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Rhys’ flat was on the third floor. He lived with Vaughn; he could piece that information together, pulling a loose thread down from his memories to navigate his way through the lobby of an apartment complex that had been previously unfamiliar to him. Before now. How had he never been here before? He and Rhys were friends. They’d had more intimate moments than most. Some bordering on something tangible, something Timothy was afraid to approach or accept. Something he wasn’t allowed to have. It was hard to properly place that line of thinking right then, a path leading away from the present, and he was having a hard enough time trying to maintain his focus on reality already. His thoughts whirred in his head, a multitude of bees humming away. Except the Queen of the hive had been killed, and suddenly free, the insects were swarming in a blind panic and Tim had never felt sicker in his entire life. He’d never felt this shattered. Something was gone, and it was not coming back. Neither was his ability to recollect anything properly without it feeling clouded by a thick mental fog. Which brought him here. Straight to Rhys’ door.In truth, his feet had led him here on autopilot based on what he did remember and on what was left of his uncertain instincts. This was the one certainty. That he needed to be here, and not anywhere else. At Rhys’ front door. It was white. It was pristine, until Tim’s trembling hand lifted and knocked. Once, and then again, and again, and-...…-then Vaughn pulled open the door, no longer a dead piece of wood that separated Tim from the only person who made sense anymore, and his face went white. ---- “-and that’s why Aliens is both a pro-feminist movie, and also why I would die any day, any time, for Sigurney Weaver.” Vaughn looked so proud of his rant that his whole face almost scrunched up, enough so that his glasses had nearly fallen off his face again. He really needed to get the metalwork of that fixed, and soon. They hardly seemed to stay on his nose anymore. Whether that was for dramatic effect, or just absent neglect on his part, who knew. Rhys laughed. Easily, comfortably, while he leant back in order to properly lounge on their living room sofa. “Ok, ok , Sigurney is a babe, but you’re forgetting-,”
Knock.
Well, that was definitely the front door. Both of them froze, glancing towards the dimly lit hallway, with an eyebrow raised. They shared a look, before Rhys shrugged. “Probably the pizza.” Vaughn visibly frowned, looking somewhat uneasy for just a small second. Which was fair - even Rhys felt a shift in the air, a weight to it that wasn’t there before. “Bro,” He worried his lower lip between his teeth. “We didn’t order anything yet.” “We didn’t?” Rhys blinked. “We couldn’t decide between Chinese take-out or Dominos.” Vaughn grimaced back. Slowly, after pausing, Rhys leant over towards the coffee table, picking up the remote and wielding it up defensively. Vaughn just looked at him, exasperated. “Is that supposed to help?” “What’re we supposed to use?” Rhys whispered, a little too loudly, the arm brandishing the TV remote starting to lower.
Knock. Knock.
It immediately raised again. Another glance, between themselves and then the source of the noise. Finally, with no small amount of hesitation, Vaughn carefully advanced towards it, through the hallway. Rhys heard him unclicking the lock. Then, everything went eerily silent. Finally, he heard Vaughn calling his name, a very apparent urgency lacing his tone. “Do I need the remote?” He shouted back, peeling himself off of the sofa. So much for a casual, uneventful movie night. “Just…get over here. Quickly. ”Ok, so that was mildly unusual, to start with.What was more unusual was the sight of Timothy when he’d finally gotten to his own front door, standing as if he was fighting the urge to sway on the spot, staring almost through Rhys, rather than letting their gazes connect. Which wouldn’t have been that alarming, had he no idea how Tim found his way here. Sure, he’d told him off-handedly where he lived. He’d stressed that if he needed him, no matter what the situation, that’s where he should go. Which was, perhaps, just a little more than ‘off-handed’, but hey - Rhys wasn’t about to pursue that route in his brain when everything else in his life was so much more severe. He’d made sure to try to offer out one place that maybe, just maybe , Tim would feel like he could be safe. Happy, even, at a push. If he could ever truly manage that.Rhys wasn’t entirely sure why he wanted to be someone he could just breathe around, but it was as important to him as their drive to do the right thing and get away from the situation they had both found themselves in. But Tim had never shown up. Not until now, and Rhys would have checked his phone, just to see if he’d received a text he hadn’t noticed about his arrival. He would’ve done, had he not been face to face with a much bigger problem. Timothy Lawrence was not only in his doorway unannounced, but he was covered - entirely , from top to bottom - in blood. He looked at Rhys, who stood in turn with his mouth open, as if he didn’t even realize that. It took a whole minute or so before anyone said anything at all. “ Holy. Shit .” was what Rhys eventually managed to get out.