Archive of Our Own

An obnoxious series of pings wakes Rhys with a start.

He bolts upright, heart pounding, ready to open a palm that isn’t there. Despite the muzzy wool that blankets his brain and makes him feel like he’s struggling to exist in too-heavy gravity with leaden limbs, the sliver of him that still clings to consciousness and coherency recognises the noise for what it is: an urgent message from Handsome Jack.

Blearily, Rhys untangles his legs from the bedsheets and glances at the sleek display perched upon his bedside table.

Of course Jack is still awake at 03:00, he thinks with an aggravated sigh. And not only that, of course Jack thinks this is a perfectly acceptable hour to summon him. He’d been getting better about that sort of thing ever since Rhys threatened to rearrange his Monday schedules to include a solid five-hour block of back-to-back meetings after that near sleepless month pre-Vision launch, but now it seems as if there has been a relapse.

Honestly, Rhys isn’t sure what he expected. It’s not like he’d wanted to get any sleep, anyway.

Rhys drags himself out of bed and fumbles through the methodical process of reattaching his cybernetic arm. When he opens his palm and accesses his messages, he contemplates replying to whatever Jack had sent with some kind of petty witticism he’s sure Awake Rhys would have zero trouble composing, but the thought evaporates as soon as his eyes skim over the subject line.

There are a number of things Rhys has come to expect from Jack’s messages. For as much of a capricious man-child as Jack can be, he writes very well, uses proper grammar, and occasionally over-emphasises things in caps when the mood strikes him. He often has Rhys manage written communication when it comes to other department heads and anyone else he cares to have a dreaded tête-à-tête with because he is, quote, a very busy guy and I don’t have time for that kind of bullshit, come on, unquote, and Rhys doesn’t complain because it is his job and also because he rather likes to watch the incompetents squirm, even if it is over text.

However, when it comes to messages between him and Rhys, Jack always writes them personally. The situation and context rarely matter; Jack will send anywhere from two words to ten paragraphs, whatever gets his thoughts across.

It’s … well, Rhys won’t say endearing. “Endearing” is not a viable word to describe any facet of Handsome Jack. But it’s near. Near adjacent. Somewhere in the general vicinity without actually toeing or encroaching upon the line in any way.

And this message, Rhys realises with a strange twist of concern, has not been personally written. Or rather it had been personally written, but at some point in the indeterminate past, and definitely not tonight.

From: ~HJack69~
Subject: AUTO-MESSAGE #0004694: URGENT RESPONSE REQUESTED
Body:

Heya, kiddo!

I need you to drop whatever dumb unimportant thing you’re doing and head up to my office. Like, now. Preferably 10 minutes ago. Kind of in a bind at the moment and time is of the essence. That means don’t stop to grab coffee or a sandwich or whatever else. Just move your ass and get over here.

In case you need it in layman’s terms: hurry the hell up.

- HJ

THIS HAS BEEN AN AUTOMATED MESSAGE. REPLIES SENT MAY OR MAY NOT BE SEEN BY HANDSOME JACK.

NOTE: READ RECEIPTS HAVE BEEN ACTIVATED AND A RECEIPT WILL BE DELIVERED UPON OPEN.

True to its statement, the client generates a read receipt and sends it off to Jack’s user address with the exact date and time Rhys had opened the message, right down to the very millisecond.

Briefly, Rhys wonders at the thousands of other automated messages if this one is only in the four thousand range. He also wonders how many of them Jack had written himself. Jack likes a personal touch on things, but he isn’t monotony’s biggest fan. Writing over four thousand of anything would likely trip him into a fit that would spell the end for at least half a department, and so much unexpected turnover would be a production disaster waiting to happen, not to mention the headache of PR and recompense.

Maybe Jack had foisted the task on his last sleep-deprived PA, Rhys thinks sourly.

With another weary sigh, Rhys scrubs at his heavy eyes and fends off a jaw-cracking yawn before stumbling about the open expanse of his still-dark bedroom in search of presentable clothes.

His walk-in closet yields a clean black button-down and a pressed pair of pinstripe slacks, so he shrugs those on along with the familiar presence of his Hyperion-accented waistcoat. After he shuffles into some particularly vibrant socks that look far more awake than he will ever feel, he steps into his nearest pair of boots, combs his fingers through his still shower-damp hair, and begins the journey to Handsome Jack’s office.

The nice thing about this residential sector is that the walk to the elevators isn’t long. The previous sector he’d lived in with Vaughn had required a proper commute, which says volumes about their prior positions and yearly salaries. When Jack had offered him “way better digs”, Rhys had all but scrambled to accept, and now he and Vaughn are smack dab in the middle of one of the swankier floors of Helios, living the good life in spacious rooms with full amenities and a convenient set of elevators to the primary working sectors not even a five minute trot down the corridor.

Rhys slips into an open elevator and punches in the Hub’s floor. While he waits, he ignores the jazztronica murmuring over the speakers in favour of the message displayed once again in his open palm. He rereads it from start to finish, eyes dragging from subject line to appended auto-notes, and yes, he decides, it’s still off. All of it.

If going over it a second time sets something vaguely off-kilter, going over it a third time tips it off entirely. The hologram flickers with Jack’s words from Jack’s user address, and yet a tight sinking sensation slips somewhere down below Rhys’s ribs.

Rhys understands urgency well enough as nearly everything with Handsome Jack is urgent in some manner until it isn’t, but he eyes the wording with a degree of trepidation.

“Kind of in a bind”, it says, and the whole thing is very casual, like Jack had been bored out of his mind when he’d written it, like he’d thought for some reason that would be the best way to describe whatever generic scenario this specific message would get sent to address.

Kind of in a bind. That implies trouble, right? And this is an automated message, which means either Jack had been physically incapable of typing it out himself or he’d been preoccupied with some other situation that prioritised haste over all else. Neither option bodes well.

Rhys mulls it over as he trades the elevator for a train car. He slinks down into the nearest open seat and continues to pick through countless scenarios until that uncomfortable sinking settles into something more prominent, a tangible weight nestling right in the pit of his stomach, this slow yet ratcheting pressure that veers in to rest heavy and lopsided where it doesn’t belong.

… Surely Jack isn’t in danger?

He huffs a quiet laugh in the car, drawing the attention of the only other passenger—a tired-looking woman in her mid-thirties sitting by the back window. Rhys casts her a sheepish smile before averting his gaze to the scrolling metal angles that mark Hyperion’s architecture outside.

It’s a stupid thought, really. He’s not sure why it came to him. If there were any danger at all, the entire station would know it. Alarms would sound, loader bots would be everywhere, Jack would send out a taunting Helios-wide broadcast. On top of that, Rhys sincerely doubts Jack would have sent a message to him of all people if Jack’s life were on the line. Jack has body doubles, bodyguards, and guards for that.

Plus, he’s a real crack shot. That always helps.

The train slows to a stop in the Central Terminal. Rhys makes a swift exit and descends into the nearly vacant Hub of Heroism, passing idle loaders and a few meandering employees until he finds himself tucked in the elevator that soars straight to his destination. The ride stretches on a little too long, ameliorated only by the presence of more saxophone-prominent nu jazz, but he endures with practised stoicism.

When Rhys finally reaches the long corridor that precedes Jack’s office, he clears the distance at such a brisk pace that by the time he’s passed the biometrics scanner and stepped through the giant doors, his breaths draw far too quickly, soft and short and shallow, his heart a jumping rhythm in his chest.

Even at a distance, Jack seems to eclipse the violet burn of Elpis. His sharp silhouette lounges in the grand comfort of his ostentatious chair, wedged back behind the long body of his desk planted at the room’s zenith. Jack remains strangely still for someone who had declared this such an exigency, and if Rhys hadn’t noticed the way he’d shifted at the sound of the closing doors, he would have assumed Jack to be asleep.

Rhys knows better, though. Jack seems to run on nothing but coffee, passive-aggressive quips, and violence.

“About goddamn time,” says Jack, and although it’s unmistakably irritable over the trickling water features, it lacks the proper venom. “Where the hell were you? I’ve been sitting here like this for”—Jack leans forward, squints at something on his desk—“half an hour. Wow. Really? Has it really only been half an hour? Huh. Feels like it’s been longer. Whatever, doesn’t matter. Look, could you give me a hand here? Preferably sometime this year.”

Rhys rolls his eyes and starts to cross the room. “What is it now? If you called me in the middle of the night just to hand you an ECHO log or something, kindly save me the trouble and tell me now so I can turn around and go back to bed. I’d like to at least be fully rested before I get launched out of an airlock.”

“Normally I’d have a very awesome and hilarious repartee ready for that,” says Jack, thumping his head against the backrest, “but unfortunately for the both of us I’m nearing my wits’ end or something very close to it, so why don’t you cut the crap and get over here, huh?”

“I’m not running up two flights of stairs, Jack. I already took two elevators and a train to get here. You can wait another twenty seconds.”

And if he slows his gait at the plinth? Well, it’s not like Jack has to know.

“Killing me here, Rhysie,” Jack groans, long and pitiful.

Rhys can’t resist a smirk. “That’s not helping your case. So, why the automated message? Couldn’t you have just, I don’t know, sent a quick, ‘Hey, get up here’? It’s not like you haven’t done it before.”

“Oh, believe me, I would’ve if that had even been a friggin’ option. But, uh. Well.” Jack laughs, incredulous and—a little exasperated? “I’m kind of in a bind here, kitten.”

Frowning at Jack’s choice of words, Rhys crests the final steps and rounds the left side of the desk. And when Jack comes into full view, unharmed and clad in his usual layers, everything about the past twenty minutes clicks together and makes total sense.

Handsome Jack is in a bind. Literally and figuratively, but mostly literally.

At the wrists, to be precise: two thick yellow metal clasps encircle both of Jack’s wrists, keeping his hands and forearms pinned to the armrests. The tattooed gear on his right is partly obscured while the large watch he wears on his left now sits on his desk, its face positioned just so, a familiar message interface opened on its display. Jack’s ankles are cuff-free, which ought to yield a bit of wiggle room, but with how securely the top restraints have locked him in, it’s clear that outside help is his only chance at freedom.

As if to further punctuate his unfortunate predicament, Jack flexes his hands. His fingers stretch out until the tendons draw taut, and then he curls them in and grips the armrests again, broad palms engulfing each end. His rolled sleeves offer a tanned expanse of dark hair and corded muscle, and that rolls and shifts with the movement, murmuring of tamped strength and latent power in some long-forgotten language.

Okay, then, thinks Rhys, biting at the inside of his lip. This is … fine. Ridiculous, yes, but fine. And all things considered, nowhere near the craziest situation he’s been expected to resolve. It’s decidedly better than the grim scenarios he’d entertained on the way over here.

And Jack, to his credit, looks only mildly annoyed. The pointed frown he gives Rhys is so very tame compared to its other variants, and Rhys is tempted to make a snide comment or three at Jack’s expense—because, really, this is the kind of stuff that makes for excellent blackmail during annual performance reviews—but when his gaze drops lower, all thought processes grind to a shrieking halt.

Jack is hard. Noticeably, distinctly hard.

And perhaps somewhat painfully, if the extreme tightness of his slacks is anything to go by.

Any semblance of a clever remark slides back down Rhys’s throat with a hard swallow, and he is once again reminded with unceremonious clarity that he is not, has never been, and never will be immune to Handsome Jack.

Truthfully, most of the fanboyish thrill had been lost somewhere post-promotion. Things tend to change when you witness the sheer absurdity of your new boss experiencing varied states of microsleep between ECHO calls or when you continually endure his petulant complaints about required meeting attendance with the department heads. It’s an inevitability, really; that’s just what happens when you slip between the cracks of anyone’s public persona.

Of course, such changes grow more apparent when said new boss works long and silent hours far into Helios’s night cycle only to still be there when you bring him his coffee the next morning. They become even more prominent when you’re summoned with a single-use access code to his private penthouse one night to act as his personal sounding board while he pores over the final touches of a new product release prior to launch.

And the most obvious and drastic change, perhaps, is when that very same boss doesn’t space you for a comment you can’t keep to yourself (“What are you doing? That piece is coded wrong. It’s never going to work like that. If you just—”) and instead flashes you one of those winsome, heart-stopping smiles that looks like it’s been lifted straight from a promotional poster and tosses you his keyboard with a cavalier, “Think you can do it better, pumpkin? Go on, then. Show me how it’s done.”

Has Rhys been desensitised to Jack? Yes. Completely and without question. He knows this quite keenly because the sense of ease that comes with Jack’s indomitable presence drapes around his shoulders like body heat from an offered suit jacket. He stands in the delightful push-pull give-take of Jack’s ineluctable magnetism, lets the waves of it persuade and crash at his edges until he can breathe them like oxygen, and because he is the one who curates the schedule of the most powerful man in the six galaxies, he does it all with a claw in Jack’s shadow that lets him tug and press right back.

But when Jack sits there on his throne with his wrists bound fast, with his knees splayed open and wide, with the thick line of his cock straining his slacks, his already indomitable presence seems inexplicably amplified by this blood-deep, inexorable pull.

Jack is a gravitational singularity bidding the entire endless universe around him to succumb and collapse, and Rhys—

Well.

Rhys just can’t be expected to be immune to that.

He draws in an even breath, all too cognisant of the heat flushing under his collar, and forces himself to take a mental step back into the mindset that balances just this side of irritated. And he is irritated, he reminds himself, he has to be, because Jack had summoned him at an ungodly hour to take care of—

Rhys exhales in a slow and deliberate way, one that conveys a tone of displeasure and disappointment rather than the promising smoulder of arousal that catches at the fuses of his veins and makes him want to drop to his knees. He schools his expression to match: perturbed, exhausted, and completely not in the mood.

You can do this, Rhys, he tells himself. You are calm, you are collected, and you are a professional. You can totally do this. Everything will be fine.

“A part of me wants to ask how you managed this,” Rhys begins with surprising smoothness, “but I’m honestly not sure I want to know.”

“Shut up,” says Jack. “I was testing something, okay?”

“Right. Testing. Okay.” Rhys arches an eyebrow. “And did the testing … fail?”

“Did the testing—” Jack squeezes his eyes shut and groans. “Yes, god, the testing failed. I’m a little worried you even had to ask considering I broke your stupid freaking protocol and woke you up before ‘the necessary six’, but you know what? It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. I’m just glad we’re finally both on the same page here.” He cracks one eye open, brilliant blue narrowed on Rhys. “Man, your observational skills are just … real stellar right now, huh.”

“In my defence,” says Rhys, levelling Jack with the most unimpressed glare he can manage, “you did wake me up before the necessary six. Also in my defence, I didn’t know your chair had restraints. If I’d walked in on this at any other time, I would have assumed business as usual. I may be a lot of things, Jack, but I’m not omnipotent.”

“No, but you do have access to every database in Helios. Which, if we’re being honest, is pretty damn close.”

“And yet still not close enough to know what happened without a verbal explanation.”

Jack releases a noisy breath through his nose. “This obviously wasn’t supposed to happen, all right? I was in the middle of pushing out some updates cause I’ve been wanting some new features in this baby for a while. The last one was the dopamine injectors, and that was, like, I dunno. Six months ago?”

“A year, actually,” says Rhys. The installation had been a real bitch.

“Right, right, a year, whatever,” says Jack, bobbing his broad shoulders in a shrug. “Point is, it’s way past due for an upgrade or ten. Most of the big projects this quarter are out of the way and everything’s been running pretty smoothly, so I just figured, hey, you know, got some free time. Why not give it a shot? So I added a few things, tweaked the existing code, moved some stuff around. You know the drill. Took a bit to get reacclimated so I ended up having to patch, like, three separate fixes in before I could even get the damn thing to recline again. That was a fun time. I thought I’d fixed it all with this last build, but, uh. Yeah. Looks like we’ve still got a few bugs to work out.”

“A very important few,” says Rhys, pointedly eyeing the bright yellow clasps and not Jack’s lap. “If it’s causing that many problems, why not just run it through QA? Isn’t that their job?”

Jack laughs. “Uh, no. I mean, yeah, that is their job, but no, I’m not putting it through QA. Full offence to the testing nerds, but I’m not about to have a bunch of vitamin D deficient morons playing frickin’ musical chairs with this thing just to see if a couple of new features function like they should. Besides,” Jack continues pleasantly, grasping at the ends of the armrests, “I’m more of a hands-on kind of guy.”

That innocuous afterthought should not punch Rhys right through the sternum, and yet it’s like a fist has rammed its way out squarely between his shoulder blades.

Feeling rather winded, he asks, “I take it there was no fail-safe during testing?”

“Ha, yeah, so, funny story there—that was one of those things I totally, one hundred percent meant to implement when this new one got made but never got the chance. Due to, you know, running a whole company and working on a billion other things at any given time. Ended up on the backburner ’cause everything always worked great. Response times were optimal, code was flawless. Never needed it.”

“Until now. You know, QA would’ve caught that on the very first pass.”

Jack musters a sour look. “Thanks, smartass. Look, are you gonna help me out or are you just gonna stand there and make needlessly stupid comments all night? Because the faster you help, the faster I’m out of this, and the faster you can return to your beauty rest. You help me, I help you, win-win, everybody’s happy.”

“I don’t think letting me sleep qualifies as helping,” says Rhys.

“Sure it does. ’Cause if you leave right now,” Jack says with an ominous amount of cheer, “I’ll never let you sleep again.”

Rhys heaves a long-suffering sigh, willing his brain to focus solely on the sharp lineaments of Jack’s face and nothing else because he is a goddamn adult who is more than fully capable of ignoring unfortunate things like ill-timed boners, thank you very much. Jack already cracks way too many dumb dick jokes as it is; Rhys does not need to be subjected to ones starring the dick in front of him.

“Okay, fine,” he says. “What do you need me to do? Because it doesn’t look like I can just pry those open, at least not without risking damage.”

“Yeah, no. That’s definitely not an option. They’re, uh.” Jack glances down. He frowns, tries to roll his wrists. “They’re pretty snug. Don’t exactly have a lot of room here. I’d be impressed if this were happening to literally anyone else. So, uh. Yeah. Anything prying or cutting’s out of the question.”

“Well, what about a manual release? Is there a button I can press like with the trapdoor?”

“You think I haven’t already tried that? Trust me, sweetheart, I wouldn’t have dragged your ass out of bed just to press a button. Admittedly that would have been very entertaining if these were different circumstances, but ultimately?” Jack shrugs, countenance a little too smug for a man in his current position. “Not worth getting bitched at.”

“Great. Thanks. Glad that’s been established,” Rhys deadpans. “Does that mean you tried pressing the button, then?”

“Oh, for the love of— Yes, I tried pressing the damn button. I’m not an idiot.”

Jack brings his left leg up to balance his ankle on the opposite knee, and Rhys notes the distinct lack of shoe; only a black sock covers Jack’s toes. Jack wiggles them for good measure.

“Luckily for me,” says Jack, lowering his leg again, “the bottom ones decided they weren’t going to work at all for whatever reason. They predate the injectors by like three months or something and those are still working just fine, sooo. Yeah. No idea what happened there. Anyway, took a few minutes and some pretty intense poses I’m probably gonna regret later, but the button was thoroughly pressed and all of zero things happened, so you can go ahead and check that step off your little triage list.”

It should probably bother Rhys that Jack somehow considers him both his personal tech support and personal QA team in addition to his personal assistant, but at this point in his career, he can’t say it’s unexpected.

Plus, he doesn’t have it in him to squabble over technicalities in his job description right now. That’s a problem for Later Rhys.

“What if I jack into the executive override?” he asks, eyes drifting to the back of Jack’s chair. “Will that let me access the controls?”

Jack spares the chairback a pensive look. “I mean? Honestly, yeah, that’s probably your best bet. If you jump through some hoops, you should be able to release it from there. And if not, well. I dunno. We’ll just … figure something out, I guess. Incidentally, are you up for a little coding on the fly? ’Cause with the way my night’s been going, that’s something that might actually need to happen.”

“And with the way my night’s been going, it probably will. For your sake, I hope you’ve been keeping frequent backups.” Rhys expels another tired sigh and scrubs at his eyes. “All right. Let me see what I can do.”

With his attention fixed exclusively on Jack’s chair, Rhys approaches with what he hopes is an exemplary air of professional disinterest. He stops at Jack’s side, reaches behind the yellow back, catches the override, and guides it to his left temple. The cool spike of metal slips in without resistance; it engages with a bone-deep click he can feel between his eyes, and then the connection fires, one node to another and another and another, total and instantaneous and utterly ambient.

Rhys’s ECHO-eye flares to life. The entirety of Jack’s spacious office folds over in a familiar wash of lambent blue, and then—

He shudders through a deep inhale, wide and full, enough to fill the entire hollow of his chest. The heavy knock of his heart presses against it, not a rejection but a warning, and he lets it settle into the stretch for a long moment before it rushes out in an exhale between his teeth. He blinks and he breathes and he lets everything careen into him with the dizzying force of atmospheric entry. It’s like being moored and cast off all at once; his body remains at Jack’s side, but his mind soars somewhere in orbit, catching on comets and asteroids and the absconding plasma of solar flares.

This is not the first time Rhys has linked up to the executive override. He has taken the plunge on a few separate occasions, each of them blessed and supervised by Jack. Regardless, past experience never prepares him for just how flowing yet disjointed it feels, for how his consciousness nudges against the intricate webs of Helios’s mainframe until he meshes with a strand and it hooks him by the brain, rocketing him straight in.

Gathering another breath behind his ribs, Rhys slides a mental wall in front of Helios’s staggering vastness and narrows his focus until he finds the nodes that pulse of Jack—the data within these walls, this room, centralised down to a single, lonely point.

It’s easy after that.

The throne’s controls don’t have an interface, not in the proper GUI sense, but Rhys can see them all the same. He slips past the functions for the trapdoor, the death traps, the dopamine injectors, the massage features, the auto recline, and a great many other things he’d rather not think too much about until he reaches the ones for the restraints.

> WRIST LOCKS: ENGAGED
> ANKLE LOCKS: DISENGAGED

As Rhys pushes through the manual command for release, he wonders what the hell Jack did to break it.

