, cracked and no louder than a whisper. "Mm-y b- bro-ther-?"

A calm smile split the woman's leathery pink face, and she patted his hand comfortingly.

"We released him to the convalescing ward just last night, love. You know, you probably saved his life, wrapping him up like that."

She nodded with approval.

"That was a very brave thing you did."

Jak wet his lips and tried to ask about Daxter. Fear held his lungs in icy claws, threatening that he didn't want to know the answer.

He slept again. 

The next time he remembered being awake, it was night, and a man with glasses was writing something on a datapad at his bedside. He stared at the man and gripped the thin sheet that had been draped over him.

The man looked up and blinked in surprise.

"Oh! Bless me, you're awake! Hello there, young warrior. You've certainly had a close call, haven't you?"

 "Where am I?" Jak tried to ask, but all that came out was, "Where-?"

"Emergency clinic," the man answered. "My name is Petros, I'm a pediatrician."

A what now? Jak had never heard that word before. His confusion must have been somewhat obvious, because the thin man clarified, "a doctor who treats kids under eighteen."

Under eighteen? 

Well. Jak had always known he didn't actually have an autumn birthday like Daxter, but he would've thought he'd be at least eighteen by now. The doctor was probably assuming he was younger because he was short. Those dark eco experiments had really messed with his growth.

Deciding to humor the man -- because he couldn't think of anything else to do -- Jak slowly accepted a tin cup from him. The water had a slightly metallic taste, but it was far cleaner than anything he'd had in Haven. It felt like heaven, cooling his dry throat and clearing his head. Was it because it was clean? Jak examined the bottom of the cup warily.

"Just a bit of green eco mixed in," Petros said, a little too cheerfully for Jak's taste, "We already reversed the organ damage with the high-grade stuff. This is just to soothe your throat a bit."

"Or- organ damage?!" Jak's fingers tightened on the cup. 

"Now," the doctor said briskly, ignoring him, "You've still got a long recovery ahead of you. Judging by the bone scans we did, you've been through quite a lot, and your body is still playing catch-up."

He stood up, groaning as his knees crackled and popped, and slid his notes into his pocket. 

"I'm going to bring you some more water, and a little broth -- slow sips, mind you. Let's not have you making yourself ill -- and when you've finished, you're going to take a cool bath."

Jak shifted uncomfortably in the cot. "What's the cost?" he demanded, "Nobody does this for free."

Petros leaned back as if startled. His eyebrows climbed so high they almost vanished into his receding hairline. For a few seconds he said nothing. Then, he sagged, looking as if he'd aged a few more years with the space of a breath.

"Ah," he said, almost sadly, "I see. Been that sort of life for you, has it? Well I don't charge minors, so you don't need to worry about that. If you and the little one end up being assigned a temporary guardian to help you transition into city life, they'll deal with the cost."

Then, seeing that Jak wasn't convinced, he pasted on a small smile and shrugged. 

"But, when you've been deemed to be sufficiently recovered, you can always bring me some medicinal herbs from the clifftop farms, like the other children usually do."

"I'm not a child," Jak muttered with a scowl.

Petros took this in stride. "Adolescent, then. Still got a couple years before you'll be allowed to pitch in with any of the heavier work around here, at any rate. But you can discuss that with Damas once the monks let you out of convalescence."

"What," Jak said slowly, "does that even mean?"

The doctor smiled blandly and began to walk away. "Later. Right now, we get food in you. Then you wash off the paint and get some rest. Before dawn tomorrow, you'll be moved to the convalescing ward with your brother."

Paint? What paint?

Jak frowned and, for the first time, realized that his cheeks felt a little stiff even after the water. Cautiously, he reached up and touched two fingers to the skin. A flake of white came back on his fingertips, and his eyes widened.

He held the tin cup close to his face and stared at the reflection.

A broad, red stripe had been painted in an arc over the bridge of his nose and down to his jaw, ending in an old pictograph for "peace" on his throat. The rest of his face had been painted bone-white.

They had shaved him to make the paint lay even on his chin. 

He looked like a little kid like this!

"Oh what the-?!"

Petros paused and looked back. He grimaced.

