Snippet Thursday part 2: Blackmail Au
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In which Jak has to learn how to properly take care of curly hair
It turned out that the king of the Wastelanders was a little less intimidating when he was arguing with Sig. For all that he retained his commanding presence, with or without his armor, the low stakes of the disagreement seemed to soften him into something more human.
"I'm just going right back to the city again tomorrow!" Sig complained, "I'll do Wash Day when I get back."
"The rot you will," Damas retorted, pointing a comb menacingly at him, "We both know you'd rather shave your head than bother with Wash Day. Just get it over with and you won't have to deal with it for another two weeks."
"Come on, man!"
"You're setting a bad example for Jak," Damas said smugly.
Sig's nostrils flared. "Ohhh you rotsucker. That's not fair."
"I don't have to play fair on Wash Day."
Jak and Daxter watched the back and forth with growing amusement, especially when the indomitable Sig capitulated with some very creative expletives. Why was he making such a big deal out of washing his hair? Daxter washed twice a week if they could get the soap for it. Jak...didn't wash as much, but he tried to at least rinse off the sweat.
"It's just washing hair, how long could it take?" he snorted as Sig dragged out a low stool in front of the sink in the corner.
"An hour at least," Sig grumbled.
"An hour? For hair?" Jak sputtered, "Why would you spend that much time on it?!"
Sig looked at him. Damas looked at him. After a moment, Damas sighed.
"Well, that tracks."
"What's that supposed to mean?!"
Damas reached up and fiddled with the crown piercings, sliding them out of tiny metal ports in his skull with a soft click one by one. He set them on the table and distractedly waved Jak over.
"Hair like ours requires more care than your friend there," he explained. "I somewhat doubt you like running around with your curls all knotted and broken together like that. Hasn't anyone ever showed you how to care for them?"
Daxter scoffed. "Self-care was never high on Samos's priority list of subjects to teach us."
Curious but cautious, Jak edged closer to the table to look at the jars Damas had set out. Oils, creams, some kind of soap. Were Damas and Sig really going to use all of these? He picked one up and examined it closely, smelling coconut.
"That's the last step," Sig said, plucking the jar from his hands unexpectedly.
Jak blinked. Without his hood and armor, Sig looked...weird. His hair was close-cropped, but not shaved; olive green coils somewhat smashed into the shape of his helmet. Daxter snickered from behind him.
"Hat hair!" he whispered.
Sig was not amused. He yanked open the first jar of oil and applied it liberally to his hair. "Just do as I do, cherry. No commentators from the peanut gallery."
Damas followed suit with an impish smile altogether out of place on his stoic face. "This is why I don't do helmets."
"Because your head is too fat for them?"
Damas paused in rubbing the oil into his locs to narrow his eyes at Sig. "I know how to override your door lock, you know."
"Oooh I'm so scared. Whatcha gonna do? Shampoo me to death?" Sig taunted.
"I could do that. Or I could add something to your ammunition pouch."
"Add what?"
"I'm not telling you."
"Add what, Daym?"
"You'll find out."
Jak raised an eyebrow at the two grown men behaving like, well, like him and Daxter. They seemed distracted, and he was curious, so after a moment he gave in and poured a handful of oil into his own hair. Presumably they'd wash it out next.
He was wrong.
Thirty minutes he had to sit with the oil soaking into his hair, bored out of his skull. No wonder Sig hated doing this! He couldn't even leave the room, because he didn't know where to find another sink! Equally bored, Daxter started rifling through Jak's jacket pockets until he came up with the bag of trail rations.
"Wanna play Kill-Grid?" he asked, holding up the bag, "Nuts versus beans?"
"We don't have a grid," Jak pointed out.
Sig leaned forward. "Kill-Grid? What's that?"
Jak shrugged. "It's a game we played a lot back in Sandover. You make a grid of sixteen squares. Twelve pieces on each side, the middle row stays empty."
Daxter opened the bag to see if there were enough nuts and beans to even play as he added, "It's...kinda like checkers. Except the board shrinks if a whole row gets cleared out."
"Yeah! If every piece in one row gets captured, you erase that row and make the grid even smaller. Whoever has the most pieces left when there aren't any more open spaces is the winner."
Just speaking about the game seemed to lift a weight from the boy. Damas saw life returning to his eyes, and he actually sounded like a fifteen year old ought to for a moment. Sorrow clawed at his guts like an animal trapped inside. This was his son, his firstborn, and a complete stranger. A young boy who seemed to only barely remember that he was meant to have a childhood. Who didn't even know basic self-care.
"Time's up," he said, gently interrupting the explanation, "Time to shampoo."
"Finally!" Sig huffed.