“Did that work?” he asks after a moment. He knows he could just look down and see for himself, but that would mean getting another eyeful of Jack’s lap, and that is not something he needs right now.

“Mmm, nope. Still locked.” Jack sighs. “Great. So, what happened? Did the command actually go through?”

“I think it did?”

“Really not the answer I was looking for.”

“I know, I know. Give me a second to check, okay? Sit tight.”

“Sitting tight’s just about the only thing I can do, babe.”

Rhys fights a snicker under his breath as he flits through the functions again. It takes a minute or two, but once he finds the trail he’s looking for, he snaps up the reference, takes a hard turn into another directory, and then proceeds to dive through two entire years’ worth of logs, what the hell, Jack.

After he makes a mental note to talk to Jack about proper housekeeping (because two years of testing logs is ridiculous), he selects the most recent one and wills it open. The text surfaces in a window that overlays the vibrant blue veil of Jack’s office, stretching several pages in length. The final few error lines spangling the bottom of the file suggest the worst.

“Uh, never mind. That’s a no,” he says. “Hardware isn’t even receiving it. Looks like a bad crash.”

“Terrific,” says Jack, this time with a bite of ire.

“I could recompile and try again? I mean, the result might be the same, but …”

“No, no, no. Don’t even bother. Waste of time. Just—” Jack breathes out a low noise that sinks its teeth right into the base of Rhys’s spine. “Take a look at the code, I guess. Roll it back if you have to. There should be a branch that’s good from last week if push comes to shove. You know what you’re doing, right, princess?

“Really, Jack? I’m offended you even have to ask.”

With an irritated huff, Rhys closes out of the log and pitches his connection over to Jack’s awaiting computer. He blinks past security and begins to sift through Jack’s work, rifling through countless files that contain anything from future Research and Development projects to various expense reports to prototype concepts hot off the press from Weapons Design.

When he finds the correct files, Rhys double checks the edit dates through Hyperion’s source control before browsing through wavy blocks of neatly written code for anything amiss. The error from the logs is rather vague as far as leads go (it’s always hit-or-miss when it comes to Jack’s custom messages), but it has a general location at least, and that’s a start.

Rhys spends a minute or two digging through the recently modified, flicking between files with practised ease, setting up a few breakpoints, occasionally bringing them up to display in his right palm.

It’s been a while, he thinks, but this is nice. It’s nice to immerse himself in this again. After weeks of daily ECHO calls and fielding tetchy department heads, it feels good to wade through line upon line of logic and function. It’s fluid and familiar in a way that hums well with the quieter parts of him, and he stands there at Jack’s side and soaks it in with private thrill.

“Coding half asleep again?” Rhys asks mildly, scanning through another file.

Jack chuckles. “More like coding on a heavy cocktail of uppers and coffee. What gave it away?”

“Your comments. They tend to get even sparser than usual. They also tend to get significantly more passive-aggressive. I just saw a rant that went on for three lines. It went off-display. There was an impressive amount of caps involved.”

“What can I say? When you’re in the zone, that kind of stuff’s an afterthought. Or, well, it’s an afterthought until a certain section that should work according to literally everything else you’ve done so far doesn’t for god only knows what reason, and then you find yourself writing snarky commentary at two in the morning because that’s the only catharsis you’re gonna get short of throwing your monitor across the room, and that’s something you’re trying to avoid ’cause you’re a stand-up guy and you know your fussy assistant will throw a massive fit over another call to Requisitions even though you own the damn company and money is no object.”

Rhys stifles a laugh. “That all sounds very specific.”

“Really? No kidding! It’s almost like I’m pulling from personal experience.”

“My personal experience involves Yvette and a whole lot of sighing.” Not to mention Yvette’s running tally. “She always tries to wheedle something else out of me while she has me on the line.”

“Sounds like your personal experience sucks.”

“Based on these comments, yours isn’t much better.”

“Yeah, thanks. Really needed that reminder. Prick.” A beat, and then: “Why the comments-comment, anyway? You having trouble or something?”

“No trouble,” Rhys assures. “It makes things a little more complicated since this is my first time looking at this, but it’s not a problem. I’ll make do.”

“Sorry, kiddo,” says Jack, sounding not sorry in the slightest. “Gotta make you work for it sometimes, y’know? I can’t always make things easy on you.”

“What gave you the impression I wanted things easy? If I really wanted it easy, I would have just gone to Tediore. Internships there are a dime a dozen.” Rhys picks out a few code pieces for a closer look and marks them with a comment (// R: Might be part of the problem) and a few breakpoints before moving on. “I hear you can get a nice cosy spot in middle management after about four years. Suck up to the right people, grease a few palms. I could’ve made it there no problem. Smooth sailing and set for life, all with minimal effort.”

“Jesus,” says Jack. “What a colossal waste that would’ve been.”

Rhys inwardly preens as he tags a few more segments. “Like I said, if I wanted easy, I would have gone to Tediore and basked in a glorious lifetime of middle management. Instead, I’m here working for Hyperion and for you. I think it worked out pretty well.”

“You’d call working alongside Handsome Jack ‘pretty well’?”

“Very well?”

“Nuh-uh. Not very well. Extremely well. It’s incredibly awesome and deeply fulfilling and makes you feel all accomplished like you’re a real integral part of the Hyperion team or something. What’s that? You’re super grateful and you don’t know how you could ever repay me for such a fantastic opportunity to advance your career? Don’t worry; message received. You’re welcome, Rhys. Feel free to show your appreciation at any time.”

“I show plenty of appreciation,” Rhys says matter-of-factly, sectioning out another problem piece. “I’m here at nearly four in the morning trying to pry you out of a chair via program, aren’t I? If that doesn’t count as appreciation, I don’t know what does.”

A pause. “God. I just— I really, really wish I could move my hands so I could do a facepalm. That’s— I really need that right now. You have no idea. I’m shaking with the need to do that. Shaking, Rhys.”

Rhys chances the briefest glance. “You are not shaking. I can still see when this is active, you know. It’s an overlay, not a curtain.”

“My soul is the one doing the shaking for me,” Jack says with no small amount of indignation, “because I barely have the goddamn room to exist in this frickin’ thing, let alone shake.”

There is an unnaturally powerful urge to ask “Is someone a little frustrated?” but Rhys bites his tongue. It’s never a good idea to poke a Thracian tetrabear when it’s caged. He doesn’t know if arousal makes caged Thracian tetrabears any more dangerous, but he’s sure it wouldn’t help. Neurotoxin is neurotoxin, regardless of whether or not boners are involved.

God. He really needs to not think about Jack and boners. That’s just—really not a helpful train of thought whatsoever.

“Relax,” he says evenly, belying the drop of warmth curling down below his belly. “I’ll have you out in under ten minutes. If I can’t fix what’s here, I’ll roll it all back to last week’s branch and redeploy. Just sit tight a little longer, okay? You’ll be back in the wonderful world of standing before you know it.”

Jack groans out a long and wordless complaint, punctuated by the telltale thump of his head hitting the backrest. Still, Rhys catches Jack adjusting in his seat out of the left corner of his eye, and that says far more than any of his pettish grumblings. It might be begrudging and it might not be much in the way of compliance, but it’s pretty damn decent for Handsome Jack.

True to Rhys’s word, the fixes take less than ten minutes. Despite the complexity of the code in the places he’d marked, Rhys finds that the issues are rather minor: two small logic errors solved with a bit of rearrangement, a few variable clearing issues, and one particular instance where the wrong value had been passed in. Simple mistakes, all things considered, though he can’t say it comes as a surprise.

Rhys knows Jack can be a stunningly brilliant programmer. He’s seen Jack’s work; he knows the precise magnitude of Jack’s potential, knows exactly what he’s capable of. Jack is a whirlwind whose past projects lock the metaphorical foundation of Helios together like cornerstones.

But when exhaustion chases Jack to his natural limits and he decides to compensate with other substances, things tend to take a downward turn. Little inaccuracies trickle in by the dozens where there had once been twos and threes, and any chance of proper documentation dwindles down to single digits. That kind of manic haste seems to sate Jack’s deep-seated drive for constant production, but as far as Rhys is concerned, it creates far more problems than it resolves.

Honestly, Rhys doubts Jack would ever deign to hear anything about instilling a “necessary six” protocol for himself. Jack does what he wants, and that usually means burning the wick at both ends until nothing but charred fibres remain. Rhys knows his cues; he’s cleaned up after Handsome Jack more than once. Self-destructive habits are notoriously hard to break, especially when the person involved is a stubborn asshole who is convinced said self-destructive habits are for the better.

Still, Rhys might be able to use this little midnight exercise to his advantage. If he can say the right words, imply the right things, butter Jack up, play to his ego …

Well. If it means he gets to sleep through a full night cycle, it might be worth a shot.

After Rhys makes the necessary changes and commits them to source control with the necessary comments, he triggers the command to generate a new build with, according to Jack’s discarded watch, about thirty seconds to spare. He switches off his palm display with a swell of triumph.

“All right, looks like we’re set. Building now,” he says.

“Thank god,” says Jack. “Man, I am so frickin’ ready to stand. It’s kinda weird, you know? Standing’s not really one of those things you think about taking for granted, but the moment you can’t, you’re just like, ‘Augh, no, lemme me up, gotta move.’ I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to run a damn lap so much in my entire life.” He shifts again in Rhys’s periphery. “Ugh. I think my butt’s starting to fall asleep. Kinda regret not doing those dumb stretches earlier. Probably would’ve helped.”

Before he can stop to think about the words that come catapulting out of his mouth, Rhys says, “Why? Feeling a little stiff?”

A long, long moment of silence descends upon the office.

Rhys doesn’t need to look at Jack to know he’s being stared at. Jack’s gaze has always had this presence, this weight, like the merest glance could shove Rhys against a wall, like Jack could be somewhere across a crowded room and that quiet, intangible burn would let Rhys know he’s watching.

It prickles at Rhys’s left side, hot little pins marching up his arm, his neck, his cheek, and he is struck with the sudden and incredible urge to trigger the command for the trapdoor and launch himself down into the labyrinth below in hopes that it will spare him the vast discomfort of this situation.

“Well,” says Jack, his voice thick and low with amusement, “that’s definitely one way of putting it.”

It isn’t possible to die of embarrassment, at least not naturally, but the way Rhys’s stomach drops out coupled with the rapid thunder of his heartbeat makes for a very convincing argument.

Flushing, Rhys claps a hand over his face. “I’m … That was … Wow, I did not mean that. I mean, I did mean that, but I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just—” He clears his throat, swallows, tries to extricate tangled words into coherent thought. “This has been a long night.”

“Uh-huh,” says Jack, sounding no less amused.

“Shut up! You don’t have your mind linked to all of Helios just so you can interface with a damn chair. This is a very disorienting process, okay? It takes a lot of conscious effort and I did a hell of a lot today and I am tired and I—and I think I deserve a little leeway.” Rhys takes a steady breath. His face burns under his lifelines. “Just … cut me some slack. All right? That’s all I ask.”

“I want it noted that I am choosing to spare you this one time out of the sheer goodness of my heart. Consider your slack good and cut, kid. You’re very welcome.” The amusement still lingers, but a twinge of something softer encroaches upon the edges. “Now, do we have an ETA on the build? Am I gonna get back to putting ungrateful peons in a choke hold anytime in the near future?”

Rhys brings up his right hand and wills the hologram display back on. Tilting it in Jack’s direction, he says, “Still in the compiling stage. We’re about a quarter of the way done. Maybe another five minutes?”

“I thought you said you’d have me out in ten.”

“I did, but I … apparently hadn’t taken compiling into account,” Rhys admits. “Sorry. Again: lots of conscious effort, very—”

“Tired, yeah, yeah, I know, I get the picture,” sighs Jack. “God. Is this another way of you trying to tell me this build might not work? ’Cause if it is—”

“No, it’s not. I know what I’m doing, Jack. I wouldn’t have made a build if I didn’t think it would work. You know my background. I might be a little rusty, but I’m a pro at this.”

Jack hums an affirmative noise. “Believe it or not, there’s a reason I called you here and not some random code monkey from Artificial Intelligence or something.”

“Really? That’s good to know.” Rhys smiles to himself as he powers down his palm display once more. “And here I thought you were just saving face. I mean, you are in kind of a compromising situation.”

“Hey.” Jack’s socked foot smacks the side of his pant leg. “Better watch it there, Rhysie. Just ’cause you’ve got a nice cushy position working for the big boss man doesn’t mean compromising situations can’t be arranged. Save your blackmail for the toadies.”

Primed with a witty retort about how Jack really isn’t in a position to lecture anyone on compromising situations right now, Rhys folds his arms, turns on the ball of his foot, and looks down at Handsome Jack.

He regrets it instantly.

Bathed in a cool pall of ECHO blue, Jack sits the same way as he had fifteen minutes ago: wrists bound, thighs parted, his cock a thick diagonal against his slacks. His scowl skirts the very edge of annoyance, like he’s actually focused on the blackmail part of this situation rather than the fact that he’s still rock hard, and Rhys doesn’t—

He can’t—

How is he supposed to handle this? He takes his job seriously, of course he does, this is Handsome Jack, but—

“Look, as much as I’m flattered by the frankly gratuitous amount of eye sex you’re giving me right now, I’d really appreciate it if you could pay attention.”

Rhys blinks. “I … I, uh …”

“My face is up here, pumpkin.”

“I know where your face is,” Rhys says with perhaps a little too much vehemence.

“Really? Huh. That’s weird. ’Cause it really looks like you’re staring at my—”

“No.” Hot embarrassment sears up Rhys’s neck and he instantly averts his gaze somewhere to Jack’s immediate right. “Shut up. I’m not— I wasn’t— That is not at all what was happening.”

“Sure it wasn’t.”

“It wasn’t!”

“Uh-huh. Yeah, you can tell yourself that all you want, princess, but that doesn’t negate the fact that you were totally—”

“Whatever happened to cutting me some slack, huh?” Rhys snaps, and there’s a mortified heat to it, bristling and sharp, and he hates that his voice is betraying him like this, but damn it, he does not have the fortitude to endure this kind of bullshit from Jack right now.

Jack, who looks insufferably pleased, lifts his palms as much as the cuffs permit in what Rhys assumes to be a show of surrender, and—god, of course surrender looks smug on Jack.

“Whoa-ho-ho, okay. Ease up there, tiger. I cut you plenty of slack and you know it. I could’ve mocked you mercilessly when you made that double entendre about my dick, but I was very nice and pretended you didn’t even though you definitely did. This, though? This is all on you. You’re the one who was blatantly staring, not me. I mean, I don’t blame you, obviously, but—”

“Oh my god, please stop,” Rhys groans, rubbing at his face with both palms.

“What? I’m just saying—”

“I don’t care what you’re saying! Can’t you just—I don’t know, stop being a massive dick for like two seconds?”

Jack spares a glance between his legs. “I mean …”

“Nope, never mind. Forget I asked.”

Rhys shuts his eyes and enforces it with a firm hand. The trapdoor option is becoming more and more appealing by the second, and he needs to get a hold of himself before he does something stupid like hurl his body down what is very likely a fifty plus foot drop only to meet the unforgiving solidity of a metal floor.

Or something far, far worse—like drop to his fucking knees.

Rhys tries to snuff out that determined little flare of arousal before its flames can catch, but it feels like he’s surrounded by dried kindling and the flickering match has just fallen at his feet.

He knows he needs to tread carefully here. If he doesn’t, he’s going to embarrass himself out of a goddamn job, and he really can’t afford to do that, financially or otherwise.

And it’s not like he’s unused to Jack’s constant ribbing, because he isn’t. It’s something of a perk, really, that he gets to be on this level of familiarity with Jack, that Jack can prod at him and he can riposte with his own cutting (if not awkward) brand of snark. He can count the number of people who are allowed to do that with Handsome Jack on one hand, which makes him privileged in a way many people would quite literally kill for.

But this is different somehow. And it reminds him for the umpteenth time tonight that he used to have posters tacked up in his little cube down in Data Mining, and that when he allowed himself a short reprieve from the giant blocks of raw data staring at him on his holo-screen, he’d (occasionally) gaze at them while he rested his chin on his hand, (occasionally) allowing himself the small indulgence of daedal maladaptive daydreams detailing what it would be like to meet (and maybe kiss) Handsome Jack.

(He doesn’t think about where those daydreams led after he’d finished his shift for the day, lying sprawled out on his bed with a toy shoved in and a hand on his cock.)

Desperate for something to yank his mind away from whatever disaster it clearly wants to careen toward, Rhys opens his eyes and once again turns on his palm display.

The little blue progress bar, traitorous thing that it is, is only halfway filled. Its movement stutters for a moment, like it thinks this situation is absolutely hysterical and it wants to join in on the fun, and then it resumes its gradual rightward crawl: a grand total of fifty-one percent.

“Just over half,” Rhys reports dutifully, because even if everything about right now is compelling him to make terrible decisions regarding his future, he is still Jack’s personal assistant and getting Jack out of that chair is still his job and he isn’t going to ignore that because he is an adult and a professional, goddamn it.

“Sure is taking its time, huh,” says Jack—smooth, taunting, self-satisfied.

“You know this stuff takes a while,” says Rhys. “It’s not like it’s on purpose.”

“That thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. But now that you mention it, it kind of makes sense since you—”

“Jack.”

“Okay, okay, fine,” says Jack, palms up once again in smug surrender. “Sheesh. No need to get the claws out.”

“What? There are— There are no claws. Just because I’m”—mortified and more than a little turned on—“unwilling to put up with … whatever this is doesn’t mean I’m being catty. If I wanted to be catty, I’d pull this thing out of my head and leave you here so I could go back to bed. And then probably ignore you,” Rhys adds, because if there is one thing Jack hates more than idiocy and incompetence, it’s being ignored.

And Rhys doesn’t know why, but that concept, Jack hating being ignored—that picks at something in the back of his head. Something that pulls his eyes back to the prominent line of Jack’s cock for the briefest second, something that makes him wonder.

“Wait. Was this all on purpose?” he asks, aiming an accusing glare straight at Jack.

Jack sighs and thumps his head against the cushion for what Rhys assumes must be the hundredth time tonight.

“Yes, Rhys,” Jack says in that scathing deadpan he tends to reserve for particularly empty-headed employees, “this was all on purpose. I intentionally wrote buggy code and locked myself in this chair so I could wake you up and have you fix my deliberately planned mistakes for no better reason than to inconvenience the both of us because apparently that’s something I’m known for: wasting valuable time I could spend doing way more important things like … oh, I don’t know. Literally anything else? But yeah, no, totally did this on purpose. Congratu-frickin’-lations, you discovered my diabolical plan to annoy the crap out of you. That’s some real excellent sleuthing there, kiddo. You should start a detective agency.”

Rhys switches off his palm display and folds his arms. “Okay, first of all, I would make a great detective. Hello, ECHO-eye and blackmail, remember? Not that detectives keep blackmail or anything, but they … work with it. Sometimes. I think. As evidence. Second, you can’t really blame me for considering this. I mean, come on. You have to know how this looks, right?”

Jack stares, unimpressed.

“O-kay,” says Rhys. “Maybe you don’t.”

Truthfully, Rhys has a difficult time believing that because Jack is the king of bad jokes and inappropriate situations, but … well. There are worse things Jack hasn’t realised.

Not that those things need to be thought about. Or considered. Or acknowledged in any way. Or—

“This whole situation,” Rhys says, powering onward like his heart rate isn’t rabbit-swift or drumming in his neck, “it’s like—it’s something out of a trashy novel. Right? I’m not crazy. It’s like, you know, some perky young assistant gets summoned by their hot boss to deliver him a report or something else pointless, and when they go up to see him, he’s, uh—” Rhys coughs. Waves a hand vaguely in Jack’s direction. “Waiting for them. Like … that. Aroused. Add in some flirting, a little preexisting sexual tension, and there you have it. Commence dirty scene.”

Amusement conquers the apathy in Jack’s countenance like a warlord. “I have so many questions right now. Did you just call yourself perky? No, no, wait! Did you just call me hot? I mean, of course I’m hot, that’s a given, but hearing it is just—yeah, that’s always nice. Ooh, no, wait, even better! Did you just admit to reading trashy novels?”

“Oh my god.” Rhys would like to say he can’t believe this is what Jack got from all that, but then he would be lying through his teeth. “I don’t— Just— It’s a trope, okay? It’s a trope. A very common trope, in fact. I don’t need to read trashy novels to know about tropes. Can you please just focus on the overall situation here and why I accused you of a setup?”

“I could, yeah,” says Jack, and Rhys hates that his stupid grin looks like that—conceited, charming. “Or I could ignore that and focus on the ‘Rhys reads trashy novels’ part. Which, let’s be honest, sounds way, way more interesting.”

“What did I do to deserve this,” Rhys mutters at the blue-tinged ceiling.

“What was that?”

“Nothing! Nothing. It’s not important. Just, you know. Privately lamenting my life choices. It’s fine.”

Rhys checks the build’s progress again, rather wishing he did have the willpower to be catty and leave Jack to his own devices. The little bar reads sixty-nine percent (that’s just par for the fucking course, isn’t it?) and doesn’t seem to be moving any faster than the last time he’d checked, which isn’t at all what he’d been hoping for.

“About three-quarters of the way done. And no, I’m not talking about trashy novels with you,” Rhys adds when he sees Jack’s expectant stare. “Go join a book club or something.”

“See, the fact that you know trashy novel book clubs are a thing? Especially telling.”

“I am not having this conversation with you.”

“Well, you kind of already are, so—”

“No, I’m not. I’m pointedly avoiding it, just like I’m pointedly avoiding the fact that you’ve had a boner for the past, like, thirty minutes. Or … was avoiding.” Rhys looks up at the ceiling again, trying his best to ignore the warmth in his face. “Damn it.”

“To be fair,” says Jack, sounding not at all like he understands the concept of fair, no less actually being it, “you weren’t accomplishing the whole avoiding thing very well to begin with. Like, yeah, it was passable at first—and I mean absolute baseline passable, no extra brownie points since you initially stared for a good five seconds—but it got progressively worse from there on out. It was kinda like watching one of those slow-mo car crash scenes? You know, where one of the cars is just falling apart piece by piece and all the debris is just sloughing off all over the place? Yeah, that’s you, but in a time span way longer than twenty seconds.”

