Chapter 2
"Did you know the desert can sing?" Sasha had said one night during their journey across the Pandoran wilderness, huddled against the makeshift fire, a youthful mirth shining in her eyes with the flicker of flames as she eyed Vaughn and Rhys.
Vaughn snorted, although the hesitant expression from behind his glasses was evident. "Um, right. I'm sure that's just the dehydration drying your brain out."
"A Hyperion code monkey would say that," Sasha smirked, "until you've actually heard it. In the dead of night, out there, in parts where no being dare tread."
"Sash, stop." Fiona softly chided barely hiding her smile at her sister's antics.
Sasha giggled, and there was a moment of silence between the troupe of misfits as they drifted into their own thoughts.
"So," Rhys started slowly, "what does it sound like?"
His quiet inquiry caused a spark of combined surprises, like he was actually believing the tall tale. Rhys looked between his companions and shrugged, casting a quick glimpse at Athena perched against the back of the vehicle partly shrouded in the pitch black darkness before quickly glancing back to the young thief.
"What?" Sasha tilted her head slightly.
"The songs...what do they sound like?" Rhys asked again, curiosity turning into anxiety when Sasha suddenly grinned mischievously and wiggled herself closer to the fire.
"Now you've done it." Fiona sighed, leaning back to stretch her legs out and propped herself on her elbows.
A breeze blew through the camp at that precise moment, whipping the flames and stirring the embers into the air. Vaughn's shoulders shook, from fear or the chilled air Rhys wasn't sure, but he wouldn't blame his best friend for getting mega creeped out at the bad timing, ignoring his own gooseflesh prickling his skin underneath his suit.
It was like Pandora just loved to mess with your head, like always.
"They say it's from the moans of the dead and forgotten, tainted souls that are left to wander the desert in search of redemption," her voice dropped an eery pitch. Rhys remained silent, attention completely consumed and continued to listen intently.
"Others' speak of large mutant wereskags that wonder the darkest parts of Pandora. When they howl it sounds like the tormented souls of the afterlife…." Sasha's eyes went large and she leaned closer, the orange glow of the fire illuminating her features. Rhys suddenly felt pressure to his left, and he quickly glanced over and realized Vaughn had eased his way closer to Rhys until their legs touched. Any closer and the other man would practically be sitting in his lap.
And then he heard it, at first a small whistle slowly growing in pitch and intensity from behind him. Rhys flinched and glanced behind him, finding nothing but the pitch black darkness that was night, the glow from Elpis casting a haunting shadow on the distant mountains. When he turned back to listen to Sasha, he found that she was no longer there. No one was there. Fiona, Vaughn, the vehicle, Athena, even the campfire….all vanished.
No, that wasn't right. If he remembered correctly, Fiona had jumped up from behind him and Vaughn and scared the living shit out of them. He knew this because the feminine scream that came out of Vaughn's mouth had made history that night. This...this nothingness, was not what happened.
And the sound, that awful, awful, distant wail coming from the distance around him became closer, louder, more haunting than any sound he had ever heard. The hairs on the back of his neck stood, his blood ran cold, his throat going dry and gritty, like sand had filled his mouth.
His mouth was full of sand.
Rhys jerked and his eyes popped open, only to shut them tightly when he felt the bright heat of daylight burn his real cornea. He tried to gulp in air, and instead swallowed a heap of utterly dry sand.
"Ugh, ack, pfffftttt, pffffrtttt!" He raised himself on his hands and knees, bent over and heaved as much sand out of his throat as possible.
'Ugh, oh, oh man, this really sucks.' Eyes peeling open this time more cautiously he was able to take in his surroundings. He was met with a flat, desolate scenery that seemed to stretch for countless miles on either side of him, mountains that seemed so small from here were probably huge wherever they were. Wait, where the hell was he?
And then it all dawned on Rhys, like a wave of hot water had washed over his spine. The explosion, the falling, the smoke and melting steel. His eyes glanced upward as the flashbacks pieced themselves back together. He suddenly felt himself tumble back on his bottom, breathing heavy and increasingly more frantic.
'I'm alive…? I'm alive!' Both his flesh and metal hand began grabbing every part of himself, his chest, his ribs, stomach, legs, crotch, checking for any surprise puncture wounds or gashes or any broken bones he had yet to be aware of. When his flesh hand rubbed across one side of his face he felt something sticky and dry on his skin and pulled away to inspect it. Huh, dried blood.
