Chapter Text
V wakes up achingly slowly, eyes dry and crusty, limbs heavy. She’s hungover. Properly, genuinely, hung the fuck over. Her head isn’t hurting too bad but she’s so fucking nauseous that her whole stomach feels like it’s tying itself in knots as she forces herself to sit up. She has to breathe very slowly to not start retching. As she gets out of bed, clambering slowly off the mattress, Johnny stirs, groaning. He grabs at her blindly, face down, missing entirely and grasping at the sheets instead. She hesitates and turns back to face him, standing by the bed. He makes a garbled noise against the pillow.
“What?” V says, screwing her eyes closed.
Johnny pushes himself up off the pillow, then turns and slumps back down onto his back. “Fuuuck,” he says in a long groan. He turns and grins at her, bleary and looking a little pale. “Good night?”
“Bad morning,” she says weakly.
He grins wider. “Come back to bed.”
God, she is too fucked up to handle the way Johnny is looking at her right now, rough and smiling like he’s glad she’s here. She braces both hands against the mattress and hangs her head. “I got work.”
Johnny groans again, grin slipping away. “Fuck work. You look like shit.”
“Wow, thanks,” she says dryly. “You really know how to make a girl feel special.”
“I look worse.” Johnny rolls over on the bed until he’s on her side, until his head bumps up against her hand against the bed. He presses his face against the back of her hand, then kisses there sloppily, sucking at her skin. “You really gotta?”
“Yeah,” she says reluctantly. “Tara’s not in today, stall’d be empty without me.”
V drags herself to the bathroom to shower, and she spends way too long standing under the hot spray, braced against the wall. The nausea hasn’t really abated and the intensity of it is crowding out all emotions that aren’t bleaugh.
She emerges from the shower, dresses quickly in her comfiest jeans and a t-shirt, then staggers out to the kitchen to drink as much coffee and water as she can stomach. Johnny isn’t in bed and he isn’t in the kitchen or living room either. God knows where he’s fucked off to. She has a mouthful of coffee — with synthmilk and sweetener — and it makes her stomach churn immediately, so she swaps to water instead. As she’s staring at the coffee machine, trying to decide whether skipping the milk and taking her coffee black would make a difference, the apartment door opens and Johnny wanders in, holding a plastic bag. He immediately moves to slump on one of the kitchen chairs.
“Ta-da,” he says tiredly, a little sarcastic. He pushes his sunglasses up his nose as he sits. “Breakfast.”
He’s dumped the bag on the table, and it’s full of street food. It’s all stuff they’re both very familiar with at this point, from a stall two doors down — thick and greasy noodles, scrambled tofu, synthpork dumplings, vegetable pancakes. Johnny is already two bites into a wrap, rice and fried tofu wrapped in flatbread like a burrito.
She stares at him for a long moment. He’s wearing her yellow jacket, but is shirtless underneath, gold cyberware catching in the low light from the window across the room. He’s got loose grey sweatpants on, and he’s wearing her slippers. His blond hair is a complete frizzy mess, the usually defined curls disrupted into fuzz. He clearly just threw on whatever was fastest to make himself decent enough to leave the apartment. V turns around and hits the button on the coffee machine and waits for the cup to fill with black coffee. Behind her Johnny huffs quietly. She grabs her milky coffee and the fresh black coffee then heads over to the table, handing the black coffee to Johnny as she sits.
“Thanks,” she says, then goes immediately for the greasy noodles. She needs carbs and fats in her, right fucking now.
“Welcome,” he says with a little shrug. Not even pretending he didn’t do it for her, Jesus.
Getting food into her stomach helps settle it, enough she can keep down her coffee. Johnny keeps watching her as he eats, like he’s on the cusp of saying something. She can’t imagine what it could be that would have him hesitating. Johnny is many things, but uncertain is rarely one of them.
“Time you finish today?” Johnny asks. He’s finished his wrap and is poking through the bag of food.
“Uh,” V says, willing her brain to work. “Eight hours after I get there. Whenever that is.”
Johnny’s hand emerges from the bag with a small container of scrambled tofu. “Get the metro. I’ll pick you up tonight.”
She squints at him. “Why?”
“What, your input can’t take you out?”
V takes another drink of her coffee. She’s too fucking hungover to decipher what the hell is going on in Johnny’s brain. “You organise something with Kerry?”
“No.” She glances over at him and he’s staring back, looking fucking exhausted and hung over, sunglasses on, mouth full of tofu. He pulls the glasses off and swallows. “I’m organising something with my output. Right now.”
They lock eyes and for a moment V thinks he’s finally going to push her on it. That he’s finally, finally going to call her out for being hesitant, for resisting his attempts to go back to normal. Then he breaks eye contact, looking away to his food. Somehow, she’s disappointed.
“Okay. Pick me up,” she says gently, watching him carefully.
His mouth twitches into a tiny grin briefly before it vanishes behind an unimpressed neutrality. He turns to face her properly again. “We gonna fuck tonight?” His tone is more resigned than demanding.
V takes a deep breath as she collects her thoughts. They haven’t fucked since before Johnny’s little bender, but they haven’t exactly had a lot of down time since then. Johnny has been uncharacteristically reluctant to initiate, and she sure as hell hasn’t taken the initiative.
“I —” V begins uncertainly, but she’s immediately interrupted.
“Not fucking demanding it.” Johnny crosses her arms over his chest. “Just…” He shrugs, radiating discomfort. “Asking.”
V is struck by a sudden desperate and terrifying feeling of helplessness. She doesn’t know what he wants. He’d said before — you don’t know what I want. Fucking find out.
In her life, V has been a coward, and she’s been brave. She’s played safe and she’s taken risks. Never seemed to matter how she acted; Night City screwed you either way.
“What do you want?” she asks, and it comes out sounding exhausted.
Johnny hesitates, clearly not expecting that response. “Obviously wanna fuck,” he says, near reflexively. He looks away, arms still crossed, shoulders up around his ears. “Fuckin’ hell. Said you needed time. Wanna know how much.”
