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Chapter Text

"Long as You Live"

Chapter 1

“Creeping Whispers”

Because Ao3 doesn’t allow crossed out words, or multiple custom fonts, here’s a quick readers guide for y’all!

( This is Jack talking )

[ This is Rhys trying to ignore his thoughts ]

He hisses as the cut starts to bleed. 

'Thin and lean ' he thinks, just a little bit numbly, as he reaches for a rug ' like a paper cut .'

It was dirty, covered in crispy oil and rust, but that was fine. 

He made do with less. 

Shaking his head Rhys tried closing his fist, checking if the cut was deep enough to require stitches [though even if it does he won't get them. The pain helps him stay focused, stay awake, stay himself ], and was relieved to find that it wasn't. 

It just bled a lot.

He tinkers with the robot some more, making sure to press the tools against the wound hard enough to make it hurt, and feels relieved when the pain shoots up his arm, practically setting his nerves on fire. 

Rhys knows he shouldn't like it, shouldn't enjoy getting hurt , knows he should stop . 

But he's far more worried about what will happen if pain isn't there to ground him, keep him whole . 

Because he's splintering , like a broken mirror, with glassy shards falling off the surface and disappearing into nothingness. 

Rhys wasn't just Rhys anymore, would never be just Rhys again. 

Because there was something hiding in the darkness that lurked beneath the mirror. 

Just waiting for enough of Rhys to disappear so it can take his place. 

'I'm in control. '

Rhys thinks as he takes in shaky breaths, his eyes staring into the inky darkness of his bedroom and flesh arm gripping the covers a bit too tightly. 

Sitting up he activated his ECHOeye’s night vision to take a precautionary look around the room. It was exactly the same as he left it… three hours ago before bed: large, filled to the brim with junk, and as luxurious as his income as CEO allowed it to be. 

It was fine, it should be fine. 

But something still felt… off. [He's gone gone gone away ]

He shakes his head as if to throw the feeling away, and wishes Sasha was here, wishes she hadn’t left, wishes he wasn’t so… wrong . 

His robotic arm is laying in the far corner of the room, charging peacefully. Rhys doesn't trust it anywhere near him when he's unconscious. [ I watched him disappear .]

He doesn't [ want to ] remember what the nightmares were about.

Just that he wasn't able to breathe. 

( Your mind is playing tricks on you, my dear )

One night he wakes up to the feeling of his face being burned .

He remembers screaming and trying to tear it off [make it stop, make it stop , make it stop! ]. 

He remembers seeing the concerned looks on his friend's faces the next day. 

[ He remembers seeing the upside down "V" symbol scratched into his face .]

Rhys never found out what was behind Jack's mask as, unlike his broken family, it wasn't something the tyrant was prone to expositing about during the last minutes of his life.

But then he sees the way Athena looks at the fresh wound on his face, and knows exactly what was under that mask.  

The next time he dreamed the world was on fire, people were screaming and there was a monster tearing Pandora apart. 

Someone was laughing. 

He was laughing. 

But it was not his voice.

"She doesn't hate you, Rhys." Janey says over the ECHO one day. 

"Does she mean me ," he says, voice rough and brittle against his tongue. "Or him ?"

He doesn't think Athena can see the difference anymore.

Janey doesn't reply, and Rhys gets his answer.

'I'm in control. '

Rhys thought as he looked into the eyes of his mirror counterpart [ pointedly avoiding the fading wound scratched onto his face] . 

His hands were shaking against the steady stream of warm water, and his eyes were red.

He doesn't know why he came in here, why he left the board meeting in the middle of a presentation, [ why he doesn't remember getting up and walking] and it scares him enough to nearly trigger a heart attack. 

He closes his eyes, takes a breath, and counts to ten, because he can't afford a breakdown. 

Not right now, not when everything has been going so well . 

By the end of his exercise he thinks he's ready to go back. 

And then the feeling is back. The icky stickiness between his fingers that started to haunt him ever since he- ever since .

Automatically he dumps his metallic hand under the running water. 

It's boiling hot now, nearly enough to leave burns (he really needs to do something about that boiler) and begins to rub his fingers with his organic ones. 

