#you didn't stop at anything to kill me // tales from the borderlands

[thehandsomeasshole]

"Stop helping. You suck at helping. Plot my death instead, you'd probably end up helping me!" rhys for tales verse?

The AI froze, brows knitting together and eyes narrowing as he stared at Rhys. Utter disbelief was written all over his face, and his urge to slam the other man's face onto a hot stove had just skyrocketed.

Was Rhys right? Probably.

Would Jack let him get away with it? Absolutely not.

He let out a loud huff, the hologram glitching as he grew angrier, and he crossed his arms over his chest. Though he struggled to find the words to voice his incredulity, he was sure he'd find them as he went along.

Hopefully.

"You... You little bitch!" He snapped, finding insulting Rhys didn't make him feel quite as much better as he'd hoped, so he decided to continue. "I 'suck at helping'? Really? You- The audacity-!"

Jack began pacing, shaking his head and staring furiously at the back of Rhys's head as he did so.

"Oh, big tough guy, huh? When- when I'm not real? Not real, can't hurt ya, huh? Guess again, cupcake!" His voice raised suddenly, the audio clicking and hissing as the ECHO tried to accommodate it, "Sure, I can't strangle you like I'd like to, and believe me when I say I'd love that right about now, but you know what I can do? Huh?"

Behind Rhys Rhys suddenly, Jack's voice became low, strung tight, "I can drive you crazy."

Again, gone, appearing infront of Rhys, "I can talk, and talk, and talk, and talk until your ears start to freaking bleed. Or, you can stop being a little dick and accept my kind, generous offer of help because- Well, kitten, let's face it: if you go, I go. And I'm not about to let some little dumbass screw up something so simple!"

[thehandsomeasshole]

The for now comment was... unexpected. At the very least.

Sure, Jack knew it was just one of those things that people would say. For now.

Or, maybe it could be something useful Jack could bring up later for his own benefit.

He'd have to remember that.

"Yeah, don't worry. I see how it is. The one time that I get a good idea, suddenly it's a bad idea." He teased lightly, corners of his lips quirking up into a small smile, though it quickly disappeared after.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, kiddo." He mumbled, raising an unamused brow, "Keep bein' sarcastic and we'll see who loses their mind first when I keep disturbing their sleep patterns by screaming."

Despite the annoyed look he gave Rhys, Jack was thoroughly amused by the situation.

Not that he'd ever let that slip, though.

Jack had to admit, however, seeing Rhys stand there and practically pray to him?

Made him feel ever more godlike.

The kid was playing a dangerous game, that was for sure.

Even though it'd be only moments before they'd discussed the possibility of Jack getting a body, he couldn't ignore the rush of... something that went through him after realising Rhys didn't seem to fervently object to the idea.

It was a nice reaction, to Jack, and the AI couldn't help but crack a small smile.

Though he did turn away so Rhys couldn't see it.

"Yeah. Some day." Jack repeated, taking a moment before turning back to look at Rhys with a blank expression, 'That is, if you haven't gotten yourself killed by then. Ripping out your brain wires sure is one way to to about it."

For a second, he wondered about asking Rhys if they could visit Tantalus, too. He wasn't sure why; the place was nothing but a nightmare while he'd lived there but...

Something just made him want to crawl back into that war-torn, shithole of a planet and stay there until he died like he was supposed to.

Not that he could die, now, anyway.

Noticing that Rhys looked undeniably worried, Jack considered taking a moment to comfort the kid. He was probably terrified, maybe he needed to take a moment before starting to jam his eyeball back into his skull.

But, then again, it wasn't like Jack was about to offer that to him.

"You, Rhys, clearly underestimate how good of an engineer I am and that-..." Jack's hand came to rest on his chest, and he feigned a look of upset, "...That really hurts my feelings."

The hologram let out a sharp laugh, before mulling over his next attempt at comforting the nervous man.

'Well, I haven't done it. But I'm sure I can. I'm worse than a fucking newborn baby when it comes to life experience' didn't really fall into the comforting category he was shooting for.

"Not per se, but..." the AI seemed to grow a little more unsettled, opting to begin to walk around rather than stand still, "Jack's experience is my experience, y'know? I- I'm him, so... Whatever he can do, I can do better, right?"

"Should be easy enough. Only so many wire combinations, y'know? We'll have it done in no time." Jack continued walking around the room, making a mental note of where all the tools he'd need were, before returning back to Rhys and crossing his arms over his chest, "So, how'd you wanna do this?"

thehandsomeasshole​:

Oh. So Rhys wanted to play the secret game.

The thought alone made Jack want to laugh, it wasn’t like there was any way that Rhys could stop him from finding out if he wanted to.

Which he didn’t.

He did, however, make a mental note of the reaction just in case he wanted to check it out later.

You know, for Rhys’s sake.

The subject of nightmares, however, did make Jack curious.

Could he dream?

He couldn’t sleep, but… he could go into standby.

Were those dreams? Or just thoughts?

Whatever they were, this whole situation was a nightmare to Jack. Being so heavily reliant on someone who doesn’t even seem to know his left from right at this point.

Slowly, Jack let out a breath of relief when Rhys seemed to gloss over the fact he got awfully nervous when Rhys thanked him. To Jack, it didn’t matter whatsoever that Rhys may have noticed the odd behaviour. The only thing that mattered was the fact that he didn’t bring it up again.

What would he even say in response?

’Oh, yeah. Sorry. People thanking me makes me super nervous even though it simultaneously makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.’

No, Rhys already though he was crazy enough.

“Well, y'know, they did have a couple of legs down there. Two lefts and one right.” Jack’s voice had taken on a slightly teasing lilt, and he shot Rhys a playful smile, “Waitin’ on your decision, I’ll have one sent up.”

This kid. Again with the compliments! What was it with him?

It didn’t occur to Jack once, at all, that he was just being a decent human being. No, Jack’s immediately assumption was that Rhys wanted something from him.

He was just buttering him up before abandoning him like everyone else had.

“God, you’re gettin’ kinda desperate, huh, kiddo?” Jack asked, clearly uncomfortable with the borderline praise Rhys had given him again, “Tellin’ me shit like I have good ideas.”

“Alright, Blues Clues. No need to be sarcastic.” Jack teased lightly, though the thought of the children’s television show just brought back painful memories of sitting with Angel next to him as she bounced with excitement at the blue dog on the TV.

It was still a fond memory, even if it wasn’t his own.

“Just… suck it up, buttercup.” He mumbled, the smile still resting on his lips, “Pick something to eat, already.”

Jack wanted to comfort Rhys in some way, for some reason he couldn’t quite place. Maybe tell him the food really wouldn’t be so bad, tell him the second they could leave Jack would find something better for him.

But he didn’t.

He couldn’t find the words, maybe. Or maybe, deep down, he liked watching Rhys’s face of displeasure over the horrible texture of the food.

Maybe he just liked to watch Rhys suffer.

Now that sounded more plausible.

Jack shrugged slightly, fighting the urge to grin as Rhys didn’t seem immediately horrified at the idea of him helping him.

“I get it, I mean, I’ve got all the stuff I need to do it,” he pointed at his head, letting out a soft huff before his arms dropped to his sides, “I just don’t have the body to do it.”

Jack had to bite his tongue to stop himself from making a joke about him being a hardware guy and Rhys being a software guy, but nevertheless he managed.

He should get a gold star for that good behaviour.

“Well, we always got the option of me taking over your arm if you get stuck or too-I don’t know, freaked out over digging around in your own eye socket.”

Jack would happily admit he’d never been the best teacher, considering he found it hard to explain anything ever. But he was patient, he could sit there for hours trying over and over to help Rhys learn of the other man needed him to.

It just felt strange to be asked so…

nicely?

“Uh… I- I mean-…” Jack wasn’t sure why he was tripping over his words, it wasn’t like the man had asked him to strip naked and give a speech in front of a few hundred people, so he wasn’t nervous.

Was he?

“I mean, yeah. Yeah, sure. I’ll- I’m fine with tryin’ to teach you.” He shrugged lightly again, “Ain’t like we’ve got anything else to do, right? Plus, it’s one of those things that where you learn the basics you can pretty much figure everything else out yourself.”

And then Jack would be entirely redundant and Rhys could just delete him.

Jack managed to swallow back his worries, offering Rhys a tight smile, “Bet you’d pick it up fast.”

     Rhys chuckles at the idea of REALLY cutting off his leg and shakes his head, “Nah, I think I’ll pass on that one for now.” He rolls his eyes, though smiling, at Jack and waves the idea off. He, in fact, would rather NOT do that. While it WOULD be pretty cool, it would ALSO give Jack more means to CONTROL him… and he doesn’t quite like that thought at the moment.

     He seems… CONFUSED when Jack calls him DESPERATE. What the hell did he do..? Brows furrow and he hums at the next thing he says, “I’m not– WHATEVER. Whatever you say, Jack!” He rolls his eyes at that and waves him off, shaking his head. The BLUES CLUES nickname makes him chuckle, though. “I’m going to be as sarcastic as I want to be when I want to be sarcastic, let me have that one thing.” He brings his hands together as if he’s pleading with the AI, and lets out a small laugh. He DOES, in fact, SUCK IT UP and pick something out but that doesn’t mean he’s HAPPY about it.

     Rhys hums softly as he chews the gross-ass MRE. It doesn’t exactly TASTE bad, it’s just an AWFUL texture. That’s as much as he could have hoped for, he supposes. He nods in agreement when Jack says that he’s got the stuff to do it, but frowns at the mention of not having a body. Rhys lets out a sigh and, placing his elbow on the table, he tilts his head and rests it in his hand, poking at his food with his fork. “SOMEDAY that won’t be a problem, I HOPE.” He tells him, raising an eyebrow and scooping another forkful of MRE into his mouth.

     Rhys seems somewhat NERVOUS as Jack thinks about the whole teaching thing. He PROBABLY shouldn’t have asked but in all honesty, he got EXCITED for a moment at the thought at being taught, and by HANDSOME JACK no less. Of COURSE, Rhys doesn’t IDOLIZE him anymore but the guy had been an AMAZING engineer in life, and who better to learn from than one of the BEST..? When Jack responds, though, brows FURROW in SLIGHT confusion as he trips over his words. THAT WASN’T WHAT HE’D EXPECTED… but he DEFINITELY can’t complain. He lifts his head from his hand and watches the hologram CAREFULLY and finally GRINS, his face lighting up.

          “REALLY? That’s GREAT!” He exclaims, bringing his fist down on the table in his excitement. Now effectively HAPPY, Rhys shoves another forkful of STILL GROSS MRE into his mouth, nodding when Jack tells him he’ll probably pick it up fast. He chews and swallows before speaking up again. “MAYBE, yeah. That’d be cool but… well, like you said, we don’t exactly have anywhere to BE. We can start whenever you want, I don’t really CARE…” He works on the MRE, just trying to get it OVER WITH, and finally finishes with a “Blah… GROSS.” He smiles sheepishly up at the hologram before standing up and throwing everything into the trash, looking around for a sink he can use to wash his hands.

     After washing up, Rhys claps his hands together and looks at the hologram. “I suppose it’s back to the lab again, right? Time for the, uh…” He chuckles nervously, lifting a hand to run through his hair, “the ol’ eye, right? I have… NO idea how we’re gonna do this by hand… they had a ton of MACHINES doing it when I got it installed, ha-ha…” He looks rather NERVOUS as he starts on his way to the room where Jack had installed his arm. He plays around with the new arm a little bit, but this time it’s more like nervous FIDGETING than anything else. “Have you ever done anything like this before? Like… this, uh… DELICATE..? I sure as HELL haven’t…”

[devinescribe]

[Hide]

Chishiya × Reader

Warnings: swearing, violence, blood (it's Alice in Borderland, we're you expecting anything different?), abuse (none done by Chishiya towards you), harassment  (again, not done by Chishiya towards you), mentions of past scars (not sh)

"I don't want to hide, please I'm so tired of hiding!"

You had lived a life of pain. You didn't know why. All you knew was your father and mother were cruel. They constantly manipulated your emotions, guilting you for certain things, and punishments that weren't deserved. Because of this, you had grown up to be resilient and learned to not take that treatment from anyone. Although the scars and burns never healed, you used them as cautionary tales. So, when you got dragged into the games, and learned a bit more about the world, you learned a couple things. 1, you can't hide from death. 2, hide the feelings you have for people. 3, try not to get to close to anyone as they could leave you in the blink of an eye.

So, just like you used to hide back then, you hide now.

Eventually, you found a place called the Beach. A safe haven for all players of the game, as long as all rules were followed. You had a formed a sort of relationship with Chishiya. You craved the praise of someone who you thought was better, the soft touches that you never got, and he craved the control he got. He hadn't hurt you. And he wouldn't. You broke your rules for him, seeing maybe it wasn't so bad.

But soon the sweet praises and soft touches turned to cold glances, and silence. You felt broken. You had never been made of glass, but when he stopped talking to you, you shattered. You didn't know if you were even allowed to feel that way, as you and Chishiya had never established what you were. Friends with benefits? You thought he cared. But you assumed he didn't because of his recent treatment.

"No thank you. I'd rather not," you said when a boy came up to you, obviously drunk asking you to go back to his hotel room. "Come on, I can show you a good time~" he slurred, stumbling closer. "No. You're drunk, and you're really not my type," you repeated, taking the shot of tequila in front of you. Suddenly, he grabbed your arm. "Let me go, what  the fuck!" You shouted, trying to get away. No one batted an eye, this being a normal occurrence at the beach. You quickly and harshly kicked him in the stomach. He doubled over, throwing up on the floor. You took your chance and kicked him in the head repeatedly. "Learn some fucking respect, and maybe girls would like you!" You shouted, switching to kicking his stomach. Your got tugged into someone. "Calm down," you heard a voice say from behind you. You knew who it was. "Don't you think you can fucking tell me what to do. Go manipulate some other girl's feelings," you retorted, fighting against him. "I never did such a thing. And calm down," he whispered into your ear, tracing his hands down your arms. "Don't fucking touch me," you spat, breaking free from his grip. You walked out of the hotel bar, making a beeline to your room.

      "Chishiya, stop following me. You're not getting anything, and I only had one shot, so you can't do anything," you said, knowing he followed you. "I just want to talk. And make sure you don't kill anyone," he said. You could hear his smirk, and even though he was behind you, you could see his eyes spark in joy at the thought of annoying you. "Talk about what?" You asked, walking towards your door. He followed as you got to your door. "I can't tell you out here. In private," he said. You sighed, turning to face him. "Fine. You come into my room, tell me what it is, and you leave after we talk," you said sternly, opening the door to your room. He walked in behind you,walking into the room as you closed the door.

   "What do you want to talk about?" You asked, putting on a hoodie and sitting on your bed. "Well... I have a plan. And I thought you'd want to hear it," he said. You sighed, and nodded, telling him to go on.

"And that's the plan so far. And with the newcomer, he can be the perfect pawn for us to play with, my queen," Chishiya ended, grabbing your hands. You pulled them away from him. "That hurt," he said sarcastically. "Good. And don't call me that. You made it perfectly clear you don't love me or want anything to do with me,'' you stated. He looked at you in confusion. "What do you mean? I thought I was making it clear that you intrigued me, and I liked spending time with you? Obviously or else I wouldn't have done all those things with you," he said, getting closer. "Oh yeah, I totally could tell when you stopped any and all interaction with me right after it, and started glaring at me from halfway across the room," you said, anger becoming more apearant in your tone. He mentally made a note of not doing that to you anymore, and to note your trust issues (yes, I'm calling you out) "(Y/N), I didn't... I just remembered the rules I had set for myself. To not fall in love in the games, because I would only end up getting hurt, and to worry for only my own safety. You... you changed that, and I...  I got thrown off by it, ok?" He said, sitting next to you on the bed. It was true. Because after spending so much time with you, he started worrying about you and how your games were going. If you had gotten hurt, or worse died. It scared him to feel that much for another person as he was a pretty apathetic person. "I-if that's true then why didn't you just tell me?" You stuttered, feeling his body heat next to you. You refused to look over to him, feeling the bed shift besides you. "I already told you why... didn't you listen?" He whispered into your ear. You shivered at this, scooting away. "I-i said we would talk and nothing else," you said, trying to change the subject, reminding yourself what you had said more than anything. "Let me... take care of you... And show you how much I love you..." he cooed into your ear. His words were saccharine sweet, dripping like honey into your ear. "B-but then... then you'll leave me alone again," you whispered, scooting to the top of the bed, your shoulder against the headboard. Chishiya listened to you, looking at how you had curled yourself up next to the headboard. "You look so cute like this..." he said, curling up behind you. He wrapped his arms around you, and you flinched when he began tracing your scars. His hands worked up to the hem of your hoodie. You panicked, before remembering you still had your swimsuit on. "You must want something more. You're being to nice," you said, not pulling away or moving. A part of you wanted him to stay. To hold you and make you feel loved. But another part of you wanted him to leave. "I don't want anything. I just want you," he whispered into your ear. He pushed up the sleeves of your hoodie, and began kissing the scars that littered your skin. (I KISSED THE SCARS ON HER SKIN- Ok, I'll stop) He knew you hadn't done them to yourself. He knew what your parents had done, and had found it disgusting. Not the scars they had left, but the love they didn't give, and the actions they took. "You're so beautiful..." he mumbled against your skin. "Chishiya, if you're trying to get me to sleep with you, it's not going to work. If that's all you want then leave," you whispered back. "But I don't want that... Well, I do, but it's not all I want. I want to be with you," he said. You turned over to look at him. "You're serious about this?" You asked. He nodded. "Ok... I'll trust you. And I'll help you and Kuina with the plan," you answered. He smiled, and held you tightly. "Good. Only thing is, no one can know, ok? Just like before. My pretty little sercret," he whispered. You nodded, curling up into him, your face nuzzled into his chest. ((Y/N), you really switching up-) He knew you had bad nightmares about the past, and what the future could be. You had told him all about them. So, he knew you might wake up in the middle of the night.

