Tag: spacetext

Hey! I’m gonna go ahead and start the CAH game now: link can be found here. Password is Rhack777. 

If you’d like to chat, you can go to the temporary discord here to do so! This is only for CAH games and you will be kicked from it when you disconnect (don’t worry, if I do another game I will send out another invite). 

Warning that the cards for this game are very NSFW. Additionally, while there are generic Borderlands cards here and there, most of them are heavily Rhack-based. If you aren’t okay with either of those things I would recommend not playing this game. 

“A Quiet Night on a Dark Country Road”

This kid looked different. Even with his body broken by grievous injuries, Jack could tell he was taller and longer-limbed than most omegas, and his clothes weren’t exactly the fancy couture worn by the high-class mates of Jack’s associates. Plain shirt and tie and pants, like he’d just been plucked by one of Hyperion’s own cubicle farms.

The blood looked black thanks to the night, looked like something was eating the omega alive. It covered his entire body, soaking into his clothes and matted into his hair. Jack could see every awful detail as he knelt by him, hand floating out to caress the sliver of air around his skull, suddenly too afraid to touch him.

What you’ve all been waiting for…finally the amnesia AU from months ago. This doesn’t encompass all my ideas for this story, so if you wanna see more, let me know.

Jack had sobered up over an hour ago, just as the party started winding down. Jack only bothered telling a handful of people goodbye, too tired to pretend to care about the rest of the nobodies gathered, most of who had spent half the night transparently trying to curry his favor. Now only thinking about how much he wanted to be in his own bed, he’d gotten into his car and flicked on his favorite, late-night radio station.

He sped out of the city, out of suburbia, the neon lights illuminating the world around him gradually fading and shrinking as he drove further into the countryside. Someday his commute felt like a bitch, and more than once he’d considered buying a penthouse in the city for the weekdays, but tonight, with nothing but the moon glowing on the road and grass and shifting trees around him he felt as peace even as he pushed eighty miles on the speedometer.

By the time he turned off of the highway and onto the road that’d lead him to his estate, he’d almost completely zoned out—to the point where he almost didn’t see the body laying prone in the middle of the asphalt.

Jack’s head rocked violently forward and back against the seat rest as he stomped on the breaks. His spine twinged, straps of the seatbelt biting so hard into his chest he’d probably have bruises their later. He swore, smacking his palms against the steering wheel as he caught his stunned breath, before straining in his seat and trying to get a good view of the road in front of him, but all he could make out was a hand laying limp and illuminated by his headlights, the rest now obscured by the hood of his car. His vision popped in lingering pain as he wrenched off the seatbelt and stalked out of his car on wobbly legs to get a proper look.

Above the scent of blood and gas he could eke out the barest scent of something soft and sweet, a scent recognizable by instinct. Jack’s nostrils flared as he sniffed.

Kid was an omega.

…Crap.

Jack had grown use to high-society omegas belonging to new-money families stuck in old-money values, who stayed mostly quiet apart unless spoken to, who dressed to impress but do little else otherwise. Beautiful but placid, decorations rather than people.

Jack’s instinct to bust open stuffy conventions always drove him to strike up conversations with these people, just to watch their alphas heads spin, but they almost never took the bait, leaving Jack more annoyed than anything. Gradually, he’d stopped bothering to try to talk to them.

But this kid looked different. Even with his body broken by grievous injuries, Jack could tell he was taller and longer-limbed than most omegas, and his clothes weren’t exactly the fancy couture worn by the high-class mates of Jack’s associates. Plain shirt and tie and pants, like he’d just been plucked by one of Hyperion’s own cubicle farms.

The blood looked black thanks to the night, looked like something was eating the omega alive. It covered his entire body, soaking into his clothes and matted into his hair. Jack could see every awful detail as he knelt by him, hand floating out to caress the sliver of air around his skull, suddenly too afraid to touch him.

The arm looked bad. The whole of the omega looked bad, but the arm had suffered the worst of whatever’d happened to him. Jack couldn’t  make out much aside from blood and bone, like someone had taken a hammer to the kid’s forearm and just kept whacking.

The mindless anger ignited by the first sight of the downed omega just kept building until Jack’s fingers trembled with rage and adrenaline. His alpha brain tore viciously between two base needs, for a moment leaving him paralyzed as he suddenly needed to track down whoever had done thing and rip their knot clean off their body. Thankfully, the weight of the injured omega in his arms helped to ground him, and after a few seconds of uselessly gnashing his teeth and indulging violent fantasies he worked his arms further beneath the injured man, gentling him against his chest in a protective hold.