"Ah. It's...well son, I don't want to scare you, but we almost lost you the night you came in. The monks started giving you last rites before the eco kicked in and your body really started fighting."

"Last rites?!" 

Jak's breathing quickened, and his chest felt constricted.

They'd touched him while he slept. Took a blade to his face. What else had they done? How much had they seen?

He resisted a sudden, overwhelming urge to check the pocket Tess had sewn into the lining of his pants, just to make sure his and Mar's seal was still there. 

"Wh- where's my brother? Where's Daxter?"

We need to leave.

Petros tilted his head. "Daxter? That's your brother's name?"

The misunderstanding was just weird enough to let Jak get a full breath before the panic settled into something more manageable. 

"What? No? He's-"

"He's Mar" almost slipped out of Jak's mouth, but he stopped himself just in time.

He didn't know where they were, or how far from Haven they'd gotten. He wasn't going to risk word getting back to the Council.

"He's the orange guy," he amended quickly. "Where is he?"

The understanding on the doctor's face was a welcome relief. He knew what Jak was talking about. That had to mean Daxter was okay, right?

"Oh yes!" Petros nodded. "Last I heard, that little fella has been standing guard over your little brother. He's bitten at least one monk so far."

Jak fell back against the pillow, feeling as though he'd just run a marathon. 

"He's okay," he gasped. "They're okay."

"Thanks to you, yes. They're okay."

Petros assured him. Then he was all business again.

"Now: no more stalling! Soup, and then bath. And don't even think about trying to sneak out of that bed! I've been doing this for twenty-five years, and I've got a sixth sense for teenagers sabotaging their own recovery!"

He shuffled off, leaving Jak worn out and thoroughly bewildered.

Who are these people?!

________________________________,_________

Mar was bored. 

Incredibly, infuriatingly, bored.

He wasn't hooked up to the beeping box anymore -- the one the doctor lady said measured his heartbeat -- but that didn’t mean he was free to run around. For the first day after the needle came out, he'd been too tired to move at all. Now he still got tired easily, but he didn't want to sleep! He wanted to find Jak!

But every time he got out of bed, one of the people with the colorful face paint would find him and take him back!

Once, a man with spikes in his head had found Mar, halfway up a staircase where he'd run out of breath. He had given him a very strange look, and then the next thing Mar knew he was being carried back to bed.

At this point, he was pretty sure the horned man was the painted people's guard, to make sure he didn't escape. Because now every time he made it to the door, the horned man was somewhere nearby. All he had to do was give Mar a Look, and it was enough to send him scurrying back to bed.

At least Daxter was here. Mar didn't think he could've endured it if neither of his big brothers was present.

"Do you think Jak’s okay?"

Mar pulled his knees up to his chest and frowned at the curtains around his bed. He'd seen grown-ups in the other beds when he'd tried to sneak out before, usually with casts on limbs or sleeping. They weren't mean or scary, but they usually ignored him.

Generic adult behavior. 

If Jak had been in one of the other twelve beds, he would have come to check on Mar by now.

Daxter stretched to peer through a gap in the curtains. Then he sighed and returned to carding through Mar's coily hair with a comb that had been left unattended.

"I...I dunno, kiddo. The last time I saw him he-"

Daxter swallowed and forced the words out.

"He wasn't lookin' so good."

Mar's stomach clenched with worry. He gnawed a thumbnail for a few seconds, then asked in subdued signs, "What do we do if he- if something happened to Jak?"

The ottsel let go of the comb -- leaving it vertical in the boy's hair -- and scrambled around to take Mar's face in his hands.

"I'm gonna stick by you, that's what. It's you, me, and Jak, to the end of the line." He squeezed Mar's cheeks to punctuate his words. "I p- I promise, kiddo. One of us is always gonna be here to look out for you."

With a sniffle, the little boy suddenly reached out and dragged Daxter into his arms. He clung to him like a lifeline -- like Jak used to when they were very little. And just like with Jak, Daxter didn't need to see Mar's hands to know what he was saying.

I'm scared, Daxter.

Daxter wrapped his arms around the kid's neck and sighed. "Me too, kid. Me too."

You'd better be okay, Jak.