Chapter Text
He scrunches and wriggles his lips, the mirror showing how his face contorts. It's been a while, but it just looks so different without his super cool bro stache. Ah but the Vault hunter had kindly been so honest with him, brutally in fact, letting him know that his super cool bro stache was, in much fewer and kinder words than the Vault hunter used, quite uncool. Still, maybe he could digistruct a new one just for when he's alone? That would probably be weird. He's done weirder things.
Things like sticking a data drive, which he pulled off a stuffed scientist's corpse, into his neural port without considering the possible consequences. Or like casually conversing with the AI of his dead boss, hero, idol. Even worse, trusting said AI. And worse still than that, being too damn sentimental to destroy the AI for good after it betrayed him, stabbed him in the back, shattered his idol worshiping heart and his entire world with it. Or a weird thing like stealing the deed to a demolished corporation from the ruins of his dead former boss, not hero, no longer idols office. Or piloting a giant robot in a fight against a giant teleporting rock monster. In fact, was there anything he'd ever done that was weirder than what happened when he touched the casket inside the Vault of the Traveler with Fi?
Genuinely considering digistructing himself a new bro stache, probably. Jack wouldn't have done that. A tiny voice in the back of his head nags on him at the thought.
'Oh, but Jack did, didn't he? He hid his face behind a mask, and what do you think this mustache is for you, Rhysie? It's just your very own mask to hide behind. Always following in his footsteps, even now, after all this time. You still can't let go of Jack. Pathetic.'
Rhys feels his face twist into an ugly sneer before he lifts his head from the hung position it had fallen to in order to see himself in the mirror once more. The person he sees almost terrifies him, would have if it hadn't been a face he has seen so often over the past eight years. Every time he thinks of Jack, in the quiet moment that his mind can substitute no other thoughts, this is always the outcome. Sometimes he can't even tell if the burning contempt he feels radiating through his whole being is aimed towards Jack or himself. He often settles on both. After all, they really aren't that much different, are they? No matter how hard Rhys tries, he can never escape Jack so long as he lives. Yet he can't bring himself to be done with it all. With all he has built, all the sacrifices he has made, all the people he has manipulated, the things he has done that would make even Jack himself raise those sculpted brows of his.
The sneer has faded into a shamed flush, his brows pulled together in a way that ages him more than the past near decade already has. He huffs through his teeth as he pushes away from the sink and mirror he has absolutely spent far too much time hunched over. His flesh hand pulls through his hair, the grease of several days without washing slicks the strands back as his hand drops back to his side and thumps against his thigh. Another breath, heavy in his chest even as he expels the air from his lungs, long and somber. What is he doing? Wasting time mulling over this again when he should be running his company. Meeting with people who smile to his face but would stab him in the back if given the chance. Trying to run things the way Jack couldn't, with a level head and a clear moral line he couldn't cross. Not while people were looking, that is. Never in a way that people could see that deep down he really was just another Handsome goddamn Jack, but with far better self control.
Rhys opens the line on his ECHO comm to call his PA
"Sir?" The young man answers so quickly Rhys wonders, not for the first time, if the kid just sits there staring at his ECHO comm waiting for Rhys to call
"Where are we today?" He asks, almost but not quite managing to keep the hitch out of his breath, still reeling from his most recent mental battle with himself
"Sir, you have the final meeting with Maliwan today to debrief on the case regarding Katagawa Jr's untimely demise. Don't worry though, Sir, I've pushed it back so it will be last on your itinerary. Leading up to that you have a shareholder meeting in an hour. The Garden has been blocked off for a full three hours over your lunch period, you won't see a soul on your way there or back. Zer0 will be returning in time to assist you in preparing for the debrief with Maliwan."
Rhys hums and nods along even though the kid can't see him. He thanks his PA and offers him to take an early lunch, the offer is declined, the call ended. His feet carry him to his office, still too simple for a CEO, but he imagines it keeps him humble some days. The morning passes slowly, the shareholder meeting having gone the fastest. Somehow it felt almost easy to deal with the old leeches who wanted nothing more than to know how well lined with money their pockets would be in the coming year. It was like a second nature to put on his sweet face and tell them exactly what they wanted to hear. Their faces dripping with hungry lust for wealth would leave his presence yet somehow always linger in the air long after they'd gone.
By midday he had chided himself twice more for wayward trains of thought. It never mattered much, especially on a day like today. His three hour lunch break used to happen daily. Then every few days, once a week, every other week, monthly. As of now Rhys had pulled himself away for up to a year at a time. He would always make his way back to the Garden, though. He physically could not stay away forever, no matter how many times he told himself this time will be the last time. It never is. His too long cybernetic arm swings up in a lazy arch as he opens the palm display to show a clock counting down the seconds. Maybe this time he can make himself be just a little late, it's not like his date can really care about being kept waiting.
As soon as the hour turns Rhys is already out of his uncomfortable chair and halfway to the doors. He knows better, always does. Rhys turns off his ECHO comm and sets an alarm for three hours time. He knows he will probably stay late, same as he knows he will never arrive late. The walk to the Garden is swift, even as he tries to drag his feet. The way a memory etched into every muscle so deep he was certain he could make the trip blindfolded and delirious.