The omega whimpered at the shift, his voice stretched and broken as his body. Jack stayed still, half cradling him in his arms as he let the omega rest his head against his shoulder.

“Shhh. Kitten. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” There was a patch of hair atop the omega’s head not crusted with blood and gravel. Jack pressed a careful kiss there, hoping it might help him relax as he murmured into his scalp.

“Don’t worry….gonna get you help.”

Calling an ambulance never crossed Jack’s mind. His estate lay far out in the countryside, surrounding on all ends by miles of grounds even he hadn’t fully explored. Barely anyone apart from himself and his staff drove these roads, and even the most experienced driver would probably get lost all the way out here. At the very least, it would take way too long for any emergency personnel to get here. Jack had an on-property doctor. It was just logical.

The less logical part of his brain was loathe to hand off this omega to anyone else, even if they were trying to to save his life.

Jack propped the omega against his chest as he eased the passenger’s side door open, before sliding him into the seat as carefully as he could muster. Things went smoothly, up until the point where he tried to pull the seatbelt across the omega’s chest. A pitiful whine suddenly choked out of the omega’s throat as he jerked forward and flecked Jack’s forearm with a mist of blood.

Jack gave up in strapping the seatbelt in lieu of racing to the driver’s seat and starting the car as fast as possible.

The choking fit stopped soon, thankfully—or not, as a sidelong glance to the omega told Jack he’d slipped into worse shape, listing against the car window. In the darkness, illuminated only by the dashboard lights, he couldn’t see if the omega was awake, and only when he dared to lift the hand off the wheel and stick it under his nose could he confirm the omega was still breathing. It brushed up against his finger, weak as the paw of a sick kitten.

Jack’s instincts pushed his foot even harder against the gas pedal.

Once his headlights illuminated the imposing gate of his estate’s front entrance, Jack barely managed to keep his fingers steady enough to punch the proper code into the keypad. When Wilhelm’s gruff voice answered over the loudspeaker he took only seconds to spit out “get Nina, emergency” before he floored it through the slowly opening gates and just barely avoiding scraping the paint off the sides of his car. His tires screeched when he finally came to a halt in front of his mansion, not bothering to pull into the garage as he jammed it into park and raced back around to the other side of the car.

The omega looked grey and felt clammy when Jack cradled him back in his arms, but he groaned at the change in position and fluttered his eyelids up at Jack. Blood smeared his lips from where he’d helplessly tried to wet them. His fingers twitched, curling into his own shirt.

The broad, dark-wood doors of Jack’s mansion banged open, the warm light from inside partially blocked by Wilhelm’s bulk.

“Boss? The hell’s going on?” His voice resounded, hoarse at the lateness of the hour but servile as he met Jack halfway, brows raised as he took in the critically injured omega cradled in the other man’s arms. A snarl rebuked Wilhelm’s attempt to take the omega from Jack, a grunt of understanding passing from between his lips as Jack rushed inside of the mansion with his guard trailing behind him.

“Is Nina awake?” Jack moved as quick as he could towards the east wing, trying to keep the omega in his arms as still as possible. Wilhelm pressed a finger to his earpiece and nodded.

“Said she’d meet us in her office.”

Jack nodded. Nina might not have the best bedside manner, and some of her home remedies occasionally edged into “utter horse-shit” territory, but she knew well enough when an emergency was an emergency and required her utmost attention and skill.

The door to the office opened up as soon as they got close, the heavy sounds of their footsteps alerting Nina to their presence. The medic still wore her slippers and her hair was down and slightly frizzy, with no time to tie them up in the usual buns. Her eyes widened as Jack bustled through, falling on the limp, bloodied man cradled in her boss’s arms.

“Is real emergency, then.” Nina stepped aside and gestured to the medical table in the center of the office. Jack clutched the omega closer to his chest as he walked over, for a moment unwilling to let him go.

What if Nina couldn’t save him? What if Jack had found him too late? Fear paralyzed him for a moment as he clung to that thin omega scent filtering through the heaviness of blood and dirt, and only a broad hand on his shoulder brought him back to reality.

“Boss,” Wilhelm whispered from above him, “set him down.”

Jack swallowed, the nod he gave tight.

“Okay.”

