#chiseledjaws

a loud, sharp giggle resonated across the small shack where the two were allowed to play, while loud footsteps filled the hallway.     a young man, hair hanging down over his eyes slammed the door open and sprinted over to hug his equal— tiny arms squeezing the other’s shoulders.  there was a pause as the older boy grinned ear to ear, misshapen, young teeth sticking out. 

   “ t-timmy — timmy !!   you’ll never.  never.  guess what i found !! “  

the boy was heaving as he placed his cheek onto his brother’s shoulder to rest for a moment.   the young man was clearly dehydrated.  he’d been sprinting back and forth between the desert and their little home on the hill, rummaging around and trying to make the most of his time.  granny was sleeping after all, now was his time to make do of his new skill, and his newest project.   this one was going to be serious, jack just knew it.  this one would ne the one to get them somewhere in life.

        some things have always been for certain, stories written in inky black, lined with the glow of infinite space and unquantifiable permanence. rhys’ is a story written in blood, death, and algorithms of code that haunt the spaces behind his eyelids every time he closes his eyes, a wholeness of dark, abyssal hatred that is reflected back to him when he peers into the trophy case reminiscent of the one in that old office, one that bears but two things: a deed, and an eye. 

        they say an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, but rhys knows that that isn’t quite true. his sight has never been better -- - vision never more clear than it is in these quiet moments of gazing into the spotlighted case, that dismantled, ruined piece of him glinting against a backdrop of black. there is a power to it, a power that dangles closure over rhys’ head just out of reach. destroying it has both been a forever option, and never LESS of an option. he knows that he can’t in the same way that he knows atlas is destined for greatness with him at the helm. not cockiness, or conceit, but when a company is born on a planet scourged by dead evil, nothing worse can come of it.

        he crosses his arms over his chest and swallows along his dried throat, looking away from the case and over to his desk. the glasses on the bridge of his nose feel heavier than normal when he remembers a time when he hadn’t needed them. he does suppose that stabbing a shard of broken glass into the retina of his eye to carve out his implant MIGHT have caused permanent nerve damage, but he is not doctor, and there are scarcely any of those LEFT on pandora after what handsome jack did.

        a commotion outside of his office door startles him, head whipping around as the sound of his receptionist’s voice echoes loudly in the cavernous space just outside of the set mahogany. 

“YOU CAN’T -- YOU CAN’T GO IN THERE. SIR, EXCUSE ME, YOU -- SECURITY!”

        rhys is unsure what he expects when the doors are forced open, but it isn’t THIS. his heart stops, starts again with a pounding so wild that he can barely force oxygen past it. he can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t school his terrified expression as he gazes into the face of the psychopath that ruined his life. the legacy of a man he had once worshiped, an echo of sadistic laughter in his head, his receptionist a disheveled mess as HANDSOME JACK walks into rhys’ office in front of her, just as confused and lost and SCARED as rhys is.

        and it can’t BE. it ISN’T. rhys knows that it’s -- - not POSSIBLE. 

        the only thing left of handsome jack is right behind the glass of his case. nothing but 0s and 1s, nothing but BINARY. some things are for certain -- - AND HE HAD KILLED HANDSOME JACK HIMSELF.

        a knock on the door, disturbing the domesticity of the scene set: rhys and his daughter having a VERY heated debate over the kind of ice cream that they should share for movie night, and rhys is unpleasantly startled from his plea for cookies and cream over mint chocolate chip. he double checks to make sure that the clock does INDEED read 8:16pm, trying to recall if he’d had any home appointments tonight. sure, he’s been a little stretched thin these days, but he thinks he’d remember something like THAT. 

        so he tells piper to stay put, rising from the stool at the kitchen island, frown set into his face as he approaches the door with CAUTION. there are turrets outside the front entrance to the penthouse, a quick echo eye activation away, but when he pulls the door open what he finds there is not an enemy -- - but a G H O S T. breathing becomes impossible, oxygen clogging his throat and refusing to budge, and all he hears over the ROAR of blood in his ears is piper’s gasp, and then her screech of “ DADDY ! ” as she topples clumsily from her stool and barrels through the crack of rhys’ legs to LEAP into...

goodbye kiss | ACCEPTING !!