Something lodges itself in V’s throat. “How much you willing to give?”
He eyes her critically. “I don’t got months of celibacy in me,” he says dryly.
“I mean,” she says hesitantly, “maybe? Can’t we just… see? How things go?”
He shrugs, arms still crossed. “Sure.”
V finishes her coffee in silence and gets up to leave. As she heads down the stairwell, she hears something smash in the apartment behind her.
—
Work sucks. The sun is bright and sunny overhead, cheery and beautiful like it’s doing it to mock V specifically. She didn’t even bring sunglasses. She ends up buying a shit ugly pair from a neighbouring stall and spends her morning hunched over the bench, forcing down water as often as she can stomach. Customer traffic is dead most of the day — probably at least partially due to her attitude — but picks up as the afternoon melts into evening and more people are out and about, and as the worst of her hangover fades.
While she spends her morning feeling like shit, V spends her afternoon feeling anxious. She alternates between flipping her empty lighter over in her fingers and fiddling absently with Johnny’s dog tags, leaning against the bench.
She had assumed Johnny had refrained from confronting her because he didn’t give a shit, but what he’d said this morning — god, it’s like he was holding back to try and give her space. Like he’s trying to listen to what she said. She flips the lighter over in her fingers and then looks down at it. It’s facing heart up. She runs her thumb over the scratchy engraving and her skin catches on the rough marks.
Or — he’s saying the right shit to get back in her pants. Seems like a lot of effort when he could dump her and find someone easier, but she is pretty lodged in his life now. Maybe he thinks it would be easier to appease her than it would be to kick her out of his apartment. The idea sounds flimsy to her even as she thinks it. All evidence points to him trying. There’s just something cold and gnawing in her gut that makes it impossible to believe.
V bites her lip and runs her tongue over the scar there. She’s so fucking afraid. For all that her plan was to ride this out until it came crumbling down, now that she’s feeling the rumbles she’s getting cold feet.
Johnny shows up an hour before sunset and V shoves the lighter back into her pocket, hopefully before he sees. He still looks a little rough, but probably not as rough as she does. As always, he’s in her yellow jacket.
“You gonna give that jacket back?” V says quietly.
Johnny grins. “Never.”
He takes her hand to pull her away from the stall and then leads her easily through the market to the Porsche. They’re both pretty quiet. They drive through a burger place and eat in the car as he drives. He heads out east, into the Badlands. For a moment she thinks he’s going to take her to the overlook they had beers at months ago, where she had first pitched the question game, but he drives further east. As the sun starts to set he pulls onto a small track off the main highway, then after a few minutes parks in what seems to be the middle of nowhere. The desert is flat and sparse, the horizon stretching impossibly wide. Night City sticks up from the ground like a glowing knife edge.
V follows Johnny’s lead when he gets out of the car and moves around to the front to open the trunk. Inside is a large picnic rug, and a sixpack of beers. V watches, a little surprised, as he lays the rug out and then passes her the sixpack.
“Why here?” V asks as Johnny lounges on the blanket, facing away from her and the car and toward the city and the setting sun.
He leans back on his elbows until he can tilt his head back to look at her. “Wanted to get enough outta the city we might actually see the stars,” he says simply. “Turns out you gotta go way fucking further for that. If we’re lucky we might see a couple. Least it’s quiet out here.”
She swallows and sits down next to him, putting the beers beside her. The evening is cool but not yet cold. They’re facing the glow of the city, the towering advertisements stretching up into the sky, even as individual buildings aren’t quite visible. She tips her head back and stares up at the sky. It’s still light blue behind them to the east, and in front of them it’s burning red. Directly above it’s a slowly deepening blue.
“So,” V makes herself say. She feels herself lose her nerve.
“So,” Johnny echoes. The silence stretches.
Johnny puts his hand over hers against the rug, then turns to kiss her. It’s gentle and soft. He pulls back to ghost his lips over hers between careful kisses, bumping their noses together affectionately. V lets out a shuddering sigh, closing her eyes and pressing her forehead to his. He bumps their noses together again and kisses her, no less gentle, until she caves and deepens the kiss. Once she does he groans, bringing his hand up to cup her cheek as he tilts his head and sucks her lower lip between his teeth. It feels like he’s holding himself back, with great effort. V knows how he kisses, and it’s never reserved like this. Even when he’s kissed her soft, or slow, or sweet, there’s always some desperation, some fire. Tonight, it feels like an invitation.
God, the whole fucking point of this whole thing — this whole relationship — was to enjoy it while it lasted. Right now, even if Johnny is losing interest, it’s still lasting. It’ll hurt when it dies, but V can feel within herself that as bad as the crash will be, she won’t go back to how she was three months ago when she first saw him. She has a life again. The third goddamn time she’s had the same fucking crisis and come to the same fucking resolution. Part of her hates it — it feels like a weakness. She wants to wake up next to him and listen to him complain about the radio as they eat breakfast. She wants him to keep taking her on dates, keep asking her questions that make her uncomfortable. She wants to watch the rest of the fucking Bushidō movies with him. Fuck, she’s always going to be weak to him.
V winds a hand up into Johnny’s hair and really fucking kisses him, mouth open, with teeth and tongue. He groans again, fucking desperately, and swaps to grabbing her face with two hands. He licks into her mouth obscenely, behind her teeth, and sucks on her tongue when she returns the favour.
He pulls back slightly with a grin. “There you are.” His voice is low and rough and pleased.
V blushes and squeezes his face before recapturing his lips. Fuck — maybe it’s just because she loves him, or maybe he’s just that good, but damn if sex with him wasn’t the best she’d had in her life. Even the way he’s kissing her is making her head spin, like he’s trying to devour her whole. One of his hands slides down from her cheek to grope at her tits over her t-shirt as they kiss. After a moment he lets go and slips his hand under her shirt and cups her over her bra instead. V groans quietly as he gets his fingers into the cup and against bare skin. His other hand leaves her face and he pushes her shirt up to her armpits as he kisses down her neck desperately. He runs his teeth over her skin and bites at her gently, both hands cupping her tits now.