You had woken up, looking around, finding your bed empty. The tears that had filled your eyes while you slept, had returned, rolling down your face. "I-i knew it... should've known better," you whimpered into the dark, quiet room. You let quiet cries excape your mouth as you held onto the blanket tightly. "(Y/N)?" You heard a voice asked tiredly. "C-chishiya?" You asked, drying your tears. "What's wrong? Did you have a nightmare?" He questioned, getting back in the bed with you. You nodded. "You had... you had left me alone. Again. And no matter where you were, you would ignore me, and then I woke up, and you weren't here andb i-i th-," you tried to explain your dream before crying harder. The feeling of misery and cold you had felt because of the dream was still present. You had become invisible to the person whom you loved most. "I'm not leaving you now, or ever. Ok? Never leaving you alone again."

(The touch starved in me is screaming-)

Time skip

Chishiya had been extremely strict with no one knowing of the relationship. You two would just look like friends. But he most certainly didn't let you hug, hold, or give him affection in front of people. "If we hide it, it's better for us. No one knows. Like... a game of hide and seek. Except no one knows how to seek for us because of how well we hide." His words lingered on your mind. You had felt like a child when he explained it to you in that way. Of course, Kuina was the only person who knew of the relationship. You were tired of hiding.

"Chishiya... I'm tired of hiding," you muttered to him. "(Y/N), just a bit longer. And then you won't be in danger, alright?" He said back.

The plan had been put into motion the day Hatter died. You flinched when Niragi kicked Arisu, and grabbed onto Chishiya's sleeve. He shook you off, giving you a warning tap on your arm. You knew what that meant. 'Don't do that, too many people.' You flinched, hearing Usagi scream for Arisu, it all becoming to much like the memories you had. You closed your eyes, trying to ignore it. You had to work your way down from a panic attack, ignoring the noise, ignoring the scene.

"Chishiya, please can we talk?" You whispered to him as you guys walked back to your room. "Once we're in private," he whispered back. "Oi, Chishiya, where'd you think you're going?" Niragi's voice called from behind you two. "No where. Do you need something?" Chishiya asked. You whined, thinking you were being quiet, when really it was audible to both men. "Yeah, (Y/N). She can come with me for a while, don't you think?" Niragi smirked, watching Chishiya for any shift of emotion. "We were actually going to go talk about something important, so no," Chishiya answered back, leading you away.

Later that night is when chaos ensued. The ten of hearts game. Chishiya had taken both you and Kuina up to the surveillance room. You watched as countless people died. You heard their screams and gun shots, and flinched. You held onto Chishiya tightly, hoping you survived. Soon, Kuina left, going to help someone.

"Chishiya, what do we do?" You asked, watching as he looked through the drawers of the room. "We aren't doing anything. I am going out there, and I'm going to try and burn the witch. You stay put, and hide," he said, looking around. The words you had been hearing your whole life. 'Hide.' You had begun to hate it. "I don't want to hide, please I'm so tired of hiding! I've had to hide my whole life from everything! I even had to hide our relationship, please don't make me hide again!" You yelled at him. He stared at you, before picking you up, and setting you on the desk. "For once in your life, listen to me!" He yelled back, a fear in his tone that was almost undetectable. You flinched at his voice being so loud. "I-im sorry, I didn't mean it like that... Just, stay put. I'll be back for you after I take out the biggest threat to us, which is Niragi. I have a suspicion on who the witch is. I promise I'll be back," Chishiya said, giving you a quick kiss to the forehead. You looked down, before nodding. "But you better come back for me. I won't hide forever you know."

I'm sorry it's so short! And I'm sorry if he's OOC, we are learning ok-

[thehandsomeasshole]

incomplete tag dump

[thehandsomeasshole]

"There he is. Man of the hour." Jack drawled sarcastically as he held his arms out either side of him with a tight grin, his brow cocking as he watched Rhys shudder, "Still got the option of turning on the heaters. Might turn this place into Hell itself, but at least it'll be toasty warm."

'Yeah, Rhys. It is working great, you know why? I did it.' Jack thought to himself, and for a second wondered how Rhys would react if he'd said it out loud.

Knowing the idiot, he'd just laugh. Endearingly. Like he always fucking did.

The thanks, though.

That was what always tripped him up.

The AI never knew how to respond to Rhys thanking him, so he did what he always did.

He deflected as much as he could.

"Yeah, sure thing just-" Jack huffed slightly, a small scowl resting on his lips though he really wanted to grin back, "Just don't move around too much. Hm? Still pretty delicate, even though it's just a big hunk of metal. Don't wanna pull anything out too far before its had a chance to heal in place."

Oh. That was new.

Jack was almost certain no one had ever thanked him, let alone basically called him helpful.

He wasn't sure how to react. He wanted to break out into a bright smile, a feeling of euphoria rushing through him as he was praised for doing something good.

But, instead he just rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it." He mumbled, and though he tried to hide it, it was easy to tell from his demeanour he was a little sheepish about the praise.

"But, I'm pretty sure if you're gonna try and find something super tasty you'd be better off eating your own leg." Jack did laugh, though, at Rhys's sarcasm, "We can look, but no promises. Hm?"

Jack, fortunately for Rhys, did have one suggestion.

"Starve?" Jack suggested, though evidently not seriously as he let out a sharp laugh after, "Nah, I- I dunno. Why would you ask the AI, dummy? I don't eat, I dunno what to suggest."

The hologram stood beside Rhys, and he scanned his eyes over the storage unit before huffing, pointing to a silvery-looking packet.

"Vegetarian MRE, there. Figure that wouldn't be too bad, right?" He made a face, thinking for a moment, "Has about... three months left before it gets even more unappetising, but it'll keep you goin'."

Jack was silent for a little while after, faking leaning against the wall though the casual pose did make him feel more relaxed as he thought, but soon he was right back to talking Rhys's ear off.

"I figure you won't want me digging around in your eyesocket and- Hah, I don't blame you, but..." he shrugged slightly, eyes trained on the floor, "I mean, I can still tell you how to do it. Right? If- I mean, if you want. Maybe. I could."

thehandsomeasshole​:

It wasn’t like Jack was surprised he got Rhys so spot on, he’d always been good at reading people. And– yes, there was the added bonus of being able to dig around in Rhys’s head whenever he’d wanted for the past few weeks.

Honestly, it was more of a curse than a blessing. The guy had some weird thoughts.

Luckily for Rhys, Jack barely brought up half of the weird or amusing stuff he found in there.

Or the kind of stuff that would make Rhys want to melt into a puddle rather than know that Jack had found out about.

“Well, y'know, sometimes I am mean just to be mean. Sometimes you just give me way too much good fuel to make fun of you with. Hey! Resolutions for us both, then. Mine is to not be so mean to you all the time, and yours is to stop being so annoying and dumb all the time!”

Had he already failed? Probably. But that meant Rhys had failed too cause, by god, was that boy annoying.

Jack didn’t find Rhys’s happy smile as… disagreeable as he’d thought he would.

It was almost an endearing expression.

Almost.

Jack would still definitely slap it off his face if he had the chance.

The speakers crackled unhappily as Jack seemed to disconnect from them, he takes a moment before he departs to transfers a few files into Rhys’s memory: a map of the facility and the area surrounding it, and a list of stockpiles inside.

He figured he may as well be helpful, considering they’d be stuck here as long as this genuis decides they should be.

After a second, Jack’s voice finally rang out with a static-y sounding, “And we’re back in business, baby!”

“What?” Jack said, tone teasing in the back of Rhys’s head as he once again began rearranging Rhys’s internal files to his liking, “Don’t like the feeling of old Jack here worming his way into your subsystems? Or– was the noise because you did like it?”

Now that was disturbing.

“Whatever, don’t wanna know.” The AI disregarded the thought as he reappeared as the bright blue hologram in front of Rhys, “You can keep those kinda thoughts to yourself. M'kay, reese’s puffs? Don’t need to share with the class.”

“Not good at all, if you want my expert opinion, but then again tearing out half of your cybernetics can’t be too good for you either.” The hologram cracked his knuckles, or at least acted like he did, and shrugged, “Surely you get enough brain damage and it just goes into negatives.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, staring contemplatively at Rhys for a moment before huffing. He considered telling Rhys that he’d lied, but what good would that do?

So, he didn’t. Instead, Jack just reached out and touched two fingers to Rhys’s port, wincing slightly as the man seemed to convulse before falling flat onto the table with a heavy thunk.

“Shoulda laid down.” Jack mumbled, watching the limp body for a moment before letting out a loud sigh, the hologram projection crackling away before he woke Rhys back up.

Or, well, some of Rhys.

“God, stupid, fuckin’…” Jack mumbled, making a face the second he realised that, again, it wasn’t his voice speaking, “Long arms. The kid’s like a fuckin’… Uh…”

Wow. He was very glad he was alone. He never used to be this spacey.

Did he?

He decided the thought could wait, though, and carefully sat up. Twisting himself around, he stood up off of the table and back into the chair.

“Arm, arm… arm!” He mumbled to himself grabbing the metal arm off the table and propping it up next to his shoulder.

As expected, it hurt like hot gunpowder in an open wound, and despite the fact that Jack felt downright woozy after connecting all the wires into Rhys, jabbing them into the right nerves, calibrating the hand display and basically burning the metal back to his skin, he had the time of his life.

Maybe it was all the years away from mechanics, but Jack had forgotten just how enjoyable they were.

“Well, being stuck in a fucking memory stick for a couple of years would do that to you.” Jack mumbled quietly to himself as he packed the bandages and gauze back around the shoulder and arm, before relinquishing control of the body and letting Rhys’s head drop back down onto the metal table.

Wow. This kid had to have a titanium skull, surely?

“Fucking Atlas bullshit.” Were the final words Jack allowed himself to say while alone, before he sent a shock, stronger than last time, deep from within Rhys’s subsystems, dragging the man from whatever depths he was slumbering in.

“Rise and shine, nut boy!” Jack exclaimed, laughing as the hologram reappeared in front of Rhys, and he crossed his arms over his chest, “You got a new toy to play with!”

     Rhys is about to respond to the comment about brain damage hitting the negatives after having thought for a bit about it but before he can say anything, Jack has already knocked him unconscious. As his head hits the table, Rhys slips into another dream. It’s very nearly the same dream he’d had before, only soon after the lightning struck Helios last time, dream-”Rhys” fires moonshots at Pandora, effectively killing all of his friends. In fact, he can hear their screams. It’s things like this that you’d think would make you realize it’s a dream; if this was really happening, Rhys would not be able to hear the screams of his friends on Pandora from up on Helios. Dream-”Rhys” just laughs like a goddamn maniac, and then the power goes out and he’s woken up.

     Once again, upon waking up, Rhys’s heartrate SKYROCKETS and his breathing picks up speed. He sits up abruptly, not even noticing that he now has two arms. Left hand moves to rest on his chest as he looks around and for a short moment has no idea where he is. That is, until everything floods back to him and he starts working to slow his breathing. In and out, in and out, just BREATHE, Rhys. Jack isn’t going to try to pull that shit anymore… PROBABLY. Rhys shudders and promptly shakes his head, now noticing the new data that the AI had pulled in from the Atlas facility. He sifts through it, humming, and then shakes his head.

          “New toy…” Rhys looks up at Jack and then down to his right, at the shiny new arm he’s got. Brows shoot up and he grins, moving the arm up and around with ease. He’s GRINNING now, grinning like a tall goofy IDIOT, as he does various things with it. After fluttering his fingers and cranking his arm around, he pulls up the palm interface and looks at one of the maps. “Damn, it’s working great..! Thanks so much, Jack.” He tells the hologram, glancing up at him, still grinning like a goddamn idiot. Of course, his shoulder still HURTS LIKE HELL but the excitement from having two arms again is letting him IGNORE that.

          “Now… I have to fuck around with my eye…” Rhys makes a face, really regretting his decision to rip out his eye. He knows he has to live with it, though, but he doesn’t exactly want to deal with it NOW. Still playing around with his new arm, Rhys stands up as he’s rolling his wrist, “buuut… not right now, I’m hungry. I’ll take a look at the SUPER TASTY food this place has to offer!!” He sounds very sarcastic, and that would be because he is. “Thanks for the maps, Jack. You’re a real help so far, I appreciate it.” With that, Rhys grabs his shirt and puts it back on, leaving his tie off for now and the shirt partially-unbuttoned. He decides he’ll find a change of clothes too before working on anything new.

     Rhys starts heading out of the room with Zoomer in tow, toying around with his new hand. As he moves down the corridor he hums He makes his way eventually to the cafeteria-type area next to where the food is being stored. Rhys enters the closet and looks for anything even a LITTLE bit appetizing. “Any suggestions, Jack?”

[thehandsomeasshole]

Jack decided that nothing more could really be said about the real-not real debate.

Because he was right and Rhys was wrong, but whatever.

Despite him adamantly disagreeing with everything Rhys had told him, he felt a small surge of... something rush through him.

Did Rhys really think he was real?

The real Jack?

Even though the real Jack was dead?

Jack wasn't sure whether he should cry and thank Rhys, or call him a delusional idiot.

A conversation for another time, maybe.

When Rhys's arm wasn't sitting on the table in front of him.

"I get you. Anywhere other than Pandora is... Heh, preferable." Jack huffed, a small beep coming from one of the computers across the room as he began to dig through the files, "Hey, maybe you can find a planet where nothing tries to kill you! You can retire on a nice planet."

Jack found the thought particularly easy to laugh at, considering no such place existed.

"God, Rhys. How shitty of a driver are you? How did you even hit one of those assholes? They huge, surely you saw it coming from a mile away?" Again, he laughed, "Yeah, Zer0's, uh..."

One of the fuckers who killed my child and me?

"Definitely something."

Jack decided he wouldn't say anything else on the matter, and switched back to telling Rhys about supplies.

"Well, at least you know there'll be enough food to get you by without hunting." Jack made a noise of disgust, "As long as you don't mind a suspicious sounding meat jerky and a jar of powdered milk. Mhm. Suddenly glad I don't have a body to keep fed."

God, it was like he'd kicked a fucking puppy.

Between the teary eyes and the quiet sniffling, Jack wanted to be back in Rhys's head so he could at least try and hug him. They wouldn't be able to even make contact, sure, but the thought would have been there and Jack would've felt even a little bit better with the apology.

Surely the little bonk on the head didn't actually make him cry, though?

The first time Jack had actually talked to Rhys, the idiot fell over a strip of railing for about ten feet and onto a metal floor. He hadn't shed a tear then, so Jack was certain it wasn't just that.

Though he wasn't about to force a confession out of him, Jack could guess what was playing on Rhys's mind. One of his friend's was missing, and the other two had flown off in their ship without him and left him for dead.

If Rhys wanted to talk about losing friends and getting stabbed in the back by others?

Jack could listen, he was far too used to it by now.

"Rhys y'know... I know I'm an asshole, like, all the time. But..." the speakers crackled slightly as Jack paused, "You can talk to me. Even if I can't give good advice or... Shit, or even comfort. Sometimes it's just good to get outta your own head."

Jack feels strangely proud as Rhys pats his new bot, and for some reason he...

Thanks him?

For making him cry? For giving him slight brain damage again?

Maybe it was the brain damage thanking him.

"No problem, kiddo." Jack finally replied, sounding as if he was having a hard time hiding his smile.

Though Jack had previously noticed the accents of blue along Rhys's collar, he'd never actually seen the tattoo. He had to admit: it was impressive. He almost considered telling Rhys he was going to get a neck tattoo done, but never did after mild threats from his wife, but decided it was best to leave those thoughts buried.

God, he hadn't even thought of his wife.

She'd be so angry if she'd have lived to see what he did to Angel.

No.

No, it wasn't him.

...right?

"I know it's probably, uh, not the best time. But, nice tattoo." He chuckled lightly, "Figured you'd be too much of a wuss to get something that big done."

"M- moral support?" Jack asked, his voice tight as he tried not to laugh, "You're, uh... You're sure you want me as moral support, peanut boy?"

God, even to Jack, that sounded like a horrible idea.

What would he even say?

Aw, yeah, Rhys! You're doing great! You've only lost forty percent of your blood!

Shit, maybe they should've just tracked down Zed.

"Cause, uh... I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not too good at that kinda shit." He tutted his tongue quietly, "Not in my programming to be nice."

"Yeah, guess so. You, uh... you tore out a lotta wiring when you ripped it out, so it was bleeding kinda a lot..." Jack explained slowly, and if he has a physical form right now he was sure he'd he grimacing at the thought of what Rhys was about to do.

"Well, I mean, you don't have to be conscious." Jack suggested gingerly, regretting speaking as soon as he said it, "Reupload me into your head, I'll get it in and then I could wake you up same as before if you passed out."

"Or, y'know, just jam that sucker into your arm hole. How bad can it be?"

thehandsomeasshole​:

Jack… hadn’t expected Rhys to pick up on his comment so intensely.

He wasn’t quite sure how to explain himself to Rhys, when it looked like the man was so ready to scold him for even daring to say such a thing.

“W- well, you know what I mean. I’m real, but not, like… Really real. I’m not a real person.” He explained slowly, inwardly cursing at himself for stuttering, “I’m just a computer program that likes to piss you off. I’m, like… really annoying malware. Y'know? The kind that tries to kill you?”

What was he even talking about?

He didn’t have to explain himself to Rhys.

It was simple.

He just wasn’t real.

Jack decided the conversation wouldn’t go anywhere, with him adamant he didn’t really exist and Rhys certain he did, so he decided to just change the subject back to the nicknames.