“Yeah.” Tim said, distantly. He moved to balance on each heel, like he didn’t quite feel like he was in his own body. “Can I-?” “Yeah, I mean-... Jesus , Tim! Are-...” Rhys ran his hand through his unusually disheveled hair, not gelled back enough to stay in place, his eyes wide as they took in the sight of the carmine paint soaking Timothy’s shirt. “Are you hurt? Do you-...” Tim was ushered in, likely to the benefit of Rhys’ neighbors. He could see a pattern of blood trailing towards the nearby elevator. Thankfully, it appeared to be drying enough that it didn’t immediately litter Rhys’ blue carpet as Timothy was practically pushed as gently as possible into the open area of his and Vaughn’s shared living space. It also didn’t seem to be coming from Tim, either. Which was both good and so, so bad.If it wasn’t his, then-...?“Who’s blood-...?” Rhys began, trailing off as he studied Tim’s withdrawn expression closely. That was definitely a bad sign in itself. “What happened?” Vaughn asked, far more helpful to some degree. A lot more helpful than Rhys felt in that moment, despite his best friend looking as devoid of colour in his face as he did.“Are you okay?” Rhys couldn’t help but press in with. It almost brought a small smile to Tim’s lips. A nervous, twitchy one, but one that Rhys felt a sense of achievement over none-the-less. Then, just as quickly as it could be seen, it disappeared. Tim looked up, and his gaze zoned in on Rhys’ coffee mug. The one on the table, that Rhys hardly cared about most days. It had a small crack in the side. It was still usable, but he always complained about it. It seemed so insignificant to even reflect on that, but Tim was concentrating on it so hard that for a small pocket of time, he almost believed that something about it was important. But it wasn’t the cup. It was the fracture in it, and the way Tim couldn’t seem to stop moving even as he tried to focus on it. His hands fidgeted together. It was an anxious habit he’d always harboured, but now it was out in full force. He looked around like he had expected someone to come running through the door at any minute, while also seeming resigned to the knowledge that that wasn’t true. He wasn’t sure how that was even possible, but Tim had managed it regardless. “I shot him.” “You-...what now?” Something clicked. Not with himself - it was an immediate change in Tim’s demeanor. He clenched his jaw and his whole body went rigid. Then, he sort of just… looked at Rhys. Not past him. Their eyes met, and Rhys was determined to hold it. “I shot him.” Tim repeated, so slowly it was almost painful to watch. It sounded so empty. So exhausted and broken and helpless, all at once. Vaughn’s eyes, however, sought out the front door again. He’d suddenly seized up like he was awaiting another knock. Rhys couldn’t tear his attention away from Tim. He was starting to quake where he stood. “Tim. Tim, hey-,” He took a step forward, and Timothy flinched. So, he slowed his pace as he approached him, hands held up so as to convey his intention to place them firmly and as calmly as he could manage against the other man’s shoulders. “Where is he?” “Did-...did he mean-...” He heard Vaughn’s small voice from nearby. For now, he had to ignore it. He had to get Timothy to look at him properly. Which he did, reluctantly, and Rhys almost wished he hadn’t. Shit. “Tim, where-,” He drew in a long breath. “ Where is Jack?” That did it. That was the magic word, apparently. Tim jolted as if he’d been electrocuted into clarity, and Rhys had the feeling that his hands placed against him were the only things keeping him from letting his knees buckle, collapsing where he stood. After a moment of the palpable silence had passed, where Tim’s mouth opened and closed and no audible sound came out, he finally made an actual noise. He laughed. It was high pitched, bordering on hysteria. It would have been unsettling (it would have been too close to being Jack-esque ) had it not fallen into desperate, heaving sobs within seconds of leaving him. His hand came up to his mouth, as if he were trying so hard to smother the sound, only to find that he had no control over it whatsoever. “He-...H-He’s…” He couldn’t get the words out and articulate them properly in the slightest. He stuttered on each syllable as he shook violently with each choked note that escaped him, so much so that it became impossible to decipher exactly what he meant to say. But Rhys knew. He knew from the amount of blood alone. The way it splattered in a spiderweb across Tim’s usually compassionate features, now drawn in close in tight lines. And he knew because it was in Timothy’s face. Beneath the shock was a horror and heartbreak that Rhys was certain would never shift. He held the kind of sadness in his features that he’d only ever seen on documentaries before, when something so terribly world-changing happened to someone. Tim looked haunted, and he knew why. Because Jack…Jack was dead .