“Johnny,” she says in a quiet sigh. He pauses, just for a moment, but V runs her hands down his neck, over his shoulders and then down his chest, and he grins against her skin.
“Think a while ago I offered a demonstration on how to fuck in the Porsche,” he says low in her ear.
“Laid out the rug for nothing?” V says breathlessly. “Don’t wanna just fuck here?”
Johnny laughs, delighted. “Fuck yeah,” he says, then leans into her as he kisses her mouth again. She lies down and he follows over her, until she’s flat on her back and he’s sprawled on top. She feels him hard against her hip and gasps. The picnic rug is slightly scratchy and there’s a cool breeze. They’re fully exposed out here in the evening desert, but V couldn’t care less if she tried.
Johnny seems to be happy to take things slow and kisses her languidly. She runs her hands over him as they kiss, slipping her hand under his shirt and up the line of cyberware in his chest, rolling his nipple under her thumb and enjoying his shudder.
He rucks her shirt up again from where it’s slipped back down and buries his face in her tits, pushing the cups of her bra down awkwardly for access. “Fuck,” he says, then sucks a nipple into her mouth as his hand pinches the other gently.
V gasps and then groans, the tingling pleasure of his hand and mouth rushing through her. He kisses the skin between her tits and then tilts his head up to grin at her, before swirling his tongue around her nipple. He moves his hands slowly from her tits, running down to her sides and resting on her hips. As he does he kisses carefully down her stomach, slow and hot and wet against her skin.
He presses his forehead into her stomach. “Been too fuckin’ long,” he says quietly against the skin just above her belly button, so quietly she almost doesn’t catch it.
V laughs softly in disbelief. “Missed it? Been what, three days?” She’s guessing he cheated in the middle of his three day bender.
“More like six,” Johnny corrects after a moment, face still against her stomach. “Jerkin’ off over the holo don’t count.”
She grabs his shoulders and rolls them over so she’s on top, shuffling backwards down his body so she can straddle his waist. Then she grabs his wrists and pins them by his head, and he doesn’t stop her or complain. In the fading light, she sees his eyes dilate. “Pretty sure a blowjob counts,” she says, a little cruel.
He scowls up at her. He flexes against her grip but doesn’t break it. “Don’t miss some two-enny whore sucking me off when I’m mid fucking breakdown, skezzed outta my goddamn mind.” His tone is harsh, hard, jaw set, eyes burning with some emotion she can’t place.
V doesn’t move from straddling him, hands around his wrists. He could break her grip easily. He could flip them over. He could push her aside. Instead he’s lying there, glaring at her, letting her pretend she has any power over him.
“So you missed me?” The power she has may be imaginary but she can push it anyway.
He turns his head to stare off to the side. “Missed your pussy.”
He’s a fucking asshole, but she’s so fucking tired of the tension between them and, at this point, actually pretty fucking horny. He’s not denying her assertion — shit, she can read between the lines. V leans down and kisses him, and he seems surprised, gasping in a little breath. He relaxes beneath her and then pushes gently against her restraints, enough to feel it but not enough break it.
She pulls back slightly to murmur against his lips. “Miss my tits?”
Johnny groans and writhes beneath her, still letting her keep him pinned. “Yeah,” he breathes out, seemingly more relaxed now he thinks they’re going to fuck. “And your mouth.”
V grins slowly, mouth still pressed to his. “My mouth?”
She kisses him real slow, deep and teasing. She sucks his bottom lip between her teeth and bites gently, pulling his lip out as she moves away before releasing it.
“Where d’you want my mouth?”
Johnny shudders. “On mine.”
V kisses him hard, pressing his wrists down into the rug hard enough the sand underneath shifts. She pulls back and takes a breath to ask him where else, but he speaks first.
“On my throat.”
She leans down and kisses his neck, starting at the side and working slowly around to the front. He whines when she sucks at his Adam’s apple, then again when she sucks a hickey into the junction of his neck and shoulder.
“You put on all this fuckin’ macho bullshit, but under all that you’re just a fuckin’ sap,” V says quietly as she pulls back to admire her work.
She expects him to object, but instead he breaks one arm free from her grip to hook a hand around the back of her head and pulls her up into a kiss. “Don’t rat me out,” he mumbles quietly into her mouth. “Missed your tits, and your pussy, and your mouth, and your hands, and your voice, and your —”
“Sounds like you just missed me,” she interrupts, ghosting her lips over his.
His mouth twitches in a tiny wry smile. “Sounds like.”
V abandons restraining him and braces herself on her forearms instead. She leans down to kiss him deeply, slotting their legs together. His hard cock presses against her thigh through his jeans, and he grinds up against her with a sigh. She pushes up away from him and crawls down his body, leaving kisses on the skin she can reach. Johnny pulls his shirt up like an invitation, and she takes it, kissing at his ribs. She leans on one arm as she undoes his belt and fly with the other, shoving awkwardly to get his pants down to mid thigh but leaving his underwear. She kisses her way down his torso with wet, open mouth kisses, running her tongue along the sensitive edge of his cyberware. His stomach twitches under her touch and his skin is burning hot against her lips.
V runs her hand over the waistband of his underwear, then ghosts over his cock through the thin fabric.
“V, please,” Johnny begs. She looks up at his face and he’s pressing his head back against the ground, eyes closed, neck straining. His hand reaches for her head and he runs his fingers through her hair clumsily. “Sweetheart, c’mon.”
Her face burns at sweetheart and she ducks her head back down to run her tongue over his skin just above the elastic of his underwear. His stomach twitches again and his clothed cock bumps her chin gently. Fuck — she loves him. She laughs bitterly into his stomach, at herself, at her fucked up life, at the whole fucking universe.