Rhys is so very tempted to slip past the mental barrier he’d placed between himself and the rest of Helios just to have something to better occupy his brainspace, but that would be stacking one more overwhelming thing on top of another, and he’s not so sure he’s currently equipped to deal with that kind of mental stress.

Frankly, he’s not even sure he’s currently equipped to deal with this kind of mental stress, but that ship has long since sailed.

“Look, it’s not like this was part of my job description or anything,” says Rhys, trying his very best to seem austere, but frustration underpins the words with a ferocity that won’t ebb. “I think I would’ve remembered if there had been a bullet point that said, ‘Get my boss out of the chair he locked himself in while he sports a giant boner the entire freaking time.’

“And—yeah, you know what? I’m actually starting to get a little worried. I wasn’t going to ask for the sake of professionalism, but it’s been like half an hour now and nothing’s changed. What exactly about this scenario is doing it for you? Huh? Is it exhibitionism or something? ’Cause I feel like I should point out that while the employee agreement I signed was express permission for Hyperion to screw me over, it wasn’t actually a form of consent.”

A beat of silence ticks by. Jack blinks, eyebrows arched and mouth half open like he’s been stunned. And then he succumbs to an uproarious fit of laughter, hands clenched and shoulders shaking, head tossed back against the cushion.

Rhys stands there and studiously pretends this isn’t happening, eyes fixed on Jack’s face and nowhere else.

“Oh my god,” Jack wheezes between breathy chuckles. “Okay, okay, I’m—I’m good. I’m good. Whew, man, I really—ha, I really needed that.”

“I’m sure, what with all this unfettered tension,” Rhys deadpans.

Jack only grins. “Uh-huh. ’Kay, so, to answer your super invasive question: no, it’s not exhibitionism. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good audience—there’s really nothing quite like a bunch of slack-jawed troglodytes watching their idiot bandit friends die a very slow and agonising death courtesy of yours truly—but not for sex. I’m a private guy. Creepy little voyeurs can go get their kicks elsewhere. That’s not to say I wouldn’t be down for something a little risqué in public, but, uh. Yeah, that’s another conversation entirely.”

“All right,” Rhys says carefully, filing that away. “Did you … take a supplement or something before all this?”

“Nope.”

“You sure about that?”

“Trust me, cupcake. If I’d taken one of those, this whole situation would’ve been, like, eight thousand times worse.”

“I’m just gonna go ahead and assume that’s from personal experience.” Rhys huffs and folds his arms. “Okay, so if it’s not that and it’s not the attention-seeking exposure thing, what is it?”

Jack lifts an eyebrow. “You’re kidding, right? And I mean that as a genuine question. I honestly can’t tell if you’re being purposefully obtuse or if you really are this oblivious.”

“What? I’m not— This isn’t on purpose! I’m just … I don’t know, I—”

“C’mon, dum-dum, use your brain. Dust off the ol’ thinking cap, employ those handy critical thinking skills. Process of elimination, baby. There really aren’t that many factors at play here.”

Rhys forces himself to take a mental step back. He surveys the scene with a swift glance (yep, just as ridiculous as before), but when his eyes fall on the metal cuffs clasped over Jack’s wrists, epiphany finally dawns.

“The restraints,” he breathes.

Jack may be secured in place, but the slow and easy way he leans back into his chair is predatory. The throne is big, but so is Jack; his shoulders nearly stretch the breadth of it, the rest of him mantling its gaudy burst of yellow. His hips shift, thighs widening as if to put the straining line of his cock on display, and a smirk commandeers the slant of his mouth.

“Gold star,” says Jack, and he tightens his broad hands into fists.

That should not plunge an alluvion of adrenaline through Rhys’s veins or send a shock of interest straight to his already very interested dick, but Rhys reasons that he has been an absolute saint throughout all of this and if his body wants to carry on with these extremely unhelpful autonomous responses then it’s welcome to do whatever the hell it wants and he’s just going to have to deal, case closed.

Just then, a small rectangular notification flashes across Rhys’s vision in bold, blocky lettering:

> BUILD COMPLETE. DEPLOY?

Rhys’s breath catches in his throat. His initial thought is thank god because he is so ready to not be in this situation anymore, but something else skirts the edge of his periphery: a tiny flash of glitter, an enticing turn of colour. An idea.

Shoving it aside with all the mental strength he can muster, Rhys pushes the command through.

“Deploying now,” he says, all too aware of how low his voice has become, of how tense and affected it sounds. “Shouldn’t take more than thirty seconds.”

“Great,” says Jack, sprightly and pleased by contrast. “Man, am I ever looking forward to getting the hell out of this thing. It’s been like, what, an hour now? God. It’s gonna feel so damn good to stretch.”

Once the files have all completed their copy and replace, Rhys once again navigates his way through the throne’s various functions. He skips past the dozens upon dozens of miscellaneous features until he comes across the ones that will let him free Jack.

The text cobbles together in two familiar strings that appear in stark relief against the calm blue overlay:

> WRIST LOCKS: ENGAGED
> ANKLE LOCKS: DISENGAGED

That idea claws back in, this time hauling itself right to the forefront of Rhys’s brain.

It digs in, talons sharp, and the heavy throb of want that courses through his body in a vigorous rushing current does nothing to discourage it. Its mere presence demolishes all sensible arguments and renders them piecemeal right at Jack’s feet because Rhys could, in theory, trigger the command to bind Jack by the ankles, and Jack would have no choice but to sit there and suffer.

But, also in theory, Jack wouldn’t have to suffer. Rhys could help. Generously. With his mouth. And hands. And maybe—

Rhys grits his teeth and endeavours to squash the thought beneath his heel where it can join the corpses of its decimated opposition. And that is where it belongs, he thinks, because there is no circumstance in which something so fucking insane would ever be given any serious thought.

And yet.

“Hey, what’s the hold up? I thought you said you were gonna deploy this thing. You short a circuit over there or what?”

God, this is a bad idea. This is such a bad idea. It’s bad and it’s awful and it’s dangerous and Rhys shouldn’t even be considering it, and yet here he is with a metaphorical finger poised over the metaphorical button that will lock Jack in and leave him at Rhys’s mercy.

He knows he shouldn’t do it. He shouldn’t for a practically endless number of reasons, reasons which just so happen to include Jack mocking him or firing him or airlocking him or strangling him or worse (because there is always a worse when it comes to Handsome Jack), but all he can think of is Jack’s stupid smirks and Jack’s ridiculous comments and Jack’s caged wrists and Jack’s spread thighs and the incredibly fucking frustrating curve of Jack’s tempting cock.

Adrenaline is a frost-cool shock lancing beneath his breastbone, bright and heady and racing. His entire body thrums with it.

Rhys sets his jaw, breathes, and commits.

> WRIST LOCKS: ENGAGED
> ANKLE LOCKS: ENGAGED

The second the command goes through, a series of mechanical clicks hums from the chair. A thick lower panel extends and unfolds from somewhere beneath the seat, and then the curt snap of two yellow cuffs cracks over the whispering water features.

A cursory glance tells Rhys all he needs to know: with both legs bound, no amount of yoga poses will get Jack out of this.

“Rhys.” Jack’s voice pitches in an arctic tone so serene and slow that it stretches the single syllable of his name into a menacing hiss. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Rhys doesn’t reply. Instead, he closes his hand around the executive override at his temple and pulls it out. His ECHO-eye powers down as the connection severs between him and Helios; the blue veil dissolves in a blink and the sheer, sudden lack of presence threatens to send him sprawling, but he stands stalwart against the dizziness and tamps it down. He then pivots on his foot, rounds the chair, and situates himself in front of Jack.

When Rhys meets the gravity-thick burn of Jack’s murderous stare, he leans forward and places both hands along the tops of Jack’s thighs. He drags his palms over the warm fabric, a slow and meticulous movement, squeezing at the taut muscle beneath.

And then he finally—finally—sinks down to his knees.

“You said it was the restraints, right?” Rhys asks.

Like flipping a switch, the change is immediate. Jack’s entire body tenses with a shudder, rippling down from shoulder to hip to toe. His hands clench, unclench, and clench again, like he craves their use and neither action is anywhere near satisfying enough to slake that visceral, nerve-deep itch to touch.

“Yeah,” Jack says, and it’s rough at the edges, not quite formed, a dulled and breathy scrape that flickers down Rhys’s back. “Yeah,” he repeats, clearer but with no less gravel. “It’s, uh. It’s the restraints.”

Rhys pauses to let that sink in. He allows his eyes to roam, soaking in every last detail because he’s certain he’s never going to see anything like this again: Jack with half-lidded eyes, a parted mouth, chest hitching with uneven breaths, fury’s knife-edge easing into something softer, hotter, a little more molten, scorching and dripping-malleable like heated glass.

Jack caught off guard and blindsided by lust is a sight worthy of statuary, and Rhys is more than aware of how tight his own slacks have become.

Cautiously, Rhys begins to glide his hands up Jack’s thighs. Slow, deliberate; something to telegraph his intent. He stops just short of the straining shape of Jack’s cock, fingers married to the inner crease of each thigh, and he—god, he wants to ignore everything and grab, but he muzzles the impulse and forces himself to look up at Jack.

“Okay?” he asks, and it occurs to him that he should probably be saying a lot more words with way clearer meanings like “Is this okay with you?” or “Is there anything you don’t like?” or “I hope you’re down for a blow job because that’s literally all I can think about right now”, but his brain is so hopelessly snagged on the concept of getting his mouth on Jack that the thought of using it for sentences seems like such an insurmountable task.

Jack gazes down at Rhys. His Adam’s apple dips in a swallow, and then he nods.

“Yeah,” says Jack. “I’m into it.”

This is the closest Rhys has ever seen Jack to being speechless, and he is going to exploit the ever-living hell out of it.

Rhys coasts his left hand along the front of Jack’s pants, light and teasing, just enough for Jack to feel it through the cloth. When he reaches the tip that rests at an awkward angle against Jack’s hip, he lays his palm flat and eases down in a slow, slow press. The stutter in Jack’s breathing only serves as encouragement, so he does it again before stroking back downward, lightening the motion until it ghosts.

The eager jump against his hand sends a coiled throb of want between his legs, and he briefly wonders how much he can do here—if Jack would mind him jerking off on his knees, if Jack would even want to see—but he tucks the thought away and turns his attention to the belt and the holster clinging to Jack’s thigh.

Rhys doesn’t touch the holster, he knows better, but he unclips the strap from Jack’s belt so it won’t catch before he thumbs the main buckle open. The button and the zipper come next, unfastened with the slightest tremble.

Once Rhys nudges the placket apart, he tugs the slacks further down Jack’s hips for better access, and Jack’s sigh of relief is audible; it sweeps between Rhys’s shoulder blades, slips down his spine, twines hot and pleasing below his belly.

Without the additional constraint, Jack’s black Hyperion boxer-briefs stretch outward in a prominent tent. Rhys doesn’t miss the way the fabric darkens; the damp spots are obvious, especially against the bright pops of yellow where tiny H’s pattern up the material. The deep compulsion to add to them drives a hook under his rib cage and pulls, and the next thing Rhys knows, he’s leaning over Jack’s lap and dragging his lips across the clothed shape of Jack’s cock.

“Oh, wow,” Jack murmurs from above, his chuckle throaty and soft. “Gonna be honest with you, sweetheart. For a second there, I was—hah—I was really starting to think I was gonna have to post a … a job opening or something, I dunno. But, uh. Wow, yeah, this is”—Rhys laves his tongue over the very tip—“aah, this is a real pleasant surprise.”

Rhys basks in the way Jack’s words try to strut only to trip and stumble. He cups Jack with his left hand and continues to mouth open kisses along taut fabric, delighting in the warmth, the weight. What he can feel is limited by Jack’s underwear, but he can barely get his fingers around where Jack is at his thickest, and that has him breathing out a muffled moan on the next kiss.

After another sweep of lavished attention, Rhys decides he can’t stand it anymore. He pulls back and reaches for Jack’s waistband, but before he can tug it down, Jack bumps him in the ribs with his knee.

“Hey. I meant that, you know,” says Jack, and while it’s laced with that gruff timbre of unmistakable want, there is an undercurrent of—warning? Concern? That Rhys can’t pin. “About the, uh … the job thing. It’s just—maybe give a guy a little warning when cuffs are involved, huh? I don’t wanna—” He pauses, draws a long breath through his nose. “Well. Let’s just say your trashy novel intentions weren’t one hundred percent clear at the start and leave it at that.”

The clamour in Rhys’s chest intensifies for a harrowing beat. He understands what’s between the lines, recognises the statement for what it is: You could’ve really screwed up just now, kiddo. Good thing you’re useful, huh?

Chastened, Rhys flashes Jack an apologetic smile. “Sorry,” he says, more than a little breathless. “I should have said something before activating them out of the blue like that. I, uh. Well, I wasn’t thinking about the other implications. Or consequences. Or … anything, really. I just … saw an opportunity and took it, I guess. In retrospect, that was, uh. Probably not the greatest idea.”

“Definitely not the greatest. But hey, I’m generous. I’m willing to give credit where credit is due. I think you might be onto something here.” Jack appraises Rhys with—god, that’s a leer. “Well, you’re not on it yet, obviously,” he amends, that typical swagger slinking back in, “but it looks like that might change here soon.”

Rhys offers a sceptical look. “You sound awful sure of that.”

“Of course I’m sure. I mean, when you’ve got a perky young assistant staring at your cock like it’s the best damn thing he’s ever seen,” says Jack, adjusting his hips, “it’s kind of hard not to be.”

It’s awful, and yet Rhys has to bite back a laugh. “I promise to warn you of all future cuff situations if you let me do this without any more jokes. Deal?”

“God. You have, like, zero sense of humour. You know that, right?”

“Humour is subjective,” says Rhys. “Deal or no deal?”

Jack heaves a laboured sigh, like keeping that under wraps so he can get a blow job is the greatest of hardships. “Fine, fine. Have it your way. You’d better believe I’ll hold you to it, though.”

“I know you will. I promise it won’t happen again.” Rhys leans in, keeping his eyes locked with Jack’s. “Sir.”

Jack breaks into a wide, wide grin. “Ooh, now that’s an interesting little exercise in context. I think I like how that sounds.”

The warmth of Jack’s approval is a gauzy sort of curl that enfolds Rhys by the shoulders and burrows between the slats of his ribs. He soaks it in, savours it, and that deep, primal-bent craving for more soon has him slipping his fingers under Jack’s waistband so he can put his mouth to proper use and earn more of that sweet honey-softness purring against his ears.

Rhys tugs Jack’s underwear down and his cock springs free. Long and thick and flushed and wrought in the slightest rightward curve, it glistens invitingly at the tip; a beguiling smear of pre-cum waits there just for Rhys.

The urge to dive in and lick it up borders on near excruciating, but he leans down, shimmies Jack’s underwear in line with his bunched slacks, and begins by leaving chaste kisses along the trimmed thatch of hair beneath. He breathes in, and the scent is musky, earthen, a pleasurable zap to his hindbrain that makes him want to bury his face there for the next foreseeable future until his body begs for sustenance.

Rhys opens his watering mouth, lets the kisses grow messy and wet as he trails them over Jack’s balls and around the very base. He then braces his left hand there and works a slow, slow path up the silky firm shaft, pausing to glide his tongue along a pronounced vein, to mouth and tease at the sides. He half expects Jack to chide him over such a leisurely pace, but judging by Jack’s quiet sighs and uneven breathing, he seems game for a little teasing, and Rhys is more than willing to oblige.

Once Rhys finally reaches the head, he finds another white bead there to greet him, small and nacreous and just starting to pearl. He fully thumbs down the foreskin, drags his tongue against the sensitive underside, ends the motion with a gentle flick. The tiny shiver that skips under his hands doesn’t go unnoticed, and Rhys does it again, twice, a third, laving up and down, determined to devastate anything that might resemble Jack’s composure.

When Rhys finally allows himself to lean forward and lick away the bitter-salt bead of pre-cum, Jack groans above him and bucks his hips for more, and yes, there it is, what Rhys has been looking for: desperation’s precursor.

With a hand cinched around the base, Rhys leans in and envelops the head of Jack’s cock. It’s warm on his tongue, around his lips, gorgeous and satin-soft, and he guides it back and forth for a moment, sliding, coaxing, popping in and out before he gives it a nice swirl and dives halfway down.

“Holy shit,” Jack breathes, the awe of it arcing right down Rhys’s spine.

It’s difficult to smile around something so thick, but Rhys manages well enough and gives a contented hum in reply. He pulls back to the tip, paths his tongue across to lap up any new traces, and then he relaxes his jaw, glues his metal palm to Jack’s thigh, and sinks down again.

God, Jack’s cock is so heavy in his mouth, so wonderful and hot. His thoughts ricochet from I wonder if he’s got the skills to back this up to God, I’ll bet he’s a mess when he comes, neither of which are particularly helpful but are certainly indulgent to think about as he eases past the damp evidence of where he’d stopped. He takes an inch further, testing, savouring the stretch before gliding back upward and lightly sucking on the glans, massaging just underneath.

Jack hisses out another appreciative curse, and it feels like an advantage, like the smallest taste of triumph, glowing lucent and bright through Rhys’s veins.

As he eases Jack past his lips again, something out of the corner of his eye snags his attention. He follows the movement only to realise—it’s Jack. Jack keeps tensing his hands into fists on the armrests. His fingers clench and release, clench and release; taut tendons flex up, recline back down, knuckles sharpening until they blanch only to flatten out once more.

Rhys takes Jack halfway again, mesmerised, and Jack coils each hand into a rigid fist like clockwork.

Jack wants to grab, Rhys realises with a sudden swoop of his stomach. Jack wants to grab and guide and probably pull Rhys’s hair, but he can’t because this is all the situation permits. Jack has to sit here with his hands and legs bound, unable to touch or exert any kind of physical control despite the obvious desire, and that hammers a hot bolt of blinding want that leaves Rhys feeling like he’s been galvanised.

Ignoring the aching erection straining his slacks, Rhys licks the wet tip of Jack’s cock, slides it between his lips, hollows out his cheeks, and begins to pump in earnest.

“Goddamn,” sighs Jack, hands wound tight. “I knew that mouth was good for more than smartass remarks.”

Pleasure zings through Rhys’s chest, dazzling and radiant. He draws a deep breath through his nose and takes another inch on his way down, forcing himself to relax when Jack nudges the back of his mouth. The reflex is difficult to rein in, but he manages, allowing himself a break to lick and tease before sucking Jack down again.

“Mmm, I just wanna”—Jack grunts, rocking his hips—“fuck that pretty face of yours. Wreck you, make a mess. Jesus, you’d look so good. Grab you, push you down. Hold you there while I have your mouth all stretched around me. Think you’d like that, baby?”

Rhys groans at the thought, promptly swallowing Jack down to the very fucking base.

“Fuck,” says Jack, fingers clamped on the armrests. “That’s a—hah, holy Christ—that’s a pretty enthusiastic ‘hell yes’. You into that? Want me to use that smart little mouth of yours?” He shuts his eyes, head pressed hard against the backrest. “That’d be so goddamn good. Whaddaya think? Under me or against a wall?”

Rhys pulls off, meets Jack’s blistering gaze, and says in a guttural rasp, “Under.”

“Yeah?” Jack’s lips slope into a sinful smile. “That can be arranged. Floor might be a little uncomfortable, but the leverage makes up for it. Could straddle you, hold you still. Give that hard-working jaw a rest. That’d be nice, right? All you’d have to do is lie back and take it.”

It really isn’t fair that Jack can talk like this. Jack is a showman through and through, even after he’s been taken by surprise, even when he’s trapped and hard and leaking pre-cum, and it’s not fair because Rhys is so not fucking immune. He’s—

Fuck, he’s ridiculously hard and his pants are a hindrance and he wants to reach down and palm himself for some relief but that would mean taking a hand off Jack and detracting from this, and—yeah, sure, using his right hand would be okay through the material, but if he’s going to—

“How about it, cupcake?” asks Jack. His hands flex in Rhys’s periphery. Impatient. “Let me outta this thing, huh? Let me do all the work.”

It’s a tempting offer. It really is. And if these were different circumstances, Rhys would likely drop everything and lie flat on the floor so Jack could climb over him and do whatever he liked: weight on Rhys’s chest, fist locked in Rhys’s hair, cock thick and hot and right in Rhys’s mouth.

But this is an opportunity. And Rhys is ambitious.

He has his own plans.

Slowly, Rhys makes a show of licking a long, wet swirl over the head of Jack’s cock. He kisses it, squeezes his hand around the base. He sketches slick lines along the frenulum, light and teasing, chasing those little shivers.

“Not a chance,” he says.

The indignation that sharpens Jack’s face is worth it. “What? What the hell do you mean, not a—oh, god.”

Rhys swallows around Jack, tightens his grip, and moves at a punishing pace.

He relishes the broken sounds Jack makes, appreciates how all aplomb has now been tossed out the nearest airlock, and it’s so fucking good because he is the one who’s done this to Jack. He is the one who’s reduced Jack to bitten curses and half-finished praises; he is the one who has Jack confined to this room, this chair, this singular space.

And god help him, Jack likes it.

It isn’t long before Jack’s idle rocking ratchets into something resembling desperation. Rhys can feel how Jack’s cock stiffens that much more in his mouth, how his balls tighten under the meticulous motions of his hand.

Jack grasps at the armrests, legs parted, hips trying to meet the rhythm Rhys has set, and when Jack gasps out an urgent “Fuck, babe, I’m gonna come”, Rhys takes that as his cue and lets Jack’s cock slip right out of his mouth.

Planting both hands on Jack’s thighs, Rhys pushes himself to his feet and takes several steps away to the side of the desk. It’s only the slightest bit awkward; his knees are a little worse for wear, but this isn’t the worst he’s endured.

“Rhys, what the—” Jack stops, incensed. He glares, injects it with venom, outrage, and if his cock weren’t out, slick and curved toward his stomach, it would be quite the fearsome sight. “Seriously? That’s what you’re playing at? That’s what’s going on here? You’re seriously gonna just—do that to me and leave?”