He doesn’t question why he can feel stickiness with his metal arm that doesn’t have any receptors ( Isn’t it obvious? ). He doesn’t question why it happens during board meetings. He doesn't question why he doesn't flinch back from the scalding heat. 

Doesn’t question why it bothers him so much. 

( You’ve always been so adorably squeamish, princess. )

He doesn’t question anything . 

( So unlike you, Rhysie... ) 

He doesn’t want to know .

( I think you already do. )

The wound on his face keeps getting deeper and deeper every night.

His hand gets out of the restraints that tie it to the bed, and claws at the 'V' symbol until the fingers are sticky with blood. 

Rhys couldn't rely on LB to always be there to hold him down [ what would happen if he was alone and couldn’t make it stop? ] so Tanis gives him muscle relaxers. 

( They won't work, Rhys ) Time will tell if they give the desired effect. 

  'I'm alone. '

Rhys tells himself that every time he's in the elevator.  ( Did you really think it would be that easy? )

Surrounded by nothing but his own reflection staring back at him with the same wide blue eyes, tight lips and disheveled hair, he should feel safe. ( God you really are stupid )

It's only him . ( You keep telling yourself that, Princess )

But those eyes were just a bit too yellow, those lips were just a bit too frowny, and that hair was just a bit too perfect. ( I’m what you see when you face the mirror. )

They were his reflections…

But it wasn't him . ( Long as you live , I will still be here. )

'I'm alone. ' 

It was a lie. 

A big horrendous lie but it's one he's willing to put his all into believing. ( I can't wait to see your face… )

It's easier to accept than… than…

The thought that he failed and he's still here. ( Once it all finally clicks into place ) 

Now in the bathroom, Rhys takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and prepares himself for his return to the office. 

He's about to turn on his heels and walk out... when he sees it . 

The thing that nearly shattered whatever pretences he may have kept up. 

There, written on the steamy mirror in big bold letters was a single sentence. 

MISS ME, KITTEN?

Rhys makes LB shatter the mirror the very same day. 

He didn’t miss the concerned look the robot sent him at the odd request, he just chose to ignore it.

It's easier that way.

Footage of the bathroom hidden camera shows him writing the message with his metal arm, a big smirk on his face and left eye glowing a blinding yellow. 

Rhys erases the recording and destroys the camera.

It didn't happen if there is no proof.  

He avoids reflective surfaces ever since the incident with the bathroom mirror. 

No evidence, no proof. 

Rhys obsesses about it so much, his mind feels like a broken record. 

He considers, briefly, getting rid of the ECHOEye, and replacing it with a glass one.

His work would be considerably harder without the constant connection to the Atlas Network but he made do without it once, and he can do it again. 

Then Rhys remembered that he [Jack] could smile and play the part of the ex-Hyperion stooge flawlessly, remembers that he has done it before, back on Helios… and [tries to forget] that no one [not even Vaughn] noticed the change. 

[Somewhere Jack is laughing, and Rhys's eye is burning a blinding gold.]

Maybe he'll let it stay after all...

It only gets worse when Rhys meets Lilith, the leader of the Crimson Raiders. 

She takes one look at him… and instantly sees someone else. 

"I can see him in your face ." 

Lilith doesn't specify, she doesn't have to. 

And that's probably what sickens him the most.

( Can't you see ?)

Rhys forgets how to breathe. 

(You are me!)

He doesn't deal with the Crimson Raiders again. 

Or at least he tries not to. 

He looks at the large statue given to him by the Children of Helios, glittering gold in the harsh sunlight.

It stood there as another reminder, along with the ruins of Helios, of what he's done , of who he's beaten[ , of all the people he's killed to make it happen], and of what he has risen above . 

To the employees that managed to escape the carnage Rhys brought upon Helios with his return, it was a symbol of freedom, of victory over an oppressive lifestyle. 

To Sasha and Fiona it was a constant reminder that their greatest enemy is dead and buried. Gone forever. 

To Lilith it was little more than a block of gold with the face of a murderer, and Rhys's name crudely scribbled across it's chest. 

During the first few days as the Atlas CEO it was a constant reminder of what [ who ] he could have been [a body of a madman ], a warning of what he could still become if he lets his newfound power corrupt him. 

Now…

It was worse than facing a mirror.

