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lovehoundd · 7 years

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Our song (Borderlands fanfiction)

paring: Handsome Jack/Rhys | word count: 3651 | tags: #fluff and angst #but mostly fluff #Rhys is drunk and emotional #so is Jack but he doesn’t show it so much #cause you know he’s tough and awesome #and totally not in love with Rhys #(he totally is) | ao3 link: x |

summary: At one of Hyperion parties Rhys feels devastated, after hearing a song that reminds him of his first love. Jack does whatever he can to calm him down.

It was one of those „not obligatory to attend, but if you won’t show up you’re screwed” kind of parties. Jack liked to throw them every once in a while for his board members, advisors and directors only to remind them who’s pulling the strings and also to stir some water. Not that it was necessary, none of them would have climbed so high on the corporate ladder or let’s say simpler – lived, without remembering who’s in charge. Jack loved to trouble them though, to see how much can they suck up on him until making him feel sick.

But it was not only his whim to lose a lot of Hyperion money on people he hated without a reason. He wanted to be updated on all the social issues among his employees, like who had the alliance with whom, who cheated on their spouse with a secretary, who was most hated by their subordinates at the moment, who was the last man standing during the last finger gun fight. Knowing it was crucial to pushing the right buttons in this god damn firm. And what was a better occasion to find out all of this if not by giving people free drinks and playing loud music that made them think no one could hear what they say? After all, corporations were pretty much like high schools and Jack had the pleasure to be the smartest, best looking kid.

In the beginning Rhys felt bad for them all, but then he remembered that you needed to be a very ugly dick as a person to get so far in Hyperion. So instead of feeling pity for them he was just leaning against the wall, sipping some fancy-ass drink and enjoying the view of all the board members verbally crawling among Jack’s feet. When nobody was looking, Jack would turn his head to him and wink, being as amused as Rhys.

In those moments Rhys wanted to roll his eyes because of how childish Jack could be, but at the same time he felt something warm in his chest. To be honest, Jack didn’t have to do much to make Rhys feel completely vulnerable. Whenever Rhys saw any of his smile, the feeling of something melting spread inside his body. And it didn’t matter which one – it could be one of those wide, mocking grins like those on the motivational posters or even that “now you’re gonna die” wicked smile that sometimes appeared just before Jack ejected someone into space. It wasn’t normal and Rhys knew it, but he could do nothing about it that while Jack was frightening to the others (good, healthy reaction) he made Rhys feel butterflies in his stomach (bad, bad reaction). He had to admit, he fell for Jack and fell really hard.

And it wasn’t easy, especially because of how difficult it was for Rhys to define what was exactly happening between the two of them. They were seeing each other for the last few months, but it wasn’t much more than just sex. Jack usually wanted to be professional about it and not to fuck in his own corporation so most of the time he took Rhys to his place. Usually, because there were exceptions like that one time when he called Rhys out of blue into his office. Rhys thought he just needed some help with all the paperwork but hell, he was wrong. Few minutes later Jack had him bend on his desk, pulling his hair and fucking mercilessly, Rhys making sounds he didn’t even know he was capable of making. Not that he complained or something, it was a nice distraction from all the programming he needed to finish that day, but when he walked out of Jack’s office his secretary scared the shit out of him. She was so pale, it seemed that death was the only option for her, passing out at best. She probably thought Rhys was being murdered in the most horrible way.

Then there were other times, let’s say romantic if it was possible to put the words “romantic” and “Handsome Jack” in the same sentence. When in a good mood, he sometimes took Rhys to the nice restaurants where they talked a lot, while drinking red wine which price per bottle was much higher than Rhys’ monthly salary. And sometimes after sex, when the heat of their orgasms washed off he was unusually tender, like stroking Rhys’ cheek with a thumb or laying small kisses on his forehead.

Rhys felt his cheeks burning red at the memory of Jack’s lips on his skin. The truth was, those few moments that he’s been reliving in his head for the last few weeks, Jack probably didn’t even remember nor care about. Most likely Jack saw him only as pretty new toy which he’ll throw away the moment he’ll get bored. Rhys was aware of that, but he couldn’t quit hoping that he was wrong and Jack actually cared about him, at least just a bit.

