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Room and Board	By : sillyneko345 Category: +G through L > Jak & Daxter Views: 25355 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 7
Disclaimer: I do not own the game this story is based on (Jak & Daxter) nor do I make any money from writing it.

Chapter List
- 1-Ch. 1
- 2-Ch. 2
- 3-Ch. 3
- 4-Ch. 4
- 5-Ch. 5
- 6-Ch. 6
- 7-Ch. 7
- 8-Ch. 8
- 9-Ch. 9
- 10-Ch. 10
- 11-Ch. 11
- 12-Ch. 12
- 13-Ch. 13
- 14-Ch. 14
- 15-Ch. 15
- 16-Ch. 16
- 17-Ch. 17
- 18-Ch. 18
- 19-Ch. 19
- 20-Ch. 20
- 21-Ch. 21
- 22-Ch. 22
- 23-Ch. 23
- 24-Ch. 24
- 25-Ch. 25
- 26-Ch. 26
- 27-Ch. 27
- 28-Ch. 28
- 29-Ch. 29
- 30-Ch. 30
- 31-Ch. 31
- 32-Ch. 32
- 33-Ch. 33
- 34-Ch. 34
- 35-Ch. 35
- 36-ch. 36
- 37-ch. 37
- 20
- 21
- 22
Characters: Belong to Naughty Dog, Inc.

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It was fully dark by the time Jak announced that they were almost to his uncle’s house.
“You sure yer not lost?” Daxter asked. “This is like the three-hundredth county road we’ve turned on in the last half hour.”
“I grew up around here. I know exactly where we are,” Jak assured. And did he ever. He had been counting the miles for the last twenty minutes. Road trips were fun and all, but the closer they came to their destination the more he wanted to arrive.
“This is an awful lot of trust yer askin’ me ta put in you, y’know that? I’m completely lost. Hours away from everything I’m familiar with. How do I know yer not an axe murderer takin’ me out in the boonies ta dispose of my body?”
Jak rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “If you can’t tell whether or not I’m an axe murderer after sharing a room with me for three months, you might be a bad judge of character. Here we are—home sweet home.” He felt a great sense of calm as his headlights bypassed the end of the Hagai’s gravel driveway and illuminated a familiar mailbox. The long, paved drive they turned onto led to the only home he could remember. He hoped that Daxter would soon feel at home there, too.
“Sheesh, how big is this place?” Daxter asked uneasily, peering out into the gloom. “I thought you said you lived on a farm, not in a mansion.”
“This is a farmhouse. A lot of those are pretty big anyway. Uncle just made a few… improvements,” Jak allowed. His usual parking spot next to the garage was empty, so he reclaimed it without hesitation. “Uncle won’t be home until tomorrow afternoon, if his plane lands on time. We’ll have the place to ourselves while we get settled in. Come on, I can’t wait to show you around!”
Daxter, with his solitary bag and backpack, had a much easier time unloading. He stood by the porch, one hand steadying the ferret on his shoulder, as Jak pulled his bags and all the pieces of Killer’s cage out of the back seat. “You got a dog?” the redhead asked, ears drifting up at the barking from inside the otherwise dark, silent house. “I forgot you said you have a dog.”
“Don’t worry, he’s super friendly.” Jak shouldered one of his bags and grabbed the pile of ferret condo components. “Let’s get inside and turn up the heat. I’ll set Killer’s cage up first. It’ll keep him out of trouble while we get unpacked.” He was already entertaining visions of hot showers, a roaring fire, and sleeping in his own bed for the first time in months. However, first thing was first.
The quarterback unlocked the door one-handed and stepped inside. The volume and pitch of the barking redoubled. He barely had time to find the light switch in the dark before the beast attacked. There was nothing for it but to retaliate. Jak dropped everything, dropped to his knees, and threw his arms around the barking, roiling mass of overly excited dog.
“Hey Croc! Did you miss me? Aww, yeah, you missed me, huh? I missed you too, boy.” Jak laughed and turned his face prudently as his cheek and ear were decorated with slobbery kisses. It was good to be home.
Off to the side of the foyer, still safely ensconced on Daxter’s shoulder, Killer was making his displeasure known with the full gauntlet of ferret insults.
The redhead glanced bemusedly down at him. “Somethin’ tells me weasel-face doesn’t approve of yer… what kind’a dog even is that?”
“Ten percent of each of the bully breeds, one hundred percent mutt,” Jak said fondly, scratching under Croc’s broad jaw. The short, squat dog wriggled in delight and promptly fell over for a belly rub.
