#damas is meanwhile living within a tragedy

[hecketernal]

Everyone Thinks Jak Is Dying AU (Aka everyone miscommunicates to some pretty ridiculous and angsty levels but Jak's totally fine) ((pls read I swear I still have some comfort with this hurt some funny with the tragedy pls hear me out))

Explanation: I had had this weird impression that Jak was flat out dying from dark eco poisoning, when I was a kid. It seems kid me had made some assumptions from listening to Baron Praxis' propaganda stations where he flat out says, "The dark eco inside you will eventually kill you, Jak," and the way Jak first reacted to getting light eco.

Everyone else seemed to die in the Dark Warrior Project. Hell, they flat out acknowledge Jak should be dead himself from the amount of dark eco pumped into him. Even if a slow death via eco poisoning isn't what the games were going for, it would still make sense lorewise. The game will insta kill you for falling into the stuff.

Buuuuut for a moment just consider...applying that misconception to Damas and Jak's growing paternal bond.

Jak, in his freshly betrayed wariness, decides to hide his dark eco abilities. He's tired. He can't trust anyone except for Daxter, but Daxter is The Exception in capital letters and everything. Jak has found a force he can't or isn't equipped to beat within the long, hot stretch of the desert with no Keira to build a contraption to get them out. He doesn't even know... if Keira cares enough to build some zoomer with a heat shield or whatever would come to her mechanical mind for them anymore. None of his "allies" spoke up very loudly to defend Jak, so Jak stashes his otherness away. Well, he hides it to the best of his abilities. He'll never be a spy, but he can manage a few marauders in some Arena of Death with just a gun and some effort. Transforming had always been last resort anyways. With fear from his betrayal instead of anger leading him, he never transforms in front of all of Spargus to see. He's doesn't want to be Baron Praxis' renegade weapon, the man made monster that slipped its leash. He wants a moment without that. He can't go back to the kid from Sandover. He doesn't want to, but the idea of being just another exile like everyone else is...heady.

Jak doesn't know that he can't hide what's already been seen. Dark eco scars are distinctive, and Jak's were very visible during his stint with unconsciousness and heatstroke. The monks had attended to the two boys, but they had not done so silently. Precursor monks did not care to censor their muttering about dark eco corruption. Their prayers for salvation or less pain for the boy were easily overheard by the alert King of Spargus. It's likewise impossible to hide the way dark eco skitters towards Jak. The way it sinks into his skin. The way his pallor goes white. His face pained. The way the newest recruit sometimes clutches an arm, angling it away from view. Jak does manage to hide the growing claws with this action, so good for him. Bad for Damas.

Damas is under the impression that Jak is dying. Dark eco poisoning is an unpleasant but often inescapable death sentence for even the strongest warriors. He's known good Wastelanders that had to be buried after just a brush with the energy. It might be slow with this new recruit, but it will come all the same. Won't it? Damas tries his best to remain distant. His heart has already been shattered from the loss of one child, but it seems those broken shards are destined to break a little more. Jak is so damningly earnest for someone who tries to act jaded and tough. Damas can't remain distant. Every wall Damas builds is blasted away by the young warrior's newest actions. Damas is doing his best to hold himself together, but inside he is a mess. He doesn't want to lose another son. When Jak spoke of not knowing his father, Damas realized there was one thought more agonizing than losing another son, a lonely son dying fatherless. It catalyzes the father for he cannot stop thinking of himself as anything but a father. Isn't this what he always told himself he would do anything for? Another moment with his child? Damas will not squander the time they have left. Besides, the desert is rough and fickle, and violent death has come for all of Spargus' other kings. He might worry for naught. His death might come for him sooner than Jak's.