“Oh, no. Even if you stop acknowledging them, I’m not gonna stop. I bet I could get so many more variations out of reese’s pieces. Reese’s puffs?” Jack snorted, letting out a loud bark of laughter after and sighing, “Oh, it’s endless.”

“Yeah, I guess.” The AI laughed, “I mean, if they were dumb enough to go there then they probably deserved to die, y'know?”

Don’t worry about it, Rhys had said, but Jack wondered if he actually meant it.

“Well, Atlas was pretty war-hungry. They probably have some MRE’s lying around. Maybe some emergency rations.” Jack hummed thoughtfully, “There’ll probably be enough to last however long you wanna stay.”

“But, I mean, if you don’t wanna eat those- Hah, I’ll find you some nice skag recipes. Bandits get awful creative when they’re hungry, y'know? You got your skag dogs, skag kebabs, skag burgers.” Jack let out a laugh, “Shame Pandora only has, like, one edible species.”

The sound– if it wasn’t his fault and if it wasn’t Rhys, Jack was sure he’d be laughing– was disturbing, to say the least. But, even though he was ready to apologise, Rhys managed to ruffle his feathers even more by scolding him.

Who did he think he was?

“Oh, come on, you big baby! It barely even touched you!” Jack protested, “It wasn’t like I was controlling it! I thought I’d be nice and get you another dumb one because you liked the first one so much, so excuse me for being thoughtful!”

Despite being fully ready to keep going, tell Rhys how it would’ve been hard to miss his big head, Jack froze when he heard his voice tremble.

Wait, was the kid actually crying?

Well, that was fucking perfect.

Jack decided that, considering it was kind of his fault, he should be the first to break the undeniably awkward silence.

“I, uh…” he swallowed, trying to figure out how best to word his apology, “I am sorry. I didn’t- I should’ve kept a better eye on it.”

God, please just don’t leave me here.

“Next time, I- Well, ideally there won’t be a next time, but…” a second of silence passed, “I won’t mess up again. Sorry.”

Jack didn’t speak for a while after apologising, instead opting to continue scanning the facility for anything Rhys could find useful, but it seemed that well had run dry after he found the food supplies.

After about five minutes, though, Jack decided that he’d rather Rhys snapping at him than silence, “Do you need help with anythin’?”

     Rhys listens to Jack talk about how he isn’t real and furrows his brows. That’s… INTERESTING, to say the least. “I… guess I understand, but…” He trails off and looks down at the floor. “Annoying malware… you said it yourself, HAH… I don’t think you are, though.” He breaks off, and that’s when Jack changes the subject. Rhys supposes he’ll just drop it and maybe bring it up later. He rolls his eyes when the other tells him that even if he ignores the nicknames he’ll keep going. “DAMN, you’re persistent, huh? Well…” Reese’s Puffs makes him GIGGLE a little bit, a small stupid grin tugging his lips. “Alright, FINE. Whatever.” He’ll never admit he likes it. He elects to ignore the comment about the casino and continue on with what he’s doing, now with the knowledge that there are probably hundreds of people STARVING TO DEATH in a casino somewhere.

          “Emergency rations? Maybe, I’ll check it out, that’s for sure.” He hums. “Though I don’t think I want to stay here for longer than we have to. We’ll see, I suppose.” He listens to Jack talk about skag recipes and chuckles softly. “For sure, skag also sounds alright but I’m not exactly good with the, uh, CATCHING part,” he says sheepishly, “I’ve only ever killed one skag… actually, two if you count the one I hit with the car… and that was with Zero’s sword.” The thought of Zero makes him flush slightly. “He was… REALLY cool, haha.” Rhys shakes his head, swerving away from thoughts of the tall sword-wielding ninja-type vault hunter. He clears his throat, “uh… anyway… w-what I’m saying is, I’m not good at hunting or whatever.” He purses his lips and shrugs the only shoulder he has, carefully carrying the box holding his new arm and everything else he found in front of him.

     When Jack starts to berate him, he knows he should expect nothing less from him… but it still hurts a little bit. He’s trying his hardest NOT to cry in front of the AI… he isn’t WEAK! Jack just… had REALLY bad timing, and now the only thing he can think about is STOPPING the tears that are glassing up his eyes. “Sshut up, Jack…” he mutters under his breath, and to his surprise… the AI actually does. He’s not sure if he was even heard or not, but his partner actually STOPS and doesn’t talk for a bit. In the awkward silence, Rhys slowly starts taking everything out of the box and laying it all out on the table in front of him, trying not to sniffle. Quickly, though, just as Jack pipes up again, the former middle manager wipes his nose on his sleeve and shuts his eyes, trying to blink away the STUPID tears. He’s surprised once again when he doesn’t just CHANGE THE SUBJECT, though he’s not sure he’d mind that. It’s… an APOLOGY? Wow. Kudos to you, Jack. Rhys listens to what he has to say silently.

          “It’s… it’s fine. It’s whatever, Jack. I’ll…” He pauses and breathes shakily, “it was just… it was just bad timing. You caught me,” during a pity party “uh, in a bad headspace.” He supposes that’ll do as he falls back into silence and looks at the little bot that had cracked into the back of his skull. He smiles a little bit, chuckling softly, though he HATES how his voice still wavers. “You’re just like Dumpy, huh. I’ll call you Zoomer.” He snorts and pats the top of the little bot. It’s enough to lift his spirits and even though it still reminds him of his friends, he decides he should move on, even though his head still hurts. He’ll get over it. “Thanks, Jack.” He pipes up, very softly, before going back to unloading the box.

     Once he’s done with that, Rhys takes his jacket off and then starts to undo his tie, using the technique that he used to use back before he had his arm. He gets it off after a while, and slowly begins unbuttoning his shirt. He needs to be able to see what he’s working with and, frankly, he still hasn’t seen the damage he’d caused. “This is going to hurt…” he mumbles, making a face. Soon after, Jack speaks up again and Rhys looks up, finding a security camera he can use for eye contact.

          “Uhhh… NOT really sure, honestly. Yeah… actually, yeah…” He trails off as he wiggles out of his shirt, first refusing to look at even the bandage that Jack had wrapped. Instead he looks at the tattoo on his left arm that he’d gotten while he was in college. “uh… well, there’s no anesthesia I can put myself under with just…” he clenches his teeth and finally looks at the bloody bandages covering the somewhat mangled area where his arm should be. Gingerly, Rhys starts peeling the bandages off, biting his lower lip as little push pins of pain emanate from that area. “I don’t know, be like moral support or something and… I need your help to do this.” It’s funny how he’s now getting help from the guy he was trying to get RID OF when he took off his arm in the first place, but WHATEVER. With the bandages finally off, his shoulder looks like SHIT. Rhys makes a face, “Jesus CHRIST…” and then lets out a huge sigh, closing his eyes.

          “I… REALLY wish I didn’t have to be CONSCIOUS for this, but WHATEVER.” He says with a chuckle, now picking up the new arm and inspecting the shoulder piece. It really was CONVENIENT that he found one that would actually work for him. “Let’s just…” he sets the arm down and looks around for a sink, “clean this up first, I’m glad it’s stopped bleeding at least, you did well with that.”

[thehandsomeasshole]

Jack... hadn't expected Rhys to pick up on his comment so intensely.

He wasn't quite sure how to explain himself to Rhys, when it looked like the man was so ready to scold him for even daring to say such a thing.

"W- well, you know what I mean. I'm real, but not, like... Really real. I'm not a real person." He explained slowly, inwardly cursing at himself for stuttering, "I'm just a computer program that likes to piss you off. I'm, like... really annoying malware. Y'know? The kind that tries to kill you?"

What was he even talking about?

He didn't have to explain himself to Rhys.

It was simple.

He just wasn't real.

Jack decided the conversation would go anywhere, with him adamant he didn't really exist and Rhys certain he did, so he decided to just change the subject back to the nicknames.

"Oh, no. Even if you stop acknowledging them, I'm not gonna stop. I bet I could get so many more variations out of reese's pieces. Reese's puffs?" Jack snorted, letting out a loud bark of laughter after and sighing, "Oh, it's endless."

"Yeah, I guess." The AI laughed, "I mean, if they were dumb enough to go there then they probably deserved to die, y'know?"

Don't worry about it, Rhys had said, but Jack wondered if he actually meant it.

"Well, Atlas was pretty war-hungry. They probably have some MRE's lying around. Maybe some emergency rations." Jack hummed thoughtfully, "There'll probably be enough to last however long you wanna stay."

"But, I mean, if you don’t wanna eat those- Hah, I'll find you some nice skag recipes. Bandits get awful creative when they're hungry, y'know? You got your skag dogs, skag kebabs, skag burgers." Jack let out a laugh, "Shame Pandora only has, like, one edible species."

The sound– if it wasn't his fault and if it wasn't Rhys, Jack was sure he'd be laughing– was disturbing, to say the least. But, even though he was ready to apologise, Rhys managed to ruffle his feathers even more by scolding him.

Who did he think he was?

"Oh, come on, you big baby! It barely even touched you!" Jack protested, "It wasn't like I was controlling it! I thought I'd be nice and get you another dumb one because you liked the first one so much, so excuse me for being thoughtful!"

Despite being fully ready to keep going, tell Rhys how it would've been hard to miss his big head, Jack froze when he heard his voice tremble.

Wait, was the kid actually crying?

Well, that was fucking perfect.

Jack decided that, considering it was kind of his fault, he should be the first to break the undeniably awkward silence.

"I, uh..." he swallowed, trying to figure out how best to word his apology, "I am sorry. I didn't- I should've kept a better eye on it."

God, please just don't leave me here.

"Next time, I- Well, ideally there won't be a next time, but..." a second of silence passed, "I won't mess up again. Sorry."

Jack didn't speak for a while after apologising, instead opting to continue scanning the facility for anything Rhys could find useful, but it seemed that well had run dry after he found the food supplies.

After about five minutes, though, Jack decided that he'd rather Rhys snapping at him than silence, "Do you need help with anythin'?"

thehandsomeasshole​:

Or maybe we just never tell them at all.

Jack knew he was meant to be CEO, sure. That didn’t mean he wanted to.

It was probably an error in his programming. Somewhere in the strings of code, a single mistake would be enough to entirely shift his personality from the tyrant he was meant to be to a man who’s sole dream was to have a robot cat as a pet.

“Maybe.” Was all Jack wanted to add, leaving himself room to change his mind in the future if needs be.

Quite truthfully, Jack was stumped by the fact that Rhys wanted to find something he was going to be comfortable with.

Jack couldn’t remember the last time someone said anything even remotely like that.

And even though he knew it was in his head, he could’ve sworn he felt a little warmer from him.

“Thanks. Yeah, uh… Sure. Sounds… Sounds fine.”

“I get it. Well, k- kinda, you know.” Now, Jack was sure he was just speaking to Rhys to fill up the silence. “When I don’t wear my mask- Well, not me, per se, it’s not like I’m real, but- But, Jack, y'know, the face always gets pretty cold.”

God, shut up.

“Yep! You’re a little buttery boy, Rhys. That’s your nickname, now. Nut butter boy.” Jack burst out laughing at his own words, and it took him a while to collect himself again, “Ah, good stuff. And- No. The more you tell me you don’t like your nickname, the more variants I’m gonna make of it.”

“Oh, now that takes me back! You ever get a chance to go to my casino? God, those were the days.”

Were they? You’ve never even been there.

“W- well, you know. I wonder-” Oh. Oh no. “Uh, R- Rhys? You, uh… You said Jack died, right? Like, confirmed kill and everythin’?” Jack asked slowly, “Cause- Cause the casino locks down completely if…”

Wow. So a lot more people are gonna hate him than he thought.

Shit.

He does his best to brush the thought away, deciding to turn his focus into find a bot to help Rhys.

He’d said he wanted one, right?

After a little navigating, Jack got the one that looked most similar to Dumpy, small and most likely made the same screeching noises, and had it create a route to Rhys’s location.

“Yeah, looks real classy. But, uh… It’s kinda gonna clash with your outfit, don’t ya think? Like, don’t get me wrong, you do you and everything. But it’s kinda like wearing socks with sandals.”

“You got a fancier arm, now. You gotta dress to match.” Jack hummed, clicking his tongue before continuing, “You want me to check around? They’ll probably have some old barracks here, hopefully some clothes and a shower. Water is still running fine, so that won’t be a problem.”

Again, Jack was quiet, watching the bot zoom along to Rhys and…

…not slowing down.

“Uh-oh, Rhys! Incoming!” Jack tried to say quickly, but before Rhys could even process what he’d said the little bot came speeding into the room and collided directly into the back of Rhys head, making a painful static noise before setting itself down on the table and beeping at him.

Jack, trying to be as nice as he could when he was dying to laugh, spoke quietly, “You still with me there, Rhys?”

     Rhys furrows his brows when Jack mentions the mask. Right, it was never said why he had the mask on… The former middle manager strums his fingers against his legs once again and looks up, “What was, uh… nevermind, it doesn’t matter.” He decides against asking about it, fearing it may be a sensitive topic or something. He doesn’t want to SET JACK OFF or anything. Though… he isn’t sure why something like that would set him off, but it’s REALLY none of his business. Maybe he’ll find out someday. Something sticks with him, though. ‘It’s not like I’m REAL.’ What? Rhys quirks a brow up, “Excuse me, what do you mean NOT REAL? If I’ve just been going crazy and talking to myself this whole time, I’m going to have to apologize to Vaughn…” if he had both arms he’d be crossing them over his chest right now. “You’re like, the realest damn person I know, Jack.”

     The newest nickname makes Rhys grimace, now THAT is the worst one out of the bunch. “Right, so my only option is to stop acknowledging the nicknames.” He snorts and shakes his head, “Whatever, Jack.” He has to admit, though, Nut Butter Boy DOES makes him chuckle, just a bit.

     Rhys only kind of listens while Jack starts on about the casino. “I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never been there. I was never really the gambling type, honestly.” He responds, most of his attention on the arm, inspecting it. He does look up, though, when Jack says his name in a… WORRYING tone. “Uh… yeah? Definitely dead. Very dead, as far as I know.” He gives the nearest security camera a LOOK as he absentmindedly caresses the smooth forearm of his new prosthetic. A frown sets on his face and he sighs, “I… see. It’s uh… it’s fine! Don’t worry about it, Jack.” He tells him, though they should probably figure out how to disable that. WHATEVER.

     Continuing on his way to the room Jack had told him about, Rhys inspects the arm, full of glee. When the other mentions a new set of clothes, the man hums. “Honestly… you’re probably right, yeah. Definitely, yeah, take a look. Food would be amazing too, but anything left is probably, like, gross. Maybe there’s canned shit.” He makes a face and sticks out his tongue, but continues on with a bounce in his step. “Honestly, I should probably shower before installing my arm but… whatever, too excited.”

     He WAS excited, anyway. That was until he thought of the friends he might NEVER see again because of everything that had happened. Now there’s just a frown on his face and his thoughts are GLOOMY. It takes him too long to register Jack’s warning, and before he knows it he’s been hit in the back of the head by a bot, HARD, with a loud CRACK noise. Rhys nearly falls over, but he catches himself on a table with a YELL.

          “God… DAMN it, Jack! What the FUCK! Perfect fucking timing, too! Thanks!!!” His voice is DRIPPING with sarcasm and passive aggression, and the man lets out a groan, rubbing the back of his head gingerly. OW. Of COURSE it happens RIGHT when he’s thinking about Sasha, and Fiona, and Loader Bot… now he just wants to CRY. He can feel tears welling up in his eyes as the pain spikes and throbs on his skull. When he speaks up again, his voice is wavering a little bit, “Let’s… let’s just get this over with.”

[thehandsomeasshole]

Oh. So Rhys wanted to play the secret game.

The thought alone made Jack want to laugh, it wasn't like there was any way that Rhys could stop him from finding out if he wanted to.

Which he didn't.

He did, however, make a mental note of the reaction just in case he wanted to check it out later.

You know, for Rhys's sake.

The subject of nightmares, however, did make Jack curious.

Could he dream?

He couldn't sleep, but... he could go into standby.

Were those dreams? Or just thoughts?

Whatever they were, this whole situation was a nightmare to Jack. Being so heavily reliant on someone who doesn't even seem to know his left from right at this point.

Slowly, Jack let out a breath of relief when Rhys seemed to gloss over the fact he got awfully nervous when Rhys thanked him. To Jack, it didn't matter whatsoever that Rhys may have noticed the odd behaviour. The only thing that mattered was the fact that he didn't bring it up again.

What would he even say in response?

'Oh, yeah. Sorry. People thanking me makes me super nervous even though it simultaneously makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.'

No, Rhys already though he was crazy enough.

"Well, y'know, they did have a couple of legs down there. Two lefts and one right." Jack's voice had taken on a slightly teasing lilt, and he shot Rhys a playful smile, "Waitin' on your decision, I'll have one sent up."

This kid. Again with the compliments! What was it with him?

It didn't occur to Jack once, at all, that he was just being a decent human being. No, Jack's immediately assumption was that Rhys wanted something from him.

He was just buttering him up before abandoning him like everyone else had.

"God, you're gettin' kinda desperate, huh, kiddo?" Jack asked, clearly uncomfortable with the borderline praise Rhys had given him again, "Tellin' me shit like I have good ideas."

"Alright, Blues Clues. No need to be sarcastic." Jack teased lightly, though the thought of the children's television show just brought back painful memories of sitting with Angel next to him as she bounced with excitement at the blue dog on the TV.

It was still a fond memory, even if it wasn't his own.

"Just... suck it up, buttercup." He mumbled, the smile still resting on his lips, "Pick something to eat, already."

Jack wanted to comfort Rhys in some way, for some reason he couldn't quite place. Maybe tell him the food really wouldn't be so bad, tell him the second they could leave Jack would find something better for him.

But he didn't.

He couldn't find the words, maybe. Or maybe, deep down, he liked watching Rhys's face of displeasure over the horrible texture of the food.