Before Johnny can ask her what she’s laughing at she pulls his underwear down, freeing his hard cock. He gasps, probably at the cool air, and it melts into a groan as V licks a long, single line from the base of his cock to the tip. She licks her lips then kisses the shaft right down at the base, then trails overlapping kisses upwards to the tip. She grasps his dick in one hand and slowly takes the head into her mouth, swirling her tongue, and he whines above her.
“V, shit,” he says between pants, hand twisting in her hair. “That motherfucking mouth.”
She still can’t take his whole cock into her mouth, but it doesn’t seem to bother him as she bobs her head and strokes the bottom half with her hand. He’s hot and heavy in her mouth, and he tastes of skin and salt and the slight bitterness of precome. With her free hand she cups his balls and rolls them gently, relishing in his needly little groan.
She pulls off his cock and he whines, tugging at her hair, not hard enough to move her but hard enough to make his complaint known. She strokes his full length with her hand and moves her mouth to suck at his balls and he fucking laughs, hips twitching. Unsurprisingly he doesn’t shave, but V doesn’t give a shit about that — just like Johnny doesn’t give a shit about her not shaving. He's not even that hairy anyway.
“God, yeah,” Johnny says breathily as V sucks one of his balls into her mouth. She closes her eyes and focuses on the feeling of her full mouth, the salty sweat taste and the heat of it all. His heavy breathing and his hard grip in her hair run shivers down her spine. She lets go of his balls and moves lower, presses her tongue hard against his perineum, the skin between his balls and asshole. Her right hand is still on his cock and she strokes him in time, long lazy movements from the base to the very tip.
“Shit, V,” he gasps out, hand twisting desperately in her hair. She licks up and down, almost like she would with a clit. “Yeah,” he says in a moan, “yeah, fuckin’ like that.” His right hand comes and joins his left in her hair and pulls as he strains against her with a whine. “God, V, you’re fuckin’ perfect.”
She moves her mouth back to his balls and presses her fingers there instead, replicating what she had been doing with her tongue. “Softer,” he hisses, and she obliges. He whines and tugs on her hair again. She closes her eyes briefly at the pinprick pleasure-pain. “Sweetheart, baby, suck my cock.” He’s still breathy and desperate and his thighs tremble around her head. “Fuck, c’mon, please.”
“Since you asked so nice,” V says against his balls, and he chuckles as she kisses her way back up to his dick, then moves her hand out of the way to kiss sloppily up to the head. She sucks him down again, one hand working the part she can’t take into her mouth and the other pressing into his perineum. She doesn’t finger him properly, but she briefly trails her fingers over his rim, and his cock twitches in her mouth.
Johnny’s moans get louder and more frequent as she sucks him off, until he’s vocalising on every exhale. His noises don’t echo but there’s a strange quality to the sound, out here in the desert with nothing for miles, that makes V shiver. The evening air is starting to tip from cool into cold but he’s burning hot beneath her.
It’s far from the first time she’s sucked him off, but she doesn’t usually spend so much time and effort on it unless she’s also fingering him. With how he’s reacting, she should do this more often. He’s always noisy and obscene and god, it’s still such a turn on. She shivers with arousal as he yanks her hair seemingly involuntarily and moans.
“V,” Johnny says desperately, “lemme come on your face?” V pauses for a moment in surprise, looking up to meet his eyes, cock in her mouth. “So fuckin’ pretty,” he says between pants, “be so fuckin’ pretty covered in my come, lemme kiss it off you after, fuck.” She redoubles her efforts and Johnny whines. “Fuck, fuck, love your goddamn fuckin’ mouth, shit —”
V pulls back off his cock and strokes the full length with her hand. V looks up at Johnny as he takes one hand out of her hair to prop himself up and look down at her, chest heaving as he pants. She turns her gaze back to his cock and he swears as he comes, cock twitching in her hand, spilling hot come all over her lips and cheek. He groans desperately. It’s a little bit gross but mostly it’s really hot, especially as V meets his eyes and sees his expression, mouth open, eyes burning, locked to her face.
“Oh, fuck,” he says, immediately pushing to sit up and then leaning down, pulling at her hair to bring her up so he can kiss her hard.
He kisses deeply, sucking at her lips, then licks the come off her cheek, gripping her jaw with both hands as he pulls her up gently. His tongue is hot, hotter than the come on her skin, and he licks her lips, her cheeks, licks and kisses at the line of her jaw. He kisses over the rest of her face too: her cheekbones, her temples, the corners of her eyes, her nose, her eyebrows and her forehead. After he’s cleaned her face his hands slip up to her cheeks, thumbs rubbing over her cheekbones as he kisses her on the mouth. When V pulls back he whines but lets her, eyes closed, forehead against hers.
“Shit,” Johnny whispers. He takes his left hand off her cheek and grabs her right from where it rests on his shoulder. He threads their fingers together. “You’re fucking crazy.”
“Yeah?” she says gently. The moment feels precarious somehow, here in the dark and quiet desert, as a cool breeze plays at her hair. “What does that make you?”
He laughs quietly and kisses her cheek once. “Equally fucking nuts. You drive me fucking nuts, V. What d’you want from me?”
Don’t leave me, she thinks, and she opens her mouth to say it but thankfully the words get stuck in her throat. She swallows and instead says, “Eat me out?”
Johnny grins wickedly. “Was hoping you’d say that.”
He pushes her, a little roughly, and she flops onto her back. She leans up on her elbows to watch as he pulls his pants and underwear back up around his hips then knee-walks between her legs, pushing them open until he’s right up against her. He leans over, bracing one hand beside her shoulder and kisses her, licking into her mouth, sending shivers down her spine and filling her gut with heat. She sighs and puts a hand into his hair as he kisses down her neck. The cool desert breeze passes over the wet trail left by Johnny’s mouth, making her shiver from the little spots of cold. He moves down her torso and leaves a couple little brief kisses on her shirt as he does. When he reaches her waistband he pushes her shirt up just enough to kiss her skin as he gets her pants down.
