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Rule 39	By : grimreaperchibi Category: +G through L > Jak & Daxter Views: 3977 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Jak & Daxter, nor the places, people, or objects within. I make no money writing this.

Chapter List
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A/N: Robin and I are trying (emphasis on that word right there) to keep this all within the same timeline. What this means is that sometimes, I will update several times before she updates her side and vice versa. There will be a bit of a bleeding effect that will hopefully make both of these acts of insanity one cohesive storyline. Hopefully. I may get fancy-smancy at some point and actually create a visual timeline just because I can. I get bored very easily at work.
Robin: Do. Not. Feel. Bad. Razer totally deserves everything he's getting. I'm making sure of that. But if you still by chance do feel bad, you already know about me and happy endings. And Razer is getting plenty of those.
Amaronith: Let's keep that feeling going, yes?
Mari: This is delicious, isn't it? Though it didn't start that way, I have totally grown to love these two idiots and their dysfunction. Now we need to find someone for Torn and Ashelin and all bases should be covered!
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Rule #12: Congeniality has an expiration date.
It was quite the beautiful mid-September day outside: bright, warm, and sunny as only the slow transition from summer to autumn could be. With the heat gone, but the cold yet to truly set in, anyone in their right mind would have preferred to be out there rather than stuck inside the still air conditioned buildings and windowless classrooms. But it wasn’t the pleasant weather or even the approaching lunch hours that was distracting Phoenix from the calculus work in front of him. What was distracting him was the numerous ways a person could insist to be fine when they were very clearly not.
Despite the many claims to the contrary, Phoenix knew his roommate was not “fine.” Not by any stretch of his already vast imagination. Rather, Razer seemed to be sliding rather quickly from “not fine” to “homicidal berserker” without much pause or notice, and he wasn’t sure why. Everything had been great Friday, his intimate meeting with the business end of a cleat notwithstanding, okay that Saturday once the hangover settled, and Sunday had been quiet, as was normal. Now, it was Wednesday and he felt like he’d been riding the edge of Razer’s temper for months. How had everything fallen apart so quickly in three days?
He tapped his pencil against his notebook, trying to turn his thoughts to what the teacher was droning on about, but every letter and question mark on the board just rearranged itself to present a very different set of problems. There was something he was missing, something fundamental to the whole thing. If he could just figure out that variable, maybe he’d have a hope of solving whatever the issue was. Or, at the very least, know what not to do to make the situation any worse. He flipped to a clean page and started writing.
So, what did he know? Razer was in a bad mood, one that was getting worse with each passing hour, it seemed. Phoenix circled and underlined it—that was the end result, marked by easy agitation, curt words and a constant need to be somewhere else. He frowned, putting a star next to the last trait. That wasn’t something from just the last few days. Granted, the other was usually off and about, keeping pace with a schedule he’d yet to figure out, but evenings and weekends usually saw Razer hard at work, either on his car or getting ahead in his classes. They at least saw each other longer than it took to exchange standard greetings. They shared a room, though Razer may have been a ghost for all his impact recently; gone early in the morning and back late at night with hardly a word in between. The curt words were more of the same, which, when he thought about it, weren’t really all that curt, either. It was the tone they were said in that made the words clipped, outwardly cross, even. A startling and saddening thing to think, actually, but the more he pondered it, the more he saw the divergence. However Razer had come to address him before, it was not the same now.
Parentheses went around the two pieces. Whatever was causing the agitation was only exacerbating the condition that had brought about these two symptoms. Which meant his timeframe was at least five days, not three, and that meant a whole new world of possible reasons to consider. Too many to even properly think about, let alone sift through and pick which one (or more) were right. He rubbed his forehead absently, fingers catching on the most obvious cause. Nothing more than an itchy scab now, but at the time… His attention narrowed at the sudden insight.
At the time, he’d been too high on the thrill of victory to notice much of anything, and then he’d further blurred the edges of his world together with alcohol, so he’d almost forgotten that Razer had been in a panic that night. Solid, cool, aloof, slightly condescending, always in control Razer—visibly upset. And not just at the game, but also at having to sleep on Jak’s floor, and then again in the parking garage the day after. Not just in general either, but with him in specific. He was right there in the middle of it all. As unpleasant as that realization was, his thoughts didn’t stop there. Since he already knew Razer was lying to him about being fine, it begged the question of what else he had lied about. Everything Phoenix knew about the German exchange student said he wasn’t the type to do so casually or without cause, narrowing the possibilities to only one other lie. …The nightmares. That had to be the falsehood simply by virtue that he knew nothing else was. But a lie to cover-up what?
