Chapter Text
Rhys had always heard people say bullet exit wounds were bigger but this was really the first time he was experiencing this firsthand.
The back of the man’s head was completely burst open, like a sickening flower made of flesh, bones and brain matter. The disgusting tufts of brown hair feathered around it only helped accentuate how unnatural the presentation was, the petals of normalcy around the carnage.
Rhys carefully hooked a boot underneath the man’s head, flicking it to reveal him as a high ranking member of the Maliwan company he’d met with a week ago.
The man had been a real bastard, the meeting was supposed to be a chance for them to collaborate on a prototype for a line of high powered elemental sniper rifles. Instead, the representative had attempted to steal the files off the laptop Rhys had brought. He’d used his ECHOeye to remotely fry the device they’d stuck on it before storming out.
And now that man was lying facedown on his doorstep. Dead. Bullet neatly between the eyes.
Rhys broke out of the paralyzed stupor, immediately realizing that this was most likely a threat.
He slammed his door, clumsily and aggressively clicking his many locks into place before slamming his back against it as his heart started racing.
He’d always considered that this might happen but as the blood started seeped underneath his door it coldly dawned on him. This was real. It was too real. It wasn’t the idle worry of his distracted brain anymore.
There was someone who wanted him dead.
His pointed boots left bloody footprints on the immaculate white floors as he raced around the house for a few minutes desperately trying to find his phone before remembering it was in his pocket.
Nearly dropping the damned thing he fumbled with it before managing to locate Vaughn’s name in the address book.
Each ring that sounded through his terrifyingly quiet apartment only added another knot to the twisted feeling in his gut. As it went to voicemail he was nearly blinded by panic as his mind started racing: what if whoever had killed the man from Maliwan was knocking off all high leveled gun manufacturer employees?
What if Vaughn was already dead?
Rhys slammed his best friend’s name in the address book again.
It rang twice before Vaughn’s familiar, albeit groggy and thoroughly irritated, voice came through the speaker, “I was sleeping. What.”
It was less a question and more of a demand but Rhys was so relieved to hear him alive that he didn’t even care. His reply came in a jumbled stream of panicked words but he managed to convey the grisly gift he’d found on his doorstep and its probable meaning.
That sure woke the former bandit king up.
It was only a few minutes before Vaughn was there, staring at the carnage first hand.
He looked around the hallway before announcing his presence. There was essentially no foot traffic here. Rhys had tried to get more Atlas workers to come live in the nigh abandoned apartments above the offices but only he and Yvette had said yes. The second most luxurious apartment had been given to him, just on the opposite side of the same floor as Rhys’.
Vaughn was usually glad to still get to live so close to his best friend but looking down at the man’s decimated head he was wondering if the Pandoran sisters would let him come along on their next caravan trip. And maybe the one after that.
His knuckles barely rapped the door before it flung open and he was dragged inside by his lanky friend.
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Vaughn sat there as Rhys paced, nervously chattering away more to himself than his now captive best friend. Eventually he did directly address the shorter man though with a vague and helpless question, “What do I do?”
“I could always stay here with you,” Vaughn quickly offered, maybe just a little too quickly as he continued, “It’ll be just like in college, bro, except someone’s trying to kill you. I mean, I don’t want to brag but I did keep the Children of Helios alive all by myself for over half a year. And you’re about a million times less stupid than their smartest member.”
“I couldn’t ask you to do that,” Rhys said, immediately dismissing the idea, ”It’s way too dangerous. No one was directly targeting the Children of Helios.”
He’d already been paranoid about losing his best friend since they got separated during Helios’ fall, he wasn’t about to keep him in the danger zone for any longer than necessary.
Vaughn shook it off, “I don’t care. You’re my best friend, I’d do anything for you. And they were more targeted than you’d think. Fallen Helios was a freaking bandit magnet.”
“Still, that’s different than dealing with an assassi-”
Rhys cut himself short. Vaughn immediately felt his chances of staying here and being the big damn hero die as the CEO’s eyes lit up with excitement. They reached the same conclusion at the same time.
