#BUT AHHHH TYSM AGAIN FOR THIS BEAUTIFUL STARTER 😭

[howthesleeplesswander]

Every time Rhys dared to think Hey, wow, okay, I might finally be getting the hang of things! the universe threw something else at him that knocked him on his ass like it was hellbent on making him the butt of as many jokes as possible. There was no other explanation for how he'd ended up sitting across from the last surviving body double of Handsome Jack: aka the absolute mother of all ridiculous, uncomfortable situations.

Finally thought you could catch a breather after dealing with Maliwan? Nope! Time for the cherry on top!

And yeah, duh, obviously Rhys knew that Timothy wasn't Jack. But wow was it hard to remind his stupid brain of that when he looked and sounded exactly the same.

At least the tablet in front of him spared him from attempting eye contact. It had been propped towards him against the edge of the table since he'd sat down, definitely because he was engrossed in something very important and not because he'd spent the last five minutes of stilted conversation clicking back and forth between the same two programs while trying to get a freaking grip.

Thank God Timothy wasn't wearing anything resembling holographic blue or Rhys would've had a heart attack from catching a glimpse in his peripheral.

"I mean—yeah? That pretty much sums it up. What more of a reason do you need, right?" Rhys forced a laugh and hated how hollow it sounded in the tense air. "Amiright? Aha...yeah...y-you get it." Ugh, it'd be more merciful if the ground opened up and swallowed him whole.

But before anything dramatic could save him, there the universe went again, and man—how was that fair? This was already weird beyond all measure, yet all it took was the tiniest inconsistency to sucker punch him with how ridiculous that was.

Technically Rhys had never known the real Jack, but Nakayama's AI had felt real. It was impossible to not get to know someone who was a constant presence in your head. By the end, Rhys had learned more about Jack than he'd ever dreamed...like why the entire galaxy beyond his blind Hyperion followers hated him.

Reason #1 (of approximately 971398): Jack would never have apologized for anything.

Which was why those five little letters of "sorry" from Tim's lips sent the CEO reeling in a different way as his brain screamed Wrong! This is wrong!! Jack's voice had never known remorse, but this person who was the spitting image right down to every stupidly attractive detail wasn't Jack, so what the hell was wrong with him?!

"No, no no—you're fine," he managed after a mental slap in the face. "It's...it's not you, trust me." In more ways than one...yeesh. "Not that I don't appreciate it, but I definitely don't want you to blow up. Atlas prosthetics are second-to-none, but we haven't figured out how to replace a missing face, so, uh...Definitely don't chance it."

Finally, he forced his gaze up from the screen. An attempted smile felt stiff on his face, creeping into a self-directed grimace...which only grew more pronounced at the realization of how it would look from the outside.

"Look," Rhys breathed heavily, his free hand burrowing into the crook of his neck, "I'm not gonna pretend it's not weird, 'cause yeah, it...it really is—" he half-coughed, half-groaned at himself mid-sentence, "b-but again! That's...that's not anything to do with you, so really: don't worry about it, okay?"

He could only hope that the reassurance worked better for Timothy than it did for himself. "We'll add the whole 'face bomb' thing to the list, though. But first thing's first." Eager for a distraction, Rhys nodded at the bandaged stump so casually stretched between them. "Mind if I take a look?"

@howthesleeplesswander || plotted starter for rhysie cup! (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡

“So, uh . . . Yeah, like—? What made you decide to rebuild Atlas and not, uhm . . . I mean, you were a Hyperion guy for awhile, weren’t you?” And you’re making small talk, aren’t you, Timmy Boy? Attempting. Important distinction. We’re attempting, kiddos. Call yourself a friggin’ actor . . . God.

Look, Timothy had been in his fair share of awkward situations. He’d been the cause of about 90 percent of those situations, which was pretty freakin’ funny when you thought about it: Handsome Jack being “awkward” . . . But, well, something here was awkwarder than usual. Like some higher power had taken that dial and turned it all the way to one end and forced these two poor souls to figure their shit out while said higher power kicked back, made himself a bowl of popcorn—hey! Maybe even ordered an entire pizza . . .

Ugh. Tim didn’t want to think about pizza for the next year at least. Scratch that.

He fidgeted. He’d been doing a lot of that since the Vault Hunters left him here on Promethea. You know, kind of like he was some stray cat they found digging through the nearest dumpster who should have just been ignored, but they weren’t heartless enough to leave him and figured You know what? Let’s toss this pathetic pile of matted fur onto some other asshole’s lap and wash our hands, be done with it. Even in their company, Timothy had felt the tension in the air between him and Atlas’s CEO (who was incredibly attractive for a guy who probably just sat behind his desk and cackled maniacally at the expense of others, by the way—? Why didn’t the damn VHs feel the need to warn him?). Now that the two of them were alone . . . ? Tim wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Maybe both. Internally.

Externally, stumbling his way through a semi-normal conversation with probably the first semi-normal dude he’d met in what felt like centuries was the way to go.

“Stickin’ it to ‘The Man,’ or whatever?” Tim prodded after a pause. (“The Man” here very obviously meaning the jackhole everyone knew and the sane people hated at this point; Timothy didn’t need to spell that one out.) “God, sorry, I— I-I get it.”

Want to know the weird thing about losing a hand? It still somehow felt like it was there. Imagine the scenario: some disheveled, absolutely trashed representation of what was maybe a man at some point lifting his pathetic little stub of an arm to subconsciously futz with those damned latches on this stupid friggin’ mask only to realize . . . Well. Play it cool. (Which, by the way, meant doing that universal thing everyone did where he just flexed that arm in what was meant to look like a convincing stretch.)

Tim didn’t meet Rhys’s gaze. Funnily, he was pretty sure neither of them were doing great in the “eye contact” department (among about two dozen other departments). With a shake of his head, all he offered was “Listen, I’d . . . I-I’d remove the mask right here and now—might make all this weirdness, like, one degree less weird, but uh . . . hah.” Now the laugh was external, but not at all humored. “Really not convinced something won’t still explode if I try, so . . . Yeah. Sorry about the reawakened horrific trauma, I bet. I promise that's totally unintentional. If I was the real Jack, ya know, it'd be . . . it'd be intentional. But I'm not. So.”