Because it made it [,the feeling of dread, of falling ] feel that much more real .

'It's Jack but with Rhys's name.' Vaughn explained to any new recruit that wanted to learn the story behind it.

Rhys wondered how easily that statement could become: 

'It's called Rhys but it's really Jack .' 

[He ( He ?) wonders how long before it morphs into:]

['It's Jack. He's Rhys .']

He still lies to himself two months later though the line is different. 

This time he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and thinks. 

' I'm still me .' 

Chapter Text

"Long as You Live"

Chapter 2

“He's here and they're not”

Sometimes, when he feels particularly hopeless bold, Rhys returns to the bathroom mirror.

' To fix up his hair .' He tells whoever bothers to ask. But that's a lie. 

He goes there to look at his reflection, to see him , to see Rhys . 

The man who killed all those innocent people got out of the Fall of Helios alive . 

The man who invited a madman into his head went against Handsome Jack, one on one, and won . 

He looks into the mirror to remind himself that he did it, he came out on top. 

Not August and his cronies, not Sasha and Fiona. Not even Handsome Goddamn Jack . 

Rhys . 

So he gazed bravely into the mirror, catching his own hollow determined eyes and Handsome Jack is staring right back for a second, he can actually believe it.

That he won . 

It's a pity he really really didn't.

He tries not to think about it, you know?

About Helios and everything that transpired on that cursed space station.

But it's hard to ignore a corpse when it's decaying right before your very eyes. 

So he thinks about it, about them .

The ones who betrayed stayed beside him. 

About Vaugh ( His nervous laughter as he tries to wipe away the spilled coffee on Rhys's shirt, the stiff giggles as he warily eyed his metal limb, "Sorry, I didn't see you there." He was lying, though Rhys didn't know that at the time. It was always easy to forget that, even with his soft voice and scrawny body, Vaughn was no less a shark than the rest of them. Or even more so, now that he thinks about it. How sincere could their friendship be if the first thing Vaughn ever said to him was a lie?).

About Yvette ( The confidence emitting from her in waves as she pokes him in the rib, and announces he wants to buy her lunch. He knows he shouldn't, but he's just so in awe of her transparency, something so rarely found on the two-faced Helios, that he gives in to the demand purely as a thank you for the refresher. She was always open with her intentions to use him, always . And yet, somehow, her betrayal hurt just as much as Vaughn's did.)

When they all finally got to sit at the same lunch table, he remembered thinking ' Man, using them will be easy. ' Like the stupidly naive upstart he was.

That was the plan.

To use them just like Handsome Jack used all his friends in the past. 

Rhys should have known this was never going to work. Should have realized that, however much he styles his hair to look just like that of his idol, he can never actually be as heartless and cruel as Jack. ( Oh I am nowhere near your level, princess.)

But he was stupid back then.

So so stupid and so so naive.

It never occurred to past-Rhys that he may actually grow to like these people and care about their wellbeing, didn't think he was capable of catching something as debilitating and irresponsible as feelings , didn't think he'd fall into the trap that dooms nearly every known hero in fairy tales, because he was supposed to be the bad guy . 

But he did. Ensnared by Vaughn's nerdy soul that was so similar to his it almost hurt, and Yvette's go-get-it attitude and friendly snark, he actually started to think of them as a family team. 

Eventually the 'We'll get to the top together' stopped being empty words, and turned into something he genuinely believed in. As if true friendship actually happened on the shark infested Helios. 

He has to wonder if that was all part of the plan for them, because, now that he thinks about it, Vaughn wasn't surprised to hear Yvette demand lunch from him when being told about it. He just shrugged and continued munching on his sandwich, as if it happened before.

Maybe they tried this tactic on other Hyperion employees, and Rhys was the only one dumb enough to fall for it. 

He wondered how many times they sat in Yvette's room while he was away, and laughed at how soft and gullible he is for a 'Handsome Jack fanboy'. 

Because that's what he is. 

Soft and gullible. 

He trusted Vaughn and Yvette, despite knowing that they are vipers with sweet poisonous words on their tongues. 

He trusted Fiona and Sasha, despite knowing that they're both a con artist and a honey trap. Hell, he was stupid enough to fall in love with the latter. I must have been the easiest mark in the world .