The chamber fell silent save for the sounds of water splashing and soap squishing into curls. Jak watched Sig with wide eyes, earnestly mimicking every step as best he could. Cross-legged on the rug, barefoot and barefaced, he looked...he looked like he belonged there. Like he always should have. Damas watched his lost-and-found child's face morph into surprise as he discovered how easily his fingers slipped through the tangles now. It wasn’t so very different from teaching Mar to wash his own hair. Just how neglected had Jak been? Damas couldn’t help wondering if Jak and Mar were on equal footing in their knowledge of how growing up was meant to be. It wasn't right for a boy to be so unused to kindness. It wasn't natural.
"Y'know," Daxter remarked, "I really didn't think your hair was that long?"
Jak shrugged helplessly and fumbled with slippery, wet hair, trying to put yet another round of oil into it. Before, it had brushed against his shoulder blades, bulked out with matts and snarls. Now it hung nearly to his waist, and he was getting tired of it sticking to his fingers.
"Ugh," he groaned after having to return to the oil jar yet again. "Sig, can I borrow your knife? I'm not doin' this."
Damas shot Sig a dirty look as the taller man snickered.
"What, ah, whatcha gonna do with it, cherry?"
Jak raised a brow. "Cut it??"
With some effort, he gathered up the thick hair into one fist and gestured to about three inches. "Look, that's gonna get tangled in my holster. I don't wanna deal with that."
"We have scissors, you know," Damas pointed out.
"Knife's faster."
Damas paused and blinked. Somehow, Jak had turned out more like Sig than Mar had, and Mar was the one who actually shared blood with him! As grateful as he was -- overwhelmingly, shatteringly relieved and grateful -- that of all the people to have taken Baby Heart under his wing, it was Sig, he could have done without Sig’s impatience for hair care being passed along.
Even so, there was no bite in his voice when he muttered to Sig, "He gets this from you, doesn't he?"
"I apologize for nothing," Sig joked.
He pulled his knife out and handed it over to Jak.
"Let Daxter do it, kiddo. He can see the parts you can't."
"Fair enough," Jak agreed easily.
"If I get buried in this stuff, I demand financial compensation," Daxter warned as he was passed the knife.
"That's going to bounce up shorter than you think, you know," Damas commented. "Especially with the extra weight taken off."
"Hey, as long as it's not in my face or wrapped around my gun, I don't give a crap," Jak answered. He leaned back on his palms to give Daxter better access to the long curls.
"What was I supposed to do after the second oil soak? Is that it?"
"You can stop there," Sig begrudgingly admitted, "But in your case it...probably would be better to do one last thing of cream, since you don't wear a helmet like me. It'll protect your hair later."
Jak made a face, and Sig didn't blame him. As a boy, Sig had never been the most patient individual. He'd learned plenty of patience over the years, but when he was off-duty? He couldn't help some of the old instincts to just get it done and over with.
It was a good thing his mama couldn't see him right now. She'd box his ears and hold his head in the sink to finish the Wash Day herself. Selda had never let him get away with neglecting himself. Sig supposed he would have to start channeling his mother to ensure that Jak didn't continue to neglect himself.
Daxter set down the knife and examined his handiwork critically.
"Mm...well, it ain't stylish, but you don't look like you let a blindfolded batfinch style your hair, at least."
Damas made a little harrumph in the corner as he wrapped up his own application of a heated oil.
"Oh. Right. I need to change the batfinches' water tonight."
"Come again?" Daxter asked.
Sig picked up a wide-toothed comb and shrugged. "Damas keeps an aviary. He's got- what are you up to now, seven different species in there?"
"Ten, actually," Damas corrected. "The tavus eggs finally hatched. I had to get a pair of rock hens in order to hatch them, though."
"Rock hens? From the mountains?" Daxter asked, wrinkling his nose, "What's a rock hen got to do with peafowl?"
Damas’s eyes lit up with the prospect of actually talking about his birds.
"Rock hens will brood over anything even vaguely egg shaped," he said.
With a click he began setting his crown piercings back into their ports, gesturing now and then as he did.
"The incubators were hatching the peafowl eggs, but without other galliformes, the tavus chicks weren't surviving."
"You got them foster-moms," Daxter guessed, "Right?"
"I did!" Damas smiled. "They're doing quite well, so far."
Daxter stretched up over Jak's shoulder with a serious look. "We're gonna go see those birds, right?"
"After the flut-flut thing?" Jak teased him.
"They're already hatched! I don't gotta worry about gettin' mistaken for anybody's Ma this time!" Daxter argued. "Besides, I'm only goin' for you."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, mister "I'm just good with animals"!"