All those thoughts running through his head as well as alcohol made Rhys feel dizzy. He closed his eyes and started to slowly breathe, trying to calm down. He was never good at dealing with emotions, especially those concerning his romantic feelings towards other people. Those games, understatements, Rhys just… didn’t really get that. Of course it would be much easier to just talk it through, but for Rhys it was not an option. He’d rather jump into the fire than admit in front of Jack that he loved him.

He was starting to get his shit together, breathing in and out, when from huge speakers standing nearby came a song that Rhys knew all too well. It was played after a loud electro number and was much more retro - recorded with the usage of normal instruments, not as common these days. Rhys knew everything about this song. He could be woken up in the middle of the night and he’d sing all the lyrics without one mistake. He knew each note of every part - both guitars, bass and drums. When being a teenager, he used to listen to it almost every day.

Rhys gasped, unable to move. Hearing this song was very unexpected and brought back too many memories, especially those he never wanted to recall. The first sounds of the guitar and bass reminded him all those alone nights when he was lying in his bed, tangled in sheets, crying and thinking, with this exact piece playing in the back and one exact person in his head.

This single memory itself was enough to put Rhys on edge. He felt mild pain spreading deep in his chest and he couldn’t breathe for a few seconds. It probably wouldn’t be so bad, if it wasn’t for all that alcohol he drunk, which always made him feel more emotional.

Rhys knew that how he felt wasn’t only the reaction to the painful remembrance. It was his past trauma mixed with what he was experiencing right now with all the situation between him and Jack. Rhys supposed that most other people wouldn’t be disturbed so much by it like he was, just waiting for everything to pass sooner or later, but he didn’t function in a way other people did. It was really hard for him to fall in love, but when he did, it was something absolute, completely overwhelming.

His head rested against the wall, while he tried to overcome the wave of feelings that washed through his mind. When he felt tears running down his cheeks, Rhys knew he failed.

He walked slowly towards the balcony, hoping he’ll calm down there, not wanting to draw anyone’s attention. Showing a weakness in front of other Hyperions was the quickest way to lose in this never ending strength game. “Never lower you guard kid.” Jack used to tell him. Rhys mentally sighed, because in reality he was choking with tears. “Fucking high school, this firm is nothing but a fucking high school,” he thought.

“… and the idea to put a suppressor an our newest model, sir, absolutely brilliant!” Jack’s eyes lazily wandered around the room when he observed dancing and talking figures, not focusing on the small man in front of him. Till this moment he didn’t listen much, answering only with low grunts. But now he was getting bored, the level of irritation reaching its peak. He finally looked the man in front of him in the eyes, who trembled in response.

“Listen cupcake, if I came here only to find out how awesome I am, I’d spare the time of us all by staying home and simply looking in the mirror. Now get lost.” The man’s face was a kaleidoscope of emotions, from a toady smile to pure horror, ending on a pale relief. Jack only rolled his eyes. It always looked the same with them all, fucking cowards. He had enough of all those jerks, at least for now on.

Jack wanted to have some real fun right now, he needed to find Rhysie. He could pull him into the bathroom for a blowie or something like that. Or maybe they had a darkroom here, ohh, that’d be good. Jack smiled at the thought of what he could do to Rhys in a place like that, but it was rather him being a daydreamer than actual plans. True, he was drunk and horny (not more than usual), but he had enough self-control to remember that he was surrounded by assholes who should know as little as possible. Next time maybe. And frankly, he was rather in a mood for talking with Rhys than fucking him. Not that he would ever say that out loud.

He saw Rhys walking out of the club onto the balcony, wiping his face with a sleeve of his black shirt and Jack felt that something was off. He headed there, bumping into a talking couple, not entirely by accident. It was important to maintain his reputation of a giant dick.

The night was warm and quiet, so it felt good to escape the noisy indoor for a moment. Jack inhaled slowly. He always liked the smell of the summer night, especially that it was probably going to rain, electricity pulsing in the air.

On the balcony was a group of people from accountancy who were talking and smoking, too much focused on themselves to notice that Handsome Jack himself walked in there. In the furthest corner Rhys was standing with his hands clenched on a railings and shoulders trembling a little bit.

“Everybody out,” Jack hissed, making all the accountants silent at once. All their faces went pale as they walked out quickly.

Rhys slowly turned his teary eyes on Jack, sending him a weak smile. Jack approached him, leaning on the railings next to Rhys, their arms touching.

“Hey,” Rhys said quietly.

“Hey.”

There was a silence for a moment and none of them knew if it was comfortable or awkward.