But it wasn't until Rhys attempted to activate his echo eye that he really felt dread stir in his belly. He blinked profusely, nodding his head in a subconscious attempt to jumpstart it. Static blurred his vision, some blues and whites and scratches of color, and that was it. He had his vision, which was a good thing, meaning the mechanics behind his robotic eye were at least operating properly. It was a strange feeling, however, to not feel the rush of energy when he called upon his echo eye. And if he wasn't able to use his echo eye, he already new he couldn't power his mechanical arm to do anything other than the basics.
Looking down at his mechanical arm, he wiggled his metal fingers as a comforting reminder.
At least he still had that.
Great. Just great. The time and hassle it would take to fix his robotics...it'd be different if he had his tools with him, and not having them for such predicaments like this would only serve to piss off Jack when he found out–
Wait.
Jack.
Holy Shit. Where was Jack?
Rhys swerved his head in all directions until he caught sight of a motionless form half buried in the sand not far from him. Ignoring the heavy quake in his legs he bolted for the other figure, chest tightening with fright when his suspicions were correct.
Parts of Jack's right leg, torso, left shoulder and arm were buried in the sand, certain areas of his clothing singed and spots of his skin dirty with black soot. If this was any other circumstance, okay not true – Rhys hesitated for a single moment to take in just how wrecked the all powerful Handsome Jack looked right now. But as crazy as this was and how roughed up the man looked, he had never seen Jack's expression so blank, so...peaceful. As if despite their currently fucked situation, the man appeared to be in the deepest sleep of his life, body so still, it didn't even seem like he was breathing.
...Wait a minute.
Jack wasn't breathing!?
Rhys' hands were on Jack instantly, shaking his shoulders, smacking his chest.
"Jack!? Jack, wake up! Please, Jack!"
Was it the wrist or the neck that he could check for a pulse, or both? Why oh why didn't he take that damn CPR seminar at Hyperion?
"Please. I'm a programmer, not a doctor! "Wow, thinking back on it he sounded like such an idiot. That's what he got for trying to be funny.
He did remember one important tidbit of info that Sasha had given him, something about palms on the heart, pushing, breathing air into the others lungs.
Of course this would happen to him.
So, Rhys mimicked what he could remember. He straddled Jack's torso, setting his palms on the man's chest, and began pumping pressure. One, two, three, four, five.
Okay, it was go time.
He grabbed Jack's face, pulling it close to him. A blush blazed his face from his cheeks to his ears. He was about to put his lips on Handsome Jack' slips. Okay...okay...he could do this! He wasn't a teenager anymore, dammit, he was a grown man trying to save another grown man's life!
He pried the unconscious man's mouth open, gulped, and lowered himself down.
Mind racing in every direction, he failed to notice two different colored eyes pop open, and it was too late for Rhys to react to the confused and feral snarl below him.
"The fuck!?"
Before Rhys knew it he found himself sprawled onto his back, a heavy weight on top of him and a crushing force on his throat. And the once technically twice thought dead Handsome Jack was now inches from his face, lips pulled up in a snarl and eyes flaming with anger.
"J-Jaghk," he tried to speak, which only came out as a sputtered gag.
"Gettin you some of ol' Jack while his lights are out? Is that how this is gonna go? Christ, pumpkin, you're sick!"
Rhys blinked. He didn't think of it like that. But of course Jack would.
"N-No!" He yelped defensively. "C...CP...R!"
There was a pause as Jack stared at Rhys quizzically, the anger fading from confusion into agitation before he eased the crushing grip on the younger man's throat and backed off of him. Rhys grabbed his sore throat and gulped air back into his lungs between coughs.
Jack stared at him incredulously. "Call your fetish what you want, it's still freakin creepy. Creep."
Oh for the love of…
"You...you weren't breathing. I had to..." he coughed, "do something!"
"Don't make excuses, kiddo. It doesn't suit you." Jack huffed back, not doing a great job of hiding his antagonistic grin. They stayed quiet for a moment as Rhys caught his breath, and the air began to turn serious again when Jack tried to roll his shoulders and winced.
"Son of a taint...feel like I got rammed by a loaderbot."
