#Like I love rhys and jack but i want to strangle jack more at the same time and give rhys a hug does that make sense?

[daneol]

Gyahahhaa Tales from Borderlands content cause I'm playing it for the first time and slowly falling in love with these two dumbasses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[papa-rhys]

Thoughts on Jack and His Borderline Personality Disorder and How It Shows Through His Behaviour - Because I Cannot Stop Analysing Things That Ultimately Aren’t Important

Symptoms/behaviours under the cut because holy hell this guy has a lot of them. Like, honey, are you okay?

Okay, so I’m pretty sure I can trace Jack’s BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) back to his grandmother. His mum abandoned him, which shows a reckless/irresponsible behaviour and her mum had fits of rage that didn’t correlate at all with the trigger (ie; drowning Jack’s cat because he didn’t make his bed). So I think he has a family history of it, with both his mother and grandmother having BPD and passing it down to him.

Either way, Jack definitely has it. In fact, he’s a textbook case of it.

Impulsivity

Spending sprees: he bought a pony made of diamonds because he was bored and throws money at all kinds of ventures to keep him occupied and because he wants to. I really don’t know how else to describe this one lol. He bought a pony. Made of diamonds. Because he could.

Gambling: won some of the things on his trophy shelf through poker and owns an entire casino. Hunting the Vaults themselves were a huge gamble too, especially the first two, since he wasn’t truly sure that they existed. He was prepared to sacrifice a lot in order to come out on top in both his career and his social standing. All in all, he’s reckless.

Binge eating: he doesn’t even like pretzels, but still eats them because he’s either bored or stressed. Talks about food quite a bit in conversation, too, especially his cravings.

Substance abuse: admits to being high on uppers for the duration of the pre sequel (and his time on Elpis as a whole) and tells further anecdotes about drugs and getting high in tftbl.

Promiscuity/unsafe sex: nothing about having sex with Nisha is safe lol. But in all seriousness, there’s no way to prove this one. He does strike me as the reckless sex sort though. No proof, just 7 years of knowing him as a character.

Emotional instability

Inappropriate trigger response: he strangles a man to death for simply mentioning his wife, stabs Lilith for talking about Angel, and tries to kill Rhys for not being sure about his grand plan (more on this later). His response to triggers is disproportionate, often resulting in extreme anger over small things that don’t warrant that intense of a reaction. He gets big angry about almost everything; there’s no middle ground. His reaction is never really “you’re annoying me a lot” or “don’t talk about that, I don’t like it.” His reaction to almost everything is “oh my god I will murder your first born child how dare you-”

Quickly changing mood: aside from being prone to fits of rage at the flick of a switch, Jack also flicks back to “normal” pretty quickly, too. He flips between telling you to kill yourself after surviving the train and then talks casually about his day. He’ll be filled with rage after Angel’s death and then suddenly he’s laughing about you jumping into lava and having fun tricking you into visiting his grandmother. He can be intensely angry or sorrowful one moment and then nonchalant and sociable the next. His moods don’t last very long.

Idolisation/devaluation

Jack does this with numerous people across the games, but the two shining examples are Moxxi and Rhys; Rhys being the most notable. He idolises Moxxi, complimenting her on how attractive she is and how smart she is and including her in his circle of close friends/teammates. Then the inevitable happens and she lets him down and he instantly changes his opinion on her as if he’d never thought she was good to begin with. The same happens with Rhys. Throughout tftbl, Jack is best friends with Rhys and seems to form a one-sided connection with him where he idolises him and thinks they’re going to be best friends for ever and that they’re the perfect team. You cannot make him mad at you in tftbl (trust me, I’ve tried). He’s encouraging to Rhys the whole way through, like they’re brothers. Then the second Rhys displays doubts about something Jack is passionate about, Jack reacts violently and completely devalues Rhys, claiming him to be his mortal enemy and trying to kill him. People with BPD do this often. They have strong convictions and have a tendency to feel betrayed by people who go against those convictions. Jack does this regularly and it leads to the breakup of a lot of his relationships.

Paranoia

He vented a room full of scientists into space, just in case. I mean, that pretty much sums it up, really. Jack is under a lot of stress at this point in the game and stress-induced paranoia is a particularly difficult symptom of BPD. With him already feeling the pressure, the mention of a possible mole is a huge trigger for Jack. Especially since he’s reeling from the recent betrayal from a friend. His brain is already working over time, planting uneasy feelings of distrust and being unsafe. So when he’s presented with the idea from an outside source, he runs with it. Betrayal goes on to become a big button to push in Jack’s life to the extent that he actively betrays people before they get a chance to betray him (ie; killing Wilhelm). Paranoia feeds into a lot of Jack’s bad decisions, particularly in the pre sequel era.

Delusion

Jack wasn’t lying when he told us that he’s the hero. He absolutely was not the hero at all, but he wasn’t lying about it. Because lying about something implies that you know it’s not true, and Jack genuinely believes he’s a good person. The best person, in fact. It’s not a lie because in his mind, it’s the god given truth. He’s massively delusional, even before the events of the pre sequel. He’ll spout all the cheesy 80s movie lines about saving the moon and being the hero and he thinks he’s the protagonist of his own big adventure. We know that’s not what’s happening, but Jack doesn’t see it that way. Another delusion is the idea he has about how much everyone loves him. He thinks Moxxi is obsessed with him and he thinks Angel is being forced to work against him. He cannot conceive of a world in which people don’t like him or agree with him. Because why wouldn’t they agree with him? He’s the hero. Everybody loves the hero...

Intense but unstable relationships

Moxxi, Angel, Lilith, the Vault Hunter; I could go on. Jack’s relationships with people are volatile and rocky, even when they’re seemingly on the same side like with Moxxi or even Nisha (who he forms a tight bond with very quickly). People with BPD feel all emotions intensely, which causes a roller coaster. Jack really likes Moxxi, but then he doesn’t want to talk to her, but then he wants her on the team, but then he gets mad at her for calling him a pet name and beign friendly, and then he’s telling her she’s sexy, and then he’s cursing her, and then he’s hanging pictures of her in his casino. It’s the same with Angel - he subjects her to physical torture, then he loves her, then he’s mad at her for helping the Vault Hunter, then he’s doting on her, then he’s manipulating her, then he’s grieving for her. Everything is a whirlwind.

Distorted self-image

Oh boy. Jack has this physically and mentally. Mentally in the sense that he thinks he’s a good person when he actions are abhorrent and also because he’s massively insecure. BPD often comes with a lack of identity, which causes insecurity to begin with. Throw that in a pot alongside some childhood abuse, betrayal, work place bullying, and grief, and you got yourself a big pot of insecurity soup. Put plainly, Jack doesn’t really know who he is at his baseline. His personality and interests and ideas and needs all change on an hourly basis. He morphs to suit his circumstances. He can be open, honest and down to earth when he’s trying to trick Rhys. He can be full of worry and desperation when he needs you to head to grandma’s house. He can be cunning and clever when he’s tricking you into killing Wilhelm. He can be fatherly, he can be nasty, he can be torturous, he can be laid back, he can be clever, he can be ignorant, he can be sheepish, he can be cocky. He’s everyone and no one all at once and this probably leaves him feeling very hollow and empty; which is another symptom of BPD. In the physical sense, Jack issues with self image are pretty clear. He wears a face over his face to hide his face. Yup. And he does this because he thinks he’s disgracefully ugly. This scar he’s so vehemently protective of is something that defines his whole persona going forward. He literally claims himself as Handsome Jack, forcing people to adhere to the idea that he’s so attractive that it should be his title. Even though he doesn’t feel that way and does everything he can to hide the real him. He thinks he’s hideous and he struggles between loving himself and hating himself because of it.

Fear of abandonment

Aaaand here we are at the crux of the problem. BPD boils down to the intense fear of abandonment and this is probably what guides Jack for most of his life. His father died, his mother literally abandoned him, his grandmother neglected him, his first wife died, second wife left, girlfriend and friends betrayed him, and daughter killed herself to get away from him. Abandonment is practically coded into Jack’s DNA at this point and every time it happens, it confirms his fears more. He clings to Moxxi after she betrays him - taking her ideas to try and rile her up and even going as far as to recreate her entire bar in his casino because he wants to keep her presence around. He fights tooth and claw against Angel’s rebellion, begging both her and you to stop what you’re doing and leave. The only time he begs you is when he’s facing perceived abandonment, that’s how strong the fear is. His final words to Angel are “I’ll still forgive you.” Jack isn’t a forgiving man by any stretch, but he’ll say anything he has to in order to prevent her from leaving him. He’ll stalk people, he’ll manipulate them, he’ll lie to them or keep them physically locked up - all to prevent them from abandoning him. The worst possible thing that could happen to Jack is that, and we see the spiral he slips into after Angel. After Moxxi. After the Meriff. After his wife. He can’t bare the thought of someone leaving him and he’ll do anything and everything to prevent his fears becoming a reality.

So yeah! There it is, I finally got around to posting it lol. There’s probably a lot more little details that I’ve forgotten, but I cannot think of them right now. I’ll probably update if I think of any more! The tl;dr is that almost all of Jack’s behaviour can be linked to massively untreated BPD. He needed meds and therapy, but he didn’t get them and he spiralled as a result.

[smallhatlogan]

Look, I’m serious, if I weren’t completely broke I’d be willing to bet money that Rhys is not going to be evil in Borderlands 3. Like, I love you guys you don’t need to worry about Rhys. There’s just way too much going against that idea. Like: 

-Past Borderlands storytelling and the need to appeal to the fans. Rhys and Zer0 are fucking beloved: in the past character deaths have been of characters only introduced in the same game, or of characters with less personality. Which makes sense, you want to keep the most beloved characters alive. And often when we kill characters that are more well-loved it’s because we’re forced to fight/kill despite them not actually being evil (Bloodwing, Angel, Felicity, Cassius). -Rhys’s characterization: This man is a huge dork and has never even held a gun. Even if you make him an asshole in Tales he’s never quite the level of Handsome Jack- he’s not the sort to strangle someone with his bare hands? He’d make a pretty shitty villain- like, at worst a Nakayama type who’s pathetically scared of the Vault hunters. Besides, most people who played Tales know Rhys as a kind of lovable goofball who can be a bit of a douchebag but generally isn’t out to physically hurt anyone. And tbh, that’s pretty clearly the path that you’re expected to take, the way the rest of Tftbl is set up. -Zer0′s characterization: They may be an assassin with little moral compass but they do realize characters like Handsome Jack are total douchebags, and they seem to be friends with the other bl2 Vault hunters. I don’t think they’d work for Handsome Jack 2.0.  -Evil Rhys would complicate the narrative in a dumb and unnecessary way: We already have established the main villains, and then Katagawa as a secondary villain on Promethea. Making Rhys and Zer0 also villains is just too much villany here? Besides, what motivation would Rhys even have to try to kill the BL3 Vault hunters? And how would this relate to the overarching plot? He just needs some help with Maliwan and seems quite happy to get it. And if he was evil why would he be relieved that the Crimson Raiders shows up and is hoping they have an army with them? Wouldn’t an army make things more difficult for him if he wants to kill you? -Content we’ve already seen: They’ve so far only shown Rhys and Zer0 to be “your friends”. And Rhys also has the coolest two people working for him- Lorelei and Zer0. Lorelei seems to be on friendly terms with him, so it’s hard to imagine her working for him if he’s actually being shitty. Also from the first trailer it looks like Rhys has a bigger role to play in helping the Vault hunters?  -Vaughn’s in the game. First of all, Vaughn still considers Rhys his “bro-bro bro” in CLaTFFS. If Rhys had shown any signs of going evil he’d probably be questioning that friendship? Also imagine them making Rhys go evil and get killed and Vaughn just being like “okay you just killed my all-time best friend that I’d do anything for but ok I guess he was evil so I’m fine with this”. It just seems weird?  -The whole thing I mentioned before where capitalism is treated like feudalism- CEOs are basically kings in fantasy stories? No peasant is questioning having a king provided that king isn’t purposely going out and being SUPER evil. Like Borderlands shows capitalism as an institution to be evil, but the Borderlands universe is so entrenched in it that there’s pretty much no chance that anyone is going to consider the concept of socialism, lol. And it certainly doesn’t treat individual capitalist characters as automatically evil.  -It would just be really bad “having a twist for the sake of there being a twist” writing. Which is great for tv shows that care less about a larger story but want to get more attention so people keep talking about it and watching it week to week, than video games that already are drawing you in with promises of a fun story and good gameplay. A good Borderlands twist is “oh Angel was misleading you in the first game and works for Jack and is an actual person” because it justifies her place in the first game, explains Angel as a character, and gives her a real place in the story rather than just a mostly detached mysterious guide. A pretty bad Borderlands twist would be like, “oh this character you love? EVIL.” like what they did to Dany in GoT because they wanted to defy expectations because at that point GoT’s writing was predicated on unexpected twists to keep people talking about it rather than good storytelling. -Rhys and Zer0 standing in front of a one-way fast travel is evidence of nothing. They might not actually ever do so in game, or there might be a boss fight that they show up to meet you after you finish it- or this might be a pre-boss fight encounter. How is Rhys going to be a remotely good boss fight? He’s not a fighter. Even Zer0 seems awkward to design a fight around considering their combat style- it’s more fitting for a regular enemy like the Guardian Spectres. 

[borderlands-imagines]

Howdy there fellow Vault Hunter! Could I get some headcanons of Rhys as during his S/O pregnancy and birth (you can pick gender and how many I don’t mind) and what’s he like as a father? I love/crave for fluffy family headcanons/imagines and my BF broke up with me the day before BL3 came out so I’m a mess that wants love from their favorite boy (I also stole/took back a Handsome Jack mask I gave to my ex hehe)

(I will personally fight your boyfriend for ruining such a wonderful holiday like BL3 coming out)

Rhys: 

He’s almost annoyingly motherly when you’re pregnant, constantly trying to get you to sit down and not do anything too strenuous, no matter what trimester of pregnancy you’re in. He just doesn’t want you to overdo it or hurt yourself or the baby in the process, and you think he might be more nervous about this whole thing than you are. 

He’s the type to want to be in the delivery room no matter what, and even if you’re shouting insults or telling him you want to strangle him, he just nods his head and encourages you, keeping his grip on your hand tight. He’s aware that you’re in pain with no actual intentions of hurting him, but after all that he’d been through… your wrath was the least of his worries. 

Rhys always acts like a first time parent, no matter how many kids you have, though he feels like two is the perfect number. A boy and a girl, as cliche as it sounds, but he’d always wanted to have that ‘picture perfect’ family, and now that he’d achieved his dream as CEO, he felt like many things were just naturally falling into place for him. But he’s a worrywart parent who always has his eyes on his child, sometimes making himself sick with worry if they have a fever or are acting differently than normal. 

He is not the ‘tough cop’ parent, so hopefully you are. He attempts to be, and there are some things he’ll absolutely put his foot down on (like things regarding their safety), but mostly, your children just have to send him puppy dog eyes and he’ll immediately turn to mush. He especially likes when they call him ‘Dad’ because it reminds him those are his children, and he gets filled with this overwhelming joy of having them in his life, so all misdeeds and punishment are forgotten. 

[nessiesspeakeasy]

Kinktober Day 28: Taking Care of Rhys

“I…” Rhys’ voice cracked. “I’m so sorry Jack! I… I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t know why I couldn’t hold it three more feet!”

