( Completed ) Pet play | Axton X handsome Jack

Chapter 23: A Pair of Dog Tags

A Pair of Dog Tags

Air whirred in Jack's ears like bellowing thunder. It's like a rocket taking lift, loud, booming, destroying his thoughts and blurring his head. He wants to cup his tender ears from the abusing sound, but he can't move them.

He can't move anything.

His limbs are frozen, numb and there is nothing to be done.

There is panic in the back of his throat and at the same time there is a sense of weightless peace that comes unexpectedly. He feels light, like everything within him is simply empty air. His eyes are open but he sees nothing, there is only blinding blue light that invades every corner of his vision. The light is like energy, coursing through his every nerve and awakening his very being. He feels emotions that he has no names for and hears things that don't make sense.

It is like being alive, and dead in the very same breath.

Each moment feels like eternity, floating along the line of life and death, not really sure which side he was on. But he feels his heart thundering and he knows he is alive. His body is still aware and he is still breathing. This isn't afterlife that he is faced with.

This is something very much so alive.

Maybe too alive.

Then his body dropped. Hard, out of thin air, his hands colliding with hard earth and his knees following. The impact left him gasping for breath, rolling to his back trying to take in the oxygen his lungs so desperately needed.

Everything was so bright as his eyes strained to open into mere slits. The light was so intense that it was painful to his tender eyes, too furious, too intense. Jack groaned and slowly turned onto his side, his body racked with ache from the initial collision with the hard earth beneath him. Jack blinked several more times, brain trying to process his surroundings slowly. His fingers dug into the rocky soil spread out beneath his recovering form and he scrunched up his nose in confusion.

Where was he?

Jack coughed weakly into the dust, eyes opening fully, only to become very aware of the fiery ash floating in the midst of the air. Jack could feel the soot in his throat as he breathed in raggedly and the warmth all around him. Everything was burning with smoldering heat, his layers of clothing quickly feeling near unbearable with the temperature.

"Fuck..." Jack whispered into the smothering air.

He leaned up on shaking elbows, clothing slightly torn with the fall, the metal of his arms scuffed.

And that was when he really soaked in and appreciated all that was surrounding him.

Towering statues mimicking monstrous creatures poured lava from their maws into the pool of molten liquid surrounding the rocky surface on which Jack sat. The walnut haired man's eyes grew wide as his vision cleared and he seemed to come back into the reality of it all. The entire span of terrain was a mixture of vast rocks, jagged as they reached skyward and lava, bubbling and gurgling like a living thing. Jack jumped as a large bubble hissed and popped, spraying thick lava over a nearby rock. Jack scooted away from the oppressing material quickly and caught his breath unevenly.

He knew where he was.

He knew this place.

Of course he would.

All the drilling, all the labor, all the men lost to rockslides, so many hours spent carving into the rough Pandoran terrain.

The Vault.

This was it.

He'd spent so long dreaming of this place, working towards this place, going through hell and back to get here. And now he stood of the very sacred ground of one of the many wonders of the Eridian race. It couldn't have been more gorgeous, the bright oranges and yellows reflected in Jack's heterochromatic eyes, flashing and shimmering like candle flames.