        “Oh, stop acting so dramatic.” sweet laughter flows from rhys’ pale lips as the suitcase is closed, turning to look at his husband where he stands in the door to their bedroom. it’s EXTREMELY early, too early for piper to even be awake, the private car scheduled to escort rhys to the launch site already waiting outside in the dark swathe of night. crossing the room to meet his pouty, OVERLY dramatic spouse takes less than a second, rhys’ hands reaching out to cup that gorgeous face gently, lovingly. “It’s just a business trip, and I’ll only be gone for a few days. I’ll be back before you even MISS me, Tim.”

        rhys goes back over to the bed to retrieve his suitcase, just the ONE – - because it’s all he needs for such a quick trip. he allows himself to be walked to the front door, two sets of feet shuffling quietly down the hallway so they don’t disturb their daughter. rhys said his goodbyes to HER last night, and now, at the door, prepares to do much the same with timothy. who WON’T STOP looking like he’s shipping rhys off to war, and not just watching him leave for thrace to discuss a weapons shipment in person. 

        “This is going to sound INSANE, but I’m really craving something vinegary.” eyes are fixed on the ceiling, brow a contemplative furrow as rhys’ hand continues to stroke through timothy’s messy hair. tim has had his head pillowed on the VERY soft bulge of rhys’ stomach all morning, SWEARING he can hear something inside. rhys keeps telling him that it’s probably just gas, which only makes tim POUT. “I feel like I could possibly finish an entire jar of pickles. That’s not healthy, is it?”

from here | NOT ACCEPTING !!

        it’s hard for rhys to focus on anything that isn’t the abject pain scorching through his body. everything is – - it’s hard to stay afloat, hard for him to keep his eyes open at this point, or to even string together a coherent thought that isn’t just the blaring allure of slipping into unconsciousness. something tells him, though, that if he gave in to the pull of that then he would never see the light of day again. not that he’s been seeing much of that ANYWAY ;; they’ve had him locked up in this containment box for so long now that rhys isn’t sure how much time has passed.

        he really HAD tried to keep track of the days at first, but things started to all blur and bleed together after the initial two or three days, and now they’re… they’re gone. rhys knows that much for certain. WHOEVER has been keeping him here has left him here to ROT. they rushed in to TORTURE him just one last time, couldn’t have been too long ago, and then rhys thinks he can vaguely remember that one of the dozen or so of them had stumbled in, completely out of breath, and yelled something about…

        but rhys doesn’t want to get his hopes up. not again. there’s a gaping wound in his side that he’s been bleeding from for what seems like HOURS, his arm is gone, ripped jaggedly off in a way that rhys doesn’t have any doubt has left permanent nerve damage, and his echo eye has been gouged out since the beginning ( though the pain makes it feel FRESH ). he can’t feel his right leg anymore. thinks it may be fractured, sprained, broken, SOMETHING. 

        and if help was going to come, it would have come by now. it’ll do him no good. rhys can’t move, and it doesn’t even matter that his assailants have flown the coop, because he’s going to die right here in this dingy concrete box. he’s got no way of calling for anyone, no strength left in him, no FIGHT left in him to try and drag himself out, and this is really it, isn’t it?

        rhys’ eyes slip closed even though he knows he shouldn’t let them. his one-sided vision is just starting to make his head hurt WORSE than the stab of the damaged echo eye connectors, and it’s too much to stare at the bleak ceiling right now when all he can think about is TIMOTHY. timothy and PIPER, his family, who he’s. fuck. who he’s really never going to see again. he thinks there may be TEARS sliding down his face, cutting through the blood and dirt clogging his pores, but he isn’t sure. his whole face feels numb, beaten, bruised to a jarringly unrecognizable mess.

        he does not register that there are hands on him, attempting to shake him gently back into consciousness, for several minutes. thinks that SURELY the voice calling his name, muffled by cloudy cognition, cannot be real. rhys just wants to SLEEP. wants to fall into the inky blackness wrapping around every tendon in his body, every muscle, every bone, trying to drag him under and smother him in the darkness of nothing. 