Maybe he just liked to watch Rhys suffer.

Now that sounded more plausible.

Jack shrugged slightly, fighting the urge to grin as Rhys didn't seem immediately horrified at the idea of him helping him.

"I get it, I mean, I've got all the stuff I need to do it," he pointed at his head, letting out a soft huff before his arms dropped to his sides, "I just don't have the body to do it."

Jack had to bite his tongue to stop himself from making a joke about him being a hardware guy and Rhys being a software guy, but nevertheless he managed.

He should get a gold star for that good behaviour.

"Well, we always got the option of me taking over your arm if you get stuck or too-I don't know, freaked out over digging around in your own eye socket."

Jack would happily admit he'd never been the best teacher, considering he found it hard to explain anything ever. But he was patient, he could sit there for hours trying over and over to help Rhys learn of the other man needed him to.

It just felt strange to be asked so...

nicely?

"Uh... I- I mean-..." Jack wasn't sure why he was tripping over his words, it wasn't like the man had asked him to strip naked and give a speech in front of a few hundred people, so he wasn't nervous.

Was he?

"I mean, yeah. Yeah, sure. I'll- I'm fine with tryin' to teach you." He shrugged lightly again, "Ain't like we've got anything else to do, right? Plus, it's one of those things that where you learn the basics you can pretty much figure everything else out yourself."

And then Jack would be entirely redundant and Rhys could just delete him.

Jack managed to swallow back his worries, offering Rhys a tight smile, "Bet you'd pick it up fast."

thehandsomeasshole​:

“There he is. Man of the hour.” Jack drawled sarcastically as he held his arms out either side of him with a tight grin, his brow cocking as he watched Rhys shudder, “Still got the option of turning on the heaters. Might turn this place into Hell itself, but at least it’ll be toasty warm.”

’Yeah, Rhys. It is working great, you know why? I did it.’ Jack thought to himself, and for a second wondered how Rhys would react if he’d said it out loud.

Knowing the idiot, he’d just laugh. Endearingly. Like he always fucking did.

The thanks, though.

That was what always tripped him up.

The AI never knew how to respond to Rhys thanking him, so he did what he always did.

He deflected as much as he could.

“Yeah, sure thing just-” Jack huffed slightly, a small scowl resting on his lips though he really wanted to grin back, “Just don’t move around too much. Hm? Still pretty delicate, even though it’s just a big hunk of metal. Don’t wanna pull anything out too far before its had a chance to heal in place.”

Oh. That was new.

Jack was almost certain no one had ever thanked him, let alone basically called him helpful.

He wasn’t sure how to react. He wanted to break out into a bright smile, a feeling of euphoria rushing through him as he was praised for doing something good.

But, instead he just rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, well, don’t get used to it.” He mumbled, and though he tried to hide it, it was easy to tell from his demeanour he was a little sheepish about the praise.

“But, I’m pretty sure if you’re gonna try and find something super tasty you’d be better off eating your own leg.” Jack did laugh, though, at Rhys’s sarcasm, “We can look, but no promises. Hm?”

Jack, fortunately for Rhys, did have one suggestion.

“Starve?” Jack suggested, though evidently not seriously as he let out a sharp laugh after, “Nah, I- I dunno. Why would you ask the AI, dummy? I don’t eat, I dunno what to suggest.”

The hologram stood beside Rhys, and he scanned his eyes over the storage unit before huffing, pointing to a silvery-looking packet.

“Vegetarian MRE, there. Figure that wouldn’t be too bad, right?” He made a face, thinking for a moment, “Has about… three months left before it gets even more unappetising, but it’ll keep you goin’.”

Jack was silent for a little while after, faking leaning against the wall though the casual pose did make him feel more relaxed as he thought, but soon he was right back to talking Rhys’s ear off.

“I figure you won’t want me digging around in your eyesocket and- Hah, I don’t blame you, but…” he shrugged slightly, eyes trained on the floor, “I mean, I can still tell you how to do it. Right? If- I mean, if you want. Maybe. I could.”

     Rhys waves away Jack’s second offer to turn on the heat and shakes his head. “No, no, it isn’t cold. Just a NIGHTMARE or whatever,” he says, though the contents of it are already slipping away into the deep depths of his subconscious. He doesn’t try to follow them, either, doesn’t try to remember because he’d honestly rather forget… whatever it is.

     He nods when Jack tells him to be careful and ceases any large movements he’d been making with the arm, continuing on with simple hand movements. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I… REALLY don’t want to rip my shoulder open, HAH.” He says in a somewhat sheepish tone, running his new hand through his hair. Rhys DEFINITELY notices Jack’s odd reaction to the praise, though he doesn’t place that it is connected to it. He just snorts and shakes his head. “Don’t worry, Jack. I won’t.”

     Rhys chuckles some at the comment about eating his own leg and rolls his eyes. “Honestly you’re right on that one. I’ll just need a cybernetic leg to match this arm, huh?” He waggles his eyebrows and snorts. To pair with Jack’s sharp BARK of laughter over his suggestion to starve, the former middle manager chuckles yet again and shakes his head. “Ah, yes. My FAVORITE meal.” He snorts at this and brings his left hand up to tap his chin as he looks around the pantry. “I don’t know why I’d ask the AI! Maybe you have good ideas SOMETIMES! Also, you’re like… the ONLY one here!” He responds, then turns to Zoomer. “Do YOU know what I should eat?” He asks in a comical voice before laughing and shaking his head.

     He does listen properly, though, when Jack points out the vegetarian MRE. Making a face when he mentions that it has three months until it’s even less appetizing, Rhys laughs somewhat nervously. “Yes… very, uh… TASTY…” he plucks the packet from the shelf and inspects it himself, wishing he could scan right now. Of course, even if he could, he’d be getting the JACKAPEDIA anyway so it doesn’t exactly MATTER… he just misses it. With a sigh, Rhys takes the packet over to the cafeteria-type area and sits down, watching Zoomer land on the table near him, and then starts eating… SLOWLY. It’s so WEIRD, being alone in a cafeteria like this. It reminds him of one time when his mother wouldn’t let him go on a field trip in elementary school. He and one other kid whom he’d barely talked to sat alone in the cafeteria that day while the rest of the class went on a trip to someplace he can’t even recall right now.

     It seems as though Rhys has taken the moment of silence for granted, maybe because he knew it wouldn’t last long, but it doesn’t stop him from sighing a bit when Jack starts back up again. This, though… Rhys looks up and over at the hologram, brows furrowing. Left hand comes up to brush beneath his left eye which is… UNCOMFORTABLY closed over the hole where his iris should be. “Yeah, I… probably don’t want you digging in there but honestly, I don’t even particularly want ME in there, either…” he responds with a light chuckle. He lets Jack continue, listening with PUZZLEMENT at the way he words it. “Oh..?” He asks, letting out a soft hum as he pretends to think on it. “I mean… I… kind of ALREADY was going to ask for your help with that anyway, so yeah DEFINITELY, if you can help at all that would be great. I… DO NOT know what I’m doing. I don’t do hardware all that much, I’m more of a SOFTWARE kind of guy.” He chuckles softly and shakes his head, “I mean, with the two of us, though, we can probably pull off something pretty cool, right? It’ll be great.”

     Rhys looks away from the hologram, “Maybe, uh…” he trails off, taking another tenacious bite of the not-so-good not-too-bad vegetarian MRE as he thinks, flushing a little bit in embarrassment before he can even get the words out, “maybe I can, you know… LEARN SOMETHING from you or uh… you can TEACH ME a few things, I don’t know…” he trails off again, not looking at Jack. “I mean, I’ve kind of always wanted to learn more mechanical shit rather than just the software, just never had a good teacher. Dunno if YOU’D make a good one but you DO just happen to be in my head so like if you WANT to…” he finally looks up at Jack and smiles sheepishly, “I’d LOVE to LEARN… I guess… I DON’T KNOW.”

[thehandsomeasshole]

Or maybe we just never tell them at all.

Jack knew he was meant to be CEO, sure. That didn't mean he wanted to.

It was probably an error in his programming. Somewhere in the strings of code, a single mistake would be enough to entirely shift his personality from the tyrant he was meant to be to a man who's sole dream was to have a robot cat as a pet.

"Maybe." Was all Jack wanted to add, leaving himself room to change his mind in the future if needs be.

Quite truthfully, Jack was stumped by the fact that Rhys wanted to find something he was going to be comfortable with.

Jack couldn't remember the last time someone said anything even remotely like that.

And even though he knew it was in his head, he could've sworn he felt a little warmer from him.

"Thanks. Yeah, uh... Sure. Sounds... Sounds fine."

"I get it. Well, k- kinda, you know." Now, Jack was sure he was just speaking to Rhys to fill up the silence. "When I don't wear my mask- Well, not me, per se, it's not like I'm real, but- But, Jack, y'know, the face always gets pretty cold."

God, shut up.

"Yep! You're a little buttery boy, Rhys. That's your nickname, now. Nut butter boy." Jack burst out laughing at his own words, and it took him a while to collect himself again, "Ah, good stuff. And- No. The more you tell me you don't like your nickname, the more variants I'm gonna make of it."

"Oh, now that takes me back! You ever get a chance to go to my casino? God, those were the days."

Were they? You've never even been there.

"W- well, you know. I wonder-" Oh. Oh no. "Uh, R- Rhys? You, uh... You said Jack died, right? Like, confirmed kill and everythin'?" Jack asked slowly, "Cause- Cause the casino locks down completely if..."

Wow. So a lot more people are gonna hate him than he thought.

Shit.

He does his best to brush the thought away, deciding to turn his focus into find a bot to help Rhys.

He'd said he wanted one, right?

After a little navigating, Jack got the one that looked most similar to Dumpy, small and most likely made the same screeching noises, and had it create a route to Rhys's location.

"Yeah, looks real classy. But, uh... It's kinda gonna clash with your outfit, don't ya think? Like, don't get me wrong, you do you and everything. But it's kinda like wearing socks with sandals."

"You got a fancier arm, now. You gotta dress to match." Jack hummed, clicking his tongue before continuing, "You want me to check around? They'll probably have some old barracks here, hopefully some clothes and a shower. Water is still running fine, so that won't be a problem."

Again, Jack was quiet, watching the bot zoom along to Rhys and...

...not slowing down.

"Uh-oh, Rhys! Incoming!" Jack tried to say quickly, but before Rhys coukd even process what he'd said the little bot came speeding into the room and collided directly into the back of Rhys head, making a painful static noise before setting itself down on the table and beeping at him.

Jack, trying to be as nice as he could when he was dying to laugh, spoke quietly, "You still with me there, Rhys?"

thehandsomeasshole​:

Jack rolled his eyes at Rhys’s request, mentally making a note to triple down on nicknames for Rhys, now.

All variants of reese’s pieces, though.

For some reason that one seemed to bother Rhys the most.

Jack decided he quite liked bothering Rhys.

“Still gonna be Atlas at its core, baby. Still gonna be a company built on the back’s of hard working, innocent people, who got terrorised into giving up their land and their homes to fill some stiffy in a suit’s quota.” There was an edge to Jack’s voice as he spoke, as he recalled the chaos Atlas and Dahl caused on his home planet.

He decided not to tell Rhys, though it was clear something bothered him about the situation.

Jack hummed in agreement, clicking his tongue before continuing to speak, “Guess so. But- who’s gonna want to even work for me? I was-” Jack was. “-Not, uh… Not exactly adored, right?” He huffed lightly, “Seems like it’d be more trouble for you than I’m worth.”

Though he was sure Rhys tried to he subtle about it, Jack noticed him shudder in the middle of the silent room. Could he have been cold? Maybe.

It was more likely, in Jack’s mind, that he’d thought of something unpleasant.

“Someone walk over your grave, there, kiddo?” Jack asked, though if prompted he would admit he didn’t really care for the answer, “Don’t think it’s a good idea to turn on the heating, but it’s your call.”

Despite feeling absolutely nothing towards Rhys right now, though he was sure he should be feeling malice, Jack decided not to comment on the way Rhys basically threw himself out the way of a wall.

Weird, but he didn’t particularly care right now.

Plus, it would’ve been funnier if he’d have walked into it. So, there wasn’t really anything to say.

“You go to Zed and you’d get your eye installed, for sure. Only downside is you’d lose your kidneys and an inch of your intestines.” Jack laughed quietly at his own joke, “Bet you could do it yourself. Plus, I could give you instructions. Everyone always forgets I was an engineer.”

You weren’t, though.

Were you?

Jack tries not to let his own thoughts bother him, but there’s definitely something about that thought that doesn’t sit quite right.

“The generator isn’t going anyway, peanut butter boy. We should get you fixed up first.” Jack wondered if that was a strange thing to offer, when he was clearly excited about seeing the generator, but shrugged the thought away soon after, “Not like there’s a rush, y'know? Plus, if somethings broken you’re gonna need to fix it and you can’t do that too well with one arm, one eye and a concussion.”

“God. You’re pissing me off, kiddo.” Jack groaned loudly, the locks on the door clicking open before he replied with a sharp lilt to his voice, “Yeah. I can get it open, asshole.”

“Listen, one of us has the body here and it ain’t me. So, as much as I hate to admit it, you’re more useful than I am right now.” He mumbled the final few words, sounding remarkably pissed off, “So, just… do your thing. I guess. I’ll find you a lab or something, maybe there are workshops in this shithole. I’ll let you know what I find.”

If felt strange being so… free. Especially after being stuck in Rhys’s head for such a long time, Jack felt like just going through the facility’s files for something new to read.

To distract himself from the crushing reality that he wasn’t real.

It wasn’t too long, though, before the speakers crackled back to life, “Another few floors down there’s, uh… Engineering equipment. Couple of computers, too. Everything’s unlocked, just… Waitin’ on you.”

          “No, you weren’t adored. I mean, by people in Hyperion,” by me, “yeah you were. But… a lot of people on Pandora didn’t like you or Hyperion. Sucks, sometimes corporations just…” he sighs, lips pursing together for a moment before speaking again, “suck, a little bit. But, we won’t have to worry about it… we’ll build Atlas up with a BETTER image than before, and we don’t exactly have to tell people that you’re behind it just yet,” he suggests gingerly. Before Jack can respond, Rhys quickly adds something else, “that isn’t to say I want all the credit. I really don’t, but you’re, like, living in my head anyway so if we think it’s necessary, people don’t HAVE to know at least in the beginning, yeah? We can have a big reveal or something. We’ll work it out, find something you’re comfortable with.” He finishes, running his hand through his hair.

     When Jack mentions his shivering, Rhys tenses up slightly but brushes it off with a laugh, “Nah, I’m fine. It’s just weird, being able to feel a breeze where there should be an arm. Funny how little things get to you.” He lies with a shrug of his left shoulder. “It’s been… a long time since I last had no arm for more than a short while at a time.” He says before continuing on with what he’d been doing.

     A chuckle escapes him when Jack jokes about Zed, “You’re right, huh… yeah, I think I’ll settle for doing it myself with your help. Thanks.” He says. Brows furrow at PEANUT BUTTER BOY, “What..?” he says, confused, before grunting and shaking his head, “there’s never gonna be a no that you listen to, huh.” He sighs, though he has to say it’s still better than kiddo or cupcake.  “But… yeah. Alright, arm first.” Rhys flinches a little bit when Jack unlocks the doors in the manner that he does, and he nods. “Right… of course, yeah.” before entering the room and listening to him talk. He simply nods along with what he says, “alright,” and starts rummaging through everything, looking for anything he can use.

     It takes a while, but after some time, Rhys actually finds something VERY useful. There just so happens to be a pair of prototype arms among various other things, and Rhys immediately grabs the right one. “Jackpot!” He chirps, grinning at the shiny chrome-plated arm, brows raising up as he holds it up and waves it around so Jack can see it. “Oh, and yeah, I’ll head down there in a little bit, gonna see if I can find any soldering irons or anything that can help with my eye.” He continues to look around and finds a few other things he can use and then starts on his way down to the room Jack had mentioned, very happily carrying his soon-to-be new arm in a box along with the other things he’d found. Thankfully, he doesn’t almost run into anything this time. Once he gets to the room, he sets the box down on a table, humming a tune from his childhood to himself.

          “This thing is gonna be so great… at least, it LOOKS cool.” He’s full-on geeking out over it. He’ll never make fun of Sasha for being excited about tech again. If you ever see her again. The thought immediately kills his mood and he sets the arm down on the table with a heavy sigh.

          “Anyway… let’s do this.”

[thehandsomeasshole]

Jack rolled his eyes at Rhys's request, mentally making a note to triple down on nicknames for Rhys, now.

All variants of reese's pieces, though.

For some reason that one seemed to bother Rhys the most.

Jack decided he quite liked bothering Rhys.

"Still gonna be Atlas at its core, baby. Still gonna be a company built on the back's of hard working, innocent people, who got terrorised into giving up their land and their homes to fill some stiffy in a suit's quota." There was an edge to Jack's voice as he spoke, as he recalled the chaos Atlas and Dahl caused on his home planet.

He decided not to tell Rhys, though it was clear something bothered him about the situation.

Jack hummed in agreement, clicking his tongue before continuing to speak, "Guess so. But- who's gonna want to even work for me? I was-" Jack was. "-Not, uh... Not exactly adored, right?" He huffed lightly, "Seems like it'd be more trouble for you than I'm worth."

Though he was sure Rhys tried to he subtle about it, Jack noticed him shudder in the middle of the silent room. Could he have been cold? Maybe.

It was more likely, in Jack's mind, that he'd thought of something unpleasant.

"Someone walk over your grave, there, kiddo?" Jack asked, though if prompted he would admit he didn't really care for the answer, "Don't think it's a good idea to turn on the heating, but it's your call."

Despite feeling absolutely nothing towards Rhys right now, though he was sure he should be feeling malice, Jack decided not to comment on the way Rhys basically threw himself out the way of a wall.