The rush of seeing Jack like this, making Jack like this—Rhys thinks it might be better than anything he’s ever felt. Better than a hefty pay raise. Better than bro gaming nights. Better than ice cream. Maybe better than the shiny new tech Jack gets him out of R&D.

This is power, he thinks wonderingly. Having the ability to bring a monarch to his knees, to cut him down to size. That’s power, isn’t it?

Wiping the saliva from his lips, Rhys toes out of his heeled boots and wills himself not to panic. Somebody has to be the composed one here, and if Jack can’t manage it, it’s up to Rhys to maintain that veneer. He is calm, he is collected. He can do this.

“While that would be entirely justified with how many nights of sleep I’ve lost thanks to you,” Rhys says, popping open the buttons of his waistcoat, “I’m not leaving.”

The tension in Jack’s body eases by a single increment. “Okay. Then … what are you doing?”

“Maybe you should apply your stellar observational skills since mine aren’t quite up to snuff.” Rhys drops the waistcoat to the floor. He plucks at the buttons on his cuffs next. “Might learn something.”

“Very cute,” says Jack, and although it’s clearly unamused, there’s also a degree of heat, a blood-hot tendril coiling round the words. “I meant ‘what are you doing’ plan-wise, asshole. What exactly are you planning to do here?”

“The plan is to not have clothes on,” Rhys replies, unfastening the top few buttons of his shirt.

“Yeah, believe it or not, I was actually able to connect the dots there, thanks. No clothes, followed by?”

“Sitting in your lap. The floor’s really uncomfortable and my knees hurt.”

Oddly, that seems to placate Jack. He relaxes a little more, leans back in his chair without further comment, but his hands continue to flex.

Rhys picks through the remaining buttons with minimal fumbling. Once the last button pops out, he pulls the shirt’s halves apart and shrugs out of the left side. He rolls the black fabric off of the metal on his shoulder and begins to slide out of the other half, but a low whistle stops him short.

“Damn, that’s a lot of ink. Always wondered how far down that went. I just figured it was the one on your neck and a little something-something below the collar. Never knew you had a whole friggin’ sleeve with it.”

Rhys can’t help but preen. “Like it?”

“Looks pretty sick, not gonna lie. Nice to finally know what you’ve got under those little shirts of yours.” Jack’s unfaltering gaze follows the dark blue designs that sweep up Rhys’s chest and arm. It sticks on the sunburst, the curves, the points, before moving on. “Getting that much done must’ve hurt, huh? I hear chest tats can be painful.”

“It wasn’t exactly smooth sailing,” says Rhys, peeling off the rest of the black button-down and letting it pool to the floor. “Some of it got kinda intense. The pec, namely. Elbow wasn’t great, either. But I can take it.”

A lascivious smile claims Jack. “That something I should keep in mind?”

“Not really? Not unless you wanna get matching tattoos or something.”

“Not where I was going with that, but okay.” The smile turns lopsided. “You would be the matching tattoo type.”

“For the right person,” says Rhys, thumbing open his belt. “If Vaughn were open to getting one, we’d totally have a matching pair.” He pauses, twists his hips to peer down the side of his leg. “Maybe on the ankle?”

“Yeah, okay, how about we leave your pint-sized powerhouse pal out of this, huh? Kind of a mood killer.”

“Right, right, sorry,” he says, and hastily resumes the process of shucking off the rest of his clothes because he is not about to let his stupid mouth or Vaughn (sorry, bro) ruin this.

After Rhys steps out of his slacks and strips off each colourfully striped sock, he shuffles his Hyperion boxer-briefs down his hips. Freedom brings a modicum of relief, but it does nothing to help the fact that Rhys is still stupidly hard and aching to get a hand on himself.

He kicks off his underwear, determined, and pads back over to Jack, who is—wow, straight up staring, completely unabashed.

Jack had been leering before, but this doesn’t compare. He studies Rhys with undisguised lust, mismatched eyes roving over every exposed inch. The tattoos are a definite point of interest, as are Rhys’s legs and cock and the column of his throat, and Jack stares with that same fierce intensity that could catch Rhys by the arm and haul him chest-first against the windows.

Yeah, and that’s—that’s another tempting thought. God.

Rhys tries not to think about how he’s probably flushing under Jack’s undivided attention and instead uses this momentary lull to skim his cybernetic fingers over one of the yellow cuffs. The feedback taps up the sensors, fits into his rerouted nerves, subtle little pressure shifts that read as strong, solid, present.

Jack’s hand flexes nearby like he’s itching to seize Rhys’s wrist, but Rhys ignores it in favour of tracing a metal finger through the dark hair up Jack’s forearm.

The muscle tenses beautifully underneath.

Then, gathering his courage, Rhys leans down and hooks his fingers into the waistbands of Jack’s slacks and underwear. “Mind if I move these down?”

“Be my guest.” Jack lifts his hips. “Just do me a favour and toss my gun on my desk for me, will ya?”

Rhys does as he’s told, tugging it all down past Jack’s knees and leaving the pistol and its holster by Jack’s keyboard. When he turns back around, Rhys doesn’t even need to ask Jack to make room for him; Jack slumps down and narrows his legs just enough to yield sufficient space, eager and compliant, blatant hunger entrenched in his eyes.

And wow, is that ever nice, thinks Rhys. Having Jack understand and obey without a single quip is like some kind of once in a lifetime achievement.

With all the poise he can muster, Rhys leans in and braces his cybernetic hand on Jack’s shoulder. Then, carefully, he slots his legs in the space between Jack’s thighs and the armrests.

The moment his bare skin touches the plush yellow fabric, a throttling crush of good-warm-nice bursts bright and heavy in a firework pulse that cracks up his spine.

It thrums around his brain, gentle and pouring, a delicate but firm fill that envelops him in a hazy swath of mellow. Jack’s favoured poisons always pack an almighty punch that could floor anyone with a lesser constitution, but this is all calm delight and cottony bliss, and holy fuck, it is sublime.

Reeling, Rhys tightens his grasp on Jack’s shoulder and tries not to collapse. The rumpled textures of Jack’s suit jacket and waistcoat feel so impossibly wonderful against his skin, this silky sort of glide that makes him want to rub his cheek across every inch of Jack’s chest.

The heat doesn’t help; after being on the cold floor for so long, Jack’s body is a warm refuge that offers solace and comfort, a brilliant beacon in the midst of a strength-sapping storm, and Rhys wants to cram himself into every inch of personal space until even the oxygen molecules have to vie for room.

He fully lowers himself onto Jack’s lap with that in mind.

Hips marvellously flush, Rhys slumps against Jack and buries his face over Jack’s other shoulder and into the chair cushion. His skin tingles for a brief moment, and then another swell of sweet-safe-want surges through him, a rhapsodic headrush that sings from head to toe. He recognises the subtle spice of Jack’s cologne at the back of his mouth when he sucks in a quiet gasp, and god, he doesn’t think he’s ever smelled anything so incredible in his whole damn life.

Jack chuckles, and it feels so close, humming behind his ear and all throughout the solid weight beneath him. Rhys wants to hear it again; he wants to absorb its satisfied timbre, feel its vibrations under his chest, his palm, let the soothing rumble of it sink into him until all else recedes into silence; he wants to chase that sound to the ends of the universe and bask in it.

“Feels good, huh?” asks Jack.

Rhys nods dazedly into the cushion. “So good,” he murmurs, long and thick on his tongue. “God, you really weren’t screwing around with those contact-injectors, were you?”

“Nope,” says Jack, sounding immensely pleased. “See, what’d I tell you? Totally worth the hassle, am I right?”

“I’m … starting to see the benefits,” Rhys admits.

“Starting to? Pff, you’re saying that like there’s even a downside.”

Rhys frowns against the fabric. “Good ideas can have downsides.”

“Eeh, no. Here, let me lay it out for you, okay? Imagine this: you’re the handsome CEO of the greatest company in the six galaxies. I know, I know, it’s a little unrealistic,” Jack says with that familiar lilt of cheery condescension, “but just bear with me, all right?”

Something tells Rhys he should have some kind of cutting rejoinder for that, but the words feel flighty and elusive like they’re repellent to the concept of touch, scattering like stardust the very second he tries to string them together.

He hums a noncommittal noise into the chair because that’s easier than picking through twenty darting phrases to put Jack in his place.

“So, you,” says Jack, and nudges Rhys’s butt meaningfully with his thigh. “Handsome CEO. Insanely powerful, rich beyond all imagination. Life is fantastic. Things are going pretty great. Or they would be, but unfortunately some asshole from Research and Development made a stupid mistake that cost the department way more money than he’ll ever see in his entire miserable existence and now you’re having a not-so-great time. Annoying, right? Something like that just—I dunno, it spoils the whole day.

“But when you’ve got this baby? All you have to do is plop your ass down and boom, instant feel-goods. Perfect little pick-me-up to get you in the problem solving mood. Nice way to put that extra spring in your step, you know?”

Rhys breathes out a vague affirmation. He rocks his hips, rubs his hard cock against Jack’s. It’s hot and velvet-soft, a stark reminder that arousal still sparks through his veins, and he rolls forward again in search of that sweet, dragging friction.

God, Jack feels phenomenal.

“But when you’re having a great day,” Jack continues, nosing at Rhys’s hairline, “it’s even better. That perfect little pick-me-up? Ooh, it turns into a fucking freight train. You sit down here in your rightful place and suddenly you feel like you could conquer the whole goddamn universe. And that’s totally doable. I mean, who’s gonna stop you? Bandits? Vault Hunters? Other less successful megacorps? You can rain hellfire at the press of a button. You can digistruct entire armies in two seconds. You can do whatever the hell you want ’cause you’re king.”

Teeth nip at Rhys’s earlobe. Rhys shivers, and the second nip tilts a little sharper. A low groan murmurs in his chest.

“It’s a hell of a feeling,” Jack whispers against his ear. “Benefits only, babe.”

With great effort, Rhys pries himself away from Jack’s chest. He leans back, lets his weight rest on Jack’s thighs, carves himself a quiet moment to cobble together a coherent reply, but Jack looks—

God, it’s unfair.

Jack looks good. He looks so good like this, so broad and taut and tense. His shoulders maintain a long and solid line, a choice place to settle in and grab hold. He grasps at the armrests, knuckle-white, like that alone is what keeps him in check, like that small effort is what grounds him to the last lingering wisps of self-control.

And when Rhys meets Jack’s mismatched eyes, the regard he finds there is so laden with lust and intent it brims, replete, crashing over; it inflicts that sure and level weight Rhys remembers so well, a physical presence press-press-pressing against his body until the force of it makes him want to scream.

“Benefits only, huh,” says Rhys. His gaze dips down to the hard curve of Jack’s cock—slick, flushed, thick—and then snaps back to Jack again. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I could get used to that.”

“That’s the spirit,” says Jack, his voice warm with approval so heady it’s like a second hit. “I mean, it’s only right. You’re king, after all. Take what you’re owed.”

Rhys bites his lip. He pushes at the wool lining his thoughts, picks at the idea of Jack being what he’s owed.

The very thought threatens vertigo.

Slowly, Rhys lowers both hands to Jack’s chest. He grazes them across the broad horizon line of Jack’s shoulders, ghosts them along sleek suit jacket lapels, skims them over Jack’s hexagonal pocket watch.

When he sweeps inward, the clasps of the waistcoat feel cool under his fingerprints, flawless and smooth. While temperature has no direct translation through cybernetics, Rhys delights in the gentle haptic feedback that hums so soothingly up his arm as he unfastens them one by one: pleasing clicks, gliding shifts, plucks that feel good and right and easy. The buttons of Jack’s shirt follow suit.

Satisfied, Rhys snags his fingers into the little furl of sinfully soft sweater tucked beneath long wefts of white. He thumbs at the off-colour patch, slides over the coarser texture and the crude yet careful stitching, dips down to feel the final layer of a plain undershirt. Then he delves his palms beneath, revelling in the wealthy trail of hair that paths up Jack’s stomach and sprawls across the breadth of his chest.

“You wear too much,” says Rhys. His index finger skims over an oddly shaped groove somewhere below Jack’s right collarbone. “I wanna feel you.”

“You’re naked in my lap with your dick next to mine. If you can’t feel that, I honestly don’t know what to tell you.”

“Not like that, asshole,” he says, and he cants his hips to grind himself against Jack for emphasis. “I mean, I just want”—he does it again, dragging his nails across another uneven divot, this time below Jack’s sternum, nestled amongst the hair—“god, I wanna feel you.”

Jack’s chest heaves with a sharp inhale. “Fuck. You’re killing me here, baby.”

“Good.” Rhys scrapes metal fingers over a nipple. “You deserve it.”

Jack rocks under him and hisses in reply, eyes shut tight.

Rhys withdraws his left hand to lick a liberal stripe up his palm, and then he circles it around the both of them, as much as he can manage. It’s so good, even the lightest touch—it’s like someone has cranked up the sensitivity to eleven, cracked open his brain and made him more aware. The breathy groan from Jack sears across arousal’s smouldering coals like air rushed from a bellows, and Rhys tightens his grip and starts to pump a slow but steady rhythm, squeezing on the upstroke.

A part of Rhys knows this intense desire for tactility must stem from the influx of manufactured dopamine, but that doesn’t stop him from savouring the wet, firm silk of Jack’s cock as it slicks against his fingers. It doesn’t stop him from trembling at the sweep of his own hand, at Jack sitting beneath him, at the plush cushion under his shins and the pleasant push-pull pressure reading through his cybernetic fingers. It doesn’t stop him from enjoying each of Jack’s shuddery groans, from relishing every single molasses-sweet second of this.

Sensation crowds him from all sides, and everything feels so fantastic, so shrouded in this placid, buttery contentment, and Rhys wants it all the time, constantly, forever. He wants to sink in this feeling, to steep his whole existence in this encompassing mantle of good; he wants to drift here with Jack until maximum entropy wrings out the universe’s last shuddering gasps and the endless dark grows empty and still.

“Y’feel so damn amazing,” says Jack, staring with half-lidded eyes.

“You feel better,” says Rhys, and he means it, and that’s probably a bad thing but he can’t bring himself to care. “You’re just— You feel so good. All of you. Man, I dunno why I didn’t do this before. I? We? We. Dunno why we didn’t do this before. Could’ve been—” He sighs, pleasure spiking as he works his hand in another tight stroke. “Could’ve been doing this the whole time. I mean, late nights? Pff. Who cares. Chair’s better. You’re better. Would’ve made that one stupid launch actually bearable if we got to do this.”

“Yeah?” Jack’s mouth slants in a sanguine smile. “You got a point there, pumpkin. Can’t deny that kinda logic. Next big launch, why don’t you pencil us in a session or two?”

Rhys needs to pay attention to this, to Jack’s innuendo sleeping beneath the words, but the easy friction teases at relief before twisting deeper, hotter, a constant build-build-build that curls his toes.

“Is that an order?” Rhys meets Jack’s eyes. “Sir.”

Jack seems to consider it for a moment. And then, with an expression Rhys can’t quite parse: “It can be.”

And that seems … significant, Rhys thinks blearily, though he doesn’t know why. There are countless nuances to Handsome Jack, nuances he’s still discovering to this day; he can’t be expected to understand everything. Despite Jack’s database claims, not only is Rhys not omnipotent, he’s also not a mind reader. Whatever vestiges of common sense remain tell him that this talks in terms of fantasy and hypotheticals, but something else, a quiet, hopeful strum between the ribs, offers another perspective: inquiry.

Suddenly, the warm, swathing delectation around him seems—not enough? Rhys is here with Jack, sitting in his lap, mostly skin-to-skin, but it’s lacking. He wants to press himself against Jack’s bare body, feel him without stupid things like clothes getting in the way. He wants to touch Jack’s face, see if Jack can feel it, kiss Jack on the mouth and bite his lip. He wants—

Rhys pumps their cocks together, thoughts hazy-good and delightfully dopamine drunk and insatiably greedy, and he’s sitting in Jack’s lap jerking them both off like this is his rightful place, like Jack’s body were somehow made for him, and that’s not totally implausible because Jack himself had called Rhys king and Jack knows these things; he’s versed, well-informed, a sun blazing at a solar system’s molten centre, and who is Rhys to argue?

So if Rhys wants something here, maybe he’s entitled to it. Maybe all he has to do is reach out and take what he’s owed, like Jack said. And he wants—

God, he really wants—

“Lube?” Rhys blurts out, halting all movement of his hand.

Jack, to his credit, doesn’t look nearly as flummoxed as he could be. “Uh. Okay. Definitely not the response I was expecting, but okay. Is that a ‘do you need’, or—”

“I mean do you have any? Here, preferably within a five-foot radius?” Rhys is vaguely aware that he must sound like an idiot (lube “within a five-foot radius”? really?) but that is the least important thing about this situation right now.

“Yes, I have lube within a five-foot radius,” Jack replies, lifting a curious eyebrow like he’s not sure Rhys is all there. “Listen, that’s a valid question and I’m not gonna deny you lube of all things, but why? You worried about chafing or something?”

“What? No! No, not chafing. No. Chafing would be, like, the very least of my worries.” Rhys withdraws his sticky hand, rubs his fingers together with a disapproving frown. “I mean, this is fine for a hand job and all, but it’s definitely not, uh … sufficient. For what I want.”

“What, a little spit not slick enough for …” Jack stops, eyes wide. “Oh. Wait. Uh. You mean—?”

“That okay?” When did Rhys’s heart get so goddamn loud? “If it’s not, that’s fine, I promise, but I just—I really wanna feel you.”

Jack breathes out, shuts his eyes for a short second before opening them again. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s, uh—fuck. Yeah. Yep, that’s okay. I’m—I’m good with that.”

Rhys resists the profound urge to kiss him. “Where?”

“Uh. God, lemme think. Um—should be the third drawer? No, no, wait! Second. Yeah, second. Over there.” Jack gestures to the right side of the desk with a raised finger, signet ring gleaming at its base. “Way in the back, next to the old Amplify prototype. Might be a loaded pistol in there, so watch yourself.”

Rhys has to stop himself from leaping straight out of Jack’s lap. Sliding off is a little awkward and so is the inelegant drawer-rummaging, but Rhys can feel Jack’s gaze along his back every second he’s not skin-to-skin, heavy and searing, a blunt push with metaphysical hands eager for touch, and it spurs him to speed through discarded components and scattered papers and not one but two prototypes (and a pistol) until he snatches the half-empty bottle and bolts back.

“Um, can I?” Rhys turns halfway, gestures at Jack’s lap with his free hand. “It’s gonna be a little difficult without a place to lie down, so I need to—”

“Yep, you got it, babe.” Jack closes his legs a little, adjusts his hips, sinks down further in the chair. “Uh, hit the recline for me? Third button, left—no, right side. Like halfway down the arm. Give us some more room to work with.”

Rhys nods and leans over Jack to reach the buttons, heart a thudding percussion along the undersides of his ribs. When the backrest sets at about forty-five degrees, Jack gives him a thumbs-up, so he lets off and clambers back onto Jack’s lap, this time with his back pressed against Jack’s chest.

The position isn’t ideal, not with the way Rhys has one leg hiked up against Jack’s forearm, but the recline and the dopamine injectors help a great deal. With the lube bottle resting in the crook of his cybernetic arm, Rhys leans into Jack, reaches down, focuses on that fuzzy-cotton feeling, and starts to ease a wet finger in. It’s uncomfortable for a second, but the injectors do their job; despite his fluttering heartbeat, it’s easier to convince his body to relax.

“Not your first rodeo, huh?” asks Jack, hot and affected behind Rhys’s ear.

“Nope,” Rhys replies, drawing a steady breath when he gingerly fits another finger in. A little discomfort, but familiar. Bearable. “It’s more of a—a regular thing.”

“Oh, really?” Is that irritation Rhys hears? “What, you get into this kinda scenario on a daily basis or something? You off fucking other big execs in their office when I’m not looking?”

“Nope,” he repeats. “I just make good use of my very scant and meagre downtime. Toys are a plus.”

Jack inhales, not sharply but with more force than normal, and Rhys can feel Jack’s chest expand beneath his back. “That’s—good to know. Yeah, that’s, uh …” Jack clears his throat. “Yeah. Good to know.”

It takes a moment longer to work in a third, but Jack makes it easier. The fact that he’s bound doesn’t prevent him from trying to participate; he leans in, nips at Rhys’s earlobe, kisses Rhys’s jaw, nibbles at the tattoo on Rhys’s throat. The graze of his teeth spirals little shivers between Rhys’s shoulder blades, and in spite of the meticulous diligence Rhys must employ, Jack’s enthusiastic teasing serves as ample encouragement—not to mention the dick digging into his back.

Incentive is always nice.

“So, uh. How big do you think you can take?”

The question nearly makes Rhys choke, but he continues working himself open with careful motions. “Enough,” he says, and his voice does not shake. It doesn’t. “This might be a bit more than what I’m used to, but I can—hah, I can deal.”

“Yeah?” Oh, that lilt. Of course Jack is preening. “You sure about that? Not gonna hurt you, is it?”

“Not to be that guy,” says Rhys, “but your concern is coming off as a little self-serving.”

A scoff. “Self-serving? What? No. Self-ser— Look, I have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s not self-serving to make sure everyone’s on the same page, okay? Wanted pain is good. Unwanted pain is bad. I’m a gentleman and avoid the latter.”

“I’ll be fine. I know my limits.” It’s as nonchalant as Rhys can manage three fingers deep. “But, uh, thanks for the check-in? I think?”

“Anytime, kitten,” says Jack, and laves an open kiss beneath Rhys’s ear.

Once Rhys is ready, he turns and slicks up Jack’s cock with another palmful of lube. He pauses to give his own a few firm strokes to get himself hard again, and then he tosses the bottle on Jack’s desk before slotting his legs back in between the armrests and Jack’s thighs, this time up on his knees. He wastes no time in bracing his metal palm on Jack’s shoulder, the other reaching behind to take Jack in hand and line him up.

Gliding the wet head of Jack’s cock against his hole, Rhys allows himself a moment to breathe. The languid elation of it all balances on the thin, thin line of overwhelm, curled up and swelling under his sternum with a force that nearly winds him. He wants this, wants Jack, wants the closeness this will grant him, craves it with every vibrating atom; he just hopes he’ll be able to stand it afterward when Jack is no longer his.