He trusted Jack despite the fact that he's a dangerous psychopath known for killing his allies, and only looking out for himself. 

"I look out for my team." He says as he pumps his Enforcer full of poison, and replaces his daughter's blood with pure eridium. There is no one on that team, other than Jack.

In the end Rhys utterly failed at the one thing he set out to do: Be exactly like his idol. 

But in hindsight, he might actually be worse .

Because Handsome Jack, despite all his faults, at least had the common sense to kill those who betrayed him.

Rhys let his traitors live . 

Not only that, he forgave and saved them for trying to kill him, like the messiah that he's not , and still continues to call them 'friends'. 

He's so fucking stupid .  

No wonder Jack Fiona continues to laugh at him even after everything he did. 

It takes a depressingly long time for Rhys to realize what was happening. 

It started with Vaughn deciding to take a bunch of Children of Helios stragglers and start his own bandit camp somewhere near the crash site. 

"The corporate scene is just not for me anymore, bro." He announced one day, smiling his easy smile and clapping him on the shoulder. A gesture so achingly familiar that Rhys immediately forgets his resolve to tell him about still hearing Jack. "I'll go back to the wastelands with the Johnson's and Betty, give those guns of yours a bit of a workout, and set camp." The Johnson's are a group of three brothers and an adopted sister that took to Pandora's insanity-inducing atmosphere a little quicker than most. Usually docile, but Rhys heard rumors that the youngest, Jaime, once bit someone's ear off for looking at him funny. He doesn't recognize the name 'Betty'. "You know the drill." He doesn't. "I get it's a bit sudden, and totally not what we're used to but hey! Free advertisement! We can even use your colors for our flag!" 

He doesn't want Vaughn to go, especially not somewhere where he can't follow, but he also doesn't want him to be miserable. 

Though a small, selfish part of Rhys, wishes he was slimy enough to guilt trip him into staying. 

So he plasters a smile that he hopes is convincing on his face, gives him a thumbs up, and says "Sure, bro. Give them hell out there, okay?" 

Vaughn was gone the next day, leaving Rhys with the sound of a dead man laughing.  

Rhys doesn't realize they were their best technicians until much later.  

He tries to tell himself that Vaughn didn't know, that it's just a coincidence that he chose some of the most essential people to take and make a bandit camp with.

But even he knows he's lying.

It doesn't end there.

Yvette tells him she's going to town to gather some supplies with Bernard, Sammy and Angelica, some of the strongest Children of Helios they had, and never comes back. 

A week later, after he mobilized his small Atlas forces to look for them, Rhys finds her name randomly scrolling through a list of possible delegation candidates from Maliwan. 

Maliwan. 

The company responsible for seventy percent of all Atlas employee deaths. 

The company that steals Rhys's designs and sells them as their own, forcing him to grit his teeth in frustration and go back to the drawing board because he doesn't have enough power to do something about it. 

Other companies would side with Maliwan anyway. They all look at him like he's just another mask for Jack to play pretend with, while he tries to imagine a world where they're wrong. 

He lets out a broken chuckle. 

Of course she chose Maliwan. 

She wouldn't be Yvette if she didn't choose the path that would cripple him the most.  

At last now he knows who the mole was. 

Loader Bot and Gortys leaving feels like a sucker punch to an open wound. 

"We wish to spend time with Mother." LB says, like it's a temporary arrangement Rhys knows it's not and they'll be back by Monday.

Rhys swallows down the mounting terror jealousy (when did Fiona become 'mom', anyway?), and tries not to look too crushed by this revelation.

"It's not like we don't love you, Rhys." Gortys says when Rhys chokes out asks why. "We just wanted to visit mom, that's all! And I've never been to Opportunity before! Oh! We'll send you a postcard! You can stick it on the coffee machine!" 

He's supposed to be angry. 

He's supposed to feel angry and sad and betrayed, but Rhys simply can't bring himself to do it in the face of Gortys' innocent childlike wonder. 

She doesn't deserve to be stuck with him anyway.

So he smiles his one-million-dollar smile, his own little mask against the world, and wishes them a safe trip. 

The smile doesn't fool LB. 