No partner. No partner. Rhys was single. He was single and he’d wet himself. Jack grinned.

-----

When Rhys has a humiliating accident, Jack jumps at the chance to take care of this really cute, very pregnant omega.

You can also read this on my AO3!!! Click here if you want to commission me!

The pregnant omega had been working for Jack for months now and Jack had strangled every person who had given Rhys a critical eye. He had become very protective of Rhys and not just because of their endotype dynamic, but because the man was Rhys. He was one of the best PAs Jack had ever had and he was gorgeous as hell and the cutest thing Jack had ever seen.

They worked perfect together, finishing each other’s sentences, sometimes not even needing words. He’d flirted ruthlessly with him up until he’d been told the omega was pregnant. Then Jack had realized Rhys was taken, and of course he was, who wouldn’t have wanted that man?

Rhys stretched and made a small urgent noise as he stood, seven months pregnant. He scooted away from his desk, shot a sheepish smile to Jack and headed for the bathroom.

Jack forced himself back to work before he watched Rhys like a creeper. He would not eye a taken person.

“What!?” Rhys gasped suddenly.

As Jack stood to help him immediately, he saw the problem. There was a large puddle around Rhys’ feet, soaking his suit pants. The omega looked down in shock.

“Woah, cupcake, your water break? Do you need me to call your partner?”

“What?” His wide eyes frowned at Jack. “What are you talking about? I don’t have a partner? This was from a one night stand…” he groaned. “It’s still going! I knew I had to pee, but I didn’t think…”

“Pee?” Jack looked at the puddle that was getting larger.

“I…” Rhys’ voice cracked. “I’m so sorry Jack! I… I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t know why I couldn’t hold it three more feet!”

No partner. No partner. Rhys was single. He was single and he’d wet himself. Jack grinned.

Rhys covered his mouth, choking down a sob. “I… I can’t believe I just did this… I’ll- I’ll clean this up immediately!”

“No, you won’t,” Jack ordered, his voice harsh and making the omega jump. He went around his desk and to the man, taking his hand. “We’re going to get you cleaned up. I can have someone whose job it is to deal with that.”

“Are you mad?” Rhys whispered.

It broke Jack from his thoughts and he could have kicked himself. “Of course not, it’s just piss, Rhys, there’s been grosser things on this floor.” He smiled, pulling Rhys away from the puddle, other hand at his waist. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“I’m gonna trail this!” Tears began to fall down his cheeks.

“Hey,” Jack said softly. He couldn’t resist and pulled the omega into a light kiss. “I don’t care about the mess, Rhysie. Let me take care of you. Is that okay?”

His wet eyes were large. “I didn’t realize…” He smiled. “Yeah… Okay…”

Grinning, Jack lead him to his private elevator. “I thought you were taken,” Jack said. “Otherwise I would have said something sooner. Much sooner. ”

“Oh…” Rhys sniffled. “I just thought… Cause I got pregnant…” His words died.

“Woah, kitten, not even close.” Jack brought Rhys’s hand close and kissed it. “I’ve loved you pregnant.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah,” Jack smirked.

They reached the penthouse and Jack brought him inside, ignoring the concern Rhys had for dragging his mess further. He lead Rhys to his master bathroom through his room. He began a bath and turned to Rhys, stripping the omega of his clothes.

“Ugh, this is humiliating,” Rhys huffed.

“You can do this, if you’d like? I personally am enjoying it.”

“You are?”

Jack kissed him again, this time full force, letting him know just how much Jack was digging this.

Rhys giggled. “You’re a freak.”

“Guilty.”

He threw the jacket and tie to the side and started undoing his shirt, unbuttoning only what was necessary to get the shirt over Rhys’ head and onto the floor. When he peeled away the undershirt, he hummed.

“Damn, you are pretty.” He leaned down and kissed Rhys’ stomach.

“You’re not too bad yourself.” Rhys smiled. It disappeared as Jack went to undo the rest of his clothes. “Wait! I can-”

Jack kissed him, silencing him as he touched the soiled clothes. He pulled the rest off, leaving Rhys naked. “Go and hop in.”

“Are you going to join me?”

Jack’s brows rose. “Do you want me to?”

Rhys smirked. “You did say you’d take care of me.”

“Who’s the freak now?”

“You.” Rhys winked as he stepped into the large tub.

The alpha grinned.

[realfinemood]

Continuing from here! Saturday’s Borderlandsing got seriously derailed by the dumbest audio bug which as far as I can tell was caused by switching to the physical version of the game, so technically~ I’m not even playing the version of the game I actually bought. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And then we ended because the game just straight up broke and we couldn’t progress the actual story at all. Thankfully (speaking from the future) this was the low point on the glitches. Still looking forward to that day 30 patch tho.

Very Much Story Spoilers from Chapter 9 to let’s say 16 just to be safe. 

By the way SOMEHOW I forgot to mention last time that TINA HAS AN ACTUAL PLAY B&B PODCAST. Why yes I DID sit and listen to it while threatening to strangle Vaughn because he would not shut up during it.

Gearbox, please tell me this means you’re gonna give me a DLC about finding Fiona or playing as Fiona or just giving me any of the Tales girls I beg you. I will. Even accept that you’ve apparently made Rhys/Sasha canon if you bring them back.

I really thought I was gonna be sad that it was Maliwan’s turn to be The Mostest Evil corporation but honestly despite them being my go-to in BL2, I kinda hate their guns this game. Dahl finally figured out nobody wants a mandatory burst sniper, but Maliwan decides I want to take the time to charge my weapon before shooting. No thanks guys.

Even if they didn’t basically spoil it in their trailers, Zer0 going around killing people was in no way believable, sorry. I think I’d remember leaving zeros in blood and... also my sword? swords? Anyways I didn’t my weapons behind when I played Zer0 I’m just saying.

ALSO I BULLIED A VIDEO GAME CHARACTER INTO SHAVING. I legit did not realize the mustache vanished at this point until just now when I looked through my screencaps (mostly because I was so distracted by everyone talking at the same time becoming so annoying at this point that it caused previously mentioned derailing to fix). The insult involved something about a whale full of mayonnaise I believe??

Hi Rhymes-with-Jimothy!

CHAPTER 10 MAJOR STORY SPOILERS. So, in every Borderlands game there comes a time when Shit Goes Down. You kill a dude you don’t actually need to, Jack Totally Acts Like A Hero, Roland forgets to equip his shield, fun times. About this time in the game is when Maya decides she’s going to with us to the vault because there’s definitely not a siren-power-stealer wanting the same thing. Ava is very rightfully told to stay put and everyone for some reason believes she’s definitely going to do that.

The good news is we got an Omni Tool! I, er, mean, fancy Eridian Resonator that makes a red-orange light around your fist so you can break stuff.

The bad news is...

Um.

Yeah. When I said something bad would happen I definitely did not in any way think it’d be THAT. I guess they did need to up the stakes from power-stealing and start Troy’s path into being a complete dick, but Maya ;_: (Also it seems like people are blaming the literal child for Maya’s death instead of the dude that actively murdered her into ash because I guess Borderlands fandom never changes.)

When compared to Roland’s "she’s dead, Jack just lost his key", Lillith’s “Maya would want us to open the vaults” isn’t... terrible, but it’s still not great on the empathy scale. Respect to Tannis’ attempt at being comforting since that’s very much Not Her Thing. Also to Zer0 who NOPES out of this whole fight so fast that I legit forgot he was on the ship later.

This is Fl4k being comforting and honestly they sound really genuine. I choose to believe they also hugged her. It’s okay Small Child, their girlfriend Death will take care of Maya now.

So I’m not sure what I feel about Hammerlock’s boyfriend. I super like that Hammerlock has a boyfriend! I love that they very much love each other and Hammerlock gets to be happy! I’m less than thrilled that Wainwright spends the entirety of this vault key hunt calling Aurelia a harpy. And the Jakobs family are legit terrible. (And yes part of me thought Hammerlock’s previous big dumb dude boyfriend meant that he’d go for Mr. Torgue which would’ve been amazing and more respectful of even murderous women.) But the two of them are sickeningly cute in their old man romance. And Jakobs guns are actually good this time. So. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

BRIIIIIIIICK. You look terrible my dude. I very much hope there are a lot of sidequests I skipped because you and Mordecai and Tina are in the game like two seconds and that makes me extremely sad.

The highlight of Eden-6 is this fine man right here. I can’t decide if he’s a dumbass or just likes really bad jokes but his voice is A++++ either way. His looks aren’t half bad either. <3

And here it is, my least favorite mission of the game, Ice-T’s mission. Where he yells about bitches constantly, the walls are made of air so that enemies can go right through them and become impossible to hit, and you have to listen to some AI make monkey sex noises for ages because the game refuses to progress. At that point we decided it was time to walk away from the game, thankfully before I threw the controller through the screen in frustration.

At least this planet did one thing right and finally had a damn secret behind a waterfall...

[enigmaphenomenon]

Something’s up with Jack (Another Jack analysis)

I believe Handsome Jack has Borderline Personality Disorder. 

Let’s first go through the symptoms of BPD. In order to be diagnosed with BPD one needs to have repeated patterns of 5 out of 9 symptoms of BPD. I’ll go through the symptoms Jack displays. 

Google gives a very brief list of symptoms. I’ll highlight the ones Jack is shown having. 

Behavioral: antisocial behavior, compulsive behavior, hostility, impulsivity, irritability, risk taking behaviors, self-destructive behavior, self-harm, social isolation, or lack of restraint

Mood: anger, anxiety, general discontent, guilt, loneliness, mood swings, or sadness

Psychological: depression, distorted self-image, grandiosity, or narcissism

So let’s just dive right into his symptoms. I don’t...really need to provide examples of Jack’s narcissism, do I? Because that one is obvious as all hell. 

1)  An intense fear of abandonment, even going to extreme measures to avoid real or imagined separation or rejection. 

Oh yeah. And Jack reacts quite violently to what he perceives as betrayals and/or abandonment. If you trust Jack instead of Fiona at the end of Episode 2, and refuse to trust him in Episode 3 when he asks you too...uh...

“Oh. Oh, that’s a... shame. Because I thought--- I thought we were becoming pals. Saved your life back there and you...still don’t trust me? You know I’m uh...I’ve had to deal with this my whole damn life you know? You try to do the right thing and people just... crap all over you for it. Well, congrats kiddo. You’re the latest in a long line of Jack-shitters. Super psyched about it.” 

This isn’t the first time Jack mentions that he should have seen this all coming, he mentions it again at the end of Episode 5. 

“I should have seen this coming--ever since I came to this nacho-flavored shithole of a planet. I’ve been betrayed by everybody I gave rat’s ass about. My boss. My girlfriend. Hell...my goddamn daughter.” 

Then, of course, Jack telling Rhys...

And....

Jack has extreme violent reactions to people he views as being against him, even when they aren’t. Adding to this is Jack’s hatred of all vault-hunters due to Lilith and Roland’s betrayal and also his fear of being shot in the back if he lets his enemies live. Remember he was willing to forgive the Meriff and let him live until the Meriff tries to shoot Jack as he’s walking away. This then leads to Jack airlocking scientists just for the mere possibility one of them might be working for Zarpedon. Also, when Athena or whoever else you play suggest just rushing to the vault and not fighting Jack insists they all must die, stating that if you let your enemies live, they’ll shoot you in the back. 

2)  A pattern of unstable intense relationships, such as idealizing someone one moment and then suddenly believing the person doesn't care enough or is cruel. (People with BPD tend to have relationships that are intense and short-lived. You may fall in love quickly, believing each new person is the one who will make you feel whole, only to be quickly disappointed. Your relationships either seem perfect or horrible, with nothing in between. Your lovers, friends, or family members may feel like they have emotional whiplash from your rapid swings between idealization and devaluation, anger, and hate.)

Moxxi, Rhys, Angel, and his second wife. 

Moxxi says he was clingy and that’s why she dumped Jack, Jack blew up her slaughter dome thing due to this, but this doesn’t stop him from asking her for help to fight against Zarpedon. 

Rhys? Aw man just take a look at this switch. 

“Oh, wow. I wish I could hug you right now. I’m gonna make a robot that just hugs you when I tell it to. I’m so proud. I’m so proud of my special boy! This is a perfect partnership, Rhys. You trusted me. I trusted you, and now we’re here! Man--never really had a partner I could count on before. Feels kinda dope”

No Jack, Rhys doesn’t want a giant Endoskeleton to crawl inside his body. 

“This was YOUR chance to make history, you moron! To be part of a legacy! To matter for once in your useless little life!”

Angel doesn’t need to be explained right? In the ECHO logs in Borderlands 2 Jack cycles between being amiable towards her and then lashing out at her. 

His relationship with his second wife was ruined over him refusing to shut down the control core, and in an ECHO log it’s stated she disappeared shortly after telling Jack to shut down the control core. 

3) Identity disturbance, such as a significant and persistent unstable self-image or sense of self

Jack is a meglomaniac who sees himself as the hero and as a god, but, in BL2 he brings this up: 

"I know you think I'm a monster. You think I enslaved Angel. But you didn't see what she did to her mother. I had to restrain Angel's power. You get that? I had to."

He brings this up to the vault hunter. Why? What does he care what the vault hunter thinks of him? Jack sure as hell hasn’t cared at all about “bandits” opinions of him. And he really isn’t shy about blaming other people for something, come on, this is the same man who says he shot a baby because THE BABY was being a dick. 

Jack doesn’t blame Angel for betraying him. As he said in TFTBL, she had no choice. He also doesn’t say that vault hunters killed her. He says that she killed herself.

This is Jack being hit with the realization that his daughter is dead, and that he drove her to it. He’s the monster who enslaved Angel, but he says he had to do it (I’ll go deeper into this in a different essay). He had to to restrain her power, he had to, as if he didn’t have a choice. There is guilt behind these words. 

To compare, in Tomb Raider 2013 there was extra dialogue (that for some reason was not in the final version of the game) after Lara has her first kill, she tells herself “I had to do it. I had to do it.” That’s how Lara rationalizes taking a life. If she had not killed that man, he would have killed her, so she “had to.”

I believe its the same with Jack. There is guilt there. Why would he feel the need to defend his actions to the vault hunters? To the “bandits?” He saw Angel ask the vault hunters to end her life, he saw her call them friend, her last dying breath was needing to tell her father that he’s an asshole. Jack knows. He knows what he’s done. But he’s too mentally ill to accept it, or change it. If anything, that just drove him further into insanity. 

In TFTBL Jack also mentions that he knows where Rhys is coming from and imposter syndrome is normal, and to just strangle that voice in his head that says he’s not good enough. 

4) Impulsive and risky behavior, such as gambling, reckless driving, unsafe sex, spending sprees, binge eating or drug abuse, or sabotaging success by suddenly quitting a good job or ending a positive relationship

Hahahaha ooooooh yeaaaaah. 

Spending sprees: Butt Stallion

“My day? It's been pretty good. I just bought a pony made of diamonds, because I’m rich. So, you know. That’s cool.“

Unsafe sex: 

“If I’da just thrown stock options at the Vault Hunters instead of bullets, I’d be on a beach right now doing disturbingly graphic things with the local ladies.”

Drug abuse: 

He mashed up a mushroom and snorted it...a lot...