Somehow the omega looked even paler against the med table, skin washed out beneath the exam light. Those black splotches of blood he’d seen on the road now illuminated bright, wet red, the real extent of his injuries evident. Jack moved back, his legs feeling numb and dead, adrenaline draining out of him now that there was nothing left to do but wait and hope for the best.

After a cursory examination Nina ended up calling Gladstone, the surgical assistant similarly stumbling in with hair frazzled and eyes tired. Jack should’ve expected the omega wouldn’t be fixed up with a couple of band-aids, but the uncertainty of surgery had him bobbing his leg and grinding his teeth over where he sat, sandwiched between a wall and Wilhelm’s steady bulk.

“Is bleeding very badly,” Nina told him as she snapped on a fresh pair of gloves, “many broken bones. Will do our best.”

Her sparse words and lack of prognosis didn’t do much to quell his anxiety, leaving Jack hissing and shifting uncomfortably in his seat as they wheel the omega into the adjoining room, leaving him and Wilhelm in the silence interrupted by only the buzzing of the lights. After such a stressful hour, having nothing to do and no news to chew on left Jack with a crap-ton of riled energy with no proper outlet.

“Damn it…damn it…” He eventually hissed, the fingers on his folded arms tapping out an uneven beat. Wilhelm stayed quiet, until Jack started rocking his chair.

“Never thought I’d see you this concerned about an omega.”

Jack grunted, the front legs of his chair clacking back down against the ground. If Wilhelm was merely a hired hand, he might think that was out of line, but well. He and his guard went way back, back before Jack had even clawed into the position of Hyperion’s CEO.

“C’mon. I’m no softie, but even you would’ve stopped and helped if you found an omega smashed across the pavement.”

“Depends. Did I do it?” Wilhelm’s tone was so even and gruff Jack couldn’t even tell if he was joking.

“Ugh. Just. You know how it is.” Jack scuffed his shoe against the linoleum floor, frowning at the smear of blood his sole left behind. “Instincts take over. Seeing one of them all…like that. It just happened.”

“Mmm.” Wilhelm went more quiet after that, staying as a silent but still somewhat comforting presence as Jack waited for more news.

When Nina emerged from the surgery room, Jack prepared himself for the worst even as his stomach tied itself in knots. Thankfully, the news wasn’t as bad as he feared.

“Omega is resting for time being. Very sedated. But stable for now,” Nina dropped her gloves into the hazards box, before letting out a small yawn. “You wish to see him?”

Jack shot up so quickly he nearly lost his balance. He’d been pretty tired too, but now he was wide awake as he followed Nina into the post-op room.

God. The omega looked so much better, even with tubes and bandages covering his skin. At least Nina had washed the blood off and changed his clothes to a starchy blue hospital robe.

The heart monitor beeped, calm and thankfully steady. Jack pulled the chair up to the omega’s bedside and sat, watching his chest move up and down, breath funnel in and out of the cannula in his nose.

He still looked like crap. But at least he wasn’t actively dying anymore.

“Will need plenty of rest,” Nina spoke as she checked the omega’s IV, ensuring everything remained steady. “Don’t know when he will wake up. Hopefully not very long.”

“Sure. Thanks,” Jack mumbled back, distracted by the fact that the omega was—at least for now—all right. He heard Wilhelm mumble a small thanks to Nina before she ambled out, taking Gladstone with her.

“You know…you can go to bed, if you’d like,” Jack said to his guard after a long while spent watching the omega. “I’m…not gonna do much. If I need you I can just call you.”

“I understand.” The other chair in the room scraped up against the floor as Wilhelm took a seat besides his boss, looking sidelong at him as Jack kept staring at the prone omega.  

“This guy’s gonna owe you big time.”

Jack murmured in vague agreement. His eyelids felt heavy, body exhausted from the ordeal, but he didn’t want to sleep just yet, not when it didn’t yet feel real that the omega had lived. That the stench of blood and death had finally been scrubbed from his body, leaving that light, natural scent stronger than before, even under the layer of hospital linens and disinfectant.

Jack woke up the next morning with sunlight filtering through the blinds and his head resting on the edge of the hospital bed.

Memories of the night before came back slowly as he straightened himself up in his seat. He yawned and passed a hand over his mouth before the smells of omega cleared the sleepiness from his eyes. The first thing he saw was the heart monitor, still beeping steadily. A wave of relief passed over him as he swept his eyes over to the bed, where his heart suddenly leapt into his throat.

A pair of eyes—one blue, one brown—watched him from beneath a heavy swath of bandages.