Gently, Rhys starts to guide Jack in. Jack is thicker than Rhys’s fingers, hot and inexorable, and Rhys massages him against his hole until the tip edges in, holding him open. Rhys bites his lip, inhales at the stretch of it, and then begins to sink down.

“Jesus, you’re tight,” Jack breathes.

The words wash over Rhys, dulcet and golden. He grins at Jack and it’s so—god, it’s so damn easy to just not care about how his face is likely flushed or about how awkward he looks positioned like this, like this is some natural thing that has always existed between them and any shame or discomfort has long since faded. He grins at Jack and it’s probably the dopamine and endorphins and whatever fun brain chemicals have him doped up like this, but it’s like nothing else matters, nothing else exists.

Rhys grins at Jack and fixates on that good-warm feeling butting against his rib cage, careening through his nerves, slipping through his bloodstream, and thinks—yeah, he could definitely get used to this.

It’s a slow way down accompanied by the occasional “You good?” from Jack, but when Jack is fully seated within him, Rhys clutches at Jack’s sweater and just … feels. The stretch. The fullness. The burn, vague as it is. It’s good, present in a way that isn’t incapacitating, and that emboldens him.

He starts with a leisurely grind, something that lets him rut against Jack’s stomach and chase his own pleasure a little. Jack’s clothes provide an interesting friction against his cock, so he indulges while his legs relax and he acclimates to Jack’s size.

When Rhys begins to lift at last, it’s enough to drag out a groan. He sinks down again, full, and then channels his strength into his thighs, his calves, and does it once more, finding satisfaction in the way Jack’s body tenses beneath him. The rhythm is shaky and graceless at first, but it isn’t long before Rhys shapes it into something smoother, better, something that has him panting with effort and Jack rolling his hips with his own laboured breathing, and then it feels great.

“Yeah, that’s it,” says Jack, hands coiled into hard fists. His eyes are hooded, scorching. “Look at you, riding me like a goddamn champ. Feel good?”

Rhys nods, bottoming out with a sigh. “Love how you feel,” he says.

“You feel pretty fantastic yourself, baby. God, I love it. Just”—Jack sucks in a breath, cants his hips to meet another thrust—“so fucking good. You were made for this, weren’t you? Made for my cock, made for me. Made to take me just like this, all hot and pretty.”

“Maybe,” says Rhys, somewhat hoarse. “But maybe—hah, I don’t know. Maybe you were made for me instead. Makes sense, right? Handsome, powerful, perfect.” He presses his palms into Jack’s shoulders, raises himself up, plunges back down. “You’re, uh—hah, god—all those things, too, I guess.”

“Brave words, huh?” Jack laughs. It’s affectionate. Warm. “Good to see you’re still a smartass even when you’re getting dicked.”

“You like it,” says Rhys. “You know you do.”

I never would have survived this long if you didn’t goes unsaid.

Jack smiles at him, mirthful and wide. “Eh, maybe a little. ‘Tolerate’ might be a better word.”

“I tolerate you every damn day. This is after hours.” Rhys squeezes Jack’s shoulders, tempers his voice to an edge. “Admit it,” he says. “You like it.”

Another thrust. Jack bucks up into it, jaws clenched. “Yeah,” he says, expelled in a throaty exhale. “Yeah, I like it. You’re hot as hell when you do it, too.”

That crackles through Rhys. Adrenaline rockets in and he forces himself to pick up the pace, directing every ounce of his strength into his lower body so he can work a swifter cadence. He drops his left hand to stroke his cock, hard and leaking between them, and the next time he rocks back down on Jack, he tightens his hold and basks in the blissful mind-body high.

The moan pouring out of him is nothing but an afterthought; all that matters is how good this feels, how good Jack feels, how he has the power of Jack’s pleasure in his hands, and it’s intoxicating on a level he’s never felt.

“Fuck, you feel incredible,” Rhys gasps.

Jack watches with avid eyes. “Incredible’s nothing, sweetheart. I can make it better if you want.”

Rhys’s rhythm falters. A small conscious slice of him thinks bait, but his mouth misses the memo and says, “How?”

“Oh, I’m glad you asked. It’s simple, really. How about I show you?” Jack leans up, broad chest pushing back against Rhys’s cybernetic hand. “All you gotta do is let me go.”

Yeah. Definitely bait.

“I dunno,” Rhys says airily. Laughter comes easier when his thoughts feel oil-slick, too quick to catch. “I’m having a pretty great time right now. Besides, I kind of—hah, kind of like you like this. Those cuffs could be a fashion statement.”

“Hilarious,” says Jack, and while it’s wry with sarcasm, a faint current of amusement still snakes underneath. “So what I’m hearing right now is you don’t want mind-blowing sex. Did I get that right?”

“What exactly makes you think you can make it mind-blowing?”

In Rhys’s periphery, Jack’s hands open and twist, palms offered skyward. His fingers curl in and out one at a time, slow and pronounced, like a wave. The signet ring on his right index scintillates as cool moonlight glints off its metal.

“Let’s just say I’m more of a hands-on kind of guy,” says Jack.

Oh, that’s—

That’s unfair.

Reining in his composure, Rhys slows to a stop and settles down on Jack’s hips to let his legs rest. He continues to stroke his own erection with lazy movements, but he doesn’t want to do anything drastic. Not yet.

“That’s not much of an argument,” he says.

“Maybe not, but just look at how you reacted.” Jack’s grin has teeth. “Come on. You know you’re interested, I know you’re interested. There’s really not a lot to it, kitten. What are you waiting for?”

“For you to tell me what you want.” Huh. Seems like all of Rhys’s faculties haven’t entered orbit. “I have an idea of what I’ll be getting out of this. What about you?”

Jack leans in a little more, grazes his teeth over the blue beneath Rhys’s collarbone. “I wanna touch,” he says.

“Really? That’s it?”

“Mmm, mostly. Can’t make any promises.” A hot mouth laves over Rhys’s nipple. Slow, teasing, wet. “I wanna feel you, though. You gonna let me?”

“Oh.” This is—wow. Yeah, Rhys doesn’t know why this is doing it for him, but it is.

“That a yes?” Another sweep of tongue, this time followed by teeth. “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you? You’re definitely thinking about it. Here’s a helpful suggestion: don’t. One choice is clearly superior to the other, so why don’t you spare us both the effort, okay? Let me go.”

Rhys shuts his eyes. He thrusts lightly into his hand and imagines Jack over him with both wrists free, yearning and ravenous. A quiet groan hums in his chest, smothered by the deafening din of his own heartbeat.

Then, slowly, he starts to move himself up and down Jack’s cock again.

“Oh, come on,” says Jack, leaning back with a petulant glare. “You can’t be serious. What’s it gonna take to convince you? I told you what I wanted. That not enough?”

“Almost. But not quite. I think I could use a little more persuading.” Rhys doesn’t bother to disguise the desire threading through his voice. “Why don’t you tell me again?”

A guttural noise forces its way out of Jack, but he leans forward once more and begins kissing the places he can reach: clavicles, pectorals, sternum, upper ribs. His teeth skim the blue of Rhys’s tattoo and his pebbled nipples, promising but not enough. Jack’s hands entertain that same flexing impatience all the while, taut and tensing, and when they retract into fists, his knuckles blanch white.

“Come on, sweetheart,” says Jack, punctuating it with a damp kiss. “Let me touch you, huh?”

Rhys tries so very hard not to smile. He takes Jack in again, slow and deep and full, and a groan absconds on its own accord.

Jack’s entire body responds. His hips hitch upwards to mirror, arms straining at the cuffs, his mouth an insatiable presence along Rhys’s chest.

“C’mon, babe, let me go,” says Jack, a gravel-rough command that toes the line of supplication. “Come on. You know you want to. You want my hands all over you. You want me feeling you up. God, just imagine—me grabbing every last goddamn inch of you. Your legs, your back, your hips, your cock, your pretty little throat. You think you’d come like that? All nice and hot for me, right under my thumb?”

Rhys drops down, Jack thick within him, warm and shuddering as he works himself through his closed fist.

“Yeah, you would. You’d probably look gorgeous. Bet you make some real pretty noises, too.” Jack grinds up into him, bites along the edge of his tattoo, struggles against the restraints with an unexpected vigour that rivals mania. “Come on, baby. Come on. Let me go, huh? Let me get my hands on you. Christ, just—c’mon, lemme touch you, please.”

The words ghost along Rhys’s collarbones as Jack breathes them between sultry kisses, hot and pleading, and—

God, Rhys can’t keep this up much longer.

“Come on. Please.” It’s whispered, insistent, a drawn thread of tension stretched to its shaking limits. “C’mon, please, lemme touch you. You said you wanted to feel me, right? Right? And you got that, didn’t you? You got me right where you want me, all to yourself. It’s only fair I get a turn, huh? God, Rhys, c’mon. Let me feel you, please. I wanna touch you so goddamn bad.”

Rhys’s willpower snaps like dry tinder.

Without a second thought, Rhys stops mid-rhythm and reaches over the chairback for the executive override. As soon as his fingertips brush cool metal, he seizes hold and shoves it into his temple.

The momentary meld with Helios is just as disorienting as before, just as whirling and intense, and it seems doubled by the heady flux of dopamine chugging through his neural pathways. The razor-sharp sensation of flight cuts through his chest, his extremities, a giddy free-falling tightness plunging between his lungs and spreading out like shrapnel splinters with every systolic shiver. The vastness looms over him, around him; it peers back through sapphire film as he looks onward and narrows his scope down to the coiled, brimming power of Jack, Jack, Jack.

Navigation is effortless. Rhys whips past everything until he finds the functions for the restraints, and then he stares at their nebulous representation, at the text superimposed across his vision, two strings that entrap a mortal deity by virtue of binary language and golden crescents:

> WRIST LOCKS: ENGAGED
> ANKLE LOCKS: ENGAGED

Rhys pauses, fingers clamped onto Jack’s shoulder. He can feel the warmth of Jack’s mouth as he nips and kisses at his clavicles, shoulders, throat. The worship of it—and it feels like worship, like deference, like Rhys is a fledgling god and Jack wants to pay homage with his lips—is intoxicating, terrifying, a thing far too precious and grand to hold with human hands.

Two lines of code seem like such paltry shackles.

> WRIST LOCKS: DISENGAGED
> ANKLE LOCKS: DISENGAGED

The restraints release with an audible click, a sudden sharpness that cracks through the quiet like a warning shot. The override flashes away from Rhys’s temple; the connection loss levels out just in time for Rhys to hear Jack hiss a harsh noise replete with triumph and relief.

“Thank god,” Jack gasps. “Finally!”

And then Jack’s hands are everywhere. Hot palms glide up Rhys’s sides, down his back, over his hips, along his ass, across his ribs, up his throat, rubbing and touching and squeezing and—holy fuck, he’s going to drown like this; he’s going to drown under Jack’s hands while riding Jack’s cock on Jack’s garish throne like he’s king of the entire goddamn universe, and god, he’s so willing, so ready; he’s craved this for so long the solace he finds has been whetted to the point of anguish.

Rhys shuts his eyes to the flooding avalanche. It’s all so much. The sheer crescendo of overwhelm balloons within him, shoving and shoving, sucking up the space around his organs until his atoms shake. This is beyond anything and everything and he wants to tell Jack how it feels, wants to somehow exhume the words that have sepulchred themselves within his chest, but he isn’t given the chance.

Before Rhys can begin to scoop up any disinterred phrases, a palm claims the centre of his back, fingers crooked like claws, inflicting a possessive pressure along the curve of his spine. The other returns to tilt his face and frame his jaw, and then Jack’s mouth follows, collides, devours, and it’s all Rhys can do to hold on.

Kissing Handsome Jack is everything he could have imagined: electric, enthralling, fierce, fraught with such stark need that it sips his air and bites his lip and consumes him breath by siphoned breath until his body aches for oxygen.

Jack kisses him like he’s all that’s left, like he’s some final tether Jack needs intact but desperately wants to sever; Jack kisses him like he wants to wreck and cherish all at once.

Rhys opens to slake his lungs, but Jack slides in, and then there’s teeth and tongue and tension and Rhys sways into Jack in search of solid ground because he can’t help it, he needs this, needs an anchor, needs a place of sanctuary, and there it is, all of it, waiting just for him: a horizon of shoulders and muscle, perfect for gripping, and he digs in with both hands and soars.

When Jack leaves Rhys’s mouth, he drops to his jaw, his neck, rubber bands back to Rhys’s tattoos and lavishes them. Jack drags his teeth in a scrape across clean concentric circles and vivid strips of blue, laving the scorching heat of his tongue in his wake but never quite biting down. His hands retreat to grab hold of Rhys’s hips, and once he lifts, that lone movement wrenches out a groan from Jack that punches right into Rhys’s skin.

Whatever part of Rhys had been incapacitated jolts back to life.

Rhys mashes his mouth against Jack’s to swallow the noise because that belongs to him, him and him alone, and then he works his thighs, dives down, helps finish the thrust. The feeling spills a broken sound of his own back onto Jack’s tongue, and Jack drinks it down without complaint, grip tightening on Rhys’s hips.

Jack’s palms are rough but grounding and warm and they keep Rhys in line, guiding him, encouraging him, lining him up so perfectly that each stroke feels good, feels right, feels one step closer to that glorious peak that he’s been chasing for far too long. His cock drags against Jack’s sweater with every pass, and he shifts his angle, seeking better friction because he’s getting close, he is, he can feel it, that deep and ratcheting pull, so good and incredible and—

“Jack,” he says, the vowel fractured and taut. “Jack, I’m—”

“Ah-ah, not yet.”

And then Jack grabs proper purchase on Rhys’s hip with one engulfing hand and holds, firm, unyielding, stilling Rhys in place, while the other drops down and squeezes the head of Rhys’s cock.

The edge lies there, just out of reach—a knife point pressed into the soft whorl of a fingertip without the pressure to make it bleed.

Rhys gasps, furious and incoherent. His entire body trembles, primed, ready, clenching, wanting, the liquid fire of need injected into his very veins. He tries to rock forward, but Jack’s hands and arms are steel; they won’t budge. By the time Rhys remembers he has two functioning hands of his own, the ramping build has plummeted beyond immediate possibility and he’s left with nothing but ache.

Woefully bereft, Rhys exhales a heavy groan, but it lapses into something plaintive and lost when it climbs out of his chest.

“Shh, shh, I know,” says Jack, a soothing purr spoken into the hollow of Rhys’s throat. “You must really want it, huh? S’okay, though. We’ll get you there soon. Just sit tight for now, okay, baby? Ease back a bit. You can do that, right?”

Rhys blinks back tears and tries to—

Wait.

Tears? What?

Why are—

“Rhys. Hey.”

The heat of Jack’s hands withdraws, and then shifts to seep into Rhys’s legs, hips, sides, ribs.

It’s … nice. Enveloping. Coaxing. Warm.

“Hey. Hey, shh, come on. What’s up? Injectors make it too much?”

“That was …” Rhys blinks. Breathes. Tries to get a goddamn grip. Sentences are annoying and his brain is not in the cooperating mood. “Unfair? Unfair. That was … really, really unfair. What the hell, Jack?”

“Aw, come on now. It wasn’t that unfair. Have you paid any attention to the things you’ve been doing?”

“Yes?” Rhys frowns, clawing at the cotton hazing his thoughts. His body still quivers, so tightly wound. “I’m … aware. I remember. Little drugged up, maybe, but … yeah, I remember.”

“Good! Then you remember you’re fully capable of being the worst goddamn tease imaginable and a little edging ain’t gonna hurt.”

“For you, maybe.” Rhys gives Jack’s shoulder a light smack with his cybernetic hand. “Asshole. Still could’ve warned me.”

“Pff, warn you? You didn’t warn me, you frickin’ hypocrite. Plus, I mean, where’s the fun in that?” Jack slides a palm down to pat his butt. “Come on, Rhysie. Don’t tell me you don’t enjoy living on the edge.”

Rhys cannot believe he is sitting in this man’s lap. “I will get up,” he says, aching erection be damned.

“Aw, no, c’mon. Don’t be like that. I was kidding! I was kidding, okay? Jeez. I’d say loosen up, but, uh—”

“Oh my god. Jack, I swear, if you—”

A wet kiss derails all trains of thought. Rhys’s brain stumbles for a moment, but then Jack bites his lower lip, licks in with an insistent sweep of tongue, and Rhys finds himself relaxing into the glide, opening for Jack to take and conquer. It’s slower than before, a degree or two less urgent, but Jack makes up for it by being wholly thorough. It further stokes the hot coil of still smouldering arousal, and Rhys is so very tempted to give in.

“That’s not gonna—mmf—distract me,” Rhys manages between kisses.

Jack chuckles against his mouth. “No? That’s fine. Here, lemme try again.”

“Only if there’s no more surprise edging,” says Rhys. “If there is, I’ll … I don’t know. I’ll think of something. Something mean. Like … surprise Monday rearrangements. Or surprise lunch hour with Accounting.”

“Man, you really didn’t like me not letting you come, huh?”

Rhys attempts to school his expression into something other than an aggravated pout, but the arch glint in Jack’s eyes makes him doubt his success.

“Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” says Jack, and he rubs warm paths up and down Rhys’s back, strong and placating. “It’ll make it better in the long run. Besides, don’t you wanna drag this out? It’s not like I don’t wanna see you all delirious on my dick, ’cause I definitely do. I mean, that’s the whole friggin’ endgame here.

“Buuut, a certain special someone just so happened to lock me in this chair, which thoroughly prevented me from using my hands. And I dunno if you’ve ever had your hands bound—pretty fun if you haven’t, should try it sometime—but when you get to use ’em again, it’s like … ugh, I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like what I was saying earlier with the standing thing, you know? Or … I dunno, it could be different. For you, that is. Maybe. Just—whatever. Look, you get what I’m trying to say, right?”

“Yep, I get it,” Rhys says evenly, feigning disinterest as he pets the rumpled shoulders of Jack’s suit jacket. “I think you handed me more than enough clues.”

Jack flashes a savage grin, grasping Rhys firmly by the ass. “You cheeky little shit. I knew it. I freaking knew it! I knew you liked it!”

Rhys tries his best to remain stoic. “Just because I’m giving you a taste of your own medicine doesn’t mean I like it.”

“Mm-mm. Nope, don’t think so. You totally like it. Rationalise it any way you want, sweetcheeks, but you”—Jack lifts a broad palm, completely covers Rhys’s knuckles, squeezes for good measure—“just revealed your hand.”

Rhys already has difficulty keeping up a good poker face. This is making it so much worse.

Rather than continue to stifle his own laughter, Rhys surges forward and kisses Jack. He nibbles at Jack’s lip, swipes his tongue against the seam, and Jack yields to him with a satisfied hum. The easy submission strokes at something clenched within Rhys’s chest.

Gently, he slides his hands from broad shoulders to the thick mess of Jack’s hair. Jack leans into it, seeming pleased, and Rhys threads his fingers through sleekness and old product, vaguely tacky to the touch. That distinguished lock of silver finds its way around Rhys’s index finger, and he curls it there, delighting at its natural wave. When he pulls back from another hungry kiss, he pauses to admire it, to admire everything: Jack’s damp lips, Jack’s half-done clothes, Jack’s mussed hair, how he’s made Jack a total mess.

“You look good like this,” says Rhys, and he presses another kiss to Jack’s mouth.

Jack doesn’t reply, but Rhys can feel his smile as it sharpens against his lips. Jack then rolls his hips, and suddenly Rhys is reminded that yes, Jack is still inside him, and yes, Jack is still super fucking hard.

Biting at Jack’s lip, Rhys makes an agreeable noise and rocks back into Jack’s mocking little roll. It’s a slow and lazy grind, one that Jack seems content to let Rhys control, and Rhys takes advantage of it, easing forward and back, rubbing his cock against Jack’s belly.

And then in one swift movement, Jack hauls Rhys against him and launches himself out of the chair.

“Jack!” Rhys yelps, digging his fingers into Jack’s back as he locks his ankles around Jack’s hips for security. “Jack, w-wait, what are—”

“Shh, you’re fine, you’re fine. I gotcha, okay? Just a sec.”

Before Rhys can respond, Jack steps forward with Rhys in his arms like he weighs nothing, still inside. One arm hefts Rhys’s weight further into it while the other leaves, forcing Rhys to cling tighter still, and then the sharp staccato of various plastic and metal things clattering somewhere behind Rhys coupled with a chugging mechanical whirr catches his attention because that sounds an awful lot like—

“There we go,” says Jack, and practically flings Rhys onto the wide surface of his desk.

Winded from the abrupt landing on his back and from Jack’s cock slipping out, Rhys squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to groan. His legs dangle off the side, enough for his toes to touch the floor despite the awkward angle. His muscles ache with the strain until Jack smooths strong hands down the outsides of his thighs, his calves, and lifts them up so they rest half-bent against Jack’s shoulders. Jack’s bare shoulders.

“Yeah, this is nice,” says Jack. Palms coast along Rhys’s legs. They rub and stroke and massage, warm and complete, appreciative, assuaging like an apology. “God, look at you, all spread out. So fuckin’ pretty. You want me, sweetheart?”

Rhys opens his eyes again to find Jack completely shirtless.

Somewhere between planting Rhys on his desk and grabbing hold of Rhys’s legs, Jack must have taken advantage of Rhys’s recent work and shucked off his clothes. His suit jacket, button-down, and waistcoat all pool in a pell-mell pile behind him. His old yellow sweater lies in a similar heap nearby with his undershirt, rumpled and inside out, along with another heap of slacks and socks and underwear.

Previous visits to Jack’s penthouse have bestowed Rhys with the very rare privilege of seeing Handsome Jack dressed down. Rhys has seen Jack in casual things like sweatpants and jeans, old sweaters and flannels, and even the occasional graphic tee with HYPERION splayed bold and yellow across its front while Jack sports a smart pair of black reading glasses. Jack always wears layers, even in private, even if it’s a ridiculous looking golden-sheened house robe hanging over his shoulders like a cape, and this is the first time Rhys has seen Jack without any of it.

