( Completed ) Pet play | Axton X handsome Jack

Chapter 20: Trade

Trade

The week dragged itself along. Limped by like a hurt skag with just three fucking working legs. It was slow, and painful to watch it go. The hours ticking by at a snail's pace.

If Axton scrunched himself up tight enough to the right wall he could see the clock mounted on the wall there. It was covered in dust, except where the numbers were, as if someone had hurriedly wiped the caked on dirt away from just those certain spots. It was old, and Axton doubted it was actually reading off the right time. The thing looked to have been dropped on numerous occasions, maybe come loose from the wall when the door there next to it was slammed too hard.

Axton let loose a heavy, sorrowed breath. He hadn't had much company in the week. Mostly Salvador came to visit him with offerings of sandwiches and a bottle of water. Along with the occasional soda he'd sneak from the machine upstairs.

Zero came around a lot too. He didn't say much, and sometimes Axton only knew he was there by seeing the glitter of his cloaking device in the dark. But he knew he meant well. They were worried about him.

Axton had mixed feelings about the entire display of concern from the two of them. Yes they were old friends. But that being said they were old friends. Things of his past that he hardly knew anymore. They had come and went out of his life, and had stayed out for two whole years.

Axton chewed his bottom lip. Two years had been a long time. Though these people were once the comrades he'd trusted his life with, they were now strangers. He no longer knew them the way he had so many years ago. He felt just the way a prisoner should. He felt captured, and he felt uneasy in the presence of the enemy. The crimson raiders were the enemies of Hyperion, and that was just the way things were.

He shifted his boots on the cement floor.

It was more comfortable to sit down on the hard floor than it was to sit on the makeshift lumpy bed at the back of the cell. He didn't like feeling like a trapped animal once more. He had spent too long in Hyperion cells, cuffs, collars and chains. He'd scraped his way to the top, come crashing down again, and now he was here. He was here because of his oath he took to Jack. He was here because he loved Jack. That wouldn't stop and would not change.

Axton closed his eyes for a second.

Did Jack even care that he was gone? Was he looking for him? He didn't exactly expect Jack to rally the troops over a lost ex- vault hunter become lover.

Axton clenched his teeth hard.

Even the Vault hunters had not come for him when he had been captured by Hyperion. He felt his heart sink into his gut. He hadn't wanted to think about such things as that...but now, here in the dark...he couldn't help it. The crimson raiders had never come after him when he had been captured by Jack in the first place. They had assumed him dead and moved right along with their little lives.

Why had they come for Maya....but not for him?

Because Maya under Jack's control could easily bring the planet down? Because she was a siren, and much more of an asset than a trash talking, rough around the edges, ex-Dahl soldier. The truth of that hurt him deeper than he thought it would. He'd always known it was dangerous for them to come rescue him in Opportunity. It was heavily guarded, and a death wish to even attempt to breech it. So he had always forgiven them for not coming. He didn't want them all to suffer the same fate as he. He'd known Roland would have made the call to declare Axton dead.

It was the right thing to do.

In all reality, Axton should have been dead. How were they to know Handsome Jack would take a liking to the kid and keep him for his own?