Jack started, the scrape of his chair jarring Wilhelm awake next to him. The other alpha grunted in annoyance but Jack ignored him as he leaned towards the now awake omega, mouth opening and closing as he thought of what he should even say.

“You…you’re awake.” All right, so he was just gonna state the obvious? Way to go.

Jack watched the omega’s brows pinch together in confusion. Hi body tensed as if he wanted to move, but all he mustered was a little whine of pain that stabbed Jack in the chest.

“W…where am I…?” The omega groaned, his voice sounding like it’d been scraped across that pavement too. Jack hushed him, not wanting the kid to strain himself.

“Easy. Let’s just…uh…” Jack’s mind drew a blank, suddenly unsure of how to explain to someone that they’d been found bloodied and near death on a country road.

“You were….injured…I was the one who found you…what a nice guy, right?” Jack chuckles dryly. The omega frowned slightly, but not like he was angry, more like his brain had started to struggle with something.

“I…found me?”

“Yeah.” Jack’s hand slid onto the hospital bed, crinkling towards where the omega’s own lay before he stopped himself and glued it back to his thigh. “You were in pretty bad shape, pumpkin. No clue how you got that way.”

He didn’t want to push the omega since he’d just woke up, but if there was someone looking for him Jack should probably try to figure it out.

“You got a name? Or someone we can call for you, sugar?”

That struggling look on the omega’s face only grew worse at Jack’s words. He screwed up his expression and stuck his tongue out, but a sudden wince forced him to relax into flat bewilderment.

“I…” The omega looked up to Jack, those pretty eyes lost, searching the alpha for help. “I don’t remember.”

Did “Hold on, we’re coming” for the caretaker prompts! TPS AUs where Rhys and Jack were dating and on Elpis together are always interesting. So I took a whack at it. 

Jack shouldn’t have let Rhys go out on a mission. He should’ve kept him in the relative safety of Concordia. The kid could shoot a gun in a pinch, sure, but he’s nowhere near the level of the other vault hunters Jack hired, who apparently aren’t as good as they advertised, if they allowed Rhys to be snatched out from under their noses by a pack of scavs.

But Jack has already laid into them, and as much as he wants to rage further time’s a ticking, and he needs their help if he’s gonna storm a nest of scavs and get his boyfriend out unscathed.

Jack hates the idea of Rhys in the clutches of these frikkin’ pricks, as if being trapped on the moon away from home isn’t bad enough. He doesn’t want to know how much worse things could get, so he needs to get to Rhys as fast as possible and rip him away from their filthy hands.

He barely hears the thump of his boots as they tramp over the dust of the Outlands, the rest of his pack of hired hunters trailing behind him. He hasn’t spoken to them much aside from the initial reprimanding and a couple barked commands, doesn’t know if any of them feel guilty at all for letting his boyfriend fall into the wrong hands. Wilhelm seems impassive, focused on the mission, while Nisha looks indifferent. Athena and his double are the only ones who appear any sliver as worried as Jack is—the latter probably only because he fears what Jack will do to them if they don’t find Rhys in time.

“You four are damn lucky I can still pick up on Rhysie’s tracker,” Jack growls, shooting a tork out of the way as he bounces towards the oncoming scav encampment. “For your sake, there better not be a scratch on hi—“

Jack stops dead in his tracks as his ECHO sudden crackles, audio filled with a familiar whimper that has the programmer’s heart seizing. The hunters behind him nearly knock him over as they struggle to stop their own momentum, but Jack isn’t thinking about his team or the fact that Wilhelm is stepping on his foot as Rhys’ voice filters over the speaker of his communicator.

“Rhysie? Baby, is that you?” Jack practically yells back, clinging to this sudden scrap of hope. The ECHO’s audio stirs rhythmically, the person on the other end panting far too close to the receiver.

“Y-Yeah…” Rhys’ voice is weak, but there. He’s alive.

“Are you hurt? How many scavs do I have to blow up?” Jack tries to joke, but his anger flows through nonetheless.

“My head hurts…also I…fuck, they tried to screw up my arm…” A tense moan flits out from the ECHO.

“Easy, easy. Hold on, pumpkin, we’re coming,” Jack promises, keeping the line open as he continues to lead his team towards the compound, blood boiling hotter at the little pained noises coming in from the other end.

And then the noises stop, and Jack breaks out into a sprint.

Thankfully, when the rest of the compound lies in ruins, with it’s inhabitants scattered and splattered around the rocky terrain, Jack finds that Rhys has only passed out.