Lacking all sartorial armour, Jack is a broad, tempting expanse of subtle muscle and tanned skin and dark hair and—

And scars.

Jack has scars.

Scars are what Rhys had felt under his fingertips when he’d been exploring in Jack’s lap.

Combined, wonder and epiphany make Rhys feel like he’s been clotheslined.

Thin and thick, long and short, linear and starburst, they spangle Jack’s chest like stars: navel, stomach, ribs, pectorals, collarbones. One even grazes his left shoulder, a bold and lazy X written in whitened fibrous tissue.

They’re old. Rhys isn’t sure how old, but he knows they can’t be recent. Even if current medical technology does reside somewhere in the vicinity of miraculous, fresh scars never look anywhere near this faded. Moreover, none of them look like wounds Jack would have sustained during his frequent stints on Pandora. Nothing resembles a bullet. Not even the circular divot notched below his sternum.

Rhys bites at the inside of his lip, reeling. He’s so hard it hurts.

“Yeah, I really want you,” he says, curling forward. He reaches out with his left hand, and when it connects, he paths it through Jack’s thick treasure trail. He skims over Jack’s navel, over a scar, over the bit of fat on Jack’s stomach, over the hard muscle underneath, over another scar, over the prominent edge of a hip bone, careful to avoid the too inviting curve of Jack’s cock.

“How much?” asks Jack, leaning in like he craves the touch. “How much do you want me, huh? Enough to beg? You gonna beg me to fill you up again?”

“Please. If you don’t, I think—” Rhys’s thoughts are still hazy, but they feel a little clearer now without the continuous flood of dopamine. Want aches through every nerve. “I think I might combust.”

Jack grins down at him. “That’s what I like to hear. Lie back, baby.”

Rhys obeys, fully expecting Jack to reach down and guide himself in so he can fuck Rhys over his desk and fulfil what is perhaps the most cliché office sex fantasy to ever exist.

That is not what Jack does.

Instead, Jack bends down, hands devoted to holding Rhys’s legs over his shoulders, and licks a long line up Rhys’s cock.

A gasp climbs out of Rhys’s throat. He looks down his body and locks eyes with Jack who licks him again from base to tip, slow and languorous and firm, like Jack wants to ensure Rhys feels every agonisingly wonderful second of this, like he wants all of it seared into Rhys’s memory—and if that’s his aim here, god, is it ever working.

After another hot and dragging stripe, Jack laves his tongue over the soft white pearl beading at the head, tender, teasing, and then engulfs all of Rhys’s cock with his mouth.

“Jack.” Rhys tips his head back, desperately trying to keep his hips still. “God, Jack, that feels—”

Jack hums, hollows out his cheeks, and begins to move.

The wet heat of it pulls at Rhys, corkscrews the need that much tighter, sweeter, beckons him to rock and thrust. It’s been so long since he’s had a blow job and god, he has missed it; he’s missed how this feels, how slick and warm and good it is, how the attention makes him feel like he’s at the centre of the whole damn universe and nothing else matters except for him and his partner (Jack) and the wonders of their mouth. He doesn’t know why Jack is sucking him off rather than fucking him, but complaint is the furthest thing from his mind.

As Jack swallows around him and continues to pump him in and out, never allowing Rhys to leave the seal of his lips, he strokes and squeezes Rhys’s thighs in those same soothing sweeps. They lack the intensity from before, but they feel just as covetous, just as possessive. On another pass, one hand spreads over Rhys’s hip and tugs before sliding back, and that’s—fuck, does Jack want him to move?

Rhys rolls his hips upward, chasing Jack’s retreating warmth, and he’s rewarded with an eager surge of total envelopment and a muffled moan that thrums around his cock.

God, Rhys thinks dazedly. God, he could come like this. He really could. He could keep thrusting up and into the welcoming wet of Jack’s mouth until the ratcheting tension within him snaps and he loses himself and comes right down Jack’s throat.

And god, he—

He wants that. He does. He wants to come and he wants Jack to swallow it because fuck that’s hot and he knows he’s never going to get this chance again, but he can’t have this be over, he can’t, not yet, not when Jack hasn’t even taken proper control, and now that he’s had a taste of what that looks like, feels like, Jack so intense and frenzied on the throne with his hands touching and groping Rhys like he’s a man starved, Rhys wants that more.

Even though Jack has a silver-sharp tongue that has reduced countless employees to cowering wrecks and has charmed countless others into obedience, even though he is currently using that very same tongue to wreck Rhys in the most mind-blowing and marvellous way imaginable, Rhys wants the promise of Jack pressing down and in, so consumed by the need to touch that Rhys is left submerged and shivering down beneath, pliant and willing and Jack’s.

Jack draws up again, swirls meaningless shapes that massage deeper into that dangerously tightening ache, and then dives back into Rhys’s upward thrust on a hard swallow that has Rhys seeing stars. When Rhys shudders in brain-fuzzing pleasure, the words Please stop I don’t wanna come yet hovering precariously behind his teeth, Jack pulls off in one smooth motion and presses a loud, smacking kiss to Rhys’s inner thigh.

“Good, right?” asks Jack. His smile is proud. Proprietary. Saliva glistens on his lips.

There is no way Rhys isn’t going to think of this the next time he sees Jack.

Or this office. Or this desk.

God, he’s so fucking ruined.

“Extremely,” he rasps.

Jack’s smile teases a little wider. “You should see yourself, all wrecked and red.” He tilts his head to kiss Rhys’s other thigh. “It’s ridiculously hot. Like, unfair amounts of hot. Man, if a blow job gets you this worked up, I gotta wonder what happens when someone eats you out.”

Christ, and if that isn’t a well-timed punch to the gut.

“I’m not gonna last if you do that,” Rhys says, and he realises that sounds pitiful but he knows he won’t, not if Jack wants to subject him to that kind of single-minded focus; he’ll fall apart at the seams.

“Probably not,” says Jack. Then, after a suggestive lick along his upper lip: “Not so sure I would, either.”

Jack nips at the available skin before straightening to his full height, moving both hands to keep Rhys’s legs settled on his shoulders. One hand leaves for a moment, followed by the telltale sound of a cap and the movement of Jack’s arm, and when it returns, it’s slick and a little cool, gliding down between Rhys’s thighs.

Anticipation ripples through Rhys’s body and he tries not to shiver.

“Spread a bit for me,” says Jack. “Yeah, there we go. That’s it. Beautiful.” He smears a swipe of lubricant there before reapplying the rest over his cock, and then Rhys can feel the heavy heat of it pressing close, sliding over but not in.

“Jack,” he says. It isn’t a plea, not yet, but it might as well be.

“How bad do you need it, Rhysie?” Jack’s fingers constrict around Rhys’s shin just below the knee. The soft, wet sounds of him working his cock with languid strokes pervade the air, the tempting drag teasing against Rhys with each one. “C’mon, babe. Don’t be shy. I’m not gonna give it to you ’til you tell me.”

“Jack,” Rhys groans, and it is a plea now, low and thready in his chest.

“Mmm, as much as I love hearing you say my name, that’s not what I asked. You gotta tell me what you want, princess. What you need. Unless … you don’t need it anymore.” As Jack’s movements stall, a smirk threatens in. “You do still need it, right?”

Rhys bites his tongue, hands curled into fists.

This is payback, he thinks. Of course it is. It has to be.

Exasperated, Rhys drops his free leg and hooks it around Jack’s hips, using the edge of his heel to roughly shove Jack against him because of course he needs this asshole’s dick; why the hell does Jack even think he’s got him on this damn desk?

But Rhys does it again for emphasis; he digs that heel in to the point of discomfort, digs it in so that Jack is nearly flush, not even caring that Jack’s hand still prevents him from getting what he needs because the point is that Rhys needs so clearly; Jack’s just being a prick.

“Yes, I need it,” Rhys says through gritted teeth, pooling as much steel into it as he can muster. “You wanted to hear that, right? You want your ego stroked? Fine. I need it. I need your cock. I really, really fucking need it and you’re driving me out of my goddamn mind because you won’t let me have it. Okay, Jack? I need it.”

For a fleeting moment, Rhys worries he might have overstepped.

The ravenous gleam in Jack’s eyes quickly tells him otherwise.

“Yeah, you do,” Jack breathes, the words hewn down to a predatory purr. “You need it more than anything, huh? More than money. Power. Fame. I can give you all that and more, but you’re not interested, are you, sweetheart? No. You need this.” Hard velvet slicks over again, excruciatingly slow, applying just enough pressure to imply but not to impose. “You need it so fucking bad, don’t you? You’d do anything I asked. Anything. You’d get on your knees for me. Beg for me. You’d let me touch you, taste you, own you.”

“Yes,” Rhys says, arching, sighing; anything to convince.

“Let me hear you say it,” says Jack. “C’mon. Tell me.”

Just as Rhys opens his mouth, Jack glides the blunt head of his cock against his rim and offers the slightest push.

A moan escapes instead.

“What was that? Couldn’t hear you.” Jack sounds so goddamn smug, and Rhys vows to schedule so many inconvenient meetings for him next week.

But Rhys draws in a shaky inhale and mashes down the pride and says, “I … I need you.”

And when he listens to those words whisper past his teeth, they sound—they sound good. They sound right. Because it isn’t want. It’s never just been want. And it’s not need, either; it’s not need, not for just a single part of Jack.

It’s need for all of this. For everything.

“I need you,” he repeats. It clambers out of him, threadbare, and it’s the truth, it is; it’s veracity in every sense. “I need you, Jack. Come on. Please.”

A satisfied noise lumbers above him. “Yeah, that’s it. That’s what I wanna hear. So good and needy for me, huh? You ready?”

“Yes, Jack, come on, I’ve been ready,” he says, and he tenses his muscles against the teasing presence of Jack’s cock, hoping Jack can feel it, hoping Jack can feel what he’s missing, and then Rhys wrenches his other leg out of Jack’s grasp and slams it against his back, holding the white-hot intensity of Jack’s gaze with scalded palms. “Come on,” he demands. “Damn it, come on. Hurry up, I—”

And then Jack presses in. He pushes, pushes, slow and easy and deliberate, and then when the wide head finally fits in, granting just enough purchase, Jack drives forward with a desperate thrust that pries the breath from Rhys’s lungs.

“Oh, god,” Rhys gasps, overwhelmed, and he grasps at the edge of the desk to ground himself because it feels like he’s hanging on by a thread. This is so much more than riding Jack in his chair; it’s deep, encompassing, the burn present but negligible, Jack’s hot girth forcing him full, full, full.

“Fuck,” says Jack, hanging over Rhys like he’s been sucker punched. “Fuck,” he says again, this time with a tentative forward thrust, and the way Jack’s eyes flutter closed like he’s just as incapacitated by this has Rhys floored, captivated, mesmerised.

Rhys opens his mouth to ask Jack if he’s okay, but the moment he does, a thumb steals its way past his lips.

It slides in, weighs heavily on his tongue, warm and thick as Jack’s other fingers curl against his cheek, his jaw, holding with a fierce kind of tenderness that could crack Rhys open and have him spilling heartsick confessions all over the office floor. Jack’s thumb strokes along his tongue and Rhys drops his jaw to let more of it in, tasting salt and calluses and fingerprints as he lathers it from intricate whorl to the sloping softer bend.

Jack pulls his hips back, drawing out with purpose, slow enough to make Rhys feel every maddening inch, and then he snaps forward again, solid and hard, and Rhys chokes a wet moan around his thumb.

“Christ, baby, you feel like a dream,” Jack sighs.

The next thing Rhys knows, Jack is grabbing his right ankle with his free hand and clasping the whole thing around it, bringing it in line with Jack’s hip. Jack tightens his grip, steady, sure, an anchor of flesh and bone, and then he moves again, a deliberate recline with a sharper thrust. This time it hits at a different angle, and when the tingling shock crackles out from spine to toes to fingers to throat, a groan stumbles out of Rhys and he sinks his teeth into Jack’s skin.

Jack curses above him, but the thumb doesn’t leave; it continues to mimic the eager motions of Rhys’s tongue with encouraging little swipes Rhys can’t help but need. He laves it with attention as best as he can in silent apology, but before he can properly convey it, Jack’s thumb retreats until the callused pad of it rests just past Rhys’s lips.

Dazed, Rhys manoeuvres it with his tongue until he can kiss it. It’s warm, wet, rough, and he lavishes it with damp kisses because it’s there, because he’s allowed to do this, because he can.

“You’re gonna ruin me,” Jack breathes, and it sounds quiet, hoarse, like he can’t fully dredge it up, like it’s fighting with him every step of the way and he has no choice but to grind it out.

Something in Rhys twists so achingly tight. He looks up at Jack, who stands stock-still despite his ragged breathing, and everything seems to shudder to a stop.

The windows frame Jack in stunning violet. The light from the moon flares at his shoulders, his arms, cuts him in highlights and halftones and shadows and bleeds all his scars to silver. His hair is a mess, dishevelled strands falling over and into his eyes, his brow damp with perspiration. The mask remains pale, but a faint flush creeps at its edges, and Rhys can’t stop himself from wondering what lies beneath.

And Rhys knows he’s not reading this right. He knows he’s biased, knows he’s a mess, knows he’s not immune, knows that it’s a trick of the light and nothing else, but the expression that lurks between the sharp lineaments and synthetic skin and glints of metal—

God, it looks like reverence.

Time resumes on a gasp, and then Jack fills him with another deep, unyielding thrust. Rhys shuts his eyes as Jack’s hips slam flush, shuddering with the feeling, so thick and blunt and wide, a delicious pressure tempered just for him. Before long, Jack withdraws his thumb and hauls Rhys’s other leg up against his shoulder, the other still gripped tightly at the ankle, and he drives in and out until a steady rhythm overtakes them both.

It’s so good. It’s so fucking good, Rhys shakes with it. The desk might be uncomfortable and his head might occasionally thump against its surface, but none of that matters compared to the way Jack holds him fast and fucks him open like this is what Jack is meant to do, like this is Jack’s sole purpose in life and nothing else.

And when Jack adjusts and the next thrust sings so brightly through Rhys’s blood that it wrenches out a moan he hadn’t even known he’d been holding, Jack huffs out a pleased “There we go” and picks up the pace.

Panting, Rhys increases his grip on the desk to the point where he’s positive his cybernetic hand is going to leave a dent. Pleasure webs through him in deep, full-body throbs he can feel in his fucking pores, and no matter how hard he tries to keep himself still for Jack, that insistent shivering clambers in and lays claim to his hips, his legs, his arms, wrenching him apart nerve by tingling nerve.

His voice fractures on another thrust, cracks on the apex of another, rives into husky splinters as Jack rocks into him with intent, and a part of him wonders if he’ll ever find the pieces.

Jack squeezes his ankle, smears a damp kiss along his calf, and Rhys knows right then—yeah, he’s done for. He really is. Completely and without question.

And with how Jack keeps breathing broken praises, it’s little wonder. Rhys isn’t even sure if Jack is aware he’s doing it. Jack sighs things like “You feel fantastic” and “God, you’re perfect” and “Fuck, you take me so well” between determined rolls of his hips, some half-formed while others yield only gruff pet names or guttural curses, and they all seem to trip out of his mouth without a care—stream of consciousness, unedited, no filter.

All of it pours over Rhys like a heavy syrup, settling in a pleasant weight over his chest before it flows out to the rest of him in that gradual, easing warmth that puts colour in his cheeks. Jack tends to be sparing with compliments unless they’re backhanded or serve another purpose, but these are ample, constant, genuine—

“So goddamn good.”

—and god, he could really get used to this.

So when Rhys finds the edge tilting ever closer, it isn’t exactly a surprise. Jack keeps a dedicated cadence like a timepiece and Rhys glimpses rapture in snapshot stills between the electric seconds. Rhys grits his teeth, scrabbles for breath, fixates on the telltale tightening and how Jack fills him so wonderfully, perfectly full. Another forward thrust shakes a rattling moan from his chest, one that Jack mirrors in his own lust-gravel timbre, and Rhys can’t help it; he looks up to see Jack gazing down at him, mouth half open but slanted in a smile.

“You good there, Rhysie?” Jack asks.

Rhys’s heart shouldn’t twinge like that, but the damn thing never wants to listen.

“Yeah,” Rhys replies, shaky and thin. “Yeah, I’m just—”

“Close? Yeah, you are. Look at you. You really need this, huh?” The heat of Jack’s hand withdraws from Rhys’s ankle to curl around his cock. “You gonna come for me?”

Jack pitches forward in a well-angled thrust, and Rhys’s whole body exults with the humming, crackling current. Rhys locks his free leg around Jack, pressing, pleading, and when Jack does it again, stroking Rhys to match, the tension winds into a superheated corkscrew that could snap with just the slightest push.

“Jack, please,” he says, rocking his hips to meet Jack thrust for thrust. “I’m—hah, please, I’m so—so close.”

“Yeah, that’s it. You need my hands on you, don’t you? Need my touch just to get off. Nobody else gets you like this, do they? Nobody else can make you this desperate.” Jack squeezes on the upstroke. “C’mon, babe. Come for me. Lemme feel you.”

As if on command, everything in Rhys’s body seizes up. Jack takes another forward plunge, and then ecstasy shatters through Rhys. With a deep moan and Jack’s name in his mouth, Rhys comes slick and warm all over Jack’s fist and up his belly, pressure bursting with galvanising, molten relief that sharpens with every devoted pump of Jack’s hand around his cock. The pleasure twists so overwhelmingly much that all sensation bleeds to white-hot waves that crest and crest and crest, blurring his vision until they ease into a warm, sated decrescendo to carry him down.

“God, Jack,” Rhys murmurs reverently, and this is reverence, he knows it is; he has always felt so much for Jack, but reverence is a soft-full swell of adoration he’s never been able to keep under wraps, not fully, not without little shards slipping through.

Rhys should probably feel unnerved at how exposed and vulnerable he feels, how candid he’s sure his face has become, but he can’t bring himself to care.

He has only ever been Jack’s.

“Christ, you’re hot.” Jack brings his wet hand to his mouth, licks the white mess of cum from his palm, and then he leans forward and plants it on Rhys’s throat. “So fucking perfect for me,” he groans, and he pursues a shallow, hasty rhythm that wracks oversensitive tremors through every inch of Rhys’s body.

“Only for you,” says Rhys, hoarse under Jack’s engulfing hand. He adjusts his legs, hooks them higher, flexes his pelvic floor, sensitivity nearing hyper-sharp. “Come on, Jack. Please, I need you.”

“Rhys.” His name draws out of Jack in a hiss. “I’m gonna—hah, I want—” Hips shove home roughly, meaningfully. “Inside.”

“Yes, god, please,” Rhys gasps, and he reaches up for Jack with his left hand, skims it over scars and hair until Jack leans in and presses a masked cheek into Rhys’s trembling lifelines. “Come on, please. Jack, I need it, need you, need your cock, need—”

“Fuck,” Jack breathes. “Rhys, baby—”

Jack slams his hips forward one final time, mouth open and chest heaving. A hitching moan pries its way out of him, thick and wrecked, and it crashes like a waterfall down Rhys’s spine. Rhys can feel Jack pulse, feel Jack grind against him, feel the shivers as they clamber through Jack’s entire body, feel the delicious narrowing pressure of Jack’s possessive hand, and when Jack lets go and slumps over him, utterly boneless, Rhys relishes the heat, the heaviness, and brings his palm against the sweat-damp skin of Jack’s back.

Everything seems to fall away—distant, muted, muffled, unimportant beneath Jack’s solid and beautifully grounding weight. The humid exhales against Rhys’s throat and the perfect presence over top of him and the wide plane of Jack’s shoulder blades are all that matter.

A different scar dips beneath Rhys’s fingertips as he lets them coast, yet another anomaly to add to Jack’s unique topography, and he pauses over the jagged furrow, marvelling, overcome.

How many hands have charted this? he wonders absently. How many could claim the title of Handsome Jack’s cartographer? Countless, anyone would think, especially with Jack’s endless boasting, but Rhys knows Jack’s schedule like the back of his own hand, flesh or otherwise. Jack is bombastic both in public and in private, but when it comes to the latter, he’s sequestered. Isolated. Safe. Jack takes up so much space in every atmosphere, he rarely even makes room for the people he likes.

And the fact that Rhys is here plotting the start of his own tentative map at the very perihelion of Jack’s demanding orbit is an anomaly all of its own.

After a few moments’ reprieve, Jack makes a drowsy little mmm-ing noise and crawls up on his elbows. He then pushes himself off of Rhys, taking the lovely heat with him, and pulls out with a soft sigh that smacks of satiety.

Rhys can do nothing but lie there in the aftermath, sucking in breath after shuddering breath, acutely aware of the way his heart seems to have utterly inundated his chest. That percussive throb crams its way through every inch of him, and he shivers at the force of it, breathless at how it feels to have blood rushed so completely through his body. His limbs feel heavy, far too heavy to lift, and the cottony haze that spools throughout his head seems to be getting thicker by the second.

“Hey,” says Jack, and the warmth of a broad hand starts to rub into Rhys’s hip, tender but firm, like Jack means to forcibly anchor him to reality through touch alone. “You doing okay there, baby?”

Rhys hums in reply, too spent for words. He blinks, gazes up at the tall, tall ceiling and at Elpis looming beyond long window glass and at Jack peering down at him with thoroughly dishevelled hair and a weary grin, and he decides that even if this had been a long night, it hadn’t been a bad one.

The palm on his hip offers a squeeze. “You look good like this,” says Jack.

“What, tired?” Rhys manages, and even those two little syllables sound exhausted, wilting off his tongue and over his lips.

A huffed laugh. “I was gonna say all fucked out on my desk, but, uh … yeah. Tired’s good, too, I guess.”

As Jack studies Rhys, something in his countenance shifts. It’s miniscule, infinitesimal, a subtle flicker like tiny beads of light recalibrating in the bold blue shimmer of a wavering hologram. And then Jack’s other hand slides up Rhys’s side and under his back, coaxing, cajoling, the deep heat of it singing so gently into Rhys’s nerves.

