ic inbox

[headjacked]

Heyyyyyyyy, kiddo, you've reached me. Me who is Rhys. Anyway, not sure why you're trying to get in contact with the king of the dweebs, but I'm sure you've got your reasons. Reasons you should probably re-examine. I'm just sayin'.

Last chance to back out.

No?

Don't say I didn't warn ya.

Comments

[headjacked]

Wh-- you know! The, um.

[ Rhys fidgets, sounding increasingly small. ]

The Jack thing! Kind of secondary to the Escaping Norfinbury Alive thing, right?

[plundering]

Rhys.

[Fiona, for her part, is sounding increasingly incredulous.]

You said you'd be willing to try.

[headjacked]

Well... yes. Yes I did. Because you were a little bit peer pressure-y at the time.

[plundering]

Peer— Peer pressure-y?

[Her voice is raising now, and she doesn't even bother to try to keep herself from yelling.]

Rhys, he tried to kill me! He did kill you! What the hell is wrong with you?

[headjacked]

Again!! Can we maybe not boil it down to the basics!?? I mean, you and Sasha tried to kill Vaughn and me, that isn't -- life! Isn't that simple!

[plundering]

Are you—

[She just sputters ineffectually for a moment. Is he seriously making that comparison? Seriously?]

Jack is a homicidal maniac who ripped Pandora apart looking for vaults, who killed more people than we can count, and you're trying to compare him to me and Sasha? Because you screwed up our deal and tried to steal our caravan?

[She's so angry she can barely think straight.]

I guess nothing compares to your Hyperion cult of personality, huh? It doesn't matter how many people Jack kills. This was all just a massive waste of my time. All of it.

[headjacked]

That wasn't the point!

[ Rhys has reached shrieky levels of defensiveness. The pitch rivals Dumpy at his worst. ]

It's like my emotions don't matter here! At all, period! YOURS do, though! So I have to cave to what Fiona wants, what Fiona feels, because You Are Right and I Am Wrong, always!

How -- how is that fair?!

[plundering]

You want to be buddy buddy with your knock-off Jack? Fine. But I won't be a part of it. I don't know what I expected. I don't know why—

[She doesn't know what she expected. Sasha was right.]

Once Hyperion, always Hyperion, huh? Jack outranks everyone else, and you don't give a shit what he does to me, or you, or anyone.

[She lets out a strangled, frustrated noise. She's so angry, so disappointed, so hurt, that she doesn't know any other way to let it out.]

You're an asshole, Rhys.

[headjacked]

Yes! I am! I have never, ever pretended otherwise! You, on the other hand? You get to sit on your pedestal and judge, and make -- make things like cutting into my cybernetics out to be No Big Deal, even though you know first-freaking-hand -- !

[ A breath. It's hard to stay angry when gripped by a jolt of fear. ]

I suck, YOU suck. End of.

[plundering]

I'm not the one idolizing a mass murderer, Rhys. You don't even know what his plan is yet. You didn't even hear it, and you're defending this psychopath, acting like he didn't know what he was doing when we're the ones who had to deal with what he did for years while you hung out in your fucking space station, justifying this bullshit to yourself, and now you—

[She lets out a sharp, shaky exhale.]

Fuck you. This place is trying to murder me already. I'm not going to let you try, too.

[headjacked]

Yep, he sure did some shitty things to your planet as a whole! Except, wait, to what extent were you personally victimized? Oh yeah!

[ There is a deep, insane, personal level he knows Jack on. ]

Yet I'm the one who doesn't get real choice. Fuck what I feel, so fuck me. I get it. I get you. I wish -- [ His eyes burn. ] Whatever. Whatever.

[plundering]

Oh, sorry, you mean the planet I live on? Yeah, fuck all those people who died, right? I didn't, so it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter that I'm trapped there, either, or that I was born there, or that I didn't have any choice, either. Jack did it, so it was justified. And I'm just a low-class Pandoran, anyway. Totally expendable.

[headjacked]

Your planet, my goddamn body.

[ She wants his cybernetics gone, apparently, so maybe it's NOT so terrible, the way he's stress-scratching around his port. Maybe. ]

Macro vs. micro. And yet my feelings STILL! DON'T! MATTER! Why don't they matter, Fiona?!

[plundering]

You didn't even hear his plan! He might not even have to touch your cybernetics! Just admit that you don't give a shit about anything but Jack. Just admit it. All this other bullshit you're spewing is just a convenient excuse. How many people have been hurt because of that fucking AI? If you don't give a shit about me or House, what about Angel? What is it going to take, Rhys?

cw self harm

[headjacked]

Fine, fine! You want to settle this right now -- let's!

[ The scratching intensifies until he draws blood, though he can't get farther than that with shaking fingers and no tools on hand.

Dumpy drifts closer. He's witnessed many a screaming match, but even his simple programming recognizes that something is different here. He screams right in Rhys' ear, distressed. ]

Shut up, Dumpy!

[plundering]

Hey. You leave Dumpy out of this.

[God, Rhys, quit being an asshole. She lets out a frustrated noise.]

If you've got something else to say, say it. Otherwise we're done here.

[headjacked]

[ It is at this moment Rhys realizes that breathing has become quite difficult. His heart has been racing since the beginning, and now, as he looks beyond his tablet, he realizes the room is spinning.

Rhys is not doing well.

He sucks in a few gaspy breaths before dropping the tablet.

They're done here. She said so. They're done. ]

[plundering]

[That was the last of his last chances, and he doesn't respond, which just cements in her mind everything she's already suspected. It's a good thing those tablets are durable, because she's whipping hers at the wall, and she won't respond again.]