Primo hit of electri-drugs.

His chair also has contact activated Dopamine injectors. 

Jack drinks, a lot apparently, since he thought either sex or drinking would kill him. 

It really wouldn’t surprise me if Jack participated in orgies which he probably totally did.

5)  Extreme emotional swings. Unstable emotions and moods are common with BPD. One moment, you may feel happy, and the next, despondent. Little things that other people brush off can send you into an emotional tailspin. These mood swings are intense, but they tend to pass fairly quickly (unlike the emotional swings of depression or bipolar disorder), usually lasting just a few minutes or hours.

Jack is...really unstable and I don’t think anyone will disagree.  

ECHO logs in BL2 depict Jack going from manic to a fit of rage both with Angel and Mr. Tassiter. As well as Mr. Moorin who he strangles for mentioning his wife. 

Or when he gets really excited...

6) Chronic feelings of emptiness. People with BPD often talk about feeling empty, as if there’s a hole or a void inside them. At the extreme, you may feel as if you’re “nothing” or “nobody.” This feeling is uncomfortable, so you may try to fill the hole with things like drugs, food, or sex. But nothing feels truly satisfying.

After becoming CEO he became dictator of Pandora, then decided...hey why not conquer more planets? Why not basically become a god? That toppled on top of Jack’s drug use and sex life. He bought a diamond horse and named it Butt-stallion...

He also says that when he takes Rhys’ body he’s still gonna use it to eat food and bang a bunch of people. 

(A side note, Dameon Clarke while answering questions as Handsome Jack said that there’s a lot of smiling going on but he’s actually dead inside. I just wanted to add it here as a point of interest.)

Jack also tolerated Mr. Tassiter’s insults until Tassiter told Jack that he’s a pathetic nobody under his mask. This leads to Jack strangling him and keeping his goatee as a reminder of what happens to people when they’re a dick to Jack. 

7)Explosive anger. If you have BPD, you may struggle with intense anger and a short temper. You may also have trouble controlling yourself once the fuse is lit—yelling, throwing things, or becoming completely consumed by rage. It’s important to note that this anger isn’t always directed outwards. You may spend a lot of time being angry at yourself.

I don’t feel I need to provide examples for this one. We’ve all seen Jack’s rage. He uh....really goes off and it is not easy to stop him. 

Now that we got Jack’s symptoms out of the way let’s move on to causes. 

Most mental health professionals believe that borderline personality disorder (BPD) is caused by a combination of inherited or internal biological factors and external environmental factors, such as traumatic experiences in childhood.

...

Hereditary predisposition. You may be at a higher risk if a close relative — your mother, father, brother or sister — has the same or a similar disorder.

Stressful childhood. Many people with the disorder report being sexually or physically abused or neglected during childhood. Some people have lost or were separated from a parent or close caregiver when they were young or had parents or caregivers with substance misuse or other mental health issues. Others have been exposed to hostile conflict and unstable family relationships.

Let’s start with Jack’s genetics. If you saw my last post about Jack, it was wondering if Jack’s grandmother was a bandit and/or psycho due to her buzz axe. It is very possible that Jack’s grandmother and mother also suffer with some mental illness. 

Onto the stressful childhood. Grandma’s buzz axe which was a disciplinary weapon she used on Jack, and in The Pre-Sequel, Jack is asked to describe his childhood which he says his mother abandoned him on his abusive grandmother who would smack him around. He also had a pet cat that his grandma drowned because he didn’t make his bed. He cites this as “the usual stuff” 

Jack has both genetics and environmental factors that can lead to someone having mental disorders. 

Jack’s drug use and drinking would aid in making his BPD symptoms much worse as well.

So...yeah, there’s my Jack analysis.

[kingofthrowingfits]

“Essay” 1.0 Rhacks to Riches

So I decided this should be a good start as any. There’s quite obviously a very popular (Dare I say The most popular) ship in the Borderlands Fandom that I called Rhack. Comprising of Rhys from the Tales from the Borderlands Telltale series and Handsome Jack from... The Borderlands series! I personally just don’t see their potential relationship as lovers to be viable or healthy for either of them and am just writing about why i see it like that because I haven’t seen anyone else mentioning this. I am not against people shipping this but I feel that they might be missing some points about these two characters that make any relationship they’re going to engage in to be abusive.

Don’t read if you want to remain ignorant about these facts or ship Rhack so strongly that it offends you to see criticism of this ship. Also Spoilers for all BLands Games Btw.

Here we go! 

So I want to open this in saying that Rhys was written to be a very big parallel to Jack, both in personality and appearance. I’ll just list their parallels to save time and space.

They are both company men,both of Hyperion.

Known for being attractive and advantageous because of it. (Great Hair, heterochromia)

Same vaguely white race. (Not important to the relationship but adds to fandom popularity. Tea.)

Contain a mean streak when it comes to screwing over their superiors for money or power.

Both are self absorbed, prideful and arguably vain.

Both are hackers, something that is sometimes downplayed with Jack but was notably his own beginning in Hyperion.

Awful fashion sense. Ex. Rhys’s underwear tie and Jack’s thousand layer wardrobe. I refuse to diss Jack’s sneakers and Rhy’s socks but y’all can go off.

Same gray morality basis (Depends)

Both have a strength of being a charismatic negotiater (But not really)

Now with some of these parallels laid out, It would seem that these two would get along and possibly be romantically inclined towards each other but I mus stress another point. Rhys IS NOT A FULL PARALLEL TO HOLO/DEAD JACK. He is more close to being a representation of what Jack was when he was younger and had not yet made all the wonderful decisions that led to the events of the other Borderlands games.

The typical canon Rhys (By Telltale Popular choice Rhys) is a kinder, (Somehow) More down-To-Earth, less egotistical and friendlier person than Jack had almost ever been. He is a protagonist in Tales mainly because he is representative of what Jack could have been had he chosen a more “moral” path through life. Which is why the game ends with him receiving a vault treasure but ALSO inheriting Atlas from Jack, as a kind of teaser to the question of “Will Rhys rule like his hero had?”. Not to mention the entire last convo he had with the handsome devil.

The Differences

 Rhys sticks by his friends and trusts them in moments of doubt. As seen with Fiona in the Atlas lab, Loaderbot in prosperity junction, Sasha in the Atlas Atrium, and Vaughn with literally the whole story. Also you can include his trust in Jack right in here too.

Jack loses allies constantly by alienating or killing them. As seen with the poisoning of Wilhelm, a very loyal employee of his, his dismissal of Nakayama despite him being a brilliant scientist, the murder of Felicity (Justifiable,however) and whatever went on between him and Moxxi (Might delete later this is a tricky one that I think Moxxi was in the wrong on and can be claimed self-defense by Jack but like? Facts??? BLAHGGH) Not to mention the abuse of his own daughter that he was blind to simply due to sheer dumbassitude and self-serving ego on his part.

Rhys accepts the mistakes of his friends and can take apologies from them. As seen with his semi-betrayal from Vaughn

Jack literally kills a whole ass team of his own scientist that he saved in the first place simply because they *MIGHT* turn against him.

Rhy’s kinder and more sociable personality conflicts a lot with Jack’s harsher view of how he has to keep people away due to previous trust issues and how it is absolutely okay for him to use people to further his own agenda that serves only himself. Not to mention that Rhys does NOT vibe with Jack’s sadistic sense of humor and repeatedly calls him a psychopath for killing people in front of him.

This comes to a head obviously when Jack wants to put a metal skeleton inside of Rhys and Y’know, take over both his body and mind.

Which brings me to the most convincing part of this argument against Rhack.

JACK WOULD ABUSE THE HELL OUT OF RHYS AND HAS TRIED TO KILL HIM MULTIPLE TIMES.

Jack is a manipulative person, he admits to it himself when he begs Angel not the kill herself, She tells the Player Character that he is emotionally manipulative and warns you against it and Rhys recognizes that the most manipulative people in Hyperion, Including HUGO VASQUEZ, were inspired by Jacks tactics.

Keep in mind that one of Jack’s first actions towards Rhys was trying to strangle him for stumbling over his words, before he realized he was a holo-gram.

Then Realizing that he cannot simply kill Rhys with no repercussions as he would normally be able to, of course Jack turns to his next best option- Leading Rhys into situations where he could either 

1. Get out of his head (The office, Atlas Labs) Succesful btw

2. Kill him. (Indirectly, abandoning him with Vallory, where Rhys had a very high Probability of dying. Directly- Attempting to shove a robot skeleton into his body, killing Rhys and allowing him to control his body or Literally just trying to choke him out with his own hand, actually an act of desperate and rageful suicide as well.)

Most scenes where Jack is getting along with Rhys are that way because Jack is getting what he wants or he is trying to manipulate him into well... Getting what he wants. Otherwise Jack is sometimes downright rude, mean or verbally abusive to Rhys. I guess i should mention that Jack also talks to him for the sheer shits and giggles of it at times.

When Rhys actively rejects Jacks offer to rule together, is really where Jacks self-absorbed and hateful attitude towards Rhys comes out too. Just. He gets so fucking angry for almost no reason. Jack cannot give up the mantle of CEO to Rhys and reveals that all the stuff about training him to be a successor was all bullshit and it’s true purpose was to get Jack an immortal body.

So there you have it. I’ll come back and edit this but for now this my analysis of why I cannot stand seeing cutesy-feelsy fanart or otherwise of these two. Because they are downright incompatible and would be an abusive relationship if they ever were together. Feel free to complain and continue shipping whatever you want however! I needed to get this out.

Also as an after-note and side commentary: I sound anti-Jack but I really stan him, he’s just an asshole. Rhys is a good guy but i don’t even like him that much, my fav’s Fiona, lol. My one true love from Borderlands as a whole is Nisha tho. R.i.p. I miss you, you funky little cowgirl.

[matsoukun]

SugarBaby!Rhys Drabble

for my lovely little brother @madebynerdsfornerds (happy belated bday, reed!) - "Yvette! Goddamn it, help me! Stop it! Look at me! What the hell do I wear?" Rhys was yelling a this point, ready to rip his hair out at the lack of attention he was receiving from his friends in a time of need, unfortunately for Rhys, his plea's were falling on deaf ears. "I need to look cute, but like, sexy. You know what I mean? Please help, please." Rhys' voice is full of frustration and exasperation as he begs Yvette to get on with it and stop raiding his goddamn pantry for a 'light snack' and fucking help him get ready for Jack, it was Jacks birthday, and Rhys wanted to dress up (or dress down, rather) for him. "So you mean, like a sugar baby? Let me take a look at your wardrobe-" Yvette teases as she saunters her way away from the kitchen, through the foyer and into Rhys' and Jack's outrageously large bedroom with a pre-made tomato sandwich in hand, Vaughn timidly following suit, still slightly afraid that Jack had booby-trapped the place. "Jesus Christ, Rhys. This is not a wardrobe, this is literally bigger than my apartment, Rhys- fucking hell, why the hell did he get you a wardrobe this big? What the fuck, I actually feel oppressed." Rhys hears the sandwich flop onto the ground and groans externally, knowing that Yvette has already made a mess even though she's only been in the room for 0.2 seconds. "Perks of having a sugar daddy, I guess." He winks jokingly after giving Yvette an annoyed look, feigning any real anger toward his friend. "Not the point anyway, Jacks going to be home any minute and I need to be looking fine as hell. And you guys-" Rhys gestures between the two of them "Can not be here." Vaughn clears his throat as Rhys finishes his sentence, signalling that he had finally found something worth wearing for Rhys from where he had been silently rummaging for the past minute. "Bro, you should totally wear these, like- I'm not gay, but if I saw a dude wearing these I would tap the fuck outta that." He shifts awkwardly before going in for his ultra hetero slogan. "Not in a gay way, though." There it is. Rhys grabs the garment from Vaughn's hands, inspecting the black lacy material between his fingers. It's lingerie, extremely fancy lingerie in fact, the kind that only higher ups, Handsome Jack, for example, could afford. It was a set of dark opaque pantyhose that ended mid-thigh, the hem being thinly woven lace attached to a set of straps on each leg that led up to a sleek pair of matching black high-waisted panties. A sly smile danced over Rhys' face, he enjoyed looking at the lingerie, and knew that Jack would enjoy looking at him in the lingerie even more. "Huh, I like the tethers. Nice, yeah, guess I'll put these on." Rhys shrugs nonchalantly, trying to hide his embarrassingly growing excitement (and slight arousal) from his friends. Seconds later Vaughn is covering his ears and Rhys is jumping back in surprise at the sound of Yvette's high pitched squealing. "Oh. My. God. Rhys! You're wearing this!" Rhys stares at the accessory, sneering at Yvette for bursting his eardrums. "Why? Isn't that a choker- oh, that's a pretty huge bow on it, wait, is that a pun? As in like, I'm his present and he gets to unwrap me?" Rhys takes the lacy choker from her hands, a thick black bow being the centrepiece with detailed lacy embroidery travelling the length of it. "Hell to the yes it is, Rhysie." Rhys face palms, chuckling a little at Yvette's idea, as if Rhys is some kind of endowed object. The pair stop their chatting to hear Vaughn dry heave in the corner, disgusted in the two of them. Talking about inherently sexual things, more specifically sexual things to do with his best bro, seemed to cause Vaughn to do that. "Ugh, I'm kinkshaming." - Rhys is standing in the kitchen, adjusting the lingerie and awkwardly tightening the choker when he hears the familiar click and slide of the double doors being opened by none other than Jack. "Hey pumpkin, you home?" Shit. Rhys freezes and stands up straight immediately, suddenly regretting his fashion choices. What if Jack didn't get it? Or he laughed at him? Rhys' mind begins to fill with embarrassing, life-ruining scenarios that have absolutely zero chance of happening. Rhys clears his throat hurriedly when he realises he hasn't replied to his boyfriend. "I'm in the kitchen!" Rhys coughs, trying (and failing, miserably) to strike a sexy pose against the side of the bench, stopping when he begins to slip on the hard surface due to the sleekness of his garments. He instead opts to stand in the centre of the kitchen, pretending to be occupied by a stain on the bench. He picks at the hard, marble, expensive surface of the bench, his face turning pink as his insides burn. He hears Jacks footsteps padding toward Rhys' location, he looks up frantically when he sees Jack enter the kitchen, the idiot is too occupied by his damn ECHO and doesn't notice Rhys. "You won't believe what happened today!The ugly R&D worker I was telling you about? I airlocked him today and- oh. This is a nice surprise." Jack drops his phone in surprise, sure he'd seen Rhys in lingerie before, but he'd never looked this... Damn good, and all for him. "I know, right?" Rhys chuckles and looks away, flattered at how Jack is looking him up and down, savouring his uncommon look and taking him in. "You look... Delicious, to be honest." Jack slinks toward Rhys, slipping his arms around the younger mans waist, quickly squeezing his butt cheekily. "Just for your special day, finally 60!Happy birthday, Handsome." Rhys giggles in response to Jacks unimpressed face. "Hey! Shut up, I'm old but I'm not that old!" Rhys giggles and leans into Jack, his hands gently placed on either side of Jacks jaw, smiling goofily. "Make me." Rhys challenges Jack, moving their lighthearted joking to something much more serious and inviting. Jack slides his hand down to the hem of Rhys' panties, lightly brushing over the pristine silk and lace that Rhys wished Jack would rip off to take care of his increasingly uncomfortable, heated... Situation. "Oh? Like this?" Jack asks rhetorically, walking Rhys backwards so his lower back is harshly pressed against the bench. "Or like this?" He uses his other hand to slide up Rhys' naked blue inked torso and chest to grip Rhys' neck with just enough force to make Rhys weak at the knees, Jacks thumb pressed tightly to Rhys' jugular. Jack bites his lower lip as he moves his free hand to slip underneath the front of Rhys' panties, lightly stroking Rhys' growing erection. "Oh, pumpkin, already so hard for me? Look at you, such a mess." Rhys can only muster a strangled moan at this, his face covered in that ongoing pink flush Jack loves to humiliate Rhys about. "Rhysie, when I talk to you, you have to reply. You have to have manners." Jack tightens his grip on Rhys' neck, smiling devilishly. Rhys has completely given into submission by now, his face a mixture of pent up pleasure and pain, just what Jack wanted to see. "Mm, Y-yes." He whispers, his voice mixed in with a muffled moan. "Yes what?" Jack demands, raising an eyebrow expectantly, his grip tightening even more, his thumb pressed flush to Rhys' jugular, just how he liked it. "Yes daddy."