Weird, but he didn't particularly care right now.

Plus, it would've been funnier if he'd have walked into it. So, there wasn't really anything to say.

"You go to Zed and you'd get your eye installed, for sure. Only downside is you'd lose your kidneys and an inch of your intestines." Jack laughed quietly at his own joke, "Bet you could do it yourself. Plus, I could give you instructions. Everyone always forgets I was an engineer."

You weren't, though.

Were you?

Jack tries not to let his own thoughts bother him, but there's definitely something about that thought that doesn't sit quite right.

"The generator isn't going anyway, peanut butter boy. We should get you fixed up first." Jack wondered if that was a strange thing to offer, when he was clearly excited about seeing the generator, but shrugged the thought away soon after, "Not like there's a rush, y'know? Plus, if somethings broken you're gonna need to fix it and you can't do that too well with one arm, one eye and a concussion."

"God. You're pissing me off, kiddo." Jack groaned loudly, the locks on the door clicking open before he replied with a sharp lilt to his voice, "Yeah. I can get it open, asshole."

"Listen, one of us has the body here and it ain't me. So, as much as I hate to admit it, you're more useful than I am right now." He mumbled the final few words, sounding remarkably pissed off, "So, just... do your thing. I guess. I'll find you a lab or something, maybe there are workshops in this shithole. I'll let you know what I find."

If felt strange being so... free. Especially after being stuck in Rhys's head for such a long time, Jack felt like just going through the facility's files for something new to read.

To distract himself from the crushing reality that he wasn't real.

It wasn't too long, though, before the speakers crackled back to life, "Another few floors down there's, uh... Engineering equipment. Couple of computers, too. Everything's unlocked, just... Waitin' on you."

thehandsomeasshole​:

A loud laugh crackled out of the speakers, and though his voice was disembodied he sounded much more like himself.

“Nah, nope.” Jack said quickly, “That’s your name, now. Shouldn’t have told me you didn’t like it, I’m gonna call you it twice as much, now.”

“God, never. Thanks. This place is a whole lot more interesting than your head. You have some weird thoughts for someone who looks so…” a beat of silence passed as Jack tried to decide on the best description, “…vanilla. ”

“Pretty nice and spacious, too. Y'know- That’d be fucking scary, right?” The AI laughed, “Hearing Handsome Jack’s voice in an old, abandoned building that hadn’t been online in years?”

Well, he thought it would be.

“I mean, not for you. You were the one who put me in here. Is it scary for you?” Knowing I could lockdown the whole building and completely flood it? Or set fire to it? “Not havin’ so much control over me, now? Or do- Do you, y'know, actually trust me and stuff?”

Jack thought it was a pretty subtle way of gauging how calm Rhys was, how much teasing he could get away with before Rhys snapped and left him here.

Bet he couldn’t get too far without an arm and an eye, though.

“Oh.” Jack sounded… surprised? Surprised that Rhys had actually agreed to humour him, even if it was out of pity, “Sweet. Thanks, yeah, uh…”

Get some, give some.

“I’ll get the bots on it now, should be easy enough. You want one with you? Maybe we could put me in one, I could fly around then. That’d be pretty sick.” Jack was mostly mumbling to himself at this point, his voice on the speakers lowering in volume as he continued rambling, “God, their security systems are shit, reese’s peanut butter cups. Why would you even want this company?”

Silence followed, before Jack spoke in a tone that made it easily clear he was teasing Rhys, “Still time to be the CEO of Hyperion, you know. Hey, I wonder who actually survived? Think my PA did? She was a blast.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. You’re awful cheerful for a guy who just tore his own arm off and eye out.” Jack grumbled, vaguely recalling how moody he’d been after getting his scar. Then again, that hadn’t exactly been how he’d wanted things to go.

But… it wasn’t how things went for him…

Was it?

It wasn’t him who was in that vault.

It wasn’t him.

Sometimes he found that hard to figure out.

Maybe he could ask Rhys later why he got the arm.

Helios.

Jack had hoped Rhys wouldn’t bring it up, but he had.

And now all the feelings of frustration Jack had felt came rushing back like a fucking tsunami.

For a while after Rhys spoke, Jack was terrifyingly silent. But, when he finally did speak, it wasn’t about what Rhys had just said.

“Next floor. Go through the big doors on your left and keep going.” He said, voice sharp as he tried to figure out how to approach the subject of Helios, “Might take a little while for me to get past the security clearance, but start goin’.”

Again, silence followed, before Jack left Rhys with one final thought before the speakers cut out entirely.

“It wasn’t just Helios you took from me, Rhys.”

It was everything he had to remember Angel and his wife by. It was all the gruelling nights of Tassiter working him into the ground and pushing him so hard he was ready to explode.

It was everything he had to remember his friends by. Nisha, Wilhelm. They’d died because of him and now he couldn’t even-

The thought that he wasn’t even really Jack, just strings of code to act and feel like him, sometimes startled him so bad he’d completely forget where he was.

“Just forget it, Rhys. It doesn’t even matter anymore.”

     Rhys thinks about what Jack says, brows furrowing. ‘Is it scary for you?’ He has to think about that one. “Well…” he starts, then hums softly. After a moment of thinking, the man chuckles a little bit, “’s not like I have control over when you’re in my head. Like… yeah, it’s a little UNNERVING, but…” he looks up at the ceiling, “well, it wouldn’t exactly be a proper SECOND CHANCE if I didn’t put a little FAITH in you, right?” He finally voices it in a way he thinks will explain how he’s feeling well enough before he continues with what he’s doing. He pauses after a moment, though. “If I didn’t TRUST you, I WOULDN’T have plugged in.”

     Rhys continues on, smiling a little bit at Jack’s surprised-sounding ‘oh.’ The man shakes his head and keeps moving, looking around the area, “Nice. We can check it out after I look at this storage room, then.” Pause, listen, “Sure, a little escort- haha.” Rhys smiles, ignoring the voice in the back of his head that says yeah, a little escort that he can use to kill you in seconds. Second chance means second chance, and Rhys isn’t about to ruin what progress they’d already made, even if it isn’t all that much.

          “If you want to fly around in a bot, be my guest.” He says offhandedly. Whenever he isn’t speaking, he’s back in his thoughts, being DISTANT. He only half-hears anything that Jack is saying. “Don’t call me that…” LIE. “Need it for a HEAD-START, and we can rebuild it TOGETHER or whatever.” Not paying attention. “Make it BETTER than it was, better security, all of that.” Not really listening. “It’s EASIER to hire people when you’ve already got a name in the world, and we’re going to need that status if we want to make you a BODY.” Back to his thoughts, back to his thoughts. He doesn’t even hear the comment about being CEO of Hyperion. Hyperion… old home or not, once he’d been out, he didn’t want to go back. Not REALLY, anyway. He went back and agreed with Jack’s plan because he wanted to make it BETTER. Less… awful. No matter what, it would still be CORPORATE MADNESS, but maybe he could make some changes, get the station to stop oppressing Pandora, et cetera. He didn’t expect Jack to want to KILL HIM AND USE HIS BODY LIKE A SUIT. Just the thought of it makes him shudder, and tidbits of his dream… no, it was actually a NIGHTMARE, come back to him. He wraps his arm around his torso as if he’s cold, and he IS. That image… it gives him CHILLS. That’s not going to happen anymore. You stopped it, you stopped him… crashed Helios to do it. God damn it, Rhys. You SUCK.

     Rhys chuckles half-heartedly at the comment about being cheerful. “I’m trying my best, Jack. Morphine definitely helps, ha-ha.” After bringing up Helios, Rhys is very quiet. His nerves are through the roof and he can’t help but wonder if Jack would just kill him right here and leave him. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to bring up something that Jack clearly isn’t happy with when the guy can just… do whatever the fuck he wants, and kill him without consequence. WHATEVER, what’s said is said… but the SILENCE is killing him. Rhys keeps fidgeting as he waits. When the first words from Jack are directions in a sharp voice, the man just nods quickly and heads in that direction. “Okay,” is all he says. His depth perception is definitely OFF… even he almost walks into a wall he thought was farther away than it was. Maybe it’s his NERVES… good thing he didn’t actually do it, or Jack would never let him hear the end of it. When Jack finally speaks, Rhys’ head shoots up and he listens, giving full attention to the voice coming from the speakers. What is said makes Rhys frown, and GUILT floods his body. Stupid. There could have been another way to do it. Says the part of him that decided to give Jack a second chance. And then the other part of him, the one that conflicts with his choice to keep Jack around, speaks up too. You had no other choice, he was going to do… THAT to you, you couldn’t just let that happen. HE NEEDED TO BE TAKEN DOWN A PEG. So it goes. He’s about to speak up and apologize AGAIN when Jack tells him to FORGET IT.

          “…Okay.” He responds, frowning deeply. Before long, he reaches the room that he’s pretty sure Jack has been leading him to. “Is this it?” He asks, looking up at a security camera sitting above the door, trying to put the whole thing behind him, trying to MOVE FORWARD. “You can, uh, get it open right? I’ll poke around and if they’re’s anything useful I’ll grab it, there oughta be a place where I can work on this shit. The, um… I don’t know how I’m going to INSTALL it though, maybe I can find someone.” He’s sort of rambling, trying to get his mind off EVERYTHING. “Maybe- HAH. Maybe Zed can do it or something. I’d probably die.” He chuckles nervously and runs his hand through his hair. “And… well, before that we check out the generator.” Rambling. SHUT UP. It’s like one of your stupid plans that NO ONE will listen to. Maybe it isn’t some crazy plan to sneak in anywhere or anything, he is still thinking about what they have to do. Jack will probably have some other idea as to what they should do. Or he’ll just fucking kill you, idiot. “Or… whatever you want, you know? Just…” Please, for the love of God, DON’T KILL ME, “yeah! Whatever you want.”

[thehandsomeasshole]

If he were in the mood, Jack would've burst out laughing at Rhys. Was that really his idea of a threat?

It was pathetic.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, you stringbean. You just gotta make sure you weigh yourself down if you try and fuck me up outside, hm?" He snorted, rolling his eyes, "Don't want you goin' away with the breeze. Do we?"

At least Jack had the decency to look embarrassed at his fault. Offering Rhys a sheepish smile before returning his stare to the ground, "You try goin' from being a hologram to being solid. I've never been solid before, besides." He huffed slightly, a small pout forming on his lips, "I didn't mean to do it. If I did, I'd tell you that."

"It's just... I mean, it's not like I've ever had any kinda references to walls and shit. I've never had to deal with them. I can just... walk through stuff."

Why did he feel like he had to explain himself? It wasn't like Rhys was going to punish him for it. What would he even do, scold him?

"Plus, I've seen you walkin' around. I probably took better care of you than you take of yourself." He pointed at Rhys arm, or lack thereof, and then where his port used to be, "Notice how you didn’t die of blood loss? Yeah. You're welcome."

For a little while, Jack just thought in silence, a pondering expression dominantly on his face before he finally spoke.

"Well, you need to sort you out first. You, uh... Heh, you got a lot goin' on, and none of it good."

He shrugged slightly, "If I know Atlas, and I'm sad to say I do, there'll be plenty of stuff lying around for you to get yourself put back together. Arm, eye, that kinda shit." Again, he shrugged, huffing, "Your choice, but you could always connect me up to their systems. Bet I could get the whole building up and running again before you could even blink."

"Unless you're still worried I'm gonna kill you when your back's turned." He held out his arms, finally grinning, "C'mon. Whaddya say, kiddo? You trust me?"     

thehandsomeasshole​:

A disapproving frown was the expression Rhys was met with when he woke, Jack’s brow cocked up curiously as he wondered if maybe he shouldn’t have given Rhys such a strong shock to wake him up.

Well, what’s done is done.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, kiddo!” He paused, glancing down at himself before looking to Rhys and shrugging, “Well, mostly living.”

“Take it slow, dumbass.” Jack mumbled soon after their eyes met, and he huffed quietly, “Really don’t wanna have to dig around in your head again if I don’t have to. Some weird shit up there, kiddo. You’re kinda sick, not gonna lie.”

“We, my gangly friend, are back in Old Haven. Remember- Hah, remember with the face? And I gave you the little robot the first time round- Hey, where is he, actually? Ah, never mind. Doesn’t matter.” Jack waved his hand dismissively, attention immediately turning to Rhys as he felt his display cut out briefly and he had to admit he was surprised that Rhys wasn’t getting the rest of his cybernetics out.

Must be a side effect of the idiot nearly dying.

“Yeah, uh… Thing looked like it was shot to hell, so I didn’t bother pulling it off, uh… Helios.” He couldn’t help that there was a slight bite to his words.

Rhys did just destroy all of Jack’s work and memories out of spite, after all.

“Whatever. It’s replaceable, right? We’ll get you a new one. Bet we could make an ever better one, huh? Specially since I’m doin’ it, y'know?”

The appreciation, though, did stump him.

Rhys did remember about Jack trying to make him strangle himself, right? And saying he’d kill him when he was getting laid?

“Yeah, uh… Sure thing.” I guess. “Not like I had much of a choice.”

For a while, Jack just stared at Rhys. He wasn’t quite sure if he was more disturbed with Rhys’s overreaction or amused, and whether he wanted to laugh or insist that Rhys lay back down.

Again, he decided for the more… lighthearted approach.

“Yeah, yeah. Take it easy there, genius. Make sure you don’t fuckin’ jizz in your pants.” He mumbled, crossing his arms back over his chest.

Jack pointed to one of the cabinets, huffing lightly, “Figured it’d be better to wait to see how much pain you were in.” He said, walking to where he’d pointed, “Morphine tablets in this one. Liquid, too, but… Figure you wouldn’t wanna try and find a vein to get it into.”

After speaking, he fell silent, staring at the ground with a thoughtful expression.

“Thanks for not, uh…” he shrugged slightly, still not making eye contact with Rhys, “Killin’ me back there and stuff, y'know? It was, uh… You got me pretty freaked out.”

“Figured we don’t have to stay here too long. Unless, y'know-” he shrugged slightly, finally looking back up to Rhys, “You wanna. I guess.”

“Oh! And, uh, don’t mind the bloody nose.” Jack added quickly, pointing at Rhys and offering a sheepish smile, “Still gettin’ used to walls, y'know?”

     Rhys grimaces when Jack mentions THE FACE. He shakes his head and sticks out his tongue, “Yeah, I remember it. I wish I didn’t.” He mutters, a shudder running down his spine. “That shit was… so bad.” He looks up and furrows his brows, “Dumpy… I don’t remember where he went.” There’s a frown on his face, and a hand comes up to rub his temple. Rhys notices the emphasis on Helios and brows furrow. Right… yeah. He looks away from Jack, a frown pulling his lips down. He looks up, though, when Jack mentions building a better one.

          “Yeah… I think I want to work on a new eye, too. And fix this port. Need… upgrades, but the arm comes first.” He chuckles softly. “I’ll be glad to have your help.” He listens to Jack and smiles, slightly. “Well, you did have a choice. You could have left me there to die, or killed me in my sleep, but you didn’t. So that’s good. That’s, uh, PROGRESS, I think. Then again,” pause, “for once killing someone will really show consequences for you that you actually care about, right?” He raises a brow, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

     Rhys watches where Jack is going and, finally, uses his Echo eye to scan the cabinet. “Morphine, eh? Haven’t had that since the last surgery I had… like, forever ago.” He snorts, moving over to the cabinet rather slowly and opening it up, sifting through everything in there, scanning medicine for expiration date and exact contents before finally plucking out a morphine tablet and popping it into his mouth. After swallowing, he lets the silence fill the area until Jack speaks again. Rhys looks thoughtful for a moment and then nods.

          “Yeah. I… didn’t want to. It was like… it was like a YOU HAVE TO DO THIS kind of thing, but I didn’t have to. It’s not…” He trails off, brows furrowing as he thinks. “I don’t know. Try to kill me again, though, and you better make sure you finish the job.” He looks Jack in the eye, “If not, you’re gone. For now, though… we’re even.” He continues looking at Jack for a moment before moving his gaze to survey the room. “Anyway… yeah, we can get out of here and find somewhere I… we can work on a new arm.” When Jack mentions his nose, though, Rhys’ eyes widen and he brings his hand up to immediately feel blood under his nostrils.

          “Ah… thanks for that.” He says, sarcastically. He can’t exactly blame him, though… at least, if he isn’t just lying about it being an accident. He’ll give Jack the benefit of the doubt for now. It doesn’t really matter, as the morphine is starting to kick in and he feels the pain where his shoulder is supposed to be ebbing away. “It’s… whatever, you know? It’ll heal, I… didn’t even notice it, anyway. Just a bloody nose.” He smiles some, hand coming up to wave a little bit at Jack, and then he shakes his head. “Sorry… sorry.” He stands up straight and starts making his way out of the room, not before grabbing the Atlas deed. He looks around the facility, and at all the corpses that are lying around. It… smells in here.

          “We should, uh… get someone to clean this shit up, huh. I’ll… I don’t know. I’ll probably… also need Athena’s blessing to do anything with Atlas, probably…” He chuckles softly, then looks at Jack. “Where… where do you think we should go..?”

[thehandsomeasshole]

A disapproving frown was the expression Rhys was met with when he woke, Jack's brow cocked up curiously as he wondered if maybe he shouldn't have given Rhys such a strong shock to wake him up.

Well, what's done is done.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, kiddo!" He paused, glancing down at himself before looking to Rhys and shrugging, "Well, mostly living."

"Take it slow, dumbass." Jack mumbled soon after their eyes met, and he huffed quietly, "Really don't wanna have to dig around in your head again if I don't have to. Some weird shit up there, kiddo. You're kinda sick, not gonna lie."