“You want a tease?” Johnny says quietly as he gets her jeans around her mid-thigh. He presses his nose against the front of her underwear. “Or you want me to fuck you good?”
V closes her eyes. She wants — shit, she knows what she wants. “Fuck me good,” she says, voice catching. “Shit, fuck me hard, ‘til I can’t fucking think.”
Johnny mouths at her thigh and then gently pulls her flesh between his teeth. “Shoulda said, woulda fucked you proper if you hadn’t sucked me off first.”
“You complaining?”
Johnny hooks his fingers into her underwear and tugs them down, pulling hard to get them past her ass against the ground. “Nah. Hell of a fucking blowjob.”
V looks down at him between her legs and grins breathlessly. “Top five?”
He laughs, genuine and loud and open, pressing his forehead into her stomach. “Fuck, V,” he says fondly. “Would have to think about it.” He pauses then, fingers of both hands hooked loosely in her underwear around her mid thighs, face against her lower stomach. “Excludin’ when I had multiple chicks sucking me at once, ‘cause that ain’t fair,” he looks up and meets her eyes, “might just take top spot.”
She laughs disbelievingly, but Johnny holds her gaze. He runs two fingers through her folds, and her breath hitches mid-laugh. “Fuck off, top spot, didn’t even get it fully in my mouth. You don’t have to lie to —”
She’s cut off as Johnny moves suddenly, pushing fast up her body to catch her mouth in a bruising kiss. “Ain’t fucking lying,” he practically growls against her.
She grabs the back of his head and kisses him again, desperate and hungry. Fuck, she loves him. She loves how intense he is about things, even something as minor as that. She loves the way he’s all in, one hundred percent or nothing. She loves his stupid cocky attitude, his easy relationship with sex, the way he’s not shy about exes and hookups and so honest about it all, despite the fact that getting an honest answer about anything else is like pulling teeth. She loves how he pushes her to figure out what she wants in life and how to take it, that he doesn’t bullshit her to save her feelings. Fuck, she loves him so much it feels like her heart is breaking.
“Woulda thought,” he says roughly between kisses, as he presses two fingers through her folds to spread the wetness there, “you’d tell when I was lying.” His fingers tease her entrance and she shudders, right before he presses inside with a groan. “Sharin’ a brain ‘n all.”
Fuck, she’s so pent up, sexually but also emotionally. She feels wound tight already, desperate and needy. She writhes against him and grips his shoulders as he pumps his fingers, steady and careful, curling up into her as he does. His thumb brushes her clit and her whole body shudders, sensation spiking up from her stomach.
“You told me bald-faced lies when we were practically the same person and I could hardly tell,” she says breathlessly.
Johnny sucks hard at the junction of her neck and shoulder, writhing against her as he fingers her. She strains against him, desperate for more contact. His fingers slow inside her and she whines. “Easy, sweetheart, I got you,” he says quietly. “Just gotta —”
He kisses her hard then moves back down her body swiftly, tongue immediately reaching for her clit. She’s so sensitive she lets out an ah! entirely involuntarily, body curling in on itself as the pleasure rockets up her spine.
“Fuck, Johnny,” V whines as he curls his fingers and swirls his tongue. He moves down from her clit to lick around where he’s got two fingers inside her, slowing further and making her let out a genuine fucking sob.
“Lemme go slow,” he murmurs, kissing gently at the skin just above her slit. “Promise I’ll give you what you want, just gimme a couple minutes.”
She pushes her hips up desperately. “I’m wet enough, c’mon, please.” She is; sucking him off had been super hot, and now with his fingers and his tongue she’s aching for more.
“Easy,” he says gently. “Trust me. Lemme do this.”
Trust me — it almost breaks her out of the desperate need she’s feeling into something furious, but then Johnny gets his mouth and fingers on her and her anger twists up in on itself into a burning pleasure.
She ends up relenting, trying to relax down against the blanket. She turns her head to the side and breathes out slowly. Bits of sand have kicked up along the edges of the rug from their movement, but it’s large enough they’re safe from it right now. Johnny crooks his fingers just right inside her and she whines, toes curling as the feeling runs down the back of her legs. True to his word he does go slow, achingly so. She tries to let go of the desperation and enjoy the gradual wind up, the cool breeze and his hot mouth, the darkening desert around them. It’s a sweet torture as he works her over slowly, bringing her right up to the edge and then down again, her skin red hot against the cool night air.
She tips her head back to stare at the sky and right above her she can see, just faintly, a single pinprick of light. At first she assumes it’s a satellite, or a distant drone, but it doesn’t move and it’s so faint that it could only be a star. It’s not the first time she’s seen an actual star, but it’s the first time in many, many years.
Johnny takes his mouth off her, then crawls up to kiss her. He tastes of herself, and he kisses deep and desperate, so much so her head spins. He breaks the kiss and pushes back off her, until he’s up on his knees between her legs.
“Thought you were gonna fuck me,” she complains breathily.
He grins sharply and yanks his pants back down, freeing his hard cock. He grabs it and strokes himself languidly, grin turning less sharp but infinitely more smug.
V laughs, leaning her head back against the rug. When she opens her eyes, she can see the star again. “Hey,” she says, pointing one hand directly up at it, “check it out.”
Johnny cranes his head back, one hand still on his dick as he follows her gesture. After a moment he snorts and looks back to her with a sly grin. “Guess we got lucky after all.” His grin widens and his eyes narrow. “Flip. Gonna fuck you so hard you forget your goddamn name.”
“Sure you are,” she says sarcastically, wanting to tease, to push back a little.
He reaches for her hips and twists her, flipping her effortlessly, the chrome in his body doing its job. She huffs out a breath as she catches herself on her hands and knees. He runs his hand and fingers over her pussy and then pushes two fingers in briefly, like he’s checking she’s still wet. There’s a moment of silence and then his mouth is on her again and she gasps out a moan.
“Thoght you were gonna fuck me,” she says. Her wrecked voice undercuts the tease.