'Bold of you to assume you aren't already.' That tiny voice snarks
"Hush up" Rhys huffs as he kneels at the base of his favorite tree and lifts away the moss that hides a control panel
A few presses and the fountain next to him ceases to burble, the water drying up, and a casket rising from within. The box was small, lined with lead, and rigged with an EMP meant to prevent any unauthorized access just as much as it was meant to prevent escape. Carefully, Rhys enters a code that no one could possibly know but him, him and the man in the box.
'Why do you still call him a man? When in the same breath you'll call him a monster. And another breath later call yourself the same. Do you think that by lessening him to a mere man that you can negate the monster that you are?' The voice never leaves him alone on the best of days, he could do without it now.
"Leave us alone" he mutters as he opens the box
The eye is in one of its moods, he notices right away. The light pulsing in an alternating beat. Rhys can feel his breathing match the slow rhythm, his heart adopts the faster strobe just as easily. The eye does this sometimes, acts like it's running complex programs. Which, he supposes it always is, with an AI tucked away in there. He doesn't know why it only does this sometimes, though. When he looked at the eye for the first time since the moment he clawed it out of his own face the miniature machinery had appeared lifeless. For the longest while it had remained that way, silent and dark. It wasn't until well after Rhys had moved to Promethea, created the Garden, and lessened his visits to every few months that he opened the box to find the eye alight with life. He can still feel the memory of both relief and horror, partially because he felt twinge of the same feeling every time he came to visit, regardless if the eye was active or not.
He wondered what Jack was doing in there when the eye glowed like this, wondered what Jack was doing when the eye was silent. Wondered again why he kept it only to hide him away like this, visiting only once a year now like they had some clandestine anniversary to celebrate. Rhys scoffs at his own thoughts and gently lifts the delicate circuitry, holding it in his flesh hand as if it were the most precious flower in the Garden.
"It's been another year, Jack," Rhys hears how his own voice cracks and tries not to imagine the face Jack would make if he could hear it, tries not to think about how he would feel to have Jack make that face at him, "the year has been eventful to say the least. I know when I last came to see you I said the same thing, but this time the story is even more interesting, Jack! You're probably thinking, well what can beat Maliwan trying to destroy Atlas, Katagawa Jr trying to make me his, growing awesome facial hair," he purses his lips again lamenting his lack of aforementioned awesome facial hair
"Well, the thing with Maliwan is over, I have the final meeting with their board later today to debrief on the case between our companies. Katagawa Jr is dead. They aren't all that broken up about it, and neither am I. I didn't kill him myself, I know you'd probably have preferred I did, but I had help from Vault hunters. The Vault hunters said my mustache wasn't as cool as I thought it was, so that's gone now too.
"There was these twin sirens, Jack, and one of them was a guy! I bet you would have slaughtered their entire army yourself just to experiment on them, wouldn't you have?" The jovial tone drops from his voice as Rhys feels his face turn sour in disgust before it settles back into an almost calm "Elpis is gone now, and Lilith is dead, probably. There isn't really any way to know for sure though, just a giant Phoenix emblazoned in the Pandoran sky right where Helios used to be, the after image of Elpis being teleported away to some unknown place. It's been almost the entire year since then but the sky still burns over Pandora."
Rhys took pause as he watched the eye stutter in its pulsing, his heart skipped a beat with it, his breath caught in his lungs. As he waited with bated breath for the eye to stop its faltering and return to its earlier ministrations he couldn't help but think again on what Jack could be doing in there. Was he okay? Was this Jack finally dying? Did that thought bring him any comfort?
Please change your name….
It's ridiculous…
It started in the fingertips of his flesh hand. A searing fire in his blood that danced and curled its way around his wrist and up his arm. The fire licked up over his shoulder and wound itself tightly around his heart. Rhys couldn't move, not even tearing out his own cybernetics had been this painful. Was this how he died? Had Jack finally found a way to enact his revenge from within the eye?
'Why do I even keep on with this SHIT? I have nothing to live for! That was the whole point of trying to die! So why do I keep fighting? Why can't I just stop trying to keep on existing?!'Jack's garbled voice sounds clearer every few words and Rhys doesn't know what any of this means.
The tangent on Jack's lips falls to the nonexistent floor like a tangible mass, the words he's already spoken go uncomprehended by Rhys whose ears are too full of the sound of his own molten blood. His eyes are too unfocused to realize that the words have died on Jack's lips because he is staring at Rhys. He is too far out of it to notice the quick succession of emotions that flit across Jack's face. The exasperation, confusion, rage, fear, clarity, curiosity. By the time Rhys can even register the fact that he can SEE Jack the man's face had been hardened to an emotionless impassive stone. Rhys doesn't understand, doesn't have the capacity to pull his thoughts together, doesn't know anything in the moment save the pain. How is he still awake? How is he still alive? It's too much. There's too much! The fire burns cold. His brain offers one last firing of synapses telling his mouth to move, his voice to speak
"Jack…" the sound so strained, rasping, it doesn't sound to Rhys at all like his own voice "Help…"