Jack had been watching the boy, whose head he is apparently now stuck in, for quite a while.

Rhys was probably the most incompetent person Jack has ever had the bad luck of meeting. Constantly stumbling from one bad situation to the next, Jack has had to watch him almost get both of them killed on twelve different occasions without ever being able to intervene. And that was just the times when he was actually present. It seemed like a strong hit to Rhys’ head was like a power button for Jack. He wasn’t quite aware of what happened in the time in between but whenever he returned it seemed like the kid had somehow gotten himself into worse trouble.

So far the bumbling idiot’s dumb luck had carried them through everything alive, but when Jack felt himself flicker back into consciousness in the middle of the desert, and Rhys had managed to get a gun trained on his stupid idiot face, armed with nothing but a shovel, Jack grew sceptical of the kid’s seemingly innate ability to summon a deus ex machina whenever he needed one.

“Hey, kiddo. Bad situation, huh?”

Rhys made a noncommittal noise and the assface with the gun squinted at him.

At least he had the common sense not to run around yelling at people about the ghost he was seeing. Finally something about the kid that Jack could appreciate.

“So… Do you have any idea how you’re gonna get yourself out of this?”

Another noise, this time quieter and not exactly the overwhelming confidence Jack had hoped for. He really shouldn’t have expected too much.

Jack couldn’t not try to intervene in whatever way possible. Mostly because the idiot’s brains would get blown out if he didn’t, and that was kinda the place where he lived at the moment.

“Kiddo, regrettably it’s not just your hide on the line, but mine as well. Tell ya what, you just do what he says, buy me some time and I’ll think of something. How does that sound, pumpkin?”

With a huff, Rhys started to dig.

Jack drew himself back into that weird space he now resided in, somewhere in between physical and theoretical.

He probed around in his surroundings for a bit, finding where the brain implants controlled Rhys’ metal arm. Coming back to the situation at hand, he realized that the assface with the gun was having trouble locating the trigger, so he filed away that bit of information for later and kept digging around in the same part until he found the controls for the ECHOeye. He found that it was standard Hyperion tech with the standard throttling and made quick work of disabling some of the limits on the eye’s hacking abilities.

When he came back out, the assface with the gun was still struggling to find the trigger. Jack got the sinking feeling that the gun was produced by Hyperion. He couldn’t wait to get back up there just so he could throw whoever was responsible for designing that piece of crap out of an airlock.

He shook his head. This wasn’t the time to think about murder. Well, it kind of was, just not in that way. “I enhanced your ECHOeye, so hack something and get rid of this guy for me, okay, cupcake?”

Rhys glanced over at him from the corner of his eye, gave a subtle nod, and after a glance at the assface, that was still too preoccupied with his gun to notice his prisoners acting weird, Jack saw him activate his ECHOeye and stare intently at the car in front of him.

Jack watched as a smirk crept along the kid’s face and a few seconds later, just when assface lifted his gun back up, the car sprang to live, took a sharp turn and came hurtling towards the four men. Rhys and Vaughn managed to jump out of the way in time. Jack did not have to concern himself with physical dangers any longer, so he stood still, spread out his arms and laughed as he let the car pass through him. Only to laugh even harder when he saw assface lying face first on the ground.

As he jeered and pointed at him, he noticed Rhys’ metal arm following his movements, and as he realized that he had accidentally taken control of the limb, he did the only reasonable thing in that situation.

“Haha! Why are you punching yours-”

---

When he came back to, he found himself on the back of a flying loader. He looked down to find Rhys and Vaughn clutched in the hands of the loader and to hear the end of Rhys’ sentence. “- fucking idiot.”

“Obviously,” Vaughn retorted with a glance at Rhys’ forehead.

“No. Well… Yes.” Rhys reached up and rubbed at his forehead with his organic hand, looking down at the metal one with a pout. “I just realized that we basically told Vasquez where we’re going. We should have gone to Old Haven immediately. Now he’s just gonna be there, waiting for us.”

“Vasquez?” Jack leaned a bit further forward. “Who’s that? That the assface you ran over?”

He watched Rhys flinch, gasp and fall into a coughing fit.

Vaughn looked at his friend with concern. “Rhys! Are you okay?”

The kid gathered himself quickly. “Yep, I’m fine. Just, those continual hits to the head can’t be good for my wiring. God fucking damnit, why does he always show up at the most annoying times?”