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
7th January 2022
Rhys wasn’t into this. He wanted to profess that this whole… situation was as nauseating as it was out of his hands. He had no control over what happened here, or what happened to him, for that matter. And it always came back to the same thing: pure, rutting, animalistic sex. Now, he also wanted to say that he wasn’t going through a particularly dry spell before this, but he, and everyone else in any vicinity to him, knew otherwise. He was also slightly desperate to convince himself that he was just so touch-starved that he’d literally allow any bypass of his boundaries. Just to be touched. That’s all it was. That and a whole lot of fear, because by God, the pair of demons ritualistically in front of him most days were dangerously charming in their good weeks and fucking terrifying in their bad ones. Which led him to wonder just what he’d done to deserve this, today of any other in the week. It’d started when he’d knocked his favourite cup off of his counter. The contents of shattered porcelain and warm coffee stared right back up at him, before he’d rolled his eyes and resigned himself to cleaning up his first mess of the day.Then, he’d tripped up in the revolving doors at the entrance to the Hyperion headquarters, because Handsome Jack had a very evident revolving door fetish and the building had, like, fifty of them on every floor. The whole building was a subtle nod to some kind of torture dungeon, masked by sparkling floors and high class tech at every instance. You couldn’t get a drink from a machine without it speaking twenty languages and having a touchpad to access. But it didn’t end there; it only got worse as he’d gotten to his desk, and that was because Vaughn was an endless font of questions and Rhys hadn’t quite learnt to navigate his way out of just blabbering about his currently absurd sex life. He didn’t want to weird Vaughn out. That definitely wasn’t because he was secretly into it or anything. He definitely wasn’t into it. Which, admittedly, brought up a few more issues he didn’t want to think too hard about regarding the nature of consent and what this was likely doing to his dwindling reserve of mental stability. Not that they wouldn’t have enjoyed that just as much, knowing that Rhys thought about this even when they weren’t around. His only solace was that he was only entertaining these thoughts to have some kind of secretive peace in hating them from a distance, and thankfully, they hadn’t acquired the ability to read minds. Yet, at least. He wouldn’t put it past them.Still, here he was - Vaughn had asked him something and he’d barely listened. “Huh?” He finally asked, helpfully.Vaughn’s expression looked mildly put out, but there was a sincere layer of concern just beneath the surface. He waved off the awkward and apologetic look Rhys threw his way, offering him a quirked eyebrow and lopsided grin in return. “I said,” He began, pushing his glasses back into place. “That you must have a vampire problem in your apartment.” Now, it was Rhys’ turn to raise his eyebrows, before furrowing them in confusion. “Did someone put shrooms in your coffee again, buddy?” Vaughn laughed, gesturing out to Rhys’ neck, which he clapped a hand over as soon as he’d realised. “Nice neck.” “This? It’s, uh,” He grimaced, starting to feel his face flush. “It’s-...” Vaughn immediately leant in to elbow Rhys in the side, grin returning to his mouth in full force. “Let me guess,” He wiggled his eyebrows. “That total babe I set you up with from accounting, right? I knew you’d hit it off!” The colour was somehow both draining from his face and flooding it in full force, spinning in his chair to focus on the computer in front of him, tapping at the keyboard as if he were actually doing something productive and not just attempting to avoid the subject. “Not… exactly .” “Oh! The dude from the cafeteria?” Vaughn pressed on. Which he always did, and Rhys couldn’t ever fault him for. Right now, he was lamenting the lack of a for-dummies book on ‘how to tell your best friend that you’re fucking the CEO of the company you both work for, and his girlfriend, and arguably his twin brother’, without causing him to have an aneurysm? In the last three weeks alone, he’d uncovered more secrets about the darkness within Hyperion than he’d ever intended to, and all of it centered around one person.