[dragonbagel]

Retrograde - Part 10

the nerds finally reunite, but shit stays shitty. [read on ao3 here]

"Rhys?" Jack called, fitting the key into the appropriate lock and opening the door with a sharp click. "You in here, pumpkin?"

There was a strangled cry, and that was all the confirmation Jack needed before bolting through the doorway.

"Rhysie?" he said again, glancing around to find himself in some sort of observation room. The stench of a rotting body assaulted his nose, and he turned to see a bloodied bandit corpse lying in the corner. In front of him, there was some sort of control panel. Some of the multicolored buttons had no labels, but the ones that did made Jack feel nauseous. Electrodes, extreme temperature gauges, oxygen level controls-- God, he couldn't wait to get his hands on Vasquez (or, more specifically, around his throat).

"I did it! I k-killed them, just like you asked!"

Jack looked up to see there was a slightly tinted window, which he easily identified as one-way glass. And beyond that window... Jack felt his heart shatter in his chest.

"Please, please no! You've taken everything from me!"

Rhys' body looked even worse than it had on the video feed, and Jack quickly located the button that would allow him to enter the other room. Rhys was crumpled in a corner, a Loader Bot holding his flailing body in place.

"Rhys!" he called again, hurrying to disable the Loader Bot's viselike grip. But Rhys didn't respond, looking in the space beyond Jack in panic.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" he whimpered, and it took Jack a moment to realize that Rhys wasn't talking to him. What had Vasquez done to him?

A small part of his brain remembered what Tim had discovered earlier, and he searched Rhys' body for any sort of injection site, which proved difficult with the way the man was thrashing about, still pleading with nonexistent enemies. Jack finally located a small needle lodged into Rhys' exposed skin just below his neck, the skin abnormally cold and clammy. It looked like some sort of IV, connected to a port on the wall behind the Loader Bot.

Jack carefully slid it out from beneath Rhys' skin as he flinched, the point of entry now dotted with blood and a purplish liquid. He then went back to trying to get the Loader Bot to release Rhys, who was still begging for his life. No, not his life-- his parents'. Jack thought back to what Sasha had told him, about what that bitch Vallory had done to Rhys and his family. He felt sick at the thought of Rhys having to relive that again, even if it was only in his mind.

Rhys screamed all of a sudden, wrenching himself free from the Loader Bot's now-loosened grasp. His left hand, which dangled from a crooked and probably broken wrist, attached itself to his empty right shoulder socket, clawing at the marred flesh where his arm used to be. He was crying now, yelling nonsense, his nails drawing blood from the half-clotted scabs.

"Rhys! Rhys, look at me!"

Rhys didn't seem to hear him, didn't seem to register that what he was experiencing was nothing more than a drug-induced hallucination.

He grabbed Rhys' wrist to stop him from hurting himself even more, and Rhys howled in pain. Yep, Jack thought to himself. That wrist was definitely broken.

"Rhysie, it's me, it's Jack," he said soothingly, brushing a few strands of Rhys' hair from his sweaty forehead. "Come back to me, baby, please."

Rhys recoiled at the touch, trying to push himself away from Jack despite already being pressed against the wall. "Don't touch me, don't touch me, don't touch me!" he snarled, his features contorted in anger despite the clear fear and pain in his non-bloodied eye.

Jack took in Rhys' shaking form, noting with another wave of anger that Rhys was naked save a now blood-speckled pair of boxers. He could barely handle the thought of Vasquez beating Rhys physically; if the man had so much as thought about touching Rhys sexually...

"Th-that was different!" Rhys said, his voice wavering. "I-it was just a j-job!"

He was trembling more violently now, his speech lower. "P-please," he said again, his voice weak and sounding defeated. "I-I'll d-do it, just l-let them go."

His body went rigid for a moment, giving Jack enough time to wrap his arms around him before he started to flail again. "Shh, I've got you," he said as he gently pressed Rhys' face against his chest.

He didn't know how long the drugs would stay in Rhys' system, so he did the one thing he knew how to: he held him. Rhys tried to struggle, but the torturing had made him weak. His breathing was unsteady, and the stench of blood and sweat was overpowering as Jack pressed a kiss to the top of Rhys' head. He didn't care, though; finally, finally he could keep him safe.

Rhys began to let out pained moans, although Jack's chest absorbed most of the sound. He tightened his grip, providing the pressure and tactile comfort that usually calmed Rhys down after he had nightmares.

"It's okay, Rhysie. You're safe, it's not real," he said softly. But from the way Rhys was continuing to struggle, it was clear Jack's words hadn't sunk in.

"I-I'm sorry," he said again, this time with less force. "I-I let you down. I w-won't l-let her get away w-with this."

He continued to stammer out apologies until his voice faded out, his shudders lessening in intensity until his body went limp. Jack felt a wave of panic wash over him before he felt the warmth of Rhys' breath, irregular as it was, ghost across his collarbone. He hummed as he ran his fingers through Rhys' hair, not caring that it was sticky and matted with blood. Once he was through with every last bastard that had taken part in this little operation, some scarlet on his fingers would be the last of his worries (or, rather, the worries of his dry cleaners).

"J-Jack?"

Jack looked down to see Rhys staring up at him from his lap, his functional eye less glossed over than before. His voice was hoarse, and he looked like he was about to slip back into unconsciousness at any moment.

"Hey cupcake," he said with a smile, although he couldn't help but glance over all of the cuts and bruises littering Rhys' body.

Rhys must've noticed, because he shifted so that less of his skin was in view of Jack. "Is it really you?"

Jack nodded. "Of course it is, pumpkin."

Rhys sighed in content, although he winced at the sudden deflation of his lungs against what were clearly broken ribs. Jack had to hold back a shudder at the thought of what else Rhys might've seen while hallucinating, especially involving himself.

"I thought you'd never come," Rhys murmured, pressing his face against Jack's chest again.

"And leave you here with that psycho?" Jack asked, laughing, as he put his arm around Rhys' back.

Rhys just shrugged, curling into himself more tightly. The distraught look on his face made Jack itch even further for some sort of revenge, for retribution against the damage done to Rhys' mind and body.

Rhys let out a whine, closing his eyes tightly and clenching his fist as he wrapped his arm around his knees, which he'd brought up to his chest.

"Rhys," Jack said, placing a hand on his shoulder; it reminded him of how Vasquez had done the same thing no more than an hour ago, and he felt sick. "Babe, I need you to stay with me."

"It hurts," he said quietly, sounding far more vulnerable than Jack could ever remember. "It hurts so bad."

"What hurts, Rhysie?" Jack asked, shifting to carefully inspect the bruises and contusions littering Rhys' skin.

Rhys didn't respond, slowly rocking back and forth.

"Please, let me help you," Jack said as softly as possible, refraining from touching Rhys despite how badly he ached to do so.

Rhys shook his head, scrunching his face in the way Jack knew he did on those rare occasions when Jack caught him crying.

"Did he touch you?" he asked, swallowing hard. He didn't know what he would do if Rhys' answer was yes.

But Rhys simply shook his head again, and Jack felt a sense of relief flood him. It was short lived, however, as Rhys started to speak again in a trembling voice.

"Th-they did. They a-all did."

"Who, Rhys?" Jack said, his voice low and defensive. "Who put their hands on you?"

"I didn't want to!" Rhys said frantically as Jack stared at him in confusion. "I never wanted to."

Jack hummed as he looked Rhys over, his gaze landing on his panicked hazel eye and the blood coating the other half of his face.

"P-please don't go, Jack."

Jack huffed, gently pulling Rhys into another embrace. "I'm not going anywhere, cupcake."

"But he's right," Rhys said, his voice cracking. "He's right about me."

"Who?" Jack asked, nestling Rhys' head in the crook of his neck. "That asshole Vasquez?"

Rhys flinched at the name, and Jack reached to run his hand over his back, soothing him.

"I fucked up, Jack," Rhys said, his voice hitching. "I fucked everything up."

Jack pulled back from Rhys, looking into his eyes as he softly brushed his thumb over Rhys' split lip. "None of this is your fault, Rhysie. I promise you, once I finish with him there won't be anything left to airlock."

Rhys felt his lip begin to tremble, averting his gaze. "He knows," Rhys said, choking back a sob. "He knows everything."

"Shh," Jack said, rubbing his back again. "It's okay, it's going to be okay."

"B-but it's not," Rhys said, trying and failing to untangle himself from Jack. "You don’t know w-what I d-did.”

Rhys’ chest felt unbearably tight, and his surroundings were flickering in and out of existence. He was in that disgusting, muggy torture chamber, and then suddenly, he was back on Pandora, in the cold air and the red dirt and the--

“Rhys,” Jack said, seeing the man in his lap starting to fade out of awareness again. “I don’t care what you did, okay?”

Rhys tilted his head slightly to the side, not completely comprehending Jack’s words. Jack’s lips on his forehead, however, was something he understood.

“I love you Rhys,” Jack said, pulling him as close as he could without agitating his broken limbs and bruises. “I’m never letting you go again. I’m so, so sorry.”

He could feel Rhys smile against his chest, the hand that he still had left cupping Jack’s cheek lightly. He grimaced at the pressure it put on his wrist, but the reassurance that Jack was real and Jack was here and oh God Jack loved him was all he cared about.

“You think you can stand?” Jack asked, meeting Rhys’ gaze and shuddering slightly at the sight of his missing eye.

“Uhh...” Rhys tried to push himself up, and with a generous amount of help on Jack’s part, he was able to shakily stay on his feet. Jack took Rhys’ arm and gently draped it over his shoulders, supporting him as they hobbled towards the door.

“We’re almost there,” Jack reassured him, painfully aware of the mental torment their surroundings were somehow still causing Rhys.

Rhys nodded, clenching his jaw at the pain shooting through his limbs. He watched as Jack reached out the arm not supporting Rhys to grab the wall and hoist them through to the observation room.

But then Jack froze, looking to Rhys in confusion. Rhys tried to reason out what was going on, but the combination of drugs, lack of sleep and overwhelming pain were quickly turning his brain into mush. Rhys saw Jack’s lips form the words “it’s locked” before the world was spinning around him, turning black around the edges as his cheek was met with something hard and cold.

There was a loud, reverberating laughter, one full of self-satisfaction and pride. This time, however, the laughter wasn’t just in Rhys’ head.

[erinchu]

For the mini fic thing I'd like to suggest Rhack with no. 12. I love the whole character confesses deep dark secret or finally admits their feelings when they think the other person is asleep, but they actually heard the whole thing.

@historiii also asked for number 12 with Rhack so here you both go! (:

Enjoy~

After countless ‘close calls’ and endangering Rhys’ life down on Pandora, why did Jack continue to bring him along on his away trips? Sure, the kid had proven himself over and over again to be, like, the only competent programmer Jack had to date, but the CEO knew the real reason. He was being selfish because he actually enjoyed Rhys’ company. He had grown very fond of him over the past year, but of course he never bothered to take the time to tell him that. Who has time for that crap when you’re running a freaking space station?!

This time was different though and Jack didn’t know that he would be able to forgive himself for this one. Helios had received a distress signal from one of the R&D facilities down on Pandora. The message claimed bandits had somehow hacked their systems and taken control of it, eventually infecting it with a virus. Naturally, Handsome Jack knew he’d be needing his favorite little programmer to fix it. In reality, he could have easily done it himself, but he enjoyed watching Rhys work. As they learned when they reached the site, the message was a fake. A trap to hopefully lure Handsome Jack down and give the bandits a shot at, well, shooting him in the god damn face.

It was utter chaos for only about ten minutes, but to Rhys and Jack it felt like hours. Bullets were flying in every direction and Jack’s men were dropping like flies. Idiots. He really needed to hire some guys who knew to move out of the way when someone points a gun right at them. He was making a mental note of it when someone dropped down next to him with a pained cry. Great, another moron down. Except it wasn’t this time, it was-

“Oh my god, Rhys!?” Jack cried out as he collected the younger man up into his arms. He held him close as his eyes scanned over his body trying to find where he had been hit. He felt his blood turn cold in his veins as he saw a clear hole on the right side of Rhys’ torso. Shit. This was not good. Jack could clearly see he was bleeding out and at an alarming rate. He didn’t have time to try and put pressure on the wound because it wasn’t long before they were surrounded. 

Unlucky for the bandits, Handsome Jack was no damsel in distress and he did not wait around for someone else to save him. He managed to drop all eight of the remaining bandits before calling over the coms for an immediate evacuation. The voice on the other end sounded panicked as he gave Jack an ETA of twenty minutes.

“If that god damn shuttle isn’t here in less than ten minutes, the last thing you’re ever gonna see is my cold eyes staring back at you as I strangle you to death, do you understand?” Jack tossed the radio aside and very gently gathered Rhys back up into his arms. He placed Rhys’ head in his lap and carefully applied pressure to his still bleeding wound. When Rhys cried out, no doubtably from pain, Jack let out a sigh of relief. Good, he was still with him.

“Hey, hey there, Rhysie. Stay with me, kiddo. Help is coming. I’m right here…” 

Jack held him the entire ride back to Helios and was in every room of the hospital that they took him. When it came time for the doctors to operate on Rhys, that’s when they finally had to kick him out. Who the hell kicks out Handsome Jack? He wanted to fight them on it but Jack knew that meant he was waisting their time when they could be saving Rhys, so he finally agreed and sulked off to the waiting room.

Jack had lost count of how many hours Rhys was in surgery. At some point during the night, one of the doctors came out to tell him that Rhys was finally in stable condition but they needed to keep a close eye on him. He explained that the bullet had gone straight through him, just barely nicking one of his major arteries. They had managed to finally stop the bleeding and get him patched up but he would be out for a while. Thank god for all the advances Hyperion’s medical department had made or Rhys might be dead. Jack made another mental note to give that department more funding and to stop making fun of them.

“Can I see him?” Jack asked almost eagerly, taking a step towards the doctor. Jack could tell the man wanted to say no, that Rhys’ condition was still too delicate but who the fuck says no to Handsome Jack? The man merely nodded and stepped out of Jack’s way. Truth be told, Jack would have gone in there regardless of what the answer was.