“Well, maybe if you weren’t hitting yourself...” Vaughn responded, ignoring the last part of Rhys’ statement.

Jack completely forewent the act of holding onto the loader, as he essentially floated next to Rhys, and leaned in with a snarl. “I sure as fuck hope for you that you were talking about your buddy assface”

Oh, shit, was Rhys’ only response.

“So you were talking about me? Just you wait until I have a body again, princess. And until then I’ll-”

You can hear me, Rhys said.

“What?”

You can totally hear the words that are coming from… being produced by me right now, Rhys continued his rambling.

Jack crossed his arms and leaned back, out of the kid’s space, with a frown. “You really do have some wires loose, huh, pumpkin?”

No, I… Ugh, are you even looking at me?

He had been, the man in front of him wasn’t too hard on the eyes after all. Not that he’d let him know that. “Can’t say I have been. No.”

Rhys let out a soft sigh. Quiet enough that Vaughn didn’t seem to notice. So you don’t even realize that I’m not properly talking to you?

Jack spent another few seconds staring at the motionless face until he realized that it was completely motionless. “Right.” Not moving his moving his mouth at all. “Wait, so I’m reading your thoughts? Well, this could be fun.”

Rhys quirked an eyebrow.

“Or it could be incredibly boring now that I think about it.” Jack turned around to survey the ground below and in front of them, finding nothing but desert all the way to the horizon. “So how long are you planning on flying?”

A few hours at least.

Jack let out a bored sigh, letting himself float back up to the loader’s back, starfishing across it, before he elected to take a nap and retreated back to his in between space in Rhys’ brain.

---

When he woke up, Jack found himself stood back on solid ground, looking out over the desert, the sun just starting to vanish at the horizon.

He looked down when he heard a groan at his feet and found Rhys sitting on the floor, his organic hand going up to his forehead, again.

“Hit your head there, princess?”

“Jesus fucking shit!” Rhys leapt up with a yell, flinching down at the last second to avoid hitting his head on the same low cave ceiling as before, if the blood on it was any indication.

“Eloquent.”

The kid looked a mess, bags under his eyes and ashen face, he seemed to be just about ready to pass out.

He glanced over at the back of the cave, where Vaughn was sleeping next to a small fire and a powered down loader, and hissed, What are you doing here?

Jack managed to stay quiet and look down at him condescendingly for all of two seconds. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m always here? Literally always. Maybe not quite as present, but I’m always around. I live in your brain, I have no choice but to be around.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever shut up, Rhys hissed with another glance back at Vaughn.

“He still can’t hear me.”

Rhys looked looked away with a grimace.

Jack took a few steps out of the mouth of the cave and into the desert. When he turned around he found that the cave was part of a single large, free standing boulder. He couldn’t see anything but desert in any direction. He had to give it to them, they had picked a good spot. Dry, easy to keep warm, and it wasn’t very likely that any bandits would run into them this far out. Not that the kid would know that, of course. “So, what are you doing now, pumpkin? Keeping watch?”

Rhys stepped out after him and sleepily glanced around at their rapidly darkening surroundings. “Nah, I was gonna go to bed now. Why would I keep watch? We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

Jack made sure he kept his back turned to the kid as a smirk crept onto his face. “That doesn’t stop the bandits,” he said as seriously as he could, trying to keep the humor out of his voice.

“If anything I would have been more concerned about Vasquez. But bandits? Out here?”

Jack fought to keep a hard edge to his voice and not break into laughter immediately. “Yeah, bandits. Those bastards are everywhere on this godforsaken planet. The assface would still have been the lesser evil. At least he is supposed to bring your body back. The bandits won’t hesitate. They’ll tear you to shreds, eat the bits and sell the rest. Literally. I’ve seen them work. It’s kinda impressive, actually.”

Rhys stared at the sand in front of him in quiet contemplation for a moment, before he turned to Jack and said, “Yeah, you’re fucking with me.”

Jack spun around and sputtered indignantly. “Rhys!” His hand went up to clutch at his chest. “Rhysie, Rhysie, Rhysie, Rhysie, Rhysie!” He paused and took a deep breath, that he didn’t technically need, what with being a hologram. “I would never.”

Rhys squinted at him with a contemplating look, giving Jack a quick once over. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure you’re fucking with me.”

Jack managed to stay stone faced for another moment before he broke out into a grin. “What gave it away?”