“You okay, pumpkin?” Jack finally asked after a while.

“Yeah sure, why wouldn’t I?” Rhys tried to sound nonchalant, but Jack didn’t buy it and only frowned in response.

“Because I can see that you’re not. C’mon sugar, spit it out.”

“It’s really nothing, I drank too much and I’m tired, that’s all. Please don’t bother.” Jack felt a wave of anger building down in his stomach, patience never being one of his strong points.

“Princess, you think that I’m what, stupid? I can see you’re feeling down, so don’t you try giving me short shift!”

Rhys sighed. Talking with Jack about his exes was almost equal to suicide. Normally he kinda liked it, Jack being possessive and jealous made Rhys feel like he cared about him. Though it wasn’t pretty healthy, but which part of their relationship was? But now Rhys was so emotionally disturbed that he wouldn’t be able to put the words as carefully as it needed to be done when talking with Jack about problematic topics. It was almost sure that at some point he’d blunder, making Jack furious. But not talking would be even worse. Damn this hot-headed jerk.

“As I already said, it’s… really stupid and not worth you attention. But you won’t drop it, am I right?” Jack didn’t answer only looking at Rhys with a “fucking try me” look on his face. It was everything Rhys was expecting, so he snorted sadly.

“The song that was playing a moment ago… It brought me a lot of memories, really bad memories, ones I truly wanted to forget. You know what it’s like when you associate a certain song with a person or a period of time that was important or troubling for you? You see, this is what happened here. This song reminds me of a person who once was a really big part of my life.” Rhys stopped for a moment to take a deep breath, not wanting to start crying. God, he wished he hadn’t drank so much, it would be much easier or this whole situation wouldn’t even have a place. Jack was surprisingly quiet, listening to him carefully.

“When I was a teenager there was… this girl you know. She, ugh...fuck. Jack, I...loved her. I was only sixteen or seventeen but with whole meaning of this word I loved her. It’s been a long time since then and I moved on but those memories are still so vivid. Back then I would… I would have fucking died for her, you know.” Rhys squeezed his eyes and tears ran down on his cheeks, but he kept on going, just wanting to get it over with.

“I know how idiotic it sounds, but it’s true. We were quite close but I wouldn’t call it friendship. I think she could have been interested in some way, but she wasn’t sure and I was too shy to do anything about it, so eventually she just got bored.” Rhys laughed bitterly “Like I could blame her.”

“It lasted two years, but hell it felt like much longer. First I cried almost every night, but then it was just this emptiness, you know? I skipped school and drank, laying in my bed all day. It was... Fuck...” Rhys clenched his teeth not to sob, but he failed making a gross sound. All his body was trembling.

Jack pulled him closer, gently putting his arms around him.

“Rhys...” He put so much softness into this word that Rhys couldn’t take it and sobbed even louder, burring his face in the crook of Jacks neck, his tears falling on a ten thousand dollar shirt. Anybody else who’d do that would be probably dead by now.

It was the first time tonight when Jack didn’t call him by any pet name. It was very rare and meant that he was being serious. They stood like that for a moment, Rhys still crying. Jack put his hand into Rhys’ copper locks, stroking them gently and completely ruining other man’s work to smooth them with a small amount of hair pomade. Rhys calmed down a little bit, so he felt strong enough to continue, even though his mind was far from being clear and he started to babble.

“She was my first love, Jack. It’s just… The idea of loving, like actually loving someone else without knowing if it’s even mutual... if they even care... if you care... it’s killing me.” Rhys murmured and only after a few seconds it hit him what he just said. He stiffed under Jack’s touch, being completely terrified and unable to move. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Why did I say that! Dammit, ugh fuck!” he cursed himself in his mind. Jack moved him away lightly to look at him, but Rhys shut his eyes just too scared to breathe out loud.

“Rhys, look at me.” Rhys was totally horrified, but he managed to stay still and slowly opened one eye, seeing Jack’s face and something strange in it.

“Ok, so this is how I die. Fuck, why couldn’t I just be fucking quiet for once in my life? Always having a big mouth, whining like a little bitch and being so emotional, you have to be like that, Rhys, don’t you…”

“I am sorry.”

“What?”

“What?” Rhys gasped, truly surprised.

“I know that I’m not the easiest person to live with, so I’m sorry.” Jack grabbed Rhys’ chin, still looking into his eyes. He sighed, but then smiled weakly.