Rhys could agree with him on that. He watched as Jack rubbed his shoulder with his other hand and scrutinized their surroundings. Just like he had done when he first woke up, it seemed Jack was realizing their situation through a hazy mind when he saw the older man's eyes squint and his lips pull down in a deep frown.
"Jack…?"
"What's up, cupcake?" He replied without looking at him.
"How are we still alive?"
His question was answered with a humorous snort. "Because you're with me and my quick thinking, moron. And..." Jack patted himself down and when he didn't find what he was looking for he searched the ground around him until he found it, leaning down and digging something from out of the sand. The little pentagon Jack had attached on his jacket before the fall, only now it was a cracked chunk with a dim shattered middle. "If it wasn't for this little guy taking the brunt of the landing, we'd be throwing up our own anuses."
A wonderful mental image Rhys never wanted to think about again, and shivered when he realized one small piece of technology had saved them from being splattered.
"Damn, and this was the best shield I had on me. Oh well." Jack tossed it over his shoulder carelessly, the shield long forgotten and turned his attention to the younger man kneeling on the ground.
"You look like shit, kiddo. Any damages I should know about?"
The look on Rhys' face resembled a fish out of water. Did Handsome Jack just ask him if he was okay? He quickly glanced to see if the world was suddenly ending around him. No? Okay, but he was still asked about his well being, which was crazy enough. Granted he'd only been working under Jack for six months since their return to Helios after the whole Gortys fiasco, but in that time he'd only been let known the Hyperion CEO held some small emotion akin to caring for him was in his contradicting jokes, and those small ghost-of-a-second moments where Jack's touch would linger for longer than normal, or when Rhys would catch random stares coming from the older man that held a kind of intensity he couldn't distinguish exactly what it was before it was gone in a blink and a turn of the head.
"Hey, string bean, I asked you a question."
Rhys jumped out of his thoughts at the impatient bark. "Oh! Uh, I'm fine. Sore, and I think the adrenaline is still numbing a lot of it, but I'm okay. Thanks?"
Jack gave him a blank stare. "You sure? Because the dried blood coming from your ears is telling me something different."
So that's what the blood was from earlier. Rhys reached up to cup one of his ears, giving the other man a lopsided smile. "Heh, whaddya know? It must have been from the explosion. It doesn't hurt though."
There was moment of silence in which Jack held that same blank stare, Rhys beginning to fidget under the gaze and it made him a little agitated knowing full well Jack was doing it for that reason. Thankfully he stopped the stare with a roll of his eyes and a sigh, turning away to stare up at the giant space station hovering above them in the sky.
"I've been on this planet far too damn long for my liking. Call up one of those douchebags at Hyperion and get us another shuttle, will ya? My communicator doesn't seem to be working."
"Yeah, right, I'll just…." So caught up in the moment of Jack asking about his health, he had forgotten to mention his echo eye or communication wasn't working either. He decided to give it a try anyway, hoping it would start up this time from sheer luck.
Unfortunately for Rhys he never had much luck to begin with, and the moment he tried to power his echo eye he saw the snowy static blur his vision, followed by a harsh and painful backlash of electricity that jolted through his brain. The nerves in his arms and legs burned and caused him to spasm, and he doubled over and cried out when he couldn't take the overwhelming pain that drowned his senses. He felt hands on his shoulders then, rough and jerking him up into a sitting position.
Blinking through the static Rhys could see Jack staring at him, watching his face closely.
"Kiddo? You still with me? What happened?" There it was again. That...odd, random caring thing he did. It wasn't just what he said it, but how he said it. Rhys could blame how drunk he was on the pain, but he was sure he heard what could be considered as concern coming from the man.
Damn his head hurt, but the spasms and pain had ended the second his echo went dead. He met Jack's eyes unsteadily, and realized what he was about to say should have been relayed about ten feet farther from the man.
"Yeah, I-I'm fine. Uh, remember when you asked me if I had taken any damage?"
Jack remained silent but didn't remove his eyes from Rhys'.
"Well…," he continued with a weak chuckle, "...ah, I forgot to mention that...myechoisn'tworkingeither." Immediately he clamped his eyes shut and waited for it, the explosion that would finish off what the fall didn't.
The grip on his shoulders left, and he could feel Jack rise and take a few steps back. Oh God. Here it comes.