Nothing he does ever fools LB Except when his eye glows a blinding gold, and he's little more than an angry voice in his head.

"Are you alright, Father?" It's almost cruel in a way how LB uses that nickname now, when he's leaving him for another person. 

He wonders, briefly, if the robot realizes Rhys will be all alone with him once they're gone, but quickly decides it doesn't matter. 

He's all alone anyway.

"I'm fine, LB." Rhys tries for a genuine smile but it ends up a pained grimace if the concerned look on Gortys' faceplate is anything to go by. 

"Are you sure, Rhys?" She's starting to reconsider, he can hear it in the tone of her voice but lacks the strength to feel grateful anymore. 

"Yeah." He manages to whisper.

What would be the point?

Everyone leaves eventually. 

"I'm sure." 

He wondered about it, honestly. 

About how long it would take for Sasha to grow tired of him. To bore of him. 

It took longer than he thought, and shorter than he hoped. 

In the end Rhys doesn't even know what he did to make her leave. 

She left no note, no words, no explanation… just an empty bed. 

He tried calling, to ask if she plans on coming back, but gave up after noticing her ECHO laying forgotten on the couch.

Even if Sasha did return she wouldn't get the old ECHO back because he, a little vindictively, used it's parts to make sure Dumpy Jr doesn't have the same disabilities as his predecessor. 

It made him feel a bit better, even if hearing one of the custom ringtones he programmed into her ECHO go off still makes him feel like his heart's being ripped out. 

Rhys has heard nothing from either of the Con sisters ( Some friends you got there, Rhysie ) , until one fateful day when his own ECHO's jingle pulled him out of thought. 

It was a message. 

From Sasha. 

And it was a picture of her and August kissing and flashing their engagement ring to the camera. 

He should feel something. 

Rhys knows he should. 

He loved her , really loved her, and she… and she…

( She just set the trap, Rhysie. 

You're the one who let the teeth dig into your throat with a smile on your face, and a glint in your eye. )

Used that. 

There is no other way to put it. 

Ha. 

And she said Hyperion was bad. 

At least there he didn't have to worry about his heart being broken. Everyone knows nothing is real on Helios.

But Pandora was supposed to be different, she was supposed to be different. 

Turns out nothing is real anywhere. 

( My little Rhysie, walking around thinking he's a real boy, with hopes and dreams and aspirations, when he's nothing more than a puppet dangling from a puppeteer's hand. 

Look at yourself boy.

Look what happened the second you cut yourself loose. 

You're not made for this, Rhysie. 

You're not meant to be a real boy. 

Just a cog in the machine. )

So he just accepted it. 

Just like he accepted that Vaughn left, that Yvette betrayed him, and that even his robot children friends would rather go than stay. 

There are already so many holes in what used to be his life. 

What's one more? 

Feeling the hollowness in his chest grow in size, he picks up his ECHO and texts back "so that's where you went". 

The pic gets deleted not five seconds later, and replaced by a pathetic little "Sorry, wrong number".

Of course. 

He doesn't consider August to be a friend any more than he considered Scooter one. 

They were both Sasha's… boyfriends. 

Or whatever she called them. 

( Marks, Rhysie, they were marks. 

Just like you. )

Scooter was… well…

He was easily the best person Rhys has ever met, and definitely the least deserving to die out of all of them. 

If life was only robbed of those who deserve it the least, I would be dead long before making my first step onto Helios.

August was a different matter altogether. 

Being both the person who spent the majority of, what is now affectionately called, the 'Gortys Adventure' antagonizing Rhys and his friends, and a possible rival for Sasha's affections I never stood a chance, did I? , their relationship was… strained to say the least. 

Rhys himself doesn't hate August he can't bring himself to hate much of anyone nowadays ,the man was just doing his job, and that's something he can respect. But he had no illusions about the other man's feelings for him. 

The blonde hated him, had hated him since the day they met in Shade's backroom. And with good reason, really. 

Rhys did shoot him in the arm when he was controlling Dumpy. 

And threw up on him. Though that was an accident. 

Since then they haven't spoken much, though Rhys did try to express his sorrow at the loss of Valory but that went about as well as everything else did ( Couldn't even do that right, huh, Rhysie. ) They did have business with each other, occasionally, but most of the transactions were done via proxies like Zer0 and Tector. 