Handsome Jack.
He must have seemed hesitant to talk about it, and he could only hope that Vaughn would take his flustered embarrassment at face value as he cleared his throat. Loudly. Vaughn rolled his chair to Rhys’ side, really studying his face as he leant forward. “You okay, bro? Look, I don’t have to know who, but you’re never usually this…cagey about anything.” Rhys heaved out a long sigh, before turning his seat to face his friend. He paused, really taking in Vaugn’s understandably worried visage. “There’s no way in hell you’d believe me if I told you.” “Try me.” Vaughn arched up a thin brow, his glasses beginning their slow descent down his face again. Rhys, well and truly, took in all of Vaughn in that moment, matrix-themed tie and all. He'd probably never be done expressing his gratitude that he had someone as reasonably sane and warm as him in his life right now.He drew in a long breath and only released it to begin the ramble to end all rambles. “So,” He began, splaying his hands out. “You remember all that info I gathered on-...” As someone walked past, he paused, waiting for them to move by completely before he hunched over a little and lowered his voice. “-on our wonderful CEO?” Slowly, Vaughn nodded. “Well,” Rhys winced. “I took it to the police.” This time, Vaughn’s lips parted as if to say something. His skin looked paler, his eyes widening. “You know that-,” “Nisha is the head of the state police? Yeah. ” Rhys rubbed at the back of his neck, letting out another defeated sigh. “Now I do, at least.” Vaughn very visibly fidgeted with his hands in his lap. A moment of quiet passed between them. “Rhys,” He drew out his name, his own voice barely above a whisper. “ How are you not being buried right now?” “Well! Isn’t that a hilarious story!” The sound of his own laughter was bordering on hysterical, too sharp to be anything close to genuine mirth. Vaughn remained silent and serious, watching Rhys, waiting for him to continue.Which, reluctantly and with an audible groan, he did. “I slept with them.” He finally admitted, shoulders slumping. “Who?” “‘Who’?” He echoed, rolling his eyes, just a little. “Vaughn, who’d you think?” “Nisha?” Vaughn could barely utter her name without a cursory glance at his surroundings. “Rhys, that’s Handsome Jack’s-...!” “I know! Alright? I know she’s his girlfriend, but in all fairness, that didn’t-...” Vaughn’s eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline. “-...that wasn’t the issue.” Now, Vaughn just stared disbelievingly at him. His glasses had nearly fallen off the end of his nose, and in the absence of him finding anything to say to comfort him in that moment, Rhys just carried on with word vomiting the entirety of the last few week’s events. “And that wasn’t the first time! And it wasn’t just-...” He buried his face into his hands, unable to help the deep-seated pink that painted his cheeks. “I know I should stop going back, but-...” “But?” “ But -!” He grasped for the right words, the right excuse. In the end, he didn’t have one. He hadn’t quite puzzled it out himself, and now that he’d said everything out loud, he realised that he hadn’t got one all the more. Vaughn remained silent for a minute longer, before he shook his head, finally addressing the issue of pushing his glasses back up into place. “Bro,” He simply said. “ Bro.” “Gonna need more helpful advice than that, Vaughn,” Rhys looked up from between his fingers, lowering them eventually so as to grip his knees. “What am I supposed to do?” Vaughn pressed his lips into a thin line, brow furrowing. “I have so many questions right now, Rhys.” Rhys worried his lower lip between his teeth, looking to Vaughn pleadingly and, for a split second, hoping that he had the answer to Rhys’ current predicament. “You believe me, right?” “Woah! Why wouldn’t I?” He scrunched his nose up. “I mean, it’s a little hard to wrap my head around, but if this is a bit, you’re really selling it.” He exhaled, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. Finally, he caught Rhys’ gaze and frowned. Deeply. “Is she, uh-...” He tugged at his tie a little, clearly unsure of how to word his next question. “Is it-...”