Chapter Text
Rhys ran the wand over his lips, glancing up to his boyfriend as his smacked them together, a slight grin curling at the corners. Jack sat next to him, squishing Rhys's beauty blender in his hand, a confused look in his eyes. The two of them sat in the floor of Rhys's office as Rhys did his makeup. Rhys dabbed concealer onto his undereye, and Jack asked his usual questions about what the hell he was doing.
"What do you use this for, Pumpkin? It's like a frickin' bouncy ball!!"
"Its for foundation, Jack."
Rhys continued his mission, taking the blender from Jack's hands. Slowly, he dabbed on foundation, sitting the bottle down next to his foot.
"Kiddo, whats the difference in these?"
Jack held up the concealer tube and the foundation bottle, and Rhys would've facepalmed if he hadn't loved his boyfriend so much.
"One of them is thicker I guess? Its like...its supposed to hide blemishes-"
"What blemishes?"
"Jack-"
"And thick? Have you seen this dick, Rhysie?"
"Oh my god, Jack..."
Rhys tried to turn his attention back to his art, dabbing on a matte shadow in his crease, his boyfriend chuckling off to the side. The light on his mirror flickered as he looked down to grab his eyeliner. Jack let out a huff.
"What?"
He leaned in to draw his wings in, small, almost nonexistant, when Jack plopped his head on his shoulder with a whine, causing Rhys to not only get a bit of liner in his eye, but all over his lid and the side of his face.
"Damnit, Jack!"
"Rhysie, baby, I'm sorry! Are you okay?! Here let me see-"
"Nonono, it's fine,"Rhys wiped his eye with his hand. "It doesn't hurt. See?"
"But its your-"
"Its fine, Jack. I'm okay."
Rhys retrieved a makeup remover pad and dabbed at his eye with it, removing not only his botched eyeliner, but his masterful eyeshadow and half of his brow with it. As he began to redo it, Jack sat, puppyfaced and clearly sorry. Any frustration Rhys had with his partner was gone the second he saw the sorrow in Jack's eyes just from hurting him in the slightest.
"Jack, its okay, I promise,"He leaned over and placed a small kiss on Jack's nose.
The corners of Jack's lips turned up and he was suddenly beaming. He waited a few seconds, testing the waters before tackling Rhys to the floor in some kind of bear hug. Rhys hit the wood with a quiet thump, Jack's lips against his, and a slight giggle bubbling up from his throat. When they sat up, Rhys was in Jack's lap, their lips locked once again.
Jack, of course, slipped his tongue into Rhys's mouth, instantly dominating him, but only for a moment before he pulled away, a breathless Rhys wrapped around his shoulders.
"Asshole,"Rhys offered, glancing up to him in indignation.
They sat in a hug for a while, just wrapped in each other, appreciating one another's warmth, the safe feeling that derived just from contact. Rhys's voice broke the silence with a small hum, moving himself to apply mascara before he glanced back to his boyfriend.
"Hey, Jack, remember how we met?"
"How could I forget, cupcake?"
The day that Hugo Vasquez knocked over a light fixture on the set of the new Hyperion magazine cover was the day that Rhys knew he was about to die. It was all fine until the jealous asshole decided that ruining a photographer's light and pinning the blame on Rhys right to Handsome goddamn Jack's face was the best idea he'd ever had.
As Rhys sat in the airlock capsule, he knew that Vasquez had to be cackling somewhere, bragging about sending the little shrimp from his old college class to hell. Rhys knew there wasn't a way out of this one, he could beg for his life, but this was Handsome Jack. This was the most merciless man he'd ever met. The man that had nearly strangled Mr.Morris this morning for spilling a tiny drop of coffee on his pantsleg.
In short, Rhys was doomed, and it was alllll thanks to Assquez.
"Well, at least I'll die pretty,"He said to himself with a sigh, eyes flickering to the compartment doors as they slid open.
"I said to have them on my desk by four thirty, Maya. Yes, yes, I know this puts us behind schedule,"Handsome Jack sounded annoyed, and Rhys was totally not ready for whatever this man was about to scream at him.
When he hung up the phone, however, Jack only let out a sigh and rubbed his temples.
"Look kid, I'll give you your one change to get yourself the hell outta this mess. Start talking, you've got ten minutes before blast off,"the CEO sat down, barely looking up to Rhys.
Rhys swallowed and thought about where he could begin.
"Start talkin'. Any sob story you've got. Go."
He pondered for a moment, then Jack took that as him not having an answer and went to push the eject button.
"W-Wait, please, Handsome Jack, sir, just l-let me figure out how to say this!"
He released his metal arm from it's port and sat it down on the sill of the window that separated the two, and Jack raised an eyebrow.
"How'd you get it?"
"I was born with this tiny little arm, right? It was useless,"He started, chuckling nervously. "Actually, it was pretty detrimental. Birth defect, all that jazz. My eye was bad too, so, they just....took them. And it wasn't good on me, because, ya know, I was a baby."
"Point?"
"Getting there, S-sir!!"
Jack shifted, crossing one leg over the other. His expression was unreadable, and Rhys was terrified, but did his best to keep it together. Under the circumstances, his best wasn't too bad.
"I almost died, and up until a few years ago, I had to be under watch, right? Someone had to be with me all the time to make sure I didn't collapse and die. I still take an insane amount of meds, vitamins, antibiotics, other stuff, just to function and it only works some days, but I'm fighting to make up for the time I lost being guarded and protected from everything."
Handsome Jack's nose twitched.
"I've never been in an airplane, I've never ridden a roller coaster, I've never eaten anything spicier than a Flamin' Hot Cheeto because my parents were afraid it'd kill me. I'm just trying to find a way to live and this was supposed to be the ticket-"
"Okay, kid, I've heard enough."