Very quietly, Jack pushed into the room where they had taken Rhys. He spotted a nurse at his bedside who was checking vitals and pressed his lips into a hard line, nodding his head towards the door. The woman closed her clipboard pad quickly and scurried out of the room without a word. Jack waited a moment after she had gone before moving to Rhys’ side. 

The younger man looked so pale and fragile, like if Jack touched him, he would disintegrate. He quietly moved one of the chairs in the room next to the bed and sat down. He watched Rhys sleep for a long time, his heterochromatic eyes sliding over to the monitors from time to time to check his vitals. Why the hell wasn’t he awake yet? 

So many doctors had come and gone from the room, Jack couldn’t tell their faces apart anymore. He was growing more frustrated by the minute. There were a group of them discussing Rhys in the corner of the room, not a single one of them actually saying anything helpful. Jack had had enough. He stood from his chair so quickly, it went sliding back and hit against the bedside table.

“How about instead of standing around here with your heads up each other asses, you go figure out a god damn way to wake him up!? What good are you people?” Jack barked over at them all. They stood their with wide eyes, completely frozen with fear. That only fueled Jack’s rage. He picked up the chair he had been sitting in and tossed it at them, just narrowly missing them as they rushed out of the room. “Get to work, assholes!”

Another day had passed and still no change. Jack was a mess. He hadn’t left the room since he came in and he barely let anyone in. Just the occasional nurse here and there but never the doctors. They didn’t have the answers Jack wanted and they were no help anyway.

Why the hell was this affecting him so much? Sure, he really had come to care for this kid but even Jack didn’t recognize himself. Then it seemed to finally hit him. He was kneeling down next to Rhys’ bed, his hands both clasped tightly around Rhys’ flesh hand and he just began to talk.

“You know, I’m really starting to miss that annoying, whining voice of yours kiddo. It’d be really great if you could wake up now so things could go back to the way they were before. I need you…you’re the only one in that whole place who knows what they’re doing.” Jack laughed weakly and lifted his eyes for a moment to stare at the unconscious man. He really was so beautiful- that thick, chestnut hair, a great ass and oh, those legs. The kid had legs for days, but his laugh was what Jack loved the most about him. Shit. He had been too busy to realize what was happening with his own god damn feelings. He had fallen for the kid at some point and didn’t even notice till now.

Jack swallowed quietly and stood to his feet, his eyes staying on Rhys the whole time. He held on tightly to his hand and his breathing hitched the more time passed. Still nothing. Jack let his head drop back and he stared at the ceiling, a weak laugh escaping him.

“Oh, Rhysie. I lied. I don’t want things to go back to the way they were before. I don’t want to keep coming up with lame coding errors just so I can call you to come fix them. I don’t want to turn down your offers to grab dinner after a late night because I’m so caught up in meaningless work.” Jack paused for a moment and looked back down at Rhys. Still nothing. The older man bit his lip as he felt his eyes begin to well and he dropped back down to his knees, his forehead resting against the bed.

“You know, after my Angel died…I didn’t think it would be possible for me to love again. I just didn’t have time for that in my world anymore, or I was scared. I don’t know. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this…I guess what I’m trying to say is, I need you to wake up Rhys…because I love you. I realize that now. I could lose you and that would fucking kill kid, let me tell you.” Jack let out a deep sigh and tightly squeezed Rhys’ hand once again.

“So just wake up, sleeping beauty, so we both can stop pretending like there isn’t something there between us and start a fucking life together. Please Rhys…I love you,” Jack pleaded quietly and began gently hitting his head against the bed. He knew his pleas would go unheard but still, he had to say it. The room was quiet except for the annoying beeping sound of Rhys’ heart rate machine. The dumb thing must have had a wire loose or something because the noise was getting increasingly louder…

Jack’s head shot up as he felt a grip on his hand and just like that, he was on his feet, hovering over Rhys. He let out a loud gasp as he saw Rhys’ lips curve into a faint smile. It took a few moments, but finally Rhys’ own beautiful two-toned eyes opened and he was looking up at Jack.

“N-not really how I was…expecting you to tell me…but I’m glad you f-finally did,” Rhys said weakly and tried to sit up, his grip on Jack’s hand tightening. Jack sniffled a bit and scrambled to help him, his eyes widening as he realized Rhys had heard all of that. He laughed and pressed his forehead gently to Rhys’, giving him a playfully stern look.

“I thought you were suppose to be in a mini coma, kiddo. What a convenient time to recover,” Jack teased a bit and they shared a laugh. 

Rhys just smiled and shook his head as he looked Jack over. He could see the older man’s eyes were a bit red. He really meant what he had said…Rhys weakly reached up and cupped Jack’s face with his flesh hand, his thumb running over the surface of the mask. Jack tensed a bit but flashed Rhys a small smile, his eyes looking over the younger man.

“It’s not every day Handsome Jack confesses his love for you. It seemed rude not to respond.” Rhys chuckled but Jack sorta froze. Even with the mask on, Rhys could see the lovely shade of red his face was turning. Jack shook his head a few times and let out a small laugh.

“You gave me a real scare there, you know that?”

“Oh yeah? Why is that? Afraid you wouldn’t be able to find anyone who can program as well as me?” Rhys grinned softly, coughing a bit as he spoke. Jack’s face turned a bit serious and he sat down on the bed next to Rhys, looking him dead in the eye.

“No, because I love you, idiot. Oh, christ, I love you. It’s ridiculous.”

A satisfied grin pulled across Handsome Jack’s lips as he saw the utterly shocked look on the younger man’s face. Safe to say his face was no longer pale. Jack’s eyes slid over as he heard the heart rate machine beeping faster once again and Rhys quietly cursed at it. After a moment, the young programmer finally met eyes with the man in front of him. He took his hand in his flesh one and gave it a squeeze, a warm smile on his face.

“I love you too, Jack.”

[onesyllable]

"Confess"

Gwen’s true feelings for @twatisms.

The truth had to come out and it would be best to speak quickly and just get it over with but there was nothing telling Gwen she couldn’t drink before, during, or after. She struggled through opening a new bottle of off-brand whiskey and, though she’d set a shot glass down, she didn’t bother to fill it and instead brought the bottle straight to her lips. 

Swallowing the equivalent of a large shot with a shudder, she nodded to herself, then offered the alcohol Owen’s way, and cleared her throat to begin. “You know it was never just about sex but it’s easier to tell myself that when I feel guilty. You’ve done things to me- with me -that Rhys doesn’t, that I wouldn’t even tell him I wanted but it’s sort of...”

She waved to indicate she wanted the whiskey back and then immediately changed her mind. “I don’t love you like that but you’ve seen me when I’m weak and tired and scared and you were there when I needed someone. Honestly, you’re awful sometimes and you know it too. You care so much more than you want anyone to see and I dunno why that makes me want you more but we’re good together, I think- when I don’t feel like strangling you, but you sorta, you know-” 

Her already fast pace quickened as she finished, shamed and breathless. “You understand me in a way Tosh and Ianto can’t and Jack’s just so, so complicated but you’re- I feel like if I were to risk my life for your sake, it wouldn’t just be part of the job; and I look at how annoying you were when we met- all surly and pretending-not-to-care and I’m wondering how we ever got here, you and me. That’s all, I think, just...” The sense of urgency and obligation had passed but there was an entirely new sort of tension in the air and Gwen couldn’t bring herself to move.

[enigmaphenomenon]

Jack pre-Borderlands 1 Speculation/Jack analysis

STRAP IN, KIDDOS! THIS IS GONNA BE A LONG ONE! REALLY LONG.

(Will be tagged long post for any mobile users)

I’ll be drawing my speculation from evidence presented in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Borderlands 2, and Tales from The Borderlands. Keep in mind this is just speculation. 

Who was the man before the monster?

I’m talking about Pre-Borderlands 1 because while The Pre-Sequel shows a more sympathetic side of Jack than the villain in BL2 and TFTBL. Jack had already enslaved Angel by the time of Borderlands 1 and The Pre-Sequel, so this simple fact is something people haven’t ignored/can’t ignore when thinking about Jack in a non-villain light. 

The first thing we’ll look at is the photo of Angel Jack keeps on his desk, even when he’s the CEO of Hyperion, even in TFTBL the framed photo remains on his desk. 

She appears to be a very happy little girl, even throwing the peace sign. No tattoos are visible so this could be one of two things. The artist forgot to draw them, or her Siren powers had not yet been acquired/awakened. Or whatever, I don’t know how Siren powers work.

The Last of Us is made by an entirely different company but I want to compare this photo of Angel to the photo of Joel’s daughter. 

Wide eyes, open smile that shows teeth, and throwing the peace sign, the same as Angel’s photo. 

This seems to be a go-to pose for conveying happiness in photos. Angel was at one point a very happy little girl, this photo showing Angel’s happiness is something Jack always keeps on his desk even when he becomes the villain. 

Now let’s talk about Jack’s romantic life. 

We know that Jack had a wife who he had a daughter with, and so what sort of husband was Jack during this time?

Well, we have none other than Moxxi to turn to for answers. 

When Jack dated Moxxi he had already lost his first wife and Angel was in containment, but what does Moxxi have to say about her relationship with Jack? 

Moxxi says that Jack was a real charmer, he was always opening doors for her, telling her she was beautiful and would shoot anyone in the face for looking at her sideways. She then says he got clingy and that’s when she broke it off with him. 

I don’t know what Moxxi’s definition of clingy is, but just imagine that if Jack was a gentleman to Moxxi imagine how he must have treated his first wife! 

In Borderlands 2 when Moxxi destroys Jack’s Construction Site and he exclaims: “Moxxi, you BITCH!”

She laughs and says she hasn’t seen him that angry since they broke up. Yet despite that, Jack trusted Moxxi enough with his life post-breakup. When she takes part in the betrayal in the pre-sequel he is shocked and emphasizes that he trusted Moxxi. 

Even with Moxxi’s betrayal, Jack doesn’t seem to carry the same amount of hatred he does for Roland and Lilith. Which you would think Moxxi’s betrayal would fill him with more rage than Roland and Lilith’s. 

Which circles me back to Jack’s first wife. Some think that Jack murdered her and blamed it on Angel, and that he’s lying about Angel’s part in whatever happened to his first wife. 

I honestly don’t think he did anything to his wife and blamed Angel for it.

Jack doesn’t kill his grandmother until he becomes Handsome Jack, even though that woman was horribly abusive to him. Jack doesn’t kill Moxxi despite her betrayal, Jack is incapable of NOT bragging about himself, and even with Angel turning against him he doesn’t kill her, but he begs for her life and says he’ll forgive her for helping the Vault Hunters. 

Based on all of this, I would say that Jack was a genuinely loving husband and father. At some point. 

Angel looks so happy in the photo, and Moxxi’s description of her time with Jack paints him as an affectionate man. 

As an added note, Jack has had multiple female lovers, but only fathered one child with his first wife. Jack had a second wife who he didn’t have a child with (that we know of anyway) Moxxi has been married 3 times and has children but never married Jack nor had a child by him, and of course, there’s Nisha who he never married nor had a child with. 

So, imagine Jack, finding a woman he proposes too...she says yes. A WEDDING!!! Imagine her breaking the news to him that she’s pregnant and he’ll be a father. Imagine him and his wife deciding on names for their first child together. (He named his diamond pony Butt-Stallion after “racking his brain” for a name, I’m sure the naming process was hilarious. Until “Angel” was finally decided on.)

 Imagine him learning he will have a daughter. Imagine him while his wife is in labor. 

There is no reason to assume he was not a loving and doting husband. And since Moxxi called him “clingy” I can easily imagine Jack being a control freak while his wife was pregnant. 

“No, let me get that, honey!” for any little task, probably having her feel a little smothered and say she’s pregnant, not incapable, and for Jack to calm down a little bit. 

Imagine Jack going out of his way to get whatever food she’s craving and being there to support her during whatever morning sickness she experiences.

Imagine Jack holding his baby girl in his arms for the very first time, or being spit-up on for the first time, attempting to change a diaper for the first time. 

Based on Moxxi’s words and the photo of Angel on his desk, there’s no reason to assume Jack wasn’t a kind and caring father and husband. 

He found a woman he loved and had a child with her, finally had a family of his own. He escaped his abusive past and most likely vowed to be a better parent to Angel than his grandmother was to him.

Again, bringing up a situation in a different game (might be a bad example to bring up a different game and company to illustrate my point but maybe it will help paint a clearer picture?) 

Morrigan in Dragon Age has a son, and Morrigan’s mother Flemeth raised Morrigan in an abusive way and refuses to let Flemeth take her son away. Morrigan says: “I am many things, but I will not be the mother that you were to me.” 

I don’t know what age Angel is in the photo nor the age she killed her mother at, but in Jack’s ECHO logs in BL2 there is one where he is introducing Angel to her “new home” (the containment thing) and she sounds like a young girl. So maybe it happened shortly after the picture on his desk was taken. 

Another thing about Jack is his reluctance to talk about his wife and child, indicating it is a very sore subject and cuts a little too close to the bone. 

In the Pre-Sequel before his descent into madness, Nakayama is creating the Jack AI and the player character asks Jack some questions. 

One of the questions is for Jack to describe his childhood. He can casually and in a flippant tone speak about the abuse he suffered as a child. 

He says he spent most of his time coding or getting smacked around, and that he had a pet cat that his grandma drowned when he didn’t make his bed. He then says “Usual stuff” 

Some kids get spanked, others get a time-out, Jack got the Buzz Axe. 

But when asked if he has a family such as a wife or children, he responds: “Next question!” 

It is a great contrast compared to how he answers when asked about his childhood. He’s tight-lipped about his family, he won’t answer it at all. 

Another ECHO log from BL2 shows that even his second wife is a touchy subject as he strangles a man to death for bringing up his wife. 

Now let’s get back on topic, Jack’s life before his daughter had Siren powers and before his wife died. 

In BL2 there is an ECHO log of Jack putting Angel in containment. She sounds scared and asks him where her mother is, Jack has growing impatience and tells her that he already told her, “She’s not coming back.” 

Judging by the photo he keeps of her, some of his dialogue with her in the pre-sequel such as “Thanks, baby. Love ya!” and his dialogue during her death; as well as his interaction with Rhys in TFTBL it is very clear Jack loves Angel dearly. When Rhys inquires about the picture Jack gets a little awkward before saying that’s “My Angel” and that he doesn’t usually like people knowing about her, but figures it’s ok since he and Rhys are close. He also says he’d like to check up on her “if that’s cool.”  

There’s no doubt in my mind that Jack loves Angel, and also no doubt that he never intended to do the horrible things he did to her. (Look at what he’s done to her and some of the things he’s said to her. Look at what he put her through. All the abuse she suffered at his hands.) Even if Jack never meant to hurt his daughter, he still did, he became an abuser just like his grandmother. 

But we still have a lot to talk about and a lot to look at. 

Jack finally had a family of his own and it was ripped away by his own daughter, who was just a little girl. 

Jack mentions in both BL2 and TFTBL that Angel did something to her mother and it was after this he locked her up, kept her hidden from the world. He brings up that the Vault Hunter didn’t see what Angel did to her mother and uses this as his reason for locking her up. 

He doesn’t seem to have any anger towards Angel after saying that she betrayed him, even saying that she didn’t have a choice. He also doesn’t say the vault hunters killed Angel, but that she killed herself. Which is true, Angel did want to die, she urges the Vault Hunter to end her life. 