It took the better part of five minutes, but eventually Jak was able to convince his dog to allow him enough use of his hands that he could bump up the thermostat and get on with assembling Killer’s condo. Construction began in the den after a space was cleared on a low table by the window. While Jak worked, Daxter wandered around the large room, peering into the many shelves and curio cabinets that lined the walls.
“Jeez, yer uncle’s got a lot’a stuff,” the redhead muttered, transfixed by the case of ceremonial masks mounted above the fireplace.
Jak snapped the last plastic connector into place and hoisted the finished cage onto the table. “Yeah. He’s been to every continent and more countries than I can remember. And he brings something back from every trip.”
Daxter stared down a shimmering, plate-bronze mask with a long proboscis and round, empty eye holes. “Creepy.”
“Wait until you see the shrunken heads.”
“… I don’t even wanna know.”
With Killer safely situated inside his condo, Jak was able to fetch the rest of his luggage from the car. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Daxter hadn’t taken off his backpack or jacket. “Come on, Dax, my room’s upstairs. Drop your stuff and stay a while,” he teased.
The upstairs hallway was still cold. The green-blonde made a mental note to pull out the space heater as he pushed open the door at the end of the hall for Daxter and flipped on the light.
“Just drop your bags anywhere,” Jak told him. “Normally I’d be a good host and give you the spare bedroom, but my dad’s coming in sometime this week. Hope you don’t mind sharing my room with me.”
“Jak, I’m just plain offended that I’m gonna have to share a room that’s twice the size of the one we’ve been sharin’ fer three months,” Daxter deadpanned. “Words can’t describe my level of offended. I’m gonna file a formal complaint. I’m gonna smack yer face with a glove. I’m gonna—oh. My. God.” He came to an abrupt halt and did a double take. “Is that a cowboy hat?”
The quarterback rolled his eyes heavenward as the hat was snatched off the bedpost. “Yes, it’s a cowboy hat. And before you even ask, yes, I also have boots. They’re in the closet. That’s the standard uniform around here. I never would have made it through high school without at least one pair.”
Daxter cackled evilly. “Oh, wow, this is too great. Here, here, put it on! I gotta see this!”
The hat was ceremoniously placed on Jak’s head. His ears flicked as the edges of them touched the underside of the leather brim, a sensation they had almost forgotten. “Don’t diss my hat. It was a present. Keira bought it for me Sophomore year when she figured out I could—” Wait, what was he even saying? There was no way the redhead would ever let him live it down if he finished that sentence. “Never mind. You want a snack? Something to drink? We could watch some TV if you want.”
“No, no, hang on a sec. She bought it for you when she found out you could do what, now?” Daxter asked. His ears were pricked at high alert.
“It’s nothing. Forget I said anything.”
“Oh, no. No no no no. Come on, Jakkie-boy, you can’t say somethin’ like that an’ then leave me hangin’. You gotta tell me now! What is it?”
Jak sighed deeply. It was come clean now, or have the daylights pestered out of him until he did. He knew how the redhead operated. “… sing,” he muttered, pulling the brim of the hat down over his eyes.
Daxter blinked. “Say what?”
“She found out that I can sing,” Jak said louder, feeling his ears heat slightly. Damn it. It had been embarrassing enough when only Keira knew. “But don’t say anything to anybody else, okay? Especially not Phoenix.”
“Sing,” Daxter repeated, disbelief clear in his voice. “Seriously? No offense, Jak, but a quiet guy like you, sing? Kind’a hard ta wrap my brain around that.”
Jak opened his mouth to reply. Closed it. Mentally debated with himself over what he was about to do. Adjusted his hat. Cleared his throat. And opened his mouth again. “Baby, lock the door and turn the lights down low…”
- // - // - // - // -
“… put some music on that’s soft and slooow. Baby we ain’t got no place to go. I hope you understand—”
Daxter’s eyes widened to their limit. His ears went up in total shock even as Jak’s voice, normally deep, sank lower and lower until it became a nothing so much as a husky, rumbling purr that seemed to impact the redhead smack in the middle of his ribcage.
“I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout this all day long. Never felt a feeling quite this strong…” Jak glanced up from under the hat that suddenly didn’t look nearly so ridiculous, eyes wary as he waited for the teasing that was sure to come. It never did.
Daxter shut his mouth with a snap, suddenly aware that it had been hanging open. He swallowed hard, mouth dry, unable to take his eyes off his roommate’s suddenly curious face. Okay. Wow. Jak could really… that was really very… country music was actually kind of… had the furnace suddenly kicked into overtime in there or was it just him?
