KING / GHOST

shuffling away from his seat in the booth, rhys nodded and went up to the line to order coffee. of course, from everyone having noticed who it was, who he was with, rhys was bumped up the line fairly quickly. rhys felt too guilty to say that no, they weren’t together anymore, and he didn’t know if they would be again ( did he want that? maybe. but for now rhys had no clue ) any time soon. simply grabbing ‘the usual’ for the both of them, rhys returned quickly and slid jack’s drink towards him, shuffling back into his seat only semi-awkwardly.

rhys cradled his coffee, letting it warm his hands as he sipped it. this coffee store was good, at least better than the coffee he got in any one office at a time. hyperion’s in-house coffee machines were garbage, but then again so were the ones where he worked. the two of them sat in silence, or at least rhys did. not really knowing what to say, or what he should use as a conversation starter. it felt too intimate to ask anything personal, but too impersonal to ask the small talk questions of ‘how was work?’. “i’ll be honest with you, i have no idea what i should say right now.“ this was the one time rhys prayed jack would have started moving into talking about himself without reservation —— but that… hadn’t happened? and from what rhys was observing from him… jack was actively trying not to do very typical jack things. it was perplexing, to say the least.

“but uh… how are you?” are you okay? what have you been up to since i was gone? how’s hyperion? i miss you — he cleared his throat, taking another shaky sip of his beverage.

as rhys got up and got in line for coffee, jack couldn’t help but stare. the other man looked as beautiful as ever. so elegant, even as he was doing such simple tasks such as walking up to the line and ordering a few drinks. he stayed where he was, tapping his fingers anxiously on the table as he waited. 

and when rhys came back, the awkwardness settled. the two of them both didn’t know what to say. they haven’t spoken like this in almost a year. it was so strange, to foreign and yet so familiar and even relaxing to be with rhys again. he listened to him, trying to spark up a conversation but even as time has passed, he was still as awkward as ever. it almost amused jack. 

he smirked a bit at rhys’s question, deciding to just ignore it entirely. they had more time to ask how they’ve been. he wanted to get to the meat of it all. the topic they’ve both been avoiding. 

“i’m sorry,” jack then said, practically bursting out of his chest. said chest tensed up and he stared down at his drink before looking back at rhys, a slightly frown on his face. “what happened. i’m sorry. but i miss you. so much, rhysie.” 

Gaze watched as Jack moved around his desk, taking the time to abandon his ill-gotten throne to swat at Timothy like an enamored cat with a mouse. Predatory.   Of course…there were only so many hits a rodent could take before that delicate little neck snapped and Tim wasn’t ambitious enough to think–that should the day come, Jack wouldn’t hesitate to reach out and put an end to the doppelganger.

It was a game they played often. Delicate and Dangerous. And Jack was always the winner. 

Expression twitched as he weighed his options; None of them are any good. But he’d known that was coming. The moment he’d hesitated at that trigger, instead of following Jack’s bark of an order to the letter.The moment he’d compromised his mission against that rag-tag team of misfits currently tearing their way across Pandora–his current situation had been locked in. 

“–I. I didn’t mean to fuck up.” The words are soft and his tone dips into the vein of apologetic. Mismatched gaze finally darts away, to the floor and his shoulders slump in defeat. Fingers worry against the fabric of his rolled sleeve and Timothy finally–finally frowns. “I’m sorry.” 

jack waited, uncharacteristically patient, as timothy was formulating his response, or his apology. whichever one decided to come out of that stupid mouth. despite them looking exactly the same, timothy was vastly different in every single way. while jack was the king on his throne, timothy was nothing but a muscle used for jack’s own goals. 

still, a muscle that knew his place. knew when he fucked up. and knew he shouldn’t fight against the king that hired him. so jack watched, with a small grin curling on his face as timothy struggled to apologize, to admit the faults. his fault that the vault hunter got away. his fault that pandora will continue to be a bandit-filled land. 

jack simply sighed, humming as he gently placed one hand on timothy’s shoulder, gripping a little too tightly for something that be called friendly. it wasn’t friendly. it was a silent threat. 

handsome jack didn’t know how to stop working. his cogs in his brain were constantly rotating. he was always coming up with new plans and new ideas. he always wanted to be on top of the next big thing. he always wanted hyperion to be the next big thing. even now, he was sitting in his office late at night, he was skimming through some blueprints while rhys was standing at the doorway berating him.  

thump. that smile, oh it was deadly. could’ve killed rhys right there and then if he didn’t already feel like death. just from watching the way jack slid down he could tell —— both of them were feeling exhaustion. perhaps it was good, though. both of them had flaws that needed work. rhys returned the smile, and it did match his eyes this time, although the tiredness seemed to haze over any kind of warm feelings rhys would’ve otherwise had. anxiety did that. “sorry for… this. i think the regular staff got a bit excited to see me.” he didn’t feel particularly sorry, though. he’d missed the croissants this place made. they were good, and tearing a piece from it and shoving it into his mouth without much grace seemed to give everything away.

everything felt too familiar, but it was all so… alien. different, jarring, refreshing. there was no foul stench lingering, following the two of them around like a curse. the atmosphere was not thick and dense to the point you could slice it with a butter knife. rhys liked it… but it was weird. new. he wasn’t used to it.

he didn’t know where jack’s new threshold for tolerating anything was anymore, had to tread a fine line with his next question, wanted to move past the small talk of how’s work and how have you been for almost a year and cut straight to the i miss you. but that was wrong —— something deep down told him as much. so rhys sat there, silently picking at the croissant in thought. they came here for coffee — he should probably order some. “do you — uh… coffee?”