        “Rhys. Rhys, please wake up.” the voice says, and rhys would like to think that it sounds familiar, and that the hands pressing all over him feel familiar, like coming home from a long, hard day at work, the pleasant pressure of them lulling him further into that eternal sleep as much as they are trying to do otherwise. “Oh, god, Rhys, please wake up.”

        no, he thinks he might say if he had the energy to. no, he thinks he would like to argue if he could. he has been awake for too long, hurts too much, feels too TIRED to stay awake. all he emits is the most pathetic groan, furrowing brows, eyes cracking open though only one of them is capable of seeing the tear stained face above his own. eyes seek his out, wide with RELIEF, but rhys wants to tell timothy – - and it really IS him – - that there is nothing to be relieved about. sticky hands cradle rhys’ face, shaking around the curvature of the ceo’s jaw, and rhys just barely recognizes that they are sticky with his BLOOD. 

        “I’m here.” that achingly familiar voice says, sounding so horrifically distant with its fear tinged lilts. too distant, when timothy is right there. “I’m here now.”

       but it doesn’t matter, rhys thinks. they sure did do a number on him, and no amount of medkits and medical attention is going to be able to bring him back from this brink. he can see it written ALL OVER timothy’s face. the knowledge that rhys is going to leave everything behind in only a matter of minutes, if he’s lucky. a pool of blood, too much permanent damage that no stitches could possibly fix. rhys had always envisioned a much more honorable way of going out than being kidnapped and BEATEN TO DEATH, but… even the best laid plans of mice and men, as they say. 

        rhys sucks in a stuttering, painful breath, pure agony, deep enough to form words with whatever he has left in him, and it isn’t much. if he’s going to die, then he’s not doing it without saying his final goodbyes. he wishes that piper could be here to hear him say what he has to say, but he is also so, SO thankful that she’ll never have to see her father so weak, so small, so DESTROYED.

        “I love you.” choked out, garbled by blood, a frail hand wrapping around the shaking one on his cheek, keeping it there. a refusal to let timothy go. this is all rhys has left – - this is all he’s going to get. all he has to GIVE. “I love you, so much, and I am s.. so sorry, Tim. Tell Piper that I’m… that I love her.”

        “Don’t do this, Rhys.” Timothy is shaking his head, looking up, looking out of the torn down door just beyond rhys’ line of sight. frenzied, desperate, but rhys doesn’t want him to go. “Hold on, there’s – - HELP! Help, he’s in here!” 

        and rhys doesn’t know if help ever comes, because the darkness sings to him like a long lost lover, and rhys goes to it, drawn in by a magnetic force that will not accept no as an answer. at least he was able to say goodbye, at least he did all he could while he was alive, but perhaps none of it really matters, in the end. 

        “What’s mostly blind in one eye, more handsome than the devil himself, and about to blow up an entire camp of bandits right after this meeting? Spoiler alert, baby, it’s ME !! ” 

        jack has himself a nice little CACKLE as he slides into the chair behind his desk, waggling his eyebrows at his body double and feelin’ KINDA LETDOWN that timothy isn’t as amused by his humor as he is. he’s a friggin’ RIOT, prissy pants must just be in a MOOD. whatever.

        “How’s it hanging, Timtam? You don’t have to answer that -- - I already know.” another joke that falls flat, and jack is SERIOUSLY gonna start pouting in a second. but, right, right. they’re in his office for business, NOT for pleasure ( and what a PLOT TWIST that is !! ), so jack clears his throat, leans back in his garishly yellow chair, and crosses one leg over the other. “Listen, I’ve decided that we, uh, need to have a very important chat, you and I.”

        the grin on his face from a second ago’s antics fades into the harsh edges of his mask, and suddenly the man is ONE-HUNDRED PERCENT serious. the only thing remaining of his mirth is the way it lingers in the air in the tense moments that now follow it. whiplash, like jack is an entirely different person ;; nothing out of the ordinary there, then.

        “You know that you’re my favorite body double, don’t you Tim? Just... the absolute apple of my eye. You’ve seen me at my lowest, sweetheart, and I do mean that in both the metaphorical way AND the sexy way.” jack leans forward again and pulls out a drawer, doesn’t have to rifle around in it to find what he’s looking for because it’s sitting right on top of everything else. THEIR CONTRACT, from YEARS ago, which he now slides across the desk and taps his finger right where TIMOTHY LAWRENCE had signed along the dotted line. sold his life over to hyperion.

        TO HANDSOME JACK. 

        whose smile is nothing but fake sweetness as he looks at tim now, pulling his hand back and lacing his fingers together under his chin.

hashtag just hair things -- @chiseledjaws -- accepting!

💋 Kisses the top of their head