Something in Jak’s expression changed. A smile grabbed the corner of his mouth and turned it upward as he continued singing in that maddeningly low tone that made the hairs on Daxter’s arms rise. “I can’t believe how much it turns me on, just to be your man—”
As the quarterback took a step forward, Daxter took a reflexive step back. A shiver went up his spine at the realization that Jak’s smirk was growing almost predatorily smug, but hot damn was it attractive. His back was against the wall before he fully registered it, his attention totally focused on the mesmerizing shapes Jak’s mouth made as he sang.
“There’s no hurry, don’t you worry; we can take our time. Come a little closer; let’s go over, what I had in mind…”
Jak’s hand landed on the wall beside Daxter’s head, palm flat against the cool surface. The redhead’s breath hitched, his eyes drifting slowly shut and his lips parting in expectation as Jak leaned in, closer, closer…
The sound of a doorbell echoed through the empty house.
Daxter blinked stupidly. His nose was barely an inch from Jak’s. “Uh. There’s somebody at yer door.”
The green-blonde’s ears slanted in puzzlement. “Weird. I wonder who it is?” He drew away from Daxter, casually pulling off the cowboy hat and dropping it on the bedpost as he walked out.
Heart pounding, lungs pulling in the air they hadn’t realized they’d been missing, Daxter pushed himself off the wall. Okay, that is officially the weirdest boner I ever got. But I think I liked it. He trailed after Jak, absently wondering how he could make the last three minutes happen again without sounding too eager to be serenaded by a fake jock turned fake cowboy.
The bell rang again as Daxter reached the bottom of the stairs. Croc was going crazy, barking and bounding around Jak as he walked to the door.
“I’m coming,” the quarterback yelled as a third chime echoed through the house, nearly tripping over his dog in the scramble. “Croc, calm down! Sit. Stay.”
Daxter stood on the last step, watching over the banister as his friend finally pulled the door open.
The girl who had been waiting on the porch pounced. “Jak!” she yelled, throwing her arms around Jak’s neck and putting her entire weight behind it. Jak hoisted her with a startled “oof!” that turned into a laugh.
The redhead instinctively went still in his half-shadowed hiding spot. He silently observed, getting his first in-person look at the only girl whose affections he’d ever seen Jak not try to slink awkwardly away from. This had to be Keira.
“How long have you been home, you creep?” Keira laughed. “You were supposed to call me as soon as you got here and I only figured it out when I saw your bedroom light come on!”
Jak had completely picked her up off the ground by now. He supported her easily, her legs around his waist like a koala as they hugged. “I was getting to it,” he protested, voice somewhat hampered by the chokehold on his neck. “Why didn’t you just come in? You never ring the doorbell.”
“It’s my job to keep you on your toes.” Then she let go of Jak, looked up, and spotted Daxter.
Two sets of wide blue eyes, one spooked and one surprised, met silently for half a beat.
Keira’s ears flew up. “Oh, hey!” She crossed the foyer lightly on booted feet, bringing a draft of cold, winter-crisp air with her, and thrust out a hand with a grin. “You must be Daxter! Jak’s told me so much about you—but he didn’t tell me you were coming home with him, the jerk-face. I’m Keira.”
Daxter swallowed. “Uh, yep. That’s me. In his defense, I didn’t know I was comin’ with him either.” He awkwardly returned the greeting handshake, wondering uneasily just how much about him she had been told. His hand was abruptly crushed in a vice clamp. “Oww, holy crap!”
Keira dropped his hand immediately and hid her own behind her back with a sheepish smile. “Sorry! Tightening engine components all day kind of gives you a firm grip, you know?”
Daxter decided then and there that he liked Keira.
- - - - -
“Ack! Jak, your ferret’s in my bra!”
Daxter glanced down the sofa in amusement, holding his cup of cider warm in chilled hands. It seemed like Jak’s prediction that Keira would love Killer had come to pass.
Jak had started a fire in the big fireplace in the den. The three of them had retreated there with popcorn and warm drinks, sprawling on the sofa as the dancing flames cast flickering shadows into dark nooks and crannies, firelight sparkling off half-hidden exotic treasures. Croc lay on the rug at Jak’s feet, snoring gently.
“Well, pull the ferret out of your bra.” Jak chuckled around a drink of his cider and relaxed into the cushions. “He probably likes the lotion you’re wearing. He’s madly in love with my coach’s aftershave. Or maybe it’s just my coach.”
Keira tapped the extracted ferret on his twitching nose before letting him go to scale the back of the sofa. “Yeah, well, lotion or no lotion, watch where that little nose is going. That’s personal space and I don’t date animals.” Suddenly her ears popped up. “Oh! Speaking of, I’ve got big news, Jak.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Keira puffed herself up in her sweater and smiled happily. “I officially have a girlfriend!”
