#and timmy and rhys just PERSON STANDING EMOJI at each other

[jackdup]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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