“C’mon, Rhysie,” says Jack. “Up and at ’em, huh?” And this time he pushes into Rhys’s back, eases into the space between his shoulder blades, guiding him into a lazy sit at the edge of Jack’s desk. “There we go. The faster we can get you cleaned up, the faster you can go catch up on that beauty rest. You’re gonna need it if you wanna look anywhere as near as good as this handsome mug.”

“Shut up,” says Rhys, a little clearer now but still no less drained, and braces a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Not my fault you couldn’t adhere to the necessary six. If you did, I’d probably be … I dunno. A supermodel or something.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I would be,” Rhys insists around a yawn. “Unfortunately, my bright and glamorous supermodel career has been thoroughly strangled by the hands of Handsome Jack. Rest in peace, supermodel career. You will be missed.”

“God, you’re dramatic.”

“No, you’re dramatic. You’re the one who threw me on a desk!”

“And you’re the one who double locked me in a chair and then got straight to your knees like a thirsty protag from one of your trashy novels. I think we both know who the real drama queen is here.” Jack smirks at him, eyebrows raised. “Don’t we?”

“Shut up,” Rhys says again, because Jack absolutely should and because his brain is way too thick and gauzy to be dragged into complicated thinking-things like verbal spars.

“Heh. Yeah, that’s what I thought. Sit tight for me, kitten.” With a wink, Jack pats Rhys’s hip and pulls away.

Rhys might not miss Jack’s dumb ideas for pillow talk, but he does lament the loss of his body heat. It’s cold in this office, far colder than it has any right to be, and it’s even colder sans clothes and with various fluids dripping down and out of him. Jack might be busy rummaging through desk drawers completely naked, but that isn’t important because right now Rhys wants nothing more than to feel Jack’s hot hands on his back and to rest his head on that broad, bare chest.

That would probably feel good, he thinks. Nice and warm. Cosy. He’d have a face full of Jack’s chest hair, but it’s not like he’d mind. He could lie there and count the peppered silvers with Jack’s palm resting heavy and pleasant on his backbone. He could doze there for a while, trace at the whitened scars. Maybe he’d nuzzle them. Kiss them.

Maybe Jack would like it.

When he returns, Jack slots back between Rhys’s legs like he belongs there. One of his hands reclaims its rightful place upon Rhys’s hip while the other swipes something soft and vaguely textile across the stickiness coating Rhys’s belly.

“Here,” Jack says with a meaningful press, and gives Rhys’s hip another squeeze. “Think you’re good to handle the rest?”

Rhys nods and takes over obediently as Jack withdraws to do his own cleanup. He runs the towel over his stomach and groin until he’s dry. When he stretches out his legs to reach lower, he’s greeted with a deep twinge that snipes straight down to his calf. It doesn’t help that the hazy, pleasure-rushed fog stuffing his brain has dissolved into the thinnest gossamer; now that he can focus without the deafening buzz of endorphins, all of the little aches and pains from the past hour and a half have swooped in to say hello.

Wincing, Rhys mops up as best he can. He knows he’s going to be sore tomorrow. There’s no question.

After he’s finished, Rhys wads up the damp towel, sets it aside, and rubs a few pumps of the sanitiser Jack left out over his hands. He starts to shove away from the desk so he can begin the process of retrieving his clothes, but before he can get very far, Jack stoops down naked at his feet with his Hyperion-branded underwear hooked on two fingers, and that makes him freeze.

“Up with the legs, Legs,” says Jack, and taps Rhys on the heel.

Bewildered, Rhys does as he’s told and lifts. And when Jack stretches the elastic and guides his feet through one at a time, he notices—

There are marks on Jack’s wrists. Red and flushed, two perfect bands linger where the cuffs held fast. Jack’s tattoo masks part of one with its dark ink and blocky lines, but the other burns brightly across bare tanned skin, stark and exquisite.

Proof.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Rhys knows Jack struggled against the restraints. The eagerness, the intensity, the cathexis; Jack spared none of it. In those final frantic moments before the cuffs withdrew, Jack reached for Rhys with such powerful desperation, sought him out like he was the sole thing pinning Jack together, like if Jack couldn’t touch him then Jack himself would succumb to the crushing universal collapse his very presence demands.

And god, the thought of that is … heady. Overwhelming. A buoyant swell with enough spilling, cleaving pressure to make Rhys dizzy. That husky litany of c’mon, please, lemme touch you breathed out in prayer against his collarbones is going to haunt every idle fantasy and inconvenient wet dream from now until the end of his days.

Still, in spite of that, he supposes he just—hadn’t realised Jack had been that rough? It’s not as if he’d had the free time to scan the scene with his ECHO-eye so Hyperion’s data could tell him the exact amount of force applied right down to the newtons. It’s obvious now that he looks back on it, of course, but … well. He can’t say he thought of bruises.

And those will become bruises. Jack is strong, evidenced by the effortless way he hauled Rhys around like a damn rag doll, and there is no way in hell using that kind of strength against such a sturdy metal alloy would allow its wielder to emerge unscathed. Jack will leave this office with visible, tangible reminders of everything that happened, and they are going to stay with him for days.

A breath snags on something deep in the vault of Rhys’s chest. He bites the inside of his lip and stares at Jack—Jack and his broad shoulders, Jack and his hairy chest, Jack and his spangling scars, Jack and his big hands, Jack and his soon-to-be bruises—as he tugs Rhys’s boxer-briefs over his knees.

He stares because his mind is swimming, because his body is leaden and heavy and stone. He stares because all of these microscopic details feel somehow immense, like they amassed and mulled and compacted together until they learned their own gravity, and now they want to pull at Rhys, rope him in, enfold every part of him until he joins them in their crushing density. He stares because—

Because, god, if someone had asked him who he thought would get marked up in bed, Handsome Jack or Handsome Jack’s partner, he never would have guessed Handsome Jack.

“Okay, all you from here, pumpkin,” says Jack, rising to his feet. He tugs back the elastic band and lets it snap against Rhys’s outer thigh. “Got my own stuff to worry about. You can move your legs again, right?”

“Wha— Yes, I can move my legs. It’s not like you maimed me,” Rhys grumbles, and he makes a show of pulling his underwear up the rest of the way since Jack apparently can’t be bothered. He’d likely feel offended if this were anyone else, but this is Jack; Rhys is used to this kind of thing by now.

And he knows that probably says something bad about him. Something about questionable standards or tolerance for poor treatment, or even about his general taste in men. He won’t argue standards or taste (he’s well aware there’s no hope for him there), but he will argue treatment. Jack does treat him well, recent sleep deprivation and casual condescension aside.

It’s not overt. Not really. Not in the way you’d expect from Handsome Jack. But the posh apartments and ample paychecks say a lot, as does his continued existence; he is well aware that Jack’s previous PA had not taken a voluntary leave of absence.

And thanks to Jack’s favour, he has clout and power that transcends anything he could have hoped to achieve on his own. People listen to him, suck up to him, and those that don’t often find themselves in many unfortunate and highly inconvenient bureaucratic tangles. Not only that, Rhys is the friend in higher places; he’s in a position where he can pull strings for Vaughn or Yvette or anyone else who seeks a symbiotic corporate relationship.

And perhaps that’s what this is, he supposes, rubbing at the mild sting on his thigh. Symbiotic. He helps Jack, Jack helps him, win-win, everybody’s happy. He knows Jack brings far more to the table than he could ever manage, but he also knows his own skill sets are nothing to sneeze at. He might not use all of them now that he’s wrangling Jack instead of errant code, but he’s a powerhouse in his own right. He’s clever, capable, confident. He knows his worth.

There’s a reason he’s gotten this far, after all.

Surprisingly, getting dressed after sex with your boss isn’t exactly the weird and awkward affair so many popular romantic comedies (and the occasional trashy novel) make it out to be. Jack busies himself with retrieving his suit jacket and four other layers while Rhys pulls on his discarded slacks and buttons up his shirt and waistcoat, all done in a familiar and companionable quiet. Somewhere in the middle, Jack balls up Rhys’s very vibrant socks and says “What, no stars this time?” before tossing them across the desk, and Rhys finds a wayward shoe not too long afterward and gives it a throw in Jack’s direction with a blithe “I thought you bought new ones?” that Jack meets with a lighthearted shrug.

Maybe it’s because he’s known Jack for the better part of two years, or maybe it’s because Jack seems to have zero sense of shame about this particular scenario, but the whole thing is good. Easy. Relaxed. Not much different than the countless other times he’s been in Jack’s office during or after hours, minus the obvious state of undress.

And that’s something of a relief, really, because not only is this his boss, this is Handsome Jack, and Rhys isn’t sure what he’d do if all the rapport he worked so hard to establish got demolished within the space of a single night due to his own reckless decisions concerning his immunity (or the severe lack thereof) to Hyperion’s ruthless CEO.

Yep, and there’s the questionable standards thing again, he thinks wryly, popping in the last button of his waistcoat. God, he’s a mess.

He chances a sidelong glance at Jack. Now dressed in his ancient yellow sweater and long white button-down with his slacks done up and his gun re-holstered, Jack rolls up his sleeves with an efficiency that comes with frequent and thorough practice. Rhys can’t help where his eyes fall, and he soon finds himself staring as Jack grabs his watch from his cluttered desk and slides the thick band over his left wrist. The sleek silver obscures all traces of the impending bruise with ease, and the satisfying click of the clasp feels like some kind of finality.

Rhys combs his fingers through his hopelessly tousled hair to hide his grin. At least he’s not the only mess here.

“Okay, so,” says Jack, “about tomorrow.” He glances at his watch and taps at something on its face. “Don’t bother showing up.”

A mood crash this fast feels like whiplash.

“What?” The word rockets out of Rhys’s mouth in record time, covering for the cold punch of dread that slams through his gut. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean? Jack, we have meetings first thing in the morning with Requisitions and Weapons Design. There’s another with Robotics later, and then there’s that kick-off for the new SMG line. The last time I skipped out on one of those for a firmware upgrade, you complained for like a whole week. Why don’t you want me to show up?”

Jack pauses mid-reach for his waistcoat. “Uh, because I said so?” he says, and casts Rhys this puzzled yet patronising look that implies Rhys is somehow being slow. “Do we need to have a little refresher on how this whole corporate hierarchy thing works? Like, okay, I get it, mind-blowing sex can actually blow your mind and leave your brain scrambled for a while, but I didn’t think it actually made you forget important team dynamics like ‘I’m the boss’ and ‘you’re the assistant’—which, in case you do need the refresher, means I give the orders and you follow them.”

“I didn’t forget anything. It was sex, not brain trauma,” Rhys says tartly, though he’s starting to wonder otherwise. “I’m just trying to figure out why you don’t want me to do my job. Some of the departments are getting prepped for next quarter and they’ll need input that isn’t from the board. You clearly value my presence at these things even if all I do is take minutes or else you wouldn’t drag me to, like, ninety-five percent of them. And even if I didn’t have four meetings tomorrow, I still have my actual job to do, which means managing your schedule and fending off all the toadies who want your attention. If you’re gonna pull me out for a day, I deserve to know why.”

Jack tips his head back, drags a hand down his mask, and breathes out a long, exasperated sigh. He then shrugs into his waistcoat with exaggerated effort and stalks around the desk to crowd himself right into Rhys’s space.

“Look,” he says, planting both palms on Rhys’s shoulders, “you were literally just complaining about being tired. Do you not want the day off? ’Cause if you’re really that gung-ho about it, you can go right ahead and keep working on, I dunno, three hours of sleep or whatever. It’s your dumb protocol to break, not mine. Just don’t come crying to me when you pass out at your desk because I will not be held responsible for a permanent keyboard impression across your face. I will take pictures, though. I reserve the right to do that. That would be frickin’ hilarious and so would sending them to all your little friends. And maybe-probably-definitely publishing them in Hyperion’s next press release.”

“Day … off?” Rhys echoes, nonplussed. “Wait. Really? You’re really giving me the day off?”

“Uh, yeah. Duh. What the hell did you think I was doing?”

“I don’t know. Retaliation or something? A weird, backhanded way of firing me?”

“Retali—” Jack snorts with laughter. “Retaliation? For this? Really? You seriously thought—oh, god. Rhys, baby, let’s get a couple things straight here. First: if I was gonna fire you, you would’ve been a popsicle decorating one of my many windows by now. You of all people should know that. You’ve been doing this long enough, right? You know how things work around here. C’mon, get with the program.

“Second: if I wanted to do any actual retaliation,” he continues, one broad hand sliding along the nape of Rhys’s neck while the other slinks toward his waist, “it sure as hell wouldn’t be telling you not to show up to work. It would be … oh, I don’t know. Me tying you up. Probably your hands to start. Hold ’em up over your head so you’d be nice and spread out for me. That would make a real gorgeous picture, huh? You lying there on my bed, all trussed up like a gift, legs for days and days.”

“Oh.” Heat flushes Rhys’s face. “Um. I, uh—”

“I’d tie up your ankles, too,” Jack muses, and his fingers increase the pressure until Rhys can feel the possession in it. “I mean, you did that to me. An eye for an eye, or however the saying goes. But you know what? I’m a generous guy. The ankle binds will only come into play if you move. If you’re a good boy and don’t move, you won’t need them. That’s fair, right? Giving you a chance to prove you’re a good boy.”

Jack leans in. His hands already ensure Rhys’s obedience, but Jack pins Rhys in place with an avid stare that sends shivers skating down the length of his back. The green-blue switch of Jack’s eyes gleams in the moon’s lambent light, deep and hot and full of promise.

“And you are a good boy,” says Jack. “Aren’t you, Rhysie?”

The hazy smoulder of arousal becomes far less opaque. Rhys forces down a thick swallow and opens his mouth to reply, but all the useful words have left him bereft, scattering away and into the dark like tiny insects under the incandescent blaze of Jack’s blinding focus.

For a long moment, Rhys is right where he was two years ago: standing dumbstruck and alone before the consuming, indomitable presence that is Handsome Jack.

And then Jack devolves into full-body snickers, shattering the illusion completely.

“Wow,” says Jack. “That really does it for you, huh?”

“I’m— You’re just—” Rhys scrabbles for coherence. “Shut up!”

“Yeah, it does.” Unbridled delight reclines in the curve of Jack’s smirk. “Is it the praise? Or is it the voice? Ooh, or is it both? It’s both, isn’t it? It’s both. Oh, tell me it’s both. Please tell me it’s both. That would make my freaking night.”

“I’m not telling you that,” Rhys snaps. “I’m not telling you anything!”

“Mmm, that’s okay. I can deal when it’s so plain on your pretty face. God, y’know, I just had this feeling when you were on your knees. Every time I said something, I could just”—gently, Jack squeezes his nape—“feel you try a little harder.”

Trying not to lean into the pressure, Rhys groans. “You are the worst.”

“Aw, come on. Is that any way to treat your incredibly awesome and handsome boss after he just gave you a day off? I’ll give you a hint: the answer starts with ‘N’ and ends with ‘O’. Where’s the appreciation, huh? Where’s the gratitude? Kinda rude not to at least say thank you, don’t you think?”

“Thank you, sir,” Rhys deadpans, regarding Jack with what he hopes is a not-embarrassed glower. “Look, as much as I appreciate you being so clearly invested in your employees’ physical health, that still doesn’t solve my problem concerning you and tomorrow’s meetings. If I’m not going, does that mean you’re going on your own? ’Cause if you are, you’ll have to designate someone else to take minutes, and maybe the recordings too since I can’t—”

“Ah-tut-tut!” Jack presses the pad of his finger against Rhys’s lips. “Nope, I’m gonna stop you right there. Neither of us is going, so cool it with the meeting stuff, okay? I’m over it.”

“What? You’re not going either?”

“Pff, no. Why would I?”

Rhys frowns as he bats Jack’s hand away. “Uh, because they’re important? Because they’re dealing with a lot of sensitive decisions on future projects? Because they’ve been scheduled for a few weeks now and rescheduling them is going to be a major pain in the ass?”

“Well, that’s a real bummer, ’cause the cancellation message already went out a few minutes ago.”

“Wha— Are you serious? Jack, what the hell!”

“Oh, come on, stop pouting. Don’t worry about it, okay? I have complete and total confidence you’ll deal with the whole rescheduling thing in a prompt and professional manner at a later date that’s probably somewhere two days from now. We, on the other hand,” says Jack, thumb brushing his hairline, “have way more important things to do tomorrow.”

“Um. We?” asks Rhys, feeling rather like he’s been present for only half this conversation.

“Well, yeah? I mean, how else are—wait.” Jack squints at him. “What do you mean, ‘We?’?”

“Well, you told me I have the day off tomorrow,” says Rhys, and he’s really beginning to wonder if he missed something here because Jack isn’t making any sense. “I didn’t— I don’t know, I just assumed I’d be catching up on sleep or something. That’s how you made it sound. Did you have something else on the schedule I don’t know about? I swear, I told you like two months ago to quit making your personal calendar entries private. You know I can’t see them that way.”

“Ah, shit, that’s right,” Jack sighs. “Man, that’s annoying. I just— Ugh, totally forgot to mention— Damn it, I knew I was forgetting something—”

“This honestly isn’t very reassuring to me right now,” says Rhys.

“No, no, no, shut up, it’s fine. ’Kay, so, remember when I said ‘day off’?”

“Yes, I remember. Again: sex, not brain trauma.”

Jack swats his chest. “Mouthy brat, I am trying to answer your question.”

“Okay, okay, fine,” says Rhys. “You said ‘day off’. What about it? What’s the catch?”

“The catch,” says Jack, “is that it’s exactly what it sounds like: full day, nothing work-related, comms off, free reign to space anybody who bothers you—and yes, that includes that one asshole from Securities Propaganda you won’t shut up about. Buuut, that being said, it’s less like me giving you the day off and more like I’m giving myself the day off. Your ass is just tagging along for the ride.”

Rhys’s heart stutters. Something like cold spearmint panic or balmy tart disbelief wedges its way between the shivering beats, a prickling shock of sweat and epinephrine and What?, and then that small capsule lurches between his lungs like it means to leap straight up his throat and present itself to Jack upon his tongue—fierce, hopeful, trembling, prostrate and prepared for judgement.

Handsome Jack doesn’t take days off. Rhys has kept his schedule long enough to know that just isn’t something Jack does. In the past year and eleven standard months, Jack has missed work a grand total of two times: both due to illness, both at Rhys’s behest, and both so begrudgingly that Rhys had thought he would soon discover himself on the wrong side of an airlock if he didn’t clear out.

So to have Jack say that (for Rhys), declare that (for Rhys), to have him standing this close with his hand still cupping Rhys’s neck and sporting a smile that showcases such supreme self-satisfaction that it rivals even the most enchanting of motivational posters—it’s beyond unusual, beyond extraordinary, and Rhys can’t help but stand there as a sudden, earnest stab of fondness plunges itself between soft and struggling chambers and unfurls there in all its heart-stopping glory, a bird of prey at last come home to roost.

Jack’s smug expression falters. “Ha, you get it? Ride?” He strokes Rhys’s nape with his thumb. “’Cause your ass is gonna be rid—”

“Your dick jokes are terrible,” says Rhys.

And then he grabs Jack by his open waistcoat and yanks him into a kiss.

It isn’t anything like before. It isn’t heated. It isn’t frantic. It isn’t feverish or desperate or charged with an urgency so intense it renders Rhys’s thoughts into liquid, viscous and swimmy and thoroughly displaced.

Instead, it’s … mild. Lazy. Chaste. It’s comfort and reassurance and solid ground, a microcosm of stillness amongst an otherwise vast universe of perpetual tumult. He kisses Jack like he’s just returned from a long stint of mandatory overtime, a kiss fraught with all the sleep-tender exhaustion and encompassing relief that kind of aftermath carries, and he relishes the firm, lulling press of closed lips until he realises Jack is not kissing back.

Panicked, Rhys pulls away with little ceremony.

“I … Wow, I am really sorry,” he manages on a rushed exhale, and he knows he shouldn’t sound so damn breathless after something so plain as a kiss, but this isn’t his body’s first betrayal tonight. “I’m, uh— I wasn’t— God, I don’t know what I was thinking. I just, I don’t know, saw an opportunity and thought—maybe? But it’s obviously not, and that’s fine. Okay? Completely fine. Lesson learned, won’t do it again. It’s just— Listen, it’s late and I’m deliriously tired as we both unfortunately just witnessed, so I’m gonna … you know. Start heading home. Two elevators and a train to get through. So, um. I guess I’ll … see you tomorrow?”

Jack doesn’t reply. He doesn’t even move.

And Rhys doesn’t know if that is better or worse.

He forces a nervous swallow, all too aware of the palm still resting on the back of his neck.

“Jack?” he asks.

Rather than dignify Rhys with a response, Jack studies Rhys’s face like Rhys is some kind of unfamiliar prototype he wants nothing more than to pick apart component by component. He stares like he wants to learn Rhys’s intricacies, his connections, to process and compile all the tiny infinitesimal microscopic things that make Rhys tick—like Rhys is somehow the mysterious one in all of this and not Jack who is an egocentric multi-trillionaire with mercurial moods and a deep-seated paranoia that never seems to wane unless he’s in certain company.

A gentle crease furrows both real and synthetic skin along Jack’s brow, and Rhys can’t help but note the rarity of this moment: Jack being quietly, placidly bemused, and with no passive-aggressive quips or violent mania in sight.

“Jack?” he repeats, low enough for the running water’s susurrus to ensnare it whole and swallow it down.

And then, without a word, Jack’s large, warm hands begin to migrate down toward his sides.

Rhys shivers. He leans into the contact, nerves exulting at the movement, the pressure. Fingers idly brush by sleek fabric until they find purchase at his waist, and then they settle in, sinking down into the silk of his waistcoat like they possess an unconscious desire to tether him to this very spot right in Jack’s personal space, and it feels—

God, he doesn’t know. He just had sex with Jack not ten minutes ago and yet this feels profoundly intimate on a scale so grand that it dwarfs the intrinsic trust of Jack allowing Rhys to lock him into his own chair or of Rhys releasing Jack from his bonds so he could fuck Rhys over a desk.

And that’s probably kind of weird, he thinks. Weird that something so bland and tame somehow surpasses the innate intimacy of sex, that whatever this is seems to be drifting in reverse.

