Long Road Ahead (1x1 with Sori)

[Agent Maine(Meta)]

----H A N D S O M E J A C K ----

• The chair was only the first of many things jack got his hands on after that. He was shouting as he went around rhys office, wrecking what ever he could get his hands on that wasn't breathing or bolted down in the room. He's obviously trying hard not to go right for rhys, the barer of such bad news for him because as rhys said, he wasn't there, thus it wasn't his fault, plus again, he gave his word not to kill anyone. By the time he was finished destroying rhys office practically, he was sitting against one of the far walls now, alittle more disheveled then he'd like, but at the same time, not caring.
  
  
• "She was supposed to be safe. I'm taking so many precautions to protect her. How could someone even get into her chambers? The only way in is only suppost to open to my voice. It was... it was fool proof!" He's making a few wild gestures from where he sits, trying to understand how someone could of gotten to his darling little girl. He's entirely forgotten to even ask how rhys even knew about her, how he had this information. But now he knew, and he could do something more, take better precausions, more drastic measures? What more could he do to protect her if someone got past the door that was only supposed to open for him? Hell, how did they even know the password?
  
  
• How did the jack of this timeline even let that go? How could they let angel die?! This wasn't supposed to happen. How could this happen. Maybe he should pause the drilling, pause the vault hunter search. At least until he was sure Angel wouldn't get involved. He'd need to go about everything differently without angel and her Phaseshift. But i it protected her, kept her from getting killed, he'd do it. "What kind of parent lets their child die?" He mumbles regretfully. He was doing all of this for her, to find answers and solutions and yet, it seemed to be in vain.

[Sori]

▀▄ ʀʜʏs ▀▄

Rhys just stood there wincing as Jack tore his office apart. Everything in there was so expensive it hurt to witness. When Jack got to the desk he felt a panic come over him- some of the legs got broken off, but at least he knew the contents of the locked up drawers were safe. Rhys hated himself for even being worried about his old eye getting damaged. He probably should've broken the news to Jack somewhere where less important things were stored. "I'm sure it wasn't your fault," Rhys said, even though he definitely wasn't sure. If Angel betrayed Jack it was probably for good reason. He hesitantly stepped toward Jack, stupidly wanting to comfort him. He hadn't seen Jack at a low like this besides when- well, when he was on his knees begging Rhys to not remove his cybernetics. He crouched down next to him. "It's okay, Angel is still alive and well in your timeline, right? We'll get you back soon enough. You don't need to worry about this one."

[Agent Maine(Meta)]

----H A N D S O M E J A C K ----

• Jack gave a bitter laugh, lifting his head and pushing a hand through his hair, make himself look a little like the highly respected and feared company boss he was before looking at rhys. "Nice try kiddo. But i know how this time stuff works.... In theory at least. We don't know what caused it, or have the physical object that transported me in hand. So i'm probably going to be here a long while. And by then, where i'm from will of progressed without me, events will of changed and yeah. Besides, they probably already think i'm dead. I can already see the headlines 'Infamously Deranged CEO of Hyperion Finally Assassinated. Board is going to have a field day trying to replace me." He retorted with a snort before dropping his hands back to his lap.
  
  
• He looks around the office slowly seeing the wreckage. "Least its not a pile of bodies? And i'd say i'd replace all this, but, my echo's scrambled and not connected to the network anymore from that jump. So, i'm not sure if my accounts are still mystically active still." He contributes, trying to somewhat lighten the mood as he finally set his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet, brushing himself down and making himself look presentable again, then gesturing to the door. "You should probably get that and show i didn't murder you. Can't say the same for your office. Ya know, this is why i didn't have a lot of stuff in my office, and the stuff i did have was bolted down. Except for my chair." He concluded with a shrug of his shoulders before mumbling how he already missed his chair. Man what he'd do for those dopamine injectors right now.

[Sori]

▀▄ ʀʜʏs ▀▄

Jack was regrettably right about that his sudden disappearance could've caused alarm. They probably were moving on without him, so no matter what that timeline would turn out differently than this one has. Rhys stood up from his crouched position, and brushed some drywall dust off his pants. "Thanks for not killing me, at least. Really thought you were going to there." He paused and let himself smile a bit. First time he'd smiled since the alarm went off. "I'll take care of replacing everything. And can you not call me kiddo?" Of all of Jack's little pet names, that one was his least favorite. Rhys was not a kid, he was a grown man who ran a company. He stepped toward the door and opened it up with a guilty smile on his face. "Hey, Yvette-"

Yvette looked past Rhys and at the complete Chaos that was his office. "Jesus Christ. See, this is why I didn't want to leave you alone with him!" She accusingly pointed her finger at Jack. "What happened?"