Jak wasn't sure yet. Going to this guy's aviary -- which he talked about with the same enthusiasm Jak used to feel about his bug collection -- felt like it would lead the man to start acting more buddy-buddy with him. Jak wasn't interested in that. He wanted his little brother back, and then maybe they could talk boundaries. But...there were baby animals. And...
He really liked baby animals.
They didn't shy away from him, even when he was in his dark form. If it weren't for animals like the city yakkows and the crocadog, Jak would probably have believed what everyone said about his dark side being some kind of mindless animal.
"Hhh. Okay. We can see the tavus chicks," he agreed, rolling his eyes.
Damas looked so pleased that whatever was left of his intimidating image dropped and shattered on the floor.
If he could find something in common with this boy -- something other than their mutual protectiveness over Mar; a boy his age had no business being made a parental figure to his sibling -- then perhaps they could start over on a better foundation than "I thought you were in danger so I had you kidnapped from Haven City". Even if that had definitely been the right call at the time.
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F1 teams as districts:
District 1, luxury items; The first half of the career pack, for me, has to be Ferrari. The privilege and prestige District 1 is implied to have in the books (in comparison to the other districts) and the undeniable privilege and prestige Ferrari has in F1, it just makes sense to me.
District 2 is masonry and defense, I am leaning towards mercedes here, purely because narratively it makes sense to put them as the second half of the career pack. I did debate putting in mclaren but in recent years only, there was no contest.
District 3 is general electronics, this one caused a lot of back and forth for me but in the end I went with Williams. The brilliance of the way Beetee used his intelligence to win and the brilliance of the cars Newey produced for Williams in the early ninties, it just made sense for me.
District 4, fishing; now maybe a controversial take, but for me, District 4 is Red Bull. Hear me out: while considered a career district, District 4 is implied to be for conditional career District. Depending on circumstances, District 4 tributes might not ally with the traditional career pack. Its implied the tributes capabilities and age, the type of arena they're thrust into, etc affect whether or not they'll make the line up. In the books, the girl from 4 is a career tribute but the boy, the youngest tribute alongside Rue, is not and is killed pretty quick. Annie Cresta only won her games due to her ability to swim, which implies that she wasn't hunting down her fellow tributes with the careers. We know she was traumatised by the death of her District partner which also implies that he was her only ally in her games. Now Finnick, Finnick is the exception. He's one of the youngest Victor's ever, he was 14. Primarily stayed alive at first because no one thought he was a real threat. It's kind of implied he was with the careers but that's up for debate and discussion. When he is gifted a trident by the sponsors, that's when things change. The other tributes didn't realise their mistake until it was too late. Not to mention, according to Katniss' initial thoughts of him, Finnick comes across as confident, obnoxiously arrogant and devilishly charming. It just screams red bull golden boy to me. There's a reason why 12 year old pictured seb as finnick when I first read catching fire lmao.
District 5 is power/electricity, mclaren. Mclaren was a hard one to place. I switched them and Williams around a couple of times. My justification for possibly putting Williams here? The battery logo on their car lmao. In end a similar justification as to why I put Williams in 3, put mclaren in 5. Ngl Oscar is a little foxface coded.
District 6 is transportation, we don't see much on District 6 other than the morphlings so thanks to word association with the concept of the districts role, I had to go with Alpine lmao.
District 7 is lumber, Aston Martin purely because I think Johanna Mason and Fernando would either get along like house on fire, set the world on fire or both.
District 8 is textiles, alfa romeo. Was this primarily because of Zhou's impeccable fashion sense? And what about it? And I can't deny Bottas gives me District 8 vibes based on the character's from that District. That being said they were almost District 7 because of Johanna taking her clothes off in the elevator and Bottas being Bottas on insta lmfao.
District 10 is livestock, again I have no justification other than vibes but haas. I nearly put Alpha Tauri here due to their relationship with red bull.
District 11 is agriculture, I put Alpha Tauri is the only team specifically there to develop young drivers and has been struggling due to various issues in the last few years. Very much needed (in regards to developing young drivers, 11 produces most of the food for the capitol, both are underappreciated and are harshly criticised/punished by the sky sports commentators/the capitol.
There was a 13th District that was in charge of nuclear weaponry, but prior to the start of the book, it was obliterated. (We later find out that wasn't totally accurate, but anyways, for the sake of this post, it was completely obliterated). 13, along with 2, was the main weapon developer for the capitol. 13's destruction paved the way for 2 to become more valuable for the capitol and why it became a career district. If 2 is mercedes, 13 is brawn gp.
District 9 (grain) & 12 (coal mining) I've had to leave blank as I can't think of anything else currently but I'm sure if I look back through the f1 vaults I could find parallels between different teams and these districts.
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