He’s a little bloody and bruised, and one of the plates on his arm is open and spilling wires, but other than that he looks pretty okay. Jack crouches besides him and carefully pats his cheek until Rhys opens his eyes.

“Hey…”

“H-Hey yourself…” Jack shakes his head, face relaxing with relief as he leans in to rest their foreheads together. “For a moment there I was really freaked out that I’d lost you.”

“Heh…don’t freak out…figure this is good hero practice, right?” A small smile forms across Rhys’ lips as Jack’s arms slip under his lanky body. “You’re getting a lot better at this…”

“Save it for when we retake Helios, ‘kay pumpkin?” Jack supports Rhys’ head against his shoulder as he carefully lifts him up in his arms. His body protests a bit, a bit battered from the fight, but strong enough to carry his boyfriend back to Concordia.

Honestly though? With Rhys safe and sound in his arms, his entourage of vault hunters trailing behind him, and the blood splattered against his boots—he feels very much the triumphant hero he really wants to be.

for all you “rhys hiding his pregnancy” anons

rhys going into work trying to pretend everything is fine, wearing false scents and trying to act as normal as possible so jack won’t suspect a thing. hes switched to decaf coffee and is trying to eat better but overall has kept his schedule the same out of worry that jack will figure something is up. but one day at work this catches up with him and he faints in front of his boss, maybe twists or hurts his ankle on the fall down, and jack is immediately confused and nosy and calls up a medic to check his PA out…

Ooh man I reblogged some hc/caretaker prompts earlier and one of them was “I won’t let you fall” and MAN I just had to write that

God I love things like this so much

It takes a second too long for Jack to realize what’s happening.

Pandora’s earthquakes aren’t exactly uncommon, but Jack usually likes to deal with them on flat ground rather than up on this spire-like outcropping casing the spot for a new ECHOnet tower. Not that the rumbling and sudden cascade of rocks didn’t certainly startle him, but he thinks that will be it, and they will just have to keep an eye out for aftershocks until they can get the hell off this planet.

Jack doesn’t even realized Rhys is standing that close to the edge of cliff when it happens—and that is because he isn’t, he’s separated from the long drop by a group of soldiers, up to the point where the quake causes the rocks to crumble and create a new cliff right under Rhys’ feet.

Jack’s heart plummets into his hips as Rhys teeters back on the sudden brink, arms pinwheeling as his eyes grow wide and terrified. It almost looks funny, and Jack almost wants to laugh to diffuse the fear, but then Rhys is actually falling. At the last second the PA manages to throw himself forward, chin and chest slamming hard into the ground as the rest of his body vanishes from Jack’s view.

Rhys just barely clutches at the edge of the unstable cliff as Jack starts running, his hands clumsily digging into the earth as he struggles to keep from falling. His nails claw long lines in the red sand, and Jack can sense he’s slipping, unable to hold on much longer as the ground still trembles minutely beneath him.

Jack’s feet are moving faster than the scene around him as time itself stops to observe his heroics. He drops his gun and sprints to the edge as Rhys slips away, inch by inch. Jack lunges just as Rhys disappears with a scream, desperation and adrenaline shooting him forward.

His belly scrapes agains the rocky ground as he skids forward, nearly sliding off the edge of the cliff himself as he snatches Rhys’ flailing yellow hand. He gasps at the air nearly knocked from his lungs and the sudden yank of weight at the connection between his arm and shoulder. He clenches his teeth so tightly together he feels he might grind them into dust as he digs his toes into the ground, halting his slide even as Rhys’ struggling weight tries to pull him all the way over the edge. Rhys kicks out in terror, one of his skagskin boots already lost down the cliffside.

“K-Kiddo—stop—stop—!” Jack grits out, fingers clenched in a death grip around Rhys’ wrist so tenuous he doesn’t dare sweat.

The kid is bone-white, utterly terrified beyond all reason as he dangles like a lure from the unstable cliff, trying to quell his panicked movements. People behind Jack are shouting, words that don’t make sense to him like “slope stability” and “soil liquefaction.” All he cares about is saving Rhys, anyway, so their concerns and noises are irrelevant.

“Jack—“ Rhys croaks, voice weak and reedy above the whistle of the wind and the echo of the cascading rocks. His body hangs above the dizzying drop, colors of red and blue and yellow a contrast against the faded and rusty grey terrain of the earth below. From this high up Jack can’t make out what the bottom exactly looked like, but considering the distance there’s no way Rhys would survive. The reality of the fate he’s just snagged Rhys from should make him queasy, but with adrenaline pumping through his veins all he can really think about is getting his PA up and out of danger.