"You gotta be kiddin me."
Yeah, that tone was way too calm for comfort. Rhys chanced one eye to look at the CEO, and chewed his bottom lip between his teeth when Jack began to pace slowly, hands on his hips, shoulders tense, that stance that meant something, someone, a large region, or a continent, was going to die.
This was just the build up.
"Jack…?"
"You mean to tell me," Jack hissed quietly, "that we have absolutely no way of communicating with Helios to get us a shuttle, to get us back home, that we are stranded.Here. On this God. Forsaken. Planet," Uh oh, his voice was getting louder, his pacing was getting stompier. A figurative ticking time bomb.
"All because some inbred, scum sucking, disease ridden, shit eating, yellow belly, Pandoran trashBLEW US OUT OF THE FUCKING SKY?!"
Rhys wanted to curl up under a rock. He instead sat as still as stone as Jack exploded in a screaming fit of rage. Well, there was nothing to do now but to let him get it out of his system.
"GOD DAMMIT!" Jack whirled himself around in search of the nearest thing he could blow to pieces. Seeing an innocent boulder a good distance away he swiftly took an elemental pistol out from his ankle holster and proceeded to pummel the poor object with bullets.
Until there was literally nothing left but a cloud of dust and echoing gunfire. Rhys waited until the only sound left was Jack's heavy breathing, stood up, dusted himself off, and walked slowly to the older man, mechanical arm rubbing the back of his neck nervously.
"We...we'll find another way back, Jack. It'll be harder, but…I'm sure we'll find something."
"No shit, genius." Rhys winced at the harsh tone, but knew better than to approach Jack until he had completely calmed down. His shoulders slumped and he cast his eyes down to look at his shoes, suddenly feeling more useless than the boulder.
Jack must have noticed Rhys' expression, for when he glanced at the PA from the corner of his eye it seemed to have extinguished some of the fury that was still blazing in his mind and he sighed tiredly, running a hand through his hair to fix some of the loose strands that had fallen out of place during his rampage.
Rhys flinched when a strong hand clamped on his shoulder, squeezing in a way that could be considered comforting. He raised his wide eyes to meet Jack's and the smirk replacing the scowl from earlier, finding this look on the man more true to his nickname.
"C'mon, pumpkin. Let's get going."
"Get going?" Rhy tilted his head in confusion. "Going where?"
"Hah, you're cute when you're playing dumb, kiddo. Let's go." The hand on Rhys' shoulder tugged him forward and the two began walking. And it suddenly dawned on Rhys; he'd never admit it, but Jack actually had no idea where they were going. When every barren, hot, dry desert on Pandora looked about the same, it was hard to grasp a direction so soon, but Jack's pride was tougher than steel, he knew that much about the man, and knew well to keep any further questions to himself.
Until Jack came to an abrupt halt, causing Rhys to stumble and catch himself.
"Almost forgot," Jack said with a grin, "need to roll-call."
It was amazing how many guns Jack kept stuffed in random places on his body. He must have had, like, what, six? One strapped to each ankle, two comfortably placed in the holsters on each side of his torso on his vest underneath his jacket, two placed in his waistline of his pants –one in the front, one in the back.
"Let's see...Lucy...Alice...Berta...Nisha...Rita...aaaand, Catie. Alright! We're good to go!" Rhys rolled his eyes at how happy Jack was right now. Really? Naming your guns?
"Lemme guess," Rhys drawled, "the names of your exes?"
"Yup!" Jack laughed, which resembled something like a kid with his prized toys. "Or the ones I liked, at least. Alice was the one that took out that boulder, ya know. That was one tough woman."
'Good lord.'
"Aw don't be jealous, Rhysie. You might get a gun named after you too one day, sweetcheeks. I'll keep you close to my heart." Jack patted his chest where his heart was, throwing Rhys a large mocking grin with a wiggle of his eyebrows.
Despite the blush that bled onto his cheeks, Rhys sighed and shook his head. Was that an attempt to be sweet? God only knew.
The two continued onward, and Rhys couldn't fight the growing anxiety in his gut at the unknown he was sure to face.
Because when you're journeying through the Pandoran terrain with one Handsome Jack leading the way, what could possibly go wrong?
That was sarcasm, by the way.
