day eight - i hate rhys

[heroizes]

[ After putting out the fire, Jack had left his apartment pretty quickly to go track down Rhys, though he had gotten somewhat distracted. In fairness, his alarm had decreased somewhat when he had seen other peoples' wounds and seen that they weren't severe enough to be deadly. It gave him enough comfort to pause and check on the people he liked, though all of those visits were at least brief.

After those brief visits, he's back to hunting for Rhys, which probably doesn't take long. Thankfully, the Complex isn't that big. When he sees Rhys, Jack nearly skids to a stop. He runs up to meet him and immediately grips Rhys's shoulders. ]

Holy shit— Rhys, why the hell did you leave? There- Was that a friggin' explosion? What the fuck are your people doing?

[ :) ]

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[jackhole]

[ in the chaos of everything, rhys has fished out one of his first aid kits and he's off in a corner somewhere, far from the action, tugging at his collar once in a while, every time a shock goes through him. his hands are shaking because well, he kind of thought he'd be patched up by now. his plan had been to ask jack to do it but when the memories (fake ones? real ones?) swirl back into his mind, he had to put some distance between himself and, uh, everything.

he's not really surprised when jack comes running up his way, though his stomach lurches at the thought of talking to him right now and that just sends more pain going through him. his face is pale and dirty, smears of blood and soot on him in places and hands stained red as he holds the bandages up. he opens his mouth to answer jack before closing it and giving a shake of his head. ]

It wasn't me.

[ and there's the distinction there in his head: it wasn't him, rhys marten who loved his husband so god damn much that he sacrificed the freedom of both of them to vault-tec just so they could be together a bit longer. it was rhys, the atlas ceo who couldn't think of handsome jack without a mix of fear and awe and heartache. the paranoid one who just couldn't let things lie and trust jack again.

he sighs, closing his eyes for a moment before dropping the bandages back into the kit and holding it up to jack. ]

I don't know what's going on. [ another half truth. ] But c-can you help me? Please?

[ it feels so weird that he'd even need to ask but then the other side of the memories in him insist that of course he does, why would he assume something like that about jack? fuck, fuck, fuck. ]