The Atlas president thought a line was drawn between them, a clear indication of where they stood with each other.

Then Rhys gets a wedding invitation from an unknown number on his ECHO signed 'A', and ends up not knowing what to think.

Was this an attempt to bury the hatchet, or an insult to injury? A taunting message saying "Look what I have and you don't". 

For a second he allowed himself to get excited, to hope. 

Was he supposed to go? 

Could he? (Not really, they haven't even met the half-quarter quota yet, and the workers would definitely lose all motivation if they heard he wasn't there to scold them)

Should he?  

What would he wear? What should he bring? Does that mean everyone else got invited? Should he bring a plus one? Should he be on time or a little late?

…

Did that mean Sasha wanted him to come?

But then the voice came back. The one he tried so hard to ignore.

( Don't be pathetic , Rhysie )

And it all came tumbling down. 

' Well .' Rhys thought, his two fingers, one of metal and one of flesh, hovering over the keyboard.

' It was nice while it lasted. ' 

The ECHO laid on the desk, blinking offline after sending a single message. 

"Sorry, wrong number."

"Is there something wrong with me?" Rhys asked the mirror in his empty house. 

Jack's his voice was so frequent now that everyone's else is gone...

It was only a matter of time before Rhys started talking back. 

Jack doesn't respond. 

He never does. 

Not when it's wanted, anyway. 

That's okay though.

He knows the answer is 'yes'.   

Chapter Text

"Long as You Live"

Chapter 3

“Alone yet surrounded”

Three weeks after Gortys and LB left for Opportunity Rhys started… seeing things.

People he's never met, moments he wasn't there for, sometimes even entire locations he never knew existed.

He is too afraid to ask Tannis what it means.

So he just accepts it.

Just like everything else.

Or at least… he tries to.

It's kinda hard when you walk through the meeting room door, and find yourself on Elpis's He's never been on Elpis. All he's known of it was what he was able to see in Jack's Office, seconds before everything got raised to the ground rocky terrain, or in some secret bunker on Pandora He shouldn't know it's on Pandora but he does .

Rhys tries to not let it show, to keep it under wraps.

The last thing he needs is for people to spread rumors that he's losing it and deciding to relieve him of his post He can't handle an onslaught of Opportunity Vault Hunters tearing Atlas apart trying to get to Jack's new skin suit.

It's easier when he sees people. Makes it feel less lonely.

Like when it's young Athena polishing her shield in the corner, and grunting a quick greeting as he passes by.

Breathe. He tells himself. Just breathe through the rising dread. In out in out in out inoutinoutinoutinout.

Try not to choke on your f e a r

At first they remained in the background, barely stepping into his field of vision.

Sometimes it was Nisha the girlfriend , leaning against Jack's his desk, others it was oh god it's Wilhelm a gruff looking Vault hunter he swore he saw on one of his motivational posters, skulking just behind him like a shadow, and another it was a man wearing Jack's face TimTam's, his name is TimTam's and Rhys shouldn't know this hanging around the water cooler.

On very rare occasions it was a young girl sitting in the corner, with black hair and tubes coming out of her back, that refused to look at him. What the hell did he do to you, Angel?

It wasn't a problem.

All Rhys had to do was not look at them, and he was fine.

He was more worried about Jack's uncharacteristic silence, anyway.

But then, out of nowhere, they started talking to him.

Their voices were scratchy... distant .

As if they were underwater, and far away.

As if they were memo- stop

And when they did...

" Hey Jack, I'm back from my mission. Got anything else for me?"

" You don't pay me enough for this, Jack."

" This better be good, Jack, or I'm leaving."

They called him Jack .

He doesn't question it he does it with a lot of things nowadays , and does his best to ignore its existence altogether. It's not about making the fear go away, it's about making it bearable. And Rhys has become a master at making it bearable .

They had a routine.

The illusions say something, Rhys closes his eyes, counts to ten, and they leave.

A simple solution that caused the naive man to think this was the end of it.

It wasn't.

One day it simply stopped working, and they began talking over the real people the Atlas CEO was actually speaking with.

