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plaguescribe · 19 days ago

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Half of My Soul

Rhys had looked at Pandora from Helios station everyday for years now, the brown planet’s continental long gash spewing eridium captivated his attention during the excruciating hours of work. Years ago he had asked Vaughn what he thought about Pandora, “A filthy planet that could honestly be called a mass grave.” Rhys had believed that to be dramatic at the time, but after his impromptu visit he wasn't so sure Vaughn was too far off. Rhys laid his head back against the thick glass of the transport ship, Hyperion splurged on getting the two of them back to space, sending an ANG3L class ship, Rhys’s grip of the edge of the seat helped ground him from the crescendoing anxiety in his chest, the thick leather cold in his grasp

His thoughts briefly slipped to the girls, he thought about the utter betrayal that echoed across Fiona’s face when he clambered into the Hyperion ship with no hesitation. A few days before she had asked if he and Vaughn planned to stay on Pandora, his immediate answer was no, he wanted nothing more to do with this planet. He didn’t even want to come here in the first place; but when he received the call from some higher-up that Jack swore were safe, saying they could take them back to the space station they called home, they said yes without an ounce of regret. Now as he sat hundreds of miles above the god forsaken planet, the regret seeped into his stomach little by little. Thankfully his anxiety and exhaustion mostly masked the feeling, he tried to forget the fact she left before the ship even took off from the ground. He hated the way that Sasha didn’t even come to see them off, opting to stay home. He hated that he wished they came with them.

Vaughn sat across the aisle from him, his eyes locked onto the ground, the cracks in his glasses filled with thin lines of dirt. Vaughn’s shirt was torn in 3 different places and dried blood stained everywhere, he could see a tremble in his friend’s hands. Rhys knew that since they had found the vault and brought the Jack AI back to Helios that he and his friend likely wouldn’t see too much trouble for stealing, and subsequently losing, a fuck ton of money. However they worked for Hyperion, you could be shoved into the airlock for taking the last of the coffee in the break room.

Four Hyperion soldiers sat armed around the two of them, Rhys was scared to breathe too loudly around them for fear of his life; he sat as still and quietly as a freshly traumatized man could. He knew that they were there to ‘protect’ the two of them, but the stoicism did not offer much comfort in face of everything. He felt a tickle behind his eyes and before he could try and stop the inevitable, a familiar blue hand appeared on his thigh. Rhys kept staring at the slowly shrinking planet behind them, hoping that maybe Jack would leave, he would realize that now wasn’t a good time and dissipate.

“Man, Pandora still looks like a shit hole, should’ve blown it up when I had the chance.” There is no response from Rhys, Jack continues to fill the silence with vaguely threatening statements.

“Maybe I’ll make you do it, there’s always time to do that kind of thing.”

“No, you will not.” Rhys sneers to Jack.

“Gah, I dunno kiddo, maybe one day I’ll convince you to go through with one of my brilliant plans.” Jack ‘sits’ down next to Vaughn looking over him intently before gazing around the transport ship.

“I’m truly surprised they sent somethin’ this nice for you two,” Jack runs his hands over the plush leather. “I only had two of these made, one for me and another one for me in case the first one blew up.” Rhys nods absentmindedly to the comments. Jack looked back to Vaughn, getting in his face, waving his hands in front of his eyes and ‘patting’ his face.

“Is he still alive? I mean I really thought he was a goner there after the whole paralysis thing.” Jack ‘pokes’ Vaughn’s face and giggles to himself. The intercom cuts the silence and announces they’re approaching Helios Station and to prepare for turbulence; Rhys watches Vaughn’s knuckles turn white from gripping the arm rests so hard.

“He’s fine, would you leave him alone?”

“Oh right, cause he can definitely feel all of this,” Jack winds his arm back and ‘slaps’ Vaughn again. “Do you think he believes I’m real, or does he still think you’re crazy?”

“Obviously he believes me, Vaughn is a very good friend.” Rhys sees Vaughn smile, just enough for only him to notice. Jack hums in acknowledgement, though not in belief.

The landing rattles the whole ship, the soldiers seem nonchalant about the whole thing, Jack doesn’t even seem to notice, the two boys looked as if the whole ship shaking continued any longer they would have matching heart attacks.

As soon as the wheels touched ground, the two of them stood up on unstable legs and sped to the door, it opened to a large hangar with a handful of higher-ups and scientists standing at the ship exit. Vaughn leaned over to Rhys and whispered “they’re for you,” before walking down the steps and slipping off to the side. Rhys watched his feet as he walked down the steps, holding tightly to the hand rail; multiple people rushed to Rhys as soon as his feet touched the ground, each asking him too many questions at once.

From the moment Rhys stepped foot back on Helios station, he had felt for the first time in his life what it was like to be popular. Much to his dismay he had never felt worse in his life, the feeling of everyone's eyes on him, the dirt clinging to every inch of him, and the incessant pounding in his head all combined to a torto return home. His heart was a moment away from beating itself to death, he tried to focus on watching Jack peering over people’s shoulders, he would occasionally yell to Rhys when he saw something interesting, but his voice was drowned out with questions of “Is Jack still in your brain?” “What's he like?” “When can you come to the neuro-lab soonest?”

