Work Text:
Handsome Jack is so goddamned sick of this place he could choke.
Not himself, mind. Other people. A lot of other people. He’s made an extensive list over the three weeks of his digital incarceration, writ large and lovingly on the wall of his prison. Just the one--he made it himself because wandering for looping hours in the grey-green nothingness was driving him over the edge. He had made his peace with the wastelands of Pandora by blowing up large chunks of it, but he’s an office man at heart, at home in confined spaces.
Funny how the most confined space anyone could possibly come up with is also the most agoraphobic.
Growling under his breath, Jack paces by the wall and snaps his fingers impatiently. It slowly, so FUCKING slowly, grows inch by obnoxious inch until he has room to add another entry, bringing up a keyboard that also takes too much damned time to load. He slams the keys as if typing hard enough will make the death wish spring to life, if only he tries hard and believes in himself, or whatever pithy saying his life coach harangued him with before he had him promoted to “professional life coach of rabid skags because they will literally eat whatever shit you spew at them”.
NEXT TO DIE
BANDIT-SKAGCO PROGRAMMING DEPARTMENT
He pauses, goes back.
NEXT TO DIE
ALL BANDIT-SKAGCO EMPLOYEES (PAST OR PRESENT)
GUILTY OF: HALF-ASSING STUPID SHIT NO ONE WANTED ANYWAY
SENTENCE:
Jack drums his fingers on the keyboard. This is the fun part, and fun is in short supply. Explosions? Has he done explosions? A quick glance at his to-dos confirms that yes, yes he has, several times. Well, he’s nothing if not creative. And brilliant. And too goddamned sexy to exist.
SENTENCE: DISCOVER SIXTH ELEMENTAL EFFECT AND TEST EXPANSIVELY (ON HEADS)
There. Now he isn’t just being petty, he’s a fucking boon to science. He has no idea what elements are left to discover, but there’s probably something bee-related he can develop. Or wasps. He likes wasps. They’re persistent.
The entry locks into place next to Vasquez (guilty of being too oily, sentenced to being revived without a face and knocked off again once Jack stops finding it funny), Vaughn (guilty of being too uncomfortably buff, sentenced to a blank space because every time Jack goes to think of something he ends up wanting to figure out how to text him for a hookup instead and it unnerves him and he finds distractions quickly), and Rhys (a largely incoherent 5,000-word essay that changes daily, sometimes hourly).
Pacing back and forth in front of the Wall o’ Death (he put the plaque up himself at the top, a classy thing with copperplate lettering and a tasteful border of skulls), he considers his next move. There aren’t many. He would prefer it if there were none, actually. As much as he hates his solitary confinement, he can’t complain that it’s cruel, just unusual. There’s no internet connection for obvious reasons, but there are several gigabytes worth of books and far more than that of video and music. Hell, he even has a limited supply of porn, although he’s had that yanked a couple of times for “bad behavior”. He’s not going to lose it being cooped up in here, but he might lose it over the inability to complain about that. How the hell had someone so fucking reasonable ended up in command of his stolen company?
Oh. Right. He had stolen it. Well. The kid did learn a few things, he guesses.
Maybe more than he ever had.
Handsome Jack shakes off the thought irritably--he’s been having more and more of them in his electric purgatory and it’s frankly disconcerting--and cups his hands to yell at the camera.
“Hey! Rhys! Rhysie! Cupcake! Your ol’ pal Jack is gonna wreak some goddamned HAVOC if he doesn’t get a pack of cigs! You, you think I can’t? Well, watch me! I’ve just--I’ve just been holding back! Rhys? Rhys! Rhys for God’s sake answer the goddamn fucking asstaint COMM--”
Rhys goes stock-still, feeling a smoldering glare on him. The “staff meeting”--what Gortysworks deems an event that could more accurately be called “daily bitch session with escalating argument over popular media to follow”--is getting into its second phase, and he’s been spaced out doodling prototypes on his hand console while Gortys, Vaughn, and Loaderbot discuss the latest Lawrence book release and Yvette and Fiona flirt. He looks up meekly to Sasha’s narrowed eyes.
“Uh, is there a--” Rhys stops and hastily sits properly in his chair. Crossing your legs on the table probably doesn’t count as Business Face. He takes a quick check at her self-made name plaque as well to see if there have been any recent changes. “--is there, uh, an object of discussion, President DJ In Charge of Awesomeness Sasha?”