He stared at his horribly scribbled upon page, not feeling any closer to the answers he was seeking. If anything, he had more questions than before. It felt like he was going in circles. Still preoccupied, he wrote out the half-heard homework instructions and packed up, following the rest of his classmates out the door. The building’s corridors were navigated on autopilot, though the sudden rush of bright sunlight brought him back to his senses quickly enough. Fourteen weeks and he still wasn’t used to how bright and warm the weather was here. Back home, it’d already be cool enough to need a jacket with an even chance of seeing the sun as the winter storms started to move in. It’d be a shame to waste the nice day more than he already had, so he decided to take the long way back to the dorms.
He wasn’t really thinking about much of anything, just enjoying his walk when he noticed a group of students standing outside another building, getting one last cigarette in before heading in for class or whatever they were there for. A couple simply dropped their used butts to the ground, grinding the whole thing into the concrete. Several scolded their compatriots as they stubbed their own out in the nearby ashtray. One carefully pushed the smoldering lump from the exterior paper, stomping out the only part still burning before tossing the rest away into the garbage. A strange thing to notice, really, since Phoenix didn’t really care for smoking personally. His grandfather had liked old, smelly cigars that left the house reeking for days and he enjoyed physical activity too much to want to damage his lungs like that. He had to admit, though, that of the three ways a person could get rid of their leftover bits, the last was his preference. It was clean, it didn’t smell, and it saved on the need for those glaringly ugly public ashtrays.
He paused. That thought had sounded an awful lot like Razer’s voice. In fact, it was, from way back at the start of the semester. It had been part of the whole well-rehearsed speech about why being roommates wouldn’t work out that he’d received the day they’d met, right after exchanging names. It had been a bit startling to be so blatantly told such intimate details by someone he’d know for literally seconds, but after losing four roommates in a year, Phoenix could almost understand the need to be so candid. Two had apparently flat out refused to share space with Razer—one because of his nationality and then another because of his openly homosexual nature. The third had dropped out of school completely and didn’t appear to be directly related to anything while the fourth had lasted only as long as midterms before requesting a reassignment, supposedly due to Razer’s smoking habit. The rest of the list had included things like “not here to party” and “refusing to live on a pig farm,” none of which had bothered Phoenix. Honestly, the detached, almost bored, yet very cold tone of voice he’d been told all this in had bothered him more than anything else.
There was an audible click as another piece snapped together. That was right. Their first conversation had had that same short, skeptical sound their exchanges had now, all a way to create distance when space was an issue. It had taken a couple days for the ice to thaw, for Razer to accept that he really had didn't problems with anything that had been stressed as a point of previous contention. Given how different things worked here and the year head start on culture shock, the hesitation and reluctance to accept his words at face value made sense. None of which was to say the other had truly warmed to him, either, but he’d certainly put in an effort to be nicer and Phoenix couldn’t find it in himself to ask for anything more even if he hoped for it. That was the part that hurt the most about this whole mess. He’d really thought his roommate was starting to like him, that maybe they could actually become something other than two people sharing space. Or was that the problem?
The completely unbidden thought hit like a ton of bricks. For a minute, the world froze, leaving Phoenix in a terrible lurch, unable to accept the idea, yet equally unable to dismiss it. It made a horrifying amount of sense really, connecting the otherwise seemingly random acts of undue kindness with a personality bent on remaining apart. Except that couldn’t be true since he’d seen Razer flirting with so many others, until it seemed like it was a base part of his personality. And yeah, there was always a little bit of that sent his direction, but they didn’t talk like that. It was all just a tease, a test to see if he’d freak out, right?
Right.
…Oh, God…
“Fuck me,” he swore, clamping a hand over his mouth almost as soon as the words escaped him. Phoenix looked up unto the clear sky above, trying to think his way out of the hole he’d just tripped himself into only to find his logic working against him at every turn. Everything now seemed to point to the same inevitable conclusion, save for the fact that if Razer really had been trying to come on to him, why hadn’t he stopped with all the innuendo and just said something? Why so much dancing around the subject if it was only going to cause this much of a problem when it failed? Was he afraid things would become awkward? Well, they were pretty damn awkward now and the idea of Razer being afraid of a failed relationship was almost laughable. Any way he looked at it, none of it made any sense.
He sighed and started walking again. Maybe he was deluding himself, so caught up in trying to understand that he was fabricating information to make all the pieces fit. He didn’t know if he was Razer’s type, or hell, if the man even had a type other than male and breathing. He liked to think he was attractive enough to catch people’s attention, considering he’d never lacked for company and the number of women that had come on to him. He’d even slugged a few friends for their pretty-boy comments because of his hair and piercings. And it wasn’t like he was so dead-set on the curves of women that he failed to notice how pleasing the lines on men could be as well. Truth be told, he’d entertained more than a few illicit thoughts about what it might be like with another guy before, to which Razer’s bluntness had made his brain itch with thousands of questions on the subject, but he hadn’t wanted to push where he might not be wanted. That first day had told him Razer expected a fight on the matter. Phoenix didn’t really want to give him one if it could be avoided.