She feels him grin against her pussy. He licks into her, firm and deliberate, before pulling back. “Couldn’t resist ya, darlin’.” He readjusts his stance, kneeling behind her. He runs the head of his cock through her folds, catching on her clit and making her gasp. He lines up with her entrance. “Want it?”
“Nah,” she says, an obvious lie. He laughs and pulls his cock away, leaving one hand resting gently against her lower back. “Do you want it?” she prods.
“Yeah, V, I fuckin’ want it.” He bends forward and kisses her back, just above where his hand is resting. “Wanna make it so good for you. Give you exactly what you want.”
“And you wanna get off.”
Johnny laughs into her back, forehead against her skin. His hair tickles as he moves. “Yeah, babe, and I wanna get off again.”
V rests her forehead against the picnic rug, braced on her forearms, vulnerable and exposed with her ass up in the air. Johnny’s body so close to hers helps shield her from the cool breeze, and his warmth is a comfort. She still really wants to have her brains fucked out. She really wants him to fuck her brains out. She feels like going ahead with this will lock her in to not pushing further on the whole issue of the past few days.
“Hey,” Johnny says gently when she doesn’t speak or move. “You good?”
“I’m good,” V decides. That little buzzing part of her that wanted to be fucked out of thinking a fews days ago — she’s feeling it strongly now. She’s feeling a lot of things really strongly right now.
Johnny pulls back from between her legs, and she twists so she can see him. He looks uncertain, one hand loosely on his dick, kneeling on the rug behind her.
He doesn’t move. “V,” he says, deathly serious. “I ain’t — fuck, kid.”
They stare at each other for a tense moment. He’s right there next to her, eyes wide, cock softening slightly, tiny frown on his face. Fuck. She wants to be fucked until she comes so hard she can only feel good, and then she wants to forget about this whole thing and keep dating and loving Johnny, until he fucks her over again. Then — well, then things can go tits up. But even then, she’s going to survive him. No matter how bad it gets.
“Alright, I — I really am good. Want you to fuck me.” His tiny frown deepens slightly. “Please, c’mon. I —”
She’s interrupted when Johnny leans down and kisses her deeply, mouth open and wet. The angle is a little awkward but it’s good anyway, and she sucks in a harsh breath as he licks into her mouth briefly. She pulls back.
“I…” V says, trying to pick up from where she left off. Johnny is still staring, but his frown has vanished. She ducks her head and laughs. “I don’t remember what I was gonna say.”
“Hmm,” Johnny hums exaggeratedly, leaning in toward her again, “was it yes Johnny, I love you, please fuck me real fuckin’ good with your impressive cock?”
He recaptures her mouth before she can respond, kissing her hard, then drawing it out slowly. He sucks her bottom lip between his teeth and holds it there, running his tongue over it, over the scar.
“God,” V says desperately, finally breaking the kiss. “You’re a cunt.”
“Uh-huh.” He pulls back gently. “And you’re a dick, and we fit together fuckin’ perfect.”
She laughs like a fool and leans against the rug, head tilting forwards. She can feel herself blushing, high on her cheeks and all the way down her neck and chest.
Johnny waddles awkwardly around on his knees until he’s between her legs again. “Like this?”
“Yeah,” she says.
He shuffles forwards and runs his hand gently through her folds, over her entrance then up over her clit. She takes in a sharp breath. She can’t see what he’s doing, but there’s a pause, and then he runs the head of his cock through her folds just like he did with his fingers, from the bottom right up over her clit. He repeats the motion, and then again, and each time V feels a little more sensitive, a little more breathless. He lines up with her entrance but doesn’t press inside; instead he rubs there, teasing, as his other hand moves around her hip to rub his fingers over her clit. His own breath is unsteady as he teases at pressing into her.
“Fuck,” she says in a gasp, dropping to her forearms and fisting her hands in the picnic rug. He’s just barely inside her, tiny teasing thrusts that catch on the sensitive parts of her pussy right at her entrance, and his fingers dance lightly over her clit. It’s an unbearable tease, enough stimulation to feel good but not enough to satisfy.
”Fuckin’ tease,” she groans, screwing her eyes closed. “You really wanna,” she takes a deep breath as he rocks ever so slightly deeper, “fuck, wanna tease yourself like this too?”
Johnny laughs. “Forget I already came? I got all the time in the world, sweetheart.”
“Said I wanted you to fuck me, not tease me.”
He snaps his hips forward, finally pushing his cock properly inside her, hard and sudden. She’s so wet and relaxed from sucking him off and being eaten out that it’s smooth and easy to take him, all the way to the base, until his hips are flush with her ass. V gasps and groans as he bottoms out, then shudders when he slowly draws back out, then in. He grinds into her, rolling his hips, less thrusting and more slow circling.
“That enough like fucking for you?”
V laughs, bending further to press her face to the ground. “Would it be enough for you?”
He leans all the way over her back, presses a quick kiss to the back of her shoulder, then says, “Not yet. But it will be.”
Johnny grabs her hips in both hands, fingers spread wide, palms hot and flat against her skin. He draws back slowly, until his cock is only barely inside her, then holds there for a moment. Just when she’s getting impatient enough that she’s going to say something, he thrusts into her, all the way to the base. She gasps and then moans, shuddering as he pulls back and then thrusts again. He sets a brutal pace, fast enough to make her breath catch and deep enough to make her groan. Fuck, the sensation of him so fucking deep inside her, the drag of his cock in her and around her entrance, it feels so fucking good. The noise is obscene, wet and rhythmic, as his balls smack against her with each thrust.
”Oh, yeah,” she says between pants, “yeah — c’mon, yeah.”
The part of her that has been craving this, that has been antsy and burning and lost, simmers and turns to static, filling her lungs and catching in her throat. It expands upwards and downwards, tingling in her gut and the backs of her legs, crowding out her brain. It’s an incredible release of tension, brain going fuzzy and soft. Johnny grunts and his left hand moves from her hip to the middle of her upper back and pushes her down, angling her body and driving into her harder.