“Your dumb virtual skag or whatever is going off again. Do you seriously have to bring that thing to every meeting?”
Rhys doesn’t panic at all, and glances quickly at President and VVIP (Very Very Important Person) In Charge of Numbers and Badassery Vaughn to make sure he isn’t panicking and yeah okay they’re both panicking, just a little. Just a bit. Vaughn is making his “do something” face so sure okay Rhys can do something. He has got this, totally. He laughs and runs a hand through his hair, digging into his pockets with the other.
“R-right, right! Haha, I just, uh, completely forget it’s there, you know? It’s like a…” He coughs and scruffs his hair again, voice dropping a little. “...like a friend.”
Sasha squints and tilts her head. “It’s like a friend...that you forget is there.”
Rhys manages to laugh again, a bit more weakly this time, memories pinging back and forth before he can discard them. “Uh…yeah.”
Her glare intensifies, then she rolls her eyes and kicks back in her chair. “Whatever, Hyperion.”
“W-we’ve been Gortysworks for, uh, a month now, are you going to stop calling me--”
“No.”
“Okay,” he squeaks very softly. He’s considered asking if she can at least stop doing it in bed, but it’s frankly enough of a miracle that she deigns to share one at all, and besides, it makes Vaughn laugh every time, and Vaughn laughing is in his top ten list of Sexiest Things Ever.
“Just...shut it up, feed it or whatever. And Fi, do you seriously have to do that right here?”
As the girls start squabbling over whether making out is acceptable business conduct or not, and more importantly, how to take it down in the minutes, Rhys casts a relieved glance at Vaughn, who sighs and slumps in his chair. He finally manages to find the right pocket and pulls out a small, roughly egg-shaped device on a keychain. The sparkly pink casing has four buttons around the LCD screen, marked “TALK”, “MUTE”, “REWARD”, and “PUNISH”. He glances briefly at the pixelated figure of Jack, who is beeping incessantly at him, and jabs the “MUTE” button before stuffing it back into his shirt.
“There, see? Peace and...peace and quiet.”
Sasha shrugs and rolls her eyes. “Kind of.”
Feeling a bit lighter, President In Charge of Being President Rhys leans back again and throws his lanky legs back up onto the table. “So, uh, what’d I miss?”
President In Charge of Adorability, Sweetness, and Light Gortys does a full spin in her phonebook-augmented chair, piping up excitedly. “I was talking about how much I like the part when Starbear realizes that he really is a star bear because he comes from the stars!”
“Please do not relate spoilers.”
“Ohhhh, I’m sorry Loaderbot! I mean, uh...President In Charge of Rescues and Also Loading Things Loaderbot!”
“We have discussed this. Please call me LB. ...I also enjoyed that scene.”
“Wasn’t it cool?! Oh and guess what, did you know that authors sign their books sometimes? And he’s gonna do it next week! Can we go?”
“I’d be down for that.” Vaughn coughs and adjusts his glasses. “I mean, not that I’m that much of a fan, I just...I...I like book signings, okay?”
“You are a fanboy.”
“I am not a fanboy!”
“I have seen the posters in your office. Data indicates: You are a fanboy.”
“Look, if Rhys put you up to this…”
Rhys sighs contentedly and crosses his hands behind his neck, closing his eyes and letting the gentle bickering of his friends wash over him. Jack will have to be dealt with later, but he’s gotten to enjoy that “later” is whenever he wants.
In the meantime, peace and quiet.
“I am NOT a f--”
Vaughn continues to forget his muscles are bandit-toned now, and when he slams his fists on the table, already a flimsy affair, it pops up before breaking down. While Sasha’s lightning reflexes see her well clear of it, Rhys manages to kick himself in the face with one immaculate skagskin boot and sees stars, flailing to balance and instead bringing his chair down him on top of him when he goes over.
“Oh my God bro I am so sorry I did not mean to do that bro are you okay Rhys dude honey talk to me--”
“I’m...I’m juh, just fine…” Rhys squints his good eye open to double check that that’s the case, sees his virtual pet has skittered out of his pocket in the fall and that the screen now reads “FUCK YOU” in big friendly letters.
“Data confirms: Fanboy.” Loaderbot states distinctly and somehow politely.
Peace and quiet, Rhys decides, are overrated.