For a terrifying few seconds, Rhys thought he was going to be ejected into space, so he took the deepest breath his lungs could muster and closed his eyes.
Needless to establish, the sound of the pod's doors opening surprised him.
"Look, I don't usually do this, but I watched over the tapes, and it wasn't really on you. Maya said I couldn't kill you without reason, and you just proved to me that you've got every reason to live. Show up at three o'clock Thursday and we'll finish the shoot."
Jack clapped a hand on his shoulder, then turned to walk away, not muttering another word. Rhys only stood in shock for a moment before he slipped his arm back into it's port and thanked his boss for the mercy.
"Don't mention it. For real. Unless you want to die. Then by all means-"
"No, sir, thank you!!"
"Drop the sir, Kiddo. Just call me Jack."
With that, Jack was gone, down the hall way to greet some robot about lunch plans. Rhys scurried away, back to his apartment, where he instantly collapsed in relief. His first instinct was to call his roommate and deliver the news that if someone had called and told him to start looking for a new roomie or a cheaper place, then he didn't have to because somehow, Rhys was still alive.
Vaughn was more than happy to hear that he didn't have to find a new roommate, and even happier to know that Rhys hadn't been hurt or killed.
"Assquez told me that you were done for. Bro, wait until he sees you Thursday."
"He's gonna riot."
"Hell yeah. Hey, order a pizza and Netflix Stranger Things. I'll pick it up and be there in like, twenty."
With that the call ended with a few more bros and a pair of goodbyes and Rhys was given a moment to lay back and calm his dizzied brain. He remembered his medication, and turned to grab the bag, popping the little white nuisance into his mouth. He swallowed and rolled, ordering the pizza the way Vaughn liked it.
It was 1:20 Thursday afternoon before Rhys found it to drag himself out of bed. Shower. Food. Face. Half an hour to wander the city, inhaler in hand, until he needed to head for Hyperion Corp.
His bag was packed with Elf products, not really top of the line, but great for his budget. Of course he had a few special things that he'd treated himself to, but the Elf products were all he knew. Obviously, seeing a eyeshadow pallet slip out of someones bag would make the drunk trio on the street corner suspect that Rhys wasn't a man.
Of course, it was completely out of line for them to drag him into an alley and pants him. And it was even worse when the figure out he was a male. Rhys numbed over at that part, only a ring on one of their hands gash into his face when the punched him, called him a freak. Then someone yelled and they took off running.
He shook. Everything was moving way too fast. It took him moments to ground himself, slinking down the wall and trying to pull his pants back over his ass at the same time.
"Hey, you okay?"
Thank God he'd put his fucking pants back on already, otherwise that girl probably would've run away. He noticed he was still gripping his nearly lost pallet in one had, the powders crumbled and staining the clear top. Somewhere in himself, he found a nod, and the lady helped him up, pulling the pallet away before he could crush it and hurt himself.
"Hey, I work in the cafe' right here. Come on in, use the employee restroom to fix yourself up and I'll make you a coffee, okay? No charge,"He dreds reached her shoulders and she looked whimsical.
If Rhys said he hadn't calmed down a bit right then, he'd be lying.
Inside, she handed him a small mocha to go and let him fix his makeup in the bathroom mirror. With enough shitty concealer and foundation, the scratch left by a fists connection was mostly covered, along with the bloody bruising that was slowly forming across his cheekbone.
Inside, she introduced herself.
"My name's Sasha,"She smiled as he took a sip of his newly obtained mocha.
"Thank you so much,"He blurted. "I'm Rhys, and as much as I'd love to stay, I have to go, like right now!"
He was really bad at talking to pretty people.
Rhys hated to run off like that, but it was only then that he noticed it was nearly three and he was still ten minutes from the Hyperion building. He swore he'd go back to thank her later as he rounded the corner into the shooting room and sat down against the wall, trying his hardest to just fucking catch his breath.
"Kiddo?"
Unmistakable, Handsome Jack, was the one eyeing him from a few feet above as he tried to recover what little sanity he could manage.
"Y-Yes, J-Jack?"He stammered, taking a puff off the inhaler in his pocket.
"Okay, as much as I'd like to worry and ask if you're okay, it can wait until we're somewhere where the asshole that tried to get you killed isn't watching. C'mon, dressing room. You're my artist now."
With that, Jack had tugged him up and lead him down the hall, shooting an overmenacing glare to any passerby who dared shooting them a questioning glance. The second the door shut, Jack rolled up Rhys's sleeves and observed what, in a panic, Rhys hadn't seen or managed to cover.
Darkening fingerprints decorated his wrists and forearms and Rhys was dizzy again. Jack's thumb ran across the cut on his cheek and Rhys suppressed a shiver and wince.
"Wipe off your...foun...founda....fucking face, Kid,"Jack rifled through the supplies and threw a pack of makeup wipes in Rhys's direction.
Knowing better than to disobey, Rhys cleaned off the slightly swollen area, letting Jack take a not so careful look.
"Jeez, cupcake, I spare your life and you go get in a fight? With who?"
Rhys couldn't face him.
"Some drunk guys thought I was a lady and hit on me. When they realized I wasn't they beat the shit out of me for leading them on. Sorry I was late."
Another small puff from the inhaler and his lungs seemed to clear for the most part. Rhys could breath.
"Pumpkin, don't worry about that right now,"Jack ushered. "Look, let me get first aid, then we'll talk. I'll give you my personal and next time -and Christ better pray there's not a next time- you can call me and I'll kick some ass for you."
With a nod, Rhys finally looked up, and saw a man that, though terrifying, seemed so genuine that even someone who'd been taught to trust nothing knew he was truly caring.