"We, my gangly friend, are back in Old Haven. Remember- Hah, remember with the face? And I gave you the little robot the first time round- Hey, where is he, actually? Ah, never mind. Doesn't matter." Jack waved his hand dismissively, attention immediately turning to Rhys as he felt his display cut out briefly and he had to admit he was surprised that Rhys wasn't getting the rest of his cybernetics out.

Must be a side effect of the idiot nearly dying.

"Yeah, uh... Thing looked like it was shot to hell, so I didn't bother pulling it off, uh... Helios." He couldn't help that there was a slight bite to his words.

Rhys did just destroy all of Jack's work and memories out of spite, after all.

"Whatever. It's replaceable, right? We'll get you a new one. Bet we could make an ever better one, huh? Specially since I'm doin' it, y'know?"

The appreciation, though, did stump him.

Rhys did remember about Jack trying to make him strangle himself, right? And saying he'd kill him when he was getting laid?

"Yeah, uh... Sure thing." I guess. "Not like I had much of a choice."

For a while, Jack just stared at Rhys. He wasn't quite sure if he was more disturbed with Rhys's overreaction or amused, and whether he wanted to laugh or insist that Rhys lay back down.

Again, he decided for the more... lighthearted approach.

"Yeah, yeah. Take it easy there, genuis. Make sure you don't fuckin' jizz in your pants." He mumbled, crossing his arms back over his chest.

Jack pointed to one of the cabinets, huffing lightly, "Figured it'd be better to wait to see how much pain you were in." He said, walking to where he'd pointed, "Morphine tablets in this one. Liquid, too, but... Figure you wouldn't wanna try and find a vein to get it into."

After speaking, he fell silent, staring at the ground with a thoughtful expression.

"Thanks for not, uh..." he shrugged slightly, still not making eye contact with Rhys, "Killin' me back there and stuff, y'know? It was, uh... You got me pretty freaked out."

"Figured we don't have to stay here too long. Unless, y'know-" he shrugged slightly, finally looking back up to Rhys, "You wanna. I guess."

"Oh! And, uh, don't mind the bloody nose." Jack added quickly, pointing at Rhys and offering a sheepish smile, "Still gettin' used to walls, y'know?"

thehandsomeasshole​:

Jack wanted to shake Rhys as hard as he could and scream in his face ’yeah, you know what else sucks? Crashing my fucking space station! That sucks! Everything I had to remember my dead wife, daughter and friends? Gone. Fucking rubble. That sucks.’

But, it wasn’t like that’d really have much of an impact on Rhys considering he wouldn’t feel it and was probably too out of it from the blood loss to care.

He’d save that thought for later.

“Guess it does. It’s- it’s not like it’s… me, though. Y'know? You don’t- you don’t know. Forget it. It doesn’t- it doesn’t matter.”

Jack couldn’t help but laugh quietly at the thought of Rhys trying to strangle someone, with the arm he barely even seemed to utilise to its full potential when he was around him, let alone under a high stress situation.

“Yeah, you’re… you’re right. I would’ve been pissin’ myself, huh?” He nodded slightly, huffing and looking down at his hands before continuing, his volume dropping, “Yeah, me too.”

“Borrow suggests you plan on giving it back after, you little shit.” Jack grumbled, unsure of why Rhys’s smile had grated him so much. Maybe it was the fact that even after so much had happened, he’d done so much to try and get rid of Rhys, and he still treated Jack like a human being.

Like, who does that? A psychopath, that’s who.

Maybe there was hope for Rhys yet.

“Adrenaline? You- I mean, sure. I guess. I like to think it’s my downright witty conversation, but, whatever you want.” Did Jack feel a little pang in his chest as Rhys’s speech slowly started to slur together? Did he want to offer helpful advice like it was all going to be okay? That he’d take care of everything? Well, he was Handsome Jack.

That could mean he was either going to be an absolute angel and Rhys would feel like the safest person on Pandora, or he’d make an unnerving joke and have Rhys pass out in a horrible mood.

He opted for the latter.

“Two of me, huh?” He asked, nodding with a thoughtful expression, “Sounds like a porno I did a few years back.”

Jack wasn’t exactly surprised that soon after he spoke Rhys fell to the ground with a painful thunk.

For a while after Rhys passed out, Jack stood in silence in front of him. He wasn’t exactly sure where to go from here, it wasn’t like he could-

“Oh!”

Particularly glad Rhys wasn’t awake to hear his sudden, pleased exclamation as he realised what Rhys’s final words had meant, the hologram quickly disappeared.

The silence wasn’t dragged out for too long, though, as he managed to worm his way back into Rhys’s subsystems and, much like the previous time Rhys was unconscious, take over what few cybernetics Rhys had left inside him and then his whole body.

Slowly, Jack opened his eyes, blinking twice before he looked to where Rhys’s arm used to be, and he let out a small grunt.

“Dumbass…” he mumbled, though he was embarrassed by the fact that he was startled it wasn’t his voice leaving the body, but rather still Rhys’s, “Awesome. Now I get to sound like a freakin’ idiot until said idiot wakes his lazy ass back up. Just great.”

Was he whining too much? Maybe.

Did that mean he was going to stop? Not a chance in hell.

A little while passed of Jack looking around, trying to figure out where exactly Rhys’s had gotten them stranded, before he pulled his now battered body off the ground and began walking out of the crash site with the deeds to Atlas in his hand.

Soon, minutes of walking turned into hours and Jack was certain the hours would turn into days. But, much to Jack’s apparent delight as he once again exclaimed, he’d managed to find his way back to the Atlas facility they’d visited in Old Haven.

If it weren’t Atlas, he was sure he’d jump for joy.

But then again, it’s better than Dahl.

Who’s he to complain?

It took a little while to navigate the whole facility, stepping over the bodies they’d left there during their prior visit, but Jack soon stumbled into the facility’s medical bay and couldn’t stop the pleased smile that grew on his face.

Or, well, Rhys’s face.

Despite the fact that Rhys very clearly couldn’t hear him, Jack decided he’d have to fill the eerie silence in the huge room, and opted to lightly scold Rhys instead as he fixed up the battered body.

“Complete dumbass. Coulda just stopped at the arm, but no. Had to do the port and most of the eye, freakin’ try and give himself a brain aneurysm…” he huffed, tone lightly mocking as he continued to speak, searching around the room for pain relief and bandages, “All ’I’ll give you a second chance’ as he’s freakin’ dying on the floor, like I couldn’t have just left him there. Could’ve gotten back into Helios, won. But, no. Now I gotta bust my balls savin’ his sorry ass.”

The wounds, luckily, were just a patch-up job. Stop the bleeding, maybe a stitch here or there, and taking it slow until the bandages came off. The painkillers, though, Jack decided could wait until Rhys was awake.

And Jack decided Rhys had had a long enough nap, right about now.

Rhys’s head thumped down onto the table Jack had laid him on, and the AI winced at the loud thud.

“Wakey, wakey, you little bitch.” Jack said, leaning in and touching his finger to where Rhys’s port was, haphazardly reinstalled, to give him a light shock, “Daddy needs a new body, and we ain’t gettin’ anywhere while you’re drooling on yourself!”

     While unconscious, Rhys DREAMS. Of his past, what he’s done, what’s happened lately… it’s rather DISTRESSING, not the best of dreams. Not that he knows it’s a dream, not many people can spot a dream while they’re having it. He’s on Helios, though it feels strange like he shouldn’t be there, like he CAN’T be there. It’s STRANGE. In one part of the dream, Rhys happens to walk into a room where a pair of Jacks are… well, Rhys would rather NOT think about that, ever. Never again.

     He’s rising through the ranks of Hyperion faster than he can keep up with, hurting people along the way without even really meaning it, and then suddenly he’s sitting in that chair. JACK’S CHAIR. Why does it feel familiar? Rhys brushes that off and sits on that THRONE, but he can’t say he even LIKES it. He’s not sure what to think. He’s not even sure it’s really HIM on that chair. Is it? Rhys looks down at his hands, brows furrowed as he wonders what’s even happening. Then, in a flash, it ISN’T him, he’s looking at him from outside of himself, an out-of-body experience. It isn’t him anymore, it’s Jack, and he’s wearing his face. FEAR overtakes him and he starts STRUGGLING or TRYING to struggle anyway, but to no avail. Dream-Jack raises one of his hands and waves at him, MOCKINGLY. Out of nowhere, though, a voice that sounds like Jack’s comes over the loudspeakers. Were there even loudspeakers in his office? Rhys doesn’t know. ‘Wakey wakey, you little bitch,’ and then lightning strikes the station and everything goes black.

     Rhys wakes up very abruptly, eyes snapping wide open, heart rate skyrocketing, and breathing very shallow. He looks around frantically for a moment, wondering where he is. NOT HELIOS. Helios? Right… he DESTROYED Helios. HIS HEAD HURTS. Squinting now, the former middle manager locates Jack. His mind is… hazy.

          “Where are we..?” he mumbles, still out of it. The dream is starting to slip away. Brows furrow as he tries to remember. His shoulder hurts, “Goddamn…” he tries to sit up but fails. EVERYTHING hurts, actually. It feels like he just walked for MILES… and he’s DEHYDRATED, too. He’s got a blasting headache throbbing his whole brain, it feels as if there’s a wall of static that slows his movement. Every time he moves his head, it’s like his brain is tumbling around in his skull. Finally, after a bit of just lying down with his eyes squeezed shut against the pain, Rhys is able to muster up the strength to sit up. Finally, he sees the source of pain in his shoulder or… lack thereof.

          “My… arm..?” he mumbles, left hand moving to tenderly touch where his right shoulder should be. And then, EVERYTHING floods back at once. Eyes go wide and he starts to look around, and then at Jack. His good hand comes up to feel the port that feels strangely placed in his skull, and then to brush at his eye. Brows furrow once more and his hand drops to the table.

          “Oh. Right,” he looks away from the hologram. He feels like complete shit, physically and guilt-wise. WHATEVER. “…thank you, Jack.” He speaks as clearly as he can, a very small smile gracing his features, gaze moving back to look at him. Rhys very slowly pushes himself to the edge of the table and plops his feet on the floor, wincing as once again it feels like his brain bounces in his skull. He looks around for a sink and when he finds it he makes a beeline for it, throwing dignity out the window as he leans over and drinks straight from the faucet. He does this for… a while, basically until he can’t hold anymore, then rests his cheek on the cool metal of the counter.

          “Christ. Sorry, I’m… head hurts. This feels…” a pause, eyelids flutter shut, “SO good, what the FUCK…” he chuckles a bit, resting his face right there on that counter for another ten seconds or so before he finally stands up straight again, turning to look at Jack.

          “So… is there, uh, anything I can like… take? For…” He gestures to his arm, grimacing a bit at the throbbing pain, and then taps his temple. “Like, everything hurts. I’m… sure there’s some sort of medicine, did you, uh,” pause, he looks down at his feet, as he leans back against the counter, “did you look around?” Another pause, a sheepish smile,

          “Sorry, still… out of it.”

[thehandsomeasshole]

Jack wanted to shake Rhys as hard as he could and scream in his face 'yeah, you know what else sucks? Crashing my fucking space station! That sucks! Everything I had to remember my dead wife, daughter and friends? Gone. Fucking rubble. That sucks.'

But, it wasn't like that'd really have much of an impact on Rhys considering he wouldn't feel it and was probably too out of it from the blood loss to care.

He'd save that thought for later.

"Guess it does. It's- it's not like it's... me, though. Y'know? You don't- you don't know. Forget it. It doesn't- it doesn't matter."

Jack couldn't help but laugh quietly at the thought of Rhys trying to strangle someone, with the arm he barely even seemed to utilise to its full potential when he was around him, let alone under a high stress situation.

"Yeah, you're... you're right. I would've been pissin' myself, huh?" He nodded slightly, huffing and looking down at his hands before continuing, his volume dropping, "Yeah, me too."

"Borrow suggests you plan on giving it back after, you little shit." Jack grumbled, unsure of why Rhys's smile had grated him so much. Maybe it was the fact that even after so much had happened, he'd done so much to try and get rid of Rhys, and he still treated Jack like a human being.

Like, who does that? A psychopath, that's who.

Maybe there was hope for Rhys yet.

"Adrenaline? You- I mean, sure. I guess. I like to think it's my downright witty conversation, but, whatever you want." Did Jack feel a little pang in his chest as Rhys's speech slowly started to slur together? Did he want to offer helpful advice like it was all going to be okay? That he'd take care of everything? Well, he was Handsome Jack.

That could mean he was either going to be an absolute angel and Rhys would feel like the safest person on Pandora, or he'd make an unnerving joke and have Rhys pass out in a horrible mood.

He opted for the latter.

"Two of me, huh?" He asked, nodding with a thoughtful expression, "Sounds like a porno I did a few years back."

Jack wasn't exactly surprised that soon after he spoke Rhys fell to the ground with a painful thunk.

For a while after Rhys passed out, Jack stood in silence in front of him. He wasn't exactly sure where to go from here, it wasn't like he could-

"Oh!"

Particularly glad Rhys wasn't awake to hear his sudden, pleased exclamation as he realised what Rhys's final words had meant, the hologram quickly disappeared.

The silence wasn't dragged out for too long, though, as he managed to worm his way back into Rhys's subsystems and, much like the previous time Rhys was unconscious, take over what few cybernetics Rhys had left inside him and then his whole body.

Slowly, Jack opened his eyes, blinking twice before he looked to where Rhys's arm used to be, and he let out a small grunt.

"Dumbass..." he mumbled, though he was embarrassed by the fact that he was startled it wasn't his voice leaving the body, but rather still Rhys's, "Awesome. Now I get to sound like a freakin' idiot until said idiot wakes his lazy ass back up. Just great."

Was he whining too much? Maybe.

Did that mean he was going to stop? Not a chance in hell.

A little while passed of Jack looking around, trying to figure out where exactly Rhys's had gotten them stranded, before he pulled his now battered body off the ground and began walking out of the crash site with the deeds to Atlas in his hand.

Soon, minutes of walking turned into hours and Jack was certain the hours would turn into days. But, much to Jack's apparent delight as he once again exclaimed, he'd managed to find his way back to the Atlas facility they'd visited in Old Haven.

If it weren't Atlas, he was sure he'd jump for joy.

But then again, it's better than Dahl.

Who's he to complain?

It took a little while to navigate the whole facility, stepping over the bodies they'd left there during their prior visit, but Jack soon stumbled into the facility's medical bay and couldn't stop the pleased smile that grew on his face.

Or, well, Rhys's face.

Despite the fact that Rhys very clearly couldn't hear him, Jack decided he'd have to fill the eerie silence in the huge room, and opted to lightly scold Rhys instead as he fixed up the battered body.

"Complete dumbass. Coulda just stopped at the arm, but no. Had to do the port and most of the eye, freakin' try and give himself a brain aneurysm..." he huffed, tone lightly mocking as he continued to speak, searching around the room for pain relief and bandages, "All 'I'll give you a second chance' as he's freakin' dying on the floor, like I couldn't have just left him there. Could've gotten back into Helios, won. But, no. Now I gotta bust my balls savin' his sorry ass."

The wounds, luckily, were just a patch-up job. Stop the bleeding, maybe a stitch here or there, and taking it slow until the bandages came off. The painkillers, though, Jack decided could wait until Rhys was awake.

And Jack decided Rhys had had a long enough nap, right about now.

Rhys's head thumped down onto the table Jack had laid him on, and the AI winced at the loud thud.

"Wakey, wakey, you little bitch." Jack said, leaning in and touching his finger to where Rhys's port was, haphazardly reinstalled, to give him a light shock, "Daddy needs a new body, and we ain't gettin' anywhere while you're drooling on yourself!"

thehandsomeasshole​:

No, no, no, no! This can’t be happening again! He can’t let this happen again!

It wasn’t fair.

He wasn’t lying.

There really was nothing there.

He’d spent all that time in nothing, an empty dark void that even made living back with his grandmother seem like a pipe dream, and God knows he’d throw all dignity he had left down the drain to keep it away a little longer.

Jack would’ve loved to have told Rhys the truth. To have told him, and only him.

I just don’t want anyone to be able to hurt me like they did again, Rhys. You have no idea.

The kid was pulling freaking circuitry out of his head, for crying out loud.

What was he supposed to say?!

God, please. Please, no. Don’t- Don’t do this, Rhys! If you’re really sorry you won’t-

If he was really sorry, you know, he wouldn’t be doing it.

It was rare that Jack agreed with the nagging, nasally voice in the back of his head. But this time? It was completely right.

Everyone who hurt him used the same tone, too.

Before they took everything from him.

Jack didn’t want to exactly go into depth of why Rhys had to be the first.

At least not to his face.

Rhys was so smitten with the idea of Handsome Jack, he was sure he could’ve gotten away with asking anything of the kid at some point.

If maybe he’d worded the plan better, he’d have a pair of stupidly long legs and a goofy smile to match right about now.

He wouldn’t be on his knees, begging for forgiveness from a man he’d known for little over a week.

He only thought Rhys was going to betray him, in the end, because…

Everyone else had.

That’s just what happened, wasn’t it?

He grew close to someone, he’d trust them (even the thought of saying it made him feel disgusting) and they’d stab him in the back the second it would benefit them more than keeping him around.

He was so used to that at this point, it felt odd thinking of anything else. 

But… a friend?

The word felt too alien in Jack’s mouth for him to even exclaim it in shock, though he was sure if he was still in a solid form he would’ve felt a familiar tightness in his chest.

Guilt, maybe?

Maybe he’d even feel that slight tinge of sourness in the back of his mouth from the bile in his stomach as he grew more distressed.

A friend.

This kid really must’ve had low standards to call someone like you a friend, you idiot.

And yet, despite the inner voice that mocked him incessantly, that thought alone made Jack feel just a little warm. Though, he was certain it was in his head.

It wasn’t exactly like any of this was real, anyway.