“The truth is that I care about you, Rhys, way more than I’d like to.” Jack leaned closer, brushing his lips against Rhys’ cheek and ear, pulling him closer. They were both just so fucking drunk that the level of honesty between them was high as never before.

“It’s been a while since I felt something like that towards anybody. So yeah, I kinda get your meaning,” he chuckled, both sadly and teasingly while he rested his chin on Rhys’ shoulder and held him tighter, placing his palm between Rhys’ shoulder blades.

“You...do?”

“Yeah. I said that and I probably won’t repeat it soon, so I want you to remember it well.” Rhys smiled. To be honest, that was more than enough for him.

“Hmm, I love you too, Jackass.”

“That’s a nice one, kiddo.” Jack snorted and for emphasis he cupped Rhys’ face, kissing him gently. It was so different from the kisses they usually shared, lazy and unhurried. Of course Jack couldn’t help himself and a moment later he bit Rhys’ lower lip, but the younger man was so used to that, that he doubted if after meeting Jack he would be able to consider a kiss legit without being bitten. Love was just a bitch, turning decent people into masochists.

They stood like that with no words for a longer while, their noses touching, focused on nothing else but their breaths, when the first sounds of another song came from the inside. It was a slow piece with a deep bass line. Of course the music was playing all the time, but none of them payed attention earlier. Now it was different since they both knew the piece quite well.

Few days ago they rode to Jack’s place after work, both being silent after a quarrel about something stupid. None of them would be adult enough to start a conversation again or apologize, so they just stayed quiet until this song played in the radio. Rhys noted that it was good and Jack agreed. After breaking the ice they could start talking again, putting behind the subject of a quarrel. When they came home Jack downloaded the whole album (why buy things, especially being a millionaire, when you could just be a fucking dick all the time?). All the tracks were good, but this one playing on the radio was still their favorite one. Now it played in the club, but it could be heard well on the balcony.

“You hear it, kitten?”

“Mhm, yeah” Rhys smiled against Jack cheek and slid his hands from other man’s waist onto his ass. Jack hummed, starting to rock hips against Rhys’.

“Nasty as always.”

Jack in response only pulled Rhys hair, exposing his neck. Rhys whined quietly surprised by this sudden move, but then he smiled feeling Jack’s lips on his skin.

“You know what, I claim this song as mine.”

“Wh-what?” Rhys was too absorbed in being kissed in the neck, to get what Jack meant right away.

“Cupcake, focus. The song that is playing right now, I claim it as mine. Or as ours, if you prefer to put it in this way. Like you had it with that chick of yours, thinking about her every time you listened to that song. So with this one, you’ll be thinking about me.” Jack pulled Rhys’ hair even harder, but still rather teasingly than painfully and leaned closer to his ear.

“But you won’t think about how I didn’t care or made you cry alone at night, like that girl. You’ll think about all those times I fucked you good or bought your favorite ice-cream when you were feeling down or watched all twelve seasons of those stupid soap opera you’re so obsessed about so you could talk it through with someone else. And Rhys, it’ll be even better, I promise you that. Starting with tonight. ”

Rhys felt that his face went red, so he was grateful that there were no lights on the balcony and Jack didn’t notice that. Not to mention specific kind of heat building down in his stomach.

Last time Jack showed any kind of thoughtfulness was when he made a smiley face with a clone syrup on Rhys portion of pancakes (ones that Rhys made, to be clear) so it was unexpected for Rhys to hear such a declaration of affection. It was very sweet what he heard and was everything that Rhys wanted to know, to be sure that Jack cared about him in any way.

On the other hand it kinda hurt that Jack used Rhys’ past trauma only to shout “Dibs on you! You belong to me!” not thinking about how Rhys would feel. But it was just Jack being Jack, not taking into account other people’s emotions, something with what Rhys learned to live. The most important thing was that Jack wanted to make Rhys feel better and to be completely honest he did it swell. This thought made Rhys really happy, despite everything else.

He took Jack’s palm into his own and laid a kiss on his knuckles, looking him straight in the eyes.

“Thank you, Jack.”

This action yet so simple, made Jack completely love-struck. He smiled, moving his hand from Rhys’ lips to touch his cheek.

“You’re welcome, Rhys.”

#rhack #rhack fanfiction #fanfiction #rhack ff #borderlands #tftb #tftbl #tales from the borderlands #fluff #fluff and angst #space kittens

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