Yeah I-- [He licks his lips, feeling like an intrusion - feeling guilty for the fact that yet again he'd been on the spot and dropped his nerve. He wanted to tell her the truth about Jack, but not over the network, and not when she was storming for his neck, and now...
Now she's upset because he'd thrown her and Fiona and a host of excuses under the bus to protect himself. There's no getting the truth out.
[ A moment passes, then another, before Athena forces herself to stand straight. It is a trial but she does her best not to show it, not to show the aches and pains she had been ignoring finally coming to the surface. Compounding upon ontop of another.
But she is a soldier, she pushes it all aside and keeps on going. Bottling up emotion and pain until there is nothing left on her face but her flat piercing stare. One foot in front of the other, no time to sit and grieve. This isn't the first loss she has suffered and it won't be the last. ]
Don't mention this to Gaige. [ She sounds cold, emotionless, her tone hard as she re-focuses. Scooter was close to the Vault Hunters, anyone with half a brain knew that. And with what little she knows of the youngest of that group? She won't take it well. Especially coming from someone who works, or worked, for Hyperion. ] If she hears about it, it is better from me.
You know you're...[It's hard to get it out, exactly what he wants to say. In part because it's a shield and in part because there's no good way to ask someone else to stand in as a sort of scapegoat for his own dug ditch, but there it is, and he'd be stupid not to seize an opportunity when it rears its head.
Hyperion taught him that much, at least.] kind of kicking up the whole burying the truth thing again, right?
From her, I mean. [Squints just slightly, working his jaw.] What if she gets suspicious?
This girl had a hand in Jack's death, she is apart of the group that took down the Warrior. [ She gives him a flat look, crossing her arms across her chest. This is as much for Gaige as it is for Rhys, a product of her own ill-advised desire to protect. ] A girl who apparently likes to make death robots for fun. Do you really want to tell her that you took her a friend up to Helios and he died?
[ Every version of that scenario popping up in her head right about now all end in one way: Rhys knocked onto the ground. And that's the best case scenario. ]
You are Hyperion, Rhys. Or you still look it. Do I have to remind you what your company did?
[ What Jack did but too most, if not all, Pandorans it is all one in the same. ]
N-no. No no no no. Nnnnooo. [There's no faking that response, not by a long shot. Needs it as much as he wishes-- just at the edges of his own thoughts-- that he didn't, lifting his hands to wave off the idea entirely.] Believe me I am literally the last person that needs a reminder of how it all went down, okay.
Or-- you know, how pissed off every single person on Pandora was about it. [Like it was personal. Like every last Hyperion employee was dead set on breaking into the cardboard boxes they call homes and murdering them in their sleep.
Which: totally untrue. It's like 60/40 at least.] I just need to know if she goes all crazy, that you're going to be there to watch my back.
[ Athena exhales, the sound almost as tired as she is beginning to look. Lines wearing, edges starting to fray. Panic tore down her walls, exposed the soft core underneath, and unintentionally or not Rhys struck a hard blow. She can only compensate so much. ]
I won't let her smear you into the pavement, Rhys. [ Somewhere she made it her responsibility to keep them alive ─ Rhys, Fiona, Sasha, Vaughn ─ beyond what had been outlined in the contract. ] Or sick her robot on you.
[He exhales slowly through his nose in relief, leaving only that bottled, rapidly receding guilt. Doing what's necessary, taking every open opportunity - that's how business works even outside the meeting rooms - that's how he and Vaughn secured that mining deal with a lot of knives in a couple select backs.]
[ If she knew she might understand, the tactic is painfully familiar from the days she spent as the knife Atlas plunged into many different backs. It would be hypocritical if she got angry. She lies to Springs just as easily, doing whatever is necessary to ensure she never finds out the truth.
Eyes closing she drops her head, brow furrowing in mild frustration. ]
I've...got a place, yeah. [It's admittedly not up to his standards, but it beats Pandora, if nothing else, and he can't imagine it'll take long to find some structured ladder to climb in a place as busy and needy as this.]
No yeah no-- [He wilts under the sharpness of her stare, hand going to the back of his neck at the fact that she effectively rebuffed his joke.] That...makes sense.
Yeah. [There's a lowness there in his tone, stuck between his tongue and the back of his teeth when he goes to inhale as he watches her leave, feeling out the way the last, sputtering urge to stop her die out.
Better to just be what you are anyway, right? If he's a liar, let him be a liar.]
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Now she's upset because he'd thrown her and Fiona and a host of excuses under the bus to protect himself. There's no getting the truth out.
Not like this.] I know.
He was a good guy.
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But she is a soldier, she pushes it all aside and keeps on going. Bottling up emotion and pain until there is nothing left on her face but her flat piercing stare. One foot in front of the other, no time to sit and grieve. This isn't the first loss she has suffered and it won't be the last. ]
Don't mention this to Gaige. [ She sounds cold, emotionless, her tone hard as she re-focuses. Scooter was close to the Vault Hunters, anyone with half a brain knew that. And with what little she knows of the youngest of that group? She won't take it well. Especially coming from someone who works, or worked, for Hyperion. ] If she hears about it, it is better from me.
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Hyperion taught him that much, at least.] kind of kicking up the whole burying the truth thing again, right?
From her, I mean. [Squints just slightly, working his jaw.] What if she gets suspicious?
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[ Every version of that scenario popping up in her head right about now all end in one way: Rhys knocked onto the ground. And that's the best case scenario. ]
You are Hyperion, Rhys. Or you still look it. Do I have to remind you what your company did?
[ What Jack did but too most, if not all, Pandorans it is all one in the same. ]
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Or-- you know, how pissed off every single person on Pandora was about it. [Like it was personal. Like every last Hyperion employee was dead set on breaking into the cardboard boxes they call homes and murdering them in their sleep.
Which: totally untrue. It's like 60/40 at least.] I just need to know if she goes all crazy, that you're going to be there to watch my back.
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I won't let her smear you into the pavement, Rhys. [ Somewhere she made it her responsibility to keep them alive ─ Rhys, Fiona, Sasha, Vaughn ─ beyond what had been outlined in the contract. ] Or sick her robot on you.
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Thanks, Athena.
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Eyes closing she drops her head, brow furrowing in mild frustration. ]
Have they provided you somewhere to stay?
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You?
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Echo the location─ [ She stops, frowning, uncrossing arms to wave a hand about the air. Right, the echo net doesn't exist here. ] Text it.
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--you're not trying to come live with me, right?
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No. But it'll be easier to find you if I know where you're staying.
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Bye Rhys. ]
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Better to just be what you are anyway, right? If he's a liar, let him be a liar.]
Later, Athena.