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Truth be told, Rhys was not easily troubled. He had seen enough in his life to not be put off by much. Being suddenly and seemingly for no reason summoned to Handsome Jack's office, however, did the trick. He wasn't that surprised. Taken aback, no. On edge, yes. The stares of the whole department as he left, like they were stealing one last glance of a doomed man, did not help.
He went up with something like resignation, recording shamelessly a message for Vaughn on his last wishes in the elevator, punctuated with occasional noises of annoyance from the other occupants.
Thankfully, the situation was quickly explained to him – and remarkably devoid of any immediate threat on his life. As Handsome Jack told him, “I already didn't have the time to ask for a random employee to be pulled from Hyperion records, I reeeeally don't want to do it again because my new P.A. can't do his job right. So try not to make me want to kill you, m'kay pumpkin?”
Rhys didn't know why Handsome Jack needed a secretary at all – nor, after he saw his new desk littered with someone else's things, what happened to the old one. He was so relieved that he didn't dare ask.
(Later on Jack would laugh cruelly and inform him she retired. Even later on, Jack would admit he hadn't in fact killed her, but offered her a retirement bonus and a ticket to Eden-5. She had left once everything had been dealt with, except finding her successor.)
Rhys did the sensible thing: he organized his corner of Jack's office so that he wouldn't trip every five minutes or loose stuff in the chaos, sent a text to Vaughn reading still alive?? im okay, need to talk later, and let himself be bullied around by Handsome Jack, his dignity overrode by survival instinct. If the man didn't seem very impressed with his obedience or secretary skills, at least he didn't display any murderous intentions. Yet.
Around six, Handsome Jack – Handsome Jack! – cut the silence with a 'seven a.m. tomorrow' without even lifting his eyes from his screen, which Rhys took as the dismissal that it was. His stomach didn't settle until he closed the door of his apartment behind him.
Vaughn came around instantly, worry drawing thin lines on his forehead. He dragged Rhys to the couch with the promise of pizza, humming while Rhys told him everything.
“You think that maybe..?” Vaughn hesitated and cringed, obviously reluctant to speak the words aloud.
It didn't matter; Rhys knew perfectly well what was referred to.
“I don't know. I hope not.”
Vaughn, bless him, must have noticed his grimness for he let the topic go, trying to cheer him up instead. It was a success: by the end of the evening Rhys was crying of laughter over the image of his department's faces when they would learn what happened to him.
The next day, he left early to get his things from his old desk. Vasquez was there already, which meant, unfortunately, that Rhys had to stand his shocked look as he vacated the premises alive, but on the upside, meant that he was able to suggest, with a shit-eating grin, that he check the ECHOnet for Rhys' new job. He wasn't so comfortable in his position as to give Vasquez the finger, though the temptation was strong.
It wasn't five to seven yet when he got into Handsome Jack's office, a greeting on his lips.
The rest of the week went at a frantic pace, the man taking an apparent wicked pleasure in taunting him. In all honesty, it wasn't half as awful as he would have expected – Handsome Jack's behavior wasn't so different from his old superiors'. Pretty much everyone on Helios stepped on and abused all those under them.
At least Handsome Jack didn't depreciate or throw away his work, no matter how obnoxious he could be. There was a lot of arguing, and ignoring the schedule Rhys tried to make him follow, but no demand that he redo it from scratch. Complaints about the disgusting coffee or tasteless food that Rhys “better get right next time”, but no order to run down to the cafeteria again and again.
Rhys also noted a surprising lack of murders. Even the suspicious looks and threats toned down once... Once what? Once Handsome Jack got used to him? Perhaps.
It didn't last.
The first time Handsome Jack killed someone in front of him was a sudden though understandable display of violence. One of the Department Heads had screwed up big time, to the extent that the President was screaming at him less than a minute after he entered the office. Curiously enough, it was way easier to bear stoically the menace of a furious Handsome Jack when you were sure he had no reason to turn onto you. It was pretty clear that the guy wasn't getting out of the office alive, though.
Rhys was fiddling with the Schedule That-Wasn't-Ever-Going-To-Be-Followed, Why-Did-He-Even-Bother, trying to organize all the meetings and messages that would be necessary to fix up the mess, even as he kept an eye on the crime scene to be.
A flash of teeth, gleaming through a savage grin, distracted him.
Unfortunately, Soon-to-be-Dead-Guy noticed his stare, and latched all the despair he could muster on him with an imploring look. As if Rhys was really going to try to stop the bloodshed. Yeah, right.
He raised an ECHOpad in front of his face. There was a shot, followed with the sound of gritting teeth. His heartbeat went pounding in his ears.
Rhys put the thing down. Handsome Jack looked at him. Rhys blinked, then gazed at the floor.