the atmosphere was definitely different. it was familiar but then it wasn’t and jack wasn’t quite sure whether or not he liked it. he was anxiously sitting across from rhys, tapping his finger on the table and he shook his head at the man’s apology. “croissants are fine,” he tried to joke. “at least you kept your good taste in bread.” 

god. god, the conversation was dull. for once in his goddamn life, jack didn’t know what to say. he didn’t know how rhys would react. the man walked out on him before, and there was no telling if anything that came out of his big mouth would make him walk out again. jack had to be careful, and it annoyed him because he was barely careful. jack was used to doing whatever he wanted, to saying whatever was on his mind without any filter. and now, he needed that fucking filter.

okay, so when rhys thought about how it was easy to push jack out of his mind? wasn’t entirely accurate. at least, for the most part it was. but the small tugs at the small frayed ends he’d rushed to sew back together in order to try and get something tangible, something he could physically feel and touch, they fell apart slowly at first, only really unravelling with momentum once saturday drew closer.  he was fine. he would be fine. rhys was doing so well, he was making so much progress. he could finally be himself. the only issue, the reoccuring worry that often caused him to bite his bottom lip till it bled —— if he could be himself around the man that had stripped everything away from him in the first place. or if rhys would simply let jack take everything from him again. he didn’t want that. or maybe he did? it was saturday, now.

a day off from work, thankful that his weekends were free from schedules. he often spent time with his friends… it had been so long since he’d really seen them, he’d even bawled his eyes out the first few times just from how overwhelmingly happy he’d been to have them in his life. they slowly brought back the rhys he’d always been, always should’ve grown to become. and now he was sat in the coffee shop near hyperion’s main office, worrying the edge of a croissant whilst he waited for jack. opting for just a casual white tshirt and blue jeans, rhys styled his hair in the usual way, a stray strand of hair falling over his forehead in an accidentally-on-purpose move. he didn’t really need to try to look good for jack, knew that the man would probably make some comment about him even if he was in a trash bag.

but when jack slid down into the seat opposite, rhys simply gave a warm smile. he was tired, but mostly because his insomnia had kept him up with weird intrusive thoughts — none of them about jack this time. which was a nice change. “hey there.”

despite the initial feeling of not wanting to get any help or admitting that something was wrong, jack managed to convince him to actually go to most of his therapy sessions before saturday. he wanted to get as many sessions in as he could, no matter the price of each one. it wasn’t that he was admitting his faults, or his uncontrollable mental health, but there was something in the back of his mind that made him do this. 

a certain voice that sounded like rhys, saying, “please get some help, jack.” ever since he and rhys broke up and the other man said that, it was itching his brain, scratching at the walls in the back of his head. this is what rhys wanted. rhys wanted him to get help, and jack would do anything to get rhys back, even if it meant showing his vulnerability and exposing his faults to some random doctor every week. 

so when saturday came along, rhys wasn’t the only one who was exhausted. jack was battling the demon within himself, fighting towards the light that had rhys waiting for him, while his demons were clawing and grabbing at his legs, tugging him back into the darkness that he was so used to. it was so easy to fall back into that darkness, that blanket of comfort that got him through so many situations in his life. except one—one that involved rhys himself. 

slowly, jack felt himself inching towards the light, towards rhys’s hand as the man was calmly waiting for him, observing if he truly changed for the better. it was a hard process, but for once, jack was trying. trying for someone other than himself. he wanted rhys for rhys, not for that amount of happiness he got whenever the man did something jack told him to. not for the praise he got whenever he needed it. not for the dependency he relied on for so long. 

he wanted rhys for rhys. 

If there was anyone who understood the fact that a quiet Handsome Jack was a dangerous Handsome Jack, it was Timothy Lawrence. He had seen many who stood in this very spot, before this very desk murdered without a bat of an eye. Had watched countless Hyperion Employees earn a one-way ticket out the airlock for even daring to look at the CEO the wrong way. 

Jack had changed, and often Timothy found himself nostalgic for the way things used to be. The way Jack used to be–when he’d first come beneath the man’s proverbial wing for the doppelganger program. The vault had changed him–the scar. The mask. 

Don’t bite the hand that feeds you; it was a lesson Tim had learned well in his employment under Hyperion. There were days when he wanted to–when he could have. When he could have emptied his clip into the nearest security escort bringing him up to Jack’s office and flee the space station. But he wouldn’t. It wasn’t as if he’d get very far anyway. The thought of being another dagger of betrayal stabbed ruthlessly in the man’s back…didn’t sit well with the double. Not after he’d seen all the others. His loyalty, no matter how much he wished it weren’t, was tied to Jack.  So instead of all-out biting, he chose to nibble; nursing a weak flame of rebellion that couldn’t be stamped out. It was why he was standing there like a child called to the principal’s office after misbehaving in class. It was why that vein in the man’s forehead was pulsing. 

Lips pressed into a thin line at the words and Timothy knew better than to open his mouth against them. Instead, arms loosely crossed over his chest and fingers worried the sleeve of the jacket he found, a wordless nod given.  Understood. Loud and clear.

the one thing that jack really liked about timothy was his obedience. never mind the fact that timothy looked exactly like him, because come on, they were gorgeous. handsome jack was gorgeous and poor timothy should be grateful that he got an upgrade such as this one. an upgrade that paid him extremely well for whatever college debt he managed to stack throughout the years. 

but jack loved timothy’s obedience. how easy it was for the other man to listen to directions and stick with them. and he definitely loved how obedient he was being right now, shutting up and staying quiet when he was told. it stirred something deep inside of jack, something primal. he had complete control over anyone who stood on this goddamn moon base and everyone knew it. 

so jack smirked a bit as he watched timothy nod in agreement. he slowly rose from his golden throne and then he rounded the desk, approaching timothy, slowly, like a predator really to munch down on his prey. he stood in front of him and then he chuckled, low in his throat.