Daxter’s mouth fell open.
Jak stared blankly for a moment, then returned the grin. “Oh my god, you actually hooked up with Tess.”
“Yep! I asked her out and she said yes!”
“That’s great, Keira.” The two shared a fist bump of congratulations. “When did this happen?”
“… yesterday.”
Jak slowly lowered his mug. “You asked her out the day before you both went home for a three week break?”
“Jeez, yer sense of timing sucks,” Daxter said before his brain, which had drifted into and become mired in lesbian waters, could reign in his mouth.
“Oh, shut it.” Keira leaned over Jak to whap at the redhead with a throw pillow. “I didn’t mean for it to happen that way, it just—happened.” She shrugged philosophically. “You know how it goes. One minute you’re sitting in the car in the mall parking lot drinking lattes, the next minute you’re making out to Rhianna. It felt like the right time.”
Daxter swapped a skeptical look with Jak. He wasn’t quite sure he really knew how that went. But then again, he’d had to get shitfaced on fowl-flavored vodka to get whatever it was he and Jak were doing going, so what did he know.
“Well, congratulations anyway,” Jak said, propping his feet on the edge of the coffee table in front of the sofa. “I’m sure you’ll pick up right where you left off when the break ends.”
“Yeah. We’re going to hold hands, and go on dates, and shop for cute underwear together.” Keira fluttered her eyelashes sarcastically and reached for the popcorn bowl. “You’re right, though. I did have really bad timing. Not that I regret asking her when I did, because I don’t, but…”
“Now you gotta wait?” Daxter supplied helpfully. “An’ now that yer taken you can’t even use the break ta have one last hurrah with yer high school hunk?”
“No!” she yelled, throwing a handful of popcorn that mostly missed Daxter and hit Jak full in the face. “I would not even, thank you very much. I may be a lot of non-traditional things, but I am definitely not the kind of girl who fools around with a committed man. Especially not when his boyfriend is staying in the same house.”
Daxter’s ears flattened in surprise. “Boyfriend? Y’mean… me?” Oh, shit. That wasn’t what he and Jak were, right? Hadn’t Jak told her that? Surely the quarterback would have let him know by now if there was something more to their arrangement than—
“We’re not ‘boyfriends,’ Keira,” Jak said with a half smile and a roll of his eyes. “I told you, we’re just… experimenting.”
Daxter nodded emphatically in agreement. “Yeah, what he said.” He firmly tried to ignore the small part of him that was hurt by Jak’s immediate denial. “Experimenting, tryin’ stuff out—like lab partners!” Why be hurt by that? Nothing negative in telling the truth.
“Experimenting. Right.” Keira did not look convinced. “And how long exactly have you guys been ‘experimenting,’ again?” The air quotes were obvious without her having to lift a finger.
“About three weeks, I guess,” Jak said slowly. “Why?”
“How many bases have you gotten to in those three weeks?” the mechanic asked, arms crossed over her chest. “I ask this as your BFFF. Best female friend forever,” she clarified at Daxter’s lost look.
Jak cleared his throat uncomfortably and glanced at Daxter sidelong.
The redhead, ears burning, shrugged helplessly. “… three fourths of ‘em…?”
“Okay, and those three fourths haven’t given you the faintest idea of whether or not you might like guys? Just how long are you going to keep ‘experimenting’ before you’re sure?” She received no answer. “Uh-huh. Thought so. And you never do anything romantic? You never make out just because, or cuddle, or sleep in the same bed for no reason, or—”
Daxter found something very interesting to focus on in the corner. Jak looked at the ceiling. The fire popped loudly.
“Totally boyfriends,” Keira muttered to Killer as he slithered by on the back of the sofa.
Jak stood abruptly with a flurry of displaced popcorn. “Oh-kay, it’s getting late. Time for Keira to go home and go beddy-bye.” He grabbed her under the arms and hoisted her off the couch.
Croc raised his head off his paws in interest as he was stepped over, then discovered the popcorn and began to chomp enthusiastically.
“Unhand me at once, you brute!” Keira yelled, more than obviously used to such avoidance tactics as she was unceremoniously put over the quarterback’s shoulder and carried toward the foyer.
Daxter stared from the couch in the den. Are these two fer real? They act more like they’re related than they act like they’re bangin’.
“I try to give you heartfelt relationship advice and this is the thanks I get? Don’t come crying to me when you wake up one morning and start writing each other sonnets to declare your undying love!” Keira’s words trailed off as she was carried around the corner.