Rhys shrugged as he suppressed a yawn and turned back to the cave entrance. “I dunno. Just a hunch. You do live in my brain, you know?” He sat down at the mouth of the cave, just barely below the roof, opposite of Jack, who stood looking out over the desert, as far removed from his sleeping friend as possible.

“So, once we get you back up there and into a body of your own...” Rhys trailed off, interrupted by a yawn. “Once you’re back...” he tried again, and failed.

Jack looked down at him with an amused smirk. “You will be my first Lieutenant.”

A goofy smile spread on Rhys’ face, his head fell on his chest and he was out like a light.

---

 
Jack had felt himself falling asleep in time with Rhys, but snapped back to attention only seconds later at an out of place sound.

He looked around and found himself staring into a brightly lit room, very unlike the dark desert he had just been in. And judging from the sleek interior design and lack of grime, very unlike any place on Pandora.

In fact most of his vision was currently taken up by a giant window looking out to the surface of Elpis. Not quite unlike the view from Helios.

He turned around, taking in potted plants, a water feature and an unnecessarily large desk in the back of the room, close to the window.

At the desk, his back turned towards Jack, a young man. For once he actually wasn’t holding his face in pain, so it took Jack walking around him and bending down at his side to be sure it was actually Rhys.

Rhys had no idea that Jack was even there, as he was preoccupied with another young man, who was currently situated in his lap and grinding down on him furiously.

Jack loudly cleared his throat, but went unnoticed. As hot as it was, Jack wasn’t really here for that, so he reached out and pushed Rhys’ shoulder, almost managing to shove him off the chair completely.

Both men stopped dead in their tracks and looked up at him incredulously. He growled at the one he didn’t recognize and the stranger hurriedly slipped off of Rhys’ lap and made for the door.

He waited for the echo of the door slamming shut to stop, before he glanced back down to Rhys, who looked to be a mix of shell shocked and furious. “What the fuck are you doing here?!”

“We already had this conversation, princess, I’m always here-” Only then did Jack realize that none of that should have happened. No one else could see him and he sure as shit couldn’t usually touch anyone, not even Rhys. “Wait.”

Rhys let out a long suffering sigh, let his head hit the back of the chair and stared at the ceiling pitifully. “Didn’t you do enough of this in the last three years? I thought you’d wanted to stop.”

“Three years? I’ve only been stuck in your head for a few days.” Something didn’t add up here. Where were they even?

A devious smirk crept onto Jack’s face. This had to be a dream. And not in the too good to be true kind of way. Now this could be fun.

He focused on the feeling of control over Rhys, like stretching some unused muscles. He saw a twitch in the metal hand, heard some word fragments from Rhys’ mind going a thousand miles a minute, felt the annoyance radiating off of him and with a start he felt something else snap into place.

Jack gave the boy a quick once over, conjured up the image of what he might look like naked, and just like that, he was.

He saw Rhys’ eyes snap down to his crotch, where an erection was standing up proudly.

Rhys’ face turned into a confused frown and his gaze flickered in between his crotch and Jack for a bit. “This is a dream, isn’t it?”

A grin curled the side of Jack’s lips as he stepped closer. “What gave it away?”

Rhys looked down at his crotch somewhat transfixed. “I uh..” he mumbled.

“The magically vanishing clothes?” Jack continued on in his teasing, ignoring Rhys’ stuttered attempts at an explanation.

Rhys’ eyes snapped back up to Jack. “Y-yes, that.” He rubbed his organic hand over his face. “Okay, so it hasn’t been three years and, oh fuck.” Seemingly only now realizing the situation he was in, the kid struggled to awkwardly cover his crotch with his hands.

Jack’s smile widened at the sight and then vanished completely. He looked at the door where the stranger had vanished with a frown and turned back to Rhys, arms crossed and head slightly tilted. “You know, pumpkin, with how much of a fanboy you are, I would have assumed that I would feature in this somewhat more prominently.”

Rhys grit his teeth and looked up at Jack with a grimace. “It’s not that kind of obsession, okay?”

“Come on, kiddo.” He leaned into Rhys’ personal space. “You can’t tell me you’ve never thought of this before.”

Rhys tried and failed to merge with the chair that stopped him from leaning further away from Jack. “I can, actually.”

Jack gripped his bare thighs, almost closing the distance between them, his breath hot on Rhys’ lips. “Okay then. But you can’t tell me that you don’t want this.”