“Zer0! I’ll hire Zer0!” Rhys practically yelled in excitement, all but prancing over to where his phone had laid forgotten on the coffee table.
He excitedly scrolled down to their entry in his phone with a wide smile plastered on his face. The ninja had managed to become a decently frequent visitor but Rhys never really had much for them to do. Mostly stealing things but sometimes delivering things.
But this? This would keep his weird, spindly crush around for much longer and in much more… private situations.
Vaughn tried to hide his disappointment and made one feeble attempt to dissuade him, “Or you could go with Athena. She might be a little easier to get ahold of cause she doesn’t really travel that far anymore. Trying to stay by Janey and all.”
Rhys just shook his head, “No, Athena’s still not crazy about the whole Atlas thing. I really don’t think she’d react well to me trying to hire her into it again. Zer0’ll be perfect. I’ll call them, you should probably get going. Try to lie low until we get this sorted out, okay?”
“Okay…” Vaughn mumbled into Rhys’s chest as he was caught in a goodbye hug before disappearing out the front door. The situation wasn't ideal but at least he could go back to sleep now.
Absolutely giddy, Rhys locked the door shut behind his best friend as he made a mental note to check up on him regularly as this was going on. But right now? He flopped back onto the couch, excitedly hitting the call button next to Zer0’s name.
The first and only ring was cut short as they immediately picked up with a curt, “Yes?”
Rhys brushed off the unusual greeting easily, getting into the meat of the situation with renewed enthusiasm, “I have a problem. Kind of a huge one. And you’re really my only hope with this.”
Yeah he was laying it on a little thick but he’s nothing if not a drama queen.
“What is your problem?” they replied over the din of gunshots.
Taking his call so quickly, even in a fight. Rhys tried not to let his excitement over that fact creep into his voice as he explained the situation, “I think someone’s going to try to kill me. When I opened my door to leave for work there was a dead body outside. I’m pretty sure it’s a threat.”
There was a long silence. He briefly felt the twisting worry creep into his gut again. This was serious and if Zer0 turned him down… well he could try asking Athena but he really didn’t have a lot of options with this. That part wasn't just dramatics.
As he opened his mouth to try to sweeten the deal, Zer0 broke the silence.
“Did you not see the letter? In your mailbox, Rhys.”
“What?” he dumbly stuttered. Why would he have checked his mailbox? There was a dead body on his doorstep. He awkwardly made his way back over there, unlocking the door and opening it just enough to fish the black envelope from there before zipping back inside.
Their voice remained placid despite the frightening nature of their words, “I killed him for you / Was he not a good target? / Is it a “no”, then?”
Briefly ignoring them Rhys slid a metal finger under the flap and pulled out the letter within.
Written on it in neat, boxy letters were three succinct lines, “Atlas CEO / And a lonely assassin / Dinner on Friday?”
Silence rung out over the line, punctuated only by an errant shot here and there from Zer0’s sniper rifle as they further racked up a killstreak while patiently waiting for an answer from the dazed man.
Rhys ran through it all quickly in his head trying to make sense of this mess. The corpse on his doorstep wasn’t a threat, it was a weird gift of some sort. An offering. Some sort of incredibly morbid cultural difference between them. The cyborg was no stranger to the fact Zer0 wasn’t a human. Nobody who spent more than two seconds around Zer0 thought that. Frankly, he was hoping alien now because “strange alien mating custom” was a lot less terrifying than “malfunctioning robot murder.”
Finally their voice broke the silence again, “Well?”
“I would, uh, I would love to,” Rhys awkwardly spat out. It was the truth, hell it was an understatement of the truth. As it dawned on him that he both not in danger and also had an unbelievably cool ninja assassin asking him out he started awkwardly giggling.
Perched on a rock in the middle of nowhere Zer0 flashed a “:)” that went unseen as they spoke, “This is good news then / I will pick you up that day / We will talk later.”
The line went dead as Zer0 hung up.
Rhys stared at his phone in stunned silence for a second before flicking back to the “V” section of his address book to disrupt his best friend’s sleep for the second time this morning.