“Good night, Keira,” Jak said loudly.
“Night, Jak,” she said cheerfully. “See you tomorrow. I’ll come over for breakfast, so make waffles. Bye, Daxter!” she yelled. Then the door opened, closed, and silence reclaimed the big house.
When Jak returned to the den he was shaking his head, but there was a smile lurking suspiciously in the vicinity of his goatee.
Daxter grinned weakly. “Well, that was… fun.”
“That was Keira, in a nutshell. Good news, she’s already accepted you into the tribe.” The green-blonde dropped back onto the sofa. When there was no response, he nudged the redhead with his knee. “Hey, don’t let her bug you. She doesn’t mean anything by it. She’s just super excited right now and wants to share the joys of dating.”
“Oh, yeah, I figured,” Daxter agreed quickly. “Girls, always goin’ off about romance. What can ya do?” Romance. Ha. Who needed it? Who wanted to be somebody’s favorite person and have sex because you were in love and know that somebody was never going to leave you? Totally not him.
Jak stretched. “I think I’m going to go get some sleep. When Keira says she’s coming over for breakfast, she means before nine.”
“What, is she nuts?”
“No, just a morning person.” Jak pushed himself off the couch. “You coming? You can stay down here and watch TV or something if you want.”
Though the offer was tempting—a large screen that he wouldn’t have to battle everyone else in the dorm lounge for control of—Daxter decided against it. Upstairs with Jak was better than downstairs alone with all the creepy knickknacks. “Nah, I’m good. Right behind ya, Jakkie-boy.”
And he was, literally, just a moment later, when a shattering crash split the quiet. Daxter scrambled behind the quarterback with a yelp, ears back and eyes wide. Croc leapt to his feet and circled, barking at the tops of his lungs as he searched for the cause of the noise.
A streak of brown and cream zipped away from the remains of a vase that had been resting innocently on a low shelf.
Jak narrowed his eyes. “Memo to me: This house isn’t ferret-proof yet.”
Daxter heaved a sigh of relief, chuckled nervously, and loosened the death grip on the back of Jak’s shirt.
- // - // - // - // -
“If there’s ever an earthquake, yer gonna be dead before ya even know what hit ya. Crushed ta death by fallin’ trophies. Sad way ta go.”
“There’s only one shelf,” Jak soothed, pulling the shirt he held over his head with a chuckle.
“Yeah, well, it’s a freakin’ huge shelf. There’s another concussion, at least.”
The quarterback glanced over at his bed. Daxter had parked himself on the far side of the queen mattress, back against the headboard, hands propped behind his head. He kept staring around Jak’s room, obviously soaking everything in from the shelf that housed the trophies, to the high school pennants on the walls, to the fishing pole propped in the corner next to the snowboard.
“If I die crushed by the falling memorabilia of my success, you can have the rest of my stuff,” Jak offered. “Except my video games. Keira wants those.” Ready for bed, he flipped off the overhead light. The glow of a string of white lights tacked up over the closet doors took over the task of illuminating the dark, sending a warm golden glow to chase the shadows.
Daxter slid under the covers with a sigh and Jak followed suit, trying not to notice how the size of the bed made the redhead look even smaller than usual. He was so used to Daxter being smashed up beside him in the tiny dorm bunk that in the normal sized bed he seemed entirely too far away. Well, there was only one way to remedy that. Jak slid closer and tucked an arm around his friend’s waist under the blanket.
Daxter glanced back over his shoulder and gave the green-blonde a wary look. It was obvious that he still wasn’t comfortable. He probably wouldn’t be for a couple of days, at least, until the rush of the unexpected move started to wear off.
Jak smiled reassuringly. “It’s still chilly up here.”
Daxter didn’t do “new” well. And Jak wasn’t going to push him to fool around in a new place when he had only just recently begun to feel comfortable with fooling around in the dorm room they’d already been sharing for months. Even if the thought of having his roommate all to himself in the bigger bed with no one around to hear any desperate moans or whimpers was tantalizingly tempting.
Without his conscious permission, Jak’s nose found its way into Daxter’s hair. It was comfortable, so he didn’t see the need to move. “Goodnight, Dax. Tomorrow we’ll find something fun to do.”
“Whatever you say, Jakkie-boy. G’night.” Slowly Daxter relaxed under Jak’s arm. A few minutes of quiet breathing in the dark and he wriggled back unobtrusively to mold himself against Jak, soaking up the quarterback’s heat.
Jak hugged a little tighter in response.
And if there happened to be any unnecessary cuddling going on, neither of them deigned to comment on it.
- // - // - // - // -
To be continued.
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