Rhys stepped in front of Jack a bit defensively. "I'll uh, tell you later. But hey I'm not dead you're happy about that right!" Rhys gave her finger guns and she didn't even pretend to be shot. Rude. "Guess not," he grumbled. Rhys looked over the group of guards, "We're all good here, return to your stations." The leader of the group nodded as the did what they were told. "Actually wait, can one of you give me your helmet? I'll try to give it back later." One of them hesitantly agreed and handed over their helmet to Rhys, very much not believing he'd give it back. "Thanks," he waved them off and spun to give Jack the helmet when they disappeared down the hall. "Boom, much more convenient than having a jacket on your head."

[Agent Maine(Meta)]

----H A N D S O M E J A C K ----

• Jack lifted a hand in mock offense. "I told you i wasn't here to kill anyone and that i wasn't going to as long as i got answers. I'm getting answers to very important questions. So, no ones going to die. Especially you since you seem to have the most answers here." He stated. When rhys requested he not be called 'kiddo' he shrugged a bit with a faint hum. "Only because you asked nicely Princess. And because your cute." He teased with a playful set of finger guns as well and an amused smile on his masked lips.
  
  
• Then Yvette comes in and is instantly accusing him of the disaster... She's not wrong to do so, but the pointing is still rude. He's about to answer with 'oh i just learned my daughters dead, how would you take that information' but rhys beats him to it by telling yvette that it didn't matter and huffed a bit. "Hold up, if she wants to know, she has a right." He states, but rhys just carries on, trying to get some form of emotion out of yvette that wasn't anger. this makes jack roll his eyes and mumble as he wondered around the office alittle.
  
  
• He listens as Rhys dismisses the security staff, then stops one to ask for his helmet. Which he catches seconds later and huffs as he looks it over. "yeah, no, i'm not wearing this. Actually, pretty sure i can't because of my mask and its latches and all." He states in a deadpanned tone as he looked at rhys before setting it on the desk instead, then dropping down in rhys' chair, because its really the only chair not destroyed. It rolls back a bit with the weight and jack pops a brow, looks at the wheels, snorts a bit and occupies himself by rolling back and forth between the walls behind rhys desk while he listens to Yvette scold rhys more.

[Sori]

▀▄ ʀʜʏs ▀▄

Rhys's heart skipped a beat like Jack's finger guns had actually shot him. Out of everyone, Handsome Jack was the one person for whom it should be basically illegal to make Rhys blush. But Rhys blushed easily, and he cursed himself for it. He wasn't supposed to be cute, he was supposed to be a badass CEO. He tried hard to ignore that complement, but he still returned the finger guns. Rhys groaned as Jack set the helmet down, "You can at least try to put it on." But Jack wasn't listening, and instead found entertainment rolling around in Rhys's chair. Rhys pinched the bridge of his nose. This entire day was giving him a headache.

"So what are we going to do with him?" Yvette said quietly, so hopefully only Rhys could hear. "I can call the guards back and set them loose?" She offered with a grumble. If Rhys hadn't already gotten attached to Jack again, he might've taken up that offer.

"No, that'll probably end badly on our end. Best to play it safe- I think I'm going to give him a room." He glanced back toward Jack. Maybe having Jack stay with them at Atlas was a bad idea, but Rhys seemed to be full of bad ideas today. "Gain his trust, y'know?"

Yvette glared at him with a look that said 'I hope you know what you're doing.' She rolled her shoulders back and regained her composure. "I called Vaughn, let him know what's happening. He should be here tonight. Maybe he can talk some sense into you." Yvette stormed off, unsurprisingly not happy with Rhys's decisions. Rhys squeezed his eyes shut tightly for a moment, trying to force his growing headache away. As happy as he was that he was going to see Vaughn for the first time this week, he did not like that it was under these circumstances. Rhys turned and stepped toward the desk.

"Now, will you consider staying here?"

[Agent Maine(Meta)]

----H A N D S O M E J A C K ----

• Jack shrugs a bit when Rhys complains about him not even trying on the helmet and just continues rolling back and forth, looking at a few things on his own interface, just flipping through what random things he had. He does wrinkle his nose when he comes across a picture of some older women and a little kid and he's rather quick to delete the picture with a mumbled 'how'd that get there' before closing the interface and just listening to the conversation as best he could.
  