The fleeting concept of symbiotic relationships flickers by, and it occurs to him that he has no idea just how deep this odd symbiosis between him and Jack truly runs.

At last, Jack graces him with a smile. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it, babe. I’m into it.”

And then Jack leans in and kisses him on the mouth. It is no less intent, no less enthusiastic; just as mild, lazy, and chaste. A perfect mirror.

A crash of relief sluices Rhys from head to toe. He returns the kiss with equal fervour, hands still clenched in the halves of Jack’s waistcoat. The dizzying swell of exhilaration tucked behind his sternum grows so great that it nearly threatens to displace his ribs.

“So,” says Jack, dipping back, “you ready to get the hell out of here? You honestly look like you could pass out at any second. I’m not gonna have to haul your ass over my shoulder and carry you to the elevator, am I?”

“Just because I’m tired doesn’t mean I can’t walk,” says Rhys, and although he tries to imbue it with proper indignance, it doesn’t quite take.

“Mmm, I don’t know about that. Wouldn’t put it past you. Maybe I’ll take pics of that, too, huh? You slung over my shoulder, all zonked out. You probably drool or something else embarrassing.” Jack rubs Rhys’s sides through his waistcoat and placates him with another kiss, this time on the forehead. “Just lemme grab my coat and we’ll split. Don’t pass out in the five seconds it takes for me to get to my desk, okay?”

“I’m not gonna pass out.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m not!”

“Says the guy who was definitely in a hypnagogic state post-bang.”

“What? No, I wasn’t! Look, you’re the one who does that weird microsleep thing, okay? Not me.”

“Yeah, and you’re the one who straight up falls asleep at your desk and gets these super obvious lines from your robo-hand stamped all over your face, not me.”

“That was— That was once!”

“Once is all it takes, sweetheart.” Jack grins, pecks his cheek, and gives his side a playful pinch. “Go on. I gotta take care of something real quick. Meet you at the front, huh?”

Rhys huffs, but he does as he’s told and makes his way toward the entrance. He turns with folded arms and waits for Jack at the giant double doors, watching as Jack tends to something on his computer for a long minute before snagging his suit jacket by the collar and slinging it over his shoulder. Jack’s gait is sure and steady as he climbs down the stairs, but it lacks some of the usual swagger Rhys has come to expect.

Performance, he thinks wonderingly. There’s no one to cow or threaten here.

When Jack draws close, he gives Rhys an indicative nod. The doors open at Rhys’s command and Jack accompanies him through, their footsteps a pair of curt clicks and duller thuds against the chrome. As they walk down the long corridor, wide panels of interspersing metal and open space flank them on either side; Rhys knows if he cared to look, he’d spy the familiar glimpse of Helios’s lower towers, the same one he has seen almost every day for the past year and eleven months.

A catchy nu jazz tune greets them when the elevator doors slide open. Jack starts to hum the melody (albeit slightly off-key) as he pats Rhys on the back to usher him in. Rhys suppresses a smile and obeys without a word, retreating to the back of the elevator to lean against the wall. Jack saunters in after him, still humming, and uses his free hand to punch something in on the side panel’s integrated keyboard.

The music cuts to sudden silence for a moment, and then a cheery synthesised voice replaces it over the speakers.

“Access code accepted,” it recites. “Executive elevator override initiated. Hello, handsome!”

Rhys frowns questioningly at the panel.

Then he frowns questioningly at Jack.

The nu jazz tune picks up right where it left off prior to the announcement, but this time Jack does not join in. When the elevator doors shut and the car itself begins to move, Jack takes a few steps backward and joins Rhys along the wall, close enough so that his forearm brushes against the fabric of Rhys’s black button-down. The red on his wrist stands out beside his tattoo.

It’s not like Rhys has … expectations or anything, but Jack knows the Hub’s floor. He knows Rhys has to drop there first if he wants to go home. And yet Jack chose to enter the code to take them to his penthouse.

“Jack?” Rhys asks, soft over the trilling notes.

“Two elevators and a train, right? That’ll take like, what, half an hour? You’ll, uh. Probably pass out on the way there. Y’know. Fall asleep on a train car or something.” With the most casual air, Jack snakes his free arm behind Rhys and loops it around his middle. “Mine’s closer.”

Rhys’s heart performs an impressive somersault. A fresh pulse of adrenaline sends it catapulting between his rib cage and his lungs, a thunderous hammering that drowns both saxophones and drums alike, and he wonders if Jack can feel it as it jumps under his skin.

“Besides,” Jack continues airily, “it’s way better than those dingy apartments you and your weirdly buff friend are in. Tons more space, awesome décor, the best amenities money can buy. Still don’t know why you won’t let me put you up somewhere better. You’re settling, Rhysie. Frankly, it’s embarrassing. With the amount of cash you’re pulling in, you really oughta be a few floors up.”

“Settling?” Rhys isn’t offended, not really, but their current place had been included amongst Jack’s apartment offers. He and Vaughn had just chosen one they’d liked. “How am I settling? Jack, we live on one of the most expensive floors. A member of the board literally lives right down the hall. I see her when I leave to get your coffee in the mornings. I’m honestly having a hard time seeing how that’s settling.”

“Trust me, it’s settling. It might be one of the most expensive floors, but it’s not the most expensive floor.” Jack shrugs. “Not my fault you nerds have bad taste.”

Rhys thinks to Jack’s garish colour preferences and his penchant for grandiose statuary. “Still not seeing how I’m settling. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s bad taste. Some people just don’t like gold.”

“There are two types of people in this world, Rhys: people who like gold and people who have no taste. They’re mutually exclusive.”

At any other time, Rhys would likely have some kind of smart rebuttal for that, but he has neither the energy nor the brainpower to engage. Instead, he sighs a resigned “Whatever you say, Jack” and closes his eyes.

A tranquil minute passes where Rhys allows his mind to drift. He sifts through the events of the past two hours, trying to process them with a keener eye while skirting around the more salacious snapshots he knows will make him blush. When he revisits the aftermath right before The Kiss—and that’s just dumb, he thinks; it’s stupendously dumb that that moment is some kind of proper noun to him now—he remembers Jack’s awful joke, your ass is along for the ride, and the realisation of exactly what that implies collides into him like blunt-force trauma to the head.

Rhys had been so hung up on the day off part of this, so thunderstruck by the fact that Jack was not only taking a day off but choosing to spend it with him that he’d completely missed—

“Oh my god. Did you seriously cancel all our meetings just so we could have sex tomorrow?”

“Yep,” says Jack, utterly unfazed, like dropping a whole day’s worth of work to fuck Rhys stupid is a very common and normal thing that happens now. “I mean, I obviously didn’t do it just for sex, but sex was a pretty big factor, yeah. Things were kinda lacking in the comfortable surface department tonight, so I figured I owed it to the both of us to offer some variety. Not to mention—man, I just did not get to do all the stuff I wanted to do. You probably didn’t, either, right? Sooo, yeah. You and me. Tomorrow. We’re gonna fix that.”

A fierce burn overwhelms Rhys’s face. “Oh my god.”

“What? What’s the look for? Don’t worry, it’s all gonna be after you’ve had your beauty rest. Speaking of, how many hours do you think you’ll need? Eight? Nine? Maybe I’ll wake you up after nine. Ooh, what’s your opinion on morning sex? Specifically morning blow jobs. ‘Yea’? ‘Nay’? ‘Maybe if Jack gets me in the mood’?”

“I … don’t think it’ll still be considered morning by the time I wake up,” says Rhys, because he feels like a massive idiot and also because he is very sure he would probably last all of ten seconds if Jack pushed him on his back and blew him and wow that is a dangerous train of thought; he needs to not think about that.

“Oh, for— Are we really splitting hairs here? Really? I’m asking you about morning blow jobs and you wanna focus on the morning part? Oh my god.” Jack rolls his eyes and draws a deep, deep sigh. “Okay. Look. You’re the one who’s gonna be waking up. ¿Comprende? You’re the one it’s gonna be morning for. Do you like waking up to someone sucking you off or not?”

“I’ve, uh … well.” Rhys bites at the inside of his lip. “I can’t say I’ve really experienced that.”

“Okay. Super sucks for you and not in a good way, but okay. Is that something you want to experience?” Jack eyes him warily. “I honestly don’t know how much simpler I can make these questions, Rhys. Work with me here.”

“No, no, no, I’m—I’m into it. Okay? I’m into it. I’d like that. A lot.” Rhys swallows. “More than a lot.”

“Finally! See, was that so hard? Well, heh, I guess hard’s the idea, but you get what I mean. Jeez, I didn’t think getting a yes or no out of you would be a whole frickin’ ordeal.”

“Sorry,” says Rhys, feeling rather breathless.

“Uh-uh, nope. None of that. Just say what you want next time, ’kay? It’s really not that complicated.”

Rhys supposes it isn’t, not when Jack puts it like that, but—Christ, he is seriously tired and an absolutely enormous number of things have happened all within a very short period of time and holy shit he’s probably going to have a panic attack when he wakes up in the morning.

Or the afternoon. Or whenever Jack gets him up, because that’s apparently something that is going to happen now, and—wow, yeah, he needs a minute to wrap his head around this.

Jack squeezes his waist. “Hey. You good there, kitten?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. I just—” Rhys breathes and tries to focus on things that aren’t Jack blowing him or plowing him into a mattress. “Wow. I’m gonna come back to a freaking nightmare in a couple days, aren’t I?”

“Probably,” says Jack, blasé as ever. “I’m not worried about it, though.”

“Well, of course you’re not worried about it. You’re not the one who has to deal with a bunch of disgruntled department heads and project leads.”

“Ha, no. I mean, yeah, of course I don’t ’cause that’s your job, not mine. But no, I’m not worried about it because my assistant—spoilers, that’s you—actually does a pretty decent job of corralling the unworthy masses. Literally anyone can bribe their way, but it takes some … ehh, shall we say finesse? To manage a metric butt-load of blackmail just to keep these idiots in line.”

The praise layers over Rhys, savoury and pleasant. It’s a palpable counterweight. “Someone has to do it,” he says.

“You got that right. Productivity’s been up these past few quarters, too. Amazing what a little dash of properly channelled ambition can do. God, can you imagine what these numbskulls would be like if they didn’t have to worry about your little knives?”

“Not knives. Strategically orchestrated tangles,” Rhys corrects primly. “I’m not knifing anyone. I don’t knife people. I don’t do that.”

“Eh. To-may-to, to-mah-to. Still plenty frickin’ sharp, though, no matter how you slice it.” Jack idly strokes his side, hip to rib and back to hip again. “Hey. If they get stupid and give you grief about tomorrow, let me know. I haven’t checked my schedule yet, but I’m sure it’s flexible enough for a little one-on-one.”

Rhys finds himself smiling at the concept despite its uncomfortable implication. “You know that won’t be necessary. I can handle whatever grief they give me.”

“I know you can, pumpkin. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I don’t enjoy watching you run circles around these brain-dead morons because I totally do, but sometimes they just—man, I dunno what it is. It’s like they get a little too complacent and forget who they’re working for, you know?”

“I know,” Rhys manages over an eye-watering yawn.

“It’s honestly kind of insulting. I mean, my face is everywhere. Hyperion is me. They work for me. I don’t know where these jackholes get that kind of gall. Am I being too lenient? Maybe I’m being too lenient. It’s been like, what, a week since I spaced someone?”

“Eight days,” says Rhys. Not a bad streak.

“Hm. Might need to make it zero.”

“Not tonight, please.”

“I know, I know. It’s way too late for that. It’d be pretty friggin’ funny to see someone floating out there in their PJs, though.”

“You’re not doing it tomorrow, either,” says Rhys. “Nothing work-related, you said.”

“I know what I said.”

“Spacing people is work-related.”

“Not if it’s a vendetta.”

Rhys nudges Jack with an elbow. “Not tomorrow.”

“Fine, fine, whatever. Not tomorrow. Point is, if someone’s having a little trouble remembering their place, I don’t mind handing out personal reminders.” Jack’s hand gives a reassuring squeeze. “Just saying.”

Rhys grins, humming out a quiet reply as he leans in to soak up more of Jack’s glorious body heat. He rests his head on Jack’s shoulder, nuzzles into the fabric, breathes the faint scent of Jack’s spicy cologne and mellow detergent. Heaviness pulls at his eyelids with a deep, thorough insistence, and although his own valiant effort coupled with the obstinate desire to prove Jack wrong keeps them open, he knows it won’t be long before he succumbs.

God, he’s tired. He’s so, so tired.

And Jack is so comfortable it’s unfair.

“You’re unfair,” he mumbles into Jack’s collar.

“What? Unfair? Why am I unfair? That’s a pretty baseless accusation you’re throwing around there, kiddo.”

“Mmm, not baseless. Proven,” Rhys insists, fighting back another yawn. “This right here is—it’s proof. It’s proof you know exactly what you’re doing and it’s unfair. You’re unfair. You never fight fair, you dick.”

“Yeah, well. You know the saying.” Lips brush Rhys’s temple. “All’s fair in love and war.”

After another moment, the elevator comes to a halt. The doors slide open, revealing the long, ostentatious corridor that precedes Jack’s penthouse, each side flanked by equally ostentatious statuary. Despite the dimmed lights, the glittering gold emanates a warm and liquid gleam.

“C’mon, cupcake. It’s home time.” Jack pets Rhys’s side like he requires coaxing, and it’s ridiculous because he isn’t too far off the mark. “Hey. Hey, c’mon. Time to use those stems you call legs. Don’t make me throw you over my shoulder.”

“Why are you so focused on the shoulder?” Rhys asks, sounding far more drained than he’d intended. “That’s unimaginative. There are way better places you could throw me.”

A pleased laugh thrums under Rhys’s cheek. “Oh, there definitely are. Way, way better places. I can think of at least twenty, not including my desk. But, uh. Yeah, that’s a later thing. Right now,” says Jack, bumping Rhys with his hip, “I’m gonna throw you on a freaking colossal bed with insanely soft and expensive sheets so you don’t pass out in a goddamn elevator. Now, c’mon. Make with the walking already, huh? Move your legs or I’ll move ’em for you.”

Rhys makes a muzzy noise of displeasure, but he manages to peel himself away from Jack and step out of the elevator. The grand double doors of the penthouse loom far ahead, and he starts down the long corridor toward them. Jack follows along just behind, suit jacket now draped over his shoulders as he fiddles with something on his watch.

Really, it shouldn’t come as a surprise when a familiar obnoxious pinging rattles through Rhys’s head like blaring klaxons. If he hadn’t just been a hair’s breadth away from falling asleep on Jack’s shoulder, he’s sure he would have reacted with far more subtlety than a visible jolt and a sound that could probably be described as a yelp, but fatigue leaves him muddled and bleary and not at all ready for an incoming message from Handsome Jack—especially when Jack is literally right behind him—so his obvious surprise graces the otherwise silent hall.

Frowning at Jack’s raucous laughter, Rhys opens his right palm.

From: ~HJack69~
Subject: (no subject)
Body:

Since it’s annoying as hell to have to send you a new access code every damn time you come up here, I’ve taken the liberty of setting one up just for you. It’s static unless you change it (we’ll go over that later), so no fun turret surprises. Use it whenever.

406928

Also: nice ass.

-HJ

When the words properly register on the second read, warmth begins to creep through Rhys’s face, and not just because of the ass addendum.

A personal code to use “whenever”, he thinks—that’s an invitation. And not only is that an invitation, it’s an invitation that extends far beyond tomorrow.

Right? It is. It has to be. There’s just no way it couldn’t. The code changes manually, which means Rhys now has unlimited access to Jack’s penthouse at any hour, any day, regardless of circumstance. Jack might not frequent the place as much as Rhys would like, not between work and Pandora and everything else, but this is still indefinite admittance to the place where Jack sleeps when the crash comes hard enough.

And that implies something else, doesn’t it? Something important. Something Rhys isn’t sure he wants to think about. He tries to herd his thoughts in a different direction because it feels like if he acknowledges this thing or looks at it too directly it might raise its hackles and flee before he can truly appreciate its presence, but it’s too late, a lost cause; Rhys can be dense, but he isn’t stupid. He can read between the lines.

Rhys knows Jack doesn’t dole out trust like he doles out bullets. Jack doesn’t do these kinds of things for people without a reason. Despite its informality, this slapdash message is significant. It means something.

Rhys also knows if you give Jack an inch, he’ll take a mile, and he does not need his professional communications getting clogged up with dozens upon dozens of “nice ass” messages, thank you very much, so he aims a vaguely scandalised glare over his shoulder to belie the buoyant little flare of delight that shoves back against his ribs.

Jack meets it with a wink.

It’s … well, Rhys won’t say endearing. It’s not endearing. This is Handsome Jack. “Endearing” doesn’t apply.

But when Jack catches up and matches his stride, when Jack settles a broad palm into the small of his back and thumbs at his waistcoat’s cinch, when Jack casts him one of those softer smiles that teases the line of affection, Rhys knows it is a very near thing.

“Thanks,” says Rhys, and even though it’s pitched low and private between the two of them, it seems somehow thunderous in the quiet of the corridor.

“No need to thank me, honey,” Jack replies, his hand scaling Rhys’s spine in a slow, slow stroke. “Just one less weekly pain in the ass for me to deal with. But if you’re really that eager, I’m sure you’ll find some way to show your appreciation.”

Biting his lip, Rhys thinks of the bruises blossoming on Jack’s wrists. He thinks of the restraints, of the strength that caused them. He thinks of Jack throwing him all trussed up on a colossal bed. He thinks of Jack all trussed up on a colossal bed. He thinks of Jack touching every last inch of him with starving palms, of smoothing his own hands over warm skin and downy hair and jagged scar tissue as Jack sleeps beneath him like a pliant mountain. He thinks of what proper sleep even looks like on Jack—if he sleeps naked or in silky pyjamas, if he leaves the mask on or takes it off to let his body breathe.

And most of all, Rhys thinks of the code. Of its permanence. Of what that might infer.

The possibilities seem staggering, endless, like he’s pinned against a floor-to-ceiling window that overlooks the yawning void of space and all its stars and novas and swirling nebulae with no choice but to let the bone-deep itch of vast bury its way into the soles of his feet, into the heart of his single palm.

It’s exhilarating, even in exhaustion.

“I’m sure I will,” he says, careful to keep things even. “That’s pretty open-ended, though. There’s a lot I could do. Might take a while for me to decide.”

“A while, huh?” Jack arches an eyebrow, but his expression is sly. “Ah, I see how it is. Some grateful assistant you are, making me wait.”

The results are worth it, though. Jack’s wrists are proof.

Pausing mid-step before the penthouse doors, Rhys leans over and presses a firm kiss to Jack’s mouth. It’s nothing intense, nothing scandalous; just a way to savour what’s here, to let him feel how Jack’s body snaps rigid at the first second only to ease and engulf the next. It’s like there’s this tiny instant where Jack needs to acclimate, like maybe it’s been a while since he’s indulged in whatever this is and he needs to let it all process, but after that quiet mental breath slips by, Jack is himself again, dragging Rhys right into his space with that same blood-deep, inexorable pull.

“Killing me here, Rhysie,” Jack exhales against his mouth.

“Why?” Rhys asks mildly. “Tomorrow isn’t that far away.”

“Uh, the hell it isn’t,” says Jack, and he clenches his fingers into the back of Rhys’s waistcoat to tug him closer. “God, I just wanna”—another kiss, searing but short—“I wanna do so damn much to you. You sure you can’t hang in there a few more hours? Hour? Half an hour?”

“As much as I’d like to,” says Rhys, and he really, really would; the mind is willing but the body is weak and has physical needs, et cetera, et cetera, “I’m about ninety-nine percent sure I actually would pass out.”

“Huh. Is that so?” A mischievous glint lurks in Jack’s eyes. “You know, I can’t help but notice you didn’t say a hundred.”

“That last percent is saved for dire circumstances.”

“And these are very, very dire circumstances.”

“Jack.”

“What? They totally are! I’d classify the nearly uncontrollable urge to suck your soul out through your dick as dire circumstances. Not my fault you’re mortal and would rather sleep.”

Rhys kisses Jack again. Soft. Tender. Appeasing. “You could … always sleep with me,” he says.

Jack affords him a look that hangs somewhere between bewilderment and scepticism. It’s familiar, one of those You wanna run that by me again, princess? looks, the ones Rhys recognises from when he forwards Jack a piece of competitor news and Jack hasn’t quite decided if the words lean in his favour. It isn’t the reaction he would prefer, not exactly, but it isn’t outright dismissal.

Good. Rhys can work with that.

“I, uh—I meant that in the actual sleep sense. Not the, um. You know.” Rhys clears his throat. “Sexual sleep sense. But I mean, sleeping makes time go by faster, right? And we both have the day off, so it’s not like we need to be anywhere. No tasks, no obligations. You even said it yourself: no work stuff. And I’m not saying you have to sleep with me or anything, ’cause you don’t. But, uh. Well.”

Cautiously, Rhys curls his left arm beneath the loose drape of Jack’s suit jacket. He tucks his hand under the waistcoat, splays his open palm against the warm fabric of Jack’s button-down, mirrors Jack’s impatient hand. Like Jack belongs to him. A claw of his own.

“If I’m spending the night,” he says, “I’d … kind of like the whole experience.”

Jack appraises him for a long moment, inflicting that keen scrutiny Rhys has seen so often during countless late-night stints. Then a smirk edges at the corner of Jack’s mouth, slight and amused, like he already has an inkling of what’s happening here but he’s interested and willing to play.

“Actual sleep, huh,” Jack says thoughtfully. “That’s an idea, sure. But what if I’m not tired?”

Rhys wants to reach for Jack’s free wrist. He wants to nudge back the watchband, trace his thumb over that brilliant flush. He wants to capture how nice it looks against the metal of his cybernetic fingers.

But more than that, Rhys wants to release the clasps on Jack’s face. He wants to lift the mask, draw it back, see what lies beneath. He already has the privilege of glimpsing Jack the man under Handsome Jack the legend, but he wants more. More than Jack might be willing to give.

“Well,” Rhys replies, leaning in to cup Jack’s cheek, “then I guess that means you’ll just have to sit tight.”

Rhys settles for another kiss, but it isn’t settling at all.

It’s a start.