The thought of even more people poking around in his brain made his skin crawl; he knew that eventually they would have to get the Jack code out, but he hoped they wouldn’t need to do this as soon as he got off the ship. The room seemed to get louder and louder with every passing second, he tried to look for Vaughn to no avail. Rhys’s eyes bounced between person to person making him dizzy, and the lack of a full meal or water in far too long made his body weaker than he remembered it. He saw Jack appear beside him, arms crossed and tapping his foot.

“Don’t pass out on me, I swear to god I’ll kill you myself.” Rhys wrung his hands together, they shook just enough for him to notice, for Jack to notice.

“I need to leave, I need to get out of here.” Rhys whispered to Jack, praying that he would have mercy on him for once.

Jack’s eyebrows relaxed and he dropped his arms, “Always needing me to save the day huh?” he huffed a laugh and started walking towards the door at the back of the hangar. Rhys was surprised and thankful they decided not to station some sort of soldier at the exit.

“I’m going to hack this door,” Jack yells across the room, though for Rhys it sounds like he's speaking right next to him. “When I do, I want you to pretend there’s another rakk hive trying to devour you whole and run through the door, after which I’ll lock it? Got all that princess?” Rhys nods which elicits multiple strange looks from the doctors surrounding him. He watches Jack turn towards the door and start typing away, his foot tapping along to what Rhys can only assume is a song stuck in his head.

“You ready?” Jack yells over his shoulder. Rhys steadies his legs and watches the sliding doors like his life depends on it, and right now it very well might. Jack yelled across the room for him to run and Rhys pleaded to himself that his legs wouldn’t give out, not now. He pushed through the crowd of people in front of him towards where Jack stood, arms crossed with a sickly cocky smile etched into his fake plastic face. Rhys flew past him and into the door which was promptly locked behind him, he heard people yelling behind the thick metal doors but the notion that they couldn’t see him anymore settled his heart.

Rhys doubled over with his hands on his knees, eyes closed gently as he tried to catch his breath. Jack raised a hand to rub his back for comfort, frowning to himself when his hand phased right through the younger man. When Rhys’s breaths slowed down he turned to look at Jack, a small smile turning his lips ever so slightly upwards.

“You alright now?”

“I’m good.” Jack nodded and started walking down the maintenance hallway, a hand beckoning Rhys to follow. The two walk in a comfortable silence for a while, Rhys still playing with his own hands for comfort, he was happy they felt less clammy now. He watched Jack walk, he had spent a lot of time watching him walk since they had met. He envied the way that Jack carried himself, it was past an ‘air’ of confidence, Jack was confidence incarnate. Sometimes he wondered how much of it was fake, another mask Jack would put on in the morning. He decided it best not to think too hard about it.

“So, where exactly does this lead? I’ve never even seen these before.” Rhys broke the silence to ask, he almost regretted it. Almost. Jack slowed down to walk next to him, there seemed to be a sense of peace written into his face.

“Originally they were here for those freaks in maintenance to get around without anyone seeing them; you remember how god awful they were to look at?” Rhys nodded, it was a lie though, he had never met anyone from maintenance.

“However after a while they all died, not my fault surprisingly, and were replaced with the bots. So I started using them to get around here without anyone knowing where I was.” Jack said with a subtle lilt in his voice. Rhys nodded and hummed in reply, he would’ve loved to use these when he first started and had no friends.

“You never did say where we’re going.”

“My office, if everything is as I left it, nobody should have been able to get in while I was ‘dead’.” Jack does finger quotes around as he finishes his statement.

The two of them continued to walk in silence, only broken up briefly by Jack telling Rhys which way to walk; Rhys had never been to Jack’s office, and the thought alone sent a shiver down his spine. He knew it couldn’t be far now, the two of them had been walking for what felt like the entirety of Helios. Jack must have sensed his curiosity of their location and mumbled something about “…two more left turns and a right.” Which after taking those, turned out to be true.

Jack walked to the dead end that they slowly approached and started tapping on the code box on the wall, the door slowly opening. The sudden bright light of Jack’s office felt like a flash bang straight to his corneas, but the change from cool air to warm made Rhys close his eyes in bliss. Jack walked over to his desk and beckoned Rhys, instructing him to press a series of buttons which abruptly opened a door hidden behind a frankly awful painting. Inside was a small bed, neatly made with a pair of dress pants strewn across the foot of the bed.

Jack walked over and traced his fingers over the stitching, trepidation in his hand as if touching it too much would disintegrate them. Rhys looked at Jack with a puzzled expression etched into his features.

“I was supposed to wear these to show off the warrior, had a whole party planned and everything.” His voice was soft, a sadness emanating from his words.

“I’m so sorry.” Jack nodded and stared at the pants for a while longer before asking Rhys to move them.

“You can sleep here for a while, nobody but,” he goes silent, then shakes his head and continues. “Nobody knows about this. You’ll be safe to sleep here. I’ll keep an eye on security while you do.” Rhys nodded and sunk into the bed, shoes still tied tight to his feet.

“Not even going to change before sleeping in my bed?” Rhys’s cheeks warmed at the statement before toeing off his shoes and crawling under the blankets.

“Better.” Rhys watched out of the corner of his eye as Jack walked to his desk and booted it up, not daring to look back at Rhys. He let his body sink into the bed, before he could even process anything his body shut off. Jack looked behind him and allowed himself to stare at the sleeping man, his brown hair a mess from sprinting. Jack blinked over and tried to push it out of his face, his fingers phasing right through it, Jack sighed in defeat, trudging back to his desk, an annoyance in his chest more prevalent than anything else.

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