”Fuck!” V says, then moans, mouth open, eyes closed. She feels hyperaware of her body: how wet she is and how deep and thick Johnny’s cock is inside her; the tension in her shoulders from bracing against the ground, working to hold still against Johnny’s thrusts; the scratch of the picnic rug on her bare forearms; the waistbands of her jeans and underwear around her knees, digging in when she shifts slightly; the cool breeze over her back, how it’s mitigated by the heat of Johnny’s body between her legs.
“So fuckin’ good, babe,” Johnny says, leaning over into her back. “Y’doin’ good, gotta tell me, tell me what you want sweetheart, gotta — fuck.”
She groans, not finding the words, and tilts her hips further, trying to find the right angle. She finds it after a few more thrusts and whines, “Like, that, yeah, like that, please.”
He can’t quite hit her g-spot on every thrust but he’s clearly doing his damndest and he gets there more often than not. V slips, bracing herself more on her face and shoulders than on her arms, and moves one hand down between her legs to ghost over her clit, just a little extra stimulation. It’s unusual for her to get off on penetration alone, but she can if she’s in the right mood and if she gets fucked deep. Both things are true tonight.
Her fingers on her clit make her pussy pulse and Johnny groans, faltering in his rhythm for a brief moment before he regains control.
“Oh, fuck,” V says, drawing the words out into a moan. “Fuck, Johnny — Johnny, fuck, please, want you to come in me.”
”Yeah,” he says breathlessly, quiet and quick, almost like a reflex.
She feels her tongue loosen and she continues, “Yeah, fuckin’ fill me, fill me up” — Johnny groans and adjusts his angle again — “make me come on your cock then come in me, fuck, yeah, please, c’mon, c’mon.”
Johnny huffs a tiny laugh between pants and manages to fuck her harder — slightly less fast, but definitely harder. Then he slows down further to fuck into her even harder. For every thrust V makes an involuntary noise in the back of her throat. All she knows is the tension in her body, her gut, her pussy.
“Fuck, V, you close?”
“Ah, have been for, ah, ages, you tease,” she says, speech stuttering with the thrusts.
“Fuck you, tease,” he growls. “This ain’t a goddamn tease.”
She laughs, stuttery and garbled through the rhythm of being fucked. All at once the tension catches inside her and snaps and she comes, really fucking hard, outright yelling as she presses her face down into the rug. She braces herself and groans through the waves, feeling her cunt pulse around Johnny, feeling her whole stomach tense and her legs go weak. Everything seems to go a little cloudy and fuzzy. Johnny keeps fucking her, and it makes it so fucking intense, until the fuzz rolls in and it becomes just a haze of sensation.
”Fuck,” Johnny says breathlessly, “shit, that’s it, fuckin’ come for me.”
V feels like she comes back to herself several moments later. Johnny is still fucking her, less intense now but still pretty fucking hard, panting desperately with his face against her back. His breath is hot and quick against her skin as he thrusts.
”V, gonna fuckin’ come in you, in your perfect fuckin’ pussy, so fuckin’ deep baby, fuck.”
”Yeah,” she manages. The continued pressure and rhythm feels different now that she’s come, less like a building pressure but still good, somehow simultaneously on the edge of being too sensitive and an easy, loose pleasure. “Yeah, yeah, come for me Johnny, fuckin’ do it.”
He groans, and she keeps muttering encouragement — “come on, come for me, that’s it, fuck me, c’mon” — and less than a minute later he thrusts into her hard and then stops, pressing as deep as he can as he comes. She can’t quite feel it inside her, not like other times they’ve fucked — it is his second orgasm in a reasonably short time — but she can still tell he’s coming and that’s more than enough to make her whine.
He collapses boneless on top of her, pulling out lazily and messily, making her collapse flat on the ground. His head rests next to hers as he sprawls over her back. He leans over and kisses her cheek, then laughs, breathless and fond.
”Fuck yeah,” he says. V can hear his grin. He sighs, deep and a little annoyed, then pushes up onto his hands and knees. “Hey, flip.”
After a moment’s hesitation she turns around underneath him until she’s on her back. Before Johnny lays back down she pulls her pants back up — a little gross, but they’re almost certainly just heading home after this, and there’s a chill settling into the air now. Johnny flops back down and slots their legs together, wrapping an arm around her middle and leaning into her neck. It’s the most cuddly she’s ever seen him. She stares up at the dark sky, at the single shining star she can just barely see.
For a while they both just catch their breath, pressed against each other. Johnny eventually breaks the silence.
“Working tomorrow?” he says sleepily into her shoulder.
“Got the day off, remember?”
She can feel his lazy smile against her skin. “Finally sleep off that fucking hangover.”
Despite the warmth of Johnny’s body, the chill of the desert evening is really starting to set in. The ground beneath them is cold now, and it seems to seep the heat from V’s body. She shivers, and Johnny sighs gently, then sits up.
“Gettin’ cold, let’s delta.”
They get back into the car in comfortable silence. Johnny jams the rug into the tiny trunk without bothering to fold it, and has to chuck the untouched beers on the back seat. They sit in relaxed quiet on the drive home, music from the radio playing softly.
“Hey, does NC still do a big thing for mid-autumn?” Johnny asks as they pull off the highway into the city proper.
“Yeah.” V glances at him, lit by streetlights and neon. His expression is neutral. “Parade, food stalls, the works, mostly ‘round Little China.”
“We should go.”
V frowns. “Know you’ve had a weird few months but you do know it’s still August, right? Mid-autumn is like, more than a month away.”
“I know.” Johnny shrugs casually, eyes on the road. “Think it’ll be good.”
“Oh,” she says, before she can quite help herself. “Sure, yeah. I’ll add it to the calendar,” she says, gently sarcastic.
Johnny grins, then turns to look at her. Her gut churns with love and fear and the terrible feeling of delaying the inevitable.
“I should start looking for an apartment again,” V says suddenly, the thought flashing through her and escaping her mouth before she can think it through. Living with him is great but it will mean she’ll be in a much more precarious position when things go south.