Jack also refused to shut down the Containment Core Angel at the behest of his second wife and co-workers. A malfunction led to dozens of staff being lost, yet he still refused. His refusal to do so led to his second wife to leave him. 

Angel also seems unaware of what happened to her mother, indicating that Jack never told her what she did, or even telling her that she’s dead, only saying that she’s not coming back in the ECHO log. 

It’s possible that Angel believes her father killed her mother. And maybe, he just lets her believe that so she doesn’t have to carry the guilt of it?

There’s no doubt some resentment in Jack’s heart for Angel for killing his wife. It’s something he carries with him, maybe it’s that resentment that allows him to do what he does to Angel. 

Another example of this is presented in Life is Strange and it’s spinoff game Captain Spirit. 

In Life is Strange, Chloe’s father is dead. He died in a car accident and Chloe says that her mother blames herself for it, because she needed a ride home. If Joyce had never called him to pick her up, he never would have taken the car that day, and thus, would never have gotten into the accident that killed him.

Chloe then admits that sometimes she even blames her mother. Even though Chloe knows it isn’t really Joyce’s fault, the blame and resentment are still there, even though Chloe loves her mother dearly. 

In Captain Spirit, Chris is a 10-year-old boy whose mother died in a hit and run accident. Chris’ father while drunk says that if it weren’t for Chris, “she never would’ve taken the car that day.” After realizing what he just said, recoils and says he didn’t mean it, only for Chris’ to scream that he did mean it. 

It may be the same case for Jack and Angel. He loves Angel, but if it weren’t for her, his wife would still be alive. Maybe it’s not something he voices, we don’t know if he ever told Angel, but it is definitely something he would feel. 

Even if he knows that Angel was just a little girl who couldn’t control her powers and that it isn’t her fault, there is that part of Jack that feels like it is. The feeling can’t be stopped from being felt. He can reason with logic and tell himself she was just a little girl and an unfortunate accident happened, but none of that will stop the emotion from being felt. 

He brings Angel’s containment up to the Vault Hunter and says “You didn’t see what she did to her mother.” 

We don’t actually know what happened, we don’t know if Jack was there when it happened, or if he discovered her body later. We also don’t know if Angel suppressed the memory due to the trauma, or if using her power had made her lose consciousness thus never knowing what she had done. 

Jack’s containment of her served as a way to protect her and others most likely, and perhaps part of it may have served,  on a subconscious level, as a punishment for Angel. 

I believe the picture Jack keeps of Angel on his desk is not one of her current self, is because the picture is frozen time. He can look at it and remember a happier time, remember a time before she was a Siren, remember when his little girl was happy and cheerful and when his wife was still alive. 

In Life Is Strange, Chloe’s mother, Joyce, gives Chloe’s best friend a picture taken on the day of Chloe’s dad’s death right before he walked out the door and never came back. Joyce says that it’s the last time she saw her baby happy and vibrant, everything she isn’t now. 

This could be the same thing for Jack and why he keeps that particular picture of Angel. 

In the Pre-Sequel, near the end of the game, the picture on Jack’s desk is facedown which is a cool little detail.

But why is the photo facedown? Some say because he doesn’t want Nisha to know he has a daughter, other say it’s because of shame and is symbolic of Jack not wanting her to see what he is becoming. 

I think it has to do with betrayal. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment in the game where the photo is placed face down (if anyone could find out for me that’d be great) but it seems to be face down after Jack is betrayed by Moxxi, Roland, and Lilith. 

After the betrayal took place, maybe Jack couldn’t handle looking at the picture of Angel. I don’t know exactly what reason he had to place the photo face down. 

We see how distraught he is at Moxxi’s betrayal and he’s turned into a jaded, cold-blooded killer. 

Maybe he really didn’t want his daughter to see him that way, maybe the betrayal caused old wounds to re-open, such as the death of his wife at Angel’s hands so he can’t bear to look at her. 

Maybe it’s Jack acknowledging that the man he was and the life he used to have is completely gone, so he places his reminder of it face down. 

Maybe the sight of Angel’s happy smiling face grounds him and brings him back to reality, but Jack doesn’t want to be grounded right now. Maybe he wants to lose himself in the madness. 

Maybe being called a power-hungry psychopath by someone he trusted (who also tried to kill him) struck a nerve and he put the photo of Angel face down as an apology for enslaving her. Maybe he felt guilty?

Maybe he put the photo face down because he imagined what his wife must have felt like when Angel killed her, or maybe Jack feels he betrayed Angel’s trust by locking her up? Or maybe it’s because he feels betrayed? 

Maybe the fact that both Lilith and Angel are Sirens made him generalize all Sirens (similar to what he does with bandits and vault hunters) 

I really can’t say why he put the photo face down, it could be a number of reasons. It’s a detail that can be easily missed, but it is there for a reason. It’s a subtle and intricate detail showing Jack’s mindset. 

There’s always that possibility that it’s symbolic of “no going back” from the path he has chosen. 

I’ll compare it to Joel’s photo from The Last of Us. Initially, Joel refuses to accept this photograph. Later on, the photo is presented to him again by Ellie where he finally accepts it. He takes a deep breath and says; “Well I guess no matter how hard you try, you can’t escape your past” 

Obviously, Joel and Handsome Jack are completely different characters from completely different games, but hey...I need comparisons here to help paint this picture.

Joel is a character with very little moral boundaries left to cross. He’s a hardened survivor who lost his daughter in the first days of the outbreak and remembering how things used to be vs how they are now was painful. 

There’s also the case of Chloe from Life Is Strange. In the prequel Before The Storm, she sees her father’s car in the junkyard mangled and distorted. She breaks down and writes this in her journal: 

My dead dad's fucking car. The twisted, shattered, ugly reminder of what used to be my life.

I would put my money on Jack’s reasoning being similar to the above. That happy picture of Angel, that reminder of what his life used to be with a wife and daughter vs what it is now. Betrayal at the hands of people he trusted with his life. Just, all the betrayal he suffered even from an early age by his mother and grandmother.

In TFTBL we get a moment where Jack reflects on his life, stating that everyone he cared about ended up betraying him. But, maybe he deserved it. 

Just to add, Jack is from the planet Tantalus. Why is that relevant? Well for those of you who don’t know, Tantalus is a Greek mythological figure famous for his eternal punishment.  

 He was made to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches, with the fruit ever eluding his grasp, and the water always receding before he could take a drink.

We can look at Jack’s life:

Jack’s father died and his mother abandoned him with his grandmother who smacked him around with a freaking Buzz Axe and drowned his cat because he didn’t make his bed one time. 

Jack gets a family of his own with a beautiful wife and a beautiful baby girl named Angel and lived a seemingly happy life. (We only have context clues to go on we don’t actually know.) 

 His daughter turns out to be a Siren and kills his wife on accident. Angel can’t control her powers so he locks her away to keep her hidden from the world.

His daughter turns out to be really good with technology proving to be a great ally and aids him in his ambition. 

He gets the Eye of the Destroyer integrated into Helios only for his ex-girlfriend he trusted with his life and Lilith and Roland to betray him and try to kill him. Lilith and Moxxi happy and gleeful about it. 

He gets a vault relic punched into his face that permanently scars him.

He loses his daughter even before she dies. She turns against him and helps the people he hates foil his plan by causing her death. Angel just wanted it all to end, saying that Jack ended her life long ago, as far as Angel is concerned she’s already dead. 

He does manage to awake The Warrior and accomplish his ambition but The Warrior is defeated, thus stopping his goal in its tracks. 

He gets Helios back but Rhys crashes all of it into Pandora, so now that’s gone. 

In the end, Jack lost it all. Rhys says as much in TFTBL:

But the tragedy and interesting part about Jack... he seems to be aware of all this in TFTBL, making my previous thought of him turning Angel’s picture face down because it’s a reminder of what his life used to be, and there’s no going back. From that moment, Jack just snowballs into the villain we know now. 

More conversations with Rhys let us poke around in Jack’s mind a bit more. When he brings up how many people were on Helios, and asks Rhys what makes him think he’s the good guy in this scenario, Rhys responses and Jack’s reactions to them reveal a little more about our black-hearted villain. 

After talking about all the lives on Helios, and how many co-workers Rhys ejected out an airlock, stopping at nothing to take Jack down. 

And Jack’s response to Rhys saying “I guess I’ll have to live with that.” lacks “Whatever helps you sleep at night” 

How many times Jack has told himself he has to live with something horrible he’s done? Or how many times he told himself he did what he had to? What exactly went through Jack’s head as Angel grew up, or as he began spiraling down into the villain we know?

Some things to keep in mind from the Pre-Sequel, while he already had Angel enslaved, we see he still has some humanity in him. 

He was going to let the Meriff live, he wasn’t even going to retaliate against him for the betrayal. 

Only for Jack to turn his back and the Meriff tries to shoot him. 

Jack admits he doesn’t like killing after Felicity says she didn’t like killing the Scavs, and Jack does consider copying Felicity until finding out the copy would take too long and a shitload of lives would be lost. Then there are the scientists he airlocks that made Lilith get pretty butthurt, butthurt enough that she’d take out an entire space station with innocent people just to kill Jack, as well as the vault hunter you’re playing as whose just there on a job. 

Anyway...Jack’s dialogue to the scientists he brings up being shot in the back. 

Then again at the very end of the game, Jack mentions being shot in the back again when the player character brings up just avoiding the enemies and running straight to the vault. 

We see first hand in the pre-sequel exactly how Jack falls into villainy and it’s clear the Meriff’s betrayal acted as a catalyst to his ruthless behavior, with Moxxi, Lilith, and Roland’s betrayal breaking him on top of everything he already experienced. 

Though Handsome Jack is gone and most likely won’t be returning for BL3, and even if he somehow did, there’s no chance for redemption. Jack is too far gone to be brought back to the light. As I said before, there is no return from the path he has chosen. 

Jack’s tale is a sad and tragic one. I do believe that he had good intentions, that he had pure motives, but he was blinded by rage and betrayal that he lost sight of what actually mattered, and didn’t realize the harm he was doing to the people he loved. Of course, Jack is not excused from the horrible things he has done but, it’s easy to see why he was filled with such bitterness and hate. 

I would like to see Jack’s life before Angel got her powers. I’d like to see exactly what type of life he had, what type of husband and father he was. 

This is long enough and I have so much more to say, but I’m going to end it here. 

Jack, Butt Stallion says “Hello” 

[nessiefromspace]

vaugust or timhelm with 22 >:3c

He tapped on the door to the man’s dressing room. “Vaughn? It’s August.”

There was a long pause. “Uh… Yeah…?”

August’s stomach fluttered annoyingly. “I was sent to check up on you?”

He heard a soft swear and his lips twitched. He’d never heard Vaughn say that before. Vaughn’s voice broke a little. “Look… I… I’m… uh… fine, I’ll…”

More silence followed. August sighed. “Just let me in… Please?”

Here’s some Vaugust with some Timhelm on the side! This is an NSFW post!

This can also be read on my AO3!!

August wanted to leave the wedding before he got to the front door of his house that morning, but he’d promised to be an usher for the happy couple. So he was there early, listening to Timothy prattle on for the hundredth time about what he was supposed to do. He shouldn’t have even been at this wedding, he wasn’t friends with Rhys of Jack, Sasha, his ex was. They’d been together when the wedding had started and August had wanted to back out when they’d split, but he couldn’t. That would’ve meant telling Tim and Tim was so high strung, the guy probably would have murdered August. And there was always that other thing that kept August there. That had been the reason for the breakup, but he was pretty sure he’d screwed that up too.

His phone beeped as he waited at his post. It was Sasha. His gut clenched. She was asking him to check in on Vaughn. He sighed, his chest suddenly heavy as he typed in a short ‘yes’ and headed off. He tapped on the door to the man’s dressing room. “Vaughn? It’s August.”

There was a long pause. “Uh… Yeah…?”

August’s stomach fluttered annoyingly. “I was sent to check up on you?”

He heard a soft swear and his lips twitched. He’d never heard Vaughn say that before. Vaughn’s voice broke a little. “Look… I… I’m… uh… fine, I’ll…”

More silence followed. August sighed. “Just let me in… Please?”

After another long moment, August heard the lock turn on the door, but Vaughn did not open it. August took initiative and stepped in, closing and locking it behind him. He stared for a long moment at Vaughn. He was standing just in his tight, thin underwear, holding his arms and looking everywhere except August. August stared at him, taken by the hard muscle everywhere. The tight shorts, clung to his body, leaving next to nothing to the imagination and it dried August’s throat. He’d had no idea Vaughn was even more… hot under the vest and button down shirts. Sasha had poked at him many times about it. She’d seen the flush in August’s cheeks and how his eyes trailed after the man. He’d felt extremely guilty, but he and Sasha had parted respectfully.

Vaughn held his arms and stammered. “I… Like I said… I’m…”

“What’s wrong?” August asked, looking at Vaughn and pretending nothing else existed.

A strangled noise came from Vaughn and August followed his eyes to a dress, laying across a chair. August remembered the dress code now. The bridesmaids were required to wear a dress, and the groomsmen a suit, no matter who was on either side. He remembered Athena was wearing a suit.

“Oh,” August said.

That single word opened the floodgates of Vaughn’s nerves. “It’s a stupid rule! I could have found a yellow suit, but Rhys absolutely refused! Everything has to match! I’m the maid of honor, so I have to set an example.” Vaughn grunted. “It’s easy for Rhys to say, he looks fabulous in anything! He doesn’t have to deal with awkward limbs and an uneven body that’s too broad for that… He’s going to look great in his dress…”

August smiled. He couldn’t help it. The man’s insecurities were extremely adorable and endearing. His throat clenched and he grew angry with himself. He’d made a mess of things with Vaughn and he needed to make it right. But the sight of Vaughn in distress tickled August.

Vaughn glared at the small chuckle.

He rubbed the back of his neck, sheepishly. “Sorry… It’s just I’ve never found you awkward. Incredibly cute and sexy, but not awkward.”

Vaughn’s brows rose. August had taken a chance, flirting to see how Vaughn would respond. The man turned pink. “That makes it even worse now!” He glared at the dress.

It put a permanent smile on August. He hadn’t lost his chance. He moved to the dress and picked it up. “It’s not… horrible… It’s just not your style.” He handed it to Vaughn. “Let me see it on you?”

The man groaned and grudgingly slipped it on. August helped zip it up and then took a step back. It definitely wasn’t Vaughn’s style and reeked of Rhys. The dress was a candy yellow and very form-fitting, hugging all of Vaughn’s curves. It was tailored to him, though, and fit extremely well, but the tight mini-skirt cut into his muscles, pinching at his legs just a little. The upper part was separated with a belt, the top portion a sleeveless, lace see-through. The only thing that was covered was his chest, where breasts would be.

“I look hideous!” Vaughn cried in horror as he looked at himself in the mirror. “I can’t… I can’t go out there, August! All the others are women, I’m going to stick out like a sore thumb! I’ve never looked good in dresses or skirts despite Rhys’ attempts!”

“It does look awful on you,” August admitted as he looked over Vaughn’s shoulder at his reflection. There was no use denying it.

“I know!” he cried, his voice thin and full of panic.