Immediately, Jack felt his fear shift right back to anger, and he wanted to scream.

Giving me a second chance, you little shit?! After everything I’ve done for you, after everything you took from me, you have the audacity to even offer me a fucking second chance? You’d better make sure you kill me really well, kiddo. Cause if you don’t? I’m gonna make you tear out your own eyeballs and eat ‘em…

…Is what Jack would’ve said did he not realise the utter terror he felt when he saw Rhys tug at the cable that was barely hanging on by a thread, the projection unstable and making a soft static noise before Jack held out both hands as if he were trying to soothe a dangerous beast instead of…

Well, Rhys.

“Alright. Alright.” His voice had softened, and though he tried to keep it level he still trembled on every word, “Just- Please, Rhys. Don’t shut me off.”

It was… Strange. Jack was almost sure he could feel wetness around his eyes, on his cheeks, even though there was nothing there.

Something Rhys had said, though, had piqued his curiosity.

’Just making a body shouldn’t be all that hard if we get the right people,’ Rhys had said, perhaps as a thought that was thrown away the second it left his lips.

But not for Jack.

What people? Where? When?

He wanted to bombard Rhys with questions right away the more he thought about it, but for now he decided a second chance would do.

“Never got a second chance from someone before, y'know.” Jack’s voice sounded much calmer, less like he was about to explode into fury again and more like he’d just woken from a particularly nice nap, still a little hoarse but much less shaky, “If you keep tugging shit outta your head like that, blood loss is gonna be what kills you. Then neither of us win.”

He shrugged, arms coming to cross over his chest and a ghost of a smile formed on blue lips, “Sounds more fair, but…” again, the AI shrugged, holding out his right hand for Rhys to shake, “Truce.”

For a moment, he just stared at where Rhys’s metal arm used to be, before he looked at his own, “Wow. That won’t work on so many levels, huh? Never mind, we can shake hands as long as you don’t die here, hm?”

It felt strange to try and go back to normal from begging and screaming for his life, but there wasn’t really anything else to say on the matter.

So he might as well look forward.

“I’ll need a body, though. To, y'know, shake your hand and make the deal official.” Was this the best time to try and crack a joke?

Eh, probably not.

But when was, in the borderlands?

“Come on, let’s bounce.” Jack mumbled, huffing and taking a final look around, “Still can’t believe what you did to my Helios…”

     Rhys watches Jack very closely, doing his very best to catch signs that the other may be LYING when he finally starts responding. It’s a bit FUNNY because that’s probably the longest time he’s heard the man keep his mouth shut. He notices, somehow, the twitch of ANGER that flashes briefly when met with his offer, and he mentally prepares himself to do what he doesn’t want to do, but then it’s GONE. Gaze narrows at the flickering hologram and, finally, Rhys nods.

          “I won’t.” Comes his reply, and the eye that can actually close falls shut, a SIGH of relief escaping him. Some of the tension leaves his body and he knows that the adrenaline that’s keeping him conscious WON’T LAST FOREVER. The right side of his shirt is soaked in his own blood and he can’t slow his breathing down no matter how hard he tries. This shit hurts like a MOTHERFUCKER, that’s for certain. For now, the only thing he can do is sort of talk Jack down, or whatever. Return to NORMAL, as normal you can get after RIPPING YOUR OWN ARM OFF and threatening the CRAZY AI THAT LIVES IN YOUR HEAD with destruction. After crashing the space station that he’d for so long seen as his home, just to get rid of the guy who he’s now striking some sort of deal with, who also just happens to be the crazy AI living in his head. Rhys opens his eye again and looks up at Handsome Jack,

          “Seriously? That… sucks.” He replies, a frown tugging at his lips. It’s so hard to even think right now, he probably used up his remaining brain cells to talk the way he just did. UNDERSTANDABLE, especially when taking into account the BLOOD LOSS he’s already experienced. Another dry chuckle escapes him, “Yeah, I’ll die one of these days from… stupid shit like blood loss,” he shakes his head, “if it ends up being today, I’ll be pissed.” Yet again the man chuckles and then he eyes the hand that the hologram holds out. If not for the searing pain in his shoulder constantly reminding him that HE LOST AN ARM, he would have gone for it and it STILL would have been awkward. Rhys LAUGHS at that, at Jack lightening the mood a little bit whether he means to or not.

          “Won’t work…” he echoes, a weak chuckle following, “’s what I was thinking.” He shakes his head, tiny smile gracing his lips now, “I’ll get a new one. It’ll be fine… not like I used it right anyway. You,” chuckle, “you weren’t there when I tried to strangle a guard using this arm.” He shrugs his left shoulder as he’s still holding the Echo eye carefully in that hand, “I failed miserably. You probably would have been laughing your ass off, I bet. I always have been a lefty…” He’s not even fully aware of what he’s saying right now, he’s sort of… floating, in a dreamlike state as the adrenaline starts to fade out. One thing has his eyes snapping wide open, though.

          “Body…” he trails off, brows furrowing for a moment, and then he looks up abruptly with a smile pulling his lips up, “oh, yeah. I mean, I don’t really… know who or how that would happen but I promise you I’ll at least ATTEMPT to figure that out…” a pause, a frown, “I don’t want to make empty promises but… how hard could it be..? I’ll just have to borrow something of yours…” he glances over to the remains of the trophy shelf, where the deed to Atlas is. Something like that would take forever, but if he had a headstart… it’d be doable. Probably. Upon Jack’s prompt, Rhys finally tries to get himself back onto his feet, but he CAN’T.

          “Well,” breath, “SHIT.” He chuckles some, looking up at the hologram sheepishly, “I’m so tired, Jack. Whatever’s kept me conscious… I’on’t fuckin’ know… adren’lin or sum’n…” his words are running together now as black spots swarm his vision, “’s runnin’ out, haha… dunno how long I c’n even…” Suddenly, Jack’s image phases apart into two separate holograms, both flickering, wobbling… more than before, though. He snorts, “there’s two of you, yanno that? ‘s like… i’uhno… ‘s funny…” Eyes droop down and he’s frowning now. Staring at the dual Jacks with the last ounce of clarity he can muster,

          “Do wha’cha want… or… yeah… jus’…” head tilts, brows furrow, he’s way too out of it to really formulate anything properly right now, “please don’ kill me.” And with that, the man teeters and falls sideways to the ground, unconscious.

[thehandsomeasshole]

It wasn't like Jack was surprised he got Rhys so spot on, he'd always been good at reading people. And– yes, there was the added bonus of being able to dig around in Rhys's head whenever he'd wanted for the past few weeks.

Honestly, it was more of a curse than a blessing. The guy had some weird thoughts.

Luckily for Rhys, Jack barely brought up half of the weird or amusing stuff he found in there.

Or the kind of stuff that would make Rhys want to melt into a puddle rather than know that Jack had found out about.

"Well, y'know, sometimes I am mean just to be mean. Sometimes you just give me way too much good fuel to make fun of you with. Hey! Resolutions for us both, then. Mine is to not be so mean to you all the time, and yours is to stop being so annoying and dumb all the time!"

Had he already failed? Probably. But that meant Rhys had failed too cause, by god, was that boy annoying.

Jack didn't find Rhys's happy smile as... disagreeable as he'd thought he would.

It was almost an endearing expression.

Almost.

Jack would still definitely slap it off his face if he had the chance.

The speakers crackled unhappily as Jack seemed to disconnect from them, he takes a moment before he departs to transfers a few files into Rhys's memory: a map of the facility and the area surrounding it, and a list of stockpiles inside.

He figured he may as well be helpful, considering they'd be stuck here as long as this genuis decides they should be.

After a second, Jack's voice finally rang out with a static-y sounding, "And we're back in business, baby!"

"What?" Jack said, tone teasing in the back of Rhys's head as he once again began rearranging Rhys's internal files to his liking, "Don't like the feeling of old Jack here worming his way into your subsystems? Or– was the noise because you did like it?"

Now that was disturbing.

"Whatever, don't wanna know." The AI disregarded the thought as he reappeared as the bright blue hologram in front of Rhys, "You can keep those kinda thoughts to yourself. M'kay, reese's puffs? Don't need to share with the class."

"Not good at all, if you want my expert opinion, but then again tearing out half of your cybernetics can't be too good for you either." The hologram cracked his knuckles, or at least acted like he did, and shrugged, "Surely you get enough brain damage and it just goes into negatives."

He crossed his arms over his chest, staring contemplatively at Rhys for a moment before huffing. He considered telling Rhys that he'd lied, but what good would that do?

So, he didn't. Instead, Jack just reached out and touched two fingers to Rhys's port, wincing slightly as the man seemed to convulse before falling flat onto the table with a heavy thunk.

"Shoulda laid down." Jack mumbled, watching the limp body for a moment before letting out a loud sigh, the hologram projection crackling away before he woke Rhys back up.

Or, well, some of Rhys.

"God, stupid, fuckin'..." Jack mumbled, making a face the second he realised that, again, it wasn't his voice speaking, "Long arms. The kid's like a fuckin'... Uh..."

Wow. He was very glad he was alone. He never used to be this spacey.

Did he?

He decided the thought could wait, though, and carefully sat up. Twisting himself around, he stood up off of the table and back into the chair.

"Arm, arm... arm!" He mumbled to himself grabbing the metal arm off the table and propping it up next to his shoulder.

As expected, it hurt like hot gunpowder in an open wound, and despite the fact that Jack felt downright woozy after connecting all the wires into Rhys, jabbing them into the right nerves, calibrating the hand display and basically burning the metal back to his skin, he had the time of his life.

Maybe it was all the years away from mechanics, but Jack had forgotten just how enjoyable they were.

"Well, being stuck in a fucking memory stick for a couple of years would do that to you." Jack mumbled quietly to himself as he packed the bandages and gauze back around the shoulder and arm, before relinquishing control of the body and letting Rhys's head drop back down onto the metal table.

Wow. This kid had to have a titanium skull, surely?

"Fucking Atlas bullshit." Were the final words Jack allowed himself to say while alone, before he sent a shock, stronger than last time, deep from within Rhys's subsystems, dragging the man from whatever depths he was slumbering in.

"Rise and shine, nut boy!" Jack exclaimed, laughing as the hologram reappeared in front of Rhys, and he crossed his arms over his chest, "You got a new toy to play with!"

thehandsomeasshole​:

Jack hummed quietly in agreement, and though he had offered with good intentions in mind he was rather glad Rhys didn’t take him up on it.

What would he have even said?

It can always get worse, so don’t be too sad.

Oh, yeah. That’d definitely lighten the mood.

If he’d have said that, he was sure Rhys would’ve just left him here to rot.

He just didn’t want to be alone again.

Oh, wow, Jack thought to himself as Rhys began giving him the story behind his tattoos, didn’t ask. At all.

Maybe it would’ve been better to insult him and have him ditch Jack.

He let Rhys finish, though. Or, as much as he seemed to want to finish.

So it was the whole friend that that was upsetting him.

Jack wanted to tell him he’d get used to it, after a while, but didn’t think he could bear to see the kid so close to tears again without telling him to grow a pair.

Jack wasn’t exactly proud of the fact he had to bite his own metaphorical tongue so as to not yell out ’same kink!’ and probably terrify Rhys, albeit on accident.

He decided it’d be better to focus on…

literally anything else.

“I bet you were still, like, all business-y when you were a kid, right?” Jack asked, letting out a soft laugh, “With your little fuckin’… business cards. Shirt, tie, and a whole portfolio of fake stock investments you’d propose to your parents?”

Again, Jack laughed at the thought, “Just like a much shorter you now, right? All… I dunno. S'pretty cute.”

It took all the AI’s strength not to mock Rhys again, say something snarky like ’oh, poor baby wants to hold his mommy’s hand! You’re, like, 40, Rhys. Grow up.’

Though he was sure his annoyance was just at the fact that it meant Rhys clearly had a good relationship with his mother.

“Aw, Rhys! You mean you only kept me around for my stellar personality?” Jack let out a sharp laugh, sounding thoroughly amused with the concept, “If I had blood flow, I’m sure I’d be red as a beet, right about now.”

“A be nice to Rhys protocol sounds good, if I’m honest.” He thought for a moment, “Sometimes I don’t even realise the stuff I’m saying is as shitty as it is, it’s just… programming, y'know?”

Of course he didn’t know. Rhys wasn’t an AI, and he apparently barely even saw Jack as one, as per their conversation about not feeling real. To Rhys, Jack was just being an asshole for the sake of it.

And that was only the case some of the time.

God, the kis had to give up the sweet-as-fucking-syrup act sooner or later. He wasn’t asking if Jack was okay with it, surely.

Surely he wasn’t that fucking dumb?

It’d been far too long since Jack had his engineering equipment in his hands, though for a moment he did worry that his skill would’ve gotten rusty.

That thought, though, was quickly brushed away as he realised he couldn’t exactly lose his skills with disuse.

He was an AI, after all.

For a second, Jack had considered telling Rhys the truth. Oh, yeah. Absolutely agony, I swear I nearly blacked out when I fell up those stairs earlier. Sure, it’d make him look like a fucking idiot for even offering, but then maybe Rhys would know to trust him more. That he was willing to do this, so Rhys didn’t have to.

But, like Rhys said, if Jack felt it then he would just do it.

So he lied.

“Nah, nothin’. S'why I didn’t bring up the whole broken nose thing until I saw you all covered in blood.” Jack let out a huff of laughter, “Plus, I actually know how to install one of the things. So, just… get me back in that head of yours, hm? After that we can just figure how to knock you out without giving you a massive concussion.”

     Rhys flushes slightly with embarrassment when Jack hits the nail on the head for how he was like as a kid. “Actually, HAHA… yeah…” he mumbles in response, running his hand through his hair. “I forget that you can look through my head sometimes…” the second part is more said to himself, under his breath, just barely audible over the noise of the facility. He decides to leave that at that.

     The personality bit makes Rhys chuckle, “Why of COURSE, that’s the BEST PART.” He snorts, rolling his eyes. What actually surprises him, though, is the fact that Jack seems… OPEN to the idea of a hypothetical ‘be nice to Rhys’ protocol… honestly, it is pretty easy to FORGET sometimes that this guy is quite literally a program. “Oh, well… I’ll… think about that then, I suppose.” He chuckles, sheepishly. “It… it IS nice to know that you aren’t ALWAYS mean just to be mean, HAH.” He runs his hand through his hair again with that.

     Knowing that Jack won’t feel it makes Rhys feel a LOT better about handing the task off to him. He lets out a sigh of relief and smiles, “Oh, that’s good… right, then.” The former middle manager looks around the room to a computer he can plug into. Not once does it cross his mind that Jack could be LYING about not feeling pain, he never once thinks that he would even SUGGEST doing it in his place if he could FEEL it. Once he finds a computer, he moves over to it and crouches down, looking for a cable. After a moment of searching, viola! Rhys plugs the cable into his head and waits for Jack’s voice to pipe up inside his head.

     There is… a sensation that comes whenever Jack comes and goes, and Rhys can’t quite put his finger on it, but it can only be explained as PINS AND NEEDLES in his BRAIN for a few seconds. As the feeling leaves, Rhys shakes his head, “blah…” and unplugs from the computer. “Now to, ah, knock me out… not sure how we do that… I already probably have ENOUGH brain damage as it is.” He chuckles, brows furrowing as he looks around. “Not sure how to do that without… more of it.” He runs a hand through his hair and groans, moving over to the table where he’d set his arm down.

          “I mean, like… it can’t be THAT hard, right..?” He hums, propelling himself up onto the table and letting his feet dangle off the edge, kicking slightly back and forth as he thinks. “There are definitely PRESSURE POINTS that if you hit them right you’re just…” he smacks his knee, “out, like that… I just don’t know them, or how to uh… SELF-INFLICT.” He laughs somewhat nervously, bringing his hand up to scratch his temple. In doing so, he’s reminded of the port that he’s pretty sure Jack was able to use to shock him. “I don’t suppose you can just shock me… I’m not sure how good that is for my brain but, honestly…” he sighs, shrugging his only shoulder, “I don’t have any ideas so just do… that.”

[thehandsomeasshole]

Jack hummed quietly in agreement, and though he had offered with good intentions in mind he was rather glad Rhys didn't take him up on it.

What would he have even said?

It can always get worse, so don't be too sad.

Oh, yeah. That'd definitely lighten the mood.

If he'd have said that, he was sure Rhys would've just left him here to rot.

He just didn't want to be alone again.

Oh, wow, Jack thought to himself as Rhys began giving him the story behind his tattoos, didn't ask. At all.

Maybe it would've been better to insult him and have him ditch Jack.

He let Rhys finish, though. Or, as much as he seemed to want to finish.

So it was the whole friend that that was upsetting him.

Jack wanted to tell him he'd get used to it, after a while, but didn't think he could bear to see the kid so close to tears again without telling him to grow a pair.

Jack wasn't exactly proud of the fact he had to bite his own metaphorical tongue so as to not yell out 'same kink!' and probably terrify Rhys, albeit on accident.

He decided it'd be better to focus on...

literally anything else.

"I bet you were still, like, all business-y when you were a kid, right?" Jack asked, letting out a soft laugh, "With your little fuckin'... business cards. Shirt, tie, and a whole portfolio of fake stock investments you'd propose to your parents?"

Again, Jack laughed at the thought, "Just like a much shorter you now, right? All... I dunno. S'pretty cute."

It took all the AI's strength not to mock Rhys again, say something snarky like 'oh, poor baby wants to hold his mommy's hand! You're, like, 40, Rhys. Grow up.'

Though he was sure his annoyance was just at the fact that it meant Rhys clearly had a good relationship with his mother.

"Aw, Rhys! You mean you only kept me around for my stellar personality?" Jack let out a sharp laugh, sounding thoroughly amused with the concept, "If I had blood flow, I'm sure I'd be red as a beet, right about now."