He turns back to the road, grin slowly receding. He shrugs. “Only been a few weeks. Don’t need to rush into some shithole. And when you leave it’ll double my fuckin’ rent, so you better gimme plenty of notice.”
They drive in silence for a couple minutes. Johnny drums his fingers along the wheel. “Think we were up to your question.”
V laughs. “Shit, does that even matter anymore?”
“Sure it does.” He grins at her. “How else you know I’m tellin’ the truth?”
“Alright,” she says, emboldened by her unexpected good mood. “D’you actually want me to move out?”
She watches as he flexes his hand around the wheel and stiffens, just slightly. “You’re a real fuckin’ bastard,” he says. His eyes remain resolutely on the road. “Don’t mind you stayin’. When’s your birthday?”
She blinks, surprised. “What?”
“Birthday,” he repeats slowly, like he’s talking to a child. “Y’know, day you got pushed outta your mama’s pussy, usually get a shitty cake—”
“October twelfth,” she interrupts. “Why?”
He shrugs. “You know mine. Still playin’ catch up. How old even are you?”
She laughs. “Guess.”
Johnny stops at a traffic light and takes the opportunity to face her properly. He eyes her, clearly suspicious. “Yeah, nice try. Ain’t falling for that.”
She rolls her eyes. “Come on, like I give a single fuck about that kinda shit. Just guess.”
His eyes flick up and down her critically. “Twenty… six?”
V laughs. She does not look twenty-six. “Guess it’s nice of you to lowball me. Thirty-one, actually.” She doesn’t even look as young as thirty-one. Merc life, the Relic, and the FIA’s treatment have taken their toll on her body.
He grins a real smug asshole grin, and V is rolling her eyes before he even speaks. “Mature. Hot.”
“God, you’re gonna make me throw up,” she says. Johnny grins, but it fades quickly and then he’s quiet. “Enny for your thoughts?”
Johnny sighs, tapping his fingers again. “How old am I?”
V opens her mouth to answer, but the words die in her throat. She swallows. When he died, he was — “Thirty-six?”
“Or ninety-three,” he says. “Or however the fuck old the kid is.”
“Average it out, say you’re fifty,” V jokes, but it falls flat. She lets the silence hang, not quite willing to be the one who tries to lift the mood. The light turns green and Johnny continues on, through the winding neon streets.
Johnny breaks the silence after a minute or so. “Fuck. Kerry’s older than me now. What a fuckin’ trip.”
”Wasn’t he always older than you?”
“Same age. Less than a year, doesn’t count,” he says instantly. It’s a familiar argument, one that V half remembers though Relic static. “You seen him live before?”
”Nah,” V says. “Got glimpses when you and him played Red Dirt, but I don’t think that really counts. Seen vids and stuff. No BDs, though.”
Johnny half shrugs, tapping his fingers along the wheel in a rhythm that V recognises as one of Kerry’s songs, though she can’t place which one. “Wonder if he’s still any good,” he says pensively, as though he had ever in his life not enjoyed watching Kerry play.
She laughs. “Didn’t you literally last night say he’d gotten better?”
He ignores her. “Been ages since I’ve seen him. Even without the fuckin’ death bullshit.” V quiets and watches him. He doesn’t look away from the road. His tone is kind of subdued. “Use’ta watch him from the wings a lot. Dunno the last time I woulda been a genuine fuckin’ audience member.”
“I think you’ll enjoy it,” she says quietly. “Bet he’ll wanna play with you ‘fore the end of the week as well.” They’re in Kabuki now, pretty close to home.
Johnny laughs at that, seemingly breaking out of his little moment. “No fuckin’ way. We’ll be gettin’ smashed tomorrow, won’t be up for playin’ shit on Sunday ‘cept pass the fuckin’ puke bucket.”
V finds herself smiling as well. “Maybe he’ll wanna play while plastered.”
He scoffs. “He’ll wanna fuck while plastered,” he says dismissively, then hesitates, his words seemingly catching up with him. She opens her mouth to say something, but Johnny gets there first. “Which still ain’t happening,” he insists, a firm edge to his words.
A week ago, she’d have pushed it. Tonight she lets it go. He starts drumming his fingers on the wheel again — no song this time, just rapid even taps with all eight fingers, thumbs hooked under the wheel. He turns into the apartment complex’s parking lot and parks, then cuts the engine. He stares straight ahead for a moment, hands still on the wheel.
He turns to face her. “You wanna let him watch?”
V closes her eyes and breathes in deep. She holds it for four seconds, then breathes out slowly. She turns to face him and opens her eyes. He looks serious, eyes wide and open, but there’s a surprising calm there. “Do you wanna?”
He shrugs. “Yeah, think so,” he says. He says it so straightforwardly, so easily, that it takes her a full three seconds to process what he’s said. “Still not interested in any gay shit, so don’t expect it to go anywhere,” he warns. “And, shit, care ‘bout you more than some stupid fuckin’ exhibitionism, so if you don’t —”
“Nah, let’s do it,” she says in a rush.
Things are fucking weird between her and Johnny, and pulling Kerry in will only make them weirder, but — shit, she wants him and Kerry to sort their shit so badly. Bringing sex into it was a real risk as to whether it’d make things better or worse, but leaving sex out of it caused its own issues. Johnny was always the kind of guy to take what he wanted, for better and worse. Helping him figure out what he might want with Kerry is a win in V’s book.
Johnny grins at her, wide and genuine, and finally lets go of the wheel. “Alright, up to the apartment, stat. We gotta sleep for like fourteen hours then fuck for like four hours then go watch Ker’s bullshit stadium gig.”
V laughs as she opens the car door and unfolds herself from the cramped interior. “Got everything planned out, huh?”
“Uh-huh,” Johnny agrees as he exits the car and locks it. As they head toward the stairs he reaches for her hand, slotting their fingers together.
She’s fucked. She is so fucked.