Turning him around, August looked him over, keeping his hand on Vaughn’s bare shoulder. His voice was low, so only Vaughn could hear. “I gotta admit though, seeing this lace over these abs is really hot.”

Their eyes met. Vaughn swallowed.

He was the only thing that had made sticking around worth it. He’d always made sure August had felt welcome, especially when Sasha had ditched him to hang out with the others. He’d gotten close to Vaughn, only to pull away in pride and fear before August had said how he’d felt.

Vaughn looked down at his chest and stomach. “R-really?”

“Mhmm,” August hummed. He did not feel that fear anymore. Now, when he confronted his true feelings, he felt light and excited. Vaughn was not angry with him and he still had a chance to grab his missed opportunity. He was not going to let it slip away again. He shrugged, smirking wide. “But then again, I’ve always found you hot.”

A nervous breath left Vaughn and he smiled sadly. “I wasn’t sure…”

“Sorry about that,” August said. “I’m an asshole.”

Vaughn thought for a moment. “I wouldn’t say that. You were a dummy, though.”

“Sorry,” August said more seriously. His thumb trailed around Vaughn’s neck. “I got scared when I realized that I really, really didn’t want to screw this up.”

“I’m scared too, August,” Vaughn said. “And not just of this dress.”

August laughed and pulled Vaughn into a kiss. He gained confidence as seconds passed, pulling Vaughn fully into his arms. Vaughn’s kisses were nervous, but they calmed as August continued.

A harsh rapping on the door made them pull away just barely.

“Vaughn!” Tim called through the door, knocking quickly once more. “Vaughn, is August in there with you!? He’s not at his post! He’s never not where he’s supposed to be and he’s not there!”

“Tim,” they heard a male voice mutter, annoyed. August recognized it as Wilhelm. “Let the man have a chance to answer.”

“I am, Wil, but he’s not answering!” Tim hissed and knocked again on the door.

“I guess I should go, huh? Before Tim has an aneurysm, though I bet a crumb on a clean table would cause that right now.” August said quietly.

Vaughn snickered. “Poor guy.”

August kissed him slowly as Tim knocked on the door again. He whispered to Vaughn, squeezing his ass. “I’m nowhere near finished with you, though. And don’t even think of having someone else as a dance partner.”

August held Vaughn’s hand as he pulled him away from the reception. All the things Vaughn needed to participate in were accomplished and August was whisking him away. Vaughn blushed at the implication.

“This isn’t really that sneaky, ya know? This dress is an eyesore.”

“No one’s paying any attention,” August said, smirking devilishly.

Vaughn flushed.

August smirked wider, leading them to the back of the building and into a closet he’d scoped out earlier. He shut them in, the scent of cleaning supplies circling. He pressed close to Vaughn, his hands automatically reaching to grope his ass. “This dress has been a tease all day,” August said. It may not have been suited for Vaughn, but it had hugged him just right. He’d been surprised how much it had distracted him and he could no longer wait. He kissed Vaughn.

“Should we really be doing this here?”

“Here, home, whatever, but we’d better leave now.” August gripped Vaughn’s thigh, lifting it over his hip, pushing the dress higher. August let his hands roam over that leg as he kissed down Vaughn’s neck. He felt the man swallow hard. He pressed into Vaughn’s tight booty shorts, groaning when the thin, mesh material did nothing to shield his advances.

“Yeah… Okay, screw it!” Vaughn wrapped his arms around August’s neck, relenting and encouraging the man. August unzipped his suit pants, letting them sag just enough to free himself. He pulled Vaughn’s underwear over his ass, feeling over the soft, supple flesh. He dragged it off, letting it slide down Vaughn’s other leg. Vaughn ground his dick into August’s, both moaning and clawing each other closer. Vaughn breathed heavily into August’s ear, rocking with him.

August smirked. “You are so fucking sexy, ya know that?” His sweet nerd giggled. It tore his resolve just a little more, but he reached into his pocket and produced a small test packet of lube. He smirked. “A party favor from Jack.”

Vaughn snickered. “Of course.”

After applying it, he pulled Vaughn’s thigh back up to his waist and rubbed the tip of his dick against him. August kissed him, muffling Vaughn’s moan when he sank into the man, pushing his dick the full extent he could. Vaughn panted, pressing his face into August’s neck and hugging him tight. August made slow rhythms, taking his time, listening to the man’s soft pants that burned into his skin. He loved that Vaughn held him tight, his body gripping around August. He kissed August’s neck, his fingers tangling in the blonde hair.

August teased him, slowly pulling out and then thrusting in with just as much care, reveling in the mewls it drew from Vaughn. He pressed Vaughn against the wall, continuing his slow motions, hand bracing him against the wall, driving the cute nerd crazy. Vaughn clung to August’s back, gripping his jacket in fists.

“I’m just double checking that we’re not going to run out of food!” Tim snapped quietly, walking down the hall outside of the closet.

Vaughn stiffened, but August kept going, they were quiet, they would not be noticed. And he couldn’t resist teasing Vaughn even further. He was biting into August, holding him tighter as he tried to stay silent.

“You checked before it was served. We missed the damn toasts because of it,” Wilhelm grumbled. “I know you’re the wedding planner, but you’re driving me nuts.”

Gripping, Vaughn’s ass he thrust in quickly and deep, making Vaughn gasp into August’s neck. He pulled out and drove in again, delightfully hearing Vaughn grunt with each hard thrust. August was careful, though, he was not going to let anything disturb them.

“Then quit following me around,” Tim snapped.

There was a low growl before Tim exclaimed. “What are you doing!?” They heard Tim cry. “Put me down, Wil!”

“No, you’re too high strung, I’m going to fuck it out of you. We’ve already missed everything.”

Tim gasped. “We’re at a wedding!”

“There’s a closet in the kitchen.”

“There’s food in there, Wilhelm, don’t you dare!” Tim’s words were murderous, but his voice got quieter as they walked by.

August smirked momentarily before turning his attention back to Vaughn. “Turn around,” he whispered.

Vaughn stood on his feet. “You didn’t consider that closet did you? In the kitchen?” He faced the wall.

Pulling his hips towards him, August wasted no time in plunging into Vaughn and pushing him against the wall. He sank hard and deep, letting them make a little noise. “Nah, too risky, babe.” He thrust with measured rhythm. He’d thought about this all day and he wanted to remember it.

Vaughn moaned louder than he should have. “Shit,” he moaned, wincing. “Sorry… It’s… The dress is so tight…” His hips bucked against August. His dick was rubbing against the satin of the dress from August’s thrusts and it was short circuiting Vaughn. He tried to keep quiet but he was getting closer and closer. August kept up with him, pounding into him, driving him higher and higher until Vaughn had to shove his fist in his mouth as he came, his cum soaking into the dress.

August pulled Vaughn away from the wall to stand, his arm across Vaughn’s chest and neck, lunging rapidly. Vaughn panted loudly with each erratic thrust, faster and louder until August dug deep, pulling Vaughn against him. They stood there for a long moment, ears perking for any sound. When none was found August eased away from Vaughn, but turned him around and kissed him hard.

Vaughn was putty in his hands, his fingers kneading. “Do you think Rhys would notice if we just left?”

“Hmm, probably, but just shoot him a text, he’ll understand.” August pulled his phone out and handed it to Vaughn.

Giggling, Vaughn took it, pausing a moment to look at his dress. There was a spot right over Vaughn’s crotch. “Ew.”

“I like it,” August said easily.

“Yeah, you would,” Vaughn said, smacking his chest. He kept it there as he texted Rhys. “I need to pack my things up, which means I can changed out of this.”

“Oooh, I can help.”

Vaughn laughed, kissing the lazy smirk stretched wonderfully across August’s lips.

[doppeldonger]

The Scarlet Letter

The first time he sees her, he’s just released from the doppelgänger program to be moonshot to Elpis, his clothes fresh and his face new and unused. He acts the “handsome asshole with bravado” part quite well, if he says so himself; the swagger looks just right on his fit figure, hands casually in his pockets like he owns the damn place.

But then he sees her.

The colorful lights of the bar caress her pale skin, bringing out her perfect curves; he can’t take his eyes off of the bar owner, her merciless chest, the tiny dress hugging her body, and that voluptuous smile gracing her gorgeous face.

He should be saying something, cracking a joke about how she’s Jack’s ex- or hell, complimenting her, even… But he’s simply speechless, so it’s no surprise that the only sound leaving him is a strangled gurgle. Nisha throws a glare in his way, tipping her hat low and approaching the bar; she rolls her eyes at Timothy’s dumbstruck expression and shares an amused look with Wilhelm before she dives in, peppering Moxxi’s ego with insults. Timothy shakes himself, shedding his reverie like one wakes up from sleep and he interrupts the kinky cowgirl, “Fuck off, Nish! If you’ll get nasty like that, go get yourself a drink and shut up.”

The way Nisha is looking at him speaks a thousand words, like “I’d snap your fucking head if I wasn’t so amused by your show of bravery.” or “You’re lucky you’re Jack’s doppelgänger or I would’ve torn your face off by now.”

The way Moxxi is looking at him, though… Her electric blue eyes shine with amusement and appreciation alike, the angry snarl directed towards Nisha now changed into a pleased little smile, reserved just for him. Looking at the bar owner, Timothy can feel his face burn up in crimson.

Gosh, he’s so embarrassed.

The second time he sees her, the mood is much darker although the scenery is the same. The so-called betrayal of Moxxi, Lilith and Roland left behind long ago, the Vault of the Sentinel has been raided dry; Jack has received the accursed visions, engraved every little detail in the ever-scheming brain of his and dethroned Tassiter just a week ago. Claptrap’s done for, Athena has quit, a very-bored Aurelia following her not much later. That leaves Nisha, Wilhelm and Timothy to deal with Jack’s crazed shenanigans. Juuuuust lovely.

Wilhelm makes his way to the R&D department to let them work on his future robotic enhancements and Jack departs with Nisha for Pandora to take over Lynchwood.

Not before he leaves a gift for Timothy, however.

Thinking back, Timothy is certain that “gift” is for Jack rather than for him; after all, the doppelgänger was the one left screaming in pain on the floor with Jack looming over him with a manic smile on his lips and a brand in his hands.

The moment Jack abandons Timothy to have fun (A.K.A. wreak havoc on Pandora) with his new girlfriend, the doppelgänger abandons Helios to wander around Elpis aimlessly until his feet drag him into Moxxi’s bar, his clothes crumpled, the scar on his face new and hurting like a bitch.

Pulling his hood lower onto his offensive face, he makes his way to the bar and the absence of his usual polite-and-cheerful attitude immediately alarms the bar owner. She can’t look past the shadows of his hood, and it takes a good deal of coaxing to get his head up just an inch.

And then she sees it.

They end up in the backroom Moxxi uses as her lodging whenever she’s running the bar on Elpis, the woman shaking with fury as opposed to Timothy’s cold nonchalance and resignation. She demands answers, just like he expected her to do, barely able to contain her frustrated screams at Jack’s boldness. He’s just silent, sitting on the edge of Moxxi’s bed sized just for a queen like her, eyes looking at a spot in the wall and unseeing.

She eventually sits down next to him, rubbing soothing circles on his back and tries to get him to do something, to talk, to scream, to cry… she just wants him to stop bottling up his emotions so.

But he feels so, so embarrassed.

“It’s not your fault.” she murmurs, carding her long thin fingers through his disheveled hair and thinking how easily he revels in the gesture Jack hated so much. He was supposed to be a face like Jack’s and nothing more, but he’s a completely different human being under all the plastic surgery and training; she falls for him a little just by watching him there, the deep bass of the club providing background noise, albeit muffled. “You’re a wonderful person, and you deserve none of this.”

His head snaps up and he looks at her disbelievingly, “I do! I asked for all this when I signed up for this shit!”

She can understand how he feels, “You couldn’t have known. Don’t be embarrassed.” She knows, she knows, and that makes him feel all the worse. He ends up sliding off the bed onto the floor nevertheless, his aching face buried in her lap in hopes for alleviation her gentle hands could provide.

He leaves her and her bar after a while, eyes puffed up and sniffing, his hood back on his head as he heads out. He’ll have to return to Helios eventually, he has a tight schedule since Jack will be back soon, but he still has some time to clear his head. She knows it too, so Moxxi sees him off with a sad smile and a friendly advice, “Hubris is the downfall of a person, but humility is no better.”

The third time is the charm, and they see each other in conditions that are much different when they meet all these years later. Timothy is working for the CEO of the biggest company around, but it’s not Hyperion anymore. The guy who goes by the humble name of Rhys is a much better boss than Jack could even dream of becoming; and he knows how much Timothy has suffered in the hands of the said man, having housed him in his head in the form of a distorted AI. So it’s no surprise when Rhys sends Timothy to Moxxi with an offer: Come open up shop in Serenity, the city we built over Opportunity as Atlas, for a better future. Flashy, just like the young CEO himself, if you ask Timothy, but both men know it’ll make Moxxi interested; they’re asking her for her bar and her mechanic excellency alike, after all.

So, here he stands, in the middle of Moxxi’s bar up on Sanctuary with Brick and Mordecai sent to accompany him by Lilith; they still don’t trust him after all these years, and he can’t really blame them. He doesn’t mind their presence either, it keeps the curious residents of the floating city away from him; no questions about his face or voice dared to be asked. When he sees her, he’s as stupefied as he was all those years ago on Elpis; his clothes worn off from age and violence just like his face, but Moxxi seems unchanged as opposed to him with her lovely purple dress worshipping her curves and with her electric blue eyes.

She seems surprised to see him, because of all the years they remained apart without communication or because he’s brave enough to set foot in Lilith’s city, he does not know. He bets on both as he settles in a bar chair, the other vault hunters sitting on either side of him like menacing bouncers (who’s protecting who, and from whom at this point? He just doesn’t know). He orders a drink he knows he won’t touch, he’s not really into alcohol (Jack called him “a pansy” along with many other insulting slurs in the past for it); plus, the sight in front of him and the mission he’s on are much more interesting to him.

“Hey.” he greets her, still feeling a little tongue-tied after all these years. He gives her a genuine smile and offers his hands to her across the counter. Her surprise morphs into joy and she leans to put her hands in his, his order long forgotten. Brick and Mordecai make gagging sounds (especially Mordecai, glaring at him all the while he makes sure how much he hates the scene he’s witnessing. Right, Moxxi’s exes.), but Timothy and Moxxi simply end up giggling at the reaction.

She smiles at him and he can feel his soul being cleansed of his sins with that gesture alone. “It’s been so long.” she whispers and he nods, “What brings you here, Tim?”

“An offer, actually.” Moxxi raises a curious eyebrow and lets out an interested hum. “I work for Atlas now, and the CEO himself has a proposal. Gosh, don’t look at me like that, Moxxi; unlike the last one, this one isn’t a narcissistic asshole with a high killstreak.” That gets a laugh out of the three of them and Timothy counts that as a win. “He wants you to set up a bar in Serenity, he thinks it’ll be a good way to draw people to the city. If you’re interested in an Atlas city, it can’t be bad, right?” He smiles at her, quirking an eyebrow. “He also wants you to open a shop that’s similar to uh…” he coughs, embarrassed, “To Scooter’s.” The hands in his grasp tense for a moment, a look passing Moxxi’s eyes. “Rhys knew Scooter, says he was one helluva guy, talented and fun and all that.” He gives Moxxi’s hands an encouraging squeeze and the bar owner graces him with a proud smile.