There was a single drop of blood in front of his desk, forming a strange, lone, vermillion figure. He got up, walked around it until he found the best light for that dark, dark stain. His ECHOeye twitched when he snapped a picture for his memory banks, where were already the thousands of photos he had taken of Elpis from this very office.
(And those of Pandora, Yvette, Vaughn, Helios, Jack, whatever he set his eyes on. He dealt with stress by immortalizing volatile stuff, okay.)
He ignored the corpse – intentionally messy shot, gore spreading around – and called in a cleaning crew before getting the R&D Head online to give her a heads up on the hellish week her department was going to spend at fixing up the mess.
Vaughn was the next face on his comm, a small miracle brought to him by the excuse of needing a number for their potential losses.
He stopped feeling the weight of Jack's glare after a while.
Rhys got used to his new routine. Despite having almost zero qualifications, he got good at his job pretty quickly – fear for his life was a strong motivation. Plus, it wasn't that difficult. Mostly, it involved being organized, which was not an issue for him, being able to turn around and adapt in an instant, being poked at by Handsome Jack and faking confidence in front of all the important people he had to work with.
Or, really, the last one was more like standing his ground with phlegm, waiting to be home before freaking out about everything. There were fewer and fewer freak-outs, anyway. He was growing used to being yelled at, and to the threats made by outraged investors, which were a lot less frightening when he understood that, until Handsome Jack was dissatisfied with him enough to airlock him, none of them were going to be carried out.
Still, sometimes he entertained the fantasy of screeching back at them.
“You're still scared shitless of me, or what?”
Rhys' head jerked away from his screen, whipping towards the source of sound and barely avoiding an unfortunate collision with Jack, who stood about ten centimeters from him.
“Excuse me, sir?” he blinked repeatedly, and shook himself to get rid of the lethargy. “What do you mean?”
“It's been weeks, and you've never been late or asked to finish earlier. I'm not gonna airlock you just like that, now that you're finally useful.”
He didn't really have anything to reply to that, didn't know how to signify to his boss that he was being either paranoiac or was reading too much into Rhys' reasons to stick religiously to the harsh hours Jack imposed.
“Thanks for the reassurance, but, I just haven't had reasons to? Parties or nightclubs aren't my thing. I prefer to drink with my friends in front of a good movie.”
“Neeerd. No outings, really? You don't have dates?”
Why did he cared? Rhys almost made a note of it, until he realized how futile that was. Jack was being weird at the moment, but again that kind of edgy attitude was common for the guy. The best way to deal with it was still to humor it; getting along with his shit usually prevented a sudden lash out on him. Especially since Jack was more than probably probing him for mockery subjects.
“...No? I'm not... I don't see the point of it?”More like, way to waste your time unnecessarily delaying the good part, he didn't say. “I'm not looking for someone new anyway.”
Vaughn bit his lip, eyebrow furrowing in a frown towards his best friend, who automatically adopted a contrite expression. The disapproval was only a tiiiny bit undermined by the fact his legs were thrown over Rhys' lap.
“There is.... an awful lot of Handsome Jack in your memory banks.” He was cringing a little. “For real.”
Rhys pouted. “That's not true– Or, well, yeah, it is, but you're taking it out of its context. I took a shit-ton of pictures of you, too. Or of Elpis. It doesn't mean anything except that I have a thing for beauty and Jack is a beautiful person.”
Vaughn gave him an unimpressed glance, which was way enough for Rhys to get his friend's doubts on the last point. He crossed his arms defensively.
“Well, that's what I see in him anyway. At least you can't deny he's super-charismatic.”
“I'm not saying he's not,” Vaughn raised a hand in rebuttal. “I'm saying I don't want his attention on me, and you already have a lot of his attention on yourself. So be careful with what you do, 'cause he has a known tendency to ruin people's lives.”
However much that was true, Rhys couldn't help but to try defending Jack (and wasn't that thought just hilarious?, him, defending Handsome Jack).
“He's not... He's not like that with the people in his life. I mean, I'm still around because he likes me? Kinda? And he's alright to be with– work with, whatever. What I'm trying to say is: he's not a nice person, but he's nice with me?”
Vaughn laughed at that as he stood up to leave the room, except it was less like a laugh and more like an incredulous bark. “That sounds way too interrogative to be comforting, bro. You should try to tone down your obsession for the man and keep both eyes open.”
“I'm not obsessed with him!” Rhys yelled after his friend.
Jack kept teasing him, enjoyed watching him squirm a bit too much for his taste. On the other hand, he didn't mind that much: after all, he was paid handsomely to be ridiculed. There were worse fates. A lot of them.