"So as you can see- Jack we managed to capture -show that we're a bit behind schedule- she's now being taken to the lab -there is a way to solve this however- are you sure about this -might have to take one day off the weekends- feels unnecessary -should quell the outrage- Jack are you listening to me? -Mr. Rhys are you listening to me?"

They kept… talking over each other, the new financial advisor and… whoever that was TimTam's. It was TimTam's because Wilhelm was out in the med bay getting his poisoned shot and he shouldn't know this to the point where he couldn't understand what either of them was trying to communicate.

"Sorry, could you... could you run this by me again?" Rhys asks, every single time, keeping his eye on the advisor, the real person of flesh and blood, so that the figments of Jack's imagination don't think he's addressing them.

"You okay, boss?" Came the gentle question and concerned crocodile eyes hunting for a promotion and nothing else, and Rhys misses Vaughn and Sasha and Yvette even more.

"Yeah…" He whispers, the same response on his tongue he always gives.

"Just a bit sleep deprived."

Whatever was happening with him, with his brain , was spreading.

Because, not a week later, the sounds and visuals weren't enough.

He started feeling things too.

Little touches here and there as the phantoms brush against his arms, or the sensation of air touching his skin as they quickly walk past him.

But the feelings weren't limited to touch.

No.

He also felt foreign emotions .

Like burning rage , that wasn't there before, whenever he listens to voicemails from Gortys about talking to Lilith.

Or the fear that fills his stomach whenever he catches Zer0 polishing his katana blade, which is completely unreasonable because the Vault Hunter is a friend, a bro . He wouldn't hurt Rhys ah but it's not Rhys that's afraid now, is it.

The worst though, the worst of them all was the grief .

The all consuming despair that strikes him every time he hears or sees anything relating to family, to children .

To daughters .

It breaks him, mentally breaks him. Causing him to immediately flee the scene and lock himself in his room to cry it out.

It feels like he's failed her, lost her, killed her.

Her death, his fault.

But it's not.

It's n o t .

So he started avoiding it.

The employees that are expecting children, the ones that have children and are gossiping about how much of a pain they are to raise, the ones that want children, everything .

But this talk is everywhere in the main building, as Rhys made it a point to employ ambitious young people much like himself.

So he locks himself in his own office and has Lorelei acting as his proxy/secretary on the promise of getting her a month's worth of Aquator coffee, renowned as the best on the market, as a reward.

He's alone for exactly twenty minutes before the ghosts come back.

Rhys watches them now, bothered by something and unable to concentrate.

Something is different this time.

He just… can't put his finger on it.

So he observes them as they stand on the other side of the room, uncharacteristically silent and far away.

Usually they take immense pleasure in close proximity, treating him to phantom touches and crowding.

Now it seems like they can barely stand being near him.

It should be a relief, this development, a sign that maybe he'll be able to go back to normal at least a little.

It should be but it isn't .

All it does is make him fret, and worry, and wince at the hate in their eyes.

He doesn't know why this is happening and, unlike everything else, Rhys can't ignore something that's looking him right in the eye.

The ECHO is his only salvation then, a reason to look away and focus on something else, but even that doesn't last long, and soon he's looking at them again.

"Why?" Rhys asked them once, when the office was empty and dark, and he was desperate for someone to talk to, to hear a voice that isn't a machine .

"You know why." Surprisingly they answered. All of them, at the same time. Many mouths, one voice.

"You're making a mistake." He replies, monotone and tired. So tired . "I'm not who you think I am."

"Maybe." They agreed, generously, before adding something that makes Rhys feel like all air has been sucked out of his lungs by a vacuum.

"But it won't be long now..."

He pukes into the wastebasket under his desk, and tries not to cry.

' They're lying. ' He thinks, not two minutes later, finally alone in the bathroom.

' They have to be I can't- I'm nothing like him .'

Some, mainly Vaughn, would argue that once upon a time he wanted to be Jack.

He would be wrong but that’s beside the point.

Like any boy with a dream, what he really wanted was Jack's fame, fortune, and admiration , the glory bits of the story. Not the pain, the struggle, the bodies that came before that.

In the end he got his wish in the most literal sense possible.

Because there is scarcely a difference between them now.

Leader of a corporation? Check.

Killer of its previous owner? Check.