What it really came down to was that without any sort of proof, it was all speculation on his part anyway. There could be a completely different set of reasons and circumstances leading to this current misery that he didn’t know about and still fulfilled all the same requirements. It was no business of his to make any sort of assumption. If he wanted an answer, there was only one way to find out for sure—he’d have to ask.
The long way back quickly became the shortest. No point in putting it off if it could be helped. Not when the notion was going to rot in the back of his mind, destroying what little natural attention span he had to begin with. If he was lucky, he’d catch his wayward roommate before he left for his afternoon classes. He slammed into the building at a full run, dodging around the light student traffic and skipping straight to the stairs rather than wait for the elevator. It seemed fortune favored his goal since Razer was indeed there still, hastily trying to clean up some mess and get ready at the same time, neither of which he seemed to be doing well if all the black mutterings were any indication. He abruptly stopped when he saw Phoenix standing in the doorway. There was a visible effort to regain lost calm, but the hold was tenuous at best.
“I do not have time for this,” he growled, albeit softly. “If you would, please…” A hand was waved to the mess, the implication clear.
“Sure. No worries,” Phoenix found himself responding, all previous questions and concerns forgotten. He’d once seen a pit viper with a look similar to the one Razer now wore and he really didn’t want to incite an attack. Especially when he could almost see the venom dripping. “Anything I need to save?”
“No.” Even Razer winced at how short the response had been. Or maybe it was just a muscle cramp where his hurried actions had tweaked something. In either case, he stopped and took a couple deep breaths, a hand pressed to his side as he tried to relax. The next statement was much calmer and kinder. “Thank you.”
Phoenix just nodded and got out of the way, letting the other pass without question or comment. Then he sighed, looking about the room like it would hold all the answers, of which none were forthcoming. Nothing for it, it seemed. His questions were just going to have to wait until one of the calmer moments. An agitated hand ran through his hair as he took in the mess left behind, letting his thoughts slip away again. What the hell had Razer been trying to do anyway? There was paper everywhere, scattered, crumpled and torn to shreds. Didn’t matter—he grabbed the wastebasket and started stuffing things into it. The sooner he got this task out of the way, the sooner he’d be free to do something else. Practice wasn’t until that evening today and he only had one other class to worry about. Maybe he could…
The rest of the thought faded back into the nothingness that had spawned it as he actually looked at the page in his hand. It was an article, or rather a piece of an article since neither the title nor the ending of it could be found, talking about needing a return to old ways of thinking to solve modern issues with aerospace navigational equipment. Obviously, it was from one of his aviation magazines. It sounded interesting, but he didn’t remember reading it. He picked up another page. This one was about the need for greater communication between pilots rather than depending upon control towers, which he hadn’t read either. A third page was an interview with one of the remaining members for a WWII Allied air squadron, also previously unread. In fact, most of the pages scattered about seem to have come from his magazines, but he’d read none of them.
And then he looked at his bunk and noticed the conspicuous absence of the three publications he’d picked up the other day. The ones he hadn’t had the chance to do more than flip through yet. Abruptly, all the understanding and compassion Phoenix had fled. There was really only one conclusion that could be made. Razer had torn them apart in his mad quest for whatever, without a word, an apology, or anything. His property, which had been sitting on his bed, utterly destroyed for no apparent purpose and left for him to clean up. The pages crumpled in his fist. He’d been kind, he’d been concerned, he’d been patient, he’d been polite, and this was how he was going to be treated for it? By having his laid-back, accepting nature so blatantly and notoriously abused? Even his best mate would have ended up with a beating for such a thing.
Fine, he decided. This was a game two could play. Razer wanted the place cleaned and had said nothing was to be saved. That meant everything still lying about was fair game. Was it vindictive? Very. Petty? Probably. Deserved? Absolutely. So it was without remorse that Phoenix swept everything off the desk and into the trash, including all the crap Razer used in his hair, several other unidentifiable things, and what had to be a rather expensive bottle of cologne. He didn’t stop there either, picking up everything that happened to be out and about, heedless of what it was, until the room was practically immaculate. The only moment he felt anything close to guilt was after he’d dumped the bags down the trash chute, which was a moment too late to really do anything to take it back.
Said moment, however, was fleeting. This was the end. He was done walking on eggshells, playing nice, and second guessing himself. If Razer wanted something, he could damn well ask about it like a normal, sane human being. And if that proved to be beyond his capabilities, there was nothing a good, old-fashioned brawl couldn’t straighten out. Phoenix found himself kind of hoping it would come down to that.
***
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To be continued.
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Rule 39