Rhys stared back at him defiantly. “I don’t want this.”

Jack felt a twinge of lust. Not from himself. Okay, kinda from himself. But mostly from the young man below his hands. “Ah ah, Rhysie. You can’t lie to me. It’s like you keep forgetting that I live in your brain.”

Rhys’ cheeks turned a bright pink and his eyes went to the floor, resolutely avoiding eye contact with Jack.

“Come here, pumpkin.” Jack’s hands wandered up Rhys’ thighs until he grabbed his wrists and pulled his arms to either side. He moved forward until he was straddling Rhys’ lap, his larger frame looming over the boy below him.

Rhys gasped at the unexpected contact, his eyes snapping up to dumbly stare at Jack’s chest. “What are you-”

“Listen, kitten,” Jack’s right hand left Rhys’ arm and instead went up to grasp at his jaw and lift his chin up. “If I’m gonna be here anyway, I might as well play a leading role.”

He scooted forward a bit, planting himself more firmly in Rhys’ lap, and rolled his hips forward, eliciting an involuntary moan. He let go Rhys’ other wrist in favor of placing his hand against Rhys’ side, pushing him further into the chair. The other hand left his jaw, traveled around his head and came to a rest in his hair, where it was used to pull him into a kiss. He felt the kid tense up below him and saw the mistrust in his eyes.

He was expecting this to be a trap. Jack wasn’t quite sure whether he should be relieved that the kid did seem to have some kind of survival instinct, be insulted that the kid seemed to have so little trust in him after all this time, or feel bad about making the kid so wary of him.

Seeing as Handsome Jack didn’t ever feel bad about anything, taking into consideration how bad the kid’s survival instincts were in every other situation, and given that there was no reason anyone should trust him ever, he settled on being mildly miffed.

Nonetheless he broke the kiss, still staying close to his face, brought his hand back around to cup his cheek and nipped at his lips. “Come on, cupcake. Nothing wrong with a little bit of fun.” He rolled his hips and all potential protests were stifled by a startled low moan. He took the opportunity to pick the kiss back up and lick into the kid’s mouth.

Rhys seemed to accept it for now, his synthetic hand coming up to grab at Jack’s hair and the organic one pawing at Jack’s back, trying to find a way beneath his clothes.

“There you are, kitten,” Jack murmured into the kiss. He decided to lend the kid a hand and with a thought he removed most of his outer layers, leaving him in his pants, a sweater, and nothing more.

He brought his hand down from Rhys’ side to undo the button on his pants and pull them down to free his own hardening cock.

Rhys took the invitation. Kissing back lazily, he gave Jack full control over his mouth. His hand on Jack’s back moved under his shirt and scratched at the skin below. He started to push his hips up into Jack, hesitantly at first, and then with increasing confidence and speed.

Jack swallowed all the little noises Rhys made, returning some moans of his own. He relished in how quickly he had brought the kid to this point. Not even having to resort to threats or subterfuge.

Jack enjoyed the wet heat of Rhys’ mouth, the warm hand trying to find purchase at his back, and the hot, rhythmic friction against his cock. He hadn’t really been able to feel much of anything, ever since he came back, so this was a pleasant change of pace.

The hand at his back started to wander down. He felt it slip into his pants and grab his ass.

And, okay, the kid was having a bit too much fun here.

Not that he wasn’t enjoying it himself, but the kid didn't strictly need to know that.

Jack broke the kiss to nuzzle at Rhys’ jaw, trailing soft kisses up to his ear, brushing his lips along his cheekbone, grazing his cheek with his teeth and biting down hard until he drew blood.

With a pained yell, Rhys stopped his rutting, withdrew his hand from Jack’s pants, and brought it up to Jack’s throat to push him off of him.

---

Jack had to squint and avert his eyes when he came face to face with the rising morning sun. He looked down to the side, where a heavily panting Rhys was thrashing around with one arm, while the other was clutching his cheek.

After a moment he seemingly recognized where he was. He glanced up at Jack with a wary and betrayed look.

A lazy grin spread across Jack’s face. “Did I just bite you awake, princess?”

Rhys didn't dignify him with an answer. He sat up with a huff and flinched when he accidentally touched his crotch.

The grin on Jack’s face widened at that. “Well, have fun with that, kiddo.”

He started straight up cackling, when he heard Vaughn stirring awake, and heard Rhys mentally curse at him.