“Don’t worry pumpkin, don’t worry,” the words drain out of his mouth, as if pulled down and out by gravity, “I’m not gonna let you fall.”

Some might consider it a bad move to ever trust someone like Handsome Jack, even if they were dangling off a cliff and held into the world of the living only by his hand. Others might cut off their hand themselves to spare the indignity of getting rescued by him. But Rhys—Rhys who has stuck by his side no matter what, Rhys who hasn’t for a moment ever shown a lick of betrayal or mistrust, Rhys who feels safe enough to fall asleep on Jack’s own couch—swallows around the tense lump in his throat, nods, and actually closes his eyes.

Jack’s grip tightens harder around his PA’s wrist.

Though he can feel the hands of his guards start to grip onto his hips and waist, trying to pull him back from the edge, Jack knows he’ll have to yank Rhys up the rest of the way himself if he wants to see him out of this. He tenses his jaw, summoning all the battered strength in his upper body as he lifted violently upwards with one hand.

The armored fingers of his soldiers grab at his shoulders as Jack tries to lever himself up, all joints in his arm screaming as he struggles to yank Rhys back up and over the edge. For a moment, he fears either his or Rhys’ arm will merely tear out of their sockets and send the PA crashing down the cliffside, but with a thunderous roar and tremendous  show of strength that nearly stops his breathing Jack finally pulls Rhys back up on solid ground and drags the him away from the crumbly edge.

Rhys slides against the earth like he’s melted, gasping and sobbing roughly as his nails dig back into the dirt. Jack sits flat on his ass, hand still seized tightly around Rhys’ robot arm, brain yet to catch up with the reality that Rhys is safe, that neither of them are teetering on the brink of death any longer.

“H-Holy shit—“ Rhys stammers, shaking his head back and forth as if he can’t believe he’s still alive, “that was so—Jack, I can’t believe you—“

“I know, right?” Jack interrupts, voice too loud and unstable with adrenaline. “Shoot, I thought you were a frikkin’ goner, kiddo, but look! I dragged you back from the brink of de—agh!”

Jack had tried to pump his other arm into the air in a triumphant gesture but the sudden movement sends pain lancing from shoulder to shoulder. He collapses back, finally letting go of Rhys’ hand as his fingers grow numb, pain radiating out from the joints of that arm and into his chest. He twitches and groans as the purr of adrenaline wastes away, leaving him with the pain expected from snatching a half-cyborg out of thin air.

“Ohh damn it, this? This hurts…” Jack hisses, gritted his teeth against the tearing pain and the Pandoran sunlight piercing through the veil of settling dust above. He hears the scuffle of his men around them, the distant, fuzzy radio call for a medic. The pain is spreading throughout his body, seeping in from the throbbing arm into his torso and neck.

“H-Hey…” A weak voices drips in from above, and when Jack focuses on the shadowed face above him he quickly figures out it’s Rhys, now with a little more color in his cheeks than before. Something fleshy and soft touches his cheek.

“Don’t…don’t try to move, okay? Think you…think you fucked up your arm…” Jack is in too much pain to correct Rhys’ language. He merely hisses through his teeth and nods.

“Haha, yeah, yeah, think I could’ve told you all that…” His toes curl in his shoes from the pain, and all he wants is to be off this frikkin’ planet and back in a nice comfortable bed, shot full of expensive painkillers.

Rhys’ face falls, something weird like guilt crossing over it at Jack’s pain, and wait, no, that won’t do at all. His PA moves to open his mouth but Jack quickly shushes him, his brows furrowing from annoyance rather than agony.

“D-Don’t you go giving me that look, sugar. Saving people is what heroes do.” He wishes he could waggle a finger at Rhys but he can hardly move, so what he hopes is a stern, but reassuring look on his face will have to do until then. “I wasn’t about to let you become a Rhys’ splatter against the god-damn Pandoran desert.”

And Rhys still looks a little upset, obviously—no one expects a straight-laced corporate softie to shrug off a near death experience—but his lips do quirk up a little in a humoring smile that helps more than anything make Jack grateful he’d dove headlong to keep his PA safe.”

“In that case…” Rhys runs his fingers carefully back through his messy hair, before pressing a kiss to Jack’s cheek. “Thanks, Handsome.”