  
• He doesn't hear much, just barely catching the tail end to someone apparently going to be coming around tonight? He shrugs it off, long as he doesn't have to interact with them. But knowing his luck, he most likely will end up interacting with them. Jack's one of those people that were either overly-sociable as long as it was on his terms, or would be a hermit if he'd so pleased. He busy's himself again by trying to get his Echo reconnected to the echonet. Maybe one of his off accounts are still open that he could use. His attention does shift over when Rhys finally approaches and raises a brow at the question.
  
  
• "I mean, its not like i have much of a choice now do i princess? As you stated, dead for two years, i've really got no were else to go." He answered with a shrug of his shoulders as he sat up straight in the chair now, checking the Echo's process in connecting. 5% completed in reinstallation, this was going to take forever.

[Sori]

▀▄ ʀʜʏs ▀▄

"Yeah, you don't really have a choice." Rhys walked over to the side of the desk and leaned against the wall. "I'll get a room set up for you. To your disappointment, it's not going to be anything fancy. Just a spare room, but you won't have to bunk with anyone else." A lot of the low-ranked employees bunked together, but Rhys made sure their conditions were relatively nice. Since his computer was now broken, he pulled up some messages and projected them from his hand, tapping out commands to his workers."Hope you don't mind if I have security keeping an eye on you while you're here, too. Some people have already seen you and without covering yourself with anything word will get around quickly. People do dumb things when they're scared so the guards are for your protection." What was he doing? Making sure Jack was safe? Giving him somewhere to live? He told himself he wouldn't trust Jack again. He promised. Why were his thoughts on Jack have to be so conflicting? "You'll get level one security clearance, which doesn't give you access to much. But if you need me for anything I'll make sure you get a direct line to me, sound good?" Rhys was in charge here, and he found it funny how the tables had turned.

[Agent Maine(Meta)]

----H A N D S O M E J A C K ----

• Jack raises a brow at all this, faintly tilting his head, most likely in thought. "I can defend myself without a gun just fine Kitten. Its not that i don't trust your security and all. As you've stated, people do some crazy stuff when scared. I've had a guy come at me with a spork. But thats a story for another day. Anyways. How can I be sure, your security wont turn on me?" He questioned with a raised brow as he finally closed out his own echo interface so to set his hands on the arms of the chair and push himself to a stand.
  
  
• A man that had clearance to everything being reduced to having clearance to practically nothing. That was going to take some adjustment. Thought its not like he was going to be leaving his room for a while, just so he had time to process everything. Maybe once his echo's connected he can actually research what happened from past the mining deal. And its not like once he's sure he has funds still he couldn't fancy the room up himself. Give it the old handsome jack flare. Thus he shrugs a bit. "Sure, why not, at least it'll be something at least." He concluded, arms more loosely crossing at his chest.
  
  
• "So, Boss mind showing me where i'll be staying then?" He hummed, teasing the other with the 'boss' nickname just to see what reaction he'd get. See'ing rhys blush like a tomato when he'd called him cute earlier was rather amusing and pleasing to see, even a he approached Rhys and uncrossed his arms so to place the finger tips of his right hand on Rhys' mechanical arm. "Maybe you can fill me in on all this tech here. Like how and why you have it? Thats gotta be an interesting story pumpkin." He hummed.

[Sori]

▀▄ ʀʜʏs ▀▄

Rhys found the image of someone coming at The Handsome Jack with a spork pretty funny. How dumb did that person have to be? It made him smile ever so slightly. "I know you can defend yourself," his brain flashed back to the motivational videos at Hyperion, Jack on a battlefield covered in blood. Rhys continued, "but it's also about making sure you don't get into trouble. My guards obey my orders just fine, and if you want I can send my most trusted? But you shouldn't have to worry, they know it'd be a bad idea to try pulling anything." For obvious reasons there was definitely a possibility of the guards turning on Jack, but they'd risk getting fired. And as most of them were ex-Hyperion, he doubted they'd have fun surviving Pandora on their own.

Jack calling Rhys "boss" really caught him off-guard. It was one of those moments where if he'd been drinking water, he'd have choked on it. Rhys just blinked at Jack, red creeping onto his cheeks yet again. Stupid. "Y-yep-" He caught himself and shook his head, "Sorry- I mean- I don't mind at all." Smooth, Rhys. Then, Jack was suddenly a lot closer to him, and prodding at his cybernetic arm. He almost pulled his arm away. "It's not, actually. Bought it with a bonus I'd gotten back at Hyperion." Probably not many people willing paid to have their perfectly-functioning arm chopped off and replaced with a robot one, but Rhys did. He cleared his throat and stepped to the side, away from Jack and the wall. "I'd tell you to cover up your face again, but something tells me you're not going to do that." Rhys smiled at Jack. Why was he smiling at Jack? "C'mon I'll give you a bit of a tour on the way there."