"A be nice to Rhys protocol sounds good, if I'm honest." He thought for a moment, "Sometimes I don't even realise the stuff I'm saying is as shitty as it is, it's just... programming, y'know?"

Of course he didn't know. Rhys wasn't an AI, and he apparently barely even saw Jack as one, as per their conversation about not feeling real. To Rhys, Jack was just being an asshole for the sake of it.

And that was only the case some of the time.

God, the kis had to give up the sweet-as-fucking-syrup act sooner or later. He wasn't asking if Jack was okay with it, surely.

Surely he wasn't that fucking dumb?

It'd been far too long since Jack had his engineering equipment in his hands, though for a moment he did worry that his skill would've gotten rusty.

That thought, though, was quickly brushed away as he realised he couldn't exactly lose his skills with disuse.

He was an AI, after all.

For a second, Jack had considered telling Rhys the truth. Oh, yeah. Absolutely agony, I swear I nearly blacked out when I fell up those stairs earlier. Sure, it'd make him look like a fucking idiot for even offering, but then maybe Rhys would know to trust him more. That he was willing to do this, so Rhys didn't have to.

But, like Rhys said, if Jack felt it then he would just do it.

So he lied.

"Nah, nothin'. S'why I didn't bring up the whole broken nose thing until I saw you all covered in blood." Jack let out a huff of laughter, "Plus, I actually know how to install one of the things. So, just... get me back in that head of yours, hm? After that we can just figure how to knock you out without giving you a massive concussion."

thehandsomeasshole​:

Jack decided that nothing more could really be said about the real-not real debate.

Because he was right and Rhys was wrong, but whatever.

Despite him adamantly disagreeing with everything Rhys had told him, he felt a small surge of… something rush through him.

Did Rhys really think he was real?

The real Jack?

Even though the real Jack was dead?

Jack wasn’t sure whether he should cry and thank Rhys, or call him a delusional idiot.

A conversation for another time, maybe.

When Rhys’s arm wasn’t sitting on the table in front of him.

“I get you. Anywhere other than Pandora is… Heh, preferable.” Jack huffed, a small beep coming from one of the computers across the room as he began to dig through the files, “Hey, maybe you can find a planet where nothing tries to kill you! You can retire on a nice planet.”

Jack found the thought particularly easy to laugh at, considering no such place existed.

“God, Rhys. How shitty of a driver are you? How did you even hit one of those assholes? They huge, surely you saw it coming from a mile away?” Again, he laughed, “Yeah, Zer0’s, uh…”

One of the fuckers who killed my child and me?

“Definitely something.”

Jack decided he wouldn’t say anything else on the matter, and switched back to telling Rhys about supplies.

“Well, at least you know there’ll be enough food to get you by without hunting.” Jack made a noise of disgust, “As long as you don’t mind a suspicious sounding meat jerky and a jar of powdered milk. Mhm. Suddenly glad I don’t have a body to keep fed.”

God, it was like he’d kicked a fucking puppy.

Between the teary eyes and the quiet sniffling, Jack wanted to be back in Rhys’s head so he could at least try and hug him. They wouldn’t be able to even make contact, sure, but the thought would have been there and Jack would’ve felt even a little bit better with the apology.

Surely the little bonk on the head didn’t actually make him cry, though?

The first time Jack had actually talked to Rhys, the idiot fell over a strip of railing for about ten feet and onto a metal floor. He hadn’t shed a tear then, so Jack was certain it wasn’t just that.

Though he wasn’t about to force a confession out of him, Jack could guess what was playing on Rhys’s mind. One of his friends was missing, and the other two had flown off in their ship without him and left him for dead.

If Rhys wanted to talk about losing friends and getting stabbed in the back by others?

Jack could listen, he was far too used to it by now.

“Rhys y'know… I know I’m an asshole, like, all the time. But…” the speakers crackled slightly as Jack paused, “You can talk to me. Even if I can’t give good advice or… Shit, or even comfort. Sometimes it’s just good to get outta your own head.”

Jack feels strangely proud as Rhys pats his new bot, and for some reason he…

Thanks him?

For making him cry? For giving him slight brain damage again?

Maybe it was the brain damage thanking him.

“No problem, kiddo.” Jack finally replied, sounding as if he was having a hard time hiding his smile.

Though Jack had previously noticed the accents of blue along Rhys’s collar, he’d never actually seen the tattoo. He had to admit: it was impressive. He almost considered telling Rhys he was going to get a neck tattoo done, but never did after mild threats from his wife, but decided it was best to leave those thoughts buried.

God, he hadn’t even thought of his wife.

She’d be so angry if she’d have lived to see what he did to Angel.

No.

No, it wasn’t him.

…right?

“I know it’s probably, uh, not the best time. But, nice tattoo.” He chuckled lightly, “Figured you’d be too much of a wuss to get something that big done.”

“M- moral support?” Jack asked, his voice tight as he tried not to laugh, “You’re, uh… You’re sure you want me as moral support, peanut boy?”

God, even to Jack, that sounded like a horrible idea.

What would he even say?

Aw, yeah, Rhys! You’re doing great! You’ve only lost forty percent of your blood!

Shit, maybe they should’ve just tracked down Zed.

“Cause, uh… I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not too good at that kinda shit.” He tutted his tongue quietly, “Not in my programming to be nice.”

“Yeah, guess so. You, uh… you tore out a lotta wiring when you ripped it out, so it was bleeding kinda a lot…” Jack explained slowly, and if he has a physical form right now he was sure he’d he grimacing at the thought of what Rhys was about to do.

“Well, I mean, you don’t have to be conscious.” Jack suggested gingerly, regretting speaking as soon as he said it, “Reupload me into your head, I’ll get it in and then I could wake you up same as before if you passed out.”

“Or, y'know, just jam that sucker into your arm hole. How bad can it be?”

     Rhys listens to Jack’s offer to talk about his problems and makes a sort of grunting noise, shaking his head. “It’s… yeah. I know. We uh…” we aren’t there yet, “I’ll keep that in mind. THANKS.” He responds with a sigh, moving right along with what he’d been doing. While he… DEFINITELY does appreciate the sentiment, he doesn’t think he’s quite THERE yet. Maybe he will talk to him and he’s just being DRAMATIC right now because of what just happens… honestly, Rhys doesn’t know or care. For NOW, he doesn’t feel like talking about his… friends.

     When Jack mentions his tattoo, Rhys looks up abruptly, cheeks heating up with slight embarrassment. He runs his hand through his hair and chuckles softly, “Oh, uh… thanks. I got it in college, senior year… Vaughn…” he trails off and shakes his head, cursing himself for thinking about his friends again. At least Vaughn didn’t just LEAVE you. “It… doesn’t matter. It was a thing, it hurt like hell. I got this one,” he taps the circle on his neck, “just before I started working for Hyperion… good times.” He lets out a sigh and looks down at the ground, humming. “If you haven’t noticed by now, I uh… I have a high pain tolerance. I’m not THAT much of a wuss. There was this surgery that I had done when I was a kid and for part of it, I was fully conscious. I wasn’t supposed to be…” he runs his hand through his hair again, “so… yeah. Ever since I just… can do stupid shit.” He chuckles. It’s why he didn’t blackout from the pain when he was ripping his arm off. He goes silent for a bit and then adds, “I don’t… LIKE it though. It still sucks. Pain, I mean. I’d rather… NOT feel it when I can help it…”

          “Yeah, moral support…” he repeats himself, realizing now how stupid that probably sounds considering he just asked HANDSOME JACK for MORAL SUPPORT. “I… I mean, like… you’re the only one here, I don’t know! It’s not like I can hold my mother’s hand or something, I have to do this shit myself so just…” he breaks off and huffs a little bit, “just having you here… you don’t have to say anything just… I don’t know…” he shakes his head, drumming his fingers on the table, then lets out a groan. “Maybe I need to reprogram you,” he says jokingly, rolling his eye, “a BE NICE TO RHYS PROTOCOL. Ha! Imagine that.” He chuckles at his own joke and shakes his head. “NEVER gonna happen, is it. That’s okay. I didn’t keep you to fuck around with your programming,” he’s just stalling at this point, doesn’t want to start on the arm just yet, “that’s for sure. You don’t… HAVE to be anything. Just do you and uh, BE PRESENT I guess.”

     Rhys makes a face when the wiring he probably DESTROYED is mentioned. “I can… probably salvage and repurpose that for use here until I can, uh, get someone who actually knows what they’re doing to re-do it or something… there’s NO WAY I’m gonna do this right…” He mutters, lips pursed. For a while, he just sits there not knowing what to do, just kind of playing around with the wires that are sticking out of the wound. But then… well, Jack makes an actual good suggestion and Rhys mentally kicks himself for not thinking of that. “Shit… you’re right, yeah…” he chuckles sheepishly and runs his hand through his hair, “if you, uh… if that’s alright anyway… I mean, I can try to just STICK IT IN I guess, but it’s not… it’s not like it’s just a prosthetic, it has to be…” he pokes at the wires coming out of him again, “CONNECTED to me.” He picks up the arm again and inspects the installing end with brows furrowed and lips pursed, mulling it over for a little bit, trying to think of what the best course of action would be.

          “Do you… do you feel it? When you’re, uh…” pause, “when you have the wheel. Like, can you feel the pain? If you do, I’ll just do it myself because I don’t want to throw that shit on you just because I don’t want to do it,” even if it’s YOUR fault we’re in this situation in the first place, “you know? But if not then it’s like, might as well…”

[thehandsomeasshole]

No, no, no, no! This can't be happening again! He can't let this happen again!

It wasn't fair.

He wasn't lying.

There really was nothing there.

He'd spent all that time in nothing, an empty dark void that even made living back with his grandmother seem like a pipe dream, and God knows he'd throw all dignity he had left down the drain to keep it away a little longer.

Jack would've loved to have told Rhys the truth. To have told him, and only him.

I just don't want anyone to be able to hurt me like they did again, Rhys. You have no idea.

The kid was pulling freaking circuitry out of his head, for crying out loud.

What was he supposed to say?!

God, please. Please, no. Don't- Don't do this, Rhys! If you're really sorry you won't-

If he was really sorry, you know, he wouldn't be doing it.

It was rare that Jack agreed with the nagging, nasally voice in the back of his head. But this time? It was completely right.

Everyone who hurt him used the same tone, too.

Before they took everything from him.

Jack didn't want to exactly go into depth of why Rhys had to be the first.

At least not to his face.

Rhys was so smitten with the idea of Handsome Jack, he was sure he could've gotten away with asking anything of the kid at some point.

If maybe he'd worded the plan better, he'd have a pair of stupidly long legs and a goofy smile to match right about now.

He wouldn't be on his knees, begging for forgiveness from a man he'd known for little over a week.

He only thought Rhys was going to betray him, in the end, because...

Everyone else had.

That's just what happened, wasn't it?

He grew close to someone, he'd trust them (even the thought of saying it made him feel disgusting) and they'd stab him in the back the second it would benefit them more than keeping him around.

He was so used to that at this point, it felt odd thinking of anything else. 

But... a friend?

The word felt too alien in Jack's mouth for him to even exclaim it in shock, though he was sure if he was still in a solid form he would've felt a familiar tightness in his chest.

Guilt, maybe?

Maybe he'd even feel that slight tinge of sourness in the back of his mouth from the bile in his stomach as he grew more distressed.

A friend.

This kid really must've had low standards to call someone like you a friend, you idiot.

And yet, despite the inner voice that mocked him incessantly, that thought alone made Jack feel just a little warm. Though, he was certain it was in his head.

It wasn't exactly like any of this was real, anyway.

Immediately, Jack felt his fear shift right back to anger, and he wanted to scream.

Giving me a second chance, you little shit?! After everything I've done for you, after everything you took from me, you have the audacity to even offer me a fucking second chance? You'd better make sure you kill me really well, kiddo. Cause if you don't? I'm gonna make you tear out your own eyeballs and eat 'em...

...Is what Jack would've said did he not realise the utter terror he felt when he saw Rhys tug at the cable that was barely hanging on by a thread, the projection unstable and making a soft static noise before Jack held out both hands as if he were trying to soothe a dangerous beast instead of...

Well, Rhys.

"Alright. Alright." His voice had softened, and though he tried to keep it level he still trembled on every word, "Just- Please, Rhys. Don't shut me off."

It was... Strange. Jack was almost sure he could feel wetness around his eyes, on his cheeks, even though there was nothing there.

Something Rhys had said, though, had piqued his curiosity.

'Just making a body shouldn’t be all that hard if we get the right people,' Rhys had said, perhaps as a thought that was thrown away the second it left his lips.

But not for Jack.

What people? Where? When?

He wanted to bombard Rhys with questions right away the more he thought about it, but for now he decided a second chance would do.

"Never got a second chance from someone before, y'know." Jack's voice sounded much calmer, less like he was about to explode into fury again and more like he'd just woken from a particularly nice nap, still a little hoarse but much less shaky, "If you keep tugging shit outta your head like that, blood loss is gonna be what kills you. Then neither of us win."

He shrugged, arms coming to cross over his chest and a ghost of a smile formed on blue lips, "Sounds more fair, but..." again, the AI shrugged, holding out his right hand for Rhys to shake, "Truce."

For a moment, he just stared at where Rhys's metal arm used to be, before he looked at his own, "Wow. That won't work on so many levels, huh? Never mind, we can shake hands as long as you don't die here, hm?"

It felt strange to try and go back to normal from begging and screaming for his life, but there wasn't really anything else to say on the matter.

So he might as well look forward.

"I'll need a body, though. To, y'know, shake your hand and make the deal official." Was this the best time to try and crack a joke?

Eh, probably not.

But when was, in the borderlands?

"Come on, let's bounce." Jack mumbled, huffing and taking a final look around, "Still can't believe what you did to my Helios..."

semi-discussed starter for @thehandsomeasshole

     Rhys sits there on his knees, trembling hand holding a piece of glass to his temple as Handsome Jack prattles on about how he wants him to die. As long as those cybernetics are in your head, it echoes through his mind as the maniac paces around. There’s a searing pain in his shoulder from the wound he ripped open when he TOOK HIS ARM OFF. He had to stop Jack, had to crash Helios, had to kill those people… but why did Jack have to be like this? Rhys’ face is full of pain, hurt; he’d thought he’d found a sort-of FRIEND. Maybe Jack feels the same way, in some weird twisted way… Rhys already knows that the other’s anger comes out much differently than his own.

     Rhys thinks on this as he cuts into his own face, DIGGING the jagged glass under his skin and starts to pry out the cybernetic implant. His whole body is trembling, he feels like he’s about to THROW UP. This is a common occurrence for him, but this is different… it feels like if he does throw up, all of his intestines will come up with it. Red hot pain screams at him as he pulls the small port out of his head and he can feel warm, sticky blood dripping down his face. He’s breathing so shallowly, it’s taking everything in his power to not stop, just pass out, let the pain melt away into unconscious bliss. He can’t. This HAS to be done.

     And yet… DOES IT? Rhys watches Jack switch gears from being scheming and angry to something that looks like FEAR as he seems to realize what he’s doing, what’s about to happen to him. Even though he seemed perfectly fine dying before… maybe it’s because he won’t get anything out of it if he’s the only one to die. Maybe that’s what is different, but either way, Handsome Jack seems GENUINELY AFRAID for the first time, well… EVER, at least since he’s been an AI in his head. Brows furrow as pain throbs in his temple and more, even worse pain shoots up his neck from where his arm used to be. In this moment, Rhys feels BAD for him, moreso than he ever did before. He knows real fear when he sees it, and this is it. Slowly standing up, Rhys positions the glass shard at the iris of his Echo eye, listening to Jack beg, talking about death

               THERE’S NOTHING THERE.

     Brows furrow and breath catches in his throat, he nearly chokes on the air, feeling immense pain in his eye socket as he starts tugging the iris out of the mechanical eye. All the while, through the pain, he stares at Jack. IF he’s going to do this, the AI needs to KNOW that he’s serious. That he can, and WILL, do this again if the need arises. His expression, while filled with pain, nose twitching, breath coming so quickly it’s barely there, is stoic. He pulls the wire out nearly to the end of it.

          “I’m sorry, Jack…” He tells him, frowning deeply. He takes in a shaky deep breath and closes his eyes, waiting a moment, before dropping himself down to the floor. He’s so tired, the pain is too much, he’s going to need to do this from down there.

          “You know…” he starts, chuckling very dryly, holding the echo eye so that it points towards the hologram, “I did think of you as… a friend. I was on board with EVERYTHING you wanted to do, no matter what. Unless it involved KILLING MY FRIENDS, obviously… but…” he stops, raising his head so that he’s seeing him with both eyes now. Biting back pain that nearly blinds him, a little whimper escapes his throat and he shakes his head.

          “Then, you wanted to kill ME. You know, just making a body shouldn’t be all that hard if we get the right people Why would it have to be me? Why do you need an ARMY? Is it because you’re afraid to go back? YOU DON’T WANT TO DIE, and that’s why I think you had that BRILLIANT idea,” the sarcasm is DRIPPING from his voice, even through the pain, even as he talks very slowly, between breaths. “You want there to be enough of YOU to ensure that you never die again because it TERRIFIES you. Maybe I can understand that, but suggesting me as the first..? I don’t get it, THAT is what is crazy. And maybe you are, but you don’t need to get back at me. I didn’t DO anything other than exactly what you told me just now. I DON’T WANT TO GO THERE EITHER, so WHY do you think I “betrayed” you?” Rhys shakes his head again and coughs.

          “DAMN this shit hurts…” a dry chuckle, “Jack…” a pause, brows furrowed, “this is me giving YOU a second chance. Maybe you can find it in your heart to give me one, too. If not…” He looks the hologram dead in the eye and tugs on the cable gently, “Well, if not, you know what happens, and there will be NO satisfaction of watching me die with you, either.”