It came as a surprise when Jack slammed his hands on Rhys' desk, considering there was nothing, to his knowledge, that he could be blamed for that day.
“How much fucking oblivious can you be?”
Rhys had to keep himself from replying 'uhhh', a very honest but unhelpful reaction to that growl.
“Could you be more specific, sir? What did I fail to notice?”
“ME!” Jack roared.
He couldn't hold back a nervous chuckle, this time. “I'm... not sure that's actually possible.”
“Yet you're quite successful at it! So what is it, Rhysie? Self-loathing? Is it so hard to believe someone's interested in you that you ignore all the flags that I should be rising?”
Rhys froze.
“Yeah,” Jack emphasized, somewhat viciously, showing his teeth.
(Damn his mouth. Damn him. He didn't want to deal with this.)
Even though while thinking back on it, Rhys didn't see anything more to Jack's attitude than he had before, it didn't mean there hadn't been.
“I'm sorry. I don't mean to–”
Jack dismissed his excuses with a flailing hand. “Whatever. I'm just saying, we could have been banging for weeks were you not that blind.”
...And there his hand went to Rhys' hip. Which, okay, no.
“I'd rather you don't do that,” he mumbled as Jack came closer.
The man crooked an eyebrow.
Rhys licked his lips. “I don't want that. This is me saying no. Please.”
(It was the first time since forever that he felt really threatened; there was the underlying, terrifying knowledge that were Jack's decision not to respect his wishes, Rhys could not stop him.)
Jack scoffed, took a step back and went into a truly humiliating rant about Rhys being a fanboy and him having eyes 'contrary to some people' to see the way Rhys looked at him.
“I mean, come on, cupcake, I don't get the problem. I bet you have all those motivational posters of me in your room! Ha!” Jack smirked at the face he pulled. “Knew it! Bet there isn't one model you haven't jerked off to.”
Rhys' face scrunched up.
“What? No! I don't do that! That's disgusting! Oh, ew, who would do that? It's weird. It sounds... really disrespectful.”
Jack cracked up. “Pumpkin, everyone does that! You trying to tell me you never came to the thought of someone else?”
“Only when there's a precedent where we both established that it was okay! Doing such a thing without the person having a clue seems awful. And wrong.”
A second later he was already regretting saying that. He wasn't so close to Jack as to allow himself this kind of talk without taking a huge risk of offending the man. Thankfully, Jack merely barked a laugh.
“Okay, whatever. Back on topic: why not? 'Cause, like, you're saying no to Handsome Jack, kiddo.”
“Because I'm aromantic asexual,” he admitted, embarrassment piling up. “I'm not interested in anyone, sexually or romantically speaking. I'm not attracted to people.”
What he didn't disclose was, I do have sex sometimes, but with my arospec friend and nonamorous friend as a way to unwind; it would only be a source of stress with you.
There was a blank. Jack shifted into a less alluring posture.
“I didn't know there was such a thing as, uh, aromantic people. Guess you learn new stuff everyday. But, the way you size me up, I could have sworn...”
“Aesthetic interest,” Rhys smiled weakly. “I do have eyes. I'm sensible to beauty.”
If Jack had pushed him, he would even have admitted how fitting he thought his name was. There was no way he'd have confessed he had something for his grin, though.
Except Jack didn't insist. Rather than that, he nodded before stepping away, going straight back to work. There was no apology – not that Rhys expected one – but no teasing either, and that... that was something. He wasn't sure Jack realized how important it was for him; in any case it was nice of him.
The statu quo didn't falter in the following days. Jack didn't make any more advances, his very jokes mostly void of sexual innuendos – or at least, of any flirting. While he made some puns about arospec and acespec people, it wasn't to ridicule or dismiss them at all.
It was fine.
It was more than fine: it was funny, and pleasant, and comfortable. He found himself slipping sometimes into casualness in Jack's presence, who himself seemed to give him more consideration. Although they weren't, by any means, friends in the sense that he was with Vaughn and Yvette, they were friendly enough.
Plus, not sleeping with the boss didn't mean he couldn't do his job: he was getting to know Jack well, and was more and more able to predict what he would need or how he would react to something. He was learning of the man, in and outside of his legend.
Jack was important to him.
(“This is gonna turn sour,” Yvette warned, “you'll see.”)
Which was exactly why, when Jack disappeared one night, Rhys: enrolled his BFFs in a crazy quest, came back to futzing Pandora, and allied himself with two con-women.
The plan was to open a Vault and get Jack back. It wasn't more elaborate than that: a plan was freaking useless when you decided to throw away your comfortable and well-paid position to improvise yourself Vault Hunter.
(“You're not invincible, Rhys. Phasesighting won't protect you. This is going to be so bad.”)