Betrayed by those he held most dear? Check.

Mass murderer? C h e c k .

And that's the ugly truth, isn't it.

No matter how much he denies it, how much he protests and kicks and screams.

They're one and the same, he and Jack.

Rhys just hasn't fully committed yet, hasn't called himself Handsome yet.

It's no wonder people confuse them.

It won't be long before Rhys does too.

That realization, acceptance really , is what finally earns him a few days of peace.

No phantoms, no nightmares, no wrong reflections in the mirror.

Just… normalcy, calm before the storm no doubt , and for a while it's as if none of those horrible things ever happened.

Like it was just a hallucination, a dream.

But Rhys isn't' stupid. At least… not like he used to be.

So he decided to make the most of the small respite that he's been given, and went to visit Vaughn in the Pandora wastelands.

He tells Lorelei to cancel his meeting with Marcus. The old man wanted a bigger percentage from Atlas sales since the result of Yvette’s betrayal finally hit the market and Rhys wasn’t looking forward to this conversation.

He goes to the nearest New-U station that can spawn him near where he thinks Vaughn’s bandit camp is located. Mostly thanks to Zer0 offhandedly mentioning seeing flags in the color of Atlas red waving in the distance during one of excursions.

Rhys shows up near Sawtooth Cauldron with only his trusty stun baton, and Atlas original electronic glasses that adjust to the wearer’s eyesight as a gift for his friend.

He knows this is dangerous, that he should have at least told someone where he’s going, but part of him welcomed the danger… for not so good reasons.

He would later reason that it gave him the one thing he lacked during those following weeks.

Control.

Pandora is not a sterile and safe environment like Atlas headquarters are, where Rhys is surrounded by people who would protect him, and where he can spend all day being possessed in an office, no.

This was a wild and unpredictable planet where every single thing can and will kill you.

Rhys can't get distracted on Pandora if Jack he wants to live.

And living is one thing they can both agree on.

Half-way there he does decide to activate the call function in his ECHO eye in case Lolerei needed to contact him, or he actually gets into shit and needs Zer0’s help, because he might be a dumbass but he’s not suicidal.

Not yet at least.

Hopefully he'll never cross that line.

At first all he can see is the unforgiving desert wasteland going on for miles and miles on end, then it gets spiced up with a few skags fighting over bandit corpses.

Typical Pandora.

He can't believe how much he actually missed being on this dustball.

The Skags take one look at him as he passes by, and must have decided his skinny ass isn't worth the trouble because they quickly go back to chomping on decayed meat.

Even monsters chose corpses over him.

It's not long before he finally spots the bandit camp flags against one of the suns, Atlas red just as Vaughn promised. And, for the first time in what feels like decades , he feels at peace.

He'll get to see his best friend again, they'll get to be a team again.

He'll tell him about the nightmares, the voices, the ghosts, and Vaughn will hug him and say everything is going to be alright. That he's coming back with him to Atlas here now, and that this whole thing with their friendship being fake and Yvette betraying him was just a giant misunderstanding Rhys doesn't have to bear this alone anymore.

It will be just like it was always meant to be the good old days.

It was a shame the building was long empty.

He comes back to Atlas feeling like someone turned off all the lights in his mind, his thoughts a mix of white noise and cotton.

Going through the motions of swiping his Atlas card on the New-U station, greeting Lorelei at the front desk, and finger-gunning any passing employee, he feels more machine than man.

Like the flesh is the bits that were attached to the metal, not the other way around.

The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.

He tries to ignore it, the hollow feeling of nothing between his ribs, but it's like trying to disregard a black hole sucking your insides dry.

You can't . It won't let you.

Not until it's done .

' He didn't even leave a note .' The part of his brain that wasn't entirely replaced by wires, whimpered out. ' No phone call, no message on the ECHO, no informat… nothing. '

He just…

Left.

Just like Yvette and Shasha and Fiona and Gortys and LB.

It's just him now.

Him and his g h o s t s .

Once he gets behind closed doors Zer0 pings him to ask if he managed to find what he was looking for.

It's odd, he thinks to himself, watching the letters on the blue screen, because… in a strange way, he believes he did.

He may not have found what he wanted…

But he found what he needed.

Confirmation Closure.