“That’s Scooter, alright, that’s my son.” she replies, head held high and not a tear shed. She’s a strong woman, and Timothy knows he’s fallen hard for her yet again. She relaxes, looking into Timothy’s eyes, “That’s what your CEO wants. What do you want?”

The ex-doppelgänger smiles at her with a loving expression, “I just want you to be happy.” (“Booooooooooriiiiiiiing!” Brick moans in the background.)

But Moxxi gives him a matching smile, and he’s over the moon, “How about… We talk about this over dinner?”

Timothy sputters, along with the other vault hunters, “D-dinner?” Ah, there he is, the shy, polite guy she met all those years ago. She chuckles, “A big offer like that can’t be discussed over alcohol, can it? Plus, I really, really missed you.”

That deep, sultry tone, that voluptuous smile he came to associate with her, those electric blue eyes darkening with promises not said aloud… That does it for him, and he ends up feeling embarrassed once again, crimson dusting his cheeks like it did the moment they met all those years ago. “I-“ he clears his throat, ‘cause wow, it’s getting hot in here and his throat is perched, “I’d love that, Moxxi.”

Two weeks later, Moxxi sets up two shops in Serenity, enrapturing the residents easily with her bar and mechanic shop alike. She works awfully close to apartment complex Timothy resides in, but nobody makes a mention of it.

And if she ends up unofficially moving in with him eventually, sharing his food, his shower, his bed and his love, none of them is complaining.

 This request is great and you’re great, @torrarina!

[dragonbagel]

Retrograde - Part 6

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

[thank u all for interacting, i rly appreciate it!]

Jack had never met Sasha before, but he already knew he hated her. He’d only seen her in one of Rhys’ old photos that he took out when he was feeling nostalgic, although Jack knew that he kept it in the nightstand drawer on his side of the bed.

Sometimes, when Rhys wasn’t home, Jack would carefully take it out and look at it. Although he’d never say it to Rhys, he loved the goofy smile that he wore on his face in the photograph. It was the same one he wore whenever Jack cracked a stupid joke or said he loved him, but it looked different on his younger features. He had to have been no older than 17 when the photo was taken, sprawled out on a couch with his friends. One of them, a girl in a weird hat whose paleness nearly rivaled Rhys’, had her arms folded in mock annoyance. The blonde next to her, whom Jack recognized as Athena’s girlfriend Janey, was cracking a wide grin that showed off her braces. A Hispanic-looking kid could be seen lurking in the background, a bandana holding his ponytailed hair from his face and thick goggles hanging around his neck. He appeared to be laughing at what someone had said off camera. Jack wished he could ask Rhys what had been so funny– he knew that Rhys still remembered– but Rhys wasn’t particularly fond of talking about his life on Pandora, and Jack didn’t want to push him.

And then there was Sasha, whose mere presence pissed him off. She was on the couch next to Rhys, snuggled against his side. He had his right arm wrapped around her shoulders– his real arm, not the cybernetic one he had now– and Jack felt a twinge of jealousy. When was the last time Rhys had held him like that? He ached to be near him, to lean against his chest, to breathe in the sweet smell of his skin. After the fight, it was like he’d forgotten how to live on his own. He made a mental note to work in some extra cuddle time when this whole ordeal was over. But first, he thought grimly to himself, he needed Sasha’s help.

“Is this the place?” Nisha asked, nodding in the direction of the closed apartment door in front of them. Jack nodded, checking one last time that the coordinates matched up before slamming his fist against the door.

“Open up, sweet cheeks! There’s a fucking emergency!” he shouted, ignoring Nisha’s quite obvious eye roll.

After a moment, the door cracked open a little, and Jack could see a bright green eye staring at him from within the darkened interior. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Handsome goddamn Jack, pumpkin,” he said as he threw his weight against the door, forcing it to open and knocking Sasha backwards in the process.

“What the fuck?” Sasha yelled, reaching towards her ankle to grab her pistol and force these lunatics out of her apartment.

She hadn’t even managed to get the safety off before she felt a gun press against the back of her skull, the unmistakable sound of a bullet clicking into the chamber causing her to drop her weapon and slowly raise her hands in surrender.

“Alright, you win,” she snapped. Jack signaled to Nisha, who’d managed to slip through the door behind Jack unbeknownst to Sasha. She pouted at Jack before lowering her weapon.

“So then, now that you’ve broken into my apartment, what do you want from me?” Sasha asked, eyeing Jack and Nisha suspiciously.

“We want…” Jack faltered, unsure of what to say. “We want your help.”

Sasha snorted. “With what?”

Jack remained silent, beginning to fidget. There was a piece to this puzzle Rhys had created that he couldn’t see, but he wasn’t exactly the type to ask for help.

“There’s been a kidnapping,” Nisha said finally, shrugging at Jack’s immediate glare. “What? We don’t have enough time for you to swallow your entire ego.”

Jack continued to glower, but Sasha cut in. “I’m sorry, but what does this have to do with me?”

“Listen, honey, I wish you weren’t involved, I really do,” Jack said, stepping closer to Sasha to make his height advantage clear. “But unfortunately, Rhys wanted his Pandoran trash whore involved in this little operation.”

Sasha’s hand came down across Jack’s face with a sharp crack before he could even react, grinding his mask against his always-sensitive scar. “What the fuck did you just say to me?”

Jack snarled, recoiling. “You think I don’t know about you and Rhys? About you putting your filthy hands all over my boyfriend?”

There was a murderous glint in Sasha’s eyes as she responded. “I always knew you were dense, but I never thought you’d be such an idiot.”

She walked closer to Jack, jabbing her finger against his chest. “If you think you can bust in here asking for my help then accuse me of messing around with my ex, then you need to get to get your head checked.”

Nisha placed her hands on Jack’s shoulders and slowly dragged him backwards before he actually started getting violent. “I’m sorry Sasha, Jackie here just gets a little… overprotective.”

Jack still looked like he wanted to strangle her, but at least he hadn’t pulled out his gun. The rational part of him (as small as it was) knew that Rhys was as good as dead if he killed her, but oh, what he wouldn’t give to wrap his fingers around her throat.

“Why don’t you go take a seat and let us gals chat,” Nisha said, herding Jack over to the armchair in the corner of the apartment. He didn’t reply, pressing his lips into a thin line. He sunk into the seat, thrumming his fingers against the armrest. His eyes were dark and unfocused, the image of Rhys’ bloodied face imprinted in his pupils as his tortured screams filled his ears.

“How can you stand that asshole?” Sasha said to Nisha as she stepped into the kitchenette. She wrinkled her nose. “How can Rhys stand him?”

Nisha shrugged, leaning against the countertop. “He’s not always that bad.” She paused, thinking. “Actually, yes he is. He’s just not this aggressive to people he doesn’t consider his enemies.”

“And what did I do to earn a spot on his hit list?” Sasha asked, filling a chipped purple mug with hot water before plopping a tea bag into it.

Nisha stared at her, her face growing serious. “He’s convinced himself that Rhys cheated on him with you.”

Sasha looked ready to interrupt and argue but Nisha quickly continued. “I know you didn’t, so no need trying to convince me. Unlike Jack, I can see past my own nose.”

Sasha chuckled at that, beginning to relax as she took a sip of her tea.

“Jackie, he just… he’s in deep. He loves that kid more than Hyperion itself, although he’d never admit it. And now that he might lose him, he’s blaming anyone he can so that he doesn’t have to take it all out on himself. Although,” she said, shooting a worried look in Jack’s direction. “I don’t think it’s working all that well.”

Sasha took another sip, considering. “So you both came all the way out here so he could use me as a punching bag?”

“God no,” came an obnoxiously cocky voice. “I’ve got an entire team of slackers in R & D I could yell at and airlock if I wanted to.”

The girls stared at Jack as he stepped into the room, his mask readjusted on his face and his features composed. “We really do need your help, pumpkin. And we’re in a bit of a time crunch.”

Jack launched into a quick rundown of the past 24 hours, impressively managing to keep his anger to a semi-normal level. “So, basically, he sent us here to find you,” he concluded.

Sasha’s face had paled, her fingers tightly clutching the mug.

“Do you know what he meant? About the vault key?” Nisha asked.

Sasha nodded, something dark and unreadable in her expression. “He wants us to create a fake. That way they’ll give us his location and we can make the trade.”

Jack gaped at her. “As much as I’d love for that to work, that son of a taint would see right through it, and none of us would be seeing a very happy ending.”

Sasha bit her lip before shaking her head. “I’ve done it before.”

Jack raised his eyebrows before letting out a low whistle. “Seriously?”

Sasha set her mug down onto the counter before walking over to the nearby closet, the other two trailing behind her. “It was one of the last cons Rhys helped me pull off before he came up to Helios, that’s how he knows it’ll work,” she explained as she began to rummage through the stacks of cardboard boxes inside.

“Hold up,” Jack said, folding his arms over his chest. “Cons?”

Sasha nodded as she found the box she was looking for, hoisting it up with a grunt and carrying it to the kitchen table. “Your boyfriend wasn’t always a goody-two-shoes programmer,” she said as she removed the box’s lid and dumped out its contents unceremoniously.

“I wouldn’t exactly say he’s a goody-two-shoes,” Jack said with a smirk, wagging his eyebrows.

Nisha socked him in the shoulder. “You’re disgusting.”

The nauseous looks on both her and Sasha’s faces caused him to laugh, the first time he’d done so in what felt like forever; at least, since the forever after he’d fought with Rhys.

“So you’ll help?” he asked.

Sasha nodded. “But I’m doing it for Rhys, not you. No offense, but you’re still an asshole.”

Jack shrugged. “None taken.”

“Then let’s get to work!” Nisha said, clapping her hands together before lifting up the lump of molding clay now laying on the table. “I’ll make the base and you do the decorating?”

“Sure,” Sasha replied, pulling out brushes, a few bottles of shiny-looking paints and a…flamethrower?

“What about him?” she asked, jerking her thumb towards Jack.

“I’m gonna call Tim Tams for a status update,” he said, sliding his ECHOcomm out from his jacket pocket. “Besides, you don’t want me messing around with all this arts and crafts shit. Rhys forced me to take a painting class with him once and I almost burned the room down.”

“Alright then,” Sasha said, readjusting her headband to keep her dreadlocks out of her face. “You can talk in my room for some privacy. Plus, I don’t need your annoying voice distracting me.”

Jack nodded, although a bit of his previous anger resurfaced as he glanced towards the bedroom. He grit his teeth to keep himself from making a snide comment, not wanting to break their still precarious truce. He fumbled to select Tim’s name from his contact list, pressing down just a bit too hard on the screen as he headed into the other room.

Sasha must’ve noticed, because she called his name, causing him to look at her over his shoulder. “I didn’t mess around with Rhys.” When Jack didn’t respond, she continued with a grin. “Besides, he always was lousy in bed.”

Jack cracked a slight smile at that. “Oh, honey, I’d beg to differ.”

He turned to slip into Sasha’s bedroom completely, closing the door behind him and leaving the two girls in the kitchen to continue with their work. He felt extremely uncomfortable, not just because he was in a stranger’s most private room, but also because a part of him still imagined Rhys tangled in the plain linen sheets. Even though Sasha had flat-out denied it, a part of Jack continued to feel ill at the image of someone other than himself seeing Rhys in such an intimate way.

“Hey Tim,” Jack said as a projection of his doppelganger’s face materialized from his phone.

Tim gave a small salute before rolling right into a status report. “Wilhelm was able to get a reading on the guy who nabbed Rhys. I’m sending you the info now.”

Jack raised his eyebrows at the file he’d just received, quickly opening it. “Hugo Vasquez, eh?”

Tim nodded. “Head of programming department.”

“He even looks like a douche,” Jack said, scowling. “Do you see that ridiculous combover?”

“I’m having Wilhelm try to get a read on his location,” Tim said, abstaining from Jack’s rude humor as usual. “He’d also looking into his computer files.”

Jack nodded, already planning out the precise way in which he’d kill him. After weeks of torturing, of course. He deserved no less after what he’d done to…

“How’s Rhys?” Jack asked, immediately feeling his heart stop at the nervous look on Tim’s face.

“Tim,” he repeated, his expression darkening. “How’s Rhys?”

“He’s, um, well,” Tim stammered, focusing most of his attention on avoiding eye contact. “You see, he’s–”

“Please!”

Tim froze at the sound, quickly turning to look over his shoulder.

“Please don’t! Please! I’ll do anything!”

Jack’s pulse quickened as he took in the sounds of Rhys’ pained cries. “Let me see him.”

Tim looked like he wanted to argue, but decided he valued his life a little too much and carried the ECHOcomm over to the arm. Wilhelm was nowhere to be seen, having determined that hunting this Vasquez character would be much easier to catch via his personal computer files rather than the crazy hacking maze he’d set up. Instead, a large projection of Rhys was the only thing Jack could see, and he immediately felt sick.

“They didn’t mean to! I swear, they didn’t mean to!” Jack watched Rhys shout. “I’ll finish the job, I’ll finish hundreds of jobs if you just stop hurting them!”

Rhys was struggling against his bonds, his single hazel eye blown wide and pupil dilated. There were tears staining his cheek, although they were barely visible amidst the dried blood.

“Who’s he talking about?” Jack hissed at Tim, his eyes still glued to Rhys’ face.

Tim shrugged, looking helpless. “I don’t know. There’s– there’s nobody in the room with him, Jack. That Vasquez guy hasn’t been here in hours.”

“M-mom!” Rhys shouted, his voice hitching as more tears fell. “No! You bitch! H-how c-c-could y-” he broke off into sobs again.

Jack stared forward, his features unmoving. “Is he asleep?” he asked finally.

Tim shook his head. “No, he’s been up for about an hour. At first he was just repeating the stuff about Sasha and the key, but now…” The confused, helpless look on his face spoke for itself. “Why do you ask?”

“He, um,” Jack said as he began to fidget with the corners of his mask. “He sometimes has these nightmares, wakes up yelling and all that jazz, and it just, well, it sounds a helluva lot like this.”

Tim seemed to think for a moment before suddenly disappearing from the corner of the screen, the sound of furious typing filling the speakers. Jack waited, raising his eyebrows.

“Y-you liar! You said if I did it you’d l-let them g-go, you promised. You pr-promised!”

Jack chewed on his bottom lip anxiously. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to comfort Rhys, to hold and soothe him like he did whenever Rhys woke up crying in the middle of the night. He’d never gotten any real information from Rhys about them, but he had enough of a brain to know that they had something to do with Pandora, something to do with the portion of Rhys’ life that he kept buried from everyone, even from Jack.

“I got it!” Tim said triumphantly, appearing back in front of the camera with a very familiar grin. “It’s some sort of synthetic eridium-based drug, basically a hallucinogen.”

Jack didn’t respond, the tightness in his chest worsening.

“It says here that it’s super hard to find, even on the black market,” Tim continued, reading off the database screen. “The only known mass underground producer was Atlas, and we all know what happened to them.”

Jack quickly nodded, already tuning Tim’s voice out as his hearing honed in on Rhys’ cries. I’m coming for you, babe, he thought as he felt something wet forming in his eyes (which was actually impossible, since Handsome Jack never cried; he didn’t even know if he had tear ducts). Don’t you worry.