“Weird?” Rhys scoffed. “You wouldn’t believe it, bro. They’re both so-...”“Okay, one, I wasn’t going to ask that, and two,” Vaughn’s mouth worked for a second, wrestling with the new information as it presented itself readily from Rhys’ mouth. “‘ They' ?” Oh. Whoops.“They?” Rhys repeated, weakly. Another weighted kind of laugh left him, running his hand through his gelled hair. “I meant ‘ she ’. There’s definitely only Nisha, no one else. Who else would there be?” “Rhys,” Vaughn said his name so intensely, it almost took him aback and startled him out of his ranting. “This is bad. This is totally, one hundred percent, not good. You’re messing around with Handsome Jack’s girlfriend and if he finds out, he is going to definitely murder you.” “Well, I mean, if-...” Rhys swallowed around the truth, resting on his tongue, but impossible to say. “...What if he doesn’t find out? That’d be okay, right?” He shrugged, loosely. “What if I just…break it off, and no one gets hurt?” “You’re gonna get hurt either way, dude. You think Nisha is the type of person to take ‘no’ for an answer?” The laughter that fell from Rhys’ mouth had a little more humour in it this time, even if it was dry. “You can say that again.” Which was, ultimately, the wrong thing to say.Suddenly, Vaughn’s concern was back, very much there on his face. “Is she-... y’know -...” Vaughn’s voice came out strained, and Rhys had to take pity on him. “What? No!” He raised his hands up defensively, trying to reassure his best friend with his attempt at a grin. “C’mon, Vaughn. I could totally stop it any time.” “You’ve done this more than once?” “....Maybe?” “ Rhys! ” “I can stop at any time!” Rhys protested, with all of his ability to. It was then that Vaughn made a point he could no longer defend himself against. “Then why do you keep doing it?” Rhys blinked.He stared right back at Vaughn, as if he’d grown another head and was using it to completely tear down Rhys’ logic and flimsy defense. Brutally, at that. Why did he go back? It wasn’t because he was into it - into them - because he wasn’t. He wasn’t. It didn’t help, then, that he’d been stunned into momentary quiet. By the time he’d opened his mouth to throw something back at Vaughn, something that’d convince him that Rhys wasn’t a total lunatic in a decidedly incredible amount of danger right now, the tannoy sounded off nearby, above them. ‘ Rhys to Level 55, please. Be quick about it.’ He could feel Vaughn’s gaze on him. He could feel the ambience of disbelief even with their few feet of distance. As he stood, he felt his wrist be caught. “You’re not gonna go,” Vaughn’s jaw looked clenched tight. “Are you?” Rhys almost considered it. He almost sat back down. Almost , the devil on his shoulder mocked him as he shrugged Vaughn’s grip off of him. “It’ll be fine.” He flashed him a convincingly bright smile, even as uneasy as it was. “It’s not like he can murder me here, right?” Vaughn looked at him, deadpan. “Right?” “Right,” Vaughn finally conceded, shaking his head. “Try not to die, okay?” “Not at the top of my to-do list, bro. I’ll meet you in the cafeteria at lunch, yeah?” “Yeah.” His friend mimicked, not sounding entirely too convinced, clearly unsure as to whether or not he could convince Rhys to not walk into the lair of the monster that would surely rip his head off within minutes. He watched Rhys’ retreating back with a modicum of apprehension, before turning back to his computer. “Good luck.” He breathed out, quietly.